Call for Papers
Call for Papers
We invite you to join us for the Twentieth Climate Change: Impacts & Responses Conference, the annual meeting of the Climate Change: Impacts & Responses Research Network, hosted by the School of Architecture, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, taking place in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi and online. The conference is convened together with the Twenty-Fourth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability, creating a shared setting for exchange across climate change, sustainability, architecture, design, policy, culture, and community practice.
The Climate Change: Impacts & Responses Research Network is a leading forum for researchers, educators, practitioners, policymakers, designers, community leaders, and advocates working on the causes, impacts, experiences, and responses to climate change. The conference welcomes proposals that examine climate change not only as an environmental issue, but as a social, cultural, economic, political, spatial, and ethical challenge affecting communities and ecosystems across the world.
Climate change is reshaping everyday life, public institutions, built environments, health systems, economies, food and water security, cultural heritage, migration, and the future of place. Key issues include climate adaptation, loss and damage, environmental justice, disaster preparedness, resilience, coastal and island futures, climate communication, policy, mitigation, energy transition, Indigenous knowledge, and community-led responses. We welcome interdisciplinary proposals that engage these questions through research, practice, policy, design, education, advocacy, and community-based knowledge.
Special Focus
The 2028 special focus, New Perspectives on Local and Global Sustainability, invites participants to examine climate change through the relationships between local experience and global systems.
Climate change is planetary in scale, but its effects are experienced in particular places: coastlines, islands, cities, rural communities, watersheds, homes, workplaces, schools, and public infrastructures. These places carry histories, cultures, ecologies, vulnerabilities, and forms of knowledge that shape how climate impacts are understood and how responses are imagined.
This special focus asks how climate research and practice can better connect global climate systems with local realities. How do communities prepare for and adapt to climate change while protecting culture, livelihood, and place? How can architecture, planning, policy, and design respond to changing environmental conditions? How can scientific, Indigenous, local, and professional knowledge systems support more just and effective climate action? What new perspectives are needed to move from awareness to coordinated response?
We welcome proposals that address climate change as an environmental condition and as a human challenge, shaped by infrastructures, histories, ecosystems, institutions, policies, and everyday decisions.
Themes
- Theme 1: Climate Impacts, Adaptation, and Resilience: exploring climate risks, extreme weather, sea-level rise, biodiversity loss, disaster preparedness, public health, food and water security, and the systems communities use to adapt and recover.
- Theme 2: Climate Justice, Communities, and Place: examining environmental justice, Indigenous knowledge, local experience, migration, vulnerability, cultural heritage, community resilience, and the unequal social effects of climate change.
- Theme 3: Built Environments, Design, and Infrastructure: considering architecture, urban planning, housing, transportation, energy systems, coastal infrastructure, landscape design, and the role of the built environment in climate response.
- Theme 4: Policy, Communication, and Climate Futures: addressing climate governance, public policy, mitigation, energy transition, climate communication, education, institutional responsibility, public trust, and the futures made possible through collective action.
Knowledge Experience and Format
The conference is organized as a hybrid knowledge experience, integrating in-person and online participation within a unified scholarly environment.
For in-person delegates in Honolulu, the conference is designed as a human-scale gathering shaped by conversation, shared inquiry, and place-based exchange. Hosted by the School of Architecture at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, the conference offers a setting where climate change can be discussed in relation to island environments, coastal futures, Pacific contexts, built environments, culture, and community resilience.
For online delegates, the conference is more than a remote viewing option. Accepted proposals become Presentation Pages where presenters share abstracts, media, and supporting materials. Delegates participate through live online sessions, asynchronous engagement, and discussion spaces that remain available before, during, and after the event.
Across both formats, the emphasis is on reciprocal exchange rather than one-way presentation. Whether joining in Honolulu or online, participants are part of a shared knowledge environment where ideas can be presented, discussed, revisited, and developed into future collaborations, publications, policy conversations, and community initiatives.
Publication Pathways
Presenters are invited to further develop their conference work for possible publication in The International Journal of Climate Change: Impacts and Responses, the peer-reviewed journal of the Climate Change: Impacts & Responses Research Network.
Participants may also propose longer-form projects for the Network’s book publishing pathways, including monographs and edited collections that advance research on climate change, adaptation, resilience, environmental justice, policy, design, sustainability, and social change.
Join Us
We warmly invite you to submit a proposal and join us, either in Honolulu or online, for the Twentieth Climate Change: Impacts & Responses Conference.
Together, we will examine new perspectives on local and global sustainability, and how climate research, policy, design, education, and community action can support more just, resilient, and livable futures.
Sincerely,
Dr. Eric Peterson, Conference Chair, School of Architecture, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, Honolulu, Hawai'i, United States of America
Dr. Victoria Hurth, Research Network Chair, Institute for Sustainability Leadership, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
Dr. Phillip Kalantzis-Cope, Chief Social Scientist, Common Ground Research Networks, United States of America