Join the Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative in welcoming Dr. Anthony Bebbington for the Notre Dame Seminars on Sustainability Series. We invite all attendees to stay afterward for lunch, conversation, and fellowship in 125 DeBartolo Hall as we work together to grow this vital network on campus.
Anthony Bebbington is the International Program Director for Natural Resources and Climate Justice at the Ford Foundation and a Professor of Geography at Clark University. Director Bebbington will examine one of many Sisyphean challenges into which philanthropies have inserted themselves: climate justice. In his talk, he will reflect on some of the roles that philanthropies have assumed in the face of many and huge climate injustices and the asymmetries of power that underlie them. Just as examples, these injustices include: those faced by communities, Indigenous and not, whose lands are seen as central to mitigating climate change (be this as sources of transition minerals, or of forest based carbon capture) while elites, corporations and urban populations capture much of the benefit of these mitigation actions; those embodied in the refusal of carbon emitting countries to finance adaptation and resilience in countries most affected by climate change; or those embodied in the presences and absences at climate conferences, COPs or otherwise. Philanthropies have grappled with these and other dimensions of climate injustice, sometimes contributing to their aggravation. Here he will ask questions about the effectiveness and legitimacy of these philanthropic roles, and will ask the room to do the same. The purpose is neither philanthropy-bashing nor unjustified celebration of philanthropies. It is primarily to ask what they really are, what they really do, and whether it really matters.
Director Bebbington is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has held Professorships at the Universities of Melbourne, Manchester and Clark, and Guggenheim, ARC Laureate and ESRC Professorial Chairs. Tony has done most of his own work in Latin America, with a focus on environmental governance, extractive industries, smallholder agriculture, rural livelihoods, social movements and non-governmental organizations.
The Notre Dame Seminars on Sustainability Series is a signature lecture series organized by the Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative that brings global sustainability leaders and world-class scholars to campus for knowledge sharing and engagement with the Notre Dame community. Beyond sharing cutting-edge research, we hope to help build a vibrant, connected community of sustainability-minded researchers, students, and professionals across campus.
Originally published at sustainabilityinitiative.nd.edu.