Conference asks for urgent global change

Hot topics: Jesse Burton and Kim Coetzee, PhD researchers from UCT's ERC, recently attended a major climate-change conference in London.

It would appear that these days you can't swing a cat without hitting a climate change conference. But the Planet Under Pressure gathering in London in March, attended by two researchers from UCT's Energy Research Centre (ERC), was noteworthy because it, very ambitiously, set out to provide "a comprehensive update" of the state of climate change.

Doctoral researchers Jesse Burton and Kim Coetzee of the ERC joined senior policymakers, industry leaders, young scientists, the media, health specialists and academics at the conference, hosted by a band of international programmes and organisations.

Among other things, Burton and Coetzee presented a poster on the role of the minerals-energy complex in the political economy of South Africa. The most tangible outcomes from the event, reports Coetzee, were the launch of the 10-year Future Earth research initiative targeting sustainable development goals, and the drafting of the State of the Planet Declaration.