Sustainability for the 21st Century: Overcoming Limitations to Creative Adaptation in Addressing the Climate Challenge

The IPCC is accumulating sufficient evidence to the effect that that the current climate challenge poses a global threat to human survival on an unprecedented scale (IPCC 2007). There is a need for a new paradigm of sustainable development which would bot h take on board the latest climate research and the possible scenarios of creative adaptation to the new conditions. Such adaptation involves forging new strategies of political, commercial and cultural sustainability. The project sets out to explore the limits to and strategies of innovative adaptation in three countries: Norway, Kenya and China. While SUM will remain the overall coordinator of the project, to enrich and strengthen the business strategy SUM will work in close alliance with The Norwegian School of Management (cf. Atle Midttun and Jørgen Randers). The core group includes researchers from Oslo, Oxford, Stanford, and EUI in Florence. The study advances a comparative, multidisciplinary approach based on a dialogue between the natural scientis ts and the researchers in the social sciences and the humanities. It also takes on board an empirical, multi-stakeholder perspective involving politicians, NGOs, religious leaders and businesses.