Diana Liverman: Current Research Projects

By Diana Liverman | Updated Dec 31 2010

Climate Assessment of the Southwest:  I have a project with colleagues Margaret Wilder and Tracey Osborne to look at climate and poverty in the Southwest US

Committee on America's Climate Choices: My role on this committee derives from helping to chair one of the committee's subpanels on Informing Effective Decisions and Actions on Climate Change.

Climate Governance: I am involved in several projects that take critical approaches to climate governance including research into carbon offsets, adaptation, and the role of non-nation state actors.  These are collaborative with my students and with colleagues in the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change and the Earth Systems Governance project of the IHDP.  There are a number of papers related to these projects listed on my publication pages.

Climate and Art: Several years ago I was approached to see if ECI would be interested in helping to organise an encounter between climate scientists and artists concerned with environmental change. We held the first conference at Christ Church college in 2005, and each year since. I have become closely involved with cultural sector efforts to respond to climate change through my roles with Tipping Points, Cape Farewell and Julie's Bicycle which include research.

Here is a webcast of an April 2011 panel at Columbia College in Chicago of a panel on art and science: http://ecologywithoutnature.blogspot.com/2011/04/cultural-response-to-climate-change.html

Global Environmental Change and Food Security: In 2005 I became the chair of the science advisory committee for the international program GECAFS under the ICSU Earth System Science Partnership. Focusing on the interaction of global change and food systems GECAFS looks at future scenarios and at vulnerability working with key partners such as FAO and the international agricultural research system (CGIAR). The GECAFS project office is now based in ECI led by John Ingram and we have recently published a synthesis book.

Other work: I continue to maintain a strong interest in Mexico and have maintained research interest and contacts through my current and former doctoral students and postdocs. I continue to monitor and write about the environmental impacts of NAFTA and to study vulnerability and mitigation in the Mexican context. Because of my long term involvement in climate change I have also been asked to write several recent review articles on assessments such as IPCC.