Conflicts: methods and practices within the context of climate change

This year’s lecture series, taking place on May 13th, June 10th, and October 14th, will explore key dimensions of socioecological transformation in the context of climate change.

Socio-ecological transformation requires continuous dialogue, meaningful participation, and strong institutional commitment across all levels of governance.

The first lecture examines climate citizens’ assemblies as bottom-up initiatives within participatory democracy, highlighting their potential to foster more inclusive and democratic climate decision-making. In addition, it will investigate limitations in advancing environmental justice and challenges to ensuring that deliberative outcomes are effectively integrated into governance and institutional processes.

The second lecture investigates conflict as a driver of transformation, focusing on how tensions among actors can generate knowledge, perspectives, and more equitable solutions.

The third lecture broadens the perspective to public participation in climate governance, emphasizing both its promises and limitations across different institutional contexts.

11:30 Welcome and introduction  – Elisa Ravazzoli, Center for Climate Change and Transformation & Institute for Regional Development, Eurac Research Federica Maino, Institute for Regional Development, Eurac Research

11:30-12:00 Conflict as a Driver of Socio-Ecological Transformation – Chiara Braucher, University of TrentoThis study discusses how socio-environmental conflicts are an integral part of the socio-ecological transformation process within the context of climate crisis. They represent generative spaces for knowledge of co-production and a mechanism for democratizing climate policies. In a global landscape characterized by a dramatic increase in territorial disputes linked to mitigation and adaptation processes, the lens of political ecology allows for an interpretation of conflict as an onto-epistemological laboratory. Within this space, the contestation of topdown “green” solutions fosters the emergence of situated knowledge and alternative visions of the future, challenging the ontologies underlying technological choices. Proposing conflict as a transformative space means recognizing that the response to climate change is not only a technical challenge but a political process of renegotiating relationships—essential for a transition that is not only ecological but also just.

12:00-12:30 Preventing and Managing Environmental Conflict: The Experience of the Milan Chamber of Arbitration – Nicola Giudice, Milan Chamber of Arbitration. This lecture will present the experience developed within the Mediation Service of the Milan Chamber of Arbitration in using mediation as a tool for the negotiated management of environmental conflicts. Building on this operational practice, it will illustrate how the Chamber progressively developed a broader approach, leading to the creation of the “FacilitAmbiente” project, aimed at promoting facilitation in collective decision-making processes to prevent the emergence of environmental and social conflicts. These two complementary and still ongoing experiences highlight a key point: for sustainability to be effective and not merely declaratory, it requires continuous and structured dialogue among all stakeholders involved — businesses, institutions, communities, and citizens.

12:30-13:00 Open discussion