Towards an Economic History of Climate Change

Convened by

Grace Ballor
Senior Fellow 2024–2025

Details

Venue and accessibility info: Rudolf Wolf Room, Collegium Helveticum

This event is intended for an interested professional audience, with limited places available. Participation is free of charge. However, to attend the workshop, please register your interest in attending the event. 
The organizer will reach out to confirm your participation. 
If your plans change, we would greatly appreciate it if you could inform us, as this will further help our event planning.

This workshop brings together a multidisciplinary group of social scientists to examine how key economic actors—including business organizations, insurers and reinsurers, banks, and institutions of transnational governance located primarily in Europe—have responded to natural disasters, environmental challenges, and climate change. Participants will explore issues ranging from governance and policy design to investment in mitigation and adaptation, as well as the contested responsibility for environmental and climate costs. Alongside these research presentations on economic histories of environment and climate, a roundtable will ask why and how scholars, especially historians, can move methodologically toward an economic history of climate change, highlighting the role of historical inquiry in shaping future debates.

Program