Pene Lefale attended the first ever International Conference on Climate Engineering (CE) held at the Scandic Hotel at Potsdam Platz, Berlin, Germany, from 18-21 August 2014 (CE14 Critical Global Discussions).  The Conference attracted more than 300 people from 40 countries with a wide range of backgrounds - from academia, policy, legal, defence and civil society as well as the media and the arts.  Lefale was invited as one of the speakers for the session on “Vulnerable Communities and Climate Engineering.”  His presentation was based on a paper he co-authored with Dr Cheryl Anderson, University of Hawaii entitled “Climate Engineering and Small island States: Panacea or Catastrophe?”  The paper provides a brief overview of Small Island States of the Pacific engagement on CE to date.  

Some of the key messages that came out of the Conference include but are not limited to;

1. the realization that the range of issues associated with CE is very broad, not only spanning the natural and social sciences and humanities but needing input from policy makers, societal leaders and especially given the global implications, from the broader public.
2. CE should not be considered as a short term solution to climate change, rather it mostly needs to be thought about on very long timescales;
3. CE should compliment mitigation and adaptation measures, not replace them;
4. Science alone would not provide the answers on how to deal with CE;
5. Deep, multi-actor and multi directional dialogues are required for making substantial progress towards making the difficult decisions that lie ahead as climate change continues to worsen. This approach of going beyond inter disciplinary interactions between researchers to incorporate stakeholders into the process of co-generating knowledge is known as “trans-disciplinaritry”;

Further information on the Conference outcomes, videos of events (e.g. panels), sessions’ presentations, media coverage, etc. are available on the Conference website.