Najam Presents Brumley Lecture at UT Austin
Adil Najam, Inaugural Dean of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, was invited to present the Brumley Lecture at the Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas at Austin. Held on Friday, March 2, 2018, at UT Austin’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, Najam’s Brumley Lecture was titled “Living in the Age of Adaptation.”
Building on earlier work, Najam argued that we are already living in what he calls the “Age of Adaptation.” Our failure to mitigate the buildup of greenhouse gases has now made climate change a reality which people, particularly in developing countries including those of South Asia, are having to grapple with the impacts of climatic change, including extreme climatic variability and severity.
According to Najam, climate change impacts are no longer a possibility for the future but a reality of today — particularly for people living in poorer countries,. He elaborated on how as a planet and as a species we have stumbled into this Age of Adaptation (which, he argues, we were never supposed to live in) and went on to highlight key elements of what this means for the most vulnerable communities.
In particular, Najam highlighted the importance of water in the Age of Adaptation. “Climate change can no longer be simply about carbon management. Water is to climate adaptation what carbon was to mitigation,” he said.
As Najam has elaborated elsewhere:
Living in the “Age of Adaption” does not mean that mitigation is no longer important. It is as, and more, important than ever. But now, we also have to contend with adaptation. Adaptation, after all, is the failure of mitigation. We got to the age of adaptation because we failed to mitigate enough or in time. The less we mitigate now and in the future, the more we will have to adapt, possibly at levels where adaptation may no longer even be possible. Adaption is nearly always more difficult than mitigation; and will ultimately be far more expensive. And at some level it could become impossible.
Najam also participated in a colloquium with the current Bumley Fellows at UT Austin, where he discussed his own career trajectory and responded to their questions about making careers in policy and interdisciplinary scholarship.
The Brumley Next Generation Fellows program at the Strauss Center provides research training and mentorship opportunities to exceptional undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Texas at Austin. It also includes a Keynote Lecture by an eminent scholar selected by the Brumley Fellows themselves. The Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law is housed at UT Austin’s LBJ School of Public Affairs and integrates expertise from across the University, as well as from the private and public sectors, in pursuit of practical solutions to emerging international challenges.
Adil Najam is the Inaugural Dean of the Pardee School. Earlier, he served as Vice Chancellor (equivalent to president) of the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) in Lahore, Pakistan. He was a co-author for the Third and Fourth Assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and serves on the UN Committee on Development (CDP). Learn more about him here.