Climate change

Climate change is the biggest challenge of our
century, we are the last generation to address it
effectively. For over two decades, 3 ideas have been actively engaging with a climate change movement through advocacy and participation in the UN
Climate Change Conferences (UNFCCC, UNCCD), think tanks, policy papers, and recommendations, culture, and sustainability. Dr Sandra Piesik has led pioneering work on the adaptation of indigenous knowledge in the Middle East through her research on date palm and globally through the publication
of HABITAT.

Advocacy

Climate change advocacy is at the heart of all we do.
Dr Sandra Piesik has been shaping thematic
sessions for the UN Climate Change and Scientific
Conferences for almost a decade bringing relevant
topics to the forefront of the international debate
and this includes urban-rural interconnectivity and
regional integration UNFCCC COP22 (2016),
COP 24 (2018), COP26 (2021) and COP27 (2022)
and UNCCD COP14 (2019) Urbanisation and adaptation of traditional technologies with reference to HABITAT publication UNFCCC COP23 (2019) and regional futures COP27 (2022).

Policy

Climate change policy recommendations were
shaped for two Rio Conventions UNCCD through
Rural-Urban Dynamics Policy Recommendations (2019) for the Global Land Outlook 2.0. UNFCCC COP24 (2018) Urban-Rural Linkages, a PCCB session with the participation of all three Rio Conventions UNFCCC, UNCCD, and CBD. A global climate change agenda and regional European territorial integration focus was provided for the UN-HABITAT consultancy.

Design & technology

The regenerative design has been at the forefront
of indigenous cultures throughout the millennia.
Combining ethnic ingenuity with cutting-edge
contemporary design serves to progress the
evolution of ideas into a more sustainable new
design. Technology development and transfer is
a pivotal in establishing new techno-cultural and
ecological shift discussed at the DUBAI EXPO 2020
‘Democratisation of technology: living the change in
a post-pandemic world’ series co-convened by
Dr Sandra Piesik for G-STIC.

Culture

Culture is often overlooked in a discourse on climate
change both in the context of how we communicate
climate change, create new culture and aesthetics
(New European Bauhaus), and how we can
re-discover 12,000 years of the built environment
and social history of living in harmony with nature
and with each other. A pioneering ethnographic and
scientific work on the understanding of indigenous
cultures published in Arish (2012) and HABITAT
(2017, 2023) has been pivotal in climate change
capacity building and futurology approaches.