DATE: December 2, 3, and 4, 2025
VENUE: Integrated Center for Southern Coastal and Oceanic Development – CIDEC Sul, Carreiros Campus, FURG, Rio Grande, RS, Brazil
REGISTRATION: sinsc.furg.br

CENTRAL THEME: HUMAN RIGHTS AND CLIMATE EMERGENCIES

Scientific Committee

Prof. Dr. Amanda Netto Brum (PPGD FURG)
Prof. Dr. César Augusto Soares Costa (PPGD FURG)
Prof. Dr. Dione Iara Silveira Kitzmann (PPGEA FURG)
Prof. Dr. Eduardo Pitrez de Aguiar Corrêa (PPGD FURG)
Prof. Dr. Elisa Girotti Celmer (FADIR FURG)
Prof. Dr. Fabiane Simioni (PPGD FURG)
Prof. Dr. Felipe Franz Wienke (PPGD FURG)
Prof. Dr. José Ricardo Caetano Costa (PPGD FURG)
Prof. Dr. Lucia de Fatima Socoowski de Anello (PPGEA FURG)
Dr. Luciana Alves Dombkowitsch (GDiS FURG)
Prof. Dr. Narjara Mendes Garcia (PPGEA FURG)
Prof. Dr. Raquel Fabiana Lopes Sparemberger (PPGD FURG)
Prof. Dr. Renato Duro Dias (PPGD FURG)
Prof. Dr. Sheila Stolz da Silveira (PPGD FURG)
Prof. Dr. Simone Grohs Freire (PPGEA FURG)
Prof. Dr. Vanessa Hernandez Caporlingua (PPGEA FURG)

Participation Format

The Forum invites participation in different in-person modalities: a) attendee and b) paper presentation. Those interested in presenting their research must submit an extended abstract, indicating the WG in which they wish to participate. Abstracts must be written as a single paragraph and contain a minimum of 300 and a maximum of 500 words. The abstract must include objective, methodology, results, and conclusions. It must also include 4 keywords in alphabetical order. The title, names of the proponents, their institutions, country, and email must be specified.

Languages: Portuguese and Spanish

Submission of extended abstracts: from August 18 to October 19, 2025.

Notification of abstract acceptance: end of October 2025.

Registration for the general public (attendees): starting August 18, 2025.

Registration address: sinsc.furg.br

Simultaneous Working Groups (WGs)

WG1 Environmental Education and Climate Emergencies
Coordinators: Marta Acosta (UNE, Paraguay), Ricardo Barboza Lima (UFG, Brazil), and Matías Penhos (UNQ, Argentina)

This theme aims to analyze and discuss environmental education in the current context, in order to foster a dialogue of knowledge that makes it possible to address various environmental conflicts as political and pedagogical challenges. It proposes to understand comprehensive environmental education as a perspective, that is, as a way of being and being in the world, in order to denaturalize and problematize the ways in which society has been organized and understood in relation to nature and, therefore, its teaching. The interdependence between environmental protection, sustainable development, and human rights has been highlighted by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (OC-23/2017) and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (2019 Report on Business and Human Rights). Consequently, these are issues that are inseparable from human rights education.
We expect to receive papers that: raise awareness of the impact of climate emergencies on education; present good practices in formal and non-formal education contexts; identify the specific challenges faced by teachers in this area; develop preventive and interdisciplinary proposals to address content across different curricula; highlight the design and implementation of public policies on these topics; and debate the role of the private sector or other actors in this field.

WG2 Environmental Justice, Social Inequalities, and Environmental Racism
Coordinators: María del Carmen Cortizos (UFSC, Brazil) and Maria José Bournissent (UNL, Argentina)

The current climate emergency requires urgent and immediate measures to address the growing impacts on various dimensions of life, including the worsening of respiratory diseases, the rise of vector-borne illnesses, and the compromise of food production and water availability, with dire consequences for food security. In this context, WG2: Environmental Justice, Social Inequalities, and Environmental Racism proposes to bring together papers that discuss these three axes in an articulated manner: Environmental justice and the distribution of goods and services that ensure the same level of protection against environmental risks for everyone, encompassing social, economic, and political dimensions. The disproportionately greater impact of the negative consequences of the climate emergency on subalternized groups, which constitutes a factor in increasing social inequalities. Racism as a factor that intensifies the negative effects of environmental degradation on marginalized populations and ethnic minorities that suffer from a lack of basic sanitation, exposure to pollution, lack of access to drinking water, proximity to landfills, expulsion from ancestral lands, and lack of access to natural resources, while having little or no participation in decisions that affect their territories.

WG3 Human Rights, Climate Emergencies, and Gender
Coordinators: Melina Fachin (UFPR, Brazil) and Inés Robles Carrasco (UV, Chile)

The climate crisis is one of the main threats to human rights in the 21st century, with disproportionate impacts on women and historically vulnerable populations. This Working Group proposes to reflect on the intersections between climate justice, human rights, and gender equality, highlighting how the effects of the environmental emergency intensify preexisting inequalities, especially in the Global South. From an intersectional and decolonial perspective, the obligations of states and companies to protect rights in the face of the ecological crisis will be addressed, with special attention to the rights to care, land, water, and political participation. Extractivist development models that undermine the sustainability of life and directly affect women’s bodies and territories will be questioned. The Working Group will also analyze experiences of women’s resistance and leadership in the defense of the environment, highlighting their fundamental role in a just ecological transition. It affirms that there is no climate justice without gender justice and that it is urgent to place human dignity and sustainability at the center of political and legal agendas regarding climate change.

WG4 University Outreach in Times of Climate Emergencies
Coordinators: Jane Schumacher (UFSM, Brazil) and Gabriela Arantes Wagner (UNIFESP, Brazil)

University Outreach plays a strategic role in addressing climate emergencies, promoting social justice, inclusion, and sustainability. In the face of worsening environmental crises, it acts as a bridge between academic knowledge and popular knowledge, meeting the real needs of territories. The Working Group (WG) on University Outreach in Times of Climate Emergencies aims to gather and strengthen actions focused on disseminating information about climate impacts, sustainable technologies, and local solutions, with special attention to vulnerable populations.
The WG operates along six main axes: (1) dissemination of accessible and up-to-date information on climate change and adaptation strategies; (2) promotion of social technologies for family farming, water management, renewable energies, and resilient housing; (3) community training for risk management and strengthening autonomy; (4) valuing traditional knowledge through dialogue between science, culture, and local practices; (5) social mobilization and encouragement of community participation in building solutions; and (6) interinstitutional articulation among the university, public authorities, civil society, and the productive sector to promote public policies and collaborative projects. In this way, outreach contributes to strengthening climate resilience and environmental justice in the most affected territories.

WG5 Human Rights, Emergencies of the Rights of Nature, and Public Policies
Coordinators: Ela Wiecko (UB, Brazil), Flor de Ma. Meza (Udelar, Uruguay), and Maria Guiomar Frota (UFMG, Brazil)

The proposal is to discuss the right to sustainable development recognized by the UN, which led to multilateral agreements and targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit global warming to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels, as recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel of Experts on Climate Change. The targets have not been met, and climate catastrophes haunt us. Yet large multinational mining, chemical, oil, and agribusiness corporations continue to pursue profits, to the detriment of non-human beings and abiotic elements that make up Nature, of which human beings are also a part. They maintain the logic of the overexploitation of Nature, guided by an anthropocentrism legally framed in “human dignity.” However, human superiority finds no basis in the history of Planet Earth or in the sciences. There are other ways of thinking about the world, such as “Buen Vivir” or the “Chthulucene.” In some countries, Nature is already recognized as a subject of rights, and now the IACtHR, reinforcing OC-23/17 on the relationship between environmental protection and human rights, recognizes that environmental degradation affects the effective enjoyment of those rights. To avoid the extinction of human life, it is necessary to overcome the distinction between Human Rights and the Rights of Nature, establish national and international law on another philosophical basis, and formulate public policies that are alternatives to development, and not merely alternative developments.