The Climate Change & History Research Initiative (CCHRI) together with The United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Report Office (HDRO) and in collaboration with the Department of Sociology at the University of Birmingham (UK), organize a workshop within the framework of the project "Lessons from the Past, Policy for the Future." This international workshop will take place April 7-8 at the University of Birmingham.

It has been argued that the Anthropocene is best understood as an unfolding and intensifying event of human‐influenced Earth system change, rather than simply a period of time with a start and – eventually? – an end. Interdisciplinary research on the Anthropocene is expanding rapidly, but the value of the concept is contested. The theme of the 2026 UN Human Development Report focuses on a conceptualization of the Anthropocene as something that mobilizes people to change and represents an effort to balance the discourse on “crisis” that dominates current thinking about the impact and trajectory of rapid increases in human‐induced Earth system transformations. From this perspective the Anthropocene is considered a transformational process which unfolds through time and in which the role of humans in precipitating and accelerating change is central. Since the global environmental challenges that our socio-ecological system faces make it imperative to gain a better understanding of what and how such transformations evolve in the Earth system over the long term, the role of knowledge about the past as both an aspect and a product of that process is an important element in this and takes on a particular significance.   
Prevailing frameworks aimed at addressing nature’s decline tend to focus on highlighting negative trends, risks, and/or costs of environmental harm (e.g. climate change, emissions, habitat and species loss), or aim to set specific goals, targets or boundaries to limit or reverse these. Is a different strategy conceivable for addressing global environmental challenges, one aimed specifically at motivating broader societal engagement through an open-ended aspirational approach that highlights, assesses, and rewards progress towards achieving the healthy and desirable relationships with nature that people aspire to, and can the concept of the Anthropocene contribute to this? Does a historical perspective contribute constructively to building such a strategy?

Within this broad framework we want to consider (1) contemporary environmental challenges in relation to human development, and the prospects for or constraints upon reversing current negative environmental trends to achieve better outcomes (2) whether or not societal systems are doomed to ‘collapse’, and if so under what conditions? (3) to what extent inequalities in the distribution of social wealth and access to knowledge constrain advances in human development, and what options there are for reconfiguring them (4) whether or not aspirational approaches can overcome the unequal burdens of societal resilience (5) and whether or not it is possible to deconstruct or refocus the human-nature duality around the unifying concept – well-established in environmental science – of socio-ecological systems; and (6) under what conditions do societies achieve healthier relationships with some aspects of nature and at what scale?  The meeting is an open-ended and informal workshop discussion that will help in formulating possible strategic thinking about the future value of the Anthropocene as a heuristic framework for rethinking possible futures.