Speaker

Yair Sánchez Negrette
Graduate student in Philosophy
Instituto de Filosofía, Universidad de Antioquia

Lecture

Action-oriented knowledge: what can biodiversity loss studies learn from climate change science?

Both biodiversity loss studies (SBL) and climate change sciences (CCS) address complex environmental crises marked by uncertainty, conflicting values, and urgent calls for collective action. Yet each field operates independently, with its own disciplines and institutions, leading to fragmentation that reduces overall effectiveness. CCS has achieved notable consolidation in areas such as institutional architecture, global treaties, and observation standardization, exemplified by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This raises the question: what can SBL learn from CCS advances in producing action-oriented knowledge? In this paper, I argue that while SBL already produces knowledge for policy, it has not yet standardized how this knowledge is generated and used. Using a three-phase comparative approach, I examine how both fields organize knowledge production around applicability, identify divergences arising from differences in objects and scales, and propose how consolidated CCS practices, standardized observation, reporting frameworks, assessment bodies, might be adapted to strengthen SBL’s translation into policy and practice. Understanding these dynamics illuminates how scientific knowledge is mobilized during environmental crises.

Date and Venue

Friday, 10 April 2026
4:00 p.m. (COL)
Fourth-floor auditorium, main library
Universidad de Antioquia