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Date and venue: 19.-20. April, 2021, German Institute for Japanese Studies, TokyoConveners: Sarah Beringer (German Historical Institute Washington D.C.), Benjamin Beuerle (German Historical Institute Moscow), Sonja Ganseforth (German Institute for Japanese Studies), Yufei Zhou (German Institute for Japanese Studies)in collaboration with the Max WeberFoundation Research Group at the National University of Singapore and the MaxWeber Foundation China Branch Office in Beijing Callfor Papers:Doubtlessly, climate change andenvironmental degradation pose some of the most urgent problems of our time. However,while most nation-states and non-state actors acknowledge that immediate actionis required and the consumption of fossil energy and a variety of other naturalresources needs to be curbed drastically, success stories remain scarce. Reasonsfor this are manifold and stretch from national economic goals to geopoliticalrivalries, from social structures to cultural preferences/habits. Our conference will focus on the Pacific region, which over the last decades has turned into a powerhouse of the world economy. The ever increasing hunger of Pacific Rim countries like China, the United States, the Soviet Union/Russia, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Canada, and Mexico for natural resources to fuel this growth vastly affects mankind´s chances of finding sustainable modes of living on this planet and of mitigating climate change to levels defined as bearable according to the Paris Agreement.The present interdisciplinary conferenceseeks to explore the historical development of attitudes towards climate changeand environmental degradation within various Pacific Rim countries, as well asinteractions between their climate, energy, and environmental policies. Inwhich instances have the issues appeared on the agenda of political decisionmakers both on national and regional levels? To what extent have there beentransfers and/or tensions between the countries of the Pacific region regardingthe knowledge about these interrelated concerns and ways of handling them? Whatkinds of transnational cooperation and conflicts have taken place betweenPacific Rim countries in the realm of energy policy and environmentalpreservation and to what extent have they been related to attempts to mitigateclimate change? We are particularly (but not exclusively)interested in papers on historical and present developments ofclimate change knowledgecreation and transfer between Pacific Rim countriestranspacific entanglements andinfluences on sustainability discourses and policiestranspacific cooperationconcerning climate, environment, and energy issuesvarious energy policyapproaches in and between Asia Pacific countries and their implications forclimate changeclimate change mitigationefforts and environmental protection policies on the part of regional, national,and international activists and decisionmakerstransnational influences on theway climate change has been used, ignored, and/or (mis)interpreted in nationaldebates within various Pacific Rim countriesnew (trans-)Pacific trends inclimate mitigation and energy policy in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemiccrisisTravel costs and accommodation will betaken care of by the Max Weber Foundation / German Federal Ministry ofEducation and Research. Selected participants will be expected topre-circulate written papers (3500 words) one month before the conference. Apeer-reviewed journal publication is planned.Proposals (max. 300 words plus a short CV) should be sent to zhou@dijtokyo.org by 15 July 2020 August 21st, 2020 (deadline extended).This conference is part of the Max WeberFoundation’s collaborative research project “Knowledge Unbound” in the module “Interactionand Knowledge in the Pacific Region: Entanglements and Disentanglements”,funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Germany).