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Over 10 years on from the Paris Climate Agreement, global emissions remain at record levels. Key climate targets are slipping out of reach whilst reactionary forces are increasingly normalising overshoot and reneging on sustainability agendas. Although other topics may be taking political centre stage, the climate crisis remains one of the most pressing and significant challenges of our time.

This year’s GIB lecture series “Climate Change and Capitalism”, hosted by the University of Bayreuth’s Geographical Institute (GIB), therefore examines the complex and constantly evolving interconnections between the ecological crisis and our economic system. We invite experts from a range of fields within geography to discuss how capitalist modes of production and consumption entangle with the climate crisis, reproduce its impacts along uneven lines, and to what extent pathways towards a more sustainable economy are possible within the capitalist economic system.

We warmly invite you to join the talks, which are all accessible via Zoom with prior registration. We are looking forward to an interesting and diverse lineup of talks on data center ecologies, the temporality of working from home, climate activism, and green finance.

Enter the Mouth of the Cloud: How Data Centers Metabolize Earth for Computation
Dr. Steven Gonzalez Monserrate (Goethe University Frankfurt)
10 November 2026 | 16.15-17.45 CET

Temporalität des Wohnens und Arbeitens - mobil, multilokal und nachhaltig?
Prof. Caroline Kramer (Karlsruher Institut für Technologie)
17 November 2026 | 16.15-17.45 CET

Science, Advocacy, and Activism: How Do We Navigate Where We Stand?
Prof. Julia Steinberger (University of Lausanne)
1 December 2026 | 16.15-17.45 CET

What was Green Finance, and What Can We Learn From it? A Critical Examination of Private-Public Finance Initiatives
Dr. Jens Christiansen (Lund University)
19 January 2027 | 16.15-17.45 CET

For more further information on the series, abstracts, and Zoom registration, please see the full programme.