Najam Keynotes Save the Children’s Asia-Pacific Regional Humanitarian Summit

Adil Najam, Dean of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, launched the Save the Children Asia-Pacific Humanitarian Summit with a keynote address on January 25, 2022.

The Summit, organized by Save the Children, brought together over 200 humanitarian practitioners virtually and in person from across Asia. Najam was invited to deliver the event’s opening keynote address and discuss the impact climate change has on humanitarianism.

In his remarks, Najam noted that climate change is no longer just an emissions problem; climate change is very much a human issue and, he argues, a poverty issue. He stated that, for at least two billion people, climate change is an existential problem happening now. Najam reiterated his belief that the world is now in the Age of Adaptation arguing that climate change’s impact on human security, economic inequality, and extreme weather events make it an urgent issue for the humanitarian sector. 

Adil Najam is a global public policy expert who also served as the Vice-Chancellor of the Lahore University of Management Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan. He is the Inaugural Dean of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University and was the former Vice-Chancellor of the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). His research focuses on issues of global public policy, especially those related to global climate change, South Asia, Muslim countries, environment and development, and human development. Read more about Dean Najam on his faculty profile.