University Leaders Discuss Collaborative Climate Solutions at COP27

The scientific community is critical to the fight against climate change yet universities, the sector that trains climate scientists and produces the most cutting-edge research in climate science, tend to remain left out of the agenda of the United Nations Climate Conference. At its latest iteration, COP27, held in Sharm El-Sheik, Egypt last November, international university network leaders addressed this absence and lobbied for researchers’ involvement in international climate conversations during a panel on

Universities as Key Solutions Providers: Leveraging our Local and Global Networks for Innovation, co-convened by the U7+ Alliance of World Universities under the leadership of the University of Toronto and Northwestern University, Worldwide Universities Network, Italian University Network for Sustainable Development (RUS), and Universities Climate Change Coalition (UC3). Together, panelists represented more than 150 institutions from both the Global South and Global North, which are collaborating amongst themselves as well as with governments, local communities and industries to develop transformative climate solutions.

Universities as leaders and solution providers in climate science

Panelists discussed the kind of expertise, knowledge and solutions universities can contribute to addressing climate change, and many of the social issues stemming from it. They shared examples of scientific, technological and policy innovations universities are developing with a broad range of local and global partners, from ambitious plans to reduce the carbon emissions of their campuses, build smart energy grids and develop green energy technologies to recent scientific breakthroughs, including new chemical processes designed to break down “forever chemicals” and so-called “unrecyclable” plastics. Panelists attributed these and other breakthroughs, in part, to universities’ ability to connect dots and foster collaboration among experts in the basic sciences, social sciences, arts and humanities, who so often operate within silos.

Also, the range of problems climate change brings about at the regional and local levels makes it difficult to engineer one-size-fits-all global solutions. This is precisely where universities are stepping in to provide solutions and can have a measurable impact. Member institutions of the U7+ Alliance of World Universities, for example, have committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions stemming from their operations by 2030 in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The University of Toronto is funding a Climate Positive Energy research project that will collect data on travel behavior to and from campus to assess the travel patterns in the university community and estimate the greenhouse gas emissions of the trips. The project will provide insights into how Toronto’s transportation infrastructure is meeting the needs of the campus community, and where spatial and social inequities in emissions exist. With this information, the community will be able to design interventions for more sustainable travel. The project also contributes directly to the city of Toronto’s ambitious strategy to reduce community-wide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to net zero by 2040, one of the most ambitious GHG-reducing goals in North America.

The collaborations universities are fostering in addressing the climate crisis locally also generate knowledge and models that can be shared and adapted across borders. The University of TorontoNorthwestern Decarbonization Alliance, for example, is creating a model for large scale societal decarbonization. The model aims to tackle the complexity of implementing decarbonization, which requires a series of precise steps to reduce carbon dependency across industries and economic sectors without disrupting the normal functioning of vital activities such as global food production, transportation, construction, and chemical manufacturing.

With a vibrant ecosystem, and an array of flora and fauna, the Sargasso Sea has been referred to as the “Golden Rainforest”. Because of its important biodiversity, the Sargasso Sea is protected by the Hamilton Declaration and overseen by the Sargasso Sea Commission.

Universities create meaningful partnerships for change

Universities are also partnering with local citizens and communities to define priorities for climate research initiatives. These collaborations are serving as “living laboratories” for experimenting with new ways to pursue sustainability. The Université Côte d’Azur’s Observatoire de la Transition Ecologique et Citoyenne Côte d’Azur (OTECCA), for example, allows local authorities and representatives of civil society such as neighborhood associations, student organizations, and local farming collectives to exchange knowledge with scientists, co-create research questions, and gather data. In 2020, OTECCA partnered with a farming group that produces organic food through collective labor. Applying an interdisciplinary social science approach that involved phycologists and political scientists, OTECCA modeled the characteristics of the group that made them successful, hoping to identify how this initiative could be replicated elsewhere.

Community collaborations are necessary if cities and territories are to meet the sustainability goals they have set for themselves for the next two decades. During the panel, Patrizia Lombardi, a sustainable development expert at the Polytechnic University of Turin, reminded everyone how important it is for cities and local communities to partner with universities in current decarbonization efforts and to invite universities to play an active role in multilevel governance: “There is a need for cities to speed up the transition to achieve [carbon] neutrality by 2050. But statistics say they will not be able to do so unless there are collaborative efforts.”

Universities train the next generation of leaders

One of the most crucial contributions of universities to the global fight against climate change is their role in training the next generation of global leaders, scientists and climate activists. Universities offer students opportunities to explore sustainability from a broad range of academic and practical perspectives, and a next generation of higher energy density, more sustainable batteries. These are only a handful of examples of student projects shaping the future of climate change solutions within the university networks participating in the panel. he results were visible at COP27, where university networks put student-led climate action projects on display. For example, university students around the world are developing new tree planting methods to offset carbon emissions and promote biodiversity, broadening accessibility to public transportation, minimizing the degradation of drinking water systems, raising awareness about mercury pollution, creating thermal electric generators that produce energy from heat that would otherwise be lost, and designing capsule materials for lithium sulfur batteries—

The event concluded with a lively discussion on some of the challenges facing universities engaged in work to address climate change: the need to divest their economic activities from those of fossil fuel companies, tackle Scope 3 emissions stemming from their procurement of travel, food, and waste management services, and establish best practices for partnering with industries currently contributing to climate change but working to generate climate solutions. By the end of the panel, attendees expressed hope and optimism that, moving forward, universities can increasingly participate in multilateral climate conversations such as COP. With their diversity of expertise, resources for research and innovation, relationships with local governments and communities, and convening power, universities’ ability to spur societal change and contribute to addressing the climate crisis is not to be underestimated.