Climate-friendly traveling required – The University of Gothenburg’s CO2 emissions will be halved by 2030 to achieve the climate goals. It will require an adjustment, where reduced air travel accounts for some of it. This is the opinion of the chairman of the task force within the Climate Framework, Pro Vice-Chancellor Mattias Goksör. He sees the proposal as a consequence of the government’s climate goals for state agencies. TOGETHER WITH 37 other Swedish universities, the University of Gothenburg has signed the Climate Framework, something that all faculties also support. – Now the task force is finally ready to get started. We propose two management tools: firstly a tool that makes it clear what is affecting the climate, and secondly a carbon budget that is followed up in the same way as the financial budget. This will help the units make climate-friendly decisions, says Mattias Goksör. The task force’s new proposal on climate transition (see Facts section below) is a way of creating incentives for more people to choose climate-smarter alternatives to travelling. But to see the charges of three kronor per kilo of carbon dioxide as a penalty or tax is completely wrong, he says. – IT IS ABOUT changing behaviours using the means we have. You do not lose any money or receive less in allocation. Instead, we want to spend the money on climate-smart alternatives, where, for example, train travel is a good alternative. It
is up to each department to decide. We will of course continue to travel, but hopefully in a way that has less impact on the climate. Malin Broberg, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, also believes that the transition to digital tools has meant that we no longer need to fly as much. – WHAT WE HAVE learned during the pandemic is that digital meetings save time and money. When we start to assign different priorities to our trips, we also get a more sustainable and equitable working life, where we get more family time. – We will not be doing this in isolation, Malin Broberg continues. It is not something we can choose to do or not to do, but a requirement from the government, and we must all contribute. That is why we have chosen to describe it as a provision, rather than a surcharge, because it is about creating a fund to be able to make investments that we otherwise would not have been able to make. Student representative Elin Gunnarsson also stresses the importance of having well-thoughtout climate initiatives that promote flexibility and climate-friendly modes of travel. – IN JUST A FEW YEARS, I think we will look back on our efforts and conclude that it was thanks to these measures that our emissions could be halved. The plan is for the climate transition to be introduced sometime at the beginning of next year but initially, workshops and pilot studies await. Henrik Aronsson, Head of the Department of Biological and
Mattias Goksör
Environmental Sciences, points out that many people within the organisation look forward to the university taking the lead. – Of course there will be some questions, irritation and teething problems in the beginning. But for me, this is a very easy project to sell. I only see its benefits and it’s easy to tell people why we are doing this. We are doing this not only for all of us right here and now, but also for our grandchildren. Text: Allan Eriksson Photo: Johan Wingborg
Malin Broberg
Henrik Aronsson
Elin Gunnarsson
FACTS The climate transition proposal, which was presented in the last issue of the GU Journal, involves the following: instead of today’s climate compensation, where a small fee is charged per flight, a climate transition is proposed, based on a fee of 3 krona per kilogram of carbon dioxide on all international flights. Domestic flights will be subject to a default fee of SEK 3,000 as an incentive to replace short flights with train travel. The model is based on 20 percent of the money going to a central fund that will benefit the entire university’s climate efforts. The remaining 80 percent will go back to the departments for various types of initiatives that will reduce emissions and compensate for the extra time it takes to travel by train.
GUJOURNAL MAY 2021
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