Climate change poses the biggest global challenge
THE Earth is changing fast as a result of human activity.
The burning of fossil fuels and the release of greenhouse gases have raised the temperature at least 1.5ºF (0.8ºC) since 1880. They have resulted in record-setting temperatures across the globe. The period 2011 to 2015 is the warmest observed; 2015 is the hottest single year since records began in 1880.
This warming of the planet has contributed to deadly heat waves in Europe and Asia, extended droughts in Africa, and severe weather events on every continent. These changes affect air quality, weather patterns and food security.
Sea levels are rising at the fastest rate in 2,700 years, due to polar ice melt. Within 85 years, oceans are estimated to rise between three and six feet. The increased temperature of oceans and changes in oxygen levels will affect the biodiversity of ocean ecosystems.
In the context of ever-growing populations, the effects of climate change can be particularly dire. And includes significant threats to the global food supply.
The UN warns that by 2050, the world must raise food production by 60% to cope. This challenge is exacerbated by increased frequency of droughts, heat waves, and floods. Heightened levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide – which has risen 40% since the Industrial Revolution – are linked to decreasing nutritional levels in crops, such as wheat and rice.
The changing climate has already resulted in forced migrations as people escape coastal flooding, water scarcity and agricultural decline. By 2050, the UN estimates that nearly 200 million people could be displaced, aggravating existing social and political difficulties.
Scientists have also predicted that climate change could have catastrophic effects on human health, including higher rates of waterborne disease and respiratory and heat-related ailments. Actions taken around the world will determine how the planet is able to cope, mitigate and adapt to the new climate reality.
Sustainable development
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted unanimously by the 193 UN member countries in September 2015 set out quantitative goals for 2030 to end extreme poverty, promote economic prosperity, enhance social inclusion, and ensure environmental sustainability, on the basis of peace and justice.
The 2015 Paris Climate Change Accord commits the world to keep global warming to “well below 2ºC.” Achieving the SDGs will require deep economic, social, and technological transformations, including the rapid scale-up of high-quality social services (health, education); a shift to low-carbon energy; ubiquitous and reliable information connectivity; promotion of healthful and sustainable cities; deep changes to the global food systems and the conservation of biodiversity.
These transformations will need to be “directed”, that is, goal-oriented in order to achieve specific benchmarks. One of the most challenging milestones will be to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 or sooner, in order to achieve the goal of limiting global warming to well below 2ºC.
Sustainable Development Solutions Network
The UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) was launched in 2012 to mobilise global scientific and technological expertise to promote practical problem-solving for sustainable development (SD). It includes the design and implementation of SDGs.
How then to support their implementation? SDSN mobilises the academic community to translate the latest expertise in SD into action. It builds a global network of universities and research centres focusing on: mobilising support for SDGs; promoting practical solution initiatives and long-term pathways; promoting high-quality education and research collaboration; and supporting governments in addressing the challenges posed by SD.
Spanning six continents, the SDSN programme currently draws upon the knowledge and educational capacity of over 450 member institutions. The SDSN operates under the auspices of the UN secretary-general to empower universities and other knowledge institutions to advance SDGs. The SDSN work is organised around four priorities:
Implementation tools, such as the annual World Happiness Report and the SDG Index and Dashboards; Networking with universities through SDSN, including SDG Centres of Excellence (Kigali, Rwanda; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia); Solution initiatives, including promotion of global and national Pathway Projects (eg. Deep Decarbonisation Pathways Project and World in 2050);
Education for SD through the development of online courses and new textbooks under the SDGs academy.
The success of SDSN involves transformations that require unprecedented cross-disciplinary systems-thinking and the rapid diffusion of SD know-how and technologies.
As centres of knowledge generation, universities inspire the problem-solving needed. They have five vital roles to play, namely SDG policy support, incubation of new SD business, SDG-oriented R&D, multi-stakeholder convening and SDGbased education.
First, universities are uniquely positioned to diagnose the complex and multi-dimensional challenges of SD; clarify interactions among the multiple goals; define long-term sustainable pathways; and identify useful metrics of SDG-related progress.
To achieve the SDGs, governments, businesses, and civil society will need long-term pathway analyses to help guide public policies as well as private investments. University-based researchers need to support policymakers and businesses to identify meaningful SDG metrics to help track progress.
Second, universities are indispensable in fostering SDG-oriented technological innovations. Finding new solutions will be critical, including in renewable energy, precision agriculture, smart grids, lowcost pollution abatement, universal access to quality healthcare and education, and sustainable cities.
Third and closely related, universities will host start-up high-tech companies located near universities. Graduates will then populate these start-ups. Success will require similar innovation hubs in worldwide regions. Building those hubs, in turn, will require governments to scale-up R&D in national universities, especially in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.
Fourth, universities will educate and train the next generation of SD leaders through cross-disciplinary and experiential learning. Programmes, such as the Masters of Development Practice, are finding strong demand in government, business and civil society. Online education provides a rapidly expanding opportunity to bring top quality content from world-class faculty at very low cost. The SDSN’s SDGs academy was established for this purpose and has been pioneering massive open online courses for SDGs.
Fifth, universities are ideally placed to help convene the various stakeholders – government, business and civil society – whose cooperative efforts are needed to achieve SD. Universities have expertise, independence, social trust, and a long-term perspective, all of which are vital for SDG success.
The SDSN Leadership Council met on Sept 21-22 at Columbia University in New York. Special attention was centred in the presentations on achieving SDG3 (universal healthcare and ending of major diseases) by Ghana’s director-general of health; and on achieving SDG4 (deliver quality education) by the former UK prime minister.
Gordon Brown spoke on how the proposed International Financing Facility for Education would multiply the impact of donor funds and fill education funding gaps. Attention, however, was centered on the keynote address by Tan Sri Jeffrey Cheah (a member of the council), who spoke on the global urban agenda. He recounted his unique experience in “turning a wasteland” (800 acres of abandoned, mined-out bare land without vegetation but with scattered deep pools of water) “into a wonderland,” to quote Lee Kuan Yew, former prime minister of Singapore.
The wonderland today being Sunway City, a thriving 200,000 populated community comprising commercial houses and private residences, three universities, a modern hospital, and a 2-million sq ft shopping mall within an entertainment complex of theme-parks and luxurious hotels, encircled along its parameter by an elevated electric transit bus service.
It adopted an integrated approach to its development, where the different parts came together harmoniously as an integrated whole. A classic, living casestudy of what innovation plus an active imagination, coupled with grit and perseverance can do to transform a hopeless environmental disaster into a prosperous integrated green township, daring to implement in practice most SDGs.
His US$10mil endowment helps establish the Jeffrey Sachs Center on SD at Sunway University. Participants gave him a standing ovation for an incredible job well done.
The 72nd Session of the UN General Assembly was held past mid-September, 2017. At around the same time, the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI) at Columbia University and SDSN, under the guidance of Prof Jeff Sachs (special advisor to the UN secretary-general), hosted the Conference on the Global Pact for the Environment (the Pact) launched in June in Paris.
This year also marks the 25th anniversary of the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. Since its adoption, the world has progressively contributed to the implementation of the fundamental principles enshrined in this Declaration, the 1972 Stockholm Declaration and the 1982 World Charter for Nature. It also incorporated commitments to the 2015 SDGs and the 2015 Paris Climate Change Accord. Despite these, I am afraid the planet continues to face an unprecedented loss of its biodiversity, requiring urgent action.
I gathered at the conference that the Pact serves as a binding universal “umbrella text”, synthesising the principles outlined in the above declarations, charters and commitments. In essence, the high level participants explored the scope and impact of the Pact, including the main legal challenges; implementation issues and the role of diverse stakeholders, including collaboration among companies, governments and civil society.
As was expected, the meeting reaffirmed, while using natural resources, the need to preserve the diversity of life on Earth and contribute to human well-being and eradicate poverty.
Again and again, the meeting emphasised the vital need to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women in SD matters.
The Pact
The Pact provides for: the right to an ecologically sound environment; the duty to take care of the environment; public policy to incorporate SD goals; assurance of inter-generational equity so as not to compromise the needs of future generations; the prevention of environmental harm; the duty to prevent environmental degradation; the remediation of environment damages; upholding the polluter-pays principle; right of access to environmental information; right of public participation; the right to environmental justice; ensuring environmental education and training to protect the environment; the promotion of research and innovation in environmental science; integration of the vital role of non-state actors and adoption of effective environmental laws.
Also strengthening the diversity and capacity of eco-systems to resist environmental disruptions; refrain from reducing the quality of environmental protection; co-operation to conserve and protect environmental eco-systems; protection of the environment from impact of armed conflicts; and taking account of the common but differentiated responsibilities and capabilities, in the light of different national circumstances.
What then, are we to do
The challenge ahead is big; so is Jeff Sachs SDSN’s potential. Changing the planet’s current course and shaping sustainable systems depend on the insight, resourcefulness and collaborative effort of experts in public policy, business and economics.
The universities are strong both in individual research areas and in the interdisciplinary endeavours that make innovation and progress possible. They are home to experts in leading change, while serving as mentors and advisors to the next generation of innovators.
As I see it, the transition to a greener future requires not only the tenacity and imagination of our scientists and engineers and IT specialists, but also the creativity and engagement of political and expert leaders to champion SD practices nationally and globally. Universities’ collective intellectual capital has the capacity to propel novel ideas and solutions from research to outreach.
Today, the work ahead takes on a new urgency.
To solve the global threat, we need to galvanise current efforts, elevate the climate conversation and harness the power of our universities to embrace new ideas and partner on creative, effective practical solutions.