Is Higher Education Playing a Leading Role in Climate Action? Part I.

The report “Higher Education’s Role in Adapting to a Changing Climate” was prepared in 2011 by the Higher Education Climate Adaptation Committee—a group of experts and institutional leaders in the United States—that is convened and coordinated by Second Nature in support of the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC). Although it is a bit dated by this point, the report does include a relevant list of things that higher education should be considering in terms of climate action. While at COP25, I have been thinking a lot about this list as prompts for series of blog posts. In the first of this series, I will focus on a quote from the Executive Summary of that report:

Higher education has taken a leadership role in climate mitigation — that is, preventing climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. 

In 2006, twelve college and university presidents initiated ACUPCC and eventually, hundreds of institutions signed on to a commitment in which they were to a) develop a plan to achieve climate neutrality as soon as possible; b) complete an comprehensive inventory of all greenhouse gas emissions associated with the institution; and c) make the action plan, inventory and progress reports publicly available. Jennie Stephens, from Northeastern’s School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs is an expert in the social-political aspects of renewable energy transformation. Writing in The Conversation in 2018, Dr. Stephens argues that climate advocacy “has become well established on US campuses over the past decade,” with over 600 schools signing the American College and University President’s Climate Commitment.

To date, now thirteen years after the formation of ACUPCC, there are 6 signatory institutions that have achieved carbon neutrality according to Second Nature. Others plan to achieve this milestone by either 2025 or 2050 (but so do at least six states). Some campuses have been engaged in energy efficiency initiatives, either through new construction of LEED certified buildings or simply as a cost savings measure. Some institutions simply participate in mandatory demand response programs to curtail electrical use at critical times (e.g. during a heat wave) to minimize the chance of an electrical blackout. In the same article referenced above, Dr. Stephens noted that as of 2018, only 150 campuses globally had committed to divest their holdings in fossil fuel companies, and only about one-third of those are in the U.S.

Given these numbers, I would argue that overall, institutions of higher education are not demonstrating strong climate action leadership. There are exceptions of course (Monash University in Australia comes to mind). But given the research and innovation that universities are typically known for, we can and should be doing better, especially given the urgency needed to address climate change as outlined in the 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report Global Warming of 1.5 °C and strongly reiterated in the special reports the IPCC published this year on Climate Change and Land and on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate.

These signs are seen frequently around the COP25 venue

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The Executive Summary from the 2011 report that I referenced at the start of this post notes that “campuses face direct risks to their operations and infrastructure from the impacts of climate disruption,” and thus, have the unique opportunity to role-model solutions in their own operations. Earlier today, I attended the 10th World Climate Summit that is held annually in conjunction with the COPs. While this is very much a business and investment-focused event, I went to a session entitled “Physical Climate Risk and Response” hosted by McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm. In a small group exercise, they asked attendees to consider the four questions in the screen shot below.

Discussion questions posed during a session hosted by McKinsey & Company

These seem like important questions for all institutions (including higher education) to be asking; I am curious as to how people at my campus would respond. One of the points made by the facilitators of this session was that climate risk should be integrated into the risk management framework of any organization. Thus, these questions seem like important ones for each campus to be asking as part of their own risk management. Without good answers to these questions, it would be difficult for an institution to take on one of the recommendations from the 2011 ACUPCC report where the authors suggested that higher education could also "serve as ‘hubs’ in their local communities for creating, testing, and disseminating knowledge about regional climate projections and adaptation strategies, and should work directly with their local communities to explain the science and implement solutions."

Heading to COP25

It is time for my annual trek to the United Nations climate meetings; my colleague, two students, two Moravian College alums, and I are about to head to COP25 in Madrid. This is our 11th COP as delegates of the college; we have brought over 30 students to these negotiations on the global stage since 2009. Until a few weeks ago, we thought we were headed to Santiago, Chile, but civil unrest there led to the government canceling the plans. Somehow, the United Nations and Spain found a way to organize this global event in different city, country and continent -- all in about a week! We won't talk about the disruption to plans made months earlier and, for many, lost deposits and airfare. 

I am preparing my presentation for a side event (panel) entitled Contributions of higher education to climate action and implementation of the Paris Agreement and came across this 11/26/19 post from David Hess, former secretary of the PA Department of Environmental Protection, entitled Major Businesses, Higher Ed Institutions Write To Members Of House, Senate Urging Pennsylvania To Accelerate Transition To A Low-Carbon Economy. I was interested to see the comments of neighboring college CEOs from eastern PA. 

There is also an interesting recent 5-part essay entitled How will higher education respond to climate change that begins here. This series was written by Bryan Alexander, an internationally known futurist, researcher, writer, speaker, consultant, and teacher, working in the field of how technology transforms education. Dr. Alexander has a Ph.D. in English, so speaks from the humanities perspective. For the first time that I recall, there is a COP25 side event that will focus on the humanities: Enhancing the Paris Ambition: Universities, Science, Humanities and Arts Interfaces 4 Future Life. I look forward to attending that session.

If you wonder why any of this matters, neither the most recent (greenhouse gas) Emissions Gap Report for 2019 nor the latest climate change research present a very positive scenario [see here for a summary, ref 1]. The students that we are currently educating will face a very different world in terms of climate and geo-political instability than we know now (think forced migrations, food and water insecurity, growing health concerns, and conflict). What will student success mean under these conditions? As we prepare individuals for transformative leadership in a world of change (part of the Moravian mission), are we preparing them for this change? Our campus InFocus programming is a start. Lest you think that I am being a bit melodramatic, check out this 11/29/19 article from The New Humanitarian [2].

If I still have your interest, here are two additional thoughts to consider:

1) Two weeks ago, the National Council for Science and the Environment released a report [3] showing the results of a survey of climate science publications from land grant and large R1 institutions from each state. One striking finding is that although institutions are working on regionally relevant climate research, they do little to communicate this data and its relevance to local decision makers. A few years ago at a gathering of environmental groups, faculty and students from the Lehigh Valley Association of Independent Colleges and other regional institutions, science faculty clearly expressed their reluctance to get involved in advocacy related to climate change or other local environmental challenges. Thus, this communication gap is not limited to the R1s.

2) A scientist from the German Development Institute and his colleagues recently completed an analysis [4] on whether countries indicate that education is necessary to implement Nationally Determined Contributions (to reducing greenhouse gas emissions). The bottom line according to Pieter Pauw is that "the lower the income levels of the countries, the larger the share of countries that states that education is necessary to implement the NDCs." The U.S. submitted their NDC in 2016, but there is no mention of education in it.

Screen shot from the NDC Explorer (Pauw, et al. 2017)

People I talked to over the past few weeks are curious as to how those of us from the U.S. will be "welcomed" given that we have formally begun the process of pulling out of the Paris Agreement, the only country to do so out of 196 states plus the European Union [5, 6]. That remains to be seen. Stay tuned.

Selected Works Cited:

1. Berwyn, B. "Climate Tipping Points Are Closer Than We Think, Scientists Warn." InsideClimate News, November 27, 2019.

2.  "Ebola setback, ‘starvation’ in Zimbabwe, and COP25 preparations: The Cheat Sheet." The New Humanitarian, Nov 29, 2019.

3. Goldman,  E.B. and M. Hyams. 2019. Climate Science Research in the United States and U.S. Territories: Survey of Scientific Publications from Selected Public Universities (2014-2018). The National Council for Science and the Environment: Washington, D.C.

4. Pauw, W.P, Cassanmagnano, D., Mbeva, K., Hein, J., Guarin, A., Brandi, C., Dzebo, A., Canales, N., Adams, K.M., Atteridge, A., Bock, T., Helms, J., Zalewski, A., Frommé. E., Lindener, A., Muhammad, D. (2016). NDC Explorer. German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE), African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS), Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI). DOI: 10.23661/ndc_explorer_2017_2.0´

5. Friedman, L. "Trump Serves Notice to Quit Paris Climate Agreement." The New York Times, November 4, 2019; available here. 

6. Hersher, R. "U.S. Formally Begins To Leave The Paris Climate Agreement." NPR All Things Considered, Novermber 4, 2019; available here.