Today: Mar 28, 2024

‘Solve Climate by 2030’ event

Donovan WilsonReporter

The university, along with UCONN, commit fully to solving the worldwide climate issue by 2030.

“Solve climate audiences are hearing from local leaders and making concrete steps to solve climate change and create needed income for everybody,” said Eban Goldstein, organizer of Solve Climate ny 2030.

Solve Climate By 2030 is an initiative hosted by the university and UConn for the last two years and is now on an international level. The event hosted last Wednesday was specifically to focus on the Connecticut perspectives of where they are going as a state climate wise.

The event was streamed on YouTube rather than on a government website and then recorded and put up for viewing so it could be as accessible as possible.

“Here in the south, we are proud to be the only college in North America to declare climate as an emergency,” said Miriah Kelly, moderator of the panel.

A huge part of the Solve Climate By 2030 initiative is an integration with education to reach the young people of America and get them involved with solving climate problems. A huge part of this is the “#makeclimateaclass” movement. The point of this movement is to make lower education integrate climate education and encourage secondary education to include optional climate oriented classes.

“Since that time, I’ve made UConn’s role in addressing the climate crisis a focus of my presidency,” said Thomas C. Katsouleas, current president of UConn.

UConn has made it a mission of theirs to help solve climate issues a part of that is cutting down on their carbon emissions. UConn’s efforts have placed them in the top 10 most sustainable campuses both nationwide and worldwide. Their goal is to remove all use of fossil fuels and have virtually no carbon use by what was originally the year 2050 and is now 2040 or sooner.

“We cannot have an ethic of care for each other unless we care about our planet and our climate, the two are inextricably linked,” said President Joe Bertolino.

Just like UConn, Southern has focused on carbon reduction. Some of the initiatives put in place to achieve this is the use of LED light bulbs, automated sensors and the composting of all food waste. The biggest thing the university is currently working towards as part of its initiative to solve climate problems is introducing a net zero energy school of business in only a few months, according to Bertolino. Southern has committed to net-carbon neutrality by 2050, and actively engaging campus and surrounding communities in climate resilience and adaptation.

“Reducing carbon emissions, but at the same time stimulating our economy and improving the air we breathe,” said Katie Dykes, commissioner of Connecticut Department of Energy. The website for the organization reads, “university and high school students across the planet, along with civil society, faith organizations and businesses, will tune into 100 events in 50 countries, university-hosted regional webinars critical to our future.”

The department’s biggest focus right now is a program called (TCI) the Transportation Climate Initiative. The TCI is essentially designed to implement practices into transportation that would cut down on the carbon produced by transit in Connecticut. These practices include building more roundabouts, lowering the costs of public transit and eventually replacing all public transit buses to electric buses.

“We’re recognizing our nation’s strength is in its diversity,” said Bryan Garcia, the president of Connecticut’s Green Bank.

Garcia and the Green Bank’s major focus is on the concept of green liberty bonds. Green liberty bonds are payments which, over time, increase in value and the money goes towards solving the climate issues. This concept is based on the war bonds from around WWII, which were, but proceeds went towards assisting the USA in the war.

Goldstein said, “For students listening, you are the leaders.”

1 Comment

  1. So great to see that y’all are in support of TCI! I’d love to connect with you to learn more about any upcoming events or campaigns you are planning on to promote TCI over the next few weeks/months.

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