UBC's Role 101: How can UBC address the climate emergency?

UBC Can Support People Taking Action

Given its role as a public academic institution, how can UBC foster a culture of active citizenship through supporting teaching, learning and research about climate change and climate justice? What are some ways it might better equip its students towards an uncertain future?

  • Teaching and learning  Supporting instructors to create courses centering on or weaving in climate science and justice with an interdisciplinary focus across faculties
  • Research and innovation Creating the license and resources for students and faculty to research and test bold analyses and solutions to the crisis
  • Building skills and opportunities WorkLearn, internships, Trek and more; UBC can create avenues to build skills and experiences for climate leadership on and off campus

UBC Can Support Community Action

How can UBC support communities responding to the climate emergency? 

  • Departments, staff and students We can assess how our immediate work is implicated in a just transition to a fossil-fuel free future and what actions we can take at a local level through faculties, clubs, staff units and more.
  • Strengthening connections We are all part of different communities: personal identities, professional pursuits, creativity, hobbies, athletics and more. These communities already feel–and will continue to feel–the impacts of climate change unevenly. There’s strength in sharing the differences of these impacts, building alliances across these communities and tackling these issues together.
  • Daily life and operations Our commute, food procurement, building and lab energy usage and all facets of campus life contain a carbon footprint we can measure and reduce.

UBC Can Take Action as an Institution

How can UBC as an institution advocate for climate justice on municipal, provincial, national and global levels?

  • Influencing and creating policy This can be achieved through advocacy, as well as deepening support for public scholarship that engages with and empowers citizens.
  • Civic engagement and pressure From raising voting awareness on campus to professors encouraging climate strike attendance, the campus can facilitate democratic involvement.
  • Supporting Indigenous self-determination We can model justice by strengthening commitment to upholding/supporting Indigenous self-determination and condemning violence against Indigenous communities locally and globally.