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campusreview.com.au
Cool heads
UNSW leads world university
‘climate alliance’.
Forty of the world’s leading climate
research universities have formed
the International Universities Climate
Alliance (IUCA) to fight climate change.
The IUCA’s united goal is to ensure
that governments, the public, media and
industry have “better access to researchbased
facts on climate change science,
impacts, adaptation and mitigation”.
UNSW Sydney has spearheaded the
establishment of the alliance to provide
evidence-based recommendations to
accelerate climate action, and is initially
coordinating with other IUCA member
universities around the world.
UNSW president and vice-chancellor
Professor Ian Jacobs said: “The climate
alliance will elevate the voices of
exceptional researchers by providing
a new, global platform for universities
to communicate climate research with
authority internationally.
“This new platform is needed now
more than ever as the world grapples
with providing a coordinated approach to
tackling climate change.”
Despite the ongoing urgency of curbing
the COVID-19 pandemic, the 40 alliance
members decided they would not delay
the alliance “due to the pressing and
ongoing need to accelerate climate change
mitigation and improve decision-making”.
An alliance charter is currently being
developed, and a series of meetings being
planned, to decide how best to deploy the
activities of members.
The members are experts in disciplines as
varied as science, economics, engineering,
law, social science and planning.
A website has also been developed
at www.universitiesforclimate.org, with
participating universities including Arizona
State University, California Institute of
Technology, Nanjing University, the
University of Edinburgh and the University
of Hong Kong.
“Worldwide interest to act on climate
change has been growing, but the pace of
that change has been far too slow,” UNSW
Climate Change Research Centre Professor
Matthew England said.
“The alliance aims to accelerate climate
action and to ensure that mitigation efforts
are properly factored in with adaptation
actions.”
The professor highlighted a 2019 UNSW
survey, conducted before the COVID-19
pandemic, that showed “people see
climate change as the biggest ongoing
threat, and most agree a global alliance of
universities can help government overcome
policy gridlock”.
“With various scientific and governmentrelated
reports across many nations
demonstrating that climate change
is causing more extreme events, it is
understandable that people feel frustration
about a lack of government policy and
leadership in tackling this issue,” he said. ■
Rufus Black. Photo: Richard Jupe/News Corp
The trade-off in Tasmania
UTAS vice-chancellor outlines his
university’s immediate future.
By Wade Zaglas
The University of Tasmania’s vicechancellor,
Professor Rufus Black,
says that in the face of the evolving
COVID-19 pandemic, he will prioritise
keeping staff, despite expecting to lose
thousands of students both this year
and next.
UTAS intends to stay afloat by slashing
roughly 40 per cent of non-salary expenses.
These expenses include travel,
entertainment and capital programs.
Black told a reporter that UTAS would
also be pausing its master plan for the
university’s southern campus, saying “it was
not the time for it”.
For years, UTAS has over-relied on
Chinese students for revenue, which Black
has admitted to, while being unable to
attract more of the domestic share of the
student market.
Black said it was critical that Tasmania
had its own university.
“We’re confident we can get through this
period,” he added.
He also said it was important that his
university looked after its staff over the
period, even offering them a pandemic sick
leave payment.
Black said that a “small number of
students” had dropped out since news of
the university’s situation broke, despite the
university expecting to reduce its courses
from 540 to 120 by next year. ■
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