Responding to Climate Change

Did you know that teabags are made of plastic? Do you know where that plastic ends up? With WUN funding, a team of researchers led by Professor Bruce Sutherland (University of Alberta) are learning how to predict the movements of microplastics after their entry into water systems. Click through to read more about their recent workshop and their goal to help policy-makers take action.

WUN recently held the first set networking workshops as part of its special program for early career researcher (ECR) entitled “Developing the next generation of research leaders for sustainable development.” The first two, of which there will be 17 in total, focused on SDG 13: Climate Action, and SDG 4: Quality Education, respectively. Click through for a summary and videos of the keynote talks.

A study done by the Institute of Future Cities at CUHK reveals that hot nights pose greater threat to public health than hot days and better urban planning and building design are needed to mitigate the impact.

(22 June series update)

Following World Oceans Day, WUN is pleased to share a presentation of a series of articles in which United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) presents ocean science from WUN member the University of Bergen, UNAI’s Hub institution for SDG 14: Life below water in the Sustainable Ocean Series. 

We will be sharing four features from this project, a new article to be published each Monday, and also highlight what WUN research teams are doing to address the future of our oceans.  Click through for more.

While disasters and environmental factors have always been important drivers of migration, even more people are expected to move as they face the projected impacts of climate change, including more extreme weather events, changes in water quality and availability, and interactions with conflict. 

A recent ruling of the UN Human Rights Committee, which stated that people cannot be sent back to countries where climate change impacts place them in immediate danger, was treated by many commentators as a landmark protection for environmental migrants. As Professor Andreas Neef (University of Auckland) explains in this feature, the reality is more complex. Recipient of a 2020 WUN Research Development Fund award, a WUN member consortium will advance interdisciplinary research into climate-induced migration. It aims to help improve policies through a better understanding of the complex drivers of migration and displacement associated with climatic changes.  Click through for the full story.

Not just talking, but doing: with funding from the WUN Research Development Fund, academics from four WUN universities got together with experts and decision-makers in Accra to combine forces on global waste management. Professor Shyama V. Ramani and PhD researcher Ms Maria Tomai talk here about their recent activities.

Using advanced computer models, CUHK researchers found that intercropping enables higher productivity in crops with less synthetic fertilizers and hence reduces the air pollutants being volatilized from the cropland soil. This sustainable farming practice may help maintain a stable food supply and mitigate the air pollution problem in China. 

Prof Hon-ming Lam, CUHK professor and WUN IRG leader, completed the world’s first reference-grade wild soybean genome.

National conference on the role of Norwegian universities in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

A new platform to identify climate-smart adaptations in Fiji and Tonga will assist communities vulnerable to climate change.

The Canmore Declaration is defined as the interdependent vitality of all natural and anthropogenic ecosystems: social, political and otherwise.

WUN Responding to Climate Change Global Challenge Workshop 

CUHK and  one of the University of Exeter launched a new HK$20m joint research centre to embark on large, impactful interdisciplinary collaborations to tackle emerging issues related to a changing environment and human health and well being.

GCRF-AFRICAP project has been launched in Pretoria.

WUN member, The University of Bergen (UiB), will be climate-neutral by 2030 thanks to a commitment to sustainability announced at the first SDG Conference Bergen held in February 2018.

CUHK and the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust join hands to co-host the Hong Kong chapter of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.  

Major findings WUN Responding to Climate Change research group published in science journal Atmospheric Environment.

Bristol to host major international workshop on livestock and SDGs

CUHK has been selected to play host to the next Association of Commonwealth Universities Summer School on 1-9 July 2018.

The WUN Symposium cum Research Summit on Impacts of Grain Legume Research and Development in Developing Countries held at CUHK on 8-17 June 2017 brought together over 100 participants from six continents to exchange knowledge and ideas on the development of legumes research.

The Chinese University of Hong Kong has been awarded some HK$8m from the Hong Kong University Grants Committee to lead the AoE Centre for Genomic Studies on Plant-Environment Interaction for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security from 2017 to 2025. The new AoE Centre will develop new plant and agricultural technology with a view to striking a better balance between sustainable agriculture and food security. 

The Institute of Future Cities at CUHK has developed the first platform in Hong Kong for integrating and analysing urban big data in an effort to help Hong Kong to become a smart city in the areas of personalized health monitoring, urban planning, air quality, and social care.

CUHK engineers have invented the most efficient asymmetric supercapacitors and the flow batteries with the highest volumetric capacity reported to date.

The Climate- Resilient Open Partnership for Food Security project (CROP-FS) published in Nature magazine. 

The Institute of Future Cities at CUHK has conducted a comprehensive research on low-carbon transport practices and policies with the objective of formulating a strategy for Hong Kong’s future low-carbon transport system initiatives.

CUHK forms tri-continental partnership with the University of Toronto and Utrecht University for innovative solutions on urban issues

Researchers have used ‘network theory’ for the first time to visually depict the movement of dinosaurs around the world during the Mesozoic Era – including a curious exodus from Europe. The research, led by the University of Leeds and published in the Journal of Biogeography, also reaffirms previous studies that have found that dinosaurs continued to migrate to all parts of the world after the ‘supercontinent’ Pangaea split into land masses that are separated by oceans.

Large animals play a key role in mitigating climate change in tropical forests by spreading the seeds of large trees that have a high capacity to store carbon, new research has found. The research, co-led by the University of Leeds and published in the journal Nature Communications, sheds important new light on the role seed dispersal by animals plays in mitigating climate change, and how this role can vary in tropical forests across the world.

On 2-7 April, close to 400 academics and university leaders from around the world will descend on Maastricht for the WUN Conference & AGM 2016, hosted by Maastricht University.

Environmental health science researcher Richard Peltier at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, with others around the world, is launching a series of webinars and events for a Do-It-Yourself, citizen science campaign called “Air Sensors Everywhere.” It aims to bring small air pollution sensors to the developed and developing world “to empower people everywhere to use low-cost pollution sensors to reduce pollution-linked disease.”

Prof. Hon-Ming Lam, Director of the Centre for Soybean Research of the Partner State Key Laboratory of Agrobiotechnology at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and his team have uncovered the structure and functions of the Rice YchF-type G Protein for the first time. The new findings help improve plants’ defense response and stress tolerance, and maintain a higher agricultural productivity under adverse conditions.

After many years of failed attempts, world leaders have finally signed a comprehensive deal to address climate change at COP21 in Paris. WUN was there.

As the world’s population continues to grow and the effects of global warming and climate change begin to affect crop yields, new and existing crops must be developed that are resilient to temperature extremes, drought and salinity, while also being cheap to produce. The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, himself, noted the scale of the problem saying “diversification of crops with legumes and other practical measures must be scaled up to end hunger while meeting the challenge of climate change”.

The world will gather in Paris in early December for the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) to develop solutions to climate change and WUN will join them as an official observer organisation.

Much like the printing press, the invention of the world wide web has afforded us unprecedented opportunities for spreading information. Not only do we now have the capacity to share rich data sets online, we also have vast amounts of data about our online activity. However, without a proper framework in place, it is difficult to take full advantage of this rich information resource. There are currently multiple barriers to using this resource effectively, including accessibility of datasets, lack of comprehensive and shareable metadata, dataset identification and searching, access control and privileges, and analytics.

Researchers report that continued deforestation of the Amazon rainforest could diminish rainfall levels in the Amazon River basin, which may impact the region’s climate, ecosystems and economies.

A new study, published on Thursday 12 November in Geophysical Research Letters, predicts that by the middle of the century annual rainfall in the Amazon could be less than the yearly amount of rain the region receives during drought years if deforestation rates revert back to pre-2004 levels. 

Prof. Amos P.K. Tai of the Earth System Science Programme at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) was recently conferred the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) Research Award for Young Scientists for 2015. The award was presented to Prof.Tai for his paper in Nature Climate Change, Volume 4, 2014, titled “Threat to future global food security from climate change and ozone air pollution”. Prof. Tai is the first Hong Kong scientist receiving the Award.

In communities where livelihoods are linked to the land and sea, environmental security is of utmost importance. This is particularly true in the developing nations of the Asia-Pacific, where many localities have a high dependency on fisheries, tourism and agriculture. Moreover, global changes are increasingly resulting in challenging localised impacts, such as increased frequency of extreme events. Thus, understanding the social-environment system is imperative to providing solutions for responding to climate change.

A new study, by scientists from the University of Southampton and National Oceanography Centre (NOC), implies that the global climate is on the verge of broad-scale change that could last for a number of decades.

Global food security has become an increasingly important issue as climate change further reduces the amount of land available for farming. Coupled to this is the higher demand for animal protein as developing nations become wealthier, and a higher demand for cereals, making them less attractive as animal feed at both an economic and social level. This has resulted on a greater emphasis on ruminant farming (e.g. cattle and goats) because these animals are capable of converting feed unsuitable for human consumption into high-value protein.

Scientists from the University of Southampton have found that ocean tides have changed significantly over the last century at many coastal locations around the world.

New evidence showing the level of atmospheric CO2 millions of years ago supports recent climate change predications from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Students and researchers from Europe and North America moved the lecture hall to Greenland to learn more about climate dynamics.

One of the world’s most vital resources—water—is increasingly at the centre of debate. Its scarcity has intensified the movement toward water as a human right, yet private control over water utilities is simultaneously increasing. Although this tension is only just emerging, experts believe it will rapidly intensify as more investors seek access to fresh water in new countries.

The Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute (SMMI) at the University of Southampton has been awarded over one million pounds to develop students who will help tackle global marine and maritime challenges.

New research shows that ocean heat uptake across three oceans is the likely cause of the ‘warming hiatus’ – the current decade-long slowdown in global surface warming.

A team of researchers from the universities of Southampton, Bristol and Liverpool have derived the first theoretical equation to demonstrate that global warming is a direct result of the build-up of carbon emissions since the late 1800s when man-made carbon emissions began. The results are in accord with previous data from climate models.

A study of ancient marine algae, led by the University of Southampton, has found that climate change affected their growth and skeleton structure, which has potential significance for today’s equivalent microscopic organisms that play an important role in the world’s oceans.

The Advanced Climate Dynamics Courses (ACDC) are yearly international research training schools for PhD students organized by the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research in Bergen in collaboration with the Norwegian Research School in Climate Dynamics (ResClim).

Scientists at the Universities of Southampton and Cardiff have discovered that a globally warm period in Earth’s geological past featured highly variable levels of CO2.

People around the world are living longer, but social policies to support their wellbeing in later life are lagging behind in many countries. This is according a new report by HelpAge International, developed in partnership with the University of Southampton.

Scientists from the University of Southampton and National Oceanography Centre, Southampton contributed to the world’s first ever sub-sea carbon dioxide impact, detection and monitoring experiment relevant to Carbon dioxide Capture and Storage (CCS) in sub-seabed storage reservoirs.

Geographers at the University of Southampton have developed a new way to measure the ‘health’ of poor regional communities.  They aim to improve the wellbeing of people by guiding sustainable development practices to help avoid social and environmental collapse.

Land-ice decay at the end of the last five ice-ages caused global sea-levels to rise at rates of up to 5.5 metres per century, according to a new study.

A rise in the number of reported floods in the UK over the past 129 years can be related to increased exposure, resulting from urban expansion and population growth, according to new research by the University of Southampton.

New research has identified areas of the Earth that are high priorities for conservation in the face of climate change.

Geographers at the University of Southampton have found a link between increasing average temperatures in India and a reduction in wheat production.

Scientists from the University of Southampton have helped to create a new map, which shows the impact climate change could have on the whole planet by the end of the century, if carbon emissions continue to increase.