A round table that included the participation of the rector of Unicamp, Antonio José de Almeida Meirelles, the co-president of the International Resources Panel of the United Nations (UN) and former minister of the Environment Izabella Teixeira and the vice-rector for the Climate and Sustainability at Harvard University (USA), James Stock, opened the seminar this Monday morning Climate Emergency: what should the university do to face it now?, which, until next Wednesday (16), intends to bring together experts – Brazilian and foreign – to debate the climate crisis, considered the greatest challenge in human history .
“We are gathered here not only looking for answers to this question, but to see results from this event that lead universities, especially in Brazil, to take a more aggressive, more purposeful, more civic-minded position in relation to what is happening,” he said. The historian and professor at the Institute of Philosophy and Human Sciences (IFCH) Neri de Barros Almeida, who is part of the Advisory Committee on Ecological Change and Environmental Justice (Cameja) of the Executive Directorate of Human Rights (DEDH) at Unicamp, the event's organizing entity.
At the opening of the seminar, the professor remembered the historian Marc Bloch, who, as a Jew, over 50 years old, enlisted in the French army to fight the Nazi German army in the invasion of France and ended up arrested and murdered.
She says that, during his prison term, the medievalist Bloch wrote two books – one of them is called Strange Defeat – in which he reflects on the reasons why France had been defeated, and in such an overwhelming, rapid, and unquestionable way. "Why did this happen? Where was the citizen? Where were the State, respect, trust and citizenship at that time?” asked the teacher.
“This book comes to mind whenever I come across this problem we are experiencing. Because today we are definitely in the midst of a strange defeat. Because the problem we are experiencing has a solution, but the solution has not advanced satisfactorily. So the question I ask myself as a historian, together with my colleagues, is: what can we do from where we are – since everyone has some responsibility in this debate – so that we don't have a strange defeat and, above all, we don't have a defeat that would be, and will be, definitive?”, he warns. “There is no plan B for the human species,” she decrees.
Sustainability and new technologies
The opening table was mediated by professors Andreas Gombert, from the Faculty of Food Engineering (FEA), and Leila da Costa Ferreira, from IFCH and the Center for Environmental Studies and Research (Nepam) at Unicamp.
In his presentation, the University rector highlighted the actions underway at Unicamp that promote sustainability in the creation of new technologies and their implementation in the day-to-day activities of the campuses.
“Unicamp is one of the most innovative universities in Brazil, a leader in the generation of patents and with a significant number of daughter companies, many of them dedicated to working with sustainability”, commented Meirelles.
He highlighted the efforts of the university community to seek alternatives to limit carbon emissions and waste generation, including the installation of photovoltaic energy production units, which already corresponds to 7,5% of all energy consumed by the university campus. Barão Geraldo (Campinas) and 30% of that consumed by the Limeira campuses. “Unicamp is the only Brazilian university that participates in the free energy market and, from 2024, all energy acquired by the university will be 100% renewable”, he pointed out.
The dean also presented the work carried out by research centers and centers that develop new sustainability technologies and provide subsidies for the formulation and implementation of public policies that also promote social justice.
“Our campus needs to be a place for experimentation, in order to make technologies viable for a sustainable future. Innovation is not only carried out in research institutes. Promoting the sustainability agenda in the economy and putting it at the service of inclusion and social justice are major challenges,” she declared.
The rector also recalled HIDS (International HUB for Sustainable Development) – an intelligent district under development in an area of 11,5 million m² in Fazenda Argentina, owned by Unicamp –, which aims to add space sharing by technology and sustainable urban solutions with the preservation of nature.
Rising sea levels
Meirelles' perspective is shared by Stock when talking about the sustainability actions developed at Harvard University. At the beginning of the presentation, Stock showed a projection of the effect that climate change could have on rising ocean levels.
According to studies, the surroundings of Boston, the region where Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are located, would be severely affected, leaving these institutions underwater. “Here in Boston, we can build barriers to prevent the effects of rising sea levels. But this is not an option for everyone”, he assessed.
According to Stock, universities should try to raise awareness not only in society, but also among political leaders. He cites as an example the challenge of integrating clean energy initiatives within the United States, as each region has different potential. This would require the construction of an infrastructure that goes beyond state limits, which, in his view, comes up against political issues.
“Decarbonization not only requires technologies, but also political will. It would be great to have an authority above the States for this, but today, in the United States, this is very difficult,” he revealed.
Harvard currently relies on the work of the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability, of which Stock is director. The unit is dedicated to developing research and technologies focused on sustainability and that integrate expertise of the University's various schools and faculties, in order to create adaptations and mitigations for the climate change scenario.
"What we do is unite our different schools in projects aimed at climate change. It is necessary for academics to not only seek to produce knowledge, but to put actions into practice and promote changes. Universities are places where these changes tend to be successful.”
Low carbon
Teixeira said that universities have a strategic role in building what he called “contemporary Brazil”, which includes making the communities in which they are located understand the climate issue as a local and global development challenge.
“Universities connect the community to the world. And they connect the world to these realities,” she said. “It is necessary to decentralize traditional scientific knowledge. We need to understand how we discuss the future from now on,” she added, before making a provocation.
“A university like Unicamp must have a climate change agenda, mobilizing the metropolitan region, mayors, leaders, society. And, in fact, provoking Brazil to transform towards a low-carbon economy. Therefore, the transformation starts here (at the university). We don't have to wait for them to bring it. The initiative has to start from here, so we can impact, influence and, really, transform”, he taught.
She also said that the actions developed at universities must have practical implications, in order to promote concrete changes. According to Teixeira, institutions cannot run the risk of working only on a level of ideas, but direct their efforts towards tangible changes.
“Brazil is one of the few countries in the world that have short-term alternatives. Around 92% of our electrical matrix is renewable, and that's no small feat. It is necessary to deal with this transformation by understanding the uncertainties and understanding that the future is not linear”, he concludes.
Development agencies
The second table of the day was a discussion around the role of development agencies in the face of the climate emergency and was attended by the president of Capes (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel), Mercedes Bustamante; by Cristina Caldas, from the Serrapilheira Institute; by Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz, senior vice president of Elsevier Research Networks; and Ricardo Galvão, from CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development).
“Funding agencies — and here I am referring not only to CNPq, but to all state foundations and Finep (Studies and Projects Financier) — have a very important role in the issue of providing resources on topics of great relevance to this issue of climate emergency,” said Galvão.
“CNPq has, for some time now, been financing research and development projects related to climate issues. We have, for example, the INCT (National Institute of Science and Technology) on climate change and we have taken very strong actions in this direction”, he says.
“What we are missing now, and the CNPq will start, is greater international insertion in attacking these problems. Not long ago, on August 8, we had the Amazon Summit. We are analyzing with other agencies from Pan-American countries or with ministries of science and technology to have joint calls, because these problems are not just Brazilian”, he anticipated. “The problem is that in Brazil the resources for development are still very modest. We have to invest much more,” she concluded.
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Seminar discusses the role of universities in tackling the climate crisis
