BC and beyond

Guide editor

Vic NeufeldAssociate Fellow Centre for Global Studies University of Victoria

Summary

This initiative was discussed at a BCCI-2 session on 10 August 2019, introduced by Jerry Spiegel and Vic Neufeld, with Kristy Faccer (PICS program manager) as a discussant. The key idea is to explore “knowledge to action” inter-relationships between climate change impacts locally (in B.C.) and globally (that is “beyond’)—particularly in countries of the “global South”. An inter-university working group prepared a “version 1” working paper that was available prior to the session and then discussed at the session itself.

Key messages

  • There are clear interactions between climate change impacts in high-income countries (the North) and low-income countries (the South).
  • The world’s richest countries are primarily responsible for the production of greenhouse gases (GHG’s), while the world’s poorest countries and vulnerable populations within them are most affected despite having contributed least to climate change. A response to this situation is sometimes referred to as climate justice.
  • Significant south-north mutual benefits can be achieved by creating collaborations where researchers and knowledge users (policy makers, practitioners and others) create authentic partnerships to work together on these global challenges.

Resources

A relevant report

Each year since 2017, an interdisciplinary collaborative known as the Lance Countdown publishes an independent assessment that monitors the evolving health profile of climate change, in reference to the commitments made by governments under the 2015 Paris Agreement. The 2019 report based on 41 indicators across five domains was released on November 16. The report describes trends that are “deeply concerning”, with a continuing rise in greenhouse gases.

However, renewable energy sources, investments in health system adaptation and sustainable transport systems are increasing, along with a significant growth in public engagement. Please find a link to the online report: The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: ensuring that the health of a child born today is not defined by a changing climate

Follow-up developments

September to December 2019

The working group reviewed the helpful suggestions and questions from participant colleagues made during the BCCI session, and have included them in subsequent discussions and documents. Specific funding opportunities were explored and further discussions took place, particularly with “solution seeking partners” in both BC and the global South.

January to March 2020

In December we learned that the Pacific Institute for Global Solutions (PICS) called for proposals to a relatively new program called the Theme Partnership Program. This is an annual call for major proposals in a two-step process. Although the team realized that this was likely to be a very competitive call, we decided in January to prepare a proposal that would feature four “partnerships—two in BC (youth and indigenous), and two in the Global South (Nigeria and Zambia). Attached is an info-gram that features the “youth partnership” role through a special initiative called the “Institute for Global Solutions” at a local high school. See the vision statement tin particular. The principal Investigator (PI) was Tim Takaro (Simon Fraser University) and the Co-PI was Katrina Plamondon (UBC-O). A Letter of Intent (LOI) that was submitted on February 14. But unfortunately, on March 17 we received news that our team would not be requested to submit a full proposal.

We then prepared a 12-month Planning and Dissemination” proposal to CIHR entitled: Building Local Adaptive Capacity to Climate Change: Mobilizing youth and indigenous communities in BC and beyond”. The PI this time was Katrina Plamondon. Although the proposal was submitted in March, we have not yet heard news about the outcome, mainly because of the COVID-19 delay.

April to August 2020

We then learned about another PICS research program called the “Opportunities Projects Program” (OPP). Because this was a somewhat smaller opportunity than the earlier theme program, the team decided to focus on the BC partnerships—mainly the youth partnership, supported indigenous knowledge and experience. The project title is: “Strengthening Youth Engagement in Climate Solutions through Transformative Governance”. Again, Tim and Katrina are the co-PI’s.  This proposal was submitted on August 4. We anticipate hearing news about the outcome sometime in early December. Note: the 5-page main body of the proposal is available upon request—please contact either Katrina Plamondon or Vic Neufeld.

Next steps

Meanwhile, in addition to all the action of preparing proposals, we continue to work with our Nigerian and Zambian partnerships. Mainly for the benefit of our BCCI-CoP colleagues, we plan to prepare sub-modules focused on these two partnerships, as appendices to the main BC and beyond module. Stay tuned for these.

Please send any comments and questions to Vic at: vrneufeld@gmail.com 

%d bloggers like this: