Search

Purpose: To combat climate change and safeguard a liveable future, humanity needs fundamental and rapid social change. The purpose of this paper is to show, why and how climate communication can play an important role to nurture the public engagement needed for this change, and to explore, what higher education for sustainability can learn from climate communication. Design/methodology/approach: The scientific evidence base on climate communication for effective public engagement is summarised into 10 key principles, including "basing communication on people's values", "conscious use of framing" and "turning concern into action". Based on the author's perspective and experience in the university context, implications are explored for sustainability in higher education. Findings: The study provides suggestions for teaching (e.g. complement information with consistent behaviour by the lecturer, integrate local stories and provide students with basic skills to communicate climate effectively), for research (e.g. make teaching for effective engagement the subject of applied research), for universities' third mission to contribute to sustainable development in the society (e.g. provide climate communication trainings to empower local stakeholders) and greening the campus (develop a proper engagement infrastructure, e.g. by a university storytelling exchange on climate action). Originality/value: The study provides an up-to-date overview of climate communication research, which is in itself original. This evidence base holds interesting learnings for institutions of higher education, and the link between climate communication and universities has so far not been explored comprehensively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of new transformational technology, known as the fourth industrial revolution, has crucially opened a new window to green economic growth. The transition to low carbon, green economy, and green sustainability has gained momentum simultaneously in developed and developing countries. The greening policy echoes the pending climate change and its entrenching disruptions. Financial technology, or FinTech seems to be a promising direction in unlocking the green dilemma; to be concrete, FinTech and the green economy are separately documented in the literature. Against this background, the current study investigates the intersection between green economic growth and FinTech by conducting a systematic-cum-bibliometric analysis of published papers in the Scopus database with the goal of first examining the role and opportunities of implementing green FinTech as a stimulus for transition towards green economic growth in African countries and, second, identifying knowledge gaps and future policy and research directions by developing an integrated framework to help African countries in the transition to green economic growth and green FinTech. The results illustrate an increasing trend in research attention towards the green FinTech concept and its relationship with green economic growth, climate change, and greening rules and standards. A deep inspection of the mined papers indicates that future research trajectories are oriented into five different mainstreams: technology and instruments in digital finance; regulation, policies, and green FinTech; climate risk mitigation through FinTech; FinTech and environmental quality; green finance and climate change mitigation. Based on these research directions, an integrated framework was conceptualised that aims to deliver green economic growth using FinTech as a vehicle of transition for African countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Sixth Assessment Report of Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has highlighted the urgency of accelerated climate actions harnessing synergies and minimizing trade-offs with various SDG. This calls for a clear understanding of linkages between climate goals and other SDGs at national level for formulating synergistic policies and strategies and developing different sectoral programs and coherent cross-sectoral policies. This is even more important for least developed countries such as Nepal where these linkages are less understood and development challenges are multifaceted. In this context, this paper aims to evaluate potential synergies and trade-offs among selected SDGs and their associated targets in Nepal in a linear pairwise comparison. Synergies and trade-offs related to climate action (SDG 13), access to energy (SDG 7), sustainable consumption and production (SDG 12), and life on land (SDG 15) have been evaluated using historical data for the period from 1990 to 2018 employing a mixed methods approach. Network analysis to map the conceptual linkages between the SDGs and their targets was combined with the advance sustainability analysis (ASA) to quantitatively evaluate the synergy and trade-offs between SDGs. The results illustrate the presences of a continual trade-off between emission reductions targets of SDG 13 with per capita energy consumption and share of renewable energy of SDG 7, land use for agricultural production target of SDG 12, and forest area target of SDG 15. This indicates that climate action is strongly interlinked with GHG emissions from economic activities and energy consumption. The results of the study represent a valuable input for the policy makers, supporting coherent and sustainable development planning as Nepal plans to graduate to a middle-income country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In respect to CO2 emissions, the post-Soviet states are a scientifically interesting object of research, as each of the countries has developed via different paths since reclaiming independence from the Soviet Union. Given that each country has a different approach to the use of fossil resources, it is essential to assess their input to global carbon footprint individually. Such assessment then allows to find certain actions in the development of legislation and to apply focused techniques to reduce carbon emissions. The aim of this study was to evaluate the fossil CO2 emissions produced in the Baltic States from 1991 onward, describing challenges relating to sustainability and socio-economic, scientific, and integrated approaches to sustainable development, including clean and efficient use of energy, and thus addressing climate challenges. This paper reports on data on CO2 emissions in the Baltic States. The results show that the transition of the Baltic States from the specificities of the Soviet Union's economy to an economy integrated into global markets has led to a significant reduction in CO2 emissions. However, the development and implementation of national policies for sustainable development are still crucial for mitigation of the climate crisis. Further actions must include the implementation and monitoring of policies for sustainable development, changing of the consumption and production patterns, education and awareness of sustainability, and adaptation to global climate change, while also addressing sustainability challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to report on a case study concerning the development of sustainable energy partnerships involving engineering faculty and undergraduate students at the University of Girona, Catalonia, Spain. Design/methodology/approach: Faculty were motivated to seek partnerships with public and private entities in the local area for the purposes of realising mutually beneficial outcomes. The educational programmes of future engineers, when sustainability is considered, are analysed. Education for sustainable development has to include multidisciplinary active learning as a desirable competence. Active learning can be obtained when problems are based on real life because they are most motivating for students. Constructive alignment component is obtained because learning objectives are linked with learning activities related to the needs of public and private entities. Findings: Through the provision of technical expertise, the adoption and success of renewable energy projects was facilitated on the one hand, while final year undergraduate students benefited in terms of hands-on experience in helping to bring these projects to life, drawing on the knowledge and skills they had acquired throughout their degree programmes. These works are addressed to students by faculty members with the aim of developing and promoting renewable energies. Outcomes from partnerships surpassed expectations; not only were different benefits realised as were initially hoped for, but this success led to partnerships being sustained over time. Originality/value: Fossil fuel-based energy systems are associated with a myriad of negative environmental and social externalities. It is difficult to overstate the importance of transitioning towards alternative low carbon energy sources for climate change mitigation which are less centralised compared to the status-quo for energy security and energy independence. By actively facilitating the development of decentralised renewable energy sources in Catalonia, the projects reported herein are of significant value in social environmental and educational terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]