Beyond Climate-Neutral
From Common Energy UVic
Going beyond climate-neutral is the strategic goal that Common Energy has set for universities and colleges to achieve our purpose of helping to create a future where the climate supports a diversity of life and prosperous societies.
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[edit] What does that mean?
Moving beyond climate-neutral means that an institution, or individual, does more to solve climate change than they do to cause it. It is a positive goal that emphasizes both our capacity to contribute to solutions and to reduce our contributions to the problem. What would it look like for UVic to move beyond climate-neutral? We are working together to find out.
We think of it as a question: How are we going to do more to solve the problems of climate change than we do to cause them?
Beyond climate-neutral is best understood in contrast with other climate change goals. A common goal is the absolute reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. UC Berkeley has committed to 80% reductions by 2050 and established a multi-stakeholder committee to plan the transition. Carbon dioxide neutrality is an increasingly popular goal that usually builds on emissions reductions. After reducing emissions the individual or institution purchases carbon dioxide offsets to achieve a net-zero impact on climate change. Over 300 universities (see report), including Oberlin College and the University of Florida, have committed to this strategy.
We want to use the university's primary asset to go beyond climate-neutral: its good ideas and creative thinkers. In Kinsale, Ireland, students in a Practical Sustainability class were asked to create a plan to wean their town from fossil fuels. They went out into the town and created the plan in collaboration with civic leaders, businesspeople, and the broader public. The result of that engagement was a plan that was realistic and had won deep support. As a result of this support, the plan became official town policy. Kinsale College deserves credit for the positive impact it had in the region – and will move beyond climate-neutral as the town weans itself from fossil fuels. The Kinsale Energy Descent Action Plan focuses on the possible challenges of Peak Oil, but its detailed time lines and systematic approach are almost all equally applicable to climate change.
[edit] How do we know when we’re there?
It is a truism that what gets measured gets managed. Measuring the right things in the right way will help guide our actions. With that said, effective action does not always need measurement: doing everything we can to make sure that our future climate supports a diversity of life and prosperous societies should not be limited by difficulties in measuring key indicators. For example, it will be difficult to establish exactly how many GHGs are emitted by UVic’s use of air travel. That does not mean that people should wait until we can perfectly measure this to develop and consider alternatives to flying.
This is even more important in the context of the "beyond" element of beyond climate neutral. In some cases, it will be possible to quantitatively measure the reductions and efficacy of projects such as a university research project on local waste disposal practices. Sometimes it will not be possible to quantitatively measure the results of this kind of project, let alone sell them for carbon credits or as a carbon offset. However, that does not mean that initiatives whose contributions are hard to quantify should not be created and impemented.
[edit] Quantitative Measurements
One of the reasons that going carbon neutral is attractive is that the quantification is satisfying. Measuring emissions, reducing them, and then purchasing offsets to cover the rest produces a tangible series of benchmarks. Furthermore, it lends itself to hard targets that can be backed up by clear data to guide decision-making for years to come. For those reasons, moving beyond climate neutral should involve achieving climate neutrality (i.e. net-zero climate impact) through verifiable emissions reductions. Since, for the moment, it is not feasible for the university to reduce its impacts to zero, achieving carbon neutrality will require financing emission reduction projects to account for the remainder. The measurement of the university's impacts will be done by a thorough CO2e inventory recently initiated by UVic's administration and conducted by members of Common Energy. The results of which will provide an important series of quantitative indicators to measure our progress and guide our actions.
[edit] Qualitative Indicators
The "beyond" part of beyond climate neutral is primarily qualitative. The fact that it would be virtually impossible to measure the quantitative impact of, for example, research done for local businesses on triple-bottom line accounting, does not mean that it should not be done and then recognized for the contribution it would make. To measure these kinds of effects we will develop proxy indicators and other qualitative methods to guide the implementation of the plan to move UVic beyond climate neutral. While the focus of the quantitative measures will be reduction, the focus of the qualitative measures will be growth and development. The "beyond" effect is inherently positive and will be used to celebrate success. In particular, these indicators will focus on the integration of local climate change research and education into coursework for students, so that they learn by contributing to local solutions for climate change.
[edit] How are we going to get there?
What could the emerging network of students, staff, and faculty interested in creating solutions to climate change do if they engaged with people in our region? We’re going to find out. At the Common Energy Conference: Finding Common Ground on the Climate Crisis we brought our emerging network together to launch a Planning Partnership. This partnership will create a beyond climate-neutral plans for UVic. We call this planning process Common Ground.
As those plans are implemented in the coming years UVic will go far beyond climate-neutral. It will do much more to solve climate change than it is doing to cause it.
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