Climate change a coolant for Tony Abbott’s meeting with Barack Obama
Fundamental differences over climate-change policy continue to hamper Tony Abbott’s capacity to build links in the US as both President Barack Obama and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon want more support from Australia for international action on carbon dioxide emissions.
Mr Abbott meets Mr Obama in the White House on Thursday (2am Friday AEST) for their first formal talks, and the issue of global warming is likely to arise. It is already the subject of pre-positioning by both sides.
Mr Obama recently announced a 30 per cent cut in emissions from coal-fired electricity generation by 2030, which he hopes to achieve through a combination of regulation and through delivering a price on carbon.
Mr Abbott, however, has made his opposition to carbon pricing and to binding international agreement even clearer. He used a visit to Canada before arriving in New York to caucus with the like-minded conservative leader Stephen Harper to publicly reinforce their contempt for carbon pricing. The two men expressed a newly articulated view against global limits, arguing individual countries should be free to determine their own action as long as there was no cost to economic growth.
In his meeting with Mr Ban on Tuesday, Mr Abbott sidestepped accepting an invitation to attend a UN-sponsored international conference on climate policy later this year.
The summit has been timed to precede the annual UN General Assembly session in September in a bid to maximise the involvement of leaders attending that session.
However, Fairfax Media understands Mr Abbott has no plans to attend either, despite the session coming towards the end of Australia’s membership of the elite UN Security Council.
A carefully worded read-out from the Abbott/Ban talks glossed over their climate differences.
But in a separate interview, Mr Ban’s spokesman on climate change, Dan Thomas, expressed disappointment.
In response to Mr Abbott’s statement that there were bigger problems than climate change, Mr Thomas said: ”We think that climate change should be the No.1 priority for all leaders to consider.”
The UN is looking for bold statements from leading countries in the hope of piercing a growing climate reluctance licensed in part by resistance from resource-rich countries such as Australia and Canada.
”It’s an opportunity to step up; we expect, we very much hope Australia will be there with them,” Mr Thomas said.
Mr Abbott’s stance on climate action has also drawn criticism from retiring US politician Henry Waxman, who was at the forefront of clean energy bills in America.
Mr Waxman said Australia, along with Canada, risked being ”behind-the-scenes laggers” rather than leaders on climate policy.
Both nations risked being out of sync with Europe and the US. ”I hope Australia doesn’t turn its back on its leadership role and become a drag on what we need to all be doing around the world,” Mr Waxman told ABC’s 7.30 on Wednesday.
The retiring senior Democrat also criticised the Coalition government’s ”voluntary” direct action policy as ineffectual. ”That never worked anywhere,” he said.
On his final full day in New York, Mr Abbott also moved to future-proof his diplomatic links through meetings with leaders likely to face off in the 2016 election.
He met with Jeb Bush, son and brother of two former presidents, who is widely tipped to be the Republican nomination in 2016.
But an attempted meeting with Hillary Clinton will now take place by phone because of scheduling difficulties associated with Ms Clinton’s latest book promotion.
Speaking earlier in the day at the New York Stock Exchange, where he again declared Australia was once more ”open for business”, Mr Abbott said climate change was not the world’s most pressing problem.
”There is no argument about the need for strong action on climate change. There is some argument about the best way to achieve that … we are not going to have any rear-guard action in favour of a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme in Australia. We’re going to take direct action to get our emissions down,” he said.
On Thursday, Mr Abbott again reiterated his opposition to action on climate change that would ”clobber” the economy and jobs, saying the scale of the government’s direct action policy was ”evidence of our deep seriousness” on the issue.
Mr Abbott is expected to seek assurances from the Obama administration that its vaunted ”pivot” to the Asia-Pacific is proceeding, while it is possible his views on China will be sought following his recent successful visit to Beijing.
Are higher education and sustainability compatible?
Diversity and globalisation pose major challenges to sustainability in the Asia-Pacific region. The rich diversity of this region is reflected in each of the three pillars of sustainable development: environmental, economic and social sustainability.
The climate ranges from tropical to arid and polar and the region includes some of the world’s largest countries and smallest island nations, and a large number of ethnic groups with diverse languages, cultures and religions. It is home not only to significant economic disparity but also to some of the world’s fastest growing economies.
In such a situation, efforts to achieve sustainability, including education about it, require diverse action.
The globalisation challenge
The challenge of globalisation seems particularly important for higher education institutions in the Asia-Pacific in view of the regional economic crisis of the late 1990s.
A strong demand for recovery increased the drive for rapid industrialisation and exploitation of natural resources while further integration into the global market economy and the introduction of foreign capital damaged local industries, causing various social problems.
Globalisation can also harm social diversity, an essential element in sustainable development. Accordingly, research and education on the social, economic and environmental implications of globalisation have become crucial.
At the same time, the economic crisis forced governments to reconsider their policies on higher education and to give more weight to producing human resources that could drive national development in a competitive global economy.
These factors have promoted the internationalisation of university education, which is evident in efforts such as increasing the number of international students and creating centres of excellence with the intention of making them hubs for world-class research.
Globalisation of the higher education market has also meant that academics are increasingly pressured to publish their research outcomes in English regardless of their local languages and local needs.
Sustainable development and HE
In other words, the challenge of sustainable development requires significant transformation of educational institutions in the Asia-Pacific if they are to respect regional diversity and cope with the impact of globalisation at the same time.
Accordingly, they have striven for sustainability, which has been propelled by government policies and agencies in many cases as well as several regional and sub-regional efforts. Region-wide efforts can be seen in the emergence of several networks in this field.
For example, the United Nations University’s Institute of Advanced Studies, located in Japan, has developed two international networks, the promotion of sustainability in postgraduate education and research networks, and regional centres of expertise which involve many higher education institutions.
Government policies play a critical role in developing education for sustainable development, including in the higher education sector, in many Asia-Pacific countries – particularly in North and Southeast Asia.
They include institutional arrangements such as national plans and financial assistance and, in some cases, they are made to cope with the challenges facing higher education such as the severe competition from globalisation and other local social demands.
To cope with the complexity and uncertainty embedded in the issue of sustainable development, networking, multi-stakeholder approaches and community engagement or outreach designed to enable the sharing of experiences, expertise and resources for promoting education for sustainable development are often seen in the region.
In Japan a forum of around 20 higher education institutions was set up in 2007, while in Thailand the Environmental Education for Sustainable Development Network and the Teacher Education Network are actively developing sustainable education programmes.
The University of the South Pacific initiated the Pacific Network of Island Universities project in 2009 involving major universities.
The examples of multi-stakeholder forums include a government-industry-academia consortium established by the Japanese government that does not just serve educational purposes but also serves as an employment matchmaker.
Outreach and research
Community engagement and outreach is another popular approach to managing obstacles in the development of curriculum and learning processes towards sustainability in the Asia-Pacific. This has steered the way for many good practices that can be found in, for example, Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia and New Zealand.
The region has also witnessed the start of several significant research projects and centres in this field which tend to emphasise community engagement and outreach as well as action-research.
They have facilitated inter and trans-disciplinary approaches that are important for research on sustainability and sustainability education. For example:
- The Japanese government allocated a considerable amount of funding for its Integrated Research System for Sustainability Science project that involves several leading higher education institutions.
- The Australian government established the Australian Research Institute for Environment and Sustainability in the graduate school of the environment at Macquarie University.
- In China, with the help of the UN Environment Programme, the UNEP-Tongii Institute for Environment and Sustainable Development was established at Tongji University in 2002.
- In the South Pacific, the Pacific Centre for Environment and Sustainable Development based at the University of the South Pacific plays a central role in sustainability education research.
- A research and development centre on education for sustainable development and innovation was established by Chulalongkorn University in Thailand in 2007.
The strong commitment to and emphasis on a community-based approach to sustainability education and research can be considered a means to respect the region’s rich social and environmental diversities that are under threat against the backdrop of rapid globalisation.
In fact, there seems to be a high social demand for universities to contribute to local issues through education and research, particularly in a participatory manner.
Campus sustainability
Actions for sustainable management such as campus greening are also popular in the region and they can provide good learning opportunities for staff members as well as students. There are a variety of examples, such as campaigns for recycling and using energy and water efficiently.
In addition to various interesting practices at individual universities, there are several collective and nation-wide efforts.
For instance, the Taiwan Sustainable Campus Project has contributed to curriculum development as well as decreasing the environmental impact of campus operation since 2010.
It involves educational institutions from primary schools to universities nationwide totalling more than 500 institutions that conduct activities such as changing to renewable energy, rooftop gardening and creating biotope spaces.
In Australia and New Zealand, Australasian Campuses Towards Sustainability provides opportunities for knowledge sharing for academics, students and the wider community.
Environmental management systems such as ISO 14000 are often used for campus greening, involving students in the process of environmental management, and related actions such as environmental education.
The Environmental Education Network of the Philippines has hosted the Dark Green Schools programme since 2006 – an accreditation process with a multi-stakeholder approach that promotes various university practices towards sustainability.
Three actions
For the further progress of sustainability efforts in higher education in the Asia-Pacific, three points need to be addressed.
The first is to review the impact of existing policies that have been significant in shaping current actions, in order to consider the sustainability and effectiveness of university efforts in the long run.
The support of governments may shift to other policy areas at some point. In fact, government policies do not always match local needs, particularly because of embedded diversities in the Asia-Pacific context.
The second is to strategically develop a community-based approach. The concepts of sustainability and sustainable development are so vague that it would be easier for students to learn about them in local, real-world settings.
Besides, universities are expected to contribute to the local communities where they are based and so avoid being ivory towers. In the Asia-Pacific, stress on ‘community’ is important if regional diversity is to be maintained in the face of globalisation that can damage it.
Adopting the worldwide ‘research excellence’ trend in higher education and the global ranking system based on quantitative publication measures discourages academic faculties from orienting their commitment to sustainability education.
These require long timescales and qualitative assessment with respect for local values: in other words, globalisation – which very often means Westernisation – can result in the ‘detachment’ of universities and their knowledge from local contexts and from the very concept of sustainability. In such a situation, the strategic development of a community-based approach is important.
The third is to promote the ‘whole institution’ approach. Efforts to green campuses, despite their popularity, seldom integrate multiple functions of universities in the direction of sustainability. As researchers in this region often emphasise, a ‘whole institution’ approach needs to be introduced and situated in the local context.
The active engagement of universities in the Asia-Pacific for sustainability seems to be related to embedding local diversity and the impact of globalisation.
This entails the reconsideration of the role of universities as an agency that contributes to local demands and culture, and as institutions that need to survive in the internationalised education and research sector that assists national development.
Given the importance of higher education in shaping the future of our society, its successful development is a key to sustainable development in the Asia-Pacific.
* Ko Nomura is an associate professor in the graduate school of environmental studies at Nagoya University in Japan. Dr Osamu Abe is based at the college of sociology and graduate school of intercultural communication at Rikkyo University. He is also president of the Japanese Society of Environmental Education.
Source: http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20140513104939323
Education for Sustainable Development 