Second Nature’s work to accelerate climate action in higher education has spanned five U.S. presidential administrations, facing various headwinds and tailwinds throughout this time. One thing has remained constant: the higher education sector plays a vital role in helping society overcome the challenges caused by climate change.

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Since 2006, with the launch of the Presidents’ Climate Leadership Commitments and the Climate Leadership Network, Second Nature has been leading the higher education sector’s efforts to create and implement ambitious, equitable, and effective climate solutions.

Through our institutional members’ strengths in research, education, and community engagement across institution types and geographies, the Climate Leadership Network has played an essential role in accelerating the nation’s climate solutions. Second Nature has also been a key alignment partner for international higher education networks, contributing best practices from the US and learning about successes from our global partners.

At Second Nature, we remain fully committed to this mission and look forward to redoubling our efforts in the years ahead. Our work today is more critical than ever before, and we stand ready to support our member institutions as they sustain and intensify their efforts to address humanity’s most urgent global climate challenges.

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“How was COP29?” It’s the question on everyone’s mind for those of us who attended. I find it’s a complicated question to answer since there are many ways to approach it. After attending six COP conferences, I’ve found it helpful to set some goals in advance so that I don’t get overwhelmed, don’t try to do too much, and make the carbon burned from Boston to Baku make sense. 

My main goals for this year’s conference, in order of importance, were:

1. Understand how our domestic and international colleagues were responding to the  election results in the United States
2. Connect with higher education leaders to assess, anticipate, and plan subnational and international climate action in our sector
3. Represent Second Nature, presenting the ways our work is accelerating climate action in the US higher education sector at formal and informal side events and providing opportunities for our members to have a presence at COP
4. Be open to the serendipitous COP moments, inside and outside the venue, and experience different cultural contexts for impactful climate solutions.

In some ways, setting goals is the easy part. The obvious question after COP was how I did in meeting these goals, the harder part! Here’s my evaluation of how things went:

Goal 1: The big takeaway from my conversations about the election is that subnational governments (like cities and states) and other subnational entities (like higher education) will be critically important in any country where the national government is unwilling or unable to take a leading role. This points to the critical importance of our work both domestically and internationally. 

Goal 2. It was wonderful to connect with international colleagues to discuss what we call the “Network of Networks,” which includes higher education network leaders working on climate initiatives from around the world. The group is primarily focused on ensuring that higher education supports each other, the COP Presidency, and the UN Climate Champions. 

Goal 3. Second Nature co-hosted a panel at the America Is All In Pavilion and an official UN side event on the three missions of higher education. These events highlighted US and international institutions, including students from Ohio State University and the University of Connecticut, both of which are Second Nature member institutions. The events covered a wide range of successes and challenges our sector has had in driving climate action forward. Both events were well-attended, and we had some great follow-up discussions. 

Goal 4. Baku, Azerbaijan, is a unique place. Like many COPs, the local community puts its best foot forward, and one of the exciting things this year was the number of college students who welcomed us and helped navigate us through the venue each day. The country isn’t without its problems, but how can you not enjoy a place with both a carpet museum shaped like a carpet and a miniature book museum with the world’s smallest book  

COP was interesting, inspiring, challenging, and not a little exhausting…in short, everything I could hope for.

-Tim Carter, President, Second Nature

The post Evaluating COP29 With a Higher Education Perspective appeared first on Second Nature.

Key Issues Covered at the Webinar:

The panelists explored several important topics, including:

• New Collective Quantified Goal: Eda Kosma from C2ES
• Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) & Biennial Transparency Reports (BTRs): Melissa Low from the National University of Singapore
• Progress Toward the Loss and Damage Fund: Jhalak Aggarwal of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water.
• Global Goal on Adaptation: Danielle Falzon from Rutgers University
• International Carbon Markets Under Article 6: Axel Michaelowa of Perspectives Climate Research & the University of Zurich

With COP29 fast approaching, these discussions are more relevant than ever for anyone invested in the future of international climate policy. The insights shared during the webinar provide valuable context on the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

Don’t Miss Out—Watch the Recording Today!

Stay informed and get up to speed on these crucial topics by watching the webinar recording. It’s an excellent opportunity to gain expert perspectives on the negotiations that will shape the outcomes of COP29.

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Climate Resilience

On this page

• Planning Process
• Resources

Resilience Planning Process

This diagram outlines the key steps in Second Nature’s framework for resilience planning. Second Nature’s framework encourages schools to not only assess and reduce vulnerability, but also to assess and enhance overall resilience and adaptive capacity. Campuses should go beyond managing extreme and potentially catastrophic events; they should proactively plan for preferable futures. Resilience building is an iterative process. While these steps appear to be linear, in reality campuses may be working on multiple steps simultaneously.

Resources

Working with the Community

All campuses interact with some form of external community and share resources across campus-community boundaries. Climate Leadership Network signatories need to work with their communities to build resilience.

More About Community's Role

Completing a Resilience Assessment

A Resilience Assessment provides a baseline of current resilience activities on campus and in the community, and helps campuses understand strengths and vulnerabilities in the context of climate change.

More about Resilience Assessments

Planning for Resilience

After completing a Resilience Assessment, campuses should incorporate resilience strategies and goals into a Climate Action Plan.

More about Planning

Resilience Planning Working Group

Background and purpose of the Resilience Planning Working Group and how to join!

More About the Working Group

Additional Tools and Resources

This page includes additional tools and resources to aid campuses in conducting the Resilience Assessment and developing a Climate Action Plan.

view Additional REsources

Featured Resource

Resilience touches on all aspects of a campus and surrounding community. To help campuses think comprehensively about resilience, Second Nature breaks it down into five dimensions: Ecosystem Services, Infrastructure, Social Equity & Governance, Health & Wellness, and Economic. These dimensions are not mutually exclusive. They are meant to encourage a holistic assessment of resilience and adaptive capacity. Considering each of these dimensions in the context of climate change will help campuses and communities develop a resilience plan that addresses the entire system. Resilience is not just about survival and bouncing back from disruptions; it is about being able to thrive.

Download the Report

For more information about the resilience planning process, please email resilience@secondnature.org.

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It’s actually a tough one to answer, not only because of the jetlag and exhaustion that comes along with the long days and international travel, but because the conference actually isn’t a singular thing (you can check out our resource page to learn more about what COP formally is). 

This is my fifth COP and I’ve found the best way to answer the “how’d it go?” question is to think of it as three concentric circles, and how our small delegation of higher education leaders engages with these different experiences of the largest climate conference in the world.   

The Inner Circle: The Formal Negotiations 

The smallest circle represents the formal negotiations. These are driven by climate diplomats from every country working year-round to hammer out the technical details of the policy and implementation of this complex international climate agreement. Our delegation doesn’t spend much time in the formal negotiations as our access to the inner circle of the COP is as “Observers,” meaning that we can sit in on some negotiation sessions, but we’re just listening, not offering input. And, honestly, unless you are the wonkiest of the climate wonks, since these sessions are so technical, it’s hard to get excited about attending them even as they are very important. In the end, the Parties (the countries participating in COP) agreed in the “UAE Consensus” that we needed to begin “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science.” 

My inner circle takeaways:

• First time transitioning away from fossil fuels in a COP decision text = good!
• Taking 28 years to get to this point = not great!
• Not including phase out or phase down language for all fossil fuels + many other loopholes (e.g. “transition fuels”, funding questions, accountability) = still lots of work to do!
  

The Second Circle: Side Events, Pavilions, and Hoopla

The second circle of the COP is the side events — some are more like side shows — in large and small pavilions hosted by countries, NGOs, and private businesses. As a small delegation of higher education leaders, this is where we spent most of our time. We were able to host and facilitate numerous panels with our presidents from Truckee Meadows Community College and Stony Brook University, and other senior higher education leaders discussing how our sector can continue to support global climate solutions on and off campus. 

We co-hosted a higher education pavilion — the first of its kind, as far as I can remember — and participated in receptions of our peers and colleagues from the international higher education community. This is always a great time to build and strengthen relationships that last far beyond the event itself. There is no way these partnerships, and ultimately the program activities resulting from them, could happen without face-to-face engagement. There is a ubiquitous critique that we burn fossil fuels to make these relationships happen, and that’s true. But, the outcomes resulting from these in-person meetings are a tradeoff, and one that is vital to the work we do.

The remarkable thing about this year’s “second circle” was the sheer magnitude of it. There were double the number of pavilions from 2022, which itself was a record. While COP has always been the center of the climate world for these two weeks, the second circle now has become a planet unto itself. 

My second circle takeaways:

• Platform opportunities for our delegation on the international stage = success!
• New relationships formed and existing relationships strengthened = absolutely!
• Contributing and supporting the global industrial climate trade show complex = disorienting?
  

The Third Circle: Marches, Protests, and Activism

This one I can keep very short: unlike in past years, this circle was basically non-existent. All the attendees knew protesting was a non-starter in the UAE, as large-scale civil society demonstrations are not allowed; that is just not something that happens there. There were a few highly curated chants of 10-15 people within a designated area of the badged zone, but nothing like what we saw in Glasgow or other previous COPs.

My third circle takeaways:

• Nothing to see here!

So that’s my reflection from the “three circle” perspective of COP28. 

Until next year, the work continues to implement the ambitions, large and small, that were agreed on these last couple of weeks. We’ll be sure higher education continues to have a key role in driving success.

Key Takeaways from COP28

Samantha Thomas
Climate Program Manager, Data and Evaluation, Second Nature

The debate on whether this COP was successful continues to highlight the urgency we’re all facing. I attended 33 sessions hosted during the first week of COP28 where I engaged with leaders across industries and communities that, unlike the final negotiations, gave me hope and confidence. There is a real sense of urgency and determination from some of our most brilliant leaders to end the use of fossil fuels and achieve sustainable and just development. Here are just a few of the takeaways from my first COP experience.

1. There is still a massive divide between scientific consensus to end fossil fuel extraction and the greenwashing of major oil company representatives defending a slow phase-out. This is a particularly visible debate as the number of oil and gas representatives was around 2,500 compared to 600 at last year’s COP.

2. The loss and damage fund was perhaps the most successful negotiation of the COP, with more than $700 million pledged. However, this amount does not yet cover the estimated losses.

3. Indigenous leaders continue to pave the way for just solutions that are developed by local communities, not by large corporations or governments. Through formal negotiations, demonstrations, and panels, it seemed like Indigenous voices were on the main stage, rather than sidelined.

4. There were dozens of new AI and big data tools launched at this COP including Climate Trace, a responsive map that uses satellite, sensor, and machine learning data to measure and identify top global polluters. The AI Innovation Grand Challenge was announced to identify and fund AI development of solutions in climate action, which is already being used to predict severe weather events, decrease resource consumption, and improve smart agriculture. 

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CLIMATE JUSTICE AND CLIMATE ACTION IN HIGHER EDUCATION

There needs to be more than technical and scientific solutions to tackle the impacts of the climate crisis. To be most effective, we, the higher education sector, must adopt a more holistic approach to climate action that addresses the social and political considerations at the root of the crisis. Now more than ever, higher education institutions are presented with an immense opportunity to assist in this shift and can do so by advancing climate justice.

Featured Resource

Higher Education’s Role in Advancing Climate Justice is designed to support colleges and universities in incorporating diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, and justice (DEIAJ) into their climate action plans. 

Download the Report

CLIMATE JUSTICE RESOURCES

Higher Education’s Role

Best practices for integrating DEIAJ principles into climate action planning, while ensuring inextricably linked campus-community and cross-sector activity is an essential part of these plans

More About Higher Education's Role

Climate Justice Working Group

Background and purpose of the Climate Justice Working Group, as well as how to join

More about Climate Justice Working Group

Practical Recommendations

Foundational examples of how climate justice is currently conceived and being integrated into strategic plans and on-the-ground activities

view Practical REcommendations

Additional Resources

Multimedia resources about climate justice and DEIAJ topics

view Additional REsources

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Are you looking to accelerate your climate policy foundational knowledge?  You can use this page as a starting point.  We understand that there is a ton of information out there, and that climate policies and initiatives can change rapidly.  Which is why when we come across items that we think can help be great resources, we will add them here.  

Questions? Contact communications@secondnature.org. 

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Climate Policy and Advocacy

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• About Policy and Advocacy
• IRA Community of Practice
• Policy and Advocacy Strategy
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