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The University of Victoria will be the home base of a province-wide research institute on climate change solutions.
BC Premier Gordon Campbell announced on Jan. 25 that his government will seek legislative approval for $94.5 million to create the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions (PICS), to be hosted and led by UVic.
The institute will be a collaboration among the province’s four research-intensive universities, government and the private sector and will focus on finding innovative ways to mitigate and adapt to climate change. It will also promote the commercial development of climate change solutions and provide the public with information and ideas on how to reduce individual greenhouse gas emissions.
“BC universities have some of the top climate scientists and researchers in the world,” said Campbell, who refers to climate change as “the single largest challenge facing our generation.”
“This institute will bring together those academics, along with others from around the world, with business and the private sector to develop new policy alternatives, to find ways to educate and encourage greener lifestyles, and to develop new, green technologies into products that can be used by consumers around the globe.”
“This institute holds enormous promise for British Columbia,” says UVic President David Turpin. “It will provide a valuable resource to government and to the private sector—a single window to access the considerable intellectual capacity found in British Columbia’s research-intensive universities.”
The institute’s operations will be guided by an advisory board made up of public and private sector stakeholders. The institute director and secretariat will be housed in existing space on the UVic campus.
“With an advisory board of industry leaders and senior government officials, the institute will be in an unprecedented position to frame questions and provide answers on immediate technological, economic, regulatory and public policy challenges,” says Turpin.
The proposed $90 million endowment will provide approximately $4 million annually. Of this annual sum, $3 million will go to support the work of PICS for research projects, salaries, and graduate fellowships and internships. The other $1 million will go to the Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium at UVic, a group that produces practical climate information for education, policy and decision-making in the Pacific Northwest.
The government will also provide an additional $4.5 million for the institute’s first-year start-up costs.
The endowment acknowledges the role that universities must play in finding climate change solutions and ensures that long-term independent research can be undertaken, notes Turpin. “This commitment and continuity are critical if BC is to attract, retain and train the best and most innovative climate researchers in the world.”
BC’s four research-intensive universities are UVic, the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University and the University of Northern British Columbia. The institute will involve researchers and graduate students from these four universities and have linkages to universities and research institutes from across Canada and around the world.
UVic’s reputation as a Canadian leader in climate research played a major role in it being chosen as the institute headquarters. “That our university is poised to lead an initiative of this magnitude is due to the tremendous knowledge, expertise and dedication of faculty, students and staff at UVic who helped make this happen,” says Turpin.
Climate research at UVic spans a broad range of disciplines, including climate modelling, energy systems engineering and development, environmental law, energy and environmental economics, social and individual behaviour related to climate change, watershed ecology, oceanography, public policy and international relations.
These strengths are enhanced by close links with several federal laboratories located at or near UVic. The benefits of these links were demonstrated in 2007 when six UVic-affiliated researchers were major contributors to the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—the highest number of any university in Canada.
For more information on PICS and climate research at UVic and its partner institutions, visit www.pics.uvic.ca.
Next steps
The legislative approval for the endowment to fund the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions (PICS) is likely to be passed before the end of this fiscal year.
The process to establish PICS is already unfolding. “PICS will go to the senate planning committee for approval as a UVic research centre on Feb. 13. If approved, it will go to senate on March 7,” says Dr. Howard Brunt, UVic’s vice-president research. “The board of governors executive will be convened as soon as possible following the senate meeting.”
The governance structures for PICS will evolve in the coming months. An interim executive committee, to be chaired by Turpin, will be established by the middle of February. This committee will include Brunt, a number of UVic appointees, and research vice-presidents (or designates) from each of the three collaborating universities. This group will then begin the process of establishing a steering/management committee and the advisory board.
“The executive committee will initiate an international search for a permanent director as soon as possible,” says Brunt, adding that it will be important to find the right person to lead such a major undertaking.
Dr. Rosemary Ommer, the interim director of the Institute for Coastal and Oceans Research and adjunct faculty member in the Department of History, has agreed to act as an interim operational director until a permanent director is found.
PICS at a glance
The Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions will:
- Conduct research on climate change impacts and solutions
- Assess mitigation and adaptation options, including technology development
- Promote education, capacity-building and technical training
- Communicate the issues to government, industry and the general public.
Did you know?
BC is legally mandated to:
- Reduce its greenhouse gases by 33 per cent below 2007 levels by 2020
- Reduce emissions by at least 80 per cent below 2007 levels by 2050
- Make all provincial government operations carbon-neutral by 2010
California’s bill to limit carbon emissions is expected to bring $60 million in new investments and 80,000 new jobs to the state by 2020. BC’s targets are expected to generate a similar response.
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