History

In January 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued Climate Change 2007, the most authoritative report on climate change published to date. After six years of work, the report’s 450 lead authors, 800 contributing authors and 2,500 expert reviewers from 130 countries stated collectively for the first time that human activity is unequivocally causing global climate change.

That same year, the UBC Sustainability Office scaled up a focus on campus climate initiatives. It formed the Climate Action Partnership planning group, which included the Alma Mater Society, the Graduate Student Society, the TREK program, Common Energy, and staff and faculty advisors. This group prepared the foundation work for two subsequent initiatives: a program to reduce UBC’s campus-wide greenhouse gas emissions through the Climate Action Plan; and the student-led goBeyond project.

Recognizing the significant impact that universities have demonstrated in leading change, UBC formalized its commitment to climate action. In March 2008, UBC President Stephen Toope partnered with colleagues from five other British Columbia universities to write and sign the University and College Presidents’ Climate Statement of Action for Canada. Signing this statement committed UBC to develop a Climate Action Plan.

Since its beginnings in 2007, climate action at UBC has evolved into a climate action program, coordinated through the UBC Sustainability Office. Actions include:

establishing the President’s Advisory Council – Sustainability Operations Working Group to oversee the preparation of the climate action plan
publishing the Climate Leadership Discussion Paper (2008)
establishing the Technical Advisory Committee, and developing the UBC 2006 and 2007 Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventories
supporting a climate change impacts assessment task force to study issues related to adapting to climate change at UBC
supporting the Alternative Energy Working Group and the Energy Management Working Group
hosting a number of public climate action roundtable discussions
hosting the 2008 Climate Action Symposium
partnering with the Campus Climate Network to pilot the goBeyond project