Sustainability front and center at CU event as campus gears up to host UN climate summit

DENVER — The University of Colorado Boulder’s annual Chancellor Summit held Wednesday evening in Denver focused on building a sustainable and equitable future, an appropriate topic for a campus that’s set to host a United Nations global conclave on the intersection of human rights and climate change this year. 

“CU Boulder has an exceptional history of leadership in the study of climate change and its impact on human rights,” CU Chancellor Philip P. DiStefano said. “With strength in environmental studies, engineering and across the sciences along with a bias for action, CU is a major player in addressing one of the world’s most challenging issues.” 

From Dec. 1, 2022, through Dec. 4, the Boulder campus will be at the front and center of the global fight for sustainability and against inequality as it plays host to the UN’s Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit.

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“By gathering some of the world’s foremost human rights, scientific, political, educational, cultural and industry leaders, we hope that, together, we can commit to specific outcomes that will address the adverse effects of climate change on human rights,” according to the summit website. 

CU leaders primed the pump for December’s UN event Wednesday with speeches from a trio of professors who addressed the intersectionality of climate change and equity.

Matt Burgess, an assistant professor of environmental studies, a faculty affiliate in the Department of Economics and a fellow of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, spoke about the need for Americans to move past partisanship and embrace the common values necessary to address the complex challenges facing modern society.

Clint Carroll, associate professor of ethnic studies and citizen of the Cherokee Nation, stressed the importance of weaving indigenous perspectives into the climate change conversation and the need to reevaluate society’s relationship to the natural world. 

James White, professor of geological sciences and environmental studies and acting dean of the CU College of Arts and Sciences, extolled the virtues of following simple rules for interacting with the world and fellow humans for the betterment of mankind. 

In Colorado — and specifically in the Boulder region, which is still recovering from the devastating Marshall Fire — climate change and its impacts are not abstract concepts.

“The alarm bells of fires and drought are waking people up to the impact of climate resiliency,” Gov. Jared Polis said. “The state needs to provide science-driven, data-driven partnerships with local communities to make sure we can adapt to natural disasters and prevent a disparity [in impacts across different communities] when those disasters occur.”