University clubs can play crucial role in raising climate awareness: Speakers

In the buildup to the upcoming COP27, the Department of Environmental Science and Management and the International Center for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) of Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB) organised a roundtable on the role of universities in addressing pressing environmental concerns on 22 September.

The roundtable, held at the IUB Trustee Lounge, was attended among others by Ambassador of Sweden in Bangladesh Alexandra Berg von Linde, British High Commissioner to Bangladesh Robert Chatterton Dickson, IUB VC Tanweer Hasan, PhD, ICCCAD Director Professor Dr Saleemul Huq OBE, Associate Professor and Head of IUB's Department of Environmental Science and Management Dr K Ayaz Rabbani. 

IUB VC Tanweer Hasan, PhD, stressed how IUB as a university is committed to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the different activities that are being planned out to make the IUB campus environmentally more sustainable.

Leading global climate scientist Professor Dr Saleemul Huq OBE said the roundtable on capacity building for tackling climate change in preparation for COP27 brought together ambassadors and high commissioners based in Dhaka to discuss ways in which universities from Bangladesh and other countries can develop collaboration for research and capacity building after COP27 is being held in Egypt in November.

The agenda of the roundtable focussed on education, training and capacity building, which fall

under articles 6 and 11 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate (UNFCCC).

Speakers mostly highlighted the importance of raising awareness about climate change from the school and college levels. 

There was also a consensus that climate change networking should not be local in scope but should rather be international in nature and the various clubs and forums that universities have could play a crucial role in creating mass awareness all over the world.