The UNR is a partner of the Nairobi Work Program on climate change, along with more than 400 specialists from around the world.
The negative effects of climate change are increasingly visible. Faced with this reality, the countries took mitigation measures focused on the causes and prevention and adaptation measures to act on the impacts that have already occurred and try to moderate them or avoid damage.
Some of the mitigation measures consist of using renewable energy, promoting energy efficiency, promoting the use of public transport, planning and sustainable management of resources and carbon capture. Regarding adaptation, there are those of building safer infrastructures, which are capable of withstanding, for example, floods; the reforestation of forests, promoting varied cultivation, in case any specific harvest is threatened, investigating the evolution of temperatures and rainfall and taking into account prevention measures, such as evacuation plans.
Specialists agree that mitigation solutions will take decades to counteract the increase in temperature, so today we must adapt to the change that is being experienced and that will continue to affect it in the immediate future. This means altering behaviors, practices, systems, and in some cases ways of life, to protect families, the economy, and the environment.
The truth is that many developing countries are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, due to limitations in financial, technological, institutional and human resources. With the intention of contributing to the construction of knowledge for adaptation to climate change and managing political actions, the Universidad Nacional de Rosario It recently became a partner of the Nairobi Work Program along with 400 other specialists from around the world, being the only one from the Latin American region.
The Program belongs to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which recognizes the need to adapt to climate change and help countries that have less capacity to do so through financial commitments and technology transfer from developed countries.
The Paris Agreement of the Convention, which is the main multilateral international instrument on the matter, aims to keep the increase in global average temperature below 2º C with respect to pre-industrial levels and to make efforts to limit this increase to 1,5 .XNUMXºC; as well as increase adaptability.
The urgency for climate action arises as a result of current global greenhouse gas emissions, insufficient adaptation action, and support gaps in light of climate science recommendations. It should be noted that Latin America and the Caribbean are responsible for 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
The Paraná Delta
In this context, the Universidad Nacional de Rosario threw a Diploma in Political Management of Climate Change in Latin America and the Caribbean. This new career addresses the levels of international, national and subnational analysis from the origin of the phenomenon and aims to generate solutions based on concrete actions in the territory. This is a postgraduate proposal from the Faculty of Political Science and International Relations that will be delivered through the UNR Virtual Campus.
The Diploma has strategic partners to develop its training activities and political practice in the area: the Nairobi Work Program of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Embassy of the United Kingdom in Argentina, Fundación Avina, ICLEI, Argentina 1.5ºC and Social Plant.
As explained by the director of the course, María del Pilar Bueno, Associate Researcher at Conicet, this training course has nine more traditional modules on climate policy and a workshop in which each cohort will work on a particular case. This first year will be on the islands of the Paraná Delta, an area in constant friction between actors due to land use, productive, real estate and tourist activities. It is a socially, economically and politically disputed space, crossed by the environmental impacts of the activities carried out and the adverse effects of climate change.
“Four groups will be worked on: research, adaptation, financing and gender, which will address the issue from these perspectives to find specific solutions that can contribute to local authorities and international forums,” Bueno described.
The researcher stated that the Nairobi Work program will be a partner in the adaptation group and that there will be students who will be part of it. They will have to prepare a project on the adaptation knowledge gaps in the Delta, particularly focused on land use, agriculture, livestock and tourism.
"The possibility of this activity will result in a set of concrete products, not only diagnoses but also policy options that can be carried out with the characteristics of our country and the contextual elements," he said. For the specialist, the diploma and collaboration is an example of how knowledge can be generated for political action in a troubled area such as the Paraná Delta. "Adaptation to climate change is an opportunity to see the current conditions of this disputed space and be able to provide additional solutions regarding the specific tensions of land use and tourism activity."
More information: diplomaturacambioclimatico@fcpolit.unr.edu.ar.
Journalists: Victoria Arrabal, Ileana Carrizo / Photographer: Camila Casero / Director: Ramiro Ortega