Long term climate change affects the work of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and the United Nations Millennium Project, both of which I direct. Efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 and fully eradicate extreme poverty by 2025 go hand-in-hand with efforts to address and mitigate climate change.
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Jeffrey D. Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University (Photo: The Earth Institute) |
For the UN Millennium Project, environmental sustainability is central to the Millennium Development Goals. MDG-7 includes a call to “integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs and reverse the loss of environmental resources.”
Climate change guides our work
In January 2005, the Project issued its report to the Secretary General, including one by the Task Force on Environmental Sustainability. It encouraged investments in cost-effective and environmentally sustainable energy, climate-friendly carbon and technology markets, and mainstream responses to climate change and variability. In these ways and more, climate change guides the work I direct at the Millennium Project.
The Earth Institute at Columbia University, which seeks to apply the resources of the University to the problems of sustainable development and extreme poverty, has devoted substantial attention to climate change.
Already in its second of three years, the science-based Global Roundtable on Climate Change (GROCC) brings together more than 150 high-level, critical stakeholders from all regions of the world – including major players from the private sector like Allianz and leaders of international governmental and non-governmental organizations – to discuss and explore areas of potential consensus regarding core scientific, technological, and economic issues critical to shaping sound public policies on climate change.
Zero-emissions carbon systems
Such a consensus, if reached, could have a major impact on the international community due to the high-profile stakeholder status and top-tier professional positions of Roundtable participants. Beyond GROCC, scientists at the Earth Institute dedicate their efforts to cutting edge technologies. One particularly exciting field of research is that of environmentally-acceptable technologies for fossil fuels, particularly zero-emissions carbon systems.
author: Jeffrey Sachs
