According to the United Nations (UN), “Climate change is the defining issue of our time and now is the defining moment to do something about it. There is still time to tackle climate change, but it will require an unprecedented effort from all sectors of society.” There is no untruth in conceptualising that the UN has sounded warnings on climate change to keep the world community aware about the dangers of climate change.
The universities of the world, particularly in Pakistan, have a significant role in increasing awareness on the climate crisis. The best of the thinking minds occupy seats of learning at universities. They must come forward to find solutions to control the effects of climate change. Only a good understanding of the environment on part of various stakeholders will set the strategic direction toward problem solving.
The universities in Pakistan gather handsome financing through tuition fees from students, research endowments, government grants, private partners, and international academia and non-academia partners. They need to direct some of these funds towards climate change. As these higher education institutes are powerhouses of multidisciplinary research and training through state-of-the-art facilities, they should collaborate to build a research-based mechanism to fight climate change – they benefit from this earth and should pay back in whatever way possible.
There are around 72 Higher Education Commission (HEC) notified Office of Research, Innovation, and Commercialization (ORIC) setups in universities across Pakistan. The ORIC setups aim at facilitating university academia and researchers to conduct research, connect faculty members and researchers to industry and market, and also provide sources of funding.
The ORICs must build a network for research on climate change through collaborative efforts and share findings with national and international stakeholders, including the UN, oil and gas companies, factories, business community, academia, media, philanthropic entities, young innovators and entrepreneurs.
As per HEC, the ORICs “provide a one-stop office for supporting, advising, and monitoring quality of research, strengthen institutional collaboration between university researchers and potential users of research in government, industry, and communities, mobilize resources for research from national and international funding bodies, develop the university's IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) Policy, and ensure that the interests of researchers and faculty-members are fully protected, identify, build, and market the intellectual property of the university personnel (faculty, students and researchers) through a range of licensing and spin-off arrangements”.
The ORICs must build a network for research on climate change through collaborative efforts and share findings with national and international stakeholders, including the UN, oil and gas companies, factories, business community, academia, media, philanthropic entities, young innovators and entrepreneurs.
The business community must also fight climate change. They must develop initiatives for local community where they operate. The United Nations Global Compact, a voluntary initiative based on CEO commitments to implement universal sustainability principles and to take steps to support UN goals, is available worldwide, including Pakistan, to assist business community in designing and reporting their social responsibility initiatives.
The government needs to revisit the objectives of National Climate Change Policy (NCCP) 2012. The NCCP objectives should be more than social and economic development. These need too secure lives of people and guarantee environmental sustainability in Pakistan. Pakistan must implement the policy to full.
Lastly, Pakistan needs to define climate change through university-led initiatives that invites the best thinking minds in the country to strategise to fight climate change.
Any delay in designing, developing, and implementing innovative efforts to counter climate change may worsen the situation. The extreme changes in the atmosphere are already self-evident.