UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RESEARCHERS TEAM UP TO SOLVE CLIMATE CHANGE


Climate Change is now linked with extreme weather which has claimed 
606,000 lives during the last 20 years, in addition to exposing 4.1 billion people to heat waves, displacement, loss of homes among others. Climate Change has morphed into Climate Disruption. Californians, including leading UC researchers, are responding in unprecedented ways. The UC system responded with the UC Carbon Neutrality Initiative, which aims to achieve zero net carbon emissions by 2025 across the UC System of ten campuses. This initiative spun off from the Bending the Curve initiative of UC researchers.

In 2015, the UC-50, a team of 50 researchers from all ten campuses of the University of California (UC), published a report, entitled:  Bending the Curve (BtC): Ten Scalable Solutions for Carbon Neutrality and Climate Stability. The title refers to flattening that upward curve of greenhouse gas emissions curve which are responsible for climate disruption. Bending the Curve offers ten solutions that can be scaled for larger or smaller communities, and can be applied to a variety of fields, like societal transformation, businesses, energy technologies, farming, policy-making and governance.

BENDING THE CURVE TEN SOLUTIONS RELEASED BY FORMER GOVERNOR JERRY BROWN


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10 SOLUTIONS


1. Bend the warming curve immediately by reducing short- lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) and sustainably by replacing current fossil-fueled energy systems with carbon neutral technologies. 

2. Foster a global culture of climate action through coordinated public communication and education at local to global scales. Combine technology and policy solutions with innovative approaches to changing social attitudes and behavior.

3. Deepen the global culture of climate collaboration. Design venues where stakeholders, community and religious leaders converge around concrete problems with researchers and scholars from all academic disciplines, with the overall goal of initiating collaborative actions to mitigate climate disruption.

4. Scale up subnational models of governance and collaboration around the world to embolden and energize national and international action. 

5. Adopt market-based instruments to create efficient incentives for businesses and individuals to reduce CO2 emissions. 

6. Narrowly target direct regulatory measures — such as rebates and efficiency and renewable energy portfolio standards — at high emissions sectors not covered by market-based policies. 

7. Promote immediate widespread use of mature technologies such as photovoltaics, wind turbines, battery and hydrogen fuel cell electric light-duty vehicles and more efficient end-use devices, especially in lighting, air conditioning, appliances and industrial processes. 

8. Aggressively support and promote innovations to accelerate the complete electrification of energy and transportation systems and improve building efficiency. 

9. Immediately make maximum use of available technologies combined with regulations to reduce methane emissions by 50 percent and black carbon emissions by 90 percent. Phase out hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) by 2030 by amending the Montreal Protocol. 

10. Regenerate damaged natural ecosystems and restore soil organic carbon to improve natural sinks for carbon (through afforestation, reducing deforestation and restoration of soil organic carbon).


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MAJOR IMPLEMENTATIONS OF BtC


EMPOWERING ONE MILLION CLIMATE WARRIORS

Bending the Curve: Climate Change Solutions™ is a multifaceted education project initiated by the University of California with participation by all ten campuses of the UC system at: Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, Santa Barbara, San Diego, Santa Cruz, San Francisco. The education is centered around a curriculum designed to empower a million climate champions across the world to solve the climate change problem.

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PROVIDING CLIMATE LITERACY TO PRE-K TO HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

The University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU) systems are partnering with key stakeholders to advance PK–12 environmental and climate change literacy. The Environmental and Climate Change Literacy Project and Summit (ECCLPS, pronounced "eclipse") is a collaborative effort helping to prepare current and future teachers to respond to climate change issues, with the goal to educate 500,000 graduating high school students per year in California to become literate in environmental and climate change issues and solutions.

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PUBLIC-PRIVATE COLLABORATIVE FOR CLIMATE SOLUTIONS DEMONSTRATION PROJECTS

The California Collaborative for Climate Change Solutions (C4S) is a 21st century consortium of researchers and technologists from leading California educational institutions, government experts, representatives from commercial and non-profit institutions, and foundations and donors. Our aim is to work cooperatively to solve climate change for the benefit of people and the planet.

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TEAM