Environment

Experts call for climate action to be included in all formal education

Mexico City, Aug 26 (EFE).- The implementation of nature-based solutions (NBS) to mitigate global warming should be included in all stages of formal education, Latin American climate experts agreed during World Water Week 2022.

In the first session of the seminar “Tools for valuing ecosystems and nature-based solutions”, Fernando Miralles-Willhelm, a scientist from The Nature Conservancy, said it was necessary for educational institutions and universities to integrate subjects on climate and NBS into their curricula.

He said that the subjects could be taught at a basic level, such as in high schools, and could be reinforced more widely in universities for a greater impact in addressing the problems of global warming.

“To reach a massive number of people I think that the NBS have to be institutionalized in (school) curricula, not only at the university level, but also in secondary education,” he said.

Carlos Hurtado, Sustainable Development Manager at the FEMSA Foundation, concluded that the gap between nature projects and the high costs of financing must be reduced to make projects and climate crisis monitoring more affordable.

He said that in financing processes one of the main barriers is payment mechanisms.

“We have to think outside the box, investing in more reliable and less expensive monitoring,” he said.

In addition, he assured that NBS should be seen as alternative tools to the traditional ones and be accompanied by the necessary proposals, methodologies and financial mechanisms “to achieve the scale that is required.”

Kari Vigerstol, Director of Water Security Science at The Nature Conservancy, said that progress should also be made in the certification of engineers in NBS to train and integrate them into global climate care.

Her colleague, Carlos Rogeliz, Integrated Water Resources Management Leader, added that the general concept of “working with nature” can be “very valuable” for the development of communities, nations and global regions.

Marine de Bazelaire, HSBC Group Advisor on Natural Capital, said that nature-based solutions should also be addressed in economics, business and corporate schools, and include the concept in entrepreneurship classes at these types of institutions.

She said that the private and business sectors can also collaborate on the various complexities of return on investment in nature and how to develop scales for the financial industry as an ecosystem.

Gregg Brill, Senior Researcher at the Pacific Institute, emphasized that all stakeholders are necessary and indispensable for NBS, and welcomed the increasing awareness of these issues in the global policy discourse.

However, he stressed the need to bring to the table the knowledge of the world’s indigenous peoples and their views of communities and regions for climate action decision-making. EFE

jsm/ppc/cfa/lap

Related Articles

Back to top button