Goal 13: Climate Action
Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
Climate change is a key challenge with regard to sustainable development. The warming of the earth’s atmosphere threatens the livelihoods of large sections of the population in less developed countries, while infrastructure and certain economic sectors in particular are vulnerable to the risks of climate change in developed regions. Goal 13 calls on countries to incorporate climate protection measures in their national policies and assist each other in responding to the challenges at hand. Furthermore, Goal 13 advocates strengthening resilience to climate-related natural disasters and reaffirms the commitment undertaken by developed countries to mobilise each year USD 100 billion jointly from all sources by 2020 to help developing countries adapt to climate change.
Source: www.eda.admin.ch/agenda2030 (edited)
Contributions of ETH Zurich (examples)
Within the framework of its core areas of research, education, campus and dialog with society, ETH Zurich contributes to Goal 13, for example, by the following activities:
World-Class Climate Research
ETH Zurich carries out world-leading climate research and education, for example at the Center for Climate Systems Modeling (C2SM), a competence center based at ETH Zurich; through the Environmental Physics Group; the Group for Sustainability and Technology (SusTec); or the Biogeoscience Group.
Studying Climate Change
ETH Zurich prepares students for the diverse climate change tasks in science and practice through various degree programmes, including the Master in Atmospheric and Climate Science and the Master in Environmental Sciences.
Dialog With Society
With the Zukunftsblog as well as through various public events such as the ETH-Klimarunde (only available in German) or the Energy Week @ ETH (only available in German), ETH Zurich fulfils its responsibility to inform the public regularly about the consequences of climate change as well as to enter into dialogue on the challenges of climate change and possible approaches to solving them.
Lived Sustainability on Campus
Sustainable Mobility Is Key Priority
In order to promote sustainable mobility at ETH Zurich and thereby reduce its CO2 emissions and energy consumption, ETH Zurich launched the Mobility Platform, which focuses on campus mobility and business travel. To this end, it coordinates ongoing activities and initiates new projects. Air travel, in particular, is the cause of a significant proportion of ETH Zurich’s CO2eq emissions, which is why the school management has initiated a “bottom-up” project to reduce flight emissions. This new approach is scientifically accompanied by a doctoral project funded by ETH Zurich.