United Nations allows Colby College to weigh-in on climate change

Courtesy / Kerill O’Neill Stacy-Ann Robinson, assistant professor of environmental studies at Colby College, spoke on a panel at the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Egypt.

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By Laurie Schreiber

Colby College in Waterville has been accepted as an observer of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

“As observers, we can’t only attend COP,” Stacy-Ann Robinson, a Colby assistant professor of environmental studies, said in a news release. “We also need to find ways to engage in the process throughout the year.”

Robinson was part of the Colby delegation admitted as a provisional observer organization last fall to COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

As a formally accepted observer organization, Colby will have more opportunities to participate in and influence the global climate conversation, including at the yearly climate change gatherings called Conference of the Parties.

With the new status in mind, Colby earlier this month made its first submission to the UN climate convention, weighing in on how to pay for loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change.

As of Feb. 22, Colby was one of just two observer organizations to make a submission on the topic; the other was World Wildlife Fund.

The submission process is a way for participating nations and observers to share thoughts on issues used to shape climate negotiations throughout the year. The negotiations will culminate later this year at COP28 in Dubai.

“What we’re doing is contributing a perspective to the conversation,” said Robinson, the coordinating lead author for the submission.

The submission was based on input from faculty, staff and students. It recognizes advocacy efforts of the Alliance of Small Island States, which in 1991 began calling for an insurance mechanism to deal with the consequences of actual and expected sea-level rise.

“Since then, the alliance has been instrumental in establishing a focus on loss and damage, an issue that is of critical importance to those developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change,” the document says. “Some of which are on the brink of geographical and cultural extinction.”

Colby also stressed the importance of making sure any institutional structure created in support of addressing loss and damage is informed by science. The document calls for new ways to pay for loss and damage, including reforms to international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund.

Colby’s submission called on the UN to explore the possibility of direct cash transfers to individuals, households and communities to ensure that those most affected by climate change benefit from financing.

Robinson said Colby will continue to seek ideas and input from the campus community.

“We’ve had the experience of participating in COP. We’ve had the opportunity to make a submission,” she said. “Now is the time we need to be making an engagement strategy for the college around this.”