Climate Change Collaboration with Local Communities and NGOs
Date: 2024/05/06Organizers: Newhomeland Foundation, Jane Goodall Institute, NTU Office of Sustainability, NTU Office of International Affairs, NTU Master's Program in Biodiversity
This was a screening of the French documentary "Bigger Than Us"(2021). The documentary follows Melati Wijsen, an 18-year-old Indonesian girl and well-established activist against plastic pollution in her country. She wants to understand how to hold on and continue her action, so she goes on to meet six other young activists across the globe.
After the screening, a Q&A session is held while Melati Wijsen was present to answer questions and share her experience. It was a successful collaboration between NTU, Climate activies and NGOs to raise awareness of climate change and learn about how youth in other countries fight climate change.
The Smart Campus Plus (SC+) project is a research project under the International Degree Program in Climate Change and Sustainable Development at NTU. The project aims to promote the development and deployment of microclimate sensing networks using the concept of participatory sensing. Based on the results of the sensor data and local knowledge, the urban climate map of the southern Taipei area will be gradually created.
The project is highly inclusive in order to formulate climate action policy that is informed by local perspectives. The participants include: National Taiwan University’s Department of Geosciences in collaboration with Academia Sinica’s Institute of Information Science (air box development team); the maker community (open source public welfare environmental sensor network) along with local community actors (Wenshan Community College, Taipei City Daan University Neighborhood, New Taipei City Ying Ge Jian Guo Neighborhood).
The SC+ Project also worked with Zhong Shun Temple in setting up workshops on climate resilience in 2024, raising climate awareness in local communities. For more information, please check this link.
(Meteorological Instrument demonstration in the local community. )
In 2024, the NTU SC+ Project Team launched the Mobile Sensing Comfort Mapping Project in Taipei City's Daxue Village to help local communities respond to environmental challenges posed by climate change. The team developed a lightweight mobile sensing device that measures temperature, humidity, PM2.5, light intensity, wind speed, and noise levels. By collecting community-specific environmental data through these roving detectors, the team produces high-resolution “comfort maps” that identify areas of poor air quality and excessive noise, providing scientific evidence to inform future environmental and urban improvements in these communities. To encourage community participation, the team also hosted a workshop on community comfort, inviting Daxue Village residents to review collected environmental data and discuss feasible strategies for urban enhancement, such as reconfiguring green spaces to improve airflow and formulating noise reduction measures for problem areas.
(Community Mapping Local Comfort)
The effect of SC+ is also presented in the "International Sustainability Campus Network Best Practice Report." The university and local community will work in cooperation to propose a location-based climate action plan, and in the process create a democratic climate governance story that can be shared with the world.
Since 2021, NTU Biodiversity Research Center alongside the International Climate Development Institute (ICDI) has been co-organizing the annual Taiwan Climate Action Expo (TWCAE). In 2023, the third edition of TWCAE in held in Taipei from October 20 to 22. NTU Advanced Public Transportation Research Center (APTRC) also participated in the expo showcasing how smart and low-carbon transportation can reduce our carbon emissions. The exhibition also invited representatives from Pacific island nations to hold a Talanoa Dialogue on Just Transition and Climate Resilience. This Session focused on how island nations build resilience, adapting to the impact of climate change.
Figure 4: NTU Advanced Public Transportation Research Center engaging with children in Taiwan Climate Action Expo
-
Student Climate Actions
On November 4, 2023, the NTU Climate Action Club (NTUCAC) held a Climate Adaption Workshop collaborating with The Society of Wilderness. The workshop invited participants to learn about the method of Community-based Adaptation to Climate Change and also perform Participatory Capacity and Vulnerability Analysis. Students who joined the workshop used these tools the design adaptation plans and actions for NTU campus facing climate change.
On May 13 and November 12, 2023, NTU Student Assiation Department of Sustainability held several Climate Fresk Workshops with Climate Fresk (a French NGO). The workshop encourages students to discover the relations between different concepts in climate change to have a holistic understanding of climate change. The workshop also showcased the damage of climate change and let participants discuss what kind of climate action can be taken in daily life.
