United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
Home » SDG 13 - Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation

SDG 13 - Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation

York University is an internationally renowned centre in the study, research and knowledge mobilization in the fields of climate change adaptation, mitigation and disaster response. York was and is the first post-secondary institution in Canada to establish masters and doctoral programs in disaster and emergency response - where students will learn the necessary skills to promote cooperation and planning towards climate disasters such as heat waves, floods, wildfires, and hurricanes as well as other natural disasters like earthquakes.

Y-Emerge

Established in 2022, Y-EMERGE is a pan-university Research Institute at York University, focusing on science, technology and human and social aspects of disaster and emergency management. It brings together researchers from several faculties with a common interests in disaster and emergency management related research to enhance safety and security of people.

Y-EMERGE will build on York’s exceptional expertise to develop, grow, and sustain transformative and multidisciplinary research and teaching in transformative disaster risk reduction, emergency preparedness, response, and recovery.

Transformative & Interdisciplinary

Y-EMERGE will transform the way the societies understand, conceptualize, analyze, manage, and govern crises, disasters, and emergencies. YEMERGE will foster interdisciplinary collaborations & real-world and need-driven research.

Partnership & Community Engagement

Y-EMERGE will transform the way the societies understand, conceptualize, analyze, manage, and govern crises, disasters, and emergencies. YEMERGE will foster interdisciplinary collaborations & real-world and need-driven research.

Knowledge Mobilization & Mentoring

Y-EMERGE will transform the way the societies understand, conceptualize, analyze, manage, and govern crises, disasters, and emergencies. YEMERGE will foster interdisciplinary collaborations & real-world and need-driven research.

CIFAL York

CIFAL stands for “Centre International de Formation des Autorités et Leaders” (in French), and “Centro Internacional de Formación para Autoridades y Líderes” (in Spanish). The CIFAL Global Network was established in 2003 by the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) to strengthen the capacities of government officials, community organizers, and civil society leaders to address the climate crisis and the sustainable development goals. The central purpose of the CIFAL training programmes is to develop and strengthen human capacities to better respond to development challenges and to facilitate City-to-City (C2C) partnerships.

Public Lectures & Training Seminars

Mass evacuation is a critical component of disaster and emergency response. Planning for and implementation of mass evacuation requires significant attention to interrelated scientific, engineering, social, human, and governance aspects. Increasing number of extreme events combined with population growth in densely hazard prone areas, and expansion of hazardous industries present new challenges for mass evacuation. Exploring mass evacuation under these new developments has become ever more urgent. Delving into the multifaceted aspects of mass evacuations from the governance and cross-jurisdictional coordination, planning, decision making, and socio-economic angles to the engineering of evacuation routes, use of artificial intelligence, and emerging technologies is essential. It ensures that communities are not only prepared to act swiftly but also supported comprehensively during these critical junctures. The intersectionality of scientific rigor, engineering innovation, policy framework, and governance mechanisms will be the focus of this “mass evacuation” speaker series.

The key goals and objectives of the speaker series are to:

  • Examine emerging challenges of mass evacuation
  • Understand the role of new technologies in mass evacuation
  • Share lessons identified and best practices of mass evacuation caused by emergencies and disasters
  • Examine the critical role of public, private and non-governmental organizations in mass evacuation
  • Understand the equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility aspects of mass evacuation
  • Examine complexities and requirements for mass evacuation of vulnerable population and Indigenous communities
  • Examine the role of science and technology in emerging mass evacuation challenges
  • Explore ways to enhance the governance of mass evacuations at different levels and amongst various sectors
  • Analyze recent mass evacuations in Canada and other countries
  • Understand the role of infrastructure and early warning systems in mass evacuation
  • Examine the public preparedness, behaviour, cultural needs, and response to mass evacuation
  • Explore mass evacuation of pets and use of social services

Target Audience:

  • Emergency managers and practitioners
  • Mass evacuation experts and planners
  • Researchers
  • Students
  • Local and provincial emergency management staff involved in mass evacuation planning and response
  • Representatives of intergovernmental organizations
  • NGOs involved in mass evacuation support
  • Civil Society and Community Leaders
  • Federal government agencies including Public Safety Canada, Indigenous Services Canada, Royal Mounted Police, Environment Canada, Transport Canada
  • Provincial and Local Government Agencies including Emergency Management Organizations
  • NGOS such as Red Cross, Saint John Ambulance, Salvation Army
  • Indigenous communities and Associations that represent them
  • Critical Infrastructure owners, operators, and associations that represent them
  • Insurance sector
  • Military (CAF, CJOC)
  • Disability organizations
  • Post-secondary institutions, colleges, universities with training programs in disaster and emergency management

Session 1 - May 21 2024

  • Speaker: Dr. Ahsan Habib, Director, Dalhousie Transportation Collaboratory (DalTRAC), Dalhousie University; Director, Dalhousie University School of Planning
    • Topic: The Role of Transportation and Humanitarian Supply Chains in Mass Evacuation Planning
  • Speaker: Dr. Ali Ülkü, Director, Centre for Research in Supply Chain Analytics, Dalhousie University
    • Topic: The Role of Transportation and Humanitarian Supply Chains in Mass Evacuation Planning
  • Speaker: Erica Fleck, Director, Emergency Management, Halifax Regional Municipality
    • Topic: The Role of Transportation and Humanitarian Supply Chains in Mass Evacuation Planning

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) were developed at a UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro in 2012 to replace the Millennium Development Goals established in 2000. The SDGs are made up of 17 interconnected goals committed to addressing the world’s biggest challenges to improve life for future generations.

Halfway through the implementation of the SDGs by the UN, the progress in many SDGs at both global and national scales are not showing significant expected progress. Learning from activities during the first half of the SDGs implementation, it is important to focus in more detail on how the academic community, through teaching, can contribute to the success of achieving the SDGs.

The SDGs are more broadly encompassed by the 5 Pillars of People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace, and Partnership. The 5 Ps are a framework through which the SDGs can be better understood, showing the interconnected nature of each SDG and sustainability as a whole. By unpacking the SDGs through this framework, a better understanding of the goals and how they can achieved can be gained, creating true actionable items for progress on the SDGs. With this aim in mind, a focus is being put on including the SDGs in various curricula to teach future generations about the importance of sustainable development and the work that must be done to achieve these goals. This speaker series will highlight the work that is being done to include the SDGs in curricula by those in the field of education. “Unboxing the SDGs”, with the aim of looking in detail at what is inside each SDG box, will bring together experts to share their best practices, lessons learned, challenges faced, and opportunities that exist to further infuse the SDGs in higher education classrooms in different disciplines.

The key goals and objectives of the speaker series are to:

  • Discuss how the SDGs are currently being included in various classrooms.
  • Explore the impact that including the SDGs in curricula has on future generations.
  • Share best practices and lessons learned by experts who are currently including the SDGs in their classrooms and lesson plans.
  • Explore how the SDGs can be further infused in the classroom.
  • Explore the 5 Pillars of the SDGs and important impact areas.
  • Explore how faculty can be mindful of the SDGs in meaningful ways.
  • Explore how students can be given agency and the ability to make a difference in urgent and current issues.
  • Explore innovative ways in which the SDGs can be included in future curricula.
  • Identify the main challenges faced by education professionals when working to implement the SDGs in their lesson plans.
  • Identify and understand educational needs for successfully including the SDGs in the classroom.

Target Audience:

  • Educators and those in related fields.
  • School administrators.
  • Policy makers.
  • Officeholders in Ministries of Education.
  • Researchers in fields related to education and/or sustainability.
  • Students in fields related to education and/or sustainability.
  • Faculties that do not typically include sustainability in their curriculums.
  • Student leadership groups.
  • Undergraduate student associations.
  • Graduate student associations.
  • Students interested in sustainability.

Details

  • Date: April 5, 2024
  • Time: 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
  • Format: Virtual on Zoom webinar
  • Registration Link

Sarah Rugheimer

Associate Professor, Department of  Physics and Astronomy, Allan I. Carswell Chair for the Public Understanding of Astronomy, York University

Dr. Rugheimer's research exoplanets, biosignatures, and habitability. Her work is theoretical and computational in nature. she is interested in anything related to the field of astrobiology: the study of origin of life on Earth and the pursuit of detecting life on other planets or moons in the Universe. In the last decade they have found several dozen habitable planets orbiting other stars. In the next two decades, first with James Webb Space Telescope and large ground-based observatories and later with follow-up missions like the proposed LUVOIR and LIFE concepts, they will be able to detect the atmospheres of terrestrial extrasolar planets in the habitable zone. These questions of our origins and the distribution of life in the Universe are the main driving inspiration for my day-to-day work. Sarah researches techniques to remotely detect life in the atmospheres of extrasolar planets. She is particularly interested in the planet-star connection and in how stellar activity will influence the photochemistry and spectral features in terrestrial planet atmospheres. She uses mostly 1D and some 3D models to explore different physical regimes for these new habitable exoplanets with a focus on how that will influence the habitability and biosignatures on those planets.

Bruce Waters

Founder of Killarney Provincial Park Observatory & Former Employee of the McLaughlin Planetarium

Bruce Waters has been teaching astronomy to the public for over 43 years. He has been active in various amateur astronomy organizations and worked at the McLaughlin Planetarium in a variety of roles that involved the education and promotion of astronomy to the public. As part of McLaughlin's outreach programs, Bruce started to teach astronomy in the Provincial Park system and has been teaching astronomy at Ontario Park's first Dark Sky preserve - Killarney Provincial Park - ever since. At the Park, Bruce facilitated the opening of Ontario Park's first public-use observatory which was augmented in 2018 by adding a much larger research grade facility. 
Since then, Bruce has worked closely with York University's Allen I. Carswell Observatory team to create an Astronomer in Residence Program that oversees qualified astronomy educators providing knowledge and guidance to the Park's many thousands of visitors. He continues to be involved in public education through his monthly authorship of the Ontario Parks astronomy blogs.

Robin Metcalfe

Director and Associate Professor, Division of Natural Science, Department of Science, Technology & Society, Faculty of Science, York University

Dr. Metcalfe teaches physics and space-related courses in York's Division of Natural Science including Astronomy, History of Astronomy, Space Flight and Exploration, Introduction to Physics, and Physics for World Leaders. Her course was chosen as one of York’s two “Cool Courses” in MacLean’s 2015 University Rankings.

Elaina Hyde

Director, Allan I Carswell Observatory, Department of Physics & Astronomy, York University

Dr. Hyde's research is "in and above the cloud", combining astrophysics, data science, cloud computing, planetary sciences, optical engineering, telescope operations and telescope observations. Her primary astrophysical research focus is galactic archaeology. She has worked with instrumentation and telescopes around the world, and my experience enables me to provide technical leadership for York University's Allan I. Carswell Astronomical Observatory. Another motivation for her is the promotion of astronomy education and research through public telescope activities and exploration. As a lecturer, trainer, and consultant, she innovates teaching methodologies for interdisciplinary audiences across the sciences as well as for businesses, students and the general public. Also, She a certified Google Cloud Trainer and Google Cloud Engineer, and she has considerable experience as a trainer and consultant in data science in the private sector.

The world’s nurses have been enduring ceaseless challenges from the overwhelmed health care system—resulting in burn-out.  This was further exacerbated by the most recent COVID-19 pandemic that strained the front-line nurses worldwide.  Even as nurses have been appreciated and widely trusted for this service—their public voices are still rarely heard. The absence of nursing’s voice contributes to the fact that nurses continue to be undervalued.

This ‘Nurses’ Voices Speakers’ Series’ will continue our innovative global multi-media outreach to prepare and engage nurses, including students and retirees, to become empowered leading public storytellers and to share their stories of advocating for healing, resilience, and collaboration for a healthy world—as thought-leaders across the global public space and to the listening ears of everyone!

The key goals and objectives of the speaker series are to:

  • To provide a platform for sharing knowledge and experiences related to nursing and nursing’s public image and voice—across all six WHO Regions and representing many nursing clinical areas of practice, including public health.
  • To create a leading community of influencers, practitioners, researchers, and educators who are interested in nursing and improving nursing’s public image and voice.
  • To increase awareness of and commitment to the Nightingale Declaration to Achieve a Healthy World (available in 13 language versions) as our strategy for establishing NIGH’s global community and, thus, to strengthen NIGH’s capacity to bring grassroots-to-global feedback through our UN ECOSOC ‘Special Consultative Status.’
  • To provide attendees with practical information and tools that they can use in their own work related to nursing’s public image and voice.
  • To promote nurses, nursing, and nursing’s public image—across all six WHO Regions—by highlighting leading success stories and best practices.
  • To foster collaboration and networking among attendees, speakers, and stakeholders.
  • To stay up-to-date with the latest research, developments and trends in nursing’s public image and voices.
  • To provide attendees with an opportunity to access and provide feedback on Virtual Technical applications developed and established at CIFAL York.
  • To embed a study of the transcripts from this ‘Speakers’ Series’ to determine relevant themes and to publish related results in a published format to be determined.

Target Audiences:

  • Nursing Education Professionals, Researchers, and Students
  • Nursing Clinical Practice Professionals, Researchers, and Students
  • Public Health Nursing Professionals, Researchers, and Students
  • Professionals, Researchers, and Students in relevant academic fields
  • Non-governmental and intergovernmental professionals in related fields
  • Political, Religious, and Social Leaders
  • National, State, and Provincial Health Ministers
  • United Nations Representatives
  • Doctors
  • Caregivers
  • Policy Makers

ADERSIM

The Advanced Disaster, Emergency and Rapid Responsible Simulation (ADERSIM) evaluates and enhances disaster and emergency planning and rapid emergency response strategies by governmental, non-governmental and private sector organization in Canada and across the world. To achieve this goal, ADERSIM projects address the urgent needs of and interests of the industry, government and non-governmental partners in disaster and emergency management research and training. ADERSIM prioritizes emergency management issues and topics that are of particular importance to Ontarians and Canadians with global impacts. ADERSIM partnerships provide access to key information and data that guide practical and applied research projects and technology development—all to tackle our partners’ real world problems. Projects feature internships, exchange programs and other training opportunities for the benefit of all partners. ADERSIM welcomes students and researchers who are interested in conducting research in disaster and emergency management, particularly the use of technology (AI, Simulation, Drone mapping, Modelling, etc.).