Ukraine-Russia War: Can it be Accelerator for Paris Climate Agreement? 

This is how evacuated University Students Could Help

'Evacuation' of their own university students trapped in Ukraine is the topmost agenda of countries around the world. That sounds quite logical. What can one do when the house is on fire? Priority would obviously be to save the lives by evacuating as many people as possible from the house on fire. In the case of the Russia-Ukraine war, however, there is one difference. The evacuation of 'own citizens' is the priority for each country. No collective efforts were seen for evacuation.

International University students have figured prominently in the news about the war in Ukraine. More than 80,000 university students, with 25% coming from India, 10% from China and the remaining from Africa, South Asia and Latin America have been evacuated or have found temporary shelter since the Russian invasion began on 24 February.

Each country has reported how many flights were arranged and how many university students and other citizens were brought back home. Mostly, that became the 'drumming news' of swift national action by the respective Governments.

And what about helpless Ukrainian people who are left behind in midst of the fire? Those who ran away towards the border of their country to escape?

In the fury and flurry of national bravery of evacuation, what is forgotten is the crying need to prevent further escalation of war and immediate cease-fire. What is missed is the consideration of the deadly impacts the war would have on the planet and people that are already fighting a losing battle on climate, biodiversity and inequity.

The fallout from Russia's war in Ukraine not only risks the Paris Climate agreement but also meeting the Sustainable Development Goals. Global food and energy markets have already started getting affected by record inflation. Developing countries are feeling the severe brunt already with interest rate hikes and looming debt burdens, as per observations by United Nations. War after COVID19 is something that people never wanted.

Russia is a major part of the global energy system thanks to its huge fossil fuel resources. It is the world's third-largest oil producer after the US and Saudi Arabia, accounting for 12% of global output, and the second-largest gas producer after the US, responsible for 17% of the global output.

The ceasing of the supply of oil and gas from Russia could trigger the accelerated reversal toward fossil fuel use to get over the rising demand for energy. That would be unfortunate.

On positive prediction, the world has the opportunity to embrace accelerated change toward improving energy efficiency and renewable energy, including hydrogen energy. In 1972 during the oil crisis, the world witnessed a continental shift towards renewable energy.

This is how Smart Campus Cloud Network (sccnhub.com) would suggest:

The bright University students evacuated from Ukraine could be screened by experts from the G20 or United Nations appropriate agency with the objective of establishing centres in countries like India to speed up the deployment of renewable energy with god-speed. This should be in addition to the national and international efforts being already in place.

New Centre could be an accelerator in the transformation to address Climate Change to limit the temperature rise to 2 deg C while making efforts to limit it to even 1.5 deg C. The centre is called 'Ukraine Accelerator for Paris Climate Agreement.'

The war against fossil fuels does not need national efforts for the 'evacuation' of their own university students. In reality, it needs to get together those youth globally to 'fill' the gap of political will to address life-threatening climate change.

 Dr Rajendra Shende, 

Chairman - TERRE Policy Centre,

Former Director UNEP, IIT Alumni  

Coordinating lead author of IPCC.