The University of Toronto – represented by President Meric Gertler – was one of 47 universities that recently met in Paris to reach agreement on how post-secondary institutions can play a leadership role in addressing urgent global issues, from climate change to income inequality.
The group of universities, from 18 countries around the world, belong to the U7+ Alliance that was established by France as a way to dig deeper into the issues to be discussed by world leaders at the upcoming G7 summit in Biarritz.
University of Toronto President Meric Gertler is in Paris this week to attend the inaugural summit of the U7 Alliance, a unique international partnership that brings together leading universities to tackle the most pressing global challenges of the day.
The two-day summit, which kicked off today, will see the leaders of over 45 universities – drawn from 21 countries and representing over 2 million students – discuss five major global challenges: climate change and clean energy, inequality and polarization, technological transformation, community engagement and the role of universities in a global world.
U of T researchers from a variety of backgrounds are among the more than 15,000 scientists from around the world who have signed onto a recent call to action on climate change.
The day after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau unveiled the details of a national climate framework – taxing carbon and offsetting costs to consumers with rebates – a guest was invited to discuss the policy with an engineering class at the University of Toronto.
The University of Toronto is joining 12 other leading research universities in North America in a coalition to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on their own campuses and in their communities.
Researcher Geoff Ozin and the Solar Fuels Team at the University of Toronto have been awarded close to $1 million from the Low Carbon Innovation Fund (LCIF) to translate their greenhouse gas research to scale.