New UVic program strives to make students climate change solution leaders

The University of Victoria in September will welcome students to what the school calls a first-of-its-kind program in Canada that aims to equip the next generation with the skills they’ll need to help solve the climate crisis.

UVic’s new Coastal Climate Solutions Leaders program will be open to masters and PhD students, along with postdoctorate fellows. It will link the sciences, engineering, social sciences and business as it provides training on climate change, its impacts, plus mitigation and adaptation solutions.

As governments look to stunt rising temperatures, the world will need climate action workforces that can help advance climate change mitigation and adaptation, the university said in a news release. It added that tens of thousands of climate-related jobs are expected to be created in B.C. this decade.

“Tomorrow’s climate leaders will need to understand the climate crisis broadly, including the on-ground challenges and opportunities for accelerating solutions,” Julia Baum, a UVic biology professor, said in the release.

“Our new program redefines how we train students by immersing them in highly interdisciplinary trainee cohorts and with people working to solve the climate crisis, so they understand the complexity of this challenge and develop the broad systems thinking required to tackle it.”

The trainees will be supervised by more than 40 UVic climate researchers representing 19 different departments. Their work will focus on all aspects of coastal climate solutions, including topics like marine renewables, green financing and coastal adaptation strategies.

The program will also involve more than 35 partners from all levels of government across Canada, industry groups, non-profits and North American think tanks.

“Every job is a climate job,” Baum said. “I think our government realizes that and they understand that they need a workforce capable of leading the challenge of climate change, and we don’t yet have that skilled workforce. This program will help contribute to that.”

The new program is supported by a $1.65-million grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and $1.15 million from the university.

“UVic is quickly becoming known as Canada’s climate university, and this transformative new program will help prepare future generations of leaders to meet these complex challenges head on,” said Lisa Kalynchuk, UVic’s vice president of research and innovation.

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