Editorial

Citation

Leal Filho, W. (2001), "Editorial", International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, Vol. 2 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijshe.2001.24902daa.001

Editorial

Before this issue of IJSHE goes to press, Ministers from 185 delegations attending the 4th Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Climate Change (COP6) Part 2 have clinched a historic last-minute deal on what should encourage most rich nations to reduce the industrial pollution blamed for global warming.

An all-night negotiating marathon in Bonn, Germany in late July saw European Union Ministers finally break a deadlock with Japan over how the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on cutting greenhouse gas emissions should work in practice, paving the way for the Treaty to come into force. Another failure, after the collapse of a summit in The Hague in November 2000, could have killed it off for good following President Bush's withdrawal from the pact in March 2001.

Some environmental campaigners have voiced some disappointment at what they called loopholes in the final deal. But they also said that any accord which made a start on curbing dangerous changes in the Earth's climate and the threat of rising sea levels was better than nothing. Amid bleary smiles and multiple standing ovations for conference chairman Jan Pronk, the Dutch environment minister, there was irritation that the USA had rejected any deal in advance, saying Kyoto's mandatory emissions would hurt the US economy.

In a gesture that could have significance for future discussions, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said in Tokyo that his government would "continue maximum efforts" to "achieve an agreement inclusive of the United States". As Jennifer Morgan, of WWF's climate change campaign, has stated: "This first small step is a giant leap for humanity and for the future of our planet."

The deliberations in Bonn should now find their way to universities all over the world. The challenge of reducing their environmental impact as a whole, and emissions in particular, should now be taken more seriously than ever before. The broad (macro) deliberations and action agreed in Bonn should be complemented by concrete activities and programmes at the local (micro) level. Universities are uniquely qualified to be among the first to provide such a contribution and many have done so already.

IJSHE will continue to report on projects and document experiences from universities in the field of sustainable development as a whole and will strive to emphasise initiatives aimed at reducing emissions and contributing to the mitigation of the problem of climate change in particular.

In this issue, a set of initiatives in Latvia and Spain are documented, whilst findings of an empirical study held with a sample of students in the USA are presented. In addition, some of the findings of the Global Scan Survey of sustainability experts undertaken by Environics International are discussed. An appraisal of the role of transport in universities is also presented in this issue, complemented by an analysis of the environment contents of some reference books. It is hoped that the diversity of experiences and approaches in this issue of IJSHE will inspire even more universities to become engaged in the sustainability debate.

Walter Leal Filho