IU has established a Climate Action Planning Committee as of April 7, 2022. The committee of professors, students and staff from multiple IU campuses aims to develop and identify short- and long-term recommendations to reduce the impact of greenhouse gas emissions at all IU campuses.
Dean of the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs Siân Mooney said the committee will address issues related to climate change in multiple ways.
“[The committee will tackle issues] throughout the whole IU system,” Mooney said. “So all of the campuses looking at opportunities we might have for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”
While the committee has yet to have its first meeting, Director of Sustainability and Chair of Geosciences at IU Northwest Erin Argyilan is keen to address the intersection of climate action, climate injustice and sustainability during her time on the committee.
“Those concepts are often put in their little boxes a little bit too much,” Argyilan said. “I'm starting to see how they all dovetail together and need to be addressed in the same conversations.”
Sarah Mincey is the O’Neill School Managing Director of the Environmental Resilience Institute and Director of Integrated Program in the Environment Sarah Mincey. She said this committee is a vital first step in considering how IU campuses are going to handle climate changes that are already in store for us.
“So given the industries that are in this state, particularly agriculture,” Mincey said. “The state needs to be thinking about how are we going to be resilient to those changes on our campuses.”
Mincey noted Indiana is going to face a future with higher heat days and more storm events for a large part of the year, which is why a Climate Action Planning Committee, established by new IU President Pamela Whitten, is an important next step in the right direction.
Former President Michael McRobbie created his Grand Challenges program four years prior to this committee, one of the results of which was the Environmental Resilience Institute.
