Chaminade University is hosting a meeting this week that features an international assembly of leaders from the Pacific and elsewhere to discuss sustainability-focused goals, education and solutions.
The 19th annual Steering Committee Meeting of the CIFAL Global Network also includes a series of seminars and workshops, led by experts from the United Nations, addressing sustainability and climate change issues. “This kind of cross fertilization of ideas is the primary goal of these annual meetings,” said Nikhil Seth, the United Nations’ assistant secretary-general.
Chaminade University established CIFAL Honolulu on its campus in August after receiving a $10 million grant from the National Science Foundation. The French acronym CIFAL roughly translates to, “an international center for education and training of local actors,” said Chaminade’s provost, Lance Askildson.
It is one of the 25 United Nations Sustainability Centers across the world, all of which have committed to working toward meeting the United Nation’s 17 “sustainable development goals.” The top three are: “No poverty,” economic growth must be inclusive to provide sustainable jobs and promote equality; “zero hunger,” looking to the food and agriculture sector for key solutions for hunger problems; and “good health and well-being,” such as through vaccination against disease.
Establishing the center connected Chaminade to a global network of institutions and municipalities. It’s also enabled the expansion of its data science program, which is being operated in partnership with the University of Hawaii’s Data Science Institute, the University of Texas at Austin and the Texas Advanced Computing Center.
Earlier this month, representatives from 200 participating countries convened in Egypt for the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference. There, one of the biggest discussions revolved around compensating poor countries that aren’t big contributors to climate change yet are severely affected by it.
“This has been a struggle for 30 years,” Seth said. “Now there’s been some movement forward with richer developed countries agreeing to contribute to a fund, which will compensate those who are least responsible and the least able to respond to climate change.”
Seth has posed the idea that Chaminade’s robust data science resources could aid in calculating compensations.
Askildson sees the Steering Committee Meeting as an opportunity for leaders from the Pacific with Indigenous knowledge to share their methods and ideas.
“Native Hawaiians, native Chamorro and other Indigenous people of the Pacific have a lot to teach us about sustainable practices,” Askildson said. “And much of that is held within Indigenous practices that may have been maintained through oral traditions, or need to be codified in various ways.” Even those with general expertise on Hawaii’s unique challenges as an isolated state have something to bring to the table, he added.
Among the conference’s Hawaii attendees are representatives from the state Department of Land and Natural Resources and local nonprofits. Also, East-West Center President Suzanne Vares-Lum is scheduled to hold a panel event, Askildson said.
Ultimately, the meeting’s goal is to further efforts toward achieving sustainable development goals, while sharing ideas from CIFALs and communities across the globe, Seth said.
“Our world is in the emergency room and it’s facing multiple interrelated crises,” Seth said. “In a time like this … the CIFALs are desperately needed. … If the CIFAL network can’t step up to the plate and come up with healthy learning responses — changing the attitudes of businesses, changing the attitudes of policy makers at the governmental level, changing how civil society works,” the U.N.’s list of sustainable development goals will not be within reach.
While the first two days of the meeting were held behind closed doors, the public is welcome to attend 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday at the Clarence T.C. Ching conference room in Chaminade’s Eiben Building.
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Linsey Dower covers ethnic and cultural affairs and is a corps member of Report for America, a national service organization that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues and communities.
