Global Challenges! Energy transition in the European Union
- Lynette Dias
- May 6, 2022
- 2 min read
As part of a course titled 'Global Challenges, Local Action' I studied about challenges we face in the 21st century; challenges caused by or related to climate change, urbanization, or an increased use of natural resources that are global issues, but need to be tackled on a local scale with an interdisciplinary approach.
The global challenges were:
Challenges of Urbanization
Challenges in the Coastal zone
Geo-health
Energy Transition
Food Security
The first part of this course involved keynote lectures by lecturers at ITC working in domains dealing with these challenges. There were multi-disciplinary group discussions on these topics as well. The second part involved selecting a single challenge and working in a group to study it at the local level.
"An interdisciplinary and project-based investigation in multidisciplinary groups (i.e. a region-specific case study that reflects a mix of challenges and impacts). The goal is to analyse a global issue more in-depth and collaboratively design a response (plan, strategy, policy recommendation, etc.) at the local level".
The topic I chose to work on was the Energy Transition in the European Union with a focus on the Netherlands. One of the biggest contributors to the rise in global temperatures is greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and the energy sector is the highest contributor of GHGs in the European Union. We decided to analyze GHG emissions by the energy sector in the EU from 1990-2018 in terms of factors contributing to them and policies set to reduce them. The conceptual framework of our study was as follows:
We presented our work in the form of an ArcGIS StoryMap.
A policy analysis of the Netherlands was also carried out as well as a GHG trend forecast to assess if the country was on its way to reach the targets it set in its policies. We also came up with an action plan for the European Union.
Dutch citizens do care about their role in climate change. In 2015 a Dutch environmental group called the Urgenda foundation filed a lawsuit against the dutch government for not doing enough to reduce the GHG emsiions in the country. The court rules in favour of Urgenda, ordering the Dutch government to 25% below 1990 emission levels. A gamechanger indeed!
The most interesting part about this course was that I got a chance to work with classmates from not just different disciplines, but also different countries! My group comprised of a Mexican, two Iranians, a Pakistani and an Indian with backgrounds in architecture, geography, natural resource management, geo-informatics, and geology.
Cover picture taken from www.europeanscientist.com
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