Universities Must Lead in Community-Based Climate Change Solutions

As climate change becomes an increasingly pressing issue, various sectors, including governments, corporations, and institutions, must take active roles in addressing its impacts. Universities are no exception and can significantly contribute to these efforts. Universities, too, can and must help with that effort.

Located in the southern region of Vancouver Island, Royal Roads University exemplifies how communities can prepare for climate challenges. The summer season, influenced by El Niño, has brought warmer seas and drier weather conditions. By June, the island faced a complete depletion of snowpack reserves due to early melting.

The Canadian government’s drought assessment highlights expectations of higher-than-normal temperatures and reduced precipitation in the Pacific Northwest during the El Niño season. An early drought could severely impact farms, wetlands, wildfire risks, and the water needs of seasonal tourism on Vancouver Island. The combination of increased temperatures, dry forests, and limited water supplies poses significant threats.

In light of these climate conditions, leading universities should prioritize community-based metrics over traditional status rankings and H-factors. This involves actively applying expertise to help local communities manage their risks.

Universities must adopt a place-based approach to research and teaching, tailored to the unique challenges of their regions, including people, histories, economies, risks, and opportunities. A whole-institutional approach that emphasizes meaningful action over rhetoric is essential for achieving excellence.

Threats to coastal communities

Coastal regions have distinct social and ecological characteristics influenced by their proximity to water, limited land, and strong community bonds. Economies in these areas often rely heavily on fisheries, agriculture, ports, and tourism.

However, these regions face significant threats, including intensifying storms, rising sea levels, flooding, heat, and drought-related damage impacting coastal infrastructure, drinking water security, marine ecosystems, and essential services.

Even in the absence of El Niño, Vancouver Island experiences dry summers that weaken large trees. Winter windstorms then cause these trees to fall, disrupting power lines and blocking roads.

Essential services such as transport, energy, water, waste management, health care, emergency response, and food supply are vulnerable, depending on fragile connections like underwater cables, small treatment plants, or ferries. Winter windstorms can disrupt ferries, impacting Vancouver Island’s food supply.

The South Island Prosperity Partnership reports that “more than 80 per cent of our food com[es] from off-Island, only 20 to 30 per cent of our farmable land [is] in production, and only three days of fresh food [is] available at any given time.”

Southern Vancouver Island faces multiple and overlapping vulnerabilities, including intense population pressures, climate risks, and potential earthquakes and tsunamis. These factors increase the risk of social discord, as fears over housing, livelihoods, or cherished landscapes can lead to inequality, distrust, scapegoating, and injustice.

What universities can do

Universities should adopt a place-based approach to directly support their communities. What does this look like in practice?

At Royal Roads, we acknowledge that we may not have all the answers, but we can use interdisciplinary tools to evaluate community needs, risks, strengths, and vulnerabilities.

We encourage our faculty, students, and staff to identify and support existing community successes by forming partnerships with school boards, municipalities, community groups, and the private sector.

As educators, incorporating more experiential learning and community project opportunities into our courses is crucial. Students studying tourism, communications, business, or environmental science can collaborate with local communities on solution-focused projects across various coastal landscapes.

Students in health, leadership, and disaster and emergency management programs can work with community experts to design pre- and post-management scenarios for wildfires and earthquakes.

We can collaborate with Canada’s eastern and northern coastal universities to create joint, interdisciplinary coastal science degrees, expanding student opportunities and community impact.

Universities can also serve as hyper-regional hubs through continuing education, connecting research and applied expertise in science, health, culture, and policy to address community challenges.

Continuing education provides a centralized learning infrastructure, aligning the needs of employers, NGOs, and municipalities with curriculum to deliver community-specific training effectively.

The opportunities for universities to help prepare communities for climate impacts are numerous, but time is limited. With El Niño just beginning, Canadian universities must reevaluate priorities, form partnerships, and take action.