Mathematics Meets Climate Crisis: PIMS’ Approach to Sustainability.
By the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences.
With the impending climate crisis, many Canadian institutions, organizations, and individuals are taking decisive steps toward creating a sustainable future. One such organization is the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences (PIMS) — a consortium of western Canadian universities and the University of Washington centered at UBC. In recent years, PIMS has spearheaded activities that bring together researchers in the mathematical sciences — when broadly construed, these include mathematics, statistics and computer science, as well as mathematical engineering — with the larger scientific community to address the challenge of better understanding the complexities of climate change and crafting sustainable solutions such as renewable energy alternatives.
Harnessing Math for Addressing the Grand Challenges of Humanity.
Özgür Yilmaz, the PIMS Director and a professor of mathematics at UBC, emphasizes this sentiment: “Mathematics has a profound role in understanding and addressing the grand challenges humanity is facing. For example, using mathematical modeling, we can predict the spread of infectious diseases and design efficient strategies to control them. With advanced statistical techniques, we can analyze social inequality and propose informed policy interventions. Now, in this climate crisis, we need mathematics more than ever, in order to understand the complex dynamics of our planet and guide our way to a sustainable future.”
PIMS Action on Climate Thematic Summer (ACTS) 2023.
In a timely move, PIMS recently engaged in a suite of activities, designated as the “PIMS Action on Climate Thematic Summer” or PIMS ACTS, in the summer of 2023. Building upon foundations laid in a 2019 PIMS technical workshop on renewable energy, PIMS ACTS consisted of a two-week summer school on renewable energy for graduate students, a program of green-themed industrial projects for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, a second technical workshop on renewable energy, and a public panel on climate change jointly organized by PIMS and the French Embassy in Vancouver. Most of these activities were spearheaded by a PIMS Collaborative Research Group, an intense three-year collaboration among researchers in renewable energy primarily from the Universities of Calgary and Victoria, led by University of Calgary professor Deniz Sezer.
“A major difference between the 2019 workshop and its 2023 counterpart was a shift in their focus. While the former covered an extremely broad array of renewable energy technologies, the latter focused on wind energy, solar energy, forecasting and economics,” says Brian Marcus, one of the lead organizers of both the 2019 and 2023 workshops, a professor of mathematics at UBC and the PIMS UBC Site Director. “Furthermore, the recent workshop was more student-oriented with nearly half of the participants being students, many of whom were graduates of the summer school organized as part of the PIMS ACTS activities.”
French-Ameri-Can Climate Talks (FACTS).
The public panel on “Tackling Climate Change and the Just Transition to Renewable Energy” stood out among the myriad of activities of PIMS ACTS. This event, co-hosted by PIMS and the French Embassy in Canada*, was organized as part of a series of French-Ameri-Can Climate Talks (FACTS) that have been held throughout North America in the past decade.
The FACTS event, which was attended by more than 120 people, consisted of three sessions: a three-hour session of individual talks by each of the panelists, followed by a two-hour panel discussion, and a one-hour “Meet the panelists” session. All sessions were open to the general public, the UBC community, and attendees of the technical workshop on renewable energy. The event was an opportunity for everyone to learn about and engage in a wide variety of issues in climate change.
The panelists included prominent Canadian and French scientists and activists representing climate science, renewable energy, economics, public policy, and Indigenous affairs. Specifically, the panelists and the titles of their individual talks were:
- René Aïd: Professor of Economics, University of Paris-Dauphine, former Deputy-Director of EDF Research Energy Finance, Co-founder and former Director of the Finance for Energy Markets Research Initiative. “More electricity demand response for less carbon emissions.”
- Gaël Giraud: Founder and Professor, Georgetown University Environmental Justice Program, former chief economist of the French Development Agency, CNRS research director, and Jesuit priest. “Macroeconomics and climate.”
- Seth Klein: Public policy researcher, author, Team Lead with the Climate Emergency Unit, and founding director of BC office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. “Mobilizing Canada for the climate emergency.”
- Judith Sayers: President of the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council, lawyer, renewable energy leader, Chancellor of Vancouver Island University, member of Order of Canada. “First Nations leadership in clean energy and climate action.”
- Andrew Weaver: Professor of Earth Sciences, University of Victoria, IPCC lead author, former BC MLA, and former leader of BC Green Party. “Privilege, agency, and the climate scientist’s role in the global warming debate.”
Read some of the key takeaways from each panel speaker and their talks.
The main feature of the FACTS event was the panel discussion, which was masterfully moderated by Laura Lynch, CBC journalist and host of the weekly radio show “What on Earth”. The panel discussion touched on an extremely wide range of issues and topics: on the importance of individual versus governmental actions; governmental incentives versus governmental mandates; carbon sequestration using new technologies as opposed to nature-based sequestration; youth engagement; the role of the fossil fuel industry itself in transitioning to renewable energy; how to deal with the intensive political lobbying and advertising capacity of the fossil fuel industry; the role of the mathematical sciences in climate change and renewable energy (including differential equations, game theory, optimization, cost-benefit analysis, mathematics of social sciences, and the role of mathematical proof); a partnership with First Nations in developing renewable energy solutions; and more.
Above all, while the panel acknowledged the urgency of the situation, the main message was one of hope, recalling the historical successes of mobilizing resources to fight World War II, confronting the tobacco lobby, and sending a human to the moon.
There was a feeling of high energy and intense interest, as panelists engaged with the public in an interactive and spirited way, signalling a collective commitment to creating a sustainable future.
Looking forward, PIMS continues to invest heavily in a future that will leverage the role of the mathematical sciences in tackling the climate crisis as well as other big challenges humanity may face.
* In addition to PIMS and the French Embassy, support for the panel and technical workshop was also provided by the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions (PICS), the UBC Faculty of Science, and UBC Connects.
Recordings of the full presentations are available through Mathtube.
