The University of Waterloo Climate Institute brings together scientists and students to elevate and enhance the impact and excellence of innovative interdisciplinary research and education that empowers business, government and civil society to respond effectively to the climate crisis.
University of Waterloo’s unique combination of strengths and depth of expertise allows us to deal head-on with the complexity and interconnectedness of social, political and technological dimensions of the climate crisis.
Our expertise and focus
Our three core areas of research and innovation are developed through lenses of equity, justice, governance, and innovation to create truly impactful solutions for this existential global challenge.
News
Insights into the Loss and Damage Fund
Sarah Greene, a COP28 delegate with the Waterloo Climate Institute and a PhD candidate at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, shares insight into the Loss and Damage Fund, addressing Canada's role on the global stage while attending COP28.
Phasing out Fossil Fuels: Columbia signs the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty at COP28
Sarah Greene, a COP28 delegate from the Waterloo Climate Institute and a PhD candidate in the Balsillie School of International Affairs, shares her in person experience witnessing nations take action for #ClimateJustice as Columbia signs the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Funds and Fossil Fuels: Building resilience at COP28
Miswar Syed, a virtual COP28 delegate and a master’s student in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, illustrates the topic of recently established funds, goals and more. In his reflection, he elaborates on significant outcomes from the launch of new funds and the implications of them.
Events
Understanding our feelings about climate change: Impacts on our health
How we feel about climate change is really important - so we need to think about it and measure it. There are a lot of words being used to describe how we feel about climate change: worry, anxiety, eco-anxiety, decreased well-being, and so on. This talk will be lead by Susan Elliott, Professor of Geography and Environmental Management. Susan Elliott's research interests are environment and health, the global environment, urban social geography,and philosophy and method in the social sciences.
Fuelling forests, modelling nutrient cycling and projecting climate change
Join the Waterloo Climate Institute and the Faculty of Mathematics for a guest lecture on the intricacies of how nitrogen cycling is represented within Earth System Models. Sian Kou-Giesbrecht from the University of Dalhousie will explore how the terrestrial carbon sink needs nutrients such as nitrogen to fuel plant growth and continue to sequester carbon. Find out more about how this complex set of interactions plays out in terrestrial ecosystems.
Post-covid freedom discourses and their influence on the politics of climate intervention
Holly Jean Buck, Assistant Professor of Environment and Sustainability at the University at Buffalo explores multiple methods (interviews, focus groups, discourse analysis, and participant-observation) to survey the US, discussing what post-covid political subcultures mean for climate politics broadly and the politics of solar geoengineering research in particular.