As the clock ticks on carbon reduction targets, a donor-funded award is helping this Balsillie School PhD candidate develop policy-based solutions.
If reducing our reliance on fossil fuels seems like a monumental task, that’s because it is. Just ask PhD candidate Choyon Saha. He’s making it his life’s work to help tackle climate change but he doesn’t have any illusions about what it will take to address one of the biggest threats of our time.
Fortunately, a scholarship funded by Waterloo donors is giving the international student exactly what he needs to focus on innovative policy solutions: the gift of time. With financial support, he’s been able to dedicate more of his energy to urgently needed climate policy research in the Balsillie School of International Affairs.
Supporting real-world impactChoyon’s donor-funded scholarship helps cover his international student tuition and living expenses so he can immerse himself in his research. Scholarships like Choyon’s are funded in part by the Circle Program, consisting of generous donors who each give between $1,000 and $24,999 to the University annually.
His dissertation focuses on how his home country of Bangladesh and other least-developed countries (LDCs) can pressure the G20 countries, who are responsible for 80% of human-made greenhouse gases, to cut back on fossil fuel production.
The accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere driven by fossil fuel emissions is a significant contributor to the rise in global temperatures — a problem that’s contributing to the surge in natural disasters we’ve witnessed around the world in recent years.
Within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), there are 46 LDCs that contribute far fewer fossil-fuel emissions than developed countries and have limited capacity to adapt to the effects of climate change, including extreme weather events and natural disasters.
Choyon’s research is aimed at developing policies that would dramatically reduce the supply and production of fossil fuels by high-emitting countries and lessen the negative impacts of climate change.
“My ultimate goal is to become a negotiator for the LDC group at the UNFCCC,” he says. “I think it’s important to come up with realistic strategies to pressure high-producing countries to reduce fossil fuel supply and production. That would be a great contribution to confronting the climate crisis we are facing right now.”
After completing a bachelor’s and master’s degree in sociology at the University of Dhaka in Bangladesh, Choyon relocated to Canada in 2017 to pursue his master’s in environmental policy at Memorial University.
He then followed Professor Angela Carter, his graduate supervisor and an expert in environmental policy, to Waterloo’s Balsillie School — the ideal place to pursue his research interests through a global governance lens.
“To the best of my knowledge, while other universities in Canada, Europe and Asia have schools of international governance, none that I’m aware of have PhD programs like the Balsillie School,” Choyon says. “The global prominence and reputation of the school was a major factor in my decision to come to Waterloo.”
Choyon has been busy presenting his research at multiple conferences, publishing journal articles and a book chapter, completing his comprehensive exams, defending his PhD proposal and conducting fieldwork in Bangladesh. He says being able to stay active with conferences and publications while hitting his degree milestones on schedule has a lot to do with donor support.
“The impact of these awards on my life has been significant. As an international student, my fees for tuition are higher, so that’s very challenging to manage.”
“I see how much time some of my peers spend working in research and teaching assistantships and I recognize how fortunate I am that I have the time to dedicate to my academics because I have financial support. I would really like to thank Circle donors for their generosity.”
