SDG 13: Climate Action

HKBU students visited Fung Kai No.1 Primary School to deliver a STEM energy workshop to nearly 100 Primary 3 students as part of the "Sustainable Energy and Technological Innovation in China" service-learning course led by Dr Daphne Mah. During the session, the university students engaged the primary students in hands-on DIY weather station activities to help them understand how climate change influences solar efficiency. This workshop provided valuable opportunities for the HKBU students to educate younger students on environmental sustainability and carbon neutrality. They also visited the school's rooftop solar energy system to examine and reflect on community-based renewable energy infrastructures. To broaden the perspectives of HKBU students, they travelled to Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, to gain frontline insights into the technological developments in China.

Ten students from the Green Quest programme at the Leadership Qualities Centre of the Office of Student Affairs collaborated with a climate action advocate and an urban planner to explore the impact of individual behavioural changes and urban design on community sustainability. Through research and various activities, such as organising a clothes swap event, leading a beach clean-up, and hosting a climate café, the students raised community awareness of climate change. They also suggested improvements to age-friendly facilities in shopping centres and offered solutions to enhance community connectivity through the creative use of space.

The GreenHack Challenge 2023, organised by TriAngle of the Centre for Innovative Service-Learning, was a 48-hour global virtual event from 20 to 22 October 2023. It spurred global innovators to take climate action. Addressing the impacts of climate change, 110 students from 16 regions devised solutions for carbon reduction and environmental sustainability. The event fostered design thinking and technological applications to combat rising temperatures, with the winning team's "CommunIOTy" platform providing IoT-based flood management. The runners-up contributed with "RiceHusk", an upcycling enterprise, and "Blend&Go", which promotes water-efficient food technologies. These initiatives reflect the University's commitment to climate-responsive innovation.

Department of Geography
Authors: Fan WANG, Yangyang XU, Piyushkumar N PATEL, Ritesh GAUTAM, Meng GAO*, Cheng LIU*, Yihui DING, Haishan CHEN, Yuanjian YANG, Yuyu ZHOU, Gregory R CARMICHAEL, Michael B MCELROY
_{*Corresponding author}

This research explores the decline in dust loading in West and South Asia over the past two decades, attributing this trend to Arctic amplification due to anthropogenic global warming. By linking the reduction in dust levels to Arctic amplification-driven atmospheric alterations impacting dust emissions and transport, it underscores the intricate interplay between climate change and environmental phenomena in these regions. Climate model simulations corroborate the substantial role of greenhouse gas-induced Arctic amplification in shaping dust loading trends.

Furthermore, this research alerts to the potential adverse effects of carbon neutrality efforts leading to increased regional dust loading, stressing the importance of proactive anti-desertification measures such as reforestation and improved irrigation management. It highlights the necessity of integrated strategies to address climate change impacts on dust dynamics in West and South Asia while advocating for sustainable land management practices to combat desertification effectively.

Academy of Visual Arts and Academy of Music
Authors: Roberto ALONSO TRILLO, Peter NELSON, Samson YOUNG*, Leo, Michael SCHIEFEL
_{*Corresponding author}

“Trees In The Round” was an interactive performance made in collaboration with renowned Hong Kong artist Samson Young and engaged jazz vocalist Michael Schiefel. This project engaged one of Hong Kong’s most influential video artists and sound composers to work alongside Nelson and Alonso Trillo in the Visualisation Research Centre to produce an immersive performance for this unique system. Based on a combination of Alonso Trillo and Nelson’s research into generative adversarial networks and how AI produces 3-dimensional forms, alongside local histories of sacred trees in Hong Kong and cognitive scientific research into pattern recognition and edge detection relative to our evolving relationship with the physical environment over millennia. This 30-minute performance was presented in three fully-booked sessions during Art Basel 2024.

School of Continuing Education
Authors: Sam S S LAU*, Cherry C Y HO
_{*Corresponding author}

Addressing psychological burdens of youth emotional engagement in the climate crisis, alongside other global crises

Sustained climate action from individuals faces many psychological hurdles, just as nations encounter technological, financial, and political barriers in combating the climate crisis. Climate anxiety is considerably taxing to youths, especially as our planet is becoming increasingly vulnerable to climate-related and man-made disasters. In light of these emerging long-term global crises, our multi-country study reconceptualised the landscape perceived by youths, to which the climate crisis (C) is not experienced in isolation, but concurrently with war or armed-conflict crises (W) and radioactive-ecological crises (R), all of which shape the emotional responses of youths to global events.

Our findings suggest that global crises had compounding risks associated with a set of highly correlated negative emotions, including a shared sense of cross-crisis guilt prominently displayed by Chinese respondents. Total emotional engagement in ecological crises (but not wars) lead to worse psychological health outcomes, chiefly independent of respective media exposure, but strongly alleviated by nature connectedness. Grassroots support for SGD 13 relies on more than just climate messaging, but it must also address the compounded anxiety stemming from multiple global crises.