CSC climate change activities in 2021

Share a pledge

We believe that collective action can have a major impact. For this reason, we have asked our network of Commonwealth Scholars, Alumni, and partners to unite in pledging specific actions that can address climate issues in their communities this year. By making small changes today, we can bring about considerable impacts to tackle climate change in the future.

To find out more and how to make your pledge, visit the #OurClimatePledge page.

Climate Action webinar series

Between 25 October and 19 November 2021, the CSC Alumni team hosted a programme of webinars, delivered by Commonwealth Alumni, on their work, research, and contributions to tackling the climate crisis. 14 webinars took place as part of the ‘Climate Action’ series and explored a range of climate-related issues across 10 countries, including climate finance, gender security, climate change governance, clean and green energy, and public health. You can find out more about each of the webinars and speakers on the Events webpage.

Webinar recordings will be made available on the CSC’s YouTube channel following the series, as part of a ‘Climate Action’ playlist.

Events

Team ‘Mountain Mates’ working on their policy proposal ahead of the hackathon

The CSC hosted several events in the year of COP26 to encourage Commonwealth Scholars to collaborate to tackle climate change and its effects.

On 28 May 2021, the CSC ran a climate change workshop for Commonwealth and Chevening Scholars, hosted by AccessEd. Read more about it on the CSC’s Events page.

In Autumn 2021, running over several weeks, the Chevening, CSC and Marshall scholarship schemes brought their global alumni together in teams to develop innovative solutions to some of the most pressing global challenges our planet faces in a climate-focussed policy hackathon competition.

This was an exciting opportunity for scholarship alumni to work together at a national and transnational level to discuss, identify, and present the most prevalent climate change issues in their region, home country, and globally.

The participating teams benefited from networking and learning from world-leading experts from across the UK government’s scholarship schemes and developed their own thinking and expertise.

To find out more about the event, visit the news articles reporting on the beginning of the hackathon presentations here, continuing with a finalists report here, and congratulating the grand final winners here. The final report on the activity across all three Scholarship schemes is also available here.

Read about the Scholars and Alumni who are tackling climate change and its effects

In June 2021, the CSC published a special themed edition of its twice-annual magazine, Common Knowledge. This edition focused solely on the work of Commonwealth Scholars and Alumni who are helping to predict, track, manage, and mitigate the effects of climate change across the world. The Scholars and Alumni featured in each case study also explained how their Commonwealth Scholarship directly influenced and increased the levels of impact they are currently achieving in the field of climate change mitigation. Download the PDF version here, or read the accessible version here.

Throughout the year, the CSC has been interviewing, profiling, and articles on behalf of current Scholars who are working in the field of climate change, and sharing these profiles with other current Scholars in the monthly newsletter and over social media. These articles include work by Yashwantraj Seechurn (2019 Commonwealth Split-Site Scholar from Mauritius) who is advocating for environmental sustainability through research into material corrosion, Babatunde Osho (2020 Commonwealth Shared Scholar from Nigeria) who explains that cross-sectoral collaboration and climate research must be built around youth engagement and effective institutional leadership to be effective, Rajneesh Kumar (2020 Commonwealth Scholar from India) whose MSc Oceanography course at the University of Southampton has been instrumental in his ambition to construct accurate climate models to avert future disasters and ensure sustainable development for communities in India, and Sonia Alam (2019 Commonwealth PhD Scholar from Pakistan) who is researching the topic ‘Impact analysis of climate change adoption strategies on food security and rural poverty in Northern Areas-Pakistan’.