Every year on the third Saturday of April, Ukraine celebrates the Day of the Environment - the holiday was started in 1998 after the Stockholm Conference on the Environment, which became one of the most important in the history of the environmental movement, because it was then that UNEP (United Nations Environment Network) was founded - the UN's intergovernmental environmental program, which now is the main organizer and ideologist of the World Environment Day, which is celebrated on June 5. The program is aimed at solving the most acute problems of the modern ecological crisis, in particular, regarding desertification, soil degradation, deterioration of the quality and reduction of the quantity of fresh water, pollution of the World Ocean, and others.
Organizations like UNEP are driving transformative change by addressing the root causes of the triple planetary crisis—climate change, loss of nature, biodiversity and environmental pollution. Their mission is to inspire, inform and enable society to improve the quality of life without compromising future generations.
Such cooperation at the international level with the involvement of various sectors — from businesses and state institutions to the educational cluster — allows to activate the potential of as many areas as possible to the issue of climate awareness and the subsequent search for solutions.
Usually on this day, public organizations conduct activities aimed at improving the environment and spreading awareness of the environmental factor. However, Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine has somewhat changed the vector of importance of the issues. But despite the war in Ukraine, the International Scientific and Technical University named after Academician Yuriy Bugai continues to maintain an active and responsible public position, in particular in the issue of climate initiatives.
It is worth emphasizing that ISTU is a member of the UniCities consortium — an institutional cooperation project co-financed by the European Commission as part of the Erasmus+ program.
The main goal of UniCities is to reveal the transformative potential of Ukrainian universities as catalysts and accelerators of systemic changes in cities. The main orientation is focused on the direction of sustainable development and climate neutrality, in particular through interdisciplinary research, education and innovation focused on societal challenges and cooperation.
Despite the fact that the Environment Day itself is called to once again raise the climate issue to the public, ISTU acts within the framework of such initiatives much more often than once a year on a specific day: representatives of the university regularly attend thematic initiatives, important public platforms, panels and international meetings, which in particular, they are aimed at revealing the transformative potential of Ukrainian universities in order to further develop climate-neutral and sustainable cities.
In addition to regular visits by ISTU representatives, the university holds its own public meetings. It is only worth mentioning "UniCities Transition Lab Forum I" as part of the conference for the 30th anniversary of the establishment of ISTU "Sustainability of education and science in conditions of transformation".
Then the forum was organized within the framework of the international cooperation project Erasmus+ in cooperation with representatives of such international initiatives as Viable cities and Cities2030 — it was possible to gather in one place representatives of the government, universities, companies and public organizations capable of mobilizing the efforts of the public and various spheres of the country's activities for joint promotion of the idea of climate-neutral and ecologically clean reconstruction of Ukrainian cities. And it was only the first of a whole series that awaits in the future.
In addition, a thematic lecture was recently held with Vira Balabukh, a Ukrainian researcher, candidate of geographical sciences and head of the Department of Applied Meteorology and Climatology of the UkrGMI. Then the lecture was also held as part of the UniCities Erasmus project, the sole purpose of which is to create an opportunity for students to familiarize themselves with current issues related to the climate, its changes, and the impact of the consequences on people's lives.
After all, we realize why it is so important to change our attitude towards the climate today. Already today, on Environment Day, it is worth understanding: every decision we make now will have a complex impact on the climate in the future!
