Download Annex G - Regione Sicilia

Education, expertise and the
global environmental
transition
Dario Padovan
Department of Social Sciences
University of Turin
The Three Crisis
 Energy
Crisis
 Growth Economy Crisis
 Climate change and
environmental crisis
1. Energy Crisis
 Increase
in cost of fossil fuels
 Peak oil (the supply can not meet
demand)
 Physical limits of fossil fuels
 Conflicts on the value chain of the oil
production cycle
Increase Price of Oil
Increase Production
Date of the peak after which oil production
begins a structural decline
Conflicts on the oil value chain
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Protests of local people against the extraction
Protests of employees in production and refining
(Arabia, Kuwait, Russia)
Illegal appropriation of oil
Rural guerrilla against companies (the Niger Delta,
Colombia)
Low intensity wars for control of wells, oil pipelines,
gas pipelines: Georgia, Afghanistan, Ecuador
Wars for oil
2. Crisis of economic growth
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GDP still
Increase in cost of raw materials
Limits the increase in productivity (over-production)
Social Limits to Growth (individual consumption take on
a social aspect: the satisfaction for the individual
consumption of goods and services depends on the
consumption of others. The case of air, traffic and other
common goods)
Culture of growth in a de-growth scenario: social
exclusion, racism, insecurity, anomie, Hobbesian state
Increase in cost of raw materials
3. Climate change and
environmental crisis
 Environmental
limits to growth: the
metabolic cycle
 Greenhouse gas emissions
 Environmental hazards and social
vulnerability increasing
 Increase in environmental conflicts
Greenhouse gas emissions
Greenhouse gas emissions per country
People who live without access to
electricity
Climate crisis, environmental hazards
and social vulnerability
Conflicts over control of energy and
materials
 There
is a link between the metabolic
profile of a social system and
environmental conflicts.
 Conflict on extracting energy and
materials
 Conflict on transport routes
 Conflict on waste and pollution
Sustainable Socio-Environmental
Transition
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Threats to sustainability of a system require urgent
attention if its rate of change begins to approach the
speed with which the system can adequately respond.
As the rate of change overwhelms this ability to
respond, the system loses its viability and
sustainability.
The sustainability of humankind is now threatened by
both of these factors: the dynamics of its technology,
economy and population accelerate the environmental
and social rates of change, while growing structural
inertia reduces the ability to respond in time.
The sustainability of human society becomes an urgent
concern.
The current ecological crisis is forcing
international, national and local institutions to
implement a process of radical environmental
change, that will limit the negative impact of
human activity on the biosphere and safeguard
the planet's bio-capacity.
 These objectives – that are part of a strategy we
call “ecological transition” – can only be
reached through a process of cooperation,
coordination and synergy among the various
institutions, and through a radical change in the
development policies, particularly at local
level, to be led by experts and professionals.

But the local community sustainable transition
should also be considered advantageous from
both a local and global point of view.
 Today's local, national and international policymakers often lack specific skills in promoting
development on a sustainable basis.
 A sustainable local development requires the
presence of professional figures with an
awareness of the local/global context and an
understanding of the changing and increasingly
complex and interdisciplinary scenarios.

Skills for Sustainability
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The objectives of our International Master Course are to
train experts in scientific policies and sustainable
development for local, regional, national and global
bodies, providing them with the necessary skills to:
cope with problems growing from hazardous industrial
plants and public health dangers;
implement the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions;
preserve and promote biological and cultural diversities
in a given territory;
identify sustainable management for strategic resources
such as water and energy;
lead the environmental transition in all the required
fields of application.
Strategy for environmental
transition
The aim of this project is to fine-tune a
training model, consisting of methodologies,
professional skills, knowledge, good practices
and awareness, that may encourage the
ecological transition in every corner of the
planet, with a specific focus on the EuroMediterranean and Latin-American regions.
 The main characteristics of this educational
project are:

The professional expertise, experience and
awareness of lecturers of international
standing may form experts, consultants and
professionals capable of leading sustainable
strategies at local and global level.
 The formative structure of the project, based
on the transfer of both theoretical and practical
competence and ability enables participants to
acquire predictive capacities and identify
strategic actions for accompanying
stakeholders and development bodies towards
local/global sustainability.

International links between research centres,
institutes, departments and universities involved
in environmental research and training, guarantee
high standards in study, professional approach
and state-of-the-art awareness in the subjects,
approaches and methods.
 Such interlinking favours the flow of knowledge
and the development and exchange of research’s
models and outcomes between institutions of
different countries and continents, with the aim
of accompanying and facilitating the decisions of
policy makers and stakeholders.

 The
mutual exchange of knowledge and
experiences between different universities,
institutes, research and training centres
may guarantee high standards of teaching,
assessment and research for the project
itself.
 Knowledge can be shared through forums,
seminars, conventions aimed at assessing
the educational and research processes and
improving the training proposal.
Radical Changes in Consumption
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Students will be educated in monitoring the
environmental and social quality of life at the local,
regional, national and transnational level and promoting
sustainable development in consumption (housing, food,
energy, transport, public and private utilities).
Participants will learn to use accounting tools such as
MFA, EFA, Ecological Footprint, HANPP methods, and
environmental accountability such as Life Cycle
Assessment, Integrated environmental economic
accounts, Green National Domestic Product and other
useful methods and economic planning skills to
implement sustainable production, consumption and
design styles.
Bottom-up Participation
Participants will be educated to lead the ecological
transition at different levels, guiding civil society,
firms, business companies and public
organisations towards new ways of production,
distribution and consumption of material, energy,
commodities and services.
 Here the focus is on methodologies of bottom-up
participation to involve the local population in
sustainable projects, future scenarios drawing,
social planning and communication such as
Agenda 21, Backcasting Approach and Strategic
Environmental Assessment,

Preserving Bio-cultural diversity
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Participants will be educated in preserving and
promoting bio-cultural diversity, understanding that
local knowledge, traditions and heritage are crucial
aspects of sustainable development.
Here the focus is on methods (in the biological,
sociological and anthropological fields) for
rediscovering and appreciating landscape and land
cultures – art, monuments, agriculture, food, land
safeguarding, architectural legacy, old industrial
buildings and craftsmanship – using appropriate tools
for communication and social marketing and for landand cultural museum management.
Risk governance and communication
Participants will be educated on the field of
preventing natural and industrial risks and
hazardous (natural disasters, industrial
disasters, pollution of air, water, food),
managing urban and rural development,
environmental conflicts, and scientific and
technological sustainable innovation.
 Participants will learn about risk
communication and policies of risk prevention
– such as climate change, loss of biodiversity,
deforestation.
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Scientific responsibility and
dissemination policy
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An international dissemination about theoretical environmentalrelated topics such as models of environmental transition,
complexity theory, interdisciplinary efforts to manage for a
integrated science of sustainability, methodologies of
environmental accounting will be implemented.
The emerging ethical, cultural and socio-economical problems
posed by the ecological crisis, are forcing us to act according to
the “principle of precaution” and in line with the United
Nations' “Millennium Development Goals”, with the “World
Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg 2002”
and the UNESCO coordination of the “United Nations Decade
of Education for Sustainable Development” (2005 and 2014).