{"id":172509,"date":"2024-10-17T14:05:12","date_gmt":"2024-10-17T12:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=172509"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:27:31","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:27:31","slug":"climate-summit-at-eur-neoliberal-depression-with-a-glimmer-of-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2024\/10\/17\/climate-summit-at-eur-neoliberal-depression-with-a-glimmer-of-hope\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate summit at EUR: Misery, depression with a glimmer of hope"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lecturers, climate scientists and students gathered last Friday at the EUR Sustainability Summit, an event meant to reflect on a sustainable future for Dutch academia. While the day offered plenty of frustration and climate woes, there was also a glimmer of hope.<\/p>\n

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Illustrator Karlfancy summarised the climate summit in a cartoon that captures the mood of the day well.<\/span><\/p>

\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tKarlfancy<\/span>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

The summit took place just under six months later than planned. It was supposed to be the concluding event of a series of sustainability dialogues at the university in mid-May but was cancelled due to an announced pro-Palestine protest on campus.<\/p>\n

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Closing session of the summit.<\/span><\/p>

\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWieneke Gunneweg<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>

Putting on the event was again not without its hiccups, said co-organiser Ginie Servant-Miklos (researcher at ESSB). For instance, the university did not have rooms available for the plenary sessions and workshops, so at the last minute, the organisation had to move to rooms at Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences on the edge of campus Woudestein. In addition, co-organiser Derk Loorbach (director of DRIFT) was \u2018frustrated\u2019 by the high number of no-shows among EUR employees who had registered but did not show up.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Servant-Miklos was not dissatisfied afterwards. \u201cI think there was more momentum now than before the summer. People have seen two hurricanes sweep across the US in short order and there have been floods in many areas, all caused by climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Depression<\/h2>

The conference began in the morning with opening remarks by Loorbach. \u201cThese are cynical times we live in. Yesterday, another 15 thousand scientists warned us about the consequences of climate change. We\u2019re all about to be hit. Sorry to plunge every one of you into a depression. However, instead of panicking, we need to go into transformation mode. The movement is there, but it still lacks critical mass. Erasmus University Rotterdam is not yet up to speed either, and there are many barriers to be overcome\u201d, Loorbach cautioned in his remarks. Servant-Miklos went even further by arguing that Dutch universities are beyond saving, and we might be better off letting them collapse in order to start over.<\/p>\n

Rebuke<\/h2>

After the opening, Executive Board president Annelien Bredenoord was allowed to respond on stage to the rebuke she had received from Loorbach. \u00a0Her reply was that it takes considerable effort to get people moving, and so, as a leader, you have to be patient even if you want to go faster. Loorbach was not content with that: \u201cScientists have been warning about climate change for decades, but too little is being done. Waiting for people to join you isn\u2019t the solution. While you wait, everything collapses around you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bredenoord disagreed: \u201cThe university\u2019s leadership is on board, but not all students are, for example. Things always move slower than you want, but I get up every morning asking myself what I can change today. Besides, I feel it\u2019s my moral duty to be optimistic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collapse<\/h2>

Wijnand van den Brink, member of the Executive Board of Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, concurred that change takes time. \u201cAll our students are taught courses on sustainability as part of their programme. Thanks to these, they\u2019ll be able to make a difference in the labour market \u2013 but getting them there will take another four years.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the administrative introduction, Kees Klomp took the stage. Klomp is an activist-researcher currently working for Windesheim University of Applied Sciences. He also highlighted the lack of urgency with which the impending climate crisis is being treated, including by academic institutions. \u201cThe issue isn\u2019t whether<\/em> we\u2019re witnessing a collapse of the current ecosystem, but the fact that it is<\/em> collapsing. We\u2019re organising our own extinction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hurting the wallet as well<\/h2>

And it is not just nature that is going down the pan, according to Klomp: the economy will also be hit hard by climate change. \u201cIt has been calculated that a temperature increase of 2.5 \u00b0C will shrink the size of the global economy by 19 per cent, which is four times the shrinkage caused by the 2008 housing crisis and twice that caused by the coronavirus pandemic. No bank is going to survive this. Perhaps it\u2019s a good thing that the climate crisis will also affect people\u2019s wallets, because that might finally get them moving.\u201d<\/p>\n

Klomp advocates adapting current Economics programmes so that their focus shifts from the neoclassical perspective to a confrontation with the real world. \u00a0\u201cTurn students into activists instead of just teaching them how to make money for companies, and pay attention to the social impact of their work in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neoclassical economy<\/h2>

During the workshop by lecturer and researcher Bas Karreman (ESE), the discussion was about exactly that. Karreman showed a graph from a survey to demonstrate that many Economics students think their current curriculum is fine and desire neither more nor less attention to topics such as climate change. \u201cAlthough we\u2019re redesigning our curriculum, we also have to deal with students who aren\u2019t necessarily clamouring for change. At the moment, 89 per cent of our curriculum focuses on the neoclassical economy. Still, I think we need to change, if only to maintain our competitive edge as a faculty. We need to prepare students for the problems they\u2019ll face in the business world later, which can\u2019t be solved based on that perspective alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not all is lost<\/h2>

During the closing session, Loorbach and Servant-Miklos reflected on the day. Loorbach reiterated that the inertia of the institutions frustrated him, to which Servant-Miklos replied that \u2018crisis is the new normal\u2019. Still, she was positive about the network that had been created, the students\u2019 ideas and the energy that was there on the day. Similarly, the audience response was that not all is lost. One participant put it this way: \u201cI feel more connected to a national network now than I did two years ago, being part of a movement of lecturers, and that feels really heartwarming.\u201d<\/p>\n\t

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Addition: an earlier version of this article incorrectly used the term neoliberal economics where neoclassical economics should have been used. This has been corrected.<\/p>\n\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t

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