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Finnish Science Academies’ Risto Pelkonen Human Rights Award can be granted for active efforts in promoting human rights in academic communities. The award is granted in collaboration with Academy of Fine Arts of Uniarts Helsinki.

The criteria for the award:

-The award can be granted to a person, an organisation, or a community for active efforts in promoting freedom of science, academic freedom or human rights of academics.

-The awarded person/organisation/community can operate locally or internationally, within or outside the academic community.

-The activity can relate to fostering of human rights (such as freedom of speech) of academics or ensuring the foundations and possibilities for diversified academic work and scientific processes;

-the activity can relate to immediate intervening in human rights violations of academics or fighting against discrimination in its many forms;

-The activity can relate to objecting to hate speech, stigmatising of academics, or demeaning of scientific knowledge or communities.

The Human Rights Committee of the Council of Finnish Academies calls for nominations for the 2022 Awardee. Please submit the nominations with supporting statements to humanrights@academies.fi by 31 January 2022.

Photo: EASAC

The recent IPCC Report confirms that global warming is getting faster and faster. The impact is playing in real time as we watch villages flood and forests burn. Meanwhile the hidden crisis of biodiversity loss continues with the loss of forests to land clearance, exacerbated by the fires. As the Climate and Biodiversity Crises potentiate each other, EASAC’s new Commentary adds the most recent data to inform both the UN Glasgow Climate Summit and the Biodiversity Summit in China this autumn, with a focus on 16 areas requiring urgent action to shield humanity from the worst.

European Academies’ Science Advisory Council (EASAC) is a co-operative body for science academies in Europe. The Council of Finnish Academies is a national member of EASAC.

There are many possible pathways towards a carbon-neutral future — and achieving it by 2050 is possible but requires urgent action. This is the conclusion of a group of top scientists tasked by the European Commission with advising on how to facilitate the energy transition in Europe.

In the SAPEA evidence review report, experts underline that the energy transition is far from a purely technical challenge. To make the transition a reality, we need to solve a huge systemic problem, coordinating countless individual voluntary decisions on investment, consumption and behaviour across Europe.

This means transforming the entire European energy system — a change which will affect every part of our society and require huge investment during the transition. It must be done in a socially equitable way. And we already need to accelerate progress if we want to achieve the EU’s target of net zero emissions by 2050.

“Achieving the full decarbonisation of the EU energy system by mid-century is possible, but it requires urgent and decisive action to integrate emissions-free energy sources and uses in a flexible way, creating a participatory environment that supports clean energy choices, and using the right combination of regulatory instruments are necessary steps to make this transition efficient, inclusive and fair”, says professor Nebojsa Nakicenovic, deputy chair of the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors.

The report: A systemic approach to the energy transition in Europe

Photo: Wahid Sadiq (Unsplash)

The state of the Atlantic adds a layer of variability to local sea level rise in Europe, while the massive loss of ice mass in the Antarctic due to climate change is sufficient to affect the gravitational pull on the earth’s oceans so that they move towards the Northern Hemisphere. This is just one of the many findings of the EASAC’s 2-year expert study of the state of the North Atlantic. “European nations would be well advised to plan for a rise of one meter or more between 2000 and 2100,” says Prof. Michael Norton. The feared weakening of the Gulf Stream is not imminent. Nevertheless, scientists believe the danger is real and warn of its devastating consequences.

European Academies’ Science Advisory Council (EASAC) is a umbrella organisation for science academies in Europe. The Council of Finnish Academies is a national member of EASAC.

To live up to their climate pledge under the Paris agreement, EU lawmakers must ensure all 250 million existing as well as all new buildings in the EU become nearly zero greenhouse gas emitters. In a new report, experts nominated by EASAC’s member science academies call for far-reaching policy action. “Policymakers have long focused on creating energy-efficient buildings that reduce the need for heating and air conditioning or generate renewable energy on site. But the energy used for operating buildings is only part of the story. We must urgently broaden the scope and look at emissions embodied in construction materials and methods – both for new buildings and building renovation.”, says William Gillett, EASAC’s Energy Programme Director.

Currently, between 1 and 1.5% of the European building stock is being renovated annually. “To meet the goals of the Paris agreement, that rate should be two or even three times higher”, points out Gillett. “But more importantly, we need to factor in the massive emissions of the construction industry and supply chain, when calculating the climate impact of buildings. Renovating a building to reduce its energy consumption makes little sense if there is no control of the carbon-intensive materials and components used for the renovation, and if these are transported over long distances.”

So far, EU policies have centered on the concept of ‘Nearly-zero energy buildings’ with a focus on reducing the consumption of energy used to provide comfort to building occupants. According to EASAC, this notion is outdated: “Instead, the indicator to be used now for assessing the climate impact of a new building or renovation should be cumulative greenhouse gas emissions, including embodied emissions produced by the building works and operating emissions produced by the building in the years following those works. As there are only about 10 years left before the door closes for limiting global warming to less than 1.5 ^oC, there is an urgent need over this period to limit the creation of embodied greenhouse gas emissions when renovating to produce nearly zero emission buildings”

Buildings should be designed to be disassembled and recycled at end of their lifetime

The report points out that most of the built environment is still designed using a linear take-make-consume-dispose approach. Transitioning to a circular economy would not only allow to reduce resource consumption and carbon footprint, but also address the waste problem. “Circularity has many facets”, explains Prof. Brian Norton, Co-chair of EASAC’s Working Group. “Many building materials can be reused, recycled and recovered. To start with, buildings and their components should be designed to be easily disassembled at the end of their use.”

Renovating existing buildings must be at the heart of the EU’s strategy, the scientists argue. “It’s important to consider the re-use of existing buildings rather than replacing existing buildings with new ones,” says Norton. “There is a lot of embodied carbon in a building structure, especially in the concrete and steel. With today’s technologies and digitalized processes, renovating has become a lot easier and sustainable. We have to stop the current practice of knocking down structures to rebuild from scratch.” The report also argues that legislation must put a limit of embodied carbon per m2 of floor area that is brought into a building when it is constructed or renovated.

Climate neutrality by 2050 requires renovating more than 90.000 homes – per week

In 2020, the European Commission presented its ‘Renovation Wave’ strategy to boost energy renovation of buildings in the EU. It intends to revise the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive as one of the cornerstones of that strategy. “While a Directive on the energy performance of buildings has been in place since 2002, recast in 2010 and revised in 2018, the results so far have been underwhelming”, says Gillett.

The challenge, however, is huge. „75% of the buildings Europeans live in are estimated to have a poor energy performance. To renovate them would require 146 million renovations in only 30 years. Member States’ current efforts are not sufficient,” explains Norton. “Achieving climate neutrality implies we need to renovate more than 90.000 homes per week across the EU – in itself an enormous challenge.” 

Buildings are an emission source that municipalities have a lot of control over

While the authors address their policy recommendations primarily to the European Union, they also make clear that cities have a big role to play. “Municipal Councils and urban planners have tremendous influence on procurement specifications. They can stimulate the renovation and construction of nearly zero GHG emission neighbourhoods with integrated energy and transport systems and adequate green spaces. They can facilitate up-grading existing district heating and cooling systems or build new ones with optimised use of renewable energy, including PV, heat pumps, solar and geothermal heating, waste heat and natural cooling. And they are particularly well-placed to oversee renovations of social housing and subsidise the deep renovation of private housing where necessary to reduce energy poverty.” says Norton.

EASAC’s messages to policymakers:

• Phase out fossil fuels by 2030, increase integrated supplies of decarbonised electricity and heat to buildings, industry and transport, and accelerate the deployment of carbon capture and storage.
• Use grants and incentivesto trigger, leverage and de-risk private financing for deep energy related building renovations.
• Regulate levels of embodied GHG emissionsin building materials and components, and promote recycled materials, re-used building components, and renovation instead of demolition.
• Refocus building regulations, certification schemes and incentivesto deliver new and renovated buildings that operate with nearly zero GHG emissions.
• Promote health and wellbeingto double / triple rates of renovations that improve air quality, increase access to daylight, and avoid draughts and overheating as well as reducing GHG emissions.
• Champion public authorities and cities,facilitate and support their commitments to decarbonise buildings and reduce energy poverty.
• Expand and modernise the building industryto operate using circular business models with 3 million more jobs (including high quality jobs) to deliver new and renovated buildings with nearly zero GHG emissions
• Improve access for building owners and professionals to certified dataon the embodied GHG emissions of building materials and components, and on the energy and GHG emission performance of new and renovated buildings
• Update EU legislation(EPBD, EED, RED, ETS, CPD, Taxonomy) using an integrated approach to phase out fossil fuels, increase renewable energy supplies and reduce cumulative GHG emissions from buildings.

European Academies’ Science Advisory Council (EASAC) is a co-operative body for science academies in Europe. The Council of Finnish Academies is a national members of EASAC.

Photo: Rodion Kutsaev on Unsplash

In a new report, ALLEA examines the potential of technical and policy measures to tackle science disinformation and calls for improved European exchange and coordination in this field. Professor Risto Kunelius from Univeristy of Helsinki was one of the authors of the report.

While disinformation strategies are intoxicating public discourses in many fields, science disinformation is particularly dangerous to democratic governance and society at large. As highlighted by the ongoing pandemic, an undermining of trust in science poses a fundamental threat to political and individual decisions based on evidence and scientific knowledge.

The authors discuss the most prominent psychological, technical and political strategies to counter science disinformation, including inoculation, debunking, recommender systems, fact-checking, raising awareness, media literacy, as well as innovations in science communication and public engagement.

Following an analysis of the consequences of science disinformation in climate change, vaccine hesitancy and pandemics, the report concludes with a series of recommendations. The authors call for:

• a stronger focus on communicating how science works and more dialogue in science communication practices,
• a serious engagement with the public when exercising or communicating research,
• valuing the virtue of intellectual humility when communicating scientific evidence,
• the maintenance of good research practices and high ethical standards to ensure integrity and trustworthiness,
• accountable, honest, transparent, tailored and effective science advice mechanisms.

To implement these proposals, the authors advise to establish a European Centre/Network for Science Communication and a European Code of Conduct for Science Communication.

Read the full report here: https://academies.fi/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Fact-or-Fake-Discussion-Paper.pdf

ALLEA is the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities, representing more than 50 academies from over 40 countries in Europe. The Council of Finnish Academies is a national member of ALLEA.