Climate change mitigation is an economic opportunity
MONROE COUNTY - According to Dr. Dan Vimont of the Director of the UW-Madison Center for Climatic Research, we are “never going back to the climate we had in the 20thcentury.” Vimont spoke to members of the Monroe County Climate Change Task Force at their January meeting.
The planet crossed the 400 parts-per-million (ppm) threshold for levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere in November of 2015. Since then, levels have continued to rise precipitously, measured at 415 ppm in 2020.
When asked about the much-discussed impacts of reduced emissions during the global COVID-19 pandemic, Vimont said that the effects were really “just a minor blip.” He said that the carbon emissions in 2020 were only about 10 percent less than the amount of emissions that would otherwise have been expected.
Pandemic-related research initiative receives strong campus response
The high volume of applications submitted to a recent Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education initiative underscores the serious impact that the COVID-19 pandemic had on research at the University of Wisconsin–Madison last spring.
The OVCRGE received 110 applications for the Pandemic-Affected Research Continuation Initiative and will support 70. Funded projects come from across campus and represent each of the four research divisions.
Last spring, some researchers were faced with spending down their existing funds while the pandemic limited certain on-site research activities. This included face-to-face human subjects research, research travel and most research activities conducted in-person in university research facilities.