Student Movement on Climate Action at UC San Diego: How College and Students Can Combat Climate Change

The effect of climate disruption is arguably the most imminent threat facing ourgeneration. If we continue down the same “business as usual” model, we will be exposed tounforeseen climate disasters as early as the next decade1. The University of California's Bendingthe Curve2 report outlines the ways in which we can significantly mitigate the threat of climatedisruption through ten scalable solutions that fall into six clusters: Science, Technology,Governance Solutions, Societal Transformation, Market-Based Solutions, and EcosystemRestoration. Since climate change is such an imminent issue, mitigation on a global scale isnecessary in order to bend the curve before unprecedented disruption. However, this call toaction is rarely ever motivated through moral conviction alone.3Most governments exist tosatisfy the people within their constituencies, so the voice calling for climate action needs tocome directly from the people. In this report, we find that students are key actors in climateaction because of their youthful passion, access to education and technology, and incentive to getinvolved in their communities. Our report advocates for a global student movement againstclimate disruption. In this paper, we will analyze the current movement against climate changethat is active at our university (University of California, San Diego), suggest solutions that clubson campuses can take in order to strengthen the numbers and initiatives of the movement, andfinally, propose ways in which students can get involved with climate action in the city of SanDiego