A FLAS Fellow's Semester Abroad in Amman
Audrey Dombro, an agricultural and consumer economics student and 2019-20 FLAS fellow, reflects upon her experience studying in Jordan.
Master of Arts in European Union Studies
The European Union Center at the University of Illinois offers the only Master of Arts in European Union Studies (MAEUS) program in the Western Hemisphere. Learn more here.
Nuclear Energy and Its Environmental, Policy, and Security Implications
On Earth Day 2022, the EU Center organized a symposium on the future of technology, energy, and security in Europe, featuring prominent scholars and policy makers from France, Germany, and the U.S.
Conversations on Europe
Watch the collection of online roundtable discussions on different EU issues sponsored by the University of Pittsburgh.
Accelerating Climate Change Mitigation: Policy Statements on the Road to Sharm-El-Sheikh and Beyond
Bruce Murray, Resident Director of the Illinois Program in Vienna, presents a series of student-written policy statements for accelerating climate change mitigation.
Videos of Previous Lectures
Missed an EUC-hosted lecture? Our blog's video tag has archived previous EUC-sponsored lectures.
Wednesday, April 28, 2021
Case Studies in the Making of the European Parliament and Parliamentarians: A Conversation with Rory Palmer
Friday, April 23, 2021
The Power of Perspective: 4th Annual Student Summit and Global Dialogue
On Saturday, March 20, the Illinois Global Scholar certificate program held its fourth annual summit. This year the summit took place virtually, and high school students and teachers from around the world — from Armenia to Jordan to Serbia to the U.S. —attended. The theme this year was “the power of perspective.”
“Given the impact of COVID-19, we decided to [organize this year’s summit] virtually with a focus on dialogue,” said Seth Brady, Illinois Global Scholar project director and a teacher at Naperville Central High School. “We were pleased to have 22 countries and over one hundred schools participate. I was grateful to help create an opportunity that offered students and educators an opportunity to share the impact of this truly global moment.”
The European Union Center has been a sponsor of the Illinois Global Scholar certificate program since its inception in 2015 and seeded the program’s launch. In 2017, the Illinois State Board of Education signed the legislation that created the Illinois Global Scholar Certificate. High school students in Illinois can now earn the certificate through globally-focused coursework, service learning, and a capstone project.
This year’s summit began with a breathing exercise and guidelines, which included being empathetic, giving full attention to others, and being open to other viewpoints. The first speaker of the day was Natalia, a student from Naperville Central High School who briefly presented on her Illinois Global Scholar project on prison reform and humane practices for incarceration.
After watching the documentary “13th,” Natalia was struck by the fact that the U.S. has 5 percent of the world’s population but 25 percent of the incarcerated population. She became interested in Norway’s criminal justice system, which focuses on rehabilitation rather than punishment. Natalia learned about an initiative in which prison officials from North Dakota and Oregon visited Norway’s prison system in order to reform correctional facilities back home.
Natalia was inspired to create two resolutions and meet with state representatives, who agreed to help Natalia get her resolutions heard by the Illinois General Assembly.
Next, summit attendees heard from Wali Khan, a motivational speaker and former trauma nurse who is now studying to become a nurse anesthetist. Wali started his keynote talk with the observation that almost exactly a year has gone by since the state of Illinois went into lockdown on March 19, 2020. In the early days of the pandemic, Wali said, many people went into a “survival of the fittest” mindset, stockpiling groceries and toilet paper. Wali recalled seeing an elderly man in a grocery store, looking down at his grocery list and up at the empty shelves.
For Wali, the scene in the grocery store illustrated the fear-induced greed and gluttony that accompanied the pandemic. “It shouldn’t have taken a pandemic for people to realize that they should look out for each other,” Wali said, noting that this past year has shown us that we are all a global family. What happens in one part of the world can affect everyone.
After the keynote talk, summit participants were split into 10 breakout rooms. In each room, two or three facilitators led a discussion on takeaways from Wali’s talk, individual experiences of the pandemic, and what surprised everyone about themselves or others during this time. A common theme during the discussions was the personal reflection and growth that resulted from the pandemic and lockdown. One student from the U.S. spoke about how difficult it was not to be able to see his friends, but this is something to which he has successfully adjusted. Another student from the U.S. mentioned reevaluating her religious beliefs during the pandemic.
A number of students talked about gratitude and acceptance. A student from Georgia said that the pandemic made her more aware of the need to appreciate the simple things in life. Another student, from the U.S., said that she realized that nothing should be taken for granted, including mundane things like playing sports and seeing her friends at school.
Angelique Evans, a EU Center graduate student who previously worked overseas as a teacher for 10 years, served as a breakout room facilitator. “After assuring my students this wasn’t a place of judgment but a place to share openly our thoughts and feelings, the students in our group shared amazing feats,” Evans recalled. “One young lady shared she wrote a book of poems. Another discussed the way she and her peers rallied around a classmate who needed support regarding her SAT. I was proud of the accomplishments and tenacity of the young people from around the world in my room. I look forward to participating again next year.”
After about forty minutes of breakout room discussion, everyone returned to the main session, and a representative from each group shared some highlights of what they discussed.
The final speaker during the summit was David, a student who completed an Illinois Global Scholar project on the treatment of the Muslim Uighurs in China. David began his presentation by asking the audience to think about where they were 12 years ago. “Now imagine facing 12 years of human rights violations,” said David, who then gave an account of the human rights abuses faced by China’s Uighurs, which include forced sterilization, torture, detention, and political indoctrination. Like Natalia, David noted that social media helped him learn about issues around the world, and it was initially through a social media platform that he learned about human rights abuses against Uighurs in China.
The summit concluded with an overview of the Illinois Global Scholar certificate. High school students in Illinois may receive the certificate by completing eight courses that have a strong global focus; participating in a globally-focused service learning project; collaborating on projects with peers around the world; and completing a capstone assessment task.
After the summit, Brady shared with the EU Center a few quotes from students in attendance. “I love how we are all able to unite after such a hard year,” one student said. “My biggest takeaway is to focus on how to create a better global community by opening yourself to sharing and learning others’ perspectives and ideas.” Another student said, “Talking to a teacher from Moldova really provided me with a new perspective on this whole situation. Everyone has had to adapt to COVID in similar ways, even from across the world.”
For more information on the Illinois Global Scholar program, see: https://global-illinois.org.
The Power of Perspective: 4th Annual Student Summit and Global Dialogue
Wednesday, April 21, 2021
The European Green Deal and the Quest for Global Tipping Points
By Professor Bruce Murray, Retired Resident Director of the Illinois in Vienna Programs
On the eve of the U.S. Global Climate Summit (Earth Day 2021), the European Union reached a breakthrough with its EU Climate Law. Ten weeks earlier, in February 2021, six University of Illinois students and I began our investigation of the European Green Deal. The EU ambition to lead climate mitigation efforts globally motivated our choice of its plan for our case study. Our goal has been to identify best practices for combating climate change in the EU that can be replicated elsewhere. With that in mind, learning what might be useful in the United States and in the transatlantic partnership has been of particular interest. So, too, has been determining what practices initiate domino effects, leading to rapid and widespread adoption everywhere. In other words, we have sought existing and potential tipping points in the EU and transatlantic context to accelerate the transition to global sustainability.
First, we familiarized ourselves with the Paris Climate Agreement and its intersection with the European Green Deal, focusing on the Climate Dialogues, which were hosted by the UNFCCC at the end of 2020, and the relevant EU legislative process, focusing on its EU Climate Law negotiations. We then investigated links between the EU, regional, and national initiatives, selecting and investigating specific policy areas. The following EU experts assisted us:
- Günter Hörmandinger, EUC DG for the Environment, Transport, on leave
- Georg Fischer, EUC Director for Social Affairs, DG EMPL, ret.
- Andreas Beckmann, Regional CEO, WWF Central and Eastern Europe
- Stephan Renner, Cabinet Member, Austrian Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology
Their presentations, discussion sessions, and answers to our follow-up questions improved our understanding of European Green Deal provisions in these policy areas:
- Biodiversity--Ana Valenzuela
- Building and Renovation--Chris Piton
- Circular Economy--Lingfei Liu
- Clean Energy--Vikram Sudhan Muthuvel
- Just Transitions--Reagan Humphrey
- Sustainable Mobility--Victoria Heredia-Ferran
Communication
● Disseminate information with the invitation to participate actively.
○ Commission invitation for public consultation on EU 2030 Climate Ambition
○ Citizen deliberation and participation program funding with 1,500 grant applications
● Saturate mainstream and other media innovatively.
○ Euronews,EU Member-State Representation, EU press release Green Deal content
○ Euronews Debates: Can the EU Green Deal empower business and consumer change?
● Strive for individual, NGO, and government social media multiplier sharing.
○ EU Commission Facebook page with 1.2 million followers
○ #EUGreenDeal with almost 6,000 post shares in 24 hours
● Host and nurture invited, as well as invented, public-sphere events.
○ European Climate Pact with invitation for citizen action in focal areas
○ EU Earth Day 2021with link to 51 Earth Day action suggestions
Each recommendation warrants serious consideration in the EU, United States, for the transatlantic partnership, and globally. While all can be, and many are being, replicated, two warrant special attention. Linking information delivery and invitations for active participation is particularly effective for enhancing stakeholder input and acceptance. Linking invited and invented public-sphere events is well suited to generate global interactive communication capable of tipping the balance in favor of the necessary behavioral change. The recent 350.org Just Recovery Gathering is another excellent example of such global interactive communication.
Funding
● Pool resources from relevant government budgets
○ European Green Deal Investment Plan with EU and national public investment
○ Just Transition Mechanism (Just Transition Fund, InvestEU, European Investment Bank)
● Target research/development investment with public-private partnership
○ Horizon 2020 European Green Deal Call with €1 billion in grants
○ European Partnerships in Climate, Energy and Mobility with draft partnership proposals
● Strive for an intelligent incentive, disincentive mix
○ Energy Tax Directive Revision review of current policy and proposal for new ETD
○ Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism with carbon pricing for some imported goods
● Support venture capital investment and corporate-driven green endeavors
○ Forbes assessment of European Green Deal Investment Plan opportunities
○ Nordic Pension Funds renewable energy investment with ambitious growth potential
Given the relatively small EU budget, just 1% of the total EU economy value, it relies on funding from all relevant internal sources for projects within the scope of the European Green Deal. It also must make use of its investment to trigger member-state, as well as private spending. The European Green Deal Investment Plan and Just Transition Mechanism offer good examples of such methods. We see the Horizon2020 European Green Deal Call emphasis on international partnership, especially in the developing economies of Africa, as another effective tool to accelerate the transition to carbon neutrality. We recommend replicating it globally.
Policy
● Strive for an intelligent top-down, bottom-up, combination of approaches
○ EU Commission leadership in national strategy development
○ EU Climate Law trilogue negotiation
● Focus on stakeholder participation
○ 2018 stakeholder consultation on strategy for long-term greenhouse gas reduction
○ 2020 stakeholder consultation on 2030 Climate Target Plan
● Ensure transparency, coherence, accountability
○ Evaluation of the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020
○ European Green Deal Legislative Train Schedule
● Strive for an intelligent soft and hard compliance measure mix
○ Paris Agreement Implementation and Compliance Committee model
○ EU Climate Law governance processes for national energy and climate plans
Some of the cited examples reveal room for improvement. For example, while the EU trilogue method lessens the likelihood of roadblocks, it can slow the legislative process and favor compromise. The current situation demands quick and decisive action. Citizen stakeholders must demand both immediately. In addition, when the EU implements its Climate Law, it must employ all compliance tools effectively. Timely, transparent, and public member-state performance disclosures must include praise for compliance and stiff consequences for delinquency. Public awareness of and support for enforcement are essential. In other words, whether in the EU or elsewhere, methods to motivate intensified citizen demands for performance and accountability are more important than ever.
Technology
● Accelerate the transition to solar and wind energy generation
○ Powering a Climate-Neutral Economy
○ EU Strategy for Energy System Integration
● Accelerate the transition to e-mobility
● Accelerate support for natural carbon removal, support other forms of carbon capture
○ EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 with goal to protect 30% of EU land and sea
○ Carbon Capture and Geological Storage (CCS) with CCS Directive
● Promote intelligent digitalization to measure and reduce carbon emissions
○ Digitalisation for the Benefit of the Environment
○ Eco-Innovation and Digitalisation
While technical tools can and must be important climate mitigation components, we wish to emphasize the need for energy conservation that requires only behavioral change. Having noted that, we consider two technical tools well suited to generate tipping points. Recently, major combustion-engine producers, including General Motors and Volkswagen, have pledged to accelerate their transition to electric engine production. The EU plan to accelerate its transition to e-mobility must serve as a catalyst for such plans in the U.S. and globally. We urge the EU and U.S. to establish a joint e-mobility plan with an ambitious goal for 2030 and invite India, China, and others to join them. We also consider regional and global collaboration in protecting the land and sea capable of tipping the balance in carbon reduction. We urge the EU and U.S. to establish a joint Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, challenging each other to surpass the current 30% goal, challenging other nations to join them, and improving our natural carbon sink in the process!
The European Green Deal and the Quest for Global Tipping Points