Dr. Noel Healy represents Salem State At UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Germany

Dr. Noel Healy recently represented Salem State University at the United Nations Framework Convention in Climate Change (UNFCC) in Bonn, Germany. Funded through a Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation Fellowship Dr. Healy's project is investigating how the proximity to decision-making impacts perceptions of how UNFCC climate policy goals should be achieved.

Over the course of two weeks Dr. Healy interviewed twenty-five negotiators from twenty-two different countries including Swaziland, Nigeria, Dominican Republic, Korea, and Sweden to name a few. Dr. Healy stated it was “an exhilarating experience getting the opportunity to observe how 196 state parties negotiate what could be the most important international treaty of the 21st century”.

Dr. Healy is also using his research to feed into his teaching at Salem State. This semester he is conducting mock climate treaty negotiations with his First Year Seminar, which is aptly entitled “The Climate Change Movement – Can Collective Action Save the World?”. The second phase of the project involves professor Healy making a return trip to Europe in December but this time to Paris to conduct research at the UNFCC COP 21/ CMP 11. Geography at Salem State has seen increased interest in their offerings of courses related to climate change and environmental sustainability over the last number of years.