UNU 38th Global Seminar Student Reportby Hussain Sardar
1. Introduction
My name is Hussain Sardar, and I am a first-year graduate student (Masterof Arts in Public Economics) at International Christian University, Mitaka. I
wish to be an inspired activist involved in Fridays for Future, being from adeveloping country, i.e. Pakistan, which has been badly hit by the worst
floods this year due to climate change. I took part in the UNU 38th GlobalSeminar to expand my network and knowledge about the climate crisis. Iintend to apply that knowledge and learning to my country to be environment friendly, and when building
my future career to make this planet a better place to live.
2. Keynote speech summary of Keynote Speakers
Prof. Seita Emori, from the National Institute for Environmental Studies, Japan talked about Climate Crisisand Social Transformation from an environmental scientist’s perspective. Starting from the contributionof human activities, he described the carbon dioxide emission and concentration level with the passageof time and how it showed a slightly decreasing trend during the oil crisis, global financial crisis, and theCOVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, he briefed on the UNFCCC Paris Agreement 2015, which achieves abalance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinking greenhouse gases in thesecond half of the century. Similarly, he showed the temperature change simulation ranging from low tovery high scenarios. In the same way, he illustrated the risk areas that are associated with climate change,
and the stakeholders that will suffer the most will be developing countries and future generations whomake the least contributions to climate change. In the end, he stressed the need of the hour which issocial transformation to make society know and adopt to living an eco/environmentally friendly lifestyle.
The most important point that inspired me in the speech is that developing countries are at the highest
risk and paying the price of climate change to which they have not contributed, like my country Pakistan,which is badly affected by the heavy rains and floods making the economy suffer badly in 2022. The
speech motivated me to put more emphasis on social transformation which will ultimately contribute toliving and working individual sustainable lifestyles to reduce the emission level.

3. Group discussion summary
The focus of our group discussion was Energy Mix & Climate Change. Global energy generation is adding
73% to GHG emissions which calls for immediate transformation of the world’s energy system. A Roadmap
to 2050 estimates that meeting the objectives of the Paris Agreement would require reducing global
energy demand through energy efficiency, increasing the electrification pathway for all end-use sectors,
and increasing the share of renewables in the energy matrix. The group consisted of members fromdifferent countries (Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and China), and each member gave data on the energy mix in thecontext of his own country. Interestingly, it was observed that in the three countries coal is the major
producer of energy.
4. Overall feedback on the seminar
The 38th Global Seminar was a very valuable experience, providing an opportunity for me to hear diverse
ideas from esteemed speakers and participants from different parts of the world. The attraction was theview of young people’s collective thoughts about climate change and its impact on nature and humans,
especially in the local context. Group work was very important as it deepened my knowledge whilestrengthening networks for future partnerships. I encourage future participants to read seminar materials
prior to the seminar and freely share their ideas. Not all people want to put in a lot of time, effort, andmoney for the environment for the greater good and not everyone sees climate change as an utmost
priority. However, without modification, climate change will become more acute and irreparable.