Sixteen UCSD researchers, students and staff are among those attending the 21st annual Conference of Parties (COP) in Paris, taking place through Dec. 11. Nearly 50,000 participants from 190 countries are in attendance, with representatives hoping to achieve a universal agreement to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius. Attendees include University of California President Janet Napolitano and Gov. Jerry Brown. Margaret Leinen, director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography and head of the UC Revelle delegation, said that the role of UC researchers is to enhance policy using relevant research. “Our role in these climate conferences is to bring science into the conversation as much as possible so that the strategies that may become national policies have the best chance to be effective in mitigating the changes in nature that human activities have precipitated,” Leinen said in a statement. Kate Moser, media specialist for the UC Office of the President, told the UCSD Guardian newspaper that, considering the resources it has at its disposal, it is imperative for the university to get involved with climate change. “The fact that we have 10 campuses, three energy labs and some of the best climate scientists is why we’re involved with and joining the energy breakthrough coalition to help solve this crisis,” Moser said. “Essentially, what it boils down to is that there’s a moral obligation to take urgent action to try and reverse the effects of climate change.” Connie Wang, a senior at UCSD’s Earl Warren College and a member of the EcoNauts at UCSD, explained that fixing climate issues is a matter of preserving our ability to live on this planet. “It isn’t about saving our planets, it’s about saving humanity — our planet will always be, but the question is how long can we survive on our planet,” Wang told the Guardian. “We’re trying to prolong the human race’s ability to survive on this planet, so most of our efforts are in education and outreach because we need to get people to realize that this is a problem in the first place.” COP was first held in Berlin in 1995 and has seen varying degrees of success, such as the Kyoto Protocol adoption and the introduction of the Bali Action plan. – UCSD Guardian