Organisation / Hub: Taiwan Kaohsiung IDG Hub for SDGs

Contact Person: Professor Chia C. Wang

Link: https://www.nsysu.edu.tw/p/404-1000-348443.php?Lang=en

Contact Email: chiawang@mail.nsysu.edu.tw


Description

The world is facing multiple ecological challenges caused by human activities, including air pollution, global climate changes, posing significant threats to the ecological sustainability of the Earth. The Aerosol Science Research Center (ASRC) of National Sun Yat-sen University (NSYSU), Taiwan hosted the “2024 International IDG Forum: From Aerosol Sciences Toward a Sustainable Earth” at the National Science and Technology Museum. The forum took aerosol science as a special lens and integrated science, art, and philosophy, to manifest the close connectedness between humans and the ecological environment. Breaking free from traditional thinking frameworks, this IDG event attracted 170 participants from Taiwan, the United States, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, India, Turkey, and other countries, who joined either in-person or online, to discuss concrete strategies to address environmental crises.
Prof. Chia C. Wang, Director of the ASRC at NSYSU and Coordinator of Taiwan Kaohsiung IDG Hub, emphasized that strengthening Inner Development Goals (IDGs) and reflecting personal and collective inner values, followed by making necessary transformations, can facilitate the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Wang further explained that aerosols, fine particles suspended in the air, are ubiquitous and intricately linked to Earth’s major systems—the atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, and biosphere—at the molecular level. Awareness of this complexity helps people deeply comprehend the connectedness among everything, and the essence of the oneness as a whole, and eventually take actions to make necessary changes to improve our shared environment, and co-create a more sustainable future for all.
Minister of Education of Taiwan, Dr. Ying-Yao Cheng stated that many inner qualities emphasized by the IDGs, such as critical thinking, complexity awareness, long-term orientation and visioning, sense of connectedness, and empathy and compassion for others, are key elements for solving numerous ongoing ecological crisis and co-creating a sustainable future. Jan Artem Henriksson, Executive Director of Inner Development Goals also provided a pre-recorded opening remark .


Learnings

“The IDG International Forum: From Aerosol Sciences Toward a Sustainable Earth” hosted by the Aerosol Science Research Center, National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan, is the first IDG international symposium held in Asia. Using aerosols, the ultrafine particulate matter suspended ubiquitously in the air, as a special lens, this IDG event nicely integrated science, art, and philosophy, to manifest the close connectedness between humans and the ecological environment. To help the participants comprehend the close interconnectedness of aerosols, climate, and human health, the forum invited a number of world-renowned scientist to present the cutting-edge sciences. Industry representatives were also invited to share practical experiences in reducing air pollution, nanoparticle exposure in occupational environments, and ESG implementation practices. Maria Testa, the IDG global coordinator from Amsterdam, Netherlands also explained why it is necessary and imperative for the industry to drive sustainability through innovation, collaboration, and transformation. This IDG forum is also featured with an ecology-oriented art performance entitled “The Quest of Electron Clouds”. By integrating science, music, and theater art, this original play attempted to elaborate the interconnectedness from the perspective of modern quantum mechanics.