Haniza Khalid

Bio: Haniza Khalid is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Prosperity & Sustainable consumption. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 48 citations.

UN sustainable development goals

Abstract: The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), otherwise known as the Global Goals, are a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity. These 17 Goals build on the successes of the Millennium Development Goals, while including new areas such as climate change, economic inequality, innovation, sustainable consumption, peace and justice, among other priorities. The goals are interconnected – often the key to success on one will involve tackling issues more commonly associated with another. The role of Higher Education institutions is to nurture students, research and society engagement that are can create positive impact on and are mindful of the SDG objectives.

Social tipping dynamics for stabilizing Earth's climate by 2050.

Abstract: Safely achieving the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement requires a worldwide transformation to carbon-neutral societies within the next 30 y. Accelerated technological progress and policy implementations are required to deliver emissions reductions at rates sufficiently fast to avoid crossing dangerous tipping points in the Earth's climate system. Here, we discuss and evaluate the potential of social tipping interventions (STIs) that can activate contagious processes of rapidly spreading technologies, behaviors, social norms, and structural reorganization within their functional domains that we refer to as social tipping elements (STEs). STEs are subdomains of the planetary socioeconomic system where the required disruptive change may take place and lead to a sufficiently fast reduction in anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. The results are based on online expert elicitation, a subsequent expert workshop, and a literature review. The STIs that could trigger the tipping of STE subsystems include 1) removing fossil-fuel subsidies and incentivizing decentralized energy generation (STE1, energy production and storage systems), 2) building carbon-neutral cities (STE2, human settlements), 3) divesting from assets linked to fossil fuels (STE3, financial markets), 4) revealing the moral implications of fossil fuels (STE4, norms and value systems), 5) strengthening climate education and engagement (STE5, education system), and 6) disclosing information on greenhouse gas emissions (STE6, information feedbacks). Our research reveals important areas of focus for larger-scale empirical and modeling efforts to better understand the potentials of harnessing social tipping dynamics for climate change mitigation.

The New Urban Agenda: key opportunities and challenges for policy and practice

Abstract: The UN-HABITAT III conference held in Quito in late 2016 enshrined the first Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) with an exclusively urban focus. SDG 11, as it became known, aims to make cities more inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable through a range of metrics, indicators, and evaluation systems. It also became part of a post-Quito ‘New Urban Agenda’ that is still taking shape. This paper raises questions around the potential for reductionism in this new agenda, and argues for the reflexive need to be aware of the types of urban space that are potentially sidelined by the new trends in global urban policy.

The power of synthetic biology for bioproduction, remediation and pollution control: The UN's Sustainable Development Goals will inevitably require the application of molecular biology and biotechnology on a global scale

Abstract: EMBO Reports (2018) e45658 The agenda of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) [1] challenges the synthetic biology community—and the life sciences as a whole—to develop transformative technologies that help to protect, even expand our planet's habitability. While modern tools for genome editing already benefit applications in health and agriculture, sustainability also asks for a dramatic transformation of our use of natural resources. The challenge is not just to limit and, wherever possible revert emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases, but also to replace environmentally costly processes based on fossil fuels with bio‐based sustainable alternatives. This task is not exclusively a scientific and technical one but will also require guidelines and regulations for the development and large‐scale deployment of this new type of bio‐based production. Some recent advances that can (or soon could) enable us to make progress in these areas—and several possible governance principles—need to be addressed. ### The potential of biotechnology The transformative power of modern, science‐based biotechnology that started in the late 1970s has been accelerated by recent developments, such as massive DNA synthesis/sequencing, systems and synthetic biology, and CRISPR tools for genome editing. The interface of these disciplines and techniques with other flagship technologies of the ongoing Fourth Industrial Revolution [2], such as artificial intelligence, robotics, big data, ITs, and so on, will usher in a society, economy and industry that are very different from what we know today. So far, market forces have pushed most research efforts towards health‐related issues and agricultural productivity, as these areas can more easily harvest low‐hanging fruits of contemporary systems‐based biotechnology. But the spectacular advances in biomedicine and agricultural technologies are happening during an acute global environmental crisis caused by overpopulation, loss of biodiversity, greenhouse gas emissions and pollution. Thus, environmental sustainability …

Earth-abundant elements a sustainable solution for electrocatalytic reduction of nitrate

Abstract: Platinum group elements (PGEs) are widely-used electrocatalysts. However, the low abundance of PGEs in the earth's crust and high environmental impacts to be acquired result in high costs, limiting their use in drinking water treatment. Identifying sustainable alternatives to PGEs is a major barrier in applying electrocatalysis for nitrate reduction. By moving up the periodic table, this study provides a framework for selecting promising earth-abundant elements that can electrocatalytically degrade nitrate in water to innocuous by-products. We benchmarked platinum (Pt) against less-endangered elements for electrodes by quantifying nitrate reduction rates, by-product selectivity, and energy efficiencies. Carbon (as boron-doped diamond) and tin had the highest average selectivity towards nitrogen gas evolution (55 % and 64 %, respectively) outperforming Pt, which only had 1% selectivity, and had comparable electrical energy per order removal of nitrate. Thus, earth-abundant elements for electrocatalysis hold tremendous promise as innovative, low-cost, and sustainable processes for the water treatment marketplace.