Past Initiative News

1st International ACCION/UNESCO Climate School on “Andean Climate Variability and Change” Successfully Completed

Friday, September 06, 2013

(group photo of the 20 students from the region with the specialists that taught the classes)

Under the ACCION Project of the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas (ECPA), students from the Andean region met in Lima, Peru from September 3-6, 2013. The students were trained on a broad spectrum of climate change and formed connections and interdisciplinary connections between Peru, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, and Chile.

It should be noted that ACCIÓN is an initiative financed by the U.S. State Department, and supported by the UNESCO International Hydrologic Program (IHP), which is executed by the Department of Atmospheric Sciences of the University of Albany (SUNY). The School of Climate in the Andes was organized with the collaboration of the Instituto Geofísico del Peru (IGP), SENAMHI (Peru) and the Departamento de Geofísica, Universidad de Chile.

During the inauguration of the academic activity, Engineer Amelia Díaz, exectutive president of the SENAMHI, was present and highlighted the importance of these types of activities in the development of research and sciences.


(Engineer Amelia Díaz, executive president of the SENAMHI, next to Mathias Vuille from the University of Albany, Dr. Ken Takahashi, scientific investigator from the IGP; Dr. Waldo Lacado from SENAMHI.

The conferences and workshops from the School of ACCION/UNESCO were taught by specialists like Mathias Vuille from the University of Albany, also responsible for ACCION; Dr. Ken Takashi, scientific investigator from IGP; Dr. Waldo Lavado from SENAMHI and Dr. René Garreaud from the Universidad de Chile.

Also during the closing ceremony was the important presence of the new Director of the Environmental Hub of South America, Andrew Griffin, who highlighted the job being done in the region by executive partners of ECPA.

During the closing of the event, Ezequiel Villegas Paredes, Director of the Scientific Research Investigation of SENAMHI, spoke of the importance of the realization of these types of schools with youth in the Andean region, and hopes that they can multiply what they have learned with other investigators in the region.

For more information, visit: http://www.ecpamericas.org/Events/default.aspx?language=en-US