Meet Eduardo Fracassi, a professor at the Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires (ITBA) in Argentina and a Multisolver. He works mainly throughout Latin America and has facilitated more than 360 events to date as an EN-ROADS ambassador. FLOWER has been instrumental in presenting his research on a very specific climate policy – raising the manufacturer minimum thermostat setting on all the air conditioners in Argentina from 18ºC (64.4ºF) to 25ºC (77ºF). His team’s research suggested that this change equates to a 14% increase in energy savings or $29.5 billion — the equivalent of Paraguay’s GDP at the time. This research proposal from the young Kiri team at the Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires won the 2016 MIT Climate CoLab competition in the Industry Category and garnered media attention – leading to a meeting with the President of Argentina. Our friend Susanne Moser, PhD, sat down with Eduardo to learn more about this research and other instances of his FLOWER experiences. Red some highlights from their conversation below:
“So, the media in Argentina caught wind of our success and we were received by the President of Argentina,” Fracassi recounted. “I’m a part-time professor at the Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires, received by the President with my students who are 19 years old! Why would they receive us? …Because energy is highly subsidized in Argentina…and saving 14% of that budget was a huge success!”
As a result of this meeting, the president implemented a national policy change to limit the air conditioner settings in public buildings across Argentina, which has survived a change in administration. This FLOWER interaction shows that the tool can harness the power of conversations and research to influence executive-level policymaking that positively shifts economic, health, and climate outcomes. You can read more about this study, here.
Fracassi reflects that “in some countries, it will be more effective to present to policymakers the short-term Multisolving co-benefits created by climate actions, mostly because in many Latin American countries policymakers and politicians have 4 or 5-year terms in office.
So politicians and policymakers are very much concerned with solving short-term political problems such as employment, cost of energy, having to cope with old energy infrastructure, national budget-balancing efforts, food availability, inflation, and so on.
Trying to foster long-term climate actions and policies will not be appealing to these politicians and policymakers.But these same politicians and policymakers will quickly foster climate actions which generate more jobs, reduce energy costs, save energy through energy efficiency, increase or preserve food availability and many other important co-benefits associated with climate actions.”
To make widespread effective change for climate, we hope that people understand that their short-term actions can make positive changes in the long run. Although our world is rapidly evolving, and sometimes that evolution is daunting, we hope that Fracassi’s work and other multisolvers inspire you to think big and talk more about the positive changes you see in the world.
“The multisolving approach is key to motivating climate actions,” Fracassi said. “You see, with all these natural disasters, people are afraid. And when people are afraid they do not do anything at all. So, multisolving is action. It’s hope. … For me, multisolving is action and hope. And the FLOWER, it’s the synthesis of that,” said Fracassi.
