Day 3

Youth, women at center of climate change fight

Anonymous — Mon, 05 Dec 2022 00:07:14 +0000

Youth, women at center of climate change fight Anonymous (not verified) Sun, 12/04/2022 - 17:07

Christie Sounart

Julieta Martinez, founder of Tremandas

Hilda Flavia Nekabuye, who started the Uganda branch of Fridays for Future, a youth-led global climate strike movement

Sarah Jensen is co-founder of the ��«��Ƶ chapter of the American Conservation Coalition (left), PhD student Emily Nocito (right)

Ewi Stephanie Lamma, second from the left, of Cameroon, Africa

As a child, climate activist Hilda Flavia Nekabuye’s family owned one of the biggest plantations in their village near Uganda’s Lake Victoria. But rising temperatures, rains and strong winds devastated the property and Nekabuye’s grandmother had to sell some of their land to feed her family.

“I remember I had to miss school for months because my parents couldn’t afford to pay my tuition fees,” she told an audience during a youth activism panel at the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit on Dec. 4. “I was kicked out of school because of the effects of climate change, but I’m not the only one: Every year, 4 million girls are kicked out of school because of the effects of climate change.

“They bear the biggest burden and they have to play a very big role in creating a future for their children, and the children after them and the other generations to come.”

Nekabuye — who started the Uganda branch of Fridays for Future, a youth-led global climate strike movement originally founded by Greta Thunberg — shared the same sentiment that the three other panelists, all young women, expressed: Women and youth are most burdened by climate change, but they are also key to solutions needed now.

"If you are aware of climate change and if you know what is happening, then you have the responsibility to do more. Use your voice to represent millions of voices that do not have a platform."

—Hilda Flavia Nekabuye

“Do not work alone. Never ever.”

For Julieta Martinez, a climate justice and gender equity youth activist from Santiago, Chile, education is a main driver for climate solutions.

“If you don't go to school, you don't get to college. If you don't go to college, you don't get a job, and if you don't get a job, you don't get money and you become dependent,” Martinez said, pointing to young South American girls who spend four to five hours a day walking for clean water.

As the founder of Tremandas, a global action dedicated to amplifying youth voices, the 19-year-old spoke on what helps her make big strides in her work: “Do not work alone. Never ever. We need each other.”

“The best thing we can do right now is find a common ground.”

—Julieta Martinez

CU ��«��Ƶ students are working toward the same goals.

Graduate student Sarah Jensen is co-founder of the ��«��Ƶ chapter of the American Conservation Coalition. She hopes to bring more climate discussion into college classrooms.

“When it comes to a debate, people always say, ‘We’re not picking sides.’ But I know I have classmates who want to debate,” Jensen said. “If faculty members knew we wanted to have those conversations and made time for that, that would really help.”

PhD student Emily Nocito wants to see more small-group discussions in classrooms to allay some of the pressure and fear that can arise in difficult climate conversations. Lively and useful debates can take place instead.

“Climate touches all of us,” Nocito said. “It’s one of the most tangible ways to make an impact on your world.”

“We need to act now”

Ewi Stephanie Lamma of Cameroon, Africa, works to empower children, youth and women in natural resource management. When she was four, her mother would work on farms for days at a time to provide for her and her baby sister.

“My mom had to focus on the earth to make sure we could survive,” Lamma said.

When communities like hers are affected by climate change, children and youth have to move elsewhere, and may become involved in dangerous situations like human trafficking, Lamma explained. She’s worked with young volunteers to plant thousands of trees in Cameroon, and also created the documentary African Voices for Africa’s Forests, which received recognition during the COP27 climate conference in November.

“If I have 100 sincere climate leaders brought up from the ages of 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 or 10, I believe that in the nearest future, Cameroon will have a balanced climate system,” Lamma said. “And I can’t wait to be part of that future.”

“When we take care of our environment, we actually are taking care of ourselves.”

Among all of the youth activists featured during the four-day conference, consensus was found in creating unity first to come up with solutions — then act quickly.

“Climate is an opportunity for us to come together. As young people, we share this urgency because it’s what we’re going to have to live in. Hopefully, this could be where we bridge that divide.”

—Sarah Jensen

Said environment educator and activist Monica Neupane via a Zoom call in Nepal: “The crisis is in front of us and we need to act now.”

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Kumi Naidoo resists ‘climate apartheid,’ calls for more voices, joy to address climate change

Anonymous — Sun, 04 Dec 2022 21:52:49 +0000

Kumi Naidoo resists ‘climate apartheid,’ calls for more voices, joy to address climate change Anonymous (not verified) Sun, 12/04/2022 - 14:52

Lisa Marshall

We are at a moment in history when all of us must now take on a mantle of leadership. And we must do it in a way that energizes and motivates rather than saying ‘It’s too late.

—Kumi Naidoo

South Africa-born human rights activist Kumi Naidoo kicked off a fiery Sunday-morning talk at CU ��«��Ƶ’s Glenn Miller Ballroom with a pointed request for his audience.

“Please stand if you believe that: A) Everything is fine climate wise; B) We have a massive challenge ahead, and the window of opportunity is closing; or C) It’s too late,” he instructed.

Seven people stood for C. The rest stood for B. Notably, no one stood for A.

Each and every one of them, he asserted, has a responsibility to rise up against climate change.

“We are at a moment in history when all of us must now take on a mantle of leadership,” said Naidoo. “And we must do it in a way that energizes and motivates rather than saying ‘It’s too late. What’s the point of resistance?’”

During a presentation that conjured reflections from Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King Jr., Matt Damon, Cree elders, and the late South African rapper Riky Rick, Naidoo called for a new kind of collective action to push back on what he calls “climate apartheid” –– one that includes more voices, communicates more clearly and even incorporates a little joy.

“Pessimism and cognitive dissonance are not luxuries we can afford anymore,” he said.

As a lifelong human rights activist who first began protesting South Africa’s system of institutionalized racial oppression at age 15, Naidoo knows something about resistance.

After multiple arrests, he was forced to flee his country in the 1980s and lived in exile in the United Kingdom. He risked his life placing protest banners on oil rigs in Greenland, served in leadership roles with Greenpeace International and Amnesty International, and was instrumental in getting the African National Congress –– banned for decades under Apartheid –– formally registered as a political party again in the mid-1990s.

From this vantage point of experience, Naidoo shared a list of dos and don’ts for today’s climate activists, starting with a request to look inward.

“All of us, academia and NGOs included, have adjusted to injustices that we never should have adjusted to,” he said, suggesting that endemic “civil obedience” has stalled progress.

In addition to direct actions such as sit-ins, strikes and other protests, he said today’s activists have changed the way they communicate the climate crisis, moving away from the sterile language of science to the language of lives, land, health and jobs.

“We have tried to win this with facts and figures: ‘1.5 degrees. 350 parts per million. Blah blah blah. All of this goes completely over the heads of 99% of people,” he said.

He added that one mistake his generation has made as activists was to put too much power into the hands of a few, and he suggested it’s time for a more decentralized, participatory and collectively shared climate justice movement.

In the past, climate activists –– many of them white and wealthy –– have also failed to recognize the harm that their protests have on working people. This, too, must change.

“If you have a persistent pattern of civil disobedience being done by wealthy white people and it adversely impacts people of color, that is an arrogance that must be addressed,” he said.

Today’s climate warriors, he said, must also stop preaching to the crowd.

“Activism cannot continue to be the art of developing a position and mobilizing the people who agree with you and dissing the ones who don’t agree. It has to be about having the humility to build bridges with those we disagree with. That means learning to love the people who voted for Donald Trump.”

He praised a new generation of youth activists who have embraced the climate crisis with unprecedented urgency, but also with new tools. In addition to bringing economic and legal weapons to the fight, they are also bringing art, song and poetry.

In that vein, he ended his talk not with jarring statistics or talk of catastrophe, but rather with a song.

On a screen behind him played a music video created by his stepson, rapper Riky Rick, who tragically died this year. It was initially created as a love song –– one lover trying to woo back another who he’d harmed. But Naidoo and his family adapted it into a love song from humans to our planet.

On the screen, images of waterfalls and sunrises intermixed with those of trash heaps and sewage as the lyrics declared:

“I was focused on paying bills when I should have focused on showing you how I feel.”

Naidoo asked the audience to stand again, this time to dance.

And they did.

In keynote address on Sunday, South African-born Kumi Naidoo stressed the need for a “mantle of leadership” among all people as humanity works to address climate change, with a more inclusive, collective approach.

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4 key ways to address the climate crisis now

Anonymous — Sun, 04 Dec 2022 21:39:23 +0000

4 key ways to address the climate crisis now Anonymous (not verified) Sun, 12/04/2022 - 14:39

Lisa Marshall

“We’ve heard from the activists. We know they’re being threatened. They’re being jailed for their work. They’re being deprived of their livelihoods. Now we need to move to action.”

—Therese Arnesen, UN Human Rights Officer

Closing Reception

Beth Osnes, associate professor of theater and dance and environmental science at CU ��«��Ƶ, leads a performance of young people from fifth grade through college age. The performance included musical pieces focused on the impacts of climate change and what we must do to address it. Osnes injected comedy into the performances and included a piece on reducing food waste.

Day three of the Right Here Right Now Global Climate summit at CU ��«��Ƶ was filled with discussions of concrete solutions and urgent calls for collective action to reduce the human toll of the climate crisis today and to fend off a catastrophic future.

To get there, panelists and speakers said the world must update its infrastructure, rethink its economy and consider Indigenous knowledge alongside Western science. And a new generation of climate defenders must better communicate the realities of the crisis in ways that strengthen the movement and foster political will.

“We’ve heard from the activists. We know they’re being threatened. They’re being jailed for their work. They’re being deprived of their livelihoods,” said U.N. Human Rights Officer Therese Arnesen after the close of the summit. “Now we need to move to action.”

Here’s a look at what that action might look like, according to participants who attended the third day of the summit:

Adapt to reality now to save lives

While the mitigation of future warming must remain a priority, the world is progressing slowly on this front, and countries must adapt to global climate realities now to save lives, said economist Elizabeth Robinson, director of the Grantham Research Institute, during a panel on Adaptation, Mitigation and Disaster Response.

Robinson noted that after a 2003 heat wave led to 15,000 deaths in France, the French government established an early warning system that now alerts elderly people and other vulnerable communities of oncoming heat waves and directs them to cooling stations. When another heat wave hit in 2019, 1,500 died, a fraction of the number who might have died had the warning system not been implemented.

Similarly in Nigeria, the government has invested in programs to assure that construction and agricultural workers, whose health is increasingly threatened due to climate change, have access to water and toilets on hot days.

“We must continue to focus on mitigation, but adaptation can work. It can save lives, and it’s not that complicated,” she said.

Expedite a global green energy infrastructure

Martin Keller, director of the National Renewable Energy Lab based in Golden, Colorado, joined Robinson on the panel.

Keller added that scientists and energy companies from the developed world could make a big difference in mitigating future warming if they would do more to help developing countries transition to a cleaner energy infrastructure, powered by solar and wind.

He noted that many countries, particularly in Africa, have no electricity at all yet, so providing funding and expertise now can enable them to skip powering their country with fossil fuels entirely, much like they skipped landline telephones and went directly to cell phones.

“We need to act now to prevent them from making the same mistakes that we have,” Keller said.

He stressed that the transition to green energy must be a just one, considering and financially supporting those at risk of losing their livelihood.

Rethink what rich means

Solutions for adaptation to and mitigation of climate change abound, and many are within reach, “But a crucial question we have to confront is: Who will pay?” noted economist Kelly Sims Gallagher, director of the Climate Policy Lab, during a panel on economics, pricing and policy.

Some panelists throughout the day suggested that in carbon offset systems, the price of carbon is already too low and should be raised.

Others pointed to the recent Loss and Damage fund established at the United Nations’ COP27 climate conference as a ray of hope, if implemented properly.

And many suggested that the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank should be overhauled to make them more amenable to investing in green economies.

“If you think about these two institutions, they have become conservative and risk averse and in reality they should be the opposite,” said Robinson.

On a more fundamental level, it could be time for many to reimagine what it means to be rich.

“What if we saw it as having clean air and clean water,” said Canadian youth activist Tia Kennedy, during the summit’s closing panel on traditional knowledge.

Consider Indigenous knowledge alongside Western science

During that panel, Indigenous participants from Belize, Arizona, Canada, the United States and Panama highlighted a worldview in which values of reciprocity prevail, not only with one another but also between humans and the planet. The earth and animals are viewed not as a “natural resource” to be extracted from but as part of an interconnected web.

In thinking this way, simple solutions arise that can often trump sophisticated technical fixes, explained botanist and writer Robin Wall Kimmerer, a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation.

She shared how her ancestors stayed warm in winter because they built a small fire and sat close to it.

Meanwhile, “they observed that the settlers built a really big fire in a big house and sat far away from the fire.” That story still resonates with her today.

Michael Kotutwa Johnson, a member of the Hopi Tribe in Arizona, and “250th generation” farmer shared this story, a fitting way to bring the summit to a close:

“We only receive 6 to 10 inches of annual rainfall every year at Hopi. That’s it, but we’re able to raise things like melon, squash, beans (and) corn. When I was at Cornell University, they told me I needed 33 inches of annual rainfall to raise corn, and I said, ‘Man, you guys have got some weak corn here.’ Do you know what makes it come up? It’s our faith, and it’s our belief system that makes that corn come up. It’s not a commodity, folks. It’s life.”

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Robin Wall Kimmerer

Anonymous — Fri, 18 Nov 2022 19:24:48 +0000

Robin Wall Kimmerer Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 11/18/2022 - 12:24

United States

Expertise:
Climate Change & Environment

Day 3: Solutions

Panel:
Traditional Knowledge and Climate Solutions

Sunday, December 4, 2022

Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, which has earned Kimmerer wide acclaim. Her first book, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses, was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing, and her other work has appeared in Orion, Whole Terrain, and numerous scientific journals. In 2022, Braiding Sweetgrass was adapted for young adults by Monique Gray Smith. This new edition reinforces how wider ecological understanding stems from listening to the Earth’s oldest teachers: the plants around us.

Wall Kimmerer tours widely and has been featured on NPR’s On Being with Krista Tippett and in 2015 addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations on the topic of “Healing Our Relationship with Nature.” Kimmerer is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of environmental biology and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, whose mission is to create programs that draw on both Indigenous and scientific knowledge for our shared goals of sustainability. She was named a MacArthur fellow this year.

As a writer and a scientist, Kimmerer’s interests in restoration include not only restoration of ecological communities, but restoration of our relationships to land. She holds a BS in botany from SUNY ESF, an MS and PhD in botany from the University of Wisconsin, and is the author of numerous scientific papers on plant ecology, bryophyte ecology, traditional knowledge and restoration ecology. She lives on an old farm in upstate New York, tending gardens both cultivated and wild.

Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation.

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Cristina Coc

Anonymous — Fri, 18 Nov 2022 15:40:07 +0000

Cristina Coc Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 11/18/2022 - 08:40

Belize (Q’eqchi’)

Expertise:
Human Rights

Program Director
Julian Cho Society

Day 3: Solutions

Panel:
Traditional Knowledge and Climate Solutions

Sunday, December 4, 2022

The Julian Cho Society (JCS), founded by Cristina Coc, is dedicated to the conservation of the environments and rights of Indigenous peoples of southern Belize. Coc is program director, and an organizer and co‐spokesperson for the Maya Leaders Alliance. As a Maya woman, she brings a wealth of knowledge of these communities, fluency in Q’eqchi’, and experience mobilizing local residents.

When the government of Belize granted unrestricted logging concessions to a multinational company in the mid‐1990s, the Maya built a social movement that fought back. They also sued the government for Indigenous rights to their lands. In 2004, the Inter‐American Commission for Human Rights ruled that the Maya had full Indigenous rights to the lands of southern Belize, but concrete changes have been slow.

In 2007, two Maya villages, Conejo and Santa Cruz, brought a claim against the government for its failure to recognize and protect the customary land rights of the Maya people. After a trial, the Supreme Court of Belize accepted the villages’ argument that Maya property rights, like other forms of property, are protected by the Belize Constitution and international human rights law.

Recently, Coc and other Maya leaders have worked with lawyers from the Indigenous People’s Law & Policy Institute at the University of Arizona to test the lawsuit, negotiate with the government and build capacity among local Maya.

Coc is a young woman, but in this work, she has accumulated vast experience. She has felt the cold reality of discrimination. She has negotiated complicated and contentious issues at the highest level. Most important, she has gained the respect of the Q’eqchi’ and Mopan villagers of Toledo.

The Julian Cho Society (JCS), founded by Cristina Coc, is dedicated to the conservation of the environments and rights of Indigenous peoples of southern Belize.

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Constance Okollet

Anonymous — Fri, 11 Nov 2022 16:54:12 +0000

Constance Okollet Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 11/11/2022 - 09:54

Uganda

Expertise:
Human Rights

Chairperson
Osukuru United Women's Network (OWN)

Day 3: Solutions

Panel:
Adaptation, Mitigation, Disaster Response: How should governments, acting individually and through international cooperation, address the impact of climate change for the most vulnerable, whose voices are often unheard?

Sunday, December 4, 2022

Constance Okollet is the chair of the Osukuru United Women’s Network (OWN) in the Tororo district of eastern Uganda, and is a self-described peasant farmer and mother of seven. As the chair for OWN, she leads a consortium of about 1,200 small women’s groups working on education, community health and nutrition.

Constance Okollet is the chair of the Osukuru United Women’s Network (OWN) in the Tororo district of eastern Uganda, and is a self-described peasant farmer and mother of seven.

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Kishore Rao

Anonymous — Fri, 11 Nov 2022 16:26:50 +0000

Kishore Rao Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 11/11/2022 - 09:26

United States

Expertise:
Business & Industry
Climate Change & Environment

Global Consulting Sustainability and Climate Leader
Deloitte

Day 3: Solutions

Panel:
Economics, Pricing, Policy: How do governments and various stakeholders pay and otherwise take action to develop climate policy solutions in a manner that is equitable?

Sunday, December 4, 2022

Kishore Rao is Deloitte’s global consulting sustainability and climate leader, focused on government and public sector clients. He works with leaders and professionals across the globe, helping governments and public services agencies develop and translate policy into practical action on such issues as climate action, sustainability, social inclusion and good governance. Rao also leads Deloitte’s business relationship with global international affairs and development organizations.

For over 25 years, Rao has been helping global governments to devise and implement strategies that enhance sustainability, drive climate action, promote digitalization, build competitiveness, promote trade and investment, and build infrastructure. He also supports global companies ranging from real estate and energy to technology to build business models to enter and expand in global markets. More recently, his work has focused on environmental, societal and governance issues.

Over his career, Rao has held leadership positions with major consulting companies engaged in global expansion, economic development and social impact. He has lived and worked in over 70 countries and serves on the boards of globally focused nonprofits that advocate for international engagement and social impact.

Kishore Rao is Deloitte’s global consulting sustainability and climate leader, focused on government and public sector clients.

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Tristan Ahtone

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Nov 2022 15:56:27 +0000

Tristan Ahtone Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 11/10/2022 - 08:56

Finland
Editor at Large • Grist

Day 3: Solutions

Panel:
Traditional Knowledge and Climate Solutions

Sunday, December 4, 2022

Tristan Ahtone is a member of the Kiowa Tribe and is editor at large at Grist. He previously served as editor in chief at the Texas Observer and Indigenous affairs editor at High Country News. He has reported for Al Jazeera America, PBS NewsHour, Indian Country Today and NPR, to name a few.

Ahtone’s stories have won multiple honors, including a George Polk Award, a National Magazine Award nomination, and investigative awards from the Gannett Foundation and Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE). A past president of the Native American Journalists Association, Ahtone is a 2017 Nieman fellow.

Tristan Ahtone is a member of the Kiowa Tribe and is editor at large at Grist.

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Steve Baragona

Anonymous — Wed, 19 Oct 2022 21:11:17 +0000

Steve Baragona Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 10/19/2022 - 15:11

United States
Science Correspondent • Voice of America

Day 3: Solutions

Panel:
Economics, Pricing, Policy: How do governments and various stakeholders pay and otherwise take action to develop climate policy solutions in a manner that is equitable?

Sunday, December 4, 2022

Steve Baragona is an award-winning multimedia journalist covering science, environment and health for Voice of America (VOA). His work has focused on the ways climate change impacts people—from the economy and policy to health and human rights. He has reported on the relationship between fighting climate change and the economy, how major disasters are linked to climate change, the Paris Agreement and everything in between.

Baragona joined VOA as an international health reporter from 2002 to 2004. He then spent more than four years as communications and public affairs officer for the Infectious Diseases Society of America before returning to VOA as a food, agriculture and nutrition correspondent. He assumed his current role as a science correspondent with VOA in 2013.

Before his career in journalism, he spent eight years in molecular biology and infectious disease research before deciding that writing about science was more fun than doing it. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a master’s degree in journalism in 2002.

Steve Baragona is an award-winning multimedia journalist covering science, environment and health for Voice of America (VOA).

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Elena Sánchez Nicolás

Anonymous — Wed, 19 Oct 2022 18:44:40 +0000

Elena Sánchez Nicolás Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 10/19/2022 - 12:44

Belgium
Journalist • EUobserver

Day 3: Solutions

Panel:
Developing Climate Solutions With the Human Rights of Future Generations in Mind: What do youth have to say about that?

Sunday, December 4, 2022

Elena Sánchez Nicolás covers institutional affairs, climate change, energy and tech policy for EUobserver. Before joining EUobserver, she worked on European affairs at the Brussels-based think tank VoteWatch Europe and the Spanish news agency EFE.

Based in Brussels, she is originally from Spain and serves as the acting president for the Association of European Journalists Belgium. Sánchez Nicolás holds a master’s degree in new media and society in Europe from the Vrije Universiteit Brussels (VUB) and a master’s in transmedia journalism from Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) in Madrid.

Elena Sánchez Nicolás covers institutional affairs, climate change, energy and tech policy for EUobserver.

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Day 3

Youth, women at center of climate change fight

“Do not work alone. Never ever.”

CU ��«����Ƶ students are working toward the same goals.

“We need to act now”

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Kumi Naidoo resists ‘climate apartheid,’ calls for more voices, joy to address climate change

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4 key ways to address the climate crisis now

Closing Reception

Adapt to reality now to save lives

Expedite a global green energy infrastructure

Rethink what rich means

Consider Indigenous knowledge alongside Western science

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Robin Wall Kimmerer

Day 3: Solutions

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Cristina Coc

Day 3: Solutions

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Constance Okollet

Day 3: Solutions

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Kishore Rao

Day 3: Solutions

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Tristan Ahtone

Day 3: Solutions

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Steve Baragona

Day 3: Solutions

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Elena Sánchez Nicolás

Day 3: Solutions

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CU ��«��Ƶ students are working toward the same goals.