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Attributions speaks with Finu Shrestha about climate change's impacts on the Himalayan and Hindu Kush mountain ranges ice pack and glaciers. We talked about what kind of effects are being felt in the mountains, how the glaciers are responding to warming, weather pattern changes and water security for billions of people across Asia that rely on Himalayan and Hindu Kush glaciers and snowpack that feed some of Asia's largest river systems.

Finu is a Remote Sensing and Geo-information Analyst at The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development and has been working on issues affecting the region for over a decade including glaciers, glacier lakes and glacial lake outburst floods also known as GLOFs.

Web: ICIMOD
LinkedIn: Finu Shrestha

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In this episode of Attributions, Climate Impacts Tracker summarizes the main events, announcements and agreements at the COP28 climate change conference that wrapped up in Dubai in December 2023. 

While the COP did not provide transformative change, many agreed that it was a successful conference with several key climate-related initiatives being lifted and worked on. This includes loss and damage, climate finance, climate change adaptation and adaptation finance, fossil fuels, carbon markets and nature-based solutions.

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Today we speak with Hans Nicholas Jong. Hans is a journalist in Indonesia and a staff writer at Mongabay, where he has been writing for six years about environmental issues surrounding palm oil, indigenous land rights, carbon trading, deforestation, energy transition and much more. Previously, he was a journalist at the Jakarta Post for five years.

We spoke about a wide range of issues from palm oil and its impacts on deforestation in Indonesia, the impact of palm oil plantation on indigenous peoples and local communities, corruption, land rights, biofuels, carbon offsets and reforestation.

LinkedIn: Hans Nicholas Jong
X (formerly Twitter): @hans_nich
Articles by Hans on Mongabay

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Attributions speaks with Dr Roxy Mathew Koll. Roxy is a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Metrology. He's made breakthrough contributions to observing and predicting the Indo-Pacific climate related to the region's food, water and economic security.

Roxy is also a leader author on the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change reports and former Chair of the Indian Ocean Region Panel. He currently leads research on climate change and its impacts on monsoons, cyclones, heat waves and marine ecosystems. He works with citizen science networks, local governments and media to bring science to the masses.

We discussed many topics, including how Roxy got into climate science, the science behind heat waves, their impacts and how they form, the implications of El Niño, marine heat waves, monsoons, extreme cyclones, and other topics.

X (formerly Twitter): @RockSea
LinkedIn: Roxy Mathew Koll
Facebook: Roxy Mathew Koll

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In this episode we speak with Oswald Schmitz about a recent scientific paper he co-authored and published in the journal of Nature Climate Change related to how wildlife and rewilding can expand natural climate solutions, or in other words absorb more carbon - the study is called Trophic Rewilding Can Expand Natural Climate Solutions

Oswald is a Professor of population and community ecology at Yale University. Much of his work focuses on the linkage between biodiversity and ecosystem services, along with how species interact with their environments. Additionally, he looks into how predator and herbivore species determine the productivity of plants in ecosystems and their processes like carbon and nutrient cycling.

We talk about how how wildlife has largely been ignored in carbon reduction conversations and why that is the case, the impressive amount of carbon reduction that wildlife interacting in their environments can contribute to, the role of apex predators, wildlife conservation and carbon markets, human animal conflict, the risks of losing key species, the recent global agreement to conserve 30% of land and 30% of oceans and other topics.

W: Yale School of Environment - Oswald Schmitz
LinkedIn
Twitter: @SchmitzLab

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We speak with Devinder Sharma about all things India, agriculture, climate change and importantly agricultural policy in India. We visit topics like the recent heatwaves and their impacts on Indian agriculture, how important the monsoon is to Indian crops, the farmer protests that shook the country, agricultural policy related to giving farmers a living wage and how that will help farmers adapt to climate change, and many other topics.

Devinder is a food and trade policy analyst and a former agricultural journalist. He was trained as an agricultural scientist and holds a masters in plant breeding and genetics. Devinder is also an active commentator on sustainable agriculture, food security, the corporatisation of agriculture and trade agreements.

Twitter: @Devinder_Sharma
Website: Ground Reality: Understanding the politics of food, agriculture and hunger

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We speak with Dr Katharina Fabricius about climate change's impacts on the oceans and coral reef ecosystems. We also talk about how little the ocean has been explored, that it is the worlds largest carbon sink, the effects of coral bleaching, ocean acidification, if there is any potential for corals to adapt to warmer ocean surface waters, and other topics.

Katharina is a coral reef ecologist and a Senior Principle Research Scientist at The Australia Institute of Marine Science. She's been researching corals for over 30 years from Australia to the Caribbean. Currently, she leads a research project looking into the long-term effects of ocean acidification in collaboration with scientists from 20 organisations. Katharina has also published over 150 scientific journal articles and advises government and non-government bodies on all things related to corals, acidification, climate and water quality.

AIMS profile: Dr Katharina Fabricius
Twitter: @fab_coral

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In this episode, host Ashley Crowther, speaks with James Whitlow Delano about his time documenting the plight of one of Malaysia's last indigenous peoples, the Batek. We speak about what drew James to this particular story, who the Batek are, the attitudes from Malaysian government towards indigenous people, palm oil deforestation affecting their traditional lands, the notions behind resource extraction and the costs to planet and people, and many other topics.
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James is a documentary storyteller and photographer who has been based in Asia for over 20 years but whose work spans across the globe. James' career has focused on environmental issues and climate change, human rights, migration and Indigenous cultures affected by industrialisation. His projects have won awards, such as the Alfred Eisenstadt Award (from Columbia University and Life Magazine), Leica's Oskar Barnack, Picture of the Year International and NPPA Best of Photojournalism. He is also a grantee from the Pulitzer Center. James' work has been covered by publications like The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Geographic, New Republic, The Guardian, Foreign Policy and many more. He is the founder of the EverydayClimateChange Instagram feed.

Website: https://www.jameswhitlowdelano.com/

Twitter: @jameswdelano

Instagram: @jameswhitlowdelano

Facebook: James Whitlow Delano