Countries around the world are stepping up efforts to combat climate change but mountainous challenges loom. That’s according to the guest on the latest episode of Grid Talk.

Host Marty Rosenberg speaks with David Waskow, director of International Climate Initiatives at the World Resources Institute. 

Waskow says non-governmental organizations (NGOs), are shoulder to shoulder with national governments’ stepped-up engagement.

“We’re both making a lot of progress and have enormous challenges ahead of us,” said Waskow.

According to Waskow the work is just beginning.

“I think one thing we haven’t taken into account is the depth of transformation that we need.”

Some countries are making notable progress. 

“The surge in renewables in India is just quite remarkable and there over 100 gigawatts at the moment I believe, and continuing to grow rapidly,” he said. 

And he’s talking about massive societal transformations.

“We are moving quickly on EVs but all the evidence is that we’re not only going to have to do EVs at a massive scale, we’re also going to have to shift to other modes of transport than passenger vehicles.”

AS the Director of WRI’s International Climate Initiative Waskow is focused on international cooperation that catalyzes and supports action on climate change at the national level in developed and developing countries Prior to WRI, David directed climate change policy at the development organization Oxfam America, where much of his work focused on the impacts of climate change on vulnerable communities. 

He has graduate degrees from the University of Chicago and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University; his undergraduate degree is from Brown University.