The ClimateReady Podcast: Adapting to Climate Change & Uncertainty

As the dust settles from COP26, we take one last look back at the recent global climate conference that was held in Glasgow, Scotland in early November. Spanning two weeks and including hundreds of official events on top of high-level negotiations, it’s not easy to digest all that took place. What were the major topics covered? What was achieved? And what opportunities were missed? We’re here to help put things into context.

On this episode of ClimateReady, we interview two colleagues from the Alliance for Global Water Adaptation (AGWA) representing different ends of the COP spectrum. John Matthews, AGWA’s Exec. Director, has been attending these events for over a decade. We also hear from Pan Ei Ei Phyoe, a young water professional who participated in her first one this year. Both share honest and insightful feedback from their days on the ground driving the water-climate agenda.

This episode is part of a four-part miniseries focusing on COP26 and international climate policy. If you’d like to support ClimateReady in creating more content in 2022, please consider donating (https://www.alliance4water.org/donate).

As climate change continues to dominate the current headlines thanks to COP26, we at ClimateReady wanted to take a look into the essential adaptation work that takes place between the annual conferences. Countries regularly develop commitments and implement programs to build climate resilience. Often, the development and shaping of country-level activities comes down to a small number of individuals such as national adaptation focal points. Who are these people working on national climate commitments? And what efforts are underway to support them?

On this episode of ClimateReady, we hear from participants in the first ever Adaptation Academy — a capacity building program under the leadership of the UNFCCC to provide technical training and peer to peer connections among those individuals responsible for national adaptation planning, implementation, and reporting (https://unfccc.int/castt-adaptation-academy). The first courses wrapped up last month, with more planned for 2022. We hear from a range of voices coming from Panama, Jamaica, Cameroon, and the Philippines about their experience in the Adaptation Academy, and how this nascent program is bringing together academia, NGOs, and government institutions to build the technical capacity needed to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.

This episode is part of a four-part miniseries focusing on COP26 and international climate policy.

As world leaders gather in Glasgow for COP26, it is clear that countries face serious strategic choices in how they address mitigation and build adaptation and resilience. Often undervalued in this dialogue is the critical role of water for successful climate change mitigation and adaptation actions. But some countries are beginning to demonstrate leadership on this front, with this simple message: For climate action to be effective, the role of water must be recognised.

On this episode of ClimateReady, we feature interviews with representatives of countries leading the effort to feature water resilience as key to their national climate plans. Egypt and Costa Rica are two of the first countries to pilot a new tool called the Water Tracker for National Climate Planning, indicative of their commitment towards a cross-sectoral, water-centric approach to addressing climate risks. Dr. Eman Soliman, Head of Planning Sector for Egypt’s Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, and Cynthia Barzuna Gutiérrez, Costa Rican Vice Minister for Water and Ocean Affairs, joined Ingrid Timboe to discuss their countries’ adaptation initiatives and COP26 priorities.

This episode is part of a four-part miniseries focusing on COP26 and work being done around national climate planning.

Delayed for a full year due to the pandemic, the next major climate conference of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) begins later this month. Leaders from governments, civil society, and the private sector will converge in Glasgow and virtually to determine the next major steps to address the climate crisis. Can Glasgow deliver on the promises made in Paris in 2015?

On this episode of ClimateReady, we’re joined by Vel Gnanendran, Climate and Environment Advisor for the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, or FCDO. With the UK as host of this year’s conference of the parties, or COP, we take the opportunity to ask Vel about the major priorities and aspirations being worked towards, and why the average person should be paying attention. Vel talks about encouraging work being done to bridge the gap between climate risks and adaptation, and the need for more locally led adaptation and access to climate finance.

This episode is the first in a four-part miniseries focused on COP26 coming out over the next month. COP26 takes place from 31 October through 12 November.

ClimateReady is coming back with a four-part miniseries focused around the UN’s climate change conference, or COP26, starting at the end of October, where world leaders will gather in Glasgow and virtually to try and deliver on the promise of the Paris Agreement.

In this special ClimateReady miniseries, we'll try to put things into context around COP26 priorities, existing efforts around national climate planning, and major takeaways after the global conference.

Regardless of whether or not you realize it, the climate crisis may be taking a toll on your mental well-being. Combine that with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, economic downturns, and social distancing measures, and it’s easy to see that mental health may be more important now than ever. But for these pervasive problems with no simple solutions, how are we supposed to move past our anxiety or grief?

In this episode of ClimateReady, we are joined by clinical social worker and psychotherapist, Andrew Bryant. Andrew sat down to discuss the work he’s been doing for nearly a decade to help people understand the psychological impacts of climate change and develop strategies to regain their sense of agency. He explains the idea of “radical acceptance” and lays out a four-step approach for empowering ourselves to respond to the complex emotions resulting from the climate crisis, and highlights tools available through his Climate and Mind website (www.climateandmind.org). Many of the lessons he shares can also be applied to dealing with anxiety relating to the current pandemic as well.

Following the interview, we continue the ongoing “Climate of Hope” segment in partnership with the World Youth Parliament for Water. Lynn Porta of the North American Youth Parliament for Water discusses her graduate research in transboundary water management and international treaties, and how the trends she sees around cooperation and adaptability give her room for hope.

Modern hydrology and engineering have solved some tremendous problems, allowing societies to expand and thrive in regions once considered too difficult to inhabit. With more people, more complicated economies, and more variability and extremes from climate impacts, engineering our way out of water challenges seems harder, more expensive, and less reliable. Maybe solutions from the past can become new again?

In this episode of ClimateReady, we examine how traditional, indigenous knowledge and nature-based solutions (NbS) can complement modern approaches. Dr. Boris Ochoa-Tocachi of Imperial College London joins the show to discuss the work he is doing with rural communities in the Andes of Peru, using pre-Columbian technology such as amunas and NbS like bofedales alongside modern water storage and conveyance methods, to help provide water security for local communities as well as Greater Lima and its nearly 10 million inhabitants, all while avoiding the traps of “parachute science.”

Following the interview, we hear a different perspective from Peru in our “Climate of Hope” segment. María Angélica Villasante Villafuerte and Hernan Tello, both members of Peruvian Youth Against Climate Change, discuss their work to increase youth involvement in local and national decision making around climate change to achieve an intergenerational transfer of good practices and lessons learned.

With our daily lives inundated with news and anxiety around the ongoing coronavirus epidemic, it’s easy to forget another major story from just a few months ago. The Australian bushfire season of 2019-2020 has garnered global attention. People all around the world were shocked by stories of massive wildlife loss, charred landscapes, destroyed homes and businesses, and displaced communities. But now that the fires have gone out, what have we learned?

To hear how these fires impacted the country’s ecosystems, people, and politics, we turn to two colleagues from southeastern Australia. Dr. Jamie Pittock is a professor at Australian National University (www.anu.edu.au/), while Dr. Emma Carmody — a previous guest on ClimateReady — works at the Environmental Defenders Office (www.edo.org.au/). Jamie and Emma talk us through the wide-ranging impacts of this season’s bushfires. We hear how climate change, ongoing drought, and specific governance and management policies all worked in conjunction to feed the conditions for such devastating fires. We pay particular attention to the short- and long-term impacts on freshwater ecosystems and wildlife before turning to ways in which the tragedy may lead to positive behavioral and policy changes.

For listeners interested in helping the ecosystems and people harmed by Australia’s bushfires, we are including a list of some great organizations recommended by Jamie and Emma. You can make donations and find out more about their work using the links below:

- For strategic and science-based wildlife conservation projects – WWF Australia (http://bit.ly/3bdXjnF)

- For a particular freshwater wildlife conservation – Aussie Ark Turtle Project

(http://bit.ly/392BaqW)

- For people, for short term relief – Country Women’s Association (http://bit.ly/3a7epTV)

- For other strategic projects – Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal

(http://bit.ly/33At9sa)

We count on public utilities to provide services integral to everyday life. When we turn on the tap or flip a light switch, the assumption is that water will run and rooms will light up. But as the climate changes and cities continue to grow at a breakneck pace, what can utilities do to continue to provide these essential services? Is there a way to avoid overexploiting natural resources while keeping ratepayers happy?

For insight into climate-smart development, we look to the pioneering efforts of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) in the U.S. state of California. On this episode of ClimateReady, we’ll hear from three SFPUC representatives: Mike Brown, Sarah Minick, and Karri Ving. They describe the ways in which SFPUC is utilizing — and financing — nature-based “green” infrastructure to reinforce and supplement their existing systems in order to provide water, wastewater, and power services to millions of customers in a region highly vulnerable to climate change. In the second part of the discussion, we hear how SFPUC is financing these innovative projects - totaling over US$1.4 billion - through the use of the world’s first certified climate bonds dedicated to water infrastructure.

Following the interview, we wrap up with another installment of “Climate of Hope” in partnership with the World Youth Parliament for Water. Karan Gajare, a civil engineer from India pursuing a Masters Degree in Environmental Engineering through an Erasmus Mundus program, shares a success story of a small village taking big steps to adapt to and mitigate climate change in his native India (full story at http://bit.ly/38tc9F7).

What happens when climate change renders our homes and communities uninhabitable? Can we maintain our deep place-based connections from afar? As climate change and sea level rise threaten coastal communities, we’re forced to grapple with the fact that not all places will be livable in the not-so-distant future. Following extreme weather events, conversations tend to focus on how to build back. But should we always build back? Who decides? The concept of strategic managed retreat — although controversial — is slowly making its way into the mainstream as a viable, and necessary, adaptation option for many communities threatened by mounting climate impacts.

In this episode of ClimateReady, we hear from Dr. A.R. Siders as she makes the case for strategic and managed retreat as an opportunity to focus on the long-term well-being of coastal and floodplain communities and the lands they call home (http://bit.ly/2RIqRBC). Retreat is not an adaptation solution for every context. But when done in a purposeful, coordinated manner coupled with community involvement, it offers the potential for minimizing risks while avoiding the pitfalls of ad hoc displacement following disasters - a fate that often disproportionately affects poor and marginalized communities with the fewest resources to rebuild or relocate. We discuss the cultural barriers and social justice implications of the approach, and lots more, in this wide-ranging interview.

The show concludes with a “Climate of Hope” story as we hear from our youngest guest ever. Austin Matthews, the son of ClimateReady’s producer, describes what it’s like to be a ten-year-old facing the looming threat of climate change and some of the reasons for his optimism facing the challenge.