Join ULI for the 3rd annual Resilience Summit. This exclusive online event brings leaders in the field of real estate and resilience together to share practicable solutions to protect communities and investments from future climate risks.
Learn more and RSVP here.
Unprecedented levels of drought continue to plague California and show no signs of slowing down. These historic consequences not only signal the impacts of a changing climate but also point to the continued over-subscription of available water resources and underscore the importance of directing strategies and funding towards long-term drought response and resilience.
Communities across the State are being forced to contend with dire water shortages, drying wells and reservoirs, agriculture and infrastructure challenges, and more, many of which disproportionately impact tribal communities, low-income, Latinx, and other vulnerable groups. The impacts of the drought have already had health and safety, cultural, and economic consequences for communities from the North State to the San Joaquin Valley to the Inland Empire.
Amidst this crisis, the State faces a profound moment of challenge and opportunity to mitigate drought impacts and change the trajectory of this issue for decades to come. The Department of Water Resources recently announced its first round of funding commitments to combat water supply challenges, and the State Budget enacted in June 2021 puts approximately $5.1 billion over four years toward helping communities develop long-term resiliency. Philanthropy will play a crucial role in amplifying these efforts to be as impactful as possible. Through partnerships with the State, philanthropy can not only ensure funds are allocated in a community-driven and equitable manner but also help communities establish resilience in response to future droughts and climate disasters.
During this unique conversation, we will hear from State leaders at the forefront of the emergency drought response, funders providing a blueprint around roles for philanthropy and key funding opportunities, and community leaders pinpointing tools to build long-term water resilience and mitigate the impact of future droughts.
The next generation of environmental activists have infused the movement with the energy and urgency needed to fight for a better future.
Whether it’s taking on oil interests, encouraging youth to take climate action in their daily lives, or providing a platform so youth can participate in local activism, they have made it clear that the future of the environmental movement is inclusive, impatient with inaction, and digitally savvy.
Better World Group is honored to bring together a panel of leaders who are transforming the fight for climate justice for a conversation about driving urgency and change, the challenges that lie ahead, the intersections of the movement with racial justice and how they keep hope for the future.
Participants
Nalleli Cobo - Co-founder, South Central Youth Leadership Coalition
Isaias Hernandez - Environmental Educator and Creator, Queer Brown Vegan
Kevin J. Patel - Executive Director and Founder, OneUpAction
Asma Mahdi - Senior Policy Director, Better World Group (Moderator)
Extreme heat in cities is already the leading weather-related killer in many countries, including the United States. Join us for a robust discussion on urban heat and how governments, the private sector, and the tech industry are all responding to its deadly effects. The panel will address how communities here in Los Angeles and around the world are committed to finding solutions to this growing public health crisis.
Panelists include:
Marta Segura M.P.H. – Director, Climate Emergency Mobilization Office at the City of Los Angeles
Kurt Shickman – Executive Director, Global Cool Cities Alliance
Katie Swenson – Senior Principal, MASS Design Group
Antonia Burchard-Levine - Account Manager - Tree Planting Team, Ecosia
The talk will be moderated by TreePeople CEO, Cindy Montañez.
This 90-minute workshop will give you the basics to use systems thinking in your studio or classroom through a four-step design process that includes virtual hands-on exercises to get you started today.
Wait, what is systems thinking? Systems thinking in design should result in a usable and beautiful object or service that improves not only our quality of life but nature as well (reparations for nature). Systems thinking is the way forward for designers to continue their practice and renourish what humanity has taken away from (and damaged) the planet, and, in turn, drawdown our global carbon emissions.
On Friday, March 5th and 12th, The American Institute of Architects Los Angeles’s Committee on the Environment (AIA LA COTE) will be presenting the 4th annual 1.5°C Symposium on Climate Change. The symposium has been renamed “1.5 Degrees Celsius” from 2 Degrees Celsius to highlight the global urgent need for the design and construction industry to provide carbon mitigating solutions that will prevent the global temperature from rising more than 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.
AIA LA COTE is providing a conference that reflects the most relevant dialogues in society and has incorporated this thinking into a two-day symposium around Climate Action and Climate Justice. Carbon Neutrality, Healthy Building Environments, Resiliency, and Equity are a few of the topics to be presented by a diverse set of presenters including such keynotes as Farhana Yamin; an international environmental lawyer and activist who has co-authored a number of international treaties on climate change, including the Paris Climate Agreement.
Wildfires ravaged an unprecedented amount of California in the past 12 months. This session will explore the impacts of wildfires on health, low-income housing and small water systems, as well as highlight innovative tactics to increase resiliency, especially for populations that are most vulnerable to wildfire.
The Covid-19 crisis collapsed demand for energy, with oil prices falling to an astonishing -$37.63 per barrel in late April. But as the world looks toward recovery, can this shock be seized to break the global addiction to fossil fuels, or will the “new normal” end up looking much like the old one? How can we accelerate the rise in renewables to meet urgent global demand throughout the recovery? How will businesses with global operations adapt to support this transformation? And could a green recovery provide the necessary boost to strengthen commitment to the climate goals, which the world so badly needs?
Wildfires ravaged an unprecedented amount of California in the past 12 months. This session will explore the impacts of wildfires on health, low-income housing and small water systems, as well as highlight innovative tactics to increase resiliency, especially for populations that are most vulnerable to wildfire.
Traditionally, investors have had one duty – to make the greatest possible return on capital for their shareholders. It’s an outdated model that’s brought us to the brink of climate disaster, and we need a new way of understanding value and returns that looks beyond the short-term and drives resources towards scalable solutions. There are trillions of dollars in so-called ‘green’ funds, but how do we fundamentally redesign financial markets to make responsible, climate-focused investing the rule rather than the exception?
The food we cultivate and consume has a huge effect on climate change, with agricultural production contributing 20 to 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions. If we are to achieve the international goal of net zero emissions by 2050, we must implement radical but attainable solutions, fast. How can we significantly reduce emissions across key sectors within the food system, while maintaining nutritional balance and food security. How can communities be empowered to feed themselves? How can action on energy and transport, or other cross-cutting challenges, take us further, faster?
Speakers:
Moderator: Somini Sengupta, International Climate Reporter, New York Times
Gonzalo Muñoz, Chile High-Level Climate Champion for COP25
Ertharin Cousin, Distinguished Fellow at the Center on Food Security and the Environment and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Rebecca Henderson, John and Natty McArthur University Professor, Harvard Business School
The cascading crises of 2020 have not only brought into stark relief the immediacy of the global climate emergency but also the deadly costs of racial and economic inequities. With little hope for another round of stimulus funding from Congress before November, VX Hack-a-thon Session #3 will explore opportunities, regardless of the election’s outcome, for paving the road to recovery with multi-benefit and community-driven green infrastructure investment.
Continuing the conversation sparked at VX2020 in January, join Milken Institute Director, Dan Carol; Stockton Sr. Economic Development Advisor, Ann Rogan; and i(x) Investments President, Christine Harada, who lead this hack-a-thon highlighting mechanisms for aligning, expediting, and optimizing green infrastructure investment with local, state, and federal COVID recovery efforts in the months to come.
Save the date for a first-of-its-kind national symposium featuring social science research that measures the scale and scope of climate impacts, as well as how to address those impacts through adaptive markets, public policies, and planning.
Interested in presenting your research at the symposium? We invite abstracts from within economics, geography, law, public health, sociology, urban planning, climate science, and related disciplines. Abstracts are due by January 31st. Learn more here and RSVP.
A discussion of climate adaptation, specifically across agricultural contexts, and the role of climate change in human migration.
Climate change is here. We must act determinedly and equitably to minimize damages – we must mitigate our greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, we must do that now while simultaneously living with changes already upon us and preparing for those that will inevitably come, and in short order. Some of these changes (e.g. rising temperatures) will demand that we be smarter, more nimble, and more responsible in managing our resources and designing our systems; we must adapt in a “climate-smart” way. Other changes (e.g. rising sea levels) may preclude adaptation in-situ, and force us to look for new places to live and work, either temporarily or permanently.
In this talk, Sonali McDermid will discuss what we are starting to learn about climate adaptation, specifically across agricultural contexts for the “global majority”, major focus regions of her research. McDermid will also discuss a new project evaluating the role of climate change in human migration, which is wholly complex: though destabilizing to migration, climate change is often superimposed on existing precarity. Through these examples, McDermid will discuss outstanding needs and emerging thoughts for crafting a way forward in a climate, changed.
After her presentation, Sonali McDermid will be joined by Marianna Tsionki, curator of Meteorological Mobilities, to discuss and respond to submitted questions from participants.
This event is in conjunction with Meteorological Mobilities, an apexart NYC Open Call Exhibition on view ONLINE beginning May 28.
Sonali McDermid is a climate scientist and Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at NYU. Her research, which uses global climate models, crop models, and observational datasets, focuses on understanding how agriculture has transformed our climate and regional environments. She also served as Climate Co-Lead for the Agricultural Intercomparison and Improvement Project (www.agmip.org), which assessed the impact of climate change on food security and livelihoods across South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. McDermid holds a B.A. in Physics from NYU (2006), and an M.Phil and Ph.D. (2012) from the Dept. of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University in Atmospheric Science and Climatology. Prior to NYU, she was NASA Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in NYC.
Marianna Tsionki is Senior Curator at CFCCA, Manchester where she is leading the program team on the development of the public program across exhibitions, events, commissions, publications, artist residencies and engagement. She is a PhD candidate in Curatorial Practice at the Manchester School of Art investigating the role of the curatorial in knowledge production, and ways that cultural institutions can instigate social change.
The response to the coronavirus pandemic has had unexpected climate consequences, including less air pollution and fewer greenhouse gas emissions. What lessons can be taken from this moment, and how can we apply it when distancing restrictions are lifted?
Join us online for the first session of The Greenhouse, our digital event series about climate change, and hear from top New York Times climate journalists Hannah Fairfield, Somini Sengupta, Nadja Popovich and John Schwartz as they discuss how the climate community is reacting to the age of the coronavirus.
Ahead of the call, take a look at our top articles on the topic:
Social Distancing? You Might Be Fighting Climate Change, Too
