Podcast alert: reflections from the Changing Climates Summer School

9th August 2021
By Tony Daly

Tagged as: Climate Change, Climate Justice, Covid-19, Development Studies, Podcast

Scientists at The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released their starkest warning yet today as part of periodic stock-take reports and ahead of the next COP meeting in November.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on the report’s findings:

“Today’s interim report from the UNFCCC is a red alert for our planet. It shows governments are nowhere close to the level of ambition needed to limit climate change to 1.5 degrees and meet the goals of the Paris Agreement”,

We’ll be delving into the report in more depth, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, co-convenors of the Climate & Development Study Group, Ciara Finnegan and Gerard Maguire, based in the Development Studies Association, Ireland (DSAI), have been working their socks off this summer.

Following the 2-day summer school on ‘Changing Climates’ in June they sat down with speakers and participants for some post-event commentary on topics such as slavery, conflict and international development.

I was delighted to be invited to share some reflections following our interactive session, which is included in one of the episodes in the podcast series (link below).

There are 11 episodes in the series, all of them available now on Spotify. I have many highlights from these, including Dr Lauren Napier on space law and the SDGs, Ireland’s climate envoy Dr Sinead Walsh on being a good citizen and DSAI chairperson Dr Nita Mishra with some strong words, asking where are all of the trouble makers?

Onward reading

Here are jumping points for onward reading for anyone interested the rabbit holes we ended up chatting about during the podcast. [suggestions for new / more / better readings are always welcome!]

Special Rapporteur on human rights and extreme poverty (on inequality between global north and south, and confronting this)

On Philip Alston’s report in 2019 on ‘climate apartheid’ between rich and poor countries (“there is no shortage of alarm bells ringing over climate change”) (source: The Guardian and the original report.
Alston’s final report on the failed global efforts to eradicate extreme poverty, and how measuring the poverty line is a dismal baseline to hold the standard of basic dignity against (2020)

On decolonising knowledge

Geographies of knowledge: practical ways to boost the visibility of research undertaken and published in the South by Jonathan Harle and Sioux Cumming (2014)
Decolonizing scholarly data and publishing infrastructures by Angela Okune (2019, as part of the Citing Africa series)
How diverse is your reading list? (Probably not very…) (2019)

On the subsidies figure

Fossil fuel subsidies, based on IMF calculations (2019 data, at an annual rate of US$ 4.7TN compared with the ‘ambition’ of $100BN from the Paris Agreement). (Source: IMF research paper which updates on my 5.3TN figure from 2017), plus an analysis of the need for reform.
More info on the Paris Agreement vs fossil fuel subsidies, climate activism and climate justice debates in the book 80-20 Development in an Unequal World.

Fact checking (and related!)

The What The Fact? fact-checking project on developmenteducation.ie such as the 10 Myths About Climate Change pocketbook in and the soon to be released toolkit in September for adult education tutors called Facts Matter with 80:20 and the National Adult Literacy Agency (NALA).
Leo Varadkar on official statistics, ‘report cards’ and NGOs in 2018. This is based on the research in the Climate Change Performers Index 2019 (fallout of this debate included on the Irish Times report)

‘What can you do’

Climate change laws and cases globally monitored. Source: the Grantham Research Institute
News about climate case litigation trends, with the news about Shell losing their case as a particularly important point re corporate accountability as a local company with global footprints. Source: Climate Change News
‘I am a man of peace: writings inspired by the Maynooth University Ken Saro-Wiwa Collection’. A deep dive into the campaigns re the Ogoni 9 in the Niger Delta are particularly interesting, and reflections on environmental activism from a range of views and perspectives, published by Darja Press
Wicklow County Council declares a climate emergency through a council ‘motion’ in 2019. Source: included in the Irish Global Solidarity in 100 Objects exhibition.
Earth Overshoot Day, when humans overshoot the Earth’s biocapacity to replenish as many resources as we consume (is updated annually based on global trends in terms of consumption – both underconsumption and overconsumption).