World Resources Institute Podcasts Plus

Cities are a place of opportunity and inequality, and where more than half the world's population will experience the impacts of climate change. They're also part of the solution. This podcast draws on WRI's major new report, "Towards a more equal city", which uses its six years of research to look at the challenges of the world's cities through the lens of equity. THIS PAPER WILL LAUNCH ON OCTOBE...

ACT2025: Adaptation - for more go to www.wri.org/ACT2025 This new series of World Resources Institute podcasts looks at what vulnerable countries want from the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow. Success at COP26 is seen as critical if the world is going to avoid catastrophic climate change. We’re increasingly familiar with what many of the world’s richer and larger countries are saying ahead of...

ACT2025: Loss and Damage - for more go to www.wri.org/ACT2025 This new series of World Resources Institute podcasts looks at what vulnerable countries want from the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow. Success at COP26 is seen as critical if the world is going to avoid catastrophic climate change. We’re increasingly familiar with what many of the world’s richer and larger countries are saying ahea...

ACT2025: Finance - for more go to www.wri.org/ACT2025 This new series of World Resources Institute podcasts looks at what vulnerable countries want from the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow. Success at COP26 are seen as critical if the world is going to avoid catastrophic climate change. We’re increasingly familiar with what many of the world’s richer and larger countries are saying ahead of th...

ACT2025: Rules - for more go to www.wri.org/ACT2025 This new series of World Resources Institute podcasts looks at what vulnerable countries want from COP26 climate conference in Glasgow. Success at COP26 is seen as critical if the world is going to avoid catastrophic climate change. We’re increasingly familiar with what many of the world’s richer and larger countries are saying ahead of the confe...

ACT2025: Ambition - for more go to www.wri.org/ACT2025 This new series of World Resources Institute podcasts looks at what vulnerable countries want from the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow. Success at COP26 is seen as critical if the world is going to avoid catastrophic climate change. We’re increasingly familiar with what many of the world’s richer and larger countries are saying ahead of th...

The recent IPCC report underlines just how grave and urgent the environmental challenges facing us are. But how should we frame such challenges in a way that helps us to find solutions - not just to climate change, but to the array of other issues, from food and forests to energy, cities, water and oceans. Who better to ask these questions than WRI’s new president, Ani Dasgupta? In this podcast he...

Whatever the commitments countries are making about decarbonizing their economies, one thing is certain: climate change is happening, and its impacts are being felt disproportionately by the poor. In Africa the agricultural sector, dominated by small producers and subsistence farming, is especially vulnerable. Adaptation can play a vital role in helping these farmers, and in this podcast you'll he...

The WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities is the premier global award celebrating and spotlighting transformative urban change, and its winner for 2020-21 has been announced. Which finalist won the $250,000 first prize? The 5 finalists were from Ahmedabad in India, London in the UK, Rosario in Argentina, Kibera in Kenya, and Monterrey in Mexico. Each would have been a worthy winner, each finding innova...

If you were a farmer and the climate changed, what would you do about it? At first you might simply try small experiments to adapt – after all, farmers are used to annual variations in the weather. But what about if the changes aren’t just annual variations, but are serious shifts in weather patterns associated with climate change? Drier weather, higher temperatures, more frequent storms, prolongu...

The WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities is the premier global award celebrating and spotlighting transformative urban change. The five finalists for the 2020-21 prize come from five very different urban environments - in Kenya, Argentina, Mexico, India and the United Kingdom - but all demonstrate how effectively innovative ideas can tackle inequality and climate change. In this podcast we hear about...

This is a special World Ocean Day podcast that was orginally for the WRI Ocean program and the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy. It's with Carlos Manuel Rodriguez of the Global Environment Facility, and it's about what he's learned about the ocean from his decades of surfing, especially off the coast of Costa Rica. Go to oceanpanel.org or @oceanpanel on Twitter if you're interested...

Cameroon sits just north of the equator, right on the edge of the vast Congo River basin. It has around 20 million hectares of tropical forest, mainly in the south, but according to data on Global Forest Watch it has lost nearly 4 percent of its primary forest since 2002. Knowing this about what's happening to Cameroon's forest is one thing, however, and doing something about it is another. Or is...

Ensuring that women have equal access to land rights, as well as a strong and respected voice in decision making, makes an enormous difference to the prosperity of communities across the world. This episode examines the issue, following the WRI report "On Equal Ground". This episode features women in Mexico, Cameroon and Indonesia, explaining why this issue matters, especially at a time when the C...

The Leaders Summit called by President Joe Biden was in effect an opportunity to accelerate the response to the climate crisis - but did it achieve what it set out to? Where does it leave us on the road to Glasgow and COP26? Nicholas Walton spoke to Helen Mountford, our Vice President for Climate and Economics, and David Waskow, the director of the International Climate Initiative at WRI. Further...

Air quality is critical. Air pollution is linked to more than six million deaths a year , and it affects everything from the health of our lungs to the health of our planet. So what can be done about it? This podcast looks at the Clean Air Catalyst, a new initiative from WRI, along with the US Agency for International Development, the Environmental Defence fund and other partners. For more go to h...

Here at WRI we’re used to talking about big ideas, big concepts and big things – from the climate to the ocean to the great cities and forests. But what about the people that we work with, those people all around the world who face the great environmental challenges of our age and are looking for solutions? Over in WRI Brasil, some of our colleagues came up with a way to put some of those people s...

After eight and a half years Andrew Steer, our President and CEO, is leaving WRI, to lead the Bezos Earth Fund. What has he learned about how environmental challenges can be met and what makes him optimistic for the future? Lawrence MacDonald, WRI's Vice President for Communications, probes Andrew's views on everything from the role of communities in fixing the environment to the way businesses an...

Every year the World Resources Institute analyses the latest data on how much of the world's tree cover has been lost in the previous calendar year. This year, the figures for 2020 make grim reading. Although there are some bright spots, the overall picture is going in the wrong direction, and there is evidence that a negative feedback loop is emerging between climate change and forest loss. To fi...

Food loss and waste is a big deal. It means that a third of the food the world produces never gets eaten, and that carries a cost in terms of carbon, food security, biodiversity loss and health. A quarter of all water used by agriculture is in turn lost because it's used to grow food that's not eaten. So what is to be done? In this podcast I turned to Liz Goodwin, WRI's lead on food loss and waste...

In February 2021 Texas was hit by extremely cold weather. People died, transport ground to a halt, and the state's energy system failed. Demand spiked as people tried to keep warm, just as vital parts of the infrastructure froze. In this WRI Big Ideas Into Action podcast we're looking at energy resilience. What are the lessons of Texas, and - as the world pushes towards low-carbon and renewable en...

What are the stories to watch in 2021? Every year the World Resources Institute comes up with the questions to ask, the challenges to face and the opportunities to seize. WRI's president, Andrew Steer, has just given the first public presentation of Stories To Watch 2021, and shortly afterward he spoke to the presenter of Big Ideas Into Action, Nicholas Walton. You can find Andrew's full presentat...

Adaptation is a vital tool to help combat the impacts of climate change, helping us to prepare for everything from changing weather patterns to rising sea levels. This podcast looks at Locally-Led Adaptation, which involves local communities in the process, giving them a say in what happens and how. We hear why this is critical from WRI practitioners and activists at the local level, from South Af...

It's now five years since the Paris Agreement, a landmark moment in the fight against climate change. The Agreement's aim is to help countries towards their climate targets, taking into account related issues like finance and adaptation. But after its first half decade is it a success? WRI's Yamide Dagnet was there, and in this short podcast she gives her professional - and personal - assessment.

The 14 serving national leaders of the Ocean Panel have announced their headline commitment: to sustainably manage 100% of their national waters - an area equivalent to the Exclusive Economic Zones of the whole of North, South and Central America, plus the Caribbean, combined. In this special podcast we have a short interview with the co-chair of the Ocean Panel's expert group, Jane Lubchenco, exp...