War and conflict can have farther-reaching and longer-lasting impacts on our planet than meets the eye. Aside from the destruction of landscapes and human livelihoods, other less apparent costs include military pollution, the curtailing of beneficial programs and projects, mass displacement of humans, and major shifts in economic and social priorities once turmoil subsides. War can cost countries over 40% of their GDP – funds that could have otherwise been invested in protecting the environment or pulling citizens out of poverty.

In this episode, first aired in April 2022, we speak with Ukrainian deputy minister of environmental protection and natural resources Iryna Stavchuk and conflict and peacebuilding expert Moosa Elayah to examine what’s happening in different conflict areas – and the toll these conflicts are taking on our planet.

Listen back to episode 1 to learn how the ongoing war in Ukraine is affecting global food security.

Rural women have enormous potential to produce and scale up solutions to the climate crisis, food insecurity and poverty, but they often still lack the resources and recognition they need to succeed.

That’s why Women Organizing for Change in Agriculture and Natural Resource Management (WOCAN) created the world’s first framework measuring and monetizing women’s empowerment – the W+ standard. Developed with women in rural Kenya and Nepal, the framework provides metrics and procedures to quantify, verify and monetize women’s empowerment across six areas: time, health, education and knowledge, food security, income and assets, and leadership.

In this episode, we’re joined by WOCAN executive director Jeannette Gurung, and the founder and CEO of Ecosystem Regeneration Associates, Hannah Simmons, to learn what that means in practice and how the framework is being used to make climate finance work for women.

In 2005, member states of the UN began developing a framework that was meant to ensure the protection of the world’s most important, carbon-sequestering, life-giving forests.

Given that many of these ecosystems are located in low- and medium-income countries, the framework is designed such that rich countries provide financial rewards for forest protection, coupling conservation and climate change mitigation with economic growth in parts of the world that need it most. In 2013, the framework was solidified and given the name reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, more commonly known by its acronym REDD+.

However, since its inception, REDD+ has developed something of a controversial reputation in the climate sector, revolving around one main question: If the framework is working as it should, then why is there still so much deforestation?

Ten years on from the framework’s inception, this episode brings together three REDD+ experts to discuss the framework, what REDD+ has achieved for emissions reductions and livelihoods, if its initial design is still relevant, and how it could be adjusted to work better in the future.

Read this report from IUFRO on a decade of REDD+: https://www.iufro.org/science/gfep/follow-up-studies/biodiversity-forest-management-and-redd-2021/ 

Register for GLF–Luxembourg Finance for Nature: https://events.globallandscapesforum.org/6th-glf-investment-case-symposium/ 

The ocean covers 70 percent of our planet and supplies half of the oxygen we breathe. Unfortunately, we haven’t taken great care of it: the climate crisis and our burning of fossil fuels are changing its weather-regulating systems, raising its waters to threatening heights and acidifying its pH balance beyond what its species can survive.

And yet, recent climate action has primarily focused on land, leaving the ocean neglected and missing the science, policy and funding it needs in order to continue sustaining its life – and ours.

In this episode, originally aired in December 2021, we interview Dorothée Herr, a preliminary expert on ocean policy, about how to rebalance the ‘green’ and the ‘blue’ in the context of climate change and what research, funding, decisions and developments are needed most to curb the degradation of our waters.

Last year, Landscape News ran its Routes to Roots series on forest restoration, zooming out to see the extent of global efforts to bring more forests back onto this planet, then zooming in on the various methods by which that is being done.

Now, we’re revisiting the topic at the start of 2023 – yet another year in which we can say that forest restoration is needed more than ever to achieve climate, biodiversity and human rights goals. In this episode, we’re joined by acclaimed young forester Kandi, the interim CEO of forest research institutes CIFOR-ICRAF Robert Nasi, and the chair of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and head of his namesake lab Thomas Crowther to discuss what’s most promising and most needed for forest restoration this year.

Could the climate crisis kill coffee? Rising temperatures will cause production to decrease drastically in the world’s most suitable growing areas. Meanwhile, the crop requires huge amounts of water to irrigate, process and transport it across the world, which is quickly becoming unsustainable.

Luckily, different coffee actors, from brand-name companies to cooperatives and NGOs, are working together to help ensure this commodity remains with us by making each step along its value chain more resilient, adaptive and sustainable.

In this episode, originally aired during GLF Value Chains Week in December 2022, we speak with the Global Coffee Platform‘s executive director Annette Pensel and sustainability director of Jacobs Douwe Egberts (JDE Peet’s) Nadia Hoarau-Mwaura to pull back the curtain on what’s being done to protect these beloved beans.

Join us on Thursday, 12 January, for the first GLF Live stream of the year: https://news.globallandscapesforum.org/59031/how-is-collective-action-protecting-the-future-of-coffee/ 

Africa is set for a population explosion in the decades ahead, with a whopping 60% of the continent’s population currently under the age of 25. This booming young demographic comes with major challenges but also presents enormous opportunities to restore African landscapes through green jobs and sustainable agriculture.

In this episode, first aired in April 2022, we meet three young African environmentalists to discuss how they’re transforming their local landscapes to be more vibrant, valuable and sustainable: Adrian Leitoro, the Global Landscapes Forum’s 2022 Restoration Steward for drylands, Safiatou Nana from the Ouagadougou chapter of the GLFx restoration initiative, and UNCCD Land Hero Patricia Kombo. Joining us as guest host is Kenyan environmentalist Wambui Paula Waibochi.

Over the past decade, Latin America has faced a series of human-caused oil spills and climate disasters that have changed the face of the region. These disasters have left already vulnerable communities and ecosystems even worse off and facing crippling damages and risks that are ruining livelihoods and causing irreversible damage to nature.

What are the immediate and longer-term consequences of oil spills – and how can we best mitigate their toxic impacts or even prevent them from happening in the first place? In this episode, first aired in June 2022, we bring together Peruvian marine conservationist Daniel Caceres Bartra, Brazilian journalist Thaís Herrero, and UN special rapporteur on toxics and human rights Marcos Orellana to discuss what should be done to lessen the ecological toll of oil spills in Latin America now and in the future.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that gender equity is crucial across every stage of the supply chain for the products we consume. But how can it be achieved?

There are numerous projects and initiatives seeking to make the world’s favorite commodities more sustainable and equitable. For every step between, say, a coffee plant being raised in Ethiopia to a cappuccino being served in New York, some important questions must be raised: Are women not only being asked to participate in making decisions but also supported in actively doing so? Is proper training being provided to everyone where needed? Are earnings and benefits shared equally across genders?

In this episode, originally aired in September 2022 and produced in collaboration with our partners at the Food Systems, Land Use and Restoration Impact Program of the World Bank (FOLUR), we’ve invited Patti Kristjanson, a scientific expert on gender and agriculture, and Constance Okollet, a Ugandan farmer who’s led numerous women’s empowerment initiatives, to discuss pathways toward more equitable commodity supply chains.

Southeast Asia is globally renowned for its magnificent seascapes that have been supporting its people’s livelihoods, well-being and sense of identity for centuries. But as the region now grapples with the climate crisis to plastic pollution and overexploitation, the question must be asked: For how much longer can its precious marine resources hold on?

In this episode, originally live-streamed in June 2022 in collaboration with the Youth in Landscapes Initiative, we speak with two young environmental activists from the region, Hidayah Hadid and Andhyta Firselly Utami, to learn about their hopes and ambitions for protecting, restoring and bringing the Pacific Ocean back to health. Joining us as guest host is 2021 GLF Restoration Steward Frances Camille Rivera.

Let’s be honest: climate science is full of impenetrable jargon, from “greenhouse gases” to “loss and damage” and “net zero” – as we learned in last week’s climate crash courses.

But how much do these terms really mean to people who aren’t deeply involved in climate spaces? How many people actually think about keeping global warming under 2°C, perhaps even when they come face to face with it during a heatwave or hurricane? How do we close the gap between science and the average person?

It is often said that the role of art is to hold a mirror up to society, but the ever-growing field of climate fiction – “cli-fi” – has an even greater responsibility: to hold a mirror up to the global future. By repurposing data and information into stories about life when summers are unsurvivable without air conditioning and potable water has to be manufactured, climate fiction has the power to make sweeping scientific projections comprehensible, personal and emotional.

In this episode, originally aired in June 2022, we’re joined by leading heat health expert Abhiyant Tiwari and renowned author and journalist Alexandra Kleeman, who recently published an applauded work of climate fiction, to discuss the interplay of their professional fields and how it can make a climatic difference.

If you’re listening to this, you’re probably familiar with the term “net zero,” commonly defined as a state in which greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere are balanced out by those removed.

But is it that simple – or even true? What’s the role of emissions reductions and offsetting in helping us achieve such a balance? Have humans ever had a net-zero relationship with the climate?

In the last episode of our GLF Live mini-series of “climate crash courses,” we’re joined by Kate Dooley, a renowned expert on climate mitigation and land-use, to explore the concept of net zero and how its real meaning can be achieved – if it can be achieved at all.

Music: Gargantua by Admiral Bob (c) copyright 2014. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/admiralbob77/46361 Ft: My Free Mickey, Martijn de Boer

There are seemingly endless new reports on how global warming, disastrous weather events and biodiversity loss are happening more quickly than anticipated and slipping further from our control.

But just how bad are things? Is there any chance of keeping temperature-rise in check? As countries go through another round of climate negotiations at COP27, are we on a path toward creating a livable future or furthering climate disaster – or are we on any clear path at all?

In this in the third episode of our GLF Live mini-series of “climate crash courses,” we hear from Youba Sokona, the vice-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the pre-eminent organization on climate science and knowledge, on where we really stand with climate change and what we can expect in the months and years to come.

Music: Gargantua by Admiral Bob (c) copyright 2014. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/admiralbob77/46361 Ft: My Free Mickey, Martijn de Boer

One of the key topics at this month’s COP27 Climate Change Conference is “loss and damage” – the impacts of climate change that require adaptation or recovery to degrees often falling outside of people’s means.

But what does it mean in terms of countries’ negotiations and agreements with one another? Is it a legal liability for those that could be said to have caused climate change the most? How is it different from adaptation or mitigation efforts, and why is it coming into the limelight now?

In the second episode of our GLF Live mini-series of “climate crash courses,” we hear from Preety Bhandari, a senior advisor at World Resources Institute and the former chief for Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management at the Asian Development Bank, on everything we need to know about this crucial concept.

Music: Gargantua by Admiral Bob (c) copyright 2014. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/admiralbob77/46361 Ft: My Free Mickey, Martijn de Boer

We hear a lot about greenhouse gases, the main culprits of global warming and climate change. But have you ever stopped to think about what a greenhouse gas is at a molecular level? Why do they lead to temperature rise – and some more than others? Are they different from other gases, and if so, how? Once released, can they be re-captured?

In the first episode of our GLF Live mini-series of “climate crash courses” – 15-minute lessons on foundational terms and topics we might have overlooked in our learnings – Paola Andrea Arias, who is the first Colombian woman author of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, walks us through the greenhouse gas basics: how they’re formed, when they’re released and why they’re bad for our atmosphere.

Music: Gargantua by Admiral Bob (c) copyright 2014. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/admiralbob77/46361 Ft: My Free Mickey, Martijn de Boer

Register now for GLF Climate (11–12 November)!

From organizing climate strikes to delivering powerful speeches, leading restoration projects and pioneering innovative technologies, the youth generation of today is determined to defend their right to a healthy planet.

In this episode, originally aired in July 2021 in collaboration with the Youth in Landscapes Initiative, we hear from three environmental activists around the world discussing their experience in the global environmental arena: Fatou Jeng, Paloma Costa and Ridhima Pandey.

From what sparked their fire to what keeps them going, and from mental health and environmental anxiety to finding power and strength in their communities, these activists delve into their differences and commonalities, while envisioning a path for the years to come.

Young people all over the world are organizing climate strikes, leading restoration projects, joining learning programs and trailblazing with innovative technologies to address climate change. Yet these activists are also adamant that every action taken should also work toward another goal: universal climate justice.

But what does climate justice really mean in practice? And how can its pursuit be inclusive of everyone, everywhere?

Originally aired in November 2021 in collaboration with the Youth in Landscapes Initiative, this episode dives into these questions and more with Joycelyn Longdon, a PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge and founder of Climate in Colour, an online education platform and community that makes climate conversations more diverse and accessible.

Learn more about climate justice in episode 8 with Varshini Prakash, executive director and co-founder of the Sunrise Movement.

In 1989, the term “intersectionality” was coined to account for how social identifiers – age, gender, ethnicity, class and so on – fuel discrimination and privilege in an interconnected, domino-like fashion rather than piecemeal.

But now, given the undeniable relationship between environmental health and vulnerability levels, it’s clear that planetary factors must be taken into account, too. Activism around climate change and social justice are increasingly interwoven, giving rise to the term “intersectional environmentalism.”

In this episode, produced in September 2020 in collaboration with the Youth in Landscapes Initiative, we speak with Isaias Hernandez, founder of Queer Brown Vegan and a council member of the Intersectional Environmentalist platform, about how to navigate the fight for many forms of justice at once.

Human activity has degraded the planet and its ecosystems for centuries, resulting in runaway climate change, the mass extinction of species, and now a global pandemic. With the world at the brink, young people are now inheriting catastrophes that stem from the profligacy of their ancestors.

Yet there is a growing global youth climate movement that refuses to be victims of their fate and is pushing to implement their own solutions. Young leaders, including students and young professionals, are demanding radical change from current political leaders. Will they succeed in literally changing the course of the planet?

In this episode, produced in September 2020 in collaboration with the Youth in Landscapes Initiative, we’re joined by Amelia Arreguín, regional chapter coordinator for the Global Youth Biodiversity Network (GYBN) and policy officer for Women4Biodiversity, and Chiagozie Udeh, who sits as a chairperson on the board of Plant-for-the-Planet as well as multiple youth-focused UN constituencies, including YOUNGO, to discuss how young people are entering into climate politics and the changes we can expect to see from them.

It’s not just the tangible future that climate change affects; it’s also the imagined, which has the longest and darkest horizon in the minds of young people who can’t help but fear how they’ll eat, drink, breathe and live on a planet that’s headed in the direction it is now.

Yes: children and youth worldwide are living in an age of ‘eco-anxiety’ – a term Oxford Dictionaries shortlisted as 2019’s Word of the Year (losing out to ‘climate emergency’ instead) – and it’s affecting their mental health to a point that could soon well verge on a violation of human rights. According to a recent study, nearly 60 percent of young people from 10 countries felt either “very worried” or “extremely worried” about the climate crisis, incurring feelings of sadness, fear, anxiety and anger.

This sobering episode features Susan Clayton, a professor of psychology and author of the aforementioned study as well as a lead author for the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report, to discuss how climate change is affecting the minds of young people – and what world leaders must do about it.