On Sept. 29, the 16th annual NYC Climate Week came to a close. The event, a partnership between the global nonprofit the Climate Group, the United Nations General Assembly, and the City of New York, included more than 600 events across the city.
Throughout the week, reporters from the Columbia Journalism School’s Climate Reporting class fanned out across the city to cover some of the most crucial conversations and to ask attendees about how their work and their lives intersect with climate change. Here’s what they had to say.
European P.O.V.
Nathan Richard
ESG Consultant at Iceberg Data Lab
What he’s learned from his time in the States:
“In Europe, we’re very aware of climate change and biodiversity loss,” said Richard, who is from Paris, France. “The U.S. is more focused on a return on investment,” he said. “You can take action and make a difference and make money at the same time.”
Accountability
Mariana Martinez
Chief of Staff at Accountability Lab
“There’s a lot of money that is going to different communities, countries, and governments. We want to make sure that there is accountability behind that, the money does indeed go to projects where it’s supposed to go.”
Food Security
Venkatramana Pegadaraji
Vice President of Development at Grow Further
“I believe that everybody deserves to have access to nutrient-rich food. Agriculture is becoming more and more challenging and we have to produce more food than ever before in human history to feed everyone. We need to work together, not compete with each other, to meet this daunting task in sustainability.”
Scale Opportunities
Michael Mayer
Special projects for Source2Source, Inc.
What he took away from the WWF panel:
“A recognition that there’s really good scale opportunities that have begun to take root, and they become scalable models for a number of us to tap into and actually expand beyond the Amazon.”
Compounding Effects
Haley Haggerstone
Partnership Director of Sustainable Surf
Climate change is __?
“Climate change is the compounding effects of our changing climate which is due predominantly to human activities which are causing rising temperatures, too much carbon in the atmosphere, warming of our oceans, increasing extreme weather events — storm surges, wildfires, all that crazy stuff that we’re seeing today.”
Good Solutions
Romany Webb
Deputy Director, Columbia University Sabin Center for Climate Change Law
Climate change is __?
“Climate change is terrifying. But there are lots of solutions, and we know how to deploy them, we just need to get it together and do it.”
Continue reading at Columbia News Service.
