Addressing the Climate Crisis from Atlanta to the World: A Global Urgency that Demands Locally-Led

From the venue:

Impacts of the climate crisis are being felt across the globe, magnifying long-standing vulnerabilities, inequities, and conflicts. Resilience is not about maintaining the status quo. It entails transforming our relationships with nature, people, things, and money and recognizing the interconnectedness of life on earth. Therefore, it is only through integrated approaches and collective action – led by those who are most affected – that we can successfully mitigate climate change and prepare and adapt to its impacts.

This event presents innovative work by Atlanta-based non-profits such as CARE and The Carter Center led by these understandings. Their work features efforts that:
Engage diverse stakeholders, governments, scientific and educational institutions, private sector, civil society, and local communities in devising equitable solutions and mitigating social conflicts.
Support a just-transition to a climate-smart economy by ensuring that natural resources needed to fuel it are sourced in environmentally sound and equitable ways; and
Promote livelihood security, wellbeing, and opportunities to flourish in a changing climate for the most impoverished and marginalized groups.
Many examples of their work will illustrate the kind of evidence-based, multi-partner initiatives that are key to building sustainable futures.

Speakers:
Nicole Kruse, Vice President of Development, The Carter Center / Barbara J. Smith, Vice President Peace Programs, The Carter Center
Susan Marx, Director of Human Rights Program, The Carter Center
Madhu Deshmukh, Vice President for Program Strategies and Innovation, CARE
Dalmar Ainashe, Senior Technical Advisor for Food Security, Livelihoods, and Nutrition
Moderated by: Eri Saikawa, Professor, Winship Distinguished Research Professor of Environmental Sciences, Director of Graduate Studies, Director of Emory Climate Talks
Opening Remarks by:
Consul General of France, Anne Laure Desjonquères;
Dr. Philip Wainwright, Vice Provost for Global Strategy and Initiatives, Emory University.

CARE’s Vision 2030 strategy includes a focus on both climate justice and humanitarian response, centered in particular on the needs of women and girls. Our climate justice goal is 25 million poor and marginalized people, especially women and girls, have strengthened their resilience and adaptive capacities to the effects of climate change. We do this through an integrated approach that includes three interconnected pathways: increased capacities and assets, an improved enabling environment through policies and actions by power holders, and strengthened collective voice and action of civil society, including social movements. As an example of this approach, CARE could present the results of its Hamzari program in Niger, with an integrated approach to food security and resilience to climate change.

In this presentation, CARE will focus on the climate change-induced escalating humanitarian crises unfolding in the Sahel region of West Africa. The discussion will be structured into two main segments.

Segment 1: The Climate Crisis in the Sahel: This section will explore the climate change-induced drivers that are amplifying humanitarian crises in the Sahel, with a keen focus on drought, desertification, and water scarcity. These factors are contributing to heightened conflicts, mass migrations, and numerous socio-economic challenges, posing a grave threat to the local communities and underscoring the need for a swift and coordinated response.

Segment 2: CARE’s Humanitarian Response: transitioning from problem analysis to solution propositions, this part will highlight CARE’s interventions in the region, demonstrating a balanced approach of immediate humanitarian aid and long-term resilience-building activities. Through various strategies including cash assistance programs, social safety nets, GBV risk mitigation, and support for local agriculture and livelihoods, CARE collaborates with local authorities and partners, especially women-led As we discuss and examine these pressing humanitarian challenges, our objective is to foster unified dialogue that elevates awareness of the growing humanitarian crises in the Sahel, emphasizing CARE’s pivotal role in not only delivering urgent interventions but also in facilitating long-term resilience strategies that help communities help themselves amidst these escalating climate-induced crises in West Africa. Collectively, we aspire to forge a future where communities are resilient, self-sufficient, and poised to prosper amidst shifting climatic landscapes.

The Carter Center has worked in French-speaking African countries for more than 40 years, including in Mali, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad, Niger and Tunisia. Climate change has increasingly affected these nations, and The Carter Center is responding, focusing on contributing to a just transition. For example, the new climate economy will be built using 17 critical minerals and metals that are sourced from countries experiencing the highest climate risk. Many of these minerals are mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Since 2007, The Carter Center’s Extractive Industries Governance program (EIG) has been working to advance transparency and accountability in the extractive sector to ensure that the DRC’s vast natural resource wealth contributes to equitable and sustainable development, environmental justice, and the fulfillment of economic, social and cultural rights for all Congolese people through a “just transition”. Driven by internationally recognized precepts for extractive industry good governance which champion transparency, an accountable government, and an informed public, the Center has worked with the Congolese government, civil society, and the private sector to advocate for these core necessities within the DRC’s extractive industry.

Emory Climate Talks
Emory Climate Talks is a student-centered initiative, creating opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to become the agents of change in the climate change movement. Higher education brings an essential voice to efforts on climate change and we have supported the annual student delegation to the UN climate talks since 2015. Emory Climate Talks hosts a variety of speakers as part of an ongoing conversation series to engage across a multitude of climate-related priorities, creating a platform for Emory students, alumni and faculty to share their experience and expertise in addressing climate change.

Atlanta Global Partnerships-Emory University
Emory University’s Office of Global Strategy and Initiatives established Atlanta Global Partnerships to foster and support conditions for collaboration among groups engaging in international work within the Emory and Atlanta communities to leverage local Atlanta partnerships and to unleash the power of global collaboration. Atlanta Global Partnerships collaborates with a coalition of Atlanta universities to offer multi-institutional and multi-disciplinary opportunities to strengthen collaborative networks of scholars and practitioners supporting global research and education initiatives in greater Atlanta.

France-Atlanta
France-Atlanta is an annual event series co-organized by the Consulate General of France in Atlanta and the Georgia Institute of Technology, in partnership with 20+ local and international partners. Designed to foster transatlantic cooperation and exchange in the fields of science, culture, business and humanitarian affairs, France-Atlanta has drawn more than 30,000 participants since its creation in 2010.

France-Atlanta is presented under the high auspices of the Ambassador of France to the United States, the Governor of Georgia, and the Mayor of Atlanta.