Week 2 of Duke University’s COP27 “delegation” has officially arrived!

Much of my recent work has stemmed from programs and policies related to President Biden’s Executive Order 14008, “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad.” Since my background is in U.S. domestic climate policy with a focus on climate resilience, much of my time has been spent focusing on what the climate crisis looks like at “home”. For me, this looks like the devastation in Florida after Hurricane Ian, summer heat waves in the Pacific Northwest, and deadly wildfires that threaten my hometown in California.

For better or for worse, it did not take much time or effort to elevate this understanding to the climate crisis “abroad”. After all, natural hazards don’t end at the U.S. border. This year we’ve seen natural hazards across the globe at an unprecedented rate and scale. This includes but is not limited to, flooding in Pakistan, wildfires in Spain, and long-term drought in Kenya and Somalia. That’s the blessing and the curse of working closely with resilience and natural hazards. We feel the impacts of climate change much more acutely than we can empathize with causes of climate change like carbon emissions.

I’ve also found that options to address domestic climate resilience issues have also been somewhat easy to conceptualize. Throughout my work and research, I am constantly asking the same three questions: 1) How do we increase funding opportunities for climate resilience? 2) how will funding be delivered/what are barriers to funding delivery? and 3) how do we measure impact once programs are implemented? Finding options and exploring ideas that answer these questions is typically a good place to start.

The area that I’ve found more difficult to grapple with is how do we address resilience issues at a global scale and how do we do so while considering historic emissions and inequitable climate burden? Given that COP27 has been dubbed the “implementation” COP, these themes will be likely be front and center. Already we’ve seen conversations focused on finance options for loss and damages, best practices for resilience project implementation, and the important of adopting metrics that can be used to evaluate projects in multiple countries. This is the focus area that I’m most excited to explore this week and I look forward to seeing how the global community comes together to push for funding opportunities for climate resilience projects that truly serve to increase long-term resilience for the community most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

Throughout the week I will continue to ask myself how I can take these same questions I use for U.S. federal policy analysis and apply them to the world of global climate negotiations. I hope that listening in on negotiations, exploring side events, and engaging with my client will provide a stronger understanding. Ultimately, this week will be a valuable opportunity to breakdown what “the climate crisis abroad” looks like across the broad range of COP participants and listen to how participants are hoping to address these issues.