Long Story Short

In the final episode of COPcast, chef, food advocate and filmmaker Oliver English sits down with Kate Warren to discuss how regenerative agriculture and support for small scale farmers can help transform the global food system.

Rémy Rioux is chief executive officer of the French Development Agency, or AFD. But before that, in 2015, he worked as chief negotiator on the finance track of the landmark Paris Agreement on climate. Since then the United Nations Conference of the Parties has grown into a behemoth, with COP 27 in Egypt attracting 40,000 people. Devex sat down with Rioux on the sidelines of COP 27 to hear his thoughts on how the summit has changed since 2015 — and if it’s become an opportunity for greenwashing. In this wide-ranging interview, Rioux also discussed the prospects of the AFD providing loss and damage financing and supporting nuclear energy programs through its aid program, and whether human rights in Egypt were helped or hindered by the summit.

At the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, the calls for the restructuring of multilateral development banks are echoing through the halls, with the hopes that with reforms, finance will flow more readily to lower-income countries to allow them to green their economies and help their populations adapt to the changing world. In the 12th episode of the COPcast, Devex sat down with Phyllis Cuttino, the new president and CEO of the Climate Reality Project, who emphasized one reform in particular: A switch up in leadership at the World Bank. "Davis Malpass ... has a past where he has denied climate science and I think that makes him unsuitable to lead the World Bank at this time," she said, adding that the bank also needs to commit to only financing fossil fuel projects in the "most extraordinary of circumstances."

The private sector has a key role to play in investing in climate change adaptation – and yet, currently, only 1.6% of all adaptation funding comes from private investment. Matthias Berninger is the Head of Sustainability and Public Affairs at Bayer, but he’s seen many sides of the food and agriculture space over the course of his career: in the public sector, he was a vice minister in Germany’s Green Party; and in the private sector, he previously worked on health and nutrition strategy at Mars. In this episode of COPcast, Berninger tells Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar what three critical words the 5,000-word Glasgow Declaration left out, plus three things every company should be doing in order to achieve net zero by 2050.

In the twelfth episode of COPcast, Devex sat down with Solomon Quaynor, vice-president for private sector, infrastructure and industrialization at the African Development Bank to discuss the continent’s climate financing needs.

Extreme weather devastated Sierra Leone’s capital city of Freetown in 2017 when torrential rains led to landslides that killed over 1,000 people. Now the city’s population is grappling with temperature increases and population swells due to people migrating from rural areas as erratic rainfall makes subsistence farming less sustainable. Freetown Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr is working to help her city adapt in areas such as building heat-resistant market shelters and building a cable car to cut down on emissions and pollution. She sat down with Devex on the sidelines of the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference in Sharm-el- Sheikh, Egypt, to talk about the need for cities to have greater ownership on climate action. Aki-Sawyerr is ​​vice chair of C40 Cities, an organization of 96 cities focused on reducing emissions and helping their populations adapt to climate change.

This year world leaders have gathered at the 27th United Nations Climate Change Summit, or COP 27, as people around the world grapple with a food security crisis. An estimated 828 million people are chronically food insecure, and 345 million people are at crisis levels or worse. They are in need of food assistance as conflict, climate shocks, and the threat of global recession drive hunger levels even higher. At COP 27, CGIAR co-hosted the first Food and Agriculture Pavilion aimed at putting the transformation of agrifood systems at the heart of the COP agenda. In this episode of COPcast, Devex’s Associate Editor Rumbi Chakamba sat down with Claudia Sadoff, executive director of the coalition, to discuss climate-smart solutions to the food crisis.

Pakistan's devastating flooding helped push loss and damage up the climate agenda. Devex sat down with Aisha Khan, head of the country's Civil Society Coalition for Climate Change to discuss why the disaster was so bad, the challenges it caused, and how future tragedies can be prevented.

The Bezos Earth Fund is Jeff Bezos's $10 billion commitment to fund scientists, activists, NGOs, and other actors that will drive climate and nature solutions. In this episode of COPcast, Devex’s President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar sat down with Andrew Steer, the fund’s CEO, to talk about the kind of projects he’s interested in and some misconceptions about the fund. This conversation was recorded as part of our Devex @ COP 27 event.

In the eighth episode of the COPcast, Devex Senior Reporter Sara Jerving sits down with Seed Global Health CEO Vanessa Kerry to discuss the health impacts of a changing climate, the need for a stronger health workforce, and the role health should play in the official agenda at these United Nations conferences.

In 2009 then President of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, made headlines when he held a cabinet meeting underwater to highlight the risk of global warming for small island states like the Maldives. Projections show that by 2100 the island could be submerged by rising sea levels. Since then Nasheed has been working to ensure that the demands of the most vulnerable countries are not ignored, as the ambassador for ambition at the Climate Vulnerable Forum. Last week CVF launched a Climate Prosperity Plan for Sri Lanka which aims to increase the country’s renewable energy production to 75% as well as modernize its electricity infrastructure. Nasheed said Climate Prosperity Plans are low carbon development strategies “with less extraction and more recycling but with the same economic outcomes of high GDP growth, high employment, low inflation and so on.”

The climate justice movement aims to put people at the center of climate change. And in the last few years, young people have mobilized around the issue, often led by young climate activists. At the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP 27, youth climate activists came together to launch the first children and youth pavilion, which aims to provide a place for young people to engage, debate, and collaborate to make their voices heard. In the fifth episode of the COPcast, Devex sat down with Xiye Bastida, a Mexican and Indigenous activist, to talk about the new pavilion, climate justice, and including youth and Indigenous voices in the climate discourse.

Climate change affects everyone, but for many young people, it represents the risk of a stolen future. According to the World Bank, by the time many of the teenage climate activists of today are in their late 20s, climate change could force an additional 100 million people into extreme poverty. In the fourth episode of COPcast, Devex sat down with Jessica Bwali — a young climate activist from Zambia — to talk about her personal experiences with climate change and how she uses her platform to advocate for youth inclusion.

Around 80% of the farmland in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia is managed by smallholder farmers who provide up to 80% of the food supply in these regions. Extreme weather events fueled by climate change, such as droughts and flooding, are making their livelihoods unsustainable in some parts of the world, driving mass migration and fueling poverty and malnutrition. In the third episode of the COPcast, Devex sat down with Mark Suzman, chief executive officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to discuss the foundation's recently announced $1.4 billion investment in helping smallholder farmers adapt to climate change announced this week at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP27, in Sharm-el- Sheikh, Egypt. Suzman said the investment “marks a significant shift” for the foundation.

Extreme weather is ravaging countries across the African continent, with historic droughts, floods, and cyclones creating endless loops of humanitarian disasters. The Horn of Africa is on the brink of famine, and Nigeria was hit with the worst floods in over a decade. In the lead-up to the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP 27, in Sharm-el- Sheikh, Egypt, African nations came together to craft a unified position on what they want out of these discussions. This includes an increase in adaptation finance, funding for “loss and damage,” as well as support for “just transitions” to clean energy. In the second episode of the COPcast, Devex sat down with Faten Aggad, senior advisor on climate diplomacy and geopolitics at the African Climate Foundation to break down the continent’s demands, the nuances around getting loss and damage on the COP 27 agenda, the risks countries face if they lean on gas as a bridge fuel, the problems with insurance, and the need to move away from official developme

As world leaders gather in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt for the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference, Devex Associate editor Rumbi Chakamba sits down with senior reporters Sara Jerving and William Worley to look back at the climate commitments made last year, take stock of where we currently stand, and highlight key expectations for Africa’s first COP.

In the final episode of UNGA Decoded, Michael Igoe sits down with Colum Lynch – who recently joined Devex as senior global correspondent, focusing on the UN’s health, humanitarian, and development work – to find out what he made of this year’s UNGA, how the global gathering has changed since he first started reporting on the UN, and about how his own views about the UN’s role in the world inform the way he does his reporting.

The world is in the midst of a learning crisis. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, more than half of kids in low- and middle-income countries were living in what the World Bank calls “learning poverty.” Now, in the wake of school closures and remote learning, that number could spike to 70% — with huge implications for the opportunities available to kids for the rest of their lives and for the global economy. Leaders and educators are still looking for a way out of this problem. The Transforming Education Summit during UNGA was supposed to be part of the solution, but reviews have been mixed. For years one organization that’s been stirring up a bit of controversy on the education front is New Globe — previously better known as Bridge International Academies. The company is known for offering for-profit education in a handful of countries, and is now shifting to work more directly with governments. Devex editor in chief Raj Kumar sat down with Shannon May, one of New Globe’s co-founders, who said their critics

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed stark inequalities in the global health architecture. As the virus spread, a handful of mostly wealthy countries proved to have the money, the private sector relationships, and the power to be first in line for vaccines, treatments and supplies — and global health institutions struggled to even the playing field. Health leaders on the African continent have taken that lesson to heart, and one institution at the forefront of a new vision for African health security is the Africa Centers for Disease Control. Raj Kumar, editor in chief of Devex, spoke to Dr. Ahmed Ogwell Ouma, second in command at Africa CDC, about how the continent’s quest for greater self-reliance is unfolding — and what a more regional approach to preparing for pandemics might look like.

Gerda Verburg on building a nutrition movement by Devex