Welcome to a new season of How Could We? - recorded live at the Paris REALITY Tour, organised by The Climate Reality Project, which aims to build public momentum and political will for ambitious climate commitments leading up to COP 30 in Brazil.

This week, Anne-Sophie Garrigou interviews Marina Gil Velasco, Project Lead at Climate KIC for the recently-launched Climate KIC Academy.

Marina explains how the Climate KIC Academy bridges the green skills gap by equipping leaders with the technical knowledge and transversal skills needed to tackle the climate crisis. The Climate KIC Academy accelerates the green transition by empowering climate leaders to turn knowledge into action and equipping businesses, industries, and policymakers with essential skills for lasting change.

If you enjoyed this episode, we recommend checking out our episode on equipping young leaders for climate negotiations with Veena Balakrishnan, Co-Founder of the Youth Negotiators Academy, as well as our Radical Collaboration episode with Yiannis Chrysostomidis from REOS Partners.

Interested in finding out more about the Climate KIC Academy? You can register your interest here.

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This episode was presented and produced by⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Anne-Sophie Garrigou⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and co-produced by⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Bárbara Mendes-Jorge⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Climate KIC is Europe’s leading climate innovation agency and community. We are here to help create climate-resilient societies and fight the climate breakdown, building better futures for local communities, globally.

Check out our website, follow us on LinkedIn and subscribe to our newsletter.

In this new episode of How Could We?, recorded in front of the LDC’s delegation office during COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, Anne-Sophie Garrigou interviews Binyam Gebreyes, diplomacy lead at IIED (International Institute for Environment and Development), where he supports the Least Developed Countries (LDC) group.

Binyam's role ensures that LDC priorities and needs are amplified throughout the COP negotiations.

In this conversation, Binyam talks about the power dynamics that shape climate negotiations, highlighting the challenges faced by LDCs in these spaces.

He discusses the importance of the LDC group’scollective approach to counteract the influence of larger, more powerful nations, and how strategic engagement through high-level dialogue and early communications helps elevate their voice.

Binyam also explains the significant progress made on the loss and damage agenda, where the LDC group has beenpushing for tangible financial solutions to address climate impacts that are no longer preventable or adaptable.

Binyam also talks about the lessons he’s drawn from his work on the LDC Initiative for Effective Adaptation and Resilience (LIFE AR), highlighting the need for programmatic, community-led adaptation solutions that reduce transaction costs and allow local communities to own and drive their own adaptation strategies.

This episode provides insights into the role of LDCs at COP29 and their ongoing fight for climate justice in the face of systemic power imbalances.

Visit the IIED website: iied.org

Visit climate-kic.org and reach out to us at media@climate-kic.org with any questions.

This episode was presented and produced by Anne-Sophie Garrigou.

In this new episode of How Could We? recorded in the streets of Baku during COP29, Anne-Sophie Garrigou interviewed Rich Wilson, CEO of the Iswe Foundation, about the state of our democracies today and the role of citizen assemblies in making our democracies stronger.

In this episode, Rich says that we are at a pivotal moment for democracies today. Despite growing public demand for action, our governments and democratic systems are struggling to effectively address the climate crisis.

Rich discusses how citizen assemblies can help strengthen democracies by building agency for citizens, fostering learning, and being grounded in principles of solidarity and inclusion. The challenge, however, is in scaling them.

One of Iswe Foundation’s projects is to create a global, permanent citizen assembly to bring to COP30 in Brazil. Their goal is to support a new form of democracy and governance that can help address the climate crisis, by empowering citizens to drive change within their communities.

Visit the Iswe Foundation website to learn more: Iswe

Visit the Global Citizen Assembly website: Address the climate and ecological crisis | Global Assembly

Visit ⁠climate-kic.org⁠, and reach out to us at media@climate-kic.org with any questions.

This episode was presented and produced by ⁠Anne-Sophie Garrigou⁠.