 So hello, everyone. My name is Salomi Deoprima. I'm the Agile liaison for women in natural relations, and I'm so so excited to host this panel on climate change. As climate change is one of our greatest challenges that we face, and it requires international cooperation and coordination to mitigate implications of rising temperatures. Understanding the causes of climate change as well as both the gendered and overall impacts to our communities is imperative. Today we are joined by three women who have all made a remarkable contribution to the fight against climate change. Breonna Furran, Stephanie Buchler and Jennifer Tosca. Breonna Furran is an activist and environmental advocate for Samoa. Furran began her career in environmental activism at the age of 11 where she became a founding member of the 350 Samoa, a community that is focused on building awareness of climate change and working solutions, and a leader of the environmental future, Rush. Since then, Furran has attended the Rio plus 20 summit, the UN small islands developing states conference, and the United Nations climate change conference where she has had opportunities to address policymakers at the conference. Furran has held on numerous climate change advocacy positions, and was named the youngest recipient of the Pacific region Commonwealth Youth Award winner at the age of 16 in 2015. She continues her work as the youth ambassador for as prep today, while attending the University of Auckland. So thank you so much, Breonna for being here. And I'll move on to Stephanie. Stephanie Buchler is a research professor at the agriculture and agriculture science global at Penn State University. Her area of expertise includes gender and urban agriculture, renewable energy and global environmental change in agriculture. At Penn State Buchler works at the works with gender equity and agricultural research and education program, and the globalizing extension innovation network initiative. Prior to joining Penn State Buchler was a professor at the University of Arizona, and a research scientist with the unit international water management Institute. Her career has driven her work in Latin America, South Asia, as well as the Southwestern and North Eastern regions of the US. Her research focuses on an examination of the adoption of climate change and she is an expert on gender and climate change specifically. Finally, Jennifer, Jennifer Talesca is an associate professor of environmental justice and the Department of Social Science and Cultural Studies at Prost Institute in Brooklyn, New York. Her works takes on a critical approach to ocean studies and spans the interests of political ecology and the human animal relationship, political politics of extinction, science, technology and policymaking, environmental and cultural ethnographies of international law and society. She conducts field work at the United Nations and in treaty bodies diplomatic missions and other sites scaled super nationally. Currently Talesca is visiting researcher at the University of Bergen in Norway. There she contributes to a team to execute a large scale cross disciplinary project island lives, ocean seas, sea level rise and the maritime sovereignty in the Pacific. So that was so lengthy but thank you guys for being here. And I guess not even first question but if there's anything you'd like to add to those bios like please feel free to unmute. And if it's all good then we can go to the questions which I wanted to start off career based because I feel like we have a kind of diverse array of interest here and I'm very curious on how you got there. So kind of what drove you to study climate change. Any particular order, it's okay I'll go ahead. Hi everybody. It's great to be here and thanks so much Maya for the invitation I really appreciate it. So, I started off in the nonprofit world, and I worked in Bolivia and also in Honduras in Central America with low income communities, and I began to see how water really became a scarcer and scarcer commodity. Not only because of drought, which was an issue, but also because of intersectional issues of social class and gender and age, because it was women and children who then had to pick up the work and go collect the water from sometimes and also bring their laundry to far off wealthier communities in the capital city of Honduras, and in Bolivia in La Paz, Bolivia, the capital city of that country. And also children who had to take off from school to line up for the water tankers when they were no longer being supplied with water because the wealthier residents of the city were being supplied with the scarcer and scarcer commodity of water, and they in these poor communities had to pay more than their richer urban counterparts for very bad quality water. So then after that I did my, you know, education I got masters and masters in public affairs at Cornell University and then a PhD in sociology at Binghamton University, and looked at issues of access to water in Mexico for my PhD and where I also began to see that it was not only issues of geography like where you were situated along a system of canals whether you got water for irrigation but also who you were. You were a widow, for example, a widowed woman you didn't have the same access to power in like you couldn't take the ditch rider who was the canal operator to a bar and in that way I mean gratiate yourself with him. And that was not socially acceptable so you didn't have the same access to getting that scarce water delivered to you when you needed it, like mended. But it was also where you were if you were at the tail end of the system of canals that community actually used urban wastewater running in the river because they did not get any water, it was all used up upstream in the canal system. So, and then I began to look at children's work also in agriculture. I was funded by an applied research Institute the International Water Management Institute, I will recognize it it's basically the headquarters is in Sri Lanka, and I then was hired as a postdoc with the same institute and worked in India, looking now at more closely at people who made use of a scarce resource water, but it was water that had been once used in cities it was urban wastewater that flowed in the river and then was used by people for urban agriculture peri urban agriculture and further downstream rural agriculture and I began looking at the gender dynamics of who was using this degraded but still very coveted resource of urban wastewater. And I looked at it by gender by age by cast because that was an important factor, and also by location urban peri urban rural and by crop. So it was women who grew vegetables for sale in the markets. And then I wanted to give voice to the people in a way that academic kind of writing couldn't. And so I actually collaborated with my colleagues, who are my research assistants to make a documentary film. And then I began to see also there, the impact of climate because this was an area that had very, you know, temporary rains in the form of these rains that would come very seasonal rains. And sometimes they were coming later sometimes earlier sometimes very strong rains that would flood the fields. And so I began to see more and more the impact of climate change on their agriculture. And after that I began working more on urban agriculture with first and non profit, and then with the University of Arizona I became a professor and worked on these issues, then on the border I like working kind of in my own backyard and India I lived there for four years and I would constantly going back to the field see what was changing over time in these communities. And when I was living in Tucson, Arizona I was only one hour from Mexico, and northern Mexico so I would go back and forth, and I had a full one point so I was there more frequently, and looked now, almost solely at gender and climate change issues. There I looked at fruit production, as well as livestock, and especially dairy production, and saw how people were changing over time what they were growing, how they were growing water they were using they were using even for kitchen gardens water from their washing machines, for example, and also for the dairy production for cheese we don't really think of it as something that is affected by climate change when you make cheese but those are live cultures that can die with extreme temperatures in the cheese so what women were doing was they were sharing the cultures maybe if theirs died then their mother in law would have it. They would heat and cool the spaces now where they were making the cheese but also to preserve the cheese until it was sold they had to now freeze it. And so they were using more energy and so they asked for solar panels, but unfortunately the government didn't provide them with solar panels, they only said no those are just for the people without access to the electricity network, not realizing that they could help people in an unusual way yes maybe, but that that was the processing of these agricultural commodities was very much part of women's sphere, and it was a very important part of agriculture, not just the production of the crops or the production of dairy but also the processing. So, I began to look more at policy issues, and in my work I have incorporated stakeholder meetings as well as policy briefs to try to reach a wider public and to try to change kind of opinion. Finally, I have worked in the US in Tucson, Arizona looking at women, for example refugee women and what a difference and made to have access to urban plots and community gardens under coven for example. And realize that it wasn't just the food that they were getting it was also the social networks that this was enabling, even despite coven. They were still able to go to the gardens and see their fellow migrants, but also other populations who could guide them in how to access other resources during coven, and during a time of high unemployment in insecurity. So here now I'm looking at the combination of kind of looking at agriculture and access to renewable energy for agriculture and looking at women's roles and that I'm about to embark on a new adventure tomorrow. I'm going to Mendosa Argentina to look at displacement so what is climate change doing for low income populations it's also meaning that they have to sometimes be relocated. And so this is a large scale relocation one of the largest in the country that was done in 2019 moving people from river banks, and moving them to different neighborhoods in this urban and rural areas. But they were practicing urban agriculture there on the river banks that were now increasingly flooding, yes, but they had extensive land that they had for growing crops, and having livestock. Now they don't have access to that, and they're having to make do with more reduced or smaller spaces. And so I'm looking at also the gender dynamics of that. So I'll stop here. Thank you. Thank you so much. That was such an interesting way that you were involved with studying of climate change and all these facets I don't think that are generally considered, but I would also love to hear from Jennifer and Brianna where you guys have found your interest in passion. Go ahead Brianna you can go first. Thank you Jennifer. Thank you for the climate work very young so before I even knew that it was a study I just knew it as this thing that was happening to my community. And so I think I first learned about it in primary school which is when it was still quite new to us and a lot of our textbooks were very old and they had global warming which is like a big topic in science. And then I was lucky as I was coming in. There was like newer studies coming in for our primary school and we were discussing climate change, particularly what that meant for Pacific Islands. And so that really lit a fire in me because I just I just felt like it was our responsibility to not just stand by and let this happen to to us and so for context I'm from an island called Samoa. And our population is around 190,000. And that's across various islands and the island I grew up on an Oolulu for like size context, it could take you only an hour to get from one side of the island to the other. And so it's very small you can drive around the whole island in a day, less than a day. And so growing up in like this small community. We knew that as an island, we would feel the brunt of climate change. And so that really motivated me to get into climate activism. And then pushed me into the policy space to see how as our small governments going into spaces like the UN can hold bigger countries accountable for the impact that they make in global emissions and how we really need to reframe our minds around loss and damage around impact around who's causing this because a lot of the time it's seen as climate aid and charity that's given to the islands to adapt to climate change when really it's climate debt. And so there was this this importance around wording around policy around how we can fight for ourselves in the climate space, which is why I wanted to study international relations and politics which is what I studied. And we just need more Pacific people for every Pacific negotiator in these roundtables in these political spaces this 30 fossil fuel lobbyists. So we are largely outnumbered. We have so many negotiators who run between between negotiation rooms who are trying to cover all the fields but it's very hard and so that's why I wanted to get into the space because more people are needed here. You know, it's, it's kind of humbling to go third I guess. But I want to certainly thank you all and just also comment on how impressive it is that this is an event that's student organized and student led. So I really appreciate that. So, you know, even though I can't see who's in the audience on zoom but I'm imagining being with my students and just reminding you all that it's okay to not know what you want to do yet. I was speaking from personal experience which is to say when I graduated undergrad I had no idea what I wanted to do, except I wanted to learn a language, and I spent my 20s traveling back and forth between the US and Latin America and actually spent quite a lot of time in Bolivia. And I was working with a self managed women's collective at the time figuring out how they might be able to use some of their artists and crafts, and just bringing them to the states and kind of figuring out how to open up markets for them. And that led me to a graduate degree in anthropology. And when I was so I have a master's in anthropology. And then I switched programs to study long society. So I have a master's in long society and now PhD in media culture and communications so. And I should say to that when it was time for me to figure out the dissertation topic. It was at the time of the Copenhagen climate change talks. And I remember literally sitting horizontal on my bed for about three weeks staring at the ceiling, because I felt pressure to decide a dissertation topic otherwise I was going to run out of funding. And I remember thinking, there's a preoccupation here, at least in Copenhagen. It's changed over the last decade or so of a preoccupation with land. And very little at the time was focused on the, on the ocean. And that led me into a project. So I published a book in 2020 about what it means for an institution, formerly part of the UN system, managing sea creatures on the high seas, including most famously Atlantic bluefin tuna, which is the most expensive fish money can buy. And, and then that project actually has brought me now into my current one and this is, you know, so there's interest. So it's great to have, you know, Stephanie has some background in Bolivia as well but also Brianna. So delighted to meet you because I'm here in Norway working with a group of anthropologist climate scientists. I had dinner last night with a climate scientist from Fiji. And the whole project is trying to understand how to manage rising, how to manage sovereignty and light of rising seas. And this really brings me to my next project, which will be looking at deep sea mining and bio prospecting in the, in the deep sea. And I'm focusing on hydrothermal vents, which are considered the birthplace of life on Earth. And yet, these are sites that are the object of tremendous amount of extraction, or at least interest in it. And the kicker here really is that industry is using this, or at least the rhetoric is that mining in the deep sea is necessary to transition to renewable energy. This is coming at the cost of compromising the health of the ocean. And I'll just say briefly, because I know you have many other questions to get to that the way I see gender playing out often, repeatedly in my research is at the interface so especially in UN spaces about the climate crisis, or about the ocean. Science is fundamental in order to get that work done. And, and this is a very male dominated space, not only by the people who populate the space, but also the very logic of it. And the other thing that I also see quite frequently and this is one of the things that I'm actually working on developing a paper about this which is, you know, does diplomacy have a gender. And, and one of the things that I've been thinking about is that it's not just about counting the number of women in the room. But it's also about understanding what are the solutions that are on offer that are themselves. Kind of, you know, have this legacy of the imperial colonial masculinist kind of logics. And I'm very interested in unpacking and exposing so as to neutralize those power structures. Well, thank you so much. I find it so inspiring, especially as a university student. And I briefly mentioned before how I'm from North Carolina and an issue that like I face locally is how Dupont leaked Gen X into our waters for several years. And I just remember being so enraged that this just happened and there hasn't been really follow up on it and everything like that and how do you, how do you even a singular person or someone who's made to feel small, go against these larger institutions and for you guys it seems like the UN and other corporations kind of are that is that like other that you have to face you know in trying to get these types of issue solved. And so that goes on to my like next frame of question or like what are some difficulties you face as women in these, the field of environmental studies, and do you think it has become more inclusive. Yeah, so I was asked to actually present on this recently at a conference in Mendoza organized by the irrigation department, and it was an international conference on water, and I was asked to reflect on my three decades of water, and, and my participation in the water field. And I have, you know, been met for many years looking at the interconnections between water and climate change and gender and so, you know, one of the things that I noticed was that I came from a male field first of only looking at water where I was often the only woman in the room and, and certainly the only person looking at gender issues and intersectional issues with respect to water and I've looked pretty much exclusively on, except for a little bit at the beginning on water for agriculture, and to a field of climate change which actually as Jennifer pointed out is also male dominated. And so, and I think that Brianna would also say is dominated by more voices from the north, and so I was particularly sensitive to that having come from the gender and water field when I entered the climate change debates. And so what I did was I carved out, you know, groups of small groups where I would kind of train or mentor the next generation of, you know, young people who are usually from the countries that I was studying and we would learn from each other, we would support one another. And my edited book on gender and water and climate change was with a student who became a colleague but who was originally a PhD student in mind. And we looked for examples from around the world of women who had been, you know, really marginalized but who came from all sorts of disciplines and different backgrounds in terms of many had worked with NGOs and, and we formed kind of a community and that I think, you know, helped me to feel less alone, but also feel like maybe I could make a difference for the next generation of women. And I did the same thing in Mexico with the Mexican woman who came from a community not far from the communities that I was studying and then I began collaborating with her in the field and now I'm, you know, so proud of her because she's continuing to look at gender issues and climate change, and now also in urban centers as well so you know, I think that all of us need kind of to feel like we have a community, and if your institutions are not really providing you with that community in fact they're doing quite the reverse of all evaluating it, then you need to create one and it's a little bit harder than because you don't have that ready made community there's you can't take anything for granted. I guess I'll hop in in the same order. Yes, definitely, I will. I have the same thoughts around the space being very male dominated. I'm both Jennifer and Stephanie and I think Mary Robinson, she always says it. She hits the nail on the head when she says that the climate space is too male to pale and too stale. So too white, too old and too male dominated. And that's not what we need, right. So the stat that came out from the recent cop that the attendees of cop was around. There's, there's an even amount of male and female people attending so you know that the world is there. People want to speak people want to be a part of this process, but almost 80% of the speaking spots across the plenary across the side events, even across the little workshops that happen alongside is by males. And if you go up to any panel it's it's all male. And so that's our huge issue and then an issue on top of that like Jennifer mentioned is even when we have women in those seats. How what is the system like it's still a very masculine system, and it comes back to this, this fundamental thing about masculinity and wanting to take over things. And then some of the way intersex back to some of the first colonization and the first white men that came to my islands is the way that they saw our land. And even some of the first Hollywood films that was filmed in Samoa based on Samoa. It follows this the same storyline and I don't know it's a very old movie but called return to paradise. And Samoa about basically white men coming to Samoa for the land and meeting the women. And it follows the same arc of meeting a Samoan woman woman, the daughter of the chief, so like the highest prize in the village. So being able to take her away from her family and make her fall in love with him, and she was always younger. They always made sure she was younger. But the storyline of being able to take the woman to take the top of the chief story was also it paralleled the taking of the land. So once he won the girl he won the land, and then he could use the girl and use the land. So it's this this very like it makes your skin crawl. This idea of ownership over women ownership over bodies of females but then also ownership over bodies of land bodies of water, like being able to conquer and rule. We still have like even just tidbits of that same attitude in our, in our systems and, and think that things like well if we've, you know, taken too much of this resource. Let's then now take out of this resource which Jennifer was mentioning around, you know, deep sea mining, like let's just keep taking and taking and if we can't take from here we'll take more of there like that attitude is not going to get us out of this there there needs to be a complete shift in values in in train of thought in the type of attitudes we have towards earth and towards women and a lot of the times, those two issues can really be seen as how we treat the women on earth, and then how we treat Mother Earth. Thank you for that. Absolutely. I I think we all share a very similar experience I'm just pulling up on my phone here I was the question so low me I didn't think of this earlier but it struck me which is to say, there was an article in the Guardian, a week ago Sunday, with the headline, sexist snubs against female leaders are shockingly familiar. It's a story about the way in which the European Commission President or so that Vandalian has been consistently treated as a woman as the as the head of the European Commission. And so, as much as you know I've, I receive that with tremendous frustration, at the same time there is a part of me that also wonders had me to not happened with this article have even been published. And I think there's also something really important for us to think about which is, I do think that there is at least in the popular imagination in, in general discourse there's at least an acknowledgement that this is real that this is widespread. And I actually I was going to put. I realized I can just put this in that there's two. I just watched this film last night, it's called picture the scientist. It was actually so the, the, the Fajian climate scientist she's. She actually recommended this film to me. And it's, it's worth watching in large part because it kind of references some it's on Netflix it references some of the themes that we've just spoken about. And the other other reference that I hope might help people is a book called all we can save. It is very much about. It's a feminist approach to the climate crisis, and it offers some very useful ways that kind of help us flip the narrative, so that as Brianna mentioned it's not just about mastering control. It's not just about, you know, extract and remove that, and that that the, the path forward must be about how we can heal the planet. And how we can revalue the planet, and not just how we can treat it as commodity fit for our own consumption, which is a very human centric way of, of understanding it. Thank you so much. So I wanted to go back to kind of Brianna's point you made a really nuanced point about language and how powerful language is, especially when talking about climate but also gender. So as this point to the world leaders at COP26 about the importance of their word words, and I was wondering if you could kind of expand on that a little bit. Yes. The, the in policy I'm sure everyone is familiar that like every single word counts, because with every single word is a loophole. And so if you're not explicit with what you're trying to say. So if people can can turn that around and in law and in policy. If there's no words to, to hold people accountable and to put measures into these these things we're trying to implement. I think that the government and and people will find a way out of it. And I think what is also important to mention is that there's so much gaslighting in the space, and I, and towards activists towards women towards communities. But every time people who are trying to save our planet, say things. A lot of the times these systems in these industries say, Oh, that's crazy, like, no, that's impossible that can never happen and it happened with the push for 1.5 in the document. For a long time, Pacific Islands were saying that if our temperatures rise beyond 1.5 we are going to drown our islands aren't going to exist. So please we need to be putting this language and it's just, it's just three characters in document one, a point and five, but so important it's really the survival of islands like mine. And a lot of the time, big government, especially from the global north and industries and lobbyists were saying that's impossible and say that you guys are crazy to even think that that's going to be in the document. Years later so that happened in in Paris and COP 21 years later I was at COP last year, and there are all these pins and these signs that said 1.5. So obviously it was possible, but they they try and make you think that you asking for too much that's crazy. And I think, you know, for a long time we thought that the world couldn't stop, and then covered happened in the world stopped. And so I think it's important that we think about language and we think about words and how they can actually be weaponized against us and the words that we do use can sometimes that we can be made to seem like it's too ambitious or too much when it's actually just enough. Thank you so much that I'm fantastic point and I, you bring up the idea that people are unwilling to make concessions if they, it doesn't have anything to do with their priorities and clearly this is priority for the small island nations but also, it should be for everyone the gaslighting that's going on, and I commend you for like bringing that forward especially again in light of all these significant hurdles, and I just want to transition guys because I'm cognizant of the time and I appreciate you guys for being here. So the other priority issues related to gender and climate, and I have some listed our land and resource accessibility food security and sustainable agriculture access to energy water policies. And kind of what are the intersectionality between gender and these issues that you guys have seen in your work. I would say geography matters a lot. Because, you know, even sort of at the micro level, you know, where you're residing will make a difference in terms of how you're treated by program and policymakers. So, you know, like the case that I'm studying in Mendoza, Argentina. Those were very, very low income people who are living in, you know, what would be called shacks, you know, but for them, it was their home that they had made for themselves. They had some migrating from Bolivia, and others from other parts of Argentina, and they had lived there for 60 years. And so, you know, they had social networks there. And I'm wondering, you know, with the melting of the glaciers of course there is going to be more flooding of river banks, but also now they're in a drought. You can see already the extremes. But I'm wondering whether if it had been a wealthy community located elsewhere, you know, maybe in a landslide prone area in the hills, right, where often wealthy people live because you have a beautiful view of a city right. Would there have been relocated, or would there have been an attempt by the government to create a safer, you know, maybe safer, you know, place for them to live in situ. I'm wondering with displacement, is it going to be by policy, not by necessity maybe that people are relocated. And those who are relocated will be seen to be those who have less political power less voice, right. And so, I'm going to sort of ponder those issues as I talk to people, and think about, you know, this, it has certainly relevance for, you know, island nations right for relocation, and this sort of issue of environmental displacement. I'll stop here I could say a lot more about other sort of intersectional factors, but I'll stop in the floor. Maybe I'll let you go Jennifer because I was just sharing long before Stephanie. I think really I'm not really in a position to say what I would consider a priority. I guess I'm also a bit struck by being in Norway, the last few weeks. And kind of dialing down to just everyday life. I mean, it's just to, you know, to create a work environment that enables families and children and efforts of care to flourish, right so, and I guess I'm coming off of having just read a report on like so thinking through, so I just read this UN report on it's called like beyond COVID-19, a feminist plan for sustainability and social justice, and they break down the area initiatives in terms of job care and climate. And the care issue is, is very powerful to me in the sense of not just childcare but also elder care, and how that more often than not is becomes the burden of women in ways that inhibit our participation in actually creating the spaces and the future that we're talking about here, and creating the spaces in the future that we want. And so I guess, you know, and also just thinking of what it, what it means to have, you know, to have a domestic worker have paid sick leave. And so that, you know, just kind of, you know, that there's that we can think about that these that climate crises actually just raise often every day issues of just basic equity and justice down to something like how am I going to care for my parents when they get sick. And I know that the way my family is organized, it's likely going to come to me. And it, you know, it's very gender based, but I'm just sort of, you know, thinking through the way in which that the issues that we're talking about aren't happening. So, you know, you know, Brianna, you, you know, you offer us that this is happening like very much in your home but and it's happening everywhere in our present but I don't I don't have to turn to the global south to see that there are also important initiatives that we can take here as well in order to ensure the equitable participation of women in this space. Yeah, I would love to add on to that and I completely agree with both views on this and I think that because everything is so intersectional it's hard to say, like what will be the thing that helps all the other problems because I feel like they all do. And I heard something this week actually that I've been holding on to it and it's that all these these systems that have been suffocating our world socially environmentally politically economically. It's all being suffocated by the same cloth and the cloth has been woven together by sexism by racism by white supremacy by by environmental crisis caused by corporations that again are linked to these things sexism racism colonization. And it's all been woven together so tightly that it's suffocating us, but this thought can be overwhelming, but it's also important to remember that, as long as we can pull on the thread that we know we are the strongest at pulling, it will slowly unravel this wall. And so I think whatever we're doing is a priority to us because we think we can do it the best so whether that's getting into gender justice work whether that's getting into protecting our soil protecting our ocean whatever field you may be studying or whatever work you may be doing, just keep doing the work because we'll slowly stop pulling those threads that will dismantle this whole thing. And I think that's how I want to view it, because sometimes I watch things on YouTube or I read a new article coming out and I think oh my gosh we're also in a soil crisis. We're in so many crises that I'm like I want to do like a million things at once but I just want to remind myself just to keep doing the thing that I know I'm good at doing. Thank you guys so much for like these salient points and again, not being bogged down by all these current crises crises crises, because, and then that leads to apathy and then what do you have then, if you don't have a base to mobilize and you know fight for these issues and then people just let it happen and you can use and that's simply not an option. And so now Jennifer that you wanted to show some slides and while I do that I'm going to move some things around so that we can have q amp a section. Let me know if you're able to share your screen. I believe you're muted currently. There we go. I'm just going to run through. I just want to share with you all. Actually, so this was the film that I put in the chat, just to offer some resources for those of you that want to continue the discussion beyond the panel. And just some important points that come up in this I'm happy to share actually this the PowerPoint like with you all if the help. And this is in particular, this is really the book that I really do want to share. I don't know if any of you have come across this but it's one of the reasons why I find it very powerful. I want to highlight some of the things that we just spoke about right so focusing on making change rather than being in charge right so what would a feminist approach mean right healings systemic injustices rather than deepening them. I'm appreciating heart center rather than head center leadership. And I think really bring building on Brianna's point earlier. Like building communities, right is central to what it is that we need and then this is the, you can actually go on the UN says a really interesting, or at least I found this report quite good and there's actually a. This Thursday there's a public session with Mary Robinson and others and it's open to the public. So I would encourage you all to, you know, just just some of the things that I thought might help you all just to beyond the panel for today. Thank you for sharing those resources I personally have not heard of them. And I'll definitely be looking into them after this. If there are no further remarks currently I'd love to go into the Q&A session. And the first question that I have and I believe I'll take one that was sent directly on zoom and then the people in the room will be speaking I believe. But the first question I have is, I believe for Brianna and it's could you further define climate debt. And do you think that the term climate debt makes Western states more uncomfortable than the term climate aid. Definitely so the term climate debt is really around this idea that because safe islands like mine Samoa, we would contribute is probably like 0.00 something to global emissions. We contribute so little like just a speck on the map of of what this is what is causing this crisis. And so therefore, because we are impacted by this crisis. There is a debt owed to us because we didn't create it. So it's like you're living in the house, and then someone comes and just takes a hammer and wrecks your house. Maybe you accidentally tripped over something and broke a piece of wood. Like, you know, you only broke a little thing, but someone just destroyed your house. Therefore that person should be liable to fix it. But yet we still live in a world where that person would come and fix one wall and say, you're welcome. That was my gift to you. It's not just it's not right. And so that's why this this idea of climate debt instead of climate aid is what a lot of frontline communities believe the rewording should be. But like you've mentioned, it's very hard for people to admit that's why I'm lost in damage is a very like tricky topic for a lot of big governments because they don't want to be liable to give money to the things that they've destroyed. They want to be able to donate money that they want to and not have to be liable to give the money that they actually owe people. Yes, thank you so much. Again, while I don't feel like those words are to me common sense I believe it scares a lot of people and for a reason that you elucidated, and I believe now I'll turn to the room. I'd like to unmute and ask any questions on the audience. This is a little bit of a co-president. We do have a couple of questions from the audience. The first one that we have is how have young women specifically been impacted by climate change. I'll give an example from Uttarakhand, India, that is in northeast India, and that is where young women are among those who are in the communities because the men, including their husbands who, you know, these young women are married quite young and their husbands are already migrants in cities, and their fathers are also migrants in cities, their brothers as well, so they're there with their mothers and grandmothers. And they are finding that their springs, that their deal, you know, that they get water from are drying up in some circumstances, which are often made worse by projects, for example, like hydropower projects run of the river which is a little bit worse, where you don't flood an area, but you instead channel river water through these large pipes. But the problem is that it does dry up springs in the area where the water is abstracted, and also along the stretch of river where the water no longer flows, then women don't have water for irrigation, they don't have water for fodder, you know, the grasses that grow for their livestock, so they have to go further afield now. Now what women are doing is that they themselves are deciding that they really want to get educated, so they are in many cases getting a much higher, you know, level of education than their mothers did, and so this is opening up some spaces for them. And so I see a lot of hope among the young women, and in some cases they're just saying no to their in-laws who they're living with, because it is a case where they go to live with their in-laws in those communities of their husbands. But they're saying no, we don't want to only be in these communities, we want to go and live in some cases, even in areas where they're universities, where they're high schools. And so I see that the young women are, their horizons are broadening. And it is in part because they see the real struggles that their mothers and grandmothers have because of scarcer and scarcer resources due to climate change, especially water. I think actually if I might jump in and also just acknowledge that I think young women like young men like all young people are also experiencing, finally acknowledged last week in the IPCC report about the tremendous anxiety that the climate crisis presents to us. And I think, you know, and just the way in which the future feels tremendously precarious, even aside from what's going on politically, economically in the world around us. And so I just want to kind of hold space for that and, you know, also just encourage us to think through how we might not get swept away by the anxiety and to really push through it so that it becomes a source to build solidarity, to build communities. Because I think really this is the challenge, the real challenge that we're all facing and that so that we can reach across and no matter, no matter, you know, that we have to acknowledge our identities but at the same time, push through them so that we can build communities of solidarity. And I think really that's, that's what I see amongst the students that I'm working with the, it's the increase in anxiety. And that I hope, I hope can be overcome. Yes, thank you so much I completely agree with this idea of anxiety and what Code Red for Humanity really means and how we should take that. And I think it's important to transform into something that yields results, you know, we have if we have time for one more question if that's okay and I'm checking in with in person and receive there's one there if not there's one in the Q&A. Perfect. So our final question is, how has COVID-19 shaped the ongoing and new forms of climate change action. I think that the silver lining is that it's become much more international. I think as the shared experience of COVID has brought the world in some ways together. Because of this shared lived experience, then I think that people are seeing the possibilities for acting together around climate change. And so I do find that there is some hope in that. And I think that people are, you know, reaching out because also COVID has been a time of isolation. And so people are trying to connect in whatever way they can. And so I think that this could mean that there would be, you know, greater sort of global connections around that. The only thing is that some people's voices will be heard that way and we can never forget that others will not be heard that way because of a lack of access to cell phones or the internet and computers. So we have to try to, you know, try to write that by increasing access of course to these but also to make sure now with things opening up that we try to get those voices back into the room. Yes. I think, like we shared, COVID has definitely told us the important of collective care in times of disaster, what really helps us is this feeling of being in it together and looking out for your neighbor. And doing things that may inconvenience you but will actually help someone else and being okay with that. And I think that the leaders who have really been able to keep this collective care strong that we've been seeing is female leaders. And I get to live in, so I'm based in New Zealand where I'm studying in Aotearoa and our female Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was able to really look out for her country and we have some of the lowest death rates of COVID in the global north. And so just being able to acknowledge that and the fact that we're currently in an Omicron outbreak, but as a leader she managed to keep us so in tact as a community in New Zealand and she would say things like we are a team of five million. And even though that seems big, we're still a team and what that made New Zealanders and Kiwis think is that we have to look after each other, we have to protect each other. And so now is in the past two years we're going through our worst outbreak while everyone's vaccinated and boosted. And what that means is that all of my friends that had COVID all of my family members that have COVID in New Zealand right now none of them have gone to the hospital and that that is a big privilege as opposed to the people who were in hospital at the beginning of this pandemic. And so really appreciating the female leadership that has come out of COVID and this collective care that has really saved a lot of our communities. You know, I do hope, I do hope both Brianna and Stephanie are right. And I say that in large part because some of the field work that I've done most recently as I've participated in the negotiations at UN headquarters for this new treaty for the high seas it's called the acronym is BB and J it's for biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction. And the very last conference that was supposed to crown potentially the release of this treaty was delayed now for two years, because of COVID. And they finally so the meeting is going on right now in New York. And my understanding is that because so just to kind of like, give us also a sense of the knit in the grid of how international relations actually happens. So inside the UN space part of what has been going on is that because of the COVID restrictions civil society groups so Greenpeace High Seas Alliance other groups are calling on the Secretary General of the UN to say, you know what, New York City has lifted So does the UN complex, because currently, the, the meetings are withholding civil society actors from actually participating in some of the negotiations because of the COVID restrictions. So, you know, hopefully this will now lift. But I, I, there is some lament that COVID delayed the release of and the potential agreement for this new treaty for the high seas so I'm hoping, at least within the year 2022 we might finally have that treaty in hand. Yes, thank you so much for having highlighting the complexities of all like the actions that we face. Is it to one step forward two steps back but then you have more as like the overall progress towards something, and I really appreciate that like what you guys have highlighted. So I believe that's the end of our time, unless there's any final remarks I just want to thank you actually from the bottom of my heart because this I've been such an enlightening panel because I think at times climate change has been used just like as an overarching topic and oh like climate change is a big issue let's just talk about it, but I found very, very salient points from this like panel that I think I'll bring back with me to my studies and just general interest and I just want to thank you so much for being here. If there's any other topics you guys want to discuss or anything I, I believe that's it. Thanks a lot for organizing us I really appreciate it, bringing us together. Yes, definitely thank you for having us and also just on what Jennifer shared earlier about climate anxiety. I just wanted to share with everyone that these topics can be like very heavy and you could also walk away from this feeling like there's so much to do. Or that you haven't been doing enough but I hope that everyone is that you're kind to yourself and forgive yourself for what you didn't know before this. Because now you know now and and just be be kind and feeling like you are part of something bigger and you're supported and you have community out there. Yeah, and that this space is the making of a community that's that's exactly the point right and so that's really why, as I said earlier like it's so encouraging to see that this is student led. So I, it's, it's, that's super important to emphasize. You know I'm an ambassador for sisters on the planet and Oxfam America initiative, and the way I think about my involvement in that is not just the bigger events that I'm part of for that but the daily practices that I have. So I take care to dry most of my clothes just by hanging them up. And the reason for me to do that is because I think about my other sisters on the planet, and I want to have a livable future for them today and into the future. I also have a daughter and who's actually also now looking at negative climate emissions. And so she's, you know, carrying on that work. And so I think what one can do is to think like what can I do in my personal life, and what can I do in my professional life to be a really good sister on the planet. And to be a good citizen to right to actively participate in the political process to create the policies that we hope can also scale the change that we need. Yes, thank you guys so much for being here and I hope you guys have either a good night or a good day, wherever you are. Thank you so much. Goodbye.