Join us for a conversation about climate change, biodiversity loss, and approaches to address both crises.
A recording of the webinar is available below.
Biodiversity loss and climate change are intertwined challenges, but there are opportunities for action that address both, such as nature-based solutions that protect or help restore biodiversity and that lessen future climate change. Shyla Raghav (Conservation International) moderated a conversation with Kamal Bawa (University of Massachusetts Boston, retired) and Victoria Reyes-García (ICREA, Autonomous University of Barcelona) that explored the benefits, difficulties, and global equity dimensions of addressing these challenges in tandem. The webinar will include discussion of the new National Academies resource, Biodiversity at Risk: Today’s Choices Matter.
Climate Conversations: Pathways to Action is a monthly webinar series from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that aims to convene high-level, cross-cutting, nonpartisan conversations about issues relevant to national policy action on climate change.
Participant Bios
Kamal Bawa is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Boston, and Founder-President of the Bangalore-based Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE). He explores the role of institutions and market-based approaches to conservation, the impacts of climate change on biodiversity, and the relationships among poverty, institutions, and community-based conservation. He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society and the American Philosophical Society and served on the report committee for Biodiversity at Risk: Today’s Choices Matter.
Victoria Reyes-García is an ICREA Research Professor at the Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB). Her research focuses on indigenous and local knowledge systems, particularly in relation to the natural environment, and on the relevance of these knowledge systems to understand and deal with climate and environmental crises. She is a co-author on the Global Assessment of the Intergovernmental Science and Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and of the IPCC-IPBES Report on Biodiversity and Climate Change. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (2021).
Shyla Raghav is Conservation International’s leading climate change expert and drives the organization’s climate change strategy to secure and maximize nature’s potential as a climate solution by leveraging technology, policy, and market innovation. Shyla played an integral role in the negotiations on the Paris Agreement, signed by 195 countries, and has been instrumental in influencing international climate policy for over a decade. Having worked on both climate change mitigation and adaptation, Shyla has worked at the World Bank, Adaptation Fund, United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. From both California and northern India, Shyla studied applied ecology and international relations at the University of California, Irvine and earned her master’s degree in environmental management from Yale University. She was named an InStyle’s BadAss women, a Grist Top 50 Fixers, a AAAS/IfTHEN Ambassador for women in STEM, and has been featured on CNN, Vice News, and Elle Magazine.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in the conversation are those of the participants and do not necessarily represent the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
