On the first episode of 2024, we talk about climate change with Blessing Ewe and Sequoia Riley. We caught Blessing on her return from COP 28. We discuss how climate change disproportionately affects people of color, climate change research and what we can do to combat climate change. Dr. Sequoia Riley is a Research Associate at HARC, focusing on the Water-Climate-Energy nexus. Her research specializations and interests include urban environmental planning and management, green infrastructure, flood disaster risk management, adaptive governance, and environmental justice efforts in the context of urban and rural flood sustainability and resilience. She earned a Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa where she worked as a graduate research associate and later as a post-doc fellow at the National Preparedness Disaster Training Center (NDPTC). Dr. Riley received her M.Sc. in Marine Resource Management from Texas A&M University-Galveston and a B.Sc. in Marine Science (with a minor in applied mathematics) from Coastal Carolina University.  You can find out more about HARC here.   Blessing Ewa is a passionate advocate for the UN Sustainable Development Goals, a youth and community engagement expert, and an active contributor to the global effort to combat climate change. In her role as the West Africa Coordinator for Net Zero As Soon As Possible (NZASAP), she works towards promoting climate action within workplaces across Africa, where she strives to make a significant impact on the way businesses approach sustainability and environmental responsibility towards the 2060 agenda for achieving Net Zero. She is also the founder of Young Advocates for a Sustainable and Inclusive Future (YASIF) Nigeria, YASIF Nigeria, under her leadership, has trained over 500 youths and 1000 women on climate change adaptation and mitigation with an emphasis on waste management as a means to combat climate change, which has successfully evacuated over 5000 kilograms of plastics.   You can find more about Blessing Ewe here You can find more about YASIF here The opinions shared on this forum are the opinions of the individuals and are not the opinions of the organizations and institutes that they work for.