The climate crisis affects every person, every country and every region. Big ideas from the best minds are needed to help tackle this crisis.
Team Dunia bora, a team from Ghana, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Mauritius, featuring Chevening and Commonwealth Scholars: pictured here practising their presentation
Between 19 October and 21 October 2021, 36 scholarship teams (representing over 130 alumni from Chevening, CSC, and Marshall) pitched their innovative climate solutions to a panel of expert judges during a series of 3 online presentation events, and competed to win a place in the grand final.
Each team delivered a 5-minute presentation on their policy proposal which addressed one of the four COP26 Goals. They answered questions from judges and the audience both on air and in the chat. Following each presentation event, judges selected a winning team for each goal, who will go on to present at a grand final event where an overall winning team will be chosen. The winning team will be invited to present their ideas at a closed roundtable discussion with senior climate change experts and UK government officials.
At the ‘Finance and Collaboration‘ presentation event held on 19 October, we were delighted to hear presentations from 10 teams – please follow this link to find out more about the teams who presented and the panel of judges.
Team Isago: a team from Botswana, featuring Chevening Scholars: pictured here practising their presentation
At the ‘Adaptation‘ presentation event held on 20 October, we were delighted to hear presentations from 14 teams – please follow this link to find out more about the teams who presented and the panel of judges.
At the ‘Mitigation‘ presentation event held on 21 October, we were delighted to hear presentations from 13 teams – please follow this link to find out more about the teams who presented and the panel of judges.
We would like to extend our heartfelt appreciation to the judges who freely gave of their time and expertise to pose questions to the presenting teams and assessed the winners from each event. Our thanks go to: Dr David Bynoe, Sergiy Maslichenko, Dr Joanna Poon, Dr Mark Tebboth, Enrique Lopez Arroyo, Tracy-Ann Nicole Hyman, Mr Oleksandr Antonenko, James Corré, Nithi Nesadurai, and Dr Haseeb Md Irfanullah.
Team ‘EV AnderScions’: a team from Morocco, Philippines, and India, featuring Chevening Scholars, pictured here practising their presentation.
The winning team for each event was announced on Friday, 22 October. Congratulations go to:
- Finance: Team ‘Accessible Finance Brazil’ with the policy ‘Amazon Green Credit Hub’ (Chevening Scholars). The Amazon Green Credit Hub is a multi-stakeholder platform which will connect smallholders and vulnerable communities, that usually cannot access traditional financial services, to banks, development finance institutions, and funds that are willing to promote green growth and a just transition in the Amazon region but who also lack access to track records and local knowledge that is key to provide impactful loans and investments. The proposal relies on developing a certification methodology to become a trusted standard for funders and banks to find the most vulnerable yet meaningfulbeneficiaries. The SustainableTag will map the profile of smallholders and cooperatives based on their potential to reduce GHG emissions, keep forests standing, and produce social and cultural co-benefits at the community level.
Congratulations to team members Sabrina de Almeida, Andreas Erik Julião Forsberg de Paula, Guilherme Castro, Luiza Nolasco, Jacqueline Tereza da Silva, Manuella Cantalice, Daniela Ribeiro Guarieiro,Natasha Cavalcante and Júlio Lubianco. - Collaboration: Team ‘Sunrise’ with the policy ‘National Plan on People-Centred Clean Electricity Transitions Policy, 2021 (NPPCETP)’ (Chevening and Commonwealth Scholars). This policy focuses on the inclusiveness of community-led development that prioritises vulnerable and marginalised people for sustainable electricity access in unserved communities across Nigerian rural landscapes. It will consider local green energy competitive advantage, ensure collaboration between multiple stakeholders’ communities and accelerate other SDG goals. Its objectives are premised around the proposition that energy access must be all-inclusive, offer social protection to the poor and vulnerable populations, and allow communities to play an increased role in reducing its climate vulnerabilities. The policy targets are: – the development of 1000 community projects with stipulated percentages of solar, wind, hydro, and other renewables, afforestation of 5000 trees to offset embodied carbon during the construction of projects and N600m direct electricity subsidies for pro-poor households by 2030 through social protection schemes.
Congratulations to team members Yetunde Fadeyi, Ire-Oluwa Adegoke, and Christopher Ibeh. - Adaptation: Team ‘Mountain Mates’ with the policy ‘Reintroducing Neglected and Underutilised Species in the Hindu Kush Himalayas for climate resilience’ (Chevening, Commonwealth, and Marshall Scholars). This policy reintroduces indigenous food crops and livestock species which are currently neglected & underutilised in the Hindu Kush Himalaya region, despite being nutritionally dense, suitable for prolonged storage, and commercially viable, as well as being able to withstand harsh and unseasonable weather. The policy objective is to enhance the quantity and quality of agriculture in the region (enabling it to be resilient to climate change) through support using a credit scheme, an education programme, and a campaign through use of Geographic Indication tags marked with the brand logo.
Congratulations to team members Daphne Ezer, Geetanjali Singh, Sibulele Ngomane, and Hamza Rafay Butt. - Mitigation: IMAGED (Incentives for Mitigating Agricultural Greenhouse gas Emissions with Data) with the policy ‘Incentives for Mitigating Agricultural Greenhouse gas Emissions with Data’ (Marshall Scholars). This is a three-tiered proposal to address two main challenges shaping agricultural methane mitigation efforts: identifying emissions and incentivising action. Motivated by a slate of new methane satellites, Level 1 will use satellite imagery to monitoring individual farms, making crucial emissions data available. This data will be used for Level 2: a low-methane certification standard. Certification lets responsible farmers brand themselves in the marketplace, empowering consumer choice in dairy and meat, methane mitigation practices. Level 2 is an opt-in approach, but Level 3 will integrate methane data into agricultural policy. Current farm subsidies in the US and EU are agnostic of emissions, but our data infrastructure and certification will enable subsidies to be tied to methane. This three-step approach gives industrial agriculture—a major methane emitter—the data and incentives needed to drive significant mitigation. Tackling agricultural methane offers a realistic path to achieving the Global Methane Pledge’s goal of reducing methane emissions to reduce warming by 0.2°C by 2050.
Congratulations to team members Yun William Yu and Anjali Tripathi.
We look forward to hearing from the winners in the grand final presentation event on the 27th of October.
