Episode 251: The Fight for Climate After COVID-19: A Conversation With Sherri Goodman and Author, Alice Hill

The impacts of COVID-19 have shown policymakers that we need to invest in infrastructure and shore up existing systems to ensure that they can withstand changing conditions over time, says Alice Hill, former special assistant to President Barack Obama and current senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Resilience, in this week’s New Security Broadcast. “As we go forward, we need to have resilient systems. But we haven’t done that yet, we’re unprepared.” Hill sat down with Sherri Goodman, Senior Fellow at the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program and former U.S. Deputy Undersecretary of Defense, to her new book, The Fight for Climate After COVID-19, and how the response to COVID-19 can inform approaches to building climate resilience. “Even as we see the ferocity of events increase, we are seeing that our systems just have not accounted for the future risk, and that is what we need,” says Hill. Investing in preparedness is cost-effective in the long term, she says. Every dollar spent on preventative measures now can save from 6 to 13 dollars in repairing future damages. “If we can discipline ourselves to invest now in resilience, we will save money, save lives, save livelihoods.” In addition to building resilience and preparing for long-term changes, Hill says that policymakers and experts must also focus on reducing emissions and cutting pollution. “There’s the mitigation—cutting harmful pollution. And there’s the adaptation and resilience—preparing for the impacts. Those two communities have been historically separated,” says Hill. In particular, experts in these communities must work together to ensure that adaptation and mitigation measures receive equal attention in the developing world. “When these events hit the developing world, it can cause a family just to spiral into poverty very quickly,” says Hill. “We need to make deep investments to help these countries understand their risks and warn their populations in advance.” Hill and Goodman conclude their conversation by encouraging everyone to engage in understanding and responding to climate change. There is a much greater focus on the issue now, says Hill. “One of the things that I find—that has been a wonderful surprise for me—is how exciting it is to be engaged in this field. And feeling as if there are things that I can contribute to, and that I can join with others to build, that will have greater results,” she says. “I just want to encourage people to engage and then, as we engage, we can help build the political will that’s necessary for all of us to understand our risks, and then make choices that will keep us safer.”

You can listen to Episode 251: The Fight for Climate After COVID-19: A Conversation With Sherri Goodman and Author, Alice Hill online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Episode 251: The Fight for Climate After COVID-19: A Conversation With Sherri Goodman and Author, Alice Hill is an episode from Friday Podcasts From ECSP and MHI by Environmental Change and Security Program.

This episode is 31:08 long.

This episode was published on Nov 12, 2021.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from Friday Podcasts From ECSP and MHI when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.