Global GoalsCast We Are All Human Foundation

Do you think Climate Change is something that will happen in the future? Or something that will happen somewhere else? Well, as Co-hosts Claudia Romo Edelman and Edie Lush, say: think again. The climate is warming and one of the predicted effects, extreme weather, is happening faster and more severely than climate scientists had forecast. This has produced record heat in western Canada and the United States and unprecedented rain and flooding in China and Europe.
Global GoalsCast visits Mayschoß, one of the German towns ruined by flooding and hears about the physical destruction and the jarring realizations brought on by the flooding.
“It has shown as a community and I think also as a country that we are really vulnerable,” says Anja Menzel, a political science professor whose street was turned into a raging river. “That is something we did not experience before. Because, oh, its those third world countries that are affected by climate change. It isn’t us. we are well equipped.”
This has increased the urgency for both mitigation, such as the European Unions proposal to reduce carbon emissions, and measures to adapt to handle extreme weather events that can no longer be averted. Will the shock of this year of extreme weather be enough to motivate these needed changes?
Featured Guests
Dr. Anja Bierwirth, Head of Research Unit Urban Transitions, at Wuppertal Institute, an international think tank for sustainability research focused on impact and practical application.
Dr. Anja Menzel, Research fellow at the Chair for International Politics, FernUniversität in Hagen
David Ryfisch, team lead for international climate policy at Germanwatch, where he manages the portfolio on sustainable and climate finance.
Harvey Scherer, event organizer & safety expert who is part of the rescue of Mayschoß, one of the German villages destroyed by the recent floods.

The world has had it with lockdowns at just the wrong moment. Covid is spreading faster than ever even as political leaders back off restrictions designed to curb it. 

Dr. David Nabarro, Special Envoy of the World Health Organization on Covid-19, warns that the next six months will be rough. “We are in the middle of a really difficult pandemic and we are nowhere near the end of it,” he said. Vaccines alone cannot stop the pandemic. There is not enough supply and, in any case, the vaccines are better at preventing severe illness than at stopping transmission of the virus. He warns that measures of hospitalization and death miss the serious “Long Covid” afflicting many younger patients. Dr. Nabarro discusses effective public health measures with public health experts in Botswana and Canada. 

This episode is sponsored by the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Leaders in Innovation Fellowships. Dr. Jo-Ann Passmore of the University of Capetown Medical School describes her innovation, GIFT, which measures inflammation as a simple test for sexually transmitted diseases.

The world is exhausted with this pandemic. Yet, the virus perseveres, mutating in ways that have made it far more contagious. This has created a dangerous situation. Many communities want restrictions lifted, even as the need to curb the virus has never been greater. David Nabarro, special envoy of the World Health Organization for Covid-19, explains in this episode that it is vital to reduce the presence of the virus now before it mutates further to evade vaccines. Colleagues have told him that the Delta Variant could be within two mutations of being able to do that, Nabarro reports.  The Delta Variant is spreading rapidly in Africa, where very few people have yet to be vaccinated, as well as among the unvaccinated even in rich countries with relatively high levels of vaccination. 

Dr. Lucky Aziken, an optometrist in Nigeria, is one of many health providers working to hold back the spread. He describes how he organized safety measures for one of Nigeria’s most vulnerable populations, inmates in the country’s 240 prisons. Co-host Claudia Romo Edelman talks with Dr. Nabarro about how she lost her own mother to Covid-19 and how each of us has a role to play in stopping the spread of the virus.

While we cannot vaccinate our way out of the crisis, greater vaccine supply must be part of the long term solution. Co-host Edie Lush speaks with the CEO of the largest vaccine manufacturer in the world, Adar C. Poonawalla of the Serum Institute of India during the India Global Forum. He urges a global plan to have vaccine manufacturing capacity standing by in the next pandemic.

 
Also appearing in this episode are South African nutritionist Jane Badham and Holly Wheeler, a global health advocate. 

In New York they are shooting off fireworks to celebrate reopening. But in other parts of the world the coronavirus is continuing to spread, with lethal results. Public health workers are angry and frustrated. A senior official of the World Health Organization, Maria Van Kerkhove, says the world needs to pull together to use all available tools to curb the virus. “Right now the narrative is vaccines, vaccines, vaccines,” she said, “and while vaccines, vaccinations are an incredibly powerful tool, we've completely forgotten about everything else that works. And I feel that frustration.” 

In this episode, Public health experts in Botswana and Chile describe the continuing rampage of Covid-19 in their countries and Dr. David Nabarro, special Covid-19 Envoy of the WHO, criticizes leaders of the world’s most developed countries, the G7, for offering vaccines but not much else to the rest of the world at their just concluded summit. “It was a pretty bad outcome,” Dr.Nabarro said. “It was a lot of banging chests -- “we’re good” -- but not enough responsibility.” 

Co-host Edie Lush noted that a very similar criticism of the G7 could be made around their tepid response to climate change. Co-host Claudia Romo Edelman says she understands the desire to get back to living, but that this must happen in a globally conscious way.

Fact and Actions in this episode are presented by Regina Larko, founder and co-hot of the podcast, Hashtag Impact.

Covid-19 is moving from a pandemic to an endemic disease. The virus will be with us for a long time to come, maybe forever. Dr. David Nabarro, special envoy of the World Health Organization, says we need to prepare for this with strong leadership - both local and global.
Global GoalsCast attends Dr. Nabarro’s latest briefing where he introduces us to health workers who have made a real difference controlling the virus and supporting those struck down by it in their local community. These include a nurse-run campaign to isolate and vaccinate in Nepal to a program in the United Kingdom to assist long-Covid sufferers. 
“The sort of leadership that's needed is leadership that connects,” John Atkinson, a specialist in systems change, tells Dr. Nabarro. “Leadership that doesn't seek credit for itself. Leadership that knows there's no limit to what you can achieve if you don't give a damn who takes the credit.” Invisible leadership, Dr. Nabarro calls this.
Globally, Nabarro calls for a new approach from rich countries. “it’s ok to lead for the world,” he tells the leaders of the G7 countries, explaining that protecting just their own constituents won’t work. He argues that rich countries should stop holding vaccines for booster doses when poor countries still need first doses. Protecting the vulnerable everywhere is the only sensible strategy while vaccine is scare. “You are actually serving your constituents better if you lead for the world.”
Global GoalsCast is co-hosted by Edie Lush and Claudia Romo Edelman. Other guests on this episode include:
Durga Sapkota, a nurse in Katmandu who continues to organize a community public health response to combat Covid-19 in Nepal. She is an ambassador for Women Deliver, a Global GoalsCast partner.
Clare Rayner, a specialist occupational health physician and honorary lecturer at the University of Manchester Medical School
Iman Ahmed, a Global Public Health expert currently working vaccinating the Sudanese diaspora in Canada.
Nazeem, a singer-songwriter from The Gambia.
This episode is brought to you by our listeners. Thanks also to CBS News Digital and Universal Production Music.

The world’s fight against Covid-19 is at a crossroads. Four out of five doses of vaccine have gone to a few rich countries. 

“What are we all working for,’ asks Dr. David Nabarro, a special envoy of the World Health Organization. “Are we working for a small number of groups of people in well endowed countries to be able to be protected? People like me? Is this all about us being able to be okay?” Or, Dr. Nabarro adds, will the rich world take up the responsibility for manufacturing and distributing enough vaccine to protect everyone? 

Inventing the vaccine was a triumph for science, says the Director General of the WHO, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.  But inequitable distribution is a “failure for humanity.”

In this episode, Global GoalsCast attends a high level briefing lead by Dr. Nabarro, with updates on the spread of Covid-19 in India (Dr. NK Sethi), Nepal (Dr. Rojan Dahal), Chile (Rebecca Kanter) and Argentina. Co-host Edie Lush also speaks with her old boss, Ivan Weissman, a journalist in Argentina, about a creative approach to lockdowns in one of that countries poorest communities.