ESI Stories

Betting on Climate Solutions at Climate Week NYC 2024

By: Marcela Angel, Research Program Director

At Climate Week NYC, The Rockefeller Foundation brought together 16 Fellows demonstrating a “big bet mindset,” or the belief that it is possible to use large-scale solutions to address climate change. I had the opportunity to be part of the inaugural cohort of fellows, focused on Latin America and the Caribbean, where I’ve highlighted the Environmental Solutions Initiative’s (ESI’s) big bet to create participatory monitoring systems that increase community resilience against predictable climate risks.     

From June to September, other Fellows and I participated in a leadership development program centered on the Big Bets Toolkit, which is The Rockefeller Foundation’s how-to guide on promoting transformative change effectively and at scale. The program, facilitated by the global design and innovation company IDEO, culminated with the Big Bets for Climate Futures event at the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly 79 (#UNGA79).

The 2024 cohort of The Rockefeller Foundation’s Big Bets Climate Fellows during Climate Week NYC. Photo credit: Natalia Vasquez

During the event, following a dialogue between marine biologist Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and journalist Elizabeth Kolbert, the cohort of Fellows presented projects that contributed to answering four questions about what the world could look like if we truly embraced climate solutions, building on Johnson’s recently launched book, What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures. 

The questions are as follows:

What if the people most affected showed us the way?

What if we reimagine financing, regeneratively? 

What if we valued our landscapes differently?

What if technology was a tool and not a mode?

Divided in groups according to the themes that connected our projects, the first group addressed the people-centered question by highlighting the voices of four local environmental leaders, including indigenous leaders and women activists who embody alternative and more inclusive pathways for development; the finance group offered equations on how to align incentives to transform extractive models into regenerative futures; the landscapes group put forward models that leverage biodiversity, lands, and water to sustain healthy and prosperous communities and ecosystems; and lastly, the technology group provided vivid visualizations on how technology can help collect and analyze data to make informed decisions in the legal, scientific, public health, and climate adaptation realms. 

Speakers in the technology group converse. From left to right: Big Bets Climate Fellows Erika Berenguer, Reinhold Gallmetzer, Avriel Diaz, and Marcela Angel; followed by the Lead of Convenings and Networks, Nathalia A. M. dos Santos. Photo credit: Natalia Vasquez

A Community-Centered Data-Driven Approach to Climate Adaptation

As part of the technology group, I presented the ESI’s work in Mocoa, and our quest to test the use of new technologies — such as drones and AI — to enhance the capacities of local communities to address local environmental priorities.  

Environmental threats are amplified and multiplied by the effects of climate change. Landslides represent one of such threats, exacerbating intense pressures on frontline communities who live and work in areas with compounding risks and vulnerabilities. Nonetheless, communities at the frontlines of climate impacts who live and depend on strategic ecosystems in Latin America often face a systemic lack of data to make informed adaptation decisions. In Mocoa, Colombia, a city affected by a devastating landslide in 2017, this void has resulted in delays in rebuilding efforts, erosion of trust in government institutions, an impediment to create community consensus around development decisions, and potential climate maladaptation.  

The ESI’s Drones for Equitable Climate Change Adaptation (DECCA) project addresses these challenges by developing a comprehensive data collection and forecasting system. This initiative focuses on four priorities: (1) empowering local organizations with technical capacities for data collection, (2) utilizing drones and machine learning, (3) enhancing community resilience through evidence-based preparedness, and (4) ensuring equitable access to risk information.

This project is inspired by technological innovation in the fields of remote sensing technologies and machine learning, but it is equally innovative in its participatory approach. In a context where disaster response has consisted predominantly of top-down efforts conducted by national authorities and where alternatively and inspiring small-scale bottom-up actions remain limited for the scale of the challenge, the project was able to bring to the table unlikely partners from academia (MIT’s ESI, MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Lincoln Laboratories, and the Pratt Center for Planning and the Environment); local and national government agencies (the Ministry of Environment of Colombia and Corpoamazonia); international cooperations (the Global Environmental Facility and CAF Development Bank of Latin America); the technology start-up Airworks; community-based groups (including representatives from indigenous and Afro-descendant communities, community oversight groups, youth, and victims of the landslide), and others who would not have a sit at the table without the spaces created by the project.   

Ultimately, my goal as an urban planner and researcher is to transform data into knowledge and action. By harnessing technological advancements alongside community-based planning, we aim to bolster resilience against predictable climate risks, ensuring that communities like Mocoa are equipped to thrive in the face of adversity. 

A Collective Vision for Climate Futures in Latin America

Aiming for transformational change, integrating novel solutions, convening unlikely partners, and with a long-term commitment to achieve measurable outcomes, the work in Mocoa is representative of the ambitious big bets mindset and principles, and it is one among other urgently-needed solutions that focus on Latin America’s natural wealth as a source of solutions. The 2024 cohort included Fellows working to fireproof the Amazon forest; create the largest edible-forest; predict the spread of climate-sensitive diseases and secure budgets for preventing outbreaks; and highlight the voices of women, indigenous people, and local communities who have achieved transformational change, among other inspiring solutions.    

Participating in these discussions is crucial as we collectively seek to mitigate climate change and adapt to its impacts by developing and showcasing alternative climate futures. The knowledge and connections gained from this network of remarkable Latin American climate leaders will enhance our efforts in Mocoa and beyond, inspiring collaborative approaches to natural climate and community solutions. 

To learn more about Marcela Angel’s work, you can email her at marcelaa@mit.edu.