Preparing for the Coming Climate Disruption, with Alice Hill and Leonardo Martinez-Diaz

Resources Radio

This week, host Kristin Hayes talks with Alice Hill and Leonardo Martinez-Diaz, authors of a new book released this fall by Oxford University Press, called "Building a Resilient Tomorrow: How to Prepare for the Coming Climate Disruption." Hayes, Hill, and Martinez-Diaz delve into the topics covered in the book, including ten lessons for decisionmakers in building a resilient future. To introduce Hill and Martinez-Diaz, using their own words from the book (with some light editing for length): Alice Hill spent the bulk of her career in courtrooms, first as a US federal prosecutor chasing white-collar crooks and, later, as a judge presiding over cases ranging from homicide to medical malpractice. She became immersed in climate change after she joined the US Department of Homeland Security in 2009 as senior counselor to the secretary. She was tasked with helping the department understand how climate could affect its operations. Hill went on to the White House to lead resilience efforts as special assistant to President Obama and member of his climate team. She is now a senior fellow for climate change policy at the Council of Foreign Relations. Leonardo Martinez-Diaz spent several years as an academic before joining the Obama administration, where one of his first tasks as head of the policy office at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) was overseeing the development of a climate change strategy for the agency. Later, as deputy assistant secretary for energy and environment at the Treasury Department, he negotiated finance elements of the Paris Agreement and represented the United States on the governing bodies of major providers of climate finance, including the Green Climate Fund and the Global Environment Facility. He now works at the World Resources Institute as the Global Director for WRI’s Sustainable Finance Center. References and recommendations: "Building a Resilient Tomorrow: How to Prepare for the Coming Climate Disruption" by Alice Hill and Leonardo Martinez-Diaz; https://global.oup.com/academic/product/building-a-resilient-tomorrow-9780190909345 “New elevation data triple estimates of global vulnerability to sea-level rise and coastal flooding” by Scott A. Kulp and Benjamin H. Strauss; https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12808-z "Ultimatum" by Matthew Glass; https://groveatlantic.com/book/ultimatum/