Tasneem Essop will discuss outcomes of COP26 and where next on Climate? Tim Gore will act as discussant for the event. 

COP26, held in Glasgow in November 2021, was characterized as the "last chance to keep 1.5C alive". This talk will explore whether the outcomes of COP26 delivered on this and whether leaders of the world delivered on climate justice for those most impacted by the climate crisis. Based on this assessment, we will look at what next steps are needed to address the urgency of the climate crisis.

Tasneem Essop is currently the Executive Director of Climate Action Network International (CAN-I). She has just completed serving her second term as Commissioner in the National Planning Commission in South Africa, appointed by the President, and leads the work on Climate Change and the Just Transition. She previously headed the climate team in WWF International and served as the Head of Delegation for the organization at the UNFCCC. She became a Member of the Provincial Parliament in the Western Cape in 1994 and held the positions of Provincial Minister of Transport, Public Works and Property Management from 2001 to 2004 and Provincial Minister for the Environment, Planning and Economic Development from 2004 to 2008 when she resigned from politics. Tasneem was an anti-apartheid activist from an early age in different capacities until the democratic elections in 1994. During this time she was a student and youth activist, a teacher and a trade unionist.

Tim Gore is the head of the Low Carbon and Circular Economy programme at Institute for Eurpoean Environmental Policy (IEEP). He is a regular commentator in international media and public speaker on the climate and inequality crises, and a member of the board of Climate Action Network Europe.

Dr Duncan Green is Senior Strategic Adviser at Oxfam GB, Professor in Practice in International Development at the London School of Economics and Political Science, honorary Professor of International Development at Cardiff University and a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Development Studies. He is author of How Change Happens (OUP, October 2016) and From Poverty to Power: How Active Citizens and Effective States can Change the World (Oxfam International, 2008, second edition 2012). His daily development blog can be found on www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/.

This talk is part of the Cutting Edge Issues in Development Thinking & Practice, 2021/22, series, a high-profile lecture series run by the Department of International Development at LSE and organised by Professor James Putzel and Professor in Practice Duncan Green.

The Department of International Development promotes interdisciplinary postgraduate teaching and research on processes of social, political and economic development and change. 

Twitter Hashtag for this series: #CuttingEdge2021