As Girls’s Historical past Month kicks off, meet a number of the RMI ladies who’re working for a clear, sustainable future.
RMI is made up of greater than 600 passionate, dedicated, local weather change specialists — 57 % of whom establish as feminine. March is Girls’s Historical past Month, after we have fun ladies’s contributions to society. Meet a number of the ladies of RMI who’re working to alter our world for the higher and to create a clear, sustainable future.
Charlin Bodley
“Girls (and kids) are on the entrance strains of this existential menace and should subsequently be an integral a part of the answer. I’m a Caribbean lady, myself, and I’m on the entrance line of local weather change, residing the on a regular basis realities of it in a small island growing state. Girls like me can symbolize the distinctive wants of different ladies and kids by way of our work within the area.” — Charlin Bodley, Supervisor, World South Program
Charlin Bodley leads RMI’s Girls in Renewable Power (WIRE) Community, advocating for elevated gender equality in management positions throughout the power sector in authorities businesses, utilities, regulators, and personal sector entities. She can also be supporting a undertaking to supply power coverage suggestions to the Turks and Caicos authorities, and co-leading on RMI’s Power Transition Academy’s Caribbean Fellowship Program. Bodley loves the people-centric nature of her work, and the potential that it has to positively influence lives.
Kaitlyn Bunker with photo voltaic panels
“Globally, ladies are considerably impacted by local weather change. And we’d like all views included to deal with this international problem — however ladies have typically been excluded and are underrepresented in fields like power. For me personally, I hope to make an influence on tackling local weather change in order that my daughters may have alternatives to pursue their passions, no matter they might be.” — Kaitlyn Bunker, Principal, World South Program
Kaitlyn Bunker helps Caribbean islands in accelerating their clear and resilient power transitions. Individuals within the Caribbean area are a number of the first to expertise direct impacts of local weather change, and Bunker is impressed by the actions they’re taking to rework their power programs with the intention to contribute as little emissions as attainable, whereas assembly native priorities like reducing the prices of electrical energy, changing into extra resilient within the face of accelerating hurricanes, creating native jobs and native possession of the power system, and extra.
Allesandra Carreon
“It is necessary that girls work in fields to resolve systemic issues like local weather change not solely as a result of it impacts them and their households firsthand, but in addition as a result of range within the workforce in any respect ranges is a essential prerequisite to make sure we obtain a local weather answer that’s quick, efficient, and globally related.” — Alessandra Carreon, Supervisor, Carbon-Free Transportation
Alessandra Carreon works on fostering reasonably priced and accessible EV adoption and charging. Her work additionally informs the event of accountable and sustainable worth chains for EVs, which regularly supply uncooked supplies that come from economically weak areas or whose processing can pose environmental and human rights dangers to communities. Carreon says she is pushed to work towards a clear power transition “whereas guaranteeing the advantages of the transition attain everybody — particularly traditionally marginalized communities which are typically the final or least more likely to take pleasure in these advantages.”
Molly Freed
“As a ladies’s faculty graduate, I can confidently say that we’d like ladies in each area — local weather change is not any completely different. Girls’s views are essential in growing new, community-oriented options to this concern. Girls will likely be (and already are) on the entrance strains of devastating local weather impacts, which implies that they’ve a vested curiosity in preventing the foundation causes.” — Molly Freed, Senior Affiliate, US Program
Molly Freed is at present pushing policymakers and stakeholders in numerous American states to undertake daring and equitable local weather coverage. As every state has its personal set of challenges and alternatives, she finds it fascinating to determine their distinctive decarbonization pathways. Freed is optimistic concerning the historic alternatives offered by the Inflation Discount Act. “It’s actually a gamechanger for states, from environmental justice to financial improvement,” Freed says.
Yihan Hao
“Our staff typically walks into convention rooms as the one ladies talking as keynote audio system or panelists. I used to be actually impressed by how [our managing director] Ting dealt with this throughout a convention. She would use two minutes to start with of her speech to acknowledge that she is the one feminine speaker on the convention, and she or he would level out that the majority of RMI’s Beijing analysis staff are feminine and we ship main thought items that everybody ought to take note of.” — Yihan Hao, Principal, China Program
Since Yihan Hao started at RMI, she has labored to assist transfer China towards zero-carbon specializing in inexperienced buildings, inexperienced energy buying and selling, methane mitigation, rural/agriculture decarbonization, provide chain decarbonization, and transitional finance. For Hao, probably the most thrilling factor about her position is witnessing real-world adjustments which are pushed by her staff, particularly when the important thing policymakers and company leaders acknowledge their work in public settings.
Radhika Lalit
“Girls have to guide the cost within the struggle in opposition to local weather change as a result of the way forward for our households in addition to our subsequent technology is at stake right here. We’re highly effective change brokers, and our distinctive contributions and views might be the important thing to unlocking the options to the power transition.” — Radhika Lalit, Principal, Local weather-Aligned Industries
Radhika Lalit is at present main RMI’s work on decarbonizing the cement and concrete sector. She additionally helped launch RMI’s Middle for Local weather-Aligned Finance and led the design, creation, and implementation of the World Cooling Prize, a global competitors to develop a climate-friendly residential cooling answer. “I get actually excited after I’m in a position to see the direct local weather influence of my work,” she says.
Kaitlyn Ramirez mountaineering
“The actions for environmental justice have typically been led by ladies, notably ladies of coloration, as a result of the harms of fossil fuels and of local weather change disproportionately fall on the communities least liable for the issue. Fairness and justice are indispensable elements of the answer; the power transition and its advantages should middle on marginalized teams, together with ladies and notably ladies of coloration.” — Kaitlyn Ramirez, Affiliate, Local weather-Aligned Industries
Kaitlyn Ramirez works to advance inexperienced hydrogen’s use to decarbonize key industrial sectors. She’s at present working to determine a inexperienced hydrogen hub in Mississippi and facilitate the transition away from coal-reliant blast furnace metal crops. She’s energized by the chance to work on first-of-their-kind, bright-spot tasks that may reveal to different gamers in these industries that the chance to transition is already right here.
Samhita Shiledar
“With the present gender inequality in a lot of the world and the related lack of sources and knowledge, ladies are extra uncovered to the hostile impacts of local weather change. On the similar time, there are fewer ladies in local weather change-related governance and decision-making. This disparity in illustration makes local weather change a gender concern.” — Samhita Shiledar, Supervisor, India Program
Samhita Shiledar is engaged on decarbonizing the transportation system in India, together with electrifying supply autos by way of the Shoonya marketing campaign, selling zero-emissions trucking, and extra. She is most excited concerning the alternative to make an on-the-ground influence by way of her staff’s coverage and pilots-related work and the chance to scale RMI’s options in different growing nations.
Keep tuned for subsequent week’s article on March 8, Worldwide Girls’s Day, which highlights the work RMI is doing to shut the gender hole within the local weather change house.
Laurie Stone, Managing Editor, Communications
By Laurie Stone © 2021 Rocky Mountain Institute. Revealed with permission. Initially posted on RMI.
Featured picture courtesy of IRENA
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