Early Years Climate Action Listening Session I: Why should the early years sector move towards climate action?
The effects of climate change can be particularly harmful to young children’s health, development, and school readiness. Extreme weather events, increasing air pollution, eco-anxiety, and toxic stress threaten the future of childhood. This first public listening session will focus specifically around the following questions: Why should the early years sector move towards climate action? How will climate change impact early childhood development? Panelists will share their experiences at the intersection of climate change and early years that moved them towards action.
Panelists
Jacqueline Patterson is the Founder and Executive Director of the Chisholm Legacy Project: A Resource Hub for Black Frontline Climate Justice Leadership. The mission of the Chisholm Legacy Project is rooted in a Just Transition Framework, serving as a vehicle to connect Black communities on the frontlines of climate justice with the resources to actualize visions. Prior to the launch of the Chisholm Legacy Project, Patterson served as the Senior Director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program for over a decade. During her tenure, she founded and implemented a robust portfolio which included serving the state and local leadership whose constituencies consisted of hundreds of communities on the frontlines of environmental injustice. She also led a team in designing and implementing a portfolio to support political education and organizing work executed by NAACP branches, chapters, and state conferences.
Laurence Chandy was appointed as UNICEF’s first Director of the Office of Global Insight and Policy in August 2019. He previously served as UNICEF’s Director of Data, Research and Policy, a position he held from 2017. Mr. Chandy came to UNICEF from the Brookings Institution where for 7 years he was a Fellow in the Global Economy and Development program. There he conducted research on global poverty, fragile states, aid effectiveness, and globalization. His work, including through his membership of the Atkinson Commission on Global Poverty, shaped reforms in global poverty measurement, and helped make the case for establishing the goal to end extreme poverty by 2030.
Aaron Bernstein is the Interim Director of The Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (Harvard Chan C-CHANGE), a pediatrician at Boston Children’s Hospital, and an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Bernstein focuses on the health impacts of the climate crisis on children’s health and advancing solutions to address its causes to improve the health and wellbeing of children around the world.
Luz Drada is a Program Coordinator for Moms Clean Air Force. She has had an interest in sustainability and the common good throughout her career. After becoming a mother, she became aware of the climate crisis and the impacts of climate change and air pollution on children’s development. Luz has held leadership positions in philanthropic and animal rescue groups in her native Colombia.
Joan Lombardi, PhD is a Senior Fellow at the Collaborative on Global Children’s Issues, Georgetown University and a Visiting Scholar at the Stanford Center on Early Childhood, Stanford Graduate School of Education. Over the past 50 years, Joan has made significant contributions in the areas of child and family policy as an innovative leader and policy advisor to national and international organizations and foundations and as a public servant.