New OSF climate justice head calls for 'urgent' action in global south

The first four months of Yamide Dagnet’s tenure as Open Society Foundations’ new climate justice director have been a swirl of meetings as she and other members of staff learn how to best direct more resources toward climate change mitigation and adaptation – issues that she said require “urgent” attention from the philanthropy sector. Dagnet will lead OSF’s efforts to support the implementation of the Paris Climate Accords and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals on climate action, as well as its efforts to engage in initiatives to speed the global transition to renewable energy. She said she wants to do so in a fair manner that advocates for vulnerable populations in the developing world and ensures that climate investments benefit them and don’t result in “human rights abuse.” “What we do and how we do it will matter,” she told Devex in her first interview since taking the position. “The ‘how’ will be as important as the ‘why.’” As Open Society’s first-ever climate justice director, Dagnet will develop a strategy that “accelerates political and economic transformations to achieve climate and social justice in strategic low- and middle-income countries,” OSF President Mark Malloch-Brown said. “It’s not just about a transition to a low-carbon economy, which we have to, but also to a more resilient society.” --— Yamide Dagnet, climate justice director, Open Society Foundations Since joining OSF in December, she has held meetings with partners that include other philanthropic organizations and OSF staff members. She said the meetings have been “extremely important” in informing her decision-making as she works to ensure that Open Society’s expanding climate work delivers the “most effective impact,” while addressing the core issues it’s known for: promoting democracy and human rights work. And that means incorporating accountability and transparency into OSF’s climate work in addition to performance indicators to show how actions taken are directly benefiting people, she said. “I can tell you that it’s been very intense with consultations internally but we also have external collaborators,'' Dagnet said. “It can start very early in the day to accommodate the different time zones and it can be a long day if we want to reach out to the eastern part of Asia.” Dagnet stepped into the newly created climate justice director role after a career spanning the private, nonprofit, and public sectors. She most recently served as the World Resources Institute’s director of climate negotiations focused on “the equitable implementation of the Paris Agreement and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change,” according to a press release. She also was a negotiator for the United Kingdom and the European Union on climate issues, with much of that work focusing on accountability and transparency, she said. “I’ve been working in the climate space for a long time,” she said. “So, I’m going to use that background, that knowledge, so that I don’t have to build from scratch. I came having an idea of some of the existing gaps.” Dagnet’s role was created as part of a broader reorganization at Open Society that involves shifting more funding and control to six regional offices around the world and consolidating the priorities of its global program “in order to harness our full capabilities.” Climate justice will now be “mission critical,” Malloch-Brown said in announcing Dagnet’s hire. OSF spent $1.4 billion in 2020 in areas that include economic equity and justice, and health and rights. The climate justice movement identifies inequalities in the way climate change affects different groups — and specifically the disproportionate social, economic, and health impacts it can have on underprivileged people and those living in regions most likely to experience the brunt of extreme weather events resulting from a warming planet. Last year, Dagnet, who is from the island of Guadeloupe, wrote about her experience seeing rising waters levels submerge parts of her homeland. She worries that it may soon disappear entirely. “I really need to bring my son there because it may be the last time he sees the heritage we were given and that we are losing,” she wrote. She told Devex that the world should be preparing for the likelihood that people living on islands and other vulnerable regions will soon be displaced en masse and forced to migrate. She said she hopes the rapid and comprehensive response to the Ukraine crisis will shed light on how the world’s wealthiest countries can come together to help such displaced people. “Some of the responses that we’ve seen for the war in Ukraine, are we going to see the same for other crises? Because there are going to be probably more because of climate change,” she said. While the budget for her office at OSF has not yet been finalized, Dagnet said she has ideas about what she would like to prioritize. A recent report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change showing the high stakes for global south countries if more international action isn’t taken to combat climate change will be a useful guide, she said. Dagnet previously held the position of U.K. Deputy Focal Point for the IPCC. “It’s not just about a transition to a low-carbon economy, which we have to, but also to a more resilient society. And that is important, especially after the IPCC report,” she said. “We need to do that by ensuring that we are going to foster more equitable, sustainable, and accessible finance, corporations, technology transfers, and capacity building.” She believes that philanthropy can play a role in that process by leveraging funding from institutions such as multilateral development banks and countries that will support the transition to green energy and climate change adaptation. Foundations like OSF can support blended finance initiatives that bring different sectors together and co-fund projects through grant-making, she said. In that way, they can help de-risk investments, according to Dagnet. Open Society is well aware of the urgency of climate change mitigation as it opens the new climate justice portfolio, she said. “We’re in implementation mode, and we probably need to do a lot of things learning by doing because business as usual is over,” she said. “We know that we cannot continue as we did, and we may not have the luxury to wait for the perfect answer or the perfect team.”