This is Climate to Action, a CCUSM student podcast.
We amplify voices, explore solutions to the climate
crisis, and confront climate injustice for all
living beings. I'm your host, Molly Saruwatari.
Here at C2A, we are committed to providing a
variety of perspectives for addressing the climate
crisis in every episode. Stay tuned for the end
of the episode, where we provide you ways that
you can take action yourself. First, we'd like
to acknowledge that our recording studio is on
the traditional territory of the Luceño -Payacuichum
people. CSUSM and its surrounding areas are still
home to the six federally recognized bands of
the La Jolla, Paula, Palma, Pechanga, Rincon,
and Ceboba Luceño -Payacuichum people. This land
is also a shared space among the Cupeño, Kumeyaay,
and Epay peoples. For today's episode, we are
so excited to welcome a very special guest, Dr.
Ronnie K. O'Dell. Dr. Odell is a professor here
at CSUSM in the Political Science Department.
She's also the advisor of multiple organizations
and clubs on this campus. Dr. Odell, welcome.
Thank you. I'm really excited to be here. Can
you start by telling us a little bit about your
role at CSUSM and how you became involved with
the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals?
I would love to. I am an assistant professor
of environmental politics within the College
of well, it's CHABS, the College of Humanities,
Arts, Behavior, and Social Sciences, and then
with the Political Science and Global Affairs
Department. Lots of acronyms and all of that.
But I teach and I research about environmental
governance. And I often tell people, a lot of
my research is about how humans cannot destroy
the earth. But there's also a lot in there about
how we can thrive how we ourselves can protect
our lives as well as protect the environment
and how do we do that at the national and especially
at the international level so that is what i'm
doing here at csusm i got into the sustainable
development goals because i've very for a long
time i have been interested in understanding
how human thriving and human development, which
I've studied a lot in the past, is connected
with environment and environmental development
or environmental governance. Because there is
a distinction between those two. You know, when
we as humans... thrive or when we use resources
that means that we need to use what's around
us in the environment and what is that connection
what is the disconnect what are the challenges
so it's kind of like a merging of a lot of my
different research interests. And I know we'll
get into it more. So I guess I'll just leave
it there. That's why I'm interested in sustainable
development. All right. So I actually have had
the privilege of taking Dr. Odell's classes.
I'm in her class currently, and I took her last
semester where I actually met Dr. Odell. And
so I've had the privilege of understanding what
this... the United Nations Sustainable Development
Goals are. However, many of our listeners maybe
don't know what that is. So can you explain to
them what they are, how they work, kind of that
whole thing? Yes, absolutely. They are 17 very
ambitious goals for how the world can come together
to do what I was just talking about. Make sure
that humans can thrive in their lives while at
the same time we ensure that the earth can also
thrive. And all of the things that that means,
you know, different animal species and the water
and the air and mountains and rivers and all
those kinds of things. How do we use all those
resources while ensuring that we don't abuse
them? the United Nations General Assembly, which
is the United Nations is an intergovernmental
organization bringing all the countries of the
world together to try to address shared problems.
The UNGA passed or adopted this resolution that
accepted these 17 goals. And the 17 goals are
really ambitious ideas. about how we want to
live in this world. So ending poverty in all
its forms everywhere, ensuring gender equality,
access to quality education. Those are some of
the social development goals. And there's also
environmental goals connected to climate, connected
to protecting land, protecting water, protecting
forests, reducing desertification. protecting
biodiversity. You know, there's a whole bunch
here. So there's 17 goals, 169 targets to measure
the goals, and more than 250 indicators to measure
the goals. We won't be able to talk about all
of those today, but that's essentially what it
is. And these 17 goals have just proliferated
around the world, really. You know, since they
were accepted, they were negotiated. at UNGA
which is the general assembly and then they were
accepted and adopted they have been adopted in
local governments, in national governments, in
universities, in corporations, local nonprofits.
So much has been organized around these SDGs
that now that your listeners have heard about
them, they'll start seeing them everywhere. SDGs,
what you're looking for. But there are these...
17 blocks which represent the SDGs and each of
them has a number that is associated and they
have a different color so you'll start seeing
these blocks everywhere and you know you know
statements or policy documents or whatever you'll
be like oh those are the SDGs yes Right. And
one of my personal favorite SDGs surrounds human
health and health quality and the quality of
health. I love the SDGs. I remember doing my
research last year with you or last fall with
infectious diseases. And we were talking all
about the SDGs and how that relates to climate
change. But how does an intergovernmental organization
like the United Nations. Pick up the sustainable
development goals. Why did it come to the UN's
attention? Where do I start? Because this is
a long story, actually. And maybe this is a good
time. I don't know if it is, but I'm writing
a book about this and I'm in the final throes
of writing this book. So I'm just now finishing
up and I'm going to be submitting it to the publisher
this week. And the book. goes into the history
of where the Sustainable Development Goals came
from. Mostly it's about the negotiation process,
and I know you're probably going to ask me more
about that in a moment, but where did it all
start? How does this get onto the agenda? Well,
in the 1960s and 70s, and it goes back further
than this, but the 1960s and 70s... people started
noticing that the impact of human activity was
being felt everywhere. And some of the first
research on the ocean that happened in the 60s
and 70s found plastics in the depths of the ocean.
where basically where humans had never been before
because they were able to go down and they started
finding these bits of things and then they assessed
them and it was plastic from human production.
And there were many other examples from the 1960s
and 70s, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring in the
United States. People started noticing and being
concerned. And in Sweden, there was a very specific
movement about the environment. And Swedish ambassadors
said, we can't just do this at the local level.
Local level is so important. National level is
important. But we've got to get all of the world
countries together to figure this out. So they
became instrumental in creating what became known
as the Stockholm Conference, which was the Conference
on Human Environment. And this was in 1972. Okay,
I'm going to fast forward a long time, you know,
a lot, because I could talk about this forever,
as you can tell. But that's where it started.
You know, these people who were concerned about
industrial and human activities and the impact
it was having on our environment. And they said,
we have to get that to the international level.
Since then, there has been much done, many work
streams in the United Nations to address environmental
issues. And all of those work streams sort of
coalesced in the early 2000s when there was a
discussion about what to replace development
goals that had been created in the millennium.
So the millennium development goals were eight
goals that were adopted by the UNGA, the General
Assembly, in 2000. These goals were focused...
mostly, there was a little bit about environment,
but they were mostly focused on social and economic
development issues. So these were things like
that I had just mentioned, you know, and you
mentioned health, poverty, education, and they
had a deadline of 2015. So when that deadline
was approaching, the environmental community
and the development community started talking,
which they hadn't. really done very much, a little
bit, you know, I mean, it was about the, like
the 1972 conference was human environment, you
know, on the human environment, but they still
had really been working in different work streams.
So they said, is this an opportunity to combine
development and development concerns with concerns
about environment? And that's where the discussion
got going. So to answer your question, people
were concerned and they said, Unless we get all
the countries together and all of the different
actors, we call them actors in the international
system, you know, countries and their governments,
but also corporations, et cetera. Unless we get
them all together to try to figure out how to
work on agreements to address these problems,
we won't make the progress we want to make. And
there's a lot to talk about in there, but that's
how it all began. Absolutely. Let's kind of unpack
the, you talked about the 2015. How did the UN
bring countries together during that time, so
2015, to adopt the 2030 agenda for sustainable
development? Because of this, why are the SDGs
considered a global commitment rather than just
another UN policy document? Why has it hit so
hard in the global everything? It really has.
Part of that, well, let's go back to your first
part of the question, then I'll get to the second
part. 2015. And 2015 was kind of the culmination
of all of this. It really started five years
earlier. But the main place that countries began
to really think about... uniting these different
communities that I was just talking about is
the 2012 conference on environment and on sustainable
development sorry the conference on a sustainable
development this was called Rio plus 20. because
that conference followed up 20 years from another
conference that had happened in Rio in 1992 called
the conference. It was usually called the Earth
Summit. But the conference in 1992 was followed
up in 2012. In 2012, there was a Colombian diplomat
who her name was Paula Caballero. And she is
still very much active and engaged. But in 2012,
she had this. Very shocking idea to instead of
or to use the opportunity with the end of the
Millennium Development Goals to combine these
two communities and to get more about the environment
in it. So she brought that to the 2012 conference.
And the conference approved and said. Okay, let's
move forward. We need an intergovernmental negotiation
to see what do we replace with what comes after
the MDGs. That intergovernmental negotiation
took on a whole bunch of different forms. But
one form was what happened from UNGA, the General
Assembly. They created what's called an open
working group. And the open working group met
for 13 sessions over about a year and a half.
There were a lot of different people engaged
in the process, following in the process. There
were 30 seats on the open working group, but
the 30 seats were each shared by three different
countries. So there were essentially 90 countries
involved. And the negotiation began with all
these themes that we sometimes have referenced
here already. You know, health, education, poverty,
climate change, finance. sustainable cities.
I'm trying to think about, you know, there was
so many. And each time they would come together,
they met for a week for every month for 13 months.
And each time they would come together, they
would learn as much as possible about those particular
topics. And after they did that, they negotiated
on putting together these 17 development goals.
and 169 targets to measure the goals. And then
that was put forward to the General Assembly
in 2015 and adopted in 2015. So that's an overview
of the process. And you asked about how this
became this ambitious global agreement. Is that
what you said? Agreement? Yeah. Rather than sort
of a boring policy document that nobody thinks
about or looks at. Right. And there's a lot to
unpack there, but one clearly is that every country
in the world has agreed that these sustainable
development goals are important, they need to
be met, and they've been approved, and every
country in the world has been working on adopting
them. They even, through what's called the High
-Level Political Forum, under ECOSOC, the Economic
and Social Council, countries provide... these
reports, but also commitments, nationally determined
commitments to how they are going to achieve
the sustainable development goals. And it's a
lot, you know, so these reports are extensive
and they typically, the reports cover only a
couple of goals at a time or focus on a couple
of goals, but all the countries in the world
have been supporting. these and so like I mentioned
earlier so many other organizations companies
universities there has been so much momentum
behind it and if I had to boil it down to one
reason why it's become more than just a boring
policy document it's because people find the
goals to reflect the kind of world we want to
live in. They are ambitious, but they are achievable.
And they combine environment and human development
goals to say, we want to live wonderful lives
where we have access to goods and services and
where we can thrive and where we can enjoy our
world. The marketing behind the goals themselves
has been pretty good too because they're pretty
obvious when you see them. I brought show and
tell, which I know your listeners can't see,
but you can see the goals in their little boxes
and they are inspiring when you look at them.
So it has morphed into something bigger than
just a policy document. Yeah, absolutely. And
I remember looking, we had to look at the sustainable
development goals and kind of where our country
sat. last semester and I was representing the
United States in our model United Nations discussion
that we had and I remember seeing where the United
States stood and I thought we were doing a lot
better than according to the SDGs than what we
were and that was like a huge wake -up call for
me who I've been on this podcast for a while
and I love sustainability and I was like wow
like this is insane how we're not doing as well
as I originally thought we were I thought we
were going to be in the top 10 and I think we
were like 30 something, maybe 40? We're 44 out
of 193 on the index of them all. So there's an
index that particular organizations have put
together where they take as many indicators as
we have information on and they put them in an
index and then they compare how well countries
are doing. So out of 193 countries, we're doing...
as well as the 44th right country and it's not
awful but it's not as good as we should be doing
i believe and it's cool if you look on the sustainable
development goals website um 12 of our listeners
it's very accessible just go on google you can
look it up and you can see each individual country
and each individual goal how they're doing for
each individual goal and each individual goal
has like subsections so it's really interesting
so if you get a chance look it up But Dr. O'Dell,
you talked a little bit about communities that
came together to bring it to UNGA. What communities
were a part of this discussion? Were some of
their individual voices heard? Voices, we like
to focus a lot on indigenous knowledge. Were
indigenous populations, were their voices heard
when it came to this discussion of the SDGs?
And how were different stakeholders even included,
different countries? I love this question because
this is the focus of the book. So if you're interested
in this topic and then if you want to know how
non -state actors are involved in international
negotiations, then the book that will come out
this year from Springer Nature is going to be
the book that I think that you'll want to read
because it unpacks that whole process. It doesn't
just... tell us how states interact through the
UN and through the committees. But how are you
and I, you know, how are the average people in
the world? And you mentioned indigenous communities.
How are all of these people able to be a part
of the process? You know, when it's an intergovernmental
negotiation, you don't usually think other actors
that I or I or you could be involved. Right.
How does that happen? Right. So. One thing that
has been very important to the United Nations
since its creation was including non -state actors.
And there are several different modalities or
mechanisms for that. One of the major ones is
that NGOs, non -governmental organizations, can
become... consult, they can get consultative
status to the UN through ECOSOC, the one I mentioned
earlier, Economic and Social Council. When they
gain consultative status, that means that they
can observe in meetings and even be invited to
speak during meetings in what are called interventions.
And then they have access to the UN, they have
access to the buildings where the delegates are
working and then of course they engage in all
kinds of other ways to in to interact with delegates
and interact with their go their own governments
to try to have their voice heard and be a part
of the process but in the negotiations that went
into creating the sustainable development goals
there were honestly so many opportunities for
non -state actors to be involved that so I started
out this this research a few years ago I wanting
to identify the process and I became overwhelmed
it was a lot I did some interviews and the people
that I interviewed said yeah we almost were over
consulted because Every organization, every UN
entity was sending out a new survey each day
saying, what do you want in the goals? What do
you want to see in this process? So one of them
was called the My World Survey. And I brought
a little thing to show you. This is the My World
Survey. The My World Survey was created by some
really creative people, I'll say, in the... in
some organizations that were working closely
with the United Nations. And leading up to the
negotiations in 2012, they said, we need to see
what the average person thinks and what did they
want from this new list of goals. So they put
out this survey in all kinds of forms. They put
it out on the internet. And on the internet,
you could go on to the survey. And they also
used organizations, nonprofit organizations,
local civil society organizations, international
organizations. They used them to share the survey
with all of their people. So all that to say,
the survey asked people to rank 16 items. And
the ranking was the idea, which ones are more
important for what might become the SDGs? And
nine million people filled out this survey in
the final tally. Oh, my gosh. On the top was
good education, better health care. To your point,
you're concerned about health care, better job
opportunities, honest and responsive government.
And then it starts getting into some of the things
that we're maybe more interested in this podcast.
Food, water, near the. The bottom part on the
ranking list is protecting forests, rivers, oceans,
taking action on climate change. But I bring
that all up to say that's one example, one example
of literally hundreds of surveys that went out
from NGOs, from the UN, to try to figure out
what people would want. Those people who put
the survey together and those organizations who
went out, to find out what the, to get the survey
answered, they brought the survey information
to the UN committees. So that open working group
that I was talking about and then other processes
that were happening, they consistently reported
on the survey to those committees. So the committees,
the delegates who were negotiating these topics
would be consistently reminded, here's what the
average people want. So that's one way, those
surveys. Now, this survey, one of the organizations
that I interviewed and that I did a little deep
dive into, Watanatodo Abayan, which means Don't
Break Your Promises. It's an Indian civil society
organization. They sent out this survey to many
locations in India to try to gain. input and
they hosted conferences around India to gain
input and they put it together in a report. Another,
the World Association for Girl Scouts and Girl
Guides, they identified what they called post
-2015 ambassadors to go out to local villages,
local people who didn't have internet access,
who couldn't respond to the survey online and
who wouldn't have found this survey or even interacted
with it in any other way these post -2015 ambassadors
went out had people in local rural villages without
internet fill out the survey came back compiled
them and submitted them and they got the the
my world survey was giving awards at the time
for the amount that they could pull in from the
survey but That is one way. And then I'll finally
mention another way, which goes back to my initial
response to your question. Organizations, both
nonprofit, nongovernmental, stakeholder, corporations
to local governments, they were all really involved
in this process because they knew it would be
important and they knew it would have a big effect
on their work. They were deeply following the
open working group and some other processes that
were happening at the time. But they made it
possible to go to New York and or they tried
to make it possible. They worked with organizations.
They worked with amongst themselves to go to
New York. And there was another civil society
organization called the Beyond 2015 Campaign
who supported. So many organizations, through
their work, either sharing their work with the
Open Working Group or helping them to get there.
And people would come to the Open Working Group
when they met. As I said, they met for one week
out of each month for 13 months. Organizations
from all over the world would go to the meetings
and try to get their voice heard. They would
sign up to give interventions. And they were
able to give interventions. informal session.
And that means when other delegates were listening,
the delegates from countries, and then they were
able to do a lot of side events and lobbying
and engagement. So it really was this amazing
time where people were excited. They were also
concerned, you know, because they wanted to make
sure that their ideas were in this new agreement.
And they found as many ways as possible to be
involved. You asked about the indigenous population.
And this is the final thing I'll say, which is
that there was a mechanism through the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
and the work with UNEA, the United Nations Environmental
Program, called the major groups. At the time,
there were nine major groups. Now there are 22.
These major groups are a way to organize. NGOs
or other non -state actors around a particular
issue. One of them was the Indigenous Peoples
Major Group. And they came to these meetings,
spoke often. Often they spoke about human rights
and that they wanted to see that SDGs have a
human rights framework. So I've sort of covered
over and mentioned a lot of organizations and
a lot of ways that this was happening. But you
kind of see, connected to what I said earlier,
So many people were involved in the process.
And they wanted to see an ambitious agenda in
the SDGs. And they wanted to see their idea in
the SDGs. So they became embedded in it. They
did as much as possible to be part of the process,
both the intergovernmental part as well as all
the other work streams that were happening. And
they had a chance to give their voice. It didn't
always mean that it... turned into, you know,
what became the SDGs, but they were at least
in conversation with each other in so many ways.
Right. Yeah. And that's really cool. I mean,
the SDGs are just fascinating how they came to
be. Everybody all like the collaboration that
went into it. It's amazing how you can see when
there's something that we as a globe care about,
you can see how quickly we can come to more.
quickly -ish, we can come together and get something
done, especially when it's about sustainability.
And you mentioned a few times living a healthy
and good life as well as having generations after
us live that same healthy and good life. So this
is a really good way to kind of transition into
talking a little bit more about SDG 13, which
is the climate action goal. How come the United
Nations decided to identify climate change and
climate action as one standalone global goal
and not kind of put it into a subcategory? What
makes climate change and climate action so important?
Good question. And at the time, it was absolutely
not certain that climate action would be a standalone
goal. There was a recognition. that human development,
all this social development, economic development,
these different communities, needed to be in
conversation with environment in sustainable
development communities. But as these negotiations
were happening, there were also other negotiations
that were going on. And I won't get too much
into the weeds into this, but the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change started in 1992.
And this... Framework Convention. It's called
the UNFCCC. The UNFCCC, one of the main streams
of work that it is and was attempting to do was
to reduce carbon emissions. It recognized, and
when I say it, it's like this whole process and
so many people, but they recognized that carbon
emissions were on the rise and have been on the
rise, you know, since the Industrial Revolution,
and that Carbon emissions directly connect with
the increase in average global temperatures.
And the increase in average global temperatures
is affecting climate change. And climate change
is having some really detrimental impacts on
human health as well as animal health and our
whole environment. So one of the first things
that in this, at least in this particular stream,
the discussion was how do we get countries to
agree on reducing carbon emissions? So the UNFCCC.
has what are called Conference of Parties. Conference
of Parties. They bring countries together every
year to negotiate and discuss how do we reduce
our carbon emissions. In 2015, when this was
all being negotiated, another process, the Conference
of Parties 21, that was to meet in Paris in July,
they were preparing for their discussions. And
there was a lot... of momentum behind getting
another agreement going. The Kyoto Protocol from
1997 was an agreement to reduce carbon emissions,
but it didn't work very well. It didn't hold
countries to account. So there was a lot of momentum.
There was excitement. There was some nervousness
because the most recent COP19 hadn't done well.
And so there was a lot of nervousness. Now, They
were meeting, they were negotiating, they were
trying to figure out in this work stream over
here, how do we get to Paris? How do we get all
these countries to agree on carbon emissions?
How do we get them to agree on what is the appropriate
level of Celsius that we would allow our world
to be above or beyond? Should it be 1 .5? Should
it be 2? And so there was a lot of fear that
the SDGs... would either contradict or undermine
that. Because the SDGs were meant to be, the
open working group would make its proposal before
the climate meeting in Paris. So if the SDGs
said something that was less ambitious, that
could mean that the COP agreement, which we now
know as the Paris Agreement, But at the time,
the COP agreement maybe would be less ambitious.
If it was more ambitious, then it would undermine.
So there was all these questions. So many questions
of, should we even have this standalone goal?
Let's just subsume it and mainstream it, basically,
across all of the SDGs. In the end, they said,
and this gets to your question, they said, climate
change is just too important not to include.
as a standalone goal and that's the same with
the so this is 13 14 and 15 14 and 15 on land
issues associated and then 15 on oceans and rivers
and they said we we have to include these as
standalone goals but here i'll i'll let you read
it because goal number 13 Take urgent action
to combat climate change and all its impacts.
It has an asterisk at the end. Read what's at
the bottom of the asterisk, what it's referencing.
Okay. Acknowledging that the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change, or the UNFCCC,
is the primary international intergovernmental
forum for negotiating the global response to
climate change. Right? So they were able to get
around. The challenges of this negotiation and
include it as a standalone goal as they knew
it should be. But the political issues, as you
see, were so challenging. It was just a challenge.
They were able to get around that by saying,
you know, we agree to this ambition. We think
climate change is so important, but we will.
defer to the agreements and the negotiation that's
happening within the UNFCCC. And that allowed
for both of these to happen. And it was so good.
It was sort of brilliant because then it allowed
for these three goals to be specifically focused
on these climate issues. Climate. land, and oceans,
while at the same time as recognizing that these
other work streams are so important. And those
other work streams are incredibly important because
then they allow the countries to continue this
work. And the Paris Agreement was hugely important
at the time. It brought countries together. They
were able to pass it and agree to voluntary commitments
on reducing their carbon emissions. Oh, I did
that. Like, I didn't even know about that final
little asterisk. Asterisk. It is a hard word
to say. Asterisk. Asterisk. Thank you. That's
like, wow. I, that's crazy. So, okay. To kind
of start wrapping up this episode, you mentioned
that climate change influences global stability,
migration, public health, of course, and economic
development and so many other global issues that
we've seen here today. In your opinion, why can't
climate action succeed without collaboration
across nations, sectors, and even different disciplines,
even different majors here at the school? Why
can't it succeed without collaboration across
countries, nations, people groups, etc.? You
know, I mean, I think it says it in the goals,
actually. You know, read some of these goals,
by the way, your audience, you know, will want
to read them because especially goal 13, 14 and
15, they try to kind of include everything, you
know, but when you look at them, you see how
interconnected we are. Yeah. We think of ourselves
as individual people, as individual countries,
as individual groups. But really, we are interconnected
and interdependent even if we don't think we
are. And just looking at a map shows that interdependence
when we see that borders are made up and that
waters, rivers, oceans, air, the things that
we need to live a decent, healthy, thriving life.
don't stay within those borders. They cross those
borders. And because of that, it's so important
to be connected with each other and to make these
decisions together. absolutely and you even see
it a local example of these waters crossing borders
look at the Tijuana River it starts down in Mexico
and then it comes up here and we have the beautiful
Tijuana River Valley and estuaries so that's
just a local example of how water air even just
land transcends boundaries there's no such thing
as a border when it comes to air so Now that
we've finished that, this is going to bring us
to the very final part of our podcast, our call
to action. I know you were very excited for this
part, and I'm excited to hear your call to action.
So for those of you who may be new with us here
today, the call to action is something that you,
our listeners, can do in your day -to -day lives.
Okay, Dr. Odell, what is your call to action?
At the beginning, before we started recording,
I told Molly that she was going to be really
surprised at my call to action. And maybe you
won't be, but I'm kind of surprised at it. My
call to action is to observe the world around
you. My call to action is to watch a sunrise.
Watch a sunset. Go find an ant, like village.
And watch what the ants do for an hour. Look
at this beauty that we have around us. Look at
the amazing colors in the morning. The Japanese
call it forest bathing. Go walk through a forest.
I don't think we're connected enough to our environment
on a regular basis to appreciate how important
and how valuable it is. And then after you do
that a lot, then go do the other things. Then
go and write a letter to your senator or representative.
Then go be involved. But before you do that,
connecting to our world that we're so dependent
on, that we live and breathe even if we don't
know it. and recognizing its existence is so
crucial so it's kind of like a call to stop before
you start and think before you act I love that
I think that's probably my favorite call to action
I was expecting that second part to be your call
to action so I love that you are encouraging
our listeners to go out and just take a minute,
especially like if you're a student here at CCUSM,
we're so busy, midterms just finished. And so
connecting and the San Diego sunsets lately have
been gorgeous. So amazing. So go, yeah, I'm probably
gonna go watch the sunset today now. Anyway,
thank you so much for sharing your insights with
us today, Dr. Odell. I really enjoyed your insights
on policy and climate change and climate action
and seeing how international organizations are
making strides to combat climate change. But
before we end, you mentioned you have your book
coming out this year. Can you tell us when it's
coming out and where we can find it? Yes. So
it's coming out with Springer Nature, which once
they publish it, it will be available on all
the platforms. So you can look at Springer Nature,
but you can look at Amazon. It will be on the
Sustainable Development Goals. And my title right
now. The publisher might change this. I don't
know. But my title right now is Sustainable Development
Goals, a Civil Society Perspective. And civil
society references... those non -state, non -government,
non -corporation actors who are involved in all
this, some of those that I mentioned, you know.
So just like people like you and me and organizations
who are involved in these process, how can they
be a part of local, national, and international
action to address that? So that's why it's called
that. But I also reference stakeholders too,
you know, local governments, corporations, how
can they be involved in all of this? um when
is it coming out likely the near fall like so
around fall 2026 okay look for it then all right
I'm super excited you will catch me reading this
book absolutely and if I'm you know in a different
state I'll come back and you can sign up for
me yes you have to I will definitely sign okay
awesome Want to hear more from Climate to Action,
a CSUSM student podcast? Be sure to check us
out wherever you get your podcasts and follow
us on our socials at Climate to Action. That's
at Climate to Action on Instagram and at Climate
the number two action on TikTok. We will be posting
updates, behind the scenes content and so much
more. Remember, it's never too late to start
making a difference in the climate crisis. Keep
learning, keep acting, and keep pushing for change.
Until next time, this is Climate to Action signing
off. Climate to Action is recorded at Inspiration
Studios on the CCUSM campus.