The Tallinn University Podcast with Terry McDonald seeks to shed light on the research and activism taking place in Estonia, especially at Tallinn University; in this episode, we talk to a Tallinn University graduate, Jyri Jäntti, who was a delegate at the COP27 UN Climate Change Conference.
This season, the podcast is presented in conjunction with Estonian World.
In November 2022, world leaders from more than 190 countries – including the Estonian president, Alar Karis, and the country’s environment minister, Madis Kallas, gathered in Egypt to discuss ways to tackle climate change at the COP27. This is a climate summit which brings together countries that signed the United Nations climate agreement in 1992 to discuss and agree upon strategies to tackle climate change and support those suffering its consequences.
Estonia’s aim is to achieve climate neutrality by 2050 by phasing out fossil fuel-based energy production by 2040. According to the UN environment programme, adapting to the climate crisis could require everything from building sea walls to creating drought-resistant crops, which could cost developing countries anywhere from USD160-USD340 billion annually by 2030.
Another participant in the COP27 in Egypt was Jyri Jäntti, a recent Tallinn University graduate and a climate change specialist for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Jäntti works closely with topics related to the climate change-migration nexus, climate action transparency, private sector engagement in climate action, and carbon markets. “It’s important to start to read and look at what’s happening globally, seeing that there’s only one possible future for us, which is a low emission future,” Jäntti says.
In the second episode of season three of the Tallinn University Podcast, Jäntti joins host Terry McDonald from Egypt to discuss COP27 and provide first-hand commentary of the inner workings of the summit, main topics addressed, and solutions proposed. The interview then turns to how the conference relates to Estonia, and what the decisions made there will mean on the ground in Northern Europe.
Listen also: Podcast: Woman, life, freedom – Iranian protests in Estonia.
