The Global South is not Waiting: Climate Solutions from the Frontlines
About the Event
On the sidelines of the London Climate Week this year Goonj invites you to an evening of conversation, reflection, and learning on one of the most urgent questions of our time: What can we learn about climate resilience from the people living with climate impacts every day?
For over two decades, Goonj has worked alongside communities affected by floods, cyclones, earthquakes, droughts, and other humanitarian crises across India. In that journey, some of our most important lessons on resilience have come from the very people who live with uncertainty, disruption, and change every day.
Across the Global South, communities on the frontlines of climate change are not waiting for solutions—they are already creating them. Drawing on local knowledge, frugal innovation, collective action, and deep understanding of their realities, they are adapting in ways that are practical, effective, and sustainable. Yet despite being closest to the challenges, their experiences, insights, and solutions receive only a fraction of the attention, trust, and resources flowing through global climate systems.
Who Should Attend
This session brings together practitioners, philanthropists, impact investors, and changemakers to explore what it will take to shift capital, visibility, and decision-making closer to standing with and learning from these communities.
About the Exhibition
Complementing the conversation is Disasters: Myths and Realities, a powerful photo exhibition by Ramon Magsaysay Awardee, Ashoka and Schwab Fellow Anshu Gupta, Founder, Goonj & Gram Swabhimaan. Drawing from over two decades of his personal work in disaster-affected regions, the exhibition nudges for a rethink on conventional disaster narratives, revealing the human cost of disasters but more importantly the courage, dignity, resilience, and collective resilience of people.
Speakers
1. Anshu Gupta, Founder, Goonj
A globally recognised thought leader on climate justice, humanitarian action, and sustainable development, Anshu is a frequent TED and World Economic Forum speaker. Anshu is an Ashoka and Schwab Fellow whose leadership has earned Goonj honours like the World Bank Development Marketplace Award, Changemakers Innovation Award, India NGO of the Year, and the Mother Teresa Memorial Award for Social Justice. Forbes listed him among India's most powerful rural entrepreneurs. Recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award, often called Asia's Nobel Prize, Anshu Gupta is the founder of Goonj, a pioneering social enterprise that reimagined urban surplus as a resource for rural development, dignity, and climate resilience. Over the past 27 years, he has transformed India's culture of giving through community-led models that connect material reuse, disaster response, circular economy, and grassroots development. Over the last two decades, Goonj has also emerged as the first responder to climate emergencies across India, engaging pan-India civic participation and building societal alliances for rapid response.
Full panel to be updated soon.
About Goonj
Goonj is a pioneering social enterprise that reimagines urban surplus as a resource for rural development, dignity, and climate resilience. Over more than two decades, it has built community-led models connecting material reuse, disaster response, the circular economy, and grassroots development, and has emerged as a first responder to climate emergencies across India mobilising pan-India civic participation and building societal alliances for rapid response.