Welcome to the Daily Glasgow Coppuchino. Start each day of COP26 by drinking in a few minutes of warm stimulating conversation about climate resilience. I'm your host, Peter Willis from the Resilience Shift. Shall we begin? My guest on the Smorning's Coppuchino is Bejal Brambutt. A civil engineer by training, Bejal is the executive director of the Mahila Housing Trust, or MHT, based in Ahmedabad in India. MHT's mission is to organise and empower women in poor communities to build their resilience to climate change by improving their homes, with services such as clean water, toilets, electricity and ventilation. Welcome, Bejal, it's wonderful to have you here on our Coppuchino. I would love to know, Bejal, from all the years I believe you've been with MHT for 23 years now, and it's director for 10. What would you say from all those years of experience are the essential building blocks that go to make up a resilient community in the sort of cities where you and your organisation work? So I think the first building block is trying to organise the poor women and their collectives themselves, because they should be gathering the evidence and reaching out to the city authorities and other stakeholders and speaking in their interest. This is a little bit challenging because you must understand that the poor's attention is always gathered by short-term issues like having access to water or probably getting fees for education for their children or the next meal. And so getting them organised around issues of climate change, which is a little bit abstract to them. So most of them do say that, oh, the heat is increasing or there are unpredictable rains, but you know, it's all God's act. So how do you really de-emystify this scientific issue and get their attention and get them to organise around this issue because the first step is organising and they themselves assessing their vulnerabilities and talking to the government. So I think that's the most essential thing. The second thing I think is that, you know, the processes that you undertake should enable the poor to forge disruptive collaborations with the scientists, the governments, the technologists, etc. And so these disruptive collaborations should actually bring about a change in the city, in their communities and settlements. The third thing that I think is most essential is that and should be brought out by the communities to the city governments is that the governments need to look at disaster or climate change, mitigation, adaptation and resilience in an integrated manner because, you know, the government is still working in silos of either mitigation or adaptation. Resilience is yet to be a very new concept to them. The challenge though is that the poor have to claim their spaces with the government. So, you know, you've really got to build an atmosphere of trust and partnerships to get them to claim that spaces with the government. So that is, I think, essentially very, very important. That's what we do as a third step. And the fourth step, of course, is that then they start influencing the policies and the programs in favor of the poor, but not only in favor of the poor, but would also then expand to include entities. So, I'm interested, Bigel, in what do you think the organizations from the Global South like MHT and others that you link with? What do you bring to Glasgow to these cops that is unique and potentially potent into the consciousness of the negotiators? It has been our observation and our experience that probably, you know, the negotiators think that they are probably acting in a manner that and think of only larger issues like, say, transportation or probably, you know, in the case of India so much more emphasis is given on only renewable energy. So, first of all, I think they think in terms of silos, of mitigation, adaptation and resilience, as I said, and they need to think in an integrated manner. The second thing I think that we tend to ignore is that, you know, with the fast-paced urbanization that cities are going to, you know, you know, experience across the Global South, you know, it's going to play a huge havoc because, you know, this intersection of urbanization, climate change and informality is going to deprive the poor, the most urbanization is being talked about in silos, climate change in silos. So, this intersection is very important to understand how the deprivation of the poor is going to increase much more due to these intersections is something that we can also offer to the negotiators at Glasgow. And lastly, I think all the research, the debates and the investments, I have to ultimately go towards action on the ground. I mean, we are in every year, you know, countries are meeting, their negotiations are happening, and a lot of money is flowing in there too, but, you know, how much of it percolates down the ground is a challenge. And also, how it includes the poor, you know, because all of us know that they contribute the list and, you know, they bear the biggest brunt. So, how, including, you know, their actions are and how the voices of poor are going to be brought in is something that they all need to think about and give brum and instruments. You're painting a picture there, Bigel, of an increasingly complex and compressed and stressed environment in the cities of the global south, as these climate change and urbanization intersect. And I just wonder at a personal and professional level, how you and your team manage to draw the energy and the inspiration and the courage to keep going. Where does that come from? I think firstly, the inspiration and the courage to keep going on in such a complex environment also comes in from the communities that we work with, especially women, because we have seen how, how vulnerable they are and how easy it is to get pulled back in the spiral of poverty despite several efforts that they are making. And, you know, generation after generation, you know, being poorer or becoming increasingly poorer. And despite those challenges, those multiple challenges that they are facing, they go on and on and on relentlessly, happily and in a smiling way, you know. So, that's what we really draw courage from. So, in fact, even in my personal life, you know, when we are depressed or, you know, probably, yeah, a little bit down, we really draw inspiration from those women on how they are continuing the action and how they are working for the betterment of their families and their economic conditions. So, I think that's a great driving force. I think the second most important element is that because we work across levels from household to community to cities and also with various stakeholders, you are always on a learning path. And you are also personally and professionally always developing learning new things, you know, and developing on them. And if you have a culture within your organization that allows you to grow and we do faster that culture, I think it is a huge, huge satisfaction. So, that's where we get this trend from continually doing what we are doing. What an inspiring answer, Bijal. And I find myself wishing that the negotiators in Glasgow and at every cop were able somehow to be teleported into the reality that you're reporting from the ground. With your women and communities, not only to see the way the problem actually manifests so differently to what they imagine in the north and in their offices and so on, but also to tap into that relentless ability to be joyful even when things look desperate because that is a source of energy just like coal or oil, isn't it? Yes. Look, I want to thank you very warmly, Bijal. It's been such a pleasure meeting you and I wish you every strength you and your colleagues with the extraordinary work you continue to do and may you be successful.