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OWCA
Uniting nations on climate change
Working for the United Nations supporting 17 Latin American and Caribbean countries to address climate change, Asher Lessels (OW1997) found the inspiration to learn a language and describes the breadth and benefits of his important work.
‘I’m not studying languages!’
It was the start of Year 9 and Mum and I were having one of ‘those’ discussions. Since Grade 4, I had passed through classes of Italian, Japanese and Indonesian and couldn’t say more than ‘Hello’ in any of them. I just wasn’t good at languages. In Year 9, I studied music and graphic design instead and loved them. However Mum, being a language teacher, was a bit confused. She knew that I loved to travel. So why wouldn’t I want to speak to the people I met? As I finished Year 12 and went on to uni, the travel bug continued.
I backpacked around South America and became frustrated that I couldn’t speak to anyone. I couldn’t tell my friends to pass me the ball when we played soccer. I couldn’t ask anyone what that great song was on the radio and I couldn’t speak to my Argentine friends about why their country was in an economic crisis.
To be honest, I didn’t even know what an economic crisis was until I visited Argentina. Why was this country poorer than ours? This curiosity led me to want to study languages, so I started learning Spanish. Mum, thankfully, didn’t say anything. (I was waiting for the ‘told you so!’)
Today, I work for the United Nations, supporting Latin American and Caribbean countries to address climate change. I work with 17 countries across the region, helping them to develop and implement projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while at the same time, advancing sustainable development. To undertake these projects, the countries receive financing from a global fund based in Washington. The idea is that this financing supports these countries to choose low-emission projects over more polluting ones.
For instance, I am working Action on climate change with an electric car in Antigua and Barbuda: Asher Lessels (OW1997) (second from the right) with National Government representatives and local taxi drivers with the tiny Caribbean country of Antigua and Barbuda to introduce electric cars instead of conventional combustion vehicles.
At the same time, I am working with Argentina to support its cities to develop more sustainably through town planning which promotes people to use non-motorised transport (e.g. bicycles) and recycle waste. In Bolivia, my team is supporting the country to transform its streetlamps to LED lights, which use a lot less energy. Having language skills is fundamental for supporting these countries to make this change. Using the local language also means understanding the local cultural context and knowing how to communicate in a locally appropriate way.
I’ve been with the United Nations for ten years now, always working on climate change issues. As a global community, we all need to do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, otherwise we will end up in a world with more and more extreme weather events, such as large scale bushfires, floods and coral bleaching. In Latin America and the Caribbean, as in Australia, these events are already way more common than in the past. The countries that I work with, many of which have economic difficulties, are taking steps to show that a low-emission future is possible now.