Decarbonizing the built environment: roadblocks and pathways for the developing world

Welcome to the Harvard Center for International Development’s Road to GEM23 Climate & Development podcast. At CID, we work across a global network of researchers and practitioners to build, convene, and deploy talent to address the world’s most pressing challenges. On our Road to GEM23, we strive to elevate and learn from voices from the countries on the frontlines of the climate crisis and will feature learnings from leading researchers and practitioners working to combat climate change. In this episode, we are joined by Kritika Kharbanda, a Master’s in Design Studies graduate(‘23)at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, specializing in Energy and Environments. During her time at Harvard, she was also the Chang Social Innovation Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. Kritika also co-founder of Cardinal LCA, a digital platform that helps architects reduce greenhouse emissions from their buildings throughout all stages of design. Kritika is joined by CID Student Ambassador Charles Hua to discuss the needs, process, and roadblocks for decarbonizing the building sector, especially for developing countries. Learn more about Kritika on her LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kritika-kharbanda-kritika/

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Incredible progress has been made throughout the world in recent years. However, globalization has failed to deliver on its promises. As problems like unequal access to education and healthcare, environmental degradation, and stretched finances persist, we must continue building on decades of transformative development work. The Center for International Development (CID) is a university-wide center based at the Harvard Kennedy School that seeks to solve these pressing development problems—and many more. At CID, we believe leveraging global talent is the key to enabling development for all. We teach to build capacity, conduct research that guides development policy, and convene talent to advance ideas for a thriving world. Addressing today’s challenges to international development also requires bridging academic expertise with practitioner experience. Through collaborative, in-country partnerships, CID’s research programs, faculty, and students deploy an analytical framework and context-dependent approaches to tackle development problems from all angles, in every region of the globe.