This week, my guest on the Global Prosperity Wonkcast is senior fellow David Wheeler, the lead researcher for CGD’s work on climate and development. Last week, David and his team released a new tool called Forest Monitoring for Action (FORMA). A major advance in the remote monitoring of forests, FORMA makes available rapid, high-resolution monitoring of ongoing deforestation in tropical areas to anybody with an Internet connection. Developed with financial support from the Foreign Ministry of Denmark, host for the upcoming Copenhagen climate summit, FORMA debuted with data through the end of October for all of Indonesia (read the press release). While coal-fired power plants and gas-guzzling cars are the poster children for carbon emissions, David says the destruction of forests is just as serious a concern. “There is a lot of carbon locked up in tropical rainforests,” he explains, “and when you burn forests to clear it for other economic activities, you release all of that carbon.” Deforestation contributes about 15-20% of total emissions worldwide, with most of this coming from tropical forests. Paying developing countries to preserve tropical forests is potentially one of the cheapest ways to reduce emissions (see the Guardian for one such plan involving Prince Charles), and could bring major economic benefits to poor people who live in and near the forests. But donors will only follow through on these plans if they know that the forests are actually preserved. David says that this is where FORMA can help. Using NASA and other satellite data, the system tracks deforestation with great accuracy, down to areas about the size of a football stadium. Eventually, FORMA could not only monitor compliance with large-scale climate agreements, but even enable direct payments from individuals or private organizations to protect small tracts of forested land. While there are some bright spots, including increased efforts in developing countries to slow their emissions growth, the overall climate picture is grim, with global talks gridlocked even as the most recent climate science showing us much closer to tipping points than previously estimated. In the second half of the podcast, I ask David about his views on this dilemma. “If we had the luxury of time,” says David, “this might be enough. The problem is we do not have that luxury.” He says much more serious commitments are needed from the United States, and suggests that we should not shy away from researching contentious ideas, including nuclear power and geo-engineering—such as potentially risky efforts to shroud the earth in extra water vapor. “For our grandchildren’s sake, and possibly for our children’s sake,” David argues, “we had better be honest about considering all the alternatives, in case we are truly out of time, as many scientists think.” Listen to the podcast to hear our full discussion, and visit FORMA’s website here. Have something to add to our discussion? Ideas for future interviews? Post a comment below. If you use iTunes, you can subscribe to get new episodes delivered straight to your computer every week.

On this edition of the Wonkcast, I am joined by senior fellow Liliana Rojas-Suarez, who discusses her work as co-chair of the CGD Task Force on Access to Financial Services. Financial regulation—and access—is a hot topic right now, as countries try to reduce the chance of future financial crises, while also ensuring access to financial services. The US House and Senate are currently wrestling with exactly what a revamped US regulatory system should look like. Liliana explains that the balance between financial stability and increased access to finance is at the root of these debates, and in fact was central to the financial collapse itself. "Even in the United States," she explains, "many people did not have sufficient access to finance, and, well, nobody wanted to stop the provision of financial services. And that was creating a bubble that ended up in the largest crisis that we have seen in recent history." However, shifting too far the other way-- trying to ensure stability through strict banking regulation-- could deny billions of people around the world access to basic financial services (see David Roodman’s recent blog post examining recent estimates of the number of people who are financially un-served). Liliana and her task force came up with a set of ten principles that can help policymakers address that dilemma. "The unique thing about the principles is that it takes the forest, not just the trees," Liliana tells me. "It doesn't focus on one part of regulation, it basically looks at the entire forest of financial regulation and says, 'OK we want the system to be stable, but we also want the system to provide financial access.'" The principles fall into three general categories-- financial infrastructure, financial regulation, and other government policies. Listen to the podcast to hear Liliana explain them, and go read the Task Force's full report introducing the principles here. Have something to add to our discussion? Ideas for future interviews? Post a comment below. If you use iTunes, you can subscribe to get new episodes delivered straight to your computer every week.

What are the benefits of focusing specifically on girls when we invest in development? My guest this week is Ruth Levine, an expert on health and education who for the past two years has focused much of her work on adolescent girls. She's the co-author of a recently released CGD report titled, "Start With A Girl: A New Agenda for Global Health." In our Wonkcast, she outlines the agenda and explains why it's so critical.

"Women and girls in many senses really hold the key not only for their own health but for the health of their children and their broader communities," Ruth tells me. Recognizing that fact and directing our investments accordingly, she says, can lead to better solutions for a wide range of problems-- everything from economic development to HIV/AIDS.

"In high [AIDS] burden countries, if you look at who is getting infected, three quarters of HIV infected young people are girls."

Bringing those numbers and overall AIDS infection rates down, Ruth explains, will require identifying and addressing the social dynamics that make girls more vulnerable in the first place.

The 'Start With a Girl' agenda explains what a comprehensive girl-focused public health policy might look like. Among its eight agenda items, it recommends working to eliminate child marriage, focusing HIV prevention efforts on adolescent girls, and fostering national commitments in selected developing countries to providing healthcare to girls. The full agenda as well as a video of the report's well-attended launch are available here.

Start with a Girl is the second report in the ongoing Girls Count series, following on Girls Count: A Global Investment and Action Agenda, which Ruth co-authored with experts from three other organizations.

Listen to the Wonkcast to hear our full conversation. Have something to add? Ideas for future interviews? Post a comment below. If you use iTunes, you can subscribe to get new episodes delivered straight to your computer every week. Ruth is beginning to Tweet -- sign on to follow her on Twitter!

My guest this week is Sheila Herrling, director of CGD’s Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance Program. With November upon us and still no USAID administrator, Sheila introduces us to some possible candidates who have already been vetted for other jobs (learn more and pick your favorite here).

In the Wonkcast, Sheila explains the poll land offers a quick run-down on three development-related initiatives underway in Washington: Obama’s Presidential Study Directive, the State Department's first-ever Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, and a new effort to re-write the badly out-dated U.S. Foreign assistance Act (a short video we produced last year remains relevant!)

During our interview, Sheila argues that President Obama's foreign policy process is sorely lacking the strong development-focused voice that a USAID administrator would provide. "[Given] the fact that he is struggling with Afghanistan in a very public way right now," she tells me, "really having a voice 24/7 on the development perspective of that strategy is more critical than ever." While Secretary of State Clinton cares about development, "she has a full-time job on a purely foreign policy dimension, on the diplomacy side."

She explains that there is virtually no way a USAID administrator could be in office by the administration's 1-year mark unless he or she is nominated by next week.

"The only way I see getting a candidate this year is if they took someone who's already through the vetting process," she explained in the interview.

What’s Sheila’s preference between selecting among those already vetted for other jobs or enduring the wait for a nominee with greater name recognition? And who would Sheila like to see in the job? Find out on the Global Prosperity Wonkcast!

Like the Wonkcast? Hate it? Comments or suggestions? Ideas for future interviews? Leave a comment below. If you use iTunes, you can subscribe here to get new episodes delivered straight to your computer every week.