[Applause]
good evening in the next couple of
minutes I would like to share with you
how in our climate crisis we can turn
despair into hope and action I am a
researcher who day in day out is looking
at climate change and you might expect
that I would have grown used to the
alarming headlines about climate change
but that’s not true for instance a
couple of weeks ago I was having
breakfast drinking my coffee and I read
this article climate change has brought
on floods droughts and led to more crop
failure in the last three years the
number of people going hungry has
increased again people are already
suffering from climate change today and
I as I was reading this I had to think
how will our world look like in 30 years
when the earth is even hotter when
there’s maybe a billion more mouths to
climate change is sometimes very
depressing melting ice caps rising sea
levels coral bleaching forest fires and
these are just some of the many
dimensions of climate change that make
me sometimes feel very weak vulnerable
deep in me I feel a despair which is
maybe like fish caught in the net and
these fish they know that they’re in a
bad place they want to escape they swim
up and down left and right but there is
no way out or is there reading all these
headlines it might be easy to imagine a
future of climate doom but is it
possible to imagine the opposite a world
in which we have rained our wood rained
in greenhouse gases in which we no
longer emit the gases that harm our
climate and our planet let’s try let’s
close our eyes and imagine 40 years from
now you wake up have breakfast what is
on your plate after breakfast you go to
work but how do we move around in this
world and maybe after work we go back to
home how do we heat our homes now some
of you can imagine and can think of a
picture of how this zero emissions world
could look like but I have talked to
business leaders and representatives of
workers and they it turns out they find
it really difficult to imagine this
future because how can you produce
how can you trade and transport products
without leaving a trace of emissions and
yet
that is exactly what our governments
have committed to when they closed the
Paris agreement on climate change in
2015 they agreed that we have to limit
global warming to 1.5 degrees or 2
degrees Celsius and they also agreed
that by the second half of our century
we need to have a zero a net zero
emissions economy these are great and
Bish’s goals aren’t they
the trouble is however that if you look
at governments they are not really
walking the talk even if they implement
all their policies at the end of our
century we might still be looking at
three degrees Oh three degrees warmer
world or in the even four degrees and
that is disastrous but here’s the good
outside governments many stakeholders
businesses investors NGOs cities and
regions indigenous peoples students
young and old they commit to reduce
emissions they help their communities to
adapt to climate change and sometimes
they also pressure their governments
into taking more effective and better
actions on climate change and sometimes
there’s this rare positive news about
climate change and almost always it is
about these actors standing up
for instance this is the city of Banja
Luka in bosnia-herzegovina M Banja Luka
has piloted a project to refurbish to
retrofit its 35 year old local district
heating system in in that they achieve
more than 90 percent reduction in
emissions in Banja Luka is only one of
9,000 cities more than 9,000 cities
around the world that are taking action
and commit to taking action companies
have also stepped up in a major way
you might know a furnishing giants
called IKEA IKEA already invested more
than 1/2 billion euro in renewable
energy and it is only one of more than
150 of the world’s largest companies to
transition to a hundred percent
renewable energy now all these actions
they do amount to something their
potential is enormous for instance
there’s 9000 cities I was just talking
about together they could save the
amount of missions equal to what Germany
emits every year twice by 2030 another
recent studies that looks at
partnerships between industry
governments NGOs even concludes that
these type of actions have so much
potential that it could even put us back
on track to limit global warming to 1.5
but there’s a big if and that if is if
everyone keeps its promise
if commitments are kept in my previous
research I looked at all types of
stakeholders committing to sustainable
development and one thing that I found
was a lot of these promises remained
promises on paper almost half of them so
when I see this groundswell of climate
action on the one hand and I can be very
enthusiastic about it but I’m also a
little bit worried aren’t we creating an
alternate reality based on what we think
what might happen if everyone keeps its
its promise when in RIA and think that
we are on track when we’re really far
off track so one day I sat down behind
my computer and I started just to write
out all these commitments all these
stakeholders that make promises to take
climate action and I started collecting
information on them what they have
produced what activities they have done
trying to see whether they are making
progress and together with colleagues we
made this a much bigger database and one
of the things we found for instance is
these climate initiatives they are
becoming more effective over time now
that in itself is encouraging however in
some parts of the world we see hardly
any activities in some developing
countries for instance that need climate
action so badly that are already hit by
climate change so hard in some sectors
so I talked to other colleagues and I
found out that they were equally
concerned as I to make sure that
commitments are kept that the potential
of climate action is maximized and
together we formed a network and we
amplified our voices we knocked on the
doors of policy makers offering our
advice telling them it’s great that
there’s all this action but sometimes
actions are not so effective and
sometimes more help is needed I think
ours is just one example of a climate
action that is maybe not led by a big
company or by a city it can start very
small and in a way we can all be part of
climate action nowadays it is so easy to
show our concern about climate change
and other global challenges
I learned a word it’s slacktivism it’s
from behind your computer you can add a
click of a button share your concern
share articles and post things on your
timeline retweet etc the great thing is
that this way we all get to learn about
climate change and the awareness growth
of climate change impacts but there’s
also a downside to it as we learn more
about climate change it might be that we
feel more desperate feel a greater
despair even grow depressed and we
really need to get from slacktivism to
activism to set ourselves free now
remember this picture
how would these fish ever break free I
don’t know whether you have heard about
this movie from 2009 called Finding Nemo
now Finding Nemo is the main character
he’s a little clownfish and he fits
right through the maze and bravely he
swims into the maze and he talks to the
fish he spreads the word swim down swim
down and all these fish some
simultaneously they swim down and they
exert so much force that they sink the
fishing boat and they set themselves
free and into the white ocean they go
freely in a way we have to free
ourselves from the net of despair we
have to cast away the despair and the in
the seeming inevitability of a climate
catastrophe and how do we do that maybe
you live in one of those more than 9,000
cities in the world that have promised
to take action get together and raise
your voices and demand from your city
governments concrete plans to keep their
promises or maybe you’ll work and live
in the place that has not even thought
about climate action yet a good example
to follow may be then to look at the
students around the world who are
petitioning their universities to put
their money into renewable energy
instead of fossil fuel
they call that divestment
and although divestment and the amounts
are relatively small still compared to
the size of the world economy this might
be the beginning of major shifts where
we see trillions of money shifting
towards a new new zero-carbon econ zero
emissions economy so get together with
your friends with your colleagues with
your schoolmates and you can demand more
action from schools from universities
from cities from businesses and maybe
you can become the action part of the
action yourself by doing this we might
avert a climate catastrophe but maybe
even more inspiring one day we might
look back and we found out that not only
have we avoided a climate catastrophe
but we have conquered despair we have replaced despair by hope thank you
good evening in the next couple of
minutes I would like to share with you
how in our climate crisis we can turn
despair into hope and action I am a
researcher who day in day out is looking
at climate change and you might expect
that I would have grown used to the
alarming headlines about climate change
but that’s not true for instance a
couple of weeks ago I was having
breakfast drinking my coffee and I read
this article climate change has brought
on floods droughts and led to more crop
failure in the last three years the
number of people going hungry has
increased again people are already
suffering from climate change today and
I as I was reading this I had to think
how will our world look like in 30 years
when the earth is even hotter when
there’s maybe a billion more mouths to
climate change is sometimes very
depressing melting ice caps rising sea
levels coral bleaching forest fires and
these are just some of the many
dimensions of climate change that make
me sometimes feel very weak vulnerable
deep in me I feel a despair which is
maybe like fish caught in the net and
these fish they know that they’re in a
bad place they want to escape they swim
up and down left and right but there is
no way out or is there reading all these
headlines it might be easy to imagine a
future of climate doom but is it
possible to imagine the opposite a world
in which we have rained our wood rained
in greenhouse gases in which we no
longer emit the gases that harm our
climate and our planet let’s try let’s
close our eyes and imagine 40 years from
now you wake up have breakfast what is
on your plate after breakfast you go to
work but how do we move around in this
world and maybe after work we go back to
home how do we heat our homes now some
of you can imagine and can think of a
picture of how this zero emissions world
could look like but I have talked to
business leaders and representatives of
workers and they it turns out they find
it really difficult to imagine this
future because how can you produce
how can you trade and transport products
without leaving a trace of emissions and
yet
that is exactly what our governments
have committed to when they closed the
Paris agreement on climate change in
2015 they agreed that we have to limit
global warming to 1.5 degrees or 2
degrees Celsius and they also agreed
that by the second half of our century
we need to have a zero a net zero
emissions economy these are great and
Bish’s goals aren’t they
the trouble is however that if you look
at governments they are not really
walking the talk even if they implement
all their policies at the end of our
century we might still be looking at
three degrees Oh three degrees warmer
world or in the even four degrees and
that is disastrous but here’s the good
outside governments many stakeholders
businesses investors NGOs cities and
regions indigenous peoples students
young and old they commit to reduce
emissions they help their communities to
adapt to climate change and sometimes
they also pressure their governments
into taking more effective and better
actions on climate change and sometimes
there’s this rare positive news about
climate change and almost always it is
about these actors standing up
for instance this is the city of Banja
Luka in bosnia-herzegovina M Banja Luka
has piloted a project to refurbish to
retrofit its 35 year old local district
heating system in in that they achieve
more than 90 percent reduction in
emissions in Banja Luka is only one of
9,000 cities more than 9,000 cities
around the world that are taking action
and commit to taking action companies
have also stepped up in a major way
you might know a furnishing giants
called IKEA IKEA already invested more
than 1/2 billion euro in renewable
energy and it is only one of more than
150 of the world’s largest companies to
transition to a hundred percent
renewable energy now all these actions
they do amount to something their
potential is enormous for instance
there’s 9000 cities I was just talking
about together they could save the
amount of missions equal to what Germany
emits every year twice by 2030 another
recent studies that looks at
partnerships between industry
governments NGOs even concludes that
these type of actions have so much
potential that it could even put us back
on track to limit global warming to 1.5
but there’s a big if and that if is if
everyone keeps its promise
if commitments are kept in my previous
research I looked at all types of
stakeholders committing to sustainable
development and one thing that I found
was a lot of these promises remained
promises on paper almost half of them so
when I see this groundswell of climate
action on the one hand and I can be very
enthusiastic about it but I’m also a
little bit worried aren’t we creating an
alternate reality based on what we think
what might happen if everyone keeps its
its promise when in RIA and think that
we are on track when we’re really far
off track so one day I sat down behind
my computer and I started just to write
out all these commitments all these
stakeholders that make promises to take
climate action and I started collecting
information on them what they have
produced what activities they have done
trying to see whether they are making
progress and together with colleagues we
made this a much bigger database and one
of the things we found for instance is
these climate initiatives they are
becoming more effective over time now
that in itself is encouraging however in
some parts of the world we see hardly
any activities in some developing
countries for instance that need climate
action so badly that are already hit by
climate change so hard in some sectors
so I talked to other colleagues and I
found out that they were equally
concerned as I to make sure that
commitments are kept that the potential
of climate action is maximized and
together we formed a network and we
amplified our voices we knocked on the
doors of policy makers offering our
advice telling them it’s great that
there’s all this action but sometimes
actions are not so effective and
sometimes more help is needed I think
ours is just one example of a climate
action that is maybe not led by a big
company or by a city it can start very
small and in a way we can all be part of
climate action nowadays it is so easy to
show our concern about climate change
and other global challenges
I learned a word it’s slacktivism it’s
from behind your computer you can add a
click of a button share your concern
share articles and post things on your
timeline retweet etc the great thing is
that this way we all get to learn about
climate change and the awareness growth
of climate change impacts but there’s
also a downside to it as we learn more
about climate change it might be that we
feel more desperate feel a greater
despair even grow depressed and we
really need to get from slacktivism to
activism to set ourselves free now
remember this picture
how would these fish ever break free I
don’t know whether you have heard about
this movie from 2009 called Finding Nemo
now Finding Nemo is the main character
he’s a little clownfish and he fits
right through the maze and bravely he
swims into the maze and he talks to the
fish he spreads the word swim down swim
down and all these fish some
simultaneously they swim down and they
exert so much force that they sink the
fishing boat and they set themselves
free and into the white ocean they go
freely in a way we have to free
ourselves from the net of despair we
have to cast away the despair and the in
the seeming inevitability of a climate
catastrophe and how do we do that maybe
you live in one of those more than 9,000
cities in the world that have promised
to take action get together and raise
your voices and demand from your city
governments concrete plans to keep their
promises or maybe you’ll work and live
in the place that has not even thought
about climate action yet a good example
to follow may be then to look at the
students around the world who are
petitioning their universities to put
their money into renewable energy
instead of fossil fuel
they call that divestment
and although divestment and the amounts
are relatively small still compared to
the size of the world economy this might
be the beginning of major shifts where
we see trillions of money shifting
towards a new new zero-carbon econ zero
emissions economy so get together with
your friends with your colleagues with
your schoolmates and you can demand more
action from schools from universities
from cities from businesses and maybe
you can become the action part of the
action yourself by doing this we might
avert a climate catastrophe but maybe
even more inspiring one day we might
look back and we found out that not only
have we avoided a climate catastrophe
but we have conquered despair we have replaced despair by hope thank you
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