One planet: Notes from Session 7 of Countdown Summit

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After a week of hearing from the cutting-edge of climate action, we’ve filled our minds and hearts with ideas and solutions for a net-zero future. We gather for this final session of Countdown energized, curious and hopeful, knowing that we all share this floating rock in space — and we that need to take care of it together.

Session 7 brings us an incredible group of speakers who are helping heal the world, from confronting greenwashing and increasing access to climate information in all languages to protecting Earth’s natural habitats and designing sustainable cities.

The event: Countdown Summit: Session 7, hosted by Future Stewards cofounder Lindsay Levin and TED’s Chris Anderson Bruno Giussani, at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre in Edinburgh, Scotland on Friday, October 15, 2021

Speakers: Patricia Espinosa, Laurence Tubiana, Gonzalo Muñoz, Xiye Bastida, Shiv Soin, Vishaan Chakrabarti, Nemonte Nenquimo, Sister True Dedication, Sophia Kianni

Performance: Experimental vocalist and virtuoso instrumentalist Reeps100 fills the room with otherworldly sounds and complex rhythms that transcend genre. Reminiscent of beatboxing, experimental jazz and electronic music, this new-wave pioneer treats the Countdown audience to a performance like no other, exploring the past, present and future of vocal expression.

A pledge: The children of Palau have created the Palau Pledge to protect their island, home to incredibly rich marine life, fertile soils and a population of 20,000 people. They promise to respect and preserve its culture, and they share this promise with visitors as part of the visa in their passports when they visit, so that all who come can bring this sentiment back home with them: “We do not inherit the land and waters from our ancestors. We borrow them from our children.”

The talks in brief:

Gonzalo Muñoz, UN’s High Level Climate Action Champion, COP25; Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change; and Laurence Tubiana, CEO of the European Climate Foundation

Big idea: Just two and a half weeks out from the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, where are we?

The answer: Reflecting on the challenges of previous COP conferences, Patricia Espinosa — Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change — explains how important the human aspect is to these landmark meetings. Building trust and making people feel comfortable and welcome are top-of-mind for her heading into Glasgow, lessons she learned when Mexico played host to COP16 after a failed effort to reach a global climate agreement in Copenhagen in 2009. “We have the solutions. We have the creativity. We have the resources. We need to ask our leaders to make it happen,” she says of the upcoming meeting. For Laurence Tubiana, CEO of the European Climate Foundation, showing vulnerability is also part of the process of change. She shares the story of bringing the draft of the Paris Agreement to the negotiating group comprised of oil-producing countries and the world’s biggest emitters on the very last day of COP21 in 2015, describing what they would like and what they would hate in the new agreement. After a long, loud silence, her emotions broke and she began to cry, only to be greeted with compassion by the group — as well as a commitment to signing the agreement. Now, Tubiana sees both excitement and fear emerging ahead of COP26. “We have to bet that we can win,” she says.

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Xiye Bastida and Shiv Soin, climate activists

Big idea: A list of demands for leaders of the world.

How? Xiye Bastida and Shiv Soin come bearing a list of six demands for global leaders, written by youth climate activists this week at Countdown: 1) Divest from all fossil fuel investments, reinvest in green energy and ensure a just transition led by workers and impacted communities; 2) Center climate justice in all key policy decisions; 3) Stop all open pipelines and oil extraction initiatives from Line 3 in the United States to Cambo in Scotland; 4) Hold large corporations accountable for their actions that contribute directly to the climate crisis; 5) Create policies to protect activists’ rights to peaceful protest and safeguard democracy around the world; and 6) Remove the economic, political and social influence of fossil fuel companies from key international climate negotiations. This list of demands is not exhaustive to solve the climate crisis, they say — it’s the bare minimum.

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Vishaan Chakrabarti, architect and author

Big idea: To house the Earth’s growing population without worsening our climate, we need to construct new dwellings on a human scale. 

How? By 2100, the UN estimates that the Earth’s population will grow to just over 11 billion people. Architect and author Vishaan Chakrabarti wants us to start thinking about how we’ll house all these people, and how new construction can fight climate change rather than make it worse. While tall-timber construction, solar glass and green energy grids offer hope for future skyscrapers, these technologies are still new (and expensive). Chakrabarti proposes a “goldilocks” solution: compact, walkable neighborhoods where all buildings are human-scale, meaning two and three stories tall like the row houses in Boston or the hutongs in Beijing. By designing at this scale, we can construct buildings to accommodate more people than single-family homes and still have enough roof space to generate solar power to meet each building’s needs. The neighborhoods Chakrabarti imagines can also host more trees than typical urban dwellings and support green mass transit systems such as light rail, express buses and bike networks. It’s an inspiring vision for the future where housing works in harmony with the planet.

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Nemonte Nenquimo, Indigenous leader 

Big idea: People worldwide must stand with the Amazon’s Indigenous communities and demand that the destruction of the Amazonian rainforest stop.

Why? For thousands of years, the Amazonian rainforest has provided life, nourishment, water and spiritual connection to its Indigenous inhabitants, explains Waorani leader Nemonte Nenquimo — but the endless extraction of its natural resources by outsiders is destroying the forest and the lives of those who live there. When she walks through the Amazon rainforest, she sees plants she can eat, leaves she can use to heal, vines to make baskets and wood to build good homes. But outsiders, she says, are blind to the value of the jungle. They view the Amazon as land to plunder and exploit for oil, natural minerals, fertile soil — with dire consequences for the forest and the entire planet. The Amazon is burning, Nenquimo reminds us. Oil spills and mineral extraction have contaminated its waterways; big agriculture has clear-cut millions of hectares of forest, destroying wildlife and damaging the sacred spiritual connection the Amazon’s Indigenous communities have with the land. She demands that outsiders leave the guardianship of the forest to those who have inhabited it for thousands of years. “Mother Earth is waiting for us to respect her,” she says, “and we as Indigenous peoples expect the same.”

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Sister True Dedication, Zen Buddhist nun

Big idea: In order to take the kind of radical, decisive action that our planet is calling for, we need to be fully present, grounded and alert.

How? Why is it so hard to change the direction of our civilization? At this point, what’s missing is not more facts, information or even technology — it’s insight, says Zen Buddhist nun Sister True Dedication. We can’t hope to change the world if we can’t change our way of seeing things, says Sister True’s teacher, Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh. So, how do we do it? One step at a time — literally. Sister True guides us through the art of mindful walking, a powerful meditation practice centered in Zen tradition. Every moment of movement is a chance to become more aware of ourselves, the world around us and where those two experiences meet. While moving through space, Sister True puts forth three questions to help spark further awakening. The first: who are you? An invitation to reflect on how you are connected through time and being. Second: where are you? Check in with whether you’re present and comfortable. If not, embrace those feelings in order to understand why they’re there. And finally: what do you want? Explore ways to reconnect with what’s essential to creating innermost peace. We can’t help the planet if we’re numb or overwhelmed — nurturing mindful and radical love is the key to awakening to the preciousness of life and the strength we have to save it.

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Sophia Kianni, Climate knowledge translator

Big idea: The vast majority of scientific articles are written in English. That’s a big problem for climate change, because 75 percent of the world doesn’t speak it.

Why? When Sophia Kianni was just 12 years old, she witnessed smog so thick in her native Iran that it obscured the stars. When talking to her relatives about it, she was shocked that they knew almost nothing about how climate change was causing this — a direct result of the lack of climate resources available in Farsi. With 80 percent of scholarly articles written entirely in English according to a SCOPUS study, language remains a significant barrier in the transfer of scientific information. Kianni explains how this inaccessibility comes at a high cost — especially to countries that are at most risk of climate change. “As recently as six years ago, over 40 percent of adults in the world had never heard of climate change. Let me repeat that: two adults out of five had never heard of climate change,” says Kianni. In an effort to close that gap, she founded Climate Cardinals: an international youth-led nonprofit that’s working to make climate information more accessible. Having translated articles into hundreds of languages, word by word, they help protect the planet by not allowing English to be the barrier to climate action. “People who are being disproportionately affected by climate change deserve to have access to the resources they need to make sense of the disasters that are destroying their communities and what they can do about it,” Kianni.

Mark your calendar: Tune in to the Countdown Global Livestream on October 30, 2021. This virtual event will lay out a credible and realistic pathway to a zero-carbon future. Save the date.

Transformation: Notes from Session 3 of the Countdown Global Launch

Countdown is a global initiative to accelerate solutions to the climate crisis. Watch the talks, interviews and performances from the Countdown Global Launch at ted.com/countdown.

Transforming big systems is a huge task. Energy, transportation, industry and infrastructure all pose their own challenges. And yet that transformation is already happening. The experts in Session 3 showed us how and where, and offered powerful ideas for accelerating it: developing an economy without coal, decarbonizing fossil fuels, electrifying mobility and more.

This session was cohosted by actor and activist Jane Fonda and climate activist Xiye Bastida, who kicked off the hour by discussing what it means to fight for climate justice and how to ignite large-scale change.

The talks in brief:

Varun Sivaram, clean energy executive, physicist, author

Big idea: India has a historic opportunity to power its industrialization with clean energy. 

How? In a country where fossil fuels are still a luxury for many (only six percent of Indians own cars, and only two percent have air conditioning), India has a unique opportunity to build a new, green energy infrastructure from the ground up. An incredible 70 percent of India’s infrastructure of 2030 hasn’t been built yet, says Varun Sivaram, CTO of India’s largest renewable energy company, presenting the nation with a historic opportunity to industrialize using clean energy. By making renewable energy “the beating heart of a reimagined economy,” Sivaram thinks India can add thousands of gigawatts of solar and wind production capacity, green the country’s power grid and transportation system, and radically improve energy efficiency — electrifying communities that remain beyond the reach of the power grid.

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Myles Allen, climate science scholar

Big idea: The fossil fuel industry can play a central role in solving climate change by decarbonizing their product. Oil and gas companies know how to decarbonize their fuels, and they have the money to do it. Now, they need the will.

How? The fossil fuel industry contributes 85 percent of the world’s CO2 emissions. To stop global warming, oil and gas companies need to stop dumping carbon into the atmosphere — but that doesn’t mean they have to stop selling their product altogether, says climate scientist Myles Allen. In lieu of a total ban on fossil fuels, which would harm the growth of developing countries (and is frankly unrealistic), Allen proposes a bold plan for fossil fuel companies to progressively decarbonize their product and reach net zero emissions by 2050. Engineers at energy companies have known how to decarbonize fossil fuels for years: collect CO2 as it burns, purify and compress it, and inject it deep into the Earth from which it came, where it can be stored for thousands of years. This process is expensive, so fuel companies haven’t done it yet at scale. But Allen puts forth a progressive decarbonization model in which 10 percent of fuels can be decarbonized by 2030, 50 percent by 2040 and 100 percent by 2050, allowing companies time to build a robust carbon dioxide disposal industry that works for everyone. With the know-how, money and plan to get to net zero emissions, all fossil fuel companies need now is will power. 

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Rose M. Mutiso, energy researcher

Big idea: The world must reach a zero emission future. On the way there, Africa deserves its fair share of the carbon budget to make that transition possible and equitable. 

Why? 48 African countries, combined, are responsible for less than one percent of the world’s carbon footprint, says Rose M. Mutiso. Pointing to this stark divide between those with limited energy access and those who have it in abundance, she highlights why Africa’s energy needs must be prioritized when reimagining the global carbon budget. The solution may sound counterintuitive, but to achieve a zero emission future, Africa needs to produce more carbon in the short term in order to develop in the long term — all while wealthier continents drastically cut their own emissions. For climate adaptation to be possible, Mutiso says, the world must recognize the vulnerability of developing countries and grant them the resources needed to build resilient infrastructures.

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Monica Araya, electrification advocate

Big idea: The global shift to 100-percent clean transportation is under way.

How? People around the world are demanding clean air — and cities are responding, says Monica Araya. In her home base of Amsterdam, for instance, the city is rolling out a plan to make all transportation fully emission-free by 2030. The city will ban petrol and diesel vehicles, starting with public buses and working up to all kinds of traffic, from taxis, trucks and ferries to personal cars and motorcycles. Other cities across the globe are following suit by electrifying transportation options and championing sustainable forms of travel. There is (and will be) resistance to change, Araya notes — our addiction to fossil fuels runs deep. So we need clever combinations of finance and policy. Whether we can create healthy cities, while meeting our transportation needs, all depends on the choices we make this decade. “The end of the internal combustion engine is within sight,” Araya says. “The question is no longer whether this will happen, but when.”

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Al Gore and climate activists Ximena Loría, Nana Firman, Gloria Kasang Bulus and Tim Guinee

Big idea: It’s been almost 15 years since Al Gore sounded the alarm on climate change with An Inconvenient Truth. Today, with the Climate Reality Project, he’s helping mold future leaders to build the movement for climate survival and social justice from the ground up.

How? Gore introduces us to four of the graduates of the Climate Reality Project, who each confront climate change on their own terms and on their own doorsteps: Ximena Loría, founder of Misión 2 Grados, an NGO influencing public policy in Central America; Nana Firman, “daughter of the rainforest” and advocate for climate justice among Indigenous peoples; Gloria Kasang Bulus, a Nigerian activist for women and education; and Tim Guinee, a first responder and climate change fighter in upstate New York. Together, they’re gathering local actors into a global, grass-roots movement that aims to turn the climate fight around. “The global pandemic, structural and institutional racism with its horrific violence, the worsening impacts of the climate crisis: all of these have accelerated the emergence of a new and widespread collective understanding of our connection to the natural world, the consequences of ignoring science and our sacred obligation to build a just society for all,” Gore says.

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Stephen Wilkes, photographer

Big idea: When we look at a landscape in the wild, we see only a moment in time. Photographer Stephen Wikes seeks to grasp the complex choreography of the natural world as it transitions from day to night — and to more deeply feel the impacts the human race is having on Earth’s ecosystems.

How? Using a special technique that captures the passage of time from day to night in a single image, Stephen Wilkes is able to photograph vanishing habitats and species in astonishing detail. These narrative images reveal how Earth changes over time, in all its beautiful complexity, and drive home the impacts of climate change with unprecedented force — from the threat of melting ice to the Arctic food chain to the disruption of flamingo migrations in Africa. “Our planet is changing before our eyes, but to witness that change is also to witness the remarkable relationships between all of nature — to see the infinite beauty of it, to learn how much bigger than us it is, and why it is worth fighting for,” Wilkes says.

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With an acoustic guitar on her knee, folk songwriter Raye Zaragoza sings her original song “Fight For You,” dedicated to everyone who stands up for the Earth. Later in the session, musician and actor Yemi Alade returns to sing “Africa,” a celebration song for a continent already experiencing the harmful effects of climate change.

TED and Future Stewards announce Countdown, a global initiative to champion and accelerate solutions to the climate crisis

Prince William, His Holiness Pope Francis, Yemi Alade, Monica Araya, Xiye Bastida, Jesper Brodin, Don Cheadle, Dave Clark, Christiana Figueres, Al Gore, António Guterres, Chris Hemsworth, Kara Hurst, Lisa Jackson, Rose Mutiso, Johan Rockström, Prince Royce, Mark Ruffalo, Sigrid, Jaden Smith, Nigel Topping and Ursula von der Leyen join scientists, activists, artists, schools and leaders from business and government to accelerate and amplify solutions

Countdown, a global initiative to champion and accelerate solutions to the climate crisis, will launch on October 10, 2020 with a free five-hour live virtual event featuring leading thinkers and doers. This is the moment to act, and they will outline what a healthy, abundant, zero-emission future can look like—turning ideas into action. The event will combine TED’s signature blend of actionable and research-backed ideas, cutting-edge science, and moments of wonder and inspiration. Countdown is one part of a broader series of actions and events this fall including the Bloomberg Green Festival, Climate Week NYC and others, all with the collective objective of informing and activating millions in the lead-up to a successful UN Climate Change Conference in November 2021.

The Countdown launch will be streamed live on TED’s YouTube channel. This global event will be the first-ever TED conference that is free and open to the public. Segments from the event, including the biggest talks and performances, will be made available immediately across all digital platforms. The program includes 50+ pieces of content—talks, performances, animations and more. Speakers will touch on topics such as:

• Climate science and the climate crisis: Where are we today?

• Why climate justice matters

• Putting climate back on the political and social agenda

• What businesses can do—and are doing—to transform and transition

• Rethinking our cities

• Stepping up at work and at home

• The path to a safer, cleaner, fairer future for people and the planet

A full agenda and speaker list can be found here.

In addition to the live global event, over 500 TEDx Countdown virtual events in nine languages are planned around the world, encouraging communities and citizens to take action locally while also feeding local solutions and ideas into the global conversation. Countdown has also convened a global Youth Council of recognized activists who will help shape the Countdown agenda throughout the year. Additionally, Countdown is working to engage people through art with ten public art installations in global cities around the 10.10.20 event and open calls for art––illustration and photography––to run throughout the year on the Countdown website.

“The moment to act on climate change has been upon us for too long, and now is the time to unite all levels of society—business leaders, courageous political actors, scientists and individuals—to get to net-zero emissions before 2050,” said Chris Anderson, Countdown founding partner and Head of TED. “Climate is a top priority for TED and members of our community, and we are proud to fully dedicate our organization in the fight for our collective future.”

“Countdown brings together a powerful collaboration of partners from all sectors to act on climate change,” said Lindsay Levin, Countdown founding partner and CEO of Leaders’ Quest. “We need to work together with courage and compassion to deliver a healthy, fair, resilient future for everyone.”

With so many people who have already committed to addressing climate change, Countdown is about radical collaboration—convening all stakeholders to build on the critical work already underway and bringing existing, powerful solutions to an even broader audience. Powered by TED and Future Stewards, Countdown aims to answer five fundamental, interconnected questions that inform a blueprint for a better future:

• ENERGY: How rapidly can we switch to 100% clean power?

• TRANSPORT: How can we upgrade the way we move people and things?

• MATERIALS: How can we re-imagine and re-make the stuff around us?

• FOOD: How can we spark a worldwide shift to healthier food systems?

• NATURE: How do we better protect and re-green the earth?

Countdown is asking companies and organizations to join the Race to Zero through Business Ambition for 1.5°C, which is a commitment to set science-based targets aligned with limiting global warming to 1.5°C, and through The Climate Pledge, which calls on signatories to be net-zero carbon by 2040—a decade ahead of the Paris Agreement goal of 2050.

“We can inspire others through action and example, because there is no hope without action,” said 17-year-old climate justice activist Xiye Bastida, a lead organizer of the Fridays for Future youth climate strike movement. “We are fighting to ensure this planet survives and flourishes for future generations, which requires intergenerational cooperation. Countdown is about coming together across ages and sectors to protect the earth and ensure we leave it better than we found it.”

“Five years after the unanimous signing of the Paris Agreement, many countries, companies and citizens are doing what they can about the climate crisis. But this is not enough,” said Christiana Figueres, former UN climate chief (2010-2016), now co-founder of Global Optimism. “We have this decisive decade to achieve what is necessary—cutting global emissions in half over the next ten years is vital to meeting the goal of net zero by 2050. I am delighted to partner with Countdown to increase the global stock of stubborn optimism that is needed to push every company and country—and engage citizens—in actions that decouple carbon from our economy and way of life in this decade.”

Following the launch, Countdown will facilitate a number of sector leader working groups along with the initiative’s network of partner organizations through November 2021. These will focus on delivering breakthrough progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the lead-up to the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow. During next year’s Countdown Summit (October 12-15, 2021, Edinburgh, Scotland), the initiative will share an actionable blueprint for a net-zero future and celebrate the progress that’s already been made.

Citizens are the critical component of this initiative and anyone can #JoinTheCountdown by:

• Joining us—sign up to become part of the movement

• Bringing Countdown to your community—by hosting your own TEDx event

• Tuning in on 10.10.2020—for the live event

• Committing to taking and inspiring action—at work and in your community

• Spreading the word on your own social media and throughout your networks

Connect at Countdown@ted.com

About TED

TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading, often in the form of short talks delivered by leading thinkers and doers. Many of these talks are given at TED conferences, intimate TED Salons and thousands of independently organized TEDx events around the world. Videos of these talks are made available, free, on TED.com and other platforms. Audio versions of TED Talks are published to TED Talks Daily, available on all podcast platforms.

Follow TED on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and on LinkedIn.

About Future Stewards

Future Stewards is a coalition of partners (Leaders’ Quest, Global Optimism and We Mean Business) working together to build a regenerative future – where we meet the needs of all, within the means of the planet. Founded after the Paris Agreement, Future Stewards equips individuals, businesses and communities with the awareness and tools required to tackle systemic problems, scale what works and build cross-sector collaboration.