DUBAI – Quotes from Christiana Figueres, founding partner of Global Optimism and former Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), speaking at Expo 2020 Dubai’s People’s Promise for Climate Impact, part of Climate and Biodiversity Week.
Sustainability is one of the three subthemes of Expo 2020 Dubai. What can this region be doing?
“We have to understand that sustainability is the only path we have forward in this region and everywhere else. Simply to continue to grow unsustainably is not going to be possible anymore because we have not only met but we have exceeded planetary boundaries, so we have to continue to grow – especially in developing countries – but do it sustainably. In this region, of course, the major challenge is the energy transition, and there, we are very much expecting and looking forward to further leadership in energy transition from this region.”
The 26th edition of the UN Climate Change Conference [COP26] starts next month in the UK. What are the most important issues that the global community needs to address?
“The annual Conference of the Parties of the Climate Change Convention, known as the COP, is meeting for the 26th time at the end of this year in Glasgow. It is the first time since the adoption of the Paris Agreement that all countries must come to the table to report to each other what they have done in the past five years and, most importantly, what else are they going to do over the next five to 10 years in order to get the sum total of all of those efforts to add up to a cutting of 50 per cent of global emissions by 2030. It is a deadline that has been established by science, and we are expecting countries to fall into line.”
What do you think that youth have brought to the climate change discussion, and what do we need to do to bring them to the table?
Over the past 18-24 months, the huge contribution of youth has been to raise the awareness of those of us who are no longer youth, raise our awareness about the urgency of climate action and climate solutions. What concerns me is that that very helpful contribution has come at a price of huge, deep grief and pain among young people. That is a concern. What we know is that the only way out of that pain and grief is to take action yourself. Our invitation here today to all of these fantastic young people who are leaders in their field, is yes, to be in touch with the loss we have all experienced, but to identify one, two, three specific things they can do to contribute to the global solution, because that will help accelerate the solution, but it will also help with the emotional distress that many young people are feeling.
What is your key message to world leaders, and are there practical steps that everyone can take regarding climate change?
The message to world leaders is pretty simple. We are walking – walking – down the right path. We are decarbonising the economy, but we’re not doing so at the speed and scale that we need. Science has been abundantly clear that we are very far behind. We’re standing at the edge of the precipice. Secretary General António Guterres has called this ‘code red for humanity’. Yes, we have already done important efforts (but) not enough, and not quickly enough.”
The practical steps are pretty evident. We need to decarbonise all sectors of human endeavour, we have to start with energy, with transportation, with agriculture, but we also need to invest in nature-based solutions – the regeneration of soils, the protection of our standing forest and sustainable agriculture. All of that needs to be put into a package and done turbo-charged. Quickly.”