Peter Drobac [PD]: Hi, IÕm Peter Drobac and you're listening to Reimagine: Systems Reset edition. In this episode we're reimagining the future we might choose with diplomat and global climate action leader Christiana Figueres.

Christiana Figueres [CF]: Can you imagine what it will be like to live in cities that are not congested, polluted, rammed with stinky cars hurting our lungs and our brains?

PD: And what our cities could be like if we reset how we live?

CF: ÉTo live in cities where there's clean air, where there is clean transport that serves the needs of citizens. A city where many of the parking lots have actually been turned into vegetable or fruit gardens or you know, trees are growing. A city where every building is producing the energy that it needs because it is absorbing sun and producing that energy, a city where water is being recycled so you collect rain-water and you recycle it and you use it very responsibly. A city that is producing most of the food that it needs on our roofs because every roof has either a solar module or a garden on it and a city that is actually organised around small communities of neighbours that produce food for each other, that help each other out in our daily activities. I mean it is actually a very very wonderful quality of life. 

PD: Seeing the future, feeling the future, is crucial if we're to believe that it's possible to create it. 

CF: To say nothing of the fact that those cities could be much more silent, right? Because once we get rid of this stupid internal combustion engine that is so loud, we will be walking around cities that are much quieter. We get used to the noise of a city but it doesn't have to be. In the 1800s, cities were very stinky because we didn't have the engineering skills yet to deal with garbage and everything else that comes out of homes. And cities are by and large no longer stinky, but they're still very loud and when we stand in the future of history we will look back and not be able to understand that we lived for such a long time in polluted, loud, congested cities, that were not good for our health. You know here we are stuck in the norm without any reason to be stuck.

PD: Reimagine is a podcast about people who are inventing the future and in this episode we're talking climate change. What's at stake, the cost of inaction, and the opportunities that exist if we harness the sustainability revolution that Al Gore told us about in the last series.

Al Gore: If you have not yet joined in the efforts to mobilize solutions to the climate crisis, what are you waiting for? Always remember that the will to change is itself a renewable resource. 

PD: We're in a perilous moment but it's not too late to act. This needs to be our decade of action, the decade when we make a climate reset. And we are so fortunate that our guide today will be the inimitable Cristiana Figueres. Cristiana has been an absolute force of nature in fostering global awareness and collective action on climate. As Head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, she brokered the Paris Agreement of 2015, a landmark international agreement that laid out an ambitious agenda to fight climate change and adapt to its effects. Since then, Christiana has continued work to accelerate the global response to climate change. She founded Global Optimism, which is currently persuading CEOs to commit to achieving net zero targets ahead of schedule. She's also the co-host of one of my favourite podcasts, Outrage and Optimism. The name says it all. You'll laugh, you'll cry, it's a great listen. Earlier this year, Christiana published a book, ÔThe Future We ChooseÕ, with her podcast partner Tom Rivett-Carnac. Like many of you, I've read a lot of books about the climate crisis over the last few years and so many of them paint a really bleak picture of our future. What I loved about Christiana's book is that while she doesn't shy away from those risks, she also gives us an awesome vision of what our future could look like. I spoke to Christiana from her home in Costa Rica, a country that by some measures has been ranked as both the most sustainable country in the world and the happiest country in the world. Might it be that sustainability and happiness go hand in hand? 

CF: Might it be? What a good suspicion, well let me say that we are ranked by the happiness index I think already three years in a row as the happiest country and what comes up is: closeness to nature, because we are a pretty bio-literate country, we I think probably the only country in the world that has increased its forest cover from 29% to 52 and growing; and as a country and as an economy we invest in the protection of our biodiversity. A) because we're very proud of it but also perhaps even more importantly because it sustains us economically, because we are an eco-destination for tourism. So in terms of understanding sustainability as being the confluence of human well-being, planetary well-being and economic well-being, I think that's a pretty smart and pretty compelling case. The fact that yes we started to invest into the protection of our biodiversity decades ago but we did it because we knew it was a smart economic move. So you know a good example that these two things that you don't necessarily have to choose that these two things actually are mutually reinforcing of each other. 

PD: You did Costa Rica and the rest of the world proud when as Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change you led a process that ultimately led to the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015. We'll come in a moment to the fascinating story of how you did it, but first just tell us what the Paris Agreement sets out to do and how it works.

CF: I would call the Paris Agreement perhaps a global business plan that sets out the long-term target that we have to reach, which is defined by science not by policy, it's defined by science as having to get to net zero emissions by 2050 in order to protect human livelihood on this planet. Then it sets out a pathway toward that in full recognition that when that Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015, it was completely impossible for any country let alone all countries to have full visibility as to how they were going to get to net zero. Nobody really knew. So what the Paris Agreement does is it sets out a path toward that with five year markers at which point all countries need to come to revise what they had registered previously, so there's one registry of current efforts that was put in by the countries in 2015, but then every five years after that, that was just let's say let's call it the starting line, the starting line of this um decarbonization race and every five years countries need to come together to take a look at what they've been able to do, where capital has shifted, where technology has progressed, where policy has deepened, and be able to put the next step registered publicly under the Paris Agreement. So every five years we will have this process it's called the global stock take, and um pretty exciting that we're coming up on the first global stock take where we will see how far we've done with respect to the first targets that were registered and what more can be done now. So let's understand the Paris Agreement as let's say a business plan, a global business plan, to decarbonize the global economy and do so collectively. For every country to contribute to that global decarbonization in a manner that is fair and just to each country. 

PD: I want to build on that notion of the collective because now that it's done it's easy to take this agreement's existence for granted but it was a massive achievement and one that I think few people thought possible, even a few years earlier. You were brought on to lead the UNF CCC shortly after the previous attempt at a global agreement in Copenhagen had sort of gone down in flames. What were some of the lessons that you learned through that process about how to achieve a breakthrough that requires so many different actors to come together? 

CF: The first is that you have to have a very clear vision of what is needed and we early on honed that vision to one that we needed a global agreement that would intentionally, very intentionally, transform the global economy but also the economy of every country. We knew that that needed to be based on a new relationship between the global north and the global south, not the relationship that we had had before which was a very contentious and blaming relationship. We knew that that had to be supported by all stakeholders, not just by governments but by corporates, investors, civil society, everyone had to be on board. We knew that it had to be done in a way that is fair to everyone because everyone, every country's, political and economic conditions are very different so it had to be fair to every single one. And we knew that it had to be consistent with science. We couldn't, you don't play around with science, you don't you know negotiate with science, it had to be science-led. And just to top it off we had also agreed or we had also realized that for the first time in the history of the convention that is now 30 years old, this agreement had to be unanimous, it could not be the product of a consensus, it had to be unanimous. So those were the markers of where do we need to go and then we walked it back with all of those very clear components of the vision. We walked it back and identified what is the delta between where we are now and where each of these factors need to go and charted a path to work on each of them. To work on the relationship between the global north and global south, to include all stakeholders, to be very open and very flexible so that every country can do something that is fair to them, but keep everyone within the constraints of science. So not an easy interweaving, but one that was I think quite a historic breakthrough and is still with us today and will be with us for decades to come.

PD: Well said. You mentioned that we're just coming on that first five-year landmark to sort of stop and take stock of our progress so far. Set the stage for us in 2020 and sort of where we are with the climate crisis. You know there have been perhaps a few silver linings in a way throughout this terrible year of the Covid-19 pandemic, we've seen a temporary drop in emissions, cleaner air and quieter streets, maybe giving us a glimpse into what a decarbonized future might look like, but of course we've seen a series of extreme weather events around the world that remind us of the acceleration of the crisis. Can you just lay out the challenge that we face now at the beginning of what you've called a Ôdecisive decadeÕ? 

CF: Yeah we call it the decisive decade because we have delayed so irresponsibly that we're now up against this last final decade and by the end of this decade, by 2030, we have to be able to cut current levels of greenhouse gas emissions to one half of where they are today. That is a major undertaking because as you've pointed out this year has been an unprecedented year and for reasons that we did not intend, certainly did not intend, we cut our emissions globally by somewhere between seven and eight percent this year. Now we have to understand that that is the percentage cut that we're going to need every year between now and 2030. But that that cannot come at the price of economic paralysis, to the contrary, that has to come with economic growth and with much more job creation. So it is a huge undertaking but one that is entirely possible if we understand where the opportunities lie with so many possibilities in the clean energy and clean sectors and clean company space to produce the kinds of jobs that we need. And President-Elect Biden's plan he already talks about creating 10 million more jobs in the United States by investing into clean technologies, clean energy, clean corporate and clean sectors. And so luckily those two things come hand in hand, if the investment toward decarbonizing the economy were not rich with job creation opportunities then we wouldn't be able to do it, but fortunately it is, because these are new technologies, this is the product of innovation and as we know innovation brings jobs. 

PD: Do you think that we've reached a tipping point where most people in most sectors agree with that, where the sort of green imperative and decarbonization line up with economic incentives and this is inevitably going to happen?

CF: I don't think it's inevitably going to happen. I think we still have to very intentionally push on that but I think it is entirely possible. And honestly I think it is the only possible outcome. It is not inevitable in many people's mind yet. I think we we're on the on the verge, let's say on the cusp, of understanding that those two are interlinked in a way that we cannot separate them from each other. But we have thought of these two as competing goals for so long that it takes a very intentional change of mindset to understand that these are actually aligned with each other and that they're mutually reinforcing. I think we're in the cusp of that and I also think, Peter, that once that is normalized in our thinking, because I think there are many people who think that but they still are the exceptions to the rule. Once that thinking is normalized and once we can no longer give a list of the companies that have understood this, these cities that have understood these, the countries that have understood these, once that list is simply unlistable because it's become the norm, then that process will actually accelerate. And I think we're on the cusp of it and furthermore I actually think that Covid has accelerated that thinking process.

PD: Yeah let's build on that, so with the economic crisis the pandemic has triggered we've obviously seen rounds of emergency fiscal stimulus from governments to support populations, there's going to need to be much more of that to rebuild out of this crisis. Is there an opportunity to leverage that kind of investment, the fiscal stimulus for the post-pandemic economic recovery, to really catalyse this kind of transformation you're talking about?

C: Well I wouldn't call it an opportunity, I would call it an urgent need. There is an urgent need because the fact is with the levels of capital that are being injected into the economy, 12 trillion and counting, that's not going to happen anytime soon again and so that capital needs to certainly revitalize the economy, but it also needs to decarbonize the economy at the same time. And as we've just discussed those two, luckily they go hand in hand. But the other thing Peter that we have to understand, not just from an economic rationale point of view but from a moral point of view, let's remember that those 12 trillion are capital that we are borrowing. The governments are borrowing this money, they are going into deep debt, and that debt will not be paid by the likes of me and other oldies, they're going to be paid by young people through your contributions into the tax system. So just from a moral point of view, if you are already going to be saddled with that debt, it better be capital that is invested for your benefit and not to your detriment. So just from a moral point of view, in addition to all of the other arguments. 

PD: If you haven't heard episode one of this new series yet, go back and have a listen. We spoke to the philosopher Roman Krznaric, author of The Good Ancestor, about exactly this. He challenged us to walk in the shoes of our descendants seven generations down the road, and that's exactly the kind of legacy mindset we need to cultivate. 

In this episode, I'm talking to Christiana Figueres, one of the world's most influential change-makers when it comes to climate. Christiana and others have pointed out that most of the technology we need to make a transition to a decarbonized economy already exists. So I asked her, if not technology, what are the biggest obstacles to achieving our goals?

CF: I think the biggest obstacle is right up here in our brain, it's our mindset right. Because to you know to pick up your reimagine, we're just so incapable of reimagining what human life can be. And we have to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and truly reimagine, challenge everything as you say, challenge everything that we're doing and ask ourselves a very simple question: ÒThis that I'm doing now, this decision that I'm taking right now, this investment that I'm making, this, you know, contribution to my daily life - is it actually regenerating me and is it regenerating the planet? Or is it actually investing into detrimental conditions for myself and for the planet.Ó And if we take that attitude then we can fast forward on the change that we need. So for me it's very much up in our head. There are other things that are there, but that once we take the right mindset they will begin to fall. You know some argue well renewable energy is very expensive, not true. Renewable energy, certainly solar and offshore wind, are actually already today cheaper than um than any new coal being installed. And so you know let's let go of that myth, that renewable energy is more expensive. Some may say well clean transport is more expensive than polluting transport, well very soon we're going to have alternatives to almost every model of light vehicles, where that new version of the light vehicles will be electric or some other non-emitting source, and they will be competitive at the purchase price but they will certainly be much more competitive at the operational cost. So you know economics is on our side. We can no longer say that sustainability is more expensive than the alternative. So that myth will be gone. We're also moving into much heavier transport with non-traditional fuels such as green hydrogen. I think the sector that is very much the Cinderella sector here Peter is land use. We have not been able to revolutionize our irresponsible management of land the way that we should. We're still globally deforesting more than we're reforesting and we're depleting lands more than we're regenerating soils, to say nothing about the ocean as well. So I think on the energy side we're on a pretty good path of modernising and cleaning up our act, but not yet so on the land use side. 
PD: With all the focus on net zero and decarbonizing our economies, are we paying enough attention to other aspects of the climate crisis that we need to address? Biodiversity for example and creating the kind of regeneration that we really need.

CF: That is definitely the sector that is far behind. I think mostly because we don't have a compelling business model for reforesting, for regenerating soils, for cleaning up the ocean. We, you know, the economics is not on our side on that one yet because we're not assigning monetary value to that kind of more responsible soil management. Now, those farmers that are moving toward regenerative agriculture and that are noticing that they have better crops and more tasty crops and certainly more produce per acreage, and hence more income, are beginning to understand that regenerating their soils is actually a good investment. But we're very very incipient in that understanding and most agriculture is not regenerative yet, it's very depleting still. It's sort of like you know having an investment in the bank where you're only pulling the money out constantly, but you expect that capital to be there for you, to work for you in the future. But it's not going to work for you if you consistently withdraw and withdraw and withdraw from your account. And that's what we're doing with soils. So that natural capital that is there is one that we have to understand that it is a capital that we have to protect, and then we can live from the interest, so to speak, from the crops that are produced, but we cannot deplete the natural capital itself. The invested capital has to stay there in order to be able to quite comfortably live off the interests that are thrown off of that natural capital, but if you deplete the capital itself, we get into the kinds of issues that we are now. 

PD: Can we talk for a moment about the role of business in driving this transformation? The private sector of course is even more so than a lot of the rest of us locked into cycles of short-termism. Where does business need to be and are there examples maybe of either companies or sectors that you think are getting this right?

CF: Yeah there are there are many businesses that are getting this right. Let me start with most ambitious. Two companies come to mind because they have set themselves the target of not just reducing their emissions, but actually of being what they call Ôclimate positiveÕ, which is absorbing more carbon than they are emitting. Interface is a carpet company that is already climate positive, they are already absorbing more carbon into their production line than they emit. Ikea is a company that has set that target for itself, is not there yet, but they have set the target to be climate positive by 2030 - absorbing more carbon then they are emitting. Quite a challenge for a company with the characteristics of Ikea. And then you have other companies that have set themselves climate neutral targets either by 2030 or 2040 or 2050, all of these companies do so because they understand the carbon constraint and the firm deadline, is actually the birthplace of innovation and creativity. And that they're actually a stronger company when they move in that direction. I guarantee that none of them are doing it because they want to save the planet, they're doing it because of business continuity, they're doing it because it makes them more effective, more efficient, it allows them to move away from arcane and inefficient production processes, and because they are foreseeing that demand will be growing exponentially from that corner. Citizens, customers, clients, are increasingly understanding that they have a huge power being the demand side of this equation, and that the more that they put their wallet toward products that are more sustainable, the more they can shift these companies. So these companies are understanding that that is the growth curve that is coming at them and they want to be ahead of that curve. So luckily I would say there is a beneficial and a virtuous supply-demand circle that has already been started in which both supply and demand are moving toward higher sustainability, lower carbon, higher resilience products and services. 

PD: So we've talked about governments, we've talked about businesses, I want to talk about people, citizens and in particular youth. We talk a lot about systems change and how it happens and I think I've yet to see an example of a large-scale systemic transformation, really in any sector, that wasn't driven in part by a social movement and of course in recent years we've really seen that coming from younger generations, the generations from whom we're really you know stealing right now. How, in sort of your perch, particularly working with government leaders, how effective has that been, does it really have an impact, and what do you think is going to be the role of social movements and driving change moving forward?

CF: Well you know we say in our book, totally agreeing with you Peter, that there if you look at history we've of course had many changes and transformations in history but it's hard to find a deeply affecting social, political, or economic shift that has not occurred with some degree of civil disobedience and with some degree of pressure from the public. That's a good thing, that's a good thing, because those civil disobedience movements put pressure and add speed to the transformation. They kind of jolt us out of our petrified way of thinking and doing and challenge us to move toward more innovative thinking and more innovative structures and processes, and so that's why we are so grateful for the youth movement in every country that has certainly, before Covid, taken to the streets to remind us oldies that we're not doing enough and that it is our responsibility to at least begin to set a new course for the global economy. We will not be able to accompany this transformation to its end result in 2050 because we will be fortunately and happily turning over the baton to younger people quite soon, but it is our responsibility before we hand over the baton to at least change the course, and at least make sure that the global economy is on a decarbonization path. The decarbonized goals will be delivered by future generations but the path has to be set by us because otherwise it's too irresponsible. We, the oldies that are you know sitting at the decision table right now, we know the science, our parents didn't, we have the capital because we know how much capital there is in the world, and we have the technology so there's no excuse. We're the ones that have to set the new path and then turn over the baton for accelerate implementation to younger generations but in the meantime it's very helpful to have those younger generations um holding those placards up in front of us and reminding us that we have to do our job. 

PD: Christiana, my favourite chapter in your book is called ÔStubborn OptimismÕ and I think you used the same term in a really beautiful recent TED talk and you know optimism comes up on this podcast from time to time as you can imagine, I know it does in yours as well, but in your conception of stubborn optimism there's something that is, you know, not passive but active. It's an input, it's an action, it's um, there's something fierce about your version of optimism and I wonder if you could just talk about that a little bit. 

CF: Yeah fierce, I love that word Peter, yeah because it's not a, you know, not a dilly dally Ôoh well I'm gonna sit back in the couch you know and just expects things to take care of themselvesÕ, it's actually a very courageous stand, it's a very courageous decision, it's a choice that we have to make every day. Every day we have to decide what is the approach that I'm going to take to the challenges of the day, whether they be big or small, or both, and it does take courage and I'm not going to tell you that I make the right choice every day because sometimes I go to bed and I go Ôdamn was I negative today, shoot, that is not what I wanted to doÕ right, but knowing that every day is a new opportunity and a new responsibility to make the responsible choice, to say Ôwell you know, we're going to have many things thrown at us, many rotten tomatoes on the road, but still despite that I am going to choose for good, and I am going to put everything that I have, all of my skill set, all my energy, all of my capacity, to construct with others, because it can't be done individually, to construct with others the future that we want, the future that we are choosing over the dystopian futureÕ. Because it has to be a choice, it has to be a deliberate choice, if we don't make a deliberate choice, by default we will just sleepwalk our way into a dystopian future because it's a very slippery slope. And so we have to make the choice of getting off the slippery slope and building and climbing a hill that is much more difficult to climb than just sliding down that slope. So yes it's fierce, it's determined, it's gritty, it's an everyday choice, it's not easy and it is totally necessary. 

PD: Christiana, every time I hear you speak I feel better at the end. Thank you so much for joining us today.

CF: Well Peter you know my team would absolutely hang me from the highest tree if I let you go without inviting all of your listeners to also visit us on our podcast that is called ÔOutrage and OptimismÕ. And why do we call it that? Because we think both are really necessary Peter, I think we have to be outraged at what we have not done yet, at the delays that we're having, at the stupid mental attitudes that we're hanging on to. We have to be outraged about that and at the same time we have to be optimistic that we can actually make a huge difference and that we can do what is necessary to bring about a much better world. So that's why our podcast is called Outrage and Optimism and we invite all of your listeners to also visit us over there. But congratulations, we love your podcast, we're totally in line with your way of thinking and thanks very much for inviting me today. 

PD: My thanks to Christiana Figueres. Do check out her podcast Outrage and Optimism, you'll be smarter and happier for it. In the next episode we'll talk with Halla T—masd—ttir, the CEO of the B Team, a group of global leaders working together to transform business for a better world. 

Halla T—masd—ttir: Our economy needs an upgrade and a version of capitalism that actually serves humanity and our only home the planet.

PD: Halla has been described as, quote, Òa living emoji of sincerityÓ and she ran a successfully unsuccessful campaign for president in Iceland, her home country. Halla is currently leading a campaign to reset capitalism so you can see why we need to talk to her. Subscribe right now to Reimagine wherever you get your podcasts and why not give us a shout on social media? Leave us a review. Find me on twitter @PeterDrobac and to learn more about social entrepreneurship and the Skoll Centre, visit reimaginepodcast.com. From Oxford, I'm Peter Drobac and you've been listening to Reimagine, a podcast about people who are inventing the future.