376: Beyond Politics: Should we take the heat out of the climate crisis?

[20:01] Christiana Figueres

Because- and I can only speak from my personal experience, and others can have a very different experience. When I was a national negotiator for my country, the way that a country negotiating team prepares for any negotiating, a COP or a free COP or a sub star or whatever, we first do a national consultation with the sectors that are affected. We then take all of that information and we distill it. And then the negotiating team looks at all of this and takes a political lens and says, given what we have heard from all of the sectors, and given the political line from the political party that is in government, here is the position that we can take too. And then they go through. And in Paris, we had at least 67 different topics under negotiation at the same time. Not every country can deal with 67, right? Most countries can only deal with a few topics. But then in my case, Costa Rica chose, okay, we're going to take an active position on these 25 topics. What is our position going to be? And then we establish a minimum and a maximum on each of those.

[21:26] Tom Rivett-Carnac

And how far apart are those minimums?

[21:28] Christiana Figueres

Well, it depends on how much political flexibility domestically you have.

[21:32] Tom Rivett-Carnac

I see.

[21:33] Christiana Figueres

If the sectoral consultation that you've made, you see that you have a huge spread. And if the political direction that you have from your executive allows you for that spread, then you're very flexible. Mostly you're not.

[21:50] Tom Rivett-Carnac

Mostly you're not. Most of you are fairly tight.

[21:52] Christiana Figueres

It's fairly tight. So to each topic, we already knew what we were going to go in with, our entry position. And we knew how much we could fall back or compromise until we got to our red line. And then we can't compromise anymore. There, by the time you get to the COP, that flexibility has already been established.

[22:18] Tom Rivett-Carnac

I see.

[22:18] Christiana Figueres

And there's very little possibility to deviate from that because you're no longer responding only to what is happening there on the floor. You're responding to the executive government that's sitting in the capital city.

[22:31] Tom Rivett-Carnac

You don't have the authority to-

[22:32] Christiana Figueres

You don't have the authority. And if you feel, you know, that the negotiation wants you to go beyond your red line, you have to ask for permission. I shall never forget the negotiation in which we waited five hours for the US to consult with Washington on a comma in the final text. Because the comma changed the sentence. But that demonstrates the power of the central government. They have the ultimate voice. So, my answer to Michael's very good question is it is more sexy to go and try to influence the cops because all the media is there and you get a shot at talking to this journalist and talking to da-da-da-da. So it's more sexy, it's more attractive. And in my book, less effective.

[23:25] Tom Rivett-Carnac

Interesting.

[23:26] Christiana Figueres

You have more leeway and more influence by being an activist at home and influencing that scale of flexibility that your government will take to the negotiations. That was always my experience.

[23:46] Tom Rivett-Carnac

So if you were to take that, and this is an excellent question that is really, I think, guides a lot of the strategy of some of these NGOs in terms of how they try and create change, when would a country be setting that parameter on negotiation? Should you be talking to them six months before a COP, nine months before a COP? When's the moment and who do you try and engage with? Is it the minister? Is it the senior officials? Which minister? Which minister? Which minister? The minister of the department that negotiates.

[24:15] Christiana Figueres

I mean, sadly, all of the above, because a government can't take a position on, let's say, land use without consulting with the ministry in charge of that.

[24:26] Tom Rivett-Carnac

Right.

[24:28] Christiana Figueres

So you do have to have that flexibility to bring in the sectoral opinions. Sadly, it has to be a constant pressure. It's not like, okay, three months before the COP, now we have to start. No, it is about developing a consistent pressure that stays shoulder to shoulder in the countries in which you can, because in some countries you cannot. But in countries in which NGOs can actually be there, shoulder to shoulder, influencing, educating, very often educating government officials, because NGOs are really specialized. And government officials, especially in developing countries, have a thousand things that they're responsible for and are not necessarily very educated on the 25 issues that they have to negotiate. And so to take advantage of that and say, we know a little bit about this. We can help you think this through. That is, to me, the sweet spot of where you can actually influence.

[25:28] Tom Rivett-Carnac

Amazing. That's so helpful. Paul?

[25:31] Paul Dickinson

No, it makes sense to me. I think I have this image of sort of kind of like accidentally tapping you in an irritating way and you start talking by hand. No, that's not going to work. You talk to me. Because I control the hand.

[25:41] Tom Rivett-Carnac

Oh, I see. The negotiator is the hands. You've got to get back to where the brain is.

[25:44] Paul Dickinson

I'm with you, sorry.

[25:45] Tom Rivett-Carnac

A moment too slow. Christiana still doesn't get it.

[25:47] Christiana Figueres

Yeah, I was too modest just now.

[25:49] Paul Dickinson

No, but it also is kind of heartbreaking when you see people at COPs, you know, on their knees wishing things were differently. Whereas actually, they should have been, to a certain extent, focusing on the national government in the years before making these cases at the highest level. And then it'll go and play itself out in the COP, which is a sort of like a mechanism beyond control. 100%.

[26:08] Tom Rivett-Carnac

OK, great. Next one, Paul.

[26:11] Paul Dickinson

OK, so this is Noah Mora. So what Noah says is, one of the most impactful ways for my generation, Gen Z and young millennials, to be agents of the system change necessary to keep Paris alive. Is it still taking to the streets through academic professional careers? If so, which content creations? Something else?

[26:33] Tom Rivett-Carnac

What's the answer, Paul?

[26:36] Paul Dickinson

I thought, yes, to...

[26:37] Christiana Figueres

There is no the answer. What is your answer, Paul?

[26:41] Paul Dickinson

My answer. Well, speaking as not quite Gen Z or young millennial, I think direct action is incredibly important, but I think it should evolve. I think one of the most powerful political speeches that everyone seems to be talking about right now is the mayor of New York talking about the Knicks winning their basketball team, winning the basketball contest, whatever it's called. I mean, he, I'm sorry, I'm like...

[27:06] Tom Rivett-Carnac

Excellent sports analysis here and there.

[27:09] Paul Dickinson

Are they a basketball team and what's the basket?

[27:11] Christiana Figueres

What is a basketball team?

[27:12] Tom Rivett-Carnac

I mean, just like, you know, right finger on the post.

[27:15] Paul Dickinson

I know synchronized swimming when I see it and the Knicks are the best. But look, in all seriousness, you know, it's pure politics, but he's talking about a sports event. What he's doing is he's positioning himself as a very bright light in the media firmament. He's giving joy. He's reflecting the joy of the great seat of New York through himself as a political actor and giving himself political power as he does that. So what I'm trying to say is like, is the Knicks game something to do with politics? Yeah, it is. If you take it, you know, so I think the thing about direct action is there's brilliant history of direct action. I don't have to repeat it all now, but there's also incredible opportunities to innovate new kinds of direct actions. Humour makes people think incredibly well. I've never laughed so much as once I once saw some people marching against some political bill. It doesn't really matter what it was, but they had these shops and oxystery and it said, more shops now. I just thought seeing people march that oxystery, which is completely full of shops demanding more shops. I paid attention to them. But my favorite one of all of them is the divestment campaign. Students around the world going to their universities and saying, we've got to divest from fossil fuels. You've got these endowments with hundreds of millions, billions of pounds, dollars, whatever. We've got to sell them. You shouldn't have it in fossil fuels. Now, what I loved about that is it's a very valid point. They could have a super intelligent discussion with the facilitators, the managers of the university. Those funds are held in trust for the student body, past and future. So yeah, just do something direct, but do it new, do it different, do it brilliant.

[28:59] Christiana Figueres

When I hear you speak, I'm wondering, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I'm wondering whether you're talking about influencing the cultural context in which political decisions get made or in which political leadership gets recognized. I think that is where we have not really focused on, and it's such a rich arena. It is the cultural context. How do you shift the cultural context of what is acceptable and what is no longer acceptable? What is something that we completely turn our backs to, and what is something that we actually embrace? But that is a cultural context that is very difficult to affect, and completely, completely necessary. My favorite example on that is everything to do with sexual identity, right? I mean, 30 years ago, there was no conversation. It was like, you're either a man or a woman, and that's it.

[30:12] Paul Dickinson

Right?

[30:12] Christiana Figueres

And now, the cultural context in which every person can openly, in most countries, say what their sexual identity and sexual preference is, and that we have such a diversity, that is a cultural context that we have opened up throughout decades, but that would not, and that is beginning to have its legal and certainly political implications. But that would not have occurred without the cultural context opening for that.

[30:52] Paul Dickinson

And it was weaponized by the other side. Remember the anti-Harris campaign. She's for they, them, he's for you. You know, so it's complex.

[31:02] Tom Rivett-Carnac

Yeah, it is complex.

[31:03] Christiana Figueres

That, to me, just confirms the importance of it.

[31:05] Paul Dickinson

Correct.

[31:06] Christiana Figueres

When they weaponize it, it's because it's important.

[31:08] Paul Dickinson

Correct. Yeah, I agree.

[31:10] Tom Rivett-Carnac

I mean, just coming back to the question, which is around what is the, if you're a, if you're a member of Gen Z, or Gen Alpha even, and you're trying to think, we know what is the highest and best use of my generation? I would invert the question and I would say, what are you most passionate about doing? Don't try and choose something on the basis of climate action. Because actually, if you're an engineer, if you're a lawyer, if you're an artist, whatever you do, there is an enormous number of things that need doing that affect climate and nature. So the question is not, what do I want to do in order to affect the climate? But what am I really passionate about? And I know that's a hard question for young people, but that's always been, it was ever thus. Work out what you're passionate about, go and pursue that and figure out the ways in which that touches the climate crisis, because they'll be everywhere once you get into it.

[31:57] Christiana Figueres

Very true.

[31:58] Tom Rivett-Carnac

So to end this episode, we've got a couple of questions about the future. And the first of those comes from Pete Dyson. And Pete asks, how might media coverage of climate change and environment issues change in the future? This is such a good question, because I think it sort of points out that we are, we haven't yet quite worked out how to report on these issues. I don't know what you two think, but I think if we get this right, it won't be the case that climate is dealt with as an independent separate issue forever, but that it is just baked in to-

[32:32] Christiana Figueres

Normalized.

[32:32] Tom Rivett-Carnac

Normalized, but present in everything. So that when you read news, it is clear that the changing climate and the attempts to deal with it across society are just baked into our geopolitics, they're baked into our economic policy, they're baked into day-to-day life, so that we can see that just as a natural and normal and powerful part of our world. Paul is thinking.

[32:57] Paul Dickinson

I know, it's just the word excitement. I'm so sorry to use this very unhelpful concept, but news is driven to some degree by excitement. So I just wonder why it's so hard for us to... I mean, essentially, you say gigantic problem that's going to be around for a very long time has changed in a microscopic way. That's not a news headline. But there have been, I'm just going to use one example of global media that blew everyone away. Greta Thunberg, she did actually manage to get on the front page of everything because she was doing something sort of exciting at the time and people were enjoying it. And that's an aspect of climate, whereas sort of reporting these kind of gradual aspects of the big problem, that's not exciting news.

[33:41] Tom Rivett-Carnac

That's a great point. And so I would, the subset to that question is, you're right, what Greta did, Greta Thunberg did, is she made it exciting and built momentum. And to change an entire system was still a long way away from the full expression of that activism, right? It built a lot of momentum and interest. It also generated a lot of pushback. But I think to me, having tried to learn as we go through this process, I think if we're to get to a point where systems change really gets embedded across all levels of society, I don't think it's like civil rights or universal suffrage. I don't think it's a set of vulnerable people marching on the streets to demand change. I think it's just, it gets baked into everything that we do in a different way. What do you think, Christiana?

[34:31] Christiana Figueres

I agree that the only way that we're going to quote unquote win is when we have won ourselves out of our job, when it's no longer necessary to be activist advocates, pushing the ball up the heel, when it has been baked in. And unfortunately, the baking in, interesting that we're using that word because baking requires a lot of heat. It is, it's going to be very painful. And we're going to have to open ourselves to a lot of pain and a lot of grief, and therefore a lot of courage. But it has, it has to get to the point where we have normalized both the pain and the grief, and the courage to stand up to it and to make a difference. And when it is no longer necessary to take to the streets.

[35:27] Tom Rivett-Carnac

Yeah. And do you think because often in climate, we sort of look back at great social movements of the past, of like, you know, end of slavery, universal suffrage, you know. And we think of those as like, well, they had these great movements and they pushed forward and they won. And we sort of slightly thought, well, maybe we can model ourselves to some degree on that. We've had a variety of runs at it. And I'm not sure that's the model that's going to do it in this case, because it's so far reaching and it touches everything.

[35:52] Christiana Figueres

It's so all-encompassing.

[35:53] Tom Rivett-Carnac

So all-encompassing.

[35:54] Christiana Figueres

That's the different.

[35:55] Tom Rivett-Carnac

Yeah.

[35:56] Christiana Figueres

It's so all-encompassing.

[35:57] Paul Dickinson

What about just, you know, is saying like Britain's got to 2 million electric cars? Is that a headline? Is it exciting? I don't know. Are climate change stories about, you know, extreme heat? Or are they about fantastic things that have been done or, you know? Both. Maybe like finding the right relationship with this new topic.

[36:14] Christiana Figueres

I'm just reflecting how many times we have spoken about this issue of, you know, how do you communicate on media coverage? It's just so pervasive. And honestly, it's so frustrating.

[36:30] Tom Rivett-Carnac

Yeah.

[36:30] Christiana Figueres

You know, the feeling that comes up for me anywhere close to media coverage, communication, you know, educating people, is how frustrated I feel that we have been... I don't know if this word exists in English, but I know my family used it when I was very young. Ninkampoops. Is that it?

[36:53] Paul Dickinson

Yeah, that's a very English word.

[36:54] Christiana Figueres

Oh, really? Yeah. Okay. So I'm just so frustrated that we're such ninkampoops. You know? It's like, how can we be so useless? Yeah.

[37:03] Tom Rivett-Carnac

It requires quite a different thinking. I mean, I actually, when you mentioned the divestment campaign earlier, I felt a little bit sad because I thought, gosh, I haven't thought about the divestment campaign for a few years, but you're right, it was amazing. You know, everything that the kids did and they were on the campuses and they were calling for divestment. And then you think further back, I mean, I remember the 1010 campaign where there was a big campaign in the UK to reduce emissions by 10% in 2010. It was 16 years ago. We're still here going through this process. It's something different in terms of how we get our arms around this and we really make the change that's going to be needed. Otherwise, you get these waves of breakthrough and then the sort of, you know, the seapals back.

[37:37] Paul Dickinson

But you get your Zach Polanski's also, you know, the relatively young, new head of the Green Party, suddenly kind of all over the media. We've also got to sort of kind of have an ability to pat our movement on the back for doing things well and encourage, you know, if you had a kid and he was sort of saying, oh, you know, you keep getting hotter and your emissions are going up, you know, that's not the great way to sort of get someone engaged. And, you know, how do we coach ourselves to be our best players?

[38:04] Tom Rivett-Carnac

And not see it as a series of failures, but as collective action towards a bigger outcome.

[38:08] Christiana Figueres

And changing the baseline. I mean, you know, the divestment, OK, you know, they didn't change all investments in the world for sure. But it raised the awareness on this. I think, you know, we have to see that there is nothing that is going to solve miraculously, because I don't want to use the word silver bullet. But it does change the baseline. Slowly, slowly, it changes the baseline. The problem is urgency.

[38:34] Paul Dickinson

Shouldn't have swallowed that alarm clock. Tom.

[38:36] Tom Rivett-Carnac

Last question. Last question.

[38:38] Christiana Figueres

Natasha Watson. So Natasha asks, long-term thinking and intergenerational responsibility is present in many indigenous cultures as well as religions. What changed and why did we, Westernized cultures broadly, break that social contract?

[39:01] Paul Dickinson

I have it in my notes here. It says the mother question. And then I wrote back to the colonized life world, which is a phrase from the Yogan Hagemas, the philosopher who, Hagemas, who said that we become instruments of organizations and this has colonized the life world. The sort of, the humanity of us has been crushed out of us by our organizations and our institutions. And that's when we lost the sort of bond with the kind of common requirements of human life or animal life, if we want to broaden ourselves. How do you answer the question?

[39:39] Christiana Figueres

You know, I'm really, it's a very important question. I'm really struggling with the question because one way of thinking about it is through the evolution of our species and we had this three-part discussion about the relationship between us and nature, and how that has shifted over history. So that's one way of understanding it, to trace it as though, as though it were a linear evolution, which is what we did in that three-part series. And what we argued there is that we broke our relationship with nature in that case, in the moment that we engaged in the agricultural revolution. And you can listen to those three. But that's if you see it as an evolution of human society and a linear evolution. The other way to think about it, is not through a linear evolution, because the question is contrasting indigenous cultures to Western cultures. I wouldn't say that Western cultures have broken a contract that still exists in indigenous cultures because we Westerners do not descend from those indigenous cultures. And so you can't see it linearly as though it were a linear evolution. I would actually argue it's not that we broke a contract that indigenous cultures are still honoring. It's the fact that in the West, we have built an economic and institutional engine that is short-term structured as opposed to long-term. And we have structurally rewarded short horizons over long horizons. And invented this reality that hopefully we're beginning to see that it was a dumb invention, which is based on a philosophy of progress and mastery that made short-term gains and decisions look like optimism and success rather than recklessness. And that's a completely different set of cosmological, actually, cosmological structure than the structure that is at the basis of most indigenous cultures, most religions, and most spiritual practices. So it's not that we broke their contract, or it's not that we broke a contract, it's that we invented something completely different based on short-term, quote-unquote, success, and that's how we measure ourselves.

[42:29] Tom Rivett-Carnac

So the difficult question, which is the one we should probably end the episode on, is how do we get it back?

[42:35] Christiana Figueres

No, not how do we get it back, but rather, how do we extend our loyalty from short-term to long-term?

[42:45] Tom Rivett-Carnac

Okay.

[42:45] Christiana Figueres

How do we extend our vision?

[42:46] Paul Dickinson

How do we extend our loyalty from short-term to long-term? That's good. That's deep.

[42:53] Christiana Figueres

Because our loyalty is very, very short-term.

[42:55] Tom Rivett-Carnac

Yeah.

[42:56] Christiana Figueres

That's how we measure ourselves. That's how electoral cycles, economic...

[43:02] Tom Rivett-Carnac

I mean, and it's getting faster and faster. And it's getting faster and faster.

[43:05] Paul Dickinson

You have to love the future. You have to say the infinite promise of the future is ours to keep. How do you answer your question, Tom?

[43:11] Christiana Figueres

I don't know how to answer your question, Tom. I think it's a great question.

[43:15] Tom Rivett-Carnac

I think that the honest truth is if you look back historically, the only time where a reset of that magnitude really happens is after a great crisis, usually in the aftermath of war or breakdown of some kind.

[43:29] Christiana Figueres

World War.

[43:30] Tom Rivett-Carnac

Yeah, like World War. Then you get, we're going to go in a different direction. Not Iran. No, it's like something truly catastrophic. And if you look back at history, wars, famines, these sorts of things, then there is a moment of transformation. Well, thank you for that suggestion. Hang on, hang on, hang on.

[43:45] Christiana Figueres

Okay, no, I'll get a famine going.

[43:46] Tom Rivett-Carnac

So the question is, given that we know that, is humanity going to make itself go through something like that? And many people we should acknowledge are already going through things like that. But is humanity at large going to make itself go through something like that in order to enable us to reset our relationship with speed and long-termism and all these other good things?

[44:08] Paul Dickinson

Hey, but Tom, we're already going through it.

[44:10] Tom Rivett-Carnac

Yeah, exactly. We're already going through it. But we're going through it slowly. At the moment, it's not so acute that it actually is leading to breakdown and regeneration where we are. It is happening in other parts of the world. So this is the great test of humanity. Yes. And the truth is, we're either going to find a way in the coming decades or we're going to be forced to do it by going through one of the historically tested ways of resetting thinking, which is the aftermath of a crisis. And I think if we're going to find a way to do it, it's going to have to be working with the power of the emerging technologies that are shaping our new world. It can't be, well, we need to go back to agriculture and back to land and these sorts of things. So we can rule that out. Humanity is becoming urbanized. Humanity is becoming much more digital. So the place where, and I'm not saying this is easy or likely, the only place I can imagine intervening in this system to create a different direction is if the intentionality of the new technology is able to shift towards enabling humanity to live in a different way.

[45:13] Christiana Figueres

Without going through the dark tunnel.

[45:15] Tom Rivett-Carnac

Without going through the traditional way of resetting.

[45:18] Paul Dickinson

When you say the intentionality of the technology, what do you mean, Tom?

[45:21] Tom Rivett-Carnac

Well, I mean, at the moment, the intentionality, the people who are designing our technology that we spend so many hours of our lives on are basically using it to try and sell things to people. And there's a commercialization that is at the core of that, that is speeding up our world and that's going to be baked into AI soon. It's baked into social media. But these tools are so powerful and they could be used, and I'll sound very naive here.

[45:44] Paul Dickinson

No, I'm loving this.

[45:45] Tom Rivett-Carnac

Yeah, no, they could be used for human enlightenment, for deeper connection. And it's just sort of heartbreaking that we have gone through this whole process of innovation to create this amazing thing that could help make the world better. And we're using it to sell shit to each other. It's just pathetic.

[46:01] Paul Dickinson

Okay, tech overlords, wake up, smell the coffee and save the world.

[46:06] Tom Rivett-Carnac

All right. I think we have come to an end. And let's either of you have a better.

[46:09] Christiana Figueres

I think it's a good moment.

[46:11] Tom Rivett-Carnac

To end.

[46:11] Christiana Figueres

To breathe.

[46:13] Tom Rivett-Carnac

Very good. All right. Thanks for joining us. Lovely to see the two of you.

[46:16] Paul Dickinson

See you next week. Bye.