Bonus: A Great Regeneration with Andrew Higham and Mission 2020

Andrew Higham: [00:03:44] Well, it's a pleasure to be here Tom, and Paul and Christiana, thank you very much. Actually, if I remember correctly, there was quite a lot of champagne flowing that evening. And yes, my phone was on Christiana and I think it was. Sorry, could. I just have to deal with the dog? Hang on.

Paul Dickinson: [00:04:07] What is it with dogs today?

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:04:08] So I suggest we drop Frans Timmermans dog into Andrew Higham and just every guest has Frans Timmermans dog in the background for a bit.

Andrew Higham: [00:04:15] Apologies. I'm sorted now.

Christiana Figueres: [00:04:17] And we've been having dogs bomb our recording all day.

Andrew Higham: [00:04:24] I was looking at a beautiful photo the other day with all sorts of amazing people in it from the floor just before the adoption. And Nick Stern was the photo bomber in that particular photo.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:04:38] With Al Gore.

Christiana Figueres: [00:04:39] I was looking at a photograph of the podium with you, Andrew, standing right there at my right shoulder. And I thought, what a perfect placement for Andrew because truly, you were the right shoulder, the right hand to this incredible effort. And without your orchestration, without your patience, your skill, your wisdom, and the way that you brought together the team at the secretariat that was assigned to you for drafting that agreement, we wouldn't have an agreement. So let this be a very, very public and very deeply felt gratitude to you for just an amazing job. I know that every time I walked into the drafting room, no matter if it was 2:00 in the morning, 4:00 in the morning, 10:00 in the morning, 10:00 at night, you were there. You were there and working with whoever was up for their section of the tax to ensure the overall coherence of the text. So I have no idea how you had the stamina, but I do know that you had the wisdom to do that. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Andrew Higham: [00:06:03] Christiana, I wonder what you were thinking at that moment when we were standing up there. I've always wondered. I was thinking, isn't this amazing how this autonomously functions? We get to this outcome, but everyone was moving as one, like one single organism. And, you know, the team that I was running was moving the techs through the system and that was an important piece. But there were so many other moving parts at the same time. And I suppose for me, what I took away from that moment, was this notion of collaboration on that grand scale. It's phenomenal. And to be able to try to replicate that, that's what I've been really intrigued by.

Christiana Figueres: [00:06:51] Yeah, well, Tom and I have a going exercise about how to describe that. So my way of describing is interdependent arising, that Tom will immediately have an alternative.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:07:02] It's codependent origination actually.

Christiana Figueres: [00:07:07] Either way, it is the concept that so many things happen at different levels, at different points, and they're all interdependent. They're all mutually beneficial. And none of them is direct. Certainly, not all of them are directed by any one person or any one part of the system. But they all interdepend. They all arise when you create the ground that is fertile enough for them, they all arise and they are all mutually supportive. And I have never seen a confirmation of that concept as powerful and as compelling, as you say, as that moment when the gavel went down.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:07:55] Now, I completely agree with that. And I remember that moment. And apart from, sort of, admiring really your sweater vest, Andrew, which was a great sartorial choice for that moment when you were in front of the entire world's media. I thought that was beautiful. I would also just point out that after that, you, and this goes back to the beginning of this conversation when Christiana and I were talking about the moment after Paris when she phoned me, probably because she couldn't get to you, about what was necessary subsequent to Paris. What that ended up being was Mission 2020, which was a global collective effort to reach the turning point on climate by 2020. And you very generously took up the mantle of leading that effort. So I'd like to just ask you to sort of talk about the spirit of that and what that meant to you, because, of course, it's in the name. Right? Tell us about what that was and what it meant to you and why it was the next logical step from what you were doing in creating the Paris Agreement.

Andrew Higham: [00:09:00] Well, I mean, I think that at that moment, clearly, we got the agreement, that was great but I think that was the reason for the call. Right? Christiana called you, we needed now to implement it. But for me, it was also the deal wasn't really done because there was a promise made in Durban when we started that whole process of negotiating to the most vulnerable, that we would bend the curve in global emissions and we'd that by 2020. And for me, Mission 2020 was a way of being true to that promise. But more than that, I think, it was a way of taking that spirit of that adoption moment and bringing that into the way that we work for the period leading up to 2020. So that kind of spirit of the collective, I suppose it's this idea of radical collaboration but en masse.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:10:00] And the radical collaboration in Mission 2020 was around how the climate movement can cooperate and collaborate towards a shared goal in a kind of collective. And I've seen you do this, kind of behind the scenes over the last few years with Mission 2020, to kind of orchestrate the various different players for their own benefit to work towards a common goal. And it's been beautiful to see how that can happen. Where do you think we are five years later, do you think we've reached the turning point?

Andrew Higham: [00:10:32] I think we've reached the turning point as a political matter, and I think that we're pretty close, spiritually, if you like, in terms of the way that this community affects change. I think we're pretty close to that point. The real test will be, I think, as we go through this next year, whether we can really reach a point where the boundaries of organizations are not really what matters. It's the outcomes that are what driving, what driving, motivating people. And I think that there's also, now that we see, for example, the investment community coming in such a big way and they are really permeating right across the action field. There are these more transversal actors that are starting to force collaboration in new ways. So I see that happening. But still, it's very hard to get out of that organizational mindset. And still, I think that is a big pullback to sort of a mindset of scarcity rather than of abundance.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:11:51] So I would invite you and I do not want to put you on the spot or anything, but, you know, Mission 2020, I would say, maybe, in the long arc of history, if we look back in like 20, 30 years, you look back as an early example of the kind of organization that moved beyond the boundaries of an organization. It exists to benefit the collective and to lift the collective up. And if you were to sort of leave that with some advice as to how that type of organization can be successful in the future, what would you say you've learned?

Andrew Higham: [00:12:26] Well, we've tried to capture the essence of what that type of function looks like. And we've called it the prelude to the great regeneration. And I think there are a number of elements there. One of them is compassion. It's very important, I think, that we are humble in the way that we take on this responsibility and work with others. I think there's a need for that function to be performed in an incredibly inclusive way. If you think about it, there are hundreds of thousands of people working to solve the climate crisis. And we really need to see every single person who's a part of that mission working together. And I think that the idea of Mission 2020 ending at the end of this year, I think the concept of Mission 2030 if you like, we're all now on that mission together.

Paul Dickinson: [00:13:33] You know, I'm reminded, hearing you talk Andrew, about Christiana's TED talk, where she spoke about optimism leading to people recognizing economic advantage, driving technology, you know, the benefits of action, and then critically broad participation leading to this common direction of travel. And I think we're probably all learning and it's beautiful to hear you talk about, you know, the next 10 years. We're all learning how we can participate in that, in that shared enterprise, that shared experience. I actually heard you talk about it and you saying: "no one knew they were working as a team yet because of the direction the strategy was so clear and deeply embedded, it functioned just like a high-performance team". For me, that was radical collaboration in its highest expression and I think, as we go forward, maybe five percent of the world economy now is working on climate change. Soon it'll be 10 percent. In a sense, it touches 100 percent. And, you know, we are the 100 percent of this just glorious new movement and we're just getting to know ourselves, I guess.

Andrew Higham: [00:14:39] Yeah, Paul, it's beautiful the way that you've described it. I think we will get

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:14:45] Don't encourage him too much. I just request, please. But yes, carry on.

Andrew Higham: [00:14:52] I think we are getting to levels of participation. And I was reading recently this publication that has been produced on the Paris effect. And part of the effect here is it's built into the DNA of the Paris agreement as well. Right. I mean, this idea that we're all in was very much part of the way that the Paris agreement was constructed to see the way that the investment community is responding to the Paris agreement. By adopting essentially the Article 2.1C, which asks all financial institutions to align with the agreement and they're doing that and I think we see that right across the board. Getting to the individual level is really the next sort of challenge I suppose.

Paul Dickinson: [00:15:50] Count us in, but the Paris effect, as you so beautifully call it, Andrew, is actually the name of our 11th of December podcast. So, yeah.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:16:00] Christiana, did you have a question for Andrew?

Christiana Figueres: [00:16:01] I just want to bring Andrew back to, because Andrew you just mentioned regeneration and the prelude, and I wanted to invite you to expand a little bit about that because it is such a gift from Mission 2020 efforts that is being pulled together here to really poetically and musically put words into the vision that we have for the next 10 years. And that is beginning to be contagious to everyone, perhaps not quite as poetically to everyone. Some people are looking at their numbers and their spreadsheets and their balance sheets. But underneath all of that, underneath all of that, there is this. vision, this imagining the future, as Mission 2020 has called it, of what we need to do and who we need to be, and how we need to be in order to be able to halve our emmissions. But it's not just about the numbers, right? It's about who we are and how we do ourselves in the world.

Andrew Higham: [00:17:21] Yes, Christiana, I think this has been a really tough year for so many people. And it's also been a most magical year at the same time. And we really feel like we're on the edge of something very, very special as we go into next year and seeing the commitments that have come through over the last few months. I mean, clearly, we have reached the turning point as a political matter, and we'll bend the curve in global emissions and we really need to see that moving. Now, down on that rapid 7-8 percentage points each year. But I think it's the spirit that comes through now. And that's what we mean by this. We talk about the regeneration. So, you know, it's not Generation X, it's not Generation Y, it's not generation Z, it's the regeneration that is really going to take this challenge on now and succeed in this decade ahead. And we have tried to listen through hundreds of conversations this year about what that really means for change-makers across the field. And we tried to bring it together into a piece of prose, which, I suppose describes the essence of the movement, the climate movement, that it's going to succeed in this decisive decade ahead. So it tries to capture the heart of what it will take. And it goes through and sort of describes the need for compassion, the need to be welcoming and to really embrace diversity. It also, I think, really recognizes that as activists working on climate, we also need to support other social movements and talking about making sure that when we talk about climate, that we're doing it in a way which is very accessible and using language which is not jargony, but also speaking in the languages that people speak in. So we will publish this final piece called The Prelude to the Great Regeneration in eight different languages.

Christiana Figueres: [00:20:09] Well, that is beautiful. And you've actually just released that, Andrew. And I would very much encourage our listeners to look it up and to follow the text because it is a beautifully, beautifully penned text. A collectively penned text that some of the Mission 2020 friends are actually going to read for us here on the podcast.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:20:40] Andrew, thank you. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for everything over the years. Thank you for your friendship and your mentorship. It's been amazing what you've achieved both at the UNCCC and here in Mission 2020.

Paul Dickinson: [00:20:54] Thank you for holding that pen. The agreement is but to the output of that pen.

Christiana Figueres: [00:20:58] Thank you for continuing to hold a different pen after 2015. It's a more ethereal pen, if you will, to help so many stakeholders to continue to write the history of humanity here

Paul Dickinson: [00:21:15] And the future on the stars.

Andrew Higham: [00:21:18] Thank you, everyone.

Christiana Figueres: [00:21:19] Thank you. And shall we listen to some of the Mission 2020 friends reading the different stanzas of the Prelude?

Mission 2020 Friend 1: [00:21:38] It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief. It was the epoch of incredulity. It was the season of light. It was the season of darkness. It was the spring of hope. It was the winter of despair. We had everything before us. We had nothing before us. Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities. Come, fill the cup and the fire of spring, your winter garment of repentance fling, the bird of time has but a little way to flutter and the bird is on the wing. Omar Khayyam.

Mission 2020 Friend 2: [00:22:26] Tuning in to people from around the world and hearing them talk about the time we were living through is not dissimilar to the beginning of Charles Dickens' famous novel, A Tale of Two Cities. For many, as well as disease, devastation, and despair. It's also a time of beginnings, awakening, and change of historic opportunity to make a difference. The prelude to a great regeneration honors a diverse set of visions for the decade ahead gathered during a broad listening exercise in 2020. Woven through the rich difference of visions, hopes, and dreams for the future is a common desire for something altogether new to emerge from this moment, something kinder, something greater. We will be the regeneration. We will make this death certificate a decade of extraordinary and great regeneration.

Mission 2020 Friend 3: [00:23:35] Compassionate, existing, as we do in a time of great transformation. Without the perspective of hindsight, it's impossible to know how much farther there is to go or exactly what the tipping point for change will be. It's easy, even necessary to make mistakes in the pursuit of answers, solutions, and breakthroughs. None of us are immune, and it will be easy to become distracted, get lost, or go wrong. Being part of the great regeneration means allowing for and supporting each other through our mistakes with deep compassion and empathy, moral leadership from all of us in the decade ahead may turn out to be even more important than the systems changes and technological advances that we know we need to. Accepting the mud as necessary for flowers of great beauty to bloom, we will nurture each other and ourselves as we chart our way through with love.

Mission 2020 Friend 4: [00:24:43] Welcoming it is much easier to reflect with those closest to a single prioritizing our work than it is to draw near to those with different approaches. While each of us has our own particular role to play. Joining the regeneration means making a sincere effort to learn from those who are different from us. New ideas and different approaches don't make the establishment irrelevant. The system is infinitely complex and subject to change itself. Diversity is essential to any ecosystem, and nothing any of us accomplish is achieved without the help of others. Collaboration creates abundance and benefit for everyone. New ideas and communities can flourish while respect is maintained for ideas and institutions that have been painstakingly and passionately matured over decades. And common ground can be found between those who disagree. Being part of the great regeneration means respectfully challenging existing viewpoints and welcoming new perspectives. Building trust with openness and honesty is critical. Movements for change in communities and geographies that are most vulnerable and have the least capacity or power to influence decisions that impact their lives need to be empowered and heard. This means taking the time to listen to, understand and amplify these voices. It means committing to amplify, engage with and celebrate events that stem from different cultures, different generations, or different ways of approaching consensus building and activations to our own. In the great regeneration, dedicated resources for training and recruitment that help people to understand cultural or different generational sensitivities, challenge previously accepted wisdom, and our prioritized and massively expanded. We will be generous with our knowledge, assets, and connections. We'll be prioritizing new alliances which bring different kinds of groups together, giving more people of all ages agency and a seat at the table.

Mission 2020 Friend 5: [00:26:47] Accessible, the wealth of data and analysis regarding the state of the ecological and climate emergencies is too often inaccessible to billions of people. Excellent scientific, economic and social research is rarely reported on or translated in ways that speak to how people experience these crises in their daily lives. Meanwhile, indigenous communities' teachings based on a profound understanding of nature are too often ignored. The result is that the majority of people on our planet, including our politicians, are unaware of the scale of the crisis currently facing humanity. For those who are aware, many are still asking the question, What can I do to make a difference? In the great regeneration, experts join forces with communicators to help simplify jargony language so that more people can hear and understand their messages and be moved to action. Significant investments are made in communicating the best available research and data in ways that are graspable. Today, excellent content that can guide us all, including information tailored to CEOs, mayors, investors, and politicians to deliver on the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals is being produced around the globe, much of which is not being translated into other languages, including English and vice versa. In the Great Regeneration, content is made available in as many languages as possible, and people everywhere are more comfortable interacting with each other multilingually by harnessing the power of technology that now makes this possible. For those who cannot safely access relevant content or express their ideas or pursuits in words or traditional protest.

Mission 2020 Friend 5: [00:28:46] Other forms of communication, such as art, music, and theatre are prioritized and better supported. So they also foster shifts in understanding, in behavior, and in policy. While the space for protests is either non-existent or shrinking in some parts of the world. Funders are allocating more resources to protect NGOs in those places. This enables those NGOs and other community leaders to make information about the climate and ecological crises available and to create safe spaces for their audiences to consume that information and lead in their own ways. We're inspired by the new leaders emerging and finding their voice in the movement for great regeneration. They've understood the crisis we are in and making it relevant in a beautiful variety of ways, bringing in new energy and light.

Mission 2020 Friend 6: [00:29:52] Political. Without political will, halving emissions and actively restoring our natural world will be orders of magnitude more difficult. So, where it is safe to do so, the regeneration is speaking up, making sure its voice is heard by the media and in the corridors of power. Campaigners and cultural leaders are connected to political intelligence and strategic communications support, rapidly expanding the voice for action. Citizens are being consulted in the development of policies and plans. And crucially, ministers who have the enormous responsibility of crafting and helping implement policy that will deliver systemic change are supported by an ever-growing number of people and institutions in their countries. They have a strong mandate to reflect and further inspire the ambition of individuals and non-state actors already moving towards a regenerative future. Coalitions that prioritize the safeguarding of our climate, our natural environment, and ecosystems, and the livelihoods of our most vulnerable populations are supporting and even beginning to hold political power across all countries in decision making arenas, new forms of direct and highly skilled lobbying for corporate and policy change that match and then overwhelm the muscle long deployed by groups working to extend the fossil fuel based economy of the last century are properly funded. In the great regeneration, funders and leaders from all walks of life are actively encouraging and supporting the mass expansion of peaceful civil disobedience and winning the hearts of minds of many more citizens. The result is rapidly growing support for moving beyond fossil fuel and deforesting-dependent incentives and economies.

Mission 2020 Friend 7: [00:31:55] Accountable. Companies and governments around the world are already stepping up their commitments and goals to address the climate and ecological crises as part of a race to net-zero emissions. These various commitments, pledges, goals, and targets are highly motivating. But progress will not be made on time if only a fraction of their promises are delivered upon. In the decade ahead, there is a definite shift towards being disciplined about delivering those commitments, ensuring they fit within the planetary boundaries, and honestly holding each other to account so that they are overachieved. In particular, more attention is paid to recognizing previous failures to account for social and racial justice in proposed solutions to the climate and ecological crises. Putting principles of equity at the heart of efforts towards greater regeneration means ensuring the proposed solutions do not unintentionally undermine the people they are designed to benefit. Special attention is also being paid to those using the legal system to hold companies and governments accountable for their actions or inaction and to challenge policy or precedents that are holding us back from a great regeneration. Meanwhile, innovative leaders and policymakers prioritizing regenerative policy, business or investment models are fully supported by the legal system, and shareholders acting as responsible owners are actively engaging with the companies they are invested in to ensure company boards and executives switch quickly away from unsustainable practices to ones that improve planetary and human health.

Mission 2020 Friend 8: [00:33:42] Interdependent, mitigating, and adapting to climate change, including efforts to halve emissions over this decade and protecting nature, actively safeguarding the diversity and beauty of life is fully intertwined with our health and human rights. Climate or environmental action can no longer be seen as separate to treating people and the ecosystem we are part of fairly. In the coming decade, those dedicated to improving the health of our planet will not be seen as or see themselves as separate from the people or places they seek to support. Joining the regeneration means fully recognizing our interdependence. We are inseparable from nature and working hard to fix the broken relationships we have with each other to strengthen relationships in the decisive decade. The regeneration is securing positions of power inside companies, governments, and communities, not just in their own institutions. This means pursuing different working styles that make the most of the plentiful pool of talent, including secondments or fragmenting workweeks to dedicate time to more than one institution or cause. This assists with the cross-pollination of ideas, messaging, and action. It fosters multi solving approach, and in the great regeneration, individuals and organizations have started to push past silos and old power structures that have sometimes positioned those working in service of the same goal as competitors. Funders are encouraging and enabling radical collaboration, sharing of resources and by virtue, an abundance of benefit for all. We, the regeneration, will pursue alignment, compassion, and empathy with those who are currently distant from us physically, ideologically and biologically.

Mission 2020 Friend 9: [00:35:52] Exciting. When it comes to the enormous scale of innovation needed to improve the quality of life for all on this planet. To clean our air and water, to safeguard the climate and protect our Life-Giving ecosystems. What we have set out to achieve is unprecedented. It has all the hallmarks of the ultimate adventure story. We're going to need heroes and daring, moral integrity and endurance in the face of perilous odds. It will be thrilling, suspenseful, frightening, and empowering. There are very few examples in existence today that demonstrate the vision, pace, or scale of change we're going to need on the journey ahead. We've seen glimpses, including the great green wall of Africa, the restoration of the lowest plateau in China, and the development of vaccinations against COVID-19. But the most commonly cited is the generation of electricity from our closest star, The Sun. In 2001, the world installed two hundred ninety megawatts of solar generating capacity. Today, the biggest solar plant in the world alone, Tenga Desert Solar Park in China, generates one thousand five hundred and forty-seven megawatts. In 2020, the world will probably install more than 100 gigawatts of solar, about 350 times more than it did 19 years ago. Something deemed impossible two decades ago and still fairly remarkable a decade ago is now commonplace. The electricity sector has already been completely disrupted and will continue to radically transform, reaching across other sectors and enabling their transformation too. In the Great Regeneration, adequate capital is allocated to support communities, governments, and the private sector to envision, initiate and scale solutions at the pace we need so they too become transformational and commonplace. Not 10 percent more of this or that, but 10 times more and 10 times faster than what we have in place right now. This means 10x thinking, including in, but not limited to, soil sequestration of carbon and the recovery of all ecosystems, transforming monoculture agriculture to regenerative agroecological farming practices, empowering girls and young women through education, development and deployment of fossil-free energy in concert with energy efficiency measures and a managed phase-out of existing fossil-based sources and infrastructure. Technological carbon capture and storage, reforming and strengthening of democratic and multilateral institutions and capital markets, a just transition in all industries and transformation, no one can be allowed to fall through the cracks. The costs of taking big risks on large-scale potential solutions to the climate and ecological crises are well understood to be far, far lower than the costs and risks of not thinking big or doing what is necessary. The abundance mindset has been fully unleashed and the well-being of our own and future generations is moving towards the center of all decision making. Investors, venture capitalists, and funders are comfortable with the inevitable risks that come with developing and supporting all of these opportunities and more at scale and in multi-dimensional ways, because that's how to improve the quality of life for all living beings on this planet because that's what offers a hopeful future for our children. We're brave. We love and embrace big 10x thinking, pioneering, risk taking, moving and shaking, setting big, crazy goals is inspiring. It forces people to rethink conventional ways of attacking the problems we face. And crucially, it attracts talent and influences government.

Clay Carnill: [00:40:13] So there you go. Another bonus episode of Outrage and Optimism. OK, a couple of quick housekeeping items before I get to the credits. We have a listener survey where you can let us know what you would like to hear more about in season three of Outrage and Optimism. The link is in the show notes. It's a short survey. It's a great opportunity for us to hear from you directly, our listeners. So go fill it out. Link is in the show notes. Thank you for doing that. And a thank you this week to Mission 2020 and a very special thank you to all Mission 2020 members who read sections of the prelude. Mattilda Menzos, Rajiv Jocie, Andrea Guerrero Garcia, Todd Edwards, Dean Bialik, Ana Gonzalez, Isabel Cavalier, Chloe Revell, and our co-host for this week, Andrew Higham. So yeah, the Great Regeneration. Here we are. You can read and share the prelude at the link in the show notes. OK, we've got an episode coming your way a week from Friday. So hit subscribe and we'll see you then.