319: Inside COP: Teaming Up for the Planet - The Global Mutirão
We unpack the Global Mutirão - Brazil’s concept of coming together for the common good - could it really unite citizens, communities and governments behind real climate action across the world?
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About this episode
Nearly 9 out of 10 people worldwide want their governments to do more on climate. So why does it feel like progress is so slow? And what happens when countries start bending the rules?
This week on Inside COP, Tom Rivett-Carnac, Christiana Figueres, Paul Dickinson and Fiona McRaith react to the shock postponement of the IMO’s net-zero shipping deal, derailed by US pressure. What does this setback reveal about power, diplomacy, and the fragile state of cooperation.
Meanwhile, over in Brazil, the COP Presidency is turning a national idea into a global invitation: the Mutirão - a uniquely Brazilian, Indigenous-rooted concept of coming together to get things done for the common good.
Christiana and Paul speak with André Guimarães, the COP Special Envoy for Civil Society, who unpacks the deeper meaning of the Global Mutirão and how it could unite citizens, communities and governments behind climate action that feels both personal and collective. And to bring that spirit alive, Laura Moraes of Earth FC joins to share how the world’s most-loved sport is joining Team Earth - using football’s passion and global reach to rally millions around climate action.
From grief to agency, from stadiums to summits, from Outrage to Optimism, this episode asks: what does it take to feel part of something bigger? And how can each of us play our part in the world’s greatest team effort yet?
Learn more:
🌍 Check out the official COP30 website for background and announcements
🤝 Learn how COP30 is defining “Global Mutirão”
⚽️ Get onside and learn more about Earth FC
🚢 Find out how the US torpedoed the IMO’s shipping emissions levy
📋 Read about the Global Goal on Adaptation on the UN Climate Change site
🎤 What do you want to hear on Inside COP? Ask us on SpeakPipe
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And we want to hear from you! What do you want to hear more of in Inside COP? Get in touch with us. Get in touch with us via this form.
Lead Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks
Video Producer: Caitlin Hanrahan
Audio Editor: Ned Carter Miles
Exec Producer: Ellie Clifford
With thanks to Groundswell and Global Optimism.
This is a Persephonica production for Global Optimism and is part of the Acast Creator Network.
Full Transcript
Transcript generated by AI. While we aim for accuracy, errors may still occur. Please refer to the episode’s audio for the definitive version
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:00:03] Hello and welcome to Outrage and Optimism. I'm Tom Rivett-carnac.Christiana Figueres: [00:00:06] I'm Christiana Figueres.
Paul Dickinson: [00:00:07] I'm Paul Dickinson.
Fiona McRaith: [00:00:08] And I'm Fiona Mccraith.
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:00:09] In this, our latest edition of Inside Cop, we look at what is meant by a global mood and how we can all be part of it. Thanks for being here. Okay friends. So I've been really looking forward to this episode. I think of all of the strategies that the Brazilian government is coming up with. The concept of a global matador is exactly what we need, and some listeners may be a little confused by what it is. But don't fear, you won't be confused for very much longer. But I am just going to pause on that topic first, because I think we have to cover something else, which has been very important over the course of the last week, and that is the disappointing outcome from the negotiations at the International Maritime Organization in London, where the expected adoption of the net zero framework was postponed by a year, basically because of US lobbying. And I would go so far as to say intimidation and bullying. So I wonder if we want to kick off with that. Did any of you want to take us through what happened at the IMO?
Christiana Figueres: [00:01:05] You do Tom.
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:01:07] Okay. So I went on the today programme, the BBC, the morning of this vote, and confidently predicted that this would not happen. Which shows you.
Paul Dickinson: [00:01:13] Why did you do that, Tom?
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:01:14] Well, I mean, maybe two reasons. One, it's possible that I was ill informed. Or secondarily, I thought that actually the world would hold together in a different way.
Paul Dickinson: [00:01:21] When will you learn? When?
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:01:23] Thank you. Paul. Um, so in April this year, the International Maritime Organization adopted a net zero framework, which was intended to help the shipping industry get to net zero by 2050, by putting in place financial incentives to encourage investment in clean fuels and to facilitate the transformation of their infrastructure. Ships, of course, last a very long time. If you want to get to net zero by 2050, we've got to really start thinking about it now at the latest. Because a ship last 25 years, the country's voted largely in favour of the adoption of the framework in April, and they came back together in London on Friday to adopt it. But they did not. And instead they voted to postpone the adoption for another year. And as we know very well, Christiana. Once you vote to postpone adoption, you potentially open up the text to further negotiations and quibbles and changes. And it's a little unclear at this point to actually try and figure out whether it will be adopted in its current form. Now, this delay was basically as a result of meddling by the Trump administration. They very clearly put out that any country that voted for this potentially would face tariffs. Maybe ships from that country would not be allowed into US ports, visas would potentially be retracted, and we actually have it on good authority from some of the negotiators that the Trump administration even threatened to revoke the visas of the individual negotiators if they voted in favor of this in the negotiations.
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:02:45] And as a result of that, enough countries pulled back where it was not adopted. Now, this is a big blow. Shipping is 3% of global emissions, potentially rising to 10% over the next 25 years. The era of gunboat diplomacy is behind us. Where you turn up in a port with your gunboats and you say, either sign up to this treaty where we can do trade or we'll start firing at you. This is not that, but it's a step in that direction. And I think we should be concerned by the way the US has been behaving, or the Trump administration, I should say, has been behaving in these negotiations. Now, what I've said already may be enough to get me removed from the visa list, and I may never be going back to the US. We'll find out. Anyone else want to potentially get removed from the visa list of the United States?
Christiana Figueres: [00:03:25] I do.
Christiana Figueres: [00:03:26] This is none other than bullying. Those are the tactics that they are using the Trump administration. Just bullying people into the positions that they want. It is absolutely outrageous because as we all know, it took such a long time for the IMO to come to this very groundbreaking and very innovative way of reducing emissions. And the sale of those emission reductions would have paid for the industry itself to accelerate its decarbonization. So it was an absolutely brilliant structure. And the fact that the United States uses their bullying power. What is now just completely commonplace for them to threaten with trade sanctions and port sanctions and visa removals is just completely outrageous. Now, in Belgium, there is no international agreement where they could actually bully countries to not adopt any agreement. And we have to continually remind everyone that you do not go to Belgium asking, what is the big agreement that is coming out of Belgium? There is no big agreement. Okay. There is no big agreement deliberately on the part of the Brazilian presidency. It is a shift from the international negotiations which happen among governments in the blue zone to attention of the Green zone, which is where the action is already happening. So the United States will throw some toys out of the pram. But a number one, there's no international agreement that they can actually put their guns at. And secondly, let's remember that the US is not a part of the Paris Agreement. So in the blue zone, when the conversation starts on anything, they will have to wait politely, patiently, maybe not politely, for all parties to speak before they can speak as an observer to the Paris Agreement. That kind of puts them in their place.
Paul Dickinson: [00:05:26] We could be very positive about everything in Belgium, and we can be and we will be. And that's what this episode is about. The problem, I think, with the IMO, is that the key thing about the ocean and the sea is it's where the land is not. That's kind of its defining character.
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:05:39] Paul, this is why we keep you on the podcast. This level of incisive analysis.
Paul Dickinson: [00:05:44] I had to do some research. I've read a number of academic papers, but there's a very general agreement. But the thing about IMO, I mean, you said it all, both of you, far better than me, but this thing's is 22 years in the development, this particular initiative. You know, think of people who've patiently worked come up with this brilliant plan. It was the US and it was Saudi Arabia. People said the secretary general had his head in his hands. That Friday was a very weird day on the Albert Embankment in London, and the building emptied very quickly after the meeting. And my observation would be political dysfunction in the USA cannot mean political dysfunction in the world, and we need to unravel our over dependence on US brokered systems, because clearly we've got a kind of mad person in that particular office, and it's an issue of global safety and security that we find ways around that. But just one last terrible, stupid detail. Saudi Arabia asked for a postponement, and people didn't know if they were going to say 30 minutes. And they said one year. You know, the jaws hit the floor. But there is every hope and belief that given the nature of the importance of this, that the whole agreement can come back and will be ratified or agreed. But such outrageous behavior, and it's a warning to us all to try and insulate ourselves from the US malfunction.
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:07:04] Should we allow our US citizen to come in? Sorry. None of this is personal.
Paul Dickinson: [00:07:09] Is it your fault, Fiona? That's really the question. Did you. Did you do this? Are you behind it?
Fiona McRaith: [00:07:13] It's an evolution to not take things personally. Generally. But this I certainly don't hold any personal offense to. I think I first need to just acknowledge the heartbreak and deep sorrow that I felt when I heard about this. We've called it outrageous, and that is of course, appropriate, but there is a huge grief that I feel for this and fear for what might come. I completely, absolutely, 100% agree that we can't lose sight on the long game. The US throwing a tantrum as Christiana says, their toys out of the pram is so predictable. So can we begin to just factor that as something that we know will happen? This was expected by some, and I know there was a lot of work to try to mitigate this from happening behind the scenes, but I think rather than wonder what's going to happen, can we instead take it as almost par for the course and thus help insulate ourselves and our strategies for progress in a different way? I guess I raise many questions because I feel I don't have the answer. I'm still very much stuck in this. What a terribly huge disappointment phase.
Paul Dickinson: [00:08:34] Well, just one tiny thing that's just remember, you know, I think you're right to bring the seriousness of this because, you know, it's going to cost lives, right? But there were 7 million people on the streets in the USA on Saturday saying that they no kings, no more of this madness. So yeah. Sorry, Tom.
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:08:48] Right. So we're going to pivot back to the global material. But just before we do, let's talk a little bit about the pre-cop that just happened in Brasilia. This event happens every year before the Cop to prepare the agenda and help us think through what we're going to do. We're going to hear from Antonio in a minute who sent us a voice note about it. But, , any quick word on the importance of Pre-cop?
Christiana Figueres: [00:09:06] You know, I really my heart goes out to listeners because first we have to like, really understand what a cop is. It's not a policeman. It's an annual conference of the parties. And then, just as we thought that we had begun to understand how cops work, then we spring this one. Not only do we have a cop, we have a pre-cop.
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:09:28] And it's not a reference to the time before law enforcement, as you know.
Christiana Figueres: [00:09:32] Exactly. Oh my gosh. Okay, so a pre-cop is an invitation to gather some voices around the table. It never includes all parties. It is the choice of the relevant Cop presidency to figure out who do they invite Such that they have a representation of the diversity of voices. It's not a friends party. It's not a party with only those that agree with us. No, it is a convening of voices that have influence over their neighbors and their friends and allies, and who as a whole represent a good bit of the diversity of opinions and interests and needs that the Cop presidency will be having around the table at the Cop. And it is used to begin to, I would say, ventilate some of the issues that the Cop presidency would like to put on the table. Some of the issues that are on the formal agenda and just begin to get a sense of what the cop is going to be. It really is just a sense of the group that the presidency has in order to then fine tune whatever strategies and plans they have for the cop, which they have been developing, as we know, for a whole year. But this gives them the opportunity to just sense check that and do some final nuancing and tweaking that they might find helpful.
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:11:04] Great. Okay. Thank you for that. Well, it's finished now. It happened last week in Brasilia. And let's hear this voice note from Ana Toni, who will explain how she felt it went. She refers to the GTA. That is the global goal on adaptation, which is the framework countries are trying to make adaptation as measurable and trackable as emissions reductions. And she refers to the triple F, which is the Tropical Forest Forever facility, the new financing facility the Brazilians are trying to stand up that we've talked about before. So let's hear from Ana. Toni.
Speaker6: [00:11:35] We just finished the Pre-cop. We were able, I think, to advance some of the key topics like the global stocktake dialogue, the DGA indicators. But more than just those negotiating topics, I think what we saw in this pre-cop that probably was one of the largest pre-cop we ever have had. It was 72 countries came. It was this reaffirmation of, yes, we need to get things concrete. This move to implementation was prioritized by everyone. I was very impressed to see how much people talked and want adaptation. As you know, many developing countries, especially from Africa, they've been trying to have a serious conversation about adaptation now for years. And I think at this pre-cop, everybody showed their willingness to upgrade the debate about adaptation. There was also a lot of interesting debates about concrete economic instruments. We had a very good presentation of the action agenda at this pre-cop. Normally, negotiators don't really pay much attention to the action agenda and vice versa. So at this pre-cop, we had a very good debate about the importance of the action agenda. And there was a lot of support for continuity, for transparency, and for a long term approach to the action agenda. We also had a debate about energy transition and about article 28. Since Cop 28, it hasn't really been any space at the Cop process. So to say to have that debate next steps from the global stocktake was a difficult debate, but a very good and dense one that shows at Cop 30, there is no topic that we cannot discuss. We have to discuss all of them. And I'm very happy also to see a lot of support for the TFF. We had a debate about both TFF as well as other economic instruments related to nature and ocean. And this is for us what represents a Cop of implementation, where you can debate complex topics like the need to preserve forests and ocean. So I would say it was a very tiring but a very successful pre-cop. And now 25 days to go for the cop. But we feel that we have all the elements for it.
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:14:19] Okay, so do we think they're in a good space given that reflection seems pretty good?
Paul Dickinson: [00:14:23] I was struck by this comment on adaptation, and I think adaptation is incredibly important in the world, sort of coming to terms with it. There are major lawsuits seeking adaptation expenses from oil and gas companies to US states, particularly California. So I think this is not an accident that all of this craziness is coming from North America. As adaptation starts to formalize and the costs of adaptation start to add up. This sense of liability is going to be increasingly important, and I guess it will make its way into stock markets and the business system in time. Plus, of course, you know, there are going to be enormous investments in adaptation and how to fund those and structure them will be, you know, a debate that I guess hasn't happened fast enough.
Fiona McRaith: [00:15:04] Two things really stood out for me. One is this is not a cop about the negotiations. It is being called the implementation Cop. And how cool it is that Anna Tony specifically pulled out that negotiators are engaged deeply with the action agenda. That is really exciting, and I look forward to trying to see how those things are overlapping more and more, even just in their representation at events, for example. The second was this point on adaptation finance. We talked in a recent episode about the need to get more into the microeconomics, the details about how these things happen, and that's a component of the implementation. How do you measure implementation? You have specificity, and it's very cool that at the Pre-cop they're already getting into this type of granularity.
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:15:49] Amazing. Okay, now we're going to talk today about the global and what's critical about this. This is a sort of global collective effort to try to get everybody on board with dealing with the climate crisis, but we know that many people are there already. Nearly 90% of people around the world want their governments to take more concrete, meaningful, decisive action to deal with the climate crisis. We're not yet seeing politicians come through in the way that they're going to have to come through, but there is momentum there, and this is about building momentum, getting everybody involved in that collective endeavor. Load More
Christiana Figueres: [00:16:20] With a slight little nuance there. Mr.. Tom Kaneko, 89% of people want their governments to take more ambitious action. What the Mukuru is, is, yes, governments have to take action, but every individual also has to take action. It is both sides of the coin. And what they're inviting is for us to remember that there is this global individual participation component to this. It's not just about governments.
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:16:51] So I feel like I've done a bit of explaining already on this episode who would like to tell the listeners what is a mouchiroud?
Christiana Figueres: [00:16:56] Paul, if you listen to the conversation this morning, this is your test time. Pop quiz to Paul Dickinson.
Paul Dickinson: [00:17:04] I'm totally like, I'm in school. And it's kind of like, was I looking out of the window? Was I doing something that I shouldn't have been doing, or was I paying attention in class? I think I was paying attention in class, and the term is from the Portuguese language, but only from Brazil. It's not Portuguese from Portugal, for example, and it's linked to what we might call indigenous wisdom, this notion of working together, but also sometimes some people need help. It's a broad concept of sort of collaboration. I'm going to call it a symbol of the leadership of Brazil, who last time I looked, is now kind of the leader of the free world in terms of thinking of how the world comes together to match this challenge. So it's the most beautiful concept and I think the greatest gift. But someone's going to explain it better than I think I can in a moment.
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:17:55] I think that's pretty good.
Christiana Figueres: [00:17:56] But I think we should ask the special envoy for civil Society to explain officially, what is Musharraf?
Fiona McRaith: [00:18:05] Great idea.
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:18:06] Great idea. We've got an actual professional and someone who really knows. All right. Christiana, do you want to introduce him?
Christiana Figueres: [00:18:11] Yeah. Paul and I had this very interesting.
Christiana Figueres: [00:18:13] Conversation with André Guimaraes, who is the special envoy for civil society for the Cop 30 presidency.
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:18:21] Fantastic. Let's have a listen.
Christiana Figueres: [00:18:25] Now, André, the Brazilian presidency has a very large group of special envoys, and you have the distinction of being the special envoy for civil society. Hence, we think you are the perfect person to explain to those of us who do not speak Portuguese. What does mucus mean? What is the cultural background behind Musharraf?
André Guimaraes: [00:18:56] Musharraf is a word that only exists in the Brazilian Portuguese. It's an indigenous word, and it's a very sophisticated concept because people would translate Musharraf as cooperation, as working together. But it's way more than that.
Christiana Figueres: [00:19:10] It's much more than that.
André Guimaraes: [00:19:12] Oh, yes. It's working together to build something new, to build something that would benefit everyone. Let me give you a couple of examples. The first one would be particularly the Amazonian indigenous peoples use of that word. You know, oftentimes these communities, they have communitary agricultural fields. So, you know, instead of each family or each small group producing their own food, they would at some point in time get together either to celebrate or to do some work. And all of those moments when they get together to deliver something that is the under the indigenous group. It can also work for, you know, a family, for example, when someone needs some help. My son, for example, he was having a hard time with math at the school. So my father is an engineer. So we got, you know, everybody together to work with Frederico, my son, in a process. So that's the a couple of examples of how diversified the role can be in human society.
Christiana Figueres: [00:20:11] Those are beautiful examples. Thank you Andre. That makes it much more understandable. And now how would you apply that to civil society engagement before cop during cop and after cop.
André Guimaraes: [00:20:25] You know, I am the envoy for civil society. And civil society, as you certainly know, have been close to the climate change agenda since the very beginning. The good news about civil society is that we are at some extent prepared for the discussion. The bad news is that we are sometimes overprepared, and so we are highly demanding part of the society. And for me, as an envoy, sometimes I feel a bit overwhelmed and overloaded with demands because everybody wants to contribute, which is good. The whole idea of the Cop presidency to create this structure of envoys, I think there was a very smart move because it allows for the presidency to create more dialogue, to approximate sometimes sectors and people that wouldn't be so familiar and so much interested in this agenda. It's a fundamental agenda for the decades to come. So everybody should be engaged on a way, once again to work together towards a common benefit. And I think civil society, we are pretty well trained in promoting dialogue and trying to create consensus. One of the fields that I focus my work here in Brazil is the relationship between agriculture and nature and native vegetation. So working to protect forests, to integrate forests into the agriculture and food production systems means you will need to join many, many forces in order to get to some positive results. We need to engage scientists, technical assistance, policymakers, local authorities, farmers for obvious reasons. So all of these communities, we need to work together towards the same direction so that we can, at the end of the day, produce more food, because that's what we need for a growing population in less area, because that's what we need to protect biodiversity and stabilize the planet's climate. So the only way is through working together.
Paul Dickinson: [00:22:21] It's such a beautiful image of people coming together. You talked about it being kind of indigenous wisdom, and I noticed the IPCC have been speaking for many years now about how indigenous people seem to be better equipped to be responding to the climate crisis, or at least they have a kind of leadership understanding. This is Brazil leading and modeling a national response, a global response. So I guess my question is, how can these actions become seeds that grow up across the world? How can we sort of spread this feeling of a movement of enablement and empowerment.
André Guimaraes: [00:22:53] The most important things that we people involved in the negotiations and so on, is to try to translate or to bring to ordinary people these discussions. And for a simple reason, the climate change is actually affecting already pretty much everybody. In order to solve such a complex theme like climate change, we need to have a very deep understanding. The only way to get to this point is precisely engaging different sectors, engaging people that think differently. I have to refer to the priorities that the Cop presidency has stated. To the Cop 31 is multilateralism. The second one is increased ambition and it's expedite implementation. And the third one, which is the one I like the most, is to approximate the climate agenda to people making decisions on a daily basis. And I think that is probably the most difficult challenge of all. And at some point in the future, I hope we'll have a better consensus all over the world so that we can move faster and forward to address the challenge. The whole idea of the Cop presidency to put a lot of energy in the action agenda, I think, addresses pretty much the ordinary objectives of ordinary people. So, for instance, you know, it's a minor action, but it may help if I go to the supermarket and I have two similar products. One was produced in a city nearby, the other one was producing some power 1000km away. I would choose the one that was produced nearby. So this kind of individual small choices that you do on a daily basis, I think that is the biggest contribution that the climate demands from everybody. And I think once again, the priority that was given to the action agenda precisely addresses these kind of expectations from, you know, the general public, from companies of all sizes and so on. I think everybody is asking themselves today, Christiane, Paul, what is it that I can do to help the planet's climate? We specialists, we scientists, we need to deliver good answers to those questions. I think it's legitimate, and it's our obligation to try to address this kind of demand.
Paul Dickinson: [00:25:03] And just to say, I think it's so important that you remind us the greatest democracy in the world is how we spend our money every day, how we invest our money every day. Just a last question from me is there's this movement growing up across the world. I mean, what do we need? Do we need, like, a badge? Do we need a song? What can kind of unite the spirit of the climate movement?
André Guimaraes: [00:25:23] Let's go back to the concept. Working together is not simple. It's really being there to support someone. It's being available for someone. It's being philosophically connected to that person or to that group of interests, or to that company or to that country. We need to put our brains together. Yes, we need intellectual solutions. We need technical solutions. But even more than that, we need to put our hearts together because we're doing that for our kids, for our grandkids. We're doing something without expecting anything in return. That's the beauty of the work that we do on the environmental arena, on the climate change arena. This is giving. Solving the climate change puzzle means giving yourself to the other.
Christiana Figueres: [00:26:12] Very nice. It also means behavior change.
André Guimaraes: [00:26:15] Absolutely.
Christiana Figueres: [00:26:16] What tools are you using for that?
André Guimaraes: [00:26:18] The basic tool is communication. But oftentimes we are very bad at communicating. I'm listening to scientists pretty much on a daily basis. And those people, they are hard to understand. You know, they have a very complex rationale. They oftentimes use charts and figures that are hard to understand. So I think translating science into. People's lives. This is one very challenging thing. The media plays a central role. But the media needs also training so that they can deliver the message properly. So I think communication is definitely a centerpiece, but not the only one. I think good examples are also important. Christiana, you know, Brazil is a big country. It's a very diverse country. Many, many poor people. We have some of the wealthiest individuals on the planet co-existing. These are challenges that needs to be addressed in addition to or in complementation to the climate change agenda fighting poverty, for example. That is the kind of discussion that needs to be incorporated in the climate change. We don't want some countries delivering and having success and some other countries failing and being flooded. This is the moment of mankind to prove that we are one species that knows how to work together. This is the moment for us to slow down, sit down, look at the other's eyes and see. Look, it's just one planet. We're just one specie. Let's do something good for us and for the other. We need to think harder about the future. I think.
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:27:57] It's such a fantastic conversation. How did you both leave that discussion?
Christiana Figueres: [00:28:01] You know, I had two thoughts as we finished that. One is the difficulty of changing behavior right around us. Changing family behavior, community behavior, let alone national or planetary behavior. It's easier to explain and describe it than it is to actually implement it. So my heart goes out to him and he's doing a brilliant job of explaining it. But I just was left with this Uncomfortable feeling of this is terribly important and terribly difficult. The other thing that I was left with is it is such an interesting branding concept for Brazil. Most cops choose a domestic or a national concept that comes out of their own culture to brand what goes on at a cop. The one that comes to mind right now is Cop 17. In South Africa, where the Cop presidency wanted to have extra negotiating time. And they called these indabas because the indabas in South African culture are when the elders come together and listen to everybody's opinion and come up with important decisions. So the South Africans used that branding for what was happening in the blue zone in the international negotiations. If my memory doesn't betray me, and it often does. This is the first time that the Cop presidency has adopted a branding concept for what occurs in the Green Zone. It's not for the negotiations. It is for what people do, how they behave with each other. How are they going to collaborate with each other? How are they going to come around a task that is of mutual interest? This cop is really about everyone participating the implementation. It is about normalizing decarbonisation and adaptation. And so they use their great branding for that.
Paul Dickinson: [00:30:17] And I think it's genius. Christiana. I mean, talking about working together towards something benefits everyone. It's simple. It's almost kind of biblical. But he did give one example, which was that business of kind of how you spend your money, how you invest your money. And I think it's good to be reminded of that. And I think it's good that the Cop presidency come forward with a concept like that. And if we go to the rather unfortunate early part of this podcast, how many hundreds of millions, billions of people are going to buy less, invest less in the USA and start to use that enormous financial power of the great democracy every day to drive us towards a low carbon, zero carbon future. I think that, to me was one tangible example of them, which we're going to hear more.
Fiona McRaith: [00:30:59] I'm excited for this next conversation. But also I want to invite listeners, perhaps maybe listeners, you have your own examples that you can send in to the podcast to help us bring some context and color. Sometimes the most innovative concepts are the most abstract at first.
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:31:15] That's such a good idea. And I do remember when I was in Brazil a few months ago and I did that special episode. In all these conversations that we had with ministers, I kept trying to get them to define the material in a tighter and tighter way, and they kept sort of saying, look, that's the wrong philosophy. You don't define it. You keep it broad, let everyone define it for themselves, because this is about everybody working out how they contribute. And as soon as we quote unquote, the Brazilian government say, well, this is in and this is out, then you end up with a high bar rather than a big tent. I think that's the right approach. As you said, , this is hard. And the trouble with something being so broad and big is how do people feel agency to participate. Like it's also meaningful that they do something because we can all feel a bit disconnected when the face of this big challenge. But what's fascinating about that is they are grappling with something so needed, and perfection is the enemy of the good, right? We should just get going and make this happen. Okay, so let's go to a specific example of the global and really what we mean. And we've got a brilliant conversation with Laura Moraes from Earth FC. She is the campaign director. And this is an incredible project to look at how we can bring the power of football to focus attention on the solutions to the climate crisis. Let's have a listen.
Paul Dickinson: [00:32:26] Laura, thank you so much for joining us on Inside Cop. Many of our listeners are going to find this the most exciting conversation that we've ever had, because so many millions of people around the world are completely obsessed not just with sport, but most especially football. So can you please explain what is, uh, Earth FC, what is it and what inspired it?
Laura: [00:32:46] Fc FC it's a company that wants to inspire millions of fans of football, communicating about what we can do on climate issues through the language of football, connecting with clubs and players and legends to use their power of engagement to reach millions of people. It's literally how we can try to talk to people in a different way, in a different format, a different language, and connect their passion to something that really matters in the world. Sports are also suffering from the heat, from flooding, from wildfires and things like that. So it's very actually easy to connect.
Paul Dickinson: [00:33:25] It's so good to hear you talk about legends. I've never been in a meeting on climate change in 25 years where someone has said, well, we involve the legends, you know, and the passion. And it's kind of we spend all our time sort of saying, well, it's very, very far down the agenda. So who's on the team and what does this campaign look like in practice? And can you speak about some of the highlights?
Laura: [00:33:44] So the campaign nowadays is co-hosted by two organisations, a British one called Counterspin and a Brazilian one called Onda Solidaria. One of its directors actually was a football coach in England when he was younger. We want to engage more organisations in co-hosting this project because we need to have bigger arms for what's coming and well, the highlights. We have been doing some activations in in big derbies, sort of like take the biggest teams in Brazil and we just take over the stadium, players going in with messages like in the fight against climate change, we're just one team. Actually, a week ago we had the biggest rivalry of the Amazon. In Berlin. We have two teams, Hemu and Sanju. They're very amazing teams. So it was a very big hit before cop. Everything was happening and for the first time ever, the mascots that are dressed as like big animals, they were holding hands, shaking hands with our signs, and they were like, yes, we support this before the game. It was like the biggest thing ever for us.
Christiana Figueres: [00:34:52] So you're inviting basically the world, certainly Brazilians, but hopefully the world to join Team Earth.
Laura: [00:35:00] Yeah, it's Team Earth. The idea is to say it's just one team. You know, we're all playing for the same team. And next year we have the World Cup happening in the United States. So the big effort of the campaign is going to move to there in the following year. We're going to have the Women's World Cup here in Brazil. So the idea is not only to have the world join Brazilians in this team, but actually have irfc happening around the world.
Christiana Figueres: [00:35:29] Laura, would this be a really clear, concrete example of the larger concept of mural that the Brazilian Cop presidency has launched?
Laura: [00:35:39] Yes, I know that in other countries this format of mobilization maybe doesn't exist, and it's something very Brazilian to do. So I think FFC is a good example, like join hands. Forget about other things and let's do one thing together here as one team.
Paul Dickinson: [00:35:55] But let me ask you a really difficult sports related question. It's the second half of the game and we're kind of three nil down. How do we turn the spirit of the match?
Laura: [00:36:05] Well that's a hard one. Maybe we we started just in the second half of the game when we have to to rush and the coach is getting angry, etc..
Christiana Figueres: [00:36:14] I wish we had a coach, by the way.
Paul Dickinson: [00:36:16] Yeah. Who's the coach? You know, the metaphors are really good. You know, like I'm not like a big football fan or something, but I know about numerous movies where there's this kind of moving speech and I think maybe the great nation of Brazil is giving the world that pep talk. Is that what's happening?
Laura: [00:36:31] Maybe, maybe, maybe. I think you're probably right. We're launching just before cop 4th of November, a manifesto of football for the planet. So maybe that is the pep talk. It's a very, like, short manifesto using the language of football. Of course, it's using all the metaphors, etc. and it's basically telling the world in a very simple way, what football expects of leaders to do and also what football commits to do. So this could be a way to tell leaders of the world we have to score three goals. And it's just like 15 minutes left to this game and the coach is getting angry. How we unite and do something together. I believe we are trying to provide that not only to climate activists, to leaders, to negotiators, but mostly to people. Earlier this year, we did a conference of the Brazilian football together we call We had around 70 clubs represented there. There's always this person inside the club that is passionate about this and that cares about this and doesn't know how to communicate that to directors, to the club, to the players. And then they found all each other in the same place and they were exchanging ideas, what they were doing. The simplest thing we can do to help the world and to engage our fans about it is talking about it. So sometimes it's just the simple thing is actually bringing people together and making them know each other and not feeling lonely about that. Because maybe I don't know you guys, but sometimes I feel lonely when we are fighting about climate, when we're trying to make change, and this feeling of not being lonely and finding other solution with each other. It's so good.
Paul Dickinson: [00:38:16] Most famous football song in the UK says you'll never walk alone. You'll know now you've got him singing.
Christiana Figueres: [00:38:22] This is very dangerous.
Paul Dickinson: [00:38:23] Alone I'm Alone. It's genius. This is the most genius thing. Thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people across the world singing together, very moving.
Laura: [00:38:35] Even not liking football. You got excited about this. And that's the effect that our campaign due to politicians. And we want everybody to take this campaign at its own. So this is not like our campaign. It's your campaign.
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:38:53] Love that conversation, you two. What a brilliant discussion. What did you leave it with?
Christiana Figueres: [00:38:57] I just thought, how wonderful to identify that football is basically synonymous with life for millions of people in Brazil. But it is also such a passion for millions and millions of people around the world, whether it is football or whether it is another sport. It's all about the passion. What she's trying to do here is to expand the envelope of passion, to include climate change action. And I just think that's wonderful to start with passion and then expand it. I just think that's brilliant.
Paul Dickinson: [00:39:28] I've actually never got more emotional. In an interview. I was listening along and I'm like, ah, I don't think I can actually intervene now because my voice is going to start cracking up. I mean, I'm totally not into football, but this idea of these Brazilians of cheering crowds and the clothing and it says, you know, just one team and the mascots at the start of the game. I can believe that there's some sort of infectious spirit of cooperation that breaks out of this. And I think football could be the root to it and the true spirit of them now as it starts in football, and then maybe it goes to other sports and we find the passion of ourselves and send it out there. And the genius, of course, is to link it not just to all this kind of decarbonisation of the stadium, but also to the way the games have been moving when they are, because it's too hot. And I always remember climate scientists telling me that, you know, in Europe, for example, New York, whatever, it's going to be too hot to play football in the summertime in 2050. You know, it's sport, but it's climate change. It's real. And ultimately, those terraces are about all of us together.
Fiona McRaith: [00:40:32] I totally love the passion as a launch pad for new curiosities. I also think that this place of belonging and being a part of a community that is cheering for a team is also a safe, exciting place. And then piggybacking off of that passion to then introduce these really new, exciting things like climate. I just think it's quite brilliant and exciting.
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:40:58] The passion absolutely. Find a place where people are already engaging and feeling like they're fully building community. We're often asked what kinds of stories do we need to tell at this moment in order to get people feeling that they're part of this great collective endeavor. And of course, that's a critical question, but I think as much is who tells those stories. We will speak to a certain subsegment of the population, and a large number of people will just immediately discount us. And that goes for everyone in the world, because we all now, in our new information landscape, speak to subsections of the population. And what I love about this example and about the material is to try and find a way in which everybody speaks to that community that they're already part of. Climate and nature is going to affect everyone. Find the way in which it affects that community, the opportunity for engagement in transformation, and find the language that then brings that community with you. I've heard both enthusiasm and occasionally in the climate movement, a little bit of skepticism about the like, you know, what is it? Should it be clearer? And I would just encourage everyone, this is hard and it's big, and it's a big opportunity for all of us to get behind something that's really going in the right direction and trying to do the right thing. So what the Dow is, is whatever we and everyone listening decide we want to make it in the next few weeks. We don't have that long, and it's an opportunity to build a critical amount of momentum at the end of a difficult year. Of course it's going to be hard. The outcomes are going to be imperfect. We're not going to go as far as we like, but let's really give this a go and show up for our Brazilian hosts. Make it happen.
Christiana Figueres: [00:42:32] I agree with you and I think you're partially right.
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:42:35] Okay, I know what that means.
Fiona McRaith: [00:42:37] You're wrong.
Christiana Figueres: [00:42:39] Because this does not have a specific outcome. This is not like we're going to get x, y, z out of the cop. I think the exercise that they have invited us to and that they're starting is how do we normalize responsible behavior into our lives? That is each of us taking a decision of, okay, this is currently my behavior and this is the consequence, whether you measure it in tons per capita or wherever else you want to measure. And here is the top 1 or 2 things that I can change in order to have a lighter footprint in order to be more responsible, and that has to have stickiness to it. It's not like I'm going to be more responsible from now until the end of the year, or from now until the cop starts or cop ends. No, it's about normalizing it into our lives. So that, I think, is the invitation that they are extending to us.
Fiona McRaith: [00:43:42] I also think it's a balm for feeling grief or feeling a loss of agency. Taking action. The invitation can be a real salient approach to addressing that or to holding both.
Paul Dickinson: [00:43:57] It's karma, you know. The more good karma you give out, the more you get back. And it's not a zero sum game. It's sort of this rising tide of, I guess love and compassion lifts all boats. And it was really amazing to hear Laura talk about, like bringing in legends. Who's, who's the most famous Brazilian ever? Lula. Um, Pele. So there's something about what we hold close to our hearts and how we connect.
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:44:21] Yeah. And I think to your point, we've looked into this over the years. All the evidence is that a big part of our challenge with broad engagement on climate is a lack of agency. But how do you feel? Agency. You get involved and you start taking action, and that makes you feel that you're part of a great generational endeavour, rather than feeling a little bit on the sidelines. And that becomes a wheel of momentum that builds you forward and you become more and more engaged in the issues.
Christiana Figueres: [00:44:45] There is no better antidote to climate grief than a concrete climate action performed by yourself.
Paul Dickinson: [00:44:51] Feeling agency is getting agency.
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:44:53] Love it. Any final thoughts before we wrap up this episode?
Paul Dickinson: [00:44:57] Go, team Brazil.
Christiana Figueres: [00:44:58] No no no no no, you didn't get it. Go team Earth.
Paul Dickinson: [00:45:03] Go, team earth. Thank you. Christiana. Just one team. Let's make sure we win, all right?
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:45:09] Lovely to see you all. Thanks for listening. See you next week. Bye.
Fiona McRaith: [00:45:12] Bye bye.
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:16:51] So I feel like I've done a bit of explaining already on this episode who would like to tell the listeners what is a mouchiroud?
Christiana Figueres: [00:16:56] Paul, if you listen to the conversation this morning, this is your test time. Pop quiz to Paul Dickinson.
Paul Dickinson: [00:17:04] I'm totally like, I'm in school. And it's kind of like, was I looking out of the window? Was I doing something that I shouldn't have been doing, or was I paying attention in class? I think I was paying attention in class, and the term is from the Portuguese language, but only from Brazil. It's not Portuguese from Portugal, for example, and it's linked to what we might call indigenous wisdom, this notion of working together, but also sometimes some people need help. It's a broad concept of sort of collaboration. I'm going to call it a symbol of the leadership of Brazil, who last time I looked, is now kind of the leader of the free world in terms of thinking of how the world comes together to match this challenge. So it's the most beautiful concept and I think the greatest gift. But someone's going to explain it better than I think I can in a moment.
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:17:55] I think that's pretty good.
Christiana Figueres: [00:17:56] But I think we should ask the special envoy for civil Society to explain officially, what is Musharraf?
Fiona McRaith: [00:18:05] Great idea.
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:18:06] Great idea. We've got an actual professional and someone who really knows. All right. Christiana, do you want to introduce him?
Christiana Figueres: [00:18:11] Yeah. Paul and I had this very interesting.
Christiana Figueres: [00:18:13] Conversation with André Guimaraes, who is the special envoy for civil society for the Cop 30 presidency.
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:18:21] Fantastic. Let's have a listen.
Christiana Figueres: [00:18:25] Now, André, the Brazilian presidency has a very large group of special envoys, and you have the distinction of being the special envoy for civil society. Hence, we think you are the perfect person to explain to those of us who do not speak Portuguese. What does mucus mean? What is the cultural background behind Musharraf?
André Guimaraes: [00:18:56] Musharraf is a word that only exists in the Brazilian Portuguese. It's an indigenous word, and it's a very sophisticated concept because people would translate Musharraf as cooperation, as working together. But it's way more than that.
Christiana Figueres: [00:19:10] It's much more than that.
André Guimaraes: [00:19:12] Oh, yes. It's working together to build something new, to build something that would benefit everyone. Let me give you a couple of examples. The first one would be particularly the Amazonian indigenous peoples use of that word. You know, oftentimes these communities, they have communitary agricultural fields. So, you know, instead of each family or each small group producing their own food, they would at some point in time get together either to celebrate or to do some work. And all of those moments when they get together to deliver something that is the under the indigenous group. It can also work for, you know, a family, for example, when someone needs some help. My son, for example, he was having a hard time with math at the school. So my father is an engineer. So we got, you know, everybody together to work with Frederico, my son, in a process. So that's the a couple of examples of how diversified the role can be in human society.
Christiana Figueres: [00:20:11] Those are beautiful examples. Thank you Andre. That makes it much more understandable. And now how would you apply that to civil society engagement before cop during cop and after cop.
André Guimaraes: [00:20:25] You know, I am the envoy for civil society. And civil society, as you certainly know, have been close to the climate change agenda since the very beginning. The good news about civil society is that we are at some extent prepared for the discussion. The bad news is that we are sometimes overprepared, and so we are highly demanding part of the society. And for me, as an envoy, sometimes I feel a bit overwhelmed and overloaded with demands because everybody wants to contribute, which is good. The whole idea of the Cop presidency to create this structure of envoys, I think there was a very smart move because it allows for the presidency to create more dialogue, to approximate sometimes sectors and people that wouldn't be so familiar and so much interested in this agenda. It's a fundamental agenda for the decades to come. So everybody should be engaged on a way, once again to work together towards a common benefit. And I think civil society, we are pretty well trained in promoting dialogue and trying to create consensus. One of the fields that I focus my work here in Brazil is the relationship between agriculture and nature and native vegetation. So working to protect forests, to integrate forests into the agriculture and food production systems means you will need to join many, many forces in order to get to some positive results. We need to engage scientists, technical assistance, policymakers, local authorities, farmers for obvious reasons. So all of these communities, we need to work together towards the same direction so that we can, at the end of the day, produce more food, because that's what we need for a growing population in less area, because that's what we need to protect biodiversity and stabilize the planet's climate. So the only way is through working together.
Paul Dickinson: [00:22:21] It's such a beautiful image of people coming together. You talked about it being kind of indigenous wisdom, and I noticed the IPCC have been speaking for many years now about how indigenous people seem to be better equipped to be responding to the climate crisis, or at least they have a kind of leadership understanding. This is Brazil leading and modeling a national response, a global response. So I guess my question is, how can these actions become seeds that grow up across the world? How can we sort of spread this feeling of a movement of enablement and empowerment.
André Guimaraes: [00:22:53] The most important things that we people involved in the negotiations and so on, is to try to translate or to bring to ordinary people these discussions. And for a simple reason, the climate change is actually affecting already pretty much everybody. In order to solve such a complex theme like climate change, we need to have a very deep understanding. The only way to get to this point is precisely engaging different sectors, engaging people that think differently. I have to refer to the priorities that the Cop presidency has stated. To the Cop 31 is multilateralism. The second one is increased ambition and it's expedite implementation. And the third one, which is the one I like the most, is to approximate the climate agenda to people making decisions on a daily basis. And I think that is probably the most difficult challenge of all. And at some point in the future, I hope we'll have a better consensus all over the world so that we can move faster and forward to address the challenge. The whole idea of the Cop presidency to put a lot of energy in the action agenda, I think, addresses pretty much the ordinary objectives of ordinary people. So, for instance, you know, it's a minor action, but it may help if I go to the supermarket and I have two similar products. One was produced in a city nearby, the other one was producing some power 1000km away. I would choose the one that was produced nearby. So this kind of individual small choices that you do on a daily basis, I think that is the biggest contribution that the climate demands from everybody. And I think once again, the priority that was given to the action agenda precisely addresses these kind of expectations from, you know, the general public, from companies of all sizes and so on. I think everybody is asking themselves today, Christiane, Paul, what is it that I can do to help the planet's climate? We specialists, we scientists, we need to deliver good answers to those questions. I think it's legitimate, and it's our obligation to try to address this kind of demand.
Paul Dickinson: [00:25:03] And just to say, I think it's so important that you remind us the greatest democracy in the world is how we spend our money every day, how we invest our money every day. Just a last question from me is there's this movement growing up across the world. I mean, what do we need? Do we need, like, a badge? Do we need a song? What can kind of unite the spirit of the climate movement?
André Guimaraes: [00:25:23] Let's go back to the concept. Working together is not simple. It's really being there to support someone. It's being available for someone. It's being philosophically connected to that person or to that group of interests, or to that company or to that country. We need to put our brains together. Yes, we need intellectual solutions. We need technical solutions. But even more than that, we need to put our hearts together because we're doing that for our kids, for our grandkids. We're doing something without expecting anything in return. That's the beauty of the work that we do on the environmental arena, on the climate change arena. This is giving. Solving the climate change puzzle means giving yourself to the other.
Christiana Figueres: [00:26:12] Very nice. It also means behavior change.
André Guimaraes: [00:26:15] Absolutely.
Christiana Figueres: [00:26:16] What tools are you using for that?
André Guimaraes: [00:26:18] The basic tool is communication. But oftentimes we are very bad at communicating. I'm listening to scientists pretty much on a daily basis. And those people, they are hard to understand. You know, they have a very complex rationale. They oftentimes use charts and figures that are hard to understand. So I think translating science into. People's lives. This is one very challenging thing. The media plays a central role. But the media needs also training so that they can deliver the message properly. So I think communication is definitely a centerpiece, but not the only one. I think good examples are also important. Christiana, you know, Brazil is a big country. It's a very diverse country. Many, many poor people. We have some of the wealthiest individuals on the planet co-existing. These are challenges that needs to be addressed in addition to or in complementation to the climate change agenda fighting poverty, for example. That is the kind of discussion that needs to be incorporated in the climate change. We don't want some countries delivering and having success and some other countries failing and being flooded. This is the moment of mankind to prove that we are one species that knows how to work together. This is the moment for us to slow down, sit down, look at the other's eyes and see. Look, it's just one planet. We're just one specie. Let's do something good for us and for the other. We need to think harder about the future. I think.
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:27:57] It's such a fantastic conversation. How did you both leave that discussion?
Christiana Figueres: [00:28:01] You know, I had two thoughts as we finished that. One is the difficulty of changing behavior right around us. Changing family behavior, community behavior, let alone national or planetary behavior. It's easier to explain and describe it than it is to actually implement it. So my heart goes out to him and he's doing a brilliant job of explaining it. But I just was left with this Uncomfortable feeling of this is terribly important and terribly difficult. The other thing that I was left with is it is such an interesting branding concept for Brazil. Most cops choose a domestic or a national concept that comes out of their own culture to brand what goes on at a cop. The one that comes to mind right now is Cop 17. In South Africa, where the Cop presidency wanted to have extra negotiating time. And they called these indabas because the indabas in South African culture are when the elders come together and listen to everybody's opinion and come up with important decisions. So the South Africans used that branding for what was happening in the blue zone in the international negotiations. If my memory doesn't betray me, and it often does. This is the first time that the Cop presidency has adopted a branding concept for what occurs in the Green Zone. It's not for the negotiations. It is for what people do, how they behave with each other. How are they going to collaborate with each other? How are they going to come around a task that is of mutual interest? This cop is really about everyone participating the implementation. It is about normalizing decarbonisation and adaptation. And so they use their great branding for that.
Paul Dickinson: [00:30:17] And I think it's genius. Christiana. I mean, talking about working together towards something benefits everyone. It's simple. It's almost kind of biblical. But he did give one example, which was that business of kind of how you spend your money, how you invest your money. And I think it's good to be reminded of that. And I think it's good that the Cop presidency come forward with a concept like that. And if we go to the rather unfortunate early part of this podcast, how many hundreds of millions, billions of people are going to buy less, invest less in the USA and start to use that enormous financial power of the great democracy every day to drive us towards a low carbon, zero carbon future. I think that, to me was one tangible example of them, which we're going to hear more.
Fiona McRaith: [00:30:59] I'm excited for this next conversation. But also I want to invite listeners, perhaps maybe listeners, you have your own examples that you can send in to the podcast to help us bring some context and color. Sometimes the most innovative concepts are the most abstract at first.
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:31:15] That's such a good idea. And I do remember when I was in Brazil a few months ago and I did that special episode. In all these conversations that we had with ministers, I kept trying to get them to define the material in a tighter and tighter way, and they kept sort of saying, look, that's the wrong philosophy. You don't define it. You keep it broad, let everyone define it for themselves, because this is about everybody working out how they contribute. And as soon as we quote unquote, the Brazilian government say, well, this is in and this is out, then you end up with a high bar rather than a big tent. I think that's the right approach. As you said, , this is hard. And the trouble with something being so broad and big is how do people feel agency to participate. Like it's also meaningful that they do something because we can all feel a bit disconnected when the face of this big challenge. But what's fascinating about that is they are grappling with something so needed, and perfection is the enemy of the good, right? We should just get going and make this happen. Okay, so let's go to a specific example of the global and really what we mean. And we've got a brilliant conversation with Laura Moraes from Earth FC. She is the campaign director. And this is an incredible project to look at how we can bring the power of football to focus attention on the solutions to the climate crisis. Let's have a listen.
Paul Dickinson: [00:32:26] Laura, thank you so much for joining us on Inside Cop. Many of our listeners are going to find this the most exciting conversation that we've ever had, because so many millions of people around the world are completely obsessed not just with sport, but most especially football. So can you please explain what is, uh, Earth FC, what is it and what inspired it?
Laura: [00:32:46] Fc FC it's a company that wants to inspire millions of fans of football, communicating about what we can do on climate issues through the language of football, connecting with clubs and players and legends to use their power of engagement to reach millions of people. It's literally how we can try to talk to people in a different way, in a different format, a different language, and connect their passion to something that really matters in the world. Sports are also suffering from the heat, from flooding, from wildfires and things like that. So it's very actually easy to connect.
Paul Dickinson: [00:33:25] It's so good to hear you talk about legends. I've never been in a meeting on climate change in 25 years where someone has said, well, we involve the legends, you know, and the passion. And it's kind of we spend all our time sort of saying, well, it's very, very far down the agenda. So who's on the team and what does this campaign look like in practice? And can you speak about some of the highlights?
Laura: [00:33:44] So the campaign nowadays is co-hosted by two organisations, a British one called Counterspin and a Brazilian one called Onda Solidaria. One of its directors actually was a football coach in England when he was younger. We want to engage more organisations in co-hosting this project because we need to have bigger arms for what's coming and well, the highlights. We have been doing some activations in in big derbies, sort of like take the biggest teams in Brazil and we just take over the stadium, players going in with messages like in the fight against climate change, we're just one team. Actually, a week ago we had the biggest rivalry of the Amazon. In Berlin. We have two teams, Hemu and Sanju. They're very amazing teams. So it was a very big hit before cop. Everything was happening and for the first time ever, the mascots that are dressed as like big animals, they were holding hands, shaking hands with our signs, and they were like, yes, we support this before the game. It was like the biggest thing ever for us.
Christiana Figueres: [00:34:52] So you're inviting basically the world, certainly Brazilians, but hopefully the world to join Team Earth.
Laura: [00:35:00] Yeah, it's Team Earth. The idea is to say it's just one team. You know, we're all playing for the same team. And next year we have the World Cup happening in the United States. So the big effort of the campaign is going to move to there in the following year. We're going to have the Women's World Cup here in Brazil. So the idea is not only to have the world join Brazilians in this team, but actually have irfc happening around the world.
Christiana Figueres: [00:35:29] Laura, would this be a really clear, concrete example of the larger concept of mural that the Brazilian Cop presidency has launched?
Laura: [00:35:39] Yes, I know that in other countries this format of mobilization maybe doesn't exist, and it's something very Brazilian to do. So I think FFC is a good example, like join hands. Forget about other things and let's do one thing together here as one team.
Paul Dickinson: [00:35:55] But let me ask you a really difficult sports related question. It's the second half of the game and we're kind of three nil down. How do we turn the spirit of the match?
Laura: [00:36:05] Well that's a hard one. Maybe we we started just in the second half of the game when we have to to rush and the coach is getting angry, etc..
Christiana Figueres: [00:36:14] I wish we had a coach, by the way.
Paul Dickinson: [00:36:16] Yeah. Who's the coach? You know, the metaphors are really good. You know, like I'm not like a big football fan or something, but I know about numerous movies where there's this kind of moving speech and I think maybe the great nation of Brazil is giving the world that pep talk. Is that what's happening?
Laura: [00:36:31] Maybe, maybe, maybe. I think you're probably right. We're launching just before cop 4th of November, a manifesto of football for the planet. So maybe that is the pep talk. It's a very, like, short manifesto using the language of football. Of course, it's using all the metaphors, etc. and it's basically telling the world in a very simple way, what football expects of leaders to do and also what football commits to do. So this could be a way to tell leaders of the world we have to score three goals. And it's just like 15 minutes left to this game and the coach is getting angry. How we unite and do something together. I believe we are trying to provide that not only to climate activists, to leaders, to negotiators, but mostly to people. Earlier this year, we did a conference of the Brazilian football together we call We had around 70 clubs represented there. There's always this person inside the club that is passionate about this and that cares about this and doesn't know how to communicate that to directors, to the club, to the players. And then they found all each other in the same place and they were exchanging ideas, what they were doing. The simplest thing we can do to help the world and to engage our fans about it is talking about it. So sometimes it's just the simple thing is actually bringing people together and making them know each other and not feeling lonely about that. Because maybe I don't know you guys, but sometimes I feel lonely when we are fighting about climate, when we're trying to make change, and this feeling of not being lonely and finding other solution with each other. It's so good.
Paul Dickinson: [00:38:16] Most famous football song in the UK says you'll never walk alone. You'll know now you've got him singing.
Christiana Figueres: [00:38:22] This is very dangerous.
Paul Dickinson: [00:38:23] Alone I'm Alone. It's genius. This is the most genius thing. Thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people across the world singing together, very moving.
Laura: [00:38:35] Even not liking football. You got excited about this. And that's the effect that our campaign due to politicians. And we want everybody to take this campaign at its own. So this is not like our campaign. It's your campaign.
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:38:53] Love that conversation, you two. What a brilliant discussion. What did you leave it with?
Christiana Figueres: [00:38:57] I just thought, how wonderful to identify that football is basically synonymous with life for millions of people in Brazil. But it is also such a passion for millions and millions of people around the world, whether it is football or whether it is another sport. It's all about the passion. What she's trying to do here is to expand the envelope of passion, to include climate change action. And I just think that's wonderful to start with passion and then expand it. I just think that's brilliant.
Paul Dickinson: [00:39:28] I've actually never got more emotional. In an interview. I was listening along and I'm like, ah, I don't think I can actually intervene now because my voice is going to start cracking up. I mean, I'm totally not into football, but this idea of these Brazilians of cheering crowds and the clothing and it says, you know, just one team and the mascots at the start of the game. I can believe that there's some sort of infectious spirit of cooperation that breaks out of this. And I think football could be the root to it and the true spirit of them now as it starts in football, and then maybe it goes to other sports and we find the passion of ourselves and send it out there. And the genius, of course, is to link it not just to all this kind of decarbonisation of the stadium, but also to the way the games have been moving when they are, because it's too hot. And I always remember climate scientists telling me that, you know, in Europe, for example, New York, whatever, it's going to be too hot to play football in the summertime in 2050. You know, it's sport, but it's climate change. It's real. And ultimately, those terraces are about all of us together.
Fiona McRaith: [00:40:32] I totally love the passion as a launch pad for new curiosities. I also think that this place of belonging and being a part of a community that is cheering for a team is also a safe, exciting place. And then piggybacking off of that passion to then introduce these really new, exciting things like climate. I just think it's quite brilliant and exciting.
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:40:58] The passion absolutely. Find a place where people are already engaging and feeling like they're fully building community. We're often asked what kinds of stories do we need to tell at this moment in order to get people feeling that they're part of this great collective endeavor. And of course, that's a critical question, but I think as much is who tells those stories. We will speak to a certain subsegment of the population, and a large number of people will just immediately discount us. And that goes for everyone in the world, because we all now, in our new information landscape, speak to subsections of the population. And what I love about this example and about the material is to try and find a way in which everybody speaks to that community that they're already part of. Climate and nature is going to affect everyone. Find the way in which it affects that community, the opportunity for engagement in transformation, and find the language that then brings that community with you. I've heard both enthusiasm and occasionally in the climate movement, a little bit of skepticism about the like, you know, what is it? Should it be clearer? And I would just encourage everyone, this is hard and it's big, and it's a big opportunity for all of us to get behind something that's really going in the right direction and trying to do the right thing. So what the Dow is, is whatever we and everyone listening decide we want to make it in the next few weeks. We don't have that long, and it's an opportunity to build a critical amount of momentum at the end of a difficult year. Of course it's going to be hard. The outcomes are going to be imperfect. We're not going to go as far as we like, but let's really give this a go and show up for our Brazilian hosts. Make it happen.
Christiana Figueres: [00:42:32] I agree with you and I think you're partially right.
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:42:35] Okay, I know what that means.
Fiona McRaith: [00:42:37] You're wrong.
Christiana Figueres: [00:42:39] Because this does not have a specific outcome. This is not like we're going to get x, y, z out of the cop. I think the exercise that they have invited us to and that they're starting is how do we normalize responsible behavior into our lives? That is each of us taking a decision of, okay, this is currently my behavior and this is the consequence, whether you measure it in tons per capita or wherever else you want to measure. And here is the top 1 or 2 things that I can change in order to have a lighter footprint in order to be more responsible, and that has to have stickiness to it. It's not like I'm going to be more responsible from now until the end of the year, or from now until the cop starts or cop ends. No, it's about normalizing it into our lives. So that, I think, is the invitation that they are extending to us.
Fiona McRaith: [00:43:42] I also think it's a balm for feeling grief or feeling a loss of agency. Taking action. The invitation can be a real salient approach to addressing that or to holding both.
Paul Dickinson: [00:43:57] It's karma, you know. The more good karma you give out, the more you get back. And it's not a zero sum game. It's sort of this rising tide of, I guess love and compassion lifts all boats. And it was really amazing to hear Laura talk about, like bringing in legends. Who's, who's the most famous Brazilian ever? Lula. Um, Pele. So there's something about what we hold close to our hearts and how we connect.
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:44:21] Yeah. And I think to your point, we've looked into this over the years. All the evidence is that a big part of our challenge with broad engagement on climate is a lack of agency. But how do you feel? Agency. You get involved and you start taking action, and that makes you feel that you're part of a great generational endeavour, rather than feeling a little bit on the sidelines. And that becomes a wheel of momentum that builds you forward and you become more and more engaged in the issues.
Christiana Figueres: [00:44:45] There is no better antidote to climate grief than a concrete climate action performed by yourself.
Paul Dickinson: [00:44:51] Feeling agency is getting agency.
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:44:53] Love it. Any final thoughts before we wrap up this episode?
Paul Dickinson: [00:44:57] Go, team Brazil.
Christiana Figueres: [00:44:58] No no no no no, you didn't get it. Go team Earth.
Paul Dickinson: [00:45:03] Go, team earth. Thank you. Christiana. Just one team. Let's make sure we win, all right?
Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:45:09] Lovely to see you all. Thanks for listening. See you next week. Bye.
Fiona McRaith: [00:45:12] Bye bye.
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