This podcast episode is about the appeal #WeCanDoIt launched at COP27 by a group of business leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, disruptors, innovators, scientists, influencers, and policymakers worldwide. They are committed to creating a greener, cleaner, and brighter future and believe that we can't afford not to make the transition to a fossil-free economy. They push for the rapid phasing out of global fossil-fuel subsidies, tougher regulations, smarter incentives, sharper climate goals, and accelerating investments in green infrastructure. They believe that we have the will and the solutions to create a more sustainable world, and it is our defining moment to co-create a brighter, better, and more exciting tomorrow for all.
Read more and join #WeCanDoit here: https://wecandoit.tech
We Don't Have Time has together with its partners UNDP, The Exponential Roadmap Initiative, and GoClimate initiated the #WeCanDoIt campaign to create a new narrative in the climate debate.
We believe, that to accelerate global climate action in time – and get enough people on board to make a difference – we need to focus more on the solutions than on the problem.
We believe we need to start telling the story of the tomorrow we want to create, and to spread the word on the enormous benefits this green shift will bring in terms of new jobs, increased health, restored ecosystems, and limited global warming
This initiative has been created without any financial purposes. You are free to use, reuse and republish it as you wish, as long as you stay true to its original purpose.
For practical purposes we have used We Don’t Have Time’s privacy policies and web hosting when creating the campaign platform.
We have the solutions, we have the will, we have the money, and together we have the power.
We Can Do It!
This podcast episode is about the appeal #WeCanDoIt launched at COP27 by a group of business leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, disruptors, innovators, scientists, influencers, and policymakers worldwide. They are committed to creating a greener, cleaner, and brighter future and believe that we can't afford not to make the transition to a fossil-free economy. They push for the rapid phasing out of global fossil-fuel subsidies, tougher regulations, smarter incentives, sharper climate goals, and accelerating investments in green infrastructure. They believe that we have the will and the solutions to create a more sustainable world, and it is our defining moment to co-create a brighter, better, and more exciting tomorrow for all.
Read more and join #WeCanDoit here: https://wecandoit.tech
We Don't Have Time has together with its partners UNDP, The Exponential Roadmap Initiative, and GoClimate initiated the #WeCanDoIt campaign to create a new narrative in the climate debate.
We believe, that to accelerate global climate action in time – and get enough people on board to make a difference – we need to focus more on the solutions than on the problem.
We believe we need to start telling the story of the tomorrow we want to create, and to spread the word on the enormous benefits this green shift will bring in terms of new jobs, increased health, restored ecosystems, and limited global warming
This initiative has been created without any financial purposes. You are free to use, reuse and republish it as you wish, as long as you stay true to its original purpose.
For practical purposes we have used We Don’t Have Time’s privacy policies and web hosting when creating the campaign platform.
We have the solutions, we have the will, we have the money, and together we have the power.
We Can Do It!
Welcome to the we don't have time podcast. This episode is an edited version of an event at the UN Climate Change Conference cop 27 in Sharm el Sheikh Egypt in 2022, where we don't have time together with the United Nations Development Programme, the exponential roadmap initiative, and NGO climate launched the international we can do it campaign. My name is somebody so disturbed and I'm the producer of this podcast. And now I will hand over the floor to the moderator, Nick Nuttall, Strategic Communications Director at we don't have time. So we're now going live to a special launch of a special initiative that we have been, in a sense incubating prior to cop 27. Growing very quietly during cop 27. And now we're ready for our main launch. This is an initiative called we can do it. And we want to tell you more about it. We want to tell you why you should be a part of it, too. So far more than 600 business leaders, scientists, investors and policymakers have actually signed up to this call for action. It's a bit about changing the narrative, in fact, quite a lot about changing the narrative from one of doom and gloom and concern, which we have to have to wonder where we know no matter what is going on, we can do it, we can solve this climate crisis. I'd now like to bring up to the stage some people behind this call for action and some of the architects of this very initiative. Firstly, probably missed a number one architecture the initiative is Ingmar Rentzhog. He's the CEO and founder of we didn't have time. Johan Phalke. He's the CEO and co founder of the exponential roadmap initiative. Rasmus Malenko, managing director for systems transformation at we mean business coalition, and Maya Graf, international lawyer and convener of climate governance commission, from Canada, the wonderful Canada. Ingmar, let's start with you. How did this initiative start? It's actually started as another initiative back in Sweden, we had this election a couple of months ago. And for some reason, or for many reasons, the climate was not even in the debate. And that was a big frustration among many of our contacts among, among, among the business leaders in Sweden. So together with some partners that are all supporting this new initiative, we managed to gather 22% of Swedish key DP 227 companies behind an opinion in just a couple of days before the election. And this was published in the biggest newspaper in Sweden, and suddenly you had the debate about it. And it came to propaganda. Again, it was only a few days before the election. But the point was not to say, who to vote for the point was to say that, regardless who is winning the election, we must see the green transition as a possibility as an opportunity, not as a sacrifice. And it's, it's actually a very good business to be leading in the transition, and don't do things lost, but do it fast. And climate regulation, the policymakers needs to step up, we need better regulation, we need more long term goals, and maybe tougher rules in order to actually succeed with with the transition. And the companies want this. And this became instant, very, very big. And I think he's still quoted in newspapers, debated more than two months later. So this has worked very well in Sweden. And we see this problem not just in Sweden, of course, this is a global problem. So that's why I'm very proud that we now are launching this initiative together with great partners here to an all read the over 600, business leader of sign up, and that's three times more and this is just the start. Where this is not the finish. This is the start supering mark, so would you your hand, Phalke of the exponential roadmap initiative, why is this kind of action? Important? Why do we need to empower people to say we can do it? Well, we are gathering I think myself we gathering leading businesses, entrepreneurs, investors and scientists influencers, which are all convinced that we can do it because we have to do it have emissions by 2030 and who are also walking that Talk going in the front line, which is incredibly important. But to do that, we need to scale up the climate solutions in all areas and in energy in natural climate solutions in fossil free materials, plant rich foods and so on, that will bring tremendous benefits in terms of do growth, millions of jobs, better health and a prosperous society. This massive shift is already ongoing, but we don't have really the time on our side, we need to go even faster. That is what it's about. And that means that we need to have policies supporting this transformation, we need to remove the blocking policies such as fossil subsidies and shift these investments to scaling up Climate Solutions. We need tougher regulations. And all of this leading businesses is backing this statement. Rasmus we mean business coalition, hundreds and hundreds of companies around the world committed to climate action. Do you get a sense that business and industrial moving it was very important that actually at the Paris Climate Conference in 2015, there were CEOs of major corporations, giving governments that sense that they want climate action to happen? Is it happening? Do you think among business and industry? So I've said this before, in actually a couple of other sessions that I've been in it, the big difference between coop 26 and 27, is that at coop 26, companies showed up with amazing commitments, you know, plans to build amazing projects. And the difference now is that they've shown up, and they're talking not just about commitments and ideas and plans, but they're talking with numbers. They're telling you how many jobs they've created, how many megatons they've reduced, what the actual cost is that they've gotten some of the technologies down to, so we can see it is happening. And I was speaking to a colleague just earlier, who's also been following this for a long time working with business. And it's really a turning point. I mean, we see the phenomenal growth in, for example, electric vehicles, some of the gigantic scales of wind parks, or solar farms that are being built as well. So we really know the wind is in our sails. But the reason why we joined this week and do its campaign is quite simple. I mean, we've seen both when he starts at the start line, he doesn't hope that he's going to win, right? He visualises success, he Sykes himself up, knowing that he can win. It's only through that visualisation that he's actually able to win. And I think we need more of that as well. In the same way that we've been talking about 1.5 Not being a goal, but rather being a limit. And understanding that we have the resources and we have the 1000s of businesses behind us to do this. Make sure that we're changing the narrative, believing that we can do it, not just hoping for it. Now that is the time to invite a few of these businesses and leaders up on stage please welcome Stuart Templar, Director of Global Sustainability for Volvo cars. We're going to line everybody up, we're not going to sit down, grab a microphone. You can be a custodian of that. And then we've got Andrea's Fowler, who's head of sustainability for Skandia, the big trucks company. We've got Martin Lopes Cardozo, CEO of the circular economy. Great to see you. And on the magic of zoom, we have Eva Carlson, CEO of Houdini coming in from Stockholm. Hello, Stuart. But why did you think it was worth signing up to this campaign? I think, I think because it sort of exemplifies what we need to see, I think that the tone of positivity we can do it is right. The tone of positivity is right, we can do it. We as a company committed to full electrification by 2030, ahead, about 10 years ahead of the global goals for that we have the technology, the electric electric engine, so we can do it. And we're driving down emissions across our value chain as well. But I think the you know, what we need to see now is that same level of ingenuity and technology that we saw in developing the internal combustion engine. So we at Volvo are putting that our engineers onto electric vehicle technology and you can do it and I think this campaign is about captivating, human ingenuity to actually deliver on a low carbon future and sort of capturing also that spirit of you said of the Second World War, you know, we managed to fight a global pandemic, the amount of resource effort that went into that Ah, over two or three years, and it can it can be done. So I think that's what, that's what attracted us to this, this campaign and also, you know, ending fossil fuel subsidies. I mean, I think it's, it's illogical that there are you got the ticker over there was it $6,000,000,000,000.70 note taking over, or going into a fuel, which we know from decades of scientific evidence is actually destroying the planet and harming society as well. So this campaign makes absolute sense for us as a company to be aligned with. Exactly. And as I said, earlier today on the part of the show, nobody, nobody really thought that we'd ever get a global treaty of nations on climate change in the first place. Nobody thought we'd get the Paris agreement. And then, yeah, holy, holy, yes, it happens, right. And now it's just normal. Bit like zoom is just normal. Now it's slightly, we get used to successes. And then we get drowned and doom and gloom over the things we're not quite achieving the most on? Maybe that's the change in narrative. Andreas, Andreas. Neva. Why did you do this? Let me go to maybe ephah. First in with Houdini, why did you sign up? I think it's a very important narrative. And of course, it's not entirely new. But there's a lot of doom and gloom. And I think it's truly important that we signal hope. And also action together. It's about being collaborative. At this stage. I totally agree with human ingenuity, we have the capacity as humans, if we work together, we also have a lot of solutions, we have amazing solutions that we just haven't implemented at scale yet. And we need to do that. And we can do that if we collaborate. And then we also need to collaborate and reconnect, as somebody said, the mayor of Grenoble, I believe, connect, reconnect with nature, because there's of course, a lot of capacities and solutions in nature that we haven't really tapped into yet. And there's been a very strong focus on technology. And there's nothing wrong with technology. I love innovation. And it's important, but it's not important if technology is working beside disconnected to nature, but it's important that it works. technology works together with nature, looking forward. And together, we can do that. Okay, Eva, Andreas, again, why why the scan, you think this was a good idea. Because we know we can do it. It's as simple as that we have the technology as our at our fingertips, we have the solutions, no major technology barriers remains, we can move towards decarbonize transport within the timeframe stipulated by the Paris Agreement, but we need to believe in it. And we need to have the supportive environment. So we are prepared to do our share. And we are working across the value chain with our customers, even with our competitors to build out the necessary infrastructure, and upstream with our suppliers to take out the green steel, the green batteries, the green aluminium, so we know we can do it. And I love the positive message. And this is what we need to rally around. Yep. And I think the interesting thing about the analogy of the Second World War, I don't want to be, quote, totally dominated by that as a theme, but but the weekend has the centre is an emergency. So it's not denying there is not an emergency out there. But we can rise to that challenge. And and we could rise the challenge of 100% Green Energy in 10 years, probably on almost every part of the planet if we wanted to do it and adopted this kind of emergency attitude. And I think that's important, too. Martin, as CEO for circular economy. Why did you sign this? And what effect do you think it could have in speeding up the shift from Alinea to a circular economy? Not least among also awareness among the public as well, because the public are part of this story as well. Yeah, so we can do it because we have to. But maybe more importantly, we want to. So let me explain. I think the reasons we have to or obvious, I think there's a lot of information about that. But let's focus on why we want it. And I'm not extremely religious, but to remember even in biblical times, we had to create a vision of the promised land. And while we're going through the deserts, and we weren't thirsty, and we were hungry, we knew what the problem is land was. And I think in all religions, there's a story like that, that we're embarking on that journey now. And to me, a big component of that promise land is a circular economy, right? Living in harmony with nature, reusing resources, and then we can be in a great world. And I think statistics show if 25 to 50% of the world is convinced something needs to happen. It will. So we can do it. Very, very good point. Let me just ask one other thing, which is, I think it's also part of what I think I was saying before, which is that it needs something as well that everybody can hang on to. I mean, yeah, sustainable development is a nice term. It's been around for a long time. There are a lot of other terms in our lexicon in the whole climate change story. Even just transition for some people is a hard concept to get around. They don't know what it is, unless they're in the climate bubble. But we can do it. It's just simply a message that everybody can echo to, without getting too bogged down in what is the subtlety of this narrative? Yeah. And I think that's that's, it can be a business. It can be a government, it can be a person, it can be a city, you can comment on. Jul. Thank you. Just on the point. I think you made clear in your statement as well, that a this is a right thing to do. But it also makes complete economic sense, is it $14 billion $14 trillion, I should say, in value to the global economy of moving towards decarbonisation. So it makes absolute financial sense as well. So for us, and I think the companies in the guys here, it's a no brainer that we move fast, we move quickly. And it is the right thing to right thing to do. I should say as well. This is a new fashion statement. We've got three guys with blue blazers all wearing your badges. So you're all wearing badges. I'm not wearing my badge or your neck. So you gotta I want you to with the lonely voice here against the campaign. But I failed miserably, haven't I? I'm right behind it. The badges on something that also to compliment on that I think we're here at the Climate Summit, and we talk in the language of decarbonisation. But most of our customers outside this conference, are also see the other benefits of what we're trying to do. I mean, this technology that we are now pushing is superior. It's quieter, it's less pollutants. You'll save money. In the end of the day, we rid ourselves of all dependence of a few oil exporting countries, it's national security. I mean, these are the arguments as goes on top of this. So the same movement, the same language that we talked about here can be complemented by also other things that takes us in the right, exactly, exactly. I just wanted to add one thing, and I'm coming here in just one second, Martin, but we just had the you know, the former Minister of the Environment of Brazil, on the show, and I thought was quite important that she mentioned that in the past, the excuse was, oh, it's down the road, you know, but it's not down the road anymore, is it? We can't keep kicking this problem down the road. It's actually within eight years that we have to have emissions, right. By 2030. We were joking, maybe better was 2030, like half past eight this evening, rather than 2013. Eight years. But anyway, that's another another matter. But Martin, come come come with us on this. Yeah. So I think it's also very strong a positive message for the younger generations. And so I think, you know, we can play the blame game between generations. And yes, I think we have a big portion of screwing things up. But, but I think there's no reason for all the young people to get depressed about not having a future. And I think if we all get around as messy as it can be done. And I think we should do more, much more from our generation than the younger people. But actually do it and we can do it. I think that we're really helpful. So have something to unite those different generations and not fight each other. Because I think that will now help be helpful. Now we have my graph with us. Give us your perspective on this. Yeah, the campaign is extremely synergistic with what we've been doing so far. The climate governance Commission, which seeks to propose very high impact policy and governance proposals to meet the climate challenge to win the climate challenge. And so we recognised in our last interim report released before cop 26, we saw three action gaps. One, the solution action gap, we have the solutions, but they're not being scaled up in time across the world at a planetary level, too. There's a policy action gap. And this is a theme also speaking to many businesses here at COP 27. They're raring to go they have their action plans, they're ambitious, but the policy isn't always keeping up with them and what they need, you know, permitting for new electric car infrastructure, etc. Third, the governance gap at the global level, but all levels to have really proper strong climate sharp governance. So our philosophy is very much we have to believe in our capability as innovative in genius. operators a super cooperators at the international level, across countries across regions across sectors, but also across stakeholders, which we've been generating alliances and movements among stakeholders. We have a new future Economy Forum that we're partnering in, that brings multi stakeholders together, really with his very positive collaborative message. But we've got to get going, we're very much behind. But I also agree that we can do it. So what do we say to governments who were here? And what do we say to the other players here? I mean, Paris was a cop of actually getting the agreement done. There are a few loose ends leftover, they were sorted out in cop 26. You know, things like article was an Article Six, Article Six, yeah, they moved the articles around between the last treaty, and then the Paris Agreement. So it has to be about implementation now, doesn't it? It has to be about fulfilling what has been promised and doing more. Is there now a bit of a gap between what's the conversations in the political area, and the real economy, as we might call it, people used to call it the real economy. Because I get a sense from talking to cities here. They're moving business moving, others moving other parts of society? How do we communicate to those governments there that actually there isn't so much movement, that, you know, you have a really good chance of meeting all your targets? And over performing, so don't get nervous? I think this is important, too, because the government's get a little nervous. How do we take that political bridge that gap as well, that's exactly what we're doing here. Right. As, as we mean business, we are here showing up with 1000s of companies behind us to deliver exactly that message. But the really interesting thing here is that, sure, they're hearing the message here at call. But even more important to bridge that gap is we need to be doing this at a national level as well. So countries come here with, you know, the plans that they have created nationally, their NDCs. Now the message that we want to get across is that we want to speak not just to the negotiators that are here, but the energy ministers, you know, the employment ministers, the environment ministers, across the whole economy, at the national level, to make sure that they hear the same message of confidence in the fact that we can do this. So I think what's very critical is that we move after just a couple of days when this cop is over, and shift our efforts to the national level. So we can bring that confidence and we get those policies because the policies are critical to getting not just the few 1000s of companies who are very progressive and doing the right things, but getting the millions to be on this journey really bring up the floor in terms of what the policies are. Yeah, I didn't say one thing that we had this week, when we were here was was that we were talking about E mobility, electric mobility. And of course, the question came, how would you bring that to Africa? How are you going to bring electric trucks, electric cars to Africa, they don't have, you know, the electricity to do it. And then the lady from Kenya that was on said, No, actually, the thing is, we've got too much renewable energy, we don't know what to do with it, we need to actually find some way of storing it, because we've got so much renewable energy. So there's a lot of contradictions out there as well about the real state of the world, and how quickly countries can change, including in Sub Saharan Africa. Anyway, come on, who wants to make the next point? Was that UN WHAT WAS THAT YOU? Maya? I can, I could just say one more thing on getting the nation states more engaged and thinking more ambitiously, in an innovative way. I think a lot of the innovation energy in the private sector that we see now should somehow we should also get that contagion of this excitement and ambition within our nation state representatives. And the climate governance Commission, we have a paper on a proposal for an international policy clearinghouse or policy hub for states to come together governments at the national level, but also at the sub national level, city level, to really come together and innovate together on policy. So you have some energy and some movement. And so each country is not reinventing the wheel, but working together in this radical collaboration mode, inspiring each other ramping up ambition. So I think we need to explore sort of synergies like that also bringing in the private sectors to such a like policy clearinghouse or policy hub at the international level, are going to have to push everybody because I'm being told in my ear that we need to move on. But if there's some quick comments now just left your hand and then Ingmar we talked very much about cutting emissions. That's essential, but the discussion has been very much around sharing of burdens. It's not about sharing our burdens. We need to shift the complete dialogue towards the opportunity, this tremendous opportunity, actually, of shifting away from the fossil economy and scaling up The solution is so much more of a race to the top is the next. As far as we see it, I think we need to bring that optimism with nations together with nations as well. So it's not about sharing burden is all about embracing this opportunity and go faster. It's about Race to the Top and not being left behind this other narrative. Yeah, thing, Ma, very quick. This is supposed to be the cop for implementation. We have seen a lot of activities, a lot of talks about the implementation here, if he does great things will happen because all of the network on the ground out to it, it's a lot of things going on. But as long as those fossil fuel subsidies are continued, not just to access but also increase, yeah, we will not solve climate crisis. I mean, we should focus on that I was super glad in Glasgow, that the fossil fuel subsidies got into the agreement. And here in the negations room, it's not even discussed, they have forgot about it, we must address the money that is flowing in the wrong direction that are sponsoring the fossil fuel industry, we have demand that we just need to use that money to the solutions instead of the destruction of this planet. Everyone should rise up and demand a stop of those fossil fuel subsidies gave it to the people instead of for the fossil fuel industry. We're very delighted to have with us, Nigel chopping, who's the UN High Level Climate Champion for cop 26. He's been the UN High Level Climate Champion also through this period, right building up to Sharm el Sheikh, cop 27, here in Egypt, Nigel topping, why do we need an initiative? Or why do we need initiatives that actually empowered people to say, We can do this, we can change the narrative, we can deal with climate change, because people who work in the media have a saying if it bleeds, it leads, which means they go off the conflict and bad news stories because that makes headlines and sells newspapers or attracts clicks. But it doesn't represent the whole truth of what's happening in society. I'm not it's not it's not to blame them, you often have to look to page 17, rather than page one. And of course, what is happening is we're in a terrible situation. Because we've we've reacted way too late, and we still haven't got enough momentum. But there's so much amazing stuff happening. And we are as humankind so innovative, that we can solve almost any problem that we choose to take on collectively. And that's what we need to share more as the stories of what people are actually doing, that are scalable, and again, scalable exponentially. And there's plenty of evidence that that's starting to happen. And we need to share that. So people are encouraged and emboldened to keep plugging away themselves. Because the worst strategy of all is the strategy of despair, which leads to apathy, disengagement, no action. So we have to continually actively generate hope. And one way of doing that is by learning what other white people are doing. So we can do it. We will do it. We will do it. And we can do it. Yeah. Okay. So you've been with the United Nations, in a sense, or connected with the United Nations process now for what it's over two years, isn't it? Three years, three years, and as your perspective of what the UN is, and its role in the world, changed during that time? Well, my understanding of the process before I took on this role was of course biassed by my own background and experience. And I come from the UK, I'd worked in industry and I was working for many years on how to reduce emissions in the big industries in developed countries, and how to mobilise finance in developed countries. So of course, the thing I've really come to appreciate about this process is that it really is the full family of humanity. And many of those who have no voice in any other processes actually really have a serious voices. So I've been on a very steep learning curve about the importance of really taking seriously adaptation and resilience by we're excited to have launched the Sharm el Sheikh adaptation agenda with Egyptian presidency, and really taking seriously the challenges and the need to mobilise finance in emerging markets. So I think that without this process, those issues would really struggle to be elevated. They've been elevated slower than mitigation. But this process is unique in its ability to elevate those processes. It can't provide all the answers itself as a process, but it can elevate the issues and the mosaic of solutions, that some of which can be negotiated delivered here. Others have to be negotiated and or delivered elsewhere. So on the weekend, do it theme in all those three years? Have there been one or two things that have stood out to you as Climate Champion, UN climate high level champion that stood out as being emblematic of we can do it? Well, I think the fact or you know, my favourite topic electric vehicles. Five years ago, all the experts were saying it'll be 2070. Before we have serious inroads into the market share, that technology is dead. Now it's 10%. But growing about 60% plus a year, nearly 100%, in India and China. So that's what's really struck me is that when we decide that we're going to go to zero, and by the way, the whole world's basically decided there's a few nutters, who, you know, who are hoping that we don't have to go there. But you know, we have 100 $50 trillion of capital under management, we have over 8000 companies, over 1000 cities, over 1000, universities, all working, and, of course, all the countries and increasing numbers of countries with net zero targets. And with that size of signal, it really emboldened everybody said, Okay, we're definitely going to go there. So it's as much lower risk. So we're seeing that kind of exponential change kicking in hydrogen and shipping in green steel and EVS and solar. And importantly, we're now starting to see people really take seriously the solutions for adaptation and resilience, I think we're gonna see a real uplift in the amount of money going to those solutions in the next five years. We can do it is about changing the narrative. That's what we said at the beginning, and to move away from doom and gloom into actual action. And one author who has done a great amount of time on shifting this narrative is an Theresa Gaina. She is a speaker and educator, and author of the climate optimists handbook. By the magic of zoom, I will now ask and Teresa to join us from the United States. Hi, and welcome to the show. Please give us a little presentation. Five minutes would be great. Hey, thank you for having me, Nick. Thanks. We don't have time, I just want to say I'm home with my newborn. And of course, he's been sleeping this entire time until right now. So if you hear screaming, that is just a little daughter. But yeah, so honoured to be here to celebrate this campaign. I can't think of a more needed campaign in these times. And as the author of the climate optimist handbook and the founder of the climate optimist, I do get a lot of questions about optimism. And sometimes some pushback if you know, do we even have time for optimism right now we need to urgently do what we need to be doing and all these things. And I see that and I hear that, but I think the more urgent the matter is, the greater the need for optimism. And I kind of want to move away a little bit from the climate talk into optimism in neuroscience, because I think we have to recognise that at the end of the day, we're all just human beings. We are people who have to go through these times. And there are challenges ahead and they're going to be unsurmountable. Sometimes it's going to feel impossible. And we have to look back at history and see that we have done the impossible before and how was that done? And when you think about optimism, you might want to start to question what why do we have optimism? What role does that play in our lives. And the only reason that we can even have optimism or be optimistic is because of our frontal cortex. So the frontal part of our brains enables us to do things that other species can't do. And the first one is that we can think about the future, we can imagine things that haven't happened yet. It could be what I'm going to cook for dinner tonight, it could be what I'm going to wear for that party on Friday night. It could be what I want to do with my career, and five years from now. So we can think about the future. And imagine things that haven't yet happened. But not only that, we can have an expectation on that future. So in other words, we can think I'm going to cook this marinara sauce is going to be fantastic. And we are going to have a great dinner, I'm going to wear this dress on Friday and this guy you have a crush on is going to notice me we're going to dance and have a wonderful night and then one day we'll get married and have kids. I think every teenage girl has been there, by the way. So it's just the whole idea that we can envision something and then have an expectation on that outcome kind of differs us from almost every other species out there. And here's something interesting, there's something called the optimism bias, which means that 84% of us actually are optimistically, biassed meaning that we tend to think of the future as better than it actually turns out to be. Now you might start to ask yourself, that's silly. Why would I fool myself into thinking things are going to be better than you know, they will actually turn out to be. But if you think about it, why is that? Why is our brains wired in a way that we think better about the future than the reality shows that to be? Well, if we didn't think our cooking would be great. So why would we even try cooking in the first place instead of just ordering in? If we didn't think we had a chance at you know, catching the eye of that person? Why would they ever go to the party in the first place. And so just the fact that we can have a vision and an optimistic view on that future, we actually take action. I think that's such an important thing to notice. Because right now, with climate change, we have to reimagine everything. It's not just about inventing and incremental changes, we have to literally reimagine life and society and the world we live in. And the only way we can do so is through courage and how do we find courage? It's in believing that things can be better, not just not awful, but actually better. And I think right now, it's so important that we start to nurture sure that curiosity, that courage, that optimism and to recognise that everyone can have hope passively, we can sit back and say, I hope that things are going to turn out. That is not really how you show up for optimism, though, if you want to be optimistic, you have to participate in that change, you have to start to nurture that optimism from within and create that optimism on a daily basis. So if you ask me, I think climate optimism is one of the most important thing to focus on right now, it does not mean that we sit back and just pray for things to work out, it means that we actually say, we don't have a choice like that lady of sorry, I forgot her name, just was saying we don't have a choice, we have to try everything we can. And we have to do so some courage, optimism and from excitement, because that is the only way that we can continue to show up for this work that we're here to do. So that's my little spiel for as a climate optimist, and one more fact, I'll throw you actually, Nick is that studies have shown that optimistic people are 40% more likely to get a promotion than their pessimistic counterparts. So actually, just from being optimistic, you raise your chances by 40%, to achieve the goals that you set out for yourself. So I think that's really speaks to the fact that we need optimism. Good. And I think you've kind of outlined the arguments very nicely. So this campaign is we can do it. You know, we borrowed it from the Second World War narrative, where basically nations fighting Nazi Germany didn't say, maybe we can do it, or we'll we'll have a go. But we're not sure. We just said we can do it. Right, basically. And we feel that that's a similar narrative. We don't want to get trapped by the past too much. But I think the future also needs that that sense of yes, that optimism, so are you a backer of we can do it. 100% No question about it. I think we can do it. I'm pretty certain we can. And I think, just look back at the past five years, what are the incredible things that we actually already achieved, that people said, that's impossible. And I think we have to continue to celebrate those seemingly small wins, but actually pretty incremental steps in the right direction. And if we could continue to build on that, and that momentum, and share the positive news and tell each other that, you know, we can do this, let's just keep trying, I really look forward to seeing the future and 20 years from now. Super, thank you very much for coming in on this and sharing your thoughts, which were excellent and very interesting. And now we're gonna move to our next guest. One of the partners behind the initiative is the UN Development Programme. They've been great mates for just over 12 months, actually, on fossil fuel subsidies, for example, and which we call the dyno talks. Boris Powell is the chief creative officer of the UN Development Programme UNDP. He was here last week, working with us. And he's now back in New York, and joining via the magic of zoom in which I keep saying, and people keep laughing out. But actually zoom is another example, right, of radical change that we've now just come to accept. But it's not long ago that we would not be able to put on a show like this. And that shows what technology can do. Because why are you backing this? This campaign? Thanks. Thanks. Nice to be back with you guys. in Sharm el Sheikh, although I am in New York, it's absolutely vital that we change the narrative of climate change. The narrative of doom and gloom, we're all going to die off of the pessimism that we see is counterproductive in the most extreme way, and lends itself to the detractors of climate change. What we need to do is be a winning team, we need to be a winning team of the willing of the candles of the will dues. And there is that winning team, the human endeavour cannot be stopped, we will win this fight. And so you know, all this negative narrative is counterproductive and is untrue. Because I believe very, very strongly that the fight will be one, but only if we come together only if we're all in it together as humanity, can we win this fight. And so changing that narrative is absolutely essential. And we can do it is exactly that. It's to show people that the narrative is a positive narrative. It's a narrative of hope, and of the Spirit that really did win the Second World War and all other existential threats that humanity has faced, we together have come together and we will come together again for climate change. I mean, Bo, as you can obviously, understand why, you know, some people hear these IPCC reports, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, see the very tight window we've got left to have emissions by 2030 and might feel very troubled by that. But doom and gloom is a different thing. That's more that should be a shock for people to go, oh my god, we really got to step up right now. You know, it shouldn't be like, Oh, we can Don't do it. Just because the science says it's a bit tight right now should be even more empowering to actually step up our game as a collective human society rather than the other way round. So I think that's important to remember, too, because we're not science deniers here. We're not living on some, you know, pretty fluffy planet, imagining that it's all petals falling and soft music and lambs dancing. You know, we're not green eyed if I can put it that way. We need action. We know we need action, but we can do it if we put it together. Yeah, absolutely. We I mean, we're not scientists, science deniers, the IPCC reports are very clear. There's a very, very short window of time that we can do it in. But we can do it. The point is that humanity coming together, look at what happened with with a COVID vaccine, six months, and we had a vaccine that's unimaginable. You know, it's incredible what the human endeavour can do if we come together as humanity as one team, not as Sweden and the UK and the United States and Uganda, but rather as humanity coming together to fight a common enemy. And the common enemy, this time is an enemy that we created ourselves, we have a very short window to to win this war. But I believe strongly that in the human spirit and in the human ability, and the human endeavour, the fact is that scientists, engineers, technologists can all come together and we can solve it. The technology exists today. It's just a matter of deciding that that's what we're going to do. The Intergovernmental process in COP, frankly, is not going super well. But that doesn't mean that it's going to all go badly together. If you know, besides the intergovernmental process, there's all these other things that are happening all these very, very positive signs that that more people coming into it, more industries coming into it, more business, more academia, everyone is coming together. So So I was I was inspired when I was in Cabo until a few days ago. Even though the intergovernmental process is slow. Even with that process in place, it still gave me optimism because I saw everything else. I walked through the pavilions, I saw the connections that are being made by people. I listened to some of the technology that's at play here, and I truly believe that humanity can make it happen. We can do it together. Okay. Thanks very much indeed buzz. See you soon I hope. This podcast was produced by the production company commercial content for we don't have time in 2023 Produced by me on the USA to strum and edited by Alex Visteon. Learn more and be a part of the ongoing climate meeting by downloading the we don't have time app. Also, please join business leaders, policymakers and influencers in the climate call to action. By signing up at the campaign website. We can do it dot tick