The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis

by Christiana Figueres

Every day that passes is one day less that we have to stabilize our increasingly fragile planet, by now on its way to becoming uninhabitable for humans. We are running out of time. Once we hit critical thresholds, the damage to the environment, and consequently to our future on this planet, will be irreparable.

Complacency now will lock us into a future of guaranteed scarcity, instability, and strife.

By 2050 at the latest, and ideally by 2040, we must have stopped emitting more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than Earth can naturally absorb through its ecosystems (a balance known as net-zero emissions or carbon neutrality). In order to get to this scientifically established goal, our global greenhouse gas emissions must be clearly on the decline by the early 2020s and reduced by at least 50 percent by 2030.

Several parts of our planet are critically sensitive, such as the Arctic summer sea ice, the ice cover of Greenland, the boreal forests of Canada and Russia, and the tropical forest cover of the Amazon. They have been maintaining a stable temperature on Earth for millennia.2 If those ecosystems were to go up in flames or be otherwise compromised, global temperature would rise precipitously, leading to irreparable worldwide damage. Think of this as an uncontrollable domino effect of devastation.

We wanted the agreement to put us on a path to a 1.5-degree-Celsius maximum temperature rise. A 2-degree world would result in up to three times as much infrastructure destruction, biological destruction, and life-threatening heat, hunger, and water scarcity. The difference would save millions of lives and perhaps even give low-lying islands and coastlines a chance of survival.

Much of what we imagine to be permanent is more ephemeral than we realize.

A compelling vision is like a hook in the future. It connects you to the pockets of possibility that are emerging and helps you pull them into the present. Hold on to that. Stay firmly fixed to a vision of a world you know is possible. This act is radical resistance to the belief that solving our problems is beyond us.

Almost all tropical deforestation is driven by demand for four commodities: beef, soy, palm oil, and wood. Beef cattle are responsible for more than double the deforestation of the other three combined.

In 2017, NAM supported the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. Companies such as Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Corning, and Intel are all members of NAM, yet all claim to support strong climate action under the Paris Agreement.