The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis

by Christiana Figueres

For example, our economy is based on the belief that we can extract resources boundlessly, use them inefficiently, and discard them wantonly, drawing from the planet more than it can regenerate and polluting more than we can clean up. Over time we’ve developed a deeply exploitative ethos as the basis of our actions.

We believe three mindsets are fundamental to us all in our pursuit to co-create a better world. With intentional provocation, we call them Stubborn Optimism, Endless Abundance and Radical Regeneration.

It has been with human societies for centuries. Conquerors of distant lands pillaged colonies for metals, minerals, and exotic foods, in many cases leaving little more than chaos, infectious diseases, and Bibles in exchange. As managers of fertile soils, we humans have proved remarkably effective at extracting trees and nutrients, leaving only depleted topsoil in our wake.

The converging crises of climate change, deforestation, biodiversity loss, desertification and acidification of the oceans have taken us to the point where we can no longer naïvely depend on the Earth’s natural resilience or capacity to recuperate. While nature is innately restorative, regeneration does not always occur completely on its own. Right now, we have almost extinguished nature’s capacity for self-renewal.

We can no longer afford the indulgence of feeling powerless. We can no longer afford to assume that addressing climate change is the sole responsibility of national or local governments, or corporations or individuals. This is an everyone-everywhere mission in which we all must individually and collectively assume responsibility. You play many roles in your life – parent, spouse, friend, professional, person of faith, agnostic. You may have great means or none at all. You may sit on the board of a corporation or lead a city, province, or country. Whoever you are, you are needed now in every one of your roles.

Action 1 Let Go of the Old World

Action 2 Face Your Grief but Hold a Vision of the Future

A world that has become richer in the active use of vision and imagination is a much more vibrant, inspiring and joyful place. In these complex times, we often lament the lack of global leaders who can show us the way and help guide us. Those people are important, but we must all believe that the world is worth saving and a regenerative future is utterly possible. In the end, we are not going to solve this problem by hoping that our democratic systems produce enlightened leadership. They might, but the survival of our species can’t depend on the partisan lines of a divided electorate. Instead, we must all embrace a strong vision of a better future. Action 3 Defend the Truth Three centuries ago Jonathan Swift wrote, ‘Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it.’

Action 4 See Yourself as a Citizen – Not as a Consumer

But the fashion industry has an enormous carbon footprint. Textile production is second only to the oil industry for pollution. It adds more greenhouse gases to our atmosphere than all international flights and maritime shipping combined. Estimates suggest that the fashion industry is responsible for a whopping 10 per cent of global CO2 emissions,26 and as we increase our consumption of fast fashion, the related emissions are set to grow rapidly.

Action 5 Move Beyond Fossil Fuels

Action 6 Reforest the Earth

Action 7 Invest in a Clean Economy

consonance with one another in mutually reinforcing systems. In Costa Rica, President José Figueres Ferrer, Christiana’s father, made the decision in 1948 to abolish the army. He invested in education and expanded forest cover from a low of less than 20 per cent. Now Costa Rica has one of the highest literacy rates in Latin America,71 forest cover is more than 50 per cent,72 and the nation’s electricity is provided almost exclusively by renewable energy. Costa Rica measures its progress both by GDP and by indicators that help the government make decisions that maximise well-being. On the Happy Planet Index, Costa Rica ranked number one as the happiest place on Earth in 2009, 2012 and 2018.73 Action 8 Use Technology Responsibly Evolving new technologies have enormous potential for delivering emissions reductions.

Action 9 Build Gender Equality

By these calculations, 100 per cent enrollment of girls in school today would lessen the anticipated global population in 2050 by 843 million people,91 a boon in confronting the climate crisis.

Action 10 Engage in Politics

If the first duty of government is to protect its people, then across much of the world the form of democracy we have become used to is failing. Climate change is an existential threat and is likely to intensify faster than most people today realise. If our systems of government can’t protect us from that existential threat, they will in time be replaced.