The pope and Prince William yesterday joined environmentalists, artists, celebrities and politicians at a free, streamed TED event aimed at unifying people to confront the climate crisis.
The Countdown program started on the TED channel on YouTube at 8am in California and featured 50 speakers, the pontiff and the second-in-line to the British throne among them.
“You’ll be hearing from all different kinds of folks from all walks of life; from the front lines to the grassroots to the treetops,” actor Mark Ruffalo, who was among the Countdown hosts, told a news conference ahead of the event.
Photo: AFP
“They’ll be talking a little bit about the problems and a lot about the solutions,” Ruffalo added.
Countdown, which lasted about five hours, for the first time provided a free look at the blend of the arts, ideas, innovation and enlightenment that are trademarks of prestigious TED conferences.
“Climate can’t wait,” TED head Chris Anderson said.
“If there’s one thing that we surely must learn from this year, it’s that when scientists warn you that there is something terrible coming, you have to pay attention,” Anderson said.
While Countdown spotlighted science about the climate crisis and how it is harming the health of the planet, it was geared to things that people can do to stop it, organizers said.
For example, a talk was given by the mayor of Freetown, Sierra Leone, where there is a project to plant 1 million trees to protect land from floods and absorb carbon dioxide.
Speakers also included European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, teenage climate advocate Xiye Bastida, actor Chris Hemsworth and former US vice president Al Gore.
Hundreds of smaller “TEDx” events have been planned around the world to encourage local action.
Countdown — billed as a global initiative to champion and accelerate solutions to the climate crisis, turning ideas into action — launched as some world leaders have weaponized the issue for political gain.
US President Donald Trump has triggered outrage by suggesting that global warming might reverse itself and by dismissing the climate crisis as the cause of ferocious fires engulfing swaths of the western US.
Former UN Framework Convention on Climate Change executive secretary Christiana Figueres said that while the topic has been politicized, “democracies have a way of changing the leadership in those countries.”
Droughts, floods, wildfires and other disasters linked to climate change do not check political affiliations before bringing ruin to people’s lives, she said.
“This is about responsibility to the human race — what unites us, not what divides us,” she added.
Ruffalo said that people refusing to find solutions to the climate crisis “will be the ones we see refusing to respond to the reality of the pandemic in a scientific and reality-based way.”
Countdown organizers set the goal of mobilizing governments and citizens to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half over the next decade and achieve net-zero carbon pollution by 2050.
Since starting as an intimate gathering in California 36 years ago, TED has grown into a global media platform with a stated devotion to “ideas worth spreading.”
TED has a massive following for its trademark presentations in which speakers strive to give the “talk of their lives” in 18 minutes.
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