Countdown Summit: What to expect from COP26
The closing session of the TED Countdown Summit in Edinburgh on Friday, October 15, 2021 started with a discussion about the upcoming United Nations climate conference, COP26, which will take place in Glasgow from October 31-November 12, 2021. The discussion -- featuring Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Cl...
Countdown Summit: Decarbonizing fossil fuels
In a panel discussion about fossil fuels and accelerating the trajectory of decarbonization, Christiana Figueres (architect of the Paris Climate Agreement) talks with Chris James (cofounder of the activist fund Engine No. 1), Lauren MacDonald (climate justice activist) and Ben van Beurden (CEO of Royal Dutch Shell). This challenging, enlightenin...
Nemonte Nenquimo: The forest is our teacher. It's time to respect it
For thousands of years, the Amazon rainforest has provided food, water and spiritual connection for its Indigenous inhabitants and the world. But the endless extraction of its natural resources by oil companies and others is destroying the lives of those who live there, says Waorani leader Nemonte Nenquimo, and threatening the overall stability ...
Derek Sarno: The many reasons to eat a plant-based diet
Vegan chef (and head chef of TED Countdown Summit) Derek Sarno is on a mission to unleash the mighty power of plants, creating nutritious food from mushrooms and vegetables that's full of texture and flavor -- and good for the planet. He dishes out some creative cooking inspiration and shares how his personal journey led him to create amazing fo...
AKQA and Jung von Matt: "The [Uncertain] Four Seasons"
Over the last two years, a collective of composers, musicians, computer programmers, scientists and activists has set out to reinterpret Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons" for a transformed world, restituting Vivaldi's score in expected climate scenarios for the year 2050. The project, titled "The [Uncertain] Four Seasons," launches November 5, 2021, ...
Reeps One: What does a voice of the future sound like?
Sandrine Dixson-Declève: 5 keys to shifting to a well-being economy -- and the cost of inaction
In 1972, the Club of Rome, an organization of thought leaders from around the world, published their first "Limits to Growth" report, a foundational text warning the world of the consequences of human activity on the health of the planet. In conversation with TED global curator Bruno Giussani, co-president of the Club of Rome Sandrine Dixson-Dec...
Amina J. Mohammed: A new perspective on the journey to net-zero
Climate action can be a vehicle to deliver dignity, opportunity and equality for all. UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed invites us to reimagine what the journey to net-zero could look like if we invest in people's climate efforts while prioritizing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals -- a blueprint of interlinked global goals to pro...
Mahendra Singhi: Cement's carbon problem -- and 2 ways to fix it
Cement is vital to modernizing all kinds of infrastructure in the developing world -- but manufacturing it comes at an enormous environmental cost in the form of carbon emissions. Mahendra Singhi, the CEO of one of India's largest cement producers, discusses his team's effort to transform the industry by targeting the two largest sources of CO2 ...
Sophia Kianni: Language shouldn't be a barrier to climate action
Most scientific literature is written only in English, creating an alarming knowledge gap for the 75 percent of the world who don't speak it. That's a big problem for climate change -- because it's hard to take action on something you don't understand. With Climate Cardinals, an international youth-led nonprofit that's working to make the climat...
Jim Hagemann Snabe: Dreams and details for a decarbonized future
As chairman of the world's largest maritime shipping company, Jim Hagemann Snabe thinks a lot about how goods get where they need to go and the impact their journey has on the planet. Leading the effort to decarbonize shipping by 2050, he shares a plan to convert green electricity into green liquid fuel to power vessels in a process called "powe...
Dan Jørgensen: How wind energy could power Earth ... 18 times over
Over the last two decades, the wind power industry has grown at a dizzying pace. (Fun fact: a single rotation from one of the world's most powerful wind turbines can generate enough electricity to charge more than 1,400 cell phones.) Building off this exponential growth, Denmark's climate minister Dan Jørgensen lays out his plan to end the count...
James K. Thornton: Why is China appointing judges to combat climate change?
Why is China appointing thousands of judges to environmental courts and training prosecutors to bring cases to them, even if it means suing the government? Eco-lawyer James Thornton takes us inside the country's growing effort to use the power of the courts to address environmental problems -- a little-known story that indicates China could beco...
Rachel Kyte: Sustainable cooling that doesn't warm the planet
"The way we cool things down is heating the planet even more," says sustainable development expert Rachel Kyte -- and the solutions go well beyond just fixing air-conditioning. She identifies four major areas with transformative solutions -- from roofs painted with bright white paint to solar control glass to more efficient cold chains for vacci...
Solitaire Townsend: Are ad agencies, PR firms and lobbyists destroying the climate?
An unnoticed industry worth two trillion dollars a year is influencing almost every carbon emission. Sustainability solution seeker Solitaire Townsend calls this sector the "X industry" (where "X" stands for influence), and it includes professional services like advertising and PR firms, management consultancies, corporate law firms, lobbyists a...
Chibeze Ezekiel: A vision for sustainable energy in Africa
Africa needs new energy sources to fuel its development, but the continent should invest in renewable energy instead of cheap, polluting alternatives like coal, says climate inclusion activist Chibeze Ezekiel. He tells the story of how he worked with local communities in Ghana to halt the construction of the country's first coal power plant -- a...
Melati Wijsen: A roadmap for young changemakers
Activism is a tough job, especially for young people yearning for immediate change -- something climate activist Melati Wijsen has learned over ten years of pushing for environmental protection, starting at age 12 in her home on the island of Bali, Indonesia. How can young changemakers acquire the skills they need and keep from burning out? Wijs...
Bjørn Otto Sverdrup: How to realistically decarbonize the oil and gas industry
Bjørn Otto Sverdrup leads the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI), which gathers the CEOs of twelve of the world's largest oil and gas companies around an ambitious goal: to get one of the sectors contributing most to climate change to drastically lower their own carbon emissions. He describes a possible path for the industry to pivot to net-z...
Jamey Stillings: An aerial perspective on renewable energy
Ryah Whalen: 3 ways to make flying more climate-friendly
Air travel opens our eyes to the world, but it also comes at a high cost to the environment. Piloting us into a future of green aviation, innovator Ryah Whalen shares three ways to lower the industry's carbon footprint through smarter designs, eco-friendly fuel and new technology -- so we can continue to explore the planet without hurting it.
Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah: The tragedy of air pollution -- and an urgent demand for clean air
"Breathing clean air is every child's human right," says grassroots campaigner Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, sharing the heartbreaking story of her seven-year-old daughter, Ella Roberta, whose asthma was triggered to a fatal point by air pollution. Now, Adoo-Kissi-Debrah is on a mission to raise awareness about the harmful effects of unsafe air on...
Ilissa Ocko: The fastest way to slow climate change now
"Cutting methane is the single fastest, most effective opportunity to reduce climate change risks in the near term," says atmospheric scientist Ilissa Ocko. That's because, unlike carbon dioxide, methane's warming power doesn't come from a gradual buildup over time but is almost entirely from recent emissions. Ocko identifies three main sources ...
Selina Neirok Leem: Climate change isn't a distant threat -- it's our reality
Every year, ocean levels rise and high tides flood the low-lying Marshall Islands in the Pacific, destroying homes, salinating water supplies and disrupting livelihoods. In a stirring poem and talk, youth climate warrior Selina Neirok Leem explains why adaptation using Indigenous solutions is the only choice for people on the front lines of clim...
Lucas Joppa: How to fix the "bugs" in the net-zero code
Lucas Joppa, Microsoft's first chief environmental officer, thinks about climate change through the lens of coding, and he says the world's current net-zero approach simply won't compute. So how do we create a system that actually accounts for all the world's carbon emissions -- and helps us get to zero (as in zero additional carbon added to the...
Tzeporah Berman: The bad math of the fossil fuel industry
We currently have enough fossil fuels to progressively transition off of them, says climate campaigner Tzeporah Berman, but the industry continues to expand oil, gas and coal production and exploration. With searing passion and unflinching nerve, Berman reveals the delusions keeping true progress from being made -- and offers a realistic path fo...
Rainn Wilson: Can climate change ever be funny? 17 comedians try to answer
There's nothing funny about climate change, but Rainn Wilson and 16 of his friends give it their best shot. (Featuring Mayim Bialik, Retta, Conan O'Brien, Randall Park, Maria Bamford, Chris Gethard, Tig Notaro, Al Madrigal, "Weird Al" Yankovic, Larry Wilmore, Ed Helms, Nick Kroll, Margaret Cho, Maz Jobrani, Omid Djalili and Aisha Tyler. Directed...
Gabrielle Walker: What you need to know about carbon removal
What do woolly pigs have to do with climate change? They're part of a vital, ingenious and evolving strategy to take carbon out of the sky and store it safely -- in trees, soils, the ocean, buildings, rocks and deep underground. Every carbon removal approach takes some combination of natural resources, human ingenuity and technology, says climat...
Monica Araya: The billion-dollar campaign to electrify transport
The roadmap to ending pollution from transportation is here, says electrification advocate Monica Araya. In conversation with head of TED Chris Anderson, Araya introduces Drive Electric: a global campaign to retire the polluting internal combustion engine in time to avoid climate disaster. And she shares some exciting news: a breakthrough fundin...
Gabriel Kra: 5 promising factors propelling climate action
Given the scale of the challenge, the conversation around climate change is often tinged with doom and gloom. But climate tech investor Gabriel Kra thinks we need to reframe the crisis as a source of tremendous opportunity. He offers five big reasons to be optimistic about climate -- starting with the fact that many of the world's best minds are...
Hannah Fisher and Sorren Maclean: "This Town" / "Too Far Gone"