[Countdown is a non-profit global collaboration to champion and accelerate solutions to the climate crisis, turning ideas into action. It is an initiative intended to educate and activate.] [Everyone has a vital role to play.]
Don Cheadle: There's a story we've been writing together for hundreds of years.
Voiceover: Oil companies compete with each other ...
DC: It's about all of us. It takes place right here. It started for many of us as economies were built. But growth rooted in extracting from our planet and our people came at a cost.
There were warning signs. Some of us knew what was happening to our communities wasn't right, that it was connected to something bigger, and the impacts were felt by some more than others. People organized and asked questions. Others tried to understand what was happening and sounded the alarm, even as others refused to believe what we told them: that the planet’s climate is changing.
Our story has heroes big and small. Maybe you even became a hero in your own way. It's a story of hope, persistence, a plan for a better future. There's also despair, denial and relentless crises. While there are forces that seek to divide or distract us, we choose to act -- now.
The story has many possibilities. Futures that we write first as neighbors and then as a movement. We are coming together, choosing what comes next and refusing to accept defeat. There is hope.
Transforming our world to address the climate crisis isn’t just urgent and necessary; it is possible, already underway and leading us to a better future.
Countdown is a global initiative to champion and accelerate solutions to the climate crisis, to turn ideas into action. Because in spite of all the challenges, people never stop trying to shift mindsets and then entire systems.
Alok Sharma: Investors, they think the future is green.
Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim: We have 10 years to change it, so we need to act all together right now.
DC: To change the way we move ourselves and our economy.
Nigel Topping: Transformation in every global system, from agriculture to retail, shipping to trucking, cement to steel.
DC: And the very foundations upon which we live.
Monica Araya: A big detox of transportation is possible.
Cory Combs: Electrification will permeate everything.
Al Gore: A phase-out of internal combustion engines.
Rumaitha Al Busaidi: Educating and empowering women and girls is one of the single most important things that we can do to confront carbon pollution.
Rose M. Mutiso: Everyone must get to a zero carbon future.
DC: When we connect our stories and play an active part, our imaginations are the only limit.
Christiana Figueres: In radical collaboration with each other, we can do this.
Colette Pichon Battle: And while we're at it, let's make it just and fair for everyone.
DC: No matter what has gone wrong, what can go right?
David Lammy: The solution is to build a new coalition made up of all the groups most affected. Clover Hogan: Which story gets in the way of you taking action? Challenge that story.
DC: Our story takes place here. It's been difficult at times and could have unthinkable outcomes, but that was the story we used to tell. Now it’s up to us to tell a new one. [Take action on climate change at countdown.ted.com]
