Greenpeace's Areeba Hamid and Force Of Nature's Clover Hogan explain how we can take climate action now.
SDG 13 is 'Climate Action' - Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.
In this episode Kate Hutchinson is joined by Clover Hogan and Areeba Hamid - two women of great influence within the environmental sector - to address the subject of climate action head-on.
Clover is a 24-year-old climate activist and the founding Executive Director of Force of Nature - a youth non-profit mobilising mindsets for climate action. Areeba Hamid is co-leader of Greenpeace, one of the world's most important campaigning groups on eco matters.
This episode, recorded at Yorkshire Sustainability Week in July 2023, is a passionate and insightful exploration of where we genuinely are on climate change right now... and what can actually, practically be done to make a positive difference at global, national, regional and individual levels.
If you feel that climate change is too big for you to contend with and it's too late to make a difference, then don't despair... but do listen to this episode.
Clover reveals fascinating insights on how it's in the interests of the big fossil fuel companies to put the responsibility for climate action back on us... and Areeba makes the point that those in power who could force change are actually a tiny number of people who we can influence.
This episode is shocking at times - it lays bare the scale of the challenge and danger facing the planet - but it is also optimistic and practical. You will come away feeling empowered that there are things you can do right now to have a voice, lead change and take action on climate.
Welcome to The17. This is a podcast dedicated to sustainability. It's structured around the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals. They represent, in essence, a plan to protect the planet. I'm Kate Hutchinson, and I'm the founder of Yorkshire Sustainability Week, and my goal is to help the UK's regions to play their part in delivering a sustainable future.
Each episode of The17 is themed around a different one of the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals. A new episode drops on the 17th of each month and each time I'll be joined by a new guest who has real expertise and influence related to one of those UN goals. We will explain and analyse the goal itself, look at the current situation and discuss what actions we can take at an individual, regional and even global level to make progress.
So in this episode we are tackling goal 13 which is climate action. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. Our guests are two incredible climate activists with real influence. Clover Hogan, who spoke at COP26 and founded Force of Nature, which helps young people to turn eco anxiety into action.
And Areeba Hamid, the co exec director of the well known organisation Greenpeace. So Clover, I'm going to start with you. What is eco anxiety and how does it affect young people's lives?
So eco anxiety is a kind of umbrella term relating to the feelings of grief, anger, frustration, and of course anxiety that emerge in response not only to the enormity of the climate crisis but specifically inaction in the face of it.
So we've conducted research at Force of Nature finding that 70 percent of young people experience eco anxiety and in 2021 we co led the largest ever piece of research into youth mental health and climate, which found that 56 percent of young people believe that humanity is doomed. These statistics can seem really startling, but the reality is eco anxiety is a psychological healthy response to the climate crisis.
And the secret is that we don't want to extinguish eco anxiety. In fact, the opposite. We want to empower people to open up about their climate emotions, but critically think how we can translate those feelings into action and how eco anxiety, rather than being a source of powerlessness, can be the fuel that motivates us.
Absolutely. I love that. And I think it's so, so important. It brings me on brilliantly to the question I have for you, Areeba, which is, what is an activist?
An activist is anyone who takes action for what they believe in. I think very often we hear the term and we have a reaction to it. We think, I'm not an activist.
But, first thing to remember is that the antidote to any kind of anxiety is action, is to act, is to do something about it. If you do it with a group of people who feel similarly as you and have similar values, even better. The antidote to anxiety, eco anxiety, is taking action. And if you take an action, about climate, you're an activist.
If you're not flying anymore because you're worried about the climate, congratulations, you're an activist. I think
you're absolutely right because there is such a reaction that we have to the word activist and we do think, you know, that it is sort of this subset group of people who are doing very extreme things and actually that's not true at all.
Every single one of us who is making a difference to building a sustainable future is ultimately an activist and I think that's It's really powerful and we should, you know, start to reclaim that word essentially, shouldn't we? What I'm going to do, I'm going to set out some facts about the current situation around climate action.
According to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, a window to avoid a climate catastrophe is closing rapidly. With a two degree centigrade global temperature rise, all coral reefs will die. Drought will displace around 700 million people by 2030. Sea levels will rise by between 30 and 60 centimetres by 2100.
So, Clover, I'll start with you. How big is the overall challenge here, and is it possible to turn it around?
Climate crisis is really a symptom of many interconnected problems, from the clothes that we wear, to the food that we eat, to how we get around the places we live. The climate crisis is not just about, you know, degrees of warming.
It's not just about polar bears in the Arctic. It really intersects every part of our lives. And I think the conversation has really shifted in recent years as well to... Acknowledge that this isn't just about sustainability. It's not just about quote unquote protecting nature. It's really about people's livelihoods.
It's about equity. It's about how do we ensure that people can live in a sustainable way and we can enable development without costing the earth and without costing future generations. So The climate crisis is enormous, because it's, it's everything, right? And the challenge is great as well. I think the scary thing at this point is that while you have more and more people talking about the climate crisis, more people in positions of power kind of paying lip service to climate action, there's a massive gap, in fact, a gaping ravine between What they're saying and what they're actually doing.
So coming out of COP26 in Glasgow, it was determined that we needed to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 45 to 50 percent to avoid this 1. 5 degree climate tipping point. When we talk about tipping point, we mean runaway climate change. So the point at which it's near impossible to actually reverse, uh, those changes.
So, 45 to 50 percent. Current commitments, and these are commitments, not actions, but the pledges that global governments have made. put us on track for a decrease of just one percent. So it can feel like we're talking about climate, if you're in the echo chamber of sustainability, we're thinking about it all the time, and yet we recognize that we're not, we're nowhere near being on track, and I think it's at this inflection point, you know, we're looking toward COP 28 that we recognize we're not going to solve the climate crisis with the same people, the same tools and instruments and types of thinking that created it.
And so we need rapidly different ways of addressing this problem. We need new people in the room. I don't think it's going to be. The old white men who directly benefit from the system remaining unchanged. I think it's going to be young people who are going to inherit the worst impact of the climate crisis.
It's people who are already on the front lines of the climate crisis because as we know it's not a long term issue. We're not talking about 2050. We're already seeing major wildfires. We're seeing flooding. We're seeing mass displacement. We're seeing hundreds of millions of people already in drought and facing famine, for example, in the Horn of Africa.
So it's here and we need those voices, those communities. in decision making spaces. And we really need to empower people to take power back and acknowledge that, you know, superficial one off actions are not going to solve this crisis. It's really a transformation, again, of every part of how we live, breathe, interact in the 21st century.
Areeba,
let's bring you in here to talk about what it is that Greenpeace are doing to create those, those changes that we're seeing and how are you lobbying the governments to actually You know, start to do something about this, essentially. The
challenge on, on some days, I won't lie, the life of a climate activist can often be head meet wall, because you're like, all the research is there, we don't need any new data to tell us that things are getting worse and things are getting bad rapidly.
But we also know, we very often forget, we also know that the solutions to solve those problems are also here. This country, for example. is running on renewable energy for longer and longer, days on end. We have all but gotten rid of coal power plants. Solar is the fastest growing technology. It has even bedazzled some of its most fiercest critics.
Just the scale at which it's growing. So, the question for people who work at Greenpeace or in the movement then is how do we make people, it's a very small group of people who are making decisions for a lot of us. How do we make them listen? And for me, that secret lies in talking to people whose values are aligned with you, collaborating with other movements, collaborating with young people.
We were fortunate enough to listen to Bill McKibben last week at our office, who was talking about this new organization that he's founded for 60 plus years old called Third Act. And he was talking about how They bought a bunch of rocking chairs, and they sat outside the Senate to protest. So they were like, everybody has a role.
So yes, young people have a role, and they're the future, and they are driving, you know, they're holding us to account. And I have so much admiration for that. I feel like I look at the generation, I'm like, And then you have people who have, you know, started to discover it and they want to do something about it.
And our role is to reach out to all of them, to give them something to do. And it can be as little as putting your name in a petition. It could be joining your local group. It could be writing to your local representative. Or it could be coming out to you. for standing there shoulder to shoulder with people who are taking action to change something.
And Greenpeace is, I'll just name two big campaigns. One is around making net zero in the UK a success. And that looks like working with businesses, lobbying the government, calling them out when it's necessary. Calling big oil and gas companies out because they are continuing to make eye watering profits, but at the same time also talking about what are the alternatives that are available and to do them.
To work with movements of all kinds to get a government in place that will act on climate. We are creating a climate mandate for the next general election and I'm very excited about it. And the second campaign which I want to name check is, uh, Stop Drilling, Start Paying, which is about putting the blame.
The carbon emissions going up, the fact that the world is getting hotter, the fact that we're continuing to drill for new oil and gas is not happening by accident. Some people are making those decisions, and those people are the private businesses. BP and Shell, for example, massive profits, Shell got rid of their renewable energy head.
BP said, yeah, we're going to reach net zero, but we're going to do it slower. At a time when we are, again, looking at massive impacts, we need to lay the blame of climate impacts at the door of these companies. We need the government to tax them, not just on their profits, but on their business model. To make that business model financially unviable.
So we are saying, The climate impacts are being caused by business as usual activity of these corporations. They need to stop drilling. And start paying for the damage that they've already
caused. And I know, Clover, this is something you're really passionate about. You know, that, that move from, you talk about this carbon footprint calculator being created by BP, and how ultimately, you know, the onus has been put back on the individual.
If we just change our lightbulb, et cetera, et cetera, then we'll solve the problem. Tell me a bit more about that and tell me a bit more about, you know, your perspective on, on where the, where the attention needs
to lie. So I credit much of this learning to Michael Eman, who's a climate scientist. who is one of the scientists who was responsible for the hockey stick graph, right?
So, uh, has been very influential and he's done a lot of work really tracking the tools employed by the fossil fuel industry to delay climate action. And we can see that starting, you know, in the late 70s and early 80s. companies like Exxon Mobil spent billions to discredit climate scientists like Michael Mann himself.
We then see it with corporations really employing delay and actually endorsing things like net zero 2050 commitments because they kick the ball that much further down the road that you know Commitments are so far into the future that they require no immediate action. We also see that, you know, it was fossil fuel companies who created focus groups, uh, that emerge with terms like climate change instead of climate emergency or climate crisis to once again convince us that, well, actually it's not going to be that bad.
And more recently, you know, we saw the creation of carbon footprint calculator, but just more broadly, that kind of thinking around where
So, I've been in boardrooms with companies that make masses of plastic pollution, for example, and consistently their rhetoric is about how do we get people to live more sustainably, how do we get people to recycle better, and these are companies that are producing Billions of tons of plastic, right, who aren't investing in recycling infrastructure, who aren't investing in truly, you know, circular solutions.
And so, it's really like, if we're not stopping the corporations and regulating the corporations flooding us with plastic, take that example. Then we're ignoring this impending tsunami to fix a leaky tap. And so I get really frustrated with the overemphasis on individual actions and the role that media has played and how they've been complicit in this as well.
If you go online and you search how to solve the climate crisis, you'll get flooded with articles on how you can do your bit. And yet I think everyone intuitively understands that. Me buying a reusable coffee cup or recycling a bit better or turning off the lights when I leave a room. These are band aid solutions.
Yes, they might be valuable to you on a personal level from an ethical perspective, because you're like, hey, those things make me feel good. They make me feel consistent with the world that I want to live in, but they do not equate to the level of institutional systemic change that is needed. So that is where we have to talk about, well, where does responsibility lie?
And exactly to your point, It is on the doorstep of, you know, the fossil fuel industry, and critically, people who have been part of this collusion. You know, government officials who are all too willing to pass the buck onto someone else. Media moguls who would rather frame environmental activists as terrorists than report on the fact that Fossil fuel companies are making record breaking profits while people in this country cannot afford to heat their homes.
So we have to shine the spotlight on where power lies and we have to accept that those people aren't going to change the system. So what do we need to do from a people power perspective to take back responsibility of the problems and to take back that power and influence, which we all have, but that means showing up, it means engaging, it means shifting from one off individual actions to engaging in long term sustainable activism.
Tell me, do you think climate change and climate action creates tension between generations and what can we do to,
to solve that? I mean, the interesting thing is, you know, Gen Z today are often called the snowflake generation. And like, so many times when I've interviewed with journalists about the rise of eco anxiety, they've said, but isn't this just, you know, young people looking for another excuse to complain?
And I'm like, Sorry, but the planet is on fire. And we, you know, we're inheriting these systems, like, this eco anxiety, as I mentioned, it's evidence of that humanity. But, if we look at where change has come from, historically, if we look at why we, as women, have the right to vote, it's because of activists, it's because of suffragettes.
The reason why we have, you know, workers rights is because of unions, is because of labor movements. You know, you look at the Civil Rights Movement, you look at the Stonewall Uprising, these are people power led movements. And at the heart of those movements have always been young people, right? Because there's something really special about being a young person.
You're not jaded, you know, and I I've watched myself become more jaded the more cups I go to the more climate negotiations But it is that naive optimism. It is that ability to say well actually no, I don't want to accept the world as it currently is. You know, we can do better. What if we change things?
And so it's that disruptive energy that I think can really scare people, but it's incredibly important that we bring together that disruptive imagination of young people with the wisdom of our elders. And I love hearing about this movement as well, led by Bill McKibben, to engage older generations. You know, we need to sit at the feet of our elders.
We need to sit at the feet of the people who have been in this space, who have been fighting for this for decades, and decades longer than I've been alive. So it needs to be inherently intergenerational, but we must respect and appreciate what each generation and what each divergent perspective really brings to the table.
Areeba, tell me, in terms of meeting emissions targets, are things actually starting to improve or are things getting worse? This is a bit of a
mixed answer because some countries have made progress and some countries are still lagging behind. The top line is that we are still not Working to cut emissions as fast as we could.
The good news, I suppose, is when I started working on climate, climate denial was rife. In fact, some reputed channels, mainstream media channels, would put climate deniers regularly to present the alternative view, when 90 percent of the scientists agreed that climate change was happening. Thank God we are out of that now.
I mean, climate denialism has taken new form, and maybe we'll come to that later. We are agreed, most of the governments, most of the businesses are agreed that climate change is happening, something needs to be done about it. And now, I think, the battle is about pace. We are cutting emissions, but we are not cutting them as fast as we could.
This government, for example, is ready to approve Rosebank, which is a North Sea oil field, which will be the largest, uh, once opened. This government is also giving a green light to the first coal mine in 30 years. Now, that is going to undo the kind of progress that we have made, especially in the face of an emergency, especially in the face of the news that June was the hottest in this country since records began.
So, for me, it's about, yes, we know progress is being made, we know that countries are coming together, but we are stuck in still doing business as usual. which threatens to drag down all that progress that we made. Therefore, it's really important for organizations like Greenpeace, for activists, for youth activists, for anybody who cares about climate, to keep the pressure up, to tell people who are making these decisions, and again, they are very few, so we can get them.
We can get to them because they're very few. To tell them to keep their promises, to not renege on those commitments, and to say like, we're not going away till you do the thing that we put you in the first place to do. And that is what is important.
I've been talking a lot recently about, like, needing to dismantle the myth of Perfection and activism, because again, I think it's used as a means to kind of like gatekeep the movement and prevent more folks from engaging.
And there's a lot of infighting that happens within climate and sustainability where people say, Oh no, but my solution is the most important solution. And actually, you know, you need to prove your right to be in this conversation. Or, you know, you, you you you fly on planes or because you're inconsistent.
The reality is. All of us are part of systems that are inherently unsustainable. And we've been made to be complicit in those systems. And so, fear of, like, inconsistency or not having answers should never be a barrier to engagement. We need absolutely everyone. And I think the kind of flip side of how overwhelming the climate crisis can feel is how many problems there are to solve.
No matter what you're kind of interested in or passionate about, there's a place for you to plug in. The reason you're in climate and the reason you're in climate is going to be different from the reason I'm involved in this issue. You don't have to care for the same reasons as the person next to you.
Whether it's food or fashion or prison reform or education or gender equity, you know, this is intersectional environmentalism. Intersectional climate justice. It's about people and it's about sustainability and everything else in between. So you don't have to care for the same reasons as the next person.
You just have to find like, what is that one problem that ignites a fire in my belly?
So what we love to do on this podcast, we always like to take an international outlook and understand from an international perspective, where we stand. So Areeba, you summed it up brilliantly before, but just, just tell us where do we stand internationally and what's the best thing that can happen to make a difference?
I think climate conferences, global conferences where countries meet every year are important. It's important that we keep our government in check. It's important that we send them a clear message what we want out of that. UK for, when it hosted the climate conference in Glasgow a couple of years ago, Wanted to show itself as a world leader on climate and again, we've spoken about its many failures In fact, its own climate change committee has said it has wasted a year and done nothing on climate So it's important that we send the message that we want action on climate and when the UK Represents itself on climate goals on a global stage.
We wanted to work with other governments. We wanted to have an agreed goal about cutting fossil fuels, we have still not given a clear signal globally as the world that we will start cutting fossil fuels rapidly, a phase out date as we call it. That's important. The other bit that's important is to agree with other governments.
How will we exchange information and assistance and finance to help countries that are slightly behind to actually leapfrog fossil fuels altogether and invest in renewables? Again, technology exists, expertise exists. What some countries might need is collaboration, that know how, and financial help.
That's what global, globalism is for. Globalism is for coming together and solving problems together. And that is what we want out of our global governments. That's what we want out of climate conferences. And it's easy to become cynical about them and to say, Oh, these processes don't, and they are frustrating.
And I've been to COPS and they are frustrating. But at the same time, the cops also gave us 1. 5, the cops also gave us the Paris Agreement. So, I would say it's important to keep pushing. It's important to keep asking for solutions because we know they exist. Clever.
Let's set the scene on where we're at in the UK and what we can do.
I'm going to caveat this with, I'm an Australian, so... My, my awareness of the totality of what's happening in UK politics is limited. I will say, you know, the Tory government is absolutely lagging, in fact, actively backtracking, alongside the science saying we need to reduce global emissions by, you know, 50%.
They also established that there can't be any new fossil fuel infrastructure, right? So, particularly things like coal mines are an absolute no go. So, you know, the push of... Rosebank, for example, or this new coal mine is kind of evidence of the fact that the Tory government has no real interest in legitimate climate solutions.
They want all the kind of public optics of being a quote unquote climate leader and hosting the conference, but when it actually comes to investing in the solutions that already exist, that are in fact more cheap and more accessible when you remove fossil fuel subsidies. The fact that they're not actually investing in those things is, is really evidence enough of where their interests lie.
But I think for me, I'm much more interested in like, what are the community led solutions that are front and center? And there are so many solutions that are already, you know, taking off and really gaining momentum. There's, you know, Repowering London, which is all about community led energy projects.
It's about putting the power of energy back in people's hands through renewables, uh, installed on tower blocks in London, uh, and council housing in London. Another one is Incredible Edible, which is all about, like, how do we localize our food systems. So rather than having, you know, global food systems with stuff flown in from all around the world with a huge carbon footprint, food that's wrapped in plastic, food covered in whatever else.
It's all about, you know, how do we actually bring food resilience back into our communities? How do we grow things locally? How do we engage people? And again, I think Incredible Edible is a great example where they're not even talking about climate, right? They're talking about what do solutions look like on the grassroots level that people can get involved in?
Because actually... Talking about two degrees of warming, talking about the Arctic, these are not effective ways to engage people. We need to relate solutions to people's lived experience and the things that they touch and feel and sense on a day to day basis. And so again, Incredible Edible is another great example.
Um, my friend Ellen Miles is leading a guerrilla gardening movement in the UK, which is all about on this basis that nature is a human right. So in communities that are really nature deprived, where there isn't green space, again, bringing back that people power. So there's no shortage of people who are leading the way, who are choosing to take power back upon themselves.
I think going to COP has definitely shown me that like, hope does not lie in elected officials. It does not lie in The CEOs of companies that continue to benefit and profit off the pillaging and exploitation of nature and communities. Hope lies in the people who are directly impacted by those decisions, who understand the consequences.
And so, really, my focus is on how do we galvanize more of that. Grassroots mobilizing and that community action and that's what we're doing at force of nature empowering young people to become Leaders in their own communities in their own neighborhoods around the world You've
mentioned some really brilliant regional initiatives, you know in a rebirth I'd love to come to you and understand some of the regional initiatives that you know about as well that you feel are really You know, creating that community power.
Yeah. I mean, I think there's so many examples of people installing solar rooftops. That's just, and in fact, have not, have they just reduced their bills? They're also selling electricity that they generate extra back to the grid. And that's, that's the kind of win win solution we're looking for where, you know, your homes are insulated.
So you don't use that much energy in the first place, but the one that you use is coming from a renewable. more sustainable source. I'm actually more interested in examples of local activism. I mean, the fracking fight in this country, for example, was won entirely by the local community, who was like, this makes no sense.
It's driving the house prices down. It's bad for the environment. It's not going to give us jobs locally. And we are against it. My nanas. You know, they were, they were there, they were out there every single day. And as a result of which, despite intense pressure from big corporations, from the government, we won the fracking fight.
And, and that tells me that it's, it's, it's yes, communities are key. Lived experiences, those people were out there because they were like, Not on my land. I'm not going to let that happen. That's really important. And we, it's a global win. The U. S. kind of looks at us and says, you know, you guys defeated fracking.
It's incredible. And let's just try to reverse, revert that. But then there's a huge, huge controversy about it. So those wins that last are the ones that are actually won by community. And I think I want to continue to talk about those examples and draw inspiration from them because it tells us that it can be done.
And it can be bigger than just a local fight, it's a global fight, and it starts very small, and don't underestimate
that. So, let's do our best to actually answer the question. How do we work towards achieving goal number 13 of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals? Climate action. You're in charge here, I want one point from each of you.
Tell me, what can we do to achieve goal number 13 globally?
The hill that I will die on is, uh, the importance of nature. I think one of the things that really worries me about the global rhetoric around climate solutions is this overemphasis on technology, and technology has kind of been being used as this vehicle to superficially address the problems, but actually just continue making money for a small handful of people.
So, you know, I hear about these billion dollar carbon sequestering, you know, technologies coming out of Silicon Valley. And I'm like, okay, cool. And what about trees and mangroves and seagrass and, you know, million year old forest? I think it's another manifestation of denial, this idea that. Actually, technology will save the day.
And the reality is, you know, we already have the solutions at our fingertips. Someone I really admire, Paul Hawken, he created Project Drawdown, which is the most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming. He then also created the follow up on that, which is Regeneration, and I highly recommend anyone go and research regeneration.
org, because again, it's an entire kind of playbook of the solutions that already exist, and it shows us from all the way from a systemic level, like what are the global policies we need, through to collective action, through to individual changes. It shows that whole roadmap of what needs to happen from protecting our growth forests, to changing our food system, to addressing fast fashion.
And at the heart of every one of those solutions is not just protecting nature, but actually regenerating nature. And on that final point, that's definitely the thing that gives me a lot of hope. When we just stop destroying nature and when we empower local communities to become custodians of the land, nature revives itself.
You know, it is so incredibly resilient, it's so incredibly abundant, but we have to stop the constant commodification, assault and exploitation on nature and on these communities.
Areeba, give me a national outlook. How can we solve Goal 13 from a national perspective? Put people
in place who make better decisions.
That's the only way to do it. If we are going to meet the national commitments, all the, all the publicity around it is not enough. No way enough. We need to put people in power. who go there with a clear mandate that they were elected because people wanted action on climate. And if they don't do it, then we need to hold them to account.
I know that local solutions exist, and they are good, but to scale them up, to be able to give them sustainability, again, let me come back to the idea of insulating your house. It's so expensive. We need the government to intervene. Let's come to the idea of, say, driving around in an electric car, or using public transport instead of your car.
An individual can only do so much. Electric cars are still very expensive. We need subsidies from national governments to be able to make them affordable for those who need them, and for those who who live in remote parts of the country where public transport is not even available. We need the government to invest in infrastructure.
We need to make public transport accessible. affordable. I know there's some really good campaigns going on making it free for younger people, for example. There's so much, and to be able to scale those solutions up in time, we need the national government to act. And our job as citizens is to put a government in place that has its priorities right.
Clever, I'm
going to come back to you for a regional outlook. What can Yorkshire do to supercharge meeting?
Yeah, I was so excited to hear about the work that's already happening within Leeds. I think it's really inspiring and I would just keep doubling down on the kind of ambition that's already in motion.
Climate, we can't afford for it to be an afterthought, it really has to be embedded in. Every part of how we work, and that includes every role description. So everyone in local government actually ensuring that they have, you know, an agenda on climate. That they have shared commitments, and, you know, to a point that Areeba was making earlier, like, not just the commitments, but actually looking at what those roadmaps are for the next five years, for the next three, for the next one, for the next, you know, six months.
So actually translating that communication into action. And then I think the other thing I would really... Emphasizes partnership, you know, we don't have to reinvent the wheel constantly. So looking to other communities to understand, well, how have you galvanized, you know, policy change or community action?
How have you, you know, set better regulations for corporations to stop them polluting us? And then also sharing learnings from Yorkshire as well. So amplifying those things so that, you know, there can be a little bit of healthy competition within the UK to be like, oh, wow, okay, Yorkshire is doing this, like we need to get on our case as well.
So I would say Learn from others and also share all of the learnings that are coming up.
Finally, we're going to talk on an individual level. If you could ask anyone listening to stop doing one thing and to start doing one thing right now today that will help, what would it be? Over to you, Areeba.
Stop thinking, even though it's tempting to, that it's too big to solve.
Stop thinking that it's too late. It's not. Every half a degree means millions of people. It's not too big. It's not too late. That's hope. Creating that hope that it's worth fighting for. And what to start doing is to take action. It can be very small. It can be you just reaching out to people in your local community asking, hey, what you doing about, about this thing that, that's bothering me?
It could be sewage in your rivers. It could be your electricity bill. It could be bigger stuff like climate. It could be about BP and Shell's bumper profits, anything. Start a conversation, reach out, meet people, take a small action and see how that makes
you feel. Clover, over to you. What would you ask them to stop doing and start doing
today?
I'm bad at binary, so I'm going to reframe this. A big part of why so many people feel overwhelmed is because they're increasingly aware of like how many problems there are, right? And if you go on social media, you can feel almost like bombarded. You're like, oh my gosh, there are the Canadian wildfires, there's coral bleaching, there's, you know, plastic pollution, all of these different issues.
And the way that global media is reported is that they're generally in, you know, far off places or they're at such a scale that it's nigh impossible to connect that to, well, what is my responsibility as an individual? Like, if you look at those Canadian wildfires, what am I meant to do? You know, I've, I've never felt so powerless as when the fires were raging back home in Australia.
So it's not helpful to try and make that leap or to focus on the myriad things that we need to change systemically and also the myriad things that you might feel pressure to change within your own life. So my invitation would really be to focus. You know, I think every changemaker in history has recognized that impact comes from focus.
It's not from trying to do all of the things, it's saying, this is an issue I'm passionate about, this is an issue I want to address. And to bring in a quick story, you know, my friends Isabella and Malati, we grew up in Bali together where plastic pollution is a major issue and we watched it get worse and worse, you know, throughout our childhoods.
And when they were 10 and 12 years old, they decided, we want to... stop all disposable plastic in Bali. But they said even that is too big of an ambition, so we're going to scale it back to plastic bags. And they launched a campaign. Skip ahead a few years. Those two girls and the movement they started are the reason why Bali was the first place in Indonesia to ban all disposable plastics.
Not just the bags, but all disposable plastics. They started a global movement. They're actively engaged in UN policy. You know, they've now launched a youth led movement, which is helping young people like Force of Nature engage in these issues. You know, but if a 10 and 12 year old can do it, you know, as an after school activity, lobbying people to sign their petition, if they can do that, we all have the power to do the same.
So. Don't do yourself a disservice by thinking you're only capable of doing the small, incremental things. We all have it within us to become activists, and frankly, as residents of planet Earth, we all have a responsibility to step up rather than shut down
as well. Thank you so much for being here today, and thank you so much for being on The Seventeen Podcast.
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