Humanitys planetshaping powers and what they mean for the future Achim Steiner
Transcriber:
I work at the United Nations.
And for the past couple of years,
I have served as the head
of the UN’s Development Programme.
When I first walked
into the UN headquarters
in New York City, many years ago,
the first thing I noticed
was a sculpture standing outside
under the flags
of the nations of the world.
It’s called the Knotted Gun.
And it still stands there today.
To me, that sculpture symbolizes
exactly what the UN was created
to do 75 years ago:
to build peace out of the ashes of war.
War that had been defined
for so much of human history
as the struggle of nations against nations
or the kind still raging in countries
like Syria and Yemen
that the United Nations
works to end every day.
That’s what I imagined
that knotted gun to represent.
But now, another kind of war is brewing.
One that increasingly defines
the 21st century
where the dominant risk
to our own survival is ourselves.
A few years or even months ago,
if I had suggested
that we’re all at war with ourselves,
it may have felt strange, especially when,
according to so many metrics,
humans are on average, healthier,
wealthier, and more educated
than at any time in history.
We have more knowledge, more science,
more choices today
than the founders of the United Nations
could have ever imagined.
But somewhere along the way,
we lost our balance.
In fact, think about this.
Scientists are considering
whether for the very first time
in human history,
instead of the planet shaping humans,
humans are knowingly shaping the planet.
It’s called the Anthropocene
and it represents a new geological era.
Today, humans literally have the power
to alter the atmosphere
and the biosphere in which we live.
The power to destroy
and the power to repair.
No species has ever had
that kind of power before.
With it, we humans have achieved
incredible things together
from closing a giant hole
in the ozone layer,
to preventing nuclear proliferation,
to eradicating smallpox.
But we have also taken the Earth
and all the people on it to the brink.
It’s not rational nor fair
what we are doing.
Today, one third of all the food
produced on the planet
goes to waste.
While one in 10 people go hungry.
Inequality has become extreme.
Twenty-six people own the same wealth
as half of humanity,
based on recent data.
Today, seven million people die
from air pollution each year,
while about 7 million trees,
the very things that keep our air clean,
are cut down every few hours.
We spend over 10 times more
on fossil fuel subsidies alone
than we do on all the investments
in renewable power,
prolonging our carbon habit
like a drug running through
the economy’s veins.
You don’t have to be an economist like me
to know that these numbers
just don’t add up.
That our economic paradigm
is neither sustainable nor equitable.
Climate change,
rupturing inequalities,
record numbers of people
forced from their homes
by conflict and crisis.
For all of our power,
these are the weapons we have built.
Less tangible than a gun,
but just as real, just as deadly.
Add an epic pandemic
and this year,
for the first time in 20 years,
global extreme poverty
is projected to rise,
and global human development,
a measure of the world’s education,
health and living standards,
is set to decline for the first time
since the measure began 30 years ago.
COVID-19 has not changed the future yet,
but it has revealed
these deep flaws in our present
bringing clarity to the fact
that ending this war against
ourselves is not about trade-offs.
It’s not about choosing
between people or trees,
between poverty or progress.
It’s about choosing
to do things differently.
In the midst of tragedy,
the pandemic has also given us
a glimpse of what peace could look like,
where we can see the snow cap
of a mountain for the first time,
because the smog has cleared.
That’s what happened in Nairobi,
my home of many years,
and one of the cities
where air pollution plummeted
as human activity slowed down.
Where it takes 10 days and not 10 years
for our government
to get support to those in need.
That’s what happened in Togo,
which set up a digital system
in record time to get cash to people
unemployed or unable to work
because of COVID-19 lockdowns.
The idea of a green economy
that is fair and just,
where people and planet live in balance,
is not new.
But this moment is.
And if I have learned one thing
since starting out
as a young economist years ago,
whether I was working with Pattan elders
to improve the lives
of farmers in Pakistan,
or navigating the controversies
of building colossal dams,
it’s that systems don’t change systems;
people change systems.
And whether you’re a prime minister,
a paramedic or a protestor on the street,
you can choose to change this one.
The people who are choosing
to build forward better from COVID-19
build on growing momentum,
the momentum of people
coming onto the streets in protest
from Beirut to Bogota,
Quito to Cairo, or New York to New Delhi
against racism and discrimination,
climate change,
the price of petrol
or the cost of a train ticket,
all united in a deep
and rising frustration
with this war we have been
waging against ourselves.
This moment builds on the choices
of leaders I met,
as I traveled with
the United Nations before lockdown.
Leaders who choose
to do things differently.
Costa Rica made a choice
to abolish its army
and redirect military spending
to education, health
and the environment.
Today, they pay people
to protect the trees.
And as a result,
forests have regenerated
and now cover over half of the country.
Or consider Denmark.
It has chosen to produce
all of its electricity
from renewable sources by 2050,
and has already passed the halfway mark.
One of many countries
moving in this direction.
Thirty years ago,
powering our economy with renewable
energy was science fiction.
Ten years ago,
it was considered too expensive.
Today, renewable energy costs less
and creates more jobs than fossil fuels
in many parts of the world,
and offers the potential to put power,
quite literally, back with the people.
I saw this in Kenya.
Two youth football teams
playing their final match
in the Mathare settlement at night,
who kept the game going,
thanks to solar-powered LED lights.
I saw this change, these better choices,
with His Majesty the king of Bhutan
just turned 40 years old,
who chooses to measure progress
based on gross national happiness,
not gross domestic product.
And I saw it on a rooftop
in Khartoum with the young people
who led the revolution in Sudan in 2019.
Young women and men
who came out onto the streets
with everything to lose,
who spoke up for political change
with conviction and courage
and who ultimately changed
the course of their country.
These are the people,
the first generation of the Anthropocene
who are writing the next chapter
for people and planet
in this unprecedented moment.
And with each choice they make,
with each choice we all make,
the future we want gets closer.
Just like the Knotted Gun,
there is another piece of art
at the United Nations
that I think about.
A poem by a great Persian poet, Saadi.
The poem is embroidered on a giant carpet
that hangs on the wall
inside the UN building.
beneath which diplomats
and staff from all nations
work together every day
towards that future we want.
Saadi wrote that all
the people on the planet
are like different parts of the same body.
Different, but united
as if limbs of each other.
It was that idea that led
the generation before us
to come together in the wake of war
to create the United Nations 75 years ago.
The idea that though we are different,
we must choose to be united,
but now it’s our turn.
Our challenge is to come together
to preserve our collective self-interest
and humanity
rather than tearing ourselves asunder.
People and planet in balance,
building lasting sustainable peace.
Thank you.