Christiana Figueres

Christiana Figueres makes the case for “stubborn optimism” in the face of our global climate crisis. An internationally-renowned climate change leader, she is co-author of the book "The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis" and co-host of the podcast "Outrage & Optimism".

Transcript

Christiana Figueres (00:05):

Every one of us is a hero at heart. Every man and woman alive has a hero inside their heart, and we're not giving that hero the platform that he or she can fill.

Ted Roosevelt V (00:24):

Welcome to Good Citizen. I'm Ted Roosevelt. With me here is Christiana Figueres, an internationally renowned leader on climate change. Beginning in the 1990s, long before many of us even considered its threat, Christiana was focusing on studying our warming planet and pushing for global action. Known for her diplomacy, she's a determined leader and gracious collaborator. We talk about the roots of her passion and her resilience, and how those of you listening can contribute too. Something that most stands out to me about Christiana is her optimism. When met with detractors, those who think change is just impossible, she emphasizes that impossible is not a fact, it's an attitude, and our attitudes are fully under our control. Christiana's great attitude has led to a great track record. She marshaled 196 countries in what is known as the Paris Accords in 2015, which led to one of the largest global treaties ever. She did it on an issue that is very complex and highly divisive: the reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions. It was a rare and spectacular victory in the fight to mitigate climate change. She's a Costa Rican, where she says everyone falls in love with nature, and it's in Costa Rica where her story truly begins.

(01:45):

Christiana, what a thrill to have you on this podcast. You are a hero to many people, particularly those focused on addressing climate change. I'd love to start, frankly at the beginning to understand where your interest in social justice and climate change originated.

Christiana Figueres (02:00):

Well, first of all, thank you very much for inviting me to join. I am from Costa Rica. I'm a very proud Costa Rican citizen. I was born into a highly political family. My father was three times president of Costa Rica. My brother was president of Costa Rica. And so when you're born into this family, you really don't have much of an option about having, let's call it a private life. The blood that flows through our veins is one of service, of public service, and in particular, it's one of public service in the pursuit of social justice. That is, I would say, the flag that both my parents flew their whole life that was their North star. And I tend to think that I am continuing my father's legacy. The universe took me to a different sphere, a different level, but I feel that I'm pursuing his legacy of social justice because climate change, as you will know, Ted, is the mother of all injustices. It is the mother of all injustice. It is unjust. When you look at the global north and the global south, it is unjust. When you look at gender-- men versus women and children-- it is unjust. When you look at generations, past generations to future generations, it is unjust. When you look at economic stability and wellbeing. So I just feel like, okay, this is my turn to work on social justice, and I just happened to have migrated toward climate change as my battlefield for social justice.

Ted Roosevelt V (03:54):

Was there a moment in time where that sort of focus of the social justice lens where climate really came into the fore in your vision?

Christiana Figueres (04:06):

Yes, and perhaps unintended, unintended. I was a recent new mom had two daughters, and I wanted them to fall in love with nature just like every other Costa Rican-- we are totally in love with nature and we protect our nature. And one of the things that had marked me as a child was having seen these beautiful golden toads that were endemic in Costa Rica. When I wanted to take my daughters to see these golden toads that had so marked me-- they were gone, the entire species had disappeared, and it was a species that was only present in Costa Rica. So I was deeply impacted by the fact that in my lifetime I had witnessed the disappearance of a species and I surmised that if I was witnessing the disappearance of a species personally, that there must be many other species that were disappearing that I was not witnessing.

(05:16):

And so I just started studying and getting into this and trying to find out what on earth is going on in this planet because as far as I'm concerned, the terms of reference of any parent is to turn over a planet that is better, not a planet that is worse off or a planet that is on the demise to next generations. So I started studying climate change way back in the 1990s and pretty soon decided that was my mission in life and I would devote my time, energy to that. And I'm still at it 30, 35 years later.

Ted Roosevelt V (05:59):

Having grown up in a family where conservation and climate were very much part of a dinner conversation, I do remember in, kind of, the nineties... climate change was, I don't want to say it was niche, but it certainly wasn't as mainstream as it is now. Can you talk about what that environment was like when you started fighting this fight and how people responded to bringing up the issues of climate change and addressing it?

Christiana Figueres (06:23):

Well, I never brought up the issues of climate change because nobody would've understood anything about what I was talking about. But it was, as you say, a very niche issue. I remember that the first time that I participated in an international negotiation on climate change, it was before COP-1, Ted, okay. It was before the conference of parties were created, and it was a different body called the I N C, the International Negotiating Committee that was preparing for the development of COPs. And we were all in New York in the basement of the UN building, and there were about a hundred or a little more there negotiating, which shows just numerically the growth that we have had in participation because this COP coming up now in the UAE is scheduled to have at least 30,000 people and 30,000 people that come from many different other constituencies. So the non-party, the non-government stakeholders will be the vast majority of people who will be coming to this COP 28, which shows just one indication, or one indicator, of the growth, of awareness and attention and participation that we've had from the nineties when I started to now.

Ted Roosevelt V (07:56):

So I want to talk about Paris in 2015 and your success because I think what is so striking about the agreement in Paris was that there was an agreement that could be reached between 196 nations. That seems like an impossible task, and I know around climate change, the sort of reoccurring theme is people have to stay optimistic and sort of the counterweight is the more pessimistic you can get sometimes. And the idea that you can get an agreement among so many disparate groups seems like maybe naive optimism at some point, and yet you were able to do it. And I'd love to understand one, first, what kept you positive that this could be accomplished, and two, what were the tools that enabled this success?

Christiana Figueres (08:51):

Well, let me start by picking up your term "naive optimism" because I think that is actually quite a dangerous concept and certainly not one that I associate myself with. So let me start by saying what I don't think optimism is. Optimism is precisely not naivete. It is not denying the science. It is not closing our eyes and being blind to the impacts that are accelerating in frequency, in depth. It is also not about an irresponsible assumption that someone else is going to take care of the problem. I don't have to do anything because governments are going to solve this. I don't have to do anything because corporations are going to solve this or I don't have to do anything because the United States and China are going to solve this or whatever. So it is not about exporting responsibility at all. Optimism is a choice. It is a courageous daily choice because you don't have to read too much on your daily newsfeed to be completely despairing about climate change and about many other things.

(10:05):

Since I know because I carry it in my veins that we have to address these social, economic and political injustices, then assuming that the reality of today is going to be the reality of tomorrow, that we're doomed, that there's nothing we can do about it, I think it's a cowardly stance and it is an irresponsible stance. For me, optimism is not the result of having achieved something that I would call a celebration. For me, optimism is the input, not the result. It's the deliberate intentional attitude that we take toward any challenge. In this case, it happens to be a global challenge, but it could also be a personal challenge. It could be that you want to lose weight or you want to run a marathon or you want to improve the relationship with someone, whatever personal challenge. If you start, embark on that journey of fulfilling that challenge by telling yourself, I'm completely incapable of this, it's never going to get done, I'm going to tell you, you are probably right because you will substantially reduce your capacity and your probability of success. If you tell yourself, I am not sure how this is going to get done, but I'm going to give it my all because I really want us to collectively achieve this--

(11:40):

Now, you're not guaranteeing success, but you have certainly improved your probability of moving towards success. For me, optimism is a courageous daily choice of responsibility.

Ted Roosevelt V (11:56):

Where does that optimism come from? I mean, is that something that you experience with your parents? Is that--

Christiana Figueres (12:02):

It comes from my moral stand. It comes from deciding that inequality, that injustice, that suffering, that pain is unacceptable and can be avoided. There are some injustices that are unavoidable, but this one is avoidable. And so for me, it's about my moral backbone. It is about fighting for what I believe in and for what I know is possible if we do it collectively, not if we don't do it individually, forget that. So this also has to do with what kind of leadership do we bring to this? We certainly don't bring positional leadership. Positional leadership is so five minutes ago, as my daughters would say, it is so much of a part of past history that is just not helping us at all. This is about leadership that each of one of us has, each one of us has the capacity to make a change in whatever sphere of influence we're operating in. Whether it is me personally, my family, my town, my region, my corporation, my country—whatever your sphere of influence is, we each have the capacity to make a change for good, and that is what we should all be guided by.

Ted Roosevelt V (13:23):

So what do you do when the counterpart, somebody you're negotiating with, somebody you're interacting with, is not working in the same good faith optimism that you're bringing to the table? They are using positional leadership, as you say.

Christiana Figueres (13:36):

Well, positional leadership can be used in many different directions, can be used for good or for not good. Obviously, I have to work with many people who feel either that we're doomed and that there's nothing that we can do. And I also deal with many people who have vested interests in the status quo and with people who are understandably fearful, in grief, in pain, many of whom are young, but not all. I really empathize with that. I feel that pain. It is something that I carry very deeply because of my sense of justice. So I understand that not only in my head, I really sense it in my heart as well. And at the same time, I'm really convinced that we cannot stay in the dark hole of fear because it paralyzes us. If I am overcome by fear, by grief, by pain, I'm overcome by those emotions and those emotions paralyze action, impede action.

(14:52):

So my sense of moral commitment to my fellow human beings is about, yes, getting deep into the pain and using precisely the emotions of the pain to transform that into action. It's not about denying the pain, it's not about denying the suffering. It's about taking all the energy that is pent up through that injustice and transforming it into action for a better world. So that is my invitation to those who tend to think that we are doomed, and there's nothing to do. To the others on the other side of the spectrum who are attached to the status quo— there the question is: so walk me through what your life is going to be like 20, 30, 40 years from now if we don't address climate change. How is your daily life going to be? How's life for your kids going to be? For your grandkids? Just— let's walk through that. Let's do a mental experiment here. And very quickly, people realize that it is in everyone's interest to address climate. It is an urgent need of many people who are already acutely vulnerable and being impacted by climate change. And the moment that we understand that, that we're all exposed and already being impacted, and that the impacts are only going to get worse if we don't address climate change, then that switches the attitude of most people. And then you can have a constructive conversation.

Ted Roosevelt V (16:32):

You were talking about somebody who has a vested interest in not addressing climate change today. Often you're asking them to weigh a future that is meaningfully worse, but sometimes it's decades down the road. And so how do you get them to reframe their thinking, to pull forward some of those risks? And I heard you talking about in the very beginning, sort of this origin story for your focus on climate change was around a connection with your daughters and leaving a planet that was better for them. And in that way, you kind of brought the challenge forward and made it immediate to yourself. And I think this applies outside of just climate change as an issue because leadership, particularly in this country, tends to be very shortsighted. A re there are other tricks that you have or other methods that you have that can help bring to the fore longer term risks relative to short-term costs?

Christiana Figueres (17:28):

Yeah, I mean, the tragedy of the commons or the tragedy of the horizons, as Mark Carney calls it, is definitely out there and operating. And so is the opportunity of the commons. So is the opportunity of the horizons. And they're not mutually exclusive, they're actually mutually complimentary. So when someone is into one side of that mental attitude, I actually invite them to pull the future into the present and again, do a little mental exercise. So for those who live in cities, how would your life be like if you wake up tomorrow morning and all the pollution is gone, the noise of these fossil fuel motors is gone, and all of a sudden we have a silent city with clean air. We have much more trees and gardens growing. We have every building and home producing renewable energy for self-consumption, and in fact, so much renewable energy that they feed it into the grid and it can be taken elsewhere.

(18:45):

We have water collection systems so that we collect water during the season in which there's water, and then in drought seasons because there will be long drought seasons— on and on and on. Is that not a city that you would prefer to live in rather than the congested, polluted, disgusting, loud cities that we have right now? Or you can go through the same mental exercise if you're living in a rural area. The problem that I see, Ted, is that we have been so much more effective putting out the specifics of the scientific projections of what could happen and what our lives could be if we don't address climate change, that we have been pretty good at telling those stories because science is projecting forward, but it is only a projection. It's not a condemnation, and we have not been as good about telling the narrative that also requires imagination of the better life that we could all have. And that to me is the big piece that still needs to be filled in in order to change the narrative so that we can change our mental attitude.

Ted Roosevelt V (20:16):

I love that. I really do love that. And I think that is exactly right. I learned recently that the Greek word "oikos" is the root word for economies and ecology. They were seen as similar things. And if you think about our world today, I think very often they get seen as separate and distinct. The climate.

Christiana Figueres (20:41):

Yeah, what happened to that original wisdom, right?

Ted Roosevelt V (20:45):

I mean, that's sort of a piece of the puzzle, is re-linking this idea of a transition to a low carbon economy as a positive economic engine, not a negative economic engine.

Christiana Figueres (20:57):

Absolutely.

Ted Roosevelt V (20:58):

Do you have any insights into why you feel like that message—the positive message—why that has been the secondary message, at least around climate messaging on the whole, the positive side of the fence?

Christiana Figueres (21:13):

Well, there could be many reasons for that. One is of course, that we began to understand what climate change is based on the science of climate change. And the science of climate change tells us the destruction that we have wrought and the projections out into 10, 20, 30, a hundred years of that destruction, should we continue on the same path of destruction. And so that whole narrative that is out there, that is science-based, has been the predominant narrative that we're all reacting to. The piece that is missing is, and therefore, what do we do about it? Either we fight or flee. And so those two are very, very intuitive reactions that we humans have had our entire history, which by the way, compared to the history of the planet is like half a blink of an eye. But during that half a blink of an eye, we've had this fight-flight intuition that we use and that is very, very, runs very deep in us. And without abandoning that, it is time to realize that in the 21st century, those are not our only two options, fight or flight. How about create, how about regenerate? How about collaborate? Those are all options that are available to us.

Ted Roosevelt V (22:44):

I mean, I love it and I love the positivity that you're bringing to these issues of climate change because it does have a bit of a negative tractor beam sometimes, and it's so clear, just hearing you talk, how impactful, I mean just in these 30 minutes that we've been chatting, how impactful the reframing on optimism and opportunity and positivity is around addressing the issue of climate change. So it's really wonderful to hear from you. As we wrap up, there are two questions we ask every guest we have on this podcast. The first one is, what is a single thing that people can do to help with this issue of climate change?

Christiana Figueres (23:24):

Single thing is become aware and knowledgeable of what our carbon footprint is. Very easy to do. You go into Ms. Google, you ask her carbon calculator, and you'll get loads of very reputable NGOs, all of whom have a carbon calculator. And you answer the questions and you get a sense, and you can compare yourselves to other human beings in your same area or other way, halfway across the planet. So to become aware and knowledgeable of what our own personal or family carbon footprint is is the first step. And then through that carbon calculator, you can identify where is the low-hanging fruit of where you can reduce your own carbon footprint. And there will be some high-hanging fruit for sure, but at least start with the low-hanging fruit and invite all your neighbors and friends to do the same. So clean up your shop is my first action that everyone can do.

Ted Roosevelt V (24:25):

I love it. And is there an organization that you think is doing particularly good work that people can look at, participate in, donate money to?

Christiana Figueres (24:36):

Wow. Well, yeah. That is an impossible question to answer because there are so many organizations that are doing a great job. I would say follow your heart. Just follow the ones that you trust the most. Trust is really important, but here's the deal, Ted. If you go in there and you don't find anyone that you're immediately attracted to—start your own movement. Start your own movement with your family members, with your friends, with your town, with the block that you live in, with your colleagues at work. Start a movement in your company. Start a movement in your town. Start wherever you are. Every one of us is a hero at heart. Every man and woman alive has a hero inside their heart, and we're not giving that hero the platform that he or she can fill.

Ted Roosevelt V (25:33):

Inspirational conversation. I've really enjoyed it. The focus on positivity is extremely powerful. The focus on individual heroism is extremely powerful. I love these messages and I've very much enjoyed this conversation. Thank you very much for sitting down and chatting with me.

Christiana Figueres (25:51):

Thank you, Ted.

Ted Roosevelt V (25:54):

Good Citizen is produced by the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library's content studio. Thank you Christiana for spending time with me and sharing your passion with our listeners. It's a great reminder that if and when we take that courageous daily choice to be optimistic, we can do great things. Be sure to pick up Christiana Figueres book "The Future We Choose" and hear more from her as co-host of the podcast "Outrage and Optimism." If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend and make sure you're following Good Citizen wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss a thing. Good Citizen is produced by the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in collaboration with the Future of StoryTelling and Charts & Leisure. You can learn more about TRs upcoming presidential library at trlibrary.com.