Transcriber: Translate TED
Reviewer: Rhonda Jacobs
(Video) Severn Cullis-Suzuki: I am here
to speak for all generations to come.
I am here to speak on behalf
of the starving children around the world
whose cries go unheard.
I'm here to speak
for the countless animals
dying across this planet
because they have nowhere left to go.
(Video) SCS: I am afraid
to go out in the sun now
because of the holes in our ozone.
I'm afraid to breathe the air,
because I don't know
what chemicals are in it.
I used to go fishing in Vancouver,
my home, with my dad,
until just a few years ago,
we found the fish full of cancers.
SCS: A generation ago,
I was that 12-year-old child.
In 1992, I had five minutes
to speak to the UN's Earth Summit
in Rio de Janeiro.
My friends and I had started
an environmental club,
and we'd traveled
to this huge international meeting
about environment and development
to tell the adults
they had to change their ways.
That same year 1,700 scientists
would issue the World Scientists'
Warning to Humanity
to tell us that humans
and the natural world
were on a collision course.
Much like Greta Thunberg
and her peers today,
we believed that decision-makers
should be acting on science and facts.
And the facts were telling us
that we were headed
for ecological collapse.
(Video) SCS: All this is happening
before our eyes,
and yet we act as if we have
all the time we want
and all the solutions.
SCS: Back then, climate change
had been identified,
but we had yet to really feel it.
Today, almost 30 years later,
climate change is no longer a prediction.
It is here, and it happened far faster
than even the experts predicted.
We did not stop it.
Today the work that we must do
is about mitigation,
trying to limit how bad it gets.
In 2015, in Paris, the world agreed
to limit the planet's warming
to one and a half degrees Celsius,
as beyond that would pose
too great a threat to human life.
To meet this,
we will have to cut our global emissions
by half in the next 10 years.
(Video) SCS: I'm only a child
and I don't have all the solutions,
but I want you to realize neither do you.
SCS: Young people are always
at the frontlines of any revolution.
And it's young people who ask me,
"What did your speech actually do?
Why didn't the delegates actually listen?"
Well, looking back,
I think that the delegates
of the conference actually did listen,
not just to me,
but to the thousands
of voices calling for change.
If you look at the declarations,
the documents that came out of Rio,
they are radical.
They include the UN's Framework
Convention on Climate Change
set up to stabilize
greenhouse gas concentrations
in the atmosphere
and prevent dangerous interference
with the climate system.
Twenty-three years
before the Paris Agreement,
154 countries signed this
legally binding international agreement.
(Video) SCS: I'm only a child, yet I know
we are all in this together
and should act as one single world
towards one single goal.
SCS: So, why didn't the world take action?
Instead, governments focused
on growing the economy,
on business interests
and of course, winning the next election.
It shows a crisis in human governance,
where our political systems
make it impossible
to act in long-term interests
for the people and future generations.
Today it's 2020.
Again we have the momentum.
We have the Paris Agreement
to limit the Earth's warming.
We have youth and social justice demands.
We have calls for divestment.
We have calls for climate emergencies.
We have the science,
we have the solutions
and we all are experiencing
climate change.
We are at a moment parallel to Rio.
Now is the time to take action.
(Video) SCS: If you don't know
how to fix it,
please stop breaking it.
SCS: How do we ensure that this time
we act on our words?
History has shown us
that in moments of crisis,
society can truly transform.
We've seen this in times of war,
in times of economic collapse
and in times of disease.
Today, we live in the time of COVID-19.
We've seen governments
and institutions across all sectors
working quickly, working together.
Humans like to think
that we're in control of everything,
but we have been reminded today
that the laws of nature
are the true bottom line.
We've been reminded that science
and expertise are crucial to our survival.
COVID-19 has shone a light on inequity
and revealed our prejudiced
infrastructures.
It is a warning.
If we don't listen, if we don't change,
next time could be far worse.
(Video) SCS: My dad always says,
"You are what you do, not what you say."
Well, what you do makes me cry at night.
You grown-ups say you love us,
but I challenge you,
please, make your actions
reflect your words.
SCS: That last sentence
summarizes my entire speech at Rio.
Please, make your actions
reflect your words.
Today, I'm a mother,
I have two little boys.
Parents, I'm speaking to you.
Our generation is determining
the lives of our children.
We have 10 years where
we can still make a difference.
We have 10 years
to cut our emissions by half.
The way to truly love our children
is to make our actions reflect our words.
Now it's time to get to work.
Thank you.