Single-minded optimist

Scepticism about climate change should push us not into despair - but action, says Christiana Figueres, who led negotiations for the Paris Agreement. She shares why she's fully upbeat about the drive to fight global warming.

Janice Heng

Published Fri, Jul 26, 2019 · 09:50 PM

Raffles Conversation

LOOKING out at an audience of hundreds, the woman who facilitated the historic Paris Agreement on climate change delivered an ultimatum: "Decide today whether you are going to be part of the solution or not." Despite the damage inflicted on the environment by humans in merely the last 50 years, it is not too late, said Christiana Figueres, former executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

"There is no reason why the Anthropocene has to be ... the era of human destruction of all natural systems," she said, using a proposed term for this geological era that emphasises humanity's impact.

"My invitation is that we actually all consciously decide that the Anthropocene is going to be the geological era of human betterment... It's the era in which we turned history around."