WEBVTT 00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:07.860 rC3 hacc preroll music 00:00:07.860 --> 00:00:19.980 Herald [DE]: Ja, einen wunderschönen guten Tag. Herzlich willkommen zu Tag 4 auf der 00:00:19.980 --> 00:00:25.080 XHain Bühne. Unserem letzten Live Talk hier. Der Talk wird in Englisch sein. 00:00:25.080 --> 00:00:27.529 Darum wechsele ich jetzt auch mal auf Englisch. 00:00:27.529 --> 00:00:32.500 Herald [EN]: So. Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to day 4 of the remote 00:00:32.500 --> 00:00:39.770 chasos experience. Our last live talk here on our XHain stage, which is as was the 00:00:39.770 --> 00:00:45.570 talk about self-driving cars yesterday, a production we do for the Munich channel. I 00:00:45.570 --> 00:00:50.060 kind of forgot to mention that yesterday. Sorry. Thank you Munich for choosing nice 00:00:50.060 --> 00:00:57.910 talks and we are happy to produce them. And yeah, so today our guest is Dr. Kira 00:00:57.910 --> 00:01:03.570 Vinke. She is from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and she is 00:01:03.570 --> 00:01:09.330 going to tell us a little bit about Corona and the climate crisis. And is going to 00:01:09.330 --> 00:01:15.050 compare those emergencies. And yeah, without further ado, the stage is yours. 00:01:15.050 --> 00:01:18.610 Kira: Thanks, so much, Felix. And it's a pleasure to be here and talk to you today 00:01:18.610 --> 00:01:24.000 about the parallels of the Corona pandemic and the climate crisis. This talk builds 00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:29.780 upon a research paper that we released over the summer, and it will follow its 00:01:29.780 --> 00:01:34.470 structure more or less. At the end we'll have time for discussion. So let me just 00:01:34.470 --> 00:01:40.270 start by giving you a quick run through what I will go through. We structured our 00:01:40.270 --> 00:01:45.140 talk into several sections called diagnosis, prognosis, therapy, 00:01:45.140 --> 00:01:49.720 rehabilitation, and of course, the conclusion. And on the right hand side, 00:01:49.720 --> 00:01:56.840 you can see the paper. So during the Covid-19 pandemic, institutional deficits 00:01:56.840 --> 00:02:02.000 surfaced, one could see there was a lack of preparedness. Risks that could have 00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:07.880 been averted were not. And there are significant parallels between this global 00:02:07.880 --> 00:02:12.170 health emergency and the climate emergency, which have become apparent over 00:02:12.170 --> 00:02:18.240 the past years. And the questions that arose were, how can global society manage 00:02:18.240 --> 00:02:24.209 the shared risks and avert emergencies and what can we learn for emergency prevention 00:02:24.209 --> 00:02:28.990 and management? So what is an emergency? This is the first thing we started out 00:02:28.990 --> 00:02:34.730 with. And we rely upon a paper that was published before this on on the climate 00:02:34.730 --> 00:02:39.630 emergency. And here already the parallels unfold. It is called the emergency 00:02:39.630 --> 00:02:47.020 formula, and it basically defines emergency as risk multiplied by urgency. 00:02:47.020 --> 00:02:53.450 But what is risk? Risk is the probability times the damage and the urgency is the 00:02:53.450 --> 00:02:59.990 reaction time over the intervention time. So here you can see a picture of what is 00:02:59.990 --> 00:03:04.640 supposed to be the Titanic and the iceberg. And this is exactly the situation 00:03:04.640 --> 00:03:13.849 that that provides a metaphor for what an emergency is. As I said before, emergency 00:03:13.849 --> 00:03:20.780 is identified by risk times urgency, which is the probability times damage for 00:03:20.780 --> 00:03:25.790 multiplied by reaction time over intervention time. And I will go more into 00:03:25.790 --> 00:03:30.870 detail of what this means in terms of the climate crisis and the Corona crisis. 00:03:30.870 --> 00:03:36.220 Basically, what is important to realize that, is that if reaction time and 00:03:36.220 --> 00:03:43.040 intervention time converge, so the time to avoid damages and the time that is 00:03:43.040 --> 00:03:50.550 available to do so, we have lost control. So it's very important to to avoid this 00:03:50.550 --> 00:03:56.840 and we will go structure the talk with this emergency formula. So let's first 00:03:56.840 --> 00:04:03.630 look at the diagnosis, which is providing scientific understanding. If we do a risk 00:04:03.630 --> 00:04:10.379 assessment of the SARS-CoV-2 and climate change. There are several factors that you 00:04:10.379 --> 00:04:16.949 need to look at. For example, in the case of Covid-19, the contagiousness, the 00:04:16.949 --> 00:04:23.270 duration of infections, the transmission pathways, the mortality, which groups are 00:04:23.270 --> 00:04:28.719 more at risk and why? What are the options available for therapy? This, of course, 00:04:28.719 --> 00:04:35.469 changed throughout the duration of the pandemic. How is immunity structured? Does 00:04:35.469 --> 00:04:40.379 it, are you immune after the infection, so on, so forth. In the case of climate 00:04:40.379 --> 00:04:45.990 change, of course, one very important variable are greenhouse gas emissions and 00:04:45.990 --> 00:04:51.370 the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but also how the climate 00:04:51.370 --> 00:04:56.370 system reacts to it. So what is the climate sensitivity here? Then temperature 00:04:56.370 --> 00:05:00.099 rise, the resulting climate impacts, sea level rise, extreme events such as 00:05:00.099 --> 00:05:06.879 tropical cyclones, floods and droughts, et cetera, and also our adaptive capacity, 00:05:06.879 --> 00:05:13.990 how how we are able to respond and adapt to these different changes. So this risk 00:05:13.990 --> 00:05:21.370 assessment, this diagnosis is the basis for all further steps that we're looking 00:05:21.370 --> 00:05:27.449 at. One example here, and that became quite clear early on in the Covid-19 00:05:27.449 --> 00:05:33.789 pandemic is the Case Fatality Rate of Covid-19. This is basically, this graph is 00:05:33.789 --> 00:05:40.830 basically showing you that the older the age groups are, the higher the mortality 00:05:40.830 --> 00:05:47.659 rate is. So this means that elderly people are much more likely to develop severe 00:05:47.659 --> 00:05:54.080 symptoms and are also much more likely to die from those symptoms than younger 00:05:54.080 --> 00:06:01.330 people. In, in the case of climate change, the projections are also quite clear. Here 00:06:01.330 --> 00:06:07.949 you can see two different graphs on climate change projections. On the left 00:06:07.949 --> 00:06:14.860 hand side, you can see how greenhouse gas emissions would drive temperature change 00:06:14.860 --> 00:06:24.270 over time. So you can see the change until 2100. And you can see that it strongly 00:06:24.270 --> 00:06:30.319 depends on the emissions pathway we take. So the blue, the blue areas that you see 00:06:30.319 --> 00:06:35.330 here is the pathway that would be in line with the Paris Agreement that would 00:06:35.330 --> 00:06:41.199 require rapid emissions reductions. And the red pathway is what would happen if we 00:06:41.199 --> 00:06:46.780 do not stop growing the emissions and would lead us to what we call a business 00:06:46.780 --> 00:06:54.069 as usual scenario, which could lead to 4 degrees plus by the end of the century. On 00:06:54.069 --> 00:07:01.599 the right hand side, you see the so-called Burning Ember graphic also from the IPCC, 00:07:01.599 --> 00:07:05.409 where you can see the different levels of risks associated with different 00:07:05.409 --> 00:07:12.349 temperature levels on the right hand side. So, for example, unique and threatened 00:07:12.349 --> 00:07:17.679 systems such as coral reef systems are already under pressure right now as we are 00:07:17.679 --> 00:07:27.399 around above 1° Celsius, above industrial levels of average temperature. So when you 00:07:27.399 --> 00:07:32.259 look at pandemics, when you look at climate change, in the case of Germany, 00:07:32.259 --> 00:07:38.409 these threats to global security are already mentioned in certain documents. So 00:07:38.409 --> 00:07:42.389 you can see it here and the guidelines on Civilian Crisis Prevention and also in the 00:07:42.389 --> 00:07:47.219 Whitebook of the German military, the German Bundeswehr. I posted 2 quotes for 00:07:47.219 --> 00:07:52.490 you here. For example, health risks can have destabilizing effects on whole 00:07:52.490 --> 00:07:58.399 regions and can undo long standing development gains. So these aspects are 00:07:58.399 --> 00:08:03.539 mentioned, climate impacts and pandemics are mentioned as challenges for German 00:08:03.539 --> 00:08:13.569 security, but there's no concrete strategy of what to do with this risk. So looking 00:08:13.569 --> 00:08:21.280 at the next step, the prognosis, we can see here, how we define urgency again. So 00:08:21.280 --> 00:08:25.979 urgency is a reaction time over intervention time and intervention time is 00:08:25.979 --> 00:08:31.789 a time span from the point that a risk identified to the point of impact. 00:08:31.789 --> 00:08:37.960 Reaction time is a time span needed to change course and avoid impact. And the 00:08:37.960 --> 00:08:41.280 reaction time depends both on hard factors. So what type of infrastructure 00:08:41.280 --> 00:08:46.380 you have or what type of technology you have? And also on soft factors such as 00:08:46.380 --> 00:08:52.740 information networks, political leadership and willingness to act. So it's not only, 00:08:52.740 --> 00:08:58.840 only the system that defines how we are able to react, but also the choices by 00:08:58.840 --> 00:09:04.300 society and political leaders. So again, urgent action is required if the risk of 00:09:04.300 --> 00:09:10.330 damage is high and the reaction time and intervention time converge. So we know 00:09:10.330 --> 00:09:14.470 that control is lost if the reaction time is longer than the intervention time 00:09:14.470 --> 00:09:24.150 available. Then basically, the impacts cannot be avoided any longer. When we look 00:09:24.150 --> 00:09:30.090 at the urgency in the case of SARS-CoV-2 the coronavirus that has caused the 00:09:30.090 --> 00:09:34.860 pandemic over the past year, there are critical time points after which a certain 00:09:34.860 --> 00:09:43.020 level of damage can no longer be avoided. And this critical time spans encompass, 00:09:43.020 --> 00:09:49.120 for example, national outbreaks. So it could have been contained locally or, or 00:09:49.120 --> 00:09:56.460 to certain regions within one state. It could have been that a pandemic could have 00:09:56.460 --> 00:10:03.050 been avoided and just limited to an endemic so that the virus would not have 00:10:03.050 --> 00:10:08.370 spread beyond China. And another critical time span is that the number of intensive 00:10:08.370 --> 00:10:17.060 care patients is not larger than the number of intensive care beds. And even 00:10:17.060 --> 00:10:23.400 small delays in testing and tracing can have large and deadly consequences. So 00:10:23.400 --> 00:10:30.080 this means that even if you then invest in adaptation, meaning you start buying 00:10:30.080 --> 00:10:36.570 intensive care units, ventilators, trained staff, etc., if you are already on this 00:10:36.570 --> 00:10:41.510 exponential curve, this will not suffice to prevent the damage which you could have 00:10:41.510 --> 00:10:50.130 prevented if you had started to to act earlier. And a similar situation on a much 00:10:50.130 --> 00:10:55.940 larger scale we are facing with the climate crisis. We know for intervention 00:10:55.940 --> 00:11:00.560 time that at the current levels of CO2 emissions, the carbon budget, so the 00:11:00.560 --> 00:11:06.980 amount of CO2 that we can still release into the atmosphere will be exceeded in 00:11:06.980 --> 00:11:15.600 less than 8 years under the current emissions pathway. And this would mean 00:11:15.600 --> 00:11:22.680 that, as I showed earlier, some graphs that certain risks would materialize. For 00:11:22.680 --> 00:11:28.110 example, tipping elements could occur in the Earth's system as early as 1.5 00:11:28.110 --> 00:11:33.550 degrees. And this could mean that there's potential points of no return after which 00:11:33.550 --> 00:11:40.690 these these risks and these changes can no longer be undone. The reaction time herein 00:11:40.690 --> 00:11:46.260 is the decarbonization of the global economy. So if you imagine that we have to 00:11:46.260 --> 00:11:52.630 go to net zero emissions globally, this requires also time to do so. We cannot 00:11:52.630 --> 00:11:56.450 just simply switch from one day to another and it's time to decarbonize energy 00:11:56.450 --> 00:12:01.700 system, to build new structures to, for example, change the way we practice 00:12:01.700 --> 00:12:05.990 agriculture, the way we construct buildings, etc. All of this requires 00:12:05.990 --> 00:12:12.090 certain times until we have both the technology available, but also the system 00:12:12.090 --> 00:12:19.940 infrastructure available to us so that we can transform all of this. And yeah, the 00:12:19.940 --> 00:12:24.970 control is lost when the time left for intervention to avoid harm is smaller than 00:12:24.970 --> 00:12:30.470 the time needed for reaction. So this is the point at which the Titanic sunk. 00:12:30.470 --> 00:12:37.490 Then... even though the iceberg was visible relatively early on. There were 00:12:37.490 --> 00:12:43.010 only a few seconds in which the captain could have turned the ship and avoided the 00:12:43.010 --> 00:12:48.150 impact. After that, it was no longer possible and the fate was sealed, 00:12:48.150 --> 00:12:54.030 basically. So what you here sees is that tipping points in the Earth's system can 00:12:54.030 --> 00:13:00.940 start as early as around 1.5°s for some systems. And the tipping elements are 00:13:00.940 --> 00:13:08.950 connected potentially in somewhat of a domino effect, meaning that they can start 00:13:08.950 --> 00:13:15.370 influencing each other when one system tips it affects the tipping probability of 00:13:15.370 --> 00:13:26.130 the others. So, for example, one element here is the Amazon rainforest. It can tip, 00:13:26.130 --> 00:13:32.750 change it's its character from a tropical rainforest to more of a savannah type of 00:13:32.750 --> 00:13:39.930 forest when the temperatures rise above 4° or when deforestation reaches a quarter of 00:13:39.930 --> 00:13:47.720 the of the forest cover. So this is very worrisome because right now deforestation 00:13:47.720 --> 00:13:53.070 rates are very high and also warming is is increasing. So this tipping point is 00:13:53.070 --> 00:14:01.200 approaching sooner than is comfortable for our risk assessment. What is the role of 00:14:01.200 --> 00:14:07.630 science in this prognosis? So what is interesting about the role of science and 00:14:07.630 --> 00:14:12.050 here is that we learned in the Corona pandemic that science can help us to 00:14:12.050 --> 00:14:17.980 understand risk before they arrive at our doorstep. So before we can see the effects 00:14:17.980 --> 00:14:24.500 of these risks. So long before the impact occurs, we can, through science, for 00:14:24.500 --> 00:14:29.290 example, through epidemiological models, through climate models, anticipate the 00:14:29.290 --> 00:14:34.740 risk and therefore act very early on and so to say, increase our perceived 00:14:34.740 --> 00:14:39.820 intervention time. So we need to assess the risk. What is the probability and what 00:14:39.820 --> 00:14:44.710 type of damages could could occur and what is the urgency? What is intervention time? 00:14:44.710 --> 00:14:48.820 What are critical point that we really need to avoid? And what is the reaction 00:14:48.820 --> 00:14:56.410 time when how can we still intervene? And we know for both Corona and the climate, 00:14:56.410 --> 00:15:01.210 that cascading impacts could overwhelm our capacity. In the case of Corona, of 00:15:01.210 --> 00:15:05.600 course, is mostly refers to our health systems capacity. And we know that 00:15:05.600 --> 00:15:11.770 immediate action is required to avoid damages such as deaths. And what is the 00:15:11.770 --> 00:15:18.260 therapy, our headline for the therapy is avoiding the unmanageable and managing the 00:15:18.260 --> 00:15:24.320 unavoidable. So the unmanageable in this case is health system overload or collapse 00:15:24.320 --> 00:15:29.890 because of extreme demand for intensive care. And in climate change, it would be 00:15:29.890 --> 00:15:36.540 more than 2° global warming. And to avoid really this tipping cascade and potential 00:15:36.540 --> 00:15:41.450 ecosystem collapses that would follow. This would require mitigation and 00:15:41.450 --> 00:15:45.921 prevention of infections in the case of Covid and mitigation of greenhouse gas 00:15:45.921 --> 00:15:52.150 emissions in the case of climate change. The unavoidable is in the case of Covid-19 00:15:52.150 --> 00:15:57.400 disease outbreaks and deaths from infections that have already occurred and 00:15:57.400 --> 00:16:01.741 in climate change, warming and impacts from already released greenhouse gas 00:16:01.741 --> 00:16:06.460 emissions, which we are already witnessing today. And throughout this entire year, it 00:16:06.460 --> 00:16:12.170 has become abundantly clear that wildfires are destroying habitats of both humans and 00:16:12.170 --> 00:16:19.520 animals. And the unavoidable requires us also to invest into adaptation so that we 00:16:19.520 --> 00:16:26.720 can limit the experience of damages that are occurring. Yeah, what can we learn 00:16:26.720 --> 00:16:31.540 from the pandemic, it is that people can and are willing to change their behavior 00:16:31.540 --> 00:16:39.640 if they perceive a crisis and that the sum of many individual actions matter. So it 00:16:39.640 --> 00:16:44.970 does matter if I the way I behave personally, it does matter. It can change 00:16:44.970 --> 00:16:49.080 the course of a global and national crisis. So this insight is very, very 00:16:49.080 --> 00:16:54.779 important for for both crises, actually. But it also requires strategic and 00:16:54.779 --> 00:17:00.470 coordinated action. So we need this government regulations in order to 00:17:00.470 --> 00:17:06.480 coordinate our collective action that rests on individual efforts. So these are 00:17:06.480 --> 00:17:10.909 all insights that are in that sense encouraging in the sense that we are able 00:17:10.909 --> 00:17:18.949 to cope and to overcome very complex crises. And when we look at how to 00:17:18.949 --> 00:17:24.369 transition to carbon neutrality and how to reach climate stability, we can look at 00:17:24.369 --> 00:17:28.499 two approaches. One is a bottom-up approach, people changing their habits, 00:17:28.499 --> 00:17:33.679 and one is this coordinated top-down approach where we redefine how we want to 00:17:33.679 --> 00:17:39.879 govern global commons. And one important insight is this solidarity that this is 00:17:39.879 --> 00:17:45.730 based on. For the climate crisis, it is clear that we need to change the course of 00:17:45.730 --> 00:17:50.899 global emissions here you can see the so- called carbon staircase up on which a 00:17:50.899 --> 00:17:56.580 paper was built that shows that there are several steps that are required in the 00:17:56.580 --> 00:18:03.090 next decades in order to reach net zero emissions by the middle of the century 00:18:03.090 --> 00:18:08.159 worldwide. And there are several low hanging fruits that could be tackled very 00:18:08.159 --> 00:18:17.059 early on. But for this, we need rehabilitation, we need healing of body 00:18:17.059 --> 00:18:24.369 and soul across the generations, because it is a really interesting situation that 00:18:24.369 --> 00:18:30.119 in the Covid-19 pandemic, the elderly generations are much more at risk than the 00:18:30.119 --> 00:18:33.990 younger generations. I remind you of the slide that I had shown earlier where you 00:18:33.990 --> 00:18:39.880 see the case fatality rate going up as you as the age increases. Whereas in the 00:18:39.880 --> 00:18:44.210 climate crisis, the younger generations are the most affected because in the 00:18:44.210 --> 00:18:51.470 future, like the the heap of the mass of climate impacts. So it is important to to 00:18:51.470 --> 00:19:00.090 unite behind the science and to have a kind of constellation of actors that seeks 00:19:00.090 --> 00:19:06.509 to protect the weakest. And this has worked to some degree at least, and in 00:19:06.509 --> 00:19:10.159 different constellations. In the case of the Covid-19 pandemic, the different 00:19:10.159 --> 00:19:15.289 actors who are less affected by the pandemic moved to protect the elderly 00:19:15.289 --> 00:19:21.440 generations. And in the case of the climate crisis, we need the same thing. We 00:19:21.440 --> 00:19:26.720 need a coalition of actors who is willing to change course in order to protect the 00:19:26.720 --> 00:19:32.929 youth. And this is the ethical dilemma, of course, of weighing economic, cultural and 00:19:32.929 --> 00:19:38.509 societal sacrifices against the direct protection of lives from the infection or 00:19:38.509 --> 00:19:43.019 against severe future climate risk unfolding only in maybe decades, although 00:19:43.019 --> 00:19:49.679 we can obviously see already very severe climate impacts emerge. So one key 00:19:49.679 --> 00:19:56.539 ingredient for this is intergenerational justice. And we demand in this in this 00:19:56.539 --> 00:20:01.350 paper, so-called climate and Corona contract. Where young generations would 00:20:01.350 --> 00:20:06.610 pledge to protect the elderly and other at risk groups by adhering to infection 00:20:06.610 --> 00:20:11.610 protection measures. As has been the case over the past year. Most young people have 00:20:11.610 --> 00:20:16.649 adhered to to the infection protection measures, although they themselves were 00:20:16.649 --> 00:20:22.299 not at high risk. And at the same time, older generations would uphold and 00:20:22.299 --> 00:20:26.450 strengthen commitments on climate protection, such as the Paris Agreement, 00:20:26.450 --> 00:20:34.169 such as the European Green Deal to protect the future of the youth. At the end, I 00:20:34.169 --> 00:20:41.559 would like to remind you that already all future crises will happen against the 00:20:41.559 --> 00:20:47.029 background, against, of the climate crisis. So we have seen, for example, in 00:20:47.029 --> 00:20:52.549 the case of the Corona pandemic, that island nations like Vanuatu had to battle 00:20:52.549 --> 00:20:57.870 on two fronts, basically trying to uphold infection protection measures while also 00:20:57.870 --> 00:21:03.580 being extremely affected by tropical cyclones. And in other cases, this was 00:21:03.580 --> 00:21:08.990 also the case like with droughts, with floods, with heat waves. It's very 00:21:08.990 --> 00:21:12.590 difficult to address multiple crises, which is why we need to address the 00:21:12.590 --> 00:21:20.889 climate crisis urgently. The conclusion here is it's time to act and the different 00:21:20.889 --> 00:21:27.100 variables of the emergency formula can be influenced by mitigation, which lowers the 00:21:27.100 --> 00:21:32.460 probability for damage to occur at the beginning. Adaptation, limiting the 00:21:32.460 --> 00:21:38.559 experience of adverse effects of damages. Governance to be able to efficiently use 00:21:38.559 --> 00:21:42.950 our reaction, time. And science, which can increase the human perception of the 00:21:42.950 --> 00:21:49.140 remaining intervention time. So based on this going back through, to our emergency 00:21:49.140 --> 00:21:53.940 formula, we have built a kind of contingency plan because we know some 00:21:53.940 --> 00:22:00.389 damages can no longer be avoided, both for climate change and the Corona pandemic. 00:22:00.389 --> 00:22:04.159 But there are certain things that we can do to limit the damages and limit the 00:22:04.159 --> 00:22:09.940 experience of the damages. With this, I look forward to our discussion and I close 00:22:09.940 --> 00:22:13.860 the talk. Thank you very much. 00:22:13.860 --> 00:22:20.230 H: There are already some questions in the pad. If the audience wants to add more 00:22:20.230 --> 00:22:25.220 questions, now it's the time for that. The 1. question is, what do we know about 00:22:25.220 --> 00:22:29.850 people, groups spreading misinformation to make climate change and the pandemic 00:22:29.850 --> 00:22:33.990 worse? Is there evidence for my impression that they are mostly the same for both 00:22:33.990 --> 00:22:37.130 topics? K: Now, that's a very interesting 00:22:37.130 --> 00:22:43.399 question. For the case of climate change. It has been proven many a time that there 00:22:43.399 --> 00:22:49.149 are companies, especially fossil fuel companies, other lobbyist groups, who are 00:22:49.149 --> 00:22:55.059 investing in spreading and the spread of misinformation, basically. So this is 00:22:55.059 --> 00:23:02.049 often very well done. It's concealed behind very fancy looking graphics and for 00:23:02.049 --> 00:23:07.309 the layperson, very difficult to distinguish what is information provided 00:23:07.309 --> 00:23:12.269 by scientists and what is information provided by somebody who can make nice 00:23:12.269 --> 00:23:18.500 graphs, basically. So this is this is a very crucial element why action has been 00:23:18.500 --> 00:23:23.710 delayed over decades. I mean, a lot of this knowledge about climate change was 00:23:23.710 --> 00:23:28.120 already available decades ago. We knew about the risk. Now we even know more 00:23:28.120 --> 00:23:33.940 about the risks. Yet people are hesitant to act. And the spread of misinformation 00:23:33.940 --> 00:23:39.659 for the Covid-19 pandemic also goes into the direction of science denial, 00:23:39.659 --> 00:23:45.389 basically. And I think it comes from the same sort of mindset sometimes, not from 00:23:45.389 --> 00:23:53.679 exactly the same sources. Exactly. But one element is, of course, the the 00:23:53.679 --> 00:24:00.210 availability or non availability of reliable news formats. So in Germany, we 00:24:00.210 --> 00:24:05.989 have news formats that I trusted by the public that everybody can rely on in order 00:24:05.989 --> 00:24:12.309 to receive information. But this kind of publicly funded news is not available in 00:24:12.309 --> 00:24:20.320 every country. And this has led to news channels being more or less on one 00:24:20.320 --> 00:24:25.820 political spectrum or the other. And it has led to the politicization of issues 00:24:25.820 --> 00:24:32.200 like climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic, which is very problematic 00:24:32.200 --> 00:24:38.049 because. It's fine to have an opinion about which policies should be made. But 00:24:38.049 --> 00:24:41.020 the facts should be the same in our discussion, even if we have different 00:24:41.020 --> 00:24:47.379 opinions about the policies and such. And I see here also a lot of danger in the 00:24:47.379 --> 00:24:52.510 spread of misinformation over social media networks from which a lot of people are 00:24:52.510 --> 00:24:57.590 now relying on for their news source. So this is also problematic because there's 00:24:57.590 --> 00:25:04.169 no real fact checking going on there. H: Thank you for that answer. The 2. 00:25:04.169 --> 00:25:08.210 question would be, given that our CO2 budget will be used up within 8 years 00:25:08.210 --> 00:25:13.549 while mainstream politics reject the very concept of a CO2 budget and fossil lobby 00:25:13.549 --> 00:25:17.580 groups seem to be as influential as ever. Do you think that we already crossed the 00:25:17.580 --> 00:25:26.000 point of losing control? K: Um, I mean, it's it's difficult to say. 00:25:26.000 --> 00:25:31.340 For once, there are still a lot that we can save by our actions. So I personally 00:25:31.340 --> 00:25:36.759 have a lot of hope that the transformation will be more rapid than what from what we 00:25:36.759 --> 00:25:42.139 can foresee from this current standpoint. And there's still a lot that a lot of 00:25:42.139 --> 00:25:49.679 systems that are stable for a lot more time, a lot more emissions. So it's very 00:25:49.679 --> 00:25:54.669 important that we keep those safe. However, we have already lost a lot as 00:25:54.669 --> 00:25:59.159 well. So it's really, it really depends on your standpoint. So if you live on the 00:25:59.159 --> 00:26:04.220 Marshall Islands in the Central Pacific, which are 2 meters above sea level. Yeah, 00:26:04.220 --> 00:26:08.790 it's it's we are at a very critical point. And also, if you're in Bangladesh, if your 00:26:08.790 --> 00:26:12.440 child has died from a tropical cyclone, that would have normally not occurred in 00:26:12.440 --> 00:26:18.139 that strength, the point of no return has been crossed for that child. Right? So 00:26:18.139 --> 00:26:22.970 it's it's very it's very dependent on your your standpoint here in Germany. Here in 00:26:22.970 --> 00:26:27.840 Europe, we have the money to fortify our housing et cetera. We can we can adapt to 00:26:27.840 --> 00:26:31.609 some degree of climate change, we are also not as exposed as other countries because 00:26:31.609 --> 00:26:40.629 of our geography. But it's important to emphasize that it's worth the fight to to 00:26:40.629 --> 00:26:45.720 limit emissions now. And I also see some positive indications that it is now being 00:26:45.720 --> 00:26:51.499 taken more more seriously. H: Thank you, all the good things are 3. 00:26:51.499 --> 00:26:58.340 So a 3. question. Especially if I see the picture in your slide there. Do you think 00:26:58.340 --> 00:27:06.720 that the Corona pandemic made the climate change ignorance worse in the last year? 00:27:06.720 --> 00:27:11.350 So that it was more in the background and people are thinking about like more 00:27:11.350 --> 00:27:17.600 threatening problems because that's, they happen faster than climate change? 00:27:17.600 --> 00:27:24.600 K: I don't think so. I think it has still, it has still been in the media. Still, I'm 00:27:24.600 --> 00:27:29.989 able to talk here to you. There are still people who are interested in this. So I 00:27:29.989 --> 00:27:34.289 think it was not completely forgotten. But of course, the urgency of the Corona 00:27:34.289 --> 00:27:41.340 pandemic demanded the attention of policymakers, etc.. So I it is my hope 00:27:41.340 --> 00:27:49.340 that through the experience of the adverse effects also in industrialized countries 00:27:49.340 --> 00:27:54.570 of this pandemic, we realized that we are not exempt in Germany or in Europe or in 00:27:54.570 --> 00:28:00.479 the United States or wherever from global shocks. It matters to us if there's a 00:28:00.479 --> 00:28:04.799 wildlife trade in China. We have to be concerned about, as should be the people 00:28:04.799 --> 00:28:09.929 in Bangladesh should be concerned about coal mines and Brandenburg. So I think 00:28:09.929 --> 00:28:14.879 this recognition that we are connected and we can lose control even in modern 00:28:14.879 --> 00:28:20.499 societies like in Italy, for example, capacities of the health system were 00:28:20.499 --> 00:28:26.139 overwhelmed. So even then, I think we have come to the realization that we are 00:28:26.139 --> 00:28:31.470 actually fragile and we need to take risk assessment seriously and not just rely on 00:28:31.470 --> 00:28:35.769 our good fortune. H: OK, thank you very much for the answer 00:28:35.769 --> 00:28:42.179 and there's another question. If we see Corona as the speedrun, can we learn 00:28:42.179 --> 00:28:45.519 something from our response to the pandemic, from our response to climate 00:28:45.519 --> 00:28:48.549 change? K: I didn't hear the 1. word. 00:28:48.549 --> 00:28:57.580 H: If we see Corona, as the speedrun. So like that was the fast to react to a 00:28:57.580 --> 00:29:04.809 worldwide crisis. What can we learn from our response to the pandemic for the fight 00:29:04.809 --> 00:29:08.809 against climate change? K: Yeah, yeah. The speedrun. Sorry I 00:29:08.809 --> 00:29:14.230 didn't catch it the first time. Yeah. I think it shows that if we intervene early 00:29:14.230 --> 00:29:21.100 enough, we really have a chance to avoid later damages. So we really need to use 00:29:21.100 --> 00:29:29.240 this scientific means of risk and dissipation in order to to avoid 00:29:29.240 --> 00:29:34.830 exponentially rising damages. So I think this is this is one very happy 00:29:34.830 --> 00:29:40.220 realization. And the second is, and I mentioned this in the talk, is that 00:29:40.220 --> 00:29:45.889 everything we do matters. It's not that we are just helpless in this situation, but 00:29:45.889 --> 00:29:50.450 everybody can do something and does contribute to a larger thing. So in the 00:29:50.450 --> 00:29:55.450 case of Covid-19, it's whether I will have a party with 10 people or not, whether I 00:29:55.450 --> 00:30:00.409 will choose to meet several friends after another or not. In the case of climate 00:30:00.409 --> 00:30:04.229 change, it does matter if you are taking the flights, if you're voting for a Green 00:30:04.229 --> 00:30:10.229 Party or for for a party that doesn't take anything seriously. So these individual 00:30:10.229 --> 00:30:15.129 decisions accumulate to something bigger and they can change the course of a global 00:30:15.129 --> 00:30:19.019 and national crisis. H: OK, thank you very much, and I don't 00:30:19.019 --> 00:30:25.129 see any more questions, so thank you for your talk and hope to see you soon. 00:30:25.129 --> 00:30:30.000 K: Thank you as well. 00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:37.950 Subtitles created by c3subtitles.de in the year 2021. Join, and help us!