2021 Nobel Prize Summit: Our Planet, Our Future Proceedings of a Summit (2021) / Chapter Skim
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2 Our Planet
2 Our Planet
Pages 7-21
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From page 7... ...
Vice President Al Gore, recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, characterized the current time as filled "with abundant and legitimate hope that we are right now crossing the political tipping point on climate." While world leaders have announced ambitious goals to cut greenhouse gas emissions, he noted the technology, business, and investment sectors have also made great strides in shifting to a sustainable future. In 2020, for example, 90 percent of all newly installed electricity generation worldwide was renewable, much of it coupled with battery storage that magnifies its advantages over fossil fuels.
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From page 8... ...
To limit global temperatures to meet the goals set out in the Paris Agreement, greenhouse gases must fall 7.5 percent every year for the next decade.2 But, he said, market forces are powering this transition forward, and the 8 opportunity to create tens of millions of new jobs is irresistible. Gore cited a paper published in the Oxford Review of Economic Policy that shows that green stimulus measures have both short-term and long-term advantages, and they generate 3 times as many jobs as fossil fuel investments, dollar for dollar (Hepburn et al., 2020)
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This living fabric is essential to the functioning of the planet. "Runaway climate change, massive biodiversity loss, and intolerable social and environmental inequality are the three most serious problems.
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They are more difficult to tackle but indispensable for a better future 10 for all." MAIN STAGE: Four Dynamic Dialogues Actor, writer, and science enthusiast Ahmed Best moderated four panels that brought scientists together with whom he called "provocateurs" to discuss human rights, inequality, sustainability, and technology. Science as a Human Right Article 27 of the United Nations (UN)
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From page 11... ...
Chalfie noted that access to scientific information can be expensive, but there is an increasing effort to make scientific manuscripts freely available to the entire world. More broadly, he said, equal access to education is challenging, especially for the more than 80 million people who are displaced, but is critical to move forward.
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A new and emerging global ecosystem has resulted because of human activity, with increased awareness about risks to survival heightened in the last century or so. "We have to realize we live in a shared world with ecological and cultural diversity," Baptiste said.
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13 Renewable energy is economically viable, he explained, although the intermittency of wind and solar power requires better systems of battery storage. Battery production is currently OUR PLANET INTRODUCTION not sustainable; it takes 60 to 80 kilowatt hours of energy to produce 1 kilowatt hour of a lithium ion battery.
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and OUR PLANET colleagues developed a white paper on the Anthropocene biosphere that was used as the basis of planning the Nobel Prize Summit (Folke et al., 2021)
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shared highlights of the workshop, which was designed to update the scientific community on sustainability science and to provide scientific input to the Nobel Prize Summit (NASEM, 2021a) .8 She elaborated that the six themes discussed at the workshop are capacities necessary for pursuing sustainability, no matter the issue, and that cutting-edge, research-based findings related to them can be used by decision makers (see Box 2-1)
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The sixth capacity calls for fostering equity in the well-being of people, now and in the future. "Justice, equity, fairness, and inclusion are essential to meet sustainability goals.
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address the imbalance between demands and supply on nature, which involves setting meaningful conservation targets and investing in nature to increase quality and quantity; (2) change measures of economic success beyond current gross domestic product measures; (3)
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agreed that the film My Octopus Teacher makes a powerful plea to rethink human relationships with all forms of life and urged people to use the present moment to question long-held assumptions. Despite the toll, the COVID-19 pandemic provides the greatest opportunity of a generation to redefine goals of humanity, including considering people who have been most marginalized in society and are also now at the center of the political stage.
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While she recognized the summit OUR PLANET INTRODUCTION audience would agree with the role of evidence-based science at the center of solutions, "The real question is how to harness scientific guidance, which at times seems at odds with other priorities." She called for collaborations and partnerships to break down the silos across sectors, as well as within the research ecosystem, from anthropology to zoology, to address issues such as climate change, poverty, and habitat loss. Educational systems must be reimagined to train a new generation of researchers who identify as true interdisciplinarians, she added, and noted that interdisciplinary journals provide a platform for dissemination.
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2010. Polycentric systems for coping with collective action and global environmental change.
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From page 21... ...
"The youth and the generations of tomorrow demand that you use your knowledge and power of innovation to prevent runaway climate change." -- Xiye Bastida
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