Island and coastal nations need to protect their waters to keep the oceans healthy. But they often have lots of debt and aren’t able to prioritize ocean conservation over other needs. Mark Tercek and his team at The Nature Conservancy see a way to solve both problems at once: restructuring a nation’s debt in exchange for its government’s commitment to protect coastal areas. Learn more about how “Blue Bonds for Conservation” work — and how you can help unlock billions of dollars for the oceans. This ambitious plan is a part of the Audacious Project, TED’s initiative to inspire and fund global change. (Voiced by Ladan Wise)
The Paris Agreement, adopted in December 2015, was a seminal moment in the world’s struggle to fight climate change. 197 countries agreed to limit the rise in global average temperature to “well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and to pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C. But Christiana, who led those global climate negotiations as Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, says the climate agreement was just a staging post in what remains a long, hard process. So what are the next steps?
Christiana Figueres is a Costa Rican citizen and was the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change from 2010-2016.
During her tenure at the UNFCCC Ms Figueres brought together national and sub-national governments, corporations and activists, financial institutions and NGOs to jointly deliver the historic Paris Agreement on climate change, in which 197 sovereign nations agreed on a collaborative path forward to limit future global warming to well below 2C. For this achievement Ms Figueres has been credited with forging a new brand of collaborative diplomacy.
Ms. Figueres is a founding partner of Global Optimism Ltd., a purpose driven enterprise focused on social and environmental change. She is currently a member of the The Rockefeller Foundation Economic Council on Planetary Health at the Oxford Martin School; the Convenor of Mission 2020, Vice-Chair of the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, World Bank Climate Leader, ACCIONA Board Member, WRIBoard Member, Fellow of Conservation International, and Advisory Board member of Formula E, Unilever and ENI.
How often do you think about the air you’re breathing? Probably not enough, says entrepreneur and TED Fellow Romain Lacombe. He introduces Flow: a personal air-quality tracker that fits in your hand and monitors pollution levels in real time. See how this device could help you track and understand pollution street by street, hour by hour — and empower you to take action to improve your health.
