Speed & Scale

Over the last two decades, the wind power industry has grown at a dizzying pace. (Fun fact: a single rotation from one of the world's most powerful wind turbines can generate enough electricity to charge more than 1,400 cell phones.) Building off this exponential growth, Denmark's climate minister Dan Jørgensen lays out his plan to end the country's oil industry by 2050 and transition to a fossil-...

"The way we cool things down is heating the planet even more," says sustainable development expert Rachel Kyte -- and the solutions go well beyond just fixing air-conditioning. She identifies four major areas with transformative solutions -- from roofs painted with bright white paint to solar control glass to more efficient cold chains for vaccines -- that can be implemented in fair and sustainabl...

What do woolly pigs have to do with climate change? They're part of a vital, ingenious and evolving strategy to take carbon out of the sky and store it safely -- in trees, soils, the ocean, buildings, rocks and deep underground. Every carbon removal approach takes some combination of natural resources, human ingenuity and technology, says climate thinker Gabrielle Walker. If we get the mix right,...

Bjørn Otto Sverdrup leads the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI), which gathers the CEOs of twelve of the world's largest oil and gas companies around an ambitious goal: to get one of the sectors contributing most to climate change to drastically lower their own carbon emissions. He describes a possible path for the industry to pivot to net-zero operations, reimagining the role it could play in...

Most scientific literature is written only in English, creating an alarming knowledge gap for the 75 percent of the world who don't speak it. That's a big problem for climate change -- because it's hard to take action on something you don't understand. With Climate Cardinals, an international youth-led nonprofit that's working to make the climate movement more accessible, activist and social entre...

As chairman of the world's largest maritime shipping company, Jim Hagemann Snabe thinks a lot about how goods get where they need to go and the impact their journey has on the planet. Leading the effort to decarbonize shipping by 2050, he shares a plan to convert green electricity into green liquid fuel to power vessels in a process called "power-to-X" -- and urges global leaders to join the voyag...

By 2100, the UN estimates that the world's population will grow to just over 11 billion people. Architect Vishaan Chakrabarti wants us to start thinking about how we'll house all these people -- and how new construction can fight climate change rather than make it worse. In this visionary talk, Chakrabarti proposes a "Goldilocks" solution to sustainable housing that exists in the sweet spot betwee...

There's been explosive investment in new technologies aimed at decarbonizing the planet. But climate investor Dawn Lippert says something key is missing from this strategy: investment in the local people these solutions would most affect. She shares how she's bridging the gap between investment in new tech and local communities -- by getting closer to the places where these ideas are being put int...

The doctrine of "first, do no harm" is the basis of the Hippocratic Oath, one of the world's oldest codes of ethics. It governs the work of physicians -- but climate and health campaigner Shweta Narayan says it should go further. In this essential talk, she highlights the interdependence of environmental and human health and emphasizes the necessity of placing health at the heart of all climate so...

"How much more damage do we have to endure before we realize that it's cheaper to save this planet than to ruin it?" asks engineer and investor John Doerr. In conversation with Countdown cofounder Lindsay Levin, Doerr and systems innovator Ryan Panchadsaram lay out six big objectives that -- if pursued with speed and scale -- could transform society and get us to net-zero emissions by 2050. An act...

The financial sector often talks of decarbonizing investment portfolios as a way to fight climate change. But portfolios can be "cleaned" without having any real impact on the problem, says investment expert Nili Gilbert. Bringing science to finance, she unpacks how investors can actually help decarbonize the world -- a costly endeavor, estimated at three to five trillion dollars per year between...

What we know today about global greenhouse gas emissions is mostly self-reported by countries, and those numbers (sometimes tallied manually on paper!) are often inaccurate and prone to manipulation. If we really want to get serious about fighting climate change, we need a way to track carbon pollution in real-time and identify the worst culprits, says high-tech environmental activist Gavin McCorm...

When it comes to tackling climate change, the size of a country doesn't matter -- it's their ambition that counts, says First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon. In a rousing talk, she shares examples of small nations -- from Bhutan and Fiji to her own Scotland -- whose leadership and climate action are galvanizing change on the international stage. (Followed by a brief Q&A with TED's global...

A net-zero future is possible, but first we need to flip a mental switch to truly understand that we can stop the climate crisis if we try, says Nobel laureate Al Gore. In this inspiring and essential talk, Gore shares examples of extreme climate events (think: fires, floods and atmospheric tsunamis), identifies the man-made systems holding us back from progress and invites us all to join the move...

Today we're featuring a preview of a new show you might enjoy: Guardians of the River, the winner of the 2021 Best Narrative Nonfiction Podcast Award at Tribeca Film Festival. This is the story of the guardians of the Okavango water system. These guardians have a monumental task: safeguard a remote, near pristine environment facing threats from all sides. This podcast follows what happens when wor...

Climate action can be a vehicle to deliver dignity, opportunity and equality for all. UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed invites us to reimagine what the journey to net-zero could look like if we invest in people's climate efforts while prioritizing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals -- a blueprint of interlinked global goals to protect humanity and our warming planet. "It's time to m...

"Cutting methane is the single fastest, most effective opportunity to reduce climate change risks in the near term," says atmospheric scientist Ilissa Ocko. That's because, unlike carbon dioxide, methane's warming power doesn't come from a gradual buildup over time but is almost entirely from recent emissions. Ocko identifies three main sources of methane pollution which, if addressed, could drama...

In 2020, China's President Xi Jinping pledged that China would both peak its emissions by 2030 and achieve net-zero emissions by 2060 -- a change that will require action at an unheard-of scale and speed. Can the country actually achieve this ambitious vision? In this forward-looking talk, environmental journalist and analyst Hongqiao Liu explores what the world's largest carbon emitter (and secon...

To fight climate change, we need to clean up the global electricity system by replacing fossil fuel power plants with clean generation -- right? Climate author Solomon Goldstein-Rose thinks we need to do much more than that. Replacement isn't enough, he explains in this compelling talk: we need to rapidly develop a new global system capable of producing 12 times the amount of clean electricity we...

We currently have enough fossil fuels to progressively transition off of them, says climate campaigner Tzeporah Berman, but the industry continues to expand oil, gas and coal production and exploration. With searing passion and unflinching nerve, Berman reveals the delusions keeping true progress from being made -- and offers a realistic path forward: the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. Lear...

The roadmap to ending pollution from transportation is here, says electrification advocate Monica Araya. In conversation with head of TED Chris Anderson, Araya introduces Drive Electric: a global campaign to retire the polluting internal combustion engine in time to avoid climate disaster. And she shares some exciting news: a breakthrough funding commitment from the Audacious Project that puts the...

Living in a city means accepting a certain level of dysfunction: long commutes, noisy streets, underutilized spaces. Carlos Moreno wants to change that. He makes the case for the "15-minute city," where inhabitants have access to all the services they need to live, learn and thrive within their immediate vicinity -- and shares ideas for making urban areas adapt to humans, not the other way around....

What does gender equality have to do with climate change? A lot more than you might think. Empowering women and girls around the world is one of the most important ways to combat carbon pollution and is projected to reduce CO2-equivalent gases by a total of 80 billion tons. Entrepreneur, scientist and TED Fellow Rumaitha Al Busaidi looks at why women are more likely to be impacted and displaced by...

Activism is a tough job, especially for young people yearning for immediate change -- something climate activist Melati Wijsen has learned over ten years of pushing for environmental protection, starting at age 12 in her home on the island of Bali, Indonesia. How can young changemakers acquire the skills they need and keep from burning out? Wijsen offers three pieces of advice for anybody seeking...

Agriculture has enabled the existence of civilization—today, approximately 40 percent of our planet is farmland. So it goes without saying there’s a LOT to cover when it comes to talking about modern food production. Dan starts small with something a little more digestible: which milk is best, for you and for the planet? He’ll teach us how to sip sustainably, then take us on a journey through a “p...