TED and Future Stewards Host Global Countdown Event Mobilizing Millions to Halve Greenhouse Gas Emissions by 2030 in the Race to a Zero-Carbon World
Countdown, a global initiative to champion and accelerate solutions to the climate crisis, launches today, Saturday, October 10, 2020 with a free five-hour live virtual event featuring leading thinkers and doers.
Countdown is one part of a broader series of actions and events this fall including the Bloomberg Green Festival, Climate Week NYC, and others, all with the collective objective of informing and activating millions in the lead-up to a successful UN Climate Change Conference in November 2021.
Speakers will touch on topics such as:
- Climate science and the climate crisis: Where are we today?
- Why climate justice matters
- Putting climate back on the political and social agenda
- What businesses can do—and are doing—to transform and transition
- Rethinking our cities
- Stepping up at work and at home
- The path to a safer, cleaner, fairer future for people and the planet
A full agenda and speaker list can be found here.
The moment to act on climate change has been upon us for too long, and now is the time to unite all levels of society—business leaders, courageous political actors, scientists and individuals—to get to net-zero emissions before 2050.”
—Chris Anderson, Countdown founding partner and Head of TED
“Countdown brings together a powerful collaboration of partners from all sectors to act on climate change.”
—Lindsay Levin, Countdown founding partner and CEO of Leaders’
Quest
Countdown aims to answer five fundamental, interconnected questions that inform a blueprint for a better future:
- ENERGY: How rapidly can we switch to 100% clean power?
- TRANSPORT: How can we upgrade the way we move people and things?
- MATERIALS: How can we re-imagine and re-make the stuff around us?
- FOOD: How can we spark a worldwide shift to healthier food systems?
- NATURE: How do we better protect and re-green the earth?
Countdown is asking companies and organizations to join the Race to Zero through Business Ambition for 1.5°C, which is a commitment to set science-based targets aligned with limiting global warming to 1.5°C, and through The Climate Pledge, which calls on signatories to be net zero carbon by 2040—a decade ahead of the Paris Agreement goal of 2050.
We can inspire others through action and example, because there is no hope without action.”
—17-year-old climate justice activist Xiye Bastida, a lead organizer of the Fridays for Future
Five years after the unanimous signing of the Paris Agreement, many countries, companies and citizens are doing what they can about the climate crisis. But this is not enough.”
—Christiana Figueres, former UN climate chief (2010-2016), now co-founder of Global
Optimism
About TED
TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading, often in the form of short talks delivered by leading thinkers and doers. Many of these talks are given at TED conferences, intimate TED Salons and thousands of independently organized TEDx events around the world. Videos of these talks are made available, free, on TED.com and other platforms. Audio versions of TED Talks are published to TED Talks Daily, available on all podcast platforms.
About Future Stewards
Future Stewards is a coalition of partners (Leaders’ Quest, Global Optimism, and We Mean Business) working together to build a regenerative future – where we meet the needs of all, within the means of the planet. Founded after the Paris Agreement, Future Stewards equips individuals, businesses and communities with the awareness and tools required to tackle systemic problems, scale what works, and build cross-sector collaboration.