your excellencies delegates ladies and gentlemen as you spend the next two weeks debating negotiating persuading and compromising as you surely must it's easy to forget that ultimately the emergency climate comes down to a single number the concentration of carbon in our atmosphere the measure that greatly determines global temperature and the changes in that one number is the clearest way to chart our own story for it defines our relationship with our world for much of humanity's ancient history that number bounced wildly between 180 and 300 and so too did global temperatures it was a brutal and
unpredictable world at times our ancestors existed only in tiny numbers but just over 10 000 years ago that number suddenly stabilized and with it earth's climate we found ourselves in an unusually benign period with predictable seasons and reliable weather for the first time civilization was possible and we wasted no time in taking advantage of that everything we've achieved in the last 10 000 years was enabled by the stability during this time the global temperature has not wavered over this period by more than plus or minus one degree celsius until now our burning of fossil fuels
our destruction of nature our approach to industry construction and learning are releasing carbon into the atmosphere at an unprecedented pace and scale we are already in trouble the stability we all depend on is breaking this story is one of inequality as well as instability today those who've done the least to cause this problem are being the hardest hit ultimately all of us will feel the impact some of which are now unavoidable my world is melting you think you have control we actually have no control i'm absolutely terrified to bring a child to this world is
this how our story is due to end a tale of the smartest species doomed by that all-too-human characteristic of failing to see the bigger picture in pursuit of short-term goals perhaps the fact that the people most affected by climate change are no longer some imagined future generations but young people alive today perhaps that will give us the impetus we need to rewrite our story to turn this tragedy into a triumph we are after all the greatest problem solvers to have ever existed on earth we now understand this problem we know how to stop the number
rising and put it in reverse we must recapture billions of tons of carbon from the air we must fix our sites on keeping one and a half degrees within reach a new industrial revolution powered by millions of sustainable innovations is essential and is indeed already beginning we will all share in the benefits affordable clean energy healthy air and enough food to sustain us all nature is a key ally whenever we restore the wild it will recapture carbon and help us bring back balance to our planet and as we work to build a better world we
must acknowledge no nation has completed its development because no advanced nation that is yet sustainable all have a journey still to compete so that all nations have a good standard of living and a modest footprint we're going to have to learn together how to achieve this ensuring none are left behind we must use this opportunity to create a more equal world and our motivation should not be fear but hope can we fix climate problem in one generation my answer would be yes we have to we need to not just to talk about what we can
do but to do what we can this is a challenge that we should try to solve in a quick way with the long-term vision it comes down to this the people alive now the generation to come will look at this conference and consider one thing did that number stop rising and start to drop as a result of commitments made here there's every reason to believe that the answer can be yes if working apart we are force powerful enough to destabilize our planet surely working together we are powerful enough to save it in my lifetime i've
witnessed a terrible decline in yours you could and should witness a wonderful recovery that desperate hope ladies and gentlemen delegates excellency it's why the world is looking to you and why you are here thank you you
