Christiana Figueres
Former UN Official; Founding Partner, Global Optimism
You don't go into public service because you want to become famous. You go into public service because it is a calling. It's a commitment, it's your life project.
Summary
On this week’s episode of “Leadership Matters,” Alan is joined by the remarkable Costa Rican diplomat and public servant Christiana Figueres for a conversation about her life, career, and pioneering work curbing global emissions at the United Nations.
The daughter of a former Costa Rican president, Christiana was taught at a young age the importance of public service. After serving her country through a variety of government and public sector roles, Christiana went on to serve as as executive secretary for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, where she played a key role in brokering the historic Paris Climate Accords in 2015. Since then, she has continued to advance sustainable causes through Global Optimism, an environmental advocacy group. In her conversation with Alan, Christiana emphasized the importance of that force — optimism — in ensuring the future habitability of the planet. In her view, optimism is not a blind faith that climate change will resolve itself; rather, it’s the force that drives climate-conscious leaders across industries to make the difficult, but necessary, decisions that will protect the planet for generations to come.
Mentions & Resources in this Episode
Guest Bio
Ms. Figueres is an internationally recognized leader on global climate change. She was Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 2010-2016. Assuming responsibility for the international climate change negotiations after the failed Copenhagen conference of 2009, she was determined to lead the process to a universally agreed regulatory framework. Building toward that goal, she directed the successful Conferences of the Parties in Cancun 2010, Durban 2011, Doha 2012, Warsaw 2013, and Lima 2014, and culminated her efforts in the historical Paris Agreement of 2015. Throughout her tenure Ms. Figueres brought together national and sub national governments, corporations and activists, financial institutions and communities of faith, think tanks and technology providers, NGOs and parliamentarians, to jointly deliver the unprecedented climate change agreement. For this achievement Ms. Figueres has been credited with forging a new brand of collaborative diplomacy.
Since then Ms. Figueres has continued to accelerate the global response to climate change. Today she is the co-founder of Global Optimism, co-host of the podcast “Outrage & Optimism” and is the co-author of the recently published book, “The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis". She is a member of the B Team and a non executive Board member of ACCIONA and ACCIONA Energía. She is the Chair of The Earthshot Prize Foundation.
She has a long trajectory in the field of global climate change, having been a member of the Costa Rican negotiating team 1995- 2009, and having played a number of key roles in the governance of the UNFCCC before formally joining the Secretariat.
She initiated her life of public service as Minister Counselor at the Embassy of Costa Rica in Bonn, Germany in 1982. Moving to the USA, she was Director of Renewable Energy in the Americas (REIA) and in 1995 founded the non-profit Center for Sustainable Development of the Americas (CSDA) which she directed for eight years.
She has an undergraduate degree from Swarthmore College, a Masters Degree in Anthropology from the London School of Economics, and a certificate in Organizational Development from Georgetown University. Ms. Figueres has received honorary doctorate degrees from University of Massachusetts Boston, Concordia University, Georgetown University, Cranfield University,Warwick University. University of Edinburgh, University of Bristol, Yale University, World Maritime University, and Smith College. She is the mother of two daughters and speaks Spanish, English and German.
Clips from This Episode
Christiana reflects on growing up with her father being the president of Costa Rica
On the global conviction needed to meaningfully address climate change
Looking back on the success of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change
Episode Transcription
Alan Fleischmann
My guest today is an esteemed public servant and a key leader in the international fight against climate change. Christiana Figueres is a Costa Rican native, diplomat, author, nonprofit leader, and international phenomenon who has spent her career working to fight climate change through a wide variety of global forums. Well known for her time as executive secretary for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana played a key role in brokering the historic Paris Climate Accords in 2015. Since then, she has continued to advance sustainable causes through Global Optimism, an environmental advocacy group that she founded. I'm thrilled to have Christiana join us today to discuss her life, career, and the role that we can all play in keeping our planet habitable for generations to come.
I should also mention that Christiana is a very dear and longtime friend, so it's actually an extra special joy and pleasure for me to welcome her to “Leadership Matters.” It’s a pleasure to have you join us today, Christiana.
Christiana Figueres
Thanks Alan, and thank you for the invitation. I'm very glad that you added that, because I was thinking, “Well, wait a minute, the most important thing here is that we are very, very good friends and have been so for a long time.” So it's quite wonderful to see you, at least on the screen — although our listeners cannot have that. But it's delightful to see you again.
Alan Fleischmann
Wonderful. I know you're doing this today from Switzerland and I'm here in New York, so we get to the benefit of Zoom.
I wanted to start with a little bit about your upbringing. Your father, Jose Figueres Ferrer, was such an important political leader who served as president of Costa Rica on three different occasions. What was it like growing up with such a high-profile parent? What was life like around the house for you and your siblings?
Christiana Figueres
Well, Alan, as you can imagine and have mentioned, it was not a typical childhood, when you are literally born in the presidential house to the sitting president. And then later on, in your teenage years, he becomes president again. So your whole formative childhood and young life was actually very, very marked by that fact. Both my parents were in public service, and my father is considered the father of modern Costa Rica.
For one thing, just because I said the word father there, to give you a flavor of what it was like… I remember that, when I was about six or seven — in between my those the last two presidencies of my father, because I wasn't alive for the first — I do remember sitting, sort of holding my hand there, as my father was being interviewed by some international journalist about politics, the economics of Latin America, and I don't know what else; I could not understand a thing of the conversation. Why I just sat there through the whole conversation listening to it, I will never know. But what I do remember from the interview is that, at the very end, the journalist says, “So Don Pepe” — because that is the way he was known by people who loved him — “How many children do you have?” My father, without missing a beat, said, “Three million.” I just went like, “What? Did he just say ‘three million?’” Of course, that was the population of Costa Rica at the time. And it was very hurtful for me as a little child to all of a sudden be publicly informed that my father thought way beyond his born children.
But over time, I learned that my father really placed the nation, definitely, as top priority. Yes, he had six children who were born to him throughout two marriages. But he was not really a “father” father in the traditional sense. He was the father of the nation, and he understood that, he acted that way, and he was respected for that, in fact, even to this day.
So when that's the way that you grow up, you understand that having a personal, family life is not exactly top priority for anyone. It's basically, “Here we are, we are in public service, and everyone has to chip in.” So a pretty difficult childhood, I would say. Not one of play, dance, and song, but rather one of a lot of work to support the work of my parents. One of a lot of legacy training: What do we believe in? What are the values and principles that this family stands on? How do we act when we act? Who do we act with? They never sat down and said, “Right, lesson 1-2-3,” but that was very much exemplified by both of my parents, with a huge expectation that we were just sponges, basically absorbing all of this, and with the expectation that we, even at that age, were already in public service and that we would continue our whole life in public service, as have many of us. It turns out that not all six of us have devoted our life to public service, but certainly, the majority of us have in many different ways.
Alan Fleischmann
You would imagine, though, that growing up in that household, you would either embrace public service, like you did, or you could have rejected it. Because you could have said, “I want to get far away from that upbringing.” But it sounds like in your case, somewhere down the line you said, “Okay, this is my journey as well.”
Christiana Figueres
Yeah, and to your point, I do have one sister — the last one, my youngest sister — who said, “No, no, no, no, don't put all of that on me. I am me, I am an individual. My plan is to have 12 children,” which she then didn’t do, “but you're always welcome to my home. But never speak about politics. Never speak about civil society responsibility, never speak about development, never speak about social justice. None of those topics are welcome in my house.” So her house was a very interesting space for us, and continues to be to this day. Because all of us, the whole tribe, are very, very warmly welcome at my sister's house, and we congregate there quite often. But we all know which subjects are taboo, and nobody dares go into the subjects that are taboo, which are basically the topics that keep us busy in our professional lives.
So it's actually really fun to have those different preferences in a family. Because if we always talked about social justice, politics, economics, and development at every single family gathering, we would probably get at each other's throats. So it's a very good thing that there's some members of the family who rebelled against the tradition and said, “Thank you, not for me.”
Alan Fleischmann
Like a free zone for all topics that have nothing to do with what's happening outside of that house.
Christiana Figueres
Exactly. You got it.
Alan Fleischmann
I love it.
So, you went to high school in Costa Rica. You then went to England, right? Then you came to the US, to Swarthmore.
Christiana Figueres
I did go to high school in Costa Rica, and I graduated very young. I graduated from high school when I was 15, and my mother did not think that it would be prudent to send me off to college — because she wanted me to go to college in the United States — at that young age, which I think was a very wise decision. So in between high school and college, she popped in one year in a boarding school in England. She sent, actually, all three of us: my oldest brother, myself, and my younger brother. Three of us went off to this boarding school, which I am actually incredibly grateful for, because it gave me one more year of maturity to deal with the craziness of a US-based college experience.
But also because, I have to admit, it was the British educational system that taught me how to write properly, how to think properly, how to argue in a paper, how to take different points of view, and how to write a decent academic paper. I didn't know that I didn't know that when I graduated from high school. But it was one year of intense British training that taught me all of that and gave me very valuable tools when I got to college and went, “Oh my gosh, thank heavens I learned all of that.”
So there you go. You never know why you were thrust into some experience, but the wisdom is always to extract the lessons.
Alan Fleischmann
And your mom was American, right?
Christiana Figueres
My mom was born in New York, she was the daughter of Danish immigrants to New York. Then she herself became an immigrant to Costa Rica when she married my father. Which, thinking back now, I think was an absolutely crazy thing to do as a US-born citizen. With one language, because she didn't learn Danish. To then go to Costa Rica to marry the sitting president when she didn't speak the language… She had no idea about the culture. She had never lived in Latin America. She had no idea of the tsunami, cultural and political, that was about to roll her over 400 times. So it was a very, very brave decision. And at the same time, one where you go like, “Really? Were you really thinking this through?” But I guess, love conquers all.
Alan Fleischmann
Has anyone ever done a film about that? Her love story with your dad?
Christiana Figueres
No. As you know, there is a fantastic film about my father's first wife, who was with him during the 1948 revolution. That is a fantastic film. She was just a marvelous woman who you and I both love and admire, Alan. She was just such a heroine and, sadly, she left us a few years ago at the ripe old age of 102. Just such a fantastic person to look up to, to learn from, and to have good laughs with, because she just had completely unbridled sense of humor. But no, there's never been a film made about my mother's story with my father.
Alan Fleischmann
There should be, because it’s also extraordinary.
Christiana Figueres
A sequel!
Alan Fleischmann
Yeah, we should do a sequel. Let's do that. I like that.
So, you studied anthropology in college and then you went back to England to receive your master’s. So I guess there was a draw between you and London, you and England. What drew you to the topic of anthropology? And what drew you back to England?
Christiana Figueres
I decided to study anthropology very early. I think I was like 12 or 13 when I decided that I wanted to study anthropology. It emerged because, as you can imagine, being the child of a very highly political family, we were taken to all corners of Costa Rica, either in the political campaign or during one of the presidencies in a some kind of service.
We got to know the country really, really well. As a teenager, what stood out for me was the many different times that we went to the indigenous areas in Costa Rica. And it was such a different experience from, let's say, mainstream society in Costa Rica. I was just absolutely taken by the culture of these people and I really always thought, “Wow. So, how does social economic political change happen?” Because it was clear that these people were already then — and of course, now in an accelerated fashion — thrust into a process of very rapid social change. Whereas in the mainstream, I guess, everybody's always in change processes, but it wasn't as evident and certainly not as fast happening as in the indigenous populations. I was just really intrigued by, How does this change happen? Is there any way to influence the direction of change, the quality of change, the impact of change? does change come from the inside? Does it come from the outside? I was just absolutely mesmerized by change in society. That's why I wanted to become an anthropologist, to study that. So I did anthropology, both as an undergraduate and then, later on, as a graduate student as well. I went to the London School of Economics, not to do economics, but to do anthropology.
Alan Fleischmann
Did you know that you wanted to stay in Europe when you went there? Or did you think you might come back to Costa Rica at the time? You kind of combined it, if I’m not mistaken. You ended up working for the Costa Rican embassy soon after, but in Germany.
Christiana Figueres
Yeah, no, I didn't have any intent of staying in Europe at all. I went to the LSE because I liked the program. Actually, I liked the program that they had in anthropology, but also, very importantly, they offered me a partial scholarship. I know it's hard to believe, because political leaders in Latin America have, sadly, such a bad reputation. But in my family, all of us had to look for partial or full scholarships in order to be able to go to college, because otherwise, my parents wouldn't have been able to do so. That's hard to understand and believe, because most politicians in Latin America are known for their corruption and their big, secret Swiss bank accounts, et cetera, None of which my family had. The LSE offered me a partial scholarship, so I said, ‘Right, that's it. I like their program. They're offering me a partial scholarship,” plus a loan that I then worked several years to pay back. So that was a good solution to my desire to, to continue my studies.
Alan Fleischmann
And did you go directly from LSE to the embassy?
Christiana Figueres
Oh, no. Then I went back to Costa Rica, because I felt it was time, with a master's degree, to come back and really dig in in service to my country, which was what my original intent was. I worked in Costa Rica for a while in several government and public sector posts. Then, quite to my surprise, I was recruited by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to go and work at the Costa Rican embassy in Germany.
It was not something that I had ever aspired to, but the fact is that there are a few Costa Ricans who speak German fluently. And I did, because I had gone at a very early age to a German school, I had also done some time on a university exchange program in Germany. So I spoke German fluently. And there were a few people in the public sector who had an understanding, an overview of what the government was doing; what the long-term vision of the country was; who could speak fluent German; and who were willing to work very, very hard. Because Costa Rica is a small country, a developing country. So all of our diplomatic missions abroad have very few people who work very, very hard. And there I was. I had an overview of the government, I spoke German, and I was definitely willing to work hard.
So off I was sent, and I worked at the Costa Rican embassy in Germany — in fact, in Bonn, during the time when Bonn was still the capital of Germany, so that already dates me before the reunification of Germany. I thoroughly enjoyed that experience of representing my country and learning to negotiate, because I negotiated many, many different contracts between the two governments.
And then of course, as life would have it, I returned many years later to work in Bonn for the UN Climate Convention. Because after Bonn was no longer the capital and had returned to be the tiny little town that it is today, the United Nations headquartered the climate change convention in Bonn, together with a few other United Nations headquarters. Then years later in 2010, when the Secretary General Ban Ki-moon asked me to take up the responsibility for the international climate change negotiations, he sent me off to Bonn.
So there I was, back in Bonn with a very different mandate, representing very different interests. It is not the same to do bilateral work between two countries as it is to do multilateral work among 196 countries. So very different mandate but, but happy to be back in little old Bonn.
Alan Fleischmann
I lived in Bonn for a period as well years ago, during that period before the Wall came down. And I loved it. I thought Bonn was this sleepy, wonderful place. You got to know so many wonderful people. Because it was a capital, it had the best of all worlds: small but International, and diverse. I loved it.
Christiana Figueres
Yeah, I loved it too.
Alan Fleischmann
So, you worked in the ministries of Planning and Agriculture as well. You obviously raised two daughters as well during that period. Or started to raise daughters at that point, they were little when I met them.
Christiana Figueres
Yeah, now they're raising me.
Alan Fleischmann
Yeah, exactly.
But it's a consistency of your career, though, that it was really around planning and sustainability before it was even called that. It became a big part of your work and your focus: really defining the importance of agriculture, the importance of anthropology. When I think about your career and what it's led to, you actually started to find elements around people and nature, and then brought them together, because that's really what we're doing here, you're trying to save the planet. So, it's interesting how you really got deep and wide early in your career.
Christiana Figueres
Yeah. It's very funny that you say that because I have, especially after I left the UN, been thinking back going, “Wow, was there a design to this that I never knew?” Nobody ever whispered the design to me. It just seemed like I was making decisions as each decision came up, so there never was a long-term strategy of pulling this experience into the other.
But looking back, I think you're absolutely right. I had a lot of opportunity to deal with many of the sectoral issues that I then realized became important in climate change, I had the opportunity to work a lot with government, a lot with private sector. I formed my own NGO. In the Convention, you have to bring those three voices together — governments, private sector, and NGOs — and I had experience there. Plus, I come from a developing country and understand those issues very well, because they flow in my blood, but I had been educated in the Global North. So I feel myself to be not only multilingual, but actually multicultural in the sense of being able to understand all of this. And of course, with my very deep anthropological training… Anthropology 101 is about the value of every single voice, the value of every single experience, the value of every single culture as being absolutely on par with everyone else. So no one above anyone else, all at the same level of consideration, importance, and respect.
It was really quite amazing Alan. When I was sent to the to the UN Climate Convention with all of that training, I went, “Oh my God. Thank heavens I have all of these tools in my tool chest here. What would I have done without them?” In addition to the fact that I happen to speak German and I had to live in Germany for six years.
So yes. I don't know if by design or just happenstance, but I was truly grateful for those skills when the time came for such a heavy lift — which was to take the negotiation process from the disaster that we had in Copenhagen in 2010 and then pick up those pieces. Those were basically my terms of reference: “Pick up those pieces and see if you can do anything with it.” I'm going, “Oh, okay. Thanks very much. Great terms of reference.” But picking up those pieces, politically speaking, and then reinvigorating the process to lead it into the Paris Agreement was a pretty heavy lift. I'm very, truly grateful that I had so many of the skills that were necessary for that task.
Alan Fleischmann
You started your own center for training in these topics. You were working in anthropology, and obviously, dealing with issues regarding climate change and renewable energy. And then, considering what you've done on the diplomatic side, you could sit across the table from any scientist, or any business leader, or any civil society leader or public leader in the public sector.
Christiana Figueres
I had a lot in common with everyone that I had to work with or had the pleasure to work with. And that really helps, because when you get to that work — which brings so many different interests and needs together into one common path, which is what the Paris Agreement is — it's very necessary to be able to cut through titles and positions, and even national flags, to get to the core of the conversation. Which is human to human, heart to heart. Because that is what we do have in common, we're all humans on this planet. You have to be able to get to that core humanity, that core commonality, in order to be able to dig in then into the space of common ground, when prior to that, there may have seemed like there was no common ground. So I was very grateful to walk in with that richness of tools.
Alan Fleischmann
At what point did you realize that you wanted to be a negotiator on the diplomatic side, and to make that a focal point of your career? When was the turning point where you realized you wanted to take on that UN role?
Christiana Figueres
Well, in 1994, I was sent for the first time to the negotiations as a Costa Rican negotiator, to negotiate the Convention on behalf of my country as a member of the Costa Rican team. That was the first time that I was even beginning to understand that whole process. It was a small team, but it was also a small process at the time, because there were very few people involved in the topic. All of us who walked into the topic had to do a lot of self-education, a lot of learning. Because it was just not a thing, right? Certainly, you couldn't go to any university and take a course on climate change, sustainability, or anything like that. It was all self-taught from the scientists who had been working on this for a long time. Everyone else, all the policy wonks, had barely walked into that space. So we all had to self-educate ourselves thanks to the scientists that were there.
So I negotiated for Costa Rica for quite a few years, from 1994 to 2010. I was part of the negotiating team, the working team, having Costa Rica's interests and needs in mind when I went. But I was very observant of that whole process and was very much a sponge of that process, just like I had been a sponge at the feet of my parents when I was much younger — really learning all the complexity of multilateral negotiations, which I had never studied, never seen before. I remember sitting there in one of the many, many international negotiations, particularly watching the first-ever executive secretary of the Convention, who was Michael Zammit Cutajar from Malta. I remember seeing him on the podium and how he dealt with such difficult moments. I was going like, “Well, when I grow up, I want to be exactly what he is. That wisdom, that equanimity, that capacity to deal with difficult moments. How does he do that? I really want to learn how to do that, that is just so amazing.” Little did I know, of course, that eventually I would actually occupy his seat. He remains a very good friend. Without him knowing it, because I never asked him, he was definitely a mentor, because I just learned so much just from watching him do his very difficult job.
Alan Fleischmann
That's amazing.
You're listening to “Leadership Matters on SiriusXM and at leadershipmattersshow.com. I'm your host, Alan Fleischmann. I'm here with Christiana Figueres, an extraordinary diplomat and internationally renowned climate negotiator, and we're talking about her journey and her career.
I guess when the negotiations broke down in 2009, at the summit at the UN, that's when Ban Ki-moon appointed you to be the executive director of the UNFCCC. The role model you just described, it was good that you had that in mind, the mentor.
Christiana Figueres
Yeah, that was such a disaster, right? So painful for so many of us. I was there as a Costa Rican negotiator at that summit, which was held in Copenhagen. Many people called it Hope-enhagen, because there was so much hope that a global agreement would emerge from that. And instead of a global agreement, we had what I call the most successful disaster of the United Nations. It was politically a disaster, because no agreement, or a very strange agreement, emerged from there.
It was quite dramatic. We had country representatives standing on their desks with blood on their hands, screaming into the microphones. We had all kinds of demonstrations inside the hall and outside the hall, and a change of presidencies, which has never occurred before. It was just a total multilateral drama. I was there with together with many other colleagues, all of us being Copenhagen survivors, as we call ourselves. And after that finished with the most unsatisfactory results, all of us — who would have been working for so long — were really in the pits of depression, anger, and all the rest of it.
The then-executive secretary, who was different from Michael Zammit, actually handed in his resignation. That's when the process started for the search for a new executive secretary. So to go from all of that pain, drama, and disaster, to then saying, “Right. That wonderful package that you just witnessed and participated in here? That's your package.” That was definitely not what I expected, but it was a very good moment, if it didn't seem so at the beginning. I was honestly, absolutely panicked when I accepted this responsibility, because I thought, “How on earth is this going to come out of the doldrums, out of the political garbage can which it’s in?”
But it was a very good moment, now seen several years later. Because when you're in such pain, whether it is at individual level, or a corporate level or a systemic level — in this case, the multilateral level — I feel that pain is very often the chrysalis for growth if we understand where the pain came from, what the disaster was. I did have a 300-page report written on the disaster of Copenhagen. It became our Bible. What can we learn from that? What do we never do again? It is how you can turn something that is a major disaster into being a major opportunity for growth, for learning, for new possibilities to emerge. I think that's the magic. That is the magic of how to not be consumed by the pain, despondency, and anger, but rather, to use it as fertile ground and transform it into hope, optimism, and possibility.
Alan Fleischmann
When you're talking, I think about the years that diplomats spend on trying to move a process along to agreement. When I think about how much time you've spent devoted to this… I don't think people realize that there are public servants out there who are working on this day and night, in the way you describe. The deep mourning that went into that moment and how you rebuilt yourself to reaffirm the goal and then keep going in order to get to the next one. That takes an enormous amount of perseverance, but it takes an enormous amount of commitment to the goal. We don't always value our public servants, is what I'm saying.
Christiana Figueres
That that is so true. My heart really goes out, because I think public servants are often so derided, misunderstood, and underappreciated. I just think there is such amazing, amazing commitment on the part of how most, if not all, public servants, whether it's at a national level or an international level. You don't go into public service because you want to become rich. You don't go into public service because you want to become famous. You go into public service because it is a calling. It's a commitment, it's your life project. It's a very different motivation to do what ends up being very frustrating and challenging daily work that needs almost daily recommitment. To get up in the morning and go, “Right. Yes, yesterday was a disaster. But what can we do today?” It really takes an extraordinarily deep grounding in a mission that you understand to be a much larger mission that yourself.
Alan Fleischmann
That is really what you did when you overcame, analyzed, and wrote these enormous reports about what happened in 2009. Then, when you accomplished what you fought for in 2015, that journey must have been extraordinary.
You're known for many things, but when you did in the Paris Accord in 2015 had to be a very defining moment, and very different than what happened in 2009.
Christiana Figueres
Yeah, it was definitely very different — that was the whole point!
I do share one story, because I think it communicates that journey, Alan. I remember the first press conference that I did as a newly minted executive secretary. I walked into a huge press room with, I don't know, 100 journalists maybe, and was asked all sorts of questions as though I knew everything that I was going to do. I was like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I still have to figure out where my office is.” I was just on the basics. And one journalist… I am still on the lookout for who that journalist was, to thank him. Most journalists just pop out after all the technical questions about climate change, which I could deal with, because I knew that piece. But then he said, “So Ms. Figueres, do you think that a global agreement will ever be possible?” I sort of gulped, and then I heard myself saying, “Not in my lifetime.” It was almost like there were two people: there was me speaking, answering that, and then there was me listening to my voice, saying “Are you kidding? Did you just say that?” All of a sudden, the weight of that, the responsibility of that scenario, fell very, very hard on my shoulders. I thought, “Wait a minute here. If a global agreement is not possible in my lifetime, then what that means is that current young generations, and all future generations, are really condemned to a world of misery and destruction.” I've always been a warrior for social justice. Put social justice out the window. Never before would we have been able to conceive such misery and poverty as unaddressed climate change would create.
So I walked out of the press room. The funny thing was, I looked over at my communication staff, and they were like, “Oh my God, did our new boss just say that?” They wanted to dive under the table. I thought, “Right. I have a lot of work here to do.”
Alan Fleischmann
Did you try to cycle it back at that moment?
Christiana Figueres
No, it just hung there. I worked on it internally while I was answering other technical questions. And by the time I walked out of that press room, I had already decided that I would prove myself wrong. That I would devote my time, my energy, and my life, even if that was necessary, to making a global agreement possible. Because the contrary — the pain, the misery, the human injustice, the biodiversity injustice of not addressing climate change — was just too painful for me to bear.
That's why I would really like to thank that journalist, because it was such an ‘Aha’ moment. I had thought about the responsibility of the position, of course, when it was offered to me. Before I accepted it, I thought about it a lot. But it had never been as crystal clear to me what my job was going to be, what my responsibility was going to be, until that moment. And I walked out of there, talking to the other Christiana in me, going “Right. You just said something that is outrageous, that is completely unacceptable. So, the other part of Christiana is going to work to make you wrong, because we are going to get to a global agreement. How? No idea. We're going to do a lot of consultation and gather a lot of collective wisdom.” But I just couldn't bear the thought that in my lifetime, we wouldn't have a collective path to decarbonizing the atmosphere. So I am truly grateful for that impertinent journalist who managed to really clarify my mission.
Alan Fleischmann
What year was that, that the journalist asked you that question?
Christiana Figueres
2010. June, 2010.
Alan Fleischmann
When you think about it, it’s that expression: It's not it's not the destination, but the journey to the destination. In many ways, I'm sure your it’s defining achievements that you're proud of, because the Paris Climate Accords were so successful in 2015. But that journey that you got you to 2015 must be, in many ways… All those things that you had to do to get there, you must be enormously proud of as well.
What were the most the most significant moments or achievements you'd like to be thought of, when you're thinking about what became those successful climate accords? There’s a lot, I know.
Christiana Figueres
I think the fact that, over so many years and with the work of thousands of people on a daily basis to get to this agreement… The fact that on so many shoulders, we were finally able to get to a global agreement that was adopted not by consensus, which is usually what happens in the United Nations, but by unanimity. That is just really remarkable, that it was adopted unanimously. Of course, we all know that the United States then stepped out and then stepped back in. Okay, fine. But the adoption was done by unanimity. Every single country — no matter how small, how large; what the natural resources are; what stage of development they were in, whether Global North or Global South; no matter what, every single country adopted that text and understood that that text to be the guardrails of a collective path that everyone undertakes in different ways. It's the same pattern, the same direction for everyone. It's the path towards stabilizing the atmosphere, which we have completely destabilized, especially in the past fifty years.
That is remarkable. There just has not been another United Nations agreement that has such an impact on every single one of the economies of the world and on the global economy as a whole. That has been adopted unanimously and then came into force in record speed — also a first in the United Nations, because they all took it back and made it law in their countries, passed it through their legislative bodies, and thereby made it then come into force by making it national laws. So, pretty impressive to go from 2009, where the conclusion was “never in my lifetime will there be a global agreement” to then, five years later, having a global agreement that was adopted unanimously, with 5,000 National delegates stomping for joy, clapping, hugging, crying, and applauding. I mean, the ruckus in that room when that text was adopted was amazing, with millions of people viewing around the world on television. Because it really… I don't know. I guess most people, even to the end, thought this was not going to be possible. But it was.
Alan Fleischmann
Was that your proudest moment? I mean, there had to be a thrilling moment, with so many people signing on. But are there other moments over the years that maybe are less obvious that you consider among your proudest moments?
Christiana Figueres
I don’t think proud is the word, Alan… I think significant, right? The reason why I don't even want to call it proud is because I fundamentally and so deeply recognize how much work, from so many other people, went into this.
But along the way, as we brought… To come to a unanimous agreement means that along the way, you understand all of the interests, all of the needs of every single country and you're able to map it out in your in your head. In this case, on a huge board that we used for this. To understand where there could be movement, and over several years, to begin to bring along the more likely countries. But every time that you saw an unlikely country coming in, closing in, to that common ground… When you can have countries that are as different as Tuvalu, Samoa, and the Marshall Islands — Pacific islands that are highly vulnerable to climate change — sit at a table and agree with the GCC states — the oil-producing states, because they stand at exactly 180 degrees of difference with respect to the use of fossil fuels — when you can have them sit at the same table and, after going through all of their differences, reach at least the beginning of some common ground… The deep gratitude that comes with moments like that is just indescribable. Because you understand that people are really going beyond the tragedy of the commons, they're going into the opportunity of the commons.
That's a completely different way of looking at our society, at our planet, at our economic and political systems, when you can when you can make that switch and you can go like, “Oh, wow. I get it. We're actually all benefited by what we're trying to do here.” That mental switch that goes from the tragedy of the commons, where nobody really wants to take care of things, but rather into the opportunity of the commons. When I recognize that in front of me, I breathed a big, huge sigh of relief. But I also felt a deep, deep gratitude that that the process that was unfolding.
Alan Fleischmann
When I think of you, I think of you as being optimistic, which is extraordinary considering how much you know. You wrote this book about global optimism, you started an organization called Global Optimism. You have this podcast about outrage and optimism, which shows the urgency of the issue, that we cannot rest on our laurels, we have to move quickly and actively. But you give us hope, when all that you know and all that we fear can make us feel pretty depressed, and even hopeless.
I'm just curious, what does the optimistic comes from? Is it because you want to motivate people to know that there's time to do something, so let’s do it? Or is it because you really are an optimist?
Christiana Figueres
Both. Because, as you say, our podcast is called “Outrage and Optimism,” we're totally convinced that you need both of those energies. We definitely need to be outraged because it is incredible that, despite the fact that scientists have been telling us and warning us about this for decades, we have done so little yet. So that's the outrage. That piece of outrage is coming out more and more in young people these days, which is a good thing.
But we also feel that that is complemented by what we call optimism. When we speak about optimism, we don't speak about blind faith or naive hope. For us, optimism is not the result of having achieved something. For us, optimism is an energy: a positive, constructive, determined energy that we bring to any challenge. It's pretty simple to understand. When you take on a task — whatever that is, you want to run a marathon or whatever you want to do — you don't say, “I want to run a marathon, but I don't think I'll ever be able to do it.” I mean, you can say that, but then I guarantee that you won't be able to run the marathon. There's never been any guarantee, but the only way to increase your chances of being able to run a marathon is to say, “Okay. It's going to be really, really tough training. But I actually believe that I can do this, and here's here is what I'm gonna do to change my schedule around, to do the training, to do the whatever it takes to run the marathon.” Without that initial conviction that the change that you want to make is possible, it is impossible to make the change.
So for us, optimism is not the result of something, but rather the input. The energy with which we turn up in life every single day. And it is not naive. It is not blind to the disasters of science. It is not blind to the fact that we have so many impacts of climate change, especially this summer that we've seen around the world. It's not blind at all. It is, in fact, very deeply informed by what is going on. It is exactly because of that we have to rally all our forces in order to be able to address the threat in a timely fashion.
Alan Fleischmann
You speak to this so often. I would argue you are a pioneer in the sense of making sure to bring public, private, and civil society sector leaders together.
Now, we talk about stakeholder capitalism and we talk about ESG. We know that many private sector leaders have to step up, and they are. A lot of the folks who are listening to this show are CEOs, or aspiring CEOs, or leaders of their organizations in all three sectors, but there's quite a bit of the private sector. With ESG being challenged the way it is — especially when there's economic uncertainty, it becomes even more challenging — what would be your advice to them? To those who are grappling with, “How do I make ESG effective? How much of a priority do I need to make ESG so it's not hollow, but substantive?” What would be your message there?
Christiana Figueres
Yes, there are many criticisms being lobbied at, let's say, the sustainability or ESG concept in both finance and in corporate governance, in products and services. I think the simplest way of identifying that is the criticism that comes under woke capitalism — that has sort of become the key word there.
So, first of all, I don't shy away from criticisms. I think with those criticisms, what is helpful is to understand: What are they showing? What are the weak points that they are showing for us? What do we learn from those criticisms in order to continue to strengthen the efforts? So that's always my first reaction, what can I learn from this?
But also, to do that in the full understanding that decarbonizing the economy and injecting more and more sustainability is all about is about regeneration of society and of our economic understanding of natural resources. It's it goes even beyond sustainability into regeneration. Regeneration of the soil, regeneration of our economic understanding, regeneration of Ebola-virus structures and concepts. That is a process that is already underway. It is unstoppable, completely unstoppable, and will probably continue well beyond our professional engagement, because it's the only way that we're going to be able to move toward a more stable, productive, and just society. Which is what all of us, fundamentally, are really about.
When these criticisms are there, when it seems like we're going up and down and being tossed around, let's just understand that we're in probably the most important and fast transition that we humans have ever had. This is a transition that has been started by we humans, ourselves. It's not that we discovered a new resource, such as when we discovered oil. It's not like we developed a new technology. No, this this has come from our own reasoning, this transition into regeneration.
As in any other transition, it is very, very messy. In any transition, you will see data points and proof points for both the past and the future. And both the past and the future are in the present. That's why it's messy, because those who want to say “No, this is not happening” can point at evidence of the past. And those that say “Yes, it's happening, it's totally happening” can point at the evidence of the future. Both are right, because in the present, we have both of those realities, and we're struggling our way through that. That's very typical of any change in society, but especially typical of the change that we're in right now.
What makes this change incredibly different from everything else before is that the pace is so much quicker. Maybe that's why we're so dizzy, because the pace is much, much quicker than any other social, political, or economic change that we've seen in the past. And that's a good thing. Because as we know from the climate, we are totally running out of time. It is no longer about linear or incremental change: It is about exponential change, and we're seeing exponential change in most of the sectors that are relevant to this discussion. But exponential change is something that we still have to get used to understanding and precipitating. It’s much more natural for those who work, for example, in the IT fields. But it's not natural for those who work in the social fields, the political, the economic. We’re much more used to linear, marginal incremental change. We're not used to grappling with exponential change, which is what we're both witnessing and contributing to at the same time right now.
Alan Fleischmann
You've been on the forefront of climate change diplomacy at the highest levels. When you're looking now into the future with Global Optimism, what’s next? Is there something specific that you're tackling right now in order to get us over that finish line that we need to get to? How are you looking at your next years, and how are you using the power that you have, with the name that you that you created through your good work? How are you utilizing that?
Christiana Figueres
I would say two things, Alan. We are very specifically working with those who have the largest or the most impactful levers of change. So, very specifically choosing either corporates or financial institutions, or processes, that have very, very large levers, can accelerate the change, and as I just said, can take it from linear to exponential. So that's why we're working with the companies or the institutions that we're working with.
Secondly, I'm actually very, very focused now on truly understanding the relationship between how we think — what our mindset is — and what we make possible out there. So, what is the link between inside and outside? Inside, meaning what I am thinking, because action starts in thinking. As I've just gone through with the marathon example, if you don't think that something is possible, it is not. It will not become possible. That is a simple truth, but it's also the most powerful truth.
So I am trying to really understand this, and trying to precipitate that kind of a mindset shift among as many people as possible — and certainly, among those that have the greatest influence and impact on all of the sectors that we need to shift. All so that we understand how our mindset is either a handbrake or a detonator for change. We choose every single day. That choice has to be made, and it has to be intentional. Because if we don't choose daily and on an intentional basis, we humans just slide back into the default. We slide back into the comfort zone of doing things the way we've always done them, business as usual. We know that business as usual is not going to take us anywhere. So if we want to do something different from what we have done, we have to be able to make that choice. First, in our thinking, in our mindset; That then causes the changes out there, in our actions and in our decisions, that that can open doors that we hadn't even recognized were there.
So I'm very intent now on that overlap between what is happening inside of each one of us and what that means for what we can detonate outside of us.
Alan Fleischmann
That’s quite brilliant, and so amazingly profound. It seems so obvious, almost: We won't become a collective force if we don't individually change our mindset. We can’t do what humans do, which is run away from fear, but rather, must embrace this and take action.
Is there a place that listeners can go to to get a list of things that they can be doing, and should be doing, that you would recommend?
Christiana Figueres
Well, if you will allow me, I definitely recommend you listen to our podcast, “Outrage & Optimism,” because it's a very fun conversation. We release it once every week. We bring you the timely climate change news, but not in a news-y way; we really interpret it from a policy or leadership perspective. Every week, we also go pretty deeply into all of the different aspects that climate brings together.
So, I’d recommend the podcast for weekly listening. If you want to have just a very quick view of what you can do — as an individual, as a corporation, or whatever — there's a very helpful website that makes it very easy, count-us-in.com. It’s just very simple step-by-step. It gives you a choice of 16 different things that you can do, how much that counts for, et cetera, and you can join so many other people that are that are doing that. So, that would be my suggestion for a quick and easy resource.
Alan Fleischmann
We will check out the website, and we will listen to your podcast, “Outrage & Optimism,” as well.
You've been listening to “Leadership Matters” on SiriusXM and leadershipmattersshow.com. I’m your host, Alan Fleischmann. It has been an honor and a real privilege to have you on here today, Christiana. We'd love to have you back. Your public service, the way you bring forces of good together to really try to make this planet survive and thrive in a very urgent way is just extraordinary. We want to partner with you as you go forward, because the work you do is so vital. So, thank you, thank you.
Christiana Figueres
Well Alan, thank you very much. Thank you for that generosity, and thank you for the work and how you highlight leadership, something so important, so scarce, and so rare in our days. Hence, all the more important that we that we water and fertilize those seeds of leadership, because they are sorely needed. So, thank you very much for that, and thank you for the conversation today.