Thanks so very much for joining us here on the show where my guests are Helena Marshall an environmental activist with fridays for future she says supposed to stop the Global Warming we need to change the way we do things and to do so now im also with us is denial to read all from the business and finance paper im going to plot who argues that if the economy doesnt pick up then well be going right back to where we started because theres no more funding for Climate Friendly modernization. And the very woman who comes to this stuff on drums dolph hes a climatologist of the institute for Climate Impact research he believes the Climate Crisis is far more serious than the corona pandemic. Thank you all 3 for being here thank you all 3 for your statements id like to begin. With you helen or Climate Change activists that you are. Im guessing there was perhaps a moment in your life when you said or thought to yourself we cant go on like this you know if there was such a Movement Tell us about it and i would say it was more of like a process i was always kind of hearing of the Climate Crisis but like so many people i can could mostly put it out of my mind and you know focus on my everyday life because you know for us here in europe not places the Climate Crisis is not affecting our daily right reality yet. But then the special report from the i. P. C. C. To 1. 00 degrees came out and you know quite simply black and white it said we only have this 2 budget left and that will be about 9 or half years and if we dont have our emissions by 2030 were going have a real problem. I feel like that was a moment connected with the intense heat we had in germany that summer that caused a lot of people to rethink if this is really a problem we can keep ignoring and keep putting out of our mind and then you know a lot of people in germany or in europe and around the world a lot of young people felt the same way and i guess yeah and it was really great to connect with other young people who you know had the same worries and then we started taking to the streets and i guess it kind of just took off from there ok youve mentioned the science or one of the scientists behind that science is different from you say stuff on the pandemic. You know obviously a crisis for humanity for a Global Crisis but its not half as bad as what Global Warming might turn out to be tell us more thats frightening you know thats not because i think the corona pandemic is harmless but because i just know as a climate scientist how much more serious the Climate Crisis will be for us its just developing much more slowly but as i see it it is a threat to civilization and it will last far far longer than the corona crisis which we think will have overcome. In a couple of years science will of found medication maybe a vaccine and we will be over it whereas we are triggering no changes to the and arctic ice sheet for example that will make sea level continue to rise for thousands of years we are pumping so much c o 2 in the atmosphere its more been in the last 3000000 years and it will be with us for tens of thousands of years so this is going to be a very long lasting crisis situation for many generations to come do not you 2 have been following developments on a recently what insights have you taken away from the from the battle to contain the pandemic. Where. The pandemic came as a crisis that out of the blue like like a meteorite or Something Like that but hit us and then we always found us form from one day to the other in this lockdown situation and i think theres nothing positive about the lockdowns really hit the economy very very hard and so when we now try to least the economy and to come back into the new normal to return to growth to return to growth yes i think we have to do it in a Climate Friendly way because as dieter rightly said. The verve the Climate Crisis with take a very long and its a long. Its a mild some not a sprint. Ive introduced the idea of growth to the discussion because i think it is going to be very much of the hub of what were going to be talking about today and i just wonder if you know should the growth be be the metric for humanitys well big. Well i think we dont have a better metric. For for the Economic Development of the world so i think we should stick to that but we have to see what lies behind disclose what makes. The economy growing so we should find. Ways to to intimidate for example the costs off. All thought of pollution climate gas Climate Change into the economy so that we have for example for c o 2 a price. So that it goes into the economic models what does the Climate ChangeCommunity Learned from the last several months while i have learned that politicians can actually act because weve been watching this for decades and decades with all nice words nice announcements even the Paris Agreement a treaty that was signed that is legally binding on reducing the emissions to keep warming to well below 2 degrees celsius and then we see politicians actually dont deliver or what their nice words are promising but with corona i was really surprised how politicians you know they could have acted a bit faster apparently a while to grasp how quickly the exponential growth meant that the cases explode basically if they had acted just one or 2 weeks earlier would have avoided a lot of coronas spread but by and large in europe i think the politicians have acted quite strongly and we have managed to not only flatten the curve but but get it down really very very far if you compare that to the United States or to brazil you can see what a huge difference a part. See and governments that really can make if they want to and that raises my hopes that politicians might also realize their own power and see that they can also solve the Climate Crisis and phony they want to. Think i would agree with a lot of what was just said we can see the huge difference between politics that is guided by science and which is. Strongly orientated to the scientists the difference when we look at the us for example where science doesnt play a role at all into the response of the coronavirus and i feel like that is this. You know in germany thousands of people every day are listening to lead. Just to austin in as much cost every single day and hearing what is the the Newest Development in the current us and that is exactly the kind of mindset we need to look at the Climate Crisis because we can only use the money be right if we can prove that they are actually reducing us u 2 missions and that they are actually going to be effective and then. Suddenly we havent seen that development so the next things that have been decided in germany when you look at the phase out of coal until 2038 that is entirely moving away from the reality that we need to phase i call by 2030 or to stand on by 1 point one degrees so i feel like we are still seeing a start divide between how politics was done in the corona to the coronavirus and how politics is being done concerning the Climate Crisis. Having said all that this sort of optimistic note so you know one german do newspaper commentary it is said in the building that sides in the belly newspaper said. There is no want to museums there is no utopia no idealism to this point is when people want to get back to normal that cant be very good for your coals. Well the question is what is normal and i feel like. You know. Trying to create create the status quo that was before corona is not an option because that was a status quo that was a crisis the Current Crisis with there the way we are using our Energy Systems the way we were using mobility the way the world was working in a crisis fundamentally so obviously i can see that people you know change is hard and change is difficult and why people dont want to change is obvious but i feel like. We should look at the systems that are behind so you know obviously we need to fly less and obviously we need to you know change how we consume goods and services and so on but that is only like a tiny fraction of how how we need to change the world because a lot of the changes happen is much more is much bigger we need to change the way our Energy Systems work and that is a change that will happen politically feel like this this this back to normal i dont i dont really care if my neighbor wants to get things back to normal i do care about the cuts for the america wants to get things back to more because thats not an option ok were going to talk about american and just. One last word before we move on you have said the new normal wont do it the old one yes because the core of ours is still with us so so we have to to keep this in mind and done to look at what happens with the pandemic and as we have to change any way we can of course include changes towards. Dealing with the Climate Change. Together. Ok corona has left Companies Across the world struggling with serious recession with terrible hardship and with poverty that is unimaginable but the pandemic has also in some ways had a positive impact and so a quick look. The indian capital new delhi before and after the lockdown. The same story at the great wall of china. Look good its a venice tranquil no tourists or cruise ships the Coronavirus Crisis caused global c o 2 emissions to plunge the farthest since the 2nd world war at an annualized rate of 8 percent no country had ever managed that before of its own accord but climate activists and Scientists Say thats no reason to relax mitigation efforts must be redoubled unless we act fast by 2025 the c o 2 level in the air will be the highest its been 4300000 years. The latest example of extreme weather a heat wave in the arctic 38 degrees celsius in northern russia and forest fires burning out of control. Scientists say we need the equivalent of a 3 month lockdown every year for decades to keep Global Warming under 2 degrees. From will we fight Climate Change as decisively as the coronavirus world. But is the question of the efforts to further combat covert 19 of been incredibly swift and decisive and robust and by comparison there is this sort of sense that were lagging a little bit behind the goals with the would we have set for ourselves what exactly are we letting the how of we havent been too distracted by the corona crisis which i can rise off of the ball well the thing is that the Climate Crisis just develops in slow motion and every year politicians find some reason why there is some more urgent crisis or financial corona whatever every year is just not the right year to make decisive decisions to cut the emissions and that has just been going on for too many decades. Its and now you know its not just that were too slow on a global scale emissions us still rising and so we havent even turned the corner. Let alone lowering emissions fast enough just to give you one number to fulfill the Paris Agreement and limit warming to well below 2 degrees centigrade we need to cut global emissions in half by 2030 thats only 10 years from now and after that of course we have to go to a net 0 emissions thats the only way to a stable climate again helena have you lost your momentum. There. Is. No good you know youre saying nothing is saying is what indeed the author is saying as well that we know we need to urgently we need to set clear goals we need to achieve those goals by yesterday that didnt happen you are losing your momentum. I think the momentum is still there because only look you know what are the statistics of society so in germany for instance a half people think the Current Crisis is the most urgent problem so that is that is a majority that is still of that started i was not so feel good statement that thats what people would say yes but obviously that also that shows a priority theres a priority in society that we want to deal with this crisis and we look we look at the coalface out there was a majority against giving billions of euros to Coal Companies so i dont think the momentum is gone the Current Crisis is still very much in the forefront of a lot of people minds and of course we cant protest in the same way of course we cant be millions of people in the streets like before corona but just because the Climate Movement maybe is not as intact as it was before the crisis does not mean that we dont need to be just as aggressive and just as radical with dealing with the Climate Crisis whats your goal and when will you know that youve achieved it i mean thats obviously really difficult we look at we want to keep in line with 1. 5 degrees because that is what is you know going to make sure that we that we have a highest chance at not you know over reaching Tipping Point in our consciousness or not as obviously what were fighting for because that is scientifically what is going to give us the biggest chance at a future. Reaching that is of course extremely difficult when you look at how hard it is to get things moving in any direction when we look at politics in germany when you look at politics in europe. Extremely behind. But we see we see progress being made because when we look at that when we look at the reality on society. Were ready theres a huge readiness for change and what needs to happen is that the parliaments need to stop acting. Part you know completely disconnected with what is actually for science reality at this point and if theyre acting like that and then wed be a whole lot of you know whole lot further in light of what we have discovered in the in the last 6 months or so that we weve begun to sort of review the way we see the states in the role the potential role of the State Government and state were always part are often viewed as part of the problem rather than part of the solution you know we have here in germany at least and i think its an interesting insight weve come to the conclusion the state can be part of can be a hands on solve problem solving partner in the future of the Climate Crisis and how we reorganize our societies to bring more justice to our societies you know i mean what we see in this corner classes is that at least the German Government doesnt want to go back to the economy like it has been before but they try to restart it in a Climate Friendly way so they have all the investments. That they are spending in the next 2 years or have some some green touch in them. That is i mean its a success of fridays for future. But this issue has become so prevalent in or the discussions on the political level i mean i havent heard anybody doing discussions about what we do about the corner classes who did not say we have to solve the Climate Crisis and. The problem of getting the society more digitalized. In all at once so i dont think thats the difference between the situation that we had before ok lets have a quick listen to what chancellor merkel has had to say about the juncture where we currently find ourselves in the kind of things that do not i was just talking about. Believe me thats what apart from the pandemic were living in the time in which our way of life and the economy are facing radical transformation driven by 2 developments Climate Change and digitalization we have to tackle Climate Change by reducing c o 2 emissions until were see how to neutral if you did you can tell you digitalisation is changing the way we work and interact with the fundamental way at an incredible speed to. Transform ational growth and transformational change is what chancellor merkels talking about when when you talk about transformational change im guessing you mean Something Different tell us about the differences. I mean its great what shes saying i cant do that you know the problem is its not enough to say things you know in the end it comes down to how many tons of c o 2 we actually would use and i mean i dont see it as rosy as a lot of we thought that for instance we saved tons of with 9000000000 euros and we didnt and there were no restrictions you know connected with that money so when france gave into side to save air france they said they need to reduce this year 2 missions and they need to stop putting doing flights with in france and so on so theres so much more that could have been done and that needs to be done and so the the consequent the consequences out of words are not being taken and are not actually being put into practice and. Thats that is for the fundamental problem that the the only scientific. People that are that are supposed to tell them what to do and telling us its not enough what shes doing and then have politics are not even a lot of what her own people are saying. Im interested in 2 concepts that have cropped up while ive been sort of reading into the story this week post growth and de gross tell us about the limits to growth tell us how how how do we organize a society with where we reduce emissions keep. Boosting society jobs and transforming society and jobs the way we work how do you do that well im not an economist im a climate scientist and my main concer