As the world renowned TEDxWWF conference to discuss sustainability and the problems facing our planet descends on Abu Dhabi for the first time, Mark Spence catches up with one of the key speakers.
On May 21 some of the most innovative minds (both local and global) in the field of environmental issues will be speaking at the first ever TEDxWWF event to be held in the UAE. Under the banner of ‘One Planet Living’ various discussions will be held about how we can best look after our planet. To get a better idea of what will be discussed and the sort of people who will be attending we spoke to Andy Ridley, CEO of Earth Hour, one of the largest grassroots environmental movements in the world who, every year, encourage people to switch off all non-essential lights for one hour to raise awareness about the need to take action over climate change.
Can you explain what Earth Hour is all about?
Earth Hour was started to try to reach out to the really broad mainstream far beyond the green movement parts of society. We wanted to engage the world’s community in a much bigger way. The biggest question was: how do we engage hundreds of millions of people around the world on environmental issues? Our mission statement is ‘Uniting People to Protect the Planet’ so that’s where we’re coming from.
Where did the idea come from?
We were running another campaign called ‘Future Makers’ but it didn’t work that well, however we learned a lot from it and I think the biggest conclusion that we came to was that we needed something symbolic that was going to keep the communities together – a point of inspiration. One of my team had seen a story about the government in Bangkok asking people to turn off electrical devices that weren’t essential and apparently the difference could be seen from space. I have no idea if that story is actually true but it triggered something for us and got us thinking.
How difficult was it to persuade big businesses to co-operate with Earth Hour?
You need to remember that at the time we started in 2007 there was kind of a perfect storm building. In 2006 Al Gore released his documentary An Inconvenient Truth, the UN IPCC (inter-governmental panel on climate change) released this thing called The Fourth Assessment which was the first official document that dealt with how big a problem we were facing and it created headlines around the world. There was also a report released called the Stern Review which was an economics report by a guy working for the British government that said the climate change challenges we were facing would require the sort of economic mobilisation not seen since the second world war – that’s the level of cost we were looking at. So when all these things started to happen it meant when you went in to see big corporations in Sydney they were like, ‘Yes, this is definitely on our radar’.
Do you still find that many people and businesses are in denial about the state of the planet or are people generally more educated these days?
I don’t think there’s a black and white answer. The reality is that we have not progressed in dealing with this problem in anywhere near the level that we should have done. We’ve failed to reach a significant global deal that delivers a reduction in emissions on any great scale. Although there is some progress at even a governmental level the question remains; are we doing it anywhere near fast enough? The answer is not at all and we all have some pretty horrific challenges ahead of us.
Do you think people are more aware of what needs to be done?
When we first started out these issues seemed very abstract and far away because it wasn’t affecting people’s lives there and then, but just look at the news over the past six months. Whether it’s the US$50 billion price tag on Hurricane Sandy or the fact that if you’re living in a city in China or Vietnam there’s a good chance that when you go to work you’re going to have to wear a face mask or whether it’s the flooding in Jakarta’s central business district twice already this year, the fires and floods in Australia, the floods in the UK, the list goes on and on. The difference between 2007 when we started and now is that all across the world the consequences of our actions are now being felt by every one of us.
Tell us more about the TEDxWWF conference in Abu Dhabi and what you’re hoping to achieve?
Learning more about the region and the response to the issues we face is really important for me. I guess the other thing is getting out there and talking about Earth Hour to different people and seeing how it fits in with other cities and other cultures. I also feel that we’ve been doing Earth Hour for seven years and taking it beyond the hour is the biggest thing that we do at the moment and so sensing whether or not there are opportunities in the UAE to do that is important.
TEDxWWF will take place at the Sofitel Abu Dhabi Corniche on Tuesday May 21. A limited number of tickets are available to the public and interested parties need to fill out an online application, following which a registration form will be issued. To live stream TEDxWWF on May 21, log-on to www.tedxwwf.com.
