{"id":6572,"date":"2021-02-24T22:36:38","date_gmt":"2021-02-24T22:36:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rbc.com\/en\/thought-leadership\/how-mary-robinson-is-fighting-climate-change\/"},"modified":"2021-02-24T22:36:38","modified_gmt":"2021-02-24T22:36:38","slug":"how-mary-robinson-is-fighting-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"rbc_tl","link":"https:\/\/www.rbc.com\/en\/thought-leadership\/climate-action-institute\/how-mary-robinson-is-fighting-climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"How Mary Robinson is fighting climate change"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I interviewed Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland and global statesperson, for RBC Capital Markets&#8217; first annual ESG Conference. As head of the Elders, a group formed by Nelson Mandela to help resolve global conflict, Robinson is focused on the climate crisis and upcoming UN summit in Glasgow. Here&#8217;s some of what she had to say:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>COVID has shown what&#8217;s needed to resolve crises:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol>\n<li>Collective action.<\/li>\n<li>Government.<\/li>\n<li>Science.<\/li>\n<li>Compassion.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li>Historically, pandemics have caused great loss and change, but also galvanized societies. COVID has made people reassess their values and the way we&#8217;ve been living, working and consuming.<\/li>\n<li>Business innovation and private enterprise will drive the recovery. The direction of the recovery needs to be towards net-zero.<\/li>\n<li>127 governments have a net-zero goal, covering 63% of the global economy.<\/li>\n<li>Pace is still not fast enough.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol>\n<li>Need to phase out coal 5x faster.<\/li>\n<li>Need to ramp up renewable energy 6x faster.<\/li>\n<li>Need to transition to EVs 22x faster.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li>Public opinion is shifting.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol>\n<li>The U.S. elected a president with the most ambitious climate policy in history.<\/li>\n<li>Young people have stepped up, imploring us to listen to science.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li>When it comes to ESG, the \u201cS&#8221; (social impact) gets left out more than environment or governance.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol>\n<li>Need to see importance of a just transition, with new jobs and new training.<\/li>\n<li>We&#8217;ve learned to spend money to help those affected by COVID; we need to learn to spend money to help those affected by climate.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li>We have to do a lot in a very short amount of time. We need to reduce carbon emissions by 45%.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol>\n<li>often tell people that everyone can do three things:<\/li>\n<li>Make the climate crisis <b>personal<\/b>.<\/li>\n<li>Get <b>angry<\/b> with those who should be doing more.<\/li>\n<li><b>Imagine<\/b> the world we need.<i><\/i><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>You can watch the full interview <a href=\"https:\/\/event.on24.com\/wcc\/r\/3000795\/CA047E53D31B3D549CE32450292C7F4D\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>John Stackhouse interviews Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland and global statesperson, for RBC Capital Markets\u2019 first annual ESG Conference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":209,"featured_media":6573,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"disable_focal_point":true,"featured_image_focal_point":{"x":0.5,"y":0.5},"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"rbc_tl_category":[130,97],"rbc_tl_tag":[126,101],"class_list":["post-6572","rbc_tl","type-rbc_tl","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","rbc_tl_category-climate-action-institute","rbc_tl_category-economics","rbc_tl_tag-energy","rbc_tl_tag-environment"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.2 (Yoast SEO v27.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>How Mary Robinson is fighting climate change - RBC<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"John Stackhouse interviews Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland and global statesperson, for RBC Capital Markets\u2019 first annual ESG 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