Transcriber: Ezequiel Coronado Reviewer: 新 陈
Climate crisis is not a game.
This generations are claiming
to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
It’s specifically 51,000 tons that we produce each year, contributing to
an accelerating climate change.
I come from Peru.
It’s a country in Latin America.
It has a huge biodiversity.
It has seas, glaciers and part of the Amazon.
We contribute less than 1% of CO2 emissions globally,
yet we are the third country in the world
most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
When I was a kid, I remember traveling with my parents
during vacations to a glacier in Peru called Pastoruri.
Nowadays, this glacier has lost most of its ice
and is no longer a place that can be visited.
Because of the effects of climate change,
Peru has lost more than 50% of its glacial surface in the last 50 years.
Climate change and air pollution have a direct connection.
They both contribute to each other getting worse,
and they have one primary source in common,
the burning of fossil fuels.
In 2014, 60% of the world’s urban fine particles pollution
came from this source.
And when we breathe constantlyhigh levels of particulate matter, year after year,
our life expectancy decreases.
According to a study by the Air Quality Life Index Organization,
an average person loses 2.2 years of life expectancy
because of bad air quality.
This same study estimates
that more than half of Latin Americans breathe polluted air.
This is not the only problem.
There’s also the lack of data to tackle this issue,
because less than 25% of people in Latin America live in places
where the air quality is monitored.
And this is why we started, qAIRa,
a company in Peru that provides real-time quality data
through low-cost, yet reliable tools
for governments, companies and citizens in Latin America.
We have installed more than 300 air quality sensors in Peru and Ecuador,
and we have monitored during the lockdown because of COVID-19.
We were able to verify how the pollution levels
were reduced up to 90% in many, many parts of the country.
Not every company is obliged by law to monitor their air quality.
However, legal obligation should not be the primary motivation to do this.
World leaders and business owners need to become aware of climate change.
They need to start monitoring the emissions
from their operating areas,
contributing this data to the government, in order to implement action plans
that can actually benefit the communities.
Some examples of these plans
are the pedestrianization of certain areas,
the transition to renewable energies and the use of electric vehicles.
Sometimes when we talk to business owners about this project of air monitoring,
they answer us, what do I gain from monitoring the air?
And this answer is painful for us
because we cannot always think about a win situation for our businesses.
It is time to give back,
to give sustainability to our planet.
By continuously monitoring air quality,
business owners have the capacity to see
how the actions they implement actually reduce emissions,
and they can guarantee a safe place to breathe for their workers
and the communities nearby.
This way they impact positively in their health and well-being,
and they contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals.
We cannot keep living with indifference towards climate change.
Our future is in danger.
And in order to beat climate change,
we need to start thinking more in giving rather than winning,
and acting collectively and not alone.
Thank you.
(Applause)