in a certain way the puberty of my son
Yanni
came to its height when he was 23 years
old when he was between 50
17 we barely quarreled he was attending
the International School of The Hague
very close by in cake dine and I was
working in rice FICA I actually prepared
myself then for challenge working for
one of the largest energy companies in
the world and an easy target for protest
nevertheless yani started to study
Chemical Engineering in the black forest
area of Germany and one and a half years
ago in October 2018 he visited me in
Dusseldorf and we went to a theater play
together after the play we discussed the
play but very very quickly went into a
rift about his shocking revelation that
global warming is inevitable and I
reacted in a typical daddy's way it's
not as bad as it sounds we always found
solutions and I even challenged him what
are you going to do personally what are
you going to do and that's the reason
I'm here being here on the stage today
is part of my personal journey to
embrace global warming and lay out how
it can unite us rather than separate us
every generation has its memories and
these memories shape the generations you
they're triggered by pictures when you
see the picture know exactly what it
means and you know exactly where you
were at that given moment 1969 the
landing on the moon I was 5 years old my
parents had a black and white TV and
actually if I remember back it's the
first television memory of myself 1981 I
was 17 years old as one of the largest
peace demonstrations in Amsterdam
against nuclear armament the pacifist a
neutralist approach of the Dutch Peace
movie was actually coined Holland itis
or the Dutch disease and it led to
signing of historic treaties of nuclear
disarmament between the west and the
east and the fall of the Berlin Wall
1989 and all the hopes connected to it
of eternal
a Japanese political scientist mr.
Fujiyama coined it or mentioned the
uncalled it this is the end of history
so what does it teach us everything is
possible if you really want it
technology can help and conflicts
between people will disappear so we are
the generation piece and if I look at my
generation today these are usually the
50 to 60 year olds they're all in key
position in society in culture they're
artists politicians journalists judges
preachers and teachers and like all the
generations before they are challenged
by the following generations Louisan
Obama is the face of the german friday's
for future movement and let me just read
it out we collectively accused the
generation before us of not protesting
and changing something I was actually
very proud when I received the Nobel
Peace Prize but along every other
European set of the Citizen of the
European Union in 2012 the European
Union was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
for advancement in humanity and peace
reconciliation and democracy and for me
the most or the biggest achievement is
that former enemies kept peace for more
than 70 years during these decades of
the past decades my generation also went
to quite substantial environmental
challenges let me just mention a few and
we still remember them the dying of
forests and the dying of lakes due to
acid rain the industry was deferred to
sulfur iced and catalysts were put into
cars
the depletion of ozone layers of the
ozone layer our results were banned and
replaced by safer ones poisonous fumes
and cables due to PCB replaced through
safer ones overfishing of the North Sea
regulated by quotas and the war for
water in the Middle East as predicted in
the 80s actually never happened so
is the first thing that came to mind to
like a baby boomer like myself when
climate scientists were heard more
prominently I've been there we've heard
this before we've done that before
and we'll fix it even ten years ago by
working for an old company I was very
busy with developing scenarios for the
year 2050 in the year 2050 the world
population will have grown from seventh
one pipe 7.5 billion to 10 assists 9.5
billion over this span of time it will
reach its likely peak by 2070 was ten
billion Earthlings population giants
like China Brazil India will go through
the most energy-intensive face at the
moment mobilization industrialization so
the forecast is at between now and 2050
energy demand will double and ten years
ago I was busy trying to solve how to
fill the energy gap rather than solving
what happens with the energy and the
impact of it I also asked some
Millennials about which events turned
out Millennials are usually categorized
as humans who are born between 1980 and
1996 and let me just check with the room
whether you agree to the selection 9/11
the attack on the World Trade Center in
New York the global financial crisis it
started with the collapse of the Lehman
Brothers and then many lost their jobs
many lost their money what did it teach
this generation don't trust anything
behind a shiny facade there might be
disaster and I'm giving you a prediction
ten years old
in 2030 when some of you will look back
to 2020 which picture comes to mind the
world sometimes needs special people in
special situations and this time it
might be greater
hopefully that raised some childhood
memories with you
let me take you a little bit into my
childhood
I grew up next to a steel plant my
parents to live there nearly hundred
yards away from it and as a young man as
a student I used to work there to study
my from Ohio to finance my studies it
was great pay not so nice working
conditions and emission wise maybe also
not perfect then I went to Berlin and
sitting class in microeconomics I was
introduced to two gentlemen to it two
Englishmen actually the first one Ronald
Harry COEs he was born in 1910 and
awarded the piece of a Nobel Prize for
economics in 1991 he used a lot steel
plants and fishermen to show his cases
and let me just describe the situation
both parties use the river the fisherman
to get his catch and the steel plant is
cooling water and also to release waste
nobody owns the river therefore using
water comes for free what happened or
what happens the fisherman will catch as
much as he can you might even over fish
and the steel plant will produce far
more steel than necessary because the
water doesn't have a cost Ronald Coase
now proposes property rights as the
solution and property rights should lead
to a negotiated solution where the cost
of of using and polluting is part of the
cost equation so let's just apply that
to this example let's assume the
fisherman owns the river so the
fisherman could go to the steel plant
and you could say you can give me money
and so you can pollute the river to a
certain extent and that money should be
far more than the loss in catch now we
take the other example this steel plant
owns the river so the fishermen go to
the student said can you pollute a
little bit less and I give you money for
it and that money should be lower than
what you could get as additional catch
so at the end we find a social optimum
with no intervention of the state the
second English would like to introduce
you to
is alpha these'll Pegu he was born in
1877 he was the first one to describe
external effects external effects are
exactly what I described before using a
good damaging a good without paying for
it in his book the economics of welfare
and it was published exactly hundred
years ago in 1920 he proposes a tax and
detects up to now I usually used to fill
up the coffers of the state his approach
was different
said let's evaluate the damage which is
done to the river and I apply this as a
text to the people who use it we also
use the income to subsidize good
behavior does that sound familiar this
is the theory behind co2 tax and
subsidies for electoral mobility
let's apply this to our little example
here the fisherman would text would be
text for every fish he catches and the
steel plant for every liter they use the
fisherman would catch a little bit less
the population of fishes can grow the
steel plant would use produce a little
bit less steel and the water stays
cleaner and why am I telling you that
these are two economic theories of the
impression rather than talking about the
tools and how we can use these tools and
ideas we are still bickering about whose
fault is the mess we are in so let's go
that route a little bit I give you a
certain angular whose fault it could be
this is actually co2 emission
historically to today
any surprises actually the Netherlands
come number 19 but does it really help
does it really help to blame maybe the
number one position does it tell us
who's actually having the highest co2
per capita consumption does it tell you
who invest the most to reduce co2
reduction does it help to blame the baby
boomers and put the Millennials or
Generation Y into the victim corner why
actually are we using descriptors like
baby boomers Millennials the reason is
our brains need filters to process data
incoming data otherwise it's
overwhelming poor who did it told us a
great story about our ancestors and I'm
just picturing our ancestors walking the
plains and they need patterns enemy
friend sheep lion the downside today is
thinking in boxes leads to prejudices
and I'll take dietary preferences as an
example because it was also a sin the
invitation
what dietary requirements do you have
vegan vegetarian and let me call them
carnivores the meat eaters usually
mutually exclusive choices and you
probably sometimes overhear the
bickering between them about my choice
is the better one and discounting the
other one it also helps to be in a box
sometimes helps to satisfy two very
basic social needs number one sense of
direction
I know exactly what good looks like and
I know how to behave in a certain way
sense of belonging I do exactly as my my
my peers and I'm part of something and
now comes global warming global warming
is the challenge of our times
it might lead to disruptions that might
lead to farewell to very long trained
habits it also has the opportunity to
bring us all together because now we
have a common denominator co2 reduction
more or less in whatever I do and boxes
can become sliding scales they become a
continuous axis and let me just
demonstrate that in the graph now you
see the Preferences of dietary
requirements but a carnivore can stay a
carnivore even if he meat or he if he
eats less meat but he moves along the
co2 axis a carnivore remains a carnivore
if it doesn't eat eat beef anymore a
vegan remains a vegan even if he doesn't
buy tofu anymore from a far distant
country so everything becomes a
continuous or a continuum let me
introduce a second axis - that means of
transport from bike trains to planes and
our old world box thinking world we
could create new boxes and I have to
apologize to my three children because
I'm using them here there is my younger
son he's a fly jet Aryan he's a
vegetarian but he still likes to use
planes because it's faster famous Yanni
who I mentioned the beginning already is
a car game he's a vegan but he uses a
car and my daughter she's a bi cavour so
she eats meat but she bikes now make
this even more complex a third dimension
let me call this your room climate
preference you're thinking a box this
becomes very very silly it's almost
impossible to plot a false dimension but
think of use of electronic gadgets and
the power required for this for storing
processing streaming and then we can
even more dimensions to it so at the end
whatever you do is a little point
in an n-dimensional space and it's your
your private co2 footprint therefore
with co2 as a common denominator we have
the opportunity to overcome the
differences between generations and
various lifestyles and we can unite
behind a common goal reduction of co2 I
showed you some tools like the P
gootecks it's now the co2 tax Sweden has
introduced his long time ago and Germany
just very very recently in last fall in
this approach we also still have one
more choice to make how do we
communicate that how do we get this
across and we can become policemen or
clergymen we can focus on trespassing on
sinning pointing fingers and we can
become coaches or doctors encouraging
the right behavior leading by example
and also accepting that we are far from
perfect and I can also choose to be
coached and have to say a very very
great thanks to Yanni he didn't even
know the content of my speech today and
he really made me change my thinking so
thanks really for that at the end every
gram counts I live now at the River
Rhine and if I walk along the river what
do I notice path of the steel plant I
used to work in have long stopped other
steel plants are applying the most
stringent regulations and emission
controls Yanni is a vegan he doesn't
even need a fisherman anymore and the
river is left to its own equilibrium
thank you very much
you