Here are some of our favorite snaps from the event, courtesy of our photographer Robin Walton who photographed this event pro bono in support of the Foundation. An audio recording of the event is available below, and all photos are available online here

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December 12, 2019: Scott Morrison was having a so-so day. He had faced international criticism of the Government’s response to climate change. Bushfires were raging up and down the coast of NSW, and Sydney had been smothered in smoke for days on end.

He got up that day and felt the need to assure voters he really did understand that there was a link between the bushfires and climate change. This was, of course, after some earlier dog-whistling comments that suggested that there was no such link. Nothing to see here. Also, now is not the time. Thanks PM. Nothing a good trip to Hawaii couldn’t fix.

December 12, 2015: 195 nations came to a consensus about how best to tackle climate change and cinched the Paris Climate Agreement. Scott was the Treasurer, serving Malcolm Turnbull as Australia’s still quite new PM. Malcolm announced Australia’s willingness to join the Paris Agreement with aplomb, highlighting the great challenge facing humanity, a challenge that would be met head-on by human ingenuity and invention.

At a global level, the Paris deal was welcomed. There was ambition laid out in these new global plans. There was also a fair amount of hard-negotiated pragmatism. We had a commitment to limit global warming to under 2-degrees Celsius, coming at least close to the 1.5-degree limit that is expected to avoid catastrophic environmental changes. We had days and nights – over years, not weeks – of departmental advisers and UN officials crafting a document that courageously worked out the specifics of this commitment. The result: a final, smiling, hand-shaking photo of leaders in agreement. And a global plan to address climate change.

At the Sydney Peace Foundation, we’re all feeling more than a bit nostalgic for a time when there was positive energy from political leaders – founded on international collaboration and hard-won negotiation – on climate action. Actually, much more than a bit nostalgic. We’re desperate.

All around the globe, the climate crisis is happening right now. And it is an affront to human rights, peace and justice.

The connection between climate crisis and human rights violations is clear. Environmental degradation and water stress lead to hunger, famine, loss of livelihoods, displacement, and irregular migration. These connections are already impacting lives in the Pacific, Middle East, Libya, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The IDMC says that since 2008, an average of 26.4 million people per year have been displaced from their homes by disasters brought on by natural hazards. This is the equivalent to one person being displaced every second.

Savio Carvalho, Amnesty International’s Senior Advisor on International Development and Human Rights, draws the line directly:

Unless emissions are reduced significantly, around 600 million people are likely to experience drought and famine as a result of climate change…the right to life, health, food, water and housing are already under threat.

Climate change is also transforming the security landscape. In 2019, for the first time, the Global Peace Index identified climate change as a considerable threat to global peace in the next decade. This is because the impacts of climate change wear away the capacity of states to prevent conflict. Erratic weather patterns and extreme weather events cause resource scarcity and render land inhabitable, intensifying inequality and conflict.

Where there is lower capacity for states to respond, adapt to and recover from climate-induced disasters, marginalization and local grievances intensify. Climate change disproportionately impacts economic development in conflict-affected countries that depend on agriculture for their prosperity.

How will states the world over deal with this challenge in a just manner, at a time when the world continues to get hotter? Australia’s most recent experience with bushfires suggests that we – even as one of the wealthiest countries on the planet – are decidedly not ready. As past Sydney Peace Prize Winner Naomi Klein has said:

Make no mistake about it, it’s not just about things getting hotter and wetter, it’s about things getting a lot meaner and uglier.

So: there can be no choice. We must act now to curb climate change. We – and most importantly our political leaders – must act with the speed and drive of knowing that climate action is the most pressing peace work of our time.

The Sydney Peace Foundation will focus exclusively on this core challenge to global peace and justice in 2020.

Christiana Figueres is one woman who has risen to the task. It was her leadership of the UN climate body the UNFCCC way back in 2015 that saw a global climate deal become a reality. Her profound commitment to the principle of peace enabled her to effectively negotiate a deal with multiple nations harbouring a multiplicity of interests.

Today, she and her organisation Global Optimism remind us that we need to maintain both the outrage that leaders are failing to act, and the optimism to believe that change really is possible. Because

Outrage without optimism leads to defeatism, and optimism without outrage leads to unacceptably incremental approaches. Instead, they should be forged into effective action.

Action like the current call for a national Climate Act in Australia, that is gaining traction and would mandate a positive and transparent response to this challenge.

Today we will award the Gold Medal for Human Rights to Christiana Figueres, for forging the Paris Agreement and her ongoing global leadership, and for maintaining the pressure and the belief that change can happen. Christiana Figueres shows us that when it comes to the climate crisis, peace is possible.

Written by Susan Biggs, Dr Susan Banki, and Joy Kyriacou. Susan Biggs is Executive Director, Joy Kyriacou and Dr Susan Banki serve on the Governing Council of the Sydney Peace Foundation

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Her task was to bring the leaders of 195 countries together to negotiate a binding agreement to stop the world warming beyond 2 degrees celsius – no easy task after the disastrous failure of the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit.

In an interview with Hack‘s Avani Dias about her new book, she hit out at the Australian Government’s response to the bushfire disaster.

“I am deeply pained by the attitude of the current Australian Government, that still after the worst disaster that has ever hit the planet, the bushfires in Australia, that this government is still denying climate change and denying the fact that there is a lot that Australia can and should be doing,” Figueres said.

Australia at the coalface of climate change

A common argument against Australia doing more to reduce emissions and transition away from fossil fuels is that as a country, Australia is only responsible for around 1.3 per cent of global carbon emissions.

Figueres also criticised that defence, saying Australia is at the frontline of climate change.

“I see it the following way: we now know because of the consequences of the bushfires, that Australia is actually one of the most vulnerable countries to unmitigated climate change,” she told Hack.

“We also know Australia cannot single-handedly solve the problem.”

Labor has recommitted to its 2019 election policy of zero net emissions by 2050, saying Australia should pull its weight.

“Seventy-three countries, including the UK, Canada, France and Germany, many with conservative governments, have already adopted it as their goal. Australia should too,” Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese said on Friday.

Mr Albanese said the Morrison Government had been “complacent” about the risk of climate change, even as bushfires tore through the country.

Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor told RN Breakfast on Monday that the Australian Government would not follow Labor’s net zero emissions, as the plan was “uncosted and unfunded“.

Mr Taylor was reticent to give an emissions target beyond 2030 ahead of the global climate meetings in Glasgow in November.

“We said by November we’ll have a long-term strategy with technology as a centrepiece… That work is going on.”

Minister Taylor’s office responded to Hack’s request for comment by citing a quote from Scott Morrison’s National Statement to the United Nations General Assembly: “Australia is doing our bit on climate change and we reject any suggestion to the contrary.”

Christiana Figueres called on the Morrison Government to lead by example when it comes to cutting carbon emissions and averting runaway global warming.

“Australia needs all other countries to help in solving what is a global problem, not a national problem. If Australia doesn’t put a firm foot forward, it stands in no position to actually ask all other countries to also put their best foot forward.”

Australia depends on the best efforts being put forward by all countries, but for that, Australia has to do the same.

However, Figueres acknowledged every country is falling short of what she regards as necessary to stop the world warming beyond 2 degrees.

“No one is doing enough. Frankly, we should all be moving much faster than we are.”

Carryover targets criticised

When it comes to meeting our Paris commitments, the Federal Government has kept open the option of using a “loophole” to reach the 2030 target of reducing emissions by 26-28 per cent on 2005 levels.

It’s often referred to as carryover credits – put simply, Australia’s record on the previous Kyoto Treaty targets would be used as credit that’s deducted from our Paris goal.

Christiana Figueres said that undermined the purpose of the Paris Agreement.

“I think it’s very dangerous to act as though this were a game of cards. This is not a game, we cannot play with emissions or emissions reductions of the past,” she said.

“It’s not about looking back and beginning to get credit where credit is not due, this is about looking into the future.”

However, she acknowledged the challenges facing Australia’s coal industry as the world transitions away from fossil fuels.

“It is definitely a complicated issue, I’m not going to underestimate how you transition those jobs out of coal into the present and the future.”

We cannot shy away from a challenge by simply admiring the problem.

Since leaving as the chief UN climate diplomat, Figueres founded the Global Optimism group, and has co-authored a new book, The Future We Choose, which focuses on what can be achieved if climate change is addressed in the coming decade.

She said there are many reasons to be optimistic about what’s in store.

“Yes we are facing the most important challenge that humanity has ever faced, but we have everything that it takes to address climate change! We have the technologies, we have the finance, we know what the policies are, we absolutely have all the tools in our hands.”

“Right now we’re holding the pen of history in our hands, it’s up to us to write what the history or humanity and of this planet will be.”

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Now Figueres and her strategic advisor, former Buddhist monk Tom Rivett-Carnac, have penned a book that shepherds climate activism from changing mental states to changing the world.

“Throughout our lives we have found that what we do and how we do it is largely determined by how we think,” Figueres told me via email. “While there is never a guarantee of success at any challenge, the chances of success are predicated on our attitude toward that very challenge….

“It is a lesson we learned as we prepared the Paris Agreement, and is a valuable guide for the urgent challenge we are facing this decade.”

In “The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis,” published today by Alfred A. Knopf, the authors recommend a mindset for climate activism that rests on three attitudes: radical optimism, endless abundance and radical regeneration.

Radical optimism echoes an organization the authors formed, Global Optimism, to combat pessimism and denialism. Endless abundance is the sense that there are resources enough for all, to combat competitiveness and tribalism. Radical regeneration means caring for both nature and oneself, to combat exploitation and burnout.

Then the authors get to action.

“We have discussed the mindset everyone needs to cultivate in order to meet the global challenge of the climate crisis, but on its own, this is not enough,” they write. “For change to become transformational, our change in mindset must manifest in our actions.”

“While there is never a guarantee of success at any challenge, the chances of success are predicated on our attitude toward that very challenge….

Many of the recommended actions also occur in the mind, at least initially, constituting a transformation in priorities. In a chapter titled “Doing What Is Necessary,” Figueres and Rivett-Carnac propose these ten actions:

1 Let Go Of The Old World

First, the authors propose that we honour the past—for example, it’s okay to acknowledge that fossil fuels have improved quality of life, for some—and then let the past go. Let the change come that is necessary to transform the world. That means not only pragmatic change like allowing offshore wind development but, they say, psychological change like resisting the urge to engage in tribalism and the illusion of certainty.

2 Face Your Grief…

but hold a vision of the future. The world under climate change will not resemble the world many us knew in our youth. “We cannot hide from the grief that flows from the loss of biodiversity and the impoverished lives of future generations,” the authors write. They advise readers to face this grief, rather than turn away from it—an approach that borrows from their Buddhist influences—and then to embrace an optimist vision of the future. “A compelling vision is like a hook in the future. It connects you to the pockets of possibility that are emerging and helps you pull them into the present.”

3 Defend The Truth

Here the authors defend objective science and warn readers not to give in to pseudoscience. But they also urge readers not to vilify those who embrace denialism. “If you reach them, it will be because you sincerely listened to them and strove to understand their concerns. By giving care, love, and attention to every individual, we can counter the forces pulling us apart.”

4 See Yourself As A Citizen…

not as a consumer. Here the authors depart from the usual approach of urging people to stop buying stuff. Instead, they focus on the psychology behind consumption. “Much of what we buy,” they say, “is designed to enhance our sense of identity.” Instead, they say, envision a good life that does not depend on material goods.

5 Move Beyond Fossil Fuels

As pragmatic as this action sounds, the authors depict fossil-fuel reliance as an attachment—an attachment to the past. “Only when this mindset is challenged can we migrate our thinking, finances, and infrastructure to the new energies.”

6 Reforest The Earth

Here the authors urge the most pragmatic actions: plant trees, let natural areas go wild, eat less meat and dairy, boycott products that contribute to deforestation. They mention palm oil in an example but not pork, beef or chicken—major products that drive deforestation. Instead they stay positive, emphasizing the benefits of a plant-based diet. “The future we must choose will require us to pay more attention to our bond with nature.”

7 Invest In A Clean Economy

Here the authors mean much more than putting money into wind and solar. They mean moving beyond a model of economic growth that rewards extraction and pollution, toward “a clean economy that operates in harmony with nature, repurposes used resources as much as possible, minimizes waste, and actively replenishes depleted resources.”

8 Use Technology Responsibly

Artificial intelligence has the potential to solve problems that have so far remained intractable, the authors argue, such as any attempt to shift from an extractive economy to a circular one. But that will happen only—they say—if AI is used responsibly. “If we make it through the climate crisis and arrive on the other side with humanity and the planet intact, it will be largely because we have learned to live well with technology.”

9 Build Gender Equality

When women lead, good things happen, the authors say, citing a wealth of studies. “Women often have a leadership style that makes them more open and sensitive to a wide range of views, and they are better at working collaboratively, with a longer-term perspective. These traits are essential to responding to the climate crisis.”

10 Engage In Politics

The authors are not just talking about voting. Mentioning Greta Thunberg, Extinction Rebellion, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson Mandela, Figuera and Rivett-Carnac urge civil disobedience.

“Civil disobedience is not only a moral choice, it is also the most powerful way of shaping world politics.”

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The effects of climate change represent the single biggest threat to peace with justice.

The Sydney Peace Foundation has chosen to honor the leadership of Christiana Figueres with the presentation of the 2020 Gold Medal for Human Rights because of her collaboration and influencing skills, her persistence in ensuring a global agreement on limiting climate warming (the Paris Agreement), her relentless drive to ensure we don’t sleepwalk into an environmental nightmare by keeping our outrage alive, and importantly for the reminder that we must be optimistic and hopeful about the possibility of a much better world.

‘We must spark the imagination and the creativity that comes with understanding that we have this incredible agency to create something completely different. Whatever we hold as being possible, and whatever values and principles we live by, determine the actions that we take. Whatever we hold to be near and dear to us is what we’re willing to work toward. And so to shift from doom and gloom to a positive, optimistic, constructive attitude is very important because it is what gets us up in the morning and says “yes, we can do this, we’re going to work together on that”, rather than pulling the blanket over our head and saying “it’s all too difficult”. So that change in attitude inside ourselves is critical’.

Ms Figueres is a Costa Rican citizen and was the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change from 2010-2016. During her tenure at the UNFCCC she brought together governments, corporations and activists, financial institutions and NGOs to jointly deliver the historic Paris Agreement on climate change, in which 195 sovereign nations agreed on a collaborative path forward to limit future global warming to well below 2C. For this achievement Ms. Figueres has been credited with forging a new brand of collaborative diplomacy.

Ms. Figueres is a founding partner of Global Optimism Ltd., a purpose driven enterprise focused on social and environmental change. She is currently the Convener of Mission 2020, Vice-Chair of the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, World Bank Climate Leader, ACCIONA Board Member, WRI Board Member, Fellow of Conservation International, and Advisory Board member of Formula E, Unilever and ENI.

Christiana Figueres has co-authored a book called The Future We Choose, Surviving the Climate Crisis and is in Australia in March to promote it.

The Foundation is delighted that Ms Figueres has agreed to accept the Gold Medal, which will be awarded during her upcoming visit to Sydney.

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