Summit Highlights
Julieta Martinez, founder of Tremandas Hilda Flavia Nekabuye, who started the Uganda branch of Fridays for Future, a youth-led global climate strike movement
In keynote address on Sunday, South African-born Kumi Naidoo stressed the need for a “mantle of leadership” among all people as humanity works to address climate change, with a more inclusive, collective approach.
During that panel, Indigenous participants from Belize, Arizona, Canada, the United States and Panama highlighted a worldview in which values of reciprocity prevail, not only with one another but also between humans and the planet. The earth and animals are viewed not as a “natural resource” to be extracted from but as part of an interconnected web.
On the second day of the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit, keynote speaker and former Irish President Mary Robinson posed a question about a pretty, yellow plant we all know but might not love: the
“The actions we need to take may not be profitable in the short run but if we don't take those actions, human civilization itself is threatened."—Gillian Marcelle, CEO and founder of Resilience Capital Ventures, LLC- Sheila Watt-Cloutier has a simple prescription for staying warm in the icy fringes of the Arctic where average annual temperatures can plummet down to near zero degrees Fahrenheit: Don’t eat brand-name soup.
Nearly 4,000 people from 90 countries convened at CU Boulder, either virtually or in-person Friday, for a day-long, candid exploration of something speakers contend isn’t talked about enough: how climate change impacts people’s lives right now.