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I have one more reason for optimism:

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climate change.

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Maybe you don't believe it,
but here is the fact.

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On December 12, 2015,

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in Paris, under the United Nations,

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195 governments got together

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and unanimously --

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if you've worked with governments,
you know how difficult that is --

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unanimously decided

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to intentionally change the course
of the global economy

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in order to protect the most vulnerable

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and improve the life of all of us.

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Now, that is a remarkable achievement.

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(Applause)

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But it is even more remarkable

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if you consider where we had been
just a few years ago.

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2009, Copenhagen.

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Who remembers Copenhagen?

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Well, after years of working
toward a climate agreement,

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the same governments
convened in Copenhagen

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and failed miserably.

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Why did it fail miserably?

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For many different reasons,

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but primarily because
of the deeply entrenched divide

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between the global
North and the global South.

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So now, six months after this failure,

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I was called in
to assume the responsibility

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of the global climate change negotiations.

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You can imagine, the perfect moment
to start this new job.

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The global mood on climate change
was in the trash can.

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No one believed

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that a global agreement
could ever be possible.

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In fact, neither did I.

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If you promise not to tell anyone
outside of this wonderful TED audience,

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I'm going to divulge a secret

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that has been gratefully
buried by history.

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On my first press conference,

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a journalist asked, "Um, Ms. Figueres,

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do you think that a global agreement
is ever going to be possible?"

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And without engaging brain,
I heard me utter,

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"Not in my lifetime."

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Well, you can imagine
the faces of my press team

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who were horrified
at this crazy Costa Rican woman

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who was their new boss.

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And I was horrified, too.

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Now, I wasn't horrified at me,
because I'm kind of used to myself.

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I was actually horrified

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at the consequences
of what I had just said,

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at the consequences for the world

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in which all our children
are going to have to live.

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It was frankly a horrible moment for me,

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and I thought, well, no, hang on,

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hang on.

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Impossible is not a fact,

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it's an attitude.

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It's only an attitude.

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And I decided right then and there
that I was going to change my attitude

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and I was going to help the world
change its attitude on climate change.

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So I don't know --

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No, just this? Thanks.

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I don't know --

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what you would do

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if you were told
your job is to save the planet.

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Put that on the job description.

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And you have full responsibility,

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but you have absolutely no authority,

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because governments are sovereign
in every decision that they take.

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Well, I would really love to know

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what you would do
on the first Monday morning,

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but here's what I did: I panicked.

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(Laughter)

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And then I panicked again,

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because I realized I have no idea
how we're going to solve this problem.

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And then I realized I have no idea
how we're going to solve this problem,

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but I do know one thing:

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we have got to change
the tone of this conversation.

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Because there is no way
you can deliver victory

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without optimism.

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And here,

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I use optimism as a very simple word,

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but let's understand it
in its broader sense.

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Let's understand it as courage,

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hope, trust, solidarity,

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the fundamental belief
that we humans can come together

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and can help each other
to better the fate of mankind.

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Well, you can imagine
that I thought that without that,

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there was no way we were going
to get out of the paralysis of Copenhagen.

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And for six years,

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I have stubbornly, relentlessly
injected optimism into the system,

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no matter what the questions
from the press --

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and I have gotten better at those --

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and no matter what the evidence
to the contrary.

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And believe you me, there has been
a lot of contrary evidence.

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But relentless optimism into the system.

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And pretty soon,

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we began to see changes
happening in many areas,

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precipitated by thousands of people,

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including many of you here today,

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and I thank you.

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And this TED community
will not be surprised

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if I tell you the first area

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in which we saw remarkable change

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was ...

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technology.

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We began to see that clean technologies,

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in particular renewable
energy technologies,

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began to drop price
and increase in capacity,

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to the point where today
we are already building

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concentrated solar power plants

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that have the capacity
to power entire cities,

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to say nothing of the fact
of what we are doing on mobility

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and intelligent buildings.

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And with this shift in technologies,

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we were able to begin to understand

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that there was a shift
in the economic equation,

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because we were able to recognize

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that yes, there are
huge costs to climate change,

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and yes, there are compounded risks.

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But there also are economic advantages

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and intrinsic benefits,

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because the dissemination
of the clean technologies

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is going to bring us cleaner air,

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better health,

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better transportation,
more livable cities,

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more energy security,

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more energy access
to the developing world.

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In sum, a better world
than what we have now.

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And with that understanding,

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you should have witnessed,
in fact, part of you were,

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the spread of ingenuity and excitement

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that went through,
first through nonnational governments,

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the private sector, captains of industry,
insurance companies,

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investors, city leaders,
faith communities,

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because they all began to understand,
this actually can be in their interest.

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This can actually
improve their bottom line.

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And it wasn't just the usual suspects.

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I have to tell you I had the CEO
of a major, major oil and gas company

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come to me at the beginning of last year

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and say --

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privately, of course --

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he did not know how
he was going to change his company,

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but he is going to change it,

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because he's interested
in long-term viability.

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Well, now we have a shift
in the economic equation,

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and with that, with broader
support from everyone,

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it did not take very long
before we saw that national governments

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woke up to the fact
that this is in their national interest.

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And when we asked countries
to begin to identify

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how they could contribute
to global efforts

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but based on their national interest,

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189 countries out of 195,

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189 countries sent their
comprehensive climate change plans,

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based on their national interest,

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concurrent with their priorities,

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consistent with their national
sustainable development plans.

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Well,

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once you protect
the core interests of nations,

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then you can understand
that nations were ready

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to begin to converge onto a common path,

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onto a common direction of travel

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that is going to take us
probably several decades,

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but over those several decades
is going to take us

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into the new economy,

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into a decarbonized,
highly resilient economy,

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And the national contributions
that are currently on the table

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on behalf of national governments

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are insufficient to get us
to a stabilized climate,

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but they are only the first step,

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and they will improve over time.

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And the measurement, reporting
and verification of all of those efforts

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is legally binding.

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And the checkpoints that we're
going to have every five years

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to assess collective progress
towards our goal are legally binding,

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and the path itself toward
a decarbonized and more resilient economy

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is legally binding.

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And here's the more important part:

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What did we have before?

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A very small handful of countries

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who had undertaken very reduced,

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short-term emission reduction commitments

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that were completely insufficient

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and furthermore,
largely perceived as a burden.

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Now what do we have?

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Now we have all countries of the world
contributing with different intensities

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from different approaches
in different sectors,

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but all of them
contributing to a common goal

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and along a path

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with environmental integrity.

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Well, once you have all of this in place

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and you have shifted this understanding,

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then you see that governments
were able to go to Paris

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and adopt the Paris agreement.

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(Applause)

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So,

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as I look back

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over the past six years,

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first I remember

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the day the Paris agreement was adopted.

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I cannot tell you
the euphoria in the room.

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5,000 people jumping out of their seats,

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crying, clapping, screaming, yelling,

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torn between euphoria and still disbelief
at what they had just seen,

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because so many people

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had worked for years towards this,
and this was finally their reality.

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And it wasn't just those
who had participated directly.

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A few weeks ago, I was with a colleague

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who was trying to decide

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on a Tahitian pearl that he wanted
to give to his wonderful wife Natasha.

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And once he had finally decided
what he was going to buy,

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the jeweler said to him,

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"You know, you're very lucky
that you're buying this now,

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because these pearls could go extinct
very soon because of climate change."

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"But," the jeweler said, "have you heard,

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the governments
have just come to a decision,

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and Tahiti could have a chance."

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Well, what a fantastic confirmation

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that perhaps, perhaps here is hope,

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here is a possible chance.

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I'm the first one to recognize
that we have a lot of work still to do.

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We've only just started
our work on climate change.

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And in fact, we need to make sure
that we redouble our efforts

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over the next five years
that are the urgent five years.

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But I do believe

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that we have come over the past six years

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from the impossible

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to the now unstoppable.

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And how did we do that?
By injecting transformational optimism

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that allowed us to go
from confrontation to collaboration,

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that allowed us to understand
that national and local interests

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are not necessarily at odds
with global needs,

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and that if we understand that,
we can bring them together

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and we can merge them harmoniously.

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And as I look forward
to other global issues

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that will require
our attention this century --

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food security, water security,
home security, forced migration --

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I see that we certainly do not know

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how we are going to solve
those problems yet.

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But we can take a page
out of what we have done on climate change

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and we can understand

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that we have got to reinterpret
the zero-sum mentality.

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Because we were trained to believe
that there always are winners and losers,

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and that your loss is my gain.

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Well, now that we're in a world

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in which we have reached
planetary boundaries

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and that we are not
just so interconnected,

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but increasingly
interdependent on each other,

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your loss is no longer my gain.

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We're either all losers

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or we all can be winners.

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But we are going to have to decide

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between zero and sum.

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We're going to have to decide
between zero benefit for all

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or living life as the sum of all of us.

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We've done it once. We can do it again.

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Thanks.

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(Applause)