The Fairy Tales of the Fossil Fuel Industry — and a Better Climate Story | Luisa Neubauer | TED

My name is Luisa Neubauer.

I grew up in one of the most privileged parts of the world,

in Hamburg in Germany.

Growing up, I believed that just as my parents would take care of me,

governments would take care of the big problems in the world.

I grew up in a world that told me

that things would just get better and better

for everyone.

I grew up in a fairy tale.

Part of this fairy tale is the story of Germany.

Or, to be more precise, the role of fossil fuels in Germany.

The most obvious impact of fossil fuels in Germany are soaring emissions.

Germany is the country fourth most responsible for the climate crisis.

Growing up, however, I didn't know that.

What I knew was this.

Without fossil fuels,

there could never be economic growth.

Without economic growth, there couldn't be jobs,

there couldn't be wealth, there couldn't be peace.

So Germany burnt coal, oil and gas

no matter where it was coming from.

This fairy tale isn't unique to Germany.

There are versions of it everywhere.

It took me years to figure out what was behind this fairy tale.

And once I did, I became a climate activist.

And together with thousands of others,

we organized the largest climate protests ever seen.

People then very quickly started calling us naive

and most found we were so radical.

Yet the only thing we really did is we broke off the fairy tales

and instead we told the truth.

And because there are fairy tales everywhere,

telling the truth in the climate crisis

means deconstructing almost every aspect of it.

People, for instance, call the climate crisis man-made

and while there were, indeed, humans behind it,

it's much less man-made and much more fossil-fuel-made.

It's made possible by the exploitation of coal, oil and gas

and the profit-driven economic systems behind it.

Calling the climate crisis man-made implies it's an accident of human nature,

whereas it's actually a relatively small group of people

in just a few places around the world,

the fossil fuel industries, their marketing

and their political supporters.

The fossil fuel industry itself is also a powerhouse of fairy tales.

Fifty years ago,

they knew that their business would lead us into a climate disaster.

Back then in the '70s and the '80s and the '90s,

they had the chance to use that knowledge

to introduce a transition to renewable energies.

They decided not to.

And instead, they started telling fairy tales.

They started campaigns to mislead people.

They denied their own climate science that they did themselves.

And by that, they stole our very first historic chance to act from us.

So now, for many lives, it's already too late.

The droughts, the fires and floods are all happening already in 2022.

No place is safe anymore.

So as the catastrophes can no longer be denied,

fossil fuel industries have again started telling new fairy tales,

and this time they present themselves as part of the solution.

They call it transition.

They promise innovations.

They speak of green growth.

And it sounds wonderful.

It is powerful too.

People really want to believe that this time,

the Equinors, the Totals, the Shells and all the others,

this time, they will not steal another chance to act from us, right?

I would like to believe that too.

But I cannot, for two very simple truths.

Number one,

we do not have time for any more delay.

So whoever tells us that they will just need some more time

does not understand the very basic logic of the crisis we are in.

Back in Hamburg when I was in school,

we would get 90 minutes to finish a math exam.

The fossil fuel industry is, in a way, taking that very exam right now.

But instead of 90 minutes,

they tell us they will finish in nine years.

Back in school, that attitude would have got me failing my assignments.

And the second truth is,

and that's the simple equation behind the climate crisis,

to limit global heating to 1.5 degrees,

or as close as we can possibly get to that,

there cannot to be any new fossil fuel explotation.

No single new project can be constructed.

Yet, as we speak, fossil fuel industries are planning

let alone 195 new mega-projects, so-called climate bombs,

each of them emitting more than one gigaton of CO2.

So as the wind turbines peacefully spin

[in] the TV commercials they present to us,

fossil fuel industries are expanding everywhere around the world.

And dancing on our chances to create anything like a climate justice world.

And after all, this isn't just about the climate.

Back in Hamburg 30 years ago,

when my grandmother installed her first solar panel on the roof

and people started talking of the German “Energiewende,”

it was estimated that Germany could become energy independent.

It didn't happen.

Why?

Fossil fuel industries went ahead,

lobbied against environmental policies

and together with their political supporters,

brought the energy transition in Germany almost to a complete halt.

More than 100,000 jobs were lost in the solar industry alone,

and as the energy transition slowed down,

Germany imported more fossil fuels from Russia than any other country.

And now we watch

as Vladimir Putin invades Ukraine.

Made possible by a fossil fuel war machinery

and paid for by countries like Germany.

Fossil fuels don't only take lives and livelihoods

and destroy our climate.

They empower autocrats everywhere to start wars, to threaten democracies,

and to threaten energy systems in places like Germany

and across the globe onto their knees.

I grew up in a world where fossil fuels, one way or the other,

would protect our democracies, our economies and our peace.

Yet the truth is,

in the 21st century,

we need to understand fossil fuels

as a single great threat to our democracies,

our economies, and our peace.

So what can be the role of fossil fuel industries in the 21st century?

To the fossil fuel executives, the boards,

the shareholders and everyone attached,

the messages are quite simple:

stop expanding fossil fuels

and stop lying to us about that.

Yet maybe we shouldn't trust those messages to reach the right people

in the short amount of time we have left.

So there are other messages for everyone else.

Number one,

if fossil fuel industries don't listen

when people and science tell them to get out of fossil fuels,

they should not be listened to

when they tell us more fairy tales about wanting to be part of the solution.

Number two,

if fossil fuel industries don't stop the destruction of livelihoods,

especially in the most affected places,

they need to be stopped by us.

And number three,

if fossil fuel industries get to make the rules

about the transition we so desperately need,

we will not get that transition.

These rules will have to be made by the people

so they can ever be just and ever be on time.

And they will have to be informed by the science

that luckily today tells us everything that we need to know.

So this is a call for the people everywhere,

for the normal people to stop their normal lives

and start beginning to build a new tomorrow

so that at some point we can have a new normal again.

That new tomorrow,

it won't be built for those who have brought us into this entire mess,

whom we have no reason to trust

and who wish to sit at the same table as we do,

but will never sit at our side.

It will be built for everyone else.

It will put people over profits

and lives over fossil fuels.

It will be just,

and it will be safe after all.

So I'd say, let's get to work.

Thank you.

(Applause)