00:01Our next and final keynote speech will be from Jacqueline McGlade.

00:07Jacqueline is head of the European Environmental Agency.

00:11And before I introduce her fully, I'd like to run a short video, which begins to tell the story of her work.

00:19She's amazing.

00:21But let's see the video, please.

00:24(Music playing)

00:33The last 10,000 years have been one of the most stable climate periods in the history of the earth.

00:39It has been a time when average temperatures have rarely strayed beyond one degree centigrade.

00:45And in this Nirvana, humans have developed a technology regime that is dependent on this stability.

00:53Straying out of this zone, by even one degree centigrade, matters.

01:01But now our climate is getting warmer.

01:04We are producing more greenhouse gasses than ever before…

01:07…and this is moving us off any safe pathway and into a future unlike anything we have experienced before.

01:18Scientific studies are showing us that we are fast approaching the two-degree world…

01:23…which is one degree warmer than today...

01:25…a planet on which dangerous climate change is almost certain to happen.

01:31It is in remote locations such as the Arctic where climate change is having its biggest impact...

01:38…the highest and fastest temperature change, and where the effects will have the biggest global impact.

01:46The latest data show that the net loss of mass from the Greenland Ice Sheet is accelerating…

01:51…much faster than predicted by the International Panel Of Climate Change.

01:56Last year alone, there were 50 more melting days on the ice sheet…

02:00…than on average, meaning we now see a net loss of mass of 200 gigatons...

02:06…a level that is four times higher than back in the year 2000.

02:21The accelerated melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet now means that our estimates…

02:26…of a minimum global sea level rise by the end of the century have had to be reestimated…

02:32…at 90 centimeters compared to 16 centimeters just three years ago.

02:39And this is at the low end of the global sea level rise that we can expect.

02:52With the pathway of increasing global warming, the future is likely to be very different.

02:58There will be huge challenges and changes.

03:02Ice sheets will have become unstable.

03:07Many species will have become extinct.

03:14Ocean warming and acidification will bring the death of 80 percent of the world's coral reefs.

03:21Global temperature increases are joined by the mounting threats of population growth, soil loss, and aquifer depletion.

03:31Agriculture will no longer be reliable, and people will start to move to regions where food is still available.

03:46We are now entering a new reality called the Anthropocene...

03:50…a geological era in which human activities are changing planetary processes.

03:55We need to think in a completely different way if we are to avoid gambling with the future of the human race.

04:01Inaction is a luxury we can no longer afford, because now even one degree matters.

04:18(Applause)

04:26Amazing. Jacqueline McGlade.

04:30Jacqueline is head of this agency, but she has a long, distinguished career…

04:34…in other organizations both in the UK and across Europe…

04:38…and was originally an academic researcher by training.

04:43It's not all doom and gloom, is it, Jacqueline?

04:45No, no. No.

04:46You going to tell us about that?

04:47I'm going to tell you, yeah.

04:48Okay. Good.

04:49Thank you, Jack. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone.

04:53And thank you, Jack, for the privilege of being able to come here…

04:56…and share with you some of the work of the agency.

05:00It is a very gloomy picture, and one which I hope that we can mitigate.

05:06And we're going to do that, I think, collectively, by giving people information…

05:10…that will enable them to act, that will enable them to feel secure in the future…

05:15…and behave in a way which is meaningful for their personal lives and meaningful for society.

05:21One of the ways the agency has done that is, in fact, to take us very much from today's setting…

05:28…where we have to change and the world is changing around us to one where we find inspiration…

05:34…in stories from people all around the world who are reacting more and more quickly…

05:40…but whose shared intelligence we can use to solve some of our local problems.

05:46About three years ago, we started a program with UNEP and with European Space Agency.

05:51And the idea was to make a living testament of people who were genuinely using their wisdom…

05:57…and reacting to change and to share those experiences with others around the world.

06:03The first story is up in the north in Lapland, in the Swedish part.

06:08And it's about the reindeer herders. Reindeer herders are extremely resilient people.

06:15They have a world in which they are able to resist enormous changes and fluctuations in storms.

06:21But over the last few years, those same reindeer herders have been finding it increasingly difficult to survive.

06:27In fact, the reindeer herds have had up to 90-percent mortality rates…

06:33…because as the warming days and the freezing days go through the winter…

06:38…it makes it increasingly difficult for the reindeer to actually break through to find the lichen that they feed on.

06:45One family, though, is very, very successful. The two sons...one on the left...has an MBA from Harvard...

06:51…one on the right is an experienced engineer.

06:54Together with their father, have been able to make sure that their herds have survived.

06:59And they've done that literally in a landscape which is as severe as any I can image people living in.

07:07They've done it because of this man, their father.

07:09[Unintelligible] is about 89 years old, as far as we can tell.

07:14And he has the wisdom of many decades where he remembered places where they used to take the reindeer…

07:20…up onto the sides of the valley where the freezing and thawing was not so bad…

07:26…and where now, in fact, he can secure the future for his reindeer herds.

07:31So it is very likely that by sharing this knowledge of the old ways and where they used to herd…

07:37…and take reindeer that this particular way of life will be able to survive in the future.

07:43Our next story takes us at the same latitude that really moves us to the east into Russia.

07:52Here the story is quite different. It's one of drought.

07:56And you can see in this picture already islands emerging…

07:59…in the middle of what are major rivers connecting the five oceans.

08:04And what the city has had to do, in fact, is to already renegotiate the shipping lanes…

08:09…to secure what are very vital links from north to south.

08:15What they're looking at are innovative ways of not simply dredging…

08:18…but actually trying to find new shipping lanes that will take them around the different problems.

08:24A more inspirational story about living can't be found, I think, other than here in the Netherlands.

08:30People have decided that living on water, and certainly architects and engineers…

08:34…is more stable than living on soil which has been inundated with marine waters.

08:40You get not only stability but you get energy from water, and you also get your drinking water.

08:46So already, we can see large areas inside Rotterdam and other places…

08:50…creating these wonderful living spaces where people travel to and fro each other by boat.

08:56And in the future, we can already see some of our architects, French architects and others…

09:01…designing places to live that are out into the coastal areas, that can actually float.

09:08But we have other stories about climate.

09:11After the collapse of the Soviet Union, some of the places, particularly in Georgia…

09:15…were left with a desolate, desolate future where there was no fuel.

09:20And so they ripped up all the hedgerows and actually removed the possibility of the windbreaks.

09:26And along with that, then, came a massive shift in the landscape.

09:30And what had been the wheat basket of Russia very quickly became a place of very low productivity.

09:39The wheat was very stunted and, simply, it did not survive and did not sustain the populations there.

09:46And there were successive failures.

09:49And then two men came along and they looked at the maps…

09:52…and they looked at the wind direction and they looked and where the water was.

09:56And very carefully, they reconstructed the hedgerows…

09:59…and in the space on only 5 years that productivity went back up again…

10:03…10 times what it had been only 10 years before.

10:07So the wheat basket of Europe was once again reestablished.

10:13The final story has very much a similar style to our coffee story, but it's one of a reengagement, I guess…

10:21…with the landscape, in a very ancient landscape in Italy…

10:25…where a valley had been almost left with nobody in it.

10:30And three men decided to retake the valley and to reengage…

10:36…but taking climate change into account, knowing how little water there was, thinking about what they could grow.

10:42And more importantly, making themselves not only fossil fuel-free…

10:46…but also carbon negative, absorbing more carbon on the farm than they actually used.

10:53They put in solar power, they have actually done tremendous things with soil.

10:58So the soil actually traps more carbon.

11:01And they've created a whole new business model, taking their food that they produce directly to the customer…

11:07…and then also creating a wonderful set in which more than 150 people are employed, and so on.

11:14And these three brothers, I think, show us that by adapting to climate change now…

11:19…you can create a future which is not only prosperous but also very beneficial and sustainable.

11:25So these are some of the stories that we like to share.

11:28And they are inspirational.

11:29There are many of them on our website, and I hope that you'll take an opportunity to look at them.

11:34But we would like more stories.

11:35We want to capture those ideas which can be transplanted all over the world and used by others in similar situations.

11:44So who are we?

11:45The audience, I'm sure, has thought very much about the idea of an agency.

11:49But the European Environment Agency is very different from pretty much any other one in the world.

11:54We're situated in Copenhagen, we have a dynamic team...200 people.

12:00We cover all areas of the environment…

12:02…including air quality, water, biodiversity, agriculture, transport, energy, it just goes on.

12:09And our job, really, is to make sure that countries do what they're supposed to do.

12:15We're sort of like a very nice police force or an audit.

12:19So we go along and say, well, yeah, you sent us the data…

12:22…and it looks as if it's working; or, you didn't, and we're going to ask you again.

12:27So we quality assure all the information that countries send regarding the environment.

12:32We started out with the European Union member states, we grew in advance of the new member states joining us…

12:40…and then we work now in the Balkans as our associate members.

12:44So collectively, together with the EFTA countries…

12:47…we have a membership of about 38 countries.

12:51We have a special agreement with Greenland.

12:53And then, in the last two years, we've taken on a neighborhood program, which means we work comprehensively in Russia…

13:00…out towards the caucusus, and through North Africa.

13:03So we're on the ground helping those countries really transform themselves.

13:08But jumping over, I would say, 30 years of environmental measurement…

13:13…and reporting into a completely new and novel way of working.

13:18What do we ask of our countries?

13:20Well, we ask them to send us information about biodiversity, about the quality of their soils, the quality of air.

13:28We ask them to genuinely make efforts to do more, to report on more things…

13:34…to give voluntary information, not only the compliance information.

13:40And over the years, we have found more and more that they have reached out for the spatial tools…

13:45…that we can now provide with Esri and others, and really trying to situate themselves in the minds of their citizens.

13:52And it truly has been a transformation of those countries.

13:56Yes, we have legislation.

13:58Many of you all know about the INSPIRE directive.

14:00We believe in quality assurance and trying to settle all the differences so that we have harmonized reporting.

14:07But at the root of it, Europe has to take account of not only what it does inside its own borders…

14:12…but the impact that we have on the rest of the world.

14:16So over the last two or three years…

14:17…the agency in Copenhagen has been tracking the resources that Europe uses outside of its borders.

14:24In fact, we use 5/6 of our resources that come from outside of our own borders.

14:32So we are tremendously dependent on those countries…

14:35…where we actually derive our rare earths, our timber, our food, and so on.

14:41So part of our mandate, I guess, and part of our role…

14:45…is now to become part of the global nexus of how information flows around the world...

14:50…to quality assure it and to assess the impact.

14:56But that's very much documenting the past.

14:59Talking about statistics, talking about what people have done in the past...

15:02…it's important, it's about holding governments to account...

15:06…but, as I said at the very beginning, the world is changing very, very quickly.

15:11And so we're having to introduce, almost overnight, a completely different way of viewing the environment...

15:16…one which is actually going to be about early warning systems, about how quickly is the ice cap melting.

15:23And so we have proposals that look at having a maintained platform out in the Arctic…

15:30…that will be one of the most sophisticated drilling and positional ships…

15:35…that will tell us how thick the ice sheet is throughout the year.

15:39We'll link this to a program of global monitoring for environment and security.

15:44This is Europe's contribution to the global environment observing systems.

15:48And that's important because we need to connect our space observations…

15:52…with what's actually happening on the skin of the earth.

15:56And to do that, we're also involving ourselves in sensors.

16:01Now here I have a little sensor, and it's sort of quite interesting.

16:05I think somebody's supposed to come and look at it.

16:07Oh yeah, there you are, you can see.

16:08So, the problem with most things in the environment is they're very expensive.

16:12That ship, I can tell you, will cost eight zero, maybe zero million Euros.

16:19This costs about eight Euros. No, maybe a little bit more, but not much more.

16:24But what it does is transform our view of how people…

16:29…ourselves, can really monitor the environment very cheaply.

16:33We have already put some of these in place to calibrate against the very expensive instruments.

16:38And I guess that's the challenge before us…

16:41…so that we can look at carbon monoxide, which is important for detection of fires.

16:46We can look at carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases, really important in our fight against climate change.

16:53And these, I think, are the future…connecting these in remote places, but even in our cities, in our homes…

16:59…to enable people to participate in the monitoring of the environment.

17:04What we've done is put them next to our beehives.

17:06We've become honey producers in the middle of the city of Copenhagen.

17:11I could always tell you a little story about honey produced in cities…

17:13…which is much cleaner than honey produced in the countryside, because there are no pesticides.

17:18Anyway, our little bees go backwards and forwards, and occasionally they go near to the instruments.

17:22So we also want to see what that means.

17:24But these are fascinating things.

17:26And people in urban settings are intrigued at the fact that they can tell us a lot more…

17:31…than currently they are receiving from the official data.

17:35So we see a future which is completely embedded with sensors…

17:40…with instruments that are telling us from the depths of the ocean using the Argo buoys…

17:45…which go down and come up to the surface and then transmit to our satellite tracking…

17:49…to very sophisticated additional monitoring that we put on the fleet of airplanes…

17:55…that go through the troposphere and upwards…

17:57…together with many other platforms that we're launching with our colleagues in the US...

18:03…but also with Russia with Roscosmos.

18:06We will see an enormous step up, terabytes of data that will be available to us to use…

18:13…to be able to not only locate changes but to translate them into meaningful policies…

18:18…for citizens and also for decision makers.

18:22We'll also go literally from outer space right down to the bottom of the ocean.

18:26And these are live networks of stations which are down…

18:31…which are around the oil and gas fields, but also have many, many other reasons.

18:34We want to understand the deep, bathymetric currents because they do affect climate change.

18:40And finally, up in the mountains where we can actually see the most rapid climate change…

18:47…we also want to understand what's happening.

18:50So the role of the agency in this particular setting is to connect the in situ monitoring…

18:56…with the space-based observation, connect it in a way to the past reporting…

19:02…and then tell people, Why does it matter? What's actually going to happen?

19:07So I'm going to take us now into a new regime, a new world of working.

19:12One where it's not always the official data that would hold sway when it comes to changing people's minds.

19:18And for that, I'm going to ask my colleague Jan Bilki to join me.

19:23Jan, some of you might know, has been with the agency for a very long time…

19:27…much longer than me, and is in charge of our mapping and spatial dynamics.

19:32So, Jan. What he's got for us here…

19:37Well, he's got a fan club, I know.

19:41I'm going to come back to the first one, Eye on Earth, because that's another platform we're going to talk about.

19:45But let's go across to the next one.

19:48So what you see here is a display of our map services and our data service.

19:51We really are trying to make it very easy for people to lock in to different applications and maps and so on.

19:59So we cover biodiversity, air quality, water quality, and so on.

20:04Many, many different subjects.

20:06But I'm going to take us into the ozone.

20:09So for each one of these, there's an introductory video…

20:12…tells you what's there and explains very much why you should be interested in what's there.

20:17And our sort of 50-odd applications cover many, many different aspects.

20:21Why are you interested in ozone, you might ask?

20:23Well, if you have a breathing disorder, you definitely want to know about ozone.

20:27It's one of the most lethal things around…

20:29…and certainly near-ground ozone is something which comes along with heat waves.

20:34So we have already seen a very, very strong user community…

20:38…within the medical world asking us for early warnings of ozone.

20:43What you see here, then, are the outcome of approximately 100,000 measurements a day.

20:49Now these are not required through legislation.

20:52Countries in Europe are only requested to report on exceedances in the summer.

20:57But through a process of about three years, we've been able to persuade countries…

21:01…this is a very, very good thing if they actually inform citizens…

21:05…about what's happening on the day regarding ozone.

21:09And this is coming from cities, it's coming from local authorities…

21:12…it's coming from many people.

21:14And in fact, these sensors could also tell us about ozone as well.

21:19What you can see, of course, are the little stations, those little squares.

21:23And then, the kind of purple cover above it are the outcomes from the model.

21:27But now, if we were running it, you could actually see, in the sort of time sequence…

21:33…how that model changes over a period of time of one day.

21:39What you can see on the right-hand side is that there are layers from the model and also from the stations.

21:46And if we go into a station, this is probably one of the most important things…

21:50…that we really adhere to, and that's the idea of authentication.

21:54Authoritative data. We fundamentally believe that the role of the agency…

21:58…is to make sure that people can trust the data that they find with the agency's logo or on our website.

22:05So for example, there's an identifier, who's produced it, where the station is…

22:10…and here's a time series for that particular station itself.

22:14So data tagging, data sourcing, is extremely important for us.

22:20Now, there's been an awful lot of talk about different devices, and we're one of the group…

22:25…also that believe in switching across to…away from desktops onto mobile devices.

22:30And for that we've spent some time developing applications on iPhones, iPads, Androids, and so on.

22:38What we're going to show you here are the possibilities that come with that particular approach.

22:43And I'm going to select one first of all, it's called LIFE, for those of you who don't know it…

22:48…and if you're not European, you may not.

22:49But it's one of the major funding streams that we've had, particularly for the environment.

22:55So we have a lot of bureaucrats.

22:57They sit sometimes in Brussels and they want to know where they've spent their money.

23:01So we've been very, very clear that one of their demands on us is to give them…

23:06…a very easy and accessible way that they can find out where money has been spent in the past…

23:12…and if they're going to put some more money into the region…

23:14…is it going to have additional benefits to their previous investments.

23:19So you can go to the Life program, you can see the detail.

23:22But they can also overlay that with, perhaps, a specialist layer about biodiversity.

23:28So we have some legislation called Natura 2000.

23:31And this is a very, very important piece of legislation to protect biodiversity…

23:36…habitats, endangered species, and so on.

23:40So countries have set out across their territories…

23:43…large areas which are to be protected and monitored under Article 17.

23:48And this, again, helps the people who are doing funding…

23:51…together with countries to see where those investments are going…

23:54…in relation to other areas that they have actually put under protection.

24:00The final one is a very interesting activity. It's producing an urban atlas.

24:04It comes from our [Unintelligible] cover work…

24:07…and it is probably one of the most dynamic atlases that we have. It's used by everybody.

24:13It's used by planners, it's used by geographers, it's used by farmers.

24:18Because what we have seen in Europe is this enormous urbanization…

24:24…where over a 10-year period, the same size of Belgium has been laid under concrete.

24:29And it continues year upon year.

24:32And this has very serious consequences for us in climate change terms.

24:36So knowing where and how different parts of the urban setting are being affected is extremely important.

24:43So we have a lot of availability.

24:45And one of the things that we're intrigued about is, what do people do?

24:49What are they using it for, and who is using it?

24:52So we have a service provider mentality in the agency…

24:57…and we would very much like you to become familiar with our data service.

25:03We have, of course, built it around ArcGIS Online. It provides maps and apps.

25:09We think we've got about 80-plus different map services available…

25:14…and each one of them, then, in this kind of book process, is available not only for your use but for many others.

25:20We use them ourselves for our own work, but we make these really available for others.

25:25So in a very simple way, people can come in and out of these services and download all the datasets…

25:31…and make up their own kinds of data and services for their own uses.

25:38What we then found was that it was possible for us, using a kind of a heat map…

25:44…to really look at ArcGIS Server activity. And here you can see a heat map.

25:49The dates were actually on the 16th of June for three hours. And what you get are 10-minute slots.

25:57And in that 10-minute slot, you see all the different datasets that are being downloaded.

26:03It's a phenomenal number of downloads.

26:05We are absolutely blown away by how many people are downloading maps.

26:11You can see on the right-hand side a little graph about, you know, which topics and which areas.

26:15And usually if we launch a report then you see, you know, a big upsurge in interest.

26:19But we can usually anticipate what's coming out in today's newspapers…

26:25…because people are already downloading information just to check up what's in the newspapers.

26:30So it's a very, very good early warning device for policy makers and for politicians.

26:35But it is fascinating, because you can see what's interesting the public of Europe on any one day at any one time.

26:42So I think that, you know, when you're up in the order of millions of people…

26:46…490 million people who we're trying to serve, this is a very encouraging sign…

26:51…that people are genuinely interested in having information at their fingertips.

26:56So thank you very much, Jan.

26:59That's always the nerve-racking bit on the live…

27:07So now I'd like to come to really the last part, and perhaps the most exciting.

27:12It's all very well producing maps. We have a duty of care on content.

27:18But it's pretty obvious to, I think, everybody in this room that we just don't have enough money…

27:23…and neither do we want the legislation to force this, to really get people engaged…

27:28…and talking about what is happening in the environment worldwide.

27:32And so, as with many others, we have gone into the business of looking at citizen science…

27:38…looking at lay, local knowledge, traditional knowledge, and seeing how we can bridge the gap…

27:43…between traditional knowledge, for example, on the one hand, western science…

27:48…and what citizens really feel they can contribute through a professional way or through a semi or an amateur way.

27:54And so we really have now embraced the idea of bringing citizen science into mainstream reporting on the environment.

28:03We have in Europe something called the shared environment information system. It is truly innovative.

28:08It forces countries to recognize that they have a duty of care. It feeds into e-government, but it needs to be supported.

28:16And we see that the support comes not only in IT and applications, and so on, and software…

28:22…but it also comes by engaging the population and training the population…

28:27…to become a large group of people who know what's going on around them.

28:32And this will be imperative when we think about climate change in the future.

28:36So, I always believe in walking the talk…

28:39…and so we sent our staff off into the field to find out what it's like to be a citizen scientist.

28:46And they went out and participated in many different projects through Earthwatch, a fantastic organization.

28:52But there are many others that take ordinary people and, over a space of a week or two…

28:58…literally convert them into scientists, gathering data, monitoring data…

29:03…and bringing that back in a very considered and structured way.

29:07And now we're using those data to inform ourselves about many things to do with biodiversity…

29:12…to do with water, to do with forestry, and so on.

29:15So these are really important life skills, and it's a kind of thing which many of us, I think, should do more of…

29:21…just to simply experience what it's like to be in nature and to realize the changes that are going on around us.

29:29So citizen science needs a home.

29:32I've offered that home, I think, to many groups who are out there monitoring…

29:36…invasive alien species all the way through.

29:40But of course, there'll be people who are not particularly interested in…

29:43…you know, literally doing a sort of two-week holiday.

29:47But they do really see that they want to participate in a meaningful way.

29:53And so to legitimize and, in fact, to democratize information, we've created the Eye on Earth platform.

30:00We've done this with Microsoft, now with Esri we'll be doing more.

30:04And it really is, I think, for me, one of the big steps forward.

30:09We used the cloud because we could see already three years ago…

30:12…that we needed to move that whole way of thinking into a very different mode of interaction.

30:18And we anticipated the traffic would be very high.

30:22What you see, then, is effectively a way where on the one hand we have in the little histograms…

30:29…the official data, the data that we talked about earlier, that is mandated by countries on ozone…

30:34…for example, LOX, SOX, and so on.

30:37And on the right-hand side, in a semantic or restricted set of language…

30:42…we have the possibility for citizens to tell us what they think.

30:46Now, it does two things. First of all, it tells us that people are interested. We get a lot of responses back.

30:53People can do it in their local neighborhood.

30:55They can use social media to then translate that into what their friends are going to do for the day.

30:59They're going to go to the beach. What are we going to do?

31:02But it also tells us that crowdsourcing is a very effective way of validating…

31:08…some of the "authoritative" data from countries.

31:12And this is really important, because I'm often asked, How can you possibly use crowdsourcing?

31:19Well, with enough observations and without using, I might say, a cynical view…

31:24…the power of the crowd, it is possible to see that we can detect…

31:29…when stations are not monitoring things correctly.

31:32So we see that there are three kind of communities here.

31:35There is the authoritative quality assurance that comes through the reporting of countries.

31:40There is the semiprofessional citizen scientist…

31:43…who is engaged in monitoring invasive alien species, maybe air quality, maybe water quality, and so on.

31:49And then there are basically citizens…490 million people who just want to tell us what they think.

31:56And so they actually interact in a very interesting way, because we do this in 32 languages.

32:02It means that people can, on the fly, see what people are saying…

32:06…in the same place and really have an engagement as to the quality of their neighborhood.

32:11These are all watches…air watch, water watch, nature watch, noise watch.

32:17And these are really the things that people are bothered by.

32:20We'll probably even have a waste watch soon, I think.

32:24So, if you have a gripe, you want to tell us about it, you can do it.

32:28And that's very important that people see that there's a way to tell us and for us to communicate back.

32:34And this is the engagement that we're looking for now…

32:37…with our local authorities and with governments across the world…

32:40…not just simply in that kind of nice, cozy circle of the European Union.

32:47So let me finish, then, by really taking us to perhaps an even more extreme setting.

32:55Many of the things that we want to know about in the world are in remote regions.

33:00And we need to know about them very quickly. We can't afford to wait.

33:04If you go to the Arctic, if you have the opportunity to go to Greenland…

33:08…you will realize that the world is changing at an incredibly fast rate.

33:13So one of the things that we're very keen to do, putting together all of these pictures…

33:20…is to recognize the power of people who, working together, can actually create a possible, sustainable future…

33:29…can avert disasters, can create the right sort of hazard maps, can inform their businesses…

33:35…so they're not left somewhat without insurance or exposed, and actually have in their hands…

33:43…whether it's on a mobile platform or on their desktop, the way to make the right decision in the future…

33:48…whether it's by copying somebody else, getting their own sensor…

33:52…having the right digital terrain map, whatever it is.

33:55Because we need to empower people to do that.

33:59We also need to recognize that in the remote regions, much of this is not available.

34:04And so we need…actually, we need people.

34:06We need communities to tell us about what is going to happen.

34:11So we have started a program of eyewitness citizen scientists and citizens and communities.

34:18And here are two of our wonderful people.

34:21On the left, we have [Unintelligible]. He is a Penan tribesman…

34:24…he's a nomadic hunter, lives in the highlands and uplands in Borneo.

34:32And what he has observed over the last 10 years…

34:34…is that every animal that he hunts now requires twice the territory because the land is so dry.

34:42So he has to hunt for much longer to get food.

34:45And, more importantly, the animals now are straying into the areas of where the palm oil plantations are.

34:52So his life has become actually quite dangerous on a regular basis.

34:55Not because of the animals but because of where he has to go to gather the food to survive.

35:01And at the other extreme, up in Greenland, we have Adam, who is a marvelous observer.

35:07In fact, it's down to him that we know how much ice is being lost…

35:10…from the Greenland Ice Sheet, because he goes out every single day.

35:15So it's people like these, authenticated, in continuous contact with us…

35:22…what is happening and how quickly we will have to react in the future to avoid catastrophic climate change.

35:28And we can, and many of the solutions lie within the stories that I've been telling today.

35:34But let me introduce Adam.

35:36He has a short story to tell you, and I'd like you just to listen for a few moments to that.

35:43Each time I come back to the big ice, that for me is the big things of my mind…

35:50…because constant water running from the face down to the bottom.

35:55This is very scary for me. It's like to see melting of the heart of the man.

36:02We have a big, big surprise when we come back last year.

36:07Like the smell of the gases come to the surface. It's like methane gas.

36:12This is like organic material coming from the bottom of the ice and the smell of like a pig farmer.

36:22Each day when I come back to the glacier, I make my small exploration and like a small scientist.

36:31So I take some documentation to take picture and take some measure so I can see.

36:36I have a lot of data I can give for more information like my…from my own experience.

36:47So I'd like to leave you with that thought from Adam…

36:50…and all the other eyewitness accounts that are coming in from across the planet…

36:54…to tell us what's actually happening in those people's daily lives.

36:57What's important is that they know where they are.

37:00They know their position on Planet Earth, they know where they are on the surface.

37:03And I hope that our agency in Copenhagen can serve them well…

37:07…by giving the information that they need to talk about the changes that they will encounter…

37:12…as well as using their wise…and their wisdom, I would say, to help us all learn how we’re going to adapt in the future.

37:19Thank you, and thank you for your time. Thank you.

37:29That's great. One moment.

37:33Do you have any special messages that you'd like these people to do?

37:36Build me apps wherever you can.

37:41It would be just wonderful to get as many people engaged in telling their stories…

37:46…and actually being able to position them somewhere on the planet.

37:49That would be really fantastic. And if you've got an idea, we can probably send a film crew out.

37:54Good. Thank you, Jack.

37:55You're really a great leader.

37:57Thank you. You inspire me.

37:58Thank you. Thank you.

37:59I want to step aside and let you take over.

38:02Thank you very much, Jack.