Yolanda Kakabadse’s work with the environmental conservation movement officially began in 1979, when she was appointed Executive Director of Fundación Natura in Quito, where she worked until 1990. In 1993, she created Fundacion Futuro Latinoamericano, an organization dedicated to promote the sustainable development of Latin America through conflict prevention and management. She was the Executive President until 2006 and remains as Chair of the Advisory Board. From 1990 until 1992, Yolanda Kakabadse coordinated the participation of civil society organizations for the United Nations Conference for Environment and Development (Earth Summit). From 1996 to 2004 she was President of the World Conservation Union (IUCN), President of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) 2010-17, and Member of the Board of the World Resources Institute (WRI) during the same period. Yolanda was appointed Minister of Environment for the Republic of Ecuador, position she held from 1998 until 2000. She is a Member of the Board of Arabesque, and Chairs the Independent Science and Technology Panel of Fundacion Renova in Brazil. Yolanda is also a Member of the Board of Sistema B and the B Team.
ONE PLANET · THE CREATIVE PROCESS
Are we are adequately preparing young people to be climate literate? And giving young people proper training so that everyone is involved and no one is left behind?
YOLANDA KAKABADSE
I think universities are doing much better today. I used to be so depressed some 30, 40 years ago. Where I still get depressed is at primary and secondary school level. One of the reasons why we haven't been able to overcome many of the climate crisis factors is because people don't understand what it means. What is it about? What can I do? Usually, when we hear these experts speak about the climate crisis, at least me, I don't understand 9/10ths of the speech or the document. Simplifying the message, allowing that difficult scientific knowledge to become popular language that I can use when explaining to a child, to a rural person, to someone who has a different type of education, that knows much more about the planet but not necessarily about university, explaining those difficult issues will make a difference. And we have to invest much more in that. Speaking difficult scientific language is not helpful to the majority of society.
ONE PLANET · THE CREATIVE PROCESS
Going back to public-private partnerships, how can we accelerate to meet our targets? Do you feel that decarbonization targets can be met without close collaborations with the private sector? Will digital technologies make a difference in capabilities and efficiency of smart cities smart? How will we meet our targets?
KAKABADSE
No sector will do it alone. All sectors need to work together. Now I want to make a clear division here between producers and consumers. Few are producers, all of us are consumers. So we all have to participate in how we produce, what we produce and that means from infrastructure for a city to the way that a road is designed or that a marketplace builds its operations. To do it in a responsible way, in a sustainable way, you need the contribution of all. What I love about society today is that the normal citizen has access to information today that he didn't have very few years ago. And that information is telling the consumer “Watch out, you should not consume this because it damages the environment in some way or another.” And the consumer is taking action.
ONE PLANET · THE CREATIVE PROCESS
We are living in the Century of the City. Cities are the main drivers of creativity and innovation, and consume 75% of the world's natural resources and account for 70% of global carbon dioxide emissions. Many communities living in cities have little idea what their future is going to look like when it comes to housing, transport, climate, resource and waste management, food, pollution. What do you envision for our cities?
KAKABADSE
I would say that it's one of the most difficult challenges that humanity has–addressing the urban problems. Basically, because you cannot change a city from one day to the other, but I think that the starting point has to be change the citizen. And being a citizen has a lot of implications because the moment you realize you are a citizen you also need to accept that you have to be active, that you have to be an agent of change. We cannot expect this city to change, if the citizens don't want to mobilize an agenda to push for something, to request changes, to participate. I think the word participation is absolutely key. And we find in Latin America and in all continents that very often we have governments that curtail the capacity of citizens to be active, that tell the population to wait for a change, to be passive, to let the government do their job. And that's absolutely wrong because government is the one that defines court, the game that the citizens are going to play. And that game is called defining the rules of the game and allowing the citizens to be active participants of change.
This interview was conducted by Mia Funk & Sydney Field with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producer on this podcast was Sydney Field. Digital Media Coordinator is Phoebe Brous.
Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).
