The Think Wildlife Podcast
Episode 71: She Changes Climate with Bianca Pitt
In this episode of a Think While Life podcast, I enjoy a pianza pet who is the co-founder of She Changes Clement. This is a global movement advocating for the inclusion and diversity at all levels of decision-making to address the climate crisis and shape a sustainable future for all. Tune in to listen more about all the great work this organization is doing to help tackle the climate crisis. Welcome to the podcast, thanks for your time, it's a pleasure to have you on here. So my first question for you is, why did you start To Changes Clement? Thank you very much for having me today, Anish and for inviting me to come and speak on your podcast to your audience. Why did we start She Changes Clement? It started in October 2020 when the original COP team for COP26, that was the conference of the parties that was hosted in Glasgow by the UK was announced. And we found that there wasn't a single woman on that leadership team that the UK had chosen for this conference now. Why does it matter that we have women on the leadership team for these conferences? What happens is if we don't have the full view of 100% of the world's population and women do make up 50% of the world's population. Represented at these climate negotiations, which will ultimately decide on all our future and our children's future, then we have a huge problem. Why is that? Because women's experience, vision and perception differs quite significantly from men's experience and perception and also vision. And that is simply because of socio-economic cultural reasons. Our experience, I'm speaking as a woman now, is rather different to that of other people, men in this case, on the planet. You know, why we are too to look after children and the well-being of future generations. We face significant struggles in the workforce and often women instead work in the community. 75% of unpaid care work is delivered by women. And their view absolutely matters and is important. What was my, how on earth did I get to set this up? Now, at the time I was working as an advisor, strategic advisor on the boards of various charities, environmental charities, including charities such as client earth and the environmental funders network. Also action for conservation and the sustainable angle. And I had set up a network of my own. And this network is called the women of the environment network. It's an informal group. We just communicate on WhatsApp. And we're about 90 women around the world, CEOs, founders of charities and foundations, female environmental philanthropists and influencers. And you can imagine the outcry that went through that group of highly qualified women who are working on climate biodiversity and pollution and waste around the world tirelessly. Some of the most highly ranked women in the sector that, you know, our kind had been forgotten and hadn't been invited to join this team. We set up, she changes climate, originally with the intention to sort this out. I thought probably naively that with a few conversations behind the scene, we could get the team fixed. And to our complete surprise, and despite us sending a list of candidates for this role. The UK government did not amend the team. And we hosted this conference without without and that is really interesting, you know, because that obviously impacts the results without women. Both advising on the agenda, you know, deciding at the negotiating table and leading negotiations. And also without them giving their experience and their expertise on how to shape climate policy and policy implementation. So what happens on barriers to female involvement in climate action. So I think women are actually taking, you know, they are taking action on the ground and it was really important to us that we highlight the work of women as solution race. Someone called them the sort of radar system of the world. And I would agree to that. Because women often work in the community, I'm very close to the community. They are obviously the ones who see climate change happening right now. They are the ones who bear the brunt of climate change unfortunately. They are, for example, 80% of people who become homeless are from climate disasters are women. They look, you know, they look after the elderly, they look after the young and they don't have anywhere to go typically. So women, I would say, are first and foremost the ones who who have to implement climate policy and have to take climate action on the ground. Now what we want to do is get them represented, not just at the ground, but have them really in international climate negotiations so that they can shape the policy at the very beginning. Who are some prominent women leaders tackling the tree planetary crisis. We've got a lot is made about, you know, we talk about women here in the West and I always point to our sisters in the global south because why the global south is much harder affected because simply the money is not there for adaptation measures and, and loss at the moment. And there are some tremendous women, where do I start right so I want to start really with indigenous people, why the most biodiverse regions of the world are, are looked after by indigenous people they are really the sort of best in practice essentially the leaders on biodiversity conservation and management, and we should look to them for their ideas and their practice. One person I'm, you know, we have amazing youth activists around the world indigenous youth activists, for example she have a steeda. At also so tiny is someone who I hugely respect as founder of unprecedented of Amazon watch and she's also leading the secret headquarters initiative in the Amazon. You know, I'm particularly excited always to see how many young women are taking leadership roles are raising their voices around the world. For example, the Arctic angels are a terrific force an advocacy group for the ice regions around the world because the, as we know the ice is melting fast. And that doesn't only affect the ice regions themselves but of course effects where the patterns all around the planet. And these young women, the Arctic angels have taken it upon themselves to talk about this, whether they're in the deepest, deepest, you know, desert region of a deepest, desert region within Africa or Australia or India, or up in the Arctic doesn't matter. They are ambassadors for these, you know, for these regions that should be global commons and should be looked after and carefully preserved by everyone around the world. These people that really it's it's the young it's it's indigenous people and then it is people, of course also in the global north that have been working on on climate policy and have been working on policy implementation, scientists, politicians, writers. This doesn't really matter who you are and what your profession is you can do your bit for the environment you can be one of those leading voices as a woman. And I was careful not to name anyone in particular because I mean they're literally thousands where to start a letter to cop 27 was signed by over 1000 leaders from around the world. There were so few men amongst them which is great. And you know I read many of them very highly, and of course I didn't know every single one of them but what I can say is there's a huge amount of talent out there and there's some amazing women out there wherever look. So you mentioned about the lack of women representation at cop 26, but you're organizing didn't much haven't event at cop 26. So, can you just talk about this event a little bit more. Yeah, thank you. It was important for us to show a presence at cop we wanted to show the presidency that we are not going away that as long as women aren't equally equally represented at the table as long as their voices aren't equally and they're not equally able to make decisions for the future of our world. We are going to be there and we're going to keep a presence and we're going to remind them of their duty towards the whole of humanity. And we decided we wanted to host a range of panel discussions, and we wanted to make sure that the people speaking came from all around the world that we really had good representation of people particularly from the Google South, which is so so so badly affected by climate change by biodiversity loss and also in particular pollution and waste. And I'm proud to say that we got a terrific group of people together this this was co managed and co created by a whole group of us. So people pitched in as volunteers, they bought in a contacts they reached out to their media contacts to make this day a huge success. And we were hugely proud to have to have at the end of this the year of this campaign over 154 million impressions on the worldwide web of the campaign and that is really thanks due to the network that worked on this so I on my own cannot in any way claim this is my my achievement I was one of the actors, but by no means the only actor. And what we always say this is only as good as the input from every single one of us so so everyone you know we want to invite everybody to come and work on the she changes climate campaign it was created as a as a ownerless campaign that meant it did not have an owner, we wanted others to take this she changes climate idea and create the she changes climate days. And we really wanted to start by doing our own ad cop 26. Prior to cop 26, you guys ran a countdown to cop 26 podcast series. So we'll just talk about this podcast series and what do you go then how was it received. Yeah, we wanted to this was basically an art project and we said this was was created by the she changes climate collective. We got 26 voices of women around the world who had not been invited to either lead a delegation or, you know, sit at the, the top decision making tables. And these missing voices you know of course that the many more than 26 hundreds and thousands of missing voices at the moment. You know, we just wanted to give them a forum, a place to be heard we created a sound installation at cop 26 so that the people who came to the factory where we hosted the she changes climate day could come and listen to these voices under sound and I have to say, it was very haunting, you know, haunting in particular, perhaps because the largest group of attendees the largest lobby group was the fossil fuel industry at Glasgow. Unfortunately, they sent the most delegates even had if they work a country they would have been the largest delegation. And you know a lot of people ask us why, why do we even attend cop isn't you know hasn't cop shown now after 27 years of the reiteration that it is not achieving the results that it should achieve it's not delivering for humanity and it's certainly not delivering for women. Let's say it is still important to be present at cop and why is that because it is our only mechanism at the moment it is our only international negotiation mechanism. And if we are not there, and in particular women are not there, then we really leave the field to the fossil fuel industry, and this is something we must not allow to happen. What are some other projects which are ongoing and she changes climate. We have currently support the focus this year is going to be on shining a light to on environmental defenders around the world. We started in the UK simply because one of the women of the environment members is so current she's one of the seven women who cracked the window at the Barclays headquarters. And has been found guilty for criminal damage. And is going to be sentenced this coming Friday the 27 January. Why is this relevant why is this important we're obviously at a historic threshold now you know people have to stand up or be quiet forever. It's a decision on where we want to be in history you know what legacy do we want to leave what do we want to be remembered for. And we think these women are very brave to stand up and speak up Barclays is amongst well it's the leading bank in Europe or fossil fuel. Funding they are funding fossil fuel exploration in the many billions. And someone has to talk about this because why obviously that leads to huge, huge damage around the world's loss of life, loss of livelihoods destruction of our ecosystems that belong to all of us. And this is the directors who make these decisions they go unpunished. We do not yet have a law such as ecocide that will be a crime in international law that we can use to prosecute directors of companies. But we think that this is coming and it is important for us therefore as a campaign to highlight the brave work of these women who are taking action. Starting in the UK but of course everywhere around the world because many of these environmental defenders are losing their lives at the moment, particularly in the global south where they have no political protection, you know protected by the media. And they're losing their lives for defending the ecosystem that they live in. And this is something this is work that we want to particularly highlight this year. And how can we as individuals contribute to increase inclusion and diversity in climate action. It's a very good question I mean the first thing I would say is to be mindful look, look around you and see whether you have a representation of the world's population on your team you know do you have men and women working together. If not, make sure you level up and make sure you get women on board. It's mostly women that are missing typically not necessarily men. They are women are everywhere they are usually quite outspoken, but you need to have a good good actually good majority of them of you on your team why because they tend to not speak up as that is older women younger women are more inclined to speak up, which is helpful and I'm hoping that that shows that we've got some cultural shift. I think that it is it's important to look at the board of companies so if you are an investor, if you're a shareholder, if you're in any way affiliated to a company or quite frankly if you're the customer of a business, have a look at their board. And if it is not balanced, why is not balanced question it, make sure you write to this company and tell them that you are only going to invest in them you're only going to buy their products or services. If they have actually also allowed this leadership team to reflect the world that we want to see and reflect the biodiversity that we all are on this planet. We've got to vote for women so it's important that we we don't give our, our vote just to men unfortunately with so conditioned culturally brainwashed basically that we typically think that men are the better leaders, even in countries such as Germany where I think Angela Merkel did a very good job I know she's kind of hugely criticized about her failure to to disconnect from Russia as the main source of energy. And she's rightly criticized for this but I do think still that she was a very good leader. Otherwise, and I think that, for example, just in the garden in New Zealand also has done a terrific job as a country leader. But the only 22 I think if I look if I'm correct and I remember from last time I looked at women leaders around the world political leaders, only 25% of our parliamentarians are women, and only a fifth of our ministers are women. And if you look at the footsy 100 CEOs only 7% of women, but most critically I would say only 2 to 3% of VC funding goes to women led teams. Now that's a shocking statistic right absolutely shocking. How can it be that we're not investing in the ideas in the leadership of women. And why, you know how we expecting to innovate away out of this climate crisis the biodiversity crisis the waste and pollution crisis, if we are not investing into 100% of humanity. We have to make sure that the money that we hand out. Let's give our investment managers even give to our pension funds is equally distributed into 100% of humanity. That is absolutely critical. If we want to indeed transform the system and build a sustainable future. And my final question for you is that what has been your biggest learning from Xi Jinping's climate. I think the biggest learning from me was that anyone can be a leader. I never thought of myself as a leader. I didn't think that was in some way maybe I had the dream of being a leader, and I wish I would be a leader. I just didn't have enough to be a leader, I was very risk averse and hated public speaking for example. And to my total surprise, even I have managed to set up a company set up an organization. And why is that how did I do that I did that with the help of two other women who were equally interested in putting those together. So, I realized that if one thinks that one isn't the leader on one's own, and it's a big call and a tall order to be a leader on one's own and in fact I very much question this so leadership. Anyway, this sort of pyramid scheme of leadership because how can one person alone have all the answers, how can one person's experience alone really bring the best results we see that where we have diversity. In decision making we just get better solutions right companies are more successful if they have a diverse board for example organizations are more successful if they have a diverse leadership. So, of course if you're a founder you are probably going to get better results if you are a co founder and you share the work of the founder with some others. I want to encourage in particular women to do and men and women to do together is to set up organizations together to innovate together and to become leaders together. We talk about radical collaboration you know we really nice the time it's not the time to sit still it's not the time to be quiet, nice the time to get going and just start up things I want is to be the new gold rush you know the era of innovation and yeah innovation I would say very important. So that is my final question for you, thank you so much for your time it is a pleasure to have you on. Thank you and it's great to see you and and great to talk today.