Intro: Hallo und herzlich willkommen bei The Good Council, dem Podcast des World Future Council. In jeder Folge werden wir aktuelle Herausforderungen und politische Lösungen aufzeigen. Und wir nehmen Sie mit auf eine Reise voller inspirierender Geschichten. Hören Sie sich einen weiteren unserer generationenübergreifenden Dialoge aus aller Welt an.

Hallo, mein Name ist Raina Ivanova, und ich bin Repräsentantin des Jugendforums Youth: Present. In dieser Episode spreche ich mit Dr. Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker. Ernst ist ehemaliger Vorsitzender des Bundestag Umweltkomitees, Ehrenpräsident des Club of Rome, und ehemaliger Dekan der Bren School of Environmental Science and Management an der University of California, Santa Barbara. Er studierte Physik in Hamburg und promovierte in Biologie im Jahre 1968 an der Universität Freiburg. In den 70er Jahren war er Professor für Biologie an der Universität Essen und Präsident der Universität in Kassel, bevor er Direktor des UN Centre for Science and Technology in New York wurde. Von 1984 bis 1991 war er Direktor des Instituts für Europäische Umweltpolitik in Bonn, Paris und London und von 1991 bis 2000 war Prof. von Weizsäcker Präsident des Wuppertal Instituts für Klima, Umwelt und Energie. Von 1998 bis 2005 war er Mitglied des Deutschen Bundestages und leitete von 2002 bis 2005 den Ausschuss für Umwelt, Naturschutz und Reaktorsicherheit. Er ist Autor vieler Bücher, darunter Factor Five und wurde 2008 mit dem Deutschen Umweltpreis ausgezeichnet. Er ist Ehrenmitglied des World Future Councils.

Raina: Vielen Dank, dass Sie heute hier sind.

Prof. Dr. Weizsäcker: Ja vielen Dank. An meinem Lebenslauf haben Sie ja erfahren, dass ich vollkommen wahnsinnig bin. Immer wieder was Neues.

Raina: Man merkt auf jeden Fall, dass sie einen sehr starken Wissenschaftsfokus haben. Was begeistert Sie denn so sehr an der Naturwissenschaft?

Prof. Dr. Weizsäcker: Ach, ich war einfach sehr neugierig. Schon als Kind sah ich Raupen und die haben sich verpuppt und plötzlich waren es Schmetterlinge. Unglaublich, was sich da alles tut. Pflanzen haben mich nicht so sehr interessiert, aber Tiere immer. Und dann wollte ich Biologe werden und dann sagte mir ein alter weiser Mann: „Wenn du Biologie studieren willst, darfst du nicht Biologie studieren. Dann musst du erstmal was Seriöses machen. Chemie, Mathematik, Physik oder meinetwegen Medizin und dann wirst du später Biologe“. So habe ich es gemacht.

Raina: Sie haben durchaus auch einen Fokus auf die Umwelt. Sie waren unter anderem Teil des Ausschusses für Umwelt im Bundestag. Im Mai ist nun das Klimaschutzurteil gefallen, durch diese Verfassungsklage. Und wir wissen ja das die Lage mit dem Klimaschutz in Deutschland durchaus kritisch ist. Wie sehen Sie das und denken Sie das dieses Urteil etwas verändern kann?

Prof. Dr. Weizsäcker: Da gibt es erstmal ganz viele Antworten. Die eine ist, dass die deutsche Umweltministerin Svenja Schulze wollte, genau dieses ehrgeizige Gesetz, aber das konnte sie mit dem Koalitionspartner von der CDU, vor allem der Wirtschaftsvereinigung der CDU nicht durchsetzen. Also wurde dann ein Kompromiss gefunden. Dann hat das Bundesverfassungsgericht gesagt, dass ist aber nicht gut genug für künftige Generationen. Das ist rechtlich eine ganz neue Sache, dass das Verfassungsgericht sagt, die Politik muss nicht nur die an die heute lebenden Menschen denken, sondern auch an die Zukunft, die vielleicht noch nicht Geborenen. Und dafür ist es nicht ehrgeizig genug. Ich habe Svenja Schulze, die Ministerin, begeistert gehört über dieses Gesetz. Jetzt mit Rückendeckung des Bundesverfassungsgesetzes können wir endlich das machen, was wir sowieso wollten.

Raina: Denken Sie denn, dass dieses neue Urteil ausreichend ist, damit wir unseren nationalen Klimaziele einhalten können?

Prof. Dr. Weizsäcker: Die nationalen Klimaziele, die wir 2015 in Paris zugesagt haben, dass kriegen wir einigermaßen hin. Besser als die Mehrzahl der anderen Länder. Trotzdem kann man auch hier noch ehrgeiziger werden und da finde ich es sehr gut, dass die Grünen und die SPD der Meinung sind, ja wir müssen noch ehrgeiziger werden. Jetzt will man ja die Klimaneutralität nicht mehr erst 2050, wie in Paris versprochen, sondern 2045 hinkriegen. Jetzt müssen wir nur noch darauf achten, dass das Erreichen dieses ehrgeizigeren Zieles nicht mit Missbrauch oder falschen Tatsachen erreicht wird. Also zum Beispiel, wenn einer zu viel CO2 auspustet oder andere Treibhausgase und dann kauft er sich, Landgrabbing nennt man das, ein Stückchen Afrika und baut da eine Eukalyptus Plantage hoch. Die nimmt ein bisschen CO2 auf und dann sagt er: Schaut mal, alles Klimaneutral. Die Eukalyptus-Plantage egalisiert was ich dazu viel gemacht habe. Das ist idiotisch. Und das passt nicht nach Afrika. Das macht die Böden kaputt. Das macht die biologische Vielfalt kaputt. Macht viele Tiere kaputt. Das darf man nicht in einer einfachen Gegenrechnung als Erreichung des Klimaschutzzieles anbieten.

Raina: Nun haben viele damit gerechnet das dieses Urteil gar nicht gefällt werden wird, weil es mit Klimaschutz seit langem sehr kritisch aussieht und meiner Meinung nach noch immer sehr kritisch aussieht. Was glauben Sie was dieses Urteil über unsere Gesellschaft aussagt?

Prof. Dr. Weizsäcker: In der Bevölkerung gibt es eine verbreitete Stimmung. „Wir wollen in Ruhe gelassen werden. Wir wollen nicht immer noch mehr tun für Leute, die wir nie kennen lernen.“ Also unsere Urenkel oder sowas. Ich habe als ich in Amerika war einen Cartoon, also so eine Witzgeschichte gesehen. Da war ein Kino abgebildet. Das hatte zwei Filme im Angebot. Das eine war der Film von Al Gore, früherer Vizepräsident der Vereinigten Staaten und das hatte den Titel „An Inconvenient Truth“, also eine unbequeme Wahrheit und das andere Kino hatte im Angebot „A reassuring lie“ eine Beruhigungslüge. Und dann, wo die Leute reingehen. Also alle gehen in die „reassuring lie“. Also das Volk möchte der Wahrheit nicht so gern ins Auge gucken und Politikerinnen und Politiker, die zu ehrgeizig sind, werden gnadenlos abgewählt.  Das ist das Problem. Aber immer nur die Schuld bei den Politikern zu suchen, das ist mir zu einfach.

Raina: Sie waren ja selbst einmal Politiker in der SPD ist das richtig?

Prof. Dr. Weizsäcker: Ja

Raina: Und das ist ja oft, dass in unserer Gesellschaft sehr radikalere Ansätze sehr früh schon abgelehnt werden, weil Leute es nicht mögen ruckartig Veränderungen durchzuleben. Wie denken Sie ist es möglich trotzdem diese Veränderungen erzeugen zu können?

Prof. Dr. Weizsäcker: Also ich habe eine Zeit lang in einer Arbeitsgruppe als Leiter gearbeitet in China. Als Berater des chinesischen Ministerpräsidenten. Ich war Leiter der Arbeitsgruppe über ökonomische Instrumente für Energieeffizienz und Umweltschutz. Und dort habe ich folgendes, auf ihre Frage geantwortet. Wir machen eine lang Frist Preissteigerung, aber jedes Jahr nur gerade so viel wie das Volk gut aushalten kann und die Industrie. Also wenn die Energie effizienter wird, im Jahr 2022 dann wird 2023 die Energie umso so viel Prozent teurerer wird, wie die Effizienz zugenommen hat. Also das das Geld was man pro Monat für die Energie Dienstleitungen ausgibt nie mehr wird. Nur die reichen Familien, die kriegen diesen Effizienz-Fortschritte eher als die Armen, da muss man dann was politisch machen, damit die Armen nicht die Verlierer sind. Das ist aber dann eine weitere Sache. Jedenfalls, wenn man dieses in China, wo die Leute ja langfristig denken auf 20, 30, 40 Jahre festlegt, dann werden die Investoren und Ingenieure heute schon das machen, was in 20, 30, 40 Jahren nötig ist. Das heißt also weitestgehend schmerzlos, aber ungeheuer wirksam in der langen Frist.

Nur wenn ich das in Deutschland, Frankreich oder in Uruguay oder Malaysia. Dann werden die Leute sagen, wenn alle vier Jahren Wahlen sind, dann wird doch die neue Regierung das ganz schnell stoppen. Dann sage ich: Dann müssen wir dafür sorgen, dass zum Beispiel durch einen Verfassungsartikel, diejenigen Dinge, die für die lang Frist gemeint sind, nicht abhängig sind von den jeweiligen Wahlen. Das wäre doch auch mal eine Lösung. Dann hätten wir also zwei Ziele erreicht. Erstmal eine sehr starke Klimapolitik und zweitens weitestgehend Schmerzfreiheit.

Raina: Sie haben gerade gesagt, dass dieser Prozess circa 40 Jahre gedauert hat. Das ist ja schon längerfristig.  Denken sie denn, dass das ein Lösungsansatz für die Klimakrise wäre, vor allem bedenken wir das die größte Ressource die uns fehlt, Zeit ist?

Prof. Dr. Weizsäcker: Natürlich hätte ich es auch gerne, wenn das ganze sehr viel schneller geht. Aber wenn das nur dazu führt, dass die Parteien, die sich dafür eingesetzt haben, automatisch bei der nächsten Wahl weggewischt werden, dann ist das eine Springprozession. Zwei Schritte vorwärts und wieder einen Schritt zurück. Das ist nicht besonders gescheit. Deswegen will ich lieber etwas, was gerade noch für die Mehrheit akzeptabel ist, ganz wenig wehtut, aber was für die junge Generationen eine exzellente Zukunftsperspektive wird.

Raina:  Denken Sie denn, dass die Klimakatastrophe noch aufzuhalten ist?

Prof. Dr. Weizsäcker: Ich glaube, dass die Maßnahmen, die ich politisch vorgeschlagen habe, also mit dem Schrittchen weise vorwärts gehen, aber konsequent. Dass das eine tolle Chance bietet, dass es zu den katastrophenartigen Zusammenbrüchen nicht kommen wird. Es wird große Veränderungen geben. Die Landwirtschaft muss sich ändern, die Forstwirtschaft muss sich ändern. Die Art wie man Städte baut, da braucht man wieder etwas mehr grün. Das sind Dinge, diese Sorte Anpassung gibt es immer mal wieder, das halten wir aus.

Raina: Nun ist Klimaschutz ja nicht eine Sache, die meine Generation angefangen hat, sondern das gab es ja schon durchaus mehrere Jahrzehnte davor. Aber trotzdem ist der Ansatz auf eine gewisse Art neu. Finden Sie das sich die heutige Klimabewegung mit der vor 30 Jahren vergleichen lässt?

Prof. Dr. Weizsäcker: Vor 30 Jahren waren 5% der Bevölkerung davon überzeugt, dass es einen Klimawandel gibt und das der problematisch ist und 95% der Bevölkerung haben gesagt, dass ist alles dummes Geschwätz von diesen komischen Wissenschaftlern. Und heute nach drei sehr trockenen Sommern und Waldbränden im Amazonas, in Australien, in Sibirien in Alaska und eben auch in Deutschland. Hat die Weltbevölkerung aufgeschreckt. Und jetzt sind etwa 60-70% der Bevölkerung der Meinung. Ja es leider gibt es eine Klimaerwärmung mit zum Teil sehr weitreichenden Folgen. Sie haben eben in meiner Einführung gesagt ich sei in Santa Barbara gewesen, in Kalifornien. Da war ich drei Jahre lang und viele meiner Freunde, die dort gelebt haben, haben ihre Häuser verloren. Und deswegen sind gerade in Kalifornien eine dicke Mehrheit der Menschen der Meinung, wir müssen mehr tun.

Raina: Als jüngerer Mensch merke ich, dass gerade in meiner Generation momentan viele ihre Einstellung ändern. Wenn ich zum Beispiel damit vergleiche, wie meine Großeltern oft das Thema Klimaschutz angehen dann merke ich ja schon das ist etwas revolutionäres, wie Klimaschutz heute vonstattengeht. Haben Sie irgendwelche Tipps oder Ratschläge an jüngere Leute, denn Sie bringen ja sehr viel Lebenserfahrung mit.

Prof. Dr. Weizsäcker: Also erst einmal finde ich es wundervoll, wenn es einen Dialog zwischen den Alten und den Jungen gibt. Und dass die Alten nicht so tun als seien die Jungen noch in den Windeln. Und dass die Jungen nicht so tun als seien die Alten völlig vertrocknet. Denn manchmal ist es genau umgekehrt. Beides ist erklärungsbedürftig und die Kommunikation ist sehr wichtig. Ich rede mit meinen Enkeln sehr oft darüber und die holen sich ihren Rat bei mir ab, weil ich manches auch schon weiß, da ich ja mal Wissenschaftler war. Gleichzeitig merke ich, dass bei den Jungen noch eine gewisse Bereitschaft vorhanden ist, jetzt alles mal anders zu machen. Ich habe mich mit Greta Thunberg angefreundet und mit Luisa Neubauer. Die sprechen für ihre Generation, wobei auch nicht mehr als die Hälfte der Jungen so denken. Die andere Hälfte sitzt da und „dattelt“ und streamt, die machen irgendwelche andere Sache. Die eigentlich mit Klimaschutz nichts zu tun haben und langweilen sich einfach.

Raina: Sie haben da gerade auch noch ein anderes Problem angesprochen, was ich persönlich auch sehr stark wahrnehme. Also das Klimaschutz manchmal auch nur in diesen Bubbles passiert. stattfinden. Also ich persönlich würde sagen, dass ich mich in einer dieser „Klimaschutzbubble“ befinde, wo viele meiner Freunde einfach sich für den Klimawandel interessiert und sich dafür interessieren ihr Leben so zu verändern, dass sie dagegenwirken können. Aber für viele ist das noch sehr unzugänglich. Auch als Politiker wie denken Sie denn, dass Klimawandel für alle zugänglicher gemacht werden könnte?

Prof. Dr. Weizsäcker: Wenn man immer mal wieder Schreckensfilme zeigt, immer mal wieder. Die einem bildlich zeigen, was auf einem zukommen kann, wenn das Grönlandeis ins Meer rutscht oder sowas in der Art. Das wäre ja für die Stadt Hamburg fürchterlich. Wenn man die potenzielle Realität in Bildform vor sich sieht und dann denkt, das ist zwar nur ein Film. Aber wenn die Realität so wird, das wollen wir doch lieber verhindern. In Deutschland sind wir so reich, wir können Deiche bauen. In Bangladesch geht das nicht. Etwas die Hälfte von Bangladesch wäre unter Wasser, das wären dann 50 Millionen Menschen. Und dann haben wir ein Flüchtlingsproblem, das ist 20- bis 100-mal größer als das Flüchtlingsproblem von 2015. Und schon damit sind wir ja 2015 politisch fast nicht fertig geworden.

Raina: Bei mir war es auch tatsächlich auch ein Schreckensfilm, der mich motiviert für den Klimaschutz tätig zu werden. Und zwar auch der von dem sie gerade gesprochen haben: „An inconvenient Truth“ von Al Gore. Da war ich auch 12 Jahre alt und als ich gesehen habe, dass Hamburg theoretisch unter Wasser stände, wenn die Meeresspiegel weiter so ansteigen, war es auch für mich zum ersten Mal etwas greifbarer, dass der Klimawandel nicht nur im globalen Süden existiert und für mich nicht nur in der fernen Zukunft spielt.

Prof. Dr. Weizsäcker: Sehr gut, dass sie den Film nicht verwendet haben, um sich mit Tränen zurückzuziehen, sondern das es Sie ermutigt hat mit Freundinnen und Freunden ihrer Generation und ein paar Alten zusammenzustehen und zu sagen: Leute das ist ein echtes Problem, da müssen wir jetzt was tun.

Raina: Nur kurz, um die Tränen anzusprechen. Es war wirklich meine erste Reaktion. Oft ist es ja auch sehr frustrierend sich für den Klimawandel einzusetzen, weil es halt als radikale Klimapolitik angesehen wird, die irgendwie sehr realitätsfern ist von dem was wir erreichen können. Wie sehen Sie es denn, ist der Ansatz oft zu radikal von jüngeren Menschen?

Prof. Dr. Weizsäcker: Ich finde es gut, dass es diese Stimme erstmal gibt. So dass Leute, die eher kompromissbereit sind wie ich, nicht als sehr radikal angesehen werden, sondern als ein freundschaftliches Angebot der Mitte. Zwischen dem was die ganz Langsamen gerade noch tolerieren können und dem was die berechtigterweise verärgerten Jungen verlangen. Und da muss man auch eine vernünftige Mitte finden. Zudem gibt es vieles was man auch technisch erreichen kann. Ich habe mit einem australischen Team zusammen ein Buch geschrieben, was denn Namen Faktor fünf hatte. Und darin beweisen wir, dass in den vier Klimawirksamsten Wirtschaftsbereiche: Gebäuden, Industrie, Verkehr und Landwirtschaft eine Verfünffachung der Energieeffizienz oder auch der Stoffeffizienz möglich ist. Meine Familie und ich leben zum Beispiel in einem Passivhaus. Das hat praktisch keine Heizkosten mehr, auch im kältesten Winter. Da ist nämlich eine sehr gute Isolierung und zweitens eine Wärmeaustausch-Belüftung drin. Wenn wir in einem warmen Wohnzimmer sitzen, dann sind oben so Schlitze und da wandert die Luft raus und wandert über ein Kanalsystem nach draußen. Und während sie das tut, berührt sie physikalisch die hereinkommende frische Kaltluft, so dass dann die Kaltluft frisch, aber aufgewärmt beinah in Zimmertemperatur ins Haus kommt. Dadurch haben wir quasi keine Heizkosten mehr und ein sehr gemütliches Innenklima. Übrigens auch immer Sommer, wenn es zu heißt ist, passiert der gleiche Mechanismus umgekehrt. Denn der Boden ist ja dann kühl, dann muss man das durch den Boden leiten. Also das ist ein Beispiel von Hunderten, wie man mindesten fünfmal so effektiv sein kann. Ein anderes Beispiel ist die LED-Lampe, anstelle der alten Glühbirne. Die ist 10mal so Lichteffektiv als die alte Glühbirne. Also gemessen pro Kilowattstunde. Und die Nahrungsmittel und die normalen Produkte, Kühlschrank und was es alles gibt, kann man sehr viel effizienter machen. Das bisschen Rest was man dann noch braucht für Bewegung und für doch noch aufwärmen und industrielle Prozesse wie Stahlschmerze und so etwas, das kann man dann mit erneuerbaren Energien machen. Ich war im deutschen Bundestag, auf Initiative meines Parteifreundes von der SPD Hermann Scheer, als sie das Gesetzt für erneuerbaren Energien durchgesetzt haben. Damals kostete eine Stunde, eine Kilowatt Stunde Photovoltaik-Strom einen Euro. Heute kostet es in Deutschland nur noch 1/20. Fünf Euro Cent und in geeigneten Gegenden Afrika nur noch 2 Euro Cent. Das heißt also, was als ich in die Politik gegangen bin, ich für einen teuren Luxus gehalten habe (Ich habe trotzdem dafür gestimmt), ist heute lukrativer als Kohle, Kernenergie und Benzin. Das heißt die Technik hat sich in Richtung Klimaschutz entwickelt, man muss die Rahmenbedingungen so ändern, dass die Leute mit den richtigen Dingen Geld verdienen anstatt mit den Falschen. Und da kann man die neue Generation, die junge Generation sehr leicht überzeugen. Ja das wollen wir.

Raina: Wirtschaftswachstum ist ja eins der größten Argumente gegen strenge Klimaschutzgesetzte, denn viele Menschen sind der Meinung das Wirtschaftswachstum und Klimaschutz nicht miteinander einhergehen können. Aber sie haben ja gerade ein gutes Beispiel genannt, wie das doch möglich sein kann. Dennoch ist es so, dass viele Leute davon nicht überzeugt sind. Was würden Sie dazu sagen?

Prof. Dr. Weizsäcker: Empirisch von der Realität her, haben die Leute erstmal Recht. Es gibt eine stramme Relation Prokopf-Wohlstands Entwicklung und Co2 Ausstößen pro Kopf. Aber wenn wir dafür sorgen, dass in der Energiepolitik grüner Wasserstoff erschwinglich wird und Energieeffizienz lukrativer wird und Stoffeffizienz, also Kreislaufwirtschaft auf einmal richtig rentabel sind, braucht man längst nicht so viel Erzabbau und Verschiffung und was es alles gibt. Das heißt man kann unglaublich viel eleganter werden so dass dann Wohlstandsentwicklung und Treibhausgasemissionen auseinandergerissen werden. Das muss man erreichen, das ist dann die neue Technologie.

Raina: Sie haben ja gerade eben davon geredet, dass sie damals die nachhaltigen Technologien eher als luxuriös angesehen haben und das ist ja ein weiterer Kritikpunkt denn viele als sehr wichtig ansehen. Da oft die umweltfreundlichen Alternativen teurerer waren. Sie waren früher ja auch in der SPD und interessieren sich nehme ich mal sehr für soziale Gerechtigkeit. Wie denken Sie denn, dass man da auch etwas dagegen tun kann, dass eben die neuen Technologien nicht nur für wohlhabender Leute zugänglich gemacht werden?

Prof. Dr. Weizsäcker: Absolut richtig. Übrigens bin ich immer noch bei der SPD. Und mir ist es sehr wichtig, dass die ärmeren Menschen in der Bevölkerung nicht leiden unter Umweltschutz und Klimaschutz leiden. Die Ärmsten Menschen auf der Welt die Indigenen in Brasilien in Indien und was es so alles gibt. Die leben davon das die Umwelt gesund ist. Wenn die Umweltzerstörung überhandnimmt, dann verlieren die ihre Lebensgrundlage. Also in Bezug auf gesunde Gewässer, gesunde Luft und gesunde Bäume und so weiter. Es ist genau umgekehrt. Die Armen sind auf Umwelt angewiesen. Die Reichen können sich irgendwelche Oasen aussuchen, in denen die Umwelt noch gesund ist. Bei uns ist es tatsächlich genau wie sie sagen, dass wir dafür sorgen müssen das die Ärmeren Familien nicht ökonomisch leiden unter dem was ökologisch notwendig ist. Das kann man ohne weiteres machen. Zum Beispiel kann meine eine CO2 Steuer so machen, dass einfach pro Tonne CO2 ziemlich viel gezahlt werden muss. Sagen wir mal Beispiel 100 Euro. Das dadurch eingenommene Geld, was durch den Staat eingenommen wird, wird pro Kopf der Bevölkerung zurückverteilt. Die Armen kriegen genauso so viel wie die Reichen. Aber die Armen pusten weniger Co2 aus als die Reichen. Also werden durch diesen Umverteilungsmechanismus die Armen reicher und die Reichen ärmer.

Raina: Sie sind ja auch Autor und sprechen in ihren Büchern oft von einer vollen Welt. Das unsere Denkgewohnheiten, welche aus dem Zeitalter der Aufklärung stammen heutzutage unangemessen sind. Und nun ist es ja so das Deutschland als sehr weit entwickelter Industriestaat eine gewisse Verantwortung gegenüber den ganzen anderen Ländern in der Welt hat, weil wir nun ja eine volle Welt sind. Denken Sie denn, dass es zum Beispiel für Entwicklungsländer gerechtfertigt wäre auf Grund des Wirtschaftswachstumes auf weniger nachhaltigere Alternativen zurückzugreifen?

Prof. Dr. Weizsäcker: Zunächst einmal muss ich sagen, dass diese Unterscheidung in leere Welt und voller Welt ist nicht von mir, sondern von Professor Dr. Herman Daly. Der war Chefökonom der Weltbank, also nicht unbedingt ein grüner Spinner. Der sagte nur: Real, vor 20.000 tausend oder 200.000 Jahren in der Steinzeit oder Silberzeit, da waren die Menschen eine verschwindend kleine Menge und selbst noch zur Zeit von Montesquieu und Immanuel Kant, hatten wir nur ungefähr ein Zehntel der Menschen wie heute und nur etwa ein Hundertstel des ökonomischen Umsatzes von heute. Das war die leere Welt. Damals wurde man berühmt als Erfinder oder als Entdecker, de facto als Räuber als Kolonisatoren die Afrika unterworfen haben, das waren in Europa Helden. Das war gemein gegen Afrika, aber für die Natur war das noch aushaltbar. Die volle Welt ist neu. Seit ungefähr 1950 geht es raketenartig nach oben. Jetzt kriegen wir auf einmal Probleme, dass die biologische Vielfalt kaputt geht, dass das Klima kaputt geht, das an vielen Stellen Wasserknappheit plötzlich da ist und so weiter. Das ist das Phänomen der vollen Welt. Das ist ein Negativwort. Das ist eine Schädigung gewesen. Jetzt muss man fragen, wie reagiert man darauf. Da gibt es sehr verschiedene Dinge. Das eine ist, zur Zeit der Steinzeit war es für das Überleben der Menschheit wichtig, dass Frauen zehn bis 20 Kinder kriegen konnten. Sonst wäre die Menschheit ausgestorben bei der Säuglings- und Kindersterblichkeit oder Hungersnöten. Alles das was so passierte. Aber heute, in der vollen Welt, sind ein bis zwei Kinder das richtige Maß der Familie. Und in China, Deutschland, Italien und in vielen anderen Ländern hat man das längst begriffen, dass die Stabilisierung der Bevölkerung gut für das Land, gut für die Bevölkerung ist. In der Mehrzahl der afrikanischen Länder ist das leider noch nicht angekommen. Das ist sehr wichtig, dass Afrika und auch andere Länder merken, dass wir Bevölkerungsstabilisierung als sehr wichtiges Ziel brauchen. Aber um wieder auf Ihre Frage zurückzukommen. Es ist vollkommen richtig, dass die klimafreundlichen Technologien so künstlich verbilligt werden müssen, dass auch die ärmeren Menschen und auch die ärmeren Nationen davon etwas haben können. Und es ist nicht einfach zu teuer wäre. Das ist eine politische Aufgabe. Davon muss man dann die Reichen und die Produzenten überzeugen, dass es wichtig ist, dass die ganze Welt etwas davon hat und nicht nur die Reichen. Das sind zwei sehr verschiedene Dinge. Das eine ist das Kinderkriegen und das andere ist die Erschwinglichkeit und die Vorteile der modernen Technologie. Das sind die Dinge, die man sich im Einzelnen angucken muss. Da kann man nicht mit einer Pauschalantwort kommen.

Raina:  Um die Denkgewohnheiten noch einmal anzusprechen. Das was wir hier brauchen ist essenziell ein Paradigmenwechsel, der ja schon oft in Industrieländern erfolgt ist, weil viel mehr Leute hier einen höheren Bildungsstandard haben. In vielen Ländern in z.B. Afrika oder generell im globalen Süden ist Bildung ja genau das was fehlt. Wie kann Deutschlands da, als Industriestaat beisteuern? Sie sind ja hier auch beim World Future Council Ehrenratsmitglied und deswegen schauen Sie sich ja nicht nur Deutschland an, sondern die ganze Welt.

Prof. Dr. Weizsäcker:  Ich finde es großartig, dass der WFC sich genau diese Art von Fragen stellt und dabei zu dem Ergebnis kommt: Es muss eine Kooperation zwischen Nord und Süd geben. Wobei der Norden das Wissen, die Technologie und das notwendige Geld zum Einkauf dieser Technologien und zur Bildungsentwicklung zu einem erheblichen Teil beigesteuert wird. Aus Gerechtigkeitsgründen und auch aus Glaubwürdigkeitsgründen. Ich bin überzeugt, dass es für Entwicklungshilfe Agenturen im Norden und im für die Länder des Nordens ausgesprochen nützlich ist, wenn dafür gesorgt wird das im Süden die Bildung und auch die technische Bildung, die berufliche Bildung und auch die Technik Fortentwicklung auf Universitätsniveau richtig vorankommt. Dann werden das nämlich Partner und nicht Hungerleider.

Raina:  Ich glaube Hilfe zur Selbsthilfe ist hier ein sehr gutes Stichwort. So dass Entwicklungsländer nicht von uns abhängig gemacht werden, sondern sie sich selbst helfen können sich zu entwickeln.

Prof. Dr. Weizsäcker:  Absolut

Raina:  Sie unterstützen ja den WFC und haben eine besondere Leidenschaft für die Rechte von zukünftigen Generationen. Was ist für Sie denn ein Recht was Ihnen besonders wichtig ist oder was momentan besonders wichtig ist, was bewahrt werden muss für zukünftige Generationen?

Prof. Dr. Weizsäcker: Also ich würde sagen ein Recht auf Bildung ist ein Teil der Menschenrechte. Es soll nicht sein, dass irgendeine Familie zu arm ist, um ihren Kindern einen Zugang zur Schule zu ermöglichen. Das darf nicht sein. Das muss aber in erster Linie das betreffende Land organisieren. Dann wird übrigens das betroffene Land auch reicher. Dafür muss aber auch der Norden dafür sorgen, dass nicht durch irgendwelche Barrieren die anderen arm gehalten werden. Wir müssen einen fairen Nord-Süd Warenaustausch, und Geldaustausch, Bildungsaustausch haben. Also wenn ich an der Universität Freiburg Vorlesungen halte, übrigens auf Englisch, dann sind etwa die Hälfte der Studierenden aus Entwicklungsländern. Die sind dann immer ganz glücklich, wenn ich so rede, wie sie es gewöhnt sind aus ihrem eigenen Land. Wenn ich also nicht die Arroganz des Nordens rauslasse, sondern sage: Jetzt will ich euch erstmal gut zuhören. Wo liegen eure Probleme? Ihr habt ja die meisten Sachen schon einmal durchdacht. Dann komme ich mit Lösungsangeboten und frage dann immer wieder: Oder ist euch das noc

Akinyi: Okay, let’s start I’m like really nervous. You look so amazing. Thank you. Okay, let me begin. So Hello everyone, my name is Akinyi Obama-Manners and I’m 24 years old and I am a Youth:Present representative. I am passionate about working with children and young people to positively impact their lives by using art to allow for self-expression and creative thinking. For example, I’ve been working at Sauti Kuu Foundation in Kenya since 2019, where I helped develop the arts and creativity project activities and I work with toddlers and young people in an early childhood development program in a Nice Ju children’s village in Kenya. Today, I’m delighted to be speaking with Hafsat Abiola today and to learn more about her life, her work, and her engagement with the World Future Council. By way of introduction, Hafsat Abiola-Costello sorry, excuse me, is a human and civil rights campaigner and was appointed June 5, 2018, as the Executive President of Women in Africa Initiative. This initiative is dedicated to the economic development and support of leading and high potential African women. She is also the founder of the Kudirat Initiative for Democracy, which seeks to strengthen civil society and promote democracy in Nigeria. In 2008, she founded China Africa Bridge, an organization that seeks to ensure that growing African ties benefit between the continent and China. Hafsat received the Youth Peace and Justice Award from the Cambridge Peace Commission in 1997, the State of the World’s Forum Changemaker Award in 1998, and the World Economic Forum’s Global Leader of Tomorrow Award 2000. Since 2008, she has been a Council member of World Future Council. Welcome to The Good Council Hafsat. How have you been like, it’s so great to see you again.

Hafsat: I’ve been really I think, under a lot of stress. As of Monday, I just went for my final divorce court date. So huge, huge thing. It’s kind of sad to put to bed a dream of a wonderful marriage, but I think it’s also in inspiring, at least for me to put to bed, something that did not work, you know, sometimes you just have to do that because you don’t think something’s working you think that well, let’s keep trying to make it work. But if it’s not going to work, it’s sometimes a good idea to put it to rest so that you create space for other things.

Akinyi: Yeah, and I think also especially now since Corona, it’s definitely a time of New Age kind of like rebirth for everyone.

Hafsat: Yes, yeah. So, in a way that whole process has been on one hand, empowering. And the other it’s been stressful because I’m having to move physically from where I was living with my now ex-husband, to my new home. But it’s also been it’s also been a time for reflection. I really am thinking also about I’ve been thinking a lot about Virginia Woolf. And I’ve still never gotten around to reading the book “A room of one’s one”. But I began to realize how important it is that women have spaces of their own. I think that we do so many things differently. And the world needs the balance between the male and female energies. And when I say the balance between the male and female energies, I’m not talking about an institution like marriage, where oftentimes the female energy has been subsumed into a preexisting framework. I’m talking about real partnership, where both energies coexist in equal power, because I think that that then allows for the full expression of what’s positive.I’ve been thinking a lot about that even now, as we think of them. You now, there’s so much pressure and push for women to go into leadership. And what does this mean? I can eat? When I think of my you know, and my experience of my marriage is actually genuinely very positive, because I am married to an extremely progressive person, when I think of the institution of marriage, and the institution of government and power, and corporate power, and all the various forms of power. And we’re saying that women should go away, if we’re not careful, all they’ll do is just go and be submerged. When what the world needs, is the ability to go in and transform. And I think that we need to be thinking of how women create spaces, that allows us to hold on to our power, so that we have the full capacity to transform dysfunctional spaces, instead of just going into encouraging women to go into spaces, where then they’ll just be a number a quarter, and we’ll say we have 25% or 30%. But what’s still the outcome in terms of the allocation of resources and innovation, the appropriation of benefits? Is it more egalitarian? Is it more democratic? Is it more life sustaining or not?  So, I think that I want us to begin, and especially, you know, in the end, it was because of your generation, that I was bullish around this question about divorce, not because of myself, because actually, the way that we’re raised in Nigeria, and particularly my culture, the Yoruba culture, from a very young age, girls are trained that way. So it was, you have to be like cool water. So even when you are in a hot situation, if you’re very, if you cool enough, you call the situation, you know, because we really trained to stay calm, and to absorb quite a lot. And I could have continued absorbing any number of things, when I thought of two children that I have my son and my daughter, but I want them to have the example of equal coexistence between male and female energy. And I want that given to them in such a clear and compelling way. Why do I say that? My mom died when she was 44 years old. I was at the time she died, I was about 21, I was going to turn 22. So, she has been that I’m going to be 50 very soon, in three years, I’ll be 50. So, she’s been dead for more than half of my life. And yet, I can tell you that whenever I have a question about anything, I feel my mother, I feel like voice. I just feel her like sitting beside me. And then we look at the problem together. And then I just realizing it’s just going to be this way. And you know, we’re Africans and Africans, we believe very much in the ancestors in the journey that I’ve taken just even in the last few months. So, find a new place to stay, or go to a place and they’ll say, you know, maybe they’d look at me and see this black African woman and they just wouldn’t give me the apartment. Finally, finally, if you see the place I finally found, it is so perfect in every way. The gentle children love it. It’s just walking distance from their school. It’s so perfect, and I don’t think I found it. I think the ancestors looked at the problem that I had. And they said have such as continue to conduct ourselves in the way in which we put her and so they went ahead, and I took care of everything.  And so that’s why I want to make the example as compelling. Because who knows when you’re going to go in this era of COVID? People, you, you, you hear that somebody isn’t feeling well and 24 hours later that the person died. If anything were to happen, I would, no matter how long ago I left, at the gentle children, whenever they faced with a question, I should have a very clear understanding about what their mother would have wanted them to do. I think it’s so important that we live, that our lives be a clear message, that there should never be any confusion as to what our priorities are. And that we’re here, not for ourselves, but to really uphold the human spirit in the very, very best possible way.

Akinyi: Now, it’s so inspiring to me, how you talk about your mother and her role and her legacy in your life. So, what did you learn from your mother? And what might she have learned from us?

Hafsat: So, when I was very young, I’m not just an introvert, which is kind of extrapolating as I said, I’m a learner. So, I am very, on this whole water thing. My Water is very cool, extremely cool. I remember one day, someone slapped me and someone younger than me. She was upset and she slapped me and my mother, so my mother came to hear about it. Now I didn’t do anything when the person did that, because I just thought clearly, she must be upset. And that’s why she’s done that. My mother blew a gasket. She could not believe that allowed someone to slap me that I allowed someone to slap me. I hadn’t even thought about retaliation in any way. In fact, I didn’t even want to do that.  My by my nature is just very relaxed. In fact, I just think Oh, poor girl. She’s so upset. And I’m given a Maven to thinking how to help her not to be so upset. Yeah. Then I remember the tools actually very cool native as I work. In fact, I have low blood pressure. She used to have low blood pressure when she was alive. So, because we just we just take it just takes more energy more to happen for me to be Want to in order to get any otherwise, I’m just happy going through life. And my mother taught me something at that moment that it was important for me not to allow people to walk all over me. Because let myself I’m actually perfectly comfortable with that. I have no problem with that. Because I mean, if somebody is walking all over you, maybe the person needed something to walk on. I mean, it, that’s just kind of my mentality, I’m doing very well, because my mother taught me that. Essentially, she was teaching me to stand up for myself because she got upset. And she spoke to me and scolded me. And essentially said, you have to learn to stand up for yourself. So, I think that’s the big lesson I learned from my mother is that I have to stand up for myself. that’s my daughter, because we’re invading our bedroom actually, sorry. You know, she was, she was, she felt very much that I shouldn’t allow that to happen. And actually, that has really helped me in my life. Because I think, just because it doesn’t really matter to you, isn’t actually a good reason to allow somebody to do something that isn’t respectful of you. Just because you can take it and it doesn’t really bother you so much, doesn’t mean you should allow it because because it’s also not good for that person, for you to allow them to power in a way that is limiting for others. It’s not good for them. And maybe if they are, if you allow them and they go on to do it to someone else, the person’s reaction will be so balanced and so aggressive. Whereas you because you notice that they’ve crossed the line. And because you say you stay so even tempered, maybe you’re the best person to say to them that that you’ve crossed a line, you shouldn’t cross that kind of line, we shouldn’t do that. And so I learned that from my mom. And I’ve been learning to stand up for myself. And the other thing I learned about standing up for myself. I don’t know where I learned this at you want to say that? It wasn’t from my mom, I don’t know where it was. I don’t know. But I don’t want to say I learned that when you want to respond. Okay, two things. Number one, when you want to respond, it’s extremely important that you are not reacting, but you are responding. So when you react is like somebody still have to do to just slap the president back and you start you know, fighting, that’s a reaction. Yeah. I set the terms for your engagement, and you have gone along with the term that I’ve been sexually. Where does power lie? Sorry.  So my daughter has to collect something from a room. So we’re sorry to have invaded your space? By Zoe by Bella. So um, you know, it’s something I’m not I lost my train of thought, if something happens and you, you are not, and you follow the framework that has been created. You remember this quotation? Oh, I haven’t shared the quotation with you that slavery is not African history, slavery, interrupted African history. So it’s as if you’ve allowed yourself to be interrupted. And you’re now going with the narrative from the person that has interrupted you? Well, when somebody is interrupted, you often don’t want to take you off course, maybe you are going in this particular direction, and it’s not in their best interest, that you continue in that direction. So they try to derail you push you off course. And you when you then get sidetracked, you’ve that you’ve allowed them to win, essentially. So it’s important not to do that.  Yes, you don’t want to be taken advantage of by others. But in when you say that somebody is taking advantage of you, you have to be careful to give a complete response that is, but you must act in a way that advances your own cause. You’ll act in a way that furthers their cause, you know, somebody has slapped you, maybe that person is actually physically stronger. When you slap them that they’ll end up beating you up.

Akinyi: Yeah, exactly.

Hafsat: You know, what you’ve allowed them to set the terms of engagement along the terms that best events. But when you didn’t do that, when you just step back, and you look at what the person has done, when you consider what your options are, how to respond, there’s you holding on to your power, and then applying your power in the most responsible way. Because then you could come up with a solution that at least is good for you, at the minimum. And at the maximum, ideally is good for both of you. So you could have a conversation with that person. And then the person says, you know, I don’t know why I did that, I’m sorry, I’m going to check myself in the future, and you have a better understanding.  So that I think is better, especially if you’re not physically as strong. Something else I wanted to say about that which is connected. It’s always better in any engagement. Wherever possible, the strongest power is in action. Not so much in words. So, if there’s something that we don’t like, like, we don’t like the way Africa is positioned in the global economy, but Africans spend so much time talking about the poverty in Africa, the challenges, I just think that that’s not what we should be doing. We should be spending as much time connecting me, Hafsat connecting to Akinyi, and seeing and doing research, how do we change that situation? That’s what our audience is not just an exhausting yourself, lamenting limitation.  Now, what is it going to do for anybody? What is it ever done? But it’s the innovation, always holding on to hope, and always trusting that the God that made Caucasians and Asians is the same color that has made Africans and is not a God as much as found in us to poverty and misery. So that is a challenge that he has set before us, he has set because he knows we can meet the challenge, then we work to meet it. So, I think that, and when we move in that way, we then engage all the potential allies and say, here’s where we’re at what Africans are doing. We would love for you to partner with us. You know, when you look at the history of the world, we look at the audacity of British companies going to take over pretty much the subcontinent of India and run it as their own private system. Before it was actually a British company, not even the British state that did that the East India Company. Yeah, you know, and, and those people acted and then mobilized alliances to concrete concretize, that action? We are not doing that. And I think that’s the problem is not that they did it, is the fact that we don’t have enough belief in ourselves to also take action.

Akinyi: And I think it’s about like because I think power comes from within. So, it’s how you harness that power?

Hafsat: Completely agree.

Akinyi: I think that’s so important. And I think also with how like the pandemic has happened, and how things have slowed down, I think especially as like black women, we’re always taught, like, we’re so strong, you know, we fail through whatever adversity or whatever happens to us. And I think it’s important for us to, like, be able to, like, be soft, to be able to be sad, if we need to be sad, you know, to be able to, like, be, we don’t have to be strong all the time. And I think that’s also important in like getting into those leadership roles. Because I think, as well as like being a strong woman, you also need to like have, you need to have emotions, you need to be like emotional in the sense that you can like slow down, you can see things for what they really are not just like hard as that’s what like the word expects women to be because we’re strong, you know.

Hafsat: You know, to be honest with you, I think it even goes deeper than that, I think, you know, first we’re women, and that’s a big issue that we need to unpack. And we’re also black people, that’s also I think, and the world that we live in, in a way bigger. Consider, you know, there was one day, I went to the very first trip to another West African country, Cote d’Ivoire. And its sister of mine from my yacht. One of the French departments in that is an island of African, the African post. She convened so many of us together in this case. And there was this exhibition that she organized that a friend of hers had done, where they looked at the way in which story where they looked at the way in which they looked at the way in which black people have been presented over centuries. Actually, women followed that exhibition, it started playing. I didn’t know when they looked at was wanting to child, I think I need to go in a zoo in a pen in a zoo, and all these people around her looking at her, like the way we look at monkey, you go to the zoo and over a banana. Then there was even another woman with a child that she was carrying and another child standing beside her and we’re going looking at this family, then the woman that they took from South Africa, Lucy I think she had a very big one. And I think that took her to France. And she was on a tour, she was put on a circuit, and people would come from all over to local, especially because of our bond, because he had a very big gun. You know, when she death, she wasn’t giving any dignity because they now did this effort to find out, you know, to call her up to study our body. When President Mandela will go to South Africa to France, when he became president of South Africa, immediate requests that remains should begin Even back to the people of South Africa. So she could be probably very. I think you, you know, there was another time I read about the Second World War. And Winston Churchill in England, you know, he, you know, Africans as colonial subjects that being part of that war as soldiers, Nigeria, in many countries, Kenya. But at the end, when they were doing the march into England, the victory march into England, Winston Churchill made the decision that the Africans should come in last, so that by this time, most of the crowd would have gone and then they wouldn’t have to acknowledge that Africans had contributed to helping them win that war.  We think it’s always interesting for us, when you hear about things like this, we think, well, how could that have happened? And that’s wrong? I think we should think differently, I think, you know, how are those kinds of things happening even today? In what ways are Africans being continually objectified? In what ways? Are we not getting the rewards of our labor? Because I think sometimes, those kinds of practices, we think are colonization, it went on. And in the, from 1958, when Ghana secured independence, the countries in Africa became started to become independent. But we don’t think of the kind of mindset that shaped those kinds of political systems, and the fact that those mindsets still exist.  So I think you know, that we need to realize that colonization or frameworks are like the tip of the iceberg that we can see below the iceberg is even a larger body of values, ideas, beliefs about other people. So that even if you take care of the colonization as a framework, and say, we let’s get this country to be independent, you will continually have the children, the offspring of that kind of mindset, that would also be degrading, dehumanizing for the people affected. So, I want us to take that approach.  And because if we take that approach, we become more critical, less accepting, more insistent on evidence, more insistent on data, more insistent on looking at actual results, and not to be overwhelmed and overtaken by pronouncements, you know. I’m here in Belgium, which is just a wonderful country. But you know, one of their stories was when they came at the colony, in very hot continents. And he wanted to meet a certain quota for rubber. So to make sure that the Africans could deliver this quarter, their hands were cut their feet, my car, if they fail to deliver even that of their children. Now, when you think about that, and then you think about how the country gained its independence, and what happened right after that to the first democratically elected president, and the fact that till today, Congo is the poorest black, poorest country in Africa. Even though they have coltan, which is an essential and strategic resource used for every mobile phone, then you can see the long history and how we continue the has an impact. So what I don’t want is for us to feel like oh, we’re all looking at us were victims. Woe is us, everybody is against us. Because that’s not true.  From the experience of slavery, through the experience of colonization, through the experience of neoliberal economics on our different countries and economies. We’ve had allies in the rest of the world will stood with us. But I think also that my challenge actually is that within the continent, so few realize that we need allies. So few realize that we’re still in a battle. They still Besant to say, Oh, it’s all about our governments now and the governments to do what they need to do, but it’s more than our governments. It’s always been more than the continent, because the continent and the people of the continent are considered to be special reserves of others.  And I think this is where we need to begin to address a lack of true sovereignty, then I think that we need to recognize that as Africans, There was this beautiful quote from Toni Morrison, where she said, the big, the big, the big motive of racism is distraction. So they tell you, you don’t have a history and you start doing research to prove you have a history, when they tell you don’t have a language show to prove that you were done there, you exist in all this. And I think we need to remember that our goal as Africans is not to prove our humanity to anyone.  Our goal, as Africans is to be present in the world, on equal terms with others. And so we should keep our eye on that prize. That what does the world need to have expressed today that we as Africans can also support the expression of and not get distracted by all these efforts, many centuries in the making to dehumanize and degrade us.

Akinyi: That was really, like, incredible to listen to. Like I’ve just like lost for words. Like I can listen to you all day. So now I want to know more about you. And so, my first question is, what did you want to be when you were a child?

Hafsat: When I was young, I wanted to be a diplomat. And I told my dad, that I want to be a diplomat, because I had gotten into Georgetown School of Foreign Service. I applied early from high school. And I said to my dad, but I want to go there because I want to be a diplomat. And my father paused. And he said, what kind of husband will you marry gallivanting around the world? The funny thing is that, if not for COVID, I would still be gallivanting around the world, because when he won the political presidential election in Nigeria, and this was decades ago, in 1993, and then the military put him in jail. And my mother had to begin to lead the pro-democracy efforts.  At that moment, I became an activist, I started traveling, to speak for a cause for democracy, I was traveling all over the United States, through Canada, through the United Kingdom, everywhere we went to Germany, to price our case. And then afterwards, I became involved, I created an organization in Nigeria to empower women and young people to participate in that democracy, and kept traveling because of that., because I’ll be invited to Sweden, I’ve been invited. I was working on a youth employment campaign to help generate millions of jobs for young people around the world. So, we would be holding a summit in Egypt would all the summit in India, you know, so I was always traveling.  And I always remember that my father said, you know, what kind of husband because I did find your husband over now. My ex husband, but also, because I think that’s ultimately the worst. I mean, I don’t represent any government. But oh, it’s saying that my internet is unstable, I hope returned to conversation. But it doesn’t, you know, I don’t represent any government. But as president of women in Africa, I represent African women. And I’m having to travel, engage with partners, engage with sponsors, and advocate for women’s economic empowerment. So, I think I ended up doing actually exactly what I wanted to do.

Akinyi: Yeah, for sure. And I think also, because through your work, you’re promoting the development of women, as initiators of change through leadership and awareness programs, for examples through founding the Kudirat initiative for democracy, which is named after your mother. Why did you name after your mother?

Hafsat: I liked that woman so much. Yeah, in my brain, great human being. And when the military gunned her, down on the streets of Lagos, because she was organizing the democratic effort, I wanted to let the military know that they had not silenced that voice. So created, because she’s a very kind lady. I just needed the acronym kind of starts with a case of I made it easier, and that I could write initiative for Nigerian democracy. And then I th

Intro: Hello, and welcome to The Good Council, the podcast of the World Future Council. In each episode, we’ll highlight current challenges and policy solutions. And we’ll also take you on a journey of inspiring stories. Listen in to another of our intergenerational dialogues from around the globe.

Annika: This is a slightly different episode of our podcast series. For starters, it begins with a traditional Maori greeting…

Kosha: Greeting

Annika: One of the most cherished Councillors of the World Future Council is Pauline Tangiora. A Maori elder and leading figure for indigenous communities, she is described as a repository for knowledge and wisdom. She is a daughter, a mother and grandmother, and not just to her family, but to many people around the world. She is also a tireless fighter and campaigner for the rights of nature, for peace and disarmament, and for intergenerational conversations—just like the one she had with me. Pauline has been a member of the World Future Council since its foundation in 2007. But I wanted to get to know her as a person, what she did before she joined, and why she does what she does. I hoped to learn about her views on life, on her work and on her community, and about her message to present and future generations.

For example, I read that Pauline’s community is much more collective than we are used to in Europe, and often lives together across generations where generations can benefit from one another. So, I asked her how exactly she practices inter-generational living.

Pauline: Well, it’s a difficult question to answer. By bringing on board—over few years that I’ve travelled overseas, taking a younger person with me, and then dropping them into the situation that they have to speak because we, we as Maori, usually do things together. Not on our own. And that’s the way that we have been doing it for several years. My travels overseas haven’t been for me, they’ve been for the younger people to learn so that they can carry on to the future or to each other. That’s the way our people live, by sharing what knowledge we have. So, everybody is on board, because of different generations have different values. And if we can’t dialogue with the generation what is happening is a generation gap if we are not understanding or not sharing that knowledge.

Annika: I was also really interested in her indigenous community. I wondered, is there prhaps a particular message that the Maori have for the WFC?

Pauline: Well, I can’t talk for everybody. I can only talk from my perspective and my community… to achieve the dreams of this modern age we have to get everybody on board and that is like in any other community, trying to get everybody on board is very difficult.

You’ve had an extra little experience of how Maori start their day, when Kosha-Joy opened with our language and introduced me. Those things are important to retain. It’s very important that every indigenous community in the world retains those introductions in a world which is so European.

But we have some young people like Kosha-Joy and that, who are working very hard to bring the “new world” to the “old world”. Cause some of us are not prepared yet for that new world. As for indigenous people internationally, in my work with the indigenous peoples around the world, many of them have looked to Maori to help them to succeed.

But at the Rio Conference, of Kari-Oca, one thing we were all united in—the over [ninety] nationalities—was that, we mustn’t lose that, which we’ve had.

Annika: In June 1992, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development—also known as the ‘Earth Summit’—was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It was a major UN conference that sought to rethink economic development and to find ways to stop polluting the planet and depleting its natural resources. But while heads of governments met in Rio, indigenous peoples had their own summit at Kari-Oca, a village outside Rio: the World Conference of Indigenous Peoples on Territory, Environment and Development. And following their Kari-Oca Conference, the indigenous leaders shared their perspectives with the State representatives.

Pauline: One of the things that we have noticed in the international world: international companies look at some of our young indigenous peoples, they grab them and put them into places where they lose their contact with their indigenous world. And that’s a danger that all indigenous communities around the world have. And I think the WFC have given a little bit of a leeway for the indigenous peoples to come forward from their perspective, especially some of the women of Africa who have come forward planting millions of trees, the waterways; the women in India, trying to save Gujarat; the women in the Amazon, trying to stop the forest being cut down. Because indigenous peoples can only work with the environment that they’re around, those environments vary from country to country. And it doesn’t matter how big a community you have, it’s all the same, it’s retaining the knowledge of how Mother Earth works with humanity. If we don’t work this together, we are not above Mother Earth, we are within Mother Earth, and humanity must be tamed.

Pause

Annika: One thing that I learned in advance of my call with Pauline was that Maori people believe in Kaitiakitanga, which can be translated into trusteeship (of the Earth). What does this fascinating concept mean, and what does it entail?

Pauline: That number one, you have a responsibility for yourself. To make sure that you are honest, your morals are above reproach. Because unless you yourself can look within yourself, you cannot work within the environment or with the new community. Because to look after anything, you must be there for the purpose of, number one, your people, humanity, and the world as such. So, sometimes it’s a hard-y road to walk. But other times people can come to understand if indigenous peoples go to the government and say “this is not right”.

Unfortunately, the government has different values. But in my experience in approaching other governments around the world, saying “this is the way these people that I am with today, see it”—but people seem to think that you ask one or two people, how to do things, and that is why the Rio Conference in ‘92 for environment, it was set up by [Maurice] Strong [former Under-Secretary of the UN], the Kari-Oca Conference—free conference where all these 90 year old national, independent indigenous peoples of the world came together—and they decided with the Kari-Oca document “this is the way we do it”. And when Marcos Terena presented to the Rio Conference, which is only visited by heads of state, he walked in there with bare feet. And I heard somebody say “the poor man hasn’t got any shoes!”. Now, to Marcos, having his feet touch Mother Earth gave him the strength to present that document. So, if you’re a Kaitiaki, you must be able to stand for what you believe is right, but you can’t always get everybody to agree with you.

Indigenous peoples know the difference in Europeans. But if you can sit and come together, to listen to what Mother Earth is your guiding light. For instance, if I can’t hear the frogs, I know something’s wrong with the environment. Climate, and the environment is not two separate things, they work together. That’s how indigenous people see the circle is all complete. But once you start taking one thing out of the circle, and talking about just the climate, or the environment, or health, then you’ve lost the whole concept of being Kaitiaki. Because everything in that circle makes up the life force of a person, and you’re wider or your whole person is within that circle. That’s about how I can explain it to you Annemike.

Annika: Before my call with Pauline, I had the chance to speak to one of the Councillors of the WFC, Neshan Gunasekera from Sri Lanka…

Pauline: Oh, Neshan is a great man! He worked for Judge Weeramantry…

Annika: Judge Weeramantry was a Sri Lankan judge at the International Court of Justice, in the Hague. After his tenure at the ICJ ended, he took up the position of President of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms and became an influential figure in the area of international environmental law.

Pauline: When Neshan came onto the World Future Council, it was great to see a young person who’s come who has worked alongside Judge Weeramantry who could bring the dreams of the youth of Sri Lankra with the old values that Judge Weeramantry had. And one of the things I really admired about Neshan was that he is carried on these workshops for the young people, in Sri Lanka, for people from all around the world together, and I think the WFC is very lucky–or very blessed more than luck—to have him on board with that sort of thing.

Annika: Neshan shared with me an amazing story about a time he met Pauline in Hamburg, during one of the early annual general meetings of the Council. He told me that on a dark snowy evening, Pauline was barefoot in the snow. She encouraged others to also take their shoes off; Neshan, who is used to the warmth and sun, actually took off his shoes, and tried not to show how freezing it was. And yet, it was a lesson of bearing the elements, and I ask Pauline to remember…

Pauline: Ah yes… Well, everything is a living live force, doesn’t matter whether it’s snow, or whether it’s the rain, or whether it’s the sun. Everything is a living life force, and without that none of us would survive for future generations. So when I sit here with the birds, and look at the sunrise here just a little while ago, they are all living life forces which starts our life when we open our eyes in the morning. We must remember to pay respect to those that living life force, it may not be the same to everybody. But if we can train or teach our young people what a living life force is, then I think we’ve done the greatest part of our lives, what the Creator created us for.

I don’t think there are any boundaries of life forces, we are all the same, we need to breathe the air, and have the sun. And without those two things, we are nothing. Because the spirituality of our life comes from those areas of the light of the days. And what we do through the day will be how we can teach our younger people, my grandchildren, and some of them say they want to go into space, and live in space. And I say, how are you going to survive in space? So, we have to bring that to our young people how the space is there as a creation of the Creator, and not to take control of the space. Because nothing of our lives can be controlled, it’s controlled by the Creator. That’s the living life force that the Creator has given to each and every one of us to use, for the betterment of humanity.

Annika: Listen to this story about one of Pauline’s grandchildren… a story that reminds us also to look at our own relations with others, and between children and grandchildren…

Pauline: I remember one of my grandchildren when he was three years old. He decided he was going to climb a tree out at the back of my place. He got up to two or three branches and then he looked up sky and he said “Nanny, one day I’m going to climb up this tree and climb and have a look at the sky”. That’s some proof of how young people learn things. And when he comes back now and again, he has a look at that tree and says “see, that tree has grown taller”. And I said “Well, when are you going to climb up?” And he said, “well, it’s not yet up to the sky”, so he’s got the idea that the tree will keep growing—simple things like that. I think it’s very important to encourage in our young people. Too often they’re sitting watching the films on space and they’ve forgotten just to run around.

And look at dandelions, for instance. One day, I picked some dandelions, and he said “what are you gonna do with that nanny?” And I said, “I’m gonna make salad of them”. And he said “you can’t make salad out of the weed!”. And I said “well, you go watch because that’s what we’re gonna have for dinner”. Simple things like that. Us as elders and young people must continually come together and talk. I don’t know why is when my discussions with my grandchildren, or with my own children where I think it’s good to help have a healthy discussion. Not with the kid, the children watching television and all these programs and learn all those things—they need to talk face to face. And the elders don’t lose anything by missing out and young people show you that you might have to have another look at your world view. One of the basic things about the world view of the indigenous thinking is: never forget that you are the creation of the Creator. Unless you continually remember that, you are not here to serve yourself, you’re here to look after and be with your people.

Pause

Annika: We then moved on to talking about Pauline’s rich experience on the international stage. As a leading figure for indigenous communities, she travelled to Mexico to face militaries with Indigenous community members, comforted child victims of chemical weapons attacks in Iraq, and drove to Big Mountain in Arizona in a peace caravan. So, I asked her: What did you learn from representing indigenous communities on the world stage? But first, rightly so, Pauline corrected me…

Pauline: I can never represent indigenous peoples, but I can be the voice to carry to the UN. For instance, the people in Africa, South Africa, wanted their land back, the bush people, but they could not get into the UN. And through Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, we could get into the UN, and have a voice because you must be accredited as you will know. And with Kim Langbecker, we managed to get into the UN and put their case so that at the World Environmental Conference at the beginning of 2000, I was very humbly honoured by the government taking me up to see that the bush people will be given the land back because the pressure of the UN on the South African government pushed it that those bush people will now have their land back. So that’s the sort of thing I think that we must be available for other indigenous peoples—or any person—to voice their concern. The honour is not ours, the honour is of those people who we are the voices of. If we don’t pick up those concerns, you don’t win any friends on the international scene, I’ll tell you that!

Annika: In the Western hemisphere, there are currently large campaigns taking place that advocate for the rights of nature to be codified in law. This would allow for the possibility that violations of nature can be enforced in a court of law. But this consideration isn’t new. The American law professor Christopher D Stone first argued that environmental interests should be recognised apart from human ones in his book “Should Trees Have Standing?”, in 1972. Similarly, there are advocacy campaigns under way to lobby the UN Human Rights Council to consider a historic resolution on the right to a healthy environment. Again, the difference to indigenous communities is striking, for in 2017, New Zealand granted legal rights to the Whanganui River. The Maori had been fighting for more than 160 years to get legal protection for the river, relying on it for food, travel, and their livelihood.

Pauline: We haven’t put it into law. It’s a natural right and responsibility of the government to accept.  You’re talking about the river, aren’t you? The Whanganui River. The government had to accept that that was the right of those indigenous tribes of the Whanganui River. That was there was a lifeforce. To me, they didn’t need a law. But for Europeans, you have to have laws. So there’s two conflicts here: one is the ‘lore’, L-O-R-E, the lore of the people. And L-A-W, the European way of living.

Annika: And here’s Kosha-Joy, joining the conversation.

Kosha-Joy: I have a question, though. What about the Takutai Moana stuff. Does that relate to this question?

Pauline: Well, we have te takutai moana on the coast. We live on a peninsula, which is three quarters surrounded by the ocean. And we made an application because the government declared in 2004 that we had no rights to the oceans, the foreshore and seabed. But they belong to everybody. What became confusing for me, was how can you make a law to say that we who were here for hundreds of years have taken your food basket from your back door is not ours to look after. And that was why our people would have applied to the court in 2004 to have it put back into the hands of the people to look after, not after the law, L-A-W of the country and we’re still fighting that at the moment. So, there is a confusion of the L-A-W with the L-O-R-E. And Europeans have come from an ownership, nuclear ownership background of the Westminster parliamentary system, which makes it very difficult for many Europeans. And it becomes then a racial thing or discrimination: Why is one people getting more than the other? But unfortunately for the world, people forget to look back at who has looked after it for the millions of years before somebody else has moved into a country and decided that they want to do it this way.

And that’s why we’ve got within the Amazon forests all those farmers that have come in after the Second World War and taken over the forestry of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon. Now that’s why we’ve got forest fires going on all the time in the Amazon which is affecting the climate.

Annika: Pauline’s concerns hit close to home. Her community is protesting against letting a US-owned rocket company launch US military technology from the Mahia Peninsula, which has an impact on the local flora and fauna.

Pauline: Those people know that if you start doing that sort of thing, you’re going to affect the climate. And so it is with our foreshore and our seabed. The government saying, the government argue on behalf of the people. That’s why I was our foreshore and our seabed are becoming contaminated. Nobody was looking after it because if you want to try and do something, oh, then you’ve got a local council who says, “Oh, no, you can’t go fishing this time because this area of the foreshores and seabed must be locked down, because there’s a rocket going up, on our peninsula”.

So we’ve got this now that the local council gave permission for rocket land company to set themselves up on my peninsula where I live. And now, when that rocket goes off, that company is allowed by law, L-A-W, to close down that collection area of picking up seafoods. Now, that is wrong, you can’t do that sort of thing because our people rely on them for their sustenance, for their livelihood. When people pass away, that is the most important place that they go, to get the seafood to feed all the hundreds of people who come to pay their respects, but when this rocket is going up, that coastline has closed down. So there already is a very non-compliance of recognition, or acceptance rather, that our people, indigenous peoples of the Mahia peninsula, have that responsibility, it’s not a right, it’s a responsibility to look after that foreshore. And that’s a takutai moana [the marine and coastal area] which we have taken to the court in 2004. We’re still wanting that to be accepted. But then saying that, we have to get all our people to understand, it’s not a law L-A-W we’re going for, it’s a L-O-R-E, and that nobody will be missing out if we come together as one group because within Maoridom you have fano, which is a group of families, you have hapū [“subtribe”, or “clan”], which is when those families will come together. And you have a iwi [“people” or “nation”] group which has a responsibility to carry out those things which the people, the fano and the hapū, the families and the group of families, have come together and agreed to carry out so that the iwi group’s responsibility is to go forward and carry the request with all our people on board.

Pause

Annika: After this lesson in Maoridom and the concerns that they have about the use of the Mahia peninsula, I moved our conversation to other issues that Pauline dedicates her life to, which are also core areas of work of the World Future Council: Peace and disarmament, ocean diversity, rights of women and young people, and climate and energy issues.

Pauline is particularly concerned about nuclear issues. In a previous interview with the World Future Council, Pauline clarified that the issue is four-fold: first, the mining of uranium destroys indigenous lands. The second issue is the so‐called civil use for nuclear power plants. Thirdly, nuclear energy is used as an instrument of war, and fourthly, there are concerns about the handling of nuclear waste. Aotearoa / New Zealand became nuclear free in all four aspects in 1984, but Pauline still had to witness the nuclear destruction in the South Pacific while raising her children in the 50s and 60s.

Pauline: Well, that is a very dangerous area, the Pacific at the moment, and also north of Russia, Belarus. Because people have dumped their natural nuclear waste in the Pacific, and they say they’ve got it encased in a stone vault. Now anybody with any two-piece brain in their head will know that where it’s situated that it drives on an earthquake fault. And when we’ve seen so many earthquakes going up at the moment, spitting the land around the world, that that could damage the concrete vault, and then waste will go into the ocean. And there’s nothing you can do about it. Japan has their waste sunk which is on the edge of the ocean because it’s in big bags apparently, from the blowout of some years back. And that was opened through the climate destruction which is happening with earthquakes now as well, in Japan.

What’s going to happen? Who’s gonna feed the world because 75% of the world’s surface is oceans? How do all these millions and billions of people who live around the coastlines going to feed themselves? It’s a living disaster. And before we talk about climate change, we have to look at how are we going to deal with the disaster which is sitting under our noses but we don’t want to address it. The scientists need to first come up with something, you’re getting all these warm oceans, and the warm oceans will destroy the streams. So, the basic is the nuclear waste is really hot. So that’s where you really have to start looking at Belarus, Russia, and the Pacific Ocean. Because nobody has thought about why is the Pacific Ocean warming up? Recently, people of the Pacific have said to me, “Well, naturally, if you’re warming up those concrete slabs which the nuclear waste is in, naturally that’s going to warm the ocean”. Because the nuclear reactors, when they’ve dumped all that nuclear waste, it will naturally heat up the concrete vaults which they’re contained in. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to know that.

Annika: To Pauline, this constitutes the greatest threat to the environment.

Well, there won’t be any humanity left. That how simple it is. The damage will kill us. The environment will die down, humanity will die down. I’m not a scientist and I’m not a bearer of bad news or good news. It’s only common sense that with the Ocean, even though we’re near the Pacific, where’s the food going to come from? Already, the fish is contaminated with mercury poisoning. And that’s not very well known. Many people buy fish overseas, that’s already contaminated with mercury poison, unless we as humanity are going to go otherwise, it won’t be even humanity if you’re going to damage the oceans like that.

Annika: So, what are her hopes for how we can improve this?

Pauline: Number one: war—sou stop the wars; you help to stop the destruction. But we don’t need nuclear bombs. You don’t need nuclear fallout. That’s how simple it is… War does not bring peace to anyone. If you look around the world today, the wars are a destruction, killing humanity on every continent, that’s very simple. Stop the wars and start living peacefully together.

Pause

Annika: Pauline has already done so