Top 27 Quotes & Sayings by Christiana Figueres

I still do not understand why we don't have people on the streets every single day raising their voices for climate.

We, the older generations, simply cannot leave a world for you, the younger generations, in which climate change impacts become ever more threatening to your survival. Still more public attention and action are needed. Solutions like renewable energy or energy efficiency need to fully power our collective future!

This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the industrial revolution. That will not happen overnight and it will not happen at a single conference on climate change, be it COP 15, 21, 40 - you choose the number. It just does not occur like that. It is a process, because of the depth of the transformation.

We will move to a low-carbon world because nature will force us, or because policy will guide us. If we wait until nature forces us, the cost will be astronomical.

Connect with people, visibly and loudly showcase initiatives that reduce greenhouse gases emissions, nurture youth leaders, or spread the message by raising awareness through campaigns. I am convinced that your contributions will ensure that climate change solutions safely power our - and especially your - future.

The U.S. military is investing in new storage technology because most of the weight that soldiers carry on their backs is batteries. Once that gets developed for the military, it will be expanded to civilians.

We are just about to cross the 400 parts per million threshold.

We have already used more than half of that budget. This means that three quarters of the fossil fuel reserves need to stay in the ground, and the fossil fuels we do use must be utilized sparingly and responsibly.

When you have a vision of where you need to go, it sounds utopian. But when you get to the tipping point, your understanding switches.

We have to get to the point where each individual, each corporation, each community chooses low carbon, because it makes fundamental sense. It should become a no-brainer.

You can rear children in an antagonistic environment or in a facilitative one with a good combination of love and discipline. It's about supporting them, and recognizing achievements and contributions, but also saying, "that's fantastic but it's not enough, here's the next thing."

We shouldn't have stupid cars that use liquid fossil fuels. Come on, how outmoded is that? We have to get to the point where this is no longer a part of our experience.

It is critical that the world captures every last bit of energy efficiency, if we are to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough to keep below dangerous rises in temperature. I am pleased that this important new study shows how information and communication technology can play an essential role in saving energy. Now we need more and effective government policies that reward such action and penalize delayed responses.

The fact is, when you talk to people, they know that something weird is going on, particularly people who are connected to the land or the water. They can see it. What perhaps is not so evident to them, unfortunately, is what the solution is. But whether they call it climate change or not, it doesn't matter. The point is, they can see there's something fundamentally weird going on here.

Carbon neutrality is going to be so standardized that you will look at anything that is not carbon neutral and go, "where the hell did that monster come from?" It's exciting.

Think global, act local.

In a perfect world global emissions would have peaked already. In a semi-perfect world we will peak on Dec. 31, 2020. The fact is, that's going to be difficult. We know that it's going to get more and more expensive the longer we delay.

This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model, for the first time in human history.

Each building should produce as least as much energy as it's going to need, and have more to put on the grid. They should be using all of the natural light and natural heat.

No architect should design buildings that import a huge amount of energy.

The record-breaking extreme weather events causing chaos across the globe should be a wake-up call. The transition to a low-carbon economy will be much more painful if we wait until there is a climate crisis before recognising that more than half of the world's fossil fuel reserves will have to remain in the ground.

The fact that solar has gone down 80 percent since 2008 is astonishing. Wind is perhaps not coming down as quickly. Lack of storage - batteries - is a bottleneck. That makes it very difficult to put large amounts of renewable energy on the grid.

Second, I believe in human ingenuity – that when we decide on a task to be done, no matter how daunting it may seem at the beginning, we are able to unleash human ingenuity and human innovative capacity that was unknown, and takes us to a solution.

Quite frankly, there is no answer to climate change without substantially, dramatically, increasing the amount of renewable energy in the global energy system.

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We cannot ask others to do what we have not done ourselves.

We're going to get to the point where we ask how the hell we put up with high carbon for so many years. You thank your lucky stars, because you are seeing this transformation in your lifetime. You are going to tell your children and your grandchildren you saw this whole thing in front of your eyes.