Can branding save the planet? Of course not.

Only people and their collective actions can achieve what needs to be the biggest and fastest change of human behaviour in world history.

We’ve had the Agricultural Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, and we’re in the foothills of the Digital Revolution. But unless we can precipitate a Green Revolution right now, Humans, as a species, are toast.

I’ve heard the manifesto of the perfectly branded protest movement Extinction Rebellion. But last night I was privileged to hear an alternative vision from a very different brand of change maker: Global Optimism.

Although I can’t quite be certain, I think I was at the first public announcement of a global movement to tackle climate change that might actually work. Get the f*** out of here!

Tom Rivett-Carnac is managing partner of Global Optimism, which exists to precipitate (that word again) ‘a transformation from pessimism to optimism as a method for creating social and environmental change’.

So far so fluffy. But then it turns out that he and his organisation were the strategic force behind 197 countries signing up to the Paris Agreement in 2015. Tom’s black book of global influencers in politics, industry and science is about as thick as it gets.

But for this emergency he’s brought a friend with an even thicker black book: Chris Anderson, the curator of TED Conferences. Both men are from Bath, hence the extraordinarily privileged position that we, the audience found ourselves in.

With TED comes another handy ally in changing human behaviour overnight: YouTube, and more importantly a massive army of YouTubers.

So what are they (and we as new recruits to the cause) all going to do together?

To even start, we need optimism. As Tom put it: “optimism is a torch in the dark”. It’s an essential force to create the huge ambition and dedication needed to make this happen.

His optimism is infectious, because the task is do-able and the Scientists in those black books know how. Politicians (from City Mayors to Presidents, with some notable exceptions) are on board. Industrialists are starting to feel the pressure, not least from their own children pointing the finger at them. The Investment community is ready to fund it, because it will be highly profitable.

Tom thinks it’s an exciting mission, or as he put it. “What will future generations say about this moment? They sat at the fulcrum of these two competing futures, and they chose…..”

What comes next is up to us.

First it’s worth framing the problem. ‘Global warming’ has always seemed a bit too vague and almost cuddly, to start a revolution against. Same for ‘climate change’.

But when we truly feel the forces we’re up against (‘extinction rebellion’ kind of gets you there), we feel powerless to do anything.

So… to change this we’re going to use optimism, numbers and a hint of gamification. Ready to play?

We need to reduce our Carbon dioxide (technically our CO2 equivalent) emissions from 55 Gigatonnes per year to a big fat Zero. By 2050.

Now: 55,000,000,000 tonnes per year

Then: 0

That looks very difficult, and it is. It’s a reduction of 7.5% per year.

The more ‘developed’ Western nations are the biggest contributors to emissions, at 25 tonnes per person per year, around 20 times the global average. We pollute the most because we have the highest level of economic activity.

Interestingly, by exporting the manufacture of many products that we consume, we’ve rapidly increased the emissions of developing nations too, and made it look like ours are declining. No-one’s fooled by that.

Economic activity, in the form of Power, Transport, Food, Building and Infrastructure may be the source of all these emissions, but we can’t simply reduce these activities by 7.5% every year. For as long as anyone on the planet has been alive, Governments have been judged by how much they can increasethose things!

The only way out is through Innovation, because sacrifice isn’t going to work.

Global Optimism’s plan is to work out a strategy for each of those areas of economic activity, by bringing together Scientists, Politicians, Industrialists and Influencers who understand the urgency of action.

Despite the mind-blowingly stupid pronouncements of Trump and Bolsonaro, there are far more people in power who get the picture, than those clinging on to the mantras of a bygone age.

As well as drastically reducing the climate impact of the activities mentioned, we need to drastically increase one activity: Carbon sequestration. That’s capturing CO2 and locking it into natural stores.

It’s been estimated that planting one trillion trees would return the Earth’s CO2 levels to pre-agricultural levels. That’s a lot of trees, but the spaces to plant them do exist, thanks to the intense concentration of the global population in cities.

The fact that it can be done and would be so quickly beneficial means that it’s an actual target for the project. To supplement trees we can boost carbon capture through phytoplankton, kelp forests and even whales.

And there’s absolutely no more optimistic a vision for a future than a re-greening of the entire planet. Now there’s a brand identity I’d like to work on!

Here’s another vision: The end of the internal combustion engine by 2030.

Most vehicle manufacturers are planning for a world with only electric vehicles, but their plan is for a gentler trajectory that might take until 2040. Tom believes they can be persuaded to try harder.

What about the incredibly powerful people who run the FAANGs, Companies with far more influence than Presidents, should they choose to use it for something beyond profit? No promises yet, but conversations have started.

So if all of this can be done why isn’t it getting done?

One of the biggest reasons is a lack of a Convener, an organisation which can bring all of the stakeholders together to stimulate the incredibly challenging actions.

That’s the United Nations Climate Summit, I hear you cry. But despite Tom’s best efforts in 2015, how’s that working out for you, fellow Human standing on the cliff edge?

Madrid’s not looking so promising either, so shall we pin our hopes for salvation on Glasgow 2020?

Probably best to have a Plan B (even if there is no Planet B…), so here it is.

Global Optimism and TED are organising a mega-conference for 10th October 2020 (10/10/2020) in Bergen, Norway. Because round numbers are memorable, there’ll be 1000 experts and decision makers there.

Not just any experts and decision makers, but big hairy goal experts and decision makers. They’ll ask the world to start counting down, from 50 Gigatonnes to zero.

They’ll provide a blueprint for how this can be done, and hopefully some progress already. I’ve signed up to do everything in my power to help this initiative.

At the very least my children, and yours, deserve that. To find out more, go to https://countdown.ted.com