The 17 September, 2021, the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation and Uppsala University were honoured to present Christiana Figueres as the 2019 Dag Hammarskjöld Lecturer and medallist. The lecture took place in the Uppsala University Main Aula (The 2020 iteration of the lecture was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic) and was titled: ‘Leadership for the decisive decade’.
About the Lecturer
Christiana Figueres, photo by Mikael Wallerstedt.
Christiana Figueres is a Costa Rican citizen and was the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) from 2010 – 2016.
During her tenure at the UNFCCC, Ms. Figueres brought together national and sub-national governments, corporations and activists, women’s groups, scientists and spiritual communities, financial institutions and NGOs to jointly deliver the historic Paris Agreement on climate change. Under this agreement, 195 sovereign nations agreed on a collaborative path to limit future global warming to well below 2°C, and to strive for 1.5°C in order to protect the most vulnerable. For this achievement Ms. Figueres has been credited with forging a new brand of collaborative diplomacy, for which she has received multiple awards.
Since then, Ms. Figueres continues to foster rapid action on climate change. She is the author of The Future We Choose, Surviving the Climate Crisis (Penguin Random House 2019) and co-hosts the podcast Outrage and Optimism. She sits on the Boards of ACCIONA and Impossible Foods. Ms. Figueres is a graduate of Swarthmore College and the London School of Economics. She lives in Costa Rica and has two fantastic daughters.
About the lecture
For the Dag Hammarskjöld Lecture 2019 Ms Figueres reflects on Dag Hammarskjöld’s staunch humanist convictions within the context of the current climate change challenge. She argues that the entry into the era of the Anthropocene makes it necessary for humans to assume the responsibility that they have engendered as unparalleled agents of change. She notes that unlike any previous period in the evolution of mankind, humans are holding the pen on the present and, above all, on the future.
Ms Figueres also provides examples of how, in addressing climate change, we begin to take individual and collective responsibility to mend the damage we have wrought on ourselves and on other sentient beings on the planet. She notes that we are also beginning to show solidarity with one another and to strengthen our collaboration capacity; we are donning Hammarskjöld’s humanist conviction, which is the only route to address the greatest challenge that humanity has ever faced.