The 10th Annual Desmond Tutu International Peace Lecture gets underway on Wednesday (Archbishop Tutu’s 89th birthday) with an emphasis firmly on combatting the fast-approaching horrors of climate change.
Speakers include leading environmentalists like Uganda’s Vanesse Nakate and Cape Town’s own Ayakha Melithafa and Costa Rica’s Christiana Figueres.
Fugueres, an internationally recognised authority on climate change, has stepped in at the last minute in place of Swedish activist Greta Thunberg who has had to withdraw as a speaker.
It will be a vital discussion. Not least because with everyone currently distracted by the very real dangers of the coronavirus pandemic there is a sense that the world is taking its eye off the proverbial ball where impending climate disaster is concerned.
Indeed the worldwide spread of Covid-19 has already bbeen referred to as feeling “like a dreadful hors d’oeuvre for bigger ordeals that are to come if we fail to change our behaviour.” Sadly many world leaders are a little pre-occupied just now. se
This summit aims to be wake-up call for those whose priority is wealth and power rather than caring about the welfare of our oh so precious planet.
In order to survive we have to persuade those in power to turn their backs on greed and consumption.
Join the summit lectures on Wednesday ( 7th October 2020) register here