 But wonderful to be connecting with young people from all sorts of different countries and I've heard a lot about Elk Pro I understand it's in the top 50 schools in India. So congratulations for the leadership school at Elk Pro but also for this panthea project. I'm also delighted that we to school in whopping where my mother's ancestors come from and so my great grandfather was a senior sergeant and the police of what thing. Look, I guess this is for me it's a great honour. I have a special friendship and love of India and as you've just heard some of it I've been to India on 11 occasions have been to many, most of the major cities Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and so on and also holidayed in in Rajasthan. One of the things that I love about it is India's history, its culture, its music, its film, and also, of course, it's marvellous food. But one of the things that's also terrific is that it's given me an opportunity to make extraordinary friendships and that's what's panthea is all about. It's about collaboration. It's about how we are interconnected. And it's also about friendships. I'm very happy to talk about Bollywood later on if there's any questions and also about my appearance at the Chennai stadium, where I played against Chris Srikanth, the former played cricket, the former captain of the Indian cricket team. It was great, great fun. Today, in exploring the concept of Panjee, I'm going to particularly focus on the environment which is an area that I've been involved in but I thought first of all it might help. If I kind of explained how I got into the position that I am in terms of working on climate change around the world. I was born in London. I was born in Southeast London at the age of I didn't come from a rich background, quite the opposite, you know, and so come from a very working class background. My parents made the decision when I was nine years of age to emigrate to migrate to a new country, which was New Zealand incredibly beautiful part of the Commonwealth of Nations. I stayed there through my high school days and went to university they then became a political reporter, but I was passionate about politics. I was passionate about great causes. And in back in 1972, France was testing its nuclear weapons, the atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs in the South Pacific, polluting the atmosphere with radiation, polluting the seas with rate radiation. And they did so because they, they, some of their colonies were in South, the South Pacific, including Murrow at all. A whole, a small group of us, mainly young people decided that we were going to stop the French from exploding nuclear weapons in the South Pacific. People laughed at us like how could basically a bunch of university students stop what a superpower then, and one with atomic weapons from, from testing in the atmosphere and how could we as just ordinary citizens, 20 year old do this. What we did is that we with others got together and we sent a boat across the sea 3000 miles to sit under the site where the nuclear bomb was being strung up from a balloon at 1000 feet above. Because we knew that if the friend we got the media involved, but if the French exploded that bomb that it would kill the people on board more than kill them, it would just be obliteration. So by doing this, we brought the world's attention to what was going on in someone else's backyard that is where a superpower was polluting our planet. One, an event happened that the French we were in international waters, so we weren't breaking any laws. It's important to obey the law. But what we did what happened is that the French boarded our little boat was just a tiny yacht with four people on board, including two young women, two guys, and they beat up the commandos beat up the, the two guys. They bashed one very, very badly. And then they captured. They captured the four people on board and the boat away. Fortunately, one of the young women was taking photos of the bashing up of people the illegal boarding and everything else on a tiny camera. And then when we came to Tahiti, the French government put out a statement saying that they had rescued a boat in distress. And then when we came out and said that this was not true that they were illegally bordered they were beaten up. They said that we were lying. Fortunately, when they were eventually released and this, the people accusing us of lying and were the prime ministers and presidents of France. Fortunately, when our people were released and went came and came back to their base. They had the photos because the young woman Ann Marie Horn had switched photos in the camera and the other one was detained. Those were released to the world and it showed that the French president and prime minister had lied to the world. That caused the Australian government and the New Zealand government to come out in support of what we were doing. New Zealand sent an unarmed warship into the zone and they took the front France to the International Court of Justice at the hay. And then one and it banned they ended up with banning French from testing atomic bombs in the atmosphere so a small bunch of young people, not much older than you stopped a superpower and we formed a group that was into becoming Greenpeace, and it's now doing things around the world. When I finished university I went to into journalism became a political reporter eventually I was offered a job in Australia as the political advisor media advisor to a very charismatic premier called Don Dunstan I was only 24 at the time. And from him and others. I learned a couple of important lessons I wanted to tell you about today. Totally the importance of a good education, secondly the importance of mentors, those who are older than than you older than me at the time, who ended up being guiding spirits to me throughout my career, you can always learn and also discovered something else that if you really want something badly enough that there are views, very few barriers that can stop you achieving your goals and ambitions. If you're prepared to work hard enough and try hard enough. I talk about people talk about being commitment, but there's also resilience that means standing up when when you're knocked down, never being feeling defeated. And then finally, an issue that I think is really important is persistence keep turning up keep going if you keep going, you'll you'll get there. And you can make a difference in the world. And the other thing that I learned is that the world is often divided between those who want to be, and those who want to do. Those who want to be include their people want to be rich want to be famous want to be powerful. But the real heroes are those who want to do those who want to make a difference and provide opportunities for others, and to embrace the global village the pangea concept that we're celebrating and talking about today. These are the real heroes. I then decided having worked for lots of different politicians prime ministers and premiers that I would basically wanted to have a go myself I was getting sick of writing speeches for others. So I thought it was time I wrote speeches for myself. So I got elected to parliament in South Australia, New Zealand, and then became a young minister for employment and further education and Aboriginal affairs and later on became the leader of the Labor Party for 17 years in my state. And what we did during that time that we're in government. When I was premier was do some good things. We basically became an international leader in renewable energy, we wanted to show, not just our own state but other states of Australia to be achieved. And one of the things that we had zero renewable energy when we started. It's now 60% of the state's electricity comes from renewable energy and by 2030 100%. And so that means that that we're no longer dependent on coal fired power stations, we're no longer dependent on on oil or gas with fossil fuels. Instead, we're relying overwhelmingly on wind power and solar power. We also did some other things we were very strong on the environment massively expanding national parks and environmental protection areas, including marine parks to conserve the breeding grounds of fish. We tackled important issues like mental health and homelessness we doubled our expenditure on health, and we also got our economy moving. And as I mentioned at the start, that at the start of this process that we, you know, we are interconnected, because the greatest example of how interconnected we are, are our oceans and our seas. It's the lifeblood of our environment and our economy. I'm from Australia where we're a big island, you know, very, very big island the biggest of the lot. And 99% of our exports are dispatched to destinations around the world by ship across the ocean. The shipping industry is in fact responsible for carrying 90% of world trade and so without shipping without our oceans and that being interconnected. That we wouldn't be able to see the export of food or cars machinery iron and steel, and there are 50,000 cargo ships that cross our oceans connecting us. But the oceans are important in other ways as a source of food, fish and seafood are a basic component in the diets of billions of people around the world about 100 million tons of fish are caught commercially, nearly as many again from agricultural agriculture or fish farms and our seas and coastlines are important for tourism and recreation. So why do we treat our oceans as if they were dumping grounds as sewers, rather than our precious lifeblood. We've been treating our oceans as if they're infinite resource that we can do anything to that we can insult in any ways. And of course, and we think that they could quickly recover. So David Attenborough one of my heroes, the world famous naturalists has pointed out that we now face the consequences of our actions, because the seas are warming, and they're rising and becoming more acid. The United Nations has said that by the end of this century we could see three feet or a one meter rise in sea levels. Well, it's only three feet that would cause devastation for billions of people who live in low coastal areas, as well as the 65 million people on small island who live on small island developing states, their whole lives livelihoods are at stake. These people will be especially at risk from a combination of flooding, extreme weather events, cyclones and storms of the nature that used to be seen once in 100 years, but from a few years from now, by 2050 will happen once a year. And this will make vast regions of the world uninhabitable, will see the end of people, the destruction of people's homes and infrastructure like school produce large numbers of refugees with huge economic problems as a result. And there is another problem increasing acidification of the ocean. And meanwhile, plastic is one of the greatest challenges facing the world's oceans a few years ago, again, so David Attenborough reported that more than 150 million tons of plastic is drifting the world's oceans causing the death of 1 million birds and 100,000 sea mammals that's as well as countless fish around the world. And he produced this film called Blue Planet. And one of the most moving scenes was that of, of a beautiful albatross the world's biggest, biggest bird that was seen feeding that the albatross was seen feeding their chicks a diet of plastic. Charles, who I'm a great admirer of says that we're doing that what we're doing to the planet make makes him fear that we're no longer a rational civilization that are instead driven by some strange economic ideology. I call it greed short term thinking, the exact opposite of pangia and the concept of our global village. So let me tell you a couple of initiatives and then I want to talk about things that you might want to do that we did in South Australia. In 2009, we were the first in Australia, first state in Australia to introduce a ban on plastic bags of the kind that they use in supermarkets non renewable single use. In South Australia, my state has a big land area three times bigger than Maharashtra, but with a very, very small population by comparison, but even our ban stopped 400 million plastic bags each year polluting the environment, and that would have built up it would have been billions by now. And so these bags, of course, if without the ban, these bags would have contributed to greenhouse gases to clogging landfill dumps to littering streets getting into drains into waterways like rivers the sea killing wildlife. And people told me beforehand, this is going to really annoy people you're going to get thrown out at the next election, people will be angry because you're banning plastic bags and telling people they have to take a cloth bag to get their groceries, and so on. The great news is, is always have faith in the people. 80% of the people of South Australia strongly supported our ban, and we're proud to go to the shops carrying cloth bags. And now, more than 10 years later, one by one, other states in Australia are doing the same thing. We're also solar powered our airport, our parliament, our agricultural showgrounds convention center. We put panels on the roofs of countless schools. We solar powered parts solar power other buildings like the museums and art galleries, and now almost one in three homes in Adelaide, our capital city is solar powered. We planted three million trees and a series of urban forests throughout the city of Adelaide in schools, roadways parks we got people involved celebrities politicians school kids, elderly people leaders of different religions. This was about making the city more beautiful but also cleaning the air, and also calling our streets. You know, there are other things that I think people can do, which is, and that's really why I wanted today to talk about what you could do, which I think could really be helpful where you could make a difference, and where you could actually underpin the Pangea movement and be an example to the rest of the world. So what could you do a lot. Make sure that your school is the greenest of any school that you've that anybody has heard of in your local region or area. Work with your teachers to plant trees and shrubs and fruit trees, particularly which have other benefits. And also, of course, you know, we know that the trees are the lungs of our planet. So in addition to fruit trees make sure that there are trees that are indigenous to your local area, and from growing them from seed. So I think that you should talk to your teachers about how you can make your schools more energy efficient, which is like turning things off like computers and lights when you're not not around. How you can embrace recycling, how you can change the way you do things where you're not only making a difference for your environment, but for all our environment. And that means things like a band making sure that you don't use plastic, cut back the use of plastic in your school home and in your personal use. Remember that fresh food is best. Don't buy junk food wrapped in plastic containers. Avoid plastic bags at all costs. Don't use plastic knives plates forks spoons or plastic cups. And if you're offered a plastic bag in a shop say no thank you, and also ask your schools whether you could have a vegetable garden at the school I did when I was a kid in school in New Zealand we had a vegetable garden. And we're allowed to take the vegetables home. And my son went to a school in South Australia where they had this fantastic vegetable garden and the school which was a small primary school up to the age of 11 or 12 concentrated on being an environmental school. Recycle don't live in a three away throw away economy. Work with your teachers at your school to see what can be recycled and work with your local town or village to recycle work with you and also make sure that you get the message about cutting back plastic use to stop communities looking like rubbish dumps. What pressure on politicians. This is and so I can say this as a former politician I'm sure David will agree. It's really important to write to the local MPs local mayor your members of parliament representing cities and states and talk to them about what you're doing at the local level. Yes, and but what you would like them to do invite them to once you've made your school a pangea school committed to the environment committed to sustainability. Make sure you invite them to come and see what's possible elsewhere. And before opening up for questions. Remember, as I told you at the start, a small group of young people stop to powerful nation at nation, exploding nuclear bombs in the atmosphere, stopping them polluting the world from from from someone else's backyard. So whenever anyone tells you that it is impossible to do things. Don't believe them. Everything is possible, at least a major advance is possible if you try hard enough work hard enough, and there's nothing that can stop you to better your life, the lives of your neighbors the life of your family the lives of people in your local area. So remember, the motivation and the world for the better. Make your school, make your village and inspiration for others by showing what can be achieved. Remember, you've got an even smallest ways. Great power, the power of your example. One of the things I wanted to say to us in really important to treat each other well to treat each other with respect, even if you disagree with people. And also, that respect must come about, no matter what other people's religions or backgrounds or economic circumstances are. You know, I'm really inspired these days by the young woman who is the Prime Minister of New Zealand. She has made a point of not only being committed to the environment, committed to sustainability, but also to reconciliation of bringing people of all backgrounds together, never submitting to pressure. If you ever hear a politician trying to divide not unite, don't vote for them when you grow when you're grown up and able to vote, because you know that deep down they are fake and are trying to play people off against each other for their own advantage. So in closing and inviting questions. I have great confidence and faith in your future, because for years, people have been saying, listen to the wisdom of your elders and that's true. But it's also these days really important to listen to the wisdom of young people. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Mike, what an inspiring talk and some really amazing takeaways for all of us. I particularly think that that that you just said that you know we inspire each other, the fact about, you know, having a school that's like an inspiration for each other, the environment, but there are there were just so many key takeaways from this entire talk. I invite our, you know, guests in the audiences in on the zoom meet and on Facebook to putting questions for Mr Mike ran if there is any you can raise hands on zoom, or you can put in your questions on the chat. Of course, Mr Anand Prasad Anand, your domain completely please help me moderate the Q&A Anand Prasad the founder and managing director of skills for education and our co host for this event. Thank you so much for the wonderful introduction Sugandha ma'am and Mike it was an absolute pleasure listening to you talking about the importance of environmental sustainability the importance of fighting for the environment. I think that absolutely nothing is impossible and the importance of global unity in many ways right from politics to other streams of life. I think you've really enlightened us with this wonderful speech and we obviously couldn't have asked for anything better at the closing ceremony of a conference that is one that has gone off so wonderfully well. We have a lot of questions and honestly a lot of questions are coming in via Facebook to we'll allow a student to inaugurate this question and answer session with you. Go ahead. The floor is yours. Thank you so much sir. Thank you so much Mike. I love the your speed so much I think it was very inspiring for me, especially with those thoughts where you know we should know who to work for and we should know where our interest lies. My question basically revolves around the fact that our generation we care about the environment very much and you know we're very strongly we put our foot very strongly forward, and we hold our opinions to the very extreme manner. My question is basically how do we make sure that while we amalgamate these technological advancements that we're going through as at the same time protecting our environment and making sure that the world still remains for you know the future generations to come and come. It's a very good question and actually it's interesting because a lot of the things that I told you about including our embrace of renewable energy in South Australia was strongly opposed not just by our political opponents, but people that you know the media and others came out and said that we would wreck the economy the whole range of things even the plastic bag bag I was told was going to wreck the economy and all this sort of stuff. And that's always the resistance part of it but now what's and that's been the worldwide view against renewable energy and because the fossil fuel industry oil and gas and petroleum have been working in many ways like the cigarette companies tobacco companies of the past when the the movement came about because of the problems we're causing lung cancer which many denied for decades. And so there's always resistance because because they're thinking about the agreed. But now what's happened is that renewable energy has become bankable renewable energy has become profitable. It's become cheaper to produce energy and electricity as technology technology has advanced. And so that means that the giant pension funds that have trillions of dollars and now putting their investments as well as the banks rapidly into renewable and sustainable futures and investments. So when something becomes bankable, all of the people that resisted renewable energy and now thinking, oh, hang on, we can make more money out of this. So what we're seeing in the last four or five years is this incredible them towards investing in renewables with giant banks and others now saying that they won't put money and won't invest in fossil fuel technologies. Let me just raise one person Prince Charles Prince Charles has absolutely led this campaign. He's called it the great reset about in in sustainability and, you know, it's pretty difficult position, the Prince Wales but is played in my view I know that he works with the banks and so on has played a major role. So my view is that environment and technology are actually joining together because one, it's going to end up being cheaper, easier, as well as playing a major role in reducing our carbon emissions. Thank you so much for that answer. Tessie I am sure that answers your question as well as a range of other facets associated with the question. Gary, a dear collaborator once again and co-host from Burping High School Gary, would you like to ask a question. Thank you, Anand. I just wanted to say, Mike, I agree with everybody that's spoken after you've spoken there that really was inspirational. If you don't mind me saying you remind me of my, my first CEO as an exec head up in Manchester and the north of England to have three kind of mantra background kind of principles to the way we ran, which was rather large organization and she talked about integrity, passion and hard work and you've got them in buckets. So thank you, Mike, for inspiring us all today. You've shared so much. I was nodding furiously away and smiling and enjoying and thinking about my next assembly when we returned to school after the UK lockdown in terms of our priorities as a school. If you have one sentence to share the highest priority priority tip for young people, not only in the UK, but everybody here and everywhere across the world, what would it be to chase a career of great success? I think getting back to those three principles of, you know, for years as a young person, people said, you know, it's all about commitment. And that's true, but it's only part of the story. Persistence, making yourself indispensable. Someone said those who turn up prevail, basically volunteer to do things. So commitment, assistance, keep at it, don't get, you know, keep at it, just keep going. And then finally resilience because I've seen all in achieving these things along the way there's lots of setbacks, there's lots of disappointments. But if you're resilient enough, if you believe enough, not only in your cause, but in yourself, then that resilience means that when you get knocked over, you bounce back, you've learned from it, and then you win. You know, and so, and, and the most important thing too, I think, is to make sure that if you can combine your own personal ambitions with doing good in the world, by making the life of others better, then you're going to live fulfilling life, and you are going to be something. Thank you, Mike. Thank you so much, Mike, for that answer. And thank you for your question, Gary. Before I move on to the question from Svetlana, there is a question that we have received from some of our viewers on the Facebook live stream and I would like to ask one of those questions, it's an interesting question Mike. The question is that in this consumerist world, wouldn't it really be a challenge to steer the youth towards sustainability in your opinion. People often say that, but you know, and I guess that's one of the things that I learned from our plastic bag ban, that the people because of the consumer culture would get really irritated. I mean, I'm not supposed to reveal what goes on in cabinet meetings, but I can tell you that a number of my closest friends in cabinet were saying I think this is going to be really unpopular the shopping centers don't want it. This is going to, you know, cause real problems, there'll be confusion, and so on. And the media were waiting for that confusion and went out on the day on the first day where we flipped over to you can't, you know, no more plastic bags you have to take your own bag and get your groceries and so on. The media came back and they were interviewing people who said this is fantastic. People like being a world leader or a national leader, they feel proud of themselves, their state and their nation. But when we did some polling on it, we found out I told you 80% support from people across the board, but the support from young people was 90%. So I think that it's all about explaining things people do on, you know, often do things on face value, and don't because you've always done it that way. And so I think that if you explain to people and make it a cause that's driven by young people. That's the key, rather than old fellows like me telling people what to do if it's driven if it comes from within. If it's youth leadership, it means that the other young people are inspired. And it's the same as what we did, you know, back in 50 years ago with 48 years ago with the Greenpeace campaign. I told you about it was driven by young people, but ended up with 80% of New Zealanders supporting a group of young people who were essentially protesters, taking on what people thought was an impossible cause. It's all about pride, and it's about pride in doing things and changing things for the better. Thank you so much for that answer I couldn't agree more with you, Mike. I think this also brings us to a very important 21st century skill in empathy, the importance of empathy not sympathizing with the environment but empathizing with all of humankind and the importance of feeling for a cause and driving it forward with leadership qualities, and a zest and fervor that will inspire others around you. So Atlanta, that brings me to your question. Hello everyone. Good morning to me. Good afternoon to some and evening to others. Mike was incredibly inspiring listening to you. We have some similarities. I'm from Brazil I work in private school here in Brazil, and I am very, very enthusiastic about the pandemic movement. One of the real issues is something very present in my life and I, I take great pride in, in, in initiatives that we take in our schools as well that we want to move on. And, you know, it's, it's more of a comment rather than a question itself. You talked about the ban of disposable plastic bags. It has generated such a great impact all over the world to all countries that have implemented that. And I just wanted to say that, you know, there is a movement here in Brazil that has greatly inspired me because I think it is very much so it's very important, which is what you, you were saying last to think about what, what kinds of issues are you passionate about, and then set about to find solutions. One movements that we have here is that we went beyond just the ban of plastic bags in supermarkets here, and we have created, we have set out to create a bio degradable model, which is the beautiful prints of local artists, and therefore also not only supporting artistic movements, right, but also making it viable for them to get a monetary participation in it. It's small, but since it's, it's a highly sustainable business model in terms of business, it has created some very interesting movements regarding that as well. So every six months, there are a huge collection of different plastic bags which have been, which have been done by local artists every state has its own collections, different supermarkets have their own collections. They are beautiful, they are really beautiful to hold, they are very cheap, they are very, very durable, and they're environmentally friendly. And I think when we start to pressure to put these pressure on to society and also on to politicians to make the to pass these laws, we also push our creativity somehow. So we have seen here the ban of plastic straws, which have been replaced by avocado pits made straws. So I think this is also a very important aspect to bring to schools, because I think there are lots of students that have ideas and that would love and would be very inspired to have challenges like this to develop. I would love to hear your thoughts on that as well. And thank you. Thank you so much. And I think that's terrific idea about also incorporating art into it. And I really hope that others will take up what you're doing that makes eminent sense. One of the things that, and it wasn't my initiative, although we improved it later, but the guy that I went to Australia to work for, Premier Don Dunstan. He brought in a recycling scheme, which was that, that, you know, there was a real problem around Australia with people drinking out of cans, cola, whatever it was, beer cans and so on, or bottles, and then throwing them into the litter stream or you know just throwing them down, or throwing up in, in, in rubbish bins along streets and so on. So what he did in 1976 is say he put a price on each of the five cents extra. And it meant that people either, and then I changed it to 10 cents. So every time someone picks up a bottle, they take it to a recycling center, and they get 10 cents for it. They stimulate a multimillion dollar recycling industry, rather than things that are discarded, incredibly clean streets and roadways and environment. And then we added other things in like milk cartons made of cardboard so essentially things that were containers for drinks, could all be returned you've got 10 cents. And what happened is that you took it back you refunded the 10 cents. So it meant that people like the Boy Scouts, the Girl Guides, the Rotarians and others would send people out into the streets, finding these bottles in giant rubbish bins and so on and taking to the streets and they're raising fundraising for charities. So again, you've got an industry out of it. You, there was no change in the number of people drinking so the industry said we'll destroy our business didn't. And that's so over the years it's got better and better. And now that was 1976. Now other states are just starting to do it. It's really important to be a leader and what you're doing and what you've told me is real leadership. Just, and it's really good you're talking to others because I think that if you can explain how it works you'll find that others will take it on but the art connection is wonderful. Thank you so much for that Mike and thank you so much for that wonderful question and sharing another very interesting facet of Brazil yesterday is what Lana talked about how music is integrated into education. You have talked about how, you know, environmental sustainability is being incorporated into overall culture. I think these are great learnings for us across the globe. Thank you so much for that.