Tom Rivett-Carnac, Global Optimism: “I refuse to accept that we’re going to lose these incredible ecosystems.”

The IKEA Foundation helps many organisations accelerate their efforts in combating climate change. Facts and figures speak for themselves, but who exactly are the people behind this extraordinary work? In this storytelling series, we spotlight brave individuals who move mountains in their climate action strategies and solutions. Today: Tom Rivett-Carnac, founding partner, Global Optimism.

My father is a petroleum geologist. We spent much of my childhood travelling the world looking for oil, in countries like Colombia, Indonesia and Tunisia. At the time, I didn’t really have any sense of concern about it. I was a child. I just accepted my reality.

But as I grew up, in the 1990s, it was clear that we were facing a rapidly unfolding emergency. After I finished my degree in environment and economics, I decided the real transformation we needed was for people to approach the world in a different way.

I saw much of the threat we were facing was from mental habits around greed, acquisition and consumerism. That led me to become a Buddhist monk for the first half of my twenties. But after a couple of years of sitting in my little hut in a forest in Thailand, it felt less appropriate.

Reimagining our role on this planet

Being a monk had been a powerful and useful experience for me. But I wanted to be more directly involved. I wanted to put my shoulder to the wheel, with this great generational endeavor to reimagine our role on this planet. So, I disrobed, came back to the UK and began to think about how I could be of service.

When I left the monastery, was a chairmaker for a while. I’ve always baked bread and I like to garden. One thing they all have in common is by the time you finish a task, something physical looks different to how it was at the beginning. That has a deep emotional satisfaction.

In contrast, it’s not easy for many of us who work on climate to see the impact of our work. Lobbying for complex geopolitical changes is a way to have a big impact on the world. But it doesn’t lead to the same physical, satisfying, tangible manifestation of change. You can sometimes feel like you’re struggling against this great endeavor and not seeing any practical change. You need to find that somewhere else in your life – whether it’s gardening, raising kids or baking bread.

Breakthroughs happen at human and systemic levels

Global Optimism is very diverse. Lots of people tell us their stories. There was a taxi driver in South Australia who listened to our podcast, Outrage + Optimism, every week. After hearing my co-host speak about how everyone can find their unique role, she decided to stand as a Teal Party candidate in the Australian elections. She didn’t win but came close to taking the seat from the conservatives. A moment of personal transformation like that can be a huge win.

There are also systemic wins. We worked with the team at Groundswell, one of the projects at Global Optimism, to build a sense of momentum at the climate negotiations in Dubai. We have reasons to believe that this led to the outcome being more ambitious than it would otherwise have been.

It’s taken me a while realise that breakthroughs and success happen both at the human and the systemic level. You have to understand the connection between the two. The systemic is deeply personal. The personal is deeply systemic. Both moments of transformation are critically important. I enjoy and celebrate all of them.

Being in nature gives me purpose

I’d never give up on the challenge to transition our world to a regenerative future. I refuse to accept that we are going to lose these incredible ecosystems.But there have been moments where I’ve wondered if I’m doing the right thing in service of that.

For example, when I was at the UN, and you’re struggling along inside a bureaucratic system, trying to create change. Sometimes in those moments, you ask yourself the question “Is this the highest and best use of someone with my skills and experience at this point in time?”

There have been plenty of moments when I’ve said: “I’m thinking about changing my strategy in how I’m coming at the problem.” But I’ve not given up on the concept. I want to be part of this change. To remind myself of that, I just need to walk outside see the trees and flowers; to see nature. I know that I want to be working to help create the context in which all life on earth can flourish.

Optimism is the cause of success

If I had two minutes to speak at COP, I’d talk about the dangers of getting stuck in thinking about things in a particular way. I wouldn’t try to set the bar at saying you need to change everything, for all time, about the future of your economies. Instead, I’d use it to point out that we’re in danger of habituating a sense of ecological collapse. And we’re are not realising how rapid and how profound the transformation can be.

When we look back at Paris Agreement in 2015, we see it as a moment of real breakthrough. But it felt very different at the time. It took decades to get to that moment. I believe that sense of optimism and possibility was not a result of success. It was the cause of it. So, I’d remind people that great breakthroughs in history have come when we’ve stepped outside our sectional interest and looked at the collective outcome we can drive and deliver.

Change takes longer than you think and then it happens faster than you could possibly imagine. We’re living through exponential change both in terms of the breakdown of the system, but also in terms of the solutions. We shouldn’t assume that failure is inevitable. It’s not. Real change is still possible.
We create the future through hope

I think the future has a lot of peril right now. But I feel that showing up with energy, determination and a sense of possibility is one of the ingredients to get us to a positive outcome. Writer Rebecca Solnit said: “Hope is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency.” I feel that in a very tangible way.

This can be the most incredible world of equality and justice, kindness and love, connection and diversity. That’s worth showing up for. And that’s worth having hope and positivity and determination for. Of course, there’s a lot that’s going wrong in the world. But I don’t want to lose that sense of possibility around what can still happen. So, I’d say don’t have hope for the future. The future is created by the hope that you have.

About

Tom Rivett-Carnac is one of the founding partners at Global Optimism, a small mission driven organisation started together with Christiana Figueres after the Paris Agreement was secured in 2015. Global Optimism helps individuals and organisations working on the transition to a regenerative future. They range from working with big corporates like Amazon, to running a podcast called Outrage + Optimism, to supporting a range of retreats with climate activists at Plum Village, Thich Nhat Hanh’s Buddhist Monastery.

The IKEA Foundation is partnering with the Outrage + Optimism podcast to support creating regular deep-dive episodes that unpack the complexities of the climate crisis and using targeted marketing and outreach to help bring these episodes to a broader audience.