Hello! Greetings from Devon, in the south of England, where I, like no doubt all of you, have been confined to my home for the last 18 months. What a strange time we've lived through together. We've seen a transformation in the world we could scarcely have imagined when you started your degrees. We've seen whole economies pivot and turn to achieve an objective that at the end of the day was based on human health, not on economic growth, which is what is the normal focus of policymaking in centers around the world.

Now, this experience of being a student has been mixed, although I'm sure it's been as good as it could be. But it probably wasn't the one that you were expecting, nor the one that you wish for. But actually, it's not a bad place to start. Because it's also been a lesson in change in how quickly change can happen and how we need to manage change. And that is actually not a bad basis to go out into the world, given the years that your career is going to unfold in, this decade is the most consequential that humanity has ever faced. It sounds like an exaggeration to say that, but it's not. By 2030, either we will have got on top of the climate crisis; we will have reduced emissions by at least 50 percent; rapid transformations will be unfolding around the world; we'll be finding ways to include marginalized people in this transformation. 

Or we will have failed this last chance. We will have begun to lose control of the climatic system with all of the devastating impacts that that future will entail for people, for our descendants, for all of life on Earth. 

Now if you're like most people, you will have had a little frisson of fear when I said that. “Oh my God, what's the future going to be like? What's my life gonna be like? Are we gonna make it? How will I live and will my loved ones be okay?” That is an entirely understandable response when facing this future. There is uncertainty. And when we're facing uncertainty about that, we tend to recoil a bit and worry about how we're going to be. 

But actually, I would like to point out that the moment we find ourselves in this most crucial of moments where we’re about to find out whether the world is serious about dealing with this issue, also has all the makings of the best adventure story ever told. Impossible odds, the last hour, a digging in and determination, the emergence of courage and commitment, impossible odds, incredible, regenerated planet if we succeed, unimaginable future if we fail, and we get to star in that adventure story. 

By 2050, we will have reached net zero emissions. That's what's required of us by 2040 for many sectors of the economy. Those are the years of your career. What impossible odds. What did you do well, at some point in the future, to give you the chance to live now, where you get to contribute to that great generational effort. Generations in the past have done enormous amounts to change the future of the world. But no one like you, and nothing like this opportunity that you're now facing. People like me have been around working on this for years. I'm going to continue to focus on this until my dying breath. It is the most important thing to me. And it's the most satisfying thing I can possibly imagine doing. But I can see sitting from where I am, 25 years into my career, that the thing that's driving us forward, the thing that's making the difference is the tenacity, the commitment, and the dedication of young people coming into the workplace coming into the world, determined to make a difference. You have amazing and inordinate power, more than you know. When you come into this world demand—use that power and demand change. I spoke a while ago to the CEO of a global super major, who made a commitment to transform his oil company to net zero by 2050. We asked him why he did it. He said, I couldn't recruit people to my company unless they thought I was part of the future.

That's the kind of change we need to see that determination. We don't need to recoil in fear. We can strike out to meet it, we can embrace it, we need to face it with a kind of gritty and determined realistic, but stubborn, optimism that has been most relevant throughout history, when the outlook has been the darkest. Hold that sense of optimism and determination like a flame in this darkness. That's always been the way it's been. “Fight them on the beaches,” “I have a dream,” salt marches to the beach, suffragettes—these were dark moments in which success was not guaranteed. But people decided that they'd fight and that made the difference and they prevail.

That takes us back to the beginning. This is going to be a time of tremendous change, those 30 years. You're going to have to get used to meeting disappointments and successes and changes and transformations that you never expected. You just had a lesson in how to do that in the last 18 months. And the way that that's changed our lives, those lessons will get steeper: learning how to change, learning to embrace it. That tolerance for ambiguity and adaptive confidence to find our way through this process to the light on the other side is what we all need to develop. And I'm sure that you will develop it and you have it in spades. 

Thank you so much for this award. I was completely floored when I heard that you'd awarded it to me. And there's a big part of me that just feels I am not worthy of such an amazing honor from such an institution with an amazing history that has honored such remarkable people in the past. But I take with it the sense of responsibility to do well by to keep fighting for this future that we all know we want. And also the fact that this award is a signal of the importance of fighting for shared outcomes, that can change the world. I'm very grateful and I really send you the best. Good luck.