‘No irony’ in flying 4,600 miles for Ted talk on climate, says mayor

There was “no irony” in flying 4,600 miles to give a Ted talk on the climate crisis according to the mayor of Bristol.

Marvin Rees faced questions last month for his decision to fly to Vancouver in Canada, 4,600 miles away from Bristol, to deliver a 14-minute lecture on climate change at a Ted conference.

Campaigners Flight Free criticised his decision to fly there due to the huge amount of carbon dioxide emitted from long-haul flights, particularly given the “ironic” topic of his talk on the need to reduce carbon emissions and tackle climate change.

Now Rees has responded to this criticism, saying he flew to the conference in Vancouver because he was “shaping global thinking”, raising money and also as Bill Gates and Elon Musk were attending. In a press briefing held on Wednesday, June 8 – which was held on Zoom – he claimed that he could not have attended the conference virtually.

⏳ “Welcome to my TED Talk” – tomorrow, my talk goes live

?️ The solution to climate change is hiding in plain sight: cities are where the climate battle will be won or lost

? Stacie McChesney/@TEDTalks #TED2022 pic.twitter.com/pqAk7BHGrp

— Marvin Rees (@MarvinJRees) May 23, 2022

He said: “The argument was that mayors need to be involved in shaping international policy, so there’s no irony because I was there shaping international policy. We can’t leave it to national politicians because they’re failing, we saw that at COP. You need to decarbonise the world’s cities, because that’s where most people live. Through cities you can make more lives more efficient than through any other form of human organisation, more quickly.

“At the moment, the national and international context in which we work is not supporting cities to decarbonise, it’s not coherent. So what we’re doing as cities is not waiting. We need national governments to work with us, but we’re not waiting for them. We’re going out and working together to raise finance and shape national and international policy.”

Marvin Rees focussed on the potential for cities to be vehicles for change in the face of climate crisis at TED2022 – photo: Ryan Lash/ TED

According to a recent freedom of information request, organisers of the Ted conference paid $5,588 for the mayor’s travel expenses, and an unknown amount for his accommodation. Last month the mayor’s office told the BBC the visit to Vancouver “was not just to deliver the talk, he had a full agenda”.

The freedom of information request revealed that Rees’s agenda included breakfasts, lunches, dinners, cocktails, hair and makeup “to give you a little glam for your stage moment”, and a talk with the mayor of Vancouver about topics such as the six new underground train stations being built there.

During his press briefing, Mr Rees said that attending the Ted conference were Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft; Al Gore, former US vice president; and Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla.

He also said the conference would provide him with a larger platform than local news websites, and giving his Ted talk via Zoom “wasn’t on the table”.

“Have you seen any Ted conferences that were run by Zoom?” he said. “Zoom wasn’t on the table. Bill Gates was there, Al Gore was there talking about climate change, Elon Musk was there. It’s fantastic that Bristol, a city of less than half a million, is being asked to take a platform at Ted and shape global thinking. If the argument is coherent and stacks up, then how do you get the biggest platform for that?

“If it leads to unlocking billions or potentially trillions of pounds to invest in cities, not just in the global north but the global south, then it’s about how do you maximise the platform for that? And with all the best will in the world, getting it on the Bristol Live website ain’t going to give us that platform, is it? Have another listen to my Ted talk and push my views up.”

Main photo: Ryan Lash/ TED

Read more: ‘Investing in the increased efficiency of the world’s cities is key to our future’

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