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Kadus, planet Earth—what is the present condition of our planet, and what might the future look like for all its inhabitants? This is what we are focusing on in this video. We want to understand the origins and effects of climate change and the further challenges that might accompany it. Furthermore, we are reflecting on the implications for organizations, innovation, and societies at large. Finally, we want to understand the long-standing research on environmental issues and how it developed over time.
Looking, for example, at the average global temperature from the 1850s to today, we can see that the global temperature on average has risen and increased dramatically since the 1960s. Today, we cannot deny this effect anymore because the increase is now well above 1.0 °C. What might cause this increase? Looking at the concentration of the three main greenhouse gases, you can clearly see that the rise from the 1990s to the 2020s has been dramatic, and it is evident this is a major driver of climate change, especially since the Industrial Revolution.
Having understood the past and the causes of climate change, we will now look at its future. Here, we are borrowing from the IPCC and have taken some of their analyses for global warming scenarios from 1.5 °C up to 4 °C. On this slide, we see various outcomes of climate change. On average, in these scenarios, an increase of 4 °C is possible, but this is just a global average. The temperature increase will be distributed unevenly. For example, in a 4 °C scenario, certain regions in South America (and elsewhere) could experience increases up to 7 °C, while other regions might see a less severe rise. The same holds true for other effects of climate change.
Taking a look at soil moisture, for instance, we see that in Central Africa, there might be a strong increase in wetness. This is linked to changes in precipitation under these temperature-increase scenarios. If you look at the 1.5 °C scenario, some regions show rising precipitation, which intensifies with increasing temperature. Some regions get hotter and also experience more rainfall over time.
We might ask, “What is causing this?” We have seen that the rise in temperature is linked to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. These emissions per capita occur mainly in developed countries with large industrial sectors. Industrial and economic activity drives per capita emissions around the globe.
Breaking down greenhouse gas emissions by sector, we see that industry is the major contributor, and transportation is the second largest (23.9%), followed by electricity and heat production, agriculture, and buildings. Within industry and transportation, activities like fossil fuel extraction, chemical production, iron and metals manufacturing, passenger cars, and aviation have a high impact on greenhouse gas emissions. Clearly, there is a lot of innovation potential in these sectors to reduce emissions and drive a sustainable future.
So far, we have talked about climate change and greenhouse gases as factors driving climate change and its potential outcomes. However, discussing climate change alone is not enough, so let’s look at other global developments happening at the same time.
Population is growing, especially in certain regions such as Africa, India, and China. Meanwhile, many regions and countries do not have enough nutrition. On one slide, we see the average supply of calories per day, and in a group of the least developed countries, the supply is not above what an average individual needs. Moreover, “supply” here includes food waste, so the real nutrition situation is even more dramatic, given that population growth will increase food demand in the coming years. Additionally, more people will require medical care, and many already face challenges in accessing proper treatment.
One complex slide shows the Human Development Index (HDI) on one axis (ranging from 0 to 1) and per capita CO₂ emissions on the other. With a higher HDI, emissions also tend to increase. The United Nations suggests that an HDI above 0.8 reflects very good living conditions, but we also aim for per capita CO₂ emissions under about 2.5 tons per year for the planet to handle. This threshold doesn’t factor in the needs of nonhuman life forms, so the actual value should be lower. Only countries that meet the HDI target (above 0.8) while remaining under this CO₂ threshold can be considered truly sustainable. Hence, there is a strong drive toward innovations to achieve real sustainability for our global society.
What does all this mean for organizations? We are now facing raw material shortages, a war for talent, environmental degradation, innovation pressure, and many other challenges forcing organizations to adapt and incorporate these changes into their daily business. Social issues, limits on resources, and the need for affordable medical solutions create “mission orientation” for organizations. Higher food demand requires sustainable food innovation. Political and societal instability can also hinder business innovation. These social issues must be incorporated into the future of businesses.
On the environmental side, organizations must contend with shortages of raw materials, adjust production processes to reduce harm, and meet heightened regulatory requirements for sustainability. In many cases, such changes are difficult to implement. Overall, companies face enormous pressure, but each finds its own way to address these challenges.
None of this is truly new, as there have been decades of research on sustainability and climate-change drivers, along with many global initiatives. Let’s look at a brief history of how environmental research began. A 1912 newspaper article already noted that coal consumption affects the climate by increasing CO₂ in the atmosphere. Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring (1962) is often considered a key starting point of modern environmental consciousness, describing how pesticides harm insects (including bees) and thus lead to a “silent spring.”
The first report that gained worldwide attention was The Limits to Growth (1972), led by Dennis Meadows at MIT for the Club of Rome. It examined planetary boundaries and the capacity for economic activity. In 1987, the Brundtland Report (by the World Commission on Environment and Development) provided a foundational definition of sustainable development: development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Since then, research has advanced significantly, and there have also been government initiatives and global agreements. In 1992, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was approved, marking a major step in addressing climate issues. Starting in 1995, the Conference of the Parties (COP) has met annually to discuss climate change mitigation and adaptation. Major milestones include the Kyoto Protocol (1997, entering into force in 2005), COP 15 in Copenhagen (2009), and the Paris Agreement (2015), which was a clear milestone in fighting climate change. COP 26 (2021) in Glasgow and COP 28 (2023) in Dubai continued the process, though some countries have withdrawn from certain agreements.
One critical milestone in recent years has been the development of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These 17 goals aim to address issues like poverty, hunger, and inequality, while also fighting climate change (Goal 13) and promoting partnerships worldwide (Goal 17). Each SDG includes specific targets and sub-goals.
What did we learn in this video? We looked at how climate change is driven by human consumption of fossil fuels and economic activity, threatening our livelihood. We also explored societal challenges accompanying climate change, such as population growth and unequal distribution of resources. From a historical perspective, there have been many initiatives and much research, but it is clear that more must be done. Thank you for watching this video, and stay tuned for our next ones.
kadus planet Earth what is the presentcondition of our planet and what mightthe future look like for all itsinhabitants this is what we are focusingon in thisvideo we want to understand the originsand effects of climate change andfurther challenges that might accompanyit furthermore we are also reflecting onthe implications for organizationsInnovation and societies at a large andin the last step we want to understandthe long-standing research onenvironmental issues and how itdeveloped overtime looking for example at the averageglobal temperature from the 1850s totoday we can see that the globaltemperature on average Rises andincreased dramatically since the 1960sand today we cannot deny this effectanymore because the increase today isway above 1.0 deC what might cause this uh in increaselooking at the concentration of thethree main main greenhouse gases you canclearly see here in these images thatthe increase over time from the 1990s tothe 2020s dramatically increased so it'sclear that this is a major driver ofclimate change um especially since theIndustrialRevolution having understood the pastand the causes of uh climate change wewill now take a look at the the futureof it and here we are uh borrowing fromuh the ipcc and have taken some analysisfrom them for uh the global warmingscenarios from 1.5° C up to 4° C andwhat we can see on this slide here forvarious outcomes of climate change umthat on average we have in thesescenarios the increase for let's say by4 degre Cel but this is just the averageacross the globe uh the temperatureincrease will be uh distributed unevenlyif we for example take a look at the 4°cels scenario and take a look atSouthern America here we see that thereare regions in Southern America but alsoin other places on of this world wherethe increase will be up to U 7° C andother regions will have uh a less strongincrease in temperature and this alsoholds true for other effects of uhclimate change let's take a look here atsoy moisture and here we see forinstance in central Africa that therewill be a yeah a strong increase in inuh the wetness and the moisture of thesoil and thereby uh we might ask whatwhat is happening or what is going onhere um and what we see is that the uhpration uh is also changing uh withthese scenarios of what might uh comeout of these increase in temperature sofor instance if you look at uh the one1.5 degree increase scenario we see thatthere are some regions uh where yeah umprecipitation is increasing but thisintensifies with uh increasing uhtemperature and this correlates alsosomehow with the temperature increasesso we see that there are some regionswhich are gettingmore and more hotter but also uh exhibitor see more precipitation overtime so then we might ask ourselves sowhat is causing this and we have seenalready that the increase in temperatureis due to the increase in concentrationof greenhouse gas uh in the atmospherebut here we also see that um theseemissions per capita are mainlyhappening in the developed countries inthe countries with uh large industrysectors so industry and in uh economicactivity is somehow driving uh the percapita emissions around theglobe let's not further break this downinto different Greenhouse emission gasesum by in the you by the sectors lookingfor example at the major sectors thatare affecting a greenhouse gas emissionswe can clearly see the percentage of theindustry that is um causing the majoreffects of greenhouse gas emissionincrease transportation is the secondlargest sector with23.9% and uh followed by electricity andheat production Agriculture andbuildings looking at the industry andtransportation sector in moredetail we can see that for exampleextraction and processing of fossil fuseum chemical industry or the iron andother metals industry have a majorimpact of greenhouse gasemissions in transportation sector it'sfor example passengers cars and alsoAviation that have a um High effect ongreenhouse gases so what we can see isthat there are a lot of innovationpotential here in these sectors todecrease greenhouse gas emissions and tofurther Drive our sustainablefuture so far we have uh talked aboutclimate change and uh greenhouse gasesas yeah factors driving climate changeand potential outcomes of climate changein this video however just talking aboutclimate change is not enough so let'stake a look at other things that uhhappen also in our global environment atthe same time so what we see is and whatis predicted here also for the futurethat population is growing andpopulation is growing alsoespecially in certain regions of thisplanet let's say uh or what we see hereit's growing mostly in Africa in Indiaand China um as as Global regions at thesame time we see that there are manyregions uh and and uh we are countriesof this planet where we do not haveenough nutrition at on this slide herewe see theal supply of calories per dayand what we see is that there are agroup of countries the least developedcountries where the supply of caloriesper day is not uh yeah above what anaverage individual needs here it's theaverage male but the most importantthing here is that this is just thesupply of calories per day supply alsomeans it's not the the supply ofcalories that is used for nutrition butAl it also includes um the food waste sothis uh yeah shows us that the numbersmight be yeah even more dramatic if welook at nutrition and beyond that havingin in mind that the population will growthe demand for food will increasetremendously over the nextyears um and not only for food but alsofor otherimportant uh yeah factors driving ourwell-being let's take a look at MedicalCare for uh for instance there we seethat there are are globally a lot ofpeople who at yeah nowadays but alsowith increasing population um will faceproblems and issues with medicaltreatment this slide here is a a bitcomplex so take let's take a look uh andand take some time to take a look at itso first of all what we see here is thehuman development index and this is a asummary measure of some Dimensions thatum yeah affect human development orhuman well-being so it's about healthylife it's about education it's about uhthe standards of living and this indexhere has a range from0 to one and uh theUnited Nations states that uh from ahuman development index of0.8 um yeah we can talk about very goodand uh yeah living conditions that weare infor then on the other AIS we have theper capita consumption uh or theemissions per capita of CO2 and um thereisum a clear uh correlation that we seehere that with increasing humandevelopment index we see an increase inthe uh emissions of greenhouse gases uhper capita what's interesting here ifyou look at the green bubbles these areor the the darker green bubbles theseare European countries who seem toreduce somehow uh the emissions percapita but still um are much higher thanmany countries of this world so what Ialready said is that there is this umthis Corridor that we aim for uh yeahthat all countries go beyond this0.8 uh threshold here in the humandevelopment index but there's alsoanother Corridor or threshold that weare looking for um at around2.5 uh tons of CO2 emissions per capitaper year um because this is the amountof CO2 emissions that could be uhhandled by our planet and uh yeah uhwhich would be somehow in the life cycleum of our planet and of the CO2 um uhper year but this only takes intoconsideration human activity um takinginto account that there are other uhanimals or uh uh beings on this planetum and in fact the threshold should belower than this 2 point something heredisplayed on this slide what isinteresting and important here if welook at this uh area here then onlycountries in that area would meet thecriteria for being sustainable right forhaving good living conditions for allhumans and inhabitants of thesecountries and at the same time not overcconsuming um uh uh and and emitting toomuch here so this means we havesustainability as a really strong driverfor Innovations and there's a strongneed forInnovations um that we uh that we seehere to become really sustainable as asociety as a global Societybut what does all this mean fororganizations let's have a look atit we are now facing raw materialshortages we have a war for talentsthere is a lot of uh environmentaldegradation a lot of innovation pressureas you already heard and many otherchallenges that are forcingorganizations to adapt to these changesand to incorporate these changes intheir dailybusiness there are for example socialissues affected by the organization byas I already said the limits ofresources uh in terms of human capacityand cap um capabilities they need toseek for afford affordable medicalAlternatives so there are a lot of wecall it Mission orientation thatorganizations might also drive butthere's also a higher food demand wealready heard about which requiressustainable food Innovation furthermorewe also have a political and Societysocietal instability that might hindersbusiness for being more Innovative sothese social issues for example all haveto be incorporated in the businessorganization and in the future of thebusinesses on the other hand besides thesocial issues we Al we also have theenvironmental degradation affected bythe organizations for example we have aswe heard the shot of of raw materials wehave to adjust production processestowards zero harm and we have to um beaware of increased regulatoryrequirements that on the one end uh handmight Force sustainability issues andforcesustainability um operations of thecompany but on the other hand also Forcethe companies for Change and as we mighthear in the further sessions change forcompany is is not always that easy toimplement and that easy to um to handleso overall companies face a lot ofpressure and face a lot of challengesand might find their own way how toincorporate these challenges in theorganization so all of this is nothingnew in fact so there is a Decades ofresearch on sustainability onissues uh yeah driving climate changeand there are a lot of globalinitiatives and what we want to do herenow is to give you a brief history of uhwhat what uh research has done in thepast and how it all started and in factthere is already here a newspaperarticle from1912 uh explaining that coal consumptionis affecting the climate so the emittingfossil fuel um or not emitting butburning fossil fuels and the emissionsresulting from burning them um isaffecting our climate by increasing theconcentration of CO2 in the atmosphereand this was already stated here morethan 100 years ago um if we look moreinto the history of of yeah the whole uhenvironmental orientation in societythen somehow this book here silenceSpring by Rachel Carson is seen assomehow perhaps the the starting pointand in this book uh Rachel describes therole of pesticides affecting um yeahbees and other uh insects and there fornot yeah um yeah not uh hearing themaround in springtime and thereforespring becoming silent as thismetaphoric Title Here of this book ex isexplaining then the first report thatreally got a lot of attention uhworldwide was this report here by uh ledby Dennis MOS from um MIT who was uhasked by the club of Rome to to to lookat planetary boundaries and yeah howmuch our planet could uh yeah take howmuch economic activity it could take andis it was entitled the limits togrowth um yeah 10 years more or morethan 10 years later um we had uh thefirst yeah International andtransboundary Cooperative report of theworld Commissionum on the environment and thedevelopment of the environment for thefuture it was the so-called bruntlandreport and from this report we take avery important um definition that moreor less all reports or publicinitiatives nowadays uh yeah follow thisdefinition and this definition says thata sustainable development is adevelopment and the only developmentthat is this sustainable is one thatmeets the need of the presentso of the current generation withoutcompromising the ability of futuregenerations to meet their own needs andthis is a very important definition uhof what sustainable development is andhow we should look atsustainability so there's a lot ofevidence for climate change now that wasdriving um from Academia from scientistsfrom research but on the other hand umas we already heard there are alsogovernmental initiatives that are Stinitiatives and um State Gatherings thatum yeah form quite of agenda ofsustainable development in theworld in 1992 for example in rioo therewas UN framework Convention of climatechange it was approved and was therebymarked as the first step for really aclimate change convention um for oursociety and since 1995 in Berlin therehas the F there has been the first umConference of the parties we arenowadays all know by cop and that is nowa yearly or annual conference that istaking place to dis discuss climatechange issues to discuss climate changeand its implications for the world andto discuss how we can mitigate climatechange but on the other hand also adaptto current climate changeissues next Milestone um Mets the KyotoProtocol that has been adopted in1997 and was followed by in 2005 um it'sentering into force in the cop 11 inMontreal in 2009 uh cup 15 has beentaken place in Copenhagen and um thatwas where climate democracy reaches alow point because there has been clearthat there has to be done something andthat all states have to come up withkind of an agreement all together tofight climate change to mitigate theaverage temperature increase and from2009 to 2015 marks the period in this inthat these questions really increasinglybecame um critical and where the worldbecame aware of all these problems andum spoke out loud to do somethingagainst these problems so in 2015 inParis we reached a parties um agreementon climate change that marked a clearmilestone in the last years of fightingclimatechange in uh 2021 cup 26 took place inuh Glasgow and was followed by cop 28now in Dubai in the last year2023 um where we um defined a milestonedeal to transition away from fossilfuels but what has to be said that overtime we reached a lot of agreementstowards climate change and towardsreally forcing all states and countriesto to fight climate change and toparticipate in this Mo movement but inthe last years we can clearly see thatum based on world politics increasing incountries are like um quitting theseagreement for example the the Parisagreement of2015 and uh that the world can splitsinto different parties the ones that arelike holding on to these agreementsfighting it and fighting the climatechange and the ones that are like umlike going out of these agreements butone critical Milestone over the lastlast years clearly has been thedevelopment of the sustainabledevelopment goals so we now have 17goals that the world is aiming for tofight climate change but also to tofight or to end for example povertyhunger all the critical issues that weare facing at the moment in our worldand that are like dividing our world indifferent region and parties um based oninequality so there are 16 sustainabledevelopment goals that are content umcontent goals that are for example as Ialready said fighting different umdifferent world issues for example umare forcing climate action goal 13 orare forcing um yeah or fightinginequalities like goal 10 and there'sthe 17th goal that is the overall goalfor more Partnerships in the world fortogether fighting climate change and umincreasing well-being for allinhabitants of our planetwe summarized very briefly the different17 goals and what they are standing forwhat is behind the different goals umbut are only um this summary is for forfurther reading so we are briefly goingor skipping throughthem what is important to say for thegoals is that each goal is with aclearly defined Target for example herereduced inequalities in goal 10 but theyare then also broken down into differentmeasures concrete actions that have totake take place and concrete um subggoals um so that every individual goalum is clearly more complex than uh thanthe overall uhdescription so what did we learn in thissession or in this video we looked atclimate change and how it is faced by orforced by on by our human consumption offossil fuels and human economic activityand we clearly um pointed out thatclimate change is threatening ourlivelihoodwe thought about societal challengesthat might accompany climate change umas we um as we had a look at for exampleum the uh average inhabitants increasein the world and we looked at thesephenomena um from a scientific or fromuh the perspective over time seeing thatthere are a lot of initiatives at themoment present to fight climate changethat there is a lot of research going onbut that this clearly is not the end andthat there has to be more research andum ideas towards um fighting climatechange thanks for watching this videoand stay tuned for our next ones
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