For cities, getting to zero-carbon requires a “moonshot mindset”

(Dec. 2024) Massamba Thioye has attended plenty of conferences on climate change. As Head of the UN Climate Change Global Innovation Hub, he participated in several forums at the recent COP29 event in Baku.

Agreements and commitments abound. But will there be enough concrete action?

“We have two problems," Thioye says in a recent Transform Talks. “First, we have a problem of ambition: our commitments are not ambitious enough. Second, those commitments have not been fully implemented. This is because we do not have a moonshot mindset.”

That mindset, Thioye tells Huawei Editor-in-Chief Gavin Allen, is one that ignores what is possible, and concentrates only on what is needed. “The gap between what is needed and what is possible will be filled by innovation.”

Thioye says he believes we will get to a net-zero future, but that this will require re-inventing everything: industry, the economy, and society itself.

“We need to put a lot of effort into building the leadership of tomorrow,” he says. “That will be a caring leadership, a sharing leadership, and a daring leadership.”