Special Address By Cate Blanchett to the World Business Summit on Climate Change

Good afternoon

I have to say ... it is amazing and profoundly humbling for me to be in this room today. Obviously I can add little to the knowledge or the vision of this group of people and so I can only hope to act as a voice of thanks and praise. What can be achieved here in Copenhagen over these days and most importantly in December this year will represent a watershed in human civilization as important in its way as the Promethean encounter itself.

The use of fire and other tools to shape our immediate environment seems to me to be one of the defining characteristics of our species. The various ways in which we have come to dominate nature are both wonderful and terrifying. Human inventiveness and resourcefulness are constantly surprising.

I mention fire because it seems to me the most ambivalent of the elements – a friend and a foe. Recently in Australia there were the most phenomenal bushfires the conditions for which – if not solely brought about by – were certainly exacerbated by Climate Change and our misunderstanding of the earth. The scale and power of the fires was an awful and humbling reminder that even though we may think we control the environment actually we are a part of it. Nature reared up and was terrifying.

In March I visited Marysville, a little town only an hour from Melbourne, where I grew up. Or should I say it was a little town because it is now not much more than rubble.  Marysville was destroyed by this massive bushfire, along with the lives of nearly 200 children, men and women. Families.

A racing ball of fire over 1,000 degrees Celsius in heat, sucked the oxygen out of the air and cooked families in their homes, in their cars and where they ran trying to escape.

Black Saturday as it's become to be know, was the hottest day ever experienced in Melbourne since weather records began, and follow a record three days of heat.

Australia's best climate scientists have been warning us that we'll face many more catastrophic fire days in Southeast Australia unless the world acts to dramatically cut greenhouse pollution. In my own country of birth it is not just a dramatic increase in catastrophic fires that we face if the world doesn't act to tackle climate change, it's the future of agriculture in Southern Australia and the farming families that depend on it as they struggle against increasing droughts; (only last month Rob Freeman the National Water Commissioner announced he couldn't guarantee security of supply of water to Adelaide in 2010. By anyone's calculations that is next year).

It's the lives and businesses damaged by an increasing number of category five intense cyclones like Cyclone Larry that smashed into Innisfail last year, or in another place, Hurricane Katrina that so damaged New Orleans and her people.

It's the tens of thousands of jobs in the tourism industry that depend on the Great Barrier Reef in Northern Australia. It's well known that this reef of great beauty and myriad of life forms, this great reef that is the only living thing on earth that can be seen from the moon, is at grave and imminent risk from dangerous climate change if we don't act.

I said earlier the ways we have come to dominate nature because I do think we have made choices in our culture and methods to dominate and subject rather than work with and listen to the planet. I think that fundamental attitude to the earth is being called to account.

Recently I was watching this Summit's chairman – Tim Flannery – in a television series called "Two in the top end." This is a wonderful documentary that charts an odyssey made by Tim and his trusty companion John Doyle right across the top of Australia. As they encounter the various methods of living up there, there is a lovely sentiment expressed by Tim. He says, "We are still learning how to live up North." I mention this because it really brought home to me – and I don't think I'm alone here – the fact that this human endeavour to shape our environment is about finding the best way to live and most importantly that that quest is a work in progress.

I find it very easy in my comfortable life to think that we are at some end point here, that we as a species have made the only choices and come up with the best solutions but of course not. We are still learning how best to live in our various environments and more significantly together on the planet. It comforted me a great deal to remember to re-conceive our way of life as a work in progress.

In theatre much of what I do is a work in progress. It seems appropriate to mention The Dane here. There must be a production of Hamlet on somewhere in the world 365 days a year. None of these are finite, none of these are the right production, they are all works in progress actually, ways of approaching the problem or challenge set by Shakespeare. Each finds solutions that are right for the time and the place, not one would be exactly the same. The attempt is the point and each genuine attempt adds layers and makes discoveries.

I don't want to labour the point too much but it seems salient to me that I try to remember as often as possible that we are still even 400 years on from Shakespeare's great soul searching play finding the best ways to live with/on the planet. Mistakes will be made and some fruitless avenues pursued, it's all grist to the mill and the continual openness and listening, the ongoing problem-solving is the most important point.

With a shift in attitude towards the planet and our resources will come profound cultural shifts and changes. I don't claim to be a prophet, I do not know exactly how these changes will manifest themselves but I get a sense that our demand for the new will be re-evaluated, our insistence on quantity will be questioned and the world of hoarding and amassing piles of unnecessary goods will be gone. I am reading the Hobbit to my seven year old boy at the moment and I am gripped by the futility of the Dragon Smaug on his great pile of treasure, the pity of it and interestingly the unsustainability of it. Our son asked "why is he sitting on his coins?" I floundered noticing this he added "maybe his fire breath will heat his coins and burn his butt."

Progress and unchecked growth of economies will have to be re-evaluated and it seems such difficult times financially to consider that but there may also be in these times a chance to build anew in new directions with different strategies. A new economy recycling the best bits of the old and forging new solutions to these new problems. It is important that we are able to maintain the ecological benefits of the market whilst finding ways for governments to regulate for the environment. As John Gray so lucidly points out in his essay "An Agenda for Green Conservatism" it is not about abandoning the market institutions because private property for one has the advantage of giving the incentive for long term planning ...

"The rational herdsman concludes that the only sensible course for him to pursue is to add another animal to his herd. And another; and another ... But this is the conclusion reached by each and every rational herdsman sharing a commons. Therein is the tragedy. Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit – in a world that is limited. Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in freedom of the commons. Freedom in the commons brings ruin to all."

That is a quote from Garret Hardin by way of illustration of Gray's point. Gray goes on to say "Market institutions have another crucial ecological virtue: that of reflecting through the price mechanism shifting patterns of resource scarcities." I only throw this out there because I think there is a worry around that engaging with climate change is inherently bad for economies as we know them. But actually the economy can be a great ally in this new approach to the world.

Lord Nicholas Stern note's that "both the economic crisis and the urgent need to address climate change are in the here and now... but there is opportunity in crisis."

In the trillions of dollars that country after country has pumped into economic stimulus packages, we're seeing some enlightened investment into renewable energy, smart electricity grids, hybrid and electric cars, energy efficiency for homes and businesses, cleaner production and practices for big businesses and reform of government laws and policies. We have the ability to kick start the low-carbon economies of the future right when we need to and that's now.

It seems an odd thing to say but grappling with Climate change presents us all with great opportunities, they are hard to see amidst the pressure and the uncertainty but they are definitely there. At the Sydney Theatre Company – where I am co-artistic director – we have a great hope to panel our roof with solar panels and generate close to all the power we need to put on our shows.

When you think of theatre you think of darkness illuminated by electric light. We hope by getting some of our season off the grid to demonstrate that the inevitable change in focus that climate change demands does not necessarily mean an abandoning of all that we know and love. Green workplaces, recycling, sustainable means of generating power are all small shifts that people can and do make. Those changes are opportunities.

An exciting by product of greening an organization such as the Sydney Theatre Company could be the emergence of new theatrical esthetics, look what such changes have already wrought in the world of design. We are looking to have a season of plays where the starting point is the design brief of a zero footprint.

Rizhao (meaning "city of sunshine") is home to more than 3 million people in Northern China. An incredible 99% of households use solar hot water heaters, while almost all traffic lights, street lights and park illuminations are powered by photovoltaic solar cells. The municipal government retrofit program made it mandatory for all buildings to install solar hot water heaters. The cost of solar hot water heaters consequently was brought down to the same level as an electric one and is saving an average of $120 US per year, per household, in an area where per capita incomes are lower than the national average.

It would be wonderful to think that the shifts made at a theatre company could play a part in encouraging at close quarters a green cultural precinct to emerge along Rizhao lines where it's possible to step out and enjoy ones self to expand ones sense of what is possible, to actually feel optimistic in parallel with having a reduced impact on the planet. Personally I am inspired by the implementation of such changes in our ever expanding cities. In fact the idea to green the STC's operations at the wharf has been the central point from which all other creative ideas have since flowed.

A large part of the arts function in society is to lead, provoke and inspire – to be ahead of the game. If the cultural industries are not actively engaged in climate change debate and actioning the requisite shifts then we like all industries face irrelevancy.

I have a friend who for a long time (through out the 1990s) was very active in the green movement. He had his beliefs and he found ways of expressing them. He came to feel after a while that his protesting however was becoming ineffective, he wondered if perhaps it was alienating as many people as it was educating and I think he sensed a divide that might be more dysfunctional than useful. He looked for other ways of making the changes he felt were necessary. He went into business in the renewable energy sector and is very active in getting people to switch over to renewable energy for their domestic use.

That is not to suggest in any way that the green movement is not vitally important to the spreading of information and the pressure on government it is told as a story that points to the opportunities that these changes may bring.

It seems to me that the people, of which I am one, are right there on this issue. I was amazed and heartened by the huge public response to the bushfires in Victoria. It was reminiscent of the extraordinary outpouring after the Tsunami struck in 2004 The people are right there but it is vital that government and business now work together to guide and regulate that preparedness for change. Without direction that sort of general public response can fast become dissipated and then disappointed – individual efforts suddenly seeming invisible and futile. The old green fatigue sets in. Time we no longer have to loose is lost.

Political failure at Copenhagen in December is quite simply unacceptable and this powerful room must play a major role in preventing this failure.

Your strong leadership through a compelling call to action at Copenhagen that delivers certainty to avoid the climate crisis is now needed.

The goals that this very important gathering will set are vital and by hook or by crook governments must find ways, be afforded ways to set the course for it. We are at a fork in the road. Decision makers need your help to choose the right path as it is the path less traveled. This human endeavour of finding the best way to live is still in progress.

Some things are worth repeating so to conclude I would simply like to reiterate the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's words and I quote "a successful deal from Copenhagen offers the most potent global stimulus package possible. With a new climate framework in hand, business and governments will finally have the carbon prices signal business have been clamouring for, one that can unleash a wave of innovation and investment in clean energy.

Copenhagen will provide the green light for green growth. This is the basis for a truly sustainable economic recovery that will benefit us and our children's children for decades to come."

*Photo credit: Copenhagen Climate Council/Peter Sørensen