Pyotr Kurzin hails from both Britain and Russia, a graduate from Johns Hopkins with an MA in Strategic Studies & International Economics. He operates the website myglobalmuse.com and the Instagram account The.eco.expat. where he’s been getting a fair bit of traction the last year in enacting his vision, of being able to produce content that inspires and creates informed change to people’s travel and lifestyle.
Pyotr also works full time as a climate change specialist, focusing on policy and strategy as part of the World Bank currently. He has also worked on environmental migration and climate change refugees as part of the UN and Amnesty International.
On this episode we discuss Pyotr's work in the report by the Global Commission for Adaptation called: Adapt Now A Global Call for Leadership on Climate Resilience headed up by Bill Gates and Ban Ki-moon. The report gave him optimism by demonstrating the power of Earths human capital and how innovative we can be when faced by this crisis. However Peter posits that while we still have to retain a sense of urgency towards the climate crisis, we have to accept that we are right in the thick of the problem and need to prioritize it rather than treating it as something that can be done in our off-time.
Pyotr explains that the common thread behind this inaction is political self-interest, short-termism, and lack of education. We have the human capital, awareness, technology, and financial backing to be able to tackle the majority of climate change. Pyotr puts the problem into perspective by stating that 71 companies are the majority of emitters and a handful of countries, so no matter how much we individually try to reduce our carbon footprint, we are simply not going to see massive improvement because the impacts are so disproportionate.
We do however have to make the issue more accessible and understandable to the general public. UN climate reports are notoriously difficult to read, which is what inspired Pyotr’s desire to write his blog and publish his account so that the message becomes more relatable!