Bangladesh’s interim government chief adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus on Wednesday suggested creating a new lifestyle based on ‘zero waste and zero carbon’ to protect the planet from climate catastrophes, presenting his longstanding dream of creating a new world of three zeroes.
‘In order to survive, we need to create another culture. A counter-culture which is based on a different lifestyle. It is based on zero waste. It will limit consumption to essential needs, leaving no residual waste,’ he said while speaking at the opening session of the World Leaders Climate Action Summit in COP29, held in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan.
This lifestyle will also be based on zero carbon where there will be no fossil fuel but only renewable energy, Professor Yunus said, adding there will be an economy that will be based primarily on zero personal profit like the social business, according to a message received here.
Defining the social business as a non-dividend business addressed to solve social and environmental problems, he said a vast part of social businesses will focus on protecting the environment and mankind.
‘Human lives will not only be protected but qualitatively enhanced through affordable healthcare and education. It will facilitate entrepreneurship for the youth. Young people will get prepared through new education of entrepreneurship. Education of creating job seekers will be replaced by entrepreneurship-focused education,’ the chief adviser said.
Mentioning that the safety of the environment needs a new lifestyle, the 2006 Noble Peace Laureate said the lifestyle would not be imposed but it would be a choice.
He said the young people would love that lifestyle as a choice, while each young person will grow up as a three zero person - zero net carbon emissions, zero wealth concentration, through building social businesses only, and zero unemployment by turning themselves into entrepreneurs.
‘Each person will grow up as a three zero person, and remain a three zero person all his/her life. That will create the new civilisation,’ he said.
‘It can be done. All we need to do is accept a new lifestyle consistent with the safety of the planet and all who live on it. Today’s generation of youth will do the rest. They love their planet.’
‘I hope you’ll join me in this dream. If we dream together, it will happen,’ Professor Yunus said.
About global climate change, the chief adviser said the climate crisis was intensifying and that was why human civilisation was at grave risk as people continued to promote self-destructive values.
‘We need to mobilise our intellectual, financial and youth power to lay the foundation for a new civilisation -- a self-preserving and self-reinforcing civilisation. We, the human inhabitants of this planet are the cause of the destruction of the planet,’ he said.
Professor Yunus said the people were doing it deliberately and they had chosen a lifestyle which worked against the environment, while they justified this with an economic framework, which was considered as natural as the planetary system.
‘That economic framework thrives on limitless consumption. The more you consume the more you grow. The more you grow, the more money you make. Maximisation of profit is treated as the force of gravity which lets everything in the system play its role according to our desire,’ he added.