Dr Chris Macdonald speaks at the Cambridge Union

The Cambridge Climate and Sustainability Forum (CCSF), hosted at the iconic Cambridge Union, is an annual event that explores the challenges of the present and the opportunities for positive change. This year’s Forum had a particular focus on empowering others to be part of innovative solutions.

Lucy Cavendish College Fellow, Dr Chris Macdonald, was part of the emerging technologies panel that explored a range of new climate tech companies and climate solutions. The panel discussed new ways of optimising energy production, energy storage, product packaging, climate communication, and carbon capture.

Dr Chris Macdonald opened the panel by highlighting the importance of an optimistic and proactive stance: “ … many will be warning us about the apocalyptic future that awaits us should we fail to rise to the challenge of climate change. However, it is also important that we take an optimistic and proactive stance—one that combats ‘doom scrolling’, despair, and the rise in eco-anxiety—by not only helping us to envision a bright and sustainable future but also by developing innovative tools and systems that help to make that vision ‘the future we choose’ … ”.

‘The future we choose’ was a reference to Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac—who led negotiations for the United Nations during the historic Paris Agreement of 2015.

You can see Chris’s profile here.