Why climate change matters to you

Guangzhou is now 1.4℃ warmer than it was a century ago. You might wonder—so what if it's 1.4℃? What difference does 2℃ or even 3℃ really make? When climate change is talked about on a global scale, it can feel distant, hard to relate to. The rise in average temperatures feels abstract, and we start to doubt whether anything we do as individuals truly matters.

In this talk, Junyan Liu invites us to reconnect with the issue—personally. She wants us to see that individual action, no matter how small, can set meaningful change in motion. From her early studies in feminism to her PhD in economics, Junyan has been driven by questions of equity and development. Her research showed that climate change deepens inequality, putting vulnerable communities at even greater risk. But systemic inertia keeps things moving in the wrong direction. That’s why she chose to move beyond academic work—to become a climate activist directly engaged in driving climate risk response and energy transition. Today, Junyan is the head of Greenpeace’s Climate Risk Program and holds a PhD in sustainable development economics. She believes that climate change is a crisis threatening humanity’s future—and that only action can bring hope and real change.