“Artists like Taylor Swift should tell fans to be stewards of the planet”

“All artists and people standing on a stage should act for change," said John E. Fernández, MIT professor, climate advisor to Coldplay, and one of the speakers at Greentopia, a climate forum at Swedish music festival Way Out West.

70 000 people gathered in Gothenburg for the music festival Way Out West in early August. In the mix of performances, 400 researchers, artists, business and civil society leaders gathered at the stage Greentopia to discuss climate change and just transformations.

The initiative is led by Per Olsson, associate professor at the Centre, and Louise Lindén at LiveGreen.

Johan Rockström, co-founder of the Centre, opened the summit by sharing new alarming scientific findings, saying we have "five decisive years ahead of us".

“The heating rate of the planet is accelerating and Earth loses its strength. We need to take the planet to the doctor,” he continued.

Rockström added that climate change could reduce global gross domestic product by 19 per cent by 2050.

“We need to manage the world's economy within the nine planetary boundaries. The transition is possible, we have the solutions. We know that the path to a sustainable future is modern, fun, and exciting!”

The Climate Machine

Building on that, John E. Fernández, professor at MIT, talked about the important role of artists for addressing climate change. Fernández has studied the climate footprint and adaptation of the band Coldplay's "Music Of The Spheres" world tour and leads The Climate Machine, a research initiative supported by Warner Music Group, Live Nation and Coldplay aimed at getting the music industry to address climate change.

“Artists don't need to be experts, we have the researchers for that, but they can take a stand on an important issue,” he said.

Fernández talked about the importance of having climate impact for artists, and said Coldplay are leading on this. The band has lowered their emissions with 50 per cent and know how their fans travel to concert.

“The majority of the emission comes from the audiences travels to an event. The exception are festivals like Way Out West where most people probably took the tram to get here."

The world wants change

The earlier messages were confirmed by Owen Gaffney from the Nobel Prize.

“We know some 71 percent of the world’s population want fast change, and we are seeing a lot of progress, but not fast enough. We need massive action and policies to make the right choices,” he said.

The music and live business can do a lot, from local to global levels. How artists and fans travel to festivals is important, according to researcher Jessica Edlom from Karlstad University, who also participated in Greentopia.

“Artists can and should act for change, they can influence their audience. Their fans listen to them.”

Johan Rockström added:

“It would be very important if Taylor Swift, on stage, said that 1.5 degrees is an important number and that we all need to be stewards of the planet.”