You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day.

I'm your host, Elise Hume.

What does it take to turn a quiet, almost invisible problem into a movement that can change a country?

Out of 50 proposed co-projects, 17 totaling 9 gigawatt, were canceled.

These cancellation prevented 50 million tons of CO2 per year and 1.7 billion tons over their

lifetimes.

That's equivalent to taking more than 8 million

cars off the road every year for 40 years. That's climate champion Kimiko Hirata,

who's been at the forefront of climate action in Japan for decades. In her talk, she shares

how a moment of national upheaval revealed a surge of coal projects, hiding in plain sight,

and how she was able to shut down a bunch of them before they even opened.

But stopping something is one thing.

Convincing people to believe in a different future is another.

We visited communities where projects are located and spoke with people. But on many

occasions, people didn't care much about the climate and new coal projects. People cared more

about their daily issues. So we talked not only about climate change, but also about economic

and financial risks and health impact

from air pollution. She shares key steps she's learned for doing just this so we can turn

no into a strong, powerful yes. That's coming up right after a short break. And now our TED Talk of the Day. I've been working on the climate issue for almost 30 years.

For most of that time, I worked with a Japanese climate organization called Kiko Network.

Of course, it's been filled with ups and downs,

but today, I would like to share some of the moments when we succeeded.

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