You're listening to TED Talks Daily. I'm Elise Hugh. We know that the world's biggest countries and companies must act if we have any hope of curbing climate change. But small countries and territories have led on many fronts in reducing global emissions. In her talk at the 2021 countdown summit in Edinburgh, Scotland,

the first minister of Scotland, Nicholas Sturgeon, reminds us how small places keep climate action

momentum going. Listen till the end for a brief Q&A with Ted's global curator Bruno Jasani.

I'm going to start today with a question. In other contexts, perhaps a risky question,

not one you would expect from somebody in my position in a talk about climate change.

But it's important. Does size matter? My answer, perhaps also unexpected, is that no, it really, really doesn't.

And Scotland is proving that.

About a mile from here in the National Museum of Scotland, you will find on display a steam

engine designed by the great engineer James Watt. A hundred miles from here, just off the coast

of Aberdeen, is the world's biggest floating wind farm. And then just a bit further north from there in the Pentland Firth,

we find the biggest wave power turbine being tested.

These are all extraordinary feats of technology and engineering.

But they also demonstrate how Scotland,

a relatively small country, led the world into

the industrial age and is now helping to power the world into the net zero age. And there's a lesson

for us on that. When we talk about tackling climate change, we so often talk about the contributions of America,

Russia, China, Brazil, and that's important.

We won't limit global warming without these countries.

But we also have to recognize that the ambition, the leadership and the action of small countries matters too.

Small countries have no time for small objectives.

And I really agree with that.

And we see examples of the leadership that small countries show everywhere we look.

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