As part of our living thank-you, we continue with our thank you to those who work behind the scenes to care for our common home from all communities. This week we thank the societal and political leaders who have had the courage to lead.

Let us thank the courageous societal and political leaders who listened to the scientists and directed resources towards better understanding and the search for solutions.

We live in societies where the goals are often set by a few people who are entrusted to act on our behalf. They can summon collective effort to make rapid progress in selected areas through financing research, development and bringing teams together.

Publicly funded scientific research has helped scientists make the observations and inferences that have enlightened our understanding of how our world works. Scientists working together across national borders has greatly helped in the pursuit of knowledge, such as the work disseminated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Leaders have helped by directing finance towards these efforts, listening to the scientists with the results and communicating the main points into wider society.

We thank them for listening with their hearts and steering resources towards better understanding and enabling the scientific work to be accomplished.

Publicly funded innovation and technological effort has encouraged the development of clean alternatives and new break-through technologies that make decarbonisation possible. Collaboration across research centres, universities and industry and across national borders have accelerated the emergence of solutions. Leaders choosing to support these initiatives have enabled the work to be accomplished.

We thank them for guiding resources towards searching for solutions and for having hope and faith in collective human endeavour.

Some of the leaders are well-known, but even for every well-known leader there have been advisors and civil servants who have diligently worked in the background to understand the science and technologies and support the courageous decisions. For their collective efforts we are thankful.