Friederike Otto, Stephanie Motz

When heat waves, floods or droughts strike, not everyone is affected equally. While those responsible for climate change usually have the resources to adapt, the climate crisis hits hardest those who have contributed least to it.

Friederike Otto is one of the world's most influential climate scientists. The physicist and climatologist at Imperial College London has played a key role in developing the new field of attribution science and can calculate in real time how much climate change has influenced individual extreme weather events. As co-leader of World Weather Attribution and lead author of the IPCC reports, she has permanently changed the global debate on climate change.

In her latest book, Climate Injustice: What the Climate Crisis Has to Do with Capitalism, Racism and Sexism, Otto makes it clear that climate change is not purely a scientific issue, but above all a question of justice. Anyone who takes climate protection seriously must combat global inequality.

In conversation with Stephanie Motz, Friederike Otto discusses the human cost of extreme weather events, the limits of technical solutions, and the need to understand climate policy as a question of justice.
What role can art and culture play? Where scientific data often remains abstract, artistic approaches create emotional access and new narratives. Art can generate concern, design utopias and open up spaces for discourse.

Cultural institutions such as Tanzhaus Zürich see themselves not only as places of reflection, but also as agents of change – in their programmes, their working methods and their ecological footprint.

How can science, art and cultural practice work together not only to understand the climate crisis, but also to overcome it? What can we learn from artistic strategies when it comes to thinking differently about the future?

The conversation will be streamed online and recorded.
The link to the stream will follow at the beginning of February.