Seat At The Table with YouTube Originals

An 11-part series exploring the human cost of climate change, presented by Jack Harries, featuring David Attenborough, Jane Goodall and Barack Obama.

About the project

Seat At The Table follows Jack Harries’ 100-day trip across the UK to COP26 to capture the often overlooked voices of those whose lives are being most affected by the climate crisis, and the activists and innovators dedicating themselves to solving it.

Filmed both in the United Kingdom and across the world, the series features frontline voices as well as climate thought-leaders including David Attenborough, Jane Goodall and Barack Obama. The series ends with Jack’s arrival at the UN’s Climate Conference COP26, with the mission of bringing too often excluded voices to the decision-making table.

Client

Services

Presented

Social + Digital Impact Campaign

Event Screening

Partners

10 Film crews across the globe

Co-Producers

The Project in Numbers

603

miles travelled from Land's End to John O'Groats as part of a carbon neutral production

$343,000

fundraised

5,756,436

views on YouTube

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Seat At The Table Trailer

Challenge

Although the climate crisis affects us all, those who are most impacted are often the least heard. Seat At The Table faced the challenge of giving these individuals a platform and bringing their voices to world leaders at COP26. The project was conceived during the COVID-19 pandemic, adding the logistical challenge of accessing those living on the climate frontlines.

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The Unheard Voices - Seat At The Table

Impact at COP26

The images of the frontline voices captured across the series were also projected on a building outside the conference.

Seat At The Table has been viewed nearly 6 million times, and the associated fundraiser on YouTube has raised an incredible $343,000 for Count Us In.

Seat At The Table was a carbon neutral, Albert certified production. All of the carbon emissions were offset in two ways.

The series also supported Cheshire Wildlife Trust in an ambitious new project to bring wildlife and biodiversity back to an area of intensively farmed land in the UK⁠.

Impact at COP26

The series ended with Jack’s arrival at COP26, with the mission of bringing the voices of the too often unheard, featured in the series, to the decision-making table.

To bring the words of these heroes to COP26, Seat At The Table created an installation at COP26 presenting the seats of those who couldn't be there to tell their stories. Covered in fresh mud from the floods in Germany or ashes from the wildfires in South Africa, the scars on these chairs told a powerful story.

A wide range of COP26 delegates visited the Seat At The Table installation to hear these stories, including Leonardo DiCaprio to Alok Sharma, the COP26 president.

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Screening Seat At The Table for delegates at COP26

Solution

Jack Harries travelled from Land's End in the south of the UK to the northern tip of Scotland before arriving at COP26, capturing powerful testimonies along his way. Remote crews captured global stories.

A rallying cry covering topics such as air pollution, tidal power, and the future of food, and featuring voices from some of the most climate vulnerable countries including Maldives, India and South Africa

Alongside the series, 'The Unheard Voices' was created as a short film sharing the unheard voices battered by climate change speak out from around the world - about the destruction they’ve experienced first-hand, what they fear is coming next, and what we can do to turn things around. The film had an urgent message: if it’s not too late. It’s time to act.

Interviews from the series were shown during David Attenborough’s historic opening speech at COP26 in front of world leaders.

Episode 1: How The Climate Crisis Affects Us All

The climate crisis is causing rising sea levels and nowhere is this more apparent than in the Isles of Scilly - a coastal UK area that’s just years away from being submerged. So I’m talking to Sir David Attenborough and other climate activists around the world about what we can do before it’s too late. …Or is it already too late?

Watch Episode 1

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Episode 2: Farming That Reverses Climate Change

The way we farm food is contributing to climate change so I’m looking at innovative ways to grow it instead. Poppy Okotcha guest stars to discuss regenerative agriculture which not only stops the release of carbon but reduces the amount of it in the atmosphere.

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Episode 3: What Does Bad Air Pollution Mean To You?

How bad is the air pollution created by vehicles? I’m in South London talking to both the Mayor, Sadiq Khan, and locals to talk about how deadly it’s become - and how a nine-year-old recently became the first British person to die from air pollution-related asthma. Then I’m heading to India where sadly it’s even worse.

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Episode 4: How Extreme Weather Will Shape Our Future

The number of weather-related disasters has increased 5-fold over the past 50 years. So I’m visiting Britain’s Met Office to see how weather forecasting works because it’s an alarm system we take for granted. I also spend some time in a unique wave machine to feel the effects of flooding.

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Episode 5: The Rise Of Wildfires Around The World

I’m in Cumbria to look at the devastating impact of wildfires and training with a specialist wildfire team which is so much harder than you’d think. Plus, I’m talking to firefighters in Cape Town, South Africa who’ve had to deal with unprecedented blazes that are threatening the future of once-vibrant communities.

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Episode 6: Regrowing Wild Forests

I’m in Scotland looking at how to regrow wild forests because just planting trees doesn’t automatically lead to tackling climate change - it has to be the right mix of them. Plus we’re meeting the people in Kenya who are trying to repair the damage done by woodlands destroyed by the locals’ need for charcoal.

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Episode 7: This Is The Most Powerful Tidal Generator In The World!

I’m heading to Inverness in Scotland - home to half of the UK’s oil and gas employees - to see how workers rights can be protected as we transition to sustainable energy. Plus we meet a small entrepreneur who’s bringing clean energy to rural areas in Africa and take an up-close look at the most powerful tidal generator in the world.

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Episode 8: Fighting Climate Change With Nature

I’m talking to one of the greatest naturalists of our time, Dr. Jane Goodall, about how to protect our forests and oceans - the two great lungs of the world. I’m also spending time with comic Simon Amstell in a Scottish peat bog to see how they can help soak up huge amounts of carbon if treated right.

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Episode 9: A World Without Ice

I’m in the Isle of Skye with my friend Jamal Edward and climate scientist Alun Hubbard to see the effects of climate change on glaciers and how fast it’s happening - faster than the models even predicted, faster , it turns out, than it’s ever happened before in Earth’s history.

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Episode 10: I'm Finally Here

As I arrive in Glasgow for COP26 with glaciology professor Dr. Alun Hubbard, I’m looking back at the last 30 years to see what action - and inaction - has led to the mess we’re currently in. It isn’t pretty but if we don’t act now, it’ll be too late. We’re at the point of no return.

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Episode 11: At COP26 With President Obama

Just what is COP26 all about? And what will make it a success? In this episode, I embark on the challenge of presenting our unheard voices at COP26. Along the way, I talk with President Barack Obama, COP26’s president Alok Sharma and meet some of the leading youth activists holding world leaders to account.

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