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The Missing Piece in Climate Action (It’s Not What You Think) | Yi Li | TED

When entrepreneur Yi Li cofounded Farmworks, she set out to build 1,000 climate-smart farms across Kenya, complete with dams, irrigation and organic fertilizers. The science was sound, but reality proved more complicated. Learn what she discovered about the missing ingredient behind failed climate solutions — and how it challenges a core assumption of the environmental…

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When entrepreneur Yi Li cofounded Farmworks, she set out to build 1,000 climate-smart farms across Kenya, complete with dams, irrigation and organic fertilizers. The science was sound, but reality proved more complicated. Learn what she discovered about the missing ingredient behind failed climate solutions — and how it challenges a core assumption of the environmental movement on how to create lasting impact. (Recorded at TED Countdown Summit 2025 on June 17, 2025)

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31 Comments

31 Comments

  1. @zone1English

    February 12, 2026 at 11:08 am

    First comment 😂

  2. @MDTALKIES

    February 12, 2026 at 11:10 am

    Great 🎉🎉🎉

  3. @Appliedpositivityforbetterlife

    February 12, 2026 at 11:11 am

    Wonderful ❤

  4. @MyMMC

    February 12, 2026 at 11:14 am

    sure bro, sustainable capitalism is definetly working… we can see it everywhere.
    just need every CEO to be a good boy and girl.

    she said nothing for 8 Minutes with her capitalist propaganda. nothing of this will happen without someone forcing companies to do so.

  5. @asasoo22

    February 12, 2026 at 11:23 am

    Climate changes is hoax 😂

    • @zigma_visual5592

      February 13, 2026 at 4:25 am

      🤦‍♂

  6. @kevinl4966

    February 12, 2026 at 11:24 am

    Thank you much…………. .

  7. @erikburman530

    February 12, 2026 at 11:39 am

    This is a confusing message. She seems to be stating that climate and environmentally friendly farming is only sustainable as long as it is subsidized by NGO’s? That seems to be the definition of unsustainable farming.

    • @homewall744

      February 12, 2026 at 12:01 pm

      Investment is and always has been the key to progress and profits. Labor alone cannot ever get you there.

    • @erikburman530

      February 12, 2026 at 10:12 pm

      @home​wall744 she has admitted that the only way farmers can compete in the local market place is with subsidies provided by charities. Investment resulting in negative returns to the investors? That’s a losing proposition.

    • @zigma_visual5592

      February 13, 2026 at 4:24 am

      @erikburman530 I’m not sure I understand this statement. She made it quite clear that the climate initiative needs financial sustainability before it can be environmentally sustainable.

  8. @AbhinavDubey-g4u

    February 12, 2026 at 11:46 am

    This is the reality of present
    Economics is everywhere but good economics is not a only profite

    • @homewall744

      February 12, 2026 at 12:01 pm

      It’s always about profit. That you invest and later turn a profit is the norm. It’s why poor people rarely can do it alone because they have too little to invest.

  9. @arnoblokerije8837

    February 12, 2026 at 11:52 am

    This is all such BS. There is only one solution: force the ruling elite to fix the fucking climate together and leave behind profits. Musk and Bezos could literally solve climate change overnight if they wanted.

    We need a globalized action towards unconditional sustainability, that is literally the only way

    • @homewall744

      February 12, 2026 at 12:02 pm

      LOL…the people who literally hate those people and want to just to steal their property to consume it now and never make actual progress. Likely sitting at home watching youtube and getting home delivery.

  10. @homewall744

    February 12, 2026 at 11:57 am

    Free market capitalists literally want the least waste, lowest costs. It’s why we aren’t all poor or doing hard labor.

  11. @SeegerInstitute

    February 12, 2026 at 12:34 pm

    As a regenerative farmer for going on 30 years, I applaud her focus on needing to have Abell distribution systems but when she discusses economic viability, what does that mean? We have an entire economic system, which is based on extraction and exploitation does her economic viability include maintenance of a financial services industry that is parasitic in nature or a banking industry, which takes the Lionshare of all the profits?Is she including healthy, soils, healthy communities, clean water, and restoring the planet when she introduces her economics? Absolutely distribution is important, but where is one draw the line between environmental extraction and regenerative practices?

  12. @garcipat

    February 12, 2026 at 12:36 pm

    Wihthout having it watched, its missing will. Actually people wanting to change.

  13. @FrankLindsey757

    February 12, 2026 at 2:03 pm

    The private market is great at projects costing billions of dollars. Governments are better at projects costing trillions. Think general research. We need the co-op market to be subsidized, not big dairy or the 4 meat producers.

  14. @riccardolasagnimanghi4242

    February 12, 2026 at 2:11 pm

    You don’t say…
    Environmental enterprise needs to make profit to work.
    Who would have thought about it!

    • @zigma_visual5592

      February 13, 2026 at 4:18 am

      Oh people don’t know this actually. They demand the change without being realistic. They think it is an education problem when everything is a survival problem.

  15. @williamborges3914

    February 12, 2026 at 2:49 pm

    No money, no mission!

  16. @farmfof

    February 12, 2026 at 3:30 pm

    Love this. Economically viable solutions, and real help and hope for people. And good for our earth. Thank you!

  17. @Oscarnodwannabe

    February 12, 2026 at 5:18 pm

    Yes, economic sustainability!

  18. @Joy-e3v9b

    February 12, 2026 at 5:58 pm

    Thank you lovely, intelligent woman. Brilliant and effective. Applause, applause.🎉 👏🏾 🤍

  19. @satoshay8

    February 13, 2026 at 12:30 am

    Just wait until people find out about inverting the entire economic system into a deflationary one that reflects back onto people, their real efforts and incentive to save. The price of tomorrow by Jeff Booth explains why deflation is the key to abundance. But also the key to solving climate change as climate change is simply the imposed incentives to consume and waste as we try to keep up with inflation. Not to mention the inevitable wars that are funded and caused from the corruption and Triffin dilemma.

  20. @BlankBlank-i6z

    February 13, 2026 at 1:39 am

    Regenerative biodynamic organic agriculture and family planning is necessary for sustainability and peace.

    Humans don’t manage Earth.
    We negotiate with microbes — whether we realize it or not.
    Microbes are Earth’s operating system.

  21. @zanewalsh1812

    February 13, 2026 at 2:30 pm

    1:36. That is a fallacy. Food is a basic human rights and government needs to realize that fact sooner rather than later.

  22. @MaxRacey-w7s

    February 13, 2026 at 5:28 pm

    Start from the ground up… like farming.

  23. @SteveBurton-u3i

    February 13, 2026 at 11:19 pm

    💙

  24. @LuisAzcona

    February 14, 2026 at 3:13 am

    I mostly agree with her. But I do not agree that it’s the most important. Think in terms of pillars. Or columns. Without one, the building will fall down – Technology, Economics, Psychology. All three are euqally important.

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CNET

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The new competition for your cap table | Equity Podcast

The VC middleman is getting cut out faster than anyone expected. Family offices and private wealth firms are going direct: writing checks, taking board seats, even incubating companies from scratch. And more founders are starting to notice. In February alone, family offices made 41 direct investments, including one Midwest-based firm that led a $230 million…

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Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod.

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