The Know Show – focusing on week two of Cop26 – anything to be excited about?

Welcome to The Know Show. This week Andrea Edwards and Joe Augustin will be joined by Marc Allen, Joanne Flinn, Robert Kirubi and Susanna Hasenoehrl The Sustainability Speaker, to discuss week two of Cop26. The overarching goal of Cop26 is ambition, action and acceleration, so is there anything to be excited about, or was it a failure?

We’ll share our overall impressions and take-aways, whether the pathway to 1.5C is even remotely possible, as well as some of the key issues discussed, including adaptation, how women are disproportionately impacted by climate change, the science crucial to limiting the temperature rise to 1.5C, the mass market for zero-emission vehicles and 'green shipping corridors', what it all means to cities, regions and the built environment., and more. There is a LOT to consider. 

The Know Show is a Livestream held every Friday, where Andrea T Edwards, Tim Wade, Joe Augustin and special guests review the news that’s getting everyone’s attention, as well as perhaps what requires our attention. We’ll talk about what it means to us, the world and we hope to inspire great conversations on the news that matters to all of us. 

The Know Show is based on Andrea T Edwards Weekend Reads, which get published every Saturday on andreatedwards.com, and covers the climate crisis, Covid 19, topical moments in the world, global politics, business, social issues and passion/humor/history. Join us. 

#TheKnowShow #UncommonCourage #Cop26 #ClimateEmergency

 Marc Allen on LinkedIn (99+) Marc Allen | LinkedIn
Joanne Flinn Sustainability Consulting & Speaking by Joanne Flinn (jflinn.com)
Robert Kirubi (99+) Robert Kirubi | LinkedIn
Susanna Hasenoehrl The Sustainability Speaker The Sustainability Speaker Susanna Hasenoehrl
Joe Augustin Singapore Emcee Joe Augustin | Gala Emcee | Conference Emcee – Joe Augustin is a professional emcee from Singapore with more than 30 years of experience. More than just a celebrity emcee, Joe is a renown entertainer with a deep understanding of business objectives behind corporate functions and events. 
Andrea Edwards Welcome - Uncommon Courage - An Invitation (uncommon-courage.com) and https://andreatedwards.com/ 

To get in touch with me, all of my contact details are here https://linktr.ee/andreatedwards

My book Uncommon Courage, an invitation, is here https://mybook.to/UncommonCourage

My book 18 Steps to an All-Star LinkedIn Profile, is here https://mybook.to/18stepstoanallstar

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

that little blue thing is Tony. Here we are we alive. Welcome to the no show. My name is Andrea Edwards. And my name is Joe Augustine and Tim is on a cruise as we speak right now we'll talk about him and and his wonderful getaways the next show round. But today we have a really packed show with a great number of speakers. Great number of great speakers. So I'm going to introduce them and give them an opportunity to say something about themselves. One by one, I made the mistake of doing it all at once before and that was a big mess. So first up, Would you welcome the head of Global Customer programs at DHL service logistics, Robert Karoubi. Hello, everybody. Hi, how are you? Robbie Kirby, from Kenya, if you can't tell from my rugby shirt, living in Belgium, work for DHL, as you said there. Thank you very much for that. And yeah, just looking for great conversation today and something that I'm passionate about. fairly familiar with, but not too not very technical about it. But I'm looking forward to good talk today. And our next guest is someone who has had a name mispronounced by at least 311 MCs. We're going to add one more to this. The sustainability speaker joins us once again. Susanna Hassanal. Good afternoon, everyone. And thanks for having me over again. super pleased to be here today to discuss the key outcomes of cop 26 As far as they are there today. And yeah, Susanna has an L. That's the correct pronunciation for all of their work with business leaders and their teams helping them to embrace sustainability as part of the corporate strategy. That's where it should be and not in the CSR department. Excited about this conversation today. Also joining us someone who is on the inside outside increase beautiful things. She's she's not she's not there. So I think we should bring in Mark. Okay. Oh, well, actually, I was doing an introduction. beautiful on the inside, beautiful on the outside creating beautiful things. Let's welcome Joanne Flynn. Oh, absolutely superb to be your Andrea, I have a very intelligent things when I'm here. And these sorts of things I love standing out. And I have a very comfortable chair just behind me to sit down. So it's actually brilliant to be here. Because I don't know about you guys, but I intend to be alive in 20 years time. That will put me significantly younger than my mother is presently I think I have good odds. And I personally would love a planet that is healthy for us. I'm a money brain I buy big transformation programs, how businesses change what money has to do with it. And today I'm on from my left brain, I believe the money brain today rather. Right brain. All right. And as I was saying earlier, beautiful on the inside beautiful, creating wonderful, beautiful things. Our technical director at ethical climate change risk advisor Mark Allen joins us. Yes, hi, everyone. It's really lovely to be here and lovely to see you all. This is slightly my first live stream event. So I've done plenty of webinars and things but my live stream feels like you know, next level pressure, I'm sure will be okay. But yes, I've been in climate change and sustainability since 2007. Since before it was cool, arguably and was in Singapore last five years now I'm back in Perth, in Western Australia, but advising companies on climate risk and decarbonisation strategies and all of these things. So there's no way to put this but you're in for a heavy conversation this time around call 26 is just about rounding up, which is rounded up. And we have six very interested people on screen. So we're gonna get to that conversation in just a while. But the format of his show starts off with Andrea giving us a bit of a download on the news that struck a chord so this isn't your news broadcast. It's not going to be a general get to everything kind of news, but it's about the news that really struck us. So there is a bit of an agenda here. So let's find out what what has got Andrea. All busy. Well, I thought before we even jump into that it's been a pretty hectic week for all of us. We set up a whatsapp chat. And we've been sharing the information that we've been reading so that we we can keep each other informed of what we've been paying attention to. It's been a bit busy hasn't it guys that that WhatsApp chat? It's been it's been awesome. I love I love having other people that read as much as I do. So especially Susanna, she's she's a she's been voracious. Let's just say that's been my fix this week. Yeah. Morning What happened overnight and you in Glasgow, it's been amazing. So yeah, so as we said, we've been focusing on cop 26 for the second week. And I think we can all agree that the media has been varied. It's been positive, critical and downright hopeless. Would you agree? Yes, yeah. Yeah. There was an article, there was an article at the start of the week in the end of independence that was titled, we know almost for a fact that cop 26 will fail. This is why, and this is where it says, because there is a terrible silent lie being propagated by the British government and the United Nations. They know we have to burn all new fossil fuel investments as a crucial step to have any hope of staying below a 1.5 degrees rising temperatures. Yet the three key players setting the agenda have refused to table a ban at the conference. And then of course, today, there was a report where the UN Secretary General said the goal of 1.5 was on life support. Not surprising. I think we all know that it definitely has not going to be it's not being achieved. In fact, the last I saw, is that where it's 2.4, but we're going to share some other stuff with you in a while where I think that's endowed as well. So how did it leave everyone feeling? She's entered? You want to start? Well, yeah, it's a mix of messages that are coming through very negative ones, but also those of hope. And, you know, I think the one big thing that came through was this joint announcement by President Biden and China that they're actually starting to collaborate bilaterally. I didn't quite expect that. Perhaps some people knew that there was some more happening behind the scenes than than I did. But I certainly look at that as something new. And you know, something not quite sure what will come out of that. But if the biggest two kind of powers in the world, and also the European Union, kind of focus at the right direction, this could lead to something, but obviously, we don't have much time. So we'll need to see how that pans out. Yeah, yeah, I agree with that, especially with the US China announcement. Robert, what did you What was your sort of feeling after this week, or the last few weeks, not to be too cynical about it. But like another, I'm looking at what actually happens after they all get together for two weeks like that. We've seen Paris, we've seen other conferences around this topic. And yet, here we are, again, still talking about, you know, going downhill, things are getting worse, we're seeing the effects in the climate or in different parts of the world. I really need to see something physically start to happen, man, you know, manifest itself out with these big countries. Appreciate we say about US and China. But again, the Democrats may not be in power in two years time. What happens then? Everything is sort of done. From my perspective. And, again, forgive me for being a bit of a cynic. But it's a bit of a show, we need to have these, we need to have these discussions, we need to show the world that we're talking about it at least. But what actually happens in real life is something you're waiting for. That's, that's what happens now. You saw write about the US politics? It's such. It's such. Yeah, yeah. Especially in the recent breaks, right. One thing, obviously, is that there is a bit more continuity on the Chinese side, right? Yes, yeah, that's true. That's good. That's a good thing in nature as well. And what was your feelings? Well, I went into it with the perspective that the business world and the big money in the world is currently supporting a 3.6 degree world, which is an improvement from a seven degree world, which was where it was not so long ago. So I'm going like the directions in the right way isn't enough yet? No, it's not. So I'm not saying, you know, pop in the final waters full of champagne. But I will say at least some markers have happened. And what is interesting is some of the behind the scenes, financial groups are very gently but very systemically making changes that will shift the way money moves around. Now, whether it's fast enough and big enough, and what how big, the black pools of money are all different question. But there are groups made like difference, which I think anyone listening to here will probably glaze over. But differs is the body that globally over the last 20 years has established International Accounting Standards, so that businesses around the world have a common way of reporting money. They've now taken on how do we create a common system for reporting some of these other things, which will help creating some of the norms have a lot of problems to be sorted out, but a beginning at the beginning of this year? That wasn't a public commitment. That's now a commitment to do with a group of people. who, you know are kind of age but knowing they're going to be around 20 years. So do you have a vested interest? So I don't see that. Do you know Roberts point? And Suzanne's point? You know, this isn't the glamorous bunch putting out there doing Yeah, yeah, this is the quiet behind the scenes, ones that it take measured steps. And I see some of those measures steps in the right direction. Whether they're enough until I see another set of reporting and numbers, different matter. But they're signals that are moving closer to where we need to be. So I got a substance. Thanks, guys. You know, you've made promises, you've put lipstick on darling. It's beautiful. looks so much better online with lipstick. I want some substance to last the person, Mark. Um, yeah, it's funny leading into 26. I was speaking at an event and actually in person event, which was a nice change. But I was asked, am I hopeful that there'll be a successful outcome from 26. And then I actually said, Well, I've been around long enough to remember con 15. So, you know, that was meant to be as the next big thing, the thing where Kyoto successor was agreed, etc, and then did not happen. And, you know, cop 26, I sort of went into it feeling pretty similar, some things will happen, some additional commitments will be made. And there is some cool stuff happening, I think, around agreements that have been done outside of the main negotiating area. But the draft text that we saw the other day is okay, it's, you know, not particularly, I suppose, ambitious, I think, at this stage. And what will really be interesting will be what actually happens in the negotiating room over the next two days, because typically, every comp, we end up with some sort of agreement being hammered out at four in the morning on the Monday morning, which is the Sunday night of the last day. So I would be expecting something like that to happen. Given the way things have gone, in recent cops, everything since cop 21. A lot of them some vast parts of the negotiating text to just sort of say, oh, we'll do this next year, because it's actually too hard to come to agreements. But there has been some positive outcomes, I think it's just, I suppose a matter of how we respond to those as well. So for example, the deforestation agreements, you that's all well and good. But there was another one in 2014, that was exactly exactly the same thing. And that didn't really achieve the goals similar, you know, US, China. It's a really nice outcome and a bit of a surprise outcome. But they also did one in 2014, which then went into what became the Paris Agreement in 2015. So yeah, I'll reserve judgment until we actually see some runs on the board and see some actual progress and proper plans as opposed to long term commitments, and changes in policies, right. And regulations, especially right. Yeah. And that's the thing. So all of these commitments have been made without the Hey, what policy? Do I actually need to achieve that? That's the bit that's missing? Or what am I going to do? Physically? Am I going to do you know, one thing, the 2030 targets do need to be increased in ambition greatly for where they are today. And not? Only in the most most optimistic scenarios, do we get to something below two degrees? I'm actually at the point where I think there's a bit of re languaging that's necessary, because the phrase ambition has the sense of stretch. And optionality. Are you ambitious enough? Are you ambitious, ambitious, lots of people, frankly, that, you know, if people even listening today, you know, a lot of us we want a comfortable life. And that concept of ambition is not necessarily something that resonates with why our lives should be different. You know, it's an outside their thing. But, you know, speaking as someone who comes from Australia, and sorry, I already admit I'm embarrassed for my country on certain levels, but I remember to two years ago, you know, back in before pre COVID, you know, when you could actually go travel, I was back home in Australia, visiting the family and writing a book actually on business in the form of business uniforms and climate. And I was looking outside and where I lived, which was, you know, fires that were going on in the middle of Australia in Queensland and New South Wales. Were creating climate effects where I was in Tasmania. Yeah, now, for those of you who don't know, the distances, and you look at on the map, it might not seem a lot, but it's 15 hours driving away. And a very, very, just like, take it like for anyone who said, you know, is it just as across Europe is the distance across, you know, the USA was that far away. So people talk about the fires that we've had this year, like two years ago, we had that kind of burning across massive, massive parts of the country. It is, I mean, it's that kind of like lived reality of seeing things going up, and then fires that were happening, you know, nearer to us, because then Ember started, we had, you know, when he was creating fires near us. And my parents having been through a stage where fires came down through the city, and people died. So you know, active memory, in next generation of, you know, what this could do. And going into this is, you know, when I talk, so I've stopped thinking about as ambition, which seems like too far away, and too much excuse it, this guy's a bunch of people on testosterone trying to prove what heroes they are. And going, actually, you know, what, someone who would actually like just a pleasant civilized life, I don't want to be living through fire. I don't want water shortages. I don't want to be seeing more people refuse, as refugees. Because that's just really not a nice world. But if I want a world that's different to that, what are the sorts of decisions that I can make here now or influence? That could make a difference so that that rather nasty world that I lived through two years ago, and far too much of the world is lived through since isn't the norm, because that's actually what is not ambitious. It's not called people and it's really real day to day choices that we can make in any of our roles. Well, the good news is your family properties will be worth more money, because everyone's moving down to Tasmania and buying, including the winery. So there's an decimate ambition for you, Joe, how was your How was your way? Well, I was funny experience. Well, I was hearing all the all the bad news, and I was looking to see what kind of good has happened in the end in the last few years. Right. And I think in the area of construction, we've actually maybe not noticed all the good stuff that's been happening there. So you know, buildings, I thought more about it as well. It's it really is about what kinda makes financial sense. It's terrible that the human race is driven by the financial sense of things. But it's, it's it's made financial sense to make buildings green. And so buildings are green, that they're coming better. I've been working with a few developers here, and they're working on seeding projects that are going to really reduce the carbon output the carbon footprints of all the new buildings around the globe. So but because there is there is money in it, there's something to be to be said about that. And they've made some great progress. So that's, that's one of the things that I was thinking about. I was also thinking about the challenge when you're trying to say let's do something that sort of works, and let's change it to something else that is different. And maybe all I mean, you may know you may not know that I'm pretty much into cryptocurrency I know everybody backs off from the screen for a moment there it is to listen and review. Andrea, could you also switch our privacy on the stream to global right now it's on on a friends group only? I'm going to try and share it further if I can. And the thing about the comparisons always about how how not unbearable, environmentally unfriendly bitcoin is or cryptocurrency is. And I went looking and I and I and I and I found this article. And I don't know, I'm not going to report that it's absolutely true as well. But there's this thing about comparing traditional finance the whole machinery of it versus cryptocurrency. And according to and this is from Tesla, so you know, who knows how accurate this is, but according to it traditional banking is some 400 terawatts worse than then Bitcoin which kind of suggests the idea that if we wanted to reconstruct everything and change everything, we would start again and go with a with with cryptocurrency, perhaps, where you could program all the things you need about banking into the actual code itself. But would we do that? Would we? Would we stop running all those ATMs? Would we stop having, you know, banks with all the computers that run inside it and all the machinery that goes along with that, you know, even if it was technically a better idea, and that was one of the challenges that I that I kind of found myself thinking about as like, you know, we kind of we kind of have a solution and like I think when crypto goes into much more about proof of proof of stake for There's rather than proof of work, we start to have a really interesting argument for, for for going that way instead of traditional, you know, so it was one of those they just I just thought about, like, it's easy for stuff to change when it has it when it's convenient. And it's useful to a large group of people. And there's money involved. So like, like the way building design and building it has production of steel, which I think we're going to get going to slip into greenwashing here, but I heard a term responsible steel, right. And then they'll have greener still still. Yeah, green is already a thing. Yeah. There is progress on green cement, green steel, there is definitely progress. But when you talk about the green buildings, like Yeah, putting the trees on the outside of them on green buildings, there's a lot more to it than that. And we're a long way off. You know, so yeah, I hear your argument on crypto and I don't get crypto as you know. But the two things that came out for me are fossil fuels aren't on the table. And growth based economies aren't on the table if we really want to tackle it. So like, if I if I talk about my impression is of this cat last couple of weeks. If we were doing this 20 years ago, that would be good news. And but that's not what is required right now. But we should have done it 2030 years ago, we didn't do it 2030 years ago, when the when you know, the alarms were first being raised. So what we have to do now is so dramatic, and so enormous. And it's a complete transformation of the entire global economy, the way we live the way we work everything. And so for me, when I'm listening to it, I'm just it's just like, it's like these people live in another world. I know it's my choice, right? Yeah, it's not a time for incremental change. It's a time for dramatic change. I think I agree with you, Andrew. And unfortunately, at this stage of where we are with the situation, I think it's going to take a catastrophic event to happen for people to absolutely change their mindset. You're right, about 20 years ago, change, this kind of change is something that happens incrementally. But people all have to be aligned in their mindset about we are going to do this and you go through all the change iterations and you know, people in business, you know how change manifests itself with a large group of people within an organization. It's painful, it's slow, and it needs leadership. You're right. I think now for people to really get their noses in the right way. It's going to take a catastrophic event to happen. For people to go off, we really need to do something here. And that's unfortunate. Yeah, well, we can have a long conversation around proof of stake and proof of work. But I've dropped you guys, I dropped you guys not an article, because I did pull it out regarding Bitcoin. And the Bill Maher has an interview that you sent through where he was having a go, but Greta, and then he went on to Bitcoin as well, which annoyed me. And there's lots of detail. And so that's unfortunate, because there's so much information out there that really goes into explains because it is one of the big knocks against Bitcoin, about how much energy is used. So I'm dropping it because not for today, we're to talk about another time and get you up to speed. But there's one thing I wanted to ask you guys coming from Kenya, Africa and the developing world, I'd like to get your thoughts on how you felt that the developing world is represented a cop 26 I saw something last night where a load of journalists from Africa as an example, couldn't get visas was too expensive, and nobody would help fund them to get to cop 26 to represent the then the nations on behalf of, you know, be part of the nations that's being represented and sort of having foreign press talking about Africa. And that disappointed me a little bit because we heard that. And then I think some of the leaders from the Pacific nations and from Africa did some of the best, best work. Yeah, the guy in the water. Was that Barbados? Barbados? Yeah. Yeah, you know? Yeah, I thought that I mean, and there were lots of issues about people getting there being affordability to get their traveling and COVID, all that sort of stuff. But I, you know, and then I look at the youth as well, and I think they did a really good job. And that, you know, a lot of people focus on Greta, but what she's done is she's found a group of like minded thought leaders across the world or in their age group, and I think they've become really come tight together, and they're working together beautifully, which is what we need, right? But um, yeah, I mean, there was obviously a lot of failures. So there's a lot of talk about the failures as well, but I think people worked out how to be present if they couldn't be present, to get their message heard whether it was heard there. It was certainly heard on the digital channels. thing, one of the elements, but my cynicism about it all is, if there'll be serious about all of this, I'm not talking about from an African perspective, I think there's something about 150 million that has been given to Africa to develop green technologies. That's a drop in the ocean, it really has been less than a drop. And you need to look at that sort of situation with this developing world, holistically. So all the other things that were chained up to the IMF and Europe in the US with the loans and everything else that goes on about that, if you really want to release the energy to help us do something about this, from our perspective, talk about the whole environment around where we're beholding to the Western world, as opposed to just saying, here's 150 million, it's going to come with conditions. And by the way, we're still going to hold you to account for all the other stuff that we've got you under the nail for that kind of a discussion of clear plans and actions around addressing that topic. That would show me that the seriousness behind this and people actually going to change and structural things to help address this and help developing nations move forward to support the prop 26 agenda. I didn't get that sense. And that nice, nicely introduced us into the first topic, which is let's talk about the money, right. And it's been a big issue for the last couple of weeks, it's been a big issue for right from the start of our conversation when the cops first started. So the wealthy well became rich on the back of the of the developing world. And we've created the issues that are now the issue. And of course, some of the developing countries are now also creating massive emissions like China and India, just because of the scale and the size. That there's there's his message that the rich countries have an obligation for the poor countries to so that they can move forward and also protect themselves, right. So the whole adaptation argument, they can't afford to protect, you know, the Pacific Islands can't afford to protect themselves from rising seas, and the wealthy countries need to pay for it. And one of those really strong things for me was that message was coming through, they're really pushing back that push, I felt that they push back hard so that I know that you're always going to see it through a different lens. But one of the other speeches, I can't remember I think Susanna shared it was the Mexican Mexican president killing calling on the world's richest billionaires and companies to pay for a $1 trillion poverty fund. And he's basically asked them to voluntarily contribute 4% of their fortunes annually to this $1 trillion fund. And the aim is to reverse the global slide from civilization into barbarity. And the barbarity argument is a real argument, and we're seeing it escalating around the world, right? We're going to talk about the carbon offsets later. But there's two things here who's going to pay the bill. So billions have been promised they've never been paid. We've seen millions, pledged, we haven't hit billions, we need trillions. And the other thing is reparations. So the damage, so who's gonna pay for that? So when when when they have to build the seawall to protect the islands or all the other work that needs to be done? Who's going to pay that? Who wants to reach that amount Do you want to chip in? Okay, so they're, firstly, Robert, I'm with you. I grew up in Nigeria. So, yeah, it's, and my brother's does a lot of work with the African Union in the climate debate. So I have, you know, March, what you're talking about, I get backroom conversations once he's recovered from the pressure of them. So he comes back for Christmas completely burned out. And then by two, three weeks later begins to be able to string a sentence together as a human being. They're clearly incredibly intense events. But the I look at the money game that's going on right now. And you're in a business, but a very big picture for people, because then it might get down there to get down to like, how does this make a difference to the way our businesses operate now? And things like Roberts question about, well, what about the rest of the world who's carrying a cost in many cases, they weren't fonts for creating is used to extract two expressions, backhoe and asbestos. Okay, are bits the business system that we have the last 50 years is pretty much said. Other people carry the cost of the products that we create. So for a long, long time, we used to press out of good, good intentions, it was fire retardant, and we just had all sorts of nasty health consequences. As nasty health consequences kill people. You might see how this is showing up in the climate thing. Other people are paying the cost. The asbestos companies made the money and eventually the system changed. Those. Take responsibility and liability. You take tobacco, another industry where lots of people may I'm sorry, if my system is doing weird stuff, it's usually incredibly stable. Businesses made a lot of profit knowing there was a consequence. And lots of us being in a situation of having second class mobile health sequences. And the reason why I'm bringing these two into the conversation is many of the products that we use, I mean, most of us, you know, are in rich developed countries using rich developed product systems, which is really different to if you're a rice farmer, who's growing rice. You know, as a small farm farmer, or you're growing cassava, in an Africa and different sorts of things. I mean, they're very, very different impacts of what our business and our lifestyle has. And the reality as much as I hate to think this is the truth of the business lifestyle thing is, we've got, we've got toxicity coming out, left, right and center. And we're going to be paying for the health costs, but many other people are. And so my projection from a big picture thing is there'll be more legal cases within country and across country, that will be about liability. And there'll be, and I think some of it will be directly to countries, not to countries, but to companies. And so I do quite a lot of work with boards and CXOs around, you know, how do we need to think and what mindset do we need to shift to, and it's a risk one level of risk management. Very simply, that as leaders, we can't say, we don't know anymore. We can't pretend that, you know, we didn't know about this, it's public knowledge, look at schoolchildren now about it's pretty hard for us to act stupid and liable. I think that we should be for, and it's not a comfortable conversation. But it's also the reality. Amazingly, yeah, increasingly also in national legislations, this is this is gaining ground. So for instance, Australia, places, but also, for instance, Germany, have, you know, have Supreme Court cases where the Supreme Court has made the decision that is the the duty of the current legislative, and also the companies to care for the future generations. And on this basis, for instance, Greenpeace is now suing car companies in Germany, they have failed to commit to the non combustion engines on the grounds of offsets laws. So I think this is definitely going to increase. Because of these advances and new, you know, new statements by the Supreme Court. Yeah, you know, there's a, there was a statement by Coca Cola that by 2013, for every bottle that goes out, another bottle will come in, so they're gonna make their, you know, the exchange, right, so there's no waste. But between now and 2030, there's going to be a lot more plastic. And I haven't seen anything about a global commitment by all of the plastic producers. And if if MC CJ companies to actually clean it up, you know, there's a lot of charities running around. But, you know, Nigeria, you mentioned earlier, if you've seen some of the some of the work that Nestle's doing there, some of the destructive work that you're doing there, as well as the waste that's piling up because they don't have any sort of proper recycling program. So you're sitting here in Phuket, there's all these boats going out to all these islands, a lot of them don't even have people living on them covered in plastic waste. But these small communities are expected to not only return plastic bottles, but also glass bottles back to the mainland, where they're then shipped up to Bangkok, where they may or may not be recycled. Right. So there's no, there's just no responsibility. And that's, that, to me is, you know, like every company in the four the 4%, that the Mexican president suggested, that should be an absolute minimum, and nobody don't hide it. Just let's just put the money towards it and get it cleaned up. Because well, interesting. But Carlos Slim is one of the richest men in the world. He's Mexican. Be interested to see if he Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I was gonna say something that's actually baked in to the UN f triple C, the the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. So the document that was created back in 1992, that governs how we respond to climate change in that is the central tenant of climate change action, which is common but differentiated responsibilities. So it's from back then that the built into it is the concept that we all have a common responsibility. Every country has a common responsibility to do something about climate change. Syngenta have a world that we can comfortably live on, right? But that's differentiated because different countries have had different contributions to the problem. And the rich countries have to do more than the developing countries. And the developing countries also need to be recipients of technology, finance and oppression, assistance, etc. So that they can be allowed to grow in the same manner. So everyone can sort of grow their GDP, we I won't get into the argument yet about whether I think GDP is good, bad or other. Countries should be allowed to develop, but they need to have that enabled in a clean way. And that's baked into not only the en f triple C, as this central sort of philosophy, but also into the Paris Agreement. You know, we've got bits of the Paris Agreement that refer explicitly to technology flows, finance flows, and assistance with adaptation, and developing countries getting more assistance from others. And that's where this 100 billion dollars a year comes from. And that was meant to be dispersed to the Green Climate Fund, the Green Climate Fund is nowhere near $100 billion, using some other metrics now developing developed countries should be under the Paris Agreement reporting regime reporting on what these finance flows are, where they've gone, how they've deployed it. But what we see happening is now this, this conflation, and Australia does this a lot. This conflation between climate finance and climate aid, and normal aid and go Well, our normal aid budgets are also aid in climate for so this is this is it, you know, this is limited, it's the one bucket, you get, you don't get to buckets, right? And you have to deal with that. So you guys have to decide what you think is more important in terms of climate adaptation, or kind of medicine, food, whatever, right. And it's just, it's just one of the ways in which this sort of thing is being morphed into something that suits now again, the the developed countries and you know, wanting to credit the stuff they're already doing. And that's called Double damnably? Well, it is called double counting. Yes, of course, it is. And this is part of the disagreement around the negotiating texts. Yeah. You know, so developed countries are like, No, we're already giving you money, right? And developing countries is like, no, not that money. We want other money, right. And that causes tension. And this is one of the areas in which there is a lot of tension around negotiation. I did a training course recently for a group of people that were in Timor Leste. And I explained to them common but differentiated responsibilities. And the first comment that came back really quickly was, ah, that's never gonna work. I'm like, yeah, yeah, largely trade. And that's from the position of at least developed country. They're like, Well, why would they, these developed countries be sort of thinking about giving us anything? Right? Or why would they want to take responsibility for history? And it was a really challenging sort of discussion that we had in their, in their training course. You know, in many ways, they're right. I guess, interesting development, also this week with India. So first, everyone gets kind of very excited about their degree about their 2017 carbon neutrality pledge, and perhaps most importantly, about their short term plans. So increase in renewable energy by 2030. But then only a few days later, they come and say, right, but we will only do this if we get a trillion. Right, a tactic. They're not wrong. This is it. Right now is a vast negotiation game. You know, like anybody, anybody who's who's ever watched Game of Thrones. You know, actually, reading Machiavelli start reading Machiavelli, awesome book, awesome books on that the prince brilliant, very depressing, but very applicable, because it is it says this hold out. So what we're seeing is that this kind of was what will hold a carrot. But if you don't do this, and then you see countries like Australia, who were going will hold out using the fact that one of the world's biggest minds will hold out because then we can use that as a leverage points. Whoever is the last man standing will inch something more out of it. And in general, Saudi Arabia is just kind of plugging everything right now. Yeah. So which, so So, Robert, I think I think we're all in agreement that there's a lot of rubbish going on. And I'm using my big words. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's just, it's just it's bloody ridiculous. I mean, it's just, you know, it's, it's embarrassing, you know, when you come from one of the countries, that whose leaders and business leaders sort of doing this, you just, it's a disgrace for me personally. But let's move on to energy because energy is obviously fields is a big part of it. So let me give you a couple of the couple of the highlights of the week. So the first is fossil fuel industry has had the largest delegation at the Climate Summit 503 people to be exact. We saw a new report that expects global emissions of carbon dioxide to rebound to pre pandemic highs, particularly coal use resurgence in China and India. So it's going to push emissions to an all time high, which is so wonderful. We had reports that you're saying just then Suzanna, Saudi Arabian negotiators are moving to cripple cop 26, there's been some pretty interesting coverage of that. We saw the first cop 26 draft statement. So this is the final statement that will come out in some in a few weeks. But there's some good news there, they actually did mention fossil fuels in the first paragraph for the very first time in its history. So there we go, it might not be in the final version of it. But it's in the draft. The surprise now, announcement of the US and China, you're working together to agree on cutting emissions. That's good news. And there's a new alliance that's been established to kill the oil and gas industry. So it's a small group. But I thought that was a pretty promising thing. So Mark, do you want to? Do you want to kick off with your observations? And what was missed? What? Yeah, yeah, look. So the climate change issue is really an issue around energy. And I think that's clear, some 73.2%, or something of the world's emissions come from the energy system, since either taking our fossil fuel and turning it into electricity, and then using electricity or using fossil fuel directly. So that's a, it's a really big ship to turn around. And so it's, you know, we do have to decarbonize that area, and have to decarbonize all emissions. But these, in many cases, are some of the easier to decarbonize areas, particularly electricity production, because the technology already exists today. And we have to decarbonize pretty swiftly, and actually then get to work trying to figure out how to decarbonize the other areas, you know, the remaining 27%. So, there is a lot to be done, I don't think that can be underestimated. The IEA did publish their World Energy Outlook just for cop 26. And the IEA are pretty clever economists. And they said 20 emissions from fossil fuel reduced by two Giga tons to 2 billion tonnes, which is a pretty big drop, the biggest drop you've ever had, but this coming year, 2021 day expect they will increase, you know, above the zero line again by another one, which is a net increase of minus two to plus one 3,000,003. All which will be the largest rise in fossil fuel use ever in the history of fossil fuel years. So, you're right, there is quite a challenge to turn that around. Because for all the talk of green recovery, build back better, or all these things, a lot of it's not actually happened in practice, you know, coming out of pandemic, to the extent of course, coming out as a pandemic. It's actually been just a return to business as usual, because it's cheap, it's easy. And what we need is actually economics important knots, not a drag on the economy, so to speak. So, yeah, it is a challenge. There were some green shoots, I think the mentioning of fossil fuels is something kind of cool. And but we've yet to see that get borne out in the actual results, which then becomes sort of this area where I see now, the finance industry and investors paying so you have, you know, a significant number of lenders, for example, putting exclusionary policies on coal in the first instance, and then potentially in oil and gas, certain types of oil and gas and not lending money to those things. I think that will drive a lot of change. The export credit agencies have some have, you know, agreed to stop funding coal in its entirety as well which is also I suppose, a welcome thing coming out of this. So I think it's quite bold, I think for a government to make policy around excluding fossil fuels, I think it's politically a very, very difficult thing to do. So perhaps is now is the role of the private sector and the finance industry and things to make that call on behalf of perhaps just Well, one thing I will say is interesting. All of the energy companies have, obviously set targets for net zero emissions, only a couple of them have actually, combined with that targets to reduce their production, only two that I can recall, and that's PP and E. And I was saying in the future, they expect to be producing less. And that's actually quite in line with sort of the a net zero pathway, which is saying, you know, there's no room for new oil and gas, now there's a declining demand for oil and gas products and the future. And then, actually, what I did think was kind of cool coming out of cop 26, the agreements around electric vehicles, it's missing a lot of the big countries now, the big, you know, automotive producers. However, there's still an argument to say that moving one or two people around in to tons of, you know, vehicle is never going to be as efficient as moving a whole bunch of people around in a train or a bus or on a bicycle or something like that. So these things need to go hand in hand. Obviously, I'm in Australia right now, where everyone needs a car. So just is what it is, I guess. Right. And I'm in Perth, which is very big and spread out. And everyone definitely. Mark, Mark, I'd really like to ask you a question about, you know, the political dimension here. It sounds to me that you're saying that, you know, phasing out fossil fuel is really too much to ask from any politician is, is that your that your view? Or do you know, I think it's challenging, right, and you have to go no further than actually look at the trouble that the Democrats are getting at having, trying to get their own policy through their own party, right. And stripping out a lot of the things to do with the energy industry. Because in some ways, the political class is a little bit beholden to the energy industry. And I'm trying to be diplomatic, significantly into in spy. And that's why that's why the the role of the media is so critical. So So an American journalist was in has been in Scotland, and she can't believe how much the media in the UK and across Europe focuses on the environment, compared to back home. And I don't know, if you guys, you know, the first week of cop 26, there was a bit of coverage in the major news dailies like New York Times Wall Street Journal. And then as soon as that, that they had those elections, all of the environment coverage just disappeared off the front pages, right. But you know, and then of course, we know fox, fox news isn't talking about it, but but on the on the other side, we all have a responsibility to make sure we're educating our community, because until enough of us are aware of the crisis, and then vote for them in the right way, but demand the people that we vote for participate in the right way. I think I think we're pretty much screwed. I shared this earlier also, with some people who asked me like, what was my takeaway from the biggest takeaway from the week one off cop? And, and to be it was having 100,000 people on the streets of Glasgow, and also in other cities? You know, I really think this is probably the only way to change, you know, for us voting and putting those people in parties into positions of power that will actually enact the necessary changes. I don't quite see those. I mean, some countries are better than others. And, and the EU is, yeah, fairly progressive, but then again, guess seems to be slipping into their allowed energy forms again, because the kind of creams so that was a big blow to me also, this is I think, the I think the thing is the potential for loopholes around the EU. So they came up and you know, they're gonna set the rules and everybody has to play by their rules, but the potential for loopholes where another country doing the wrong thing can trade with the country doing the right thing and therefore contract with the EU so that I mean, transparency and trust. It has to be put into the center of this whole conversation and, and, you know, transparency and trust is a huge use or issue around the world. But yeah, so that's the sort of stuff that really bothers me. Every time every time I say a photo, I say an old white man, who's 26? Yeah, no, but you know, all the people talking. Here. Yeah, all the people talking about the stuff in a way that not really making any hay not why. They're all older than 60. Not obviously, all of them, but the majority of them, and they're not going to be around to say the impact of this. So in terms of images, what stroke meals are from Glasgow was this one image where I think it was the political leaders during the first couple of days who were in some kind of Cathedral in Glasgow, and about 100 people there. And based on quick look, it's like 98, plaque suits. And two ladies. Yeah, the maleness as well as a big issue, right? Yeah. Yeah. Should we move on to carbon? Article Six, or the carbon markets? Because I think this is a really important topic, and for people who don't really know about it, so people in the people are really paying attention to the climate crisis are listening out for the article eight conclusions. Do you guys do any of you guys, I can talk about a bit. Do any of you guys want to sort of talk about why it matters? And also why it's not going to be resolved at this one? Oh, I'll start. So yeah, Article Six is the area of the price agreement that talks about market based and non market based mechanisms. Don't ask me when a non market based mechanism is gas. But primarily, it's about the market based mechanisms, which is where a country can purchase abatement from another country and do that trade. Flow of, of verified fungible units go between the two countries. So it's been plagued with a few difficulties. So a, a similar structure existed under Kyoto Protocol, the clean development mechanism. But some a lot of the early projects didn't have, you know, the right amount of verification, there was a little bit open to abuse is probably the right word. And the market ended up getting flooded. And there's billions of these things. And they're worth about 50 cents each. On the CD, a ton of carbon, right? Yeah, correct. Correct. So we have some problems. Now, though, when we move into the Paris aligned, what's going to be called Sustainable Development Mechanism? Units, right. And that's, there's the potential that a lot of these CDM units might not be directly transferable to under Article Six, which means there are countries who have loads of sort of credits that they want to sell, or suddenly find them worthless. So they're pushing to try and get them included. Right. And then another area in which there is a lot of discussion negotiation is around the concept of corresponding adjustments. So So what that means is, if you do an emissions reduction project in a country, that's what you're doing in Malaysia, right, so emissions get reduced, and then they sell that abatement. That visions, those emissions get added back on to Malaysia's emissions number, right, because you've sold that, that the rights to that abatement to another country, transfer that to another country. So the idea is that that's called the corresponding adjustment, you increase that amount back on, so then you don't double count, right? There are some countries who are saying, well, we should also get the benefit of the emissions reduction that we've done, right? So they're digging in around corresponding adjustments. And it's making life really difficult, because this is the sort of thing where you need full consensus. Typically, in the last two cups when they've discussed the Paris Agreement rulebook, so the, in the one in Canada V chain, and the one that was held in Spain, but hosted by Chile, the idea was to finalize the rulebook, because we're now in the Paris world, right? Because it came into force in 2020. But without the detail, so we have Paris Agreement as a concept, right, and these high level sort of motherhood standards. So then the rulebook sets the detail how do we actually implement the Paris agreement? And it's this thing is Article Six area that's become the sticking point each time and they've sort of negotiated negotiated, negotiated. And then the agreement they've got to is how we'll do this next year. Right? Because it's too hard to come to agreement now. And then in between the two years, the number of negotiating positions increases again, then they whittle them down again. And here we go. So there's a lot of thoughts that perhaps they're not getting there this time again, and it's about it's just quickly about finalizing high integrity rules. That's correct. That's, that's the one that matters. And that's why it's it's a struggle, because it's not currently looking like a lot of integrity is playing out. Yeah, you want to make sure the emissions reductions are real, and they're verified, and you can generate a unit that means something, it's fundable. No, that's not double counting all of these. Yeah. And those negotiations are still happening today. in Glasgow, so will they come to a conclusion? They'll be going until Sunday night, Monday morning. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, not so much to report from there yet. But But I'd also like to promote in the conversation a little bit further into offsetting, because basically, what the Paris Paris target agreement, and this Article Six is about are their so called compliance carbon credits. So for instance, in the European Union, this is a carbon carbon trading system, which basically, through which the EU says to certain industries that you're only allowed to emit this and this much, and the carbon emissions for those sectors for those companies are effectively capped. So this is a so called compliance market, but what we also see training heavily the voluntary carbon markets, right, and what's to be noted here is that if you generate like a carbon credit for the compliance markets, then you know, to avoid double accounting, you know, he can only be placed there and not in the voluntary markets, right. But but here's the really the thing about this. Now, it has been shown that those compliance markets where they effectively cap the emissions, well, that is a somewhat effective mechanism to actually reduce emissions, it depends often on the price that the companies need to pay. And sometimes there in the past, there have been some perverse effects of those prices being too cheap. But for instance, in Europe now 6060 euros per tonne of carbon, it's a decent price, right? But, you know, what, what's happening now in the real world, is that, you know, businesses are increasingly especially the high emerging ones that serve consumers are asking us to offset right with voluntary carbon credits. So this could be your shell saying, hey, tribe carbon free, because, you know, carbon neutral it because we have this, you know, forestry project here, and we're offsetting your your emissions. Right. But but the thing here is, and I really like everyone to know, this, is that, you know, there aren't enough carbon credits, and carbon offsetting projects to support business as usual. Yeah. Like we're putting over 40 Giga tons of greenhouse gas emissions into the, into the atmosphere every year, and growing. Right. And, and if you look at the the projects and the technologies, and you know, the practical means that we have today, and also lean forward a little bit in thinking, Okay, what might be possible in the next years, then, you know, if you listen to the scientists, they're saying that by 2050, on an annual basis, we might be able to offset 20 gigatons. And that's the very, very, most optimistic scenario, you know, under the most favorable conditions. So the notion of saying, hey, let's just keep going business as usual, which is offset, you have to keep flying, you know, whatever. That is wrong. Yeah. And you're one to know, that's it. But let's keep going to offset what you're doing now. Yeah, don't be don't believe that that's gonna solve the problem. Right. The important thing, but, I mean, I mean, Singapore is building it's, you know, putting a lot on this, this whole Article Six, climate change, you know, yeah. I know you. You've been working with some people on this recently. Do you want to jump in? I mean, it's not about criticizing governments. I mean, if you look at these carbon credit projects, you know, thank you. So also, very important, I'm not saying that we shouldn't, you know, support our forest rate and so plant more trees or for instance, support the farmers, the 500. million smallholder farmers in a.in, adopting more carbon smart practices, you know, we have to do this, but they should not be at the back of justifying business as usual. Right. Sorry, for Monsanto business as usual for Monsanto. Monsanto. Yeah. But I'm not sure if we want to jump into the agricultural discussion already. But this actually, just, I was just gonna ask Joe if he wanted to jump on these because I know he's been doing some work with some people in one space. So yeah, so I was doing doing a helping produce a webinar for for Cyberdyne Tech Exchange. And they're responsible for setting up basically an exchange where what they hope to do is to address some of these things that we talked about, how do you how do you keep track, make sure there's no double counting, and you get the real cost of everything. So they're actually setting up an exchange that is going to have you require even both as investor as well as seller, to declare the real costs of what your what your asset is, right? So that would include all asset classes. And amongst the things you'd be able to trade on the exchange would be Bitcoin, for instance. And for them, they attach 170 tons of carbon cost to one Bitcoin, at least, that's what the that's what it's trying to make you aware of everything has a cost. So that's all kinds of of, of assets will be treated with those kinds of costs built in or at least, calculated and taken into account. So it does, they're trying to find a financial and technological solution to making the accountability part of it at least something that you can rely on him so that there's less doubt about whether or not this is a fair calculation. I think part of it also is that they're relying on market forces. Because I think, you know, as we talk about how the voting public, the profile of the voting public is changing as well, the buying public is changing as well, the investing public is changing as well. And people do have questions, you know, what, what they want they want to, for instance, is the idea of, you know, like we in diamonds, you have blood diamonds, that there's an idea that you can actually have more sustainably farmed, more sustainably mined. Cryptocurrency for instance, right? Because because of the way you can, you can track where things were made and how and how a blockchain the blockchain tracks how things were made. The idea is that you would one day be able to say I want to buy Bitcoins, but I don't want to buy just any bitcoin, I want to only want to buy Bitcoins that have been produced in a way that I agree with. So it's a complicated thing, but that they want to create this mechanism that allows for these kinds of choices to be made. And I think it's really interesting that that that they're they're getting, it makes it something that is tangible to maybe accountants, because accountants don't necessarily think in terms of trees and what have you. But if you can, if you can, if you can digitize all these assets, and these things in some way, that becomes a meaningful number to those people who are just looking at numbers, you potentially have a means of, of pulling some levers. And by the way, Joe, is you actually raised a good point about accountants and their role and and that really needs to shift as well. Some organizations NGOs have actually looked at what kind of annual reports you know that big fours and also other auditors have signed off. And, and the number was something like that in 70% of the annual reports signed off by auditors, climate aspects were completely missing. You know, and the point here is climate risks are material for pretty much any business. So that's why we have the whole auditing industry, kind of on their tippy toes now as to quite a big change is coming their way because they can no longer continue signing of this, this balance sheets and an ignoring climate race, which is what they have been doing. But obviously the industry needs to build up a lot a lot of competence and capacity to do so. And many industries need to do so. My other favorite topic, the lack of climate Miss Information Policy on LinkedIn, you know, you reports Come on for, obviously, for obvious and basically information. And they take no action because they have no policy, nor the pills know that the people to police it. Yeah. Same goes for for auditing in the financial sector. General Yeah, yeah, the content that's been released by all the big the big consulting firms, I flagged a number of them and said, You cannot report you can't put reports out like this unless you put the climate impact that you're talking about. You know, come on, guys, you know, you're talking about, you know, the luxury brands in China and the rise of it at what cost to the environment. Like talk about that? Yeah, we've got black friday coming up. People are talking about it on LinkedIn, everyone will talk about, oh, it's a record breaking year, wasn't this fantastic? At what cost to the environment? When you know, it's not it's not part of, you know, it's sometimes I feel like, it's so disjointed being in the world at the moment, you go into LinkedIn, and people are talking business as usual. And I'm like, Can you can you not see what's going on here? It's jarring, right? But that's what it is. We have, we have hard, big time structures in place for the world as it is today, and how business works, and how governments work and how people work. We're trying to squeeze all these elements, what you guys have been talking about, it's like a three card monte game that we're trying to do here, money here, but it's over here. We have it over there, where's the money got? Its, it just feels I keep everything running as it is. But let's try and squeeze all this stuff. Stuff somehow, and see if we can sort of make this look like it's supposed to look. Yeah. And, and I think I think that's something you should happen to make this. Right. Until Until people sort of wake up and say, well, we've got a bit of a problem here. Business as usual, isn't. It? is gonna make people wait, go. On right. Sorry. Sorry. I was gonna say I think that's that's a really critical point, the fact that the scale of change is actually significant, right, and everything needs to change to move to a net zero emission, circular economy is really profound. It's a complete turn over of the way we've done things for, you know, centuries, well, a century, at least since the industrial revolution, in any case, and to turn all that around is challenging. And we'll actually, it needs all of business and all of government and governments and all of civil society all sort of pulling in the one direction and, and realizing perhaps that things can't go on sort of the way they have. And this is, you know, something I alluded to earlier, perhaps, you know, something like GDP, which is a measure of outputs, it's a measure of what are we a creating, right? And it's a classic indicator of the linear economy, because it's measuring what comes out the back end, right? And is that really the right measure? But you know, but in order for us to get there, and one of the biggest things is joint when we said earlier, truth and truth, trust transparency, and that's something I'm really passionate about. And, you know, like, Robert, you're talking about being cynical, please don't get lost in cynicism. Because when you get lost in cynicism, you lose all hope. And we can't go there. Right. But, you know, it's very difficult. So one of the examples, one of the pieces of news, this came that came out this week is from a data perspective. So the Washington Post published a report on emissions reporting. I don't know if any of you guys had a chance to read it or comment, but you should. Yeah, you did. Right. Okay. You know, and basically, it examined 196 countries. And there's a huge gap between the declarations of emissions versus the reality. So basically, they're saying there's between 8.5 and 13 point 3 billion tons of underreported emissions, which basically can have a significant impact on how fast the earth warms. So that the 2.8 3.7 1.8 1.5, whatever everyone's saying, there's these other aspects that sort of been factored in. And she's gonna you said, it was we release 40 billion tonnes, so I had 33 billion tonnes, but either way, 13 Okay, well, yeah. So then point 3 billion on top of that, a lot of tons, right. But if we can't trust, you know, it has to be we, you know, the countries that are reporting this information to businesses, we just need to put it all out there on the table. Because if we don't know what we're dealing with, we're not going to be able to do we're not going to be solved the problem. So some some of this actually works. I'm not going to say the issue goes away. But some of it has changed with the Paris Agreement rulebook. So So previously under Kyoto, you had the annex one countries. So basically, the developed world have to submit the nearly set of numbers. In general, they're sort of done bottom up, right. So, you know, there's a scheme here in Australia, where industries, large emitting industries all have to report to the government government totals them all up, makes all the adjustments for agricultural land use change and stuff. And it's a pretty robust process, in fact, of all the things, the Australian Government greenhouse gas reporting scheme is world class. It's, it's all good, right? So well, that report on Australia, Malcolm Turnbull, he brought that in, right, in 2008 2007. So anyway, that's what did happen, but developing countries because you know, the we acknowledge that there was a time taken to learn these things, knowledge transfer, required technology requirements, Cetera, we're required to do either a national communication or a biannual update report, and the Kyoto and they were done infrequently, right? So there's a few countries that do them really well. And I've done them every couple of years. Singapore is one of those. They're very proud of the work that they're doing in this and they're replying good reports. But other ones have done maybe one, right for since since you know 95 or something. And so there's a lot of differences. Now, under the Paris Agreement, it sets a Common Reporting guidance, right, and says, Every country, your developing country, your developed country, doesn't matter. Every country has to submit a communications report every year. And that should sort of increase the amount of transparency around reporting. However, I'm not sure that everyone is sort of all countries are in that place just yet to be able to do things, not all countries have got a sort of compliance reporting scheme within them. And there will be I think, a little bit of variation here and there between how the countries report, I actually did a presentation a couple of months ago, and it was gold. Gold winners a ton. Not a ton, right? Because a ton is a massive unit. Ton should be attorney in every case, that's you know, I'm an engineer, I've we love Massey, that's because they don't change. But in the world of greenhouse gases, they do change because it depends on factor I'm using it depends on which, you know, global warming potential I'm using it depends on all these things. And we need to sort that out. Because, one, we need our baseline, correct. And two, I need to know that if I've purchased a ton of abatement in Vietnam, that is actually the same as the ton that I emit here in Australia. Right. And right now, that's not the case, because their time is a different time. Right. And it's just really, really difficult. So the Washington Post, though, yeah, but such a great example of, you know, the challenges that we face right in, in overcoming, and why so many people are sitting there going hard, don't make any sense of this, right? Because it they're right, that they can't make any sense. Sorry. Are we losing ourselves in the miasma of detail around these topics? I think my now, we all know the things that cause the problems, we all have an idea of what we need to do to fix these things. That we report this and we have, you know, years of debates around well, I want to measure this way, but my country needs to measure this way. Because I don't have that industry, this industry, we get lost in that discussion, as opposed to doing this. It's just fine. Yeah, exactly. And we shouldn't be having this discussion about the minutiae, whilst then not bothering with the game, which is actually reducing those, it doesn't matter what, what number you start from, as long as you number one end up at zero by the middle of the century. And number two, start removing co2 from the atmosphere afterwards. And actually, it's not being talked about as much the negative. And actually, if you look at the, you know, strategies and tactics used by the fossil fuel industry, in particular, to continue business as usual, which have been, you know, studied by academics and others recently, and also there are quite some interesting studies now, but what they say is the fossil fuel industry, I mean, denying climate change is like so passe, but delay, it's the tactic. I wouldn't be surprised if they were heavily present in this whatever bodies they are to determine the right metrics and sources and what not to do. distract us from the main agenda. Right? Yeah, exactly. Keep your eyes open for that. Right. And here's another issue, big issue around the climate crisis. And, Robert, I'm sure you're going to be interested in this. So equality. So that's, that's another big topic this week. So there's two aspects that sort of jumped out to me. And this is a topic I'm passionate about for many, many reasons. But basically, climate change in and of itself exacerbates inequality, and other and it could push an additional 63 235 million big people into poverty by 2030. And we've already seen a massive shift of people moving into poverty, just in the last few years with the pandemic, right. But so one of the examples is carbon pricing. So basically, it will be imposed on businesses and then consumers, that they have to pay more for their product to curb greenhouse gas emissions. But of course, for the world's poorest people who have to spend a significant portion of their income on energy. That's, that's something that they can't bear. So we've started to see some revolts around the world. I mean, even in France a couple years ago, when they tried to put some carbon pricing or petrol, they were revolts. Right? So there's that says that so you know, the people who didn't cause the climate crisis are being screwed over again. But on the other side, from the female perspective, women and girls are more impacted, and suffer disproportionately the impacts of the climate crisis. You know, they think what is 80% of those who are displaced by the climate crisis so far are women. And this year, 2021 4 million girls won't be able to complete their education, but they think it's going to increase to 12 point 5 million girls not completing their education a year. And we all know that education is the key to get out of out of poverty, right. So but there's been some gender justice announcements. So basically, it will be a guiding principle for all funding. So Germany, Canada, or the UK and other countries. So the issue around equality, and that's diversity to me as well. But the issue around equality, especially when it comes to females, is that everyone thinks it's a women's issue. Okay? Equality is not a women's issue. Equality is a human issue. Everyone benefits from equality. Men have more opportunity have greater lives. They can do, they can do different things. They don't have to be the breadwinners, they can go and choose other paths, because it you know, their wives can do that. But everyone wins from equality GDP. I know, it's not a good thing. But it does go up. Businesses are more profitable. So we've gone backwards through inequality in the last few years significantly backwards, the pandemic has been disastrous for women. And climate change is another crisis on top. We don't have women sitting in the decision, making the decisions in the negotiations, not enough represented 5050 It should have been. So I mean, to me, equality is one of these issues that it My heart is aching. I'm like, how do we fix this? Because, Robert, what you're saying right at the beginning, you know, for, for people in people in Africa, for people in the developing country, you know, people are suffering, they're suffering. And you know, like, I don't know if you guys, have you seen the Bella Rouge border where the refugees have basically been locked out that yeah, the Polish shot letting him in. I mean, the number of climate refugees that we need to be getting ready for is going to be astronomical, and we're not ready. We can't deal with what we've got. It creates so much friction in the world. We've got to address this as an absolute central priority. So I don't know you guys got any thoughts? Why did I read an article? Just the other day, I can't remember where I was. It was nine, he was probably in the guardian. It was actually an article about this, this lady who her family had been washed out of their home in Bangladesh, right? So I flood one year, and then they do some rebuilding, and then there's another flood, and then they're like, I can't stay here. Right. And they they were sort of living off the land was subsistence life. But you know, they were happy and they had a house and all this stuff. So we move to Dhaka, and has ended up in a slum with no job planning at home to get to get work and to have an existence within the city. Right. And that's, you know, a very real example of what's happening. And then what happens when Dhaka starts fighting, right? Because it's pretty low lying. And then all of these Bangladeshi people, where are they going to go? And yet, how are they going to get there? What tensions does that then create on borders and things and, and there's, there's a bunch of people from Myanma sitting in Bangladesh, right or, you know, and yeah, it's it's a really tough challenge. And I did I did need sort of regional solutions on global All solutions, sort of a, you know, a regional leadership or UN level? I don't know the answer. I mean, I can tell you it's gonna happen more. But the first, the first answer is keep the fossil fuels in the ground and change the Bible economy. So it's not a growth economy. So we stop making a worst problem, we need to prepare for the climate refugees. So I think we should be building refugee cities and infrastructure all around the world in places we know it's going to be safe. So when the floods come to Dhaka week, people can at least pick up and move with dignity to a place where they can settle before we can work out what's next. Right? Because rather than being sold into slavery, or sexual slavery, all the other awful stuff that are drowned in the oceans or freezing in Europe, I mean, how many? How many years are some of those people have been sitting there freezing in Europe? I mean, you think, you know, 50% of the refugees are children, you know, the majority of them are women. I mean, you know, people don't like to talk about it. But you know, sitting in a freezing camp with no Toilet, toilet facilities, just dealing with menstruation, giving birth, you know, like, it's just like, to me, it's just like, we as a global society should solve this problem, you know, and we need to prepare for it, because it's going to be bigger. And if you don't prepare for it, it's gonna create war. And it's gonna be that depravity that the Mexican Prime Minister was talking about. So we just got to do it. And you know, it'll create jobs, you're building this infrastructure, create jobs, but you know, human dignity at the center, we're not, it's like, we just don't care. We're putting walls around our countries like, like, what the climate crisis is gonna stay out. It's not to be repetitive, but it's, it's a, it's an example of how interconnected we are as countries. And in all the issues that go within a country. It's everything is so interconnected now across across the globe. And to be fair to the people in positions that have to make these decisions. They're only human. This, you know, you can't think of just climate change on its own. And then, right, at 10 o'clock, now, I'm going to talk about whatever it might be, I've got 12 o'clock I'm talking about, they're all connected, you somehow have to draw that picture at that web and make decisions based on the web, as opposed to this little silo, with its repercussions, what's it going to do to my party to my position in power, whatever it might be, and goes back there. A fundamental change needs to happen in terms of how we live, how we govern how we have countries and borders? And what's it going to take to get that change to actually trigger off? And I don't think we're there yet. And I'm sorry, not the trigger point yet. No. I agree. I agree. Well, I think we're past the tipping point of awareness, that climate, the climate crisis is an issue we need to be paying attention to. But that, but that biggest step up to understanding what the center, you know, it's about changing what what we've built for the last 100 150 years is not good. Like when we're all running around in a circle, you know, we're all consuming bullshit, basically, you know, like, you know, we've got advertising breaking up all of our any of our video experiences, trying to sell us crap, we don't want to buy, you know, and we just accepting this, you know, we were, we were Fitbits technology on our arm to measure our steps, because we don't know that we've been sitting down for too long. You know, we just we're just, we're just buying into this sort of world. And it's actually not making anyone happy. But I think the pandemic's be fantastic on that perspective, because people are saying, wait a minute, I'm unhappy. You know, and there's this big resignation. But it's actually not, it's not about resigning. It's about saying, I don't want this anymore. So I actually do think we have an opportunity to help shift, you know, I mean, Robert, yes. You see what I'm doing? That's, that's, that's the message I'm like, Come on, guys. This direction, you know, but we, we need all of us to do it right. And come back to marketing point, I think Mark, proof of work and Bitcoin, for me can't fix this. And I've fallen down this rabbit hole since September. And I'm doing a lot of reading this with a lot of podcasts and all the rest of it, and it'll be a fundamental change, adopting Bitcoin globally. I think it needs to happen because it drives a completely different way of being levering thinking about money, wealth, and value. And it's worth it. It's worth spending some time just exploring the topic and just really trying to understand what's behind it and go beyond the, you have to definitely get beyond the price goes up, price goes down. That's a really small element of Bitcoins, all about it's all the other elements behind it. The philosophy, the history of money, that is Evolution of money globally. All the things we're talking about will require governments to print money, which is great print money, central banks will do that spread it all around all over the place. But what does that actually do in terms of inflation and impacts to real people and developing nations and people are poor when that the currency is being debased and there's nothing else to hold value of what they need to do then to buy food places to live, but they can't afford it anymore because what's happening with with the money printers? So there's a lot more behind bitcoin. It's different from cryptocurrencies, put those aside, bitcoins separate entity, outside of the whole cryptocurrency environment, and if T's and all that sort of rubbish, I'm gonna book you in for a podcast where you can you can convince me there's a lot more behind it than just yeah, no. Certainly a big fan about the underlying technology. So you know, I think, distributed ledger and having transparency in something like supply chains, or transparency and emissions, or whatever it is, that that's, I think key, I probably do need to learn a lot more about myself. Because everything we're talking about today, the base layer of everything we're talking about today, is money. Fear currencies, something has to happen with money needs to be spread, redistributed, printed, so more people can have it. That's the base layer. And that's what Bitcoin talks about that base layer, and how do you step? Definitely something for you to go investigate and look into. That's a good insight. All right. So let's, let's move on to agriculture. So. So this isn't one of the topics that I would necessarily pay a lot of attention to. But one of the things that I think has happened, cop 26, is that big agriculture seem to be playing a bit of a game of keep our heads down, and maybe nobody's going to notice what we're what we're doing. And I just wanted to say, Suzanna, I know this is a big passion topic view, you probably paid a lot more attention. What are you hearing from a bigger agriculture perspective? Actually, there hasn't been so much I've heard from Cobra regarding agriculture, and I've even had to go down and search. So it's not really coming through the mainstream media. But actually, there have been 45 governments that have again, plus points Urton, action, climate action through agriculture, by implementing more sustainable ways of farming. And what I actually think is, is good news that throughout this cop 26 process 26 nations have kind of sharpened their nationally determined contributions NDCs around agriculture. So I think that is actually positive. And and these 26 nations that have sharpened those commitments include India, Vietnam, and Australia, and even Brazil, although I'm a little bit skeptical about that. Talking about the private sector, about 100, high profile companies have also made a commitment to become nature positive by 2030. I haven't really heard a lot about this, it seems to me that maybe some details are still being worked on. But I would think that by next week, we should hear more about these topics. But what I want to highlight here is is the relevance of this topic. So earlier, we talked about the, you know, 73% of emissions that come from the energy sector, well, the agriculture, forestry and land use contributes to the rest 23% Roughly a number sometimes differ here, but I also have 27% for agriculture, forestry and land use for Lu term, if you like. And, again, what I would like to everyone to know is that unfortunately, we have this kind of double whammy effect happening right now. So if we take 27% out of total greenhouse gases, gas emissions as the baseline for this sector, which some reports that use, so 7% of, of those emissions come from changes in land use and forestry. So this is basically deforestation or, or the forests burning or Australia burning, right? So 7% of all global greenhouse gas emissions come from changes like that, or the pea plants that are being cleared for palm oil cultivation in Southeast Asia. All right, then the 20%, the other 20%, the bulk of that actually comes from cattle farming. Right? So when we clear forest and then put cattle there, you know, this is really the very negative spiral that's happening. So by clearing the forest, you know, we lose carbon sinks, we lose a lot of carbon into the air. And once we then put cattle there, you know, we we keep emitting methane, right. So this is really the the thing I want everyone to to be aware of, it's really quite significant. So out of the 40 Plus gigatons that we put into the air, cattle farming is eight gigatons. Right? So it's quite significant as a as an as an output, right? Yeah. Yeah, there are, of course, some methods that can reduce the carbon footprint and the greenhouse gas footprint of keeping cattle other than the more traditional ways of grazing and so on. But, you know, we, as consumers on the demand side really can influence this. Yeah. And then the other big topic, particularly relevant here in Asia, especially is is rice. So rice cultivation creates about two Giga tons of emissions per year. Yet, obviously, rice is the staple food here. And I'm not asking anyone to, you know, stop eating rice. But again, this comes to the financial topic, they are agricultural methods through which the emissions in rice growing and growing crops in general can also be significantly decreased. But this requires investment. This requires education, because farmers need to do certain things differently, which costs more money in the short term. Yeah, but but definitely get the baby back is there an academy, academics, academics have calculated that to kind of reform for instance, then they make home River Delta, to help farmers farm rise their more sustainably, hundreds of millions of dollars of investment would be needed. This would require, you know, the rice field to patties to be more leveled later levels, actually, so that they can retain water better. And by, you know, managing water better. There's less organic material in the soils that's rotting and releasing methane. And there are also many other agricultural practices also for other crops that will help to avoid emissions or to put more carbon back into the soil. So we have these solutions, these techniques, these practices are known. It's just that, you know, especially the small to farmers of the world, 350 million of them here in Asia, don't necessarily know how to apply them or don't have the financial means to implement them. And just living back to the topic of carbon credits, there are also increasingly companies that are working with farmers to help them to adopt these practices, and the revenues from the carbon credits who would then go and finance this, but it's not an easy, easy journey. And therefore I'm I'm saying there's potentially something good coming out of this voluntary carbon credits, especially in the context of agriculture, helping farmers and you know, rice farmers are really the poorest farmers of the mall. You know, they really live up to that poverty or poverty line. So if we can help them to, to grow more sustainably, sustainably increase their incomes, this has also lots of positive social and economic benefits for them. So this is something very, very important. So keep keep paying attention to what comes out of the cop 26 agricultural commitments and policies. This is very important. Yeah, but also taking care of the farmers. You know, I was hoping I was hoping to make on last year, almost 15 months ago, and it's magnificent up there. It's so beautiful. But one of the biggest one of the biggest issues in the in this area is water management. And it's an issue in many many countries, right? So it's not that there's not enough water it's the water has been managed badly. We've seen it in a run. Lebanon, we're seeing it in a lot of the Stan countries. So basically, they solve the water management issue that that will help a lot especially as far as feminine floods and droughts and everything that's going on as well. Yeah, exactly. But the other thing that was becoming unregistered, I need to interrupt and I need to take to leave I need to go to help my wife get to the hospital or something. So I'd like to spend more time here I would love to but you know, I The leaf if I can one little idea, you know, you know, like with with, I've been watching COVID. And the way we're dealing with COVID. And it has something to do with with the environment, right? The lots of solutions, that kind of could work would work if we only put enough investment into it. And I think the solutions that we have for the environment, they're all there as well that they did a lot of things that could work and should work right now. But as we've seen in COVID, unless there is a kind of a buck to be made, there's not gonna be as much research and development going into something unless there's a kind of a payout or something where the investments can can pay off financially. So the job, I think, is to try and figure out these things like the ideas like we talk about what's good for the environment, what could work for the environment, we also figure out the business around it. So they go like, Okay, so there's various things that we could do. But there's no interest in doing it, because people aren't going to make a lot of money out of it. So how do we figure it out these other ways, these newer things that could actually work where there is an incentive, and so there's more people going towards that particular solution. And I mean, it's creating a path of least resistance right now the path is very hard to get through. Because in order to go in the right direction, a lot of people had to go through a lot of pain without an alternative. You know, I think that that's what we need to try and think about. And I'm really sorry, that I can stay through. But just just before you go, Joe, what you just said is exactly the problem. The idea that people need to make it back to make a change, right. So we need to transform the global economy. And that's going to mean a dip, we're going to have a different idea on what wealth is. That's the only way we can succeed. So that that's my response to that, but take care of your wife. Okay, everybody. Okay, well, I'll leave the make home thing, but I'm where we're coming up to two hours. So let's wrap it up. But I just wanted to say there's some other just quick, quick bits. So Matthew, we're talking about the 24 countries and several car makers have committed to electric vehicles by 2040, which is awesome. 40 nations have pledged to cut emissions from their healthcare industries, which I actually until I read that I wasn't aware that that was such a big contributor. There's some interesting research coming out around flying. Basically, if planes fly at a different level in the sky, and don't ask me to get technical, because a car, they will emit less. But also, if we just smoke out in the air traffic control, air traffic levels would help. But the industry can't grow bigger than it is today. That's basically the point. And so when we need to cap planes, until they can come up with a better solution, 1 billion people another report will it will suffer extreme hate adjust to degrees hating two degrees Celsius, global warming, so 1 billion people. So we were talking about the climate refugees, one of the things that I'm really excited to say, I've been blogging about this for a number of years, and some of my blogs get 30 views, right. But apparently, the the advertising and marketing sector is getting a really, really big pushback on on supporting fossil fuel, automotive airline industries. So that's been a really good change. And then probably the thing that probably annoyed me the most and sort of upset me the most is there was a survey of 10 countries where basically the people have said they are not very few people are willing to change their lifestyle to save the planet. And I think that's a thing that we need to address. Because if people because I'm sure you guys are filled as well, if you change how you live yourself, it gives you a bigger commitment. Like you can't walk into an environment where you can see people with balloons and go oh, yeah, you got balloons, you just think single use plastic, or people who've got plastic bottles of water. You're like, why didn't you bring your own bottle? You know, you you just go into a bigger way of thinking about your how gently you walk on the earth. Right. But the majority of people aren't there yet. So I think it's a job. We've got to do it. Yeah. So it was built as the last best hope. What do you think? 2017 in Egypt, that's been announced. Probably next year, we might be alright. We might be? Yeah. Look, I think if countries come back with increased ambition next year, as has been asked and actually have plans in place to have to achieve deep emissions cuts by 2030, which is the thing that's required, right, we need to be reducing emissions by 30 40%. By that time. We're not near that. That would be a nice outcome, but that's not going to come out of cop 26 Cop 26. You know, we've already seen the draft text. It's like, oh, we're going to do this thing next year. You know, man Mr. Manyana it's very easy to do things next year, in the same way that and this is I deal this very deeply, it's very easy to set a 2015 netzero target, because I'm not going to be there to to implement it right now. So my problem. Yeah. And someone said to me, the other week actually said, Good company has a has a net zero target sort of off in the future. But we have a strong decarbonisation target within the five next five years. And I know you, that's my responsibility to do because I will be the person in the firing line within that five years. That's what's required. Yeah, isn't it for me all these things, It just strengthens my resolute to keep doing what I'm doing and doing more and and getting more people do the things we are doing. I think one can fairly say that this is a global leadership failure. At least with the leaders, we are there, I mean, some positive advances, but by and large, not what one would expect and hope for. So we just need to, I think, grow this movement bottom up, and help more people understand the severity of the situation, and, but to be inclusive on that journey. I mean, I won't waste my time on climate change deniers, but lots of other other people who are kind of at the verge of starting to address these issues, not to say that personal lives, but professionally, I think the professionals are really now you know, tasked to start thinking about climate and sustainability as part of their job. And any job I think. So lots of people need to learn still a lot need to understand the material T of these topics in their professions in their functions, a lot of work to be done. We cannot give up. We need to get strong. Yeah, I've noticed recently, it says no, you've attract what I call the co2 Trolls. So the God of the CH two Charles can't remember his name, but he's a former one of the Greenpeace. Early, early. He wasn't a leader of Greenpeace, he claims. John, I think, you know who I'm talking about. Anyway, they keep quoting him at you. So every now and again, every now and again, I want to jump in and just basically take the piss out of them. Because it's so funny what they say. I mean, you know, it's like a religion, these guys, but I think you had it yourself very well, but Let's support each other. So she's gonna share so much information that I think that you're starting to attract these groups of people that will try and describe to you, and, and we need to be there to support you. But I noticed your reply is responding. And so therefore, I'm not responding. But yeah, we haven't really taken care of each other in those situations. And that is happening. So some weeks ago, I posted something and I got some not too involved. Very, very unscientific responses. And, you know, I don't usually go and, you know, waste my time of, you know, educating those people because they have, you know, a hidden agenda, but but a lot of the people that follow me started to actually, you know, engage with them and, and share more real facts, not alternative facts, but, you know, evidence about, you know, why, what I was saying, it's kind of, you know, more accurate way of looking at things so I'm very grateful for that kind of community support. I mean, I think there's the risk of kind of derailing precious time from the more productive conversations and hence I continue hitting the report button on LinkedIn in the hope that they will soon realize that they do you need to have a misinformation policy on climate as they have on COVID Yes. And then I could use everyone's help with as well to make that even LinkedIn is full of climate misinformation and that LinkedIn is not taking any action against it so just just to let you know if you guys notice and the reason it hasn't been going on for that long but advertising pops up on your PC Have you ever guys noticed that so I just got a black a Black Friday advertisement pop up so this is through some it's not something I'm have any control over. I have to make the ads disappear. So you cannot escape advertising these days. It's it's everywhere you go it see the futuristic movies with ads everywhere. So Robert, you Before that, just go back to the point you made about 10% of people, so they're not willing to change. I think 10% was much more probably 10% said they want to change everybody else's staying sane. So I'd expect to be quite high. And I think that's outside of the money topic, which we've touched on. I think, for me, that's a key element that it needs to be driven by us, as opposed to some global body like the World Economic Forum coming in and saying, boom, here you go. If that happens, that's not a good situation. But to be positive. I'll leave with at least we're talking about it. And we have been talking about it. And some things have happened along the road. It's better than nothing being talked about. So remain hopeful. Yeah. No, no, that's good. No, no, I think I think all of us are realistic, as well as hope, you know, we know that we've got to keep fighting, right? We've got to because we're gonna do for our families for you know, for our future for, you know, but, you know, these days when you look at the reality, and it's very bleak, right, what we face what we face, but people who spend a lot of time invested in knowledge around the climate crisis, facing very bleak information. And then you read that the climate scientists are in tears, because they're seeing it every day, right. And so, so they're even deeper level of, of despair, but we've got to keep going. And we've got to keep going for them, to back them and help them and help them believe that it's, you know, not too late, although many, many believe it is. But yeah, but we've got to, we've got to be part of it. You know, I so many people I talk to you, they don't they just don't want to face it. It's too scary. And unlike the big you can doesn't fit your frame. Yeah. It's too big. What can I do? Yeah, yeah, but it is the thing, you focus on what you can do? Yeah, you choose what you can do, there's a lot of things to be done. And then you focus on that, and then you do I think I would just say just just on that. And this would be my last point. But there's some really good writing and studies done by Professor Steven Lewandowski. kowski, who used to be UWA. And now in the UK, all about the psychology of climate change, and why people either find it really difficult to see it or turn to outright denial. Because it is just too big. You know, if I accept this, that means I'm accepting my own mortality, even though it is a fact that you have to accept your own mortality at some point. But yeah, look up his work. It's really, really good. Yeah, yeah, mortality is an interesting one. We don't, we don't seem to want to accept that. Right. Okay. So we'll wrap up. I just want to say thank you so much for all of you and for being on this journey with me. I really appreciate it Susanna for the last couple of weeks. It's been great. I it's such a it's such a wonderful opportunity for me to talk to other people who are like minded, who care who passionate and who seek the knowledge to want to know when they want to find the answers as well. So I'm really grateful to you all for being here. But just before we just before we finish, I need It's my son's 15th birthday today. And this is Lex and Lex Lex had said some pretty significant challenges on his journey, especially as a young little fella, and he's just he just keeps overcoming and he's he'll be doing things like the no show one day because that's how his mind works. He's sort of curious about the entire world, but it is fair to say firstly, he's 15 to that birthday today. And he's our first fan. Our first follower, he loves affections. Mom's doing this happy birthday, my darling. I wanted to acknowledge that but um, yeah, thanks, guys. I really appreciate you being here. We've missed a whole bunch of things that we usually do but nice to meet you, Mark. Robin, nice to meet you in the world. Virtually. We still haven't met in person but more than LinkedIn and Susanna, you're an absolute legend, and I'm here to support you always say thank you. And thanks, everybody. Thanks, guys. Everyone. Thank you