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Hello, everyone,

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and welcome to the Oxford Martin School for this final of four conversations about the Dasgupta review on the economics of biodiversity.

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I'm Cameron Hepburn, director of the Smith School and lead researcher on a few books about programmes.

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And with me today, I'm really delighted to welcome Netflix, 70s professor of Biodiversity and co-founder of the Nature Based Solutions Initiative,

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and to be a familiar face to many of you listening in and all of us who are involved in the Oxford Martin School.

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Before we dive into discussion with Natalie, I just want to recap where we are in this series.

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So the first one of the series was with Professor Sekoff the description of self.

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It's pretty wide ranging, venturing into some fairly contested territory, including managing human population and the limits to growth.

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And that was a hugely well attended event, triggering more questions than I've ever seen before, actually in one of these Oxford Martin School events.

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And so we logged some of those questions. Feel free to ask them again today.

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You never know. We might be able to get to them because we didn't answer all of them.

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Then the second session was moving around a summary on the Secretary-General

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of the UN and executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme.

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She was also an advisory board member of the Dasgupta Review, and we explored the post-2020 biodiversity framework.

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Nature based solutions are going to come back to with with with vengeance,

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or perhaps not anger with curiosity today and the intersection of the climate,

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climate, biodiversity and the green recovery agenda, which will also touch on today.

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And then the third conversation a couple of weeks ago with with was with Professor Sir Charles Godfrey,

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who's the director of the Oxford Martin School and Professor Dame Henrietta Moore from UK social anthropologists.

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Very interesting. It was a wide ranging conversation about indicators of prosperity, levelling up regional job creation, and frankly,

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I was delighted to be listening for change rather rather than high school, though I love hosting too, and that brings me smoothly to Natalie.

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And as all of us, and that's read The Dasgupta review, and I want to start with a kind of opener from someone who is deeply in the science here.

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How? How good or how bad is the state of nature, do you think?

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OK, thanks, Cameron. Thanks for the introduction. It's fantastic, it's an honour to be to be taking part in this series of conversations.

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So the remarkable thing is is that we can now map humans influence on nature and the biodiversity it contains to an extraordinary degree of accuracy,

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right to thanks to a growing network of Earth observation satellites, lidar our data, a new Bottom-Up sensors and crowdsourced data.

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Very powerful computing, obviously, and increasingly efficient fast biodiversity sampling techniques such as DNA barcoding,

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acoustic monitoring by monitoring and so forth.

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You can go to amazing websites like Global Forest Watch and see what is happening to our forests almost in real time,

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and data is pouring in on the state of the biosphere.

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And on this basis,

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what we are clearly observing is the erosion of the diversity of life from the level of the gene right up to the level of the ecosystem.

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We're seeing steep declines right across the board in the abundance of plants

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and animals and microbes across multiple chozick levels below the ground,

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above the ground in our oceans and across all lands at the local level, regional level and global and global level.

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So with that, erosion of the diversity of life isn't the same,

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and there are lots of key headlines that have been that have emerged and that we've been seeing

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as a result of the various sort of systematic reviews and mapping exercises and the reports,

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the global synthesis reports using a number of them come out in the last few years that perhaps this

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important one was the Inter Governmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Expense Report,

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and some of these headlines are shocking. I think it's worth starting this conversation over with a bit of a recap of those.

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Now, we know that humans have modified over 50 percent of land use colour and use around 40 percent of primary productivity.

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Nurses don't just get to review highlighted this demand for primary productivity and far outstrip supply.

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Natural ecosystems of decline by 47 percent over nine million hectares of tropical rainforest disappear every year,

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23 percent loss of biotic integrity. 68 percent decline in the population sizes of all vertebrates between 1970 and 2016 and then want to see me.

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One of the most chilling statistics is that we've lost over 80 percent of animal biomass in the past 100 years,

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82 percent declines in our wild mammals on land and 80 percent decline in wild fish in the ocean.

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So our ecosystems are basically empty.

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And in fact, the fact that we're normalising that is is is a problem and something we might want to come back to in this conversation.

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And then another the final sort of piece is if you think about vertebrates on

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the on the planet and in 97 percent of vertebrates of people and livestock,

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three percent of wild animals. So not surprisingly, we fail to meet any of the Aichi targets,

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which were the 20 targets set by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity in 2010 or zero out of 20.

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Yeah, yeah. We met regionally, but we haven't.

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We haven't many of them.

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And if you zoom in to the U.K. and we go through the statistics in the U.K., but it's assembling very, very bleak picture, everything in free fall,

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pretty much everything the specialist, the important, the important species there in there in free fall,

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despite all the increased investment in conservation over the last few decades.

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So we can say with a high degree of certainty that the state of nature is in steep decline.

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Yeah, great. I guess we'll put it this way.

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It's wonderful that we have all of this great data and monitoring and tracking

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so that we can say with confidence that we're absolutely destroying nature,

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which is so good now. I mean, given that report card.

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Is it fair to say that we're in a mass extinction event, I mean, the Dasgupta Review says we are in an extinction event.

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Can you say bit more about that? How do you define these ideas? Yeah.

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I mean, many believe that we're sort of between half a million and a million species at risk of extinction within a couple of coming decades.

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We're in some sort of extinction event or even that we're seeing the beginning of a sixth mass extinction.

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So to get technical briefly, you know,

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to be formally defined as a mass extinction event you need to do is around 75 percent of existing species within a short geological time frame,

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which is around two million year timeframe.

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And so that would be comparable with what happened, say, 65 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous when the dinosaurs went extinct.

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Now, so to put this in perspective, so far, we've lost about one percent of species since over the last few centuries,

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and we're on course to lose around 25 percent of species within most groups of plants and animals that have been studied over the coming decades.

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There were some way off of 75 percent market. Some some groups of organised organisms were well on our way since cycads as well,

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and amphibians is another 41 percent of amphibian species are threatened with extinction.

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But more and more, the more important thing isn't the absolute numbers of species that are going extinct, of course, as the.

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And research shows that over the last few centuries,

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that rate of extinction is much higher than what you'd expect from a natural and natural background rate.

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Say something about, you know, somewhere between 100 and 1000 times faster than what you'd expect.

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So we're losing things at a faster rate.

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We're losing things tens to tens of thousands of times faster than the rare mass extinction events in Earth's history,

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meaning we're not in a mass extinction event yet. But unless we change dramatically change, then we will be.

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Yeah, yeah. So it sounds like if we've got another two million years to get there, we're well on our way in the course of a few years.

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And I guess not surprising if we're we're wiping out forests that you said over nine million hectares.

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My rough kind of schema is that Wales is about two million hectares.

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So you're talking about a four and a half five whales worth of forests being wiped out every year.

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I guess that's so surprising that the inhabitants those forests go to.

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But let me let me just be a bit of a pain here from a bit of devil's advocate,

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as I frequently read the comments on online newspapers about action on environmental issues and climate and biodiversity.

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And I think this is actually important if you're interested in these issues as presumably those of you tuning in.

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It's important to do this because there are a lot of people who will say, we can't afford this sort of stuff.

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We can't afford to change our boilers on climate or we can't afford to eat differently to save some furry animal that I don't really know the name of.

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And, you know, maybe a more sophisticated version of that argument is, well, does extinction really matter?

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I mean, it's part of the process of evolution. We've had these other great extinctions.

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We wipe out a few million species. A few more million species will come in a few more million years.

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And maybe that's not so terrible. Yeah, no, it is a great question, and actually I am by training an evolutionary biologist,

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so I'm sort of used to thinking in evolutionary time frames, and I recognise that extinction is a vital part of speciation and actually most species

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are on the planet for between three and 11 million years and then they go extinct.

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So an extinction is natural, not stop extinction. But there are two really important things to recognise about.

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What's happening now is that the rates of extinction is too high for species loss to be matched by adaptation,

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evolution, speciation and in fact, the rates of adaptation that you'd need.

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It would need to be 10000 times higher to keep pace with the rate of environmental change.

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And the second thing is that the types of species that are being lost are often those with big influences on the ecosystem,

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health and functionality of the ecosystem. And to do this, I just want to just expand on those two points.

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The first is that, you know, the rate of extinction rate reflects the rate of environmental changes very, very fast, as we know,

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and some people say, well, why can't species just move and why can't they adapt and in fact to some species are moving on.

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Some species are adapting. But many species can't move. They don't have anywhere to go.

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They might not be able to move because they have no dispersal capacities or the other

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species that they depend upon because we all interact with lots of species in a complex web.

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Don't move as quickly, or at least not at the same rate.

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And so, you know, you end up with a situation where you've got these mismatches and then you get extinction, you know?

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And as I say, evolution isn't fast enough to keep up with the rate of change. And the and the second thing is, as I say, you know,

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it's not the absolute number of species that we're losing is whether or not they've been lost locally.

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So you can talk about global extinction.

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And obviously, it's a tragedy that feels like a tragedy to lose the products a million years of evolution, but it's lost locally.

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That's just significant. You know, you walk into a lot of forests in the tropics or a secondary forest and is lost 30 percent of its species.

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It seems to be really, really healthy.

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The problem is is that 30 percent is a species that it's lost contains a disproportionately high number of really useful species,

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the big body, birds and mammals, for example, which do all the job of dispersing the seeds or pollinators go.

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And so you have a functionally functioning undermined ecosystem, even that might look healthy.

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And that and that's, you know, we're losing our ecosystem engineers. You lose the whales and you basically use, for example,

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the primary mechanism for getting the nutrients up from the deep ocean in the Southern Ocean, and that affects the whole food chain.

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Massive influence on that on the ecosystem, of course, all the economically important fisheries,

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that depends upon it, you know, so whether or not we're in a sort of a mass extinction event is kind of irrelevant.

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What's clear is that all our activities are eroding the diversity of life at a rate not previously witnessed on Earth,

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and the loss of species is undermining ecosystem health with knock on effects for everyone.

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Yeah. Okay. I've got a few. I've got a whole set of things I want to discuss with you.

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But just having a look at the 13 questions already that have come in and we have several hundred people engaged.

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I just want to pick up some of them straight away, actually.

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So, so one from Rupert Knowles is, you know, is this really about biodiversity or is it about species loss?

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Is it about nature, actually, so that the Dasgupta review is is titled The Economics of Biodiversity,

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but actually, as I know, is the review developed? It was it became a review about the economics of nature more generally.

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What do you think the term biodiversity is the right term? Is it helpful in the public discussion?

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Is it is that what we actually care about or is it something else we care about?

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So there is a lot of confusion about this, and I've written papers that are trying and rethinking things to try and to try and clarify this.

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I mean, biodiversity is a property of nature and it is the variability of life is not wildlife, it's not a mahogany tree, it's not elephants.

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It's not, you know, and yet yet it gets conflated with that, say, in the general public or even in the development community.

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There is this idea that somehow biodiversity can sometimes be the enemy of the pool, or it could be.

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So there's a lot of confusion about it. And but I think it's out there, and I think we have to really be clear and double down on the definition.

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I mean, the clue is in the name, it's a contraction of biological diversity and what ecosystem science,

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experimental and observational science over the last 30 to 40 years,

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basically since the Rio conventions re-establishes really demonstrated that the functionality in

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the health and vitality of an ecosystem and the flow of ecosystem functions and services is very,

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very strongly dependent upon the variability and members of different species.

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The amount of genetic diversity as well within that system is the more diverse that system is,

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the more able it is to buffer against environmental perturbations enable more diversity,

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the more likely it is that a subset of species in that community are able to deal with whatever conditions are around,

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whether it's a pathogen, whether. It's the droughts or floods. So in a rapidly warming world, biodiversity is incredibly important,

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it's a foundational property of a nature based solution or any sort of intervention in nature.

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You need to make sure it's diverse. It's like having a diverse investment for funding.

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And that was a reason people like to invest in lots of different things because you never really sure you know what's going to thrive and when.

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And I think we know that a lot of change is coming, but we're not sure from any one place to the next what the impacts of that change will be.

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So the more diverse your ecosystem, the more likely it is that it will be continue to be able to support you in all the multiple ways, you know.

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So whatever your problem, whether you're worried about food or water or carbon or whatever it is, you know,

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if your ecosystem is diverse or close to a natural state of diversity, then the more likely it is to be able to handle it.

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So I think it's important that we keep biodiversity in there because it's such an important to the natural world and one that often gets overlooked.

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And what can come back to that? Okay, that's great. That's really helpful.

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I hope Rupert feels that and clarified a couple of other questions. I just want to pick up before we go on.

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There's a huge number of questions about climate and biodiversity and the intersection which which I was going to ask you about anyway,

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but before coming to them two other ones. So first,

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there's an interesting one quite like to know the answer to from Sophie Gill about

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the the but the huge amounts of biome loss of the biomass of living species.

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I guess the 80 percent numbers due to losing a smaller number of very, very large species like whales and,

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you know, land animals that are at the top elephants and so on the top of the tree?

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Or is it losing very large numbers of very small and light species, I guess you could say.

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And do we know what the breakdown is between the sorts of things we're losing and we're just losing things everywhere?

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Well, there's different processes, results in different patterns of loss, don't they?

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I mean, in terms of biodiversity loss, the second biggest driver of biodiversity loss on land and in the seas, overexploitation.

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So on land, that's overhunting and undersea, that's overfishing.

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And both overhunting and overfishing disproportionately remove big bodied things for reasons, right?

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And so that's why the big things come out of the ecosystem through that.

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However, things like climate change and pollution and climate change certainly is a threat multiplier.

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And although it's it's not a major driver of extinction presently, it's certainly going to be.

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Climate change affects everything. And so you get very small bodied organisms being affected as well as the large bodies.

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So it's a little bit more indiscriminate. But that for sure, it is the big stuff that goes for us because that's the stuff that something and often

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those big organisms as well are quite sensitive to to environmental perturbation.

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Not always, but there is that as well. And do you know whether they're a bigger chunk of that 80 percent,

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if you are to just kind of add up the biomass loss or you don't have that number to handle?

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I don't have that number to have there. And then there's there's a kind of Sophie probably would put this question better than I've put it,

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but she has a follow up around what are the implications for the carbon cycle on the carbon storage of the loss of these larger mammals,

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for instance, whales? I'm not sure I have a clue as to the answer to that, Juno.

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So there's a lot of work on this and definitely not an expert on the importance of

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a large bodied organisms on land and in the sea on the terrestrial environments.

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It's really important in bringing back megafauna, for example, into the northern hemisphere, extreme northern hemisphere,

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and is a very important interaction between grazing and the end and the speed with which the permafrost melts.

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And so this really important work was going on showing how grazes anything crisis,

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as well as mammalian grazes can influence that dynamic dynamic in a very positive way.

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In other words, can slow rates of permafrost melting because they are getting rid of certain types of vegetation,

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which are through the albedo effect of increasing the surface temperature that can bring them back in.

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You're not getting so many say shrubs and trees, which might absorb more of the sun's energy.

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This is the north we're talking about, not in the tropics, different dynamics in different parts of the planet.

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So some really important work.

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She some colleagues in Oxford are working on that as well and the Environmental Change Institute looking at that really important interaction.

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So yes, of course, is this hugely complex nonlinear system isn't in the ocean as well.

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That whole role of nutrient cycling, of carbon cycling, of the big whales, for example,

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that is influencing absorption and release of carbon dioxide from the surface of the

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ocean and has an effect on the global carbon cycle and hence on warming and cooling.

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But I'm just definitely not an area of the new rich country of research.

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So if your interested. So if you're interested in that, do you think?

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Google's children elsewhere, because some people that are really working hard on that super.

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All right. Well, let's move now into this intersection between biodiversity and climate.

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And as I say, there's an awful lot of questions on this topic went out twenty three in total and that so they're just keen case.

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But let me start with a general one to think that tackling biodiversity issues,

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biodiversity loss and tackling climate change are well aligned or can be well aligned.

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Well, look, you know, back in 1992, when the you know, the U.N. Earth Summit, when these three Rio conventions were established,

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you know, one on climate change, one of biodiversity, one of the certification was the same community.

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And the idea of this was that these were deeply, deeply instilling processes.

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They required their own their own conventions because they do recognise the importance of these things individually, but they were interlinked.

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But the policy practise and research community since then largely worked in isolation from one another,

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and one of the really important things is happening. And this happened over the last year or two and say, is that these are all coming together more?

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And we're really hoping this year that was going to be more alignment between

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the goals and the action plans of the of the CBD and the you see me my last.

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We only last week it was last week. So the first sort of joint report of the IPCC and Ipsos in which they, these two communities were acknowledging,

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you know, acknowledging the interdependency of tackling climate change, biodiversity loss.

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And I've seen over the years as I mainly work in the, you know, I'm a biodiversity scientist,

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may be working with you, and I see each of those crops sort of get greener and greener and greener.

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You know, and it's like, there's a lot more and it's just and so it should be I mean,

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it makes a lot of logical sense doesn't mean on lands, you know, land use change to agriculture and forestry and other factors.

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This is the second biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions, but it's the biggest driver, currently the biggest driver of biodiversity declines.

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And so theoretically, if you slow biodiversity declines by restoring the natural world,

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then you're going to have some wins in terms of greenhouse gas emissions as well.

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But that's I mean, that's a massive and very hot topic right now.

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But the other thing, just if I may as well am and I don't want to.

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I mean, my interest in nature based solutions in this area very much came through the lens of adaptation.

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You know, I took a sabbatical with the International Institute for Environment and Development,

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and I started working on an ecosystem based application. And now it's all around.

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Not so much the role of nature mitigation, but the role of nature in reducing exposure if people,

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communities and infrastructure to the impacts of climate change,

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supporting them, reducing their sensitivity by providing nutritional and nutrition of financial security and building adaptive capacity.

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Because as you into is, you intervene in nature and restore landscape, for example,

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you don't just kill natural capital gains, social capital, and that's really important. So in theory, you know, there is all this.

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There are these reasons why, you know, people, our policy, policymakers,

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practitioners and the research community who is now this really is that you really need to be thinking of these integrated solutions,

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which is what drew me into the world of nature based solutions.

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And which is sort of why why I think this is such an important concept because it necessitates that

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you bring together all of these communities and the development and economic community as well.

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But we'll come to that. I think we will. And I mean, the first and immediate follow up to what you said,

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which is is a question from a non layperson rapier humbert on the the relationship between the

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IPCC scenarios and the dramatic assumptions about negative emissions from nature based solutions.

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And his question is, well, you know, given the assumptions there in the scale of tens of gigatons actually five or 10 gigatons per annum,

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that tends to be tons cumulatively, if not 100. Is this really plausible?

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And especially is it plausible, given that currently we're going the other way?

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I mean, we're defrosting, we're not reforesting,

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and our land use changes are again denuding soils of carbon rather than putting carbon back into the soil.

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So in principle, you've got all these wonderful nature based solutions, but at the moment it's, you know, kind of nature based destruction.

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I don't know how realistic are these IPCC estimates, do you think?

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Well, those IPCC scenarios assume, you know,

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the scaling up of two specific I'm not going to call them nature based solutions because

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I don't think the classify section one is backs of bioenergy capturing carbon storage,

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and the other one is afforestation. And it's really and that is planting trees, usually non-native tree species.

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You the naturally treeless ecosystems or in areas that contain old growth forests as afforestation is different from reforestation.

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And it's important distinction because a lot of those models are assuming that we'll be able to cover much of the world's.

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Commercial tree plantations in it that will help,

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but that is that is a flawed that is problematic because both those processes of need a lot of land where we might protect biodiversity,

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where we need to protect biodiversity because of the resilience biodiversity gives us and many other reasons and where we also need to grow crops.

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So something like bats and afforestation isn't ready to and probably can never go to the scales used in some of those models,

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which is really, really a really sobering fact.

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But one thing that's been happening over the last year or so is that, you know,

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these communities of researchers across the world that have been working on trying to work out what the mitigation,

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the climate change mitigation, potential of protecting and restoring our ecosystems and sustainably managing a working workingman's.

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What is that the maximum it could contribute? And it's really important to get this right in very,

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very difficult thing to calculate a lot of caveats about the impacts of climate

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change on the biosphere itself and come back to that where things can be grown.

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You know, the albedo effect needs to be taken into account all sorts of land tenure and all sorts of issues that need

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to be taken to account for this general agreement on land is we don't know about the ocean contribution.

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That's a big evidence gap. We don't know land, at least if we were to scale up nature based solutions to the maximum extent possible,

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we could remove and nassib around 10 gigatons of carbon dioxide,

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11 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent from the atmosphere every year for about 100 years.

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And then we we've reached sort of saturation, both in terms of land available for these solutions and in terms of the,

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you know, the fact that ecosystems by and large reach an equilibrium of balance between photosynthesis and respiration.

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And but the thing about nature based solutions, we can we can we can scale them up now with various caveats.

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And then they need to be people that in biodiversity based.

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But they're ready to go now with some of the technology, which we definitely need to be in place and scalable by the end of the century.

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They will be ready by the end of the century to then take the rest of the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere that we know needs to be removed.

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Greg, is it time sensitivity on every sometimes get out of the agenda?

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And I think there has been a lot of confusion and misinformation about nature's role

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in climate because there's been this meme is Betances circulation for a while.

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That's 30 percent of the climate solution, when in fact the reality is actually close is 27.

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And anyway, you don't get that without the 70 percent that you get through decarbonisation because if you don't

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decarbonise the warming water and the biosphere into a net sources of carbon dioxide over the next century.

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And so we did some work recently reframing that potential,

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and it's about 0.3 of a degree of peak warming if we peak at two degrees towards the end of the century.

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Now when you think about the difference in impacts that we have between the two degree and a 1.5 degree warmer,

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well, I mean, 4.2.3 of a degree is actually quite a lot. And the longer you wait, the bigger the potential.

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But actually, it is still very small, isn't it, compared to to what we need to see decarbonisation?

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Is this a really important nuances around around nature based solutions which can get missed most out of the of the broader narrative?

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And this has had some problems. We could go into if people wanted us to talk about that.

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Well, I feel like that's been incredibly rich answer, actually, and I think you've answered the next question by Ray, too.

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So to try and sum it up, Becks and DAC director capture that.

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We'll have a lot of them there, the things in the IPCC models, but they're not nature based solutions in Professor Settings world,

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but in your world, you can get maybe round numbers 10 gigatons a year for decades, maybe 100 years of nature based solutions.

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And you can get them quickly and you could get them fast enough that you could take point three degrees of warming,

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which I think is a very, very big contribution.

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But again, to be clear that we don't have luxuries the luxury of saying, well, this and there's been, you know,

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I really like I rather than be just if there's any B and C in the in the armoury on this kind of these issues, you've got to do all of them.

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And clearly, we're not we're not we're not running a horse race between solar panels and nature based solutions here.

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Both horses need to be winning. So, Ray, I hope that helps you.

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There is some published literature as well on these kind of scale estimates.

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They do range quite a bit, but they're not. I mean, there's some some of the 20 gigatons per per annum, but they've got quite big arrivals.

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But but 10 feels like it's probably, you know, you feel probably fairly safe saying 10, least in a technical sense.

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And there's a whole lot of socio political, cultural, economic factors that need to align in order to get that kind of.

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I mean, some of those bigger numbers, you know, have got a much higher price of carbon or they've got or they make some bubbles.

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And I would argue, perhaps too, both assumptions about where we can. Do this, you know,

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and that's a massive question about who's Lam this is and the rights and the knowledge of the local

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people that live there and also makes some big assumptions about where is viable to do this,

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given the impacts of warming on the biosphere into that whole elephant in the room, often when it comes to these things, is that the biosphere?

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You know, the impacts of existing will be sucked into the system on the biosphere,

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and the fact that many ecosystems are quite close to or some ecosystems are quite close to tipping points.

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I'm switching from one stable state into another.

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Now, a lovely question here from Leslie King, which is lovely, partly because it's exactly the next thing I was going to ask you about.

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So they use it so so we might get a good alignment between biodiversity and climate change from nature based solutions.

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But what about the human development angle? Can you say a bit more about how nature based solutions could be a win for biodiversity,

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win for climate and a win for humans and the economy, but also broader human goals as well?

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Yeah, this was this is a really important question.

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This was actually my my entry point into this, as I've mentioned, looking at what are the longer term developments,

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particularly in the world of adaptation development, benefits of working with rather than just being traditional against ecosystems.

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But obviously,

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this is a huge topic in the economics of nature isn't really the central goal as a description with you not going to try and summarise that here.

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Obviously impossible to do so other than to say I wanted to sort of flag up.

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I would say worth worth flagging up,

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sort of for kind of billowing areas of evidence in awareness around the question that you asked around that alignment that has become,

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you know, lots of reports, lots of lots of headlines in the last couple of years, last year in particular.

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And now, first of all, is the fact that the high dependency of business and economy in general on the flow of ecosystem services to nature,

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to people, the huge operational regulatory liability opportunity,

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loss, risks of ignoring the value of those ecosystem services and the cost effectiveness of working,

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especially perhaps in the global south, but also everywhere. Really, the cost effectiveness of working with nature, working,

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bringing technology and nature together in the context of things like disaster risk reduction and issues around avoided loss and damage.

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You know, there have been big headlines often involving billions,

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not trillions of dollars and all of which are probably gross and underestimates of the value of these things.

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But over the last few months, we've also seen a growing emphasis on from a fourth area around this,

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and that is the shorter term economic recovery potential investments.

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So I think most, most governments and businesses do realise that long term, you know, there are these benefits that working with nature can provide.

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But what's what's become apparent is actually this huge job creation potential and not just short term jobs, either.

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Sometimes people saying, you know, once the trees have been planted, that's it. Not at all.

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Once that ecosystem is in the process of restoration of stewardship, the management that is long term,

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this is these are jobs for people all over the world over the long term, not just quickly creating jobs in the short term.

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So it is it is. It is important to remember that we call them short term benefits because they can be generated tomorrow,

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but they are enduring jobs, so they are worthwhile jobs as well.

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And there are several studies I could cite and recent work published in fact,

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a couple of weeks ago show that will the European Union is only spending one percent of its recovery budget on nature.

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The job creation potential of increasing that would be huge.

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There was one one figure that is going around an investment of around 3.7 billion into nature.

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Restoration across a small number of countries could create one hundred seventy two

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thousand jobs and seven billion euros worth of economic activity over 15 years,

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and another oft cited study as well. Many more of these views compared to the return in terms of jobs created.

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Investment in different industries show that in the U.S., if you invest one million dollars into coastal habitat restoration,

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that's good nature based solution ecosystem restoration you can create 40 new jobs, and that compares to five for oil and gas, for example.

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And we need more work, more studies like this. But the problem with all these courses that you know, the devil's in the detail,

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these impressive figures that we always say, What are you defining as an investment in nature here?

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What do you mean? You know, which brings me to actually answering the question about alignment of economy, biodiversity and climate.

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And there's a lot of hyperbole verbally about about this sort of stuff.

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And you know, at the end of the day, whether or not there is alignment between those things depends on,

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well, I guess three things the type of the incident mentioned, obviously,

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where it takes place, in particular the state of the landscape prior to the intervention is this integrated

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landscape where nothing else could possibly grow within a few thousand years? Or is it actually a healthy interacting ecosystem who lives there?

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And the third thing is the time frame and the spacious catalogue, which you measure some of.

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Climate, economic and biodiversity benefits, and the really interesting thing is is, you know,

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nature can't deliver everything in the same place at the same time, but it can deliver many things over time across whole landscapes,

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which is why that kind of landscape perspective I'm not just thinking about a single space or a single ecosystem,

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but thinking about the interactions between rural and recognising that we're going to need all sorts of different solutions.

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As you were saying, Cameron is not either. Or is it? We need all these different solutions working over different time frames and spatial scales.

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Another very rich answer. Thank you. If I move us on to just thinking about the mechanisms by which we might kind

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of capture this triple win as it were a biodiversity climate and the economy,

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as you say, there's some very big numbers bandied around on the economics and finance.

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There's a question here from Steve Smith at the Smith School about financing nature.

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He's pointed out that a lot of the interest at the moment is through carbon offsets.

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And what's your view as to whether that's the best channel? They're better ones.

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Should we make use of it? Should we be careful?

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And, you know, if there are better channels, what are they? Thanks to you, that's a great question and a very typical one at the moment.

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I mean, the problem is with offsetting is that it's often being used instead of drastic decarbonisation.

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So there's a big, big, big problem around this potential of something like nature based solutions to distract or equally worse,

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delay that ambition, ambitious action to decarbonise.

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And so to get around that, to deal with that problem, we need to ensure that finance that comes through industries that you know it's

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only for nature based solutions is only coming from those industries that are, you know, with ambitious and verifiable decarbonisation plans,

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you know, they're doing given the size of the particular company, whatever it is or country involved,

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given the levels of impacts on the environment is that organisation is an entity

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doing everything it possibly can as quickly as it possibly can to decarbonise.

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If it is, then during that transition towards zero net zero,

379
00:36:34,410 --> 00:36:41,880
then using some of that finance to invest in ecosystem active activities in the ecosystem is a good thing,

380
00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:46,140
but we have to make sure it's good finance from good entities and it's not being used in greenwashing.

381
00:36:46,140 --> 00:36:48,790
A huge, huge issue currently. Big, big concerns.

382
00:36:48,790 --> 00:36:56,010
A big pushback from the environmental movement against some of this because they think that some of the big polluters are using this in greenwashing.

383
00:36:56,010 --> 00:36:58,050
But the other piece is a look at the investment,

384
00:36:58,050 --> 00:37:04,560
and the other piece is just to make sure we create these boundary organisation and provide the technology information

385
00:37:04,560 --> 00:37:10,920
so that that that funding can go to the good projects and the biodiversity based and led by local communities.

386
00:37:10,920 --> 00:37:17,700
These police based projects that if even if they're not currently good for biodiversity, good for carbon, good for people,

387
00:37:17,700 --> 00:37:23,820
good for jobs, they are being implemented in a way which makes it very likely that they will deliver those returns over time.

388
00:37:23,820 --> 00:37:28,890
So this is why this is these boundary organisations that do that in both of the projects that the investors are really,

389
00:37:28,890 --> 00:37:33,720
really important and in the short term is in a massive amount of funding available.

390
00:37:33,720 --> 00:37:39,600
And that will help as we need to raise 500 billion US dollars a year to restore the natural world.

391
00:37:39,600 --> 00:37:43,260
And a lot of that has is not going to come or it's not going to come from public finance.

392
00:37:43,260 --> 00:37:48,670
A lot could biggest proportion is going to come from the private sector through and through this mechanism.

393
00:37:48,670 --> 00:37:53,220
What we want to see, however, is not offsetting so much is in setting.

394
00:37:53,220 --> 00:38:01,080
So we want to see companies companies investing to improve their supply chain so that then links to cleaning up supply chains.

395
00:38:01,080 --> 00:38:08,160
If you can invest in good projects within your supply chains and actually address the impacts that you're having within your supply chain,

396
00:38:08,160 --> 00:38:15,480
then that's also much, much more robust approach. You mentioned greenwashing, and it's the next question.

397
00:38:15,480 --> 00:38:20,190
Actually, the top question from Ruti on is there.

398
00:38:20,190 --> 00:38:30,010
Is there a risk? How do we protect against the concept of nature based solutions effectively being corrupted given all the nuances?

399
00:38:30,010 --> 00:38:38,310
And I think just to observe that group of us at Oxford have put forward a set of principles on net

400
00:38:38,310 --> 00:38:46,950
zero aligned offsetting and not I wonder if you might share your thoughts on how we how we just make

401
00:38:46,950 --> 00:38:52,230
sure we don't have basically what happened just a bit over a decade ago with a whole voluntary

402
00:38:52,230 --> 00:38:58,800
carbon market kind of crashed and burned because it didn't have the integrity and my personal sense,

403
00:38:58,800 --> 00:39:03,240
you know, you can try and scale this, this sort of activity.

404
00:39:03,240 --> 00:39:10,500
But if you scale it up too quickly before people really trust it, then at some point, you know, just kind of collapses.

405
00:39:10,500 --> 00:39:15,340
Because why would companies voluntarily pay for stuff that people think, Oh, you're just greenwashing?

406
00:39:15,340 --> 00:39:20,820
So how do you manage the greenwashing concerns with the citizens integrity integrity question?

407
00:39:20,820 --> 00:39:26,580
Is it the integrity of the investors and the integrity of the projects and just making sure and there's a lot of work going on.

408
00:39:26,580 --> 00:39:29,830
It's different now. It's different to what it was 10 years ago.

409
00:39:29,830 --> 00:39:37,260
We've got, like, you know, pipelines of bankable projects, good projects already going, already demonstrating the benefits for carbon four.

410
00:39:37,260 --> 00:39:44,610
But for adaptation, for biodiversity, we've got much better science in place, much better methods for monitoring and evaluating.

411
00:39:44,610 --> 00:39:50,820
Even at quite a granular level, those carbon and biodiversity and adaptation benefits much better than we had then.

412
00:39:50,820 --> 00:39:52,170
So we have those systems in place.

413
00:39:52,170 --> 00:39:58,710
We have those frameworks in place, lots of work to be done, some really important fundamental science to be done there as well.

414
00:39:58,710 --> 00:40:02,570
But there are a lot more tools and we have a lot of learning from what happened before, right?

415
00:40:02,570 --> 00:40:11,430
So there's a massive amount. So I think really, I mean, a lot of us are working in this on this this year to really double down on the definition.

416
00:40:11,430 --> 00:40:13,620
Well, on the one hand, as you know, on the net zero definition,

417
00:40:13,620 --> 00:40:22,020
but also on the level of nature based solutions and ensuring that, you know, some broad guidelines around what good, successful,

418
00:40:22,020 --> 00:40:25,770
sustainable, nature based solutions look like are adopted by businesses,

419
00:40:25,770 --> 00:40:32,020
by governments and trying to get that adopted this year in a more formal way, as it is and is a major focus for us.

420
00:40:32,020 --> 00:40:35,740
All guidelines, it's put very simply people who pose a lot of nuance about it,

421
00:40:35,740 --> 00:40:40,660
but I really think it can be boiled down to four key guidelines for key policy guardrails.

422
00:40:40,660 --> 00:40:43,450
One is that it's not an alternative to keeping fossil fuels in the ground,

423
00:40:43,450 --> 00:40:49,900
so that speaks to the need to that to invest in that investors and make sure they've got these ambitious, verifiable decarbonisation plans.

424
00:40:49,900 --> 00:40:53,320
And then the other three are making sure that we've got protection, restoration,

425
00:40:53,320 --> 00:40:58,480
conservation of a diversity of ecosystems across landscapes, including our working lands.

426
00:40:58,480 --> 00:41:04,600
The third one is that these projects must be led by, or at least in partnership with,

427
00:41:04,600 --> 00:41:09,340
local communities and indigenous peoples in a way that respects their rights and their knowledge.

428
00:41:09,340 --> 00:41:11,290
Otherwise, it's unethical and also not sustainable.

429
00:41:11,290 --> 00:41:15,610
And then the fourth piece is to come back to biodiversity always, as this foundational property of good,

430
00:41:15,610 --> 00:41:20,560
nature based solutions and projects need to be designed to deliver benefits for biodiversity and the way

431
00:41:20,560 --> 00:41:25,660
otherwise nature won't be able to support us at all because it won't be resilient in a rapidly changing world.

432
00:41:25,660 --> 00:41:33,010
So there are these four guidelines, each of them very much bolstered by robust evidence from both science and practise,

433
00:41:33,010 --> 00:41:37,400
and increasingly so and really sort of trying to get that message across to say it's not a bad idea

434
00:41:37,400 --> 00:41:42,130
that needs to meet these guidelines in order to count and to create these boundary organisations,

435
00:41:42,130 --> 00:41:44,860
of which there are many now bubbling up all over the place.

436
00:41:44,860 --> 00:41:52,390
And to make sure the science community engages with these boundary organisations to make sure they're doing that vetting piece in a most robust way.

437
00:41:52,390 --> 00:41:56,210
I'd like to thank you. I think those four points are a useful.

438
00:41:56,210 --> 00:42:02,380
I'd like to go back to Steve Smith's question and kind of blended with one from Jack Edmonson about

439
00:42:02,380 --> 00:42:09,430
how we how we go about incentivising businesses to specifically invest in and improve biodiversity,

440
00:42:09,430 --> 00:42:12,350
not through a carbon offset sort of wrangle.

441
00:42:12,350 --> 00:42:17,980
So this is your, I think you said in setting, maybe if if it's the opposite of offsetting should be called on setting or something,

442
00:42:17,980 --> 00:42:23,980
but anyway, for investing in biodiversity, for biodiversity sake.

443
00:42:23,980 --> 00:42:34,240
You know, there's huge interest in ESG, but at the moment, I guess this is no kind of absolutely compelling way.

444
00:42:34,240 --> 00:42:42,490
A firm large or small can say to its stakeholders, its investors and staff, look at the great thing we're doing for biodiversity.

445
00:42:42,490 --> 00:42:47,110
I mean, some of them, many firms are doing this sort of thing, but it's it seems a bit ad hoc.

446
00:42:47,110 --> 00:42:55,090
Do you have any thoughts about how we incentivise the scale up of businesses protecting biodiversity for biodiversity sake?

447
00:42:55,090 --> 00:43:03,160
For biodiversity, sake, is obviously speaks more to social corporate responsibility and reputational,

448
00:43:03,160 --> 00:43:07,030
you know, young people or people now increasingly aware,

449
00:43:07,030 --> 00:43:08,110
especially over the last year,

450
00:43:08,110 --> 00:43:14,860
about interdependency of human health and the natural world and the relationship between the health of nature and biodiversity.

451
00:43:14,860 --> 00:43:18,760
These are sort of becoming when you switch on the radio in the morning, people talk about this never happens.

452
00:43:18,760 --> 00:43:26,350
You know, it is a pity I was. So you think I'm exaggerating saying this is sort of almost mainstream these ideas.

453
00:43:26,350 --> 00:43:31,670
And so, you know, speaking to that biodiversity for biodiversity sake is part of that.

454
00:43:31,670 --> 00:43:34,360
Speaking to this recognition that we are part of nature,

455
00:43:34,360 --> 00:43:38,320
that our health depends on the health of ecosystems, we can't continue with business as usual.

456
00:43:38,320 --> 00:43:43,270
There will be more pandemics if we do not overreach to say that, I don't think.

457
00:43:43,270 --> 00:43:47,810
And so that is very much in there. I think, you know, in terms of, I mean, international performance,

458
00:43:47,810 --> 00:43:52,420
Standard six is a regulation around needing to report on biodiversity methods around that are improving.

459
00:43:52,420 --> 00:43:55,480
It's not being done in a brilliant way across the board to date,

460
00:43:55,480 --> 00:44:02,890
but there is obviously improved data to enable companies to do that in a much better way and the responsibility of them to do that.

461
00:44:02,890 --> 00:44:05,620
I think in terms of like mobilising more investment, I mean,

462
00:44:05,620 --> 00:44:12,580
there's obviously the ESG piece and there's a real push towards cleaning up supply chains because of

463
00:44:12,580 --> 00:44:18,370
the risks to those supply chains and the risks to the assets within the supply chains of not doing so.

464
00:44:18,370 --> 00:44:26,750
So climate change, combined with biodiversity is actually putting a lot of commodities, particularly obviously commodity supply chains at risk.

465
00:44:26,750 --> 00:44:31,390
So this is an area the insurance industry is interested in, but just commodity companies in general are very,

466
00:44:31,390 --> 00:44:36,790
very aware of the impacts of their activities on society and on biodiversity,

467
00:44:36,790 --> 00:44:40,060
and on the relationship between two enormous supply chains and want to be able

468
00:44:40,060 --> 00:44:46,150
to estimate those and to be able to invest in projects that help mitigate them.

469
00:44:46,150 --> 00:44:51,850
So interesting. I think there's a connexion. I'm just going to dive deeper into the list of questions, which is now over 30,

470
00:44:51,850 --> 00:44:57,220
because there's a connexion between the demand for this sort of activity from firms.

471
00:44:57,220 --> 00:45:00,400
And, as you say, the fact that it's going mainstream.

472
00:45:00,400 --> 00:45:06,730
And I think education has been a big part of that and perhaps needs to be an even bigger part of that in the future.

473
00:45:06,730 --> 00:45:17,440
Val asks, Is it possible to make education about wildlife and biodiversity more prominent for kids at school in the UK, but actually globally?

474
00:45:17,440 --> 00:45:24,430
I guess the specific question Val asks is that there's not a lot of wild, truly wild places in a country like the UK.

475
00:45:24,430 --> 00:45:28,490
What do we do about it? I know for my three the worst punishment three kids.

476
00:45:28,490 --> 00:45:33,760
The worst punishment we can impose upon them is removing some of their Attenborough

477
00:45:33,760 --> 00:45:38,740
watching time on a show on a Saturday afternoon if they're really bad,

478
00:45:38,740 --> 00:45:42,910
badly behaved. But but even better than that is actually to get them into nature.

479
00:45:42,910 --> 00:45:48,370
How do we do? How do we do education better in this domain?

480
00:45:48,370 --> 00:45:52,420
I mean, this is like it's impossible to exaggerate how important this is.

481
00:45:52,420 --> 00:46:01,930
And you know, the getting recognising that we are part of nature and gang overcoming that dualism that goes back 5000 years,

482
00:46:01,930 --> 00:46:07,840
at least as overcoming that, recognising that we're part of it is incredibly important and starts at the youngest age.

483
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:12,580
I would say to children of my own and many friends with children and would say that,

484
00:46:12,580 --> 00:46:16,000
you know, kids spend a lot of time with children in the tropics as well all over the world,

485
00:46:16,000 --> 00:46:22,420
and I can see that there is there is a love of nature that's quite innate recognition, that it's fun and playful.

486
00:46:22,420 --> 00:46:27,020
And then and then over time, that gets eroded by conventional schooling, doesn't it?

487
00:46:27,020 --> 00:46:34,330
And so there is a move in this country, in other countries to try and reverse that a bit to try and keep alive that love of nature.

488
00:46:34,330 --> 00:46:39,670
And as we see our cities become green, I mean this in a brilliant, brilliant things happening in this year.

489
00:46:39,670 --> 00:46:43,900
I'm producing some films on nature based solutions and action in the UK,

490
00:46:43,900 --> 00:46:49,000
and one of the films is looking at what's going on in cities and we've been in touch with people from various cities.

491
00:46:49,000 --> 00:46:51,550
Newcastle's one of them Manchester, Glasgow or others,

492
00:46:51,550 --> 00:46:57,550
and there's just incredible things going on involving children in tree planting or other ecosystem restoration

493
00:46:57,550 --> 00:47:03,940
programmes about greening or rewilding parts of the playground where possible of sort of accident.

494
00:47:03,940 --> 00:47:11,260
And that sort of speaks that whole social capital thing. And if you involve people in nature, they get you closer to nature.

495
00:47:11,260 --> 00:47:14,830
Then that enables some of the more really fundamental transformative shifts that

496
00:47:14,830 --> 00:47:18,670
we need around patterns of consumption and diet and all these other things.

497
00:47:18,670 --> 00:47:25,030
So I think that I mean, it's very, very important we do it by I would love to see the GCSE and natural history in the UK.

498
00:47:25,030 --> 00:47:31,120
I would I would feel quite passionately about that getting kids out of classrooms and into nature,

499
00:47:31,120 --> 00:47:33,880
even if it's just, you know, little allotments or whatever it is at school.

500
00:47:33,880 --> 00:47:38,050
And lots of schools are doing this right and lots of cities are you've got city farms,

501
00:47:38,050 --> 00:47:42,460
you've got so many amazing things that we have gardens across London involve children at weekends.

502
00:47:42,460 --> 00:47:45,700
I mean, there's lots of brilliant people doing these things and transforming,

503
00:47:45,700 --> 00:47:51,400
and I think I feel very optimistic about the future of landscapes, future British landscape in particular.

504
00:47:51,400 --> 00:47:56,370
I think we're on a cusp of some. Quite just. Change very importantly, what goes on,

505
00:47:56,370 --> 00:48:00,840
a certain 80 percent of those population are going to be cities by the end of the century, a figure like that, right?

506
00:48:00,840 --> 00:48:04,920
A lot of us how beautiful, how healthy those environments are.

507
00:48:04,920 --> 00:48:11,160
We have a fundamental role to play in whether we can enable all the systemic change that we need.

508
00:48:11,160 --> 00:48:14,880
And I talk to town planners quite a bit and their vision of the future.

509
00:48:14,880 --> 00:48:19,770
We need to sort of transport properly now. But once you sort of the down bespoke problem, we get rid of a lot of concrete.

510
00:48:19,770 --> 00:48:26,650
We free up space for people and nature and that will bring mental. We know that brings mental health benefits as well as physical benefits.

511
00:48:26,650 --> 00:48:31,740
We know we have to. There's lots that's all very well evidence now. It's a no brainer to do that.

512
00:48:31,740 --> 00:48:37,170
And when you talk to young people, I mean, we started this conversation, didn't we, with lots of bleak statistics.

513
00:48:37,170 --> 00:48:41,070
But actually, I hope we're able to end it in a more positive space in that actually,

514
00:48:41,070 --> 00:48:47,130
there's so much going on that we can engage with as individuals that will reconnect ourselves with nature and will

515
00:48:47,130 --> 00:48:55,020
make us feel a lot happier and less overwhelmed by some of these patterns on the state of nature that we hear about.

516
00:48:55,020 --> 00:48:57,900
That really is a wonderful answer. I don't know if you're happy or not,

517
00:48:57,900 --> 00:49:01,590
but basically you don't have to get on a plane to Madagascar to have a look at the

518
00:49:01,590 --> 00:49:07,920
person's commute and just go into Newcastle and you can be inspired by nature and cities.

519
00:49:07,920 --> 00:49:13,200
And the key point is, of course, because we do all live in cities, we've got to make it work for people and cities.

520
00:49:13,200 --> 00:49:21,260
I think it's a super answer. You're quite rightly you're wanting to direct us positively and we will end positively.

521
00:49:21,260 --> 00:49:26,820
But this is a very interesting question which you just kind of threw away in passing.

522
00:49:26,820 --> 00:49:34,620
And Louisa has picked up on this connexion between biodiversity loss and pandemics and zoonotic diseases.

523
00:49:34,620 --> 00:49:40,890
Her question is why is it that we haven't seen a big global pandemic originating from the Amazon yet,

524
00:49:40,890 --> 00:49:47,420
given the vast kind of human interactions that are a bit messy going on there?

525
00:49:47,420 --> 00:49:52,590
Do you have any thoughts on that? I absolutely remain completely unqualified to answer that question.

526
00:49:52,590 --> 00:50:01,110
I don't know. Now I see Scott Brown's population densities of humans, population densities of domesticated animals and contact between the two.

527
00:50:01,110 --> 00:50:08,130
But I think that is absolutely coming up. It's not with any authority. Sorry, you're unqualified to talk about negative things.

528
00:50:08,130 --> 00:50:12,900
We're only talking about positive things the last minute. That was a very common cause.

529
00:50:12,900 --> 00:50:14,920
So, so let's move on to cop.

530
00:50:14,920 --> 00:50:25,050
So those listening in may or may not know that Professor Sutton has the title of Friend of the Cop, which is a significant role.

531
00:50:25,050 --> 00:50:32,670
And it's just kind of helping the cop try to think through the role of nature based solutions on the climate side.

532
00:50:32,670 --> 00:50:41,220
So what do you think? I mean, obviously there's the CBD, the Convention on Biological Diversity Cop in Kunming, in China as well this year.

533
00:50:41,220 --> 00:50:46,950
Probably, we think, maybe possibly in October before the Glasgow cop in November.

534
00:50:46,950 --> 00:50:51,240
What do we need to get from the Glasgow cop? Because that's the one you're advising on.

535
00:50:51,240 --> 00:50:57,480
What do you think we'll still get? It's a really good question. You know, at the broadest level, the cops,

536
00:50:57,480 --> 00:51:05,930
both cops an opportunity at the beginning of this critical decade for the world's nations to come together and sort this out,

537
00:51:05,930 --> 00:51:09,210
make operationalise able, you know, commitments target not just targets,

538
00:51:09,210 --> 00:51:14,970
but actual action plans for delivery and to make sure that those are aligned between the CBD and even this is really important.

539
00:51:14,970 --> 00:51:24,630
And there are signs that that is happening, you know, and if we don't, you know, we don't have those actionable targets.

540
00:51:24,630 --> 00:51:30,330
If this doesn't emerge, you don't get the level of cooperation we see then after when we all emerge from this pandemic really locked into,

541
00:51:30,330 --> 00:51:37,750
you know, climate and ecological and poverty emergency, you know, and if it's not going to happen this year, know really big year, not me.

542
00:51:37,750 --> 00:51:42,210
I'm saying that because the UK's hosting the cop, but because of the pandemic, you know, people are wanting answers.

543
00:51:42,210 --> 00:51:46,860
People recognise that we really need to fundamentally change how we do things. If it doesn't happen now, that once again happen.

544
00:51:46,860 --> 00:51:51,630
So there's a lot of pressure on it. But more specifically, obviously, COP26 is a critical time.

545
00:51:51,630 --> 00:51:59,040
I mean, ultimate, it is a critical test. Paris agreement, isn't it? Well, pass TS live up to that commitments on limiting warming to 1.5 degrees.

546
00:51:59,040 --> 00:52:03,240
Will they enable communities to advance? Will they deal with loss and damage and all these things?

547
00:52:03,240 --> 00:52:10,890
So, you know, we need, you know, I guess there's a certain things that I think we need and they're very broad things as well.

548
00:52:10,890 --> 00:52:11,400
So forgive me,

549
00:52:11,400 --> 00:52:19,290
I don't know whether any you remember whatever know we are running out of time what we obviously we need to close the gap to 1.5 degrees,

550
00:52:19,290 --> 00:52:24,780
the gap between the existing pledges and what it's actually going to take to keep us at 1.5 degrees a huge gap.

551
00:52:24,780 --> 00:52:28,380
The UK must, you know, lead high level international discussions,

552
00:52:28,380 --> 00:52:36,060
especially to ensure that all the new economic recovery packages are consistent with that, that UK we need to get on track to net zero.

553
00:52:36,060 --> 00:52:38,610
Big topic, we need to. And of course, I would say this.

554
00:52:38,610 --> 00:52:43,230
I think it's very important for this particular increase ambition for nature based solutions to

555
00:52:43,230 --> 00:52:50,610
enhance NDCs with robust targets and actions around nature based solutions properly defined.

556
00:52:50,610 --> 00:52:53,580
Adopting, you know, specific guidelines and guardrails.

557
00:52:53,580 --> 00:52:58,740
Can't ignore loss and damage needs to be isn't yet it needs to be on a par with mitigation and adaptation,

558
00:52:58,740 --> 00:53:05,040
obviously massively important adaptation finance needs massively scaling up, obviously.

559
00:53:05,040 --> 00:53:09,870
There's all the stuff around the just energy transition. And then the last thing and very,

560
00:53:09,870 --> 00:53:15,720
very important thing is a Paris compliant finance sector that doesn't lock in

561
00:53:15,720 --> 00:53:20,820
investments that are going to continue to damage the biosphere and climate.

562
00:53:20,820 --> 00:53:24,510
And that's what is the Paris compliant finance sector look like.

563
00:53:24,510 --> 00:53:33,180
Well, no new direct government support for international fossil fuel projects and doing perverse fossil fuel and agricultural subsidies,

564
00:53:33,180 --> 00:53:37,920
of course, and cleaning global supply chains breaking the link.

565
00:53:37,920 --> 00:53:41,730
The key thing is the deforestation link between agricultural commodities,

566
00:53:41,730 --> 00:53:45,750
and you can have a system loss and damage that's important and then hold due diligence.

567
00:53:45,750 --> 00:53:54,780
Piece is very, very important as well, making sure that finance is sustainable to deliver an actual positive economy.

568
00:53:54,780 --> 00:54:00,470
So those are sort of four things that's what we need. What we're going to get, what we get, what are we going to get?

569
00:54:00,470 --> 00:54:06,450
Well, there's a good chance this will be a successful cop, I think from a nature perspective.

570
00:54:06,450 --> 00:54:08,020
And if it was your well, you would say that, wouldn't you?

571
00:54:08,020 --> 00:54:12,840
But and certainly that might just reflect because that's the space that I'm working most closely.

572
00:54:12,840 --> 00:54:23,400
But I am seeing very positive things going on, and so I remain optimistic that we will see some good things in the nature space that might

573
00:54:23,400 --> 00:54:28,350
make up for some blacks in other aspects of what needs to be negotiated at the end of the year.

574
00:54:28,350 --> 00:54:34,650
I think COP26 decision tax may well include the role of biodiversity, ecosystems and not just forests as it currently is,

575
00:54:34,650 --> 00:54:40,080
but diverse ecosystems in general for mitigation and adaptation and with joint programmes between the CBD.

576
00:54:40,080 --> 00:54:49,230
And even after obviously hopeful about that enhanced and NDCs with more robust nature based solutions that are currently at the moment,

577
00:54:49,230 --> 00:54:56,040
it's an emphasis on forestry. I'm hopeful that other things will be in that peatland more prominent, for example, mangroves and wetlands as well.

578
00:54:56,040 --> 00:55:00,000
I'm hopeful that there will be some adoption of some safeguards,

579
00:55:00,000 --> 00:55:03,360
standards and safeguards for nature based solutions project that speaks to the integrity

580
00:55:03,360 --> 00:55:08,970
question we just talked about and pledges for increased finance with various sorts.

581
00:55:08,970 --> 00:55:17,100
And then in particularly important, I think, can actually good chance of success around sort of strengthen diplomacy around deforestation,

582
00:55:17,100 --> 00:55:24,240
free supply chains, something that the UK is leading them? Well, we can do it across the remote at some of that,

583
00:55:24,240 --> 00:55:32,520
and I'm sure some people listening in will be thinking that's all well and good, but we just actually need to stop killing species.

584
00:55:32,520 --> 00:55:42,990
And I wonder if we can take it from the very high level of the international negotiations down to end at the very personal level.

585
00:55:42,990 --> 00:55:50,700
If you're listening in and you hadn't realised just how bad this crisis was, I suspect many of you did know because that's why you tuned in.

586
00:55:50,700 --> 00:55:54,390
But what? What can you what can an average individual do?

587
00:55:54,390 --> 00:56:00,750
What are the biggest lever items we can more changes we can make to protect biodiversity?

588
00:56:00,750 --> 00:56:05,220
And you know, what sort of things do you do to make a difference?

589
00:56:05,220 --> 00:56:11,790
I think that shift is a big one for those of us that have the choice to have a different diet and for work,

590
00:56:11,790 --> 00:56:16,860
shift to a plant based diet is incredibly important. That's the shift that I've made personally,

591
00:56:16,860 --> 00:56:21,480
and I encourage those around me to do the same in this culture where it's possible in other parts of the world.

592
00:56:21,480 --> 00:56:25,030
It's harder, but not impossible. We have to we have to do that.

593
00:56:25,030 --> 00:56:28,050
I think what did you find? Sorry to interrupt.

594
00:56:28,050 --> 00:56:36,270
What did you find easy or hard or kind of exciting about shifting from eating meat to to being vegan or vegetarian?

595
00:56:36,270 --> 00:56:46,500
You know, so many vegan, I felt much healthier personally, I don't have it, so it's like bats and things like that.

596
00:56:46,500 --> 00:56:51,090
I felt good to be consistent.

597
00:56:51,090 --> 00:56:55,140
I have a diet that was consistent with my understanding of what was happening to Biosphere

598
00:56:55,140 --> 00:57:00,150
and the massive role that particularly the meat industry has on biodiversity loss,

599
00:57:00,150 --> 00:57:02,320
pollution and also climate change.

600
00:57:02,320 --> 00:57:09,160
And so, you know, it was actually a difficult questions for my my children secretary push me from vegetarianism to veganism.

601
00:57:09,160 --> 00:57:12,510
It's like, Well, if you say this. And what about this? What about that?

602
00:57:12,510 --> 00:57:16,110
And I was like, OK, this isn't working even within, you know, around the family table.

603
00:57:16,110 --> 00:57:20,460
So need to make that happen. And I think and I think that's a bit of cognitive dissonance about that.

604
00:57:20,460 --> 00:57:25,410
When you do go to climate change meetings and is often beef on the menu every day, be for cultural reasons.

605
00:57:25,410 --> 00:57:30,160
But really, we need to get on top of this issue. So that's the thing.

606
00:57:30,160 --> 00:57:34,340
And so a dietary shift is one we're just all of all the stuff around consumption.

607
00:57:34,340 --> 00:57:37,560
You know, I will find it hard to fly without an extraordinarily good reason.

608
00:57:37,560 --> 00:57:41,010
I did a lot of globetrotting 20 odd years ago when I was working in tropical

609
00:57:41,010 --> 00:57:45,790
rainforests and probably got a big carbon footprint that I need to do something about.

610
00:57:45,790 --> 00:57:51,870
So flying less and I think one of the positive things of the pandemic is that we've all realised we can do many of us and many of us can't.

611
00:57:51,870 --> 00:57:58,710
Many people have lost jobs and suffered, perhaps those of us working in research and the climate change negotiation community and so on.

612
00:57:58,710 --> 00:58:03,990
We can do a lot of our job very effectively with very lower, much lower carbon footprint, and that's a really good thing.

613
00:58:03,990 --> 00:58:09,220
So flying is another and then spreading the love about nature is important.

614
00:58:09,220 --> 00:58:14,670
You know, whether that's with your children or with your family not mowing you lawns, smashing the meadows grow.

615
00:58:14,670 --> 00:58:20,040
You know, there's little things we can do as well to create this sort of, you know, to to to grow the love for nature.

616
00:58:20,040 --> 00:58:23,640
And I think it's very natural for most of us as well to get into that space.

617
00:58:23,640 --> 00:58:29,500
And we've all benefited. Obviously, in the last 12 months, many more people of working in their gardens or allotments,

618
00:58:29,500 --> 00:58:32,550
those of us who are lucky to have access to that sort of space.

619
00:58:32,550 --> 00:58:36,750
You said really enjoyed it when told we were limited in how much time we can have in nature.

620
00:58:36,750 --> 00:58:40,920
We've added even more opportunities now to to keep that going.

621
00:58:40,920 --> 00:58:45,390
Even once you know all the previous freedoms are back.

622
00:58:45,390 --> 00:58:49,590
There you go. That's great advice to leave everybody with your loans.

623
00:58:49,590 --> 00:58:53,330
One job you thought you might have to do that you no longer have to do it.

624
00:58:53,330 --> 00:58:55,860
It's not fun, especially if you get.

625
00:58:55,860 --> 00:59:03,510
The advisory suggests that I feel compelled to say that the Oxford Martin School now does not offer meat in its events.

626
00:59:03,510 --> 00:59:06,450
It's just vegetarian or vegan, too only.

627
00:59:06,450 --> 00:59:14,800
And that's the other key piece of advice, which I admit I haven't yet followed, but we haven't eaten any meat today.

628
00:59:14,800 --> 00:59:18,120
Yeah, well, take your time. There you go. All right.

629
00:59:18,120 --> 00:59:20,520
Thank you, everybody for tuning in. I have to apologise again.

630
00:59:20,520 --> 00:59:26,160
I kind to have this ludicrous optimism bias that maybe as each of these series of progress will pick up,

631
00:59:26,160 --> 00:59:32,610
pick up of the questions that haven't been asked in previous sessions. But this has just left many more questions still unanswered.

632
00:59:32,610 --> 00:59:41,280
Thirty six at latest count, so I genuinely apologise to those of you who wanted to get a bit more of that time and brainpower.

633
00:59:41,280 --> 00:59:47,760
You're not alone. There are many people who want her time and brainpower, but thank you for spending an hour with us today.

634
00:59:47,760 --> 00:59:51,840
Good luck in everything you're doing and good luck with the cup. Thank you very much.

635
00:59:51,840 --> 00:59:52,916
It's been a pleasure.