The Oxford Martin School for the second of four conversations about the Dasgupta review on the economics of biodiversity.
My name is Katharine Hepburn, director of the Smith School and lead researcher for a number of several research programmes.
And I'm delighted we have today Inger Andersen with me.
Hold on. Just introduce probably in just a moment the first conversation in the series with Professor Sekoff, a script that was pretty wide-ranging.
Those of you who tuned in will remember we ventured into some fairly important areas,
some heavily contested territory, managing human population, perhaps the limits to growth.
I thoroughly enjoyed it. It seems like a lot of you did, too, because there were a huge number of questions dozens and dozens, in fact.
And if you missed it, you can catch up on the Oxford Mountain School website.
Now all of these questions that were kind of tabled, we didn't have time to answer all of them, but they included the ethics of pressing nature,
the role of capitalism and quite a lot of policy questions and questions around international coordination.
And that's why I'm delighted with today's guests. So we're going to pick up some of them today.
And actually, if we don't get to all of them today, there'll be further opportunities in the series on the third of June,
with Professor Dame Henrietta Moore and Professor Giles Godfrey. And then on the 17th of June, Professor Nathalie said.
So as foreshadowed today, we have Inger Andersen,
the under secretary general of the United Nations and executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme,
has had a really illustrious career within international organisations and, as I said,
is the ideal guest to follow on these questions that fundamentally involve issues of international coordination between 2015 and 2019.
She was director general of the International Union for Conservation of Nature for the Conservation of Nature,
the IUCN, as we know it, 15 years the World Bank,
including multiple leadership positions, including vice president for sustainable development and has spent 12 years before that on drought,
desertification and water management at the UN.
She's a dean, and I'm pleased to say that her tertiary education was in the UK and with the masses so focussing on economics and development.
So and I were both on the Dasgupta Review Advisory Panel.
We had the pleasure of watching the huge. Here it is. Six hundred and four page report developed.
And actually, in case you missed it, you know, but Oxford have been collaborating on observing the economic recovery.
We launched a recent report together. Are we building back better?
And the report is online as it's the launch event with IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva and as well.
Brian O'Callahan, who led the work at Oxford. And I'm really grateful to you and Stephen Stone from the unit for their partnership.
So today I want to export his thoughts about the review, the post-2020 biodiversity framework,
nature based solutions, intersections and climate change,
the green recovery and obviously anything you want us to explore to ask a question button is where it usually is down the bottom on the right.
So please do use it. But let's start with a very general question what do you think the most significant conclusions from the review are?
And how has it changed the conversation? So you?
Well, first of all, thank you for having me and greetings from Nairobi, where Europe is headquartered, the only U.N. organisation in the Global South.
We're very headquartered in the global south, which we're very proud of.
Together with you and habitat. So at any rate. Look, The Dasgupta review is interesting from so many points of view, but I mean,
sort of at the very basic level it speaks to nature is an asset class, and don't forget that.
Don't ignore that. Actually, nature in the broader economy plays a role that has not been valued,
and we can get back to the ethics of valuing etc. We always get when I speak, especially with conservation colleagues, obviously.
But, but but that in and of itself is significant.
And then of course,
there's this understanding that part that puts forward that economic thinking has been flawed in that it hasn't understood that value,
and therefore it has assumed that this is a mixed analogy. This is something that is available.
You can essentially exploit nature for the benefit of economy and society and
that it is infinite and bringing that understanding that it is not infinite.
And I think climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution and waste desertification shows us some of those elements that the carrying capacity
limits on planetary boundaries as as the Stockholm Environment Resilience Institute,
those things are now showing up and they are showing up more as we expand our population.
So I think those issues are really critical. The stern review back in the day was critical because it put the economics of
climate change firmly on a footing of economic thinking in the financial world,
and that was critical at the time. My hope is obviously and it was important because it was done by Treasury and not by, you know,
environment ministers who have the greatest respect for, but it's really important that it happened outside of our sector, so to speak.
Ditto for this thing now for the Dasgupta review.
And what we hope very much is that it will begin to ride that wave of getting a broader understanding in the economic thinking.
Because what we know is that the stock of natural capital has declined was we have in one wise, we've greatly increased produced capital,
but 40 percent or so decline in natural capital and a significant increase in and produce capital.
So what does that tell us? We haven't been stewards of of the planet as we should have been, and the review puts points out very much.
Great. That's a superset of points to start off with. I want to come back to this, you know, 40 percent decline in natural capital,
but I just know we're going to get it in the questions the ethics of pricing nature.
So you say you always get it too. I've actually written on it because it ended up being plaguing me.
So, so it's not that one off. Is it OK to put an economic value on nature?
Are we not pricing the prices?
Are we not devaluing all of the dimensions of nature that really matter when we stick it into a finance ministry and onto a spreadsheet?
Is this not part of the problem, not part of the solution?
No, it's very much part of the solution, and the reason why it's part of the solution is that we shouldn't juxtapose these things.
Nature has infinite value to culture, to language, to poetry, to art, to religions, to you and I, to our lives,
to our well-being, to our happiness, to love, to all of these intangible things when nature plays a part.
But that does not mean that we can cut the proverbial forests empty and cut the proverbial
forest down and have a great quarterly return and think that everything will be OK.
That does not mean that the mangrove is not protecting that community and that we don't understand the value of that against a concrete seawall.
So having an understanding that the value that ecosystems provide to to human to humanity just is it just exists.
That community that sits behind that massive buffer of a mangrove knows the value of that mangrove and understanding that that other than a sea wall,
has also other other. I mean, that's where fish spawn.
That's where you can have great crayfish. That's where you can do lots of other economic activity.
So this is not about putting dollar signs on trees.
This is not about putting a value on a butterfly,
but it is understanding that this superbly intricate system of species and interdependence has its own beauty,
the intrinsic value, which is completely incontestable.
But at the same time, the economic value we have not understood and we have not valued adequately when we understand a nation's wealth,
which is why we are doing it by working on inclusive wealth and understanding of what wealth means in terms of natural capital.
So I don't see it, and when I speak about it with with certain communities that that feel quite strongly about this,
we have to understand it from their perspective.
Indigenous peoples, for example, often feel that this is very alienating and very and that it undermines their indigenous rights, their rights.
And that is so because if you just look at it purely on the value of that proverbial forest versus the value that they ascribe to it, yes.
But that's not what we argue. What we argue is understanding that that value has broader value for community and for society as a whole.
So going back to think here, I think that's very helpful to clarify that earlier, although there are questions already coming in on that point.
Sure. In terms of inclusive wealth, as you say, UNEP has been leading the way here.
Well, thanks for doing work as well on getting more comprehensive, more inclusive sets of national accounts.
And when you look at those national accounts, as you said, a natural capital is not exactly in good shape.
It's understated. I mean, as father said, we are in an extinction event.
So if we're in an extinction event, what are the top priority actions for the world?
I mean, who has to do what and when? What's the kind of to do list for humanity right now?
Might be useful to sort of create some buckets around these action lists, the to do list for governments, right?
They set the yardsticks for how we companies, industries, communities, localities behave.
So they need to understand what yardsticks they're setting natural capital accounting.
Are they going to take that into a decision making understanding the degradation that companies or all others cause?
Are they willing to set to understand the inclusive growth dimension of of the
responsibilities that making laws and rules and regulations give government?
Are they willing to put a price on carbon? Are they willing to put incentives to decarbonise?
Are they willing to phase out harmful subsidies? Are they willing to put a tax on pollution?
Are they willing to redirect subsidies away from fossil fuels and towards renewables?
Are they willing to subsidise or move away from harmful agricultural subsidies,
never making the farmers the enemies, but making it possible for the farmers to farm in nature positive ways?
These are the kind of sort of to do items for governments, and we as voters have an opportunity to impact in that regard, right?
Then there are the intergovernmental organisations, be they non-government?
I'm sorry, be the UN on on. Um, I had the privilege of working for IUCN, which is not UN, but nevertheless.
And so they need to work in enabling, at least if they're in the environmental sphere,
enabling a broader understanding of what science says so that it can enable good policy decisions.
I was at the World Bank when we initiated the waves of wealth accounting and valuation of ecosystem services,
which was sort of a forerunner for many of the things that we're talking about today.
And so I think that there's a real opportunity here for multilateral organisations to to roll this to understand and pursue some of this,
but always understanding community rights, always understanding indigenous people's rights and not just with a check, but a cheque.
But but really understanding that the value of community managed and indigenous peoples managed area in terms of biodiversity,
wealth is often way exceeding national parks in that and protected areas so.
So in international intergovernmental organisation financial institutions, well, you know,
a huge role because a portfolio of investments from bankers to insurers to to to investors is is such that it can be shifted towards nature positive.
And that's why a task force on nature related disclosures is being now discussed.
How will an investment portfolio realign itself?
And that is for your pension and mine, that is for your mortgage and mine.
So let's understand how we do that, right? So it's not just some abstract thing, it's when we take a loan for a buying that car as well.
So understanding how, how, how, how the banking industry, the investment investors, as well as insurance can be in line.
And then, of course, business. I don't need to go into that as obvious. And then finally, the choices that we as individuals make.
You and I, you know, why do we buy? How do we consume?
How do we live, etc. And often that is sort of sought as a as an afterthought by individuals or what can I do?
I'm such a small consumer, you know, in the big scheme of seven and a half billion.
The truth is that the world is made up of seven and a half billion and each and every one of us have a choice to make, you know, consumption patterns.
And in our yeah, in our footprint. So all of that, that's kind of a long to do list, but you need to look at in each of the buckets.
I was thinking it is quite a long To-Do list, and I'm glad you did put it in those buckets of government kind of international institutions,
NGOs, financial institutions, business and individuals.
And I guess, you know, if I were a teenager, I'd be looking at people like you and me and thinking, why?
Why haven't we done this already? I mean, it's not as if this is really news to any of us.
What's the blockage? Where are the other person? Incentives of the leaders of these organisations lined up to do what they need to do?
Or is this something? Why do we have all these huge fossil fuel subsidies and how do we actually get rid of them?
I mean, there is a short termism built into our system, our electoral system,
you have a cycle for four or five years, your quarterly report of your company return, what have you.
This is short termism that does not take into account intergenerational equity that does not take into
account the fact that we are shaving away at the very foundations for future wealth and sustainability,
if I may say so. And that's that's the difficult conversation,
because maybe it is easier for me as a politician or as a business person to just deal with the short termism.
No, the good thing is that more and more people have understood that actually the intergenerational and the longer term perspective is real,
and it is about investing in the future that you will create better jobs, that you will create opportunities.
It is about redirecting investments towards renewable, sustainable and nature positive.
But these things only happen with governments living up to the commitments.
Look, in 2010, governments turned up in Nagoya in Japan for what was COP 10 of biodiversity, and at that point I was there with a different hat.
But it's immaterial, and I was there for the by and for the World Bank.
And at that point, we agreed to what was called the Aichi targets.
They actually really rather good these 20 targets had to measure.
So but you know, in principle and government signed up to them, but nobody has lived up to them.
So that's not acceptable. And I think with what we're now seeing, there is a much greater awareness that it has taken all of society approach.
It has to take us holding our politicians and leaders to account and calling out those that are not living up to it.
If we look at the carbon side, the climate side, we understand that yes, everyone needs to shift.
We need ambitious and disease. But the G20 has a special to do list because they are over.
They are over 70 or nearly 80 percent of carbon emissions.
So we need to understand the inequity between nations in this.
And the same is the case for biodiversity understanding how we need to.
This is a global common good, but it is hosted often in very poor countries.
So understanding that we have access to resources, access to transparency and access to support and capacity building and technology.
So we haven't done it well enough and now really is the time to move that needle because we
can no longer as if this sort of IPCC equivalent to two for the Biodiversity Convention,
which we are proud to host, points out we have about seven point eight million species on this good earth,
and we set to lose one million if we don't take action.
And that will cause inevitably ecosystem impacts that we cannot.
Well, I could get into that. But it will have severe impacts. Just think pollinators and losing using pollination.
You know, it's going to be a very complex social technical political system that we're operating in.
But if I was to try to synthesise in a sense what you've just said, use the word awareness several times.
And I guess all of these incentives become whether you're the head of a financial institution, the head of a government,
if your voters are demanding it, your shareholders are demanding it, then it becomes a whole lot easier to deliver.
And perhaps that awareness is one of the most important dimensions to cover.
If I might pick up on something else, you noted you were there in Nagoya wearing a different hat.
You wear, in a sense, quite a powerful hat. Now, as the head of, you know, I'm sure that people listening and thinking, Well, can you sort?
Come on, unit. What are your top priority on unit? Come up when you have, you know, what can we see from you in the coming year?
Where where are you working hardest right now?
Look, we look at three planetary crises that unless we tackle these and tackled these with real sincerity and determination.
It's a it's a future we cannot even contemplate.
And the three crises planetary crisis, climate change, obviously, I don't need to explain that to anyone.
Nature and biodiversity loss and waste and pollution.
The toxic trail of our economic development that is essentially poisoning and toxic flying the planet, right?
And what is it that is driving these? It is unsustainable consumption and production.
It is a very way in which society works. We take stuff out of the environment, resources, etc. our food and so on energy.
And then we put it into the economy and society, which is a fine thing because it enables us to have the life that we have.
When we were done with it, we discarded as waste right back into the environment or as as depletion into the environment.
That is so. So that's sort of at the macro level. So what does that then mean?
It means that for us, delivering the science at best, which will also prove to IPCC,
which will is in Prague to co-host with our friends at WMO in Paris, as well as global chemicals outlook, et cetera, et cetera.
The International Resource Panel. That science that tells us about this and then working with member states, for example, right now,
working with member states to help them get on the low carbon trajectory through the NDCs,
but also issue, for example, on the climate size, the emissions gap report that gives a report card.
And last year we gave a report card to the G20 because it is very clear that we will
work with someone and we will work with The Gambia and we will work with Honduras.
But that is not where we have the big emissions and we need to focus on the G 20.
And so holding a sort of report card up and saying this is what needs that's on climate, on biodiversity,
clearly supporting and enabling that we get an ambitious post-2020 biodiversity framework,
renewed targets that are measurable and implementable and a fundable and doable.
And that means an all of society approach and on finally pollution and waste dealing
with circularity again in the EU setting circular economy is coming into for the same.
In the UK. There's a lot of interest in circularity, but also obviously working through with our friends at WTO and other places on the
trade related dimensions that one can encourage to tackle all three of these crises.
Now 2021 is a really full year in terms of the calendar because lots of things sort
of got pushed into out of 2020 2020 and I won't go through the whole calendar,
but everybody knows COP26. Everybody hope knows COP15 Kunming.
Many people will know that we are launching the decade for Ecosystem Restoration on World Environment Day at the 5th of June,
which would be that decade to massively support a global campaign are aiming for trillions of dollars into ecosystem restoration.
And of course, there's lots of other stuff happening in 2020 that we are pushing the Secretary-General's Food Summit Food System Summit,
where we really want to push nature, positive agriculture and of course,
the one health agenda just today with Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus,
as well as the FAO and the way we've launched the one health science technical panel that can really deal with the environment,
veterinary and human health dimension. So that's kind of what we're working on.
But the bottom line, these three crises. So there you go. UNEP is doing a lot.
It would be a summary of that clearly around shining a light on these problems and what can be done about it.
And I've got a whole lot of my own questions I'd like to ask you, but I fear that as last time with Fatah,
we're just not going to get through the audience questions unless I make a stop right now.
So I'm going to do that many, many minutes ahead of plan.
The first one that I think is just directly related to what you've just been talking about.
The the the agenda for this year 2021 is from Daniel Sharf, who's asking about whether we'll get everything sorted in COP15,
in China, in biodiversity and if we don't assuming we don't.
Would it be helpful to try to merge some of these agendas in COP26 in Glasgow?
Perhaps, perhaps later. Given the relationship? The interdependencies between addressing climate and addressing the biodiversity and nature agenda,
what are your thoughts on these twin processes that we have running and how we might make progress?
Look, we look upon these real conventions, desertification, climate change and biodiversity, but also, frankly, their forerunners site,
the convention that deals with illegal illegal trade of flora and fauna, CMS,
the convention that deals with migratory species, the ozone control and DNA protocols and deals with ozone.
We look upon them, frankly, as indivisible. We are hosting 17 convention and you now have two conventional standalone convention.
That's climate and desertification, but the rest are hosted by us.
And so we see that one must mutually reinforce the other week that the Kigali Protocol under Ozone.
But we know that when we reduce emission, that ozone depleting, they have huge impact on the climate side.
We know that if we can mediate and reduce climate climate change, it will be better for ecosystems.
We understand that adaptation, as well as resilience as well as mitigation, means that we need to restore ecosystems.
That's a good thing for biodiversity. If we don't do, you know, monoculture, you do it well and that's good for climate change.
So the indivisibility of these conventions is real, but they are handled differently.
One you need to deal with shifting to transport and the energy sector, etc.
And another one, you're dealing with something quite unique that deals with unique ecosystems and biodiversity and species and megafauna,
mega diversity, et cetera. But what we do need to see and find and and push for is synergy.
And what's very good for the UK presidency is that it is intending to place nature
and nature based solutions firmly as one of the agenda points as we understand it.
And that's very powerful because if all things go well, we will have the Kunming cop in, I believe, October.
And then that will be followed by the cop in Glasgow, which will give a very nice lift to the nature agenda, I expect.
Thanks very much. I hope answers Daniel's question pretty nicely.
Next one is from Richard Vernon,
and he's taken the three planetary crisis that you're speaking of and noted that arguably all three are being driven by population growth.
Now this is a topic that often comes up in talks about in school discussions.
We don't always dive into it because it's quite contentious.
But given the review's focus on population, we had, I think,
quite a good and frank and thoughtful discussion about population and the management of population with Partha,
who described himself as a liberal and didn't really want to go in for heavy handed population control.
But I'm wondering whether you want to be sure free to say, don't my cup of tea,
but would you like to have a say anything about how we might think about the fundamental drivers?
You know, its population times, consumption per capita, I guess driving many of these problems.
What should we do about the population side of things? Well, first of all, we need to understand that, yeah, of course, if we were one million,
one billion roaming around this up, the pressure on the US would be different.
That's clear. That's just basic. That's basic understanding.
Everyone knows that. The second point we need to take on board is the problem is not right now the woman in Africa who has five children.
The problem is you and I and our footprint right?
The top one percent or the top 10 percent, is responsible for some 80 percent in terms of income is responsible for some 80 percent of emissions.
And let's be clear, the top 10, the top 10 percent is something like I forget.
Seventy nine thousand dollars a year. We had all these numbers in our last, you know, emissions gap report so they can be verified there.
And the top one percent is people who earn what probably more many people in in Denmark and the UK earn.
So this is not the the jet setting. These are people with one hundred and fifty two hundred thousand dollars a year is not.
It is still rich, but is not uber rich. So that's the first point.
That's where the footprint is. That is why the the the reduction in footprint and the injustice of the climate justice dimension has to be important.
Now, having said that, the third point is we need to give gender equity.
We need to have women being in charge of their lives and in charge of their life decisions, including education,
including when they get married, including when they decide to have children and be agents of their own bodies.
And these are the sort of basic things that we just need to deal with and not talk about the the sort of other dimensions.
We know that if girls have no power and if they are not empowered under the law and in society and by tradition,
chances are they may get married very young and not be able to make life decisions.
We, as women, need to have agency over our life and our life choices, including our children, how many children we want.
If we deal with these three bits, we will have addressed a massive dimension of the population issue.
And that's sort of how I always respond to this, because there is a sort of emphasis on on societies that are poor,
where the normal thing to do is to have more children,
because then that's how you safeguard your own social safety net, what it is about poverty eradication and women empowerment, amongst others.
Thank you.
I think that's a good answer, though probably leave many people thinking here are listing in the let's let's say more questions will doubtless come.
I want to move now to a question from Rob Panopto, who's asking about the most effective interventions for protecting nature.
And its question is where would you put your money on the table?
And perhaps let me sharpen it up by saying if somebody just dropped a trillion US dollars on you?
So there you go. You spend that how you want. What would you do?
How would you? It's a tough question to ask yourself, so I know you'll be happy to have it.
Well, first of all, look, this is for biodiversity. I think the question was around the priorities that I would want to invest in for.
Yes. Look, there is a lot of talk right now about 30 by 30, 50 by 50 etc,
which essentially is this idea that you need to protect in protected areas, 30 percent or what have you.
Of terrestrial and marine. And under the Aichi targets, it was 10 percent marine and 17 percent terrestrial.
We just might make it. But what I want to say for those percentages, right, we just might well see we're not there yet on either of them.
But my point here is why is protected areas are great?
And I would be the I work that IUCN, they are critical,
but where we really need to invest is outside the protected areas, and that's why we need to understand that we cannot.
We need to have biodiversity on working landscapes, biodiversity and agricultural settings, biodiversity and the urban landscape.
Understanding what we do when we subsidise which we do in many countries, pesticide and insecticides, what we do when we stop,
when we have a huge amount of fertiliser and the nitrogen runoff into waterways, into groundwater, but also into the marine.
And so it is about understanding that those 30 million trillion that you are giving me,
that we, we we have to obviously do our protection and it needs to be the quality.
And the quantity, so we don't want paper parks, we want quality management and quality and quantity.
But that's not the sole answer. And if we just chase that, we are missing a bigger picture,
which is that nature needs to live not just behind a fence in a protected area, but where we are.
And so in our gardens, what are we doing ourselves in terms of do we use, what is it, roundup or other things that have, you know, what?
What are we doing and how and what are we buying and what are we incentivising?
And so I put my money there to ensure that farmers, because farmers, our friends, we must never, as environmentalists make farmers the enemy.
But they need to get the kind of support to make the shifts that are nature positive.
And so that's where I would put my emphasis of an outside protected, obviously also invest a couple of trillion in the protected areas,
but then really invest in in the broader terrestrial and marine,
including marine beyond national jurisdiction where we see deep sea mining and things like that.
And with ice melt happening, broader encroachment potential into pristine areas,
and we cannot afford to see that without understanding the consequences. So I can't risk asking little bit of a follow up.
Do you think would you reserve any funding for research and development into technologies that might offer demand substitution?
It's kind of an interest of mine. We know an awful lot of habitat destruction is driven by various animal products.
We know that if we want to deliver those proteins and alternative ways, either plant based or cellular based proteins,
we could cut the land requirements down, perhaps by as much as a factor of five or 10.
Would that be something that you if you had a trillion, would you reserve any of it for that sort of thing?
Would you not really place much hope in the tech side of things? No, absolutely, I place hope both in the tech side, but also in the choice side,
we have to have a conversation about the diets we are having because look,
maybe you and I and people who live like we do can be very happy about the way we get our protein.
I'm a lifelong vegetarian, but that's another story. But, but but but but you know, and it's a protein matters.
Meat protein matters in many countries, but we can't all have steak every night.
And if seven and a half billion people wish to do that because now we are wealthy enough to do it, it does just does not compute.
And so we need to have an honest conversation about dietary choices, as well as looking at alternative ways of getting protein,
but not legislating on this point because that just that will completely not work and it would be completely hypocritical.
So I think we need to ensure that meat diets are available,
but we also need to ensure that we can do that with a degree of sustainability in mind and carrying capacity in mind.
And I think a lot of it comes from, you know, ensuring that we encourage, I mean,
plant content in our diet from early on and that we teach kids what is delicious and what is great.
And I think that each of these have a have a place. But I do not believe that we should outlaw in any way.
Now what I'm seeing is here in the UK, for example,
which is quite interesting that we are we are seeing quite a lot of vegetarian and vegan options and a lot of flexitarian ism,
which is also interesting. People sort of eating more plant rich diet.
And part of what we need to do is clearly have an understanding that the current system is sort of a double edged sword.
It's shaped by the cheaper food paradigm, which aims at producing more food quickly and cheaply.
But we do so at the cost to biodiversity and a cost to our health.
And so understanding that so the cost gets shifted over on our health systems, diabetes, cardiovascular cetera,
which we are then not seeing when we buy the cheap food, but it shows up elsewhere in the economy.
I mean, is it an implication of what you said that perhaps in many countries, meat is too cheap?
It might be I don't I don't actually know enough about that to have an on this day.
That's sort of an honest, honest opinion, but I think if we want to internalise the environmental costs,
then that's something that we need to look at. But in some countries, it may be too cheap.
In some countries, it may be too expensive. I think it depends entirely where you're placed.
I'm sitting in Nairobi and I can tell you it's very expensive here, and it's not the average family that can afford it.
OK, moving on to a question from Charlie Freitag here is interested in measuring
and kind of assessing the biodiversity impacts of investment portfolios and,
of course, units, financial initiatives. It's been doing great work in these sorts of areas for many years now, whatever decade, possibly more.
His question is where do you start with?
Where's the kind of best place to look for guidance as to how to measure the biodiversity impact of an investment portfolio,
given that this is presumably fairly tricky?
And I guess I could give some pointers, but where would you direct, Charlie?
Sure, you can. Well, you're probably better at it than I.
But look, there is. There is a coalition of organisation called the science based initiative,
and it's very much taking a leaf out of the climate story, which we all know very well with the science based targets for climate.
Now, you could argue that that was easier because we would look just at emissions.
I have always said no, we just simplified it down to one factor.
We didn't talk about ocean warming. We didn't talk about species loss due to climate change.
We didn't. Create such a complicated setting that in the target, science based targets for climate,
we couldn't get at something that against which companies could disclose that their the footprint and the impact on their portfolio.
So in the science based Target Initiative, Target Initiative for Biodiversity,
what a good number of scientists and organisations are working on is coming up with something that companies can deploy.
And that's very much also what the task force on Nature related disclosures is working on.
And so and there is a beginning of this.
But what we do need to do is to have a degree of understanding so that it doesn't become greenwashing.
And so that it has a genuineness to it that is comparable across portfolio.
That's why getting a clear, post-2020 framework with the with the goals that can then be translated will matter because then smart
organisations will surely come up with clear science based targets that companies can measure their portfolio on.
And let's begin with those that really have footprint timber, pulp and paper palm oil.
So those that have read that have significant footprint in if we just want to look at commodities.
But then let's look not just at the countries that are growing them, but at the consumption of these things.
And because it will probably turn out that you and I and our economies are consuming most of the palm oil.
So we just need to think around around this in a way that does not cause further poverty in countries that are producing and export exporting.
But that can readjust. And so I think what we're seeing is some companies have already been leaning in and experimenting with this.
We see that in the context of the World Economic Forum, where some interesting work has been happening with with a series of companies.
We still have quite some some way to go.
And of course, getting the financiers, the investors, the insurers and the bankers to align with this will be the next,
the next, the next to do I do a slightly big one that you will need to take on in the context of the Europe financial unify.
Thanks. I think you've also partially answered Henry Grumps question about the additional complexity of biodiversity compared to climate change.
I mean, there's good disclosure through CDP and not on all of the interests, not all of the metrics that Charlie will be interested in, of course.
And I think in general, that could be a lot more disclosure here.
Now I want to shift gears a little bit and ask you a question which I'm probably going to fail to do justice to.
So my apologies to Christophe Place, who's put it, there's a lot of interest in this.
I think he's interested in alternative currencies where the cryptocurrencies or barter arrangements or,
you know, very local currencies and asking the question,
Could we use these new and innovative forms of currencies, perhaps to as a tool of incentivization for biodiversity protection?
And I think what Christoph and various others have commented on this idea is
getting at is perhaps if the conventional monetary system isn't working for
us and if valuing nature in terms of dollars and pounds and euros and renminbi
is it is not working kind of some of these newer forms of kind of proto.
I was going to say Persia capitalism. That's not quite right, either. New monetary systems might be able to help.
So apologies to everybody interested in this. And there's also a related question about the environmental impacts of cryptocurrencies.
But I just wondered,
have you or your teams done much thinking about the intersection between novel currencies and environmental protection or environmental damage,
for that matter? So the impact on the carbon footprint we all know and understand, and that's something that we cannot walk away from, right?
But that's known and and complex.
And I think I have to be honest and say, no, we have not done detailed work on this.
What we have understood very clearly in our new strategy that we are that we just had approved in the United Nations
Environmental Assembly that happened a couple of months ago and which will go to kick into force at the end of the year.
It's a four year strategy where we are making a significant emphasis on the digital transformation,
where we would try to work on a I on digital transformation for environmental stewardship and protection and clearly understanding what.
Under engaging with crypto, engaging with big data, engaging, getting,
engaging with a eye is something that we all saying and people like me don't understand
the post of it because I'm completely not qualified to speak to these issues.
But there are people who are. And so what we are establishing now is a network of people who can help us.
I mean, I'm lucky to have some brilliant colleagues who work in this field, but that's not where we have the armies of people.
And so we need to reach out and understand more. And whether whether that will be an opportunity to drive funding there.
We've seen what I mean. We saw what Douche Coin was doing just recently,
and it's sort of shocking that what community action can do and stand up companies and not as the case may be.
And that was just sort of done as a joke initially when it was launched, as I understand.
So I think there are ways of trying to begin to understand this new market and this new tool and instrument.
But we are not there. I have to say also finally, that the secretary is very,
very interested in digital transformation and has launched a digital transformation
task force and platform and strategy precisely to lift the U.N. into into this.
This sphere we have. And just a final point.
I would say we have promoted digital transformation through what we call the Coalition for Digital Environmental
Sustainability that was launched at the time when the secretary general's digital roadmap was launched.
And that is, an open, multi-stakeholder community of engaged digital actors in the environmental space is more than data.
We have the World Environment Situation Room at unit, but it's looking at how we can use that technology for good.
But that's a very bad answer to Christoph because it sounds like he knows much more about this than I will and I do.
We'll have to have another session on digital currencies and the environment at some point.
That'd be fun, actually. I think that a lot. I want to.
We're running low on time. As always, I want to come to, well, actually take the point about cryptocurrencies,
which which do enable a kind of coordination that doesn't have a central actor and come
back to this question of international coordination around here because as we know,
many of the biodiversity that we need, protecting many of our natural assets are global public goods.
Some of them are sitting within national boundaries. Others aren't and kind of intriguingly, last last conversation with Partha.
He put forward this idea, which is in the review page 40.
If you're interested. And 72, that perhaps we need a new international organisation, maybe like the World Bank or the IMF,
he said, to monitor and manage the global commons and in particular, perhaps imposing charges on the open seas and then using the revenues raised to
support the protection of global public goods within particular boundaries,
and that, if it were to work, would be an answer to Andy Johnson's question about how do we help countries that are nature rich and cash poor.
So I guess the broader question here is how do we go about achieving the kind of necessary international coordination here?
What are the what are the best mechanisms to manage the flows of finance from where the money is sitting to where it needs to go to protect nature?
Look, I mean, I'll get to that, but can I just say that right now we have a pandemic where vaccine hoarding has been the name of the game?
If you had the money for the vaccines, you kept them for your population and the rest of the world has not have access.
Commitments have been made to COVAX, the collective vaccination effort.
And they're not being followed through. That's just for a little vaccine, right?
That's just for a little vaccine. So the first point is really international solidarity means what international solidarity?
Words are easy, but actually actions have to follow through.
And that means that people in the wealthier countries actually need to insist on that solidarity.
And are we ready to do that? I would hope that we are, but the lessons from the vaccine story are not that good.
So here in Kenya, not even one percent are vaccinated. So, so this is.
So here we are. But no. So the idea of living up to the commitments we have made over the decades is real.
And part, of course, is absolutely right. We've made the commitments under biodiversity.
If we had lived up and delivered what we promised that COP 10, we'd be in a very different setting for biodiversity today.
If we had delivered and understood what we what science told us from the IPCC on climate, we would be very different.
So the first thing is really before we begin a never ending consultation on establishing this big edifice that I can see in the minds,
I would be very attractive, but we haven't even been able to agree on a carbon tax.
So I think we have a long way to go. Article six remains unfinished as far as the Paris accord is concerned.
So we probably can't get a multilateral agreement to such a grandiose idea.
However interesting it might be academically speaking. So let's do this.
Let's deliver on the commitments we've made. Let's deliver on the conventions we've made,
and I hope that the multilateral organisations that are charged with environmental stewardship, which is, you know,
would receive the adequate funding and the adequate support and the expectations people should demand things of us too,
that we can, that we have the ability and the teeth to deliver what is needed.
And it's it's hard right now in the multilateral setting.
It has become easier as we have sort of seen the US come back into the climate accord, et cetera.
But there are divisions and you just need to open your newspaper to understand that these
divisions that reflect in the global geopolitics are obviously also reflected in multilateralism.
But if we are concerned about the next generation, if we are concerned about sustainability and poverty reduction even in the wealthier countries,
we have to take care of our planet because that is what sustains us.
So I want to pick up on the point you made there about international solidarity and values and trying, if I can.
And probably we're going towards the a group, a few questions into one.
So there's one from Viviana on the ethics again of valuing nature.
And her point really is, isn't it? Human values that need to be shifted is perhaps not a population issue.
It's a consumption issue, and we need to think about our values and Jesse's Jesse.
My apologies. Francis correctly made a kind of similar point that if we're using the economic financial frameworks that we have,
that's actually been depleting nature with profits as a key motivation isn't, isn't this to get things backwards?
We're putting a square peg in a round hole. We need to be rethinking the underlying objectives and values and actually to add another one,
Patrick Walkden has said, Well, don't we need different measures of what success looks like?
Just kind of related to the point about what we value, what we find important. Do we need a different metric, not GDP, to measure progress?
And you've already spoken about inclusive wealth as a as a metric.
So I wonder if you might kind of reflect upon the the solidarity human values?
How do we get a shift towards, I guess,
a more enlightened human population that realises that we we just need to work together on these issues or we're stopped?
Yeah. I mean, these are brilliant, brilliant points,
and I think that the I will say that I think that the generally the younger generation
today is much further ahead in that enlightenment than the generation of past.
And maybe it's because the crisis that is looming on the horizon.
So that's the first point.
Now, as I would always say, well, you know, don't put it on us, you know, you guys fix it, you're still sitting in the chairs.
And that's a very valuable point that she she makes again and again.
So but but I do think that that Viviana is correct.
It is the human values that needs shifting. We relaunched just a month and a half ago, a report called Making Peace with Nature.
It's a significant report that we and in which we describe that we need exactly what Patrick spoke to.
A fundamental rethink of what success look like looks like a fundamental rethink of economy.
A fundamental rethink of. All of society of business, there's lots of detail in it,
but it essentially is is challenging ourselves to rethink the economic system as we know them today.
And that's what Jesse was saying, because if we continue and I will say that we still need growth in certain countries,
and I just had to slide that in because you still have 100 million people going to bed hungry every night,
800 million people going to bed hungry every night and over a billion people living in extreme poverty.
But we also need to have a redistribution across across a global setting.
But but but I will say that yes, it is about values.
Yes, it is about a fundamental shift in our framework.
And yes, it is about having different measures of what success looks like.
So the question is how to write, because these are the issues that become difficult.
But that is where we as voters, we as global citizens, we as academicians and educators and students and international bureaucrats like myself,
we have to speak out and demand things because that's how systems change.
That's how they changed in the past. That's how fundamental societal shifts happen in that we demand it.
And at times the popular demand for change is ahead of the political will.
Yeah, but it is. By driving the popular demand that the political world shifts, the Secretary-General has often said power is not given it is taken.
He says that often when he speaks to young people and when he speaks to women or other oppressed groups around the world, and it is true.
But it is about driving that, that demand. And I think we well by events such as what you have here, we are helping drive it in the right direction.
And a quick kind of postscript to that. I'm just going to tack on a question by Joseph,
which is that if we've got to pressure the politicians and we've got to build these social movements to think about,
you know, enlightenment values, what's important in a different way.
His question is, well, isn't this sort of economic paradigm, the desk of the review that I work in that you work in,
could that alienate the very people who we need to get passionate about these questions to drive change?
Is it is it perhaps a kind of paradox or an irony that that's the thing that you need to
drive the shift in the financial and economic systems isn't the economics in the finance,
it's the passion in the heart and the and the social movements as you need,
both because at the end of the day, society runs on, on companies, on financing.
It doesn't run on, on planned economy.
And I don't think that that's the direction of travel. And so we need to ensure that we a go back to where we started,
that the guardrails that you and I set or that we ask our governments to set are
such that the economics are driving in the direction of long term sustainability.
But and we need to get those finances just as passionate and just as engaged as the activists.
And the thing is that therein lies the opportunities for the future in renewable,
in green, in nature, positive agriculture and sustainable consumption and production.
That's where opportunities will lie. And then and all the aspects I mentioned relation to gender and empowerment.
Well, I think that is a marvellous place to wrap up this very enjoyable conversation.
Thank you very much for your time. And I'm sure others have enjoyed it, too.
I'm sorry. We still have well over a dozen, if not more, questions remaining.
I will lock them, will try and get to them in subsequent sessions.
As I said earlier, we have a session on the 3rd of June with Professor Dame Henrietta Moore and Charles Godfrey.
And on the 17th of June with Natalie Sutton and me, I'll be back again chairing that one.
So it remains really to thank you for all the work you're doing on this agenda and on many others, as we've heard.
And thanks for your partnership and support of what Oxford is doing here too.
And thank you very much, of course, for your time today. Thanks. Thank you so much, Cameron, and thank you to everybody who participated.
Thank you.