 Okay, good morning everybody. My name is Edward Simpson and I'm the director of the SOAS South Asia Institute. I'm here to welcome you to the SOAS pre-cop event day two, which we've called Global Perspectives. This conference is the result of collaboration of different parts of SOAS University of London, the Centre for Development Policy, the Centre for Sustainable Finance, the South Asia Institute, and other regional centres and institutes whose logos have not made it onto this beautiful looking slide. So yesterday, in part one of this event, we heard from colleagues at SOAS about research across disciplines and across areas. And to me, there was some things that came out clearly as examples of SOAS expertise. The first was policy and process research. We clearly had strengths in finance and critical thinking about financial mechanisms. But perhaps more surprisingly and in some ways for me heartwarming, we also have a strength in the environmental humanities. Perhaps across these two pieces, I saw interest in knowledge politics. Knowledge politics in the most kind of abstract sense. So how do we know? How do we trust? What do we respond to? How do we change things? How do we engage? I'm an anthropologist and I'm very interested in these kinds of questions. What is belief? Conviction? Where does it come from? Why do we hold things so dear? What role does the politics of the left or politics of the right play in our knowledge and our approach to things like climate change and social change? What role does religion or culture and importantly, geography play in the way that we think about climate change and we approach COP. So geography is the focus of today's talk in some ways. We're moving out of London. We're moving into the regions that SOAS works with. We have a range of high profile and very well known speakers, commentators, researchers who are going to talk with an edge on COP. Yesterday we used the unusual format of Pecha Kucha presentations where speakers had about seven minutes to talk. Today we're going to be even more experimental and give academics an unstructured 10 minutes, which is I think a more risky format even than the one yesterday. I mentioned this just to draw colleagues' attention into that 10 minutes magical time limit, but also to introduce you who have joined us for this part two of this event that we've intended from the outset for this event to be experimental, for it to be lively, and for us to be able to reach a wider range and a more diverse audience and academic conference usually would. That's the short presentations, the irreverent approach to geography and discipline in some ways, but we're all brought together by thinking through the challenges of COP. Thank you very much. I'm a host for the day, but I'm going to now pass you to Tom Tanner, who's a colleague at SOAS, chair for the Centre for Geography, Development, Environment and Policy. He's going to say a few words of introduction before the programme starts. Thank you. Hi, thanks, Ed, and thanks all for joining us, including those watching the livestream and if you're watching back on the videos that we've posted. I'm really excited that we've got such an amazing array of speakers today. I think I'd add to Ed that this central concept of SOAS of working in partnership with others and trying to understand different perspectives than our own and recognising that we may not be able to think in ways that others think, and that's what we're interested in discovering and part of our attempts to economise knowledge and our curriculum and accept that we're a product of where we were brought up, how we were educated and our experiences and that we're open to hearing from others. Now, today, we're really fortunate to hear from some others who have really varied and also long track records working in the climate change space. And I'm just really happy to have them here with us. And I hope you enjoy hearing from them, too. And we'll kick off with some perspectives from South Asia and move through some of the other parts of the world. Thanks. Tom, thank you very much. So we have seven talks this morning. Timekeeping is the essence. I won't go on about that any more than I already have. But first, it gives me a great pleasure to welcome Professor Navaraj Dubash to SOAS. Welcome, Navaraj. Excuse me. Navaraj is a professor at the Centre for Policy Research, which is in a leafy part of Delhi. It's a very nice place if you're passing by. I highly recommend the hospitality of CPR. Navaraj is editor and author of some very influential publications. India in a Warming World, Mapping Power and the Handbook of Climate Change in India, which is one of my most referred to books. It's the closest one, actually, to my desk very often. So it's nice to see you in person, even if we're on Zoom. He's also the author of an award-winning paper on India's energy and emissions future, which I would encourage those of you interested in emissions politics and energy politics to read. Navaraj is also the co-ordinating lead author of IPCC current writing project. So Navaraj and Tom are going to enter into some magical form of Q&A, which I look forward to. Welcome to SOAS, and thank you for being here. Thank you. Thank you so much, Edward. I'm really delighted to join this event and look forward to the experimental format. And thanks, Thomas, for being willing to engage me in conversation. We should get to it. Not at all. Let's get to it. So, Navaraj, your name has been associated, I guess, with climate change for a long time, and you are involved right back in the early days of formations of the UNFCCC. But importantly, you're known for starting the civil society side of the engagement. Tell us a little bit about your experiences way back when in what the 1990s, early 1990s, and selling up that civil society side of the UN processes. Right. Thanks, Thomas. It does take take me back a ways. So in 1990, when the UNFCCC process hadn't really started, it was then the INC process, the International Negotiating Committee. A few enterprising civil society types realized that they were rubbing shoulders with just a handful of people, largely from Europe, the US and a couple from Australia. And if we wanted to have more of a civil society role in the climate negotiations, which were then sort of ramping up in particular from other geographies, they needed to be some proactive efforts to get people there. And so I had happened to work on some climate related projects, literally in college. And they needed somebody to try and dig out people and bring them in. And so I got hired. There's a little bit of a gamble, I think. And we managed to identify a lot of very interesting people in India, people like Sunita Narayan, who is now, of course, well known and Anil Agarwal, the head of the Center for Science and Environment. One of your speakers later on, Saleemul Haq, was one of our interlocutors, along with his colleague, Attik Rehman from Bangladesh and several others who have actually stayed involved. So it was a fabulous effort at network building. I will say that it is now certainly only one among several civil society voices. And I think the world is the climate advocacy world is richer for the fact that there are a multiplicity of voices. But CAN has been remarkably consistent in state of the course. And it was a very exciting time for me personally. And it's great to see CAN still around. CAN, of course, is the Climate Action Network International. So that's really the backdrop. And I will say that I then, kind of after having done that for a couple of years, through Rio, I went off and did something completely different for a decade plus. And I think really where the climate debate has matured, and we're seeing this now in Paris, is that climate isn't sort of a sort of a little diplomatic space that's boxed off. It's much more interwoven with broader development conversations. And I think that's that's where we are now in climate debates. And that's where I think this conversation probably will go as well. Thank you. Yeah. But you're back involved, obviously more heavily now in climate change work. Obviously, our interaction was particularly around the air pollution and the climate in India. But how do you see the Indian perspective now as opposed to how it's evolved through the through the progression of the UNFCC since since the early nineties? What's the Indian take and how has it changed? So so I think India was among the countries really advocating very strongly a position on climate equity, which we which of course both civil society and the government continue to do. But I think what has really changed and this is in a sense, you know, there's a personal arc here that that kind of that kind of has tracked this this this national global arc. What has changed, I think, is the realization that a lot of mainstream development decisions are actually relevant to climate outcomes and that there are a lot of development decisions that actually are convergent with positive climate outcomes. So when you're building your cities, when you're building public transport networks, you're building a more livable city, but you're also building a city that is better able to contribute to the mitigation challenge. So that realization combined with growing awareness of the vulnerability that India faces from climate change, as well as I think the coming of age of India as a geopolitical actor, at least the attempted coming of age of India as a geopolitical actor means that India that that sort of diplomatically, we don't want to be above the parapet in a sense or in the firing line, you know, pick your metaphor when it comes to climate change where we were for for quite a long time. And so I think I think there's been a conscious effort to both change how we talk about climate change in India and not make it only in us, then North, South, you go first, we'll follow later kind of story. That remains, of course. But while that is very much part of the narrative, it is also a story now about what can we do domestically that will make India more sustainable and livable place while also contributing to climate change. And it turns out that there's actually quite a lot. So I think that's what that shift in realizations open political doors. Actually, I think that's that reflects a little bit on the talk yesterday from Leo Horn Pathanatai from WRI, who spoke about these compatibilities and, you know, simple co-benefits between having a city that's more connected and better to live in and climate benefits. Is that something that's taken off the smart cities initiative in India is known about around the world? Is that something that has there's a sense that that's driving a climate agenda, but quietly the climate agenda in the background and pushing forward the more developmental benefits first? Well, well, part of my frustration, to be honest, Thomas, is that is that we talk, we talk a good line, but often there just isn't the effort, capacity and thought that goes into translating that into both policy and action on the ground. So smart cities sounds good, but has there been enough deliberation about what a smart city looks like in the era of climate change? I'm not sure the answer to that is is yes. So we haven't really been able to bring these things together in a way that is that is that is entirely useful or practical. I think there's a lot of space that's opened up because of some of the changes in rhetoric, but we haven't populated that space in a way that is quite as quite as productive, I think, as we should. That seems fair enough. Bringing things closer to Glasgow, it's 10 days away, nine days away. Can you tell us a little bit about the Indian perspective on COP 26, certainly from a researcher perspective, what characterizes India's approach? Right. Well, I see a question is popped up in the chat now. I'll try and take a crack at that as well. So I think when I talked a little while ago about about how perhaps there's kind of a narrative that gets out ahead of the policy and the deliberation, I think part of the problem is that we in their gears up for a COP just a few months before it happens. And so a lot of the attention ends up being focused on making sure that, you know, as I said, that we're not in the filing line. Where does climate action track the rank India and so on and so forth? Right. And that's that's a shame, really, because there is a lot of political momentum, but it just gets dissipated in a short period of time instead of sustaining something that's that's much longer. So I do think that right now there's a lot of conversation in India, and I'm not privy to the inside of that, but conversation about India upgrading its NDC. Now, if we had been having a sustained conversation about this, I think we could have been a very useful and interesting conversation about how we interweave climate with urban challenges, with the story about the cold to renewable transition. And that was what the question was about. So there's been internal debate. I and others have written that the time they have come for India to declare no new coal-fired power plants, which doesn't mean we won't burn any more coal because we actually have a fair number of plants that are burning less than they could. So there's sort of a little bit of headroom there, but at least we won't be adding new plants and, of course, renewable energy is going up at quite a pace. We should be having conversations about things like that. I think I think India is going to come to the table with very familiar calls about for finance and technology support. But I do think that there will be some form of upgrade in terms of the NDC. Again, don't hold me to that. I'm not in the sort of I don't have a crystal ball on this. But I think there's this conversation about it. I think what's very what what India should really be thinking about, though, in my view, is on a sector by sector level, what can we do differently? And yeah, I just would like to sort of make a small detour. There's been a very active debate in India about the value, about the virtues and the problems of net zero formulations. And I'm among those who think that for a country like India, where energy needs are growing steeply, a net zero formulation off into the distant future is less likely to drive change than a sector by sector conversation of how you bring development and climate together. How do you decarbonize electricity? How do you have fewer tons of carbon of less carbon per passenger mile traveled in transport? How do you do that in the building sector? That intersection with development makes it much more likely to bring about action. What a country like India needs to do. And we talked about this separately, you know, what is sort of an Indian take on climate change. I think a country like India has to actually work really hard to avoid emissions. Right. We're not that we haven't peaked. We're probably not going to peak for a bit. We have to develop in a way where we don't lock into a high carbon future that you then subsequently have to unwind. We don't want to do the China path where we lock, where we kind of substantially lock into high carbon, then we try and unwind fast. We want to have a much shallower, flatter trajectory. And I think if India could make that case for the world thinking about what would take for India to move to that shallower, flatter trajectory, I think that would be a really positive contribution. I'm noticing we're pretty much out of time. So I want to follow Edward's injunction. No, my clock still says nine minutes 50. So just a last little input, really, which is the question is. It's a very simple and short, short, easy to answer question is what can an Indian perspective to climate change bring to the rest of the world? What have you learned nationally that you can take to the rest of the world? Well, I think some of what we know is commonplace now, right? We have to spend a lot more time on adaptation and vulnerable countries have to really focus on adaptation. We give it a lot of lip service. It doesn't get nearly the space it deserves. And I'll let Salim talk much more about that. But the other piece of this is if you want to drive development and climate change together, you may not want to have conversations about tons of carbon right off the bat and about net zero. You want to have conversations about about how do you achieve multiple objectives of development and climate change in ways that reinforce each other and that avoid synergies? It's a different framing of the problem. And the war we make this about sort of a show us the tons and the certainty of the ton reduction. It doesn't make sense for a country where emissions are going to increase, right? It's actually it's the increase at a slower pace and in ways that don't lock you into carbon. And I believe that's best done in a sort of sector by sector development driven sort of way. Great. I mean, that partly answers one of the questions on the on the chat, which is is India on track to meet its NDCs? And you're essentially saying that this long term trajectory of plotting NDCs and these, you know, commitment based like, are you on track? Are you going to meet the number of gigatons? Well, I think I think the Paris mechanism is really helpful in spurring and stimulating domestic conversation. I feel like India has not done enough in using that that opportunity. And look, I'm fine with tracking tons and so on and so forth, but it needs to be near term, right? I think what I'd like to see is a lot more emphasis from the industrialized countries, we've seen that shift in the course this year on what you're going to do in the next 10 years, what you're going to do in 2050 is less useful if you're going to back load it. Let's front load our actions, please. And in developing countries that are increasing their emissions, it's imperative to front load because you don't want to lock into high carbon, the China story, and try and unwind that unwind that later. So I would kind of bring the lens forward a bit. Let's focus a bit more on the next 10 years and how do we get political saleability of low carbon infrastructures? And that's the other piece of it, right? A lot of this is about infrastructure development, which tends to have decade of time frames. We need to make sure that infrastructure is compatible with the low carbon future. And we need to do that right now. Fantastic, never was that. That was really fascinating. And thank you so much for your insights. And yeah, we shall take them. We shall blend them a little with, as you say, with your early discussions and collaborations with Professor Salim Al-Huk, who we're going to hear from next by way of a video. He's unable to make it today, but I spoke to him at the weekend. Record a little video, put a few edits into it to make it a bit more exciting. So hopefully if Sunil can can play that for us now, we'll hear from him. Thanks so much, never was. Thank you very much for having me on. So a warm welcome to Professor Salim Al-Huk is from Bangladesh. He's a very much an old timer in the cop process. He's been going to all the cops since cop one. In fact, before cop, when the UNRCCC was signed at the Rio Conference back in 1992. So he's seen the evolution and first I invite you to tell tell us something about that evolution and where cop 26 sits within relation to that wider evolution of UNFCCC. Well, I give you thank you very much, Tom, for inviting me. I'll give you my potted history of the cop over the last 25 or more years. I call it the three eras of climate change. And it's to do with how we have perceived the issue of climate change and therefore how we have taken actions or not taken actions. So the first perception that came out of the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which are the scientists warning the rest of the world that climate changes are going to happen if we don't take actions led to everybody coming together in Rio, signing the convention. And then ever since then having an annual meeting, the cop to track process. And the first thing was it's about emissions of greenhouse gases. We don't want to do that. We need to reduce it. So we all agree to reduce it and that in climate change are going to be called mitigation. But we didn't. We agreed to do it, but we didn't. And then a few years later, we had a number of cops. And then in around the turn of the century, after the third assessment report of the IPCC pointed out, scientists pointed out that we haven't done enough mitigation. We are now, unfortunately, locked into some degree of warming. And that's going to have consequences and that we're going to have to deal with that and that poor people are going to suffer more than rich people are. And so it's a development issue, not just an environmental issue. And that's when the development world started getting involved developing countries, develop development agencies like the UN and the World Bank, etc. And that's the second era I call the adaptation era when we start thinking about adapting to climate change. Not that mitigation should be stopped. It has to continue, but it hasn't been enough. So we now need to adapt. We are now on the cusp of moving into the third era, which I call the era of loss and damage because the sixth assessment report of IPCC has just come out a couple of months ago, saying that we are now unequivocally seeing, seeing, not anticipating, seeing the impacts of human induced climate change attributable to human beings causing that impact. And therefore we are seeing loss and damage from climate change attributable to human beings causing that loss and damage, no longer natural impacts alone. And therefore we're going to have to deal with this third era. And so that makes COP26 an extremely important COP because it's the first COP of this new era. And it needs to rise to the challenge of dealing with this new era of loss and damage, which I don't see it doing. So does that detect some pessimism for the outcomes of COP26? Indeed, indeed. So I've been an optimist, as you said, I've been to all the cops. I should point out I never went as a negotiator. I'm not a negotiator, but I am an independent observer. I'm an academic researcher, but I do have a role. I advise the least developed countries, which is 48 of the poorest countries currently chaired by Bhutan. So in the negotiations, I'm an advisor to them on the issues of adaptation and loss and damage. So I do have a role behind the scenes in providing advice. And until now, I have been an optimist of getting everybody together. But because particularly for the poorest countries, like the least developed countries, this is the only place where they have a say any other gathering, you know, the G20, the G7 or whatever other gathering of the big and famous excludes them. So the UNFCC is the only place where they have a say, not that they can do much with that say, but occasionally they can. And the biggest outcome for them was in the Paris Agreement, getting the 1.5 degree goal against very stiff odds enshrined in the Paris Agreement. So now it's all about delivering on that promise, on that pledge, which we are not in shape to do, but we have to do. And so the least developed countries in particular will be pushing for staying on track for 1.5 degrees. At the moment, we're headed for 2.7, better than 3.5, but still nowhere near 1.5. So we're going to have to up the action. And secondly, for the most vulnerable countries, there was a pledge made in Paris from the rich countries to provide $100 billion a year, starting from 2020. Money never appeared. We're nowhere near even the first hundred billion of that. We certainly missed 2020. We're now at the end of 2021. There should be $200 billion on the table now, but there's nowhere near. There's not even the first hundred billion that was promised. So again, cause for pessimism. So you're your director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development. It was certainly the first and is almost certainly the still the foremost international centre on climate change, certainly based in the global south. It's got quite a legacy behind it now. But you've also worked with the Bangladeshi government advising them and obviously from an LDC perspective until recently. And what would you say are the key issues for COP26 from a Bangladesh perspective? Well, Bangladesh, I would say three things very quickly. Firstly, Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries. We've known that for a long time. Now, well over, you know, a decade and a half when you were in Bangladesh, we all knew about that. So it's not new news to us. And we haven't been sitting idle Bangladesh has been doing a hell of a lot in terms of going up a learning curve on how to adapt to the impacts of climate change. So we have a lot. We have learned a lot. We have a lot to learn. But we also have a lot to teach the rest of the world as it happens. This particular year, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Shekhasina also happens to be the chair of a group of vulnerable countries called the Climate Vulnerable Forum, which is nearly 50 countries. They're not a negotiating group like the LDC group or the Small Island States. They they come from the different negotiating groups. And it's a political level group chaired by the Prime Minister herself. And this group was the one that was instrumental in the one point five agreement in COP 21 at that time under the leadership of President Aquino of the Philippines. And I am one of the expert advisors of the Climate Vulnerable Forum have been for many years. So this year Bangladesh and our Prime Minister, who I understand will be in Glasgow will be speaking not only for Bangladesh, but for the Climate Vulnerable Forum countries as a whole. And there are three demands. The one is we have to keep one point five one track. That was our number one demand from the very beginning. One point five came from us. Secondly, the hundred billion that was promised has to be delivered. Half of it needs to go for adaptation. So far, you know, whatever money has been delivered. Only 20 percent of that has gone for adaptation in the vulnerable countries. That's not right. We're asking for half of it. And then thirdly, the under Prime Minister, Shekhasina, the Climate Vulnerable Forum has taken up this time for the first time the issue of loss and damage because, as I said, it is now an era of loss and damage. And we have to deal with that. Fantastic. And, you know, are you are you confident for from from Bangladesh perspective, what might be achieved at COP 26? And that is with regard to those demands. Is that is glass half full glass half empty? Well, I think I am personally a glass half full type of person. But I don't see the filling part of the glass coming from governments. That's where my pessimism about cops now comes into play. But I do see the filling part coming from non state actors. And there will be many of us. And I'm one of them as well. I'm not a state actor. I'm a non state actor. Many of us will be in Glasgow. I hope you'll be there. We'll meet up and we are the ones who have to deliver on giving us this opportunity to escape the worst impacts of climate change. And I think we can do it. But we cannot rely on our governments to do it alone. They have failed us time and time again. And I'm absolutely certain they'll fail us again. So do you think the cops actually the right place for those actors to actually make these things? Or is the COP, you know, not fit for purposes? It's got the wrong people there talking about the wrong things. I think the right people are in the city where the COP is held. But they're not the ones who the right people aren't the ones who are given the platform. I've argued after the Paris Agreement was achieved that we should have what we what I call inside out cops where the negotiators, you know, who spend all night negotiating over commas and words in a completely arcane language that is completely unintelligible to the wider public, put them in the back rooms and let them negotiate all night if they want to and give the main cleanery floors to actors who are doing things. They can be CEOs of companies. They can be mayors of cities. They can be parliamentarians. They can be academics like you and I. They can be grassroots groups, indigenous groups, young people's groups. Give them the stage for telling people what they are doing because a lot is happening. They are doing a lot. And to me, the actions speak louder than words. And the people doing the actions need to be given center stage. And the people who are just fighting over words should be given the backstage. And if they come up with something good at the end, fine, we'll listen to them, but don't hang on their words and their negotiations. It's extremely difficult. So my my advice to any journalist that I'm talking to is don't look for answers or the story is not in the blue zone where the negotiators are going to be. The story in Glasgow is outside the blue zone. It's what other people are doing. Go and cover that. And there'll be hundreds of them. There'll be we'll be all, you know, telling about our stories of what we're doing. That, to me, is what the outcome of COP26 should be. And if we can make that happen, then I'll say the cops may still be fit for purpose, but with a redesigned purpose. Fantastic. Thank you very much for your perspectives. Professor Salim al-Huk, we wish you well in Glasgow and I'll see you there, no doubt. And thanks a lot for contributing to this session on regional perspectives. Thank you. So I hope you enjoyed that. It's always fascinating to hear Salim talk. And I think this it may take a few years, but this this sentiment around the inside out cop process is is closer than you imagine. I I you see the media in the buildup to this year's cop are much more interested in the people who are actually taking the actions. So to some extent, holding politicians to account, you know, you have these long term goals, what's your short term actions that Navarro has touched on, but actually there's so much happening in the non state actors and in some of the state actors as well. So we heard yesterday about how cities and, you know, mayors in cities and willing to take action even in in places where their national governments aren't so active and and leading. So I hope we were to take some of forward some of those ideas. I saw some nodding from panelists on our screens. So I hope we could take some of those forward in in the subsequent talks. I think we'll take a moment now to involve those who are who are watching online on Zoom and a little poll and just to ask you, I'm going to put the code for a Mentimeter poll. You click on it, it's in the chat now. The poll is around your own level of expertise where you see yourself. It helps the the speakers as well to get a sense of of the audience and the extent to which you feel like you are an expert or otherwise in climate change. So please do go there and vote and I'll share my screen and we can look at some other results. So a nice half, half of those who voted another basics, but want to know more. So it's good to know for. For the speakers. To pitch pitch their discussion, the graphic has not appeared on the shared screen yet. Oh, I beg your pardon. It is a little bit. I'm afraid my screen has glitched. There we go. I had a wheel of death for a moment there. I was rather worried. OK, so we definitely got most people as wanting to know more about climate change and a few super experts. Probably equal with those who are who are mostly new to the process. That's great to know. Thank you, Ed. How would you? How would you recommend the people who are in the pink category move to the red category or even beyond to the yellow category? Well, those who are in the academic sphere and have the have the chance to to attend events like this, I think there's a there's a real space for the kind of climate change one on one and something we're trying to do, obviously, within SARS and obviously other universities that we partner with like like Salim's Institute in Bangladesh to try and help improve and build that base level of those who understand. So through short courses, events like this, as well as the more formalized academia, but those who are, you know, who are studying at the moment do hunt hunt these things out, particularly this year, actually, certainly from the UK, there's been a real push across the university sector to to reach out and, you know, to to publics, not just to their own students, but there's there's so much reading to be had, the main thing is look for your sources and, you know, don't take it off your Facebook feed that's been sent by your crazy friend try and look for those kind of more independent sources, but also do look for those sources within, you know, the place where you live. So whether it be, you know, local local perspectives on on the climate crisis or national ones in your own country. I mean, for me, the local perspectives are really important. I think one of the lessons from working around the world and in my own region of the UK has been to situate it in issues that are, you know, pertinent to the local area. So, you know, the classic polar bear adrift on an ice flow doesn't really speak to to people living in semi-arid areas. There are more pressing concerns locally, and that's what you need to engage with. Brilliant, Tom, thank you. OK, so we are slightly ahead of schedule, but that's that's a good thing, I think, in my view. It gives me a pleasure to welcome Dr. Pierre Esubar, to sow us welcome. I don't know where in the world you are, but I can see a wooden structure behind you. Yeah, so I'm based in southern Thailand, in the Andaman area of Thailand. So I will be sharing our experiences, and I feel really humble to be to be speaking right after the previous speakers. In fact, I feel it feels it fits right into the definition of local actors. And I feel I can contribute in that regard, sharing what other lessons learned and the issues we are facing in terms of harnessing climate change and its mitigation here in southern Thailand, especially linking to development, environmental degradation. So it's kind of a specific kind of like holistic look at climate change and its ramifications down here in southern Thailand. May I may I introduce you before you tell us more about southern Thailand? Yeah, fantastic. So Pierre is a research associate of SOWAS Center for Southeast Asian Studies. So thank you, Rachel, who is here for making that connection. Pierre's work is on social and ecological systems. He's worked extensively with the World Health Organization. And today he's safeguarding. He's talking about coastal resilience in the time of crisis in the southern Andaman. And of course, as SOWAS is a regional studies school, we had an interesting debate in advance of this as to where the Andaman actually was, whether it was in south or southeast Asia. We decided it in both. Yeah, Pierre, thank you very much and welcome to SOWAS. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for the opportunity to to learn with you and share our views down there. I apologize. I'm not Thai, obviously, but all the team down here is indeed Thai. And I mean, from various places in Thailand, of course, Thailand is not an homogeneous culture. So if I may share my screen, because I have a presentation, it may help see some visuals from it. So how do we do that? Cannot see, do you see well the presentation? So so as you as you mentioned, I just briefly corroborate what you are saying. So I'm here as a researcher, as a researcher for SOWAS, but also I've been over the last few years leading a certain number of community based biodiversity conservation projects in the Andaman region of southern Thailand, Krabi in particular. So what what I thought was appropriate, especially following the previous discussions, was to specifically highlight three main issues we are facing. And that, I believe, by being addressed or at least acknowledged, will shed some light into further description that we can have during the COP26, for example, and beyond. So I would just briefly start with a description of where we are at and what we are trying to do down here. So need to mind it is what we kind of like use as an umbrella. It's essentially a portfolio of projects. It combines or focuses on strong local partnerships with different institutions, different fishing communities and non fishing communities. We bring in technical capacity in in in relation to monitoring data, in monitoring biodiversity situation, in in helping with any very local, very local conservation projects accounting for the realities of the fishing communities down here. And indeed, this leads to contextualized solutions in terms of what can be done pragmatically. And indeed, it's towards ecosystem restoration and building capacity, adaptive capacity towards resilience and or transformation, especially particularly difficult and relevant in this time as in the context of the climate crisis, the global environmental degradation and the pandemic. And this is, I would say, in order of magnitude when the COVID pandemic has been really, really, really impacting people livelihood down here, I mean, everywhere in the world. But I would say, particularly vivid down here in terms of practice and exposure and vulnerability in relation to climate change, indeed, as well. So that's what we are doing down here. Issue number one that we are that I think can, by being defined and harnessed or described, can help move the agenda forward. Indeed, we're not talking about just one crisis, but many of them. And I don't want necessarily to bring attention to all the tiny details in this sphere on the right. But indeed, as you all know, better than me, probably, it's very complex and there's a lot of nested issues and feedbacks and synergies. And what we realize down here from very practical standpoint is, yes, the climate climate change has an impact in terms of potential for deriving livelihood, fishing, the quality of the environment and the impact on natural resources. But down the line, what's really, I would say, impact on an everyday basis is really the social turmoil associated with the COVID impacts, the proximal environmental degradation that are exacerbated by climate change. So what we are trying to do is really to dissect and at least acknowledge this nested nestedness of issues. And by doing so, prioritize or identify the entry points. And I'll come to that a little bit later during the solution part. The second set of issue or the second issue is really the urgency and scale. In a few words, it feels overwhelming, like down here, plastic pollution, it's just like insane. We have a lot of, you know, it feels like all the boundaries have been crossed. And as we have heard here and there again and again, it really feels like we are reaching tipping points. We are going through thresholds and that the system is really out of control and it may well be out of control. And it points to the need for adaptive management indeed. One comment to mention that this is, you know, illustrated what we what people working on resilience based strategies have been highlighting the tipping points and the threshold that have been passed and surpassed. So the third issue we use really also, you know, speaking to the previous ones is how can we foster decentralized leadership and autonomy in terms of, you know, actions, which is one of our focus and with the work we've been conducted with Rachel Harrison in the past. This is we came to the realization in Southeast Asia in general and particularly in Thailand with such a ingrained hierarchy and status in power structure. It's very difficult to to trigger momentum towards ownership of issues because there is a need for at the onset of any somehow engagement programs that will be beneficial to advance the agenda for climate change mitigation and environmental degradation mitigation, et cetera, et cetera. We need autonomy of local conservation groups that are not just obeying the agenda, national agenda. So those local groups could actually contextualize this agenda. But it's we we found it to be very difficult, despite all our good intentions and methodology and expertise on the matter. So I think this is and I'm sure Rachel could confirm that. It's this is one issue we found we need to navigate in order to bring the agenda forward, not just the very hierarchical and structured Southeast Asian hierarchy, but also the habit or the capacity of people to be content and accept and therefore not challenge a study court. So this is indeed very tricky. But those issues, I think in a nutshell, highlight the points are pointers or indicate what needs to be understood, navigated, highlighted, at least acknowledged. And so given this, we're implementing a certain number of solutions practically. So I want to go through everything here. I'm just like skipping food in all our project and attempting to move things forward along a more resilient side. We are like really conducting. And this is tricky understanding the power relations, all the actors, the group of actors, the groups, et cetera, et cetera, performing stakeholder analysis regularly, meeting with all the institutional officials locally, all the formal and informal officials. Connecting participatory mapping as a way to gather information and to catalyze co-design solutions. For instance, in terms of conservation area development and co-management of those areas. What we found very, very important and very pragmatic is we cannot speak of climate change. We cannot speak of biodiversity, conservation or natural resources management at the first. We need to really come up understanding that people that are at the forefront of climate change and environmental conservation or natural resources exploitation and depending closely on it. They are also very struggling on an everyday basis and they are in survival mode. And so understanding that and coming up with practical win-win solutions, like, for example, developing seagrass nursery crab banks that are bringing income, but also inherently are linked with the preservation of the ecosystem. These crabs are from is one tangible, pragmatic solution we are setting in place. We're collaborating with the Environmental Justice Foundation, which is leaning towards the activism side. So it's not just research and development. It's also advocacy and activism and so establishing pathway for net recycling. So those nets are not left drifting away and catching sea life. But at the same time providing income and bringing awareness on the issue. Third aspect is developing with all the institutions around a framework for ecotourism, development and certification. So and of course, this is related to transformative education altogether. So I won't speak much further. I'm happy to answer your questions, but I thought it was really showcasing the issues we are facing and what we believe can address those issues or at least showcase the kind of pragmatic solutions we are setting in place in Southern Thailand, Southeast Asia Engine. Thank you very much. Yeah, thank you very much. I think it's very important to hear from what's happening really on the ground. If Navaraj was still here, I would have asked him how his more recent work on climate change connected to his earlier work on groundwater capitalism. I've lost that opportunity for the moment. Rachel, do you have anything to add at this point as you're here? I don't think I do, actually. I mean, just to reiterate the point that Pierre was making about the kind of cultural issues that we've faced, both in sort of public health and in and environmental work in Thailand. That I mean, we're also very aware of the fact that we are in to some extent outsiders, but the but the discourses around changing behavior are also dominated by sort of internal power forces as well, which have a connection to outside forces. And those things are really interesting to negotiate. So I think that's that's some of the things that that Pierre and I have worked on together. And it's a very interesting minefield. Thank you very much. Could I just ask, Pierre, could you just say a little bit more for the benefit of the participants in the Zoom event? A little bit more about the Save Andaman Network, please. So it's a very interesting organization. It's an NGO. It's very, very local. It's based in Trang. And in the past, it's been focusing on establishing a network of local groups interested and engaged in preserving coastal livelihoods, including the natural resources associated to it, focusing on seagrasses, focusing on mangroves, to some extent, coral reef. So it's led by women. It's very cool, like, and we worked regularly with them. In fact, most of our community community engagement processes and, you know, actions are led by their members. And of course, we have team meetings and strategic planning, et cetera, but it's it's really cool. They have they have, like, now in the past, they were like in Trang. I don't know if your geography of South Thailand is sharp, but you just south of Krabi, we have the province of Trang. North of Krabi, we have the province of Panga. And then we have Phuket, not far. So they were linking and having, you know, sessions and committee engagement meetings and, you know, group community supports and community development workshops from Trang to Panga and effectively addressing issue of coastal resilience, coastal livelihood, all along the Andaman coast in in Southern Thailand. So very, very interesting group, very focused on community engagement, local ownerships, ethical representation of different ethnic minority gender, gender representations as well. So very, very, very fun to work with them and very inspiring. Brilliant. Thank you very much, Pierre. And thank you for taking the time to join us. Thank you very much for the invitation. And thanks again, Rachel, for making that connection much appreciated. Thank you, Rachel. OK, thank you very much. So next, the next speaker, we have Yasuko Kamayama, who is joining us from Japan, evening in Japan. Yasuko is the director of Social Systems Division of the National Institute for Environmental Studies. And lots of her work takes on IR, sort of international relations approaches to negotiations and organizations. And she's written extensively about COP analysis, about policy in Japan, but also about international and comparative perspectives on energy transition and carbon reduction. So, Yasuko, a very warm welcome to Sahas and the floor is yours. Thank you for being here. Everybody, thank you for having me to this excellent, exciting event. My name is Yasuko Kamayama. I work for National Institute for Environmental Studies. It's a government funded research institute and the Minister of the Environment. And we have about 200 permanent researchers all working on environmental studies. So today I've been given 10 minutes to explain to you the latest developments of climate change policy in Japan and let me share my screen. Fortunately, my Wi-Fi is quite unstable. So let me turn off my video while I make presentation. OK, I hope you can see my slides. And OK, so let me move on. So here you see Japan's greenhouse gas emissions trend since 1960. And you can see that emissions kept on growing, growing even after adoption of UNFCCC in 1992. And emissions started decreasing at around 2008. And mainly due to introduction of nuclear power plants to meet the Kyoto Protocol Emission Reduction Target between 2008 to 2012. But after we had a serious earthquake in 2011 and we had to shut down all the nuclear power plants. And so so we started using coal power plants again. And that's why emissions went up until 2013. And then emissions started going down again since 2013, mainly because we started introduction of renewable energy, especially solar power, depends on DC emission reduction target for the year 2030 used to be minus 26 percent from 2013. And we used to aim for 80 percent reduction by 2050. However, Japan revised its emission reduction target in the last Climate Leadership Summit hosted by the Biden administration in the United States last April. So our new target is minus 46 percent reduction from 2013 for the year 2030 and net zero by 2050. Here, I want to explain to you how Japan emission target is set. This is how Japan used to determine our emission reduction target is a traditional process. First, economics was taken into account. Cost of emission reduction was perceived to be very high. It's mainly because the voices of energy intensive industries such as iron, steel and cement and electric power companies had the most influential voices in Japan. And we also used to have a very strong iron triangle. It's a kind of relationship between heavy industry and ministry and political leaders. So all these got together and stressed that Japan's would harm its economic activities if we set a very stringent emission reduction target. The second point is about foreign policy. Japan always used to compare its energy efficiency level with major emitters such as the United States and China and insisted that these emitters should be reducing their emissions first. So with all these factors put together, Japan's emission reduction target used to be very, very small, I mean, not so much significant. However, this time, the policymaking process was very, very different. We had a very heavy influence from foreign policy because the United Kingdom and many other countries had emission net zero emissions. And many other countries had emission net zero target and seeing a chance that Biden to win the US presidential election in autumn 2020 last year, Japan thought it would feel kind of ashamed if it became the last country to announce net zero. So that's kind of foreign policy factor. And in addition, many Japanese companies, particularly financial sector, started facing international initiatives such as TCFB and ESG initial investments. So that's why the former Prime Minister Suga announced net zero in last October, 2020. And we also revised the 2030 target to minus 40% from 2013. And then now we are revising our energy plan to reduce amount of coal power plants. Actually, this is Japan's very first time to set emission reduction target before determining our energy plan. So this is something new we haven't experienced before. So what's missing? A very important factor is missing in Japan. It's citizens voices. In Japan's school strikes and climate marches, all these protests from citizens are not very popular and people remain quiet in a way. So climate change is never an issue at the elections. I put up a picture in Japan. This is a rare situation where climate marches are held in Tokyo. We had only about 20 or 30 people, very small number of people protesting. But on the other hand, we also experienced a very severe flood due to typhoons. But however, in Japan, media may barely frame extreme weather events with a climate change. And I think that's why people still do not have an idea, I mean, do not try to relate all these extreme weather events to mitigation and importance of aiming at net zero emissions. And so we are now coming up to COP26. And as for Japanese government, Article 6 related negotiation is going to be the major issue because we have a mechanism called joint crediting mechanism. Since 2015, the Japanese government have had a bilateral cooperative agreement with 17 developing countries, mainly in Asian countries. And what Japan do is to kind of transfer low carbon technologies to developing countries, partner countries, and implement emission reduction project in developing countries. And after the emission reduction was observed in those developing countries, part of emission reduction credits will go back to Japan to balance the amount of technologies given to the partner countries. So Japan has been making this collaboration with developing countries for six years now. And therefore it's very important for the Japanese government to be able to get a credit under the Paris agreement that this transfer of credits would be officially acknowledged under the UNFCCC. And as beside this Article 6 related issues, Japan has another issue and it's about exports of coal power plants to developing countries. And it has been a kind of Japan programs for many years. And actually Japan has been awarded by environmental NGOs fossil of the day award. And I think this kind of awarding will continue during COP26. So this is Japan's situation. So I think this is end of my talk and I will be happy to answer any questions from you. Thank you so much. Yes, thank you very much indeed. The fossil of the day award had raised a sad smile. I wanted to ask, what has happened? I was thinking about your graphs and the narrative. What has happened to the iron triangle post 2013-14 when the graph changed direction? Very good question. Actually that triangle is not as strong as it used to be for several reasons actually. But one of the reasons is because due to this earthquake in 2011 and a nuclear power plant accident, Japanese electric companies became kind of dispatched and now it's kind of under the government's control. So that is why energy intensive industries has less power or influence than they used to have. And nowadays some other industries like financial sectors and other service-related sectors have stronger voices to ask the government to go for more stringent emission reduction targets. Thank you very much. Are there any other questions? In that case, I'll allow myself one further one. Could you, I mean, it's a difficult one to frame but could you explain the relationship between the joint crediting mechanism and the export of power stations, coal-fired power stations and how those two policies sit together? Is it simply that they belong to different parts of the government? Good question. Actually, both exporting and emission reduction and technology and exports of coal power plants are under the same ministry, ministry of economy, trade and industry, Meti. So they have all the power, I mean, the administrative power to support Japanese industry to export Japanese products and technologies. And however, you know, they try to fix, I mean, frame those two different types of technology in a way to say these technologies are a good as to be seen under JCM, Joint Crediting Mechanism. And they, on the other hand, they try to hide some other exporting coal power plants just to say that those coal power plants are much more energy efficient than traditional old type of coal power plants. And that's how the Japanese government has been explaining or to justify the exportation of coal power plants. Thank you very much. And also bring to mind that India now has something called green coal as that market in a particular kind of way. So Yasuko, thank you very much for having joined us and thank you to Fabio Jiji from the Japanese Japan Research Center at SOAS for having put us in touch and for having made the connection. So thank you very much. So we're now going to another poll from HOM. Apologies, I'm trying to manage it there. Putting it up and putting this, it should be the same link as before but I will post it again here. Please do click on this. This is a poll set up by Yasuko and she suggested it with regard to the UK but I've done it with regard to your own country. And the question is, what is the most critical factor for nurturing public support for aiming at net zero? So in your own experience and your own view but related to your country, how do you nurture that support and what's been the experience of pushing that? I shall get this off. I'm going to see. Hopefully we should be seeing the results now. So we've heard a lot during the COVID-19 era about decisions being led by the science and it's something that we know in climate change hasn't always been the case. This experience seems to suggest the same limited role for scientific evidence although we hope that that's directly and indirectly informing both political leadership and the mass media. Certainly a lot of the mass movements around climate recently if you think of the Greta Thunberg youth movements and the recent marches particularly the ones just before the start of the COVID crisis during the UN climate summit. A lot of what was being led by the science that was a real push I guess because in the US you had President Trump being a bit anti-science. That's a good spread but the political leadership I mean that we do need I'm still a firm believer we do need those these high level political events. I think it sends an important signal it cascades down government that climate change is a real issue across the whole of government and that it's part of, I mean the Paris Declaration was about sending it nothing else a normative message that part of the role of government is to lead on tackling climate change. I think that was a big step change for me in the way that UNFCCC reached out rather than just saying we're gonna set legally binding targets like the Kyoto Agreement but actually to say this is about setting norms across all the government across every country of the world and technology still a driving force. Ed, back to you. Thank you very much, Tom. I thought it was amazingly interesting actually. That was a really great poll. A little bit surprising. Okay, so next we have Kwajo Awosu who I hope is here. Kwajo, your name is on my screen. Is your available? Yeah, brilliant. So fantastic. Thank you for joining us. Kwajo is the head of the Department of Geography and Resource Development at the University of Ghana and his research looks at what I interpreted to be socio-cultural systems and how they interact with climate and climate change adaption. So Kwajo, I extend a warm welcome to you from Saas and for the Center for African Studies as well. Thank you. Welcome. I'll try to share my something I put together. All right, I hope you can see it now. So I've been looking at bits here and there on the climate change in general, mostly how it affects agriculture and every now and then on water resources. So I've done a few things with frow care in the past and with a disciplinar and we're looking forward. So I want to share that the pathways Ghana has taken through the energy sector and where we are now and what may be probably of interest to Ghana and some of the developing countries as we go to the COP. So yes, I think that basically Ghana has depended more on biofuel and woodfuel in particular. Charcoal, and this is how it's processed and sent to the market in Ghana, forms charcoal in the urban areas mostly and woodfuel in the rural areas. It forms the bulk of the energy source for cooking and heating and stuff like that. But of course, electricity has also been champion since the early 60s with investment mainly in hydro. The Akosumbu dam project, the first major dam project by Ghana really gave Ghana a lot of power that the urban centers because of the systems who support the urban areas will need. So much that Kaiser Aluminum Company was brought in because of the cheap and abandoned power to melt aluminum in Ghana for export. So Ghana had in fact been dependent on hydro but going forward, the hydro was not enough. So what actually has been happening is that policy has evolved. And I think that with the impact the hydro was having on society, the best option was to go in for thermal. So as it is now, thermal has already displaced hydro. In the scheme of looking at the UK and elsewhere, it's not much, but in percentage wise, it still tells the story. So hydro has now gone down significantly about 38%, thermal is about 64, 68%. But in all this discussion, what is clear is that the renewables or other clean energy outside hydro is very small. Renewables are still about 1.1%. So there isn't much. But the story from the climate point becomes a country that has strategized to depend mostly on hydro. Then the vagaries of weather really does affect power generation. So the major dam as used as an example here within the voter basing. Before I even go on to that, so Ghana has three mega dams that are classified as large dams. They are Kosovo, the Pong and the Bui, which was recently built. But interestingly enough, from the climate perspective, all these three dams are stuck on one basing. So it's still the voter basing. So that means that to a large extent, if there are rainfall shortfalls, especially upstream, then all the three dams are really affected. But the climatology of West Africa is such that you have strong inter-annual variability, but not even so much as multi-decade variability. So you can enter a phase of about 20 to 25 years as earlier recognized by Gavin in 1992 or so, that the West African rainfall goes through an oscillation of 25 to 30 years, where you have more than average rainfall or less than average rainfall. And that creates problem for strategizing through hydro. So that is some of the justification also for looking for thermal. And of course, we all know the implication for the environment. So when Ghana had depended solely on the Akosombo, so we've had intermittent and sometimes sustained lightouts or blackouts or because of production shortfalls. So in 2007, for instance, Ghana lost about 6% of GDP because of non-sustained power production or power cuts. So all these things are a daily reality in Ghana. But then if you look at Ghana's energy policy, whether or not this is obvious, that between hydro renewables, they are better for the environment than the thermal. In Ghana, the thermal mainly, we are now talking that it's a little better because we have also switched from crude oil to gas. A lot of the production is now from gas and Ghana has invested heavily in gas. All that said, the downside is that if you look at Ghana's energy policy and strategy, Ghana intends to export. As of now, I think that Ghana will be a net importer because under the country's obligation because of the tributaries of the voter, Ghana exports power to Burkina Faso, Togo and Benin, but we also import a lot from Kodiwa. The power in Kodiwa is also cheaper, far, far cheaper than Ghana at least the tax component on that. But Ghana's strategy also aims at exporting energy to the sub-region. So beyond the environmental impacts or the climate concerns, if you do the thermal then the cost is higher and Ghana will not be competitive. So the renewables then. So this shows that along the coast you can have some wind potential and there is a bridge here which also provides a lot of wind potential. Solar abounds in Ghana. So in the immediate, the strategy is to go to about 10%. I think this has been revised from 2020 to 2030. And the critical aspect of why this potential is not tapped into is technology and also financing. The investments that have come to Ghana are mainly in the thermal sector. Ghana was panicking. People took advantage of that. We needed energy. We needed it quick when in 2012, 2012, 13, 14, we had very serious shortfalls in production. So a lot of investment came to Ghana but they were mostly in the thermal sector. So the enormous potential exists. The capacity is there. The population is expanding. We just got to about 30 million with our sensors that has just finished. The demand is very high. In fact, Ghana is still about 85% electricity, has about 85% energy, electricity penetration. So we still hope to do that. So as for that, the need is there. The master plan is there to get that. So in concluding, what I will say is that with Ghana's example, which is actually a shining example in the sub-region. When Nigerians come to Ghana and we complain about electricity situation, they don't take it lightly at all. They believe we probably are far, far better. So for the developing countries, unless the COP is interested in discussing probably promoting solar in terms of, so I'll combine my two points here, in terms of the investment and the technological know-how. And then we keep receiving all technologies from higher and middle income countries coming to Ghana. We accept them because the need is for a lot of power to be produced and to be produced quickly. So everybody will be interested in what will give us the power. In fact, under the Millennium Challenge, the US came to Ghana and was happy what they were trying to do. The first problem is probably the China approach somehow get the power. So they didn't, for instance, restrict what Ghana could invest in. Everything was on the table. I liked it, but for the climate part, it doesn't look good. So I will conclude by saying that technology, transfer and financing, that favors investment in renewable energy will be a way to go for developing countries like Ghana and the others. I will end my presentation here. And if you please have any contribution or question, I'll be willing to answer. Thank you. Thank you very much. I found that to be really interesting. And I think you managed to explain excellently the bind that countries like Ghana face in trading one thing off against the other. The interrelatedness of problems, but also the checks and balances of different kinds of costs. I have a very straightforward question, which is about when Ghana, you mentioned the US, but when Ghana looks for investment and for partners at COP for investment, perhaps, where does Ghana turn to? Is it to international organizations or is it to private capital? I will say both because the US mentioning came in because that was a direct foreign assistance by the US government through the Millennium Challenge. So if you are doing good governance and all that, they will support you. But I think beyond that, a lot of what has come into Ghana since about 2012 there about when we had a lot of the challenge and has been a private investment in power generation and most of them had been thermal. Right. And has Ghana been using Turkish made generation ships as well? Yeah, car power, yes. So that is, you think about it, how long are you going to develop the renewable capacity and then you call an investor in Dubai or Saudi and Ghana case, I think some of the investment came from Dubai. So Dubai investors come in, they sign a pack, they buy the plant and in three months, you have a lot of power produced for you. So that is what I'm saying the COP should look at that because if that becomes a model, then we will have a problem going forward. Thank you very much for joining us and for sharing insights from Ghana. Really much appreciated. Thank you for taking the time and talking to us. Thank you. Okay, so we're all astonishingly on time and we are, it gives me pleasure to welcome Isabel Hilton, who I know has already had a very busy morning. Welcome Isabel. Thank you very much. As well as a research associate at SOAS at the moment and a very well known writer and broadcaster for both print and wireless media. Isabel has been involved with Influent, the influential open democracy.net, but is here today as the founder and senior advisor of independent nonprofit organization and a dialogue which aims to promote a common understanding of China's environmental challenges. Isabel, thank you very much for joining us. The floor is yours. Thank you very much, Edward. And I'm going to attempt the miracle of sharing my screen. So I hope that's going to work. Good. Has that worked? Yes. Okay, so the question is what do we want from China at the COP? I'm sure I don't need to explain that China is the world's biggest emitter, that China has been the world's biggest emitter since 2005 and that its numbers continue to climb, that it consumes by far the largest proportion of the world's coal, et cetera, et cetera. China made a very big bet on coal to fuel its industrial production and that meant that making a serious transition to a less polluting primary energy source is a very big task indeed. So we're in a climate emergency and for reasons again that I don't have to go into, we are not doing well enough. China is currently the state of play. As you see in terms of planning, China comes into the highly insufficient category. It's in good company there and the only country that is currently compatible, has plans compatible with the 1.5 degree is the Gambia. Everyone else is sort of doing various degrees of not good and China is in the really quite not good enough and because it is so big, this matters more for China than it does for less significant countries. There is still time for countries to improve their position but this doesn't mean that China, its position in this leak table doesn't mean that China isn't interested in climate change or indeed that it doesn't take it seriously or that it's failing to act. It's more that its actions have quite a lot of Chinese characteristics. So here are two common beliefs. There are things that people say about China when they look at COP and they look at China's emissions profile. That China has done nothing about climate change. That China is not interested in climate diplomacy. Neither of these positions is in fact accurate. So China has a long and consistent history of engaging with the UNFCCC process and this is it. It actually attended the Stockholm conference which is 50 years ago. It attended the Rio Earth Summit from which so much of these mechanisms emerged. It's been joined the UNFCCC and it's a party to the Kyoto Protocol. So the Kyoto Protocol, if you remember, those of you who follow this kind of policy quite closely will remember that it divided members into annex one and non annex one. Annex one countries were countries like Britain or Germany or the United States that had done well out of emitting carbon. They had had early industrial revolutions and they were historically responsible for most of the carbon in the atmosphere. They therefore had a moral responsibility and technical and industrial and economic capacity to assist countries that were less responsible but were still developing to make a cleaner model of development and that China was a big beneficiary of that being a non annex one signature. One of the many difficulties in climate diplomacy was that between the negotiation of the Kyoto Protocol and say the Copenhagen Summit which ended in tears as you will recall China had gone from being a relatively minor player in terms of emissions to the world's biggest and its status within the within the treaty arrangements had not changed. And so people, you know, with some justification in mind, you know, if China is still treated as a developing country, but is the world's biggest emitter, then, you know, we're all rather wasting our time and that was one of the issues at Copenhagen that was fixed in Paris, because we no longer have that binary and we no longer have a kind of top down legal mandatory obligation for countries so it now becomes voluntary you bring to the table what you can bring, but recognizing that the transition, certainly at the beginning, the ratchet mechanism which we're now looking at in Glasgow was also built in. So now we look to China to improve its offer. China to date has improved its offer in a number of ways. The net zero target for 2060 is a significant improvement. The announcement that it would no longer build external coal is a significant improvement. The 2030 target is very soft and it was on the table in Paris and it was soft then. This is six years ago it hasn't really improved so there is room for improvement. Nevertheless, China has also been working, if you like, on a number of sectors that have positive emissions benefits or could have. One is the reduction in carbon intensity and again carbon intensity is the amount of carbon you emit for every dollar or unit of value of GDP. So it is in effect an efficient and efficiency measure. When China began this it was extremely inefficient in both raw materials and energy inputs to its production. It's made quite a lot of progress in this that doesn't directly result in emissions reductions because you can become more efficient and still grow and therefore your emissions continue to grow and that is China's case. However, as a necessary preparation for reduction this was pretty important. On the positive side China also 10 years ago began to invest heavily in renewable and low carbon technologies with the ambition since realized of becoming the major supplier to the world of low carbon technologies and at that point it becomes more likely that China acquires a direct interest in a carbon constrained world so China has built its industrial strategy on the assumption that the world will seek to go to low carbon energies and so China remains unlike the United States systemically committed. The United States we live in peril of the next election we've seen the United States come and go in with the energy and in its commitment to climate because of the swings of domestic policies and we don't actually have that obviously in China. However, the emissions continue to rise. There is a continuing dependence on coal for domestic primary energy and there is a reluctance which I think is going to be highly contentious in Glasgow to commit to a 1.5 degree target Well the 1.5 degree target you may recall rose in Paris Paris agreement commits formally to a 2 degree target that is keeping the rise in global average temperatures to below 2 degrees. 1.5 a rose at the request of the small island states of the vulnerable countries who said that 2 degrees wasn't a safe limit and that it needed to be 1.5 China was very much taken aback by this in Paris and regarded it as somehow a machination of the United States to embarrass China they complained there was no pathway etc etc so they have always been suspicious of 1.5 degree target because it is a difficult target to reach however holding on to to that non-recognition given what we now know given what the science has told us given the evidence we have of accelerating climate impacts I think will make China I think that's quite a vulnerable thing diplomatically for China and the other thing as I mentioned that 2030 target was set that the date at which China will peak at submissions climate modelers essentially said there's plenty of room inside that target we could one modeler told me we could China could peak at 2022 2023 so the expectation has always been that this was a target which allowed China to you know make a kind of declaration in which it would automatically improve its offer however that hasn't happened and the current thinking based on what is in the 14 five-year plan which still has a lot of coal in it the current thinking suggests that if we do see a shift it won't be much better than to 2028 and the problem with that is the later you peak you know the steeper the ask is after that so up to 2023 2030 is such a key a key moment to set us on the on a right path so what do we need China to do well it would be nice if China would make a declaration of increased ambition because frankly the diplomatic atmosphere in Glasgow could do with that there is an enormous emissions gap we're not going to close it in Glasgow but a strong declaration from China would encourage people to think that we could close it at some point and to commit to a line with the 1.5 degree target I think also given you know that China is now the world's second largest economy again we have this ambivalent position is China still just a developing country or is it the world's you know second largest economy is it a major economic superpower if it's the second what can we expect China to do in terms of making its financial contributions to the least developed countries and to support for adaptation and mitigation so those would help this is the gap this is what we need China to help close and you can see from that blue wedge that's where we are so we're not getting there fast enough China is a very big slice of that it's a very big slice of not getting there fast enough and so again whatever China does the pressure will definitely be on it to do more there are still many countries that have yet to submit targets however so again China's not the worst in terms of compliance with the UNFCCC process but it's not the best either and because it is so prominent we look to China not only to increase its domestic offer but also to begin to use its diplomatic clout to encourage others China's diplomacy tends to serve rather narrow domestic interests rather than the broader climate effort and that I think we can hope might emerge from the recent declaration on coal on the Belt and Road for which China had been much criticized the second part of that declaration was that China would assist other countries its host countries to develop renewable system if China were to do that that would be an enormous contribution to helping countries leapfrog the high emitting high carbon sector and avoid future emissions and avoid stranded assets and there are great gains for China were China to do that China's reputation and partly as a result of war for a diplomacy is not terribly high around the world at the moment there are real positives for China in a more proactive climate position there is a good story to tell here if China were to increase its domestic ambition and help others to avoid getting locked into a high carbon pathway so that's what I would if I were to be advising the Chinese government that's what I would advise it to do fortunately for the Chinese government perhaps I'm not in that position but I think that's what many people will be hoping a conclusion that China comes to by itself thank you Thank you very much that was really provocative because we have such an express format that we don't really have time for extended questions but we have one in the chat from Jing Zhang that I would like to share and I think as she asks two questions but I'm going to go over the first one I find it really interesting it's rather simply where do people get the idea that China is not interested in climate change why does that idea circulate so powerfully the second question which is one of my own is does China dialogue have cocked plans yes we have cocked plans to answer your question we will have a team there throughout I won't be there in the first week but I will be there in the second week we have been publishing a lot across our websites on well since 2006 we have been publishing on climate change in China so if you need background to understand how we got to where we are do have a look as to the question of why people have that impression I wish I knew because it's I think it's partly size and unfamiliarity China is the world's biggest emitter China became slightly the bad object in Copenhagen and when the talks broke down but since then China has really done an enormous amount not just in terms of diplomacy but also China brought its capacity to manufacture its scale into the renewables sector and has lowered the price of the solar panels on my roof and everybody else's roof by a very large margin and that has meant that building a renewable system is there's no longer a massive cost barrier there are other technological barriers but the cost barrier has pretty much been reduced to almost nothing by China but I think what remains in people's mind is the impression and indeed the actual policy that China continues to build new coal fire power stations at home and at this point people find that quite puzzling I mean it's something we could go into in greater depth but the problem is that that just reinforces the image that China doesn't care and that's unfortunate. Isabel thank you so much for being with us this morning I know you had a busy morning it's really greatly appreciated and thank you also to Steve Sang of the Swiss China Institute for making the connection between us thank you very much. Thank you. Okay so our final speaker of the morning is Tando Naderanen from the Department of Geography Geoinformatics and Meteorology in South Africa I've not written down which university I do apologise there's a PhD from Planetary Sciences from John Hopkins so welcome. Thank you very much I will share my screen. University of Pretoria I do apologise. Yes you can see it. Yes Thank you very much colleagues good day so the thing that I wanted to briefly talk about this is not a very long presentation as I have only 10 minutes is the agency of climate change adaptation in southern Africa why do we find that climate change adaptation is so urgent in the region we already are observing evidence of climate change impacts over southern Africa many people will remember last year there was a tropical cyclone that impacted Mozambique which is over the eastern parts of the subcontinent and it also impacted Zimbabwe in Malawi in excess of 1,300 people lost their lives and there was extensive damage to property again in the Cape Town area which is located in the southern tip of the continent and there was a very strong drought that occurred in 2015-2017 and that led to a near-day zero state of affairs in terms of water availability in that region and in the interior of the country at some points there was also a very strong drought that was observed that led to drought as well right now over the southern eastern parts of the country there is a multi-year drought that's been going on for some time and higher frequency of heat waves has been observed in southern Africa all of this is of course influenced by the fact that southern Africa is a climate change hot spot because the region is warming more rapidly than the global rate of warming it's actually warming at about twice the rate of global warming which is a warming effect and therefore we expect that there will be even more impacts of climate change in the region for example we have the Hauden province in South Africa which is where Johannesburg is located and it is therefore the economic hub of the country even southern Africa and that would have impact so climate change would have very serious impacts over that region because we expect that there would be drought conditions preparing going forward also we the multi-year droughts that are already being observed I expected to continue in future which would have very serious impacts on maize crop and cutting industry and therefore having very serious implications for food security in the region and clearly also because the warming is twice the global warming the warming rate in the region is twice the warming globally and so we expect that heat waves will continue to increase in terms of frequency and intensity and therefore having very adverse impacts or implications on health and mortality and also tropical cyclones are also expected to continue so I'm mentioning all of these because I wanted to highlight the issue that over South Africa or southern Africa in general climate change adaptation is when people are arguing for climate change in Glasgow this year climate change adaptation should be high in the list of issues that are being discussed once we have once that is the case of course we should be contributing as a region to reducing contributions to climate change emissions greenhouse gas emissions but obviously we can't contribute to that reduction more than we are already contributing I'm proud to say that South Africa is a very aggressive renewable energy program to ensure a just transition on the one hand and on the other ensuring energy security in the country which currently we have some problems with we think that renewable energy would be a solution to many of the problems that we have Tando can I just interrupt you to make sure you know that we're not seeing your slides transferring through we're still on the opening slide is that intentional? No it's not actually I've moved on sorry on the share perhaps if you start the slide show there we go excellent okay so can you see that now I'm sorry about that I apologize actually I'm actually on the slide now there talks to what the I wanted to focus on adaptation of course the goals are in our national determined contribution which I think would be the issues that would be tabled as people are arguing and negotiating at COP26 so these are the goals that we will be thinking about and then there is a need to enhance climate change adaptation governance and legal frameworks the government is very keen on that and also to strengthen the scientific basis of government discussions or government efforts we need to have an understanding of the climate change impacts for you know those limitations for global warming and we have a national climate change adaptation strategy the interventions of which are currently being implemented but there will be even more aggressive implementation of these interventions going forward and of course I think it was mentioned that there is a need to have access to funding and in particular in our case climate change adaptation implementation and as well as the qualification of acknowledgement of the national adaptation and resilient efforts basically in conclusion because as you are running out of time one of the greatest needs from our perspective is to accelerate climate change adaptation technology and financing to facilitate our NDC goals and I'm talking about NDC goals only from the South African perspective in this case because other countries in South Africa have their own NDC goals that will be taken I think at COP26 and of course the Climate Technology Centre network is available for this and I think it should be used more effectively. Those of you who are not familiar with the CTCN it is the operational arm of the technology mechanism that's aimed at facilitating government technology transfer to developing countries so with that I will conclude Hello Thank you very much indeed, that was fascinating I think in this second session where we've heard much more about technology transfer and the need for financial mechanisms the tone of the second half was quite different to the first half of the day so I thank you very much indeed for sharing that talk with us and for joining us this morning I'm afraid we've run out of time for the event as a whole I would like to thank everybody who has participated in this event the people who have organised it particularly Sunil who is hiding in the background behind the picture of SOAS on our screens, thank you Sunil and also to Tom who I worked with on bringing this event together, I've not worked with Tom before but I look forward to doing so again and to everybody who has facilitated connections and worked towards making this happen the express format today was perhaps a little expressful and I would despite the success of it have liked a little bit more time for discussion I think you all raised so many questions but it is with a little bit of frustration that we didn't have a more fulsome discussion to those of you who are still in the participants list I really strongly encourage you to engage with COP processes to follow the links that Tom has provided in the chat for news and daily updates to follow the news and to get involved COP is there all the accommodation might be full but Glasgow is still there and I think it's a little bit of a challenge and accessible so thank you very much indeed I will pass over to Tom for some very final words and thank you thanks Ed and I don't have anything more to add than to reiterate thanks so much to all our speakers to our colleagues who made connections to those speakers that's really appreciated and thanks to everyone for listening in we'll drop up the individual talks as well so we can access those shortly and we'll send a link to all those who registered for the event as soon as you've got those online one final excellent vote of thanks to our colleagues and partners around the world that's some really fascinating insights certainly things for our COP team to take through into Glasgow