 Hello, my name is Marcus Brandt, I'm the Head of Mission of International Idea for Myanmar, that is the Institute of Democracy and Electoral Assistance. And I'm here today with Niall O'Connor, the Director of the Asia Center of the Stockholm Environment Institute. The SEI Stockholm Environment Institute is a sister Stockholm-based institution, but works globally on climate and environment issues. And today we will speak about how climate and environment challenges interrelate with democracy, constitutions and governance issues, and in particular in the context of Myanmar. Now, thank you very much for taking the time, and it's great to be here at the SEI, at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. And let me just maybe start by saying that it's been amazing to partner with you, to work with you, to learn from you, and to learn also about the interrelations between climate and environment challenges and sort of the more classic democracy and governance agenda that we have. How do you see that relationship and that interaction? Nice to meet up with you Marcus, and I think it's great that idea and SEI are collaborating on these issues. I think it's vitally important. Climate is so important to everybody today, and are we doing enough to protect people who are being impacted by the change in climate? Are we doing enough to support policy decision-makers and how they understand the impacts of climate? Are we doing enough to ensure that the evidence is there to support these decisions? And in many cases, there's a lot of evidence, there's a lot of interesting facts and figures, but are we getting it into the decision-makers mindset and are they then reacting to that and putting the policies in place and are they enforcing those policies? And in many cases, unfortunately, that's not the case. So I think it's great to be able to work with an organisation like IDEA and to see how more we can support, I suppose, democracy in a sense that you're integrating these policies from the top down or from the bottom up so that people are really being supported to address the impacts of climate change. I think we're growing more and more nervous of the potential impacts. As we see it, even over the last two, three years, it's got worse and worse in terms of floods, droughts, fires, the impacts of air quality and so on. We need to act fast and maybe working with parliamentarians, working with policy is a great way to do that. So it's been a pleasure so far collaborating and let's see what more we can do. So we already, as you know, international ideas started recently a special programme component on looking at climate and environment issues from the angle of democracy and specifically in relation to that we had done some work in 2022 looking specifically at climate and environment challenges in the current context in Myanmar which as you know, as we all unfortunately know is a situation of widespread conflict, displacement and governance failures and when we did this report we worked out some recommendations on how climate and environment issues could be reflected as part of the broader effort to write a new constitution to develop new governance institutions in particular a decentralized form of federal governance. And so I would like to also ask you how do you see the interplay between a central state government that represents a country to the outside world and internally let's say diversified power structures like state governments, local governments, how do they interact with each other with a specific focus on climate and environment issues? That's a very long question, a tough question in many ways and a question which I think SEI as a science to policy based organisation can support in some ways. Our role is not to be an advocate for A, B or C our role is to drive evidence based science to make critical decision making and I think one of the things we wanted to do in supporting this document was to provide the right science to provide an understanding of the policy implications of making decisions to ensure that there is a case for bringing indigenous communities into decision making to bring in the broader community and stakeholders into understanding the context understanding the decisions that need to be made to protect the natural resources around them and to create that sustainability. So it's important that we look at this from a number of angles where starting at maybe local community and who oversees the authorities of local community who then links this to a regional setup or to a national setup so that resource flows can be monitored, can be sustainable resource income can be shared and the responsibility shared to protect the natural resources so depending on the kind of current government setup and the future government setup how can we provide evidence based knowledge to design I suppose policy strategies that can protect the environment. So it's, you know, I'm not an expert as aware on say which federal state or which democracy should be set up in a particular country but what we can do is provide them with the right knowledge to ensure that they are working on both the right issues but with the right stakeholders to drive sustainability. So I think that's where this type of collaboration is important. You have a clear understanding of how democracy works in a conflict state how we can support that by just providing knowledge and how we can try and encourage everybody to take the right steps. It's always a challenge because even when the policy is right whether it's implemented correctly or not is a whole different issue. Are there levels of corruption? Are there levels of inability to adapt the policy to implementation levels? Is there follow-up? Is there policing in many ways of some of the resources that are being used? That's always a challenge but what we can do is look at the evidence and support the decision making. Then we need people like yourselves maybe to drive the understanding of democracy and the reasons why policies should be followed. I guess a lot of it depends also on how the response to climate change and environmental challenges is organized in a government, let's say and to what extent it is mainstream throughout government rather than just compartmentalized in one particular ministry of environment, let's say. And I think that is a trend that we have seen in recent years around the world that tackling climate change in terms of both mitigation and adaptation has become a cross-cutting government challenge and an all-of-government approach basically. And we have to continue to encourage that because if you look at it from the example of the sustainable development goals over the years the objective is to achieve all our sustainable development goals and if you do that in a siloed approach the ministry for energy for example will be able to deliver 100% energy for everybody by burning more coal and fossil fuels but their negative implications on other ministries such as air quality for example or on agricultural production could have significant implications. So we need to make sure that we understand the trade-offs and synergies between each of these key ministries and their role in, in this case STGs but more kind of openly in climate change. Are we making sure that they are working together to find the right solution that has most synergies and least trade-offs? That has been a challenge in many cases. We also need to look beyond country boundaries themselves to look at trans-boundary implications because one country's solution to their climate issue may impact negatively on another country not even just necessarily across the next border but many, many miles away and we've seen implications in the region of Southeast Asia where decisions made by government to protect their own country which sounds logical in a drought situation has had implications in another continent because access to resources were stopped. So every kind of decision that a government is making we need to look at it from within country is it holistic? Is it supporting with all the other ministries that they have to work with? If yes, that's a great idea. Is it then supporting more broadly trans-boundary climate issues because there are many risks that we face that go well beyond the borders of countries. So it's very much looking at this from an internal perspective within governments. Are they collaborating together? Is a ministry of mines, a ministry of environment, a ministry of forestry, agriculture are they discussing this together to see what the right solutions are? We want more energy. We want more rare earth minerals but are the implications negative to other sectors? And we need that dialogue. So bringing these ministries together discussing the trade-offs, discussing the synergies and agreeing the best solution for every particular context is incredibly important, incredibly challenging at the same time. So how do we make this happen? Again, this is where we see both policy and democracy driving a good agenda to support that. So yeah, we need to make sure that they're provided with the knowledge, making it, you know, sometimes scientists can be very kind of detail-oriented but we need to be able to break this information down into very good, simple, digestible information that is real about the current environment today that can be used in decision-making. We can back it up with all the science beyond that but we need to get the parliamentarians and the decision-makers really understanding the impacts, really understanding the challenges and really working together to find the right solutions. Again, this type of collaboration enables that to some extent. So it's very much a challenge of effective communication basically taking the scientific knowledge that we already have even on the solutions and to get that into policy debates, into constitutional design debates and into also the relationship of the public towards their respective institutions. And I think here I would like to ask you about how you see the role of, let's say, the human rights agenda or the women's empowerment agenda and how that interrelates with the issues of climate and environment. I think they're very much intertwined. You know, as an organisation that looks at environment we tend to look at environmental rights more so than human rights as an issue because we're not, in a sense, experts on human rights. Despite the fact that the environment is a human right and we need to protect the environment for long-term sustained and healthy livelihoods. So we would say that looking at both gender and social inclusion is critical to all of the decision-making that you have to have in looking at sustainability and the environment. If we're not understanding the different realities of people on the ground, whether it's an indigenous community, whether it's the women within a particular community, whether it's the youth in a particular community, if we're not understanding the context from each of their points of view and using that to develop the most robust approach and support mechanisms, maybe then we're leaving people behind, which is again against the UN Charter on human rights. So we need to be very careful to include people in this decision-making. I think we also need to look at all the different, say, regulations or different charters that these countries have signed off on. They have made the decision to sign up the UN Charter for Human Rights. They've made the decision to sign up the Paris Agreement. What can we do to support them to actually deliver on that? And it's a case about providing the information for them to honour what they've already said. Our role is not to advocate and make them change what they said they would do. We need evidence and the science to help them implement that better. And if sometimes our evidence can help suggest changes to enhancing their policies, enhancing what they might sign up to, we're very happy with that as well. But we need to make sure that a constant approach to working with decision-makers, in many ways we call it the cup of tea approach, sit down and chat to people, because it's very hard to get these communications of a peer review article, 20-page science journal to a decision-maker. They often won't read it. How can we break it down into language that's useful? And even then it's about how do you get the right time with the right decision-maker in the right context to get that information across. So there's a constant dialogue that's necessary. And that's with parliamentarians. It's with decision-makers, it's with ministries to make sure that they're getting the information they need to make decisions. In many ways you have to remember that many of these parliamentarians are working on a three-year cycle. They want to get elected next time. It's a tough decision-making. So how do we support them in that? Not that we're there to support politicians' future careers, but we want to make sure that we can facilitate clear decision-making by having timely and relevant information on their table. And that makes it also clear why legitimate government institutions that people can trust is so essential, because it is necessary for people to buy into solutions, governance arrangements, rights, laws, restrictions that can only be justified if these institutions that make them actually have the mandate, the democratic mandate from the people. Absolutely. And the governments need to be working for and with people and making sure that they are providing, you know, for the future of the communities out there. Unfortunately in some cases where there's conflict in country, maybe they're not doing that. But maybe this is a chance to lay the foundations for the future as well. How can we understand the context on the ground? How can we look at it from different points of view in different countries, what they may have done, what they may have developed under a kind of conflict scenario into a transition to a new government? What can we provide that will help them set up the foundations, I should say, in a more robust way moving forward? You know, if we don't have a government that's working to support the people then maybe it's a challenge to drive sustainability in the first place. And getting those policies implemented becomes my honor possible. So let's say if we are working towards the restoration of legitimate accountable government in Myanmar in the future, what would you suggest to those people preparing for that to already start thinking about with regard to climate and environment challenges? In particular, what are the commitments that Myanmar as a member state of the UN has already made? Or bilaterally, what are the relationships it has with the neighboring countries on climate and environment issues? It would not be starting from scratch. So there are many obligations, commitments that have already been in place, programs maybe that are in place. What could you think of that are the building blocks for, let's say, a future climate and environment policy for a legitimate government in Myanmar in the future? Well, I think the important thing is to... I suppose an assessment of what has changed in the last couple of years. Because we know maybe prior to the conflict starting there was a lot of progress in terms of environment and regulations being put in place. What has slid backwards? It's good to know where we stand today on that. Once we understand that, then, what are the key kind of observations we would make as a science-based organization to the types of policies you need to start looking into, whether it's in climate related issues, air quality issues, water resource management, whatever it might be, biodiversity key to all of this. We would look then at the current kind of regulations that they have signed up to, where are the gaps, where are the shortfalls on that, what types of recommendations we could make to support a future transition to sustainability. What we can give is kind of guidelines of what the next steps can be, but that's as far as we can go. I think it's then whatever government is there, hopefully a legitimate one in the near future, it can then take those steps and work with the evidence-based science, work with the recommendations, but that would then need to go into a more detailed pathway working together on what specifically needs to be done sector by sector. You can support that process as well in due course, but we have to make sure that it's wanted and that there's a desire to see this inclusive approach to it and that you're integrating in, I suppose, from the community, from the key stakeholders, business communities as well as government to make sure that everybody is designing the future that's sustainable and prosperous for all. That's a challenge when you don't have legitimate stable government. It's next to impossible to make it happen and also it's very difficult to work on the ground to do anything like that. Right. And we know, of course, that Myanmar has already been one of the most vulnerable countries in the world in terms of the negative effects of climate change and environmental degradation by a diversity loss, so it is already coming from a very fragile starting point and even more important that we will have effective and accountable institutions as soon as possible in place. I can't agree more with you on that. Can you just say a little bit about the role of you mentioned indigenous communities and especially the way in which traditional land rights come into all of this. I think one of the classic challenges in Myanmar has been deforestation, water resource management, mining issues. And there it's often a lot about who owns the land, who controls the land, who takes decisions. So in what way does the indigenous people's rights, customary land rights play into the climate and environment agenda? And can you think of some positive examples where that has actually worked out in countries that could be looked at as an example? Positive examples can be hard to come by when you're talking about indigenous communities trying to protect the land, but I'm sure that has happened in a number of places. But I think the big challenge is with, you know, if you're looking at natural resources and looking at governments who don't have the best interests of people at hand, often you find that either there's land grabs or there's people being relocated away from the land to access those natural resources, whether that's, you know, development of dams for hydro power, whether it's development of mining issues or even indeed agricultural production as we've seen land grabs taking place. And that is a major issue. Why I think we need to work with indigenous people is because they understand the land a lot better. They understand and have worked with the land for generations, thousands of years, and they can have a lot of local knowledge and local understanding that could help us both protect the land and create sustainability there, while also being able to look at resource management. So I think their knowledge and their understanding, not only their rights to the land should be protected and respected, but we can learn a lot from that too to see how it could be integrated into other areas. Unfortunately, it's rare that we see cases where indigenous communities are given that right and they're given the support. But I think, you know, why should we not look at the future with a kind of an open book and say, look, here's an opportunity to work from the indigenous communities up in a country that is kind of challenged by the impacts of climate change and see how do we get it right? What sort of adaptation can they bring about? How do we work with that, learn from that and expand on that in other areas? What maladaptations have they been practicing? Because not everybody gets it right to avoid others doing the same. But we need a government that would support that. And sadly, like the question of where is a good example, in the region, there's not that money that I'm aware of where those rights have been given and enshrined and supported and developed. I'd be very keen to see more examples of that and how we can work with these communities to learn from them. Climate and environment challenges have, of course, also been talked about a lot here in Thailand. And Thailand sharing its 2,400 kilometers long border with Myanmar is, of course, extremely closely related. Sharing rivers, sharing forests, mountain ranges, sharing sea. How could countries like Thailand and Myanmar work together in the future to address climate and environment challenges? Or what is already happening? What are the platforms of cooperation in this field? My understanding, at least, is that there's a keenness to want to work together to protect the environment, particularly in Thailand, and how the establishment of the climate change unit in the ministry as well. And I'd say, if you look at, particularly, the Mekong River, which is the major one that's sharing all these borders, working with MRC has been great over many years to try and create that connectivity, but Myanmar is not an MRC. MRC is the Mekong River Commission. This is the Mekong River Commission, yeah, sorry. But at the moment, Myanmar is not a member of that. But they're more connected now to the Lansang Mekong Commission, which is, again, looking at the river itself, which integrates the issues and impacts of China and Myanmar into decision-making. So we've got two large bodies who are looking at the Mekong River and trying to see how they can protect it. What we need to do is make sure that these institutions are communicating well together, which is increasing greatly over the last number of years, and it's good to see that. But it's good to see that governments are talking bilaterally as well about their impacts of climate, impacts of, maybe, burning, which is a big impact here in Thailand. You can see the haze out there today and the air quality. This is trans-boundary climate issues that we, again, have to address. So there is kind of a willingness to want to talk together. There is some help to work together, but I imagine, under a conflict, government is very difficult to drive those agendas. That being said, again, from our point of view, it's how to be support decision-making with the evidence that's necessary. Governments then at that stage have to kind of work together in their own channels to drive the agenda. Can I also ask you about the connection between what you're doing, climate and environment issues, and the education sector? We are here at Chulalongkorn University, probably for good reason. We have been working quite a lot with the NUG's Ministry of Education, which provides educational services across Myanmar. What, in terms of climate and environment, would you like to see in terms of being reflected in the education sector? Curricular awareness, what are the chances and opportunities you see for the education sector? And what maybe are some of the resources that you're already providing? I see that the education sector can offer a lot. I think we're looking at a growing youth population in a lot of these countries, and they will be both the future voters, but also the decision-makers of the future. So the more that we can try and work with and educate the youth, and when I talk about youth, I'm not looking at under 15s, I'm talking about 18s, 25s, 35s, who are voters and decision-makers today. How do we work with them to make sure they understand the climate issues? They see the complex situation that we have, but also the interaction between various sectors to understand one sector's impact on climate towards another. So if we can work with that group, it's very important. Maybe that's one of the reasons we're here at Chulalongkorn University, because we have good connections to the academic world here. We're working with many of the faculties here. We can give some of our advice to them. We know a lot from them, but we also work with many different universities across the region to try and develop connections to the types of research they're doing, to how do we link that research to policy, how do we make it more actionable as opposed to purely academic in its practice. There are many cases where we've talked about how do we then set up curriculums and in the years gone by we looked at this in Myanmar. What sort of agricultural curriculum is necessary to working with climate smart agriculture in the future? These are things we're happy to try and work towards and work with to provide at least the best knowledge we have to establish kind of curriculums for developing both an understanding of the context and an approach to solving the problem by looking at best practices on the ground. But SEI itself is not generally seen as an implementing organization. It's more of a knowledge production and policy recommendation organization, but we like to work with those who are implementing on the ground to make and have access to that knowledge and utilize it. So I think that that links to universities here and then across the region is critical so that we can share knowledge and we can then use that knowledge to drive implementation. So keen to explore options for that in the future as well. Well, I recognize a lot of this thinking also on how international idea has developed from being a more classical think tank producing reports to one that is very much depending on partnerships and engaging the broader public into the work in terms of democracy promotion. But democracy promotion and awareness on climate and environment very often go hand in hand because it all depends on individuals trying to make a difference, deciding to be an active part of society, taking responsibility. It's a lot about accountability and transparency. And the media of course plays an important role. So I think there are many ways in which our two institutions or organizations could maybe help each other, complement each other and we will continue to do so. Now, this is the last question. How did you experience sort of your own journey into this field and sort of what is your reflection on what brought you here? You've been living in Bangkok now for many years looking at this Asia region coming from Europe. So what are your takeaways let's say of your journey of what you would like to share? I suppose I've been travelling now for 30 years in the tropics looking at let's say development, environment and climate issues. I think what we see in Asia is an incredible dynamic here that the speed and pace of change is phenomenal. The level of knowledge in the region is phenomenal. Unfortunately the level of driving climate sustainability is not at the same pace as let's say economic development and one is having a massive impact on the other. Whether it's biodiversity loss whether it's water resource management whether it's impacts of climate change and we see air quality here and the impact the data has on health whether it's environmental degradation and the impact that's going to have on health. We're looking to follow up after 20, 30 years of economic development we need to change that approach rapidly to prevent massive kind of negative impacts on people in the future. When we look at cities and heat islands and the heat stress it's causing in cities tens of thousands of people may lose a life because the facilities aren't there to protect them it's too hot, the air is too hot the air is too humid people can't live in these conditions. We need to look at the impacts of rivers all of this infrastructure development is devastating the rivers it's taking sediments for rivers we're losing the capacity of rivers to be free-flowing we're losing the capacity of them to drive hydropower in many ways we're losing their impact as fisheries and they're for food and nutrition so yes it's great to see economic development but if we don't back it up with sustainability across the environmental spectrum we're going to see massive degradation in the future let alone sea level rise that's going to impact most of the cities and the region so there's enough knowledge now to know that we've been great at developing and getting economic growth and wealth but if we don't protect that by looking at the environment and rebuilding the foundations of the environment we're going to undermine a lot of what we've done over the last 20-30 years and I think that's what Asia is teaching me in a way that they have got the economic development in some ways right, it's not right in every way they're beginning now to look back and see how do they retrofit which is exactly what Europe did let's not say Europe did that differently it developed and it polluted and it cleaned up let's work with Asia to do that but maybe let's use this opportunity to learn from Europe and Asia to avoid India and Africa doing the same thing and let's make sure we change the processes moving forward but I think there's a lot to learn here I think it's a fabulous region to be in there's a lot to learn there's a lot of shared knowledge across the region to learn from each other I'm sure they can find solutions rapidly maybe the financial support is a different issue but we work one step at a time well it's certainly always a learning experience for me to talk to you Niall and it's fascinating to know about the complexity and the diversity of what Stockholm Environment Institute is doing in the region and I invite everybody watching this to check the links that we will share below this video and to follow the Stockholm Environment Institute but also international idea in our effort together to work towards a more sustainable development in particular with regard to climate change and environment thank you very much for watching and see you soon thank you