 Hello, everybody. I'm David Fenton, Chairman of Fenton, the social change agency and a long-time climate activist. And I'm honored to be here today because if we ever needed new economic thinking, it's on this issue. We're going to discuss today in the climate debate what must be done to avert climate catastrophe. As I think many of you know, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said that the world must cut global emissions in half in about eight and a half more years in order to have, I believe, about a 65 percent chance of maintaining a stable and livable climate. And we're nowhere near achieving that goal at the current time. And just to put that in perspective, briefly, the last time there was this much carbon in the atmosphere, the seas were about 25 meters higher than today. And while no one can tell you when exactly that will happen from a moral point of view, one might say from an economic point of view, it doesn't really matter. Joining us today are Margie Ault, the Campaign Director at the Climate Action Campaign, Robert Pollan, the Co-Director of the Political Economy Research Institute at UMass Amherst, Daniel Schrag, the Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology, Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering at Harvard and Director of the Harvard Center for the Environment, and Camilla Thulman, Senior Associate on Climate Change with the International Institute for Environment and Development. As the session goes on, we will take a few questions from the audience. Please submit your questions anytime by clicking on the Q and A button. So why don't we get started? And Camilla, did you want to start us off today? Camilla, are you off mute? I am. That's the commonest phrase that you hear these days is you're muted. So I hope you can hear me now. Yes. Well, thank you. I'm also an Associate at INET, where I'm guiding the work of the Commission, the Global Commission for Economic Transformation as it relates to Africa. And a big part of that work is listening and engaging with African leaders and thinkers on the challenges they face, including climate change and how to rethink the development options following the COVID-19 pandemic. And you can find all the interviews we've carried out on the INET website. We must understand the prospects for a global climate deal in the light of the pandemic, in the light of different countries' responses and on the availability of vaccines. And there's a strong sense that to date, the promises made at the G7 have not been forthcoming. And there remains a huge gap in vaccine availability between rich countries and those in Africa. And this gap is likely to damage prospects for an ambitious outcome from COP26 in Glasgow. Everything is interconnected. Solutions for climate change often focus on technology. And clearly, clever tech is very important to get us to net zero. But we must also work on the institutions and incentives needed to get innovation and technology reaching the places it's needed most. And this is particularly critical for Africa, where energy use is only a small fraction of that in Europe and North America. Today, for instance, some 600 million people don't have access to electricity at all. And 900 million lack access to clean cooking. So getting the investment and incentives right to get clean energy rolled out across the African continent will be key to providing a solid base for green growth and human development. And key also to ensuring that African countries feel part of this huge global project. One of the questions you ask us to consider is, are existing institutions up to the task? Is the nation state an obstacle? Well, yes, of course it is. But we have to live with what we have while crafting ways to avoid some of the biggest disadvantages they bring. And that's why we have the UN Climate Agreement and the annual conference, the parties, COP. And that's why we also have a range of higher level bodies above the nation state, creating collective action and common standards so individual countries can see the advantage of working together and the benefits of a level playing field. Take the EU and its climate and energy policies which have aimed to set the pace globally, despite the disagreements and laggards who find it hard to leave coal behind. It's also why other groupings have come together to accelerate action because they can see the inertia and the political barriers which often operate at the level of the nation state. Take a group like the C40 which brings together 97 cities around the world to experiment, to learn, and to share their experience in decarbonizing and building resilience. And it's also why we have groupings like the least developed countries group made up of 46 of the poorest, most vulnerable countries around the world, from Bangladesh, Haiti, and Burkina Faso, to Afghanistan, Myanmar, and small island states. They encapsulate the injustice of global climate change having admitted so little themselves, but being on the front line for many of the worst impacts. So I think we'll only get meaningful change when we see the changes we need to make in a positive light as bringing a better economy, society, and environment. So we need countries and companies competing to deliver renewable energy, cleaner air, better batteries, faster and at a lower cost year on year. So economics is part of that. But institutions, incentives, and investment are also key. Thank you. Thank you very much. Margie, would you like to go next? And I know you're going to focus some on the urgent domestic political situation. Great. Yeah. Love to. Thanks, David. Hi, everybody. Margie Alt on the campaign director of the climate action campaign. We're here in the US coalition of 14 national environmental environmental justice and public health groups. And we are single-mindedly focused on winning federal government action to deal with the climate crisis and do that in a way that is centered in equity. So glad to be here today to talk about the topic of what must be done to avert climate catastrophe, even though for so many of us the climate catastrophe is already here and facing us. So to solve a problem, they say you have to acknowledge the problem. So I'm going to start there and then move to the solutions. And here in the US, one in three Americans has personally experienced a climate-related weather event this summer alone. And those things are not only devastating to people's families and their property, but they are wildly expensive. Last year, extreme weather cost the US taxpayers $99 billion. And we know this year is worse, so we can expect even a bigger price tag on that. But it's not just the extreme weather, it's the extreme heat that is really creating many, many problems. This has been not only the hottest decade on record, but every one of the hottest years has been in this decade. And the combination of the extreme weather and the extreme heat is taking its toll on public health. So the World Health Organization says at least 150,000 people around the world are dying every year because of the climate crisis that we already have. And what we're trying to do now is a even a worse crisis. And those human lives are terrible. The cost of that can also be calculated, as I know you economists like to do. NRDC pegged the public health cost of air pollution and climate change at $800 billion a year. And again, with the problems getting worse, that price tag will only go up as will the cost of human pain and suffering. While this is obviously a worldwide problem, and Camilla talked a lot about that, we also know that it isn't evenly dispersed, that the wealthiest nations, the wealthiest countries have created a disproportionate amount of the pollution. And yet it is the poorest countries that are often most impacted by the problems. And that brings us to the US, where we have been both wealthy and problem causing. But I believe that also means we have a great opportunity, not only technologically, but also morally to be leaders in solving the problem as well. And so I'm going to move on to solutions at this point. And let me say, it's really quite simple to do what is needed. I mean, number one, we have to get off fossil fuels. There is nothing short of that that will avert climate catastrophe. We have to not only stop burning them, we have to get stop using them for transportation, we have to stop drilling them, we have to stop subsidizing them. No way around that. Number two, we have to get clean renewable electricity into the grid. We have to use clean renewable energy to move ourselves around, to run our factories, to run our homes, etc. And number three, the way to make both those things happen is huge investment. This country needs to invest in research and development. We need to invest in transitioning workers and communities that have been dependent on fossil fuels to a cleaner and healthier and safer future. And we have to continue to lead in developing new technologies and deploying them, not only here at home, but across the world. So let me finish by giving a couple of thoughts on how we make all of that happen. Problem is huge. Solutions are pretty straightforward, yet we are stymied in many ways because of the politics. So I think the most important thing we can do is make sure that our government at every level mandate solutions to this problem. Right now the US Congress has a huge opportunity to take a big bite out of the climate crisis by passing the Build Back Better Act. It would be a huge investment in everything from extending clean energy tax credits to creating a excuse me Margie. Margie, you're running out of time. I'm sorry. That's okay. So federal government has a lot to do. State and local governments have a lot to do. 300 businesses have committed to take action. They need to do that and line up their politics and advocacy. And then obviously citizens across the country have to use their power, consumers, as shareholders, and as voters to make sure government and companies do what's needed. And we can obviously make lifestyle changes too. But that comes after we change the systems. Thank you, Margie. Professor Schrag, you focus on the science of this. And I don't envy you. You could get PTSD doing that, I would think, given what we know. So do you want to pipe in here on the scientific economic aspects that you look at? That would be great. Thank you, David. And thanks to everybody for joining us for this conversation. So I'm a climate scientist and I've been thinking about climate change for more than 30 years. I want people, you know, sometimes people say I'm a pessimist. Some people say I'm an optimist. I like to say I'm a scientist. And I'm trying to observe the world as free from biases as possible. That's what we're trained to do, including our own political desires of what we would like to see happen. I think first, before we can articulate that, we need to observe what is actually happening. One thing that's really important to keep in mind about climate change is that it has two elements that are really hard. One is long time scales. The time scales for the impacts of climate change for the evolution of the Earth system, unfortunately, range from years to decades to centuries to millennia to tens of millennia. It's hard to get our head around it, but we're making decisions today that will affect the Earth for thousands of generations of people. Is that ethical? Can that be summed up in a simple discount rate, the way many economists traditionally have done it? I think the answer is no, it's a much deeper question. But we have to understand that the impacts we're going to feel are very long. The second aspect, so what that means is that even if we act, we are going to feel impacts of climate change and they're going to grow for a very long time. As Camilla and Margie said, there are huge aspects of injustice in this. Many of the people who will suffer the most didn't do anything to cause the problem. That's the nature of the climate problem. The other aspect is that solving it, as Margie said, we have to do without fossil fuels, but we sometimes forget it is a global collective action problem. That means that, frankly, the whole idea of a carbon footprint, I know it was introduced to be useful and helpful, but I actually am wondering if it's actually a problem because I fear too focused on our individual footprints, our institutional or corporate footprints, or even our national footprints. If you look at the discussions in the COP process, I think they've become way too obsessed with each country trying to get to zero as opposed to asking, what can each country do to help the world get to zero? Leadership is only leadership if we bring others along with us. In the US, it's interesting. I'd love to hear what Margie has to say about this, but it actually feels like both the Republicans under Trump and the Democrats in the presidential debate were at America first. There was no discussion of, how is America going to help the rest of the world? By the way, Camilla, I sympathize with the huge need for economic investment because of poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa, but I would actually argue that the rapidly growing economies of the world that are poor but getting richer, mostly outside of Sub-Saharan Africa, although there certainly are some in Sub-Saharan Africa, they're the ones that actually need our help now, most of all, because they are on a rapid development trajectory and the types of energy decisions they make will profoundly influence what happens both to the climate, but also to energy technology, learning curves, and the economics of energy over the next several decades. I'll leave it there. Okay, thank you very much. Bob Pollitt, your work has a big boost of optimism in it because you show that actually, amazingly, we can afford to save ourselves. Do you want to talk about that? Thank you very much, David. I'm very happy to be here, and I appreciate the comments that we just had from Camilla, Margie, and Daniel. So I'm going to maybe just fill in some of the gaps of what I think Margie was talking about and Camilla, and to some extent, Daniel, I'm going to refer to all of them. I think since I have a very short amount of time, let's say the single most important thing we need to do to address climate change, to move on to a climate stabilization path is, as Margie said, stop burning oil, coal, and natural gas to produce energy, period. Yes, we can fudge that a little bit on various issues, but basically that's what we have to do. Roughly 75% of all emissions come from burning oil, coal, and natural gas to produce energy. So we simply have to wind that down. And if we start now, and I'm talking about a global system, I'm not talking about just the U.S., if we start now and we reduce emissions in absolute level amounts by about 4% per year, by 2050, we will be at zero. So it is not onerous. It is something that is at this point still achievable. Now, obviously, if we're going to maintain economic activity and think about, for example, Africa growing, which I strongly support, and I'll come back to that more in a minute, we have to substitute some alternative to the fossil fuel source of energy that we are going to be winding down. And that, in my view, the dominant alternative is two sources. The first, and actually by far the cheapest in terms of emission reduction is investments in energy efficiency, raising efficiency standards in buildings and transportation, industrial activity, computers, everything. And according to the engineering research that I'm familiar with, it is realistic to think about cutting energy, raising energy efficiency standards in the range of 40 to 50% over the next couple of decades. The second is to build out clean energy, clean renewable energy infrastructure, and by that I mean primarily solar and wind power, but additionally, to a lesser extent, geothermal, small-scale hydro and some low emissions bioenergy. Now, those investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy, my own modeling, I've estimated that for the globe, for the globe, we're looking at an investment in the range of about two and a half to 3% of global activity, GDP every year through 2050. If we average it out over the 30-year period, it's about four and a half trillion dollars a year. Interestingly, other researchers, other models have corroborated my own. For example, the International Renewable Energy Agency, the International Energy Agency have both come out with their own models in the past four or five months, which pretty much come to the same result. Now, if we invest at that level, we can build out a clean energy infrastructure to substitute for the fossil fuel energy infrastructure that we have to phase out, absolutely must phase out. Now, when we do that, there are also going to be major economic benefits accruing through those investments, because they are investments. They will create jobs. They will create lots of jobs. My own model, again, roughly speaking, we're looking in the range of 150 million jobs that can be sustained on the global basis through this kind of investment project. Obviously, there's a lot of issues with respect to how, what kind of jobs, quality of jobs, who gets the jobs and so forth, we can get into that later. But it is a source, a major source of investment will generate job creation. We'll also get other co-benefits from this project. We will reduce air pollution dramatically. We will create opportunity for small-scale enterprises. And here, I would say, this is particularly and most dramatically a possibility in, for example, Sub-Saharan Africa, as Camilla referred to, where we have hundreds of millions of people without access to electricity. Building out small-scale enterprises in those regions is a lot easier than all the failed attempts at getting large utility electricity delivered to these cohorts of the global population. And this project will actually lower energy costs. It will lower energy costs. I know that may not sound plausible, but when we think about investments in energy efficiency, by definition, that lowers costs. Secondly, the costs of renewable energy have fallen dramatically just over the last decade. By 80 percent, solar energy photovoltaic has fallen by 80 percent over the last decade, such that the International Renewable Energy Agency reported two months ago that new solar installations are coming in at cost, 62 percent of the projects they studied are coming in at cost lower than the cheapest fossil fuel alternative. So we're going to have job creation. We're going to lower pollution. We're going to lower costs, and we're going to create opportunities, in particular, in rural low-income areas. Now, there will be, of course- Bob, I'm afraid you're running out of time. Okay. I will just say we're going to, of course, experience job losses in the fossil fuel industry and in the communities associated with that. So just transition for those communities and those people also have to be integral to the solution. Thank you. That's very good. By the way, can I clarify something with you? When you say 2.5 to 3 percent of global GDP, are you counting the net benefits of the return on investment, or is that just the cost without the returns? Is it the cost? What do you mean, the fact that we are investing? Yeah. In other words, when you invest in energy efficiency, it's profitable. The Empire State Building, for example, changed their energy system in their windows, and they got a three-year payback for a 40% cut in their energy use. That's a 33% return per year. Do your figures count the income or only the cost? Only the cost, except when I say that we will have cheaper energy. Yeah. Okay. So, panelists, this is your moment to ask and challenge each other. I have a feeling there are some challenges out there. So who would like to ask or challenge a question? Dan, I can tell that you want to say something or ask something, so why don't you? Let me make it clear that I am spending my whole career trying to figure out how to solve this problem. So I want to be as optimistic as I can be. I want to believe what Robert just talked about. I will say that there are some shadows lurking that that make his assertions a little dubious to myself. A lot of studies, but including some by Michael Greenstone, the economist at University of Chicago now, really questioned those energy efficiency numbers. The idea that you can actually get 40 to 50% energy efficiency increases at low or negative cost, frankly, conflict with a lot of the data that's actually out there and our experience. It's a lot harder. There are a lot of advocates for this, but the real data suggests that there are hidden costs that often are not considered. And anybody, for example, I know Margie is a neighbor of mine. She lives in Summerville. I live just across the Summerville border in the Cambridge and renovating an old home in Massachusetts, not that easy to get 40 to 50% drop in energy use. It's really tough and it's very expensive and the paybacks are long. I've worked very carefully on modeling what decarbonization scenarios look like. And I will say I'm incredibly excited by the cost drawdown and things like solar PV. But I think it's misleading to talk about that. First of all, those costs, for example, per megawatt hour, really only applied a low penetration solar when you're not talking about a number where you start to have to manage the intermittency of those resources. And there are very few countries that are pushing up against that margin. Ireland is one. UK and Germany are another. California, as a state, it's not an independent grid. But California is another. And we need those experiments to see how we can manage high penetration winded solar. But we haven't solved that problem yet. It's still a huge challenge. And it looks very expensive to solve. The other thing I would note that internationally, there is growing what I call a renewal rules gap. That is, most of the developed world and countries like China and India is coming on strong have high penetration winded solar above 10%. US is something like 12 or 13% winded solar contribution to our electricity growing fast. But there are many, many rapidly developing countries that have near zero Indonesia, Thailand, many countries in Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and other parts of the world. And I think we need to think about how through those are market failures. Because as you say, solar is cheap and it's pretty sunny in Indonesia. So why aren't they building solar in Indonesia? We need to bring the rest of the world along. And we have not put enough attention to that. I think that's a huge lost opportunity. Okay, Robert and Camilla, do you want or anybody want to respond? Robert, you want to go first? Well, I think to be fair, maybe I shouldn't go first, because I don't want it to turn into a back and forth on what the literature actually says. So let's let other people talk. Okay. Yeah, I'd love to pick you up on the question of why renewable energy, particularly solar, is not rolling out faster than it currently is, particularly if you take many African countries. And I think one of the big things relates to confidence and trust in a credible regulatory framework, which encourages investors to put their money into this space. And what you tend to find is that the risks are felt to be too high, and the returns are felt to be too low for either international or domestic investment to come into delivery of big renewable energy projects. So individual people, as you say, buy a solar panel, put it on their roof, and they can watch TV. But the sort of the intermediate level of energy generation, just you're not getting the investment you want to need. And that's from what people say is because they just don't trust the feed-in tariffs or the regulatory framework that would provide them with that 2025 year assurance that they're going to get their money back and you can make better money putting your capital into urban development or something like that. So that's why there's a strong interest these days in seeing how you can blend investment finance, bring in a bit of development finance from some of the development banks to partner with private investors so that you soften the risk profile and you raise the likelihood of a good return, while at the same time working with governments to say, really, you need to provide this long-term confidence if people are going to put that kind of capital that's so urgent and immediate. And that's true in Niger. It's true for Indonesia. It's true in the UK as well. Okay. Margie, did you want to respond or add anything? I guess all I would say is I see the reason for skepticism. But from the organizing perspective, I'm not sure it's helpful because what's our choice, but to do the best we can to build as much political will as we can to solve as many of the problems as we can and then hope that solving problems begets more solutions and begets more innovation and begets more overall benefit. So I hear you. I'm afraid, but I don't see a better choice than being both hardworking and optimistic. That's great. So Bob, sure you don't want to get into what the data actually says, but I can just offer the story of the Empire State Building that I recounted as a true story. In fact, the Malcom family that owns the Empire State Building was presented with two scenarios. One was they could cut the energy use of the building. I believe it was 30% on a three-year payback and 40% on a five-year payback. They chose the 30% on the three-year payback because apparently a 20% rate of return wasn't enough for them. They wanted a 33% rate of return. So savings certainly are out there and a big part of the question of how to do this, we'll get to in the next panel, which is the financing mechanisms because with the right kind of long-range, long-term, reasonable interest rate financing, many more things become possible. So Bob, how would you like to add to this conversation then? So okay, without just going sight and citations back and forth, and of course familiar with Greenstone's work, but just let me give you some very big pieces of evidence here. We have huge range of difference in terms of levels of energy efficiency in countries and regions and so forth. So let me just give you some examples of things that I've just worked on comparing the average level of energy efficiency in the state of California with the average level of energy efficiency in South Korea where I'm working right now. California's level of energy efficiency is three times higher than South Korea and South Korea's an advanced economy. So the idea that South Korea through clean energy efficiency investments couldn't reach the level of efficiency that California has already achieved seems to me implausible. I would also mention it so happens as a side thing, I'm a green energy capitalist myself and I invest in energy efficiency projects and renewable and I'm well aware that at the level of individual homes that there of course is a lot of resistance and people don't want, as Greenstone describes, don't want workers coming into their house and think you have to schedule it so it's difficult and I would say that's probably the toughest enough to crack. By contrast, as David just referred to the Empire State Building is one big building, one decision maker, and they are investing on the basis of profitability. So if you shift their incentives, you will get those efficiency investments which are available according to all the engineering evidence. So I would stress that in the area of renewable energy, yeah, I mean, I think, you know, to say this is not a minor thing that the costs of solar have come down by 80% in 10 years. Now, yes, there are of course still problems, there's problems with intermittency as Daniel mentioned. That's obvious because the sun doesn't shine all day. But for one thing, we don't have to solve that one entirely right away because we're going to phase out fossil fuels. We're not going to cut fossil fuels 100% tomorrow. So the intermittency problem won't really be a serious problem for another decade or so and in the interim, we have a lot of investment going on in battery storage and related technologies. Sure. Okay. So can I just go ahead, Dan, on your comment, David? Sure. So Emery Levin is likes to talk about the Empire State Project a lot. He was a consultant on that. I think the Empire State Building is an incredibly misleading example, David. Oh, is that right? Oh, that's interesting. And the reason is that they calculate the payback based on the energy part of the investment, which was about, as I recall, something like $30 million. And I think it's important to understand they were doing a $500 million gut retrofit of the Empire State Building. Now, the fact that you can improve the energy efficiency of a 1930 skyscraper shouldn't come as a big surprise. Think about the windows that were in that building from 1930. So are there huge savings there? Absolutely. But here's the question. What's the real cost of that? If you tried to only do those energy investments, they would cost, I suspect, three times that much. The fact that they were doing a gut rehab of a $500 million scale investment in the building makes the energy investments a whole lot more feasible and cheaper. And so I think the numbers about year payback and I think those are highly suspicious. And I don't think they're generalizable to other situations. Okay. Well, again, are there are there investments in my home, if I were to do not $500 million but half a million gut rehab? Absolutely. But if I tried to just do those energy upgrades, it would be a lot more expensive. Okay. Well, I hadn't heard that. I'm sure that's fair. But even if you cut the rate of return by two-thirds, considering that we have to save the climate for the future, 10% might be okay. So, but I appreciate you're pointing out that. We only want accurate information in all of these discussions. I'd like to go for a minute to the 30,000-foot level for a minute. You know, when journalists write about this issue and when you talk to most politicians, certainly on the right, the dominant metaphor is, sure, we have to deal with climate change, but doing so might wreck the economy. And what you kind of never hear is that not doing anything will wreck the economy for sure, collapse insurance markets, create enormous, horrible externalities. So, why, what do we need to do to make it so that the narrative becomes, it's very challenging, but we actually have the resources to save ourselves and we can afford to do it and we can't afford not to. I'm sure we all agree with that. How do we change that Uber narrative? Because it's just, I'm sure we're all getting tired of this, you know, it's going to wreck the economy when the actual economy records are the people stopping action. Any thoughts on that? Bob, you're on mute. Okay, I'll jump in quickly. Yeah, a lot of my own work has been on exactly that question because there was and still is this big notion out there that you can address climate change, but the tradeoff is that your economic growth suffers and employment suffers. And a lot of my research has been trying to show that actually this is a major engine, positive engine of job creation. Speaking broadly, of course, there's issues. But speaking broadly, I think that's true. I think that, you know, when we talk about military spending, we say, well, whatever you may think about the US military, come on, every congressional district wants money because it's going to create jobs and it advances technical innovation. Well, why can't that be seen as comparable to the climate transition that this is industrial policy that is going to advance innovation and it is going to create jobs and it can be and will be in every community. And one of the studies I did just a few months ago was for the state of West Virginia, which is the poorest state, which is the most coal dependent state. And what we showed was for West Virginia to get to net zero by 2050, we're looking at about 40,000 jobs per year in West Virginia and lower energy costs and so forth. Whereas the just transition for the coal mining industry, we're looking at taking care of about 1500 workers a year. And that means 1500 workers a year guaranteed employment elsewhere, guaranteed pensions and so forth. And what's the cost of that? So the cost of that was, okay, it was more than some other states, but was still about 3% of GDP of state GDP in West Virginia. So it is a relatively small cost. I have met with the staff of Senator Manchin and made these points. They said they they were very impressed. Obviously, the senator hasn't totally absorbed the idea. I will say though, the senator Manchin did show up at a press conference with the leadership, labor leadership in the state endorsing the just transition program. All right. Very good. So shall we take on Camilla, did you want to respond to this discussion about where the investment should be Africa or the more developing countries? No, it was really just to follow up on on Bob's points. I think the whole question, as I said in my introductory remarks, we have to see the the greening of the economy very much as a big opportunity for new investment going into new industries, creating jobs with the benefit of cheaper energy and cleaner air. It's a it's a good news story. Obviously, it involves a shift in some of the revenue, some of the jobs, some of the people who win and those who lose, which is why thinking of a timetable over which those changes can take place is absolutely critical and making sure that the people who lose out can find good, better employment doing something else. Very good. So we have 10 minutes left. I'd like to take a couple of audience questions. Unless anybody, any of you have a very important additional point you want to make. So we have a question. Where do we start to actually start cutting fossil fuel use from Douglas Carmichael? What actions now? And I would say, yeah, what actions first? Anyone want to respond to that? Let me say very quickly first, and then I'd love to hear what Margie says as an organizer and see if we're on the same page. Remember, because of the price drops that Robert mentioned in Wind and Solar, right now, despite President Trump, the last couple of years, Wind and Solar have represented about three quarters of the U.S. edition of New Generation Capacity. And that's despite President Trump's hatred of Wind. Indeed, more solar was built in four years of Trump's administration as in eight years of Obama. So it tells you that policy isn't everything, that the market really matters. Oh, for sure. And that's a good thing. And I suspect that over the next 10 years, the vast majority of carbon emissions reductions in the U.S. will come from retirement of coal being replaced by a combination of Wind, Solar and Natural Gas. And that's just empirical. That's what's happened the last 10 years, and that's likely to continue. That being said, there's one important new technology on the horizon. Electric vehicles are getting cheaper. And many people think within the decade and maybe even within the next five years, electric vehicles will actually become directly economically competitive with gasoline vehicles when you think about especially the lower maintenance costs. So I think that's going to happen very soon. And we could see a very rapid turn in the automobile industry. And that, although it would take a little while because we would have to continue to decarbonize the electricity sector too, that will start to contribute to carbon reductions about 10 years from now. Margie, did you want to add to that? Yeah, thank you. So a couple of things. I like your future two-thirds of which was Wind and Solar. And I hope we don't continue to build natural gas or use natural gas in new development because if we start now, it locks in for 30 years and we don't have 30 years to lock in more natural gas. And that's why I think the economy and economic factors in the market driving itself are really important. But I do think federal and state policy needs to be part of that mix so that we can force the cleaner renewables and ban the ones that aren't going to help us in the long term. And I think all of your points about the cost being there to justify that make that a rational policy decision on the economics as well as the moral and public health value. So I would say anything new should be what we want the future to look like. Any new development, any new transportation, any new land use decisions. And if we are always looking ahead for what we would want things to look like, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 50 years will be way better off. And I'd say the second thing is we have to stop drilling the new oil and gas today. And if we stop that today and really suppress the flow of fossil fuels, we would see a much quicker adoption on the clean energy pieces. So I think we're in that sweet spot of people are ready for the change. I totally agree with what you're saying again on the electric vehicles. I think that will be happening quickly because they're also more fun to drive. So I think we'll see adoption, but I think we need policy, I think we need to ban any of the worst behaviors, encourage the good ones and stop all the oil and gas drilling if we want to get where we want to get on the timeline that scientists tell us we need to. And Margie, did you ever think you'd get to the point where your position is now the mainstream international energy agency position that there must be no more investment in any fossil fuel drilling or infrastructure? You are no longer a radical, I'm sorry. Hey, I want to get to another audience question. You know, on electric vehicles, not widely known, but another way they're going to get cheaper is that soon utilities will start paying you for the use of your car batteries for grid storage and grid demand management. And the Tesla has already set up the ability to do that. And I've seen calculations that the properly financed this could result in a point of purchase rebate of $5,000 for five years of using your car. So a lot of innovation is coming. Isn't that great? Okay, so Mark Cliff is asking, Robert did not mention curbing demand as part of the solution in the developed world. Lifestyle changes are needed, like our homes have been growing in size. How far does the panel see a role for taxes and regulation to curb demand? Anyone want to answer that? Go ahead, Bob. Well, I thought I talked a lot about demand because I talked about increasing energy efficiency. You know, meaning that we would get comparable levels of energy services that we can turn on the lights and run the heat, run the air conditioning, go from point A to B, and consume half the level of energy to achieve those things. So that is, in my view, the primary way through which we achieve energy efficiency. Of course, we can reduce demand and we can also reduce demand by doing with less. And, you know, I think well off people in rich countries, like myself, could do with less, certainly. But I don't think that is going to be a prime driver of the solution. I mean, if we think about say 70% of the world's population living on less than $10 a day, I'm not about to say, you know, you all need to cut your energy demand. So in terms of the source of energy demand contraction, I think we can go really far with efficiency and a little bit but not very far through changes in lifestyle. And what about taxes on carbon for pricing signals in a complex economy? Politically, we're not there. But I imagine you all support that as a goal if it were politically feasible. So maybe we should try to make it more politically feasible. I think maybe we could. Well, we have a carbon price in Europe. And I think that is helping drive a rethinking of, you know, technology, where you put your investment and so on. And so I think it's not the only thing we need. But a carbon price can be a powerful driver of of changes in behavior and changes in investment patterns. Oh, go ahead, Margie. I was just going to say, making sure that it's done in an equitable way so that the people at the bottom end of the spectrum don't bear the major cost of it is a critical policy design aspect. Sure, Dan. You know, in the U.S., the Climate Leadership Council's proposal for carbon dividend wasn't a tax because money doesn't, none of it goes to the government. That was a progressive, actually, that was a progressive proposal in that low income people, on average, would do better. I do think the carbon tax in the UK electricity sector clearly was responsible for driving that last bit of coal out of the system very quickly. And that's a huge win. The political will for that, unfortunately, the willingness to pay remains low everywhere. And it's, it's, that's going to be very difficult. We're, you know, wish we could convince people to do that. I will say one thing. I do think there's an interesting conflict, Robert, between you're talking about how energy prices are likely to go down and your predictions about energy efficiency. I actually suspect the only way I could imagine the energy efficiency projections you're talking about coming place is that energy prices went up a lot. You know, when people are talking about, for example, in Europe and certain parts of the US, there's this excitement about hydrogen in industry or green hydrogen. But it looks to be effective costs of $500, $800 a ton of CO2, wildly expensive compared to fossil alternatives. And if you actually mandated that, then I could imagine efficiency gains coming in because they would be so expensive. But I fear that's not, that's not likely to happen just because people's willingness to pay is so low. Again, we're up against this collective action problem. We see it all the time. Well, if, you know, why should we do it if China isn't going to do it? Why should the UK do it if the US isn't going to do it? That comes up again and again. And we haven't figured out how to get around that yet. Well, I think we have to get around it by showing that leadership in this field really brings big returns. And that's, I think that's the key. Sure. As well as preventing the destruction of everything that Well, one thing you can depend on is, I'm sorry to say, the weather's not going to get any better over the next few years. And it will continue to teach people, you know, it's interesting that the number of Americans who consider themselves alarmed about climate change has doubled in the last five years. It's now 25% of the US population. And it's the largest issue public in the country after abortion. It's insufficiently activated. But I know Margie's working on that. So I want to thank our time is up. I want to thank all the speakers and the audience for the session. And we hope that you will join us for the next session, which is green finance, the future of capital or financial window dressing with Brett Christopher's, Leah Johnson and Adair Turner starting on the hour. Thank you all very much and goodbye.