 Hello, everyone, from the number nine Downing Street COP26 unit. My boss, the president-designate, Alok Sharma, is traveling, as I think all of you are now aware that COP26 requires an awful lot of visiting countries around the world. And in his absence, he has lent me his banners. Next hour is the closing session of today's climate breakthroughs meeting. It's an exercise that I know Alok was particularly keen should happen. He wanted all of you to get together. That's the World Economic Forum, us in the COP unit, the UK government to get together with Mission Possible Partnership and so on and have a stop take six months ahead of Glasgow and COP26. We have for you an excellent panel, drawn from different sectors who have enormous amounts to bring to reflect on the breakthroughs that we're seeing right now, but also the ones that we need to see in the six months before before November. Of course, during the course of today, you have all been lucky enough to hear from leaders of industry about the kind of breakthroughs that they are pushing forward with. But now I am going to reflect on the major themes. We've seen a step change in business and government action in recent in recent days, even it's not just weeks. Every day seems to bring a big, a big development that many, many people like yourselves didn't see coming. Ambitious targets are being set by countries around the world and measures being taken to reduce emissions. That all said, there's more work that needs to be done in the next six months. I hope that this session is going to focus in on what exactly that is. And also, there's a question mark for everyone about whether we're seeing the investments in green technologies, that's hydrogen, direct air capture, biofuels, the kind of investments we need to actually make a difference by 2030, because all of us know that this is the decisive decade. So with six months to go until COP, we have the following guiding questions for the next 60 minutes. What are government and business priorities? What should they be in the six months? The fiscal stimulus that we've all seen deployed to deal with covid. How can that be bent deployed to be to be green? What we in the UK are adapting, build back better and we're adapting it to be build back greener. And then a drilling down a focus into the different sectors, as I alluded to earlier, but enough from me. I'm delighted to be able to introduce for you all Secretary Kerry. He really doesn't need any introduction, but for those of you who've been on Mars for a while, he's America's special presidential envoy for climate. And he is going to begin by offering us his reflections on where we find ourselves with six months to go. Well, thank you. I like to very, very much and I'm delighted to join all of you and to join the WEF, which is consistently trying to mobilize the corporate world and bring people to the table, thought people, you know, thinkers and doers and help point us in the right direction. And I appreciate the opportunity to share some thoughts. Let me just cut right to the chase here. The question was asked sort of where are we and the successor question is obviously where are we going? And I would summarize it in this way. When we all went to Paris, when I well, let me begin with probably the proper beginning. Many of us were present at the failure of Coen Hagen. And you may recall President Obama literally trying to run down President Xi somewhere in the halls of the building to get a meeting. It was pretty chaotic and it did not resolve in what we needed. And when I became Secretary of State in 2013, I went to China almost in the first six weeks and sat with President Xi. And we found a common ground, which was really the common interests of our citizens, both of ours increasingly Chinese citizens were reacting to the quality of their water, the quality of their air. And this was manifesting itself as a political issue. So we joined forces. President Obama, President Xi stood up in the great hall of the people and announced in 2015 what our 2014 what our mutual efforts would be as we headed to Paris. And I think that had a lot to do with our ability to achieve Paris, because we didn't have China leading the G 77 in opposition to the developed world. So here we are in Paris. 196 countries come together. But Paris was easy compared to what we have to do in Glasgow because in Paris, every nation wrote their own plan basically according to what they were willing to do. In Glasgow, knowing what we now know, seeing the evidence mounting, seeing the level of damage we're paying for, the interruption of business, all the consequences of the accelerated climate transformation taking place, which is the crisis. Seeing all of that, we have to go to Glasgow and we have to write the plans that we have to write, not that we want to or were satisfied, but that we have to. And Glasgow, I think I've said this many times, is without exaggeration, really the last best hope we have to be able to pull ourselves together and not get everything done because nobody's going to get everything done in a matter of a few months, but set us on clearly definable, understandable, achievable, transparent tracks, which lead us to the goals we're now hearing people, value who really fairly frequently, which is net zero 2050. I will tell you, and I don't mean to cast any aspersion on I'd rather have everybody doing that and saying that. But that's 30 years away, folks. And it doesn't get us where we need to be. Nothing gets us where we need to be. Unless we do what we have to do between 2020 and 2030. So the United States, regrettably, inexcusably without rationale and science and even perhaps in politics has been delinquently absent from the last four years, menacing efforts in our country and elsewhere to try to move forward. And so President Biden did campaign on the notion that he would immediately re-enter the Paris Agreement, which he did immediately move our government into an all of government effort to try to deal with this, which he has. And now we're in a very, very different place than the one I found on January 20th when I was sworn into office, which is to say that we've gone from zero to 100 miles an hour or whatever you want to call it in the middle of this maelstrom that is descending on us. And we've had great partners around the world, unbelievable efforts as more and more people are recognizing and embracing the seriousness of what we now face. But let's be clear because I hear an awful lot of happy talk about what people are currently doing or are going to do when the reality is that even if we did everything that was promised to be done in those plans that were put together for Paris, even if we did everything and we're not, the Earth's temperature would still rise by 3.7 degrees, not 1.5, not two, but 3.7. And because we're not doing everything we set out to do, we were actually headed to probably four degrees, four plus, 4.5 according to some scientists. So I don't want to debate, and it's not worth the debate of whether it's three or 3.5. Anything over two is pretty catastrophic and anything over three is genuinely catastrophic. And so, and by the way, all the damage we're seeing today, everything that's happening in terms of the renewed intensity of storms, the fires, the intensity of fires, the warming of the ocean, the changing of the chemistry of the ocean, more than in millions of years, many other things. All of this is at 1.2 degrees increase in Earth's temperature since industrial age. So that's where we are. 1.2 degrees already, we have a 0.3 span to hit the 1.5. Now in Paris, we agree, all of us, that we would fight to hold the Earth's temperature increase well below two degrees. That's the language, well below two degrees. As far as I'm concerned, without even debating 1.5 degrees, well below is not 1.9 or 1.8 or 1.7. So when we also said we're gonna strive to achieve 1.5, we were listening to the island states and the vulnerable nations around the world who are most impacted by something that they are not significantly contributing to. And so that's the challenge we face today. And the IEA came out with what I think is an absolutely critical benchmark report that everybody has to read and digest, which had three principal conclusions, I think. One, we have to accelerate the deployment of renewables, massively accelerate the deployment of renewables. Number two, we have to massively accelerate, put on high steroids, the quest for the new technologies, the breakthroughs that we need, whether it's storage, battery storage, other storage or green hydrogen or direct air capture, whatever it's gonna be, we've gotta get that done. Because even if we got to net zero by 2050, we still have to suck X numbers of billions of tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere in order to prevent the long-term damage that what's up there already is going to do. So the third item looms very large and important. The IEA tells us that we cannot afford to be engaging in any new fossil fuel enterprises, basically. In other words, new mines, new coal-fired power plants, major gas infrastructure, which will be stranded assets in the next 20, 30 years. We have to be really smart about what we're gonna do here. There are countries today that are already achieving 85, 90% of their energy base with pretty good security, with actually with full security, at about all on renewables. And there are now a commercial scale, utility scale batteries that are being used to be able to build in certain places together with hydro or other sources, including at this point, gas. So the question for all of us is gonna be, how do we do this? How are we gonna implement this? And it's not an exaggeration to say to all of you that the key is what we decided to do between 2020 and 2030. The United States, so we began an aggressive renewal of American diplomacy, working very closely with Alok and his team and with others, with Frank Stimmermans and his folks and others around the world. And Shia Zhenhua, the climate envoy for China and I, I've had about 12 different negotiating sessions and conversations and I went to China, to Shanghai, and we will continue to focus as we did in the Leader Summit that President Biden hosted on the 20 biggest emitting countries, the biggest economies fundamentally, the G20 plus a few countries. And they all attended the Leader Summit a few weeks ago. And many countries stepped up as we have been working with them to announce significant increases in their NDCs, recognizing that all the major emitting countries have got to reduce sufficiently that we can keep 1.5 degrees alive, meaning it's in our horizon. We could actually reach 1.5 if we do the things we wanna do. And that's one of our goals at Glasgow, is to go into Glasgow with the ability to get those 20 nations plus, to raise their ambition, to reduce emissions so that we can look the world in the eye and say we have succeeded in holding the Earth's temperature. Is that, do I, I don't wanna abuse my 10 minutes here. I vibrate on time. No, no, no, I think every single one of us listening is finding it fascinating. I'm ashamed to admit that we have some noises off here that are just being told to be quiet. This is the thing about Zoom conferencing, it's not quite as good. I'm walking around by welcome for a while already. At least it's not a small child coming in. John, Senator Kerry, you didn't, you didn't, please, I don't mean for you to be interrupted. Please conclude and then I have some questions and I'm sure everyone on the panel does too. So what we've done is bring countries, Canada, Japan, Korea, others. We're working with about 25 countries right now and engaged in trying to help some of those countries to see. I mean, we're not trying to, you know, we're not trying to lord it over anybody or lambast anybody or point fingers of blame or anything. We're trying to be helpful and show people where in fact efficiencies in the delivery of their energy, their current energy could save massive amount of emissions where there is an opportunity to retrofit buildings and put people to work in the doing of that so that we can begin to use less energy. I mean, there are a host of ways to approach an economy-wide sector by sector effort here and that's what it's gonna take. Now transportation, we have set a goal in the United States that we will be on electric vehicles by 2035 and transition. A General Motors has already announced they're gonna try to meet that goal. We have also set a goal that by 2035, our power sector will be carbon-free and our utilities have accepted that challenge. And I might add it is particularly noteworthy to see what is happening in various parts of the world like just the other day or yesterday in the Dutch court that ruled that Shell is polluting too much. And prior to that, the Constitutional Court of Germany that ruled that the German plan was not sufficient to get the job done. Now we're talking, this is the reality that we're actually living in folks. We can't babble about this thing and say to everybody we have an existential crisis and then go about business as usual and not actually act as if it is existential. And what worries me having been doing this since 1988 when Jim Hansen first warned us it was happening is that we are reaching tipping points. I mean, I could list the number that may well be already tipped. And you know Greenland, look at Greenland, look at what happened at the ice sheet in Antarctica just a few days ago, largest history. Every time we read about it, it's the largest, the newest largest. We set new records. We're running out of records to break. And the fact is that in these next five months which is not a long time, we intend to use every benchmark, the G7, the United Nations meeting and various meetings in between to try to get people to recognize this is doable. That's what's exciting about it folks. It's actually doable if we make the right decisions, if we deploy massive renewable, if we do get together and push the curve of discovery. And there are all kinds of things that are going to break through. The challenge is going to be, will they happen in time? That's the challenge for all of us here. And here's the hard reality. If you do not reduce sufficiently between 2020 and 2030, you can't achieve net zero by 2050. And you have blown apart the ability to hold to 1.5. Now, I don't want to be the nation. I don't want the United States to be the nation. I don't think Europe wants to be the entity that is responsible for making that happen. At the Leader Summit that President Biden hosted, we have now produced 55% of global GDP is on track to meet the 1.5 degrees. Even India. Modi has set a goal of deploying 450 gigawatts of renewable. They can't do it yet, but we're going to try to bring technology and finance to the table. And many of you have been noticing, if not involved in, this increasing momentum building up in asset management and banks in order to try to create X amount of dollars or Euro that will go to climate investment over the next 10 years. The six major banks of America have created a floor of about $1.6 trillion that's ready to go into that investment, providing we can help to make it happen. So what we're doing is working with a number of countries to bring people to the table with technology and finance to help India make that deployment. If India makes that deployment, India is on track to hit the 1.5. So you see, it is exciting. It can be done, but we've got to really change the way we behave and move much, much faster. And with respect to the 1.5 and the target, the fact that 55% are in obviously means that 45% are not yet in. But if you want to try and look and say, okay, what's the task for the next months? You need to bring them on board. That's the trick. We got to bring them on board. So just to pick up there, Secretary Kerry, on the blocks, you talked at the beginning of your comments about the moments where you in previous cops have brought the Chinese to the table. I know that they have made moves in recent months that have been impressive, but it isn't yet where we need them to be. Can you give us what needs, you were very articulate about their middle class becoming concerned about air pollution and so on. So there is a common cause there. But just tell us what your view is about the likelihood of bringing them to the table to help make COP26 be the decisive moment we need it to be. Well, I can't make any, I can't quantify the likelihood at this point in time. What I can tell you is we're having very real, honest conversations about this. President Xi has moved the country. I mean, the country is doing more than maybe meets the eye for many people. They're the largest employer of renewables in the world. They're the largest producer of renewables in the world. They put out a lot of electric vehicles, which they also make in vast numbers. And China is a vast country and when it moves, it can really make a difference here. But currently, China is 28% of all the world's emissions and going up. United States is 11% of the world's emissions and going down. We were 15% last year, we now move down. 75% of the new electricity that's come online in the US in the last two years have been all from renewables. So we're moving, but not enough even us. But the point is that we can't get to the goals I articulated. We can't get there unless China joins in. Now, China is currently talking about peaking earlier than 2030. Their current plan has been to peak in 2030 and then they basically plateau through 2030 and beyond. That will take away the opportunity for the rest of the world to have 1.5 maintained. If China simply peaks earlier, sufficiently earlier and agrees not to fund coal-fired power plants in the rest of the world, which other nations are doing that agreed not to. In other words, we just had a G7 meeting last week. We had the most successful G7 meeting I've ever been part of. And it announced, including Japan, there will be no funding of foreign coal. They will no longer have any subsidies for fossil fuel and coal. And they have embraced the target of 1.5 degrees. That's historic. Never before has the G7 done that. And the G7 leaders will meet in Britain in the first weeks of June to ratify that. So China needs to join us in that effort. And yes, it can be common but differentiated. We honor that principle. But common and differentiated does not mean not doing enough or undoing what other people are doing. And so we need a number of countries. By the way, China's not alone in that 45%. We've got to bring Indonesia and Mexico and South Africa and Brazil and a host of other countries to the table yet. And we do need their cooperation and participation in this because no one nation could solve this problem by itself. No, I'm aware that we will lose you shortly. So I'm gonna ask a couple more questions and then ask Nigel Topping, our high level climate champion to come in. But you make the point that at the moment where we're on target for 3.4 degrees, it may even be more, you make it very passionately what it's already doing to our climates around the world. Climate change is not over there, it's here. What, if you can give us sort of in sentences each, what are the three bits of diplomacy, the three concrete things that have to happen in the next five months to keep 1.5 alive? What we must do is exactly what the IAEA said. We have to hugely accelerate the deployment of renewables, hugely accelerate our quest for the technology breakthrough and cease digging a deep hole with new coal-fired power plants coming online. Many of the places where those coal-fired power plants are coming online are working at about 50% efficiency, even losing money. And it is, you know, in some places it's become an employment program, not an energy policy. So what we need to do is show folks, help work it. You know, not again, not pointing the finger, but trying to say, look, we can work with you. We could help to, you know, plan using AI and quantum computing, a smart grid which is going to deliver electrons in a far more effective way. The United States, by the way, we're in a pathetic situation regarding that. We can't send electricity from one part of the country to another with ease because we don't have the transmission lines because we've been fighting with the interstate battles and the politics of energy have gotten in the way. But it's insulting in the 21st century knowing what we know that you can't apply AI with our computing capacity to send that electricity ahead of time to where it's needed, when it's needed, and balance the East Coast with the West Coast and South with North and so forth. That's all doable. That's not some pie-in-the-sky concept. We have that technology there. So those are the things we need to do, but most of all, stop undoing things with the new coal that's coming online. That is not necessary in many cases. Secretary Kerry, can I just turn to the issue that is a priority for Alok Sharma, and he says it's a matter of trust, which is the $100 billion a year pot of money that vulnerable countries were promised many years ago, and that requirement they have has only grown in the time since that pot was set up, but it has never reached $100 billion. How important is it to you? Do you agree with Alok that it is a priority in a matter of trust? And do you think that the United States will pledge more money towards it? Well, the answer to the last question is yes. The United States is pledging more. We're doubling and tripling from where Donald Trump left us. One of the unfortunate things is, President Trump left us at such a low baseline that it's very difficult to get it up as much as you need to in one budget cycle. But we are going at this very hard right now. I've talked to the White House about it at length. We're putting together thoughts about how we augment it. I met with Alok in London just a week or two ago, and we absolutely both agreed and affirmed that achieving the 100 billion is an absolute success to this cot being successful, I believe. I don't think the best-developed world will believe anything we say or engage in any of the things we really want and need if the developed world can't step up and keep its promises. The promise made in Paris was 100 billion a year, a year starting in 2020. So now we're at that start point. We're not there yet. But we think, I think we can get there. We obviously need to work overtime to make that happen and I can pledge you the United States, we're gonna have a meeting at the United Nations in September and we will be reconvening the same group of 20 plus nations and we will be working in between now and then very hard to find the ways to augment that pot. But we've got to do that. Nigel, can I bring you in here? Because I think we're now minutes away from Secretary Kerry being whisked away from us. So do you have a question for John Kerry? Well, I think, I mean, I think we're all very much agreed that this is gonna take the whole society, businesses, investors, cities and national governments that we've really got to focus on the short term, the next five and 10 years. John, one question I have, you've talked very eloquently about the biggest emitting countries in the world. But this question of, you know, you mentioned the small island states, for example, and there are many other vulnerable countries in Africa. What do you think we need to do collectively beyond the 100 billion to ensure that there's real momentum on investing from the public and the private sector in that long list of countries that are outside maybe the top 20 emitting countries but also need to develop and see improvements in their economies as well as resilience in the face of the climate change impacts that are already there? Well, first of all Nigel, thank you for the work you've been doing to bring folks to the finance component of this. You and Mark Barney and others is really key to our ability to get there. And what we need to do is take those pots of money. I know those are investments. This is not concessionary money. We need some concessionary money. We've got to figure out how we're gonna get a sufficient level of concessionary money into our game plan here. A certain portion obviously of the 100 billion is concessionary, but to a large measure the asset managers and banks are talking about investments. And to make those investments work, we've got to engage with those countries so that they can do the things that make a commercial deal viable. That means de-risking to a large measure. I mean, what happens today is if you've got a comparative investment, you can invest in storage or you can invest in the production of energy. For instance, you're either doing a solar field or offshore wind, let's say. That's revenue producing. You can commercialize, you can finance that over the long term. But you can't finance resilience in some cases and you can't finance adaptation as easily. And what we're gonna have to do is use some of that money to leverage the commercially viable deals so that those economies can move sufficiently that they're beginning to produce their own revenue, some of which can then be allocated to the concessionary sector. I believe that I think, I mean, there are also some very unique problems. I mean, Tommy Remengamso, the past president of Palau. And I talked to the recent, to the new president of Palau, which incidentally is gonna host the Oceans Conference, which is very vital to all of us upcoming in the next year. But he used to think about adaptation and resilience. Now he's trying to figure out where he's gonna move his people. I mean, literally, where are they gonna live? I was in Bangladesh a little while ago. The same kind of, it's like two thirds of the population of Bangladesh is literally threatened to be completely uprooted and have to find a new place to live. So, we've got to get a bigger pot of global GDP that is allocated towards adaptation and resilience. I don't know, there's just no other way to do it. We're all gonna have to be in this business not because we see it as immediately imposing on us a choice, but because in the long term, it is gonna be far more expensive for all of us if we don't do it now. And, you know, so Nicholas Stern and other folks have written very eloquently about this cost factor that's coming at us. Secretary Kerry, can I just bring in another panelist? I'm aware that I haven't introduced people properly, but I'm also conscious of time and that you could be spirited away any second. But I would think I'd be interested to hear what Damalola Ogambi thinks about some of the comments she's just heard. You may well know her already, but for those watching who don't, she's amongst other things, the UN Secretary General representative, representative of the UN Secretary General for Sustainable Energy. Damalola, you were listening to that. What was your take? Well, obviously I agree with everything Secretary Kerry is saying, but this issue of finance is really, really important because at the moment, we have at least 800 million people who have no access to electricity at all. And we have 2.8 billion people who have no access to clean cooking. So it's a technology and solutions game. So what actually will happen to the developing countries that don't have the funds to even develop their roadmap? I know we're all saying next year by 2050, they might pledge to it. But if we don't come collectively and show them this is exactly what to do, it's gonna be tough. I come from one of the largest oil and gas nations in Africa, being Nigeria, where the income is from oil and gas, right? There has to be a focused plan as well. And it'll be really great to see what the US and what you think can really move forward. Because again, my country is all about, yes, let's try and go green, but how do we actually do it? Knowing we still have an industrialized with 85 million people who don't have electricity in one country. What is the plan? And every time they come up with solutions like, yes, we're gonna use solar. To be honest, the funding just isn't coming in. So this issue with finance is really, really critical because the energy access is a critical part of energy transition for developing countries. And it can't be looked at as two separate things. Thank you. I couldn't agree more. I mean, I know that Nigeria has faced a challenge down in the Delta area with a certain amount of that revenue being siphoned off too by pirating. And it's a challenge. But if countries are ready to work with us, we're ready to work with countries. Let me give you an example. On the 450 gigawatts with Prime Minister Modi, there are two things really critical to that money being able to be deployed in the country. And the country's got to work with us in order number one, help reform the bureaucracy so that you can actually accelerate the decision-making and the deployment of those assets. You can't take four years, three years, five years. It's got to happen much faster. And for that, you need the government really to be all in in supporting it. And the second thing you need is, in some states, in the distribution system of energy that they have now in India, not enough of the electricity that's being used gets paid for. And so you've got to be able to collect the revenue that comes from the users. And to some degree, that's a reform that can sometimes be complicated and unsettling but Prime Minister Modi is absolutely in agreement. And if they can do that, then larger sums of money will be de-risk and flow in for the rapid deployment. So again, it just takes all of government input and effort. And what the developed world needs to do is re-engage in that kind of diplomacy. It's gone a little bit out of fashion. You do have the Belt and Road Initiative out there which is putting a lot of money into various places. There are many places that that hasn't worked out as well as people might have hoped with bankruptcies and indebtedness which winds up in transfer of asset ownership which becomes complicated. And the workforce for some of those projects poses problems. So we used to do a lot more of this. May I say to you, unabashedly, we're not in that business as deeply as we used to be and we need to be because it's one of the very few ways we're going to be able to do some of this transfers effectively as it needs to be done. I'd like to bring Wendy Woodson from Boston Consultancy Group. You had a question, Wendy. Thank you, Lagra, and thank you very much, Secretary Kerry. Clearly, you've spoken eloquently about the private sector and how tipping the economics can make a tremendous difference in unleashing the potential of the private sector. Carbon markets would make a big deal. Carbon pricing, consistent fare, globally ideally, but at least regionally, would be a tremendous unlock. How do you see the potential for that? Well, the G7 just embraced the notion that carbon markets are going to be a very important tool and important going forward. The Biden administration has not yet landed on what specific approach it might take. There are people pushing carbon pricing, people pushing trading mechanisms, offsets, et cetera. I think one of the things we all have to be honest about and careful about is the offset business. I mean, you can't be just collecting money and trading off right, left, and center to such a degree that you're basically buying a right to pollute and we're not getting the reductions that we need to get. So there's a balance. I'm for offsets. Don't get me wrong. I think offsets are a critical component of our ability to get there. But we've got to be really careful and measured as to what's the overall picture, how long are they going to be there? Is there a decline as you sort of become more capable of reducing the emissions yourself at a cost effectiveness and you don't have to buy out of it, so to speak? But we've really got to think that through very, very carefully as we go forward. Probably, and I'm speaking for myself, not the administration on this, if you could get a global pricing somehow that was a little more realistic and really have a trading mechanism that worked, you could probably move forward much more rapidly. We did that with Sulphur. We did that on Acid Grain. That was the first trading mechanism. I remember being part of the team, we put that together and it was an idea that came from the American Enterprise Institute. It was a market-based solution to a problem and you don't hear about the problem anymore because it worked. But unfortunately, that approach became weaponized in American politics and that has greatly defined the ability to deploy it. I think if we could get our act together and figure out the offset balance here, this is a very, very important tool going forward. And clearly, not only should you be pricing carbon, but you can't be subsidizing it. And in too many places in the world it is still being subsidized. Secretary Kerry, I think you're too polite to tell us all that your team would like you to have left this meeting probably 10 minutes ago, but we're all grateful to you for your time and for going over time. And I think we're going to see you on a number of occasions in the next five and a half, five months and three weeks. Who knows how long it is anymore, but in the foreseeable future. Let me close just by saying we really need you. We need the business world at the table, hugely. You have enormous clout. You are opinion leaders and you're also allocators of capital. And what you decide to do in this, I think ultimately it's going to make a difference. No government has enough money to do this. The trillions of dollars are in the economies of the world, not in the governments. And if we can get the market to move effectively, this could go a lot faster than people think. I'm optimistic because I do believe in the capacity for innovation and capacity for the market to do it. I think that's why those banks and those asset managers are moving, because they see this as the world's largest market in history and the biggest moment of transformation, perhaps since the industrial revolution. It's opportunity, opportunity, opportunity. Thank you very much, Secretary Kerry. See you again very soon. Good luck with whatever you're going on to. For all of you listening in your offices or at home or wherever you are, I hope you forgive me for slightly crashing into half of the panel there with Secretary Kerry. We just wanted to use the opportunity of having him there to allow as many people as possible to take part. But it did mean that I haven't introduced our panel, which is shocking, but I thought was probably the right thing to do. So I'm going to do that now and then we have 20 minutes left for questions. Firstly, it's Maria Mendeluthe. She is Chief Executive Officer of the We Mean Business Coalition. We have Christian Mumentala, the Group Chief Executive Officer of Swiss Ray. We also have you've heard from Dami Lola, Dami Lola Ogambi. She is a CEO and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All and a Co-Chair of UN Energy. Nigel Topping, my colleague. High-level Climate Action Champion for COP26 who you have also heard from and not least, Wendy Woods, Vice-Chairman, Social Impact, Managing Director and Senior Partner of Boston Consultancy Group. A huge glittering cast for people to hear from. I'm sorry, it's just 20 minutes. But Dami Lola, I was wondering if we could start with you. Thought your point to Secretary Kerry was powerful and that there are people that be talking about renewable investment in your country for a very long time. It is still blocked and doesn't quite happen in the way it should. Can you just give us your reflections with six months to go, five and a half to COP, about how to unblock some of that? Thank you for the question. I mean, it's not just my country, it's really the developing world. I think people underestimate just what energy poverty is and how when we are complaining about transition, there are still a billion people that do not have the right amount of energy. To put it into context, if you take out South Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa uses 81 gigawatts for a billion people, that's the same amount of energy as Germany. Do you see what I mean? So when you're talking about economic development, what we should really be focused on is what is the low-carbon trajectory? And I think that's been done quite well by the COP team. I've had many conversations with Nigel and there's also like the Energy Transition Council of which I chair with Alok Sharma that's focused on what is the clean energy offer? When you're going to developing countries and you're either saying, stop using fossil or stop using this, what is the alternative? It's easier in the global Northman. Yes, you can call on the banks, you can call on people. People, you're investable, right? But if you're not investable and people are saying, you have to write regulation policy, we have to wait for a change of government, we have to get trust. That's four, five years down the line for something you're trying to achieve by 2030. But we have such a huge opportunity because you have people who are not emitting a lot and the way that they can actually get to sustainable energy is using renewables. And that's what I really, really want to hone in on. We're starting from the point where it's almost like a dream position. They haven't reached their peak in industrialization. They haven't reached their peak in access. So why don't you show them with the tools first how to get there, how to get there by 2030 first and then move on to in line with 2050 net zero, right? But then how to finance this, knowing the political realities that we're actually working in. So I think that's a really key point and we're also working with the COP team and the unit on the high level dialogue we're having at the General Assembly. It's the first time in 40 years which is a bit shocking that the UN is having a conversation about energy, right? And again, it's because people don't put the connection between energy and climate. They're seen as these two separate things but honestly they're interlinked. Like a secretary Kerry said, I'm going to add another point is that if people do not achieve universal access by 2030 you can forget about all our 2050 goals. So it is really, really important we take that seriously and we find a way to carry on at least a billion people in our plans for climate next. Can I, Nigel, I'm going to turn to you, conscious that we haven't had from two of the panelists first but this is, it feels like you can come back on some of the points that Damolola was making about leveraging the investment. Well, I mean, today's been all about breakthroughs, right? And building the momentum sector by sector so that this decade is, as John says, the decade of action and of exponentially going action and that of course needs the finance sector to be mobilized but we've now had this Glasgow financial alliance, the net zero asset managers banks and I know Christian will soon have the insurers in there as well. So the finance sector stepped up and said we're here to finance. I think Damolola's point is absolutely key that will happen in Japan and USA. Floating wind farms will be financed, right? Because the risk environment is already, right? It's so good, that's important because that's where a lot of the emissions are that need to be reduced but we also have to find a way to change the enabling conditions in emerging and developing economies so that private capital flows there as well. The 100 billion, as John and you discussed, is a matter of trust but those $4 trillion need to be invested every year in emerging and developing economies to hit the mitigation and adaptation target. So we've got to have a much more serious conversation about how we've changed the enabling conditions so that that wall of private capital which wants to be deployed can be deployed. I think that's going to be one of the key tasks for G-fans and for industrial sectors and leaders in developing economies. Can I just change the lens somewhat and turn to Maria? Maria, you're from the Weeming Business Coalition which I think Nigel has had some involvement with. Working with companies to encourage the transition. Just give us some of your reflections about from your perspective what's needed in the next six months. Well, I think I couldn't agree more with what we heard from Secretary Kerry. We absolutely must accelerate action and accountability. So 2013 is only eight years ago so remember yourself back in 2012, okay? That was yesterday, right? So eight years ago is within the mandate of Christian is hopefully within the mandate of Biden. So we absolutely need to start to reduce emissions. It is not only about setting targets and business also need to do this. So we must go all in for 2030 for having emissions because if not, we don't have any chance of getting to net zero. So at COP, we're very excited because the Science Based Targets Initiative will release their net zero guidance. The Mission Possible Partnership is developing detailed roadmaps for the how to await sectors. So business will have a very clear guidance on what they need to do to get to net zero. And policy makers will also need to accelerate. So it's not only about targets but there are lots of regulations that need to be put in place so that business can make the investments that are needed. And let me talk about accountability. So the urgency is real and it is all in and we must do that today. And in 2023, we will have a global stock take and women businesses planning to do the global stock take for business to see where we are, where businesses are against the plans. So COP26 is when the action starts and the global stock take 2023 is the next big moment. And every two years, we need to track progress and see that we are in line with the targets and that we are able to meet having emissions by 2030. So I love the race to zero but I have to say that we might need to change it to the sprint to 2030. Because that's what we are talking about. I also want to emphasize that this is a race of humanity where we are all in. And so we need to get to the finish line with everybody, big and small companies, rich and poor countries because climate change is a global problem. So it doesn't work well if rich countries and the rich companies have incredible progress that we don't bring the developing countries along. So we have a lot to work in. Thanks Allegra for the opportunity. Christian, you've been very patiently listening for quite a while now. Can I bring you in, just with your general reflections on the breakthroughs that perhaps let's focus it in because we haven't got much time. What breakthrough do you think, from your perspective, is needed over the next five and a half months? You see, I think it's very clear from the discussion so far that getting to net zero 2050 is an enormous challenge. We shouldn't be misled about this enormous challenge and they will need all hands on deck. And as Secretary Kerry has said, every country needs to join the movement but the same is true for the business side. And on the business side, there's a slightly different mechanism which makes me, I guess, more hopeful than the last 15 years have been involved in this topic. And that is that in the Fortune 2000 companies, for example, 20% have committed to net zero 2050. And the interesting concept of this net zero is, yeah, it's not just your own operations, it's also scope two and scope three. And scope three encompasses all your products but also all the people that deliver to you. And for example, the 100 companies we have in this CO climate alliance, they have thousands, tens of thousands of providers, public and private companies. And so to get net zero, they have to start putting pressure on these 10,000 companies who if they want to get net zero, they need to be pressure on another 10,000, 100,000 companies. So there's a bit of a snowball effect I'm hoping on. I can see the movement is very strong right now. So a lot of things are happening that are not visible. And the really interesting part is it will then touch the companies that so far haven't joined the movement because they're this hard to abate sectors like steel and aluminum. And there are technologies today where it can be green, aluminum, green steel. The problem is it's much more expensive and these companies alone cannot afford it. They know that thin margins, they don't believe they can sell steel at twice the price. But the studies we did is once you allocated through the value chain to the end products, and you made everything green, the end product wouldn't be that more expensive. Jeans would be $1 more expensive, a car $500 more expensive, a house $5,000 more expensive, is 2 to 4% more expensive over decades. So it's absolutely feasible economically. But it means that we have to work across the value chain that these people who are producing goods, they are willing and upfront to pay higher prices for certain goods for them to be green and give the assurance to these other companies in this hard to abate sectors that they can do green. So I think that must be the trick that's making me more optimistic and we don't have much time. So we need to use this milestone of COP26 to get the maximum energy, but it cannot stop there. So we need to just pass through that afterwards and continue on a multi-year journey. But I think the engagement of companies is real. The passion is real. The big changes that shareholders now are on the side of CEOs, they demand it, they help, and therefore I think the stars are more aligned than ever. A quick supplementary for you, Christian, you talked and Maria's touched on this too, that the hard to abate sectors. Which one, if you don't mind singling people out, which one is proving the toughest? Unfortunately, several of those are really tough, but the technologies are existing. And so I think there's going to be multi-billion, probably multi-trillion investments, as Nigel has said, into some of these technologies. So I think if you're a smart investor today, you will start to help these companies. The first companies to produce green steel and aluminum, aluminum for fertilizers, for example. These are our concrete plan, they're on the table. Which means that it will take two, three years to build these factories up, to build that scale, and these people will have a competitive advantage. They're just afraid whether they can charge a slightly higher price in the beginning. But I think for those who do that, they have a huge competitive advantage in two, three years, when everybody will want green steel, everybody will want a green transportation, et cetera. So that's what makes me hopeful. And I don't want to single out one particular sector. Definitely, you'll take a lie. But I think the solutions exist nearly everywhere. Another thing we haven't talked about is we will never get to zero emission. At least it's physically at this stage impossible. So people have alluded to that. We will need to develop carbon capture technologies or reforestation or other means, which we don't have yet. I mean, they don't exist yet. We need massive investments. We need the big R&D. Because the carbon capture sector from a size would have to be as big as oil and gas industry today, the worldwide oil and gas industry. That's how big it would have to be from what we see today. So this is a huge challenge. And it's like saying, we will go to Mars and put people to Mars in 10 years. It's perhaps not a very technically informed question, but what chance that the oil and gas sector will pivot to being the carbon capture and storage sector of the future? Now, they have made some tries. And some of these tries have been difficult or not accepted or led to earthquakes, certain technologies. But absolutely, I think the oil and gas sector for years already, most people have started to boost green energy. And many are very optimistic about that sector because that's in the past, people said it's going to happen now. I think we all know it's going to happen at a very big scale. And they have started to invest in some of these technologies. I think what they need is probably more shareholder encouragement and more visibility that this will be needed. And I certainly feel for every CEO who has to do a transformation at this scale. This is gigantic. I mean, this is basically transitioning your whole business to something else. I think it can be done. I see more and more CEOs who think it can be done. But yeah, I wouldn't underestimate the challenge. And I'm always aware that I'm from an industry where it has been much easier. Can I bring Wendy in on that exact challenge, Wendy? Please. So I want to talk about the transparency side of it and pick up on the collaboration that Christian's talking about and that challenge. Because when we think about the tipping of the economics for most businesses today, the risk of stranded assets, the risk of being in the wrong place is increasing significantly. And the benefits of getting earlier secure access to the scarce sustainability resources is only growing. But right now, we don't have enough transparency. We don't have the disclosure extent, the consistency of that for people to really understand, fully take account of all of the costs of climate inaction and all of the benefits of climate action. And so improving the transparency, improving the consistency of what we see, is going to enable the investors to do more climate smart investment, which is just, frankly, smart investment. It enables the employees to vote with their feet about where they want to work and support the companies that are climate friendly. It enables the consumers to make the decisions that Christian's talking about. When we're talking about premiums that are so tiny, less than 1% of an increase on a smartphone or 2% on a car or a pair of jeans for fully decarbonized inputs, but hard to abate once, deal and cement, right? It's really not that hard to actually think of these things coming together. But what it does take is that radical transparency. So we actually have an understanding of what's happening. So investors, employees, consumers, and, frankly, governments can act appropriately. And at the same time, that radical collaboration, so we work within industries and cross industries and cross value chains. We're starting to see it in some industries. We talked about auto and the small price of a car. We've got auto companies starting to demand that the inputs are decarbonized in their supply chain. Those are really big steps forward in terms of what's possible with those two things of transparency and collaboration. OK, we've got five minutes now. I'm going to go around all of you. And I'm going to ask you what might sound like a superficial question, but I hope it elicits the kind of short answers that we need with six months to go. I'd like to know from all of you what one breakthrough you want over the next five and a half months, and also what you're really worried about, starting with you, Wendy. Yeah. What I really want to see. No, I really want to see effective and consistent carbon pricing and carbon markets that create the fair playing field for the markets to engage in a really constructive way. What I am most concerned about is the pace of that not happening fast enough. OK, Damalola. What I really like to see is DFIs, MDBs actually acting as concessional vehicles and putting people first in terms of energy access and doing it quickly. What I'm really worried about is we're having these conversations and we're not including enough of the developing world while we're having the conversations. OK, I can see Christian next. I really hope to get the maximum number of companies aligned on this 2050 and 2030, as you say, to half it by 2030. So to me, that's the momentum we need to use. And worries, there's too many to mention. No, no, no, no, you can't do that. You have to have one, Christian. There must be one. I think on the business side, I'm very optimistic. I think the stranded assets and private companies buying those and being outside of this network where the pressure applies from shareholders. So I think this is an issue we need to solve. If all the public companies are then selling the bad assets to hedge funds or who knows where, where it's in the dark and maybe outside of the rest, that would be a huge work we need to watch. I'm glad I pushed you, because that was an interesting one. Maria. Well, I would like to see through the Mission Possible Partnership, we're working on developing really innovative mechanisms to accelerate the deployment of technologies in this hot of its sector. And this involves finance, policy and demand. And I would really like to see how can we come with a public private partnership to deploy low carbon steel next year. So not in five years next year, already on the cards that the automotive industries are putting in the strip, which actually the biggest challenges that they have is the scope three emissions. And the scope three emissions is the heart of it. So let's put those solutions to play that let's do it now. And let's put those policies in place that will encourage companies and automakers to do that step forward, because once we see one doing it, then others can follow. And did you forgive me? I heard I heard you wanted action on on steel and you thought it was not five years. You thought it could be possible next year. But did you give us your concern? I have a big concern around the role of carbon offsets and the fact that we might be missing an opportunity to channel massive amount of investments to nature. We absolutely need to do that. But we just need to have the very clear rules of the game. So the science-based targets initiative with their net zero guidance is going to provide that. And I think we should not demonize the nature of his solutions, they are a fantastic solution. We just need to make sure that companies first become as much as possible and in addition, they invest in nature. And then finally, Nigel, I'm saying two questions for you and then perhaps some broader reflections on your role with Six Months to Go. Well, I mean, my hope would be that particularly across the hard-to-bake sectors we're reaching a critical mass of actors throughout the chain and around it committed to the same breakthrough goals that we know we have. We know the pathways and the great work, the mission possible platform with the many partners has been doing. Because if we have a critical mass aligned to that, then it starts to become a self-fulfilling prophecy and we can be really confident. And my number one concern would be the flip side of Dan Malone's point about the needs for the international public finance mechanisms to mobilize. And my concern would be that there's not enough involvement of international private finance in those conversations about how to accelerate deployment of known solutions in developing economies and emerging markets. My sort of, I think this is a really exciting conversation because I'll argue about the goal, net zero by 2050 the latest, we're not arguing about the urgent need to really be in the mode of action in the next five or 10 years. We're seeing exponentially increasing policy makers, financiers and business actors all along the value chain agreeing with those premises. We increasingly know what the pathway is in the next five to 10 years in every sector. And we know that the shape, we've seen this movie before and it goes exponential and we're seeing that in renewables with the IEA having to massively revise their forecast up for only six months ago. We're seeing the EV deployment going exponential such that we can be very confident now that the last internal combustion engine will be sold in the early thirties. And we know what we've got to do to drive the cost down in those other technologies that several of the panelists have talked about, green hydrogen, ammonia for shipping, sustainable aviation fuels, green steel, green cement. So it's a very exciting time for radical collaboration and industrial strategy to come together to get us on the pathways that we need so that this cop is about action and solidarity. And that's what's going to take for this to be a successful cop, action and solidarity together on the path to zero. Yeah, and we also heard from, I think it was Maria that it's not a race to zero, it's a sprint to zero which is probably my final thought from listening to all of you, that sense of impatience and urgency that is very, very clear. Damalola, I heard your challenge that we should have the developing world represented more frequently in these conversations. Alok Sharma is currently in Bangladesh. He is on an exhausting schedule. He's exhausting to me anyway. He's doing his best to make sure those voices are represented fully and run up to November. I hope we all get to speak again. I hope those of you who are watching in your offices or at home or wherever you may be on a train, who knows, have found this as interesting as I have. And thank you to all of our hosts. It's not just the World Economic Forum but there's a great many brands that you can see up at the top that we are all working with as we push to November. Thanks very much for your time.