 One and we're on. We are live. Welcome everyone. My name is Mark Leon Goldberg and I have the pleasure of moderating an all-star panel today that will be tackling an urgent issue. How do we make the recovery from COVID-19 sustainable, just and resilient? I am the editor of the UN and Global Affairs website, UN Dispatch. And I am the host of the Global Dispatches podcast, which is a leading global affairs news show. And this conversation today is being recorded as a live virtual taping of the Global Dispatches podcast. And this conversation is also being co-hosted with the Leadership Group for Industry Transition in partnership with the Stockholm Environment Institute, or SEI. And before we start the panel, I would like to turn the screen over to Andrea Lindblum of SEI for a few remarks about the Leadership Group for Industry Transition. And she will also explain how you in the audience can participate in this discussion. You will also throughout this conversation periodically potentially hear me refer to Ian. This is Ian Caldwell, who's the producer of this episode. So Ian, please turn the screen over to Andrea. Thank you, Ian. And thank you, Mark, for the introduction. A warm welcome from me as well on behalf of the Leadership Group for Industry Transition. My name is Andrea Lindblum. I lead communications for the Leadership Group for Industry Transition, or LEEDIT. And I'm based at Stockholm Environment Institute, which hosts the LEEDIT Secretariat. The Leadership Group for Industry Transition was launched by the governments of Sweden and India with support from the World Economic Forum at the UN Secretary General's Climate Action Summit in September 2019. LEEDIT members are countries and companies committed to the notion that energy intensive industry can and must progress on low carbon pathways, aiming to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. The Leadership Group for Industry Transition is grounded in the conviction that partnership between the public and private sectors is key to achieving industry transition. And that's why we are very, very pleased to bring together here the Swedish government, Environment and Climate Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Isabella Lövin and one of our company members, Skania, represented by its president and CEO, Henrik Sahn. We're also excited to have Rachel Kajt with us, the leading advocate for sustainable development, now Dean of the Fletcher School for Law and Diplomacy at Tuft University and Michael Lazarus of SEI, the leading expert on energy and climate policy, including how fossil fuel production can be aligned with climate targets. LEEDIT wants to catalyze leadership and one way we do that is by convening high level dialogues like this webinar. We're looking forward to hearing both your insights and recommendations over the next 75 minutes to improve our collective understanding of the challenges and opportunities the world is facing now when it comes to making the COVID-19 recovery sustainable, just and resilient. Before I turn over to Mark again, just a few organizational details. So this is set up as a class eight panel discussion, if you will. Mark will set the scene. He'll then moderate a discussion with our panelists for roughly half an hour. We do have an agenda here somewhere on the slides. Maybe we can see that. That would be easier for everyone to follow just so that you have the timing a little bit in front of your eyes. But if we don't have that, let me just jump right into the house rules and how the discussion works. So during the panel discussion, you and your audience will already be able to post questions in the chat by using the Q and A function. However, we will only start getting to, we will only start getting your questions to the panelists once we get to the Q and A part of this webinar. So again, this is roughly a half hour from now. That's when we'll start getting your questions that you are very welcome to enter into the chat to the panelists. When you do post questions, please let us know your name, what organization you're with, make your questions short and clear, and your posts will not appear automatically. We will have to publish them first, but we will do our best to get as many questions to our panelists as we can. Before we wrap up the event, the last question to panelists will not come from the audience. It will come from Mark, who will then conclude an event that we hope will be both lively and enlightening. Thank you. Over to you again, Mark. Thank you, Andrea. And I'm very excited. We have over 400 people attending this live taping of the podcast. So welcome, everyone. And I think the reason that there are so many people tuning in today is just the timeliness of what we have in front of us. The latest data from the World Health Organization includes over 3 million cases of COVID-19 worldwide, nearly 200,000 deaths. But even as institutions and governments around the world confront this health crisis, they are also preparing and implementing plans for economic stimulus and recovery. Just over the last few days, we have seen a flurry of activity. Here in the United States, US Congress is in the process of negotiating potentially another stimulus bill, following the nearly $2 trillion bill passed in March. Meanwhile, in Europe, there is ongoing discussion about the size and contours of that relief package. And just last week, there was this rather contentious seemingly meeting between EU leaders who met virtually to discuss that nearly trillion euro package. And then just yesterday evening, April 28th, environment ministers from 30 countries concluded the Petersburg climate dialogue where they discussed directly how to organize a green recovery. The point is all of these debates about economic recovery and how to shape it and whether or not it will be embedded with principles of environmental sustainability. These conversations are happening right now. There is a narrow policy window that is open in which we can get these questions right and in which we can build a sustainable, resilient and just recovery from COVID-19. We know that the recovery will take many, many years, but the opportunity to shape that recovery is happening now. So to that end, I am pleased to introduce the panel once again and we're from all around the world right now. We have from Stockholm, Isabella Lövin, the Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden and Minister for the Environment and Climate, welcome minister. Also from Stockholm, we have Henrik Henriksen, President and CEO of Scania. And joining us from Massachusetts is Rachel Kite, Dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and from Seattle is Michael Lazarus, Senior Scientist and Director of the US Center for SEI. Welcome to everyone and let's kick off this conversation. So my first question is to you, minister Lövin. This is not how 2020 was supposed to go down. 2020 was supposed to be the big year for the environment with a number of key moments, key meetings on the international agenda. COVID-19 has disrupted that among many other things around the world. I'm curious to learn directly from you how has the pandemic interrupted or affected or impacted your work for climate and the environment? So thank you so much, Mark. And thanks so much for arranging this very important seminar. Well, as you say, we are all in an unprecedented global crisis right now with COVID-19. But at the same time, we have another global crisis that we all share, which is the climate crisis. And we can't forget about that when we are trying to combat this virus that knows no borders, but climate change and the climate crisis does not know any borders as well. So as you said, this year we would have had the COP26 in Glasgow with enhanced ambitions on climate, but also the summit in China on setting new targets for protecting biodiversity. And we also have a biodiversity crisis globally, as you know. Any other meetings, important meetings on, for instance, in setting a global framework for chemicals and waste, the UN Global Ocean Conference that was supposed to be held in Portugal, all of these meetings have been postponed. So basically, what we're trying to do is making sure that we keep our eyes on the ball so that someone doesn't kick it off the field because we need to solve all these crises simultaneously and not forget about the extremely important work that we're all committed to when it comes to environmental and climate sustainability. I think one interesting point when we're just in the middle of this crisis is that we should not repeat the mistakes that were made during and after the financial crisis that we had recently. During that crisis, emissions fell globally, but then all these stimulus packages came along and the year after the, well, in 2011, globally the emissions rose by some 4% to 5%. Now we've seen the expectations for this year is that globally the emissions will go down by some 5%. I think many of us that are very engaged in climate maybe are a little bit surprised by that small number because all the airplanes are now grounded. We see lockdowns in almost all countries and that would only result in a decrease in emissions in 5%. And I think that exactly that figure stresses the importance of the lead-it initiative that we need not only to do less of our activities that we normally do, but we need to do them differently. We have to do a transition. That goes for the heavy industries such as steel, cement, concrete, aviation and transport, of course, agriculture. All these sectors need to be transformed. So to answer your question, what we try to do is to keep the momentum and always try to keep the green transition, the sustainability transition into the responses that are made now to the COVID-19 crisis. And we're allying with other ministers in the EU to keep the green deal at the center of the response for the COVID-19 crisis, economic crisis. We're 19 ministers now that have signed up and are really urging the commission to be very firm and have the green deal as the fundament of a recovery package, but also, of course, working, reaching out with like-minded all over the world. Thank you. Thank you. And I will ask you more about EU involvement in a little bit, but I'm glad that you also reference the need for industry transition, because that leads into my question to Henriksen. Scania is a major manufacturer of commercial vehicles and equipment, and prior to all this was invested hemmeling in sustainable transport solutions. Can you give me an example of how the pandemic is impacting those investments? Thank you, Mark. Yeah, I would say those specific investment that goes into our portfolio of new products and solutions to drive the shift towards more sustainable transport solutions, that part of our portfolio is actually untouchable. We have ring fence that and we will not touch it going forward. I think as a commitment and as an example of this commitment towards the sustainability agenda in our company, I'm proud today actually, specifically today, actually to announce that we are got approval for our science-based targets, which means that we have now targets that are in line with science to meet the one and a half degree target that we agreed upon in Paris. And that basically our business plan between 2015 up to 2025 is now confirmed by science. And that means that we are as a company then committing that in our own operation we should do reductions of 50% of CO2 in this time period, the 10 years. So well in line with the so-called carbon law. But we will also, and I think this is maybe the more sort of critical commitment in this. That is that we will also commit ourselves in the so-called scope-free targets, which means that what our products when we produce trucks and buses our production is only representing like 5% of CO2 footprint of the life cycle of those vehicles. 95% happens out on the road. And with our scope-free commitment, what we're doing actually is that we're making a commitment on behalf of our customers, the one that are running the transport that we should together with them then we commit Askania to reduce the CO2 emissions with 20%. And this is I think an example of our commitment and these science-based targets then are sort of the framework for when we are taking our decisions when it comes to, for example investments like you mentioned Mark and guiding us in the right direction. So that is I think the reason why these investments for providing a more sustainable transport system, they are influenced and they are now sort of linked directly to the science-based targets that is then confirmed by science. Well, thank you and I'm glad that you use this as the opportunity to make the announcement about your science-based targets confirmation. We now have over 500 people joining the live stream. Welcome everyone. My next question is to Dean Rachel Kite. I wanted to bring this conversation global. We are now five years into the Paris Agreement and the also the sustainable development goals which call for worldwide sustainable energy transition specifically goal number seven for those SDG nerds out there. What is one way that you have seen the pandemic impact progress towards these goals? Well, I think that we're, well, most countries in the world are in a scramble to respond to the actual public health dimension of the pandemic and the very first responses that need to happen in order to get people protected and to make sure that safety nets are working. So we're in this first phase really of relief or of rescue and now the planning is starting to, we're starting to think more about what recovery is going to look like. And of course countries are very focused on the situation that they are in and because of the impact of the crisis in the United States and in Europe and East Asia a lot of the headlines have been dominated by that story. But I think what we're just beginning to realize is what the dimension of the pandemic is going to mean for the economies and for the wellbeing and societies in the emerging markets. So for example, in the last few weeks alone we've seen commodity prices drop by over 20%. We've seen a drying up of remittances. So money traveling from people working in one economy to their families in another. We've seen a drying up of remittances unprecedented in the history of remittances. And now we're starting to see capital flight. So people bringing their money back and investing at home or needing it for other purposes. And so for a number of developing countries not only are they being hit by a pandemic which they are ill prepared for from a public health perspective but they are being hit again and again and again by the economic implications. And so we're looking at really quite daunting numbers from the IMF in terms of contraction of the global economy at the moment the IMF is sort of projecting that in 2021 there'll be some kind of recovery, 5% growth, I think there was some real question marks over that as they start to process the data that's coming in from around the world. So we are now looking at recessions and what we really fear is that we could be on the edge of a global depression. And so therefore the question is how do you make sure that you stimulate the economy now so that you're taking care of people you're making sure that we can cope with the lack of inclusiveness in our economies which has been laid bare by this pandemic. How do you sort of stand up the public health responses that you need and how do you make sure you do no harm in the short-term response to the long-term need for recovery and that recovery is going to have to build in much more resilience into the economy, resilience to current shocks but to future shocks especially climate change. But it's also going to have to mean that our societies are more equitable and fairer. And I think that both there is both an opportunity to build a fairer set of economies and a greener set of economies as we gear out of the current crisis. Thank you and Michael, Rachel just referenced the need to avoid short-term harm. As we enter this recovery phase, it's clear that there will be competition between industries and between priorities in crafting government support. And presumably this also includes the fossil fuel industry and other carbon intensive industries. To what extent do you think that this moment poses a risk that recovery may in fact favor carbon intensive industries? You might need to unmute Michael. Yeah, yeah, sorry about that. It happens, everyone. Yeah, Mark, the last thing we need right now is more risk in our economies and work. And unfortunately, the moment does also pose a very high risk of favoring carbon intensive industries especially oil and gas in ways that we don't necessarily want to see. That's a product in part of not just the oil market crash we've seen but the tight connections between that industry and governments around the world. And that in turn can lead to what you just mentioned, deeper carbon lock-in. At SEI, we just launched a new initiative on confronting carbon lock-in. The ways that fossil fuel and carbon intensive systems persist and perpetuate themselves technologically, institutionally, politically locking out the kind of swift low-carbon transition we're gonna need to see. So you ask for examples. I think the most, perhaps the most obvious type of example that we're only just beginning to see, as Rachel pointed out, we're just beginning to enter the recovery phases coming from commitments to new long-lived high-carbon infrastructure like oil fields and pipelines. And one of the most concerning examples that we've seen so far comes from the Canadian province of Alberta where the government just invested directly a billion dollars and another four billion in loan guarantees to complete the Keystone XL pipeline. And that's important because it could bring another 800,000. I think Michael dropped off. We'll move on. Isabella Loven, can you hear me? Yes, I hear you. Okay, apologies for this interruption. Michael's line seemed to have dropped. So I'll move on to a question to you. So in your opening remarks, you referenced the need to avoid mistakes of the past referencing the recovery from 2008 and the financial crisis. To that end, I am interested in getting your take on how the European Union is faring so far in terms of crafting a common response. It's seemingly a rather fraught process right now. Every report that I've read from that teleconference between EU leaders on that trillion euro recovery package seemed to expose kind of traditional fault lines between North and South and the EU. And on top of that, you have some other governments like Poland who don't seem to care too much about including green initiatives as part of a recovery package. So what do you think are the prospects for EU unity on sustainable recovery measures right now? What do you think the EU should do right now? Well, first of all, okay, you're cracking up a little bit there, but as I understood the question was about the EU response and how we can really do this together. And I think to many of us, it was quite a shock in the beginning of this crisis that the EU solidarity and unity was not proven from the best side when we couldn't really confront this extreme crisis together, but there were export restrictions. The open market didn't function the way that it should when it came to medical supplies, protection materials that was desperately needed in all countries or in some of them more than others in the beginning. And I think very much of the, let's say, the core of the EU spirit and the unity is very much under stress right now. And we need to make sure that we protect the EU with the EU values because they're needed more than ever in this time of multiple crisis. We have also an attack on democracy. We can see that inside Europe, but we also see it very much outside. And the pandemic is also opening up for many very harsh measures that would be unthinkable, would have been unthinkable before this pandemic, but in some places that is used for using a lot of control over citizens and limiting the freedom and space of citizens, et cetera. And I see that also as a risk within the European Union. So we need to keep together. I think it's very positive that we started with an article 30, where we were 10 ministers from the beginning and then Germany and France also joined, not only Nordic countries, but also from the South, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Spain, really stressing the need for the Green Deal to be at the center of a recovery plan for the EU. Now we have been joined by more countries, not the Eastern countries though, and that's a very, I think, true observation from your side. So the divide is both economically, but also I would say the conviction that a transition to a green and climate-friendly economy are differing from different parts of Europe. And we've heard from the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic and even the Deputy Minister from Poland saying that, well, we should just leave the Green Deal aside now and just concentrate on recovery and the economy. So we need, of course, a lot of solidarity. We need money, but we also need to focus on what is really needed now in the European Union. And I think we need to reevaluate some of the old measures that is costing a lot in the European budget, for instance, within the agricultural policy and focus on real sustainability when we give incentive packages for the economy for it to be really sustainable this time. And just to probe you further, do you actually see a prospect for unity and solidarity? Do you see that as a potential outcome right now? Everything we've seen seems to indicate the opposite. I think you're absolutely right. And we're struggling with that. We're fighting for that and trying to also protect what is the free and open market. Sweden is an extremely export-dependent country. So our economy is really dependent on an open and free, but also fair, of course, market. And the European Union is the most important market for us. But we also see the European Union as the beacon right now when it comes to protecting democracy, the freedom of speech, gender equality, all these things that are being questioned right now all over the world. So for us, for Sweden, it's extremely important that we keep together. And of course, we regret that we have all this, the Brexit crisis prior to this and we're still negotiating the Brexit agreement. And that also takes a lot of energy, unfortunately, from the EU machinery, so to speak. My next question is for Rachel Kite. Dean Kite, you opened this conversation describing all of the negative impacts that this crisis is having on all sorts of sectors around the world from commodities to remittances. What examples have you seen so far of governments or institutions or entities that are seemingly rising to this moment and designing sustainable and just and resilient recoveries to this crisis? Are there any kind of examples out there that you could cite that we might look to as governments or institutions that are getting this right so far? You might need to unmute. Oh, sorry. Sorry, I thought I had. There you go. So I think that it's very early days. So we're just seeing the response from different governments, but I think it was very important to see the South Korean government go through an election and then come out with its Green New Deal. South Korea is an important industrial country. It has gone through an extraordinary transition in the last 30 years, but it has been coal dependent and it has been financing export of coal technology as well. So I think that that's very important. I think, you know, I mean, I'm an EU, well, I was an EU citizen no longer now, not living in the EU, but I think that the EU's rhetorical commitment to not letting go of the ambitious targets as the EU thinks through how to respond is critically important. And of course, all eyes are on China, which has come out with announcements in the last few days around massive investment in infrastructure, which still would appear to be green. And of course, we're all waiting for the 14th five-year plan, which really will show how far they will keep going. So China facing a recovery, but indicating that it's going to invest in the green infrastructure. In the US, obviously the headlines often get dominated by the news conferences in Washington, but at the local level you see states, governors and companies trying to look through what is the best form of stimulus. And really what you're looking at is what creates jobs now that shovel ready jobs that you need immediately, but which will be for green infrastructure, which will be favoring renewable energy over the past and old economy, which we can't continue to support, but also things related to regenerative agriculture. I think that the public is not only shocked by the health dimensions of this crisis, but they're also shocked by how vulnerable our food systems are. And so from real cause for help to support the food security of Sub-Saharan Africa to the fact that we have nine mile, 10 mile, 15 mile lines of cars in the United States of people on low income queuing up for food parcels, this has really shocked people. So can we think about locally based economies that help people get back to work, but will also be part of more sustainable global supply chains? So you're starting to see those conversations happen and I would expect to see more. So Henrik, Rachel just referenced obviously the need to get people back to work. You are the CEO and president of a major employer. What would be your ideal recovery plan for industry more broadly, for getting people back to work? What would be included in it? What outcome would it be achieved? And specifically what would you want from government and from the EU or other institutions? So good question. I think that we are currently most companies around the world. We are still in the liquidity crisis, which means that it's all about cash flow. It's about trying to sort of stop the drainage in the company and we are getting fairly good support. I would say in most parts of the world, when it comes to short term packages to make sure that we avoid then layoffs of our people. So of course these two are going hand in hand. So, but already now we need of course to look at the next phase, which will be not the liquidity crisis, but rather demand crisis, where we will see that the long-term demand for products and services in industry and society will go down and then there will be a need for restructuring of the companies. There will be a need to sort of rebalance to a new sort of operating level. I think it's starting now to become a little bit clearer on what that new level will be. I think two months ago, or two weeks ago, maybe the scenario was minus 50 to minus 30. I think now we're starting to sort of narrow down that bandwidth. So what we would need then as a support is of course a short term in the liquidity crisis is to make sure that we get access to capital, that we take away a lot of red tape and that the process of distributing capital is quick and neat. And I think in our case, we need to support our customers. So even if we are a big company, we can support the smaller companies that are transport companies by extending payment terms on sort of finance they have. We can support our suppliers that are usually smaller companies as well and also our dealerships that are smaller companies. So I think in each industry vertical, you have the opportunity then to distribute liquidity and that needs to happen quickly. Then we're coming to the demand side and I think there we need the programs and then we need, as have been said today, I mean, we need to build that then on, like in Europe on the Green Deal and we need to build it on a sustainability platform. I mean, that there is, I mean, sustainability is not a trend and I think it's a condition for future business success and I think that is clear both for politicians and for the business. So there, I think that the biggest order will not be access to money to pump into infrastructure. I think it will be decision power that the governments and politicians have and I can also refer to many of the European countries where we are sort of rather held back to do big investments in, for example, production of sustainable biofuels that we can use in our trucks or buses or infrastructure to charge electrical buses and trucks along the highways. It is not the money that is the problem. It is the process of making those decisions that takes too long. There we need like a Marshall plan or something like that but not Marshall plan when it comes to money, Marshall plan when it comes to a sort of carte blanche to sort of go straight through the legal system and then get decisions within one or two quarters. Thank you. And just a quick note to the audience, please do get your questions in in a few minutes. We'll be opening it up to questions from the audience. I'm gonna turn to Michael now. Everything that Henrik said, obviously requires capital, requires money. Part of the negotiations over these recovery plans necessarily include or might include some sort of taxation or subsidy reform. What opportunities right now do you see for a shift in taxation policies and subsidy reforms? What happens if we lose revenue from drive from taxes on fossil fuels, for example? How are we gonna pay for this all? Great question. And I apologize for the loss of internet a while back. So I'm not exactly sure what it cut off. But I think one of, we do obviously have an opportunity with the drop in global oil prices that will probably not return for maybe a year at the minimum. We have an opportunity to increase, remove subsidies, first of all, and then consider actually the duties on oil and gas that can help support the kinds of investments we need to see happen. Perhaps even carbon pricing, although obviously that's a bit of a stretch right now for a lot of the bandwidth of a lot of governments right now. Fossil fuel subsidies as of last year, we're still about $400 billion per year around the world. And so this is obviously a place where some action is possible. The challenge is to do it in a way that respect the fact that we don't wanna increase prices and costs for the most vulnerable, especially those reeling in the global south right now. And so to do it in a fashion that works. But a fair amount of these subsidies also go to production as well as consumption of fossil fuels. And it's important to recognize that those subsidies have a long-term impact that we're going to be shooting ourselves in the foot in this recovery if we support lots of long-lived investments in upstream oil gas and coal infrastructure at this point in time. So the opportunity is significant. I think we've seen India already raise duties on petrol and to help cover the costs of this recovery. So I think that the space is open for that. Thank you. So I will pose one more question to Minister Lovin before we'll open it up to the audience to take your questions. And there are several hundred of you out there. Feel free to pose your question in the chat box. Minister Lovin, right now people are looking to their governments for action. And policymaking in government, of course, as you all know requires balancing, competing, interests and compromising. What are you doing to make sure that the process is undertaking right now is inclusive and will lead to a better outcome? Mr. Henriksen referred to the need to streamline processes. What are you in the Swedish government doing to ensure that that process is inclusive and that process leads to an outcome that is what we're all here to talk about, a just resilient and more sustainable world? Well, first of all, just let me state immediately. Do you hear me? Yes, yes, loud and clear. Well, okay, that, I mean, this crisis here is absolutely unprecedented. So the first weeks, this first month and a half, we've been totally immersed in having to take decisions on really saving lives, trying to contain the spread of the virus, saving companies and jobs that would otherwise have been bankrupt within a month or so. We have a huge crisis also when it comes to unemployment raising unemployment. And of course, we're doing everything we can to protect our economy and the next phase will be to see, okay, so how are we going to rebuild our economy and our countries stronger and more resilient? And all these questions that have been made just now, Rachel mentioned food security. We also are very dependent on global value chains, such as Skania and Volvo and some of our biggest industries, they had to basically close down the production within a week, not due to the measures that we took in Sweden because of lack of availability on the global market where country after country is closed down. So we're very, very interdependent in the world. I think that's a realization. And how to rebuild in an inclusive manner? Well, I think in almost every country, you can feel the sense of urgency where we need to work together. And political parties are, I would say, quite united in Sweden that we need to really make this work for the sake of our people. And the next step will of course be the recovery of the economy, but we're not quite there yet actually. And I mean, during these six weeks, we've come out with recovery packages of billions of Swedish Kroners, which are quite unprecedented. But I think in the next phase, we will be able to talk about conditionality or sustainability, for instance, and other criteria. But I think there's a window here as has been said. And I think we need to make sure we use this window rightly so we can address at least two crises at the same time. Thank you. Let's now turn the screen over to Andrea Lindblom, who will take questions from the audience. And I also need to unmute myself. So we've already have a lot of questions coming in. There's 47 that we've already published. Please do understand. We can only take questions that are short and clear and to our topic. One of the questions that I would like to start with comes from Will Hall. He represents Terry, a key partner stakeholder in the Leadership Group for Industry Transition and opens this up to an aspect of the world or an area of the world that so far we haven't looked at so much. And his question is, over the coming decades, the majority of industrial emissions are likely to come from developing countries as they satisfy demands for cement, steel, and petrochemicals. Given the tight timelines for transition and bearing in mind their vulnerability to COVID-19, how can we bring developing countries into this conversation now to ensure net zero near to 2050? And I think that can go to Rachel, that question. Well, it's a great question, Will. And actually, just before I came on to this wonderful conversation, I was participating in the Petersburg Climate Dialogue's finance conversation. And this is really about what the Secretary-General called for yesterday in a very robust six-point plan needed for the recovery to make sure that it's climate resilient. And he talked about using all of our fiscal fire power to make sure that in recovery, we bend the curve of emissions and build more resilient economies. So I think the developing world is in this conversation already. Now we have this extraordinary opportunity. More than 100 countries have asked the IMF for help. That poses a whole challenge to the structure and well-being of the international financial institutions. That's for another webinar. But we have this opportunity to condition that support and provide assistance to help developing countries move more quickly. So this means laying the groundwork for the shift to electric vehicles and to clean vehicles in fleets for the public sector, et cetera. This requires some very careful conversations around restructuring. If public money that's going in to support public budgets is then going to be used to support national oil and gas companies, for example. So I think there's some very, very detailed restructuring conversations that are going to have to take place as the international community supports these developing countries. It can't be, you must not do this with public money. It has to be, this is how public money should be used. These are the green conditions and inclusive conditions on that money. And there's going to have to be a lot more help then for to support those countries to move more quickly. That actually asks them two other big questions. How do we restructure the development finance? The West's development finance is chopped into very, lots of little tiny boutique funds. That's not going to be a way to get money to move at speed and scale. And a second question is really one of collaboration between China and India who are big donors now and the West in terms of supporting the poorest countries. I would only say that I don't think we have any idea exactly how to manage this kind of level of sovereign debt. And I think there's an opportunity for green bonds and other things to help. But we are, as the Deputy Prime Minister said, moving into completely unbounded territory. And so we are going to have to do some imaginative and some thinking which would be truly outside of the box. Thank you, Rachel. Is there any other panelists that would like to add? I don't see that. I would then let's move on to another question so we can try and get in as many as possible here. And I already see that this will be impossible. But Michael Shahana, and I don't have any other affiliation for her, is asking which mechanism can be recommended for economies where the oil and gas sector is driving and investment into renewables mainly depends on income generated through fossil fuels to make the COVID-19 recovery more sustainable and resilient? That's a great question because there's a wide range of countries around the world in terms of their dependency on fossil fuels. The US is now the number one producer of oil and gas and fossil fuels in the sense overall. But ultimately is not that dependent overall on the revenues from oil and gas production on a national basis. So in some countries can move more quickly on this. So in terms of transitioning and expecting, in terms of directing investment, I think you look at countries like Iraq, Nigeria where you've got 90% dependency, 70% dependency on oil revenues, they're in quite a predicament. You do have the opportunity to reduce subsidies that are directed in some of the countries that produce the most, subsidize the most, and low oil prices provides the opportunity to raise some funds in that mechanism, although a difficult time to do that. And I think it is a time that's going to require some international cooperation to help out those countries that are deeply dependent and need more time to transition their economies away from oil and gas. Thank you, Michael. One question here I think for Minister Isabella Levine would come from Rachel at the University of York. As we're seeing levels of poverty and inequality drastically increasing globally, how are social justice measures such as equity and human dignity being considered in COVID-19 policy responses? Are they being discussed at this time? Thank you so much for that important question. And of course, we're at a very early stage so far, but we can already see that this is not a virus that hits everyone equally, even though of course no one is immune at this stage, but we can see also within our country, a very wealthy country with a very developed social security system that we've had the outbreaks in areas where people have lower income and are more exposed to the virus than in other areas where you don't have as much contact with other people and you don't have maybe, you have the opportunity not to go to work if you have the economic possibility. So I think this virus will also lead to further discussions on the need to address, I would say all the agenda 2030 on the sustainability goals that we adopted in 2015, we can't really avoid health crisis without dealing with all of the SDGs. So we need to make sure that we treat animals better and we have better food production. We need to also organize our cities better. We need to reduce the income in qualities not only between countries, but also within countries. And I think that is for the security of all of us. And this is really a crisis where we can put everything on the table and see whether or not to the way we are living our lives. Now it's sustainable or not. And obviously the answer is no, we have a lot of work to do to make our societies more sustainable and resilient and more fair. Thank you so much for that. There is another question coming in for you from Julia Raszewska and that is on a very different level but I'd still like to put it to you at this stage. It's more on a practical level regarding the EU sort of workings and asks how could we persuade the reluctant Eastern European countries to join us in the effort to rebuild the economy in a greener and more inclusive way? Well, I think the best way to do that is to really show by doing yourself. And Sweden and other countries are really, I think moving forward, as we heard with Henrik Henrikson, we have large parts of our industry with us convinced that it's not a burden to do a green transition but it's an opportunity. What was mentioned just now earlier on the dependency of fossil fuels in some of the world's economies that just shows that it's not the future. It's not going to be those that are stuck with the fossil fuels the longest are not going to be the winners. The contrary, they are going to be stuck with stranded assets and have huge problems with that. So I think the initiative of lead it is a very, very important one where we have gathered together a lot of companies also countries, heavy industries that are willing to show leadership and really invest in technology leaps showing that it's possible to produce deal without having a coal in the furnaces, showing that it's possible to produce cement with a lot less emissions of CO2 in the process. Those types of showing by example are extremely important to get the more reluctant countries and leaders on board. So we need to continue this initiative. I'm very proud that Sweden and India have been asked by the secretary general to lead this initiative and we will continue to do it. We were supposed to present something in COP26 in Glasgow this winter but it will be postponed but we will continue and also encourage others to join this initiative because it's really by showing, by forward-looking companies as Scania and others can convince their colleagues in other countries that this is the way to go and it's really the way to be prosperous to do it. Andrea, Henrik here, can I just add on to that hands-on example? I think that when it comes to the Eastern European countries in the European Union, I think that one example of where we could sort of create an initiative that will boost the interest in immigrant transition is of course the bio economy. I think the bio economy is a fantastic lever for us to create growth in Europe and especially in the Eastern part of Europe. One example is that we have a lot of contaminated land as a result of the former industrial era 50, 60 years ago in that part of Europe which means that we cannot use the land to grow crop for food for animals or for people but that land could be used in a sustainable way to produce then the second generation or third generation of biofuels that we could use for the transport sector and put that into vehicles that are already out on the road running. It doesn't have to be new technology that have to wait for it could be a plug and play today. If we would do that and I think that that is not a basic industry that's a high tech industry which I think we could create job opportunities and in the countryside and also an opportunity to excel in technology and digitalization. So I think I agree with the minister. I think there are good examples that we should explore. Thank you, Henrik for that. And if I may, I'd like to ask another question that I have seen very early on in the chat but now that I'm scrolling back to 57 messages can't exactly find it and pin down the exact way that it was phrased but it went and it was around the way that multinational corporations now have to change their supply chains. So how is that change happening in supply chains to towards more resiliency? Can you give an example of where you see that going maybe in your company? Yeah, that's correct. I mean, of course a crisis like this questions your footprint of sourcing and what I think the result will be at least in the heavy commercial vehicle industry and probably in the automotive industry as well that we are going unfortunately, which is against my belief but we're going towards the regionalization. I would prefer that it went the other way to a globalization but I think we see regionalization and that means that we will see clusters of sort of industry ecosystems then that will become more regional. So I think that is one trend. However, of course the good thing with those systems would be that they could be more efficient from a well-to-wield perspective considering also transport. And also if you start looking at putting a price on carbon for example, 100 euro per tonne, which we are doing in our sort of judgment of different alternatives, then you can see that of course the regionalization also from a well-to-wield and also taking into consideration the society and sustainability, it makes a lot of sense. So I think that is a trend that we will see going forward in many industries. Thank you so much for that. Is there anyone else in the panel that would like to add from the wider than the company perspective maybe? Rachel? Well, I mean, I think Henry is absolutely right. And I think this trend to regionalization would seem to be, it was already probably happening and will be spurred forward by this crisis. And then I think there's a question of if you imagine the world with a sort of a China dominated sort of region, EU and then the US, then I think there's this leaving no one behind and making sure that developing countries are able to operate in a world that's dominated by three packs that will start moving away from each other. I think in some respects in particular public attitudes to AI and public surveillance and things like this. So I think there's a very interesting period ahead of us. But resilience I think the public's imagination around resilience has really been sparked by this crisis. And so this means we always knew for example that electricity grids complemented by micro grids and off grid electricity production gave you the most resilience. We saw that after some of the big hurricanes and super storms of the last 15 years. And I think there's something attractive to communities to know that they can get power locally as well as be part of a global grid or sorry, a regional or national grid. When they see how extenuated and how fragile some of our supply chains are, same with food, it's all very well and good to have a global food production system that means that wheat and soy and everything go halfway around the world. And a lot of your food is coming and food stuffs are coming from China. But then in the middle of what is now only can be described as a kind of cold war between the West and China as we try to work out do we trust each other or how do we work with each other? Then being able to get more of your supply locally and to have it be healthy and nutritious is going to be an important part of this. The question really will be how to make that all affordable and how to make sure that that is something that works for everybody. But I think that there is a mindset shift in the public's imagination that can be exploited by policymakers in order to make sure that this recovery works to be more resilient, cleaner and healthier. I mentioned the word of affordable. Oh, Minister Lavigne, you wanna add to that? Well, yes, but I think what this crisis has revealed has been quite shocking to many of us that for instance, the most basic health material, medical supplies would not reach us in Europe when we needed face masks, there were no face masks, et cetera. And it has taken a lot of time and effort in trying to figure out how we can ask companies and industries in Sweden to start producing them here. And I'm quite sure that we will have a very different view on let's say safety and security after the COVID-19 crisis and security is not only military, security is also about being more self-sufficient. And that's one point. The other point is that also maybe our trust in the open market has really had a real hit during this crisis. And at the end of the day, it's the institutions that have been able to really help us and face this crisis where markets have failed. And I think that will also be a lesson learned from the crisis. And I think it's the same with the climate crisis because if markets alone would be, let's say, driving in a sensible way, then we will go off for our fuels very long time ago because otherwise the fear of stranded assets would really dominate the business decisions, but it hasn't. And we're still there with a lot of assets that will be stranded if we are going to respect and reach the Paris target, but still investors are there. And that is maybe one of my biggest concerns now that those of us that are already convinced since a long time that we need to do the transition to a fossil-free economy, we won't change our mind because of the COVID-19 crisis, but those that maybe woke up in Davos in February, all the investors coming together saying, we should divest from fossil fuels, et cetera. Maybe they're not that convinced at the end of the day. And that poses a real threat to the transition because we need investors going in the right direction. Thank you. I would like to pass on from Shirley Matheson at WWF UK comment to all of you that this is a very interesting discussion. So thank you for that, Shirley. And she also asks, how can we win the political argument today that this is the time to invest in a just transition across the economy? Now, when we know that governments and citizens are looking for ways to stabilize employment, create and preserve jobs in the short-term and at least in the medium-term too, where this implies that more change in employment going forward, including new jobs, but also losses. So basically this is around this image that Mark spelled out in the beginning about how this is a narrow policy window. So how can we win this political argument today that this is the time to invest in a just transition? Michael, would you have any thoughts on that? Well, sure. It's a little bit out of what I typically focus on, but it's obviously what we're seeing is that the most marginalized communities around the world are being hit the hardest. Those workers in our societies that have been chronically underpaid or are the ones who are pitching in the most in the recovery effort. And so I think you're seeing lots of sensibilities around the need for justice here in the response. And so, and we're also seeing a little bit back to what minister Levine was talking about moments ago around the fact that I'm actually, I think we'll see a general cultural and social response that we don't wanna get back on the oil roller coaster. And I think that the shocks that are being felt on economies that are highly dependent on oil and gas revenues right now, it sends a message that be careful because this is a preview of coming attractions. And it's quite visceral in those communities as well. Can I just jump in? I think this is primarily a respiratory crisis. And so the desire to have more filthy carbon pollution is gonna be seriously affected in many developed countries. It's gonna be harder in developing countries where as Michael's already said, they're much more dependent upon oil and coal to begin with. But even there, there are things that can be done. But I'm back on the question on jobs. I mean, the good news is that the jobs that we need in order to build the kind of clean economy, resilient economy that we need are job rich. So we need deep refurbishment of real estate, commercial and residential. We need to have a handbrake turn in our approach to energy efficiency. That is job rich in the local economy. We need restorative agriculture. We need to plant trees. We need to protect coastlines. These are job rich enterprises. And if we have also reset our attitude to government, that actually there is a fundamental goal for government, that it has to set the direction of travel. It has to use public money to do smart things, not to do stupid things. So no more fossil fuel subsidies, but it also has to use public money to incentivize private action. So there's a lot of guarantees being offered at the moment. Those guarantees can come with conditions to get the private sector to do what we need and to build the private sector where we need it. So we can imagine that there is a possibility to invest in the green infrastructure that we need, the green hydrogen infrastructure we need, the renewable energy infrastructure, the grid improvement that we need, that there is an opportunity to invest in these things with signals from government and that these are job rich. And so that short-term recovery, the job, the shovel ready projects, as we described it in 2008 after a very different shock, that those shovel ready projects, which are job rich, could be on the pathway to a cleaner economy. I think that that is possible. It will require political leadership, no doubt, but it's not impossible. And the good news is that it's job rich. Thank you, Rachel, for ending that Q&A part of our webinar on such a positive note. I'd like to turn over now to Mark. It's almost 10 minutes past four. I'd like to turn over to Mark now for a final round of questions to you panelists that he will put to you. Thank you so much for all the questions in the audience. I'm very, very sorry. We couldn't get two more, but that's where we're at. And now over to Mark, thanks. Thank you, Andrea. Thank you to everyone in the audience for those thoughtful questions. I have just a final round of questions before we conclude today. The first is to Henrikson. Can you make this a little real for us? Can you give us an example, just maybe one example of what you are doing in your work today at Scania to ensure that the COVID-19 recovery is sustainable? Yeah, what we're doing then, I mean, with our purpose to drive the shift towards more sustainable transport solutions, we cannot do that alone. We need to do that together with our customers. They need to demand these kinds of solutions, vehicles and solutions that can run on renewables or clean electricity. We need also help from our customers, the ones that are buying the transports, that they specify this when they buy transport. And we need help from academia to give us science and proofs and we need policymakers and politicians to create long-term rules that allows them investments in systems for transition. So I think that currently we're working with all these stakeholders, with a societal sort of view and trying to see, even if it's difficult now, I know with the current pandemic and the health situation, but I think we need to have the strength to work both here and now and with the plan of how to sort of restart society in a sustainable way. And I think what we're spending time on now and doing is to work with all these stakeholders to come up with common agendas of how we can create a transition. And very much of the time is going to reach across the aisle towards policymakers, agree on a common agenda and drive that together. Thank you. And my final question for Minister Levine, in the Q and A session, you mentioned that one good way to convince reluctant members of the EU on ways that they ought to make the recovery sustainable is to lead by example, to show by an example. So can you give me an example of how the Swedish government has put sustainability at the center of its own recovery efforts? Well, thank you, Mark. Well, just before Christmas, we adopted our major climate action strategy and was adopted by the Swedish parliament. This was of course before the COVID-19 pandemic, but this is still some, the fundamental roadmap for us for the recovery. And this is where the government aims at doing the major investments and incentivizing the technology leaps that we're seeing within the steel industry, the transport sector, et cetera. And we want to invest in high-speed train that will also, we believe, spark hundreds of thousands of jobs in the building sector and also provide sustainable transportation. But now we see no planes are lifting off the ground anywhere, but in the future, we will have to have more sustainable ways of transportation and still Sweden does not have a high-speed train. So this is one of the major investments we need to do. But we also see thousands of, hundreds of thousands of jobs in solar, in energy efficiency, racial mansion, refurbishing of buildings, renovation of the buildings that were built during the 1970s are in an acute need of refurbishing right now. And that's one of the things that we want to see done in a socially inclusive way that is also ecologically and environmentally sustainable on the food sector. I think Rachel mentioned it, described it very well. These are food, these are job-rich sectors, restoration of wetlands, watercourses and also maintaining our big natural reserves and forests. There's so many jobs that can be created once we roll out this strategy we have for the climate transition. And we should not move away from that when we design the corona recovery package, but that should be the foundation of the package. Thank you, Minister Levine. On to Dean Rachel Kite. I'm curious to learn from you how we will know if things are trending in the right direction in terms of towards a sustainable recovery. Are there any indicators you'll be looking towards in the coming weeks or months ahead or key inflection points that you'll be monitoring that will suggest to you whether or not we are in fact recovering from COVID-19 in a just, sustainable way? Well, I don't know if you saw that picture of the goats prancing down the small center of a Welsh town which isn't very far away from where my grandmother comes from but I don't think that's the indicator. But I think that there's something profound about being able to look up and first of all hear the birds and see blue sky and that's gonna have to drive what I think is a fairly significant policy to change which is that since the 1930s, despite warnings we have used GDP as the measure of success. GDP is a very, very blunt instrument. If first of all doesn't allow you to measure the wealth of the natural environment and it doesn't actually allow you to really invest in the things which we hold dear which are education and health and our own wellbeing. And so those governments that have started moving towards wellbeing budgets and those governments that have put wellbeing into traditionally structured budgets I think are on the leading edge of something and honestly, if this is not an existential threat but has driven us to this kind of economic slowdown when we have truly existential threats ahead of us it is time to come together as an international community and have a different matrix for the measurements of success. We'll have to go beyond GDP. Thank you. And finally to Michael Lazarus. You know, I kicked off this conversation saying and noting that we have a very narrow policy window to get this right. How will we know if and when this policy window is closing or closed? You know, I'm not really sure how well exactly now but I know that there are gonna be many windows that will open and close across regions and likely for years as we move from this relief phase the recovery phase to ultimately what we all hope to see which is a restructuring phase of our economies for this just equitable prosperity and that zero carbon world we're aiming for. You know, clearly this moment is unique. The sheer scale of investment that over five trillion dollars that's already been committed by G20 and the debt that Rachel was talking about that is unprecedented that we're taking on. So we need to be prepared with plans and strategies now. We need to put screens in those windows to make sure what we don't wanna see doesn't get funded. And we need to condition what we do provide to carbon intensive industries which we've been talking about to align with the kinds of measures that we heard Henrik talking about at Scania to really put in place those deep emission reductions to fund those kinds of shovel ready projects that Rachel was talking about. And I add to that also cleaning up of abandoned oil, gas and coal mines there. We saw in Canada just recently that Prime Minister Trudeau put $2 million towards that in Alberta and the oil patch which will create jobs where they're needed without deepening our investment in future fossil fuel production. We need to take on that $400 billion of subsidies and we have a real opportunity now for carbon pricing as well. And so we need to seize that opportunity. Maybe it's in the form of direct oil and gas duties at the moment but transitioning to carbon prices as soon as the political situation is right. And we need to use those revenues to invest in the technologies, industries and communities for that just sustainable future. So back to your question. Yeah, the windows are open now and we need to make sure what gets through them leads to the future we want to see. Thank you, Michael. Thank you to all of our panelists. Thank you to everyone who participated in this live virtual taping of the Global Dispatches podcast. The episode will be available in a few days. You can find that episode and all episodes of Global Dispatches podcast by just finding Global Dispatches podcast, wherever podcasts are available. Thank you all and I will turn it over to Andrea for concluding remarks. Goodbye and thank you. Thank you, Mark. Also from me on behalf of the Leadership Group for Industry Transition, a big thank you to Isabel Alouvin, to Henrik Henrikson, to Rachel Kite and to Michael Lazarus, our panelists. And thank you also to our audience. Thank you to everyone who contributed questions that were intriguing and apologies that we couldn't get all of those in. The recording of this webinar will be available in just about an hour under the same link that you've clicked now. In a few days, we'll also publish the video on SEI's YouTube channel and we'll notify you of that via email. And of course, do look out for the Global Dispatches podcast on Monday. So on behalf of the Leadership Group for Industry Transition and on behalf of SEI, thank you all.