 What happened at 26, COP26? What happened? And we have somebody who's there to talk about it. You know, here on Climate Change, Beyond Outrage, Anu Hiddle, Anu Krini Hiddle with the East-West Center, also the Commissioner of Climate Change in the City County. Welcome to the show, Anu. So nice to see you. Nice to see you again, Jay. It's always a pleasure. And I'm glad you're the one here hosting this show this time because obviously I need some drawing out and you're very good at that. We'll see what I can do. So the rumor is that you went to Glasgow. You had a bunch of other people from Hawaii. So first, a broad brush, how was it? Yeah, so just before we start, I just wanted to mention it's not, I'm not with the City and Counties Climate Commission, but with the State of Hawaii's Climate Commission. Thank you, thank you. So just that little correction. But yeah, so Glasgow, the best sign I think encapsulated it all said, keep Glasgow cold, wet and gray. So that's what it was like, cold, wet and gray. And 40,000 people descended on a city of, I think it's 600,000. So it was quite a crowd. And there were a lot of obviously COVID protocols in place. So things were different. But a lot of people went from Hawaii this time. A lot of people went from the United States. And obviously a lot of people went from many places. So we were, there was a governor led delegation, Governor of Hawaii, Governor Eagate and his, there were state officials who went, state legislature, a couple of folks from there, Senator, Representative. There were UH law professors and students. There were activists from Hawaii. I mean, I think every time I learn of someone new every day coming in that had been to Glasgow. So probably about 40, 45 people from Hawaii all told. Let me make your guess and say that there were a lot of big meetings in as big conference rooms as you can find in the city of Glasgow, which is half the size, well, two thirds the size of Honolulu. And you heard a lot of people speak and you engaged in a lot of what do I call it, professional social dialogue outside in the entryway and the lobby and various receptions and gatherings. That would be my guess as to how you spent the time. Actually it was a little different from other cops. So this was my seventh cop and a cop, which by the way stands for conference of the parties. And it's not really a conference in the sense of our symposia kind of conferences. It's more a conferring of the parties. So the parties are not just people that party, but people there, the governments that have signed up to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is the broader convention framework that holds things like the Paris Agreement. So the Paris Agreement was signed as you know, and as our viewers know in 2015. And then the cops have been going under this UN Framework Convention for 26 cops, which is one every year except last year. That convention was signed in 1992 in Rio with a sister convention, the Convention on Biodiversity. So I'm kind of going into my professorial mode here, Jay, so you'll have to sort of stop me when you start, you know, rifling through your phone and your texts and your emails just as any student would do these days. But so it was a little different because of the COVID protocols and we did not have as many people in the venue as we normally would. They were restricting numbers and pavilions and conference rooms had very, very few people in there. Some could only hold like 20. So there was not, I would say, as much networking within the venue and in the hallways as one would have done in the past, but all of these things were probably happening off venue in the many bars, no doubt, that Glasgow holds. And I personally can't say that I did any of those things but it was just observing COVID protocols for being able to come back home. So much of what we did happened in those conference rooms themselves. And I would say it was an interesting hybrid of virtual and in-person. So for example, a panel that I worked on and pulled together with the help of eight other states in the US Climate Alliance. That panel was, so four of those states were on the ground at home and on the ground, four of them on the ground. So we had a really interesting, because the technology has advanced, some people are more comfortable with it, with Zoom and so on. We have these kind of... What you're saying, using the hybrid is that if I represent an organization or a country, I can attend a conference like COP26 in a hybrid way. Can I have some people present there? I can have other people at home and they can likewise participate in the public conversation in the conference. Am I right? Is that what was happening? This is a really a step forward, isn't it? Yes, it was happening. And I think this is a step forward. It is more, you could say more equitable, not necessarily less greenhouse gases because I don't know if people know this but I'm sure our very knowledgeable viewers know this but computers and technology actually take up a lot of energy and so we emit a lot of greenhouse gases from that too if that energy is produced by fossil fuels. So virtual, but it does help with the sort of more people being able to participate from further away and not actually being at the venue. So that is... That's what they should be. This is a global problem and the whole world should be involved in the conversation and nobody should be on the sidelines. Ever since Al Gore's movie and all that and the raising of public awareness in this country and other places, we have known at some intellectual level that we are in a crisis, but the world, it's biblical because the world can't seem to get together on it. We are distracted nearly every moment with other things that are not nearly as important. I've talked to the School of Journalism at UH Manila and they make one point clear to me. The most important story of the century is climate change because it's an existential threat and it's gonna change all our lives. It is changing all our lives. So my question to you is what contribution did you and the Hawaii delegation, if you will, make to this conference? What imprimatur did you leave on them? What did you say or do that will have a positive effect on the whole notion going forward? Yeah, so just before I dive into that, just a short lecture on... Okay, I'll try to keep it short. This is your way of deferring your answer, I understand. It's providing some context for it. So when you say that everyone should be involved in this conversation, that is correct. And I agree with that. I just don't think this is necessarily the venue to do that. Just because a whole bunch of people show up there doesn't mean that that's the venue. Now it hasn't been at least initially structured as such. So the first COP, COP 1, had only like 600 people. This time there were 40,000. And one of the reasons that has grown is because there were no observers in this process. It was only the governments and their ministers and their presidents and so on, their leaders who were discussing and negotiating. Okay, and so then that has grown because civil society said we must be included in this. And so that's grown to 40,000 people at these COPs because of that. Well, I hear you're saying though, we said you still have the core group of official representatives from nations and international organizations concerned with climate change. But then you have the secondary group, which is individuals and smaller organizations concerned with climate change and a lot of activists. We know from that reading the papers that there were a ton of activists who made their way. And you mentioned a ton of activists who made their way. And I would imagine that a good percentage of that 40,000 people were the activists. So what I get out of this is there's the innies and the outies. The innies, sorry. The innies are the ones who make the decisions, they're the progeny of that original 600, right? And the outies are the ones who would like to, you know, hold some signs, make some impressions in the street, but they're not on the inside of the conversation or on the determination of policy. This is a country-level negotiation, okay? So it's your, it's country governments, it's national governments that are talking to each other. And then we have to ask ourselves as a law professor or as a law student or as a activist or as even a governor, what place do I have in those country-level negotiations? Right? So we went as a sub-national delegation, Governor Ige led a sub-national delegation from Hawaii, which is from the state of Hawaii. And there were other governors there, like Governor of Washington state of Oregon, of Illinois, I'm trying to think who else, anyway, there were other governors- A number of states, yeah. A number of states. And yeah, so I mean, I think those governors are also saying that, you know, in these last four years when our federal government was basically AWOL on climate change at these negotiations, now they're back, but then who was carrying the torch during that time? It was sub-national governments. It was local governments, cities, counties, state governments that were actually doing the action on the ground. It was civil society. It was our community activists, our community members in Hawaii working directly, right, on the ground. So what place, because we're the ones who do the work, we're the ones who implement the goals that these country governments put together, what place do we have in these negotiations? Shouldn't we have a voice? Shouldn't we have a place? And what did you find? What place did you find? Did you have an experience in Glasgow that showed you the place, that showed you what you need to do to implement whatever their agreement might have been? So there are a number of places where we actually have entry points. One is to engage very actively with the federal government, with our federal government. And that is happening under this administration. Now, of course, if we can put it in a structure that, and I'm saying this as an East-West center researcher, one that studies governments and so on and policy and indeed global cooperation amongst governments, like why cooperate, right? Why go above, why transcend your national identity and do something for the global good, right? So if you are to do that, there are several entry points and one of them is to engage with your federal government, but then if your federal government's administration changes, like what happened in the last four years, then what do you do? So that's one of those conversations we're having with federal governments at this point and federal agencies, like where do we embed some of this work so that it carries on regardless of the, I like to liken the work that I do and the work that happens in climate change to a water column. So at the magic level, which is the top most level, you have all the storms and the sunshine of politics and all of these other things. And then that's where you have your political appointees and so on. And then you look down at the water column at the benthic level, at the way low level, in the dark, right? That's where all the bureaucracy and all those folks are working away, right? So things that the storms that rock you at the pelagic level, they may not reach that benthic level sometimes. And so you really want to embed it all through that water column, all through that political process. And- Something you said a minute ago really touched me is there's something you had to elevate yourself above your national interest, your national identity and national concern and see this as a global problem and be a person of the globe, dealing with the question, the challenges to humanity. And my question to you, and this is really important, I think, is are the people involved in COP 26, who were involved in it, it's because it's over now, in COP 26, have they elevated themselves to that kind of global consciousness or are we still stuck in nationalism? That's a good question, are we still stuck in nationalism? I mean, when people sort of get disappointed by this process, I come back with, do we have another at this point? I mean, is there anything else where all countries have agreed that global warming climate change is a problem and we are working towards it? Is there anywhere else that we're doing this? I mean, this is what peace looks like, right? This is nations at peace talking to each other. So, you know, there was all this stuff with the blah, blah, blah, that's become so popular now with the young activists. You're really saying that because the Greta said it, that's all. Well, I think that's what this system does do though, that's what peace does. It is blah, blah, blah, the way you take up arms. And I think, you know, this is what we're seeing. This is nations at peace negotiating with each other, whether or not they transcend the national interest, that's for each other to bully and champion and cajole and convince. So what's your sense? Whether, well, there obviously there were, there were some big players that were missing, right? So they did not send their premiers. So China did not send its premier, India did not send its prime minister, but the US sent its highest official and many, many federal delegates from federal agencies came to this cabinet. And I think, you know, so there are some nations that are showing that they're back in and need to show it after being a wall for four years. They are now all in. That's what we're saying is we are all in. And we put forward some, for Hawaii, you asked this question earlier, what did Hawaii do there? For Hawaii, I think it was really important to show because when Hawaii speaks, people listen because everyone knows Hawaii, right? Everyone loves Hawaii. I mean, what's not- Well, everyone feels that Hawaii is an example of a pristine, relatively speaking, a pristine environment where we care about protecting it. That's Hawaii's image. And it's a good image to have where people then listen because it's not like, oh, we're completely trashed and we want you to listen to us because we're afraid. And, you know, it's an image that we are afraid of losing this and it's a global treasure, right? So people see it as one. And so when Hawaii says something, it is heard. Even if maybe- That's why it's important that we participate. That's why it's important to go. And Hawaii actually speaks in a very ambitious tone and pushes the envelope, has pushed in the past and has continuing to do that. Even at COP26, one of the messages was that one, so now, you know, initially it was two degrees warming, two degrees Celsius warming and now it's 1.5. And Hawaii's saying, we have to be below 1.5. Hawaii's always been saying, this is not enough. We need to do better. We need to do more. And it's always one of the first to say that. And I think people, you know, it's been seen that people listen, countries listen and other governments, other governors. So when Hawaii pushed forward the goal of 100% renewable by 2045, three years later that's when California followed. Now, maybe it wasn't Hawaii that made California follow but certainly Hawaii had already been saying that. So it didn't seem as absurd, you know, when the fifth largest economy in the world follows, right? So California follows. So Hawaii has an important role to play and it's difficult to do that virtually. You really need to be there and show that we've come from a long ways away to make change and to make these points. Did you meet the principals who were engaged in the inside meetings? Did you have direct, I know you had indirect effect on them, but what about direct effect? Did you grab a chief of state somewhere and buttonhole him or her and say, look, you know, you guys got to move on this. Did you have that experience? Well, we certainly, there were meetings for governor with other governors and with federal cabinet members. And I mean, we were in some, so those were smaller group meetings but and those were set up by our U.S. Climate Alliance colleagues, which was great. So yes, we did have those meetings. We were not in the negotiating rooms because we're not federal negotiators. So that structure, I think people really need to understand that that structure, if we want to change how we interact that structure needs to change. Do we want to change? That structure needs to change. Let me add a footnote to that. I mean, there were protesters outside whole time. Right. And as is the case in protestors, some of them are more rational than others. Others are less rational. I mean, for example, and you might have thoughts about this that there was a group of protesters that were seeking reparations to punish first world nations for having dumped all the carbon. And my reaction to that is that really the top of the agenda, reparations as to punish. What we really need is to find an agreement not to find the enmity. And those protesters, I don't think were constructive. Other protesters were. So if you'll let all the protesters into the conversation, you're asking for trouble. What do you think? Well, that's a bigger question of, who has a voice, right? And who should have a voice? So, and it's a question of what impact does direct action and civil disobedience and those kinds of things, what impact does that have on governments? And I mean, you know, there have been varying results from that from everything to from overthrowing a government to having no impact at all. So, I mean, I personally, I am all for direct action. I used to work for Greenpeace and I was their forest research advisor when they did for tropical forestry campaigns. And, you know, so I definitely have a direct action advocacy element to my personality. I think that Greenpeace, when we worked with Greenpeace on these issues, one of the things that it did is that it allowed conversation between the more, if you will, more centrist organizations and the established powers that be because we opened up that wedge for them. We said, you know, here, we're making all this noise and then they're like, oh God, we have to talk to these people, who should we talk to? And they were like, here, talk to the World Resources Institute, talk to the Environmental Defense Fund, talk to NRDC, you know? So, I think that those, that full range of direct action and protests can have a tremendous impact on any issue and I'm glad always when I see direct action. What's direct action on it? Just the protests and, you know, the sort of directly using your freedom of speech to talk about your climate change, especially climate change issues, to make a positive change. You know, I asked you a little while ago what effect the Hawaii delegation might have had on, you know, the general conversation at the conference. But now I'd like to flip that over and ask, what are the conference, what kind of effect that the conference have on the delegation? What effect did the conference have on you personally? You've been studying, reading, writing, you know, a central figure in climate change in the state of Hawaii and elsewhere. And I'm always curious and you've gone to so many of these conferences you mentioned that I remember when you went to climate change conferences in Marrakesh in Morocco and reported back to Think Tech, what do we call it, five by five, five minutes at five o'clock, which is extraordinary, you know, in those days that would still be extraordinary today I think. So my question is, how did this affect you and your thinking this really momentous historical conference? Yeah, you know, I think Hawaii, I'll speak a little bit for my work with the Hawaii state government, which is, I think it really helped us align our actions on the ground with what is happening at the pelagic level, at that international level. So with that, you know, I mean, I've just, I have been talking about a, we put together a high impact actions and it's called HI, high impact, but that actually aligns with the HIGH, high impact actions that were put forward by the 25 governors. And so we have a website for that where, you know, people can go and take a look, but I think that really helped us align those actions. We have been doing this work but just being able to report that we're doing this, you know, there are over 70 actions in there aligning with priority policies and so on, which is really the high ambition. What you really, what happens is that you need nitty gritty on the ground implementation. And when you raise that action, raise that ambition, you raise what action you need to take as well and how much of it. So that's what we're doing is when we raise ambition at the global level, we raise what action needs to happen on the ground in Hawaii. So I think that really helped us to align. Aside from alignment, what about your, you know, sort of world view about this? I know you've always been an advocate, if not an activist and you've always been very concerned, you know, for all of us about what's happening to the world. Did this conference exacerbate that? Or was it what you expected or less or more? It's, you know, it's a fascinating process for someone like me to look at, you know, which players are reneging, which are promising, which are coming back and going out. And it's the international political stage, right? And it's fascinating. And it's like I said, it's at peace. This is peacetime. So I really, I like to study peace and I like this process. I think there's a lot of hope in this process. Even though people came back saying it was, you know, hopeless, I don't agree. I think for what it is, which is, I mean, think about, you know, when I think about my government, not necessarily Hawaii state government, but just any government, when I think about one government actually getting something done, just think about what it takes and how long it may take. Now we're talking about 200 of those nations with number of multitude of governments in there. So it's a really slow moving beast that is actually doing something, but it's just that's what it's gonna be. And I think this is fast enough, my sense of it is it's not fast enough. And climate change is catching up with us and global warming is catching up with us. And the United States, which, you know, maybe at one point I had a greater influence on this and lost influence during the Trump administration and it sort of shot itself in the foot is now less influential. And if the United States really wanted to be influential, really do something, as it did, for example, in the Marshall plan after the war, you know, the United States would put plenty of money on it. The president would go to Congress and say, now stop fooling around. We have an existential threat here and we are and should be the world leader. We ought to put the money on it and take all the action possible. We ought to be an example for every country. And to say to Vladimir Putin the same thing and to say to Xi Jinping the same thing and to bring all those guys in and make sure that we actually make progress against this relentless threat. But that's not happening. And I think because the United States has lost some of the influence it had before, the world, those 200 countries have become more fragmented and they don't have the leadership. They have negative leadership around the positive leadership and we're not going fast enough. What do you think about that, Anu? Well, I think one thing is when we say we're not going fast enough, I mean, that's true, but we're also looking at a very, and I just wanna make it very clear that I'm not speaking for the state government of Hawaii or for governor or anything like that. This is me as a researcher. So, you know, I really think that we are, when we say two degrees or 1.5 degrees, it almost makes it seem like it's a binary that if we don't get to that, we are doomed. And the fact is that if we don't try for that, we will be going absolutely out of control. We'll be four degrees or 10. And that's unlivable, right? That's a catastrophe. So I think we are mitigating it. It may be not fast enough and just not enough, but that's with almost any of these other complex issues like poverty or world hunger or things like that, right? So you're saying we're not, and we have made progress on those too. I mean, we have, the world has gotten richer. It's overall, you know, it has gotten less hungry. There are pockets of lots of millions of, hundreds of millions of people who are not, but there are still people, hundreds of millions who've been brought out of abject poverty in the last 40 decades. So would you agree with me that if you have fires, wildfires, if you have drought in the Colorado River Basin right now, if you have heat waves where people die, if you have storms that rip cities apart, and so forth, I could go on. If you have all these things coming at an accelerating rate, that has got to, I hope this was discussed at the conference, that has got to have a destructive effect on economies, national economies, regional economies, national economies and the global economy. So the peace that we're happy with now is a relative thing and the ostensible management of poverty and I don't know, you could talk about human rights too, I suppose, those things kind of assume a continuing piece. But when you get people fighting over water, when you get people fighting over food, when you get large populations which are forced to migrate, that doesn't lead to peace, rather it leads to contention, competition, war. Climate change to me has a direct direction, a direct line to war and if you have war, then we're even less likely to be able to deal with it. Your thoughts, please. We sort of had this catastrophe these last two years, we've had a catastrophe, right? We've had a pandemic, a very, very disruptive event. And I mean, it's been hard to wake governments up and people, it's been hard to wake up people to wake up their governments, right? In fact, people, I would say there have been times where governments have not been able to go as fast as they actually wanted because of people. So, if it comes to that, I mean, when you're looking at disruptions, I'm not sure what a climate disruption, what else it will do for us that a pandemic disruption hasn't already done or could just do, so. Well put, in fact, you know, in fact, there's a relationship between climate and pandemics, some of the same factors that exacerbate climate change, also exacerbate pandemics, this virus and other viruses going forward. And so, you know, they're all connected. I mean, if you ever wondered about Thomas Friedman's Flatworld, well, it's completely interconnected now and he would agree with you that Flatworld is almost an old notion. But let me ask you this though, it's clear, especially in Europe and to some extent, well, to a definite extent in the United States and various countries in Latin America, that we are moving toward autocracy. It's not only the autocrats emerging, it's the people supporting the autocrats who are emerging. And now we are looking right in the face of autocratic government spreading in Europe, spreading in Latin America. I think we have that in China right now today. And we have a great risk of it here in the US. So my question to you is, and this is not easy, I never promised you a rose garden on it, given the emergence of autocratic government, which is clearly defined right now, does that help or hinder, I mean, is that altruistic or is it the reverse of altruism in terms of saving humanity, saving the planet from climate change? What does autocratic government mean to the effort? I mean, are you wanting me to say this in like 10 seconds or less? Because obviously I'm going to dodge this one. So it goes way beyond climate change, doesn't it? So, I mean, climate change is an existential threat, but the governments, the autocratic governments are something else again. So does it help or hinder? I mean, when does the autocratic government help? I'm not sure. Okay, let me ask you a related question. We're running out of time a little bit, but I want to pose this to you too. So you go to COP26, and then you meet these people and a lot of Europeans there. And it's very clear on the global stage that the US through Biden and Kerry are trying to be back. We're back, you know, we're back to COP. We're back to climate change. We're gonna try to do something of Congress if the Senate will ever agree. And so the question I put to you is in walking the halls and having those panel discussions and talking with various members of the European community and Britain, do they accept that? Do they agree that the US is back? Are they now comfortable, more comfortable, certainly more comfortable than when Trump was dishing everybody, but are they comfortable with the claim that the United States is back or are they skeptical about it? What's the level of acceptance of that proposition? I'm not sure how to answer that, Jay. I don't think I actually interacted with that many people, you know, just because of the COVID protocols and stuff, but I think the general sense is that let's hurry up and do what we can in these next few years that we do have, set some processes in place that will be enduring and not be rocked by those pelagic storms. Okay, so you and the delegation go from Hawaii, including the governor and a bunch of others and delegations from other states go. And now you're back and now, at least theoretically, you have the opportunity to deliver the message that you were thinking about in Glasgow while you were attending COP26, the message to the people. And let's talk about the people of Hawaii. What is the message that you bring back from Glasgow, Anu? Again, I don't wanna speak for the state government in this segment here, but I think one message in general is that there is a lot going on in Hawaii. And when we look at our efforts here, I think, you know, we're a small state. We have many, many capacity constraints and challenges, but I think with our, the sentiment here is that, you know, we can make things happen because we are this island, we have this island mentality, a community mentality that we are small and we rely on each other. So I think that is something we can really be using to kind of teach other places and share with other places our successes, you know? And I think we have a lot of successes here. So when we started putting those high impact actions together, those were just a few, just a smattering and really just a tip of the iceberg melting as it were, but just the tip of the iceberg, you know, when we're looking at how many, many things are going on here, it really runs deep in Hawaii. So I'm, you know, I think it's a message of optimism and encouragement that whatever we're doing, you know, it is, we're doing the right things here. It's not binary that we shouldn't, that just because we can't reach two degrees or we've overshot, you know, it's not binary that we shouldn't do anything. It's like we still need to mitigate and adapt and that's what we are, we're good at those things because we- What about action points? Did you bring back, do you have any, you know, action points that you think about that you would suggest for consideration here? Things perhaps that we haven't fully addressed yet that we should. Oh, there are a lot of those, but I would say there are many things we have, we are addressing and many that we haven't, and I don't know how much time we have for that, but we really are addressing those in our high impact actions. So that's all very concisely laid out there. As an Indian mom, I would say, what I say to my kids, what I used to say to my kids, which is, that's good. Now let's do more. Yes, there it is, Anu Hill, you know, one of the leaders in the climate change community here in Hawaii and has been for as long as I know her, which is several years already, it must be almost 10 years on it. And I hope you come to our holiday party. It's virtual, but I hope it come anyway on December 8th because Chip Fletcher, who I think was with you in Glasgow will be delivering keynote remarks about, I suppose these topics. Anyway, thank you very much, Anu. Thank you for coming on and I invite you to come on anytime. I'll be following you and I hope you'll join me again. Thank you for the opportunity, a pleasure always. Aloha.