 Good morning everybody. I'd like to welcome you all to the parallel session of the virtual forum on fossil fuel supply and climate policy. I'm going to just do some brief comments about the conference just to allow some time for people who are joining from the plenary session to join in and then we'll kick things off. For those of you who are just joining this session and didn't join in the other session, you may or may not be aware that this forum is happening in lieu of a conference that was supposed to be happening in Oxford over the next two days on fossil fuel supply and climate policy. This is the third of these conferences. The gap, so to speak, that this conference fails is it provides an opportunity to people to talk about fossil fuel production. So coal oil and gas production in the context of climate change, something that's often missing from climate change conferences more broadly. Very shortly we'll be plugging in a conference website link for those of you who might want to join us for the next one of these conferences. We're hoping fingers cross that if travel conditions resolve and if health conditions resolve that we will be able to host the conference again next September in Oxford and we'll also be hosting a remote event for those of you who want to join us and don't want to get on a plane to go to Oxford to attend. And with that I might hand it over now to Catherine Harrison who will be our moderator for this event. Catherine is based at the University of British Columbia where she's a professor of political science and I'll let her introduce the panel and the speakers today. Thank you, Georgia. Good morning, afternoon, evening, everyone. I'm sorry that we're not together in person but delighted to be chairing this this panel. The topic of the panel is prospects for international cooperation to manage a transition away from fossil fuel production. The challenge is that the halting progress that we've made to date to coordinate internationally coordinate efforts to constrain fossil fuel consumption will only be undermined if countries just keep producing fossil fuels and flooding global markets in desperation thus depressing prices and encouraging fossil fuel consumption. So among the questions that I'm hoping panelists in this session will address are how can we transition away from fossil fuel production at a global scale? What sort of governance arrangements and transition supports will be needed to facilitate international cooperation on a managed decline in fossil fuel supplies? And what are the most promising options for international cooperation? Is it through the UNFCCC perhaps a new fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty or clubs of major fossil fuel producers? The panelists will draw on their experience in past climate and energy negotiations to highlight some of the challenges to reaching international agreement but also highlighting examples that already exist of international cooperation on fossil fuel supply. So I will introduce all of the panelists and then we'll get going with a conversation among them. Dr. Gehr Ashem is a professor of economics at the University of Oslo in Norway. Dr. Ashem is a prominent scholar of environmental economics and has been recognized as fellow of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists and an elected member of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters. Dr. Harro Van Asselt is a professor of climate law and policy at the University of Eastern Finland Law School, an affiliated researcher of the Stockholm Environment Institute and a visiting research fellow with Utrecht University's Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development. With more than 15 years of research experience, he's an expert on interactions between international climate change governance and other fields of international governance. Sepora Berman is the international program director at Stan.Earth and an adjunct professor in York University's Faculty of Environmental Studies. She is previously the co-director of Greenpeace International's Global Climate and Energy Program and was the co-founder of Forest Ethics. Among her many accolades for her work as an environmental campaigner, she is currently the recipient of the Climate Breakthrough Award for her work developing a Global Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. And finally, Dr. Nevroz Dubash is a professor at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi. Dr. Dubash has been active in the climate policy arena for more than 25 years. He helped establish the Global Climate Action Network in 1990 and is currently a coordinating lead author for the IPCC's sixth assessment report. He advises the UNEP emissions gap report steering committee and has been a member of the scientific advisory group of the UN Climate Action Summit. So we've got a fantastic panel of folks to address these questions. To get things started, Dr. Asim, recently you published an article in Science Magazine making the case for a supply-side climate treaty. Why do we need international cooperation on fossil fuel production? Thank you very much. Yes, together with eight Norwegian co-authors, we published last year a policy format on science, where we argue that the Paris Agreement can be strengthened if fossil fuel producing countries agree on a plan or a treaty for leaving oil, gas and coal deposits permanently in the ground. And what I will do in my introductory remarks, I will present the four key economic mechanisms that we present in support of such supply-side policies. First of all, they will enhance the impact of the Paris Agreement in the presence of free riders. The problem is that demand-side policies like the Paris Agreement, if it works, are undermined by the so-called carbon leakage. Demand-side policies cause lower fossil fuel prices, which in turn lead to increased use of fossil fuels in free riding countries. Producer countries can counter this by reducing their supply of fossil fuels, thereby contributing to higher global fossil fuel prices. It can be shown that the cost-efficient mix of supply-side and demand-side policies for the group of producer countries depends on how supply and demand for fossil fuels among free riders respond to changes in fossil fuel prices. But it's not the case that we want to depend only on demand-side policies. The second argument is that such supply-side policies will enhance investments in green technology. The producer treaty will raise the expected future prices of fossil fuels, also in countries without their own climate policies. This makes it more profitable for private investors to invest in climate-friendly technologies. The third key argument is that such supply-side policies will ensure against a failed Paris Agreement. If the Paris Agreement succeeds, then the producer treaty is superfluous and inexpensive, and it might even be that it might avoid waste by preventing development of deposits and investments in infrastructure that will end up being unprofitable, but which are planned by investors with weak belief in effective future climate policies. As last year's production gap report demonstrates, this is a real possibility as planned future fossil fuel developments far exceed a level consistent with climate goals. That's if the Paris Agreement succeeds. However, if the Paris Agreement fails, then the producer treaty will temper these serious effects of continued ineffective demand-side climate policies and thus be essential in this case. The fourth and final argument is that such supply-side policies will bring producers on the team, and that's important because fossil fuel producers have often blocked climate action. If supply-side policies will benefit producers as a group, so why is that? Because even though producers would lose on deposits that will remain untouched, something that will happen also with a successful Paris Agreement, they will gain on fossil fuels that are nonetheless produced, since fossil fuel prices will be higher. That's the argument for why it will be a good thing for fossil fuel producers and bring them on the team and not having them blocking climate action. In our science article, we also mentioned possible practical steps towards supply-side climate treaty, but for now I will leave this for others and perhaps return to that later in the discussion. Thank you very much. Thank you, and I would add if participants check out the chat function, there is a link to the science article, the case for a supply-side climate treaty, there and also a link to the International Conference on Fossil Fuel Supply and Climate Policy next year's conference, we hope. Okay, turning to Harro Van Asselt, what options do we have for addressing fossil fuel production at the international level and what key issues should be considered when developing some form of international governance on fossil fuel supply and climate change? Over to you. Thank you, Catherine, and good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, everyone. So we already heard from Professor Eislem who has laid out the case for international cooperation on fossil fuel production, and I would say his argument resonates in various academic and civil society proposals that we have seen so far suggest the proposal that I'm sure that my fellow panelists will be talking about for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty. Beyond such proposals, we should also know that international cooperation is already taking place in related areas. So we know, for example, that a small group of countries, including New Zealand, Costa Rica, and Norway, is already working together to develop rules to face out fossil fuel subsidies through an agreement on climate change, trade, and sustainability. We also know that another set of countries is already undertaking activities jointly in pursuit of a face-out of coal-fired power plants through the powering past coal alliance. But extending these models to fossil fuel production is one of the questions that we're addressing here. But interestingly, here we see a recent proposal by U.S. Vice Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris, who has suggested that she was going to launch the first ever global negotiation of the cooperative managed decline of fossil fuel production. So knowing that, how would such international cooperation look like? And how could it move forward? So here I'll try and sketch some of the key questions and issues that should be considered when developing some form of international coalition on fossil fuel production and climate change. So the first key question here I would say is the question of who can and who should participate. Universe participation might be preferred with all countries being on board, might be the desired end goal, but at the same time it might make sense to start with a club approach with a group of frontrunners taking the lead. And if we take a club approach, such a club may then evolve into a larger coalition of countries and something that we're now seeing already with powering past coal, with more and more important coal countries coming on board. The credibility of club can certainly be strengthened by having major fossil fuels producers participate, but we should also keep in mind that participation of other countries with little or no fossil fuel extraction, such as small island state and least developed countries can also add moral weight to any initiative. Then a related question is whether we should also include in the participation non-state and subnational actors. And here we can think of subnational authorities participating as something beneficial for countries where subnational governments are taking action, but federal governments are unwilling to do so. And ultimately any of these types of initiatives could be modeled after a variety of cooperative initiatives that we already see in the climate sphere and in recent years, particularly especially after the Paris Agreement. We have initiatives such as the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, the Carbon Price and Leadership Coalition, Powering Past Coal, which I already mentioned, where we have several research organizations and NGOs, subnational authorities and businesses participating alongside governments. So the first question then is about participation, but then the next question is about which forum to use. And here we could think about trying to link any initiatives on fossil fuel production to existing forums such as the UNFCCC, where we have already seen discussions on the just transition away from fossil fuels, assuming increasing importance in recent years. But we can also think about forums such as the G20, where we know that countries have pledged to face up to inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. But then it might also make sense to focus on creating a new forum needing specifically with fossil fuel production and climate change. Of course, creating a new forum may entail some cost in terms of setting up a new administrative structure, but it would also avoid the political baggage that we know exists with some of the existing forums. However, I guess the most important point is even if a new forum is created, cooperation on fossil fuel production does not need to be limited to just one forum. And arguably, arguably even say that it should be pursued across a multiplicity of forums. So if countries want to pursue commitments on fossil fuel production, so they can pursue general cooperation, but they can also try and come to concrete commitments to do something, then the next question is what forms such an agreement should have and what these commitments should be. And in terms of the forum, some have suggested to have it as a presumably legally binding treaty, but this is not the only possible form. International agreements, as any lawyer on the call might know, can take a wide variety of forms from non-binding political declarations, compacts, memoranda for understanding to indeed a legally binding treaty. While a legally binding treaty might signal a strong commitment on behalf of the participating countries, it would, as we probably all know, be very, very challenging to negotiate and would likely also preclude participation by non-state actors. Then the final question, which is something that I would suggest that also some of the other PEP analysts may reflect on, is what should the contents of any such agreement be? So what kind of commitment should we be thinking of? And let me just highlight a few things to think about. I think the first thing any agreement needs to think about is which fossil fuels it should cover. Should it be coal, oil and gas or just maybe coal or just like the Power and Press Coal Coalition or all of them, how do we need to deal with areas such as coal mining and coal-fired power plants? Should we include both or just focus on mining, which would be the actual production of fossil fuels? And how should we deal with technologies like CCS? All of these questions would need to be answered in that process. Then as we come to the substantive commitments, we can think of a variety of types of commitments. We can think of a commitment to not build anything new, to not build no new fossil fuel infrastructure. We can also think about phasing out existing infrastructure, which would obviously already go a step further. Or we could think of a more general obligation to have a just transition away from fossil fuels. And in thinking about these types of commitments, we also need to think very carefully, and I'm sure that Navarose de Basse will reflect on this as well, we need to think very carefully about the position of developing countries, which so far are very much dependent on fossil fuel production. This is something already highlighted by Dr. Benton in the opening plenary as well. So what do we do with the countries who might have recently discovered fossil fuels in their territories? And then finally, I think it's important to think about the notion and the importance of transparency in any approach, in any type of international cooperation. So we need to think about transparency of fossil fuel production plans, about the implications for climate change, and how that could figure into international cooperation. So I guess I've raised a lot of questions, and I think one hour is only so much time that we can have to answer some of these questions. But in my view, these are some of the main issues that we need to think about when we're thinking about concretely international cooperating on fossil fuel production and climate policy. Thank you, Harro. I just want to note for those who are attending that there are some more links that are appearing in the chat to recent articles. But we are asking that you post any questions to a separate Q&A link, which you can find with the dot dot dot at the bottom of your screen. Turning to Sephora Berman, we've been hearing the term fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty a few times already in the last 15 minutes. That's something that you're working on. So can you tell us more about what such a treaty would include and who you would anticipate participating? Sure. Thank you, Catherine. And thank you to SEI for this really important forum. So we've heard already this morning about the case for supply side policy, but the need for multilateral cooperation. And given the timeframe, which I will, Catherine, start my stopwatch, I'm going to leap over that and go through what we're working on right now. Next slide, please. Great. So we've already heard about the supply side challenges. There is quite a lot of momentum in this field. This concept emerged from many academics almost simultaneously. We heard this morning from Dr. Herr Assam. We are working very closely with colleagues, Peter Newell and Andrew Sims, who've articulated the need for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty. And of course, we saw in the past, historically Pacific Island nations also called for a global coal moratorium, civil society organized around the Lofoten declaration. And we're now seeing leaders like AOSA's Chair, Ambassador Moses of Nauru, and Camilla Harris calling for international cooperation. This year, Mary Robinson advocated the treaty before the UN Security Council. Next slide, please. So the case is clear, but there are clearly, as we just discussed, systemic challenges. We've seen vested interests and capacity issues that make a phase out very challenging. So we aim to overcome these challenges through a unified call for global cooperation that will, among other things, set global obligations and norms, strengthen transparency and accountability on fossil fuel production and planned fossil fuel production, increase risks, costs and uncertainty for investors, and embed principles of equity and the concept of just transition. This is a really critical point we saw already in the chat, people saying, well, wait a minute, what about the markets? The markets are doing this, we're seeing capital flight, et cetera. That's true. We cannot let nation states off the hook at this moment in history. The fact is we are going to need global cooperation. There are many countries that can't negotiate a just transition on their own because, in fact, they are currently so dependent economically on production. Or, in fact, they're pursuing new production, such as Ecuador, the new drilling in the Amazon, simply to feed their debt. We need a globally negotiated just transition. We need managed decline globally to reflect principles of equity. Of course, you're all familiar with the tremendous work of Greg Mutant and Shivan Kartha on this point. We believe a treaty will create the forum for those discussions. Next slide, please. The fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty is framed in part using lessons from many treaties. The pillars are designed after the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, non-proliferation, global disarmament, peaceful transition. We have work in each of those areas going on around the world. The provisions of a treaty are for countries to negotiate, but the framework of non-proliferation kind of provides guiding principles for a global regime. Next slide, please. So what we've been doing is building a broad international coalition and public civil society campaign, which will launch this year as partners around the world start to develop it, consisting of partner organizations from each region in the world, structured around diplomatic engagement, campaign, and research goals. Next slide, please. So in terms of diplomatic engagement, we aim to engage governments on the need for international cooperation and a pathway to achieve it in practice. The strategy has a number of parts to start socializing the concept of a managed fossil fuel phase-out and a just transition at the UN and other multilateral fora. The first piece, which we released last week, is the idea of a global registry of fossil fuels to promote government accountability and transparency on fossil fuel production. Next is a global commission modeled right now a bit on the World Commission on Dams, so a global commission on fossil fuels to raise the profile of the issue and the treaty through high-level engagement. And the final hurdle, of course, is to launch a formal process to deliver a negotiated legal instrument on the phase-out of fossil fuels. We don't expect to see a universal treaty, at least in the median term. Instead, we expect countries that are particularly vulnerable to climate change, non-producer countries, and over time, middle-income and middle-producer countries, to join in the treaty effort to share in their challenge and diversify away from fossil fuels. Together, a coalition of such countries could have real power, both to support each other in their own phase-out and transition plans, but also creating reputational and financial pressure. Next slide, please. I won't go into detail on the global registry, given the time frame here, but I would suggest it would be interesting to this audience take a look at the white paper that we've released, as well as the RFP. Our goal is to create a prototype, to create knowledge of what's happening around the world. It's absurd that civil society has had to add this up, and we need to hold countries to account. Next slide, please. We have a comprehensive research program that's looking at a political economy analysis and stakeholder mapping of countries and regions to try to lump and split the countries and understand the barriers to this. We also have geopolitics and global political economy analysis, equity principles, transparency frameworks, and looking at other UN processes and multilateral frameworks, and then we have thematic and cross-cutting research under the other pillars, looking at narrative and communications, supply chain mapping, just transition, and a systems analysis. Next slide, please. And then finally, we're working with partners around the world to develop a global campaign with the goal of changing the narrative around fossil fuels, amplifying existing phase-out efforts and highlighting a vision of an equitable and just global transition. We're getting a lot of interest from youth groups around the world, some of whom have already launched their treaty campaigns in New Zealand. Fridays for the Future and youth groups have already launched their public campaigns. So in some, we're taking a global systems approach to the fossil fuel industry with the idea of a treaty as a beacon to coalesce global civil society coalitions working in every region and an increased pressure on industry and governments. I'll stop there. I know I'm six minutes. Sorry about that. Quite all right. And I would just draw everyone's attention to links in the chat room to the fossil fuel nonproliferation treaty organization's website and a page on that site on the global registry of fossil fuels. So, Navrose Dubash, do you think a major fossil fuel producing nation like India, which is expecting tremendous growth in energy demand, would be willing to participate in such an international agreement? And what lessons, as a keen observer of the UN FCCC process, do you think we might learn from that experience, from the demand side for international cooperation on supply? Okay. Thank you very much, Gaffy. And thank you to SEI for inviting me to join this panel and the other organizers. So I was asked, as Gaffy has framed the question in part to reflect on all these ideas from the perspective of a large developing country, a fossil fuel user. But I really feel I should start with an exemption clause. Please don't consider me in any way, shape or form, channeling the government of India. Not only would I not be capable of doing so, but it's something that's well beyond my ability. So I'm going to actually speak from the perspective of a watcher of the Indian debates, but also trying to bring some of the ideas coming from Indian civil society and researchers. So I found this, like many climate debates, I thought Professor Ashim's arguments were incredibly clear and the economic case for something like a supply side international agreement are very compelling. He also put forward an interesting point of view that for fossil fuel exporters, it might bring some of them on side because they may not suffer the price drops that they otherwise would have. So those that they are able to sell, they would be able to get a higher price for. The question really is, I think, to my mind about the politics. And I was very struck by it, Sephora's really sort of thoughtful laying out of some of the issues and how they proposed to meet them as well as Harrow's very sort of clear outline of an agenda. There are two things that really come up when you think about the politics around this proposal, right? So the first issue is, if you do have some sort of treaty that limits how much you dig up and how much you burn, how do you allocate who digs up and burns and based on what principles? It's the old sort of climate echo to question of allocation. It's something that I've written about with Shivankartha from ACI and others coming out of, in fact, the first of these conferences. And the second big issue is the one that I think both Harrow and Sephora refer to, which is, what does it mean for development prospects in particular of countries that who expect their fossil fuel use to be growing? So let me just pick each of those up briefly. So on the allocation question, in a sense, we've been around this particular sort of lot a few times. The paper by Peter Newell and his colleagues that is part of the nonproliferation sort of initiative talk about I think the right kinds of principles, right? That if we have an allocation system to allocate permits to extract and burn fossil fuels, it has to be rooted in UNFCC principles, such as common but differentiated responsibility and respective capabilities. It has to take into account historical admissions. As Shivankartha and I and our colleagues put it in our paper, maybe we should be thinking about an extractor phase principle commensurate with the polluter phase principle. All of this takes you down a direction that would actually go a long way towards preserving the interests of developing countries and would be viewed sympathetically in India. As long as we get to burn some of our fuel as part of an adjustment, not in perpetuity, but as part of an adjustment, then sure it makes sense for a country like India to be on board. And if CBD are the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities at its core, then it's very much consistent with how India at least and many other countries think about this. The problem, of course, is the politics of this. We were not able to get an allocation story going on the demand side, despite two decades of efforts trying to do so. And it's very unlikely that we will get a political agreement around something like common but differentiated responsibility as the basis for allocation on the supply side, where the interests are actually much more concentrated and therefore better able to mobilize than on the demand side. So I see this as just an enormous problem really to take this forward in the way of a, in the form of a sort of a form of treaty, which is where allocations are negotiated. I think the politics are just too entrenched, excuse me. So what about the energy for development story? Now, a few years ago, I actually remember people were projecting India's, you know, that India would basically pull a China when it came to something like core use, right, that we were about to expand enormously. The standard storyline that has informed global politics has been that development, whether you understand that more in human development terms or in terms of GDP and economic development is very closely tied to energy and the cheapest forms of energy out there are fossil fuels. Now, of course, we're in a very, you know, much more interesting world where fossil fuels are no longer for many uses the cheapest or the cheapest sources and may not bring other benefits when it comes to the issues like air pollution and so on and so forth. Renewables is now being added at a faster pace in most countries, including India. So does that mean that this argument about energy for development has dissipated? Well, not exactly, right, because the transition continues to be very fraught. Let me give you a couple of examples from India. So one of the challenges India faces in moving, say, its electricity sector to renewables, a majority of renewables, is that in that transition process, what we are seeing is that industry currently cross subsidizes household consumers and farmers. So they pay high prices. So they are likely to migrate off the grid to renewable energy, leaving the household consumers, poor people, farmers, essentially with the stranded assets of coal, right? So there's kind of a tussle going on right now of how do you manage this transition without actually placing all the costs on the poorest, right? So in that process, so those kinds of local political economies that the solution to which may or may not be a slower phase out of coal, there are probably ways to do it without that, but at least it's part of the people who are unwilling to make that leap until they're sure this transition can happen in ways that are not socially disruptive, right? So it's a question of hedging your bets. And then the other disruption is the standard one that we've seen in many countries, which goes under this sort of broad label of the just transition story, which is what you do with communities, workers that are dependent on fossil fuels, and that's a story that's familiar to all of us. It's a tremendously important story. Of course, in a country like India, those communities tend to be even closer to the floor of subsistence levels, and so are better, are less able to bear those sorts of shocks. So all of these things combine to lead a country like India, I would suspect, to a considerable amount of conservatism about taking on the risk of these transitions. I found some of Sepora's ideas about a world commission on dams kind of structure, which incidentally I spent a couple of years studying the WCD. It's a really interesting process. Something that gets the conversation going, a registry that introduces transparency, these kinds of initial steps might work, but I suspect many of the arguments I've put forward would also hold true, including for fossil fuel exporters like Light South Africa, and I see some comments from our friend and colleague Harold Winkler on the chat. Let me just say this. I think ultimately, this conversation has to move very rapidly from what is feasible in terms of international politics to what is feasible in terms of domestic politics in key countries. What is the domestic narrative? If South Africa can build a domestic narrative that allows black economic empowerment, that creates jobs that is consistent with the fossil fuel phase out, you have much greater hope of doing this. If India can create a domestic narrative similarly, that talks about energy security, air pollution, as well as climate mitigation without disruptive change for farmers who are big both bank and for industry who of course bankrolls elections, then we have more of a prospect of change. So I think we have to look at the domestic politics in key countries, and that is I think a part that I'm glad to see those of our colleagues looking at this are thinking about actively, but that's really where I would leave the conversation by shining the light really on where does domestic politics in key countries take us as part of this conversation. Thank you, Nevros. We've got tons of fantastic questions coming in. Again, I'll just direct you to the Q&A option rather than the chat function for that purpose. In order to cover more questions, I'll direct some of your questions to one of the panelists in each case, and we'll start with you, Gair. Why would fossil fuel producing countries agree to things in a new treaty that they haven't agreed to under the existing Paris Agreement and UNFCCC? That is because with supplies with supplies of policies, fossil fuel prices will be higher, but so like there was also a question of why would countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar go along with supply side policies? That's actually quite easy to answer because it would be in their advantage, especially if one allocates their reductions in fossil fuel production or in a cost-efficient way because it's clear that it's not Saudi Arabia which should not produce the oil. It is especially coal that should be not produced and developed further. The oil of Saudi Arabia is valuable. The coal that might be developed is not valuable, but in order to avoid that countries like South Africa and India expand their coal production, then perhaps one would hope that these oil-producing countries could compensate countries like South Africa and India for not producing their coal. How this can be done politically is difficult. Countries like Norway, Canada and Australia should be able to limit their production of coal or fossil fuel production without any compensation because countries like I mentioned India and South Africa should be there is an argument that they should be compensated for not using them. Thank you. Harro, another question that's getting lots of lots of votes in the Q&A is irrespective of what the optimal architecture for such a treaty might look like. There's a wider question about whether the UN FCCC will ever be ready and able to explicitly integrate constraining fossil fuel production into its political and legal regime. So do you feel there's space in the UN FCCC for such a discussion? Right. Thanks, Kathy. And thanks also for asking that question. It's a very, very pertinent one. And I think for those of us who have been following UN FCCC negotiations for a long time, we get a bit skeptical and pessimistic about its ability to deal with very challenging and pressing issues like this. Is there space to develop any commitment for countries to face out fossil fuel production? I would probably say no. But that is also a very ambitious goal and that would be ambitious goal either within the UN FCCC or outside of it. Is there space for countries to raise this on the agenda? And I think that's where the answer is certainly yes. Because I think the UN FCCC, as again inside of all know, it's a party-driven process. And that means that parties can bring this issue to the table at relevant forms within the UN FCCC. But I think after Paris, it's even become more party-driven in the sense that parties can determine what they want to do themselves in terms of their mitigation goals. So in a paper that I think was already included in the link, my SEI colleagues and I, we've looked at some of the options where parts can actually push these issues forward. And that is including fossil fuel supply, like limitation measures in their NDCs. It's raising these issues in the long-term 2050 strategy. It's by trying to bring this to the attention of the global stocktake, for example, by linking the production gap results to the global stocktake in 2023. It's linking climate finance discussions under Article 21c, so that's the long-term goal to make sure that climate finance is ultimately climate friendly, to also raise issues of fossil fuel finance in that discussion. I will certainly not say that this is going to be easy. But I would say that there is plenty of opportunity in different forms under UNFCCC for parties that wish to raise this to do so. Thank you. Sephora, do you see a risk that efforts to create a new agreement on the supply side could take off the pressure, shift the focus away from negotiations on emissions mitigation targets? It's a good question, but I think it's quite the opposite. Social change isn't linear. We know that. When you see civil society pressure or raising of particular issues, decision makers respond. They don't necessarily respond to that particular issue. Let me give you a concrete example. Campaigns across Canada and across North America against pipelines for many years and against tar sands expansion led in part to the Pan-Canadian Climate Framework, which is a framework that didn't address tar sands expansion and didn't address pipelines. But what it did address is demand side measures because that was the policy framework that the government had for addressing climate change. When our Prime Minister in Canada announced that agreement explicitly said this is in part because of the controversy and unrest across the country about the future of energy and pipelines. So they were hearing the controversy. They were knowing they had to do something to increase climate ambition. That led to a nationwide carbon tax, etc. So we believe that an increased debate of something this bold, this audacious, this changing the bar on climate leadership that coalesces what civil society and frontline communities have been saying for years. There already is a keep it in the ground movement around the world, but we're fighting project by project. And so if you unite that and start to have millions of citizens, cities endorsing the concept of the treaty, like you had with nuclear non-pluripharation, where you're starting to have an increased and coalesced drumbeat and demand for governments to stop expansion around the idea of a treaty, does that increase ambition and force governments to have to show their acting on climate change? Because they don't want the conversation around a treaty that constrains expansion. We think it will. Thank you, Sephora. Nevereaux, you've already raised the question of the domestic politics and there's a question posed that the key politics that matters is not international, it's national. Domestic political elites in many countries rely on large rents from fossil fuel production. How will these be replaced? And if they can't, isn't there a concern that those elites will oppose serious action even if they support the theory and international for it? I'm going to throw in my own question here and that's whether the domestic politics could be different in fossil fuel exporting nations rather than those that are primarily producing for their own consumption. Right. Thanks. Thank you, Cathy. No, I think it's a really good question. I'll come back to your add-on to the question. I think what, you know, one thing Sephora said in her remarks stuck with me, which is that there is kind of a point of view that says, look, this is happening anyway. We're seeing the technology transition. We're seeing industries making bets that are basically not bets in favor of fossil fuels. And certainly in India, you see some of these dynamics. I was in on a public event with the former head of coal in their limited, the largest coal mining company in the world. And he basically said there will be no new power plants built in India. Nobody will bet on that, which doesn't mean that we are going to stop burning coal, of course, because we have a big stock of power plants. And so people are beginning to see those changes. And I think that so many of the interests that would otherwise have fought tooth and nail for this are beginning to kind of swing two point of view that says, this is not something that our long-term interests are tied to. These technologies and these fuels are not where our long-term interests are. But as I argued, they nonetheless at the government level and at the level of, you know, how they would position themselves would nonetheless argue for the option, right? So now coming back, I think that the core idea here is less the treaty and more the conversation of a treaty about fossil fuel non-proliferation. It's about injecting that as a serious option in a way that the keep it in the ground campaign and the numbers that came out of that sort of seminal paper and the effects on the underlying stock prices of fossil fuel companies change the conversation. So to the extent that we think about this as a conversation changing dynamic that can then feed into domestic politics from the outside, then I think it's productive. I think sort of having so moving towards the treaty in itself is productive. Trying to leap to a treaty and saying, well, in three years, we need to have this thing in place. We'll just actually stiffen the backbone of the interest and arouse a sort of backlash and get those people who are beginning to come around to rethinking their interests to actually bring down the filter and stop thinking openly about this transition. So I think if we're talking about this as a process and an opening of a conversation politically, I think that's productive. If we, with due respect to Harrow, if we bring the lawyers into the game too early and make this about a negotiation that we might be moving forward. Thank you, Nervous. Over to you, Harrow. There's a question about bottom-up approaches, the role of bottom-up fossil-free zones including coal-free subnational jurisdictions, coal-free states, fracking free municipalities, building towards fossil-free countries. So what do you see as the role of these bottom-up processes as stepping stones towards a fossil-free non-proliferation treaty? Well, I see them as quite an important role. And I think, Sephora also mentioned the idea of clubs. I mentioned it myself. And I think if we think more freely about who can participate in the club, things can get much more exciting, because I think several people have been talking about the importance of domestic politics in actually creating this shift. If we just focus on intergovernmental cooperation, we probably know where, and intergovernmental negotiations, we probably know where it will end. But if we start bringing in additional players from subnational authorities, from progressive companies, from NGOs that have not just environmental NGOs, but also maybe in public health and other areas that might be interested in moving away from fossil fuels, things I think can get a lot more promising and new coalitions could be built that we might not have seen before. I think the idea of fossil-free zones is particularly interesting one, because it's quite broad. I think several people have been suggesting to focus specifically on coal. That's maybe a very, very justified thing to do. But the idea of fossil-free zones is very broad, which also means that you can get a lot of different actors on board, and that I think could move things forward. The one risk you might get with that is that it's so broad that no one really feels that they need to commit on certain things that matter in terms of production. And I think this is one of the things that has been shown with Powering Past Coal, where you could say, well, Powering Past Coal is great, but actually doesn't focus on coal mining, focus on coal-fired power plants. So what about those countries, and I think this is also raised in the chat already, those countries that are major coal producers, such as Australia, and where are they in this type of coalition? So I think it can be potentially promising, and I think trying to build these clubs with broad participation and also trying to think creatively about who could participate is, at this moment, I would say a key step. Thanks, Harro. Sephora, we've seen a proliferation of climate litigation around the world with many of those cases focusing on new fossil fuel production projects. And you've already touched on campaigns against pipelines, which I think are closely related. Do you think, what role do you think that litigation can play in this transition towards limiting fossil fuel supply and towards a non-proliferation treaty? I think litigation is absolutely critical, because even the process and the threat of potential outcomes in litigation is already having an impact in markets and on government policy. And in some cases, of course, as we've seen with our children's trust and other cases, it's changing the debate on what is climate leadership and forcing a much more public debate about within countries and internationally on what is acceptable targets, et cetera. And we have a capacity and a timeframe problem, because these cases are expensive, they're time consuming, and the strategy of industry in many of these cases has been to make sure that they go on as long as they can to wait it out, which, of course, increases costs, et cetera. Many of the cases are being brought forward by coalitions of civil society groups, nonprofits, et cetera, and that can shrink the budgets of those nonprofits and philanthropic foundations from other initiatives. So it's very dangerous to rely simply on the legal cases, but I think they are absolutely essential. But what I think we can't forget here, and we often do in these conversations, because the debates and the processes and the which proposal is important and are so interesting and critical, is the time frame that we have. So I've had people say, you know, meeting with nation states around the idea of the treaty, you know, well, that, you know, that's really big, that's really, you know, that's really new, you know, overwhelmed by the idea. This is a moment in history when we need big. We need new, because what we've been doing hasn't been working. We need audacious. And we have to remember the time frame we're dealing with the incredible work of Stockholm Environment Institute and others has shown us through the production gap report that we're on track to produce 120% more fossil fuels than the world can safely burn. And we heard this morning from my ISD and others that the majority of the stimulus money is in fact going to fossil fuels and fossil fuel development. Our intellectual and financial capital continues to be shoveled into producing a product that threatens the world's security that we can't even burn. And we can't forget that. And I just, you know, I live in the Pacific Northwest, we can't go outside today because of the smoke. The fires are raging all across the Western North America. And so we have to remember that we're racing against the clock. And so I think we need legal challenges. We also need bold new proposals. We need it all because we're running out of time. Thank you, Sephora. Yes, I'm also looking at the just apocalyptic looking skies outside the window here. I think we just have time for one more question. I'm going to pose it to Gar. There hasn't been much talk about the role of extractive companies. We've been talking about governments, VP's new strategy aims at net zero by 2040. Do you see a positive role for oil, gas and coal mining countries, both the multinationals and state owned enterprises? And if so, what might that role look like? I believe that the role of companies are related to the role of governments in this when it comes to this development. If governments try to do not allow for more development, also the companies will have to turn elsewhere for their development. So, but I don't really have any strong views on this. I would just want to say as my concluding remarks that we've tried demand side policies and that's been a failure. We have to try everything in order to do something with climate change. And there are strong arguments for supply side policies. We should not go for a grand treaty. We should rather go for some kind of various process on the supply side. And maybe that start with rich, well-organized fossil fuel producing countries with climate goals that they try to limit their own especially exploration for fossil fuels. And then maybe also challenge other fuel producing countries to state nationally determined contributions for development and production of fossil fuels. And that is important for the countries to start a process like that. And back to the companies then companies will also have stronger incentives to turn around and use their invest in other things than try to develop more fossil fuels. Thank you. We're drawing to the end of our time and I want to give a little bit of time at the end to our organizers to highlight next steps. So let me just conclude by thanking all of the panelists and thanking the participants who posed such great questions as Sepua Berman indicated. We need time is very short and we need new and audacious ideas. And I think these panelists are contributing that they're concretely moving forward with both research and and organizing to to advance the conversation. We know that the exclusive focus on the demand side hasn't served us well. And the one thought that I would leave this conversation with is the importance of the justice lens that has come through in many of the remarks that if we are bringing fossil fuel producing countries on board because this will have greater economic benefit to them, there's the risk that we will be enhancing the already greater wealth of those countries. So building in the conversation about the kinds of subsidies, cross subsidies that Gar was talking about from oil producing states to the coal producing states in the first instance. So again, thank you to all the panelists. And with that, I'm going to hand things back to Georgia on next steps for the fossil fuel supply conferences. Thanks, Kathy. And thanks to all the panelists. That was a really terrific discussion. I'm really pleased that we were able to have this. There were a lot of great questions raised today that we didn't have the time or space to cover questions about, you know, how we deal with national politics, local politics, questions about the interaction between supply side policies and demand side policies. What I'll say is please take that energy, take these questions and start thinking about presentations and panels that you might want to organize at the conference that we're going to be holding next year in Oxford and online. We'll open the call for papers in February. If you want to get a notification when that happens, please sign up at the link on the bottom of the screen here, which I hope will also appear in the chat box while I'm speaking. We'd love to have you all there and we'd love to continue these discussions and expand these discussions into a whole range of other interesting areas. So thank you, everybody, for participating today. And I really appreciate everybody.