 Okay. Yeah, Tom, Henry, feel free. Hi, Tom. Thanks very much. Okay. Thanks, Henry. Thanks very much, David. Am I able to share my screen? Do I have that? You should be able to. Yes. Let me just try here. And then for Henry to share his screen, you just need to whoever is sharing just needs to unshare first. Okay. I was probably going to ref out. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. Go ahead. Go ahead. Which screen, I have three screens. So I'm not sure which one I'm sharing. Do you see PowerPoint presentation? Yeah, we see a presentation. Let me just put it full screen. Did you see full screen for a moment there at least. Yes, for a moment. Yeah. It's my fault because as soon as I did that, it overlapped all of the video feeds from all of the members. So I had to move that to another screen so I could see everybody and talk at the same time. So thanks very much, David and Martin and colleagues for helping to organize this going into really good explanation on the context and status of the standards for climate change and climate action. Thank you for folks that don't have yet. And I've been part of startup. I've been part of teams management teams at one blockchain startup that was in called Lavera capital, which unfortunately we no longer aren't active but we were tried to get a Bitcoin investment vehicle using blockchain and that was at Mars building but that's actually sort of sort of cease the sort of slow down activity I guess if you will. But anyway, that's so that's some of that what I'm doing and then again I've worked with a lot of different blockchain players in Toronto. I've done some applications again I don't necessarily code but I've done some work with hyper ledger one of my co authors, shouldn't I had created prototype for hyper ledger based application for Toronto region conservation authority on their smart grids site in Mark. You can talk more about that. But so basically I feel like I'm quite involved in the blockchain development both in academia certainly in academia, but also well connected I believe. Great. Thanks very much Henry and I, Henry and I first met about a year ago I had been working on the concept of smart standard system for climate actions for a number of years. And with the Canadian National Research Council or NRC, who connected me with Henry to do more of a deep dive into the conceptual framework and to identify ways to advance it towards developing it and getting it out and people using it. So, let me see here. Okay, so with those introductions thanks again Henry, just to go over some of the problem statements that are really driving this, this vision. So everyone I think knows about the Paris agreement, and even the Kyoto protocol going back to the late 1990s. And I've been involved going back that far. And at that time, all of the MRV that was starting to be built often from scratch was really stretched to the limit, and being able to serve carbon markets and climate programs and policies and often we would see verification reports being handed in months and months after the due date because they'd say oh let's have all the verifications report done by the end of March. And there's only so many verifiers who could be able to do all of that and the companies to report it so there was just not enough resources available to do all of the climate accounting and auditing at a very basic level, and for a program the Kyoto protocol, which was relatively lighter lift than the Paris agreement is today, in terms of overall goal, and in terms of complexity, the Paris agreement is inherently much more complex so we didn't have enough resources then. And now with the Paris agreement it's a much higher ask or heavier lift, and yet we're still struggling not to have adequate data expertise standards and all of the resources related to the climate accounting and auditing to mobilize the resources have the assurance and all of the rest of it in order to achieve the goals that we have overall, you know, keeping within the global carbon budget, and being as economically efficient as possible and achieving the global carbon budget. So, now we're even in a bigger challenge with our limited resources so it's crying out for, we need to think outside of the box and really deliver solutions that are able to support the overall strategies and goals of trying to tackle climate change. We know the Paris agreement isn't the finish line it's actually just the starting line towards a sustainable world. And, and so even though the Paris agreement is much more than the Kyoto protocol, we have to go way beyond the Paris agreement, and that's going to require a much more advanced and extensive digital system in order to get to where we want to be in terms of a sustainable world without minimizing the impacts that are already on their way to the cause of trouble so we've got that sort of size of the ask to the MRV and auditing and accounting community. Everybody's heard of greenwashing. And, and I think there's been a recent resurgence. Lately that I've seen, and a lot of people identify the garbage in is garbage out, you know, in terms of the data, bad data and you're going to get bad results. And with all of the digital systems that are available and we see data doubling very frequently. And that data is a new asset class it's the new oil, but when the data isn't used properly, it becomes not so much a resource, as it can be a challenge, or even very dangerous and misleading people about what that that data actually means. That problem is is actually different than the one that we're highlighting here, which is, we're actually improving the availability and the quality of data as IOT devices and sensors of all types, make data, much more real time accessible quality and so on. But we can take that good data and put it through a system of sustainability standards or climate standards that have not been optimized, which I'll explain later on in this presentation, and turn good going in through bad standards equals bad going out. And so it's not enough just to address the data portion. We need to look at the whole standards in that governance system to ensure that the, what's coming out is reliable and has the utility and because he submits and other characteristics to enable all of the stakeholders to mobilize resources and participate effectively and and everybody helping to get to the climate or the Paris agreement climate goals and SDGs were broadly speaking. Otherwise, and this is one of the reasons back in 2017 when the UN had suggest we create the climate chain coalition. There was already concerns about greenwashing and whether carbon credits are really benefiting the atmosphere and, and then we looked at the general perception of digital solutions. You know, are those tools for trouble making sorts, or are they problems themselves, combining those two concerns really had the potential to turn off a lot of stakeholders about the potential value that they could bring because they're just worried that they could be misused. And so really, we, we, we really don't want to see digital solutions end up making greenwashing look like we're putting green lipstick on a pig. So the key messages, I think we all know how important standards are generally speaking like there's countless standards that are out there. They contribute about the equivalent of 1.5% of global GDP whether that's lowering tran lowering transaction costs, being able to enable international trade economies, economic efficiencies and economies of scale and so on. I've been making this point within the relatively young climate and sustainability space that's been around for about 25 years. There needs to be a concerted effort to improve that system of standards that was developed very much in siloed fragmented ways not holistically in order to get the most benefit of those standards from a sustainability and climate perspective, not just from an economic perspective. And so, you know, in my eyes, this is just my real sort of goal is that we could go a long way to increase the quality and the benefit of using standards not all standards are really deployed to their maximum potential at mobilizing resources in order to help us get to a goal like climate stability. And certainly I think there's almost no argument about the need to decrease the time and cost of developing standards, they're prohibitively expensive. And they take often far too long. Now, there's a great variation of different types of standards processes. Some can be quick and dirty but lack kind of consensus or transparency or cut corners so how can we maintain high quality of the process and high quality of the outputs of standards development while reducing the time and cost. And I would make the case that as digital systems become pervasive that we will actually increase the number of standards that are needed and operate operationalized at a very high resolution in terms of individuals and products, rather than sort of just the global standards or sectoral standards on their own. So, this presentation is going to look at not just developing standards but applying the standards and managing the standards are very holistic, and how to then transform the natural language manual implementation standards for digital applications, and to look also at the standards development process how to look at the standard sector and modernize how these standards and other forms of rules. So, the standards clarification, it means looking at methodologies protocols guidelines, and so on, and how to incentivize the stakeholders to participate in reach some of those goals that I just mentioned. Here in this introductory section, the blue area the top part of this diagram is where we're focused on the semantic layer the natural language standards layer and smart contracts how do we create a new architecture and some mechanisms that will then enable those those rules to be more easily operationalized within distributed ledger technology platforms for different types of climate actions in particular, because there are so many. So, I will fly through some of these slides because we're we're limited on time. This slide here is just simply to give you a quick snapshot of the many many different characteristics of standards. I mean, I mean this slide here I could talk about half an hour but really there's a huge variability and types of standards and climate action is no exception. Back in 2009 I've been talking about this, this issue going back at least that long ago and I did a presentation to the United Engineering foundations, which are the I triple e the mechanical engineering civil engineering chemical engineering and so on about this, this landscape what what standards are available in terms of these levels of application or areas here, whether they're generally applicable standards, or they've been made specific to project types or technology types and how many standards are available how many do we need and you can sort of get a sense of the challenge. And I'd say that this challenge still remains if not even much bigger. And that was six years before the Paris agreement, as I said Paris agreement is another paradigm. This, this figure here is from a recent communication by a group of sustainability standards organizations. And really helps to illustrate how standards and related governance tools relate to the various actors and tools so the reporters the auditors and the various digital solution providers so it's really throughout that whole system. Again in the interest of time will be very quick on that slide. There are so many standards that are that exist. Many of them are very synergistic to be clear about that that not all of them night by long shot. I wanted to give an example of how these standards relate to each other this is from the assessing low decision initiative, which is jointly by the French government, they're a dem agency and CDP. And you can see looking at this diagram, following the arrow from left to right how there are these global level goals, budgets, and how those translate the way standards are applied towards a particular purpose or or need for decision making. I consider the the act initiative, which is a composite of methodologies to be best practice. And if you, if you haven't made yourself familiar with the act methodologies and their frameworks and their approach by highly recommend taking the time to take a look at it. There's a few slides here that talk about how the differences of the types of climate action standards are referred to so there's guidelines and metrics and scenarios methodologies rating systems I'm going to do this very quickly. Physical risk and transition risk we've only really talked about mitigation to this point I'm going to talk about how there's an interface with the climate adaptation field which is an enormous area that really needs to have the resources developed to help, but it scale up. And then many other variables for these slides are really here to help illustrate how the, there is this variability of different types of climate action standards, and how that can be challenging to navigate through, and to understand how they work together conceptually and rationalizing them all in terms of all the data flows and making that user friendly cost effective etc is a major challenge that still exists. And then of course sort of all of those slides, they still come close to covering off the standards this is just a few more examples of major standards everybody I think has heard of the greenhouse gas protocol and the UN with their CDM project level methodologies and many other standards so a lot of standards related to climate action this slide here just highlights very briefly how very, I think it was in the last six months for sure. The sustainability and climate standards programs that are shown at the top, agreeing to work together to help harmonize the standards and the frameworks and to work with established professional associations like the in the accounting and space so IFRS to support that process to do to harmonize those standards and address this issue that I've been talking about. However, I would make the case that that's insufficient to to harmonize standards and and set up yet one more committee, we need a step change that goes beyond harmonization of those existing standards to reduce duplication and inconsistencies and that's going to be very valuable. And I think we also need to go beyond setting up another committee or board, because that's simply not enough. People power to do to reach the goals, like I call 10 times 10 times and 10 times and that we really need to look at new collaboration incentive models which we'll talk about in the next couple of sections. How do we do, but what is a step change and I'll get into what that means as a as a vision but to highlight some key points here. We need to actually restructure standards to be more modular for rapid more agile developments for up parts of the standards that are evolving as data and other tools become available and our scientific understanding sustainability and the world evolves. And then also to increase the accessibility of the standards development processes to to enable more affected stakeholders to participate and to be incented to participate because this really is getting down to the financial value creation and management that every person on the planet has a stake in. This is just a quick slide I mentioned I had been working in the space since at least 2009 and showed one of the slides but we talked about this, this issue we're talking about today. In the UN process that cop 21. So that's 2015. And I talked about this with the World Bank in one of their reports as a co author, the blockchain research Institute where actually I know Henry's also active as one of the researchers there is another reason how way we mean, we got engaged. Likewise, but we're talking about today, even though it's a cut down versions with it to you ISO and other journals so really been making an effort to try to communicate this, this idea and address this challenge, because it will take a long time to materialize because it's such a fundamental proposed change. And so to get into the vision of what I mean by a smart standard system. Again, thinking about the full lifecycle of a standard, not just developing it or just applying it. So looking at the body of knowledge and the strategies for developing the types of standards, which I think will become digitally implemented in the very near future. And, and how they're to be managed in order to get the most value one of these, these standards, because it is, there's billions of dollars spent every year developing standards, billions. But they do contribute a significant value to the overall economy into society. So how do we use the digital tools to go beyond say web 2.0, or web tools like on the wikis document management systems and surveys and shared calendars and so on, which are very valuable. And don't get us to where we need to be in and of themselves so how do we pair up some of those solutions with with using artificial intelligence to aid standards developers and domain experts, not only on a per standard basis but looking at system of standards related to a value chain in a particular sector, for example. And how do we then look at to the use of IOT and AI and distributed ledger in the application of those standards. How do we then, which will be the next part of the section of the presentation, pardon me, which I'll invite Henry to talk about the next minute or two. How do we then use semantic web ontologies and standards and etc. To bridge the system of natural language domain specific standards like climate action to the digital world to enable that level of scalability interoperability, so that that entire system of standards is well architected, compressing that overall time and cost from hey we've got some ideas for standards to address a sustainability issue to creating those standards deploying them and managing that system as cost effectively as possible. And the last point is to really highlight that by redesigning the business model or in collaboration models of participants creating these shared rules and standards. So tokenizing the value that's created with via the overall system and sharing that value that corresponds to the value add of these standards and rules the know how so that the digital solutions. Mobilizing resources and affecting change in the real economy that have sustainability benefits can be shared equitably across all of the stakeholders in a cohesive way. So I'm going to breeze through some slides there I tried to wrap that up quickly, so that I stopped taking up the time that we have left in. I agree able to be happy to either continue to move the slides on your command or I can hand over to you the share screen option. I can I can do the screen so I can actually traverse myself so if you can just release the screen I'll take it. If I could now we do that here. I mean you just stop sharing. Okay here it is right. Okay, give me a second. I think you should be able to see my screen. Yes. Okay, super. Oh yeah so how much time do I have left roughly. I don't need very much time I just wanted how much I have. Well we have five minutes schedule that not sure how much more time we might be permitted but. Well that's fine I mean I'm just going to eat the this paper that was written and it's on SSR and for you to look at I think there's a link to it. It just sort of lays the overall framework so let me just talk about specifically time spent a lot of time talking about the importance of standards and how we consume. And how they could be used in future new generation information systems, and what I want to do is outline going to a little bit more detail into the concepts mind you this is just sort of a general level architecture is still quite preliminary so we still need to, you know, interface with folks like yourselves try to get this more concrete but let me just talk about the architecture itself so. There are standard development tools like a really good one is is scribe of which Tom has as great the way over. I did, but that's a natural language so the idea. So what we know is this let me start from the top and the bottom. The idea is and because I come from blockchain world. The idea is that if data that's used for quantification that use for calculating carbon credits come from blockchain that we know that that data is immutable we know that that data is is recorded we know we can believe we can have more faith in the fidelity of that data and if I think of establishing preaching to require I'm sure with this group that we believe that blockchain has a role in in climate science and climate change. The idea then do is that this is blockchain is a very specific, very technical database. So how do we take that data be meaningful data that's pulled be meaningful not just meaningful for an audit for the calculation quantification of carbon, but done in a more standardized way so that it's not just not so that not every single implementation of use of blockchain for quantification is a one off can can make it general how can we make it more standardized and that's the whole idea again comes to speaking about standards. So, the, this, this architecture says this is possibly one way in which we can actually make this data be standardized, make it more relevant, and then actually make it relevant for the high level natural language standards that people think of. So what this architecture says is let's create these different modules that that sort of connect these natural language standards to the specific data that's coming out of blockchain, and they could be different implementations of blockchain. So what we then do is take a tool like a scribe hub, which puts constraints and which actually allow standards to be developed in a more constrained, more systematic way, and then take that a step further and convert these. So what is these return natural language to different types of ontologies what ontologies are, and they're going to use as intermediate means they are computational expressions. Oftentimes and things like first or logic or different semantic web ontologies, but the point here is that they express concepts. In a way that actually leads to unambiguous interpretation so this is this is natural language. This is computer code and expression here requires you human being to sort of interpret using judgment and expression here leads to a usually sort of very black and white answer. Yes, this is true. No, this is not true. Somehow we have to and we're still working on this convert these natural language expressions into GHG ontologies and I separate them into two methodology ontologies that actually constrain how an audit would take place. And verification ontologies that actually are used to, they're actually used to determine for instance the calculation of of carbon credits so oh sorry, sorry, I have that backwards. The verification the methodology ontologies are used to actually this to see these ontologies being used to actually calculate for instance, how much the carbon credits were. This is what basically what a someone who quantifies output would actually what they use in their heads. This would sort of express computation so it's almost like an expert system. The verification ontologies are actually used to discern whether those audits occur, whether the systems in place are actually appropriate. So there are two types of different types of ontologies, but they both need to exist because there are two different types of standards, one that says how should an auditor do the quantification, a one that says, was this audit appropriate do they have systems in place. So I discern there are two different types of ontologies that are required. The idea then is to take this intermediate step from natural language to computational ontologies. Furthermore, take those computation computational ontologies, which are in not necessarily, which is in the language not necessarily specific to a particular domain, and then convert them into platform dependent smart contracts so the idea is that we would actually have methodology. That would be expressed in an ontology based language, and then convert them into use that to convert into iota smart contracts or use that and then manually convert into energy web chain or a fabric. The notion here is that these ontologies are more language independent, less platform independent or more platform independent than the specific platform dependent smart contracts. And in a large ecosystem, in a world where there's a large ecosystem, this is occurring in large scale. What would happen is that every implementation, every quantification using these blockchains using iota energy web chain or hyper-legit fabric would lead to some knowledge being gleaned from this and then being converted back into and embellishing these specific ontologies. The next iteration when an audit would occur, a quantification would occur, these ontologies would then actually have more knowledge, and they would in turn be converted into smart contracts. So this stage here is quite, you know, I'm not entirely sure how this would occur, and this would probably be very manual, but the thinking that is that this intermediate step of having these ontologies makes these standards more computational. As opposed to taking a standard and immediately converting using the picking the brains of the auditor and converting them into a tango code or hyper-legit fabric code that actually helps with the quantification or the audit. You convert them into platform independent ontologies, which then are more persistent. So anyway, once that's done, these smart contracts, then basically these smart contracts embody the rules and regulations of the standards. And then this will occur here. That's, there's actually only two slides I wanted to speak to that was one. And here was actually the other again, I'm assuming that some of you are technical and this is more thinking about how would that work, how would I take ontologies that are expressed in a platform independent language that express rules and logic and convert them into blockchain. So we've sort of thought about four processes for the interest of time. I think if you want to, I can have a separate discussion. It's in the paper, but that's one of the things that we looked at. But what's I think more relevant is this model here. Well, we need to do in order to get this going. So right now, if you're a blockchain person, I'm assuming many of you are right now. So think about blockchain, you're really interested in a very low level syntactic level. So you're interested in IBC and atomic swaps people that are looking at blockchain interoperability they're concerned at the very low level syntactic level. At the structural level is the platform itself. In order for this vision that we just laid out to occur. We need to start developing data models so supply you know I've said that the semantic layer supply chain data models, agriculture data models, payment data models. So if you if you're going to realize this vision, one of the first things we probably have to do is not just have a standard is also develop an industry stand industry data model so you know in more concrete terms that would mean if you're using hyperledger fabric, that would you would establish or actually have a point standardized, say, for instance, all the natural gas data model. So I've developed an all natural natural data model that actually is coded and coded into hyperledger. So that's required and then what actually, and that would provide, you know, industry specific terms for oil and gas and the, the ontology, the both the verification ontology on the quantification ontology would be coded would be written so that it's applicable to that industry so one of the things about this diagram. One of the things that we have to lay out is that this is what first of all this blue layer none of this actually every single layer is quite difficult and and I think it just needs and and the more you do it the more reusable it becomes, but one of the things I want to point to what I'll say to any of your hyperledger people is what you know if you're if you're thinking as a hyperledger person, what we'd have to figure out is how does this occur what are these verification ontologies look like, are there existing industry specific data models. And then can we effectively, you know, do an iteration of this process, where we take these ontologies, you know, write smart contracts or chain code for hyperledger. Not be. Hey, I thought about something I just wrote the chain code for today, but have it be delineate into a modular approach. Here's GHG methodology ontology. Here's a class of smart contract. Here's a GHG methodology ontology. Here's a hyperledger specific oil and gas industry model. Putting those together write some API interfaces so that we start writing chain code that actually apply the chain code that embodies the methodology ontologies for oil and gas, and that is then usable as is for a blockchain that uses hyperledger that actually does the qualification and verification. I'll stop there because it's probably lots of unclear things I said, we're still need to work on that, but I'll leave it at that. It's probably as technicals. Thanks very much Henry and it is there's I hope there is a lot of questions that we could that maybe have some time and over time it already to tackle. While we're on the zoom together, although we can also do it via the listserv afterwards I wrote a pretty plain language explanation of the presentation posted it on LinkedIn. And it's generated some good discussion. I start start some discussions so yeah thanks very much Henry for that quick overview and open it up for questions. Martin and David how much time do we have. I don't know when we might be required to end the call. Yeah, the good news is there's no other community call scheduled today on this account so as long as people want to go. Great that's just good news thanks very much David. Martin anyone else have questions. I see that Mark has his hand up. I was mostly just going to ask a question to see if you can create an example of how you go from the. We know what some of these layers will look like on the standards natural language process at the top layer and and some of the more the computational ontologies. If you have any, let's say exhibits to walk through. We don't have the exhibits to walk through today. I'm sorry go ahead. I'm going to say pretty much going to say same thing. I mean I have ideas, but we don't have any exhibits just yet so to the some of the points that you had raised. Henry like having an appropriate taxonomy and data models at the climate action in the climate action space and then more particular to specific types of climate action so what we've done in a different project with digital MRV is very typical landfill gas methane capture and utilization for electricity. That type of specific climate action, we would have to do they're already certain taxonomies, because that type of activity relates not just carbon credits which this project is but also how the waste sector and the landfill's contribute to the national greenhouse gas emissions inventory, and then there's all the climate finance with it as well so we would first need to create an example at that level, and then how do each of the taxonomical terms. How does it fit in that that hierarchy relate to the existing standards. What are they doing in terms of the data life cycle, the application of the calculation equations and algorithms, how can that then be related to the hardware or system that's in place, and then linking the smart contract implementation to the distributed ledger. Yeah, so let me I don't I don't actually have an exhibit so I sort of have to be a little bit general but what I would do if I, you know, as an ontologist because of the pH actually my PhD was converting the ISO 9000 developing an ontology based ontology based ISO 9000 compliance checker. What I would do is, I would take statements paragraphs from the standards, okay, which are natural language, play some constraints on it, and I would develop an ontology that has specific terms and draws relationship. So it's a if the, you know, I would take a statement and and I create sort of first order logic or some very unambiguous if then statement from this natural language statement. In what will be considered cement to grab ontology language first order logic sparkle. I think all these are different languages which express ontology. And we then take that. And I would then take that make some assumptions and develop smart contracts if it's theory and that's easy if it's chain code convert smart contracts and in the language of the specific platform. So one of the things one would have to consider well how do you do that because what an ontology does is it actually does. It's an if dense they were this causal reason. Okay. So, very technically, one of the things we've considered is how do you when you actually have an audit. Right. And some data come in and you have, you know, you try to do quantification or you're trying to do find out if quantification is I think the big one, but find out if some constraints have been satisfied. Does this site have these, does this site have these particular procedures in place. So one of the things we're trying to figure out is how does that, you know, work in a very inhibition blockchain with an ontology so one of the things we envision is that data would be coming in from stay specific block chains and the ontology and then this would be on chain and periodically not probably not real time, but with some sort of a lag that there would be some off chain would be some ontology inference going on with the ontology so to be constant back and forth from the sort of assessment of hey has this standard been satisfied and getting the data from the blockchain. Right. And then running inference to find out if if certain constraints like for instance running inference here for instance to figure out the quantification of carbon output. Again, I get a little bit too wonky I apologize, but let me step back. What we're saying is that the data come in at the blockchain and because it's blockchain you can't do computation, you can't necessarily do high scale compliance second here. The idea then is that that would be done by the ontologies and that will be done off chain so what's not shown here is probably some implementation, which is some on chain, right. Which would be directly on chain blockchain platform that would be directly interfacing with the data generation at the individual facilities and some off chain complications computations that are probably occurring using on colleges. Thanks very much Henry I see that we already have three questions queued up. And that might be part of your explanation so I see first mark the variety mark if you'd like to go ahead. Yeah, thank you very much. I was just presenting actually on it forum and looking at the development of the ERC standards that have led to all this tokenization and I was kind of exploring that their approach on just get hub and thinking about how blockchain could be used in having more decentralized standard making. And I was just curious on your thoughts on how we could think around consensus protocols upon at least in your first step when you're trying to come with the natural language. And looking at more decentralized models and what we currently have. And what your thoughts on that and then how that might then link on your cycle fully on chain. Thank you over. So, and then difficulty conceptual difficulty of using blockchain for decentralized consensus for standards is that the domain space is very large. Like when you're talking about consensus for instance something straightforward as Bitcoin or theory and you're drawing a consensus on the state of the system, because it's basically it's a pretty easy. It's a pretty easy algorithm to run to discern that right, whereas if you're talking about running blockchain, it'd be. It's a it would be computation efficient to run the blockchain to achieve consensus there's other means of achieving consensus than using a very expensive blockchain. What Tom has in place with scribe of that is a way of achieving consensus, which is, which is tractable because it's basically saying he lots of people have you looked at this do you agree. Using a blockchain to do that and would be in order to would be onerous and probably not worth it. Well, again, because of the information that you would have to reach consensus upon. You better just best just to just to have people people look at it because ultimately what I'm saying is that the machines cannot discern cannot efficiently and effectively discern consensus for more complicated qualitative information which is what standard. At the end of a standards development process where they have reached consensus, let's say off chain. And the, the content has gone through a peer review or validation process to ensure its quality. The ownership can be tokenized in terms of share of ownership of a smart contract or natural language standard that ultimately becomes digitized and in the in some sort of distributed ledger technology platform that is meant to create value through some form of transaction and that that value that's been transacted could be related then to the use of that smart contract on some form of terms of compensation. I know a lot of blockchain powered climate digital solutions are using either hard coded in MRB rules, or some form of, you know, smart contract that the blockchain developers aren't the smart climate experts. They could outsource that work to such a climate standards community that's willing to come to a some terms with those blockchain application solutions, and to say okay for every time you execute the smart contract that uses our natural language here's the basis with which it's, it's been tracked to compensation terms. And that would be sort of a middle ground type of approach as opposed to having everything say in a online scribe hubbush type environment be blockchain iced for man to end. Right. So, Henry is that Yeah, thank you for that point out so blockchain is overkill to achieve consensus on information like consensus to to have an organic development of a document it just it's not necessarily in of itself but necessary for that. So it just, you know, I think there are better ways of doing that. I think what Tom talks about it's a fair point is once that artifact is is developed jointly is can you find some mechanism by which you could you can tokenize that artifact based upon the quality the input into it. And then once you've done that, then if the if the standard itself is used and it's monetized, then you could actually allocate correctly based upon the contribution of that and that for for doing that times absolutely correct and I think it's a great vision, you could actually use the blockchain and do that. And that's an example of tokenizing information asset relative to failure the contribution of the people. Mark does that get to most of your point at least right on okay I'd love to follow up with you afterwards on that if you're interested, but in the in the interest of everyone's time was kindly stayed on with this extra time. I'll ask then Marco Lopriano who's also been patiently waiting with your hand up to ask their question next. Okay, hi, hi everybody. Yes. Okay, my name is Marco I'm calling from Brazil and Can you hear me? It's okay. Yes. Yes. Okay, I'm calling from Brazil and first of all, thank you very much. I think it was a very, very interesting discussion. I'm not a technical expert on blockchain. So perhaps I missed a lot of technical details, but just to introduce myself, I'm a guy who has been working for many years on traditional MRV, monetary reporting and verification. I work in the European Commission. I work in DJ climate. Of course I'm here only my personal capacity, but it's really fascinating to look at all the potential all these possibilities that these application of blockchain really bring to climate policy. I just would like I just have a comment and perhaps a question a comment I've already made this comment. In another meeting with Tom, but I think it's worthwhile stressing it again because of course you told me your presentation you are quite rightly of course underlining the multitude of standards, the possible confusion that could be coming from that. And of course when I presumably you're talking here about voluntary carbon market or voluntary initiatives that are there, but I just would like to underline that beyond the UNFCC and the Paris Agreement situation, we also have other very interesting global international situational environments that could be really potentially very, very interesting for the use of blockchain and all the other digital tools. The fast one that comes to my mind is the maritime sector, the global maritime sector, which is run by IMO, the international maritime organization, which is really struggling very much in trying to put on the table some initiative on carbon cutting down greenhouse gas emissions. And I think that is really has a lot of challenges that can be tackled by blockchain. I know because here in Brussels we are trying a little bit to extend the UETS to the maritime sector and I can tell you it's not so simple, I mean, so and in my opinion, digital tools could really be interesting for that situation. My question, of course, not being a technical expert, I really anyhow, I really see the importance of what we are putting together here. No, just my question is really, if you look at the real world, I mean, we all know that technical standards are not just the result of technical discussion. Technical standards are also a kind of compromise among extremely powerful and strong economic interest, political interest, geopolitical interest as well. Just look at what China is doing in ISIL, I mean, just to see how they are progressing really in trying to be in all the most important TCE committee. I mean, so, I mean, looking at the real world situation, how are you going to proceed? Because, of course, the technical elements are important, but then how are you going to put together a kind of roadmap in facing organizations such as ISIL, for example? I first want to acknowledge your points about the human centric non-technical dimensions that I think outweigh the technical often in the standardization process. And I think it's that reflects human history on coming to consensus on rules. And I think we would probably be smart to differentiate between the different types of standards. There's management system standards and product specification standards and so on, some having less of the non-technical aspects to it. And that gets to my point about restructuring standards to facilitate the more efficient deployment of resources in developing standards. I know ISIL, my understanding of ISIL having been involved there for 20 years or most is that it is conformant with the WTO's technical barrier to trade annex and setting up standards so that they aren't trade barriers, non-technical trade barriers, and that the standards were, and then such organizations were set up to avoid trade wars and trade regulations that introduced so much inefficiencies to the global economy. So there's certainly an understanding of that dimension that you talked about, at least from my perspective, in how standards are created and their role. But again, if we can separate out, to the extent possible, the technical elements that could be facilitated with these digital solutions and have minimal pressure, non-technical pressure on them. So I think that we need scientists or, you know, realists in order to help us achieve our goals of, you know, sustainable planet within carbon budgets and water budgets and everything else. I think that is a logical way forward, talking about it with ISIL. I'm not with folks within ISIL. I don't think ISIL is the right organization to bring in the solution. I would propose something that would sit right in front of ISIL to create those methodologies in a systemic dynamic way before something like a rubber stamping organization like ISIL would have a role to potentially play, but there's a lot of standards, like 40% of them are incorporated into laws and policies. And so there is a role, a valuable role for that type of action in the life cycle of a standard, but putting that into the development process actually skews the quality and the time it takes to develop standards, my opinion. It's not just factory, but that's how I see it after all these years of thinking about it. No, if I may, I see your point, but myself being a regulator, I mean, working with standards, of course, I can really see the beauty of your technical scientific approach, but then let's be frank. Standards are the result of economic interest, not only of technical specification, because I don't know, the US or I put it as China, but all the most strategic oriented countries in the world, they all try to push their own national interest into ISIL. And unfortunately, we as a European Union, we are not so strategically oriented, but again, excuse me if I say something which is not technically correct, but for example, if we look at the governance aspect of what we are proposing here, of course, then you have just a technical element, but then you have to consider also the policy oriented, the political situation in which you are going to fit this new proposal, this new approach, which I say it again is very, very interesting and very fascinating, but you need also to find the entry point with those kind of interest group that perhaps will not tolerate very much that you put down a kind of parallel system, if I may say so. I fully expect to be hunted down for trying to disrupt the current system because of the economic interest that you speak to, and some of them, you know, those interests are totally understandable, like equity. But we know that that's not the way the world is right now and then people who are benefiting disproportionately are going to be upset by any changes to that status quo. I think standards are also being developed for consumer safety. We don't want something to blow up on us or human health. How do we define that? Is it, you know, my toaster is not going to catch fire and burn me down? Or, you know, this type of fuel is going to burn down everybody, but it'll be 50 years, right? And so I think it seems implausible in my mind that as we see the digital transformation help to reorientate in a more equitable, inclusive type of sustainable society and planet that how we make the rules and optimize those rules like standards, not just for the accounting and the auditing. This is true, but for the allocation of resources in terms of sustainable production and consumption. If we don't get involved in developing those rules, I think you named a certain place that there are certain types of power structures that they could say, well, we'll make the rules for you. I don't think democratically oriented people are. Just look at the role of G77 in the UNFCCC, the role of the Saudis, for example, I mean, Russia, China. Okay. This, this, this, I think I said, this is not a technical solution to a political problem. Because I'm not entirely sure they exist. So I think what this is is actually a technical problem subject to some political resolution. This is a great point to raise. We're kind of just scratching the surface here in a way with this introductory presentation, but super relevant points Marco and I look forward to reconnecting with you again is sort of in mid February and sort of Thank you very much trying to figure this out. Yeah, thanks a lot. It was really very, very interesting. Thanks again Marco and now going to Connor. Thank you Connor for your patience and raising your hand and asked to ask a question as well. No problem. It's very interesting to hear Marcos points there as well. Yeah, I'm just going to keep it quick. Obviously, I need to read the paper now, but I'm very interested in terms of what you know what you've presented here and the potential. So I guess, what do you anticipate will be the next steps because obviously there's some sort of structural group that you want to spin off to support this will release karate existing groups together to start thinking about this and so, you know, as again, it's still early but it sounds like it could be a great initiative to get behind and so what would be the way in which to do that at this point. Yeah, that's what it means to talk. Thanks Connor. I think that's a great question and point to raise. And that there are parallel, multiple parallel ways for sort of at a technical level in terms of this solution helping to flesh that out in more details what are the options and pros and cons and all of that. And then there's sort of the non technical social buy in that Marco helped to highlight. It can be such a game changer or maybe there's a continuum intentionally graduated process that is necessary to get that buy in, not just the political elites who are powerful interests and so on, but ultimately down to individuals, and I'm going to have a personal perspective in opinion that Jesus would really be individual driven to the extent possible not just in the development of the, these smart standards but in the usage of those smart standards. And, you know, that represents that, you know, inversion of the pyramid in some ways of how we write the rules for not just the economy and society really it's like it's taking programmable money, you know smart money, making a not just financial, but the non financial as well. What does that sort of scenario look like. And so there's going to be a guess a third pathway and I'm sort of getting to is coming up with some of those sort of end points or visions that we would think are mutually agreeable to work towards and then more to see how do we get their technical non technical eyes so I think the more we can all socialize this in a very organic way because I think multiple perspectives will help to avoid an echo changer or some type of thing like that. I think we can get to it the better because it will take a long time to get people to buy into what amounts to a major shake up of how these rules, how we want to interact with each other beyond the economical get implemented, and how that changes. Ultimately, the distribution of wealth on a in the closest and planning. That's a starting response Connor and I'm happy to, if you're interested to have a virtual another meeting afterwards. Yeah, definitely take you up on that offer. So I think that'd be great to find ways to start moving things forward. So technically I just put this to sort of getting at the, I thank you very much time because I think to sort of implement that what Tom just said in a technical level. I think this is what I probably want to do with the top down and bottom up so bottom up what I mean is, if there exists projects, particularly if there's code that actually does some of this, especially since this is a hyperledger group that would be useful. So a bottom up approach, right so getting together people with knowledge you've done this before, especially if they use hyperledger and to see what, what the code looks like what issues they had to counter. And then top down would be to what I just started to do a bit started to do a time is to take a look at existing standards and then start converting them into ontologies ultimately to say how would a standard that exists natural would look like as hyperledger chain code. Right. So, do those simultaneously so you get a sense of what that scale is I mean if you're going to implement this and use hyperledger as a platform for the implementation, then both the bottom up and the top down is what I would do. Thanks very much Henry yet. Martin if you were about to say something next. I know. Yeah, if I may kind of in follow to Connor's comment. And while you have a slide up Henry is in my first question was whether there was exhibit so that we can show what does it what does this the natural language standard look like in scribe hub what does it look like as a methodology ontology and in a smart contract language, a bit of a Rosetta stone of expressing it in different ways. Without exhibits, perhaps one thing that I that I would be think would be interesting for us to do here at the SIG is use this framework and and run through the process and take one example, either with a project that's already using fabric like like I mentioned and start using scribe hub to it doesn't necessarily have to be a full already deployable but but almost like a tutorial on on the different steps of going through it, just so that we could show how that vertical integration would would work. And thinking also on Alex's comment on you know ideas for the standards working group here. I'm wondering if if Tom you and Henry would would find that of use, we would just look at either existing project or a mock project that we could use select the standard from there's so many to choose and and see if we can work in an in an open way using the SIG to to chart through all those steps top down bottom up in parallel or even chronologically going going top down so that then it's like okay well now, if you have to deploy this on on on fabric, we've gone through the process, just putting out there as an idea for that's an excellent idea in fact that's that's that was the next step but the time and I going to work on the development is to flesh this out because again this is conceptual so I think I think to be able to do that in a very popular blockchain like that's fabric would be, you know, would be great and of course, as me as an academic, that's a paper there too so I'm all set, I'm all for that. Yeah, I also want to say that that concur with with Henry and sort of also highlight that the existing standards development world has standards for developing standards, and in a way, we would need to create such a new standard. And how does this system operate. So that, to your, your point Martin, are we sort of conforming to such a new next gen standards development process and system. I think all of our criteria is that you know the openness, the audit ability or transparency of what we're doing at the same time sort of thinking ahead to be prepared for that next step not trying to do everything at once. By having such a process articulated or a standard for developing a standard and engaging others that may not be the technical folks but the standards users and the digital technology users so that they feel, yeah, what we're doing really helps to address their concerns. And which is a long list of concerns. And correct me if I'm wrong, what would we have the opportunity of doing is, you know, if we would have to set this for operation in the near future, with all the right bodies, it would be very bureaucratic and it may take time eventually we need to do that. But doing as a demonstration process internally. It would, it would really kind of flush out the pedagogical process, or like we would learn from from that process. And, yeah, and, and just, I know we could use solar wrecks, or something, or something that's quite quite standard and run through it with an example. And we could probably walk through it faster. And I'm sure there's probably some lessons learned that will, we can come up with to better improve the process itself, which could be, like you say, as we are improving and testing improving the standards for standards, which would be a specific kind of strike scribe implementation. I follow you. I think if I understand correctly or follow correctly the modularizing this overall plan and tasks so that we do these proof of concepts where there's continual this helps improve this part of the overall puzzle of the solution. I agree with wholeheartedly, as I think the most rapid agile development approach to get us to what I think is the idea that's being discussed here. I think it's something that Tom and I have discussed. What we're developing here is middleware, right? Middleware that sits between natural language standards and blockchain that collects data, middleware that hopefully will have some standardization or not necessarily standardization but reusability, so that you can say I didn't sort of think this off the top of my head and just create the simple, you know, blockchain implementation of it. And it's as good as what with knowledge was in my head. If Tom was involved in it, that's pretty good. Right. But you want to be able to say one implementation of this or two are and implementations of this is based upon some standards. And as it stands right now, the only standards that exist are natural language standards and even then they're subject to political wins this as Tom said, but nothing in the middle, right, other than some auditor like someone, an expert like Tom, working with some like Iota, which is great for one implementation, but how powerful is that, and how it and how he how he demonstrated it's not that you're a syncretic. If you had this middle layer which is what we're endeavoring towards, we could demonstrate that there's a certain amount of rigor, visibility, a certain amount of credibility, and what's been created. Yes, and I understand it as such as well. I see very similar architecture to our work on the open climate system as as the framework for platform of platforms. In many ways, your, your bottom side of your of your chart shows different platforms and different ecosystems, but it's that top, top layer that allows the interoperability among them. And so I think that there's will be an amazing just running through the process, just vertically with one example would be great and and some of the things of the work that we've done could also bring in value add to to the process. So, as, as ways to creating more ease of interoperability by creating, for example, registry for schemas for data models so the data models are are registered in the network. And so you can easily go in and query them and as they adjust themselves and creating compatibility among among the different schemas and a whole bunch of other other things like that that could be good compliments. I just just wanted to say that, yes, I'm fully on board to help work with you, Tom and Henry and then everyone else in the call interested in, and we're in and walking through a full implementation of this as a demonstration process I notice that Alex has his hand up. Yeah, sorry, I know we are running a bit like long on this session, but I was just asking, well wondering about something and perhaps this actually relates to my liberal artist question as well earlier. I mean, of course, there's a certain urgency to get all of this done because it is, I mean, climate action is long overdue. And we are behind schedule anyway, and the sooner we can digitize well, you digitize standards and stuff like that. I mean, the sooner we can scale up operations all around the world in a trustworthy way. But so I was just thinking, you know, the usual approach to, to developing something. Well, I mean, I'm not part of the community developing standards really but from an outsider's perspective at least, please correct me if I'm wrong is that the usual way people go about developing a standard is like one group tackles it, like they start off trying to drop a draft version of a standard and then maybe they have a discussion with another group, and then some reworking of the standard take place and then they have discussion with other stakeholders and so it's going from groups to groups to groups and a bunch of people, you know, having these set points of interaction in developing standards and it's quite a tedious long process and I think that is exactly also what Tom has been referring to that we need to speed things up because it takes too long to develop these kind of standards. So my question really is, what is the possibility of actually establishing a kind of open source community to develop this like a global open source community where participation is kind of engaged by the reputation that each participant has. And I think this is also where Mark liberal artist comment about using the blockchain in developing standards comes in because you, I mean, you can propose someone has to put that first standard proposal the first standard out there and people can vote on it. They say like, Yes, I approve of the standard or no I don't. And say the approval of that standard, like the uptake of that standard actually into operation. Or at least that version of the standard into operation can be tied to a smart contract on the blockchain, which, if enough people with certain amount of reputation or credibility has voted for the acceptance of that. specific standard. Then it will automatically come into operation and all you know data whatever that is submitted henceforth on the blockchain should follow that specific standard. And, and maybe more that is not at all what you meant but that is one of the occasions I see. Yeah, no, that was a little bit what I was alluding to I was thinking of sort of a, of a Dow model with with the defi staking upon which is taking reach the consensus protocol, and you're sort of collaborating as you as you want to get, and you're moving away from I think the other person was critiquing these very centralized models that are usually having, you know, very, very, you know, non representative groups, or only state state approved delegations that are going to be setting these standards and decentralizing that by potentially the token holders of the ecosystem that you're building for those standards. Thank you. Yeah, okay. Sorry, sorry, sorry, I think I understand what you're saying. Okay, which is a little bit different. I think the difficulty there is what Tom encountered that there are very few people in the world if at all that could actually understand chain solidity and actual context of smart contracts probably nobody frankly. So, at some point if you want to do this and psyche, kind of what we're saying, if you do want to do this then you still need this middle layer, and then you did at that point you have to trust that middle layer, right because just what we're talking about. Once that's done, see what you can do I think is true. If that middle layer exists, then people with a certain amount of information can then actually have consensus about is this a correct smart contract or the parameters correct, and that I actually agree with you. But if you want to have that, then you need this middle layer because there's just what's required of the person making that decentralized decision like a Dow is just, you just don't have to many people that are such domain experts and solidity experts. Among many other concerns. The standards development processes that exist or are being used right now some are very formal some are very informal. You can have people at the table who can pay to play but our expert in the domain. They're expert in negotiating and winning their side and that's what they're there for and other times, I've been in standards development where they'll develop a new standard and won't even road test it before they publish it, which is, to me, nonsensical. So, those are just, I think, good reasons to come up with a better model, so that there is a quality process and I use quality in terms of not just the technical correctness but in the inclusiveness perspective, including people who are the being impacted by the use of standards, etc. And I think all of those concerns should be taken into account and then how do we digitize that to optimize that process. And not just in terms of let's make it really quick that's fine. Henry and I get in the room we decided on the standard that's quick and cost effective. Well, no, right. So, how do we look at all those pain points come up with a better system that reaches as many simultaneous goals as possible, and then improve that for efficiency of the people working on it and then translating that into the digital solutions. It's a lot of work to try to come up with some new models that satisfy that many pain points and requirements so that we have a legitimate rules development and implementation system that has, you know, honestly, the benefits that we all aspire to see it happen, and the actual impacts that we need to see happen, right. So now just realize Tom and Mark I just realized you are both actually talking about the same thing it's just that Tom's. I think if you wanted to do it the way the Dow does it Tom or Mark is so you're right I mean what you want to do is you want consensus on the definition of the smart contract. And the people that get it right should be rewarded for having that right and for the one set smart contract is used, they should be rewarded for it. Tom's model actually I just realized is exactly the same thing, but it's at the level where it makes sense, which is, you know, there's no one in the world that can actually look at a smart contract and understand enough of the functionality and the context to be able to do that intelligently. What Tom is saying is that you do it at the natural language level, somehow figure out a way that you can still tokenize that. And then once that's on smart contract executes and values created, you trace back and the people that actually contributed to it, get rewarded from that. And that actually lawyer I think in the future you'll be able to take those smart contracts solidity or whatever language you're using and you'll be able to snap that into in the language that you know practitioners of law regulation etc would understand in in very or even just the general public and very simplified language that I think would support their their literacy of the systems that are actually impacting them. That's difficult, but I can tell you if you do want to do that you need this ontology layer to work the other way that college layer has been described is actually going down from natural language to smart contracts. What you're talking about is probably an order back did more difficult, which is reengineering for a smart contract back up to natural language. Either way, if you're going to do something like that you need this middle layer ontology. I want to take the opportunity now that we're a good hour over time to say thanks, and that I feel like we've got a good starting conversation like so many points we can take it I hope we maintain this momentum. But not only in the minutes that'll follow up but and some of the bilaterals are smaller gets together's depending on what people's specific interests are. I forget who said it, if you might be Alex maybe I was thinking the same thing around an open source community whether it's Linux foundation supported hyper standards that help to bridge the hyper ledger and distributed ledger systems with each of the sector or domain open source communities, kind of as a horizontal connector so that we can scale what we're talking about here with by leveraging all of the other open source communities, just to sort of throw that out. I agree this was a great discussion and I'm glad that everybody was able to stay on I, in terms of your point about keeping them a minimum I did drop a link to the mailing list for the group I mean that is a place where people can continue this discussion. You know we don't just have to talk in these regular meetings so please feel free to post ideas comments suggestions ideas that are coming out of this on that list. Thank you. I also got a run but I said I'm very interested turning this into concrete exercise that we could do in an open way as part of a group that maybe that helps say okay well here's the, the, the, the theory and the framework that that Henry and Tom presented. We've tested it and lessons learned, and that may be a good segue to kicking off, you know, an open source initiative to improving creating best practices and actually getting a lot of crowd development digitizing standards because it once, once we know how, how the whole process is operating is kind of a clear recipe. We need a lot of help and resources out there to start digitize a lot of the existing standards. Yeah, I totally agree that such as trying to get to that standard for developing standards or that whole platform crowd sourcing people but incentivizing them to tokenize their contribution so that they, when it has been applied it and actually it's all sort of impact financing in a way taken portion of it because they're making sure it's real, and that the resources are accelerated to action so I totally agree with the vision of course because I've been. It's good I think the timings right now with all of the other parts of the ecosystem maturing that I think this vision has a lot of potential in the short term. Yes, absolutely. I'm looking forward to working on this. Martin, especially what you wanted to do is exactly what we need to do, at least from a research perspective. So thank you for suggesting that. So it's always a great platform because it's it's it's an open source process and, and I think as a working group we, we all want to move more to a doing. We've been facilitating a lot of really good discussions but I think this is a, you know, because it's a house within Linux, great platform to do things and public them in in demonstrations and POC and then obviously it really depends on where it spins off. Yeah, that's great. Thank you so much. Thanks everyone. Have a great rest of your day. Thanks David for recording. Of course, yeah, I'll post it in soon. I'll share the link. Have a good one. Bye.