 Hello, hello, hello and welcome. I'm Meryon Khalili. We are DM25, a radical movement for Europe. And this is another live discussion with our coordinating team, featuring subversive ideas you won't hear anywhere else. And today, we'll be looking at the COP28 International Climate Conference that's currently happening in Dubai. Where 160 heads of state are meeting to ostensibly figure out ways to stop greenhouse gas emissions, which are making conditions on our planet the only one we have unbearable. Yes, 2023 has been the most scorching year in recorded history, with a shift in temperatures unleashing floods, wildfires and heat waves worldwide. Governments simply aren't reducing emissions fast enough to stave off the worst of global heating. And yet, following a familiar pattern, the Dubai summit is already not inspiring confidence. For a start, this time it's hosted by a petro state and led by a literal sultan of fossil fuels, Ahmed Al-Jabba, the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. His game-changing plan is to give oil and gas corporations more influence over the climate change summit. And he's already been caught using his position as head of the conference to lobby foreign governments to buy his fossil fuels. According to one climate NGO leader, the summit is a circus, with the petro states as the ringmasters and everyone else as the clowns. So with this rather dismal picture in mind, what would an achievable positive outcome of the conference look like? We'll be unpacking what's being discussed in Dubai and what kind of role Europe could be playing to leave the way towards climate justice. And of course, we'll be debating what climate activists and all of us could be doing to change the game and bring about a sustainable future. Our panel, including our own Yanis Varoufakis, will be looking into this as well as our collection of activist doers and thinkers and you, you out there, watching us on YouTube Live. If you've got thoughts, comments, rants, anything that comes into your head, something you feel like you really, really, really must reply to, then please put it in the YouTube chat and we'll put it to our panel. Well, let's kick it off with Yanis. Thank you, Maron. Well, you said everything. What else is there to add? Except some humor, perhaps, and a bit of political column. The humor comes in the form of saying, imagine that we wanted to turn the world vegan and we took the leader of a pack of wolves to head the conference on how to turn the world vegan. It's equivalent of having COP28, a global conference whose purpose should be to eradicate fossil fuels because without the eradication of fossil fuels, nothing can be done to arrest this very fast movement towards the point of no return for our species, for this planet, not for the planet, the planet will survive, we won't. At least a majority of us will not. So instead of doing that, what we did was we, you know, as the British would like to say, we put the field in control of the police. And here comes the political column part because, as I said, COP28 does not stand in any way as a rational gathering and a solution, a sort of pollution for the kind of catastrophe that we're facing. But the political column part, I think it's more important, the ultra-right in the United States, the Republicans, the Trumpists, have one thing passed down, completely right. When they say that climate denial is essential for fighting communism, they are completely correct because the admission of climate change or the climate crisis is an admission that capitalism is detrimental to the interests of humanity. Let's face it, what is the argument in favor of a market-based economy, of a capitalist economy, an economy where all economic activity, production, distribution, labor, the provision of machines and so on, goes through markets? The argument is that a market is best placed to coordinate our scarce resources, the use of our scarce resources so as to produce things that we want, goods, goods, and I would say it once more, goods. The problem with CO2, with methane, with all these gases which are destroying the planet, which are causing the overheating of the planet and therefore are rendering the planet uninhabitable for billions of human beings, all these things are not goods, they are bad. They are the definition of that which one does not want. So why would anyone rely on markets that are mechanisms for distributing goods and producing goods to distribute and produce solutions to the emission of bads? There's absolutely no way. The only way you can do that, the only way you can have a market solution for emissions is if you turn the bad into goods, and how could you do that? You need to have a state that ensures that everyone who emits CO2 is firstly monitored by the state. The state measures how much each one of us emits in the form of methane or CO2 or whatever, then charges us a price which is artificially created by state that has created a market for bads out of the ideological commitment to finding solutions that are market-based. That is an absurdity. The idea of creating markets for bads is the worst combination of pro-market solutions or solutions that are based on markets and authoritarian status. And it really doesn't work. So what do we need is a very high carbon tax which, however, is redistributed completely new traffic. It's collected by our states and redistributed towards the have nots. In other words, the big question is too full. How do we tax all those bads that are destroying the planet and making sure that that tax is paid by the rich, not the poor? Remember why we had a gilet jaune in France? Because Emmanuel Macron in his libertarian neoliberal mindset decided that it would be the poor that would pay for the climate transition. The result was a major, major, major uprising. So the big question is how do we make the rich pay for the green transition? And the answer cannot include markets because markets are never going to operate in a way that deal with the green transition and make the rich pay for it. This is why nothing short of socialism is going to do it. That's why the Trumpists are out. Acknowledging climate change and climate catastrophe is effectively acknowledging the importance of shifting away from capitalism or techno-fidelism as I call it to something that is socialist based on the commons and based on the rapid and radical transfer of property rights from the minority to the majority. Thank you, Martin. Thank you, Nis. Dushan. Dushan, Ayavitch, our campaign coordinator from Montenegro. I know you've been following COP. What's your take? Thanks, Macron. Yes, for years, we've been actually talking about the facade and absurdity of COP itself. And that's why we've been organizing this alternative climate conference for three or four years already called COP-OF. And our predictions turned out completely right, even though we had no previous evidence before, at least not material of what is happening at COP. We said long time ago that the whole point of it is to get networks, to get sponsorship deals, to do lobbying, and to get funding for the future campaigns for politicians. And when these politicians send their talks, they go to back room with the champagne and sign deals with all companies. COP-28 has proved this completely right with the leaked documents and with appointing Sultan as the president of this conference. So year by year, it's getting worse and worse. And in the end of the day, we are now talking of having symbolic targets that are not even met, that are never met and that will never be met. This has been a practice for years and I can say the same for almost each one of the cops. And now it is even more absurd when you look at it. For example, we get the information that more than 115 nations signed the deal to triple the investments in renewable energies. Which sounds on the surface as a good thing. There are at least two big problems with this however. The first problem is that, for example, European Commission voted nuclear and gas to be renewable and green, to be categorized and labeled as green, which neither of them are. You can check some of our articles on the website about it. One is called Nuclear is Not Green and where we go into depth of problematic security state that would end up being with the nuclear energy, let alone the nuclear waste, et cetera, et cetera. So all of these press releases, these deals, these agreements have just been a PR that everyone who knows a bit about this conference can see through and see that it's all bad. It's as the dog agrees, it's all false. And for the purpose of barking, I will go out and then someone can replace me. I can jump on if something else is needed. Sorry. Fair enough, Dushan. Okay, let's turn to Karin. Karin Derigo, a colleague from Germany, based in Germany, thought it was yours. What does COP28 look like from your standpoint? Thank you, Marilyn. So I would like to, first of all, make a small introduction. Like since the Paris Agreement in 2015 where the goal of 1.5 degrees was set, nothing basically changed. So 10 years just went by. Now with the current trajectory, we're gonna reach the three degrees. So I spoke with the ecologist, a dear friend of mine, and he told me, well, I'm not even watching COP28 now since years because it's just a lie. We are repeating exactly the same things for 20 years now. And the premises of this COP, as you said, I mean, are really not encouraging. There were two topics now that were discussed. One was the main topics, let's say, loss and damage fund. Basically it's just charity for the poor countries that cannot pay to fix their catastrophes and has been discussed about 400 millions euros from, I think, Germany and the UAE. Although this is just really disrespectful, I would say, because the UN calculated that we would need at least more than 300 billions. So there's really not even point to discuss about that. It was just really to give a smaller, yeah, a smaller thing for the smaller countries. And then there was the declaration on climate and health, which basically is something that, for me, it was already taken for granted, but actually no, it has to be officialized now because it has been recognized that health issues are correlated to climate change. So with global warming also, more and more diseases will spread because of the different temperatures and also there. The first point is to make health systems resilient. So in all of this, Janice was saying that, yeah, the far right is doing well, but on a business point of view for me, it's exactly the contrary because actually prevention is the cheapest and most effective and efficient way to prevent disaster and not to pay more after. So this, first of all, is describing very well that these businessmen are really not very good in their job or they are very short-term, yeah, they are really thinking just short-term. So the problem is that their actions are affecting us immediately. And yeah, the problem is that there are a lot of people in the world who have understood that basically we have to do something to change. Just we are doing it in our very own small circle. We are like recycling, we are not owning a car, we are really trying to fight over consumption. And though we have to see every day on social media, for example, that there are these billionaires breaking about their super fantastic and sustainable yachts while we are really struggling every day. And exactly in that moment comes to my mind all the efforts that we people are doing and that they are really destroyed at the same second from these people. So this is exactly why actually I candidated for Meta25 because I am so tired of seeing these things. I want them to pay for the green transition. I want really them to pay for a better transport system. Otherwise, I mean, we cannot really, we cannot wait for all of us to put together our efforts because we are too few and they're not powerful enough actually. And the last thing I would like to say, we are always speaking about climate neutrality. Well, this is not my goal. I want to live in a circular economy. I want to live in a climate positive environment and really doing real good to the earth. Thank you. Thank you for that, Karen. Karen just mentioned Mera25. That's our political party in Germany. Well, one of our political parties in this case, in Karen's case in Germany, where we'll be running in the European elections next June. And Karen, as you said, is going to be standing as a candidate. Let me read a couple of your comments. Stalvatori Stefanelli. Stefanelli, forgive me, says, a global carbon tax is unrealistic, I think. I would favor targeting the public subsidy to fossil fuels and animal agriculture. Redirecting those to renewables would be a good step. Sandra Jones notes that fossil fuel is all around us and in our everyday life, your computers and cell phones are possible only with fossil fuels. And shiny, warm notes about just stop oil and extinction, rebellion that in the UK, these groups, these climate activist groups, adopted a strategy of mass arrest, but is this really effective? It seems problematic for many people already marginalized, but what could be better ways of mass mobilization? So Dushan, because your dog interrupted you, the natural world intruding into this Zoom. I'd like to bring you back in, if I may, just to continue with your points about the summit. And also please, if you can comment on some of the things that were discussed there, for example, you know, big oil pushing their solution to suck carbon out of the atmosphere and store it, John Kerry from the U.S. and Emmanuel McCarroll, all about nuclear, just give us a sense of what are the competing arguments that are being bandied about in Dubai. Yes, thanks, Macron. Well, the good thing about my dog interrupting me is that we are proving, we are also non-human animal friendly live stream. So it's for the planet Earth. But what I wanted to say is that we are going to, as Karin correctly noted, we are going to hear all over again that we are all responsible for the climate crisis, but let's face it, statistics prove and show that it's all on them, on the people that are actually gathering to solve this climate crisis. For example, the new study shows that the richest 1% account for more carbon emissions than the poorest 66%. And just 12 oligarchs with their mega yachts, private jets, mansions, and investments pollute more than 2.1 million homes. So we need to put those things in perspective. Alongside with some government spendings that some of our viewership noted, I know that only G20 states since the Paris Agreement gave in subsidies only to fossil fuel industry more than 3 trillion euros since the Paris Agreement. So I think it's a very good point that we need to redirect those substitutes for the very, very beginning, starting yesterday and agriculture substitutes. In that case, we also signed a plant-based treaty, the M25 endorsed it, the initiative to do exactly that based on a fossil fuel treaty. Our moderator can link the plant-based treaty in the comments for people to see that are going to be in our updated program for the EU elections. Alongside with stopping subsidies for fossil fuel that was already in there in 2019. The point is, however, that neither these high-tech solutions that we don't have, and it's very dangerous to believe that we are going to have one day and just wait for some miracle to happen and save us. That doesn't work. The research by Jason Hickel and the others prove that we need to drastically reduce the consumption of the rich, and especially in global north, and especially in those industries that are bad and or insufficient and not needed at all, like marketing industry, for example, to add to fast fashion, to fossil fuels, to agriculture, animal-based agriculture, and so on, and so on. So we need radical degrowth, and that means that we need to focus less on VDP and growth for the sake of growth and the consumption for the sake of consumption and redirect our funds into things that matter, into happiness, better work life, balance, universal basic income, and sustainable ways of traveling, of living, of eating, and everything that goes alongside with it. But to make that happen, as all of our previous speakers said, we need tax the rich for the very beginning, for the starter. Thank you for that. Dushan, Daphne, Daphne Delcara, based in France. It was yours. Yeah, thank you, Meijer. So I'd like to revert back a little bit to the question of COP and whether it is a place where solutions can emerge. And just very briefly, I want to just give you one fact to maybe answer this question. The first time there was plans to reduce coal in COP negotiations. We're in COP 26. And I'm not saying fossil fuels, just coal and two years ago. This should give you an idea about the nature of the shift we need and what has been delivered by the COP process, okay? Second thing I want to talk about is something that Karen already touched upon. So one potentially interesting thing that came out of the negotiations for now was the loss and damage fund, which was, I guess it was pretty accurate to identify it as a very insufficient charity for poor countries. That was a nice way of determining it. There's, I think, something even more interesting when we look at what does it entail and what it doesn't entail. So it's just like states pledging some money. It's not like a polluter pays model in any way which would actually discourage some of the negative effects, but it's like, oh, put some money in a fund, guys. And who's put what in the fund? How interesting. So I just got some few figures from some countries. So like, for example, the Emirates and Germany have put a hundred million dollars, France and Italy a hundred million euros and the US has pledged 1.17.5 million dollars. So like one of the biggest polluters, the most wealthiest country, one of, if not, I mean, in the world, and one of the highest fossil fuel per capita users which is all the US, and please also consider the size of the US when comparing it to the Italy, for example. They just say, you know, 17.5 million. So that's just a little glimpse into how sad things are. Moving forward, I'd like to come back to some things, Janice said, and I think it's really important to re-re-re-say again and again how, like the markets as a tool to fix the massive problems that we face is just ridiculous. And I just want to say like a small anecdote about that. So approximately 800,000 people, 800 million people, I'm sorry, don't have access to electricity in the world. Yes, so there are these countries who have even started like the minimum of what we consider like an essential thing, which is electricity. And as things go and just by some magical hopefulness, we think that these countries, these people, these countries start to go forward towards accessing electricity. It is much more likely that they will do so in the old-fashioned because it's cheaper. It's what's available to them. And this is how also the funds are being located. Financial flows have been flowing throughout the world. And so, for example, only 2% of investment in renewable energies has made it to Africa, 2%. So we're locking these countries into the bad pathways or let's say bad is to fossil fuel intensive pathways. We're not allocating the funds in a smart way because the markets are not capable of doing this. But there comes a more important question is that we need to stop thinking of climate change as a social or environmental problem. It is an economic problem. It is deeply an economic problem and it has the inability to see it as such just will blind us to all the solutions that can be available to us. So I think one of the interesting questions is that why has these countries only gotten 2% and why does these countries don't have electricity to begin with? And I thought it was again interesting what Yannis was saying about the far right saying, you know, it's communism or whatever. But when I was reading the statistics, actually I was thinking about a quote by a Brazilian art bishop, Halder Camara. And he once said that when I feed the poor, they call me a saint. But when I ask why the poor are poor, they call me a communist. So if we're asking, oh, why can't we put countries on track to a green transition or countries that are not even on the electricity grid into a grid, which if we're asking, oh, is it to do with CO2 emissions instead of asking, why are these countries poor? Again, we end up in the same place. So I'm going on way too long. I'm so sorry. I would just say one final thing. Actually, no, thanks. Thank you very much. Thank you, Daphne. And touching on what you said there, I'd like to bring in Juliana, Juliana Zeta based in Germany. And perhaps you can also comment, Juliana, on what Daphne and Yannis said about far right governments, this far right wave that seems to be, well, I won't say it's come out of nowhere. Javier Millay in Argentina. Possibly Trump next year, probably unfortunately Trump next year it's looking like. And now in Europe we've got Vilders in the Netherlands, the far right in second place in Germany and France. So how does all that impact the pushback against climate change? Yeah, thank you, Maha. Yeah, I gladly touch upon this. First, I want to say something, which is Karin is not just a candidate for the European election. She's our number one candidate for the European election. So I think that's important. So watch out for her in the next months. Yeah, going back to the topic. Look, I think it has been for decades a fight between rich and powerful and poor. Poverty has gotten stronger and stronger in the last few decades and far right parties, and we have this analysis, we have done this analysis a lot of times, have been a tool of rich people for a long time. And climate change kind of became like a battlefield for power. There's also the question of how we as a society define freedom, for example. And freedom has been strongly connected to climate change, but in a kind of very negative way, where if green parties, left parties, climate activists speak about climate change and what we have to do, the counter argument is always they are taking your freedom away, your freedom of having a car, your freedom of buying whatever you want, but everything is concentrated on materialism and consume and in that sense, definitely it's right. It is about economy, but it shouldn't be about economy. That's the key problem. And now with people suffering economically more and more, they're not open to changing ways to the topic of climate change. And this is how the far right is gaining more and more momentum because of a huge frustration and dissatisfaction in the majority of people. And they know exactly, I mean, they're populist for no other reason than to know where the fear in people lies and that it's connected to this sense of losing your freedom. And this is where they have kind of, they're building their campaigning on. They're saying, look, I mean, look at Germany and the Green Party, the 60 billion euros of funding which got canceled now by the court. This whole thing started because the CDU, the Conservative Party, sued them. So there is a, you know, they're in the opposition and it's a battle for power because they want to come into government the next time and they're doing it over, you know, over dead bodies. They don't care about climate change. They just care about gaining power and the CDU and as well as the idea parties who are good for the rich. So as long as these parties are in power, there is no way we will ever tax the rich. So everything that will be done with climate change will be paid by the poorest in society and that will anger people more. And so it's like a vicious circle really going on. And I believe that society right now is like a frog and boiling water, you know, not realizing that with every decade that we don't do anything, it will, and that's already been said, it will hurt the most poor people in society because still the rich, they can buy land where they're safe from climate change. They can, you know, they can, they will have the money to go through it for a few decades. They won't have a problem. It's the people who are financially the weakest who will suffer the most from climate change. So I think to conclude this, I think it has a lot to do with maybe starting more basic topics like talking about how we as people like to see society in the future, you know, I think having touched upon it, you know, that we live in a kind of economy where it is about the well-being of people, where it is about the well-being of the planet and where we realize that this is the only planet we have and that it has to be livable for us. So because the consequences that a lot of dead people, yeah, but the far right at this moment has managed very well to, you know, put all these topics under the carpet and to make, you know, to divide society even more and more. And, yeah, to be on top. Well, Udianne, let me ask you something because one of the criticisms you often hear leveled at the left is that when it comes to climate change, the left actually are kind of using or exploiting climate change in order to enact their broader agenda in order to remodel society. And this, I think, is a critique of the system change which you're arguing is required. It's a very hard sell there, isn't it? And isn't that one of the reasons why the far right are rising? So what would you say to that? What does realistic system change look like to you? Well, I think, Udianne, we have found already and maybe we don't even know about it, but we have found a different way to approach this where you include people in the discussion. Well, you're not like, this is our idea over system change and this is what needs to be done but where you have to have a dialogue with the people and to make sure that they know that it's also up to them. I mean, like, let's speak about how we want our future to be but let's include everyone in the discussion and give people, I mean, that's a question of having hope. A lot of people are closed in and they think like there is no hope for a better change so therefore I'm not going to sit here and think about it while I'm having two jobs and having a lot of stress in my life but I think we have to be the most inviting in these discussions, like maybe the typical, from the typical left lecturing speech to the more including speech which I think DiEM as a democratic pan-European movement has already started with this approach where we include everyone in the discussions and how they think about education, about climate change, et cetera. Thanks for that, Juliana. Patrizia, Patrizia Pozzo, from Italy. Thank you, Meran. I want to add a couple of more points of reflection. Going back to Yanis and, well, Juliana as well, question how to make the reach to pay for the transition. Let me add one point. I do believe that we all need a new and completely political courage which makes even unpopular choices but choices which can be outside of the logic of electoral consensus because this is a crucial point for our nowadays, let's say, politicians and also a very important point which can never be forgotten is that the ecological transition must be a democratic transition first but we cannot talk about these things without considering that one of the most important actions to go in that direction is to create a so-called energy democracy which means all workers should take a crucial role in decisions concerning production and use of energy. So this is a very interesting starting point and listen to what happened in COP28. I didn't listen to this kind of approach yet so that's something that should be underlined in my opinion. Thank you, Atrizia. Some comments from the chat. Some comments that regulations cementing monopolistic industry are the real problem and Avshara notes that uniparty elites are the problem, I assume he or she is in black but they are no different from the kings and queens of old. Amir, our policy coordinator based in the Hague, the floor is yours. I would like some reaction to the carbon capture idea which is being pushed around because it's getting so many headlines. This idea of unabated, what was the term? Unabated. I can't remember the term. They're using this term unabated to say we will phase out fossil fuels but we'll suck the carbon out of it and store it somewhere and it's going to scale somehow and there's a lot of debate on that. Yeah, sure of course. The market always has a solution, right? In that sense. This has already been proven that it's a gimmick. I think there's been hundreds of pilot cases of carbon capture and storage projects all across the world and they're just not feasible. The amount of infrastructure needed to capture the carbon and pump it down into storage tanks and keep it there forever is just simply unfeasible. We're better off doing it the easy logical way of reducing our emissions but we also know that these crises are just again another opportunity for those that have power and are rich and have the connections and so on and we've been talking throughout the live stream today to further entrench their position. This is just one another one and it's also again maybe trying to simplify the message that we tried to use the silver bullet idea of how we've also become used to living this life where we sit and we tap a button and the food arrives and everything happens magically, automatically and so on so that's also maybe another discussion for our time perhaps but this is just sort of adding to that line of thought. So I hope that answers a little bit Mehran people can easily just with some research come to their own conclusion which is quite obvious especially because we know that 30 to 35% of global greenhouse gas emissions emanate from animal-based agriculture and that's the whole industry supply chain if you will so just simply reducing paying for the actual costs of meat and chicken and livestock etc in the global north will already show the impact and Dushan mentioned the plant-based treaty which we've signed and that's also working along that path and it's just not just TM25 but hundreds of other organization cities and localities have signed on to that and I'm pledging that and we see the next generation as we're already picking it up and there are much more natural solutions to this that we don't have to make people like Bill Gates-Richer with his smart nuclear power stations and so on if time allows me I want to just quickly touch on an issue that is often times hidden from this conference or parties conference which is the issue related to the military and when these agreements were signed both the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 and the Paris Agreement in 2015 due to pressure from the United States any kind of accounting or tracking of emissions related to the military industrial complex if you will are excluded so there's nothing agreed on it there's nothing being surveyed about it and there's nothing really being published through governmental work that would otherwise happen if it was included in general however because it's such a huge issue and it's an obvious one given that the US military is the largest institutional user of fossil fuels research has shown that the military globally accounts for 6% of greenhouse gas emissions and these are again estimates and that's three times more sorry three times the emissions from civil aviation globally combined so all those jets flying around emit a third in terms of civil aviation emit a third of what the military is emitting and this data doesn't take into account estimates from wars that are raging right now some research has shown that the war in Ukraine has reduced more than 100 million greenhouse gas emissions equivalent tons and in Gaza where more than half the homes have been destroyed and over 25,000 bombs have been dropped the environmental estimates and again it's very hard to talk about it like as people are getting wrong than dying right now isn't the millions for the reconstruction of Gaza eventually so I think taking this knowledge and information and we saw some signs of that already within the climate movement is to take the issue of military seriously and for our friends in the Extension Rebellion Just Stop Oil, Fridays for Future and others to start including a military dimension in their thoughts and their actions and to reinforce the link between the militarism and the environmental disaster that we are facing essentially to decarbonise we have to demilitarise Thanks Thank you Amir, good point Well everyone's cheering for their side on social media and sneering at people calling for peace it's worth noting that war is terrible for the planet as well as of course for all the people that are involved Who's next? Eric, Eric Edmund our political director based in Brussels I would like your commentary if possible on the issue of nuclear power proposed as a silver bullet or at least a solution for climate change by Macron, by Kerry and I think by several other big nations what's your take? Well indeed by none less than the European Union itself when it decided that together with gas I'll repeat that just in case my internet cuts out or people think that they miss out and nuclear energy are considered green energy sources and transitionary technologies which should be used for us to phase out of fossil fuels and into the green utopia of the future this is how the European Union has approached the topic of of nuclear energy and the N25 took a very clear position which we voted on at the time that neither gas nor nuclear energy can be considered green and nuclear energy in particular the list is huge on the one hand let's leave it whether it's green or not for the second phase but first of all it's incredibly dangerous nuclear we've seen again and again whether it's Chernobyl or Fukushima what can happen if a nuclear power plant goes wrong for whatever reason is catastrophic just this summer with the temperature rising everywhere in the world including in Europe France had a problem with its rivers which is very interesting which they are dependent on for cooling their nuclear reactors of their nuclear power plants so it's an incredibly dangerous technology that if it goes wrong doesn't just mean that we don't have electricity it means that we have a nuclear catastrophe that's just point number one point number two is that the nuclear byproduct from these factories energy plants is the basis for nuclear weapons is morally not ambiguous but absolutely questionable they take far too long to build between one and two decades and we need solutions right now indeed we need them we needed them a decade ago if anything we're late we can't wait for one to two decades to start transitioning to alternative energy sources if they require mining which unlike renewable energy sources which is not green is damaging for the environment and in itself is a very energy intensive process and what am I missing of course this is definitely where the green question comes in what do you do with the nuclear waste which lasts for at least 200,000 years in the earth there is no sufficient technology for 100% guaranteeing that we won't be seeing the consequences of our planet, of the ecosystem of other fellow beings on this planet and indeed of humans ourselves being poisoned by nuclear waste so nuclear power it's a lazy argument that people that want to depend on miraculous technological solutions like to depend on but really when you look at the facts on any front really and with all of that I felt what I myself wanted to talk about which was yes the European Parliament so this is European election year right in June we've got European elections that topic you know we spoke a lot about fossil fuels but there are other elements that fall under the need for a green transition and the kind of adaptations that we see in society and our economy and our politics in order for us to become future proof and sustainable and one of them has to do with food security that we haven't spoken about at all today now a couple of weeks ago the European Parliament voted down the suggested text the suggested regulation on pesticide control now this sounds very technoplastic and boring and that's usually what a shield for the European institutions is they hide behind things that sound very dull on the surface but in reality behind the scenes like a number of very important issues and also very powerful interests so one of the few elements of the Green Deal for Europe that the European Commission tried to push for the Green Deal and the European Commission was trying to push for stealing from our European Green Deal was the farm to fork strategy this idea of protecting where our food comes from from the beginning to the end of that chain and one of the few elements of that strategy that survived the slaughter that was the Green Deal for Europe that basically destroyed the entire strategy was the idea that at least we could try and control the amount of pesticides that we use now this is not just important for our own health as it is obviously very damaging for our own for our own health to consume pesticides but it's catastrophic for nature, for ecosystems and the rest of it so there was a long process that had resulted in at least this file on pesticide control cutting down on the number of pesticides where you can use pesticides in areas that are protected in areas close to organic and bio cultivations a number of things which was the result of a lot of negotiations between different political parties especially the Liberals who are between the conservatives who are clearly against all of this and very pro-farmer and multinational especially large-scale farming and the left and the Green Parties which were obviously in favor of this regulation and they were kind of playing kingmaker so they managed to get it past the committee stage to the final plenary which is where the final vote would happen and that was the result of a lot of negotiations but in the end when it came to plenary the final text was a catastrophe a number of amendments were suggested by conservative politicians that completely gutted any content that was significant within this regulation and made it the whole text irrelevant and the reason that was achieved was the conservatives aligned themselves with certain conservative elements of the social democrats especially social democratic MEPs from Spain and the Liberal Party which at the end might promote this kind of rhetoric that they are progressive on matters such as the environment by the end of the day will always side with multinationals and big interests and the result was a absolutely catastrophic text that the Greens and the Left Party themselves had to vote down so as to not allow it to go further because it would just create a fake impression that Europe is actually doing something on pesticide control when in fact it is doing nothing. What is my point with all of this? First of all that we need good people in the European Parliament the European Parliament is a very problematic institution but if this had gone through it would still have been better than nothing and is better than nothing at this very desperate stage that we're at is already important and it's important because it creates appetite in society for more things like this when you can show that things can happen at certain levels such as the European Parliament and I'm using this platform to talk about it because I'm sure that 99% of the people watching us haven't even heard about this although it's very important as to the direction that Europe is taking in general considering the climate disaster and the other thing that is incredibly important is that of course a number of NGOs, environmental NGOs bemoaned this result and were very disappointed a little progressive MEPs were very disappointed but you know who uploaded it and celebrated this result? The European Association of Farmers so the farmers themselves were actually against this regulation because it disrupts the status quo in the way that they do things and this is traditionally the type of people that we in the left seek to convince and speak to but we have absolutely lost them as we have said so many times in the past these were the people lobbying very hard here in Brussels and there's a lot of money in the farming lobby against this kind of regulation because they say it's problematic for their business because it's dangerous for food security at a time where food security is already strained by the war in Ukraine by global tensions and the rest of it and we didn't manage to convince them because at the end of the day and many of the previous speakers touched upon this we haven't been able to present a vision for the world that makes these people fear secure in this change they believe that our changes are being pushed by people from cities who have no understanding of the reality and who's going to throw these farmers under the bus so that we can secure these very very theoretical ideas about preserving the planet what we need to convince these people about is that the biggest threat to food security is not limiting the use of pesticides but climate change there is nothing more catastrophic to food security than climate change and there's nothing more catastrophic to their livelihoods if we can already continue pushing so that we have that basis that we all agree that there is no alternative to doing something about the situation that we're in something needs to be done while at the same time showing these farmers that we're not high in the sky intellectual urban types who have no real understanding of what work is like in the fields or in the factories or for the precariat or the working class then we might have a chance at succeeding but before we can successfully convince these people who are at the front line as has been said tonight of the climate catastrophe then we will never be successful and that's not just going to happen through intellectual argumentation it's also emotional and it's work that needs to happen on the ground Thank you for that Eric two comments from the chat Kevin notes that the system must be changed three shows you can't do that from within the system so we must create a landing pad strategy that includes a new governance model globally planned, regionally organized and locally executed including citizens assemblies which is actually a key part of our own program for the European elections and Kevin asks how could we make such assemblies truly decisive how could they ever compete with state or corporate agencies in making big decisions so the remaining few people who speak please try to tackle that question too David Castro based in Belgium, floor is yours Thank you Mehran look I've heard a lot of things and I just want to go back to what we started with which is COP so bear with me a sec I've got a radical proposition for the organizers of COP they should just call it COP out just do it honestly because nobody's convinced anymore that COP is about anything other than solutions that benefit the few and screw the many because let's face it COP is just an elaborate charade it's a monumental COP out from addressing the genuine needs of both the people and the planet as everybody else has already spoken about it's an illusion let's call it a spectacle of smoke and mirrors we shouldn't be duped by the sleep propaganda and there is a lot of it and the pretense of commitment to resolving the critical environmental issues that the planet is facing time and again we're bombarded with declarations about safeguarding the environment but when it comes down to tangible action where the hell is it like I've looked everywhere you know I have but I can't find it maybe I need stronger contact lenses I'm not sure you know but or maybe a microscope I guess because the result must be microscopic there's just no other explanation as far as I can see so I don't know if the COP organizers are watching this I think in this case it was the United Arab Emirates government right if you're listening to this please please just just rename it COP out because you know better than everyone else that what you're doing is about maintaining appearances instead of any substantive change and just to finalize the real transformation the kind that makes the lasting impact that we've spoken about time and again at the M25 steps from collective effort it comes from people uniting and standing up for what is just and what is necessary and that's the ethos ultimately that's driving the driving force behind our movement at the M we're not just talking about change we're mobilizing we're on the front lines we're striving to create a future that aligns with the ideals that we are passionate about and that we advocate for so join us with that and join us in that and you know the M25.org slash join will be part of that change thank you. Thank you for that David yes bottom up we do it ourselves Daphne Daphne Delcaro we're reaching the end of the hour but Daphne I know you have a final comment to bring you back in and then we'll close Daphne. Yes thanks just to reiterate something so when we say system change not climate change that system change must be enormous because the accumulating the accelerating factor is the global economy and this might seem impossible but I'd like to remind people that in the West this already happened was in the Bretton Woods conference that we restructured and replanned the whole the Western global economic order so this is something that can not only happen it has happened however this was due to two things in my opinion one was the astounding amount of militancy of the late 19th and early 20th century but also the absolute horrific devastations of the first and second world wars so my message would be that please let us change the system without having to go through this scale of devastation let us learn from the past thank you Thank you Daphne really good point there and I saw a graph yesterday that showed sort of the trajectory over time of different countries awareness that climate change is a serious problem in their countries and Australia over the last couple of years has just gone like that why because of the wildfires you're absolutely right just so sorry one other very important thing that I forgot is that one of the things that made the Bretton Woods conference a success and what is preventing COP from being a success that bankers and lobbyists were not part of the negotiations so maybe that's also a lesson that COP can take from the past good point and thank you for the case study and the best practice on that more encouraging note than my intro set the tone for at the beginning okay we've gone a bit past the hour but with that we're going to close if you out there would like to get more involved in DM it's very simple you go to dm25.org and within a few seconds you can become a member or at the very least hit like or subscribe to be tuned into our YouTube channel where we're doing these live streams every two weeks we've got interviews during the every two weeks and things that we're trying to to put forward in order to break down some of the problems that we've talked about tonight and from a policy point of view from an activism point of view so like or subscribe or join thank you again to my panel thank you to you out there for listening and see you at the same time same place see you next weeks from now take care and stay safe