 Hi, welcome to this event on bridging the fossil fuel production gap for a just sustainable and resilient recovery. I am Megan Darby, I'm the acting editor of Climate Home News, and this is supposedly part of London Climate Action Week, this event, but we are, I don't think any of us are actually calling in from London, we are around the world. I'm actually in my childhood bedroom, although sadly they've taken down the kitten posters by now. So the fossil fuel production gap report was published last year really to draw attention to the discrepancy between the international goals we have to prevent dangerous climate change and the amount of coal oil and gas that governments are collectively planning to extract produce, sell. And the report found that out to 2030, the amount of fossil fuel production in the pipeline is, so to speak, is 50% more than is compatible with holding global warming to 2 degrees and 120% more than holding global warming to 1.5 degrees, the tougher limit in the Paris agreement that is seen as essential to the survival of some smaller island states. So this was a huge joint effort between the UN Environment Programme and some leading climate research institutes this afternoon or morning or evening depending on where you are in the world. Today we are going to be hearing from a couple of the report authors, representatives from governments, the UN and the investor community about what stayed the same since then and also what's changed. So there's work underway on a follow up that looks at the coronavirus pandemic and the response to it in terms of the market response, the economic downturn and also the government response in terms of all the bailouts and recovery packages and what difference those make to the trajectory for fossil fuels. So we're going to hear from five speakers, they are going to each speak for about five minutes and you will have the chance then we'll have a Q&A session. You should see a little icon on your screen that just has a little speech bubble with a question mark in it. That will bring up the Q&A and you can type in questions as we go so as you hear things from the speakers and you think you want to know more about that, go ahead and ask questions. You can also upvote each other's questions so if you see somebody else's question and you want to know the answer as well then just hit the thumbs up button and it will rise to the top and then when it comes to the Q&A session I will try and ask as many of those questions, put as many of those questions to the panel as we have time for and make sure we cover a good range of questions and answer your burning issues. So first of all we are going to hear from Michael Lazarus from the Stockholm Environment Institute. So given all that's changed since that production gap came out, we've seen the economic slump, we've seen oil demand, nose dive, we've seen unprecedented OPEC deal for countries to cut their production and we've seen private companies are cutting their capital spending and their oil exploration plans as well. So how much of that production gap report still holds and how much has changed Michael? Yeah thanks Megan and good morning from Seattle. So much has obviously changed in all our lives and especially in the world of energy and we've seen oil prices crash like never before going negative and more importantly it looks like they may never return in the sustained fashion to those high levels we've seen before. Thirty to fifty dollar oil may be this new normal and it's not just hitting the bottom line of oil companies, it's hitting countries and regions that rely on fossil fuel production for government revenue and they're getting hit especially hard places like Nigeria, Angola, subnational regions like Alberta and North Dakota they're forced to cut spending jobs and social benefits. So that overall the production and consumption of fossil fuels is obviously down steeply and likely something like 2% for gas 10% for oil and coal this year and while global emissions as a result may be down 8% this year without sustained efforts on for a sustainable recovery they could easily rebound strongly. So we're working on this as you mentioned Megan the second production gap report this year to take stock of what these changes and other changes could mean for a just transition from fossil fuels which is at the core of this report and so what we're finding is that the key messages from the first report indeed are all too relevant so a quick recap for those who are new to the production gap report you see a chart up here that features one of the headline findings last year a group of institutions including that is institution IISD, ODI and others work with UNEP and we found that this discrepancy between countries planned fossil fuel and projected fossil fuel production and global client goals was indeed large as you mentioned Megan that the governments are aiming as this chart shows the difference between that red line the country's plans and projections and production consistent with 1.5 and 2 degrees 50 percent more fossil fuels by 2030 than would be consistent with 2 degrees double what would be consistent with 1.5 and it showed that not only is there this stark disconnect between countries plans there's also a disconnect with countries climate goals which are expressed in that gold line that you see right there so this year's report we're going to look again and what we expect to find is a similar disconnect but this time more around what countries are doing to support their incumbent fossil fuel industries and what's needed to build back better we've looked at the plans and projections again of major producers and while much is on hold obviously because of COVID there's yet to be any sign of a reset in most countries if anything a continuation of that path you know last year subsidies to fossil fuel producers went up about 40 percent to about 50 billion dollars globally and while it's still early in this COVID stimulus phase we don't know exactly where the funding is going to go and there's lots of opportunities now put in the right direction much bigger purses open but they're warning signs and that is going to speak to the work they're doing with this energy policy tracker in just a moment it does seem that the fossil fuel sector and funding for it is greatly outpacing that for clean energy and that risks that lock in of a high development path high carbon development pathway that is sort of the opposite of building back better so this moment right now presents us with a critical opportunity to turn this around now clean energy paths are around the world proving themselves to be more resilient less costly more dynamic engines of jobs prosperity and well-being and the pandemic is also laid bare of this social costs and financial risks of heavy reliance on this vulnerable industry with an uncertain future you know it's understandable that countries are looking at all industries to secure jobs and strengthen their economies and but the risk in supporting fossil fuel production are particularly acute with this risk of stranded assets and social and environmental liabilities for decades to come so that's why this year's production gap report is also going to feature a special chapter that explores how this transition can be managed in a way that minimizes disruption and ensures just inequitable outcomes and it's also going to touch on the fact that several countries and other actors including in the financial community are showing real leadership with comprehensive climate energy strategies that cut fossil fuel subsidies that limit new exploration and extraction and chart a path to this diversified sustainable economy that we need to see um hopefully Andreas made it on from Costa Rica they're among the first we're seeing great action from Spain and Ireland elsewhere um glad to speak to that more mindful of time here I want to hear from others here but that's just a brief window into what this year's production gap report will touch on thanks Megan Megan you're muted try again um uh sorry uh Michael um yeah thank you for that round up and you've reminded us of the second part of the uh the headline um so the first part is uh we're producing far too much um coal oil and gas and far more than they can be safely burned um and the second part is is about the just transition and the it's not going to be easy for countries um and communities that are dependent economically on extracting fossil fuels um to diversify to find other sources of livelihoods um and uh you know that's that's the kind of political obstacle that um a lot of countries face um so should we go next to Niklas Hegelberg from UN environment program to talk a bit more about um what kind of engagement you have with governments on you know how they can manage that transition away from fossil fuels uh in in a kind of sustainable and um fair way over to you Niklas thank you Megan um the good news is that there's actually quite a number of things that governments can do to uh transition away from fossil fuels so I would say the first one uh are the the kind of plans that countries have put in place under the climate change convention so a nationally determined contributions that's one place where transition away from these can be brought in and another key document are the long term strategies where we look at then the the full decarbonization and and aiming more for that 2050 direction so those are clear market signals policy signals that countries can send uh to to kind of to demonstrate where we need to go uh these same documents whether it's one of these national determined contributions or even a sectoral uh plan can be used as the blueprints for any covid recovery investment so those plans exist right now and there's 80 of them uh of these nationally determined contributions that actually talk about fiscal policies and what are needed to uh move those uh NDCs forward so so the NDCs the long term strategies and then to use this as the blueprints in in uh in the invest covid recovery investments uh we have noticed during covid that emissions don't cut down that easily so we're around that eight ten percent mark in terms of emission reductions for 2020 so there's a much bigger systematic uh kind of system wide thing that we need to focus on so governments need to support the the system change this is not just about people flying a little bit less uh it's also about the whole system that that delivers our food produces our food uh and uh how houses are heated cooled and so forth so governments need to focus on the system that's something that is more difficult for an individual or a private sector to focus on then um i want to also raise a point on on the just transition uh there are many many people working in the fossil fuel sectors so to make the transition away from fossil fuels as smooth as possible we have to pay attention to ensure that there are proper livelihoods and that we focus on those geographical areas that are heavily dependent on fossil fuels so take india with a million we definitely do plenty of job opportunities that we can tap into and then um finally uh i want to go to the big elephant in the room and look at the fossil fuel subsidies fossil fuel subsidies are a key drain on government public resources so by focusing on kind of removing this this unnecessary fossil fuel subsidies a there can be more resources to invest into the the carbonization itself but also into health related issues now under the covid 19 situation and and then perhaps the the final part there is still an increasing amount of private sector investments going into fossil fuels ever since the paris agreement was uh was agreed upon so we need to bring more transparency and uh and focus on the continuous investments in in this but i believe that uh that some of my fellows on the the panelists will also go into that back to you maker and you're on mute again i'm like so i'm muted um right um so we are trying to get um Andrea Metta from the Costa Rican environment and energy ministry on the call but there have been some technical hitches so i'm not sure is she is she no she's not okay um so we're going to skip to the next speaker adam matthews and it does follow on from what nicholas was saying about private investment because adam represents the transitions pathway initiative and can give a perspective on the investment community and um adam sort of what can investors do to promote the transition away from fossil fuels and how much does the investment community really get the issues around climate change and you know how much is that entering the mainstream that they need to be factoring that into their financial decisions hi well thank you for inviting me um i mean my day job is as director of ethics and engagement for a pension fund the tertiary england pensions board where we're three billion pound pension funds seven forty thousand beneficiaries who have to have a pension um and be able to retire into a world that's not impacted by the extremes of climate change and we work collaboratively with many other investors pension funds across the world as asset owners and also with fund managers through key initiatives to really sort of play our role in supporting the transition so in terms of what the investment community is doing we've got the largest mobilization of investors that's ever occurred internationally at every part of the world coming together in the climate action 100 initiative focusing on the 160 systemic um and major emitting companies across multiple sectors 43 trillion dollars of assets have come together in that initiative and we each company ranging from oil and gas companies mining companies steel companies etc have dedicated investors that lead on engaging with them to put in place clear targets aligned to the goals of the Paris agreement we want to see net zero targets we want to see incentives within the company supporting that and we want to see very clear credible transition plans and tools like the transition pathway initiative which i co-chair of the environment agency pension fund um have been created by investors to have an independent academically robust way of being able to distinguish which companies are genuinely putting in place transition plans aligned to those goals and set in targets that can be verified and measured um and that requires public disclosure from the companies and we engage with them to ensure that that's forthcoming and then we use tools like tpi to basically track that performance and so you can go on to the tpi website you can see in the oil and gas sector which companies now actually are putting targets in place that align to net zero um and which aren't and we've reached a sort of a key moment really where we've been engaging with companies i lead on engagement with royal dot shell i've colleagues that do the same with bp others with reps over total others with xon etc and we coordinate very much amongst ourselves but we've reached this point where for the first time you've got a critical mass of oil and gas companies all in europe that have actually come together have made commitments and targets to different degrees of ambition and are actually engaging with the concept of net zero now let's be clear not all of those targets are equal not all of them are as ambitious as each other and each of them have interpreted the concept of net zero probably in the most favorable way to their current business but the point is as a result of engagement with investors their owners you've seen a very significant shift amongst oil and gas companies in europe and genuine strategies starting to emerge of transition in the fundamental business model of those companies now not all of those companies are going to manage this transition and some will continue to resist as you see amongst some of the major u.s oil and gas companies but you are seeing strategies emerge um following engagement with climate action 100 that's starting it to put in place some very radical shifts in the business models um and obviously at the same time you've got now this huge impact of the covid pandemic that is significantly reshaping demand for the oil and gas sector and there could be two reactions to that one is that you just carry on and try and sort of ride it out or you can actually see this as a moment to actually drive a faster transition and so far you've seen some of the europeans acknowledged that this is the moment they need to go further and faster and investors are playing a role of encouraging that but we're at a point though where actually there's only so many commitments an oil and gas company can make when actually those that buy the energy their customers need to be part of the solution and so we now as investors are working through the value chain so those that buy the energy of shell be it from aviation, shipping, road freight, road transport etc we are owners of those companies as well and so we're looking at how we can in effect link up that whole value chain from the truck the company that manufactures trucks to the people that buy the trucks to the companies that provide the energy into the system that supports trucks can you have net zero pathways through the value chain that therefore can ensure an oil and gas company provides energy into it and they know that it's into a net zero pathway that is appropriately independently verified as consistent with the goals of the Paris Agreement and we as owners of companies through that value chain have a unique role to play to bring it together to try and establish those pathways and so investors are very actively engaging with individual companies and now we're starting to bring together those chains through the customer side so I think we're at an interesting moment I think there's a huge amount that still needs to be done investors are absolutely at table but we're also absolutely clear we need the regulation you can't just expect companies to act in absence of regulation and to think that finance was sold this by itself is a nonsense and you need to have that government part of the deal followed through so we need to see the next cop with full commitments coming through from governments meeting their ambitions to put the regulatory structures in to enable companies to go further and faster and for pension funds such as ourselves to play our role and equally be committed to net zero in the way that we invest be that in companies be that in sovereign bonds of governments or be that in creating incentives in other ways. Great thank you Adam and I know there was a quite a strong emphasis on European oil companies there we haven't seen nearly so much embracing of this issue from North America but perhaps we can come back to that in the questions. Just to remind you viewers that the question box Q&A box is open you don't have to wait until the Q&A session you can ask your questions now and upvote each other's questions. You can put your name and affiliation if you like you don't have to and if you would like to address your question to a particular member of the panel then please specify that. So still I think we still have some technical issues with Andrea so I'm not sure if we can hear from her but let's go on now to Iveta Girazimchuk from IISD who is going to give us some of those preliminary findings on the COVID recovery and how much that is throwing a lifeline to fossil fuels. Iveta what are your biggest worries based on the data you've gathered and are there any particularly concerning examples where the sort of government recovery money is being ejected into some going backwards to fossil fuels rather than forward to clean energy? Thank you Megan and it's a pleasure to be here. For recovery packages we are a consortium of 14 organizations who have come together to look at case by case basis bottom up what countries are doing so we will be launching a website where you can find all this data on the 15th of July is going to be energy policy tracker.org and as of now numbers are changing every day. I would say still a lot is in the making we are kind of confirming funding only when measures have been approved and still I would say the majority of measures hasn't been approved. We still have to see what comes out of governments but the proposals and the staggering amounts of money that are on the table are the most worrying thing because this is now once in a generation opportunity to use government funding, government subsidies, loans or state enterprise investments to reshape our future and what we see right now is that pretty much what countries did before the COVID crisis they keep doing. So in this sense the crisis we have at hand has just exacerbated the trends that existed before unfortunately and there are no surprises here so countries that have looked more at reducing their emissions try to impose conditions on fossil fuel bailouts or invest more in green recovery countries that have already pulled a lot of subsidies into fossil fuels are still bailing out. Fossil fuels in this respect the overall trend is that both on the consumption and production side of fossil fuels there is more money going into fossil fuels than into clean energy. So in terms of trends some of them are already quite evident. The first one I mentioned that there are attempts by some governments now to impose conditionality and hopefully there will be more of that in terms of reducing emissions or just providing money to fossil fuel projects to clean up the mess that they have created like Canada is one of the examples where the federal government provided funding for the cleanup of toxic pollution and orphan wealth as well as for regulating methane. They could just we have to be very clear that this is still money going to the fossil fuel industry and this is still violating the polluter pays principle. So in a perfectly kind of organized system it is the polluter that has to pay those costs here is the government that's picking up the bill but it's still a step in the right direction and then in terms of a green recovery there are also different shades of green so it can be emerald green it can be jade green bottle green khaki whatever there are a lot of shades there are also especially on the production side now discussions about hydrogen which is one of the new trends so again hydrogen produced from fossil fuels and this is an agenda very much supported by some companies the so-called blue hydrogen is still fossil fuel extraction so in this sense it's not a game changer but if it comes with CCS it has less emissions and then like truly green hydrogen which comes from renewables like is again a new phenomenon but it's in both cases still a question of how safeguards are put in place and how the conditionality in both fossil fuel support and clean energy support is implemented because we've seen for instance support going to electric cars which is great but again like it depends where electricity is coming from so I think there are a lot of those different shades and we just need full transparency and if it's public money governments should be accountable for how they're spending it so overall as I said there is still a lot of things in the making so we have an opportunity now to influence the recovery and use this large amounts of public money for reinventing our future over to you okay thank you Iveta so many shades of green in the recovery and I wonder what shade you would describe Costa Rica as Costa Rica is often described as one of the greenest countries in the world you have very clean electricity you have reversed deforestation and made good progress there but the cars on your street still but mostly burn petrol and diesel right and but you what people may not know about Costa Rica is that you have a moratorium on oil and gas exploration and so I wonder if you could just talk a bit about what the thinking was behind that for Costa Rica and you know was there any tension with your development goals you know a lot of countries see oil and gases as a way to make money and lift people out of poverty so tell me about Costa Rica's take on all this thank you and I really apologize because I was having these technical problems but I'm glad that I made it at the last moment so good morning and thank you for the opportunity the first thing that I will say is that right now we really want to consolidate this moratorium this is done by decree when we launch our decarbonization plan we launch this decree to establish the moratorium but one thing that we are now doing is to promote a law so this moratorium can be enhanced in a more stronger manner one way or the other so it's something it's a big discussion that we're having right now and of course in this pandemic time we are hearing a lot of voices and a lot of pushback to try to you know say that we should one way or the other use our resources and oil and gas to pay our transition to decarbonization this is a little bit what some forces are saying I know it sounds very not not really logic but this is the kind of arguments that we are hearing right now even in a country like Costa Rica as you were saying which has this green tradition but it is that's why I will say it's like risky times right now for all these policies and it's very important for us to demonstrate that we can generate green jobs and blue jobs as well that that it is critical at the same time when we are having these conversations with multilaterals with fmi to really come with these structural packages of policies that can really implement this pathway to decarbonization and to resilience and we are doing that the current government is very committed to this agenda and in the conversations that we are having we are using our decarbonization plan to prioritize which are the kind of investments that we want to use in this recovery stage for example we are saying one of the big investments that we would like to move right now is the electric train as you were saying transport is is our nightmare right now but we know that if we invest in this train in this electric train this can be changing the way our cities are right now and transform them into a more sustainable mobility pathway and in the other hand we also need to have a balance between the urban zones and the rural areas and we are also picking precision agriculture as one of also the priorities that we have in this recovery plan right now that we are seeing and that we are proposing and it's the kind of narrative and elements that we are discussing having a lot of interaction right now with the ministry of planning with the ministry of finance one interesting element is that for example we are in conversations with IMF and IMF is having conversations with with us with the ministry of environment which I think it's a very good signal to also see if there are some conditionalities that should be included in these support packages that we are discussing right now the other element was also kind of policy based loans that we have been moving with IDB with World Bank and these policy based loans were based on the decarbonization plan so this this reflection that at the end it is possible to use our long-term strategy to mobilize resources for for one element and these resources for example on on the on these pvls they were using the response stage and they were very useful and the ministry of finance was very happy that we were allowed to use that money to the response phase and now that we are talking about the recovery phase that we have the long-term strategy the decarbonization plan and that we can prioritize which are the areas that will help us to generate green and blue jobs and uh starting this recovery stage but uh it is something that we are all the time having a pushback from different sectors and that it is critical that we can deliver soon that it is possible to generate this green and blue economy so this is a little bit the the reflection that I would like to bring and that multilaterals and IMF can really play I would say a very important role right now because these will if they come with some uh with some conditionalities these will really help this transition and and do this alignment in the whole policy structure that we have so I will leave my reflections here Megan and back to you thank you okay thank you Andrea yes that's really interesting to hear from you that even in country like Costa Rica you face these lobbying pressures and it's not always easy to to defend and promote that kind of greener approach so we've got a few questions in and keep your questions coming in we'll answer as many as we can over the next half an hour till the end of the event um so we've got a few related questions um let me just have a little skim okay so we've got a couple of questions about Africa as Zach asks um I'll ask both these questions and then it may be something that's more than one speaker wants to address Zach asks how do you see developing regions like sub-Saharan Africa achieve a just transition to renewable energy when 600 million have no access to electricity and there's a large reliance on coal and fossil fuels um so um I've got another question about Africa maybe Nicholas um you'd like to speak to this um from the UN environment program perspective um and Simon Anderson from IIED asks um on a related note where are the fossil fuel dependent developing countries of Africa and elsewhere going to get the fiscal firepower necessary to launch just transitions for sustainable development like widespread enabling of electricity access and Nicola Nicola do you want to have a shot at these those questions? I just found Zach's questions I'll have to look for the other one still but let's start with Zach's question there so indeed if you have 600 million people still without access to electricity it is something that you need to pay attention to it's one of the sustainable development goals access to energy so obviously it's a big question the answer obviously is also quite complex and it's not just like that to pull electricity line grid lines across the vast areas so there are other solutions actually that probably can deliver cheaper solutions than going for the traditional concentrated energy production and then drawing transmission lines in Kenya here where I'm living there is one company alone that that installs 600 households a day with with this kind of small scale solar solution so for a very small amount you can get a refrigerator a tv a couple of chargers and then you have your household hooked up to the solar energy I would say that these companies are at least in East Africa they are mushrooming and I can see I'm following them on social media and on almost a weekly basis do I see this kind of announcement of vacancies so they're recruiting with with really fast pace and I think that frankly it will be almost difficult for the traditional energy and electricity production solutions to to financially compete with the solutions they are providing and then sorry I missed the who provided the other question so I didn't see that one yes Simon Anderson he was asking and where are the fossil fuel dependent developing countries of Africa and elsewhere going to get the fiscal firepower necessary to launch just transitions yes I think and again I'm going to use an example from from Kenya where there's been a coal plant in making for quite some years if a country looking to find investments into its energy system obviously it's going to be looking at all the solutions that are there but if there aren't just the investors that are ready to invest into the renewables then they're going to be leaning towards the coal side of things and I think that here in Kenya we have now kind of shifted away from the coal energy discussion but there's still a major need for investment in in the other solutions so into wind and solar and then hydro and so forth back to you Megan okay and thank you and Leo Roberts from e3g asks about the equity aspect of fossil fuel production I think I'll maybe I'll throw this one to Andrea he says every country with fossil fuel reserves sees themselves as the country that will get to extract the last drop but although in principle Mozambique for example and Mozambique is looking to develop big natural gas reserves and although in principle Mozambique has more objective right to produce oil than the US the moral principle won't neatly translate into political reality and then sort of related institutional question can the UNFCCC the UN climate body realistically ever be the venue for such a discussion given its aversion to the phrase fossil fuels and yes I have to say UN climate change it's very much oriented around the emissions side of the equation and they don't really have any space for talking about the fossil fuel side so there's two questions there but maybe I'll I'll just let's start with the first one to you Andrea that you know do should developing countries be given the space to profit from oil and gas as more developed countries have or is that just kind of a dead end and it makes more sense to just go straight to renewables if you can thank you and and and this discussion of equity it's it's a big political and sensitive ones of course and and what I will say is that we all the time we're taking decisions on what is our development path and which is the kind of development that we want and and of course we we need to really consider are these elements and really have a big discussion and which is the kind of activities economic activities that can generate more jobs but at the same time can generate more welfare and can generate more health and and normally when you put all these elements together you realize that it's not possible industry that right now you can generate more jobs with renewables that right now you can generate more jobs with nature based solutions schemes and there are a lot of of elements that we need to consider and as I was saying in Costa Rica we do have gas and and petrol here in the country and and it is a big discussion that we are having but we are saying this is not the kind of development that we want because we have seen that we can generate more profit and more welfare with this green and blue model and I guess that at the end of course every country need to identify which is the kind of model that they want but I will say that it's very critical to have a balanced approach to this what we are saying is we cannot have a healthy model of the economy if we don't incorporate all these limits that we know that we need to address I think that with COVID what what is clear is that if we don't pay attention to science then we will have a lot of impact in with in the welfare of our communities and and could be really a a mess in the kind of development and responses so it's it's a little bit what I can say at the end everyone will need to identify what's the right model but we need to balance everything and there are options technological options and there are ways to really have everything in this systemic approach Thanks Andrea and I think I'm going to throw the second question to Michael the second part of that question can the UNF triple C be the venue for this kind of discussion given it's a version to talking about fossil fuels and I saw another one that's sort of related to the the kind of political dynamics about around this that maybe you'd also like to address from Amir Sokolowski he says not only are developing and least developed countries at a disadvantage in transitioning from you know in some cases more than half of their GDP depending on the production of fossil fuels but these companies countries hold political sway creating political barriers to governance change so where would the support to supplant this influence come from so I think what Amir is asking is is sort of how do you counter the oil lobby to put it more bluntly so Michael the institutional question on climate change UN climate negotiations you know are they the forum to discuss this and then then how do you counter industry lobbying? Great questions I'll admit I'm not a political scientist so I'm not going to give you a deep analysis of how to overcome incumbent interests but obviously this conversation needs to change indeed that's why we we issued the production gap report last year and presented it at the last COP and you see that conversation actually beginning to shift you see the the country's engaging on this question and I I'm almost going to jump back to one of the comments that was in the questions that referred back to how African countries respond there's this great report from the UN university called stranded assets in Africa and what it points out is that this conversation around stranded assets hasn't really happened yet in most of the world we need to start that conversation this is one of the points that Fatima Denton and crew who developed this report are making is that we need to start having these conversations around our fossil fuels a legitimate ballot and sustainable path to development and what might have seemed true 10 20 years ago may no longer seem true even given all the problems countries have run into with that path of development now back to the political question I think the more we start having those conversations in the margins the more countries come forward with this is ultimately the the UN FCC the place where we can talk about phase down of fossil fuels it taxes the existing infrastructure that is based on emissions understandably but long-term strategies that's part of the next phase of what countries are doing NBCs as Nicholas pointed out they are perfect tools for talking about how you are going to phase down the demand for fossil fuels and reducing emissions at the same time phasing down the supply because if we don't do the same there's an imbalance that perpetuates those very political interests that get in the way of progress okay thank you and I gather Adam wants to speak to the lobbying question I also noticed a question about investors an investor specific question that I'll throw to Adam let me just find it but okay Adam talk about how to count the lobbying first and then I'll find the other question and throw it to you yeah I mean look we've been as investors looking at the way that companies that are committed to the goals of the Paris Agreement are then translating that through the resourcing of industry associations in many countries and the influence those industry associations then have on the political decision-making processes and investors are very clear now that if you are committed to the goals of the Paris Agreement which we are clearly asking them to do that they need to ensure that they're not only lobbying as an individual company in that way but they're ensuring that their industry associations are also lobbying in consistent way with that and there is an enormous amount of inconsistency in that regard where you often see a lot of industry bodies having huge influence and doing something completely opposite to what some of their member companies say that they support so investors are requiring evidence of good governance from companies of their resourcing their use of their shareholders resources of their lobbying activities and you started to see some significant shifts just in the last year we've seen 12 companies in Europe make commitments and that's their lobbying infrastructure throughout the world and ensuring that there's a consistency in that and at the moment we are the judge of England along with the Swedish pension fund AP7 and the French fund manager BNP Paribas we're consulting on what a good lobbying standard should be for industry because we think it's time to define what good is and that you can actually start to have positive lobbying where you're actively working to really change the policy structure to support net zero pathways and there there's the potential alignment where you can see investors working with companies to see the regulatory shift that's needed to support that in sort of key sectors and key technology rollout etc so we think it's a hugely important role we're asking for companies to look at their complete lobbying footprint and we're looking to have transparency from them on how they're ensuring that that is consistent with their commitments to the net to Paris etc so I think there's a very important continuous role in that. Thanks Adam and just coming back to I found the question it was from Jacques Virgouli he was one of the first to ask a question put a question in the box with the increase in cost of capital and debt as well as the realization of stranded assets especially within developing countries in the oil and gas sector how are investors bridging the socioeconomic gap being formed by the withdrawal of these fossil developments across developing economies? I mean I is that at the moment look we as a fund want those companies that are public companies the major ones only an element of the producers of oil and gas most of them most oil and gas is coming from state owned companies and we need to acknowledge that what's our hook on them and their transition paths and the way they can do it well actually we also own a sovereign bonds and through that we have an avenue that investors have yet to fully explore in terms of actually trying to ensure that those companies that states have significant ownership of are actually starting to support the transition as well and this is something that we're looking to develop a framework on that's comparable to the one we currently have of companies now how do you ensure that countries themselves can sort of jump the oil and gas aspect we obviously support that we think the role of the international process is critical to it we also want to invest in all the alternative low carbon transition technologies all the low carbon alternatives we as an investor we want to do that the challenge for us is it's managing the risk of doing it and at the moment you don't have a sufficiently focused set of international institutions in the finance sector that is bridging the gap in risk to enable us to be able to put our pension funds money into it in a meaningful way there's been some good pilots we know this and what has been done with the World Bank etc but it's not at a scale at the moment that you could see major pension funds on a coordinated basis really resourcing developing countries in a way that can help mitigate the risk that there is in doing that that we currently have and I think if we could repurpose some of these institutions to really work proactively with investors then that could be one of the most helpful ways to be able to support and address the point that you're raising and I think that's where we would love to be able to be generating returns from supporting countries transitions we do it through private investments through private equity but it's not at the scale at the moment that's needed and I think there's huge potential for that to be grown and the multilateral institutions and the banks have huge role to play in that space thank you and there are a couple of them quite general questions in the chats that I'm not sure who's best to direct them to so I'm just going to read them and you wave at me if you're interested in answering them and then I'll try and throw it to whoever's interested but one this is an anonymous person but could the panelists talk more about the polluter pays principle from a moral perspective is the polluter the producer or the ultimate consumer and how do you allocate responsibility between the two so of course the and the UN climate change operates on the basis of emissions and accountability for emissions which is generally the the sort of consumption end but then the this production gap is all about how the producers also have some kind of responsibility for managing their impact on climate change and we're seeing that oil companies are you know in some places are starting to grasp that and does anyone okay Adam's raising his hand let's go to you Adam yeah I mean it's absolutely clear that the responsibility flows throughout and and it's and it's not possible to sort of hide from the responsibility if you're an oil and gas company producing products that result in emissions and if 85% of that is from people using purchasing your product and burning it you have a direct responsibility with that and you need to have a strategy that addresses it now some of the solutions you may have may not be directly in your control and are about reshaping the demand side drivers of those that come to you as customers but you also have a powerful tool in that you can choose not to sell your energy to those that do not have clear strategies to mitigate their emissions in line with net zero pathways and she'll have put that concept on the table now we're at the early stages of understanding that we need to quantify and we need an independent way of being able to work out how that could work but in theory you could see companies refusing to sell energy to people that are normally their customers in shipping and aviation in trucking for example unless they are mitigating those emissions and I think this is where partnerships are going to play a really important role to be able to find those pathways and actually those mitigations and that way you can ensure that the responsibility is acknowledged and spread and addressed and I think that's again something investors are keen to play a very active role because we own the companies through the value chains. Thank you Adam and a kind of related question again anonymous but do we need a multilateral legal framework to manage the transition away from fossil fuels fairly so for example could we have a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty in the same way that we have the non-proliferation treaty for nuclear weapons so again that's that's sort of looking at the the kind of institutional best institutional way of managing this. I don't know if Andrea would like to speak to this um picky on you Andrea any thoughts? I think that we have the Paris Agreement and it's a very strong instrument that we have and and and of course what I think is that we need to start working in in different areas in these economic areas with consumers I mean at the end is to really generate a movement that is aligned with these elements. I strongly believe in multilateralism and my country strongly believes in multilateralism it is the way but I think that we already have one good accord which is the Paris Agreement and right now what we need is to start working in climate action and implementation and we need to move fast and we need to align the different funds. We need to to greener the financial system we need to work closely with the developing community with the consumers with the producers with this value change approach I totally agree so I think that at the end is I will not spend more time in the negotiation of a new treaty I will try to invest that energy right now in climate action. Yeah fair enough it's um the UN Paris Agreement may not be perfect in addressing the supply sides of the equation but yeah who really wants to spend more time in negotiating rooms. So the next question Graham Atkins asks the SEI report on supply side measures suggests various supply side policy options for reducing the production of fossil fuels. What if any are the potential impacts of COVID-19 on the application of these kinds of policies and the likelihood of success? Does the pandemic favor any of the types of policies or actions described? Are quantity based instruments more likely due to the fall in oil price for example that doesn't I don't know what a quantity based instrument is so perhaps if Etta you could break that down for simpletons like me but I'm sure you understand the question go ahead Etta. Sure I think what's meant here is quarters for production and production cuts ultimately so and we have seen it in a most strange way like few months after the publication of the production gap report with the OPIC and OPIC plus discussions then spilling over to the G20 energy ministers so it all became about production cuts and it's of course not coming from any climate perspective it still has impact on emissions because as a result of they cut about 10 million barrels per day so I mean it still has of course impact on the baseline for emissions and it's totally not kind of a small decision by governments to implement it so I think that's going to happen more in the future and also within some countries it can happen we saw even the Texas Railroad Commission discussing like some initiatives to manage production in Texas and the United States so I think that's bound to happen and there are also other instruments that we discussed in the production gap report such as taxation, increased taxation on fossil fuel production that's also going to happen because ultimately countries are going to need money so right now we've seen a lot of text breaks and text deferrals for all producing companies but after response and recovery we're going to have austerity and there will be more taxation of fossil fuel production as well and some other things which we mentioned in the report such as also trade related measures can take place and just bands and moratoriums are still on the table I mean right now we're seeing the move in the other direction but ultimately the economics will I guess also influence the way companies and governments view viability of a lot of projects and a lot of them are going to be as well delayed and at some point subsidies to them will not become economically sustainable anymore. Thanks Yvette and I think we've got time for a couple more questions there's some quite detailed questions here you're clearly an expert audience but if there are any last minute questions do ping them up so I've got another one from Simon Anderson which I'm going to send across to Michael he asked to what extent are and will investor state dispute settlements brought by fossil fuel companies hamper developing countries choices or decisions for green transitions so this is a common feature of trade deals that there's a kind of private courts where if investors feel like a government policy is sort of racking their profits they can sue the government and can have quite a potentially quite a chilling effect on those governments climate policies so Michael what would you say about that? Frankly not that much more than you just said right there Megan I think that this is not gotten as much attention generally and I want to do a shout out to a vetted organization IISD the problem is that the way that these treaties have been negotiated can force countries to allow can limit the ability for countries to constrain a productive activity for fossil fuel production activities and leave open the potential for suits and in our international arbitration that has not necessarily been friendly to the sovereignty of countries and so there is an alternative treaty framework that a vet as colleagues have developed that is very promising for revising these investor state arrangements and so I encourage those who are motivated around this to to look into that to work in promoting that and you're seeing also a number of countries just not especially developing countries saying enough of these agreements in general so I think there is there is a promising trend in that direction um you know but let me also just point out that um no let me leave it at that that's okay thank you yeah there's there's some more awareness of it but it's still um quite an obscure process to a lot of people I guess um but um Stuart McWilliam from the global gas and oil network has a question for Andrea um what can NGOs and others do to help make the case to the IMF to introduce the right type of conditionality to allow for green and blue investment? I think that um it's good to come with a specific numbers and a specific instruments that um can contribute in this discussion I think that if different institutions and NGOs and different the UN and different spaces even like this kind of fora that we continue bringing good ideas good examples then it's I think easier that these other institutions can continue here and continue taking evidence and numbers and concrete examples of the kind of of policy instruments that should be considered in this transition I think that when you start seeing what is about green recovery there is a lot of good right now good papers out there but I think that we need to continue bringing those to this to these multilaterals and these development agencies it's critical right now because everything is moving so fast so I think that the more we have conversations and papers and and requestings like open requests from different stakeholders I think it's it's it's a good way of contributing to this okay and um there are a couple more um sort of quite technical questions that I haven't I don't think we quite have time for um so I'm just gonna um the last question is from Peter Newell who asks um this is another one for Andrea could Costa Rica be part of a first movers coalition of countries powering past fossil fuels and I guess he's inspired there has been a coalition called the powering past coal coalition um which has gathered a bit of momentum recently um could there be something broader for fossil fuels and would Costa Rica like to lead it I will say that that yes that sounds terrific that sounds super great uh my concern is that we're really a small a small group a small team but if there is a lot of people out there and and can contribute yes we can we will be honored to be leading something like that and it is even helpful for our national discussion right now and I think that we need to generate more pressure this is we really want to pass this law this is like our first milestone in in the short term you know to to do this moratorium a legally blinded thing so um even for this like an international campaign can really also contribute to all this hi it's Adam here can I just add on on power past coal because we I mean we're a member and a supporter of it and just the let's be clear that's about electric utilities switching so and that's the power of the demand side changing their demand and so if we can focus on the autos the ships our choices etc and ensure that there's a consensus and a drive to sort of adopt zero carbon pathways there then whoever produces coal it doesn't matter it because it's not going to be demand for it and that's why these sort of focuses on changing the demand is so important okay I mean I think um I think we've had a lot of great questions there and a lot of really interesting insightful comments from our panel um so I'm going to wrap things up um and say thank you to all the panellists thank you to everyone who followed along and asked questions I hope you all got something out of it um I think I think the panellists are all on Twitter so if you sort of have any follow-ups um you know the conversation can continue uh and hope to see you all next year in London um you know assuming we're allowed to leave our houses again um so thanks everyone and I'm gonna kind of wrap things up there thank you