 Please, when you make your request for a question, hold up a piece of paper or something, because from this distance we might not see you. Good. John Langmore, could you introduce yourself? Yes, I'm John Langmore from the University of Melbourne, spending a month at wider. Each of the three speakers talked about the need for more evidence and the question really is how can development assistance be used effectively to encourage research in each of the countries, in developing countries as well as developed countries. A lot of it is concentrated in developed countries, but the question is how does development assistance get channeled into research or education in ways that will lead to research so as to generate the kind of information for which you're rightly seeking. Okay, thank you John. That's the tone of the kind of question that we want. Very direct. John is a former member of the Australian Parliament, so please, the next question from this side. We take this side of the room first, on the left hand side, don't be shy, particularly our people who've travelled very far. Yes, sir, introduce yourself and particularly say where you're from, if not local. I'm Sudhakar Reddy from the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Bombay, India. There is a question to Dr. Halanen, and he has presented the costs until 2100. You might be aware, you have to incur future benefits and you have to invest in today. What is the discount rate you take to convert future benefits into present costs? Okay, thank you very much. A very pertinent question about the discount rate. Let's take one more from this side of the room and then I will switch over because I know there are people eager to get in from the right hand side of the room. From the left hand side of the room. We have the shy ones on the left hand side of the room. Go in, go in, go on. Okay, we switched to the right hand side of the room. Okay, we have lots of questions on the right hand side. Could we start from the back? Yeah, could we start from the back? Yes, the gentleman there, please introduce yourself, Yong Fu. Thank you very much. I am Yong Fu Wang from UNWIDE. There's a global consensus and climate change is among the global challenges of our age. There's no doubt we should tackle climate change. And we understand developed countries has been doing lots of work in helping climate change mitigation adaptation in developing countries. But the question is the climate actions or climate finance from developed countries are relatively limited. Actually not enough for the finance required. So my question is from the government point of view, and what has it been doing to encourage private sector to engage in the climate change mitigation adaptation action? Because a private sector is very important for climate actions. Thank you. Okay, thank you, Yong Fu. That's a very pertinent point for all of the private sector. I noticed at the Copenhagen meeting a few years ago, the private sector was very active and desperate for leadership actually from the public sector. Okay, the next question on this side. The gentleman in the middle, we're sort of working down. And I have a gentleman in a blue suit at the back there. So we'll take you first, sir, and then chapter the back. I think it's Augustine. Okay, my question is a little bit in this direction. I know that it's important to understand more how to mainstream climate in development. But at the same time, we also know there is the finance for this, particularly for developing countries. There are the climate fund, the green funds, and also the commitment of some countries to raise 8% to up 1% of GDP. And many of these commitments have not been matched. And then where the money will come from for those actions, particularly when you're talking, you know, that you need around 100 or 200 billion dollars a year in aid, just for climate change. Where the money will come from. And could you just say who you are and where you're from? Okay, Josepho Pindolevira, the UNUIS, Japan. Okay, thank you very much and welcome. So please at the back there, and then we'll come back down to the front gradually. Yeah, to Augustine, please. Sorry, I have the lights in my eyes, so I can't quite see people. Yeah, that's all right. I'm the gentleman in the suit. Augustine, first you and you wider. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Tony. It is quite clear from the three presentations that there's a strong interaction between climate change and development. In particular, I would like to hone in on the issue of subsidies, which I believe Hennan now mentioned. And to the extent that the demand elasticity is quite low in developing economies, precisely because there's not much substitution, not much alternative. So trying to reduce subsidies may not actually be an effective way as far as climate change is concerned. I think the most impact is likely to be on government finances. So the question I would like to ask then is how can we increase elasticity such that those kinds of policies, such as the reduction in government subsidies, might indeed have a greater impact on the climate change issue. Thank you. Okay, thank you very much, Augustine. The issue there of reducing subsidies is very much the political point. Now, could we take two questions now from the right-hand side to the panel? If we could have the lady here, please, if you could introduce yourselves. Hi, I'm Rianti Gelante, local government from Indonesia, but also PhD student at Mokwari University in Australia. I'd like to have a general comment from the three presenters. Sometimes this is from my own experience working at the local level in Indonesia. Sometimes it's what I have seen so far that all these informations are available, actually. So what I can suggest for development organizations, rather than trying to, like if we were to start the adaptation planning program, we should start from the local government with just increasing their understanding and making them aware that all what available information that are available and now bring them just to make their decision based on what's available, rather than trying the hard way from like downscaling climate information, for example. Thank you. Yes, now this is very important. We're reminded here that, you know, it's not just central government. It's also the main actor. It's also the local government. So if you could take the gentleman there on the very right. I'm going to fit a few more in and then ask the panel to respond because we have a lot of questions. Yes, good morning. I'm Krishna Tiwari from Nepal. I have queries about, from the development agencies. Yes, Danida and Deepit, they have prepared the nice policy and then documented in Nepal also on the climate change, like the NAPA and local adaptations. But the things is the policy and are the very nice in the papers, but the implementation mechanism is very poor. But even we have the very much limited data about now we like our country, the less developed country, we talk about everything happening. They talk, they link with the climate change. Does it is really from the climate change or other activity? We have the very limited research data and also limited capacity, because they are the paper in the policy, but those, they have idea and Danida, they have prepared with the consult of the government. But in the practice, there is a very limited capacity, even the no research. So how these situations, these development assistance help for research and educations in the sectors. Thank you very much. Okay, so there's a lot of talk, a lot of paper, but not enough work on the implementation capacity. So the gentleman on your right, if you could introduce yourself. Thank you. I am Nirmal Kumar BK, Kathmandu University, Paramnipal. I have a short question. Particularly presentation are focused on economic dimension of climate change. And climate change also issue of social issues, inequality issues. And the goal of development cooperation is also reducing the inequality, particularly social inequality. My question is how we link climate change policy development cooperation and inequality, particularly social inequality issues. Thank you. Okay, so very much pertinent for an institute like Wider that's done a lot of work on inequality. And indeed, is climate change actually exacerbating inequality? I think the gentleman to your right was about to ask a question. Could you introduce yourself? Yeah, I'm Darrell Sequer, an independent consultant and an environmental ecologist. My question is quite short, which is that it concerns the mitigation measures, which of course as an environmentalist I would favor. The big challenge I think is whether we have the resources that would be required to make an effective mitigation. Because for instance, if we are to control carbon emissions, there's needed to be a huge revolution in the way we use fuel, et cetera, and stopping environmental degradation and so on. Do we really have the resources to have an effective mitigation measure against climate change? Okay, so the appeal there is are we going to live up to our revolutionary principles with resources? Okay, now unless anybody has a desperate urge to come in with a final question for the panel and yes, I will give it to you, sir, please introduce yourself. That's all right. Thank you so much, Chair, for giving this opportunity. And thanks a lot to all the panel members for excellent presentation. My point is one of the speakers has put forward the need for removing subsidies. That's well appreciated and in fact many countries like, say, India, for example, has been responding in a way to cut down on subsidies. As I understand, the subsidies is meant to address the consumption side of the issue in the sense, not the supply side, but the consumption side, reduce the energy consumption or improve the energy efficiency in consumption as such. But I would put a question to the panel, do you have a similar or a parallel thing in the industrialized world? Means a mechanism where the consumption patterns can be controlled. You're suggesting subsidies for cut-off subsidies for developing countries, a parallel industrialized countries where consumption patterns can be controlled by means of a mechanism. If you can suggest that, I would appreciate it. Okay, and you are from, sir, I didn't quite catch that. Sudhakar Ritlap from Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai. Okay, welcome. So, let me return to the panel and we have a range of questions for you. Just to recap, we have a question from John Langmore about how ODA can be better used to encourage more research on the questions of both developed and developing countries. There's a question particularly to Mico about the thorny issue of the social discount rate, which for enthusiasts of theoretical economics is crucial, but is also crucial for practical action. So maybe Malcolm will follow up on that one. Youngfrew from Wider is asking about, well, you know, we have a big story here about climate change, but are we actually living up to our promises from the rich world? Either Malcolm or Henning might want to take that one. He's appealing for more private sector action. Augustin is raising the very important issue about how we really analyse subsidies and how we manage the phasing out of those subsidies when there are limited possibilities of substitution in energy choices. Our lady from Indonesia has urged us to think about local government, not just national government, which is obviously crucial in the larger countries as well as the smaller. Our gentleman from Nepal was urging us to look beyond our paper to implementation capacity, and his colleague was appealing for more work on inequality and climate change. Any of the panel might like to take that. And then our environmental ecologist was saying, well, we have a revolution on our hands, but where are the resources? Finally, our gentleman from India, of course India is very pertinent at the moment because there's a big discussion in the Indian government about the reduction of energy subsidies and actually the impact of that on poverty and inequality, so it's a real political hot potato. So any of the panel might not care to take that. Okay, so gentlemen, who would like to go first on those responses who is going to stand up bravely to the challenges that our audience is posing us? Malcolm, you look a very brave man. Thank you very much. On the first question, I won't necessarily go through all the questions because I'd like to share some of the joy with my panelists. On the first question on how development assistance can be used to encourage research, I think one way is, I mean DFID does fund an enormous amount of research, and often the way we structure our research is to try to establish collaboration between Northern Research Institutes and universities and research institutes within the developing world. So often that is a condition of the support that we provide. So I think that's one way. The other way is actually we can help generate the evidence ourselves and certainly with the resources where we are ourselves, our earmarked climate funds, and there's 2.9 billion over four years for climate change, we have a very, very strong focus in that on monitoring and evaluation. So this itself should start generating evidence on what works. So again, hopefully, we know so little about what effective climate action is in many respects. Yes, we can take lessons from development. Yes, we can take lessons from disaster risk reduction. But on some of the more tricky issues, we do need more evidence. So I think monitoring and evaluation and the data sets that should generate would be good if researchers could pick up on some of this and synthesize the findings and challenge some of the things that come out. The question on discount rate, Tony kindly asked me to address that. I think the specific question was in relation to the table that was put up or the graph that was put up. I don't know the answer to that one. What I will say is that I think we do need to look at discount rates. I don't think we need to look at discount rates and fiddle the discount rate in order to get the result we want on climate change. But I think discount rates were a big issue in Project Appraisal back in the 60s. I think thinking has moved on and certainly in the last 10 years there's been an awful lot of thinking on discount rates. And I think now there is an emerging consensus in the economic profession that you shouldn't use fixed discount rates. Where you have uncertainty about future growth rates it is appropriate to use declining discount rates. And these aren't declining because of behavioural economics and hyperbolic discount rate, discounting. This is more because of the uncertainty in the future growth. There is a really quite exciting literature emerging on discount rates and certainly the use of declining discount rates. On the private sector, I will answer this one because we are trying to put quite a lot of our resources to work with the private sector. In part we need to understand what the market failures are that is hindering the private sector. Within the UK government we have a very strong rationale for our public spend. So we want to make sure that our spend is additional to what would otherwise have happened. And that means that what we can't afford is for our spend simply to displace what the private sector would otherwise have done. So there is a strong notion that our resources have to leverage in additional private sector resources. So in part it comes down, as I mentioned earlier, to understanding what are the barriers, whether they be market failures, government failures or just behavioural inertia that is withholding or holding back the private sector. But we are also exploring whether we can work with the private sector in new ways. So we are exploring use of funds or funds in order to leverage in more private resources. So equity finance, the extent to which debt is an issue. We are looking at the different market failures, if you like, within the financial sector. I will leave questions on subsidies to others. I think your point on local government is a good one. I think that links in many ways with the question of implementation capacity. I think again this comes down to the fact that these things take time and we can't build capacity in all things at the same time. So I think it comes down to prioritisation. And I think a purely bottom-up approach is obviously good in many ways. But a purely bottom-up approach, if you are not looking long enough ahead, risks being maladaptive. So yes, ultimately the reactions have to be local. But I think having a longer term and higher perspective on things can also be good. Okay, thank you Malcolm. Of course Malcolm will be here for further discussion. Henning, I'd like to turn to you. Denmark and the Nordic region as we've said has an outstanding record in environmental policy and climate. But we're dealing with developing societies of great diversity. What's your perspective on this as a donor in the conversations that you have with poultry makers? Well I think that if I may start just a little on some of the questions first and then perhaps revert to that issue. But I think that it might be linked to that. I mean some of the challenges as I try to outline we see, I mean this is fairly complex. I mean the question is to what extent ODA in fact can be a vehicle and is a significant vehicle with respect to moving on climate change issues. I fully agree with the consideration of the role of the private sector. We also having a stronger view on the private sector, a stronger view on innovative financing. The question about that, will we ever raise the funds available or needed to really to combat climate change within the ODA portfolio? I think we all agree for sure we will not. I think the frustrating issue at the moment is that there's a lot of funds around standing idle which basically is doing no difference out in countries to say it very simple. And that's where it comes back to these issues on local implementation capacity and I very much agree with what was mentioned from Indonesia that's what we realize ourselves that basically the problem is a little to get this connect. And as Malcolm is saying, we're not overnight building up that capacity to absorb and to bring these funds into real action but it's something we should have a much more firm focus to, much more firm focus on getting results. And on the research issue because we need the research, I mean we need the evidence to support this action because we also need the evidence to get our political system, not only our but also the countries political system to understand the urgency of these actions. To get that in place, we need of course to improve research and there was a question of what we are doing to improve the research in our partner countries. And I think as Malcolm is saying, it's not an easy issue. I mean we have been struggling around in Danila with this for many, many years. We are having, I can just say, a very strong focus on trying to reach out in our partner countries with research capacities. How exactly we'll do that is a very good question. There are a lot of options. We are not there yet. But I think some of the support we have been having for the African Economic Research Consortium is a good example of how you can work with networks in Africa on some of these issues because they have been doing quite a lot of nice work on economics and climate change. I'm not an economist and I'm not going to go too much into this subsidy issue but I'm mentioning it because we all know you asked for an example. I mean this is a political issue. I mean do you want to change the way your society is running or do you not? And of course there's a lot of business interest in this. But let's take, I always put that example of the introduction of renewable energies in Denmark. I mean the introduction of wind energy into the Danish energy mix. That was only possible because of an active or proactive political decision on bringing subsidies into that system. For 10 years it was possible to get a feed-in tariff which was subsidized but which made it attractive for people to invest even local people into wind energy. So you need to actively to do this. But for the political system to work with these kind of models they need to know what they're dealing with and that's where the research comes back into the system. So we need better modeling of what are the consequences of this not only economically but not at least as I mentioned from Indonesia the socio-economic issues. Yes we do a lot of plans and strategies. I mean we have to realize that ODA cannot change everything. I think some of the things we can do as we did and are doing in Nepal and we're still in Nepal we are doing yes of course to work with the government and some of these issues. So I very much agree that building regulation, registration and framework and strategy will do the whole trick but it's part of the game and it's probably a place where ODA can do a difference but again it has to be of course combined with building local capacity for action for implementation. Okay thank you very much Henning. So I would now turn to Miko. Miko in your presentation you appealed for a revolution in society as the integration of science and economics as resonated by Malcolm. A number of the questions related to this revolution. Do we have it? I would like to say the name of the bar or restaurant where it's happening tonight but actually that's a joke. First with regards to the question about this discount rate in this particular case I'll provide you with the source of that study it was referring to a 3% discount rate and I'll give you the source to it but I would like to say that I fully agree what Malcolm said and my point only point here is now that it's important that the discount rate comes out of the black box. It has been many times in the black box and politicians decision makers don't know what it has been and what the change in it would mean for the outcome of these calculations. That's my main point that the discount rate is on the table and people understand what it means for these calculations of costs of inaction or action. That's what I can add. With regards to the point on local adaptation I fully agree on that one. Yes in most cases there is enough information to go about it. People have been adapting to natural climate variability and will do so also but in the future the big picture because coping is not enough. Usually the objective is poverty reduction and it's not enough just to manage and cope. And with regards to the question from John about maybe research collaboration yes for instance the Finnish government is also doing a lot exchange of students and there maybe what I would like to add is that there is a possibility to engage more non-governmental organizations NGOs to work also with the education of the maybe primary education also and see what can be done there and maybe on the media side. And to maybe conclude about do we have the means and resources to change things and maybe to this question about revolution then easy answer would be that we don't have a choice but and then we can also look to the history and we can look at this European continent and we have seen a major wall being cut down and then if again you go a little bit further back you have seen us build the wall so you can find good and positive and negative cases from the history. Very much I would say that it's a question working on climate change since the past 10-15 years it's a question about transformation and hopefully it's going to be peaceful transformation management what we need. I think that's a very good theme on which to end this session the need for peaceful transformation but also effective transformation. I'd like to thank our panel Miko, Malcolm, Henning for getting us off to an excellent start I'd like to thank you, the audience for your excellent participation