 Well, hello there. I'm Haslinda Armen. Thank you for joining us on Greening Trade. This session will be done in two parts. The first 30 minutes will be a moderated panel discussion. The next 30 minutes will be a detailed exchange that's limited only to foreign members. Of course, of this virtual wealth week, we heard from global leaders sounding the alarm on climate threats, calling for response, reiterating that green growth is absolutely possible. And to that end, trade can play a big part in saving the planet if it is done better, if it makes a shift to no or low carbon. Right now, international trade accounts for about 25% of greenhouse gas emissions. But the links between trade and climate have often been underexplored. And that's mostly because policymakers tend to look at both trade and climate in isolation. And add to that, trade in the environment communities may not necessarily see eye to eye. Still, the 2030 agenda calls on all countries to use trade to create a more sustainable, a more inclusive, a more resilient world. So how do we get there? What trade approaches and actions are needed? What can business play in the pursuit of net zero carbon emissions? Well, today we're really privileged to have with us, Frank Riester, France's minister delegate for foreign trade and economic attractiveness, Jerome Alhann, global senior partner and Clifford Chance, and a critic of head of sustainable development at Glencore International. Anna, gentlemen, thank you for being here. And that's the extent of my French. Let's start with you. I mean, is there a conflict between trade and environment protection and climate action? Can they be complementary? Essentially, are they France foes or are they frenemies? Hello, hello, everybody. You know, first perhaps, I should say that it's quite unrealistic to consider that we should do without trade. You know, natural resources are not shared equally. And I think that no country can be entirely autonomous. And so trade has brought many things to many people and has brought many people out of poverty. And international value chains lead to efficient specialization according to competitive edges. And so trade also allows supply chains to deliver indispensable goods across the globe. And so we will therefore maintain our economy in open economy. And we want the EU to remain open. And so for that, we need to have a consistency between our sustainable development agenda and our trade practices. We have to have a consistency between efforts we ask people and ask companies and the kind of trade we are supporting. And so it's very important to consider that in a political standpoint, these efforts of we ask to people are not diminished by the increase of imports from areas that not apply the same ambitions or the same standards. And so we have the globally to create more ambition and more standards so that we could globally increase results of our policy instead of creating the condition for a race to the bottom, in fact. And so perhaps I would like to give you two examples of what we are going to do or we are doing. First is the carbon border adjustment mechanism to fight against the carbon leakage in a WTO way compatible way. It's for us very important to be compatible to the WTO. And the second example is how we deal with deforestation imported. It's unbelievable that we could imagine that increasing trade could create more imported deforestation. And so that we have to create instruments within the EU regulation to legislation to fight against deforestation imported. And that's the problem we have in the trade agreement with Mercosur. And so we are trying to find solution to be sure that the increase of our trade with Mercosur wouldn't increase the imported deforestation. And we believe that it's important to create this regulation to put pressure as well to the private sector to be more fair in this kind of topic as well. Putting pressure on the private sector minister. I want to bring Jerome into this conversation then. Jerome, how do you think trade policy makers can better align incentives with sustainable zero emission supply chains? How would this help companies enact ESG commitments? Thank you very much, Haslinda. And thank you very much first of all for having me on this panel. And also good morning everyone or good day everyone on this last day of the diverse week. So thank you for joining on this last Friday. I agree Haslinda. The move to net zero must be supported by trade policies and you said in your introduction you spoke about friends or foes. And there is this sort of myth that trade and climate are somehow unnatural betelos that they are mutually exclusive and that they do work in two different worlds, you know, the WTO world and the Paris agreement world. And that doesn't have to be the case. Trade and climate can go hand in hand and should go hand in hand. And trade can be a driver of environmental and sustainable productivity and efficiency. And there's not much that governments can do to help move the needle on this. So let me mention four points. First of all, there is the elimination of tariffs on environmentally beneficial goods and to remove barriers on environmentally friendly services. And that's a clear opportunity and can be done in a way that is entirely consistent with the broader trade liberalizing objectives of the WTO. Now many will be aware of the negotiations for an environmental goods agreement between 2014 and 2016. Those regrettably came to an end, did not succeed, we can get into that later. But there are some moves to reinvigorate those discussions and that's good. Secondly, there is clearly more that can be done to remove non-tariff barriers to trade in environmental goods. So technical, environmental and other standards can be important and can be part of any regulatory systems. But those policies should not unnecessarily increase the costs of adopting technologies which help businesses to reduce the carbon intensity of their production processes. And thirdly, and this is a big one and we had President Biden speak about it two days ago, it is the removal of fossil fuel subsidies. These obviously slow down efforts to decarbonize businesses and again we can get into more detail later if you'd like. But it was very encouraging to see President Biden speak about that the day before yesterday and in his executive orders. And finally, and Minister Risto already mentioned it a moment ago, there is the big theme of carbon border adjustments. Those impose additional taxes on carbon-intense imports and if introduced they are likely to have a really significant impact on supply chains. Now carbon border adjustments and I had the Minister say it has to be done within the WTO framework. And that's a big debate again because they are scary on one hand, they can be very complicated, they can be fraud prone and they risk country protectionism. On the other hand they excite because if done right they will help adjust hard-to-bate industries. So I think those are four areas in which governments can help and it really is the way to bring the world of WTO and Paris together. So let me stop there as Linda, thank you. We'll pick up on fossil fuel subsidies as well as carbon tech slightly later. But first Anna, I want to come to you and talk about the circular economy. It is an important way to tackle emissions for many sectors and it's been estimated that eliminating ways through circular economy could bring benefits worth four and a half trillion dollars. But I mean as production and consumption is global what are the supply chain considerations for recycling materials here? Thank you, has Linda and good morning, good afternoon everybody, it's great to be here. When we talk about the global nature of production and consumption, exactly as you say, I think it's also important to think about carbon footprints also in that holistic way. And I suppose from our Glengor perspective we're a little bit, we look at it from two lenses. We look at it as a mining company with a footprint and we look at it as a company with a significant presence in recycling. So looking at the end use of these metals and giving them a second line. But let me take a step back and start at the start and think about this holistic perspective that we must talk about and that trade is fundamental too. I think any transition strategy must take into account the full spectrum of operational portfolio and commodity impacts and you alluded to that when you talked about the role that trade plays in the global carbon footprint. So from our perspective we looked at our, when we started thinking about our transition and our transition strategy we thought about our industrial footprint. But we quickly realized that really it's only 10 percent of our total footprint when we consider the emissions from the use of our products. So in our case our commitment to net zero covers our full footprint and we are the first mining company to do so. And we believe that that's critical to meaningfully participating in the global transition to carbon neutrality and participating in this whole of business, whole of world, whole of industry thinking. And I think when we think specifically about secularity we of course start by talking about contraction of some of the high emitting sectors with alluded to fossil fuels already. But of course we also say okay so recycling is key here and as you alluded to that as well. I think what we see in recycling today and this is where I think there's such an important role for greater coherence between policy and action is that we absolutely see today a growing interest in consumer interest and sustainability credentials and responsible sourcing and recycling content. And that's great and that then of course drives greater programming by metal using companies to take back products to collect the waste. But this is where we come up against the barrier and the barrier is that as we are looking to responsibly and safely collect and recycle the scrap we are then contending with a global package of regulations and of course some are it's unfair to generalize but as of course some are far more sophisticated than others but the broad regulation is still anchored in thinking of scrap as a hazard and is taking precautions to address that whether you're talking about collection and transportation achievements. And so in practice what we see is that for companies that are complying with this regulation it's incredibly difficult to recycle at scale. I'll give you an example some of the scrap that our customers have collected for us to recycle has been sitting in the country of origin for a year not because there's any problem with payment or any problem with the customer or any problem but because the regulation is so complex that dealing through the intricacies of this storage this shipping the transportation is incredibly complex and is very much framed within that context. And I think one of the downsides of that besides of course limiting the ability of the sector the formal sector to grow is the proliferation of the informal sector. And I think that theme is so important and it's something that the minister has alluded to as well. The community impacts the proliferation of informal practices that result in unsafe and poor environmental practices can be addressed through an evolved regulation that will address these questions of how do we think about recycling in this new world. How do we think of it as part of the package and how do we make sure that vulnerable people are not left behind or further marginalize as we're looking to to embrace this to embrace and enable this transition to public neutrality. I guess in a way it requires a mindset change to a minister I want to bring you back into this conversation. France has always been a strong advocate of strong environmental protections in trade agreements. What do you think ambitious trade partners could do to better support sustainable zero emission supply chains. First we believe that trade agreements are good tools to ensure consistency coherence between our climate ambition and trade. And so we want to use in the future even more the trade agreements to move to help us to move on these issues. And for instance we want in the future that in all future trade agreements the respect of the Paris agreement would be an essential close of the agreement. And we love to in which we are working on how to monitor the implementation of the Paris agreement within the relationship between the different countries with which we are signing some agreements. And second we think that we can already monitoring the implementation of trade sustainable development chapter because you know we have already in the bilateral agreements between EU and other countries some engagement of sustainable development. And so we think that we have to better check the implementation of these chapters. We can see that this chapter are already binding because the panel that was that has worked on the EU curry agreement has shown that there are some issues that are not correctly taken into account sorry by curry. And so we are putting some pressure on curry for that but we think that in the future we'll have to put some sanctions in the agreement in the chapters so that we could directly put sanctions if the commitments are not achieved. And third we think that in the multilateral level we have to do better. We have to put sustainable development even more in multilateral agreements in the WTO and the reform of the WTO will be useful for that. And we think that in the ongoing negotiation we could be better we could do better and I could say that the fishery negotiation could be a good example of how we could put more sustainable development in the agreements and in negotiations. And I totally agree with Anna that it's very important to use trade agreements to take the different private actors to a more circular economy to a more circular processes. And so it will be a day out of our ministry conference ministerial conference at the WTO level in the end of the year specifically perhaps on plastic issues. Jerome as you indicated slightly earlier sometimes it's also about removing incentives as it is about introducing incentives. And you mentioned fossil fuel subsidies by some calculation global carbon emissions will be cut by 20 percent and by doing that government coffers can be added by trillions of dollars. Yet this is not happening fast enough. Why is that so and what can be done about that. Well thank you as Linda I mean the abolishment of fossil fuel subsidies is obviously politically fraught. There is of course a big lobby for keeping them in place. They've been talking about abolishing fossil fuel subsidies I think since 2009. But you know the stars are now more aligned. We've had this week a lot about you know the net zero ambitions and targets of China of the EU of the US. And I think if you listened again as I said in my first opening remarks to President Biden and to John Kerry early this week also here in Davos about eliminating fossil fuel subsidies in the US which is particularly of course a country where there's been a lot of support for these subsidies. I mean that is a big move. I think the fossil fuel subsidies stand at something like 500 billion dollars and they're clearly distorted you know existing trade flows and incentivize continued reliance on these higher emission production processes. So I think taking away these fossil fuel subsidies will make a big difference. And we could also think that at a time when government finances are even more strained as governments seek to respond to COVID-19 and there's sort of less fiscal space the potential to redirect these environmentally harmful subsidies to other initiatives is I think significant. So I think we'll see real move there and I think the more certainties that exist for companies about the long-term shape of these policies and of these subsidies disappearing the more willing businesses will be to make the big shifts that are needed. Thank you. And Anna as you suggested earlier Glencore has been pretty successful in in meeting exceeding its ESG targets. Part of the whole equation is also social inclusion. Take us through the thinking behind that and how it's benefited. I guess it's provided more equality. Yeah. And thanks Linda. And I think that this question of inclusion is so much in the hearts of what we're talking about. And as COVID-19 brings more into focus questions of inequality of social detriment caused by the by the pandemic we need to ensure that as we are working to create and establish a low carbon economy we're not we're not leaving people people behind. As we think about that from from an energy perspective the importance of inclusive energy and the importance of again thinking about that policy perspective cannot be understated. But also I think as supply chains you know we started this panel by talking about the global nature of production and consumption and that just continues to be I think a sort of a thread that that we through this this conversation. One example that we've really grappled with and engaged with is the the the the commodity of cobalt you know an essential commodity needed for electric vehicles for batteries and it's it's it's it underpins in a lot of ways it's essential to the transition to low carbon economy. However we've seen how legitimate absolutely legitimate concerns about terrible operating practices and child labour that's associated with the artisanal mining of that cobalt in in part of the Democratic Republic of Congo has risked marginalizing further already vulnerable people as their concerns concerns would start driving sort of purchasing behaviors for for for the commodity. So we've been working with the whole with the cobalt supply chain with our partners in that chain that with with who we work commercially as well as as on the ground. We've looked to address this challenge by becoming a founding member of the fair cobalt alliance which is a whole of supply chain partnership that recognizes that that artisanally mined cobalt that cobalt produced by people you know very very poor very vulnerable people can absolutely play a legitimate role in the supply chain but that we must take action to eradicate child labour and and improve operating conditions in the in the in those cooperatives. And I think it's that the reason I give that example is because I think we must as supply chains and and obviously we're looking at support from from policy as well to be mindful of how as we're as we're looking to towards not only a low carbon economy but a successful low carbon economy that we don't inadvertently widen the gap the gap of inequality. Minister earlier you talked about the border carbon tax as planned by the EU how far do you think that will prevent carbon leakage. Do you see the move even encouraging non-EU companies exporting to Europe to kind of mission and in turn kind of what's charged to them or could the move lead to protectionist response by other trading blocks instead. It's for us we believe that this kind of mechanism will force other countries to be more ambitious in that field and that the the the costs cost more important to to to produce with within a green way will be will be compensed by the by the mechanism so that we could put pressure on countries that do not apply this kind of of a good way of producing and and so the difficulty is that we don't want that it could be a kind of competitiveness tool but a tool to to put everyone in a good in a good way to produce and that's that's the difficulty we have in front of us so that this mechanism could be accepted by by everyone in fact even by the US even by China and even by all the the country that are engaged in in the climate fight and we have to convince our partners of the of the pertinence of the of this mechanism. Jerome do you agree do you think it will encourage the others to follow suit? I think that would be the hope and I do agree with the minister it's a matter of communication communication and communication to getting to understanding why it is needed because without the the the the carbon border adjustments there is the risk of leakage you know both in getting imports from from countries where there are less environmental standards and the other way business is moving out of for example region to the EU to countries where that is the case and as I said in my introduction you know it's both on the one hand these adjustments are on the one hand scary there can be very complexly to a lot of bureaucracy and and also lead to protectionism which is why there's this concern and that is why there's a direct conflict with you know the the liberalized trade idea behind the WTO thinking but at the same time they can have very positive benefits as well and level the playing field so I do agree agree with the minister but it will be one that is potentially fraught with conflict and as we know currently the WTO is not very operational certainly not the absolute body so how do you resolve disputes now I'm a litigation lawyer so you know means a lot of business for people like me but I don't think it is what will what will further the cause of sustainability so I think that hell bringing together of the WTO and Paris thinking as I said in my introduction and you mentioned friend or foe and are they strange bedfellows I think there's a lot of work and thinking that continues to need to go into that and I heard the minister say you know we want to make these cross border adjustments WTO compliant but there's a level of complexity there but I think it is the right direction at the moment until there is a real level playing field that's right I mean the reorganization that the WTO could be a step in the right direction and I know we talked about how there are lots and lots of challenges but we've got to consider the role of clean technology clean and G can play a significant role in the transition to a green economy it helps resources be used in a more sustainable manner waste products can be recycled the question really is access to these clean technology what are the key issues here thank you the big ones look I think the first the first barrier and and really kind of going back to to the foundations of this principle barriers access to the commodities required for these technologies we cannot build solar panels winds wind turbines we cannot look at the transformation of the energy systems that that we need we cannot electrify transportation without access to metal we've done some modeling of the various climate scenarios that have been developed and we see in under any scenario whether we continue as we are or we achieve that radical transformation we see a material uplift in demand for metals such as copper cobalt zinc nickel and of course there's only so much metal that exists in the world you know I think we've seen under some of those scenarios demand for copper expecting to double by 2050 and for cobalt to quadruple where does that metal come from and of course recycling will be part of the answer and we've talked about that we've talked about the fantastic potential but also some of the barriers that that we see from our perspective today but I think we also have to think about the fact that we will need to access new metal recycling is not going to be able to fulfill all the needs we will need new metal and and this is going to be made more challenging going forward because the new minds that we know of the new the reserves that we know of today that are not being mined are increasingly located in hard to get to high risk difficult difficult to operate in in places with that that carry with them a very significant social and environmental considerations and again and I said as I said before it is so important to make sure that we don't lose sight of those of those of those considerations and make sure that we work on them hand in hand and so I think it's it's an important it's it's a barrier it's a consideration and I think there's some thought to be put to how policymakers in some of these mineral rich countries and how their partners in in sophisticated jurisdictions such as the European Union for example don't lose sight of how to continue to enable access to that new metal while also not compromising on on the importance of responsible operating practices how do we move those hand in hand there is a question here from a participant and minister maybe I'll post this to you do you agree that in the new normal we must reject trade at all costs and push instead for trade to be built on credible inclusivity sustainability integrity and transparency and I guess you know amid the pandemic there's always an urge to put yourself first the beginning of the panel that in my opinion it's unbelievable to think that we should do without trade because it's useful for many people and it's useful for economy and many people in development countries are waiting for some services some products we have in some other countries since a long time so the issue is how to produce and and to exchange and how to produce in a greener way recycling thanks to innovation so we have to invest a lot in innovation and we have to be sure that the the increase of trade would not have a negative impact in specific ways I talked sooner about deforestation and I could I could say that the the trade could be even could be perhaps a way to push some countries to do better in in sustainable development that's really in our mind in France and in Europe it's to use the the lever the tool of trade agreements of trade partnership to push people that need to do to to trade with us to to do better in in sustainable development in biodiversity in deforestation in climate change fight so no I think that we have to to to be open we have to be determined to maintain a international trade for all the reason I advocated jobs prosperity access to services and to to certain products for many countries but and we have to invest a lot in technologies so that the way we produce could be a more sustainable and we have to use the tool of trade agreements to push everyone to go up in our practices and to produce to consume and I think it's possible the the fact that the US come back in the Paris agreement and the fact that Biden and Kerry and and the new administration is so implicated so involved in sustainable development issues is a good news for all the world and I think as China is and says says that they are really committed on these issues as well I think we could do much better in the years to come on that very optimistic note minister I'd like to thank you your own as well as Anna for the insights today we wrap up the first session of this hour-long session thanks for joining us thank you for joining the conversation