 The great thing around the COP or any COP is that you start to see solutions and that you go to a number of the provisions where you start to see where successes are happening and then those successes are taken back by stakeholders or by governments or intergovernmental organizations to accelerate change and that's I think really important and then you have emerging issues that are coming up like blue carbon or whatever they're doing in the water constituency or in the health constituency and those are helping also in the outside space to kind of have air to develop now if they mature like the ocean discussion they will find their way in ultimately to the negotiations but to begin with you want those that are already want to move that like the methane pledge to go ahead and actually prepare the ground so that when it comes into the negotiations it's a lot easier to get commitments and to some extent you know if you've already delivered on some of the commitments the issue then is how do you help the countries that have yet to be able to have the capacity to join that conversation and around the methane pledge there is a secondary organization that helps with capacity building with funding and with tech transfer so you're seeing the emergence of these coalitions of the willing but then the emergence of mechanisms to help those to deliver and I think that's a very exciting space welcome to inside ideas with me mark buckley we will be speaking to regenerative futurists gain changers on systemic change and about desirable futures with those who want to see us on the right side of history brought to you by 1.5 media innovators magazine and sponsored by the aloha's regenerative foundation felix dodds and chris spence are my guests on this episode of inside ideas brought to you by 1.5 media innovators magazine and the aloha's regenerative foundation we're here today to discuss heroes of environmental diplomacy i've got it right here from earth scan and rutledge a fabulous book we're gonna we're gonna dive deep into it felix and chris both are the editors of this book and brought together some stories and tales real life experiences from people on the ground experiencing this and although they probably didn't know it at the time that they were heroes it has emerged that they've done some horrific feats uh felix it has been a leading thinker in the area of global governance for 30 years now a vice president multiple of multilateral affairs rob and melani walton sustainable solution services at arizona state university and an adjunct professor at the university of north carolina previously he was an advisor to the food foundation and their grantees for the development of the sustainable development goals he was the co-founder of the community task coalition for supporting sdg 11 on sustainable cities and communities from 1992 to 2012 he was an executive director of stakeholder form and during that time he has chaired the first un conference to come out with a set of indicative sdgs in september 2011 he has edited and written tons of books 24 and three of them i've now officially been on the podcast he's been here before and i'm so glad to have him back um chris chris fence is uh also here as you can see my lovely guest chris is a hero of environmental diplomacy profiles encourage he's also a writer environmentalist has worked internationally on sustainable development conservation climate change health policy and he has held leadership positions at nonprofit organizations in new york new zealand and california he also consulted widely for the united nations i u c n world conservation union for the international institute for sustainable development iisd and he has undertaken assignments in more than 40 countries on five continents focused in particular on climate change and sustainable development policy and practice as well as international law he's also served as a political advisor and journalist and been on the boards of several environmental organizations he is also an award-winning writer chris is the author and co-author of several books including global warming personal solutions for a healthy planet um paul grave mac millen in 2005 as the publisher rock happy in 2021 he holds an m a and a b a degrees in political science history from victoria university and he's the singer and part of a kick-ass band tdk the the band out of the san francisco bay area and they play exactly the type of music i like welcome both of you superstars to the show thank you thank you very much great experience it's still good to have you here and if anybody knows uh amount of anything within sustainability especially in the spaces of the united nations those um accolades that i just gave you with your introduction are actually pretty damn short because they go on and on if you get into the space of diplomacy negotiations into the um space not only is it is a maze of governance and international organizations and acronyms and abbreviations and this commission and this committee and this chair and and that it just goes on and on it is uh you have to almost be a hero just to make your maze through that uh uh web of of climate environment human rights issues that that are dealt in and that we're just talking you know the united nations but that's that's a big beast in another cell so i uh appreciate you bringing and surmising um some of yeah because this is this is the book here and it shouldn't scare anybody because most of the material that comes out um that talks about climate un ipc reports when you see them you're they're using biblical proportions and you're like oh i'm going to have a heart attack i i i don't even read my kids uh bedtime story let alone these these big words that you guys have nicely edited and brought together some beautiful stories on on how things have developed and so first of all wanted to to really thank you for that and as we get in into our discussion today right at the beginning the book dedication uh is to those who who you who you talk about in the book um who have taken part in these intergovernmental mental negotiations those who have been trying to secure fair and equitable and sustainable worlds for all of us to live in and uh it's a thank you to them and having been at many climate conferences i it's a big task to to get into this space so you've done you've done a job a wonderful job in the beginning um i want to start out with the first question with felix and really felix it's good to see you again we saw each other at cop 27 and in egypt and shaman shake um and so i want to catch up with both of you first how are you how have you weathered it and how how how did you leave that that uh that climate conference are you okay did you survive are you going to make it to the next one well uh well first start chris has written a bedtime story for children and so he can tell you a bit about that when you go to him and it's a really good book as well the first of many um i went away from egypt before the final negotiations had been completed and i was following the agriculture negotiations which were one of the last ones i mean it was in a sense an intermediary cop and so um that we got an agreement on loss and damage was a real surprise to me i had not expected that to happen and so i think the um pakistan presidency of g 77 and the presidency of the cop the egyptians deserve a lot of credit for getting that through how how it will develop in the next year and become operational we'll have to see but i think that was a really important um development so i i think the the event um the cop was a was a success um i don't think there's more we could have got out of that cop than we did so i feel pretty happy about it and i think there are a whole lots of interesting things that have already started to happen so there is already a transitionary committee for uh for the loss and damage uh it'll meet in luxor in a week's time i think uh so you know people are still carrying on working they're not waiting for the next cop why and and i believe this is because you're a heck of a diplomat and have have this a great sense of diplomacy or political correctness about you why when i hear you talk about it it sounds like you're cheering about loss and damage i think it's about uh a low of r as we could have set and i was just wondering what why cheer about it why or why should we be excited about something that's actually coming up short well for a start the i my prediction was that we wouldn't get we wouldn't get any agreement on loss and damage and i actually remember saying this to the chief pakistan negotiator for root khan and then they managed to get an agreement so that there is an agreement we'll have to see what happens but that is a huge difference than what i expected to come out now if you're asking me what needs to happen do we just wait for that loss and damage fun to come into existence which doesn't accept historical responsibility then i'd say no i was literally in barbadas this last week talking uh with some with the caribbean development bank about trying to advance um some funds now or soon to enable support for vulnerable groups because the loss and damage fund won't come to medium-sized countries like barbadas it'll go to least developed countries or um least least developed countries and it'll go pretty much i think for infrastructure so the question is how do we use the result to get additional funds to go to vulnerable groups like children or women or people with disability or indigenous peoples or in this case the one i'm looking at is small-scale farmers and fisher people thank you i really appreciate those insights chris were you also at cop and and how is to your extent your your participation in all all these uh right after cop there was cop 27 there was cop 15 in montreal um next week or in a couple days we'll have the uh water conference in in new york um hopefully i'll see you guys there um so i'll be there as well but i just kind of want to know where are you at and how are you feeling where we're going now moving forward what's how how have you weathered the storm and what what's your your stance where you're at now yeah that's a that's a great question so i was like you guys i was at cop 27 um there with uh i was so i was representing the earth negotiations bulletin which is a specialist kind of reporting service that kind of looks at what's happening and tries to explain it in a very balanced and even way um and analyzes what's going on it's a great it's a it's a great resource for those who really want to get the groups with what's happening in these negotiations so if you're interested check out enb earth negotiations bulletin and you'll find out more but i came away feeling a little bit like like felix that there was we got out of it more than i expected now granted my expectations were were quite low i didn't i did not expect the loss and damage fund and that's that's a good thing um you know sadly there wasn't progress on you know getting that big scary number down like keeping us within the 1.5 degrees we did not make the progress that we needed to do at cop 27 but you know as felix mentioned that was you know he referred to cop 27 as being a kind of intermediate or intermediary cop and that's that's it's it's something that if you speak to climate insiders they'll tell you that these cops and are not necessarily designed to be one-off we're gonna change the world or save the world with one cop you know we're now at cop 27 we've made significant progress but it is incremental gains and i think that i think the key thing coming into to be aware of when you're looking at these un meetings is that they're designed to be they're designed as a marathon happening over multiple years rather than a sprint to you know suddenly save the world they're not cop 27 no single cop is a superman or superwoman sweeping into save the day and so you know they're not designed that way now no it would be great if they could be but that's just that's not how they're set up and so within the constraints of the un system i think it was a pretty decent cop and i'm pretty excited for a cop 28 and then you mentioned the un water summit which is starting in a couple of days which i'm also looking forward to and i'll be there also and i'm looking forward to seeing what level of commitments countries make there you know and what they bring to the table because it's it's another process where where governments really need to step up and and improve their game so yeah i'm feeling cautiously optimistic but uh yeah let me just come in there a couple of things i i think that um on the the cop itself you know what we saw was um if we look at prior to paris we were on a four to six degree trajectory by the end of the century we're now on a 1.8 to 2.4 or 2.7 so we're talking about a massive change you know relatively small period of time and the global stock taking at cop 28 will accelerate that so that's the first thing the second thing is that you can't do everything in cop it just doesn't work because it's a consensus organization and so what you see into these coalitions of the willing like on methane the methane pledge so the countries that want to go ahead and move a particular issue forward the finance the Glasgow finance initiative they're all having big impacts out there but they're not actually in the negotiations some are about to join so i think oceans we've seen in two cops now a process that's moving oceans into a negotiation so sometimes it takes a while to build the narrative that allows an issue to come in um my problem with the water conference is there's no outcome document so it is not a negotiating forum and so i'm actually not going to it i think that there are interesting things that will happen i think there's a pledge on lead pipes that's being led by the water institute in university of north carolina it's following a similar model to the methane pledge outside the system so i think there will be some interesting initiatives as chris said but the you know unless those are then brought into policy recommendations they there's a problem with it and i think the policy recommendations if they're going to do it will need leadership from certain countries taking it into the u.n general assembly's second committee in the autumn at the moment i don't see that happening so the first water conference and i don't know 40 years or 30 years won't have an outcome i think that that is i think that's a shame the interesting thing is is speaking about the water conference is i saw a a pre-water type of event that occurred and james bonda was there and it was actually at that uh that we just had had come to agreement on the oceans and james bonda posted a picture and i actually thought that you were sitting in front of her just down to the left in her in her selfie and i was like hey philix is that you or is it you and the if it had been in vienna cafe that day i probably would have been there i it's well known i don't go into the negotiations i usually stand the coffee bar chatting with people yeah yeah yeah that's what you said and so it was it's really interesting this uh has been an intentional setup with these questions because i want my readers to know that uh you guys aren't just academics that have sat somewhere and have never been to a climate conference don't know how the negotiations work don't know how the conferences go um that you're are very steeped and also have opinions and thoughts on how how this should function and where it's going and to make sense of it which the most of us as lay people do not have have that luxury and so um before the cop 27 and afterwards um there was a lot of rumors boy what a joke why are we still running around why are we still attending attending the cops why are we still at these these meetings why are they having that it's not bringing anything things like that are running around and then just last week the club of rome submitted the letter to not punky moon to antonio getteris secretary general about the climate conferences and kind of asking for a reform i wanted to ask have either of you read that have you both read it and could you just give me your insights on that and also what do what do how do we address that um with with those type of comments with people thinking that and now also that larger organizations are actually printing presenting letters saying we're going too slow it's not happening can we get some change or reform in the system chris do you want to go first um um yeah i mean uh let me think yeah i would say that um i would say that there's a lot of call to reform the cops because there are there are these big beasts and they've gotten bigger every year like my first so my first cop was cop four in 1998 and there was probably two thousand three thousand people there and the latest one cop 27 how many were there 30 thousand about 35 to 40 yeah yeah so it's turned into this massive beast and i would say that of those 40 000 people maybe one or 2000 are really involved in the negotiations right they're they're they're talking about these documents and the outcomes and decisions and what governments should do so what are the other 38 000 people doing and it's a great it's a really legitimate question um now i think personally that there's a lot of good things happening there's a lot of people meeting making coal coalitions you know as felix said a lot of the stuff doesn't go on inside the negotiations anymore and so i think there's a real benefit to getting those coalitions of the willing together um and seeing what they can they can generate you know i do think that there is an argument that the negotiators are overloaded because what tends to happen with those 2000 people right dealing with negotiating documents is it's there's lots of different groups that are meeting now there's the conference of the parties to the original un climate convention there's the chiaro protocol that's still running along there's the paris agreement and under those they all have agenda items and then there's what's called subsidiary bodies so there's tons of different groups meeting and there's literally hundreds of agenda items that need to get discussed now there is an argument that and it's very hard to take away agenda items because if you say oh well we really do we really need to be talking about you know the adverse effects of response measures well someone will put their hand up and say well we put that down on the agenda and it's really important to us so it's very hard to remove agenda items and now we've got hundreds of agenda items so the complexity is incredible and i do think that there's a strong argument to say well let's try and rationalize this let's try and let's try and reduce what we're talking about so that we can get strong outcomes and i think that discussion should happen the other thing i would say is that you know just just to touch on something felix mentioned before which is that you know this idea that cops do have an impact beyond that you know beyond their little this little world and i think a lot of your listeners or readers might be thinking well why does you know how do these kind of arcane un meeting what impact do they have the truth is that there are really 200 governments from around the world that come to these meetings that make decisions then they bring those decisions back to government and then they have to enact those those laws or change those policies and that's one of the things the points we make in the book we have three chapters on climate change in our book and you could ask well hang on don't we still have you know if this is a book about success stories don't we still have a bit of a climate change problem so but this this but one of our points in the book is that these meet you know these big outcomes like when you get a Kyoto protocol or a Paris agreement they actually do have a significant impact that cascades all around the world through government policies it influences business decisions it influences investment in new technology wind power solar whatever it might be and that it has an outsized impact and the big measure of that which Felix mentioned before but i think it's worth reiterating is that you know prior to 2015 when the Paris agreement was signed we were staring down the barrel at between four and six degrees celsius of warming not fahrenheit that's my math is terrible but it's something like 14 degrees fahrenheit warming now we've reduced it to somewhere in the order of two to two point five something like that so that's still terrible right but it's not catastrophic and that all came through the un these un agreements in my view so that's that's the note of optimism that i think that i have when i look at the cops but you know to get back to your question about could they be simplified you know yeah i think they could just just to add to that i mean a couple of things one is people perhaps forget but the financial crisis of 2008 had a big impact on helping us to deliver this because there's a very good report by nick robbins that when he was in hsbc looking at how green were the recovery packages and i think i think the us 20 20 to 30 percent of the recovery package was accelerating work on solar and other new technologies and so that helped move those things quickly the second thing is that i echo what chris says i was in the agriculture negotiations i would say there was no more than 50 stakeholders in the room over the negotiating time they were all doing other things so there are different reasons to go to a cop yeah if you're engaged in the negotiations then that's one particular small group it always has been that doesn't matter what negotiation it's a small group of people who are actually influencing the policy often representing a very large constituency who've come to a position it's not just them it's a bigger group the second thing is that we the great thing around the cop is the or any cops is that you start to see solutions and that you go to a number of the pavilions where you start to see where successes are happening and then those successes are taken back by stakeholders or by governments or intergovernmental organizations to accelerate change and that's i think really important and then you have emerging issues that are coming up like blue carbon or whatever they're doing in the water constituency or in the health constituency and those are helping also in the outside space to kind of have air to develop now if they mature like the water this at the ocean discussion they will find their way in ultimately to the negotiations but to begin with you want those that are already want to move that like the methane pledge to go ahead and actually prepare the ground so that when it comes into the negotiations it's a lot easier to get commitments and to some extent you know if you've already delivered on some of the commitments the issue then is how do you help the countries that have yet to be able to have the capacity to join that conversation and around the methane pledge there is a secondary organization that helps with capacity building with funding and with tech transfer so you're seeing the emergence of these coalitions of the willing but then or emergence as the emergence of mechanisms to help those to deliver and i think that's a very exciting space the club of rome report there's no way that the club of rome report is going to be implemented is a great set of recommendations that need to be looked at some can be the low hanging fruit i think which i'm not absolutely sure yet which because i haven't read it i've read it but i haven't kind of pulled out the low flat hanging fruit but i will do to have a look and see what you can do it will be just the beast is too big i mean i think they've had a meeting i think the last couple of days with the secretary general but the problem with it is that it's not the secretary general's responsibility it's the member states of the convention so the member states of the convention will have to make a decision that they want to set up a governance track to amend it and the problems with that is everybody has to agree to those governance changes and on the urn on the framework convention if you touch that and you try and change it then it will have to go to the u.s senate which means 67 votes to be able to amend the convention and that's never going to happen and so the question about what you do is you have to keep it like the paris agreement in a space that doesn't require it to get um in a sense amended through parliaments because if you have to go down that track then the americans will never be able to help you on that i love that you bring that up and kind of go into details and and explaining it because that's also giving insights of of how how things happen and process there a lot of people specifically with a climate conference um tend to think that you know the un is making all these it's the member states it's the country delegations uh that are really doing thing that the un f triple c is just the framework for people to have a big event together and get in the same room and do the negotiations and have the structure and the guidelines and and the place in order to to do that but the un's hands hands are tied for uh collecting monies for ndc's for all all sorts of things when it comes to commitments that have been made or commitments that haven't been made to do a lot of those things and so by you saying that it's perfect because the structure uh is really not set up where yeah you can go to the person at the top and then he's going to say okay this is the next thing and so but it takes a while for that that understanding to sink in how that works um i also do think though on on the side of the club of room you know it's the planetary emergency group that has submitted that yohan rockstrom bonky moon even signed it as well um um they want they want to let people know it's it's time to to to keep pace with our system keeps pace with the pace of our world or the pace of our problems that uh you know there is emergency and something should be done and i think that voice the letters that um can help nudge and get things moving you know what we we hope um can i just say just go ahead yeah i mean so i i think both chris and i would welcome welcomes the club of room letter i think it's got some great stuff in um the i mean yohan rockstrom you know is one of the great thinkers of our time the work he did on the planetary boundaries where was enormous but we haven't gotten planetary boundaries in the system i mean the reality of uh of it is though he's recognized those planetary boundaries you know we still are looking at these things in the piecemeal fashion future earth was set up partly to bring the academic community into a focus around that and it still hasn't managed to succeed in that but these uh the thinking around the club of room document is important the the issue then is if you're going to move it in you need to have very good lobbyists and at the moment um they have to kind of work out which i think they have to work out but we all who are committed to a successful uh you and after pussy have to look at which bits can actually be done easier and get some successes under the belt as opposed to try and do the whole thing which i think would be the wrong approach because i don't think you can take the whole thing and push it in because it wasn't created here attitudes from member states will make it very very difficult to happen the other thing is that we address some of those politics in the three chapters the one on the Kyoto protocol and the one on Paris and the one on um Copenhagen and chris can talk to those perhaps better than i can but i think there's some really interesting lessons uh one could argue one of them being uh the Copenhagen one where we could have had the Copenhagen Accord which is basically the Paris Agreement in 2009 if the Americans hadn't mucked it up at the end but maybe chris wants to comment on that i agree and that's what i'm tickling to i don't want to go there just yet because i i i am getting to the book this is in the book and and there's there's really specifically in those three chapters but there's in a couple other chapters some really interesting things that come out as well and i want to i want to bring those out but i you know everybody at first they want to they want to ask the controversial the hard topics they want to kind of understand and and that but you're addressing those you're actually talking about how how these people have emerged in heroes because they're they're actually did it in a system like this to kind of help move this slow antiquated or very complex process forward and and that's what i'm trying to get on last bit of controversy is really and that i want to discuss and kind of see which you already mentioned and we we tickled upon with um the secretary of general Antonio Guterres how you know even though he was presented with that letter it's kind of it's not up to him that's not how the structure works well the same thing uh we've got we're going now into cop 28 and two two things have happened now gore had a outrageous type of a response to the new president of the cop because of his current position and experience with with oil and gas being the president of the cop um in that structure but also that there was some pretty strong words from Barbados and Antonio Guterres at the world government summit i was also there about what we need to do what the ambitions are and about fossil fuel industry and then yet under the umbrella of the UN and the climate secretary at the UNFCCC now our president um will be that and it raises a lot of red flags for people who can't see behind that and and especially when people like Al Gore are making no statements so i kind of want to get thoughts and ideas and inputs on that why it is that how can that happen in an in an organization like that that the people that we think or the the fossil fuel industry the ones that we're trying to make those change that all of a sudden now they're they're they're in the climate conferences and they're the president as well and maybe your thoughts and views on that and how that deals with the system and the structure that you address so well in the book do you want to go first Felix or should i should i go it's up to you i mean i i can give a couple of quick thoughts i mean one is that the you know that one of the reasons um why the united arab Emirates is hosting the next cop is that the cops rotate regionally so each region um each UN region has its turn and so that they will then there must have i assume have been an internal discussion among those members member states about who should take it on next time um so that's that's that's just the kind of mechanics of how it happened then in terms of you know is this you know certainly i mean there has been criticism that you know an oil and gas producing state is hosting the cop and and and is that the right thing i mean i think there will be i think there will be a a lot of people watching the the performance of the cop presidency going into this to to see if they can deliver a really strong outcome i mean my and i think so i'm trying to keep i'm keeping an open mind about that i'm aware that they've been certainly trying to hire in really good people who help them with that they've been they've been recruiting actively among people who really know the UN world very very well and so i i take that as a positive and i guess we'll see i mean the proof will be in the in the pudding but i think that you know they'll certainly you know people are aware of this and there will be pressure for a really a really strong cop and i think we should judge i think we should judge this cop in the same way that we would judge judge others and hold it up to the same standards the a few things one is uh they're not the presidency of the cop yet i mean the the cop that it is actually the Egyptian presidency that take us takes us up to the and then it's turned over yeah and then it's turned over so uh the Egyptian presidency is continuing to work uh and work with the the incoming presidency to make sure that the things are happening now such as a transitional committee for loss and damage uh working with the electricity so they only take over at the cop so a lot of the work particularly the that is uh both of you know but the the people listening perhaps don't we have a preparatory meeting of two weeks in bond in june probably three weeks because they actually come the week before to do preparation in their group meetings so you're looking at the a lot of the work for cop 28 will happen under the Egyptian presidency that's the number one secondly um the uh united arab Emirates is more of a gas producer than an oil and gas producer and and thirdly um the president's um of the cop has been one of the main pushes for renewable energy both in the united america emirates and in the sense of their support outside and also the united arab emirates hosts i think only one international organization and that is the international renewable energies agency and so they've been i think working with them to make sure that some of these issues are addressed i would i would add that in they have rizana's the champion um of the cop rizana is former head of their environment protection agency she's at the moment the president of iUCN uh she was before she worked for the government the head of wwf in the united arab emirates she's brilliant she she will definitely do a lot on the the champion side to engineer as many initiatives as you can and perhaps this is a richard nixon china issue which is perhaps you need the united arab emirates an oil producer to address the fossil fuel because they are uh in that group and they are as we all know most of the big producers are looking to do as much as they can to move beyond oil and gas themselves because they're investing in lots of renewables the big i can't remember the figure but the big Saudi investment in Egypt for cop set 27 was on if i remember uh hydrogen uh to be produced in Egypt and so they are looking to kind of use whatever money they've got to invest in renewables which is what norway did norway has the biggest um serving wealth fund uh where they invested their money for the good of the community um of course we see norway as a positive but they still have a oil and gas industry there i really appreciate that and there's no doubt and my listeners are my mind that you you are both well steeped in and the current goings on and also the controversy of uh that we would see but also that made you very apt both of you um at being the editors on this cumulative great work heroes of environmental diplomacy because it didn't start out that way it started out as politicians diplomats coming in representing negotiating doing doing things um and they were normal people like you and i that did amazing things in a complex uh system or structure to to do that and the one and this is for chris it's really his chapter not chapter three on mostafa uh tolba but i'm sure you can speak about that to philips but the you know the egyptian king the montreal protocol the things that occurred there and how uh it emerged for our ozone problem that we had and some things that developed out of that um maybe specifically about this chapter but also so maybe aha moments as you were going through doing your editing on your specific heroes and chapters chris uh that you're like there's a reoccurring theme there's something that's happening here there's some certain traits that are emerging i would love it if you can address those for me and kind of speak to that that's a that's a i i want to know why philips is laughing though well i would like do you want to answer that or do you want i i'll let you go ahead okay okay well um i can i can have a guess but we'll come we'll come to we'll come to that but but i'm glad you asked about mostafa tolba because he really was the inspiration behind in many ways behind the this book and and and how it came to be um which just to give you a little a little background um it was about four years ago and i was kind of you know reflecting on the state of the world feeling a little bit down and i started to think about well how can how can i get more optimistic about things what's an antidote to this kind of pessimism about the state of the environment and the state of the world and i thought about the world that i'd been involved with and philips has been involved with for many years now this world of international diplomacy and began to think you know we've had all right things look bad but we've actually had some victories we've had some successes and um if we start to tell some of those stories we could perhaps inspire you know future leaders the next generation of folks who can lead us to new successes even bigger successes and the first one i asked and so the first example i thought of was mustafa tolba and he was quite a character um he was uh from from egypt he was um he was the head of uh firstly the deputy head of unit the un environment program which was pretty new back in the 70s and then became the executive director of the un environment program i think it was 1973 74 so it was quite it was quite young and he was and at that point it was it was just becoming this this idea that the ozone layer was under threat from from cfc it was just entering science it was pretty new science but he was a scientist then he looked at the work uh he looked at the the research and realized that we were facing uh an existential threat um that could have a massive impact on humanity if we didn't address it and he was implacable he was a character which is why i think what felix was laughing about because well one i would say firstly i'd say one of the things that all of these leaders share in the book is persistence commitment and persistence over many years to get things done but their persistence took different shapes and forms and i would say that in mustafa tolba's case his persistence was he was an indomitable character he wasn't i mean everything i've been told i i met him i met him a couple of times but kind of later on in his career when he was retired and but even then you could see that he was a very strong personality and would not take no for an answer and he you know what he achieved uh with the montreal protocol was by no means i mean it wasn't just that it wasn't a guaranteed success it looked highly unlikely when he began working on this and yet within a handful of years he had he'd um led a coalition of unlikely partners you know ranging ranging from you know you're you're the environmentalist and activist you'd expect all the way through to migrathatcher and ronald and ron ragan and so he got this incredible coalition of the left and the right of all political stripes and you know we can you know we can thank him for that because without that the ozone layer would have depleted and already we would have just just to name you know we would have a lot more um you know ultraviolet radiation entering you know striking earth and already we would have tens of millions more cases of skin cancer unknown damage to you know ecosystems to agriculture you know and so you know this this this individual who was important and just you know incredibly strong personality built this incredible coalition and made something something really great happen yeah i i think you lucked out you have some some pretty good heroes that you focused in on in the book and and who were met they're all amazing and there's all wonderful things and i i just don't don't think a lot of people when they hear montreal protocol that they understand what was really behind that and who and what kind of really battle uh was to to kind of get to to get to where we were to save and and fix the problem in many respects and it took a personality like that and you so eloquently in the writing tell the story in the description that that makes you feel that personality even though i've never met him i've seen some things about him before but it's absolutely true i'm going to come back to you with with another question in a moment chris but it's felix's turn for really the father of sustainable development or e strong and felix knows how how big a fan and and i am an advocate of the stg's and sustainable development period and history and as well as his last book but the same question to you felix or the chapters you added for putting this book together for going through and kind of working through this process what were the aha moments and i know you marise wasn't on your radar before this book that there's been many times and things um as well in your bio that that's there can you kind of give us some insights and you know lightness uh why this is and what you've learned throughout this process specifically towards marise yeah sure i mean i just kind of want to reiterate that yeah this is this vision was chris's and he when he rang me up and said oh let's do this book i told him to get lost because i was finishing another book at the time and i hadn't got any any time to do it and then i thought about it and it's just such a delicious idea that he came up with i couldn't not work with him on it and so he deserves a lot of the credit for putting the theory together and then for we both worked on trying to find people because initially we were going to write all the chapters and then we realized that wasn't going to happen and so we were very lucky to find people uh i won't say uh who was the last one but um but i have to say that i was starting to buy little voodoo dolls and pins because he was late in getting the chapter in but you know he knows who he is when he when he listens to this um i mean the thing with marise is that you could have chosen anything i mean his footprint on sustainable development is huge and you know you talk about one of the stories we could have told was stock home where it was the first time that china uh actually attended a un meeting because it had just joined the un and they uh one of the issues in any intergovernmental negotiation is when a country moves beyond its red lines that it's agreed before it's come to the conference it has to go back capital to get an agreement and they were at the final negotiations and there wasn't time to go back to beijing for the chinese to uh to have a decision on whether to endorse the outcome document and he persuaded them to just move from the seats where they sat to speak to the seats behind so that they could be viewed as they hadn't walked out they'd actually been in the room but they hadn't actually endorsed it and that was a way of moving it forward and we were actually for a different book for only one earth we had a copy of the chinese input to the stock home conference which was the first time china had imported to a un event but the the one surprise for me on the morris thing was i i just had assumed that um the the story that we were going to tell which was about the opening up of the un to these nine stakeholder groups that it was a you know a clear process through the different negotiations from the first preparatory meeting um to the fourth but it was really a slip of the hand or whatever you call it by morris most people didn't know what he was doing his deputy didn't know what he was doing the people who were in charge of giving accreditation and helping stakeholders didn't know what he was doing and he was slowly because of what had happened in stock home where governments hadn't fully implemented what had been agreed he had come to the conclusion over 20 years that we needed the other implementers whether that's local government or industry or women's groups or NGOs we needed them at the table as well and that we needed to also have those which were vulnerable groups whether it was youth or indigenous peoples also at the table and he slowly built a narrative outside the process and then so in un processes new york is the most political the first three prep cons were not in new york they were in nirobi and geneva and they didn't really i think realize what he was doing and then when it arrived to new york the new york missions were like what what is this and he was able to keep it in him and tomiko were able to keep it in tomiko was the chair of the conference um and they fought for each of them and once the delegates started to engage in new york then you've pretty much won the argument because then they're just negotiating or bracketing text and of the nine groups the last one to be accepted which was in um uh in itself were the uh the science community because um the the Vatican was very worried about things being based on science so the story is fascinating a few people knew what he was doing and he was where there wasn't a stakeholder global group he nudged people to set it up so you had the business council on sustainable development set up because the international chamber of commerce was to right wing and so he set up a progressive ceo group for the local government there was no local government global bro's process that existed so he he worked with jeb brugman to set up the international council for local environmental initiatives there wasn't really a women's process he worked with we do to have the women's international conference in miami i think uh before rio so you know where there were gaps in these things he tried to establish or begin to establish um organs that would take it forward and one of the big outcomes it may not have seemed big at the time and i can save with some sure that i didn't think it was but chapter 28 that deals with local uh authorities has a a you know sentence cause for local authorities to work with their local communities to create local agenda 21s within 10 years there were 6 000 local agenda 21s because local government started to take up the challenge that they've been asked so an amazing achievement and morris was a different type than um mastafa uh he was kind of like looking to nudge people in the right direction and where there were gaps he he recognized gaps before anyone else recognize gaps and tried to deal with filling those gaps using his amazing charisma to uh to inspire people you know the conference had i can't remember was 108 or something but a heads of state and it was the biggest number of heads of state that we had at the un event he called it the earth summit that wasn't what the name of the conference was it was united nations conference on environment and development but by calling it an earth summit he inspired uh people to go along it is in the book in the stories in um the list there's uh a lot of ties to brazil a lot of people from brazil um even though the books diverse and everything it's it's really a lot happens in rio uh throughout everything cop 25 was actually supposed to be in brazil and uh in rio and then it was last minute canceled it was moved to to uh chili chili had uh unrest and then they moved it to madrid um it it's it's funny over the years and you've seen the story much longer than i have you've done the research in history how the changes the term oils in our in our world cop 26 in glass skull chris uh uh you're in doubling now correct if i understand you're in double now and uh i couldn't believe it i felt it was one of the most corporate climate conferences i'd ever seen so many corporate sponsorships of big huge attendance plus the mask wearing the daily testing and all sorts of things going on there um it is a unique environment to be in where there's really as as philic said you know a handful of small thousand a couple thousand as well who are actually in doing the negotiations um you did a chapter on probably one of my biggest uh heroes in my opinion that i look up to and i don't know if i'm gonna get uh ostracized because i'm saying this and it's Barack Obama uh you know the missing hero the Copenhagen climate summit and um it would would be nice to kind of see how you know that that uh tell us a little bit about why the missing hero why why it uh turned turned out that way and if there was some ticklings or advice for the U.S. current president Biden which just made a uh snafu on on a new oil project anyway uh if you can tell us a little bit more about that i'd appreciate it yeah sure so that was a really fun and interesting chapter to write because when i first proposed that chapter i'm not i think Felix was maybe think tell me if i'm wrong but i i got the impression that you were maybe or maybe when i talked to other people about it they were certainly i got some feedback like why are you isn't this about environmental successes like the Copenhagen summit so a little bit of background for your listeners so this was this was a summit in 2009 it was 12 years after the Kyoto protocol was signed which was a successful you know first step in combating climate change and the expectation of Copenhagen was that it would take us on in leaps and bounds from Kyoto and really move us forward and you know it did not do that it didn't achieve that and i you know i was i was one of those folks unlucky enough to be there and you know the time it was a you know a lot of folks left pretty depressed and and quite sad and and i know obama got some blame for what was seen widely seen at the time as an unmitigated failure but i think as time's gone by and as we look at it you know with that with with a little more hindsight a little more a little more time having passed people are beginning to reappraise what Copenhagen achieved i think the conclusion i reached having interviewed a lot of people who attended that and looked at and looked at it afresh was that yes Copenhagen was you know it was it did feel like a train wreck a lot of things went badly wrong but some of the ideas that came out of Copenhagen ultimately led to a pretty strong outcome in paris six years later and that you know obama played a pretty key role in that and i think you know the the story i mean for folks who read this book i think it's there's some just hilarious stuff in this where a sitting president of the united states shows up at a meeting that it's about to fail and tries to sit down with some other world leaders only to really discover that they've actually they're kind of hiding from him and they don't want to they don't want to meet with him at that point and there's this kind of hide and seek involving obama uh hillary clinton seeking out other world leaders to actually get them to sit down and try and come to some sort of conclusion because some of these other world leaders for quite legitimate reasons were just not ready to cut a deal yet but obama found them and made the best deal that he felt he could at that time as some people think he could have done a lot better um i i would leave it to i would say read the chapter and make your own draw your own conclusions and so that's why it was kind of a really fun chapter to write because you know you could read that chapter and say yeah obama was a real villain here or you could read it and say he was kind of a hero and he was that he did some stuff and sowed the seeds of this very threadbare agreement that came out but if you read the fine print this led to a much greater success a few years later and maybe that's all he could have done um in Copenhagen given the geopolitics given what the what the situation was at the time so yeah it was it was it was really fun i personally i'm leaning towards being quite impressed because just this idea that that a president would would race around the corridors seeking out these other folks and just not take no for an answer that's pretty that's pretty rare and highly unusual i would say how many presidents play hide-and-seek that deploy in a dramatic conference right so it's a very interesting story hey you've got to have fun with this that's for sure so just to add to that i mean it's a you want to contrast that which is 24 hour period that chris is talking about with sydney holt who spent his life saving the whales and but without him we wouldn't have the whales but just adding to the chris's story because i also was in Copenhagen there's a very good article if people want to to google richard black bbc copenhagen failure and he does 10 points on why it failed but one of the reasons why it because the Copenhagen accord is basically the paris agreement it's about the hundred billion which hillary put on the table it's about everybody making their national determined contributions which at the time developing countries didn't want they wanted a Kyoto too so that he got india china south africa and brazil in i think the room and persuaded them the problem was a one of the problems there were many the danish presidency was an example of one of the problems they didn't know how to do the presidency well they the problem was that he didn't bring in the chair of g 77 and so the chair of g 77 in 2009 was sudan and of course sudan was on the evil uh the list of the agents of evil and that was why he didn't why the americans didn't invite him in but the problem that they had was that in three in three places in the world sudan had two ambassadors one for the north and one for the south that was in new york in washington and in brussels and the ambassador that was chairing g 77 was from the christian south not the muslim north a wonderful guy called ambassador lemumba who had actually previously worked for mckinsey so a kind of capitalist in his own right and they didn't invite him and then there was a repercussions which i think chris may have heard of from people like eam fry who were the two valour things that they felt they were excluded because the chair of g 77 had been excluded from that agreement and so instead of the agreement being welcomed the agreement was noted and so that meant that it was it took six years to get back to some of those things not that those six years were not good years for setting up the green climate fund or whatever was done in in durban and things like that those were important things but the miscalculation of not having the g 77 chair in there because they thought it was the muslim north is something that you know some people should get some blame for within the american administration yeah it is a really great point that you know i think one of the criticisms of kopenhagen was that it didn't include it that a lot of people felt excluded from the discussions and so because that wasn't a success it was a really great lesson learned after that that subsequent cops were really much more open and transparent and i think the lesson was learned that you couldn't get a really strong deal in a small room that you really had to bring it to a wider group and uh yeah it's a great point felix but but also i think that the contrast uh uh was recognized in the choosing of christina figaroa as the head of the u and f triple c who if you read the chapter that chris has done on uh the andrew has done on her you'll find that the way that she operated not only with the countries but with the staff was a way of inclusivity and the way of building bridges and that i think with a french presidency which one wouldn't have expected the way that they did it also you would have expected from france more of a grand gesture approach but they also had learned from kopenhagen and so that having a presidency that was on top of what was needed having a secretary led by such a wonderful person who was so open and inclusive i think it laid the foundation for uh for what became the agreement in paris yeah just and just to add to that you know the the appointment i think that that so the the chapter on kopenhagen is followed by a chapter on the paris agreement and the hero of the paris agreement in our book is christiana figares who um became who headed up the un's climate change office was appointed not long after kopenhagen and as felix says i think i think the lesson learned from kopenhagen was that inclusivity and she was just great at that really really good and so that that chapter on paris and how we got a strong outcome is a chapter in part about her emotional intelligence her diplomatic skills and and her approach to to winning people over and building this incredible coalition so that by the time paris came around it wasn't an inevitability but it felt like one because of what she'd done over the preceding years so yeah that's a great i'm glad you and you mentioned christiana felix because she she's she's another example of a fantastic um hero all the chapters are absolutely fabulous they're all one after the other so but the other fascinating thing is the last uh three i think um are all women from developing countries maria velotti paolo cabrera on the stg's uh and christina figaroa so the shift from white northern men which is the beginning of the book to developing country women is interesting as well yeah and that's and that's part of the reason is that the stories are roughly chronological so you know some of the first stories you know chapter one which is about the ramsa conventional wetlands that story is is mostly about what occurred in the 1960s and then we have sydney halt or his story on the international wailing commission and what he did it spans 60 years but it begins in the 1950s but by by the the latest stories it is interesting that there is more developing country folks more women leaders coming through i mean it'll be it it'll be interesting if we do a second edition of this in five or 10 years um who will be featured in that and i have a suspicion it will be uh even more kind of diverse i hope to see it because i see that you you guys's finger is on the pulse you can see you're there to see it evolve and see those those heroes emerge who are in there uh christina i i always thought her last name was fagueras christiana fagueras i i she has a super podcast outrageous optimism that is a fabulous podcast and um we also just to go back to that chapter um because it's really the journey that you take us on in the chapters in the book is fabulous and and it really leads up to to what we're experiencing but it also at that time at the the cop uh 21 in paris we had the terrorist attacks uh al gore's 25 or 25 hours of climate reality or 24 hours of climate reality tv i was there and that was stopped during the middle of the broadcast there was all sorts of controversy are we going to keep going and um that on top of her wonderful uh spirit and optimism and bringing people together and all the things you describe uh is the true measures of heroine today she's she's she's still in that respect and i believe many many of those in the book are still also uh in that same leaders and probably can go on just like uh on kimoon and others to to be part of groups like the elders to be part of groups that are continuing in a private way or a different way to still contribute to move humanity on the right side of history um i have some some final questions as we we wrap up our podcast that that i really want to ask you and they're not typical but they are tied to the book and they're also tied to your experiences your knowledge and writing overall um in the conclusion you bring up some of these things as well um why do we have these issues do you mean why do we have to have intergovernmental meetings to agree things yes yeah um because um yeah the un that predominantly deals with uh or at least the environmental agreements deal with trans boundary issues and so where something is having an impact and other countries you need to find a way of regulating it i would just say that one of the things we didn't mention is that the the arc of each of the chapters is also interesting we look at who these people were what's their story where did they come from what what what inspired them then what was the issue that they addressed and then what happened to them and the issue afterwards and i think that's an interesting art because you know they are people and they've had certain things in their lives that have pushed them in those directions and we wanted to share that just because we're all heroes there's so many people out there who are you know trying to make an impact and they all contribute and they all have their individual stories and we wanted to show that these were individuals as much as negotiators as well you have something more to say chris just just you know that question about your question about why why are we doing this i think it's such a good one because you know it's good to stop sometimes i think okay why are we doing this and i mean you know phoenix is i just wanted to emphasize phoenix's response which is that some of these put you know in a globalized world some of these problems are just too big they're too big for individual countries for individual companies for individual billionaires for anyone else to fix and you know climate change is a classic example of that but you can look across all of the issues that we deal with you know the ozone issue is another great example you know sustainable development these are these are just global issues and we need to work together to solve them and that's one of the key messages i think of this book is that you know i know that there's there's there's been a lot of criticism of multilateralism there's been criticism of the un there's been criticism of criticism of diplomacy but it's the only game in town if we're going to solve these these problems and i personally believe strongly in multilateralism and that governments and nation states need to invest in that to get to the outcomes we need because we cannot fix these problems by ourselves and yes the criticism that diplomacy is messy and complex and difficult and frustrating and at times too slow these are all true but they it does ultimately provide the answer and i would say diplomacy is like democracy it's messy but it's the best you know it's the best possible option for it for us and and ultimately it works and and that's what this book is about it's about showing really shining examples of when diplomacy does work and does deliver and so that's you know that's that's why i was excited to kind of work on this book but the other thing to think about is that in 2023 we got a global convention agreement on oceans beyond national boundaries and in 24 we'll get a global convention on eliminating plastics in some form so in two years within 23 and 24 we'll have two massive successes in multilateral negotiations they may not have gone as far as we wanted but you know to some extent the issue of how you design these global agreements actually goes back to Mustafa Talba where we we started due to the how long the law of the sea process took Mustafa came up with the idea of a framework convention so you the framework convention is where you agree the narrative it's the protocols afterwards where you start to dig into targets and whatever so you can get most people to sign up to the narrative and then it becomes more important then to to dig down and see what targets you can get i have two questions for each of you that you must answer the the next one is the hardest one that i will give you um and i want to start with with chris first on this what does a world that works for everyone look like to you chris gosh well you know as i said i i'm a big fan of multilateralism and i'm a big fan of cooperation and i think i think that that is that's what we need to create a world that feels um fair and equitable for for everyone and you know i and i think you know that's that is that is the way forward and and i believe that most nations and governments and people recognize that elix what does a world that works for everyone look like for you i think chris and i are on the same page but what i would also say because it's about a fair and equitable world i i think that one of the things that has a huge impact on being able to you know in a sense share better is the cost of energy and if you were to move if we are moving to a situation where we're using renewables the chances and the opportunities for bringing people out of poverty giving them a better life i think is quite important on the other side of the negative bit is we're going to have a water crisis and how we deal with that water crisis will be really important um we're looking at a 30 to 40 percent uh shortfall in water globally by uh 2030 and the estimates by the stock home environment institute and we need to think just like we've done for energy about how we can serve water how we make sure that everyone has access otherwise we're going to have serious problems in the future with people having to be forced to move because climate change has also had an impact on what type of weather patterns they have which is different than the ones they had in the past sustainable development is um on our radar it's been on our radar for a long time 50 years now 72 is really the beginning and even probably longer from your book negotiating the sustainable development goals and we're really hoping till 2030 to achieve this there's something that's been bubbling up in the last two years very rapidly and not many are aware of it and i want to i want to kind of throw it out into the room so we're we're coming up with more and more models uh for the future more and more goals more and more solutions we have the sdgs and we have esg we have a csrd coming we have science-based targets and we have the negotiations going on but in the last two years we've been seeing the emergence of numerous new economic models and what is it sdg seven or eight talks about economic growth and and uh the sdgs are a new entirely new economic model it's 90 to 94 trillion us dollars to reach them by december 2030 but they're not the only ones and a lot of people don't know that that that they are an economic model just like circular economy uh donut economics mission economics shared economics platform economics on and on there's more than 32 emerging ecological economic models out there the closest one that's that's functionable that has the research and that is i would say is the sustainable development goals and just in the last two years have been more than 20 books the club of rome released the book on the new economic model okay rowers that written on new ecological models the world is somehow where there's a lot of movement or this discussion what are the new models what are some new economic models that that moving are moving forward um with that kind of that setup around this and uh i want i want to ask you this it's not similar to the question i just asked you what does the world that works for everyone look like what are what are the models like planetary boundaries circular economy donut economics the sustainable development goals as a new economic model that you find are the most hopeful and that will also emerge like felix just said there's some new things coming on plastic or models that will really take us into the future into 2050 i mean i'm a huge fan of kate's work and the planetary boundaries is part of the donut so you've kind of got that already uh so i think that she's trying that out with um difference uh local governments and with industry uh we'll have to see where that goes the circular economy is clearly underpinning for the first time a un convention the plastics convention has it as a way of approaching this so we're seeing different models but which often are reflected in uh each other and so i think the planetary boundaries stroke the donut the economics and the circular economy are all part of that same ecosystem so i think that's important the un for the summit of the futures is looking at replacing gdp it's one of the things that's on their agenda you have with the french Barbados conference in june are looking at reform of the breton woods institutions uh you're looking at the summit of the future looking at reform of the same thing and also discussions on reform of the security council and other aspects so we have a lot of the architecture being discussed to see if it's going to be reform i think the problem we have is where russia and china are at the moment and that makes that a fluid discussion until that in a sense becomes much more clear uh on whether that's good they're going to contribute in a positive way or in a way that is less positive but i think that the economic discussions are in flux and that i think is really important if we are going to realign it the other thing i would say is the outcome from the Glasgow climate conference where the Glasgow finance initiative was set up if we really want to change things we need the capital market to be supporting things that we want like the stg's and not things like the oil or gas companies so i think changing the landscape of the capital market would have a huge change number one and then i think the other discussion that's going on is how do we integrate the stg and climate into the um into the um credit rating agencies so that that then also forces local authorities and governments to take in resilience and other things the one thing two things i actually wanted to add to what you said phoenix is so there's the well-being economy or the well-being index there's the girls national happiness index so i'll also see this movement away from gdp to some other models there's i mean the girls national happiness is instigated from the center for girls national happiness and butan that's been out for quite some time and things so it's interesting to see some of those in that you're also discuss heavy um in some respects and very much a futurist so i'm always thinking okay what are the models that can kind of shift and change or what are we seeing kiff please go ahead yeah look i mark i'm really glad you mentioned that the whole question of well-being because i think that that's gets to the heart of what we're trying trying to achieve here and you know i i think you know you asked about economic models i think one that has been firmly discredited in the last few years is neoliberalism and i think we've you know i think this this this idea that the invisible hand of markets can fix everything um is is has been proven to not not be true and you know although i personally i'm a strong advocate for capitalism but i think you know excluding government from playing a role is is foolish and i think whenever we've had a a crisis you look at the financial crisis 2008 to 2009 you look at the financial crisis caused by lockdowns and the pandemic and the response has always involved government intervention and governments for the most part i think making making some good decisions about how to support people and ensure that people can get through this crisis you know i'm i'm a big fan of the circular economy i think it does it's a really great idea and should be pursued more you know i even think you know ideas like like the human development index the sustainable development index gross happiness you know index these are ideas that move us beyond this traditional reliance on this one metric GDP which i think has led us down a really bad tunnel because you know GDP is one measure of of a country's wealth it's not even that accurate and it doesn't show how well the wealth is being distributed and so you know there's this there's this economic term a genie coefficient which shows inequality and you know that some of the world's richest countries like the us like the uk they're very wealthy but they're also highly unequal and i think that that is you know i think that those those countries can can do better i mean that these countries have the ability and the and the heft to to help you know long term solve poverty and to do it in a sustainable way and so i think these new ideas that are emerging are just brilliant and i'm i'm glad that this conversation is happening and i would just say i mean it was bobby kennedy in 68 who reminded people that GDP recognizes how many car accidents we have and how many bombs we've used that it doesn't recognize the happiness that we have or the the strength of our families and it was he who said i think some people asking ask why why other people ask why not and so i think we need to dream of things that have yet to happen and make sure that they're part of the agenda i just uh did a five-day workshop at the world government summit in dubai a couple weeks ago now and it was on the future of governance 120 governments were were taking part there was discussions at the same summit about agile government about participatory governance um many many topics so it's not just these economic models that are that are emerging every day it's not just the books that are being written there's this overarching dis ease of of people and humanity that says the systems are not working they're not working for especially in times of climate calamity and times of war times of refugees or displacement that the systems of pandemics they tend not to work for all of us anymore we see this microscope on the problems even clearer and so um i really appreciate you bringing these and i i'm kind of expecting to see another extended version and maybe that there'll be more of some some discussions on the future of governance the future of diplomacy some of those new leaders that are like kate rollworth like yohan rockstrom professor yohan rockstrom like these others who are thinking of these new models how can we make the systems better how can we evolve and be future fit to for for our emerging planet and and i believe you guys have the pulse because you know the big picture but so i would really like to say i would just go yeah i was just gonna say i mean not everybody is interested in these new forms of governance and you find on the left the more far left part of the NGO world that they do not want it to be anything other than governments because at that point it becomes much more difficult from their perspective to i think support the poorer in society they feel government is the legitimate way of doing it so there is a definitely a clash of ideologies going on between a more liberal democracy approach which is trying to test new forms of governance and the more far left views that it should just be governments that should be doing it christia something to say it looked like you're no i mean i think i feel it makes a great point i mean i i think i think that um we have the opportunity we have the resources um to transform our world in a positive way we already see some of it happening you know you look back at how you know when i started in this world in this in this area wind power and solar were obscenely expensive and now they're the cheapest forms of energy available so you see how that how rapid these transformations can can occur and so i'm you know i'm optimistic i think that we we just need to learn learn the right lessons we need to try to avoid this kind of some of the some of the culture wars and recognize that we're all in this planet together and and hopefully have a have a have a good discussion about that and come to some sort of middle find some middle ground because that's where i think that's where i think we can really make progress helix and chris thank you both for letting us inside of your ideas highly recommend this book everyone who's listening go out and get it uh we have only teased some of the stories there's so much more that you can get into depth and substance and i thank uh rut litch urskine taylor and francis for uh providing us with the books and having you guys come on thank you so much and that's all i have for you unless you wanted to ask me any questions before i tell you goodbye thank you mark really appreciate it yeah you're more than welcome thank you so much and i hope we'll talk to you at the next book look forward to it thanks bye bye thank you