 So good morning everyone. Good afternoon. Good evening. Or if you're in parts of Asia, I suppose the middle of the night somewhere. Welcome to you all from around the world. Over the last four months we've had really quite an extraordinary set of discussions with global thought leaders and energy and and climate and we covered a wide range of topics that range from the impacts of COVID-19 to energy access and climate change. You name it. So you can find the videos as Cindy said, at gf.stampard.edu and we invite you to take a look at those. So today's dialogue considers the impact of changes in us and energy and climate policies but in the context of what's going on around the world. The last few weeks have certainly been eventful ones. The US election has changed the outlook for US participation in international efforts to deal with climate change. And in the worldwide clean energy transition that's underway now, the world is dealing with a resurgence of the COVID-19 case loads. The economies of the world are struggling to operate within the constraints of trying to contain the virus. Then there's the need to deal with climate change that is ever more evident on a daily basis. So to help us think about all of this, we're fortunate to have with us a two people with really deep expertise in the international energy and climate arena. So let me begin by introducing them. First is Jonathan Pershing. He's the program director of environment at the Hewlett Foundation. He's played lots of roles in shaping modern climate, US climate and energy policy. He was a special envoy for climate change at the US State Department as lead negotiator to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. He helped negotiate landmark climate change deals with China, India, European Union, Canada and Mexico. He was instrumental in securing the 2015 Paris Agreement and charged with overseeing its early implementation. He and I had the pleasure of working together at the US Department of Energy where he was the senior climate advisor to Secretary Erning Moniz. He was a key architect of the mission innovation commitment to double climate and clean energy research and development budgets around the world. Fatih Birol is the executive director of the International Energy Agency. Under his leadership, the IEA works with governments and industry through programs and initiatives to ensure energy security, tracking clean energy transitions, collecting data or providing trading around the world. It has 38 member and associated countries and the network represents about 75% of the global energy demand, so it truly is a worldwide effort. In his 20 years at IEA, he's had lots of roles. He was the chief economist responsible for the flagship World Energy Outlook publication and was the founder and chair of the IEA Energy Business Council, one of the world's most active industry advisory groups and energy. He chairs the World Economic Forum's Davos Energy Advisory Board and serves on the UN Secretary General's advisory board on sustainable energy for all. So, in the, because this is an educational institution, we will of course start with a pop quiz. This quiz is to help us think about the scale of the challenge that we all have to face as we as we move into this, this transition period ahead. It's about annual global carbon emissions reductions needed to get to net zero. So we're thinking in terms of both mitigated carbon emissions, and also negative emissions. So the question is, if the world needs to move to net zero annual emissions by 2090 roughly how much carbon mitigation and that's in billions of tons of carbon per year actually CO2 per year is needed. And, and then how much negative emissions are there as well so you can see that the four choices here and will will will give you a few seconds to think about that. So, okay, so the results are in pretty good. So, this is the answer is from National Academy's report on the on emissions and net anthropogenic emissions. And the answer the correct answer is that the, the anthropogenic emissions of all greenhouse gases need to come down by about 55 billion tons a year, and net negative emissions of nearly 20 billion tons a year to get us all to net zero by by 2020. So those are pretty big numbers. On the other hand, it's a big world and there are big energy systems out there to deal with so. So now let's, let's, let's move on to the, to the discussion and welcome to Jonathan and Fatih. So, so finally let me start with you, could you set the stage for us. What impacts has the COVID-19 situation had on efforts to deal with climate change around the world and you know if you think about the big players in the world like China and the EU and India. It has, has the world stopped paying attention to clean energy and climate change or is the long term view still in view, kind of, where do we stand. Thank you very much, Lynn and thank you very much for the invitation, first of all, to attend this important webinar. So, COVID impact on energy. It was the biggest shock that the energy world had since the Second World War, huge shock. I can try to paint the picture we are in this year. We expect and the data until October is in our hands. The global energy demand is declining about 5%. 5% decline mean to understand better. We all remember the 2008-2009 financial crisis. And after the financial crisis, global energy demand declined as well. And today, this year's decline is 5% is seven times deeper than the decline in 2008-2009, just to put the things in the context of how big it is. The biggest hits come to oil, coal and natural gas, they all declined substantially. Whereas renewables were resilient to the shock and they increased slightly. In terms of emissions, the global emissions declines this year about 7%. Which means it raises the increasing global emissions in the last 10 years, a big decline. But in my view, this decline, we all want to see the emissions to decline this much, that much, we should be happy. But in my view, this is not a number we should celebrate, the decline. Because it is happening in my view for wrong reasons. It is happening because there's an economic meltdown because of the pandemic. It is not because a new technology suddenly comes in the picture or this and that government took new sustainable policies. And in my view, in a way, low economic growth is not a low emission strategy. So low economic growth is not a low emission strategy. And from there, my very is the following. Emissions decline now, but with the rebound of the economies, if the governments do not take the right energy policies in the context of their recovery plans, emissions will rebound. And I have one proof or one data to support my argument or my fear, I should say, that emissions will rebound again with the economic growth coming back to normal life is China. China is the country where the coronavirus problem started. China is the country where we had the lockdowns. China is the country where we saw emissions going down. But China was the country or is the country where the coronavirus issue has been addressed and the economy started to grow. And as of today, Chinese emissions 2020 are larger than the emissions of China in 2019. So Chinese emission rebounded to the year, to the before the crisis levels. So China is the, we see similar trends in energy emissions and so on in China. Why I'm saying China because China is going in front of other countries in terms of addressing coronavirus, economic rebounding, etc. So, therefore, if we don't, if we want to avoid the rebound in the emissions recovery packages that governments are putting on the table, what kind of energy policies will be included that is very, very important in scientists for the clean energy technologies. One last point about the, it is nothing to do with emissions, but for me it is very important from energy point of view. It is about the excess to electricity. We are, as Jonathan knows, I had the pleasure and the privilege to work with Jonathan many, many years at the IEA. As Jonathan knows, since 20 years at the IEA, we follow how many people have no excess to electricity, especially in Africa, Asia and elsewhere. In the last eight years in Sub-Saharan Africa, number of people who have no excess to electricity declined, which was a very good news. But in the year 2020, for the first time, we are seeing an increase, this trend is reversing. We are seeing an increase in the number of people who have no excess to electricity in Sub-Saharan Africa. I think this is another important data point and shows that we look at, of course, Europe, Asia, United States, but Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa is very badly affected from the coronavirus and it is economic consequences, just a data point, I stop here. Jonathan, how do you see the worldwide situation? Are we so focused on dealing with the virus that we haven't thought about this question of how the rebound might affect emissions? So thanks, Lynn, and it's a pleasure to see you and Fatih, as always, it's a great pleasure to serve with you on a panel. Let me say a few things about it. I think Fatih's statistics are ones that we actually use all the time and don't see any difference in the analysis. Others have with similar kinds of assessments come to similar conclusions as the IEA has reached around the emissions increase and the plausible scenario of a post-pandemic rebound. I think there are a couple of factors that might give me slightly more optimism, which Fatih and I have talked about and I know he also sees the question of how optimistic will really depend on implementation. But let me put a couple on the table. Europe has been quite clear, and this comes from Ursula von der Leyen, who is the head of the European Commission, that her view about economic recovery is in no small measure attached to a green recovery. And she has made substantial commitments around economic growth, which include activities to reduce carbon emissions and to address climate change. It's part and parcel of a larger framework around how Europe becomes and maintains a competitive edge. It includes a jobs program, it includes development of new technologies, so we see that as a vision for recovery that might avoid the rebound. Interestingly, China at the United Nations in a speech by President Xi Jinping made a commitment to get to net zero. But he also as a domestic matter has begun in the 14 five year plan to emphasize a variety of activities that might lead even with this near term rebound to a longer term decline. It's also about competitiveness. It's also about jobs, and it's about new technologies and how the Chinese economy might grow into that context. I would note that his commitment is for the year 2060 which is quite some distance away, and there's still not enough information about what they would do in the near term, or even if the next 14 five year plan will include detailed provisions for how emissions are reduced. But in general terms, part of his recovery package is on things like green urban development. It's on continued high speed rail. It's on some of the infrastructure that could lead to lower emissions in the future, even if higher emissions today. We have what's going on in the United States. President elect Biden made clear in his campaign that he sees a green recovery as part of the package. In fact, he connects the dots between COVID, the economic recovery climate, and also issues of race and discrimination in the nation, where both the impacts of climate the impacts of COVID, and the potential opportunities for economic growth might come together. I see some real similarities among the largest economic players in the world, as they look to the future. But at the present moment, I completely agree with Fatih. It's not a very good story. It requires some significant political will to manage a transition that we are not yet seeing, but would be essential and essential at an incredible rate of change. If we are to see an outcome that addresses the climate problem. And then I add Fatih's point about access. It's plaguing a great deal of the world right now. And this speaks to a certain extent to what our expectations are for global inclusive growth, as opposed to growth that might be limited to only a few countries. So, Jonathan, you mentioned that President elect Biden has taken positions that suggest that climate and energy will be a topic of conversation early on in the new administration. In fact, the list I saw the other day suggested that rejoining the Paris Accord, for example, would be something that they would start the process for on day one. So I remember running into you somewhere in that giant venue in Paris where all the discussions took place. You look like you needed some sleep actually, as I recall. But can you remind us what what what the US committed to do as a part of that and then, you know, bring us up to date on where we are and you know, have we made any progress on those commitments. Where do we stand on that. This is already five years ago. It's kind of amazing to think that it's that far back in some sense the last four years in the United States have been a hiatus from formal government engagement on on the Paris discussion. Paris committed us, along with countries around the world to develop domestic plans and then to implement those plans to reduce our own greenhouse gas emissions. It's a rather different agreement than ones that had been historically set. Historically, the commitments were made in a global forum, and all countries decided which what they would do the Kyoto protocol for example a precursor to the Paris agreement, also under the nation's climate change convention set targets collectively so everyone had a certain number and it was collectively agreed. Paris went down a different road, really to provide more latitude for national decision making. And part of the reason was that China wasn't prepared to have someone else set its targets nor was India, frankly nor was United States. And so a model was developed in which each country put forward its own targets there was clearly a little political pressure applied in the background, but each country put forward its own targets and its own plans for how it would achieve those. And the collective global community is then committed to coming together and evaluate performance performance both did you do what you said you would do, but also performance in the aggregate. Are we on track to meet the goals of the treaty. The agreement in Paris said we should, we should get at least to increases in global average temperatures of no more than two degrees and strive to keep them at no more than 1.5 degrees of warming. To get to that level, two degrees we think would require on the order of an 80 80% greenhouse gas reduction level, getting to 1.5 really requires getting to zero by about 2050. So if we think about that structure at one end, are we on a trajectory, either to 80% or to net zero. The answer is no, not collectively. Perhaps on route to that in some places, we certainly see trajectories on renewable energy that are moving forward that's quite promising electric vehicles are clearly out there. But nothing yet at the scale that we have to have the US particular target was a 26 to 28% reduction by the year 2025. Are we on a trajectory for that. No, in the last four years, the United States has fallen behind that trajectory. That's not withstanding the fact that a number of us states have really moved forward and have held to their commitment, and really states like California and New York and Massachusetts really have pushed forward, and we've seen aggressive programs. But the federal government's walking back from commitments has definitely reduced the US capacity to implement against the levels that we had set for ourselves in Paris. Can we make that up going forward. I think that's the right question to be asked with the Biden team. The answer is technically absolutely we can. This is not a technical problem. It's a question of will the politics work and what might Biden be able to do with his team with a Congress that may be more or less receptive to act to action on this front with executive orders that he might take on his own, but potentially challenged by a Supreme Court that may not like those orders. These kinds of questions I think we'll start to play out. What we are seeing is that Biden has made explicit his intent, both to rejoin Paris, and to get us back on track, and to begin to engage globally in a way we have not seen for the last four years. So, Fatih, the Jonathan, of course, pointed to the withdrawal of the US from the Paris Agreement. How did the rest of the world react to the US withdrawal today? We're full speed ahead without the US retreat on their own commitments. We have another conference of the parties coming up in Glasgow in the fall of 2021. Can you assess for us how the rest of the world is going to react to the US showing up again in a different way? As you mentioned, the United States has been the playmaker, one of the architects of the Paris Agreement. And as such, US leaving the Paris Agreement is, of course, many other signatory countries founded as a disappointing move. And on top of that, the United States is the second largest emitter of the world. And the United States is where the innovation comes from when it comes to energy, energy technologies. So these are, of course, not the best news when it comes to reduction of CO2 emissions globally. But after US announced its decision, the more than a retreat from the other countries, I can say that there was at least two types of reactions. One is the resilience, some of the countries, especially Europe and the others, but some others were hiding behind that very decision. So US next administration, if it decides to join a Paris Agreement, I would think that it would create a tremendous momentum, a political momentum, because US being a part of any agreement, intention agreement, or not being a part, it is a difference day and night. So therefore I think it will give a momentum. And this momentum comes at a time when several countries come up with a net zero target, net zero pledges. So from that point of view, if such a development takes place, it will give a momentum, a political momentum, momentum in terms of innovation. And I would say even it could, it would give a strong signal to the investors around the world, and to be a strong signal, I would say. Jonathan, you probably know this better than any of the rest of us. What's the process for rejoining the accord? What does the US have to do? And what will have to happen here is that process starts. It's actually a fairly simple exercise. Just as President Trump chose to withdraw the United States from the agreement with an executive order, the new president could choose to rejoin in the same way. He signs a piece of paper, sends a letter to the UN Convention, and the process says that 30 days after that is received, the US then would regain its status as a party to the agreement. That of course is the easy part. The harder part is then the United States would have to have what's called an NDC or a nationally determined contribution in the language of the convention, essentially articulating what its plan and pledge would be. So this would replace the previous NDC that you mentioned the first time. That's correct. And the one that had been there no longer has standing because it was no longer a party in that period of withdrawal would mean that you'd have to redo it. The expectation is in any event that all countries would be iterating on their pledges and providing new updates to those pledges. Technically, they were due at the end of 2020. I think because of COVID and the structure of the year, many are putting them forward in early parts of 2021. My guess is that the administration should it go down this road would certainly do so as early as it could, but certainly not later than Glasgow. But that's a question of what would the new target be? And what will the expectations of other nations around the world be of the new target? Will it be consistent with what the science calls for, which is essentially a trajectory to net zero? Would it be consistent with what the US can deliver at home based on congressional capacity based on what the executive orders could contribute or even based on what the states individually might do on their own independent of federal level programs. I think those questions are to be resolved. There are a number of ideas that are on the table. My guess is that will form the difficult part of a discussion early in a new administration around rejoining and the submission of this new pledge. So, so I'd like to, before we go to questions from the students, I'd like to just talk for a minute about what, what kinds of pathways might the US and the world as a whole, adopt toward making significant reductions and we've seen lots of effort on renewables in this country and around the world, reductions in coal use here, less so in other parts of the world. So, Fatih, the IEA has put considerable effort into analysis of pathways for deploying clean energy technologies as a way to reduce emissions and also have lots of co-benefits for human health and the environment in general. Could you just talk about the main elements that are likely to pay important roles in that in the transition both in the United States and in the other big players around the world? Of course, Lin, I mean, first of all, I would say three different blocks. The first block is renewables and energy efficiency. This is a, renewables are growing extremely, extremely strong. I just give you one number, solar. Just one thing, solar. This year, 2020 and similar to 2019 as well, about half of the all power plants installed in the world, 50% is solar, other 50%, everything has put together coal plus gas plus nuclear plus wind hydro 50%, solar alone 50%. And the main reason, main driver is not to save the climate, reduce the emissions. Main reason is solar is becoming the cheapest source of electricity generation around the world. This is very simple. Wind is growing very strongly and I have huge expectations from offshore wind. We will see a cost decline offshore wind very soon as we have seen in solar. Very good. Efficiency. Also, in the first block, we can make a big use of efficiency in US and elsewhere. So these are the ones and almost everybody agrees what we need is the, for example, in the context of United States, if you want a more stronger growth in the United States, then a strengthened extension of the tax credits, for example, for the renewables for efficiency, maybe there is a need for revisiting some of the current incentives and regulations. This is block number one. Block number two, I would say the technologies which we are, which we have in our hands today, but we are thinking shall we go ahead or not, such as nuclear power and CCVS. I believe nuclear power can still play an important role in reduction of global emissions in US and elsewhere, but we have to not only preserve but the current nuclear and lifetime extension of nuclear power plants in the US, but also with the new ones, with the small model reactors. I believe the United States can be a leader here. So this is the second one and also CCVS is an extremely important technology in carbon capture utilization and storage because when we talk about the renewables and we talk about the nuclear, it is mainly using the electricity generation, but even if we decarbonize the entire global electricity generation, we go only one third of the way that we have to go. Distill the industry, transportation and so on, so CCVS can be very important. Now to finish a third block and here the biggest job in my view, but my expectation from United States in the next years to come, which is the under the motto of innovation. Now, we look at the 2050 net zero emission reductions. About 50% of the net 50% of the emission reductions globally need to come from technologies which are not commercially available yet. So if I can perhaps say again, 50% of the emission reductions to reach our climate goals are coming from the technologies which are not commercially available, which are not marketed, such as hydrogen. And United States being the leader of innovation years and years and years, I would expect that the innovation can be one of the magic words for the next administration's energy and climate portfolio. And this is the third bucket, I would say so renewables and efficiency, nuclei and CCVS and also innovation for new technologies, hydrogen, electric cars and all of these things together in a nutshell. So, Jonathan, first of all, do you do do you agree that that that that's the right mix would you add things. How does that fit for for the United States. So I think it's basically the right set of buckets. I think the question largely going to be how are they implemented at individual national scales and within individual countries. We see a whole host of constraints around any given bucket and a number of discrete opportunities that vary from place to place. For example, we see in Europe, a pretty active move in northern Europe in Germany for example toward wind, where solar is just not quite as efficient a model in the large part of the of the global south we see a lot more capacity for solar that's moving and penetrating the market quite rapidly among the lowest prices for solar deliverable deliverable deliverable solar power in India. We're now seeing numbers that are competitive with anything in the world, and are well below the price of new coal. So we certainly see that set of things, but the Indian model will of course be different than the German model. To me there are a couple of other pieces that thought he's kind of alluded to but I think might deserve a bit more focus. How much efficiency do we think we'll have. I think there's going to be a huge window of opportunity there, his own models suggest that could be significant models of others also argue that this is really possible. And in fact, the more we have by way of efficiency, the lower the total demand side will be and that will be a big piece of any successful outcome. And another piece that I think that he speaks to broadly is on the on the energy side, but doesn't speak perhaps to another portion of global emissions which will be land use and forestry. Collectively at a global scale that might make up as much as a third of the global emissions trajectory. It's not our energy problem, but it's part of our climate problem and how do we think about that will be influential. And there may be inter ties between that land use question and our energy discussion. So for example, today we don't really have ways to offset the emissions that come from aviation, the options for aviation don't really include hydrogen it's not obviously going to be a battery technology, but it might be a biofuels technology, and those biofuels were certainly then compete with things like crops, or perhaps on the woody biomass side, be an area for new innovation that Bobby spoke to. So these kinds of intersections I think will be substantial. In the US, I think there'll be a number of other pieces that play out. There's going to be a large question the US about what happens to gas. And that framework is clearly one that was part of the debate during the course of the campaign, where President Trump said we should continue to produce because climate change is not a problem. And President Biden said we're going to figure out how to manage gas, because gas is not by itself unabated part of the solution. So that tension is going to probably show up in the US in a significant way. But gas won't be limited in that context of the United States and body in the eye have been doing a great deal of work thinking about European gas and global gas markets. What does that mean for the Nord Stream line, what plays out in terms of German reliance on Russia. How do we think about the structure for LNG exports around the world, and the role the Middle East might play, not least as Japan is a major importer as China increasingly imports, or as countries like Australia move gas out into the global marketplace. I think gas is going to be one of the real areas. Does it mean we won't have it. I actually think we will have it. I think at least we'll end up with it as a backstop for some portion of variability, perhaps in particular for long term seasonal variability on supply sides. But it's going to have to be managed with a carbon capture and storage program. And the more you have of the carbon capture and storage the higher your costs go, and we probably have some real constraints about managing the CO2 from capture in the course of a combustion structure in the energy sector. And we may in fact need that capture and storage technology to deal with things like industry, or we may not have quite as many alternatives. So I think those are the kinds of tensions that show up in all of Fatih's analysis, which I think is exactly the right set of questions that policymakers are going to have to grapple with this balancing act between what we think we could do, and how it intersects with a larger ecosystem in the energy community, and in global geopolitics. I guess I can add something here. Yeah, so I think a two small points here, one and natural gas. So let me tell you this thing. In the year 2019 and 2020, the largest reductions in the CO2 emissions in the world came from the United States. The numbers and the, the, the, there are three drivers for that. The gas replacing coal, big growth of renewables, solar and wind, and third efficiency improvements. Now, having said that I fully agree with Jordan, a gas with CCS and something more important in my view, the methane emissions. We need to address the methane emissions because this can be our analysis show that the methane emissions today in the world, half of them can be abated with zero or negative cost. You just need to have regulations for venting and flaring, and this is the companies need to do. In my view, this is the one way, must wait to get a social license of those companies if they are part of the solution. The second point. Now, of course renewables will grow and if the, the next administration's 2035 net zero electricity generation plan is implemented. The solar and wind deployment in the United States compared to today need to tripled. And this would mean a lean in my view calls for big greed infrastructure investment, because in the absence of grids, you cannot have the, the sunshine in Arizona in Los Angeles, you cannot use it. So therefore, the having grids will be very important to accommodate those intermittent renewables, and at the same time provides secure electricity. And here, again, I agree with Jordan, having natural gas or nuclear or hydro having dispatchable generation will help us not to have some unintended consequences as a result of huge growth. We all want to see coming from solar and wind. So, so I hear several threads woven together in what both of you have said one is that that that optionality that is having multiple pathways and a diversified energy system is important. Two is the question of scale that we're especially with regard to innovation. We need to get to scale and and in a way we're in the middle of that with things like solar and wind now deployment at much larger scale. And then there's the, the whole innovation side where we bring bring new technologies into the marketplace at the same time we either reduce use of fossil fuels or to the extent that they survive. The emissions are captured and and presumably stored mostly geologically in them in the in the subsurface. So the question is, of course, how do we, how do we get there. And that that situation is likely to be pretty different, it seems to me in various, various parts of the world so maybe another element of that that list I just gave is the sort of geographic heterogeneity that that India looks different from from the US from Europe or or China. So, Jonathan maybe you could, you could talk a little bit about this, the, the, the politics of all of this is going to be tangled up in, in various things around the world so. For example, the United States I could imagine a conversation about jobs, doing the kinds of things that he talked about with regard to, to the infrastructure of the grid, but, but that seems to me to be very different from the question of electricity supply in Sub-Saharan Africa or, or transforming energy in, in India. So, Jonathan, why don't you start and then maybe I'll ask you to come back and reflect on, on this topic as well. What's, what's, how do we make the politics of all this work in various places around the world. I think it's a critical question. A lot of our discussions so far has really focused on the technology options and might you do, but I think it's left off the political questions. So let's look at just a couple of different ones. Germany has a relatively small number of coal miners, but that small number of coal miners has led to a conclusion in the German government that the right date for phasing out coal, which is the highest of the greenhouse gas emitters in the fossil world, only in 2038. China has over 5 million coal miners, not 5,000. How quickly will they move? I think that's probably the reason that they talk about a peaking sometime before 2030, 10 years from now, much too late to be in the context of getting to 2030 in time for a global outcome. But because the internal politics and how do you manage whole parts of the country, which are reliant on that fuel, and don't see a ready and quick transition model. The US is a bit in the middle. Our numbers are about 50,000 coal miners. So it's not a small number, but it's not a large number either. We have well over 10 times that many people working in the, in the renewable sector. And yet the relative weights and power within the US Senate and control over resource extraction by various states dictate certain kinds of political outcomes. I think these politics matter as much as the technologies, and the technologies are partly shaped by physical circumstances. Do you in fact have capacity for wind. Well, even in that it states some parts of the country have very little other parts are tremendous. They're shaped by things like the grid, and I fully agree with Fonte, most of the models that we see presume that you largely electrify economies, and then you decarbonize the electricity system. And that means more density in our grid, more capacity to wheel power across longer distances to manage variability. So we have a political problem about people not really wanting large scale high voltage transmission lines in their backyards, or in their communities. And when they are put in they want to revenue structure, but the revenue is often at the site of generation and the site of use. It is not in the middle where transmission occurs, except for the person on whose land that pylon might sit. The results might get the visual consequence of the transmission line, but no returns. These kinds of political questions are going to be at the heart of almost all of the national negotiations. But they'll also be at the heart of the international ones, because countries will move at different rates and at different times competition over technology will be significant. What are the cartels today being formed around oil. Will there be a future cartel around the rare earth elements that are required for a renewable sector. What does that mean for the extractive industries, which will move perhaps in the Middle East to places in the Andes that produced those materials. What does it do in terms of a sense of security, and how does security play out in the future. These questions are often left out of our technology discussions, but in my mind will be absolutely central to the success of the endeavor. So, so Fatih, maybe I could ask you to just respond briefly on this one because it's time to move on to the to the to the student part of the conversation but but go ahead. So, two brief points. One of them is I agree with Jonathan Cole is a key issue, especially in Asia. Now, in India, two largest employers in India is the cold India. The other one is the railways of India. Cold India has one million employers and railways India would call bankruptcy if they don't transport call full stop. I mean this is just show you the importance of that how we can have a inclusive Transition is very important and not only India but many other countries, but I want to highlight one in my view one of the most important is a numbers person blind spots of climate change debate, which is the following When we talk about the how we can decarbonize, we are thinking which power plants to build, which cars to buy, which house to build, etc. But there is a big issue of legacy, legacy issue. Now, even if we decide as of 1st of January, 30 years, whatever the world builds is zero emission. Everything is renewables or nuclear, all the cars are electric, everything is like that. If the existing energy infrastructure power plants, iron steel, cement, aluminum, petrochemical would run just in line with their normal economic lifetimes. Just economic lifetimes. The global temperature increase will be 1.65 degrees. So we have no chance to reach our targets. Forget the what we will build. I am sure somebody will buy a car with the combustion engine. Somebody will build a power plant in the next 20 years, but even nothing is built running with fossil fuels. The existing power plants, industrial facilities and everything what we have now will lock in 1.65 degrees Celsius. Therefore, the issue is how we can phase out, shut down these plants, which are mainly in Asia, which are very young age, coal plants are 13 years old on average, which is a 40 years normal lifetime coal power plants, and which are mainly coming from low income countries with little appetite to be a frontrunner in the climate debate. For me, this is the big issue, legacy issue, how we deal what we have already here in addition to what we are going to build in the future. Yeah, so I know some of the questions that the students are thinking about aim at this. So we could of course continue this conversation for a long time with lots of interesting things to talk about but we have a number of questions from students and from the general audience so let me introduce first the two Stanford students who will represent the student audience. Ranjita Shivaram is a doctoral student focused on energy and environment climate resilience and urban infrastructure. She earned graduate degrees in city planning and science and undergraduate degrees in architecture and civil engineering. She's worked to author an overview of India's energy landscape for Stanford. Andreina Marcius is a second year MBA. I per student at Stanford where she focuses on energy and sustainability. And she's also pursuing a masters in public administration at Harvard Kennedy School where she focuses on energy policy. She's so she's a busy gal. And she did her undergraduate work in international business economics at university type from payo Fabra Barcelona to run to. Thanks Lynn for that introduction. So my question is for both panelists, and this is sort of really dovetailing well into what you just talked about. Of the $49 trillion investment in infrastructure total that is projected to be needed from this year to 2030. Nearly 60% is supposed to come from what I call emerging markets and this stat is from a McKinsey report. So as with if you've already mentioned infrastructure is very emissions intensive and also can lock in emissions both from the embodied side to the construction and also the operation side. And Jonathan I know you've been involved with mission innovation. So my question to you is, what role should the US and other developed countries play in collaborating with India and other developing country context to ensure that their pathway of growth is not as emissions intensive, as the other developed countries have had in the past. And so to sort of streamline the question a little bit. In the next five years, what do you think the main priorities for collaboration should be, and what specific initiatives would you think would be able to achieve success on this end. I think there are a couple of different pieces to your question. The first one has to do with what kind of cooperative mechanisms might be fine. And the last has to do with in particular for India, what does that look like. And the last has to do with the infrastructure components of it. So let's talk first about India. So Prime Minister Modi has been quite explicit about his interest in seeing additional investment into India from private finance, largely from the OECD countries, and no small measure as an effort to designify to push back against foreign investment. That does offer some windows for the Americans, for the Europeans for the Japanese and for others to come in with some kinds of forms of financing. On the flip side, India has actually been somewhat reluctant to modify its banking rules and the repatriation of profit kinds of conversations that have constrained foreign investment. So it's going to have to be both sides engaging in this discussion. There are a set of interesting questions then on the infrastructure side. We've supported some work in which we've looked at the cost today of zero carbon cement and zero carbon steel. They both exist, they're more expensive, they would on the order of 60 to 100% or double the price of those commodities. But if I think about the cost of iron or the cost of steel in a road or in a bridge, as compared to the overall cost of that road and bridge, even with a price that is twice as high, the net price of the outcome of the bridge or the road is less than 1% higher. That is a very marginal increase. It's now a question of it may be a big deal for the producer of the steel, but it's a pretty small commitment on the part of governments. The last question is, what does that look like then in the cooperative arrangements that the United States might have with India or with others. And I think they take two forms. One form is going to be in the actual development of new technologies. If we think about the global capacity in the R&D space around the world, India is clearly a leader. What kinds of arrangements might you imagine? Didn't go all that well with China, where there had been concerns about intellectual property, and there had been real constraints. To date, we have seen much less with India. India has provided a great deal of the global back office supply, a lot of the development in the IT sector certainly has been Indian in its origin, often with investment from the US and from Europe. What does that look like going forward remains to be seen? And is there a geopolitical interest in finding some kind of a balance around the world with India as another center for manufacturing in contrast with China? And would that then lead to an openness in the development of R&D and joint ventures around new technology? I think the answer to all of that is yes. We are likely to see more of that in a next Biden administration than we have so far seen. Although I would note it's a matter of degree, not a matter of kind. The Trump administration clearly had moved toward India as it was moving away from China. I think do you want to respond briefly to that? Good. Andrina, are you up next? Yes. This question is in regards to the 26th session of the Conference of the Parties. This session is expected to include the finalization of Article 6 that would determine global carbon market and the exchanging of carbon credits. So this is to Jonathan in the beginning. How do you think the US will approach this topic? And how do you think this will depend on the Senate results that come in in January? So I'd say a couple of things about it. The first one is that Article 6 has not limited global action on emissions trading. In fact, the most developed emissions trading market is in Europe and they have not slowed down at all in terms of their operations because Article 6 is unresolved. We've got markets in places like California. We've got the continuing market on the East Coast, United States through the Reggie agreement. We've got the development of markets in China at the provincial level in southern China. So the lack of Article 6 agreement has not stalled or slowed a structure. The second thing for me is that Article 6 were to be resolved is not likely to change those structures because it's likely to be resolved at such a high and aggregate level that it won't really affect what the ETS does in Europe or what California might buy on its internal structured market. So to me there's a lot of attention on this, but I think not necessarily deserved. The last thing is what would the US do then in this new world? A great deal of the Article 6 question is about reporting and the accuracy in the communication of information. That's been a hallmark historically of US engagement in the climate negotiations. So from that perspective, I think a new US administration coming in would seek to develop robust reporting standards and frameworks. I don't personally think Congress is likely to pass a domestic omission this trading program anytime soon. It doesn't seem likely. It doesn't seem likely whether the Senate goes to the Republicans or the Democrats in the run off in Georgia. It just doesn't seem like a plausible outcome. So I think the US engagement is going to be more of a technical nature as a party, if it rejoins the program with a Biden administration as a party to the convention process and to Paris, it would be actively involved in building robust regimes, but I'm not sure they're going to be actively here in the United States. So this might be a good place to interject a question that is from the audience. And it's about the financial system that supports all this. And Jita mentioned that there's a whole heck of a lot of investment that needs to take place. And, and so, there, there, there have been a couple of questions that about how financial markets reflect climate risks, and, and what to what extent that do financial opportunities for, for sustainable investments and how in other words how does the financial community begin to weigh the effects of climate and then include that in in investment decisions. Tati, why don't you start in the mid Johnson, you could respond briefly on both of those. Of course, very briefly. First of all, as I said a few minutes ago, US coming back and climate change debate as a strong player, maybe even a leading player will give a very strong signal to investors around the world. So I have no doubt about this and this will be a main game changer. Second, especially in the advanced economies, many of the clean energy technologies require high upfront capital costs and the current ultra low interest rates will be a very good point of infrastructure for those investments to make those investments easier than thought. Third, a, now, many governments around the world need to find mechanisms to the risk, some of the critical investments. There will not be without any government intervention without any government policy. In some projects, we need the risk of investments by governments. Fourth, we may well see that for certain technologies, there is a need for government kickoff subsidies. Now, when you look at the solar energy, we just said a few minutes ago solar is today the cheapest source of electricity generation, most part of the world, but it started 10 years ago with government subsidies in Japan, Spain, Germany, and Italy. In my view today, the electrolyzers for the hydrogen and the batteries are today there where solar was 10 years ago. So therefore I believe there is a need for government support there. I don't want to deviate from the subject but for COP26, our colleagues asked, I just want to say one thing about that. I am happy that the question about the US Senate was not directed to me. I am very happy because in the last few weeks in Europe we learned all the map of the United States, where is Ohio, where is Arizona, where is all of these states in Europe we learned, even the counties we started to learn, but it is more than enough to, I think we stop here. We love the United States, but geography is geography. But I want to say that COP26, looking at the pieces coming together, may, you know, Paris is the city of light. We call it Paris is the city of light, and some people say Paris is the city of love, but I prefer city of light. Glasgow may be brighter than Paris. I am a Glasgow may be brighter than Paris, much more successful results may come from Glasgow in terms of much more ambitious indices and many countries coming with the net zero pledges for 2050. I have a big, big hope for that. Just wanted to register this. Thank you. And just one point to add to Fatih's comment. I think he's completely right about this question of risk and how the finance sector historically has evaluated it. When Fatih and I worked together at the IEA in the late 1990s, one of the real issues was how to understand why renewables weren't moving forward. And the answer in part, and this was some analysis that was done by the efficiency team and the renewables team at the IEA at the time, was that it was perceived to be a very risky technology. It hadn't been adopted. There wasn't a lot in the public domain that you could look at, and a bank was reluctant to make an investment to articulate why this risky thing, solar or wind should be proposed instead of something that was much more conventional and therefore had a much lower risk profile. And we added to that the risk of a country to begin with. We don't know that all countries have the same likelihood of repayment on debt, and that changes risk as well. But these kinds of things have shifted a great deal. So now the question becomes not just is it less risky, but also what's the longer term scenario to understand the risk. Supposing a country is going to impose barriers regulatory barriers, or there's going to be a tax provision that will change the relative price of a fossil technology or renewable technology. And a bank now has to look not only at the technology risk or the national risk, but also the policy risk. The work that Mark Carney, who was the head of financial stability board and that point has recently stepped down from that role and also the step that has stepped down from the role of the Bank of England. He had done a series of analyses under this task force on financial disclosure, which looked at two kinds of risk. One kind of risk was this transition risk, this risk of new policy coming into play. And the second was a risk of climate change itself called a physical risk. What are the consequences if you own a power plant and the water isn't available because there's a drought and you can't cool the facility. Or what are the consequences of their being sea level rise and flooding out your facility. Those kinds of risks are partly a climate change one and can be tabulated and calculated. When he adds those up, you get a very different picture of what is a bank's best interest, because the risk that you had previously assumed without climate change now shifts, and you now rank order your options for investment in a different way. I see that happening, and I increasingly seeing it not just voluntary, but increasingly proposals for mandatory change in risk calculus. Europe is doing that. I think that that might be one of the things that a by demonstration would do to require banks to incorporate that. And let's be clear why, if they don't, their shareholders will lose and the shareholders might not be able to make that debt back, and the bank should have that liability. And this risk, just as in other kinds of risks are ways the government can assure that that is taken up by banks in their decision process. I want to shift all sorts of investment, not just an energy, but also an industry, also in bonds for infrastructure. So I see this part of a financial debate being a very central part of the next few years conversation. So let's go back to our students, Rajita, I believe you're next. Yes, thank you, Lynn. So this question is on the slightly different note. I want to ask about environmental and energy injustices. So, we've talked a little bit about having a just transition. So I'd love to ask both of you, you know, what are the major challenges to ensuring that that happens Jonathan you highlighted some labor side problems that we are already dealing with. So, to put it simply, what injustices, be they racial or economic or country level disparities, do you see keeping you up at night going forward and Jonathan maybe for you on the more environmental injustices side, and then Fatih for you more on the energy side. So maybe just a few quick thoughts here. The first is that they play out differently at a national level than they do at the international level. And let me start nationally. If we take a look at the climate impacts of the United States faces and environmental impacts more broadly, they are disproportionately felt by communities of color by lower income communities around the country, and in certain ways, they're not evenly spread. And that requires that we don't look at the solution as being something that everyone gets an apportioned on a per capita even basis, we have to think about where those impacts are most significant. And they play out not only in terms of climate or environmental impacts of the consequence. They also play out in terms of the mitigation strategy. What we've seen globally is that when you look at some of these new technologies at the beginning, they are more expensive. And those who spend a higher share of their income, for example, on energy, or on gasoline for their car, or on the various commodities that the more wealthy community has trivial costs for those two have to be managed. But for example, what California has just done, thinking about an electric vehicle mandate, they have explicitly pushed for a secondary market. And they push for a secondary market because that is very much the way the lower income communities buy cars, they don't buy new cars, they buy used cars, but there's no you car market for an electric vehicle. How do you establish that because it creates more equity in the system. And those kinds of questions play out also in the solar space. Can you provide subsidies and supports to low income communities that you want to adopt it because it's a better answer, but it's currently slightly more expensive for a variety of reasons. Its price will come down, but you can't wait for that. Will governments move in that direction. I think the answer is yes. The international play is quite different. That's a function of wealthy and less wealthy countries. It doesn't mean that even in a place like the United States which is a very wealthy country, there aren't pockets of deep poverty and enormous inequity. There are. The United States relatively speaking can afford those kinds of things. And this goes back some comments that Fati made early on, as we look at those without even access to electricity. Those are basic necessities like refrigeration and medical coverage and support for lighting in schools without which an economy and a people can't prosper. Those are fundamental and those lead to question of rebalancing across countries. Those lead you to questions of assistance development aid, but also investment, also private sector actions that might bring capacities in those places, and the markets in those places to the So if I may then about the another injustice you mentioned and energy. I want to talk about the gender issue since we have a one of your students here. Now, let me talk about the energy access. I mentioned the electricity access, but there is a another very important hallmark of energy access energy power, which is the access to clean cooking. Today, in the developing world, two out of three households use wood, agricultural waste, animal waste for cooking. And why why it is important. It is important because it is the second largest reason for premature death after malaria and in some countries, even before malaria. And this is, again, the main problem here is with women and children, because they are the ones who are cooking the food, bringing to the table. And many women and children prematurely die because of not having access to modern energy services and using this. And I would say this a major injustice and this a gender injustice. And I just wanted to highlight this is a key issue which is not very much discussed. We focus mainly on electricity access, but access to clean cooking is another important issue in Asia and Africa, especially and also in Latin America, by the way. Yeah, I think you both good question both reminds us that that in lots of ways we need to be multi dimensional in how we evaluate projects and evaluate pathways because they're they're both challenges and the combination of co benefits. I mean, you can, you can look for places where where reducing carbon emissions improves air quality dramatically. Those are health benefits, even in the United States, the health benefits of reducing emissions from coal plants for example, are quite substantial. So I think it's, it's an important element. We have a series of questions from the audience that in one way relate to this, this whole question of how we get to broader electrification and one of them is what's the role of storage and for that I would say storage broadly construed it. It could be batteries it could be, could be hydrogen that could be pumped hydro I mean lots of, you know, do we need that. And in order to be able to support the deep penetration of renewables like wind and solar. Fatih probably you're the right one to start that discussion and and how does that fit together on a worldwide basis. Definitely. This is the we why we are all very enthusiastic to see that the solar and wind are growing very strongly and they will be expected in the next 10 years 90% of new power plants will be solar and wind 90% so this is a big number. So why we are so enthusiastic about this, we shouldn't forget another issue which is security of electricity that electricity is always there 24 seven when we need it. And one of the very important ways to address this issue is storage. But a, if you put the pump hydro aside because not every country has a pipe hydro option. In terms of battery storage, the, the numbers the costs are still far from being just ready for the market. And in my view, this is one of the top priorities, if we are focusing on the increasing share of solar and wind. One is grits. The other one is the battery storage. This is extremely important because we cannot only think by having new solar panels and the wind means, but this is at the same time we have to think of grits and the battery storage if we want to have a clean but at the same time secure electricity system. Jonathan, you have a, you have a view of this. I'd only add one point to thought he's coming I think he's he's entirely correct. There is an open question in my mind still and I'd be curious if you have a different thought about this as to whether or not you could imagine fast ramping gas with capture. And I think that with a change in the market regulatory structure to manage pricing in such a way as to maintain that because you only want to use it in very very rare cases, which means you're paying quite a high premium to sustain it. That may be a slightly lower cost than long term seasonal storage and batteries. And to me there may be something there. There's an open question as to whether it goes to carbon capture, or whether it goes to hydrogen and a hydrogen storage structure, which might be produced with some combination maybe of nuclear and renewables, but I can see that at least as a transition strategy that could complement the very rapid growth as prices come down on the battery side. I can add one thing here, Lynn, to what Jonathan said, it is completely true. We need all of these things. So dispatchable generations such as gas, battery storage, pump hydra greets, what I would like to underline is the following in the next generation or the colleagues who are listening us around the world. It is very good that the clean electricity is growing very strongly solar and wind. But if we don't keep an eye on the electricity security. If there are some accidents in court, the some blackouts or a similar incidents. This could be a cold shower on the acceleration of the clean energy transition. So I think we need to pay attention to electricity security as well, just to make a footnot that really energy security in general disruptions on. I think that argues again for the optionality that we talked about for earlier. Andrea, you're up next. Thank you for your comments. I think they're waking people up to certain realities that are not always easy to hear. And switching the conversation more to adaptation and mitigation efforts. This year the World Bank pledged to divide their financing commitments, 50-50 between adaptation and mitigation. And I would like to get your opinion on how national governments should think about resource allocation between these two activities. Maybe I just say a few words about it. There's a very strong rationale in the World Bank for that approach. If you think about the countries that are primarily reliant on World Bank investments. There are countries which frankly provide many, many fewer emissions, a much smaller share of the global total, and yet will bear much of the brunt of the consequences of climate change. And so for their economies, while they certainly want to grow as green and as clean as possible, the impact of climate is going to be heavily based on its physical impact in country. So it's a really wise exercise in my mind for the bank to have gone down that road. In terms of what the United States would do, the US is likely to be able to withstand certain of its impacts much more readily. We don't have it easily. You kind of think about the costs of hurricanes. California has just gone through a season of wildfires, which have been extraordinarily damaging for property and for lives, but we can manage that. So for us, it might be much more sensible to devote the bulk of our resources to try to mitigate the problem. I think this balance may shift over time as the damages grow, and as we are able more and more to mitigate the emissions, we're going to have to turn our attention to the effects that are locked in. Even if we reduce very quickly, we're going to have more and more significant damages than we've seen in the last 10 years. And the last 10 years has been marked by the most strong hurricanes, the biggest wildfires, the largest droughts. Those going to get worse even if we can get to zero. So we're going to have to start thinking as a collective global community, how to manage that collective set of actions. How do we recover? How do we become more resilient while not stopping the effort to mitigate? I think you want to, did you want to. I agree with Jonathan. Okay. Good. So, so the, the questions about finance have have appeared in the thread as well. The, and really Jonathan, well, one of you said it I'm not sure which now but noted that that if, if you had, for example, some. Dispatchable hydrogen powered gas turbines in the mix for providing the resilience that and security that Foxy mentioned that asset would as likely to run only a short period of time. So there's the question of the, how does the market deal with the low capacity factors and encourage people to invest. And then, then the, the other question is this one that Fati raised which is this question of stranded assets. And to what extent that do we say well we're going to stop using plants that exist now, because we don't, we don't want the emissions that go with them so. In some ways, both of these questions have something to do with the kinds of market structures which are gosh, heterogeneous across the world. So are there any sort of broad observations about about how we deal with that those, those kinds of market questions as it is in. Is that an essential element of how we, we go forward on all this. That was a long rambling question I'm not sure who to ask first. Jonathan, of course. You're, you're appointed. Let me just say a few words about it, I actually think that we've spent too much time on the technology and not enough time on the markets, and not enough time on the regulatory environment. We've been doing some work with colleagues in India and in China on this, and it strikes me that that's one of the most important things we can do. We've built out an extraordinary capacity more than any other country in the supply of renewables. And yet, if you look at some of the market structures and it's a Chinese version of a market but then the less the rank ordering of dispatch often promotes coal, instead of renewables. So you actually have assets that could be producing zero carbon power, but the politics and the history and the various local circumstances dictate that coal go first. That's not a problem. That's not a technology constraint they've got the technology options in the other dimension. And I think we mentioned earlier this question of how do you assure resilience. I think fonti is completely right. If we ended up with a series of large scale electric grid problems, anytime the next 10 years, it will set back the globe's interest in working on this issue. It shouldn't, but it will. So to me the management of reliability is a secondary question, which therefore is a market problem. How do I assure reliability. What does that mean for tariffs and rates. So, can I pay the costs of running a backstop facility that might only run 10% of the time and yet sustain it so it's economically viable. It has to in that 10% make up enough of its costs to be a profitable venture, or it will shut down. That to me is a market problem. It's a rates and regulatory problem. It's not a technology question. So to me these are intertwined, and I think a lot of attention is going to have to be devoted to that issue in the next few years. So far did you want to respond on the on the stranded asset question you brought that up earlier and is there, and maybe for either of you are there any good examples of markets that are there starting to wrestle with this in a in a successful way. I think what we are going to do is that some of the assets will be a standard for sure. And especially in the advanced economies, and if the companies who are the owners of those assets are serious to save their assets. And the one and only technology it can help them today, many of them, but the main one is for me, carbon capture utilization and storage. This is a very critical technology. I am very hopeful about the CCS. We all know that it didn't fly many years, but now the today 80% of the global energy is fossil fuels, 80%. And 30 years ago, it was also 80%. Fossil fuels are stubborn. If we want to reach our climate goals, one of the key technology options, without making many, many assets, huge amount of assets standard, we have to accept the carbon capture utilization and storage. I think this is the key issue. And as it happens, the difficulty bulk of those standard assets challenge is in low income countries, low and medium income countries. And therefore CCS is a must. And again, one of my expectations with the hopefully the new momentum to address the climate change globally is giving a boost to technologies which are very important to address those standard asset issues. Yes, well, gosh, we've had a wide ranging conversation that's covered everything from the international politics to all the technologies to the challenges of the markets. I guess my observation for students would be that the opportunity space for contributing to the climate and energy transition that we're in the midst of now, that opportunity space has never been bigger. And it needs students who know about the technology side who are able to think about the markets who are willing to think about the social implications and all the politics that goes with this. We're talking about transforming the world's energy systems and they, they are woven through every aspect of modern life. And so that the opportunity to make that better is a wide ranging one. So, and we need all the players we can get on the field so students. There's there's plenty for all of us to do. So, Flati and Jonathan, thank you very much for joining us today. I know it's dinner time at least for you. I'll get there in a second. And, and we'll, we'll let you go have something to eat and a glass of wine, and the rest of us will embark on our day. Thanks for participating. You wanted to say a word Flati. Yeah, I just wanted to say I completely agree with you. A lot of things to do for your students, especially now. And in tennis energy agencies open the application from your university to students. We have a we have a wonderful institution here, leading the global clean energy transitions and on top of that, Paris is a beautiful city. So, looking forward to applications. So Jonathan, you want to recruit for the Hewlett Foundation. I'm going to go with Flati I think you should I got a chance to work in the IA it was fabulous. So I love Paris, your kids should definitely think about it. Thank you. Thank you both. And for the rest of the audience please join us two weeks from now on December 9 for a conversation with a panel of Stanford faculty on technology and policy priorities. Please register on our website gf.standford.edu and note the date and time December 9, 830 to 10 am California time. And with that I'll close and thank you all.