 Good afternoon and welcome online to the Institute of International and European Affairs. This is the inaugural event in a new lecture series co-organized with the Environmental Protection Agency. It's entitled Environmental Resilience and on behalf of the IIEA I'd like to thank the EPA for their sponsorship of this series. I also want to thank Jerry Kiley who's the head of the European Commission representation in Ireland for his assistance in facilitating today's event. Our very distinguished speaker is Dr John Bell. As you know John Bell is the Healthy Planet Director of DG Research and Innovation at the European Commission. The title of John's address today is Innovation Driving a Green and Just Transition Mission 2050 and Dr Bell will speak to us for roughly 15 or 20 minutes. After that presentation we'll go to the Q&A session with you with our audience and we've quite a large audience online today which we're delighted to report. You'll be able to join the discussion in the normal way, well in the way that's become normal, by using the Q&A function on Zoom you should be able to see that on your screen. Feel free to send your questions in throughout the session when they occur to you rather than waiting until the end so we can bank the questions and we'd be delighted to get them at any point when they occur to you. I would respectfully ask that you identify yourself and your affiliation if you have one when you're putting in the question. Reminder that the presentation and the Q&A session are on the record. However if you're tweeting, if you're on Twitter I'd be very happy for you to tweet from the event and our hashtag is hashtag EPA underscore IIEA. Nothing further for me to do at this point other than to introduce our distinguished speaker to address us Dr John Bell. You're very welcome John. Thanks a million Alex and thanks to Luke, to Jerry Coiley, the EPA and all of our colleagues for allowing me to get this close to home. This is the closest I'll get this Christmas. The three things I want to say really today and that is European integration is now about resilience and in that journey science research innovation needs to play a completely different role in setting a new direction and the third message is more or less that the sustainable bio economy which is at the centre of that offers a huge opportunity to Ireland and indeed to Ireland and Northern Ireland in the period ahead. So the great my work in the healthy transition team at the European Commission I'm dealing with climate, bio economy, biodiversity, innovation so forth and what we're seeing in this context we're looking at this great transition to climate neutrality to dealing with biodiversity collapse, developing a new economy in which growth and resources are decoupled in a decarbonised economy. So like the year that we've just been in we've just learned a great deal about resilience and this is the first in a series of chapters of this century in which we see the fundamental dilemma of the centuries. How do we reconcile the biosphere with the economy? The pandemic is one example of that and I think a lot of the things we're going to have to learn, the tricks we're going to have to learn as a democracy, as an economy, as a society, as a European Union, we already have had an opportunity to work through in the months before. If I may use a Biden reference given that mayo men are always welcome in conversations like this I think what we will find policy-wise in the European Union is that we're moving from the horrors of 2020 into 2030 elect. We are basically as an economy, a society and a planet in the process of preparing for where we need to be by 2030 and this is a fundamental shift in European integration. As Jean Monnet said at the beginning, when circumstances make impossible problems and barriers you have to change the context and what we're going to hear a lot of talk about, about recovery. Recovery is not a retread in terms of the European integration process, it's about generating deep and fair resilience through regeneration, the renovation of the economy, the restoration of the planetary systems and the reintegration of people into that economy in a fair and just way. So as everybody knows in 2019, the Commission took a historic leap with the launch of the European Green Deal. The Green Deal is about setting climate neutrality as a goal for the Union by 2050. So it's not a policy as such, it's a constitutional shift in what the European Union is about and what it's for. It means a fundamental transformation in all of our assumptions. All of our assumptions as we learned in the pandemic are just that, their assumptions. What our economy will be doing, how it works, how we deal with resources, what we mean by sustainability and how we're going to move growth forward without increasing the impact on the planet around us is central to this. The Green Deal is the first time that the European integration process is setting out a direction that goes beyond a single policy, investment, political or democratic cycle. It's generational. If you're going to use a crass phrase at this time of the year, the European Green Deal is not for Christmas, it's for life. And I think what we see in the Green Deal is a shift from a policy into a foundational reframing of what the European Union is for. It's the fifth great mission of the European Union after peace from coal and steel, the creation of the markets, the peaceful reconciliation of the continent, the development of the economic and monetary union. The Green Deal is at that level, it is a constitutional fundamental shift. And everything we do, every policy, every instrument, every program will be directed towards achieving that, as you will see. So we've developed a roadmap for action in the Green Deal as we do, which is ratcheting up our collective levels of ambition. You will have seen in the last year a massive rollout of fundamentally reframing action along the eight big axes of the Green Deal in all kinds of areas from climate to farming to pollution, which is coming soon to climate adaptation, climate law, which is being included, a new shift on biodiversity, a fundamental reframing of policy. There's a deep change taking place inside the commission, looking at the taxonomy of investment. So how we think about investment, how we will move the economy and invest in recovery forward is a deep rethink taking place as we try to ratchet up our collective level of ambition. So the European Green Deal is the context in which recovery will take place. When we talk about recovery, before this dreadful pandemic took root, we knew that there was a necessity to make these systemic shifts. And there was some of the usual policy debate around the context of the shift. And now we see with recovery, we have necessity and an opportunity to drive deep resilience in a space where there'll be historically the largest investment in the history of the European Union since the Second World War. The Green Deal was originally presented and remains the EU's growth strategy, but in fact what it becomes is the motor and compass of our recovery. It will be the motor force of recovery in that we have the lines and the blueprints and the direction and now the investment. So there will be no recovery without resilience. If we look, if we're going to commit to climate neutrality driven by green and digital transitions, the Union is putting its resources to do that. The 1.8 trillion euros to reboot the economy and the 30% of this that will be allocated to climate objectives, I think are a signal as to what is about to come. So there's no retreads. There's no back to business as usual. There's no returning to the assumptions. There's this great big opportunity opening out for us to take out of the ashes of this terrible period of pandemic and to rebuild, reimagine, and reconstruct and restore the Europe that we would like to see. So investing in the Green Deal means that we will be looking at reducing also in the interim our greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030. This is a dramatic and ambitious shift. They're not arbitrary targets, they're evidence-informed based on impact assessment underpinned by scientific modelling. I'm quite happy to have a conversation about how we see all of that at the moment where I'm working, we're working with the IPCC and the COP, we're working with the people in the oceans and the Arctic and so forth, and the news from there remains consistent. So what about research and innovation, all of this? The situations that science can no longer be an observer, it needs to move to be an actor, something that is there to predict, to inform, to drive innovation. We've seen this in the unfolding of the pandemic crisis. We need an evidence-based decision-making process for our economy and social development. Research and innovation is, of course, a key enabler of the Green Deal transitions in climate energy industry, the circular economy, buildings, mobility, food and farming, bio-economy, biodiversity, ecosystems, and pollution. Innovation, in many ways, is the hidden algorithm of transition. And science has a new role, and I think it's a role that may have seemed like an abstract concept a year ago, but not now. Science has now got to give courage to policymakers. It needs to give space to innovation, respite to nature, and most of all, hope to citizens. And it has to take a role instead of being an observer outside this process of transition to develop, to de-risk in terms of the bankability of the changes, to demonstrate in terms of new value chains and systems, and to deploy breakthrough innovation at scale so that we can accelerate and drive the long-term shifts. So it'll be quite interesting in the age of post-normal science to see what normality actually looks like as we move forward. Horizon Europe is the manifestation of this. The world's largest publicly funded research innovation program. Around about 90 billion, if and when we get this MFF and budget over the line, at least 35% of this will be climate-focused. And just to say, there's been a fantastic response in Ireland to Horizon 2020, where Morag Egan Quinn's initiative has led to Ireland doing a remarkable job. And SFI and everybody else who's working on this have done a super job in seizing that opportunity. I want to give a couple of examples as to how research innovation will work in practice on this. We have what are called European Green Deal missions. These are four moonshot ideas or earthshot ideas to radically mobilize breakthroughs. One is on climate resilient Europe, preparing Europe for climate disruptions and accelerating the transformation of climate resilient just Europe by 2030 led by Connie Hedegard. And that is about preparing Europe for adaptation. Think about how are we supposed to move to where we need to be, knowing that science is telling us what's going to happen with extreme weather, sea level rise, too much water, too little water, pressure on the agri-food system, and shifts in terms of investment. Mission Starfish led by Pascal Amin with Peter Heffen from Ireland is one of the key people, the restoration of our ocean and water systems by 2030. Building 100 climate neutral cities by 2030 by and for citizens. At the fourth area where Kevin North from Ireland has been actually involved, caring for soils, caring for life. The restoration of 75% of European soils and land by 2030 and in doing so dealing with the problems of pesticides and the issues of decarbonization land. These are four European Green Deal missions, earth shots if you like, where research innovation is stepping out of its comfort zone and working to try and bring significant change. These are our men on the moon or women on the moon moments where Horizon Europe will be driving the development of European public goods on the ground scale and one of the defining features of this process is the issue. The other D alongside deployment and demonstration and de-risking is deliberation. One of the biggest challenges and we've seen this in the pandemic is how do we make democratically acceptable decisions on complex evidence-based long-term changes. Think sea level rise in Dublin. Alex, you probably live within walking distance of the sea. How would you make decisions for the city of Dublin if for example you knew that we needed to build a wetland island or a barrage or change something fundamentally over 30 or 40 years? How do we make decisions either? It's not simply what evidence do we have. We need a new social and democratic political infrastructure decision making and by the way Ireland with the Citizens Assembly where I see Catherine Day is doing a fantastic job. There's a lot of insight in Ireland and the island of Ireland in how to deal with complex decisions. This is a new space where research and innovation has to support transition and again it will be critical because the changes that are coming that are inescapable will require very significant shifts. I spent a lot of time in the Netherlands. They're already working on a 100-year plan in how to deal with that. So active citizen participation is central to that. Another clear example. We've just launched in September one billion euro European Green Deal call which is about providing breakthroughs in all of these key areas in order to try and move things forward. It came out of a conversation we had with young marchers who wanted something urgent done in Europe. This is the deadline, it's the 26th of January. I strongly encourage people to get involved. There's a number of different areas there. I'll give two examples in the Q&A. One is about the renovation wave. How do we rebuild Europe in this period of recovery where we're going to try and refit 35 million buildings, 160,000 new jobs and and deal with energy poverty at the same time? What does research innovation do in that space? There's a new initiative from President von der Leyen for those who are interested in design and the new Bauhaus initiative. How do we bring some kind of a way of bringing together sustainability, affordability, and the aesthetics? So there's this huge restoration, renovation wave taking place. On the biodiversity side we need a restoration wave. We can't just allow the science on what is happening to biodiversity to be enough. We have to start working on nature-based solutions, large-scale ecosystem restorations with visible results of land and sea where we can work. About 40 trillion euros of the world's economy is dependent on nature, but we don't have actually the economists who can measure it at this point. And that's where the next great Nobel Prize will come from, to development and underpinning natural capitalism. And nature-based solutions will be central. You see it in places like Rotterdam where they're developing the cities as funds that can deal with extreme weather and so forth. We, last month with Trinity and UCD, we launched the Connecting Nature, your enterprise platform, a project built between Trinity and UCD, which is a remarkable thing in itself as a UCD graduate. The project will focus on large-scale implementation of nature-based solutions to build climate resilience in cities, bringing the private sector of nature-based enterprises. So huge changes. Well, we're funding all of these things in this big call at the moment to see where we can go with the larger programs and to link it into the investment that's coming in next generation, EU, and the recovery programs. And last but not least, if we look at agri-food and the bioeconomy. We're working on the development of sustainable bioeconomy, this realignment of the biosphere and the economy, this critical area. The bioeconomy means how we use renewable biological resources from land and sea like crops, forest fish, animals, microorganisms to produce food, materials, and energy. It's moved from being a term in technology to being a way of thinking about how the economy will be structured and function in a post-waste, circular, resource-efficient future. It can provide sustainable biomass, decarbonization of land use, a new future for the agri-food system, circular, resource-efficient nutrients, fossilized biobased industries in chemicals and plastics and additives and food and nutrients, zero-waste systems, land and sea optimization, and critically, a new socioeconomic model for rural economies. There's a huge opportunity here for Ireland and for the Ireland of Ireland, the cooperation between the Green Northern Ireland initiative and what's happening on the Ireland Bioeconomy strategy. And I understand that Tom Arnold is involved also in a process looking at 2030. Ireland is in a position here in taking this challenge and turning it into an extraordinary opportunity so that wherever green is red in Europe, Irish innovation can actually be mobilized to do that. So there's a fundamental shift in how the economy will be organized and how technology in different ways will lead to new businesses and sustainable solutions where Ireland is in a leading space. So I will move on to give an example which will be quite controversial that crosses the two of those. But let's imagine one of the biggest political problems on a small scale in Ireland has been the bogs of Ireland. And the bogs of Ireland, of course, have been a place where economic development in that part of Ireland has not been hugely successful over time. But now we see Board and Ammona pivoting from being the largest fuel provided in the country to a climate solutions company involving restoration and protection of Ireland's peat bogs. The Climate Action Fund will invest large-scale bog restoration for 108 million euros securing 350 jobs and 33,000 hectares of land. What this means in effect is that over time you could see this next economy where more could be done in the economy and the society around the bogs in the restoration of the bogs in terms of what will happen on decarbonisation on the different ecosystem services that will be valorised and that will have a price put on them in the future is something which is inconceivable now and our bogs could move from being an ecological and a political problem to a societal and economic and ecological solution. But again it will require bringing together people, technology, economy and decision making in the future. But that's for Ireland to do. So I'll close by talking about the just transition. One of the things here that is apolitical now is the link between the transition and those who are most vulnerable in this transition and you'll see it in a big way when you talk about the coal mining regions of Poland or different places. So there's a just transition facility where there will be funds for restoration projects in Ireland and elsewhere including 47 projects I think in the Midlands and doing things like sustainable retrofitting, digital learning hubs, green enterprise innovation, organic innovation and so forth. This issue of fairness and how we move transitions forward in the decision making process is also going to have to be supported by evidence-based insight into who are the people at risk, what are the places at risk because history as we know in Ireland is geography over time and geography is going to be redefined as our climate and our major life support systems shift and change. The oceans, overturning current that I'm dealing with, I'll be talking about in the South African thing this afternoon, which was started in Galway a few years ago, is shifting and changing. What we mean by weather, what we understand to be our climate, what we mean by the basic parameters of our life are shifting and changing and so Europe is about making that transition a rational and manageable opportunity at a time of change and risk management and research and innovation as I said at the beginning has to step up. We're leaving a period of darkness in this terrible year that we're leaving behind and research and innovation and science must give to European integration a sense of enlightenment in the sense of giving an indication as to what the pathways forward one can be to allow decision makers, investors, people and the planet alike the opportunity to reframe what is taking place here. I'm skating here over what is it considerably longer and deeper and more detailed speech Alex, but I think I'd rather give the floor over to those of you who may have some awkward questions, which is what I normally get when I come home. Thank you. Thank you very much, John. That was terrific. You actually covered a huge amount of ground there in the 20 minutes or so that you had. So thank you for that. We have some questions. We'd like more so keep them coming. If I could just ask people to be as succinct as you can in the question for a number of reasons, just we have obviously have to read them when they come in and then I relay them. So the easier they are to read and the frankly shorter they are, the better from that point of view. So I'm going to go first of all to a question from Patrick Murphy, who's the chief executive of the Irish South and West Fish Producers Organization of some interest, particularly at the moment. And Patrick just you obviously you were touching on the just transition there, John, and he's wondering whether you could describe or comment on where fish and the fish communities and Fisher, I was going to say Fisher men, Fisher people, where they fit into the just transition? Well, I think one of the things to take the bioeconomy is blue bioeconomy, which is remarkable. There's some leading places in Ireland where they're taking fish by catch and waste, not by catch, but waste, which you would normally discard. And what biobased technologies can allow us to do is to transform waste into high value added building blocks for biochemicals, bio plastics, bio materials, bio nutrients. There's whole new businesses that are emerging out of what we used to throw away. And Ireland is leading in that there's some fantastic organizations and companies. And by the way, there's a thing called the biobased industries joint undertaking, which you should look at, where we're moving Kevin O'Connor UCDs are one of the leading people in this. And so what you're looking at for fisheries and for coastal communities. And this is part of how we imagine recovery. It's about looking at where can the next opportunities come from. And of course, alongside the technology, you need to invest in the skills, you need to invest in the communities. But what we're seeing to give you an example in Iceland, came across a community in Iceland, where they invested in the discards and fisheries and now they have bio cosmetics, bio nutrients and so forth, which are very high value added products. And it has allowed high people to stay in their communities and work there because they need high skilled people working also in an environment where they're having added value. So I think the just transition is not simply an economic thing, it's a social thing. And I think part of what this process is about, maybe part of the lesson of the pandemic, is we need to imagine what the place looks like that we want to live in by 2030. And that's part of fisheries. About 66% of Europe lives in the coastal communities, believe it or not. And the coastal economy, of course, is also very vulnerable. So we will be needing, if you want to look at something interesting, the Dutch have produced a map of the Netherlands in 2100, if they apply all of the nature based solutions. It's an extraordinary thing and it's a huge public reaction. And a lot of it is about what coastal communities will be doing and they'll be doing alongside fishing, fishing communities and fisheries. And they'll also be doing climate services, multi-purpose offshore platforms that are dealing with wind, ocean energy, and other kinds of services. A lot of port facilities will move offshore. So there's a new economy on the side, 75% of the planet's surface in any case. So it's about to come into play in a new and very different way. Fantastic. Ronan Tynan is a filmmaker. He's a member of the IIEA. And Ronan says that research has offered evidence that we cannot address the climate crisis unless we end meat production through animal-based agriculture. And he's wondering, is the EU investing in innovation in developing meat alternatives? Well, I mean, I think you look at something I've been leading, which is food 2030, where we're looking at this. Again, the EU, first of all, the EU is not here to tell people what to do. It's here to facilitate the choices that member states and different citizens want to make. So it's quite clear that there's an opportunity there and it's a huge opportunity for Ireland and for Irish farming and agribusiness and agriculture at small and old scales to develop alternative protein foods. The growth in, if you look at Unilever, for example, to take a huge company, the growth in non-meat-based food is absolutely extraordinary. It's an open goal for the Irish economy on this Green Island of ours. And what happens in terms of meat and livestock is inevitably going through a transition where it will have a different place in the future. But we're not about abrupt changes of saying, you know, four legs, good, two legs, bad, literally in this case, we're in a situation where, for example, we're working on the transformation of fertilizer, the transformation going beyond chemical pesticides, dealing with emissions in cattle and dealing with a lot of the other aspects around meat production. Again, if you look at the Dutch map of 2100, there's a fundamental shift in how they view farming in their society and what kind of farming and agriculture and rural economy they would have in the future. So that's part of a transition. That's a transition. The word transition means that moving from one thing to the other and allowing everybody to play their part. I mean, a just and fair transition involves everybody. But I think Ronan, the boat has sailed. You know, there is an extraordinary opportunity there in the future. And Irish companies and Irish societies at all levels are able to do that. And I think there's a huge and this is again, this is part of the debate that Tom Arnold, I think, is leading. You know, where Green Island sit in all of this. And it's not either or never is, but it's and and. David Brady from All Tech Crop Science. Is there a discussion to speed up the regulatory framework for biopesticides to replace pesticide products? Yeah, yes. Very straightforwardly, one of the things that will follow, you'll see one of the things that will follow President von der Leyen's initiative and say, well, okay, these are the things we need to do. What are the market conditions? What are the regulatory conditions? What are the incentives? What are the programs? And I think that's one of the big areas. If you look at the mission on soil science, not on soil science, but on soil transformation led by K. Sviriman, and that's one of the things they're looking at is what will the signals if they say, look, this is what we could do in terms. There's a lot of technologies that are there in terms of and they're not just industrial technologies, but how you would deal with water systems and nutrients and, you know, even landscaping and hedgerows and all the rest. And there's all kinds of things you can do. But in terms of the regulatory side, they need a signal early from the innovative system. We have a thing called the innovation principle that's now been written into the regulatory impact assessment machinery of the commission. But I think we need to we need to look at, and David is right, critical areas, leverage points, where the regulation, the market pull, can actually shape dramatic shifts. And I think you'll see a lot more of that. You've seen it in climate with trading systems and carbon pricing. I think you'll see a lot more actions like that. Alison Martin is the IMEA Chief Executive for Zurich Insurance. And Alison wonders how important is a well implemented and realistic carbon price to encourage the innovation and transformation that you speak of? Obviously, that's a perennial question and an important one. It's fundamental. But I mean, the carbon prices linked to whole series of different things. And by the way, the the role of insurance and reinsurance in this discussion is fun is absolutely central. And when we talk about climate adaptation, how people look at risk assessment for the future, we're getting a huge, a very interesting conversation between these missions and the people who have to think about, you know, what price do you put on where you live and work and so forth? I think the carbon price is something a lot has been learned about. It's something where people are looking very attentively on the base of the experience of the last few years, and also the incentives in different ways. Who gets the incentives, by the way? You know, will farmers, some very innovative firms actually in Ireland, where they're looking at models of the future, where revenue streams to farmers could be actually directly to them in terms of what they're directly doing. So carbon pricing, what it means, how it functions, how it's set, how our borders interact with it, with the the outside world are important. And it's part of the climate 2030 review process that's ongoing at the moment in the Commission. So that's a very long Irish answer to a yes. No, terrific. And there's some great questions coming through. Kevin O'Connor, UCD, I think you mentioned Kevin in the course of your talk, the UCD, the BioOrbic, BioEconomy, SFI Research Centre. How does Ireland ensure changes take place at a systems level, rather than in a fragmented way? Again, a big preoccupation that policymakers have all the time or should have. Well, by the way, BioOrbic, which is again another example of where there was nothing in Ireland, you know, 10 or 15 years ago, and now Ireland is one of the most sophisticated bio-economy systems in Europe where you have UCD and SFI Centre. You've companies like Land B and that with these huge cooperative-led waste production systems, you have a bio-economy site in Glishine and Tipperary, and you have a number of universities and industry working together with farmers and so forth to develop these new bio-economies. Well, first of all, you have to have a national strategy. Ireland is very fortunate that the size of Ireland permits cross-governmental cooperation. This is one of the difficult bits. It's the same in the Commission. It's very difficult to get working across different policies, different stakeholders. Ireland has a national policy system. You need to have clear goals. Well, the goals, I think, are sufficiently clear at this point across biodiversity and resource efficiency and climate and so forth. I think you need to have the buy-in of the different actors, the different sectors in the beginning, and you need place-based, I think, incentive demonstration where the benefits are actually accrued. So it's local rural communities who what you will see, for example, to give you another example in Ireland in cooperatives, you take the Glan Bia flagship project on lactic acid, which is a waste from milk production, which can be used to biochemical substitute, which is high value added and gets rid of chemicals that are high in fossil fuels. That is a very high value added product, which means the money going back to the farmers is much higher than they would get from milk. So it means that the distribution of the economic value goes to the rural community. The incentives are there. So that's also the question of economic equity as well. So systems require working across systems in terms of the definition of the problem, mobilizing the policy community, involving from the beginning all the actors, industry, SMEs, society, and I think showing and telling demonstration in terms of we've done a lot of these flagship projects around Europe with farmers and new kind of companies actually organizing themselves to do this. Okay, if along supply chains are now global, how can a deliberative process influence an actor or company where they have no legal obligations to people in other jurisdictions? Well, I think your customers are going to do that for you. Well, your customers as well. And the other is the reality of this is this is one of the very complex questions. And one of the things will be, I ask people to have a look at the EU, US agenda that was signed off on Wednesday. It's a very interesting document as to how we engage with the Biden administration. There is this complex dilemma, how do you build resilience into value chains and keep a global open trading economy moving? I think it's one of the critical issues. But I think the way the economy is moving in any case, so much more is being done and is able to be done locally closer to home. And I think people on markets and so forth are going to be much, much more powerful in terms of dictating what they expect in terms of the products and goods and services that come across. Very much in the way some of you may know, David Bourne is a man who has left a huge legacy in the European Union. What he did for food safety systems basically set the norms that everybody expects. You see it coming into the Brexit process at the moment. But these norms are going to be there in other ways when we're dealing with a society that begins to understand why we need the normalization of the climate requirements or fair treatment of workers requirements of all of the other things that will be part of this new economy and society that's emerging. Sorry for being so long. Terrific. John Thielen raises citizen participation. How do you ensure that silent majority gets good quality information and a voice in an arena that tends to be dominated by political actors and the more vocal NGOs, which he says somewhat controversially, that neither of which is necessarily well informed by science? Well, I don't know that I agree with everything that, but I think all the voices, even the ones, I mean, we're in the new normal. Part of our problem is how do you actually make deliberate public policy decisions in an age of disinformation? It's not just the old problems that we had of people picking and choosing their science or their issues or people ignoring the parts of policy that they don't want their constituent funders are based to do. We now also are operating in an age of fake news. So I think one of the things that there's a lot of work has been done on the policy lab of the joint research centers in the commission, looking at this, how do you actually involve people in deliberative processes? And the answer is, I mean, obviously there are things that have to be done, basic things about public education, but I think a much more involved process, a different kind of citizenship has to emerge. And I think doing it online, the Twitter sphere is not where you find the answer to the most things. So I think on these questions, we actually need to do everything as a society about how do we do democracy locally, nationally, and internationally, particularly on some of these very complex issues. As I said at the beginning, take a really controversial issue. How would you go about making a decision about what you would do in Ireland and Dublin on sea level rise? You know, I read, because I don't live in Dublin, I can say some of these things. I read with some interest the debate in Clontarf between the city and the residents, one of whom wanted to have a good view, and the other who want to protect them from invasive rising tides, and a constitution behind that that protects certain rights as well. So there's a fundamental, I think you need to understand what the issues are, and we need to try out new processes and learn how to do democracy and deliberation in a different way. And I think, I mean, the citizens assembly is actually in Ireland is cited all over Europe and worldwide as best practice. So again, I think that's DCU, we're very much involved in setting that up. And I think Dara and the team in there have a lot to say on this, but I think that's one of, that's where the politics has to go. The guff that we're listening to day to day, this tiresome kind of cage fighting guff is just not up to the mark. And if you look at populism across Europe, some of it is grounded in basic economic problems. And some of it is grounded in the fact that people don't have a place or a way to address problems that are short, medium, and long term problems. I think that's a big, big question. But it will involve everybody, all the people who are shouting and screaming, and those who are carefully considered. But the processes that I think are things that we need to look at again in this age of ours. Well taken point. Ruth McGrath, most economists currently shaping policy would not have grown up with concepts such as ecosystem services and natural capital, and would see these changes primarily in terms of what they would see as a cost, economic cost, traditional, I suppose, categories of thinking that economists would have. Would you see this culture as a barrier to policy change? Yes. I had a great experience about 15 years ago, I was the Chief of Staff to the Consumer Commissioner, Maglena Kunova, and we brought Cass Sunstein and the behavioural economists to the commission. We explained behavioural economics to our competition commissioners, economists who are brilliant. But they're classical economists at the time. And they came out of the meeting realising we need to really look into this and shape our thinking, because it's not part of our paradigm. Behaviour and what we've learned, you know, markets don't function in rational ways and people don't necessarily follow incentives. And that experience, I think, is about to be replicated when we look at the people who see the world in terms of stocks and flows. It ain't so. A lot of the, as I said at the beginning, most of the things that we have as assumptions in our economy are just that, they're assumptions, and they're about to be tested. Let's not use the D word. They're about to be tested to new and innovative heights of change. I think natural capital, what value do you put on the fact that your system isn't flooded? Let me give you an example. The Rhine River nearly dried up last summer and the summer before to a point where for three to four weeks only 20% of the river traffic could move from the centre of the European economy in Germany out to Andwerp and Rotterdam port. Now, if I had spoken to people dealing with maritime transport three or four years ago and talked about nature-based solutions and natural capital and what value to put on that, the idea that you would not have the river to transport your economic produce to your markets was inconceivable. It is not now. So we have to start thinking, this is what the person, Alison from Zurich Insurance, whoever came in, how we frame the questions and what we mean by our assumptions and then the values and the way in which economics and so forth will evolve is a fundamental issue now. We put it in the domain of research innovation, political science and so forth. Somebody has gone to win a Nobel Prize for natural capitalism because somebody has to do the numbers and present it in a narrative where people who are sitting in places like the Department of Finance and others can work the numbers and in a situation where people borrowing and lending money take that as part of their assumptions. But we shouldn't have to wait until we lose a city to sea level rise or we lose a large part of a population to extreme weather or drought or heat or we have a massive forest fire in part of Europe, north or south before we start putting a price on things. So I think that's a really, really important insight from Ruth. Harold Kingston, IFA, one of the key aspects of agri-resilience is to deliver an income to farmers. The US predicts the EU farm to fork and green deal will cut production by 12% and incomes by 16%. It is strange, Harold Kingston says by way of a question and worrying that the EU hasn't completed an economic impact statement. Well, number one, I think your question, Harold, is very central to the thinking that's going on on I think the great work that Phil Hogan has done in repositioning agriculture at the centre of the environmental and economic transition has been, I think, very much underestimated. It's a very difficult moment in that transition but the clear objective in a fair and just transition is to ensure that the new way in which farming and agriculture and rural economy with all these different strands of work is precisely to ensure that we do have a rural society and a rural economy. It's a basic decision society has to make. Do we want people living in the countryside as stewards of the land and of our ecosystem services in the future are not and in this period until we get to a point where it's more stable, of course, farm incomes and the futures for people's families. I mean the idea of having people coming home to live in their communities and the primary schools and the post offices being able to turn over requires an economy and I think how that economy will emerge. I think there's a lot more income to be found in the rural economy than some of the traditional means of farming and agriculture to date and the incentives that are there have maybe enabled but I think the issue is front and center, front and center in the thinking of the European Union as to how do we work with rural communities to nurture and support and develop them and have them actually as motors of a sustainable bio economy in the future and incomes are central to that. There's some great questions coming in here. David Horan says that EU leadership on green economy is very encouraging however a recent report by Vivid Economics shows that worldwide only 30% of the proposed stimulus packages are green. How can the EU leverage its position to get a green transition beyond its borders? I think in a couple of ways I mean one is in terms you will see that we're mainstreaming what we're doing what I've said about the Green Deal being for you know for life. It will be mainstreamed in our very technocratic way into every policy, every nook and cranny, every part of our sinew and fiber of our political economy, musculature internally and externally in the way we set incentives and the way we structure markets and the standards that we set, certification, the programs that we lead in every way. If we look at the EU as a leader I mean the pledges that we're making are now you're starting to see a shift in China pledging the same by 2060, Japan 2050, let's see what comes out of the carry the John Kerry view of a new America and I think that there are many, many ways to drive this and I mean the idea that we had a few years ago that the kind of green environmental issue is a luxury item it's existential so you know I don't think it's something that we will have to convince people there are difficult transitions to make if you're in Australia or parts of the world and that's part of what the European Union has to do is to create incentives to do that also. John I know that you've got a commitment that we're going to let you have to let you go to that I'm going to just come maybe just to two quick questions just to finish with Colfitts Gerald will there be a standard EU approach to voluntary carbon markets and will farmers be able to access this for soil carbon sequestration? I don't know the answer to that but I know that people are looking at all aspects of carbon sequestration and I would be absolutely astonished if we don't see as somebody asked earlier on how do you you need to put a price on things and you need to put a value on things if you want to create the incentives for people in the rural economy to do that and I would be very surprised if that is not something that happens but I'm not aware as to exactly who or in what part of the machinery are looking at it again I would refer people to the there's the the Lulu CF you know we absolutely love an acronym review which is underway which is going to look at all of those aspects and the soil mission that I mentioned earlier on will also be looking at the economic incentives that's there land use land use change and forestry thank you all for giving me rescuing me from one of my own acronyms yeah exactly we did say at the start that we had to answer all the questions but actually having questions sometimes is as stimulating as as having answers in the sense that there are so many questions here to be addressed I have a I have a question Tom Arnold which I'm going to finish with just in a moment which is just giving an opportunity maybe just to revisit that issue of the nor of the all island opportunity but I just see a nice one here Michael Kerr when do you think the critical date or year is the such a thing that is the date Michael means when we lose the option not to integrate biodiversity and it is fully regulated with penalties for non-compliance 2016 okay great answer does anybody know do people know when we passed 400 parts per million I mean like how our children how our children will read history and how we read history will not be the same thing 2016 very good so Tom Arnold was obviously interested as we all are and what you said about the north south the all island opportunity you mentioned that what kind of opportunities do you want to elaborate just for the last couple of minutes that we that we have as I said to our viewers and listeners John does have a commitment that we promised to let him go to but where he's very graciously offered to come back to us on a future occasion we can address a lot of these questions so the all I'll be leaving in a moment so the all island opportunities are manifold so if we take the research innovation is a very good way of describing the European Union is about building bridges not putting up walls and I think if you look at the the resource opportunity in terms of the bio economy in terms of the modernization of the agri-food sector the opportunities in terms of new high value biocosmetics biomaterials ecosystem services I mean the island of Ireland with the green northern Ireland strategy and what's happening in agri-food 2030 the bio economy strategy the energy strategy the work of all the agencies and the way in which the peoples around the island are dealing with I would also include in this the obvious fact that in harnessing our ocean wealth Ireland is one of the first countries that's actually internalized the fact that a lot of its resources actually offshore in terms of renewables and biomaterials and future medicines and all the rest and I think that the north and south there can be a lot of prospecting if you want to call it that ecological biological prospecting in terms of the opportunities that are there for this new economy and I think the musculature of the the Good Friday agreements and the way in which people work and the social interaction you know you know talking with people like you know John Gilliland and others between farmers between communities between suppliers I know people are talking about the problems that are emerging on brexit but it's also a way to use those conversations think okay how could we leverage the opportunities that we have as an island and of having two different jurisdictions in terms of moving forward in terms of becoming a the green heart of the green deal which is what this island can become and I mean green in the ecological sense just to be clear okay thank you very much thanks no no you're very great thanks for your time today for your generous time for listening to for coping with so many questions from so many different angles we will take you up on your offer to come back on a future occasion and we wish you well with your work thank you very well thank you much Owen Canarans is there with me if anybody needs to follow thank you very much and a very very uh knowledge of Goliere thank you very much bye bye thank you John and thank you all very much for your attendance as well we've a huge number of questions I'm sorry that we haven't had an opportunity to get to and we did promise John to let him go at about quarter to two because he has a commitment in the next few minutes which he just had to attend to and but I think it's just today's event just shows it's huge appetite there is for discussion debate informed debate on all of these issues and the IIEA is always keen to contribute to that debate to facilitate that debate and to host sessions like today's we're delighted as well to be co-organising this event and indeed this series with the EPA and just briefly the lecture series is going to be entitled Environmental Resilience and during the course of the series we'll have national and international experts addressing topics such as the circular economy, air quality, environmental governance, sustainable waste management, water quality and climate change so thank you for for being with us I think the range of questions just shows the interest that there is the expertise indeed that there is amongst those of you who've been in attendance today and I think one of the things that John said in the course of his presentation was that so many of our systems political economic all of our approaches to the way some of the intellectual categories that we have of economists and and and and even in terms of how we make policy our government departments our agencies we all have to look at how we manage these issues and whether the systems that we have in place are up to the task and I think that's was certainly reflected in what in what John said and I think it comes across from a lot of the questions as well so a huge amount of work to do very interesting questions very interesting insights thank you all for your attendance and we look forward to seeing you again before too long