 was wondering if you would start by introducing who you are and how you came to this space. Well my name is Delton Chen I'm actually an Australian engineer perhaps you can tell by my voice. I came into this space because by profession I'm a geo hydrologist and it's my job to understand the hydrological system. I was working in the mining sector but I could see climate change was going to be a huge problem for civilization and I decided to leave mining and work on this problem. So all of you out there how many people raise your hand if you know what a terrarium is. Let's see oh just about everybody that's great if you don't you should find out they're really cool. There's YouTube videos where you can build entire enclosed systems that last for years that my eight-year-old is really into but Delton you have a really really great metaphor using a terrarium for understanding planet Earth what we're doing and some of the solutions to the problems that we've caused. That's right I am an engineer so I think in systems and in engineering and problem-solving and other disciplines as well you have to start with a conceptual model that matches the problem. So I was very interested in the conceptualization of global warming from an economic perspective and physical. After a lot of analysis I came to an interpretation that our biosphere is physically analogous to a terrarium which is a closed bottle. Matter can't get in and out. There's a plant inside and water and soil and sunlight gives it energy. This system is actually perfectly analogous to the Earth which is a closed system. There's no mass exchange there's sunlight coming in so physically it's similar but the question is what does it tell us about net zero because a terrarium and there's the example on the slide it's 50 years old it's survived in that bottle thus it must have achieved net zero for homeostasis. So is it telling us something how do we think like a plant and the interpretation that I came to is that thermodynamically the terrarium is actually comprised of two major system types you have the photosynthesizing chloroplast and then you have the respiring cells which all the other cells most the other animals fungi and plant itself and so if you think of this system as two specialized cell types or two specialized organism types there must be a reason why is it that way and the the idea that came to me is that nature specializes genetically in the case of the terrarium it's genetic specialization and I believe the same thing is happening in our civilization we have an economy which is specializing for combustion through the availability of biofuels and fossil fuels and we use it the energy to produce goods and services like a super organism respiring to find food if you like so the resolution through this conceptual model is we need a parallel economy which is analogous to photosynthesis but its role is a parallel economy is to conventionally mitigate and also very important if not more important to pull carbon out the atmosphere and sequester it because we're going to need that service so you're talking about ecosystem services basically correct a lot of people don't know what ecosystem services are I would guess a lot of people actually in this audience to who knows what ecosystem services are raise your hand oh my goodness can you quickly define that well to me it's the explains itself a service that's not for traditional goods and services but it's to provide protection and regeneration of the biosphere so we can live longer on the planet that's my short answer you know interestingly I had a consulting gig once where I was supposed to find out how many Americans understood what ecosystem services were this was like oh about eight years ago and almost nobody so I guess we're still there so let's get to GCR can you tell me what GCR is at a high level and where it came from what it's doing sure GCR stands for global carbon reward if you haven't heard of it it's because it's not well known it's been in gestation for eight years and my team and I are now looking for funding to do a demonstration so to understand we should probably begin with the problem space the problem space is we need roughly $3 trillion extra for targeted climate finance mitigation cleaning up energy and industry we need roughly one trillion additional finance for carbon removal through this entry not only do we need to manage the quantity of carbon in the carbon cycle we also need to manage the quality meaning the context of how that carbon stored whether it's in the ecosystem or in the ground very important the solution space that's conventional are the standard policies from economists so you have policies like taxes carbon taxes which everybody loves then you have I'm joking then then you have I shouldn't be funny I'm sorry no you should then you have cap and trade which is quite it's working quite well in Europe and China it's recently introduced then you have subsidies of course we have the inflation reduction act here in the United States but what I claim in this that solution space which is standardized and has backed up by quite well accepted theory you know in textbooks I claim it's missing a key policy which is the carbon reward and not only the policy but the conceptual model for the market failure is also missing some really important pieces which ties in with the policy so the policy in a conceptual model are both expanded in my work and if you're interested go to our website the theory is called the carbon pricing matrix it's a it's a relational diagram explains all the theory for people to really deeply interested in that most people aren't but for the economists it's incredibly important so the solution space is that we have a new policy with a theory to back it up and why it's different is because the reward is not a carbon credit we offering the reward with a carbon currency and people probably think it that's got to be a crypto surely no it's not a cryptocurrency it's not money to buy things with you can't go shopping with it and it's not a carbon credit so you can't offset with it so really the value and the context for the global carbon water carbon currency is more about what it isn't what it is is a financial asset and a price signal for carbon removal and conventional climate mitigation and behind that we need a whole financial mechanism to supply it to the market and to give it value through central bank it's really sum it up it's a public finance guarantee that will involve the world's central banks so that's supply that's demand and behind all of that again a lot of details about how to manage a reward that's scalable and can trigger an exponential response because that's what we need at the end of the day an exponential response if you're going to keep one and a half alive which is going to be very very difficult well and if it's backed by central banks wow that's not very risky I'm not joking I'm being serious Alexis that's amazing yes so the theory ties in with the purpose of the policy so the purpose of the policy is very important the objective the taxes the theory is that it's to improve the efficiency of markets which is about utilities it's about costs versus benefits if you're familiar with it but the really point point here is that the carbon reward is not for that purpose it's to manage risk and it's to provide a safe carbon budget and safety means quantity and it means quality where does the carbon go because it's got to go into regenerative work to protect the biosphere and to allow communities to to improve their well-being and stabilize themselves with sustainable economics yeah so these ecosystem services in the parts of the world where carbon can be sequestered or taken back up it's going to be able to provide stable jobs for people to support the ecosystem services around the world so that's the other side of it the social side of it now we now that we've talked about the investor side of it yes I'd like to make a quick comment about the sustainability I was talking to someone from Suriname and the he said one reason they can't protect their forests is they don't have a sustainable economy without that income there is degradation of the forest because of the need for extraction we've got to stop the extraction with an alternative economy that can price and value the protection of the biosphere and the climate and for investors there are multiple ways for investors to enjoy the global carbon reward so one level it's to earn it for mitigation projects and another level currency traders mom and dad investors institutional investors can trade the currency and enjoy the appreciation over decades and the third way is for everybody to co-invest in projects microfinance is I think the future for this type of policy yeah well you kind of already pre-answered a question that I had which is this idea that like you said it's not crypto people always assume something is crypto people are scared of crypto now but it's like the early days of the internet the Wild West early days of the internet you know who knew AOL with tank and Google would rule the world back then and it's gonna be the same way with these blockchain technologies we just have ones that are gonna come through and be great and solve these problems yes I was at a conference last week in Columbia with some fantastic people innovating in blockchains for sustainability and they're they're not competing with each other they're helping each other and there's a feeling that we don't really know what the solutions are gonna be but if we keep innovating some solutions will emerge and I think the exciting thing is if we can get the global carbon reward to be tabled at the UN eventually considered or even implemented all that all of that innovation based on blockchains and other technologies scientific field measurement etc. will be leveraged dramatically with this policy yeah so yesterday we had a debate about ESG should we keep it and I was also with another panel around impact investing in ESG and where they meet it feels like what you have developed here is something that really fits into that model that already exists and has infrastructure in place to just go I think so I think from what I've heard in the media ESG has problems too it has limitations it does but we we need to have solutions that move us forward into the future like we've got to mitigate carbon 20 years ago agreed so I think that the carbon reward and its metrics will complement ESG and it will give corporates another metric index to really give more value to the ESG statements and also their profitability so I think we might be lucky enough to get a couple of questions from the audience use your app to put the questions in and someone will be running me the questions but while you ask your questions I do have a wrap-up question for you which is what is one thing that our audience here should take away from this conversation and how can people support GCR well a bit of background my team we've been developing this policy literally for eight years and we reached a stage that we we believe you understand how to demonstrate the policy that's really important because it's a complex financial mechanism new ideas and what we've settled on is a strategic plan that we want to interview stakeholders especially decision-makers in business and the public sector the people who control the money who make those big decisions if we interview them we can understand if the policy will change the way people make decisions about investing and that's the feedback we need we'll also interview experts in central banking we'll do economic assessments and importantly we will also test our co-benefit platform for stakeholders that include community people such as yourselves because this policy has features where everybody can influence outcomes by undertaking surveys to register what's important for yourself when we mitigate and decarbonise the economy so the co-benefits cover community well-being ecological health and energy reliability so we're going to do that stakeholder mapping for all of that we need to raise maybe six or seven million to do this over two three years my expectation is Alexis is that as we do this we will attract governments and central banks and they will want to kickstart this into pilots and as that happens I believe it can be tabled at the UN so maybe you guys have read our bios but I'm so nerding out we both have PhDs so basically you're showing a scientific method to proof test and pilot to show that this idea is really foolproof so anyway you can talk to delton later he'll be around and that theory he told you about I wish I had a whiteboard and to put you on the spot because he can literally put it on a napkin and make it understandable but you can find him later so for now we've got some questions got a lot of questions let's see I like this first one here what technologies have the most promise for carbon capture and what's holding them back and now I'm gonna lightening around you with these questions try and do it in 60 seconds or less so we can get to as many people's questions as possible because they are flying in okay you mean carbon catcher as in carbon dioxide removal not capture at the smokestack so at the smokestack that's quite controversial because it's expensive and the mining companies or the big polluters haven't really spent the money on that but for carbon dioxide removal I do hear from scientists that algae has good potential and I think the key point is how much does it cost you see the problem with carbon dioxide removal is that it needs energy and that energy generally can't be used to produce regular goods and services and this is the key problem if that's the case then it's not going to be profitable and you can't fund it with loans and debt thus it has to be paid for and hence we would need something like the reward but just to point out I don't really personally know what the best technologies are today algae seems to show some promise however the point of a market policy is not to predict those things it's to put out a price signal over a hundred years a very long-term price signal and let the market find the solutions not the policymaker the market will and then we put the pressure on them to make it not good stuff like kelp farming instead of dangerous geoengineering so let's see this is a very let's see this is a lot like the idea of the carbon in the book of ministry for the future what is the critical first step to get this to the table at the national and global level okay it is actually featured in the novel the ministry for the future Kim Stanley Robinson was inspired by some papers I wrote and he used that as a framing for the novel as I said the theory of change here is that we need to convince policymakers and economists that it's a rational policy it's cogent because there are so many details and issues about how to prevent gaming and corruption and how not to distort markets in in bad ways and create moral hazard so a lot of work has gone into understanding how we can deliver a reward what the rules and the guidelines are so the theory of change is we really just need to do the demonstration in a way that's officially recognized by state government say the government of California or a national government and some institutions and then we're effectively in the system we're in the narrative with institutions and I believe you know an idea that time its time has come it can't be stopped so it will create its own momentum well that's how change works one person does it and then everyone else wants to copy it right yes so let's see this is an interesting one is the GCR inflationary yes it can be and it also doesn't have to be so just very quickly the way the price signal works is that it's a technically you could call it mitigate and trade we set a minimum price for very long term we issue the reward as a currency and people can trade the currency so for a period of time this currency will have a rising value like 30 to 50 years thus it becomes an investment vehicle an asset because of the central bank guarantee the private sector the currency traders investors they will buy it actually everyone will want to buy it and so it will fund itself through this public finance guarantee that influences sentiment once we pass the peak in value of the carbon currency it can then decline and stabilise but through that experience central banks may have to buy it if they do that they will expand the money supply to buy the carbon currency and this is where you get monetary inflation but it's a very complex topic because it's not just about monetary inflation it's also about CPI inflation because of global warming so we're going to trade off with some monetary inflation to avoid the global warming impacts and that inflation that's physical and worse because monetary inflation is temporary but physical damages to the climate is permanent for thousands or tens of thousands of years and there's another one more point and then I'll finish that's a great point though it's a very important one more point is that policy makers governments and central banks they can leverage recessions and debt through a combination of inflationary policies such as printing more money and deflationary policies such as raising taxes and so on so you combine the two and this is what Ray Dalio has been saying for a long time to leverage a recession or debt you need inflationary and deflationary policies working together well and those things are going to happen regardless so why not have a currency that helps the planet since it's already happening you will have to get you on the team okay here's a similar one does the carbon pricing matrix factor in needs for global degrowth a very good question I'll answer this just quickly as I can there is a philosophical debate or discussion around whether we should continue with green growth or do we need degrowth it's kind of like a dichotomy and it that dichotomy actually my opinion is based around an assumption that civilization in our economy is one system if it's one system then that these are your choices however if you look at the slide of the terrarium and the butterfly with the two systems our conceptual model is different we have two systems working together in like a symbiosis so if we have too much emissions we transfer resources purchasing power capital and labor from the conventional economy the consumptive economy to the mitigation economy and this rebalances the carbon budget so if you follow this approach we don't need degrowth maybe not initially anyway the problem with degrowth in my opinion is that the economists and the central banks and the people in charge of financial system will just have a freak out because the financial system and lending is based on growth you have to have growth definition of capitalism yes you have growth sustain the debts so the way we're approaching it through money makes some sense I think because we're creating it complementary currencies which can deleverage the growth problem and mitigate at the same time I'm not going to go too far into it maybe we can talk with people afterwards about it but to me it's really a biological model of how the earth works and it's an evolutionary model and I can't even get into the red queen hypothesis right now but I have one more question here this seems to have died but the question was something to the effect of can you speak to the criticisms of the carbon market today's market well this isn't so much a criticism as an observation the carbon market for offsetting theoretically and practically it's not really designed to mitigate it's really designed to lower the aggregate cost of mitigation by allowing offsetting and the fact that certain companies voluntarily offset does does actually mitigate but the point is they're doing it because voluntarily because the policies aren't there so we have a kind of a policy hole and I don't think offsetting in credits will get us close to one and a half it's not going to move the needle the reward on the other hand does not offset and all the carbons retired immediately so the way I see it it's kind of completing a jigsaw puzzle of social relationships and agreements and once we have the full jigsaw puzzle we have enough agreements that we can manage the carbon budget at least much better than we're doing today right and the policy is so much of a key because as we were talking about yesterday I don't even think it was a conversation with you but I was looking at the Unilever story and I was forced it was forced by policy and that's why the US is so bad at mitigating our carbon because we don't have the policy yet so even without the policy though if you have the credits it's going to create an incentive that goes around the policy angle so it all kinds of feeds into each other the three components if that makes sense kind of it's a matrix of policies and relationships and it's probabilistic well we've got a minute just under a minute left so I just want to thank you so much for joining us today where are you going to be later where can people come find you and talk to you well I'll actually be in this San Francisco Bay area until the 4th of December I'm giving you another presentation on the 2nd of sorry 4th of December I'll be here on the 2nd of November I'm speaking at Santa Cruz and this Wednesday night I'm speaking at North Berkeley with the Citizens Climate Lobby but if you want to contact me just grab me and I'm happy to talk to everybody if I have time wonderful wonderful well everybody let's give a big warm round of applause for Delta and Chen and this revolutionary work the GCR thank you Alexis thank you