 The outlook for COP 21 and the Paris Agreement that will come from it is cautiously hopeful in the following sense. It represents an improvement over arrangements that have been made to date. The likely outcome of the Paris Agreement will be an agreement among the vast majority of countries in the world to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And it's going to be done through an aggregation of intended promises, intended contributions by those 147 countries. Now, if no agreement were reached, no country took any action on climate change, then the likely increase in world temperature over pre-industrial times would be four and a half degrees centigrade. But with this agreement provided that all the countries come through on their intended contribution, then that ink temperature increase will be reduced to three and a half degrees. Now, that's the good news. Countries are coming together to do something. The bad news is that science tells us that we really have to bring down this temperature increase to two degrees centigrade. So the agreement would only take us about 40 percent towards that goal. But I think we need to look at this as a situation where we need optimism in order to take us to the next step. It is just an initial step, but there will have to be follow-through on the COP 21 agreement so that the intended contributions are ratcheted up over time so that we can fully realize the necessary goal of climate change mitigation. As for red, red and forests have a crucial role in the climate change agreement in the following sense. Forests and tropical deforestation account for anywhere between 10 and 15 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. So forests are an important part of the problem and therefore a key part of the solution. And this next agreement ought to be, ought to have very strong provisions for red, but that's not absolutely guaranteed. The coalition of rainforest nations made a statement in September that it is absolutely necessary that an agreement be produced that gives a very strong place for red. But again, this is not guaranteed. The language of the current draft document makes it very clear that the land sector is absolutely crucial, which is an important step. As yet there is no specific language on red, but that may happen in the coming weeks. Whether red is mentioned or not, the crucial point is a much bigger one. The failure of red to date to fulfill many of its goals and the reason why red has moved along very slowly is that it is a reflection of humanity's overall ambivalence and indecisiveness in how to tackle the problem of climate change. So if there is a good agreement coming out of Paris, and especially if it has binding provisions, then we stand a chance of having red make the contribution that it needs to make to overall climate change mitigation. Finance is potentially a very significant roadblock. 39 of the countries that have declared their intended contributions to climate change mitigation have mentioned red as a part of what they intend to implement. And most of those 39 countries have stated that finance is a crucial issue. And I'll explain why finance is a crucial issue. Essentially what red is it requires funding so that people who are being compensated to keep forest standing can be motivated to actually do so. And the opportunity costs of foregone forest clearing have been estimated at anywhere from eight billion dollars to manyfold more than that. So that is the amount of money that experts believe is necessary in order for red to function. But to date the amount of funding produced for red is a small fraction of that annual amount of at least eight to ten billion dollars. And in fact the green climate fund that has been formed in the last couple years and that may end up being a primary source of funding for red has only produced ten billion dollars to date, not annually but to date. So financing is quite a significant problem. But if the Paris Agreement is a strong one then we stand a chance of having governments around the world mobilize funding in the amount that is necessary. And again the crucial point is this and it's a much larger point. We're at a point in history where we've reached a biological tipping point. Climate change is a very serious threat. And we need a corresponding policy tipping point that matches the urgency of this biological tipping point. As I mentioned earlier the steps that humanity has taken so far towards addressing climate change have been ambivalent and indecisive. What we really need coming out of Paris is not only an agreement, a strong agreement, but a commonality among all countries in committing themselves not only to the agreement but to expanding their commitments over time so that ultimately we can reduce the predicted increase in global temperature to two degrees centigrade.