 Ah, welcome back to Think Tech and this is my goodness gracious, this is climate change beyond outrage and I'm the host, I'm Jay Fidel and across the other side is Anu Hiddle and she is ordinarily the host but today she's the guest because she's had a remarkable experience. She went to Marrakesh. I've never been to Marrakesh. Have you been to Marrakesh? Who do you know has been to Marrakesh? Where is Marrakesh? It's in Morocco, okay? Now what happened in Marrakesh? Well, there was all this stuff about cop, right? Why don't you tell us where you went and then we're going to ask you why you went. All right. Well, I went to Marrakesh and that's in Morocco, you're right. And that's for people who don't know where that is, that's in North Africa. They don't consider themselves part of Africa as I found out from my guide. When I asked her, you know, tell me are the people who have really dark skin, are they from Morocco? She said, oh no, they're from Africa, she said. And I said, and Morocco is, she said, we're North Africa, Arab world, I'm like, okay. So they very much identify with the sort of Mediterranean and the Arab world. And that was interesting to find out. It's a wonderful country, Islam at its best, I think. Great people, great food, looks like a movie set, so it was really surreal because I left the night of the elections here in the United States. And you were left here from the United States to Morocco the night of the election. What a propitious time. I fled. I just found out the results and I fled at that time. So this is an environmental conference. And environmentally, you know, we've had a certain amount of advance here in the last few years. I mean COP 21 was a major advance for environmental considerations and global protection, if you will. But now the election, as I recall, I'm trying hard to recall, that's Donald Trump. He won that election, didn't he? And he's not particularly environmental. What effect did that have on the conference in Morocco? So before we get into just talking about Donald Trump and the Trump effect, maybe we should just back up a little and talk about what this conference was about. It's the conference of the parties. And the parties are the countries that have signed on to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the UNFCCC. So that's really what we're looking at is... This is not COP. This is the COP. So this is the conference of the parties, the COP. So they're coming together every year, and this is the 22nd such meeting of those parties. And last year when we had the Paris Agreement, this was the first time that those parties met under the Paris Agreement. So it was an historic occasion. I was there when that happened, and they opened it, and they closed it very quickly because not everyone has signed on. So they just did a ceremonial opening and closing. So it was literally an historic moment because they were just there for a minute. That wasn't the end of it, though. No, no. So really what was happening at this meeting is that all those parties to the UNFCCC, who have been working on climate change issues, national governments. So these are ministers, foreign ministers, environment ministers, heads of state. There were about 70 such heads of state coming together and really working... First of all, reaffirming their commitment to the process. And the agreement reached in COP 21. And the agreement reached in Paris at COP 21. And then they were also looking at very technical aspects of how things were going to go forward. Implementation. To implement this agreement, the Paris Agreement. So they came to about 35 decisions, very convoluted and complicated and technical. Give us an example. But things like guidance for the Green Climate Fund or how really they were looking at how to set rules for the procedures for these... Heads of state don't have to be involved in that level of granularity. Correct. So a two-week meeting is really a bunch of bureaucrats meeting, getting together and talking about these real nitty-gritty kinds of things. And that's how it started. And then the heads of state came in the Monday of the second week, which is when I came in. So, of course, the heads of state had to come in then. They knew. They knew. That's right. And so when the heads of state came in, they just came in to proclaim and reaffirm not to sit down and do the nitty-gritty. And then the bureaucrats kept going with the nitty-gritty. So this is the kind of thing you have after COP 21 where they reached this really magnificent agreement. And then maybe not everybody who showed up in Paris shows up in Morocco. Maybe not as many heads of state as there were, something like 200 of them at the end in Paris. Correct. In Paris, yeah. And now so it's less than half of that, but still have heads of state. And you have bureaucrats committed to following through on the agreements that were reached. That's really something. And you were there. It's still a big meeting. So there were about 22,000, 23,000 people. That's big. That's double. More than double what... That could not have happened here. That's more than double what happened here at the World Conservation Congress. So Paris, by some estimates, is 35,000 to 40,000 people. So this was not as big, but it was still big. There were 1,200 representatives of media and then everybody else was civil society and government. So that's a lot of people. Yeah. And then there was you. Why did you go? Looking lost. Why did you go? Why did I go? So I take a delegation and observer delegation of students from Washington University in St. Louis. And I've been doing that for the last three years. This was an academic experience for you? So it was an academic experience in some ways. We are observers to the process. We're not allowed to be involved because, directly involved, because we are not nations. We are not representatives of our countries from our governments. But we are civil society. And we observe and we keep these people in check, or at least we report back. And that's what we were... I was reporting back to you folks every day at five. Yes, you were. You did a good job. Thank you. And so, really, it's for the students to figure out how these negotiations take place and what is their place in this, in the future. You know, is... So it's a teaching experience. Yeah, it was a teaching experience, yeah. And really, this is how climate change beyond outrage started. So it's really nice. This has come full circle for me. Because it's a way for me to show students and young people that they can go beyond outrage and not just hold up a placard, but actually do things within the process. So now we find out the real meaning of this show. Beyond outrage means we've gotten over our outrage. Yes. So we're going to get real. We're going to actually take affirmative steps. Right. And this was always the purpose of the show, right, to look at solutions to climate problems that face people, nations, and the world. You remember that one? Right. So that's what it was. And it really was my students who were an inspiration to me to start something like this. How many students went with you? So it's... We had a total of eight of us. And with me, there were three students and with the other faculty member who... My colleague, Beth Martin, who went earlier that first week, there were three students with her. So a total of six students and two faculty went. So essentially learning, you're doing an academic learning experience, and maybe reporting back. You're doing that. Certainly for us, you did. And they, I'm sure, did the same thing. But you're not speaking. And this troubles me. Did it trouble you not to have a voice at this very important international conference? It always troubles me when I can't speak. You know that. I understand. You've been subjected to such. This is the rule. Those are the rules of the game. We are observers to the process. To me, I think we've agreed to abide by those rules. Now, there are certain things called side events. And we really... I mean, they are relegated to the side. They're not the main negotiations. But there are hundreds of panel discussions and places where civil society can speak. Including you. Including me. I did not take part in a panel discussion, but I was there in a different role. But maybe down the line, that might be something we can do. Now, other universities, I should add, we're probably the only university that took undergraduate students. But most universities take postgraduate students. And many of them, many of these students help other delegations. So for example, if the Marshall Islands has a very small delegation of people to the framework convention, there are university students that actually help them take notes, go to different events, go to different committee meetings and so on. And then... So they become essentially part of their delegation and then they help them report. So what... I mean, talking about the non-state players here, what kind of people go to this? I mean, I would make a wild guess, and you should disagree with me, if you will, that it's a lot of environmental activists. That's what motivates them. That's why they spend the money to go there. That's why their organizations want them to go there. It's a matter of taking activist positions and expressing them, if possible, at conferences like this. And that's what happened at the World Conservation Congress here in Honolulu, I assume, the same thing in Morocco. There is much more diversity, actually, than in perhaps at the World Conservation Congress. There were a lot of businesses, and I actually have a video of a friend of mine talking... She was from the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, Nandita Parshad. And she... I asked her why she was in Morocco. And if we play that video at some point, we can see why she was there. I think it's a great idea. Why don't we play it now? Okay. We're going to play the video now. Let's do it. Would you start by telling me your name and why you're here? My name is Nandita Parshad. I'm the director of the Power and Energy Utilities Team at the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development. And I'm here because of the sunshine in Morocco. Literally. What brought you to... What brought you to Camp 22? So as I said, the sun brought me here, and that's literally why I am here. I'm here because at EBRD, we are really trying to promote the development of renewable energy. EBRD has been committed to sustainable energy and green world since its inception 25 years ago. But since 2012, we've been operating in the southern Mediterranean region, which has been the Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Jordan, where we have seen the amazing potential of the sun and the wind. And here at Camp 22, we are launching a new initiative that we've created for this region to try and really prove that renewables are competitive, inherently competitive without state support or subsidies. And we are testing this in Morocco with a first wind project we financed near Tangiers, which is a private project selling directly to private consumers. And we believe this is a model that can be replicated in other countries in this region. Here at Camp 22, we're really here to promote this particular initiative. Of course, this initiative is only one of many that we're doing to promote energy efficiency in renewables throughout the region we work in, but that specific initiative is why I'm here today. Okay, you have a banker who wants to invest in solar projects. That's nice, but how many bankers like this banker were there in Marrakesh with you? Was she the rule or the exception? I think there were a lot of people. I don't know how many exactly, but there were many people from businesses, and one of the things that I found exciting about this cop was that there was a blue zone where all the bureaucrats and the hippies and the students and people like us were shoved into. And then there was the green zone where all of Morocco and North Africa and other companies from all over the world were there to basically showcase what they were doing. So I had taken some pictures, I don't know if you'll show them at some point, but there were EVs and there were solar powered, all kinds of things that move and fly and all of those kinds of things. Here's a solar powered, I don't know, bicycle thingy, there's the EV that one of the Moroccan companies has taken out, so people found this very exciting. Who made that? Who made that EV? It's a Moroccan company, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know if it's a French company that pretends to be Moroccan or, you know, so I did not... Some of you are doing it anyway. I didn't dig that deep, but anyway, I thought that was interesting. So in this green zone was a whole lot of entrepreneurship and business and looking at sustainability and those kinds of things. And there, I found a lot of Moroccan families and children of all ages from really little to like you saw in that little solar powered bicycle thingy. They support environmental concerns? Well, they're looking at sustainable issues and how can you harness solar energy because Morocco has so much solar energy. Yeah, they'd be great, we can teach them stuff. And exactly, and they love wind, maybe they could teach us some things. And I asked that question of, you know, are people objecting to having wind because of how it looks on your coastline? Because they also have a very robust... And the birds, don't forget the birds. Right, but they have a very robust sort of a tourism economy as well. So they don't want to destroy that, which is one of the concerns here as well. And, you know, I think that was really exciting to see that there was a whole sort of civil society and business and entrepreneurship area where people were active. One more thing before we go to the break. Was there anybody from Hawaii there, aside from you? Stuart, Stuart Scott. Oh, yeah, no kidding. He was there. Oh, we have to get him down here because I'm sure he took video. Yeah, yeah, he did. He did quite a bit of work with, yeah. So he was there. He came up to me and said, hi. Think tech all over the world, including Marrakesh. So exotic. And that's Anu Hiddle. She's also very exotic. We're going to take this break and we're going to come back in one minute and we're going to talk some more. And we're going to catch up on the question of Mr. Trump. Hello, this is Martin de Speng. I want to get you get excited about my new show, which is Humane Architecture for Hawaii and Beyond. We're going to broadcast on Tuesdays, 5 p.m. here on Think Tech Hawaii. Thank you for watching Think Tech. I'm Grace Chang, the new host for Global Connections. You can find me here live every Thursday at 1 p.m. where we'll be talking to people around the islands or visiting the islands who are connected in various aspects of global affairs. So please tune in and Aloha and thanks for watching. Think Tech Hawaii, Asia in reveal. I am Johnson Choi, the host. Looking forward to see you next month, December 15th, Thursday, 11 p.m. right here at this channel. Aloha. Hi, I'm Stacy Hayashi and you can catch me on Mondays at 11 p.m. on Think Tech Hawaii. Stacy to the rescue. See you then. Okay, we're back. We're live with Anu Hiddle on Climate Change, Beyond Outrage. Her show, I'm the visiting host and she's a visiting guest. And we're talking about COP 22, just recently finished in Marrakesh, Marrakesh. Bizarre. In Morocco, if you didn't know that. And she went there and she went there with students and she went there to observe, report and teach about environmental movements around the world and certainly just as Paris, just as the World Conservation Congress here in Honolulu there's a lot to learn, there's a lot to teach about that. But you know, you got there. First, let's see some more photos. I know we have photos. Okay. Let's do a picture show. That's my crew. So those are my students from Washington University. And that's just a little shot of what the venue looked like. So these are all pop-up venues. Paris was the same Lima. There's a nice, that's really Moroccan architecture. That's right. That was one of the plenary halls. They just did it with two by fours, you know, and a rose garden planted. I'm not sure how environmental all that was, but there we go. They had all the flags and you couldn't go between them like you could in Paris. So I had a security guard there at all times. She was. This is Inger Anderson, who is the head of IUCN, who brought the World Conservation Congress to Honolulu. And she had a very nice message for our students and that's my group there. We're doing 2-2, like 22. You're going to do this again? It strikes me this is not the last time. To go to Marrakech? I don't want to go to Marrakech. Again, you want to come? Top 23, top 24, and so forth. Right. So is there going to be a top 23 for us, for the United States? Is there? Is there? Well, that takes me to the question you deferred earlier. Right. That is, and I don't want to spend a lot of time on this, but I think we have to. It's obligatory because, you know, we're trying to figure out what's going on here in the world. So Mr. Trump has not been particularly friendly with environmental, you know, environmental concerns. And I don't even believe in climate change. It's incredible that he falls in that camp. Incredible that a president of the United States falls. Maybe you'll change his mind. I keep wishing. So you arrived there on the very day of the election. Oh my goodness gracious. And you, you know, you arrived and all these people were reeling because obviously they like presidents who believe in climate change. What kind of, what was the feeling there when you, I must know, what was the feeling when you got there? So I left here on the 8th, but I didn't actually make it there until the second week. So I had a, you know, it took me a couple of days and then I did a little stopover and so on. But the team that was there on the ground when the elections, when the election results were announced, that was our first week team. They were just devastated. I think all the Americans there were very, I think that there was just some stunned silence for a while. There was a lot of business as usual going on, which is that the rest of the work of the COP was going on. You know, trying to figure out what are the procedures, what are the rules, all of those things. By the time I got there, which was the second week, I think that had given people three or four or five days to get used to the new reality. And the glum-ness, I think that people, or the shock that they had felt turned into that sort of more glum feeling about what's going to happen. And they actually had some support group meetings and things on the side. Sociology, psychology, that kind of thing. It was mediators without borders. Oh, I love it. And they did a support group for Americans and friends. So they went around the table. Well, it's very responsive of them anyway. They acted quickly. Yes, they acted quickly. There were many people who talked about the disbelief and outrage and all of those things. And then I think it was very interesting because when the heads of state from other countries came in and also Secretary Kerry was the highest ranking official that came to the cop. The whole administration, of course, is a lame duck administration at this point. So Kerry actually gave a speech which I think was intended to be quite rousing, but perhaps was maybe more hopeful than anything. He's just sort of wishful thinking that this will work out. I think people felt better after that. And I went to a meeting where the German foreign minister, I'm sorry, the environment minister, pledged another 50 million euros into the climate process. And you know, that's not a lot of money, but they're pledging more, which is good. And so the signs are all good, which is everybody wants to stay the course at this point. That's interesting, actually, because when you make that statement, make that decision, you're putting into relief the possibility that you couldn't stay the course. Let me back up and say, you know, the environmental movement, if you want to call it that, has struggled for a long time. And it's struggled against capital concentrations. It's struggled against big members of industry. It's struggled against governments who want to build their economy at the expense of the environments all over the world. Even China is coming around, but query how much and under, you know, what circumstances. And so here, we seem to have gained a little momentum in Paris. And for that matter, in the World Conservation Congress here a few months ago. And now this happens, smack in the middle of COP 22. Demoralization is hardly the word, because now you feel that you're not only coping with trying to move the momentum ahead, but preventing it from falling behind. And that, you know, I'm saying this not you, but, you know, this could be a real devastating blow to the whole movement. If the leader of the free world, and that's what it is, sorry to say, the leader of the free world, Donald Trump, takes hard positions against environmental protection. If he does that, this COP 21, COP 22, it's all kind of irrelevant, isn't it? So there are a few things to be said about that. One is that this has been a really long process. It's not something that started with COP 21, okay? This started in 1992 with the Rio Declaration and the UNFCCC. So we've seen a few presidents come and go. Now, it was granted the environmental movement has actually had to deal with, as you've said, governments. And the last such horrendous and hostile government was Reagan appointing James Watt as Interior Secretary. And we survived that. We did take a few steps back, but we survived it and I feel like we came out of it even stronger, like a virus or something that gets stronger. I'm very biological. So I think that's one thing. Now, one problem, though, is that no one really knows what Trump is going to do because even he doesn't seem to know what he's going to do. So he is actually at best hostile and at worst unhinged. So, you know, that... Notice I'm not laughing or smiling or anything. Right, no, because it's very real. It's very real. And so, given that, we have to figure out how do we stay the course in turbulent waters? What do we do? And it seems like of the four big polluters, India never was ever committed one way or another. So they haven't changed their minds much after Donald Trump. Meaning that not all that committed. They weren't from the beginning. Narendra Modi has said that, you know, he's got other priorities. He's got to build bathrooms. He's got to build his population, which is true. And he's got to fix the mess he made in the currency too. Yes, he's got one. Won't go there right now. But, you know, so that's India. The other three polluters, so the U.S., which is not the biggest polluter, is now at the brink of maybe not doing anything or even pulling out. So at best, we would say the U.S. would probably not do anything and just stay inactive. Now, the U.S. could pull out. There are a couple of ways that the U.S. can do that. It would take about a year to pull out of the framework convention entirely, or four years, just not be part of it. The U.S. isn't really all that in, right? Did it affirm COP 21? Oh, yes. We ratified and everything. But COP 21 is normative. It's not mandatory for the U.S. I mean that when Kerry went to Paris, he insisted on changing the language in the ultimate agreement to normative, not mandatory. Nothing is mandatory when it comes to something that's above the nation state, right? Unless it's an actual treaty, bilateral treaty, and then you can impose sanctions, or you can take things to the International Court of Justice or things like that. So how would Trump back out of this? What could he do? So there are ways that parties can actually back out. There is a provision in the agreement itself. For the FCCC, it would take about a year for Trump to back out. So that would mean the whole thing. And for you lawyerly types, for the Paris Agreement, it would take four years for him to back out. That per the terms of the agreement? Per the terms of the agreement. So he could do that. But he could also just decide to lie low and not do anything at all. Now the thing is that this is not even a freight train that you can stop, and it'll take a long time to stop. This is almost an ethereal being that has pervaded so much of our society. So you've seen that we've got businesses involved now. Once businesses are involved, I think it's very difficult to stop some of these things. So in some ways those businesses are now environmentalist friends. Banks, for example. Yes, European banks for reconstruction development, for example. So it's really difficult to stop this. It'll be very hard for the U.S. to not do anything. To do nothing will be very difficult. For the administration to do nothing won't be difficult, but things will still happen on climate action. They'll happen at the sub-national level, at the local level. They'll happen at the supranational level, where bodies like the IUCN will have governmental and non-governmental organizations that are working over and above those nation-states. How do you see the U.S.? I mean, because your students are from the U.S., and you look at this from the advantage of the U.S., although there's different advantages in different countries, for sure. How do you see the U.S.? The U.S. voted for Trump. They voted for Trump after they knew he didn't believe in climate change. They voted for Trump after we knew that he was not high on environmental concerns. What's the mood in this country, if you know? Well, obviously, there isn't popular support for what Obama did, which is why he did it. He did a unilateral executive action, and he's done that without Congress. Without Congress, executive action, executive order is executive order. He rolled back by the next executive. Right, and that's why it's a dangerous game, because you really want popular support with what you're doing if you wanted to be lasting. Now, some of the things that were put in place, that was just one of the things Obama did, but long before he came on board, there were already things that were happening, and solar companies and wind power and all of these things have been gaining momentum, and so I think over the last 8, 12 years, these things have been going on. Maybe it's bigger than Trump. Maybe it has momentum of its own. It's bigger than Obama, and so it's bigger than Trump, and it's bigger than one person is what I'm trying to say. Now, the other two polluters... Almost out of time on it. Okay, the other two polluters, the EU and China, they've said they're going to stay the course, so we'll look and hopefully we'll be able to Trump-proof this agreement. Why do I feel, in any event, that Anu Hiddle is going to stay the course, be here on Climate Change Beyond Outrage. There's much more to come, and I hope she reports back to us on a regular basis. Thank you, Anu. Thank you.