 So, I suggest that we start if we are all here and understood that the previous panels run a bit late, which is good news usually in such conference. So I'm very honored to chair this workshop on energy, climate, sustainable development and food security, a lot of important subjects. So let me first thank the organizers, Thierry de Montbriand and Yifri. But also our host, the United Arab Emirates, and I would like to say, you know, Abu Dhabi, where else to organize such nice conference? And we are very privileged to have a very distinguished panel today with us, starting with her excellency, Mariam. I hope I will pronounce your name properly, Almeiri, who has recently been appointed as Minister of Climate Change and Environment of the UAE. I understand that you have a former portfolio in relation with food security. Peter Handley, who is the head of the energy intensive industries and raw material unit in the EU Commission at the Director General for Growth. Dr. Isabel Tzakok, economist, consultant on agriculture and rural development and senior fellow at the Policies Centre for the New South. Olivier Per, chairman of France Brevet, scientific advisor of the Energy Centre Yifri and the former president of the French Energy Council and the Institut Français du Pétrole, EFP, Energy Nouvelle. And last but not least, Marc-Antoine El-Mazeiga, who is the director of the Centre for Energy and Climate at Yifri. So we're going to have a workshop in four parts. The first part that will be a sort of introductive presentation by myself, really setting the scene on energies and the climate challenge. And then we'll have a quick Q&A session on this topic. Then this will be followed by Her Excellency Maria Malméry on sustainable food systems. There again, we'll have a Q&A session after this presentation. Then we'll address two issues related to urgencies. One on the food security challenge with Dr. Isabel Tzakok and also on the electricity supply security challenge by Olivier Per. And then we'll open again the floor for questions. And the fourth session will be on how to boost nuclear, renewable and other low-carbon technologies, challenges and perspective. And for this session, Peter Handley and Marc-Antoine El-Mazeiga will give us some information so that we can open the floor for discussion. So that's what I would like to propose to you as a menu for this afternoon as I'm sure that there will be a lot of questions after the presentation. So I'm going to start now with my presentation on energy. Energy which is at the heart of the fight against climate change and the promotion of sustainable development. Energy is fundamental to human life. Energy is central to all our activities from making food, heating, light, transportation. So supplying energy means contributing to the economic and social development and the well-being of all people on the planet. Energy is also at the heart of one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century, saving the planet from the threat of climate change while enabling humanity to escape poverty. Climate change is a reality and all society needs to be part of the response that is to say industry, policymakers or government and also consumers. The energy and climate challenges are inseparable from other major world challenges such as poverty, hunger, environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, preservation of water, ethics and corruption. The UN Sustainable Development Goals have set a path to the responsible creation of a better future that is more sustainable for everyone. It's not enough to decarbonise energy. It's also necessary to meet the growing energy needs of a rising global population in a responsible way. That is the dual challenge for energy. As you can see on this chart, I'll explain a bit about the graph after but there are 7.7 billion people in the world today and more than 1 billion people do not have access to energy today. And in 2050, we should be approximately 10 billion people on the planet and this demographic growth and the improvement of living standards will require energy that is reliable, affordable, clean and accessible to as many people as possible. This means reinventing energy. This is looking in fact at the past in relation to GDP and associated energy need and with the energy, the emissions that are coming today with the energy and of course, there is immediately the evidence of the climate challenge on this slide. Demography is a very predictable science in terms of numbers so we know that the world population will grow and therefore the need for energy is going to grow at the same time. I think that this slide illustrates the challenge to have a growing world population and GDP and therefore a growing energy need for energy and therefore greenhouse gas emissions. So reinventing energy means promoting renewable decarbonised energies. This is solar, wind power, biofuels, biogas, hydrogen. Reinventing energy also means reducing the emissions generated by the production of fossil energies and storing the residual carbon. Reinventing energy means that the market will have to change the way we use energy, focusing on energy efficiency and preferring renewable or decarbonised energies. Reinventing energy concerns all of society, governments, investors, business and consumers, all of them have a role to play. So in fact, last Tuesday, we presented a new energy outlook. We do this every year and in this new energy outlook, we have essentially two scenarios looking towards 2050. They are called momentum and rupture. Both of them have assumed a 3% growth per year of GDP, but the associated growth of energy demand is not the same. In the momentum scenario, we have an assumption that the growth of energy demand will only be 0.5% per year. That implies that there is a lot of energy optimisation in terms of the way we use energy. And for rupture, it's even less. It's only 0.3% per year in the rupture scenario. So the first momentum scenario, and you will see why I explain this, assumes that all of the net zero 2050 countries, that countries that have made commitments under the Paris Agreement to be net zero by 2050, will deliver their commitments. And also that China will be on track to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. Under that scenario, the temperature will still rise to more than 2 degrees, it says, 2.2 to 2.4 degrees by the end of the century. But for example, this scenario, if you translate it into concrete policy measures, means that by 2035, there will not be in the net zero 2050 countries thermal engines. So all vehicles will be running on electricity. So it's a very strong underlying hypothesis just to take one of them. In the second one, the rupture scenario, it's even more disruptive because to get to that level, we need to have all of the net zero countries to change drastically their policies so that they are more or less in line with the net zero 2050 countries. And it also implies some, I would say, significant technological breakthroughs in terms of the way we use energy and energy efficiencies and, I would say, globally, a rebuilding of the energy systems. In that scenario, from our simulation, the temperature increase would be less than 2 degrees but would still be above the 1.5 degree C that is the target of many policy makers. So in fact, those slide is just an illustration through our scenario. It's, of course, none of them is correct. It's not there to predict the future, but try to anticipate what could happen to derive some policies. So I would like to, in a simplistic way, because our presentation at 50 slides, so I extracted only a few, to show you the past, in fact, to transforming energy, which I believe is important for you to understand and, in fact, to open the debate about the levers we have as an industry to transform this energy industry. First is to acknowledge the fact that, in all scenarios, there will be more energy needed in the future. We also see that oil demand will plateau somewhere after 2030 and then will decline. Gas is an enabler of the energy transition, both in power and in industry. Development of greener liquid and gas as fuel is going to be an important contributor, but also radical electrification with storage capabilities. Of course, renewable decarbonizing the power sector, that is to say massive generation of electricity using wind and solar power. Hydrogen, increasingly penetrating industry and transportation. And last but not least, carbon sinks. This is what we call carbon capture and storage, but also natural-based solution, carbon sink, will help to match the gap of the energy or the carbon emission that will not be avoided. So that was, in a, again, simplistic way, our vision of the pathway to the energy transition. If we do all this, and this will be my last slide because I don't want to dwell too much onto this and I'm sure there will be questions. You see the evolution of the primary energy demand in 2050 compared to 2019, that is on the left of the slide. In the two scenario we have envisaged for 2050, the momentum and the rupture. And without making a very detailed analysis, you see on the right part of the slide how in fact looking at 2019 primary energy demand and how it evolves to 2050, the contributing role of net zero 2050 countries that will reduce, in fact, their energy consumption over the period while growing the economy. So it means that there's an underlying hypothesis on very good energy efficiency. But you see the rest of the world, of course, a different scenario depending on how much energy they will need for the future between the momentum and the rupture. What is important to note is that the energy demand will change significantly by 2050 if you look at the mix of primary energy. But what you can see is under both scenarios, the rupture and the momentum, which are already themselves quite, I would say, not extreme but not simple scenario to realize, natural gas will grow. In the momentum, you see that fossil energy continue to supply more than 50% of the primary energy demand. And you can also see that coal has almost disappeared in the rupture scenario. Solar and wind, of course, are growing very significantly. So I will not dwell more on this energy outlook. However, key takeaways is at first, energy transition implies major shift in energy mix and the use of energy. Second takeaway is that fossil fuel is still required like the nuclear, by the way, as you can see. And third, of course, that is not mentioned on the side, but they are underlying cost implication, the cost of energy for this transition, which we want to be a just transition. How do we share the cost of this decarbonized energy? And of course, that's one of the main challenge of the COP26 that is gonna take place next month. So with that, I would like to, if I can find my papers, share with you the way total energies as one of the major actor, of course, in the field of energy, our ambition to be the company of responsible energy. Energy represents the history of total as a company, but also the future of total energies, so we changed our name last June, is a major energy player today and we want to be also a major energy player tomorrow. We support the goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement, which calls for reducing greenhouse gas in the context of sustainable development and the fight against poverty, and which aims to limit the increase of global temperature below two degrees C compared to pre-industrial levels. We say two degrees C and nothing else for the reason I've just explained. Total energies declared its ambition and to get to net zero across its production and energy products at scope one, two, and three, for those who are familiar with this jargon. So used by its customer by 2050, together with society, it's important to set together with society because again, it's not just total energies that defines which product are being consumed. Total energies has embedded the changing energy mix into its strategy by investing in renewables and electricity, favoring the use of natural gas in addition to hydrogen and biomass, targeting investments in low-cost oil and biofuels and by developing natural-based carbon storage solution as well as CO2 capture and sequestration. This ambition means profitable investment in order to be one of the top five producers of renewable energy, to make renewable energy a profitable business. Deployment across the entire electricity value chain from production to the end user, this involves also storage and trading. To have a responsible approach on fossil energies focusing on value by selecting low-cost development that are the most efficient in terms of greenhouse gas emission, producing also more green gases and green fuels, we believe that there is a lot to do in this region in particular and this is why we are developing a lot of projects in Abu Dhabi, but also in the region. We want to reach the top three in low-carbon LNG. We want to become a leader in mass production of clean hydrogen using a similar model as the one we had with LNG, so it's massive production of clean hydrogen. The challenge here being, of course, that today there is not a lot of customers, there is not a lot of use of hydrogen, so we need to develop that market as well. We want to become a partner of our customers in their carbon neutrality journey. We want to be an important actor of electrical mobility as we are today in the distribution of fuel. This is the network, the petrol station network. We are promoting circular economy in the use of plastics, developing carbon storage and being a recognized leader in sustainable development. All of this is linked together. So the decade 2020-2030, we'll see Total Energies transformed itself into a true broad energy company. Total Energies projected production and sales mix will change significantly by 2030 and just to give you some rough figures today, Total Energies is producing 50% oil, 50% gas, 3 million barrels of oil equivalent per day. And by 2030, 10 years from now, we shall be producing 4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, so that's a plus 30% increase, responding to the growing energy demand. But with a different mix, because 50% will be coming from gas and green gases, 35% from oil and liquid biofuels and 15% from electricity, of course, mostly from renewable. So this is actually a growth of energy proposal, but with, of course, a very different mix in line with the scenario that we have presented and also in line with the objective, of course, of the 2050 net-net-zero target. We are investing approximately half of our 13 to 15 billion dollar per year of annual capital budget into low-carbon energies. Total Energies is also committed to the sustainable development goal of the UN with a four main axis, sustainable energy, which is leading the transformation of the energy model to combat climate change and respond to people needs. The well-being of people, being a leading name as an employer and a responsible operator. Environmental excellence, this means being exemplary in terms of environmental management and using the planet's natural resources. It's essentially being very efficient in the use of our own energy, the energy we need to produce, creating value for society, generating shared prosperity across regions, creating positive changes for community and in host regions where we produce energy. Total Energies recognize a positive role of permanent commitment and open dialogue with investors, but also other economic actors like government, society, NGOs. Total Energies reports in line with the sustainability accounting standard boards and support the World Economic Forum Initiative and the vocating shared ESG indicators for all companies. Each year, Total Energies publishes a climate report with a detailed progress on how we are progressing on our targets. So it's a transparent reporting on the commitment we take. So as a conclusion, let me tell you that myself, I've spent 40 years with the company, I'm very passionate about the ongoing transformation of the company and our contribution to responding to one of the greatest challenge of our century. Thank you. So now we can open for questions. May? Yes. Louis Schweitzer. One question is the scenario on total energy demand. I wondered how it was built and if there was an agreement among energy producers about the total amount of energy. I'm not speaking about the breakup between different sources of primary energy, but is this scenario coherent with, of course, the demographics, I assume, but with what type of growth in the developing world, specifically Africa, Southern Asia? So as I told you, the underlying hypothesis on both rupture and momentum scenario is 3% growth of GDP. I cannot give you the detail per continent, but we have it, of course, for reference. No, but still, the developing world at 3% is very low for what will be the larger part of the population of the world. So I was wondering, simply, if it meant really a limitation of growth for all developing countries and poorer countries today, which is, in my view, the major issue is of the climate change. So without going into detail, this scenario do not take into account limitation of the development of, as you put it, developing countries. So in fact, we have a hypothesis regarding very low growth of GDP in developed countries and certainly, as you have seen in the slide, a reduction of the energy needed anyway in the context of developed countries, but recognizing the fact that for developing countries, the need for energy will imply a growth of emissions and that's factored into those simulations. So there is no limitation on the growth of the developing countries, which is one of the challenge because it's how to combine, if I may say, the legitimate aspiration of developing countries for a better lives and the fact that indeed, a lot of the credit if I may say of how much emission we can have in the atmosphere has been used already by emitting countries, by developed countries. Can you put your mic on, please? All right. Nuclear appears on some of your slides, not on others. Obviously forecasting the future of nuclear is rather difficult from country to country. So do you, in some sort of conservative way, consider that you take it as stable and this more or less appeared in one of these slides as an hypothesis or are there more subtle hypotheses on this issue? I don't think it's very subtle, it's very basic. In fact, the road path, the pathway, sorry, to transition is more the one of total energies which does not include nuclear. However, as you've seen in the slide showing the energy mix in the different scenario, rupture and momentum, and again, these are two scenarios against many others that you can have do include nuclear and it's a growing energy. We will need a growing contribution of nuclear to achieve somewhere around the two degrees C and even more if you want to be below two degrees C as you can see in the two scenario, the rupture has even a larger share of nuclear contribution. It's clearly one of the important factor into the decarbonization of the energy. Igor? I don't know any structural change of this caliber has to do something with your financial planning, right? So if total has any figures on what that would cost you and where did you get this money from? Because people say that it might cost us globally about 36 trillion at the estimate of today. Either you put it as a tax on the population of the world or you cut down the dividends of your shareholders because the taxation of that caliber is unbearable for the population. So the question is, do you have financial prognosis of what it's in for you? And how do you deal with your shareholder or with the consumer? That's a very complex question but a very interesting one. I think there are two fold in your question if understood well. First fold is in relation to a company like Total Energies and how we manage in fact somehow to find our own way in this transition of energy. And we believe that with the underlying hypothesis in terms of the energy price moving forward and we take rather conservative price for oil. For example, we take $50 per barrel. This is public statement. So all of our long-term plan are based on $50 per barrel which you could argue today is relatively conservative or at least it's not excessive oil price for the future. And with that we are able to spend 13 to $15 billion every year of capital investment. And we say we dedicate about half of this to low-carbon energy, $3 billion being dedicated purely to solar and wind. So that's it's and with that we manage because of the cash flow generated from these activities and the selectivity we can apply on new projects. And we have a pipeline of projects that demonstrate that we can do this. I will not go into too much detail. This is not the subject of the panel but when we run our long-term plan we see that we can continue to serve a dividend to our shareholders and we believe therefore we have a sustainable model. And as you can see on the figures we are also contributing to the transformation of the energy mix who are more or less in line with on the one hand the fulfillment of energy demand. We're saying that between now and 2030 we'll grow up production energy by 30%. So it's gross proposal. And at the same time we decarbonize and we want to reach net zero by 2050 for all of our products. It's not just about scope one and two emission but also the emission of our product. When it comes to a more global question about all of this is gonna cost money because indeed if you take today I will just take the example of hydrogen because it's maybe a way to relate to what it means to translate from say oil to hydrogen as a source of energy. We produce today in our refineries what we call the gray hydrogen by reforming methane. We know how to do that. The cost is roughly speaking depending on the cost of gas and the environment between 50 and $100 per barrel of all equivalent. This is equivalent of energy. So we're kind of comparing April and April. So you see that gray hydrogen is not so different from oil. You could argue a bit more expensive, one to twice more expensive. If you want to go to what we call blue hydrogen which is hydrogen produced out of methane but where you take the associated emission of CO2 and you re-inject. You multiply the cost by two or three which means you are into the range of $150 per barrel. If then you want to go to green hydrogen which is the hydrogen that would be produced out of electrolysis of water by say renewable production, solar or wind power then the factor is four to five. So you are in the range of $200 to $250 per barrel. This gives you the immediate measure of the impact on the global economy of shifting dramatically to a purely hydrogen source. So this is why we need to have a just transition. You're a very high figure of numbers. There is a cost associated with this transition and the question is how are we going to share the cost to support in fact the developing countries in consuming these more expensive energies? And clearly we can see because when I spoke about this gray, blue and green hydrogen, I mean, I'm sure that mankind will the inventivity, innovation will help us to reduce the cost. But it will not be from a factor of five in a few years. Again, all of this needs time. So that's really the subject of this transition. But maybe Olivier want to comment on this subject of the cost of the transition. I would say unfortunately for the policy makers, they don't count. And so the green is so attractive that you should not count. That's a pity. And it is a case in France. It is a case in Europe. You take decisions, you put targets, you don't evaluate how you will reach these targets and what will be the cost? What is the cost of a fit for 55? How it will be achieved? No, the decision will be taken some time. And in two or three years, it will appear that we will not reach this target. So we will increase furthermore the target and then you are sure to go below. Greta Thandberg. Maybe a last question on this session. You referred to a strategic scenario. These scenarios are based on model. And I would say by experience, a model is garbage in, garbage out. And I wonder what is garbage in the hypothesis you put in this model. You refer to one hypothesis, which is the no, in 2035, no more thermal engines. This is challenging, but what, you know the difference between challenging and totally unrealistic sometimes is very thin. So would you give us some example of the key assumptions on which are based your model? So I think the best I can do is to refer you to our presentation that is online. So on the Total Energy website, because we presented this new Total Energy Energy Outlook last Tuesday. And you will see that there is a slide that will not come until today, which details in fact the underlying assumptions. It was a bit more detailed than what I've just given. We believe that all of these assumptions are possible. That is, there is nothing there in terms at least a momentum scenario because we are looking at essentially commitments made by countries and technology that exists today. Nothing that is, do not exist today. And of course we're looking at a time span towards 2050. The rupture scenario differs a bit from the perspective that it does include some solution that we don't really know, that will be invented somehow. But we believe it's possible as well, but we don't know what. So this, we refine actually those scenarios compared to last year Total Energy Outlook. And what we try to do again, knowing that every scenario is bound to be wrong, but that trying to frame somehow the challenge that we're facing and what we can do to contribute to addressing this challenge. There was one last question. Yes, a very quick question. When I look at the projections in the world primary energy demand in both scenarios, clearly oil is in a very strong reduction. So I was wondering what was the strategy in terms of exploration going forward for Total and how you see the same strategy for your competitors? It's an important question in the context where we are today in Abu Dhabi because of course it's one of the country and partly if you look at the Middle East region where there are, I would say, long resources in terms of reserve at the current rate of production. So first thing, because you may have in mind the statement made by the head of IE, Fatih Birhal, not so long ago when he commented one of these scenarios, he said that essentially in view of the lower demand of oil, we could stop investing in exploration and developing new projects. Today we're roughly speaking the demand, I'm not speaking about the production because everything is driven by the demand. The demand for oil is just around 100 million barrel of oil per day. And he was saying that in view of the projection by 2050, we should no longer need to do any new investment and he was doing a linear, I would say extrapolation or interpolation between today and 2050. And this will not be like that because this was meaning that by 2030, which is 10 years from now, the world will be consuming 70 million barrel of oil per day, minus 30 million and that's not possible because when you just look at the way we use oil today, there is no substitution. So there is no force in the universe that will make such drastic reduction. With total energy in our economic energy outlook, we are not so different when you look at our rupture scenario, which is maybe the most consistent with the IEA, one degree C scenario. We're not so different when you look at the energy mix and the contribution of oil. So the endpoint in 2050, we say it's not necessarily, it's not so wrong. I mean, plus or minus a few million barrel, but it's the trajectory. We believe that it will not be linear. In fact, everything that we can learn from the past is that in this sort of situation, we don't have linear phenomenon because you have some technological breakthrough. You have some market changes and the electrification of the light vehicle, for example, in net zero 2050, if you take just Europe, this is going to happen now. So these are, but it will not happen in a linear way. So what we're saying essentially, back to your question about exploration, is that in fact, the demand for oil and gas will continue to be significant. Gas, we see a growing demand. Oil, we see a sort of a plateau. Our prognosis is around 2030. So in the next decade, we consider that we will probably get a peak and then we will slowly decline. That's our vision. Ending in 2050, more or less, where we can see on the slide. If then you look into, take into account the fact that oil fields are, it's the oil production, it's a depletion industry. So the day you start to produce, you start to decline and you take the average decline of an oil field and that's globally, you see that in 10 years, you lose 40% of your production between 30 and 40% depending on the assumption. So it means that if you do nothing, you get effectively to the 70 million barrels per day of fatty beryl. But since we know that we will need more, we need still to explore for oil and we need to develop new oil fields. And if you just look at what we need to supply the three-year demand as we can prognosis and three-year is a relatively short period of time, we are short of three to five million barrels of oil per day. This is the IEA by the way, so it's not myself. And if you look at what we've been able to put on stream in the last three years, it's 1.5 million barrels of oil per day. So you can see the immediate challenge is the risk of shortage of oil and one of the many explanation about the current oil price and energy price is due to this tension because our industry has been under-investing since the last downturn in 2015. So there was under-investment by the industry in 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 was the first year when we started to really get back to normal investment level and then we got 20 and 21 again, very significant addition. So there is an underlying shortage, structural shortage of oil production coming up in front of us and as you know, the oil markets are always supplied but the price is the anticipation of the shortage in the coming year. So today, there is a tension and indeed we need to continue to explore the strategy or I would say the choice, the strategic choice of total energies is to focus on what we call low-cost oil projects. Why? Because of the volatility. Look at what happened in 2020, the oil price fell below $40 per barrel. You need to be able to, your project have got to be resilient to this sort of environment and this is why by the way, we have a big presence in Abu Dhabi and in other countries in the region because we believe this is where you can produce the low-cost barrels in an effective way and with associated greenhouse gas, of course, reduction projects. Thank you very clear. Just in that case, because I understand the most important part is the non-linearity but do you have a sort of approximate trajectory of if it's not linear, how it is going to be distributed over time in the next few decades? We can say more or less anything we want. It will be wrong because it depends on things we don't really anticipate. What we're saying is that if we want to get to the net zero by 2050 and I think this is with the two scenarios we have, you can see where you're going to end but it's very difficult to prognose exactly what will be the trajectory but we definitely consider, we definitely, we think that oil production and I should say oil demand again, oil demand should peak in the next decade and should decline after and this is taking on into account the significant changes that are being made by car manufacturers that's particularly in Europe who are really now shifting to electrical vehicles. So I would like maybe, and we will have time at the end of the session hopefully to take more questions but to go to the next part of this panel. So handing over the floor to Her Excellency Mariam and Mary to speak about sustainable food system. So we go from energy to food. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. First of all, thank you for your time to be here with us. Thank you also to the World Policy Conference organizers. It's really been, we've had some great discussions. Yes, I'm going to talk a little bit about, I've taken now the Minister of Climate Change and Environment role. Before that I was Minister of State for Food and Water Security so I did spend a lot of my years looking into food systems. So I'll be talking a lot about that now because I've just started my new journey but for me it's also a big learning lesson to see the discussions around energy, around climate change and as you all know the food systems and the climate change, it's all inextricably interlinked together. So I mean, we all, we just had the United Nations Food Systems Summit, SDG goal number 200 by 2030 is still a huge step away. There's clearly still a lot to be done. It's funny because in a way our food systems are the problem but they are also the solution as well. The more we try to ramp up our food production to overcome the effects of climate change, the more we're actually contributing to climate change itself. And really what is needed now is total commitment to food systems transformation. And for us here in the UAE, we see ourselves as responsible global citizens and for us to do this transformation and be part of this transformation and we also have to start looking at these transformations within the UAE itself. I kind of just want to give you a little bit of a history. 2008, 2009 we faced our last food crisis here in the UAE and the leadership of the UAE really said, okay, it's time we take food security needs to be taken more seriously than it has been. We need to start looking into how we can ensure that we're not just food security today but also in future. In the past years UAE has been known as being a hub of food trade. So we have our ports, we have our national airlines, we have excellent infrastructure to bring huge volumes of food into the country. And as you may all know, we have over 200 nationalities living here in the UAE. Everybody has their tastes and what they like to eat. So everybody likes to go to the supermarket and find their foods that they usually find at home. So when you see this, we're now really looking at, okay, moving forward, how can we ensure, because we are so dependent on the global food supply chains, how can we make sure that the UAE still has or is insured of food security in the future? Going through COVID was also a big learning lesson for us. So going back to, we faced our food crisis and the leadership took many steps. One of them was to appoint a minister of state for food security, which is myself. This was also the first time for the UAE. With that, the first steps I did was making sure we have a plan that the country knows where it is that we're going because food security as a subject itself, it's about food trade, it's about nutrition, it's about food loss and food waste, it's about food safety, it's about ensuring you have national reserves, especially for a country that doesn't have the typical agricultural lands and we're not a agricultural country in itself, so you have the national storages as well. So thinking of all those things, I kind of had to speak with all the stakeholders and bring them together and say, let's create a national plan for the country to ensure that in future we're also ready and we're more resilient. So we launched the National Food Security Strategy 2051 in 2018, then of course for every strategy you have to have a vehicle to move this forward. So we then created the governance model for the UAE and putting it forward and then bang, 2020 came, COVID came and this was for us a big learning lesson. Believe me, there was a lot happening in the background but for those who lived here for a country that brings in more than 90% of its food, we didn't face a single minute where some shelves were empty of certain food commodities and I think this really shows that we are, as a country, have a really robust food system and that the plans we had in place and the programs and the partnerships and the leadership's political, the political will was there. I think these were all really important elements to showcase that the only way you can move forward also in future is to ensure that you have these elements in place. And so with that, of course, taking also action on a global scale and helping other countries. I mean, I think a lot of you saw, I mean, we did repatriation flights and we kind of used those flights to bring in food to the country. The UAE was really one of the leaders when it came to humanitarian aid. We sent them food, we sent them medical supplies. So we really took our role as a responsible world citizen and when it comes to food systems and towards the SDG too. So we, of course, took our part as well in the United Nations Food Systems Summit and as you all know, we're now moving towards the COP26 as well. But before we go to COP26, a key element that we learned as well going through COVID was that actually we should start looking at what we could grow in the UAE. And it needs to make commercial sense and it needs to be, sustainability needs to be in the heart of it. So you've all heard of vertical farms or a closed environment agriculture. So these are all systems of how you can now grow food in a closed system where you can actually control the environment and where you're able to actually recirculate the water and you can recirculate it again and again and reuse it. And for us, water is a precious resource as well. So we really try to look into, okay, let's create, now we have the plan and we also have the UAE food basket. So we needed to identify what are our main food items with all these 200 nationalities living in the UAE, what does the UAE actually eat? And so you see things like rice, of course, there are other parts of the world potatoes than more the commodity there. So really looking into the needs of the countries what are the food items? And then from that basket, what actually makes sense to grow in the UAE? And this is where the private sector then came and said, okay, we now have technologies we don't actually need, it can all be done inside. We just need a small space and we need connection to water and electricity. So this is where you get the whole connection of energy and water and the whole idea now is hopefully one day how can we grow food without using expensive unsustainable energy sources and being able to use water, treated waste water for example, into the system to have food for everybody. And I often say the three S's. How can we use the sun, the sea and the sand to produce food? So the UAE wants to become not just a hub for food trade but we wanna become a hub for technology, innovation and knowledge when it comes to growing certain foods in environments such as in the UAE. And this is where we're moving towards. I'm sure some of you have heard of the Aim for Climate Initiative which was announced at the leaders' COP summit where His Excellency Joe Biden announced the Aim for Climate Initiative. Our Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid also announced it. So it's called Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate, Aim for Climate. And it's all about how countries can come together, share data, share knowledge and accelerate in research and development needed to transform our food systems. So we're taking our, we see this as a duty that we must do and we've already started the first initiative was announced to create a valley or a playground called Food Tech Valley. So this is in a way, I like to say playground of where we hope to see future clean tech-based food technologies, food systems come alive. This is where we try to attract youth where we attract women, more women into the sector to try and look at how we can grow food differently. And so we're really excited about these projects moving forward. And as I was saying, this is some of the glimpses I don't wanna go on and on with a lot of the initiatives that we've done but the UAE is really taking big steps into transforming our own food systems and also helping other countries as well. And of course, as we move now to COP26, unquestionably, the most important addition of the summit since the inaugural COP was held in Berlin in 1995, the UAE is really fully committed to playing a leading role at the summit. It is, or we have been one of the few countries in the region to submit. I now need to look a little bit more at my notes because this is going into my new portfolio. So we were one of the few countries in the region to submit a second NDC, which is called the National Determined Commitments. Correct? National Contribution. Contribution, there we go. I think you are more familiar with the wording than I am. Ahead of the December 30th, 2020 deadline, which included a region-first economy-wide target of 23.5% reduction of emissions by 2030. And I believe this translates into an absolute emission reduction of about 17 million tons. We also support the GE77 and China position that developed countries need to deliver on the $100 billion of public finance. They promised in 2009. Although as a developing country, the UAE is not part of this pledge, but we believe in helping fellow developing countries. And here's some examples. We are major investors in renewable energy projects in over 70 countries. I'm sure Mubadela, Mazdar are some familiar companies that you know that have done huge investments in this area. We've provided billions of dollars in humanitarian relief for climate disasters. We have provided over $1 billion of grants and soft loans for renewable energy power projects in developing countries. So we will be delivering a high-level participation at COP26 with our supplementary initiatives, including the launch of Aim for Climate, which I just talked about, with the USA. And this is, as I said, a voluntary initiative that brings together participants to kind of increase and accelerate global innovation research and development on agriculture and food system transformation and support of climate action. So we like to lead by example and show efforts in transforming our food systems. We know that this is not easy and it also takes mind change as well. And we're experiencing this in the UAE as well, making the people understand that it's, we need to move forward with these transitions. We need to look at how can we empower companies, for example, who have ag tech technologies and say, you know what, we're ready to grow strawberries in the UAE. Okay, how can we empower these companies to actually grow strawberries in the UAE? So what we've done a lot to is listen, listen to what the private sector needs. And in doing so, what we're trying to do is change the blueprint of the country because the blueprint of the country so far was very much based on trade, food trade, but now changing the blueprint to start attracting investments to the UAE. So there are typical small things like, okay, access to finance, there should be insurance companies to ensure your produce. Some people may think this is actually basics, but these are things that we have to actually lay the foundation for in the UAE to try and look at how we can now attract ag tech companies to develop in the UAE. So with that, I will stop talking and take your questions. Thank you, so please. Yeah. Mitigation measures we have. Are you considering that? Could you tell us something about what you're doing in that regard? And then the other thing, the sea is a good source of food. What are you doing sea wise in order to look at food production? Thank you. First, you're talking about reforestation or deforestation? Reforestation, okay. Yes. So we, first of all, forests don't really exist here in the UAE. So when we talk, sorry. Okay, date palms. When we look at date palms, one of the issues that we're facing here in the UAE is that a lot of the date palms are actually using or use a lot of water. So what's being done now is the date palm farms are being looked at with a very different, let's say, lens to look at what kinds of seeds we actually need to be looking at. And this is where looking at things like genomic analysis of different seeds, looking at how to encourage also farmers to look at other crops that they should be focusing on that are less thirsty as well. Dates are, we've got actually two types of foods that we are growing enough for the demand of the UAEs, states and cucumbers. Dates were actually producing, I think, more than 200% of our needs. So the date growing is gonna be changing. There's gonna be laws and regulations coming just because it's a very thirsty way of growing. So this is probably gonna happen in the next few months of how we can make them more efficient and ensure, because it's also got a cultural connection to it. A lot of the farmers grow date palm trees not for commercial use. It's kind of a recreational area. So it'll always be an important crop that we will be growing, but we need to make huge changes on what kinds of palm trees or what kind of seeds we'll be using and how to ensure that we don't produce so much waste. There's a lot of food loss and food waste happening. So the efficiencies will need to be looked at here. On the aquacultural side or fish side, we are also people who love fish. I think our fish consumption is more than double of the global average. We import also, I think, about 85% of the fish that we eat is imported. On the fisheries side, this is again, now in the new ministry that I've come in, they do all the regulations on the fishing, but what we're trying to do now is look at how aquaculture can contribute more to what we're doing. Some of the initiatives that we've taken is the government has invested in a hatchery, and this hatchery will be in operation by the end of the year. This hatchery will be supplying fingerlings for the aquacultural sector. So looking at local species and also species such as salmon, there is already a fish farm actually growing salmon here. And the UAE, sea bass, sea bream are also on the top and then come some of the local species. So aquaculture will be something that you will see be picking up now as well. Why is it picking up? Because of technology, because of the RAS systems that have now been developed that can actually be used in land as well, because we actually don't have seas with depth, so sea cage farming is a little bit more difficult for us. Okay, thanks. Great. Thank you so much. Fascinating presentation, and I cannot but suggest you to visit the OECD in Paris, which has an excellent team working on fisheries and especially aquaculture, and that has been monitoring the policies in aquaculture of its 70, seven member countries and partner countries. So I'm sure there's a lot to discuss there. I'd be interested to know, the UAE is one of the very progressive countries in the world and you are developing nuclear power as we speak here, and there's a couple of reactors that are going to be commissioned soon and one is already operation. So this gives you obviously a lot of electricity at some point. And so the question is, what are you gonna do with all the electricity? So you might do hydrogen, but you might also increase the desalination of water in the country. So what are the plans in this respect? Because it's very electricity intensive. And the second question related to the international dimension of the kind of sustainable agricultural hub that you aim to develop here. Israel is obviously a leader here and we've heard and discussed extensively today the Abraham agreement. To what extent is there a strategic partnership in the making with Israel in this? Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Mark Antoine. So yes, on the water side or let's say the desalination side, we've seen huge steps in the UAE trying to make the whole desalination procedures more sustainable in that to try to decouple desalination from power generation. So reverse osmosis is now really picking up and moving forward, all new desalination plants will be using the RO systems with very much having always sustainability at our hearts because we know, I mean, at the end of the day we are a water scarce country, so we will be using the desalination process. But as the UAE commences and takes also the responsibility of saying, okay, we are also responsible global citizens, we have to ensure that whatever we take forward when it comes to producing energy, when it comes to desalination, we need to ensure that we're using the right technology to reduce our carbon footprints. And we are really, if you've noticed, we have a special envoy for climate change, we have a ministry for climate change. So for us, climate change is really on the top of the agenda. And this cascades down to all the stakeholders to ensure that they are aligned with what we're doing. And as we near COP26, there was a gentleman who said, okay, there's a lot of talk, but how can you make sure that you have the buy-in? How can you make sure that the cost doesn't go up so high that you actually can't afford it anymore? So what's really important, and my point of view is having those stakeholder engagements. And we have now going towards COP because we'll be participating in COP, we have done something called the Accelerator Program, where we've brought in all the stakeholders from across the country to ensure that everyone is aligned, everyone understands what we need to do. And it's really important to find a balance. We can't go completely in one direction. It's just, it becomes way too expensive. And I think when the consumers actually understand what cost implication this comes on them, but it's about understanding what it means because doing this transition, it would be amazing if we could all reach the targets, but we know that the targets are difficult. But let's say if we're able to reach some sort of percentage, all of us together, at least it's better than nothing, we're going towards that right target. And so for us in the UAE, the leadership is very keen on making sure that whatever we do, we need to think of the economic growth, but we also need to ensure that whatever we do, we take a technology that is sustainable, that has the least carbon footprint possible. So there's a lot of work being done on technology innovation when it comes to desalination, for example. Food Tech Valley, yes, and Israel, I actually was there a few months ago with a delegation. I've been visiting a lot of countries to try and bring them on board to Food Tech Valley and of course Israel being one of the countries with excellent technologies and innovations when it comes to water, how you can grow with very, very little water. For me, it was my prime country to go to as soon as the Abraham Accords were signed. It was like, yes, I can go to Israel now. I can go and see what they have because they have the environment that we have here and they're by far from where we are on growing foods and desert climates. So we have, I think I received over 50 groups of companies from Israel in the past five, six months. And I would say to 80%, they have shown big interest to come and join us in Food Tech Valley. At the moment, we're going through the master plan and they are very much involved in the workshops that we have as well because we're looking at things also like cellular agriculture. It makes sense for us, growing foods and a bioreactor. We wanna bring those innovations here because also we know, moving forward, when you see the projections of this many billion people and we need to feed them, we can see there's a food gap gonna come and with all the waste we're producing, what innovations can we do to reduce that? So partnerships with so many countries is essential for Food Tech Valley and Israel is in, definitely. One last question, yes. Thank you, very good question. I actually just opened the Desert Life Science Center just a week ago and this is all about genome sequencing of seeds. So I was telling the people, I was like, it's so fascinating when you actually see and understand traits of certain seeds to be able to say, okay, well, this makes sense to grow in harsh climates like the UAE. This Desert Science Lab has been set up with BGI, which used to be Beijing Genomics Institute and this partnership was made because we really wanted to further study crops that can grow in our environment and also understand what crops would be good to grow in closed environments because it's clearly a different environment. Having people understand how important this whole subject of GMOs also is essential because people kind of, they go with the flow, they're like, okay, everyone's saying that's not good then I, okay, I will say it's not good. It's the same as when you say organic, okay, organic and sustainable are also two different things. So when something's organic, then you know that probably this plant has had a lot more water maybe than another plant or it's had a lot more space. And so the education is really important here. And it's for us here in the UAE, again, going back to the, we grew up here knowing that we bring food from outside. So we have food here that are GMOs. We have food that are non GMOs. Things need to be clearly labeled. So we don't say we don't want or we do want. We kind of leave it up to the UAE population to choose what they would like. But it's also important to educate because moving forward, there are many situations where it's not possible otherwise. It's because everything what we're doing and pushing the climate now to much hotter temperatures, it's making it even harder to grow certain crops. So things are happening on that front. And so how can you make sure you're able to feed the people? So you have to always have these kind of, let's say healthy discussions. And I had one of these at the NYU in New York University. So we had students and whatever their personal preferences, it didn't matter, but we kind of grouped them. We said, okay, you guys are pro GMO and you guys are against GMOs. You do your research and try to argue at each other. So it got them just to research, to educate about themselves, and then they had to take that position among them. But this sparked a really good discussion between the youth to understand the pros and cons. So I think it's always important to look at this subject carefully, but also to understand how important it is and how it actually could solve many things if used correctly. And I, you know, the youth, I think is really important when it comes to food systems, agriculture. I, we know that the age group of farmers are on the high side and we know that the youth are not interested. If I tell them, you know, I'd like you to be a farmer. Actually, it's a joke in our culture to say, why don't you want to study? You want to become a farmer? That's a little bit of a, so what I've done a little bit is I've kind of renamed it. I call them agri technologists. I tell the youth, I tell the youth when I speak to them, I said, you know, I'm not looking for a farmer. I'm looking for someone who likes technology and loves food. And they're like, that would be amazing. I'm like, yeah, agri technologists. So I think it's time to spin in a new name, work on the education part at school, work on the, I even put together a book, a children's book also for young children to understand what CEAs are, what is hydroponic, what is, to understand that this is now the new way. And actually farms can be in the middle of the city. Having women more coming into farms is amazing because the women actually are the ones I feel are very much about food systems at home. And when they are taking this to the next level and the kids get so excited about it too, so I think it's all interlinked together, but thanks for that important question. Thank you very much, Excellency, for this insightful speech and the Q&A that was very instructive. I mean, I like the new name of agro technologist. So I suggest that we go to the third part of our workshop looking at what we called urgency, so one of which is indeed food security and the second one being the electricity supply challenge. So I would like to hand over to Dr. Isabelle Sacock. Flo is yours. Can you all hear me? Yeah, okay. Looking around the room, I can see none of us here really go to bed hungry on a routine basis. But I come from Mauritius where it's not so uncommon. A lot of people go to bed hungry year in, year out. And in fact, this is what got me interested in poverty and food security. Now, when I compare Mauritius to parts of being in Bangladesh or Africa, I think we're actually well off. So it really depends on the context. We can see from the statistics that billions of people either are chronically hungry or severely malnourished. In simple terms, this is a nightmare. It's really a nightmare to live like that way. So you referred to the United Nations food systems and I think that was fantastic. I mean, the global cry there was we need to transform our food systems. Transform, that's a very big term. And we need to transform it if we want to eliminate hunger. If we want to achieve those sustainable development goals by 2030, that's only 10 years away. It's not a long time at all. So that is a very ambitious goal. So let me have the first slide. So let me see where I can move it. Yes. I like the way the EAT Landsat Commission puts it. Food in the Anthropocene represents one of the greatest health and environmental challenges of the 21st century. I mean, food is fundamental. We have to eliminate chronic hunger. Now we have to transform the way we produce, process, distribute our food, what they call, and I think rightly so, I like the term, the great food transformation. Now ending hunger and poverty and sharp inequality is really an old problem. You know, it's only modern industrial age that whole societies like in the West have been free from what's called hunger and premature death. So however, we can see with a great inequality that so many people are still in that kind of nightmare scenario. That requires that we simultaneously, and that's the key word, simultaneously transform agriculture and food, macroeconomic management, social protection, not to mention many other things. We heard about energy and so on and so forth. So here we're really talking of really heavy lifting. This transformation according to them, because we're in such an interdependent world, all under the threat, existential threat of climate change. This transformation will not happen unless there's widespread, widespread is key, multi-sector, it's not just agriculture either. Multi-level action to change what we eat, how it's produced for the global population. I mean, it's a very big ambition. It's something we haven't been able to do despite the growth of some countries in the West. Really, a minority of countries are well off. The majority of the world are not well off at all, varying degrees, but they are not well off. Since food is the first medicine, people cannot have food, they cannot be healthy. I mean, period, and when the pandemic has showed us that people now, they don't have food, and they are struck by disease, and so if we don't get up and run and do something, we're going to get worse and worse. So this is really an urgent problem, and I'm really glad you put it as urgency. It is absolutely urgent. So what I'd like to do in the few minutes is I'd like to point out what is the conceptual approach that is required to solve this food security problem. I hope later we can discuss the specifics and what happens in the world, and I'd like to draw from Peter Thimmer who is a foremost authority on food security. This is a complicated diagram, but I just want to make a few points which is really characteristic of his approach. Number one is his approach is holistic, and that is important, holistic. You see, it's macro, it's micro, it's short-term, it's long-term. You see, there are so many quadrants in there, and we can talk about each of them. Each of them is very difficult to achieve, but now you have to achieve all of them. And as he puts it, sustained policy attention is required, is required. Not like maybe you can do it, maybe you can't to achieve these objectives. His book is a really great subtitle. It's food security and scarcity. Why is ending chronic hunger so hard? Everybody says, well, we should end hunger, we should, but it's actually really hard to do it. There's a good reason why we didn't get there. It's not because people are wicked or whatever, just the nature of the task is really difficult to do that. So I hope we can discuss more all the quadrants in there. I'd like to look at his approach, but from a different angle where he talks of the development trilogy. I mean, Peter Thimmer has worked a lot in Asia, in Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, and so on. And his view is Asian governments, that is their development goal. The development trilogy, not just growth, but they want equity and they want stability. It's like the three legs of a stool. You have to have the three. Now, to have this, oh my God, what happened to the thing? It will come back. Oh, I will have some mushroom in the meantime. That's okay. Yes, it's actually, I love mushroom. And now we have a dog. Okay, shall we go back to the development trilogy? Foodie, it will come back. Yes, here we are. Okay, here too. I don't want to go into every little thing. We can look at it later. But the key point here that's not made in the first diagram is agriculture and rural development is central to achieving growth, equity, and stability. So we come back to those little farmers that we all look down upon, you know, to be a farmer, to be dumb, as to whatever. Well, why? Because they are poor. I mean, American farmers are not in that category at all. So that is the key point about that diagram is to see the centrality of agriculture and rural development. Now I'll go to, oops, this is the question that has fascinated me professionally is how do we change low productivity, subsistence agriculture into a high productivity, successful agriculture? This is what my research has been. When I left the bank, I always said when I retired from the bank, that's the first thing I'm going to do. I'm going to see why we can't do it. In the bank, we do a lot of agricultural development, but it is so disappointing despite efforts from everybody. And I was just wondering, why is it? People say, oh, you're the World Bank, you can do this, you can do that. But we can't transform agriculture. What's wrong with us? So when I looked into it, I became a lot more lenient on my evaluation of the bank. This is what I have looked at all the agriculture on which I could have data. So it's not all the world, but data is hard to come by. What is striking is I find as a strong pattern in all successful agricultural transformation. And that's the topic on my book. It's called Successful Agricultural Transformation. What it means and what makes it happen. Now, what does it mean? Success is an elastic term. Well, we mean two things. Number one, that there is productivity increase that stretches over decades. Not one year, not yo-yoing like this, not with the election cycle, but decades. 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, depending on the country. We can go into specific cases. Number two, we look at did that agricultural productivity actually help most of the people? By that we mean at least 50%. We look at the poverty level, we look at all kinds of socioeconomic indicate. Well, what is striking, which I actually learned, I did this research with another professor in the University of Maryland. We find that number one, all these countries had a stable framework of macroeconomic and political stability. You need stability for growth. You see, this is the Asian Development Trilogy. You can't have growth if you have wars and ups and downs and all this excitement. It doesn't work. Number two, you need an effective technology transfer system. And we just heard how much emphasis UAE is putting. I mean, technology is key. Without technology, you're just digging the old way and we can't afford the old way anymore. We just can't afford it. So an effective transfer system means research means funding research, means extending it to farmers and means doing it decades and decades. That's the weak part of most government. They do it and then they forget it or whatever happens to them. Then access to lucrative markets. That makes sense. Why would you produce so many potatoes when they're all rot? High productivity must go with markets. So when you look at these conditions, they all interact and support each other. The fourth one, which is also very, very important, is an ownership system, including a system of use rights that rewards individual, initiative and toil. I remember discussing this with my colleagues at the World Bank. They say, Isabel, that is obvious. Yes, it is obvious. Every single one is obvious. But it's not obvious why so many governments cannot do it. What's going on? So the political economy of transformation is critical. And the fifth condition is employment, creating non-agricultural sectors, which tells you that agriculture cannot grow if the entire economy is not growing. To whom are you going to sell? Okay, we heard in the discussion yesterday when President Kagame was there, well, Africa has to industrialize. We all have to industrialize. But you have to transform your agriculture first. This is what the French call passage obligé. You can't leap forward. And we can talk later about China who tried to leap forward and what happened? Just boom, nothing happened. So you see these five conditions are essential. The key thing to remember is all five must maintain. Not just one, not just two, not just now, not just then. And that is really heavy lifting. So I shall stop here. I know I've only scratched the surface of an enormous issue. And I hope, you know, bring up your questions or whatever I'll be more than happy to discuss with you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Isabelle. So now we'll hand over to Olivier Appert for the subject of the scarcity of electricity. Thank you for leaving me the floor. I push. Yeah. Security of supply of electricity is becoming a highly topical issue. There's been, I remember that there's been major blackouts in California in August 2020 or more recently in Texas in February 2021. And the European network has already been suggest to strong tensions last year following a problem of interconnection between Austria and Germany. They were power cuts for several years in London in mid 2019. And the European network was put under pressure last January, on the 8th of January, following a technical incident in Croatia that split the European synchronous grid in two parts. And, wait. And RT, which is the French TSO, had to take all the measures to manage the industrial demand response and issued even a recommendation to the final consumers to really meet their consumption. So, the slide is missing. Go. Now, okay. What are the set challenges to ensure security of supply? In fact, the power system has to balance supply and demand in real time everywhere around the network, taking into account the fact that electricity storage is difficult and very expensive, especially on large scale. The grid everywhere has been constructed with a top-down approach. Electricity is produced by large thermal or nuclear plants and delivered to the consumer through a high voltage transport and distribution networks. And so this make it possible to deal with the viable supply and demand over time, summer, winter, day, night. But the electric power system has been changing and has been subject to considerable changes over the last 20 years, following a major shift in policy, economics, and regulations. The electricity mix is developing fast with the move towards renewable energy, but renewable energy is, per nature, intermittent and does not have the inertia of thermal and nuclear power stations. Fewer machines running in the system can generate a drop in frequency and voltage and lead to a significant supply demand imbalance. Another factor, important factor, is that grids are being decentralized with a sharp rise in self-consumption, creating new balance issues in the grid at local level with the distribution system operators to deal with. So just this slide illustrates the sustained growth of renewable energy in Europe. For the first time in Europe, renewable energy became the first source of electricity supply, and it was the case specifically in France, in Spain, and in the UK. And despite the pandemic, the growth of renewable energy remained strong. Their market share is today over 38% compared to 34.6% in 2019. And the share of fossil fuel in the electricity mix went below 37%. So important increase of renewable energy, but on the other side, the European electricity sector will experience a structural decline of the flexibility of the network. And this is due to the growth of the market share of wind and solar, which are intermittent, as I said, and do not bring the inertia of the thermal power plant, which contribute to the stability of the grid. On the top of that, the decommissioning of many dispatchable power plant will happen in the next few years. I just remind that next year, 22 gigawatts of thermal power plant, nuclear or coal, will be closed in Germany. Up to 2025, six gigawatts of nuclear plant would be closed in Belgium, and 21 gigawatts of coal power plants will be closed in France, UK, Spain, and Italy. So the security of supply of the European electricity system will be at risk in the next few years, and we should not underestimate the risk of a blackout. Two years ago, the IEA highlighted this challenge. Wait. Yeah. Everywhere in the world, in a context of increase, everywhere, of the share of electricity in the electricity mix. This slide represents the wholly adjustment required in different regions due to the viability of demand and not dispatchable supply. For the time being, flexibility mechanism in Europe can cope with the need... Yeah. Oop, that worked. Can cope with the need of the most of the European countries, thermal power plants and hydro representing the bulk of flexibility, but it will not be the case tomorrow. Yeah, that is... Next slide. So, I will go without the next slide. In fact, there are... Huge investment will be required to develop the flexibility of the electricity system. There are different solutions, but no silver bullet. Yeah, you can see the different solutions. Adjustment of conventional production has been deployed since the green began, but has a basic response. Interconnection are another solution for the flexibility. In Europe, renewable energy fluctuation may be partly compensated by load balancing. This need for interconnection exists between Europe and countries, but also within each country. Along with the high cost of high-tension lines, local acceptance is an issue. And, for example, in Germany, has a considerable need to connect wind turbines in the north to the factories in the south of the country. But in 2019, it had only succeeded in setting up 36 kilometres of high-tension lines. Another challenge is periods of cold and anti-cyclonic weather over all over Europe. Storage technologies are characterised by different parameters in energy capacity, the charge and discharge time. The potential of technologies are also at different maturity stage. For the storage of large quantities over a long period, the obvious solution is pump energy transfer stations. However, there are limited development potentials. The lower cost of lithium-ion batteries make them a solution to compensate the fluctuation of renewable energy and maintain frequency. But their storage is limited for only a few hours. Several solutions are considered for long-term storage, but they are still very immature. The costs are very high and no business model exists for the time being, given that price signals on the market are too short-term and too partial to provide any incentive. Capacity mechanisms aim at making up at least part of the lack of long-term signals. Demand response management has been developed at industrial level in Europe for many years. The potential could be increased, but that would require from the industry costly investment and adapting the design of industrial tool, it's what is called flexible design. On domestic hot water tanks are the primary means of managing demand response, but it's only for very short-term. There are other ways to improve the demand response for the final consumer and the suppliers may help to manage to control at a distance, eating heat pumps and in the future electric vehicle via what we call vehicle to grid. And this may increase the demand response from the final consumers. But on the top of that, it will be necessary to reconsider the regulation of electricity sector in order to provide adequate long-term price signal which are essential to facilitate those investments in generation, in network, in storage and in demand response. So in a nutshell, in the context of a growing share of electricity in the energy mixed, security or supply will become an increasing challenge and to cope with this challenge will require huge investment both for the time being there is no clear price signal to develop these investments. Thank you. Thank you Olivier, thank you Isabel for your two insightful presentation on two very different security changes, one on food and the other one on power, on electricity, so I open the floor now for questions. I had a question relating to the very remarkable presentation made on food. You explained very well how one could give enough food to eliminate hunger. You did not address very much the issue of the impact of agriculture on climate change. I mean, as far as I know, it represents about 20% presently of greenhouse gases. Yeah, yeah, that's... This percentage should increase over time, specifically if need consumption increases, which seems a trend. And so I would be interested by your thoughts on this issue. Yes, I mean, I didn't deal with it because, you know, it's not possible to deal with the whole thing, but it's a really very important question. It's true agriculture contributes to greenhouse gases and there's a whole literature on changing. There are techniques for changing to making agriculture, you know, climate neutral, but the key thing there is, it requires an enormous investment of research and in particular extension to these millions of farmers. So, I mean, you don't want me to go... I mean, there are so many ways of doing it, but none of them are easy really. They are all knowledge intensive. You really have to know your souls. You have to invest in it. It's not like just throw some seeds in and, you know, I just hope for the best. No, I mean, soil fertility and soil degradation is a huge problem. And when agriculture is non-productive, people then try to expand the land and cut down for us. You see, I know there's a big debate about GMOs, you know, I mean, simply put, the Americans are for it, the Europeans are against it. I mean, there are probably nuances somewhere, but if you look at only the land savings from GMOs, it's dramatic. It's really dramatic. So, you know, you have to decide what is important because if land and forests are important and you want productivity increase, you should look at GMOs. And I like your approach. I mean, there is a lot of information that is required about, I've looked at a lot of surveys of consumer response to GMOs, both in Europe and in China and in the US. Number one, most people don't really know what is involved. I mean, it's a complicated thing. You know, as you say, information is critical. A lot of them get them like, oh, well, you know, some people are anti-science, so it's, so what the surveyors point out is, a lot of the resistance to GMOs is based on non-information or misinformation. You know, the same thing we have with this COVID-19. You know, people are against vaccine for, I don't know what, they'll become this, they'll become that. Obviously, I'm not sympathetic with it, but it does show the world is becoming so complicated, people need to know, we need to inform them. So, to answer your question, yes, agriculture does contribute to warming the climate, especially livestock, and so some people say, the way to do it is everybody become vegetarian. I mean, this is easier said than done, you know? I mean, India is, I mean, the vegetarian, it doesn't have a problem of climate change? I mean, so the point is, while getting into a world, there's no like single silver bullet, only do this and the world will be fine. You, like Peter Timmer shows and like all researchers, you need so many things to line up, and that's a difficulty we face. We need a lot of information, we need collaboration, we need people to understand, you need people to work together. Sometimes, frankly, I am a little pessimistic whether we can make it, the way we're going. It requires, so that really, I mean, from an economist's point of view, the way we look at it, we need to have incentives for people to do. You're not going to command people to behave properly. That just doesn't work. Even if you're authoritarian. I mean, I looked at the survey in China on GMOs. China is very pro-GMO, because it's a land-scarce economy, and it believes in science. So the government has invested a lot, but guess what? When it comes to survey, a lot of people are against it. So what do they do? You see, they did not make the effort to explain to people, to get people adherences like, do it, because I tell you so. Well, you know, people will buy what they want to buy. You cannot force them. But that's just one instance of changing the technology to be climate-compliant or climate-friendly or climate-resilient. And we didn't talk about the problems of climate change. You know, all the floods and the droughts and the landslides, which is really emphasized, the technology transfer is critical. But technology transfer is not in a vacuum. People are starving. They don't care about climate change. They're going to die tomorrow. What's the problem with climate change? That's, you know, 10 years from now. I'm dead already. So, you know, now our face with this really what's called wicked problems. We have been pushed in a world in which things are becoming more and more complicated and people are getting more and more assertive. Rightly so. It's not a matter of blaming people. Rightly so. So, you know, if we want to do something, we really have to re-look our incentive system. Incentives do work. We know everybody wants to be better off. It doesn't matter what religion you are, whether you're a man or a woman or whatever. Everybody wants to be well off, better off. I mean, the poor are the first people who really want to be well off. Give them the incentives and then give them the tools to help themselves. Because now, once you talk about that, you see it's an expansion of government now. Education, health, you know, public goods, global public goods, you know, before the pandemic, we talk of national public goods. Now you have to talk about global public goods. So, really, if we're going to change just agriculture, not talking about energy, which is another big issue. I mean, electricity is another big issue. I mean, we're faced with only big issues now. There's no kind of simple things left to do. Thank you. If we have to do that, we really have to re-look our institutions. I mean, sometimes crisis are actually great times because people will change because they know they have to change. I will shut them up. Yeah, I just want to add something. I think it's really important that we look at ourselves. I think, you know, it's very easy to say, you know, we need to do this, we need to do this. But I often say, what are we actually doing at home? Maybe we should think of reducing how much meat we're eating, how much dairy products we're eating. Maybe we should look at portion size again. Maybe we should make sure no edible food goes into the way spin. I tell people always, actually it starts with us. We are the pullers of these food systems at the end of the day. And it's very easy to think you are far away from it when actually you are part of it. It's actually a personal thing now. And I think each and every one of us need to take that time. And I think a lot of us have during COVID, many of us have changed our habits. Many of us started actually growing foods at home. Many of us started thinking a little bit more about what we're spending, how much we're spending on food. I mean, I was eating out a lot before, but now actually we've started to do a lot more home cooking. I've started because myself, I'm always talking about food loss and food waste. I said, you know what? I need to check at home how much food is ending up in the bin. Yeah. And I think each and every one of us have need to take that responsibility. And it kind of will cascade because our kids will be influenced by it. Their friends will be influenced by it. I mean, how many kids now come home and say, actually, this is not good and this is not good? Because they are also looking at it from school. So I just wanted to add that point that this is a personal thing now as well. Thank you. Very useful question at the back. I have a question on the electricity. If I may come back to that, all right. I mean, the presentation of these facts leave only one conclusion, that Europe is going with an open eye into a period of blackouts, right? You have pointed out possible countermeasures. But my question to you is, where are we on the countermeasures? Perhaps Peter Handley can help us with what the European Union is doing. But this is a rather depressing picture that you've painted. As I explained, it's a challenge in Europe. In fact, in Europe, there was no problem because there was a surplus of capacity. And that's why in 20 years, with the opening of the market, the price dropped because there was a surplus of capacity. But unfortunately, as I explained, this surplus of capacity has been weakening and the capacity, the dispatchable capacity has been replaced by renewable energy which are intermittent and difficult to dispatch, in fact. But this situation is not unique in Europe, as I explained with the slide of the IEA. It is a concern all around the world. There are some solutions. In fact, there has been in France a study made by the French TSO with the IEA how to deal in 2050 with power mixed only with renewable. In fact, it's possible. But the conditions are so drastic that it seems rather unrealistic. So there are different solutions. I listed this solution. Anyway, there are uncertainties because the technologies are not available. Some technologies are not available and are still under development. But anyway, it's very expensive. Just I take an example. I was told by the president of the French regulator that just for the transmission network and the distribution network, the investment related to the change represent around 100 billion euros for the next 10 years. So technology can do anything but we need to have a business model and it's absolutely mandatory to have also a price signal. The industry may invest in new technologies in order, new flexible technologies. But they need to invest for the decades to come and they want to know what will be the general framework of the electricity system and energy system in the next two or three decades. And it is not the case because the market is only a short-term market and gives the price for today and tomorrow. Thank you, Olivier and Isabelle. So I think Peter would like to contribute but if I may suggest for the sake of time that you go ahead with your presentation and maybe compliment and that opportunity what has just been discussed on electricity shortage or reliability supply in fact. And then Mark Antoine, if you want to convert I will try to wrap up with the creation. So Peter, the floor is yours. Yeah, thank you. I'll start with that because let's admit it. We have a problem. We have very high energy prices in Europe at the moment. Gas is three times higher than normal. Excuse me, lost my voice. We have a problem. In fact, the European Council will be discussing this next week and the commission is putting a paper on the table. It's very worrying. It's also very worrying that this wasn't anticipated better. So you're quite right on that to respect. Gas prices have gone up threefold and the electricity system of course is based on marginal pricing of the most expensive thing in the system which is usually the fossil fuels. There's also been other factors like Russia only fulfilling its contractual obligations, lowering of storage capacity when normally you'd be filling it up and the failure of an interconnecter between the UK and the continent of Europe. This is having real effects. There's a real effect on households and there's a real effect on industry, particularly, I'll give you one example in Europe. Fertilizers are shutting down. They can't afford to run. That means they're not producing ammonia which means there could be a shortage of fertilizers for farmers next spring but it also means that as a by-product they're not producing industrial CO2 which is necessary for the abattoirs, for the food production chain, for the transport of vaccines and et cetera, et cetera. So there's supply chain disruption going on in a really important way and it's not unique to Europe. It's not the fault of the CO2 price, it's not the fault of market design. It's happening in China as well. China, coal prices have gone up 56% this year and the governmental authorities have just turned off the switch to about 40% of the country's energy intensive industry to avoid shortages. And one of those industries they've shut down with no notice is the magnesium industry which means that just two days ago our European aluminium sector said, oh dear, we have six to eight weeks stock of magnesium and if the Chinese don't start producing again we will have no ability to produce magnesium, produce aluminium for the car sector. So one sector's impacts upon another. As I say, this will be discussed at the European Council. I'm not going to speak at length about the vision because I think everyone here is familiar that we have a European climate law which locks us in legally speaking to the targets for 2030 and 2050 and we've tabled the legislative proposals and the financial programs to accompany that. What I'd just like to highlight is there are some good news stories going on. I think Europe has the capacity to lead the transformation of its industrial sector and this is one reason that the industrial policy is an integral part of the European Green Deal. Just two weeks from now in Sweden, Volvo will roll off its production line. The first car made from green steel. This is coming from the pilot plant using hydrogen from renewables in the north of Sweden. It's the hybrid project. Collaboration between LKAB, Dattenfahl, SSAB and with end consumers buying the product. So you need a market for these clean products. Most of the steel sector and the energy intensives have a project pipeline ready to go and my team is managing the European Clean Hydrogen Alliance which has collected one of its tasks under the hydrogen strategies to develop a robust pipeline of hydrogen projects throughout the value chain. We've got over a thousand projects which we're currently evaluating and will present to the hydrogen forum in November. And we're also sitting down and talking to the European Investment Bank to see how we can finance these things where the bank has a role to play and European funds like InvestiU can be deployed. Thank you. Thank you Peter, maybe Mark Antoine on governance. You wanted to give us a few highlights. Yes, thank you so much to all there. I have one slide perhaps to show if that's possible. Yes, you may see it right now, exactly. So we are just a few weeks before COP26 and what you see on this slide is the NDCs that we have lined up to the same baseline because everybody now talks about different baselines, right? So it's very easy to say, oh I'm reducing my greenhouse gas emissions by 50% but if you take a very different baseline maybe it can even mean you can increase your greenhouse gas emissions and we've seen a lot of smoke screen unfortunately from several countries but the point is the following. So the UK and the EU are the most advanced in the world. Then comes the US and then very regrettably within the OECD family you have Japan, Canada and especially Australia that are really not committed enough. And then of course you have the rest of the world which is a different case and the emerging economies et cetera but the point is I think if you allow me in the next few minutes what I'd like to outline is what we should achieve over the next two years and bearing in mind we now have COP26 and what should be achieved within the next five years knowing that we are not on track to peak our greenhouse gas emissions actually this year we'll post a record high level of growth in greenhouse gas emissions. The world is just turning on everywhere. It's a qualified station and heavy thing run and at a much higher utilization levels than what we used to see. And of course we know since 2015 that we should reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by quite a sharp level every year and ever since they have been growing. So we have a huge challenge here. So my first point is really I think the OECD family has to get its house in order and we need to have Australia really increasing its national determined contribution and I'm turning to you minister because if the UAE can do it as a large fossil fuel producer then I think Australia can really do it and I think that will be one of the major tests of President Biden's climate leadership aim. If he doesn't get Australia to sign up to a strong NDC then I think the OECD deal will come into much different light. I mean clearly climate is much bigger threat than China is. The second point is we need to ramp up climate finance and indeed the 100 billion benchmark must be reached. It is obvious that the more we now decarbonize in Europe the higher the CO2 abatement costs are in Europe but in the rest of the world you can still pick up the very low hanging fruits at very low cost and what is it about? Is it about to be us in Europe to be decarbonized by 2050 by the loan or is it to really have a global momentum where everybody basically moves in the same direction and so I think we in Europe should also focus more on decarbonizing elsewhere where the abatement costs are lower. The third point is in Europe these days and that might be interesting to you here we are talking a lot about how bad gas is but the real admin in the world is still cold and here we have I think a big issue because we are not doing enough to fight coal and we are just losing sight of what are the priorities and you know I was very positively surprised by the Japan's G7 announcement to stop financing coal as from this year and the latest one from President G. The problem is that's not enough. Now we really have to work on not only of course halting a new coal plant but we have to start working on phasing out the existing coal-fired power generation fleet and the good news is there are the technologies there is the capital, there is the knowledge everything is there to do it. The problem is I think we are not still there in terms of governance and policies and so my proposal to you is we should really pick a couple of priority countries and really start focusing in these countries on the most polluting coal-fired power plant. So we have one for example in the Balkans near Europe which if we were closing it that plan is emitting as much as 15 of the next most emitting plans in Europe. So just one plan and you already do a major step ahead. I'm sure in Russia you can find quite a few but in China they certainly can find probably about 100 gigawatts that they could actually close and but the point is we should really focus here on South Africa, on Indonesia, on India and on these countries what we should really need to do is really then help them to really unleash the potential that they have for solar, for nuclear and actually for all the flexibility options that Olivier was alluding to and again the capital is there we just have to line up the regulatory framework, the policy priorities and in several cases the capital actually so there needs to be a lot of cheap money made available so that basically total energy or you know in Tehran where I'm looking at you, anybody who comes up with the good offers can basically deliver. Another point is in my view that, yes gas is the wrong enemy probably but we must remind and I think that might be interesting also to you in the region there is a big problem with gas which are the fugitive meth and emissions, right? And here obviously in the United States and Australia in Russia, in Central Asia and in some parts in the Middle East but not everywhere of course I think there's a lot of progress can be achieved very quickly sometimes cost efficiently but still we know from the latest IPCC report that actually meth and emissions have been contributing almost equally to global warming over the past 30 years than carbon dioxide so if we address that we can I think make a big step forward and so I wish that Australia and countries here et cetera joined that EU-US initiative on reducing fugitive meth and emissions and by the way the US should lead in that and it should also lead in phasing out its old coal fire power plant. A word on agriculture because there's a lot of meth and emissions from the agriculture et cetera of course from cattle's and very clearly we need to of course reduce probably our beef consumption beef emits per unit of calorie 30 times more CO2 than tofu that's the point, that's the fact of life so you know we can eat more pork we can eat more poultry and we could put a CO2 price on beef you know if you want to eat it please pay more I think that could be something that could be done rather easily at least in our countries of course there's the CO2 pricing which is a core CO2 pricing is the core instrument to deliver you can have in the world regulation incentives very good but if you really want to accelerate you need a CO2 price and I think unfortunately there's only Europe that has in the UK by the way that have a credible one these days deforestation was talked about it but there is also room to save CO2 in a hurry because we are here in an urgency and that means lower speed for road traffic for maritime traffic and if you reduce that speed by you know on our highways 110 kilometers per hour I mean I'm half German in Germany the speed is pretty crazy these days but anyway you can achieve quite a lot and here also I think in the region and maritime transportation can also deliver on that a question to you Mr. Bourriac you know we talk a lot about new hydrogen uses you know green hydrogen supplies but why don't we unite forces within the G20 countries and the economies to probably start you know greening the hydrogen that we already use and which we were hinting at and for example set us a target that by 2030 for example in our refineries around the world you know we try to incorporate at least 30% of green hydrogen and of course that will make the gasoline more expensive but then if there is probably less taxation on that maybe you know that can be afforded in any case gasoline prices will have to rise for various reasons I think within a five years framework and I'll end with a couple of points clearly we need probably to roll out about 1000 large-scale CCS projects in the world and you have one very nice one here that is being developed you have one in Norway but we need thousands of them thousands of them by 2030 and actually it looks a lot but it's possible we need clearly the green finance to get its act together we need to and we especially I think about Europe you know Africa is going to urbanize they're going to have a huge growing cement demand and steel demand the problem is can we allow that this is going to be produced on the basis of you know the cement and the steel plants that we have today no it's impossible otherwise all our efforts are vain so we should gear our development money to basically set out grants to have these low carbon steel mills operating there because otherwise you know nobody will be able to pay for that of course it will be a bit more expensive I think a last point maybe that matters a lot you know we need the skills and we need to really do much more on the skills and Arnaud maybe you also already see it but I followed the German electoral campaign for example everybody's talking about ramping energy efficiency renovation of buildings etc etc the problem is if you call a plumber in Germany nobody will come because there's nobody and you will wait three weeks to get a plumber and you will pay a lot of money for the plumber so how are you planning large scale building renovation if you can't even get a plumber that's a real problem and so everybody in the world you're facing an affidavit of course that requires very specific responses but obviously that has to be lined up with the rollout of the technologies that are coming and lastly and I think that's an important point to remember we will need much more nuclear so we need the taxonomy and brasses to accommodate for that and it might sounds very strange for you a year but indeed in Europe there's strong forces that want to stop nuclear when we know that we can't roll out enough renewables and we know that without that we can't really reach our decarbonisation targets so I think that will be also ready a major major achievement and you know there's still fossil fuel subsidies everywhere including here and they need to be removed that's a long-standing issue but you know that's kind of the basics of decarbonisation and I hope progress will be made there thank you for your attention okay thank you Peter and Mark Antoine unfortunately I've just been told that we really had to close down at 7pm it's already quarter past 7 so I'm afraid we're not going to be able to take any questions but I will not dare to wrap up on all of the very dense and rich presentation that have been made I think the dominant point is clearly about urgency it's a one word that was used and also knowledge skills that is important technology very often people are afraid without knowing so that's quite important so I would like to thank all of the presenters for their contribution to this workshop and all of the questions that have been asked thank you to all of you and I wish you a nice conference