 Hi everyone. Good afternoon. Welcome to Climate Politics is Local. I'm Penny Appi Wardena, New York City's Commissioner for International Affairs, and it is an honor to chair this session with this incredible panel. I want to quickly introduce them to you. We have Ayaka Melotafa, a youth activist from the African Climate Alliance from Cape Town, South Africa. We have Cohen Van Ustrim, Founder, and C.E.G.O. of EDGE Technologies and OVG Real Estate. Mr. Fahad Al Rashid, the President of the Royal Commission for Riyadh City, the new mayor, so congratulations. And his holiness, his all holiness, Patriarch Bartholomew Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome, and the ecumenical Patriarch moderated. So I actually just came from the session on global risk. And guess what? The top risk for the next decade is it's climate. So this is a very, very relevant topic. It's an honor for me to join these panelists because in New York City and as an American, we've really had to take a leadership role to reflect the realities that's happening in our communities around climate change. New York City experienced Superstorm Sandy a couple of years ago. The amount of damage and the lives lost really brought home climate change to New Yorkers. In the last couple of years, Mayor de Blasio has launched our Green New Deal, which I want to share a couple of the highlights. We require all large buildings to conduct retrofits to lower their emissions, a global first. We're banning construction of all glass facade buildings. We're converting city government operations to Canadian hydropower. We're mandating organics recycling and ending unnecessary city purchases of single-use plastic food. So this has been a really exciting time for us. New York City and I have the opportunity to co-chair the Global Futures Council, which has been really taking on the lead in partnering with the City of Helsinki around lowering carbon emissions. They are doing a pretty excellent job by 2035. They are going to reduce their carbon emissions and really focus on getting rid of their coal plants, which is just leadership in this space. One of the other areas that New York City is doing is tracking what we're doing to the sustainable development goals. We are working with the UN and other cities around voluntary local reviews to showcase how we're localizing the SDGs and really focusing on climate change and climate action. This panel is really about understanding you have national governments that are abdicating their responsibility on issues like climate, but we most represent from our religious leaders, to our CEOs, to our community activists, to our mayor. We best represent our community. So how do we accelerate impact and change in our community? And so it is my pleasure to hand it over to Ayaka first. She is representing activism in Cape Town, South Africa. I happened to be in Cape Town during the drought, and it was really extraordinary the amount of behavior change that they were encouraging. When you went to a restaurant and washed your hands, the water doesn't flow, it sprays. They encourage you not to flush if you have just urinated. And these are some of the things that I think behavior change-wise you can really take to your own life. And so Ayaka, I want to hear a little bit about what you've been experiencing in your community and the leadership you've been showing in representing climate action with your community. I won't lie in that aspect. Thank you for giving me this platform. It's been really hard to advocate for climate change at a local level with people that are like me, vulnerable people, people of color, people that have no means into information and what's going on in the current world, because they believe that climate change are first world problems, not understanding that climate change will affect the vulnerable first. And most importantly, we have to highlight the fact that we can't really blame them for thinking that way. In South Africa right now, we're facing a lot of socioeconomic problems, and they're all hitting us at once. For example, xenophobia, gender-based violence, gang terrorism, and so on. So it's very hard for me to go up to a person and talk to them about climate change. To me, they almost shut me down and tell me, how would you expect me to take in consideration climate change when I'm afraid if my child is going to come back home today? We're facing a lot of problems. So that's why I always try to engage in conversations with people around me and make them aware that climate change is directly interlinked with other socioeconomic problems. We can't really separate it from other socioeconomic problems. And in order for us to actually tackle the socioeconomic problems, we have to address climate change and also take it into consideration. Absolutely. Excellent. And that's a good transition to his all holiness. You represent an incredibly large community and your power within that community. How are you using your influence to mobilize civic action around climate crisis and really showing the the leadership of your of your church? Thank you, moderator. I was told to prepare a short introduction. If you allow me to read it. Thank you. For over 30 years now, the Dominican Patriarchate has pioneered global and local awareness on climate change. This is not a matter of personal pride for the orthodox priority. As a result, we have concentrated our efforts in mobilizing all faithful and people of goodwill, as well as all people of authority in all segments of society to recognize and remember that our external actions are a reflection of our innermost attitudes. By the same token, what we witness in our world is an extension of what we want in our heart. So the question we would like to address to all this after this afternoon is, God, do we really want in our heart and for our world? After all, we know what needs to be done. And we know how it must be done. We have heard the facts. We have been made aware of the science. We surely envisage the future. Unlike previous generations, we have no excuse. We cannot claim that we didn't know. Nevertheless, despite the information at our disposal, it is becoming abundantly clear that so little is unfortunately being done. This is because the crisis that we face has less to do with nature or the environment and more to do with the way we perceive and treat the world. We are abusing the earth in an irresponsible and godless manner, precisely because we look at it in this way. Unless we radically change the way we see the world, unless we voluntarily transform our pattern of conception, then we will continue dealing with symptoms rather than with their causes. What we propose to you, dear friends, is that there is an enormous gap and an immense distance between the head, the heart and the hands. It is a long and difficult journey from the head to the heart. And it is an even longer and rigorous journey from the heart to the hands to action. We are called to bridge that gap to close that distance. It is, of course, comforting and promising to witness so many diverse categories of people. Many of them are here among us today in Davos, increasingly accepting the challenge and embracing the urgency of climate change. The fact that we are here today as concerned citizens and leaders makes us optimistic. However, we can no longer transfer the responsibility to others. We cannot afford to shift the blame elsewhere. There is no excuse for any delay. We have experimented with our world's sustainability and exhausted our planet's resources. We have exploited the earth and prematurely led species to extinction. What is worse, we have exposed the most vulnerable among us to the consequences of our reckless consumption of energy. In order to restore the balance of our planet, we need a spiritual worldview which promotes humility, respect and solidarity. We must become conscious of the impact of our actions on creation and other people. We must direct our focus away from what we want to what is our duty and to what the planet needs. Otherwise, we are just entertaining, convenient conversations and idle talk. Distinguished guests and friends, we believe that our planet unites us in a very unique way. The earth transforms the global into the profoundly local. Think about this. Each one of us is different with regard to background and status, position and prestige, ideology and belief. Everyone in this room may hold a different conviction or opinion about the origin and destiny of our world. All of us may disagree on social policy or political action. However, we all agree on the need to protect our world and its natural resources, which are neither infinite nor debatable for future generations. So the earth makes everything local and personal. We are all in this together. We are all in the same boat. There is no place for indifference and there is no time for indecision. Many of our world's global and political leaders are among us here in Davos. We urge them to be more ambitious in their legislation and more tenacious in their action. We ask them to take the proper measures with clarity and commitment. We encourage them to pay attention to the momentum on the grassroots level and the swelling protests around the world, not only by those suffering from the impact of climate change, but also by the youth imploring for their future and calling for solidarity of generations. Their world, our world, is not negotiable. The world is waiting. The world is watching. We are responsible for our inadequate and inconsistent action. We are accountable for our role in the plight of refugees and our contribution to natural calamities. By some mysterious connection that we do not always understand and sometimes choose to ignore, the earth reminds us of our vocation to protect our planet and its natural resources, of our obligation to preserve and sustain these for our neighbors and for future generations. We will be judged by the urgency with which we respond to the ecological crisis of our age. The earth has the resilience to heal, but only if we allow it to remain whole. Dear friends, this is the conclusion. We pray that the results of this panel and conversation will provide means to explore ways for bridging the untenable and unacceptable gap between theory and practice in our collective vocation and moral obligation to respond to climate change with a sense of priority, gravity, and sincerity. May God bless your noble efforts to care for His creation and thank you for your attention. If I am allowed to add something out of my own experience, this is what my church is doing for almost 30 years already. We tried to convoke several environmental symposia, nine symposia, interfaith, international and interdisciplinary in the Aegean Sea, Baltic Sea, Adriatic Sea, on the Danube River, Amazon, Greenland, Mississippi, and so on. And we invited, as I said, people from all segments of the society, and we tried to say to them honestly and with humility that we have to see the environmental problem not simply as an economic or technological problem, but as a moral and theological problem. That is to say we have to see and underline the spiritual dimension of the creation. If we believe in God and we say that we love God, we have to love and protect His creation. And that is why through these symposia and smaller seminars we organized in Istanbul and elsewhere, we tried to sensitize people, especially young people, to more respect, love, and protect the natural environment. Last June we organized a summit in Istanbul with a few participants, but top participants from many universities and countries, and the theme was how to introduce environment studies into the universities and especially the theological schools, theological seminars, so that the young generation of religious leaders and theologians are aware and and then they can integrate it into their sermons and that's a beautiful way to get to the community so that we can hope that the coming generation will be more sensitive in environmental. Having Ayaka and Greta and all the other youth here we're seeing that that's actually that message is getting across and they are angry and activated and I want to transition to Fahad. You know as I introduced this panel, cities now are really where it's at. At the end of the day we are representing our communities better than any other level of government because we're seeing the impact of what's happening. You're the new mayor, there's been some exciting work happening in Riyadh around clean infrastructure. It would be wonderful if you can share with us like how decision makers are learning from successful examples and what other areas that Riyadh and your leading around climate action. I want to be part of the youth. You are a young global leader so there you go. Look I was in New York during Hurricane Sandy and I saw the the impact of climate change in cities and I also recognize that cities are partially or majorly the source of it. 70% of global emissions come out of cities so an urban environment so we have a major responsibility to addressing climate change. I'm very proud that Saudi Arabia my country has been very effective at addressing its own emissions and reducing its own emissions. The EIA ranked it the fourth amongst G20 countries last year in addressing climate change and reducing emissions. So I'm very proud of that and I'm proud of what the city of Riyadh has been doing in a clean infrastructure. I want to take credit for it but I've been appointed just two months ago so I can't take full credit for it. I will try. You're going to take it to its next level though. For example we're building the largest metro project in the world public transport. This is the first public transport project in Saudi Arabia. It is a $27 billion project that will come online this year and so this project is supposed to decrease car use by 20% which is a significant decrease given that it is currently at public transport it's just 1% of the total transport provision in Saudi Arabia. So it is a big difference it's a 20-time multiplier but it also means that people actually have to use it. So it's nice to build the big infrastructure but how do we increase awareness and make sure that we have the right ecosystem for people to actually use it. So it means we price the tickets well and we give people incentives both through proximity and last mile solutions for transport to allow them to use it well. But it's also about community participation. So we have another project called a waste zero waste by 2030. So we want to get 81% of all of the municipal waste to be processed and recycled but we can't do it alone as government. We have to engage the citizens of Saudi Arabia especially in the city of Riyadh in doing that and we've tried this through two community programs where participation in the first month was 65%. So it is really about awareness. I think people are ready but they need leadership. Cities need to lead in this area and I believe that the city of Riyadh has many examples of that. Absolutely and we'll come back because I want to talk about the urban 20 as well. Cohen we're talking about every stakeholder that is a key to this movement. You have been doing extraordinary work with your company around turning climate risk into a competitive advantage. Can you tell us more specifically about that work but also how you're encouraging other companies to join you in this? So I started over 10 years ago. I randomly met Al Gore and got impressed by his story. He basically told a group of Dutch people that if the dykes break in the Netherlands and everything would be under water would that now be a political issue or would that be something where everybody would work together. And I think that the Dutch in our tradition of building dykes sort of see this as the same thing that is happening especially from the business community. We've seen a lot of companies working together and move forward. We see for the first time that now the government is also sort of catching up and there's legislation now that you're not allowed to rent out an office as of 2021. So basically next year if it doesn't have an energy label see which is 92% of the buildings the office buildings in the Netherlands currently don't have that. There's a rush at the moment to get it done. For the first time now we see them see a move. And the only way that it could happen is because our Prime Minister decided that he wanted to have a green deal and he invited a couple of business people together with people from government, different cities. And of course the Netherlands basically is one big city. We're a relatively small country. And people said together and what was so important is that our Prime Minister said this is where we need to go and this is carbon neutral in 2050. It's the Paris agreement. And to get there I need your help tell me what to do. Within the businesses there were people who were more aggressive and I said hey energy label see is not enough it should be be and let's take the housing market as well. Prime Minister was saying well the housing market that those people vote and so let's be careful but it happened. For me as a company it means that there are thousands of buildings in an area where people know my company that need to be retrofitted where people are looking for hey who has the best competitive offer to do what legislation is given. And it's a total win for all those companies that are on the forefront of innovation and moving. We've been very successful to to export that we see on a European level that the real estate industry is really waking up and starting to move. The only problem that I that I currently see that with all these initiatives and even with the Dutch going to energy label see it's too little and too late. We are way too slow if we really are serious about Paris then we have to do a lot more than we currently doing. And for me as a company I you know I might be on stage in Davos and make a nice nice profit and at the same time I'm not doing enough to solve the problem the problem and therefore somehow we have to find a way to really scale this and accelerate in order to go faster. Absolutely well you know what you're talking about at the end of the day is action in communities and so Ayaka one of the things that I wanted to talk to you about having that example from from Cape Town earlier you know one of the areas in New York City we have eight and a half million people is behavior change right and we partnered with Swell the water bottle company to give all high school students a reusable bottle right we need to shift away from from plastic use single plastic use. And I'm curious how you think your city and cities around the world because you're part of this alliance what more can we do how can we be held more accountable what would you like to see from your local government. I feel like I have to address this at a more high level I believe. I feel like the one of the reasons why you haven't actually been reaching the SDGs or the process has been so slow is because big companies or CEOs in those companies are very undermining democracy and they're using tax havens to actually not pay taxes to countries or continents that need the development they can use that money to actually eliminate joblessness illuminate inequality and so on and so forth so I feel like we really have to address that aspect we really have to keep countries and even global aspects accountable for the fact that they're not actually doing enough we can't expect countries that are not developed countries that are very struggling to actually be implementing big change because already we are struggling even before climate change came here came to our countries and has been hitting us hard we've been struggling as those countries and that's why we really have to keep big developed countries predominantly the global north accountable for what they are not doing and their duties as people that already people that are already developed in order for them to pull us up and also to get us developed but developed in a sustainable way so I really feel like there's a lot that we have to do as people in cities to come together as a collective and put the right amount and convince our governments I mean the correct way for them to act accordingly and to also make sure that all of these policies are not only talked in theory but are also implemented so that we can make sure that we move on from this point in a sustainable way that's right and you know what what we've been seeing around around issues like climate but also migration our cities coming together in collectives to be able to sort of flex our collective power right that's with the sustainable development goals specifically this voluntary local review but now with the urban 20 which a couple of years ago was started by the mayor of Paris and Buenos Aires and this was really an opportunity to ensure that at the g20 that the issues of urban areas were being represented. Riyadh is going to be host to the next urban 20 and I'd love for you to share some of the priorities related to climate specifically that you're looking to hold us and the g20 accountable too. Well we're very proud to be hosting the urban 20 in October and I hope to see many of you there in Riyadh but I look ultimately the urban 20 is a forum for us all the g20 is an 80 80 percent contributor to world economy and similarly in that way to emissions and therefore our cities need to be at forefront of addressing that and the urban 20 is a perfect a perfect place to address this by a sharing experiences ideas for how to address climate change but also bringing consensus and making commitments and that's what we intend to on on on doing in the urban 20 in Riyadh. Excellent I'm looking forward to it. His Holiness you spoke beautifully earlier about this the way that you're essentially ensuring that your congregation is learning at all different levels at ages about climate change. I'm curious are you sharing specific actions that they are that they should be taking the types of coalitions and campaigns that would have the most impact. You know you're teaching them about the importance of climate change but what are you asking them to then do about it. Of course we don't dispose of material means to make many things but only on a spiritual level. First of all we started to work together with His Holiness the Pope. Pope Francis who is very sensitive in these problems in this area and he is very close to the poor people around the globe very close to the refugees. In fact we have visited together some four years ago refugees come in on the island of Lesbos in Greece together with the Archbishop of Athens. We spent one whole day with the refugees we had lunch with them and as you may know the Pope leaving Lesbos he brought with himself 12 Muslim families refugees who are located in Rome under the protection of the Vatican of the Catholic Church. We have initiated another kind of collaboration with his grace the Archbishop of Canterbury against modern slavery and human trafficking. I invited his grace the Archbishop of Canterbury to Istanbul and we held together a conference on on slavery and human trafficking. We signed a common declaration against these things which affect modern society the whole of humankind. Then we went to Buenos Aires and we held another similar conference a third one in Istanbul again and now we are preparing the fourth one in one of the Greek islands to take place next May. I want to say that through all of these collaborations and actions we want to sensitize people and to contribute to the improving the state of the world from the spiritual from a spiritual dimension keeping in mind always that there is an interconnection between the way we treat the earth a sacred earth I would say and second how we relate to people and the way we worship God these three things are are inseparable inseparable if as I said earlier if we say that we love and worship and respect God this love and respect of ours has the consequences on earth and towards our fellow human beings so this we have never to forget this interconnection between the way we treat the earth the way we relate to our fellow human beings and the way we worship God. Excellent thank you and I think that that connection of how we treat the earth co and I want to talk to you about how companies can divest from fossil fuels. I will say the city of New York Mayor de Blasio and the mayor of London Sadiq Khan really have focused on what we're calling climate accountability and divested New York City divested about four and a half billion dollars of our pension funds from the major fossil fuel companies and it's something that from a city perspective and the way that we manage our money we're able to take a leadership role on I'm curious how you're doing that within your field in the private sector and real estate specifically. Well the great thing is that if you look at the level of a building is relatively easy to do it we don't we really don't need fossil fuels anymore to to build buildings and if we do big retrofits it's easy to take it out. I think currently the real problem is that the incentives for the owners of real estate are not there and therefore if you own a couple of buildings in your city in Manhattan why would you go through all the effort and do all these things especially because most of the buildings are not owned by real companies they're owned by funds all kinds of different fund structures. Larry Fink said something really interesting this morning in the debate he said by law I have the obligation to go for profit maximization that is the American law that tells me if I if I set up a fund and I have a fiduciary duty to that fund to the people that invest their money my duty is to make profit maximization my target and in that total picture even if he really wanted to it's relatively difficult for him to invest extra and so I think that that is sort of the the negative I think that at the same time he also realizes he has to be within the law and if municipalities are able to change the way things are being done and if governments change their laws then things become easier the technology is there the technology is becoming a lot cheaper and we'll get more cheaper now that more companies are investing in it but there will always be a small group of companies that are willing to do it just because they want to be on the forefront and they want to be on the good side of the equation but a lot of companies won't do that the real estate industry is one of the most fragmented industries in the world I don't think there's anybody that owns more than one percent of the of the real estate in Manhattan probably the city itself but no no private owners and therefore it's really difficult for a group of entrepreneurs to sit together and to say okay let's do this let's join forces and and make it happen it's just too fragmented and therefore I don't like to say it I'm a little bit of a liberal but we have to we have to look at government and we have to find a way to build a green deal together say let's let's raise the bar the lekkers have to go out of the market the the innovators but we need the government to step in and put the bar higher yeah absolutely that's not your prime minister is it so we could we get something done here how about the agrees with me we all agree with you we all agree with you and I think you speaking to the 300 million people in your church are is incredibly good I tell an interesting story I was lucky enough to be invited to to go to to the Vatican and I met the Pope and I had a very short conversation with him and I thought I can pitch to the Pope and I said hey I would love to help to make the the Vatican energy neutral and he said my son look up all this light I changed it it's LED now it was one moment of optimism that I have where I thought maybe the world can be saved amen well and it's going to be if you allow me to say please the pope is a very human person very modest very apostolene tapinos humble humble and once I visited him I I have been many times in the Vatican as his guest once I was leaving the Vatican to go to my car and then to the airport and I saw that the pope was coming behind me I turned and I said your Holiness please thank you goodbye no no I want to accompany you until the last moment until your car I do this do you know why because I know I I want to be sure that my guest has left and second because I want to be sure that he didn't take anything from my so Ayaka we have been you know the I think on the action piece of it what Greta said this morning was listen we're being heard the young people are being heard right now but we need the companies the governments at all different levels to take action can you share with us some of the action that you're seeing in the community that you are excited about that you want to drive more attention to to ensure that this is a movement that continues um definitely the aspects I feel like people of color and people that are vulnerable are actually opening their eyes and they're realizing that it's up to us to actually hold out governments accountable I admire the way that they do things because in South Africa we are a country that's very diverse we have living official languages so a religion and culture plays a big aspect in our ways of life and the way we live so we understand how to utilize the environment in a sustainable way so I'm very happy to see people actually standing up what they believe in because out of all these problems that we've been facing in South Africa people have developed an immense amount of resilience and sometimes that could be bad because they couldn't they wouldn't even speak up for themselves because they believe that no this drought was caused by God the flood came because God gave it to us or um we in this era because God has a plan for our future so just trying to convince them that sometimes it's not God sometimes it's a way God is showing us that it's time for us to rise up as a nation and both something that's sustainable for the future generations to come so I'm very happy to when I see more people getting interested in what I'm doing more people wanting to join me more people asking me how can we support you we see you representing us at a global stage how can we make sure that we as South Africa we as Africa is the content backing your 100 100 percent and that's really making me happy because it's showing me that I'm not alone in this movement. I love that and I think this is where the intergenerational support needs to come in. Mayor I would be curious how you especially you said you've been mayor now for two months right so as you think about your your tenure how are you going to be prioritizing climate change and you know citizen behavior there is a lot of influence that cities get to have from a policy perspective that changes people's behavior in the way that they they live daily and I'm curious what are the things that you're thinking about in the space of climate change. Well it's about like I said earlier engaging people in in their own city this is real is their city and they need to own its future and so we can introduce the metro but they have to use it. We can introduce subsidy reform but we have to you know allow them to be aware about the importance of insulation and led lighting in their their own homes so that they are able to make their own decisions about how to use the the energy in their homes but we also need to engage them in the broader set of initiatives so we're investing over 70 billion dollars in sustainability over the next 10 years and one of these projects is using gray water to green the city and lower temperatures by two degrees which is an important issue for Riyadh so we're we're actually planting seven million trees a tree for each citizen in the city of Riyadh and we hope that each citizen will actually plant their own tree and be able to you know name it after them and feel that they own the the city of Riyadh in any way and the future and the green future I hope. We should do that in New York eight and a half million more trees there would be a welcome addition. Cohen I want to talk about the real estate sector and how you talked about a little bit but the role they can play in climate adaptation and in building urban resilience what are you seeing that's exciting you in that space. There's a lot of experiments happening we've seen projects where people are building floating homes yeah I think that's the you know sort of the maximum that you can do the houses will flow with the the sieve coming up. I don't think it's a real solution to to anything I think that what is interesting in the Netherlands is we can deal with the sea being roughly a meter higher we have the technology to build dykes stronger and bigger the real problem that the Dutch have is that the country is so so full that the rivers going through the the country if a lot of rain falls in France and in Germany and that water flows into the Netherlands we don't have the space to carry all that water and bring it to the sea you can imagine if the sea level rises it becomes more difficult to do that building one dyke is easy but the whole delta is very difficult to manage and so what they've done now is they are making a new law where you're only allowed to build close to rivers and this is really kilometers away from rivers and if you have the possibility to let the water flow into that whole area and so the houses are being built on a higher level and we give space for the river New York after the hurricane decided to also think about building dykes and do things in a certain way and i think that they are also now contemplating to do it in a way that if really a lot of water you know flows in that they can allow some of the streets to be filled with water just to give space to the water because if you fight the water to the max your dykes will break one day and it's difficult to to really manage that and i think trying to not fight it but work together with it and understanding the the the force of nature that comes towards you in those situations that's what is that is what's necessary in the Netherlands at some places we have the space but also we have big cities at the rivers and that's going to be very difficult to to really do that and that will cost a lot of money and the sad thing is if we would have spent that money earlier on the right technology of changing houses etc we would have been a lot cheaper off but that's not happening so we we have to wrap up and one thing i want to hear from all of you is what you'd like to see in terms of change within the next year right i mean we are talking about action now i mean cohen's made it clear that we could have done things a lot better previously um whether it's in your industry whether it's you personally it's whether it's how you want to influence people here at Davos what would you like to see change in the next year and whoever wants to go first is welcome to happy to do that uh you know for me it's about all about education and i would like to start with the youth 70 of the population of Saudi Arabia and Riyadh is under the age of 30 how about if we start at the K-12 level and start teaching our students how to be stewards of the of nature and of sustainability i think this is where i would start and i would start programs at at first grade basically yeah um just to add on that um it's a really great platform that you have provided here because um in what i'd like to see change is like our government taking more action in regards to this as the african climate alliance we have a couple of demands that we had for our government and one of those demands is having mandatory climate curriculum based education in schools so that every single level of education in south africa and africa at a global stage um knows about climate change and knows how to treat the environment and how better to live sustainably in order for us to actually build a more sustainable future for the generations to come so i would definitely see those actions put in place and i definitely want to see government um implementing the policies that that are great that already have in place would be really great just to see them that they know what we're facing and they are with us and they are willing to actually make sure that the citizens of their country are living sustainably so it would be really great to see more implementation from our government myself i would like to make an appeal to the gold leaders many of them are present here in Davos in these days not to put their that of their countries material financial interest above the real interest of the humankind related to the climate change cop 222 and they have to respect the decisions taken in common in favor of the humankind and not in favor of money excellent for me um i see that the the countries are working together at the cop and at the Paris treaty you see the city is now working together more and more the c40 and other platforms the next step is for businesses to be more united i think the world economic form is one of the platforms but there's also the world business council on sustainable development there is the your urban land institute and i think that what i will try to do next year is to bring more companies together in different continents see if we can be a voice with the c40 and with other platforms to do a green deal on a worldwide level that's excellent um thank you all for joining i think what has made um this climate politics is local clear um is the importance of community activation whether it's through education or um religious sermons but really what it what it means um to ensure that consumers are citizens are aware of what is happening in their communities and have opportunities to act right something that Cohen said that really stood out to me is that we should have done one two three these things much further a few years ago and i think if consumers were demanding that that's going to change and that's the sort of impact that we're seeing from a policy perspective um in local government but thank you all so much for joining us today