 Good afternoon and welcome to this panel the energy question. I assure you all that by the end of this hour We will have figured out how to address the energy question in its entirety of course But in in all honesty, we do have quite an incredible panel here with us today And we are subject matter experts in a wide Wide array of energy issues of course not all of them So we'll be relying on some of the members of the audience When we open up to Q&A to address some of the other energy issues Before I introduce the panel well, I'll go ahead and introduce the panel first today. We have with us Alex Trumbath Alex is a senior analyst at the breakthrough Institute. His work focuses on renewable energy technologies American federal energy policy and the history of public investments in technological innovation We also have with us Lisa Marganelli Lisa is author of all on the brain Petroleum's long strange trip to your tank She's written about energy the environment Science and policy for the Atlantic the New York Times the nation slate wired and many other publications We are also joined today by with a bit if young who has been very polite to allow us to call him UT UT is a research scientist at the risk science Center University of Michigan School of Public Health He's also the new voice fellow at the Aspen Institute and has a special interest in environmental health Now the energy question You know no No discussion on energy today is without the question of climate change and we have been told by scientists that there are Certain carbon budgets within which if we are to keep the world at a stable Level we must not burn more fossil fuels And of course if we are to understand Professor Allen be who spoke earlier correctly The situation can only be managed and that brings up a whole host of issues around the kinds of technologies that are required And the innovation that's required in order to meet and address this challenge Or at least address it and manage it Where the issue becomes rather complicated and where I think that the energy and climate debate have Not come together very well is the issue of energy access We have 1.6 billion people without access to electricity 2.6 billion people still burning dung and wood for cooking fuel and the climate debate has conveniently allowed energy access to to remain on the sidelines and in a sense perhaps trap people in A new form of energy poverty where a 12 watt solar panel on a thatched roof might seem like energy access But it might not necessarily be the kind of genuine energy access that's required for it will certainly be a higher energy planet And there are many emerging countries that are trying to meet The energy access challenge and bring millions of people out of poverty And they will probably do this through a range of technologies including fossil fuels and nuclear and whole host of renewables the question then really is do we have The ability to transfer these technologies the space is to innovate them and the kinds of regulatory frameworks We need in place in order to allow these technologies to thrive and spread You know if we look at regulation We've got you know nuclear industry that's trying to make a comeback in the United States But may be given a life raft by emerging markets of China and India We've got the EPA regulations here in the United States that might be as some might say Leading a war on coal, but at the same time US coal exports are on the rise to meet other markets we also have Lack of clarity on on fracking and and the impacts and externalities around which for a technology that has really helped the country in kind of becoming energy secure in a sense And then there's a whole range of energy issues around livelihoods water and agriculture that are sure to come up as we Move forward and try to meet poverty targets reduction targets Keeping in mind of course that as the planet warms. We are trying to access new reserves under the Arctic I was at the Arctic Circle Assembly at the end of October beginning of November in Iceland this last year and Nearly every head of state Mentioned climate change But most of the side events Were certainly driven towards countries investments and the geopolitics of the high north So some really interesting questions around where we are With energy within the context of a changing climate and and how we will power billions more lives As we manage this new environment, so with that I'm going to allow the panel to speak about you know Make it open to you guys to make some comments, and then we'll just have a conversation Alex would you like to go first? Yes. Thank you Kurt the K and thank you for the audience being here Thank you to ASU and future tents, New America for inviting me. I'm Alex Trembath I'm a analyst at the breakthrough Institute focused on energy technologies energy policy and I think heart the K Teed off this conversation perfectly The the comments that I want to make today focus on the way that climate and energy debates have really consistently tried to pin rich countries against poor countries in a whole bunch of ways That's that's happened practically and diplomatically in the UN F triple C negotiating processes where? Rich countries tell poor countries that they need to emit less and poor countries tell rich countries Well, you guys emitted more in the past So there's an impasse there it happens especially in the last five ten years in the energy debate where we see a Increasing conversation about the so-called clean tech race where the question has has been for rich countries, particularly the US Our emerging economy is going to come and steal our industries This is played out no more seriously than in the in the solar wars where we've seen a Serious trade war developed between China and the US and of course it happens in our discourses as well as Karthikeya alluded to we see the climate element of the energy climate debate entering in to Conversations about equity and about global growth and about global modernization in not super helpful ways Where we see baked into our models of future energy consumption baked into our assumptions about future policy Assumptions that the emerging world will not consume as much energy as the rich world does today assumptions that growth will happen on a low energy trajectory and So my overarching point being that we have seen this rich country versus poor country Dynamic in play for as professor Allenby said at least 22 years as climate has really entered the global policy discussion If not longer So the the question that I would like to bring to the table is how can we bridge this rich poor country debate? how can we actually View climate change and view energy innovation as a global responsibility as a global public good collaborative if you will instead of competitive and the way that I and we and Karthikeya and I and Lisa and I have done some work writing about this along with some other folks in this room is the way that I see that happening is By viewing the rapidly growing energy demand in these emerging economies as an opportunity not not as a threat Not as a threat to our competitiveness not as a threat to our global climate Not as a threat to our environment, but as an opportunity space as an opportunity for cooperation and collaboration In the last several decades. There's been a Renaissance and scholarship and thinking on innovation one of the big lessons we've seen is that innovation technological social and otherwise tends to happen where demand is growing fastest and Demand for energy in particular has stagnated in in rich countries in places like the United States in Europe But it is absolutely booming in poor countries no more so than in places like China and India the bricks countries What you could distinguish from very poor countries as the really rapidly industrializing countries And that's where we see a lot of the innovation happening in Zero-carbon clean energy technologies as well as carbon-intensive technologies and the The debate around this again has has been squared by some as a clean tech race We're seeing China innovate in nuclear and solar when the US should be capturing those jobs in those industries So how can we prevent China and India? And Brazil from taking those jobs when the US should to be the ones leading the way Those are our technologies the Department of Energy And the nuclear industry develop those technologies. Why are we seeing them to China India? And from our perspective that is actually a missed opportunity The it would be it would be a missed opportunity to view these emerging markets as a threat instead of as an opportunity and We have to find a way for the tremendous innovation Systems potential of rich countries which you know We obviously shouldn't shrug off to work with the rapidly growing demand in these countries And we're seeing signs of that I think we're seeing lots of collaboration between for instance the US and places like China in nuclear technology and In carbon capture technology in there there are projects between Sinopec in China and the southern company in carbon capture for coal Bill Gates's terror power is is trying to deploy its new nuclear nuclear reactors in China since he since he and they don't think that that fourth generation and next generation nuclear power has an immediate immediate market to tap in the United States obviously Solar power is a another very good example of this where we would not be having the global the global solar revolution today Were it not for the manufacturing and production innovation taking place in China even more exciting than the Innovation taking place between say the US and China is the innovation taking place now between these rapidly industrializing countries We're no longer seeing just the emerging world tied to the industrial experience of the West We're starting to see the emerging world lead itself into modernization prosperity and by this I mean we see China and Russia investing in Nuclear technology in nuclear power plant construction in places like South Africa. We see South Korea building nuclear power in Middle Eastern countries We see Latin America and the Middle East as some of the hottest markets in large solar PV construction And we see countries as diverse as South Africa and Argentina China India starting to explore explore their shale energy resources like the US to explore ours so point being that The the idea that we can view Rapidly growing energy demand in these emerging economies as an opportunity is not just a it's not just a nice thought It's not just it's not just a fun thought. It's actually happening This innovation is happening these avenues towards accelerating energy innovation are happening And I think it would be a mistake to try and silo off different countries from working together It would certainly be a mistake to continue this Unproductive dichotomy between rich and poor countries that has infected the climate energy debates for so long I could keep rambling on but I think that basically that's great. Thank you so much Alex UT Would you like to go next? Thank you very much and thank you for having me my take on the any question is really Well as it comes out of this reality Would you believe that entire sub-saharan Africa where I come from I come from Nigeria by the way The biggest economy in Africa the richest country in sub-saharan Africa but by far the Is the bottom is like the bottom? 20 in terms of energy access for people So I was saying would you believe that the entire sub-saharan Africa uses up only in a year only 40 terawatts of energy Now that is equivalent to what the state of New York uses in one year This is the continent that is the second largest This is the continent that fits the entire of the US the entire of Western Europe the entire of China, Japan Most countries in the world would most other countries in the world I mean apart from South America would fit onto the map of Africa and yet the entire of that region uses dust about the same amount of energy as New York does What I'm talking about here is energy access dust like Kareke has said It's and for me energy access is really more the problem with governance And so the debate has been so much about what technologies do we bring in? What ways we know innovate? What ways do we trade? How do we do this and just like it's mentioned? I mean, and it's all wonderful, but that's gonna be nothing Nothing at all for Africa because no matter how much innovations you have no matter how much ideas you have no much I'm what technology you have if you don't have the right policies To push those through you're going to get nowhere And for Africa the problem has always been governance and what do I mean by governance? It's about bad politics bad policies or Not implementing good policies How is it understandable that country like Nigeria my country Nigeria would as of today? not be able to provide energy in a regular energy for Actually everybody The World Bank thinks maybe 40% of the country has access to energy. I'm by this I mean electricity But that's Well, that's in figures because the reality on the ground is whether or not you have The lines running, you know across on the roads across the villages Maybe you can actually see some poles with lights and with power lines on them It's a different thing seeing if it's good truck structure on the ground Versions happily having energy in the rooms that you live in It's a whole different thing Having energy today and not seeing it for the next month And when I say today, I mean one hour today And as a reality that most Nigerians face, why would that be the case? Well, I'll tell you Figure this the country that is the sixth biggest producer of petroleum in the world Has no functioning refinery Maybe this doesn't come as a surprise to many of you, but think about it What sense does it make that you pull out the crude from the ground? sell it to somebody else and buy the refined products at higher prices and Even now that there is a big boom, you know in terms of gas prices and we go to the to the to the to the To the stations that will buy them for less than a dollar for a gallon in Nigeria the prices haven't changed I Do not produce is the oil but doesn't have any benefit in terms of what that's all is is making workers who will sell in the Oil at cheaper price is fine But should be not be buying the gas at the stations cheaper That's just an example of what we're talking about here now Let's get an example of countries where things seem to have worked in Africa Tugana our next door neighbor two countries away at a point in history Celebrated ten years of consistent power supply at least in some parts of the country that was Ghana At that point Nigeria had not seen even one week of consistent power supply in most parts of the country We think it's really a matter of governance and as long as we continue to debate the technologies Which is great obviously for countries that have gotten it right That's what we should talking about what should we replace for what and it's not like Nigerians are Oblivious of the realities on ground like we don't know climate change exists Or that we don't know there are ways we could actually get new change things change or that we don't have the resources to actually make those things change the IAEA the international energy agency thinks that by 2014 Africa would be so far and Africa would be In its well of energy availability If all goes well Well, they didn't have that in the reports But I'm adding that to the reports if all goes well and by that I mean if Politics and the politicians allow those things that need to be done to be done policies implementations those are the things that we actually need and For us until we get through that most of this will go nowhere Well, I said most because What does I like the top-down approach that many people in my country that favored the bottom-up approach, which is good Innovates, you know, and hope that someone funds your innovation. I know of a young physician myself one of my physicians I trained back in the country who Has developed a prototype for a generator. I mean electricity generator that is supposed to be self-sustaining Powered initially by a battery and then starts the energy Sends some of that back recharges the battery and continues to run and that's just one person on his own Not to talk about the kids in a secondary school that thought of a way to generate electricity you mean urine So you pee into a bucket catch some of that start up the energy with With we're generator Hydrogen and you know use that born that up as your fault from urine what could be more sustainable What would be more renewable than using your urine, you know to treat energy and these were Nigerian kids in a high school In a Nigerian kid In the college. I think this is a habit here. Got the idea of using soccer The soccer the game we play you call it you call it soccer. We call it football All right, so using soccer as a means to generate energy you kick the ball around move some Wires within the ball and charge your phones off the ball at the end of the day And we can go on the list of innovative approaches are endless But those innovations go nowhere in a country like mine As long as policies do not support research We don't get nowhere The other thing I would like to say just before I kind of I would be This or that approach so it's been for most of the wall. It's been about mitigating You know climate change doing things to you know Don't let this get out of hand kind of you know, let's stop burning for less You know use more of this. Well, that's one way to handle it the other way is to adapt. Okay fine So we have all this carbon in the air. What do we do to keep ourselves safe? How do we take of health? How do we kill mosquitoes? You know And adapts to climate change the other way we could do that is geoengineering Geoengineering when I first heard the term sounded like, you know, Nigerian oil is always in our mind So that's not like geo oil, you know engineering while I was wrong I was completely wrong because geoengineering is is all about changing the climate doing stuffs to directly impact the climate, you know for example throwing off sulphate particles to shield off Atmospheric radiation like solar radiation and then that way you cool the planet, you know That's just one of those days and as you mentioned come on carbon capture, which is one of those ways you use So geoengineering is either of those and that's something that is big right now I believe on on on on the screen of you know energy energy discussions and climate change But but those are things that Nigerians are working on, you know but we know at the bottom of our hearts that No matter how much energy we put at creating the solving this problem rather creating solutions to solve the problem If we don't have the support of policies and governments Governments then we would get nowhere So that we might take on this and I hope we talk more about that. Thanks so much UT Lisa, would you like to make your comments? I'll just speak very briefly I think one of the things that we've done is we've really bifurcated the issues of dealing with poverty or figuring out sort of a new world vision and a kind of Reparative vision towards energy and climate change. So what we've come up with is we have special poverty initiatives And then we have green initiatives and these green initiatives are oftentimes very limited and focused there They're really focused on substituting a Prius for your regular car, and then you substitute another car for your Prius and they The idea of green has become very associated with luxury items not just in In the headspace, but the the subsidies themselves in the US are particularly going towards the wealthy most of the Electric car subsidies that we've given away nationally and in California There's like this stunning Electric car Program and almost all of that has gone to the top, you know, three to five percent of income earners So the question is is can you get more traction out of that money by combining? Dealing with poverty and dealing with carbon at the same time, and I would argue that you can at both on the sort of macro level of the world of its I Think it's it's somewhat offensive when a new power line a new power plant in China goes online and US Newspapers sort of bemoan that there's another coal plant going online in China. We should actually be cheering that that's all of us going ahead and And we will have to fix this up obviously, but my well-being does not depend upon someone else's poor being And that's one of the problems is that we need to combine these things into a sort of a combined vision I also think that another sort of mission message of this sort of green speak that we've engaged in here is But this can be easy. It can be substitutions and it can be leave everybody Pretty much in the same place where they started and I actually think that We need to recognize that it's going to be another revolution, but when you think about it I'm about to turn 50 and I don't know how many revolutions. I've gone through in my life already I mean we are children of the revolution and this is we we have my great-grandparents married themselves to that project a long time ago and This is pretty much kind of the way that we have to go The question is do we have a vision to go with all these revolutions because if you don't by default? They go over to something kind of ugly Because As as Mackenzie has mentioned everybody has a stake everyone's playing and you actually kind of have to to see the field for what it is I Also think that in this if you if you look at forward at okay We're in the midst of a revolution. There will be more to come you need to start to think about things that are going to balance out And that are on net balance are going to get sort of be pontoons if you're in this little boat on the sea that Brad talked about and one of those is states and in separating climate and Poverty we have dealt with states very differently states. We we think we need for energy But in terms of lending and and the World Bank we have dealt with a different agenda towards towards states So on the one hand, we've been De-strengthening states and on the other hand, we've been saying we want to make treaties with states We actually need to start investing in states and we need to see at functioning energy systems as essentially a proxy of how Well a state works You know the US has this wildly wonderfully functioning electrical grid Basically because FDR made some decisions back in the 20s that he was going to guarantee Electricity to everybody he wanted everybody to have a waffle iron and we don't really have a vision of the world with a waffle iron But we should because once you make a commitment to not just a light bulb, but also a waffle iron You make a commitment to the waffle industry and then you make a commitment to refrigeration and refrigerated food And then you can start, you know, it's not just vaccines It's a lot of things that start to take off. So there needs to be this sort of larger inclusive futuristic vision rather than just sort of siloing green off to the side Thanks, Lisa. I think the three of you have made made incredible very salient points Everything from the need to have space for innovation and collaboration between north south and south south to the governance issues Regarding, you know, sustaining those innovations or creating space for them within some of those countries and of course whether or not we have the vision to move forward and And find the answers that we need to address this challenge I want to go back to a little bit of what you mentioned Lisa about Having that vision and in my own work on energy access innovation and diffusion of off-grid solar technologies in India what I'm finding is that You know the things that are driving solar diffusion are not solar itself But it is the innovation in low-watt technologies that's actually going to drive the need for that energy source So PV TV or, you know, 14 watt flat screen LED televisions That are going to get people out there buying the 220 watt solar panel to be able to power that in addition to The lighting and the mobile phone charging and just for the next two years I think India is going to add about 40 million smartphone users again adding another, you know Big push to the need for whether they be off-grid or on-grid energy resources And I think that's where we are having some of those debates In in the energy access space is what are if we need a vision does it entail a More centralized approach as we have seen in the past or a decentralized approach Or does it need both and Perhaps some of you would like to speak about your experiences around that I'll just add very briefly that I agree wholeheartedly with what you just said and some things that UT and Lisa have said I would like to particularly dwell on Lisa's remarks about the need to actually have conversations about states and UT's remarks about the need to talk about governance Believe it or not I've had conversations with folks who disagree with what you just said Carthike that it is about the it is solely about these technologies That you know that have become so cheap or so magically effective that they are going to change the world And that now that we have these technologies We don't have to worry about poverty and climate and we don't have to we don't have to worry about the trade-offs that come with Modernization and industrialization We don't have to think about off-grid versus on-grid the technologies will take care of it from now And I would just like to vigorously push back against that notion That the it is a it is a different world Electrifying today than it was when FDR was around we do have things like the socket We do have things like 220 watt solar panels And in my view that actually makes the case for good governance and states even stronger We're starting to see the grassroots meet the top down And we're starting to have to ask questions about how do we build? Modern industrial systems in these poor and middle-income countries while dealing with so many different types of technology and so many different types of innovation And I would just like to emphasize that it is not the technologies themselves that are leading the charge. It is these These socio-technical systems these systems of innovation and that that absolutely requires Good governance and I actually think that not only is that ignored sometimes So I think that's actually refuted sometimes by but by people in these debates who who use the the climate bludgeon or who use The technology bludgeon to say look my worldview is right look the technologies look gonna lead the way look poor countries Have to not emit and and develop and grow the way that I say And I think that's unhelpful and a productive so it's it's great to hear Your your perspective UT and and what Lisa was saying about states. I absolutely agree I think it's interesting how different countries are innovating in different ways Some of it what you've done in India where you're looking at the grids One thing that strikes me is that the grid of the future may look a lot different than the grid of the present You know once you can integrate batteries on your home level into that grid You have both autonomy and connectivity with the grid and that's happening organically In I don't know if it's happening in Nigeria I know it's happening in some cities in India where people have purchased inverters They have batteries in their houses so that when the powder the power is on Intermittently they can store it and then use it when they need to but that's also all of that is as we look to more People living in cities. We're gonna have these essentially our grids will become Less a simple machine and more this complex adaptive system. That's very hard to model, but it's growing organically already And so in answering the question is this supposed to be It is centralized one or a centralized approach to take I guess supposed to be a both and the example I have is with Nigeria where The idea has taken off that we have independent power plants And so these independent power plants are basically co-fired plants Which are usually not not cool. Anyway, I'm gas. Yeah, so that's a natural gas fire plants Which are available in virtually every state of the country now So these plants have the capacity to produce such as two amounts of electricity but because of governance and policy we have an issue of The energy is available, but it's not being used up by anybody an example being the one in my state Where the the power plants was ready and set to go maybe some five years ago and They were like, oh, let's connect to the transmission lines and the government says no and And they couldn't understand it I mean we belt this power plant because we thought we're gonna use the transmission lines and like we didn't have that agreement And I'm asking myself How do you ask people to go innovate and you know do stuff and then when it's time to connect you say no if you don't pay such and such monies, we don't allow you on the grid and if you do pay The amounts you have to get back in terms of your investments. It goes higher. So the average Nigeria pays I think 20 times higher for electricity than the American and gets maybe a thousand times less The value and so it still boils down to me, you know policy wise what add our policy makers You know saying about their approach to to to electrification and so Beyond just you know using we don't want to use gas, you know, or Petroleum or whatever force it feels we have the capacity for Wonderful technologies an example being The boy I think you mentioned the boy Using ocean ocean waves to generate electricity that is something that we could easily do because Most of South Nigeria lies on the Atlantic and Atlantic coast and we could easily, you know use such technologies If we had the right policies to push them forward So so it for me is still a question of governance and it will always be a question of governance because until we get over that No matter how much innovation we have no matter how many things we bring in, you know to the board The effect to be limited We will change we do have inverters, you know, I mean Nigerians are smart folks Not become a Nigerian but because I mean is the way to survive in the environment We find ourselves is to smarten up, you know And so people talk about it like why don't I get a battery that can be charged by the regular, you know Electricity when it comes in we have that and then at least at night we have some lights to see, you know And so inverters work quite well in Nigeria solar panels people are building them and put in them on their roofs people are talking about Solar boxes they can actually install in their houses. So everybody's trying something, you know, but it's costly That's the point. It's costly. So necessarily costly that we have to fight so hard to get energy for ourselves Nigerians are basically a County every family is a county on his own, you know, you generate your power you provide your own security. Sometimes you build your own roads It doesn't have to be like that Yeah, and underscores I think the importance of having the right kinds of the clarity from government as far as how to deal with those technologies and creating That space and we have a little bit of time left for Questions from the audience to engage the panel and so I'm going to open it up and I believe we have a gentleman right there Henry Hedger researcher at NARA Back in 2008 I came up with the theory the centrifugal force theory of the rise of the equatorial seas and Now six years later. It appears to be coming true This is due to the global warming and the melting of arctic and Antarctic and a slight rise in sea level as a result little by little as this occurs and We now see for instance in Lagos, Nigeria Rise there of the water the the beaches slowly receding it is much smaller than it once was it has almost no width Is a very gradual descent, but well the ocean is creeped in through the bay and China has decided to take some initiative The big believers in climate change and something has to be done about it And what they're doing about it is is putting in 15 foot seawalls around islands in the bay and then Planned is a 15-foot seawall which will ring the entire bay and Transform Lagos itself with plans to place high-rise buildings behind all this and Greatly change the entire outlook of the city There's a great deal of people The once was 20,000 people living on what they call like sticks something like Southeast Asia over the water and Using their boats to go out and fish and do things a Certain way of life, but all that is going to be eliminated There's now 200,000 people living that way, so they'll have to move behind the seawalls Either that there'll be some other plan, but somehow they decide to eliminate it. Do you have I'm sorry That's the question. I wonder this being the case for this particular locale. What is the plans worldwide? as far as trying to Stage a comeback against the oncoming seas along the equator affecting many many nations in smaller islands, of course Does anybody Yes, anybody want to speak on adaptation to rising ocean levels. Yes, yeah, I guess the solution to that I mean it's no solution. It's just it's top gap measure would be to Adapt so so at the point when Lagos was getting just getting flooded all the time You know and then there was a reality I mean was real to us that the water levels were rising the the barbech Which was the popular and a resort location for for Lagos was no more at the point There was no more barbech because the water levels had really soon what I had creeped in and was almost Getting into the marina the main road that faces that goes off the island and faces the Atlantic Ocean And they thought of maybe dredging some of that Maybe that would help some of the off the offshore locations could help to dredge to pull off some of the Romance of seals and see if that could lower the water level They tried that they put on some stones to block off the water but all that was Not so effective because it wasn't just a local problem I mean sea levels are not a local problem sea levels are a global problem And therefore the Nigerian government took on initiative to actually, you know set Put put some support to the climate change and initiative the global climate change initiative And we actually do have lots of paperwork on that lots of paperwork on things we would like to do But when it comes to funding what we see is that funding for Tangible things that could actually bring change don't really come because someone tells you the money is not here Reason because they get the money and they split it among themselves Well, I mean and this is not this is not just saying Fact is this Nigerian legislators are the highest paid in the world highest paid in the world and When we compare them we're talking about people that are paid ten times more than the US Legislature, so if the US senator ends like more than 70,000 whatever dollars the Nigerians ends ten times that in a country that is 30 times poorer But the legislators and ten times more than the US they end more than the US presidents In terms of ending some of salaries and allowances, so the idea is really it's a government of Sharing the money as we call it and so most of the monies we get from whatever we resources we have go to the politicians Let's go of it goes to funding anything like research or real stuff that can actually make change Yeah, and of course making things more complicated for adaptation climate Yes, so I'm gonna just take a couple of questions, and then we'll do the answering We can only take a few so yes right here and then a couple of back there. Good afternoon. Oh, thank you I went to a screening of the Masters of Doubt last night I don't know if any of you have seen it, but it was both disappointing and enlightening in that clearly the science is there I mean that's overwhelming yet. You have leaders of major Western countries Canada Australia One major political party in the United States and others who continue to deny it or block any action As you've raised this is a global challenge not just one for the US or Europe or Asia What is it going to take if it was 88 when this first the alarm was first sounded it's now 2014 doesn't look like we have another 25 years to waste and My second point would be Pope Francis is expected to announce a major Statement on climate change. It's expected that he will you reinforce the scientific evidence Might that be the tipping point that? Spurs those hesitant leaders were those who feel they don't have the political cover To address the facts and make some bold movements then thank you I just have a couple of hands there, but I don't know that we can take all of them Just please be really crisp with your questions I'll be crisp I agree with the point that the poverty dialogue and narrative has been bifurcated from the carbon and climate part What would you suggest can bring those dialogues or those narratives together for action together? Thank you I had a question about the off-grid on-grid issue It's not just here in the United States where we see you know when it comes to electricity off-grid seems to be a trend But in the emerging and frontier world We're seeing a movement towards that as a way to bypass this policy Corruption issue to get it to the rules, but at the same time globally. There is a trend towards urbanization That's the reality. So how do you reconcile off-grid versus on-grid with this trend towards urbanization? Excellent and the final one I totally agree with the fact that poor nations Could receive should receive help from richer nations or emerging nations or whatever you recall these Poor nations and that we In the West or whatever there because there are richer nations in Asia and also But I'm totally on board with the fact that with the idea that richer nations should help poorer nations But I have an ethical question is selling them technologies that we know are dangerous like nuclear Is that a way of helping them or is that a way of making money for us? Excellent. Thank you. Oh, wow a range of issues and we have like maybe two minutes Everything from I think thank you for pointing out the Pope Because I remember I wanted to touch on some cultural movements around energy including I think the Catholic bishops calling for an end to the fossil fuel era So, you know that is you know these cultural movements impacting our energy debate envisioning key issues around you know ethics of selling nuclear to States in the global south and whether or not they may have the capacity to deal with them Perhaps is another way of looking at it and how do we reconcile both an urbanizing planet with on good off grid and You know climate change and the energy ex Tibet all right go I don't think I can cover all that but I'll just try make one final observation in less than 30 seconds on rich poor ethics and Adaptation I think again for the past 20 25 years the climate energy debate has been bifurcated as the gentleman said In another way along mitigation versus adaptation we can either deploy clean energy technologies Or adapt to changing environmental constructs of the world at best we can do both together What I would just close on is that Mitigation can be adaptation clean energy can be the best form of adaptation possible. We are less worried in the united states about About damaging environments on our agriculture and on our cities then they are in logos right And a big Reason for that is because of the abundant energy that we have so when we think about adapting to climate change It should not be a separate issue of providing clean abundant energy. Those are the parts of the same conversation Briefly you guys so I'll think that beyond adaptation and mitigation there should be geoengineering and The reason for this is because it would definitely They'll go a long way to adding to the pressure I mean to reducing the pressure rather on the climate now the problem with geoengineering anyway It's again governance because it would need global governance So it wouldn't be a Nigerian issue and I wouldn't have to cry about that Now everybody would have to worry about that one because then would need to worry about who is doing what where and how You know because whatever you do to the climate Would have a global impact and so geoengineering will have to need would need global governance And beyond that for Nigeria and for Africa what we need to do is to support whatever initiative It is To get the right governments in place and the right policies in place civil society is struggling very hard But not letting all the support they need and if we could do our leopards to Ate that and move us in the right direction. We would be a long way. Excellent Lisa Yeah, and I think at the same time electricity does a lot A consistent source of electricity does a lot for allowing you to think about how your civil society shapes Um, but uh, I also think that this question uh, I think that when you solve for poverty and For climate issues at the same time you end up with a whole host of different sorts of solutions That look quite different and one of them I'm just going to say because we've been talking the big the big grid small grid thing is that We have a lot of people moving into cities They're going to be moving into very dense housing Most of it is in very hot parts of the world If you want those people to be able to run a computer, which I would argue is part of being a global citizen these days They need to have not only consistent power, but they have need to have enough ac So that the computer doesn't overheat So that means that you need to start building buildings and cities where the ac is essentially integrated into the design of The whole the whole city and the whole building It's not seen as a separate add-on thing that goes on the outside And that means that the building itself needs to be off the grid and on the grid at the same time You need to have essentially batteries of cold water in the building that can circulate You need to have solar panels on the roof that run things I can go into detail about that but the basically we're we're going to have to integrate big grid small grid and green and poverty into Into sort of a more systematic kind of thinking Excellent and with that because we have solved the energy issue I'm going to wrap it up. Thank you so much to our panelists and we'll be around so we can Thank you