 Hello and welcome everyone. Thank you for joining us for the final briefing in our five part series, what Congress needs to know in the lead up to COP26. Today we will look back and present a recap of COP26 key outcomes and what comes next. I'm Dan Berset, Executive Director of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. In the lead up to COP26, EESI devoted the entire month of October to providing briefings and related educational resources with the information and insights that members of Congress and their staff needed. We discussed biodiversity, international climate finance, climate adaptation, and the process negotiations were expected to follow. Now we're taking a moment to look back and reflect on what happened and what it means for policymakers. I would like to acknowledge our honorary co-sponsor, the British Embassy Washington, and our great partner, the Henry M. Jackson Foundation, for their support and cooperation that made this briefing series possible. The Environmental and Energy Study Institute was founded in 1984 on a bipartisan basis by members of Congress to provide science-based information about environmental, energy, and climate change topics to policymakers. More recently, we've also developed a program to provide technical assistance to rural utilities interested in on-bill financing programs for their customers. EESI provides informative, objective, non-partisan coverage of climate change topics in briefings, written materials, and on social media. All of our educational resources, including briefing recordings, fact sheets, issue briefs, articles, newsletters, and podcasts, are always available for free online at www.eesi.org. The best way to stay informed about our latest educational resources is to subscribe to our bi-weekly newsletter, Climate Change Solutions. Since the last time we met, back on October 22, for our last briefing, world leaders, diplomats, climate scientists, and stakeholders from across the private and public sectors convened in Glasgow, Scotland for the 26th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, a COP26. It was an intense two weeks, and I know there are differing opinions about what happened and were the announcements updated nationally determine contributions and commitments, where those leave us in the fight to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and avoid the worst outcomes of climate change. While COP26 was underway in Glasgow, policymakers in Washington approved the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and continued debating potential endgame for the reconciliation package. A lot of the developments in Glasgow and in Washington are related in complicated ways. What did the results of COP26 mean for US policymakers? The domestic policies currently being implemented or recently enacted mean in terms of US international climate action commitments. These are two of the bigger questions we are about to try to answer with the help of our four expert panelists, and we'll turn to them in just a moment. One last bit of logistics. We will have a time for discussion with our panelists. Hopefully lots of time for discussion, which is one reason why I'm keeping my introduction so short today. The first question you can share it with us and you have two options to do that. The first is by sending us an email to askask at EESI.org or by following us at EESI online on Twitter. We will do our best to incorporate questions and comments from our online audience into our discussion. And now without further ado, let us turn to our panel today. Our first speaker is Dr. Simon Evans. Simon is the deputy editor and policy editor for Carbon Brief, a website specializing in climate scientists, climate science and policy. Simon covers climate and energy policy. He holds a PhD in biochemistry from Bristol University. He previously studied chemistry at Oxford University. He worked for the environmental journal The Ends Report for six years, covering topics that included climate science and air pollution. And if you were following COP26 while it happened, chances are you were probably also following Simon because he was extremely active in helping keep everybody up to date as the negotiations were happening. So Simon, welcome to our briefing today. I'll turn it over to you. I'm really looking forward to your presentation today. Hi everyone. Thanks. Thanks very much for the invitation. So I've got 15 minutes, which isn't very long because it was a very, very full two weeks in Glasgow. I'm still recovering, as I'm sure many others of those that were there would say the same. And so I'm going to try and cover some of the key outcomes from COP26 from our perspective. I'm just going to go ahead and get the slides going. So I just wanted to start really with, sorry, I'll just get this going. Where are we going? Good. Okay, great. So, yeah, I just wanted to start really by introducing carbon brief, just in case you're not familiar with us. We're kind of, we're very privileged as journalists and we're fully grant funded, which means that we can do much longer form journalism. We can do a lot of what we call explainer journalism, where we, we basically take a topic and try and, you know, get into the details and do it in a way that's accessible but also very thorough. And so everything that we publish is free. We try and be independent and neutral. And as Dan already said, we cover climate science, climate policy and also energy about very much as it relates to climate change. And you can see our website on there. And if you want to read more, I think the ESI have already included a link to our summary of the COP in the briefing notes. So I wanted to just start with the context. I mean, heading into the COP, what we had was effectively an enormous ambition gap. So what I'm showing here is a graph from Climate Action Tracker. And you can see in black, the black line is the historical emissions. There's this blue wedge there which shows where where we're headed on the current pledges and targets. And that was as of September last year. And, and then the green line shows what would be needed to stay below 1.5 degrees. So there's this very large gap of like something like 25 billion tons of emissions in 2030. Now the problem is for the COP that it's this very dry technical process. And the COP itself can't deliver higher emissions, only national governments, you know, businesses and so on can can do that. And so in a way, like the climate process is quite detached from from the ambition gap from the wider public opinion and activism and, you know, clamor for greater action towards 1.5. So it had to somehow close this gap off. And so what what I'm going to try and cover in my summary is is three things. But first of all, just to step back, you know, for many years, you know, we're now onto the 26th COP and for many years, it's been a process of trying to create an international rule based system for managing climate change. Now we have that in, you know, in the Paris Agreement, which was agreed at COP 21 in 2015. And so now the nature of the COP is changing very much from from a rulemaking body towards one that's much more interested in implementation. So basically what we're seeing with COP 26 is kind of growing pains, I guess you could say a process that's attempting to adapt itself to the reality, you know, so the ambition gap that I showed. And also this this new kind of global regime under the Paris Agreement. So first of all, I'm going to briefly cover off some of the pledges that were that were made in Glasgow COP 26. And those kind of took place outside of the formal negotiations, they weren't really part of, you know, the formal agenda. But they were put in there, they were kind of shoehorned into the agenda by the UK presidency as as one part of its response to, you know, to that gap between, you know, the dry technical talks and the reality outside in the outside world. And then secondly, the, you know, I'm going to try and cover the Glasgow climate pact. Now that in itself was quite a novelty. There wasn't on the formal agenda there wasn't really a kind of a mandate for the UK presidency to pursue that, which makes all the more remarkable that they managed to do that, because obviously at COP everything is agreed by consensus. And then finally I'm just going to try very briefly to cover off a couple of highlights in terms of completing the Paris rulebook. So what happened in 2015 was that they, you know, they came up with this with this overarching regime, but a lot of the details were left to be filled in later. And they have now completely completed that process as of the end of COP 26. So first of all, just in terms of the pledges. So the context for this is that at the heart of the Paris agreement is this recognition that the initial pledges that countries made in the run up to COP 21 were were massively insufficient to stay even to say well we'll stay two degrees and certainly for the 1.5 targets. So they built into the Paris agreement this five yearly ratchet, which effectively means every five years, countries are supposed to come back with with a more ambitious pledge. And then collectively there's a stock take to review how we're getting on. So the reason that COP 26 was seen as particularly important was because it is, you know, the fifth COP since, since Paris, and countries were supposed to have upgraded their ambition ahead of the meeting. So what we saw was that 151 countries did in fact do that. You know, I guess three quarters of the nearly nearly 200 countries that are signed up to the Paris agreement. And then in addition to that we saw actually at the COP, a whole series of different kind of sectoral initiatives, you know bilateral announcements blah blah blah so there were lots of things, I just highlighted a few of them here. The whole was very, you know, it was in a way quite a vague commitments that countries signed up to, but nevertheless very significant to see the likes of Indonesia, Vietnam, Poland. Recognising and starting to talk, talk about the need to phase out coal, albeit some of them with quite a long timeline on that. In addition, there was this Glasgow decoration on ending deforestation by 2030, backed by I think something like $17 billion worth of investments. And there was also a fact dialogue which is about supply chains for commodities that affect forest use. Another highlight was the global methane pledge again more than 100 countries sign up to that pledging to cut their methane emissions collectively by 30% by 2030. And so what we saw with all of that is that once you add to those those new pledges to where we were basically a year ago is some additional ambition that's been added into the mix. And that effectively is the Paris ratchet clunking slowly forwards doing its job starting to work. But what you can see is that it's only working very very slowly. So, the collectively those pledges, the you know the updated NDCs and the new pledges made in Glasgow, add up to perhaps only 15 to 20% of the gap between where we were headed, and what would be needed for those pledges. So that's kind of the pessimistic take on things. I also wanted to do kind of zoom out a little bit and give you a slightly slightly more optimistic perspective. So during, during Glasgow's Cup 26 we published this analysis looking at the temperature implications of the different commitments that countries have made. And so what we've done here and you know the darkest red on the left hand side. And before the Paris agreement, you know, it was, it was thought at the time that we were heading for something like three and a half or perhaps even four degrees of warming this century, which would have had catastrophic consequences. Now, since taking into account the pledges that countries have made up to the end of last year, we kind of got that down with the nationally determined contributions of all countries got that down to about 2.6 degrees. Then with the, with the updated pledges, that was 2.4 degrees. And then the additional coal methane deforestation, etc. That was another 0.1 degree. So I guess that you know the point of this graph is two things. First of all, you know, each incremental new bit of ambition is important, even if they're individually small, they do start adding up and obviously each fraction of a degree counts in terms of stopping warming and in terms of the impact that we want to avoid. And the other, the other point about this is, is just to reflect on, on how key is that that we move, not only to from pledges on paper but to implementation on the ground. And that's absolutely key, particularly in relation to the longer term that zero commitments that countries have been making. If, if countries not only meet their 2030 climate pledges under the UN process, but also meet their longer term targets to towards net zero by 2050 60 and 70. And then we are getting towards the point. And again, with full implementation, that's the key caveat, but we're getting towards the point of perhaps being able to keep warming below two degrees. So I just like to turn now to the Glasgow climate pact itself. So as I mentioned, it wasn't, it wasn't formally on the agenda. So in a way it was a risky move by the UK to do this, but they obviously, they obviously felt that it was really important to do so. One of the things that's quite interesting is the fact that in the pact itself and the IPCC findings are really front and center. I think that's a real contrast to where we were a few years ago. And I'm going to pull out a few of the key features of the pact, as we go through. So I'll just flip through the slides to show you. So I just wanted to show you this this is an extract from the Glasgow climate pact itself. And, you know, reflecting on this, I thought it was really interesting looking back to 2018 just three years ago in in Katowice in Poland at COP 24. There was this huge fight that I'm sure many, many of you may remember, where Saudi Arabia and the US under obviously under the Trump administration at the time, and we're battling. There would be wording that would welcome the special report from the IPCC on 1.5 degrees. And it was, in some ways, very innocuous wording but became kind of symbolic, I suppose, of whether or not 1.5 degrees was was going to be given greater recognition. And so we've moved now from three years ago with that huge fight. Now we've got the special reports findings, very specific details from the special report actually repeated verbatim in the Glasgow climate pact. So you can see it's repeating the idea that we need to cut emissions 45% below 2010 levels by 2030. And it's also putting a slightly stronger emphasis I would say on the 1.5 target relative to the text of the past agreement. So that's sort of recognizing the fact that you know the evidence and the science on 1.5 degrees has shown how much worse it would be if we let warming go beyond that level. So, in order to actually try and you know try and close that huge ambition gap which remains even after that first round of the past ratchet. And what the Glasgow climate pact does is, is it requests all parties that you can see it's non specific language here to revisit and strengthen their targets by the end of next year. Now this this is quite unexpected it go very much goes beyond what was in the past agreement which was this five yearly ratchet and we've only just had, you know the first round of the ratchet. Just recently. So agreeing to that is quite significant. We also agreement on loss and damage, a dialogue on loss and damage finance, and this has been a key demand of some of the developing countries a osis the small island states and the group of 77 developing countries and China. They've been pushing for the establishment of a, of a finance facility at in Glasgow, they didn't get that but they did get this this effectively a process to talk about how to deal with this issue. In the last adaptation, they agreed to have a set up a work program and to try and work out. And so I'm showing here article seven of the past agreement. And this said that we would establish a global goal on adaptation, in the same way that we have a global goal on on emissions of, sorry, not on other missions on of temperature target of 1.5 and below below two degrees. The problem is that no one's really sure what the global goal adaptation should look like. So what they did in Glasgow was to set up a work program over the next two years and to work out what that what that goal should actually be, and how we can track progress. Because it's really not obvious. Also they agreed to at least double adaptation finance from rich countries to poor countries. Again, a key ask of developing countries before before the summit. One is is the next one is about the coal fight so this really dominated a lot of the headlines coming out of Glasgow. And you can see here the evolution of the text, which started off in the first draft on the 10th of November as accelerating the phase out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuels. And by the end we have this this language about the phase down of unabated coal and a lot of additional wording about just transition support for the poorest and so on. I would I would suggest that you know that the focus on on the fight the fact that India China and others pushed for this this different wording that focus is probably misplaced and the fact that we have for the first time in any cop agreement, any cop decision language specifically targeting fossil fuel and taking action to limit it. That's probably the most significant significant thing to focus on really. Finally, I've only got a few minutes left before I get buzzed out so I'm just very quickly going to focus on the rulebook. And so as I said this this was, you know completed now you know some, I think we're now you know six years off after the past agreement was actually sealed. I'm just going to pick up two things. One of them is really important. It's this idea of transparency, which is effectively about how can you tell that people are doing what they said, you know that the basis of the past agreement is pledges that each individual country makes, and transparency is vital to make sure that we we can tell are they actually are they living up to those pledges. So are there emissions coming down in line line with their targets. Are they actually progressing towards the stuff that they promised. And so ahead of no sorry actually during the COP a lot of you may have seen this Washington Post front page. And really this really highlights the situation why the why this Paris transparency regime is so important. In the world system the UN framework convention on climate change from 1992. And there were different rules for developed countries versus developing countries and only developed countries had to report their emissions regularly. And so you have this situation where for example Iran hasn't reported its emissions officially to the UN since 2010 China not since 2014 and so on. So in new transparency rules, you can see in this in this graphic here, all parties shall that that's an instruction that they have to do this. All country all countries have to report their national emissions, and they have to report their progress towards implementing and achieving their their promises their nationally determined contributions. So hopefully the idea is we'll get a much better picture of where we are in terms of progress towards, you know that that temperature targets. And I should should mention this this kicks in from 2024 so from 24 every two years, all countries will have to do this. And then the reports that they put in a subject to peer review as well. And finally, and before I finish just to mention very briefly, another part of the past rulebook that was finalized is article six. So this is this is about international cooperation, primarily through carbon markets. So there's article 6.2 which is bilateral bilateral cooperation for example linked emissions trading systems. There's the article 6.4 which is an international carbon market to replace the one that we used to have on the creative protocol. And then there's article 6.8 which is about non market cooperation. And I don't have much time so I just wanted to highlight one part of the deal that they did in Glasgow, which is about this idea of avoiding the use of emissions reductions by more than one party. This was a really vital part of the puzzle. And often it's been referred to as double counting. And it's the idea that if if country one sells an emissions reductions country two in their accounting, just like in bookkeeping you have to make sure that that trade is reflected. So when the country sells the emissions reduction they have to make a chorus what's called a corresponding adjustment to their emissions inventory to show that they no longer own that emissions reduction and the other country that buys it has to do the corresponding thing on the other side. And what I've just just highlighted there is that that it's mandatory so it's a shall for for all types of uses of these these credits that you have to apply corresponding adjustments. And there's lots of other nuances and details and obviously happy to take questions after this, but I will leave it there. Thank you very much. Thank you Simon for a really great presentation. Lots of great information in your slides, just as a reminder. If anyone would like to go back and look at Simon slides or watch his presentation again. All the presentation materials as well as helpful links, the archive webcast everything will be available online at www.esidiotorg after the briefing today. So, lots of great stuff in there I'm sure everyone will want to go back and take a look. I'm going to introduce our next panelist but I think we're going to move the order to accommodate something that's happening. Nicole, I think I'm going to introduce you next. So that you can deal with life's intervention. Nicole Montclair Donagie is a pop up with Lakota from the Standing Rock Sioux Nation. She is also a descendant of the Mandan, Hidatsa, Eric, our nations and the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. Nicole is a seasoned land based organizer who has worked on issues ranging from federal methane rules, fracking, radioactive waste, voting rights, voter mobility, and policy that affects Native American communities. Nicole is the executive director of North Dakota Native Vote. The focus of North Dakota Native Vote is to work on issues that affect the lives of citizens living on and off reservations. So I'm really looking forward to hearing your perspective about everything. Nicole, welcome to the briefing. Thank you, Dan. And I do apologize. You do have to hop off early. I have a sick child waiting for me at his school. Like Dan says, I'm Nicole Montclair Donagie. I'm the executive director of North Dakota Native Vote. My name is Nicole. I'm from Washington. My relatives. Hi, I shake. My heart is happy to be here and I shake you warmly by the hands. So North Dakota Native Vote works to engage and engage tribal members in constructing a representative democracy by working in reservation communities as well as urban areas. The history of my people, the Standing Rock people, you would know that we are fierce protectors of our people, the land, the air and the water. We also are not an oil and gas tribe. Yet we are directly impacted by the oil and gas fracking that's happening in the northwestern part of our state. And I'm sure you when you think of Standing Rock, I'm sure many of you think of the Dakota Access Pipeline which has been routed 500 feet north of the northern border of our lands. This is from a place that is rooted that is rooted in disparities that lie in historical experiences of oppression and exclusion. And so I wanted to talk a little bit about why I went to COP. Well, firstly, I was invited by a climate generation out of Minnesota to be an observer to the negotiations and to share my perspective as an indigenous organizer. The previous position prior to coming to North Dakota Native Vote was field organizer counteracting the effects of oil and gas development in the northwestern part of North Dakota, which is also known as the Bakken. From the work that I've done and everything that I've witnessed. I've come to the realization that fracking is a violent process that is directly correlated to not only pollution, but social issues, issues such as missing and murdered indigenous peoples arise in drug and alcohol use murders and destruction of the social fabric of our communities. The Bakken oil boom was another area was another era of land grab by the United States government and its ruling corporations. I wanted to be a part of this delegation because it is our initial instruction as Native American people to be good stewards of the land and protect life. Also, everything that I've experienced as an oil and gas organizer has shown me that the lack of inclusion in the decision making processes that affect our everyday, everyday lives is the root cause of the disparities that we face as communities. One of the statistics that we've been talking about at COP is that 5% of the world population is indigenous people, yet 80% of the world's diversity biodiversity is protected by indigenous people and that's no, that's no mistake. We work for the protection of our communities to ensure that we have equitable representation at North Dakota native vote, and that we have the ability to dictate the processes and the future of our own lives. Another reason why I wanted to attend was is because that we are often given a false choice that limits our selection to fossil fuels in our communities. When, in my experience, it is the indigenous people of North Dakota that are leading the way to indigenous clean energy. And I've seen it happen in Turtle Mountain with Turtle Mountain, the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewas Community College up there, where the Property Manager has almost taken the entire college off of the grid through his own system that he's created and harnessed himself. We also have one of the largest solar farms in North Dakota on my own reservation just north of Cannonball. So my, you can go to the next slide. My experience at COP, despite being a badged observer, our own delegation had not observed an official session of the negotiations to contribute toward the rulebook of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. The United Kingdom's presidency and host of COP promised that this would be the most accessible COP ever. It was a promise that was too lofty in a time of overlapping crises with the ongoing devastation of climate change with the ongoing climate chaos that we see here in our own state. And also the devastation of COVID-19. Yes, we know that COVID-19 restricted and created many obstacles that prevented many from attending this year. With that happening, I did question my own privilege, attending each day while many of my relatives were not allowed and were not badged and stood outside the gates of COP 26, standing in protest and in prayer and in song. My delegation with climate generation was myself, Ashley Fairbanks, and Kyle Hill, all indigenous people, and all native to the upper Midwest part of Turtle Island. Along with our delegation and all of the indigenous people that were allowed to be there, we collectively brought thousands of years of ancestral knowledge, ceremony, song, tradition, as well as the certainty that our indigenous way of life is going to save the world. Sadly, the fossil fuel lobby, if they were a country, they would have been the largest delegation at COP. The fossil fuel lobby had 503 delegates, two dozen more than the largest country delegation. Over 100 fossil fuel companies are represented at COP and 30 trade associations and membership organizations were also present. Going forward, in my perspective, indigenous voices must be included in the discourse of climate negotiations. Our ancestral knowledge has given us the instruction to protect all life, water, air and on which we depend and land on which we depend. We know that the earth cannot sustain the too big to fail model. We look to regenerative processes in order to leave a viable planet for our future generations by understanding that a life out of balance only brings chaos. Our world views as indigenous people are collective and intergenerational based on oral teachings and traditions with the responsibility of being a good relative to all. This knowledge is timeless and it cannot be encompassed or reflected in books. In order to establish an equitable and just transition, it is imperative that resources are shifted to frontline communities and to our tribal lands so that the solutions toward climate change are rooted in restorative practices and climate and racial justice. We cannot begin to build ourselves out of this global destruction and climate chaos without healing the lands. And the communities that have been devastated and have been on the front lines of fossil fuel extraction. We also ask that the United States government also acknowledge free and prior and informed consent that it should be grounded in every aspect of policy decision making from the idea to implementation. Federal funding cannot cannot focus on our tribal governments alone. We must invest and build capacity and employment within tribes to better understand how regenerative practices and business plans can work toward climate resiliency, and how we can apply funding into those programs. We need to create access to technical assistance and improve outreach for federal funding opportunities. I work in the nonprofit world and so I know that the model is competitive and that it is our communities that are always forgotten in the process. We also need to invest in clean jobs in Indian country. I've seen the model work in Turtle Mountain and Stani rock. I have a cohort of brothers that have indigenized solar energy here in North Dakota. And so I know the model of sustainability is is real and it can work. We also must electrify and develop the public sector by implementing electric public transport and rooftop solar and wind. The United States federal government cannot begin to honor and live up to their federal trust responsibilities without providing the resources necessary for tribes to engage in a more more full realization of self determination for all of our tribes. Lastly, in my short presentation here. We need to treat the climate crisis crisis like the emergency it is. We are demanding action for our lives. And we understand that we must include economy in the process but the economy is not going to save our land or air and our water. We also understand that a model built for the world's largest polluters to incentivize carbon offset is not a model of sustainability. It's a model that has been built to maintain the status quo and to reaffirm the capitalistic conquests that have been destroying our lands for centuries. And the government administration cannot truly talk about counteracting the effects of climate change while pipelines cross our lands and desecrate the land air and water. Thank you. Thank you Nicole for that presentation today and thank you very much for sharing your experiences and also thank you for sharing your experiences as cop was happening with us it helped helped us a great deal as we tried to keep track of everything that was going on so I really appreciate it. So understand that you have to leave us. I hope everyone's going to feel a little bit better, but thank you so much for joining us today and I look forward to the next chance we have to work together. Thank you I need you. Have a good day everyone. We are now going to turn to our next panelist Joanna Deplage. Dr Joanna Deplage is a fellow of the Cambridge Center for environment energy and natural resource government governance in the United Kingdom. She has been working on international climate change negotiations for 25 years and various roles, including with the UN secretariat Joanna welcome to our briefing today I'm really looking forward to your presentation. Thank you very much Dan for that introduction. Let me just try to share my screen. Yeah so so thank you very much Dan for that and thank you also to Simon and Nicole for some extremely informative and very powerful presentations so far it's been really great to hear all that. And I'm, yeah thank you to everyone for being here to listen it's a real honor to be with you today to share my own reflections on COP26 as someone who's been following this process for, for very many years over over two decades now. Now this was really, I would say a cop like no other held under the extraordinarily difficult circumstances of a global pandemic yet should ring a very heavy burden of high expectations and I think it's worth just reminding ourselves of some of the quite impassioned almost apocalyptic claims that were made about COP26 in the run up to the conference. But a more clear headed maybe more thoughtful assessments of Glasgow might have been slightly less optimistic as to the likely outcomes. The context for Glasgow was was uniquely challenging I mean the world was still is reeling from the coven 19 pandemic with all the massive economic and health impacts. Logistically, COVID posed huge obstacles for the smooth organization of a cop with in the end 40,000 people who attended Nicole already alluded to some of the constraints faced. But it wasn't just COVID geopolitically, the rather frosty relations if I can put it that way between the US and China, the two largest emitters. And indeed between the UK and China and these these rather tense situation certainly did not bode well to achieving very much in Glasgow and Simon has already spoken about this but it's worth me emphasizing it. There are limits to what a cop can actually achieve a legally and politically and this is often misunderstood. So cop decisions are there to establish collective goals collective norms rules procedures to enable more effective action and cooperation among and by governments but ultimately it's the governments, it's private sector it's the stakeholders. They're the ones who need to take the policy action to limit emissions. So the cop by itself never could save the world as some of the statements we saw just now might have claimed this will depend on domestic implementation and follow through. And Simon also mentioned again it's really worth emphasizing this a cop takes his decisions by consensus that means with the agreement of all or almost all of the parties. And this requires compromise so no country will achieve all of its negotiation goals and this is something that John Kerry recognized I've included a quotation from him here. So, in a sense the stronger demands of the vulnerable developing countries of the environmental community, these were unlikely to ever make it through. But at the same time, the less ambitious countries will be called upon in the cop to move faster than they otherwise would and I think it's very much what we saw in Glasgow. I mean, speaking speaking frankly personally cop did surpass my admittedly low expectations to achieve much more than I personally thought was possible. I'm on record the saying that the UK would never manage to include a mention of coal in a cop decision and and yet this happens. And I think the outcome on the Paris rulebook on article six on transparency was certainly more rigorous than many had feared. I just like to share some of the big picture positive developments that struck me and let me just make the point here I am being deliberately optimistic I think optimism is the is appropriate at this stage. So I detected a surprisingly constructive atmosphere at the cop. I don't want to overstate this point national delegations fought their corner as vigorously as they as they ever do there were many tense moments that overall delegates negotiates with a can do a more business like attitude than perhaps we've seen in the recent past or in the history of the negotiations and it was reassuring to see that to a large extent. Yeah, governments were able to set aside their wider political differences and kind of carve out a political space for cooperation on climate change. And to some extent this reflects the increasingly strong global consensus over the urgency of action on climate change and I completely agree with what Simon said about this. What we are seeing and what we saw in Glasgow was a cementing of 1.5 as the world's consensus temperature seeding now pivoting more strongly to 1.5 from the well below to that was in the Paris agreement so even Saudi Arabia was a very well known obstructionist in these talks, they refer to 1.5 as a no brainer, and this would have been completely unthinkable two years ago. But then the emission cuts needed to level out temperature rise at 1.5 are much greater than for to the slope of the emissions curve we need to achieve is much steeper requiring more than a halving of global emissions from present levels by 2030 and in terms of pledges we're nowhere near that yet. But what we saw in Glasgow as well as this pivot towards 1.5 was also great recognition of the immediate emission cuts needed in this critical decade. I was really encouraged to see that the cover decision mentions 2037 times and the words critical decade three times as much more the focus on the immediate the short term cuts. Now I'm convinced that this improved atmosphere that I detected reflects greater diplomatic engagement and commitment on the part of the United States over the past year. And that's really made a huge difference to the relative success of COP26 especially if you compare it with the last COP in Madrid in 2019 which was, which was hugely disappointing, it resulted in very few substantive outcomes and was really marred by bad tempered exchanges. And this joint declaration by the US and China released in the second week on the Wednesday was universally welcomed as a very positive development. Now it's quite a vague quite a general declaration, but the commitment of both countries to work together on climate change despite their wider differences was critical and very encouraging. And then it ended up having concrete results the language that eventually sealed the deal on coal in the final decision this phase down that was taken directly from the declaration and China insisted on this. So this very strong bilateral relationship that we see between China and the US on climate change has been absolutely critical to progress to date. And I would very briefly highlight that this relationship is also personal here between John Kerry and Xi Shuihua, and the Chinese climate envoy, who've been working together for, for many years now. These things really matter negotiations negotiations are personal, as much as they are political. Now moving away from the big picture towards a substance. So a couple of outcomes. I'd like to highlight. I mean, I was really encouraged to see that the Paris Agreement ratchet mechanism is starting to work, albeit unevenly so out of the 193 parties of Paris Agreement, all those shaded here 150 151 have submitted updates to their initial NDCs their admission pledges and the vast majority of these represent tangible, maybe not huge but tangible improvements on the first set. Now there are some notable exceptions. And these are the country shaded in orange here. These are the ones that have submitted new or updated NDCs that are either no better or in some cases slightly worse than their first one Australia, Brazil, Mexico, Russia, Indonesia. These the stand out and obviously more work is needed here. But in addition ahead and then at Glasgow, we've seen a wave, a real wave of announcements of net zero emissions by around mid century so something like 85% of the world's population is now covered by net zero targets. And I've listed here a few that declared just before or at Glasgow. Now I don't want to sound too optimistic. Many of these net zero targets are vague with little detail no clear pathway for their achievement, but they are there and that really matters. And in many cases they have been formally tabled to the UN climate secretary and this would have been unthinkable two years ago. And let me just once again point out the central role of the US here I doubt very much that most of these if any of these countries would themselves have declared for net zero if the US had not been so earlier this year. The exception I would say is China which declared its net zero targets last year in 2020. Now, a really interesting development and Simon mentioned this is this sharpening focus on methane. Now why is this important, because methane is a very large contributor to global warming, it's more powerful and more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and it is also short lived. And what this means is that curbing methane emissions would have an outsized and immediate impact on temperature. And this is very important now that we have that we need to have this new focus on very steep emission reductions by 2030. I mean I should say the methane has always been controlled by the international climate change regime but what we're seeing now is a sharpening focus on it. It's also relatively cheap and easy gas to tackle in certain sectors, especially in terms of limiting leakage from oil and gas extraction. And Simon mentioned the global methane pledge, which was actually sponsored by the US and the European Union launched in fact in September that acquired many more symmetry in Glasgow and methane is also mentioned in the cover decision. Now another key message I got from COP26 and it might be an uncomfortable one I admit this is that the most advanced economies, including Japan, the EU, UK, US will need to do much more to support decarbonisation in the developing world, and to help the most vulnerable adapt to climate change, and to help them recover from climate damages that are happening right now. And a central dimension of this is public finance from the wealthier nations to the poorer ones. And there is a lot to do going forwards to belatedly meet this $100 billion goal. This was a target for funding that was agreed in 2009 to achieve $100 billion in funding per year by 2020 which, which has been missed, got close to it but it's been missed. The parties need to negotiate a new collective finance goal for 2025 and to negotiate some funding arrangements for loss and damage for recovering from climate impacts through a new dialogue that's COP26 set up. This is a very heavy agenda of work on finance, but it is absolutely critical. It's really, really important politically and it should be seen not as a question of charity, but actually of solidarity and enlightened self interest. Now another side of the point here is that in Glasgow we saw a move to end public support for fossil fuels abroad. There was a declaration on this in Glasgow at the UK's initiative that was signed by more than 40 countries and development banks and this would see a halt to overseas funding for unabated fossil fuels next year, except in very specific circumstances. So if that development aid that was previously going towards fossil fuels, if that's going to be choked off, then this opens up opportunities to redirect it towards cleaner energy. And in this space on finance, I would also highlight this deal, $8.5 billion deal to help South Africa transition away from coal, which was announced in Glasgow. And it's certainly no coincidence that South Africa has put forward a particularly ambitious update to its NDC and these kind of bespoke targeted financial settlements will become increasingly important. I would say in boosting the low carbon transition and trust within developing countries. So looking beyond public finance, there are also the market mechanisms that have been set up under article six, which Simon mentioned and these provide really important new opportunities for the private sector to invest in low carbon projects overseas, also helping to transfer technology and know how. Now of course the US couldn't take part in the predecessor in the clean development mechanism under the Kyoto protocol because it wasn't a party to that treaty. But now there's an opportunity for the private sector to catch up to make up for this and to engage with the Paris agreements mechanisms. So in summary, Glasgow, in my view, did score some significant wins, but it's now up to governments and stakeholders to really deliver and build on these. And it's very important that as the major spotlight shifts to other events going on in the world that the pledges and promises made in Glasgow are not just forgotten. There's a long list of tasks tasks ahead going forwards to COP 27 in Egypt and beyond finance certainly take centre stage here. But there's also the imperative of encouraging countries whose 2030 mission targets are still quite weak to encourage them to revisit these by 2022 as requested by the COP. And added to that it'll be really critical to lock in and build on the various declarations that were made in Glasgow, including the methane pledge, including on ending international fossil fuel financing and deforestation is another one and there are more. And here there will be a really critical role to play for the UK COP presidency, which actually continues through to COP 27 in 2022 and also for US diplomacy. And then one last point, and I can't stress this enough, this diplomacy, this leadership must be founded on strong climate policy domestically. It's only really through robust robust action at home that the UK and the US can have the credibility and the authority on the international stage to push others to do more. I'll leave it at that. Thank you. Thank you Joanna for that great presentation and as a reminder slides are available online at www.esi.org. Also as a reminder for people following us online and there are many. You can ask us questions you can do that in two ways. One is by sending us an email, the email address to uses ASK ask at ESI org, you can also follow us on Twitter at ESI online and we're getting a couple and we're working to incorporate those into the Q&A. Our final panelist today is Ann Kelly. Ann is the Vice President of Government Relations at Ceres, a nonprofit sustainability organization that mobilizes investor and business leadership to build a more sustainable global economy. Ann also directs business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy or BISEP Coalition of 52 leading companies including Mars, L'Oreal and VF Corporation advocating for meaningful climate and energy policy at the federal and state levels. She is actively engaged on Capitol Hill on behalf of Ceres as well as BISEP member companies and welcome to our briefing today. I will turn it over to you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much Dan for that introduction and thanks to Simon and Nicole and Joanna, those are three superb, rich presentations that I can very, very briefly build upon in my remarks and of course anxious to get to your questions and our discussion. So I've been asked just to comment on the business response to the COP and the business view and I'm going to try to do so by keeping the title of this session in mind which is what Congress needs to know going forward because as all three speakers have allowed the current what's most important now is what we do from here. I appreciate the context given by Simon and Joanna about this COP in particular, and I too wanted to offer as I approach the topic, you know, put this in context which has already been noted but I want to highlight that from a business perspective, the US being back in, was profound and very, very different from the last three cops that we experienced so the US being back sends a signal. And I think the way that businesses look at something like this is essentially businesses and investors and Ceres represents both. What are the signals that we're getting what are the economic signals what is the direction of travel. To have an administration that says we are back in we are all in to have an administration that favors rule making over rule breaking sends a critical economic signal, and that may be why so many businesses, despite travel restrictions and COVID restrictions and limited it's elected to show up show up in person and many, many more on zoom. So don't want to, we cannot overstate the importance of the US having an active rule and the message that sends to the overall business community about the importance of climate action and therefore likely climate rules and regulations coming forward within your future. So fundamentally important. Let me say that business is not a monolith which you already know. And when I say it's important to think about the business community as representing a vast spectrum from real leaders to real detractors on the just the two blunt ends of the spectrum there. All of you know that the fossil fuel sector was the largest sector represented in larger than any country delegation. That's unfortunate I would put the fossil fuel sector in the detractor category. I'm going to leave it at that series represents business leaders, those who are setting science based targets those who are really seeking to see the Paris agreement become successful and to keep us at 1.5 our interaction with fossil fuel companies is largely through pressure imposed by our investor allies so I will leave it at that and I'm going to focus on what we can look at when we think about the business leaders. And there I want to point to an important letter that was sent and signed by over 700 companies before the cop that was sent to all of the G 20 and those companies span the world about 200 in the US around 7 trillion total in in revenue and they were calling for stronger costs for a phase out and I do mean phase out of coal for an end period and to fossil fuel subsidies and for mandatory climate risk disclosure now. I can tell you that was the first to see that number of companies ahead of time up to two months ahead of time, calling on the G 20 really putting forward what they were looking for was significant. And of course, the fact that as previous speakers have noted the fact that we have a phase down granted it's phase down of coal and an end to inefficient fossil fuel subsidies is of course notable, and will be recognized by the business community and again I think signals the correct signal. I can't help but quote, my friend Jennifer Morgan of Greenpeace, who in talking about the final result, said it's meek, it's weak, and the 1.5 Celsius goal is only just alive, but a signal has been sent that the era of coal is ending that signal that again the business community looked narrowly at what is the signal what what is the direction of travel and in that way again, you know very positive to get a little more specific I just want to comment on the methane pledge, which lines up beautifully with the methane rules that the administration dropped, as you know, just at the start of COP. We among others are mobilizing investor and business support for those methane rules which are of the utmost importance in two parts part one deadline mid January part two coming out in the spring, and also really lines up nicely with the current methane reduction program that is part of the build back better package. So there's a real synergy, and it leads to a real consensus, and therefore increased support for methane reduction all around so that that was really important. There was a discussion at the COP around deforestation with Senator shots, which sets the stage beautifully for the filing of his bill and of course the consensus to fight deforestation is a great interest to those leading companies that I mentioned earlier. So I think what Congress needs to know is to expect further business support around two of those critical areas that came up at the COP, and we should look for that. I wanted to highlight that we hosted a congressional delegation which had seven senators and 30 major companies and these are of course off the record sessions, but there was real candid discussion there. And I was so thrilled to hear so many business leaders talking to these seven senators from across the country they happen to all be Democrats. The companies were clearly saying we support a price on carbon we support this direction of travel we supported the NDC in 2034 111 companies came out for the interim target that the 2030 target last April to say we want to see this strong target again. That was the first time that collection of businesses actually got fully engaged in an NDC and I look forward to their continued involvement as we continue the ratchet mechanism and see how effective it can be. The leaders in that codel and the congressional delegation said that he had never seen this much positive business support at a COP, and this is a veteran of the process who's been to many, many cops, and I was struck by his perception of what he was seeing, and what he was hearing throughout the time that was there. So we see that as very positive. And that brings us to the critical moment, which we find ourselves in right now. And that is the desire to pass the reconciliation package and the build back better package. Well how does that link to COP 26 well, of course the linkage is that the US showed up, made pledges both formally and informally that the US will lead that we are all in, and that we are going to keep our promises. So that increases the pressure and the excitement frankly around actually passing the build back better package, given the strength of the climate commitments there, and you can count on the business community, getting behind that package, and making a compelling economic case for action, especially when compared to inaction and we heard so much over the COP about the consequences of inaction and I take Nicole's comments very seriously. I think we have to take the comments of Greta and Vanessa very seriously despite our optimism. They're asking us to help them. Vanessa kept saying over and over prove us wrong. So what about our optimism the context of those who are suffering immediately, obviously, and those who are under the age of 25. So, I would count on looking for companies to come forward, make the economic case investors making the the economic case. I think, you know, COP 27 also increases the pressure companies feel from their younger employees from their customers. Today from the Yale Office of Communications that the number has never been higher of Americans who are concerned, or deeply concerned about climate change. All of these affect, especially consumer brands, who are really see themselves and part of their license to climate change is being active on climate. That's why 395 companies in the US have a plan to set, have set science based targets, 207 of those have been approved. There are all kinds of commitments that are kind of on the sidelines that came around the COP, but that are perfectly timed to demonstrate a corporate individual action that I think we're going to continue to see forward going forward. So that's one of the great amounts of purchasing of renewable energy. I think it's important for members of Congress to pay attention to that. And also, the one of the reasons companies are so excited about the investments in the build back better package is the way in which will support this renewable energy sector that they themselves are so ready, willing and able to invest in having the government support that is of the utmost importance. One of the quotes that Joanna had in her slide is really worth our remembering which is the quote from John Kerry, that in a good negotiation all parties are uncomfortable. I think we're all pretty uncomfortable right now with the build back better package and the compromises that have been made. And perhaps that's a good thing, perhaps that means that we have really zeroed in on an appropriate bipartisan compromise, including with the methane reduction program that's built into it. So we're certainly looking for that passage. And I think once we can get that through it makes us ease it makes it easier for the US to hold its head up high in global negotiations like the COP, and to have it pass just weeks after returning from Glasgow I think will be an important statement for the US so we look forward to making sure that that happens. And at this point I'm looking forward to your questions and our discussion. Thanks Dan. Absolutely and thank you so much. I am going to invite Simon and Joanna to turn their videos back on and to help us navigate our question and answer session I would like to introduce my colleague and again for policy manager. You may remember Anna for such briefings as momentum on climate adaptation and the negotiations what's on the table. We've been featured in lots of these briefings because she's such a huge part of our COP 26 coverage. Anna, turn it over to you for the start of the Q&A. Great thanks Dan excited to be here. So we're going to just jump right in. We've got lots of questions, both coming from the audience and ones were excited to ask from ESI as well so I'm the first question I want to get to is obviously COP 26 has been in the news of course throughout the COP and then lots of headlines following the COP and trying to kind of sort out what's happened so I'm curious if you could and to some extent some of you have done this already in your presentations but I think there's lots to choose from so I think we can still dive into this. What have been some things you've been hearing about COP 26 in the news that you think maybe don't get it quite right that you give us maybe a quick deep dive into here. Kind of clear that up for us and we've also got a question from the audience, I think mostly directed to you Simon, on how journalists are able to deal with the challenges of access within the COP and kind of understanding what's going on in the negotiations in real not only, you know, access to the room but just a sheer amount of things happening at once. How do you kind of keep track of all that and try to report on it as accurately as possible so maybe we can go in the order of presentation so we'll start with you Simon go to Joanna and then go to Yeah so I think the biggest thing that was probably not reported as well as it could have been was this coal fight and I already touched on that and I'm kind of conscious of time so probably just focus maybe on the second question So obviously particularly this COP I don't know about how others experienced it but my feeling was that it was, I mean COP's always a bit overwhelming, but this time around was particularly you know it was like a deluge of announcements coming from all directions at all times and on top of that the COP venue itself was quite cramped, there were also record numbers of registered delegates and it just kind of felt quite claustrophobic and it was so it was particularly tough to keep up with what was going on. I mean in terms of trying to get a sense of you know accurate reports in keeping track of the negotiations, you know that basically that relies on you know sources you know the standard journalistic thing. So that might be negotiators that you know that you get to know or it might be you know subject experts that work with you know observer organizations civil society NGOs and so on. And then you know actually I think one of the underrated approaches is actually just to read the draft negotiating texts because a lot of people don't do that. And although it is written in a slightly strange UN speak and it you know there's often a kind of a mess of brackets, you can actually get a pretty good sense of where the fights are just by looking at those. Thanks Joanna we'll jump to you. Yeah, and building on that can I just pay tribute to Simon, who really did do some incredible analysis of these negotiating texts within minutes of them coming out and I think the entire climate change community is grateful to you Simon for doing that. I wasn't a journalist but I do just want to point out that the UK government was choreographing the media announcements very very carefully this is a presidency the more than any other certainly wanted to spin the various outcomes they got a favourable reception in the media I'm crossing out necessarily a bad thing but that's certainly something to to highlight. So talking about the media I think that there were two, two stories really that I slightly raised my eyebrows that one was this claim at the beginning that China was not represented, because Xi Jinping did not make the journey to to Glasgow, and it was not often mentioned that Xi Jinping has not left China since the beginning of the covids 19 pandemics it was very unlikely that he would come to Glasgow and certainly his the fact that he wasn't there making a speech had absolutely no bearing whatsoever on China's participation China participated extremely actively. The second thing I would say was this portrayal of India as a kind of villain in a way. And I think not just in the coal fight at the end but also at the beginning there were some really quite strange stories when India announced its net zero by 2070 targets sort of implying that this was somehow a very retrograde step the 2070 was extremely late without really pointing out that India's emissions per person absolutely tiny they are less than half the global average and they're what one eighth of those of the US so there's no way that India could be expected to take on the 2050 net zero target and that was a bit disappointing but some really quite senior journalists didn't really put that into context and in terms of the coal fight as Simon puts it, it wasn't just India that was wary of signing up to a phase out of coal I mean it was also China, it was Nigeria, it was South Africa and these are perfectly legitimate concerns for these developing countries to have and even a green phase down was an absolutely massive win but I would say overall, the level of major coverage that COP26 enjoyed was absolutely incredible and from all around the world from what I could, from what I could gather and that can only be a really good thing and in general, the quality of coverage was absolutely superb I would say in general not with sending those two little hiccups that I mentioned. And you're muted. Yeah, sorry about that I just enthusiastically agreeing with Joanna about the quality and the quantity of the press I have not seen anything like it before really so many people mentioning it all over, you know, all sorts of news outlets that wouldn't cover it in this in this amount of details I am loathe to criticize any journalist who was trying to cover this especially under the conditions that Simon was describing. But I guess building a little bit on Joanna's comment there I think you know there is a little bit of a tendency to diss India and China, the why aren't Indian China without putting this, but without putting it in context of who these countries are in these countries about the massive contribution of the US to the problem. Also the per capita, the per capita contribution of the US versus your average Chinese person or your average Indian person you really have to fully embrace our contribution. And also when we think about China did we have to realize that their emissions are going up because they're making our stuff. We have offshore and manufacturing years ago and so yes their emissions are going up. If we on short and we manufacture things here, we're likely to take some of that responsibility back on I think that's one story. I would have loved to see folks dig into a little more. The only second story is on fossil fuel subsidies that I'm always looking for comparative analysis to, I love John Kerry's quote, you know that the continuation of fossil fuel subsidies is the definition of insanity. I just like to see that compared to the renewable energy sector because much of the build back better bill will of course help to subsidize through tax credits, the clean energy sector, and just first to fully see inequities in terms of what we how we have subsidize this fossil fuel sector for so long versus the poultry amounts that we've given to the renewable energy sector love to see those comparisons but other than that know the press did a fine job. Thanks so much. Okay, so our next question jumps into what happens next now that the Paris rulebook has finally been finalized. So, what kind of changes for the UNF triple C process now that this finalization has happened and one of you mentioned sort of an inflection point and growing pains between the rulemaking body and implementation so would love any additional thoughts on that and then for our audience which is mostly practitioners either on the Hill and federal agencies, working communities across the US. Can you share some changes that they might see if any, because this rulebook is finalized any opportunities that might open up, or new reporting requirements that they might come across in their work. Why don't we maybe start with Joanna this time, and then we'll go to Anne and we'll wrap up with Simon. Thank you Anna yeah that's a very interesting question. And I think it will certainly take you know a few months to really get a handle on what all this means internationally. It will certainly mean a huge uplift in reporting on the part of countries in reporting more frequently and reporting in much greater detail and that's especially the case for developing countries, because we have to remember that in the developed world so including the US we have been reporting our emissions data annually since 1994, and then periodically on our policies so in a sense that the real difference is actually applies to developing countries, rather than develop this for them but that does involve, you know, over 150 countries so this will mean a huge influx of new data and of new information about adaptation needs as well and about policies and I think shining a light on what's actually happening in the developing world I think will be really interesting because there's a lot more happening than developing countries are often given credit for. What it will also need though is capacity building to enable this reporting you know it's not always easy to get your hands on your own national emissions data there will be capacity building going on, there will be funding going on all kinds of support that's really important. And obviously the second arm to that are the article six mechanisms where yes we finalize the rulebook that's true but there's still more work to go before the first projects can actually start to be implemented as a supervisory committee that needs to be set up. There are methodologies that need to be agreed. There's a whole bunch of stuff but hopefully now that all that has been agreed. It would all be gradually pushed through and I think, you know, right now, right now private sector companies can start to think about, you know, partnering with people in, you know, in Brazil in Nigeria, wherever, and start to look out for those those promising projects in a way I say there's a lot to do but from what I see a lot of the article six mechanisms are basically going to replicate what we already have under the clean development mechanism but under new names, and which I think is really good with this. So I'm sure if Nicole was here, she'd be pointing out the safeguards for indigenous peoples to guard against lab grabs. And there's, there's all kinds of mechanisms in place for making complaints making appeals so it's a much strengthened system but it is an expanded system, and it certainly does present a lot of opportunities, which hopefully I'm sure and members would already have been thinking about this. And that's our hope is that our members are in fact thinking about this and thinking about ways in which they can't remember that many of them have extended supply chains in the developing world which I just alluded to and that they will in terms of the reporting requirements that they'll feel some responsibility that they'll want to be tracking in a closer way well where what is happening in these countries we have this expanded reach we are multi nationals, and that they will feel some responsibility and some need for partnership in the developing world as countries are forced to, are asked to give us much more data, and how is it going so it isn't going to be enough to measure your greenhouse gas footprint and what you're doing in the US it's much much, it's just a much greater responsibility so I'm excited about that I think it's a positive outcome. And just very briefly to say I'm going to have to shoot off after this question to pick up my daughter from nursery and so I'll keep this brief and just just a couple of things. And first of all, you know we've got this this really important process next year with the request for countries to revisit and strengthen their climate pledges. We've already seen just in you know kind of matter of hours almost after the gavel came down in Glasgow, and Australia saying that they wouldn't increase their 2030 pledge having already failed to do that. But also in the in the Glasgow climate pact that there was a process, which means that this this really important question of pre 2030 ambition so increasing emissions cuts in the next nine years. That's going to be like a standing, a standing item on the agenda at the next cop and then you know and beyond. So it's not going away and the diplomatic pressure that those you know those countries the laggards that are you know failing to pull up their socks that you know that's that's also not going away. So that's going to be really interesting to watch, obviously, by the end of 2022 means that countries can turn up in COP 27 without having done that. But I'm sure they'll be you know huge huge push to get that you know get that going before we arrive in Egypt. And just the other thing that's this I think it's quite interesting bit of a gray area on article six is this this kind of interlinkage if you know whether there's an interlinkage with the voluntary carbon market. You know, a corporate buying offsets in order to meet their own their own emissions pledges. Now there was an at one stage there was a draft that that made a very clear linkage to the voluntary carbon markets. And, but that isn't there in the final text. So it's still not totally clear how that how that's going to work. I think you know that there's there's this sort of expert expectation that's been set that the corporates buying offsets under this mechanism. If they're allowed to do that would have to kind of make the corresponding adjustments to avoid double counting but that isn't set in stone and I know I think there's a bit of dust to settle on on exactly how it's going to work. Thank you Simon and I know you have to run the dealing with time changes. Whether it was Anna or Emma or Savannah less me very difficult to get our heads around the time differences, especially when everything changes halfway through with the daylight savings ending but Simon before you take off. I have one more question for and Joanna but before you take off thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you. Anna and the last question that I kind of wanted to leave with is so, and I was scolded a little bit earlier today by referring to this as downtime, but we are in fact in between cops. And while everybody's going to be working very hard getting ready for COP 27. It's not going to happen for another 11 months or so and I was curious, and maybe we'll start with you this time. What do you see happening between are there things that you're going to be watching for that will either give you a good feeling about COP 27 or maybe make you a little sort of concerned about maybe where progress is headed. What are you going to be watching out for between now and when world leaders convene in Egypt next year. Yeah, thanks for that question Dan I mean first and foremost, I'm looking out for the passage of our reconciliation bill which is just a way of saying that this is going to be this is something really important to show the US is serious about its NDC. And we simply have to get this package through. So we're looking out for both the passage of it and the implementation of this package as well as the bipartisan infrastructure package that just went through the, the historic investment in electric vehicles the historic investment in in rail, the historic investment in resilience so it's a way in which the US can walk the talk, and ideally inspire other industrialized nations accordingly so we have to both pass them. We have to track and market our successes and the ways in which they're working and their cost effectiveness. Believe it or not I'm also looking to hope that the price on the carbon pricing conversation gets more developed, and that we get closer to a potential bipartisan agreement on one of two things, either a carbon price or going back to the clean energy performance program, and that was dropped out of the build back better bill, but there may be a possibility of picking up the pieces and revisiting that again in a bipartisan way, which is always our preference and would be much more durable, and I think send again an important global signal. Finally, I'm looking for the US to keep its promises into the environmental justice community. And to the community that Nicole represents there've been a number of promises made by the Biden administration I take them very seriously about really looking out for vulnerable communities in a way that no other administration has, we need to make progress there as we model as a nation, what the globe needs to do in terms of really looking to support those who have born a disproportionate burden of climate change and environmental impact, and really care for them, listen to their interests in a serious way in hopes that happens on the global stage as well. Joanna, I think this means you get the last word. Thank you very much. So there's a very well defined agenda going towards Egypt, there's a whole bunch of workshops of talks of sessions that need to happen. I wanted to flag the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change the IPCC will be releasing the second and third parts of its sixth assessment report so on mitigation and impacts adaptation and that would also be, you know, a very important moment to track where we are in terms of climate change impacts and what we can actually do to address the problem. But I think what I would do, what I really want to do actually would have a joint last word with Anne in the sense that this period now has to be about meeting promises, meeting promises that is absolutely critical. It's about meeting promises on finance, about actually meeting the $100 billion goal and exceeding it, and it's about meeting promises on mitigation and I'm afraid the entire 30 year history of the climate change regime despite real progress, it's been littered with broken promises. And I feel sad to have to say this present company but most of those have been broken by the US. And if the US can pass these bills that Anne is talking about, and can make stronger and deliver the money that's at the $11 billion that's been promised, and make more financial pledges that will make all the difference that will really unlock the global response to climate change. Yeah, so let's all go home to our countries to our communities, let's all implement on the ground it's about meeting promises internationally and taking action domestically I cannot emphasize that more. Well thank you Joanna and that's what this briefing series has been all about, because the people who are in charge of those following through on those promises are really important, and we have to make sure that they have all the educational resources that they have. I would like to say special thanks to you and Anne for joining us today in absentia. Thanks also to Nicole and Simon for joining us an excellent conversation. Anna, thank you for leading us through a great Q&A, a really cool and informative conclusion to our five part briefing series, all about Congress and COP26. I would like to also acknowledge everyone hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people who have attended our briefings over the last few weeks, and have subscribed to our daily newsletters and downloaded our fact sheets and issue briefs, and have read our media coverage or coverage in the Thank you so much for taking advantage of all of our resources. We will put up some slides in just a moment and one of those slides will be a survey slide we'll get to that in just a second, but take, take a moment and fill that out when we get there. Before I describe what's on the screen right now, I would just like to acknowledge once again that this briefing series would not have been possible without our honorary co-sponsor of the British Embassy of Washington, and not without our partner, the Henry M. Jackson Foundation. Thank you so much for your generous support. We continue to cover COP26 in written materials. Of course, we had a series of briefings we covered in great depth, many of the topics that were discussed today, including climate adaptation and climate finance. We also kicked off with the October 8 briefing with Sir Robert Watson and Christiana Figueras talking about creating policies, coalitions and actions for global sustainable development and the Making Peace with Nature report that came out earlier this year. If you want to check any of those out and I really encourage you if you've missed any of them, be sure to visit us online at www.esi.org. But we also have been posting additional resources online as well. The written materials, for example, three online trackers that have kept track of things that we followed very closely during COP26 congressional engagement at COP26, as well as the announcements that were made and the reports that were released. So those are also available online as well. And I think those three in particular are especially unique resources and I haven't seen a lot of similar resources. So please take advantage of those. Our next briefing series, we're going to turn a bit of a corner and we're going to look at issues around waste in our December briefing mini series, reduce and reuse. We will have three briefings. The first is December 8, building materials from production to reuse. The second December 9, the climate consequences of plastics and December 10, reducing emissions by reducing food waste. So if you have not yet RSVP'd for these briefings, you can do so. There's the link, you can also just Google us, you can visit us, our homepage www.esi.org. Or best of all, you can sign up for our bi-weekly newsletter, Climate Change Solutions, it's the greatest way, really the best way to keep track of everything that we're up to today. So this is the survey link I mentioned a minute ago. We really value every bit of feedback, we read every response. If you have two minutes, you can let us know how we did today, or how we did during the whole briefing series. We'd really, really appreciate that. Did you have any tech issues? Did you have any issues navigating the website? Did you have comments about speakers or topics or ideas for future coverage? We really do take every bit of feedback we get very seriously. I also like to thank a lot of hard work across EESI over the last weeks and months. Special thanks to Dan O'Brien and Omri for all the help with the briefings. Special thanks to Anna, Emma, Savannah for all the help and tremendous hard work during the COP26 itself and all of the lead up to the briefings. Special thanks to Amber for keeping everything else on track. Everyone contributes to these briefings at EESI.org, at EESI, even though maybe I'm the one who shows up on the webcast more frequently by no means do I do all of the work. It's really done by a really talented and devoted team of professionals. I'd also like to thank Isabella, Valerie, and Roshni. There are three interns, future climate professionals, and they make everything that we do possible. So thanks very much to them. I hope I had it ended there maybe a minute early. Thanks to everyone who joined us today online. And if you want to find anything more about our briefings, again, visit us online. But we'll see you in December for reduce and reuse our Waste Mini series. Thanks so much and have a great rest of your Thursday.