 Good morning, everyone, and I hope you enjoyed the coffee break. Now we're meeting to discuss one topic which has become more and more a reality. Hot summers and cold winters. Hotter than usual, colder than usual. Now, energy efficiency has never played such a crucial role as it is playing today. And it's not just about its role in decarbonising, it's also about its role in ensuring energy security and also ensuring that it benefits those who are most vulnerable in our society by really allowing to consume efficiently. And today's session now is focusing on buildings because indeed, buildings are an essential part of our transition towards low-carbon economy. And in fact, if I take the global figures, they represent 30% of the final energy consumption and 27% of all energy sector emissions. So it's crucial and it's decisive to tackle buildings. And within these emissions, heating and cooling represent about half of the energy demand and also it's used essentially for water and space heating as well. Now we know from various studies that the marginal costs of decarbonising in heating and cooling will be lower than in other carbon intensive sectors such as industry and transport. So it's about really seizing this potential. And in doing so, we also need to tackle behaviour and behavioural changes are key. So it's in this context that I'm really pleased and honoured to have with us an excellent panel coming and representing four continents of the world with different approaches, different perspectives, but sharing many common challenges. So we have with us today his Excellency Raymond Kuders, Minister for Climate and Energy in Latvia. Welcome, Minister. We also have his Excellency Ocasai Applaud, Uganda Minister of State for Energy. Welcome. With us and representing industry, Monsieur Benoît Bazin, CEO of Saint-Gobain Company. Also with us today, Mr. Laurent Michel, who is the Director General for Energy and Climate at the Ministry of Ecological Transition in the country which is hosting us at France. Also with us, Miss Paula Glover, President of the Alliance to Save Energy and usually based in the United States. And we have with us Mr. Zhu Ji, CEO and President of the Energy Foundation China. And our youngest representative in the panel today, Miss Winifred Awingpoya Atanga. She's the Act Peer Educator from Rwanda. So very big welcome to all of you. And I would start immediately with a question to Minister Kudars. Minister, in 2021 Latvia recorded high temperatures of almost 34 degrees and a record low of minus 27 degrees. So a hot summer, a very cold winter. This temperature range, while exceptional, really highlights the topic that we are discussing in this session. Can you share with us the Latvian experience on this topic and how you've been dealing with it in Latvia? Thank you very much for a question. And firstly, I thank you very much for invitation. And Latvia is not an official part of the International Energy Agency, but we are in process. And I hope in next year, beginning of next year, we will be, and as for us, it's very important and thank you again for invitation here to be together with our colleagues. Of course, I come from region with some big differences of temperatures. In summer it's hot and we wear shirts. And in wintertime, we wear a warm coat. And it's absolutely normal in Latvia. And the additional challenge is not only this difference of temperatures, additional challenge is fluctuation of temperatures. For example, now we have Latvia very warm day, approximately 22, for Baltic is a very good condition. But in night period, today we have approximately five and sometimes below zero. It is possible and for heating system. And in Latvia, of course, it's key challenges, it's heating system. It is very, very difficult in terms of regulation, in terms of investment, in terms of efficiency. And it's two parts of efficiency. One part is producing of heating and other is building, of course, it's very important. But for producing of heating, it is very, very big challenges to make the system efficiency and affordability for population, for citizens. Because when we see last year's increasing of prices, it was very terrible time for many people in Europe, in Baltic region, Latvia too. And now we can see in future with some most of the mystical. But of course, we must be ready for some emergency situation in sector of energy. And Latvia heating systems backbones is a robust district heating system. It was legacy from Soviet time, but in generally, district heating or centralizing systems of heating is efficiency. And last 10 years, approximately 50 million euros was invested in the system across Latvia. And most of the system, district system, displayed in Riga and capital of Latvia and some other countryside and other cities in Latvia. And just for example, because I have some experience as major for 13 years, some average Latvian cities, approximately with 20,000 people, we have fluctuation for producing of heating in winter time, approximately 30 megawatts in summer, not only for hot water, for buildings 2 megawatts. It is some challenges in this situation. Of course, in digitalization, I think it's a key word in this situation because the system, every system of central heating system is built with many resources. And Latvian basic resource is biomass as renewable resources. It is our basic load for district heating, but without gas for peak times, without other non-born technologies, as for example solar technologies for central heating systems, solar technologies, not only for producing of electricity, it is quite difficult. Yes, thank you. Thank you very much, Minister Kudars. And indeed, you described the supply side, but then on the demand side, it's also where we need to work and a lot on consumer behavior. And that's why I'd like to ask Ms. Atanga, indeed, as behavior and awareness campaigns are key in addressing people's attitude to energy consumption, you actually are the co-founder of EcoHomes, an initiative which is led by young people like you and which is dedicated to providing space to promote sustainable changes through sustainability projects and campaigns, for instance, clean cooking solutions. What was the importance, you believe, of these campaigns in the success of your EcoHomes initiative? Thank you for the question. And thank you, IEA, for giving us a space to speak as young people. I believe many young people are here and would also love this opportunity. So I'm very thankful to represent all young people. So for EcoHomes, EcoHomes is, for those of you who don't know, EcoHomes is a local-led initiative by young people, for young people, but starting now, not in the future. Yes, so we promote sustainable changes at home through recycling, plastic waste, and also organic waste for cooking. So this organic waste is biogas and ethanol gel. So for behavioral changes, EcoHomes adapted a human-centered design in the process of building our solutions because we believe that to be able to provide solutions for young people, for the community, we needed to understand the people that we are working for. So we stayed in with them, conducted research for the past four years. We are still in the process of research, even though our project has been launched, we continue to create more research. So in the process of human-centered design, we realize that it's really important to understand that campaigns on behavior is very important because you can create solutions for people without understanding what their problems are. And before understanding, you need to also, after understanding, you need to create awareness of what these problems and how they can solve these problems with you. So I believe in the process of doing that, we're able to provide them with the idea of understanding that energy and energy consumption or conservation is very key. We could provide them with solutions, but how are we sure that they'll be able to use these solutions effectively? How they'll be able to use these solutions effectively is through energy efficiency and conservation. So we create awareness on energy conservation, how to use energy efficiently at home, whether in cooking or heating. We also identified that in rural communities, because those are our target audience, we don't really target the cities because they have their own things and the rural communities do not. There's always a gap, but you understand. So for local communities, most people do not understand that when you talk about cooking, it's energy. Well, we conducted literacy campaigns in a local school, so we asked them a question, what is energy? Oh, is the ability to do work okay? Do you know that for all your mom uses to cook, it's energy? They're like, no, that's charcoal, what do you mean? So we have to create awareness. So behavior from a young age is very essential of them understanding that energy is not just the ability to do work, it is also what they used to cook, what they used to eat, or anything that they do, because I believe energy is the center of all the SDGs. No one should agree that that's what I believe, because without energy, everything revolves around energy. So I believe, as our targets are young people, it is very, very important and awareness and behavior campaigns play a very important role in understanding the basics of energy from its efficiency to its conservation and its usage. Thank you. Thank you very much and also for putting emphasis on the fact that it's not about imposing behaviors, but first and foremost, we need to understand who is the consumer at stake and address the specificities. Then let me go on, because in this transition, and if we are to really seize the huge potential of energy efficiency, we cannot do it without the governments, the young people, but also the industry, which plays a key role in providing the solutions and the services. And that's why I'd like to ask Mr. Bazin from Sengo-Ban, Sengo-Ban has actually set an objective to help its consumers reduce their CO2 emissions through the use of its products and solutions, or by reducing the carbon impact of their production. Now, how is this being actually achieved and against the background of this increasingly hot summers and increasingly unpredictable winters? Thank you. It's optimistic because we have solutions indeed. The question is the scale and the speed. If you look at any building, you lose 30% of the energy through the roof, 20% through the facade, 15% through the floor. So tackling the envelope of the building is the solution to reduce by roughly 70% of the energy you spend. So this is what we provide in 75 countries around the world, all the solutions to have the right performance on the envelope of the building. By doing so, by the way, you can avoid 1.3 billion tonnes of CO2 during the lifetime of the building, because you reduce heat, you reduce cooling, etc. So if I take Sengo-Ban solutions, we make 50 billion euros of sales around the world, the impact, the positive impact of our solutions during the lifetime of a good insulated home, a new home with the right standard, you save 1.3 billion tonnes of CO2. So that's massive and it's 40 times the total scope, one to three, of emissions from Sengo-Ban to manufacture those materials. So that's tackling the envelope is the solution. The second is that it's very important to do things in the right order. If you were to put a heat pump in a badly insulated home, I take the image of driving your car with the windows wide open and the air conditioning at maximum speed. It's not good, it's not going to bring any benefit, and worse, we all know that we lack electricity, we lack green energy. There is not enough investment, even in you, about green electricity. If we don't have the right insulation on the envelope, we will oversize all the equipment and we will spend a huge amount of money on electricity and we will not bring the benefits. So it's very important to do that. I take also the sensors you can put in a building. When your kids are sick, you want the thermometer or do you want the drugs and the doctor? We provide the cure of the building by tackling the envelope versus the thermometer to measure what's left or not, or if you have a badly insulated home, yes, it will be connected, but it will be badly insulated and people will freeze in their school or freeze in their home. So I think we have to put things in the right order. The good news is that all those products are made locally because the products in building materials don't travel and we don't build in Canada, like in Vietnam, like in South Africa, so it's very important to be local for those local countries. But again, I'm optimistic because the solutions do exist. It's tackling the envelope, it's putting things in the right order and it brings a lot of comfort and basic wellbeing for the users. It could be at home, it could be in a school, it could be in a hospital. It's very important to realise that a lot of people, even in France, we have 4 million people who live in bad housing and bad housing because they cannot either pay their energy bill or buy food. That's in France in 2022. So it's very important to take care of that. This is the real life of the people. You could find it a bit boring to renovate so many houses and millions of homes in France and Europe around the world, but we have to do it and we have to do it in the right order, tackling the low efficient energy homes first with all the public subsidies or I think we have to address that. If I take just France, we have 5 million of homes which are F and G, the lowest grade on energy performance. They make 70 to 80% of the CO2 emissions. All the public efforts, all the norms should be there to progressively move up the minimum energy performance tackling the envelope. But the solution exists, so I'm optimistic. It's a matter of scale and speed. Thank you very much. And the idea really that we cannot, it's not about individual actions, it's not about replacing the window or putting the solar PV. It's the combination of all the measures that will really provide for most efficiency. And in this regard, I can't hold, even in my role as moderator, to refer to the performance of buildings directive at European level which is being negotiated. As we speak, it just started yesterday with the European Parliament and the member states and where, among the provisions, it's about tackling the worst performing buildings first because they really can bring a lot of efficiencies in a short time. Now, we have heard from Latvia. Now we'd like to hear from France and we've all come from a very, very challenging year including the winter where the whole of the world was looking into Europe and whether we would make it in terms of overcoming the winter. And countries like France have taken ambitious measures, notably to address the energy crisis, to reduce, in an efficient way, energy consumption. Mr. Michel, how did France go about this and what was the balance in terms of maybe sometimes sacrificing some comfort of the consumers in order to make sure that we would also reduce consumption? Yes, thank you very much for this meeting and this question. So the idea was asked by the President and implemented by our Minister to have minus 10% of consumption of electricity and gas in 2024. The plan, it was called sufficiency plan, was launched in October after, and I think this was very important, a strong consultation with many stakeholders, municipalities, but also, for instance, the world of sports that use many buildings, businesses, and so on. What did we do? First, it was, let's say, small investments or small measures that could have a strong impact very fast. For instance, improved maintenance of heating devices or better use of your piloting devices in the buildings and so on. And of course, there was much emphasis on respecting rules regarding temperature in buildings, not more than 19 degrees Celsius. And so this was a short term action, but already at this stage, we'd also put emphasis on a little more long term actions, such as now there are regulations that compel you to install pilot devices until 2027, yes, in buildings. But we said, okay, this is for 2027, but start now, we will give you subsidies to accelerate. And this gave the results the Minister said. And also what was very important was communication, public awareness campaigns, but also mobilization of many stakeholders. For instance, the heating and cooling and energy service companies made much promotion of these measures towards their customers because the heating service companies work for customers. These are customers asked for something or does not ask for something, it's different. So they promoted all these measures, for instance, of better maintenance. And perhaps I will finish that by saying that also from the beginning of the plan and for the next step, we would have this to be also a first step towards longer term action. First, there will be a second sufficiency plan, which will probably be announced next week for summer and preparation of next winter in order to keep these savings. It's not the crisis, perhaps it's over or not. We don't know, but we want to keep the savings and we want to go further. That's why already some other measures have been launched such as increased support to connection to district heating, also a big program towards municipalities and buildings and renovation of their buildings with two faces or two tools, let's say, one tool to help them building their project because it's not easy to make a project if you are normal municipality. You don't have all technical means, you need advice. So there's support for this and there are more public funds to help with renovation. It's only one example, but it would make that also in industry or of course for households with any increased support to individual people or to collective building. And also here, an emphasis next year would be put in place on more advice, deeper advice to help people build their program. So the strong results match consultation with stakeholders and awareness campaigns and going to the future to build on this effort as a first step and not at the end of the story. Thank you. Thank you very much. So also the role of information campaigns as a key element and looking interestingly at what are these measures which have come out of a crisis but which could actually become structural. And I think across the society we've all discovered efficiency measures triggered by the need really to reduce and consume more efficiently. Let me now turn to Africa and let me turn to Minister Oplod and look into Uganda which you would think has generally a warm climate with average daytime temperatures ranging from 21 to 25 degrees. However, and we tend to forget that it can be much cooler at night. So this daily temperature range can of course constitute a challenge in ensuring that people are comfortable in their home while trying to remain efficient. What has been and is Uganda's approach to this issue, Minister? That's an interesting question. Thank you, Commissioner. You rightly said when this one was said the question hot summer, cold winter and I was just wondering what am I going to say about this? Because we are within a comfortable zone of temperatures. The temperature is between the day temperature 21 to 25, night 15 to 19. So that's fairly comfortable. You can cover yourself. When it's cold, you put a blanket on. When you're outside, you'd rather sit on the tree into air conditioning. For me, that focus is using energy for economic transformation of the country. That temperature range for Uganda is very suitable for pests in agriculture, is suitable for diseases. So it is actually fighting other adversaries which come to enjoy the temperatures. So for us, it is mainly looking at what you do to the vulnerable people. A woman is actually predominantly using biomass for cooking. The children spend a lot of time fetching firewood. So it is generating adequate electricity, adequate appropriate energy to save those vulnerable, to move them to a comfortable zone. So we are looking at a diverse array of energy resources that we have. Uganda is predominantly a clean energy country. Over 80% of our generated electricity is through renewable energy because of the array of resources that we have. Hydro, geothermal, solar, because of being a stride equator, the sun is always up there, and we can generate that energy. We're also looking to wind which we have in the country. So it is mainly using that energy efficiently to cause economic transformation. For me, I would be looking at how do I fight against the various adversaries in agriculture because our energy is mainly focused for productive uses of energy. So we drive it to agriculture. How do I conserve agricultural produce? How do I get the woman to cook the food using clean energy? How do I move my products from one part of the country or globally to the markets? That's what we would be talking into. Energy for transformation, for better lives at household, but most importantly, use energy now for advancing health, advancing education, advancing industrialization of the country and enhancing trade. That's what I would actually be discussing here, using energy for economic and productive uses. This is what I would present. I would set my own question out of this. How can I use energy for economic transformation and improving the livelihoods of the people? Thank you, Minister Apollot. And I think we can take this away. I like the slogan, energy and energy efficiency to trigger economic transformation, to trigger positive economic transformation. Now, I'd like to turn to Ms. Glever, who's heading Alliance to Save Energy and who, which mandate is quite an ambitious and challenging one. So the mandate and the mission of Alliance to Save Energy is make energy efficiency the most impactful, cost-effective driver of the just energy transition, reducing domestic emissions by 40% while at the same time advancing equity, reliability and affordability for customers. Now, this is a difficult one. How are you actually pursuing this vision in practice? Yeah, so thank you for the question and for the invitation. And as I hear that goal out loud, yeah, can't believe we wrote that down and decided that's what we were doing. You know, we at the Alliance have really made a commitment to center equity because we understand that efficiency has multiple touchpoints and there are a lot of ways that it's impactful for communities. The first, you know, not the first, but one that we often talk about is climate. But as many of us may know that in the United States, climate is not always the driver for decision-making. It's a very political kind of conversation. And so to pick up on the minister's theme, economics, right, efficiency can drive economic empowerment in a way that no other sector of the energy business can. We have more than two and a half million jobs in the United States can be created just from efficiency. That makes us the largest employer in the energy sector. Our roles are in 99.8% of the counties in the United States, so maybe six or five counties in the U.S. do not have a job in energy efficiency. And so we center equity, but what we're talking about is how do we ensure that efficiency is available, affordable, and accessible to every single person, household, small business in our country? And that is a huge goal. And the other, alongside that, we have an administration that is really also focused on equity and has created a lot of initiatives, one of which is Justice 40, to ensure that we are all focused on those of us who we've left behind. The challenge with that is that most of these communities have not just been left behind with energy. They've also been left behind with access to technology. They've also been left behind with substandard housing. They've also been left behind with poor educational attainment. There are lots of income. They're all these other drivers. And so our job is to work with policymakers so that they understand that this problem is multifaceted, and that means we have to bring a lot more people to the table. It's not just industry and government. It also has to be advocates. It also has to be community leaders. It also has to be your local state officials. It has to be young people because we have all of these different things that we're trying to really solve at the first, at one time, because they're so connected. And I'll just leave you with an example. Efficiency beyond the building does not move forward without access to broadband. All the sensors require internet. But if you live in a community or have a household that does not have access to internet, then we can't get there. And so we do need to be able to bring those who advocate for broadband to the table when we're talking about efficiency policy because we need them to, just like we need those who are working on water and other issues. And so for us at the Alliance, it's about convening everybody, understanding where people are, listening really deeply, looking at the policies that we're advocating for, and then honestly asking ourselves, what else do we need because we know it's not enough. Thank you very much. So energy and energy efficiency is a multifaceted challenge and really requires a very inclusive approach. And this panel reflects some of that, but we could add, we could add many more representatives of society who would also need to come along to tackle this challenge. And let me now turn to Mr. Zhu Ji and ask you, in the case of China, what are the policies and actions that you have witnessed driving a faster deployment of highly efficient buildings in order to really accelerate the transition and of course ultimately also the conflict of people. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair, and also thank you for the invitation. So regarding the policy, no need to say policy can be conserved at a very, very important enabling environment to deploy technology and management measurements. And with my observation, we have at least four major, major drivers, I mean to implement the policy for the more efficient, I mean higher energy efficiency building. Number one, I would like to highlight green building centers. In China, we have had green building centers covered a different dimension, including energy used per unit squared meters, insulation as well as major appliance within the, I mean for example, air conditioner, heating devices, etc. So this is number one. The second thing is electrification. The rate of electrification, especially in Chinese context, this is mainly related to heating and cooking. And you know, in China, we have our food culture. Many people, you enjoy Chinese food, but do not forget, if you want to enjoy very, very real taste of Chinese cook, and normally we need heating, I mean with cold, with natural gas, etc. But this is changing for younger generation. They also cook Chinese food, but they try to electrify the cooking. So, but certainly even more important thing in heating, heating by rich energy. So in the past, we mainly used coal. And afterwards, especially in the past one or two decades, we experienced a process for coal switching to natural gas, especially in urban area. And now we are stepping into a new stage. I mean, see how we can translate from both coal and natural gas towards electricity. And together with the process of our power, low carbon, I mean, deep decarbonization process in power sectors. So in early this morning, our vice chairman from NDRC, he also mentioned, I mean, very rapid development of renewable. So then that means we should combine all the things together as a whole system. I mean, on one hand, you decarbonize your power system, and then you electrify your end user of energy, including building. So this is why I emphasize building electrification. The third thing is about re-challenging. And I also saw from Sinead chairman, in his presentation, I also saw very similar point. So in China, as you know, as a matter of the stock of the building and the equipment and the devices for residential use, for industrial use, we have a lot of old buildings, for example. And for those old buildings, normally, they were built, I mean, maybe 30 or 40 years ago, at that time, we didn't have advanced technology. And the efficiency had been very low. And then how to improve that by re-challenging? And this is a very huge market, so just to show a figure. So during 2016 to 2020, I mean, the area for re-challenging is about 700 million square meters. And in the current five-year plan period, I mean, from 2021 to 2025, it's about 350 million square meters. And if you consider the unit cost, so that means a huge investment for improvement of insulation and for the improvement of the appliance, heating system, cooling system, et cetera, et cetera. So these can make significant improvement of energy efficiency for building. Finally, I would also like to emphasize another policy instrument that's efficiency improvement, I mean, against the baseline in 2018. That means, so we have a different stage for the requirements of efficiency, energy efficiency, building energy efficiency. I mean, for example, 10 years ago, we required, I mean, newly developed a real estate, newly constructed building. They have to improve, to reach energy efficiency by 65% the reduction of energy use against the 1980 baseline. And now, we are, I mean, almost reading the request, I mean, for 83% energy reduction against the same baseline, but with larger reduction of energy use. So those are the major levers for China to improve its building energy efficiency. And finally, I would also like to highlight the importance, I mean, about the cooperation and the interaction between government and enterprise in the trade. So that's very important. No need to say, I mean, a five-year plan to come up with a target for a five-year plan, and together with a systematic guideline for building energy efficiency improvement from the government, together with the think tank, the research centers, and followed by action from industry. They need to have incentive, they need to have the enforcement based on data sharing, stakeholder consultation, et cetera, et cetera. In that way, government and enterprise, they work together to, especially, parking at the real estate developer. This is the most, most important stakeholders, I mean, to make the policy become the truth. Thank you. Thank you. And what an impressive journey. And from the cooking with coal to the natural gas, and now looking into electrification of a huge country and the challenges and what would be the impact and the role of the buildings. And you mentioned the need for cooperation and partnerships. And we'll give it a try for a second round, where we'll need to be shorter. But let's give it a try as we started later. And picking precisely on your last point, Mr. G, I'd like to ask Mr. Bazin, precisely, how should governments, industry leaders and stakeholders collaborate to improve building and equipment efficiency? I think it's indeed a collaborative effort, because again, the good thing that the technical solutions in buildings do exist, making a passive house in Madrid, in Manchester or in Philadelphia, we know how to do it. The trick is to help all the stakeholders, the homeowners, the financing, the private banks that do not participate a lot on the energy transition. They should, they could, they could be asked, the architects, the industry holds the mayor, the city mayors, etc. So I think that's the challenge. The best way to do it is to define norms. I think what the EU Parliament did with minimum energy efficiency, with visibility over time, because we have to keep in mind buildings, it's a low speed. In Ercihan, on building permits, on norms, on training the craftsmen, it takes four to five years to translate a norm into action. So I think we have to be patient. We have to give visibility, stability, a tenuous horizon. This is what the Prime Minister gave about France, to divide by half the emissions in the next eight years. So visibility, stability, cooperation through norms and putting things, again, in the right order. We advocate, for instance, for our passport of energy efficiency in buildings to do it like you have shots when you have kids in the right order. You start with, again, the envelope. You change your rating system. You change the air quality with ventilation, etc. And public buildings have to be exemplary. They have to lead. So I think it's very interesting to say that the best energy is the one you don't spend. So that you can spend it for economic development. You can spend it for energy bill, for food, for education. So let's keep in mind the best energy is the one you don't spend and we can and we will. We work together across many, many stakeholders. Very good. Thank you very much. And Ms. Atanga, how do youth organizations come into this partnership with industry, with policy makers, with local authorities? Yes, so I'm building on the points made by Mr. Benoit. Collaboration plays a really important role in energy efficiency and young people play a much bigger role. So how do we do this? I think by involving young people and collaborating with them on their projects is a very important aspect. We require mentorships. We are young. We really don't know what world we are stepping into. So having an upper hand from someone who is more experienced would play a very important role in helping us with our projects. There are many young people who are carrying our projects in energy efficiency, but they do not know how to go about with it. But when we have people in the high level that are able to help us in understanding how we can create our projects to be sustainable in long-term, long-term sustainable. And also, another point is providing support for young people and giving them a platform just like this. I don't know how to say it, but this explains a lot to my point about supporting young people and giving them a platform. And also, there's nothing without financial aid. So involving young people could be looking for a young person in your community that has a project on energy efficiency or anything related to energy or sustainability. Give them a chance, give them seed funding, and then see what happens in the next five years. Trust me, it's going to be big. So just do it if you have the chance to. Thank you. Thank you very much. So I turn to Minister Upload. How can you work and involve and make sure that also young people organizations are part of it and along with industry? Thank you for that question. Young people should have a specific target. How do we put them into internship, apprenticeship? Whatever we are doing, in the case of Uganda, when you consider housing, it's more about ventilation, allowing external temperatures to influence internal temperatures. When it's warm in the day, can we engage the young, enterpronize the students to develop the designs of appropriate housing for that area, that part of the world? Secondly, can we involve the young generation in designing appropriate energy resources of the country? They should be at the fore, looking at the future. We should not be looking at what it is today. We should be encouraging them to look at what it will be tomorrow, learning from the history, the current to improve the situation. We should be looking at them in designing appropriate appliances, especially for households. For example, Atanga is a lady. She should be thinking, how can she move the woman from where she is today to a better situation tomorrow? Looking at the transport, they are the ones who should be thinking about what should the transport mode be? How can they conserve energy in the transport of tomorrow, other than relying on what is today? Back home, I actually encourage the young generation to be thinking of effective and efficient use of electricity for transportation. Effective and efficient electricity for cooking. Effective use of the appliances and also reducing the losses of electricity. Back in my house, when I look at it, it is the young ones who continue flicking the electricity on and off and it's actually getting them into the culture of conserving energy. The young generation will help us to deliver. So this is what I would be looking for, making them part and parcel of planning, the policy setting, listening to them. What is it that they use? How can we help them to improve the situation for the future? Thank you very much. And Mr. Michel, how is France going about this collaborative approach with actors across the society? Yes, it's of course very crucial. The first stage is defining together the targets, the best possible ways to address it and so build the frameworks. For instance, we've made road maps for decarbonisation of transportation, of building sector and so on. And of course, every action program or regulation are discussed with stakeholders, municipalities, companies and so on. So afterwards, I think we need much dedication and constant in-implementation for... It's very easy to say, for instance, we need skills. We need more people, more skilled people to address this renovation, building programmes and so on. But once you've said that, you've said nothing. You need to bring together the schools, the Ministry of Schools, universities, but also companies to help in delivering these curses and hire people or pre-hire them. So really, we need a strong involvement. And also, once we have put a target, for instance, we have a target for tertiary building, which is in 2030 minus 40%, in 2040 minus 50, and so on. And this is a regulation. I think it's a social contract. We've all decided together, well, democracy, which there are many consultations, but once you've decided something, that's a regulation, there are public support there, and I think we must bring all efforts there to respect, because, of course, you have exemplary of public buildings, but you have everybody, because I think when people think you are some of them who want to escape the social contract, it's not good for action. And last thing also, I think it's also in implementation, bringing also people of different horizons together. We have a stem, which is the white certificate schemes in which energy suppliers are compelled to pay in order to support energy savings action. This is not sometimes nice for them, they have to pay, but it has created dynamics, bringing them, the ones who use, produce energy and sell, the ones who use, the ones who bring solutions, the municipalities, companies. So this has brought new ideas and new solutions. I think really we have to encourage that from innovation towards implementation. So that's it. Thank you. Thank you very much. And Miss Clever, this is part of the mission of the Alliance to save energy precisely by convening and engaging in diverse public-private partnerships. So what's your take on this collaborative approach? Yeah, I think really briefly two things. One, it's always important we so many times take a macro view to these issues that we forget that there is a person at the end of what we're doing. And not, you know, can be someone in a home, someone who's working in a business, but there's always somebody who's impacted by our work. And so when we think about collaboration and convening, we always start with deeply listening and especially deeply listening to those we think we may disagree with. Because oftentimes those that we disagree with we really don't disagree. It's just a tool that we're really disagreeing about a mechanism or a tool, but not necessarily the issue. And that's a lot easier to get to when we acknowledge that there are lots of tools that we can use to solve this problem. There are lots of financing tools that we can use to help people, whether that's using community development banks or grants or loans or having it federally funded or state or locally funded or doing it through regulation and having it come through your utilities. There are lots of different kinds of tools. And so when we are sitting there listening to people and acknowledging what their pain points are, then we're able to kind of get to a solution that we can all agree upon. And so if I'm trying to convince home builders to build their homes so that they are more efficient, I can do that in a couple of ways, right? But it's good for me to understand why they're not doing that now, right? How do they make their money? And is there a way for me to get them to see how what I'm asking you to do is also going to allow you to make money and not impact your profit margin? Because that's the real thing. And if we start from a place of saying, well, I don't care about that, then you can't get them to the table. And so it's really important to deeply listen to people, to constantly acknowledge that you don't know what you don't know. And there are a lot of things that we actually don't know. We assume we know what the right answer is. We assume that this thing is going to work. We assume that these kinds of policies are the right kind of policies. But really, if we're honest with ourselves, we're hoping. And so it requires that we are constantly paying attention to those policies that are enacted and then ensuring that the results are what we thought they were going to be. And not doing it far behind, but doing it close enough to that time frame that if you need to pivot, if you need to stretch, if you need to change something or shift something, you actually have time to do it. Because under the backdrop of all of this work that we're doing is a real sense of urgency. And what my experience tells me is that a sense of urgency sometimes makes us lazy about doing the things that are really tough to do. And collaborative work is difficult work. It is. It's tough work, and it takes a long time. But if you do not do it, we will never get there. Absolutely. And thank you for this encouraging words. And I'm now moving to our two last interventions. Go back to the policy measures and ask Minister Kudars specifically on the role of district heating in providing hot water and space heating in Latvia. And what have you seen as key barriers and challenges that slow down the progress on efficiency in buildings, heating and cooling? And what's been Latvia's approach precisely to district heating? Thank you. Of course, the Greek transition efficiency is not only challenges, but it's some opportunities for societies, for municipalities, for local communities. It is very important some common conviction about next step towards our efficiency and green transition. It is very important. Of course, when we see Latvia as an example, some approximately 90% of our flats buildings was built before 1992. And now we have approximately only 10% is totally reconstructed. And now energy efficiency and the saving of energy in this situation is approximately 40% till 50%. It's a huge amount. And of course, it's very important this conviction of society to make some right step in right moment. Thank you. Thank you very much, Minister Kudars. And because when we speak of heating and cooling so often the heat pumps come up to the discussion, but we heard that we cannot just aim at single individual measures. We need to see it as a whole. But I'd like to ask Professor Ji, what do you think, how and to what extent can heat pumps actually deliver on both heating and cooling? But while having to be part of an overall design and how you're going about it? Sure. Thank you for the question. And talking about the heat pump, I would like to talk some stories in China about that. In fact, we might have different drivers to reach the same targets in China context. So we have at least three major drivers to promote the application of heat pump. Number one, air quality. As you may know, 10 or even 20 years ago, we suffered from very poor air quality, especially from the fun particulates we call it the PM10 or PM2.5. And especially one of the major contributors come from scattered coal used for heating, for cooking, especially for lower-income groups. Normally, they are located in rural area with low income farmers and also they are vulnerable. And how to improve that? I mean, on one hand, to reduce the air pollutant, but on the other hand, we should improve their comfort. I mean, so I regularly to visit to some villages in northern China and I saw in winter, the indoor temperature is exactly low. I mean, only, say, 10 to 11 centigrade degree. Very, very cold. And then how to improve that? I mean, to reach the two targets together. And the heat pump is one of the solution. And in the past decade, China implemented air quality policy, one of the major issues without scattered coal and replaced by solar energy, by heat pump. But certainly, another choice by natural gas. And for the moment, I should say, we are only in the early stage, I mean, for larger penetration of heat pump in China. Why? Because we also tried cold switching to natural gas. But recently, especially after Ukraine war, we also saw the concern about energy security. I think we share the feeling from our European colleagues. So we also have very big problem for natural gas import. By the way, I mean, over 40% of natural gas come from international market. So this is a long-term energy security issue. And then this even make us be aware, oh, maybe we should switch to heat pump rather than natural gas for heating. I mean, when the rural people, these can be as large as, I would say, five to six hundred million people. So very huge people, a huge amount of people. And then again, together, when the decomposition of power sitting, and this is why we say, oh, we should work together for acceleration of renewable in China. This is something happening. And in the meanwhile, we call it green electricity, green power to power heat pump for heating, for cooling, for such a large group of vulnerable and low-income population. And we believe this will help them to improve their productivity, to improve their comfort, and finally to improve their living quality. So this is the way for us to understand the heat pump. Thank you. Thank you very much because it's not a topic easy to address in two minutes. And just to conclude, and there were several takeaways, but clearly energy efficiency as a trigger for economic transformation and in seizing the potential of energy efficiency in buildings, we need to pursue a holistic approach to look at the whole envelope, not just the individual elements of the building, but we also need to put all actors around the table, which goes actually beyond energy, digitalization, for instance, and other sectors. And we need to also work and be attentive to the behavior of the consumer, to actually be able to target the final consumer and the role of campaigns, public awareness cannot be overemphasized. Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you very much to all the panelists for a great contribution and wish you a very good conference still today and tomorrow. Thank you very much and a big round of applause for everyone.