Speaker 1: These sees Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim
Speaker 1: Stenevic on Bloomberg Radio. So I gotta say, Maddie, there's
Speaker 1: a couple of stories over the last couple of days.
Speaker 1: One was dealing with the rising waters around Venice seawalls
Speaker 1: protecting the city, but it's also apparently impacting the local
Speaker 1: fishing industry, possibly leading to dry canals, which could lead
Speaker 1: to some problems. So there's that one going on. And
Speaker 1: then there was another story that just blew my mind
Speaker 1: this morning. I think it was in the New York
Speaker 1: Times about a baraga storms that's resurrected what was once
Speaker 1: the largest body of fresh water west of the Mississippi
Speaker 1: River long time ago. We're talking the ice age, so
Speaker 1: setting the stage for a disaster to spring and upending agriculture.
Speaker 1: We know that there is so much going on when
Speaker 1: it comes to the Earth's ebbs and flows of water. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's it's just I mean, just the Mississippi River alone,
Speaker 1: like the supply chain issues that could cause the amount
Speaker 1: of people whose jobs rely on Jeff Sin will happen
Speaker 1: right exactly exactly, And it's just it's so critical to
Speaker 1: watch and there's so much to talk about. So that
Speaker 1: is why we've got our next guest here to speak
Speaker 1: with us about the ocean, specifically coming back rejoining us,
Speaker 1: we've got doctor Deborah Brosnan. She is head of the
Speaker 1: international scientific consulting company that bears her name. The firm
Speaker 1: addresses environmental risks and climate change. She's a marine scientist
Speaker 1: and environmental risk expert. Joining us on zoom from Antigua,
Speaker 1: Doctor Brosnin, thank you so much for being here. First
Speaker 1: of all, just tell us about why you are where
Speaker 1: you are right now and what you're doing there. So
Speaker 1: believe it or not, I am out here in Antigua
Speaker 1: and Barbauda because we're working on exactly the issues you've
Speaker 1: been talking about. How do we create more resilient coastlines,
Speaker 1: how do we create more resilient communities. And what we're
Speaker 1: doing is we're leveraging nature. Carl reeves break ninety five
Speaker 1: percent of a wave's energy and they protect the shoreline
Speaker 1: from storm search but they also keep stand on the beach,
Speaker 1: which helps tourism. So we are doing a major ref
Speaker 1: restoration project with a man called John Paul Gagoria called
Speaker 1: Ocean Shot, and we're also restoring dunes to provide a barrier,
Speaker 1: and in doing so, we're providing training and local jobs
Speaker 1: as well. So that's why I'm out here, because we're
Speaker 1: advancing those projects and it's very exciting. Yeah, No, Jambal Djoria,
Speaker 1: I'm interesting. So what I want to ask you, as
Speaker 1: someone who has done a fair amount of diving and
Speaker 1: seen how our coral reefs have really been ruined over
Speaker 1: the last decade or so, tell us what you're seeing.
Speaker 1: First of all, like where we are when it comes
Speaker 1: to coral reefs around the world. We know, we hear
Speaker 1: the stories about the Great Barrier reef and the bleaching
Speaker 1: of the reefs. So talk to us about kind of
Speaker 1: where we are and how we can get our way back.
Speaker 1: So I think it's fair to say that we are
Speaker 1: in a fairly dire situation with coral reefs, and coral
Speaker 1: reefs have been declining. There's an estimate we've last between
Speaker 1: thirty and fifty percent of reefs already and that we
Speaker 1: may lose another thirty percent if we don't intervene. So
Speaker 1: around the world, and I've seen it in my lifetime too.
Speaker 1: When you go on the ocean. One of the areas
Speaker 1: we're working on only two percent of the stony corals
Speaker 1: are left on the reefs, so two percent cover and
Speaker 1: that pattern has been repeated time and time in different
Speaker 1: parts of the world in the tropics. But what we
Speaker 1: are seeing, and here's where the good news comes in,
Speaker 1: the situation is bad enough that people are really understanding
Speaker 1: that we've got to start taking action. So we're seeing
Speaker 1: action in several places. One is in trying to grow
Speaker 1: resilient calls that are resilient against temperature rise, for instance,
Speaker 1: and several groups are doing those. We have resilient calls
Speaker 1: called Beta as a company that's working on them. So
Speaker 1: people are investing literally investing money in growing resilient calls
Speaker 1: that can then be outplanted on two weeks. We ourselves
Speaker 1: are actually building reefs that will provide all of these
Speaker 1: services I spoke about. And so we're seeing around the
Speaker 1: world and interest in restoring coral reefs, but not at
Speaker 1: a small scale, at the sort of industrial scale that
Speaker 1: we need to be intervening. So both corals and the
Speaker 1: restructure itself, we're seeing a lot of effort on that
Speaker 1: and that is the hopeful sign. So we're starting to
Speaker 1: see in some places a caral to begin to come
Speaker 1: back naturally, but a lot of it to a human intervention.
Speaker 1: And on that human intervention, can you talk about man
Speaker 1: made coral reefs and to what extent those can be
Speaker 1: effectives as kind of a replacement for the real thing.
Speaker 1: I think we've got to be honest and say we're
Speaker 1: going to have to help nature, and that means doing
Speaker 1: manmade coral reefs, and they can be effective. We've studied
Speaker 1: coral reefs enough to know what's the secret source, and
Speaker 1: basically that is the structure of the reef itself that
Speaker 1: it looks like it kind of looks like Manhattan. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a penthouse for certain species and the basement for
Speaker 1: species like lobsters. So when you create a reef, you
Speaker 1: want to create all of these different all of these
Speaker 1: different habitats, basically, all of these different layers, and that
Speaker 1: creates the opportunity for biodiversity to come back. And so
Speaker 1: we know how to build those now. We also can
Speaker 1: model the effect that they have on maintaining sand on
Speaker 1: the beach, so we know where should we put them,
Speaker 1: how big should they be, how why should they be.
Speaker 1: So we do have the science and technology. What we
Speaker 1: need now is both the investment and the action to
Speaker 1: do it. How quickly does a reef come back when
Speaker 1: you deploy these efforts. It's a slow process, so calls
Speaker 1: grow relatively slowly, but in the right conditions we can
Speaker 1: get growth of a few of several inches a year,
Speaker 1: which is with a lot of calls, that's actually pretty
Speaker 1: good growth. That's why we need to actually build the
Speaker 1: reef structure itself, so we give the call a foundation
Speaker 1: to growth, so we actually get the reef back a
Speaker 1: lot faster. So within a few years or even immediately undeployment,
Speaker 1: we can start to see the benefits of reef and
Speaker 1: over time we build up the biodiversity. If I can
Speaker 1: just follow for a moment, I do wonder, with rising
Speaker 1: sea levels as we build these reefs, is it a
Speaker 1: case that we're going to have to kind of increasingly
Speaker 1: be building the reefs closer and closer to what was
Speaker 1: land but is now new rising sea levels? And can
Speaker 1: you keep up or can we as a world in
Speaker 1: society keep up? Now that's a good question. So I
Speaker 1: think what we when we think about restoring coral reefs
Speaker 1: or building reefs, We have to build reefs for the future,
Speaker 1: not for what the reefs is not for what our
Speaker 1: conditions are today. But if we get one for sea
Speaker 1: level rise, where a three foot sea level rise, where
Speaker 1: do we need those reefs in ten years, in twenty
Speaker 1: and fifty years time. So we build the reefs, We
Speaker 1: start the reefs so that they will be the kind
Speaker 1: of reefs we need, you know, through climate change. And
Speaker 1: can I back up like completely here, doctor Brosnan, because
Speaker 1: I wonder if you can just explain maybe one example
Speaker 1: of how coral reefs impact our environment in a way
Speaker 1: that in everyday listener or viewer would be able to
Speaker 1: understand who may not have had a touch point with
Speaker 1: coral reefs rest research previously. Yes, how many of your
Speaker 1: listeners like to walk on the beach? I'll put probably everyone.
Speaker 1: And if you're walking on a tropical beach, the sand
Speaker 1: that you're walking on is sand that was made from
Speaker 1: a coral reef, from the erosion of the coral itself. Secondly,
Speaker 1: the reason you can walk on a very beautiful tropical
Speaker 1: beach is because the reef itself keeps that sand. Not
Speaker 1: only makes the sand, but then it keeps it on
Speaker 1: the beach. So every time you go and lie on
Speaker 1: a tropical beach, say thank you to the coral reef.
Speaker 1: No actually said no, it's so perfectly said. So when
Speaker 1: you talk about a reef to coming back, you said
Speaker 1: a few years. So is it five years? Is three years?
Speaker 1: Is a ten years? Yeah, it depends on the longer
Speaker 1: the reef exists, the better it gets. So if you
Speaker 1: build the structure of reef and you put the reef out,
Speaker 1: and if you plant calls on it's a For instance,
Speaker 1: we have coral nurseries and we're growing calls just like
Speaker 1: you would growth ball plants in a nursery, and then
Speaker 1: we plant those called out on the reef structure. So
Speaker 1: now our reef is starting to come back quickly because
Speaker 1: we're getting fish and we have carls. So effectively we
Speaker 1: have a reef. We have a functional reef. But over
Speaker 1: two years, five years, ten years, into the next hundred years,
Speaker 1: the biodiversity on that reef, if it stays healthy, will increase,
Speaker 1: the fish life will increase. And so within I mean
Speaker 1: we're seeing within four months, we've already seen in one
Speaker 1: of our reef modules, twenty five species of fish have
Speaker 1: moved on to this reef that we build. Now that's amazing.
Speaker 1: So and these fish aren't there. The calls are doing fine,
Speaker 1: so the system is beginning to regenerate. All we had
Speaker 1: to do was give it the fighting chance and give
Speaker 1: it a reef in the habitat. One thing I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask you, doctor Brosdon. In the notes you shared
Speaker 1: with our producer, you noted that the ocean economy is
Speaker 1: worth up to six tillion dollars a year, employs three
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty million people worldwide, but less than one
Speaker 1: percent of the ocean's value has been invested in sustainable projects.
Speaker 1: Express shocking, Yeah, tell us why that is so shocking. Well,
Speaker 1: I think it's for two main reasons. One, people look
Speaker 1: at the oceans as a high risk investment because everything
Speaker 1: you do in the sea tends to cost more money,
Speaker 1: and there has been a sense that we're disconnected from
Speaker 1: the sea. The other is that when people do invest
Speaker 1: in the oceans, are contribute to the oceans. It's been
Speaker 1: mostly in philanthropy. But even then, philanthropy investment on the
Speaker 1: oceans compared to other systems has been incredibly low. So
Speaker 1: the oceans literally have been neglected. You know, they cover
Speaker 1: seventy percent of the planet. If there were a country,
Speaker 1: they would rank seventh in terms of GDP, and yet
Speaker 1: we have put so little funding into them. The news is, though,
Speaker 1: I think that is beginning to change and it's starting
Speaker 1: to pick up speed. But it's not just about reefs, correct,
Speaker 1: And I don't mean just because reefs are so important.
Speaker 1: I get that, But tell us if you know, you
Speaker 1: had your druthers and you could, you know what else
Speaker 1: needs to be done in your view. So I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously we've talked about this, the investment in nature based
Speaker 1: solutions in the ocean, which can be mangroves, and our
Speaker 1: mangroves supquests for four times more carbon than even tropical rainforests,
Speaker 1: so they have a climate value as well as the
Speaker 1: fisheries value. So investing in nature returns dividends for the
Speaker 1: planet but also for communities in terms of fisheries and jobs.
Speaker 1: So investing in nature is at first. But the other
Speaker 1: place we can start to look at is renewable energy.
Speaker 1: Our oceans can really both in terms of offshore winds,
Speaker 1: which is a very big area people are looking in
Speaker 1: right now. Food security basically seaweed, seaweed based food supplies.
Speaker 1: I think fiddle as Fish got about thirty four million
Speaker 1: in funding just recently, so food supply, energy, provency questration.
Speaker 1: All of these areas are right for investment. And the
Speaker 1: other is transportation, and we think about it, most of
Speaker 1: our goods are transported by the sea and associated with transportation,
Speaker 1: shipping releases eighteen percent of pollutants. So what we're beginning
Speaker 1: to see is a lot of companies and a lot
Speaker 1: of investors thinking about other ways to create more sustainable shipping,
Speaker 1: to have more like electric vehicles. General Motors is one
Speaker 1: case in point. They invested one hundred and fifty million
Speaker 1: to acquire a mistake in a company called Pure Watercraft
Speaker 1: that makes electric engines for boats. So really, you know,
Speaker 1: everywhere we look, whether it's energy, whether it's food, whether
Speaker 1: it's nature itself, whether it's jobs the ocean. It's probably
Speaker 1: one of the most investable systems resources that we can
Speaker 1: look at. But the upfront cost is pretty high for investors,
Speaker 1: and that's not something investors often relish the opportunity for
Speaker 1: if they don't have a strong sense of what their
Speaker 1: return can be. But you say that the concept of
Speaker 1: the ROI for investors is just not understood. What would
Speaker 1: you say is the biggest thing that investors are messing
Speaker 1: up in that calculation. I think investors are often looking
Speaker 1: for what I would call a traditional return on investment,
Speaker 1: are looking for a quick in and out, and often
Speaker 1: with either renewable energy or in the ocean, that investment
Speaker 1: tends to take longer. Where that is changing is in
Speaker 1: the field of what's known as impact investment. So impact
Speaker 1: investment investors are looking at getting a return on investment,
Speaker 1: a financial return on investment, but also a quantifiable other return,
Speaker 1: which could be carbon sequestration as well. So we're seeing
Speaker 1: investors look at they always want a financial return, but
Speaker 1: also seeing if there's an added value which balances out
Speaker 1: the financial return. So I think looking at the investment
Speaker 1: a little bit differently. Z Risking is really important for investors,
Speaker 1: and we're beginning to see that being done in two ways.
Speaker 1: One is this partnership, So the un Capital Fund, for instance,
Speaker 1: is partnering with private sector and for investors that the
Speaker 1: risks because the un Capital Fund will often be somewhat
Speaker 1: film through big or provide funding that gets investors over
Speaker 1: the hump of basically de risking the initial stages. So
Speaker 1: we're seeing some of that, and oddly enough, if you
Speaker 1: think about Biden's Inflation Reduction Act. He's put three hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty nine billion into climate tech, and some of
Speaker 1: that obviously is for the ocean and also renewable energies.
Speaker 1: That alone, that incentive, that government incentive, that government policy,
Speaker 1: if you like, has been enough to make a lot
Speaker 1: of industries think about investing in these kind of climate checks,
Speaker 1: including the ocean. We see it in the oil industry.
Speaker 1: They're suddenly taking it seriously. The risks are not as great. Really,
Speaker 1: do you feel like there's definitely a difference, you know,
Speaker 1: I think about the stories with microplastics and I think,
Speaker 1: my gosh, is it just too late that it's just
Speaker 1: so insidious? Like how do you get that out of
Speaker 1: the system. But now do you feel like the tone,
Speaker 1: the tenor not only the talk, but the actual investments
Speaker 1: and actions have shown that people understand we've got to
Speaker 1: take care of the oceans. Yes, I see it changing,
Speaker 1: and I see it changing rapidly. And where I see
Speaker 1: it changing is it's not just in the environmental community.
Speaker 1: I see it changing in the investment community that are
Speaker 1: looking at the oceans obviously to the lens of investment,
Speaker 1: but as they start to invest, they're also really aware
Speaker 1: that the healthy ocean means healthy humans. It means they're
Speaker 1: children are healthier. So the oceans are almost leading the
Speaker 1: way in this investment that provides return but also gets
Speaker 1: thinking about the kind of planet we want and the
Speaker 1: kind of future we want to leave our kids. I
Speaker 1: see that happening, and no one's giving up on the money.
Speaker 1: What would you say is the single biggest mistake that
Speaker 1: you see consumers make who mean well and want to
Speaker 1: protect our oceans, but might be a misunderstanding about what
Speaker 1: we can do to make a difference. And we have
Speaker 1: about forty seconds here. I think the biggest mistake is
Speaker 1: thinking you can do nothing. A lot of consumers don't
Speaker 1: do anything because the problem looks so big, the oceans
Speaker 1: is so big. The biggest mistake is to do nothing.
Speaker 1: The best thing you can do is do something. Take
Speaker 1: a step. Whether it's not using straws, whether it's not
Speaker 1: using plastic. Every everything you do makes a difference and
Speaker 1: it all adds up sunscreen, like all these different things.
Speaker 1: You know so much to think about and so appreciated
Speaker 1: and good luck with your work, doctor Deborah Bronson, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for coming back with us. She's head
Speaker 1: of Deborah Brosen and associates marine scientists. As we said earlier,
Speaker 1: environmental risk expert joining us from Antigo where they're working
Speaker 1: on restoring the reefs. But you do think about it, like,
Speaker 1: if we just don't get this under control, I know,
Speaker 1: then what we have to we have to do. I mean,
Speaker 1: it is it is the biggest issue I think, you know,
Speaker 1: it is the thing that outweighs all the other things
Speaker 1: because if we're not here, what are we going to do?
Speaker 1: Exact exactly