WEBVTT - Building a future where humanity will thrive, with Achim Steiner 0:00:00.400 --> 0:00:05.680 Welcome to zero. I am Akshatrati this week, progress regress, 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:20.560 and a grand vision for the future. Human development over 0:00:20.600 --> 0:00:23.920 the past hundred years can be easily measured in rapidly 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:29.160 increasing wealth, health, and better opportunities for a growing population. 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:34.479 That progress, granted, has not been evenly distributed, and yet 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:37.520 it is a story shared by billions around the world, 0:00:37.920 --> 0:00:41.880 including my own family in India. One of the things 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:44.400 that concerns me most about climate change is that it 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:48.760 may erode those markers of development, undoing decades of hard work, 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:53.320 and by some measures, it's already happening. The Human Development 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:56.480 Index has followed a steady upward trend since it was 0:00:56.520 --> 0:01:00.200 introduced in the nineteen nineties. Now it has been done 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:03.440 to fall. But really what excites me about the coming 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:06.800 decades is that many of the solutions to our climate problem, 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:13.080 clean energy, a more just inclusive financial system, inevitable international collaboration, 0:01:13.720 --> 0:01:18.000 all have the potential to radically transform people's lives. Build 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:23.160 this future, and humanity will continue to thrive. This view 0:01:23.319 --> 0:01:25.640 is one of the driving forces behind the work of 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:29.120 my guest today, Achim Steiner. He's the head of the 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:32.600 United Nations Development Program, which works in one hundred and 0:01:32.600 --> 0:01:37.640 seventy countries to promote sustainable development, democracy, peace and resilience. 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:41.319 We are a development institution that believes in the future, 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:44.480 the notion of living in the age of the anthroposcene. 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:47.720 It is very much about understanding that we are failing 0:01:47.720 --> 0:01:51.920 to respond as a human family to the magnitude of 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:54.880 the challenges of our time. But behind that is a 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:58.000 second story. We live in an age of extraordinary possibility. 0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:01.360 The UNDP is one of the oldest institutions in the 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:05.080 United Nations and uses it's roughly four billion dollars annual 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:08.359 budget to work with twenty two thousand people around the globe, 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:15.000 combating issues as wide ranging as access to HIV and AIDS, medication, poverty, eradication, 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:19.240 and digital inclusion. I sat down with Akim at the 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:22.200 World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year to talk 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:26.520 about the opportunities and threats climate change poses to global development, 0:02:26.880 --> 0:02:30.160 how countries can plan for more climate refugees, and what 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:42.280 a rising inequality means for a world facing multiple crises. Akim, 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:44.720 welcome to the show. Pleasure to be here, Thank you now. 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:48.160 Climate change threatens to reverse progress on many of the 0:02:48.200 --> 0:02:53.239 development indicators like poverty, prosperity, education. Is climate change the 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:56.360 biggest threat to human development over the next century? You know, 0:02:56.400 --> 0:02:59.360 it has already emerged as one of the biggest threats, 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:01.320 and I would say there's not even over the next century. 0:03:01.320 --> 0:03:03.320 I think it is probably over the next few decades. 0:03:04.000 --> 0:03:06.079 One of the things that I think we're all beginning 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:08.720 to realize right now is that we have arrived in 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:12.880 the age of climate change, not just as a scientific proposition, 0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:15.400 not as some would still perhaps want to portray the 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:18.280 science fiction. You know, just a few days ago we 0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:21.760 hosted in Geneva a meeting to bring the world together 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:24.760 to support Pakistan and trying to recover from these catastrophic 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:28.560 floods last year, where one third of the country was inundated. 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:32.040 Climate change is beginning to impact literally hundreds of millions 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:35.160 of people. So yes, I think it is genuinely the 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:38.320 greatest threat to the future of development. But and here 0:03:38.400 --> 0:03:40.680 in lines also in a sense, the other half of 0:03:40.680 --> 0:03:44.320 the coin, it is also the greatest opportunity to transform 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:49.000 development in the twenty first century from being essentially an extractive, polluting, 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:53.960 and often depreciating pathway to how we have grown our 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:58.080 economy as our GDP at great expense to people, health 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:02.560 impacts from pollution, loss, biodiversity, ecosystems, and now climate change, 0:04:02.560 --> 0:04:05.720 which is literally taking us to a tipping point in 0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:08.800 terms of many of the fundamental life support systems on 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:12.480 the planet. So a very dark scenario if we don't act, 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:17.679 and actually a potentially transformative scenario if we do act. Indeed, 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:21.039 the inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change, which puts out 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:25.080 these massive, thousands of pages reports every six to seven years, 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:28.720 those reports aren't read widely, but if you do get 0:04:28.720 --> 0:04:30.760 a chance to read one of those reports, what you 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:35.080 see is it paints a picture first off, devastation that's coming, 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:38.640 that has come, what we need to do to address it. 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:41.080 And then it goes into this direction which has become 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:43.599 a new direction for it, which is, if you do 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:47.800 implement those solutions, the world becomes a better place, not 0:04:47.960 --> 0:04:50.839 just better in terms of where we are headed now 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:53.000 if we could use the technologies we do have now, 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:56.919 but just better in all the metrics that humans would 0:04:56.920 --> 0:05:00.360 consider as progress metrics. Indeed, and I think this has 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:03.800 been in a sense the extraordinary story of the late 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:06.200 twenties century the early twenty first century, that here is 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:10.839 humanity with seven eight billion people seeing red lines flashing 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:13.719 on all major radar screens. In terms of the future, 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:16.599 where it is on pollution, where it is on the 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:20.839 prospit of far greater frequency of natural disasters, extreme weather events, 0:05:21.560 --> 0:05:24.840 many of the things that actually threaten hundreds of years 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:28.520 of progressive development, in terms of our infrastructure, in terms 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:31.440 of our ability to survive in for example, small island 0:05:31.520 --> 0:05:34.240 developing states that may simply disappear with C level rise. 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:36.520 And you are right in some ways these are very 0:05:37.160 --> 0:05:40.880 scientific and complex documents. They also are a reflection of 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:43.960 a journey of discovery that humanity has gone through. And 0:05:44.080 --> 0:05:47.400 thankfully because the UN was able to establish an inter 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:51.000 governmental panel on climate change independent of national interests of 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:54.800 industry lobbing. It is really a documentation of the state 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:57.320 of knowledge about climate change. Now none of us have 0:05:57.360 --> 0:05:58.960 to read it, because we also go to a doctor 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:01.960 and you allow them to operate on us without having 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:04.320 studied the manual for a surgery. And I think this 0:06:04.440 --> 0:06:06.320 is the same. The scientists of the world are giving 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:09.800 us both an understanding of the threat of inaction, what 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:13.000 climate change means if it simply continues, and what we 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:16.440 have seen increasingly is across the world, a twenty first 0:06:16.480 --> 0:06:20.640 century economy being invented, reinvented, the green economy, the clean economy, 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:24.120 the decarbonization pathway. And I think from where I sit 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:27.960 today as head of our United Nations Development program, my 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:31.479 focus is exclusively on how to actually think about the 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:36.480 future of development as an opportunity decarbonization today, the prospect 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:41.480 of having renewable energy, infrastructure and electricity supplies available in 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:44.240 ways that perhaps would have been unimaginable ten years ago 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:50.520 addresses so many of the risks to our society's energy security, pollution, 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:54.719 their affordability. For example, of connecting hundreds of millions or 0:06:54.720 --> 0:06:59.040 citizens on the African continent while still developing national grid infrastructure, 0:06:59.440 --> 0:07:03.320 mini grade off greate, solar renewable these are all shortcuts 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:05.960 to access to electricity. And you know, one thing that 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:07.960 we have learned in the last few hundred years is 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:12.640 that energy and particular electricity, our fundamental drivers of development. 0:07:12.720 --> 0:07:17.640 So even for addressing poverty, eradication, addressing the inequality that 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:21.680 exists across the planet today, these kinds of technologies are 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:25.120 in fact the accelerators for development, including addressing energy poverty. 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:29.240 Right now, we shall come to how the UNDP is 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:33.000 addressing some of those concerns that feed both the development 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:35.840 agenda and the climate agenda. But let's just take a 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:38.800 step back in history. We talked about the inter Governmental 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:41.680 Panel on Climate Change. It's only about thirty years old. 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:45.200 The unf tripl C, which is the unbody behind the 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:48.440 climate activities that are held every year, the copy events 0:07:48.440 --> 0:07:51.040 that are held, is also only a little bit more 0:07:51.120 --> 0:07:54.880 than thirty years old. The UNDB was created at nineteen 0:07:54.960 --> 0:07:58.640 sixty five, much before we thought of climate as a threat. 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:01.880 So just walk us through the brief history of why 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:05.200 the UNDB was created and what briefly you think it 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:08.360 has achieved over the past fifty years. Well, first of all, 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:10.840 I think one always has to look at an organization 0:08:10.920 --> 0:08:13.680 such as the United Nations Development Prize being embedded in 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:18.200 the United Nations system. The United Nations since its establishment, 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:22.800 has had multiple mandates. Keeping the peace or avoiding conflict 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:25.200 certainly is at the center of it, but so is 0:08:25.240 --> 0:08:28.840 the humanitarian work that we do, you know, when disaster strikes, 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:32.120 when conflicts occur. But increasingly throughout the fifties and sixties, 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:35.640 the development mandate began to become much more central because 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:40.800 as developing countries were becoming independent nations as also, the 0:08:40.840 --> 0:08:47.040 acceleration of industrialization led to essentially a divergent pathway where wealthy, 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:51.280 industrialized nations were growing very fast, and yet developing countries 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:56.120 were lacking the technologies, the skills, the institutional capacities, and 0:08:56.200 --> 0:08:59.520 also the capital to invest in the accelerated development that 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:02.200 we will seeing across the planet. There was an increasing 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:05.440 realization that a few nations developing fast and billions of 0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:08.479 people being left behind is not a very viable proposition. 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:13.480 So UNDP initially was set up as a funding mechanism 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:18.080 to bring more resources to accelerating development support to countries. Now, 0:09:18.120 --> 0:09:21.840 obviously development is not something that is static. We sometimes 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:24.360 look at development as if it's a matter of helping 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:27.199 a country to get to a certain level of capital 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:31.680 or GDP per capital, and that puts countries into least 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:35.280 developed countries, middle income countries, other middle income countries, let's say, 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:39.080 in a sense, anachronism, because really development is the continuous 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:43.840 pursuit of choices and options that societies have to make 0:09:43.880 --> 0:09:46.880 about their future. Initially, early on, it was about access 0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:51.800 to education, healthcare, basic infrastructure, electricity. Then decided addressing also 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:55.719 new threats such as the advent of AIDS, non communicable diseases. 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:59.199 Today they live in an age where, for example, digitalization 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:02.480 is fundamentally changing the trajectory of development. How do we 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:06.280 achieve digital inclusion? How do we also address phenomena that 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:09.080 have to do, for example, with discrimination. Today we have 0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:12.760 the twenty thirty Agenda, the Sustainable Development Goals, a smarter, 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:16.360 a also more contemporary view. The development is not solved 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:20.200 by silver bullets, not by solving one problem alone. We 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:24.040 are talking about economic transitions, ecological transitions, addressing issues of 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:28.000 social justice and inequality that you are really beginning to 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:33.199 tear societies apart. Inequality, the obvious inaction on climate change 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:36.599 and environmental destruction, getting more and more people to the 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:38.959 point where they lose faith in the institutions of government, 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:41.920 maybe in the economy, in businesses. And that's the point 0:10:41.920 --> 0:10:44.600 at which we today work with governments addressing this complex, 0:10:44.640 --> 0:10:47.559 this sense of uncertainty about the future now that can 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:51.400 suddenly start to film very overwhelming. So one way in 0:10:51.480 --> 0:10:54.320 which when I was thinking about speaking to you was 0:10:54.720 --> 0:10:57.920 just the story of my life. I come from India, 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:01.280 I grew up there. My grandfather completed high school and 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:04.040 then got onto a factory floor and was able to 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:08.120 raise three sons who each went on to eventually start 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:11.040 a business. And that's why they could make some wealth 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:14.320 and allow the next generation children like me to be 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:16.760 able to study abroad and get to sit here in 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:19.800 Davos and talk to the world's elite. But it was 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:24.480 a process of prosperity that was backed by fundamentally development 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:28.360 happening in India. My grandfather lived through a period where 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:30.760 India would have had the chance of having severe famine 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:34.120 in the seventies and that didn't happen, partly because of 0:11:34.440 --> 0:11:39.200 development programs like the Green Revolution that brought higher productivity 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:42.840 to Indian farms. There were other development programs that involved 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:46.440 money being transferred to India for progress on things like 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:51.040 rollout of more efficient lighting which saves energy, allowed for 0:11:51.320 --> 0:11:54.400 more people to get access to light at night, which 0:11:54.440 --> 0:11:59.280 improves productivity, which improves outcomes, for women's safety, for education 0:11:59.320 --> 0:12:02.439 among children. These are things that I have seen in 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:06.000 my lifetime play out. But if we get to the specific, 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:10.800 can you point to programs that UNDP did in specific 0:12:10.840 --> 0:12:15.840 places that you hold as proud achievements. I think in 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:19.560 many countries and as I travel today as the head 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:24.000 of UNDP, the feedback that I receive most often is 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:28.079 that UNDP has been a partner and companion to developing 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:31.600 countries for decades. We are not an institution that in 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:34.080 a sense comes in, lends you some money, or maybe 0:12:34.120 --> 0:12:36.920 implements one project. We are an expression first of all 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:40.080 of the United Nations commitment to developing countries to be 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:43.400 a partner to them for the long run, but also 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:46.920 through sometimes tough times. Increasingly we have also been an 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:51.280 institution that is associated with good governance. Good governance means transparency, 0:12:51.280 --> 0:12:54.600 it means having no corruption, but it also means how 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:58.480 citizens can participate, how people don't decide for others what 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:00.960 is good for them, and also to sure that no 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:03.640 one is left behind very often, whether we're talking about 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:07.240 issues of gender, the exclusion of youth, or by ethnicity 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:13.600 or by age, and perhaps even understanding how indigenous peoples, 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:17.640 both through their autonomy but also belonging to nation states, 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:22.160 need to be understood and engage in the development process 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:25.199 in different ways. So governance also has to with fundamental 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:27.840 human rights, but above all, it also has to do 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:30.239 with the role of government and the state in regulating 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:34.280 and providing in a society for the kinds of judiciary 0:13:34.400 --> 0:13:38.520 and legislative processes that make citizens believe that they're actually 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:42.400 represented in their country and their views shape the national 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:46.160 development choices. More recently, we have the way that we 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:48.560 think about the role of UANDP focused more and more 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:51.520 on the future of development. We have often focused in 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:54.720 the past on solving problems that are legacy problems, lack 0:13:54.760 --> 0:13:57.439 of access to education, lack of access to electricity, and 0:13:57.440 --> 0:13:59.520 in the least developed countries that still very often is 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:03.640 our folks, but for many countries middle income countries also 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:07.480 who often turned to UNDP for our advice, for our input, 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:10.320 for our support. It's more the issues of the future. 0:14:10.520 --> 0:14:13.720 How do we deal with inequality growing in most countries, 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:18.319 how do we deal with industrialization in a decarbonization age, 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:21.920 how do we deal with essentially transforming our energy systems 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:25.760 from a fossil fuel hydrocarbon based system to clean energy, 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:28.720 and how do we deal with digitalization? And also how 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:30.920 do we deal with the private sector that is not 0:14:30.960 --> 0:14:34.520 only large corporations. Every small scale farmer is a private 0:14:34.520 --> 0:14:38.080 sector actor, every social entrepreneur, every startup is a private 0:14:38.120 --> 0:14:40.720 sector operator. But if we think about it from the 0:14:40.800 --> 0:14:43.600 historical lens. One thing that we didn't touch upon in 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:46.960 my story is India was a colony of Britain, and 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:49.560 a lot of the lack of progress and development is 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:54.880 tied to colonialism, to a period of extraction that happened, 0:14:55.160 --> 0:14:58.200 that took wealth away, that took resources away, that took 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:01.720 the very fabric of soci the instructure and governance away 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:06.240 during a period of hundreds of years. Is the UNDP 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:11.160 in some way an apology from the rich countries. Reparations 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:15.160 might be allotted term to help those countries that they colonize, 0:15:15.600 --> 0:15:18.720 which are now run by people who are aware of 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:21.680 the abuses that happened, as a way to ensure that 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:24.160 those colonies can get back to speed to where they 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:28.080 were before colonialism. Look, it's an interesting question, and if 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:31.720 I were to comment on is it an apology? I 0:15:31.720 --> 0:15:34.080 would say, well, given the volume of extraction that happened 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:37.360 through the colonial period, and if you take the discourse 0:15:37.360 --> 0:15:41.480 about the economic center and the periphery, then UNDPS work 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:44.560 over the last few decades is a pretty small apologies. 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:48.120 So I would not necessarily see that as the principal 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:51.960 rationale for UNDPS existence. I think on the country. It's 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:55.560 more the growing realization, just like in many societies, that 0:15:56.080 --> 0:15:59.440 if inequality, if the sense of injustice and of exclusion 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:05.080 grows continuously, it ultimately undermines the fabric and the viability 0:16:05.080 --> 0:16:08.320 of societies. We live today in the twenty first century 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:11.520 in a globalized economy, but it's not only about trade. 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:15.200 People try to reduce globalization to trade and essentially you 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:18.640 know how countries can export and input from one another. 0:16:19.200 --> 0:16:21.560 We also live in an age where we are connected 0:16:21.600 --> 0:16:24.360 to each other by news, by for example, the pollution 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:28.240 of one country determining the very fate of another country 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:31.120 five thousand miles away in the Pacific. We need to 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:34.080 have a mature reflection on what is it that has 0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:36.640 gone wrong with globalization, which essentially was a sort of 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:41.440 unleashing of economic forces in a very unequal world. So 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:45.520 it also created extraordinary progress. Let's not deny that China 0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:48.240 would not have been able to reduce the number of 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:51.280 people living in poverty and extreme poverty by seven hundred 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:54.640 million over the last twenty five thirty years. India, just 0:16:54.720 --> 0:16:57.760 in the last few years, again through economic growth and 0:16:57.920 --> 0:17:01.760 job creation, has helped one hundred million people escape poverty. 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:04.320 But you know, at the same time, people are not 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:08.840 only per capita income creatures. We're not robots. We also 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:10.960 look at injustice. We know so much more about what 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:14.520 is possible, and when we, for example, discuss an issue 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:17.719 such as migration today, migration is very often also an 0:17:17.720 --> 0:17:21.280 expression of hopelessness. It's sometimes the product of conflict, of 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:23.959 extreme disasters, but more often than all that it is 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:26.560 young people looking at what their life would look like 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:29.560 if they stayed at home, or seeing every day what 0:17:29.760 --> 0:17:32.720 life could be like if you were somewhere else. This 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:36.760 translates into terrible debates about migration that I find very 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:40.880 often offensive, because, particularly in societies that actually have benefited 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:45.159 from migration themselves have been the product of migration, sometimes 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:48.359 take the harshest view of migrants today. The very fact 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:50.560 is we have always been a world that has moved around, 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:55.560 but inequality has created such amplification of these pressure points 0:17:55.560 --> 0:17:57.760 that we are no longer managing it in a way 0:17:57.800 --> 0:18:00.679 that is actually a positive. It is dividing as it 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:04.080 is polarizing us. And so going back to your example 0:18:04.080 --> 0:18:06.760 of India, you know, India just in the last few 0:18:06.840 --> 0:18:10.200 years has again demonstrated that there is always a historical 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:14.119 narrative and also a reason for where things in a 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:17.200 sense emanated from. But we've also seen in the story 0:18:17.240 --> 0:18:19.639 of India is that it is reinventing itself in the 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:22.320 twenty first century. Who would have thought ten years ago 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:25.520 that India would today be the largest investor in a 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:29.359 short period of just ten years of building four hundred 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:34.840 and fifty thousand megawats of clean energy infrastructure in India. Yeah, 0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:38.040 these are the kinds of revolutions that also have increasingly 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:41.320 to do with how governments and how economies make choices. 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:44.359 Let's try and put some numbers to how much money 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:48.480 is spent from the UNDP relative to other organizations. So 0:18:48.560 --> 0:18:51.320 the unf Triple c has a budget of tens of 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:55.240 millions of euros. It's based in bond in Germany. That's 0:18:55.240 --> 0:18:58.360 why the budget is in euros. The UNDP, the last 0:18:58.440 --> 0:19:01.359 numbers we checked was that you raise about six and 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:03.640 a half billion dollars and you give out about four 0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:07.080 and a half billion dollars. There's some surplus that's orders 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:10.679 of magnitude more than what a climate change committee is 0:19:10.720 --> 0:19:14.320 able to pull off. What specifically happens with that money, 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:18.120 and that may be large money relative to what we're 0:19:18.119 --> 0:19:21.560 talking in climate world, but it's very small money relative 0:19:21.640 --> 0:19:26.800 to any large economies government budget. So what do you 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:29.919 do with it? And how do you ensure that with 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:34.240 that much money you're able to achieve these really important goals. 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:36.159 I mean, first of all, just put a little bit 0:19:36.160 --> 0:19:38.600 of perspective on the We receive six now billion, but 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:40.480 we only spend four now a billion might make some 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:43.119 people say, well, we have two billion gns. So in 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:45.720 part this has to do that during COVID in the crisis, 0:19:46.240 --> 0:19:49.800 we receive multi year financing agreements. Therefore, in one year 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:53.240 our income may be six now billion, but is actually 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:55.160 to them be spent over two or three years. So 0:19:55.520 --> 0:19:58.000 on average, UNDP at the moment has roughly four and 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:02.360 a half billion dollars at Many different countries, including many 0:20:02.400 --> 0:20:06.240 developing countries, invest in order to have UNDP as a 0:20:06.280 --> 0:20:09.320 partner at their side, and these four and a half 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:11.280 billion dollars enable us first of all, to be the 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:15.280 backbone to the United Nations development system. Because UNDP has 0:20:15.320 --> 0:20:19.840 this remarkable presence across the globe. We operate in one 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:23.919 hundred and seventy countries, virtually unmatched by any other development organization. 0:20:24.040 --> 0:20:27.000 We are part if you want, in many respects of 0:20:27.040 --> 0:20:31.240 the national development ecosystem, and in that sense a partner 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:35.840 that countries turned to sometimes to think about very taxing issues, 0:20:35.880 --> 0:20:39.840 short term crisis, but also to think about yes, energy transition, 0:20:39.880 --> 0:20:44.479 addressing social injustice, eradication of poverty. So do you have 0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:48.639 a number that says for every dollar that UNDB spends, 0:20:48.680 --> 0:20:51.840 there is x amount of dollars that come from other places, 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:54.520 that other governments, from private sector to support the goals 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:57.000 that you're pursuing. It's very difficult to do that because 0:20:57.600 --> 0:20:59.760 I mean we receive four and a half billion dollars 0:20:59.760 --> 0:21:02.080 in new made a contrast, for example, the UNF Triple C, 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:05.800 the Framework Convention Secretary of the Climate Change Convention. Now 0:21:06.320 --> 0:21:10.159 the mandate of the Convention and the Secretary is essentially 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:14.199 to convene the conference of the parties to support and 0:21:14.320 --> 0:21:18.080 monitor the implementation of that agreement. We are actually the 0:21:18.200 --> 0:21:22.240 largest implementer of climate change support projects across the world, 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:25.440 so we actually work very much in tandem in complementarity 0:21:25.480 --> 0:21:29.160 with UNF Triple C. A Paris Agreement triggers financing through 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:33.360 the Green Climate Funds, through the Global Environment Facility countries 0:21:33.400 --> 0:21:35.479 then turned to UNDP and say will you work with 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:38.560 us in order to access this funding, help us invested. 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:42.760 So we are today the implementer of the largest portfolio 0:21:42.760 --> 0:21:46.399 of climate projects on mitigation, on adaptation in the whole 0:21:46.920 --> 0:21:48.840 UN system. And can we talk about some of those 0:21:48.840 --> 0:21:51.159 specific projects. Yes, let me give you one of the 0:21:51.240 --> 0:21:54.680 latest ones that's starting just now. Renewable energy, particularly in 0:21:54.680 --> 0:21:57.800 the African continent, is still in a sense finding its 0:21:57.840 --> 0:22:02.080 feed both between national regular three frameworks and the opportunity 0:22:02.119 --> 0:22:05.119 in terms of actually a shortcut to access to electricity. 0:22:05.160 --> 0:22:08.040 So on the one hand, we help many countries review 0:22:08.119 --> 0:22:11.360 their energy sector regulatory framework because very often it prevents 0:22:11.720 --> 0:22:14.679 independent power producers. If I have a solar panel, I 0:22:14.760 --> 0:22:17.320 cannot sell my electricity to the national grid. How do 0:22:17.359 --> 0:22:20.679 you change that environment? It's called de risking. At the 0:22:20.680 --> 0:22:24.800 other end is we have with GF funding, launched a 0:22:24.840 --> 0:22:27.760 program in twenty one countries on the African continent now 0:22:27.800 --> 0:22:31.719 on mini grids, essentially helping countries would in place the legislation, 0:22:32.400 --> 0:22:35.840 secure the financing, look at the targeting of where these 0:22:35.880 --> 0:22:40.320 are most effectively deployed, and potentially helping one hundred million 0:22:40.359 --> 0:22:44.680 people to gain access to electricity affordable and clean electricity 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:48.080 in a few years time. We are also helping, as 0:22:48.080 --> 0:22:50.879 I mentioned at the beginning, countries such as Pakistan to 0:22:51.760 --> 0:22:54.679 raise in the international community and understanding that what happened 0:22:54.760 --> 0:22:57.920 last year with those extreme floods has a great deal 0:22:57.920 --> 0:23:01.199 to the climate change. In EVA, the Secret Journal of 0:23:01.200 --> 0:23:03.280 the UN and the Prime Minister of Pakistan managed to 0:23:03.320 --> 0:23:06.560 bring together an international community to pledge nine billion dollars 0:23:06.560 --> 0:23:11.840 towards a climate resilient reconstruction rehabilitation effort. This is what 0:23:11.920 --> 0:23:15.359 we do every day across the world and across many 0:23:15.400 --> 0:23:19.040 different sectors, depending on where a country sees the greatest priority. 0:23:22.480 --> 0:23:25.560 After the break, why has the human Development index gone 0:23:25.560 --> 0:23:29.680 into decline? And how can we avoid increasing inequality as 0:23:29.760 --> 0:23:45.760 we take climate action? In terms of migration, which is 0:23:45.800 --> 0:23:48.920 something you've touched upon, what we do know is that 0:23:49.160 --> 0:23:54.120 climate migration has begun and it's expected to accelerate because 0:23:54.200 --> 0:23:58.080 emissions haven't fallen to zero, and until they don't, temperatures 0:23:58.080 --> 0:24:01.960 will rise and climate impacts will And so what is 0:24:01.960 --> 0:24:04.879 it that the UNDB is doing now to start dealing 0:24:04.960 --> 0:24:09.000 with what's likely to be an even larger migration event 0:24:09.080 --> 0:24:11.879