Speaker 1: Welcome to zero. I am akshatarati. This week the countries
Speaker 1: quitting fossil fuels. Last week I was in New York
Speaker 1: for Climate Week. It was hot and muggy and busy.
Speaker 1: The United Nations General Assembly was also taking place, which
Speaker 1: meant traffic in Manhattan was at a total standstill as
Speaker 1: cavalcades of diplomats shuttled from one discussion to the next,
Speaker 1: blocking roads. I of course, traveled the Low Emissions Way
Speaker 1: on two feet covered in sweat between events. There were
Speaker 1: six hundred events in Climate Week. By one count the
Speaker 1: mere mortal that I was, I made it just to
Speaker 1: a dozen, and pretty much no topic was off limits.
Speaker 1: There were discussions about all the usual big questions do
Speaker 1: we need carbon removal? Do we need geoengineering? Where are
Speaker 1: we going to get the money? But there are also
Speaker 1: community cleanups and musical performances and runs for climate birding.
Speaker 1: Even I could go on. One thing that stood out
Speaker 1: to me, though, was that the conversations tended not to
Speaker 1: be about what we must do, but how do we
Speaker 1: do it?
Speaker 2: And how do we do it?
Speaker 1: Bigger at scale, be bolder. One of those big, bold
Speaker 1: propositions is a fossil fuel non Proliferation Treaty. Just like
Speaker 1: nuclear non proliferation, the idea is getting countries to agree
Speaker 1: to stop expanding fossil fuel production. So far, thirteen countries
Speaker 1: are on board. The biggest is Columbia, and on the
Speaker 1: stage at a rooftop restaurant in Times Square, I got
Speaker 1: a chance to speak with Columbia's Environment Minister, Susannah Muhammad
Speaker 1: has been an outspoken proponent of this treaty and was
Speaker 1: full of energy and new ideas. Joining her on stage
Speaker 1: was Brazil's chief climate negotiator, Lilium Chagas. Brazil has not
Speaker 1: joined the treaty, at least not yet, but these two
Speaker 1: countries have so much else in common. They're both significant
Speaker 1: oil producers, and two years ago they both elected populist,
Speaker 1: left leaning presidents who campaigned on climate and conservation promises,
Speaker 1: and now they're both under pressure to deliver. In the conversation,
Speaker 1: as you'll hear, we also broke some news. Columbia is
Speaker 1: setting out a forty billion dollar economic transition plan to
Speaker 1: help replace revenues from oil and build green sectors like
Speaker 1: tourism and clean energy that will make up for the shortfall.
Speaker 1: Susanna hopes that it will include ten billion dollars in
Speaker 1: support from international financial institutions and developed countries with Susannah
Speaker 1: and Lilium about the big ambitions Columbia and Brazil have
Speaker 1: and the many sticky business as usual and seemingly intractable
Speaker 1: barriers that they both need to overcome. And by the way,
Speaker 1: for the shappiered listeners, my voice sounds a little bit
Speaker 1: different in the recording that follows, but I can assure
Speaker 1: you it's me. It has to do with the equipment
Speaker 1: used to make the recording at the live event. Colombia's
Speaker 1: number one export is oil, and so it was major
Speaker 1: news when at COP twenty eight last year, Columbia's President
Speaker 1: Gustavo Petro announced that the country would be joining a
Speaker 1: coalition of countries to sign the Fossil Fuel Non Proliferation Treaty. Now,
Speaker 1: what are the economic steps that Columbia has taken since
Speaker 1: to deliver on this commitment.
Speaker 3: Well, the first thing is to explain that we have
Speaker 3: taken all steps possible and we are very clear that
Speaker 3: this transition is impossible. To do it alone. We have
Speaker 3: to replace ten percent of GDP on exports of oil
Speaker 3: and coal. We are the fifth largest exporter of coal,
Speaker 3: and we know that in fifteen years our markets will
Speaker 3: be closing because of the energy transition and because our oil. First,
Speaker 3: we are not super rich in reserves, so we have
Speaker 3: a very bad.
Speaker 4: Dependency on something that we are not very rich in reserves.
Speaker 3: And second, our oil is very heavy oil, which would
Speaker 3: be also you know, it takes a specific price on
Speaker 3: the market to be able for it to be profitable
Speaker 3: because it's not the most easy oil to extract. So
Speaker 3: our markets are quite restricted, and we already know, we
Speaker 3: have the scenarios that if Columbia continues on this dependency,
Speaker 3: we are going to have an economic problem. We are
Speaker 3: already experiencing an economic problem. So we have to get
Speaker 3: out of that dependency and we have to do it
Speaker 3: fast because of economic and because of climate realities. So
Speaker 3: for us, after we did the scenarios, the scenarios of
Speaker 3: how to get out of those two aspects, because we
Speaker 3: always talk about emissions, but we talk about production. And
Speaker 3: so every time you invest in an asset for productions
Speaker 3: thirty years that you have to nobody will invest that
Speaker 3: amount of capital for five years. And so what we
Speaker 3: know is that the expansion of the frontier fossil feels
Speaker 3: keep amplifying. That means that the reality of the missions
Speaker 3: will not go down.
Speaker 4: So what we have done in concrete terms.
Speaker 3: Is we already have put together a portfolio of investment
Speaker 3: for the Colombian transition, climate and ecological transition, which means
Speaker 3: what would be the other sectors of the economy that
Speaker 3: potentially could replace this export foil and gas. But the
Speaker 3: amount of money we need an investment for that transition,
Speaker 3: for that economic transition, and the time we have is
Speaker 3: very short the money and very short the time.
Speaker 4: This is one key pitfall. Second, we have already.
Speaker 3: Finalized the subsidies on gasoline in Colombia, and we moved
Speaker 3: this year to take out the subsidies on diesel, which
Speaker 3: immediately had a strike on the transport sector. So we
Speaker 3: came back to fifty percent and we are negotiating the
Speaker 3: other fifty percent. And we have a green taxonomy which
Speaker 3: is quite sophisticated, I mean Colombia and the banking system
Speaker 3: already and tell an investor where to invest and how
Speaker 3: that investment helps the transition, and where to invest where
Speaker 3: it doesn't help the transition. But even with all of
Speaker 3: those measures, we know that it's not enough to be
Speaker 3: able to make this transition.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's an important point that if you're
Speaker 2: going to move away from fossil fuels, you're going to
Speaker 2: require investment in these green industries. There's building renewable energy,
Speaker 2: building tourism, but also bringing in green bonds. Now, when
Speaker 2: Resident Petro announced the commitment, you know, he pushed back
Speaker 2: very strongly around this idea that was being put forward
Speaker 2: that this is economic suicide if you're going to stop
Speaker 2: exploiting more fossil fuels and you wanted to bring in
Speaker 2: green energy exports instead of fossil fuel experts. But it
Speaker 2: has been quite a difficult road. Right. Last year, investments
Speaker 2: across all sectors of Columbia by twenty four percent. The
Speaker 2: growth in GDP was only about one percent, and the
Speaker 2: country has had to deal with not just climate impacts
Speaker 2: such as wildfires, but also power shortages, water shortages, and
Speaker 2: now it's even important natural gas because there's a shortage.
Speaker 2: So if it's going to be this difficult, how do
Speaker 2: you think the government can stay the course?
Speaker 3: Yes, well, I have to say we didn't have power shortages. Actually,
Speaker 3: our system was quite resilient and we were able to
Speaker 3: pass it. But now we have again alarms because the
Speaker 3: climate situation, because we are depending on hydro power for electricity,
Speaker 3: so again the climate circle comes back. We don't have
Speaker 3: enough rain, we don't have enough hydro power. Then you
Speaker 3: get a problem and then you need fuels to the
Speaker 3: thermo power. So it is a tricky situation. We only
Speaker 3: took the decisions to stop signing exploration contracts two years ago,
Speaker 3: but we have more than two hundred exploration contracts that
Speaker 3: we already sign and that are actually in implementation, and
Speaker 3: we will be seeing our reserves compared to the level
Speaker 3: of the transition. Of course, the economic situation is not
Speaker 3: because of these decisions alone. It has a very systematic situation.
Speaker 3: After COVID inflation globally on foot was also a very
Speaker 3: important issue. But of course what you are describing could
Speaker 3: be the future if we don't have an international platform
Speaker 3: to make a transition where everybody has equal ground for
Speaker 3: the transition.
Speaker 4: What I mean by.
Speaker 3: That is, first, while in the rest of the world,
Speaker 3: especially the developed world, access to capital is between one
Speaker 3: to three percent, Colombia has to pay ten percent in.
Speaker 4: Average for access to capital.
Speaker 3: It's super expensive even for our level of mac economic rating.
Speaker 4: As soon as we mentioned.
Speaker 3: That we were going to stop exploration in order to
Speaker 3: be able to start non proliferating fossil fuels and actually
Speaker 3: put a limit. So we make the transition because what
Speaker 3: we're doing now is double investment. We are continuously exploring
Speaker 3: and exploiting more fossil fuels and at the same time
Speaker 3: investing in the renewal. So what we're doing is maxifying
Speaker 3: the amount of energy but not replacing.
Speaker 4: This is not happening in the world. Immediately.
Speaker 3: We have all the markets and the credit rating agency
Speaker 3: is super nervous to almost take out again our last
Speaker 3: investment rating that we have, which will make our situation worse.
Speaker 3: And then finally, we are a very highly indebted country.
Speaker 3: Right now we cannot take one more single pestl in dept.
Speaker 3: Because we were indebted by COVID and because of access
Speaker 3: to capital is so expensive.
Speaker 4: Fifty percent of that day dept.
Speaker 3: We paid in interest and right now is larger than
Speaker 3: the defense budget, while we're paying annually on external debt
Speaker 3: or larger than the education budget. So we have very
Speaker 3: limited capacity to invest from the physical capacity. That's why
Speaker 3: President Petrol has put forward some transformation measures on the
Speaker 3: financial system that are critical so that we are serious
Speaker 3: about transition.
Speaker 4: We cannot go to cops and say.
Speaker 3: That we're going to cut emissions while the economic system
Speaker 3: goes on the other hand with the same rules as
Speaker 3: it has been before. Because everybody that is ambitious and
Speaker 3: that really wants to make this transition because of economic
Speaker 3: and environmental reasons gets punished by the financial system, by
Speaker 3: the market.
Speaker 4: It doesn't get rewarded.
Speaker 3: And so your question is how sustainable is This is
Speaker 3: not sustainable if we don't put a platform originally, but
Speaker 3: it's not sustainable not only for economy, it will not
Speaker 3: be sustainable for the planet. That's why we have called
Speaker 3: for a Non Proliferation of Fossil Fuels Treaty, which we
Speaker 3: don't have a text of the treaty.
Speaker 4: Yet, is a group of countries.
Speaker 3: We're looking thirty countries with complementary economies that can actually
Speaker 3: negotiate an economic regime that allows in reality for the
Speaker 3: transition with key partners. We want to create an island.
Speaker 3: Actually all the states are islands. Who started this, an
Speaker 3: island of country that can show the US another way,
Speaker 3: and that then that regime becomes more attractive than the
Speaker 3: situation we have now, which is actually the real political truth.
Speaker 4: Nobody will put their economy at risk.
Speaker 3: First, and I mean we don't honestly, in the international
Speaker 3: ward we kept saying, oh, you're so ambitionous, so congratulations.
Speaker 3: I mean it's not enough. We need reforms because otherwise
Speaker 3: this will.
Speaker 4: Not be sustainable.
Speaker 3: In two years the government changes and there will be
Speaker 3: potentially a backlash with our government. Would we say no,
Speaker 3: We're going to explode oil and gas for other thirty
Speaker 3: years because our wise, how can we sustain our economy,
Speaker 3: our people?
Speaker 1: After the break, what would it take to get Brazil's
Speaker 1: government to sign up to the Fossil Fuel non Proliferation Treaty.
Speaker 1: By the way, if you've been enjoying this episode, please
Speaker 1: take a moment to rate and review the show on
Speaker 1: Apple and Spotify. It helps other listeners find the show.
Speaker 2: Lilliam, Now, when President Lula returned to office, you know,
Speaker 2: it was hailed as one of the most important elections
Speaker 2: for the future of the planet. He has pushed back
Speaker 2: to reduce deforestation of the Amazon and has made a
Speaker 2: lot of success in that area, but Brazil still hasn't
Speaker 2: joined the Non Proliferation Treaty. Columbia is the largest economy
Speaker 2: among the thirteen countries that are part of that treaty.
Speaker 2: Right now, Brazil has, you know, a lot of green energy.
Speaker 2: Already ninety percent of its electricity comes from renewables, but
Speaker 2: Resident Lula is also pushing for an increase in oil production.
Speaker 2: So what would it take Brazil to join the treaty.
Speaker 5: I don't have a straight an answer because you know,
Speaker 5: I represent like the foreign affairs view. I think that
Speaker 5: what's happening in Brazil there is a national debate that
Speaker 5: involves Congress, governments and civil society and how to take
Speaker 5: about this transition. What are the features that are there
Speaker 5: in Brazil that will facilitate the transition, because you know,
Speaker 5: it's when we are talking about the energy transition, there
Speaker 5: is no single formula. Each country will find its own
Speaker 5: way to contribute to this global effort. So the form
Speaker 5: law or the policies that Brazil is taking is a
Speaker 5: massive investment, domestic and international investment in renewable energy. The
Speaker 5: country has one of the cleanest energy metrics in the world,
Speaker 5: more than nine percent for electricity and almost fifty percent
Speaker 5: for the whole of the energy. But as you know,
Speaker 5: no government will jeopardize energy security for whoever reason because
Speaker 5: then there will be no government in place. So what's
Speaker 5: happening there is like they are provoking a national debate
Speaker 5: to see how Brazil can accelerate the importance of the
Speaker 5: renewables in the substitution of the oil.
Speaker 2: But if in one way, Brazil should have an easier
Speaker 2: path forward because if you look at Columbia, fifty percent
Speaker 2: of their exports come from oil, whereas in the case
Speaker 2: of Brazil it's only fifteen percent. So the economic case
Speaker 2: for being able to transition away from fossil fuels, given
Speaker 2: how clean already Brazil's energy system is, is stronger. And
Speaker 2: you know, as Minister Monmouth was saying, you need leaders,
Speaker 2: you need people to take the first step, and the
Speaker 2: first step is always hard. So what would it take
Speaker 2: to get Brazil on board?
Speaker 5: Yeah, the I mean trying to explains that the path
Speaker 5: that Brazil is following is putting more importance to the renewables.
Speaker 5: For example, the gasoline in Brazil has twenty percent of
Speaker 5: its content its ethanol, and a recent law there was
Speaker 5: past that's called the Fuio of the Future, these percentage
Speaker 5: will grow to thirty percent. Also, there is the cars,
Speaker 5: the engines of the cars they run as a flex
Speaker 5: fuel technology. Brazil is the only country where the consumer,
Speaker 5: the person choose at the station whether she wants to
Speaker 5: put gasoline or ethanol, and there is a massive incentive
Speaker 5: to the clean fuel. It's at least thirty percent cheaper.
Speaker 5: So that's the way the country is trying to move
Speaker 5: from one technologist to the other.
Speaker 2: Columbia was the tenth country to join. There are now
Speaker 2: thirteen countries as part of the treaty.
Speaker 4: You said you.
Speaker 2: Want thirty countries to come together so that you could
Speaker 2: start to discuss what kind of the text would be
Speaker 2: of the treaty, because that text will be very important
Speaker 2: going forward. What kind of conversations have you been having
Speaker 2: to increase that number from thirteen to thirty? And you
Speaker 2: know which country is as interested?
Speaker 3: Well, there is a we have an unstrategic meeting on
Speaker 3: the treaty Antigua with all the ministers and we profile
Speaker 3: a set of countries that we think that will make
Speaker 3: that island complementary economy. So some countries that have right
Speaker 3: now oil for example, let's talk about natural gas. So
Speaker 3: we are having now a shortage of natural gas because
Speaker 3: it's a temporary shortage of some reserves that have been
Speaker 3: depleted because unfortunately fossil fuels cannot be harvested.
Speaker 4: You know you have them or you don't have them.
Speaker 3: And then in twenty twenty nine, because of some exploration
Speaker 3: and exploitations, we should have another source internal source of gas.
Speaker 3: So in this inter rent we will have an import
Speaker 3: of gas which is highly costed because this LNG will
Speaker 3: increase the cost of gas for the column and economy,
Speaker 3: which will have aomic effects. So if we could have
Speaker 3: a non proliferation of fossil fuel treaty, you could actually
Speaker 3: make a commitment with a gas producer to export to
Speaker 3: Columbia a fixed price for ten years, because we are
Speaker 3: all committed to the transition, so that the economic effects
Speaker 3: while we do the transition on the demand on gas,
Speaker 3: which comes mainly from industry trucks would be the other
Speaker 3: key demand of gas could be replaced by other technologies
Speaker 3: in time. So you collectively look for mitigation of the
Speaker 3: economic consequences of the transition that are not talking about.
Speaker 3: There are two things that we are not talking about enough,
Speaker 3: the economic consequences of the transition and also the situation
Speaker 3: of the oil producers and exporters. The countries that provide
Speaker 3: the world with fuels and that the economy is totally interlinked.
Speaker 3: If we don't talk about those two issues and we
Speaker 3: keep only talking about demand and emissions, probably we will
Speaker 3: not be able to make this transition. So this is
Speaker 3: the type of things now we are talking to those economies,
Speaker 3: but this is I mean, it is one of these
Speaker 3: things that is like right now. We will have to
Speaker 3: take a lot of mental barriers. It's not easy for
Speaker 3: countries to come. I have said, we have had many meetings.
Speaker 3: Countries are very hesitant, scary. And why it is scary
Speaker 3: because that has a risk, the perception of risks of
Speaker 3: your country for wanting to say that you want to
Speaker 3: start working on non proliferations would create economic problems for
Speaker 3: your country.
Speaker 4: This is the multilateralition.
Speaker 3: So here the question is who is governing here the
Speaker 3: market of the governments, and we are calling for again
Speaker 3: politics to take control of the situation.
Speaker 4: Otherwise this transition will not happen.
Speaker 5: Can I comment one aspect that is very interesting. There
Speaker 5: has been the whole financial international financial structures their structure
Speaker 5: for a brown economy. So if you were to transition
Speaker 5: to the green economy, these structures they must shift as well.
Speaker 5: So it's realistic to think that we are going to
Speaker 5: have a clean future with financial and economic structures from
Speaker 5: the past. There was a very interesting information that came
Speaker 5: in this some of the future discussions here this week.
Speaker 5: The amount of money that developing countries pay each year
Speaker 5: to service their adapt is bigger to the amount of
Speaker 5: almost three times bigger than what they receive as development help.
Speaker 5: So we have to really also to force the financial system,
Speaker 5: the motilateral banks, the rules, the Basilaya rules to shift
Speaker 5: as well.
Speaker 2: Now, finance is a key part of making this transition happen,
Speaker 2: and as you said, the rules need to change, the
Speaker 2: financial instructure needs to change. But there are ideas that
Speaker 2: are starting to work in places. So there is an
Speaker 2: idea of the just Energy Transition partnership. South Africa has
Speaker 2: got eight and a half billion dollars, Indonesia has got
Speaker 2: twenty billion dollars. Those projects are still in the early days,
Speaker 2: but they are starting to show how this could be
Speaker 2: done in the financial system that is there and how
Speaker 2: we tweak it. Colombia is one of the countries that
Speaker 2: is talking about having such a partnership. Where are those
Speaker 2: conversations and what kind of just energy transition partnership would
Speaker 2: Columbia benefit from and would.
Speaker 3: Seek Yes, we are calling a group of partners countries
Speaker 3: that includes the US Treasury, Germany and other countries that
Speaker 3: have shown interest to what we call it just Energy
Speaker 3: Transition Partnership alike because we are learning from the first generation.
Speaker 3: We have set a governance system internally that includes nine ministers,
Speaker 3: and we have created a portfolio investment for the transition
Speaker 3: that we will launch internally with our private sector and
Speaker 3: our banks on the second of October, and we want
Speaker 3: to show how much it costs, what is public financing,
Speaker 3: what is private financy to make that transition, And we
Speaker 3: call it alike because it's not on the energy matrix
Speaker 3: for us only. It is on the other sectors of
Speaker 3: the economy that need to emerge for us to replace
Speaker 3: the fiscal income from the exports of fossil fuels.
Speaker 4: So it would be.
Speaker 3: One hopefully if we are able to and we have
Speaker 3: two more very important meeting for that, and hopefully we
Speaker 3: can have and a first announcement we will start the
Speaker 3: negotiation at COPS sixteen to demonstrate that it is about partnership,
Speaker 3: collaboration and a strategy that we could start making this transition.
Speaker 3: So this is one of the pillars, and we have
Speaker 3: talked today to multilateral banks, the IMF. Everybody says, oh,
Speaker 3: Columbia's ambitious, or Columbia.
Speaker 4: Is leading this and leading. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean we have done everything that is on the
Speaker 3: table and it's still not enough. So we need to
Speaker 3: demonstrate collectively that this is possible.
Speaker 4: Otherwise we are just selling smoke. Yeah at every cope,
Speaker 4: really really yeah.
Speaker 2: So the Just Energy Transition Partnership as it exists in
Speaker 2: South Africa and Indonesia, they are aimed towards retiring coal
Speaker 2: power plants earlier than they would have otherwise retired if
Speaker 2: you just ran them on their economic life. What kind
Speaker 2: of support is Columbia seeking through this partnership. Is it
Speaker 2: retiring coal power plants or as you said, trying to
Speaker 2: find ways to complement the revenue from oil exports. What
Speaker 2: specifically would you like is.
Speaker 4: The portofolio of investment is around.
Speaker 3: Develop in some sectors that we think could start replacing
Speaker 3: the oil revenues. One of them is nature based tourism,
Speaker 3: which investments should strengthen biodiversity, local communities and territories. And
Speaker 3: that's also critical for us to consolidate the process, so
Speaker 3: it is very much integrated. The other one is the
Speaker 3: energy transition itself, which includes replacing some power plants. We
Speaker 3: have seventy five percent of our energy comes from hydropower,
Speaker 3: but the other twenty five is by power plants, and
Speaker 3: so is to replace those power plants with renewal energy
Speaker 3: and increase the capacity of renewal energy because we are
Speaker 3: having water problems with.
Speaker 4: Climate conditions, so we need to increase.
Speaker 3: The energy capacity of the system, but also to develop
Speaker 3: an energy export sector on renewables which could include green
Speaker 3: hydrogen and solar and wind. Through an interconnection with Panama
Speaker 3: that we are making that cable and will allow us
Speaker 3: to export energy, renewal energy and hopefully start replacing those incomes.
Speaker 3: It has a third component on transport because fifty percent
Speaker 3: of our liquid fuels demand come from transport, so the
Speaker 3: electrification of transport is another critical issue. And finally is
Speaker 3: agriculture and bio economy. Agriculture in terms of decarbonized where
Speaker 3: we are doing now the land reform, but that requires
Speaker 3: a grow industry, but in a very specific way. It
Speaker 3: has to be decarbonized and based on biodiversity and bio economy.
Speaker 3: Which in our Biodiversity plan we will present at COP sixteen,
Speaker 3: wants to increase the participation in GDP from zero point
Speaker 3: eight to three percent by twenty thirty. So all of
Speaker 3: this is a huge economic transformation. All of these are
Speaker 3: aligned to reindustrialization because we don't want to export raw
Speaker 3: materials and import technology. It has to come with value
Speaker 3: change and that is a huge task for a country
Speaker 3: because it means how do you transition the labor force,
Speaker 3: how you creating sty twos for these new industries, how
Speaker 3: do you create the public goods and infrastructure in the
Speaker 3: regions where you want to do this? A lot of
Speaker 3: public investment is required, and then private investment can come
Speaker 3: actually to make investments so stainable. But this public investments
Speaker 3: is not enough at all. And we expect the JOS
Speaker 3: Energy Trust is your partnership to align critical financial mechanisms
Speaker 3: as a package to be able to negotiate a good
Speaker 3: deal for this Columbian transition.
Speaker 2: Right, so it sounds like a more complex but more
Speaker 2: comprehensive plan to try and help the Columbian economy. Now
Speaker 2: I want to ask the last two questions on nature
Speaker 2: you brought up COP sixteen. You have said that protecting
Speaker 2: nature should become a strategic interest of countries from the
Speaker 2: global south and correct me if I'm wrong. But you
Speaker 2: got your start in politics because you start quite to
Speaker 2: protect nature in a nature reserve in Bogota from being developed. Right,
Speaker 2: And so now that Columbia is hosting COPS sixteen and
Speaker 2: it's in a few weeks time. Typically in nature, conservation
Speaker 2: and economic development are seen as opposites because you want
Speaker 2: to extract from nature to get money. Protecting nature will
Speaker 2: come at a cost as the economic system today exists.
Speaker 2: How can you change that paradigm and what can COPS
Speaker 2: sixteen show to the world that protecting nature doesn't have
Speaker 2: to come at a cost but actually provide benefits to society.
Speaker 3: Well, there is a first aspect which I will cover
Speaker 3: their values is like if we continue valuing nature as
Speaker 3: a resource, then you get into that parallem because every
Speaker 3: time you will have to use nature, then you are
Speaker 3: depleting it. And that's what systematically the economic system is
Speaker 3: in depleting nature.
Speaker 4: But if the.
Speaker 3: Paradigm is more, and that's why we have called the
Speaker 3: cop Peace with Nature. If the paradigm is more, how
Speaker 3: can we reproduce society in a way that reproduces nature systematically.
Speaker 3: I think that is a very interesting question that can
Speaker 3: get as an ant, not an ant, but an ant
Speaker 3: an animal.
Speaker 4: And it is always get confused by my pronunciations.
Speaker 3: Like these ants that get into everywhere with that question,
Speaker 3: like if you're developing an industry, how are you making
Speaker 3: peace with nature? If you are in the financial system,
Speaker 3: how are you making peace with nature? If you are
Speaker 3: a community on the ground, how are you making peace
Speaker 3: with nature?
Speaker 4: Which will make nature alive?
Speaker 3: Meaning it's something where we have a relationship, not an
Speaker 3: inert object. That's more on the values proper position. And
Speaker 3: that's why we are launching the Piece with Nature Coalition
Speaker 3: at COPS sixteen, which would be a multi stakeholder coalition
Speaker 3: to put that maybe sometimes a comfortable question like an
Speaker 3: ant that is biting you all the time, but that
Speaker 3: you can actually make yourself aware of how you're working.
Speaker 4: What are you doing now?
Speaker 3: The economic system has to realize on the one side,
Speaker 3: the risks of nature being depleted, which are evident, I mean,
Speaker 3: but they are not incorporated still the external cost of
Speaker 3: nature is not incorporated nor internalized. But on the other hand,
Speaker 3: also the side of the opportunities we are seeing that
Speaker 3: we can have vibrant economies if we create new materials,
Speaker 3: new ways of living, new ways.
Speaker 4: Of production and consumption.
Speaker 3: And there's a whole field of innovation and possibility which
Speaker 3: should make us very excited, not depressed a little bit.
Speaker 4: What happens with climate sometimes that you.
Speaker 6: Get depressed, but very excited and mobilize a lot of
Speaker 6: energy at all levels of society, and at COPS sixteen,
Speaker 6: we want to represent that principle is whole government, whole
Speaker 6: of society, all the type of knowledge is working together
Speaker 6: to restore nature.
Speaker 4: And our connection to nature.
Speaker 3: And I think from there, the movement itself, people itself
Speaker 3: are bringing so many solutions that hopefully we want to
Speaker 3: give them more political relevancy a COPS sixteen, more visibility
Speaker 3: because the movement is there, is happening, has a lot
Speaker 3: of hope, and we want to make it politically very
Speaker 3: relevant and visible.
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Speaker 1: the conversation and as always, Kira Bindram and Monique mulina
Speaker 1: I am Akshatarti back