How to manage the unthinkable

Ana Yang

Alright, yeah? Good evening, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, depending on where you’re joining us from. Welcome to Chatham House and to this event. Name of event is called How to Manage the Unthinkable and the objective is that we have the Commissioner, as Chair of the Commission, of the Overshoot Commission, to share some of the findings. And this is to take an initial space for us to think about what happens in the implementation of climate action and also, what happens if we overshoot.

And so, for – just a bit about proceedings. We want to make sure that you understand that today that the conversation is on the record. It’s being recorded and also, it’s being livestreamed, so we have lots of people joining us online, as well. And just a little bit plu – just a plug that Chatham House has been welcoming all of you into our conversations for over 100 years and we address big topics, and we also try to unpack really complicated issues. So, thank you for joining us this evening and help us continue this tradition.

So, the sequence will be Pascal will start and then, we’ll have Michael and then we’ll have Patricia. So, Pascal, let me just make sure that I have the right – his long track record, but he’s now the Chair of Climate Overshoot Commission. He was also Former Director-General of the World Trade Organization. Patricia is the Research Director for the Chatham House International Security Programme and then, we have Michael Okers – Obsteiner, Professor for University of Oxford and also, long friend – long time friend. So, Pascal, I’ll start with you.

Pascal Lamy

Thank you very much and thanks for hosting us tonight. From what I understand, we are not working under Chatham House Rule.

Ana Yang

Quite correct.

Pascal Lamy

Just have to make sure because most of the meeting I attend start with whether or not we are working on – under Chatham House Rules. Just a few words on how we’ve been running this Climate Overshoot Commission, which is a, sort of, spinoff of the Paris Peace Forum, which I was chairing at the time, in order to try and bring into this big international climate conversation elements of newness. The purpose of which would be to create more energy into what we believe is clearly unsufficient global national domestic mobilisation to address climate change.

So, we’ve tried to bring something new in a) looking at the whole range of possible options. Of course cut the emissions, of course adaptation, of course carbon removal, and we are starting to enter into less well-known ground. And also, geoengineering, I know to be one of the modalities of geoengineering, which is solar radiation modification. So, we look at the whole range because we believe we have to consider the whole range to take proper decision.

We do this at the Climate Overshoot Commission with the majority of people from the so-called South. I intentionally compose this commission so that for the first time, the majority of people coming from – not a big majority, but a majority, and I can tell you, with the time we spent together, it has quite substantially changed the terms of the conversation. To put it very simply, most of the people coming from the South in the Commission don’t have the same discount rate as the one we have in the North. Now, the value of time and notion of urgency is different.

We’ve done that with a bunch of people who are independent. So, we all worked in our own personal capacity, so no government instruction, no solid bond, except the fact that I gather these goals. Of course, with not much of a legitimacy and that’s the problem in not having a formal mandate, but a lot of freedom and engagement, which I think is a good trade-off.

And finally, we did it in bringing with us a group of young people, what we called our youth group, which is involving and associating to our deliberations, our work, our papers, a group of young people who are not formally members of the Commission. They didn’t have to subscribe to the conclusions and the recommendations, but they were active in the work of the dis – of the Commission. And I think I would recommend this formula, even if it was not an easy life every day.

We produced a series of recommendations, as we should, given our mandate. I won’t list them all. You can find them on the website and in the text. I can see Kim Campbell joining us online. Kim is a Former Prime Minister of Canada and a very active member.

She could not be with us because of what I understand the impact of some storms on air traffic, there we are. So, good to see you, at the end of the day, Kim. Again, I’m not going to enter into many of our recommendations. Just let me mention a few that have attracted maybe more attention than others. As far as cutting emissions, we propose to adopt a different trajectory to zero – whether – zero production of fuel, whether we are North or South, when we are working on the few details we need to put on the table to give the proper users notice.

We’ve proposed, for instance, to emulate the model of jet speed for adaptation, which in our view, for a large number of developing countries, is clearly now a priority. We’ve proposed to start looking seriously at the Carbon Takeback Obligations, which is a new feature in this landscape, and this has attracted a lot of attention, understandably so. We’ve been working a lot on SIM and we’ve recommended a moratorium on moving to what could be dangerous in situ experiments in testing a number of those geoengineering technologies, starting with solar radiation modification. Which is, basically, for those of you who are not familiar with this, technologies emulating what volcanoes do when there is an eruption. They send a lot of particles in the atmosphere and they all work as a little, tiny mirror, but this works as a mirror and reduces – sends back solar radiation and cools the Earth’s temperature.

Final point, before I give the floor to Michael. My own take, what I learnt from these three years together, was a lot of thing, but I think what matters for Chatham House here is that there are two big dangers in where we are. There is obviously a growing climate danger, a physical danger, in what we are doing now, for instance, on the impact of climate overshoot on health is pretty telling. But there is also another danger, which is a political one, which is what I’m afraid we are starting to see, which is a growing North-South polarisation.

A lot of countries in the South do not have, as I said, the same view as the one we have in the North. And there are – as damage is coming to truth, not just what people were thinking, but what’s happening, there is a, sort of, political brewing in a number of developing countries, which I think is perfectly understandable, but we really have to address. And that’s, I think – we don’t have just one reason to try and do better at addressing climate change. We have a physical one and we have a political one.

Michael?

Professor Michael Obsteiner

Yes.

Pascal Lamy

Michael is one of the science people who’ve been working with us.

Professor Michael Obsteiner

Yes, so…

Pascal Lamy

And I – then, when we discuss…

Ana Yang

Yeah, I agree.

Pascal Lamy

…I’m thinking that…

Professor Michael Obsteiner

Hmmm hmm.

Pascal Lamy

Thanks, yeah.

Professor Michael Obsteiner

Yeah. So, I’m representing the Science Advisory Group. We were three of us. Thelma Krug, who was the Vice Chair of the IPCC at that time, and then, we had Chris Fields, who is – who was in charge of Working Group II. And Working Group II of the IPCC takes over the adaptations side of it. But he also chaired a National Academy group looking into geoengineering. So, he, kind of, covered those topics and I was mainly coming in with my expertise on negative emissions and carbon removal obligation.

So, we were Advisors, so we supported the Commissioners, and in this way, we have a little bit of an outside view, as well. And I think what the Commission really accomplished, to my mind, two things that are really important to mention. One is, you know, the IPCC is divided up into silos, so into the climates, climate science part, the adaptation and then, how do we respond with respect to mitigation? And those groups, they are co-ordinated, but really never really work together. And I think what we developed was really a comprehensive strategy across the entire spectrum, even also going into a topic that’s typically not addressed and this is this geoengineering, solar radiation management topic.

The second issue, I think, which the Commission accomplished, was to talk about the taboo that’s not very helpful in the climate negotiation, meaning we are not allowed to talk about the scenario that we will not meet 1.5 or 2°. And when you look into the newspapers these days, it’s quite obvious that many of the fossil fuel companies, they come out with projections of increasing fossil fuel production out to 2050, not really giving in on the decarbonisation agenda. So, it’s not a big secret that we will be actually heading towards quite massive overshoot we call it. And overshoot means that we go up and – with the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but with overshoot, we also implicitly say we want to come down with the greenhouse gases. And this is where we need, then, the negative emissions and take CO2 out of the atmosphere.

And this is quite interesting for the negotiations in the sense that many countries now compete for reputational gain by saying, “I’m the first one who hit its Net Zero.” And one country, it’s actually your home country, Brazil, will probably be one of the first countries in the world hitting Net Zero simply by taking more forests into their carbon accounting, which takes out CO2 and actually doesn’t have to do much and will still hit Net Zero. But there is this one country I really like to mention, is Switzerland made the calculation of its fair share of emission reduction and they came out with a figure of reducing emissions by 120% today in a fair share, such that countries like India can still emit.

So, this is, kind of, a reality and the official line is “Net Zero by 2050.” So, you, basically, appropriate the right to emit ‘til 2050 to yourself, although taking into account what happens after 2050, when we are supposed to hit Net Zero, someone will take over the responsibility, but no-one even started to talk about who takes over that responsibility. And as I think this is also an accomplishment of the Overshoot Commission that we put these thorny topics on the table and say, “Guys, we need to think about this. How do we justify our emissions today and who is responsible for taking CO2 out of the atmosphere?” And taking out of – CO2 out of the atmosphere is – doesn’t have any benefits. It’s just – it’s costly. You know, if you produce electricity from solar and wind, you produce electricity, you actually produce something you can sell. But if you take CO2 out of the atmosphere, which you have, you know, in a very small percentage in the air, this is very costly, very energy intensive, very material intensive. So, it’s, basically, cleaning up a waste dump, hmmm.

And we are not even sure whether or not we will have the money, the financial resources, to do so later on. There are huge questions on technology we might want to discuss, but it’s even a financial problem because there will be, most likely, no-one around who will pay for this or volunteer to pay for it because it doesn’t produce anything useful, hmmm. And so, this brings us also into this discussion of the carbon removal obligation, where we actually need to, not only technologically, but also financially, prepare ourselves and put financial resources aside and put contracts in place that carbon removal actually happens after we hit Net Zero.

So, this is – these are all topics which are – in a way, once you know about them, it’s, duh, yes, we should do this, but it’s not even discussed in the climate negotiations because we are so obsessed with Net Zero. And Net Zero is really an interesting point, because when we hit Net Zero, we actually have maximum amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. So, this is not when you, basically, solve the cri – climate problem. I think many people say with Net Zero, this is equal to the – to solving the climate problem. This is actually when it’s most dangerous and this is also where we in the Overshoot Commission puts quite a lot of thinking of using geoengineering, solar radiation management, maybe at these points in time, which are also not very far away, to mitigate some of the risks that we – that the world might face at this particular point in time.

And these are immediate risks. So, these are risks of – you know, we had representation of the Foreign Minister of Pakistan and the Pakistan two years ago, faced a major drought and a major catastrophic flooding and this year, a major flooding again, with lots of casualties again. This is just the short-run, kind of, stories when you might actually want to be motivated to cool the Earth, but also, you want to protect the pole caps, for example, for the long run, because if they melt too early, you – it’s very hard to bring them back so quickly. And melting pole caps is a tragedy in itself, but it just produces a lot of sea level rise and with thermal expansion, we might actually commit to a lot of cities going under.

So, these are some of these issues we will have to talk about when we talk about solar radiation management and interventions of something that is really, kind of, sci-fi today. But once we actually see and better understand the actual consequences of climate change, we might actually really need to go more into depth and maybe even be motivated to do this. However, to do this properly, we need to be prepared and that’s one of the main messages from this point of work on solar radiation management. We really need to get the science, and maybe also some of the experiments, going, such that we are actually equipped later on to do something we never wanted to do in the first place but might actually end up doing because we did not do enough on the climate mitigation side. But maybe with this, I stop, hmmm.

Ana Yang

For now.

Professor Michael Obsteiner

Hmmm hmm.

Ana Yang

Patricia, before you, Ms Campbell, I’ll hand over to you, just – she’s the Commissioner of the Climate Overshoot Commission and also, Former Prime Minister of Canada. Would you come in with maybe remarks, if…?

The Rt Hon Kim Campbell PC CC OBC KC

Hello, are you speaking to me? Invite me to come in?

Ana Yang

Yes.

The Rt Hon Kim Campbell PC CC OBC KC

Okay.

Ana Yang

Yes, please.

The Rt Hon Kim Campbell PC CC OBC KC

I’ll just speak very briefly and I’m very sorry not to be there. I never – and who knows how much climate change is responsible for the atmospheric disruptions that made it impossible for me to actually get there by any route today in time for this Commission, and I would like to – this discussion? And I would like to say, over the years, I’ve done a number of things with Chatham House and I always say to people, “Behind Chatham House Rules, there really is a Chatham House.” So, I’m sorry to be there physically with you. It’s a wonderful place to be.

But what you’ve heard both, Pascal and Michael’s wonderful discussion of the science, that the deliberations of the Carbon Overshoot Commission were quite remarkable, and all of us who participated felt that we learned a great deal. But the other side of the coin, we had these remarkable discussions about the state of the science, the possibilities, things like geoengineering, etc. But the other side of the coin of the climate disaster is another crisis, and that is the crisis of governance. And we face this and we discuss this at a number of different levels, as Michael said. I mean, we’ve been looking at who will make the decisions about how to deploy science of geoengineering. Who even should do the research?

One of the things we were concerned about is that research into something like solar radiation modification should not be funded by fossil fuel companies or other parties who had a vested interest in skewing research to come up with certain results. But the whole question of governance, we don’t have governance to regulate this, but also, in terms of all of the utilisation of wonderful technologies and things that we have, that on the one hand, can be very encouraging, but on the other hand, are not being implemented fast enough. In the world, we have a crisis of governance. The fact that the United Nations has done such wonderful work in the IPCC, but it is an organisation of sovereign states. And how do we create the political will for countries to make the decisions that they need to make to implement new technologies and to stop using fossil fuels?

And it’s very difficult and we’ve just seen recently, with the exposure of the Russian efforts to undermine the American election, we have all sorts of vested interests, engaging in campaigns of disinformation around the world, whether it is to undermine democracies or to undermine good policy in climate change. And we’ve seen this and we know there’s no big secret about the work that the fossil fuel companies have done to create front organisations that try to convince people either that it’s not a problem or that they’re a part of the solution. And we see things like carbon capture and sequestration, but most of that comes from processes that are actually burning and creating carbon dioxide in the first place. So, the question of governance I think is one of the most important ones to deal with and I, in fact, have just been recently invited to be – participate in a conference here in Italy in October on the whole question of governance and climate change and sustainability. Because we are absolutely totally ill-equipped with our existing governance structures to create the kinds of decisions that we need.

But let me just – to throw out one idea, because I’m a profound believer in democracy and the rule of law and we might argue that countries like China, that are not democracies, can make certain kinds of decisions because they don’t have to worry about the political elections. Although, at the same time, they do have pressure from their population when there are disasters and the Communist Party has to respond to it. But our democratic governances are – governments are – you know, have many, many challenges in this, but the rule of law has begun to give us some tools that people are using. And I think just this last week, when a court in South Korea ruled that the government’s policies with respect to climate change were unconstitutional because they were not protecting the health and wellbeing of the population, and it was a group of young people who went to court to sue.

Now, what the government will do as a result of that court ruling, I don’t know, but more and more – in the State of Montana in the United States, again, young people went to court to sue their government for being in breach of the state constitution that guarantees the protection of the environment and their health and wellbeing. So, I think more and more, people are coming to realise that the levers of the rule of law, the levers of litigation and particular, the capacity to find people liable and to impose damages as a result of legal judgements, not simply voluntarily like loss and damages we talked about in the COP, but to fund things as a result of legal obligations, that these are tools that – of governance that we need to use more and more. In other words, we shouldn’t just think only of what governments as Parliaments and the Executive Branch and others will decide, but how do we create the constituency for good policy? How do we create the capacity for decisions to be made at that level, which will contribute to solving the problem, reducing emissions, providing resources for adaptation, etc.?

So, I think it’s a very frightening time and it can be very discouraging. If you look at the inability of the countries of the world, I mean, we are not fulfilling our commitments from Pari – the Paris Accord and we’re going the other way. And the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, is a good friend of mine and I see him, you know, making his public declarations about what a disaster we’re in. And each time I see him, it’s not just the passage of years, but the reality that he’s dealing with, that makes him look more and more, you know, harried and strained. It is a very, very difficult challenge.

So, I think one of the things that was a constant thread through our conversations in the Climate Overshoot Commission is, do we have governance structures that can enable us to make the right decisions here? And then, going back to this question of things like geoengineering, we need to look at how we can create transparent, fair and effective governance structures that will enable us to make wise decisions. And as Michael said, we don’t know whether we – you know, we’re sceptical about the geoengineering. We know that there may be more downsides than upsides, but we think we need to know the answers, so that if we get to a situation where in order to alleviate unspeakable human suffering and we’re – where we’re, you know, we are prepared to do more extreme things, we need to know whether, in fact, we have tools or not and whether they, in fact, could buy us some time.

But the final thing I would say about those conversations we had was that there was never any sense that using any of those technologies would do anything more than buy us time. They were not the answer and of course, they carry with them the great moral hazard of allowing some people to try and evade the responsibility for the ultimate goal and the required action, which is to reduce and limit emissions. I’ll stop there.

Ana Yang

Thank you, thank you. Patricia?

Dr Patricia Lewis

Thank you. So, I came to this, obviously, from a security perspective and I would say that climate change and its impacts is probably one of the most important, one of the most challenging security issues that we’re facing as a species. There are several up there who – and those of you who know me will know that I will include a number of key things. One of those would be, of course, nuclear weapons use, another would be biological weapons, another would be major conflict, and these things are existential. They have the potential to destroy the world that we’re living in, but we – I think most people would say now, and I hear you about your flight, Kim, that we are seeing these effects now. We’re seeing increased number of storms. That was the one prediction that everybody agreed on, right? That’s happening. We’re seeing increased severity of storms, too.

That was also a part of that prediction, and as a result of that, we’re seeing a lot more flooding. We’re seeing a lot more heating in many parts of the world, and as a result, terrible fires, which, of course, exacerbate the situation in terms of carbon. And, of course, many of us in our work, in our lives, have experienced more turbulence when we fly, for example. And we could argue, couldn’t we, that that – oh, it’s temporary, it’s just, you know, does go through different cycles. But we know that these are the predictions that are coming from all the modelling. We know what is happening and we know that we are very unlikely, can I say we’re not going to be able to get – stick to a 1.5 increase, 1.5° increase? It’s just – I mean, I’m going to say it even if the climate change experts aren’t going to say it.

And so, my view is, like I see all of these things, that we must do all that we can to stop this. It’s a very complex situation, though, right? This is complex. That means that everything is connected. That means if you do something here, it has an impact way over there that you perhaps couldn’t easily predict. And that’s really important to remember when you’re thinking about how you might fix things because you don’t necessarily know all of the consequences.

And there are many routes and many pathways to the outcomes that we want, and we have now, I think, pretty robust models. We have, as we go forward with new technologies, including simulations on very large computers, including in the future, quantum computers, using artificial intelligence techniques as well, we can model a lot of what the impacts of what our interventions might be. And I really think we need to think through all of this really carefully and use all possible approaches.

And one of the things I really liked about the Commission’s report was that it was very rounded in its approach. You know, it says ‘cuts’ first and foremost. It says ‘adaptation’, which, you know, we’re – we – anyone living in a flood area knows they have to do. It talks about ‘removal’ if we can and also, exploring other technologies, other ways to do things. And I think these – this is a really important rounded approach. It’s – you can’t have taboo issues when we’re talking about an existential threat. We have to think about all the possible things.

I think it’s a bit like we have in medicine and we, like – we have in conflict. Prevention is the most important thing, but if you end up not being able to prevent, which happens, then if prevention fails, then you need early intervention techniques. You need to move and act, and if those fail, then you need drastic intervention. So, I think one of the things that this commission is trying to do is to think about what the early intervention might be. I mean, it’s not – doesn’t feel early, does it? But I think that’s where we are in this discussion because there’s been such a delay in talking about it collectively.

But we also have to make sure, as we do with everything, that the cure isn’t worse than the disease, right? That’s really important. So, we have to understand the impact of the potential sets of interventions and there are quite a few. There’s an – there are lots of things out there. I’m sure you’ve all read them. And so, we need research and we need, as well, a sense of caution in the research, as you say, Kim, that the research should not be funded by those that might want to have a different results than the Scientists might actually get.

So, how do we do this? How do we move forward? You know, could – can we move forward collectively? I think is a real problem, given all of the different political problems that we have, but could we move forward, for example, regionally? Could we move forward at the, say, G20 level, at a likeminded group level? You know, there’s lots of different mechanisms that we know can work for certain things. And always remember that whatever situation we’re in, there’ll always be political problems, right? There’s never a good time, so – and now is the time to start, I guess, and we need to find ways to act in spite of the problems and we need to futureproof the way that we put these things in.

And I was thinking, as well, you know, when the internet was first started, they had a lot of problems trying to manage this very complex environment for people, and we’re still in that process. But what they developed was a multistakeholder approach, and I think this has been imported with great success into a lot of other areas, too. And it seems to me that if we are going to move forward in a collective way, it needs to be with the multistakeholder approach. So, you don’t – it isn’t just about states, but it’s also including lots of other stakeholders, including Scientists and including non-governmental activists, etc. And I know that that’s been the way in climate anyway, but I think that’s the way for this discussion to take hold.

So, we can have different tracks and different political way stations at which decisions could be made, when, if you like, the caution and the concern over a particular technology or a particular route to removal of carbon or removal of other climate gases could be started with some confidence in its safety. But it does – we do need to tackle, it seems to me, the issue of reversibility, at least in the early exploration of these things. So, that’s – I’ll leave it at that, but that’s the way I’ve been thinking about this. Thank you…

Ana Yang

Thank you.

Dr Patricia Lewis

…everybody.

Ana Yang

We have – I’m just – timely doing – sorry, doing time check. We have 25 minutes. I have a lot of questions but probably, it’s best if we open – I’ll start with one question and then, we can open up for the plenary and I have a couple of things online. Think – I just want to state, also, as somebody who’s working with climates – well, started my career working on avoided deforestation campaigns and then moved into climate, emotionally, it’s very hard to look at the whole spectrum of activities, right? ‘Cause if you work – you were, like, so ingrained to think about mitigation, mitigation, mitigation, everything now mitigation, rat – also very quickly how adaptation already is part of a conversation and cimo – carbon removal and engineer – geoengineering, which, kind of, was in this box that I put away and I locked and then it just, you know, came back.

I think, for me, there is a bit of a, sort of, almost like an emotional, like – I don’t even have the right – like, sort of, acceptance, but also prioritisation. That was my question. Like, you know, if we have so many things that we have to focus now, is there any – as you were thinking through the process, like, how do we prioritise, or who – how do we deploy different people with different prioritisation exercise?

Pascal Lamy

Hmmm, that’s a tough one.

Professor Michael Obsteiner

Hmmm.

Pascal Lamy

I – the Commission was very clear on the global prioritisation, uh-huh, like the [inaudible – 37:31] should I say, in our motto is CARE, no, C-A-R-E, Cut, Remove, Adapt – Cut, Adapt, Remove and Explore, and your Cut – the C come before the A, which come before the R, which come before E. So, that’s absolutely clear. Now, once you’ve said that, you have to enter into a lot of what is a local co-efficient on each of these variables. And what we observe so far is that the Adaptation co-efficient is growing because the Cutting co-efficient is not enough. So, there is an obvious connection.

So, we need a conversation about the whole range and it – the answer of, “How much of how much, and what do I prioritise and where do I allocate my resources?” may not be the same at the G7 or at the G20, or within the European Union, or within the African Union, huh? So, we – you – we have to accept this, but in order – and I had exactly the same emotional problem as the one we have, huh, until somebody in the Commission told me, “Okay, we stop emitting tomorrow. The sea is done. For the next 300 years, what’s up there is going to damage planet and maybe endanger the species, even if we stop.”

So, the notion that you stop emitting is, of course – I mean, stop dealing, but once you’ve done that, physics tell us that the greenhouse effect is there for centuries. So, it’s – I’m just saying this because it’s the entry into this is not the sum of the issue. There are as big issues behind this one, which doesn’t mean we don’t have to address it. So, my emotional equation change from this moment and of course, the person who told me, unsurprisingly, was on the – with CBN, and the final sentence was, “It’s going to be more painful for me than for you.” And then you enter into politics.

Ana Yang

I act…

Male Delegate

Hand it to the audience.

Ana Yang

Sorry, I’m abusing my role as a Chair. Maybe we should open – shall we turn a light on for the plenary? So, your name…

The Rt Hon Kim Campbell PC CC OBC KC

So, I was going…

Ana Yang

…and work – oh, sorry…

The Rt Hon Kim Campbell PC CC OBC KC

Can I just make a…?

Ana Yang

Kim, would you come in?

The Rt Hon Kim Campbell PC CC OBC KC

Yeah, could I…

Ana Yang

Please.

The Rt Hon Kim Campbell PC CC OBC KC

Yeah, could I make just a little quick comment picking up from what Pascal has said? Because, you know, when you say, “If we stop emitting today, it’s still” – it’s not saved the problem, but we haven’t – we’re not stopping emitting today. And part of the challenge is to find that balance between people understanding the desperate straits we are in and the dramatic need to act. And the human instinct, often, to pull in and be in denial because the – there – you know, we can have a lot of research on cognitive barriers to good decisions and there are a lot of ways in which we don’t let ourselves deal with things. And so, part of dealing with this, or part of the politics of it, part of the balance of all of the knowledge and information, is to try and create a sense of the urgency to act without creating despair or inability or paralysis.

And I think that this is something where we didn’t get into it very much in the Commission, although there were a few comments about, you know, some knowledge, even. But this is where even, you know, Artists and Writers and, you know, people who communicate in all different ways, can find – can perhaps be part of the process of creating a mindset that privileges action without undermining the capacity to take into account the very real danger. Because as Pascal has said, even when you think about the non-existent possibility of stopping our emissions today, we’re still not out of the problems.

And just to go back to my storms last night and the terrible things happening in Pakistan, we are now – and the terrible fires in California and places, I mean, I don’t understand how anybody can deny the reality of what’s happening. We’re in it and attribution science, which again, is ove – like other science, was browbeaten into not overstating the case, but attribution science is a very important part of the conversation as we are able to parse out what aspects of disasters that might otherwise have occurred at a lesser degree as part of the normal cycles on the Earth, how much of them are related to climate change?

So, it’s that question of making people aware and getting them to believe without despairing, and that’s going to be a big part of getting the will to act on this, both the resources for adaptation and the commitment for cutting emissions.

Professor Michael Obsteiner

Hmmm.

Ana Yang

Thank you. Go ahead.

Professor Michael Obsteiner

Just to illustrate the challenge. So, if we go on the path of 1.5, we would have to meet – to cut emissions by 50% by 2030. That’s five and a half years away from us. I don’t want to ask the audience, well, who thinks that we will actually be able to manage it, but the fact is we are still increasing with the emissions. And by 2050, this is the lifetime of a powerplant, between now and 2050, we – the world hits Net Zero. So, together, all countries need – hit Net Zero and then, depending on how – what kind of earth system feedbacks we get, in 2080 we have to take about half of the emissions we put up into the atmosphere today out of the atmosphere again to meet 1.5 in 2100.

And just to make it a little more dramatic, then in 2100, if we hit and be able to stabilise 1.5, we will still see sea level rise increasing, we will still see permafrost melting and all sorts of undesirable things, which we will discover are not this desirable to us. So, this will actually mean we will have to do – we will want to do even more. So, it’s really an interesting time to be in and it’s really, as Kim said and you said, it’s a governance issue. It’s a – it’s we, as a human species, we somehow need get – to get our act together to do this properly, and, you know, technologically, we are definitely equipped to do that, hmmm.

Ana Yang

Sorry, my head’s still, like, wrapped around the driven time scope. So, I have a lady here, I have a gentleman there and then lady in the back. So, name and organisation and your question.

Xizi Daigle

Hello.

Ana Yang

We’ll take a round and then…

Xizi Daigle

My name is Xizi Daigle. I’m a Canadian graduate of the London School of Economics Master of Public Administration Programme. And in the spirit of Patricia Lewis’s encouragement to discuss taboos when it comes to existential crisis, I was just wondering if any of the Scientists on the panel have considered population control, perhaps as a mitigation tool? This is just – in school we learned about, you know, the Malthusian Crisis, and although some people debunk that and say, “Technology can help us overcome that Malthusian Crisis,” I was just wondering if that’s included in your models.

As an additional note, too, I think I’ve seen models that say, “Human population around the world will plateau at ten billion.” So, is this something that we can sustain with the models that you have now? Thank you.

Ana Yang

Thank you. We have a – I’m going to take a coup – a round. There was a ge – I’ve not quite remembered who was the gentleman. I think it was…

Professor Michael Obsteiner

This one here.

Ana Yang

…this gentleman here, sorry, and then there was a lady on the back.

Nick Gowing

Hi, Nick Gowing. I founded a project launched here ten years ago called, “Thinking the Unthinkable,” and you’re wanting to “manage the unthinkable.” Therefore, I come with ten years…

Ana Yang

He stole it from…

Nick Gowing

I’m sorry?

Ana Yang

He stole from you.

Nick Gowing

Not yet. I’m going to modify it and I’m going to suggest the next stage of where you go to is the following. It’s not about thinking the unthinkable, because actually, we know what’s coming down the track, as all of you have said and as Kim has just said, as well. It’s about thinking the unpalatable. The evidence is there of what’s going to happen and therefore, the public need to be conditioned for it, and that brings in the next phrase, which is narrative. How you get a narrative which is saleable to a large number of the public.

My second point is I don’t think you’re overshooting. I think you’re undershooting. How do you shoot higher? And I would suggest you need to be more ambitious about what you’re trying to do. It’s not the Overshoot Commission. Dare I say, it should be the Undershoot Commission? Because you’re undershooting at the moment, given the enormity of what we now face existentially, the speed, the urgency and the scale.

Ana Yang

Right, this – yeah, there’s a lady there on the back.

Scarlet O’Shea

Thanks. Hi, my name’s Scarlet O’Shea. I work in sustainability at JPMorgan Chase. My question’s, kind of, about – to Professor Obsteiner. So, you were talking about financing carbon removals and obviously, there will be a huge need for financing of that. What we’re seeing now is massive involvement of the private sector in that and so, for example, Microsoft, with its recent purchases, is, basically, creating the market with its procurement. So, I guess my questions are around how do you incentivise that finance, ‘cause right now, it’s, kind of, unclear to me what is incentivising them to do it? And then, I guess it’s a question around governance. So, again, if you leave that to the private sector, what are the issues around that and how do you take more of a multistakeholder approach?

Ana Yang

Thank you. So, we have a taboo question, a narrative and the unpalatable and – sorry, menopause brain, cost and the carbon removal.

Pascal Lamy

Hmmm. Two very simple answers to the title of the Commission and to the governance. Thanks for the suggestion that we should call it the ‘Undershoot Commission’. Might have triggered more attention, in a way, if we had done that, but I note that for a few of our next productions. On the governance issue, I think Kim said, rightly so, that behind this issue we have a climate governance issue. Totally agree on that. I was a witness of a trade-off that happened ten years ago, with the Paris Agreement, which is the consequence of the failure of the previous governance system, which was the Kyoto one. And the Kyoto one was a traditional, binding international treaty, where sovereigns agreed to take commitments and then, there will be a mechanism that ensures the enforcement, including a rather serious dispute settlement system.

Now it did not work and the trade-off that happened in Paris, well, we stepped back from the traditional approach to international government. We stood back from a multi-nationally determined contribution, which was what Kyoto was about. It was a multi-nationally determined contribution, like the WTO, for instance, which I happen to know quite well. And you move – you regress the level of ambition in terms of governance to nationally determined contributions. And, of course, it’s much easier because everybody chooses his own contribution, his own trajectory and for how much? When the trade-off is that the compensation for this regression is an increase of domestic accountability.

Now, for a long time, I thought this would not work. I was a big believer in the previous, sort of, multilateral binding rules based system. I’ve started to change my mind. There is – and what Kim said about, for instance, domestic courts adjudicating that whatever ambition was taken by the government is not the problem, but it’s not following what it said it would do and this has legal consequences. So, I’m in this more positive state of mind now and I await – frankly speaking, this is what matters for business, huh? This is matt – what matters for the energy industry, huh? They don’t mind so much whether the issue is binding internationally. What they mind about is what are the consequences for their P&L? And the consequences for their P&L may be more visibly coming at domestic level. So, on this, I think there is something happening.

On removal.

Professor Michael Obsteiner

Yeah, well, first, I want to go for the population.

Pascal Lamy

Oh, sorry.

Professor Michael Obsteiner

Population…

Pascal Lamy

With the technology.

Professor Michael Obsteiner

It’s – what?

Pascal Lamy

Population control is along with the technology…

Professor Michael Obsteiner

It’s…

Pascal Lamy

…autocrats.

Professor Michael Obsteiner

Depends how you look at it. Yes, I’m flexible to discuss this, but it’s not a lever. It’s not considered – it’s always exogenously assumed and there are different levels of population. So, you can – but what’s also – and this is just an, additionally a observation, population control is also not an SDG. Population is – and there are good reasons, and the same reasons are also applicable to the climate issue.

On the unpalatable, we had some nice discussion this afternoon and one of the benefits of motivating solar radiation management is actually if one would want to consider it, you would actually have to establish the criteria once you switch it on and we – and off. And this would be exactly these issues of unpalatability, you know, these are the disasters that would happen, that’s the sea level rise and so forth. Because currently, we live in this myth that when we live – when we get to Net Zero or to 1.5, we solve the problem. But that’s, you know, that’s believing in strange creatures up in the – so, the Gods of science didn’t come down to earth yet.

On these incentives for negative emissions, yes, Microsoft is quite active on it, but at the same time, their emissions go up quite fantastically. It’s – I have this example of Colombia, which is not a business, but it speaks to the business case. They decided as a government to leave hydrocarbons in the ground. What happened was that their credit rating went down, huh. So, the message here is capital markets don’t know how to think in sustainability terms, and this has a lot to do with stress testing. So, if you apply for a loan, then the bank looks at you and looks at you in such a way that it actually needs to pass its own stress test. Otherwise, it gets other capital requirements.

But – and this is always backward looking. So, the current way how money is created is backward looking and not forward looking. And I see huge potential in new methodology that money can think forward looking and that’s, in this case, forward looking good action can be rewarded, or is actually in the self-interest of every investment you do. But we can go into details on it, but I think this is one of the biggest unknown levers that we actually need to activate.

Ana Yang

Thank you. We have a couple of partic…

Dr Patricia Lewis

Sorry, Chair, can I…?

Ana Yang

Oh, sorry, please.

Dr Patricia Lewis

Would you mind if I came out? I just wanted to say a couple of things. One is, I think, on population, and I don’t know if the phrase ‘population control’ is the right phrase. I think it’s about making the population we have compatible with our planet, whatever it is. And, you know, for this, I think what we really need to focus on is how we provide solutions to people so that they don’t see it necessarily as an individual burden but as a collective enterprise. So, governments make it easier for people to, you know, eat in a different way or use energy in a different way, etc. I think that’s the approach I would take. Otherwise, you might be, sort of, suggesting all sorts of weird, you know, other suggestions.

And I wanted to address Nick’s issue on the narrative, ‘cause I do think this is really important, Nick, and I know you’ve spent a huge amount of time on narrative and bringing people together and getting them to talk about these very difficult things. And I do – I don’t know if you would agree, but I think that often, people feel it’s just too overwhelming for them to think about and that, you know, this is for others to think about. And it’s really hard to think about the – what might happen and it’s really – it feels really frightening, so then people don’t.

And then the other thing is that human beings are notorious for prioritising now over tomorrow, and in a way, that’s what’s kept us alive. We make sure we get through today in order to be there for tomorrow, but those that succeed tomorrow are the ones who planned, right? And I suppose that’s the difference and that’s what we have to get across, and how we do that and how we, sort of, chunk it for people so that they can deal with one aspect of it, perhaps, in the way that we were just talking about with making it sustainable so that people feel they’re doing their bit and it really matters, but then they don’t have to think about it.

And that brings me to the governance issue, because my experience with arms control has been that actually, if you try to get everyone in and everyone agreeing, you end up with quite a weak agreement. You end up with the lowest common denominator. If you go in with a few countries that are somewhat likeminded, they won’t agree on everything, and they’ll be robust enough to perhaps cover, you know, the big political divides, you can get a much stronger agreement. Yes, there are fewer countries, but actually, you can make much more headway that way. And so, don’t go for the lowest common denominator in international agreements, is my message. Go for the high bar and make it work, even if it’s a smaller number of countries.

Ana Yang

Sorry, we don’t have time before I need to close it ‘cause…

Member

Perfect.

Ana Yang

But Miss Campbell, please, you do – please come in.

The Rt Hon Kim Campbell PC CC OBC KC

Just very quickly. I think what Patricia is saying is very important, because also, if you can get small advanced prosperous countries, or a small group of prosperous advanced companies – countries, perhaps some of the big economies, if they create certain standards, then the kind of thing that Colombia’s facing may not be so bad because you begin to create standards where there is economic peril, because there are legal constraints against doing certain things. So that keeping your pud – fossil fuels in the ground becomes an advantage, because if you don’t do that, you now become liable to legal pressures coming from countries that have made agreements to, you know, sustain certain standards of fossil fuel development, for example.

So, I think it’s all intertwined that if you can get some powerful enough countries to be able to take the leadership, both they show that it can be done, but they also begin to create a moral pressure and a legal and normative pressure on other countries that want not to pay attention to the need to meet these standards.

Ana Yang

Thank you. I actually want to use two questions in the online session, too, as – just to prompt the panellists for their one minute, sort of, final, you know, insight. One was around, sort of, the concern that they have, which is the concern that I had when I got into this, ‘cause psychologically I was just like, “This is too hard,” which is whether accepting that – you know, accepting the missing of 1.5° is a self-fulfilling prophecy. And then, whether we’re focusing on the right – the wrong thing, which is that, you know, example of collective action problem and market failure, right? So, I think that’s one of the questions that we all ask when we, sort of, move into this. And then second one is also the North-South dynamic.

So, I just want to use those two big questions, ‘cause I think we alluded to it, but I want to tease those elements out as we’re closing the session, with your, sort of, one-minute remark for each one of you. Would you like to start, or shall we star – whoever is available to start.

Pascal Lamy

Hmmm. On the first question, you are absolutely right, there is an argument that 1.5 should be sacred and if you don’t respect this, you’ve abandoned the fight. Now, the proper answer to this argument is if there had not been a Paris Agreement and a 1.5 target, we probably would be, in your scientific projection, to 4°. We’re not to 4°. We are to 2.6, huh? So – which is way too much, but still there…

Ana Yang

Yeah, 0. …

Pascal Lamy

…there is a virtue in – and there is a virtue in trying to limit – the question of overshoot is not so much whether we will overshoot the 1.5. We are doing it.

Professor Michael Obsteiner

Hmmm.

Pascal Lamy

The question is, what happens next? Whether we keep going or whether we stabilise or whether we go down. So, this is a part of the argument, but numbers and what science tell us is that there is a big virtue in keeping trying.

On the North-South, I mean, I’m going back to the notion of common, but differentiated responsibility, huh? And this is the philosophical frame, I had it when I was in WTO, with special and differential treatment, uh-huh, and this had been there for 60 years. There was a revamping, which is common and differentiated responsibility. This is the philosophy of the issue. Now, what you take from your philosophy, as we all know, it’s not that obvious, but I think we really have to remain within this frame.

Ana Yang

So, one minute…

Professor Michael Obsteiner

Okay.

Ana Yang

…and then Tricia.

Professor Michael Obsteiner

Okay, I’m in this climate negotiation business since COP5, so for a very long time, and it always helps countries to do their projections and their commitments. And if we sum up, as you rightly said, all of the commitments of the countries, that they implement what they say, then we are exactly where you said, 2.6. However, many countries, you know, you have a new President coming in and then there’s a lot of fluctuation and many times, these plans are not very credible, hmmm.

And so, I’m – my personal – it’s not very difficult to forecast that we will really go into a massive overshoot and for this, what you said, you know, those who plan succeed and so, we know in a way we will go up, the bad things will happen and we need to do these early interventions and maybe even plan for dramatic interventions. It’s just simple planning out – coming out of your security corner. It’s just planning.

Pascal Lamy

Hmmm hmm.

Professor Michael Obsteiner

You need to have…

Dr Patricia Lewis

I think you’ve done a great job, by the way, just to say.

Professor Michael Obsteiner

Yeah, yeah, but this is – you know, there’s something to learn from. We cannot live in an illusion and not plan for some things we don’t like simply because we don’t like them, hmmm.

The Rt Hon Kim Campbell PC CC OBC KC

Could I just…

Pascal Lamy

So, it’s…

The Rt Hon Kim Campbell PC CC OBC KC

…respond to Nick’s comment about the overshoot and just say, the reason why we choose ‘overshoot’ is because the idea is if we do overshoot, to try and come back. It’s an idea to avoid being defeatist. In other words, to say that many of the charts that we see show that we exceed 1.5 with the short overshoot and then it – that gradually comes back, because it’s related to parts per million of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. So, I think it wasn’t that we were trying not to be adventuresome or realistic or any of these things. It was the idea that if we overshoot, we mustn’t throw our hands up and reconcile ourselves to this being an ongoing situation. That we must be committed to 1.5 as a basic target, before we then commit to try getting down to pre-industrial levels, if we can. But that – but overshoot has the suggestion of perhaps being able to come back to your goal and that’s why I think we stuck to that concept.

Ana Yang

Yeah.

Dr Patricia Lewis

I agree what everyone’s saying.

Pascal Lamy

Very well, hmmm hmm.

Ana Yang

I think the discussion – well, first of all, thank you so much. I actually forgot to plug this, right. There’s an amazing mixture the publication that the Overshoot Commission has published and it has the overshoots, the care agenda, the priority approaches, emerging approaches and – so, do check it out. I just – I mean, when we were planning for this event, and I was just thinking that for me – and I think I would – for many of you who work in this space, it’s just that it’s – it is an emotionally difficult space to be. Because – oh, yes, sorry, before I go into my – The World Today, which is relaunched, Chatham House’s membership publication, do check it out. There’s a couple of copies. It’s amazing, it looks beautiful, so pick them up.

Sorry, completely lost my train of thought. But just to say, I really don’t want you to leave this conversation today thinking that we have lost, right? Or maybe that’s not the right framing. It’s like – it – the – for myself, who work in this space for so long, like, we are – if we didn’t – like you said, if we didn’t have the Paris Agreement, the counterfactual is we – the situation would be much worse, right?

Dr Patricia Lewis

Let’s hear it.

Ana Yang

And so, it’s just that we are moving forwards. Sometimes we gain something, sometimes we lose something, and the whole conversation here is so that we can have a full spectrum of what are the possible futures? And so, we can prepare for it and look at it, stare it – at it with wide, realistic eye, while being very ambitious about what is the final place we want to be? And I think I just would like everyone to leave this conversation with that mindset, because I think this is what it’s about. So, every single negotiation matters, every single commitment matters, right? It is about what we do now, so that we can be achieving the things that we all care about.

With that, thank you very much, everyone.