Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: This is Constructive Voices. Constructive Voices, the podcast for the construction people with news, views and expert interviews. Hi, this is Jackie Deberca here for constructive voices, and we're covering today COP30, which went on into Saturday, and for many people didn't really have the outcomes that we were hoping for. But of course, there were many positives to take away from COP30.
I'm really delighted to welcome back Tim Christofferson, who was with us not very long ago, in fact, in October, where we were talking about your absolutely brilliant book, Tim, Generation Restoration, which was the number one release in the green business category of Amazon. Now, you're not back too long from cop 30, and that's what we're going to be discussing today.
Firstly, Tim, though, for those who didn't hear your book episode, can you introduce yourself to the audience?
[00:01:00] Speaker B: Good morning, Jackie. It's great to be back here. I'm Tim Christoffersen. I'm vice President of Climate Action at Salesforce, and I'm also the author of Generation Restoration, which is a global roadmap for restoring nature at planetary scale.
[00:01:16] Speaker A: Fantastic. Now, I'd love for you just to delve into your background in a little bit more depth because of the fact that you did work for a long time with the UN also before your in your current position of Salesforce.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: Yeah, so I joined Salesforce about three and a half years ago, and before that I was for 15 years with the UN Environment Program, mostly most of the time in Nairobi, but I also worked five years in Montreal for the Convention on Biological Diversity, which is one of the other Rio conventions, and also has its cops. Fortunately only every two years, but I was part of organizing three COPS for the UN and then followed, of course, the two other Rio convention cops as well, the climate convention and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, which is the third convention to come out of the Rio earth summit in 92. And while I was working for the CBD, I was also responsible for synergies between the three Rio conventions, and I think they have become more and more pronounced in recent years. In particular, nature is, of course, central and at the heart of all three conventions.
[00:02:24] Speaker A: So, I mean, in terms of somebody who's qualified to talk about cops, obviously, I feel we probably couldn't get anybody much better on than yourself. Tim, how many cops have you actually been to? Or have you lost? Have you lost count? Possibly.
[00:02:38] Speaker B: I think it's about 15. But they're not all climate cops, as some of the biodiversity cops and two of the UNCCD cops. But I was for example, at the Paris Agreement cop in 2015, I was also at the Copenhagen cop, which is sort of infamous within the climate circles of 2009, which was supposed to generate this global agreement that then later became the Paris Agreement, but which ended in a complete meltdown.
And so I've seen a few climate cops, both great successes and near total disasters, I would say.
[00:03:16] Speaker A: So yeah.
What exactly happened back in 2009? There was a complete meltdown out of curiosity.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: So the ambition of the Danish presidency was to forge this global agreement that was foreshadowed in the convention and that later became the Paris Climate Agreement. But for a variety of reasons, mostly because the geopolitical environment wasn't right, but also for logistical reasons and reasons of just being overwhelmed as a relatively small country with stemming that huge task.
The agreement didn't land where they hoped it would. They came out with what is called the Copenhagen Consensus. So they salvaged what could be salvaged. But they were last minute negotiations directly between heads of states, including Barack Obama at the time and the President of China, Prime Minister of India, President of Brazil, that were unheard of. Normally in these conventions, you know, the leaders come either before or after the convention and they sign off whatever's agreed or not.
But that they themselves negotiate text is I don't think has ever happened since then.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: So yeah, obviously very, very special and fascinating time. And I guess, you know, how do you feel about COP30 in terms of the feelings and the energy around it? Of course there was, you know, the indigenous people protesting, of course, the fire that broke out, you know, some of these things that would make it quite special by itself, even before we start to talk about the outcome.
[00:04:49] Speaker B: Yeah, maybe I'm in a minority with my view, but I feel this was one of my favorite cops and I'll, I'll tell you why.
[00:04:57] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:04:58] Speaker B: It was the location because Brazil made a political point of hosting this COP in a.
First of all, of course in a developing country, but in the Amazon forest in Belang, which is a city of I think around one and a half million people, not really set up for hosting 40 or 50,000.
It'll see what the final headcount was of visitors to cop. But they're not really set up to host a meeting of that size.
So when Brazil made that decision because they wanted to host the COP in the Amazon and also because they wanted to showcase what is happening in Para, in that state, in the Brazilian Amazon where the bioeconomy, a big headline of this COP is being put into practice. They wanted to showcase that to the world. So the location was a big part of running the COP and the political process. And I think that really worked well for the government and for Brazil and for the state of Para. They really could showcase to the world what kind of a new economy they are building there that will replace our current fossil fuel dependent extractive economy.
[00:06:15] Speaker A: I think that that's yeah, very important take on the whole situation that they've brought people into a place that some of some people attending probably never went anywhere like that I suppose before their lives depending on their. On their own background.
[00:06:31] Speaker B: Yeah, I've worked on these issues for over two decades and I had actually not been to the Brazilian Amazon. I've been to Peru and Ecuador, but I'd not been to the Brazilian Amazon. So I think for many people who are even working in this field, this was kind of special. Because Beleng is surrounded by rivers close to the ocean and then obviously surrounded by forests. And just 10 minutes with a boat ride across the river, you could be in the forest. Well, in a managed forest for agroforestry and food production but in the Amazon from the conference venue. So it was really, really a special occasion and a special place. And combined with the efforts of the state government of Parat to showcase the bioeconomy with commitments to phase out all deforestation from their cattle industry.
There's I think over 26 million heads of cattle in Para state. So they want to produce all of that in future deforestation Free if concession. The first public concession for a large ecosystem restoration plot a degraded pasture land and there will be more public land concessions for ecosystem restoration.
They had put up a bioeconomy park in the city. They were really very present and very strong in showcasing what an economic future could look like. I think that's all COP was really more and more also the last few cops and probably the future ones be more and more about showcasing what the solutions are rather than negotiating additional texts and agreements.
[00:08:18] Speaker A: Okay. And it sounds from your enthusiasm, Tim, that they obviously did an excellent job in terms of what they were showcasing there.
[00:08:26] Speaker B: I think so.
Of course there are different perspectives depending on what your role is at a cop. The negotiators and the country delegations spent most of their time in the so called Blue zone core of where the COP negotiations are happening. But there were also several solution zones. There was the Green Zone and then there was an Agri zone and then there were several event spaces across town like the TED Countdown house or the Gold's House.
And we had many different events in parallel to the negotiations across town where it was all about solutions in technology, in finance, in nature based solutions that were being showcased. Lots of fascinating ecopreneurs, you know, people, you make it their life's mission and their life's business to fix the climate and reverse nature loss. And there's just so many of, of that type of new entrepreneurs, well, we call them ecopreneurs at Salesforce. So supporting that kind of a new economic. The emerging new bioeconomy is I think the one of the key functions now of cop. It's of course not what the cops were originally intended to do, but by default they've become a little bit also solution expos as there. There are a few other spaces where that is happening at that level. And the negotiations of course also had some results, as much and as strong and as clear as many people, including myself, hope for. But I think it was made up for by seeing all the solution display.
[00:10:07] Speaker A: Okay, I mean that's really interesting. Obviously, President Andre Arana Correa Delago, who's the COP30 president, he said during Saturday's closing session, we know some of you had greater ambitions for some of the issues at hand. I know that you, civil society will demand us to do more to fight climate change. I want to reaffirm that. I will not disappoint you during my presidency.
Now, from what you're saying, Tim, of course there is a level of disappointment if people are being honest. But at the same time, do you feel perhaps because of the solutions on show and how well they have showcased the area, was it a turning point for climate in nature or perhaps just another incremental step when we're looking more for a leap?
[00:10:51] Speaker B: Again, I will have to analyze more data as it comes in, including the level of participation in cop. But I have the feeling it was a turning point.
If I look back over all the cops that I've attended, I think the difference was first of all, Brazil is of course also a G20 country and they have considerable weight on the, on the world stage, introduced this notion of the bioeconomy at the G20.
They are very well connected across also the other bricks of the large emerging economies.
And that role, taking that forward now into the next year is critically important.
If this was a small country or a country that is not as well connected or didn't have as many resources, I think they could do much less with the outcomes of COP30.
So I do believe it was a turning point, but more from the perspective that for my part at least for the first time I attended cops, I had the feeling that the excitement about building something new is now bigger than the frustration with fighting something old.
We fight against the fossil fuel dominance in our energy sector and against an economy that is mostly resource extracting and not sustainable.
But change usually comes when you build something new that is better and more exciting and that replaces the old. And then you don't have to spend a lot of time fighting the old. Of course, there are strong entrenched interests and we saw that play out with the final text, not including the phase out of fossil fuels, but we've seen movement in other parts. And I think that excitement of building this new bioeconomy that will ultimately be a better world economy is now where the attention is shifting. So for me that's been a meaningful shift.
[00:12:58] Speaker A: It does sound obviously like there is this very interesting.
A meaningful shift, Tim, because I think from a distance, you know, seeing the headlines coming through and seeing, you know, what was happening there, there is that feeling definitely. I think that I would definitely agree with you there. Let's talk a little bit about, you know, talking about Brazil and their importance as a bigger player and their involvement. How would you see things, you know, happening over the next year or two, given how it was a Berlin?
[00:13:24] Speaker B: So there's a couple of outcomes from COP that Brazil can take forward. And you followed the launch of the Tropical Forest Forever facility.
It's the first time in many years that 5.5 billion had been pledged for forest conservation and restoration.
Obviously, for those who followed in detail what that facility is, that money is not a direct payout or a grant. It's money to be invested. And then the interest from that financial mechanism will be used to pay for forests in perpetuity. And the aim is to collect $125 billion for that interest generating facility over time. So it is only a start, but it is a big start. And Brazil can now use its leverage at the World bank and also its partnership with China, its links with the European Union to further shop this idea around. Now that public investors, including Norway, Germany and others have put down some public money that is also de risking private investments, they can hopefully collect more private investments into this facility. So I think this is definitely one of the big ideas and outcomes from cop. The other one is probably on adaptation and overall finance with the aim to increase climate finance to 1.3 trillion by 2030.
I think that is also a very feasible goal and roadmap, if we count investments and adaptation also in terms of private investments in terms of shifting to this bioeconomy and not only in terms of public, what is called oda, Overseas Development Assistance, official development assistance, which is of course what most developing countries, countries are negotiating for. They have, they're negotiating for direct government to government north south transfers. And I think that's, that's a constant source of frustration at these cops where that money is just no longer available in the budgets of developed countries.
And yet the developing countries see that there's a historical, that there's this historical responsibility for OECD countries to pay or the European countries, North America, Australia, Japan, that rather developed countries to pay for the damages of climate change. And that will remain a source of frustration that is not easy to overcome. But again, that a country like Brazil has the presidency and will not dwell on just asking for those kinds of direct transfers, but is doing something themselves. They have pledged money into the tropical forest facility, for example, out of their own budget.
Also showcases that there's a different, there's a different pathway forward. And for countries to develop a bioeconomy, they also have to put their own resources forward, of course, in combination with all other resources for climate finance, as the decision also says.
[00:16:40] Speaker A: Okay, so one, one of the things that you touched on earlier in our conversation, and I think given some of the media that I read as well, Tim, would be interesting to explore is the ecopreneurs that you obviously came in contact with whilst there. Do you have any one or two anecdotes about what some of those people are doing? Because of course it's all completely linked with what we're talking about.
[00:17:01] Speaker B: Yeah. So the field trip I took to this company called mombac, who are only I think five years old and already very, very large player in ecosystem restoration, was amazing. I've never seen in my 25 years working on the Nature and Climate Nexus, an industrial scale ecological restoration project with native species in the middle of the Amazon, taking degraded pasture land, turning that back into forests that simply didn't exist. Five years ago there was nobody who would take 20,000 hectares under management and say we are restoring this 3,000 hectares at a time with hundreds of workers, with machinery, with an industrial scale seedling and nursery capacity. And that is made possible by the voluntary carbon market, in this case hopefully soon by compliance carbon markets in Brazil and elsewhere to have more predictability of the finance flow. But this kind of emerging restoration industry is one of the examples I would cite for, for the solutions that we will need to see and that are definitely emerging. And you can link that of course again to the location of cop when we were across the river and visiting a local community there, and the forest trail harvesting fresh acai berries and they were had shade grown cocoa on their plot iteration. It occurred to me that across the Amazon there are about 4,000 edible plant species.
Our Western diet relies on 12, roughly 12 large 12 species like maize, rice, wheat, et cetera, that provide about 3/4 of all the calories that we consume. So that that richness of the food system is spurring a whole range of other and new ecopreneurs and businesses that want to market things like the acai berry, which is probably now the most well known superfood out of the Amazon. But there are many other plant species like that that could be accessed through agroforestry with the right marketing and with the right data management.
Because a couple of years ago, probably until 10 years ago, it was very difficult to manage the data from so many different food and fruit and vegetable products to market them. Everything from permitting to exporting to logistics and supply chains.
But all of that is now of course made possible with better technology, also with the help of AI, so that we can expect to see that emergence of a bioeconomy also in the food sector, which for me is a huge opportunity. And I've never had such flavorful and fantastic food at any COP as we had in Brazil. Not in the Blue zone, I have to add here, because the catering there wasn't great.
[00:20:15] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:20:16] Speaker B: But outside of the Blue zone with the local food prepared in Baleng was phenomenal.
[00:20:21] Speaker A: Fantastic. Yeah, no, it is like obviously and amazing. And that the magic of the surroundings as you describe it, you couldn't showcase anything more, I suppose, beautiful and nourishing from how you're describing it. Tim.
[00:20:35] Speaker B: Yeah, we had that experience of an early morning sunrise boat cruise just going across the river. Started at 5:30 in the morning. But it was well worth it because we saw parrots circling over this protected area that's just across from Berlin and then visited fishing community. And they also had this agroforestry trail.
And I think it's just if we manage to make that the default mode of our economy where we work with nature instead of against nature and help a state like Para that could become an economic powerhouse because of all the richness of the biodiversity they have, if they build their economy with and in support of biodiversity, it could be a completely different future that we see emerge there.
The mega diverse countries of the world of course would have the key advantage in that kind of an Economy, for sure.
[00:21:39] Speaker A: But at the same time, in the last week or so, I saw a headline about a Dutch town or city where the children were absolutely delighted because it had been designed and worked with in such a way that you could, like, go around eating, you know, berries and whatnot off the trees in the street.
[00:21:54] Speaker B: Yes.
Elsewhere it's too.
[00:21:57] Speaker A: Exactly. And the wonder of it again, once again, the wonder for younger people who, you know, our joke for the last whatever amount of years is so some of the younger people, they think everything comes from the supermarket, which is, you know, not funny at all. It's actually very, very sad.
[00:22:10] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. Definitely. I think nobody in Belen believes their food just comes from the supermarket because that idea of living in and with and from and for the forest is still very strong. Perhaps not so much in the inner city population, but there's so many villages and settlements outside of Belen. I think that idea is still, still very strong. And when we talked with the neighboring farmers and the community at the Mombac reforestation project, they were all thrilled with this turn of events because they still remembered having all these agroforestry products that they used to harvest and which had disappeared over the last decades, and seeing them being replanted and coming back, they were, they were delighted with that development. And at the same time, of course, this project provides a lot of green jobs for that community. They allow the local community to come in and harvest from their reforested area and to fish in the lakes on the farms that they've bought.
So there is, there's a lot of potential in the bioeconomy. But it does depend, well, in this case of, of this project, on the voluntary carbon market, which in itself is very volatile. But it also depends on economies shifting gear and shifting away from fossil fuels, for one thing, to a more decentralized renewable energy structure, but also shifting markets like the agri food and the large commodity traders that is way too centralized and way too focused on just a few industrially managed species where we have to move towards a much more diversified, much more local, much more regional food, agri food system.
[00:24:01] Speaker A: Now, Tim, it's one of the questions and it's unavoidable because it's one of the main sources, of course, of disappointment for many people, the phasing out of fossil fuels. What was the feeling on the ground, you know, people that you've spoken to after the news coming out? What are the feelings with people that you're dealing with, Tim, about this?
[00:24:20] Speaker B: So this has been tried before you know, this is not the first, first cop where this was on the agenda and the decisions that have been made should tell all of us what the direction of travel is. You don't need to spell it out. Of course it would have been helpful to spell it out. But I think the better way to replace something that isn't working anymore, to replace something that is working against us, in this case fossil fuel extraction and economy based on fossil fuels, is to build something new and better. Not necessarily to just focus on pushing against that old system, but focus on building that new system that can run without fossil fuels. And if you look at the energy prices and new energy projects around the world, renewables are now by far more competitive in most cases than especially coal, but also many other fossil fuel based energy generations energy plants. So we again, let's focus on what we are building that is new and better and not on fighting what the old system still is. Of course the old system has a lot of strong vested interests, very powerful.
A lot of governments and countries are fully dependent on the fossil fuel economy.
And so we have to make sure there's also a just transition in a way. But even the Gulf States for example, have now very large investments in renewable energy. They have very large investments in diversifying their assets. I think they all know that the end of fossil fuels is coming. It's not, this is not rocket science to predict that there's a phase out and there's a shift in demand happening. We of course it's disappointing that we didn't accelerate that more with a decision in cop.
[00:26:15] Speaker A: Absolutely. But I mean your point is, you know, totally valid as well there in Milan, showcasing the possibilities, what they have there, you know, so that's a wonderful thing within itself. And there's lots of other things of course happening in various places around the world. But given your own background between the 29 years of work that led to your book, your time within the UN system and now the fact that you're working of course within salesforce after this cop, where do you seal the real energy when I'm not talking about renewables or fossil fuels, but the energy of the people, the governments, cities, communities on the ground, businesses.
Where do you see that coming from? And I know it's a kind of a divisive question because it's not going to be the same from each place.
[00:27:00] Speaker B: I see the energy coming from. The fact that many people realize what we're trying to do is not a sacrifice, you know, it's not something where you have to restrict yourself and say, oh, but I have to leave my car at home more often.
It is a positive vision of a future that is cleaner, better, more fair, more just more abundant, more diverse for everybody. For some reason, we lost the sovereignty over the narrative in the climate action when it became about just restricting and changing and stopping something that wasn't working. We have to shift that momentum towards just building a future that is in so many ways, so much better than what we have today. And I think cities like Paris, for example, have understood that. Where the city over the last 10 years has been transformed into many urban green spaces, into a city where cycling is now the main mode of transport, into a city that has cleaner water, that has cleaner air, that has more healthy and happy citizens.
And you can call all of that climate action, but in a sense, it's just creating a better future and a better life for everybody. And somehow we've been painted into this corner of, yeah, you want to just stop our economy and stop our way of life.
No, that's not what this is about. It's about creating a better future for people, climate and nature.
And that's where the energy is coming from. You'll see that at the level of cities, at the level of new businesses, often at the level of countries. There's, of course, a lot of countries that are on that transition already, and even in the United States, which, as you know, were absent from the talks at the government level. But you see a lot of action at the level of cities, of mayors, of states, of companies who are still doing what they can. And again, it would help, of course, if the governments were all in line with building that better future for all of us. But I hope they're coming around. A larger number of them are certainly starting to come around, certainly.
[00:29:14] Speaker A: And as people on the ground are making it obvious that they appreciate what could be done and what is being done in various places, and that that's actually a very positive thing. Well, then hopefully more governments will be, you know, likely to come around.
[00:29:26] Speaker B: Well, there is, there is a right and not right side of the history here. Right. And I think over time that will become more and more clear to people. And it's also becoming more and more clear that, that clinging to the, the old system that is unsustainable and also destructive in many ways. Being on the wrong side of history, on defining issues of our time like climate action and climate change is. History is not going to be kind to those who cling to the wrong side.
[00:29:54] Speaker A: For sure. Yeah, for sure. So going back to Your book, which we discussed in lots of detail back in October, Tim, generation restoration. It frames ecosystems as essential infrastructure. If you had five minutes, which is no time, but we'll say 15 minutes with finance ministers and Belem, what would you tell them? Needs to change in how we invest in infrastructure for climate resilience.
[00:30:17] Speaker B: I would love to see that change that finance ministers understand that nature is infrastructure in the first place.
And I think that is starting to happen as governments start to measure natural capital alongside traditional indicators such as gdp and then that there was a massive public works spending spree across the world. I know money is in short supply these days apparently, but we do still invest in infrastructure. Many European governments have just said they would invest much more in infrastructure in the coming years. And including nature in that would have a triple bottom line for governments in terms of better natural infrastructure for clean water, clean energy, more natural capital for a healthier population, for future wealth and the basis for this future bioeconomy that we talked about.
So investing in nature is a very good infrastructure investment and it can be linked with private investments because there's a huge surge over the recent years. Private investments in nature have gone up 11 fold in the last four years to short a little bit over 100 billion, which is a good start. But that needs to increase more and with clear government led market and policy signals that can increase and will increase more. So there's a huge potential for public private partnerships and nature based solutions.
[00:31:49] Speaker A: Yeah, which is massively positive. Of course. Another side of the story is the concern about greenwashing in restoration and forest projects. What are your thoughts about that?
[00:31:57] Speaker B: I've seen a lot of projects that were well meaning. Some of them were just not well implemented.
Those are still a minority of projects. So most of the projects I know of and that we're involved in have matured to such a degree that they are now very, very sophisticated. Ecosystem restoration is no longer something that is a new and emerging sector. It's a very, very well established and a very well researched topic. I'm optimistic that there's for definitely for every project that's gone bad and didn't work out, there are a lot more, probably hundreds more of very good projects that are achieving real change on the ground. Of course, greenwashing in the sense of saying something and doing another thing is a real risk, as is green hushing. This is of course now happening in some companies where companies still do the work and they still follow through on their commitments, they still invest, but they don't talk about it. Anymore. And the problem with that is that it's then doesn't give courage to companies who stand on the sidelines and do nothing because it's important for the leading companies to talk about the good work they do so that other companies feel compelled to join in. If nobody talks about the good work anymore that we're doing and others are doing, that is an issue that is critical as well. Not as much as greenwashing, but green hushing is also a thing.
[00:33:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean obviously that's presumably linked to the fear of greenwashing to some.
[00:33:44] Speaker B: Extent it is linked to the fear of being called out for doing the wrong thing or making a wrong investment or investing in a project that maybe wasn't planned properly. Sure. That is at the basis of this is fear of being called out and sometimes fear of being called out from both sides.
Both from the side of people who don't want to see companies do anything except make money. People who want to see companies step in to save the world. And I think neither of that is realistic. Companies have a role to play in the overall field of climate action and of nature action.
But companies can of course not do it alone. We need for systemic change, we will need regulatory change. And this is why the momentum from COP is important. That's why multilateralism is still important. And now Brazil is taking this forward with the G20 and in the coming year, hopefully also beyond the climate conventions because there are many other fora where this kind of change is very important. The spring and fall meetings of the finance ministers at the World bank, for example, where we need that understanding of nature as critical infrastructure of the bioeconomy of that opportunity that lies in climate action for public health, for true national wealth, beyond gdp, for leading by example, including from emerging economies like Brazil, where that needs to be discussed and on the forefront.
[00:35:21] Speaker A: One comment that stood out to him when I was looking at the media was in Al Jazeera. Anne Harrison, the climate justice advisor of Amnesty international, noted that COP 30 host Brazil had promised to make sure every voice is heard and made strenuous efforts to broaden participation, which should be replicated. Yet the lack of participatory, inclusive and transparent negotiations left both civil society and indigenous people who answered the global Muturao. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that correctly, but it means working together, call in large numbers out of the real decision making. What are your thoughts on that, Tim?
[00:36:00] Speaker B: That is not my experience in the blue Zone.
[00:36:03] Speaker A: Good.
[00:36:04] Speaker B: I've had. Well, if you walk through the Blue Zone. It was first of all really, really encouraging how diverse the group of people. There were many activists, I saw many protests inside the Blue Zone. So where people protested, for example, against the fact that There are apparently 1600 fossil fuel lobbyists at COP, but the fact that civil society was allowed into the Blue Zone to make that statement, there are protests there, of course, that means that they are at least at the table and they are being heard. I also saw a lot of young people, including the project I've been following for a few years called the Youth Negotiators Academy, where they train young people to be part of country delegations. And the fact that youth had a seat in, in many country delegations, not only nominally, but really officially a negotiator seat at the negotiators table, I think that is also an indication that there are definitely civil society voices being heard. So again, that's not my experience, but obviously I also represented just an observer in the climate convention and in the.
[00:37:17] Speaker A: Blue Zone for cities and the built environment specifically. If the likes of planners and mayors and developers are listening, what would be the three practical shifts you would want them to make inspired by COP30 to treat nature as core urban infrastructure rather than decoration?
[00:37:36] Speaker B: So in the week before COP in Rio, there was the global meeting of mayors and the C40, the largest 40 cities taking climate action meetings there. And then many of the mayors came to, came to belang.
I would say look around at what are now people's favorite cities and then check why? Because if you look at Paris, you look at Singapore, which has been amazing in terms of including nature in its built environment, it's almost always the amount of including nature in urban spaces plays a role. So I would say listen to the citizens and what they wish for. Because often in large cities or in small cities that wish for a better connection and more resilience and more connectivity with nature is high on the agenda. And even if it isn't, if you go to the cities that have made a transition towards a much greener in built infrastructure, you can see that citizens are very happy with that change.
[00:38:46] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely, that's. I think that's one of the most important things at the end of the day.
So one of the phrases that sticks at me, having read your book and spoken to you about it, is the phrase stubborn optimism.
Are there moments or takeaways from COP30 that you would like to leave the audience with that maybe tie in with that phrase?
[00:39:09] Speaker B: Yeah. I come back to this issue of food and how amazed I was by this sheer diversity of the fruits and vegetables and the agroforestry produce that could be generated from the Amazon and that could transform basically the world's food system. If we could find a way to harvest and then market these products in a sustainable way, which Para is exactly aiming to do and other Amazonian states.
And Salesforce is by the way helping a company called Bioverse to do the sort of these flyover lidar based mappings of where you could sustainably harvest which forest products from either agroforestry or just wild harvesting across the Amazon and then use indigenous communities for the supply chains like companies like Natura are doing to work with the indigenous peoples for that kind of sustainable marketing.
I think that could transform the world's agri food system. We have to keep an eye on the future of food because the future of food is not in industrial or chemical agriculture as we know it at the moment. The future of food is in diversification and in the bioeconomy.
[00:40:27] Speaker A: It's very interesting that you should mention that Tim, because it brings back to my mind a quick discussion we had when we last spoke, which is about the food coming from your own neighborhood and obviously the benefits are, you know, much, much, much stronger and on very many levels. We talked about this before, not just physically and so on.
So I guess maybe one of the most positive things what you've touched on there is replicating what they're doing there, but to suit different environments across, across the globe really, isn't it?
[00:41:01] Speaker B: We're seeing also here in Europe we're seeing a very strong regenerative agriculture movement emerge. There are, there's more interest to source seasonal and regional food, not only for reasons of saving the climate or biodiversity, but also because it's a more resilient system in the long run. It's less fragile and that is becoming more important for decision makers and for people. It can be cheaper and definitely healthier and more nutritious to grow food in that way. I think we will hopefully see more of that. But again, the governments need to set the right policy frameworks and incentives. And in this case here, where I am and where you are also in Spain, it's the European Common Agricultural Policy and other incentive frameworks that need to align with that vision of the future. And that machine is still transforming itself much too slowly. Despite laws like the EU Nature Restoration Law and reform commitment in the Common Agricultural Policy. It's happening too slowly. But we can all do our bit to push for that and ask for that and ask for support for that kind of regenerative agriculture is a big part of the bioeconomy.
[00:42:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I totally agree with you. Obviously it is frustratingly slow, really, unfortunately, isn't it? But let's leave listeners on a more positive note. What would you have people do in their own lives given the outcomes of COP30?
That's a bit of a mixture, obviously, but there's a lot of positives there. What would you advise to people timing and talking about the likes also of Bioverse, that is, you know, being funded by Salesforce.
[00:42:45] Speaker B: So what I would hope we could all do is just to sometimes look past the negative headlines. Negative headlines sell more than positive ones. I think that's part of the reason why we see so many of them.
[00:42:58] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:42:59] Speaker B: So flip to page 5 or 7 of your newspaper or your online news portal and read the positive news, because they're always some of them as well. Look at things from a side of what is possible and then focus your action and your political advocacy, which all of us also need to be political advocates in this effort to build a new bioeconomy. Focus them on the good news and on the action that is happening, because it's happening everywhere. There's a lot of momentum. We just need to reinforce that and focus on that and realize that there's many of us who want a change. The vast majority of the world population that wants more action on nature wants a better future, simply. So let's focus on that and remember that there's many of us and we can together do everything that is needed to build that new bioeconomy, to build a better future that is better for people, for climate and for nature.
[00:44:01] Speaker A: Absolutely. Tim, I'd like to say thank you so much for making the time because of course it's been a very, very busy time for you for all sorts of reasons. Your normal work, the book, obviously, going over to COP and so on. So the one thing I'd like to say as well, talking about positivity is, you know, your LinkedIn is a great source of positivity, as are there's heaps and heaps of amazing people that, you know, showcase what they're doing and what they're talking about on LinkedIn. So it is a great source of positivity if you're following the right people. And I would like to mention one person that I know that is a mutual connection of ours, Sangeeta Waldron. S A N G E E T A Waldron W A L D R O n also on LinkedIn and she's doing a Monday post every single Monday for quite a while now. So, again, these things are what we all need to inspire each other, isn't it, Tim?
[00:44:50] Speaker B: Absolutely. And also thank you for all the work you do, Jackie, because getting the word out there is so important. And to be constructive, as you say, this is key.
[00:44:59] Speaker A: That is our aim. That is our aim, Tim. Just like yourself, Frieda, you know, just all of us coming from our own particular angles and doing what can. And that's pretty much what it's all about. And being open to what we have discussed today and also the last time we spoke in October. The fact that these changes are actually potentially so positive and surrounding ourselves with a much more beautiful world than what we have in some places currently.
[00:45:25] Speaker B: Exactly. I think we have to get control of the narrative back. This is about creating a better future for everybody. It's not a sacrifice and not even necessarily a cost. It's an investment in our future and it's an investment in the strong and resilient fabric of society. And we, I think, should all be gladly investing in that. Because it will pay off many fold.
[00:45:50] Speaker A: I think so. And I think sort of like a byproduct of what we're talking about right now will in fact be stronger communities because of the fact that, you know, when people are doing things together in terms of the land and regenerative farming and all this type of stuff, community bonds that were there maybe in the early industrial times or before industrialization will be much more likely to start again and grow again, Tim.
[00:46:16] Speaker B: That's certainly my experience here in our little farming community. It's work in progress and we can all lean in.
[00:46:23] Speaker A: That's it. That's it. So, listen, thank you so much, Tim, and I know it's been just such a pleasure to speak to you again.
[00:46:30] Speaker B: Likewise. Thanks, Jackie.
[00:46:33] Speaker A: This is constructive voices.
