Beyond COP27: Leaders on the Road Ahead

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This session was recorded on Friday 18 November, 2022

Antonia Gawel, Head, Climate Change, World Economic Forum: Hello and welcome to this discussion 'Beyond COP 27: Leaders on the Road Ahead'. My name is Antonia Gawel, head of climate change with the World Economic Forum.

I will start, of course, by noting that COP27 is not over yet. Negotiators are still gathered in Egypt, working to push forward strong outcomes. As a brief recap for our viewers, COP27 was dubbed by the Egypt presidency as the 'COP of implementation'. The major objective, of course, was to see progress on implementing the many commitments made in Glasgow last year at COP26.

But this is also the Africa COP, providing an important opportunity to table issues critical to the continent and many developing nations.

A few priorities on the agenda going into Egypt included 1: mitigation and adaptation finance. Wealthy countries have still not delivered on the 100 billion USD committed in Paris to help developing countries decarbonise and adapt.

The second is loss and damage. Now climate change is here and now, with devastating impacts being felt around the world, particularly in the most vulnerable nations who don't have the resources to respond.

And of course, food, energy and water security. The world is currently in the midst of an energy, food and water crisis, all compounded by climate change.

It's hard to currently express optimism about where we currently stand. Many, including myself, are leaving Egypt with continued frustration at the slow pace of progress. There were murmurs in the halls that political leaders were on the edge of giving up on the 1.5 degree target rather than driving negotiations towards it. So on one hand, this lack of political progress in Egypt can leave us feeling defeated. We did, however, see some positive movements alongside and I would say a reinforced conviction that in all of society response will be critical to unlocking progress.

Let me share seven quick examples where we saw some positive momentum. Stay with me. These are all really important. So first, the scientist, Johan Rockström, put it so clearly, 1.5 degrees is not a political goal. It's not a compromise. It is a physically-based boundary. This position was shared and communicated by thousands of leaders over the weekend, urging parties to double down on efforts.

Second, coming out of the G20, a new Just Energy Transition Partnership was launched in Indonesia to help finance the energy transition. There was also word of positive dialogue, bringing together back the China and US conversation on tackling climate change.

Third, African nations announced a carbon market partnership and are not waiting to embrace the opportunity of a clean economic transformation. Again, Sharm el Sheikh Adaptation Dialogues were announced seeking to enhance resilience for 4 billion people living in the most climate vulnerable communities by 2030.

Another example, our own First Movers Coalition, in partnership with Secretary Kerry of the US State Department announced its expansion to 65 companies, now sending a $12 billion market signal to pull forward critical low carbon technologies of the future.

In a further market signal, 26 countries have now also signed a global MOU committing that 100% of new truck and bus sales will be zero emissions by 2040.

And last but not least, major agricultural trading and processing companies launched the Agriculture Sector Roadmap. This will move the industry towards science based, transparent and traceable actions to avert and reverse deforestation.

These are just a few examples. There are many more, and it's by no means sufficient. So what we now need to focus on is how we continue to drive collective action to close that gap between ambition and action.

The upside of this economic and social transformation is such an important opportunity for innovation, entrepreneurship and collaboration if we fully embrace it.

So in this discussion today, I am joined by a brilliant cast of leaders who are on the ground in Egypt or following discussions closely. Let me briefly introduce them.

We have Janet Ranganathan, managing director and senior vice president with the World Resources Institute; Jesper Brodin, CEO of Ingka Group and co-chair of our CEO Climate Leaders Alliance; James Mnyupe, the economic adviser to the president of Namibia; Anish Shah, managing director and CEO of Mahindra Group. And of course, we also have Pato Kelesitse, a Global Shaper from our Gaborone Hub who also has launched important initiatives to drive climate action.

We'll discuss their perspectives, experiences and importantly, I think, vision for the way forward.

So let me start with you, Janet. It would be great to hear your perspectives. WRI has been closely tracking the negotiations for many years now, both looking at what needs to happen and driving policy change. Would love to hear your experience and take on where you see things standing now. So, Janet, over to you.

Janet Ranganathan, Vice-President, Science and Research, World Resources Institute: Great. And thanks for having me on here. And yes, I'm going to focus on the nuts and bolts of the negotiations, not maybe as exciting as some of the other things you're going to hear from the panellists. But bear with me.

I actually wrote some careful notes last night about what I was going to say. I woke up early this morning and there had been a flurry of activity. So I've got I've got red pen all over my notes. But anyway, bear with me.

I'm going to frame my comments around what WRI, the World Resources Institute, saw as the five critical tasks that negotiators needed to complete in Sharm. So bear in mind that all of this is still in flux as another 30 hours of crunch time in Sharm. But this is where we are right now.

So the first one you already alluded to, that's about creating a financing mechanism for the loss and damage. So loss and damage refers to when impacts of climate change are so severe that actually adaptation is just not feasible. So it was probably the issue du jour for the whole conference. It was widely seen as an issue that had to be resolved for climate, justice, solidarity and just simply building trust. There has been progress on that. And the first thing I should say is that the G77 and China they united around this and I think thanks to that it actually got for the first time on the official agenda. We've never seen that before. So that in itself was progress. Of course, there's still major fault lines and what that's going to look like, who's going to provide the money, who's going to be eligible to receive it. But we saw some concrete options put into the cover decision, which is the overall draft note that will summarise that conference. So it's still draft, there's going to be another version. But three concrete options appeared.

First one is that they actually agree to create a facility here in Sharm. The second option was we push it down the road to the next COP in UAE and create a facility there. And then there was a third option around we just agree on the financing mechanism. This third option was a little bit more nebulous, but also reflects the fracture that some countries really want to see, a dedicated single facility that replaced other mechanisms, while other countries would like to see a sort of what we call a mosaic of approaches that combine sources of funding from different places and makes use of some of the existing mechanisms. So, still, good progress. Let's see what happens in the final cover decision.

The second must-have task was to scale up support for adaptation. So a little bit iffy on this one. In Glasgow, what happened there was that the developed countries had committed to double their adaptation finance from 2019 levels by 2024. In other words double it from 20 to 40 billion. And I should say that that's still a drop in the bucket for what's actually really needed. Unfortunately, there was no progress on creating transparency and more detail around that doubling commitment despite the best efforts of the group of African negotiators to get it on the official agenda. It was done. So there was no further discussions on that.

There were some rays of hope, though. About 170 million was put forward to go into the adaptation fund. So that was good news. And there was some progress around this long-discussed adaptation goal and how that might be framed. So we're going to definitely see next year a push for more transparency and accountability on that.

The third critical task, which is always at every climate COP, was to strengthen national emission reduction targets. So again, going back to Glasgow, there was a request for all countries to revisit their targets in the light of the 1.5 degrees target and strive to create more ambition. So we saw several major emitting countries step forward with revised - these are nationally determined contributions , the so-called NDCs - that included Australia, Mexico, Indonesia and India. That was good news. But there's still a big gap between promises and what's actually needed.

There was also work on this so-called mitigation work programme. We're waiting to see what's going to come out of that. This is basically informing ambition for the next decade, how concrete is that going to be.

That was the third one. The fourth one was, not surprising here, about delivering the 100 billion and - I underscore the 'and' - moving forward on discussions around how to create a new financial commitment that goes beyond that 100 billion.

So I think it's quite fortunate that just before the COP, Germany, the UK and Canada prepared and released a report on the status of the 100 billion and actually transparently put the action notes in there. So that kind of diffused that issue because it's already been dealt with. So then the focus was on this new, creating this new collective quantitative goal. And I think, again, there has been some progress there. We've still got to wait to see.

And then finally, we wanted to see some progress on the treasure trove of commitments, voluntary commitments, that we'd seen at Glasgow. And I think organisations like the Forum and the World Resources Institute, we certainly convened a lot of those groups together to see where there was progress.

This includes things like the Global Methane Pledge, which by the way now has 150 signed up things, but also net zero emissions vehicles, the deforestation commitments.

On the financing, one quote that I thought kind of captured - it was from the African Development Bank chief. He said there's been megawatts of talk about financing and near zero mobilisation of funds. So I think we got to watch that space differently as we go into the next COP.

Thank you very much.

Antonia Gawel: Great. Thank you, Janet, for that. I think I captured loss and damage, adaptation, mitigation, finance and actual commitment implementation, to synthesise your five. We'll come back to you also on how you see us moving forward in those areas of action as well.

Now, Jesper, if I can turn to you, of course, you are very actively on the ground in Egypt during the first week. And I think in particular around this challenge of keeping 1.5 the focus of commitments in the negotiations, as well as working with business leaders to really drive their own actions, in addition to supporting a message that actually governments should be confident to to set strong policy as part of our climate leaders.

Can you just talk to us about your experience, what you saw, what you drove, and some of your thinking on how we move forward from here?

Jesper Brodin, Chief Executive Officer, Ingka Group (IKEA):

Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity and collaboration Antonia, and big thanks to the Forum also for bringing us together. And I have to say a big thanks to Janet and the WRI, this amazing organisation who is so deep into expertise and at the same time on the ground helping to both count, change and scale things. So a big thanks for the job that you're doing.

And I would say from my perspective, building on what you started with Antonia, it's a strange sense of the glass being both very, very half empty and very, very half full. We are not on track. The world is not on track. And there is a lot of, I think, fear, rising fear, rising concerns. And even, as you said, we hear lone voices even speaking of giving up on the commitments that you have helped us understand, this is not a political target but an absolute limit for the planet.

On the other hand, I've never seen so much activity and I'm filled with optimism when I witness there the collaboration between NGOs, companies, corporate leaders, and the youth movement who's has been very active on the ground. And what I think is worth sharing with everybody out there, these discussions have not been about whether there is an issue with climate change or what we think about it. But they've been centred around solutions and actions. In each and every conversation that I've been part of there's been an immense amount of great examples, things that have been done, the things that are in the making, and things, of course, that we haven't yet cracked but together will do.

And I want to call out the youth leaders who started on the streets with angry, rightfully so, voices, on actually participating with a competence in an incredibly constructive way in helping us moving the agenda.

I think also maybe especially to call out to the companies who are not waiting for legislation or waiting for the pledges, but actually have started by their own ethical and moral motivation and by the motivation and understanding that sustainability and climate is not about making sacrifices. It might be about making upfront investments and taking some leaps of faith, but it's really about being a winner in the economy, where it's simply the only way to be cost smart is to be resource smart and climate smart. And I think the list of corporate leaders and companies who understand both the moral and the economic aspect of this is getting longer and longer, as is the list of actions.

Now, a big applaud, I would say, to hard-to-abate sectors. I represent IKEA and the retail sector and we have a huge scope 3 change that we are going through with our companies. We see cement, we see car industries, we see a lot of brave leaders testing great steps of transformation.

I would say some sectors that still is being called out that can do much more like representatives of fossil fuel industries. To that note, I was glad to hear that now it's not only coal, but it's also fossil fuel from the G20 that is called out, where we need, of course, a deep transformation for all of us to actually reach the 1.5 level.

The letter you referred to, Antonia, just to say that I think it's quite unique because during COP, not after, but during COP, we rallied hundreds of organisations and leaders. I think it's the first time I know about a letter signed by youth leaders, NGOs and company leaders to say it's 1.5. It's hard, it's difficult. We don't have all the answers, but it's 1.5, and we need to double our efforts to get to a point.

And then to to finalise also to say, I think one of the things that sticks with me is that this would require, continue to require, radical collaboration and unity. Unity, both for reasons of solidarity, but also unity because it's the only way we're going to crack this together. And as such, I would like to see us continue to engage, to encourage the negotiators to be bold and brave and do the job now the last remaining days to take important decisions for the world. And I would like to reach out to all fellow company leaders also to continue the pursuit to take actions in advance of some of the decisions that need to happen. And I'm sure that together we will be able to make and reach the goals that we need. Thank you.

Antonia Gawel: Thank you Jesper. I think your optimism and your inspiration and commitment certainly fill us with the continued energy that we need to drive this transition forward.

Now, James, I've had great discussions with you about some of the exciting activities that you've been driving out of Namibia as the special adviser to the president. Now this is, of course, an African COP, as I said at the beginning. There is a central focus, as was mentioned, on issues of adaptation, finance, loss and damage as well as I would say what you look at as the positive transformation opportunity. So what's your sentiments coming out of the discussions today, but also how are you looking forward into the future?

James Mnyupe, Presidential Economic Adviser; Green Hydrogen Commissioner, Office of the President of Namibia: The media has been really, really interested in a couple of the issues at COP. Look, I think we came fairly well prepared, so we ended up mobilising about $63 million in grant funding to get some various projects underway in Namibia that in one way or another would help us with mobilising concessionary financing.

And then we also mobilised about €500 million, sort of a framework loan that would be available to us on very concessionary terms as well.

So all in all, if you look at the 12 months, we've mobilised about 6% of GDP in concessionary climate financing to help Namibia become, yes, a potential exporter of molecules, but also to become energy secure as well, and then, of course, to contribute to regional energy security.

Now, one of the things that we've really tried to focus on from a financing perspective as an emerging market nation was to be fairly coordinated in (a) what we were asking for, but also in creating tools that would make it very easy to collect concessionary financing and climate financing from around the world. So we saw the 8.5 billion that was pledged to South Africa a year or so ago. It was fairly sort of scattered around and it was very hard to access. So we came and announced a blended financing infrastructure fund that we were going to be structuring as a government in partnership with climate fund managers from the Netherlands. And we gave quite a bit of details of the three different funds within the overarching fund - so there would be a development fund, a construction fund and an operation fund. And then very strategically with the Dutch government, we seeded the development fund in that particular fund that we're calling SDG Namibia One. So Sustainable Development Goals Namibia One - we seeded that with $40 million grant. Now what that does is it gives you a very robust platform to go fundraising with. And from there, we've started approaching multilateral development banks, international finance institutions and other countries as well.

And so it's a story we would like to share with other emerging market nations and other African nations to say, look, COP27, of course, the negotiations are super important and so our team are involved in that. But it's also a platform sometimes to showcase the innovative ways you can access the money and then to use that as a as a platform to then launch your fundraising campaign.

I think one particular item - everything that Janet said was absolutely true, I've been getting a lot of feedback from our negotiators - but one that we're particularly interested in, for example, is actually Article 6. And so that's where we're really going to be looking to see whether we can trade our carbon credits with other nations that are not necessarily meeting their NDCs.

And in particular, two items I'd love to shed some light on, one is Article 6.2. And that essentially sets out the the guidelines for trading of internationally transferred mitigation outcomes essentially between two countries. And the negotiating countries are still working on that text and trying to get an authorisation and design of the review process. And then 6.4 was important for us as well because that establishes a framework for a multilateral carbon credit market that would be overseen by a supervisory body.

Those two are particularly important for Namibia because if indeed we do manage to get these massive green hydrogen projects going and we can start producing a lot of green electricity, it's very possible that we start going beyond our own nationally determined contributions in terms of our ability to abate carbon and to abate emissions. And so it would be a fantastic financing opportunity for us if you can actually trade those carbon credits with, say Switzerland, and raise that additional money to bolster your adaptation and mitigation efforts as well. And so for me, that was one in particular that I really wanted to highlight for countries with a very small emissions profile, but a really, really large renewable energy opportunity. The molecules, the electrons are not just your only potential sources of financing. I think those carbon credits are an interesting one and we're keeping a keen eye on Article 6 and how it develops as well.

Antonia Gawel: Great. Thanks, James. And I mentioned at the beginning the launch of the Carbon Markets Partnership in Africa, I suppose sort of that's part of the movement that you're describing. Anything you want to connect to that in the context of how you see that type of collaboration, bringing forward some of the ideas that you mentioned.

James Mnyupe: Yes, absolutely. The Africans coming together to try and really articulate for the establishment of a carbon credit market is a fantastic example of that. In my deliberations I've been talking a lot about this Africa Green Hydrogen Alliance, a whole bunch of countries coming together and beginning to collaborate on, for example, standards and certifications of the products that they will produce. I was saying that Namibia, of course, is collaborating a lot with the EU. We signed an MOU with the EU on critical raw materials and hydrogen, but around the EU they're collaborating on, say, for example, the delegated act. And they're agreeing amongst themselves what will be the various parameters that specific molecules would need to meet in order to to meet the specific definition of a product. Whereas as us producers, we are not engaged in as much organised an effort to say what characteristics of our products would need to be considered by buyers as well. I think those are two very good examples of South-South collaboration that needs to happen in order for all of us to be more effective in decarbonising the planet.

Specifically, we have started talking to Mauritania in a lot more detail. We're going to be going to the South African Green Hydrogen Summit at the end of November, and we're going to be championing quite an interesting concept between Namibia and South Africa of how we'd love to be building common use infrastructure, pipelines, transmission lines, that would go from Namibia into South Africa so that Namibia could start almost acting as the Dutch proxy to the Germans. So we would love to act as the Namibian proxy to to South Africa and for us to be strategically placed as a key element of the decarbonisation journey for South Africa as well. And then we'd love to package that and take that to the African Leadership Summit in Washington, December 13-15 as an example of a gain of South-South collaboration.

But again, the common goal here is, look, let's make sure our planet is hospitable and we have a real chance to really attack this 1.5 target.

Antonia Gawel: Thank you, James, for your leadership in driving those innovative financing mechanisms. It's really promising.

Now, Anish, you're, of course, calling in from India and have been very much driving an industrial transformation across your business and part of the CEO Climate Leaders Group. You've heard the various leaders so far on the line. Yes, we're talking about the commitment and drive from the private sector, but also one thing that we saw emerge and surface at the core of conversations in Egypt was adaptation and in particular the businesses role in adaptation. We launched a report on this as a framework for how businesses should think about this, because I would argue it hasn't really been at the centre of of thinking. But I think given the impacts we see today, it has to be now. So just welcome your thoughts, what you're seeing and where your thoughts are now as we as we look forward as well.

Anish Shah, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Mahindra Group: Antonia, the imperative to address climate change is very clear. It is driven by a high level of awareness. And at this stage, I feel that most are aware of the implications of climate related disasters.

But for the business case to be equally clear, we need to make it personal. What is the impact on the society that I live in? What is the impact of my company on me as an individual? And not just in terms of threats, but also in terms of opportunities.

We've seen many commitments, but we need to see a lot more in terms of tangible outcomes. And therefore as we think about it, we've developed a framework for this business case. And let me share that.

There are three areas. Each of them have an economic rational and a social rationale. And most companies may actually start with the economic rationale first, but I do hope that many graduate to the social rationale as well.

The first is around greening ourselves. Various products to reduce scope 1 and 2 emissions. And here I would say that the work done by the World Economic Forum and by your leadership, the dialogue that has been generated in many sessions that I have seen over multiple years has really helped create a greater level of a call to action for companies to try these projects. There has been a sharing of ideas and that has helped us get to the next level.

This includes various projects in terms of renewable energy, energy productivity, water positive, etc., and there are clear returns from these projects.

The next step that we've seen again over many of these dialogues has been around decarbonising industries. And then, of course, the opportunities associated with that. An automobile, for example, electric vehicles is a classic example, but not just four-wheelers. In India, three-wheelers is a big part of the industry here. And our business, which is reasonably large in three-wheelers, has moved from 100% ICE to 70%, EV just in the last three years.

We've set up auto recycling and are taking Jesper's and IKEA's ideas around circularity and trying to see if we can create something around that in the auto industry. It's still early for us. But that's again we're sharing best practises helps.

We've also seen that consumer preferences are changing. A real estate business launched India's first net zero residential community. And we sold out in a matter of days, which was something we had not expected. And today we are actively considering should we transition our business to be one that will launch only net zero communities? We're not quite there yet, but hopefully we will get there soon.

But investments in technology are required to make a big difference here because many of these are small steps, but we need to take much larger steps. Here again, the First Movers Coalition and forums like that help us come together to help others in terms of making small commitments that together become a big commitment.

But the tougher part here is the third aspect, which is nurturing our planet. We've done a fair amount of work on regenerative agriculture, afforestation, water positive, zero waste to landfill, etc.. But this is one where it requires everyone to come together. And while the first two points can be driven by economics and incentives, nurturing a planet is a step we have to take together by placing purpose before profits.

But even in this case, when we talk about purpose, there is a benefit for businesses.

We know that climate change impacts geographies and communities unequally. And extreme weather events will impact the poorest and the most vulnerable. And therefore we must strive towards achieving a just transition, one that leads to a more sustainable environment for business by mitigating systemic risks related to climate change, inequality, and things that may lead to adverse political, economic and social restructuring. So even in purpose, there is a benefit.

But I'd like to conclude with a call for action. For us to continue working together to drive tangible outcomes by placing purpose before profit sharing best practises. And as Janet said, delivering progress on the treasure trove of commitments. Thank you.

Antonia Gawel: Super. Thank you, Anish. I certainly support your vision of only constructing net zero communities, so I think we'll make note of that publicly here. I think that's a great aspiration to move towards.

Pato, you've been incredibly patient listening to many of the discussions here. And I know, though, that you are not patient to see progress on climate action. You're joining us from Egypt, You are very closely tracking discussions on loss and damage and other issues. You're there as part of a wider youth movement. What is your sentiment and your message that you would like to share as well as your vision for the future?

Pato Kelesitse, climate activist: Yes, we have been tracking, I think, most closely, I've been tracking the Santiago Network on loss and damage. At first, they spoke about how last night, what we thought was... and then this morning had to change comments, because as we know, it's something that's still in discussion.

I'm going to speak more to, I mean, so far we've spoken about policy, we've spoken about business. I'm going to speak more to the role of youth and what we can do at a time when we sometimes feel a little bit powerless, a little bit overwhelmed. But even as I speak about what we can do, this is on the foundation and acknowledging that the biggest actors who can move as quick as possible to ensure that we maintain 1.5 are big businesses and governments.

So with that being said, we have to acknowledge the power that we have. As young people we have a lot of power. And as long as we're not using it, it will count for nothing. So we have it and we need to flex it. And how we've seen that come to a reality in this COP is for the first time we've got an children and youth pavilion at COP. Just yesterday in the evening, the Africa Youth Action Plan was launched. We're seeing more young people in negotiation rooms. Someone shared with me earlier, that they haven't seen as many young people in negotiation rooms. Today at the closing session, Ghana's closing statement was submitted by a ten-year-old. We've seen an increase of just the word 'youth' in the cover text that was seen today.

So it shows progress, whatever we've been making, wherever we've been making them, have clearly created progress towards creating climate justice and creating climate action.

So when it comes to accountability, I'm going to speak to accountability for governments and accountability for businesses.

First with governments, Prime Minister Mottley of Barbados spoke about how we as people need to tell them to act in our names. When governments come here, when they get into negotiating rooms, they're coming to act for us. We need to ensure that when they get in there, they're saying what we want them to say. And when they don't - governments only speak votes. Governments only speak who's leading the country. So we need to reward and punish with our votes the way the world wants people to act. So if your government is not doing what you want it to, hire another one. If your government is doing what [you want it to], then give it a chance. That way government knows that when we say we want climate action, we are demanding it. And if we don't get it, we will try someone else who can deliver it to us.

And then on business, Anish actually said something that is going to speak to what I wanted to say now. On languages, business speaks profit. That's it. Right now they are speaking they're speaking to ESG. They're speaking about being more purpose driven. But we know that businesses speak profits, shareholders speak profits.

So when we use our money, as young people, we need to know that whatever we're giving it to is what we are voting for. Whatever we're giving our money to is what we are demanding, it's what we're encouraging. Or whatever we take it away from is what we're telling you 'we don't want that'. So when we come to COP27 businesses, when they come here, need to know that if you're not going to get us closer to 1.5, you are not going to be getting our money.

And then another example that Anish gave was on the net zero village that they built. And because the money was so good, they might be continuing to do it. So your money speaks, as young people. Your money speaks. Let's make sure that your money is saying what you want it to and it's giving power to what you want it to.

And then I think as I draw to a close, in COP, so far we've gotten back to loss and damage. So far we've gotten Santiago, the Santiago Network. It's a win, but it's not what we came here for. The main thing as we came here was loss and damage. When we talk about the success of COP27, we're talking loss and damage. Santiago Network is a small win. Loss and damage is what we are really here for. So as young people, let's keep the pressure up on social media. I've been seeing young people have been protesting - you walk in, all the protests have young people, whenever there's a conversation around loss or damage, there are young people. Even those who aren't here were talking about it. The conversation on loss and damage is not closed yet. As you heard, we still have a chance to continue to put pressure on. When negotiators go into the negotiating room, they need to know that when they come out, they're going to have to answer to you, Whoever is negotiating for you, theyknow that whatever decision I make in here as someone in power, someone with influence, when I get out there, I need to answer to the young people who allowed me to be in here, who allowed me to speak to them. So let's keep the pressure on.

Antonia Gawel: Great. Thank you for that message. As you said, there is still time to push, push, push for a solid outcome on this agenda as well. Clearly there are so many dimensions to this discussion. We've heard everything from youth to opportunities to the new molecules of the future, to the markets, to to financing mechanisms. And, of course, there's never enough time to delve into all of these things.

I do, though, want to take an opportunity to come back to each of you just to really close this conversation, which was a brief one, on where do we go from here.

I think we heard some positive messages. Of course, we know there are still challenges.

I will also make a brief note that what we didn't hear discussed in this particular group is also the importance of nature in driving climate change mitigation and and also societal benefits. We are also moving into CBD in Montreal, the Convention on Biological Diversity conversations, in just a few weeks. So we're going from this conversation in Egypt to then also looking at how nature can serve as a force for positive outcomes when it comes to climate, but much more broadly as well.

So let me again turn back to to each of you, Janet. I'm actually going to close with you because I think it'd be good to hear from your perspective in terms of the negotiations moving forward, how should we galvanise our efforts, and start with you Jesper just for your reflections on where we go next.

Jesper Brodin: Thank you. First of all, not as an argument, but maybe a word of hope - not every company is driven by profit as a purpose. In our case and in so many more companies' case, profit is just a means to reach a much more important purpose. In our case, the profit, the dividends we send goes to IKEA Foundation who is deeply engaged in, for instance, in Africa, together with other foundations, doing amazing things.

And I also strongly believe that companies that are only driven by profit, as it was spoken to, will have a problem with their customer base unless they are doing this right.

When it comes to going forward, I'm curious like everybody else, where we're going to land. Let's all of us continue to encourage the negotiators to represent the will of the people and the will of all of us who have the raised of our voices and shared where we stand.

When it comes to myself and to IKEA and to Ingka Group, we will continue to deliver to our scope 3 plan to both the things that are easy, but also the things that are really hard to crack. And we will continue to engage with others in the cases where we see that we can have an impact that is wider than ourselves. So I'm looking forward to the coming period as well. Thank you so much, Antonia.

Antonia Gawel: Thank you, Jesper. James, over to you. Just a brief reflection.

James Mnyupe: From my side, Antonia, super, super focused on transforming policy into bankable financial plausible assets and into starting construction and getting going as soon as possible while mobilising a significant amount of concessionary capital behind that. So, you know, I think it's very, very important to make sure that we're fighting for strong policy e.t.c.. But I've come to realise that sometimes our passion can only take us so far. And so I'm really encouraging folks in our government and our neighbours across the continent to really look at the hard things that are needed to actually get this project over the line.

And sometimes it's just, for example, I'm in negotiations right now, things like change of law or, you know, sovereign immunity - these are not things you will find being discussed at a climate conference. But if you want to get out two gigawatts, three gigawatts of solar in order to really move your adaptation goal, these are the things that you just have to get done as well. So that's one of the things we're pushing hardest on is really getting projects to feasibility. The Hydrogen Council came out and said 10% of the projects that are being announced, synthetic fuels projects, those are reaching FID [final investment decision]. And so we want to do that in Namibia, but also learn and teach others as well across the region.

And then, of course, we really can't wait for the negotiators like Janet to bring home some of the really good news at the end of the day, just so that we can get those 2-3-4 cents extra over the line that are either grants or super, super concessionary financing, because, at the end of the day, that obviously impacts the levelized cost of your product, whether that's levelized cost of electricity, ammonia or hydrogen. And that's what we need in order to to make it palatable for the industry, is to be consuming a different source of energy, right? So that's what we be focussing on. And we're really hoping to be coming back next year with projects under construction and others coming onstream as well.

Antonia Gawel: Thank you, James. Anish - last reflections?

James Mnyupe: Antonia, I share Jesper's thoughts on hope and do personally believe that purpose does come before profits. And as we go forward, I feel that businesses have to work closely with governments. We cannot stand on the sidelines. This is a major challenge and it is only in working collaboratively that we will get to where we need to.

Antonia Gawel: Thank you Anish, Pato, you've shared a compelling message of engagement. Anything else you want to close on?

Pato Kelesitse: Mine is to keep the hope alive that we can change. Flex that power. Let's continue to demand. Where possible, it's expensive to come to COP27, but if you can, try to get into the negotiation rooms so that are also, as people are talking about your future, you are also talking about your future.

Let's continue to speak. Let's continue to advocate not only for climate action, but for climate justice. Because if you're if you're on this platform, you've got a level of privilege. Let's continue to use that privilege to ensure that the climate action that is achieved serves indigenous people, serves the environment, serves those who don't have the same access that we do, serves everybody. Because, again, borrowing from the United Nations, we need to leave no one behind. We don't only need climate action, we need climate justice, and let's go make it happen.

Antonia Gawel: Great. Thank you, Pato. Janet, we started with you, and I'm coming back to you to help us see a path forward through these discussions.

Janet Ranganathan: I want to mention three key things.

The first one is what James touched on. All the discussion right now is on these sort of pots of money, the financing of financing, mitigation, financing, adaptation and loss and damage. In neither of those three parts have we got anywhere like the needed money. So we need to move beyond that - not instead of, but in addition to - actually focusing on transforming the entire financial system. And actually there is an objective in the Paris Agreement, 2.1c that talked about transforming the whole system. So we need a lot more attention on that.

The second thing is the nationally determined commitments. We spend enormous amounts of time looking at whether they've been strengthened and what they are. But they actually don't matter squat unless they're actually turned into action and impact in countries. And so we need the youth, we need citizens to be holding countries accountable to see the policies being put in place and the money mobilised. Otherwise it's all for nothing.

And then the third point I just want to make: there's two systems that we have to fix to solve the climate change problem. The first one, we're well on our way to fixing - just really we now need political will to take that one over the edge. That's the energy system.

The other energy system that we have to fix is the one that propels humans, that the food and agricultural system. And there's just not enough discussion about that. We'll never get to 1.5 unless we address that system. Much of what is talked about there is around the adaptation angle, but food, the agriculture system is both a victim and a villain. So we need much more attention to that.

So yes, we need to move from profit and plunder to profit and prosperity for the planet. So really great to hear our business folks on the on the panel today.

Antonia Gawel: Great. Thank you, Janet. And thank you all for joining. What I would say has left me feeling more uplifted than when I started and came out of Egypt, I think the optimism in this conversation is real and I think the sense of possibility is also clear.

Let us though keep our eye on the prize, which is the 1.5 degrees reduction target that we're after, which does require stronger commitments and outcomes from from policymakers.

So I think, Pato, your message was very correct and clear. It is up to us in our own capabilities, in the positions that we sit in, but also as citizens, to bring in others to really help vote for that transformation as well.

So with that, I think thank you all incredibly for joining us. And also those who are watching for joining into this discussion. Do keep track of what's coming out of the negotiations. We certainly will be. And I can say that we will commit, obviously, as the World Economic Forum to drive progress and this agenda, of course, also through to our Annual Meeting coming up in January.