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Deforestation is the largest single emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. How should industrialized and developing nations be approaching this issue in order to avoid further destruction of forests and increased emissions? During today's E&ETV Event Coverage, the U.K. prime minister's special representative for deforestation and clean energy, Johan Eliasch, says the most successful way to avoid deforestation is to make standing trees more valuable than logged trees. Eliasch explains why he believes it is more cost effective to save rainforests than it is to provide subsidies for biofuels. He also gives his views on international efforts to create a post-2012 climate agreement.
Daniel Benjamin: Well, good morning and welcome to the Brookings Institution for this presentation by the Center on the United States and Europe and our Energy Security Initiative. I'm delighted that you could come out this morning to hear Johan Eliasch, Prime Minister Gordon Brown's special representative for deforestation and clean energy. Johan Eliasch has had a rather extraordinary career. He's been a very successful businessman. He is the CEO if Head N.V., correct?
Johan Eliasch: That's correct.
Daniel Benjamin: You are incorporated in the Netherlands. And because he's been so successful at Head and at many other ventures, I thought it was appropriate to trot out a well-known quotation from Karl Marx, which is that when the revolution comes, and all of our human potentials are fulfilled, then man will no longer be defined by his occupation, but will be able to be a hunter in the morning, a fisherman in the afternoon, and a critical critic after dinner. Everything you want will be possible. Well, of all the people I know Johan has probably fulfilled that vision best of all, because he's done so many different things so well. In addition to his work at Head, and I should add that he's, I think, found better things to do than be a hunter and a fisherman, but I'm not going to get into debates about priorities. He has been a producer of movies. He has been the founder of the global strategy forum, an important think tank in London of Cool Forests, is that correct?
Johan Eliasch: Cool Earth.
Daniel Benjamin: Cool Earth, excuse me, an environmental NGO. And he has also been deeply engaged in the political life of his adoptive home, Great Britain. He was born in Sweden and lives in London. He was a member of the Tory Party's Shadow Foreign Office, and eventually was a special adviser on European affairs and then on foreign relations and rose to become the deputy treasurer of the party. However, he has shown himself to be a man who put principle over party and crossed the aisle to become Prime Minister Brown's special representative. In addition to all of those achievements, he has been a world-class skier and has also put his own resources where his principles are and is the owner of, I believe, 400,000 acres of the Amazon, which he undertook as his own personal contribution to dealing with the deforestation crisis. Johan will present his remarks and afterwards my colleague, David Sandalow, who is Brookings' Senior Director for climate, environment, and energy matters, will lead the question and answer. David, I should add, is uniquely suited to do this having been Assistant Secretary of State for oceans and the environment. And also the author of a book he came out last fall "Freedom from Oil; How the Next President Can End the United States' Oil Addiction." So I think we have a lot to look forward to and without further ado I give you Johan Eliasch.
Johan Eliasch: Thank you very much. I'll see if I can live up to that introduction. Well, ladies and gentlemen, it is a great pleasure to be here. It is a great honor to be asked to come here and speak. And let me start off by saying when I grew up as a kid in Sweden, I used to be able to ski, more or less, from October through April and that was just fantastic because I loved skiing. Nowadays, if you go up to Stockholm, which is quite far north, you're lucky if you get a couple of days of skiing around Stockholm and that is all due to global warming. Now, I'm going to address climate change today and the title of my address is "The Next Global Security Threat." And maybe that sounds a bit desperate, but in a few years to come, if we don't do anything, it is probably true. And to put it into context, how we look at security threats, the U.S. ____ for war on terror since September 11 has exceeded 600 billion, but if we look at the global carbon market that's just below 30 billion, so about 5 percent. So you can see, priorities, this is not a priority yet. Now, Bush, he once said, President Bush once said, "Our time in history will be remembered for new challenges and unprecedented danger." Now, the good news with climate change is that unlike terrorism climate change is a more straightforward challenge in so far as it's more quantifiable. And we have a much better understanding and a lot of evidence of what is going on. But the bad news is that if we do nothing the impact on mankind can be catastrophic. So we must view climate change with much more of a sense of urgency than is being done today. Now, I think most of you have probably seen this graph before and it shows how the planet has warmed up over the last 50, 60 years. But the main point here is that if you look at the trajectory global greenhouse gas emissions have increased 70 percent between 1970 and 2004, but only by 80 percent between 1920 and 2004. So, the vast majority of the increase in emission has come in the last 30, 40 years. And the point here is that it was human activities that put those gases there. Now, if we look at the countries that emit a lot it's obviously the U.S., the E.U., China, Russia, Japan, and India. India is from 1994, so we don't really know what that number is today. Now, if we look on a per capita basis, because this is highly relevant to apportionment around the globe in terms of people, here in the U.S. we have the highest emissions per capita. E.U. follows that and is on par with the U.K., same for Japan. Whereas, China and India are today far less, but that is likely to change quite rapidly. And if you look here at the growth rates, you can see that the U.S. is on par with the world, but what's driving the increase is China and India. Whereas, the U.K., who has taken strong measure to achieve cuts, is below the world average. So, basically where we are today, we have various options. We have a choice. We can choose to do nothing, and if you look at this graph here, you can see that the current trajectory points to doubling greenhouse gases by 2050. And what that means in terms of temperature increases, if we go as far out as 2100, 100 years from now, a global increase of four degrees. The polar ice caps, there won't be much left of those and there are, well, lots of effects of that if we don't do anything. And we've seen so far increase in frequency of hurricanes. Katrina is one example where you had the very volatile hurricane incidents. Mitch is another one in Honduras. Other consequences or increases in rainfall at high latitudes and drying at subtropics. And it's not like, for instance, with global warming, and this is an important thing to point out, it's not like it gets warmer everywhere. If you take some parts it would actually get a little bit colder, but there are some areas which are particularly exposed, like the Antarctic or Arctic where we've seen average temperatures rise by as much as 12 to 14 degrees. But in it's important to keep that in mind, to understand how a two degree shift has such a big impact. Another example is the Himalayan glaciers, which is sort of part of the parcel for the food supply for about 1.3 billion people. And if these glaciers melt the cost of providing water is going to be huge, because imagine all the dams you have to construct to cater to all these people. But also it will destroy soil. The River Deltas will be completely flooded with huge disruptions to food supply. Land degradation is another one that's important, declines in cereal production and livestock as examples, a big impact in Africa here. Spread of diseases like malaria. What happens here is that diseases travel and it travels from places where people no longer are resilient against these particular diseases. Another one is an outbreak of Chikungunya fever, which is normally found around the Indian Ocean and suddenly pops up in Italy. So, if we do nothing this could potentially lead to a threat to global peace and resulting conflicts, water shortages, sea level rises, floods, land degradation, which all this will lead to unemployment, loss of land. Bangladesh is a particular exposed place. The Maldives is another one that will probably disappear. We'll have poverty issues. There will be competition between people for resources that are more and more difficult to obtain and you'll have migration of people that have to move from areas which will no longer be habitable. So this has potential for violent conflicts, and there are examples already of this in this vein. I mean Darfur, the Darfur crisis, one of the reasons for that crisis is competition for resources between Darfur's Arab nomads and the black African farmers which have contributed to this conflict. But it's already there. And this is a picture of Washington, so we'll be underwater. But we can act and we can do something about this. And the other good thing is that if we do something now it's likely to also not cost so much that it has a big impact on our everyday lives. It's estimated that if we take action, we stabilize at around 500 or 550 parts per million of CO2 content in the atmosphere. We can tackle that through not more than a one percent impact of global GDP. If we do nothing there are some studies here which suggest that it could cost between five and 20 percent of GDP, and that's a huge number, and will have a big impact on our lives. So what is the way forward? Well, unilateral leadership and multilateral agreements, that's the only way we can go forward. That's the only way to get a consensus amongst all the nations of the world and get something done. And the last conference on the subject, which was held in Bali in December of 2007, was a good step forward. We saw the engagement of the Australian and U.S. governments with discussions towards a post-2012 agreement. We also saw a global consensus that reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation should be a priority with frameworks for countries to start piloting projects and also a wide agreement that deforestation will contribute to harder proposals in a climate pact it in 2009. Now deforestation, and let me go forward one slide, if you look at this pie chart here, the biggest single contributor, if you really break down emissions to its single constituents, is deforestation. The number which is used here comes from the Stern Review, which is 18 percent. It is now even being suggested that this could be even higher, as much as 21 percent. Now, if we take other areas, like heat, where you can't turn off the heat because then people will freeze to death. We need food, so you can't just stop one day to the other and not - or cutting back on food, because then people will starve. We need electricity. We can save on electricity, but still we need electricity. We need buildings, we need transport, but deforestation, particularly when you go to the rain forests, here we're looking at just pure waste. It's like flushing down dollar bills or throwing perfectly good things away. So here, we have an opportunity to actually have a head start, a quick fix to a big problem, in the beginning of what needs to be done. So this is actually an opportunity as well as it's very sad to see that all of this forest is being destroyed when it does not need to be. So let me talk a bit more about deforestation. Trees, apart from being very beautiful, I personally, and that led to my engagement, I love trees and people ask me how can you love trees? What's so special about trees? I just love the shapes and the green, the colors, everything. So it's something incredibly beautiful for me which is part of nature. Now, if you cut down the tree what happens? Well, if you do it in the rain forest you destroy the soil and that soil destruction is going to lead to effectively what would be the soil carbon sink is going to be released up into the atmosphere and these are huge storages. You're looking at between 200 and 400 tons of carbon per each hectare. So they're huge sinks. Today deforestation is not part of any mechanism for carbon credits. There are no economic incentives to preserve rain forests. Here's another beautiful picture from the rain forest and this is how it should look like as opposed to like this. Here's another picture of ... you can see the edges, the beautiful forest and then the rest has been cut down. And this has probably been cut down a year or two before, but if we took this picture five years from when it was cut down it would be like desert because the soil gets burned by the sun and it doesn't really have an opportunity to ... you can't really plant trees there anymore. Now, avoided deforestation is a deliverable and affordable way of abatement. And we think here, in all likelihood, that this can be delivered at possibly less than five dollars per ton, which is far less than the prevailing carbon credit prices. It also has other benefits and you have to look at what drives deforestation. It's usually poor people with no other means than cutting down trees to feed themselves and their families because they live in areas that are remote, they're isolated. If somebody is sick in the family and they need to go and see a doctor, they don't have any money. So what do they do? They cut down some trees, sell them off to some illegal sawmill to get the money to pay their bills. It's not people that destroy forests for the sake of it; they do it usually as an act of desperation. So, any program to combat deforestation will always have to involve involving the indigenous people that live in these areas. Because if you don't deal with them, these are big areas, it's not like you can send out guards to protect the land. It's just impossible. So it is an opportunity also to reduce poverty. So, if you have carbon credits from deforestation it would enable poverty reduction in these areas, which is a great positive. There are sustainable activities that you can undertake in the forest. There are lots of fruits and the biodiversity which is huge in these areas provides many sources for incomes. Now, where we are today is that we've begun the discussion, but we haven't really done anything to implement change. But we are trying to effectively prepare ourselves for what is to come. And let me give you a few examples. There is the World Bank Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, which is a facility that has been set up through the World Bank with the participation of many countries, the U.K., Germany, Finland, Denmark to mention a few. Its $300,000,000 and one of the main goals here is to build capacity and pilot projects in the rain forest so that so that countries can be ready and sort of get structured to protect the rain forest. Another project is in the Congo Basin Forest, which is the second-largest rain forest in the world after the Amazonas and here you're looking at the destruction of about one and a half million hectares of forest each year. And the U.K. government estimated £50 million to support proposals by the Central Africa Forest Commissions, COMIFAC as it's known in those countries, to protect the Congo Basin forests for the benefit of the peaceful there. And the aim here is to slow the rate of deforestation through developing the capacity of local communities and national institutions to manage and conserve their forests. And the fund will have a strong African centered approach. Civil society will play a key role in decision making and within the steering board. So that is also important. These things need to be done with local engagement. You need to involve the people, not only the governments, but also the people in the areas. Now another initiative that I wanted to mention is Cool Earth, which is something that I've set up together with Frank Field, who's a former minister. And this was before I took on this role as the Prime Minister's Special Representative and we said people talk, but let's do something and let's get the message out there and engage more people. It's not how much land we can protect, but really engage as many people as possible. So we set that up and what it does is it let's people, like I did, to buy rain forest. It's quite complicated. It's not easy to manage. It's far away. So for people who want to invest, let's say $100 or $50 as a Christmas gift, whatever, it's just not feasible. So we said we'll create a vehicle for this, a charitable vehicle. So this is set up as a charity to let people participate. So we did that and the way we went about it was to identify at risk forest, usually where civilization is beginning to make inroads on the forest. Cool Earth would then buy land or lease land, at the same time engage in local community programs and have some monitoring of the land to see that nothing went wrong. Now, the formula for success is you have to make the trees more valuable standing than logged. And how do you do that? Well, when I bought my rain forest I said, "Okay, we will send out lots of rangers to go out to forests." But that didn't work at all and then after trying lots of different things, I said to all the locals, "You can harvest the lands for free. You can go in on the lands and you can pick fruits, nuts, whatever you want. You don't have to pay me anything. All I ask of you is that you become the custodians of the land. You protect the land. You protect your own livelihoods." And that is a formula that worked, because all the locals, when people tried to come in and cut trees, let me tell you, the system to deal with that in remote places is difficult. They took that into their own hands and they started protecting. And since we started that we didn't have any problems with illegal logging. Those who tried to do illegal logging, they had a problem instead. Now, here you can see some pictures from the type of things, nuts, fruits. Here you can see more fruits and there are lots of fruits here which are very unique, like antioxidants like Acai. Now, here's a picture of a road. Roads are one of the big problems in this area because the moment you put in roads, that opens up the way for illegal loggers to come in, cut trees, and take them out. And here you have the problem driving development versus preserving the rain forest. That's a picture of me, silly smile. That's me again. Here is a picture, it's just very beautiful. This is in the middle of the rainy season and it looks like a blur, but if you do think of a line in the middle of the picture that is actually where the water ends. It's actually not land, its treetops, because here the water is up about somewhere 10, 15 meters above the ground level. It was reforested, replanted, about 200,000 trees in these areas to take care of places nearby that have been deforested. And it grows incredibly quickly. The Cool Earth, what Cool Earth has achieved so far is protected 35,000 acres of rain forest. Over 9 million tons of CO2 has been kept out of the atmosphere. We contributed to building two schools, six warehouses, one clinic. We have now 11,000 members and over 200 schools signed up and we're also seeing quite a lot of funding from the private sector. So it shows it can be done. It doesn't have to only be governments, but NGOs can play a role here. Now, to recap the key principles for successful projects on the ground is you need to get the local communities involved, you need to make sustainable forest management adaptable and responsive to the specific requirements of individual projects. The more clear land titles are the better it is. It lessens the risk of land invasions. They also need strict monitoring and verification to maintain the credibility of the carbon assets. And that is another area which is important when you build capacities in these areas and that is through satellite monitoring, real-time, to be able to see that no one is cutting down trees. Now, moving over to another part of the presentation, which is global emissions trading, which I'd like to say a few words about. I say here that today the ETS works, but there are some improvements that we can make to it. We will need an international agreement on the next commitment period, which is very important for its credibility. We need linking to a global emissions trading scheme, joint implementation and a clean development mechanism, E.U. emissions trading schemes and schemes in the U.S. and Australia and other places to have a tangible and transparent market I think would be important. Enhanced participation by developing countries would be needed and deeper developed country targets is also going to be important. Now, if we look at this as a step-by-step approach I think today consensus has more or less been reached when it comes to the science. There are still people out there who don't believe in climate change, but at least the people that believe in it are more or less on the same page when it comes to the science. What we haven't got today is consensus on the allocation of emissions allowances and targets, and that is a very important part of what is to come in the conference discussions. We will need a credible and robust governance framework, which is transparent, consistent, and legally secure. And if we have that we have good prospects of having a liquid trading platform, which can attract global capital which is needed to drive investment into clean technologies. And a credible governance framework, that means that projects can be audited as a way of verifying that targets have been met, so that people don't get money for nothing in essence. So that no cheating can take place. And now a final point on that. If you think about 25 billion tons at $10 per ton, that is 250 billion. Two-hundred and fifty billion, let's put that into perspective, that's less than the market cap of Microsoft, quite a few companies on the New York Stock Exchange. So to achieve a global carbon market from a capital market perspective is at least something which should not be impossible. So just to sum up here. Climate change is not simply an environmental problem, but it can be a threat to our existence. We need international participation, without that, everybody joining up and working together, this is going to be a very difficult task. To achieve emissions targets, that may not be possible without halting deforestation. That's another important point. And reducing deforestation is highly cost effective and large-scale projects can be implemented already now. And as you saw in the pie chart I showed you earlier, it is a big chunk of the emissions. So here we can have immediate impact if we do something. And the last point is it will be important that we will have an effective global carbon market. With that, David?
David Sandalow: On a political question, a slightly different topic, I was curious, your reflections on the politics of this deforestation issue in Europe. Historically there's been some skepticism from European negotiators of the climate treaty about providing credits for avoided deforestation within the Kyoto Protocol and other types of mechanisms. And the argument that's been offered is that if we pay attention to avoided deforestation that will lead us to pay less attention to coal plants and oil and that type of thing. And, I wondered, you must hear that. What do you say in response and what do you think the politics of this issue is changing in governments in Europe?
Johan Eliasch: Well, if you try to tell the Chinese leadership that you have to have clean coal technology in all their power plants I don't think you'll get very far. So, there are actually other arguments which are why should you pay people to do something they shouldn't do in the first place? But at the end I believe you have to look at the economics or an economic model and each carbon emission source has to have a seat at the table, on the same basis, just like any other source of emissions because they have the same value.
David Sandalow: Let me ask one other question and then take questions from the audience which I know would like to ask questions. I'm very interested in a few more words about your experience in Brazil, because we know that the issue of "foreign ownership of the Amazon" has been inflammatory politically in Brazil. And what you're doing is a very interesting experiment and I'm curious, what types of political dialogue you've had with leaders there and whether you would describe your project as popular on the ground in Brazil or not at this point?
Johan Eliasch: Well, obviously, this project is something that I've done in a totally private capacity. First of all, when it comes to sovereignty, that is an issue in many rain forest countries. Some countries have different perspectives on it if you've read what's come up from Guyana where they would very much welcome raising money from their rain forest. Whereas in Brazil, there has been a debate about we don't want foreigners coming in here and buying up our Amazonian rainforest. And I don't think anybody has ever suggested that and carbon credits will never be a means for that. First of all, 70 percent of the Amazonian rain forest belongs to either the federal government or the individual states. And the other 30 percent, a huge proportion of that is, again, with the indigenous Indian communities. So you're only looking at a few percent that will potentially be available to acquire. And, again, here you have issues with land titles, so you're looking at, when you get down to it, a minuscule proportion of the Amazonas. So I think, from that perspective, it would never be the case in any event. The second part of the question is has this been popular or what has been the feedback on the ground? It depends on, I guess, who you talk to. If you talk to the people that harvest my lands they think it's great. They think this is wonderful because it's created livelihoods. If you speak to the people that I laid off at the sawmill they'll say this is terrible. This is a guy who loves trees more than he likes people. He's a horrible guy. But reality is you have to make a choice and I didn't do that choice sort of to participate in a popularity contest, but rather do what I thought was right.
David Sandalow: And just to ask a follow-up question, this was prompted by what you said. Are there more people laid off at the sawmill or more people benefiting from the products that are remaining in the rain forest, in your view?
Johan Eliasch: Well, the sawmill had 1100 people, but we have created 1500 livelihoods. So we've had a net gain of 400 jobs, which I think is fantastic.
David Sandalow: I saw hands start to go up already. In the front row, yes?
Tom Colina: Tom Colina, 20/20 Vision, I want to thank you for two things. One is for making Head tennis rackets, one of which I have and they're great, so thank you very much. The other is for titling this talk "The Next Global Security Threat," because I'm embarrassed to say, if it hadn't been called that I probably wouldn't have come. But I'm glad I did and it kind of makes my point that in this town, and probably many others, calling something a security issue as opposed to an environmental or deforestation issue gets you a different kind of attention. So, I'm wondering, and certainly some of us in the town think if we can somehow frame climate change as a security issue we'll gain traction with different communities that wouldn't otherwise be interested in environmentalism. So I'm wondering if you can talk more about how we can expand that understanding of the security implications of climate change so we can reach different audiences. Thanks.
Johan Eliasch: Well, I mean that's why I chose the title. If you talk about the environment, unfortunately people, there's sort of less agreeing people, but it's not. This is a serious issue and it needs serious attention. And, unfortunately, you have to put pictures of disasters in front of people to realize that this could be reality where you live and where you are. And I think, compared to where we were a couple of years ago we've made enormous headways in persuading politicians that this is a very important subject. And I can say in my case, when I was asked to do this job for Gordon Brown, I saw somebody here who truly has a lot of conviction in this subject, who really wants to make a difference and who's pushing this subject very, very hard. And I'm seeing more and more politicians like that and I'm very happy that in the U.K. we spent a lot of time, a lot of resources on this project already.
Question: I'm Lou Pearlman. I'm a consultant here in Washington to the public and the risk institute and other organizations. Large swaths of rain forests are now being cleared in Brazil and Indonesia to grow ethanol and biodiesel fuels to fight global warming. Are you for that or against it?
Johan Eliasch: Well, if you look at the economics, if you look at the abatement costs, and this is a private view I want to point out, it makes much more sense to save rain forest than spend subsidies on doing biofuels.
Question: I'm Chris Holly. I'm a reporter for the Energy Daily here in Washington. I want to follow up on David's question about the E.U politics of deforestation. When the commission, a few days ago, put out its legislative proposal for the next decade, it reiterated its opposition to allowing emission credits earned from voided deforestation in the E.U. ETS and one of the reasons it cited was the lack of maturity in monitoring and compliance techniques. There's no assurance for it to happen, of the permanence of avoided emissions from deforestation. How do we get to the point, if indeed this is the best approach for saving rain forests, to reassuring people who hold these concerns so that there can be an expansion of the universe of credits and an enhancement of preserving forests.
Johan Eliasch: Well, that's a good question. What is needed in the rain forest nations is capacity to audit. In tactical terms, you need to see that the trees that are supposed to be protected are still standing for the period that credits are given out. These are a lot of issues that need to be addressed in the future framework for integrating deforestation into a trading scheme.
David Sandalow: Is it just a matter of having lots of boots on the ground, if you will, watching trees?
Johan Eliasch: I think it's people and it's technology. You can monitor with satellites. There are a lot of certain things you can do with trees. You can put the chips, so you can actually monitor where the trees are. There are programs in the Amazonas already where the trees are marked.
David Sandalow: You mentioned Guyana a moment ago too. I wondered, any reflections on different countries around the world, rain forest nations, where there's particular openness and interest in this agenda?
Johan Eliasch: I think all rain forests have an interest, obviously a vested interest in this area, which is very positive.
David Sandalow: Ma'am?
Julia Cloniss: Julia Cloniss, economist consulting on consulting on sustain of development. Could you please comment specifically on the case of Ecuador? I understand there was a direct request by the state for direct financial support, international support, to more or less compensate for lost income by avoiding oil exploration. I understand this is a specific request for international, direct financial support.
Johan Eliasch: I can't comment on this specific request, but yes, there are going to be, again, choices that you have to make between cutting down trees and other economic activity, whether it's natural gas or oil. Theoretically, the rain forest could have a lot of oil underneath it. So there are areas where you have to take a view. Sometimes it might be such an important thing to extract energy, other forms of energy, that that is a better way of dealing with the global climate change problem.
David Sandalow: For those in the audience not familiar with this, this is a very interesting and innovative proposal out of Ecuador, which has substantial oil and gas reserves sitting on top of a rain forest and is now looking to the international community for help to finance the lost revenues from not drilling in that rain forest. Let me go to the back of the room and then come up. Way in the back there. Not way in the back, two thirds of the way back.
Edward Cameron: Thank you, my name is Edward Cameron. I'm the special representative on climate change for the Maldives, who you actually mentioned in your presentation. I'd like to make a brief comment as a prelude to a question and the comment is that it's very important, I think, that we bear in mind that this is not a scientific issue, an economic issue, an environmental issue, or a forestry issue. This is fundamentally a human tragedy and I think that's often lost in this debate and has been for 20 years. In the case of the Maldives we are already seeing the effects of climate change. It is already undermining and compromising human homes, prosperity, jobs, violating human rights, and ultimately costing human lives. A child born today in the Maldives, who begins his life today, it is unlikely to be able to end his life in the Maldives because of the current projections. And that's very important. The question I'd like to ask is that if we look at the current debate on climate change, we will see that we're having the same arguments today that we've had for the past 20 years. So, in addition to being a human tragedy, climate change is also a political tragedy. We are still talking today about common, but differentiated responsibilities, we're still talking about new and additional finances, and we're still having the same trouble getting the major emitters to engage in a comprehensive global consensus. So my question to you is why do you think our politics has failed us and how do you think we can improve our politics over the coming years? Because it's important to bear in mind that the science is not more or less settled. The science is settled. It is unequivocal. It is beyond a reasonable doubt. And yet we still continue to prevaricate and to avoid the necessary urgency and ambition. Thank you.
Johan Eliasch: Well, I guess the difference is ... or rather it's not like it's an asteroid, a huge asteroid about to hit the planet that we can see it coming towards us in the sky, even though it is almost like that, but over a longer period of time. It's something that's happening slowly. And I guess that is why the sense of urgency is not as big as we would hope it would be. And sometimes it takes disasters to get people to wake up. Hopefully, in this case, and we are quite far along, there is a global effort in coming to an agreement which will replace the Kyoto Protocol. So, I think we can be optimistic, but we also have to... I think it's up to everybody to make sure, whatever he can or she can, that something does happen.
David Sandalow: We have an interesting development here in the U.S. politics. We have, I think, an emerging favorite in the Republican nomination contest, John McCain. He's certainly doesn't have it locked up by any means, but I think most people now consider him to be the favorite and he is the sponsor of one of our leading pieces to fight global warming in the U.S. Senate. And on the Democratic side and appears to be down to Senator Clinton and Senator Obama, both of whom are strongly in favor of a cap-and-trade program. And then there's a wildcard waiting out in the wings, Michael Bloomberg, who, should he enter the race, he's also in favor of the cap-and-trade program. So I think if either Senator McCain or Senator Clinton or Senator Obama or Mayor Bloomberg becomes president, I don't know what the odds for those four are in Vegas, but they're probably pretty high that one of those four will become president. If any of those people become president we will have a president strongly in favor of aggressive action against global warming. And I'd wondered, from your European perspective, in terms of the view of the United States in the world, what role do you think that the United States behavior on global warming in the past years has had on the view of the United States in the world? And do you think that more aggressive federal action to take on global warming would improve the perception of the U.S. around the world?
Johan Eliasch: Well, I'd say this, that without the U.S.'s direct participation and co-leadership it's going to be very difficult to get to a post-2012 agreement. So that's essential. The perception is that certainly the favorites in the presidential race all are very much pro-action. I saw Mayor Bloomberg yesterday and we discussed his programs that he's implementing for the city of New York. And I can tell you personally he's somebody who feels very strongly about the environment. So if he became the president I'm sure we'd have very strong action. And he said something to me which was quite interesting. He said, "I'm 65 years old. I'm very rich. I don't care if people criticize me. I do what's right and this is not about politics. It's beyond politics. It's something that needs doing, wherever you're from, whatever political affiliation you have, it just needs doing."
David Sandalow: Right here, in the front.
Jennifer Kefer: Chip boom. Jennifer Kefer, I'm the climate and energy coordinator for the Coalition on Environment and Jewish Life. And I had a question about using, I guess, halted deforestation as a way to offset emissions from other sources. Putting aside the problems of monitoring that were talked about earlier, I know that in order to be a legitimate offset you need to have permanent and verifiable reductions. Even if there aren't problems with folks coming in and cutting down the trees illegally, aren't there still problems with the trees dying at the end of their lives and then releasing carbon then? And so my concern or my question to you is how then can that be a permanent offset to emissions coming from other sources like coal-fired power plants?
Johan Eliasch: Well, if you take dying trees as a proportion of the overall trees, so in the release of carbon there is still a very small proportion. And there are things you can do to forest management, basically techniques to open up so you can prolong the life of the trees. The drawback with that is a lot of time that requires roads amid groves. Then you get back to illegal cutting of trees, because you give people access and that's the problem with that. But, overall, I think that is a very small proportion. How to deal with that? I guess in the future, when you have capacity in rain forest areas, it will be easier to do sustainable forest management schemes with infrastructure, because the longer we get into that the less likely it will be to get illegal cutting.
Malcolm Ober: I'm Malcolm Ober, at George Washington University. I don't know whether this is true or not, but I presume that global warming would have some positive effects somewhere. I'm just thinking northern Canada, Siberia, and other areas of the world. And has any thought been given to what we can do to take advantage of the favorable climate change for those areas?
Johan Eliasch: Well, if we don't do anything you might buy some beach property in Siberia. Certainly, Canada and Russia, for them it's great with global warming because that makes huge land areas more useful. But it's also a consideration for the discussions post Kyoto. If there are any benefits I don't know of any. Well, the obvious benefits are the fact that more land becomes more usable, but it is still fairly remote areas.
David Sandalow: If you'll permit me, there are northern forests in both Alaska and Canada that have been devastated by the bark beetle over the course of the past several years. And the bark beetle used to be killed by frost at night, but as a result of the warming of the climate up there it no longer is killed and that's led to a massive both ecosystem loss and economic damage. So even if there are some benefits there's also some pretty big offsetting losses in boreal forests. Over here.
Johnny Choclader: Hi, I'm Johnny Choclader, a student at the Howard University School of Law. I actually want to take the opportunity to commend you on your private initiative. I think the more successful you are the less deforestation there will be. However, to follow up on David's point, the more successful you are, even if it is a small percentage the less local ownership and control of ancestral lands. And I think one solution to resolving the inflammatory nature of this is to bring in more of the locals in the decisionmaking process for these private initiatives. And I think that may well be a balanced approach. I was wondering, what degree of participation of the local community was involved in your experiences?
Johan Eliasch: Well, I involved lots of people. But let me put it this way. First of all you can't satisfy everybody. So if you can satisfy the majority or perhaps 80 percent, then you've done a good job. These are areas where it's a bit like the Wild West. It's not like you do a project in the suburbs of Washington and you know exactly who to speak to and so forth. In the middle of the Amazonas you can go speak to the governor, you can speak to the mayor, you can speak to some local enterprises, whatever and you'll get one view one day, not together well you get a view and stick to that, but the views there, they tend to change depending on what is good that particular day. So it's not always easy, but I would like to drive that in my case I really did take the trouble of talking to people, explaining what I was doing, why and so forth.
David Sandalow: In the middle here.
Courtney Lewis: Hi, I'm Courtney Lewis from the League of Conservation Voters. This might be a naive question, but I'll just ask it anyway. I'm wondering how much you've been targeting celebrities for your conservation of rain forests? Because there are people like Angelina Jolie who seem very interested in giving something back, but who will equally expand $20 million for a house in Los Angeles. So I suppose I wonder if you are considering targeting celebrities to buy several thousand acres, hirer the locals to construct, quote-unquote, eco-friendly homes. There they could pick fruit and celebrities could go there when they need to escape, except on the condition that they wouldn't make any changes to the land, and of course there wouldn't be the problem of paparazzi there. So I was just wondering what you think about that.
Johan Eliasch: That sounds like an excellent idea. Perhaps a project you should undertake.
David Sandalow: Time for a couple more. Right here.
Inez Fuentes: Inez Fuentes from the American Geophysical Union and, actually, the daughter of an Ecuadorian, thank you. But my question is we're the organization that has all of the Earth and space scientists, so every year in December we have 15,000 scientists from all over the world flying in. And as far as I can tell, very few of us are willing to give up flying, which is actually a big source of CO2 emissions. Is there a way to connect that to your Cool Earth so that we offset the CO2 emissions from flying with purchasing the rain forest so the trees stay?
Johan Eliasch: That's a very good question. I think one of the things we can all do is to offset our own carbon footprint, because that's a start. I mean Head, which is a company that I have, what I made Head do was to offset 10 times its carbon footprint. And in the scope of Head's activities it's not a lot of money and that's something all corporations can do and that's an area where Cool Earth are assisting companies so they do exactly that. And that's a source of funding for Cool Earth. Now aviation, we all need to go from places. We need to have face-to-face contact. I think videoconferencing is great, but it's still not the same as seeing somebody in person. So you need that. Now, if we look at the aviation sector there are lots of improvements to that sector that are relatively easy. One is air traffic control systems and I'll give you some examples. In Europe we have a system where you fly zigzag, because you have the URs as points that you fly between. So you figure London-Rome, which is about 750 nautical miles, you actually fly about 900 nautical miles. Now, 150 nautical miles, that's an extra 20 minutes in the air. Twenty minutes in the air, that's 1000 pounds of fuel, maybe 2000 pounds of fuel if it's a bigger aircraft and that's a lot of CO2 that is just wasted. And I don't like waste and that's something that could easily be improved by investing in technology and letting people fly straight. The airlines would also be very happy because it means they'll burn less fuel and they can pass the savings off to the consumers. We can have lower airfares. Another example is runways. I mean over here in the Washington and New York area it's very, very congested. So if you come on a flight, wherever you come in on, you have to down to let's say 18,000 feet I think is the incoming pattern, 18,000 feet, about an hour, about just before Boston. So you fly at low altitude all the way into Washington and New York. When you fly at low altitude you have to reduce speed plus you burn much more fuel, so that's just pure waste. And that is because of air traffic control systems that are not efficient enough. Another example is we've had the debate for years in the U.K. about Heathrow and the third runway. When you fly into London chances are that you will have an average hold of ... if it's 24 minutes, whatever it is, as you come in, because there are so many aircraft that are trying to fly in at the same time. So they have to put them in a holding pattern. Now, you can reduce that hold period significantly by having a third runway. But for other environmental reasons such as noise, there has been huge resistance. Now, I think it's more important that we reduce CO2 emissions. I think here we're looking at as much as one million tons of CO2 that could be reduced just by putting in a third runway. And if you put that into a context of 160 million tons, which is what the U.K. emits annually, you're looking at, well, more than half a percent just from one single runway. That's another example. So, here, this is exactly where you can do a lot. Also technology with the aircraft, there's still lots of aircraft. What tends to happen is that in the developed countries they buy new aircraft and when they become very old these aircraft fly off to Africa. So in Africa you have these 30, 40-year-old jets that burn three, four times as much fuel as the modern planes. And we don't let them into the E.U. or also to the U.S. because of noise restrictions, but here we need to change as well, better technology.
David Sandalow: Time for one more question. Right here.
Matthew Roge: I'm Matthew Roge from the Center for American Progress and I just wanted to ask when do you see a truly global carbon market? You know, you can wake up in the morning and see at what price oil is trading at per barrel. Is that something you see happening post 2012 with the new treaty?
Johan Eliasch: I think that is what we are looking at, yeah. It's unlikely to happen on a full-scale basis before that.
David Sandalow: Well, Johan Eliasch, you have managed to be a leader on this issue in the business community, in the NGO world, and in government. I can't think of anyone else who can say it was set aplomb as you. I congratulate you on all of your great work and we've also learned you give a terrific presentation, so thank you very much for being with us today.
Johan Eliasch: Thank you very much.
[End of Audio]
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