Hello and welcome to this webinar, a webinar that is going to discuss a green deal for all after COVID-19. My name is Robert Watt, I'm the communications director at SEI, Stockholm Environment Institute, which is one of the co-organizers of this webinar, a webinar that we're very happy to have put together together with the Institute for a European Environmental Policy as part of the Think 2030 group of think tanks. Today we're going to be hearing from a fantastic panel of speakers. We have with us from Spain, Teresa Rivera, who is the Minister for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge. We will have Maria Joao Rodriguez from Portugal, who is the head of FEPS, and is a former minister and MEP. We will also have Irba Pietekainen from Finland, who is also a former minister and is a current MEP. We have Selene Shavariat, who is the head of IEP, the Institute for European Environmental Policy, and then Claudia Strambeau and Aaron Atteridge, both from SEI. So a really big panel, but a lot of expertise, and I think we're going to have a really good conversation. Today we're using the platform called Teams Live, and we would like to have as much engagement with you, the audience, as possible. You'll be able to ask questions using the Q&A panel, and we will do our best to make sure that we get through as many of those questions as possible. We're going to have a Q&A a couple of times during the course of the webinar, once after Selene has made her presentation of a new report on a Green Deal for all, and also once after Claudia and Aaron have made their presentation relating to just transitions. We've already heard from many of you the call from Antonio Gutierrez, the Secretary General of the United Nations, to build back better after this crisis. We also know that the Commissioner Timmermans has said that we must not return to a carbon spewing economy, and that the Green Deal is something that the European Commission is still committed to, even at the current, during the current pandemic crisis. And only a few weeks ago, a group of European Parliamentarians put together a Green Recovery Alliance, which included not only members of the European Parliament, but also CEOs and other key actors. And then the European Environment, several European Environment and Climate Ministers signed a letter calling on the Green Deal to be at the heart of the recovery. And one of those Ministers that was part of that call is Minister Ribera from Spain. And I'd like to offer the floor to Minister Ribera, who's going to give us our first insight into Spain and the Green Deal and the recovery. Over to you, Teresa. Thank you. Thank you so much. And thanks for this opportunity. I have to say that it's a pleasure to see you all, even if it is in the screens. And I also have to say that it is a very good opportunity to have some insights from the outside world, because these weeks of confinements allow us to think a lot that in a much more introspective perspective. So sometimes we may be missing things that are happening around us and may be important for the time to come to recover this capacity to coordinate and to change views in order to avoid mistakes and missing relevant issues and perspectives that should be in our focus. I could make some comments on this issue. How is it in Spain and what about a Green Deal? Just to share with you, I don't know if you knew, but I had a very nice task being allocated by my prime minister. I don't know why. I guess it's the climate challenge that's put in the right position to have this price on my shoulders, which is to coordinate the escalation strategy. So how we can organize things in order to get out of this confinements and the health measures? And I have to tell you that it was hard and sad, the confinement exercise. And it is difficult and complicated the exit strategy, which is quite a curious thing. It is easier to get 47 million people at home than organizing how people leave their homes and recover the economic activities and the normal social and family welfare. I think that there are three or four issues that are very important, and I would like to share with you. The first of them being that we have seen to what extent it is important to have a previous understanding on why science and policy need to talk to each other. How sound science-based decisions may avoid additional difficulties. Nobody has done this type of exercise. We have been doing in many countries around the world these previous months. There were some experiences in Asia and in Africa dealing with pandemics that were terrible, but we have not had this big size of the world, quite a size of this response. So I think that it is important to be smart and to take the opportunity to stress these very relevant methods. How effective we can be in order to integrate science-based solutions when trying to identify the right combination of methods to be adopted by policymakers. The second thing we learn is that people start to consider as it was the case when Fukushima eroded the confidence of the world on the capacity to anticipate potential risk. It is very interesting to see the discussion on the type of risk we are not ready to accept, and I think that this also applies to climate and biodiversity losses risk. For the time being, it has still been in the collective imagination as something that was much more theoretical than real in terms of damage. And now we have experience. We realize how something that was very theoretical, a virus infecting the whole humankind becomes real and people got it by surprise. I think that we are still digesting what does this mean, what this means. And I think that this discussion on what is the level of acceptance in terms of potential risk becoming real, it is also an interesting issue to comment when dealing with climate and dealing with biodiversity losses and the green agenda. The third thing is that we have experienced something we had previewed, but we hadn't realized, which is what does it mean having a collapse of the traditional energy system and the collapse of the oil prices. So we had defined and thought about stranded assets, but now we have got a very possible it is not something that will last as we have seen it in the in this last weeks, but it's the first real experience of things happening so fast, so quick and in such an expected manner. And at the same time, quite a big shock in the energy markets. Good times for renewable energy, but then we have a problem of deep change in the business model and how we cover the fixed cost of the system. What does this mean in terms of business model solutions and so on. So many things happening that we did not expect to happen so soon and so fast. Same for biodiversity recovery or air quality recovery. What does this mean in terms of the relation of any citizen with the city and with the public space? It's a big opportunity to push into the right direction and we hadn't thought about this opportunity has been so close, so fast, so real. So I think that there are many things and many opportunities to grow lessons from what we have been experiencing and we should not miss those opportunities, even if it is challenging. I mean, I think it's not something to take for granted. We know that there will be many pushes in many different directions, but I think that there are very interesting opportunities to think about. All these experiences when talking about political decisions appetite from investors and type of business models being changed in a very short period of time because we have been experiencing a very deep cultural change in our minds. And I think that this is the most interesting thing. Then I guess that there are some topics we have already identified we should not forget. We have been building all our literature on the basis of leave no one behind. So we have been working on how to get rid of coal on a just transition basis and how to create new models of employment and jobs and how to create new models of energy systems. All these things we should not forget about that, but we may be identifying new groups of workers that may be going through similar situations. For instance, we in Spain had advanced a lot even during these times on the creation of a just transition institute and to put in place all these just transition plans and so on. And now people react and say, hey, why the coal people must be in a better position than we the rest of the society that are experiencing such a big shock in the tourism sector, for instance, or in the transport sector, in the flights and a near travel sector. So I think that this is tricky because there were parameters that were built in a certain context and were perfectly valid and suddenly we are a fastening the transformation of many different sectors much faster than what we could expect. So how we can go faster in the creation of new opportunities, what does this mean for the digital world, for instance, I think that this is a winner pick that we should be taking advantage of and all the related sectors that may help us in order to identify new opportunities. Then I think that there are other elements that combine with this idea. Something that was perceived as a low profile, difficult field to work on the green agenda suddenly has become a winner sector. Now I refer to the farmers and to those producing food and then the connection to the biodiversity patterns and the land protection and so on. Again, a new focus to recover and to refocus in the time to be, I think that this is also an interesting approach which we are trying to push. And then I come to Europe and to what it should be, a more or less consistent approach on the recovery plans at the national level and then at the European level. My impression is that the basics of our previous approach are very valid. But we need to be smart when identifying the different intensities along the time. In my experience, we should try to focus in the short term and to build in the mid and long term. For instance, something we are getting much pressure on. Let's think about wind, offshore wind, which is fantastic. Let's think about hydrogen, fantastic. Let's think about esterage, stocking energy, of course. Those were three winning pillars that should be part of any strategy in the time to come. But what I need to know is that this will be something very interesting to happen in at least three or four, five years time. And people have been confined for seven weeks, eight weeks, six weeks. There have been shocks in the way people have been enduring life or even losing jobs. So we need to come back to identify what are the very short term initiatives that may be consistent with the green recovery because we need to build and to pay attention to the two speeds. In the short term, we may think about the green retrofitting buildings, the recovery of the cities, the services of the environments. I mean, so many things that may be important in the short term, but we need to stress that there are exits that also play an important role in the very short term because people have been very patient that will become a little bit mad when we've been in such a strange situation for such a long time. And that would facilitate the time to come. So thinking of the strategies of exit of this virus as part of the policies to manage the sanitary crisis, this health crisis is very important, but also to take this transition time as a relevant piece in the exit and bringing strategy in the time to come is also true. I think that we may be facing different pressures and lobbies, and we should be quite smart on how to avoid anything that is inconsistent, but how to be flexible on those things that were not our favorite options, but may need some extra time.  Very honestly, I cannot come up to the street to say, hey, forbidden. People is crazy about their health security patterns, so I cannot say plastics are forbidden. I need to be a little bit more flexible, and I will be thinking how I can identify different streams of plastic to be managed probably in a delayed context, but I need to keep an empathy towards the people. Otherwise, people will become mad about us, or the most crazy thing we will be experiencing, mobility. I think that mobility in the urban and metropolitan areas is at risk, because people become smart about the virus and then they prefer to take their own cars and then they forget about the mass transportation, and then we need to say yes, the bicycles, the people walking in the streets and so on, but even in that context, we may be facing challenges around that, so again, we need to identify how we can combine a clear, determined willingness to stick to what we need to achieve, and how we can provide some flexibilities that do not give the impression that we become rigid and extra, I have to say that, and people coming from outside the world, outside the earth, imposing things that do not match to people's concerns, and I think that this is going to be very delicate. We need to think how we can provide those flexibilities where and how, and then I guess that there are some additional issues that we have not paid attention to that become very interesting. For instance, the issue of health services and care services, I think that this is very interesting. This appeals to very human values that we have forgotten, or at least we have taken for granted, and suddenly they become very, very important for anyone, so I guess that there are some connections to also take care of nature, take care of people, take care of solidarity values, cooperation, and so on, so I think that these are values we should be trying to promote and to pay attention to, particularly we've seen that with the elder, but not only that, that also applies to as I say rural areas and so on. And also, and this is curious, this idea of they need to be, to remember we need to be humble and to take into consideration that the world was very small, but not as small as we thought, so to have breakfast in Paris, have lunch in Moscow, and have dinner in Japan.  Things have their own dynamics, things have their own balances and recover the sense of smallness, our size, a relative size in the world is important, and this applies to industry. I think that trade and industry have got a big shock in this, in this, in this weeks. I think that it has been shameful, this global marketplace of mask and so on, something that apparently had no particular value and has become an absolutely madness when trying to get masks for anyone in Europe, and or any of these health additional goods that that that were not so easy to to to the gobs and found in the market. So this also makes us recover a sense of a balance on what are the industrial capacities that that we need to to to pay attention to in Europe, sometimes for very, well, what to say, basic goods, and sometimes because it is a bet in terms of add value industrial production that that is important to put in place. So when I hear Timmerman saying he wants to push for this grim piece in the package, this digital piece in the package and this resilience piece in the package, I think it's a good approach. Resilience is also welfare in our cities is also infrastructure, but it is also a type of future oriented industry that needed today is in the package. So I think that it is, it is, it is a good guide. I think it is a good piece to discuss how we can combine national and European capacities to to build together. It's been a little bit chaotic, but I was not sure about what you expected from me. So I try to to wrap up a few few ideas on this issue. Thank you. Minister, thank you very much for those remarks. I actually think there's a huge amount of ground there and have really given us insight into the situation you're facing where you may be working extremely hard with this de-escalation while at the same time trying to avoid a sort of re-escalation of environmental and social impacts as well. And it's a hard nut to crack. I wanted to follow up, if I may, before I hand move on to our next presenter. I really wanted to follow up actually on this point of there being some real economic and political imperatives in the short term getting people back to back to work, not only if they have jobs, but also so have also lost jobs. And you've mentioned a few key sectors there or avenues that might be pursued digital, the sort of food system more generally, a transport. I'm just wondering whether you could have any specifics or through any contacts you've had with industry and with employers as to what sort of things that they're looking for. Are there particular sectors that could be quick starts, quick wins for getting people back to work, but in a way that bridges, if you like, the short term imperative with the medium and long term desire to have a green restart to the economy? Well I think that each sector has got its own difficulties, that's for sure. For the food system it was very interesting to see the change. I mean people that had the impression to be a second row group of workers suddenly become the hearers that provide food for everybody. And that has happened to the food security or to the garbage management. I mean workers that were perceived as second, third row and have recovered some dignity. And I think that this is very interesting because that applies to an opportunity to rebalance the societies that had become increasingly dualized in terms of intellectual, chic and materialized workers versus industrial farmers and city services. So I think that's interesting. The second thing is that now that they feel more empowered and recognized, we need to introduce and strengthen better customs, better ways to produce. I think that this is important. And at the same time there are all those workers that were not in a bad position that are suffering the big shock of the economy being stopped. So we need to provide opportunities for these people because it will take some time and we cannot talk about very sophisticated things in the midterm. So that could be important for a large number of sectors, of course dealing with cafes and restaurants, but also dealing with all the tourism-related activities or dealing with, as I say, mobility, not just in the urban and metropolitan areas, but also, well, we are seeing that and it is interesting what we have happening in France. I mean, I remember when Greta Thunberg and in Sweden just started to say we are experiencing already a relevant decrease of the demand in the air flights and suddenly it doesn't exist anymore. People is not taking planes and that is going to be a shock. There will be a big push to recover. I don't think we are going to come back to the previous situation as such, but I think that we need to think what we want. I mean, we still need air flights and air travels, but we may need to think what type of air travels we may be pushing and this idea of increasing the number of flights all over the world with no limits didn't work. And now we have an opportunity to think about that. So I guess that there is room to move with much flexibility, but we need to think how we can frame it in a context that matches as much as possible to what it may be or meet a long-term goals. As I said, showing some flexibility. I don't think it is a good idea to say no, no, no. This is a stop forever. As I said, with the example of the plastics, we were doing our work, but now I don't feel like being too insistent on forbidding the single-use plastics in the very short term. So I think that there are things that will need to be reframed in the time scale and that implies accelerate some of them and to be a little bit more flexible on some others. That was my general comment. And I think the point you're making around legitimacy that also for the long-term legitimacy of the systemic changes that are implied by the Green Deal, by the sort of policies you're pursuing in just transitions and in moving away from a fossil economy, legitimacy is important. And that's something that needs to be borne in mind when coming out of the current crisis. And we're now, it's time for us to hand over to Céline Chavériat, who is the head of the Institute for European Environmental Policy. And Céline, Teresa mentioned the concept of leaving no one behind and how important it was to see that as being compatible, a component of the Green Deal. And essentially, I think that is one of the key messages coming out from this new policy report that you're going to present to us. So let's hear more from you, Céline, please. Thank you so much to the minister, but also to Robert. It's great to be here with all of you today in these crazy times where we are confined but yet we're able to speak through the digital technology with so many people. I hear there are 200 people watching right now, so this is really exciting. I'm very happy to present you a Green Deal for all, which is the new report that IEP has developed together with FEPs. And I would like very much to thank FEPs. This work started actually under the sponsorship of Minister Rivera at the last New York Climate Summit when at the global level we talked together with other experts to try and think, how do we make sure equity is at the center of the sustainability transition? And we started to look at three different access. Next slide. One is, how do we make sure that there is equity within every country? Because as we know, not everyone has the same vulnerability to climate change, but also the same capability or resilience. And right now, we see that those different vulnerabilities and capacities will also take place as part of the economic recession. So in a way, we are seeing in between different sets of vulnerabilities and capabilities in the twin shocks that we're having, the climate crisis, but also other environmental crisis as well as the economic recession. The second very important access, and I'm sure that Minister Rivera would agree, is making sure in Europe that we harness the Green Deal for greater cohesion and solidarity. We have countries in the south of Europe, in the east and the central parts of Europe, who are facing different sets of vulnerabilities, but also do not necessarily have the same capabilities as richer parts of Europe. And we need to make sure that we harness the Green Deal, but also the recovery to make sure there's greater convergence in terms of GDP per capita between the different countries of Europe. And the third very important access is fostering intergenerational solidarity. As we have seen, the elderly have been severely hit by the current crisis. We also know from this statistics from heat waves that they are particularly vulnerable to some of the impacts of climate change. They're also on fixed income and therefore they're unlikely to be able to cope with any reforms that would increase the prices of essential goods very significantly. And I hear that in some countries, food prices are increasing, for instance, in Poland. So we need to think about the specific vulnerabilities of the elderly. But we also need to think of the youth and the next generation. And again here, we know that youth is already one of the income groups most at risk of poverty in Europe, and their unemployment rate is twice as much as the rest of the population. And we know that it's very likely, unfortunately, that they will be badly hit by the rise of unemployment in the current crisis. So how can we deliver for both the elderly but also youth and also very importantly, future generations? We cannot have another lost decade of environmental action because we know by then the window of opportunity for action will have closed. And we will basically ask the next generations to pay a very crippling ecological debt because we postponed changes to the point that it's no longer impossible to do them. Next slide. So then looking at intra-country proposals, and I wanted to highlight that we're in a situation where there are many people still in poverty in Europe. Europe did miss its target to reduce poverty. The target was to reduce poverty by 20 million. This was missed. And we're more likely to see an increase in poverty linked with the recession. And we already know that it is low income communities who have the greatest exposure to pollution to houses. They're really useful new work from the EEA on this topic. They have less access to green spaces. They have more less healthy inside air in their houses. And they also have less access to healthy foods. We see also rural urban divides with many rural people having no access to public transport. So again, in terms of thinking of sustainable mobility, it's really important. But we also see racial and ethnic discrimination. If you look at Roma communities, there's a recent report from EEB that looks at the fact that they're more likely than other communities to be living on waste dumps and heavily contaminated sites. So now coming to specific recommendations, we think it's really important as part of green recovery plans to make sure that we are indeed on a pathway for systemic change. But as the minister said, it's really important to make sure that we will also create jobs for those who need them right now. This means low skill jobs and projects that can be rapidly deployed. One area that's not been mentioned in the discussion is large-scale recovery of ecosystems. This has been used in the New Deal back in the days by the United States. And this could really help also provide jobs in rural communities or in areas that would not be necessarily positively affected by other measures. The other suggestion we make is that we need a green scrutiny recovery ball to make sure that there's an independent source of information to scrutinize the different plans by the member states. There are a number of additional proposals here on the slide. I will only focus on one, the idea of distributing pollution dividends to European citizens. We know that there will not be enough funding to fund all the need for help that people have. As the minister said, many sectors are lining up and asking for assistance. So we need to find money somewhere. And this is a good time to get rid of fossil fuel subsidies. This is also very important to have a carbon floor and therefore we can use the revenues linked with the carbon floor to distribute them to those in need. And we could also look at doubling environmental taxes. But then we can't do that if people don't see benefits for them. So that those funds need to be earmarked to support people who have lost their jobs. There is a new proposal for an employment support program in the EU. Others are talking about universal basic income. Or you could also propose a massive reduction in the taxation of labour to support again return to employment. Next slide. Then looking at the inequity and the injustices between different countries and regions of Europe, you can see from the right side of this slide that with the darker blue that some countries are actually losing years of life. This is about years of life lost due to air pollution. You can see that there's a much bigger impact on parts of Europe than in other parts. So we need to make sure that the green recovery will address those specific problems. We also know that some regions of Europe do not have very good infrastructure. We need to prioritize low carbon infrastructure programs as part of the cohesion policy and the response to the crisis. We also need to think about ways in which the industrial strategy will not only benefit the most advanced countries in Europe who already have a lot of money and a lot of capacity to make use of the new opportunities, but make sure we locate new industries in depressed regions and less well off countries. This will require intervention. It will not happen on its own. That's why it's really important to put that at the heart of the recovery. When I think of my own sector research, we need to make sure that the think tanks in those less well off regions and countries will survive, but also that research is being thought in terms of addressing the specific issues that these countries have. Next slide. Last but not least, if you look at what happened since 1990, it's fair to say that we haven't done terribly well, although we knew very well what was going on with climate change. What we can't have is a continuation of this pattern because, as I said, otherwise it is the next generation and youth that will pay the price. That's why it's very important to future proof infrastructure investment. What does that mean? It means having a different discount rate when you actually look at whether you want to deploy one solution or another in terms of infrastructure. We also need to enshrine the principle of intergenerational justice in terms of the new climate law. Another idea would be to make sure that there will be green jobs for the youth. We were talking about a green, more resilient care economy. How can we make sure that youth would be part of this green and resilient care economy? And then also let's not forget the elderlies. An area for the green recovery might be also to double down on efforts on adaptation. Let's make sure we take into account the vulnerabilities of the elderly in terms of the climate adaptation. But let's also look at the fact that the elderly or people that are retired are still, for many of them, very healthy and very capable. We propose a green volunteerism program for pensioners because we know that the pensioners are actually the backbone of the social economy and civil society. So let's make sure that they can participate also to the green recovery effort. So these are some of the proposals that we have so far. I thank you very much for your attention and really look forward to the debate. Thank you. Celine, thank you very much for that quick overview of what is a really a very rich report. I do recommend everybody to go to the IEP website and take a look at it. It's not too long and it really has some excellent ideas and concrete proposals for answering the sorts of challenges that Minister Ribeira, for example, is facing. And we have now a little time for responses from some of our panelists. And we have with us Maria Joel Rodriguez, who was a Minister for Qualifications and Employment in the Portuguese Government in the 1990s, has been an MEP and also deeply involved with European policymaking for several decades, not least in the formation of some of the EU's long-term policies and strategies. And I'd like to offer the opportunity for Maria perhaps to comment on some of the things that have come up so far in terms of the specific policies that Celine has been put forward, relating perhaps to the dividend, the pollution dividend, changes to taxation, for example, which are key parts of this sort of bridging between the short and the medium-term changes that are here. And Maria, if you're with us, it would be great to hear from you. Maria. Yes. Okay. Hello, everybody, and a great pleasure to join you. And to be part of this launch of a report sponsored by EFFEPS and the president of EFFEPS, the European Foundation for Progressive Studies, and the brilliant delivered by IEP.  And after that, we start again fighting for the European Green Deal. Well, nobody was expecting to have this COVID crisis. So I will center my comment on something everyone is asking now, I believe, which is what might be the implications of the COVID crisis on the European Green Deal. And let me tell you clearly that we do have some actors now arguing that because of the COVID crisis, we no longer have the conditions to push for the European Green Deal. And these should be somehow forgotten. Let me tell you what I think about this. Not at all. We cannot, on the contrary, the COVID crisis is bringing many important new arguments to push for the European Green Deal. The first one is that all of us, we are having a new perception about what is a healthy life. Such an important value for all of us. And the healthy life is also about having a healthy relationship with the planet and with the environment. This is fast. Secondly, we are fighting not only to save lives right now, but also fighting to save jobs. And something incredible is happening right now is in many companies, including SMEs, we are saving jobs by going digital and low carbon. So this shows this is possible because we are reinventing the way we work, the way we discuss. And because of this, we are, in fact, going low carbon with a different way to use transport. The third reason is that right now, we are understanding that there is a big risk of losing jobs because of the financial crisis coming. And we need to create much more jobs and jobs of the future. And that's the third reason why we do need the European Green Deal. Because the European Green Deal is about transforming our economies, but also about creating many new jobs. So there is a very good argument for this. But that said, as our report is claiming in the title, we want a Green Deal for all with social fairness. And Serino was very precise on coming with concrete proposals on how can we deliver the Green Deal for all. Let me just underline that right now in the political discussion in European institutions, we are having a big debate on how to finance this. How to finance a European Green Deal for all. And this is about designing the upcoming recovery plan. And all other states must implement the recovery plan. And right now, let's be frank, we don't have all the necessary financial means. Of course, we want the banks to support sustainable finance, but we also know that national budgets and European budgets will be central for this. So right now, the European Commission has a mandate to revise deeply the European budget for the next years to make sure that the Green Deal will be there even stronger. And right now, we have given the mandate to the European Commission to propose a recovery fund, something new, something to complement European budget. And I believe this recovery fund should be also a powerful instrument to finance the European Green Deal. Let me recall that we are speaking about one trillion and a half. This is a lot of money. And this is the right moment to direct the money in such a way that the Green Deal will come stronger. My final comment is about the solidarity between generations. Because as Celine was saying, solidarity between generations will be crucial. The same way we have now this solidarity working a lot to save lives in the COVID crisis and to save jobs, we also need to have this solidarity to fight against climate change and to protect our environment. So we need our political institutions to put this solidarity at the heart. So all these messages are contained in our reports. And this is my comment. Thank you very much. Maria, thank you very much for those comments. I'd like to just follow up on one question or that your remarks raised with me. Just this importance of the European budget and the multi-annual financial framework, discussions that are currently ongoing. Can you give us a little bit more? You talked about the need for a recovery fund and that this should be a deep review of European budgets. Can you give us a little bit more of an indication as to where that money needs to be spent, both in terms of the recovery but also for the longer term green deal?  We need to have a complete transformation of our transport system to make it a sustainable one, a green one. Secondly, we need when it comes manufacturing sectors to reorganize our supply chains according to a paradigm of a secular economy to have really a new generation of manufacturing sector in Europe. Third, our agriculture needs to also be reorganized to provide healthy food affordable for all citizens in Europe. This is also a big transformation of agriculture. Fourth example is about education. We see right now that education can have another way to be provided with less implications for physical mobility transportation and we can have let's say a more smarter digital and low carbon delivery of education and the same happens with public services. So I think that this is a paradox because we are dealing with the tragedy of the COVID crisis but now we have a big cultural transformation because millions and millions of people are asking themselves perhaps we need to change the way we live for a more healthy life and we need to use this new perception to have new priorities in the upcoming European budget because the European budget should support this change in a way of life. Thank you very much Maria and now I can see from the comments and the questions coming in that we've got something like 250 people joining us on the webinar and they really are from all parts of the world. There are plenty of people from European countries but we also see people joining from Africa from India and from Australia. I'm going to hand over to my co-moderator Gregor. Gregor you've been taking a look at the questions coming in and I think you might have selected a couple to throw out to Celine and also to Maria. Over to you Greg. Yes hi everyone I don't know if you can see me I've had some trouble with my camera but so happy to be here at your service today. Great comments. To Celine we have a question from Christian Haye. He picked up on your dear on investing in ecosystem restoration however he wonders if there is a need for a new fund or if we can achieve these ecosystems with existing funds and then of course in the context of the recently postponed biodiversity strategy and the farm to fork strategy and maybe you can also tell us the newest on when these two strategies might come online so to say. Thank you. Thank you very much for the question. I think it's probably both. As we know there are when you know of the funds available to help restore ecosystem and unfortunately this is the case of many programs that exist to support green projects. They are not necessarily of the funds that are available. The member states are not necessarily availing themselves of the existing opportunity but at the same time I think it's worth remembering that we have clear targets for spending on climate change within the European budget. We do not have such targets on biodiversity and it's clear now that nature based solutions are both very important advocacy for restoration of ecosystems but also to help mitigate and adapt to climate change and that's why a number of proposals are being made. I can refer for instance to the bond challenge where a number of countries within actually more outside of Europe than within Europe are saying that they want to commit to restoring ecosystems at a large scale so whether this is just using the existing funds or putting new instruments on the table I think is a critical part of the discussion and as you know I mean right now the biodiversity and the farm to fork strategy are expected in May but we've seen that there's been some postponement of the times of different areas including biodiversity and farm to fork and I think we're seeing that the Commission you know has a lot on its plate right now and is finding it very difficult to deliver everything that was foreseen in the Green Deal also because there are new debates erupting for instance the narrative right now around food security which is coming very strongly again from the farmers community and depending where it goes it could be more towards sustainability or towards maintaining the status around the common agricultural policy and just using emergency measures to continue propping up a system that we think is fundamentally broken which might be another reason why it's taking a bit longer for the Commission to come up with its proposals. Great thank you are we going on Rob or do we have room for another question from the audience? So Greg if you have one more question perhaps from our audience? Yes we have a question here about Eric Peele found Future Earth and that goes to everyone particularly to Maria then if the Green Restart inquires not just new investments but also facing out certain sectors and services and do you think that there are businesses that you can see that we should not save but rather let die given that the discussion we were having often and not just about saving industries but saving jobs? Yeah thanks very much Greg. Maria are you able to take this one for us? Yes this is in fact the last one because I need to start sharing another conference online but many thanks for this question this is indeed very important one and my answer is yes when I argued that we should prepare for a big transformation this means that new activities and new jobs will replace old activities and old jobs and these should be supported I believe by an active European industrial innovation policy combined with employment and skills a lot of skills development must be provided and as I was arguing the COVID crisis makes this even more urgent because the COVID crisis is involving a financial crisis and the social crisis and so we need to respond this with a powerful program to launch new activities new jobs with new skills so I believe this is the moment to start with this bold problem and this should be inspired by a new green deal vision for our society. Thank you Maya for for this response and in terms of maybe adding a little bit I think as the minister said the issue of timing is very crucial it's a different thing to recapitalize an industry that's facing massive liquidity issues and I think I would be strongly advising against saying no that should not be happening but then the question is how rapidly do you move to the next phase where number one you should not be postponing structural reforms it's very important to see that in the last economy crisis some structural reforms were postponed if you just spend public money but you postpone reforms you're actually not having a systemic impact so there needs to be a conversation with any industry that's getting recapitalized on you know the green deal pathway and no lobbying from these industries to permanently postpone reforms the other thing of course is to make sure as part of the public spending that we we know that for sure the jobs will be safe there's a long literature of supporting to support to industries that are on their way out where you end up wasting a lot of funds because after two years guess what all the jobs are being again made redundant so one needs to really look at the examples and the lessons from past programs to prevent wasting public funds on companies that in any case might not survive and therefore instead propose structural reorientation measures that focus on workers so that the workers get another job and possibly in a greener sector or company. Celine thank you very much for adding to that answer there and actually also providing us with a great introduction to our next speakers and the presentation they will give because as you talked about the need to make sure that workers are protected even if jobs in some sectors in some industries are disappearing that's the sort of thing that they've been looking at and they've been doing so for a couple of years now and they're going to provide us with some insights from a report that they have just presented to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and I'd like to introduce to you Aaron Atteridge and Claudia Strambo both from SEI and their work on Just Transitions and how that can be a guide for the COVID-19 recovery over to you Aaron and Claudia. Thank you Rob and good afternoon everyone so my colleague Aaron and I will now share with you a few insights from the study we did for the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development the EBRD to support its design its Just Transition work and here Just Transition we're talking about the broad idea that the cost of the carbonisation will not be evenly distributed within and across economies and therefore workers, communities, regions that are dependent on carbon in intensive industries need specific support to make that shift as we've heard already many examples earlier on so it's about making the process and the outcome as fair as possible so in this study we look at how a Just Transition can be designed taking into account the experience of past mining and industrial decline and we think that many of these findings are relevant for guiding the implementation of the year-green deal of course because Just Transition is one of its core principles but also especially relevant in the post-COVID-19 context because they can also offer a direction for the large fiscal stimulus packages that are being rolled out in response to the economic crisis so in the next slide I will just go briefly through some background about the study so we basically did four things we reviewed the academic and great literature about Just Transition to see how it's been defined and operationalised in practice and from that we distilled some sets of key principles to plan and implement Just Transitions and my colleague Aaron will get back to that in a few minutes we also reviewed more than 200 cases of mining and industrial transition that have been documented in the literature all around the word and different sectors and we looked at the impacts and responses to industrial decline and we identified where possible what has worked and what has not so we based on previous work we've done on mining transition the studies you have in green on the top of the slide then we complemented that review with four in-depth case studies and on this basis we reflected on how institutions like the EBRD can play a role in supporting Just Transition. Now the study covers many issues from support to affected workers, communities, the issue environmental rehabilitation that has been mentioned already and also questions linked to the process of planning Transition itself but for today we picked some key insights that are especially interesting in the context of this webinar and that we hope can generate some interesting discussions. So in the next slide I'll give you a bit of a flavour of some of the findings we got from history, from historical cases of transition about the governance of Just Transition. So the first point is that the role of the state is very tricky to navigate at the national level. The state has a very important role to play in terms of financing programmes and infrastructure development, strategic investments, steering the private sector and also a policy setting and convening role but historically we see that often the national government has not shown any inclination to be transparent about mine or industry closure or to engage with transition planning and moreover when the central government does engage it has not necessarily been in a predictive way. So Just Transition really needs proactive, specific and holistic approaches but typically the response of the national government has been to apply a blanket approach that does not address local needs and the challenges that arise with industrial decline. Also the national government subjective might not automatically be aligned with local and regional economic priorities and strategies. There is a very interesting example in the E3G report about coal regions where they find that in nearly all the cases they look at local actors are wanting to transition away from coal but it's the national government that remits committed to coal as an energy resource and an energy source and that has close links to the industry. So in practice local governments have often been left carrying many of the burdens of industrial decline and therefore they may need assistance with additional resources, technical support, scenario planning and depth relief and of course these are things that are very much relevant in the context of the COVID-19 recovery too. Now this focus on subnational government capacity is very important because what history shows also is that locally driven approaches to regional economic development planning appear to be more effective than top than one and to correspond better to workers and citizens needs and visions. So really we see that there's been a lot of response from governments around the world and in Europe to the crisis but there's been an issue of anticipation, right? We were not ready and that's a pattern that we can see also in the planning of industrial and mining transition. So striking the right balance in the involvement of different state actors it's really a delicate task. Now the last point I want to make about the governance of just transition is that we also see that many communities a region that face future transitions and they do it from a position of vulnerability inherited by sometimes several rounds of economic crisis or changes in economic policy also environmental damage from a heavy industry and mining operation. And then if you look at cases such as Rochester in New York where the Kodak plant closed at the end of the past century it's one of the cases we looked at in the report then you might at first I think oh that successful economic growth is back demographic growth is back jobs have been created but if you zoom in and you look at the most vulnerable people and the lower skilled workers the picture is very different and they have not had access to the opportunities that's been created in the process and there are significant inequalities remaining or maybe even have worsened. So here really this highlights the need to have indicators that really long to measure the impact of just transition responses beyond things like economic diversification, number of jobs created and economic growth and I leave the floor to my colleague now. Thanks Fladia and thanks to everyone for the invitation to join with this. In the interest of just being very quick I'll just take a few minutes. I think I really just wanted to add to today's discussion three key points that comes out of some of this work. The first one is that as Fladia mentioned what we did was in addition to reviewing a lot of historical cases of industrial mining transition we also looked across the just transition the conceptual literature because the term is used a lot nowadays but it's not always defined when it's used and it tends to be used by stakeholders to sort of match their own agendas in their own set of interests. So you have quite a lot of different angles on on a just transition and what we tried to do is integrate them together into as best we could a complementary or coherent set of principles that could be applied as a framework for sort of decision-making and the important thing is I don't have time to go through them all but you can look at them. The important thing really is that there's no hierarchy here that they all need to be promoted and pursued in parallel so for instance the decarbonisation agenda which is necessarily part of the just transition cannot be delayed because of impact on workers that would be fundamentally unjust from a global equity perspective so you have to do deep decarbonisation and strong support for workers at the same time and that's critical to this set of principles I think. As Claudia mentioned the Green Deal is fundamentally a transition agenda it's fundamentally a low carbon transition agenda so a lot of these or all of these principles translate directly into implementation of the Green Deal if it is also as an objective that that transition for European countries should be just. So I think the other two points I wanted to make beginning with the next slide relate more to what changes now in this picture or what changes in the way we think about this as a result of the COVID-19 situation and Maria touched on this a little bit before but I think fundamentally what's changed is that we begin the promotion of a Green Deal and the aspiration for a just transition from an even more difficult situation for a lot of people and a lot of economies. In terms of job losses the current economic and social restrictions will have created much more unemployment than decarbonisation in Europe will in coming years. In terms of the fiscal impacts on governments and increasing debt loss and revenue the current COVID crisis will be several orders of magnitude more significant than decarbonisation will not necessarily at a very local scale but across Europe. Then you've got the question of inequality and I mean there's a lot of work looking at how COVID-19 has unevenly affected again poorest communities, poorest regions and there's concerns about whether it is also now embedding a greater equality within Europe between countries and I think that's been mentioned already. And the other thing to talk about this change context I think is interesting is the IEA talking about how it's really undermining the fossil fuel industry and the IEA is not known for being a very they're quite a conservative organisation I think when they talk about future energy pathways and they're talking about that the current situation is really changing the foundations of the fossil fuel sector. So on one hand you might think that makes the the green transition a bit easier because these industries are coming from a weaker position to begin with but the flip side is that the communities that depend on those industries now are already feeling the pain and they're starting to transition from a place of more hardship. So fundamentally I think this makes the green deal necessary but even harder to implement and I think that's really important to think about and the last point I wanted to make is really about the role of finance and public finance if you move to the next slide please. This is the setup of the just transition mechanism within the the current green deal and you see up to 100 billion in financing including within the just transition fund two things that I wanted two points I wanted to make about this one is that it's predominantly debt finance and that's that means that the costs of loan of carbon transition that the redistributional costs are still borne by countries that have to transition hardest. What this proposal does is makes that finance available now to do on future revenues but those costs are still borne by those countries and one would question at the end of this kind of COVID-19 crisis with debt level spiraling how much appetite there is to take on more debt so I think that's a question worth asking and the second point which shows in the next slide is really about the scale of responses to COVID-19 in relation to the scale of financial resources talked about the just transition. In this slide I just put it together from the IMF's estimates of current this currently agreed or under negotiation measures within just the EU's 5G20 member countries so not even across the entire European Union and you see the scale of public financial measures that are being made available within countries and a small map from the EU itself and in comparison with on the far right this just transition mechanism of a hundred billion dollars but what that means for me is I think the biggest question here is that the scale of these resources can either fundamentally undermine everything that they got the green deal on the just transition mechanism is trying to do or it can be used if we could it can be influenced it can be used in a really positive way to help progress that same agenda and I think that this is where we need to focus attention in the short term. I just added also the scale of bailouts for European airlines here as an example because I think it's also on a par with the scale of the just transition mechanism around 30 billion euros today within Europe and why it's interesting well firstly this is most of the bailouts have been targeting the corporate element of that sector rather than workers but also because this is a fossil fuel intensive sector so this this bailout money is not contingent on any sort of climate reforms and I think these are really interesting things that we need to talk about as a community interested in the green deal but now when there's this much money being mobilized how do we make it operate in this direction of the green deal and not undermine what the green deal is trying to do so on the last slide I just left you a couple of references to the study that was talking about and this comes from if you're interested and I think the important thing in the political economy of this makes it necessary that countries that are resistant to the idea in our green deal there has been resistance to as was mentioned you know as a result of COVID-19 should we delay the green deal if this is going to work these countries need to understand and really believe that the transition agenda has just equity and justice at its core I think that's fundamentally a challenge for us now so I'll leave it there Robin interesting time thanks thank you very much Greg I think you've been collecting a few more questions from our participants go ahead yes hi thank you so much Chloe and Erin there was some question and some discussion before and food and now after we've heard the work that our colleagues I've done there was a question by Lucia who asked about food and why food they require a lot of production and distribution transformation and processing of course but it also needs to be cheap but that of course makes it you know a very in just sector so what determines what should guide us in shortening supply change in transitioning economies towards more sustainable practices by at the same time keeping things affordable such as food I hope you one question I give you I give you three to shorten us a little bit the other one was by Elia Neudecker and she asked particularly if structural funds could be used to help restructure economies and if the wealthier EU countries in the north and western Europe could support their southern and eastern neighbors in the kind of the the role of the extracurricular economy and how would that look like and ultimately a third question that we touched on I think throughout this webinar is what is the impact of COVID-19 of the economic recovery on international collaboration and in particular on EU China and EU US relations given that a lot of the things that we're touching upon here are ultimately a part of globalization and increased internationalization and interdependence so I would suggest we start off with the easy question quote unquote on what is just transition and in making things making particularly food more affordable but also but also just any any takers for that question that was the easy one okay easy one yes all right um I mean this is nobody said that just transition was easy in fact it makes life harder it just makes the outcomes better I think that's the whole idea you can look at any sector and see opportunities for greening if you like balanced against opportunities for dealing with other vulnerable population so if you're talking about cheap food who needs cheap food is people that don't have much money Mr. Poor so there's no reason why just transition lens doesn't allow you to green the agricultural sector for instance at the same time as providing other social safety nets that make things like food or energy affordable for those who really struggle with that as a financial burden so I think that's really important and something I'm not an expert on the green deal but um perhaps one of the other speakers could comment on that but one thing I sense when I read it and especially the just transition mechanism is it frames this debate as being a lot about energy and environment um the energy environment sector so even the investments that are supported by the just transition mechanism are a lot about the environment sectors but what's needed to support proper holistic societal just transition is much broader than that so you can have investments you need investments in social safety nets for instance at the same time as you need investments in decarbonisation and greening the food sector and so on so I think that they're not contradictory they just need to be thought about more holistically okay you get it Claudia yeah I was just going to add that like for other aspects of the the transition agenda it's both about behaviour change and systemic change like like also Celine mentioned the importance of systemic change so food is the same it's about like do we really need an avocados then a steak every day but it's a lot about what are the structure that make possible that we get food for such a low price in Europe and that there is such amount of waste also I mean for instance perhaps Celine would like to come in on the on the international aspects of the recovery and perhaps even the geopolitical relations whether or not the whether they are going to help or hinder the the recovery a green recovery yes thanks I think the first thing to say is is this whole crisis is is happening in a context where in Europe there was a thinking among the the foreign security experts of this new concept of strategic sovereignty yes Europe has values but Europe needs to play a bigger role in the international arena to make sure its its values are actually being taken up yes it needs to be in in supporting continuing to support multilateralism but it also needs to be able to defend itself when other players are not playing a fair game so now that we have this very acrimonious debate around who is to blame for the COVID crisis but we also start seeing countries thinking of trade restrictions you know I think we we're going to see some really difficulties around the multilateral scene continuing and the question is what can you do to make sure that we come to a sensible discussion around coordinating recovery making sure that recovery is not a free fall protectionist bonanza that's not going to help anyone but also making sure that the commitments will be respected as part of the recovery and that's why it would be fantastic if at the forthcoming EU China summit there could be an understanding between China and Europe about a green recovery pathways and also other things that the EU and China could do such as cooperating on circular economy standards to make sure that we see an acceleration and take up of more sustainable practices as part of what is now being called green and resilient supply chains so that if there is any sort of deglobalization it is not at the expense of the poorest countries of the world but it is also in favor of greater sustainability and there was a last question there on the use of structural funds to help restructure economies in Europe south and east and particularly on the circular economy any taker for that question well actually it's yeah I can say something it's quite striking that if you look at what is being looked at what is being for instance explored at the moment in terms of big projects as part of the green recovery there's it's more on the climate side really than on the circular economy side so I think there's a bit of struggle to figure out what would be large-scale projects that both deliver in terms of carbon neutrality and circular economy and I think what would be really fantastic is if as part of the territorial just transition plans which is this new mechanism being looked at one could integrate the circular economy element because it's really important if you really want to build a circular economy to look at the territoriality and where do you need to have very short circles very local ones someone talked about shorter supply chains and what is the relationship between a territory and the rest of the economy to make sure that we reduce the waste of materials and can really create circularity and I think we need a green Marshall plan for the south and the central in eastern Europe which are countries that are very vulnerable to pollution to climate change but also the least able to finance we looked at the graph and let's look at how much Germany is already putting money on the table and if we don't take care of that we will see even less of a chance for those parts of Europe to compete with the giants of Europe and their industry which will have been pumped up by trillions of state aid so Lynn thank you very much thanks Greg also for keeping track of a really great set of questions that have been coming in I'm I'd like to say thank you to everybody for engaging in in the Q&A I'm sorry that we haven't got to all of the questions I think we've tried to pick up some common threads that came up in that online discussion and so I'd like really to thank you everybody who's participated everyone who's sent in questions for being so engaged in this conversation and I think that we've heard some very interesting different perspectives perspectives from from political decision makers from think tanks and from researchers on on why it's so crucial to make sure that we're not leaving anybody behind that we do address fundamental vulnerabilities that are perhaps even being more revealed during this crisis as we try and put together a set of green recovery sustainable resilient and just recovery measures and that sort of three things in particular that I was struck by one is this issue of making sure that we get the timing right the sequencing right that we aren't delaying but that we also are paying attention towards people who are trying to readjust trying to get back into work and making sure that there's legitimacy in the decisions the second is around the the scale of the financing that's being put on the table and the need to make sure that it's enough that it is addressing both the recovery the transition and the just transition but also that there is a real potential discrepancy between or expectations between what can be achieved with public money with debt financing and what's available in the private finance sector as well and then lastly I think that Celine began to talk a lot more around the circular economy as something that we need to be moving towards and that there are policies there that could really be made to to brought into play to support a green deal for all and the just transition so I'd like to thank everybody in the panel for their contributions their presentations and thank you in the audience for listening and for asking such great questions and I encourage you to check out the website of IEP where you'll find their latest report and also SEI's website where you'll find the work of Aaron and Claudia on just transitions with that thanks very much everybody thank you Robert thank you everyone thanks bye


Even after the revocation of his past comments, calls for the resignation of the Minister of Communication, Issa Pantami, saw us. And the war the Ebo Congress rejects the newly formed security network, Ibube Agu. Plus politics starts now, I am Justin Akadouni. Now calls for the sake and resignation of the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Issa Pantami, has continued to grow. The requests have continued despite the fact that the Minister has denounced what he said about Al Qaeda and the Taliban. He said he now knows better about some of the comments he made in the past and the campaign for his removal is politically motivated. Now joining us to discuss this is Ademullah Adewale, public affairs analyst and Wala Oba, also a political analyst, many things from gentlemen. Now the Minister has come out to say that he said those things about his links to the Al Qaeda and of course the Taliban because he was much younger, he was in his teens according to him. But his denouncement and his revocation, does it make him justified? I'm starting with you Mr Adewale, can you attend to that question I just asked? Thank you very much. I am once again Adewale, Ademola Justice. He has come up to say or to accept that he won't say those things, but it's just an issue for everyone to remain cautious. You will see as a Shaiq, or while he was much younger, the emotions of the circumstances of those days led him into saying or taking the positions he took them. But he will see now, as an occupant of public affairs, as a Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, those old days and the actions of those days are haunting him. And that's why we do tell everybody in life there's always a chance, and for every chance there is a choice, and for every choice you make there is a consequence. One of the consequences of those choices he made in those days is what you are seeing all around him, but that's notwithstanding. We may need to view him furthermore beyond that part of his. But you know, as a Nigerian, or as Nigerians rather, going by what we are facing, it may be a bit very difficult for everybody to just take off his or her eyes from the past that he had once created. Alright Mr Adewale, judging by all that you have said, he has to do much more than he has been doing. He's much more than he has been doing. The fact that he was much younger, does he make it justifiable? Should Nigerians just be so completely forgiven at judging by the fact that we are being plagued by issues of terrorism, banditry, insurgency, and most of them have some sort of religious coloration? There's room for maturity, there's room for growth, and there's room for improvement in whatever status anyone attains in life. I, for a person, am just assuming and believing that once he was that youthful and such exuberance could be used to die his age, but now occupying a much more position of responsibility and going by the ills of the nation as we are, we might give him a chance to become a new person. And really from most of his utterance, because looking away from this, if you see some other things that a young man has been handling, we may be forced to believe he is matured now and we may not allow the entirety of that path to hunt him down. Mr. Demola, I don't know if you actually listen to that particular comment when he talked about in-fielders having to die. Even if you are young, holding such opposition, what does it make of your personality? That was the personality of old, like I'm saying. Do you understand me? I am not separating him from that he did or that he said then, but going by the opportunity of changing, you know, once someone might be a child, you see, if you are a Christian, I suppose Paul in the Bible does say, he once said, once I was a child, but now I am old. So for Issa Pantami, then it might be what he said he was or what was said about him or what he said, but now believing or giving him the opportunity of having changed from his past or being a much older and much more responsible Nigerian and by the position he is holding, I may want to believe he might be a changed person. But let's look at Nigeria specifically now. Like I said before, we have been plagued by lots of challenges, specifically in security. I'm Banditri Boko Haram and most of them are actually from the northeastern part of the country. When the federal government has a minister who in his past said things about killing people who do not believe in Islam, doesn't it show to some extent that the federal government is actually not leaving up to his expectations wanting to fight insurgency and at the same time having a minister who actually supports terrorism even if it was in his past? Am I still on?  Yeah, like you have just said, I think this is one big foul on the security mechanism and systems of the country because while Issa Pantami was nominated and forwarded for ratification, this is what the DSS or the State Security Service will have dogged into and they had all the necessary tools to have run back into his past. And you will see we have a national assembly made up of several men who also should have had one or two inkling about this towards which his nomination should have been bettered a bit much more. So this is a security lapse on the entirety of the country because look at the years, the issue of the just crisis and the Boko Haram insurgents and then the discussions he had with the Ankeida leader. These issues are not as old as 20 years of now. So our security system, the security machinery should be current enough to hook whoever back to the very recent past. You know, while it was being vetted for confirmation, this ought to have taken very serious post. So you will agree that it is a slight on a lesson and learning points for the screening machinery for anyone that brought up for nomination for the nation's political offices. So I could infer if I said that adequate scrutiny is not really being done for people who are nominated and given appointments maybe to the position of a minister or other appointments in Nigeria. I can't get it clearly. I said I could be right if I infer to the fact that enough or adequate scrutiny is not being done when it comes to appointments in Nigeria. Who do we hold accountable? Is it the DSS now or the National Assembly? Yeah, it is the joint responsibility. You know, parenting, the DSS has much to do. Then, for political arrangements, the National Assembly. So the DSS should have done a more thorough job and move such on towards the National Assembly. Like you will see, you know, on anti-epilements, the MDS of the country have been audited by the Auditorial of the Federation. Whose report is forwarded to the National Assembly. So the National Assembly works on that. So in the same vein, in the same regard, security issues prior to confirmation of nominations should be vetted and worked on thoroughly by the DSS and for the result of which to be forwarded to the National Assembly for consideration ahead of such nomination. All right. Joining us also in this conversation is Mr. Abola Oba. Thank you so much for joining us in this conversation. I really want to get your main position on this particular matter, judging by all the calls across both from Nigerians. Do you really think that we should still retain Mr. Issa Panthemi as the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy? I think we're having a bit of communication issues with Mr. Abola Oba. Let's continue with Mr. Adimola right now. So, so far, right now, legally speaking, what should be done, judging by all that we have had so far concerning the past? Of the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, what's the legal framework that should be taken on this particular matter? Yeah, like the question you asked, and you see going by my earlier narrations, now there are two issues here. The part of the minister and now the competence and performance records on his job rules. Now, going by what he has done, because by my training as an internal controller, the past is attitudinal, but the present is performance. So if, as a minister in that portfolio, if relatively he has been performing, not minding the past that he has, do you understand? Because his position with the al-Qaeda and its sympathy he had for al-Qaeda or Boko Haram and the insurgency stuff might not have considerably tortured his performance ability. So if his performance is doing well as a minister, I think the nation should parry with him and cause him to continue to act in that role. But if Paraventure, that same past of his, has had so much influence negatively, of course, on his performance and on his role as a federal minister of the Republic of Nigeria, then his tax should be certified. Okay, we are not psychologists or psychiatrists right now, but at what point in time can we begin to analyze and justify that one has completely and truly changed? Yeah, his act, because maybe now, when last he made such comment, and with effect from his period of appointment, you know, appointment might convert much responsibility on someone that may want to make such a person diverse himself from his past. If with effect from when he was embodied as a federal minister, if he has to change personality, change perception and change attitude towards nationality much more than that ethnic and religiousity, so we might cause him to continue. But if Paraventure, his job roles had suffered one or two things from his sentiment and his attachment to the Boko Haramuala, then it should be off. So this not, you know though, psychologically, there's so much, there are so much connections here. But like I said, by virtue of my job role as an internal controller, a link of performance with his present role would have much more weight than hooking him to his past. Alright, thank you so much that we have been speaking to political analysts at the Malay Adewali. Thanks for your input and your thought on this particular discourse. We do appreciate it. Thank you very much. We're still looking at a cause for resignation of the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Isa Pantani, and joining us is Wala Oba, a political analyst. Many thanks for hanging on. Now one of the main reasons why this administration is a judge to have failed is because of the growing insecurity specifically in the Northeast. So right now where we have a minister who has some sort of, well I say, interest or, well, you know, interest with Boko Haram and terrorism. Don't you think it's actually negating the fight against terrorism in Nigeria? But what you should be doing is what is done the most respectable and most responsible policies, a matter of the deed, a self-respecting personage, and indeed a self-respecting government would quickly find a way to watch the guy out of the administration so that he does not seek a biasing. Yeah, I agree with you so far, but it's not like he failed. I mean, any longer from the moment that these parts have come out. Alright, looking at all of the issues that have come out since calls for his resignation, is that of screening and scrutiny of, you know, ministerial appointees and of course people who passed through the National Assembly. What does it really tell on the Department of State Services how come this could have just passed them, you know, without being noticed? Before you get to the National Assembly, what happens to the DSSS or DSSS is to charity check on anybody nominated for public appointments. You know, what, what, why is this DSSS comes to mind? Why are they doing this? You must remember that it's the ground that is administration. It's the administration that two agencies of the presidency were given conflicting reports about one appointee of the president. One agency wrote that it was fit for the position, another wrote that it was not fit for the position. So something is in line with and fundamentally wrong, not only with the legislative arm of government and I'm not holding belief for the Senate there, somebody else who has done is wrong, but we have one or nine senators. But having said that, there is a role for the DSS, constitutionally recognized as the MSSS, this is a representative. There's a role for them in making sure that anybody nominated for public appointments is on a background. What did they do? All right, Mr. Obana, so where does this place us as Nigerians and the country in Nigeria, judging by the fact that he is a custodian of sensitive information in Nigeria? He is the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy. Don't you think he actually places Nigeria and of course Nigerians at some sort of risks? That's one of the reasons that the anxiety of people are generally spiked. And apart from the fact that that may not be the issue, it is just dignifying for the government to find a way of using him out so that the government can give good attention to things that we add value to society. We don't make the resources, time, arguments and all the things that we spend on this issue. If the guy can't do it himself, somebody should just show him be done. When you say somebody should say let it be done, you know, right now the voice of the people that's, you know, distinctive voices everywhere on social media, Pantamine should stay, Pantamine should resign, you know. If he is not going to resign by himself legally, what should the citizens be doing right now? I don't know what he's doing. I don't know his mind. I just know every minute that the state's longer in that position, it defines the government as a government that is not in control or an administration that is not in control of its personnel. And it inevitably takes the government away from what we should focus on. That is, suddenly the people were, that is just a distraction. And if nobody does this, this administration, to be honest with you, is restricted to their legacy. Okay, going forward, how do you really think Nigeria can truly win the war against terrorism and, of course, insurgency, judging by the fact that the federal government has not really named and shamed the people who are sympathetic, you know, to insurgency in Nigeria? To be honest with you, I really don't want to talk about this. The government would ultimately define how the people will perceive the government and perceive ultimately its legacy. You know what? We have seen a number of ourselves, we have seen a number of ourselves. All you know that is government. If this is going to be an administration, some of those are absurdities. Oh, Nigerians are prepared for you. And you know what? It's a tenured monarchy. I usually tell people that the presidential system of government is essentially the kind of world we have in Nigeria, where the president is almost omnipotent, is a tenured monarchy. One day, May 29, 2023, another president must come in. Alright, thank you so much, Mr. Agbola Oba, for your thoughts. We do appreciate your comments so far on the show. Thank you very much for the opportunity. Alright, thank you for staying with us. We'll take a short break and when we return, the newly created Ibo de Agu suffers yet another rejection from an Ibo sociopolitical group. We'll be right back. Stay with us.


This is taking us step by step, and we are going through the workbook of A Course in Miracles to have our whole perspective on the world changed, to come under Christ's control, to listen to the guidance and instructions of the Holy Spirit, to unwind our mind from this distorted, linear, time-space, cosmos projection, and come back and enjoy the present moment and be happily, joyfully present in the presence of God's love. So today we are going to go into workbook less than 33. There is another way of looking at the world. Today's idea is an attempt to recognize that you can shift your perception of the world in both its outer and inner aspects. The full five minutes should be devoted to the morning and evening applications. In these practice periods, the idea should be repeated as often as you find comfortable, though unhurried applications are essential. Alternate between surveying your outer and inner perceptions, but without an abrupt sense of shifting. Merely glance casually around the world you perceive as outside of yourself, then close your eyes and survey your inner thoughts with equal casualness. Try to remain equally uninvolved in both and to maintain this detachment as you repeat the idea throughout the day. The shorter exercise periods should be as frequent as possible. Specific applications of today's ideas should also be made immediately when any situation arises which tempts you to become disturbed. For these applications, say, there is another way of looking at this. Remember to apply today's idea the instant you are aware of distress. It may be necessary to take a minute or so to sit quietly and repeat the idea yourself several times. Closing your eyes you will probably will probably help in this form of application. There is another way of looking at the world. So how beautiful is we change our thoughts, we change our tune, we change our outlook on the world. We do this by prayer and the willingness to follow and to be shown another way. So today when I went into the text to look for some support ideas I typed in the word new perception into the course search program and came up with some beautiful sayings I think that are very helpful for our lesson of the day. Remember our lesson is there is another way of looking at the world. So here are some references of new perception. First is from chapter 11, section 8. Yet the swiftness with which your new and only real perception will be translated into knowledge will leave you by an instant to realize that this alone is true. How sweet. Then from the text chapter 17, section 2. And with this final blessing of God's Son upon himself the real perception born of the new perspective he has learned has served his purpose from a text chapter 18, section 9. Here is the new perception where everything is bright and shining with innocence washed in the waters of forgiveness and cleansed of every evil thought you laid upon it. Again from same chapter 18, section 9 forgiveness removes only the untrue lifting the shadows from the world and carrying it safe and sure within its gentleness to the bright world of new and clean perception. Yeah, it's a brighter day. From chapter 19, section 1. It is the messenger of the new perception sent forth to gather witnesses unto its coming and to return their messages to you. Again from chapter 19, this is section 3. For in the new perception the mind corrects it when it seems to be seen and it becomes invisible. And chapter 19, section 4. And in him it is possible that our communion where we are joined already will be the focus of the new perception that will bring light to all the world contained in you. Text chapter 28. The ancient new ideas they bring will be the cause, the happy consequences of a cause so ancient that it far exceeds the span of memory which your perception sees. And that cause is capital C. Consequences of a cause so ancient. It's talking about God. So also I think that could help us along. I also did a search for the word perspective. And from the chapter 1, miracles a rearranged perception and place all levels in true perspective. Chapter 8, section 8. Health is the beginning of the proper perspective on life under the guidance of one teacher, capital T, who knows what life is, being the voice for life itself. Chapter 16, section 6. The bridge itself is nothing more than a transition in the perspective of reality. Chapter 16 as well, section 6. On this side everything you see is grossly distorted and completely out of perspective. The new perspective you will gain from crossing over will be the understanding of where heaven is. He needs only your willingness to share his perspective to give it to you completely. So it's like singing, singing to us of all these reminders that there is another way of looking at the world. That there is another perspective, another perception that is possible. It's not so much what we seem to see in the world, but it's how we are seeing the world. It's how, meaning the lens that we're looking through, either the wrong mind and the egoic lens or the right mind and the holistic perception of the of the Holy Spirit and Jesus, that's our choice.  And we wanted to put at the end of that the answer, Holy Spirit, how you're gonna see Holy Spirit. That's a little jingle to remember through the day. I want to see with perspective of the higher mind. I want to be above the battleground. I want to be defenseless. I want to be meek, playful, joyful, happy. I don't want to take any linear perception serious. It's like saying, today I will left myself through the day. And it's going to be the gentle laughter of the Holy Spirit, basically reminding us, don't take anything of this projected world serious.  Let no thing disturb your peace and joy and happiness today. There is another way of looking at the world and that's the happy tune we're singing in our heart. We're grateful that it's there. We're grateful that it's always there. We're grateful that this perspective never changes. It's constant and we can be aware of it and it's lovely constancy and consistency or we could be unaware of it, which is kind of to be lost, believe yourself lost in the dark and wandering in the dark. But the ego is just a sense of inadequacy, it's a sense of unworthiness. The ego is a sense of guilt and when you feel guilt, you look through the ego's filter, you're just looking for little scraps of something to cling to and Jesus is telling us, you know, you're worth so much more than that.  And you forever are in this state, whether you're aware of it or not. So this whole idea today, you know, of there is another way of looking at the world is really saying, I will open my mind to the perspective, the perception, the unified awareness that is always there for me, loving me, loving everything, loving everyone. In the man of her teachers, under the section of development for trust, Jesus lists 10 characteristics of a teacher of God starting off with trust and honesty and rolling all the way through coming through to open-mindedness is the last, the 10th characteristic. And he said this is perhaps the last one to come into full demonstration, full fruition. So today, we want to be open-minded and we know that this other way of looking at the world that the lesson is talking about, another way of looking at the world is this higher perspective that basically looks upon the world from a calm, tranquil state of non-judgment. And that's what an open mind is. An open mind is simply a mind that doesn't judge. And hallelujah. Thank you Jesus for demonstrating that on earth and now for giving us this beautiful Course in Miracles text and workbook and manual for teachers. So let's rejoice today in the lesson. There is another way of looking at the world. And we say hallelujah and we say amen. Have a beautiful day. Love you.


Most people in this country has no clue who Nick Fuentes is and if they heard his statements that he makes, they would want nothing to do with him. He sounds like a very immature young man saying hateful things about people and in calling using a people group talking about the talking about people he doesn't like by an entire people group, which is horrible. Why would he ever do that? And then also say, no, I'm not racist or I'm not these things. Yeah, you are if you talk that way because that's how you sound. And I don't know why Kanye West would align himself with that. It makes no sense to me whatsoever because the reality is why would anyone want to follow or hang out with someone that condemns an entire group of people constantly when he knows nothing? Yeah, that's a good question. Why would somebody want to follow someone who would condemn an entire group of people? You just listened to Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene denounce Nick Fuentes after she was essentially pressured to do so because now he's become a lot more popular and she kind of helped to build him up by speaking at his America First conference. Now, that wasn't the only instance where she spoke out against Nick Fuentes via Twitter.  I can't comprehend why the media is obsessed with him.  That's probably why and also because politicians like you and your colleague Paul Gosar are associating with him and helping him build up his name recognition. So that's why this is so important, Marjorie Greene. Now, some people, I think rightfully questioned whether or not she was being genuine considering just the week or so ago, she defended Fuentes again by signal boosting a tweet calling on Elon Musk to unban him among other far-right individuals.  But even if she hadn't condemned Nick Fuentes, well, she already was in hot water with the far-right because she endorsed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy or I should say she endorsed Kevin McCarthy in his bid to be House Speaker. And the reason why that's bad is because he's a rhino but she did that because she wants to get her committee assignments back and the way that you do that is you kiss the ring of the individual who is the favorite to win. So by doing that, she was seen as a traitor by a lot of her fans. Now, here's what her Nazi and far-right supporters are saying about her. Nick Fuentes called her controlled opposition and claims that she and Alex Jones threw him under the bus to appease Jewish groups. Furthermore, Vice explains, she's just weak. She goes and says something edgy to get attention and then when the pressure comes, she buckles, said Fuentes on a podcast after Greene's disavowal of him.  And then the second Kevin McCarthy reprimands her and she loses her committee, she goes and apologizes. Fuentes also mocked Greene's dreams of becoming the face of Christian nationalism in the United States. Quote, how are you going to be the face of Christian nationalism when you're a divorced woman girl boss, said Fuentes? I'm so glad I don't have to pretend to support that anymore. He's also taken to calling Greene large Marge and is encouraging his followers to heckle her at events. Far-right activist Laura Loomer also announced that she was done with Greene. Marjorie Taylor Greene is no longer an ally to America First, Loomer declared on Telegram. She may have climbed to be so that she could climb the political ladder, but she has shown she is all talk and zero action unless of course the action is selling t-shirts and wine glasses. You are their slave Marjorie, a slave to the Democrats and the media that you constantly talk about, wrote Holocaust denier Vince James. Quote, by that statement, disavowing Fuentes, it just got to show you're living according to the rules of their game that they've completely rigged against us. Now that's the most significant because Marjorie Taylor Greene is a member of Congress of course, but she's not the only far-right figure who has lost support of Nazis and their far-right supporters, not mutually exclusive by the way, by condemning Nazism and Hitler. Because Stephen Crowder, one of the largest political YouTubers, if not the largest political YouTuber, tweeted this out. I hope this is something we can all find common ground on with the caption, Hitler Bad. Now some of his supporters were not happy about this. One of them wrote, why are you shilling for the Jews? Another says, as a longtime fan I have to say I'm disappointed you're not discussing this with the nuance it deserves. Another just writes, no. Another says, I don't think so, man. Another says, I don't agree. And there was a lot more where that came from. Now just pause for a moment, okay? Ask yourselves, why would Marjorie Taylor Greene and Stephen Crowder get backlash for condemning Nazis and Hitler? It's because the Nazis and far-right individuals who followed them saw them as one of their own. They saw them as allies, as fellow Nazis. I've got to say, if it were me in their position, if I had a huge platform, and I realized that the bulk of my support was coming from Nazis and they thought that I was one of them, I would seriously reconsider the ways in which I talk about politics, the ways in which I talk about marginalized groups. But they're not going to stop, right? They will essentially be full-blown fascists, Marjorie Greene and Stephen Crowder, by the way, and they'll condemn every single marginalized community, use fascistic rhetoric. But after attracting this huge base of Nazis and far-right individuals, they basically have a surprised Pikachu face after learning that so many of their fans are just straight-up Nazis.  See, if I were to condemn Hitler and Nazis and fascists, which I do pretty regularly unequivocally, so there would be no controversy whatsoever. Why? Because that's not the audience that I'm cultivating. That's not the base of fans or viewers that I'm trying to build here. So they wouldn't be shocked to hear me say that, yes, it is indeed the case that Hitler is bad and Nazism is bad and should be defeated. But when all you do is attack marginalized people and you espouse far-right talking points and you say things that are explicitly fascistic, can you really be that surprised when Nazis turn against you? See, you flew a little bit too close to the sun there.  So I find this unsurprising because this is who these people are pandering to.  We're not just talking about dog whistles, we're talking about explicit white supremacy that we see from individuals like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Steven Crowder on the regular, and they go after the LGBTQ plus community viciously. And they think that, oh, well, this is just going to help me cultivate support with regular conservatives. I mean, sure, conservatives may support you in your culture war endeavors, but for the most part, the country has moved on, right?  So all that you have left to be your fan base are nothing but far-right lunatics. So don't be surprised when they turn against you after you denounce them because that's obviously what you're supposed to do. And I've just got to point out that these folks like Steven Crowder and Marjorie Taylor Greene, they're not denouncing Nick Fuentes and Kanye West willingly. They're doing so begrudgingly because Kanye West went full mask off.   So now you kind of have no choice but to denounce yay, someone you previously defended, Steven Crowder and denounce Nick Fuentes, somebody who you were buddy buddy with, Marjorie Taylor Greene because you would lose all legitimacy if you didn't do that with most people. But it's funny that they're just losing their support as a result of doing this. So look, I love it. I'm glad that the right is turning on each other. I'm glad that the far right as attacking individuals like Marjorie Taylor Greene, because this is going to prove to her that you're not going to be able to secure power if you continue to pander to these extremists. And I get that she is an extremist herself, but as a member of Congress, she needs to moderate if she wants to actually have power and get committee assignments. So when it comes to Steven Crowder, I mean, he kind of has this incentive to be as extreme as possible because it's all about views and clicks. But you can only go so far to where you turn off the majority of your audience by associating with and defending people like Kanye West, which is why he's had to come out and denounce Kanye West. So either way, it's not shocking to me that they're facing backlash after denouncing Nazis. But if they're actually shocked after doing this, then I don't know what to say. I mean, this is the bed that you've made.  So good job. Maybe try to do better and you won't attract them as your main base of support.