And welcome to another episode of Into the Issues. My name is Steve Pappas. I'll be your host. My guest today is Secretary of State Jim Kondos. Jim, thanks for coming. Thanks. Thanks, Steve, for inviting me. There's a handful of things that I want to talk to you about. And we're going to do it in order because I think that it will all make sense to the viewers once they hear our conversation. And none of this is going to be a surprise to you. But in recent weeks, there's been what's turned out to be a very controversial case out of the Burlington Police Department, which has now been pretty widely publicized and reviewed. And it's involved body camera footage of a police department incident. But there's more to it than that. And what's come from that has become an issue of what the public needs to know and how the public should get that information, which is of obvious interest to the media. But it's become of interest to you as well, as Secretary of State. And I'd like you to kind of explain why that is. So first, Vermont Constitution and our state statutes and the state statutes actually refer back to the Constitution. But they've enshrined the public's right to know. And that means that whether it's an open meeting or public records access, that the public has a right to have access. It's about holding government accountable. It's about knowing what your government is doing. So it's actually, I think it's pretty fundamental to transparency. And we can talk later about the transparency tour. But I think it's pretty evident that this is about having the public, and I include the media as part of the public, having that ability to hold their government accountable. Well, and part of that is because you see the media as the eyes and ears of the public. Exactly. They're the watchdog. They're the ones that have, that's their job is to look for accountability, to look to hold government accountable. But it's as kind of an arm of the public. So why is this particular case so concerning to so many people? So there are two aspects of public records that sometimes get lost if you want to call it in the shuffle. One is whether you want to just inspect those documents or do you want a copy of it? Right. So it's clear in the statutes for both sides. At least I think it's clear. And I think the courts have determined that as well. But the idea that if you go into a government agency and say, I would like a copy of those documents or a copy of that body camera film, they have to do something to prepare for that, to give you a copy. And you need to understand that there are all records that are created by government or acquired by government in the course of doing their business are considered public records. Some of those records actually have exemptions that prevent disclosure, medical information, social security numbers, things like that. There's a whole host of them, as you know. Yes. And when you're talking about preparation, you're talking about somebody actually has to review. Someone, like if someone comes in and says, I want all the emails between you and this person in government that talks about EB-5, let's say. Someone has to review each one of those emails to make sure that there's no information that should be redacted and protected from being put out. So there is a cost to that. The first 30 minutes are considered free. And then anything over that from the, as far as making a copy, as far as the labor to review and redact, those costs can all be charged off for copies. I want to keep reiterating that. If you say, I just want to inspect them. I just want to look at those. The courts have now come down and said there is no cost to that. Right. There was a case, which I'm sure you probably are familiar with, in 2011, VSEA versus the agency of natural resources in the state of Vermont. And Judge Crawford, who's now on the federal bench, Judge Crawford actually, in his decision, said that inspection is the burden of government. Government bears that burden to prepare those documents for inspection. And the argument is that, okay, if we have to go in, if Steve Papas asks for all these emails, we have to send someone in and read those emails and redact any information. Therefore, we have to make copies. That was the argument that has been made before by some government agencies. We have to make a copy of those and then redact that information out of it. Judge Crawford didn't go along with it. That court decision, it was a lower court decision. It was never appealed by the state. Come forward, fast forward to the Doyle case. Read Doyle at ASS4 to be able to view, to be able to inspect the body camera film of a incident that occurred in the city of Burlington. Right, to be clear, he asked to inspect it. He asked to inspect it. He didn't want it to watch it. He didn't ask for a copy. He just wanted to inspect it. And the city of Burlington, and I don't remember, they told him that it would cost him about several hundred dollars to get to view it. Well, that acts as a burden, that acts as an obstruction, and he wasn't about to do that. The ACLU got involved, and I think rightfully, the ACLU argued the case that they appealed it to the Supreme Court. And they went forward with that appeal. I did, my office filed an amicus brief, a friend of the court brief to support that concept, that there should be no charge. And I keep going back, Steve, to the fact that if government agencies would only manage their records better in the beginning, it would be less problematic, less of a burden to the government agency to get those documents prepared and ready to go. I think too often what happens is, the records are not managed properly. And consequently, it does become a burden. It requires many, many hours. But the courts have been clear now, and it's gone to the Supreme Court, so that is the law of the land. Inspection is free, copy is not. So what happened recently? The Attorney General's office put out a protocol that said that if you decide you wanna inspect something, and we prepare those documents, and then you take a picture of it with your phone, that they were gonna charge you for that. My argument is that that's not allowed. The inspection is still the piece. And even if there was a fee for that, the law is also clear that it has to be actual cost. So my question is, if I pull out my cell phone and take a snapshot of a computer screen, what's the cost to the state? There is no cost. Therefore, it should not be charged. And the Attorney General's office, in that protocol, basically is coming at the same, they're not disputing that the records themselves are not public. What they're disputing is how you should be able to charge to have access to those. And what's interesting about that is that you have two arms, and by the way, for all of you watching, the media came down on the same side as Secretary Kondos, the ACLU, the New England First Amendment Coalition, the Governor's office, the Attorney General at the moment is kind of out on a limb by himself on this one. And contrary to kind of all of the discussion, nobody's at loggerheads. Nobody's butting heads over this. It's just a philosophical difference in the interpretation of who should pony up the money. Because TJ's office, TJ Donovan, the Attorney General, his office is saying, as you pointed out, there's a tremendous amount of cost and effort that goes into producing this information often at the expense of his own staff, which is made up of lawyers. And they want to be compensated for that. And I get that. We all understand that. But in this case, that doesn't fly. Well, you have a Supreme Court case that basically says different. And I know he is saying that, well, yeah, but if you take a copy, that's getting a copy of that document. And I can see where he's coming from, but I don't think that the Supreme Court case actually really went in that direction. So TJ and I have talked about this and I know he's gonna go to the legislature to ask for clarification. I think the clarification should be relatively easy because the courts have ruled on it. But we'll have that discussion. We'll have that discussion. Another interesting little nuance here is that the Attorney General's office is the Council for State Agencies. Correct. Including your office. And yet you had to file an amicus brief in this case. You couldn't use the Attorney General's office. So did you have to go out and get somebody else to do that work for you? I did. I think what really happened was that the Attorney General's office wasn't sure where they were gonna come down on this case. And they were considering their own amicus, perhaps on the side of the Burlington police. In the end, they did not. But we found a lawyer, an attorney in town that would do the work for us. Obviously we helped edit, but we submitted a, what I like to call a 30,000 foot view, we didn't get into the specifics of the re-dial case. What we did was we said, look, here's what the law says. So we tried to stay at a very high level. And that's, my office generally tries to stay at a high level. We try to just go, here's what the law says, and here's what we believe that law is saying. And work from that. I'm gonna pivot a little bit. Same topic, and you mentioned earlier, there are a lot of exemptions. There's too many exemptions as far as, from my point of view, there are too many exemptions on public records. And I point a finger at Jim Douglas on a lot of that. But a lot of the governors have done the same and they've made it more difficult. But the, I think it needs to be clear that, and people who are watching this don't, not all people watching this understand that it's a public records request, which means that any person, any, anybody from the public can make these requests. And there are people who make a lot of requests.  At what point does it become where it feels frivolous and it needs to be kind of addressed?  But maybe you're the guy who says that too. I actually agree with you. I believe, in fact, I have said often to my staff that regardless of who it is, why they're asking, that's not our job to determine. Our job is to fill that request. And that's the role that we will take. In fact, there is another Burlington Supreme Court decision and I don't remember which one. I actually have it in my transparency tour paperwork. But there is another decision that says that the agency, the government, cannot ask who or why you want this information. That it's basically agnostic to it. And I agree with that.  But my job is to provide that information as long as it meets the law. And you're right, there are too many exemptions. I believe that. I know the legislature has worked to reduce them. But every year, additional ones get thrown in there. So right now, if you look at the statute in Title I, which is where the public records access language is, there's about 40 exemptions there. But scattered throughout the state statutes are other statements, are other exemptions that are put into a section, a specific section of the law. We estimate there's around 260. Yeah, I've heard 250. So, but there is, the good news is that there is a, the Legislative Council has a website where you can go to look at those exemptions and you can say, I want to look at animal information or animal records. And it'll pull up all the, it'll do a search and pull up those records that deal with animals or medical information and whatever. And we also have one on our website, on the state archives website, that allows the public to look at all these exemptions. It was a lot of work putting it all together. And we often will get, at the end of a session, some of our staff and some of the Ledge Council staff will actually go through the bills that have passed. Oh, here's something that acts as a exemption. Therefore, we got to highlight that. So, and that happens. But there's, a lot of it are legitimate exemptions. But I think there's also a lot of duplication and I think we could actually shorten it up a little bit. The federal government, as you probably know, it did that a few years ago. They had. The reams. Reams of exemptions and they're down to like a dozen in general. And I think that that's the approach that we need to take at some point. I know there was a committee that looked at it over a three-year period. They did reduce some of them, they combined some of them, but I think there's more that could be done. So, public records are under your purview. As Secretary of State, you have really taken this to a different level though, as far as making sure that the public understands and public officials understand not just what they need to know about records, but what they need to know about process in their towns, in accountability, responsibility, and you yourself served on South Burlington City Council for quite some time. 18 years. 18 years. And kind of saw it all there. I mean, you and I've talked in other times about kind of some of the things that you've seen. And now you are kind of the gatekeeper for a lot of towns in determining, well, can we do that? Can't we do that? And rather than doing it kind of piecemeal, which happens probably all the time, you are setting out again. This is how many? Fifth year? Well, it would be the fifth official year of the transparency tour. Yeah. You're doing what's called the transparency tour, where you actually go out to the community and you go to towns, communities, and invite other communities nearby to come in and essentially get a refresher on how to do this. It's not mandatory. You wish it were. I do. I wish it were too. But what exactly is the transparency tour? What are you aiming to do? Education. Yep. That's the big thing. It's, we've really consolidated or shortened it up into a pretty brief presentation as such. It's about, the total presentation is about an hour and a half, maybe an hour and 15 minutes, but it depends on the questions that we get. And then we get, at the end, we get a lot more questions. But we basically divided it into two sections. One is to talk about the open meeting law. The other is to talk about public records access. As you can probably imagine, a lot of our effort or a lot of our focus is on the open meeting law. That's where we seem to have the most questions. Yep. But we travel the whole state. We usually do it in the off year from the election. So the odd year, the odd numbered year, that's this year. And we're starting it, I believe, not next week, the week after. And we'll do it for about a six week period. And we have done so far in the previous years, we've visited well over 50 communities. We'll go, if a town specifically asked for us, like we had one town that had been sued by some residents. And the judge said, well, you need to have one of the conditions that he placed on them was to have that town go through two presentations on open meeting law. So we were one, VLCT did another. We worked, the original was with VLCT and Steve Jeffery, and he went with us on these things. And literally we go from Franklin County to Wyndham County, from Bennington County to Essex, Orleans counties. And I mean, we go through the whole state. And I think the most people we ever had was up in St. John'sbury a few years ago. And there was a lot going on in St. John'sbury at that time. There was, we had over 150 people show up. And we've done it for as few as three or four. So, we don't really care how many, we like to have more people. We generally will notify the town manager or town administrator, the select boards, planning commissioners, and any other, we ask the town clerks to notify their various boards like the cemetery board and whatever that we're coming to town and neighboring towns. We usually send out, obviously, we've sent it to you already, but we will follow up as each week with those towns that we're going to that following week to try to drum up as much support as we can. It's a pretty informal thing. To be honest with you, I enjoy doing it. It's really about education. It's not playing gotcha. But we'll go back to that. So everybody knows you can expect an editorial from me in the next few days because every time you do one of these, I come out saying thank you, Secretary Condos, for doing these because it only makes our job and has the eyes and ears of the public easier because everyone's sitting up a little straighter and following, going by the book, and they're doing, when they do their job as intended, it makes it easier for the public to be able to get information and understand the decisions. And it's so important. The public has a right to know and a right to participate and that's the point that we try to make this nice and simple and, again, as an educational piece. So when you say, when I ask you initially why, and you say education, what do you mean? Because when we talk about open meeting laws, I know what you're talking about, but the public may not necessarily understand why it is so important for these boards to get the primer. It's not necessarily a primer on Robert's rules and all of those pieces of it. It's important because there are certain processes that are mandated by statute that have to be done. And so what kinds of things are we talking about? So if you're gonna have your regular meeting, if you meet every, let's say, the first Monday of each month at 7 p.m. at Town Hall, that's a regular meeting. And typically you've passed a resolution at your first meeting that says, this is one we're gonna meet. Regular meetings are supposed to be warned and noticed your agenda's posted 48 hours ahead of time. So the public has a right to see what's going to be on that agenda. And what is a warning? Well, let me go back a little bit because the warning, basically, it's just announcing that the meeting is happening. And it has to be posted in a couple of places. If the town maintains a website, they have to post it on their website ahead of time. If it's a special meeting, so if any one of the factors, if it's not gonna be on the regular day or the regular hour or the regular meeting place, if any one of those three changes, it's called a special meeting and you only have to notice that 24 hours ahead of time. So it's really about, again, to get the public out to know what's going on. You know, we've also made some changes over the last eight or nine years. For instance, they're supposed to hold a, allow the public comment period. Typically it's for comments for items that are not on the agenda. One of the first things that a public body is supposed to do is ask if there's anything that on the agenda that needs to be changed. Are we deleting something or are we adding something? I always tell people when you're adding something, it should be for information purposes only. If you're gonna take an action, it should be on your next warned meeting so that the public can be notified that you're gonna take an action on something. The reason is, you could get some hanky-panky going on where a board says, this is a controversial issue. We'll just go to the meeting and see who's gonna show up and if it looks okay, we'll add it to our agenda. We don't want that to happen. The public has a right to know and the public has a right to attend and the public has a right to participate. Things like minutes. The law has been in place for over 30 years that says that the minutes are supposed to be ready for someone to look at within five days. It doesn't say final draft. It doesn't say final minutes or approved minutes. It just says minutes have to be ready. It's pretty minimal what you have to have in your minutes. It has to have, obviously, the meeting when it is, it has to say, these are the agenda items. It has to say who attended from the board at that meeting and if there were anybody there from the public. They don't have to necessarily identify everybody. I always use this as an example. When I was city council chair in South Burlington, we had a situation where we would hold a public hearing to go over our budget. Now, in South Burlington, let's just say we had a $10 million operating budget. We'd have two people show up. Right. Very little comment. The following week, we're going to discuss the leash law and our bicycle path. 150 people show up and everybody wants to say something. So that's the kind of thing that you want to, you've got to balance, but you've got to allow the public the opportunity to speak. You've got to give them a reasonable opportunity. Those minutes are now required. If you have a website, you're supposed to have those minutes posted on the website within the five days or after the five days. That raised a lot of consternation among towns because they were saying that it was problematic for them a burden to have to post those minutes. And our argument and what the legislature ultimately agreed with was that that part of the law hasn't really changed. It's just that if you have a website, it's got to be posted on the website. And in the old days, it might have been difficult to, you know, you have to let it load up. I remember with AOL, you know, it would take five minutes, 10 minutes to load something up and get it posted. Now it's just point click and it's done. So it's relatively easy. And it's just kind of basic procedures that you have to follow. Yeah, well, and we're almost out of time. It all comes down to accountability, right? It really is. And that's what you're doing is these are elected officials, they're laymen in most cases. And while they love to do it, there are rules you got to follow. That's right. The media appreciates it. I know the public appreciates it. So my guest has been Jim Kondo, Secretary of State of Vermont. Jim, thank you very much. You're welcome. We covered a lot of information in a short amount of time. We did. All right. And thank you for watching. Until next time, see you around.


Hi, this is Mitch Mitchell been away for a couple of weeks because I was home all last week with my wife We don't usually get to be home together.  So I now qualify for senior meals that I hop and I'm not embarrassed by that because I find I can't really eat big breakfasts Anymore anyhow, so I'm not really upset with that.  I said well because that's what I would do is she said do other people do this I said yeah pretty much, you know people talk about whatever they want to some people are really skilled and talented know how to You know manipulate and edit videos and do things But in general, you know some of us give our opinions and we just talk about things that go on in our lives And she said well that just seems so odd I said well, you know if you ever feel like sitting down just watch some YouTube videos go do it My wife doesn't watch my video. So there you go. What are you gonna do? But it shows that you know YouTube has its own kind of community the types of people who may watch videos as opposed to everyone So I'm gonna start with this thing here, which is also in the title this thing about Fitbit Now for those of you who don't know what it is It actually is kind of a tracker it tracks steps It can calculate the calories off those steps. It can track sleep Now what I've done is I use mine and I've integrated it into my fitness pal, which I've talked about quite a few times here Okay, maybe twice I think and then you know, you'll see this little Linking thing over here showing you the video to my fitness pal when I first started it and that's all still going Well, my glucose is still under control I had a couple of days over last week because we got invited to a Labor Day thing and you know You're home and you're going to different things or whatever I had a couple of days where it was a little rough and it was barely hanging in there Couple of days I just blew it, but you know what your home you have to take those days But glucose stayed way under control anyway This is what I got for my birthday and it doesn't look like much and It's it's called a Fitbit and this is actually a Fitbit flex and it's got this little doohickey in it and what this does is it tracks steps and Working with my fitness pal it actually adds Calories that you're allowed to eat for the day because it tracks your steps And then it calculates it and it puts it in there And that's nothing new because fit on my fitness pal had a thing where if you exercise you could go and you could put That in manually and then it added some things to it. So this thing has been pretty interesting I'm not overly sure Fully how accurate it is But what's been really intriguing is how it tracks sleep because I don't sleep well We just put it that way I do have a CPAP and I sleep better than I used to but I still don't sleep well So I've been tracking my sleep over the last few days and it's amazing It seems that I am awake or moving way more than I'm just sleeping way more than half One night. It was like 72% That's not good But it now gives me something to check on and maybe talk with my sleep doctor about and maybe I need some more Adjustments or maybe I just need to be tied down or something. I okay. No, we're not having that But it's interesting stuff. So I just wanted to mention that kind of thing It only goes for about a hundred dollars and as a matter of fact after I got mine Then my wife decided she want one so I you know went and bought her one and it sinks to the phone So as long as you have the my fitness pal app You don't need that by the way because it turns out that you can track meals and fit that but you actually have to put Them in manually. I've told you about the my fitness pal If you watch the other video, you know that it's you know, a little simpler to use at least it is for me So now I'm back out of town as you can tell but this is a totally different room I get here Sunday afternoon and the general manager says mr. Mitchell We've got a lot of people coming in for conventions this week and So we couldn't get you where we normally put you so we're gonna be putting you in a different place I said, okay, where are you putting me? He says well, we're putting you in one of our rooms It has a fireplace. Oh fireplace Unfortunately until it cools down you don't get to use the fireplace, but still it's a it's a much bigger room that I usually get The living room area is bigger. This bedroom is bigger. The kitchen is bigger. The bathroom is big. Everything is bigger Except for the closet the closet. I've actually lost some space, but that's okay Who needs really gigantic closets? So it's kind of nice and I'm on the second floor and these only have two floors So I don't have anyone above me for once and they're a little more solid So I don't hear the people below me unless I'm in the bathroom and they have kids and you hear screaming Yeah, I can handle that and it's kind of neat because now I have an actual place to always park my car Where I will see my car So I like that this week next two weeks I'm driving a Toyota Camry a red Toyota Camry very cool by the way this is an upgraded car because National has now decided that I deserve to be executive elite. Whoo Hey, we take our upgrades where we can get them, right? So I'm back down in the South and let me tell you a Day like today has really been interesting at least for someone like me Two weeks ago. I saw my first Armadillo ever. It was dead. It had been hit by a car I saw Armadillo live. I said, oh my god. I didn't know we had Armadillos here I thought they were just in Texas today. I decided, you know, take a break and just do a little walk around the parking lot What do I run into a live Armadillo and these suckers aren't small?  You can't see my hands, but you know, it's About my the width of me with this really long tail. It was kind of brown I wasn't sure what it would really look like, but it was brown and it was just it just kind of freaked me out Because I didn't expect to see it and the thing is that these folks told me the first time I mentioned about an armored I said, well, you know, they're really scared of people.  This bad boy looked at me and then he's like, I ain't worried about you What that doing what it wanted to do me I kind of hesitated because what I'm used to is people saying, you know If animals don't necessarily run away from you unless it's something like squirrels where they're kind of used to people That's not necessarily a good sign a lot of times they're rabid at least where I'm from so I went inside and I mentioned Oh my goodness. I saw the armadillo out there. So they they're scared of people they run I said this one didn't run so when I was leaving work I'm looking around whatever and one of the people I work with was just behind me and suddenly there it is I saw hey, wait, there he is. He's under the tree. He's right over there. She looks over. She says Armadillo, he's just trying to get out of the sun. I said, yeah, but you said they ran from people That one's not running. She said they're harmless and then later on Someone said that you can get leprosy from them now. I'm thinking they're probably kidding But you know, I'll be looking that up a little bit later and if Armadillos give you leprosy I'm gonna make sure I'm carrying something with me from now I'm gonna smack that thing because Mitchell is not getting any leprosy. So I'm just saying that now I Then you know, I come back to the hotel and I bought new sneakers over the weekend Because my feet had been really hot down here and at home and then I realized wait a minute These are these Gore-Tec sneakers that don't breathe at all Which is I bought them for colder climates, but it's been hot and hadn't thought about it So I bought these new sneakers that actually will breathe and my wife was gonna send them down to me Turns out she used my account and sent them overnight. I can't wait to see that bill But I got them today.  By the way, Campbell's makes a chicken pot pie soup No, stay away. Oh, no, I couldn't season it to get it so that I could eat it So no, I'm just mentioning that now in case you're wondering, but I had this chicken pot pie soup Wonderful stuff and me being me. I said, you know, I don't want to sandwich today see what else they have and it turns out They had a baked potato So I ordered a big potato and I'm thinking you know I'm gonna get this little, you know big potato with some butter and bacon bits and chives and it's life's gonna be wonderful It was a monster and I took a picture of it and I wish I could show you the picture But you know, I didn't move it to the phone so I can't upload it, but it's a monstrous big potatoes Oh my god So I took a picture of that sent it to my wife and say well I guess I keep misjudging this place because some of this stuff is pretty big. So I did not eat at all I eat the soup first. I didn't eat at all. Matter of fact, the soup bowl soup would have been enough for me Yeah, live and learn and then I walked I walked to Target, there's a Target store. That's somewhere, you know, it's just relatively close I have walked Now haven't actually walked to Target I've walked to the restaurant that's in the same plaza as the Target and then the restaurant and Target are at opposite end So I've walked from the restaurant to Target, but I've never just walked to Target because a lot of times though I want to buy stuff this cold So I drive over therefore, you know, if I'm buying gelato or something this cold It's not gonna warm up and the gelato won't melt So I walked from the restaurant there I called the folks asked them if someone could pick me up there and I go shopping and This is gonna mean nothing to a ton of people, but it meant something to me It's gonna mean something to a few other people. Who do I run into? But Jerry the King Lawler I'm in Jerry the King Lawler's hometown So for anyone who hasn't really figured out where I'm at yet if they even care Recognize this is Jerry the King Lawler's hometown, but I didn't expect to see him down in this area of the city So I said Jerry the King. Oh, it's it's great to see you and I'm just I'm so happy that I get to see you I said, I didn't even know you were from this area. He said, yeah, well, thank you very much. And yep This is where I'm from. Well So I got to be somewhere close to his museum or whatever that I thought was way downtown so You know, we'll see we'll see but that's interesting It's just Jerry the King Lawler with his woman and I'm assuming maybe it's his wife and his son I really don't know. I haven't kept up all the personal stuff and there they were just shopping and Target buying food Famous people have to buy food too. I guess there you go. So that was kind of fun So life is pretty good these days at a great time at home. I'm back here doing okay And you know, hopefully next time I do a video I'll focus more on something more specific I do want to mention one thing. No, might as well just get this out of the way. This is Just something I want to touch upon the ray rice thing By now almost everyone whether you like football or not has to have heard about this running back from the Baltimore Ravens Name Ray Rice months ago.  Oh my goodness I don't know how they get the stuff they get they got the video From the elevator showing him knocking her out Now here's the thing I Don't want to see that stuff. So therefore I have not seen the video I'm not going to see the video and It's one of those kind of things where one I didn't feel like being voyeuristic I'm thinking I really don't need to see some man knocking out some woman But two I started thinking about his wife Because because they got married they were actually they were just engaged then and then they married a month later And the thing is that yes, this is a guy who did a bad thing He's now been his contract was terminated by the Ravens the NFL has has him on indefinite suspension But you put this video out there imagine you're her and now you have to see this thing where you're knocked out now Supposedly his lawyer already had it. Maybe she'd seen it. Maybe she hadn't but now it's all over TV And everybody is watching a video where she's getting knocked out by this man She married she spit on him and he didn't like it and supposedly knocked her out Well, forget it suppose that he didn't knock her out and I'm thinking, you know That didn't need to be but we've become this society in general where we don't believe Anything that we hear unless we can really see it sometimes of course We recognize that things that we see aren't real either but in this particular instance I'm thinking I just didn't need to see it and of course whether she do she comes out today and she says, you know The media is ruining my life. It's embarrassing seeing this thing. I'm trying to put this behind me We're trying to put this behind us, but it won't just keeps pounding it pounding it pounding it now Here's the thing. I have no sympathy for this guy Even though his contract was terminated they paid him a 25 million dollar bonus and you know what he gets to Keep it all they can't even take it back because I guess it's not related to anything that they could actually You know sue him to get that money back. So he's got his 25 million. They've got money They will be fine, but I'm wondering about her. I don't know Someone let me know am I being too sensitive about this one or you know, if you believe that I may have some kind of point Let me know. I was watching the Philip DeFranco video earlier today. He said the same kind of thing, you know So I'm just wondering how y'all feel about that Anyhow This is Mitch Mitchell. I'm done for the moment. I'm a happy guy Although it turns out that because of the soup and the potato. I don't have enough calories left for dessert Say la vie y'all take care


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United Nations Secretary General Antonio Gutierrez has appealed to US President Joe Biden to lift or waive all sanctions on Iran as agreed on their 2015 deal. UN Undersecretary General for Political and Peace Building Affairs Rosemary Dicalo echoed Gutierrez's report to the UN Security Council. The 15 member council discussed the Secretary General's biannual report on the implementation of the 2015 resolution that enshrines the nuclear deal between Iran, United States, France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China. I echo the Secretary General's appeal to the United States to lift or waive its sanctions outlined in the plan. Extend the waivers with regard to the trade in oil with Iran and to once again facilitate nuclear-related activities consistent with the plan and the resolution. These activities relate to non-proliferation projects, including at the Bashar nuclear power plant, the Fordow facility and the Iraq reactor. We also call on Iran to fully cooperate with the IAEA in accordance with its NPT-required comprehensive safeguards agreement to resolve the outstanding safeguards issues without further delay. Beyond Iranian nuclear activity, Iran's support for terrorism threatens U.S. forces, diplomatic personnel and our partners in the region and elsewhere. It drives instability and negatively impacts millions of civilians. We will continue to use all tools at our disposal to counter Iran's destabilizing activities in the region and to promote implementation of other Security Council resolutions to address Iranian conventional weapons proliferation, including 1701's prohibition on the unauthorized transfer of arms and related material to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Those who broke their promises are the ones who must prove their sincerity and genuine political will. They are the ones who must take heart decisions. Therefore, they are not in a position to criticize Iran for taking remedial measures which are fully authorized under the deal. It's clear that time is not on our side and that what might be possible still today may prove impossible in the near future. We have a limited window ahead of us that we should not miss.


This study compares the influence of human and macro-environmental factors on fire activity inside and outside protected areas, PAH, in Canada and the United States between 1984 and 2014 using Maxent software and a set of key variables. The full model, including anthropogenic variables, performed better than the model without these variables and both models generally performed better inside PAH than outside. Climatic variables were the most important predictors, but anthropogenic variables were also significant, particularly in densely developed eco-regions. The results show the pervasive impact of humans on fire regimes inside and outside PAH and suggest that adaptive fire management beyond the concept of naturalness is needed to understand specific interactions among fire, human pressures, and environmental conditions at the scale of PAH. This article was authored by Nicholas Mansouy, Carol Miller, Marc-André Parisien, and others.


Thank you very much indeed everybody for staying around this afternoon to listen to what I think is going to be one of the most exciting debates of Davis I would say that I'm moderating it. We are talking about transforming food systems and land use This is the Western Hemisphere version of a debate that's been going on all day I just wanted to go into a little bit of housekeeping if I can before I get to what is a phenomenal cast of speakers And panelists just a little bit of housekeeping. This session will be live cast on the forum website You can follow it on the web social media accounts Twitter Facebook LinkedIn YouTube and Instagram and we'll also post this chat For top link attendees also, right? I'm going to let everybody into a little secret. By the way, my name is Steve Sedgwick I'm an anchor over at CNBC my moderators notes for this panel very important panel says one of the things We want to do is inject a sense of urgency into the debate about food systems and land use from all Stakeholders one speaking and watching the truth is though, of course this topic nodes needs no ramping up of the sense of urgency We all appreciate the sense of urgency every single one of this amazing panel It is very clear that now is the time for actions not words and as you're all aware The importance of this panel is underlined by the mountain of terrifying statistics around the importance of a transformation of our food systems So I thought I'd just start off very quickly I've got about a minute to talk and then I'm going to get to our brilliant panel What is a food system? Some people might just think it's about agricultural production. Yes, it is But it's about the processing the transportation and of course the consumption the consumption is absolutely key I saw a fantastic quote about food systems. It's not something we can program We can get an algorithm for it is and the quote I'm stealing here says it is about billions of people Making millions of decisions that none of us can control and I thought that was a very important point about What the food system represents it's a lot of constituents a lot of stakeholders all of us as we stand some of the devastating statistics Nearly two billion people in the world do not have access to safe nutritious and sufficient food We're gonna have 10 billion people on the planet by 2050. So this problem could could if we don't have action Get even worse as well. And of course COVID-19 has made this even more pressing issue We got away with it in many ways because we had some good harvest coming into COVID-19 But so many parts of the global population spend so much of their money Perhaps 80% in some cases of their income on food. So it's so important there Biodiversity to a nearly one million species at risk of extinction and if we change our food systems Maybe we can do something very important about that as well and one more statistic Which I think is a stain on on the population possibly the West especially one billion tons of food One billion tons of food. I can't even comprehend that I've thrown away every year I'll waste it every year But the good news is my other brief was not just about urgency It was about opportunity and this is where this brilliant panel comes in as well because with the systems food systems summit 2021 we've got a whole host of opportunities here to really make some progress this year next year and all the way up to 2030 as well So let me just tell you what this brilliant brilliant panel is that we've got here today and ahead of that We're gonna have a brilliant speaker as well. I'll come to her in a few moments time So we have in no particular order his excellency Carlos Alvarado Quezada who is I'm sure you're aware at the present of Costa Rica. So, sir Thank you very much indeed for joining us today Chudong Yu is a director general of the UN Food and Agricultural Organization Viva Draya is the chairman of the managing board of Robo Bank Group Ramon Laguata is the chairman and chief executive of PepsiCo Inc and Agnes Calibata Is the special envoy for the UN Food Systems Summit, which I may have already mentioned as well So I'm very excited about Agnes your contribution today as well. Look before we get to our debate as well We have a very special speaker a very busy lady if I may say she's literally just rushed from one panel to another as well But I'm delighted to welcome her excellency Amina Muhammad who is a deputy secretary general of the UN of the United Nations Who will now make some opening remarks over to you Thank you very much and for the energy that you brought into the room And there's only one excellency and that's our president of Costa Rica Rest colleagues and friends really pleased to be with you today at the start of this really pivotal year When we must heal from the impacts of the COVID crisis and get ourselves back on track For a world that's cleaner. It's safer. It's fairer for all But I think just as you said that we need to bring urgency to the action and it needs to be at scale The pandemic of course is taking a terrible toll on lives and livelihoods and against the backdrop of the climate crisis Again increasing in threats to biodiversity and other challenges on our planetary health So we do need to move to a phase of healing people and the planet so that we come out of this on the right side of history The blueprint for recovery already exists. The Paris Agreement and the 2030 agenda for sustainable development are in place Food and land systems are going to be key to ending poverty and hunger But also to ensuring we've got good health and well being there are decent livelihoods gender equality Of course the climate action we need to take and this does bring about stability So therefore peace and we must know that it is only on strong institutions Will we be able to deliver the scale and the sustainability of our investments and actions? It's the background to the secretary general's decision to convene the first ever food system summit later this year And as you said it's about billions of decisions that people take every year But how do we make it fairer? How is there more equity in this and how does this become good not just for people but for the environment that we live in So friends and colleagues, we do know that food and land are the core components of our cultures and our economies And access to food is a human right. Let's underscore that and remember it But last year sadly 690 million people were undernourished and over 3 billion couldn't afford a healthy diet So there's a real risk of famine in several countries even in the wealthiest And there are growing numbers of food insecure people and we've seen this in the impact of covid Our global food system is a 10 trillion dollar economy And it is connecting 7.5 billion consumers and a diverse array of over a hundred or over a billion food producers And that all uses half of our habitable land on earth And one third of that sadly is we're hearing in recent weeks is degraded Threatening the sustainability of our sector and the chances of really feeding everyone with a nutritious diet So where should we start to look for the solutions and just allow me to profit three very quick ones First needing to ensure that food and land use sectors are properly funded with long-term incentives That reward the supply of nutritious and affordable food And this then brings in our indigenous farmers our women and really is a inclusive way of tackling inequality The international community will need to ensure strong capital and technology flows to developing countries so that they can strengthen Food systems while building prosperity and accessing accessing global markets And it's really important here that we don't see the digital divide Increase in many of our developing countries Second we do need to do more to recognize and and protect our natural capital And by way of example, I welcome the high ambition coalition that's championed by costa rica in collaboration with france in the uk Which seeks to protect or effectively conserve at least 30 percent of the planet by 2030 ambitious But well needed now third. We need innovative policies including regulatory reforms taxation Accountability measures around land and food These should encourage better behaviors from production to consumption and support a much more sustainable relationship relationship between people and the land These policies got to recognize the enormous diversity in agriculture Most of them 600 million farms in the world are still owned and run by families and indigenous people At the same time only one percent of farms operate more than 70 percent of the world's farmland And are integrated into global supply chains So we really have to fill that gap our policy options business models and investments Have to be sensitive to these differences And we really need to see the green transition affect the business models that are currently not on track Also recognize that current food systems place a huge and unjust burden on women and young people We're facing difficult trade-offs between comedic competing objectives that require good faith negotiation amongst communities And actors with different perceptions and interests and so friends and colleagues in the coming year It really does offer us an opportunity to come together to transform the food systems Reshape land use as a central component of resilient recovery And the upcoming food system summit and its key meetings And consultations at the local level Will be real rallying points. We're going to need more partnerships We're going to need a change in mindsets and a renewed sense of urgency and scale For the collective and ambitious action that's really needed To protect people, but also our home the planet I really look forward to hearing the ideas of the of the panel because this is going to inform Much of the climate action that takes place in this pivotal year Where we need to ensure that Glasgow means that we have changed direction on a course that is going to get us to 1.5 degrees Thank you very much indeed for that deputy secretary general of the un amina mohammed as well Well, let's move straight on and already referenced by the deputy secretary general Was costa rica and the efforts that they are making as well So i'll go straight to the president of costa rica and i think the deputy secretary general framed it very well Far better than i can as well. This isn't just about food. It's about diversity. It's about nature It's about our climate aspirations as well, sir It is indeed steve and i'm honored to be part of this distinguished panel For starters, i want to point out one key element of the conversation which is leadership And in these people matter. I mean In costa rica, there is a saying Throughout the year you think once or twice about the services of a lawyer once or twice about the services of a physician But you never tend to think daily On the services of farmers Or people that transport food or the processing of food We have normalized that it sometimes for many parts of our communities is for granted for many others It's something that scares They don't have access to that So one key thing is of leadership is to reboot the conversation That's why i congratulated the secretary general or in the deputy secretary general for the leadership On putting the conversation On the table We need to talk about this and we need to talk it now Because it's currently a problem and it's going to be if we do not take action now a More severe problem in the future but as in any complicated situations There are risks But obviously there are opportunities and we need leadership need to seize those opportunities And act courageously One of the things and I appreciate the mention by deputy secretary general that we are aiming to to To make the balance between climate change Biodiversity and food production in a healthy and appropriate way Is the ambition coalition we launched together with france and many other countries like the uk and canada to protect 30 percent of the Of the planet In land and also in the oceans and let's see the example of the oceans By protecting 30 percent of the oceans this measure permits Many of the species that are for human consumption Appropriate reproduction So there is the we can preserve that those resources for current Generations and also for future generations also thinking about the possibilities of Cultivating species in land and many other techniques In that sense technology is one of our key allies and leadership has to foster new clean healthier technologies More nutritious products Technologies that allowed to reduce water consumption and fresh water consumption That's one of the key problems for example in latin america Wherever we need water for human supply, but also water for a For production it's been said that sometimes water supply visa visa human consumption and agriculture takes sometimes 10 consumes 10 times More for the production and we are sometimes just throwing out that scarce resource as well There are lots of challenges even in costa rica We have managed to reverse deforestation And changing a lot the way we used to produce Meat and that helped us to reverse a deforestation that in the 1980s was of 20 percent and currently our deforestation We have Forest coverage in the country more than 50 percent and we have fixed lots of carbon by doing that But we have also challenges at the same time today. I'm going to sign an executive Decree and this is merely a coincidence, but we're going to be signing a new decree for Allowing more healthier molecules for Chemistry and pesticides because it's been a long problem in costa rica with the molecules we have and that's also a key problem throughout the region of what the products we use on agriculture But then again, if you see it's very similar to the challenges we are facing the challenges We're facing today are very linked to complexity. They are interlinked in several fields in several levels of governance In the national level in the local level in the multilateral level in a multilateral Understood not only as countries, but countries companies small firms small farmers indigenous people women large firms And that complexity needs to be addressed with leadership We have been facing also the problem of populism, which sometimes just shows the simple solutions That they are not solutions. They're just discourse speech Um, and we need to face that as well courageously Because if not, we need to tell people why are we doing why this matters so much? Why conservation matters so much? Why tackling climate change matters so much? Why is it important, for example, that in the case of costa rica in our Decarbonization plan one of the 10 pillars is changing the way we produce food For example, we have changed the way we produce coffee And now we have what we call an amma coffee, which is adapted and mitigated for climate change And we're taking a better price because of the quality and these characteristics on the international market So it's a win-win situation But people need to understand this because as I started saying We have normalized the conversation and we are fixing kind of a status quo that is not allowing us to move any further So if I had to strengthen something leadership courageous leadership to take action Sir that's excellent. Thank you very much indeed. So already From his excellency and indeed from the deputy secretary general We're hearing about the complexity of the situation how we need strong leadership as well and yet Chu Dong-yu who is the un food and agricultural Organization as well um the dg of course You are trying to put a framework together, sir You're trying to put a framework together with what 130 plus nations But we've already heard this is pretty complex and we have very diverse Countries and farming systems to deal with your role is is very difficult sir and convoluted Thank you. Thank you. It's steve moderate I'm pleased to be here and also join the house care The actions to transform agro food system Even agro food is more complex than you expected Then the pure food system improve the lives of farmers In an inclusive and resilient manner by grow knowledge and sustainable together As I Abidia mentioned the several statistical numbers you also that's come from the FL Flexion publication already. I don't want to repeat it here again But addressing the future of agro food systems require a holistic review cover the many topics such as agro culture production climate change and value-charing efficiency demographic inclusion consumer demand land use biodiversity and so on and the innovation And also transport the past disease and nutrition health So we have to act now and the COVID-19 pandemic Forced us to speed up the the action More and more million people still going hungry during pandemic It is sometimes too much of food we produce is lost and wasted It will be threatened to reverse the progress achieved over the last two decades FL we are here We see this for crisis first all the members step up for the green recovery and agro food system transformation so we Not just the ancient new strategy frameworks We will move forward to achieve the SDGs especially SDG one SDG two and SDG 10 We will focus on the new strategy based on the new vision for better Better production better nutrition better environment and better life by honey honey mission you say you're right correctly We have 194 members You know And we have to look be at a while. I feel we have to consider the all the members They really have voiced here and they are interested. We have to offer the service to them land Is a mother for human being and a better city. It's a base of the economy Society and the environment and the vector for productivity and sustainable of agro food systems so as an innovation All differentiation use of a different type of land from the photo land to the semi dry land combines human creative technology science And entrepreneurship in that sense. We needed the private engagement And also we need a lot of Hub from the severe society and academy. So we want to be at a bigger partnership That's why the FAO when I come to the office. So we started honey honey initiative And that's also we offer the honey honey geospatial data platform a data level for statistical innovation And also smap divided together with google and that's what we will invite They provide the members with valuable real-time data that support the strategy decision making digital FAO Has been established with an unprecedented pace during past years We're now the fully running on digital with six u.m. Languages simultaneously so next time We'll get off the service for you if cmbc willing to work with us globally. Yeah Absolutely count me in sir count me in and and you've already said I'm there trust me. It's very important to me but I've you've already said something quite starting and I will come back to you with this as well because Everybody if we need a sense of urgency, we've just heard it there um Not only is the status quo not acceptable But we are at risk of reversing two decades of progress. I think that it's a startling comment sir Startling comment. I will come back to you on this a little bit later on as well Viva dryer is the chairman of the managing board of robo bank, which I'm told is the largest agricultural bank working in the food And agricultural sector based in the Netherlands. Viva You had a problem a few years ago not enough people were in interested in investing and providing the finance for new cleaner greener initiatives, especially in farming now. I guess you've got the opposite problem, sir No, no Viva dryer. There you go. Can you hear me now? Yes, I can hear you now, sir There you go. Thank you for for that question because I think We are in a luxurious position as a planet that there is now abundant capital available to be invested and And I think the role of finance is now also getting full recognition as a partner of the transition that needs to take place We can offer capital to the required investments from large-scale investment both on micro level investments via new digital technology We can also help in categorizing these green loan categories and channeling the financing to green investments So that it becomes transparent as I think Larry think also called for a one standard in his letter last week But I what I would want to take as an engineer coming into finance I would like to take the opportunity to Explain the connection between finance and the transitions that we talked about that are so urgent Because there are still some conversions needed to get that abundance of capital Into where it's now needed the transitions themselves and there are three Uh transformations required that I want to talk about first When you talk about basic needs of financing and finance investors, it's the risk return It is true now that the return of these investments can arguably be made The return is no longer an issue when it comes to these transitions that we talk about in the food supply chain The trouble largely is the risk when farmers shift their practice It typically takes two or three seasons before They are in the new zone and that is a risky face and they're volatile and I think as as actually So eloquently articulated before is that we rarely think about the farmer We need to help and support the farmer to bridge the gap of risk That's one of the conversions that is needed and partners in the financial sector need to work together to de-risk some of these Transitions the second conversion that is needed is that of duration Many of the transitions that we talk about have a length of time that a typical bank Normally doesn't cope with so we need connections between banks and institutional investors to get to longer duration times of these transitions And that is possible. You've done it in in offshore wind area where you have a building phase and a running phase and the third transition that I want to talk about is the pricing in of externalities of of burdens to the planet of social costs that I think also Our chairman talked so eloquently about in the beginning and that can be done And I and on one of the externalities is the price of carbon We've now seen we're seeing many corporates commit to paris by voluntary reductions There is now an abundance of need of this this reduction of CO2 footprint by large corporates in the western world And we need to bridge that to for example the Costa Rica's of the world and the farmers in brazil in argentina north america And this is what I want to talk about for just a few minutes. And this is what we call a carbon bank The world needs a system that connects these Demands for for carbon reduction with where it can actually be done by farmers in Costa Rica by creating new nature projects by farmers in north america and south america and this Transition is what we're building on as ravel bank and we build an alliance together with the world economic forum To create this carbon trading platform Where there are agencies involved with the certification of these projects Where there are big companies involved that have a need to reduce and there's obviously institutions involved with creating a trading Platform that needs this system. I think it's not it's not Yes, it's urgent But there's almost a crystallization point a crystallization point if we trigger that system that I now talked about This could really accelerate the transition that food goes to farmers Can benefit significantly from getting a fair reward for their contribution to more sustainable practices It's substantial. It could double the profit of a farmer if they get a fair Reward for the externalities that they help reduce and that I think is a is more than urgent Opportunity it is a crystallization point that we're now about to embark on I'm hoping that the food summit this year will be the place Where we can talk about the dimensions of that new system that will be a crystallization point to accelerate the transition to talk about Excellent. Thank you very much. I did I'm before we Get to remand leguata. I'm just going to say to agnes just have a think about what we just said Is that financing there or there's still big gaps as well? Of course in the amount of financing that's getting some of those smaller players as well But I do want to get to remand leguata first as well. He is of course the chairman and chief executive officer of pepsico I've just a little insight for our viewers now I've already talked to him off camera about the very exciting news that pepsico have already done this week a product I'm going to say it here. I really like it. It's a non meat burger and now they're working with them So I'm very excited about your news there But you want to go beyond this as well and what I think is fascinating is how much of the food system change Is going to be led by companies such as yourself and how much of it is being led by the consumer as well remand Thank you steeve I think we there where we're looking at this transformation and building on what everybody else said I think we have to play On the farmer and we have to play on the consumer I think those are the two big entities that would really drive the full ecosystem change, right? So there's when you look at the farmer and and obviously we've heard that there is multitude of farmers from very large super scale companies to very small holders that really Required different needs and their business model is very different. So we need to solve for all of them I think there is a there is a need to be local and very granular So there's solutions cannot be top down solutions need to be bottom up But there's a few ideas that we're testing With multiple collaborators, you know, and many of them across here sitting around the table That can be investible and scalable And and let me tell you a few you know so that we we can get to the debate The first idea is there there is a there's a need to make the the farmer aware of the The new techniques and new ways of doing things that you know, they're they're out there. They're not landing in their in their particular space The concept of demonstration farms is proven to be very powerful So building demonstration farms where we have the new techniques and we're uh, you know, let's say neighborhood Farmers go and learn from their peers. That's a huge concept. We have many demonstration farms across the world That's a very powerful concept second concept That we're working on with the world economic forum and some other colleagues is innovation hubs innovation hubs You know, there is a lot of money and a lot of startup a lot of ingenuity Going into fintechs going into uh, you know, uh other other other fields There's not enough going into agri tech and I think we can play a role large companies with the public sector as well To build innovation hubs to bring technology and innovation closer To the farmer and I think that's a big idea. We're starting with different parts of the world We're living one in columbia, but you know, there's multiple efforts going in in other parts Then to what we've said earlier There is a financial need and there's a carbon market need and and those two are Two ways to enable the transformation for the farmers make sure that they capitalize on You know on on the potential benefits they can drive to the to the brother ecosystem and they capture the benefit of it Especially the one around carbon is critical We need the farms to be uh to deliver higher yield Better use of the land and then sequestration of carbon and that's an ecosystem that we need to incentivize somehow I think we need to build a market around that When you think about the consumer to towards the other end And that's our responsibility as well of you know, the large food companies But everybody that owns brands and has a consumer impact Consumers, I think we've done a good job Over many years it took us a lot of years to Make them aware of the nutritional values of products and you know, it took us And but you can see more or less in most of the products around the world You know good nutritional information So consumers are can make their own decisions their own choices around different parts of the day different moments They can make their choices and balance their diets as they as they prefer to do There is very little knowledge on environmental footprint of products I mean consumers don't really know and therefore they They don't valorize the environmental footprint of a product. I mean we were not generating demand Towards the the uh the products the brands the supply chains that really are more protective of the environment We need to find a way we're working on it There is technology can help us now understand the sourcing of products the ingredients the uh the movement of goods Across the whole supply chain and therefore the environmental footprint of that product I think that if we can move consumers through awareness and through product innovation as you said Some of the things we're doing but you know, we're doing that with our own portfolio as well legume snacks Uh different cereal breakfast different juice products We can move demand towards spaces that are good for the consumer good for the planet That is a huge idea brands play a huge role Consumer information plays a huge role and we need to move demand to those spaces valorize Sustainability sustainable products and that will generate as as president alvarado was saying Better products like he was referring to the coffee You know better better products for the planet better for the consumers higher prices better livelihoods for for farmers I think there's an ecosystem that i'm positive. I listen if I if I want to send some messages It's a message of optimism. I have never seen so many conversations between the public and the private sector in the last Six eight months enabled by you know the world economic forum But also mrs. Calabata, thank you for what you're doing with the un innovation The un summit I think the five tracks the leadership you've put in place the milestones the clear The dialogue spaces that's going to help us to really make a lot of positive traction over the next few months And i'm very optimistic of what we can do You've made my job very easy There remote because i'm going straight to agnes calabata who's a special envoy for un Food systems summit as well and agnes I thought the the comments i've heard already from our excellent speakers really underlines what you Feel is one of the priorities and that is awareness awareness about these innovations awareness of the financing available awareness of the environmental footprint Etc et cetera as well. So a lot of the the obstacles are being overcome or aren't they Thank you steve and let me just start by Building on what lemon has said and and thank you DSG if i'm doing a good job It's because i'm standing on someone's shoulders and I just don't know how you do it I just want to say thank you You're doing so much for all of us and and from a food systems summit perspective We didn't have done as much as we've done without the support we are getting from you So you all need to know that this lady's being amazing amazing work So in now going to the food systems summit It was launched that They are before last with three major objectives. We are behind on sdgs and and and the DSG has said it And despite all our efforts to put our food our best food forward We have nutrition is What we are doing with nutrition is still creating lots of obesity and now we are actually talking about You know What is happening there as being a pandemic a slow pandemic that is underlying the whole covid pandemic as we know it If in fact fearing the covid pandemic, we know that we are behind on hunger Six years in a row we've been seeing a hunger increasing, but also we know we are impacting climate change So the the the sdg was extremely concerned about this and he requested for two things He said you do this summit and do two things you must take it to the people People must know what is at stake But like you all have said people make these decisions We make each of us makes three decisions three times a day to eat and those decisions impact our food systems So it really must be a people's summit It really must be about decisions people make and ramon has just said how people don't understand The environmental footprint just think about it an avocado here to come from africa to go to europe must be size 22 Only 10 percent of avocados Produced in africa makes size 22 What happens to all the water that goes to producing what the other avocados so really and educating people and helping them understand How they're impacting the the the food system is extremely important number two He wanted this to be a solution summit Meaning we really need to find to step out of our comfort zone and come up with solutions that are going to help us come through We've been discussing this the whole week through the gca that was happening The imperative to invest in food systems has never been there's never been a better time For every dollar we invest in food systems today will serve us six dollars Of trying to deal with damage that happens if we don't do the right thing So I don't know what would be better to do Then than we can do now. So we must do what we need to do now. We've put in place Five action tracks in terms of responding to his request for solutions those five action tracks cut across the Five critical areas that impact our food system and we put in place dialogues at country level in every country and I'm really grateful that Partners have stepped forward and under funding how these these countries dialogue, but the basis the the basic principle here is Countries get an opportunity to define what they are doing and to define the solutions they put forward People get to discuss these things indigenous people communities farmers all these people get to discuss and what we are calling independent dialogues And the solutions are already known check the example of costelica We just had the conversation that is happening around what they are doing for natural climate change the example of columbia Around what they are doing on biodiversity or the example vietnam and the partnerships they are creating with grow asia But also what you just said ramon what was just launched here You know this initiative that was was just launched here These are all things we can build on and there's so much more. So the action tracks right now Are scouting the environment to come up with those ideas that are already there that are scalable that can help us impact Really create a transition in our food system as fast as we can and we have a whole group of experts in science That are going to be there to tell us that this direction We are checking is actually the direction should be checking that we are not creating more problems in the system So you talked about finance the solutions are here. We already know what you're doing We have more money in our system than we know what we know We know to do to do with so the best thing is to put that money to good use And transition our food system rather than start paying for damages that result from from a dysfunctional food system So there you have it Fantastic agnes calibato. Thank you very much indeed for that so many questions. I'm very aware that we officially have about five minutes I might be able to stretch it to six or seven if I'm very lucky So brief answers if I may from all of you as well. I've read a fords comment I thought it was extraordinary. It said food system produces more ghg than any other sector But neglected by policymakers talking about cop 21. They were blind to the footprint of food I'm taking it with cop 26 this year and with the food system summit this year That is a thing of the past not of the present or the future Let's start off with his excellency the president of costa rica Do you believe that policy makers are still blind as they've been accused of being back in cop 21? Which I was at in 2015 Well, I do believe that's that's what we are trying to change actually with spaces and debates like this and with the summit that the secretary general is inviting That I that is what we need to change now And put it in the conversation of climate change and put it in the conversation of biodiversity I briefly want to link and build upon two things mentioned one by a minna mohammed and another by by b of it And I'll put it in three words risk Farmers subsidies And I think I believe that's one of the key bottlenecks For example, central america this year was hit by two hurricanes the whole of central america Many farmers lost everything And last year the 2019 previous year Central america was hit by The niña phenomenon, which is drought So you had drought one year the next year you had hurricanes and lots of humidity and rain And then you go to the bank Expecting to have some money or loans and they say you're too risky We're not going to lend you or we're going to lend you very high Interest rates And on the other hand and I'll be try to be brief But I think this is a key part of the conversation on the other hand they say okay, you're too risky less less import Whatever we need But then what happens with the livelihoods and the rural communities and women and indigenous people And I think also covet 19 changed that conversation Why particularly at the beginning of the pandemic because at the beginning of the pandemic when the global chains of logistic were closed What was the first thing that happened to people to their decisions? Everybody went to the supermarket to the marketplace Started buying food or putting it It's so people reminded themselves importance of food security Locally, but if we don't fix how we finance how we take risks For farmers not only thinking of the financial Impact but of the global impact And if we do not take the conversation of subsidies to a level for example of trade international trade or world trade organization Visa visa climate change as well. We're not necessarily going to fix this So I think that that is a conversation we need to have Oh, and I would love to do over the next two hours, but I've got about There is nothing that has been said that's the point that I don't want to expand upon this is my problem I've got a one-hour show and I've got to go longer. Viva Dyer. Do you want to just um Comment on that reply to that as well. That's the problem with finance years, isn't it? There's loads of money sloshing around now, but they have a very different attitude to risk You said that we need new models transformative models of how we risk assess these Situations and lending to farmers across the world We haven't got your mic at the moment, sir Do we have the evidence of mic? There you go. And good. We're there, sir Thanks for that summary and I think you're right But the the majority of the money is still stuck in buckets that can't be met to the needs of the farmers profiles and the risk that they have And so I think the the the real need is that Governments and government agencies think about de-risking as the investors get an access to investing Subsidies tend to be disruptive for for a flow What I wanted to say in one sentence only in this close is I think it's now time that the finance community becomes part of that solution And not as typically referred to as when it gets difficult. They're part of a problem I think that is possible But we need to sit at the table while we design these new systems for carbon trading while we design the new risk systems to D-risk and while we design the new systems to Match the optimal duration of finance so that it actually can flow the money is there We need to map it on the need of the transformations and it is possible Thank you very much indeed for being brief there. I've got a hard wrap for two minutes everybody I've got a hard wrap to don't you I'll come to you in a moment on your your Concerns about regressing as well, but on that front, uh, Ramon We're not regressing in corporate world are we regardless of the administration regardless of of who is leading regardless of of Of the faddish attitudes of some Corporates as well. We're moving in one direction now when it's irreversible, isn't it sir? I think the train has left the station and and uh, there's I see more and more CEOs Driving this change from two dimensions one is personal values I think there's a lot of us and I feel obviously very very close To to that to this transition from my values point of view But also if you think about a business case risk management of your company We want to maximize the value of our companies 15 years from now we better include climate risk and some of these other threats into our The way we run our companies and we change the model So I think that is clearly and you can see this in the commitments that we're all making externally and how we're Operation making this operational in in our capital allocation in the capabilities We're building in our relationship with our farmers and consumers and customers So I think the full ecosystem is moving You you see board of directors talking about it You see investors starting to make our the company's much more accountable on their esg commitment So I think the full ecosystem is is moving and that's what I said earlier. I'm positive optimistic that the trend has left left this station that now when the private sector Takes ownership of this transition. I think we're going to see much more movement, right? We tend to be Entities that make things happen make things happen efficiently and we're very clear commitments and productivity targets So I think I think it is positive that public and private sector are really talking there is more trust I think between these two kind of You know Units and I think in in this combination will drive success. So I see I see On you. Thank you Ron. Trudon you find a word to you Everything you've heard it surely surely so you don't think we're going to reverse two decades of progress Thank you I want to thank you so I listened into the president and also the Ramon and others solution We needed the driving force driving first come to consumers And when the people climbing the mountain, we have four forces to move the direction And then the bridge is a digital digital approach innovation of the policy innovation of the business model innovation of technology So I wanted to take the Costa Rica as a champion if you started with the innovation of policy innovation of the business model by digital And then let's reverse the all the business of the transformation and growth system from the consumers down to the Farmers, thank you. Sir. Thank you very much indeed Look, um, I didn't know if I was going to come out of this panel worried about the urgency worried about where we were Or excited by the opportunity. The answer is very clear to me. I am stunningly excited by the opportunity. Thank you so much for Well, just great contributions and a great education. May I just thank you all in no particular order The deputy secretary general of the united nations. I mean a Mohammed. Thank you very much indeed for kicking of the offer Well Agnes Calibata, who's the special envoy for un food system summit We're with you all the way on this one as well remand leguata chairman and chief executive officer of pepsico I'm very excited about the new ventures as well And where we're going with this as well. Viva tria chairman of the managing border robber bank financiers can change for the future I know they can and his excellency carlos alvarado quesada who's the president of costa rica Thank you, sir. Your country is a model of what we should do And chudung you the director general of the un food and agricultural organization count me in sir Anything you need. Thank you all very much indeed. Thank you. Let's let's make a digital one Thank you


Every day, I welcome my kiddos to school as our school family. So important to me to establish that relationship with each and every kid. As a whole, we're a family, but I also respect them individually. They have a relationship with me that's formed from the very beginning of the year, and I think it's really important to have that special time with just them. I may take a walk with one of them around the playground, or I may just hold one of their hands and talk to them and listen to them and have that time together. And not always when they just make a mistake or they've done something wrong and they're in trouble. But forming a relationship of trust and respect for each of the students is most important.