Good morning to all stakeholders. We are joined by some of the UN agencies who are associated with the process and some of the different elements that make the WISIS process complete like the WISIS Action Lines, the partnership on measuring ICD for development, bridging the standards gap, the regional connections and we will hear from the different representatives today. I would like to first start with our focal point from e-business which is also co-implemented by UNCTAD, ITC and UPU.  Can you please tell us a bit more about what you're doing there and how is it linked to the WISIS process over to you? Thank you, Gitanjali. Indeed, this year the e-business action line focused on bridging the gender gap. We focused on women in e-business and a clear trend came up, which is that women are lagging behind in the digital economy and the digital economy in general is usually male-dominated. We need to bring more women, more women entrepreneurs to the table so that they can take advantage of the digital economy and if you allow me I'd like to touch upon three key aspects that came out of the conversation. First we need to boost women's skills in the digital space and that starts from a young age to later on while they're already in the workforce. The second is access to finance. The women digital entrepreneurs we heard and we work with all tell us that it is more difficult for them to raise funding to scale and grow their businesses. So that's another area where we can do better. And the last one which is often neglected or maybe undermined is the fact that we need more role models, more women in leadership position who can inspire others and we can bring the voice of women to the table and this is what we've been doing here at the WISIS this year. Thank you very much. Of course digital gender inclusion is one of our key priorities within the WISIS process. All the WISIS action lines are striving towards that and even at the WISIS forum we tend to achieve 50-50 gender balance and gender participation. So thank you very much for your efforts. I'd like to move on to Mr. Preetam Maloor who is implementing WISIS Action Line C5 Cyber Security. So Preetam what were the key trends you noticed this time we heard several sessions talk about cyber security. It's really the essence that cuts across the different action lines. So what are your key takeaways? Thank you Gita Anjali. So this year along with the conversation on you know cyber threats that we've been hearing over the years at the WISIS forum and other places you know we noticed that there's a lot of conversation on attacks on you know fundamental infrastructure such as subsea cables for example this conversation on you know risk to satellite communications and here it's quite interesting because you know the we've noticed that you know the topic of space has reached a tipping point with new actors in their new services being offered you know broadband services obviously being offered through Leo Geo satellites but also you know universal IoT coverage which is becoming a reality thanks to satellite communications. We are also obviously you know hearing a lot about you know new and emerging technologies such as AI with chat GPT for being you know an epicenter of the conversation and the metaverse you know these technologies offer a lot of opportunities but also bring in some challenges so this is what we are we are seeing and generally we are you know seeing a more holistic conversation on digital resilience because of all these different aspects coming together and even in our action line meeting at the WISIS forum you know we had C2 and C5 come together that's primarily because of this reason thank you Gitanjali. Thank you Preetam of course yes space as an enabler of sustainable development was a theme we heard running across and of course chat GTP most of the leaders who had come here they joked that their speeches were written by chat GTP but like you said the challenges were also highlighted so of course with every new trend is a challenge of cybersecurity which we are looking at it in an inclusive manner thank you very much Preetam. I'd now like to move on to Davideh who is the WISIS focal point at UNESCO so Davideh UNESCO implements several action lines and really you are the knowledge societies component of WISIS so could you please bring in some of your thoughts the key trends that run across your action lines. Thank you Gitanjali yes I think these are very interesting times so we have seen you know the in the in the wave of the recovery from the the COVID pandemic we have seen now the focus on the effects that the digital has brought to the to the stage in many ways including for example the education following the Transforming Education Summit of last year and we have seen here that now the focus is very much on going the implementation how this can be how this is implemented now this is done in locally for for bringing this transformation actually in practice because in the emergency mode let's say these these things are implemented quickly so now we need to make it more systemic and bring the change so one take away from from these conversations that we had here not only on education but in many other action lines is about the digital transformation I think the handling of the management of change the management of change is probably the the barrier that keeps us still keeps us you know far from reaching some of our goals and the effect also of digital transformation so we have we heard about you know the difficulties for example in in gender gaps and for example the effect of particular some technologies like AI in on the working life so women for example is one thing that UNESCO has been highlighting as well but there's a way again also the challenges the main challenges of the technologies that are bringing as Pritam was mentioning and how this necessitates the attention to ensure that actually there is a dialogue between public and private sector so that there is a sort of understanding of what are what is the maybe some principles that should be applied in terms of so to enable digital to bring the good commons the good the good part and be paying attention to the harmful and you know sometimes dark side of this technology so we highlighted this also very much in this forum the ethical aspects linked to many of these technologies including AI and of course we have been speaking also about the UNESCO multi-stakeholder consultation which is going on also at the business forum on the principle for regulation of internet platforms that we are conducting this year in ahead of of course in the processes that are happening at UN level like global digital compact yes thank you very much David and one thing that we really enjoyed was the alignment with the decade of indigenous languages we work together for Action Line C8 to have a hackathon and to have several workshops to highlight that we are also connecting with these UN processes which are ongoing so thank you so much for this great collaboration David and now I'd like to move on to Mr. Bilal Jamusi so Bilal you are primarily bringing in the angle of standardization and bridging the standardization gap so how does bridging the standardization gap help us bridge the digital divide great question thank you Gitanjali so an equal access to technologies and low digital literacy skills are among the biggest contributors to digital divide and this influences and impacts the ability of developing countries to access and influence international standards making processes and this is why the ITU came up with the bridging the standardization gap program to foster the participation of developing countries in the standards making process but also help developing countries in the implementation of international standards across the sectors thank you very much Bilal it remains an important component of the Geneva plan of action and the WISIS outcome documents thank you very much now I'd like to move on to Esperanza who's representing the partnership on measuring ICT for development of course Esperanza we heard in most of the session the importance of data and importance of having the correct data for analysis and for being able to plan the future activities so what has the partnership been doing regarding this it's a partnership of several UN agencies please indeed so the partnership was formed as a call from WISIS 20 years ago for the need for more reliable and quality data so the partnership with 14 international and regional organizations has been working to improve data availability and quality in developing countries so far much progress has been done but we are not yet there there's still a large number of countries where data gap exists and so therefore there was a call for more efforts in improving data availability more resources in helping countries build capacity in producing those data as well as looking into sources that will provide more timely and real-time statistics including the use of big data and that has been an area where ITU for example has been doing a lot of work in the area of using for example mobile phone big data to complement and supplement existing traditional data sources to produce data that could estimate for example the number of internet users in a country and that is the hope of the partnership that we will be able to explore these new data sources to complement and help other agencies provide or produce the data that they need for policy making thank you thank you very much SP we always need the correct and good data to be able to implement our WSIS action lines and of course data also indicator of what more we have to do to ensure that we can use the WSIS action lines for helping to accelerate the achievement of the SDGs thank you so much we have with us Mr Yaroslav Ponder so at the regional level the WSIS action lines are implemented by the regional commission in coordination with the regional offices of the UN system so Yaroslav what are your key takeaways and impressions from the region of Europe over to you thank you very much Gitanjali it's in Europe and Central Asia and I will talk about the both regions because for the implementation of the WSIS we have created with the other UN agencies over 30 UN agencies the so-called United Nations digital transformation group for Europe and Central Asia in order to mainstream the outcomes of the WSIS and to make sure that we are aligning the WSIS with the SDGs expectations making sure also that we are identifying the policy areas where which have to be rolled out at the national level and supporting the UN country teams in implementing and translating the political vision into the action and this is the beauty of the WSIS that in fact we are able to make sure that this what we are debating this week at the global level with grassroots stakeholders with all stakeholders coming from the different regions but also from the different origins in the private sector academia that all this we can then transmit and transpose into the bankable projects at the country level where the one UN acts for the digital development this is the reason why also this week the UN group launched the UN digital transformation toolbox and to equip the UN country teams with the necessary tools policies frameworks which can help them to form the partnerships and to to advance digital development at the country level so this year we had really very good participation from Europe and Central Asia we had a lot of cases from Moldova Ukraine from Georgia from Albania amazing development in terms of identification of the real needs where not only UN itself can act but also UN can forge the partnerships in engaging the private sector in the our joint vision of advancing the SDGs thanks to the digital thank you Yaroslav of course at the heart of the WSIS process since its inception is the multi-stakeholder spirit and this is what I believe you have displayed and Slovenia the chairperson of the WSIS forum has highlighted this in their workshop that they led the Slovenian country workshop they were presence of so many European countries at the WSIS forum led by our chair woman minister from Slovenia so thank you very much I would like to do a very quick round just identifying a concrete examples why not two examples in your respective area of work so let's start with e-business thank you Gitanjali I'd like to share one example that was present here at the WSIS this year so we had a session on women in e-business and we invited several women who are somehow change makers already trade blazers who have succeeded in the digital economy and came to share their experience and show that it is possible so for instance we heard from Leni Zeng she's the advocate of the e-trade forum and initiative in Southeast Asia and she told us how with her company Dropi she's providing a platform for moms and pop stores to digitalize to buy online manage their inventories and she has helped digitize over a hundred a thousand small businesses across her country in Malaysia so this is an example I would like to share with you and hopefully it will inspire others inspire yes of course so many role models all over the world so thank you for bringing them here and for sharing them with the entire world thank you pre-term some concrete examples for c5 thank you Gitanjali I'll highlight one which has to do with you know the opportunities and challenges that emerging technologies bring so just in December last year ITU set up a group on the metaverse because obviously we know that it positively impacts it can positively impact all 17 SDGs but the risks are also quite obvious and are being studied so in December ITU set up a group the group is open to all stakeholders member states private sectors civil society the technical community you know the academic community everyone can engage in it and it's it's looking at various aspects you know different layers the infrastructure layer the application layer you know it's studying which layer to focus on of course and the first meeting of the group was in Riyadh just a couple of weeks ago and more than 600 stakeholders participated in it it's housed in our ITU standardization sector ITUT and we would welcome all stakeholders to participate thank you pre-term Davide of course you need a whole day to summarize the different activities but some concrete examples that really stayed with you and have formed an impression yeah absolutely so I think the one example that I would mention is the work we've done in this forum for the consultation multi-cycle consultation on the implementation of what we call the Rome X indicators for internet universality where Rome stands for right human rights based open accessible and multi-cycle they're exactly so this forum is really the place where to discuss this and where to engage to do this kind of assessment for ensuring that the internet is a place for an accessibility and for a human right is is important to bring exactly everybody on the table the technical community yes of course the governmental actors yes but also the civil society and everybody so a country cannot do an assessment of this kind without you know engaging the whole community so I think that that was I think a fantastic discussion that happened in this forum I think it's a good example this will enable UNESCO also to work on the refinement of the indicators that are part of this assessment maybe simplifying some of them and engage more with the whole community in in the countries where this assessment has been is been rolling out which is by the way uh 45 44 countries are in this at the moment so thank you very much Davide Bilal for some concrete examples sure so the BSV program as I mentioned has two tracks one is the capacity for developing countries to influence and participate in the standards making process and the other is the ability to implement the the international standards so I'll give examples in both tracks the first one um we have perhaps three elements one is an online free course on the ITU academy on the process for standards development and we encourage everyone interested to take that online course the second is hands-on training that we do along with our study group meetings and regional group meetings and the third is that we have many regional group meetings of our study groups in the region in the language of the region which lowers the barrier of access from a linguistic perspective as well as from geographic perspective because it's closer to the developing countries and these the combination of these will enhance significantly the ability of developing countries to participate in standards making on the implementation side we have some examples of in the financial inclusion for example we have key standards on the security aspects of digital financial services and we have a lab in place to not only raise the capacity of the telecom and the central bank regulator but also be able to audit the security solutions and another example in terms of the implementation in the space of smart sustainable cities where we have key performance indicators that are agreed by 18 UN agencies under the umbrella of united for smart sustainable cities and we have implemented that in 200 cities around the world developed and developing and that's another example concrete example of trying to help countries implement these standards thank you Bilal indeed we did see a glimpse of localization and smart cities in the mayor's track at the visis forum so if we have more and more mayors joining the process it's a new community but it's a very important community because engagement of local communities is extremely important for the implementation of the action lines thank you very much Esperanza something that the steering committee of partnerships has been implementing yes i mentioned earlier the challenge of unavailability of timely and reliable data so the it us a lead in the steering committee has been also working in a group in the UN committee of experts and big data and data science and we are leading the it is leading a task team on the use of mobile phone big data for official statistics and so in this group and this is our contribution also to the partnership in terms of improving one of the sdg indicators which is the percentage of the population using the internet we have been exploring ways in terms of using mobile phone big data and this case that we implemented in brasil and in indonesia has been very successful where the different stakeholders are working together and using the UN agreed methodology in terms of using mobile phone big data for official statistics and so in this project we were able to test the methodologies and the national statistics office of both indonesia and brasil are able to produce data that are coming from mobile phone data sources and these results are very convincing because they are as close as possible to the results of the household surveys so in this project we concluded that mobile phone big data could be used but we have to address and work with many stakeholders to ensure that data access issues could be addressed and and solve in the near future thank you thank you usb yaris love what are some of the concrete examples from europe yes thank you very much this year we are very happy with the meetings which we organized because it was really the demonstration how the europe and central asia works being facilitated by the by the UN we had in the discussion not only the receiving countries with the UN presence but also those who are interested to see how they can help so the presence of the greez slovenia uk and many many others east was a real demonstration that the digital development is really the issue of the whole community and digital doesn't have the frontiers and talking about the concrete example is the the publication which we are co-creating with the all UN country UN members called digital development country profiles which we launched this week for the bosnia and hercegovina were together with the other UN partners we identified clear advancements of the digitalization in bosnia but also identified the areas where the intervention would be useful and based on this based on the discussions at the workshop we were able immediately to follow up on the discussion on the concrete actions which will be transformed into the bankable projects and matched with the interested parties which are interested to help there where the help is the most needed so we're really creating the value chain which ensures the proper impact impact for development and we will continue doing so in the future thank you very much jereslav so as we heard vices has several pieces and components it's the UN regional commission's UN group regional inputs different action lines which are implemented by several UN agencies itu unesco umtat fao who so many of them more than 32 UN agencies working with us the united nations group on information society which ensures that you know the UN stands as a ready as a ready framework for digital cooperation the standardization gaps the partnership on measuring ICT for development so thank you very much for joining us live from Geneva and we look forward to welcoming you all in vices forum 2024 thank you


Good afternoon. My name is David Gales. I'm a reporter at the New York Times covering climate change. We've got a tremendous panel and great opening speaker. Before we begin let me just try to help set the stage. Lest there was any lingering doubt last year 2023 made it clear that climate change is a clear and present danger for all of us. It was the hottest year in modern history. We saw extreme weather ravage every corner of the globe. Sea surface temperatures reached new highs and have not come down despite winter in the northern hemisphere. And the science is clear that circumstances are about to get much more dire in the years ahead. At the current trajectory the status quo we are on track to potentially reach 3.4 degrees of warming above pre-industrial levels by the year 2100. That will bring with it the science tells us sea level rise, biodiversity loss, crop failure, migration, famine. It's going to get serious very soon. And despite all this and despite the real progress that has been made which we don't want to overlook, the global community and the business community I would argue is still not doing nearly enough to combat this urgent threat. Slowing down global warming will require truly radical system shifts from how food is grown, how energy is created, how goods are transported and sold and cities are built. And all of this vital work requires money. Lots and lots and lots of money. And there's no shortage of money in the world as we all this week know very much. And yet precious little of it is being deployed towards this critical work of reducing emissions as rapidly as possible. Investment horizons are still too short. Risk tolerance is often too low. And there frankly reminds myopic focus on short term profits. Now no actor alone we know can solve these issues. We're going to need private capital, development finance institutions, philanthropy and more. And it's only together by working together with partnerships, with new ambition, new models that we can address this pressing problem. We've seen some of this work actually being done just here at WEF in the last couple days. GAIA has pulled together a coalition that's set its sights on a one billion new pledge to deploy capital with a combination of corporate foundations and philanthropic partnerships. But one billion dollars is a drop in the bucket. That's admirable work. But to reach net zero and reverse nature loss by 2050, we need something on the order of three trillion dollars a year. So that is the challenge at hand. That's what we're going to be discussing now. How do we get more of this money flowing to these critical projects? Before we hear from our panelists, I have the distinct pleasure of introducing Secretary John Kerry, President Biden's special advisor to climate, who I would argue has done more to advance international cooperation on the issue of China than just about anyone else. Secretary Kerry, some opening remarks, please. Well, David, thank you very, very much. And ladies and gentlemen, and particularly the members of this really capable and you will find hugely informed panel. So I'm almost embarrassed in laying out some initial thoughts. And David himself just now gave you a pretty good summary of what is at stake. And if I repeat a little bit, forgive me, but we can bear repetition, folks. I'm trying to find a way every day to be able to communicate to people what the urgency really is and why it is that we need to more and more take seriously what the scientists are telling us and what Mother Nature is telling us on a pretty regular basis. Last year, 2023, which David referred to, was literally the most disruptive climate disruptive, most climate consequential negative year in human history. And as we all know, if you measure, you know, there's an important body of evidence now that's been laid out that really doesn't leave us any space for debate or frankly procrastination any longer. There are millions of people already, millions moving in various places on the planet, not always exclusively because of climate, but greatly added to by climate, water crises, lack of ability to grow the crops they used to grow, a prevalence of disease that now takes hold that we thought we had eradicated. The climate crisis is also a health crisis. In addition to that, the quality of the air, which comes directly from greenhouse gas emissions, is killing 7 million people a year around the planet. And when I say killing them, I mean, I'm talking about literally the disease that you get because you're breathing in particulates and the levels of cancer, the levels of complications for people with heart disease or emphysema and so forth are clear scientifically. In addition to that, we're witnessing disruption that is really, really dangerous in terms of macro global diplomacy and strategy. Strategic thinking is changing as a consequence, though not all policies of the world have changed sufficiently to address it. But because of what's happening to the island states, where their leaders now don't just sit around and think about what they're going to do to respond, but they are thinking about how they're going to move their people and where they're going to go. And will they be able to maintain statehood in this afterlife of a nation that is without a nation place? President Biden has actually issued an executive statement that he as president in the United States will recognize those countries. Think of that. We've already had to say we will recognize a country that had to move from where it is, that doesn't have a country anymore, but can still sit in the United Nations or still be engaged in international affairs in a recognized way. Those are the kinds of things some people on this planet have to actually think about right now and respond to. But in addition to that, there are places that are becoming unworkable, let alone unlivable. The human body just doesn't respond, it would at 100 degrees, 101 degrees, at 135 or 140 degrees. Last year in Phoenix, Arizona, 31 straight days at 110 degrees or higher. Asphalt that starts to melt, airplanes that can't land because the airport has to close a period of time. So disruptions to business, disruptions to life, all bear a cost. And people who are following this will tell you the cost of lost productivity, of interruptions of movement of goods and services and so forth. So I've been traveling around the world a lot in the last three years meeting with leaders of countries trying to urge them to choose something different in terms of their energy production. Where they have gas, they could also be deploying renewables, but they want to choose the gas. And so how do you go into that place and persuade people, wait, that's a bad choice. And you have a better choice. When their answer to you is, well, and this is what I've heard many times. Well, Mr. Secretary, how much money is the United States able to put into that? And will you make that available to us? If you help us, we can do it. And of course, most governments in the world are not running around with magical surpluses these days in a position competing against Ukraine and Gaza and emergency assistance and AIDS for Africa and 100 other things we do to be able to plunk the money down and say, oh, yeah, we'll do that for you. So by default, we see bad decisions being made which have implications for all of us. So I was here a year ago to help Weff launch the Gaia Initiative. And I'm here again today because I'm convinced that the only way we win this battle is by stepping up exponentially from where we are today and begin to treat this fight almost as if we're in a war.  But unfortunately, it's it's it's apt. In World War Two, when we needed to gain control over the skies of the ocean and learn how to penetrate Hitler's defenses in order to win the battle of freedom, it was mid-level techs who made a lot of decisions that actually helped us win the war. And Paul Kennedy at Yale has written a book about this called The Engineers of Victory, which if you want to read about real effort, it'll tell you about it. At the end of the war, we could turn out one B-24 bomber every hour on the hour in a reconstituted automobile factory because we were serious. Could we be doing that today for solar panels? Could we be doing that today for blades for turbines? You bet we could. But the politics of the world haven't yet moved to understand that that is almost literally where we need to be. Why? Because as David just said to you, trillions of dollars are needed somewhere between 2.5 to 3 trillion and 4.5 to 5 trillion dollars a year every year for the next until we get to 2050 next 30 years. Think about that. And if I were to ask you a simple question, does anybody here believe that we are in a position where we need to be to win the battle? No. The answer is no. And what does it take to get there? The single most, the single biggest push or change that would have an impact around the world right now is money. Now, President Biden didn't just put money down through certain incentives, etc. He passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which has now seen us 88 new battery companies in the United States since that law was passed. It's a law that was geared to provide about $369 billion to be able to help companies and countries to be able to make the better decisions. But in reality, it's almost a trillion that's going to be spent. Why? Because there's no ceiling on it. There's a floor. The ceiling is defined by those people who are ready to use it, enable to use it and who qualify for it. And so we actually could get up into a trillion dollars if we were to push the curve here the way that we need to. So folks, public private partnerships, which is what is going to be discussed here is a critical leverage point for our ability to be able to look people in the eye and say we are doing everything that we have possible and that we can try to do. We need to unlock and speed up action. We need to bring things to scale where we know that they work, but we don't have the ability to bring it to scale because people are reluctant to invest. And that's another place where philanthropy has a critical role. And I hope and I'm confident it will be discussed here today. There are trillions of dollars in the marketplace. Some of it was parked for quite a period of time when the interest rates were low, particularly low and were paying for the privilege with that negative interest. They were paying for the privilege of being parked in a bank somewhere and not put to use at a time where even that money, which is owned by somebody, BlackRock and Goldman Sachs and Blackstone and all these folks who manage vast sums of money, it's not their money. A lot of people don't understand that, but it's money that is seeking a return on investment in almost every case. And they are under a fiduciary responsibility to provide that. So if a client comes in and plunks down X hundreds of millions of dollars and says I want you to do the following things with this, they're duty bound to do it. That money is not available to be able to make the difference that some people in the world think. So what we have to do to cure that and get that money to deploy is create bankable deals. And when you create a bankable deal, you're basically taking risk out of the deal, reducing the risk so that you have first loss or, or, you know, earnest money or something put up that gives people confidence that if they are going to put some of that money down, there are the good prospects, not good, they can have defensible prospects that that's a bet that's worth making. Now, how do we do that? Well, philanthropy can play a far bigger role than it is today. And I'm optimistic about our prospects, frankly, if we can churn this money out in the next few years. Remember, the targets that we have don't have to be achieved by next week or by next year. There's a first plateau of 2030, where we need to have a minimum of a 43% reduction. And then there's 2050 where we need to be able to hit the net zero 2050. So we do have some time here to mature to bring maturity to some of these technologies and to deploy them in a way that will make a difference. Now we have countries now that have agreed on targets for the global adaptation adaptation. A lot of people have shied away from investing in because they think they can't make money. Not true. There are loads of adaptation projects which actually have a return on investment. And so you could be earning 1012 15%, which for a pension fund or something is not bad return. And if you have that with a 30 year PPA offtake agreement, you're in business and you're able to make things work. So think bankable deal. Think how we change the way we look at that. And we have to make the multilateral commitments that we need to do this more of a reality. Multilateral action combined with progress is already happening in the markets. And it is propelling us forward, but just not big enough and fast enough. And yet, and this question of scale is critical. And I think we have to talk about that here now today. Philanthropy can be an accelerant here, folks needs to be. But for whatever reasons, and I think are be great for the panel to explore this. Climate philanthropy seems to have plateaued at less than 2% of all philanthropic giving. Given the nature of this crisis, we got to break that mold. And that's another of the challenges that we face. So I was really excited to learn that the Gaia program or plan is launching a corporate philanthropy challenge here today to mobilize smart, catalytic capital towards climate and nature interventions by 2030. I would hope that we could go further than the billion dollars that we could actually make it a bigger grab, if you will, the challenge, maybe that 2% figure will inspire people to reach out to more philanthropies and build this out. But I want to go back to what I said earlier. 1.5 degrees. And I'll close sort of just on this note. In Dubai, we actually did break the mold. We came out with a very different paradigm. Building on Paris, building on Glasgow and Charmel Shake, we got 195 countries to all agree to buy in to the notion that we have to transition away from fossil fuels. And we have to do so in accordance with the science. We have to do so meeting the goal of 2050 net zero. And we have to do so accelerating those efforts now in this decade. That's the conclusion and the operative language, which we all have to digest more in order to get where we need to go. That to me is a game changer. And when you add it to the methane initiative to the shipping challenge, to the food and agriculture challenges, to the other efforts that came out in terms of the loss and damage fund and other things, we're in better shape to take this issue to where it needs to go than we have ever been. And that's why this meeting is even more important than might have normally been because philanthropy doesn't have to sit there and worry, though sometimes it may in one form or another. But it doesn't have the same fiduciary restraint with respect to looking for the return on investment. Mostly philanthropy gives grants, and it knows it's making a bet. Here, I think the bet could not be more important, couldn't be bigger, couldn't be more compelling. And hopefully we're going to get some great ideas on the table today for how we're going to win this battle. So thank you all very, very much. Thanks. Thank you, Secretary Kerry. Well, let's get into it. Ray, first just very briefly, you sometimes make a habit of predicting cataclysmic world-ending events. You've talked about World War III and the U.S. Civil War. Where does climate change rank on that list for you? I just want to set the stakes here. Well, it's a huge issue. As was mentioned, if we take the cost of it, and I think the five trillion dollars is a good number to use, that represents 5% of world GDP. So at a minimum, if you get that amount of money, 5% of world GDP is very expensive. So that is if you succeed. And if you don't succeed, it was well established what the magnitude is. The costs are going to be tremendous. Okay. So as Secretary Kerry was saying, there's a cost of either preventing it, there's a cost of adapting to it. How do you build the infrastructure and all of that, and then there's a cost of its damage. And so when you think about mobilizing the capital necessary to address it at the scale we're talking about, which is not incremental, but really tremendous. When you talk about that exponential step up, where does that come from? How do you, as someone who's steeped in the world of finance, understand, putting together some of these partnerships? Which has to go first? Where is the first layer of risk coming from? And how do you get more money off the sidelines? I think that there's been a tragedy of practicality in looking at where the money comes from. What I mean by that is only about one sixth of the amount of money is being gotten. And so there's this notion we should, we should, we should. But there's the facts of let's look at who has the money, what is the size of it, and what are their motivations. I think you, Secretary Kerry, did a very good job of describing the motivations of those. And so if, when you look at philanthropy, philanthropy, total world philanthropy is about a trillion dollars a year. And let's be practical. What do they give it to? They want to give it to their hospital, their children's schools that they went to. They want to give it to their neighborhoods and so on. And that's just the reality that we have to accept. We are not going to just say they should get more. Or if you take a bank, there's an idea that banks have a lot of money, but they have to get money, returns to the people and they have to produce returns. And so there's a basic system here that I see the largest pool of money is institutional investor money. And I see that they want to invest in this. But they have constituents too. In other words, all of the sovereign wealth funds in the institution, pension funds, have to deliver returns to those particular people. And so the question really is, it's a simple question, that profitability is one of those considerations in entering it. And what I see simultaneously, and I saw at cop 28, I was there for 10 of the 12 days and my own passion is an ocean exploration and the ocean is a passion. And I saw so many bright ideas that I want to invest in, that I know, what's the great power? The great power is in entrepreneurship and inventing ideas or developing in the capital markets and providing a good return. So I think as Secretary Kerry said so articulately, that if we tap into that potential, and I think this is the time, if I look at, let's say, a good example would be Bill Gates Breakthrough Energy. And we look at the double bottom line, because money itself, even in philanthropy, has to be sustainable. Everything has to be sustainable, not just the environment. And so I think we're at a moment right now where there's excitement for being able to make good investments. So as we go down the line here and we talk about the different people, we think, okay, I think together that we can put together great investment funds that can demonstrate, for example, to sovereign wealth funds and large institutional investors and other, that they can get a return on that. And that unleashes that. When you provide the return, you also unleash the inventiveness of entrepreneurs. So that's what I view Gaia as about. That's great. I mean, this notion of a tragedy of practicality, though, I want to keep coming back to that because it strikes me that the biggest tragedy of all would be to let our practicality stop us from making the real radical investments we need to in the coming decades. Mafalda, I'd love to turn to you. You run the UNFCC's Green Climate Fund. You're mobilizing capital from nation states, deploying it to the people, to the projects that need it most. And yet, I don't need to tell you, it is sometimes hard for you to get those commitments to secure that funding. The United States just committed three billion dollars was potentially overdue in Dubai this past winter at COP 28. Why, though, are you finding it so challenge when we think about this notion of practicality? What is the holdup for those who really are controlling the purse strings to open them up for what so many now agree is this most existential of issues? So first of all, let me say that I'm really happy to be here and we're really happy to be part of Gaia, in particular, you know, the focus on partnerships and bringing public, private, philanthropic capital together and also the element of innovation. I also want to say that, you know, normally I could play a little bit the role of secretary Kerry, not as eloquent as him, but, you know, in bringing the science and how much we need to pay attention to the urgency. But I also want to bring a positive spin to the story. And because I think we need hope, we need people to believe that this is possible. We have been investing for many years, for, you know, for more than a decade, roughly two decades, in these type of investments in developing countries. And we have seen tough investment decisions being made by governments and by private sector. And you can look at it. If you track the history of renewable energy investments in developing countries, when the first, second, third of its kind of these investments happened, these were difficult investment decisions. How did we bring them about? Because public and private capital came together. And the type of risk capital that Green Climate Fund provides was a big component. MDB's money, Maktaris here, you can speak to that as well. But it was this combination of public and private capital. So we have come a long way in trying to bring public capital together. MDB's bilateral governments, because we have seen the power of bringing people together, we have brought public and private capital together, mostly in the project finance basis. Now we really, and we have demonstrated, we have piloted, we have created some markets, we have created track records, learning curves, we have helped private sector companies go through certain learning curves. But we have a problem of scale. That's the, we have a problem. If we could allow things to move organically, this was all fine. But we cannot just allow things to move organically at this pace because of the need to act with speed and scale. So this is why we need these sort of push and these type of initiatives. And I agree with Ray, the biggest pool of capital is in institutional capital. So what is it that it will take? And you know, we are here to bring the public, the risk capital, patient capital like ourselves, other type of capital, other type of public capital and the institutional capital. And I see, you know, I see good signs. I see, you know, we ourselves announced at COP, we being anchor investment in platform, in a platform to bring institutional capital for subnational borrowing or lending for subnational lending. We are part of a guarantee company to guarantee the issuance of green bonds. We need to see these. So I really am looking forward to seeing the big bets. We are talking about in Gaia, what are the big bets where we can rally support from a variety of critical stakeholders and drive systematically action at scale. Thank you, Mufada. Maktar, we talked, we just heard from Mufada talk about private capital crowding in. We've heard that phrase over and over. The World Bank is newly resolved under the leadership of President Ajay Banga to try to mobilize capital to address climate change. You run the International Finance Corporation, which is the part of the World Bank that specializes with working with the private sector. So you're right at that nexus. People talk about the World Bank sort of serving as this leverage point that could bring in hundreds of billions, if not even, you know, trillions potentially of dollars from the private sector. And yet we still see even today, even with that renewed ambition, borrowing costs are much higher in the developing world. It's harder and harder to build these renewable projects in the places that need the most. We have FX risk, geopolitical risk, raising the cost of capital. What's being done? And what are the biggest roadblocks to finding more of these opportunities for that money to come in and make the difference that you want it to make? Now, thank you very much, David. When Ajay came, he put in place a private sector lab. So part of the private sector lab is 20 CEOs, an institutional investor private fund, and they asked Mark Cardin and Shruti to coordinate to chair this group, and I am coordinating it practically to come with ideas. What are we learning from this exercise? First, people want guarantees. They want more guarantees in the private sector. The number one request was more guarantees, political risk guarantees and other type of guarantee. Currently, we put in place a working group as a World Bank where we put all our guarantee instruments and the objective will be to put them together and to be making much more accessible and easier to access by the private sector and increase the scale. Second, you mentioned effects. Actually, it was not as big as we thought at the beginning. The most important one was really guarantees, but effects is coming and we're looking at options to be able to address these issues. The third one was regulation. Still, a lot of confusion of the regulation, like the project predictability from investors, particularly when they're working on emerging countries. The fourth one is pipeline of project. We are working now on originate to distribute. Change it a bit the philosophies, Secretary Kerry in the conversation that we had at UNGA, it's a panel that you chair with Fatih. That question was raised, because the report that we prepare IFC with Fatih Biral, that once one who came with $2.8 billion a year, I was saying that there is still lack project, a bankable project that you can see. The last question is that when you talk to institutional investors, they tell you, below $1 billion, we are not interested. So you need to bring large project. So it means that we have a few challenges there. One, how do we work with a smaller country which don't have access to capital market, but also how do we work with a large country which has the largest emitters? So we have all these JETP effort that has been made. And the big question now is how to have more philanthropic money and grant money and blinded money to address these issues of this large country. The Indonesia of this world, the China of this world, those are the countries that really will make move the data. So for that, we have already five, four years ago with Rockefeller Foundation, Raj, we put together this coalition, but it was for access. So it was for access to all countries. Something similar was needed for middle-income countries. I think that's why Gaia is so important, because now we start talking about what we will remove really is the needle and I think bringing significant amount of it and bring and showing the investment that bring return will be important. Let me give you two to example of things that people are looking into. Green hydrogen. For instance, today we are investing and looking for in the middle of the food crisis to invest in green fertilizer, much greening the production of fertilizer with renewable green hydrogen, urea, ammonia and so forth. How we can do more carbon capture? How we can do a certain number of things? How we can lower the cost of adoption of the technology? Lastly, let's not forget the hard to obey sector, which has been currently a little bit forgotten in that conversation and we'll be focusing a lot on generation, but not on reducing the emission coming from the hard to obey sector. So this is what is coming of the current conversation. It's hard from the oven, but I think that we are moving in the right direction, but definitely the scale of blended finance going for middle-income countries, such as the country need to be increased significantly. Significantly in the years to come. Thank you. Desmond, let me turn to you. As CEO of Tomasic Trust, which is the philanthropic arm of Tomasic, of course, you recently made a $1 billion Singapore commitment to help get these catalytic investments moving forward in partnership with Gaia. That's great, but I wonder if you could take us inside the thought process. We have lots of institutional investors out there, many of whom are not taking steps like this. What gave you the conviction to actually move forward? And what do you say to those that are still on the sidelines? Well, first of all, thank you, David. It's not one billion dollars from Singapore. It's a billion dollars that we managed to raise in terms of pledges from partners from around the world who feel that in solving the global climate challenge, you can't not solve for Asia. And so what we're looking to do, of course, is to bring partners, like-minded partners from around the world, donors, knowledge experts, program partners, who are keen to come together to see how we can make the needle much more impactfully moved. So I would say that what we're hoping to do in Tomasic Trust is to facilitate, is to enable, it's to catalyze. We know that more than half the world's population is here in Asia. More than half the emissions are coming out of Asia. Temperatures are based on projection. They would rise twice faster in Asia than the global average. But on the bright side, we're seeing that nearly half the world's GDP is also coming out of Asia. And there is an increasing share of wealth that's coming out of Asia and growing philanthropic interest in Asia. And a stronger desire to want to do more, do faster, do things in a much more intentional way. And what we're hoping to do therefore is to bring all of this together around climate, around the intersections with health, with inclusive development and education. And we think that the way to do this is of course to build and enable capacity. And so one of the things which we're doing is to start up an Asia centre for change makers. It's for social entrepreneurs. It's for philanthropists, investors, family officers who want to come into such an institute to nurture talent and raise competency. So we're doing that this year. We think that there is a lot of scope for us to partner up with institutions, research houses, thought leaders from around the world who can help us make sense of where the issues are most pressing. Systems thinking, theories of change, around what is this that's most purposeful and impactful for us to drive forward together in fixing. We think that there is space for us to build a marketplace, the infrastructure for an impact marketplace where we can connect up projects with funders. And we think that particularly early stage projects which are not immediately bankable, investable, we think that some amount of seed capital going into helping them along, crossing that valley of debt if you like, would go a long way towards making some of these impact projects possible and feasible. And we think, fourthly, I would say, we want to try and build momentum. Across all of this that we're talking about, we think that there is scope for us to come together with partners to try and drive an amplifier program where successful entrepreneurs, mentors, people who have been there before, can lend a helping hand and help those who are trying to start up with their fresh ideas around the climate challenge, find success in the commercial space. So all these are exciting enablers that we think that the Philanthropy Asia Alliance with all of our partners can come together to try and make some movement in this space. That's great. Thank you, Desmond. Bader, you were the COP28 special representative for business and philanthropy. And as we've heard in the last hour or so, both philanthropies and potentially businesses are hesitant to deploy capital at scale, but for different reasons. Philanthropies, perhaps, some would argue, are too conservative, trapped in cycles of very judicious ways of deploying capital and looking for that near-term local impact, if you will, that Ray was describing. And businesses, of course, have shareholders to answer to for the most part. Can you take us inside the room, if you will, and help us understand when you were talking with businesses, when you were talking with philanthropies at COP28, how did you help get them over that line and start convincing them to deploy more capital against this issue? So, first of all, just want to thank and congratulate WEF and more specifically GAIA for continuously elevating the role that strategic philanthropy can play in partnership with business capital and government capital to really help to move the needle a lot further and a lot faster on a whole host of global issues, including, of course, the climate and nature agenda. So it's been just over a month since COP28, and as I was saying, to Ray, some of us are still experiencing withdrawal symptoms, waking up in night sweats, thinking about loss and damage funds and global decarbonization accelerators. But it really was a moment where, as Secretary Kerry said, 195 nations in the world or so came together to deliver the UAE consensus in response to the first global stock take. And there were a number, as again, as Secretary Kerry said, a number of unprecedented outcomes, one of which, of course, was the fact that the world came together to agree on the transition away from fossil fuels and adjust orderly and equitable manner underpinned by the science towards net zero by 2050. We agreed to triple renewable energy and double energy efficiency by 2030. We agreed to double adaptation financing. We managed to harness over $85 billion in new capital really from across the spectrum of stakeholders. Agreed to operationalize the loss and damage fund and a host of other outcomes across different climate, nature, health spectrum. But for me, what I think COP 28 represented, which really was the vision of Dr. Sultan Al-Jaber, was a paradigm shift in the way that we unite, act, and deliver. And I think it also demonstrated that even in a pretty dismal geopolitical environment, multilateralism isn't dead, but that it needs to work for everybody. So it really was the inclusivity piece that I think underpinned the success of the conference. So yes, we had about 90,000 people who turned up, and that may have been a record, but it's what those 90,000 people represented. Yes, we had heads of state and ministers that you would expect to see at a COP conference, but we also had record number of businesses, of business leaders, of philanthropists, of youth, of civil society representatives, of climate activists, of indigenous peoples. And I think it was the combination of all these stakeholders coming together, again, that inclusivity piece that helped bridge some of the trust divides that were growing across sectors, but also across regions of the world. So I think going forward in order to create and generate that multiplier effect to take us from the billions that we have to the trillions that we need, we really need to continue to embrace the inclusivity that COP28 put forward. And I'm confident in discussing and talking to the COP29 presidency and of course the COP30 presidency in Brazil that this is exactly what we're going to continue to do. So I'm very optimistic that by bringing these parties together, including philanthropic capital, we can help to see and scale impact and also availability of climate and nature finance. Thank you very much, Bader. We're short running out of time, but let me get through as much more as we can. Ray, briefly, my colleague Rob Copeland at the New York Times just wrote an illuminating book about you and Bridgewater called The Fund. In it, he makes clear just how focused Bridgewater is on delivering returns to investors. And you have over and over again said that all of this work that we're talking about needs to be profitable, that business is not going to suddenly turn into a charity just because the climate crisis is upon us. How do you think about this very central issue? And more specifically, is it not the case that the crisis is so severe that potentially businesses, investors need to be willing to sacrifice some short-term returns in the immediate to address what so many in this room agree is an existential issue? First of all, let me clarify that book is not an accurate book, but I will address your question. It was more of a fantasy than an accurate book. I think we have to be practical. So for example, when we go down and we think about how much does the World Bank have to give guarantees? And we think about multi-development bank, multinational development banks in total have $2 trillion. And if you take that amount of money and you say, why is it that you need the guarantees because there's this risk of loss? And how much loss can those actually guarantee without the consequences of that? That becomes a very limited amount of money relative to the challenge. And so as we go through each one of those cases, congratulations on the billion dollars, but it's not a drop in the bucket. And so if we're really dealing with the practicality, however we get there, moral suasion is getting us what we got, one sixth of the amount of money that's needed. And I know it. I see it. The institutional investors around the world, I know them. I've lived in that world. And I know myself. And so I know that there is entrepreneurship. And when I was on this in COP 28, I was overwhelmed by entrepreneurs who I want to invest in. There is a point right now that there is the amount of money that is going in. And so if I know that institutional money, it's only 0.3% of institutional money goes in and they want to invest. So now, just as a practical man, I think, OK, the power of putting together philanthropy, which on the one hand is willing to lose the money, to be able to produce a result. But what is the best impact of that? The best impact of that, I think, is to take the risk to finance one form of capital or another and to make the capital markets effective. Because we're right at that brink, I think, and it produces innovation. So I think, as we go back to that particular question, however we get there, we have to get there. And so all I'm talking about is the practical ways of getting there. Yeah. I appreciate that. Mofada, I'd love to turn to you for a final thought. We're regrettably out of time. As you continue this effort to mobilize more capital from countries around the globe, what is your singular message to them? How do you articulate the urgency of the case and how the capital stack lines up in a way that allows more people to crowd in? I go back to my question. We have demonstrated. So I don't think we are in disagreement here and with what Ray is saying. We have demonstrated that the type of capital that philanthropic would bring, which has been very minimum for climate, as we have heard, that type of capital has been public capital. Public capital by developed countries has been put to that effect in funds like the Green Climate Fund and other avenues. And it's basically taking risks or guaranteeing a certain level of returns. And we know that there are interested, as Ray said as well, institutional capital is interested in investing more as long as there can be some reassurances of some level of return. And I've even spoken to some and they have said that they are willing to not go into double digits for emerging markets or developing countries, but returns in the single digit as long as there are certain guarantee of that return. So we just basically need to mobilize, and I was saying in an event the other day, normally our experience has been that type of capital has been 10% of the total investment. So if we can mobilize more of the philanthropic with our own capital and unlock through vehicles, new funds, new structures, new financing structures, I think we can really bring this to a new scale. Thank you. Well, I have many more questions for all of our panelists, but we are truly out of time. The red light is flashing. My only hope, if I leave you with one thought, is just to build on something Ray said, let not a tragedy of practicality impede us from doing this critical work. Thank you all. Thank you.


decision of what things I should go into, just kind of come by themselves. And the reason is that you tend to start liking the things that you become good at. So for example, if we take a person that is thinking about going into cardiology, you may ask them, like, did you always want to go into this field? And they may say, yes, but really what actually happened to this person is they may have taken care of a patient with a cardiology problem such as heart failure or like an arrhythmia. And they didn't know what to do at first, but then they looked it up or somebody taught them and it made sense. But the next time they saw the patient with the same problem, they already knew the first two or three things to do. Maybe they forgot a thing here or two, but they felt confidence that cool, this is a problem I can take care of. Now the third, fourth, fifth, sixth time somebody with heart failure or arrhythmia comes around, that person is going to feel excited. One, because they think they're interested in the field, which they will be, but mainly it's because I'm good at this. We get excited for doing things that we're good at and scared for the things that were terrified or don't have too much experience. So if you're thinking about what should I go into, you will find those problems that you will admit at 2 a.m. and some of them you're going to be like, ah, cirrhosis again.


Now we've seen the equation for angular momentum and torque and was explicit about the point that you're going to get different equations depending on what your reference point is. Now, let's have a look at this problem here. Imagine this is a rod and from it there's another rod that is angled and this sits on some form of a mechanism so that this can turn around and around and around. So this arm is rigid, this arm is rigid, there's a point mass there and it just spins around at angles like this and so this just spins around. We want to know point A for this point A, what is its angular momentum as it goes around and what is the torque on the system? Now I have a choice as to what my point of reference is going to be. Let's choose very cleverly first In a clever way, let's choose this point right here as our point O. That is the point with which we're going to take angular momentum and torque with with respect to that point. Let's do that. If we do that, we've got to consider this as our world reference frame and this is our intermediate frame. So let's construct then back to square one where we start at this course. We've got to have a reference frame there, an intermediate frame. If this is our world frame and we make this the position vector. Now I forgot to say there's an angle between this right angle here and the rod, so it's pointed up at this angle theta. The length of this section here is L. That makes this L sine theta and this L cosine theta. It's not important for us right now. We're just going to construct the fact that we just have a position vector in this direction of our hat. That would be an our hat for us which means into the board if we think it spins into the board and out of the board that we have theta hat. That we have theta hat into the board there. So it points straight in and our hat is on this side. If we now with respect to this point write R vector A, our point A with respect to O. What would that be? What would that be at the moment? Well as we've drawn it here it'll be this length R which is L cosine of theta from that point to that point R hat. That's what we have. And that's what we have. Now remember that angular momentum if we're just going to take angular momentum of A with respect to O that is going to be R of A with respect to O times P of A with respect to O. Cross product of those two vectors. What is this? This is M times the second derivative of A with respect to O. But that's not true. That's first derivative. Linear momentum. First derivative of A with respect to O. M times V. That's all we have there. So we will need at least the first derivative there. And if we think of the torque of A with respect to O, the sum of the torques there is going to be R of A with respect to O cross whatever forces they are at A with respect to O. And what is force? Well that is going to be mass times the second derivative of the position vector. So we're going to need its first derivative and its second derivative. That was one way. We could also have said it is the first time derivative of angular momentum plus that funny term V cross P. But Sydney, this would be one way and we see we have R. We need its first derivative and its second derivative. If you're dealing with a problem like this little shortcut, let's get those out of the way right now. So let's get R A with respect to O dot. That's first time derivative. So what are we going to get? We're going to get R dot R hat plus we've done this a million times the d dt of R hat is going to be theta dot whatever the angular velocity is in that direction. So theta dot theta hat. And that's it. Now, if you think about it, if this is a rigid messless rod, this R, the length of this vector never changes. R is a constant which makes this term zero. So if we're dealing with problems in such as this, we can immediately take away you can immediately take away this term. This term is of no consequence to us. If R is not, if R is not constant, this R is not constant. You cannot take away that. Let's get R double dot of A with respect to O. Now, I don't need this term. This is a problem where we are going to say that R equals a constant, make a constant one. In other words, we only have to get the first derivative of that. That's simple. It's R dot theta dot theta hat plus we're going to add R theta double dot theta hat minus R theta dot squared R hat. Remember the DDT of theta dot? It's negative R theta dot R hat. Now, we've already got a theta dot there, so it becomes theta dot squared. And again, I see there is a term there which I'm not interested in because it is zero. If this is a constant, its first derivative of a constant is zero. So I've got those two. All I now need to do is to do this. I'm going to say the angular momentum of point A with respect to O is going to be R R hat cross P. This is M times V. This is M times this. So it's M R theta dot theta hat. Simple as that. And this leaves us with R A with respect to O being, well, I have an M, I have an R squared theta dot, and what is R hat cross theta hat? Well, that's K hat. That is as simple as that. What about the angular momentum? Well, I can do it in two ways now. I can just take the first derivative of this. M is a constant. R is a constant. Theta dot is not a constant. So let's do it that way. DDT. Let's do the DDT of H bar A with respect to O. Remember, that gives us, that is the torque, some of the torques around of point A with respect to point O. And that is actually remember plus V cross P, but V and P is parallel to each other, the velocity, the linear velocity and the linear momentum, obviously, so that term would fall away. So all I have is this. Now, taking the first derivative of this, remembering M is a constant. I can bring that out of the derivative. R squared is a constant. K hat is a constant. So it's just the DDT of theta dot. And what is that? That leaves me with M R squared theta double dot K hat. As simple as that. So now I have the angular momentum and the torque for this with respect to this point here. Let's make my life very, very easy. You'll also see if you take R cross F. So if I were to take this whole term here, this bit here, and I crossed it with, multiplied with M. So it's this cross M multiplied by this. I was going to end up with exactly the same term. No issues there. So multiple ways to do this. If you do these two a little trick, if you know you're going to use both of them, do them before, throw away these terms and makes this whole problem a lot easier. And the next lecture I want to show you, if we move our world frame to down here, we take the angular momentum of A with respect to O down here and the torque, that becomes a lot more complicated and tells us, actually tells us a bit more about the system.