t or signatures correct. We would have cost the town I heard anywhere from $10 to $50,000. We were asked to be responsible, we stepped back, we did that. Unfortunately, yes, there were some errors with signatures. So I do believe, you know, it's in everybody's interest to put this in a ballot, not to agree to anything, but just put it on the ballot and like Ms done said just get a pulse of where the community residents are. If not, I totally challenge Raj and the other woman who spoke while I appreciate your concerns. I'm the parent of three children. And I can tell you, I'd be far more concerned personally about the sale of alcohol than the sale of marijuana, especially when done in a heavy regulated fashion. But unfortunately, it's not going to be November. I think Pat Murray is correct. If unfortunately, it's not on the ballot. Yes, I believe in in this community, I believe in creating jobs and there's a chance that we will secure those in the very near future. That is not our preferred course. We think it's great community. We love to work with you guys we got you know somebody from our company also lives in Essex, you know just about to speak and again we want to be responsible, bring cannabis and responsible fashion to the community in a way that respects concerns, add jobs and create taxes. Thank you very much for your time folks. Thanks Brian. Meredith man. Hi, thank you for having me. I wanted to touch on a few points one is, I want to be clear that this opt in boat is for retail only. It is not for cultivation so it has nothing to do with odors and you know, stigmas such as that so to be really careful about knowing what you're voting for and that's kind of what I really want to touch on is that magic man is really all about education. We welcome everybody walking in our door, no matter where you stand on this issue and talking to us and having a dialogue. We, I just really want to stress that we want to help with the education, we want to make sure that no voters in Essex are left without the information they need. And that will continue on as long as magic man is standing in Essex. So it's something we really believe in, and can speak to we've done a lot of work with the control board, and with the cannabis community and we want to share that with the Essex community, and we feel like we can be a very positive asset. And I second what Brian said we're, no one's more sorry than me with all the hard work that the petition numbers fell short, we could have gone out all weekend and collected them, I frankly didn't want to expose our community or my employees this weekend and felt like I had faith in Essex to do the right thing, and really just let the people vote on it. And I really hope that you will come to me for education and information throughout this process, and that I can help you confidently put this on the ballot for March 1. I really wholeheartedly hope all of you can support us and vote yes so we can create jobs and get going. So, thank you. Thanks Meredith. Karen Moino. Thank you very much. I agree wholeheartedly with Mariah and Raj. I, to have lived in Essex for a long time about 20 years. I am a parent I have four daughters to who are graduates of Essex high school to our current students at the high school. I believe that our youth will be negatively impacted by the sale of cannabis in our community. I do agree that education is is needed. And I encourage the public to look at the health impacts of youth in Colorado, where it's been legalized since 2012, cannabis has been legalized since 2012. There's a lot of information out there, and they can check out blue rising together, and they have worked with creating some new laws in Colorado to address the problems that they've had that have negatively impacted them. The other thing I'd like to say is is that I've heard that putting on the ballot is getting a pulse. I don't think it's like taking a survey I'm assuming it's a binding vote. So, if it's voted on then it's in and the licenses can be granted so it's not really taking a pulse. It's a binding vote. That's all I have to say. Thank you very much. Thanks Karen. Okay, now I see someone that says Kevin or his iPhone, could you please identify yourself. Hi, I'm Kevin or well and I'm a resident, I am involved with magic man as well as some other businesses is my everyday life. Really I'm speaking as a resident of Essex. So, this is legislation this opt-in opt-out language has been coming from the state for a long time. So Essex is really just the conduit of that state level legislation. And so it's my view as an Essex resident that I want to have that opportunity in line with the rest of the towns, because there was sort of a town meeting in 1922 deadline, which did change throughout the process to do this opt-in opt-out vote. So as an Essex resident, I want the opportunity to be able to sort of participate in that democratic process. And while certainly it's not getting a quote unquote pulse, there is the opportunity for the town to react accordingly from a zoning perspective. And then sort of lastly, let us not kid ourselves, Chittenden County is very small. Whether Essex opt-in or opt-out, which should be up to the town's people to vote on when every other town is voting on it. They're going to be able to go to a news your Williston or South Burlington, right. So, let's not pretend that preventing retail sales and Essex will somehow isolate Essex from being a part of the cannabis industry overall. It is likely that opt-in opt-out will come up as something to consider. They did it in Colchester with Costco, you know, affectionately referred to as the Costco tax. So I certainly urge the board to have voters voice their cells as a conduit to the state legislation, because that's what the state is dictated. Let the town speak. They're the conduit of the state legislative process. And I think it's important that we have retail having a regulated market will increase the health and safety outcomes as it relates to an unregulated black market. So it's certainly my hope that the board will include this as a ballot measure. Thank you. Hey, thanks Connor. See, I don't see any other hands for as you already spoke. I just wanted to add one additional thing. It's quick. Yeah, I would just remind the board or point out that it appears that there's not clarity amongst the four of you that are here tonight. As to what the impact of this is, what opting in actually does, what this vote will mean for the community and how it will affect the zoning process. We've been through a lot of petitions in our past bunch of years here. We've been through a lot of recent votes where there was a lot of hesitation on moving forward with something without all the facts. And it's, it's very clear, if nothing else tonight, that this board doesn't have those facts and should probably wait. I'm going to say, I'm not necessarily against having this. I'm not repeating yourself. I'm not against that before. I'm just want to make sure you all know what you're voting on when you approve this for the ballot. Thanks. Thanks for that. Gregor their new hands in the room. Yes, yes, why in the room. All right. Hi Irene renner. Full disclosure I signed the petition over the weekend at magic man. Because I think people should be able to weigh in. The petition I signed mentioned a November voting date that has long passed. I would like the select board to consider warning this for April. That would give magic man the assurance they need that they will hear from people, but would buy us an extra six weeks. As a community to learn about this issue and learn exactly what is required of us. What this vote would mean, etc. The former police chief as well as the current police chief. To my understanding is not for this. We need to know why. Please give us some more time. Just think about this as a community to have conversations to perhaps even have them in person. Pandemic makes all this harder. Thank you. Thanks Irene. Hi, Andy. Thank you for taking my. Comments. I, I agree with Patrick and the others that. It is move point because it is going to pass and either. And I understand what Irene is saying about needing more time. But we've been asking for this for quite some time now. And there has been plenty of time I prefer a regulated market as soon as possible. I understand that there's arguments that that will drive further drive a black market. I don't think so given that there's so much research now. Across the country in terms of models to follow and models not to follow. There's a lot of time to work things out. This is just to decide whether the community wants to do this or not. And I certainly I hear Raj's concerns. I understand there's a lot of health issues, but the reality is the majority of people are users. And so me. I think it's going to be a lot of work. But sooner we start educating the public. On how it impacts your, your health negatively. I think the better off we are. I also support that this will support a local business. As well as jobs and. Drive business toward to more business to Essex, which I think is phenomenal thing. So for those that speak about a lot, I think it's a great opportunity to be able to talk about this. And I think it's a great opportunity for a way to support. That call for people who are looking for an LLT. But anyway, I would appreciate given that this has been months in requests. That is finally being brought up. I would appreciate y'all voting. Yes. Thank you for your time. Thanks. Okay. I don't see any of their hands. Is there anyone else who would like to speak? Okay. Okay. I'll bring this back to the board. Any. Comments from the board based on the inputs that we heard. That's right. I. Apologies. I. I take somewhat exception to the idea that the four of us. Don't know what we're talking about or that the four of us aren't on the same page. I think that there are a number of rules that are in place at the state. You know, has to. Work through. But I. Also believe that to not put this on the ballot would be to ignore. Much of the reality, which is that. Right now. We know there are multiple towns very close to us that have already passed this. I feel it's the duty of the select board to kind of honor the request that we made. Of the original petitioners. And to be honest. Legalization of marijuana. Colorado 2012, you know, it's 10 years ago now. I feel that if people have not. Come do an opinion or done a research on it. I'm not sure that it's going to be approved by this point. I'm not really sure that an additional four months at the April is going to prove to be that much of a difference. I think that the material is out there. I think that the research is out there for people to avail themselves of. And then we allow simply the residents of our town to decide if they want it or not. You know, we're putting this on the ballot and. Or rather, I would propose that we put this on the ballot and put it on the ballot and put it on the ballot. I'm not swayed by the idea or the decision that I don't know. What I'm doing. Thanks, Pat. Do you hear down any other comments? Yeah, I actually went and looked at the legislation because. Back in the fall, we had conversations around zoning and advertising and things of that sort. The legislation does seem to include. You know, some of the things that are included on where advertisement can take place. For example, you can advertise in a place where. Any more than 15% of people seeing that advertisement can reasonably be under 21 years old. So that type of detail is included in the legislation. It's. Yeah. All right. Thanks, Tracy. Don more comment. Can I make a motion that we put it on the ballot? I want to make a comment first. So my comment is related to the wording that was used in the petition around. You know, how to, how to word the warning. It talks about. City ordinances and it. Let's see the way I'm just going to read what I wrote here. The way the petition is worded sounds like it would be warning both the town, the village and the town. I would strongly prefer to modify the language reflect that we're warning for a town vote on the town opting in. We have no jurisdiction to warn over the village. Yes, I understand the vote would apply to the entire town, including the village, but I don't feel that the wording of the question should imply anything other than a vote for the town. I'm just. This is, this is what I had sent to, to Craig in my comments earlier. I'm just kind of reading it off. The wording of the patient also mentioned the city ordinance. I think this portion of the question needs to be made more generic for the town or should be just removed. I'm bringing this up because I'm, I'm, if we. The, the, the motion tonight on, I don't necessarily want to include the exact words. Of the warning so that. And do we, you know, can we, can we ask town staff to come back with appropriate wording that we can. I mean, we, we're going to be warning the, the budget. We're going to do the whole warning for town meeting next week. Right. So I'm just, I'm questioning whether we. Can go ahead and make a vote tonight with the, with the expectation that we'll vote on the final wording next week. Is that. Make sense to anybody. I just wanted to make the motion. We put the question on the ballot. We can word it however we want next week or however. So does that work for you? So work for you, Greg. Yeah. I would say something like direct staff to. Come up with the proper wording to put the question of opt in. Opt out retail cannabis on the ballot. We can, we can bring that back to you. So the, the, the, I think, I think what. Yeah, the question is if. Yeah. Can we vote to warn tonight, but approve the language next week, next week. Or, or is there. I think I've seen your nod. Greg. I would say something like direct staff to. Provide the wording to put this question on the ballot. Okay. If that's what you're going to do. Yeah. So I guess the, the risk there is that we then have this whole discussion again next week. That's where I'm. Or am I overthinking things here? Why would you have the discussion again? It's already. You know, I'm not so sure that's what Greg said. You'll, you'll, so you'll see the town meeting warning next week, which will be, you'll approve the warning for the, for town meeting, which would theoretically include. The wording for the question about retail cannabis. Okay. And give tonight. Okay. So. You're, you're, you're not going to have a discussion on opt in or opt out again. You don't have a discussion on the wording, nothing else. I'm not so sure that's what Greg said. You'll, you'll, so you'll see the town meeting warning next week, but I'm not so sure that's what Greg said. So you want. You're kind of approving it twice. Yeah. I don't think you need to have a whole second conversation next week. I think you've had that tonight. All right. So, so if we, if we, I'm just trying to walk through the, the wording of the motion, if we, if we were the motion to say. I guess I would recommend that we were the word, the motion then you're, you're suggesting that we. As town staff to come back with appropriate wording for the warning. But do we, do we. Make a motion to approve warning opt in opt out. And ask staff to come back with the appropriate wording to put on the ballot. I think something like that. So, so for instance, you've approved the budget. The select words budget. Right. Just there. That's going to be on the ballot. You know, that's going to be on the ballot. I, this is my mind kind of similar here. Okay. You're going to make a motion to put retail cannabis on the ballot subject to proper language. Provided by, as provided by staff. Okay. But having you having just said that we approved, we've already approved the budget and then we're, but, and then you're going to come back with language. Do we need to improve include that. I'm not going to resend our, our vote to warn based on the language that you bring us. I don't know. I'm going, I'm maybe I'm going too far. Yeah. I think it sounds like you're voting tonight to put. Retail cannabis on the ballot. And that you will see the ballot. For final approval next week. The warning, not the ballot. Okay. Don, do you want, you get what you need to. I think I do. Let me try it. Okay. I make the motion that we. Approve putting the opt in opt out. Question. Of cannabis on the town meeting ballot. To be. And to have this. To have the staff director wording of said, of said. What I want to say. Vote. That makes sense. You missed the word retail. Retail. Thank you. I knew there was something missing. So Greg. Okay. Do I have a second? I will second. Thank you, Pat. Okay. Any discussion? Are we okay with the way the motion was worded? All right, we'll go with it. We all know what it means, right? Yeah, I think we, we all clearly know the intent. We're just looking for the proper language. And happy to have staff bring that to us next week. All right. All right. Any further discussion? Okay. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed. Okay. Motion passes for zero. Thank you everyone. Okay. Where are we now? Okay. Moving on to six H discussion on potential action on tentative agreements about shared services between the town of Essex independent city of Essex junction. We. Haven't yet had a discussion about those proposed agreements. We were originally going to have a discussion about the, the memo that came out about the agreements, but now there are proposed actual proposed agreements. The question I have is, does the select board want to have its first discussion about these and then in executive session, or do you want to talk about them publicly? I prefer to do my executive session. Mr. Chairman. Thanks, Don. Anybody else have an opinion there? I'm thinking executive session is the right place to have the first discussion as well. Is he tracing out in your head? So I least I have consensus. Can't tell what, but there he goes. Yeah, sorry. All right. All right. We'll, we'll circle back to that providing we get there before 11. Yes. Looks like we're going to might make it. Okay. Next. Okay. Okay. So the next item is a six I discussion of possible action about town meeting process and ballots. Greg, do you have something there to tell us? I do. Yeah. So the motion, the select board made, I think it was a couple of weeks ago to put all questions on the ballot. The intent is there. Just to, to do some housekeeping. There is some legislation that was signed by the governor late last year to be conducted by Australian ballot, except for the question about putting all future business on Australian. But so Susan McNamara Hill provided some language based on perks in the area that the select board should vote to move all articles to Australian ballot. If you do not want to hold an in person town meeting. So that would be the recommendation for tonight to make that motion just to capture what you had thought out to do a couple of weeks ago. Right. So we, we voted to mail ballots, but in order to make sure in order to have all questions on that ballot, we have to have this motion past this motion as well. So the question here, and I think our intent that we've discussed is to, is to have not to have an in person. Town meeting. This year's anybody. Disagree with that. I think we did we agree with no in person town meeting. Right, but we're still going to do some kind of budget presentation by zoom, but we do, we do need to do an informational meeting. Right. Yeah, we have, we have to have an informational meeting. And so in order to. The, the, at this point, everything that we're going to put on the ballot has to be on the ballot anyway. We don't have any, like if we had, if we had chosen to put local option tax on, we would have had to do that as a floor vote. Had we not. If we didn't have this authorization to move it to, to, to the ballot. We don't have that question. We don't really have anything, but in order to do things correctly by process, we need this, this motion. So anybody want to make the motion. We got the motion up in front of. Read the language to you again, just so you hear. The motion would go ahead. Select board. Vote to move all articles to Australian ballot. So moved. Second. All right. Thanks, Don. Thank you, Tracy. Any further discussion? Oh, I didn't go to, I didn't go to public comment on this. I see Betsy Dunn's hand up though. Should we go to public comment? My apologies for not doing that Betsy. Go ahead. Yes. Thank you again, Andy. So I think just off the top of my head though, I think that this statement that the governor has made applies to places that do not do an Australian ballot already. We are doing an Australian ballot. And only for our budget to Australian. We went, we went and looked back at the motion and the vote we made. And it was, it only applies to the budget. Yeah. Okay. That needs a change, I guess. Okay. Thank you. Yep. Yep. All right. Any other public comment? Anything in the room, Craig. No. Okay. All right. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed. Okay. Motion passes for zero. Let's see next item. Six K consider appointment to conservation and trails committee. I think we want to do that in executive session. So. We'll move on to the next thing. And I got to remember a six L Greg, you had an item you wanted to add, right? I did, but we actually skipped an item. Yeah. Oh, I did. J. Oh my goodness. I skipped J. Six J right. Discussing a science, like word out street efforts for town meeting. So in the past we've gone to basketball games and other and hockey games and other events and passed out. Packets of material and encourage folks to come to. Town meeting. Last year because of COVID restrictions, we did not do that. And then we're not going to. I don't think we want to do that again. I think we're going to skip that again this year. Anybody. Check to that. I think it would be hard pressed to get into the schools. To do information. Yeah. So, uh, I guess the antennae or Greg is to consider doing informal. Not on quorum gatherings. Yeah, from our, from our perspective or staff perspective, what you did last year, I think there were maybe 2 or 3. Kind of online informal meetings, not without a quorum. Um, that, that a few of the select board members attended to answer questions, ask. Put information out there. We will, of course, have the informational meeting that Don referenced the night. It'll be on February 28th. So it's typically the town meeting night. So that'll be the townwide event with a quorum. Um, we can put together some Q and a sheets that we've done in the past and have those up on our website. And have them available if the select board chooses to do any of those informal online meetings. So I guess the big question for staff is if you want to do the informal electronic meetings again, and we can work on setting some of those up for you. Or any other ideas that you might have to get the word out about town meeting. All right. Thanks, Greg. And since we're mailing ballots, people will have, I mean, the, the. Many people won't wait until February 28th to come to the informational meeting to get their information. So this is an opportunity to. To answer questions for earlier voters as well. So anybody have any comments, anybody. Supportive not supportive. Planning on putting information sheets with the ballot. I'm sorry, I missed that Don. What about putting the information sheets that you would normally hand out and with the ballots. I'd have to check with Susan the clerk. I believe you're not supposed to bring informational. The voting booth or, and I don't want to. No, not to bring in the book when you mail the ballot, Greg. Yeah, but it would be. Would it be, my question would be, would it be considered similar to providing information at a voting booth and. Don't, don't want to run into any trouble about potentially playing people which way they vote by putting that in with the ballot. But I'll be happy to ask Susan about that and see. If that's valid or not. Okay. Any other comments, questions. Anybody willing to do a informal session. Up to your schedule, you can, you know, I would imagine we would work with Tammy to get something set up and she would help us advertise it and. Would we plan on having staff support? It would be just select board members answering questions. Greg, is that the. Last year. Basically just select board members answering questions. It's kind of the model that was the, it was the select board. Going to events back when, when that was happening before COVID. So staff would certainly help. Schedule the event and set it up and provide the link, but leave it to the select board members to do the actual. Posting. As somebody did two of them last time. I had one person come to the first one and two people come to the second one. So. I'm not sure how effective that is to tell the truth. That's good feedback. I'm happy to make myself available for as many as possible. Yeah, I'm happy to do it again, but I'm just saying that's what happened last year. I think it's just better to, better to offer it than that. Yeah, I can. Maybe we should do just one or two of them and have two of us show up. For those making more limited if I seem to recall the same thing that Don experienced. I had like three people in the meeting that. Elaine and I presented. So it was. I mean, I, I expect it's going to be sparse attendance regardless, but if we can. Get to meetings and then I feel like we've done our due diligence for people to come if they need to ask questions. All right. So Greg sounds like the board is in general supportive of it. Nobody's willing to participate. So if we can. Get some guidance with regard to, I guess, how we, how we, how we arrange the scheduling and I guess we need to put, you need to put together the materials and all that as well. And I assume we're, we're talking. Second half of February kind of timeframe. There is a school vacation week in there too. Try to get some before that. What do we know on ballots or get mailed. I do not know off the top of my head. I don't know. I don't know. Okay. The clerk's office. Yep. Okay. So that would be helpful. I guess to understand. Two weeks before the vote. I think it's. 14 days before the vote. I believe. Okay. All right. So Greg, do you need anything more from us? Okay. Jordan here from channel 17 is. He said it's the ninth is what he thinks. We've told him. To mail the ballots. Okay. Okay. So someone, I think once the ballots are out, then maybe we can have the start having them. I don't, I. I didn't or wasn't able to participate in them last year. Did we have a presentation we went through or is it. Generally just a question and answer thing. Just questions and answers. Okay. Okay. I thought that we had done like a. We had done like a brief budget. Presentation, like only like 10 minutes fairly quickly. Just to set a table. But, you know, I realized that we may all have gone into it with slightly different. So, so Greg, you and I are talking to. Town meeting TV. The last. The end of the end of the month there, right? So we need to have a presentation together for that anyway. You should have something. Yeah. Right. Or do we, I don't know. Note that to touch base with you on a budget presentation. Yeah. So I guess you and I need to work on that or something. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. Okay. So there will be. Hopefully some materials available to be used in February. If, if folks want to use them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'll need to learn the ukulele. Okay. All right. Yeah, we need Greg. Yes, I do. Thank you. All right. All right. And then the, I had already jumped to K, which is we're going to go into executive session of stocks, talk about appointments. And then L. Greg was another. Executive session to talk about contracts. Yes. Right. Okay. And then. I wanted to pull out the December 20th. Minutes. It's a very simple fix, but on line one 76. I wanted to remove the word daily. The question being answered there was how many emails did you get on a certain topic? And it said five or six daily, but it was five or six total. So just take out the daily. It makes a big difference. So it was mainly changed there and then. Tracy, you wanted to pull out January 3rd minutes. Yeah, I'm trying to get to the line item. Sorry, there's just been a whole lot of, I know I have it in email. But anyway, in January 3rd, I'll find it. Okay. So. At the topic of the local option tax. I thought it was lying to 74. Anyhow, Andrew Brown had mentioned that we could sort of set guidelines for local option tax on utility. And we later found out that that was not true, that that is not possible. And so we, we'll just wait for the next two minutes because that is something that was said. But I just wanted to, to point out. For these minutes, but that's actually not something that we can do. Thought it was lying to 74. That's what I had in my notes, but I'm not seeing. Oh yeah, to 74 to 276. I apologize. So there's no changes. I just wanted the opportunity to make that comment. Any other changes to the minutes from anybody. And someone make a motion to approve both of them. As a minute or December 20th has amended and January 3rd has written. I'll make the motion to approve. December 20th, 2021 minutes as amended. And the January 3rd. Minutes as written. Second. Thanks, Pat. Any further discussion? Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Okay. Minutes are approved. I think that closes all of the business items for now. Consent agenda. I move to approve the consent agenda. Second. Thank you, Tracy. Thank you. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed. Okay. Motion passes for zero. On to the reading file. Any board member comments? I have one. Touches a little bit on. The, um, winter operations memo, but wanted to thank all of our staff over the last couple of days, the snowstorm and the wind chill. And I saw that they had moved to yellow status with all of the. COVID sickness that's going around. So just wanted to. Make sure that our staff knows how much we appreciate them being out on the roads at all hours, clearing with the plows. And I think it's, it's kind of a big job to do. And not as many people as usual to do it. So thank you. All of our public works, people. John, you're talking to the cat.  The only thing I hate about zoom. Okay. Anything else? So let's see then. We have multiple executive sessions. I guess the first one. Well, there's, there's two pieces to appointing to, there's two. Discussions about appointments. But I guess we can talk about both of those with one set of motions, right? So does anybody have. Emotions in front of them. For appointments. I do. I motion the select board to enter into executive session to discuss the proposed public official appointments. And according with one VSA section three 13. A three. And to include the. I guess just deputy manager. Thanks, Pat. Thank you, Don. So this is just a single motion. There's no. One out of it. Just want to make sure. There's no. Finding. For this one there. There's nothing else written. Just that. All right. Any, any other discussion. Okay. I was in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed. Okay. We're going to take your session for that. Then we have, what else do we have? One about contracts. I have that one up if you want me to. Yep. Go ahead. I move that the select board make a specific finding that general public knowledge of contracts would place the town at a substantial disadvantage. Thanks, Tracy. Do have a second. Second. Thanks, Pat. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed. Okay. Motion passes. Get the other motion. Yep. I moved that the select board enter into executive session to discuss contracts pursuant to one BSA. Section three 13. A one. A to include the deputy manager. Thank you, Tracy. Second. Thank you, Don. Any further discussion. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed. Okay. Motion passes for zero. So is that all of them? Because we're, we've got two different kinds of contracts. And we also set Greg, do we get them all? Are we doing two committee appointments now? Potentially. The motion to, to discuss the appointment to public officials will cover both of those items in the contract. We'll cover both of the contract items. Okay. All right. So then I guess the question is, are we likely going to need to do that? We may, right? Yeah. Okay. All right. So we may come back. Depending on the outcome. All right. Right. Right. Right. Exactly. So, all right. Thank you to all those who attended. If you want to stick around, we will, we may come back to make motions. To either do appointments or do address some contract question. So you're feel free to, I guess, hang out in this meeting. We are going to leave and go to a separate meeting for executive session and. Come back before we adjourn. I'm going to go up to my office. So I'll give me two or three minutes. And I will see you on different locations. Yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to take a short break myself. So yep. See you in a few minutes. Thanks, everyone. For the time being. I'll see you. We'll see you on different locations. Yeah. I'm going to, I'm going to take a short break myself. So yep. See you in a few minutes.


I'm Beverly Kirk with the Global Health Policy Center here with Dr. Steve Morrison. He is the Senior Vice President and Director of the Global Health Policy Center here at CSIS and we're talking about Ebola. The CDC says the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is now the worst in history. And talk about this, explain the broader significance of this outbreak and put it in some context if this is the worst ever. How does, you know, what about previous ones? This is the 11th or 12th outbreak dating back to the mid-70s, which was the first outbreak in then-Zaire. This is far and away the worst we've ever seen. It's over 1,200 people that have been affected by this, become ill, over 670 fatalities. It's also very unprecedented in that it began in Guinea. It jumped into two neighboring states in the last few days by virtue of an air flight. It jumped into Nigeria. So the scale and scope of it is two to three times the levels of anything we've seen. The fact that it's multi-country, that it's region-wide, and that it's spreading, and that we have been unable since this was first confirmed in March to really bring it under control. Are there special factors that are driving the way that it's spreading this time? Yes, there are. West Africa is a, these countries that are affected are a pocket of countries that have exceptionally weak health infrastructure. They're exceptionally poor, and they've had exceptionally poor governance and leadership. So that is very fundamental to the spread. The fact that this could ignite and spread so rapidly. Second is the proximity of the jungle to the urban populated, densely populated areas. And we don't know exactly what the reservoir is for Ebola, but it is emerging out of a jungle environment and it's jumping. Those are two of the principal factors that are driving this. It's showing us globally that while there have been significant gains in many countries in the world in building the capacities to surveil, to prevent, to detect outbreaks, to respond effectively to outbreaks, we have these important pockets like West Africa where those capacities do not exist and it creates a large vulnerability to this kind of wildfire. So how do you get it under control, since in some cases you have doctors who are also contracting this virus and people are panicking and NGO personnel are either being kept at bay or actually being attacked? It's going to take time and it's going to be difficult to get this under control, but we know what has to happen. We know that there needs to be a public communications program across this region to rebuild trust and to inform people and to get people to agree to cooperating in those that are ill or those that are dying, separating them. They have to be separated and isolated. There has to be a containment strategy and there has to be contact tracing. In other words, you have to isolate and contain and then you have to detect exactly who else was exposed and then work on that. And then you have to share data across the region. Those steps have to happen. The capacity is not there and things have gotten very, very difficult for the reasons that we've discussed. So this is not going to be fixed quickly. Right now it's pretty much out of control. The WHO has come in a few weeks ago and is establishing a regional center, a hub. CDC is bringing in additional teams in capacity. The governments within the region are on high alert and they are beginning to recognize that this is a threat to their basic stability and functionality. So we will see this arrested eventually, but it's going to be tough. So people in the United States, people in Europe, how worried should they be about this virus spreading out of Africa and into other parts of the world? Well, CDC, the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control in Atlanta, issued an alert today with respect to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. And what that says to Americans is that physicians have to be, people they need to be very vigilant. They need to be checking on those traveling from West Africa. They need to be familiar with the symptoms and they need to be ready and familiar with the isolation and containment procedures for if a person comes in who is sick. So that is an admission that it's possible that we could see someone who is ill get on a plane and come to a U.S. entry point. There's a 21-day gestation period for this. So if you could be ill, you could be asymptomatic, but come in and become symptomatic and become very contagious at that point. There is also another message that comes forward, which is that Americans don't need to panic about this because as long as the infection control procedures are in place at ports of entry and in hospitals and the like, they should be able to contain this. There were cholera outbreaks in Haiti after the earthquake and there were cases of cholera that came in by air into the United States and those were managed reasonably well and there's reason to believe that this could be done. But Ebola is a particularly terrifying disease. There's no vaccine. There is no cure. There is no vaccine and it's highly fatal, highly lethal. And so people are going to get afraid of this. And so what I think the challenge now is to make people vigilant and informed but not panicky about this. I think the threat to the United States is minimal, actually. But the threat to other countries in West Africa, like Nigeria, which now has had to shut down and decontaminate a hospital where a person from Nairobi, I mean from Monrovia came in who was sick and then died. That was a wake-up call around the reality that this is a threat to a country like Nigeria with 170 million people. And there are many other prosperous neighboring countries where there's a lot of migration back and forth. All right. Dr. Steve Morrison, thank you. Thank you.


Welcome back to my channel. If you guys are new here, make sure to subscribe today's video I'm going to be doing a New York Fashion Week haul I haven't done a haul on my channel in the longest time. I don't even know when the last time I've done a haul was But I'm so excited to show you guys what I picked up for New York Fashion Week if you guys don't know I'm going to New York Fashion Week in February of 2019 so it's right around the corner and we went shopping to get some holiday sales And I just want to show you guys what I picked up if I can I will link everything down below So if you want to shop this video you can certainly do that Oh, if you guys want to see all of these outfits on I will be inserting some pictures if I have worn the outfits If not follow me on Instagram I'll be taking plenty of pictures in the outfits and I would love it if you guys follow me on there I think that's it for this intro. So let's go ahead and get on into this haul So the first thing I got was from Forever 21 and it is this cute body dress I call it a body dress because it's very tight fitted as you guys can see it goes pretty low and it's long sleeves And it has a high neck and I just feel really confident when I wear this and I know that sounds weird But I guess I'll just get the shoes out of the way, but I got these cute high boots from DSW I think they were on sale actually and I've always wanted a pair like this If you guys don't know which you guys should check out Alexa page. She's growing like crazy. Her content is amazing She reminds me of myself So if you haven't already make sure to check her out because I've been slacking on her videos I've been really really busy So make sure to go over there and say that Alex sent you But she really inspired me because she had these high boots kind of like these and I was like I really want one of those with this kind of dress because I watched her outfit video And I was just like yes girl. So I got some for myself The next store we went to was H&M The first thing I picked up was this pair of leggings and they are really long leggings So they come down to your ankle I have leggings that come to like your calf from a Victoria's Secret pink But I really wanted some that just like went all the way down Everyone has these and I feel like they're a closet necessity I didn't have any until now and they are so comfy. I love these things So much and they were only like $12 at H&M The next thing I picked up from H&M was this turtleneck. It is a black basic turtleneck It's very loosey. It's the type of material. I really like the neck does not choke you. So that's amazing The next piece I picked up was this really cute cheetah print dress and it does look like it goes a little low But there is a button so it does close up So it kind of goes like that not so high But I also got the turtleneck to wear under this so I don't have to worry about that It'll just be the black turtleneck with this. So here is the little black slip This is just really comfortable and I really like it and apparently cheetah print is all the rage Does anyone remember the cheetah girls? I love that movie The next thing I picked up from H&M is probably one of my favorite pieces It is this giant chunky sweater and the neck is so big It kind of like goes like this and then the arms are pretty long It's a pretty long sweater But I was thinking I could wear my leggings or could wear tights or jeans under this and it would just look really nice For Christmas probably end up wearing jeans I had this look I was going for at my early Christmas and it actually played out pretty well But I don't think I would ever wear that again Because this is kind of short and the last thing I got from H&M is this cute jacket It is tan and it's kind of like a suede material and it has fur on the inside. It is so soft I can't even I love the detail Buckle here and when it's really really cold out when I go to New York or Missouri I could just button this up. I don't know how that would look But I should try it one time But I really like the collar and how it just contrasts really well even in the arms. There's fur So obviously it's fake fur, but I really like this It is a nice heavy coat that will be suitable for all types of cold weather Maybe not all types the last door where I did the most damage was urban outfitters I love urban outfitters clothes and they were having I believe a 30% off sale So that's awesome. The first thing I picked up was pretty much an outfit So I got these really cute olive green pants. They're really loosey and they are high-waisted They had this little tie in the front here I don't even know if she watches my channel, but my high school friend Katie Minoso She used to wear pants like this. I felt like all the time in high school So when I put these on I was like, oh my gosh, I feel like Katie I really like these and I think they go really really well with this sweater I think that Sherry and I saw it on a mannequin and we're just like that is a really cute outfit Look at how good this goes together. If you've been keeping up with some of my vlogs I've worn some of these outfits and I've shown you guys, but this is a very loosey sweater And it's coming off more red on camera I thought this was gonna be super itchy, but it's actually probably one of the softest Sweaters I have the next thing I picked up at urban outfitters was this really cute red Sweater and this is kind of different from my other red sweater because it's furry and fuzzy And it's probably the softest sweater I had purchased in this haul So if you guys are looking for comfort only and cute it definitely be this thing It's basically like just a fuzzy blanket the last and final sweater I purchased was this really cute brown one and I love this thing so much It's a very like chunky knit sweater, but it has holes in it And I don't know if you guys know this, but this does nothing for warmth It's basically like an aesthetic sweater the air goes straight through these little holes I don't recommend this if you live in a really really cold area, but it's really cute And I will definitely wear it here in Florida. It's just not warm whatsoever the next item I picked up were some gloves and these are just black double layered gloves living in Florida You just get the cheap Disney gloves that come basically just one layer. These are so comfy They have like a lining in them with fake fur Obviously in a nice sweater material. I'm very happy with this purchase My parents loved these so much that we basically got a lot more and Spencer ended up getting a pair for my mom for Christmas So that's how much we like these urban outfitters gloves and the last thing I got for my New York trip That's a lie because I also got a sweater dress from Abercrombie, which I'll also link down below I don't know why I forgot it is this really cute hat. I've always wanted a hat like this I've always wanted one that with the two pom poms, but this is also really cute So I don't really mind and it will pretty much go with any of my outfits I haven't really ever owned anything like this before so I'm really excited about it And that my friends is pretty much it for my New York Fashion Week trip haul And I am going to obviously be taking more clothing items that I already own But I went shopping specifically for this event and this is what I picked up So if you enjoyed this video, make sure to give it a big thumbs up Don't forget to check all the amazing links down below shop this video If you'd like any of the pieces enter my giveaways and I will see you guys in my next video. Bye guys


you know how your life can take an unexpected turn like maybe you find something that wasn't ever meant to be found that's what happened to me a simple Polaroid camera that looked normal and seemed innocent enough but the road it would take me down was far from normal I took my first picture with it and was honestly pleased that this relic from my attic still functioned at all but as the photo developed something was off the image fading in looked nothing like the photo I had just taken so I tried it again the image changed but still wasn't the photo I just shot I tried it over and over same results I even tried changing out the film no matter what I did the photos always came out different from what I shot it seemed almost like the pictures were showing me what I desired or what I'd rather be doing so I had my friend Brad come over so that I could show someone else this photographic anomaly even if it was just to reassure myself that I wasn't losing my mind I showed him the Polaroids and explained what had happened I could see right away that he didn't believe me I wouldn't believe me either it was obvious he was gonna have to see it for himself and that was all it took from that point on we were on a mission we had to discern if it was literally showing us what we were thinking about could we manipulate the outcomes we tried visual stimuli first and it worked then we thought you know how you can smell a certain scent and it can trigger a memory a memory that was long forgotten like the smell of funnel cakes when the carnival came to town when you were a kid but can we trigger our wants and desires that way too it turns out we can then came the real test we know this camera shows what we wish we were doing at the moment what happens when you photograph inanimate objects is consciousness a requirement and aiding the device's capabilities and if that's the case who's to say we didn't conjure this thing up completely from our minds to begin with so we started researching online to see if anything like this has happened before but came up empty-handed that's when we decided to post about it on reddit just to see if we could find anyone who might have a shred of information on where this thing came from you know some cultures believed that a photograph could steal your soul imprisoning you forever within the celluloid or maybe more recently within the pixels of an insta selfie I must have fallen asleep because when I woke up the camera was missing Brad was nowhere to be found finally I figured out why Brad must have been messing around with the camera on his own and this time the camera produced something that was so terrifying so unspeakable that Brad vanished without a trace I tried calling him to see if he was okay but his phone went straight to voicemail and he wouldn't reply to my text and then I received my first solid lead the reddit posts have paid off because someone commented that I should visit dr. Willard jurick at darkroom labs they said he's the foremost expert on film developing and image restoration if anyone will know what to make of this it's him so I decided to finish this journey on my own I made the 11 hour drive up to Lansing Michigan where the lab was located this was the kind of thing someone had to see in person when I finally found dr. Urech he was very hesitant about even speaking to me I explained everything in detail and showed him the photos but I knew the only real proof was seeing the Polaroid at work with your own eyes he said he'd make a few phone calls and be right back but suddenly I couldn't help feeling like I'd made a mistake coming here what branch of the government did you say you're with we didn't now what do you know about this camera found it in my attic and snapped a few pics realized it doesn't work like a normal camera it seems to show you your innermost desires have you told anyone else about this camera no so this wasn't your reddit post stating that we found the most insane camera that prints out whatever you were thinking has anyone ever heard of anything like this any help would be greatly okay yes that was me but other than that I didn't tell anyone else and no one else has seen it working in person no just me well and dr. Urech if that's even his real name and did you see any disturbing images come from this camera things we wanted to see we me I mean I things I want okay so that's it I can just go yes yes you can go just what work they


Hi, this is Michelle Swab from the Health Sciences Library. This video demonstrates how to export from Sinal to RefWorks. The first step is to click on the folder icon for the articles that you would like to export. Next, click on the folder link at the top of the screen. Then you will select all and click on export on the right-hand side of the screen and then click on save. The references will now be automatically imported into RefWorks. To ensure that the references have imported correctly, click on view last imported folder.


Hello and welcome to the launch of the International Energy Agency's new Renewables Market Report. With this being our first report launch of 2024, we at the IEA would like to wish you all a very happy new year and all the best for the year ahead. I'm Jethro Mullen, head of the IEA's communications team and I'm joined today by IEA Executive Director, Dr. Fatih Birol and by Senior Energy Analyst, Hami Baha, who is the lead author of this new report. I'd also like to note that you can read the full report and take a look at the new online renewables data explorer, both of which are freely available on our website, IEA.org. So during today's event, Dr. Birol will make some opening remarks and then Mr. Baha will present the key findings of the report. We'll then take questions from journalists. For the journalists taking part in this press webinar, we invite you to send your questions via the Q&A function in the Zoom. You can do this at any point during the presentation and we'll also take a two-minute break right after the presentation for you to enter your questions. With that, I'll hand over to our Executive Director, Dr. Birol. Thank you very much, Jethro. Let me join my colleague, Mr. Mullen, to wish all of the colleagues following this event a happy, healthy and peaceful 2024. Dear colleagues, dear friends, we are here today to share with you some of the key findings of our annual renewable market report. But if I may, I want to go one step back and to tell you a few things about the very important COP28 meeting. In this COP28 meeting, we provided a lot of input in terms of our analytical reports. Convening Power brought several governments together to have a convergence for key findings and also organized high-level meetings together with the COP28 presidency. In all these meetings in our reports, which we made clear well before the COP28 taking place, we had five criteria to say that this COP28 would be a successful one. What are those five criteria that I had thought and made clear well before the meeting in order to consider the COP28 to be a successful one? The first one, we wanted countries to commit to have a global renewable power capacity increase by a factor of three between now and 2030. This is the subject of today's report. Then similarly, the second one was, again, the countries committing to doubling the rate of energy efficiency improvements globally. And the fossil fuel industry to make commitments in a few areas, but most importantly, and cutting the methane emissions in a drastic way. And fourth, we wanted to make sure a message, a signal coming from COP28 so that there are large-scale financing mechanisms for the clean energy transition in developing and emerging countries. And finally, we would like to see that the governments agree for a plan or at least understanding, give the signal that if we want to reach our climate goals, we have to decrease our fossil fuel use in an orderly manner. So these were the five areas that we thought we should get from COP28. And what I can tell you that our assessment is there are a lot of good results, good signals going from the COP28 to the energy world, to the investors' world, to the finance world, which would, in our view, put the global energy sector in the right direction. This is not taken for granted, but they are very good signals. And the direction of travel for the global energy sector has been signed off by 200 countries last month in Dubai. So these are a lot of areas to look carefully, renewables, energy efficiency, methane, investments, fossil fuel use. And we thought in the IAEA, there is a need in a consistent and a clinical way to monitor what was set and what the countries are doing. So today I would like to announce that the International Energy Agency will monitor all the pledges made by over 200 countries in Dubai, what was pledged, and what is happening in the real life, in the energy sector. And we are going to share the comparison of the pledges versus the real life with the international community on a regular basis. And today it is the first installment of that. I am going to tell you soon, and my colleague, Mr. Bahar, will tell you more in detail this tripling of the renewable capacity vis-à-vis what will happen with the current policies in place. So, but the first message I want to share with you is that we are going to monitor it in a careful, clinical and objective way, pledges versus what is happening in the real life. Now, of course, the very first thing I wanted to share with you when it comes to numbers is the following. What happened last year, 2023, when it comes to renewables? So when I look at the numbers, it is definitely a wow effect because last year, 2023, we see that the renewable capacity expansion in the entire world, 2023, was over 500 gigawatts, which is equal to current entire power capacity, electricity capacity of Germany, France, Spain put together. And this means 500 gigawatts, over 500 gigawatts increase means close to 50 percent increase of capacity of renewables compared to 2022, a huge historical jump. It's a very good news and a big chunk of this growth comes from solar and followed by wind and other renewable technologies. Now here, many countries broke records in terms of their capacity additions, new renewable capacity additions. We have seen records in the United States, in Europe, or in Brazil here, and many countries met huge additions including, for example, India. But if there is one country, I need to single out here is China. Dear colleagues, when I look at the numbers, you will do yourselves when you have the chance to look at our website, which is all these numbers and the report is freely available. China is the single most important driver of this spectacular growth 2023 when it comes to renewable energy, both solar but also wind and the others. So this is, of course, a great news for those people who would like to see a better planet, a better future for everybody. Now why it is happening this big growth, first of all, it looks like that the policies consistent and stubborn policies to support the renewable energies means they do work as other results. And what's also good, and it comes also from the analysis of Mr. Bahara and his team, very clear that the economics do work as well. The analysis show that almost everywhere in the world, the cost of electricity generation from renewables is cheaper than it is alternatives. And in some cases, maybe I should say in many cases, cost of generation of electricity from renewables is even cheaper than existing fossil fuel power generation. So this is the good news about last year. And of course the other part of our work is, of course, look at the future. We always look at the future at the IEA. When we look at the future and again compare the trends, the trajectory of the renewable capacity additions with the COP28 pledge of tripling three times increase in renewable capacity, our report funds out that the existing trajectory, existing policies, global renewable capacity will increase by a factor of 2.5. It is not yet there, but it is not miles away from that target. As such, it is definitely an encouraging result and it is something that we need to build on. And if you ask me where we have to put more efforts, the answer is clear, we should be getting more renewable capacity additions from several low and medium income developing and emerging countries. Therefore, as we always say, the financing clean energy transition developed in emerging countries of a crucial nature. In my view, it is one of the important missing items in the COP28 agreement in addition to all these positive steps we have seen coming from Dubai. Now this is again, I'm sure my colleague Mr. Bahar will detail out, but 2.5 times increase is very good coming from China, US, Europe, India, Brazil and other countries. Now what are some disappointing news if I have to pick up one of them? It is on the side of the green hydrogen or a clean hydrogen in other words. We at the IEA believe that hydrogen can and should play a very important role to address our climate challenge and also to diversify our energy mix. And we are seeing that there is a huge excitement in the energy world, in the industry sector and there is not one day passing that we don't read that there is a trade agreement with country X and country Y in terms of the clean hydrogen trade or project announcements. It is there is a lot of excitement there. So I ask my colleagues to look into these projects carefully how much we think in realistic terms of these projects which are announced would see the light of the day between now and 2030. And my colleagues made a project by project, all the hydrogen projects around the world to analyze them, look at where the construction is, how the financing situation is and they came up with the result that of all the projects today in the pipeline announced with the current policies, current financing and construction level, only 7 percent of the project announced would see the light of the day would come online before 2030. So the main problem here as we see is the creating demand for those projects and having the right regulation in order to give a stimulation for the consumption aside. Again, we hope to see that the governments and the regulators take the necessary steps to create the demand as we think hydrogen can play a very important role in our fight against climate change and for energy security and to diversify the energy mix. Dear colleagues, when I look at the report from A to Z, I see a very encouraging message coming from renewables starting with solar. More need to be done in the emerging and developing countries in terms of the financing. But we know that the increasing renewables is a good news, but it is not enough to address our energy and climate cause. Therefore, to look at what is happening on the energy efficiency, how to deal with the methane emissions, how to make sure that the fossil fuel use needs to decline in orderly manner are other preoccupations and we will be monitoring them on a regular basis and share the results as we do now with the international public on a regular basis. With this, I would like to stop here and turn my colleagues, Mr. Baha, first of all, with my thanks to him and the team working on this and asking him to share some of the key findings of our reports. Thank you very much, Dr. Biral, for these great introductory remarks. And I would like to go through some of the important findings of the report a bit more detail to share to you what we are observing in the renewable energy markets in the coming five years. First of all, renewables breaking records is not news, but this year we observed when we look at the numbers over the past year that there is the increase that we see is 50%, which is much higher than since more than two decades. And this jump is related to China's acceleration, which we can see that China's share in global renewable capacity addition reached almost 60% the highest level ever we have observed. And also the other part of the story is obviously solar PV, where the prices is going down and competitiveness is improving. Many countries are deploying solar PV projects for decarbonization purposes to achieve climate goals. And we observed this jump last year with solar PV capacity additions almost reaching 400 gigawatts, which is an incredible development that we observe for the future as well. One important note that China has phased out renewable energy subsidies few years ago and now is fully moving on competitiveness for solar PV and onshore wind, which is an important driver going forward as well. When we look at the future, the coming five years, the solar PV's role is going to increase actually drastically. We expect around 3,700 gigawatts of new capacity becoming operational and almost 75% of this will be provided by a single technology, solar PV. And there are important trends that we see that the forecast is more optimistic for solar PV. First, I mentioned the costs. The second one is the increasing adoption of small-scale rooftop systems in many countries, both residential and commercial level, because these affordable systems are helping people to save money on their electricity bills, which have increased since 2001 drastically in some countries. We also look at other technologies such as wind. The wind sector is struggling with some challenges. However, the growth is accelerating there as well, driven by China in this case, as China's decarbonization goals is pushing renewables forward, while the other technologies such as hydro power, geothermal, CSP and ocean, we see not increasing very rapidly due to the challenges that they are facing. This year, as our executive director mentioned previously, we looked at renewable capacity for hydrogen production, and we see important developments, important announcements. However, we expect only around 45 gigawatts to become operational in the next five years. As you can see from the figure, compared to the overall deployment of renewables, this is really small. It's about one to two percent. And compared to last year, we are less optimistic as we follow the developments of financing and project development. And we expect only around 7 percent of announced projects to become operational in the next five years. And policies matter, and policies matter not in terms of providing money to renewables, but to create an important framework that they can operate. The good example here is China, where the policies make renewable capacity in China to almost triple in the next five years, in terms of the growth. However, in many regions, we will see the growth accelerating, starting from European Union, where the Commission and the countries are pushing renewables forward to reduce the gas consumption and for decarbonization and improve energy security. United States Inflation Reduction Act helps to double renewable energy growth. India's acceleration is tremendous in terms of their policies, how they translate both large-scale and small-scale solar PV deployment going forward. And Latin America, especially Brazil, there is an important acceleration going forward thanks to the government policies supporting distributed solar PV. However, the world, these countries represent the significant important developments outside of these large markets in Southeast Asia, Middle East and North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa, where the deployment finally is taking good steps forward in terms of the acceleration. And for the first time, we see Middle East and North America deployment equal to Southeast Asian deployment, which is an important news that I would like to share with you. However, in terms of the potential, obviously, these regions have much more potential that we see in the forecast. However, challenges remain in terms of financing, which I will come later. So, tripling renewable capacity in the coming towards 2030 is the pledge that more than 200 countries basically signed. Our forecast basically takes us to 2.5 times the global capacity when we project to 2030. The gap to 2030 still remains, but we are just talking about here the policies that we see and market developments that we see today. This massive deployment needs to be spread to many countries and with the challenges to be addressed, especially on permitting, financing and social acceptance, especially focused on emerging and developing countries. One important development about the cost of renewables. Renewable supply, especially solar PV manufacturing, is ready to deliver much accelerated growth. Only in 2023, solar PV manufacturing doubled in the world in all the manufacturing segments. 97% of this came from China and this doubling creates an important supply glut in the solar PV market. As a result, we saw at the end of 2022, towards at the end of 2023, 50% decline in solar PV module prices. Slight increase due to the supply chain challenges and inflation happened in 2021 and 2022. Now we are back on low cost solar PV market and with a lot of capacity ready to be deployed. We will also see in addition to China, United States, India and European Union to deploy more renewables and diversify solar PV manufacturing market with the incentives provided via inflation reduction act and the PLI scheme in India. And we will see some diversification, but it's important to remind that China will remain a global player in the market, at least in the coming medium term that we see today. We mentioned the financing. The macroeconomic environment has changed very rapidly over the past year and historically renewable energy deployment has happened in most advanced economic in an environment where based interest rates were around 1% over the last decade. This was slightly higher in China, but where the costs are lower, China basically remained competitive. But in emerging, other emerging and developing countries, interest rates have been triple quadruple than we see in advanced economies and in some cases even much higher due to multiple risks that these countries face, including currency and macroeconomic challenges and also the policy environment. But however, the trends have changed in the in the last few years, the interest rates for the first time in advanced economies surpassed China, now deploying renewables without any even considering project risk are much more expensive in advanced economies in terms of financing costs than in China. And for emerging economies, the news is not good because there the interest rates are even increasing higher. We are seeing on average around 10% base interest rates for to deploy the projects. In addition to that, we should add other project level risks that will make the cost of financing even more expensive. That's why it is extremely important to address the financing challenging emerging economies and developing countries in outside of China in order to accelerate deployment in these regions. Macroeconomic challenges also bring affect the financial health of the renewable energy industry. We are looking at the profit margins of the renewable industry following very closely because the healthy financial renewable energy industry is very important for the future deployment and their capability to invest in new capacity to deliver the needs of the tripling goal. In that sense, we see solar PV market quite strong, but with the declining prices, there are risks looming in terms of the lower net margins in the market, especially for the newcomers into the market. The situation in wind manufacturing in China and outside of China is a bit more complicated. And especially Western and United States manufacturers are seeing losses over the past seven quarters in a row, which is not a good news driven by supply chain challenges, higher cost, long permitting timelines, which basically give them not a good signal for the future, where policies remain important to address those challenges. Tripling pledge is not far off, is very close, even with the current policies, but it can be closer and it can be on track if we address several challenges, both in advanced economies and emerging and developing countries. For advanced economies, the upside that we see and the main challenge that needs to be addressed is the grid integration, grid build out and faster permitting is very important for them, but for emerging and markets, the most important component is the financing and policies to risking investment going forward. Indeed, in our upside, in our accelerated case, emerging markets and developing economies only represent maybe 15% of the forecast, but in our upside, they represent one third, which sees their potential going forward in the coming years. One important part, our executive director talked about the energy system, renewables playing only or electricity is playing only one part of it. Biofuels remain the other important part. We are seeing biofuels markets are accelerating, however, it's significantly lower than what needs to happen to reach the global climate goals. One important news that Brazil is dominating by 40% renewable energy growth, biofuels growth that we are expecting, which is 30% faster than last year. However, there are a lot of challenges that biofuels market need to overcome, including supply chain challenges and with acceleration is needed with new policies and the governments supporting the biofuels production and demand in the coming years to decarbonize, especially hard to abate sectors. Thank you very much for this and I will give the floor back to Jethro. Thank you very much for the presentation. So we now have time to take some questions from journalists. We invite the journalists in attendance to send your questions through the Q&A function of the Zoom, if you haven't done so already, and please mention your media outlet along with your question. So we'll now just take a two minute break to give you a chance to enter your questions and we'll be right back. Ron, welcome back. Thank you very much to the journalists for the questions. We've got quite a few and we're going to get through as many as we can in the time we have. So first of all, from Nicholas Kermayer from You're Active, do you think that Europe is heading for a positive feedback circle on grid congestion amid its solar PV boom? Solar is comparatively challenging to integrate. Could this add to existing challenges? And then a broader question from Amina Syed of Cypher News, to what extent is grid congestion and long-interconnection cues holding up this global goal of tripling renewable energy? Is it a major factor or one of many key factors? And then in terms of these challenges, one more question from WDR, Martin Gent of WDR in Germany concerning wind energy in recent months have been an increasing number of reports of technical problems, supply chain problems, fires, accidents, financial losses at the largest wind power companies. How can the companies solve the quality problems, achieve the expansion targets, and ensure the safety of the turbines? So I think this sort of batch of questions about challenges are going to pass to Hemi Baha, our senior energy analyst. Thank you very much for these questions. They are very important challenges that renewable energy industry and the countries are facing. First of all, I'd like to start with the grid connection cues. Previously, we analyzed this topic really in detail, and we found out that around 1,500 gigawatts of projects, wind and solar PV projects mostly, are expecting to connect to the grid or apply to the connected. These are the advanced level projects that are even more in the queue, which are at the nascent stage. Obviously, this is three times more than what entire renewable capacity deployed in 2023, a huge number. And this requires countries to process the grid applications faster, but also build additional grid capacity to connect those. And this is important, but policy needs to give the right signal to invest in grid, and in addition to that, to create more flexibility in the markets. And coming to the solar PV boom, we see already in many European countries, which is also in the report, an increasing curtailment of wind and solar PV in several markets. And these curtailments are happening because exactly an incredible boom has happened over the last few years. But there are a lot of developments at the European level and at the country level to tackle and reduce the curtailment and connect more power plants. And these include, basically, market design changes that will give more signal to flexibility, products using hydro power more prominently, especially the storage level and building out more storage. I think these policy changes and market developments will give fruit soon for a better integration of renewables. And hydrogen as a whole will come into this picture as well in the longer term, hopefully in Europe. So these are related to. So coming to the wind industry, wind industry has been challenged by supply chain risks, high inflation, and also the policy designs that we're not reflecting these macroeconomic challenges into the auction schemes that they've been operating on. There are good developments that following under subscriptions in many auctions in European Union, many countries have changed the policy design to reflect this new macroeconomic environment. And we see already a lot of the positive developments for the industry to have a more stable demand coming forward. In terms of the quality issues and the financial health, I think there are a few things to mention here. Wind industry has proven to be extremely innovative in terms of the reducing costs and delivering green electricity to the markets over the past 10 decades. I think these developments will be cyclical and will go away and the cost reduction cycle will come back very soon following those challenges are met. And wind industry in our opinion has a bright future going forward, wants to policy and market conditions adapt to new environment and companies turn back into profitability. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Bahar. So we've got a lot of questions and some of them kind of touch on the issues that Hemi already covered so but we'll try to get to a few more in the time we have. Jonathan Gifford from PV Magazine says in 2023 you noted that concentration of the solar PV supply chain in China represented a risk to accelerating deployment and adoption of solar globally. How do you describe that risk? And are you encouraged with efforts to establish manufacturing outside of China particularly in light of the rapid price reduction seen in the market? I think that's maybe one that Dr. Beryl can address as well as one on another one on COP28. It was good news that COP28 came up with new energy related pledges such as tripling renewables but how confident are you that governments will actually deliver on them? So those two questions to Dr. Beryl. Okay. Thank you, Jethro. Yes, China's role in solar or in general the green energy technologies is very important for example in terms of solar or renewable energy technologies China is making a contribution to global renewable capacity push in two ways one huge amount of renewable capacity installed at home China is a huge country with a lot of challenges including the emissions therefore helping to decarbonize the Chinese energy system and the emissions coming from China so the domestic angle of that and the second is China bus by deploying a lot of green energy technologies brings the cost of these technologies down and make it accessible or affordable many people around the world so it's an international aspect as well so these are two important contributions China is making for the renewable energy deployment around the world having said that for any technology for any country there is one issue that I believes for the security issues we need to diversify the magic word is diversification therefore to rely on one technology one commodity only on one single country one trade route one company might be a risky so therefore diversifying is important and I believe for all green energy technologies in terms of their manufacturing it will be great to see like China other countries around the world also manufacture a lot of clean energy it can be electrolyzer it can be offshore wind turbines it can be heat pumps it can be solar wind it will be good for the global clean energy transitions so this is about China for COP28 the question was how do we what was the question exactly do we expect countries to deliver on the pledges oh yeah so of course it was great that the more than 200 countries sign the COP28 agreement we do it trust the governments if they sign an agreement if their signature is there that they take it seriously and the weight of their signature does count but we believe also in numbers so what we are going to do is we will look all these elements coming from the COP28 outcome document what the governments have pledged as a group we will look at the what happens with renewable efficiency methane financing moving away from fossil fuels and we will share it with the international public on a regular basis who is doing what who is not doing what I think the when I look at those targets set in Dubai and all the government's sign I think those targets will hang over the the hang over the government's companies like the the sort of democlus if I may say so and I will make sure that the governments do what they say they would do in Dubai and help them to support them to reach those targets especially those in the emerging and developing world and to be in line with their commitments in Dubai thank you thank you very much and I'm afraid that's all we have time for today we do and there are one or two questions that we didn't get to and so and we do encourage any journalists who have further questions about the report or questions that we didn't get a chance to cover just now to invite we'll invite you to reach out to the press office press at IA.org and we'll get back to you as soon as we can and so thank you very much to Dr. Birrell to Mr. Bahar thank you to the journalists for the great questions and to everyone following for your interest in our work and a reminder that the full renewables market report and the excellent data explorer that tracks progress on a country level towards the tripling goal both available to read and use for free on our website IEA.org and so I encourage you to take a look and that's all for today thank you and goodbye


The Ravengarde operated in a highly specialized capacity, perhaps more so than any other Astartes Legion. Eschewing wherever possible full frontal conflict, the 19th Legion preferred a more deft approach with a doctrine that revolved around precise application of force as rapidly as possible, often with the foe having no foreknowledge that they were even at war. Primacy was placed upon the mobility of its Astartes, and the Legion believed victory was best and most efficiently assured by outflanking and outmaneuvering an enemy in order to strike at their weakest location. This was, in its own way, a fusion of the ideals of the Xeric tribes of Asiatic Terra the Legion was originally drawn from, and the personal convictions of its Primarch, Corvus Corax. The distinct lack of resources their home region presented forced the Xeric tribes to be as self-sustaining and independent as possible, an aspect of existence mirrored in the Primarch's life upon pre-liberation deliverance, scrounging for each and every scrap of weaponry, ammunition and supplies he could to outfit his band of insurrectionists. This mindset was reflected in how the Legion tended to operate. Astartes were trained and equipped for warfare that, like the Xerex of old, usually placed some in positions of vast numerical inferiority, and required operating without support for an extended period of time. Additionally, tactics were generally seen as unconventional for Legion forces, such as infiltration, infrastructure sabotage, or extended intelligence gathering, were similarly employed, all to further the goal of allowing the main body of the Legion to attack the enemy at their weakest point. The Legion was noted for using specially equipped reconnaissance squads to a much higher degree than its fellows, with each Astartes cross-trained to fulfill that role should the demand be there. In fact, the degree to which Legion tactical squads were outfitted with reconnaissance equipment and support weaponry led to the line between the two formations being blurred to the point that it existed often in theory only. Some Astartes took this role to its zenith, volunteering in more numbers than any other Legion to fill the role of the solitary Moritats. These warriors, known for their skill in close-quarter firefights, would operate alone on the battlefield to sow discord and destruction amongst the enemy with far greater independence than would be possible within a more structured command framework. Again, this was a facet of the Legion's Xeric origins writ large, as in many cases the original Terran Moritats were possessed of methods and predilections considered too dangerous or extreme by their brothers, often employing proscribed weaponry or munitions like rad, chemical, or phosphax rounds. Some, indeed, had fallen prey to a condition of the Legion's gene seed known to the Terrans as Ash Blind and to the Laceans as Sablebrand, both deriving their names from the darkening of the victim's eyes to almost pure black, similar in some ways to the fury that was known to claim those of the Ninth Legion blood angels. The Ash Blind were driven to suicidal rages that drove them to inflict as much damage to their foes as possible, heedless of any and all threat to themselves. The missions of these Astartes, always undertaken willingly, were often assumed to be suicidal in nature, and it is likely that through them the Ravenguard took part in far more assassination and sabotage operations than they officially recorded. It is especially notable in their dealings with the Order of Remembrancers, who were often very deliberately banned from entering theaters the Legion was active in, until well after the conflict had ended, in contrast with some other legions who actively desired their imagists, writers, and historians to be present upon the battlefield to observe just how their Astartes made war. The Ravenguards, clandestine ponchants, were not merely a factor of their culture, but also of their gene seed. Certain Astartes within the Legion, notably drawn from Korax's band of freedom fighters, shared an ill understood genetic trait with their Primarch, poetically dubbed by the Nineteenth as the Shadow Walk. By force of will, the Astartes could deny knowledge of their presence to whomever they chose, rendering themselves effectively invisible. This trait was a close guarded secret of the Legion, one prescribed from any outside research by the doubtlessly interested Mechanicum Biologis Magi. It is known, however, that such compulsion had no effect on mechanical detection systems like all specs arrays, only on beings or entities that possessed a biological intelligence. From this, it can be inferred to be some form of latent or low level psychic ability, albeit one clearly restricted to an incredibly specific function. Korax is said to have used this gift to mastermind the liberation of Lysaeus, and to have cultivated it amongst those sons of his who possessed it. These Astartes were organized into a specific formation within the Legion, known as the Mordethan, or Shadow Masters, under the direct command of the Primarch himself. Their remit was entirely at the behest of their gene father, who assigned them to the most crucial infiltration, assassination, and guerrilla missions. True masters of the Legion's craft, the Mordethan would operate longer and in deeper cover than any other Ravenguard, typically arrayed with silent sniper rifles, specially modified stealth bolters, and an assortment of sabotage equipment. The Ravenguard spent the majority of the Great Crusade as a largely infantry-based force, seconded to other Legion deployments, a situation created out of several factors. Prime amongst them was simply their size. While other legions were reunited with their Primarchs and granted their fathers' homeworlds as recruitment fives, or simply expanded recruitment operations to encompass newly compliant imperial worlds, the 19th steadfastly refused to draw neophytes from anywhere save the Terran-Zeric tribes of their founding, limiting their numbers severely, and making solo deployment a dangerous gamble of Legion as Astartes' resources for the war council. Secondly, their close operational relationship with the 16th Legion Lunawolves proved so effective as to have the brunt of their other war needs, such as close armor support, handled by their comrades-in-arms. The favor of Horace Lupercal, Primarch of the 16th Legion, led to the 19th being treated almost as a chapter of the Lunawolves, as opposed to its own separate entity. These two factors combined with the third, which can simply be summed up as strategic preferences. The Zeric tribes abhorred open warfare as a senseless waste of resources, a facet of their character cultivated by centuries of guerrilla fighting. And the 19th Legion retained this, focusing their resources on making sure its infantry was as well trained and well equipped as possible. Lastly, it should be noted that since the Legion largely operated in the shadow of the Lunawolves for nearly 200 Terran years, and possessed what can charitably be described as a dark and abrasive humor, it built no great friendships with any major mechanic infections, limiting its access to war machines and resources that were more readily available to friendlier legions. The 19th was additionally employed frequently as an army of occupation, given the Zeric hatred for recidivism and natural suspicion of newly conquered peoples. This would however change to a degree following the reunion with Korax. The Legion's extant doctrinal practices meshed well with the strategies their Primarch had perfected during the war against the slavers of Kievar. Where Korax made adjustments it was primarily to where he felt the 19th Legion were lacking. As such, he utilised the resources granted to him to vastly expand the Legion's armour pool. While still in possession of a modest armour reserve throughout the Great Crusade, Korax was at pains to plug what he saw as a potential gap in his Legion's disposition, and was known to have held council with several of his brothers on the matter. That being said, it was never at the expense of where he felt the Legion's true talent lay, and as such his ravenguard were far more inclined to favour highly mobile support and transport vehicles over lumbering superheavies. Ground commanders displayed notable preference for the Sikaran battle tank over the Predator, favouring the speed of the more advanced former mark, could maintain over the ease of production and maintenance that the latter was famous for. High hunter jet bike squadrons operated as both scouting and rapid response echelons for ground forces, often supported by groups of anti-grave javelin attack speeders. The ravenguard additionally made heavy use of aerial support craft, especially those patterns outfitted for both void and atmospheric flight, such as the heavy stormbird pattern and newer Thunderhawk pattern transport gunships. Additionally, through use of the technology of the guilds of Kievar, the ravenguard retained a stock of specially modified versions of the Stormhawk, dubbed the Shadowhawk by the Legion, for its wide array of augur-defying stealth technology that allowed it to pass through virtually all sensorium webs undetected. Additionally, the 19th leaned upon the guilds of their former slave regime to fashion for them a unique vehicle known as the Whisper Cutter, a small open frame craft that, through the use of anti-grave impellers, was capable of silent flight, transporting up to tenor starties into a region in complete secrecy. That the Legion was able to employ unique vehicle marks speaks to the power Korax could employ in keeping Kievar nominally a forage world, independent from Mechanicum control. But that, in and of itself, led to no large progress being made in warming the relationship between the Legion and Red Mars. Of all of the Mechanicum's subordinate worlds, Kievar sustained association only with Gryphon IV. The exact nature of the terms are unclear in history, but can be inferred to have at least originated in the close operational relationship the 19th Legion kept with the titan legio of that forage, the famed Legiographonicus. A notable exception to all of this is, as is no doubt well known to students of Imperial history, the Ravenguard's instrumental participation in the development of the Mark VI or Corvus patterned power armor, the full details of which can be found in a previous record upon this data stack. The Ravenguard operated a loose chain of command that saw significant devolved power and independence granted to its starties of all officer ranks once they were in the field. This was a facet of the 19th Legion that Korax did not tamper with upon his assumption of command, and if anything, he fostered. Waging his war upon Lysias, the Primarch had come to rely on individual commanders able to operate with little or no contact and wished to engender the same self-reliance amongst those within his Legion. Initiative was expected of all Ravenguard, and displays of it, alongside good tactical comprehension, was more vital to an Astartes command prospects than simple martial aptitude. Where Korax did interfere in the chain of command was his marked insistence upon his assumption of Legion control, that the senior officers were replaced by those who had served him closest upon deliverance and were able to receive Astartes implantation protocols, in turn displacing significant numbers of veteran Terran commanders who had served in their positions for decades. The strife between the Terran and Lysaean elements of the Ravenguard is a facet of the Legion's history it is highly reticent to admit to, and even its exact nature is not fully known. From the exterior, it is however quite possible to observe that Korax showed direct favoritism to those of his foster homeworld over the Xeric-born Terrans. He was overtly disparaging of their more cold forms of conduct, and openly banned his Legion from being used as occupiers or military police, seeing the methods inherent in how the 19th had previously controlled newly compliant populations, as disturbingly similar to those employed by the slavers he was raised under. Whether through clandestine expediency or coldly deliberate action, the loss of the majority of the Legion's Terran-born Astartes at Gate 42, detailed in a previous record, solved Korax's problem for him. The fact remains, however, that even in the aftermath of the Bloody Gate, the Ravenlords still made noticeable efforts to remove Terrans from active front-line service. To this, the remaining Xeric-born Legionaries were assigned, in the few years between Gate 42 and the Dropsite Massacre, to serve as garrison forces in outposts beyond the Imperium's borders, military advisors or detachments seconded to rogue-trader militant expeditions, or, quite notably, nomadic predation fleets, assigned to deep-void hunter-killer operations. The largest of these flotillas was commanded by Shade-Lord Ar-Cas-Fell, a decorated warrior who had served as the Dower Master of the 19th Legion for three decades, immediately prior to Korax's discovery. No better example of the Primarch's distressed for his Terran sons exists than the simple fact that, despite the Legion's catastrophically depleted numbers following the Great Betrayal on Istvan 5, history does not record Korax as having made any effort whatsoever in recalling his Legion's nomadic fleet elements, nor has he even known to have considered doing so. What became of Shade-Lord Fell in his fleet, as well as notable remaining Terran elements and their military assets, is now lost to history. When the 19th Legion committed its forces to the Retribution fleet, they did so in their full strength, barring the aforementioned Terran fleets and scattered other elements. The losses suffered at Gate 42 had, owing to the Legion's smaller recruitment pool, still not been fully replaced, placing the Ravenguard at 80,000 Astartes, the smallest of all then currently operating Astartes legions. The darkness of that day, and the 98 days of flight that were to follow, were but the beginning of the Legion's misfortune, for they were to truly suffer in the terrible years to follow.


You don't have to be a Jew to be successful in Israel. Join me to see how... What if I told you that the head of the biggest bank in Israel is an Arab Muslim from Taimi? Would you believe me? Meet Professor Samar Hajjihia, the chairman of the board of Bank Loomi, Israel's largest bank. Samar is a Muslim Arab and Israeli, and yes, his success pretty much shatters the anti-Semitic stereotype of the Jews controlling all the money. But in Israel, Arabs are successful in more than just banking. Let's go north. In Nahariah, Israel is the Galilee Medical Center, a major hospital run by Professor Misad Barhoum, one of the most senior and respected medical professionals in Israel. He's also, by the way, an Arab-Israeli from Saudi Arabia. Across Israel's 33 hospitals, you'll find Jews and Arabs working together. Oh, did you know, despite the fact that the Arab Israelis are 20% of the population, we are 30% of the doctors in Israel and 50% of the pharmacists? Surely the government institutions are different though, right? Not really. In the higher judicial institution in the state, the Supreme Court, you'll find the Annable Justice Khaled Kabub, an Arab Muslim Supreme Court Justice. By the way, he's not the first Arab-Israeli judge on the Supreme Court, before Kabub were judges George Kara and Salim Jubran. Jubran was even one of the judges who sentenced both a Jewish prime minister and a Jewish president to prison when they broke the law. Just remember that next time when you hear the word apartheid about Israel. Israeli Arab women are making an impact as well. Julia Zahar from Nazarene is a successful businesswoman who heads the El-Arrest-Heina factory. Under her leadership, it has grown to an internationally successful business. In the IDF and security forces, thousands of Arabs also serving at the highest levels. Major El-Awawi is the highest ranking Muslim woman to serve in the army. And when I was in the IDF in the Golanic Brigade, a combat unit, I, an Arab, was a commander over Jewish soldiers. And when it comes to sports, Arab-Israeli athletes are at the top of their game, literally. Hala Mahli is the Israeli Karate Champion and an Arab-Israeli. Hanin Nasser, the Israeli champion for a high jump for two years in a row. Yep, you guessed it, Arab-Israeli. In kickboxing, Arab-Israelis are a powerhouse. And these year's world championships, Loay Sakas and Munia Hano won the title. And yes, they're both coming from the Arab-Israeli community. Oh, by the way. The captain of the Israeli national soccer team is Biblah Snotcho, an Israeli Muslim. These are just a few of our community's success stories, but there are thousands more. Like in any country, challenges exist for minorities in society. But these examples are not anomalous. Yes, in the state of Israel, a Jewish and democratic state, not only Jews can be successful.