Welcome everybody. Welcome. Thank you for joining us today. My name is Gabrielle Swabie. I am a researcher in the climate change group here at the International Institute for Environment and Development. IED is an independent research organization that aims to deliver positive change on a global scale. I lead IIED's work in supporting least developed countries in developing long-term climate strategies. And more broadly, myself and my team, we support the least developed countries group in the UN climate negotiations and the climate diplomacy and so forth. It is my pleasure to be moderating this webinar today, which is part of IED's series exploring the experiences of LDCs and the Paris Agreement as we move from international commitments to national implementation. This webinar is the second in the series, the first focused on how LDCs are implementing the Paris Agreement's enhanced transparency framework and the recording for that is available on IED's YouTube channel. So definitely go check that out. The next webinar in the series is being hosted in partnership with the Bangladesh-based International Center for Climate Change and Development, ICAD, and will examine the issue of loss and damage, specifically around the research and policy and lived experiences of loss and damage in LDCs. This will take place on Tuesday, 8th of September, and we hope you all will be able to join us for that as well. All the details and how to register can be found on IED's website. And at this point I'd also welcome our panelists to turn on their cameras as well, should you want. And while you do that, just a quick background, we all know, are aware that the Paris Agreement is moving into its implementation phase. And an important part of that is that countries have been invited to communicate long term, low greenhouse gas development strategies, long term strategies. These are visionary plans to achieve low carbon climate resilient development by mid-century. Now the Paris Agreement is not prescriptive on what a long term strategy should look like. So countries must determine what suits them best, both in terms of the content as well as the process for developing the long term strategy. It's uncharted territory, to be sure, and it poses unique challenges for all countries, and especially least developed countries. Now the world's 47 LDCs represent one billion of the world's poorest people across Africa, Asia Pacific, and the Caribbean. With their negligible emissions profile, the LDCs have contributed the least to climate change, but do suffer the most from its impacts. And indeed this would have important implications for LDCs and their long term strategies. We have seen some long term strategies come forward already, and most of them submitted thus far are from major and emerging economies, largely focused on decarbonization, and rightly so, of course. The LDCs long term strategies must also consider the future growth and expansion and development aspirations in a sustainable way. Even more, their goals and plans for enhancing adaptive, adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience, and reducing vulnerability will be featured just as prominently. I would like to say then that the LDC experience in implementing and developing a long term strategy deserves unique focus. And I'm pleased that we're joined today by a wonderful panel of LDC and LTS practitioners currently in the process of developing or supporting the development of long term strategies and they're here today to share their experiences. I hope the conversation today will not only showcase the unique opportunities coming out of the process for LDCs, but to facilitate as well a dialogue among LDC practitioners on the common challenges and concerns they face in the process. We have almost 140 participants who have signed on to join. And as Juliet mentioned, I asked those who are present with us today to participate by raising your questions, we want to hear from you. With that, let me introduce our panelists. We have Bubakar Zedijalo, Margaret Fariai, Serene Yangzum, and Siddharth Pathak. Bubakar is the Principal Climate Change Officer for the Ministry of Environment Climate Change and Natural Resources in the Gambia. He's just getting settled there. And he's responsible for environment and climate change related issues, working with the UNF Tripoli and the GEF focal points. And of course, most importantly, he coordinates the development of Gambia's long term strategy. Margaret is also here with us today. She's based in Uganda as the Regional Manager for Anglophone Africa with the NDC Partnership Support Unit. Margaret supports Anglophone Africa countries and Mozambique to access technical and financial resources to achieve their national targets towards implementing the Paris Agreement. We also have with us Serene. She is a Senior Environment Officer with the Climate Change Division of the National Environment Commission Secretariat in the Royal Kingdom of Bhutan. Bhutan also chairs the LDC group in the UNF Tripoli, so a special welcome there. And Serene is responsible for adaptation projects, such as Bhutan's long term strategy, but also their national adaptation plan readiness project, their urban ecosystem based adaptation project and so on. And finally, but certainly not least, we have with us today, Siddharth, who is the Director of Partnerships at the 2050 Pathways Platform, which is a multi stakeholder initiative to support countries seeking to develop their long term climate resilient sustainable development pathways. He oversees the relationship of the platform with its members as well as prospective partners and supports them in developing that 2050 strategy. A hearty welcome to Bubakar, Margaret, Serene and Siddharth. Thank you for joining us today. Now, to get started, I'll do a quick, simple question to our panelists. In one word, just one word alone, what would be the ultimate outcome or gain you expect a long term strategy to help your country achieve. And I'll start with Bubakar on that. What's your one word? Sustainability. All right. Very good. A nice all rounder. And then Margaret, how about you? Yeah, thank you, Gabriel. I agree to my fellow panelists and the viewers. The one for Uganda, which could be an ultimate outcome for the LTS is harmonization. Oh, I like it. Very special. Okay. Serene, how about you? Hi, and hi to everyone. For Bhutan, it would be carbon neutrality to Samarpath. Carbon neutrality, two words, but I'll give you a pass on that one. And then Siddharth, not, although you're working with countries across the board, I suppose, not particularly one. So in general, what do you think long term strategies would be achieving preparedness. Okay. Well, I want to delve into a lot of these words right now. So maybe I'll go back to Bubakar and picking up on your word of sustainability. Could you maybe tell us where the Gambia is in the design of its long term strategy. And can you already tell us if its focus is going to be addressing sort of that broader sustainability agenda of tying in both climate action as well as development priorities. So, Bubakar, over to you. Good afternoon, fellow panelists and all participants. As Gabriela said, my name is Bubakar Jalo from the Gambia. Well, the Gambia so far I think we've been making good progress with regards to the development of our LTS. We've been working with IID for well over a year. We had a scoping mission. They visited the country. We had a workshop which sort of introduced the concept of having a long term strategy. What would it end up with a very wide range of stakeholders, more government and public as well as private and academic, the we also had earlier this year, the vision in workshop, which I think also went well where we had, I think, more than 40, 50 participants from the cross sector of participants from the public sector, private sector. But all of them are either impacted by climate change or have an impact on climate change, either meaning that they would need to adapt or they are contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. So I think it really has helped because it's sort of focused. The Gambia has had a lot of strategies since 1992. We've had a national climate change committee. We've done a national communication similar to the other countries I'm sure. But a lot of times you have policies or institutions working, having their own initiative with climate change, but they are not all speaking to each other. But with regards to the long term study, what we believe that it will help us to, it's not really to develop new strategies or institutional elements or policies per se, but rather to help us consolidate what we have. And Margaret said it very well. Harmonization. I mean harmonization of policies. I would have used that word but you already said harmonization is a very good way because a lot of times our policies don't speak to each other. You have one institution doing one thing that is going against the other one or you have duplication of efforts. So I mean, so far we've also had our stakeholder consultation, although it's been a bit restricted due to the impact of COVID-19. What we've managed to do it virtually for the past two weeks at the national level so far. And we're hoping that if things improve, we can move to the regional level. But with regards to the, how broad our LTS is going to be, obviously as Gabriela said in the introduction, LDCs are not responsible for greenhouse gas, the concentration, high concentration of greenhouse gas emissions with the atmosphere. Obviously we do contribute to it, even though it's a minimal amount. But therefore, I mean whatever long term strategy we have should reflect our situation. This is not a one size fits all. Everybody has their own situation. What might be relevant for Nepal might not be relevant for the government. So what might be relevant for Germany might not be relevant for the government. So I think we need to really look at ourselves in terms of our mitigation. Of course we'll still mitigate. In fact, our NBC, the one we submitted in 2015 was heavily mitigation centric but that was just send out a political statement to bigger countries that if we small countries who are not responsible are trying to work towards mitigating climate change. Then the bigger country should take a bigger to be more ambitious than we are. So basically, that's where we are. And that's the approach that we're taking towards developing ideas. Thanks so much for work are lots of rich insights there and we'll be teasing apart some of those a little bit later on as we get further into the discussion. But you segue it nicely into Margaret and her word with the harmonization. And so I'll use this opportunity to go to Margaret and ask her. Why is it important for Uganda to be delivering on this voluntary commitment. And in what ways do you think how in what ways has the process already started to bring harmonization throughout the country, hand over to you on that. Yeah, thank you so much. Maybe I should say that what I will be sharing now on Uganda's LTS process is preliminary discussions, but which are really basing on what is already existing. And you're going to see how the country is trying to see the harmonization is key for them to look at long term planning. So the process has just started. It's being supported by NDC partnership with Germany funding, and they are implementing it through the GIZ global carbon markets is staffer can program is going to take nine months. So the motivation I see in Uganda so far the discussions why LTS is very important and and the agent is because they are using it now as an opportunity to look at it operating their climate change adaptation long term goal. The government has been trying to develop this because it sits priority. Since 2017 they've been trying to drop their nap, but it hasn't kicked off. So government is right. Let's take this opportunity define our long term adaptation goal, which we didn't feature be mean be used to drop their nap. So that's one thing and you can imagine Uganda contributes only 0.099% on the total global emissions so even in the current NDC priority is a is a I mean adaptation is a priority, but it's not well defined so that's one motivation I see Uganda taking on LTS. Another thing that really is major for Uganda in the discussions Uganda is looking at its economic growth cannot happen without climate action. And this is because the economy basically relies on natural resources, for example 70% of the population relies on agriculture and 90% of the energy supply energy needs depends on biomass. And this is Chaco and fuel and currently the government is already aware that the natural source base is actually worrying because the recent studies inform government that the forest cover is really gone. Because like between 2010 2017 in six years span, the government lost more than half of the forest cover from 15% to 9.5%. So this means at this rate, the government is looking at being more vulnerable, because they run degradation the rate is high. It will be more vulnerable to climate variability and change. So this is one of the motivation the government is looking at long term planning is key. And already in 2019 just last year a study showing government that under business as usual, the Aforo sector will be the most emitting sector. And yet this is where the economy is relying. So government is looking at having a balance between adaptation and mitigation in long term to have the clear targets for 2050, and for both adaptation and mitigation. And I don't, I should not forget that Uganda is already doing long term planning. So it's not the first time that you got is looking at long term planning. It has a 2040 vision. So the LTS is building on the existing structures and governance on how Uganda went into 2040 planning. And the good news is that the 2040 vision is already promoting climate resilience, low carbon and green economy. So for Uganda it's about harmonizing and taking adaptation forward in balance with mitigation looking at co-benefits and promoting. Thank you. Thank you Margaret. Very interesting to hear all the action plans and commendable indeed that and very strategic thinking to have this LTS be the foreshadowing for essentially a long term adaptation goal in the country. Now you also mentioned that Uganda is not starting from scratch that you have significant building blocks upon which to further advance and I think it's a similar situation in Bhutan. And so maybe I'll head over to Surin as well. And in with your word of carbon neutrality. Indeed, I think Bhutan right now is one of the very few carbon neutral countries in the world, and is heralded for its exemplary long term planning. So as Bhutan starts its preparation, can you share with us some insights and some of the building blocks already in place, which will be taken up in the LTS development and implementation process? Thank you Gabrielle. Yes, I agree Bhutan is getting towards a very unique LTS development, because many, while many other countries are trying to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions through the LTS. We have already achieved that target and more so Bhutan has already made this ambitious target by committing to remain carbon neutral for all times to come in December 2009. So we are carbon negative at the moment, but maintaining this carbon neutrality for all times to come is definitely going to be a challenge for us. So maintaining this carbon neutrality is going to be the focus of our upcoming LTS, and also being a very small, landlocked, least developed country with very fragile ecosystem, and with limited capacity and resources. Building resilience is very critical in the LTS. And there are already some studies and modeling conducted on Bhutan's carbon neutral status. One of them is economic white effect of carbon neutrality on Bhutanese economy. Determining the implication of decoupling GHG emissions from our economic growth. And the other ones are also looking at Bhutan's carbon neutrality towards 2050 with scenario projections of what would happen if we go by business as usual scenario or if you have precautionary measures in place. So also following up on the carbon neutral commitment in 2009. We have already prepared the national strategy and action plan for low carbon development in 2012. And that will guide us to remain committed to our carbon neutrality. And therefore the LTS, the LTS under preparation can take reference to all of this strategy and action plan for low carbon development and other policies. And also many other assessments that are conducted through other ongoing projects like NDC, the national adaptation plan and low emission development strategies. So therefore, the current LTS with back casting and scenario creation with economic socio-economic modeling, it can give us the opportunity to have a very holistic view. And tell us about where we are, what needs to be done, how to strategize, what can be done better, and what sort of technologies are required for Bhutan, and how can we add value to what we have. So we are looking forward to all these answers from the LTS. Therefore, this LTS is definitely going to be visioning for the country at the right time. Thank you. Thank you very much, Sering, and indeed lots of rich materials to work from and loving the aspirations of ensuring decoupling growth from climate, from GHG emissions. And so maybe I'll go over to Siddharth.  And I was wondering, could you speak to more generally how does aiming for net zero fit into the equation as a catalyst to achieve all these aspirations and what have you been seeing across the board from this countries you've been helping to support with their long term strategies. So thanks, and I think a lot has been said by all these plan, all the panelists who are obviously working at their country level and I can probably give a more macro sort of an understanding of how different countries are approaching it. I'll give a bit of a background around 17 countries have already submitted their long term strategies. We are expecting over 60 countries, more than more six, more than 60 countries to actually submit their long term strategies by cop 26 next year. And they will be of different sizes and shapes. It's not just the emerging economies. It's just the G 20 hours sort of going to be the front runners in terms of submissions, but I think there are a lot many countries who are submitting it, and I'm preparing for it. I think one, the moment you start talking about long term strategy in the context of climate change, you sort of tend to talk about a lot of the words around green growth sustainability harmonization with existing climate policies. But when we've actually worked with a lot of countries what ends up happening is as soon as you start talking about climate change, the inevitability of climate change whether it's whether we'll be able to as a community as a whole world be able to mitigate climate change, whether we'll be able to sort of deal with climate change, we will there is an inevitability to it. And that will create two sort of separate streams of things one is the the sort of opportunities that emerge from climate change mitigation, and the risks that will emerge from climate change that will happen. And the long term strategy quickly becomes a tool to prepare for these risks and for managing these opportunities, whether it's opportunities in new sectors like renewable energy whether it's opportunities in new materials for battery technology for different technologies whether it's about sort of showcasing your intent as a country that we'd like more investments we'd like more green investments. And thus we want to have sort of a plan that that needs to be presented to the world. On the risk side, there's obviously the geophysical risk that a lot of LDCs are very well prepared for in a in a relative sense they've done a lot of planning and have a history of planning around adaptation. But there are also risks around standard infrastructure, there are risks related to fiscal risk, and there are jobs, which are at risk, because we are not prepared for the sort of economy that will emerge in a in a climate in a in a climate change world. So the long term strategy is generally the starting point is obviously climate change palace agreement. But as soon as the countries start to discuss and start to unpack it, it quickly becomes a rather sort of broader and macro exercise to understand how climate change impacts different sectors and different areas, as well as the different around development and economic growth of the country, and how the country can actually prepare itself for these sort of emerging opportunities and risks, and the long term strategy ends up becoming a tool of that. The carbon neutrality element obviously LDCs and AOS is our front runners or well champions. If I was to put it like that. On this issue and like said setting also said, Bhutan is already carbon negative so a lot of countries in the LDC and AOS is have a limited carbon footprint they're already doing quite a lot. But the idea is that if we are to imagine a country or our economic development in the future, we will have no choice but to imagine it in a carbon or a net zero world. So we're imagining our country or our economic growth in a world which is even a carbon positive in any sort of way. I think that's something that we are sort of impacting the entire community in the entire world. So the approach on the long term strategy has to start off with imagining your country in a carbon neutral world. Some countries have a head start like Bhutan who have already imagined themselves in a sort of a carbon neutral world. I think there are a lot of other countries that need to think about carbon neutrality and what that really means for their aspirations, whether it's development aspirations or economic growth aspirations in the particular country. That's how I would sort of probably characterize the idea of carbon neutrality in long term strategy as a quite a central pillar, which needs to be the anchor point for the imagination of the future. Very well said. And indeed that sort of ultimate vision of thinking backwards from carbon neutrality is definitely a key aspect of that. So then I want to go back to then the country perspective as well in thinking through then how this, it's a massive undertaking to be fair, thinking through all of this. And I was wondering back to our panelists, if you could share with us maybe an unexpected opportunity, maybe something that Siddharth has already mentioned, or even an unexpected challenge that has emerged for you in undertaking this process. So either an opportunity or a challenge, maybe I'll start with Bhupakar as well. Thank you very much. I think I'll talk about opportunities, surprising opportunities. I mean, one opportunity was that it helped us to align some of us, or at least we're in the process of trying to align all our climate related strategic documents with the National Development Plan. I think the idea was when discussing from the members core team when working with ideas to have a long term vision and have a long term goal, what adaptation mitigated and it's not yet decided, but at least as the concept. And then they also factor in the political cycle because you have to remember that leaders change every five four years depending on where you are. So what the idea is that we don't change the goal, but maybe we just review and update on how we get through the process. So I think this is one thing that it's helped us to also align with the current National Development Plan. Another opportunity I think which Siddharth mentioned was the renewable energy. It's a real opportunity for us to look at because we have a lot of plants, national renewable energy plants, one of the Ministry of Energy, energy efficiency plants, et cetera. But it's an opportunity to align all of them and also an opportunity to give renewable energy a chance and the gambe is already having some projects, regional projects such as the river Gambia Basin project which is using hydroelectric form, Guinea Conakry and Guinea De Sao and Gambia is benefiting from it. So we're already expecting some form of, this is an opportunity I think to make it expanded even further. Another opportunity is also, sorry, mainstreaming of climate change into, because we always say that we find the National Development Plan has climate change mainstream to some extent as a critical enabler, which is recognized. But now, having working with the sectors, especially doing this consultation state, we've had very detailed questionnaires, which are really asking them very key questions about their sectors. Where do they, where do they see their sector in 2050, 2046, what mechanisms or pathways do they want to take to get there. So it's improving their understanding of actually what if the climate change regime is global regime and its reflection on national level is all about. Because most of the times stakeholders just come to workshops and give them a couple of presentations. They think about it superficially, but it doesn't really sink in very deeply with regards to how does this relate to what I do, example as a transport planning officer or as a agricultural planning office. But now with this LPS process we have a very good core technical team which has now been met. We've been working since the scoping mission and doing this consultation stages really come out very clearly. Having gone through the questionnaires, very detailed questionnaires, looking at where we are currently, where we want to be in 2050 and which pathways we want to get there just to simplify it in those three questions. So I think this has been a great opportunity to sort of further sensitize and also look to identify opportunities of mainstreaming climate change into all the sectoral plans as well. Thanks Fubukar and very much appreciate the honesty there in terms of how stakeholder consultations have their own form of business as usual and trying to make it hit hit home and integrating that more mainstream approach is definitely want to pursue. So thank you for that. Margaret, how about over to you what's an unexpected challenger opportunity that's come up. I also share maybe an opportunity opportunities because in the initial discussions in Uganda, because I mean the discussions may change but I see a very good opportunity because the discussions now on LTS from the inception I see them thinking about like getting to economy wide approach because they are initial the first NDC for Uganda was sort of NDC approach. This is in a sectoral approach, but I see now the LTS discussion is bringing in other sectors, like tourism, like ICT, like education, which were not in relation to the climate action debate or discussions. It's really great for Uganda to see and I see the discussions of LTS informing the NDC updating. And I can see the government is taking the opportunity of aligning both processes of NDC updating and LTS, except that the NDC updating is starting a bit earlier. So the arrangement may not be 100% but I see one of the things which I can score now I see government government making one national task force that will handle both processes together. That means they are looking at the discussions to benefit from each other and I suspect the LTS will definitely inform 100% of the next NDC that is after 2025. So that is what I can see as an expected opportunity. Another one is what I had mentioned earlier on how government is taking advantage to get their adaptation targets upfront and clearly bringing it. Oh, maybe I should also mention that in the discussions of LTS I see government wanting to first of all get a long term vision for LTS come out clearly. And this is very interesting. I think this is where now harmonization will come because government already has a vision 2020 in terms of development. But if they can now look at the climate action long term there is going to be some harmonization and the two will be starting to speak together. Yeah, so basically that's what I can share because Uganda is still in preliminary discussions. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you. And yes, even the fact that those discussions are happening with tourism and education and ICT is already putting the country on a good track I think to have that whole of society, whole of government approach. And then over to you, Sering, how about your unexpected opportunity or challenge. Well, although Bhutan has just initiated work on LTS development, I foresee that LTS process cannot be different from other ongoing processes that we have. For example, we have just we have submitted first NDC in 2015 and now the second NDC submission preparation is underway. So I foresee that LTS process will be similar to all of this. But one thing that we have done so far through our experiences is actually for the actual implementation or for the actual action phase doesn't seems to have much support compared to the development of policies. I mean like in fact we tend to get a lot of support for the preparation of policies but we don't seem to get much support for actual implementation of these policies. Challenges in attracting investment actually. So, and this has always been one of our drawbacks so far because we Bhutan have a lot of excellent policies, but implementation is still pending. And you must be wondering why again because as an LDC with limited capacity and no resources. I think we feel doing implementation phase unless the support provided. So I'm hoping that this will not be the case with the upcoming LTS. Thank you. Thank you, sir. And you've actually perfectly teed up my next question to Sudarth then seeing that he is working with a lot of development partners and financial institutions. Maybe Sudarth you could help answer some of these questions and concerns around getting support for the long term strategy and its implementation. Where is it that LDCs can access this and what are some, I suppose tips and tricks to consider in that process. I think from from our perspective, we are working with quite a few development banks as well as with the international development agencies of most of the countries. And there's, there's a larger and growing interest in a lot of these institutions to actually look at the long term strategy as sort of, sorry, there's a construction going down right under my house so apologies for the extra noise. But, but the idea is that for most of the development agency they're starting to look at long term strategy that the as a central tool to actually decide on their investment decisions. And as of now, the development agency for France, the development agency for Germany. And like Margaret said, GIZ. So if your country has a FD, icky, which is the German sort of development agency, different, which is the UK one, GIZ or the European Commission, please do reach out to them and basically say that you're in a long term strategy, and or sort of engage them much early on, in order to address some of the concerns that sharing mentioned that if you bring the development partners much early on in the process, I think the chances of them being bought into the implementation strategy would be much higher. Another side step to this is to sort of engage a lot of the development banks that are existing in your country that I'm sure World Bank, AFDB, depending on which region or Asia Development Bank, all of them are quite interested in the long term strategy. So in case you can't necessarily reach out to them, reach out to us and we'll sort of facilitate that and that's what we're hoping to do with the countries that we're working with, that engage the financial institutions much early on in order for them to actually help in financing not just the development but also the implementation of the long term strategy, so that it aligns with their sort of existing goals, because I think as of now, the harmonization between financial flows and climate policy never really happened organically, but I think with the long term strategies there's an opportunity to harmonize these two as well and actually sort of look at how we can bring these partners much early in the process in order for them to be more participatory for the implementation phase. Wonderful, that's excellent and very good tips and tricks all around. And I will reiterate Siddharth's offer to put you in touch with their contacts as well across the board in these financial institutions so please do take up the 2050 pathways platform on that offer, should you need it, but very insightful. And you mentioned that harmonization again keeps coming up and I'm going to actually turn to some of our questions from our participants. Thank you so much to those who've turned in their questions. It seems harmonization is a growing thread and a much of much interest. So Margaret well done on bringing up that theme for today's webinar. One of the questions from our participants asks what kind of methods work best to harmonize a wide array of plans, and in what way does this go beyond a technical exercise to result in a lasting harmonization. And I think that's a very valid question to sort of get into the nuts and bolts of that. And I think I'd throw that out to all of our panelists. And so maybe I work from the person started it all Margaret with her word. If you could share with us some methods that work best. And does it go beyond a technical exercise. Thanks Margaret. Thank you. What I like the question from the way I put it, I should call it a process. And there is no way I can share a best practice now and we say harmonization has taken place. But so long as the momentum is set to go together, both development and climate action, then that means harmonization is something we should look at in future. So for example, if a government is looking at developing a long term, an LTS long term vision, and it's even getting it together the discussion with their development long term vision. But also who is discussing, who is discussing the harmonization. So let's have a whole of government approach. Let's bring the technical people who can know the technical part of it. Let's get the scientists that know what is happening around the climate projections and the current and the future. Let's get the politicians, the decision makers that are going actually to pass the plan. And then this is something which can happen. I'm giving this example from my own but I see like other countries are looking at this so that at the end of the day they can have one harmonized vision of what they want to see in the next 50 years. But then remember, politically most countries are five year, they have this five year political cycle. So in these discussions, how are they breaking down that different milestones at different levels, what can be achieved in short term, mid term and long term. Even if the political cycle changes, let's continue with what has been agreed. So to me that is how harmonization should be and bringing on board or key economic sectors on board. You can imagine when it comes to when it comes to climate action, many people already think about energy, you'd see energy being invoked very fast, climate, smart agriculture, but they forget about water, they forget about disaster risk, they forget about education, they forget about ICT. So they forget about gender, you know. So to me, this is a process, even the current ROTS will be done, it will not be perfect, but the good news there is going to be some kind of revision and revision as people are working together. So it's about bringing together everyone on board on the same table to plan for the future of the countries. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you, Margaret. Yes, picking up on those tips and tricks of who is in the room when discussing harmonization, breaking down milestones at different levels, as well as following that trajectory as well is very important. And I think maybe I'll pass over to Bhupakar as well to see if he has other insights in terms of sharing the different methods to harmonize as well as if it goes beyond a technical action, sorry, technical exercise for you. Thank you very much, Gabriel. I think what Margaret said is extremely important. I mean, without harmonization, we're not going to make a lot of progress. When it comes to policies that have divergent views, I mean, sometimes strategic environmental assessment could be a very useful tool because it looks at where the conflicts are between the various policies. And in the end, since it's going to be a long term plan, 25, 30 years into the future, it would make sense to try to start regulating because the thing is, most of the times, we tend to approach these things superficially. We just have a plan that includes everybody. But it doesn't really reflect into the business day-to-day activities of all those different sectors with now, then when they come to, it's not a priority for them. It's just something that has been sort of imposed. But if we can have either strategic environmental assessment, which looks at all the different policies and plans and then identifies which are in conflict with each other, where are the areas of potential synergy as well, which really, really helps with regards to resources and so on. I think also another approach with the Gambe use is that we've aligned our LPS directly to our national climate change policy and also saw a strategic program on climate resilience, which is a 25-year investment plan that was supported by the World Bank Climate Investment Fund. Under this policy, we have four various clusters, one of them looking at agricultural land use, et cetera, the other one looking at energy, we have at Education World. So I mean, Margaret has made a very good point with regards to things being left out because it's easy to just focus climate change, climate change, and then you forget that on the other side of climate change is disaster risk reduction, which is just more or less the same thing, just a different name. Water.  So what we've done is to have an integrated approach where all of these are considered and even just during our consultation, this came out very clearly because the water sector have shown us their priorities, what their vision is with regards to a long-term strategy. So I think for the strategy to be holistic and for it to be robust, you need to have consideration for all the sectors that are affected or have an impact on climate change. And I think I made that statement in my opening remarks, not just who is affected, but also who can affect. So I think that's one way of looking at it. Without harmonization, I think there's no point in trying to have a long-term strategy. Thank you. True words that could, yeah, that definitely summarized everything. And indeed, with the Gambia as well, the fact that the Minister of Environment is working in collaboration with the Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs to be developing their long-term strategy is also a part of that and helps with the process. Thanks, Bhupakar. And similarly to Sering, what do you think are some methods for harmonization? Well, I agree with my colleagues here, but as far as we are concerned, I think harmonization is basically looking at the management process that you have. For example, if I just come up with our own example, it's like the internal process of aligning the project's objectives with your, the guiding development philosophy. For example, in Bhutan, like if you look at LTS, that's about aligning LTS objectives with the GNH principles and also with our development, the five-year development plans so that you have this country ownership. And for in case of Bhutan, it's being committed through, it is very evident through the political commitment for LTS, for example. And for the LTS, the overall strategy guidance will be provided by NEC, which is National Environment Commission, which is an independent authority and the highest decision-making body on all the matters related to environment and its management within the country. And it is actually chaired by the Honorable Prime Minister or any relevant minister which is appointed by the Prime Minister. NEC is being supported by a committee called CIFO, Climate Change Coordination Committee, which is a multi-sectoral technical coordination committee and it has a wide representative from different stakeholders to discuss and coordinate matters related to climate change and climate change activities within the country and it makes recommendations and suggestions to be taken up by the commission. So the Climate Change Coordination Committee actually avoids duplication between different projects because it has various representatives from different sectors and it synergizes between different projects that is already there in the country. So it's looking at the management process, I guess. And secondly, I think it is also very important to look at identifying what should be the kind of input that has to go into a project and also framing the desired outcomes. So when you look at identification inputs for the project, it can build on the studies or the assessments and outcomes that were conducted through other projects. So that way you can have this harmonization, synchronization with different projects, while you are built towards building resilience and emission reductions. And if you look at the framing the desired outcomes, if you look at your desired outcomes, then it can align again like, for example, with all this current assessment that Bhutan is conducting, we have seen that climate proofing is one of the major components coming out from different studies. So that's why the outcomes are framed like enhancing adaptive capacity. Why? Because we need to protect livelihoods and then achieving and safeguarding food and water security and also enhancing ecosystem structures and functions and also supporting and enhancing human health and safety. So basically look at that from three different angles. Thank you. Very, very interesting to note. And actually, I wanted to pick up on your thoughts there of having an independent authority that's sort of overseeing all of this. And maybe, Siddharth, if you don't mind, I will read out the next question and you'll answer the next one, because that independent authority relates to another question from our participants that asks, how does one manage the politics around this? And maybe even the competing priorities in aligning developments and climate plans and in implementing them. With specific reference now to what's happening with the world in terms of the COVID pandemic, how does that competing priority and that politics, how does one manage all of that throughout this process? And so maybe I'll start with Siddharth and then work our way back and then we'll wrap up after that. Siddharth. I think on the, so let me start with this. I don't think everything is about harmonization. I think there is a lot that can be harmonized, but there's also a bit of rethink that needs to be part of the larger long term strategy process. I think with respect to COVID, you can consider it as a shock. It's not, I don't think anybody could have anticipated it, so you can't be prepared around it. But the idea for the long term strategy should be about building not just a whole of government but a whole of society vision that actually agrees on the direction of shovel. I'm not saying that you need to have fleshed out strategy for what exactly will be your climate policy in 2043. What you need to have is that by 2050 or so on, where exactly does the country need to be. Do everybody, including people on the other side of the political spectrum broadly agree that this is the sort of direction of travel. That's why it's important not just to engage with the government, but to also engage with the society that includes individuals, public individuals, but also industries that play a very significant role in how a country will sort of shape up. So I think that if there is through the long term strategy and agreement on this direction of travel, regardless of what shocks COVID or COVID 2.0 or hopefully not, but whatever comes through at least countries will continue to have that same direction of travel. So let's come back to what sharing said the political sort of impetus in Bhutan from the top from the king himself is to actually support actions on climate change. And that sort of dry so whatever happens, we will continue to have climate change as a central piece in our sort of direction of travel. It's a matter of getting that as part of the DNA of how the country wants to progress and the long term strategy should be considered as a process to get that integration of the direction of travel with relation to climate change for the country. So I think it's more to do with that dimension for us, instead of sort of looking at sort of temporal shocks like COVID and sort of adjusting their entire climate institution itself. Yeah, what I'm picking up there is setting a common direction of travel across the board and having that directive from the top as part of the DNA in the process can help with overcoming some of these political and competing priority challenges. Maybe I'll hand over to Buberkar to see if what do you think on that and if you have more to add. I mean, just to speak on, is it the impact that COVID has had, for example, you mentioned about the issue of shock resilience, etc. I think, like as said, I mean, this is something that was not is completely out of the blue. There's no contingency planning for this. But I think one thing which is obvious is that LDC is my definition. The least developed country group and they have low adaptive capacity, low technical capacity, financial capacity with regards to everything, not just climate change. So it's the same way that climate change would this affecting also making us more vulnerable is the same way that similarly, COVID is impact must hold on a very shorter time scale. I think maybe one thing which initially when the outbreak started. I remember a lot of people were talking about greenhouse gas emissions going down, because the economic activities are less deforestation, all these environmental parameters were looking good because of lack of human activity. And now that is starting to backslide, especially in our area because, for example, people who now are not socially active will have to go into the forest to cut, you know, carry out illegal timber or charcoal production, things like that. Communities that live near forest parks that used to have tourists around the year. And that would be a livelihood option for them do not have this anymore. So it's leading to more and more and more degradation. So what we're seeing is I think what we can try to do is to plan on. Maybe, like, it's difficult to anticipate something like this happening or knowing the frequency, but at least to have some form of mechanism that can help with regards to livelihood because in my short experience, I've seen that climate change adaptation is livelihood component is very, very important infrastructure is important. But in the end, if people don't have food to eat and to be able to take care of their families, it is for the exacerbates the problem where they then go into the natural resource base and do all sorts of damage just to make things work quickly and they have to to survive. So I think this is something that can be looked at in terms of livelihood support perhaps in the future in regards to disasters I think this could be classified as a disaster. No contingency, of course, as Siddharth said, but I think maybe along looking at the livelihood side that that is something where maybe you could try to look at mechanisms with regards to how people are supported because here in developing countries is very obvious once the agricultural system fails or any form of livelihood system failure, of course, people will go into the natural resources and this does not help our long term planning at all. Thank you. Absolutely. When people are at the center and at the heart of a response that will definitely trump any sort of political ideologies per se as long as people are being taken care of at the livelihood and at the household level for sure. But Seringh, would you like to add to that? Well, I think as far as Bhutan is concerned, this is nothing new, like bringing everybody on board because given our small population size, we always conduct this national stakeholder consultations prior to making any major decisions by engaging the whole society and leaving no one behind. And this is very much supported by again the GNH principles and also with the current prison failure plan is just focused on, it is focused on just and harmonious society, leaving no one behind. So this way, again, stakeholder consultations are very crucial for LTS development because it can bring on, like everybody said, it can bring on board various stakeholders, not just government but non-government, regional, sub-regional, the civil society organization, private sectors because we need to ensure that their concerns and priorities are taken on board. But you know, given this current situation from COVID-19, we are just concerned with the effectiveness of stakeholder consultations, the quality and outcomes of stakeholder consultations because so far with our experience of developing this second NDC submissions, these were some of our issues. But again, like for institution memory and also for effective coordination and also to avoid duplication in Bhutan, the LTS will engage the same technical working group that has been constituted for national communications, the Biennial Update Report, the National Adaptation Plan and other ongoing activities. So that way we are trying to make sure that it is inclusive of everybody's voice on it. Thank you. Thank you. Excellent. And as we're just about coming to time, I do want to give Margaret one last chance to maybe share her thoughts and if in a quick 15 seconds you want to say some parting words then please do and then I'll wrap up there after. Margaret. Yeah, I think I agree with all my colleagues what they have said, but just to add one thing is that the end pandemic I think has caused the world to understand that one is, much as it came to impact health, but you see the results is that it has cross cuts all sectors. So this is something which which I see that it shouldn't be looked at as a health issue. Then two, it has mobilized all the political will and support we needed for climate action, for example, which we haven't reached, but also the resources, huge amounts of money is put in place just to look at health. So that's why some discussions are already going on to see how best we bring the impact of Coronavirus across board and also integrating the climate action in the economic recovery. And this is an initiative already under the NDC partnership and most countries are already accessing economic advisory services to see how do they integrate climate action in the economic recovery as a way forward, but I agree, which have to look at long term planning. Thank you. Absolutely. And wonderful words to end our riveting conversation on. Thank you very much. Thank you to all the panelists for you and the role that you play in supporting LDCs and thinking through what the world needs to get on track to be a more sustainable, inclusive and resilient one for us all really appreciate your time. I want to thank everyone for joining the webinar are wonderful participants for sharing all those questions and to the team working behind the scenes. As you can see we're sharing lots of links for the next upcoming webinar will also be sharing out the recording of the session and that should be up on our website very soon. And the registration for our next webinar is open and that will be on the 8th of September. So really hope that you can join us for that. Again, thank you for everybody and with that, I will close our webinar.


What's up welcome guys Steve Maeda with the TSL podcast and this is a podcast that's a clip from Ed Akin from fight fast and flea and man We get pretty real in it the entire interview with Ed is actually two hours This is just a short under ten minute clip But man what we talk about here is actually his experience with learning under Paul Vunek the seal team six trainer In Virginia Beach who went on to be one of the best street fighting tactical fighters of all time And you know, I'm just gonna warn you we hear Ed talk about some really intense things about how he developed that true killer Instinct of when you're put in a position where it's truly life or death and you have to make that decision to turn it on to fight to end it and Take it to that next level. You know one of the reasons why we bring you podcasts like this at TSL Is because we always hear the story of the warrior We always hear the story of the hero, but to truly be that man that is responsible enough to to take that and evolves to become That man with that mentality there's a heavy heavy responsibility and experience that comes with it This is what it's about Check out Ed Akin fight fast and flea comm awesome stuff He's also got a 21 convention speech and also don't forget go to the sexual life calm better your life sign up for the newsletter Man, it's just gonna change you as a man well, I was fortunate to to train with lunatic at a time where he was just done with his his stint of Teaching seal team six and so, you know, you have to imagine these guys were actually not only using it You know in the field that they were going out in the bars and perfecting it in Virginia Beach There's a lot of you know a lot of field testing there And so Even from the time where he went in and he was fighting before that to the time where he came out It evolved and evolved because basically this so these are guys who are saying look I tried this this and this are actually experiencing it and getting the feedback.  I've got to do this because I left such a You know a damage in my self-image.     Yeah, but there was a point so, you know by time I had trained in a lot of different stuff before I found Lunak and There was a period where You know, I was getting a fight still and at this time He was pretty much telling me to do that because that's how you that's how you learn and he always told me he's like look don't you know You know the guys that you're getting you're fighting now aren't the real guys He goes you can't you can't train for them.    That's that's when I when I took that the heart I really said okay when because there's a strategy you don't just go her banshee You've got to keep a cool head in a street fight when you're in long range Even though you don't have five minutes you've got to relax You've got to keep your peripheral vision open because that's where danger comes from right if you if you're starting in a longer distance You've got to relax.   They're throwing off I'd get hit a couple times, you know, maybe I'd have to get out of there But there was a there was a changing point where there was no damage taken on my part because the guys were out They were just that that emotional Part of me was switched on and at that same time I'd say you blackout You don't you don't remember it and you come back to and the guys on the ground You're like, all right.   It's actually really good There's a little bit of me actually featured in there and Don't forget go to the sexual life.com better your life This is about evolving you as a person and making that choice to move in the direction That you are living in the best life possible resources articles tons of stuff there to help you out sign up on the newsletter and uh Let's live that social dynamic to be the better man


Tucker is not an independent actor in Moscow, because when you see that supermarket, for instance, and you say, oh, how amazing everyone lives. Look at these subways. I did something that I mistakenly, the other day, when I was reading up again on the apartment bombings, I went back to this because I was just thinking about this with Tucker and conspiracy theories. And I think it's Raison was the name of the town that's just southeast of Moscow. So I looked at the apartment buildings on Google Maps. And then I did Google Street View in this town. It literally looks like nothing has changed since the 1960s. It's a Soviet dump. And I apologize to anyone who's listening who lives there, but I'll tell you what, it does not look modern. It does not look post-Soviet. It looks pre-Soviet in so many ways. And everyone looks grim and miserable. And this is the stuff that Tucker is not going to see because when you try to go and say, I'm going to go visit, you know, Memorial, the dissident group that's been shut down by Putin, by the way. And what did Memorial do? Incidentally, this is not about Putin. They were an organization that did incredible archival work of people that were killed in the Gulag and killed by the Soviet Union and killed by Stalin. And it's an incredible organization. Memorial was shut down because the past has to be controlled to not just the present. And if you went to see somebody like that, if you were Tucker Carlson, you wouldn't last very long. They would make it very, very clear that that was not allowed or they would interfere with it in some way. So you're not, you know, on your own. I mean, when I was in Russia, I had to get a visa through the government. And that requires a lot of very specific stuff. The other thing, I mean, I've made this point in a few different places. And for whatever reason, people continue to not really grok it. But like, you know, I was recently in Bucharest, Romania and you know, you get a car and you venture outside of sort of main city corridor.  Like I'm literally, I was like breastfeeding my child on the side of the road in rural Romania. And there's just these like, almost like zombie apocalypse looking people with like clearly haven't had dental care in the last two decades or whatever. Like literally since Chalcescu was in power, like they haven't had, you know, brushed their teeth. And I'm just sort of looking and it's like, well, I've seen a lot of different forms of poverty around the world. But like if you just came to Bucharest and you just saw the, you know, film production crews and went to some of the nice restaurants, then went to that like cool cocktail bar down there, you would have no clue that this type of thing is happening an hour away. And that's not just Romania, right? Like it's a gazillion, you know, whole countries are formerly shit-hole, formerly communist countries that are like that. And that's just the side of it that I really wish people would pay some. Yeah, I mean, I spent like four days in St. Petersburg, Russia on vacation. So, you know, probably not that much less time than Tucker spent in Moscow. And, but just in that amount of a period of time, and I was just there, you know, to see things, you notice right away that there's a lot of, it's like there's this really grand architecture, but like you get close to stuff and it looks kind of dingy. And then like, yes, driving back just to the airport, you just see like desolation. So it just raises the question to me of, you know, it's almost cartoonish the way that he put together these shorts. Like it's over the, like the style, the edit egg. Well, let's play the subway one because I just want to comment on like the way this is- The music, the score is incredible. Yeah, so he enrolled the subway clip for us. One of the ways you understand the society is through its infrastructure, the places where people gather, the places where they go to travel. You've got a lot of people in one place that tells you a lot about the people. So with that in mind, we're standing in front of the Key of the Sky Metro Station and there's train station next to it. Now the metro station was built by Joseph Stalin 70 years ago. And the question is, how's it doing now?  It's perfectly clean and orderly. And how do you explain that? We're not even going to guess. That's not our job. We're only going to ask the question. And if your response is to shout at us slogans dumber than the slogans we used to call Soviet and mock, that's not really an answer. Like, what the hell is going on here? The hills are alive with the sound of communism. Do you notice, by the way, he did Soviet in air quotes, which is pretty funny for somebody who is- By the way, that montage ends on a shot of a portrait of Lenin. Yes, there's a relief of Lenin in there. But also, you might have noticed the name Kyiv is in the name of the station. And there is a plaque beneath Lenin, which is that final shot in it, which is about the eternal friendship between the Ukrainian and Russian people. And I imagine that that was on purpose. I'm not entirely sure if that was a little Easter egg, but you look at all these other images, which are classic constructivist Russian images of lantern-jawed men with flags. And the subway that was built with slave labor, people from the gulag, I mean, that's not even disputed. I mean, can you break this down for us, Michael? Because you and Liz are in New York City. The subway can be pretty shitty. So why does Moscow have this beautiful artwork and New York City doesn't? I mean, well, we didn't have Joseph Stalin, that's for sure. We did have the WPA and these public works projects, which actually tried to create socialist art in New York City and it became very, very controversially. Go back to the 1930s during the New Deal, that these Diego Rivera creating this big communist memorial in the middle of New York City and people objecting to it. But the reason this happens is dictatorships can create things like that. Yes, yeah, sure. I mean, let's be honest about it. North Korea has less crime than New York City. Do you wanna live in North Korea? Do you wanna live in New York City? In these types of places, you can round up bombs, right? Like you can just do all kinds of things then far outside of the law, right? Like to some degree, I want to, you know, I am frequently, you know, a critic of NYPD and I think, you know, most libertarians are, there's absolutely situations where they use excessive force on all kinds of people doing things that, you know, we might dispute whether or not they should be considered crimes, right? Like NYPD definitely airs in some ways, but by and large, they're not like rounding up bombs and putting them in trucks and imprisoning them for a really long time or sending them to like forced labor camps or like, like that's not how bombs and junkies are disposed of in New York. In fact, a big part of the criticism is that they're not really disposed of at all, right? Like we had this big push to do away with institutionalization and to some degree, you know, we could kind of trace some of our current predicament to that, right? Like, and I, you know, maybe lots of New Yorkers are not comfortable with those trade-offs, but these are trade-offs either way you slice it, right? It's either public despair or private despair, but it's not like you're doing away with despair altogether, I don't think. Yeah, there's no Thomas Saas in Russia. I don't think, but the interesting thing about this is what he's essentially saying, I mean, but he's not saying in so many words because it's kind of, you know, camouflaged in so many ways. Is it, this isn't a policy thing, right? I mean, even if this were true, it is not true. There's an enormous amount of crime in Russia. There's an enormous amount of poverty in Russia. There's homelessness in Russia. They're, you know, at the last phase of the Soviet Union. There's alcoholism in Russia, by the way, also. So that was the big public works thing in 1985 and 86 when Gorbachev took over. It was like, it was an anti-alcohol campaign because alcoholism was so bad and alcohol was so cheap. The only thing you could get plentifully in the Soviet Union. So there's a lot of that, but why isn't it apparent right there? Well, I mean, are you talking about the Putin regime, talking about the Russian character?  Why do you not see it in the subway? Well, it's a police state. Number one, number two, you know, imagine what would happen if this news story, which got a lot of press in New York City of this, these two NYPD cops that were set upon by a bunch of migrants, right? And they were arrested and no bail. They were released.  Imagine something like that happening in Russia. Obviously it wouldn't. And I can hear the tuckers of the world saying, what shouldn't happen here? Yes, they shouldn't happen here. But the sort of tweaks around the edges of what could make the city life better is not, the answer to that is not to have all power in the state. I don't understand people who are, quote unquote, conservatives or libertarians, especially, believing that the way the state controls everything in Russia is something to be applauded or ended. I'll give you one example of this. When I was in Russia, I was with Vitalik Buterin, the guy who created Ethereum. And he speaks Russian perfectly, met with Putin actually the day before I met him and was denouncing Putin yesterday. This is somebody who doesn't care. He has family there. His parents moved after the fall of the Soviet Union to Canada. But when I was with him, we went to a, it was a technology park, I guess is what you call it, outside of Moscow. And I was talking to the guy who was like, our handler and he's like, this is our competition with Silicon Valley. And at one point I asked him, I was like, do you realize that you've done, the government has done this and you guys have a very poor record of the government creating big technology projects like we have in the United States. The Silicon Valley was created by some people like Sergey Brin, Russians who were allowed through the magic of the free market to create it. And they were still doing this. They were still trying to create in a centrally planned way. It's not a communist country but it's still that central planning instinct in like, is this the country that people like Tucker Carlson want to live in? Good God, I would, I would escape immediately. Hey, thanks for watching that clip from our new show, Just Asking Questions. You can watch another clip here or the full episode here. New episodes drop every week. So subscribe to Reason TV's YouTube channel to get notified when that happens or to the Just Asking Questions podcast on Apple, Spotify or any other podcatcher. See you next week.


Welcome to the Asian Review. I'm your host Bill Sharp. My guest today is an old friend of Asian Review, Ambassador Ray Burkhart. Ambassador Burkhart served for 10 years as a chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan, which manages the U.S.'s relationship with Taiwan. As such, he was clearly an insider who played a unique role in all U.S. government policy decisions regarding Taiwan. Earlier in his career, he served as Director of the American Institute in Taiwan, U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam, U.S. Council General in Shanghai, and many other important diplomatic posts. Welcome back to Asian Review. Nice, Bill. Thanks for having me back here. Glad to be here. That's great. Well, our show today, what 92 consensus? So, for the benefit of our audience, could you just explain what the 92 consensus is supposed to be? Well, the 92 consensus, which is a device that Taiwan and mainland China have used in order to conduct negotiations with each other. Essentially, it means that they both agree that there is one China, but they have different views about how to define that. So the mainland thinks one China is the People's Republic of China, and Taiwan, under the KMT government, said that one China was the Republic of China. So it was a way of, you know, a clever Chinese solution to be able to talk to each other. Well, you had a very interesting interview with Voice of America, which was also reported in the Taipei Times. And were you really debunked the existence of the 92 consensus? No, I wasn't really debunking the existence. I was talking about the history of it. The key point is that, first of all, it's not for the U.S. to say how Taiwan and mainland China should figure out how to talk with each other. That's for them to figure out. Americans aren't too good at that kind of thing, you know, and it would be inappropriate. But what I was saying, frankly, what I was reflecting was we thought that Beijing, I mean, I thought, I think the U.S. government thought that Beijing was being a bit inflexible, was being a little too nitpicky with the new government in Taiwan, and that the term 92 consensus actually had not always been used. At the beginning, they didn't sort of give it any name at all. They just said, we've agreed to talk. We've exchanged documents, one side sent one text, the other side sent the other text, and they said, all right, let's talk. Later, somebody, you know, one of the negotiators called the 92 understanding, and then later somebody decided it should be called the 92 consensus.  I mean, so I thought that Beijing was being somewhat inflexible. They were being tough on the new president in Taiwan, and they had stopped negotiations because she wouldn't say the right language. And we felt that that was a mistake, that stopping talks over, you know, for that reason was being overly, overly hard, and that it was also not good to stop talks. The fact that they, we had been very happy to have mainland China and Taiwan in dialogue with each other, with the United States government, because obviously that made it harder for there to be misunderstanding or miscalculation, but with the talks stopped, you get, again, the danger of miscalculation or misunderstanding. Did you become an instant hero or the Democratic Progressive Party? Yeah, the government in Taiwan was very happy. They said, when I met Tsai Ing-wen, she said, so I think you've joined our team. So that was, you know, I wasn't sure that was exactly what I wanted to hear, but that was nice. And the Beijing was quite unhappy with me for what I said. You know, what you were talking about, it's not up to the US government to determine how Taiwan and China should deal with themselves or what kind of forum they should meet in. It sort of reminded me of General Marshall's comments at the end of World War II when they were trying to affect the coalition government. And he sort of threw his hands up and said, well, you guys are just left to your own and march out. Well, we're not saying you're left to your own. You know, I mean, General Marshall was the classic bad experience. And it showed that the Americans can be pretty, you know, and General Marshall is a pretty smart guy and very capable of a lot of things, but he went over there at the end of World War II to try to negotiate peace during the China's Chinese Civil War. And he, it was impossible. So let's talk about the congratulatory call that was such a hot topic. Tsai Ing-wen's congratulatory call to President Trump. What's your take on that? Well, clearly it was something arranged. First of all, I left the post of AIT chairman on October 1st, so I was not involved in that. You dismissed it. But, you know, I think it was, I know it was carefully arranged ahead of time. I think it was a good thing in some ways. I think it showed that he was his own man. It also showed his respect for Taiwan. And frankly, he'd done a few things which kind of worried some of us in terms of conveying his interest in Asia and his toughness on things that mattered to us. I thought withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership was a big present with a big bowtie on it given to China, which made the Chinese very happy. Talking about pulling out of the, talking about, you know, the need for sort of belittling the alliance with Japan, the alliance with South Korea, that wasn't too good either. So I thought that showing respect for Taiwan at least maybe, I think the time, Beijing was feeling pretty smug at that point. So I thought showing some respect for Taiwan at least gave them something to worry about for a change. But unfortunately, some of the comments he made afterwards did cause some trouble, I thought, because in fact they actually managed to make both Beijing and Taipei kind of upset, which is kind of a difficult accomplishment. So I mean, talking about using Taiwan and the One China principle as a negotiating chip was... A bargaining chip. A bargaining chip, yeah. That was viewed with some alarm even in Taipei. So that's what I'd say about the phone call. Now afterwards, of course, there was the follow-up call with Xi Jinping, which was putting, after Trump became president, that call kind of got relations going between our new administration and the Chinese government. And the wording was very carefully worked out in that call. Even though I'd left government, I actually joined some of the discussion in Washington about how to do that. And a lot of the One China principle that China uses and that they talk about is a little different than the One China policy we talk about. Not to get too far down on the weeds on this or into the theology of it, but... Theology. Basically, what China is saying is that there is One China and Taiwan is a renegade province, and someday it's going to be unified. And we're going to bring Taiwan into the People's Republic of China. What we're saying is, look, our One China policy is kind of like the 92 Consensus. We're saying, look, we know that you both talk about there being One China. We only recognize Beijing as a member of the UN and as a country called China. But as far as the future of Taiwan and what the fate of Taiwan is going to be and how you're going to reconcile that, we don't take any position on that. And so, therefore, we have never said exactly the same thing as what China says, and even though they've tried for 30-something years to get us to say that unification and bringing Taiwan into part of your country under Beijing's control is the ultimate outcome. We have never said that and we won't say it. And so, if you listen to what Trump said during the Xi conversation, if you look at the White House statement that was issued afterwards, it was very carefully worded. It said that President Trump, at the request of China, had agreed to honor our One China policy. And then One China policy was in quotation marks.  From whom? From Xi. From China? From China. Look, I don't think he gave anything up. I mean, I think he, Clara, I don't think when he originally, you know, made some of his comments about One China, I think, you know, he and his, he hadn't really, you know, that was before he was elected, before he became president and he hadn't, he and his team had not really studied that and what it meant. Once Tillerson had been briefed and others briefly understood it, they realized that, you know, since what we mean by One China, what Beijing means by One China are so different, there's no need to, you know, saying that we have a One China policy is not a concession, you know. So it kind of, it got things patched up. I feel like I came away from on this, this call was, to me, kind of showed that the U.S. relationship with Taiwan is best handled out of public sight. Although I don't like to say that as a, you know, part-time journalist but I don't like to say that but I just can't help but to think that. There's a lot to that. Too many sort of public statements, remarks, public speculation about things doesn't necessarily help. A lot of it is best done quietly. Behind the curtain. Or just not talked about so much, you know. I mean, so. So this idea about using Taiwan as a bargaining chip, has Taiwan ever been used as a bargaining chip to get a trade concession from China to get some help with North Korea? I don't think so. No. I mean, I think China has tried that. China has tried that. But they have said, well, you know, if you sell arms to Taiwan, we're not going to help you on North Korea, you know, stuff like that. But we generally haven't fallen for that, you know. So I, you know, one of the points I like to make to your audience is we don't, particularly in the last ten years, I'd say, and to the Bush administration through the Obama administration, I'm sure it's going to be true with this administration. We've gotten away from what was true in the early days after we D-recognized Taiwan as China in 1979. We tended to just sort of treat Taiwan as part of our China policy. And frankly, China and Taiwan wasn't as important then. Taiwan in the intervening 30-something years has developed a very strong economy. It's part of the world's supply chain. We have one minute to break. We have a big economic and trade player in the world, a big economic and trade player in the world. And so we treat it as an important relationship in its own right. I think people in Taiwan would be very glad to hear that, especially from the... Well, we say that. We say a lot. And they can see it. And we have, we show them more respect. We have visa waiver for Taiwan now, so that, which gave a big boost to a number of visitors from Taiwan, both tourists and business people. And so we break at this point. You're watching Asian Review. I'm your host, Bill Sharp. Our guest today is Ambassador Ray Burkhart, who served for 10 years as chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan. So we have a real insider here with us. And don't go away. We'll be back in one minute. Aloha, kakou. I'm Marcia Joyner, and I'm inviting you to navigate the journey. We are discussing the end-of-life options, and we would really love to have you every Wednesday morning at 11 a.m. right here. Aloha, my name is Mark Shklav. I am the host of Law Across the Sea. Please join me every other Monday to hear lawyers from Hawaii discussing ways to reach across the sea and help people and bring people together. Aloha. Hi, I'm Cheryl Crozier Garcia, the host of Working Together on Think Tech Hawaii. Join us every other Tuesday from 4 p.m. to 4.30 when we discuss the impact of change on employees, employers, and the economy. Welcome back to Asian Review. I'm your host, Bill Sharp. Our show today, What 92 Consensus. And joining us right here in our studio is Ambassador Ray Burkhart, who served for 10 years as the chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan. I don't know if you happen to have seen the March 11th edition of The Economist. I did. I did see it. They had one little line in there which I thought was really interesting. I'll quote it to. The one China policy is a preposterous fit, but America must stick to it. Yeah, and then earlier in the article, they called it something a convenient fiction or a useful fiction or something.  And that's right. And it works. Okay, well, it was interesting to see what your take on that was. Now, you know, there seems to be some... You worked on the National Security Council, so you have a good idea of how things work in the White House. Maybe not so much under this administration or at least under previous ones. They differ from one administration to another. But what I'm reading is that when it comes to Taiwan policy, there are about four different centers of interest. One is the, we'll call it the Steve Bannon group. And the other is the Reese Preba's group. And then there's the HR McMaster group and the Jared Kushner crowd and the President himself. And do you see any of these centers as being more influential than the other? Well, I mean, look, I'm not sure I'd buy that precisely would divide the White House up in those centers. And I'm not sitting in the White House, so I don't know. Okay. And I think Taiwan is not a major issue that these people are worrying about right now. They're giving more attention, it's a little more attention to the issue now because we just had Secretary Tillerson in Beijing. They will be preparing for Xi Jinping's wonderful experience in Florida at Mardulago. So Taiwan will be an issue. It always comes up. Right, right. If we don't, I mean, usually China, China raises it, you know, tell us what to do. That's a given. Yeah, don't do this, don't do that, you know, and so forth. So there will be a necessity to focus on the issue in preparing for the Mardulago meeting with Xi Jinping. But I can't really comment on whether there are these different factions. I find that a little bit, maybe on other issues, but on Taiwan, I think that would be a little far-fetched. It does seem that this administration is going to pay more attention to Taiwan, though, doesn't it? I don't know. I actually think the Obama administration paid pretty good attention to Taiwan. The Obama administration sold 12, and I've worked on Taiwan for the Bush administration and a lot of administrations, but I thought the Obama administration did do more than $12 billion in arms sales to Taiwan. That's not bad. I think this administration, there are people in the administration who are or who look like they might go in the administration. I mean, that's part of the reason it's kind of hard to comment because we have no assistant secretaries named yet for either the State Department or the Defense Department. So, you know, we're kind of guessing who these personalities are going to be. Randy Shriver. Was that been announced? No, but there seems to be a lot of conjecture. Sure. There's a lot of conjecture about a lot of names, but no one's been named yet. There's nothing official yet. Well, Randy would be very friendly to Taiwan. There are a lot of people out there who are possible people for these jobs who are friendly to Taiwan, even very friendly. So, I think Taiwan is hopeful that the Trump administration will be well inclined toward it and that some real friends will be in the administration. And I would say that that hope is probably well founded. Right. Oh, that sounds good. Arms Package has talked that after the sea, Trump meeting in Florida that the US will announce another arms package to Taiwan, which is said to be very robust and continue to have a lot of more modern weapons. I've seen those stories. I saw also Bill Gertz's story about, which was basically valid. There was a package that almost was announced to Congress at the end of... I mean, this is what happens. The process is that we notify Congress of an arms package to sell to Taiwan, and that's when it becomes public information. There was a serious discussion about a notifying Congress of an arms package of a billion plus at the very end of the Obama administration. And as Bill Gertz correctly reported, it was something that actually was supported by the Defense Department and the State Department, but it was lost somewhere in the corridors of the White House. And so... Does that mean Obama himself couldn't be... I would doubt it went up to him, but it was somebody who got cold feet, probably in the NSC staff, so at a high level. So certainly those are all items that made a lot of sense. They were various kinds of missiles. They were parts related to the upgrade of the F-16A's and B's. There were other items and things that they really need, and that we had encouraged them to have in some cases. So I'm sure that'll happen at some point. And it looks like the new administration is going to want to put its own stamp on it. And there are people who are in the administration or who look like they will be in the administration who are very well inclined toward helping Taiwan's defense. So I would be surprised not to see some additional items. It's been said that at the meeting in Florida between Xi and Trump that China will push hard for a fourth communique. I don't put a lot of stock in that. Every couple of years there are stories about China pushing for a fourth communique. Some of us think there was one communique to many already. I mean the 82 communique in which we agreed to phase out arms sales was an unfortunate agreement. And I think a lot of people, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people in the Trump administration feel the same way. So I would be really surprised to see that happen. Well, China always pushes for another communique. Sure, they always push for more. Oh, okay. So let us just touch very lightly on this indictment of Ma Ying-jeou that came out last week. What's your take on that? Is it substance? Is it political payback? What's your feeling about it? I don't know. I think, you know, and there may have been, I haven't studied it in great detail, you know, and you'd have to be a Taiwanese lawyer to really understand all the whole thing. I mean, I think, but I would just say this about it. I think this custom that you see developing in Taiwan and you've seen it for years in Korea, of going after former presidents for legal, over legal issues, I think it's a bad, really bad practice. I think in a polarized, in countries where you already have rather polarized political environments, I think it just further bitters the environment and it's not a good thing. I mean, I'll just tell you, I remember talking to President Ma about that with reference to the indictment of Chun Shui-ban, the president who preceded him who ended up being thrown in jail for a long time. And I said to President Ma, and I was actually authorized by the U.S. government to say this to him, I said, you know, I spent years in Korea and I saw what happened in Korea where each president locked up his predecessor. And I said, you know, that really created a bitter political atmosphere. I said, you know, you may, maybe you need to really sort of think through whether you want to follow that model here in Taiwan. I would say, oh, Ali, he said, I'll let the law follow its course. So I was unhappy about that action against Chun Shui-ban and I kind of feel the same way about this one against Ma Ying-chou. No, I can see that. And one hand it seems to be, do you let the rule of law and democracy prevail in order to prevent political or not to avoid political polarization? I agree with you that Taiwan, after what I studied the whole last year, is politically polarized and it really doesn't need any more of it. Right, I mean, and I'm not saying that, you know, and I don't know whether this was some crime committed by Ma or not. I really just don't know. In the case of Chun Shui-ban, there clearly does seem to have been crimes committed by Hammond, certainly by his wife. But how vehemently and for how long and how, you know, it needs to be given careful consideration because of the political environment there. I think I agree with you in the sense I also thought reluctantly came to the conclusion Chun Shui-ban is guilty, but I don't know if he deserves the prison term that he got. We're coming up on the third anniversary of the Sunflower Movement. Ah, yes. So just this month. So what's your reflection on that, looking back? Well, I think the Sunflower Movement, which in turn, what it was, was a student demonstration, a student takeover of the legislative building, protesting a potential further trade agreements, an agreement on trade and services with China, which they saw as just Taiwan giving up too much to China and getting too close, becoming too dependent on China. And I think it showed that, you know, it showed pushback, particularly by a younger generation. And that kind of anxiety about becoming absorbed by China or the anxiety about becoming too dependent on and too beholden to China. That anxiety also had a lot to do with Tsai Ing-wen's victory in the presidential election. It was fundamental to it, obviously. So I think... One minute to go. That was a lesson for all parties. I get one last question. I know this is a little unfair to hit you with this, but 45 seconds left.  So what does Taiwan represent to you? Taiwan represents an island of 23 million people who, against all odds, and the odds were all against them, they managed to create a vibrant democracy and a very vibrant economy. Great, great, great. Well, I guess we'll have to end it here because the clock has caught up with us again, the devilish clock. And we want to thank you for joining us today. There's a lot of things to think about, as always. And we want to thank you out there for joining us today. And next week, be sure to join us again. My guest will be Miss Andrea Wu, the President and the American Chamber of Commerce of Taiwan, who will be joining us via Skype. We'll see you then.