launch of the IEA's World Energy Outlook 2022. I'm Jethro Mullen, Editor-in-Chief in the IEA's Communications Team and I'm joined today by IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol and the lead authors of the World Energy Outlook, IEA Chief Energy Modeller Lara Kotzi, Chief Energy Economist Tim Gould and to start today's event Dr Birol will make some opening remarks. Then Ms Kotzi and Mr Gould will present the key findings from the report. We'll then take questions from journalists. For the journalists taking part in this press webinar we invite you to submit 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 submit your questions. And with that I'll hand over to our Executive Director Dr Birol. Thank you very much Mr Mullen. Greetings to all the colleagues, all the friends following this webinar. Our flagship publication, World Energy Outlook, comes at a very pivotal time. The global energy system is going through a major turmoil, which I consider to be the first truly global energy crisis. And at the same time our world is entering a period of a major geopolitical upheaval. We all see on a day-to-day basis the negative impacts of Russia's invasion of Ukraine on people, economies, energy markets, and in our world energy outlook we try to look what kind of responses governments, businesses, people can give to this crisis. Our analysis, World Energy Outlook, looks as usual between now and 2050 the global energy system but we focus in this report for the next few years until 2030 to look at the global energy and climate dynamics.  And there are many, many interesting findings, charts, numbers you will see in our report which is freely available in our website. So in this report as I said many findings but there are two issues, two questions I ask my colleagues, Mrs. Kozi and Mr. Gut to look into. The first question is the current energy crisis going to slow down or to accelerate clean energy transitions. This is question number one. Question number two is how can we secure resilient energy system in the future? What kind of energy system we have to build in the future which is much more secure, much more resilient, what kind of measures we have to take? So these are the two questions we try to answer in this report. Now starting with the first one some of the members of the press would remember only a few months ago I said this energy crisis could be a turning point in the history of energy by accelerating clean energy transitions. And now looking at the results and the findings of the virtual energy look I can confirm that the numbers here, the analysis here do confirm that the government responses around the world given to this energy crisis promise to be that we are seeing a turning point in the history of energy and this crisis indeed accelerate clean energy transitions. We look at the numbers, this is our job, the data, we are seeing unprecedented increase in different clean energy options. Solar PV, wind, batteries, heat pumps, nuclear power, energy efficiency in all of them. My colleagues feel very soon going to give you the numbers. But dear colleagues, why I am optimistic is we look at the responses coming from governments to this crisis. Inflation Reduction Act from the United States, 400 billion US dollar on the table in terms of tax incentives, subsidies, different support for clean energy technologies ranging from hydrogen to solar to carbon capture and storage to nuclear, electric cars and others. In Europe we have repower EU again a major package putting on the table accelerating the clean energy transitions. In Japan we have green transformation of Japan, a major, major new plan. China, India, they have increased their renewable and clean energy targets and supported with real money there. So why governments are doing this? There are three reasons. Number one, energy security. Today the biggest driver of renewable energy in many parts of the world is energy security not necessarily climate commitments as it was before. So energy security number one driver. Number two of course climate commitments and number three the many governments want to be a part of the new industrial era based on clean energy manufacturing. So these three drivers energy security, climate commitments and industrial policy when they come together it's a very powerful combination and it is the reason I am optimistic that we are going to see a acceleration of clean energy technologies. And as a result as my colleagues have calculated the clean energy investments today which is about 1.3 trillion USD as of today will reach in 2030 with the current policies with the current policies to about 2 trillion USD. A 50% increase of clean energy investment with the current policies in 2030 something to be happy about or at least optimistic about. Another important finding of our study is that for the first time with the in the current policy settings again without pushing the climate commitments just with the current policy setting we are seeing a peak of fossil fuels a distinct peak of fossil fuels in 2030s. It is the for the first time since industrial revolution we are going to see a peak of fossil fuel around 2030s. Decades and decades the share of in the last three four decades the share of fossil fuels in the global energy mix was about 80% more or less constant and now around 2030 we will see this share will fall down below 70%. Again this is in the scenario in the current policy context. Additional policies to push the clean energy technologies may well mean that this 70% will even go further down. Dear colleagues we also look at the impact of that. So this is the there is a peak but this doesn't mean that the world will not use fossil fuel the world will still use fossil fuel oil and gas at a lesser extent coal and as a result in the current policy context with the current policies our numbers show that the global temperature increase would be around 2.5 degrees Celsius and my colleagues also look at the the very important fact that more than 100 countries around the world before and after Glasgow COP26 made pledges. If those pledges of those governments are fulfilled what would be the temperature rise and the temperature rise if those again if and if those pledges are fulfilled it will be temperature rise will be about 1.7 degrees Celsius again an improvement in this area. So in terms of 1.7 degrees is a good news but it is still far from the 1.5 degrees and there is also no certainty that the governments will do what they said they would do in their pledges. So from that point of view if we want to reach our net zero targets on which we last year made a very detailed report we still see there is a significant gap. There are many important achievements but in order to secure a 1.5 degrees result for example the two trillion dollar I mentioned the clean energy investment 2030 needs to double and reach four trillion US dollars. So this is therefore there is still an important gap between the pledges and where we need to come at least where we need to come as the international energy agency. But we still believe that given the all the difficulties we are facing today in the global energy markets to reach 1.5 degrees target is still achievable getting more and more challenging but still achievable from energy sector point of view. Another important point of our report is on Russia. So Russia dear colleagues based on our numbers is of 24th of February this year Russia was the number one fossil fuel exporter of the world oil gas and coal putting all of them together number one fossil fuel exporter of the world but Russia lost it is by far the most important client the market Europe 75 percent of the Russian nature gas exports went to Europe 55 percent of the Russian oil exports went to Europe and it will be very difficult for Russia to compensate to find new clients to substitute Europe it will take time it will not be easy economically technologically and from a political perspective and therefore what we are seeing is the Russia's production and exports for oil and gas will decline in the next years to come as a result Russia's role in the international energy affairs will be diminished much diminished I should say in terms of oil and gas trade Russia's share will increase pardon decrease significantly why Russia's share will decrease because there will be less opportunities to substitute their exports to Europe and elsewhere as a result my colleagues have calculated that the as a result of the decline in the oil and gas sales between now and 2030 Russia will lose about one trillion US dollar of export revenues the last two points I wanted to mention is first on natural gas gas some of the colleagues who follow our work closely would remember 2011 we made a report again in this series of word energy outlook our flagship publication this report was called golden age of gas 2011 when the shale gas revolution has been identified by the IEA we said if the shale gas revolution continues what would be the gas consumption in the world and we came up with a red bullish projection we said in the next 10 years we made this report 2011 global gas consumption could increase by about 700 bcm it was found rather bullish and radical by some but when we look at the numbers in 2021 we were spot on it was a golden age of gas but the this report word energy outlook we have says us that we are approaching to the end of the golden age of gas the demand especially advanced economies are in a decline mainly as a result of the renewables in the electricity generation heat pumps and efficiency in the buildings and the growth in the developing countries there will still grow in developing countries but this will not be as strong as before due to the high prices we are seeing having said that the pipeline a connection between russia and europe will not be on the table anymore and we see that the lng markets will see a very strong push lng will play a more important role but the sustainable growth of lng markets will among other things will hinging on whether or not we can make the lng infrastructure compatible with our climate goals so the last point dear colleagues i wanted to mention to you is how can we reduce the risks of future turmoil like we are seeing today there is a very detailed analysis in our report several hundred pages but if i can try to summarize at the cost of being to simplify it too much i see there are basically two options either clean energy investments today groving i said and they are going to reach with the current policy context two trillion us dollar in 2030 and the energy demand around the world will increase with the economies increasing with the urbanization and others because energy means better lives productivity and the comfortable lives so either we meet this energy demand growth by increasing two trillion dollar clean energy investment to four trillion dollar and the more and more growth in global energy demand will be met by clean and secure energy sources this is the first option which will bring us in line also with the 1.5 degrees target we have this is the first option we have the second option if we fail to increase the clean energy options technologies in order to avoid further volatility and insecurity in the markets we have to further increase fossil fuel investments to have security of energy supply and of course in this case you can address the security in a different way but you are going to jeopardize you are going to jeopardize your our climate course and i believe there is also a business risk here so we have these two options in front of us and from international energy agency point of view we believe and our analysis show that we can at the same time address energy security and climate challenges by increasing the clean energy technologies which will provide a secure future so to finish dear colleagues i believe when we look at this year 10 years from now i believe we will see that 2022 was a year where the clean energy technologies see a major turbocharging and this word energy outlook is a testimony for that and i would like to thank my colleagues laura cozy and a team good and they're wonderful top notch team for bringing this work together thank you very much that is introduction now team gold and i will take you through the main findings of the word energy outlook so let me start you start with the with the giving you a something that i would call the heartbeat of the global energy economy what you're seeing here is an historic perspective of how good or are not good the global energy economy has been going over the past 50 years and the more you go up like really when you measure your heartbeat the more countries you see hitting high level of inflation the reason for being worried and flashing red lights is what this graphs tells you today we are approaching 100 percent of countries hitting very high inflation levels we need to go back to the 70s to the previous oil crisis to see incredibly high level of inflation now governments around the world in our assessment have already spent enough spending over half a trillion dollars to shield consumers from these increasingly high prices to shield companies and should to shield families to try to avoid this increasing risk of a global recession a major and important difference from the period of the 70s is that today governments around the world have many more tools to address this crisis in particular clean energy technologies so if i go back to the very first questions that dr. Birola asked at the beginning of this presentation is this crisis a setback or a boost this answer for what you'll find in this outlook is very clear let's have a look at clean energy investments clean energy investments since the paris agreement was signed in 2015 they've been growing but at a rather modest pace we have seen a first jump in 2021 why because countries out of the covid crisis started putting in place sustainable recoveries they started putting money against ambition and now what's happening over the past several months and over the past year we are seeing an increasing amount of policies being put in place not only the policies the money back in those policies and our expectation is that all those new policies put in place will give a very big push to hit a two trillion mark for clean energy investment by 2030 this is for us a lift up an increase in expectation already compared to last year and a 50 boost compared to today dr. Birola mentioned what are the key policies that are helping countries to go in this direction the us inflation reduction act the european union increasing discussion of meeting and ratcheting up ambition in the fifth of 55 towards repower you japan but also increasing ambition in emerging economies on solar on evise is pushing this clean energy transformation and accelerating it would this be enough to be on track with a 1.5 degree trajectory not yet we would need to double that number to hit four trillion and where we see most of the job to be done is in advance in emerging economies and team will come back to this in a moment for us a critical aspect to be addressed at the coming cop in particular when we see that those countries are the ones suffering the most today from this energy crisis we estimate 75 million people that had access to electricity will be losing it this year because they are simply not able to pay their energy bills there is one sector in particular that for us is moving ahead and really turning the corner this is electricity we have heard certainly and we have heard and read a lot of news of countries turning back to call turning back to call for energy security reasons to make sure that the lights alone for the population this is happening in europe they're also hearing of an increasing amount of countries in asia wanting to build new coal fire power plants for us what's happening is the following in 2022 as you can see here it's true coal had a muted growth in terms of producing electricity but already solar and wind were larger than the increase in coal and once you actually put in place the policies and measures that are already approved so this is the steps world we are in we will see that this is just temporary by 2025 coal is going to be on a downward trajectory and by 2030 we will see even a steeper steeper decline what's happening is very clear clean energy technologies solar in particular are becoming very cheap supporting policies like ira are really even helping to make solar even cheaper and the expectation is that in the next five years solar installed capacity will surpass that of coal to become the number one capacity installed for electricity generation one of the several historic turning points that we will be witnessing in this coming decade by the end of this decade this means that clean energy not only solar we see wind there but also nuclear nuclear that is for reactors that are already present existing that will see a ramp up in in production this is the case for japan some european countries but also new nuclear so when you put all the clean energy technologies together by the end of this decade we will be producing more electricity from clean energy than from fossil fuel this is another turning point what does it mean clearly for emissions this is a good news we will be seeing a peak in electricity sector emissions very soon and emissions we start to decline this is exactly what we need to keep the temperature stop from rising who is leading this change is clearly advanced economy you see really a nosedive in in emissions is it fast enough not yet but it's another acceleration and another very clear sign of acceleration could we move faster and for us the answer is even a clear yes we have been tracking over a range of different clean energy technologies how are manufacturers behaving and reacting to the current new policy setting and what you see here is that in many cases for many critical clean energy technologies solar pv batteries for electric vehicles electrolyzers we are seeing a incredible lineup of new announcements of new plans in all cases those will be above what would it mean that in steps in the current policy setting by 2030 in some cases we are even meeting what would be needed in a net zero by 2050 trajectory of course not all of this project will see the light of the day not all of that will get financing in some cases there will be difficulties aligning supply chains and team will come back to this in a second on the other hand we know that a lot of the recent announcements in policies will actually create a very conducive environment for technologies beyond those ones heat pumps ira in europe really booming we are seeing an app of new projects and beyond that cc us duck so for us what we're seeing on the ground is the reinforcement that policies are credible and there is a triple alignment as dr bilal mentioned earlier those are technologies that help facing the energy security crisis the affordability crisis and the industrial policies of countries now if we turn to fossil fuels we had dr bilal mentioned in this just a minute ago 10 years ago we did a special focus that was called are we entering a golden age of gas and what you see plotted here was our demand projections back then and if you see how the action numbers realized we're actually very very close to what we have seen in markets in reality so 10 years 10 years later we can actually drop the question mark and say yes it was a decade of golden age of gas now going forward the outlook is very different this decade we'll see a very modest growth and then a very long plateau why is this happening is happening for a variety of reasons policies first and foremost first and foremost especially in advanced economies the ones that we have heard earlier especially in the power sector what's happening we have many more technologies that can produce electricity in a much cheaper way than gas so the key driver of gas demand growth that we have seen over the past decade is drying up and in fact for advanced economies we're going to see even a decline in gas use in the electricity sector other key driver that is drying up is the one for heating in buildings as efficiency measures electrification and beyond are really putting an end to this growth as you can see here however we are going to see two diverging trends in advanced economies a peak and a decline in emerging economies a continued growth continued growth that is going to be pushed mostly by industrialization this mismatch has implications also for trade and Tip Gold will take you through those thank you very much indeed Laura and when it comes to gas trade of course we're all aware that in recent months Russia has cut gas deliveries to the European Union by around 80 percent and we assume that there's no way back for the EU-Russia gas relationship and that relationship was built up over 50 years on the basis of trust and that trust has disappeared as you can see on the screen and Russia's trade with China does pick up but it replaces only a fraction of the volumes lost in Europe we'll come back to that in a second but what I wanted to focus on here is really the story around LNG and the spotlight is very much on LNG as a key supply and balancing force in global markets especially in Europe and in developing countries in Asia gas demand in the steps as you can see on the left hand side of the screen a 5 percent increase but there's a 25 percent increase in LNG trade and the big question that we have is will today's tight markets produce an uptick on the investment side and there's a dilemma there because gas business is a long-term business and but the uptick in LNG demand today might not last particularly in Europe so we need to look carefully at business models for any new long-term gas investments and ways to make them compatible with energy transitions for example by integrating CCUS or building in the use of low emissions gases and there can be no clearer sign of the changes underway in the energy system than the picture that you're looking at now for the first time as Dr. Birol mentioned today's policy settings are strong enough to generate an overall peak in fossil fuel demand before the end of this decade and alongside that plateau in gas demand that we just heard about coal demand peaks within the next few years oil demand reaches a high point in the mid 2030s before falling back and that has a lot to do with the expansion of electric vehicles fossil fuels and the emissions from their combustion have risen every decade since the start of the industrial revolution more than two centuries ago and now all of our scenarios have a growing global economy growing demand for energy services alongside a reduced role for fossil fuels in meeting those needs and that's why we're calling this a pivotal moment in energy history and within that broader context the challenges facing Russia are particularly sharp and as was mentioned prior to the invasion of Ukraine Russia was the world's largest fossil fuel exporter so if you put oil and gas together Russia was exporting about 50 percent more oil and gas than the next largest exporter which was Saudi Arabia and if we look back to our projections from the world energy outlook 2021 which is what you're seeing on the screen our expectation was that Russia would easily maintain that position but this has all changed Russia's share of global oil exports drops once the new EU ban on imports kicks in and gas scenes an even steeper drop so gas exports are set to have from today's level by 2030 and those declines highlight the difficulties that Russia faces to find alternative markets for all the resources that used to go to Europe and also our judgment that the sanctions on Russia's access to capital and access to technologies will affect its ability to develop new more challenging resources for instance in eastern Siberia or the Arctic or indeed to build new lng projects and as a result Russia does face a much diminished role in global energy and I'd just like to pick up one point here on gas exports because some people assume that Europe's loss is China's gain and that Russia will simply ramp up gas exports to the east as exports to Europe fall but things are really not that simple aside from all the infrastructure issues our projections underline that China is changing too and that gas demand growth in China's future is nowhere near as strong as it has been in recent years so in our view there's no obvious room in the Chinese mix for another large capacity gas pipeline from Russia beyond the existing parasyberia pipeline as the executive director mentioned energy security is a really key theme in this year's wheel and in particular this issue of maintaining affordable and reliable supply through transitions and I wanted to illustrate a few of our points from the outlook here so for the next few decades at least we will be drawing down a system based on fossil fuels and building one up based on clean energy but the key point I have in mind is that we need both parts to function well for the duration of that transformation you can't just let the fossil fuel system freewheel downhill and the speed and security of the transition depends on synchronizing changes across different parts of the energy system and indeed some parts of the old infrastructure can also be reused or repurposed to find a place in the new one and that brings us to this crucial issue of investment which Dr Barrow already mentioned so this is where we are today for every dollar spent on fossil fuels around one dollar fifty is spent on clean energy transitions and you may recall that we get to two trillion by 2030 in the stated policies but we need to come to that four trillion number by 2030 to get on track for a 1.5 degree scenario note that even in such a dramatic scenario the amount spent on fossil fuels is not zero but that ratio has changed it's not one to 1.5 anymore it's one to nine and as Dr Barrow mentioned under those circumstances you know we have choices about how we choose to guard against the possibility of future volatility the preferable way is to follow what's on the screen right now a massive scale up in clean energy investment but if we fall short of that then avoiding volatile markets will require then higher oil and gas investment than what you're looking at on the screen but that's then comes with a very substantial risk it puts our climate goals in jeopardy as well and as we scale up investment the fastest growth comes uh needs to come in emerging and developing economies and that's as as as Laura mentioned that's where energy demand is also growing most rapidly but clean energy projects face an additional hurdle in those markets and that's the high cost of capital uh cost of capital for a solar plant in key emerging economies it's between two and three times higher than in advanced economies and china and if we want to get secure transitions all across the world and then we need to tackle the risks that deter investors and financial flows from these kinds of projects I think COP 27 is a key opportunity for advanced economies to show the priority that they also attach to this issue and in particular on the discussions on climate finance and finally the world needs to be very attentive to new vulnerabilities affecting energy security we highlight a few issues in the book um but the one I wanted to focus on here is about the security of clean energy supply chains so we have to be very wary of swapping one energy security vulnerability for another today it's gas tomorrow it could be cobalt it could be rare earths um and production of many of these minerals is very concentrated much more so than um the existing supply of oil and gas or coal and our demand for those minerals is really going to increase substantially as we move through transitions for clean energy technologies that are reliant on those uh mineral supplies so in that net zero by missions by 2050 scenario demand for critical minerals increases by a factor of four already by the end of this decade so there's a lot of work to be done to scale up these supply chains and make them more diverse finally a word on what all of this means for emissions um as you can see emissions have risen steadily over recent decades and prior to the signature of the Paris Agreement our baseline expectation was that they would continue to rise putting us on track for a really catastrophic 3.5 degree rise in long-term average temperatures um but as we saw earlier we're now approaching a peak in fossil fuel demand even under today's policies and that's naturally associated also with a peak in emissions as well and that improvement with key technologies and key policies has already shaved around uh one degree uh Celsius of projected long-term warming and compared to our pre-Paris baseline so that brings it down from 3.5 to 2.5 obviously a better outcome before than before uh but still not enough to avoid severe effects from climate change can we reduce it further can we shave another one uh degree of that long-term outcome and as the executive director mentioned if countries follow through in full and on time with all of their pledges then and and companies also do what they have promised for instance in aviation or shipping and we can limit that long-term rise to 1.7 degrees um but there's still an awful lot more to do beyond that uh to reach that net zero emissions by 2050 outcome to round up um a couple of brief conclusions so we've seen the damage done by russia's invasion of ukraine to people to industries to energy markets but the government responses to today's crisis open up a more hopeful perspective as a turning point towards a cleaner and more secure energy sector russia started this crisis as the world's largest fossil fuel exporter but we are really witnessing a profound reshuffling of energy trade that is leaving russia in a much diminished position and we're also approaching that landmark moment in energy history global economy global fossil fuel use um they've been marching upwards shoulder to shoulder for more than two centuries um but they are about to part company and clean energy sources will need to step in and step up to accompany the global economy further but we really need that massive surge in clean energy investment um to keep the door to a 1.5 degree outcome open and without that we would need higher oil and gas investment to avoid a renewed bout of fuel price volatility but that would also put our climate goals at risk and finally today's energy crisis reminds us that the the journey to a more secure inclusive affordable and sustainable energy system may not be a smooth one but it also makes it crystal clear why we need to press ahead thank you very much thank you very much for the presentation um we now have some time to take questions from journalists we invite the journalists in attendance to please send your questions through the q and a function of the zoom if you haven't done so already and please mention your media outlet along with your question um we'll now take a two-minute break to give you a chance to submit your questions we'll be right back thank you very much uh for all the great questions um we're going to get to as many of them uh as we can um starting uh with this one um from ronald kim uh from argus media uh who asks it seems coal fire generation output in 2030 uh will be higher than what was projected under last year's world energy outlook 2021 in both the steps and the aps is this revision because of the recent surge in coal fired output uh and i think uh laura codsey is going to take this question thank you jeteran thanks for for the question uh in fact we are seeing a slightly higher coal fire generation output compared to last year's steps and the reason is indeed that some countries are going to use the existing coal fire power a bit longer as gas prices are high and to maintain energy security however i think it's important to stress that why electricity from coal power is slightly higher than last year's steps emissions are actually lower and the reason is that uh we are pushing on renewables on a stronger on a stronger way and the overall balance is actually bringing to a power sector emission peak earlier as far as aps is concerned uh we are actually uh more we are seeing a faster transition away from coal so the coal generation is lower than last year thank you laura um the next question uh is about gas demand obviously um this was something that was covered in the presentation to some extent you say that gas demand is set to remain flat going forward um does this mean that the role of lng is diminishing um and i think that one is going to go to uh tim gould yeah thanks very much uh for the question um we have this projection that um that laura mentioned earlier five percent increase in global gas demand to 2030 um but there's a lot happening beneath the surface there and one of the things that is happening beneath the surface is that a greater share of that is being met by lng in fact if you look at all the growth to 2030 about 70 of that growth is met by um by lng so tight markets at the moment and we expect those to be maintained at least through the middle of this decade until we get big new increments in liquefaction capacity coming through uh from the middle east uh from north america potentially also from um east africa um but there is that focus on lng now europe is going to take probably an extra 50 billion cubic meters of lng imports this year um that's been eased to some degree by the fact that china has taken less um china's import demand has been affected by lower economic growth um by lockdowns and but we think that once china is back and and that could happen as early as next year then there will be quite intense competition for available lng uh cargos for a while thank you very much tim uh so just scrolling through all of these questions the next one uh is regarding um russia's uh energy exports um this one's from uh anhil calavo from spain's f a news agency uh can you um um be more precise and explain the reduction of russia uh the reduction for russia of the energy exportations of one trillion dollars by 2030 um given that russia has increased the value of uh the export of its fossil fuels recently um so i think uh dr birrell is going to take this question uh many thanks it's a critical issue of course uh just uh before the invasion russia was exporting more than 2.5 million bears per day of oil to europe and about 150 bcm of uh natural gas and as i said russia and for russia europe was the single most important market and russia is losing that market and because of this we expect that the production of oil and gas in russia will decline because it will be very difficult to find home for this natural gas and oil to go to europe for logistical reasons for the sanctions imposed and also for economic reasons so declining uh production and decline of exports mean the oil and gas sales of russia will go down and when we look at this in the next years until between now and 2030 this will cost one trillion us dollar for russia of revenue loss from hydrocarbon exports thank you dr birrell and the next question comes from uh and i apologize here for uh my pronunciation um terre erik stad from the norwegian business daily um who asks um also about russia when will russia have to close down gas and oil fields given your projections um i think uh tim gould is going to take this question so it's very clear that the um the loss of russia's large export markets is having knock on effects upstream you can see that already in gas and in our view you're going to see some of those impacts um in the oil sector as well particularly into the new year once the eu import back kicks in so there are some things that you can do in order to mitigate the impacts on the upstream so in the oil sector you might try and push more uh through refining in gas you can try and put more into gas storage you can try and find uh alternative markets um but all of those options in the end are limited and so particularly for some of the west Siberian fields and fields perhaps in the in the yamal peninsula that are really dedicated towards westward flows um there is the prospect of some fields being shut in and particularly for the older fields um it's not clear once those fields are once you dial back production from those fields if it's going to be particularly easy um to start them up again so there is flexibility in the system um if you look at the seasonal profile of russia's gas production it does vary quite a lot across the year um so there are some options in there but i think the the sorts of shocks that we're talking about in our uh in our projections would involve some shut-ins thank you very much tim um the next question comes uh from junior aisles from mi b media um about co2 emissions um we actually have a couple of um co2 emission questions so when do you see co2 emissions peaking in the power sector and then um in terms of the implications for um emissions for the rise in temperatures um last year cop 26 the ia um said that that all the pledges if implemented would lead to a rise in temperatures of uh 1.8 degrees celsius um have you updated this analysis where where do things stand now um so uh laura is going to take this question thank you jeatro so on the first question is about the power sector emissions in in the current policy settings our expectation is actually that we are living through uh through the peak so emissions are starting to decline uh in the next few years it may be that for reasons related to weather we may be seeing some blips uh but uh in our latest analysis shows that basically this year may be the next this is the uh this is the peak in in in power sector emissions and then starting a much needed decline for our climate so in addition to our step scenarios we also updated um what countries have actually pledged in terms of ndc's and net zero pledges compared to last year and maybe a couple of significant examples of countries that came in with new pledges certainly indonesia uh major coal coal users and also sectoral initiatives that are uh taking up on shipping on aviation and those together have actually uh put a better outcome in in our view last year we were expecting and 1.8 degrees uh in uh long term temperature rises of all those pledges are are met and this year we are at 1.7 so getting slowly towards the 1.5 mark thank you laura um we're getting really quite a lot of um very good questions um unfortunately running out of time i think we have time for one more um uh an important question here um from alex forbes of uh gas matters um what is the single most important outcome you would like to see from the cop 27 climate talks these obviously being cop 27 which is taking place uh next month in shamel shake in egypt and i think uh dr burrell is gonna uh take this last question so uh many things so cop 27 is very important for many reasons and there are many outcomes that we would like to see but if i have to pick up one i would say uh it is time uh for advanced economies so-called uh rich countries to show that they are serious about climate change by providing support for the clean energy investment in developing countries especially in africa i think it would be very wrong if the uh countries advanced economies go there just coming with some prescriptive suggestions perspectives to that meeting for the emerging countries and not providing enough financial support uh for the clean energy transition so if i have to pick up one outcome that i would like to see strong support of advanced economies for african or in general developing countries energy transition and having an empathy for the political economic and social priorities of the countries in africa and beyond this would be uh my favorite hope among others from cop 27 thank you dr burrell and that's all we have time for i'm afraid we've received lots of great questions um more than we can actually squeeze in uh if any journalists have questions that didn't get answered during the q and a that you'd like to follow up on uh we invite you of course to reach out to our press office and we'll get back to you as soon as we can um so thank you very much to dr burrell to miss codsey to mr gould thank you to the journalists for your questions um and thank you to everyone following this event on uh this event online for your interest in our work um as mentioned before the full world energy outlook 2022 report is available for free on our website and there's a ton of great content uh to explore so please do go take a look um and thank you and goodbye


Uh-huh. What's that? Frank wants to know where to drop off the cellular degeneration treatment? Well, tell him here's good. A quick note. This thunk episode is going to deal a lot with death. If you or someone that you care about struggles with suicidal ideation or depression, please check out some of the links in the description for professional help. Now, on with the show. It might sound a little bit like hyperbole, but mortality has been an important part of our conception of what it means to be human since well before the dawn of civilization. We've discovered funerary remains from as early as a hundred thousand years ago, evidence of ritual burial. Even in the Paleolithic era, it seems that humans were well aware that they'd eventually kick the bucket. That's a serious bummer, and it's kind of the oldest bummer that we still have to deal with today. While you and I don't have to worry about hungry predators or sleeping outside during a blizzard these days, we have to confront the inevitability of our eventual deaths.  I like being alive. I do all my favorite stuff while I'm alive.  That tension between wanting to escape death and not really being able to has clearly driven a whole bunch of wacky shenanigans throughout human history. The elixir of life, the philosopher stone, the holy grail, the fountain of youth, all sorts of people have spent decades pursuing fabled substances rumored to grant eternal life. But it's possible that those stories are representative of a much greater phenomenon. Terror management theory is an idea in social psychology that the existential dread of our own mortality is the unconscious root of a lot of human behavior, that the primary reason we engage in culture, all culture, from art and music to business and nationalism, is to mitigate how uncomfortable we are with the thought of being dead someday. In the case of religion, it's a very direct and literal thing. If you follow a certain code of behavior, you'll get resurrected after you die, or some part of you will get to live forever in an afterlife. For symbol-focused activities like writing or painting or erecting monuments, it's the hope of surviving through a legacy. For stuff like joining organizations or forming groups or national identities, it's about being part of something greater than yourself that will live on. According to TMT, a lot of the stuff that we think of as giving life meaning and purpose is derived from some connection to its capacity to let us cheat death. When we're participating in culture-type stuff, we feel like we're doing alright, but when we stop, the dread starts to creep in. Like all theories in social psychology, TMT has its critics and should be taken with a grain of salt, but it certainly seems feasible to argue that a large part of why humans do what they do is to cope with the certainty of death, which we understand in detail in a way that no other species we know of does. Of course, there's another option for dealing with our stress about dying, convincing ourselves that it's better than the alternative. A huge number of fictional works paint immortality as a burden that weighs heavily on those cursed with it, bringing not but sadness, apathy, and a longing for the sweet embrace of death. Tuck everlasting, Doctor Who, Angel, Highlander, all sorts of seriously angsty fictional characters have lamented their everlasting lives. If these stories are to be believed, although Eternal Youth sounds like a pretty good gig at first, it inevitably becomes torment for all sorts of reasons.    Other narratives try to sell death as an attractive goal in and of itself, a state that's restful and serene, like chilling out at a resort or something. Frequently appearing in these narratives is our old friend, the appeal to nature fallacy, where the word natural is played both to mean of nature and wholesome, or good. You know, natural, like Ebola. It's kind of hard for me to take these ideas about the supposed drawbacks of living forever, or the supposed upsides of being dead seriously. For starters, they only ever seem to come from people who aren't dead. If there were a convincing argument about embracing one's mortality, you aren't likely to hear it from someone who's decided to keep living for some reason. Also, the reasons that people cite for wanting to keep living tend to be very concrete. If someone says, I really love cheesecake, I want to live so I can eat more cheesecake, that's pretty hard to argue with. In contrast, arguments about the supposed undesirability of immortality tend to appeal to highly abstract, hand-wavy concepts, or hypotheticals. Like, but what if you eventually got bored with cheesecake? Which doesn't really seem like it's on the same footing as, but what if I didn't and I got to eat cheesecake forever? As humans, we worry about death. And despite some protestations that sound a little like sour grapes, living forever sounds like it would probably be pretty cool. What do we have for that, besides participating in the cultural immersion that TMT recommends? Well, ostensibly, the whole point of the field of medicine is to keep people from dying, or having their lives compromised by disease. It's granted many of us additional years of life already, despite the fact that evidence-based medicine in its current form has only been around for about 50 years and uses a standard of treatment for less than that. Depending on your sex and how old you are right now, you're likely to live anywhere between five to 25 years longer than you would have if you were born a century ago. A reasonable extrapolation of that trend is that we'll continue finding new treatments for disease, expanding average human lifespans further and further so future people might have a much longer average life expectancy. But I'm not worried about those future people. I'm worried about me. What does all this do for me? Hold on, we'll get there. But first, let's do a little math. The rate at which life expectancies have increased over the past 100 years is close to linear, like every year it gets around three months longer from 1917 until today. That's a little surprising because we discovered some things in the past 100 years that you'd expect to have some pretty drastic effects on average life expectancy. Stuff like, I don't know, antibiotics. The thing is, even with those incredible discoveries, we haven't actually solved the problems that are most likely to kill you as your body ages. Heart disease was the leading cause of death in 1917 and it still is today. Cancer, stroke, they're all still on the list. We've gotten much better at treating them, which accounts for the general increase in life expectancy, but heart attacks are still pervasive and really bad news, especially as you get older. A breakthrough in heart disease would be huge, much better than the linear improvement we've seen so far. If medical researchers discovered a safe, affordable drug that significantly reduced the risk of atherosclerosis and just pumped it into our water supplies like we do with fluoride, we might well expect average life expectancy to jump by 20 or 30 years overnight. The same goes for almost everything else on this list, discovering an exceptionally effective treatment for cancer, using self-driving cars to drastically reduce the rate of fatal accidents, cloning new pancreases to reverse diabetes. There's no reason that most of these risks couldn't be fixed or at least largely mitigated in a very short timeframe with the discovery of certain totally realistic technologies. And there's a bonus here.  Some transhumanists envision an inflection point at which medical discoveries outpace the onset of these diseases, a longevity escape velocity, at which point cheesecake forever? Now, before you get your hopes up too high, it's possible that there's something about human bodies that simply can't be fixed. Some inevitable part of how they work, which more or less requires them to expire in a certain timeframe. Evolutionary biologists have noted that the driving force behind biological specialization, the thing that ultimately gives birds feathers and lizards claws is reproduction, not longevity. So long as you live long enough to pass on your awesome genes, evolution doesn't really care if you live for a long time after that. There are some aspects of human biology like the production of free radicals that are great for short-term survival but ultimately cause the body to deteriorate. Some scientists have argued that regardless of future medical discoveries, the data suggests that we're built in a way that more or less caps out at 130 years. But we don't really know for sure. We found some species which under the right circumstances are biologically immortal. It's entirely possible that with the proper resources, healthy human lifespans could eventually be extended indefinitely. In fact, there are some organizations explicitly dedicated to figuring out how to combat aging as a medical syndrome, finding ways to halt or reverse the biological processes that cause our bodies to decay over time and stop healing themselves as efficiently. What would it mean to be human if they succeeded? What if the only cause of death that remained on that list in the future was accidents? How would you feel about getting to eat cheesecake for a few hundred more years? Please leave a comment below and let me know what you think. Thank you very much for watching. Don't forget to subscribe while I share and don't stop thunking.


Hello everyone, this is CoasterDaddy. Welcome back to another review. This review is of Steel Curtain at Kennywood in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania. This is a huge SNS Steel Coaster which opened in 2019 and is currently the tallest coaster in Pennsylvania at 220 feet tall. Steel Curtain holds the record for most inversions in the US with 9 and the world record for the tallest inversion which stands at 197 feet tall. In this review I will be discussing the pros and cons of Steel Curtain. Based on the ride I got in July of 2019. The announcement of Steel Curtain in 2018 was met with a lot of reserved excitement from enthusiasts, myself included. On one hand this could be one of the top new rides of 2019 or it could end up being way too rough for a brand new steel coaster as we have seen with a couple recent SNS projects. Personally I was really excited for this ride for the most part and it was one of my most anticipated coasters that I would be riding in 2019. It has a strong layout with many unique inversions and a couple airtime hills. Add to that its impressive structure which towers over the skyline and this seems to be a truly spectacular ride. I want to say that I did only get one ride on this unfortunately when I visited in July of 2019. Huge crowds and bad operations along with having to leave early made a second ride out of question for us. We ended up with a seat in the second half of the train somewhere around the middle. I really have to praise the trains on this coaster as they are some of the absolute best trains I've ever experienced. They do have a shin guard which may be an issue for tall riders but the cars are completely open with nothing but the floor of the car which is flush with the station floor, nicely padded seats, and a super comfortable lap bar. SNS really has done an excellent job with a design of these trains. The ride begins with the long steep incline up the 220 foot tall lift hill. The views of the river from here are gorgeous and you really get to take in all of your surroundings as you ascend to the top of this massive hill. From here you will drop down a bit and rise up into the ride's first inversion and main drop the dragon fire dive drop as coined by RCDB. This inversion turns you back the other direction with a funky half corkscrew type of maneuver before you plum at 197 feet towards the ground reaching a top speed of 75 miles per hour. The train makes a slight bend to the left before you rise up into the ride's second and third inversions the banana roll element which flips you upside down twice. It is very similar to a cobra roll but pulled in more a very rare element. After the banana roll the train drops back down then you hit the first airtime hill which provides just a small bit of floater following this is another really unique element a sea serpent roll flipping you upside down twice then you go over the lagoon with another airtime hill this one providing probably the best moment of air on the ride but it is pretty weak floater. After this you will go through a dive loop twisting you back into the other direction before hitting a high speed zero g stall which is on the underside of the airtime hill over the lagoon. After this hill the train goes up into a sort of step up before flipping you through the corkscrew very fast. After the corkscrew and turning around in the other direction you'll go through the ride's ninth and final inversion the cutback. Once again another very unique inversion. After whipping through the cutback you'll rise up into the ride's final brakes ending your 52nd 4,000 foot long ride on steel curtain. I will start my overall thoughts of the ride by saying that steel curtain is paced very well holds its speed throughout and is always throwing something different at you and offering many truly unique elements. This is a very fun ride and I think it is a spectacular ride for Kennywood. There really isn't much this ride has to offer in terms of airtime though. That shouldn't really come as too much of a surprise however as the layout is very much focused on those nine inversions. However there are a few moments on this ride including the two airtime hills that just don't really offer much airtime. It is okay floater during its best moments. That brings me to another drawback I think this ride has. The inversions here are all pretty fun and unique but most were very large and didn't really offer many laterals hangtime or positive Gs. This is a ride that I was expecting to be much more intense than it actually is. Besides the finale of the ride with the corkscrew and cutback inversions this ride doesn't really offer much in the way of positive g-force. You just kind of gracefully traverse the elements here and it didn't really feel like you were traveling 75 miles per hour either. That being said the speed you build with the first drop is held very well throughout the course of this ride and there aren't any parts of the ride where it felt like it was losing its steam. It just kept powering along right until the final breaks which was really good. On to the smoothness of this ride. This is the major thing many people were worried about from day one when this ride was announced. So how bad is it in reality? Based on my one ride I got in the back half of the train I unfortunately have to say that one of the biggest downfalls of this ride for me was how bumpy it was. Let me clarify a bit and say it was not rough or painful and the track seemed very smooth but there was an extremely noticeable rattle from the trains and it lasted throughout pretty much the entire ride experience. I am not someone who complains about a slight B&M rattle that many people are quick to point out. I've never had a problem with that type of rattle. The rattle I experienced however on steel curtain was just too strong to ignore. Even though it didn't make the ride painful it is very concerning to me as I was riding this brand new steel coaster just two weeks after it opened. Like I said I only got one ride on this and I've heard from countless people that this ride is extremely smooth in the front compared to the back. I even had heard that before I rode it so I was already prepared for bumpiness when we were assigned to the back portion of the train and we definitely felt it. Even my brother who I was with when riding for the first time went back to Kennywood more recently and he got another ride but in the front and he also said it was very smooth. So the smoothness of this ride is a bit of a mixed bag it seems but it is crazy that one half of the train offers so much of a different experience in terms of smoothness especially when talking about a ride that just opened a couple months ago. Take that for what it's worth. Like I said I only got a ride closer to the back it was very bumpy but also not rough and painful in any way either just a bit irritating because it is so new. Overall I enjoyed my experience I had on steel curtain. I very much look forward to returning to Kennywood in the next year or two and getting another ride on this. The other new for 2019 roller coaster I rode this year Kerwin's Copperhead Strike. I actually enjoyed quite a bit more than steel curtain but I was expecting steel curtain to be one of the best new coasters overall for 2019 before I rode it making it pretty underwhelming for me when I actually did ride it. Steel curtain is very fun though has fantastic pacing a very strong layout many unique elements and some of the best trains I've ridden in. Though it has some very disappointing marks against itself steel curtains positive aspects are good enough for me to personally give this ride a score of 8 out of 10. Definitely be sure to get on this coaster when you visit Kennywood. Just try to get it done at the very beginning of the day as the line will likely already be two hours long right after opening and I've heard many complaints about this ride going down a lot recently. This line never seems to go below two hours long either based on what I've heard from others so I would just get this done first. Thanks for watching my review of steel curtain. Do you agree or disagree with anything I had to say about this ride and what was your favorite new ride of 2019? Be sure to check out all of my other coaster reviews in a playlist along with this video if you found my review to be helpful like my page CoasterDaddy on Facebook and follow me at CoasterDaddy official on Instagram. Thanks again for watching. This is CoasterDaddy. Bye.


Aloha, friends. First of all, I have to say I'm very honored to address all of you, and especially honored that Mr. Sample is between us here, the revered member of the Universal House of Justice. And I want to say, first of all, before getting into my points, thank Mr. Banani, and inform you that he himself had a major role in this project, and because he acted as the electrical consultant. I see a lot of his colleagues and my colleagues in the audience, and perhaps this is the place for me to thank him for what he did for his own faith, I should say, but helping me too. Mr. Sample being here recalls a lot of memories. This is just about 30 years that I was first called to act as the architect responsible for the seat of Universal House of Justice. And one of the faces that I first met, because Mr. Sample was on the building committee from the very first day I arrived, it was Mr. Sample and his kind face. And we've been dealing about the affairs of the Building and Work Center all through these 30 years. To me, it's a very interesting kind of occasion that he is here, and all these memories of these 30 years comes up. The memory about the fact that when I arrived, the staff of the World Center was very, very limited. I don't remember, was it something about 20 or 30 or a little bit more? And now it is something, forgive me if I'm not very exact about the numbers, but 600 or 800 not serving in the World Center. And the situation was as such that when the first time I came down with the model of the seat of Universal House of Justice, you just imagine who received me in the airport was one of the members of the House of Justice. I think it was Mr. Gibson. And he came down to pick me up from the airport, helped to put these heavy models in the back of his car, and we drove down. That was the situation of those days. And when I was asked to address you here, I was wondering what I should say, because the memories are a lot. And I was wondering that some people perhaps have not seen anything about these buildings. Some of you may have seen the buildings and have seen all these pictures now on internet. There's a lot of it that most of you have seen. I wondered what I could share. I think what I would do, I would brief you about some of my memories and the process of this design of the complex and how it came about. And then share some of these slides with you and give you some of the feelings I had when I was assigned to start work on these projects. At that time, I thought I am not very young. Those days I was just about 30, and now I think I was very young. And I had done a few projects in Iran. And the house with their great kindness and compassion, they called me to talk to me about the project. And in that committee, the building, I found out afterwards that was the building committee. They asked me if I have time to do the seat. And this is the way they act. And I have said before that, first of all, I don't know many architects that would reject any work, but here it was something that was very, what I was somehow brought up with this vision and a kind of aspiration about the faith and what is going to do for the world and the teachings of Bahá'u'lláh and the unity of mankind and his teachings like a son that will give light to the future civilization. All these were the way we were brought up with as a fourth generation Bahá'u'lláh. And to me, when I was asked to be the architect of the seat, it was something I really didn't see myself worthy of doing it. But on the other hand, it was something that, to me, was the portal to that divine civilization, this complex. It was the most important thing I could do in my life. And 30 years ago, when I thought about the year 2000 and the fact that these buildings have to be completed by that time, I wondered if I would be alive to see that day. And here I'm standing here talking to you when the buildings are completed. As a Bahá'u'lláh, I think you are brought up and you have some ideas. There are lots of texts and verses that you can refer. To me, perhaps I can present one sentence from the words of Bahá'u'lláh that it happens to be in pure Persian. He revealed this tablet, I think, deliberately without using much Arabic words in it. So it is a very beautiful piece of literature. And I think I have to read to you. To me, this somehow encapsulates his teachings. And this sentence, I will read it in Persian first, or maybe in English first, so that you know how does it sound in Persian, and then in Persian. He says, I am the son of wisdom and the ocean of knowledge. I cheer the faint and revive the dead. I am the guiding light that illuminates the way. I am the royal falcon and the arm of the Almighty. I unfold the drooping wings of every broken bird and start it on its flight. Then it, he says, the incomparable friend says, the portals to freedom are wide open. Taste the knee, dare unto. The fountain of wisdom is flowing abundantly. Drink your fill, dare from. And then comes to this great sentence that we used to learn in Bahá'í classes when we were children, say, O beloved ones, the tabernacle of unity has been raised, regarding not one another as strangers. You are the fruits of one tree and the leaves of one branch. To me, this tablet and what I read to you encapsulates his teachings. He says, I am the fruit of one tree and the leaves of one branch. I am the fruit of one tree and the ocean of knowledge. I am the guiding light that illuminates the way. I am the light that illuminates the way. I am the ruler of the world that will tell me the truth and I will tell you the truth. The friend of one tree means, the way of freedom has been opened, opened, and the eye of the tree has been opened, from that to that. Say, O friend, the tabernacle of unity has been raised, do not look at the eye of strangers as strangers. You are the fruits of one tree and the leaves of one branch. Now starting from this point of view, I regard this project, as Mr. Banani said, as a different task. It was not an ordinary architectural project that I would do. It was something that all my beliefs and the depth of my heart and love was connected with it. And we thought that these buildings are going to be the source of this freedom and the source of promoting what Bahá'u'lláh has said in these words. Now through our work, me and my team, my Bahá'u'lláh colleagues, we have always had this idea in front of us. This was what the buildings were going to do. And this was always the point of inspiration for all of us. Now starting from there, I have to say to bring to you that physically, when I arrived to Haifa, the House of Justice, they gave me a very brief program that in fact it was, I think, another revealed architect, had somehow consulted with the House before. And they had some ideas about what is needed. And those days, this program was very, very brief. I remember, and I hope I'm right with my memory, that it was just a meeting room and about nine rooms for the members of the House and some space for a reception. And what I remember, that was just this, that that architect had somehow sketched some programming bubble diagrams for it. And he had some things like secretariat beside the building. This is Mr. McLaughlin, Robert McLaughlin, who was working in Haifa as a volunteer for a while, helping the House with the issues of city planning of Haifa and other things, connected with the by-properties. He in the meantime had discussed matters with the House. So I arrived, but the House did not tell me anything. They just said, this is something that you may want to consider. And they gave me the texts regarding the importance of this building and what Bahá'u'lláh and Abdu'l-Baha and the Guardian had envisaged about the complex. And of course the Guardian was there. As you know, the Guardian had done a beautiful garden at the bank of Mount Carmel and he had built the first building on the garden, which you may want to know that this is the garden that we call the Ark Garden. And the first building was the Arkard's building. Now this building to me is a very beautiful building. To me it's the jewel. But I want to, you know, I've started with the words of Bahá'u'lláh. He refers to freedom of thought in this writing. I want to share some of my personal thoughts with you about this. When the House gave me this program and I started to design, think of some concepts, I think I had some barriers in my mind. Sometimes the freedom is not, because the House gave me total freedom. They didn't say if I should do classic architecture or should do a contemporary building. They didn't say anything. They just say what you think is right. And of course the Guardian had mentioned in the writings that it should be in harmonizing style all the buildings after the Arkard's building. But to me I could do a contemporary building harmonizing with the Arkard's building. It is quite possible. And in fact because of my education, architectural education in the school, to me doing a classic building at the 20th century didn't seem right. I remember when I was a student the Arkard's building was finished. And some of my Bahá'u'lláh colleagues in the school used to tell me, why did they do it in classic architecture? Why didn't they give it to Corbusier to design and Frank Lloyd Wright to do it? So this was when I was being trained as an architect. And we thought we should not do that. So this barrier was in my mind. The first sketches which came to my mind was nothing like having a classic touch. Although I had done buildings before in my own country and in my buildings because of my belief that architecture and culture is like a tree that has its roots to the past. And it gives new fruits through new crafts, new crafts you do to the tree. You get a new flower out of it. But the root is always there. This was my belief and Iran as Mr. Banani said has a very rich architectural background. So when I was doing my buildings there, I could not ignore that wealth of heritage. And I had designed a few buildings referring to the essence of what I could take from the historic background of my own country. Now here, for example, this building has a lot of references to the classic architecture of Iran. And this building, excuse me, and the same, even the pattern on the plaza is something from the classic domes of the mosques in Iran. Or this building, which is a heritage center, again, uses the historic forms and geometry. And this embassy in Beijing also, with its big high avan or the covered portion front and the geometry it has, it takes a lot from that heritage. Now I had arrived to the house for designing of the house. And I am on Mediterranean. I know that classic architecture was born on the shores of Mediterranean in Greece. And I know that this wealth of architecture has been beautiful eternally from the past. And this beauty is still there. But because of my barrier that has been created at the time when I was a student and because of what I heard, that you have to do a contemporary design and everything. Now I am caught for about nine months into what I should do and those days Mr. Sapa, who afterwards took the great task of managing the construction of the two last arc buildings with the great care and he is in the audience now and this is a chance for me to thank him for what he did. Mr. Sapa was helping me in those days. And so we were caught into this kind of just because I had an internal barrier. I want to say freedom is not always something that comes out from, to limiting. It is not from outside. Here the house of justice as a owner or a client has given me total freedom. It is myself who is stopping the flow. And I think it was important that one should clean himself totally from every free conception, prejudice, everything. It's just like the life I think as a Bahai. You have to have a very, very clean heart as Lasse was saying last night. You have to have a very transparent spirit, no barriers on the way so that the lights will shine. And I think this will apply in the life of the Bahai community too. We, this freedom is there and the Bahais think that they will bring this freedom to the whole world. They will free the souls of the whole community of people in the whole world. Then through that freedom and the non-restricted kind of souls that they will see in the world, those new inspirations will come to the world. And a new civilization of art and culture and literature will come to the world like it happened in the Christian civilization and Islamic civilization. Now this is going to be seen afterwards. I don't know what it would look like. But I think it is through this freedom that the manifestation of God brings to the hearts of people that these reflections of the light of God appears as the cultures in the world. What we have seen and we will see. That is why I think this sentence that Bahá'u'lláh said about portals of freedom and the fountain of, this was the beautiful verses that he says, that is where it comes from, I think. And this, for a little example of this humble self, this happened to me. I think there are lots of barriers that one has and we may have in between ourselves. We have to be free of those barriers. Now when I came to the house, I brought two designs, one contemporary, one classic. Because you know the inside and the way the building functions was pretty clear to me. And this function could be covered with a modern look. It could be covered with the theme of classic architecture. The function inside would not change. Because we have now the possibility of, that's what we did. That the structural engineering allows us to have very big spans and we don't have to put hundreds of columns as they used to have in classic building and clutter the spaces with columns. We can bring light easier to the buildings. We have a lot of possibilities that they didn't have in those times. So we bring those possibilities in our design. However, the clothes that this building is wearing can be a modern clothes or outfit or can be an old kind of something that gets a touch of old type of customs or clothing. And here you can decide what you want. You can quote in a prose you are writing from Shakespeare. If you quote something from him to bring your ideas clearer to the audience, you will go ahead and do that. And this is a classic text. You can quote from Virgil or anybody just to bring your concept in. Here is just like that. You have a prose you are writing and you quote from classic architecture. And I did not know that. I was not limiting anything by going to classic architecture except harmonizing with the archives. Now, afterwards when I brought the design and I remember, sorry, then I found out in the course of design about the beauties of the details of the classic architecture like what we had in the capital of the Corinthian column or the beautiful colonnades that it presents to you. It is a wealth of assets that one can get to. And the same inside, of course, the inside of the buildings are very much inspired, I think, with principles of Persian architecture. Principles of sequence of space, small space, large space, high, low, like a rhythm of music or like a poetry. These are different proportion spaces put together to make your travel or journey in the building exciting and pleasant. Now here, for example, the dome of the council chamber of the House of Justice is one of those. It's as if the core of this building, the outer part of it, is a western design, but the core of it is an eastern design. Now, I bring this because I just wanted to make sure I don't forget the fact that Hanum, Rue Hanum, which I was honored to design her resting place, was a great force in reinforcing these ideas and encouraging all the time. When I brought the first two designs, I think the House of Justice, they consulted with beloved Amatul Bahar Rue Hanum. And it was in that meeting that she was very encouraging to me and she told me that this is what the guardian wanted. Because, and it was from that point that I knew I am on the right path with the design of the seat and afterwards with the rest of the buildings. The center of study of the text and the International Teaching Center were the other next buildings that I came about to design and there were complex problems with their design because we didn't want to fill the whole beautiful garden with a lot of building. We wanted to keep the beauty of the garden. So that is why the building is somehow sunken into the mountain and it has somehow, it doesn't show itself very much. It's only the central part is what you see and the rest of it is hidden in the garden feature. But the natural light gets to this building very easily. I will show you how, but people ask me how you come to these ideas. I just wanted to share with you that I usually, when I think of some design, I come out with a lot of sketches. This is one of them, one of the first ones I have done for the center for study of the text. I will show you these sketches. I usually, for example, you can see the entrance courtyard or the portal of this building which is around entrance portal in this one. And this shows more. I have cut the columns just to see what... This is the very first sketch I did. And I usually have the habit of throwing my ideas with a lot of people. I talk with... I respect the non-architect people ideas very much. I talk to them and see what is their reaction to what I do. It is very important to me. The layman idea, something which is untrained mind. To me it's pure reaction that comes to me and it feeds back. It is very... And it's a kind of process of consultation. I talk to a lot of people. I talk to architect friends too. Many by architects, some of them are in the audience now. They have been with me or they come to the office and I talk to them about what I'm doing. And they come out with some ideas but they know just like by consultation that what they say I should not really follow. And I know what they will say as much as I want to use or inspired by I will. Otherwise they go away from the consultation table. It is very much like that. So these sketches usually is what starts the whole thing. And ends up with this portal which is again a Persian feature because of the extreme heat in Iran you have very big porches or canopies in front of the entrance of the building, sometimes very high and deep. And this gives a very intimate, inviting and compassionate look to the buildings because it's like it has opened its arm to invite you in. And all of these buildings they have this feature. They have a big, deep portal in front of them. The House of Justice has the seat of the Universal House of Justice has one of them. This one has and you see the other one. They all tell you come in, you are invited. And I think this is a very important feature. The building is not repelling. And of course having this portal gives a very interesting, I think the center of study of the text has interesting views towards the rest of the complex and towards the ocean and of course interesting details. If it was the old times, we had to have another column along these areas, around this area because it could not stand without another column. Now we are in 21st century, we can't do it without columns. That's why it's such an open space. So we are addressing the constraints of our time and the opportunities of our time. It's like a progressive revelation. You have the essence of what to create beauty, to create functionality, to create soul for the buildings. This is in your mind. Now the tools there changes in course of time. And you should be free again and open to apply these assets or new possibilities to your design and always stay at the leading edge of what you are doing without repeating what the old thing is. However, always considering that you are coming, you are a part of that tree which has its roots in the history. Now again the question of functionality, I should have light for these buildings. So you can see how these openings and courtyards sometimes adorned by water which again is a very important feature in Persian architecture happens in the center of this courtyard. And this courtyard is the source of light for this library all around it which is the reference library of the center of study of the text. And again the library just for you to see the views. This is the view of the library through that sunken courtyard. And this is a view of the roof of the center of the study of the text which shows the future gardens that is already for the gardens to be planted on them. You see how it blends into the rest of the gardens and you will see the light wells. This is one of them and another one here, another one here, another one here. You see these are taking light inside the heart of the building from the top. Now this is one of those courtyards looking from the top down. Another view looking from the top down. And you see this window here, yes this is the window here, this one. And right, this is the way the light comes to that four stories lower down. So you have natural light for all the rooms. This is another one of those meeting rooms. Now the buildings are mostly sunken or hidden under the garden. The, I don't know if you see my mouse, yes. This area is a parking which is shared between center of study of the text and another building which we call archives extension. You see this is about nine stories, this building. All parking and plant room for air conditioning, etc. And here is what a building under the same slope is the archives extension. It's a building as you see, it has about three stories. It is under the slope of the garden and it has some areas for light. As you see, this is another one, but there is a wall in front of it because I didn't want to see the windows from the garden of the Ark. I want the garden to dominate all the time. So you can see the planting that are going to grow and cover these walls very soon hopefully. And the entrance again, this is too much of a wall, it's going to be covered with green. But you can see the entrance to archives extension. Now this building is connected through this tunnel here. I don't know if the drawing is. This is the archives building here and it's connected from underground to archives extension which has a vault in it. This is the view of the inside of this and the vault. Now this is where they keep all the tablets and it is a controlled environment. That means humidity, temperature, light, everything is controlled so that the main documents, the tablets and the letters written by the main features of the Baha'i Faith are kept here as long as possible. And you can see my two colleagues, Mr. Farzad Ferdowsi and Mr. Farzad Ferdowsi here, these two young architects, they helped me, now I think it's about 30 years, they have been through all these projects with me. And these buildings have the state of the art mechanical, air conditioning, all these fiber optics, everything which you can think of. That means they are using the state of the art technology but the outside of them in the House of Justice more, it is very classic and in the other ones again, but more free. I think one of the other barriers was when I was designing the house I was very, very careful not to step out of architectural, classic architectural rules. You know every column should be a distance from another column and the proportions and everything. And I went according to Vignola, the great Roman architect who has some formulas to do that. But when it came to these other two buildings, perhaps I felt more free and I felt more confident perhaps. And this, you know I've changed all the rules. The rules are what I felt is right. I haven't somehow adhered strictly to Vignola. That means I use a column for example in front here but the distance of columns changes. This one is smaller than this one, this is smaller than this one and the center one is the biggest. So there is a kind of progression in the columns. This is something unprecedented in classic architecture. Nobody has done it but you feel free to do it because you are more free I think. This is very important. And the setting of the building in the art and the columns again. It is a beauty that I think sometimes when the architecture goes to some other areas in future years we may find something as beautiful as classic architecture. But really the details to me they are divine. And I didn't know that. I just, I gradually find out when the building was done. I said oh there is, it's as if you read a verse from Hafiz and if you read it 100 times the Ghazal or this poetry of Hafiz, the more you read the more you find meanings in it. And classic architecture is very much like that. The more you delve into it, the more there is to find out about. And I was very, I mean, blessed was that. It was a great bounty granted to me by the House of Justice to be involved in these buildings and experience this, you know. Now this building of the seat, like the other buildings, this is another belief of mine that buildings have, they should have a face, you know. That means when I say the center of the study of the text you should remember how it looked. It's like a distinct person that you have met sometimes. He has a very impressive look. You never forget it. Now all the buildings, you see the House of Justice, it is you remember that dome over it. When I say center of study of text is that round portico in front of it. You never forget that if you have seen it. And if I talk the International Teaching Center which is this building, you always remember that it has this again portico in front in this shape and it has this vault at the top. And you see how transparent it is. You can see through this vault. To me, it has a, I do not do a lot of symbolism in the buildings but this one, because this building is facing the shrine of the Bob. It just happens to be that way. And I always were aware of that as if the light of the shrine is going through this building. And to me, this was like a kind of bridge over that light. And I wanted to be, the whole building to be very transparent. And this has affected the design very much. You can see the building here is another light well or a kind of court that gives the light to lower levels. And you see the other side of this vault is the shrine. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture to see them all. But for example, at the center of the building I have a very big window again to that because of that reason. I opened the back so the light goes through. And again, classic architecture. I don't think this could be done. I don't know. There is a formula when you fall into it. It gives you a lot. It's as if you find a way of poetry and whatever you fit in, it just comes out nice. But you can make a mess too. You have to be very careful. You can easily make an ugly classic building that there are these imposing fascist buildings all over the world. They are classic too. But you know these details, I mean, it takes centuries to come out with these details. It's a pity to leave them, I think. It is amazing to me. As I said, I think it's a divine inspiration, this thing. Some people believe it was an inspiration to Solomon, but I don't know. The classic architecture, I mean. Again, the center of study of the International Teaching Center. There are features in the building. For example, we follow the American codes and safety codes. UBC is what we followed for my colleagues. And you have to have two exits. You have to have two staircases within that distance in the building, everything. We have strictly adhered to those. And so here we have to have exit staircases. In the meantime, the main staircase of the building. So this is one of them. I just wanted to show you that it sits in a kind of square-ish box, but it has a very free flow. And another view. And another view when it comes to the main entrance hall. And this feature again refers to Persian geometry. To me, it takes the light to main entrance atrium of the teaching center. And again, you can see this prism here. A glass piece here. This is another reference because this is right at the center of the building under this sunburst, I call it. Sunburst pattern. And again, it is referring to the light coming from the shrine, from the center of the window at the other side of this prism in the room. Which is the meeting room of, the main meeting room of this teaching center. This is the courtyard above, which has a skylight that you don't see. It's hidden between the gardens here in this area and takes the light to that sunburst. And again, that transparency that I talked about. This is the library, of course, a reference library for the International Teaching Center. And some marble details. We have given utmost attention to detail to these buildings because they had to stay there for 500 years as the house had part of the program. So everything had to be perfect as much as we could. You can see some of these details of wood and marble. Solid marble. Gain. Gain. The dome of the shrine through this window, what I was talking about here. And this is a view of the library inside this vault at the top of the teaching center. And another view of the librarian table and other shelves on the lower level of the library. And again, that prism that takes the light it faces that shrine again. It's as if it is capturing all the energies of the shrine of the Bob under the best of the sunburst. Which to me, again, I should bring it afterwards to you. But these are some other sunken courtyards that gives light to the basement level of this building and a meeting room in that building, in teaching center. And drawing to show nine levels, that only three of them being this blue part at the top. This is what you see outside. The rest of this building is all sunken in the ground and includes a lot of features like, this is the entry hall of that auditorium which we call the common area. There are lots of facilities under this building which is entirely a separate complex. The teaching center sits over that common area. This is the entrance kind of information desk. The cafeteria and its serving part. The foyer or the lobby of the auditorium which sits about 400 people. You see, it's completely out of those old classic modes because we are now underground and inside and we do what can be done today. Again, some views of the inner part of the foyer and the left hand side, the dining room in this area. This is dining room, this is the foyer or the lobby of the auditorium connected together. And this dining room can act as an extension to auditorium with the video screens repeating the program inside. And some other views, again. And the auditorium all under the international teaching center. As you see, this auditorium has about five different levels. And it has all the facilities of translators, projection room, video, everything. A very deep stage, a back stage for performances and any other use they want to make out with. Again, some views of inside of the meeting rooms. I think the slide is not very good but you should be able to see the shine here again. The dome of the shrine through this central window of the building. And opposite to that window is again that sunburst which to me, as I said, I do not think, I do not follow much of the symbolic figures and numbers and number nine and 19 and things in the buildings. I don't consider this necessary or if it comes to me, I will. Otherwise I don't restrict myself to bring all these kind of figure symbolism to the buildings. I think it's more important for the building to be beautiful and to work than having. Although, for example, this sunburst here has nine sides, nine rays, but it is the most I can go. I do not, I see they build by buildings and by centers and everybody wants to have a hall of nine sided hall, which is wrong. I mean, you don't do that. For a temple, yes, because it is one place of gathering has one use of worship and nothing else. And Bahá'u'lláh and Abdu'l-Bahá wanted it to look as if it invites everybody inside from nine doors and everything. Yes, the Bahá'í temples is a principle we follow and it unifies and designates what is a Bahá'í temple. But you know, we don't do Bahá'í centers all the time, nine sided, it is not a practical form. And also we don't do it classic because it's not a place for it. I did the plastic because I followed what the guardian had said. I had to harmonize with the garden and what was sitting there. And there was a type of building to stay there for 500 years. It is different to do a Bahá'í center and start to do it in classic modes and things in a middle of an American city. It is different. You have to think that the complex of arc was in a very serene environment. You cannot do the classic architecture has a lot of detail which needs meditation. It needs you to pause and look at it. It is not something that you drive with 60 kilometers an hour in a main road in London. It used to be good in Regent Street when they used to go by horses beside it. Now you drive so fast and you don't see anything. You just collect dust and it's difficult to upkeep. Now, but in the arc garden it is the most appropriate place. You have come to meditate. You have come with the idea of reverence. You have come to think of what you are when where you are going. And the gardens are so beautiful that asks for this detail. It asks for this meditating mode to look at each of these details. That is the difference. That is why this architecture cannot be applied everywhere. I mean, you don't do that. It is only for this specific location that this solution has been suggested. Now, the sunburst here happens to have nine sides and the prism that sticks out of the wall of the main meeting room of the of the center of International Teaching Center or we call it Center of International Counselors. That's another name we gave to it when we were doing our drawings. This prism holds the greatest name. And beside it, unfortunately, I couldn't capture it with my photography and in fact it's not very easy to read it but it is on the side of this piece of glass. All along this area, in Persian calligraphy, something is engraved in this prism. And this, what it has been engraved there at this edge of this side is what I read to you, which in which I want to again say this and finish it. I am the son of wisdom and the ocean of knowledge. I cheer the faint and revive the dead. I am the guiding light that illuminates the way. I am the royal falcon on the arm of the Almighty. I unfold the drooping weekends of every broken bed and start it in its flight. Thank you.


Climate change has become a major concern worldwide due to its potential effects on the environment and society. Mitigation and adaptation are two main approaches to addressing climate change, which aim to reduce emissions and prepare for the effects of climate change respectively. In this paper, the authors examine the interplay between climate mitigation adaptation actions in Greece and the EU. They identify the most important motives and challenges related to joint adaptation and mitigation actions. Their findings suggest that a comprehensive approach to climate action planning should incorporate both adaptation and mitigation measures. This article was authored by Gregorios L. Kariakopoulos and Ioannis Seabos.


Xylem is represented globally, so a lot of our partners, a lot of our customers come to these sort of functions. This is an international water congress, we have visitors from all over the world. The International Water Association brings in people who have an interest in water and delivering water and treating water, and that's what we do. Xylem's vision is to become a global water partner with many of the communities throughout the world. Well, we play in a lot of spaces. You look on the stand here, you're right, we do pumps, we do wastewater pumps, and we do clean water pumps, supply pumps. But we also do water treatment technology, whether it be disinfection, whether it be filtration equipment, or whether it be membrane treatment. In terms of wastewater, we have our own wastewater processes, we have aeration equipment, we have a range of analytical instrumentation, both in terms of monitoring and controlling wastewater processes, but also environmental monitoring as well. So this is monitoring water quality before it even gets to the people that use it. So we cover everything in the water cycle, from the source, back to usage, and then back to the environment.