82: The Paris Effect with Laurence Tubiana

Christiana Figueres: [00:05:15] And especially we see increasing demand for electric vehicles, certainly light transport and more and more car companies turning over to that. And then not just like transport, but heavy transport with the advent of green hydrogen, we see now trucks and buses coming along that is also maturing the decarbonisation of that sector. Now, we also thought, frankly, five or 10 years ago, in fact, even just five years ago, we thought, well, it's OK if we're going to generate electricity from renewables, the sun, the wind, they're kind of cutesy. But, you know, we're never going to get to those hard to abate sectors. Those are just going to be the bane of our existence. Well, folks, not so. The fact is that shipping, the oil, and gas, methane, steel, cement, chemicals. They are all already in the process of beginning their in investment into the technological transformation and they will be well on the path to decarbonizing by 2030. So not everything is going at the same pace. Think of it as fast lanes, medium speed lanes, and slow lanes, fine according to the difficulty of decarbonization. But the fact is, all lanes moving in the same direction. That is something that honestly, five years ago we did not believe was possible within five years. We thought, OK, maybe 10, 15, 20 years, but five years the progress that we've had. Unthinkable is what we thought. Now, as we know, impossible. Who is going to finish the sentence?

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:07:01] Impossible is the reality that we're facing and there's nothing we can do about it?

Christiana Figueres: [00:07:05] No way. Tom, you are so fired from this podcast.

Paul Dickinson: [00:07:12] I think I know it pretty well. It isn't a fact it's an attitude.

Christiana Figueres: [00:07:17] And we can change that attitude but the fact is we're even changing more than our attitude. We're changing reality. And that's the important part.

Paul Dickinson: [00:07:25] Ok, so here's my little tiny weedy Paris story. I was there in a very nice position. I was very proud and honored and the gavel came down and I just, you know, apart from everyone standing up and crying for about a month to hear the speeches that followed, a little speech from China saying this is great. The USA saying this is great. Russia saying this is great. Saudi Arabia saying this is great. Brazil saying this is great. It went on and on and on. And the whole world came together and everything changed and turned the corner. And I just want to sort of call out the genius of the Paris Agreement. I was actually listening to Tim Flannery, who wrote that book, The Weather Makers. But he was saying like, oh, it's all about this conference coming up in Glasgow. And of course, that is incredibly important. But the genius behind the Paris Agreement is that everyone's involved in a race, a race to zero, in fact. And people, as you said, Christiana, can move at different speeds and you can up their ambition and you can decide how much you want to push your economy to be a 21st-century economy, whether you want to command and have leadership in these incredible new technologies. But the point is everyone's involved. And, yes, we've mentioned Covid's drawback and there's this kind of crazy thing. What's his name? The former current, the president just about to go from the White House. Something, something Paris. But Biden's in, the EU in, Japan in, China's in. And it's beautiful.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:09:01] That's a great analysis. I love that. It's beautiful. Now, I have to recount. I'm so glad you told that story Paul because I remember I was so privileged when the Paris Agreement was adopted. I was sitting there in the front with my friends, Paul Dickinson and Nigel Topping and then, of course, the gavel came down. You know, everyone was excited. And then, you know, as Paul said, the speeches came and there's one hundred and ninety-something countries in the world. And so after like 20 minutes or thirty minutes, Nigel and I laughed and we thought, you know, this is done. We're going to go and get a beer or go to a party and came back an hour later and Paul Dickinson was still sitting there in an increasingly empty hall right at the front, tears pouring down his face. And I said we're going to go to the party in town, do you want to come? No, this is fascinating. I'm going to stay here and he stayed there for hours late into the night, which is amazing because it so demonstrates how emotional and beautiful it was when you are aware of what you're seeing. But, Christiana, I want to go back to something you said because you sort of talked about the transition that's unfolded since 2015. Are you surprised by what's happened? Because, you know, in a way, Paris was obviously a clear signal to the world around how things were going to change, but it was far from guaranteed. And it's very difficult to know what happens next at these critical moments. Has it exceeded your expectations?

Christiana Figueres: [00:10:21] What a good question. I think the only comparison that I have, Tom, is you and I are both parents and we're both very proud parents because, like most or all parents, we just think we have the best kids in the world. And you always have these huge expectations and hopes and desires for them. But then there is, at least once a day, there's this knot in your stomach that you go, well, what if they don't make it? And then you can't breathe for a few minutes. And that is the way I feel about this. Way back in 2015, there was, you know, huge hope, desire, and, in fact, even trust and confidence that we're going to be moving down the decarbonization path for many reasons. But I think fundamentally because we understood the power of economics, the power of prices dropping, the power of policy, the power of shifting capital, and we knew that all of that was underway. We also firmly believed it because, frankly, we can't do otherwise. This is the only option that we have if we want to call ourselves responsible adults. But then there are moments when you go, oh, and what if not? And so I find myself sort of caught between those two things constantly.

Christiana Figueres: [00:11:51] Most of the day, I would say twenty-three and a half hours a day. I'm like, yes, yes, yes, we're going to do this because and, you know, I have my long list of reasons why we're going to do this. But honestly, if I'm totally honest with you, there is those 30 minutes that come up and go, oh my God, oh my God, what would I say to my grandchildren if we don't make it? And so I just think that that's realistic about life, right? That we're caught here between this confidence and this excitement. I think this week what has pervaded everything that has to do with climate is just huge excitement at the individualized recognition of what has happened, but especially at the compounded realization of what has happened in the past five years. But then we would just not be humans if we didn't also get a little bang and go. But it's not enough. Yes, this is incredibly exciting. Progress is really, truly beginning to be exponential, but we're not there yet. And so, you know, there you are, the combination of the two.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:13:00] But the mechanism has worked better than some thought, right? I mean, you know, the fact that this idea of a long term goal combined with short term targets that are within political terms of office and that those short term targets are periodic and they provide time for technology to improve, for public opinion to change. So far, and it's only been five years, the fact that we left Paris with pledges that took us to three degrees and now, not necessarily enshrined in nationally determined commitments, but rolled up into pledges, as we've talked about on this broadcast before, we're now nearly at two degrees. That suggests that that combination of a big beacon of a long-term vision, combined with short-term tangible goals for the next few steps in front of you, could be a mechanism that unlocks managing long-term systemic risks that are difficult to get your arms around. And if that does prove to be the case, then that's amazing.

Christiana Figueres: [00:14:02] Yeah, I mean, you know, I think there were so many brains at work on this. And collectively, we came up with this formula, if you want, of the combination of the long-term target, plus this ratchet mechanism or every five-year touchpoint to see where we are to be on a constant improvement pathway. And in theory, as we thought about it, you know, the theory, that might really work because it's totally different from what we had before under the Protocol, totally, radically different. And so we thought huh that might work in theory, you know, we thought, oh, this is definitely worth trying, that might work. Now, the excitement I think of this week is that actually, the reality of what we're seeing is even more powerful than the theory. Yeah, and that's what is so exciting that not only was the theory correct but that it's more powerful than that theory that we came up with or that formula, that combination.

Paul Dickinson: [00:15:03] Tom, Christiana, I have a little bit of experience over 18 years of actually having corporations report annually. Now nations are much bigger and they report every five years through Paris. But what I've learned is this amazing, whole bunch of different things can happen. And this is what I predict with Paris. First of all, the Paris Agreement, I believe, is probably like an Olympic stadium. And actually, the nations will start competing with each other to see who can kind of get the success that will come with being the first and the best and the fastest to achieve this technological breakthrough. That's the first thing. The second thing I would say is over time, a whole ecosystem builds up and the venture capitalists and the technologists and the bankers and the fund managers and the analysts, they all come together and they start doing the numbers. And we've seen how renewable energy companies suddenly have these incredible valuations and fossil fuel companies have been declining in their impact. And then thirdly, I think it just creates a spirit in business and society and culture, helps define ambitions and it becomes a machine that kind of feeds itself and the success of the process gives it fuel. It's just a wonderfully iterative and endless process that should keep accelerating until we get where we need to go. I hope and believe it will.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:16:32] Now, Christiana, you talked earlier about Paris having many architects, but one of the principal ones, of course, was Laurence Tubiana.

Christiana Figueres: [00:16:40] Indeed. Indeed.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:16:42] Who was the ambassador, the special representative for climate for the French government in the lead up to COP 21. Obviously deep experience in this space for many years prior to that and has now left and runs the European Climate Foundation and has just done an incredible job of leading that organization to more and more impact. Sadly, I was a bit ill when you talk to Laurence the other day so I couldn't join you, but I'm sure this is a fantastic conversation. And here we go with Laurence Tubiana, CEO of the European Climate Foundation and architect of the Paris Agreement.

Christiana Figueres: [00:17:20] Laurence, how delightful to have you on Outrage and Optimism. Honestly, we have been really looking forward to having you on our podcast. And of course, this is the anniversary episode of the Paris Agreement. And so who else to celebrate with us the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement. So thank you very much. I am sure everyone and their grandmother wants you to tell the story of the Paris Agreement. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you for taking the time for us. Laurence, I would love to take you back a moment to December 2015. The terrorist attacks, the terrible, painful, horrible terrorist attacks on Paris have just happened. They have killed one hundred and thirty people. They have wounded almost 500 people. Paris, the whole of France, in fact, the whole world is in utter shock and grief. On the climate change side, we have worked very hard to have a pretty decent draft text, that is a very good basis, but that still needs a lot of high-level political work. We are trying to decide what happens in this state of high, high alert that Paris is in.

Christiana Figueres: [00:18:55] What happens here? We've actually converted an airport into an international conference center. You, Laurence, are hopping around because you've had an accident, you're hopping around and wearing shoes. What do you call those shoes, Laurance? Well, those shoes you definitely made vogue during those many months that you were wearing them, by the time Paris came around, I saw many other people imitating your shoes and wearing them. But you know, what a start. What a start. You have everyone in full alert. You have the infrastructure ready. We have invited all heads of state. We know that one hundred and fifty of them are coming and yet we are in this terrible situation of the Paris terrorist attacks. Laurence, can you go back to, you know, even before we descended upon Le Bourget for the conference, can you go back to the last few days of that deliberation of the French government? Do we go forward with this conference or do we cancel it because of the high alert?

Laurence Tubiana: [00:20:25] I remember that meeting. We were, well several went but one particularly dense and tense. We were together with the Ministry of Home Security, Laurent Fabius, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Segolene Royal, and others. And we were on this table with this beautiful building, a beautiful office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, which is a sort of a, you know, very golden type of official buildings in France. 

Christiana Figueres: [00:21:00] Beautiful building.

Laurence Tubiana: [00:21:03] And then there was this endeavor, of course, very different views. And why go, we should cancel, we should postpone. And what finally prevailed in that meeting, I remember we were all very tense, was how we can give hope, how we cannot we look to the future with hope. And if we cancel, if we just submit to terrorism, if we just submit to this terrible vision of what life is and what brotherhood is and what society is, so we submit to that and we don't go ahead? It's about really not only liberty, of course, and freedom, it's about just innocence in the hope and that finally prevailed. Of course, everybody traumatized with the security measures, how we will handle that. And it was a moment when we decided we should still back on the whole. And I think we came to the conference and the leaders came to the conference and it was this big march in Paris with many coming, many leaders coming. Angela Merkel together with Francois Hollande, Barack Obama coming to say we should look to the future with hope. And, you know, in my view, it was an incredible factor of mobilization, of focus on, in a way, a sense of responsibility. We could not escape that responsibility in front of this horror. And that gives a little sort of gravity to everyone. And so I think we, finally this has, you know, like seriousness and gravity. You don't play with that. We have to go ahead. That's what I remember very, very clearly. So a sense of gravitas has, you know, imposed on our senses. That was gravitas, but with hope. We were begging for the hope.

Christiana Figueres: [00:23:20] Do you think, Laurence, I remember being under the impression or perhaps because it was communicated to us that actually the number of heads of state who came breaking all records. Never before have we had anywhere under one roof, one hundred and fifty heads of state under one roof in one day. Do you think that was in part because they all came to give their political impetus to the burgeoning agreement, but also out of solidarity to France and precisely to be part of that stand against violence and for hope against the evil forces in society and for the solidarity in society? Do you think there was a component of that also?

Laurence Tubiana: [00:24:15] I'm sure, Christiana, because, in a way, it was not just like a formal decision to come, like we have to come, like you come to the U.N. when there is, of course, a General Assembly. So it was something of a decision of these leaders to come and I'm sure they came because at one moment of crisis in history, of course, you can decide many different attitudes. But the attitude to say we cannot again submit to evil, we cannot just let them do, let them go and without any sense of the urgency we have to combat the major crisis to come. And so climate came in as a moment where this climate crisis, which of course was perceived in different ways by different leaders. But together it was a sense of against evil and terrorism there is no two voices, there is one voice. And I do think that that was a major reason for them to come to Paris. And you feel that. You feel the solidarity. And all, of course, began their speeches by your reference to this solidarity.

Christiana Figueres: [00:25:40] Laurence, so now let's fast forward a little bit precisely to that high-level segment, which unusually so for the U.N. tradition was held in the first week. Usually, the high-level segment is delayed to the last week, but the decision had been made quite a while before that the high-level segment, i.e. that the presence of heads of state would be at the beginning of the two weeks. What feelings were taking over you as we all stood there outside and greeted all of the heads of state coming in high protocol fashion into Le Bourget? What was the feeling that was invading you as you saw them all march in?

Laurence Tubiana: [00:26:32] An enormous pressure, enormous pressure. Frankly, because I was not the one in the protocol, I was the one looking at everybody coming in and in a way to sense that you have to deliver, you have to deliver. And frankly, we remember Christiana. Yes, we had a good text. It has nine hundred or more or less brackets. I think that between 900 and 1000, it was a very sort of messy one in a way. And than the pressure to say, OK, they come in the beginning, that was a very good and wise decision anyway to be taken. So that gives you input. But they are demanding the result. They are there to say after these 15 days, you better have the result because we we have to come to say do it. So I felt the enormous pressure at that moment. Yeah, absolutely.

Christiana Figueres: [00:27:33] Well, and especially Laurence, I think, you know, many of us were thinking about Copenhagen, December 2009 when heads of state did come. And it was actually a huge political and procedural debacle. And so I think all of us were joined in the pressure of contributing to something that was radically different to Copenhagen. But just for listeners, you use the word brackets, which is a very important word for those who negotiate. Brackets in a text mean that the word or the words or the phrase or sometimes the whole paragraph, which is in brackets, it has been put in brackets by one country or by many because they don't agree to it. And you cannot adopt a text, which is what was adopted at the end of Paris, with a single bracket in it. So you need to be able to negotiate with every single country. One hundred ninety-five of them the changes and the nuances within those brackets that make the text there palatable. And the challenge there, Laurence, you will remember better than anything, is sometimes you have to negotiate one bracket against another bracket or three brackets or four brackets, you know, and keep all of that in your head. So let's walk into that process. Laurence, I'm sure you have an excellent memory and you could talk to us for days about moments but can you choose a moment in which, let's first start with joy. Let's choose one moment that you remember in which something finally came through that you thought, aha, this really could detonate a lot of progress throughout the process. What was one piece? You know, it's almost like taking a knot and pulling the miraculous string that holds everything in a knot and then things begin to move, and then we'll get to the difficult parts. But do you remember one piece where you felt an enormous sense of relief?

Laurence Tubiana: [00:30:06] Just to come back a little earlier, these brackets you explained, clearly it's like having one thousand pieces of disagreement. So you think of how I can get so many pieces of disagreement to come together and maybe different moments. I think the first moment I feel it was really possible. So we had this after the first week and the discussion between diplomats, you know, at the moment where the presidency takes over, say, well, we are there. We don't have found exactly agreement on this one thousand pieces. So let's try another method. And we began to have a discussion with the whole very talented people who have been writing these paragraphs and these phrases. And we sit down with them in a little room and say, look, where do you see there's a really serious disagreement. And we went again and again through all the text with different people, different groups, but mainly the ones who had been so instrumental in writing with their own words. So after just talking to all these people, you know, almost one by one, we saw that finally all these disagreements, these sometimes conflict, were not finally that important and one by one, you make the difference between the essential and the anecdotal of the difference. And then we began to propose to clean up, to really go to the essential with the first draft of the text. And I remember very well, Christiana, you told me you have three chances.

Laurence Tubiana: [00:32:08] You can present three versions, but no more than that. So you can have a process where you progressively come to an agreement, but you don't have that many chances. You have three. And so presenting the first one, tabling the first one, taking the first chance was a very impressive moment because we knew exactly if we lose that one, there are only two left. And remember, of course, all the time Copenhagen was there as well. And so, you know, traumatic frustrations. And so it was a wonderful moment when we brought this text, which again, trying to say these are the essential disagreement and we took out the more nonessential ones. And do you agree that distinction we made, we made the choices that these are also very important ones we have to continue talking about and debating around and these other one are really minor discussions and we are faced with a very big problem, so we have to concentrate on the essential. And then all of a sudden everybody applauds that. That was an incredible moment where people just began to say, we trust you for the choices, we trust you are not, sort of, cheating us. Yes, this is essential peice. And OK, this disagreement was finally very minor ones. So that was the moment when we say we can do it. That was exactly the moment that I thought we could do it.

Christiana Figueres: [00:33:56] You know, Laurence, it's interesting that you put it that way because the image that I had throughout this whole process is the image of a sculptor that takes a beautiful piece of stone, but that looks like a stone. And the craft and the magic and the art of the sculptor is to begin to remove from the stone everything that is not the sculpture in order to reveal at the end, only the sculpture. And there's a lot of stone that has to be removed, very carefully chiseled away in order to reveal the sculpture. And so that's sort of the image that I have of that whole process of precisely removing with a chisel, with care, with diligence, but also with a lot of courage. Because once you remove it right, once you remove it, it's gone. And you have to have everyone agree with you on the removal of those pieces that, as you say, are nonessential in order to come down to the very, very essential. So that was sort of the image.

Laurence Tubiana: [00:35:09] Yes, beautiful, because it was a huge discussion we had with Laurent Fabius because we could have two choices. Or try to have the agreement on the first chance on the big thing. Really the big thing. I don't know, the final answer. The responsibilities of these very big political things. And there was this option, we go straight to the core of the problem and we try to find an agreement now, and then the rest will do that after or just take that process through and it brings up through the process. I think I convinced him that it was better to go this way because that was building the trust progressively and again, people would have the time to make their choices and to design the sculpture at the end exactly how they see it appearing. So it was just a big anxiety because you don't know if they would look, if the evidence of the form you are trying to show is the right one, that was the first chance. And you can miss it. It may look ugly to everyone, but finally, they felt it was OK.

Paul Dickinson: [00:36:39] So I think in that famous phrase, this is how the sausage is made regarding politics and this international agreement. But if I can just make an observation, I just want to acknowledge that although these are technical details. You are two truly great global leaders who managed a fiendishly complex ecosystem of nations and an egosystem of leaders to deliver the landmark global turning point on climate change, and the world will always owe you a debt of gratitude and it feels right to take a moment just to honor that extraordinary achievement which leads to my question. What can you share about the nature of your leadership that helped to deliver this extraordinary and deeply necessary achievement?

Laurence Tubiana: [00:37:35] Well, I think there are different techniques of diplomacy. I'm not a professional one, by the way. I just did that because I thought I could help. And I think there are different styles. There is a style where you are candid to a point that people first begin not to believe you because that's not possible. You are so candid and in a way force you, after a certain time, and always speaking the truth to people. And again, it was stubbornness in being candid that people, in a way, that's a surprise for them. They are surprised. You are in a way displacing a little bit of their normal way of working or normal way of thinking. And so that first, I think being candid.

Christiana Figueres: [00:38:30] I love that because candid and diplomacy are not two things that sort of fall into the same phrase. And so I agree with you that being candid and being transparent and being very frank with negotiators catches them a little bit by surprise.

Laurence Tubiana: [00:38:46] Yeah, so they look at you and in the beggining, they don't believe you. That's normal news and that's the rules of the game. But then they begin to look at you and progressively, oh yes, she may. And then that changes their mindset, which is of course, everything is about changing the mindset of others, of course. And then the second thing is, which I don't know how I can communicate that, but, you know, what was happening really impressive in Paris is that all these diplomats representing their national interests, such as their jobs as their mandate. At one point in time, they grew outside of it. They thought bigger than that. They feel that finally the real interest of the nation, the real interest of their people was beyond the traditional scripts that we're normally producing? And that was an extraordinary moment. I felt that that communication of truth and trust in them created the fact that they. Yes, they were bigger than their normal role, their normal way. They began to be, really, I don't know, I can't express that. People, not professionals. People relating to something bigger than them, than themselves.

Christiana Figueres: [00:40:14] Touching their humanity, I would say touching their humanity and touching the humanity of each other.

Laurence Tubiana: [00:40:21] Exactly, and I have a beautiful anecdote on that in particular, which I think I shared already with Christiana. She knows that story? It was the last, last day. It was five-thirty AM and, you know, we were presenting the final text we have been drafting with all these steps, and this culture wasn't done and then there was no way to change it anymore. And so we went from different groups to different groups explaining without showing them the techniques that you have to show that to everybody at the same time. But just to not take them by surprise and explaining to them what was good for them, what was a traditional things they were looking for, and the peice they would not like anyway, because that was not what they were looking for. And just explaining what they were winning and what they were losing in a way, again, in a very transparent way. And then I got this meeting with a lot of difficult countries. You know, the countries that are living from the oil and gas, countries who see their development and economic development still with a lot of emissions.

Laurence Tubiana: [00:41:39] And then it there were all these ambassadors. Very sort of trained diplomats, very cold faces. And I sit there explaining what they would like, what they would certainly strongly dislike. And then a silence came in, an icy silence. And then, you know, I was exhausted, I hadn't slept for a really, really like a week or more, and then I began to cry and I just was exhausted and I told them, you know, I cannot do better. I just can do that. But I cannot do better than that. I think it's a more balanced thing. It's a more, but I cannot do better. Again, silence. And then, one by one, they stood up, they came to me, they took me in their arms and say, we trust you. We trust you. You did your best. We will do that. It wasn't any moment of incredible emotion. These were, again, super train, super-competent diplomats. They have been doing that since years and years. And then all of a sudden they said, we trust you. So it's an image I would never, never forget.

Paul Dickinson: [00:42:58] It's a beautiful story. How you got people out of themselves and their jobs into something bigger. I hope people will study for 100 years. It was a miracle. And it's a beautiful story with a very happy ending.

Laurence Tubiana: [00:43:13] And you know, Paul. Exactly the Paris Agreement and fighting climate change with a tax or without a tax, the problem is not this one. It's really beyond themselves, it's really growing. That's exactly the point. That's exactly where you shift from a defensive position to really addressing the issue. And that was humanity, really humanity standing up. And I saw that in their eyes, in their arms. That was incredible and one was, what I remember all my life, an Iranian diplomat, a very nice person. He was standing a little shy saying, I don't dare to take you in my arms, but I think it very strongly.

Christiana Figueres: [00:43:59] What a beautiful story, Laurence, and as you say, very symbolic of the process that everyone there had to go through in order to get to this unanimous agreement. And as you say, the process that we're still in. The process that we're still in here five years later, because it is, as you say, that we have to step away from our short term thinking, our geographically bounded and economy bounded thinking and really move toward, I would say, an enlightened, still self-interest, but an enlightened self-interest that focuses more on the very predictable long term than the evident short term. So a beautiful example of stepping out of that onto a bigger platform. Laurence and in that vein. Here we are five years after that fantastic moment when Laurent Fabius was finally told, yes, he can bring the final text to the floor and he brings his gavel down. And here we are five years later. So I am sure that everyone this week has been asking you, Laurence, is the Paris Agreement alive or is it dead? Are we moving forward or are we still stuck? Where are we? And the way that I would love to invite you to frame that Laurence is, as you will know, our podcast is called Outrage and Optimism because we think we have to be outraged about what we haven't done yet and optimistic about what is being done and what more can be done. So could you frame your view and your outlook of five years after Paris and what we see happening around us? Could you frame it into what are you outraged about? Just really totally outraged about. And what are you optimistic about?

Laurence Tubiana: [00:46:25] Starting by the outrage. I am outraged with the cynicism, I must say. I'm outraged by hearing. That probably really drives me mad because you see people who know exactly what's going on who have fought again and again to deny what is happening. And I think about certain companies and certain lobbies and are still trying to continue lying or even worse. Saying they pay a lot of attention, they will really do what is needed, they will change their business model and at the same time still on the other hand, continuing to develop false science, false communication, fake news to say, no, we should be there, we should still continue using oil and gas and that we cannot do. And finally, all these alternative solutions are not economical. They are not doable, or they are even more polluting than the old ones. So I am mad with cynicism. I am mad with that. I think the problem is the rest is, it's difficult for people to struggle. They don't have all the ideas. They may face difficulties. There are, of course, many. It's not simple to do that deep transformation. I can understand the difficulty. I can understand even people really not doing as much as they could because they face these difficulties. But I cannot accept cynicism. That's where I really put my driving map. I think it was last year. Yeah. Last year or two years ago. Pope Francis gathered a number of CEOs from many oil and gas companies, and it was I think two years ago and this incredible leader. And I think he told them. OK, I have this discussion you should really now accept the reality and move forward, but stop funding climate denialism, and that I think that's something we have to tell them always. Stop doing that. Stop being silly.

Christiana Figueres: [00:49:09] A pretty courageous move on his part.

Laurence Tubiana: [00:49:12] Incredible courage. Incredible. But that really, we have these days our leaders with enormous courage and speaking exactly to the level of the problem, like Antonio Guterres or the Pope is they are really speaking the truth at the level we should talk about. But that's the optimism part, in a way. So that drives me mad. I, and again, which is not really creating outrage, but yes, a sentiment that these arguments against and against short-term action to say we have time, we have to deal with more urgent problems. You know, there will be social consequences. People don't want to change. All these arguments just to delay action are really the parts of the outrage. But what drives me much more optimistic is that on one side the life of Paris agreement is exactly what you and I were expecting. We didn't imagine that there was a big government imposing on others any action. We were not believing in any court of justice sanctioning everyone. That was not what's meant to be. Paris agreement was meant to change the mindset, change the expectation, change the vision of the future that finally and each actor, each constituency, each element of these big global society takes it on and tries to find the passways to travel so that they can embark on and make their own choices. That's really the philosophy.

Laurence Tubiana: [00:51:07] And then, of course, to try to encourage each other and to peer review and to push and to try. And so this is where I am optimistic, whatever happened with Trump leaving the Paris agreement with some countries dragging their feet evidently. But, you know, this is a reference for everyone. So everyone is trialed with more or less of candidness, measuring what they do vis a vis these benchmarks. Are we consistent with Paris agreement or not? That's the force of it. And whatever is in the details, et cetera? That's not the problem. Is that the goals, you remember this last Saturday morning when we negotiate the final goal of Paris of net-zero by mid-century, which is this balanced, this complicated formula coming from previous texts that probably some government didn't understand exactly what it was meant. And then five years after, everybody's referring to that as the new normality. And that's exactly the value of this. Exactly. Changing the mindset and the sense of instoppability, irreversibility of the thing we have to do. And of course, the problem is we are still, still too slow. But this sense of inevitability, I think, is really there, even if there's many people that try, or some constituencies are trying to really drag the process, but that I think the importance of the agreement is about. It's changing the mindset and the expectations.

Christiana Figueres: [00:52:51] Changing the mindset. Changing, as you say, the point of reference. Right? Everybody is measuring themselves against the Paris agreement. It's what I would call the Paris effect. It is really very, very impressive that the agreement is having the effect of establishing itself as the reference, as the milestone, and it is constantly being used, as you say, as the comparison. Am I Paris aligned or am I not Paris alined. Is my portfolio Paris aligned or not. Are my emissions Paris aligned or not? So that Paris effecy of moving everyone toward that long term goal of net zero by 2050 is really very, very impressive. As you say, that was the most difficult and final factor to be included there. The Paris effect. Laurence, you embody the Paris effect, thank you so much. Thank you so much for being with us. Thank you so much for what you did during that whole, whole long, difficult year, despite your accident, despite your health, despite not seeing your family for a whole year. Thank you so much for what you did during those two weeks. And thank you for not abandoning this. Thank you for staying the course from your seat at the European Climate Foundation and continuing to be such a rudder. You are both a rudder and a sail, keeping the direction going and keeping the speed going with the sails. So thank you. Thank you so much Laurence.

Laurence Tubiana: [00:54:46] Christiana, being unstoppable is exactly what I learned from you. Unstoppable, that's your leadership. That's your leadership style.

Paul Dickinson: [00:54:57] Thank you, Laurance. Thank you, Christiana.

Christiana Figueres: [00:55:00] Thank you, Laurence. And happy birthday to the Paris Agreement.

Laurence Tubiana: [00:55:03] Happy birthday.

Paul Dickinson: [00:55:05] Happy birthday. 

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:55:06] Amazing at this pivotal moment to get a chance to talk with Laurence. I mean, you know, she played such a crucial role as a partner to you and to so many, Christiana. What do you think talking with her again after all these years?

Christiana Figueres: [00:55:25] You know, it was so nice because the fact is that we worked so closely together for that last year. And I do remember that moment, as she said, you know, when she came to Bonn for the first time and we met for the first time and we both kind of realized, hey, we're both women. We're both very small in stature, and we have this big weight on our shoulders. And we really very quickly, very quickly bonded. And Laurence was so heroic. As I said there on that interview, she had so many physical ailments, accidents, and difficulties to walk. And she was in wheelchairs throughout the year and she had to change, get off of her high heels and get into basically running shoes that she then made very stylish. 

Paul Dickinson: [00:56:18] Which have become iconic, actually.

Christiana Figueres: [00:56:20] Yeah. They became very iconic, you know, whoever makes those shoes should change the branding and call them Tubiana shoes because I then saw many other women in the negotiations wearing those very comfortable and very wise and prudent shoes. But she was indefatigable. I mean, just absolutely. She knew what her responsibility was as the main worker bee for the presidency. She just worked so, so, so hard throughout that whole year. And then needless to say, in the two weeks in Paris, and we found ourselves at all hours of the night bumping into each other in coordination meetings and monitoring meetings. And it was quite the experience to know that you could depend on each other to get the respective work done. We were each playing different roles, but I knew that I could depend on her to get her work done. She knew that she could depend on me and our respective teams. And it was quite a beautiful teaming up, I would say.

Paul Dickinson: [00:57:35] I can't really think of any time before a guest has actually made me cry. But she tells the story of having, you know, absolutely hardly any sleep for a week, completely sleep deprived being in this room with all of these diplomats who are all very professional. And she talks about where they are in the negotiations and she says the room is like ice and there's a silence. And then she speaks a bit more about what's happening and the rooms like ice in silence. And then she says. I've done everything I can and then they come up one by one and hug her and say we trust you. And she spoke about how those diplomats, and I think it's the most beautiful part of the Paris agreement, which is in itself a wonderful, wonderful thing, how they rose out of themselves and became more than national representatives, but rather served their populations as global diplomats. That is a truly inspiring insight and shows that capability lives in all of us.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:58:52] And she was a big part of that, right? As as you were too Christiana, I mean, I remember being in groups of negotiators who were talking and creating all kinds of problems on the floor of the negotiations and in rooms. And sometimes Laurence's presence would just make them behave better. She'd kind of turn up and they'd all sort of, they'd all kind of slightly behave. And the toys would go back in the prams and they'd stop being so, you know, obstreperous, which is amazing. It shows you how even in those moments where it seems to be so about diplomatic norms and terms, actually, it's a human relationship and those human relations.

Christiana Figueres: [00:59:27] Totally about human relations. And it's, you know, it's about more than friendships. You do get to be friends with all of these people that you worked so hard with for such a long time. But it goes beyond just a human relationship or a friendship or getting to know each other. It moves into the realm of touching each other very deeply at the root of our humanity. And I think that is what Laurence was describing there, that those people, you know, who could have been pretty obstreperous, they really understood that there was something bigger than themselves, bigger than their national interest, short term interests, that there's something longer-term and bigger than short term national interests, and that's their long term national interest that, you know, not surprisingly, we all share because we all share the interest of planetary well-being. Just because we're humans and we depend on planetary well-being. But, you know, that is so easily hidden from sight. If you are looking at the color of the flag in front of you or the title at the front of your door. And so as we go beyond that and we're able to really touch each other at the root, at the root of our humanity and truly see how much we have in common, then there's just infinite space for wonderful things to happen.

Paul Dickinson: [01:01:04] And is it, Christiana, that ability to touch shared humanity, which was such a fundamental part of that? I mean, it was mainly women who were in the roles of making this stuff happen in Paris. Is that a coincidence? I don't think it is.

Christiana Figueres: [01:01:20] I don't think it's a coincidence. But I have to remind you that it wasn't only women who agreed to this. There are quite a few men in the room that agreed. But maybe we just have a little bit more, let me say this, maybe we have less of a hang-up in going into the space and maybe some men, with the beautiful exception of the two of you and a few other wonderful men, they have more of a hang-up to move into this space that is beyond the current roles that we're playing and to see that we have this shared legacy and shared responsibility. And I guess women, just because we are, in our DNA, we're stewards of our kids of the future, we just gravitate much more quickly into that space. And we don't think there's anything weird about that or silly about that. We actually see the strength in it. And I think we were able to elicit that same courage of spirit from so many men over those two weeks,

Paul Dickinson: [01:02:38] It's a miracle and we've heard astronauts talk about the overview effect. You know, they look out their spaceship and they can't see any of the borders. But I think you managed to have the kind of I view you effect right? Where I don't see the my competing countries borders. But I see, you know, what's that line from that song? I see people saying, "Hi, how do you do? Really, they're saying, I love you". Getting some of that, you know, everyone's in the room and you can't really credibly hide behind a separatist interest when the world is crying. Now, we couldn't have a better piece of music to end this episode with. And this has been great to have this conversation about the past and about the future. And apart from anything else, I have to say that getting this band on Outrage and Optimism has been the first time I've had any street cred with my children.

Paul Dickinson: [01:03:34] You actually appeared and stopped interviewing the guests. 

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [01:03:38] They did appear during the conversation with AJR, which we're about to hear. So so AJR is a US New York-based band. It's three brothers and actually, their initials spell out the name of their band. So Adam, Jack, and Ryan. We actually talk to them. It was fascinating to get a chance to sit down with these three brilliant young men and have a conversation about all of the things they're committed to, not just through their music, but through all of their engagements and all of the ways that they try to make the world a better place.

Paul Dickinson: [01:04:12] Well, hello, Adam, Jack, Ryan. I wanted to start off by thanking you for such beautiful moving music and the genius of creating your own incredible, unique style, which, as you know, has moved millions and millions and millions and millions of people. And all the other work you do, Adam, with sustainability partners and just the whole thing. Now, I, like many of us, like me, Christiana and Tom, we've all worked on climate change for decades, but we've never had what I'm supremely kind of admiring you for, maybe a little tiny bit jealous. You have millions of millions of people.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [01:04:51] He's really very jealous.

Paul Dickinson: [01:04:52] I'm very jealous, thank you Tom for correcting me.

Christiana Figueres: [01:04:56] He's so jealous he can't speak.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [01:04:59] My alleged colleagues here are supposed to back me up and support me and tear me down. But it's true. I mean, it's not easy. I know. But there are millions and millions of people out there that you touch in a fantastic way. And I just love to hear from you how you work with them and what the journey has been like being kind of like part of your own movement that you kind of created, but also you're supporting so many other things. How's it working with that incredible audience?

Ryan AJR: [01:05:28] It's been incredible for us, honestly. It's been such a long road. I think I agree with you. We have such a close connection with the fans. And I think it's because we built a lot of this ourselves. I think there's a general feeling when something is being shoved down everybody's throats. You're a little apathetic towards that, right? You don't really, like, embrace it fully. But I think we've been able to just like, we made our own record label and we gathered our own publicity team and our own radio team. We kind of did it one step at a time and made one fan at a time, touring the country, touring the world. And when you do it like that, every fan feels like they have ownership over you. And so it's a nice kind of very personal connection with the fans. I think we get to have a more personal relationship with them, I guess.

Paul Dickinson: [01:06:12] One of the things that's amazed me about listening to your music is, you know, there are some musicians that clearly have a social or environmental conscience, and that kind of is worn on their sleeves to some degree. You don't evidently have that. But if you listen to it, the message is baked into everything that you're talking about. Is that deliberate? How do you go about constructing meaning in your song?

Ryan AJR: [01:06:33] Really good question. I think you have to do it subtly. I think when you bake it into a song, it has to be about you. I think everybody's very aware when they're being preached to in song. And so I think it really needs to be like, let me use an example, Burn The House Down, our song. It was our version of a political song because it was 2017, I think we wrote it. Right at the time that all of that political stuff was happening. But we couldn't write a song saying, here's what's wrong with the world. It needed to be a personal thing. Here's how I am affected. And it ended up being a song about writing a political song. Like if I write this political song, will they allow me to sing it on Ellen or whatever?

Jack AJR: [01:07:19] Yeah, and I think because so many of, you know, there are those people in the world that are those tenacious, will lead the pack, those kinds of people. But there are a lot of people that are very unsure and don't really know and to try to appeal to those people is very smart because you can scroll through your Twitter feed all day and see, this is what we need to do, this is what we need to do. But a lot of people aren't super educated. Like me, for instance, I don't know one hundred percent of the answers. I don't know what to do. But if you can relate and try to make people feel it on that level of a little bit of insecurity and unsureness, maybe they'll start to actually listen and do their own research and say, OK, this is actually really important to me. So it's really just about connecting to the fans with the exact same mindset as you. So like Ryan said, you have to be subtle about it and not preach.

Adam AJR: [01:07:59] It's funny, a lot of my work in the sustainability space came from this idea, seeing how you get fans involved and excited about something. Because so much of the climate movement because I know this is what all three of you work on, has been about this fear of the future and this kind of doom and gloom approach. But when I look at the music industry where I spend so much of my time, it's all about excitement and how do you build excitement one person at a time to get them involved. And so a lot of the work that I've done is taking things that we learned from the music industry and applying them to activism, specifically around climate. You know, you get somebody excited and then they follow you on Twitter or they stream a song and then they buy an album, they buy a ticket to a show. They follow you around the world. It's that ladder of getting people engaged in something. And a lot of my work is how do we take that and apply that to things like climate.

Paul Dickinson: [01:08:51] I love the idea of meeting people where they are, though. Now, Christiana?

Christiana Figueres: [01:08:54] I wanted to riff off where you both were talking about. It's about getting people excited with you. And everything that we've talked about until now is actually a politically correct conversation. I'm going to veer off into the not politically correct conversation. Finally, we're getting there. So here's what I would love to hear from you. In a recent lecture at Columbia, you referred to the SDGs as sexy. Now, I have to tell you that a year ago or maybe two, I actually was still the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Climate Change Convention and I had a press conference with the Minister of Environment of Japan, a society that is actually pretty buttoned up. And in that conversation, in the middle of the press conference, I heard myself saying, well, I actually think that addressing climate change is pretty sexy. Now, this minister got very excited about this concept and commented on it. I never got a bad rap for it. But he went home and he got hammered for having jumped on my boat and given in public his opinion about this. So I would love to know neither of you are ministers of environment. None of you are Japanese. You belong to a much more, let's say, relaxed culture. But I would love to know what reaction did you get to that statement? What did you mean by it and what reaction did you get?

Adam AJR: [01:10:31] Wow, what a question. When I was talking about the SDGs being sexy, I mean, I come from a human rights background and a law background. So the people that I'm normally talking to are so serious when they're listening to things and they're talking about state's obligations for human rights. But when I mention that the SDGs are sexy, it's because all of my studies, looking at all these different countries, even though countries are legally obligated to these specific human rights, they've gone above and beyond with incorporating the SDGs and because they're such interesting icons associated with it. And that's something that countries are not obligated to, they get to participate in them. And I saw that as the difference. And that's one of the reasons why I thought they were sexy. And the other thing is that the SDGs are appearing on clothing, they're appearing in songs, they're appearing all over the Internet. I have this letter here. That has the SDGs logo.

Christiana Figueres: [01:11:40] I have the same sweater. I have it as a hoodie.

Adam AJR: [01:11:45] Yeah, yeah. But who would think that something having to do with sustainability where there's a goal about, you know, urban development is actually appearing on clothing and people are excited about wearing it?

Paul Dickinson: [01:11:56] OK, so, Adam, I got to come back to you or any of the band, but OK, SDGs for those of you who are not yet familiar with the acronym that we all seem to know without introducing is the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. Now, sustainable development goals don't immediately sound like that dramatic volcano of excitement. Can anybody tell me how the Sustainable Development Goals get people dancing around that front room as they do to your music every day?

Adam AJR: [01:12:25] That is a great question. And the thing that I've been talking a lot about recently is this idea of the micro-influencer, and a micro-influencer is somebody who doesn't necessarily have millions of followers online but has really strong connections to their friends and family. And something really cool about the SDGs is that there's something for everybody. It really feels overwhelming to think about 17 goals. But if you are really passionate about water and want to focus on one of the SDGs that's focused on water, you can really embrace that and use your micro influence to teach your friends and your family, and even your teachers at school about it. It's so much more accessible than anything that the UN has ever put out in the history of being an organization.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [01:13:08] I should just point out that the UN's version was not quite that good, but Richard Curtis got his hands on it, and then actually it was improved after that. So I appreciate your.

Christiana Figueres: [01:13:17] All of the visuals of the SDGs are Richard Curtis and his team. The genius, the genius of this icon that puts out all of those 17 because, honestly, at the UN, people were saying nobody's going to remember 17 things. You know, at a stretch. We can remember three of something, a list of three, but 17, forget it. So it was Richard Curtis and his genius team that turned this into the icons and the colors that are actually, I'm not sure that anybody can recite the 17 in chronological order. But we all know or most people know that they're 17, that they have different icons. So they have different colors, that it's a rainbow effect. It was actually quite a stroke of communication genius.

Paul Dickinson: [01:14:05] Artists of the UN, and that's what I call it. Sorry, Adam.

Adam AJR: [01:14:08] No, I was just saying it's funny that you mentioned Richard because Ryan and Jack both studied film and they are very involved in film. And Richard Curtis as a director comes from a similar place that we do in music. He's using the skills that he built in his entertainment form to help communicate these messages of sustainability. And Jack, I mean, you know, he directed Love, Actually, and a bunch of these really famous movies.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [01:14:31] Now one of the best parts of this podcast has been including music. And we've been doing it for the best part of a year now. And we include emerging artists, artists that aren't necessarily well known, usually unlike yourselves. But we're thrilled to have you on this episode. This is a particularly special episode because it is the five-year anniversary of the Paris Agreement. This is a big celebration. And actually, there's been some evidence and some data that's come out this week to suggest that despite all expectations and against all fears in the world, actually the Paris agreement is working and we are now looking at a temperature trajectory that is not yet safe, but it's a lot closer to safe than anyone thought it might be. So we've got everything to play for in the coming years. And we'd love it if you could just introduce this song a bit before we play it because I love it. My daughter, who's here watching with me, absolutely loves it and insisted on us having you on because she's loved you for a long time. Could you just give us a bit of an intro to Burn the House Down?

Ryan AJR: [01:15:29] Yeah, absolutely. I talked a little bit about this, but yeah, it's very much our version of a political song. It's a little uncertain. It's a little like who am I in all of this? And it's, I think, something that we all feel. It's like, how much am I the figure to stand up and lead the pack or how much am I the figure to kind of follow along with the trend? This whole thing is very human nature, very human condition, like where do I stand in the pack? So we wrote that and all tied into this political climate we're in right now.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [01:16:02] So the name of this song is Burn the House Down. And I can't think of a better song for this moment. Of course, the meaning of the phrase burn the house down. It's kind of an old phrase? And it means to just do a job and knock it out of the park. You burn the house down, you rip the roof off. And so that's why I think it fits so well here. Of course, the double meaning of it is that right now our home is on fire in climate change and we are facing a reality where the forests are burning, other natural ecosystems are burning. Of course, that's not what we mean here. What is meant by this song is Burn the House Down. The reason we think it's so relevant this week is because Paris was burning the house down in all of the positive ways. It's a beautiful song. I really hope you enjoy it.

Nolan Rossi: [01:20:23] Hi, I'm Nolan, covering for Clay this week while he's away. Well, there was another episode of Outrage and Optimism. The song that you just heard is Burn the House Down by A.J.R. You can check out more of the music by clicking the link in the show notes. Outrage and Optimism is a global optimism production and is produced this week by Clay Kernell and Nolan Rossi. Our executive producer is Marina Mansilla-Hermann. Thanks to the Global Optimism team, which includes Sara Lau, Katie Bradford, Lara Richardson, Sophie McDonald, Freya Newman, Saraa Thomas, Sharon Johnson and John Ward. Our hosts are Tom Rivett-Carnac, Christiana Figueres and Paul Dickinson. Special thanks to our guest this week, Laurence Tubiana. You can find us online @GlobalOptimism on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. It helps us if you rate us and leave us review on Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Five Stars gets the word out about the podcast. Thank you for writing review to help spread the word. Next week we'll have another great episode. So hit subscribe and we'll see you next week.