Latest / Unfolding: a circular economy podcast / Episode 15 - COPcast Day 1
Transcript
- Wayne: So, yeah, how you doing? How's this one? Iain Gulland: I'm good. It's it's very good actually. yeah, it's a good vibe to it's lots of kid chat. does feel a lot more progressive in terms of you know, thinking about materials and stuff like that Yankees was excellent, really good again. so yeah, it's been quite heartening actually. I mean there is yeah, it's the overview. The plenaries have been the kind of overview big picture stuff, without getting into anything specific. but yeah. so how's how's you? How's your sessions? Wayne: Right, yeah, so what can I say? I've been to a couple of sessions, but mainly I think I went to one around Zero Waste, what is Zero Waste? Which had Carlos from Iswa, I think he's the president, isn't he? So he was like doing the moderator and... Iain Gulland: Yeah. Wayne: I'll fill in the names of the other people who presented, but basically it was okay, actually. mean, there always is a tendency to move downstream and like people fall into the, I guess the trap you picked me upon in an earlier episode around, it's all about waste, isn't it? Having less waste. And you know, that's kind of a key metric. maybe it's not, it's about... So people did say that, so we probably need to think about making the case for a resource use metric, like reduction of resource of raw material. Maybe that's the metric in a waste world. It's not about waste actually, it's about raw material extraction and processing. So maybe that's the thing to point to, but... know, people were upstream. mean, people give presentations and they are inherently, you know, presenting what they do and falling into what they're used to. So they'll talk a lot about reusing the pair and then show you how they've incorporated some waste item into something else. So people say we need to reduce waste and then talk about how they're downcycling. Iain Gulland: Yeah. But then that's but that is to some extent way the same it's happening here and that's the challenge, isn't it? It's just you know, to some extent I mean I I mean I suppose I can't get the expression right, but it's like the people in this room, the waste people or the people who've seen the sheer scale of the issue, whether that's the volume or the you know, the the need for better waste management systems in the developing world, It's it's almost like the Canadian the coal mine. They're basically saying this is unsustainable. We do need yeah, we need better waste management, we need investment, we need, you know, all of the normal things. But actually they're saying this is just this is gonna overwhelm us. This and it to some extent they're trying to I mean this is the thing I said to Janet there about, you know, how are we you know, where else are we having these conversations? You know, we're kind of still having it in the waste events, circle economy events. Which is fine, we need to bring people on the journey, but are we having it in the in the real political discussions about what's what's in front of Wayne: Yeah, yeah, no that's right. Iain Gulland: us? Because that that f it does feel like the people here they might not admit it, yes, they've got a job to do to convince others, but they're not the people who are going to change the market in the way that we all need it to change. You know, the economic drivers, the trade drivers, all the things that we talked about in our podcast. There has to be another set of people that need to come to the table. Wayne: Yeah. Iain Gulland: And realize the you know, the the w you w yeah, the certainty of all of this if we just continue do what we're doing. Wayne: in the zero waste event that I went to. Carlos said, be here on Wednesday, we're going to launch the Istanbul platform, say more about the cities, the zero waste cities. So, you know, I think there's some hope there, Iain Gulland: Okay. Yeah. Wayne: you know, so it'd be interesting to get a bit more information on that and to try and influence the direction of that. and one of the speakers really put it well, which is what we've been saying, is is bottom up, but there does need to be the top down. And Iain Gulland: Yeah on top that yeah. Wayne: all the people at ISWA, it feels to me, part of that bottom up approach, and they're looking up the supply chain and saying, how can Iain Gulland: Yeah, yeah. Wayne: we stop all of this, these mountain of stuff raining down on us? And there are people Iain Gulland: Yeah. Yeah. Wayne: who are sort of more in control of that supply Today is food Iain Gulland: All right. Wayne: day, right? So everyone's talking about food. I went to the Zero Waste Cafe, couldn't get a bun, couldn't get a sandwich, because of course it's full of meat and dairy. I did get to Vegans, there's Vegans, I think it's called Vegans Square. Yeah there is, yeah. And I got there, Iain Gulland: I've got a vegan corner. Wayne: I don't recall the bit, because it was so hilarious. It was lunchtime, day one, and there were a few people there buying their vegan meals, and they were still trying to put, they were screwing the tables together. There weren't enough tables and chairs. I cannot say they were overwhelmed by vegans. Iain Gulland: It wasn't enough for vegans. You underestimated the many vegans. How to make you fe how to make you feel welcome. Yeah. Yeah. Wayne: Bye guys. Iain Gulland: Well, yeah, I'd I'd yeah, I think yeah, it's like you said, I think there's two sides to it, some you know, people are kind of saying from the ways side, you know, the resources side that we do need a different approach. But then who's that that's gonna come into the onto the table and try and really understand what we can do about it? Wayne: Yeah. Iain Gulland: so yeah, I think and but that's what cop's about. And you know, it's up to Yanna about this again. You know, although we in one respect we say, yeah, this is COP thirty one, you know, it's taken thirty one Cops to talk about it. But then we can use that but then Wayne: my god, Iain Gulland: we can yeah, I totally understand that. But then we can use that to fast track. We can see all the things all the thirty years we went through trying to get electrification, decarbonisation, we can fast track a lot of that. we can look at the things that actually work, setting up all that infrastructure, the things like the Istanbul platform, all of those things that we we've been talking about, we know that these are the things the kind of infrastructure that works, for any for the energy decarbonisation journey. So we can yeah. And there's lots of people out here that are actually and do know how to do this stuff, this circularity, putting systems together and transition brokers that have had numerous years of experience. So We just need we just yeah, let's not reinvent the wheel. Let's not start from, s the start starting point. We can jump straight into some of the Wayne: It's good that transition broke has found its way into the CIWMs. it? Well, you know, it's in there. It's in there. And I think Iain Gulland: Yes. It's way down page whatever thirty one. It's in there, it's in there. Wayne: we can be a little bit responsible for that. Trying to introduce Iain Gulland: Yeah, and not a few. Wayne: it somehow. Good, yeah, so I did speak to Mark Watts this morning, which is good. That was interesting. And he was his kind of... His thing was he wants everybody who comes to cop to say, why have you come to cop? What actions are you going to take away from cop? just get on with it. He wants much more action orientated, people coming without a commitment to taking action. that's quite interesting. It felt a little bit, and I didn't mean it in this way, but it did feel a little bit like Jack Moussa, Jack Barry, know, coalitions of the willy. It doesn't really need Iain Gulland: No. Wayne: the whole of the parties to agree on a unanimous communique that goes at the pace of the slowest. Iain Gulland: Yeah. Wayne: It could be that people say, no, I'm going to move a little bit faster and this is my kill. So there is an opportunity in the action agenda, think, for that to happen. Iain Gulland: Good. speaker-0: So, yeah, if could introduce yourself. speaker-1: I am Mark Watts, C40's executive director. C40 cities group of nearly a hundred of the world's leading cities collaborating together to tackle climate crisis. speaker-0: and what are you doing at COP? What's your angle? What are you hoping for? speaker-1: Well, I'm a cop regular. We did. This is not our space, sadly, in the sense of this is very much the kind of intergovernmental gathering, but successive cop leaderships, in many cases, have made it open up the space. So it's more open to sub-national governments, sector, civil society. And so... really I'm here to keep sort of pushing that, that really these kind of gatherings will be much more successful, A, if they're able to focus on action, on what's going to be delivered in the near term as well as complicated negotiations about the very long term, but also that they involve the full range of societal actors that have got to make stuff happen. I would argue city governments... The layer of government that is closest to people, responsible for service, delivery, is absolutely critical to that. speaker-0: Yeah, and I think we both agree that cities are the place, they're kind of the engine room of change for this kind of thing and yet, as you say, the COP's all about the parties, the parties and national governments and they seem, and has to be unanimous, doesn't it? Everything has to be agreed, so it moves quite slowly. So is that frustrating? How do you find your role in this process? speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely it's frustrating but I always have to remind myself as the COP president from last year has just said on stage, Correo do Lago from Brazil, before the Paris agreement was put in place we were heading towards four degrees of global heating. Wow. Absolute complete catastrophe. The result of that Paris agreement has brought us back to 2.6. Still a disaster pushing us way beyond most of the world's ecological tipping points, but a significant progress. that consensus, much maligned consensus based negotiating approach has changed the way the world is dealing with climate change. But yeah, it's frustrating and it was designed to be frustrating. Frankly, all of these processes here, they bear the marks of the fossil fuel industry and the nations that support it who have ensured that everything is complicated and difficult and slow. and it's very hard to get everything agreed and that's part of the reason when we come here as a group of cities we say we're not getting involved in the negotiated outcomes, we don't think it's really going to make any difference. We come here with the majority of our cities having set out what they're going to do in the next 12 months and that's what we say to everybody. Let's focus on that. We should have that long-term plan and to be a member of C40 every city's got to have a Paris agreement. compliant climate action plan out to 2030 and then projecting through to 2050 but for COPs it really would be much more effective if they were placed where we all came together about what are we going to do in the next year to deliver against those plans. speaker-0: on the reduction in fossil fuel. I was reading an IMF paper, it was called something like the General Jevons Paradox. Have you heard of this? It's like basically they were saying that as renewables and energy efficiency has increased there's a tendency for actually for fossil fuel use to go up. So fossil fuel use has gone up despite the fact that there's a lot more renewables and they were positing that you need to have demand reduction in place as well as technological changes as well as the move to renewables because it's going to be a materials economy, materials and metals economy as opposed to a fossil economy. And a materials and metals economy is inherently more, by definition, more recyclable. So as part of the C40 standards, leadership standards, I think you have to have some action on what C40 call urban consumption. is that something that you recognise as C40 and that you're pushing? speaker-1: Absolutely, yeah, really central to our approach as you say the standards that we measure cities on includes a consumption based analysis of their emissions not just a production based which in many cities would really mask a huge impact on, particularly on the global economy for those that import a huge amount of the products that they can consume. in particular in our fast-growing cities. I spent a lot of time in China this year. That focus on circular economy applies particularly to construction, where huge quantities of materials are being consumed to improve people's immediate material quality of life and build much more habitable cities in the future. But it could be an extreme resource consumption. speaker-0: And construction of course is good example of harder to abate emissions, because it involves steel and cement. speaker-1: hugely embodied emissions and therefore if you can both... reused materials. I saw in Qingdao in particular, is one of the cities that China has sort of asked to be a leader in the way that China does. Three or four cities are given the task of piloting and demonstrating how you can achieve clean construction. So they're really significantly coordinated reuse of materials from every building site. Every time a building is demolished, there's a full inventory. Those materials are taken to a central repository and then kind of dulled out. But also a lot of R &D. investment in so-called clean concrete, clean steel and I think we're seeing that in India as well now, there's similar levels of construction. speaker-0: So what's your schedule? Are you going to get involved in the negotiations? I suppose you're not really invited into the direct negotiations are you? speaker-1: No, so we're not asking to be part of the negotiations. We had a tremendous partnership with the Brazilian government last year in their mutarau approach, which was very much the big ten. And so our pitch, as always, is bring... all layers of government into the whole COP process, leave the negotiations between the countries, but actually a big part of these COPs now is completely separate from the negotiations, the so-called action agenda, which is really coalitions of the willing to take things forward in sectors and that's where we really want to make a... speaker-0: Yeah, and that's where the waste and circular economy sits this year, which is why I'm here. Your 19th, did you say? speaker-1: I don't think it's that many but it's certainly... I've been coming for 16 years. speaker-0: Who do you think are the kind of leading? We were talking to Andy Deacon from G-Com and obviously he was saying he's got more members than the UN understands cities that there are cities. That's quite interesting. We had 14,000 members and the UN said there were 12,000 cities. So Andy's doing pretty well. So how do you, so in your cohort of around 100 cities, who would you say are leading in the, I guess in the urban consumption space? you speaker-1: mean unsurprisingly it's some of the leading European cities, certainly Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Berlin really sort of picking up on the circular economy approach, London obviously thanks to your work. I find it interesting seeing what's happening in Asia. speaker-0: Yeah, so that relationship between the global north and the global south, I think there are different types of circular economy approaches emerging. speaker-1: Yes, think the European is much more based on... individual private consumption and how you can make it easier for people to have a smaller personal carbon footprint. What we see much more in Asia, particularly in China, is a focus on what the state at the city level can do to manage the resources of the city in its entirety, and particularly using their regulatory powers over the construction industry, over the major polluting industries that remain within those cities. speaker-0: And do you have one, finally, one thing or a range of objectives that you'd like to get out of this company? Are you looking for anything in particular? speaker-1: Well, big thing for us is we want to convince people, let's all do this yearly offer of action. Everybody who comes to COP, whether you're a national government, a local government, a business, to get entry into the door, you should have to be able to set out what you're going to deliver in the next 12 months, consistent with getting us back under 1.5. speaker-0: The coalition of the willing. speaker-1: Yeah, everybody should have to talk about that and then we should in the following year be able to report back on how you did. I think not in a... making this some complicated measuring kind of process. We've got enough of those but more about an honest open here's what I'm trying to do. I need partners to help me deliver the stuff that actually at the moment is too difficult because the great strength of COP is it really brings the whole world together here and I will come out of here with new funding partners, with new delivery partners, with mayors and cities inspired to do new things because of what they've learned. We just need to do it on a bigger, faster scale. speaker-0: Fantastic. Thanks, Mark. Thank