June 5, 2023 • 32 mins
Introducing Zero, a podcast from Bloomberg Green about the tactics and technologies taking us to a world of zero emissions.
This week, climate reporter Akshat Rathi interviews Andrew Steer, CEO of the $10 Billion Bezos Earth Fund, about what role philanthropy plays in the climate fight and where it’s not up to the task.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi. I'm Akshatrati, a senior climate reporter for Bloomberg Green
and host of the podcast Zero. It's a show about
the tactics and technologies that take us to a world
of zero emissions. Every week I talk with influential people
like Bill Gates, Justin Trudeau, and Kim Stanley Robinson, and
also people you may not know but who have world
(00:22):
changing ideas like Briani Worthington on the UK's pioneering climate law,
Gail Whiteman on bringing climate to Davos, and George Monbio
on fixing the food system. Today, I'm sharing with you
a conversation I think you might like. It's an interview
with Andrew Steer, who heads the ten billion dollar Bezos
Earth Fund. It's a huge amount of money, but it
(00:43):
has to be spent wisely to make a real difference.
Andrew has worked for decades on climate solutions, and I
wanted to know what role philanthropy plays in the climate
flight and.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Where it fails.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
If you like what you hear, subscribe to Zero wherever
you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every Thursday. Welcome
to Zero. I'm Akshatrati. This week my money, your money,
and Jeff's money. In February twenty twenty, Jeff Bezos, then
(01:28):
the richest person on the planet, posted a picture to
his four million Instagram followers. It showed the Earth from space,
the North American continent peeking out from behind the clouds,
and accompanying the post was a big announcement he was
committing ten billion dollars to launch the Bezos Earth Fund.
It is the largest commitment to climate philanthropy ever made,
(01:52):
and the fund is due to give out all the
ten billion dollars by twenty thirty. That money, as Bezos outlined,
will fund and I quote scientists, activists, and geos, any
effort that offers a real possibility to help preserve and
protect the natural world. Already, the Fund has given out
about one point six billion dollars to more than one
(02:14):
hundred projects around the world, from the Congo Basin to
the mainland US. About a third of that money has
gone to nature and conservation spending, but the fund has
also given out grants to projects involving food security, decarbonization
of industry, and climate tech. Bezas has made appearances at
high profile events like COP twenty six and the New
(02:37):
York Climate Week to announce how the money will be spent.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
I'm pleased to announce a two billion dollar pledge allocated
directly to restoring nature and transforming food systems. This is
part of the Bezos Earth Funds ten billion dollar commitment
to fight climate change, enhance nature, in advance environmental justice
and economic opportunity.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
By most measures, ten billion dollars is a lot of money,
but it is also a small fraction of the three
point five trillion dollars that is needed annually to hit
net zero by twenty fifty. To make an impact, it
needs to be spent strategically and attract a lot more
money from governments and corporations. My guest today is Andrew Steer,
(03:23):
the CEO of the Bezos Earth Fund. With Bezos, he
decides where that ten billion dollars is allocated and how
to measure its impact. Before taking on this role, Andrew
was the head of the World Resources Institute. He also
worked as a Special Climate Envoy for the World Bank
and as Director General of the UK's Department for International Development.
(03:45):
I sat down with Andrew at the World Economic Forum
in Davos to ask how the Bezos Earth Fund spends
its billions, what counts a success and whether climate philanthropy
is the new super yacht.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Andrew, Welcome to the show, Thank you, Akshat, looking forward
to it.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Now. What is the role of climate philanthropy over the
next few decades and how does it change as we
get closer to hitting our climate targets by twenty fifty.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Well, philanthropy can act quickly, it can get ahead of
the game. Governments take quite a while to get their
money baid to spend. We're able to do it quicker.
We're also able to take risks. So what we really
need to do is to look at the challenges of
this decade. They're about forty or fifty transitions we have
to go through. We need to diagnose those, and we
(04:38):
need to understand how do we get them to those
positive tipping points at which stage change becomes irresistible and unstoppable.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
At COP twenty seven, you said, I don't think we
should buy into the idea that climate philanthropy is somehow
an alternative to government, because governments have an obligation and
they are not living up to it to the extent
they should. How do you see the role of philanthropy
and government being different. And when do you think philanthropy
and government should work together.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
I think philanthropy should often work together with government, although
sometimes philanthropy will be supporting political activism against governments to
change government policy. So philanthropy should not compensate for funding
that governments choose not to make. On the contrary, philanthropy
should try to urge governments to play the role that
(05:28):
they should play. Governments have an obligation to address public goods,
and protecting the atmosphere is a pretty important public obligation,
so to speak. And we do complement each other because
we are able to move quickly. We're able to take
risks that perhaps they could not, and that means that
(05:49):
we can go into things knowing that they may fail
if we believe that the potential return is large enough.
In that regard a little bit more like a venture capitalist.
Venture capitalists know that some of the companies they invest
in will fail, but their view is that if I
(06:11):
invest a million dollars and it fails, the most I
can lose is million dollars. If I invest a million
dollars in it succeeds, it may be worth twenty million
dollars very quickly. So I can afford to fail actually
quite often and still come out highly successful. For governments,
it's actually much harder to do that because accountability mechanisms
(06:34):
are somewhat skewed, quite honestly.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
So.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
For example, the Department of Energy in the United States
has played an absolutely fantastic role in investing in early
stage technologies, and companies like Tesla, for example, and a
whole range of companies have done very very well based
upon early research. But it just took one investment that
went bad called Cylindra.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
The US company that made solar panels. In two thousand
and nine, then Vice President Biden announced that the company
would receive a loan of five hundred and thirty five
million dollars guaranteed by the US Department of Energy. Cylinder
ended up going bankrupt in twenty eleven and defaulting on
that loan. The same program also made a loan of
(07:20):
four hundred and sixty five million dollars to Tesla. That
company is now worth hundreds of billions of dollars, and
yet Cylinder's bankruptcy continues to be used by some members
of the government to criticize plans to invest in cleantech
through legislations like the Inflation Reduction Act.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
They just took one investment that went bad for all
of the congressional committees, all of the newspapers, the gotcha
types to give that a hard time, and so that
would illustrate the problems that the governments can have that
philanthropy does not now.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Twenty twenty two report by Climate Work said that only
two percent of philanthropy dollars went toward climate mitigation in
twenty twenty one. That's about twelve and a half billion
dollars depending on how you count. But it's a tiny
percentage of the eight hundred billion dollars that is given
out as philanthropy every year. Why is that number given
to climate solo?
Speaker 2 (08:19):
It is interesting how philanthropists have over the literally the
last five to ten years, started to take climate change seriously.
I mean ten years ago there was very little funding.
There's still not enough, and that means that every dollar
allocated has to be used carefully. So, for example, I
have the privilege of being the CEO of the Basos
(08:42):
Earth Fund, which is a ten billion dollar grant fund
that will be dispersed entirely this decade. That sounds like
a lot of money. It is to me and you,
but it's a small amount of money compared to the needs.
So we have to make sure that it is truly
lever it, and you can leverage in several ways. Now,
(09:03):
when we talk about the two percent of total philanthropy
that's going for climate mitigation, I've got to remember, in
addition to that, there's funding for nature, for example, which
also helps climate, And there's funding for food and agriculture,
which done right, also helps climate. There's funding for adaptation.
But all in all, it's still knowing there enough. I
(09:24):
do agree with that.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Forty five philanthropic organizations signed up to the Giving to
Amplify Earth Action initiative at Davos. The initiative aims to
close the three trillion dollars of annual climate finance that
needs to be met to get to the goals of
the Paris Agreement. That's equivalent to about three percent of
the world's GDP. How do you think philanthropic organizations can
(09:49):
achieve that?
Speaker 2 (09:50):
So, if you think about philanthropy today, as we discussed earlier,
let's imagine it's roughly fifteen billion dollars a year. It
would not be inc receivable at all to double that
in the next few years. Should that happen, that's thirty
billion dollars a year. Think about that, that's like one
percent of the total investment that is required. So that
(10:11):
one percent is a small tail wagging hopefully a bigger dog.
So it needs to do it thoughtfully, and I think
that's the goal that some of us in the philanthropic
community have had. Wouldn't it be useful if we could
bring the different pieces of the jigs or puzzle together,
the different actors and focus on, let's say an issue.
(10:35):
The issue could be preventing deforestation, it could be getting
rid of the internal combustion engine, it could be shifting
diets towards plant based food. You need governments at the table,
you need corporates at the table, you need carbon credits
at the table, philanthropy at the table. And it's only
when you do that that you actually then can get
(10:58):
that kind of synergy.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
So one way in which institutions, especially government institutions, but
also institutions that depend on donors giving money, justify their
presence their work is to sometimes measure it in how
many more dollars for every dollar they spent were invested
for those causes famously, NASA does that to justify that
(11:26):
a space program is necessary for the United States. And
then multiplier is large. If you're thinking of using thirty
billion dollars to get to three trillion dollars, your multiplier
is one hundred and none of the organizations I've looked
at have ever produced that kind of number, So how
do you think that will work?
Speaker 2 (11:45):
So that would be hubris to assume that if there
weren't philanthropy, nothing else would happen. I mean a lot
of it would happen anyway, because we have some good
governments out there, we have some good carbon credits, and
we have some to companies that are wanting to invest
in green So we don't need to over egg this
issue in terms of overstating the importance of the leverage
(12:09):
that philanthropy can have. Having said that, philanthropy can play
a very useful role, and if you think about leverage,
the easy and obvious way to think about it is
we could de risk private investment. So private investors at
the moment are not willing to go into certain technologies
partly because it's risky. Sometimes it's country risk, sometimes it's
(12:30):
technological risk. Price risk, policy risk. Philanthropy could help de
risk that, but there are many many other ways of
getting leaverage. I mean, an obvious one is influencing policy.
For example, we could influence a global price on carbon
of one hundred dollars a ton. I mean, wow, that
would have leverage. But there are many many policies that
(12:54):
are required. For example, something we're working on right now is,
you know, everyone talks about green steel and cement, which
is very important. The problem is actually not the technologist
to produce it, it's finding buyers who in the near
term will have to pay a little bit more for it.
So it turns out that fifty percent of all the
(13:14):
cement in the United States is actually purchased by governments,
mainly local government, but also federal government. So one of
the things we're doing is supporting a program that seeks
to change procurement rules at the state and city level,
and it's being very successful. That in turn is creating
a demand, which in turn will drive down prices. And
(13:38):
once you reach a demand of a certain percentage, you
actually can cross a tipping point because then steel companies
or cement companies understand the direction the wind is blowing
in and really go all in sort of thing. So
that's another example of laverage.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Now you mentioned that the BISOS Earth Fund is going
to spend ten million dollars this decade. You spend about
one point six billion dollars so far. Could you just
walk us through what kind of projects you've funded so
far and how do you go about choosing them?
Speaker 2 (14:10):
So, the way we go about choosing them is we
try to ask ourselves what are the big transitions that
are required this decade and next. So that includes eliminating
the internal combustion engine, it includes greening financial markets, It
includes shifting dyets toward more plant pased nutrition and so on,
(14:33):
and they're about fifty of those. What we do we
use an initiative called the System Change Lab, which we
co run together with the World Resource Institute and others
that are heavily involved in it. And what it does
is it measures these fifty transitions and it asked where
are they as they seek to approach tipping points? And
then it asks what is the special source that seems
(14:55):
to get some of these past those tipping points? And
where are the bar that are preventing others? And so
what we try to do is look at those and
identify barriers that we could be helpful in removing. I'll
give you an example of something we're thinking about right now.
We now know that not only must we reduce carbon emissions,
we've actually got to take greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. Now.
(15:18):
The best possible technology for that is planting a tree,
for example. So we have a very significant program of
landscape restoration trying to put a coalition together to regreen
or restore one hundred million hectares in Africa. We also
have a program in the United States doing the same.
Turns out now that thirty five African countries are really
(15:40):
interested in doing this. It also turns out that we
have technology that we can measure it. We're financing that
as well. It also turns out that there's quite a
bit of public and private money sitting on the sidelines.
And whilst there are actually thousands of community groups in
Africa that are very good at this, there are no
intermediating institutions. We think is what could we do well.
(16:02):
We could play a role getting the methodology and the
satellite system to measure. We also could play a role
in helping to create those intermediating institutions that would be
an example of how we go about it. They also
though we've you and I have come to the conclusion
that simply that technology of photosynthesis is not enough to
(16:25):
take everything out. So we're actually looking at some other
ways of taking carbon out of the air through, for example,
the possibility of ocean absorption, the possibility of weathering, where
various chemical processes can take carbon dioxide. And even you know,
there's some sort of frontier technologies that are nowhere close
(16:46):
to commercialization, so no one's actually investing in them. For example,
how do you take methane out of the atmosphere? Very
very hard to do, But unless we invest now in that,
we won't have the technologies we need twenty years from now,
when it will sadly be essential.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Now you're talking about carbon removal here, because we need
to draw down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It will
be a big thing that we'll have to work on.
But currently the majority of the problem is to try
and actually reduce emissions. But given as a climate journalist
covering this subject, just the sheer amount of intellectual capacity
(17:23):
that is going towards the offset problem, which remains a
very small market billion dollars two billion dollars relative to
the three trillion dollars worth of mitigation work that needs
to be done. Why do you think when you thought
of the right example to talk about where philanthropy can
make a difference, was carbon offsets or carbon markets the
right place to try and invest money or even bring
(17:46):
that up as the star example that philanthropy is helping improve.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Oh, maybe I was not clear. We've allocated three billion
dollars for nature, billion dollars for conservation, a billion dollars
for restoration, and a billion dollars for food system transformation,
and we're still obviously allocating that money at the base
fund of that first the conservation A very very small
(18:13):
fraction of that, I mean so far it would be
I don't know, maybe ten million dollars of that would
be to help set standards for the carbon markets. We
are spending one hundred and ten million dollars of grants
in the Congo basin to help government and civil society
(18:33):
conserve nature that carbon markets don't play a role in
that at all, and we're doing exactly the same in
Latin America and tropical Andes, for example. I think they
do have a role, but much more important is conserving nature,
because that's not a minor part of the issue. Rural
space is responsible for more than a third of emissions,
(18:56):
and so we really have to address that.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
After the break. Should Amazon be doing more to cut
its own emissions? And what happens to the money when
the decisive decade is done? The visos Hearth Fund was
(19:21):
completely new when you started it, and the money is
supposed to be spent by twenty thirty.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
What happens next, Well, yes, I left a job where
we had seventeen hundred people, and then I was employee
number one in my new job, and we're sort of
ramping up basically, you know, we're willing to take risks.
We should inject funds very thoughtfully but boldly, and we'll
(19:46):
see if it works, and we'll do our best to
make sure it works. And if it does work, we
will then ramp that up together with partners. And we
do nothing on our own. We don't simply write a
check and say could you come back tell us how
you're doing a year from now. So, for example, the
Congo Basin is the most precious ecosystem imaginable. It sequesters
(20:08):
more carbon than the Amazon and Southeast Asia tropical forest
combined and is massively threatened at the moment, so we
wanted to go in there. But we've got to be honest,
this is a difficult place to work in. Some parts
of these countries are very remote and sometimes governance is
not what it should be. So what we did we said,
we'll gather nine leading institutions, mainly NGOs, but scientific institutions
(20:31):
that have deep roots there. We said, look, we're going
to finance all of you. You have two jobs. Job
number one is within your own sphere of expertise. You
have to deliver the way we've discussed with you. Thing
number two, you've got to be part of a team
with us, so that as a team, for the first
time ever, we're able to engage at the head of
state level at any level we like, including with other donors.
(20:53):
We're now working with a number of European donors. Let's
do it together kind of thing. And then we would
have full time per person that would be helping to
oversee and drive that joint program together. So that's the
sort of way we would work.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
And so what happens after twenty thirty when the money
is all spent.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Well, of course, this is the decisive decade, and the
next decade will also be decisive. The reason this is
especially decisive is if we don't get it right this
decade actually next decade, it will be impossibly expensive to
do anything and will quite frankly be too late. So
I have a full time job from now to twenty thirty.
(21:34):
Clearly there will be all kinds of needs for the
twenty thirties as well.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
So one example then would be COP fifteen in December,
which has been called a Paris for nature, set out
this goal of protecting thirty percent of land and oceans
by twenty thirty. Ambitious goal, something that had been called
for for years, and now all these governments have come
together and agreed upon it. But as soon as that
(21:59):
highlevel goal is agreed upon, it becomes a minefield. The
number of questions about what does that really mean, how
do we measure it? Does it mean no humans can
do anything in that land? How do countries in different
parts with different capabilities and wealth work on those Is
that something that you're working on to try and create
(22:20):
clearer understanding of what thirty by thirty would mean, because
it's really important that we not just tackle the climate crisis,
but the biodiversity crisis and the solution sometimes overlap.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Yes, indeed, I mean I think you've clarified the issue
very helpfully. We need a political commitment based upon good science,
and that's what we've now got. Getting to thirty will
be a huge achievement. It will need to double essentially
protection on land, and it will need to more than
double protection of the ocean. And we've got seven years
(22:53):
to do it. So this is difficult. And as you say,
now the real challenge begins, which thirty percent and what
does it mean to protect? And I think there definitions
of what it means to protect pretty well. It doesn't
mean totally and utterly no humans in it. On the contrary,
in many parts it is indigenous people who live there
(23:13):
that are responsible for doing a very good job at
the moment in protection. And part of the way of
ensuring thirty by thirty is to give indigenous people more
rights and the ability to protect those rights. So, for example,
in Montreal, the Canadian government announced a massive increase in
its own protected areas in four areas that are going
(23:36):
to be overseen by First nations. But as you say,
country by country governments need to decide do they want
to really be part of it. If they do want
to be part of it, we need to bring in
whatever support we can. And yesterday here in Davos, we
had ministers from Indonesia, from the Democratic Republic of Congo,
(23:56):
from Bangladesh, Ghana, together with people like John Kerry and
the German government, the British government, and then philanthropists like
Based or so A Fund, the More Foundation and others
that care about this and basically are setting up a
process by which we would be available to be helpful
as a team to major countries that are serious about this.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Is climate philanthropy the new superyacht. Will we see competition
for who can do it bigger and better.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
I've been impressed by how philanthropists are able to work together.
That's not to say that from time to time there
would not be some competition, and I have not witnessed
that so far. I, on the contrary, have witnessed an
enthusiasm for working together. So for example, a year ago,
when we were concerned that this thirty by thirty political
(24:49):
momentum was slowing and only like fifty countries had said
they thought it was a good idea, we worked with
other philanthropists, and as a group we were a able
to put five billion dollars of grants on the table,
you know, in public at the United Nations General Assembly.
We were able to say, look, we're serious, this is
(25:11):
funds that we would if you guys can come up
with an agreement on thirty by thirty, we're willing to
put this totally online. And that was remarkable. I mean,
that was put together within two months. That whole idea.
I found it quite inspiring, and I actually think working
together is really important. Now. Having said that, one of
(25:31):
the great things about some modern philanthropies is that they're
based upon wealth that came because of great ambition and
brilliance on the part of their leaders. And actually that's
pretty valuable in our space. For too long, environmentalism has
been very well intentioned and often excellent, but hasn't necessarily
(25:56):
benefited from the kind of leadership that some modern philanthropists
can be helpful in providing.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Amazon made Bezos fabulously wealthy, gave him the money to
be able to create this Earth Fund, but Amazon's emissions
continue to go up. In twenty twenty one, they increased
eighteen percent, and Bezos is the chair of the Earth Fund,
but he's also the chair of Amazon. Why is it
that Amazon continues to not go down the path that
(26:24):
you would expect reduce their emissions in line with what's
needed for meeting climate goals.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Well, just to be clear, I work for the basis
Earth Fund. I do not work for Amazon. It's a
totally different organization.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
But you must have conversations with Jeff Bezos about Amazon's
progress given the skill of the organization.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Well, one thing I would say is that this week
hearing Davos, for example, members of the Climate Pledge, which
is a group of businesses which was started by Amazon
that is committed to net zero, ten years ahead of
what the science tells us we need to be.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Yes. Yeah, so that's at zero by twenty forty four.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Amazon and each of those each of those companies have
plans in place, and that ranges from trying to address
their scope three emissions, which is the entire supply chain
and that's very hard to do, to electrifying their their
delivery fleets for example. So you know, this is a journey,
(27:26):
and there will be times when when emissions go up,
either because your sales go up or for some other reason.
The point is to keep your eye on the prize
to twenty twenty five, twenty thirty, twenty forty and so on.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Now you've worked on climate issues for a long time,
but we happen to be at this juncture facing two
kinds of trends. One, we hit a record greenhouse gas
emissions in twenty twenty two. Two we have never spent
more money, more effort, more talent, more people power on
(28:02):
trying to tackle the climate crisis. How do you live
in this two track world?
Speaker 2 (28:08):
It's very well put. If you take two experts, well meaning,
good people and you say how we doing, one will
say it's fantastic, you know, I mean, the price of
solar energy has fallen ninety nine point six percent since
Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the roof of the
White House in nineteen seventy nine. And they'll give many
(28:31):
statements like that. And one hundred and twenty countries are
committed to net zero, one hundred and thirty trillion dollars
of assets under management are committed to net zero. Unbelievable.
And then you talk to the other one. They say,
you know, we're heading off a cliff like a bunch
of lemmings more call Wilm.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
They never put out more greenhouse gas emissions. There's never
been more tension in the world in the last thirty
years of knowing. That's right, that climate change is a problem,
geopolitics is fragmented, the immediate crises are growing in number,
and terms like polycrises are being created.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
That's absolutely correct. Last year, what two point five trillion
dollars were invested in the energy sector as a whole.
Of that, two point five one trillion was in fossil fuels,
and one point five trillion was in clean energy, including
energy efficiency and all the renewables so to speak. You
(29:31):
can look at that number and say that's incredible. I mean,
and well over half of the new generating capacity last
year was from renewables. Unbelievable. But if we're going to
stay within one point five the renewables need to be
three times as fast, and we need to close nine
hundred and twenty five coal plants every single year. So
(29:53):
sort of the analogy is sort of it's you know,
the dog chasing the bus, and the dog is running
faster and faster. That's us trying to solve the problem.
And we've never run so fast, and we're we're so
pleased with ourselves. The bus is accelerating away, and of
course the dog could keep trying, running harder and harder,
but will never catch up. And so, you know, continue
(30:17):
the analogy. The dog needs, you know, an electric bike
or something to we need a new way of doing things,
and that's exactly what we you know, we and many
others are focusing on. It's yesterday we when we launched
this idea of could we work together on the thirty
by thirty, you know, so instead of you know, thirty
(30:38):
different NGOs and twelve different governments and six different multi
national organizations and so many developers of carbon markets, all
trying to be helpful to the democratic Republic of Congo
or Brazil or Indonesia, and you know, all doing their best,
and some of it is excellent, not adding up. What
would it take to actually get it to add up.
(30:59):
That's what we have to That's the electric bike for
the dog chasing the bus. This was a great conversation.
Thank you very much, Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Indeed, philanthropy's relationship to climate is a complicated one. It
feels like we shouldn't have to rely on the whims
of billionaires to fund projects that are necessary for humans
(31:31):
to thrive, and yet when not enough money is available
for those projects, we need all the help we can get.
That shouldn't mean that where the money comes from or
goes to gets less scrutiny. Thanks so much for listening
to Zero. If you liked this episode, please take a
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(31:53):
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pod at Blomberg dot Net. Zero's producer is Oscar Boyd
and senior producer is Christine driscoll Ar. Theme music is
composed by Wonderly Special. Thanks to Kira Bindram and Robin
Pomeroy at the World Economic Forum for letting us use
(32:14):
the podcasting studios in Davos. I'm Akshatrati back next week.
Hi. I'm Akshatrati, a senior climate reporter for Bloomberg Green
and host of the podcast Zero. It's a show about
the tactics and technologies that take us to a world
of zero emissions. Every week I talk with influential people
like Bill Gates, Justin Trudeau, and Kim Stanley Robinson, and
also people you may not know but who have world
(00:22):
changing ideas like Briani Worthington on the UK's pioneering climate law,
Gail Whiteman on bringing climate to Davos, and George Monbio
on fixing the food system. Today, I'm sharing with you
a conversation I think you might like. It's an interview
with Andrew Steer, who heads the ten billion dollar Bezos
Earth Fund. It's a huge amount of money, but it
(00:43):
has to be spent wisely to make a real difference.
Andrew has worked for decades on climate solutions, and I
wanted to know what role philanthropy plays in the climate
flight and.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Where it fails.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
If you like what you hear, subscribe to Zero wherever
you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every Thursday. Welcome
to Zero. I'm Akshatrati. This week my money, your money,
and Jeff's money. In February twenty twenty, Jeff Bezos, then
(01:28):
the richest person on the planet, posted a picture to
his four million Instagram followers. It showed the Earth from space,
the North American continent peeking out from behind the clouds,
and accompanying the post was a big announcement he was
committing ten billion dollars to launch the Bezos Earth Fund.
It is the largest commitment to climate philanthropy ever made,
(01:52):
and the fund is due to give out all the
ten billion dollars by twenty thirty. That money, as Bezos outlined,
will fund and I quote scientists, activists, and geos, any
effort that offers a real possibility to help preserve and
protect the natural world. Already, the Fund has given out
about one point six billion dollars to more than one
(02:14):
hundred projects around the world, from the Congo Basin to
the mainland US. About a third of that money has
gone to nature and conservation spending, but the fund has
also given out grants to projects involving food security, decarbonization
of industry, and climate tech. Bezas has made appearances at
high profile events like COP twenty six and the New
(02:37):
York Climate Week to announce how the money will be spent.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
I'm pleased to announce a two billion dollar pledge allocated
directly to restoring nature and transforming food systems. This is
part of the Bezos Earth Funds ten billion dollar commitment
to fight climate change, enhance nature, in advance environmental justice
and economic opportunity.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
By most measures, ten billion dollars is a lot of money,
but it is also a small fraction of the three
point five trillion dollars that is needed annually to hit
net zero by twenty fifty. To make an impact, it
needs to be spent strategically and attract a lot more
money from governments and corporations. My guest today is Andrew Steer,
(03:23):
the CEO of the Bezos Earth Fund. With Bezos, he
decides where that ten billion dollars is allocated and how
to measure its impact. Before taking on this role, Andrew
was the head of the World Resources Institute. He also
worked as a Special Climate Envoy for the World Bank
and as Director General of the UK's Department for International Development.
(03:45):
I sat down with Andrew at the World Economic Forum
in Davos to ask how the Bezos Earth Fund spends
its billions, what counts a success and whether climate philanthropy
is the new super yacht.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Andrew, Welcome to the show, Thank you, Akshat, looking forward
to it.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Now. What is the role of climate philanthropy over the
next few decades and how does it change as we
get closer to hitting our climate targets by twenty fifty.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Well, philanthropy can act quickly, it can get ahead of
the game. Governments take quite a while to get their
money baid to spend. We're able to do it quicker.
We're also able to take risks. So what we really
need to do is to look at the challenges of
this decade. They're about forty or fifty transitions we have
to go through. We need to diagnose those, and we
(04:38):
need to understand how do we get them to those
positive tipping points at which stage change becomes irresistible and unstoppable.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
At COP twenty seven, you said, I don't think we
should buy into the idea that climate philanthropy is somehow
an alternative to government, because governments have an obligation and
they are not living up to it to the extent
they should. How do you see the role of philanthropy
and government being different. And when do you think philanthropy
and government should work together.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
I think philanthropy should often work together with government, although
sometimes philanthropy will be supporting political activism against governments to
change government policy. So philanthropy should not compensate for funding
that governments choose not to make. On the contrary, philanthropy
should try to urge governments to play the role that
(05:28):
they should play. Governments have an obligation to address public goods,
and protecting the atmosphere is a pretty important public obligation,
so to speak. And we do complement each other because
we are able to move quickly. We're able to take
risks that perhaps they could not, and that means that
(05:49):
we can go into things knowing that they may fail
if we believe that the potential return is large enough.
In that regard a little bit more like a venture capitalist.
Venture capitalists know that some of the companies they invest
in will fail, but their view is that if I
(06:11):
invest a million dollars and it fails, the most I
can lose is million dollars. If I invest a million
dollars in it succeeds, it may be worth twenty million
dollars very quickly. So I can afford to fail actually
quite often and still come out highly successful. For governments,
it's actually much harder to do that because accountability mechanisms
(06:34):
are somewhat skewed, quite honestly.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
So.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
For example, the Department of Energy in the United States
has played an absolutely fantastic role in investing in early
stage technologies, and companies like Tesla, for example, and a
whole range of companies have done very very well based
upon early research. But it just took one investment that
went bad called Cylindra.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
The US company that made solar panels. In two thousand
and nine, then Vice President Biden announced that the company
would receive a loan of five hundred and thirty five
million dollars guaranteed by the US Department of Energy. Cylinder
ended up going bankrupt in twenty eleven and defaulting on
that loan. The same program also made a loan of
(07:20):
four hundred and sixty five million dollars to Tesla. That
company is now worth hundreds of billions of dollars, and
yet Cylinder's bankruptcy continues to be used by some members
of the government to criticize plans to invest in cleantech
through legislations like the Inflation Reduction Act.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
They just took one investment that went bad for all
of the congressional committees, all of the newspapers, the gotcha
types to give that a hard time, and so that
would illustrate the problems that the governments can have that
philanthropy does not now.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Twenty twenty two report by Climate Work said that only
two percent of philanthropy dollars went toward climate mitigation in
twenty twenty one. That's about twelve and a half billion
dollars depending on how you count. But it's a tiny
percentage of the eight hundred billion dollars that is given
out as philanthropy every year. Why is that number given
to climate solo?
Speaker 2 (08:19):
It is interesting how philanthropists have over the literally the
last five to ten years, started to take climate change seriously.
I mean ten years ago there was very little funding.
There's still not enough, and that means that every dollar
allocated has to be used carefully. So, for example, I
have the privilege of being the CEO of the Basos
(08:42):
Earth Fund, which is a ten billion dollar grant fund
that will be dispersed entirely this decade. That sounds like
a lot of money. It is to me and you,
but it's a small amount of money compared to the needs.
So we have to make sure that it is truly
lever it, and you can leverage in several ways. Now,
(09:03):
when we talk about the two percent of total philanthropy
that's going for climate mitigation, I've got to remember, in
addition to that, there's funding for nature, for example, which
also helps climate, And there's funding for food and agriculture,
which done right, also helps climate. There's funding for adaptation.
But all in all, it's still knowing there enough. I
(09:24):
do agree with that.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Forty five philanthropic organizations signed up to the Giving to
Amplify Earth Action initiative at Davos. The initiative aims to
close the three trillion dollars of annual climate finance that
needs to be met to get to the goals of
the Paris Agreement. That's equivalent to about three percent of
the world's GDP. How do you think philanthropic organizations can
(09:49):
achieve that?
Speaker 2 (09:50):
So, if you think about philanthropy today, as we discussed earlier,
let's imagine it's roughly fifteen billion dollars a year. It
would not be inc receivable at all to double that
in the next few years. Should that happen, that's thirty
billion dollars a year. Think about that, that's like one
percent of the total investment that is required. So that
(10:11):
one percent is a small tail wagging hopefully a bigger dog.
So it needs to do it thoughtfully, and I think
that's the goal that some of us in the philanthropic
community have had. Wouldn't it be useful if we could
bring the different pieces of the jigs or puzzle together,
the different actors and focus on, let's say an issue.
(10:35):
The issue could be preventing deforestation, it could be getting
rid of the internal combustion engine, it could be shifting
diets towards plant based food. You need governments at the table,
you need corporates at the table, you need carbon credits
at the table, philanthropy at the table. And it's only
when you do that that you actually then can get
(10:58):
that kind of synergy.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
So one way in which institutions, especially government institutions, but
also institutions that depend on donors giving money, justify their
presence their work is to sometimes measure it in how
many more dollars for every dollar they spent were invested
for those causes famously, NASA does that to justify that
(11:26):
a space program is necessary for the United States. And
then multiplier is large. If you're thinking of using thirty
billion dollars to get to three trillion dollars, your multiplier
is one hundred and none of the organizations I've looked
at have ever produced that kind of number, So how
do you think that will work?
Speaker 2 (11:45):
So that would be hubris to assume that if there
weren't philanthropy, nothing else would happen. I mean a lot
of it would happen anyway, because we have some good
governments out there, we have some good carbon credits, and
we have some to companies that are wanting to invest
in green So we don't need to over egg this
issue in terms of overstating the importance of the leverage
(12:09):
that philanthropy can have. Having said that, philanthropy can play
a very useful role, and if you think about leverage,
the easy and obvious way to think about it is
we could de risk private investment. So private investors at
the moment are not willing to go into certain technologies
partly because it's risky. Sometimes it's country risk, sometimes it's
(12:30):
technological risk. Price risk, policy risk. Philanthropy could help de
risk that, but there are many many other ways of
getting leaverage. I mean, an obvious one is influencing policy.
For example, we could influence a global price on carbon
of one hundred dollars a ton. I mean, wow, that
would have leverage. But there are many many policies that
(12:54):
are required. For example, something we're working on right now is,
you know, everyone talks about green steel and cement, which
is very important. The problem is actually not the technologist
to produce it, it's finding buyers who in the near
term will have to pay a little bit more for it.
So it turns out that fifty percent of all the
(13:14):
cement in the United States is actually purchased by governments,
mainly local government, but also federal government. So one of
the things we're doing is supporting a program that seeks
to change procurement rules at the state and city level,
and it's being very successful. That in turn is creating
a demand, which in turn will drive down prices. And
(13:38):
once you reach a demand of a certain percentage, you
actually can cross a tipping point because then steel companies
or cement companies understand the direction the wind is blowing
in and really go all in sort of thing. So
that's another example of laverage.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Now you mentioned that the BISOS Earth Fund is going
to spend ten million dollars this decade. You spend about
one point six billion dollars so far. Could you just
walk us through what kind of projects you've funded so
far and how do you go about choosing them?
Speaker 2 (14:10):
So, the way we go about choosing them is we
try to ask ourselves what are the big transitions that
are required this decade and next. So that includes eliminating
the internal combustion engine, it includes greening financial markets, It
includes shifting dyets toward more plant pased nutrition and so on,
(14:33):
and they're about fifty of those. What we do we
use an initiative called the System Change Lab, which we
co run together with the World Resource Institute and others
that are heavily involved in it. And what it does
is it measures these fifty transitions and it asked where
are they as they seek to approach tipping points? And
then it asks what is the special source that seems
(14:55):
to get some of these past those tipping points? And
where are the bar that are preventing others? And so
what we try to do is look at those and
identify barriers that we could be helpful in removing. I'll
give you an example of something we're thinking about right now.
We now know that not only must we reduce carbon emissions,
we've actually got to take greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. Now.
(15:18):
The best possible technology for that is planting a tree,
for example. So we have a very significant program of
landscape restoration trying to put a coalition together to regreen
or restore one hundred million hectares in Africa. We also
have a program in the United States doing the same.
Turns out now that thirty five African countries are really
(15:40):
interested in doing this. It also turns out that we
have technology that we can measure it. We're financing that
as well. It also turns out that there's quite a
bit of public and private money sitting on the sidelines.
And whilst there are actually thousands of community groups in
Africa that are very good at this, there are no
intermediating institutions. We think is what could we do well.
(16:02):
We could play a role getting the methodology and the
satellite system to measure. We also could play a role
in helping to create those intermediating institutions that would be
an example of how we go about it. They also
though we've you and I have come to the conclusion
that simply that technology of photosynthesis is not enough to
(16:25):
take everything out. So we're actually looking at some other
ways of taking carbon out of the air through, for example,
the possibility of ocean absorption, the possibility of weathering, where
various chemical processes can take carbon dioxide. And even you know,
there's some sort of frontier technologies that are nowhere close
(16:46):
to commercialization, so no one's actually investing in them. For example,
how do you take methane out of the atmosphere? Very
very hard to do, But unless we invest now in that,
we won't have the technologies we need twenty years from now,
when it will sadly be essential.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Now you're talking about carbon removal here, because we need
to draw down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It will
be a big thing that we'll have to work on.
But currently the majority of the problem is to try
and actually reduce emissions. But given as a climate journalist
covering this subject, just the sheer amount of intellectual capacity
(17:23):
that is going towards the offset problem, which remains a
very small market billion dollars two billion dollars relative to
the three trillion dollars worth of mitigation work that needs
to be done. Why do you think when you thought
of the right example to talk about where philanthropy can
make a difference, was carbon offsets or carbon markets the
right place to try and invest money or even bring
(17:46):
that up as the star example that philanthropy is helping improve.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Oh, maybe I was not clear. We've allocated three billion
dollars for nature, billion dollars for conservation, a billion dollars
for restoration, and a billion dollars for food system transformation,
and we're still obviously allocating that money at the base
fund of that first the conservation A very very small
(18:13):
fraction of that, I mean so far it would be
I don't know, maybe ten million dollars of that would
be to help set standards for the carbon markets. We
are spending one hundred and ten million dollars of grants
in the Congo basin to help government and civil society
(18:33):
conserve nature that carbon markets don't play a role in
that at all, and we're doing exactly the same in
Latin America and tropical Andes, for example. I think they
do have a role, but much more important is conserving nature,
because that's not a minor part of the issue. Rural
space is responsible for more than a third of emissions,
(18:56):
and so we really have to address that.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
After the break. Should Amazon be doing more to cut
its own emissions? And what happens to the money when
the decisive decade is done? The visos Hearth Fund was
(19:21):
completely new when you started it, and the money is
supposed to be spent by twenty thirty.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
What happens next, Well, yes, I left a job where
we had seventeen hundred people, and then I was employee
number one in my new job, and we're sort of
ramping up basically, you know, we're willing to take risks.
We should inject funds very thoughtfully but boldly, and we'll
(19:46):
see if it works, and we'll do our best to
make sure it works. And if it does work, we
will then ramp that up together with partners. And we
do nothing on our own. We don't simply write a
check and say could you come back tell us how
you're doing a year from now. So, for example, the
Congo Basin is the most precious ecosystem imaginable. It sequesters
(20:08):
more carbon than the Amazon and Southeast Asia tropical forest
combined and is massively threatened at the moment, so we
wanted to go in there. But we've got to be honest,
this is a difficult place to work in. Some parts
of these countries are very remote and sometimes governance is
not what it should be. So what we did we said,
we'll gather nine leading institutions, mainly NGOs, but scientific institutions
(20:31):
that have deep roots there. We said, look, we're going
to finance all of you. You have two jobs. Job
number one is within your own sphere of expertise. You
have to deliver the way we've discussed with you. Thing
number two, you've got to be part of a team
with us, so that as a team, for the first
time ever, we're able to engage at the head of
state level at any level we like, including with other donors.
(20:53):
We're now working with a number of European donors. Let's
do it together kind of thing. And then we would
have full time per person that would be helping to
oversee and drive that joint program together. So that's the
sort of way we would work.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
And so what happens after twenty thirty when the money
is all spent.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Well, of course, this is the decisive decade, and the
next decade will also be decisive. The reason this is
especially decisive is if we don't get it right this
decade actually next decade, it will be impossibly expensive to
do anything and will quite frankly be too late. So
I have a full time job from now to twenty thirty.
(21:34):
Clearly there will be all kinds of needs for the
twenty thirties as well.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
So one example then would be COP fifteen in December,
which has been called a Paris for nature, set out
this goal of protecting thirty percent of land and oceans
by twenty thirty. Ambitious goal, something that had been called
for for years, and now all these governments have come
together and agreed upon it. But as soon as that
(21:59):
highlevel goal is agreed upon, it becomes a minefield. The
number of questions about what does that really mean, how
do we measure it? Does it mean no humans can
do anything in that land? How do countries in different
parts with different capabilities and wealth work on those Is
that something that you're working on to try and create
(22:20):
clearer understanding of what thirty by thirty would mean, because
it's really important that we not just tackle the climate crisis,
but the biodiversity crisis and the solution sometimes overlap.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Yes, indeed, I mean I think you've clarified the issue
very helpfully. We need a political commitment based upon good science,
and that's what we've now got. Getting to thirty will
be a huge achievement. It will need to double essentially
protection on land, and it will need to more than
double protection of the ocean. And we've got seven years
(22:53):
to do it. So this is difficult. And as you say,
now the real challenge begins, which thirty percent and what
does it mean to protect? And I think there definitions
of what it means to protect pretty well. It doesn't
mean totally and utterly no humans in it. On the contrary,
in many parts it is indigenous people who live there
(23:13):
that are responsible for doing a very good job at
the moment in protection. And part of the way of
ensuring thirty by thirty is to give indigenous people more
rights and the ability to protect those rights. So, for example,
in Montreal, the Canadian government announced a massive increase in
its own protected areas in four areas that are going
(23:36):
to be overseen by First nations. But as you say,
country by country governments need to decide do they want
to really be part of it. If they do want
to be part of it, we need to bring in
whatever support we can. And yesterday here in Davos, we
had ministers from Indonesia, from the Democratic Republic of Congo,
(23:56):
from Bangladesh, Ghana, together with people like John Kerry and
the German government, the British government, and then philanthropists like
Based or so A Fund, the More Foundation and others
that care about this and basically are setting up a
process by which we would be available to be helpful
as a team to major countries that are serious about this.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Is climate philanthropy the new superyacht. Will we see competition
for who can do it bigger and better.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
I've been impressed by how philanthropists are able to work together.
That's not to say that from time to time there
would not be some competition, and I have not witnessed
that so far. I, on the contrary, have witnessed an
enthusiasm for working together. So for example, a year ago,
when we were concerned that this thirty by thirty political
(24:49):
momentum was slowing and only like fifty countries had said
they thought it was a good idea, we worked with
other philanthropists, and as a group we were a able
to put five billion dollars of grants on the table,
you know, in public at the United Nations General Assembly.
We were able to say, look, we're serious, this is
(25:11):
funds that we would if you guys can come up
with an agreement on thirty by thirty, we're willing to
put this totally online. And that was remarkable. I mean,
that was put together within two months. That whole idea.
I found it quite inspiring, and I actually think working
together is really important. Now. Having said that, one of
(25:31):
the great things about some modern philanthropies is that they're
based upon wealth that came because of great ambition and
brilliance on the part of their leaders. And actually that's
pretty valuable in our space. For too long, environmentalism has
been very well intentioned and often excellent, but hasn't necessarily
(25:56):
benefited from the kind of leadership that some modern philanthropists
can be helpful in providing.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Amazon made Bezos fabulously wealthy, gave him the money to
be able to create this Earth Fund, but Amazon's emissions
continue to go up. In twenty twenty one, they increased
eighteen percent, and Bezos is the chair of the Earth Fund,
but he's also the chair of Amazon. Why is it
that Amazon continues to not go down the path that
(26:24):
you would expect reduce their emissions in line with what's
needed for meeting climate goals.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Well, just to be clear, I work for the basis
Earth Fund. I do not work for Amazon. It's a
totally different organization.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
But you must have conversations with Jeff Bezos about Amazon's
progress given the skill of the organization.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Well, one thing I would say is that this week
hearing Davos, for example, members of the Climate Pledge, which
is a group of businesses which was started by Amazon
that is committed to net zero, ten years ahead of
what the science tells us we need to be.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Yes. Yeah, so that's at zero by twenty forty four.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Amazon and each of those each of those companies have
plans in place, and that ranges from trying to address
their scope three emissions, which is the entire supply chain
and that's very hard to do, to electrifying their their
delivery fleets for example. So you know, this is a journey,
(27:26):
and there will be times when when emissions go up,
either because your sales go up or for some other reason.
The point is to keep your eye on the prize
to twenty twenty five, twenty thirty, twenty forty and so on.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Now you've worked on climate issues for a long time,
but we happen to be at this juncture facing two
kinds of trends. One, we hit a record greenhouse gas
emissions in twenty twenty two. Two we have never spent
more money, more effort, more talent, more people power on
(28:02):
trying to tackle the climate crisis. How do you live
in this two track world?
Speaker 2 (28:08):
It's very well put. If you take two experts, well meaning,
good people and you say how we doing, one will
say it's fantastic, you know, I mean, the price of
solar energy has fallen ninety nine point six percent since
Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the roof of the
White House in nineteen seventy nine. And they'll give many
(28:31):
statements like that. And one hundred and twenty countries are
committed to net zero, one hundred and thirty trillion dollars
of assets under management are committed to net zero. Unbelievable.
And then you talk to the other one. They say,
you know, we're heading off a cliff like a bunch
of lemmings more call Wilm.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
They never put out more greenhouse gas emissions. There's never
been more tension in the world in the last thirty
years of knowing. That's right, that climate change is a problem,
geopolitics is fragmented, the immediate crises are growing in number,
and terms like polycrises are being created.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
That's absolutely correct. Last year, what two point five trillion
dollars were invested in the energy sector as a whole.
Of that, two point five one trillion was in fossil fuels,
and one point five trillion was in clean energy, including
energy efficiency and all the renewables so to speak. You
(29:31):
can look at that number and say that's incredible. I mean,
and well over half of the new generating capacity last
year was from renewables. Unbelievable. But if we're going to
stay within one point five the renewables need to be
three times as fast, and we need to close nine
hundred and twenty five coal plants every single year. So
(29:53):
sort of the analogy is sort of it's you know,
the dog chasing the bus, and the dog is running
faster and faster. That's us trying to solve the problem.
And we've never run so fast, and we're we're so
pleased with ourselves. The bus is accelerating away, and of
course the dog could keep trying, running harder and harder,
but will never catch up. And so, you know, continue
(30:17):
the analogy. The dog needs, you know, an electric bike
or something to we need a new way of doing things,
and that's exactly what we you know, we and many
others are focusing on. It's yesterday we when we launched
this idea of could we work together on the thirty
by thirty, you know, so instead of you know, thirty
(30:38):
different NGOs and twelve different governments and six different multi
national organizations and so many developers of carbon markets, all
trying to be helpful to the democratic Republic of Congo
or Brazil or Indonesia, and you know, all doing their best,
and some of it is excellent, not adding up. What
would it take to actually get it to add up.
(30:59):
That's what we have to That's the electric bike for
the dog chasing the bus. This was a great conversation.
Thank you very much, Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Indeed, philanthropy's relationship to climate is a complicated one. It
feels like we shouldn't have to rely on the whims
of billionaires to fund projects that are necessary for humans
(31:31):
to thrive, and yet when not enough money is available
for those projects, we need all the help we can get.
That shouldn't mean that where the money comes from or
goes to gets less scrutiny. Thanks so much for listening
to Zero. If you liked this episode, please take a
moment to rate, review, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify,
(31:53):
Send it to a friend, or send it to someone
who subscribes to Amazon Prime. Get in touch at zero
pod at Blomberg dot Net. Zero's producer is Oscar Boyd
and senior producer is Christine driscoll Ar. Theme music is
composed by Wonderly Special. Thanks to Kira Bindram and Robin
Pomeroy at the World Economic Forum for letting us use
(32:14):
the podcasting studios in Davos. I'm Akshatrati back next week.
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