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this was like 2013 I was working New
York had been that refused my family and
then I got the call from this woman
Christiana Figueres and she said like
I've got this thing I've got to do I've
got to bring a whole world to common
agreement on climate change are you
interested in being involved so we had
195 countries that had to come with
ambitious agreements right to Paris and
we knew that there were a significant
number that were not really getting on
board with what they had to do so my
role is to find ways to persuade them
when diplomatic approaches were
unsuccessful so I built a network of
hundreds or thousands of companies
people religious leaders business
leaders investors and others and we
would utilize this network to help the
diplomatic process be more effective and
encourage national leaders that this was
the moment for leadership I couldn't
tell anyone I was doing this so I would
sit in the negotiation hall and one of
the countries would say something that
would put a spanner in the worse the
negotiation I would get a nod from
Christiana and I'd put my system into
work and I'd call somebody who would
call someone else who would call the
minister and then would watch the
position of that country change in real
time and no one knew now you've given
away the secret of how to work behind
the scenes what else can we learn from
in terms of preparing the ground for
what frankly is going to be I think an
equally difficult cop especially when
we've got apparently leaders of the free
world actively starting to argue against
it right so Paris had all the countries
sitting around together everyone had to
agree and then it was gaveled through as
a decision there are small things that
need to be agreed in Glasgow but the
main thing that needs to happen is each
country actually needs to improve their
nationally determined plans and then
come to Glasgow with those plans so the
way the Paris agreement was structured
was that there was a long-term goal to
get to net zero by the middle of the
century and that countries would come
every five years with plans of
increasing ambition to get us onto that
trajectory and
the mechanism right that's the
international mechanism that was the
breakthrough there was a Paris agreement
so this is the first test as to whether
that's going to happen now one of the
reasons why it's more difficult is
because we have a much more difficult
political landscape since then right you
know the idea that countries can come
together and do big things together is
less trendy than it was in 2015 the UK
government has a massive diplomatic job
and they can learn a lot from what the
French did in 2015
right this is a whole-of-government
everyone outreach all ministers all
embassies the other thing I would say is
given the reality of the geopolitics and
the national governments it's really
important to focus on everyone else in
society so it's really important that
part of calm is businesses cities
investors regions you know to open the
doors of that process to ensure we can
go as far as we can and the reason why
that second bit is so important is
because the logic that as is at the
basis of the Paris agreement defies the
attitude that we had before of you go
first and then maybe I will follow which
is exactly what we had before and the
Paris agreement really turns that
completely on its head because the Paris
agreement is not it is not a top-down
imposition of what needs to happen in
each country but rather it's very much
of a bottom-up invitation for every
country to identify what path what
social political economic path that
country wants to follow in its own view
and in sowing vision for the future and
then to register that under the Paris
agreement and ultimately if we remember
the spirit of the Paris agreement that
should not matter because it's not about
who is doing what and let me see but
rather what do I want and most countries
have understood and yes of course this
is about a global need but more
immediately it is about self-interest
it is about cities that are more livable
it's about public health and is
much better etc etc etc the list is long
acting on climate change and reducing
the intensity of carbon in the economy
is not acting against our interest if it
were we would not be able to do it it is
actually an accelerant of our interest
and so in as much as we can get and I
think that is where the work of the
British government needs to be from here
until then to remind everyone that we
are not looking over each other's
shoulders we're not looking at this as a
burden yes of course it is a shared
responsibility but beyond that it is an
opportunity that most countries should
not miss on we are just about to flow
over the guardrails of what is
manageable in society in the economy and
in fact in our physical infrastructure
now the amazing thing is that before
2020 the technologies that are the
solution for example renewables and all
of the other technologies we really
didn't have them at competitive prices
we had invested in those technologies
but they were not yet successfully
ingrained in the system today they are
secondly we'd not have the capital
accumulation that we have had since 2008
we have a capital accumulation in the
markets that can really be shifted quite
quickly if we decide to do so and
thirdly we were only experimenting with
the policies so today for the first time
in human history we have the
technologies the finance and the policy
that if we align them all together we
can get to 50% emissions by 2030 before
2020 we could not have done it but after
2030 is going to be too late our
children can do nothing about that it is
about these 10 years it is these 10
years in which we are actually
determining the future of humanity and
of the planet so no pressure
get it done
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