CDR: The Third Element, with Christopher Neidl

WEBVTT
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Good guys.
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A podcast series on sustainability.
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Hosted by Dan Leusler and Steve Connor.
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Brought to you by the DNS Network.
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Hello, hello everyone.
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You are listening to Good Guys, the message on sustainability, which is brought to you by the DNS Network, the global network of agencies dedicated to making the world a better place.
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This is Danla from Mira Agency Istanbul and This is Steve from Creative Concern in Manchester.
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This podcast series explores global sustainability issues, how they're communicated, and what creativity can do to make positive change happen.
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So in this episode, we're going to talk to Christopher Neidel, the carbon removal lead of the Climate High Level Champions.
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The climate high level champions work to mobilize ambitious climate action from businesses, cities, regions, and financial institutions to support governments in achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement.
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So, Chris is also the co-founder of Open Air, a global volunteer collective, launched in 2019 to advance carbon dioxide removal through member-driven advocacy.
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And we're going to get into that in some detail.
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You introduced the CDR 2030 initiative, which is part of the action agenda at COP30 in Belem, which focuses on the immediate window of the next five years.
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Critical stuff.
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So Chris, thanks so much for taking the time to jump on the podcast with Damon and myself.
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It's an absolute pleasure.
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Thank you so much.
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I like the way you set it up there.
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Great.
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So before anything else, we always like to listen to our guests' personal stories.
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So what was your turning point that made you work for climate action?
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Yeah, I've all but maybe a couple of years after I finished my undergrad, I've been working on climate.
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My story is kind of interesting that I actually, when I was a very young man, I think I saw a documentary on PBS when I was a kid.
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That's the kind of public broadcasting system in the US about solar energy and the space program.
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And it just kind of stuck in my head.
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And I was like, wow, I remember I was young enough where I was building things out of Legos with it.
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And so I always kind of kept my eye on it.
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I'm not an engineer or scientist by background at all.
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So I wasn't quite sure how I would fit in.
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And then a couple of years after college, when I was doing something completely different, I read a book called Boiling Point, which was a very early sort of book about climate change and the impact.
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And I kind of just had this moment where I was like, I'm gonna, now's the time to do that.
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And so I started in solar.
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I went and learned how to do solar installation and then did uh education in schools, and then that became an advocacy job.
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And it was a kind of a twisty-turdy thing, 15 years in solar in various parts of the world.
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And a lot of that, the through line became advocacy, policy advocacy, but also business development.
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And then when solar got to a point where I was like, solar's kind of off and running here, it kind of did something very improbable.
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And I thought, you know, I like the beginnings of things, I guess you could sort of say.
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And I decided what else needs to be done.
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And I looked at a few different things, and carbon removal really got my attention because I had been following that for some time as well.
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So I made the jump into carbon removal almost a decade ago, which is a long time ago in carbon removal.
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I've I've seen a lot of change.
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I love it.
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And and who doesn't love a twisty turny journey, Chris?
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It's the the way to do it.
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So we've and I feel like the our our sort of dialogue on this podcast has been we've had a little bit of carbon removal discussion a couple of episodes ago with Girka, and but you're the name to go to on this.
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And as you said, a decade in what some people still see as emerging, but you feel like you probably feel like you've been on this for ages now.
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Can you give us a sense of the right framing around where carbon removal is placed in terms of climate action?
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You're the person that could paint that picture forge really well, I think.
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Yeah, I'll try.
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I mean, I think there's a couple ways to answer that question.
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There's like, what is the role of carbon removal being on that?
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And then where is carbon removal kind of right now?
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And so just to take those two quickly, you know, carbon removal, it's really important, is a is a third piece of the solution set that we need to kind of get get to a happy place, a place that makes us smile with carbon, with climate, you know, at some point this century.
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And we we obviously understand, you know, what is often called mitigation or reduction.
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This is stopping uh uh current and future emissions, adaptation, you know, adjusting to you know, all this.
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But removals is one that kind of like the way adaptation became necessary.
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We saw that because it was based on, well, how much progress are we having with the fundamentals of mitigation?
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And so removals is another one that's been sort of forced into the picture because of that, is that we didn't remove, we haven't removed, or we haven't stopped or transformed our economy fast enough to, you know, be successful with mitigation alone.
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And so a carbon removal really kind of, if you look at the IPCC, it really breaks it down is that we need to be realistic about difficult to abate industries.
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There's certain things that are core to the economy in industry that are just very, very difficult for us to eliminate the emissions for in the time that we have left.
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And so carbon removal does become that sort of gap closer with that.
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But carbon rule is also unique because it's the only one that can actually not exactly turn back the clock.
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That's, you know, a lot of my colleagues don't prefer that, but it does allow us to take action in the event highly likely that we overshoot our targets for, you know, 1.5 C change or two for that matter.
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And so it's a way of looking at carbon rule is can we, you know, optimize, you know, the the PPM in the atmosphere so that we parts per million, you know, for human flourishing and and ecosystem flourishing in the future.
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And it allows us to kind of change that number rather than just having to live with the one that we've we've dealt ourselves because we haven't stopped emitting.
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So so that's the real, the, the role of it.
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It's not to substitute for for mitigation.
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And I and if you talk to anybody who's actually in carbon removal, they're like, it's definitely not for that because the amount that we would have to achieve is already would be unprecedented for it to actually fill the role just as closing gaps that it's impossible to take on.
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That's a good tell of anybody who's positioning that way is is maybe not exactly serious about carbon removal.
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They're looking at kind of kicking the can down the road.
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I think in terms of where it is right now, you know, I came from solar, as I said.
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That was my frame of reference.
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And it still is.
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Once a solar person, you're always kind of a solar person.
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But I saw that over that 15-year period where it went from a novelty to the fastest growing and cheapest form of electricity on earth.
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And that defied everybody's expectations, right?
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And so when I look at carbon rule, I'm looking for those kinds of signs.
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Are we moving and evolving at a rate that is relevant?
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And while a lot of the news will be until we reach a major step change, it'll be, oh, there's not enough of it yet.
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We can't do it.
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But if you look at what we've done over even just really the last since 2018, that was kind of a key date where the IPCC acknowledged we have to do a lot of it, whereas this mobilization of people like, all right, let's do it.
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It's extraordinary how it's changed from basically a scary graph of how are we going to do this to an incredibly diversified, active, global, fast-moving set of industries.
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And so I think I'm hopeful by what we've achieved so far.
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And I think that those give us certain signs that we're at a we are well positioned for a real inflection point with carbon rule.
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So hopefully that answers your question or didn't over-answer your question.
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No, but you have opened a lot of doors for me to step in.
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I'm gonna wrap about and keep that hopeful feeling inside because when we talk about the targets in the Paris Agreement, we have to admit that there is a sense of despair among the climate communities that has been growing, especially in the past few years, with a certain person pushing the drill baby drill agenda and everything.
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So the targets for this decade were 100 million tons per year of null CDO C uh carbon dioxide and three gigons.
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Sorry for that.
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I'm sorry, okay.
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Three gigatons I did it per year for nature-based solutions.
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And right now we are at the fraction of that capacity.
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How can this curve be bent?
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How do we keep the hope?
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Yeah, and I'll just take a couple seconds to maybe define some terms there so people understand.
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The the tar the target we have is not one that's the IPCC does not have any 2030 targets.
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They have a projection of where we need to be by 2050 and 2100.
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And those are massive numbers.
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They're they're carbon rule on the scale of the current oil and gas industry combined, plus a few other hard-to-abates, right?
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So that's a massive place we have to be by mid-century and double that by the end.
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The targets that we came up with were actually a blend of pre-existing targets that have been set in the last few years.
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One from the Clean Energy Ministerial Mission Innovation, group of clean energy and environmental ministers that set a mission.
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That's where the hundred million uh hundred megatons per year comes from.
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And then the a couple of other sources as well.
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The climate high-level champion, Nigel Topping in England, actually announced that at COP28, very similar as well.
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So we wanted to kind of draw on existing targets rather than pull one out of the air.
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But the key thing, what we wanted to put forward there is something that is animating, that that shows to the world that we have to act now on carbon rule.
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It's not a thing that we can flick a switch when we need it in 2040.
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Coming from solar again and anybody else comes from climate tech, these things take time.
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They go through stages, they go through ups and downs.
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And in order to get something to a point of maturity where you could talk about, you know, gigaton scale, you have to get working at it right now.
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So it was designed to do that and to put a number forward that is now consistent with what the IPCC numbers are for later.
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So that's why we wanted that number.
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And the other thing that it implies is that, again, being a solar guy, I'll probably say that a lot.
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There was a lot of surprises that happened.
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Okay, a lot of things that, like, oh, we didn't expect Germany's turning on this policy would activate China and the things like both on the technical and commercial side, the business innovation that came around financing it in the US, and you know, and so we we need to breathe those surprises.
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And the good news is that any technology that's growing fast is no, people are always pessimistic about it, and then it always defies expectations because people are brilliant and circumstances are such that we produce these surprises, right?
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And so the reason why we wanted to put a bold target like that, it was to say we need to shake ourselves out of a linear trajectory that we're thinking about, and we need to provoke surprises.
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And so we wanted a number that was big enough that would get people into that mindset.
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And even if we don't hit that target, the pursuit of it is likely to be the way in which those surprises happen, right?
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And so that is to say, yes, we are very committed to that target, but we're committed to that target more as an accelerator, as an as an animator of public, private, civil society.
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So, but to answer your question more directly, yeah, we need to that that this this is a really, really steep climb, particularly on the novel side.
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And so the novel are all the things that are not the nature-based that most people are familiar with, the trees and soil and blue carbon.
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These are the new technologies and approaches, or some not even new, but we've discovered their carbon potential that we need to ramp up.
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And the reason why we need them is the IPCCA is very clear that those nature-based solutions are not even half of what we're going to need, you know, by by mid and particularly by the end of century.
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So we need to have these new things.
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And so it will be very, very difficult to do that.
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But a lot of things we can kind of we have a line of sight to what needs to be done.
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We we need to remove some barriers and we mostly need to fully integrate seriously carbon removal into our overall strategy.
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A lot of the thing that we deal with right now is that carbon removal doesn't fit into many of the structures, the ways that we measure impact that have been set up around mitigation and adaptation.
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So if we can, on every level of governance and with business, get CDR installed, there's a lot of barriers that could be removed that can unleash it because increasingly companies and businesses and governments are like, we have to do this.
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We understand.
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We're looking at where we are, you know, with our own targets.
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So so anyway, there's a lot more that maybe I could illustrate as we talk, but it it is a very ambitious target, and we are very aware of that.
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And we want people to be in an ambitious frame of mind uh when they think about carbon rule over the next five years.
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So I love all that.
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Chris, I love a bit, a BHAG, a big hairy, audacious goal.
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It wakes everybody up, doesn't it?
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And and also I think because inevitably some of those technology portfolios are going to require significant investment, unless people can see the potential scale of the marketplace, they're not gonna really get out of bed for what you're offering, are they?
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So I completely get it.
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I also, do you know?
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I really love the surprises.
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And it's not my next question, but feel free to tell us about any of the surprises that have really taken you sideswiped to you.
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I guess that you saw that coming and sort of adoption of clean energy and stuff.
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It's like there have been so many surprises along the way.
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I love it.
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So tell us a bit about those surprises, but also tell us about CDR 2030 as an initiative and what the agenda looks like and the timeline logic.
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So get us into the into the detail a little bit.
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I'll give you one.
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There's many tiny little surprises that, as a composite, have moved things faster than probably anyone would have expected five years ago.
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But I would say the big thing to really seize on, as I said before, carbon rule arrived on the scene in the public imagination is a giant gap.
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And people filled that with like, okay, I guess that's trees that we're going to use.
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And I guess there's these vague machines we've heard about that maybe will do it.
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You know, so it wasn't like there was a product that then just grew at the margins and then became relevant.
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It was kind of the other way around.
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And so when you started with that point, understandably that bred a lot of skepticism.
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What I think has happened really, it was almost since 2018 when that paper came out.
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I saw it happen because I arrived shortly before that, is that the mobilization of people that were in academia that said, I can't write another paper about this thing.
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I got to start a company as much as I don't want to because we need them, right?
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And we have this extraordinary diversification of what we call pathways.
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It was more about turning over every stone in the real world and finding out is there a carbon removal capability of that, rather than some separate standalone technology.
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So what we see now looking back is that carbon removal is less about this new planet that we're trying to sort of bring into the picture.
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It's more about how do you unlock the latent capabilities of taking carbon out of the air that exist in the world as it already is, right?
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So it's more of a verb than a noun in that way, if that makes any sense.
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And that makes things a lot different because it makes it seem the big argument against carbon is like, who's going to pay for that if it's just this separate thing that we have to do?
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If you see it as something that can be turned on or activated within existing industries, often in ways that are co-beneficial to the host industry, whether it's agriculture or heavy industry or aviation, that makes it a much different proposition.
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And that we are at that position already where we can tell that story.
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And I think without that, we would still be stuck on Planet CDR, which is the one that nobody inhabits.
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So, so so I think I think that that is kind of the the the big thing for people to take away.
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And CDR 2030 is really in many ways designed to kind of show that.
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Because if you're at this window of time where we need to be taking off, where see there needs to be evidence, not only that that Dillon Strates CDR is a thing in the real world.
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Okay.
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It's a many splendid thing, right?
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And that it is also evolving at a rate.
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There's evidence that it can change in a short period of time that says, I think the next period of time, it'll probably keep doing that.
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And if we're, if we, if we continue to be kind of in limbo or not making those leaps, it becomes harder for actors to take it seriously.
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That's why this five years is so important.
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It's less about what the PPM needs to be by 2030 parts per million.
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It's more that we need to show that we're mature and evolved enough and fast moving enough that people can buy into the idea that, okay, we let's do this alongside the other things.
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And CDR 2030 is really designed to do that.
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And we call it an action agenda for carbon removal within the actual action agenda.
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And the COP has the two tracks, it's got the negotiating diplomats, but then it has this big sort of bouquet of more voluntary actions that states and non-state actors take, which is called the action agenda.
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And the Brazilians changed that last year because they decided let's make the action agenda more directly pertinent to the goals of the Paris Agreement, rather than sort of a random sort of collection of good news.
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And so they they set it up around these 30 key objectives that are directly taken from what's called a global stock take.
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That's like the report card that the UNFCCC does, or how close are we to get in carbon removal?
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And it brought together a bunch of people in initiatives, civil society, industry, government to work together, looking at those 30 key objectives and say, what actions or plans can you make that will have an impact over the next five years that represent step changes that really move things forward?
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Okay.
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And so we liked that idea.
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And we said carbon removal needs one of those as well, right?
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And so we literally took the kind of the anatomy of the new action agenda by saying, let's create urgency within a five-year time frame.
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That's we just talked about that.
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That's our target.
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Let's bring a whole bunch of people together with the Brazilians called Mucharo and have them mix it up and collectively develop these plans that will have an impact during that period.
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So CDR 2030 is that.
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Can we show at each COP here's a new cohort or wave of changes that we're making that point us in the direction of that target, but more importantly, point us in the direction of being able to scale after 2030.
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And that also put in one frame on a very high stage that everybody's looking at the good news.
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Right now, CDR is kind of diffuse.
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You might read, oh, yeah, I think I read something about that in Bloomberg.
00:19:14.319 --> 00:19:17.519
I think, and people aren't getting that picture of it as a whole, right?
00:19:17.680 --> 00:19:27.119
And so that's what we the cop really is good for, is that you you you're able to bring things into a frame and show the mobilizations that are happening so people buy into it.
00:19:27.359 --> 00:19:29.119
It gets this building momentum.
00:19:29.279 --> 00:19:32.640
And so really CDR 2030 is about where's that action?
00:19:32.880 --> 00:19:36.960
Can we can we and we have a criteria for it, which if we have time, I'll get into it.
00:19:37.119 --> 00:19:47.599
But we want to be able to roll into Antalya and every successive cop between now and 2030 with this mutating, wonderful, evolving thing that's convincing people that it's a thing.
00:19:47.920 --> 00:19:48.880
Does that make sense at all?
00:19:48.960 --> 00:19:49.200
I don't know.
00:19:49.279 --> 00:19:51.519
Hope you're saying it does.
00:19:51.680 --> 00:20:00.799
And you you just made me to jump to my question about the narrative and the story because you need awareness, knowledge, and the story.
00:20:00.960 --> 00:20:05.680
So one challenge CDR faces is the right narrative and communications.
00:20:05.839 --> 00:20:14.880
On one hand, it's relatively a new tech, as you said, and needs to be correctly explained and sometimes is confused with carbon capture.
00:20:15.039 --> 00:20:32.559
And on the other hand, the civil actors in the climate sphere have some doubts about the possibility that the public perception may accept quick, magical technical solutions that will save us all, and the need for systemic change can be overlooked.
00:20:32.720 --> 00:20:38.000
So, how are you building your narrative around those challenges?
00:20:38.799 --> 00:20:50.240
Yeah, I mean, there's many technologies as well as CDR, which is an important thing to stress to people, so that it's not all invested in one, you know, this magic bullet that, you know, people fear.
00:20:51.359 --> 00:20:53.759
And which is great, that it's diversified.
00:20:53.839 --> 00:20:55.440
And that is one of the things that we have to show.
00:20:55.519 --> 00:20:59.440
And we have to show it not in papers, but in actual here, here it is.
00:20:59.599 --> 00:21:00.160
Here's the thing.
00:21:00.319 --> 00:21:01.839
Like, you know, that that's the key thing.
00:21:02.000 --> 00:21:03.200
Seeing is believing.
00:21:03.440 --> 00:21:10.960
Where a lot of times that skepticism you talk about, it develops in a context that it doesn't have information in it, right?
00:21:11.119 --> 00:21:17.039
And so if we're not able to give people information, it's one thing to make an argument that we need it, but it's more to show that it's actually happening.
00:21:17.279 --> 00:21:18.319
What are the benefits of it?
00:21:18.400 --> 00:21:18.640
Right.
00:21:18.720 --> 00:21:22.480
So that's that's a key thing, is as the actions are our rhetoric.
00:21:22.799 --> 00:21:24.960
We're not just coming up with like a key message.
00:21:25.039 --> 00:21:27.200
We we want to show the things that are happening.
00:21:27.279 --> 00:21:28.880
And that's an impressive story to tell.
00:21:29.039 --> 00:21:37.039
One thing I will say too is the burden is often on the carbon removal anointed to dispel that argument.
00:21:37.279 --> 00:21:45.599
What we go back to is it's been in the IPCC since 2018, and it's just gotten even stronger and stronger with every single assessment report.
00:21:45.759 --> 00:21:52.079
There needs to be some soul searching with the climate community about why they can't see that.
00:21:52.319 --> 00:22:01.279
Why is it that this group that has lived and died by believing the science, for some reason, is becoming much more selective when It comes to carbon removal.
00:22:01.440 --> 00:22:15.759
And I think there's an inherent bias towards protest and stopping and beating the bad guys that sometimes is very core to environmentalism, that is not, it creates some blinders around how do we make things?
00:22:15.920 --> 00:22:17.359
How do we create solutions?
00:22:17.519 --> 00:22:20.640
And these are very different cultures in a way.
00:22:20.880 --> 00:22:39.680
And so I would just sort of implore the people that still have the skepticisms to listen, develop some actual curiosity about what carbon removal is and is becoming and can become, rather than just living in this very through-the-back, you know, rear view mirror of what carbon removal is, which is usually not accurate.
00:22:39.839 --> 00:22:47.519
I hear some of the skeptics of it and they talk about something that wouldn't have been an accurate characterization of carbon removal even five or six years ago, let alone today, right?
00:22:47.759 --> 00:23:02.000
So, but I think to that point is that the key, the key way we think about it is we need to demonstrate urgency by telling the story, by pointing to things like solar and electric vehicles and others, that there's a trajectory that new solutions have to go through that you can't turn them on overnight.
00:23:02.079 --> 00:23:10.160
And if you can relate and say, this is why we're talking about doing it now, because we had to do that with solar and we had to do it with batteries, and we had to do it with wind, and we had to do it with many other things.
00:23:10.400 --> 00:23:17.200
The other is evidence, as I said, is that we have to show a delta year after year that there's actual change.
00:23:17.279 --> 00:23:22.079
So it becomes increasingly difficult for somebody to form in their mind this can't be done, right?
00:23:22.319 --> 00:23:30.640
And then the other is salience, as I said, is that evidence needs to be vested in actual projects and people that are doing it, right?
00:23:30.799 --> 00:23:34.079
So that it's like, I see, oh, you're doing this thing with coffee?
00:23:34.240 --> 00:23:35.359
Like, what does that have to do with it?
00:23:35.440 --> 00:23:39.839
Like it has to be part of the world that they live in, not decoupled from it.
00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:48.079
And then the other is is relevance, which is related to that, that we have to also show that CDR by doing CDR, is it's not a zero-sum thing.
00:23:48.160 --> 00:23:58.880
It's not necessarily hoarding resources and attention away from other critical things that we need to achieve for climate, for economy, for you know, you know, equality, equity, whatever you're you're trying to achieve.
00:23:59.119 --> 00:24:02.559
Many times it is a positive relationship.
00:24:02.799 --> 00:24:18.400
If you add the CDR to the host, it actually can do good things for the host, you know, and there's many examples of that that I could give, you know, particularly around wastes, you know, taking waste that's usually a liability, and removing carbon with it and solving a waste problem at the same time.
00:24:18.480 --> 00:24:20.079
There's many examples that do that.
00:24:20.240 --> 00:24:31.119
So I think those are the key things that we have to do with the narrative, but again, it has to be delivered mostly through showing the work rather than speculating on the future possibility of the work, if that makes sense.
00:24:31.519 --> 00:24:32.720
It makes total sense, Chris.
00:24:32.799 --> 00:24:50.640
And I I've uh I've just given Dan Luther the nod that we're about to run over time because I've got one critical question I'd love to ask you from following on from that narrative point, which is I've struggled up close with setting a carbon budget for a city.
00:24:51.039 --> 00:25:00.559
And we were in that completely difficult space where we looked at the carbon budget, we looked at all the pathways, the the graph looked impossible.
00:25:00.720 --> 00:25:13.759
And every year we kept reporting back on this, you know, the fact that we had all the good intentions in the world, but it there was only just there was just some behavior change, some technological shifts, some deploying renewables.
00:25:13.839 --> 00:25:16.000
It just didn't, the sums just don't add up.
00:25:16.240 --> 00:25:35.599
And so I guess one before we wrap up and do our final question, I'm really interested in CDR as a place-based approach and whether it's have you come across an sorry, this is completely off-ile script, but I'm really interested in whether it's something that can plug into city strategies that could become something in the city.
00:25:35.759 --> 00:25:36.000
100%.
00:25:37.200 --> 00:25:38.960
So that's an obsession of mine.
00:25:39.039 --> 00:25:47.680
I helped create a group called Worcorders Carving Coalition, which is a group of cities out west that the the it this really ties into what I just said.
00:25:47.839 --> 00:25:54.960
Is if you look at CDR as this weird alien ship that's landing on the earth, people are they're gonna look at it like a science fiction.
00:25:55.119 --> 00:26:04.400
If you instead you say, what are the things that you have in your community that are your advantages, your liabilities, your dreams, your goals, your legacy industries.
00:26:04.559 --> 00:26:09.759
And again, as I said before, turning over stones, you you want to look at that place and say, what kind of carbon rule can you do?
00:26:09.839 --> 00:26:11.200
And what are you gonna get out of it?
00:26:11.359 --> 00:26:11.599
Right.
00:26:11.759 --> 00:26:17.519
So, and I think that also fills in this thing that other things like renewable energy had the benefit of.
00:26:17.680 --> 00:26:23.519
They had their people, they had their enthusiasts, and it often grew from the margins and from the ground.
00:26:23.599 --> 00:26:24.960
And that's how it became official.
00:26:25.039 --> 00:26:26.079
We're working backwards.
00:26:26.160 --> 00:26:32.319
And if you don't have that base of people that are at the bottom mobilizing, it becomes really difficult to do.
00:26:32.400 --> 00:26:36.319
People aren't going to take big, you know, the IPCC and a bunch of billionaires' word for it.
00:26:36.480 --> 00:26:44.799
And so that's where cities come in, that they can look at here's our wastewater treatment facility, you know, here's our liability biomass that might cause the forest fire.
00:26:44.880 --> 00:26:49.359
You know, we have things that we can do that can generate carbon removal.
00:26:49.440 --> 00:26:50.160
So let's do it.
00:26:50.240 --> 00:26:56.480
And I think cities are the ones that were, there was this rush of cities, at least in the United States, that were like, we have to do this.
00:26:56.559 --> 00:26:58.000
And they created these targets.
00:26:58.079 --> 00:27:01.440
And then they looked at the math of it and they're like, hmm, that's gonna be really difficult to do.
00:27:01.519 --> 00:27:08.319
So in many ways, cities are ahead of starting to really think in an imperative way about carbon removal, the higher levels of government.
00:27:08.480 --> 00:27:14.240
So I think there's a political rationale for it and a technical capability to deliver that's really important and really exciting.
00:27:14.559 --> 00:27:23.759
Okay, we're almost at the end, and I know we're running a bit over, but I want to ask you about the champions also, because this is important too.
00:27:23.839 --> 00:27:28.000
You are also the CDR lead of climate high-level champions.
00:27:28.160 --> 00:27:31.200
What does this program look like in a nutshell?
00:27:31.920 --> 00:27:34.720
Yeah, I mean, this is what CDR 2030 came out of.
00:27:34.880 --> 00:27:39.920
It was introduced by the World Business Council of Sustainable Development, the group of negative emitters through the action agenda.
00:27:40.079 --> 00:27:50.960
And how I was proximate to it is that the action, what climate champions do, every year a cop has a different presidency and they control a lot of the agenda, particularly the action agenda as well as negotiations.
00:27:51.119 --> 00:27:54.640
You need support if you're a presidency and you get that job for a year.
00:27:54.880 --> 00:28:04.640
So our organization basically supports the president on the development and delivery of the action agenda as well as creating continuity with previous cops, which is particularly important.
00:28:04.799 --> 00:28:07.680
How do we make sure there's a through line between the cops?
00:28:07.759 --> 00:28:13.839
And so we're basically the support organism that really assists the presidency in doing that.
00:28:14.160 --> 00:28:23.440
So in my role as CDR champion, as we were doing this, I was helping seed and educate that made it possible for CDR 2030 to really pop out of the action agenda.
00:28:23.519 --> 00:28:28.319
And now I'm playing a support role to make sure that it actually flourishes over the next five years.
00:28:28.880 --> 00:28:29.359
Brilliant.
00:28:29.599 --> 00:28:30.640
Good nutshell, Chris.
00:28:30.720 --> 00:28:31.359
Good nutshell.
00:28:31.519 --> 00:28:32.799
So we're gonna have to reveal.
00:28:32.960 --> 00:28:35.680
So I you can turn nutshells into biochar as well.
00:28:35.839 --> 00:28:36.720
I should mention that too.
00:28:36.880 --> 00:28:39.039
In turkey, I told you that.
00:28:39.279 --> 00:28:40.400
Sorry, good resistance.
00:28:40.559 --> 00:28:41.119
So do you know?
00:28:41.200 --> 00:28:46.160
I was I was literally wondering whether we were gonna get through this podcast without anybody mentioning biochar.
00:28:46.240 --> 00:28:48.559
And you just went right at the last minute, Chris.
00:28:48.720 --> 00:28:49.119
Got in there.
00:28:49.359 --> 00:28:50.559
You have to, yeah.
00:28:50.880 --> 00:28:52.000
So last question.
00:28:52.160 --> 00:29:00.079
Our network is ironically called Do Not Smile, because we believe that sustainability is a subject that can bring happiness into the world.
00:29:00.240 --> 00:29:01.440
So, last question.
00:29:01.680 --> 00:29:05.440
What object, place, or person always makes you smile?
00:29:06.000 --> 00:29:08.880
I'm gonna give the most cliched but sincere answer.
00:29:08.960 --> 00:29:11.519
And those are my my two children, my two sons.
00:29:11.599 --> 00:29:14.480
Uh, I work and I hang out with my family.
00:29:14.559 --> 00:29:15.759
That's pretty much it.
00:29:15.920 --> 00:29:21.599
And I would not be able to do the former if not with the latter, and they are my absolute greatest source of joy.
00:29:21.759 --> 00:29:26.079
So I know that sounds a little cheesy in Hallmark, but that happens to be true.
00:29:26.640 --> 00:29:28.640
We both support that cliche.
00:29:29.200 --> 00:29:30.160
Always.
00:29:31.119 --> 00:29:31.920
Do you know though?
00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:36.400
I am a little bit disappointed, Chris, because uh this is where we'll break down some myths.
00:29:36.559 --> 00:29:38.799
Like Damler and I don't do this off the cuff.
00:29:38.880 --> 00:29:42.400
So we have a little script to keep our questions and organized.
00:29:42.559 --> 00:29:49.680
And there was a little bleed through from somebody's last a few episodes ago where it said, actually, I love my dance classes.
00:29:49.839 --> 00:29:54.880
And I thought, Chris, dance classes, he doesn't seem like that sort of person.
00:29:54.960 --> 00:29:56.400
But so I'm glad you said you're keeping it.
00:29:56.640 --> 00:29:58.480
I can cut around and go.
00:29:58.640 --> 00:29:58.960
Can you?
00:29:59.119 --> 00:30:00.079
I I can dance.
00:30:00.160 --> 00:30:06.160
Yeah, my wife's the dancer, but but I like dancing, but they don't they don't they don't uh come close to my children.
00:30:06.480 --> 00:30:06.799
Excellent.
00:30:06.960 --> 00:30:08.319
Good, good, good, good, good, good.
00:30:08.400 --> 00:30:13.440
Well, listen, with the image of you dancing into the sunset, Chris, we're gonna have to wrap it up.
00:30:13.599 --> 00:30:14.640
Thanks so much for all that.
00:30:15.279 --> 00:30:21.680
Oh, obviously we're audio only podcast, but Chris is grooving right now, and it's really early in New York, so that's impressive.
00:30:22.160 --> 00:30:22.799
Damler.
00:30:23.039 --> 00:30:24.240
We better wrap this one up.
00:30:24.559 --> 00:30:30.640
So thanks to everyone who has listened to our good guys podcast brought to you by the Do Not Smile at Work of Agencies.
00:30:30.960 --> 00:30:37.519
And make sure you listen to future episodes where we talk to more amazing people about how we can work together to create a more sustainable future.
00:30:37.599 --> 00:30:39.599
So, Chris Dumler, see you soon.
00:30:39.839 --> 00:30:40.400
Bye.
00:30:43.039 --> 00:30:43.920
Goodgeist.
00:30:46.240 --> 00:30:52.720
A podcast series on sustainability hosted by Damla Ozler and Steve Connor.
00:30:53.599 --> 00:30:56.400
Brought to you by the DNS Network.