Dear Guests, I warmly welcome you to
this public event of the global
University Leaders Council Hamburg,
hosted by Universtät Hamburg as part
of the organizational consortium with
the German Rectors' Conference and the
Körber-Stiftung. As a gathering of the
presidents and rectors of the largest and
most important universities worldwide,
this year's global University
Leaders Council has
selected the topic of climate change and
the role of universities in this matter.
Our event starts today with a lecture
by Nobel laureate Esther Duflo. Chère
Madame Duflo, je suis enchanté de vous avoir parmi nous
aujourd’hui. Veuillez accepter nos remerciements les
plus sincères pour avoir eu
l’amabilité de prendre la relève et
d’assister à cet événement
public en qualité de
conférencière principale.
De tout cœur, nous vous souhaitons la bienvenue
au Global University Leaders Council!
The biannual GUC is being held
for the fourth time this year.
It is a format that brings together
university leaders to discuss emerging
problems and look for common solutions
in and around universities worldwide.
The wonderful thing for an academic and
research institution is that problems abound.
This is true not only in terms
of the common development of the
International university scene,
but also in terms of the joint
development of far reaching solutions
to well known social issues,
as it is the case with climate
change.
We want to open up the discussion
to the local and international
public and give them an insight into
this top-level event in Hamburg.
The second part of today's event
is also a top-level affair,
a panel discussion on the same topic
following Esther Duflo's lecture.
In addition to professor Duflo,
this part of the event involves the
participation of Professor Alt,
president of the German Rectors'
Conference,
professor Fredman,
president of the International
Association of Universities,
professor Phakeng, she is vice chancellor
of the University of Cape Town,
South Africa, and last but not least,
Universität Hamburg's professor Stammer,
chair of the World Climate Research Programme
Joint Scientific Committee and
chair of the Scientific Cluster
of Excellence called Climate,
Climatic Change, and Society.
We can expect an event packed with
complex reflections and discussions.
On hand to untangle,
intensify,
and moderate this event is Dr. Barbara
Hans, who until recently was editor in
chief for the SPIEGEL and SPIEGEL ONLINE
and who is, we're very proud to say,
an alumna of Universität Hamburg.
I'm delighted, Dr. Hans, that
you have taken on this task.
It certainly makes it easier for me,
and so, I turn it over to you.
Thank you very much dear Professor
Lenzen for the kind words and
the invitation and above all for
your idea to bring together the
presidents and rectors of the most
important universities worldwide
For this exchange. This exchange of
university leaders internationally
and across disciplines is
perhaps more necessary than ever,
because the Covid crisis has highlighted
the importance of the role of science
in addressing political, health
and economic challenges worldwide.
Today I have not only the pleasure
of being your moderate are but also
the burden of being spoiled sport,
which is perhaps sometimes the same thing
anyway. I will have to pay meticulous
attention to the time as we have
a tight schedule for this
I apologize in advance and I also
see myself as an advocate for the
audience in this public event as
we will include questions from you,
the audience and answer them live
in the discussion.
So please send your questions to
guc@uni-hamburg.de we will
try to include and cluster as many
questions as possible,
but we hope you do understand that
we can only make a selection.
It is now my utmost
pleasure and honor to welcome
Professor Esther Duflo. Professor
Duflo is Nobel laureate,
she shared the 2019 Nobel Memorial
Prize in Economic Sciences with Abhijit
Banerjee and Michael Kremer for
their experimental approach to
alleviating global poverty.
She is one of only two women have
brought home the prize in economics.
She's the Abdul Latif Jameel professor
of poverty Alleviation and development,
economics in the Department of
Economics at MIT and co-founder and
co-director of the Abdul Latif Jameel
Poverty Action Lab.
In her research,
she seeks to understand the economic
lives of the poor with the aim to
help design and evaluate social policies.
She has worked on health., NOTE Confidence: 0.8597309
education,
Financial inclusion,
environment and governance.
Professor Duflo thank you very much
for attending today's event.
Bienvenue vous avez la parole.
Thank you very much, Doctor Hans,
thank you professor for inviting
me to this important event.
I'm very delighted that the subject
of climate change is the topic of the
Conference of Presidents of Universities,
because I did, I think it
is just one topic that is
of prime importance for the world and
where universities are unique places to
do something to bring a real
contribution and a real difference,
both because of the excellence
that exists in departments and
also because climate change is an
issue that has many facets to it
and all of these facets are
represented in most universities.
In particular,
in many cases we think about climate
change mostly or something that that will
have a very big technological component
in the answer and
what I want to argue today
being a social scientist,
and in particular an economist and
one that focuses on poor countries,
is that we also need to take into
account the social science component
to any fight against climate change,
and that universities are uniquely
placed to help us do that.
I'm going to share my screen
for the presentation.
The team presentation could be
titled Good Economics for warmer times.
You know, in the sense that I'm going
to try and use the what we know about
about economics to think about what
does it tell us about some of the
difficulty we have in front of us when
we're thinking about climate change.
So by the end of last summer,
by the middle of last summer,
that one could have thought that it would
be a very big new urgency on climate change.
This was a photo of, this is a photo
from last summer taken in San Francisco,
and you will recognize the very
disturbing orange hue of the sky.
This is due to catastrophic wildfire
that ravaged California over the summer.
But soon after we stop talking
about this issues the media
cycle cyclet and the question of
climate change became a little bit
more secondary to the COVID crisis.
During 2020 there was also a lot of
discussion about the potential impact
of the COVID crisis on the emissions.
Emissions went down a lot during COVID crisis,
about a little over 5% in 2020
compared to 2019,
but by 2021 they were back exactly
to their level of 2019 and the
increase in 2021 was over 5%.
It's projected to be over 5% of
emission of greenhouse gases.
I wish, would, which is a particular
biggest increase in recent years.
Of course it's a catch up of what
happened in during the pandemic,
but it's a disturbing catch up,
especially since most of these courses
accounted for growth in the emission of coal,
do too coal and do too oil,
and mostly due to coal,
almost half of it, particularly in China.
So what problems,
why is the problem of climate change so
difficult politically and geopolitically?
The first reason is that
the the emissions that responsible
for climate change are mainly to
the behavior of rich country
citizens and in particular and in more
generally perhaps too rich citizen
in all countries.
So let me show a graph that sort
of summarizes that. You are probably
accustomed, to use of the, about the fact
that China is responsible for most
of for a big share of the emission of
greenhouse gases and CO2 equivalent in
at least in recent years,
events not being true historically.
But The thing is,
China is the factory of the world.
So the reason why China produces
uses so much CO2,
it's because it's producing the goods
that are being consumed in the richer
countries and are been consumed
also by rich Chinese or rich Indian
in poor countries but mostly are
being consumed by rich countries.
Thomas Piketty & Lucas Chancel estimates
that whenever, your consumption,
your income goes up by 10%
your CO2 emission in term of what
you consume goes up goes by about
9% and we can use this number in
order to compute the CO2 emission,
not where they are produced,
but where they are consumed.
So in other words,
we relocate whatever is done in China
to the consumption of rich citizens
of the US or rich citizen in Europe.
And when we do that,
we get something which can be easily
summarized as the 10-50 rules and the
first half of that is that the 10%
largest emitters are on the world
are responsible for
50% of the world emission.
And a 50% lowest emitters are responsible
for 10% of the world emission.
So if you look at the graph carefully,
you're seeing that it's
not quite exactly 10-50,
it's the the 10% emitter emit 45% of
the world emission and the bottom 50%.
13% of the World emission.
But the 10-50 rule allows to capture
both sides of the equation.
So what does it mean?
It means that the emissions are mainly
produced to fulfill the lifestyle
of rich people in rich country
and the poor countries which have,
not emitted historically very much,
are also not the one responsible
for climate change today.
That's the first third of the equation.
On the other hand, however,
the cost of climate change are
going to be felt predominantly in
the poorer parts of the world.
Why is that?
Well,
the first reason is that the
poor part of the world happened
to be in the warmer places,
so this is a map of temperature
today, a heat map.
So when it's more red,
it's hotter and you can see that the
South of the US is warm Latin America,
the north of Latin America is warm
Africa at the north of Africa,
northern part of Sub-Saharan Africa,
is extremely warm,
as is India in the north and the
north part of India and Pakistan.
So the, of course Africa and India are
very very rich places are very
very poor places.
So the places where most popular
people live are the places
that are already hot today.
And what this means is that assume
that the the temperature of the Earth
is going up by one or two degrees,
let's say 2,
which is the best we seem to be able to do.
If everything goes well.
If the earth warms by two degrees.
Even if the warming was
uniform across the planet,
it's starting from a different basis.
So if we take into account that
what the climate models are telling
us is that in the next 20 years,
when you're looking at the
number of very hot days,
which are the days that are costly
both for human health and
for productivity, you will find that
these days are mainly added in Africa.
In almost all of Africa,
will add a large number of very
hot days apart of Latin America
in particular the north of Brazil,
which is already very poor and
the north of Indian and Pakistan.
So the places that are poor will
add more of these very hot days,
which are the days that are costly.
Meanwhile if you take France or Germany it
will not have very many hot days, it will
add more pleasant days so we won't
have as much negative impact
coming from these very hot days.
If you look at 2050 now this is even worse
where you have the northeast of Brazil and
substantive part of Africa going
into the very dark red showing
that they are going to have many,
many very hot days by 2050.
In addition, I said that there is a
nonlinear effect of days that are quite
hot above 32 Celsius, or 90 Fahrenheit.
That's true both for productivity impact,
for example via the effect
of hot days on agriculture.
That's true for productivity
impact even in manufacturing,
and that's also true for human life.
The problem is that when
you're in a poor countries,
not only you can have more hot days,
but you're going to be less equipped
to deal with those hot days.
So if you start with the economics of it,
in a country that's mainly
agricultural or where a lot of
the work takes place outside,
you're going to have larger drops
in productivity from hot days
than in countries where a lot
of the work is done in offices.
So the productivity impact, the economic
impact of a hot day is going to be
larger in a country like India or in
Africa,
where a lot of the work is happening
outside and is weather dependent.
When we look at mortality,
it's exactly the same thing.
So these graph looks compares various
localities overtime in the past,
so we can't look at the effect of climate.
But we can look at effect of
variation in the weather.
And what happened so you can compare
for example district in India,
where it was unseasonably hot compared
to very similar district where in that
particular area was not unseasonably
hot and combining yearly variation
with geographical variation you can
look at the impact on a survival
probability of a very of the number
of very hot days you're getting out
of the of a very hot day in India
compared to the rest of the world.
And what you're seeing here is that
when you when you hit the when
you reach the warm temperature.
This degrees in this graph
is expressed in Fahrenheit,
but you can think of it in
centigrades as you know above,
90 degrees. if you're in India,
you starting seeing a very
negative impact on mortality,
so you're much you're increasing
mortality for every day,
every extra day, above 90 degrees,
and even more after 95 degrees, or 30 or 32.
But now if you look at the US,
you don't see something like that.
There is a tiny effect, much,
much smaller and hardly significant.
And that's mostly due to the
fact that in the US
places that are getting
hot have air conditioning.
So he does get hot in Texas,
but everybody's air conditioning
and in fact when you're looking at
over time in the past in the 1950s
they you also used to be a steep
temperature mortality gradient in the US.
But that relationship has disappeared.
It has lower down starting in 60s to
become this about zeros in the 90s.
So the reason why hotter days are
more costly in India is because
they don't have the technologies
to protect people.
And of course,
what is really particularly
saddening is that
the very technology that protects
people which are air conditioning,
themselves also polluting,
so in India for example,
they would like to install air conditioning.
The cheaper one are the HFC air
conditioning which themselves
sends a lot of of greenhouse gases
into the atmosphere and so India
doesn't want to give away the air
conditioning because they want
to protect their people today.
But that's at the cost of warming
that is going to come to hunt them
and the rest of us in the future.
So if you combine these two things
that it's getting hotter in places
that are already hot and in places
that are less well organized to
protect themselves against the hot,
again the heat you have the consequences
that the mortality cost of predicted
warming in the climate are larger in
poor countries than in rich countries,
and in particular they are concentrated
in Pakistan and north of India and in the
Sahel region in Africa for the next 20 years,
and then even more so if
we're looking at 2050.
Uh, in the next this concentration happens,
and you notice that there are blue
zones for the very cold countries,
including Germany
you'll be happy to see where in
fact the from the mortality POV,
the warming of the planet will
be a good thing,
because their will be fewer
cold is that also kill people.
And therefore,
the older the emissions responsible for
climate change are mainly in rich countries.
The cost of climate change
are mainly in poor countries,
and it's not a very good situation for
them to be placed for negotiating when
basically they are not responsible
for a problem that they are the ones
who are suffering from the most
and therefore it's not particularly
surprising that when push comes to show,
the rich countries have not been very
good at either making commitment or
even worse, respecting those commitments.
The third point I want to make is we need
to act now to prevent climate change.
We cannot wait until the situation is worse.
Some people may be a bit cynical.
People might say, well,
you know this is not urgent enough.
There is the problem is not in
front of people.
They don't understand the
strength of the problem,
so we are never going to get
political agreement now,
so let's just wait a little bit and
then later it's going to be obvious to
people that we need to do something
and then it's going to be possible
to generate political action and it
is clear that some politicians have
this reasoning in the back of their mind.
I think this the current
COVID pandemic showed
this is a very fluid reasoning.
The reason is that,
we have just shown the rich world is
just so the G7 and G20, the OECD just
shown that when we have our back against
the wall when we're facing a crisis,
that's a world crisis.
We're just not very good at dealing with
the crisis in a way that keeps the common,
The common interest at mine.
During the COVID crisis,
rich countries spent large amounts
of money on their own citizen.
About 20% of our GDP in Europe and in
the US went to fiscal stimulus measure.
But there was no increase in aid
towards the poor country and as
a result they had no money spent
on their own citizen.
They spend 2% of their of their GDP on
their citizen and now even on vaccines,
which evidently a global public good even
more so in more so evidently than climate,
because we now realize with variants
that we are just basically creating
the seed of the next crisis,
even for us, the rich countries,
the action is slow and has been
putting the rich countries first,
the country rich country invested in
enough capacity to produce for themselves
and not more than that
and then they quickly cornered supply
and it's only now that things are a
little bit quieter on the Homefront and
the vaccination campaign are going well,
that we start seeing.
Maybe turning a corner in terms of start
thinking about other countries. So that
all success that we must act now on
climate change before the panic sets,
because the experience shows that
the rich countries will just not do
something for the poor countries,
even if the situation is much more dire
their if we face a big climate
catastrophe because they will want to,
they will feel a compulsion,
political or otherwise,
to 1st invest in their own citizen.
The next point I want to make is how
do we act and in climate discussions
they are use a strong dominance
of technological conversation.
Most of the climate conversations
are about commitments and then
about the technology to reach there.
And the hope is that technologies
will be sufficient to produce more
efficiently with better technologies.
So ultimately, for example,
there is a big decrease in
the cost of solar power,
and the hope is that ultimately,
solar and wind will be cheap enough
to replace the old technology,
and in fact it is correct that there
has been a big decline in solar.
However, and in, for example,
in the in the last year,
there's been a huge increase in
the solar installation capacity.
However, even in the last year,
it's not been enough to
offset the emission from a
traditional coal and petroleum.
Often, so most of the discussion is,
What can and maybe what, you know,
discussions also about what universities
can do are focused on the technology.
You know. What can we,
can we invent better batteries?
Can we invent better nuclear power?
Can we invent Better wind power,
tunnels or something like that?
Can we work on carbon capture or whatnot?
However, in the true, in real life
and in the the impact of purely
technological solutions is often
disappointing and insufficient,
and there are examples done from my
research or the research of people
in our lab that shows that you take a
solutions that which sounds very,
very promising from a technological
point of view.
For example, the idea of weathering
homes like home insulation or for
example providing energy consultancy and
loans to firms in India so they can be
more energy efficient when they produce.
And then the human behavior around this
technology means that basically there is
little or no impact on the environment.
And in fact, in the case of the
energy consultancy in India,
the firms that got the energy
consultancy and that got the loans
to get the new equipment if anything
consume more energy at the end of it.
The reason being that they saved
money on their production costs
that they decided to produce more.
So that might be very good for them,
but that doesn't achieve anything from
the point of view of saving the planet.
So my point is that we cannot
rely on technology alone.
We have to rely on behavior.
But the good thing is that
it's actually possible.
I think in the climate conversation
we overestimate the miracle of
technology and we underestimate the
capacity of human being for change.
We assume that OK,
people really want to consume
more and more and more,
and that has to be the
objective of most people
and it is how it is and we can force them
not to do that with mandate or nudge
them to do that with higher carbon taxes.
But that's going to make them unhappy,
so we want to try and limit that by
offering them cleaner technology if
we can to basically keep our lifestyle
as consistent,as it is, as possible,
and also keep it going and always
consume more and more perhaps cleaner
and cleaner.
As I said,
I don't believe that it's gonna
work out eventually.
I think we will need to change
behavior and consume less,
less in a less energic frenzy
kind of a way,
but I also do believe that people's
preferences for more and more
consumption is not something
that's given to them at birth.
The preferences are very much the
product of social environment
and also affected by habits and
what you're used to do and which
means that you can change them.
Which means that when you are exposed to
something new you can change your opinion,
right?
So you one example that shows both.
The sensitivity to the social environment
as well as the power of habits.
It's an experiment that was done
by power companies in the US.
Many power companies did similar experiments.
They are sending report cards to
their clients showing how many,
how much energy you consume relative to you
to your neighbors so you can see here on
the top someone receiving a very good report.
Cards that consuming less
than their neighbors.
In my house, I don't know why we
always get the bad report. so
this was done as an experiment
initially so many people got the
letters and many totally comparable
people did not get the letter,
they were randomly selected so
there is nothing different
between treatment and placebo.
And what you see in the first graph
to the left is that the people who
got the letters consumed less energy
as soon as I started getting them,
and more and more,
you have increasing treatment
effect as you go along.
This is, the yellow,
the red bars that are kind of
all pointing downwards overtime.
So as soon as the experiment
starting period zero,
you start seeing them consuming less energy.
So this is to show that people
are sensitive to their image
and to what other people do,
and therefore when you send
them something like that,
they they adjust their behavior.
The second point that this
experiment allows us to do is to
look at what happens over time.
So what that is is that they continue
this experiment for a long time.
For some people it continued till January,
from January 2008 till January 2013.
But for half the group the discontinued
the mailing in 2010, in July 2010. So
now you can see what happens after
people stopped receiving the letters.
And this is what you see in the
blue dotted line and what you see
is that they stopped going down
compared to the control group,
but it did not go up.
So in other words,
a habit that they acquired while
they were receiving those mailers
and therefore adjusting to the
consumption of their neighbors
are still present with them.
And this is something that stays with them.
So it's like an experiment that
demonstrate that preferences can
be changed with very little.
This is almost free to do an
in a durable way,
because once we get used to
something we continue to do it.
The first point I want to make is we
should not think about climate change
in isolation in the same way that
we cannot think of climate change
as mainly a technological problem,
we should not think of it as, OK,
We're going to deal climate change
in isolation to all the other
problems that society has.
We cannot tackle climate change
in particular without tackling
redistribution and trust in government.
Why?
Because what is the climate change
policy involves, or distribution, it
involves loser. It involves winner.
So for example,
if you have a carbon tax or a
mandate on a certain type of cars,
that's going to affect primarily
people who rely a lot on driving
in their day to day job.
And that's often not the most fortunate.
And This is why you can have
a protest like this one,
saying Pittsburgh,
not Paris,
that's refers to the Paris Agreement,
and you get a lot of opposition against
climate change policy because people
are very opposed to redistribution
that is implicit in any
climate change policy.
We had exactly the same in Paris
with the yellow jacket movement,
which was started by a protest
against a carbon tax that
would increase the price of of
oil. Similar things happen in Chile
when the price of transportation was
increased or even in Iran when there
was a fear of an increase in petrol.
So people perceive rightly that any
climate change policy is going to come
at the expense of their bottom line.
And if they don't trust that they are
going to be compensated for this policy,
then they are just totally against it.
And that's why these are the poor
people and the most the people
who suffer the most economically.
Who are against a climate change policy,
who might be vote,
vote for politicians that you know
will protect them against any effort
for example, to to diminish our
dependence on coal or on fossil fuel.
Even when governments make an effort
to say oh, this is any policy,
any loss that you suffer is going
to be compensated by fixed cost.
There is the issue of trust.
For example, in India
electricity is free for farmers,
which of course lead to
overuse of electricity.
But even more more important lead
to overuse of water which is not
directly a climate change problem
but leads to droughts which is a
disaster in situation like Punjab.
So it is pretty evident that
they need to charge for power,
but the only way that I could
possibly do that is by compensating
the farmers who are supposed to get
free power with cash transfers,
and that's what they tried to do in Punjab.
But farmers just do not trust them,
absolutely not trust them,
and therefore they think that this is
midsummer madness and that
it shouldn't get done.
And in fact this particular
attempt that is referred to in
this headline were stopped.
Another reason why you need trust in
government is you need any regulation
that is decided upon to actually
be enforced and discovers form
some of my research that looked at
India which has on the book very
strict regulation for the environment,
but in practice well on the top graph here,
you're seeing audit reports.
Private audits conducted by firms
need to hire an auditor to conduct
a pollution audit.
And you can see that this counts the
number of firms that you're seeing
at various level of pollution,
and you can see that you're seeing
the vast majority of firms in
ranges of pollution that are just
below the accepted threshold.
Well,
these are from the, in accept,
from the official audits.
But then what we did is we send
back checkers a few a couple of
days after the audit was done and
the graph the second graph here
shows what happens in the back check
forms and rules that basically
the auditors were lying,
because in fact you find firms that are
polluting much more than the actual
then the threshold that were
not reported by their audits.
So to conclude,
the COVID-19 crisis is a big
opportunity and also a risk.
It's an opportunity because it
reminds us that sometimes nature
is stronger than us and dire
prediction of experts come to pass,
and that's something that's
very difficult for humans.
Humans have a tendency to project
themselves in the future so they think
things will stay the way they are,
and that makes it very difficult to
think about a future that is warmer,
for example.
But here you know,
we couldn't think about a
future with the pandemic,
and we just experienced it,
and that might create an openness to
change behavior because it's
an openness to considering the
warn in a different ways.
It also shows us that sometime we need
government to steer collective action,
which is something that is
going to be essential in
the climate change conversation and
also that we can change our lifestyle
without being so unhappy about it.
People in Paris started
cycling everywhere and
and they probably are going to
continue post pandemic.
Also, it gives us a chance to show
solidarity with poor countries
as I talked about vaccination,
on which we have been
completely lacking today.
But if you know in in a few days now the
G7 decides to put serious resources,
you know the IMF price is it
for example,
at $50 billion behind the
worldwide vaccination campaign.
Then it would have demonstrated
that we were able to work together
towards a common goal and that
could really help creating the
legitimity and trust that isn't
going to be necessary for Cup 26.
In that there is a huge need of
course for research and innovation,
not just the changing technology
where someone might make money,
because that could be taken care,
maybe by the market,
but also on how to change behavior at
scale and how to affect policy changes.
And that's where universitys
are absolutely critical,
so I'll finish with one example,
which is what we are doing
in our university.
So we are running something called
the King Climate Action Initiative
where the mission is to innovate,
test and scale
evidence informed climate solution
to benefit people in poverty.
Which are the most affected by
climate and we support collaborative
collaborative research with government
with NGOs etc from the entire
world in the area of mitigation,
adaptation,
energy access and pollution reduction.
So that's one example of what
one part of one university does,
but I think a part that could not be
contacted by anyone but the university.
Thank you very much for your
attention and I look forward to
question and also the debate.
Thank you very much for your
keynote and your insights
Professor Duflo.
We will now have time to elaborate
on some of your thesis before
we start the panel discussion,
and there are some questions
from the audience,
and one actually deals with the
costs of climate change and someone
is writing us, modeling shows
that climate crisis will cost
about 2 to 5% of GDP globally.
Is this figure right?
If so, was are the financial engineering
methods required to face this?
So I don't know.
You know people love for
castings and making numbers,
but I have to tell you,
this is one thing,
you're gonna be terrible at and that's
because you know forecasting is difficult,
so I don't know
It's going to be 2%
I don't know if it's going to be 5%.
It depends on a number of models,
so I think we should be less concerned
by their level then by the principle.
And the principle is what I
talked about in the in the talk,
which is that the
the costs are going to be larger
in poor countries and much
smaller in rich countries,
and we have to face it there.
There might be 0 in rich countries.
And therefore the issue is not so much
financial engineering engineering
The issue is wild wild
redistribution in a way or the other.
Let's relates to a second question.
Different green new deals have been proposed.
What do you think about them and
what does a green New Deal have to
entail on an international level?
So at the national level,
I think the defining feature of
a green New Deal compared to what
they were before is it's the
avoidance of too much reliance on.
A carbon tax as a way to to deal with things.
So for example,
if you look at the US Green New
Deal the way it was designed by
the Democratic Congress woman,
maybe in the join the Trump
administration already is,
that it was very much putting the
accent in our distribution at the
same time as infrastructure change to
prevent and deal with climate change.
So I guess that's kind of what they
find the green New Deal compared to.
Kind of the traditional way to
think about climate change,
which is a combination of
technology and carbon price.
Or maybe carbon trade markets,
and I think that's a useful in the details.
Of course we can discuss the details
of each proposals but but the idea
that the the climate policy has to
be accompanied with redistribution
and with creation of jobs for
the poor people in the economy,
I think he's very very solid,
so that's for the national level.
For the international level and like
as would have been clear in my talk,
I think it's really important
to think about this from, with a
equitable perspective,
and one way to think about this is
just to think we need to create
a fund to finance adaptation
of climate change and mitigation.
There is a figure that is floated of
$100 billion a year, which is, you know,
not even that large compared to
what might be needed,
but let's start that and the
question is who pays for that?
And I think you're right way to
think about the the Green New
Deal at the worldwide level is,
let's apportion this 100 billion fairly,
which means not in proportion to not
proportionally to the emission
that are being produced today,
but proportionally to,
but maybe with the progressive
structure, so that the people who
really consume the country where
we have the citizens that are
producing the most of the emission.
Should account for a bigger share
of the overall cost of the of
the of the of the of the plan.
So in other words,
instead instead of a flat carbon
tax that would be allowed to count,
you know to account for the cost
of climate change we should have
a progressive carbon tax paid
mostly by the richer countries.
And you showed photos,
pictures of protests in different regions
of the world in your presentation.
What unites these people and their protests?
I think what unites these people
in their protests around the world
is the worry that the complete
mistrust about the distribution
inside the countries of the cost
and benefits of climate change
and the cost and benefits of the
adaptation and mitigation effort.
So the worry is that, for example
very much the worry about
Citoyenne movement the the
increase in the tax was proposed.
The increase in carbon tax and
therefore in the cost of of driving
your car was proposed right down
on the heel of abolishing the
wealth tax and then reducing the
top income tax and increasing the
flat part of our taxation system.
So it could be seen as a part as a you
know one more step in making the tax
system less progressive than it was before.
And the optics of that are terrible
because it is seen that you
asking me to pay for your luxury.
Like I don't care about climate,
I don't care about the end of
the world because I am concerned
about the end of the month.
And you need to deal with that first,
and that's why I think if we want to
make any progress on climate change,
we have to couple the two issues.
And make it very clear that it is
not something that is you know luxury
taste of rich people.
And that is going to be paid
for higher taxes on poor people.
It is something that we need
to collectively achieve,
and we're going to make it as
painless as possible for the poor people
within countries and across countries.
Trust is at the core of your work.
The trust of the state in the poor,
the trust of the citizens in the government,
in in the health system,
even in science and in your work,
you show that behavioral change can be
managed through the establishment of trust.
So how does that work?
How could we do that?
Yes, so one of the big thing that ailed
societies and that has started much
before the COVID crisis is a steady
decline in the trust that citizens are
for their government,
if you look at all the OECD country,
the trust in Government has gone
down and down and down and down,
but it's not that it's there is
general mistrust in everybody.
For example,
trust in scientists is very high.
Although trusting economist is very low,
the politicians and economists are the least
trusted people by both American and and and
and people in the UK.
I think it is true also in France and
in continental Europe.
So, So what is the so to
understand how to deal with this,
we have to understand where it's coming from.
And I think it's coming from the
fact that in the public discourse,
we tend to emphasize an also in research
and in economics research particularly,
but that's also true in political
science etc.
To their university have a role.
We tend to blame the governments
around the world for their failure.
We talk about corruption.
We talk about inefficiency etc.
And we highlight the difference in
performance between universities, and between
the government and the private sector.
But what we forget
in this comparison is that governments
intervene precisely when the
the problem is too hard for the markets.
So you think about the COVID pandemic.
For example,
suddenly we had governments everywhere in our
lives to do things that the private market
would be completely unable of of doing,
and so the COVID crisis I think,
gives us a good example which is in places
where it was relatively well managed.
Dentist could actually provide a boost
in trusting government,
not necessarily a particular government,
but in government as a project.
And I think we saw that in Italy.
Actually,
where in the municipal election
in the last spring,
in the middle of the COVID crisis,
there was much more vote for parties
that were in favor of governing as
opposed to pure opposition parties,
and I think the way you build
trust in government is by not
assuming it from the get go.
Not saying you have to trust me,
this is how it is.
But by achieving things you know
succeeding in some projects,
and so you start by doing 1 project
you succeed in that project.
You show you that you are capable
of delivering and then you can
move on to the next project.
So that relates to to the work you do, it is
pretty close to you to your randomized
control trials, which actually show,
What can be done?
Can you describe what they are and
to what extent your approach is
different to what other economists do?
So the idea of randomized
control trial is now very
very familiar to everybody because
everybody's followed very closely
the randomized control trial
for vaccines COVID-19.
So what you do in a trial in medicine
is you take a sample of people.
Then you randomly select half
of them and you give them, say,
your new vaccine candidate and
the other half gets a placebo.
And then you compare, perform,
you compare the outcomes.
So in this case,
whether or not people got sick with
COVID or had to be hospitalized in
the vaccinated group unvaccinated
group and because the vaccinated
group was randomly selected,
you know that if you find a difference,
if your sample was large enough
that has to be due to the vaccine.
Now the idea that we kind of pushed
in our lab and that was this is kind
of the core of our work in GPAL,
and in this big movement in
development economics.
Is that you,
you can do exactly the same
thing for social policy,
so similarly you can learn what
works and what doesn't work for,
say,
suppose you have a vaccine now for
COVID to reduce the hesitancy or in
people's willingness to get vaccinated
so you can try different messages.
You can try different messengers.
You can do that randomly across
different parts of the population
and see what works and what doesn't.
So the same very the same technologies,
same methodology works
just as well for, randomized,
for social policies.
Of course you have to do this work
in the field with real people,
so you do it with partners and
you also have to do it on very
well identified problems and
hopefully on problems that actually
pertinent and relevant in the field.
So the difference from the work that
you know people used to do in economics is,
first of all maybe the focus on
narrowly defined questions that can
be understand and studied precisely,
and so gonna fold this kind of complete this,
this willingness to work with partner
and get ideas from the field.
As suppose to you know,
deriving them from theory and 3rd
the complete openness in terms
of the results you're finding.
And 4th, of course,
is the statistics machinery and the
tools and understanding you know,
adapting it from other fields and
making it work in the context of
economic issues and problems.
So what you do leaves politicians
little room for excuses,
because in action can hardly be
justified thereafter.
What is you know,
there is always many excuses,
too many things since so
in particular politicians are,
you know up enough to act very quickly
and they also have pressures that
are, democratic pressure that make it,
you know that that leads them to
do things rather than others.
And those pressures are important.
I'm not saying they should be belittled.
But the,
at least what we found in our work is
that in many cases politicians want
to do something they have a plan in mind,
but it leaves a lot of details to
be worked out and on those details
there are a lot of possibilities
and we just have no idea.
And for those this randomized control trials
can be a very useful way to collaborate
with politicians doing something that
is immediately helpful to them without
you know putting undue pressure.
So, for example, in the case of vaccines,
everyone agrees that we should deliver vaccines,
but we have uncertainty on on, you know,
should you insist on the private benefits,
for example versus the the fact
that you are doing a social good?
Do you want to give incentives?
Like a lottery like they did in the
in in the US. Or is that crazy?
Will that backfire?
And this is the type of things that you know.
Unless we try out in the field we won't
know and where that creates a lot of
opportunities to work with government
without slowing them down or or, you know,
endangering their bottom line but
making the programs that they wanted
to do anyways work more efficiently.
You describe your work as that of a plumber.
Are you working on the demystification
of science?
Yeah, so this work that I was talking about,
which is working with politicians to
make what they wanted to do work better.
That's very much what I describe as plumbing,
which is, you know,
there are so many choices we have
to make where we really don't,
Science is not guiding us to science
is very easy to tell us about
what might work or might not.
We get intuition from science,
but they did tell us nothing very specific
or precise about what might work,
and that's where that's where
economics plumbers come come and
of course,
I think we still need the economist
scientist to give us bigger ideas,
but we also need a plumbers to help
work with policymakers to look at the
details of the program to make them work.
And it often makes all the difference.
Often you have a small changes in the
way that the program is implemented,
and it has a huge issue,
huge effect.
For example,
to go back to the climate change idea,
one thing that we need to do is to
convince people to use smart meters
in their house that are going to
better regulate the energy use
in a house and in Sacramento,
they did an experiment where
easier to install the meters in
Peoples House and then people had
to opt out if they didn't want them.
Or people had to sign up for the program.
So one is an opt out program and
one is an opt in program.
So you would think that's like a detail,
something that
some people cuts probably going
to come up with in general,
and it's not going to be studied,
but it made all the difference
because the people who opt who
have the option to opt out do not
opt out. And the people who are the
option to opt in do not opt in.
So whatever is the default situation
is super sticky and stays,
and therefore the and then it has
impact on energy consumption,
specially at the peak.
But even in off peak it reduces
energy consumption and it had reduced
energy consumption much more for
people who were given the thing
and had to opt out because they're
just more likely to have it.
So this is an example of the
plumbing is completely essential
to the success of the program.
Well, thank you very much.
We are fortunate that you are
also going to join us for the
dialogue session later on,
so hopefully we can come back to many
of those exciting points later on.
We have an absolutely top class
panel and I have now the honor to
briefly introduce the participants
of our dialogue session.
Professor Pam Fredman is president
of the International Association
of Universities.
She has an academic background as
professor of neural chemistry at the
University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
She has extensive experience from
academic leadership and between
2006 and 2017 was rector at the
University of Gothenburg.
She has worked in many ways to
implement sustainability at her university,
and I look forward to learning
more about how she did it.
A very warm welcome
Professor Fredman.
Professor Peter.André Alt is president
of the German Rectors' Conference.
He studied German language and literature,
political science,
history and philosophy at Freie Universität
Berlin, he has been a full professor of
modern German literature since 1995.
First,
at Ruheuniversität bochum later on at
the University of Würzburg and since 2005,
at the Freie Universität Berlin.
He has been the President of Freie
Universität Berlin for two terms as president.
He had a flipchart in his office on
which he wrote a new motto every
week and I look forward to perhaps
finding out today which aphorism
accompanies him to this day.
Welcome Professor Alt.
Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng
is Vice chancellor of
the University of Cape Town,
where she had been serving as deputy
vice Chancellor for research and
internationalization since January 2017.
She has an academic background as a
professor for mathematics education
and in her role she frequently
just visit students unannounced
in their accommodations,
and I look forward to find out
what impresses her most about these
conversations with her students.
Welcome Professor Phakeng. Professor Detlef
Stammer is chair of the Word
Climate Research Programme
Join Scientific Committee and
Chair of the Cluster Excellence,
Climate, Climatic Change,
and society at Hamburg University.
He has an academic background as professor
for remote sensing and assimilation,
and is director of the Center for Earth
System Research and Sustainability.
I look forward to find out how he
conveys the urgency of climate
change when some of the processes
He researches take 10,000 years
or even longer to complete.
Thank you very much for joining
Professor Stammer.
To begin with, I was I would like
to ask all panelists for a brief
response to Professor Duflos
keynote and dear Professor Fredman,
which of Professor Duflos thoughts is
of particular importance to your work?
Very good presentation
I like that very much and what I
bring with me is that you're so
clearly pinpoint the importance
of the behavior of the citizens,
because that brings to the
educational part that we have to
empower or keep the citizens wherever
they work or whatever they do
in the capacity to be part of
sustainable development.
So I think that what you're bringing forward
is very important and unfortunately the
COVID have shown that the inequality
when it comes to education and
knowledge creation around the world.
We fear and many universities
around the world fears that the
inequality will increase.
So your pressure on that.
We have to think about the hold
and take responsibility for the
global for the whole globe.
When it comes to to knowledge and to
to support with all the dimensions.
It was very good and finally I would say
in service,
it's clear that many countries
positively has
brought more awareness to the
knowledge from the university and
the education and importance of that.
So it has opened doors for a better
connection and better collaboration
between the governments and the science.
And hopefully that's something we can
bring forward if we do it globally.
Thank you very much professor Alt which
aspect is of special importance to your work.
Thank you very much indeed,
Since,
since there are so many take home messages,
I have to single,
but a few. First of all what
struck me the most was the figure
top 10% of the emitters are producing
45% of words emissions and I think
this is not only a share figure,
it's also a symbol and there are many
other examples worldwide for such an
imbalance between benefit and disadvantage.
And I think this is crucial to our topic.
One major idea which I want to
emphasize is on the role of the government,
which has been also discussed
after the talk a bit.
I think it's very important to
identify this role as a crucial one,
because if you want to take action,
we need the government,
but we have to also,
as it has been mentioned,
we have to establish trust and this
brings me to the third dimension
which you have also tackled.
the role of science,
sciences as an adviser,
I think we must discuss this
a little bit more in detail,
because this is not a given fact.
We have distrust in science increasing
distrust we have for populist
parties we have strong movement,
have worldwide 30% of people at
least not trusting in science,
and we have to to analyze this
finding to a certain extent and to
take into account then how we can,
not change this,
but make use of the 70%
who trusts in science
and this is my point of view
one major mission of the inspiring
lecture that we are invited
to discuss our strategies here
in this field in particular.
Thank you very much.
Professor Phakeng,
what struck you most.
Thank you very much.
Professor Duflo for the lecture.
Very interesting, very inspiring.
I was. I got interested in.
In the point that you made
about the highest polluters.
The highest polluters being the
rich countries and and of course,
your view about what needs to be done.
But also the fact that the world
has not shown a great generosity to
the poor countries during COVID-19
and the COVID-19 crisis.
And so this brought me to the question
about what is development?
What's the role of development?
In having the rich countries polluting more,
what do the poor countries aspire to?
Do you know if,
for me it seems as if whilst
we're dealing with the problem
of climate change and we want
to solve that at the same time,
there are behaviors that we are
reproducing be 'cause that's
what seen as as developments and
that's not only in terms of
countries in terms of
in terms of individuals,
but also in terms of what young
people aspire towards.
And it seems to me that we've got to start.
Critiquing more and more.
What is development?
What does it mean to improve the
material conditions of people?
Is that the only way to do it, or is there?
Is there a sustainable way of
doing that improvement?
But also when we talk
about the rich countries
being generous to to the poor,
I mean in a way living in
the continent of Africa.
As much as I agree with that,
it makes me a little uncomfortable,
because in a way we don't also critique
how the West impoverished poor countries,
and perhaps what's their responsibility.
So it is not charity,
that the poor countries are expecting it.
Responsibility because it's not
only a true coloniality that the
poor countries were impoverished,
but also through the idea of
development in the way it is
It is perpetuating in poor countries
And yeah, I mean,
it made me think in that way
the role of coloniality and
the role of development in this,
and the fact that thinking about
poor countries and helping them
Should not be sold as charity,
but as a responsibility of the
wealthy countries because they
impoverish the poor countries.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for this
Professor Stammer as a researcher,
you deal intensively with the
consequences of climate change,
which of Professor Duflos approaches
particularly surprised you.
Well there are couple of things
that one has to say for this.
So first of all,
thank you very much for this for this talk,
which I really enjoyed in all
these aspects as several things
have been already said,
but I do want to repeat a few.
First of all you statement about
climate change and and dealing with it.
I completely agree this is not
just the technological answer
that is that that we can expect,
or that that we can use to remedy
the problems. It has to be more.
It has to be in particular
at transformation of society.
And you you actually touched on this
on in various aspects and and this
transformation definitely relates to
the way of spending energy,
in fact producing CO2 emission.
It has to deal also with other
aspects and to some extent the
consumption pattern that you already
suggested that that is to some extent
responsible for a lot of the emissions.
And that's also summarizing this
I I completely agree it has to
be a total approach. It has to
Deal with with technology development,
but it also has to involve it really
fundamental transformation of society.
Now a few more things.
First of all,
what I really was struck by a statement
on one of your slides is that we need
to act now to prevent climate change.
And and I think this is probably not quite
correct because I would actually phrase it.
We have to act now to limit climate change.
Climate change is already ongoing
and we actually have already
a 1 degree warming since.
On the Industrial Age started we are
off to Paris 2015 after COP 21 we are
dealing with possibilities or attempts
to limit this to possibly ideally 1.5 degree,
which is still half a degree more
than what we have already or two
degree which would be twice of what
we received already and I think it's
very important for society to realize
that climate change is already ongoing.
And that we as a society we have to deal
with consequences of climate change already.
So this is nothing that
will come at some point.
We it's already to some extent here and
it will come over the years to come.
And and to limit, for instance,
climate change to 1.5 degree,
it really requires a net
decarbonization by 2050.
And otherwise we have to
pull the carbon out in that,
and I think that society has to
realize those are the politicians
is nothing we can wait for.
We have to act now to limit it and
not to do not have climate change.
And one of the things I would like to
add is that you dealt with climate
change in terms of temperature.
Which actually is a number that
is most often used.
You in fact made this very
interesting statement.
Water is not climate change,
which probably relates to kind of the
water consumption to some extent.
But climate change actually will be
associated with changes of available water.
And I think it's not just temperature rise,
it's not just heat waves actually is a
lot of water shortage that we anticipate,
and we and the politicians have
to deal with this.
Some people actually said at some
point in a few years we will fight
wars not for oil, but for water.
Maybe I'll leave it here.
Well, thank you very much to all
of you will now going to start
our dialogue session and we're
going to proceed in three steps.
We're going to 1st take a closer look
at the status quo then going to look
at the agents of change and the things
that are needed to slow down climate change.
And in a third step,
turning to universities and their role.
Professor Duflo you describe the status
quo in your book with the words inequality
is exploding environmental catastrophes.
And global policy disasters loom.
That sounds not too optimistic.
That's a glass, somehow,
that's the half emptiness of the glass.
But this is the first of all.
Let me say that I agree with absolutely
all of the comments that were made,
in particular with the the last points,
both about the the fact that we are now
talking about limiting and mitigating
climate change, not avoiding it.
And in fact the medication
point is particularly important
for poor countries because.
Play mission is happening and it's going to
be affecting the poor countries the most.
In particular this the water consequences
that that that you mention. Now.
So the status quo.
As this comments assign is
just not acceptable.
And related to the comments.
That was made by Doctor Stammer.
It is not acceptable,
in particular for what it
is doing to four countries.
And there are any number of reasons
why I I completely agree with you that
the proportional sharing of the costs
of mitigating and adapting to climate
change is not charity, it's basic.
So responsibility.
Not not even with without
even mentioning the history,
and we can add the history to that,
but even in the present.
Because of the fact that the
emission are mainly the product of our
consumption of the consumption of the
poor countries of the rich countries.
So I think there is no doubt
in my mind that this is this
is nothing to do with charity.
So similarly,
it is no doubt in my mind that having affair
or distribution system within country
to deal with the exploding inequality.
Has nothing to do with charity,
it has to do with basic,
you know, rules of.
Functioning in society.
So to me the two things are connected.
Unfortunately.
Right now when we're thinking about or when
politicians are talking about solidarity,
they're mostly talking about
solidarity within countries,
and the idea that you would need to
have something like the worldwide
progressive tax system is a little
bit absent from the conversation,
but I don't think it's big.
We should.
We should still have it in the back of
our mind as what we should aspire to,
at least in in what concerned
the carbon taxation.
I'm not as a matter of charity,
just as a matter of basic
responsibility of today and then.
On top of that,
we can add the history,
including the history of admission.
And then press what you talked about,
which is the story of colonization
and the consequences
of the development model.
Maybe we can discuss the development model
at another point in the conversation.
I agree with you as well that this
is also something we need to think
about that they don't need to.
countries which haven't gotten our funny path.
Don't need to go there necessarily.
We received a question from the
audience that relates to this.
How do you think a reconciliation
between the polluters which do
not fear the climate change as
much and the
part of the world who are not responsible
for climate change but suffered
disproportionately high could look like?
Who would like to answer that question?
Or share an idea on that.
Professor Fredman.
I don't have a solution,
but I think that when we're talking
about this large and big issues.
We have to remember that a large proportions
are the citizens in any country.
It's not just the poor countries
in many countries is not on the
same platform you are talking to.
People who is not equipped with the
knowledge and not the understanding we
have don't have governments which actually
explain if they are doing something.
So for me it's coming back to to have
people understanding what's going on.
Taking their own decisions,
taking their own views on this,
because we cannot just put that
collectively on people within
your country or globally.
So Professor Stammer aren't we
dealing with at least three dilemmas?
Firstly, many of the results you
describe will only become violent
in decades or even centuries.
And secondly, the nation state alone does
not have the opportunity to curb climate
change because of its global development.
And thirdly, the people who suffer
most from the consequences as we just
heard have the least and also have
contributed least to climate change.
How can we nevertheless
Get people to rethink,
And change their behavior?
Well, I guess there there there
a couple of things for this.
First of all, it is not that long that
we actually feel climate change it.
I mean, for instance,
right now we already see the consequences.
So we see like the the changes
over the North Pole ice reduction,
throwing of permafrost changes
in precipitation patterns.
Even in Germany.
I mean basically think about the
last a couple of summers and
that is not approved that this
is already climate change.
But it is not just sort of far
away an it's not also not far away
in time and we just have to look
at it and we have to also sort
of well look at the numbers that
to some extent the projections.
So in in our science fields we
do work with projections.
I'm not saying predictions,
but there is information that we
can trust and we have to just take
it into account and so so the.
Of course,
the the the question about the
redistribution is a very important one,
but I would come back to the
responsibility that we all have
on a global scale and also the
fact that we more and more deal
actually with all these discussions
and consequences in international
networks and so in in fact on the UN
level on various different levels
where we really have to have a
much stronger dialogue about this,
about the consequences and
Take this into account,
but it I think it's important
that I mean this notion that you
might have alluded to
Sort of this will happen in 1000 years or so.
This is not true,
and there's already a lot ongoing and over
the next decades we will see even more
and we just have to take this into account.
Well,
Professor Duflo,
but what do you say when someone tells you?
But that's no use?
Why should I give up something when
other countries are emitting more
carbon dioxide than ever before?
Why you meeting someone in a
poor country or someone in a
rich country? In a rich country.
I think that.
We need to be.
That's what I was trying to say
which we need to give people credit for.
Not be true up.
Too pessimistic about peoples preferences.
I think there is a model of humans
that as sort of imposed itself as
someone who are mainly motivated by
wanting to consume always more things.
That's a model.
That of course is pushed on us
by advertising that it's pushed
on us by other and we've sort of.
Come to Acccept as the main model.
Of how human behavior,
how they should behave,
and I think that relates
to the point about the model of
development that is then, you know,
superimposed on the on the poorer
countries which might otherwise
have chosen something else,
and that's not helped by media,
social media and the alike. but.
In fact, in reality people are not,
so the preferences of people
are not so firmly established
an in particular they are not.
So one dimensional
What we're finding across the research
sociologist psychologist is that
people are motivated by so many other
things than money and consumption,
and in particular are mostly
motivated by dignity and a sense
of what constitute dignity is
something that is essentially.
Socially determined by the
the group in which you you live
and the result of that is that
people might today not have any
opinion about a Bangladeshi who's
town is going to be swallowed by
water in within the next decade
because the water levels are rising.
But the fact that they don't have
an opinion about this person now
doesn't mean that they can't form one.
If we are educating them and it goes
to the point that was made first
about the critical role of education.
I think, for example,
at the younger cohort,
the one that are striking,
falling greater Thunberg on Friday.
For climate they have a very
different opinions and they actually
have a day in their mind.
They have an opinion about the person
in Bangladesh who livelihoods is
affected and we need to build on that.
And conversely,
I don't think it is necessarily
true that the that people always
think they need to have more.
Uh,
They they only think they have to
have more big easier because they are
extremely poor and they really don't
have enough for everyday survival.
But beyond the level that maybe they
think they have to have more because
they have been taught to think that
this is how you know you show your worth.
An if we collectively manage to rewrite,
you know the rule of engagement
and competition between people.
Then we might get very different
results and that kind of relates to the
To the point that was made about
what's the right model of development,
but it's what is true for the
West vis a vis African countries.
It also true for The richer Vis a Vis the
poor people in rich countries is, you know,
what is what, what is dignity?
What is worth? What is a life worth living?
It is not necessarily your life
will consume more,
and that's not me saying that it's
a lot of people thinking that,
but being a little bit reluctant
to act on it.
Because they're thinking that's not
what they're required to think.
Professor Phakeng I saw you nodding.
How can we change habits
successfully from your experience?
What needs to be done?
When I I think I think professor Duflo
introduced a an important concept of dignity,
but perhaps to to change habits you need
involvement at every level of society.
I mean you, you need of course set
policy level, but I would say even
at the lowest level in the media
and as professor Duflo is talking,
I thought you know the horror.
The people are the more they focus
on personal sustainability rather
than environmental sustainability,
and you know, so you know.
And I, you know,
I see it here that you you know there isn't
much concern about about the environment.
If I'm struggling for the next meal.
If it means I must take out that tree,
that's going to help me.
That's what I'm going to do or whatever.
So I think the media is very powerful.
And particularly in spaces where there
is not much trust in government.
So you need multiple voices.
You need the voices in education,
so I would say curricula in basic
education should have as a matter of rule,
environmental sustainability as
part of the curriculum embedded in.
Even if it's not taught
as a standalone subject,
but embedded in everything that
students learn so that you don't
have to go find it elsewhere.
But but I also think in when you look at,
I mean we talking about can we
change the model of development?
And perhaps the question is how
does a young poor person in a rural
village in Kenya or South Africa?
How do they get to think that being wealthy
and comfortable is driving a big posh car?
That sounds a particular way is
because they see the movies and so on.
It.
Is it possible that we can have
In some roles in in,
whether it's sitcoms or whatever in
movies that foreground environmental
sustainability in a in a very good way,
not in a way that says if you.
If you do this then it means
you're going to suffer whatever.
It's not, that's not the idea,
but I think you know we've got
to get the message through many
different platforms that particularly
young people can can take up there.
Message we want to see that
message trending on social media.
You want to see that message, young people
I mean, it's much in South Africa today.
It is much if you wanted to see a shutdown
against unemployed graduates or against
A social grants.
The crowd will be much bigger,
but if you have a March that's looking at
this disinvesting from fossil fuel companies,
it will be very small because sometimes
you know the poorest of the poor.
Do not believe that that's their course.
They might just stand up to fight for land,
whether they know how
to work the land or not.
But the idea is the land
was taken from fore fathers
So we stand up and go
fight land or for whatever,
but not necessarily to go
fight that the wealthy are
polluting our village or a Township.
And I think if we embed the message
very strongly in education in many
spaces will hear young people,
even impoverished countries, standing up.
The voices being heard as much as
their head when they're fighting for
free university education or for anti
colonial matches or something like that.
I would like to see that.
That that message taking up.
In particular, taking a particular by
young people in that way that they refuse
to eat in a dining hall at university.
That's got lots of plastic.
And they say this is not how
we want it to happen.
You can you.
Can we get safe drinks in a particular way?
I mean, you want that as much as you
want a top down message you wanted to
come bottom up where people can own it.
So education is crucial,
knowledge is crucial.
Media literacy is crucial,
but when we're talking about science,
we also obviously have to talk
about the communication of science.
How can we get through,
and how can science be influential
with everything?
The results show. Professor Alt coming
back to one point you mentioned before hand.
How political should science be?
Or is science allowed to do politics?
It's help.
Or should it maybe do politics?
Yes it is.
It should be a well fact that
advising to the broader public via
the channel society or politicians with
certain responsibilities is at least
implicitly on touching and covering
the field of political action.
And that is the political mission of science.
That does not mean that they
should have political goals,
but they should be aware.
Off the consequences there advise
could have and I think we can
observe this in the most recent
purchases of COVID-19 that many
outstanding researchers advising
to their respective governments
have learned how complex these
consequences can be and how complex
Also the entanglement of science with
politics is if they are entering this stage,
and I think
We have to do more and to put
our efforts on qualifying,
you junior researchers senior researchers
to be more aware that communicating
science means not only to explain facts,
it's much more than that.
It is also about attitudes about process is,
I think,
explaining science means not only to
focus on certain concrete figures,
it must be.
Also about informing the process
and showing that science is an
attitude a dynamic attitude,
that there is not one undivided
will choose. that
we're not talking about religion that
we are talking about belief that we're
talking about racial nationality,
and that includes also different
perspectives and from the enrichment
of the word by an informed science
is that we learn more about these
perspectives and that is very important.
Close to the border society to the
so called non experts but also
important in relation to our
politicians and also politicians
have to learn that there might not
be one message which could be derived
from science that there are many
and that in the end they take
the decision and they have their
responsibility to put certain priorities.
And I think this is the holistic approach.
Which had been described already coming
up with early education showing young
people what science can do and what
science is all about and then going on
giving insight into process is showing
how science permanent process and
this is I think this is very important
and this also brings us to this kind
of self reflection of responsibility.
We all need in this whole process.
We need awareness of the consequences
we are doing.
This is included in Word,
the word responsibility and this is
the best possible world driven by
science and science communication.
But we need people who have an informed
trust in science not to trust. This is.
kind of religious attitude.
We need information informed trust
and this is important i think.
So that means that trust is not
a aim by itself,
because we do not want blind trust.
But people are informed enough
to trust that what you say.
Definitely that that's the goal,
and that should be launched very early at
a very early stage in the school level,
and I think we have to completely
reshape our strategies and communicating
science so we have done a lot here.
Made enormous progress in establishing
platforms for open science.
That means that this is the process
which is not a one way or a dead end.
St This is also including the
so-called nonexperts and that.
Critical answers can be very
helpful also for the experts.
So we have to interact on eye level
and we have also interact in an open
manner and open science is a very
important tool here to establish
this kind of informed trust.
Life is quite perform.
Professor Fredman, there is one
question from the audience dealing
with the role of science and politics.
Do we not need to speak out clearly
that everybody,
especially in the rich countries,
have to decrease their own CO2 footprint?
Politicians do not dare to do this.
How can scientists and universities
be more successful in influencing
the public and take action?
I think that there was one very important
thing is what was mentioned recently
and that was how do we inform societies?
How do we connect?
What do we bring to the societies
and that comes back to the tradition
of universities that we have a merit
system which is not communication.
Are science and communication of knowledge.
And I think that we have to
think about that for the future.
Bringing in the the sustainability
into education and research that
that is a way forward and.
Would like to say that the the changes
were made at the University of Gothenburg.
We were environments deceptive,
certified,
already in the beginning of 2000 and
the strong driving forces as well.
As Duflo said
It was the young people across the student.
They were really the strong workforce
or driving forces and they are.
They are already out there in the market.
They are politicians today they are
a leaders of the big companies.
So I think that.
Through the universities we we
really have a responsibility,
but we also have to build up better
communication for if we want to
have higher education and education
in general as a public good,
we need the citizens to support.
Otherwise we don't get the governments
to support education in the way she did.
And as a public good and that that
is a concern in many countries
and also within Europe,
we have that concern so.
We need to bring out what we have and I
think that the young people is really
the strong force we have forward.
They are thinking differently.
They are very keen on learning an.
Maybe also we should say we
should not say just climate change.
We should think about sustainability
because these young people think
that sustainability all the different
perspectives so we cannot pick up.
just what we want others.
That sounds quite optimistic,
but how can we publicly promote the
tolerance of ambiguity instead of
allowing it to be used by populists all
over the world for their own purposes?
Could you unmute please?
I'm sorry the the ambiguity
question is a very important one,
and to some extent it comes back
to how do we communicate science,
and so I'm for instance I'm involved
in sea level research and I mean
there are planners who look into
the literature and they see a new
number and then they think OK.
Now I have to change my plans.
For instance for San Francisco harbor.
I think communicating that part
of science is it is a discourse
that not just one paper.
Is the truth that we actually
have to have several studies.
So coming to some conclusions I think
will easily take out the ambiguity
and do to really communicate the
discourse that we have part of science
to come to a conclusion and an answer.
And I think this if this is
communicated in the right way,
I think a lot of the ambiguity
will be taken out.
Although I'm always a belief
that not all the.
Arguments from people who don't believe.
For instance,
in climate change can be removed this way.
There there is a lot of convincing necessary,
but at least a better communication
of what we know and what we don't
know and including uncertainties.
There will be a very important part of that,
and also in communicating climate change,
information and insight.
We're talking about politics instrument.
I instrumentalizing as science professor
Duflo in an interview last year.
You said that populists make
people no longer feel like losers,
but as victims,
how does that relate to what
we just debated about?
Yes, so the the concerned with
climate change, and in particular
the way that it's been politicized.
Specifically in the US,
but there is also some of that
in continental Europe as well.
Is that people were told that.
And it by populists that basically
they're trying to remove and to change
the way of life that you have had. And
Maybe sometimes implying that
this was not about an objective,
but it was because of some fundamental
opposition that the other side
the you know liberals or what have
you have against this way of life.
And unfortunately there was a in
in the communication and this goes
back to the point was made about
the communication of science.
There is always a little bit of a risk
of being holier than thou and saying,
look if you it's my way or the highway
I'm correcting you at home and I
am educated and you are not so you
have to listen to what I am saying.
An unfortunately for people who
are already feeling fragileised,
for example because they are
suffering economically.
The people who are the most dependent on,
for example,
on coal production in the US are
people who are living in the Appalachia
where their jobs are going anyways.
Climate change or policy or not,
those jobs are disappearing because of
automation because of trade because
of the fact that no matter what we do,
coal is becoming more expensive
compared to wind and solar.
Another type of energy.
And when you have people who have
who are fragilised
They also live in a world where
they think that the.
First of all,
that the the measure of success,
the yardstick of success,
is how much money you're making
and they also leave a world where
they thought that the measure of
success is their children can do
better than themselves,
and they thought that this is what
the American dream you know offers to
people and they still believe in it.
Only there see that it doesn't
apply to them and their right,
because it's just not there anymore.
An we haven't been transparent about
that neither scientists nor the
politicians have been transparent
about the fact that these dreams
of social mobility.
They've just disappeared and
people still believe in it,
but they see that they are not
moving are not going anywhere.
Their children might not do better than them,
and they have a choice between thinking.
Is it my fault? I like am I a loser?
I might keep it. Did someone do that to me?
Now put yourself in this situation.
Of course you would want to believe
that someone did that to you.
And who is that these other people
who are saying that? What do you do?
Your line of work is not legitimate,
or you you are living in industry
that shouldn't be there and.
Then,
once the conversation is set up
in these terms, it's just very,
very difficult to have it,
which is why,
again,
I think that we can't undo the the appeal.
Of a message that is sort of an anti
sustainability populist without a
more popular purpure message that
is also goes with acknowledging
the necessity of changing even our
view of what is a good life is
like you've been
sort of bit of bill of goods. That's not,
you know that's not the good life.
We're talking about universities and science.
You write that we, the economists,
are often too wrapped up in
our models and our methods and
sometimes forget where science ends.
An ideology begins.
Professor Stammer is that also
true for other disciplines,
including your own?
No, I don't think so.
And it probably depends a little
bit on on the field itself.
The I think the important part is to
understand the way science is working.
As I alluded to before,
that there is not one single answer
that we have to investigate things
from various different sides,
but the the I think in in natural
science at least we we do have physical
laws that determine things and.
And that we in fact use, for instance
for climate projections
And matters like this.
It might be.
I mean for economy,
and we just have heard Professor to flow
saying and what what people believe.
And so there I think there are
different fields where maybe
different bases are for for the work,
but in general I would not
say this is true for my field.
Thank you.
Thank you, we already have to
start with the final round.
Unfortunately,
with regard to the time,
I would like to ask you for a comparison.
Professor Duflo sees her role and embed
of economics as that of a plumber.
What can your job be discribed
to in relation to the issue of
climate change and sustainability?
I would be grateful for concise
answers professor Alt,
What craft do you practice?
It's more it should than it
Is it fact I'm I think we
should act as role models,
which includes not only integrating
sustainability issues in our curricular,
which is the case as we've learned
from the study of Professor McCohen,
which will be presented tomorrow.
I have also to act as role models,
which means that universities have a key role
to directly reducing energy consumption,
which is not easy because they are complex.
Tankers and large systems with energy
consuming mainframes as infrastructure,
which is costly and also energy intensive.
And if universities can act as role
models here in directly reaching
carbon neutrality in a couple of
years in reducing traveling rates,
which we have done the last 15 months and
we've learned that system did not collapse.
Then we can be proud of us and then we
can really require this expectation that
we are in a good example for the world.
So we should not only contribute
to understanding the process and to
operationalizing theoretical solutions,
but we should also be a role model
by going forward in finally good
ways to reduce our emissions.
Thank you very much.
Professor Fredman
What would your comparison be?
Well I will start where you ended
and that is we should be the living.
The values within the universities.
Otherwise we are not good role models
and I have an example from my own
university and that was to bring down
the admission and look at the energy
consumption and when the researchers
realized that they could be part of
they could gain money from what they got
from funding and use that for research
instead of paying for for energy.
And we measured that all the time.
Every year after students
also working part of this,
so I think that we have to be that model,
but I would like to add and that
is universities has to see that
we work with local relevance.
We have to provide knowledge,
an education and competence locally.
But we always have to be those saying
that we have a global responsibility.
We are those who should be there for
capacity buildings in or parts of the words.
Otherwise we will not create
sustainable development goals.
Thank you very much.
Professor Phakeng what would
your comparison be?
I think mine would be pottery,
I think as university leaders I mean
students come to us already grown their 18.
It's almost like you getting clay already
mixed and all you need to do is to shape it.
And you shape it so this what what comes
out of that depends on the quality of
the clay and the quality of the hands.
So we offer their hands and the time that,
that,
that that we we spend on shaping their clay.
But of course,
if the quality of the clay is not that good,
there's there's something that
can come out of it.
Of course you do something
to declare you hit it,
and then it will come out dry,
but but we don't get.
We don't start the clay from the beginning.
But in so doing, I'm saying we we,
you know we,
we try to change mindsets of students,
but we also try to give leadership
not only to our students now,
but also to the future for us as a
leading university we see decisions
that we make about environmental
sustainability not only as relevant to
us but also to other univercitys who look
at us and think that's the way to go.
So when we say we
Aim to become a net zero carbon natural
carbon campus by a particular date
an when we work on on dis investing
in fossil fuels and it's hard.
And we see ourselves again
in that process of clear,
we're not we can't, you know, we can be
We can be an exemplar of what kind
of boss can come out of this clay.
Thank you very much Professor Stammer.
What would your comparison be?
Yeah, actually I.
I would agree if she was with whatever
has been said already and to some
extent we are plumbers by in fact
understanding the system and for
understanding, feedbacks and connections.
But I like in particular that
what Professor Phakeng just said
about the creating the leadership,
creating the trust,
creating in fact that people who
understand what we do and what we,
what we know and how we communicate this
and for me
I mean of course you can can call it pottery
or something else but really forming.
The leadership generation that for instance,
in Gothenburg then actually or somewhere
else, steps in and and carry this forward.
And for me this is a very important
part and maybe pottery is a is a
good way of designing it or uh,
calling it.
And I personally as as an professor
at the university do see this in fakt
as a very important part of our world
of our work that we really kind of
bring this information forward into the
next generation and generate people
who can take actually the torch
And lead it forward.
Thank you.
Well thank you very much dear Professor
Duflo
Thank you very much for not only the
plumbing analogy but for most for
your inspiring speech and attendance.
And it gave us so many impulses.
Thank you very much many things to you.
Professor Stammer,
professor Phakeng, professor
Alt, professor
Fredman for taking the time for this,
I think very lively discussion which
could go on, but unfortunately can't.
I'm sure all of you would hear
loud applause now.
If we were sitting next to each other,
which we are not, unfortunately,
thank you very much for your commitment.
Your open an insightful debate and
it was a pleasure and an honor.
I would like to take this opportunity to
thank everyone who makes the GUC possible.
Many thanks to Professor Lensen
and the University of Hamburg.
I would also like to thank the Kerber
Foundation and the German rectors
conference for their indispensable
support for this event and above all,
Many thanks to all the many people
have contributed to the fact
that this event has been able to
take place so smoothly.
Despite such very special conditions,
their work is invaluable to all
of you who will be attending the
GOC in the next couple of days.
I wish you an exciting conference,
take advantage of the privilege
of gathering and sharing.
And to you, ladies and gentlemen,
thank you very much for your interest.
I hope we have been able to make a
small contribution to entering into a
conversation and we started today with
Professor Duflos keynote and let me
close with a quote from her: "democracy
can live with dissent as long as
there is respect on both sides.
But respect demands some understanding."
I hope we could make a small contribution.
To better understand climate change
sustainability and for most universities,
role for both.
Thank you very much and have a nice evening.
Bye bye.