Today is Friday, January 19, 2024.
After a first post yesterday, of the over 60 heads of state that have been at the "Rebuilding Trust" Davos 2024 meetings since last Monday, January 15, today we will focus on a second speaker.
After the "acid" remarks by António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations posted yesterday, today we shift to a financial focus, what was said by John Kerry, diplomat and climate envoy from the United States at the panel "Climate and Nature: Seed Capital Needed”.
Here goes John Kerry.
"I am trying to find a way, everyday, to be able to communicate to people what the urgency really is. And why it is that we need more and more to take seriously what the scientists are telling us and what mother nature is telling us on a pretty regular basis".
"Disruptions to business, disruptions to life, all bear a cost".
"Most governments in the World are not running around with magical surpluses these days ... so by default we see bad decisions being made which have implications for all of us".
Quoted that was in Davos one year ago to help WEF launch the Global AI Action Alliance (GAIA).
"I am here again today because I am convinced that the only way we win this battle is by stepping up exponentially from were we are today and begin to treat this fight almost as if we were at war ... I hate the war analogy ... but unfortunately is apt".
Then he recalled United States efforts during World War II and quoted the book "The Engineers of Victory" by Paul Kennedy.
"At the end of the war we could turn out one B52 bomber every hour - on the hour - in a reconstituted automobile factory. Because we were serious. Could we be doing that today for solar panels? Could we be doing that for blades, for turbines? You bet we could."
"The single biggest push or change that will have an impact around the World right now is money."
"So folks, public private partnerships ... is a critical leverage point for our ability to be able to look people in the eye and say: we are doing everything that we have possible and that we can try to do. We need to unlock and speed up action. We need to bring things to scale."
“Philanthropy can play a far bigger role."
"There are loads of adaptation projects which actually have a return on investment".
"Think bankable deals."
Carbon Credit Markets thinks about carbon credits ;-)
Click at the image below if you want to watch the whole speech, of about 20 minutes.
