A Green Post-Covid World? | Huawei European Talks with Marco Lambertini of WWF

Hello and welcome to another Huawei European Talks. Today our guest is Mr Marco Lambertini, Director General of WWF International.

Hi Marco!

Hi Angeliki!

My name is Angeliki Dedopoulou and I work in the Policy Department of the Huawei Brussels office, focusing on artificial intelligence and European, green-related topics. Today's discussion will be about the links between the European Green Deal and the post-Covid recovery. 

As a brief introduction, Marco could you please tell us what is the overall mission of WWF?

Yes, so WWF ‘the panda organisation’- that's our logo, it's an organisation that effectively is a network of local leadership in operations scattered across more than 100 countries and our mission is for the future where people live in harmony with nature. A future where people in nature both thrive and we are working on protecting species and biodiversity and protecting natural places important for the ecological balance of the planet and reducing the footprint of human activities harmful to the ecology of the planet and ultimately, to our own survival. And that's the excitement I think of the last few decades where we are realising that protecting nature is important for the fantastic biodiversity and wildlife. We all want to protect the planet but also, it is increasingly important for our own future and the future of our children, so I’m very proud of the mission of the organisation. 

Thank you, Marco, for this interesting approach and more specifically, I would like to ask you what is the role of WWF when it comes to climate change commitments? 

So, first of all, you know it's almost impossible to overstate the threat the climate change/climate crisis, in fact, is posing to the planet and to our society as well, and we work in a number of ways with regard to climate change. Perhaps let me summarise three key world streams; the first one is advocating leaders in governments and in business to commit to the science-based ambitions of having a nation by 2030 achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. This is what science is asking us to do in order to stay at 1.5 degrees of global warming and so, advocating government and business to commit and to take action to respect this overall climate goal is an important piece of work that we do across the world. The second one is actually working more specifically with companies through a science-based target for climate initiative together with other organisations where we help companies to identify their carbon footprint and to develop plans to mitigate it in a way that they will contribute to the 2050 carbon neutrality goal of the Paris Agreement and the 1.5 degrees goal. And the third stream is more direct work both through advocacy or direct operations to actually support important natural habitats like forests, wetlands or marine habitats that are so important as carbon sinks. They are sequestering so much carbon today and they are fundamental in our challenge to limit climate change and limit global warming. So, these are the three main…if you like, a summary of the three main streams relative to climate change work.

The whole world has been rocked by the Covid-19 pandemic but organisations and governments worldwide have also stepped up with innovative solutions to try to help stem the spread of the virus, diagnose and treat the sick and at the same time, help the economy get back to normal. During a recent webinar organised by your organisation and the OECD, speakers discussed how nature-based solutions can be part of recovery efforts in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Could you please tell us the position of WFF on this topic?

Yes, so, first of all, let me say that the Covid-19 crisis has been a tragedy for all of us; the economy has been brought to its knees and the most vulnerable straighter society has been affected even deeper across the world. But in all this tragedy, there is a big lesson. The lesson is that we need to rebalance our relationship with the planet and the recovery…the economic recovery plans that are being discussed as we speak are a great opportunity to begin to shift financial investment to greening the economy and that's where the learning from Covid-19 needs to be embraced by politicians and business leaders as well. And investing in nature-based solutions is one dimension of greening the recovery of the economy and nature-based solutions are about protecting key natural systems like forests, wetlands, mangroves, many marine habitats that play an important role in both mitigating the rise of climate change by absorbing carbon or avoiding the release of carbon, but also help humans to adapt to the already existing very prominent impact of climate change, particularly the most vulnerable communities affected by extreme weather around the world. And so, investing in these solutions is a key component, we're asking for the government to prioritise nature-based solutions as an important component of the fight against climate change, but not just climate change. Protecting forests is also important to guarantee water security, protecting biodiversity is important to guarantee the pollinators that are so important for more than two-thirds of the crops that we grow and produce food for us and so on and so forth. So, nature-based solutions are more than just for the climate because frankly, we depend on nature more than nature depends on us and our future depends on the future of a healthy planet in natural systems.

Do you believe that technologies like artificial intelligence can help biodiversity in a post- Covid period and if yes, how exactly?

So, first of all, technology alongside policy regulation, but also culture and behaviours, is one of the key pillars of the recipe to achieve a sustainable future and the main example already of technology helping developing sustainability and in terms of biodiversity conservation specifically in wildlife conservation, we have ourselves some interesting examples already utilised. For example, we're collecting/helping researchers in the field to collect pictures from camera traps that they pose in the forest and the artificial intelligence can help identify whether these pictures are of the same animal so they will have a better estimate of how many animals are in the forest and monitor the trends over time. One other example is to have similar artificial intelligence applied to systems of monitoring poachers in protected areas, able to identify the behaviours or even the faces of some of these individuals and helping rangers and law enforcement to take action. So, these are just two examples, but many others are available already.

What is WWF's vision of a successful European Green Deal and how are you collaborating with various organisations to help achieve this?

Yes, so, first of all, let me say we absolutely commend the European Commission, the European Union for embracing this very powerful vision of a green new deal and we need that type of leadership at this point in time in the world and we're really grateful to the European Union for that. It's ambitious of course, we are asking in particular for more, but in itself, it's already very ambitious. The focus has to be on implementation, whether we're talking about the climate law that is under discussion right now or the biodiversity plan, the farm to fork strategy which is about food and how we would develop food in a healthy and sustainable way. All these dimensions to the European Green Deal need strong political will and determination to be implemented, that's super important. So, focused implementation is essential, and the second essential part is the focus on investment, making sure that these policies, these new goals are actually adequately resourced through the various mechanisms that exist already in the European Union. But also, through additional resources and investment, as well as redirection of the current European Union budget towards green incentives and green investments, including in fact also the Covid-19 recovery plan. The hundreds of billions of euros that are discussed and invested in the economy to recover after this Covid crisis could really be a major, super-powerful stimulus to shift towards a green economy. That means effectively to continue to grow and develop and create jobs but not destroying the environment. So shifting from harmful activities, for example, fossil fuel to non-harmful activities, for example, renewable energy, from chemical agriculture to biological agriculture/organic agriculture and all that requires a transition that has to be just and carefully planned. But ultimately, will provide even more resources and even better economies and even more jobs than the current system provides. So, implementation and financing are two key dimensions of success. 

Another aspect to take into consideration in this discussion about the green economy is the accessibility to various technologies and solutions that can actually lead us to a more sustainable and green economy but also, people need to be equipped with the right skills. So, what skills do organisations need according to you in order to achieve a green transition towards our economies? Does your organisation have perhaps a special programme which focuses on the promotion of green skills?   Thank you. 

So, the two dimensions to your question- the first one is about the skills that an organisation like WWF and many other organisations and stakeholders in this process have been driving society to a sustainable future needs to have ourselves inside our own operations and it's true that an organisation like WWF over the last maybe, 10 or 20 years has increasingly diversified our skill set in our staff and our teams. Today, we work on wildlife so we have field biologists, but also we work on finances and financial flows so we have people coming from the economic and the finance sector, we have people dealing with corporates driving sustainability, we have people working on issues related to food production. So, definitely, an organisation that aims to contribute to the sustainable agenda as a whole needs to diversify skills. Then the other dimension to your question is what skills need to actually exist and will perhaps evolve in society and you know when we talk about changing the economy to a green economy, when you talk about a new green deal, we're talking about effectively a transition; a transition from today where the economic model is developing at the expense of the environment to a model where the economy will continue to grow in harmony with the environment, protecting the environment. In fact, it protects the foundation that allows the economy to be thriving. So, though that transition is to be just, is to be politically well-planned and economically well-planned and is to really shift the workforce from one sector- the old way of doing things to sectors that do things in a new way- sustainable and green. And so, that kind of transition is to be carefully planned and in individuals needs to, if you like, shift to new jobs and particularly, young people will have a great opportunity in the next few years to increasingly find green jobs that can give them what they need to live for their own prosperity and lifestyles, but at the same time give them a great sense of purpose because there will be jobs that will not destroy our planet.

Well, it's been great having you as a guest on our Huawei European Talks today Marco. Thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you.

And that's all for now. I hope you'll join us next time for a new edition of Huawei European Talks. To follow our discussions online you can follow the hashtag Huawei European Talks but also on Twitter at Huawei EU. Thank you.

Thank you.