A holistic view on how to achieve net zero

Damien Guirco:

Good morning and a very warm welcome to today's event ‘A holistic view on how to achieve Net Zero’ with a really exciting lineup of both national and international speakers. My name is Damien Guirco, I'm Associate Director of Search and also Acting Director at the UTS Institute for Sustainable Futures. Brilliant group of over 100 staff and graduate students working to create change towards sustainable futures through applied research and importantly in partnership with government, industry, and the community. 

To begin this morning and on behalf of all of us here, I wish to acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora nation upon whose unseated ancestral lands we meet each other today, a pair of respects to Elders past and present acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge and culture for this land, knowledge and culture they sit at the heart of universities and society and have such important roles alongside technology in achieving Net Zero. 

On behalf of the Institute for Sustainable Futures and PWC, I would again like to welcome you to this event as we explore what it will take to achieve the Paris climate agreement of limiting global warming to well below two degrees. This is an urgent challenge, an imperative, underscored by the recent IPCC report released this month. And today we're taking a holistic view from energy scenarios to actions that organisations are implementing to financing of the energy transition. 

How can we work together for a fast and fair transition, including through a better cooperation between the real economy and financial services? Has the international landscape changed as we move away from fossil fuels to renewables? What opportunity does the EU-Australia partnership offer, remembering that the EU has Net Zero written into law and will affect carbon border adjustment mechanisms depending on the carbon intensity of its inputs, including from Australia? 

In a moment, I'll hand over to Georgia Coutra, who brings 20 years of experience from Australia in the UK to enrol as director in PWC's energy transition team. Georgia will introduce our speakers and also chair the panel discussion. Before doing so, I'd like to advise that today's session is being recorded. We'll enable you to pass on the insights from today's session to colleagues and friends who weren't able to join. And finally, in the case of an emergency, the exit doors are to the right and down the stairs. Come out the way you came in and assemble at the front of the building should a fire alarm or other emergency requires to vacate the room. You can follow the speakers and await further instructions from the UTS Wardens. Thank you and over to you, Georgia. Introducing the speakers. Welcome. 

Georgia Coutra:

Thank you, Damien. Good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here and thank you for joining us for what is bound to be an interesting and informative discussion. I'd also like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands on which we meet today and pay my respects to their Elders past, present, and emerging. These lands that we stand in this room on are the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation, and they are spectacular. They're a great reminder of how important it is to be working towards Net Zero and a sustainable future. It gives me great pleasure to introduce our speakers today who will then join me for panel discussion. This will also be your opportunity to put any questions to our panelists, so have a think as you listen to them if there's anything that you'd like to ask them. Our first speaker is Dr. Sven Teske, who is an Associate Professor and Research Director right here at the Institute of Sustainable Futures. His research focuses on energy decarbonisation pathways for specific industry sectors and regions, working towards Net Zero by 2050. Dr. Teske holds a PhD in economics and has over 28 years of experience in renewable energy market and policy analysis.

He's undertaken ground-breaking research that has been published in numerous reports and books both in relation to the Australian market and global markets for renewable energy. He is an expert in his field and has been a member of global expert review committees and advisory panels, providing key input into global energy transition matters. Our second speaker is Alison Atherton, who is also Research Director here at the Institute for Sustainable Futures. She has a background in social sciences, chartered accountancy advisory, and over a decade of experience in sustainability research and consultancy. Ali advises all levels of government, not-for-profit organisations, and the private sector. The consistent theme underpinning her research is organisational and societal change for sustainability, focusing on corporate sustainability, energy policy, and sustainable finance. Alison is particularly interested in understanding how businesses and the finance sector can support the achievement of the Paris climate agreement and UN Sustainable Development Goals through responsible investment and corporate sustainability. And last but not least, my colleague Dr. Jurgen Peterseim, who is an Adjunct Professor here at UTS, having completed his PhD here in Sydney. He currently is based in Germany, and as part of his role, he identifies collaboration opportunities between UTS and German research organisations and develops these into research projects. Jurgen is also a net-zero expert on global hydrogen SME, and he works in PWC sustainability services team in Germany, supporting clients in their energy transition journey. He's been working in the energy sector for more than 20 years, with work taking him all over the world. For more than 10 years, he's focused on strategy, sustainability market analysis, and product development, working with clients to help them formulate net-zero roadmaps for a sustainable future. I'm personally very excited about hearing the presentations today, and without further delay, I'll hand over to Sven for the first presentation.

Sven Teske:

Thank you for coming and good morning. I will jump straight into the presentation. I'll start with basically the framework. Why do we actually need Net Zero and why do we actually do what we do? I start with a carbon budget. The carbon budget is basically the budget we have left over time to actually achieve the Paris climate agreement, which says that we want to limit global temperature rise to well below two degrees and one and a half degrees, basically the target that was actually an achievement to agree on that and was in 2015. 

I personally was basically at all climate conferences almost, so I started in COP1 in Berlin and still continue to do that. As you probably hear from my accent, I'm like Jeurgen, a German Aussie, so you have two citisenships: Germany and Australian. The carbon budget was published last year, and we have seen the summary of all the IPCC over the last week. So the carbon budget is not a fixed budget for one fixed temperature; it's basically if we want to achieve one and a half degrees with 67 percent certainty, we have 400 gigatons left, and that's between 2020 and 2050. So we already emitted almost three years' worth of carbon emissions, and the last two years we had about altogether 70 gigatons, so we have quite spent our budget to some extent. If we want to achieve it by 50, we have 500 gigatons. Our scenario, the One Earth Climate Model, focuses still on the one and a half-degree target with 67 percent certainty. The International Energy Agency has published a Net Zero scenario two years ago for the first time, and they had a budget of 500 gigatons. So what does that mean? We put together basically the results of our global scenario in one graph. The black curve you see is the trajectory of carbon emissions of energy-related carbon emissions, and the orange light and dark green.

So basically the land use emissions which basically need to not even stop but actually need to go positive so they need to um sequester CO2. There is not an either or we have to decarbonise the energy system and achieve the reduction of land use change. We need to stop deforestation start reforestation and all at the same time. You might know the term low hanging fruits those fruits are gone 20 years ago we actually don't have them anymore we need to start everything we need to start efficiency we need to start on the generation side renewables we need to start stop deforestation and start reforestation all at the same time so we can't wait that's also very important. Then to see that we can't offset energy-related carbon emissions does not work because we don't have enough sequester a potential to keep of fossil fuels running and delay a phase out by planting a few trees besides the fact there are good scientific papers like I call it K Dooley from the University of Melbourne who did a very good analysis how much potential we actually have and that's about one and a half gigatons a year while we have about 35 gigatons of carbon emissions every year so it's not going to work so we need to really focus on the decarbonisation of the energy sector. So we have a model so it's very important to say that the model an energy scenario is not a prediction so what I present is not what I believe happens it's what needs to happen and I hope that majority of that will happen somehow but it will not uh it's not a prediction.

So we basically have a few assumptions and sort of main assumptions that once the carbon budget I talked about the other one is the GDP production projection we just take the projection from the um world Bank on a global level and we have the population development which we take from the United Nations offices on organisations so we don't change anything like that in this regard and we have a certain level of amount of technologies we use the technologies that are currently available and or near-market ready those this is the next three slides I'll just jump through very quickly are an assessment of the IPCC report and they basically show you a whole range of different technologies required with the different potentials to decarbonise the majority sort of the main potent technologies are all related to energy efficiency and solar and wind technologies. 

When I started I studied Engineering in Germany in the late 80s early 90s and wind energy just started and it was really expensive solar and Germany was two dollars a kilowatt hour we are now at between two and five cents 10 cents depending on where you live that means we actually haven't have an economic alternative so we use the whole range of Technologies we what we don't use for the energy sector is carbon CCS carbon sequestration carbon capture and storage and that is due to the fact that in the last 30 years there were two plans one about 120 megawatts each which is a third of a fourth of a normal average co-power plan and it was one in the US and one in Canada and both operated a few years not very successfully in closed down. So this is not an option obviously for a mass market we have thousands of core power plants so we do not factor that in we have a number of other options and mechanisms and we use all of the um the range listed by the IPCC buildings are very important. I mean we have a very good example here so energy-efficient buildings sustainable buildings as well as different Transport Systems which is not just a transition from a fossil fuel powered SUV to an electric SUV but there's also public transport, there's walking, there's small distances or shorter distances planning.

We basically had to change our model entirely for the finance sector. So the model I'm working with, I was involved in the development over the last 20 years together with the German Aerospace Centre at DLR, and that was an energy model a very classic energy model, and you can calculate CO2 emissions with that. For the finance sector, you need to actually separate for sector one, two, and three emissions because that was basically a proposal of the World Resource Institute around 2004 to put the carbon emissions into the perspective of responsibility. So, give you an example, the scope one emission of a car manufacturer is the process to manufacture the car, scope two is what you buy from others, in that case mainly electricity, so what is the emission from the electricity on average, and scope three is what your product actually does over a lifetime. That basically means that with a combustion engine, you're driving around and emitting CO2. It's not a direct responsibility of the car company as such because they don't drive the car, but they produce the car and you basically drive around with it. That's why scope one, two, and three were implemented. So, we were, I think, I do not exaggerate if I say we were the first ones who actually had a global scenario where we subdivided those emissions and also by sector. 

Another requirement for our model was that the international finance industry also has very specific sectors where they invest. So, for example, there is a global industry categorisation standard, and that means that a specific industry, let's say the apartment paper industry, has a number and defines exactly where the industry starts and where the industry stops. Or like steel, it starts with iron ore mining and stops with a raw steel product, and then you hand it over to someone else who actually then uses the steel to produce a car, to build a building, and that's sort of then in the other category. So, we actually had to divide all the scenarios into those categories so we can calculate key performance indicators, emission targets for a very specific category. And that's what we have done here at ISF over the past four years. We also had to solve the problem that if you can imagine when you have scope one, two, and three emissions, if you put them all together because you're basically handing over the responsibility, you end up with three times or four times more emissions, but they're actually there. So, we have around 35 gigatons CO2 emissions, and when we calculated for the first time with scope one, two, and three, we ended up with more than 120 gigatons. That doesn't work. So, we basically had to find a way how to report it. So, we have a primary sector, which is basically the companies who produce the fossil fuels, who explore the fossil fuels and provide the first step of the energy value chain. Then scope two is a secondary primary energy, which is basically utilities. They take fuel, convert it into electricity and heat, and then sell it to customers. And then we had the third step, the actual end-use sector. So, we basically had to define this is primary, this is secondary, and that is the end use in order to keep the 35 gigatons over all three steps. 

So, that's another thing. We have a graph that shows the emission flow from the oil well to the end consumer. And the message in this graph is that it's not one sector, it's a lot. So, we basically have to think about many different technologies, not just one. In terms of results, we have published our results for the global situation and for OECD North America and also Europe. You can download all the scenarios and all the results from our websites, from the ISF website, and we basically compare them with results from the International Energy Agency and different are not going into the details. 

There are the finance institutions have different ways of presenting emissions, and that's also a thing we basically have to work on in the over the next few years to actually standardise it because if you ask a finance expert in the US, in Europe, in Australia, you get three different answers how to present the emissions, so that needs to be standardised as well. I have to say we are working together with the Net Zero asset owner Alliance and G fans, the global finance, I keep saying Finance Net Zero, I keep forgetting what the acronym means, and the United Nations, responsible investment and this work is funded by those organisations and the European climate Foundation. 

We are currently in the last phase of scenarios for all G20 countries, which is really interesting because we are actually breaking down the carbon emissions budget to different countries, as diverse as Australia, Saudi Arabia, France, Canada, the US, and China, so we basically, we're going to be ready, and we have the data available over the next four months. So just a sort of a glimpse into the results you see, the bit between the two red lines, you have the emission password of 16 different sectors between 2025 and 2030. The only message I wanted to get across is everyone needs to move fairly quickly in order to actually get there, so we have steep reductions, the majority a bit of reductions between now and 2030, and we'd basically need to have our emissions between now and 2030, and we have six and a half years left basically to do that. 

We also do a sensitivity analysis by sector and by country to say if there is a five-year delay, so what we assume is we have the same emissions for all the sectors straight, and then they start to reduce, what does that mean, and then if we have a five-year delay, we already, we are impossible to reach, 67 percent likelihood we are already at 50 percent or even below 50 percent, and we do the same currently, and we're not ready yet for all the different countries, so what happens if 18 countries out of the G20 countries actually do this and two won't, and obviously, it's very important which countries won't do it, in terms of the emission global budget, and last but not least, we have calculated a global budget for the different Industries, so we have a remaining budget for the industries, and that's basically and that's on a global level, and we feed this into the IPCC and UNF ICCC process for the global stock check which currently happens, so that's basically a stock pay of CO2 emissions who has what and with that, just a little ad, and then I'm gone, those are the two books, free download at Springer Nature, and you can read all the details, two times 500 pages about how we did it, thank you very much.

Alison Atherton:

So thanks Sven for that great analysis, of the pathways to decarbonisation, I'm going to focus now on some of the supporting mechanisms needed to achieve the pathways, particularly climate Finance. So we know that finance is key to achieving the Paris Climate Agreement and the 2030 SDGs, but there's so much happening in the climate or sustainable finance space that it would kind of take a whole day to provide an overview of everything that's happening, and I have about 10 minutes, so I'm just going to give you a brief flavour of some of the significant regulatory developments, particularly around disclosure risk management and transition planning, and I'll also briefly discuss what's needed in terms of upskilling to support the transition.

So firstly just a word on the scale of the climate financing task, and this is climate finance data over the past 10 years that's been compiled by the climate policy initiative, in very simple terms, on the left-hand side, the dark green is the last 10 years of climate finance, and on the right-hand side is the range of financing that we need to achieve a one and a half-degree scenario, so the simple message there is that financing has increased over the last 10 years, but it's really far short of what we need, and so there's been, on average, over the last 10 years, about 480 billion dollars average annual, and that needs to increase to at least 4.3 trillion dollars average annual flows, and that's by 2030. And the private sector investment has been increasing, but it's smaller than the public sector investment, and it's not clear how fast Net Zero commitments are translating into changes in investment on the ground, so what's going to help to drive the changes that we need in the finance sector, there's no Silver Bullet, but regulation and skills acquisition are going to be core elements, it's really been for too long possible for organisations to say that they're taking action on climate without actually doing so, and that's starting to change.

So we're now moving into a regime where reporting and disclosure is going to be mandated, we're greenwashing will no longer be tolerated and where Net Zero commitments will be closely scrutinised, standardisation of financial practice is being driven at the highest levels globally by the G20 sustainable Finance working group, the G20 is supporting integration of climate risk into Financial practices from Prudential regulation to accounting standards, a significant development in this space was the establishment of the international sustainability Standards Board, the ISSB, and this space is absolutely full of acronyms, so I apologise for that, the ISSB has released draft sustainability and climate disclosure standards that will become effective from January 2024. S1 covers general requirements for disclosure of sustainability-related financial information and S2 focuses on climate-related disclosures, and it's largely based on the recommendations of the task force on climate-related financial disclosure which has been widely adopted as the basis of climate risk reporting here and internationally and the aim is really to help harmonise Global Climate related Financial disclosures in Australia. 

Government and regulators are also integrating climate risk into financial practices consultation on the Australian government's climate-related financial disclosure paper closed in February this year and that consultation explored key considerations for the design and implementation of standardised internationally aligned disclosure of climate-related financial risks and opportunities in Australia. Based on that consultation paper, it seems likely that we will have mandatory climate-related financial disclosure in Australia, and it will align with the ISSB standard in the regulatory space. Key developments include the issuance of guidance from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), which has also undertaken a climate vulnerability assessment with the five major Banks, and guidance on greenwashing from the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC). ASIC has also launched its first Court proceedings alleging greenwashing, which I will return to shortly.

One of the key levers that APRA is using to integrate climate risk into the financial system is its Prudential Practice Guide on Climate Change Financial Risks. The APRA guidance on climate risks aligns with Prudential standards on risk management and governance. APRA wants to ensure that organisations undertake sound risk management and make well-informed decisions and that they understand the imperative to address climate risk within that context. APRA has made it clear that firms in the finance sector need to understand not only their own business exposure to climate-related risks but also to assess the potential financial risks of climate change of their customers and counterparties. It's important to understand here that APRA views management of climate risk as a necessary element of sound risk management and governance, in other words, as a normal practice.

So what do we actually mean when we talk about climate risk? Well, APRA's view of climate risk broadly aligns with other commonly accepted understandings of climate risk, such as those in the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). APRA considers that financial institutions need to consider the potential impacts of physical, transition, and liability climate risks, and that refers to the financial risks related to those impacts. The guidance highlights that better practice in monitoring climate risks includes both a quantitative and a qualitative approach, including developing metrics to measure and monitor climate risks appropriate to the business. That includes climate-related targets. Targets should be linked to metrics and aligned to the overall business strategy and risk management framework. Targets may also reference external benchmarks such as sector, national, or international targets. That was just to pull out one example of what's in that guidance. It's a pretty comprehensive approach.

And then in June 2022, ASIC issued a guidance note on how to avoid greenwashing for superannuation and managed funds in relation to investments. Greenwashing is a practice of misrepresenting the extent to which a financial product or investment strategy is environmentally friendly, sustainable, or ethical. Particular risks of breaching the misleading statement prohibitions arise in relation to representations made about future matters that are not supported with reasonable grounds. That's very legalistic language, so what does that mean? Well, if you state that you will achieve a certain carbon emissions target, such as a net-zero carbon emissions target by a particular date, that could be considered a representation about a future matter, and such a representation may be deemed to be misleading if you don't have reasonable grounds for making the representation. In other words, if you don't have a plan for how you're going to achieve the target. So if your product has set a certain sustainability target, to avoid breaching the prohibitions, you need to clearly explain what your target is, how and when you expect to meet it, how you're going to measure progress, and any assumptions you've relied on in setting the target.

ASIC is now moving from guidance to court action to hold firms accountable for greenwashing. Action against greenwashing is one of ASIC's 2023 enforcement priorities, and in February this year, they launched their first court proceedings alleging greenwashing against a major superannuation fund for allegedly making misleading statements about the sustainable nature and characteristics of some of its superannuation investment options. And that might be the first of many such actions by regulators.

So what do financial institutions and corporations need to do to avoid greenwashing and to ensure that they're on track to achieve their Net Zero commitments? A key element is developing a robust transition plan. EU law will soon require companies to report a 1.5 degrees climate transition plan and disclose sustainability impacts in their annual report. However, evidence from Europe suggests that so far, companies are falling short. Analysis by CDP and Oliver Wyman of European transition plans finds that around half of European companies report having a 1.5 degrees climate transition plan, but under 5% show advanced progress in developing one. So they have plans, but they're just not very good. And up to 40% of European corporate loans to companies that they analyse, that's around 1.8 trillion Euros, are financing companies with limited progress to align with 1.5 degrees. So currently, we're really falling short of what we need on transition plans as well.

The UK is leading on this, and they're tackling it through their Transition Pathway Initiative (TPI). The TPI has stated that a transition plan is integral to an entity's overall strategy, setting out a plan to contribute to and prepare for a rapid global transition towards a low greenhouse gas emissions economy. It has developed this transition plan disclosure framework, and that's a sector-neutral framework for companies and financial institutions to develop gold-standard transition plans structured around five elements: foundation, implementation, strategy, engagement, metrics and targets, and governance. I'm just going to pull out a couple of elements that are relevant to the discussion today. So the framework asks companies to describe its objectives, priorities, interim targets, and milestones for responding, contributing to the whole of economy transition. And companies are expected to disclose and report annually against key metrics and targets used to assess progress, including governance, business, operational, financial, and greenhouse gas metrics and targets.

So you can see from all of this that there's really quite a high degree of convergence around how organisations are expected to respond to climate risk and to manage those climate risks. The TPI framework also specifically references skills, so how the entity ensures that it has the appropriate skills, competencies, and knowledge across the organisation to deliver the transition plan. Skills are an issue that has been relatively under-discussed, but it's just now starting to get some traction.

Last year, the Investor Group on Climate Change (IGCC) with support from Sustainalytics' Climate Resilient Enterprise Unit undertook an online survey of Australian sustainable finance professionals to explore the skills issue. They focused on climate skills, which they defined as climate or climate risk-related skills, knowledge areas, or competencies. From the respondents, the most important skills were around climate-related reporting and disclosure and climate risk management, which isn't surprising given that's where the regulation is focusing. Also important are customer and client engagement on climate-related issues, understanding investment opportunities, and scenario analysis. However, despite the importance of climate skills to the respondents, a significant number (63%) feel that they need to upskill. More than three-quarters of respondents say that climate skills are in moderate to high demand in their organisation, but the current demand for climate skills is much greater than supply. Nearly 40% said that there's much less supply than demand. And there's a clear expectation from survey respondents that demand for climate skills is set to grow, and we're also hearing this anecdotally across the financial system, that it's really hard to find people with the relevant skills.

So given this gap, what do we actually need to do to accelerate and support the development of climate skills across the financial system? We need system-wide capacity building. We need a framework for defining and assessing skills and competencies, capacity building within organisations, and a whole system-wide uplift on skills. That's going to require access to relevant, targeted, and tailored short courses, in-house training provision, and a deeper incorporation of the relevant content into core financial qualifications and professional curricula. That's also going to require collaboration between universities and training providers, government, and the financial services sector to really identify what the training needs are and support the development of relevant learning offerings. And we think there's also a place for an annual survey like this, which goes deeper into understanding the current state of play and the evolving demand and supply of climate-related skills.

In summary, to drive the shifts that we need across the financial system to support the transition to net-zero, we're going to require rapid alignment across the financial system with the evolving regulatory developments. We need integration of climate risk management into business as usual, fit-for-purpose transition planning, and acceleration and collaboration on climate-related skills and capabilities development. And at the foundation of all of this, we need a recognition that robust, science-based decarbonisation pathways are really core to understanding how we can avoid dangerous climate change. And that's exactly the work that Sven is providing. Thank you.

Jurgen Peterseim:

So, I mean, we have seen now the global transition trends. We've seen it for countries, for sectors. But how does that actually translate into businesses implementing the energy transition? I'd like to take you through a few examples. So, when we start with this whole topic, we always look at, hey, what is the overall impact of the business? So, there are two sides to it. We call it the climate house. There's the impact of the business on the world, so it's basically the scope one, two, and three emissions that Sven just mentioned. And the other worldview is really what's the world impact on me. This is related to everything, reporting we see, the financial sector sort of putting pressure on industries. And you can see this really by answering a couple of questions. You know, how will this transition risk affect my businesses? And what opportunities can I actually yield from this climate-related work that's coming up?

So, this is how we typically start to understand both sides of the equation. And then we start looking into, let's say, this five-step approach. So, we typically have these five steps. Today, I will only focus on the first three. We look at really what's the baselining, understanding emissions. Then we start looking at a net-zero strategy, and then the transformation roadmap. So, afterwards, you have all this steering implementation. So, basically project management. And then, obviously, there's this reporting side, which is compulsory. But today, let's focus on the first few.

And let's start with the foot printing. So, Sven already introduced these three different categories, right? Let's go one, two, and three. And you see it here. You have, as Sven said, scope one, your own emissions, burning diesel in boilers or gas in boilers. Scope two is procuring electricity, and scope three, they're different ones. There's upstream and downstream. So, if you think about your product, as Sven mentioned, the car earlier, upstream would be getting all these materials in. Downstream is then, for example, the use phase. And you would think, well, if you have the standard process, it's fairly easy. The problem is that the footprint of different companies, and this is publicly data, is very different. 

So, you see, if you think about the power sector, so take the RWE, it's mostly scope one. They're burning coal, they're burning gas, they're burning oil. So, the other scopes are limited. If you look at Nestle, for example, they have a heavy supply chain domination. So, upstream emissions, getting their products. And then, if you look at this car manufacturer, you can see the majority of the emissions really is downstream emissions. So, basically, what Sven mentioned, using diesel, petrol in the cars across the lifetime. And then you have these financed emissions. So, JB is an investment firm, and you can see now they also have a very different emission profile, which means for every customer, you have to look at, "Hey, what's the footprint? What are the differences?" And then, your solutions are different to each application. 

So it's never the same You cannot say we just put heat pumps into every company. It will not necessarily meet their target. What's next if we have a client? We start looking at what is the ambition level of their peers, their customers, and regulated or recommended targets. Think about the science-based targeting initiative. And you can see there are different scopes. They said scope one and two targets. Let's scope three targets are always more ambitious because it's easier to achieve for the company. But they have better control. You have short-term and long-term targets. And what you regularly see now is, at least for this Automotive OEM example, that you need to have 100% renewable energy in your facilities. So, see the green power, and it keeps going further. Some of the automotive AMS actually put mechanisms in place where they say, 'By 2038, I think we'll only buy a stuff of you if it is a green product.' So there is a carbon intensity attached to things like steel, plastic, and other products. So, understanding benchmarking is really a crucial aspect to understand what the industry is doing and what your clients are doing. Because if you do not meet the target of your clients, you will not sell to this client in the future. Then you look at the different steps on how to implement this. Sven has shown the curve on how to reduce emissions, so there are different targets. By 2030 is the near-term target, cutting missions in half is like a rule of thumb. That's what we need to meet the target achievements. 

Then you have longer-term targets, basically net-zero targets, 2040, 2045, 2050, depending on the company. This is really the key. It needs to be the focus of the activity, actual decarbonisation. Because you have the others as well, which is then for the last, let's say, few percent, 10%, for example, is the offsetting. It was mentioned before, and I think it's pretty critical. We had a huge, you can call it a scandal in Europe just recently. It was a big time in the press, and the company did lose reputation because they tried to get away with offsetting only, right? And it just didn't work. The press came across it. So I think we will see a very different approach towards that in the future. And then you also have, as a last step, it's called this Beyond value chain mitigation. It's basically one-zero Valley Champions, decarbonised help others to decarbonise evolution. But this, as I said, needs to come after the actual implementation of decolonisation measures.

So how do we do this? This is a case study from an actual client. So we look at the emission profiles per site. What are the emissions in a particular year, say any site in Spain, France, you name it? And then we look at all the different measures we have to reduce carbon emissions. So there would be power grid decarbonisation, compressed optimisation, heat recovery, solar rooftop. There are plenty of opportunities, and you start listing the individual potential of each and how far does it get you towards a certain target, towards this near-term target. So here it's these 2030 target of 19400 tons emissions left. And then you can put a price tag on that. You know how much is going to cost you to put in an electric boiler or heat recovery system or start using electric trucks. And then we come up with these investment plans for the next, let's say, six and a half years we have. Assuming certain assumptions, right? Internal rate of return, carbon prices, all of that. And this gives you the pathway of what do you need to implement. It does not show you what are the least-cost measures to actually get there. So what's the ideal abatement cost curve, and that's what we do in the next step. We then translate this into using all the capex data or the Opex data. We start translating it. How much does it cost? What is the actual abatement cost in euro per ton or currency per ton of CO2? And what you see, a lot of the measures that fall into these categories are quite commonly efficiency measures, like electric efficiency, heat recovery, thermal efficiency behind furnaces, behind ovens. Also avoiding waste in processes, so less grip of a certain product. Always falls into this category. And then you move further right, you have higher costs coming. 

So eventually, you're sort of at almost no abatement cost. That's typically where electricity, green electricity comes in. And then if you go further to the right, you see the high abatement cost options. That's where you typically have, at the moment, hydrogen would sit there, hydrogen trucks, hydrogen power generation, all of those different activities. This is how we plot this. And then the client basically has an idea of, hey, these are my levers. This is how far they're going to get me. This is the priority order and the investment I need. And then we do this for different scenarios. I mean, Sven mentioned there are different transition pathways, different scenarios. And depending on the scenario you choose, your abatement cost changes. If you're in an ambitious world, your grid decarbonisation, for example, is going to be quicker. So you don't have to implement as many levers because the power grid is already decarbonising. Different to another scenario, you think about these SPS where we do not abate as quickly, and then you would have to procure renewable electricity. So it comes at a higher cost to you to decarbonise these activities. 

And then the last step, really, which I think is an absolutely crucial step we need to do, is looking at what is the impact of my products. Basically, looking at these scope three emissions. A nice example is steel. So in this steel, it's fairly carbon intense. So you talk about roughly 1.9 tons of CO2 per ton of steel produced, right? And it comes at a certain cost. You can see it here, you know, it's like 400 and 90 euros around about. If you talk about green steel at the moment, you will see the price is significantly higher compared to conventionally produced steel. And this is a technology thing. So you would have to build a new plant. It's called a DI doctorate's iron plant. You have to use either natural gas or hydrogen to produce this steel. And these are higher cost than cooking coal and the carbon price at the moment, right? But if you look forward and think, hey, with the cost trajectories of hydrogen and the cost capex estimates of steel plants going forward, you can see actually the impact going forward is actually that you have green steel being more competitive compared to grey or fossil steel at the moment. And it's partly because of economy of scale, it's technology learnings, but it's also the carbon price being added to the fossil steel. And that's an interesting example because you can actually today find ways to implement or to pass on the cost of the additional cost of green steel. 

So there's a beautiful example in Sweden. They struggled to build the first plant, and the local iron ore company power company came together, and they partnered with Volvo on how can they actually introduce green steel into the market. And Volvo said, "Well, for all the prototype cars and some of the premium cars, we'll buy all the steel." And the steel in the car is typically for a larger car, 700 euros per car. So if you think, well, Volvo was selling these premium cars, if there's another 700 euros on top of it, does not really matter. It does not affect the final price of the car. And that's how they actually managed to get this first project off the ground by managing to find an off taker who can actually then absorb the cost. And then you have the finance to build the first plants and demonstrate the technology. With that, thank you, and I'm looking forward to the Q&A. 

Georgia Coutra:

I’d ike to say a big thank you to our speakers today, and I'll invite everyone up here to join me for our panel discussion. You guys are going to have to share a mic, so please pass it around.

I'll ask a few questions first, but I'd really encourage you to think about any questions you might want to ask our panel. So I'll be handing over to you guys shortly, but just to sum up, I was very interested to hear all the presentations today, and I think I could keep asking questions for hours. And very important to me in terms of key messages, some of the great work that has been happening in terms of the modelling that's been talked about and looking at emissions and scenarios. And I think it's great that that data is available, and I know when you said more is coming in the next few months.

But really the key message there being the time to act is now, and we're already too late. Which is encouraging that the message is out there, but concerning as well, particularly when you look at the delay scenarios. And the fact that lots of initiatives need to be taken forward simultaneously. It's not just about energy transition, it's about all the initiatives that are going to get us to a net-zero future. And then bearing that in mind, listening with interest to the update from Ali on some of the regulatory changes that are happening around the need to report on climate risk and so on, and also the skills that are needed to allow that to happen. Again, interesting to hear how we're falling behind a little bit again, but lots of positive initiatives, I think, being taken forward. And lastly, looking at the activities that organisations need to take themselves in planning and rolling out net-zero plans, and how that can be challenging in different industries, especially those that are the really high emitters, as Jurgen was just running us through. So just to kick us off, a key question, and I think I'd be keen to hear everybody's view on this, is what's really holding us back? What's the key challenge from your individual perspectives that's really holding us back in charging forward with what are really critical actions that need to happen right now?

Sven Teske:

On a positive note. If you look at the power market, the power generation market, it's actually going very well. On the 30th of March, so that's tomorrow, the global status report on renewables will be published again, and you have a very good overview about what's happening on the market. The good news is, because I was one of the reviewers, I'm probably not myself to say that, but it's more than 80 percent of all new power plants built last year worldwide are renewables, and that's because it's cheaper, simply a fact. So we are actually seeing a very steep development of electric vehicles. 

In Germany, last year, 22 percent of new vehicles were electric vehicles, which is remarkable for a German average car-addicted person. That's quite remarkable. And the EU last night agreed to phase out internal combustion engine cars by 2035. So that's basically in the EU regulation. Germans pushed very hard to sabotage that, and that got a little close, that electric fuel cars are allowed as well, so to get registered. So it's not for the existing cars. You don't have to hand over the car on the evening of the first of January 2036. It's just for new registered cars. But in the media and tabloid media, they actually reported that way. So that's sort of nonsense. But I think that is a very good sign. And I get asked quite often, 'Is it too late?' Well, you know, if we achieve, let's say, 1.5 is 50 or 1.6 with 75 percent, that's good. It's not that, 'Okay, we can't get 100 1.5 degrees, so we give up altogether.' That's not an option. So we basically have to do as much as we can, as fast as we can.

Alison Atherton: 

Well, I think one of the things that has held back progress in Australia, let's be honest, for many years has been the lack of strong political leadership and a strong policy setting that would drive investment in Australia. Fortunately, that is now starting to change, and we're seeing that coming in with the targets, which still need to go further but are significantly improved. The other aspect of that, there are many regulatory settings around that as well, but I think that in terms of climate finance, the climate finance currently is eclipsed globally by subsidies to the fossil fuel sector. 

So we really have to stop subsidising the fossil fuel sector and start really shifting that finance into the solutions. And that's starting to happen again across the financial system because of the regulation that's coming in that's making it harder for financial institutions and companies to say that they're doing something that they aren't. So this clamp on greenwashing that's happening, the tighter regulation, that will help to drive the finance to where it needs to be.

Jurgen Peterseim:

Well, I agree with Sven, actually. I think it's different for the different sectors. Right? I think power generation, mobility is making reasonable progress. The problem with the heavy industry, you think steel, cement, think chemicals, right? Is that they need to get a lot of infrastructure in place. So, and the infrastructure, I mean, think about this STF plant. Right? You would have to build a new steel plant. You have to build the pipelines. You have to build the import terminals. You need the ships to transport hydrogen. You need to export terminals, and you need to build the electrolysers plus the renewable generation. So this is easily a 10-year journey to get this into place. So, and the other thing is, they need a lot of energy. Right? So they need billions and billions of dollars to get this done. And at the moment, they don't know how they can pass on the cost in a 2030 world and secure the finance to get these large infrastructure projects going. I think it's only possible by partnering. So what we see now is really new consortia forming. Utilities partnering with chemical companies, with transport companies, to get this off the ground because you need the skills in every sector, and then everybody can sort of finance part of its journey. But yeah, I think the timing problem is really.

Georgia Coutra:

Thank you for that. I probably have a follow-up question, relating to the comments made. What do you think the balance is between government and industry driving the changes? And do we see them being serious about it, both government and industry? How seriously are companies taking this? And Ali, you mentioned that the government in Australia has shown a lot of progress, putting in place targets and so on. But where does that responsibility really lie?

Jurgen Peterseim:

What we see is a different response in different territories. So, I think in the European context, Gavin was setting the guidelines that the industry is now following because we see the client base changing for these different companies. So, if you want to sell to Mercedes, you have to meet certain guidelines. It's different in other parts of the world. If you go to the Middle East, for example, there are discussions on Net Zero, but the commitment is rather limited.

Alison Atherton: 

Yeah, I mean, I think that we need everything everywhere all at once. We need industry to be leading, as well as government. In the EU, it has really been government-led. In Australia, until fairly recently, it has been more coming from the business sector. Now there's a little bit of a dance going on, I guess. Businesses call for support and regulation, and then it comes in, and then there'll be some pushback. Of course, within the whole financial sector and the corporate world, there will be those in favour of more support from the government and those who will push back. But we really need everybody working together, and that includes the training providers, the academic sector, as well. Everybody needs to play a part. 

Sven Teske:

Just one sentence to that: I think it's not an either-or. It's not government or industry or business. Business needs rules, and they come from the government. So, I think that ping pong between government and industry has delayed action for like 20 years, but it's actually nonsense. It's not that one waits for the other. The government governs, so sets the rules, and then the industry needs to stick to the rules. I'm really happy. I voted the first, the second time, as an Australian last Saturday. It's the second time. The government changed. I think I'll stop voting now. But it's mandatory, so I think it's a very good sign that it changed. But you need both sides. 

Georgia Coutra:

Thank you for spending your time on all the work that you're doing, all the analysis. Have you seen noticeable changes from strategies that have already been implemented? So, whether it's government driving things forward or organisations moving on their action plans to Net Zero, can we see that data? Is it visible how things have moved? 

Sven Teske:

Yes, you can actually. We do a lot of energy scenarios for many different countries. We don't only work on Net Zero, but also on the national determined contributions for the developing countries. So, we just finished Nepal, for example, and we're working on Kenya, Tanzania, and other African countries. You see that the least developed countries actually go to renewables, not because of climate, and they keep saying that it was not their responsibility, which is sort of right. But renewables are much quicker to build and implement. They can follow the demand very quickly because, if you have the regulation in place, building a wind farm or solar power plant takes a year or less. So, that is quite quick. You can follow the demand, while, let's say, a coal power plant takes seven years, and then you don't actually know what happens in the seven years. Then you're either short of electricity or have too much. We see that, and also, it's simply cheaper. That's the reason why the majority of new power plants are actually renewables. The problem we see is with the existing infrastructure. If a power plant is not written off, it's really hard to get it off the market.

Georgia Coutra:

Thank you. Probably one for Ali in terms of the finance sector. Obviously, you mentioned that there's a lot of movement, which is great. But there's a huge gap that needs to be bridged between what is being invested now and what is needed in the future. What are the key measures you think are needed to take that forward?

Alison Atherton: 

As I said, I think it's about where capital is allocated to. Currently, a lot of that capital is still allocated into the fossil fuel sector, and a lot of that is to do with the settings around what supports investment. So, the settings that support investment and subsidisation of fossil fuels need to change. But I think some of the specific things that are coming in that will help with that, again in the EU, has been leading on this. But globally, now we're seeing sustainable finance taxonomies coming in.

A sustainable finance taxonomy provides a categorisation of what is or is not a sustainable activity for the purposes of investment and lending. So, it makes it much harder for investors to claim they're investing in sustainable activities when they aren't. The EU has already introduced this taxonomy, and Australia is currently developing one. I think that will also really help to shift because it makes it much clearer to investors who want to do the right thing that this is actually a sustainable activity they can be confident in putting their money into.

Georgia Coutra:

Wonderful, thank you. I've got a few more questions, but I'm keen to hear from the audience as well. So, if you do have a question, just raise your hand, and Mike will come to you. And just if you can wait till the mic arrives, just to make sure that everybody can hear your question. Thank you.

David Allan (audience):

Hey, I'm David Allan. Thanks for a very good topic. I was in a virtual meeting in Europe last night with the head of the Bank of France, Bank of Settlements, and Christian Legard. Their focus was very much on how do we settle transactions in the cryptocurrency environment. They also had a session on climate change, but they didn't have any concrete proposals. Is it possible to achieve real purpose on climate change if the world's top finances don't really support it as much as they should?

Sven Teske:

If I understand correctly, if some countries won't want to take action, is that correct? Well, in China right now, it's 17% of the world's population and 30% of global emissions for energy. So, every third CO2 emission or every third ton globally comes from China, from energy, due to the fact that they also manufacture a lot. On the other hand, China also builds 50% of all new solar and wind power plants worldwide. So, they do both. They have a lot of old coal, but they also have a lot of new renewables, and they just need to keep doing that. There is a time lag when the emissions could peak and then go down, but it's a global effort. It's not really an argument to say, "Well, if they don't do it, we don't do it." Everyone has to do it. And if you break down the responsibility, most of the 200 countries worldwide have a responsibility of less than one or two percent. So, that's not really bringing us anywhere.

Alison Atherton: 

Just to add to that because I think there was a bit of a finance question in there as well, you know, I think that the regulation that's coming in, requiring financial institutions as well as corporates to really think about their climate risks and opportunities, will help to drive more sustainable activities. A lot of those current investments, in the scheme of looking at 2050 climate risk, start to look a lot less attractive.

Florence Lindhouse (audience):

Thank you, Florence Lindhouse from the German Chamber of Commerce. I understand that you said carbon offsets don't work. How about we save ourselves the consulting companies, the universities, and especially the companies as a whole heap of time and invest into just a handful of really companies that modular fashion extract carbon dioxide from the ocean and from the air? Wouldn't that be a blanket solution that helps everyone?

Sven Teske:

Yes, and I'm not opposed to that at all. I'm just saying that while you do this, and you should, there should be a finance mechanism for it. You should also not use that as an argument to actually emit, to run your co-power plant longer. Because if you do the calculation, how many tons you can actually get out of the atmosphere with that and how much you emit, then you will see that it's not going to work that much. Right now, for example, right now we have about 40 million tons CCS capacity worldwide. There are a few applications, not with power plants, but other applications. 40 million tons is the global emission of four hours. If the International Energy Agency, they have in their scenario an increase of CCS to 160 million tons, then we are at 16 hours, not even a day. So that is not going to work, it's just the math. I'm not opposed, and actually it's good if we have technologies to get carbon out of the atmosphere. Great, but don't use it as an argument to actually emit on the other side.

Jurgen Peterseim:

Well, I can only support that because I mean if you think about offsets, I personally think offsets are actually a distraction to the real decarbonisation. Because companies have limited budgets, right? As a company, you have let's say 100 million, a billion to invest, and you can invest this billion in actual measures like buying trucks, buying electric vehicles, putting solar on the roof, or you can go into offsets. And I think, I mean, if you then think about direct air capture, other technologies, it's always more efficient to avoid in the first place, right? So, and that's why I think we really have to focus on the real decarbonisation first, and everything else comes later.

Audience member:

This is a fairly specific question. Storage seems to me a huge problem, and there's something strange going on at the individual level, and maybe at the macro level too. But as a householder, I got solar panels on the roof, and I was all set to get batteries and to really play my part in it all. And all of a sudden, the cost of the batteries has skyrocketed, and secondly, the feed-in tariff from the electricity companies gone down. I'm a nut at an individual level. I'm a nut. And it shouldn't be like that. What the hell is going on? It's not making us at an individual level. It's hardly worthwhile anymore. I don't understand what's happening.

Sven Teske:

I think it's a few things. One is a supply chain issue. I think we actually see now an increase of capacity manufacturing companies all over the world. Right now, it's quite focused. You see that also with solar panels. Solar PV, 90% of the solar panels are manufactured in China. We have about 150 to 200 gigawatts market solar PV. The manufacturing capacity in China is 400 gigawatts. We have about 200 to 250 gigawatts of solar PV manufacturing plans under construction in Europe and the same amount in the US. So we will have about a terawatt production capacity of solar PV in about three years. That means solar will go down. Same for batteries, but this is sort of the dummy spit over the last few years where no one actually invested. Everyone was looking at each other and there was no investments and now we have that bottleneck and the second thing is that I really don't understand for grid operators, some grid operators don't want to have solar sort of feed it into the grid which means I basically frustrate my client and that means my client is very, very keen on getting batteries to disconnect, connect more or less. So if as a grid operator, I need to encourage my customers to say yes, put solar panels and reintegrate your electricity in our management and it's cheaper for us procurement. You have your customers happy, you won't lose it, but now that's a typical reaction, no, we don't want this, and that means they basically frustrate their client and push the clients out of their own grid, and that's not really dumb. I know that's happening, it's not just happening in Australia, it's happened in many countries as well. 

Audience member: 

Hello I’m a project management IT infrastructure here at UTS. One of the things we're looking at is upgrading going towards what the future infrastructure should be at the University. How do you see IT infrastructure because currently, everything around the university is managed by technology, so we buy devices and we put in infrastructure to allow teaching, learning, research around the whole university? How do you see the future in terms of that because at the moment, we're moving much of our online stuff to the cloud, so it's cheaper for the University as well as so we're not emitting a lot of carbon because that takes a lot of energy and stuff? So, where do you see how this works? I know 40 years ago when the telecommunication companies manufacture devices, everything's repairable, all the stuff is passed on from one device to another device, but now what we're getting now from our manufacturers only lasts for a few years, currently 10 years, and after that it's trashed, you know we try and resell it but because of the technology it doesn't have the capacity for obscurity for itself, for example, we can't resell it, it just goes in the trash. So, where do you see this? Do you look at more going back to the old days, like manufacturing things that will be repairable? If something fails, you just replace that with an existing infrastructure. 

Sven Teske:

I think I basically need to go back to my heritage as a German engineer, and we learned two things when I studied engineering: first, cheap is too expensive because you have to buy it twice, and secondly, it's quality, quality, quality, and long-lasting products. I think that's one thing why you can actually charge more because your product does not collapse after two years but maybe lasts 20 years. The problem then is you can't actually sell that much because you already sold it once and then the product actually lasts, which some companies obviously don't want, but I think that needs to change. And the other thing is, I think we also need to work a bit more towards decentralisation, not everything centralised. So data storage or electricity generation as decentralised as possible. If you have a lot of places where the electricity is generated, it's more resilient. It's just, I would say, decentralisation. And that's also with manufacturing. If we have, like if you go to the industry fair, like Hanover Fair, industry 4.0 is a huge topic, which basically is a very nice term for producers at home with robots, and that's basically it. 

So we basically have more decentralised production as well, which I think makes a lot of sense. I mean, like steel in Australia. Australia exports a lot of iron ore, we could actually do the steel here. At least, the first step and then export. We could do that, but we don't. I think the same as aluminium. And I think that is another strategy which I basically encourage to do our scenarios. 

Jurgen Peterseim:

Maybe just one quick edition. I think it's a bit twofold. I mean, one thing is having this infrastructure, and then it's going should be a lot more integrated. So if you have server stations here, you could, for example, use the heat of the servers to heat the building, right? That's being done. Data centres do that. And you think, to Sven's point about distribution, I mean, in new buildings, you see a lot of these building-integrated photovoltaic solutions now being developed. I mean, all of these constructions, all the buildings, could actually generate a significantly higher amount of electricity compared to just putting rooftop solar on. I think the last part is, I don't think we will have these particularly long-lasting products in certain areas because the technology advances too quickly. So I think what you need then is to have the recycling capacity in place to actually use this material and turn it into something new. Because technology development is so quick nowadays, you will not have the same server for 20 years I think.

Alison Atherton: 

Just to speak about other types of products and the issue that you've identified, I mean, there is this idea of planned obsolescence where things are manufactured deliberately to not work after a certain number of years. And so we have to move away from that, and we have colleagues at ISF who are working on circular economy principles. So designing out waste, and we also have here the product stewardship centre of excellence, and that's looking at policy settings and regulation settings as well that would require producers and manufacturers to take responsibility for their products at the end of life. So it's that idea of extended producer responsibility. So you can't just sell your product and then have it end up in landfill. You actually have to take responsibility and see it as a continuous source of materials in the recycling and reuse and so forth. So those are all really important principles. The government has actually set a highly ambitious target that we will be a circular economy by 2030. I'm really interested to see how that's going to play out. We also had quite ambitious packaging and plastics targets for 2025, and recent evidence is showing that we're falling really short of those. So there's great ambition, which is fantastic, but we have to take it seriously. You have to actually have plans and regulations, I think, to make this happen. It can't just be voluntary; otherwise, we won't get there. 

Georgia Coutra:

I think we'll just make this one our last question if that's okay. Thank you. 

Audience member:

Yeah, how do you see the role of the climate movement in achieving Net Zero? 

Sven Teske:

Climate movement. Yeah, I mean, I'm sort of I started as a youth representative for the COP1. Here we go. Almost 60 now. It's a bit frustrated, but I think the climate movement came sort of in waves, and they had another wave over the past few years. So I think that's quite good. And what I see is that the climate movement now is very different from when I started in the 90s. It's far more practical, and the positive side is we have now the technologies which we did not have at that time. Because, like, a wind turbine was first very rare. I did my engineering diploma at the German Wind Energy Institute, and my wind turbine had five kilowatts. And now we're talking about 15 to 20,000 kilowatts, and the price is like 10% of that. And also, we don't need to talk about whether climate change is actually really happening. It is, and I think there is no one who doubts that. But in the 90s, it was, you were pushed into a side that you basically were a religious person. You know, you believe in climate change. And still, some people ask me, "Do you believe in climate change?" It's a stupid question. I don't believe in it. I know it is there. So I think that the climate movement has a very important role to play to actually keep the check and balances for all the government and industries. 

Jurgen Peterseim:

I think particularly for industry, right? Because you need to make sure that a company is actually held accountable at the end of the day.

Alison Atherton: 

Yeah, I agree with that. And also, I think the climate movement has a really important role to play in the grassroots activism and pressure that really draws attention to the issues and also creates kind of the space for politicians to act, I guess, and for industry to act. It's pressure, but it's also creating that space, and it's a really important educational role as well. I think that's kind of filling in the gaps that probably government should be doing that isn't. So I think it's essential. 

Georgia Coutra:

Thanks, everyone. I think we're out of time for questions, but I did find that last one quite interesting. I'd like to think that we've moved from a place where climate action is just a bunch of strange people sort of chaining themselves to stuff, and that it's something that we all do in our everyday lives because it is essential to make Net Zero a reality. So it's not just government and industry, but it's all of us together. 

I'd like to thank Sven, Ali, and Jurgen for their presentations and their very wonderful insights for all of our questions today. I think we've covered quite a range of things. I don't think any of us need convincing, but the data presented by Sven is pretty confronting and, in a good way, it inspires action hopefully. And some really great insights from Ali and Jurgen as to what can be done in the regulation, skills, and Net Zero planning spaces. I'd also like to thank Neil, who did a lot of the organising for today.

Thank you, Neil, to make this happen. And also, remind everyone that there is still a space at the back there if you want to network. I think there may be some coffee and tea left over. Please do take the time to chat to the people around you and continue the interesting conversations. Thank you so much.

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