Universite Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne

hi good evening everybody first of all uh I'm Nadia jakobi I'm the vice president of this university ponon soan university and first of all I would like to thank you all for joining us for coming here and also to apologize to uh the others who couldn't join because we were fully booked very quickly actually when we launched the invitation uh they can follow uh the live stream if they are not here and you can find the video tomorrow morning on YouTube so we are pretty well organized actually well uh actually today is a very special day for our University uh we are extremely proud and I'm particularly very proud to welcome tonight someone very special someone who is probably one of the most influential person of the 20th and 21st centuries someone who is

definitely the most creative mind of his generation he is the co-founder and CEO of a revolutionary car manufacturer challenging the mainstream car industry but is is also the founder and CEO of a tremendously Innovative company actually the first private company to launch and return a spacecraft from orbit and last but not least also the chairman of the larger solar energy provider in the US through his different activities he is uh facing environmental social and economic challenges it deals with breaking projects on diverse issues like green Mobility clean and renewable sources of energy space exploration so on and so forth by the way among the latest news here done here in France in Europe you probably heard that yesterday was inaugurated a new solar

firm in the Sou France something which is definitely or actually the biggest of Europe now selling power at a cost well below the cost of power from the new generation of nuclear reactors and able to provide energy power for more than 50,000 households but also and moreover currently Paris is uh welcoming the UN climate change conference which faces the high take of how to manage with the climatic disruption the aim of the cup 21 is keeping warming below the two degrees Celsius compar with the pre-industrial Hera and for that the objective of the cup is to build a Paris climate alliens a universal climate agreement committing everyone so in that context who better than Elan mask for conversation with you please welcome Elon Musk thank you all right all

right well it's thank you for having me it's great to be here um uh Paris is one of my favorite places in the world and and it's actually the uh on the first trip that I went out of South Africa uh Paris that that was where I went and when I when I was a little kid well my my parents brought me when I was like six years old um so I've L Paris ever since um so thank you for having me what I'm going to talk about today is just in general terms uh what is needed to address the the the climate crisis um and this is a thing that if if if we if we do what actions can we take that that will accelerate the transition out of uh the fossil fuel era um so where we are today is U let's see if this thing's working maybe not okay all right we have the we have the present

era where we have the the carbon cycle and my apologies if if some of you already know all about this but I think some of these things are maybe not as obvious as they may seem so there's a certain amount of carbon that is circulating through the environment so it's going into the air being absorbed by and then getting absorbed by plants and animals um and then going back into the air and this this carbon is just circulating on the surface um and this this is fine and it's been doing that for Millions hundreds of millions of years uh the the thing that's changed is that we've added something to the mix so this is what I would call the the sort of the turd in the punch ball um so the we added all this extra carbon to to the Caron cycle and the net result

is that uh the the Caron in the ocean's atmosphere is growing over time it's much more than can be absorbed by the ecosystem it's it's really it's really quite simple we're taking uh billions of tons of carbon that's been buried for hundreds of millions of years years um and is not part of the Caron cycle taking it from deep underground and adding it to the Caron cycle the result is that a steady increase in the the Caron in the atmosphere and in the Ocean Oceans which doesn't look like much if you look at it on this chart but when looked at in the context of of History it actually looks like this so the the carbon P million has really been bouncing around the 300 level for around 10 million years um and then the last few hundred years it went into a

vertical climb this this is the the essence of the problem this is very unusual um and and a and a very very extreme threat as you can see from from this rate of growth then this is accompanied by a temperature increase as one would expect and uh and and and this temperature increase you people talk about two degrees or or 3 degrees it's important to appreciate just how sensitive the the climate actually is to uh to temperature and it's important to look at it in terms of absolute temperature not um in degrees celsius relative to zero we need to say what is the temperature change relative to absolute zero that's how the universe thinks about temperature that's how physics thinks about temperature it's it's relative to absolute zero so for small changes

result in in huge effects uh so New York City Under Ice would be minus 5° New York city under water would be plus 5° but looked at in in a as a percentage relative to absolute zero it's only a plusus 2% change so the the sensitivity of the climate is extremely extremely high um we've Amplified this sensitivity by building our cities right on the on the coastline and most most people live very close to to the ocean some countries of course that are they're very low Ling and would be completely uh underwater in in a in a climate crisis so the the we've essentially designed civilization to be super sensitive to climate change um and the the the important thing to appreciate is that we are going to exit the fossil fuels era so it it is it is inevitable that

we will exit the phosph era because at a certain point we will simply run out of uh carbon to mine and burn so the question is really when when do we exit the era not not if the goal is to exit the era as quickly as possible that means we need to move from from the old goal uh with a pre-industrial go goal which was to move from uh choing down forests and uh killing lots of whales um that the old goal was to move from from chopping wood and and killing whales to uh fossil fuels which actually in that context was a good thing but the new goal is to move to a sustainable energy future and we want to use things like uh Hydro solar wind geothermal nucleus is also a good option in um places like France which don't aren't subject to natural disasters um and

and we want to use energy sources that will be good for for a billion years so how do we accelerate this transition away from fossil fuels to a sustainable era and and and and what happens if we don't so if we if we wait uh and if we delay the change um the best case the best case is is is simply delaying that inevitable transition to sustainable energy so this is the this is the best case if we don't take action now um at the risk of being repetitive it's there's going to be no choice in the long term to move to sustainable energy it's it's tological we have to have sustainable energy or we'll simply run out of the other one so the the only thing we gain by slowing down the transition is is is just slowing it down it doesn't doesn't make it not occur

it just slows it down the worst case however is more displacement and destruction than all the wars in history combined okay this is these are these are the best worst case scenarios so then we have you about 3% of scientists that believe in the best case about 97% that believe in the worst case this is why I call it the dumbest experiment in history ever why would you do this so the the reason that the the the transition is delayed or or or is happening slowly is because there is a hidden subsidy on all carbon producing activity in a healthy Market if you have say 10 EUR of benefit and four of har to societ the profit would be6 just sort of you know makes OB obvious sense this is where the incentives are aligned with a good future this is not this is

not the case today um but if you have the incentives aligned then the forcing function towards a a good future towards a sustainable energy future will be powerful in an unhealthy Market you have your 10 of benefit you have your four years but the four doesn't isn't t so you have untaxed negative externality this is basically economics 101 so you have basically unreasonable profit and a forcing function to uh to do carbon emitting activity because this this this cost to society is not being paid the net result is 35 gigatons of carbon per year into the atmosphere so the this is analogous to not paying for garbage collection um and it's it's not as though we we should say in the case of garbage have a garbage-free society it's very difficult to have a

garbage free Society but it's just important that people pay for the garbage collection so we need to go from having untaxed negative externality and which is effectively a hidden carbon subsidy of enormous size uh 5.

3 trillion dollar a year according to the IMF every year um we need to move away from this uh and and and and have a carbon tax so but this is being this is being fought quite hard by the uh the carbon producers um and they're using tactics that are very similar to what the uh cigarette industry or the toac industry used for many years um they would they would take the approach of having of of even though the overwhelming scientific consensus was that uh smoking cigarettes was bad for you uh they would find a few scientists that would disagree and then they would say look scientists disagree so that that's essentially how they would try to trick the public into thinking that smoking is not that bad the solution obviously is to remove the subsidy U so

that means we need to have a a Caron tax and to make it sort of something which is neither a left nor a right issue we should make it probably a revenue neutral carbon tax so this would be a case of increasing taxes on carbon but then reducing taxes in in other places so maybe there would be a reduction in sales tax or vat and an increase in carbon tax so that uh only those using high levels of carbon would pay an increased tax and moreover this I mean in order to give uh industry time to react uh this could be a phased in approach so that maybe it takes 5 years before the the carbon taxes are very high so that means that only companies that don't take action today will suffer in 5 years but there needs to be a clear message from from government in this

regard the the because the fundamental problem is the rules today incent people to create carbon and this is madness and what have you incent will happen that that's why you know we we're seeing little very little effect uh thus far and depending upon how what what action we take will will will drive the the Caron number to either extreme or or moderate levels um I I think it's pretty much a given that that the two degree C increase will occur the question is whether it's going to be much more than that not if there will be a two degree increase um so the then the question is so what can you do I would say whenever you have the opportunity talk to your politicians ask them to enact a carbon tax we we have to fix the unpriced externality I talk to your

friends about it and fight the propaganda from the carbon industry so that that's the basic message I have and I'm happy to take questions so we have we have some mics in the audience being passed around do you want to raise your hand and we'll give you a mic hi sir I'm pass from the master of inter Innovation and Technology man management and my question is what do you say to those who think there are more important concerns right now than climate change and global warming sure um I mean there's definitely there are many important issues in the world um this is not the only important issue um but it is I think the thing that will have the biggest um negative effect on Humanity if we do not address it um I mean based on on the the projections that we're

seeing right now these are like I'd say arguably best case projections we're going to see significant rises in temperature and sea level um the the net result is if if we don't take action uh we could see you know anywhere from 5 to 10% maybe maybe more of the land mass absorbed by water uh which would which is maybe not doesn't sound like that much but about a third of humanity lives right on the on the Coastline or in lowline countries so we' be talking about maybe 2 billion people being displaced um and and their home is being destroyed and their country is being gone so I think we should take action hello sir thank you for coming here uh my question is um I'm PhD student in marketing and what I study is what motivates people to participate in challenges

now you have created a company which creates challenges which brought which brought a rocket to moon and back if I if I'm not wrong my question would be do you think a challenge um maybe not moon and back right yeah not quite getting there getting there my question to you would be do you think that incentives which is the biggest incentive to use monetary incentives are the best possible incentive to get people to participate and solve the world's biggest problems or do you think people can do it um in order to just help everyone on the planet and make it better so is money the only way to um ask people to get in and solve challenges or do you have other ways to actually motivate people to participate um I I I think there there's definitely a philanthropic

element um and there's the you know I think there's I think in general uh people want to do the right thing and they want to do what's good um the uh the issue we have right now is that the the rules fundamentally favor the bad outcome so when you're fighting for the good outcome and it's an uphill battle um it it it's just it's just slower um so with respect to to climate change it's just critical that the government and the government is the setter of rules the government decides what rules companies will will play by and if we currently have a system which uh massively incense bad behavior so e even if most people don't do the bad behavior some people will still do the bad behavior yeah I mean money and prices are prices are basically just an information

mechanism they're just they're just basically they tell you that it's it I mean money's mostly um an information mechanism for lab labor allocation and for you know to and sort of tells companies what to do so it's just critical this is why it's so critical to be that action be taken at a government level because the government is the one they're setting the rules of the game and and it's just crazy to have the rules of the game favor uh a bad outcome question up top there there's a question here hi el musk uh my name is Michelle I'm an undergrad in economics here at peris sbon uh P sban my question is um there are some new studies on um removing um carbon dioxide dioxide from the atmosphere and burrowing deep uh in the ocean do you think it's um a sustainable

solution and why thank you you know I'm I'm not aware of any uh carbon sequestration or carbon storage system that is that that that works um and works economically um and and I definitely wouldn't want to I we wouldn't want to store the carbon in the ocean because of possible acidification um you know as the as the carbon as the CO2 levels rise in the atmosphere uh some of that is absorbed um into the ocean becomes carbonic acid um and a lot of the shellfish in particular are super sensitive to changes in in pH level um so I I would definitely or against uh trying to store it in the ocean there potentially you could try to store some of it in giant underground Caverns but the the sheer quantity we're talking about I I don't think can be stored anywhere

um there's just there's just no nowhere to store it yeah question hello sir uh I'm studying management at paron and I would know how long do you do Tesla Motors intends to use lithium batteries knowing that it is not a limited resource um well actually I think so so lithium in terms of energy storage lithium I think is is definitely the future and will be for a long time um there's actually not a shortage of lithium on Earth uh so lithium is you know number three on the periodic table it's actually extremely common any salty water has has lithium um so there definitely won't be a lithium constraint on um energy storage for batteries um so I feel pretty confident that um one could make enough batteries to store all the energy that the world needs with

the current resources that are that are available yeah hello my name is idin vadi I am PhD student in project and infrastructure Finance in sbon first of all I would like to thank you for your latest product uh po wall which to me it gives to the citizens to have the power to select the way they can uh consumed energy I can spend few thousand dollars to buy a uh some solar panel and the power wall and uh to be free of uh uh any offer in the market my question is uh about the the larg scale storage systems you have designed have you received any serious involvement from governments and uh large companies to develop such uh uh such infrastructure or do you have any serious plans within within the United States or maybe in other countries uh for for large

energy storage yeah we do actually we've got a number of um uh very very big storage um projects underway with utilities around the world um so both in the US and outside um the the thing that's interesting about the energy storage uh situation is that even even without uh Renewables there's a there's a huge potential to make the energy grid more efficient and to be able to shut down the the the heaviest polluting power plants um because the the energy consumption through the day usually uh changes by a factor of two or more so and since with the exception of of hydroelectric you can't store the power it has to be available in real time the world has somewhere between two to three times as many power plants as it actually needs so if you can buffer the

power with uh big big stationary battery packs um then uh you can actually shut down the the the worst half of the uh power plants in the world so I think that's that's sort of a very exciting thing that I think a lot of people don't appreciate um and I think it's it's going to make make a big difference you hi sir I'm Camy from the master degree Innovation and Technology man management and uh my question is do you believe that in the ability of government international government to prevent climate change and what would you suggest um yeah absolutely I think I think this fundamentally is a government issue um so it's it's it's the as as mentioned the government is the one that sets the rules of the game that they set um you know how companies are rewarded

financially and so in the absence of government uh actually establishing some kind of a common TX or potentially a CA trade on carbon um which I was very excited to see that China announced earlier this year that they were going to do that um unless the government does something to fix the market mechanism um the it it's it's we're fundamentally going to have a very slow transition um out of the fossil fuel era so it's it's critical that um government action changed the incentive structure um yeah and and that that' be very clear and so it's like I think hopefully what comes out of this out of these the climate talks in Paris is uh that that the governments of the world say that they put their foot down and they say 5 years from now let's say there has

to be a huge change um and um and and that companies know for sure that this is going to happen um and if they if they do then the the investment decisions they make today will will will bear fruit in five years so the um for for heavy industrial applications or or for heavy industry you you kind of know what the world's going to look like in 5 years if you know what PL what what uh What factories are being built today because if you build a really big Factory to get to full production takes about 5 Years From from the start and so since we know that today there are very few uh sustainable energy projects at large scale that are that are being built um we know that unless something changes very quickly um the sustainable energy will still be in a bad

situation 5 years from now so um you know I mean there there are companies like you know at Tesla and Solar City were quite ideologically motivated um but um but that's that's relatively unusual so hian my name is Thomas um what do you think about people who are saying then rather than trying to save the Earth we should try to colonize other planets well I think we should do both yeah yeah I think we um you know the I mean my sort of personal ideology is is kind of split right now between trying to be helpful on earth related stuff which is sustainable energy and then trying to you know Advance space technology so we can establish a self- sustaining City on Mars but I do think it's important to be a multiplet not just one planet but another planet um

so the and and the overarching goal is to minimize existential risk you know so if we look out look out into the future um and say what are the things that pose a risk to to humanity to what what what what's what is going to make the future good versus bad um and I think if obviously if we have a sustainable energy future that's good um and the faster that comes the better and then if we're a multiplet species that gives us much more resilience um against Extinction event um and also would be a really great and fun adventure hi um my name is jeda and U I wanted to know in your opinion what would the future will look like in term in energy sources and how soon could we use nuclear fusion efficiently thank you sure um well the the thing to appreciate about

the um indust the sort of installed industrial base uh is that it's it's really enormous like the number of um petrol and diesel cars on the road um and trucks is about two billion um you know there are sort of hundreds of thousands of of of power plants using fossil fuels so the the even if we if today we went super hard in the direction of Renewables it would still take a long time um so I think we we it's before we see significant change is probably 10 or 20 years um and uh and that's there's a lot that can happen in 10 or 20 years of course um so uh the the faster we can bring that date forward the better yeah um hi uh my name is Natasha I'm from the master program of sustainable development I have two questions first one because I want to be optimistic

that we are going to switch um at some point to be completely sustainable and to use renewable energies um do you think that there are going to be a gap between developing in developed countries that and When developing countries will be able to reach developed ones switching into sustainable and renewable energies and second one would be uh sustainability of nuclear energy in your opinion thank you sure um and I actually I should answer the nuclear question because that was posed just just before this um I actually think that uh like nuclear fision um um if it's in a location that is not subject to natural disasters um like like in the case of France there's a very high percentage of nuclear I think that's actually a good thing um obviously you don't

want to have nuclear fision power plants in places that are subject to natural disasters um because that obviously can go wrong um so um and and so I think fision is a good is a good approach uh Fusion is also interesting um and it's exciting to see what's happening with the iter project uh which is a fusion plant that's being built in France um I I I do think Fusion is is a is a feasible technology I think we can definitely make fusion work um the but but it is it is a it is kind of a far off technology so to to make fusion at the power plant level work is probably I don't know 30 years away um and um and a lot of lot of effort um so the that's why in in at least you know for now and I think maybe even in the long term I'm a proponent of using the big

fusion power plant in the sky called the Sun so that the sun is a giant Fusion explosion and it it shows up every day and if we have uh photov voltaics for solar panels we can capture that Fusion Energy um it also needs to be stored um in batteries so we can use it at night um and then we we want to have um high power lines to transfer uh solar energy from one place to another so um but the important thing to appreciate is like if if let's say the only thing we had was was solar energy that that was the only power source uh you could if you just took a small section of of Spain you could power all of Europe it's it's a very small amount of area that's actually needed to generate the um electricity we need to power civilization or in the case of the US

like a little corner of Nevada or Utah Power the entire United States so good evening uh you you do have a very impressive and uh stimulating career uh you succeeded in business while staying true to yourself and beliefs so I would like to know what advice you would give to a young entrepreneur uh who is aware of climate change issues and maybe uh what was the best and the worst advice you are given about that thank you okay um well I think if somebody's um wants to do something entrepreneurial in energy um I mean either either you want to start a company or you want to join a company that's doing something um sustainable um and it could be you know there's there's obviously wind solar um and uh the geothermal there's tidal power um so I would just say

look at companies that are trying to do sustainable energy and decide if you want to join them or or if you want to start one um so um I I generally wouldn't you know starting companies in in either the automotive Arena or the energ like Energy Arena is like quite a tricky business I mean when when when we first started uh Tesla and Solar City uh we thought they would fail we thought and Tesla in particular we thought probably we have uh maybe 10% chance of success so it's um you know particularly particularly cars uh the you know it's it's it's hard to stay alive as a car company honestly I was like it must be one of the worst risk adjusted returns um yeah hi uh my name is Benjamin and I was wondering what do you wish for in terms of international uh

rules and politics uh to facilitate the implementation of your power wall battery well um it's really the what I've been saying here is that the that um the governance of the world need to price the the externality they need to put put a profer price on carbon and then automatically the right Behavior will occur so this is by by putting a price on carbon we we're essentially fixing um a pricing error in the market market system so I mean most of the times when government governments intervene in markets it's usually increases the pricing error um but in but when when the pricing error is a huge um tragedy the common issue like we have with carbon capacity uh it's critical that the government put a price on it because you just can't go wrong by put it

by you and any price you put on it will be more right than than close to zero which it is right now um so this is this is by far the most important thing if we want to accelerate the transition uh to sustainable energy um there are other less effective ways by providing incentives and subsidies to say electric cars or or solar um that that is that is a sometimes more politically expedient way to do it but the best way is just to directly fix the pricing error by tax and carbon and and this is I like if you ask most economists they would say the same thing so this is sort of um well well known in obviously in the economics World um elen uh could you say a few words on artificial intelligence because you know I think I I read or you you you know you were

quoted among with others Bill Gates and Peter T and so forth saying that you know you were afraid of the that one day an hyper you know intelligent machine would destroy humanity and uh you know are you investing a lot into artificial intelligence with you know because are we wasting a lot of energy because we're using you know with not being smart or with not having smart objects and so forth and how do you reconcile the two if you know there's a there's long time you know longterm major risk for us um yeah I mean definitely want to stay stay on the uh you know sustainable energy topic um because it's it's easy to get get derailed on too many other things but um yeah I mean I think I just think we should be cautious about the Advent of AI um and um a

lot of the people that I know that are developing AI are too convinced that that the only outcome is good um and we need to consider potentially uh less good outcomes um and to you know to be careful and and and and really to monitor what's happening and make sure the public is aware of what's happening okay uh I'm Gabrielle Ron from uh we I stood Innovation here in serbon I have a question about fundraising specifically about the fundraising process regarding what Tesla does uh what is the most difficult thing to uh raise funds in the beginning not now because now you you have a welldeveloped project and the worldwide knows you and knows Tesla also but in the beginning about uh the the the industry that you are working about the this kind of energy what

is the most difficult thing to uh find uh investors and also to convince investors and keep what you thought in the beginning uh throughout the development of the company um sure um well in in the beginning um in the beginning of Tesla and and Sol City I mean I thought the the probability of success was was so low that I I provided all of the money so all of the money was just came from me personally um because I didn't want to ask people other investors for money if I thought we were going to die because I thought I thought we would so um so I invested um you know entirely the money that I got from PayPal um all of all of that got invested into Tesla Soul City and and SpaceX um and and even then we we only narrowly survived so um you know in 200 2008

for Tesla we actually closed the financing round on Christmas Eve uh 2008 um it was the last hour of the last day that it was possible um and um you know this is one of the tricky things with with something like a car company is like there there there are good times and bad times and and and when the economy goes south then that's when things get really really tricky for a Manufacturing Company um so yeah I mean in in the US for example like the only two car companies that haven't gone bankrupt in history are Ford and Tesla that's it um everybody else is bankrupt or in bankrupt at some point you know General motives Chrysler and and others so um so I think we we just made it by the skin of our teeth these days last few years it's really i' say you the

last two years is is when Tesla's achieved a level where um it's not facing uh imminent death um I mean even as recently as as early 2013 we were operating with maybe one to two weeks of money uh hi uh my name is Pascal and I would uh like to ask you uh don't you think that we need a deeper reflection um about uh our Dynamic of society um because um all the solution that you talking talking about is about uh efficiency but don't you think that we need to think differently and consume less because right now AIC is about uh confronting problems and going always in the um same direction and trying to find the technological innovation to save us yeah I mean I I do think we we should be um watch our consumption we shouldn't be wasteful um but um but but even

if we um are re really uh conservative in our use of energy and are very effective with Recycling and all sorts of things um that that that delays the TR the need to move to a sustainable future but it doesn't eliminate it um like if if we don't have sustainable energy Generation Um that that there's no way that we can conserve our way to to a good future um we we have to fundamentally make uh sustainable energy available um I mean on the on the plus side that there's actually an enormous amount of of sustainable energy um and the um the energy from the Sun per per square kilometer is a gwatt so if you just had a 1 kilometer by 1 kilm um array of solar panels it would be generating well it would be receiving a gwatt of solar energy then at at a 20% efficiency

you'd be generating 200 megawatts um so uh we can actually generate way more energy like probably I don't know 100 times more energy than we actually need to operate civilization just with solar panels so we just we just need to fix the incentive structure of the world to make sure that that that that companies are are incented towards sustainable versus unsustainable technology this is fundamentally the problem hello my name is Lily and I'm a PhD physics student a year University but I graduated here so I have three questions so the first one is sort of political because because you mentioned it you said that uh scientists sometimes they uh diverge they have different opinions and it's probably yes on anything yeah and that's also probably because sometimes

they are financed by different corporations sure and uh so you said we should stop the propaganda we should uh uh try to ask the politicians to set the rules so that uh we will go in a better Direction you know not climate you know global warming um but uh so that probably goes against uh the interest of oil companies but as well probably the governments themselves when they have a financial interest so I was thinking perhaps your uh own um I mean perhaps we could have lobbyists ourselves so that would be uh perhaps an efficient way to to have uh those rules put into uh you know so the these rules the carbon tax would be applied so that's my first question uh because also you know France is one of the U main importer of nuclear energy so you know trying

to ask them for a tax car uh carbon tax when themselves uh are the the people who are making the most money from importing you know nuclear energy from power plants that are in France we li to one question per person for now I thinkk so so the other question was you know renewable energy that' be great but it's kind kind of intermittent you know like solar uh sure solar energy um okay that's great but perhaps we need to store it with perhaps with lithium batteries but uh we we want we want to use like uh um sure yeah I see the last one was the fossil fuel area I mean yeah I mean is it not going to go to an end on its own because it's not an unlimited resource right maybe pick one out of the three questions Elon sure um yeah um I mean I I I think it's

you each government should just they they should do the right thing without waiting without depending upon what other governments are doing like the I think that's you know there's too much in these CL climate talks of of countries like trying to only do things if another country does it um I mean if some if it's if it's the right if it's the right thing for the future a country should just do it and don't worry about what other countries are doing just do the right thing um and many of the countries are so it's it's really just you know we just want to encourage as many governments as possible to change the rules to incent a good future that this is fundamentally what what what has to happen or we will substantially delay the transition away from cin

so um and and yeah so that that's that's what has to happen um and um and and you know Tesla and so study that my companies are very tiny like we're tiny tiny companies so the in order for there to be a big move uh towards sustainability um the the the giant companies have to know that that that that is what the governments are demanding for the future and that's what the people are demanding for the future so at the end of the day if you know the governments respond to to to to to popular pressure like if if you tell politicians that that your vote depends on them doing the right thing with climate change that that makes a difference so if if they're having sort of a a fundraising event or a den of party or whatever and at every fundraising event and

every den of party somebody's asking them hey what are you doing about the climate then they will take action so I think you have tremendous power you you have the power to make the change we can't we we can't let me tell you we definitely can't beat the oil and gas industry on lobbyists okay this is that that would be a losing battle um you know the you know uh Exxon makes more profit in a year than the value of the entire solar industry in the United States so it's it's like if you take every Solar Company in the United States it's less than exxon's profit in one year there's no way you can win on money it's impossible good evening sir I have just one small question but very actual uh do you think the cup 21 will be a success you know I I am I I have

I don't have any real basis for this but I have a good feeling about it um I I do have a good feeling about it so I I think well it's going to be degrees of success so it's sort of like um like for example like the Copenhagen was was terrible like nothing nothing came out of Copenhagen the Copenhagen CL climate talks I mean it was basically I think there was a net increase in global warming as a result of that one um unfortunately um in the case of the Paris talks I I think there will be some positive movement and it's a question of what degree um and I think we need to send a clear message to the the negotiating teams and to the politicians that this time there needs to be significant change this time it something needs to happen there's a question all

the way up on the top hello and thank you for coming my name is Maria and I'm a student of international relations here my question to you is this we know that climate is a global a common good so how do we get countries with economies relying heavily on fossil fuels on board with climate change which uh like how do we get those who have the most to lose on board thank you um I I think I think we just need to turn that argument around and say like look this this is a common good um and uh if if if we if if countries don't take action that they all will share in in a bad future so uh that they need that everyone needs to take action and and care about what what the future is going to hold um and lead by example um so and even countries that that are quite

dependent on on fossil fuels um if they just change their tax structure they can they can move away from that in in a in a way that's not super disruptive to the economy um it's really just a question of collecting like the same amount of taxes but but weighted towards uh things that we that's that U people believe are most likely to be bad instead of things that are most likely to be good um and we do this already in you know in in uh in our tax code we we tax alcohol and cigarettes much more than we tax fruits and vegetables it's just sort of the sensible things sensible thing to do and nobody you know you don't and you don't hear you know countries saying well we make lots of fruit you know we make lots of fruits and vegetables so like we we want low

taxes or we make lots of Alcohol Tobacco we want you know lower taxes like that's a silly debate that it's gone um and and I think the same thing applies to to carbon emissions just just adjust the tax code and the right thing will happen over time and if if it's graduated over time and you know it starts off small and become significant in the future then even if you're heavily dependent on cin today the that that that that message of of seeing what's going to happen in the future will have a huge impact on uh on the way that that any given country's economy works so um so so they will then become not dependent on cin because of the incentive structure so I really don't think they have anything to lose here and anything to lose by taking action and a

lot to lose by not taking action we have time for maybe two or three more questions so there's one right here hi uh my question is about batteries so electric B batteries today especially lithium ion have a significant carbon footprint and potential impact on both the environment and our health and the environmental impact moves away from consumables and to how the way how we produce and how we store the waste that comes from it so uh the Gap with fossil fuels might not be as wide as we think so my question how do you respond to this and how do you see this evolving in the next years um so I'm not sure I totally understand that question could you say that again yeah basically uh the the impact on the environment of uh today our ways of electrical batteries

lithium the production of lithium ion batteries and how you equate this with fossil fuel and its impact as it's more about the production and how we use the waste and how we store the waste and so how do you see this how is this going to be optimized in the next years or is this going to change yeah well the important thing is like once you once you've built a battery um then at the end of life of the battery you can recycle those components so it's it's a it's it's something that um you know has no long-term or negligible long-term impact on the carbon cycle um because you you essentially um you get the sort of the lithium nickel Cobalt um and um and you create create the battery you create essentially get those materials once and then you recycle them

forever um so uh I I think the the it's really a negligible impact for for for batteries on the environment um and uh yeah um and and as compared to carbon producing Mining and buring um billions of tons of carbon every year uh which which um effectively permanently from from a human standpoint affects the carbon the carbon uh content of the oceans and atmosphere so yeah um it's it's really we're talking orders of magnitude difference between uh fossil fuels and batteries like not not even on the same scale okay then the last one uh hello so my question is um taking into consideration that technology now is at some of a Breaking Point uh it is Advanced but not so Advanced to pass uh to the sustainable clean energy how do you see this integration of clean

energy in for long term in the future step by step maybe how do I see the integration how do I see us getting to a sustainable energy future yes yes how uh will uh will the clean energy integrate into into a society thinking into consideration that technology isn't Advanced uh sure well I mean I I I expect um you know all transport to go fully electric over time with the ironic exception of rockets um and uh and then all uh energy production to go sustainable over time um this will take this will take a long time many decades um but um you know the way it'll manif itself is by people having batteries in their homes or at the utility substation um and by driving um you know electric vehicles um and having electric planes but um as I said that this is this

is going to be quite a very slow transition um because the incentive structure is so biased against sustainable energy so um in fact even I think even if there's quite a strong action by government uh as a result of of the the climate talks in Paris I think it's still going to be um a transition that's measured in decades so it will be it will be a slow a slow transition um and um and and the fundamental question is H how do we accelerate that transition that that's the real question here um what actions can we take that would accelerate a transition to a good future um and that's why I'm so so harping on this notion of a a revenue neutral carbon tax I think that's something that that every country can Implement um and it can be graduated and phased in

over time and this is this will be by far the most effective thing uh for accelerating that transition to a good future okay please all right well thank you everyone all right