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Whitney Pennington Rodgers:
Marcelo Mena is an environmentalist
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and a scholar,
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and he is the former
Minister of Environment for Chile.
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Welcome, Marcelo.
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Marcelo Mena: How are you doing, Whitney?
Thanks for the invitation.
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WPR: Perfect. Great.
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Of course, thank you so much
for being with us here today.
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And you know, before we dive
into the future of climate action
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in Chile and beyond,
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I think it would be great for us
to talk about the present
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and why Chile really represents
a country that is worth thinking about
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when we talk about climate.
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You know, recently there have been
lots of commendable actions
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taken by your country
when we think about climate.
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Chile recently committed
to net-zero emissions by 2050,
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the first in the Americas to do this,
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and that's especially notable
when you think about
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how much of Chile's economy
really depends on carbon emissions:
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mining and agriculture
and spaces like that.
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So could you start a little bit
by just talking about
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how would this even be possible
to get to net-zero emissions in 30 years,
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and what would that mean for Chile?
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MM: Mm-hmm. It was a very surreal image
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when we saw Minister Schmidt,
the COP25 president,
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Patricia Espinosa,
the UN head on climate change,
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with masks, delivering this new NDC.
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The important thing here is, things
that are hard to build require consensus,
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but therefore to get rid
of that commitment,
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you need to have another consensus.
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This hasn't happened,
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so the thing is, the reason why Chile
has a sort of vision towards mitigation
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that's ambitious
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is that we see that there's
a big economic benefit.
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We have seen, we've witnessed,
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what the renewable energy sector
has been able to do for investment,
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for lowering energy costs.
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And so therefore to reach this goal,
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we will inevitably expand
to 100 percent renewable,
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but we'll also transform our industry,
which is heavy on fossil fuels,
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towards low emissions,
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with the hydrogen economy kicking in,
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with a recently launched
committee that I formed,
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that Minister Jobet,
the Minister of Energy, set up.
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And also energy efficiency
and a lot of capture, carbon capture.
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We are endowed with
a lot of natural capital.
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Taking care of that natural capital
and expanding plantations
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will allow us to reach net-zero by 2050.
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WPR: That's great.
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And now it seems like Chile
has such a huge focus, then,
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in thinking about renewable energy
and thinking about climate.
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But this wasn't always the case.
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Could you talk a little bit, I guess,
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about the history of how Chile
arrived at this moment?
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MM: Yeah, so in 2011, 2010,
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we had an energy discussion
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with incumbents saying the only way
we could solve our energy problems
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will be through large coal
and large hydro in the Patagonia.
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And that really polarized the discussion.
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We got together as a community
after large protests
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that triggered a lot of social movements,
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and we started discussing
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how we should be able
to do our energy going forward.
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The population, public unrest,
set up almost 6,000 megawatts
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of coal-fired power plants
to never be built.
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And when the government,
Michelle Bachelet's government came in,
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we pulled the plug
on the HidroAysén project,
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which is a big hydro project
in the Patagonia.
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And both of these conditions
enabled an opportunity
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for renewable energy to set in.
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We put in carbon taxes,
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we put in environmental regulations,
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and we set up an energy strategy
that we did, building on discussing
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and looking at the data,
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in which we thought that
the 70 percent renewable energy by 2050
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was going to be a target
that we could agree on.
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This target has been long surpassed.
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Now we're thinking of reaching
that same goal by 2030.
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WPR: And what you were saying
about social protests,
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that's something that a lot of people
maybe have been following
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news of what's going in Chile
are familiar with recent social protests,
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and I think I'm curious about
how you see that factoring in
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to climate action moving forward.
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How might these social protests
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play a role in what
climate action you see?
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And, really, how is it possible for Chile
to be a leader in climate action
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while also struggling
with some of these social issues?
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MM: Well, the social issues,
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which are very profound
and important to address,
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caused, for example, COP25
to not be able to be held in Santiago
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and to go to Madrid.
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And this also shifted a whole bunch
of the discussions and announcements
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that weren't done
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and we were expecting to have.
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But regardless of this,
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the fact that we have this commitment
from the government today
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shows that there's a resolution
to continue forward.
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But really, the economic model of Chile
was brought into question,
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because the environmental issues,
for example, are quite widespread,
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and many times you have
large coal-fired power plants
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being situated where people live
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and with higher mortality rates.
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Somebody who lives
where a power plant is installed
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has twice the rate of death
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in comparison to other people in Chile.
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So the model of having many people
be impacted for the benefit of few
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is something that caused
and triggered the social unrest.
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And it goes into the economic model itself
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of extracting, polluting,
impacting communities
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that may not see the benefits
of these economic activities.
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So while we've done a lot --
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we've come a long way, for example,
in securing a very emblematic agreement
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to phase out coal-fired power plants --
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many people feel that this
wasn't done fast enough
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and want this action to be brought faster.
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WPR: And it sounds like having people
be the voice and the engine
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behind making that happen
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has really been part
of this historical thread
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with climate action in Chile
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and seems like it would really
lead things moving into the future.
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MM: No, definitely, and we will continue.
Yes, go ahead. Sorry.
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WPR: Go ahead. Please go ahead.
We have a little bit of a delay.
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MM: Going forward, we're going to be ...
Starting out, we are doing well,
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but I think we need
to double down on our commitments.
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So even though
we have ministries involved,
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we have civil society involved,
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we need to bring in
the mainstream industry.
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I think, for example, the mining sector
has a great opportunity
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to be the solution
for the environmental issues,
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because we provide the copper,
the cobalt, the lithium
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that are required for solar PV panels,
for battery storage.
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But we need to do this in a clean manner.
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I think that's the biggest challenge
we're going to have
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in the next 20 years ahead.
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WPR: And sort of pivoting to the pandemic
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and to thinking about
what's going on right now,
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the entire world has obviously
been devastated by this crisis.
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What have been some of the unique
challenges that Chile has faced
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during this pandemic?
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MM: Well, definitely, as anybody,
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we are always struggling within
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taking actions today to prevent
a deeper impact in the future.
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And we started off pretty well.
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We shut off schools.
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We shut off different cities
and had a quarantine.
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But we gave the wrong signals to people
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and we didn't have a consistent effort,
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and this has brought us to have
the highest infection rates per capita
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in the world these days.
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So this goes to show that --
the same parallels with climate change.
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We need to take action now
to prevent deeper impact later.
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And I think we need
to take the lesson of this
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to continue with an effort,
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because one thing is to announce
an ambitious NDC.
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Another thing is to invest and do
the regulations that you require
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to turn this into reality.
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But there are some things
that are interesting.
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The pollution in Santiago,
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which is one of the most polluted capitals
historically in Latin America,
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has dropped substantially.
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The car-related emissions
are down almost 80 to 90 percent,
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which is pretty substantive.
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And we look at the example
of what's going on.
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Harvard University showed a study
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in which they showed higher
mortality rates for more polluted cities.
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And this is also the case in Chile.
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For every microgram of pollution, PM2.5,
there is an increase of the fatality rate
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of nine percent.
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But the thing is, we could also look back
at what we've achieved up to now.
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Had we not taken
measures to clean the air,
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as we've done in Chile
these last 20 years,
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we would be talking about five times
more people would have died from COVID.
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We have around 800 people
that have died due to COVID directly,
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but this would have been much higher
had we not taken action.
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And in fact, due to the lower pollution,
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if we estimate and predict this
to the rest of the year,
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we will have saved as many lives
reducing the pollution
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as we have lost in COVID,
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showing that there's a pandemic
that we also need to address,
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which is the crisis on air pollution
that suffocates many cities in the world.
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WPR: And it seems like that's probably
something that we're seeing
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in other areas around the world.
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As you're suggesting,
air pollution is a problem everywhere.
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And I'm curious also
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how these challenges
that you've mentioned, and maybe others,
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might hinder or help
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some of this progress
that you're hoping to make
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towards climate action.
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How do you see this factoring in
to some of the decisions
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that might be made going forward
in Chile and beyond?
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MM: OK, so we have a higher fatality rate
and more polluted cities,
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and we have a climate action to carry out.
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This is going to be a decisive decade,
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in which we need to lay the groundwork
for our lower-emissions strategies.
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So whatever we do today cannot lock us in
to an incompatible climate future.
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We need to lay the groundwork
for this low-emissions transition.
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So therefore, our green
recovery efforts need to be done,
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as Kristalina [Georgieva] spoke last week,
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has to be related to a green recovery
that creates jobs immediately,
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that addresses the poverty issues
that we have on energy
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today in southern Chile,
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and we need to use this
for expanding renewable energy
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and expanding the successful efforts
that we've done on electromobility.
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Today, we have the largest fleet
of electric buses outside of China,
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but we could actually
make this go even bigger,
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because we've seen that the reductions
in cost have been almost 70 percent
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in comparison to diesel buses.
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So we should use
this opportunity to expand.
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And multiple stakeholders are working.
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We're working together
to call on the government
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to do a green recovery,
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to use the green bonds
that we've already issued
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and under which we've gotten
really low rates for interest rates,
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to do and fund cleaning the air,
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cleaning the transportation
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and laying the groundwork for
a cleaner tomorrow in the mining sector,
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which is our biggest
challenge going forward.
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WPR: And then as far as the way
that you think about
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and conceptualize climate action,
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have you personally
had any changes to your thinking,
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just as a result of what
you're seeing through this pandemic?
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MM: Yeah, I think we start looking around,
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everybody had to struggle and find
that we could do much more with less,
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and keeping a full economy
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that requires you to buy
an extra t-shirt that you don't need,
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the fact that we're using
three times more clothes
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than we were maybe 20 years ago
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shows that we are blowing up
an economy that requires us
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to destroy the environment, in a way,
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to continue forward.
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And the food system is going to be
probably our biggest challenge,
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and even though I've been working
with electric buses and electromobility
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and just the more conventional mitigation,
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I think our biggest cultural challenge
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will be to talk about
how our food decisions
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impact the way that we will have a future.
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"Nature" just put out a report
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that showed something that when we were
in the government, we had talked about.
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When Chile was good in soccer,
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we started going deeper
into the wintertime contests,
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and we started winning games.
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But to win those games,
we started doing a lot of barbecues,
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and the paper that came out
showed something that,
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when we explained this to people,
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that you guys are messing up
the air with barbecues,
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people thought we were crazy.
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Well, the "Nature" report now shows
that we actually fouled the air
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and destroyed the air,
annihilated the air,
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because we wanted
to celebrate the soccer.
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And we set this up to people,
and people thought we were crazy.
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Now people acknowledge the fact
that the basic things that you could do,
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such as the way that
you choose how to cook,
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could actually impact your air.
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So I think going forward these
cultural challenges that we need to do,
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we need to tackle them head-on.
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We should need to show the evidence.
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Otherwise, we're just going
to be ignoring problems
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and letting them
perpetuate for the future.
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WPR: And, you know, for nations
who have not really prioritized climate
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in the same way that Chile has,
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are there lessons that
you think can be learned
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from some of the choices
that Chile has made in recent years
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that other nations can apply,
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and how could folks in other countries
implement some of these strategies
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that you implemented in Chile?
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MM: So, many people in the US
and across the world
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know about the Chilean sea bass.
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The Chilean sea bass was overfished
and almost collapsed.
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One of the things that we did under
the support from "National Geographic"
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and with the leadership
of President Bachelet
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was to expand marine protection,
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from four percent of our oceans
to 43 percent within one government,
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which is the largest leap.
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There's only comparison to the US
during Obama in terms of protection.
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And this is because we want
this population also to recover.
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You know, when you
let the park stop fishing,
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the overflow from the fishing
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will actually increase
the biomass sixfold.
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So I think one of the efforts
that we need to do
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as we talk about
the biodiversity convention
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that's going to happen this next year
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is that we need to change
our relationship to the environment.
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We need to protect
and conserve our ecosystems,
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so they provide the services
that they do today.
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Today, 96 percent of all mammals,
land mammals,
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are humans or stuff humans eat.
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Only four percent
of land mammals are wild.
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When I heard that data,
from "National Geographic,"
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for the first time,
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I couldn't believe it.
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We've changed our relationship
with the planet,
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and we're suffering these decisions
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because we see zoonotic diseases --
not just coronavirus --
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spread time after time.
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WPR: And we have Bruno here -- hi, Bruno
-- with a question from the community.
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Bruno Giussani: Hi.
Absolutely. Hello, Marcelo.
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This is a question from Melissa Mahoney.
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She asks if you can expand on
what economic benefits
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of net-zero emissions are.
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And especially, could those benefits
be the same for Chile
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and for other countries?
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MM: Good.
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For example, when I worked
in the World Bank,
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we supported Chile to look into
the macroeconomic impacts
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of the net-zero target.
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And it was shown that Chile
will grow 4.4 percent more.
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So we turned the risk of climate change,
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and we turned it into an opportunity
of expanded growth.
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This manifests in lower
transportation costs,
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lower energy costs,
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and this makes the economy
more competitive.
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The costs of reaching the net-zero target
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are much lower than the benefits
that we will have to reap.
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And we're not even talking
about cleaner air benefits,
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we're talking about
direct economic benefits
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of having increased investments,
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which is something that every country
will require in these years
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to recover from the COVID crisis,
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and lower energy costs.
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So that's how it manifests,
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and this is a consensus today
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that we need to have more renewable energy
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because this is the way that we've had
cleaner air and lower energy costs.
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BG: There is another question
from someone in the audience, asking,
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"Countries across Latin America
have very different attitudes on climate.
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Can you comment on that?"
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MM: So Pew Research Center
has been putting out reports
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regarding what is the main
external threat that you have.
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And in Europe, in the US,
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the biggest threat
was either China or ISIS
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or some external bellicose threat.
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In Latin America and Africa,
it's climate change, number one,
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and Chile is one of the highest,
with 86 percent of Chileans
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saying that climate change
is the greatest external threat.
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And this is also very high
across the region.
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We could have populist governments
coming in, changing their priorities,
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but the reality is, people are concerned,
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because they see the threat
of climate change every day,
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and regardless of whether
the national government believes in it,
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climate change is real
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and is causing impacts
and causing poverty in the region.
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BG: Thank you, Marcelo.
Back to you, Whitney.
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WPR: Thank you. Thank you, Bruno.
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And Marcelo, just one last question
before we actually say goodbye,
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which is just, knowing that you
were involved in the negotiations
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for the Paris Agreement,
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are there things that you take
from that experience
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that you can apply to this moment
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as we think about emerging
from this crisis
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and coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic?
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MM: Yes,
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that there will always be a populist
that will be opposing climate action,
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and the way to get at this
is to make the economic case,
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so regardless of what happens,
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there will be an economic case
for spending on renewable energy.
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The US grew its renewable energy
investments around 40 percent last year.
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In Brazil, it grew almost 10 percent.
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And so therefore, if we are able
to align the economic goals
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with climate goals,
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you will be able to make this go forward.
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There's the Network for Greening
the Financial System
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that puts together central bankers.
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The World Bank launched a coalition
of finance ministers for climate action.
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These are great efforts
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that will allow us to have the financial
system support climate action
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because there's an economic benefit,
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because it's important for you,
for your fiduciary responsibilities,
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to disclose the risks you have,
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both transitionally and physically.
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And if we are able to do this,
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regardless of what negotiations happen,
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because there will always be
problems with the consensus,
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you will continue to have
a resilient approach
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because climate action will continue
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because you can have
the economic system support this.
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WPR: That's really great.
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Thank you so much, Marcelo,
for being with us
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to share your perspective
and your insight.
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It's really great to sort of zoom in
on some of the things happening in Chile
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and how that might apply
to all of us all over the world.
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Thank you for joining us today.
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MM: Thanks.