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Beneath every visible city lies another one made of roots, rivers, soils, breezes, and microbial worlds — a restless ecology that shapes the urban realm as profoundly as any human plan. A former landscape artist, now working with AI research labs, invites us to look at this hidden metropolis with new eyes and explore how intelligent tools can help surface the needs and rhythms of non-human actors: trees that regulate microclimates, waterways that remember old paths, soils that hold the city together grain by grain. What new forms of governance and design become possible when we learn to listen to these quieter voices — and allow the invisible city to speak?

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Beneath every visible city lies an invisible one made of roots, rivers, soils, a restless ecology that profoundly affects the urban realm. Yet our planning and policy frameworks remain very human centric. Former landscape architect Jan Bunge now works with AI. Research labs that invite us to look at this hidden metropolis with new eyes and explore how intelligent tools can help surface the needs and rhythms of nonhuman actors, giving them a voice in design and governance. He'll be in conversation with Brainstorm Design co-chair Tony Chambers. Thank you, Alan Welcome, Jan. Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. What a great day it's been so far, and thank you again, Jan for joining us for the 2nd time at Brainstorm Design here in Macau. So today, We've heard a lot about the importance of human centered design. I'm quite right too. However, Jan thinks we should be thinking beyond this. We should be thinking more about multi-species centered design. So we'll dig into that in a moment. First, we're gonna have a quick career. Run through and life run through of Jan so far. So your beginnings which have informed you very well, very hippie commune upbringing in Berlin and in New York. This is young Yan with his pet pig, and a quick career run through, hippie commune. Worked as a landscape architect. Into urban design. Communication And then most significantly, and when we talked last time, a pioneer of virtual experienced twins with squint opera. And there's 2 projects we're going to look at here, which you, if you could explain to us, which are very significant, and many people will have heard of. So Scre Opera has the beautiful task of communicating super large projects in the built environment to non-technical people, and the way we do that is through immersive experiences where we try for you to have an experience of how things would look and feel like. This one was the Toyota for the launch of Toyota Wolver City, um. A couple of years back and uh from, from this kind of setup, we went into uh representing everything in game engines, very similar to what we saw before. So the next one is actually um simulated in unreal Game engine where you have the opportunity to dynamically go anywhere you want, but secondly, you can also switch between different options. Again, this is always about allowing non-technical people to get an idea of how things will look and feel like. And this one was a huge project in Neon, Saudi Arabia. Yeah, so basically opera simulates anyone who wants to build a new city, but Uh, you know, it's at a very early stages, um, and there's a lot of non-technical people involved who have to make important decisions. This is when, you know, you, you call them and they help you simulate those complex future realities. And then from that, how many many years working in this area and really being a pioneer, squint opera were doing the largest and most impactful work with virtual experienced twins, and your experience working with virtual experience twins and AI. So it led you to question the data that is input and then what actually ultimately drives AI and that's what's brought you back. To your first love and first work, landscape, architecture and design, and gardening. Yeah, to explain, I think in a funny way design data has become the frontier of design today, um, but As a landscape architect, I often think about gardens and if you go back in time and you look at early depictions of Persian gardens or the way we thought about the Garden of Eden or Chinese gardens, you'll see that they are always walled gardens, and this had a lot to do with our perception at the time, which was that the world around us, the nature Around us was actually dangerous, often life threatening, and so what we did was we cut out a little piece, built a wall around, and then within that little piece of man-made landscape, we forced trees to grow in squares and we we straightened our rivers and then we ended up with this. So we tried to tame nature and nature. We tried to control a complex system that we didn't fully understand. And Then we talk about natural catastrophes, but when we see floods like that, but what actually happens in reality is that the river is just remembering where it used to flow. Um, rivers have always meandered. This is a map of how the Mississippi River, which areas it used to occupy in the past. So you could say the river is just remembering where it used to go and it was our lack of understanding of this complex system. That led to those human catastrophes. So they're not natural disasters, they're human made. They're definitely manmade. So now at this moment in time when you know, we see all the advances in machine learning and AI, my hope is that for the very first time in human history, we can actually dare to look over the wall of our walled garden and try to Understand and at least see and perceive reality for what it is as a very complex, interdependent, interconnected, constantly changing dynamic reality. And if there are two things that I learned over the last couple of years as a designer, The reason why I got obsessed with data and what we put into those machines is that by definition, the way they work is based on the idea of a recursive learning loop. So any technology we ever invented before is static in the sense that a book will not change depending on how you read it. Here it's really whatever we put into it gets reinforced over and over again. So it's important to figure out what we put in and the second thing. It's something we have always known that the tools that we make and use actually shape us. Now we are dealing with a tool that is constantly reshaping itself as it shapes us. So again, I feel one of the most important frontiers as a designer is to really understand all the underlying infrastructure, all the underlying logic of how these machines work in order to use them in the best possible way for us. And you feel we are still living in anachronistically in a sense, yeah, still in the Gutenberg world. We all, uh, this is the only world we know actually. If you think about all our processes and systems, um, you know, there's hard borders, there are linear, it's all about being able to control and predict, but the reality is that even though we are still living in the Gutenberg world. The AI world is upon us and there is no way back and you know the simple way of looking at this is that. This AI world is the complete opposite of what we are today. So we're moving from linear to network systems, from static to dynamic, from specialized to integrated, from mechanical to organic, and in the end from control to emergence. And so this is not a little adjustment 10% different here or there. This is a fundamental by emergence you mean an unpredictable, unpredictable and constantly changing and evolving in time. So The other thing working a lot in stimulation, uh, I also came to believe that The intelligence or our power is really not about prediction, but it is very much about our capacity to perceive. I think the beautiful opportunity that we have is to use this technology to see more and that is really, you know, at this moment in time, too often people have a very complex problem and a very big question, and then they want to boil it down to one single answer. I think we should use the machine the other way around, you know, it should talk to us about the edges that we heard earlier about, you know, show me the things I didn't think about, show me the things I didn't know, yeah. Um, you know, both these elements are, you know, AI supported real-time design tools on the right. This is a tool where in real time the designer can stimulate environmental impact, whether it is heat gain or wind. This used to be. impossible to do in real time because those simulations, those calculations would take even 2 years ago, uh, a day to, to render. And so today, um, through the use of AI by training AI and understanding how those Complex systems actually work. We have the ability to simulate it in real time and give real-time feedback to the designer and the left is the simulation of wind, and by physicalizing the wind in the 3D model, you get a very different idea of what you're dealing with. So personally, I'm most obsessed with the question of, you know, how can we move from Building systems and tools and processes for human-centric design and how can we expand them to acknowledge that we are actually living in a multi-species reality. I feel like a lot of the problems that we have today is because we, we thought we understood enough. To take action and to manipulate, but by not knowing or not seeing the fringes or the site or the holistic picture, we ended up where we are today. So really how can we give agency to nonhuman entities that help us design and govern our cities better and in specific, specifically one of the non-humans that you are supporting and Highlighting its importance is trees. So this is a research project that started 6 years ago, uh, it's called Trees as Infrastructure, and it was actually started by a bunch of economists at Dark Matter Labs together with Lucid Minds, the AI research lab in Amsterdam, and they had the question of how can we validate the economic impact of trees to safeguard capital investment in in cities. So, so in order to, you know, make mission critical budget decisions at a large scale, they went very deep and they started looking at all the ways in which you could measure impact or value. the obvious ones pre sequester carbon and they have an impact on biodiversity which translates into carbon credits or biodiversity credits. But they also looked into aspects of human health, meaning reduction in temperature or improvement of air quality, as well as resilience related issues like how do the trees enhance the soil capacity to absorb water in a stormwater event, for example. Interestingly driven by economists. They're all driven by economists because cities have to decide. When they are planting trees, you know, which will give them the best uh impact. So, so everything today obviously needs to be validated and analyzed properly. So yeah, this is driven or started through an economic lens and uh it has been deployed in many cities, so uh in in Europe in the next slide you see a bunch of um uh examples, um, and, and uh if you want to validate something. That complex, then you really need to have scientific rigor and which means that all the underlying assumptions of this platform are actually peer reviewed and publicized so everyone can see if you agree with the core logic of the simulation and also the core algorithms that determine things like the species specific tree grows are accessible. I think it's a very important point. And if we talk about managing risk and liability, we need visibility. And so also I am also like you heard from Ben, very much of the opinion that you know the only way to do that is to open up this information and really open source as much as possible. And girls, tell us a little more about. So green unified systems started with trees, but the way the simulation is built is that it obviously has to take into account the whole ecosystem. So we talk to each other and they, so not only the trees talk to each other, so you need to represent all of those individually, but also they relate to the soil. So there's a module where you're simulating the soil, then there's the animals and then there's the climate and so green unified system is really designed to expand beyond the trees and that's what I'm currently working on is, is to explore how we can reach a point where we can actually start thinking about a tool that can go beyond those trees all encompassing looking at the whole ecosystem. So I don't have a great working on. I don't have a great name for it yet. So it's called Audoy. Uh, for the simple fact that this is a tool that helps you to analyze, understand, design, optimize, and implement nature-based solutions, um, and All these, uh, you know, are grounded in utilizing environmental intelligence in the design process, uh, in, in real time. So when you think about this challenge, you know, at the beginning you need something to assess assess your conditions and you want to set your goals, design different scenarios, test them virtually before you scale and then it all needs to feed back constantly into, into the model. Um, again, I feel. The real opportunity that we have today is that we can start to engage with complex systems that even 2 or 3 years ago were impossible for us to engage with um because of the just of the sheer dimension of the problem and In that sense, there is still a lot of research to do to figure out as a constant feedback loop is needed because we will never fully understand it and every model is always an abstract representation of reality. It is never the reality obviously in itself, but, but uh. I find it fascinating that today we have the technology that helps us to make sense of all this unstructured data and help us to see patterns. How we also heard earlier this morning. So designing with environmental intelligence. So it's another AI. We started with emotional intelligence this morning, but we're on to environmental intelligence. And we should be planetary gardeners because in the end, there is really no difference between the man-made world and the natural world. There is no outside of the system. Everything is connected and everything is happening in the same space. So we need to try to adopt a more holistic understanding of everything as a beautiful and very optimistic take. We're not going to neglect humans. But we are going to think more about the multi-species world we live in. This last slide is maybe the most complicated one because We do like the illusion of control. We do want to feel in control. And as we are engaging with those complex systems, we start to understand that it's impossible to control those systems in their, in their totality, and in the end, what I think we have to get used to is the idea that we are designing for emergence, designing for the unknown and therefore, you know, in a more dynamic. evolving way. It's urgent. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for giving voice to the natural world and speaking up for the trees. Thank you. Thank you.

Surella Segu, Chief Heat Officer, Monterrey, Mexico, Dr. Jane van Dis, Associate Professor, Obstetrics & Gynecology, University of Rochester Medical Center (appearing virtually) Moderator: Maria Aspan, Fortune  

Brainstorm Health 2024: The Changing Climate is Coming for Our Health

Surella Segu, Chief Heat Officer, Monterrey, Mexico, Dr. Jane van Dis, Associate Professor, Obstetrics & Gynecology, University of Rochester Medical Center (appearing virtually) Maria Aspan, Fortune  

Soraya. Thank you so much for joining us and Jane, thank you so much for joining us remotely, Jane. I wonder if I could start by asking you just to tell us why. In fact, you are joining us remotely. Oh, sure. And thank you so much for inviting me. Um I uh when I told you that I could only join virtually, I thought for sure that was going to be a deal breaker. Um But in 2021 I signed a uh a No Fly pledge. Um There is a nonprofit called uh No Fly USA. And uh part of my pledge is that uh I'm gonna find other modes of transportation that are not as carbon intensive. Uh We a study come out just last week showing that the, the thinking around sustainable jet travel um is not matching reality. And that, in fact, we would have to have more farmland than the whole planet even has to create the amount of sustainable jet fuel uh to power our current jet travel. So uh slowing down, not flying uh is one of my goals and that's why I'm attending virtually. Well, we thank you for making the time and I have to say it, I say from this stage of this conference that I flew to, it seems like a radical life altering decision but that it also sounds like that is what is needed right now. The urgency of this climate change situation, I feel, I say as a reporter, it feels like it cannot be overstated and Soraya, I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about how you communicate that urgency in public. Well, uh I like to talk about what are the, the heat waves that we are experiencing right now? And this is happening everywhere. Uh particularly well, in, in, since I've been working in Mexico, uh 70% of the, the States or the majority of the States in Mexico City are experiencing heat waves and you've been listening that last year was the, the warmest year, but that is happening and it's been increasing, it is going to be increasing. So I like to say that we are kind of like beyond resilience, we are more into finding ways of uh regenerate, like find how we can regenerate our cities. Uh Because the cities are the places where we experience more heat right now because we are a health care conference, Jane, I wonder if I could start by asking you, you're an OBGYN, could you talk to us a little bit about the links you see and you um and you forge professionally between climate justice and reproductive health. Yeah. So I actually used to live in California. I used to live in Los Angeles and I actually practiced uh for a while, about five years up in Bakersfield. And you can imagine the Central Valley is full of outdoor workers. In fact, um while Black Hispanic or Latino uh persons comprise 32% of the population, they are 40% of us outdoor workers. And so a lot of those outdoor workers would become my patients. And I would actually see some of the complications of, of those who do work outdoors and how it affects their health. For instance, uh that could be increased risk for asthma and obviously increased risk for dehydration. Um A study published last year showed that of 100 and 92 farm workers in the summer on any given day, 33% of those outdoor workers had kidney injury due to elevated heat index. Um and then pregnant women are especially vulnerable to heat. Maternal heat exposure has been associated with increased risk of both preterm, birth, low birth weight and stillbirth for every 1.8 degree rise Fahrenheit in temperature above the mean, there's a 5% rise in stillbirth and preterm birth. So these consequences of our warming world are we, we're seeing that in, in our emergency rooms and in our labor and delivery. So heat is also at the center of what you study from a different perspective. First of all, what exactly is a Chief Heat Officer? And what did you do at Monterey in Monterey? Well, a Chief Heat Officer is an officer in charge of uh leading all efforts in basing what the the impact of extreme heat represents for cities it's uh attached to the major because the the objective is to be uh to have actions to be implemented. So it's not just policy making or raising awareness, but it's also how we can transform cities in a real way. And what are the kind of uh physical transformations in the built environment that we need to do? Give us an example of what, what um what should cities be doing to transform building environments? Well, there are immediate uh actions like of course raising awareness like campaigns for uh extreme heat particularly because uh what Jen was talking about uh illnesses but also deaths are preventable but they are happening but they are preventable. So it's very important that we know what to do in in cases of extreme heat and how we can take care of us and, and uh the citizens of the cities. Uh we can do green roofing, reflecting roofing, uh decreasing the amount of pavement, decreasing the amount of asphalt because this constitutes a lot of um reflecting heat into the city. But also create some strategies at city scale like a green corridors, green like network of parks and green corridors in cities. Uh We can work with in hand by hand with uh the city manager who works with water management because that's another component that is very important. Heat is not an isolated piece, but it's related to uh water management, the quality of air to the amount of vegetation that you have and uh everything is interconnected. So we need to work in an inter uh integral way in cities. You know, it's such an interesting point because we have long known that health care is determined by more than just your genetics and your personal behaviors in this era of climate change. Um Maybe Sara starting with you and then I'll go to Jane, is there enough awareness about how much our environment affects our health care? And and perhaps more importantly, are you seeing appropriate action being taken to improve both? No, I think that we are, we are very short about what we are doing and what we need to do is really think about uh the physical environment, but the natural environment and how we can interconnect both and how, how we can bring in a massive way, particularly in very dense cities uh or very urban cities, like how we can bring more nature and how we can work with the nature that we have in terms of transforming but also uh how close this nature is to the people like uh particularly because I went to another uh meeting, but how the worker goes from home to the workplace and what is that experience for them in the public transportation or even in the car if they walk? How is that experience? And how is the, the working environment too, Jane? And be curious for your answer as well. Well, I'm gonna take um a slightly different approach and discuss the ways in which uh one element which is fossil fuels on which obviously our economy and our lives depend. Um And talk about the way. Uh for instance, um uh the discrepancy of these urban heat islands, I heard on N pr today that um Phoenix has started to open up its um its cooling centers. Um And so we are preparing for obviously another year of above average temperatures across the US. Um I used to live in Los Angeles and in Los Angeles, there could be up to a 20 degree Fahrenheit difference in temperature between uh shady suburbs and uh and urban Heat Island. So very much uh following uh redlining that occurred in Los Angeles back in the fifties and sixties. And so you see market disparities and inequity in terms of how heat is distributed across the population. And what I will say is then the number two way that that fossil fuel is uh affecting the health of, of Americans across the the country this coming summer is going to be in air pollution. So we know obviously that burning of fossil fuels creates a particulate matter. And we actually know that that fossil fuel air pollution. Uh from my perspective, taking care of pregnant women absolutely increases the risk of preterm birth. Um And thanks to uh recent studies, we've also learned that it's responsible for up to 10 million deaths a year worldwide with that number even growing. And unfortunately, when you combine heat with uh fossil fuel, air pollution, particulate matter, um they are, they are additive, they're symbiotic. So, actually, you know, having high density uh air pollution or having a lot of air pollution combined with heat makes both of those those indices worse. Um And we expect, or scientists are expecting that the eastern seaboard might see AAA repeat of what happened last summer with those Canadian wildfires uh throwing that particulate matter down into the, into the United States. And then the last thing I want to mention uh because it, it isn't necessarily always part of the conversation, but it's always part of my conversation because I, I am constantly amazed at how fossil fuel plastics are affecting. Uh my patient's health. I actually, I was sitting waiting in the waiting room for this talk today. A friend messaged me and she said, Jane, I saw your post today about a study showing that uh of, I don't know it was 50 or 60 testes, male testes that were tested for plastics. Um All of the testes were positive for plastics and we saw this in a recent uh study looking at placentas as well. Every single one of the placenta that was tested, it was like 70 plus placentas was positive for plastics. Well, 12% of our global oil goes into plastics. So to me, plastics are a continuum of, of this whole um crisis of the fossil fuel. Um And interestingly enough, uh 75% of the plastics uh that we encounter that make their way into our air and into our water and ultimately into our food and our bodies. I, I am going to stop you there just because I wanna make sure that we get to another. Well, you raise a lot of really important problems and we could, we could spend another 45 we could spend like 45 minutes talking or more. I'm curious about solutions and so I will start with you. We're all aware of this problem. As Jane said, we all lived through last summer. We're preparing for this summer. What solutions do you see and what needs to be done immediately? Well, we need to raise awareness to, to let people know what is happening and also how they can take care of themselves. Uh We are as many cities in the States are doing, preparing cooling centers for people to be able to rest because that's an important thing to do. You can be in outside but then you have to rest and, and allow your body to balance again. And this Jen may know better than me. But uh that. And also um I would say that start working collectively in, in, in doing what we can do each of us, but planting more trees, uh cleaning more uh our environment. And also um I think creating more, more positions even within the industry uh of people who are dealing with these issues in an immediate way. So trying to transform even our, our buildings like how we can create because the, the first idea is that the air conditioning is something that we, we is a solution, but it actually is something that is creating more heat. So how we can find Nature Based Solutions for the process and and also doing research in like bio um biomaterials and other innovations in terms of uh this environment. Wonderful. Well, thank you both so much for joining us and please join me in. Thanking Soa and Jane.

Menopause symptoms can go beyond just hot flashes or night sweats. This life stage affects nearly a billion women globally, but it's often misunderstood. Dr. Makeba Williams of Washington University in St. Louis explains.

6 things you didn't know about menopause and its symptoms

Health

Menopause symptoms can go beyond just hot flashes. This life stage affects nearly a billion women globally, but it's often misunderstood.

Menopause symptoms can go beyond just hot flashes or night sweats. This life stage affects nearly a billion women globally, but it's often misunderstood.

Women will spend a third to a half of their lives in this stage called menopause. 1.3 million women enter menopause annually and worldwide. We have about 984 million menopausal women, menopause is important because it impacts half of our population. The average age of menopause is 51 52. Actually, one of the misconceptions is that women are older and women in their late thirties, early forties who may be experiencing the menopausal transition. It's never too early to begin to ask those questions of when might I go through menopause? What are the symptoms of menopause? Menopause can have a variety of symptoms. We commonly hear about hot flashes or night sweats, cognitive sluggishness, having some difficulty remembering the next word. Maybe you walk into the room and you can't remember what you went in for sleep disruption. This can be a result of those hot flashes that occur during the night. A less often publicly talked about symptom is the vaginal changes, the urinary tract changes that come along with the lack of estrogen. This might result in women experiencing dryness as well. Sex can become a comfortable weight gain can be quite distressing. This weight tends to settle out in the mid section of the body to treat their symptoms. I encourage women to think about behavioral changes that they can make that works for you. As an individual in the absence of estrogen, there are changes to our bone health. So the diet should include nutrients that are going to be impactful and helpful to that end. A Mediterranean diet full of fresh fruits and vegetables with lean proteins. Fish forward is often a diet that I recommend for patients with regard to bone mass. It is important to make sure that the diet is full of calcium and that there is vitamin D to absorb that calcium. We recommend that the calcium come from a variety of sources in the diet diet rather than supplements. Good sources of calcium include dairy products, almonds and dark leafy vegetables, salmon and other bony fish. With the loss of estrogen women will experience physical changes to their muscles. This is also a time where we see increased cardiovascular disease risk engaging in weight bearing exercise, weight, resistance exercise can strengthen bone and muscle exercises such as hit high intensity interval training can be really impactful to give, not only that resistance training but also that cardiovascular boost. We estimate a total of $26 billion of economic burden related to menopause. This is a about 1.8 billion because women are not showing up for work or they show up for work and are not their most productive selves. And then there is another almost $24 billion spent in health care costs because oftentimes treatment is delayed. Another important tip is to talk about your menopause. A patient say to me, everybody showed up when I was pregnant, they were there at the birth of my Children. But unfortunately, as I have begun to experience these menopausal symptoms, the world seems to be silent. So find someone to talk with, seek out a certified menopause provider to help guide you and coach you through this important stage in life.

[ MUSIC ] All right, just gonna put this on. Thank you both for being here. Really appreciate it. Wait [ BLANK_AUDIO ] [ INAUDIBLE ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ] All right, the topic of his panel is biodiversity and Biodiversity by definition is incredibly broad. But Christiana, you had a very succinct way of putting it earlier. Can you just give us your definition of what biodiversity is? Right. Thank you. And good afternoon, everybody. The most simple way to understand biodiversity or biological diversity, it's the totality of all forms of life On the planet, so that says it all from the tiniest bacteria to microbes, to trees, to plants, to animals to wildlife and finally to humans. We are all biodiversity. Alright, so that mentioned this report that came out in May from the United Nations that really put in very stark terms The threats to bio diversity. And I'm just I'm wondering Christiana if you can. Well it said that it's declining at rates that are unprecedented in human human history with some 1 million plant and animal species threatened by extinction, extinction, many within just a decade. And I think there's a temptation to think about Species extinction is something that's separate from our everyday lives. Tigers are going extinct or insects are going extinct, but can you talk about why everyone in this room, should be concerned, about what the UN report laid out in such dramatic fashion? Yeah. With pleasure, not everyone in this room, but everybody on this planet needs to be concerned and needs to be seriously concerned. Because the loss of biodiversity It is not about the loss of this 1 million species. It's a lot more than that because this million species have their own role in the way the planetary systems function. Again from the tiniest bacteria all the way to us humans. So when we are losing the species we are losing the fabric that keeps together all these ecosystems, the way we refer to it and the services that nature provides for us. So, let us not forget our food comes from nature and from biodiversity, the air that we breathe, the water that we drink. All the services are provided by nature free for us humans and maybe through our evolution we we came to believe that somehow we are separated from nature. The reality is we are not. We have our own role in this ecosystem. It's true that we are the dominant species. But if we are losing all the other forms of life, there is absolutely impossible that we can continue on this planet and No matter how much creative technology can get. So, I think it is a reason of concern because at the end of the day, it is impacting us at an individual level, it's impacting businesses. It's impacting indigenous people in their communities. So, it's a very, very serious threat. It's a track that it's not much talked about. I hope that with the release of the of the report in May, a lot of people started to realize what's at stake. Climate change is the biggest problem that we talk about these days. But climate change is just an effect of the disruption in the way the planetary systems function and. And biodiversity is fundamentally, the infrastructure that supports life on Earth, it's the capital that supports us here. So if we are losing that, we are facing a serious challenge in the decades to come. Can you give, you mentioned the impact on business, can you give an example of Of how the declined in bio diversity. Yeah, let's take the one that I think it's easier for us to understand humans because obviously the entry point to understand the relation with bio diversity is to food, is to health. So agriculture, land used changed, sea used changed. Is the largest driver of [ UNKNOWN ]. It's the way we clear forest, we clear lands, we overfish in order to provide food for a growing population. However, as these species go extinct, and they decline, obviously, that is a threat for the businesses in the agriculture sector. And in turn, it's a threat to our food security So right now, I think everyone of us can still go to supermarket and buy food. So perhaps it's not so obvious what's happening out there. I used to call biodiversity loss the silent killer, because with climate change we see the impacts, it's now becoming visible. But every city loss, we don't see it but by the time we will realise it's gone it may be too late. So fisheries, forestry, agriculture, those are sectors that can be seriously impacted, as well as insurance [ LAUGH ] the reinsurance industry. With disruptive weather patterns, they see a lot of threats, too, to their business. Right, well, the the UN report was pretty dire, as we mentioned. But it did have a bit of a silver lining, or at least a blip of hope in that. It said that it's not too late to really sort of turn this trend around but that transformational change Needed and I want to hear from both of you, Christiana and the vice minister. What's what are the one or two changes that you think we most need to see immediately? I mean, obviously, this is such a broad topic, but do you want to start by semester? She Yes, I want to share with you my observations. Well, from the government perspective, I'm the vice minister of the China's government facing up to this threat, the loss of biodiversity, the government shall play critical and important role, I cannot share with you The understanding of the Chinese government and how to preserve the biodiversity in 2011. The National Committee of Biodiversity Conservation was established later by the Vice Prime Minister of the country. [ UNKNOWN ] Had the national plan on protection of the biodiversity [ UNKNOWN ] from 2011 to 2030. We had Do you know, seven major projects in protection of bio diversity for example, protection of the wetland, or the land, habitat for the creators living on this planet to make it a livable and comfortable You know we have taken various measures including establishment of the natural resource reserve. It covers about 17 % of the national territory [ INAUDIBLE ] 18 % to be specific are higher than the original target of 17 %. Well in recent years, given the worsening biodiversity, last we are very determined to push forward with implementation of this plan. Apart from these reserve, we've gone to identify and select some other fragile and [ UNKNOWN ] areas. We try to include these areas into our reserve. This pan has been implemented for three years. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] And we have labelled these areas. We hope that we could extend this area of reserve to 25 % of the national territory. This is our target. And the government also have put in place various policies and practical measures. Ever since the 18th and CPC National Congress. President Xi Jinping encouraged the establishment or Formulation of the supervision for the implementation of the biodiversity conservation and this has to be implemented at a local level with the help of the local government. To make the implementation as effective and efficient as possible, I can give you a quite concrete example. Now we're having these very important forum by Fujian Lake. But a couple of years ago, there are a lot of human activities going on. By the lake including some restaurants, the hotels, you know, not too environmentally friendly. And there are a lot of development going on by the lake. Well the local government has what realized, you know what something has to be done to change for a better environment by the lake for the quality of the water in the lake and also for to habitat by the lake need to be improved. After years of endeavor, you can enjoy a very beautiful and very well regulated environment here by the lake. More importantly I want to tell you that the quality of the water in the lake, has been very much improved. [ FOREIGN ] This is the one of the most beautiful freshwater body with one of the largest size of compared to other freshwater here in China. About a 20 billion cubic meters in this water body So after years of effort, now we can enjoy this beautiful picture risk lake with a very good quality of water. So we're sitting right here on an example of what government intervention, government projects can do. And Cristiana and we ,- just beforehand You said that we should be thinking about the crisis of biodiversity not necessarily as an environmental problem but as a problem in terms of economy. Can you explain that because I think that's a real Yeah, yeah. And I would rather refer to a planetary emergency because, by diversity laws crisis is linked to climate change, is linked to ocean distraction, it's linked to everything else, so it's not just one side of approach, it's a It's a series of crises that are all interconnected because the planet works as one system. And yes, I look at biodiversity not as an environmental problem but as fundamentally an economic problem, because the drivers of biodiversity laws are coming from the economic activity. And in fact, are coming very much so from the perverse incentive that we give to activities that at the end of the day hard nature so to fix it, it's important to take policy measures that are coherent and that are addressing in this this Revolutionary transformational change that the report talks about. The big, big challenge that we have is that, according to the scientist's, do not have a lot of time. The scenario's indicate that if we continue, with the business as usual, both in our Actual businesses, private sector activity, but also the governance policies, the institutions, the consumption choices that we have. By 2050 we risk to get the planet into a stage where you could see irreversible damage and we cannot control that. Now, in ten years time, what can we do is to work together collectively, both governments who have their very important role to set out the policy framework that would incentivize good for nature, tax the bed, internalize the externalities of pollution, and really have the political courage. And the bold determination to redesign policy measures and perhaps economic models. I think the economic development models fundamentally need to put at the center nature because this is the foundation, this is the capital on which our economic system and our societal system stays, and That paradigm shift that perhaps is not easy to take and to shift faster, but we do not have many alternatives. So in that sense, I think the conference that will be hosted in China next year in [ UNKNOWN ] just an hour away It's really a historical and unique opportunity where all the countries around the world the 196 countries, which are members of the United Nation Convention on Biological Diversity will come together to agree on a plan for the next decade and for the decades to come. To see how and what do we need to do to define measures and policies and actions and, we hope that the business community will engage very seriously in that, as well as the as the people, the consumers. because it's not the governments alone or the UN alone or business alone will not be able to resolve that. We need Transformation in all systems in all economic sectors to recognize the value of this capital to recognize what we are losing when we lose it and it's not just moral value and you know some nice. This is in parts of the world its monetary value that we are seriously losing right. So you mentioned this is the 15th Conference of the parties. To the Convention the Biological Diversity. So that's taking place. Next year in Kunming Hosted by ->> Right and vice minister, I wanted to ask you, I mean as host of that conference, what do you hoping will be the outcome of that? [ BLANK_AUDIO ] We are very glad that this conference is going to be hosted Kunming. China, this will go a long way in putting together a framework for biodiversity global protection from 2022 2030. So we are hopeful that [ BLANK_AUDIO ] The best outcome, would be that in the protection of global biodiversity, a consensus will be forged, on what to do from 2020 to 2030 like habitat protection, beaches protection, and other types of protection which should drive a consensus as much as possible. And for it to be hosted in China, We would like to introduce to the audience, some best practices in China in the protection of biodiversity. Here in China, we have had a lot of experience, learnings and takeaways in the protection of the ecosystem of habitat and other bio resources. That we would like to bring experience to the reference of others. Christine, you compared it to accord that could come out of that meeting. You compared it to the one that come out of Paris, and we know how influential. That was when it was first agreed to. I wanted to ask you both obviously in this forum it's important to talk about businesses role in this. Christiana you talk to businesses quite often. I'm wondering what argument you find to be most persuasive when you Talking to businesses and sort of convincing them that this that biodiversity, there is a business case for protecting biodiversity. Yeah, definitely there there is a business case but I mean I don't have have to necessarily convince them. I think many of them are starting to become convinced themselves for a variety of reasons. Ranging from moral responsibility, social responsibility to Competitive advantage or simply realizing, I think the vast majority This is a risk and the threat to the business. And then they engage in action. And I hope you are all in this room a lot of you coming from the business community at a sustainability forum. So Perhaps I'm talking to the converted. But it's true that what I have seen in the last two years since I've been leading this convention, it's a surge in business interest from variety of forums to from the world economic forum to many other events. Just few weeks ago in Paris with President Macron of France. He introduced biodiversity as one of the topics for the G7 political meeting. And that's unprecedented because we don't usually see biodiversity being reflected in this kind of super high level political dialogues but it's because he recognizes the challenge and the track, That it's almost existential to the planet. So with that what was very interesting it's the formation of several business Coalition's and we are talking large businesses here, coming together to there is an alliance called business for inclusive growth. Which includes companies such as the unknown and Nestle companies in the, in the textile industry in the fashion and luxury brands who, who realize that it's critically important to, to really reduce their footprint or if anything have a positive impact Biodiversity throughout their supply chain because it they are their business depends on biodiversity so some of them will come to the UN in two weeks time at the UN General Assembly and feature. This Alliance is there. It's it's very important to see businesses starting To move in this direction and make commitments. But, honestly, we need not just pioneers and champions, we need essentially the whole world to move on. And there is just one other small point, it's the opportunity that exist for businesses in the ecoinnovation And green business entrepreneurship because there are models out there where is a win for business and for economy and for people from eco entrepreneurship. So businesses are starting from the very beginning circular economy. I mean, there are many .>> Right, I mean, you mentioned there is a current sort of a ground swell of business support. For this in the last two years or so, I'm wondering what you think is behind that. Do you have some thoughts on that? Yes, indeed. I mean, I fully agree with what she has shared. The business community is playing a bigger role in the protection of bio- diversity. It's going to bring about win win results through such actions companies can benefit economically while protecting the environment and the nature. In China we have a lot of success stories about being green. For example, ten years ago, there's a desert in China that was expanding rapidly. And then, a company came to its protection and the reservation of the lands around the desert with the support of the government On the one hand, they planted a lot of trees along the forest. At the same time, they developed some eco products like equal resources grown in or around the desert, and they became very successful with their business as well. And that company has become very successful. At the same time, the desert is being well- treated. And it has one claim from the International Convention on the prevention of desertification. And the global conference was hosted in that desert. And 10 years ago, there were only 10 species now they have around 500 speeches a species, by and large, restoring what it was like before very successful. And also many Chinese companies are. Also making contribution to infrastructure conducive to ecosystem protection. And they are translating a government mandate into voluntary actions. For example, in the Tibetan and the Shanghai plateau while building a railway link The railway company while satisfying the minimal requirements of the EIA, Environmental Impact Assessment, they have also taken extra steps to protect the ecosystem along the railway links. And that helps a lot with finding the harmony between man and nature. With infrastructure development, and in Greenland province, we have another success story as well, whereby around two years ago in developing a hydro power project. The company realized the importance to protect some local species and the development planning was readjusted accordingly. So that some species have been well protected. Those are very good success stories and examples. All right. Well, it's always nice to end on a success story or out of time, but I thank you so much for joining us and sharing your insight, On what is obviously a critical issue for business and government. So thank you so much. Okay. [ APPLAUSE ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

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