Exclusive interview of Emmanuel Macron: France 24's analysis of the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact
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00:00 Well, there you have it.
00:01 Pirepoix, as the French say, on point, starting at half past and finishing 20 minutes later
00:06 on the dot.
00:07 So going through some of those issues, we had a sense of a lot of the summit.
00:11 We saw the end to end diagram, how you have the big countries, some of the creditors from
00:16 the smaller, poorer countries, and how they have to cross over so that they can help financially
00:20 those smaller countries.
00:21 I also want to talk about the fact that it got a little personal, but only maybe for
00:25 a minute or so, President Macron was asked, is this summit, you at the center of it, a
00:29 chance to redeem yourself after several years in office?
00:32 He said, no, we're reinforcing the point on making the planet great again.
00:37 Let me bring in Oliver Farrie.
00:39 What's your takeaway from that?
00:41 Well, there was definitely, despite for all of Emmanuel Macron's talk about like a financial
00:47 shock is needed in order to combat climate change, he's very much keeping the same players
00:53 on board.
00:56 He dismissed any possibility of debt cancellation or a jubilee, which is something that activist
01:03 groups from the developing countries have been calling for for the past two decades.
01:08 He says that's not going to happen simply because if you do that, lenders will stop
01:12 lending.
01:13 He would rather like risk to be reduced, to spread it across.
01:20 He's probably, being from the world of international finance himself, he is probably somebody who
01:25 is probably more sympathetic and possibly more optimistic with the whole willingness
01:36 of hedge funds and various other financial institutions to go along with all this.
01:43 It may not be the case.
01:45 After all, he also wants to more or less get the more consuming, the more emitting nations,
01:53 which are the wealthy ones, to pull their weight, particularly with taxes on financial
01:58 transactions and also on air travel.
02:02 And he didn't mention there, but it has been touted for this particular summit on shipping
02:06 as well.
02:08 As he showed in the diagram there, there is a sense that definitely richer countries do
02:15 need to pull their weight.
02:16 But there's also an undertow as well, which you got the sense that they want to probably
02:22 continue as they are doing and have their cake and eat it and maybe try to solve their
02:27 conscience by paying a little bit more.
02:29 It may ultimately, on the climate side of things, it may not actually be enough.
02:35 Interesting.
02:36 Thomas Friang, there was from Open Diplomacy think tank, quite combative at times.
02:43 Emmanuel Macron centering France to say that we are pulling along the rest of the planet,
02:47 he said, in environmental.
02:49 He talked about decarbonisation, but he was asked about, well, hang on a minute, let's
02:53 cancel the debt for poorer countries.
02:55 He said, no, we have to talk about restructuring the debt because ultimately, the creditors
02:59 will lose out if they're cancelling this altogether.
03:02 What did you make of that?
03:03 I think it's absolutely fair to say that if you say to investors we won't pay back, anyone
03:08 would put money on the table to finance anyhow.
03:12 And that's the way I would insist on three main takeaways I had from President Macron's
03:17 speech and interview he gave.
03:20 This issue is exactly the same for 1,000 or Western or Northern countries.
03:24 We are exactly on the same page on financial issues and we are facing the same tough challenges.
03:29 Except let me bring in the fact that one point made by some of the developing countries is
03:33 that if they go to a big institution like the World Bank, say they want a big loan,
03:38 the Netherlands will get a far better terms of payback than a Ghana, for example.
03:43 At this stage, that's true, but this is exactly what it is about to say there should no longer
03:51 be North versus South in facing this issue of both tackling extreme poverty and climate
03:59 change because we have poverty issues in Northern countries.
04:04 We have to cope with the just transition issue.
04:06 We also have to put money on the table to invest our decarbonisation.
04:10 When we talk about this, it's the same issues as in South.
04:16 The RFI journalist said there is West for climate and South for poverty.
04:20 That's absolutely wrong.
04:22 Those 1,000 countries, Maya Motley, she came to say we are the most vulnerable countries
04:26 facing the harsh climate risks and we need to cope with this together.
04:31 And this is the first thing I would like to remember from that summit is that there is
04:35 a good sense of what interdependence means.
04:38 We are exactly facing the same issues of social and environmental challenges, different types
04:44 of risks, different types of timelines, but at the end of the day, it's the same political
04:49 agenda, which is the 2030 agenda of the UN.
04:51 Second point I wanted to make to answer the question you asked about debt restructuring
04:56 or counselling, I say it's the same issue and that's why it's the wrong way.
05:00 We should not go in the wrong way.
05:02 We face the wrong way risk when we face policy emergency.
05:07 That's why it's so important to insist on the fact that we have to change the global
05:10 financial institutions in a way that they can channel private money, which is super
05:15 amounting.
05:16 We have an amount of savings that is at the highest level ever, but it's not flowing in
05:21 the right direction.
05:22 We can use that private money to flow it to cope with climate change and climate disruptions
05:27 and also to ensure just transition both in the North and in the South.
05:32 And this is much more efficient than debt counselling or than taxation because at the
05:36 end of the day, wrong policies don't bring right results.
05:41 What brings right results is effective policies.
05:43 There is an injustice, but wrong solutions are not just, they are just inefficient.
05:48 And the last point I wanted to make is that when we deal specifically with the South issue,
05:56 we always have this wrong idea that there is a dichotomy between development and climate
06:02 combat.
06:04 That's absolutely wrong.
06:05 And what is at stake here in this summit is to find a path of a low carbon growth or development,
06:12 I would say, in using both financial and technical leapfrogging intuitions and innovations.
06:21 Meaning putting money and technology in ways you develop yourself without the whole carbon
06:27 trajectory that the Northern countries have had.
06:30 This is possible.
06:31 This is what we are doing with Senegal, with South Africa and other countries.
06:35 And this is exactly the way forward in ensuring both development and respect for the environment.
06:41 Tom, food for thought.
06:42 Let's bring in and go back to the beautiful palace, the former site of the Stock Exchange
06:47 of Paris and speak to Catherine Norris-Trent, our correspondent.
06:52 Watching that, combative at times.
06:55 The elephant in the room, Banco's ghost, if you will, as well, the lack of Russia being
06:59 there.
07:00 He was asked about that.
07:01 How can a major player on an oil and gas level not be there?
07:05 What do you make of his response?
07:10 That was really interesting, wasn't it?
07:11 Because you got a sense of some of the really complex geopolitics behind this as well.
07:15 We're saying everything is interlinked basically at this summit.
07:18 That's been one of the main messages coming through in the past day and again this morning.
07:23 So we've been talking about biodiversity, climate change being linked with economic
07:27 development.
07:28 But of course geopolitics is there.
07:29 And that's something that really came through very strongly in that interview.
07:34 It's a difficult one, isn't it?
07:36 Because Emmanuel Macron is not going to invite a delegation from the Russian government to
07:40 Paris given the political situation and given France's very outspoken support for Ukraine
07:48 and Volodymyr Zelensky.
07:49 But can you ignore that elephant in the room?
07:51 Well, he says that you go through the multilateral systems, the BRICS and things, which do involve
07:56 Russia and you treat it like that.
07:59 I think people will have a bit of scepticism about that.
08:01 And long term, of course, you need all the major players on the world stage engaged in
08:07 the fight against climate change.
08:09 So that's something that will probably move going in the years forward as we see what
08:15 happens with Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
08:19 But it's a tricky point.
08:20 I thought it was really interesting when he touched again on Russia's involvement in Africa
08:25 because people looking at this summit have been saying, yeah, sure, Macron can be sincere
08:30 on economic development, on fighting climate change.
08:34 It's clear that he really wants to advance the agenda on those.
08:37 But he's also looking at the geopolitical situation in Africa.
08:42 France's traditional kind of zone of influence, if you like, in Francophone Africa, well,
08:47 that's been receding.
08:48 France has a lot of anti-French sentiment in former colonies in Francophone Africa.
08:54 As we saw, China's been coming in massively to finance African countries.
08:58 And we've seen also Russia gaining a foothold there very strongly with the Wagner military
09:03 group and other places in places like the Central African Republic.
09:07 So of course, France is going to have one eye as well on trying not to lose a complete
09:12 grip and the international community not losing a complete grip on what is going on in Africa
09:17 and not just seeing those economies becoming at the mercy of China or Russia.
09:23 So the geopolitics behind this is key.
09:26 It's the elephant in the room.
09:28 But it's, of course, very present in all of these things.
09:32 And the diplomacy is a big part of this summit.
09:34 You and I have spoken about this before, Catherine.
09:37 The one pointed question that we heard here was, if Putin calls, you're in the room, do
09:41 you take the call?
09:42 He said he would take the call.
09:44 This is a president who has been criticized internationally for trying to have a dialogue
09:49 in the midst of or the beginning of the invasion, thinking that would work.
09:53 And it's how to play that.
09:55 But he seems to say that right now he didn't expect to get a call.
09:58 But you have to keep that geopolitical conversation in play.
10:03 Yeah, that was a really interesting point in this interview.
10:08 And you're right.
10:09 Just before Russia's invasion, full scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Macron
10:14 was pretty much criticized by some watchers of the situation.
10:19 I remember traveling to Moscow, sitting at the end of that very long table, meeting with
10:24 Vladimir Putin and not coming away with very much at all.
10:29 But his stance has always been that we need to keep the door open.
10:32 At some point, there needs to be dialogue.
10:35 And in about May 2022, after the full scale invasion had started, he caused a ruffled
10:41 a lot of feathers, especially in Ukraine, when he spoke in a newspaper interview saying
10:47 that there was a need not to humiliate Putin and that there needed to be kind of an off
10:51 ramp for this conflict.
10:52 People saying, look, you can't use those kind of terms when you're talking about Vladimir
10:57 Putin and with the action that he's pursuing.
11:00 But at the same time, Macron's got this kind of vision of realpolitik, of trying to look
11:04 for a way out of this crisis.
11:05 It's really interesting.
11:06 I thought he said it's not the time right now.
11:08 The time is now it's Ukraine's counter offensive.
11:11 But at some point there will have to be talks, but he underlined on Ukraine's terms, because
11:17 Ukrainians are very fearful about being pushed into negotiations, which basically involve
11:21 them conceding their territory.
11:23 And they said that would set a terrible precedent for countries basically having to give in
11:28 to an aggressor who invades.
11:29 And then basically you're forced to negotiate and freeze those lines of conflict.
11:33 So Macron there, very clear to say it has to be on Ukraine's terms.
11:37 You know, the peace plans we've seen China coming up with or the African states don't
11:42 seem to be along those lines.
11:43 So, you know, the road to diplomacy there, we're certainly not there yet.
11:47 Interesting.
11:48 Catherine, while you were talking, Toma, shaking your head a little bit.
11:51 Do you think it's unfair some of the international press are on Macron for trying to reach out
11:55 to Putin?
11:56 No, no, no, no.
11:57 That's not the point.
11:58 What is unfair is to say that he said, quote, he would take the call.
12:02 That's absolutely what absolutely not what did he say?
12:05 He said it's not time for any calls.
12:07 I don't have I don't I don't expect but I don't have anything to say to Putin.
12:12 What I have to say is that I'm supporting he is supporting the counter offensive of
12:16 Ukraine.
12:17 And once the counter offensive is done, there should be talks at some point.
12:21 Yeah, he's a Ukrainian terms, which changes everything saying we will talk on the Ukrainian
12:28 terms.
12:29 It makes a huge difference.
12:31 This difference is has happened.
12:33 There has been a tipping point at a Globe Sec summit in Bratislava of our months.
12:38 And it changes all.
12:39 And look at it in much in depth.
12:42 This summit is all about equality and partnership between interdependent countries, northern
12:48 developed economies, developing economies and least developed economies.
12:54 It's all about equality and partnership.
12:56 And he said there is only one colonialist power in the 21st century.
13:01 It is Russia.
13:03 It is Russia.
13:04 He said there is one colonialist power within the 21st century.
13:09 And he said it's so because this country is not invited because he is a permanent member
13:14 of the UN Security Council.
13:17 This country should be at the basics of what the international order is meant to achieve
13:24 stability of peace to make sure that economic, social and environmental issues can be tackled
13:29 rightly.
13:30 What is at stake, I would say, beneath this summit is that peace is shaking, war is looming,
13:37 and this is preventing -- it is adding fuel to another fire.
13:41 And while war is happening in Ukraine because of the aggression of Russia, the world is
13:48 shaking, the consequences on our economies, our societies and our ability to tackle climate
13:53 disruptions is hampered.
13:57 And this colonialism in Ukraine is having an impact all across the globe.
14:01 If you look at inflation in many countries due to the war in Ukraine, it has risen at
14:07 a point where loans are no longer possible.
14:09 So many lies of Russia.
14:10 They can't even make it a day.
14:12 Venezuela, look at this, how Venezuela inflation has happened.
14:16 Look at Turkey, the inflation in Turkey.
14:19 The attitude of -- the colonial attitude of Russia has had a global financial impact that
14:24 makes this irrelevant to have any call with Putin, any Russian delegate at the summit.
14:28 We're just watching Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz arriving on the red carpet and going
14:32 into the palace as we speak.
14:34 Interesting, actually, Oliver, Germany, would you believe it, you look at the top ten countries
14:38 that are affected and have been recently affected by climate change events.
14:42 Germany's number three on there, heavily affected in the past few years by flooding and still
14:46 seen as a big threat there.
14:48 I think Japan are listed on number one.
14:50 Lots of smaller nations as well.
14:53 How do you think Macron handled the sense that France was trying to -- would tax, for
15:00 example, on airlines, extra taxes to lead the way, but other countries simply weren't
15:05 doing it.
15:06 So if they weren't going to do it, why should France?
15:09 He has very much touted France's leadership in reducing carbon emissions over the past
15:16 few years.
15:20 As you mentioned, it's the very fact that if there's not an international cooperation
15:25 and an international integration on all this, it's a rather futile exercise.
15:30 And it's not simply governments that you have to get on board.
15:33 It's also the private sector.
15:34 And Emmanuel Macron mentioned that as well.
15:39 It's very much about coaxing and convincing the private sector to come on board with this.
15:44 There obviously will be a lot of resistance towards things like such as taxes on financial
15:49 transactions, taxes on shipping, also on air travel.
15:54 I think business air travel in particular is being targeted because that is actually
16:01 where the profits are for airlines.
16:04 And so this is -- he's very much calling out for other countries to come on board.
16:12 And it has to be other wealthy countries, too.
16:15 They're not all there.
16:16 But they do at least -- they are sending high-level delegations, at least some of them, and international
16:21 institutions are there.
16:23 The U.N. Secretary General António Guterres is there.
16:26 Also the World Bank president, the managing director of the IMF are there as well.
16:33 The new World Bank president as well, isn't it?
16:34 I think in job for a month.
16:35 We're just watching actually pictures of another big player, the president of Congo-Brazzaville,
16:41 Denis Sassou Ngoso.
16:43 He's been in office I think a couple of years now.
16:47 Let's talk about, as we watch some of these leaders arrive, if you were a headline writer
16:52 for the papers tomorrow, Oliver, and you had to take away a key part of this Macron interview,
16:58 it looks like it was mostly quite tame on his personal side, the difficulties he's been
17:03 having diplomatically.
17:04 What would you take away from that?
17:06 Well, I would say that it's possibly -- probably would be a little bit unfair to say that it's
17:16 a rearranging of the deck chairs, but it's trying to revolutionize without blowing up
17:22 effectively.
17:23 He definitely -- he wants -- he genuinely wants a change in the system, but he doesn't
17:30 really want to push it too far.
17:32 He doesn't want to scare the horses of world capital, so to speak, and he thinks that they
17:38 definitely still need to be on board.
17:40 But there has to be a just way of global South countries accessing credit and so on and so
17:53 to speak.
17:54 It very much -- it's a little bit inimical to say this, but very much if you had a similar
18:01 interview with the co -- with the Barbados prime minister, she probably would have given
18:12 a slightly different slant on things.
18:13 She would have come at it from very much the other direction.
18:18 It's certainly not the same thing that Emmanuel Macron is thinking of.
18:21 He's very much thinking of in terms of how Western institutions can be got on board with
18:26 this.
18:27 Catherine, on the red carpet, close to the red carpet at the summit venue, what's also
18:33 I think striking about this is Emmanuel Macron in a buoyant mood.
18:39 He -- he's kind of between a rock and a hard place when it came to trying to get a sense
18:45 across that you couldn't just cancel this debt.
18:46 We heard Thomas making the point there.
18:50 You talked about some of the interplay between some of those countries who were shouting
18:53 for more to be done.
18:54 How strong is that call, despite what Macron is saying, we need to do it step by step,
19:01 are there those saying this just won't be enough?
19:04 I think we lost Catherine for a second.
19:09 Catherine Norris-Trent, our correspondent close to the red carpet.
19:12 I was just asking you, that was Emmanuel Macron's vision, saying how the summit went.
19:16 Do you think there will be those that you have seen at the summit, African leaders,
19:19 saying this still doesn't go anywhere near enough?
19:24 For sure.
19:26 I think there are going to be people here who want a radical transformation of the international
19:33 monetary financial system.
19:35 They want a whole scale transformation.
19:37 They won't get that straight away because these things take some time.
19:41 We've had calls for everything to be overhauled.
19:45 We heard Emmanuel Macron, very interestingly, in his open remarks yesterday, saying that
19:52 perhaps we wouldn't get a full transformation, but this was getting the ball rolling.
19:57 I'm sure there are some here who think that hasn't gone far enough.
20:02 As we were saying earlier with the president of Chad, after one of these roundtables, picking
20:06 up the microphone again and calling for the debt to be unilaterally cancelled.
20:13 Emmanuel Macron, you heard him say in that interview, that is not an option on the table
20:17 at the moment.
20:18 It is an issue of credibility.
20:19 If you just cancel debt, no-one will ever loan to you again.
20:24 For sure there will be people saying this is not going far enough.
20:28 Definitely some saying it is not going fast enough.
20:30 Others saying we are making progress, holding these talks, getting the political impetus
20:35 going and getting things moving.
20:37 This is how these things work.
20:39 They do take time.
20:40 There was a perhaps not so subtle statement from Emmanuel Macron and Catherine about the
20:45 UK, saying that some European countries are even still opening coal mines.
20:52 Absolutely.
20:53 A little dig at the neighbour.
20:57 That raised a lot of eyebrows in the UK as well, didn't it?
21:01 While you have disagreements here at this summit, of course we have disagreements between
21:06 Western nations on the way forward there.
21:10 Going back to the Trump years in the US, he was all talking about getting coal going again
21:16 and getting the coal mining regions of the US going.
21:21 There are disagreements here.
21:22 There are inconsistencies, of course, between Western nations.
21:25 Those are things that Emmanuel Macron does not shy away from talking about either.
21:31 You have described yourself as a centrist in the past, but your organisation is pretty
21:35 multi-platform in terms of politics.
21:38 Is there anything from that interview you thought you disagreed with from Emmanuel Macron?
21:41 It's not the right vision.
21:44 There's probably something not disagreeing but missing a bit, which has probably not
21:48 been approached during the interview, so that's why it's probably missing, is the role of
21:54 one specific sector, which is the energy sector, and how we can deal in transforming this energy
22:00 sector as fast as we can towards more renewables or decarbonised energy.
22:09 It has been said at different points in the summit that there is an increasingly high
22:17 consensus on the fact, and it's also the International Energy Agency pushing this, we should stop
22:24 investing in any new oil and gas project.
22:28 More than that, when we look at financial solutions at hand, there is one that has been
22:35 clearly outlined by the G20 leaders over the past years.
22:38 It is to stop any direct or indirect public subsidy to the oil and gas industry.
22:44 And if you look at the figures, the IMF service that is this direct and indirect subsidies
22:50 to the oil and gas industry amounts for, look at the figure, 5,400 billion euros.
22:58 $5 billion a year.
23:00 And if you look at the figures I've said about the SDG stimulus I just mentioned, which is
23:05 about 500 billion a year, you can see the difference.
23:08 It's 10 times higher.
23:09 So if you just, not only private money but also public money, flow it into the right
23:14 direction, then you would change the course of history.
23:17 And to me this is probably what has not been highlighted enough for this specific industry.
23:23 You ask whether there is a good headline to remember.
23:25 I do have one in mind that would probably put on the same page South leaders and Northern
23:32 leaders.
23:33 We have to prevent the wrong way risk.
23:37 Either from the Southern perspective or the Northern perspective, at the end of the day,
23:40 it all comes down to the same road.
23:42 We are in the wrong way.
23:44 And this is about changing the course of history.
23:46 This is another option that was on the table.
23:48 And I do hope, because the Y20 has been calling for that solution for long years, it should
23:53 be taken into account.
23:54 We are just watching the red carpet arrivals.
23:56 We are seeing the President of Benin, Patrice Tallon, arriving.
23:59 It's almost a game of spot the flags, but they do give it the cheater way on the car
24:03 if you look.
24:04 It does often say the country is arriving.
24:05 Oliver Ferry.
24:07 We also saw Al-Sisi, the leader of Egypt, arriving.
24:10 You can't really untether this summit from the international geopolitics at play.
24:15 When you think about the countries that have been accused of helping Russia in this war,
24:19 at least being neutral, the likes of South Africa, for example, that really comes into
24:24 play, doesn't it?
24:25 It's not just about Russia not being there.
24:26 It's about dealing with other nations that have also shown a hand.
24:30 Yeah, this is why Emmanuel Macron said that he doesn't like to use the word enemy.
24:36 It's very much about diplomacy.
24:37 And he has, that has been his watchword, really, for all his time in office, and particularly
24:43 over the past couple of years.
24:44 He was harshly criticized for trying to speak to Putin, but a lot of his defenders quite
24:51 rightly pointed out that this was at the behest of Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president,
24:59 because he could not get any audience with the Russian president whatsoever.
25:04 So Emmanuel Macron is not closing the door on anyone.
25:11 He has welcomed Li Chang, the Chinese premier, to this particular summit.
25:19 And he has met him.
25:20 Elizabeth Borne has also met him.
25:22 Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has also met Li Chang.
25:25 There's been quite a very, quite a strong, almost separate from the summit itself, and
25:33 it has been reported as such in People's Daily, the Chinese state newspaper, that they're
25:40 very much putting more on the reception they're getting from Emmanuel Macron rather than the
25:45 actual summit itself.
25:47 So Emmanuel Macron is trying to keep as many people on board as possible, and this is why
25:53 he's particularly brought the BRICS in.
25:56 It's interesting.
25:57 And Catherine, back to you at the Palace.
25:58 If you've seen the film Don't Look Up, the Leonardo DiCaprio sort of frustration, looking
26:02 up at the heavens to think, what can I do?
26:04 If you step back from this, you have Antonio Guterres, the head of the United Nations,
26:08 the Secretary General, saying that it's all well and good, even post-Paris 2015 climate
26:13 agreement, but actually, it's pitiful what's happened in the eight years since.
26:17 We are hurtling towards climate disaster.
26:19 In the meantime, they're talking about changing things financially to help the poorer nations,
26:24 ticking along towards the next summit.
26:26 Well, the next COP summit is in the UAE, to which one of the hosts runs the state oil
26:32 companies.
26:33 This is very complicated.
26:34 It's hardly let's take action now, is it?
26:39 No, but I guess the nuts and bolts of getting things done are rather complicated.
26:45 And yet, you're right, there is this sense of deja vu, because every summit, we hear
26:51 people saying, we need to do more.
26:52 The time has come.
26:53 We need to move faster.
26:55 And global temperatures keep on rising.
26:57 So it is extremely frustrating, and I can understand why members of the public get frustrated
27:01 as well, because we hear the climate warnings, we see the examples of extreme weather, we
27:06 see the leaders coming together and agreeing with warm words that they need to do more
27:11 about it.
27:12 And yet, it's very, very complicated to get these things done.
27:15 And I think what Emmanuel Macron would say is that this is what this summit is about.
27:20 It's about getting down to brass tacks, the nuts and bolts of it all, and saying, right,
27:24 in order to invest in wind farms in Africa, in order to get private finance there, we
27:29 need to do something about the massive interest rates that they would pay on such an investment
27:34 because of the risk involved.
27:36 So let's get the World Bank and the IMF to financially take on some of that risk.
27:41 So it can appear frustrating.
27:43 It can appear that we're hearing the same messages again, and the time is rolling on.
27:47 But at the same time, I think there are some concrete proposals coming out of places like
27:52 this, where they're saying, look, OK, so concretely, what can we do?
27:56 And someone who's been really at the heart of that as well is Mia Motley, the prime minister
28:00 of Barbados.
28:01 We've spoken about her as well, who's come up with this Bridgetown initiative a while
28:05 back and really saying, look, OK, what can we actually do about it?
28:08 Let's get these SDRs, these special drawing rights, these assets held by the IMF, and
28:12 let's reattribute them to other countries to increase climate investment.
28:16 So there are things going on, and often very technical.
28:20 And that's where people turn off and switch off, because it actually gets into the financial
28:25 mechanisms and the technical detail.
28:29 I think there are things going on.
28:30 A lot of people would argue it's too late, and it hasn't been fast enough.
28:34 But I don't think we can say that nothing is being done at summits like this on it.
28:38 Just watching William Ruto, Kenya's prime minister, or president, I should say, arriving
28:43 at the summit as well.
28:44 Fun fact about him, he was once a seller of chickens in a market in Nairobi, so a big
28:49 ascent to the top for him.
28:51 On your point there, it looked like you were getting a round of applause from some of your
28:53 comments.
28:54 A round of applause going up in the background as we're speaking to you there, Catherine.
28:58 Toma, when we look at the context of this and the shift as well towards green energy,
29:05 and let's face it, that's the way that many countries are now heading away from pollution
29:11 industries to try and keep those emissions down and the temperatures down.
29:16 There's also a dark side of that too, isn't there?
29:18 There's talk, you know, localized pollution.
29:20 Where do you stand on where that transition is going?
29:24 Carbon, lithium, we need it for our electric vehicles, our mobile phones.
29:29 Yeah, sure.
29:30 The thing, the very interesting, I think, at stake at the summit is how you can innovate
29:36 in policymaking to achieve exactly what you just said.
29:41 I said that there is a good way to achieve this in not opposing economic development
29:47 and fighting climate change in using what you call leapfrogging initiatives.
29:54 This is having a low carbon development trajectory that actually computes three type of factors.
30:01 Sufficiency.
30:02 There are many things we don't need.
30:05 We strictly don't need them.
30:07 We need a planet.
30:08 There are many things we don't need.
30:10 Sufficiency, which is in France called sobriété, is telling us how to better manage our energy,
30:18 but not only energy materials and also resources.
30:21 And this is a way to develop without hampering either social progress nor the environment.
30:27 The other thing is efficiency, specifically energy efficiency.
30:33 We have many things to do in our economies in the north to improve at a high speed possible
30:39 our energy efficiency, meaning achieve the same goals with less energy.
30:45 But those are technologies we can definitely transfer to the south as fast as we can.
30:49 This is exactly what is at stake when we talked about those type of JPP partnerships with
30:54 South Africa, for example, is to share those technologies and policymaking policies to
31:00 our partners.
31:01 And the last point on top of sufficiency and efficiency is innovation itself.
31:09 By design, you can create new business models that are helping in fighting climate change.
31:15 If you look at the example you mentioned different times, the one forest summit, there is a business
31:21 case for ecosystems regeneration.
31:24 There is a business case to regenerate forests as our main allies to combat climate change.
31:30 There is a business case for nature-based solutions.
31:33 If you invest in nature, in oceans, in forests, then you put money on where are the most effective
31:40 solutions to both generate revenues for local people and to tackle global environmental
31:45 issues.
31:46 Thomas Friang from Open Diplomacy, thank you.
31:49 In a word, yes or no, this summit, you see it as a success?
31:53 It tends to be a success, but I'm looking forward to the closing ceremony to make sure
31:57 it's a success.
31:58 18 words or so, I think.
32:00 Okay, if you had to wrap up that interview and give a sense of how you've found him with
32:06 the press, the achievements, his potential influence with other leaders in getting something
32:11 here.
32:12 Do you see something significant?
32:13 Well, it's just getting the ball rolling more or less.
32:16 There will be more things to come.
32:18 There will be the G20 summit in India later this summer.
32:22 There will also be the COP 29 later this year in Dubai.
32:30 So this is really just part of a sequence.
32:34 It's not a discrete, isolated event.
32:39 It is getting the ball rolling.
32:42 There will be more people on board probably by the end of the year.
32:47 This influence will, if it is successful, it will reach far into the future.
32:52 We are pretty much too soon to say, so to speak.
32:56 Olivier Fary, thank you.
32:57 Our international affairs editor, Catherine.
32:59 Ball rolling, says Oliver.
33:01 Interesting, we just saw the World Bank new president arriving, A.J.
33:06 Bangor, who was the president of Mastercard before.
33:08 It's a baptism of fire for him when he's being told his organisation must change to allow
33:13 better funding for these countries.
33:15 What are your takeaways?
33:17 Interesting, A.J.
33:19 Bangor made a big announcement yesterday saying there was a pause
33:24 clause that would allow developing nations to pause their debt
33:28 repayments if they were in the hands of a crisis or a climate crisis.
33:31 That is something that came out.
33:33 On the international diplomacy, we have been rechecking that clip we
33:39 were talking about where Emmanuel Macron was asked about whether he
33:41 would speak to Vladimir Putin.
33:44 He has rechecked for you the extract of the interview in the original
33:48 French and he said he would pick up a call from him, so that is fair to
33:52 say, but he would not call Vladimir Putin himself because he has
33:56 nothing to say at this stage.
33:57 It is the Ukrainian counter-offensive at the moment.
34:01 Just to clarify for our viewers there for full accuracy.
34:05 Catherine, great to hear from you.
34:06 Great to have your context.
34:07 Catherine Norris-Trent, our correspondent at the summit itself,
34:11 the former Paris Stock Exchange.
34:13 Just to recap some of that interview, 20 minutes with Emmanuel Macron
34:16 on the military timing, talking about how he doesn't believe this is
34:21 about redeeming himself.
34:22 He was asked if he was redeeming himself.
34:23 He said no, this is about making our planet great again.
34:26 Reinforcing that message, he believed there has been success in the
34:29 fact that you couldn't write off debt for poorer nations that need
34:32 more financial help, those higher risk of facing climate disaster.
34:36 But he said France and other countries have to restructure some
34:41 of that debt.
34:42 So a big play in all of that.
34:43 If you are looking to the future as well, China has something like
34:45 70% of ownership on control of raw minerals across the country.
34:51 So it is difficult conversations.
34:53 Mention the geopolitics as well.
34:54 Russia not being there.
34:55 Slight dig in the elbow to the UK, saying that some countries at the
34:58 time were talking a clean change, were actually building coal
35:02 stations in Europe.
35:04 So interesting to hear from President Macron.
35:06 Great to hear from the guest, Oliver Farrie, international affairs
35:08 editor Thomas Friang from Open Diplomacy and our correspondent
35:12 Catherine Norris-Trench.
35:13 Stay with us here on France 24.
35:15 We will have full analysis and the other stories too on that news of
35:19 the Titan and the fact that those tributes are coming in for the five
35:22 men that died in the capsule.
35:24 Stay with us here on France 24.
35:25 We will be back in a few moments' time.
35:27 Bye for now.
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