Hello, and welcome to Making cup 26 Count, a podcast series based on the finvest 2030 webinar, hosted by David Nussbaum and supported by ICAST, One Young World of Chartered Accountants worldwide. In this episode, David talks to Mavis mainu of climate analytics and co founder and director of oak foundation Garner. And when you Wang consultant and strategist at FTI, consulting, global energy transitions practice.
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Well, our next speaker is Mavis mainu. She's executive assistant to the CEO, climate analytics, but she's also co founder and director at Oak foundation Garner where they mentor women and girls in education, entrepreneurship and professional development. And maybe there's also a One Young World Ambassador Mavis taking account of the perspective of developing countries where adaptation is often critical. What can accountants and finance professionals do?
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Right, thank you, David. And Thanks Sarah and Claire for certain things so well, and I was fortunate to be in Glasgow, the CFO club 26. So thanks, Claire, Glasgow for welcoming us.
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I think there was a in terms of outcomes and of culturing the six there was a lot of progress that was made on adaptation and climate finance in general. But unfortunately, there was very little progress on loss and damage, which was also another important, important aspect was developing countries. So as David mentioned, I work with a climate research Science Institute. And we support vulnerable countries such as small island, developing states, and Least Developing countries and the ambition in their efforts to push for ambition for climate action and the UNF Triple C negotiation process. And I also co founder of an NGO based in Ghana, where we are sited occasion partner David had mentioned we also promoting sustainable agriculture as a means of employment. Now, within this contest, or the redeem the developing country contest, just transition isn't as straightforward. And as we have heard from the introduction part from David, there are going to be losers and winners of the transition. And there are those that are being impacted more and there are others that are less than pactor. They are those that have the resources and others that do not. Unfortunately, developing countries usually tend to be at the lower end, as those that do not have the resources and at the same time very vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. And also, interestingly, the ones that have not really contributed to the emissions and the reason why the climate crisis and the reason for the climate crisis that we are currently experiencing. Now, many reports have also identified Africa, Sub Saharan Africa, for example, as one of the most vulnerable regions for climate change. To put it in perspective in Ghana today and rainfall patterns are very irregular. And that severe droughts that is ongoing that is really affecting agricultural productivity and agriculture in Ghana contributes to 50 54% of the GDP of Ghana. So this actually makes this an economic and a development issue. The other issue of this is the other issue is that also most of these farmers are smallholder farmers. So that means they are coming from rural communities, and majority of them are women. So this also makes it a gender issue. So women are being more impacted or disproportionately impacted in the West African context or the African context when it comes to climate change. Now, what we are doing at Oak Foundation is to rescale and upskill. These women provide trainings, for example, help them to learn how to make soaps how to do beads, so that they our source of livelihood is not only dependent on agriculture, so that is one way of helping them to adapt to the changes that are already or the impacts that are already experiencing in their daily lives. Another thing that we are doing also is providing new skills in terms of green and agricultural practices. So how can they practice the farming differently and in a more sustainable way that reduces land use and at the same time also sustains the source of livelihood The other thing that we are looking at doing is to support these women to go into agro processing. So that they are not just selling the raw materials that is coming out of their farming activities, but they can actually add go an extra mile by adding value to these products so that your enemies can increase. So these are some of the taxation strategies that we are implementing in Ghana through our foundation to support these women who are disproportionately affected by the climate impacts who adapt to these changes. Now, the biggest challenge, when it comes to this work, as has always been, and for developing country has always been the lack of sufficient climate finance, and finance and general globally has been heavily skewed towards mitigation. So that means that there is more money going into mitigation actions at the expense of adaptation, and a ratio of somewhere 20 to 80. So there's about 80% of the climate finance that is going to mitigation and just 20%. That is going into adaptation. But one of the wins of cop 26 outcomes for developing country was for the call or for doubling adaptation finance, which is clearly stated in the decision test. So, and the other thing was also, I think, as David mentioned in the introduction, the call for developed countries to meet the 100 billion climate finance pledge that they have placed many years ago that has actually never been met. But even with this 100 billion, and with a doubling of adaptation, finance, it's still not really enough to meet the adaptation gap. And unit, the recent Units unit adaptation, Governor reports also mentioned that the adaptation gap is five to 10 times greater so the money that is needed, it's about the money that we are receiving now for adaptation partners, it's five to 10 times lower than what is actually needed. So unwell. 70 billion USD is needed for adaptation for developing countries. But what is currently flowing, it's somewhere between 3.5 to 7 billion USD dollars. So this is like really nowhere near meeting the needs, or the finance that is needed for developing countries to really adapt. Now, what can chartered accountants or finance professionals do to support this sort of just transition or support developing countries to transition to a more low carbon future, and there's many that can be done. But I would just like limited to two. And the first point is that it is clear that public finance is not enough. There's a clear need for private finance, also, when it comes to climate finance, and particularly for adaptation. And accountants and finance professionals can support this by promoting and allocating resources for adaptation work within your organisation as specifically for developing country adaptation projects. The other thing that also happened and cope in Glasgow was the operationalization of article 13 of the Paris Agreement, which is transparency. Now the transparency framework calls all countries to use one reporting framework for reporting their greenhouse gas emissions, as well as providing information on the climate impacts and adaptation. And now these skills that developing countries usually all the civil servants usually do not have. So accountant can lend to your skills or your expertise in this area, by supporting and providing this capacity to governments and specifically those from developing countries on how they can
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they can make these reporting, they can provide us information through the reporting frameworks that has been outlined by the Paris agreement to help the countries meet these targets. And at the same time, this also sort of going to be a way of ensuring that countries are meeting the climate targets are the commitments that we have set for themselves. So it's going to be sort of an accountability measure to ensure that both developed countries are meeting their commitments and as well as developing countries. So I think I would also leave it here now. And yeah, wait for the panel discussion. Thank you.
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Right Thank you Mavis, for sharing your perspective and pointing to some of the difficulties faced most acutely in developing countries and highlighting the example of how an NGO can support and initiate actions towards a more just transition thinking especially about the need for adaptation, as well as mitigation. And you've pointed us to the role of accountants which for some reason, I think was not the main focus of prop 26. But hopefully we can put that right. So finally, I'm pleased to welcome when you went to the panel, she is a consultant and strategist in FTI, consulting, global energy transition practice. So that means she's working on low carbon energy and infrastructure. And she is also a One Young World ambassador. When you I know that ensuring there is a just transition to the net zero world is something that sort of particular concern to you, especially as you reflect on the intergenerational aspects of the climate crisis. So tell us more, if you would.
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No, thank you very much for the introduction, David. I'm keen to keep this relatively short. If I can, I'm sure everyone is excited to move on to the panel discussion. But before I answer your question, I think just a little bit background about me, because I think this informs my perspective, in addition to my professional experience, so I'm from Taiwan, I grew up all over the place, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Bangladesh. And now working in London. It's a very strange path where I got into consulting actually started out my studies in medicine. And it was really the impact of climate change on health and epidemiology that got me interested in climate change as a problem, and helped me realise that the widespread effects of climate change is really going to permeate into every single aspect of my life. My interest for the longest period of time has been instilled as education and climate change. And for that reason, I was in education sector for a few years as a teacher. And the transition has been interesting, because a lot of times when we talk about education, when we talk about learning, what we try and understand the potential of our society, we often conceptualise that automatically in a form of talking about children. And then at the end of the day, the issue that we face with climate change is fundamentally not just one of technological innovation. But it's also a lack of understanding a lack of ambition, a lack of imagination. And the problem with that does not lie in children. Climate change is fundamentally an issue about education, awareness, or inability to coordinate our inability to be clear, on inability to imagine bigger. And I think for that reason, that's why I'm currently in my role. The role I do on my job is basically twofold. One, I tried to be a trusted adviser to our clients, when we give them strategy, economic and financial advisory in terms of helping them invest and deploy clean energy technologies. So this is anywhere from renewable energy, for example, in the power sector, to electric vehicles, for example, in mobility sector, the second thing I do is I help companies and organisations to clean their own houses. And basically, before you start talking about social impact, you need to make sure that your organisation is also creating a positive climate impact. That means maybe being net zero, or carbon neutral. And these terms mean different things. But most people don't know that. This is where the audience comes in. I'll talk about that in a bit. But also potentially going beyond that to make sure that you are climate positive or carbon negative, again, terms that have been thrown around, but not really scrutinised by those who but for those who claim it, I think at the end of the day, as an educator and former activists, there seems to be a tension for a lot of people in terms of what I do. But I think my role is exactly to bring that moral compass into the conversation with my clients. Combine that with business and financial acumen, to help them to try and realise what is coming down the line. So they can do the right thing, not just for themselves, or their business case for their investors, but also for the communities. And I think this is what accountants tie in. Because accountants are the trusted custodians and practitioners when it comes to the Language of Business. You're trusted when it comes to talking about valuation and the truth about the business. And the valuation and the truth about a business goes beyond financial reporting. The valuation and truth of a business tomorrow will go into talking about the sustainability, the environmental and climate impact. So onto your question, David, I think when we talk about the just transition, I think we need to think about the just transition not just in terms of the companies and what they do, not just in terms of workers and whether or not they can have green jobs and how we accelerate them into rescaling to take up these green jobs, but also the broader picture of what's going to happen to our society. And I think a lot of times that just transition Focus, focus on maybe for example, which I don't complain about young people that are going to be a lot of people of the older generation or certain socio economic demographics that get left behind. And on top of that, there's going to be whole new issues in the supply chain. When a society we live in move forwards towards massive mining of minerals that are required to clear it create a clean energy world. What does that look like? How can we be accountable for the human rights violations there, and the environmental damage from these mining supply chain I think these are all important questions we need to address. For that reason, it's not possible for climate change just to be an issue of government. As Claire mentioned, it has to be an issue that everyone participated in. So I think my comments are looking very much forward to the panel discussion. Okay, great. Thank
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you. When you for telling us well about your journey into contributing to tackling climate change and how your own professional expertise is now focused on that, but bringing a moral compass and thoughtful reflections on the challenges involved as well as technical skills