Helene and Raoul Costa de Beauregard are the leaders of the campaign for the creation of a Climate Nobel Prize. They believe that climate actions should be ‘supported and rewarded with the highest distinction.’ Helene served in the Ministry of Ecology for the French government from 2009 to 2013 before Raoul’s role with Amazon brought the couple to Seattle six years ago. She is also the founder of GarageHop, an app designed to reduce the emissions generated looking for parking.
Full Transcript
Alexsandra Guerra: You’re listening to the Reversing Climate Change podcast by the team at NORI, the carbon removal marketplace. This is a show about the innovators and entrepreneurs developing solutions to climate change.
Ross Kenyon: Ross Kenyon Hello and welcome to the Reversing Climate Change podcast. I’m Ross Kenyon, lead strategist at NORI, here with Christophe Jospe. It is a sunny day in Ballard, got lucky in the winter. Things are going well. We have a spring in our step this week. But we won’t say any more. We’ll have a more Nori-centric episode to come, I’m sure. Kristoff, introduce our guests.
Christophe Jospe: It is my pleasure to introduce a couple who are married. I think this is the first time we’ve had husband and wife. So maybe we’ll just do... No, at the same time. At the same time. We’ve had husbands and wives on different podcast episodes. Right. Little do you know, podcast listeners, this is actually the Reversing Climate Change slash marriage counseling on the air. Just kidding. Yeah. Reversing Climate Change podcast with the Costa de Beauregard. We have... How do you do? Is that good? And Raoul?
Raoul Costa de Beauregard: It is perfect.
Christophe Jospe: Yeah. Beauregard. It’s like good luck or handsome. It’s just such... It’s good luck. Good luck. It’s such an amazing... Like we don’t have good luck in English. There’s no like Christophe good luck.
Ross Kenyon: Good looking, Kristoff. Yeah, no one’s ever said that to you.
Christophe Jospe: But I had coffee with Ellen, I think it was almost a year ago. She was relatively fresh off the boat from Paris and looking to make some waves in the climate change space. She came from a very interesting background. I like getting to know people with interesting backgrounds because they clearly have a grasp on the complex systems that go into the energy transformations which are required to address climate change and some of the drivers to really make change happen more quickly. And it was clear that she’s an entrepreneur now. Who is going to latch on to ideas and make them happen.
So we’re always keen when we can bring people on like that. And also she happens to be married to someone who seems to have a pretty good head on his shoulders and know about all sorts of things that happen at a company that maybe you’ve heard of called Amazon. And hopefully by the end of this episode, we’ll tie it all together how they’re in this unique position to make something amazing happen. Hélène and Raoul, we like to start out with people’s stories, sort of where they got to where they are today, which is sitting in the Nori office on a sunny day on the Reversing Climate Change podcast.
So how about you go first?
Helene Costa de Beauregard: Thank you so much for the introduction. Well, we actually moved to Seattle in 2013. I was working for the French government in Paris. Before we moved, I was working on climate change and energy development. And we moved to Seattle with Raoul’s job.
Raoul Costa de Beauregard: At the time, I’m still working for Amazon. So we moved from Paris to Seattle with work. And we’ll talk about Amazon later, I guess.
Helene Costa de Beauregard: So, as you said, climate change has always been a very important topic with me. That’s why after I finished my grad school, I decided to start working on this and on carbon markets, then on energy. And so when we moved to Seattle, I was trying to think about what I could do. Maybe I could work on climate change and carbon markets. People told me, oh, you have to go to Olympia. And I was just like, well, I just moved from Paris to Seattle and I just want to spend some time with my husband.
I don’t want to be away from him during the holidays. And I started to be involved in the startup community in Seattle. And at some point, I read a study about traffic emissions and how 30% of traffic emissions in the city are due to people searching for parking. And so that just clicked. And that’s why I decided to start Garage Hub. And we just got acquired in December. So since then, I’ve been taking care of my kids and working on also some other climate-related projects.
Ross Kenyon: Wow. So your company was acquired then and you exited and you’re no longer affiliated?
Helene Costa de Beauregard: Yes, correct.
Ross Kenyon: So that’s very exciting. Congratulations.
Helene Costa de Beauregard: Thank you.
Ross Kenyon: That’s a big milestone in anyone’s career. So how exactly did that work? We’ll go back to you, Raoul. We’re not forgetting you. But just explain, people are looking for parking spots, but you have some way for them to find it?
Helene Costa de Beauregard: So the way to work was a little bit different from the parking app that we can find. So because of my specific background in climate change and because my focus was really on how do you reduce those traffic emission, our focus was to fall like the first was parking. OK, maybe we can have more people using mass transit instead of driving to the city. And if you live in the Puget Sound, 90% of the park and rides are full by nine. And so people basically cannot find a space, and so they drive to Seattle.
What we were doing is that we were trying to open parking spaces in residential buildings close to park and rides, which are full. So people would just park there and hop on the bus. So that was the primary focus of the company. A way that could have happened down the road was how do you create some incentive for people when they have to take their car to drive smarter? So one way with the technology would have been to prioritize people carpooling because the technology we developed would have a So we developed the technology, but we didn’t manage to get to this next level.
So there’s still a lot of stuff that needs to be done in that field.
Ross Kenyon: That’s so amazing. And I love just the creativity because normally when people care about the environment, their first instinct is to go for some policy solution, which definitely works in some cases and it’s the right fit for many. But I love it when people see a business opportunity and something like that can actually be commercially viable for its own sake. And reduce carbon emissions.
Christophe Jospe: Yeah, that’s the sweet spot. Create something amazing about it. I remember I was taking an Uber pool, so... For people who haven’t been living under a rock, that’s basically a way to share a ride with someone else and reduce the cost. But if you sometimes want to start conversations with complete random strangers, you can. I do not care for that, though. I will pay the premium to have the space. I guess what I’m saying is it can work in the opposite direction. You pay less, you save less because it’s fewer cars driving, and you have this potentially great experience with this random encounter that you might not have otherwise had.
And similarly, when it’s talking about finding a parking spot more easily, people are you’re solving for their frustration, you’re solving for like the reduced time, which is a real like angst. And so they’re not even thinking about climate change, but they’re doing these climate friendly activities. Is that a good way to kind of frame some of the opportunities here?
Helene Costa de Beauregard: Yes, I think so. I mean, what I learned from my experience working, especially as a carbon market expert and I was working and attending some UNFCCC conferences, Sorry, what does that stand for? Oh, sorry, United Nations Framework, Frameworks on Climate Change Convention. So like the Paris Conference is one of those annual conferences under this United States framework. And I learned that you have to find incentive for people to change their behavior. And one of the biggest ways for people to change their behavior is when you put a price on carbon one way or another or if you solve an issue that they have.
So that’s why it made sense to me to try to find a better way to get people either out of their car but providing them a parking space where they need it. Which is by a transit hub, which otherwise can really be a frustration, or by like creating incentive and even like extra, and it’s not something that we have been able to implement it, but like extra financial incentive by making it Is it maybe like less costly for them if they are carpooling to access the garage or less expensive if they have an IV or an hybrid vehicle?
So I think that’s also a way that you get people to change their behavior in a more subtle way and you get them on board.
Christophe Jospe: Yeah, it’s like climate subversion. Raoul, how about we pass it over to you? So you’re obviously married to this climate expert, so you get dragged into this, but what’s your story?
Raoul Costa de Beauregard: Yeah, I mean, we met in Paris, and before I met At LN, I was very aware of climate change. I had studied physics, and so the science of climate change makes complete sense to me, and it always made sense. But it was not a big thing. It was not something that was on my mind at all times. Meeting LN changed that. And she cared so much about the issue and she was taking action and she was working in that field that she changed my behavior. So full of, I basically embraced climate change cause and now it’s something that’s top of mind for me as well.
Ross Kenyon: That plus the very nice accent was the most romantic moment on the podcast we’ve had. Very, very charming.
Christophe Jospe: And I’m curious, Raoul, so you have a whole other view on behavior change because you happen to work at a company that is responsible for, what, 50% of all purchases online? Oh my God, is it that many? So... The thought of how to motivate people to do things, let’s just take climate change out of it for a second. There’s smart technology where ultimately, to be crass, Amazon wants people to click buy and not think twice. And you want to maximize for that clicking buy. How, if at all, does that mindset of motivating people’s behaviors relate to thoughts around motivating people’s behaviors to create an impact on climate?
Raoul Costa de Beauregard: I think that’s a great question. Successful products and companies, what they do is basically they identify a customer need or a pain point, and then they solve that pain point. And so if you take shopping, Amazon has solved friction in finding the right product and getting the product delivered to you quickly. And this is a large enough pain point that the company has been successful at driving this. And there are many layers of Once you’ve identified the pain point, how we can improve on the process. And Amazon is customer obsessed and is doing this with more selection, better prices, faster delivery, et cetera.
And that’s that mindset. For climate change, a good way to help everybody embrace the urgency and the need to change their behaviors is to highlight what is the pain point if we do not act now. And it’s difficult because with climate change, we are starting to see some disruptions, more fires in California, even in Washington state, droughts and climate events. But most of the dramatic changes are backloaded into the future. And so it is not an immediate pain point that you are solving. It’s the pain point that’s going to happen to our kids or to you when you’re like 10, 20 years older.
I think that is, to me, the big challenge about climate change is how do we make this future pain point obvious to everybody now so we can act? If the urgency is there and understood and shared, there will be no blockers for everybody to act.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, we got, when was this, Chris? This is an ancient podcast, but the image I like for this is, you ever see Indiana Jones, Raiders of the Lost Ark? He goes under the stone door and he goes back and grabs his hat right as it closes. I think there is a tendency to wait. How long can we wait before we need to dramatically change the world economy and everything else?
Unknown speaker: It’s a great image. Yeah. Yeah, that’s great.
Ross Kenyon: Well, we’re a software company. We’re focused on climate change, which has been good for us attracting people like I know Michael Leggett, who’s been on the podcast before, our head of product. When he found out, he’s like, oh, wow, I’ve been looking for a way to use my software chops and design chops for climate change. This is it. And there’s also just not a lot else out there. Is there a good intersection between software and climate change that people aren’t seeing? Are we going to see more companies similar to us come out?
Do you have any sense of that? It’s a tough one.
Raoul Costa de Beauregard: I think there is an appetite from, I think, the people overall to look for solutions that work for climate change and that do not involve dramatic behavior changes from themselves. And so the idea that science or technology can solve the problem for us is very appealing. Guaranteed that it’s going to be highly successful and it’s going to get a lot of traction if there’s impact.
Ross Kenyon: But people also tend to wait for this thing to arrive and then everyone hates techno fixes and that sort of thing.
Raoul Costa de Beauregard: Yeah, I think we’ve been hearing that science can solve climate change and we should just invest more in R&D and continue polluting and using fossil fuels and we’ll be fine. We cannot do that. But it’s part of the solution. It is tough to forecast what and when those changes will happen. But I think something that Nori is driving and other companies, large or small, there might be in the near future some changes. Right now, I don’t know of large impacts that are happening through that.
Christophe Jospe: So before we started this podcast, Hélène, you were talking about some terms like mitigation, adaptation, various broad, important terms that are oftentimes couched as climate change solutions. Can you help frame a little bit the solution space for us? And then where, if you were queen of the world and had your druthers of how you’d want to see solutions scaled quickly, like where do solutions need to happen?
Unknown speaker: Oh, wow.
Ross Kenyon: Fix it for us on the air. It’s been a while since you brought out this device.
Helene Costa de Beauregard: I think that we actually have a lot of solutions that will lead you a long way toward a decarbonized world. And I want to give a shout out to the Drawdown project. I don’t know if you’re familiar. So basically, and just right now, I forgot the name of the person who is behind it.
Christophe Jospe: Paul Hawken. I actually got to meet him in New York and he gave me a hug and he was like, I love Nori. And he meant both, he loved what we were doing and he loves eating sushi.
Helene Costa de Beauregard: So yeah. So if I remember it’s right, I think the story behind the Drawdown project was that in the early 2000s, Mr. Hawking was asking people, OK, so if you have to give me a list of all the solutions that needs to be implemented to reduce our mission, where is this list? And so the people were saying, well, I can tell you for some solution in that field or this field because I’m an expert there, but there is no list of all the solutions. So the Drawdown project, what they did is that they did.
They ask volunteer scientists to basically peer review some of the solutions that were put out there and come up with this list of 100 solutions. So if I was a queen, I would just take this list. And I went through that and implemented. But I think that three things that are really key into solving climate change are transitioning out of the fossil fuel energy. Basically, our whole civilization is built around fossil fuel. That was the basis of the Industrial Revolution. And we know that is also driving climate change. So one thing would be like to phase out as fast as possible from fossil fuel.
And we have the alternatives. We have solar, we have winds, we have hydro. So that’s something which is technically possible.
Christophe Jospe: The second one- Can I throw a wrench in that just really quickly? Because we’re sticklers for details. And oftentimes people get glossy eyed when you’re like, oh, solar. But to make Solar and steel to encase it, you still need to burn metallurgical coal. And so I just bring this up because I want to be that curmudgeonly voiced. It’s like you have to do full life cycle accounting on the carbon inputs of these things that we’re building.
Helene Costa de Beauregard: Yeah. So I absolutely agree with you that currently building a solar panel or building a wind turbine is fossil fuel intensive. The thing is that at some point when we would be transitioning to full solar or full clean and renewable energy, building those stuff, We will not be using like fossil fuel. But I would say now we have to use the emission that we put in the atmosphere in the smartest way possible. So we have to burn fossil fuel because we are not a 100% clean and renewable energy civilization. So let’s do that to build the solar panel, to build those wind turbines.
And there is like, I mean, there is no way out of it for now because we are not 100% clean and renewable energy.
Christophe Jospe: Totally. Sorry. So I interrupted you. You were saying there are three things. I think we got through the first one.
Helene Costa de Beauregard: Yes. The second one is something that everyone can do. It’s basically transitioning to a plant-based diet. We know that the emission from the Food industry, and you were talking about the full life cycle, so I’m not talking about how you raise beef, but also how the pesticides that are used, other transportation for our food make it very intensive in terms not only of fossil fuel, but only in methane. So transitioning to a plant-based diet is a must to reduce emissions, and that’s something everyone can do. So if you want to act for climate, just reduce your intake of beef.
Ross Kenyon: Oh, you’re lying such bait here because Nori straddles this line where we try to be friendly with both people do the holistic management, the savory style of raising cattle and beef. And there is a way to raise cows. It doesn’t have to be near. And then we also see like fights between vegans and then those people. And we’re just sort of like there’s a sense in which both of you are right and both of you are wrong.
Christophe Jospe: And you both want the same thing, which from the rancher perspective, they want to farm cattle. They want more people to eat grass fed beef. And they want to improve the health of the soil but feel attacked by people saying we must get off of a carnivorous diet. And I just want to give a shout out to a group that we’ve been collaborating with and like to talk soil for climate. With the number four, check out their Facebook group and join very lively debates that include diehards on both the left and the right.
And when I say left of the right, I mean...
Unknown speaker: Is that vegans and ranchers?
Christophe Jospe: Vegans and ranchers. I’m not sure everyone... No one would like that. And I wrote an article once, which is like, should we reduce our consumption of meat to reverse climate change? The answer is yes, and. And so it’s actually shifting from community. What is it? CAFOs? So that’s the... No matter what, those are sort of the most damaging part of this. Yeah, they’re super damaging. But then, alternatively, we also hear arguments that’s like, well, if you’re going to a full plant-based diet and it’s factory farmed soybeans, this is a problem too.
Yeah. It’s really important. I’m all for it. I also just had an Impossible Burger, the Impossible 2. 0. Like that totally tastes like meat.
Ross Kenyon: Paul loves them too. Yeah, they’re good.
Christophe Jospe: Everyone should go out and have them. And I feel good about myself because I’m like, I know that this is better than the other beef burger that How annoyingly nuanced was that? Did it help us? Did it confuse us for further? But I do want to be that pushback because I’m concerned that if you say eat less meat is the answer, that it can gloss over details. And so I’d like to say if you’re going to eat meat, be smarter about where the meat comes from that you ate. And on net, it is possible that someone could eat more meat.
I just want to lay out the situation. It’s someone that could eat more regenerative meat that results in a net carbon sequestration sink.
Helene Costa de Beauregard: Oh, and yeah, I get your point. Absolutely. That depending on the type of grazing technique, because you, and I’m not an expert, so I would probably get that wrong, that the soil where your cattle graze, If they graze, according to some kind of method, will sequester more carbon. So I agree with you that it’s always like more nuanced, like exactly the same when you said, okay, like it’s a more plant-based diet, but if you’re eating, I don’t know, like avocado that are coming from I don’t know what, in Mexico and they are like grown with pesticides and with fossil fuel materials and everything.
And then the transportation, yeah, maybe you are like better off like eating.
Ross Kenyon: Like your local cow.
Helene Costa de Beauregard: Yeah, which is grazing. So yeah, obviously that’s, there is more nuance than what we are saying, but you have to start somewhere.
Christophe Jospe: Maybe the really pedantic way of saying it is consume food in a way that reduces the carbon footprint of that food. We’ll agree there.
Helene Costa de Beauregard: Yes, absolutely.
Christophe Jospe: Okay. A fair principle. So take us to number three.
Helene Costa de Beauregard: Yeah. So number three is basically like increase the potential of carbon sequestration that we have in nature, which is basically trees. Like reforestation, afforestation, the mangrove, also like what we call like the blue carbon is like a huge potential for carbon sequestration and like soil sequestration. So that would be like the third thing that I think is needed and that we need to see because that’s one of the most cost effective thing that we have to reduce our emission and also to suck some of the emission from the atmosphere.
Christophe Jospe: One of the things that I like about mangroves is...
Unknown speaker: Such a great little sentence there.
Christophe Jospe: Out of many. They’re amazing carbon sinks. They’re much more effective on sort of bang per buck than trees. But one of the challenges, of course, is, well, among the many, they’re under attack from acidifying waters and rising sea So we’re keen because mangroves can remove carbon. They can also store carbon. But I think the thing that I really like about it, it’s sort of like they’re like the ants of the water. That’s what Tolkien references.
Ross Kenyon: I’ve been listening to Great Courses is awesome. If you like listening to books, Great Courses has professors on so many topics. But I’ve listened to their botany one. I listened to one of mangroves recently. And apparently when they seed and they reproduce, they come... It’s not like they land and then they germinate because they can’t because it’s in tidal waters. So they have to come out ready to go. And it’s one of the unique things about them. So that’s all I’ll say about mangroves right now. We should keep it moving, though.
Get us to the meat, Krista.
Christophe Jospe: There’s a real juicy lead that we buried on this whole podcast. We buried it so hard. This is historic because we’re going to be talking about something that is going to happen in the future. And you, listener, are going to help make it happen in the future. That sounded threatening. But it should. What are we even talking about, Hélène? What was the lead here that we had buried and why should it happen?
Helene Costa de Beauregard: Yeah, well, I think that just to build up on what you were thinking about the mangrove or the diet, that there is still so much that we need to know. There is like so much that climate change should really like permit every area of our life, of the way we are thinking as a society. And we’re just like not seeing that right now. And we think that we should put climate change even more front and center. And one way to do that, and it’s one way among many, would be to have an award that really puts climate change front and center.
And I mean, the most prestigious award of all are Nobel Prize. So we think that it’s time to have climate change and more precisely action against climate change as one of the new category of the climate prizes.
Christophe Jospe: Amazing. Big round of applause. I mean, already, you know, we do see economics awards that relate to climate change and talk about it. So it’s nice that this broad multidisciplinary sector sort of influences those. But why does it need to be its own category?
Helene Costa de Beauregard: For many different reasons. Like, as you said, we saw last year with William Northouse that economic work on climate change were rewarded. The last time it was rewarded, it was in 2007, with the Nobel Prize given to Al Gore and the IPCC. So basically, we waited like 11 years because there is so much focus the Nobel committees can put on climate change within the current sixth category. And that’s something interesting. A topic that we should discuss about like every year. That’s one reason why we need a category of its own.
The other reason why we think a Nobel Prize would make a lot of sense is that would also show what are the world’s priorities. This is the most prestigious award. And we know that climate change is the most pressing issues. So we need to distinguish people who are basically... Trailblazer in reducing carbon emission or trying to adapt, they should be rewarded with the highest distinction. Another way we think that climate novel will make a lot of sense is that we would be able to reshape the conversation around action. In 2007, when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded, it was all about saying to the IPCC and Al Gore, good job, you lay down the foundation for us now to act.
We’re 11 years later and the conversation is still many levels. We’re all stuck about like, is it a man-man climate change cycle? There’s kind of like a lot of noise, which is done on purpose by very few people. And we have to cut through that noise. And we think that a Nobel Climate Prize focusing on action will help with that. Another thing that we need role models and climate Nobel laureates can be one of those role models. I mean, I’m sure you’ve seen what is happening In Europe, in Australia, with the youth movement that has been built around Greta Thunberg, this Swedish young girl, which basically started a climate strike in front of the Swedish parliament.
And it has morphed into a worldwide youth movement because the students and the young people saw that this is something that can be done. There was like someone, Greta Thunberg, showing them that they have more power than they think. And so we really want to highlight all those great climate champions. And there are like so many, like I can mention one like Mr. Yacouba Sawaga from Burkina Faso, who led the movement in agroforestry in Burkina Faso in the 80s and 90s and show what benefits not only for farmers, but in terms of like sequestering carbon agroforestry can do.
Ross Kenyon: Didn’t that also prevent the desert from floating too?
Helene Costa de Beauregard: Exactly.
Ross Kenyon: Oh yeah, I’ve seen this, yeah.
Christophe Jospe: They planted so many trees. It’s incredible. It’s really, it’s kind of like the impact of one person and to inspire others. Yeah, exactly.
Helene Costa de Beauregard: So we think that having role models and highlighting them can really inspire people in an hopeful way. The Nobel Prizes are just like a great way, a great avenue for doing that.
Ross Kenyon: Do you think that people watching you do this that care more about inequality than climate change are like, hey, why not inequality? Why should there be like climate change or Nobel Prizes for various types of issues? Or is it is climate change so unique that we should have one specifically for it?
Raoul Costa de Beauregard: You could argue that climate change is driving more inequality.
Ross Kenyon: So this is like the mother issue.
Raoul Costa de Beauregard: I do think so. I think if you look back at why our friend Nobel created the Nobel Prizes, what did he say in his word? He said, you know, the Nobel Prizes would be awarded to people who brought the greatest benefit to mankind. Climate change was not an issue in the late 1800s. And so it was not one of the five founding, you know, disciplines for the Nobel Prizes. I think if the prize were to be created today, it is likely that climate change would be one of them because... It is one of the greatest threats to humankind.
It is driving more poverty, more inequality. And we need to do something about this now, I guess.
Christophe Jospe: And it’s not like we aren’t, but we’re not doing enough at the ambition needed in the amount of time that we have to do it. And one of the things that I like about prizes is they become pretty good motivator for someone’s like, oh, I’m going to do this because this prize exists. But... I want to play devil’s advocate against that. Did Barack Obama, who was awarded the Peace Prize, do it because he’s like, I’m going to get the Nobel Peace Prize? Or did he just do that thing because that’s the right thing?
Ross Kenyon: I’m not even clear that he deserved it. What exactly did he even do?
Christophe Jospe: Did he deserve it? Or could this just become a political thing? Could this get distorted in some way? Will it actually help? We’re playing hardball now. Like further convince us that people who are already doing the right thing really can benefit from a prize and this prize will motivate people. Is there a financial incentive here? Like how has this helped people?
Helene Costa de Beauregard: So I don’t think that people who get a Nobel Prize are doing the work that they are doing because there is a Nobel Prize. I don’t think that a doctor that has been working all his life to try to find a cure to AIDS, for instance, would have not done that if there was no Nobel Prizes. So even though there is financial dotation, so there is a $1 million going with each prizes, I don’t think that people are doing... But the beauty of the Nobel Prize is that it’s inspirational for people to see those people that raise above all other to show those people.
I think that what’s needed with climate change in that we need to show people that this is an issue which is solvable. This is something that people are working on very hard, that there is a solution to it. That can generate enthusiasm and hope around solving climate change.
Raoul Costa de Beauregard: I think the paradox here is the creation of the Climate Change Nobel Prize is not primarily for the people who are making actions against climate change now. It is more to raise awareness globally. Nobel Prizes are the most recognizable, respected awareness. Worldwide, every year when they announced the Nobel Prize in October, every day a new prize. It has a full price cycle globally. Again, there’s no discussion about all those people should not have had the Nobel Prize. It’s more about here’s what’s great about the physics that was done last year, and this is the Nobel Prize.
We want the same thing to happen for climate change. Here are the great actions that were driven last year, and let’s talk about those and giving that kind of visibility worldwide. With such a respected prize as the Nobles is what we want to achieve.
Ross Kenyon: And how’s that all going? How much are you even able to say? Are you meeting with these people at the Nobel Committee or Institute? I’m not even sure how this is structured.
Christophe Jospe: And what can our listeners do to move this effort along?
Raoul Costa de Beauregard: So what we are doing is we have an online petition and we need that number to be as high as possible. We aim for 1 million signatures and what we need is more signatures. And signing this, sharing this with your friends, your communities, your locally, internationally, that’s the main thing. Armed with your voices and your signatures, then that will give us the right visibility and will allow us to...
Ross Kenyon: Okay, and then are you trying to work inside without the petition? Are you talking to people over there? Did you purposefully dodge this question?
Helene Costa de Beauregard: Oh, no. So we did inform the Noble Foundation about the campaign. We informed the executive director and the chairman of the board because it’s not something that we want to do against us, against them, sorry. And so they are aware of the campaign, obviously where the campaign is small enough that they didn’t answer us yet. But as the further we grow in a number of signatures, the easier it will be to open this dialogue and to Convince them to consider the creation of the two prizes because like the board of the Nobel Foundation has the power to administer a new prize.
So in Israel, Alfred Nobel only created five prizes and there is actually six prizes currently. The five original prizes were medicine and physiology, physics, chemistry, peace and literature. And in 1968, the Central Bank of Sweden came to the Nobel Foundation and asked them to administer a new prize. And the full title of the prize is the prize of the Central Bank of Sweden in Economic Science. It’s in memory of Alfred Nobel, but everyone knows it as a Nobel Prize in Economic Science because it’s administered by the Nobel Foundation. There is a Nobel Committee for the selection.
It’s awarded along the other prizes. The Nobel Foundation accepted to do that once, even though in 1969, they decided not to accept new prize. But that’s only like a decision of the board. Like 50 years later, I think they can reopen the discussion to update the list of the category that they have.
Ross Kenyon: I’m so curious about the politics of how to accept one prize and then cut it off. OK, if someone wants to learn more, though, how can they find this petition? Where might they get it?
Helene Costa de Beauregard: Yeah, so the easiest way would be to go on the change.org website or like following the tiny URL that we created, like www. tinyurl.com slash climate noble. And you’ll find not only you’d be able And obviously, if you have more questions or want to learn more or volunteer to help support the petition, you can just send us an email and we’ll respond to you in a day or two.
Ross Kenyon: Well, one thing I think that is cool about this opportunity, if you’re out there listening and you think this is interesting, is that I could sometimes be a little bit down on activism or a little bit critical, like symbolism doesn’t always do as much for me as maybe it does for others. But if you could help nudge... That’s a pretty big deal. And also, it isn’t nearly as prickly as policy where you could put yourself, interject yourself into that system and suggest some policy changes that have complex consequences that are unforeseeable now that you may have on your shoulders for.
Advocating. So I think this is like, if you like this idea, I think there’s a chance to do something. I’m saying this badly.
Christophe Jospe: Right. A flood begins with rain.
Ross Kenyon: Is that a comment about my long-winded statement?
Christophe Jospe: I’m not responding to this email, but suddenly, if there’s so many people who demand it, it’s impossible not to. And there’s a movement. And you’re basically saying... I mean, I signed the petition and I encourage everyone to do that. And I encourage especially people who work with kids, like get the kids to sign the petition, get them out there, get them saying like, we’re looking for little things that we can grasp onto to sort of create this force from all different directions where climate change solutions just become unstoppable.
Ross Kenyon: Wow, that was a much better closing summation than my meandering nonsense. So good for you, Kristoff. Helene and Raoul, thank you so much for being with us. We’ll have links in the show notes if you’d like. If you like the show, please give us a great rating and review on iTunes.
Unknown speaker: Thank you so much for having us. Thank you.
