00:00:07
welcome to our listeners and viewers and the United States and around the world welcome to our knowledge at Wharton and
00:00:15
Wharton Leadership Conference events as you know by signing up to this that we have a series of presentations from
00:00:23
leaders from around the world and around various parts of society and business talking about issues associated with
00:00:30
leadership and today it's great pleasure to have with us the right honorable Lord
00:00:34
Baker of Barker battle I Greg bunker it's pleasure to have him with us he was
00:00:42
elected a member of parliament in 2001 after that during the Cameron government was minister of state or energy and
00:00:49
climate change and is currently executive chair of the N Plus groups and energy company based in Russia and
00:00:57
around the world's great pleasure to have you with us Greg welcome thank you
00:01:01
Peter I'm really flattered and honored to be here maybe the first thing to do
00:01:07
we want to get into the climate change topic in just a minute though is you will be I'm pretty sure the only Lord on
00:01:15
our seminar program could you just tell listeners who are not familiar with this
00:01:21
UK institution a little bit about how one becomes a lord well his Larry yeah well it's a it's a honorific title like
00:01:33
sir so it carries a title but his talk but historically not only did carry a title but it also entitle you to sit in
00:01:42
Parliament and there was a House of Commons which was elected and then a House of Lords where everyone who had
00:01:47
inherited a title was able to sit and together they passed laws together with the moment over the centuries the power
00:01:57
of the House of Lords steadily declined and then in the 1960s in the 20th century they introduced something called
00:02:05
the life peer which was a very British way of changing a historic institution to reflect the modern times while
00:02:14
keeping a semblance of history about its so nowadays following a series of reforms the most
00:02:21
which was under Tony Blair the majority of of Lords in the House of Lords and I use that phrase and to mean both women
00:02:30
and men and the majority are actually appointed by the gut by the government of the day so there are about seven
00:02:38
hundred members of the House of Lords and about six hundred of those have been appointed over the years because the
00:02:46
appointment is for life so you enjoy the dignity and style of a lord in the historic sense but you don't pass it on
00:02:53
to your your eldest son or your heir as he would have done historically there are still about a hundred hereditary
00:03:01
peers in the in the House of Lords so the Duke of Wellington for example still sits in the House of Lords and a number
00:03:09
of other people with famous historic titles that you would recognize but there isn't the role of the Lords is a
00:03:15
revising chamber the power clearly rests with the House of Commons and the it is
00:03:22
supposed to and I think largely does reflect a very broad degree of people from different walks of life different
00:03:31
experience different experts although there are a lot of former professional politicians like myself who have gone on
00:03:38
to do other things but this is still a way that they can contribute yeah well one of the ways you've been contributing
00:03:44
in a very important topic is the topic of climate change in your roles and before that but afterwards as well and
00:03:52
recent op-ed piece a week or so ago I think in the Financial Times and making the case that we should take climate
00:04:00
change more seriously and address it I wonder if you say a word just about your experience in pushing those arguments
00:04:08
forward which started a while ago maybe just a little bit about why that was important to you and and what were the
00:04:16
difficulties in trying to advocate for climate change well I went into politics in 2001 and
00:04:25
had a background in business when I went in and was given a piece of advice on entering politics and not really knowing
00:04:33
many of the people in the in the Westminster corridors to find a subject do SWAT up on it and to make yourself
00:04:42
useful particularly given that I was elected in 2001 as a Conservative member of parliament at a time when we were in
00:04:49
deep opposition and Tony Blair looked like he was set to rule for the rest of the century so there was no no hurry to
00:04:57
get ready for government though I took that opportunity to join the parliamentary environmental Audit
00:05:05
Committee just at the time that climate change was coming up the political agenda globally it was the time that Al
00:05:13
Gore for example was writing an inconvenient and published and Inconvenient Truth and I remember that
00:05:19
having a real impact on me and it prompted us as a committee to launch our own investigations into the issue of
00:05:28
climate change and to me it became a really fascinating all-consuming subject because it included the economy it
00:05:37
included the way we live it includes softer things like education and it is an international issue it's not
00:05:45
something that is just affecting domestic politics but also it was an issue which demanded innovation it
00:05:53
demanded a full response across a suite of policy measures and that not everyone
00:05:59
was taking it seriously though I the more I read the more convinced I became that this represented probably the
00:06:08
greatest long-term threat not just our country but the planet faced so it it became inescapable that I would want to
00:06:15
be involved in that as I understand it your efforts to push this to the front of the agenda we're not always the
00:06:26
easiest things to do can you tell us a little bit about what was difficult about trying to in continues to be
00:06:32
difficult about trying to get attention for this topic and and how do you make progress on there sure and well when I
00:06:41
first started talking about this in the early 2000s a lot of people in the British Conservative Party thought I was
00:06:48
a complete crank mildly eccentric or even that I was some sort of socialist in green clothing and that really
00:06:59
prompted me not just to explain the problem of climate change but also to make an authentic conservative
00:07:08
pro-business case for why we should be taking action not only just to appease my conservative colleagues because I
00:07:15
genuine believed that we needed to marshal the dynamism of the free market economy and send it in a direction that
00:07:22
would that would find climate solutions and that I've always been fundamentally
00:07:27
optimistic that solutions could be found I've never been one of these hairshirt
00:07:31
doom and gloom climate mongers but certainly it was a battle early on people wouldn't just debate whether or
00:07:41
not we had the right solutions but would debate the actual science in half my career was spent arguing with very
00:07:50
respectable climate deniers and that was a real challenge thankfully that has now
00:07:57
passed I think 2015 was a real seminal moment I think that was a laugh time when I was on the BBC effectively
00:08:05
debating with somebody who really didn't think this was an issue that should be
00:08:08
taken seriously now the whole world seems to have moved on and the question is not if climate change is happening
00:08:16
not if mankind is responsible but what should be the nature scale and pace of response and that's a much better place
00:08:24
to be in and also we've had a huge degree of success which often goes uncelebrated and one of the biggest
00:08:32
achievements of my political career I mean wasn't all down to me I played a small part but something that I was very
00:08:38
proud proud to be involved in was the passing of the cross-party Climate Change Act in the UK in 2008 the first
00:08:47
climate change act anywhere in the world and it unilaterally committed the United
00:08:52
Kingdom to reducing carbon emissions by then by 80% by 2050 from 1990 levels and
00:09:02
you know people said you can't do this this is impossible you'll ruin the
00:09:06
economy and what's happened at has over successive years we were able to grow
00:09:11
the economy in the UK quite impressively in the early part of this decade and at
00:09:16
the same time reduce emissions in fact the UK has now ready to missions by 86 percent emissions are now haven't were
00:09:26
last time that low in the late 19th century there were over halfway of meeting that original goal of 80%
00:09:33
reduction and Theresa May Prime Minister Theresa May before she left office actually moved the goalposts up to a
00:09:41
hundred percent so we've still got a long way to go but we have made real progress in large part due to the
00:09:51
phasing out of coal and the creation of an entirely new industry in the UK of renewable energy you've argued in the
00:10:01
Financial Times last week that the middle of this corona virus pandemic around the world and the shutting down
00:10:10
to the economies but also the efforts to pour more money in through the public sector that this is an appropriate
00:10:15
moment to really take a big step forward with respect to climate change tell us a
00:10:22
little why what's in what's that argument like to say this is the time to
00:10:27
really make an effort well in the face of this unprecedented pandemic certainly unprecedented in my lifetime every
00:10:37
business leader first and foremost is focused on the short term health and welfare of their employees I a executive
00:10:47
chairman of the N+ group and worldwide we employ over a hundred thousand people not just in Russia but in Europe in
00:10:55
Africa in Central America so we have a global footprint and we feel a great sense of
00:11:02
responsibility to our employees and we're seeing cave 19 hit at different times right the way across the different
00:11:09
regions and jurisdictions that we operate in though that's our number one focus but if I could quote Fleetwood Mac
00:11:18
for a moment you can't stop thinking about tomorrow and you know if you're a
00:11:24
business leader you've got to be capable of doing more than one thing at a time
00:11:28
and so in as well as responding to the immediate health and safety needs of employees we've got to think about the
00:11:37
longer-term impacts and you know as Winston Churchill said never let a good crisis go to waste and that is really
00:11:48
now what we have to do you know there is a serious opportunity with huge amounts
00:11:54
of government money being poured into global economy but policymakers to insist that that investment is child in
00:12:02
certain ways that we once and for all kick the highly polluting environmentally damaging carbon intents
00:12:09
industries and business practices of the last century or more and we use this as
00:12:15
a real opportunity to have a step change towards a low-carbon more sustainable future and there are different ways in
00:12:23
which different industries different countries can approach that but we do have to see this as a once-in-a-lifetime
00:12:30
opportunity to make that change I think you make a great point about the importance of trying to get people to
00:12:38
think future rather than focus on just the current problems how do you do that when you have the arguments with other
00:12:46
businesspeople or political leaders about taking climate change seriously you really are trying to argue that they
00:12:52
should think longer-term what do you think has been persuasive in trying to get people to think longer
00:12:59
term about this and not just be so focused in the world of business let's say on their quarterly performance or
00:13:05
their immediate political concerns how do you get them to think long term well I think in order to have license to
00:13:12
talk about the future and to posit your ideas for that route map to the future you have to at least be competent in
00:13:19
dealing with the present though it cannot be instead this is non either-or agenda so you have to show that you are
00:13:27
able to deal with the very real challenges in the here and now and and that's never been more critical than
00:13:33
when when facing this this pandemic but as I said it's it's not an either/or
00:13:38
agenda so if you can do that I think that does also by you go to talk about the future and if you're going to do
00:13:45
that I think you have to be very clear and this goes to sort of certain leadership lessons you have to be able
00:13:52
to clearly articulate and communicate what it is you want to see not just speak in Wooley management speak or or
00:14:01
popular you know hashtags you have to have a clear idea and a route map of actionable points and one of the things
00:14:10
that frustrate frustrates me and increasingly in in recent times has been the willingness of companies big
00:14:19
business to set long-term goals which are absolutely needed and after all I was involved in setting a climate change
00:14:26
act which that set targets all the way up to 2050 but effectively its CEOs setting setting goals for their
00:14:35
successors or their successors successor to meet while actually doing very little
00:14:39
in the near-term that they are going to be held personally accountable for though it's really important that you
00:14:46
have a credible route map and a credible plan as well as just talk about the future in an abstract way before we
00:14:57
began the broadcast today we were talking my colleague Mike you seen was asking me a little about David Cameron
00:15:02
your colleague and leader in Parliament's and his leadership style could you tell us a little bit about his
00:15:11
effectiveness he seemed to be quite effective in leading in this kind of context a little about what you saw with
00:15:17
him David had a or has a natural Authority and we came into the House of Commons to
00:15:25
get together very small cohort in 2001 and it was immediately apparent to me that he stood head and shoulders above
00:15:33
the other members of parliament and so when there was an opportunity for a new leader to be put in place in 2005
00:15:42
without hesitation I encouraged him along with others to step up even though he was relatively young and relatively
00:15:50
new on the scene it was very clear that he had the x-factor for leadership again
00:15:57
who was he's you know incredibly articulate to see him at the despatch-box he was able to put into
00:16:04
words and craft the sentences under pressure infernal in a way that very few people
00:16:13
are able to do but he was also a very serious administrator I mean I had a you know a first-class degree from Oxford
00:16:21
and had a fine brain but I've seen plenty of more intelligent people or more academically qualified people
00:16:28
not be able to convert that intelligence into in a political effectiveness and David was able to marry the both I
00:16:37
remember seeing him in Cobra Cobra Azhar the UK version of The Situation Room and I was on a hostage international
00:16:46
hostage crisis and in the room it's not it's not the same as the cabinet within
00:16:51
this Situation Room you would have the heads of the Army Navy the special services top diplomats intelligence
00:16:59
services and key ministers from a relevant departments depending on what the nature of the crisis was and David
00:17:06
would enter exactly on time 11 o'clock tip down and immediately called the meeting to order and crisply worked
00:17:14
through the agenda a lot of politicians I've come across cross always have to
00:17:20
try and prove that they're the most intelligent or important person in the room despite the fact that they hold the
00:17:25
highest office David had an you know were always very thoughtful and listened to the lead
00:17:31
I see you had absolutely no doubt as to who was in charge and a clear direction and a clear course that he was setting
00:17:43
so and he was a very agreeable person to work with that David Cameron uses or in
00:17:49
public was very very similar to the David Cameron in private and which you know a lot of politicians are not like
00:17:55
that there are lot of politicians that have a terrible public image and in private their delightful conversely
00:18:02
there are some very popular politicians who are in nightmare in private but David was very consistent and I will
00:18:08
remain a huge admirer of his I'd like to share the podium here with my colleague
00:18:17
Mike Hughes theme who is director of our Center for Leadership and co-host of the
00:18:21
series and our Leadership Conference Mike has been looking at questions from the audience but also I think has his
00:18:26
own questions too so Mike can we go over you from it thank you Peter and thank you learned Barker for being on our
00:18:32
program very interesting discussion we're getting a good number of questions
00:18:36
in I'm going to begin with one of my own but then bring in some of the questions
00:18:40
that our listeners are indeed forwarding in the FT op-ed piece that you wrote you
00:18:46
use a phrase build back better build back better I find the phrase really appealing and then thinking about its
00:18:56
application now in the coronavirus moment how do you see the UK the US other countries building back better and
00:19:05
who's going to drive that so there it is what do you think well ultimately I
00:19:11
think we're going to build back better because the people of the UK of the US
00:19:16
and around the world are going to demand that we do we live in a new democratic age now where everyone thanks to social
00:19:22
media has a voice and I think there is an increasing clamor that we don't just
00:19:27
go back to business as normal now in my own line what does build back better mean I lead the world's largest producer
00:19:37
of low carbon aluminium to put that in some sort of context the average Tarn of aluminium can
00:19:44
make up to 16 or 18 tonnes of carbon to produce because it's so energy intensive
00:19:49
but because my group uses hydropower are also the world's largest private sector
00:19:54
hydropower company because we use that to make aluminium instead of being 18 tons of carbon for a ton of aluminium it
00:20:02
just takes two point six tons so it's really important when can rupture project if you're using these in tax
00:20:14
dollars to invest in renewable energy in electric vehicle charging points electric vehicle manufacturing
00:20:25
sustainable housing that you don't just use the materials like aluminium that
00:20:30
lend themselves to that application but you use low-carbon aluminium that you think about the consequences not just of
00:20:38
the thing you're building but the whole supply chain in order to make it a more
00:20:42
circular economy and create more sustainable outcomes and I think having sustainability and climate action at the
00:20:51
forefront of our mind as we embark on these bill bringing back the economy is a once-in-a-generation chance we knew no
00:21:00
one would have wished for this pandemic but it's a fact now we have to rebuild
00:21:06
the economy so let's not waste this opportunity to build back better I didn't invent that phrase it was
00:21:13
originally conceived to talk about resilience when building after a natural disaster but I think it lends itself to
00:21:21
I think not just a national mood but a global mood post pandemic how we really need to build something better and you
00:21:29
know and can assure people who've you know made huge sacrifices during this pandemic that it hasn't you know just
00:21:35
been for a short term an effort that actually something better is going to come out of this huge collective effort
00:21:42
great thank you on that I'm gonna draw in a question now from one of our viewers that is directly related to what
00:21:48
you described they're building back better and that is how do we know when a
00:21:54
in this case by the question we have in front of us a particular company is doing that or
00:22:00
not what are what are one or two metrics that you would look at both if if you're
00:22:05
a business executive at that company but also if you're in Parliament looking at
00:22:09
that company to know if they are indeed coming back sustainably or not really good question and the answer is it's
00:22:17
quite hard actually because you know business is not as transparent as they should be in my own sector I've been
00:22:26
arguing since last year when I took up this role that we should all be all the major manufacturers of aluminium should
00:22:34
be declaring the carbon content of the metals that they produce because there's
00:22:40
such a huge discrepancy Chinese aluminium 18 tonnes of carbon our aluminium made with high drone of we're
00:22:48
not the only producer but you know is 2.6 tonnes of carbon so huge discrepancy but there's you have to really dig to
00:22:55
find that and it's the same in many other industries as well that information is not readily available I
00:23:03
would like to see much better green labeling though it was on products on consumer products and carbon
00:23:11
transparency for commodities so that when vehicle manufacturers when people building public buildings or a large
00:23:23
infrastructure projects that it's very clear what the carbon content and also
00:23:27
the wider sustainability beaches of those projects are and you know people have been talking sustainability for
00:23:37
some time now I think this is the time when we've got to convert that talk into
00:23:42
tangible actions and we've got to be accountable for them and the only way that businesses can be accountable for
00:23:48
their actions is to have greater transparency and greater disclosure on the sustainability and carbon content of
00:23:55
either their products that they make or the services that they offer I learned mark well one more question
00:24:03
from again one of our viewers here directly related as well and that is bringing in the topic in
00:24:11
and inequality which is worsening both in the UK and the u.s. in the last several years and building back better
00:24:19
what are your thoughts on how to ensure that in coming back from the current crisis we don't it further exacerbate
00:24:26
the inequalities which now are appearing both in heightened poverty rates for example but also in the politics of the
00:24:35
moment so what is your thinking I'll just sum that up about building back better while not worsening and hopefully
00:24:43
improving the extent to which we have equity and equality in both of our countries well I think this is a time
00:24:52
for strong leadership and it's time for politicians to think outside the box and
00:24:57
maybe even outside strict party lines and in previous pandemics in his plane the survivors have actually been left
00:25:06
better off for example if you go back to the Middle Ages and the Black Death after that pandemic though many people
00:25:12
were killed that there was actually a shortage of labor and the living standards of the peasants of the of the
00:25:19
of the of the labouring classes actually rose in there in the couple of centuries
00:25:24
afterwards as a result of the need to compete for labor but now what we're seeing is that an actual fact far more
00:25:32
jobs have been destroyed in our economy than and thankfully them people have been and that there are going to be huge
00:25:40
numbers of people around the world who will have their livelihoods threatened or their jobs taken away and that does
00:25:48
require new thinking and recognizing that this is an entirely new set of circumstances and it requires a really
00:25:55
strong policy lead from politicians it requires collaboration and partnership and collaboration and partnership with
00:26:03
business as well and clear sets of goals I think politicians have to be very clear to the public what it is that they
00:26:12
are trying to pinch marks of success and also be honest about what can't be achieved because you know we're not
00:26:21
going to be able to just bounce back better immediately and there will be casualties
00:26:27
of this terrible pandemic economic casualties and we have to make sure that we dupe them up as well as well as you
00:26:34
know identify the Sun rise industries and the areas that will benefit from you know an agreement recovery Lord Barker
00:26:43
thank you on that we were about two minutes away from a station break so to speak so I'm going to very briefly thumb
00:26:50
up a couple of points I've been taking notes and then mention our next president presenter on this particular
00:26:56
series though from Lord Barker who's long been active in business and politics my point number one is don't
00:27:05
let the fact that you're in business prevent you from getting into politics or the other way around if you have an
00:27:11
opportunity to lead don't be shy about taking that leadership to another institution whether business to politics
00:27:17
or from a community group to another kind of institution number two build back better and this goes back to the
00:27:25
reference to the the famous quote from Winston Churchill don't let a crisis go
00:27:30
to waste and holding back better it is a moment to take the crisis we're all
00:27:35
ready for change and indeed let's bring everything back better than it was before and then number four if we're
00:27:45
going to build back better under the circumstance we do have to have a plan a strategy the Devils in the detail and so
00:27:53
in general of course we want to come back better but I think the leadership of the future is going to entail of
00:28:01
necessity building back better in specific ways whether its climate change or whatever it may be
00:28:06
so Peter Capelli thank you for getting this particular event underway here and guiding our discussion but Lord barker
00:28:15
lured Barker thank you for being with this and I just want to let everybody know that is still tuned in here this is
00:28:22
a series of presentations by people who had been signed up for our annual Leadership Conference our next guest on
00:28:30
June 4th will be lore lorry rider Kirk he was the chief executive officer of selling these corporate
00:28:37
that's a fortune 500 firm it's in materials and chemicals got six or seven
00:28:44
billion dollars of revenue to worry about about 8,000 employees and we're going to hear from her directly
00:28:49
about how she has guided her company through the events of the present so thank you everybody for joining the
00:28:56
program and best wishes to you be safe and be healthy thank you very much you