Matthias, thank you for making time. It's exciting to see you.
I wanted to talk to you. Our teams have been working together very closely.
Bayer has been very active in mobilizing, convening, thought leadership,
getting folks together to respond to the impact on the food system from the
current Ukraine crisis.
I wanted to talk to you a little bit about what you all are doing and what you
see in the state of the crisis now. Are you optimistic? What are your thoughts?
I'm not optimistic because people are still dying in the Ukraine.
It's a senseless war. It's a second invasion by Russia,
in just a few years in that country,
that's causing a problem and we all can't be optimistic with
830 million people living in food insecurity in
2022 and a high likelihood that next year it will be many
more. What I'm optimistic about is that we can find a way out of this.
I want to ask you, we are in this unique moment. We've had Covid,
climate related weather events, a conflict.
It's really had an impact on the food system.
We're in one of the worst food crises of all time,
and it's created this undercurrent of a bit of debate here.
Can we actually address a food system crisis and do a food system
transformation, which we need for the long term at the same time?
I'd love to get your thoughts on it.
For me, that's really easy to answer. If we don't address the crisis,
we won't get a transformation.
Agriculture is this very special sector that contributes to global warming,
that accelerates climate change.
Roughly a quarter of all GHG emissions stem from
agriculture and boy, is agriculture suffering from climate change.
So for us, there is no choice.
We need to do everything we can on mitigation and we have to double down on
adaptation.
What is Bayer doing in this space?
We are directing a two and a half billion dollar R&D budget.
That's more than twice the next competitor and three times the whole CGIAR
budget. In the direction of addressing the climate crisis,
we are focusing on 'three Rs.' We want to reduce carbon emissions,
we want to remove atmospheric carbon by enabling farmers to make money with
that. And we want to drive resilience.
We want to bring innovation to a point that allows farmers to grow crops
that can withstand the climate crisis as much as possible.
What you just said is really interesting. We're talking about a financing gap.
The scale of what you are able to do as one company is impressive.
So it really highlights the importance of the private sector coming together and
really playing a role in food systems transformation. I want to ask you,
there's actually a lot of private sector here in this COP.
It's the first time at a COP we're having a food day.
What is your challenge to your peers, to the rest of the private sector?
My challenge is demonstrate that you deliver against net zero.
Don't talk about it. Demonstrate that you deliver against it.
We talk too much about targets and
announcements. Actually take carbon out of your value chain.
In order for us to reach net zero, we need to grow carbon neutral.
We need to cut our emissions in half in 10 years and then
again for the next two decades.
And we need to incredibly offset the remaining emissions.
That's not complicated, it's just hard.
So 'demonstrate that you are doers' is the challenge that I present to companies
that talk about it, but don't seem to act about it.
It's a wonderful call to action. This is meant to be a COP about implementation.
It's a perfect place to put that challenge out there.
Thank you so much for your time. It was great chatting with you.