Château Quintus, so named as the “fifth child” of the Domaine Clarence Dillon family group

From Bordeaux to Paris and back again, Domaine Clarence Dillon, under the stewardship of HRH Prince Robert of Luxembourg, is delivering two of those most signature luxuries of French life, haute cuisine and Haut-Brion – and more besides, discovers Anna Tyzack

At Le Clarence, just off the Champs-Élysée, in the golden triangle of Paris, the staff are used to seeing familiar faces: not only the actors and politicians who dine there, but the guests who keep coming back. One distinguished French couple returns two or three times a week to enjoy haute cuisine and traditional service à la française in château- like surroundings; afterwards, they head back to their apartment to dance. So successful is head chef Christophe Pelé in recreating the French art de vivre, that Le Clarence, which opened in 2015, won two Michelin stars in one year, and in 2022 was honoured as the second finest restaurant in France, with a global ranking of 28th, in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list.

The group’s Le Clarence, which has won two Michelin stars and is ranked 28th in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list

Le Clarence echoes the tastes and spirit of its founder, HRH Prince Robert of Luxembourg, whose great-grandfather, Clarence Dillon, a Harvard-educated banker and Francophile, revived the fortunes of Château Haut-Brion, a Grand Cru on Bordeaux’s Left Bank, in 1935. The group also includes Château La Mission Haut-Brion, bought by Prince Robert’s mother, Joan Dillon, Duchess of Mouchy, in 1983.

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Prince Robert is devoted to his family legacy and became group president in 2008. Like his ancestors, the prince knows that the best way to preserve it is to innovate. Hence his decision in 2011 to expand the repertoire by acquiring a property now known as Château Quintus (meaning fifth in Latin, as the group’s fifth child), a Right Bank wine estate in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of St-Émilion, and in 2015 to bring the spirit of Domaine Clarence Dillon to a 19th-century townhouse, Le Clarence, in what could be described as the Mayfair of Paris. According to his devoted staff, the prince is not a man who likes to sit still and is permanently seeking new ways to capitalise on the company’s past to build its future.

HRH Prince Robert of Luxembourg, the fourth-generation scion of the Dillon family to look after its winemaking legacy

The building was in a sorry state when the prince first stepped inside. Built in 1884 as an hôtel particulier (grand residence), it had been an ophthalmologist’s for many years and was in need of major renovation. Yet the prince could see it was the perfect private mansion to house the passions of Clarence Dillon – fine wine and gastronomy – in Paris. Over the next five years, he meticulously restored the courtyard, marble staircase and exquisite formal rooms. He designed the interiors by researching and imagining how each room would have looked in the past, sourcing 18th- and 19th-century furniture, paintings and carpets from auctions around the world. When builders discovered a vaulted wine cellar beneath the building, the prince resolved to open a fine-wine boutique, La Cave du Château, in the style of the grandest cellars of Bordeaux and Champagne, stocking Haut-Brion (which had been enjoyed by Samuel Pepys and Thomas Jefferson), along with other fine wines, spirits and secret vintages.

Seasonal, creative haute cuisine at Le Clarence

The prince knew, however, that it was people who would bring Le Clarence to life – in particular a head chef to recreate the ethos of Domaine Clarence Dillon in Paris. He was determined to find a chef with their own ideas, style and expertise who would bring a blast of modernity to this historic house. After many months of searching, Prince Robert came across Christophe Pelé through word of mouth; Pelé had worked at some of the best restaurants in France before shocking the gastronomy world in 2012 by closing his two-star restaurant, La Bigarrade, to focus on learning more of his art. Prince Robert invited Pelé to cook for him at Haut-Brion, where, along with creating a world-class gastronomy and wine library, he has installed a kitchen fit for Michelin star- winning chefs. First thing in the morning Pelé headed off to the local market, then spent the day creating a menu that combined ingredients from earth and sea; Prince Robert was so impressed by Pelé’s ingenuity and creativity that he invited him to collaborate right away.

Le Clarence has earned two Michelin stars since its opening in 2017

By 2017, Pelé had earned Le Clarence two Michelin stars, adding the ranking of 28th best restaurant in the world in 2022. There is no formal menu: each artful dish is inspired by a classic recipe and prepared uniquely for each guest to express terroirs, cultures and seasons, and served with a number of smaller dishes to complement the flavours. Pelé, a horse rider and nature lover, devotes a huge amount of time to cultivating relationships with his favourite farmers and producers.

Head chef Christophe Pelé, who prizes classic service à la française alongside his modern cuisine

He is adamant that if his guests are to taste the seasons, he has to be great friends with his fishermen, farmers and suppliers. For example, Pelé works with family company France Ikejime for the freshest fish, while the organic sourdough is from local Parisian bakery Ten Belles. But while his cooking is unashamedly modern, Pelé’s presentation and service is resolutely traditional. “Some say that the art of service à la française is outdated, but what we offer is as relevant now as it always was: the extraordinary luxury of taking your time,” Pelé maintains.

Le Clarence has achieved the rank of second finest restaurant in France

A little over 600km away from Paris on Bordeaux’s Right Bank, the staff at Château Quintus are also aware of the significance of time and deep-rooted relationships. In 2013, the prince expanded this newly named estate, where some of the vines, planted to Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Malbec, date back 100 years, with an average age of 30 years. In 2021, he added another venerable château. Along with Jean-Philippe Delmas and Jean- Philippe Masclef, Haut-Brion’s most senior winemakers, the prince has adopted the same vine-by-vine, plot-by-plot approach used at Château Haut-Brion and La Mission Haut- Brion. “At Haut-Brion there are centuries of knowledge; here we’re starting afresh but we have the fundamentals,” explains Delmas, who is the third generation of his family to be in charge of producing Château Haut-Brion wines. “Château Quintus is deeply rooted in the heritage of St-Émilion, one of the oldest vineyards in the world. Now we’re applying principles from our other properties to get the very best from this ancient terroir.”

Château Quintus vineyards, lined with trees and wildflowers to nurture the terroir and promote biodiversity

The prince set out his intention for Quintus to become the new star of St-Émilion when he commissioned a huge sculpture of a dragon to tower over an estate promontory. The outlook of Le Dragon de Quintus is nothing short of intimidating, as surrounding vineyards belong to the Grand Cru estates of Château Ausone, Château Angélus and Château Le Dome, as well as Château Berliquet and Château Canon, whose owners, Alain and Gérard Wertheimer, own Chanel. Yet the first vintages of Château Quintus have received critical acclaim. At a blind tasting with 28 top wine tasters in spring 2022 in London, three of the Quintus vintages were scored in the top 15 of 48 peer wines, with the 2016 Quintus ranking fourth. Of four perfect scores, three went to Quintus. It seems Prince Robert’s ingenuity is paying off. “The aim at Quintus is to make elegant wine in the spirit of Haut-Brion with typicity of St Émilion’s Right Bank,” explains Mariette Veyssière, manager of Quintus, who previously worked at both Haut-Brion and Pétrus, and whose father and grandfather are both cellar masters in St-Émilion. “The fact that there are 42 acres of vines on three orientations surrounded by oaks and acacia gives us a huge palette when it comes to the blending process.”

A first vintage of Château Quintus, 2011, with an antique Haut-Brion bottle found in a pirate’s cache

As a fourth-generation wine producer, Prince Robert is well aware that, to make the best wine, you need to nurture the terroir – not just for the next vintage but for the coming decades. “‘Terroir’ is a big word in France; it means more than just ground – it’s the whole ecosystem,” says Veyssière. “We are very gentle with it; not just with each vine but the whole terrain; we have to try to envisage what it will be like in 10 and 20 years time.” At Quintus, 800 types of auxiliary fauna with more than 80 species of wildflower have been recorded, as well as a profusion of bats, bees, insects and birds. Each year, parts of the vineyard are replanted, hedgerows are relaid and more trees and wildflowers are planted. No insecticides are used, and any ploughing is done with care to avoid soil erosion. “In order to have the best grapes, the vines have to suffer a little; at the top of the limestone slope where it is rocky there is a natural limitation to how much they can thrive, but where the soil is more sandy and fertile, we grow grass to prevent the vines from growing too vigorously,” Veyssière explains.

Read more: Prince Robert de Luxembourg on wine, gastronomy & storytelling

Harvest at Château Quintus is a painstaking three-week process with each plot (74 per cent Merlot, 24.3 per cent Cabernet Franc and 1.7 per cent Malbec) harvested by hand. “We’re gradually learning the soul of the plots and the grapes,” Veyssière continues. Once the grapes are off the vine, they’re sorted in terms of quality using a gravity sorting system: the best flow down into tanks: steel and concrete for Merlot and Malbec, oak for Cabernet Franc. Then, in November, an expert panel, including the technical teams from Haut-Brion and La Mission Haut-Brion, decide on the blending of Château Quintus and the second wine, Le Dragon de Quintus. Only afterwards will it be put into barrels. “We decide on the blend first to ensure the oak is not masking the berries’ potential,” says Veyssière. “We use a ratio of 35 per cent new oak, 65 per cent old, as the newer the barrels, the oakier the taste of the wine.”

A view of Château Quintus looking towards the spire of St-Émilion church

For Prince Robert, who in 2018 joined Primum Familiae Vini, an association of the world’s most historic and celebrated wine-producing families, Château Quintus is a cherished fifth child, not only as it expands Domaine Clarence Dillon into St-Émilion but because it fulfils the wishes of his great-grandfather. Clarence Dillon had great affection for the ancient vineyards around St-Émilion, yet he never succeeded in buying a château there. Nine decades later, the Quintus estate, like Le Clarence, is a nod both to the past and the future of Domaine Clarence Dillon. “When Prince Robert is here, he likes to walk slowly through the vines and oak copses, taking it all in,” says Veyssière. “There’s no better place to catch up with his team than walking through the terroir with the butterflies and bees and the church spire of St-Émilion in the distance.”

Prince Robert on creating a new legacy

HRH Prince Robert of Luxembourg has been expanding the family business since taking over at the helm of Domaine Clarence Dillon, owner of Château Haut-Brion and other prestigious estates, in 2008. He speaks to Darius Sanai about the past, present and future.

On creating wine and gastronomic experiences
Wine is an experience. It has always been valuable only because it is something we share,
a shared experience. The fine-dining restaurant in Paris, Le Clarence, is part of that: we are bringing people into the heart of the world we have created. The style of the place is a reflection of the style of our Bordeaux château which I saw born around me when my mother redesigned and decorated it back in the early 1970s. I wanted to recreate that atmosphere in Paris. The cooking is totally different because it is hypermodern and the chef is innovative yet respectful of the ingredients. His cooking, to me, is close in style to the wines of Haut-Brion because it is subtle and elegant. It’s a composition. He treats all the contents of the plate in the same manner that our oenologues would the composition of the wine. You have a little bit of everything, but not too much of anything. It is a real art.

The group’s Le Clarence restaurant, with wine boutique La Cave du Château, elegantly housed in a renovated 19th-century Paris hôtel particulier

On building a new carbon-neutral winery at Château Haut-Brion in Bordeaux
The mandate I gave to the architects emphasised that it is not about a cult of personality, about the architect or about ego – whether that is the winemaker, the owner or the architect. We have an extraordinary story here, and we have to really put the focus on that and share it. It can’t be heavy-handed. The design element should not be too important, either. As much as I like Disney and am a big fan, we can’t recreate that kind of experience at Château Haut-Brion. It is like our wine and food: it has to be very subtle.

The carbon-neutral project was born 10 years ago, so we have been working on this with the architects. The technology we are using has improved significantly over that time, so we are going to be in better shape than we anticipated when we started, whether it is the geothermal energy we are using or solar cells. It is important for all of us and the planet, but especially important when you have a long-term vision of a family company that we represent. We are farmers, and our most important asset is our soil and our planet – without that we are nothing, so we have to look after it. I think that is why we see a lot of positive messaging coming out of this space. We are physically using our soil to build our buildings because the construction is going to be significantly made of rammed earth, so we are extracting our soil and we will have that reflected in the walls of our chai building. It is an exciting message, and we will literally be able to see quite gravelly soils within the actual walls. Some of it will be more traditional construction, but much of it will be rammed earth.

On creating a new St-Émilion first-growth wine, Château Quintus, on land that was previously three older properties
Creating a new name and brand ultimately means the promise of quality to the consumer. The reason for creating a new name is that we are not trying to make a better version of what was there before. We are making a totally different, better wine than all those estates. The selection process of the grapes for the wine is so drastically different compared to what was done beforehand. It is a totally different way of making this Right Bank wine. We are adopting the same kind of principles that we have at the Left Bank at Château Haut-Brion and Château La Mission Haut-Brion. It is daunting, but, ultimately, it is very exciting.

While the reconstruction of Château Haut-Brion continues, visitors can experience the group’s wines and hospitality at its new Pavillon Catelan, Bordeaux

Find out more:
domaineclarencedillon.com
le-clarence.paris
chateau-quintus.com

This article first appeared in the Autumn/Winter 2022/23 issue of LUX

Sakshi Chhabra Mittal is the founder and CEO of FoodHak, a startup revolutionising the food industry by combining science, tech and traditional Ayurvedic principles to make healthier meals more accessible to all. Here Sakshi, speaks to Samantha Welsh about starting an innovating company and the potential for food science

LUX: What were your first entrepreneurial steps?
Sakshi Chhabra Mittal: I started working with doctors while in a full time job, to create a health-focussed line of food that was anti-inflammatory, low glycaemic index, gluten-free, dairy-free and free from refined sugars. Their patients heard about this and asked to subscribe. This pushed me to do a soft launch from my home kitchen; intended to be one week, it stretched to over four months with strong demand (purely word of mouth) and nearly 100% retention. I then found a kitchen near my office, woke every day at 5am to start operations with a part-time chef, kitchen assistant and an operations team. We learned a lot, most importantly, if you are building a business in the D2C space, your product becomes your life!

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LUX: How did this evolve into a tech specialism?
SM: While I was studying for my MBA at Wharton in US, I was fascinated how tech can help scale science and business innovation. After graduating, I joined an early-stage tech VC where I invested in Babylon, Deliveroo and Darktrace, and was then invited to join SoftBank in Silicon Valley where I used my biotech training to invest in companies innovating in oncology, immunology, data science.

LUX: What brought about the pivot to food science?
SM: I had studied diseases professionally but personally I developed a rare liver breakdown during my first pregnancy. Known as OC, Obstetric Cholestasis recurs in subsequent pregnancies in more than 90% of cases. There is no known cause or cure but as our bodies are machines, science can offer answers, so I did clinical research into food types, changed my diet and managed to avoid OC recurring. I had found a gap in the market! Food science can help us potentially reduce chronic disease, relieve government healthcare budgets, live more sustainably, foster education in nutrition.

LUX: Clinical evidence links poor gut health with inflammation and disease; how does FoodHak’s proprietary tech bespoke complementary dietary solutions?
SM: We have built proprietary data models, taking all published clinical research on food, and making ingredient-disease links. This is our personalisation engine. We are launching personalisation features on our website, where people select meals according to their health goals, for example, to aid in adjusting cholesterol, blood pressure, immunity. We are also developing a personalised AI recipe generator App.

LUX: Tech or taste, what comes first?
SM: TASTE! Food is an experience, you have to get the taste right, everything else like lifestyle changes and customer retention follow on.

LUX: How does FoodHak fit within the fast-growing plant-based nutrition market and what is your USP?
SM: We are a first mover in the ‘food as medicine’ space. We bring clinical research to the table via delicious dishes that can help people live a long, disease-free life. Tech companies tell you what you should and shouldn’t eat based on data sets but none completes the loop and personalises food. Our proprietary data models create bespoke recipes, our AI recipe generator varies and extends choices. The market opportunity is the vast population suffering allergies, inflammation, sugar-related issues etc. FoodHak’s dishes are plant-based using around 30 varieties with superfoods. We focus on a low glycaemic index, being gluten free, dairy free, free from refined sugars, we use science and tech, and we deliver bespoked gourmet meals to your door!

LUX: How do you achieve operational efficiencies with this model?
SM: We use sophisticated food packaging technology where we heat seal food in pouches. This gives us a naturally longer shelf life on fresh food and helps us with our zero-food waste policy. Our customers enjoy the extra flexibility in the shelf life as well. This enables us to run large-scale batches in food manufacturing, which reduces workshifts, encourages less frequent deliveries, and so saves on operational costs.

LUX: How has working in diverse industries influenced your leadership style?
SM: We make a deliberate effort to interview women to join the company. I learnt from working in finance that if you don’t seek out women to join the company you will never have an equal opportunities workforce. Over 50% of our employees are women. I am also proud that virtually 100% of our workforce is diverse, including minorities and people from developing nations. Diversity of opinion around the table is critical to making the right decisions.

LUX: Has Covid changed corporate culture at FoodHak?
SM: I believe to build a strong culture and values from day 1 in a start-up is impossible with people working from home (WFH). The feeling of connection and ownership comes when you sit with your team and see them problem-solve in their respective areas. You see your product being made and packaged with love. You see the values exhibited by the senior leadership on a day-to-day basis. There is no reason to be WFH unless you really need to. It’s also important that each employee at FoodHak has equity from Day 1. They have a sense of ownership over the business, the product they are making, they want to come into work and give it their best shot to make the company succeed. We believe that the early employees have sacrificed so much to help build the product and they should be growing their wealth as the company grows.

LUX: How successful have you been in attracting investment?
SM: We went out to raise $5M but were oversubscribed and ended up extending the round. It became clear that our proposition is strong, the product is differentiated, and the time is now to lead the future development of food, which is not into fake meats or other processed alternatives. It is real food powered by science and tech. We have one of the best cap tables (possibly) in Europe, with Venture Capital firms like First Minute Capital, Urania Ventures, strategics like Holland and Barrett, and influential business angels like CEO of the Vision Fund, CEO of Palo Alto Networks, Jim Mellon, Jeremy Collar, Mervyn Davies, Lydia Jett and others!

Read more: Chef Rasmus Kofoed: The Vegetable King

LUX: How do you see tech continue to drive FoodHak’s success forward?
SM: We can use this tech to create any food in any category really quickly, while continuously adding variety on a weekly / monthly basis. We can also use ingredient swaps to create personalised recipes at scale. So, think of us as the new age, health-focussed, food conglomerate that’s powered by science and tech!

Find our more: foodhak.com

Photo by Sheherazade Photography

“Technologies like renewables have their limits,” says Markus Muller. “The real potential for a sustainable global economy lies in using the wonders of nature to help rectify the planet.”

As has been previously discussed, a fundamental issue underpinning climate change is that the current economic system does not recognise nature as capital. We use and degrade nature freely. But we can go further than that, and say that putting nature at centre stage and appreciating the ecosystem services that it can deliver, would significantly help us counter climate change.

Markus Müller

It is easy to believe that technology, correctly implemented, will be enough to combat climate change. And it is true that technological transformation, moving away from fossil fuel based production chains towards more electric and alternative energy based production chains, will support the reduction in CO2 emissions and in mitigating the climate change problem. But, if we wanted to electrify the entire world so that everything is based on renewable energy, it would require a vast amount of commodities that we currently do not have. Current estimates suggest we would need 500% of the commodities we already use today. And the extraction of these commodities will harm nature as well. So, technology has natural limits in its ability of adapting to a future counteracting climate change.

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We need the help of nature.

Nature based solutions (NBS) are one of the most important ingredients here. As defined by the IUCN, they leverage nature and the power of healthy ecosystems, to protect people, optimise infrastructure and safeguard a stable and biodiverse future.

Their potential is massive. One exciting aspect is that they can include local communities, especially in the global south, which are currently excluded from global developments. NBS produce societal benefits in a fair and equitable way, in a manner which promotes transparency and broad participation. They also maintain biological and cultural diversity, as well as the ability of ecosystems to evolve over time.

Photo by Francesco Ungaro

The IUCN have estimated that NBS have the potential to reduce roughly 10-18 gigatonnes of CO2 emissions each year (by 2050). This would be a major contribution to reducing CO2 emissions. And NBS also mean the reinvigoration of nature, which will further increase the climate mitigation benefit, including in such crucial areas as the resilience of the coastline.

One discussion in the global market is how to use NBS for carbon credit trading. NBS are one of the carbon sinks and these credits can be traded by companies not just to offset their C02 emissions, but also to steer those companies, via these carbon credit markets, to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

And there are other potential benefits. In the ocean, if we put some areas under protection because of NBS, the fish stock will be very likely to recover. The fish stock will swim around, outside the protected area, which could benefit sustainable fisheries also outside such areas; scientists having found that this led to an increase in output. So NBS have multiple potential benefits to the entire planet.

Read more: Markus Müller On Natural Capital

As another example, a healthy coral reef absorbs 97% of the energy of a wave. And this speaks to the further economic potential of NBS. New jobs, for example. We have forest rangers, so why not have coral rangers or gardeners?

Photo by Vishwasa Navada

In fact, they already have coral gardeners in Tahiti, where they are a source of labour on this breakwater. Creating a coral reef produces environmental and biodiversity benefits, creates labour, and can generate a profit.

There is however, a challenge: complacency and the rebound effect. We know this from countries where recycling has become a tool for reducing plastic waste, but the high recycling ability of a country (Germany is a good example) leads to more plastic production. Therefore believing that NBS will do the trick and lead to absorption should not lead us to think that we can emit further CO2. NBS will only ever work while we are reducing CO2 emissions at the same time. The priority is to reduce CO2 emissions while using the ability of NBS for absorbing CO2 as a mitigation strategy.

Markus Müller is Global Head of the Chief Investment Office at Deutsche Bank’s International Private Bank

Find out more: deutschewealth.com/esg

The drawing room

One of the grandest residences in London has been created out of the former head offices of a British institution. Samantha Welsh takes a look around and imagines a future inspired by the past

You stroll along your 30 metre long, south facing terrace balcony, lined with Ionic columns. Your view extends from the House of Lords to your left, the River Thames in the middle, M15 and Lambeth Palace, the London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, across to the right. Directly below spread the waterside gardens of the Palace of Westminster. You sit back and enjoy a glass of champagne and look forward to the grand reception gala you are going to host ‘at home’ next weekend.

Views from the terrace at night

Your home is in the heart of Westminster, London, but it is not created from a dusty terraced house with a view just across the street, and nor is it a unit in a shiny new glass building. Your London base is the former headquarters of Imperial Chemical Industries, the largest manufacturer in UK at the time when Britain had an empire, and the Residence comprises its board room, executive offices and more.

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Grandeur and power ooze from every centimetre – or should that be every inch – of the 5.5 metre ceilinged, 970 square metre, 4-bedroom 5-bathroom penthouse atop this trophy building, whose colonnaded terrace offers a view of every ship passing down the Thames.

The kitchen

The heritage features of this Grade II listed building have been restored while enhancing volume and light through a palette of contemporary greens and blues. Architect-designers Goddard Littlefair conserved door frames, panelling, plastering, introduced flooring in oak parquet, black and white marble tiling, bespoked light installations, carpeting, rugs, velvet and silk furnishings, and sourced objets.

A bedroom

The double height reception salon, with its grand piano, feels as if it should have David Niven and Cary Grant singing a duet – what a marvellous thought – while Ava Gardner and the young Joan Collins dance tipsily with their coupes de champagne.

Read more: A tasting of Bond, California’s new luxury wine

A secret directors’ bar and games room was discovered under the eaves and reimagined as an inner sanctum, while a subterranean suite of services includes 24/7 golden key-style concierge, gym and fitness, the GL-designed lap pool, spa, cinema, and parking.

The dining room

LUX held a soirée here, celebrating the work of renowned British artist Petroc Sesti, who exhibited at the Royal Academy summer show this year. His work was on display in The Conrad. Our guests didn’t want to leave. And if you don’t want to leave, you don’t have to: the entire site will be delivered in 2023, The Conrad being the only residence that is completed and ready for occupation, fixtures and furnishings optional.

Residences starting from £18 million

Find out more: 9millbank.com

Can we put a price tag on nature? Valuing the carbon services of plants and animals is essential to bridging the gap between finance and conservation, says Professor Connel Fullenkamp, the leading academic working at the intersection of science and economics. Here, Fullenkamp speaks to LUX about the importance of engaging capital markets in biodiversity financing, and why necessity is the mother of invention

Professor Connel Fullenkamp

LUX: You have spoken profoundly about the value of natural assets.
CF: We’re bringing economics, finance, and business into an area where it really hasn’t been brought in before. We start with the approach that says these natural assets have a lot of value, but we don’t necessarily know how to put a price tag on that value. So, we start only with the things that we can find a market price for. This is because we want to speak the same language as investors and policymakers who have to keep their eye on the bottom line all the time.

When we go out and try to put a value on a natural asset, be it an elephant or a mangrove forest, we’re really thinking about this as trying to attach the lowest, believable value. We’re trying to convince people that the value is way more than that. That has got a lot of people’s attention, because it acquaints them with the tremendous value that resides in many natural assets.

LUX: Can there be a system that’s devised for transferring payments? For example, if a company destroys a coastal mangrove plantation, who does it pay for that lost value?
CF: Part of the desire behind this is to prevent the destruction from happening in the first place. But we’re living in a world in which we already have those kinds of swaps going on. So, what we’re trying to do is put an adequate value on that. We are also trying to create the impression that the contributions to things like biodiversity are worth even more. In many cases, of course, it’s the government that owns these assets, so we have to inform them what they are worth.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

For example, we were approached by the UK Environment Agency to help them value their salt marshes, given that they have diminished by 90% in the last century or so. If we can put a price tag on these things, we can help governments make the argument that, firstly, you shouldn’t destroy these things in the first place, and secondly, if you do harm these assets, there’s going to be a steep price to pay.

LUX: How hard is it to find a valuation when there are so many different factors? For example, with a salt marsh, you have to incorporate the carbon storage or the flood protection, and then the ecosystem’s biodiversity.
CF: It’s difficult to put a total valuation on most of these natural assets because it has proven to be difficult to value something like the contribution to biodiversity. It’s hard to even define what biodiversity is. Biodiversity in a desert is very different to that 1,000 or more kilometres south in rainforests.

LUX: What opportunities are there in terms of constructing a financial pathway for investors?
CF: This is something we’re very keen to create. Ideally, we’d have investors who are interested in investing in natural capital services, such as carbon sequestration, because there’s a fairly well-established market for it. These investors would like to purchase either carbon offsets or have other reasons for wanting to hold carbon credits. They would pay for certificates that would deliver the carbon credits, and then the proceeds would function like a sovereign wealth fund.

Read more: Professor Nathalie Seddon On Biodiversity And Climate Resilience

Hopefully, the main use of that money would be, of course, to establish conservation restoration programmes. This is a long pathway between the financial markets all the way to the people on the ground doing conservation restoration. But unless we create that pathway, I think we’re missing out on a huge opportunity.

LUX: Which opportunities should investors be looking towards, in terms of creating the new financial system to support this?
CF: There are two things that should create excitement. They’d be investing on the idea that these are natural resources will continue to deliver these different environmental services, like carbon sequestration. We’re betting on the recovery of those things. Also, they’re betting on the plus in which carbon will help us understand what the biodiversity benefits are, that can also then be priced. If we get good at establishing these carbon markets, we kind of wrap in these biodiversity services as a plus.

LUX: What are the main hurdles to be overcome?
CF: Governments are very reluctant to think about selling their natural assets to the private sector. And so, our first hurdle is to convince them that, no, you’re not selling the assets. We’re trying to get you to sell the services of the natural assets; in fact, governments need to retain ownership of these assets.

We have to establish a conduit that will help governments protect these assets so that they can continue to generate services and support: mainly the beauty and culture of their countries. Governments are naturally reluctant because this is a brand new thing that they’ve never seen before. The markets are sceptical for similar reasons, and because there are some less-savoury actors out there who’ve already been trying and failing with certain initiatives.

Also, there is, especially in the case of wild animals, scientific uncertainty. So many of these species are facing near extinction across the board. We don’t have time. We need people to say, okay, the science is good enough. We’re willing to believe in it and bet on it.

LUX: Are these outcomes possible?
CF: I’m optimistic. The reaction we get when we talk to people has been overwhelmingly positive. When you get the capital markets involved, you can unleash a tremendous amount of financing that can do a lot of good, hopefully for conservation and restoration.

It is hard to imagine being able to cover that biodiversity financing gap without the participation of the financial markets. So, one of the things that drives my optimism is the fact that necessity is the mother of invention. For addressing climate change, this is one of our best chances. The trick is to put everybody together and get them to work together toward this common goal.

LUX: Will there be developments in attaching more specific prices, in terms of the science around biodiversity and nature-based capital?
CF: Absolutely. I think there’s a lot of excitement in that research. In particular, for example, one of the leading seagrass researchers is very excited about our work and is writing a paper for us. Seagrass is again one of these unsung heroes of blue carbon that sequesters a tremendous amount of carbon. We still don’t know what the full extent of seagrass coverage is anywhere, because nobody’s really had the money or the gumption to go look for it. So just finding out where the seagrass is, how much it covered it can sequester and where it can be restored: those kinds of issues are the type of research that we see coming out of this in the short term.

LUX: Are there accessible ways of investing in natural capital in the way that you’ve outlined?
CF: What we’ve got in mind is a bit different from, say, the sustainability linked bonds or green bonds that we see out there. There again, I think these are they’re all great and part of the solution here. But really, when you’re investing in something like a sustainability linked or a green bond, you’re basically a bond investor. You’re hoping that the money gets put to a certain type of a purpose. And in some cases, you’re going to get some either yield pick up or yield penalty depending on the performance. But really, you’re not making a direct investment, so to speak, or a direct bet on the actual natural capital itself. You’re really not investing in environmental services. That’s to me, in my mind, that’s a really big difference here, that what we’re what we have in mind and what we’re trying to create is really an asset backed market. And the asset that is being used to back the market is the natural capital services.

Read more: Dimitri Zenghelis on Investing in the Green Transition

LUX: In an optimistic scenario, how do you see this looking in 10 years’ time with the landscape?
CF: This will be just another asset class that people have available to them to invest in and it will have certain properties. Hopefully it will be sufficiently uncorrelated with other types of market returns to make it attractive as a diversification tool, if not for its own sake, and what it represents in terms of investment in the environment. So ideally, that’s what we’d see people would say. Well, I’ve got some of my portfolio in stocks and bonds, real estate alternatives. And one of the alternatives is going to be these natural capital assets.

Connel Fullenkamp is Professor of the Practice and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Economics at Duke University 

Find out more: duke.edu

The Picture, 2002, by Shishir Bhattacharjee. This painting was sent to the exhibition by the Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation following collection from the artist

For one of the first times in history, the Sharjah Art Foundation has opened a major exhibition displaying pop culture modern and contemporary art from South Asia, titled Pop South Asia: Artistic Explorations in the Popular. Using humour, the works display the difficult issues that individuals and societies face on a daily basis

The exhibition, organised by Sharjah Art Foundation in collaboration with Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) has brought together 40 intergenerational artists from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and the diaspora, creating a show with over 100 artworks.

Could have been the story of a Hero, 1987, by Shishir Bhattacharjee. This painting was loaned by the Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation collection

Whilst there is a wide range of the style of art being spotlighted in the show, from  print, cinematic and digital media to more traditional crafts and folk culture, all the artists, have a common theme running through their works: local capitalism. The works are accompanied by comments on identity, politics and borders.

In the Time of Pregnancy, 1990, by Dhali Al-Mamoon. This painting was sent to the exhibition by the Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation following collection from the artist

Curated by Iftikhar Dadi, artist and John H. Burris, Professor at Cornell University and Roobina Karode, Director and Chief Curator of the KNMA, Pop South Asia: Artistic Explorations in the Popular highlights the results of capitalism and media continuing to modernise and urbanise, not only in South Asia but on an international scale.

The show will be on display at Al Mureijah Art Spaces in Sharjah until 11th December 2022 after which it will be moved to the KNMA

This article was published in association with the Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation

Portrait photograph by Melanie Dunea

Marina Abramović has been tortured and almost killed, by her own audiences, for the sake of her art. She has also redefined the genre and democratised it. The world’s most celebrated performance artist, whose works span five decades, speaks to Darius Sanai ahead of a major retrospective at London’s Royal Academy

In The Marina Abramović Method, a board game-style card set recently issued by the world’s most celebrated performance artist, you are told to spend an hour writing your first name, without pen leaving paper; walk backwards with a mirror for up to three hours; open and close a door repeatedly for three hours; and explore a space, blindfolded and wearing noise-cancelling headphones, for an hour. Some of the instructions, given on large, Monopoly-style cards, are more onerous: swim in a freezing body of water; move in slow motion for two hours. But none of them come anywhere close to asking users to inflict on themselves the suffering and danger Abramović has put herself under over five decades of pushing the boundaries of art.

As she explains below, the Method was intended to take its users away from their phones, and put people in contact with themselves, inspired by her own journey, over 50 years, to understand her own body and mind. Purchasers of the card set can be grateful that Abramović does not suggest they train to become her. The New York-based artist has been lacerated, tortured, cut, stabbed, asphyxiated, rendered unconscious, and more, in the name of her art. She first came to public consciousness in the 1970s with performances like ‘Rhythm0’, in Naples, when she stood in a studio for six hours, provided the audience with implements including a scalpel, scissors, a whip and a loaded gun, absolved them of responsibility, and told them to do what they wished. She did not flinch as she was assaulted, cut, and manipulated.

Marina Abramović in a scene from her performance ‘7 Deaths of Maria Callas’, in 2019

Other performances in the same era saw her render herself unconscious; in 1997 she spent four days scrubbing bloody, rotten cow bones in a performance of protest against the war in former Yugoslavia. Possibly her most celebrated performance, ‘The Artist is Present’, which remains the most significant performance artwork in the history of New York’s MoMA, she spent a total of 736 hours sitting static in the museum’s atrium while visitors lined up to take it in turns to sit opposite her (among those who did: Lou Reed, Björk and James Franco).

So, what would Marina Abramović the person, rather than the silent artist, be like? Catching up with her ahead of a major exhibition spanning her life’s work at London’s Royal Academy of Arts (dates to be announced), I was prepared to interact with someone as brutal and scarred as she has a right to be, but was surprised to find a pleasant, highly articulate, methodical, thoughtful, quick-witted and humble interlocutor. Her thoughts on cancel culture and the effects of social media on creativity are as sharp as the scalpels she once offered the public to cut her with. Her answers are art in themselves.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

LUX: I have been playing around with The Marina Abramović Method: Instruction Cards to Reboot your Life.
Marina Abramović: The Abramović method came from my long search for how to train myself as a performance artist to be able to really understand my body and mind. For that, I went to different cultures, I went to deserts, to Tibet, to shamans – lots of places to work in different retreats and to try different techniques. This is really dedicated not so much to artists or performance artists, but to everybody. Everyone – farmers, soldiers, politicians, factory workers, young children – can do this method. The exercises are very simple, which I think is beneficial, and it puts you in contact with yourself. I also liked the idea of creating cards, so they’re playful. You have that playfulness, like in a game: you close your eyes and pick a card up and do the method. This exercise is my effort to go back to simplicity, away from technology and video games, away from all this presumption that takes you away from your own intuition.

Marina Abramović cutting crystals whilst exploring Brazil in 1992

LUX: Your performance over the years has involved a lot of danger, personal suffering, and challenges to yourself.
Marina Abramović: In my cards, there is no suffering, no bleeding, none of this stuff. I am not responsible for anyone else, only myself. To me, one of the biggest human fears is the fear of pain. It’s interesting to me that if I stage painful experiences in front of an audience, when I go through this experience to get rid of the fear of pain, and I show that it’s possible, I can be inspirational for anybody else. It doesn’t mean people have to cut themselves or do dangerous stuff, but to understand at the same time that pain does not have to be an obstacle. You have to understand what it is and how to deal with it in your own life. If you look at rituals in different cultures, every initiation conquers the moment of pain, and it really strengthens the body and mind. If you’re afraid of something, don’t sit there and do nothing about it, go through it and have this experience. That is the only way you can be transformed, getting out of your comfort zone.

LUX: Are you trying to change the audience through your performances?
Marina Abramović: The only way that I can get all this attention and understand what I’m doing is to show courage and ability at the same time – that I’m vulnerable, but I also have the guts to do it. Two things. An artist should be inspirational to other people. They have to have a message, to ask questions, not always to have an answer. The pain, the suffering, the fear of dying: these are all elements not just of contemporary and classic art, but the history of humanity.

LUX: Were you always very brave as a child?
Marina Abramović: I was. It was not an easy childhood, to start with. I had a very strict, military upbringing. I was also very sick as a child. I suffered from a condition that caused long durational bleeding, a bit like haemophilia but different, so if I had a tooth taken out, for example, I would have to be in bed for three months sleeping so as not to choke from the blood, because it wouldn’t stop. I had lots of obstacles. Being raised under Communism contributed as well – Communism is all about being a warrior, not caring about your personal life, and sacrificing your life for something. When I came to the West, everybody looked so spoilt to me.

Marina Abramović in a scene from her performance ‘7 Deaths of Maria Callas’, in 2019

LUX: Does it affect the depth of what modern Western artists can create if they haven’t suffered or seen difficulty?
Marina Abramović: The young generation has a whole different set of problems than I had. Their problem is a feeling of being kind of lost and melancholy, of apathy and a lack of belief. You can’t generalise, and of course there will always be one Mozart in every generation, someone who starts creating art at the age of seven. But the others have a lethargic way of life. Everything is available to them. They don’t need to fight for anything. Computer, video games, ice cream: whatever they want, they have it. When I was growing up, I was allowed ice cream once a month if I was good, and mostly I was not. All of this is different. So, I always see them as spoilt, but at the same time it doesn’t come from them, but rather their parents. It’s complicated. I think it’s important now, the idea of the Forest School learning model. They have it in England. Kids can come to the forest and make their own fires, to find food, to learn simple survival techniques. I think it’s a way of going back to simplicity. Simplicity is the way to survive.

Read more: Sophie Neuendorf’s Inside Guide To The Venice Biennale

LUX: Before, in the 1980s and 1990s, people were either creators and artists or they were audience. Now, everyone is a creator. Does that devalue real art?
Marina Abramović: Some years ago, I was invited to go to Silicon Valley to talk to tech people about art, and to my incredible surprise, I found out that they seriously believed that Instagram is art. That was so surprising to me. Instagram is, to me, a very personal way of seeing the world and sharing it with other people. It’s a tool for communication. It’s so far away from art. Art is so different. Also, now, with NFTs and all this new technology, all anyone is talking about is how much it costs and the amount of money that can be made. It has quickly become a commodity. But I really don’t see content, real profound ideas that can move me and bring me emotions, and I think that’s what art is about. [Digital media] unifies people and breaks the borders between countries and individuals, but this is not art. I’m sorry, but it’s not art.

LUX: Has there been a fundamental change in art since the 1970s or 1980s?
Marina Abramović: It is so different. The needs of society are different. In the 1970s, there was so much experimentation. There was incredible freedom in the art scene. Now, we are facing political correctness and diminished creativity in so many ways. So much art that we were doing in the 1970s would never be possible now, because it would be so scrutinised and criticised that galleries and museums would not show it. This is something that, unfortunately, does not help creativity right now.

Portrait photograph by Melanie Dunea

LUX: Are people stopping themselves from creating because of political correctness?
Marina Abramović: The true artist does not care about this shit. They don’t care. They will always find a way to do things, if not publicly then it could be underground. Historically, that has always happened. Artists cannot stop creating. It’s an urge, like breathing. You can’t question it. You wake up with ideas and have to realise them. This is your oxygen.

LUX: Do you think the West – what we used to call the ‘free world’ – is going to have a movement of underground artists because they can’t express themselves publicly?
Marina Abramović: I really think so, yes.

LUX: You are taking over the Royal Academy in London. What will we see there?
Marina Abramović: The Royal Academy is, for me, a very big obligation – an honour. I care so much about this show right now, because it’s showing what makes my 50-year career. There will be some really important major artworks from each part of my career of 50 years, but also there will be a big amount of new work, which nobody will have ever seen before. There will be a reperformance element, with young artists reperforming my early works, which I introduced some years ago. Some of my contemporaries say a performance cannot be reperformed – I disagree. And then I am also preparing my new work, which I can’t talk about because I’m superstitious, but I’m definitely doing a personal performance. The show is called ‘Afterlife’. I like this very ironical title, because I’m still alive. I have waited a longtime for this show, because it was supposed to be in 2020 but then Covid came, so it was postponed for three years. You know, at my age, three years is a long time, so I’m really looking forward to the fact that finally it will happen.

Marina Abramović in a cave whilst exploring Brazil in 1992

LUX: If you had been brought up now, in America, compared to when you were brought up in what was then Yugoslavia, would you still be the same artist?
Marina Abramović: I don’t know. I was very happy where I was brought up. At that time, I read all the books that Americans don’t. Not all of them, of course, but generally Americans don’t read. I was very happy with my education. It was so intense. Full of poetry and art and everything.

LUX: Do you still put yourself in as much danger and physical stress as 20 years ago?
Marina Abramović: I have to say, ‘The Artist is Present’ was a hell of a performance and I was 65, my dear. I could never do this when I was 20, or 30. I didn’t have the willpower, wisdom and determination. There was no way. I needed time in order to have the strength. You get strength when you get older and not younger.

Read more: LUX Art Diary: Exhibitions to see in May

LUX: Do you fear getting older?
Marina Abramović: Not so much now – sometimes, when I wake up on a rainy day with pain in my ankles and shoulders, but not generally.

LUX: Do you fear anything?
Marina Abramović: Of course, I fear. Everyone fears things. I have a childhood fear, that if I go to the deep sea, a shark will come and eat me. Even if I go to the ocean and they tell me there aren’t sharks there, I know that the shark knows I’m there and is going to come for me. But that is an old fear from childhood. Like everybody else, when I go on a plane and there is turbulence, I’m immediately writing my testament. I fear. But I think it’s natural, it’s living, you’re living, you’re alive. You’re not immune to fear. Nobody is.

This article appears in the Summer 2022 issue of LUX

The latest Porsche Panamera, a comfortable, high-performance SUV, is less lumbering than other fast SUVs and provides genuine driver satisfaction

In the fourth part of our supercar review series, LUX gets behind the wheel of the Porsche Panamera 4S E-Hybrid

Mitteleuropa (middle Europe) is a semi-mythical territory that has always fascinated us. It is, decisively not the same as central Europe, the web of countries to the east of Switzerland and to the west of Romania. Its German name suggests it incorporates a part of Germany, but it cannot include the brisk North Sea coast or the Hanseatic ports, which belong to the Baltic. And we felt we were entering Mitteleuropa when a sign on the motorway in eastern France (that’s right, France) declared that we were in Lorraine. The signs on the motorway exit boards changed tone, as did the scenery. The place names became Germanic, and the flat fields of the Champagne region gave way to forested hills and ridges.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

Here, the Porsche Panamera felt in its element, as it headed back to its homeland. The straight-line motorway that had been a feature of the route to date turned into long, beautifully engineered curves, taken at high speed in this long wheelbase, semi-electric, large sports sedan. It was enormously satisfying, with subtle growls from the V8 engine upfront and the steeliness of the car’s sporting suspension making you feel like a pilot more than a chauffeur.

This is the aim of the Panamera: a comfortable, high-performance vehicle intended to be genuinely satisfying for the driver, without the compromises of a high-sided SUV. As we drove past one mini mountain, the clouds burst open in a Götterdämmerung of rain, which rapidly flooded the road. The four-wheel-drive of the Panamera felt as if it was vacuuming up the water and spitting it out the back, wanting still to go faster, as if on a wet race track, when it would have been irresponsible to do so.

We spent the night in Phalsbourg, eating at a French restaurant on a terrace on its wide central square while being served beer brewed in the Black Forest, in neighbouring Germany, by staff who spoke French and German, as if the two territories were one.

Between Phalsbourg and the Black Forest lie the Vosges mountains. The roads here were narrow, tight, still damp and the car clung to them through the gears, the electric and petrol engines working in unison to propel us forward. The Panamera is not a sports car by any traditional definition, it is too wide, too heavy. But if you’re used to driving a fast SUV and hanker after something less lumbering, while still having a lot of space, this is for you.

Read More: Style And Substance: Bentley Bentayga Hybrid

In the Black Forest the autobahn between Stuttgart and Lake Constance has no speed limit in many places, and its trail snakes through the mountains. At normal speed, the curves are gentle, barely noticeable, and you have the ability to admire villages pinned into the surrounding woods. But when you go much faster, on an empty road, each corner feels like a racetrack, and the car on its limit is muscular, secure, reassuring but sharp, made to maximise its capabilities on these roads not so far from its birth town of Stuttgart. At 160mph (257km/h), there is no time to admire the scenery.
We finished the day with a glass of the same local beer offered to us hundreds of miles away in Phalsbourg, while sitting in a little café on Lake Constance, Switzerland, a series of green bumps across the lake in front of us, Austria a couple of grey spikes in the distance to the left. Middle Europe, and the ideal car to conquer it.

LUX Rating: 18/20

Find out more: porsche.com

Attribution science explores the link between climate and extreme weather

Flooding in South Africa, wildfires in California, heatwaves in India: each new extreme weather event seems the inevitable conclusion of ecological breakdown. But how exactly are climate and weather linked? Leading attribution scientist Dr Friederike Otto explains to LUX why we need to nuance our understanding of climate change

Dr Otto is co-lead of World Weather Attribution, an international organisation analysing the possible influence of climate change on extreme weather events. Named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in 2021, Otto has identified an information gap in the public’s understanding of climate, which, she argues, is hindering the creation of reliable and resilient systems in the face of extreme weather. She tells LUX why everything depends on the decisions we make in the next decade

LUX: How sophisticated is the public’s understanding of what effect climate change is having on weather?

Friederike Otto: There is still quite a big lack of understanding about how climate change affects weather. There are lots of people who assume that everything bad that is happening now in the world and in the weather is because of climate change. That is a misconception. There is a huge difference between how climate change affects heatwaves versus how it affects extreme rainfall or droughts, and that is something we need to get much better in communicating.

LUX: So, how are climate and weather linked?

FO: Climate change can affect the weather in two ways. One is the thermodynamic effect: we have more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, so the atmosphere gets warmer overall. This means that there is a higher likelihood of heatwaves which are hotter, and a lower likelihood of cold waves, which are warmer than what they would have been. Likewise, because a warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapour that needs to get out of the atmosphere as rain, you have an increase in heavy rainfall.

If that was the only effect, we wouldn’t need to do attribution studies. The second effect is weather, because we have changed the atmosphere’s composition and temperature differences. This second effect can go in the same direction as the warming effect – but the effects can also counteract each other. If you don’t get any weather systems that bring rain, it won’t rain. So here we need attribution studies.

Otto explains the need for reliable and resilient systems in place to respond to extreme weather

LUX: What do you say to those who think ‘what’s the big deal?’ about the atmosphere getting one degree warmer?

FO: One degree in a heatwave is thousands of people dead or alive. People have pointed out that one degree is lower than the global mean temperature change and that is true. But the year-to-year variation in weather and in temperatures is quite small. If you had one degree added to a heatwave in Antarctica, it would indeed be much less of a big deal, because there is a huge variability in temperatures.

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The heatwave in India is, in today’s climate, a one in 100-year event. With this, you can look at the intensity change: how frequent would this event have been in a world without climate change? What is now a one in a hundred year event used to be a one in 3000 year event without climate change. In other words: a one degree change in intensity corresponds to a 30 times increase in the likelihood.

LUX: So the differences, though seemingly marginal to the casual onlooker, can radically change the climate system?

FO: The climate system will be fine, it will just get hotter. But people and ecosystems have adapted over centuries to a certain type of climate. All of our ecosystems and social systems are very much designed for this narrow range of possible weather that we used to get, so, if you push that back even a little bit, it is much harder to deal with.

Climate change has increased dramatically over the last two decades

LUX: What has allowed the field of attributional climate science to thrive in recent years?

FO: Firstly, we are now able to run climate models so that you can actually look at extreme events. Before, you would run a climate model maybe once or twice — and this only gives you one possible realisation of climate and weather. It wouldn’t allow you to look at extreme events.

The second thing is that climate change has increased dramatically over the last couple decades. We see the trends and changes even in weather observations, so we can detect changes without having even touched a climate model. People have really started to develop and design methodologies to use new data and tools to answer these questions.

LUX: How do day-to-day meteorologists react to your discipline, which is still emerging?

FO: Grumblingly, I think – at least at first, because there have been huge divides between meteorologists who have dealt with day-to-day weather forecasts and those working on climate change. Attribution ultimately forces the two together.

Read more: Professor Nathalie Seddon On Biodiversity And Climate Resilience

Attribution has led to a huge recognition now that it is necessary to make meteorology more relevant for the world we live in. Meteorologists have, for a long time, been extremely conservative when it comes to climate science.

LUX: With the rise of quantum computing, do you think there is the possibility that meteorology will also revolutionise?

FO: A lot of new science could be unlocked through that in meteorology. We would have a lot more higher resolution models to look at what is still not very well understood, for example, cloud interaction with aerosols (and so on). It will not mean that we suddenly have an uncertainty-free science. It’s something that people still have a hard time to live with — that there will always be uncertainty when you do scientific studies, and that this is actually nothing special in climate science.

Otto emphasises the need for greater collaboration between scientific disciplines

LUX: Do you think that there is the possibility of more joined-up thinking between climate science, sustainability, science, biodiversity science?

FO: You can’t try and solve one in isolation from the other. It’s still not easy to do that, because most of us are still trained in a very disciplinary way and we speak very different languages, but the upcoming generations of scientists and researchers are better trained in more interdisciplinary research and increasingly funding is being allocated to interdisciplinary research. So it’s happening, but slowly.

LUX: Is there a tendency for governments to use climate change as a scapegoat to avoid accountability?

FO: Definitely. That’s why it’s important to nuance our climate change understanding. With heatwaves, what used to be a 100 year event is now really just ordinary summer in many places. But for many other extremes, the changes are relatively small. For droughts, there are many parts of the world where they are not yet changing because of climate change.

Read more: Melissa Garvey On Saving The Oceans

The drought in Madagascar is a good example: that has led to quite a lot of food insecurity for the population. That was a rare event, and the population was vulnerable, helped only by NGOs. But these NGOs have always come in when there’s a crisis and then gone away again. There has never been a reliable or resilient system to respond to extreme weather. That is a big problem. There is also an element of colonialism, so it’s not something that the global north can completely wash their hands of. But even if we were to immediately stop greenhouse gas emissions, that wouldn’t solve the problem that southern Madagascar has with respect to drought.

Attribution science has led to a huge recognition that it is necessary to make meteorology more relevant for the world we live in

LUX: Personally, do you feel worried about where things are going?

FO: I’m not worried per se; I’m more frustrated. I feel immensely privileged for who I am, that I’m able to live in a world now where I am able to do whatever I want and be whoever I want. Climate change is one result of this societal system that only benefits a few, but it’s not the only one.

LUX: Do you think it’s your role to point out what is happening and let others judge what to do?

FO: It’s my role as a scientist to say ‘this’ is happening because of ‘that’. It’s my role as a human being to say that it is affecting people who are least responsible for the causes. To pretend that climate scientists are not humans: it’s just not useful.

LUX: What will the world and the weather look like in a hundred years?

FO: Everything depends very strongly on the decisions we make in the next decade. Weather changes are very fast with emissions. We still absolutely have the power in our hands to shape the future we want to live in.

Dr Friederike Otto is a Senior Lecturer in Climate Science at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London, and Co-Lead of World Weather Attribution (WWA)

Find out more: worldweatherattribution.org