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First Move with Julia Chatterley
The U.S. Senate Voting on a Trillion Dollar Spending Plan; SoftBank cuts Chinese Investment until Regulatory Risks become Clearer; Messi moves and is Off to Paris-St. Germain. Aired 9-10a ET.
Aired August 10, 2021 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:00:29]
JULIA CHATTERLEY, CNN BUSINESS ANCHOR, FIRST MOVE: Live from New York, I'm Julia Chatterley. This is FIRST MOVE and here is your need-to-know.
Infrastructure imminent. The U.S. Senate voting on a trillion dollar spending plan.
China change. SoftBank cuts Chinese investment until regulatory risks become clearer.
And Messi moves. The football star is off to Paris St. Germain.
It's Tuesday. Let's make a move.
Welcome once again to FIRST MOVE. Things to get to this hour including movie chain, AMC letting you exchange Bitcoin for a blockbuster. A crypto
tax agreement in Congress proving hard to muster. SoftBank says long term China has not lost its luster.
And as always on the show, we cut through the bluster, the action in global markets however, lackluster. U.S. futures, little changed after a mostly
flat Monday. Europe treading water, too. Investors are waiting, as I've mentioned already a crucial U.S. Senate vote today on the $1 trillion
infrastructure spending bill, a tax tightening on the crypto industry and set at least in part to help pay for it. But of course, the biggest
challenge will be passing it in the House. We've got all the details on that coming up very shortly.
As the probability though of more fiscal support rises, so does the likelihood that monetary support reduces. The President of the Boston
Federal Reserve saying the Federal Reserve should announce its tapering plan next month, as we see jobs growth accelerate, stronger growth in the
United States, but still a world filled with COVID uncertainty.
Oil tried to rebound after hitting three week-lows yesterday on concerns that global growth will undershoot particularly in the Asia region.
Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam still seeing major COVID spikes. Cases in Malaysia and Vietnam hitting fresh records yesterday.
And despite the concerns, however, as you can see there, China and Hong Kong stocks heading higher, but the COVID spectra in the region looming
large.
All right, let's get to the drivers and the stimulus struggle in Congress, the U.S. Senate is set to vote within hours on a massive spending bill for
infrastructure like roads and bridges, the legislation expected to pass, but what happens next may be a bridge too far.
Christine Romans joins us now. Christine, great to have you back. Talk to me about what we expect, because even if we see the Senate passes, and it
is a big deal, it's a bipartisan agreement. If it passes, the question is what comes next will determine whether or not we see this essential money
for infrastructure spending in the United States.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and just to look at that money first. $1.2 trillion is the size of the package, $550
billion in new spending, and look, this has been investing in infrastructure in America has been an intelligence test that Congress has
failed now for years.
So, let's just mark the moment here that they are making bipartisan project on investing in roads, bridges, internet, airports, and transit, all of
these important things that make America more competitive, and make companies more money and help people save more money and time and be more
productive.
Now, what happens to it in the House? Will there be demands from progressives that need to be met? And also, you see this $3.5 trillion
Democratic budget resolution blueprint. Where does that fit in next here? There has been some talk that that will go first before the House will take
up this measure or they want them in tandem.
So there are some political ramifications here surrounding what at its core is a bipartisan agreement here on new spending for infrastructure, new
investing for infrastructure in America -- Julia.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, and you can blame the Republicans for being unwilling to spend that kind of size money, but there's plenty of moderate Democrats
that are going to look at that $3.5 trillion and go, absolutely, no way.
And that sort of brings me to the next question, which is paying for this or at least a piece of paying for this coming on potentially taxing the
activities of those involved in cryptocurrencies. There was some suggestion that perhaps that tax would send people fleeing to other shores,
specifically miners involved in cryptocurrencies, also innovators in this space.
What are we looking towards this so honing in and focusing on?
ROMANS: I think the most important part of this is the mere fact that there are senators who actually started talking about tax requirements for
cryptocurrency in legislation. Let's be honest, that might be -- the very the very starting point here is that you have senators who you know what
the average age of senators according to our stories, somewhere in their mid to late 60s, that they are addressing a very new frontier in the
currency world and in finance, and that I think, to me is the only thing that is certain here.
Where it goes from here? I'm not sure, but the fact that you have them at least addressing this issue, that's what I think might be the true headline
there in terms of the go in infrastructure.
[09:05:18]
CHATTERLEY: That's such a good point, actually, Christine. Actually talking like they know what they're talking about in this space as well is
quite frankly is fascinating.
Now, I have to talk to you about something else as well, because while we're talking about navigating these stormy stimulus seas and crypto as
well, you were navigate in your own waves and we have a video which you showed on Twitter and I watched this several times.
You are so legendary. Look at this. You are so cool.
ROMANS: It is a sea of spending, my dear, that we have to look through every single page and every single paragraph for the sea of spending that
we are about to be navigated through.
CHATTERLEY: The tweet of the month. Never mind anything else. Christine Romans, thank you so much for that.
ROMANS: You're welcome. Everybody has to have a vacation, Julia. Everybody.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, I agree. I agree. You certainly utilized yours well. Thank you.
ROMANS: You're welcome.
CHATTERLEY: All right, SoftBank softening on China, at least for now. The Japanese giant is cutting back on new investments in China, while Beijing's
tech crackdown plays out. Clare Sebastian joins me now. Clare, this is a tough one because these results come out overnight, I know, so it's a case
of burning the midnight oil to understand what on Earth is going on here.
But I think for our viewers, they need to understand how leveraged the Vision Fund within SoftBank is to Chinese investments, investments like
DiDi, so when these guys come out and say, at least in the shorter term, we're pretty cautious, people sit up and take note.
CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this is clearly an earnings report that shows that the landscape has somewhat shifted for
SoftBank, Julia.
In the last quarter, they posted a record annual profit now, and they had a lot of excitement about some of their listings, their investments that were
going public in this quarter, the likes of DiDi and Ford Truck Alliance, which is a sort of a ride hailing startup for trucks. Now, we see what's
happened there.
This, of course, will be more reflected in the current quarter, but it shows that the way that they're starting to think about this, the
excitement appears to be waning. So, some quotes from Masa Son, the CEO of SoftBank, he says that they're taking a cautious approach. Now, they're
going to wait and see awhile. He doesn't know how long that's going to be for. He says, is it six months, 12 months? I don't know yet. He says there
are still risks out there. But then again, this is Masa Son, he says, we want to take risks.
So, as you say, shorter term, they're looking a little bit more cautious. We can see in the numbers that the deceleration had started to happen even
before we saw what happened with DiDi, they said that 23 percent of SoftBank's Vision Fund investment portfolio was in Chinese companies at the
end of July.
But during the quarter, only 11 percent of the investment was directed towards Chinese companies. So, it looks like even before this started to
happen, they were pulling back, they were diversifying a little bit, but their broader thesis that there's an opportunity in China apparently
remains unchanged over the long term.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, it's quite fascinating, isn't it? Because they saw what - - an $11 billion gain in the Vision Fund. And this is the beauty of market to market as in paper gains or paper losses when you don't have a list of
companies. So, you can't look at the share price change and take a snapshot and say, okay, this is what we lost and this is what we gained on these
sort of off market or non-listed companies, you look at what you think they're worth on a month to month basis and you adjust and your balance
sheet reflects that, your profit and loss statement reflects that.
In the case of something like DiDi, for example, the snapshot here is very favorable. But then of course, we know what happened after the IPO and the
concerns over China, and of course that fell down and that will be reflected in the next quarter.
They talked about diversification play in the interim into the United States, into places like India, what do we know about that? Diversifying
into other assets in other locations?
SEBASTIAN: Yes, this is something that's certainly important to the company. We see in the different investments they have around the world
that they're trying to sort of take their broader investment thesis that AI is the future, looking at Fintech, looking at Ed Tech, looking at sort of
e-commerce, Flipkart, things like that, that they are sort of trying to apply that around the world, not just in China.
Don't forget, though, their biggest asset of all remains Alibaba. That stock really sort of the poster child, the very first target of China's
current regulatory sort of crackdown, if you want to call it that. That stock very much down, it is down almost 40 percent since its highs in
October last year when all of this started.
So, that is something to watch very closely, as well with SoftBank, even as we see this sort of move to diversify over the shorter term.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, Chinese startups accounted for 23 percent of the Vision Fund's portfolio in terms of fair value. That's a lot of Chinese exposure.
Clare Sebastian, great job. Thank you so much for that, and whoever was knocking on the door there, you can go and answer it.
Okay, let's move on. Pay for your popcorn with a bit of Bitcoin. Theater chain, AMC says it will soon accept the cryptocurrency as payment for movie
tickets and snacks. AMC also reported strong second quarter results as movie goers return to the theaters.
[09:10:03]
CHATTERLEY: Paul La Monica joins me now. Paul, great to have you with us, too. So, there are two themes here for me. The first one is the recovery of
businesses like cinema chains that of course had people stay away because of COVID, and the recovery that we see. And then with AMC, of course, it's
also a classic meme stock as well, where sometimes the price gets a little bit inflated or a lot inflated over the fundamentals.
Let's talk about the business itself, and then we can talk about the meme madness.
PAUL LA MONICA, CNN BUSINESS REPORTER: Yes, the business is getting better. Clearly, you've seen theaters now are fully reopened, you have
people going to see blockbusters like "Black Widow," and that is good for AMC, and it is why revenue was much better than expected.
But we do have to be careful here, and even, you know, the CEO of AMC pointed out, Julia, on the conference call, they are still losing money.
They're still burning cash. There's a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, but they haven't gotten there yet.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, I mean, it's a lot easy to run a company that's burning cash when your stock price is up 656 percent in the past 12 months, and
1,494 percent -- I'm just doing the math year-to-date, I could be a little bit off there. That helps you raise money. And clearly they've done that.
But then you have to sort of cater to the audience. And on this investor call, they were being asked about potential tie ups with GameStop, another
meme stock, of course, and they made the announcement about Bitcoin. What do we think, Paul?
LA MONICA: Yes, yes. AMC made the announcement about Bitcoin on the conference call that they will start accepting that as a payment form later
in the year. They are going to do the same with Apple Pay, and Google Pay as well.
But Julia, as you noted, what really struck me about this conference call was that the CEO quickly turned over the questions to members of the
audience. They had, you know, people, individual investors on AMC's Investor Connect platform submit questions for the conference call, at the
very end, they found the time to take one question from a solitary Wall Street analyst who was on the call.
This seems to be a stock that a lot of professionals on Wall Street, quite honestly don't really care about, but there is a fervor among retail
traders on Reddit.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, there is, and this is a hugely important point, and it has been transformative, as he said, as well, I think on the call. I mean,
what is laser tag, by the way? Do you know what laser tagging is? Because that was one of the other things that some of these retail investors were
asking whether they've considered its clumping into family entertainment offerings, like laser tag, and he said, look, if the board were on board
with authorizing more stock issues, then we might have more leeway to cater to some of these growth initiatives.
Are we a cinema chain or are we not?
LA MONICA: Maybe that's something I played when I was a kid. Those days are a long time ago as you can tell in the gray my beard here. It is
interesting because you saw some of those questions. Julia, you even had one investor asking if AMC would adopt a gorilla as its corporate mascot, a
clear nod to the apes on Reddit and so-called apes that have been helping to drive this stock price higher.
It's silly season on Wall Street, Julia.
CHATTERLEY: What did he say, Paul?
LA MONICA: Enjoy it while you can, get your popcorn ready, like it is actually a football time right here.
CHATTERLEY: We will take it under consideration. Now, buy more stock, please. Paul La Monica. That was me speaking as a CEO, by the way, not
suggesting that to our viewers, I have to be very careful with my naughtiness.
Paul La Monica, thank you for that.
All right, let me bring you up to speed with some of the other stories making headlines around the world.
Greece's Prime Minister calls it a natural disaster of unprecedented proportions. Nearly 600 wildfires have been burning across the country,
forcing thousands to flee. As firefighters battle the flames, the nation is enduring a brutal heatwave.
Greece's second largest island, Evia has been at the center of the storm and CNN's Eleni Giokos joins us now from there, live.
Eleni, we had you on the show yesterday, you were talking about how devastating it is. Talk to me about what you're seeing right there now
because I can see stuff going on behind you.
ELENI GIOKOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Julia, you know, we've been here on this patch since this morning, a fire that started about a kilometer down. And
then it spread all the way just before we came on air, a fire started here. They didn't have enough water, so eventually they found a truck with a bit
of water. They've been lacking resources and it is just so intense, that it's constantly spreading.
This is a problem. This is a pine kernel, and basically, it jumps from one tree to the next. And if you look across from this side, it was contained
on the one side, eventually it goes on to the other side decimating more forest.
Half of Evia has been burnt already according to official numbers. Now, this is definitely still very much a crisis situation. It is in its eighth
day.
[09:15:01]
GIOKOS: What is encouraging though, Slovakia's teams, they arrived this morning. We spent some time with them, without their assistance in
conjunction with the local firefighting teams, this fire that broke out earlier would have been one that just decimated kilometers of forests.
In fact, it took them hours to put it off a few hours ago further down. But you've seen the eradication of virgin forestry. And of course, livelihoods.
Now, people rely on the production of resin from pine trees, they rely on honey and various other plantations. So, the economic impact is going to be
absolutely enormous.
The Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis has apologized for the weakness that existed with the reaction to the fires, the wildfires in parts of
Greece. There was a big focus around Athens, but places like Evia were left to their own devices and locals are angry, they say, it's already too late,
despite the fact that you see -- we have to move -- despite the fact that you see teams from Cyprus, from Romania, and various other countries coming
to assist Greek firefighters.
It is scorching hot here as we are seeing a lot of heat waves hitting the country and that is compounding the issue. The whole point now is to try
and contain its spread, and as I mentioned, half of Evia has already been burnt down, the question is now, Julia, how quickly can they get the fire
under control?
They keep running out of water, it's just very difficult to try and put out some of these intense fires, Julia. We are going to vary from government in
a couple of hours to talk about more measures, but in the meantime, volunteers, international crews, local firefighters are trying to do the
best they can.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, we can see that behind you. We can hear the urgency in the voices behind you, too. Eleni, thank you so much for that report. Just
very quickly, and I know it's noisy there, too, if you can hear me. Do they have any sense of to what extent they've contained this now? Or is it just
a case of continuing to fight these fires?
GIOKOS: So when we woke up this morning, we had great news that all the fires were basically under control, and there were no new fire fronts. And
now, we're dealing with a situation with fires being reignited because it's not enough to get it under control and to put it out. You also have to make
sure that you saturate the soil with water to ensure that it doesn't start. And you're just constantly seeing fires being restarted.
When I spoke to another local journalist earlier who has been here for eight days, he says that, look, they're still very much in crisis mode,
hopefully, in the next few days with the assistance of international firefighting teams, hopefully, that will make an impact.
CHATTERLEY: We will keep our fingers crossed. Eleni, stay safe there, please. Eleni Giokos there in Greece.
We will be back after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHATTERLEY: Welcome back to FIRST MOVE. World leaders are under pressure to take bold steps ahead of the upcoming Climate Summit, COP 26. Britain
will host it in Glasgow in November.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson says the U.N. Climate Report released Monday needs to be a wake-up call to act now. French President Emmanuel Macron
says the Summit must produce a deal that recognizes the gravity of the situation. The report laid out how the world is heating up much faster than
expected entirely due to human activity and with devastating consequences.
Ko Barrett is Vice Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or the I.P.C.C., the U.N. body responsible for producing the report, and
she joins us now. Ko, fantastic to have you on the show. Thank you for joining us.
The U.N. Secretary General described this as Code Red for humanity. We'll talk about the details of the report. But I just wanted to get your sense
of some of the reaction that we've seen. Do you think people are alarmed enough about the changes that are taking place to our planet?
KO BARRETT, VICE CHAIR, INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE: Well, first, let me say, thank you, Julia, for having me today and having a
chance to talk about this important report that so many scientists from across the globe came together to produce.
Yes, I've seen a lot of the courage by world leaders, and from what I've seen, they are taking this seriously. People may not know, but you know,
these reports have always fed into climate negotiations going way back to the beginning of our work in the 1990s.
CHATTERLEY: Which is a great point and they feed into the negotiations over what we need to do, but then it's the action that follows or doesn't
follow. I think that's the critical factor. Do you hope this is now used as evidence for those going into these meetings in November to say, actually,
we need to do more, we need to tackle this today, tomorrow, whether it's governments, whether it's businesses, whether it's us, as individuals.
BARRETT: I would say that I think every scientist who worked on this report would love to see this considered in the work that world leaders are
about to tackle in Glasgow. These are the strongest findings the I.P.C.C. has ever put out about the connection between human activity and climate
change, and that is a wake-up call.
CHATTERLEY: You know, this report was 3,949 pages, I believe. And normally I have a policy of not getting people on to talk about reports or books
unless I've read them. But I apologize, I have not had a chance to read the whole thing. I can't promise I will either, but I have read the subset, the
40 or so pages for policymakers and on Page 24, and this is something that I think everybody should take a look at.
You sort of map out the frequency of extreme events, whether they are droughts or extremely high temperatures or flooding events that we've seen.
And in the period between 1850 and 1900, the frequency for example of an extreme temperature event was once a decade. And you then map the
increasing likelihood as the Earth's temperature rises above pre-industrial temperatures, and the increased frequency upon which we see these extreme
events.
And also, not only the increased frequency, but also the extremities, the increase in temperatures, for example or the amount of flooding. I think
people need to understand the degree upon which the Earth's atmosphere and the Earth itself in terms of temperature, flooding, these extreme events
that we're seeing every day are going to accelerate in frequency, and in extremity.
BARRETT: Yes. Well, you know, I think the report as you noted, Julia, it talks about how temperature is rising faster than we've ever seen, in fact,
faster than even we predicted three years ago.
For example, the last four decades, each of the last four decades has been warmer than any decade before since 1800. But you're pointing to the
changes that we're seeing in the global water cycle, which is the lifeblood of the planet, frankly.
And the report does find that we will see more frequent and intense heavy rainfall events, droughts. We will see melting -- further melting of ice
sheets and glaciers. The seas are rising, and importantly, the ocean is becoming warmer and acidic, and all of these things change with every
fraction of a degree that the Earth gets warmer.
CHATTERLEY: Can you map that to what happens for humans as a result? Because you did do several scenarios then the most extreme example we're
talking about a degree of warming above pre-industrial temperatures that is above around three percent, but you go up to above five percent actually,
and I'll go back to the 50-year extreme temperature event, once every 50 years in our history.
[09:25:25]
CHATTERLEY: At the present, we're talking about it being 4.8 times in 50 years. If we get the Earth's temperature above four degrees, we're starting
to look at that happening 39 times in 50 years.
BARRETT: That's exactly right. And I think one of the strengths of this report is the way that the scientists have been able to attribute these
changes that we're seeing now, but also the changes that are projected to the future to human activity.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, I think one of the big pushbacks that I've received, having talked about it in the last 24 hours is, is people saying it's made
up. Why should I believe this report if I don't believe that climate change is being caused by humans or exists at all? How do you fight that, Ko?
BARRETT: Well, to that, I will say that this report represents the most robust evidence the I.P.C.C. has ever produced on the physical aspects of
climate change. And, you know, we are seeing the effects of climate change in every region of the planet, from the tops of the highest mountains, to
the deepest areas of the sea.
And while it is sobering, you know, we are seeing that places on Earth where there's no human footprint, where no human has even gone, we are now
seeing the effects of our global carbon footprint.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, I mean, I don't even know what to say to that. We recently spoke to the head of the I.E.A. and he said, that we need to see
an immediate end to investment in fossil fuels. Would you agree with that having looked at the evidence of this report? We have to take extreme
measures, as I mentioned at the beginning of the interview today, are you in light of the findings of this in favor of that as just one piece of
tackling this?
BARRETT: Well, Julia, you know, as scientists, we are very careful to stay in our lane and not to opine on specific policies, although our reports do
assess the impact of various policies, and in fact, we'll have a report coming out in March that will look specifically at those types of issues.
CHATTERLEY: Okay, I was trying to get you to comment on something, I feel like we will have to get out of our lanes on this subject, quite frankly,
because it is that urgent.
One of the other things I found quite frightening was the fact that a lot of the damage that's already been done can't be reversed. Or we're talking
about slowing or stopping what we're doing already. Talk to me about that.
BARRETT: Yes, there is no going back from some changes in the climate system. So many are slow processes, right? So sea level rise, or changes in
the ocean or changes in the ice sheets. Some of those changes are now entrained for centuries or more.
But with immediate, large scale and sustained reductions in greenhouse gases, we can slow or even stop some of the impacts. For example, while
glaciers may continue to melt for a couple of decades, we could slow them or stop their retreat.
CHATTERLEY: So, there is hope in this report, because it is hard hitting. It is pretty devastating when you look at the contours of it and the
scenarios that you map. But there's hope, too, because it's in our hands to tackle this.
BARRETT: You know, seeing the response of world leaders to the report and hearing the voices of youth across the planet for years now, I think back
to 1962 when Rachel Carson, the author of "Silent Spring," and the catalyst of the modern environmental movement addressed the graduates of Scripps
College and she said, the stream of time moves forward and mankind moves with it. Your generation must come to terms with the environment, you must
face realities, instead of taking refuge in ignorance and evasion of truth.
Yours is a grave and sobering responsibility, but also a shining opportunity. You go out in a world where mankind is challenged as it has
never been challenged before, to prove its maturity and mastery, not of nature, but of itself. And therein lies our hope and destiny.
And when I think back to that, I think we can -- we can't place this moment in a better context than that.
CHATTERLEY: Beautifully said, too. I have got a frog in my throat. Let's hope.
Ko, fantastic to have you on. Thank you so much and wow, what a report. I'll keep reading through. Ko Barrett, Vice Chair of the I.P.C.C. there.
Thank you for your time today.
BARRETT: Thank you. Bye-bye.
CHATTERLEY: The market opens next. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:33:14]
CHATTERLEY: Welcome back to FIRST MOVE. No Tuesday tingle on Wall Street. The U.S. majors relatively unchanged, a bit of consolidation perhaps going
on here. But the Dow and the S&P are still near record highs, and I think that's the key. The energy sector getting a bounce, too, after Monday's
pullback on global growth concerns.
Markets also bracing for important U.S. inflation data tomorrow that could help guide the Federal Reserve and its debate over future tapering, and of
course, the timing of it.
A double feature for AMC investors, meanwhile. Shares of the U.S. cinema chain are rallying after reporting a narrower than expected loss as we've
already discussed on the show, AMC also announcing that Bitcoin is ready for its close up. The firm will soon allow customers to pay for tickets and
snacks with crypto should they choose to.
Bitcoin now trading above the $46,000.00 level. That said, investors though closely watching the debate in Congress over whether to tax crypto players
to help pay for new stimulus. The crypto industry trying to limit those tax reporting requirements to just a small subset of the industry and they will
fight on.
Okay, let's bring it back to our top story today, and the message as we were discussing before the break from the I.P.C.C. is clear, tackle climate
change to save Planet Earth as we know it.
Over the past 20 years, temperatures have risen more than one degree since pre-industrial times. That means that where our ancestors saw extreme
temperature events once a decade, we now see it near three times a decade; where they saw extreme drought once a decade, we're going to see it nearly
twice as often. And unless we hold global warming, things could deteriorate even further.
Another three degree increase would result in more than nine extreme heat episodes a decade and three times as many floods with 30 percent more rain.
My next guest says to combat that kind of change we need data specifically, space data. Joining us now Chad Anderson, Managing Partner of Space
Capital.
Chad, fantastic to have you on the show, we were just having a discussion with one of those that helped contribute to the I.P.C.C. report, and we
were talking about some of the extreme temperatures, the events that we might see. Now, I want to talk about tackling it. Your view on their
report? What do we need?
[09:35:32]
CHAD ANDERSON, MANAGING PARTNER, SPACE CAPITAL: Well, so there's been a lot of chatter lately about the extravagance of space travel, and what we
wanted to do with our report was really to reframe the conversation and highlight you know, that we wouldn't even know about climate change if it
weren't for space.
The challenges that we're facing are global, and they require a global perspective and space technology plays a foundational role in the emerging
and growing climate market. NASA has been, you know, gathering data and observations for decades, which has led to these early warnings and the
warnings that we're seeing now, and also to the early voluntary carbon markets.
But these haven't been scalable. They really relied on a lot of in-person assessments, which make them impractical. And frankly, we need more
measurements.
CHATTERLEY: How accurate are they? Even when we're just assessing an individual business's carbon emissions, right up to a nation state to be
able to transact in a marketplace where you trade carbon emissions, for example, you kind of need to know what your emissions actually are and what
your output is, in order to actually do good for the planet. Otherwise, we may still see heating, as we are seeing.
ANDERSON: That's exactly right. I mean, the two biggest priorities right now are measurements and markets. Without meaningful measurements, we can't
get the scalable market, and a lack of direct measurement is really what's preventing these climate markets from scaling up, and is preventing us from
building the types of solutions that can withstand and stand up to independent validation, which is not necessarily the case today.
So --
CHATTERLEY: I was just going to say you can't do appropriate risk management for this if we're not measuring accurately.
ANDERSON: That's exactly right. And I mean, that's -- the big gap right now is that what nations and our reporting is there's been a study over,
you know, the period between 2005 to 2015 and there was a massive gap in what was being reported versus what was being validated independently.
And I mean, that's all changing today. We've got a thousand Earth observation satellites, but we're really just scratching the surface. Cloud
and artificial intelligence are combining. They are enabling us to process and interpret these vast volumes of information and these huge datasets,
and that's all making it possible for businesses and new companies to build applications for specific users.
And we're starting to see that being adopted in agriculture, energy, transportation, waste management, and it is really helping the businesses
to improve their operations, but it's also enabling the financial markets to price in these externalities.
CHATTERLEY: How big was the gap, Chad, that you just mentioned, because it was what I was sort of getting at, too, this gap, it seems between actual
emissions and what independent models perhaps are saying, businesses, nations are emitting. Do we have a sense of how big that gap is?
ANDERSON: Also, over that 10-year period, it was 5.5 giga-tons. So massive. And one of our portfolio companies, GHGSat is monitoring facility
level emissions from space using satellites, and in Q2 alone, they identified 150 megatons. So you know, there's big, big discrepancies.
CHATTERLEY: Yes. Which is why, despite best efforts, at least at this stage, far more needs to be done than we're doing simply because we know,
based on these kinds of assessments that we're way off in terms of our estimates of the impact that we're having.
Okay, so independent investment in this space, because to your point, and you mentioned your portfolio or a portfolio company, we are seeing more
investment money pumped into this space, I believe $51 billion in in 2021 is expected alone, which is great news, but private investment isn't
enough.
Are you having conversations, are governments having conversations about recognizing their limitations, because this is not one business or one
nation, every nation like the COP 26 need to work together on this. We need accurate assessment of who's emitting what?
ANDERSON: Well, that's exactly right. I mean, we need this data to enable the commercial markets, but also to enable governments to enact policy and
regulation.
On the finance side, though, you know, there's a lot of really interesting things happening on the innovation front with new companies starting up and
being funded with venture capital, but you've also got large asset managers using their influence like BlackRock has said that they are working to net
zero across their portfolio, which is massive.
[09:40:16]
ANDERSON: You've got TPG and Brookfield each committed $12 billion to invest, and like you said, we're expecting $50 billion in investment into
this category, the climate category, in this year alone, which is a record.
So, we're seeing a lot of really positive signs here, and what we know for sure and what's come out of this I.P.C.C. report is that, you know, we have
the science and we have the technology to understand and address the greatest challenges and also take advantage of the greatest opportunities
of our time, and we're going to -- we've been doing that, we're going to continue doing that through the data that we're collecting from space.
CHATTERLEY: Chad, very quickly, because I have about 30 seconds, the last 50 years have been devastating according to this report. Based on the
science, the innovation, the investment that you're seeing, are you confident that actually we know enough now and we're learning enough about
what we're not doing to do better in the next 50 years?
ANDERSON: The pace of innovation is making me very optimistic. We have -- you know, the companies in our portfolio are doing some amazing things from
monitoring the emissions at the facility level, launching new sensors that are giving us a more complete data set, distributing this data, and also
enabling and building the applications that are enabling the carbon markets of the future.
CHATTERLEY: Fantastic. Chad, get to Glasgow, please. We need you there in November to educate some of these policymakers on where the money needs to
be invested. Chad, great to have you with us. Chad Anderson, Managing Partner of Space Capital there.
We're back after this. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHATTERLEY: Welcome back to FIRST MOVE. Football star, Lionel Messi has just arrived in Paris. That's according to Reuters. You are about to see
live pictures.
French media reports he will signed with a local club PSG after leaving Barcelona. Let's get straight to CNN's Saskya Vandoorne, who is tracking
his arrival for us. Saskya, and I can see crowds of people behind you who are clearly very excited at this moment to get a glimpse of him.
SASKYA VANDOORNE, CNN SENIOR PRODUCER: Exactly, Julia, the long wait might almost be over. And so we are here at Le Bourget Airport just north of
Paris and just take a look at all the fans that have been amassing all morning here, just waiting to catch a glimpse of the legend that is Lionel
Messi.
So, here they all are, hundreds of them. There's now a police perimeter that's been set up as well, and it's not just here at Le Bourget that fans
are amassing. You've got some that are at the Parc de Paris, the PSG Stadium waiting to catch a glimpse of Messi over there. You've got others
that are waiting in front of the American Hospital as that is where PSG players get their medicals done.
So, we may see Messi any minute now, but at the moment, it's just a wait and see. And as I said, you know the fans have been waiting since
yesterday, some of them, others came early this morning, and they just cannot wait to catch a glimpse of their football star.
CHATTERLEY: I'm trying to decide who is more excited, you or them? What do we know, Saskya, while we wait in case he pops up somewhere around there.
What do we know about what the contours of this deal might look like with PSG? Because of course, it's been wild speculation.
VANDOORNE: Well, we know that it's going to be a two-year contract, but we expect more of the details to be unveiled tomorrow during a press
conference. This is what French media are reporting that there will be a press conference tomorrow at the Parc de Paris where we should be getting
more of the details then.
And I just want to talk about how significant you know, this is for PSG, to sign someone like Messi. You know, PSG is one of the only clubs that was
really able to spend the kind of money needed to sign Messi. And you'll remember that, you know, four summers ago, they signed Neymar. They signed
Mbappe, and now, they will be getting Messi.
So, you know three big football stars, and it is going to be up to the manager, Mauricio Pochettino to be able to try and handle all three of
those players together, which is probably quite a nice problem to have.
Now, we have got some fans who are starting to think that they've seen a plane, but we haven't seen anything quite yet.
So, Julia, the excitement as you can see is palpable, and everybody keeps thinking they've seen a plane, they've seen him coming out of the doors.
Anything is quite probable. There are fireworks that are going off, and as I said --
CHATTERLEY: Wow. What a welcome.
VANDOORNE: What a welcome, but as I said, Julia, they have been waiting, they have been waiting since yesterday, they have been waiting this
morning. So, take a look at the crowd. Have a look at the fans. They're all ages. You've got children. You've got --
But still no sign of Messi. We will keep waiting until we see him coming out through the doors that are just behind over there, but no sign of that
plane landing quite yet -- Julia.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, what my audience just saw was me desperately waving because I wanted to ask you another question there, and I was just trying
to buy myself more time.
To go back to what you were saying about the acquisitions that PSG have made, I mean, they literally have no excuse now not to win the Champions
League surely.
VANDOORNE: Absolutely. That's what all the fans have been telling us here that now they have such great hopes for the Champions League, and I bet
many of them already talking about actually this game on Saturday, this home game for the league.
People were hoping to see whether Messi might be on the pitch. We don't know anything about that yet. But PSG will be playing this Saturday, so
there'll be all eyes on the stadium there. And actually, Julia, it will be the first time that the stadium there, the PSG Stadium will be at full
capacity ever since the pandemic hit.
So, PSG are expecting to welcome 50,000 supporters this Saturday.
CHATTERLEY: Wow. That will be some event. Saskya, I'm going to let you go. We'll leave you with the fireworks and the singing and we will come back to
you if there is a sighting, so stay ready and prepared. I know you are.
Saskya Vandoorne there in Paris, thank you so much.
VANDOORNE: I will let you know.
CHATTERLEY: I know you will.
Coming up after the break, calling Tom Brady fans everywhere, his image is part of an NFT, a non-fungible token, a drop of sports stars. We are very
sports-tastic today. I'll explain after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:51:48]
CHATTERLEY: Welcome back to FIRST MOVE. The quarterback, Tom Brady; the golf pro, Tiger Woods; the tennis star, Naomi Osaka, and the skateboarder,
Tony Hawk -- what do they all have in common? Images of these sporting stars are among those to be able to be immortalized as NFTs, yes, non-
fungible tokens, we've been talking about so much on the show.
The one of a kind collectible digital identifiers, which are recorded in a blockchain to certify ownership, bragging rights and so on. Today, Brady's
NFT goes on sale on the sports betting DraftKings marketplace in partnership with Autograph, the NFT platform cofounded by Brady himself,
and Dillon Rosenblatt is CEO and cofounder at Autograph, and joins us now.
Wow, that was a mouthful. Dillon, great to have you on the show. There are lots of sports memorabilia fans watching this that sighs glaze over when we
talk about crypto and NFT's. Help us understand what people get if they buy one of these and what it means for those people.
DILLON ROSENBLATT, CEO AND COFOUNDER, AUTOGRAPH: Absolutely. Our first product offering is really exciting. We're going to be selling what we're
calling the Preseason Access Collection and they're going to be Tom Brady preseason passes. They give you access to a private community on Autograph
and preferential access to his first drop and Wednesday will be unsigned additions and then Friday are actually going to be signed editions of the
collectibles.
And every edition is personally and individually signed by the talent. So, we think we have a really compelling offering for sports fans and
collectors everywhere, and you'll be able to purchase them through the DraftKings marketplace that's committed to providing an accessible
experience for every user that wants to step into this new NFT world.
CHATTERLEY: Dillon, I have to stop you there because I have some other compelling news for sports fans out there as well. I believe Lionel Messi
has poked his head out the window over in Paris.
The fans are going wild. So, I'm just going to stop you there, and I'm just going to show my viewers the pictures of a waving Mr. Messi there. A big
Paris t-shirt on.
Saskya, can you hear me? Are you still there? Talk to me about the reaction from the fans here as they're seeing him wave? And big smiles clearly all
around
VANDOORNE: Exactly. The crowd went absolutely wild. Messi just waved outside the window with a Paris t-shirt, and the crowd once again, there
were fireworks. It went crazy.
This was the moment that they've been waiting for since yesterday, since early this morning. They finally caught a glimpse of Lionel Messi waving at
the crowds. We expect him to then come down the stairs and take a car that will then take him to the American Hospital, we think in Paris where he
will have a medical checkup.
And then as I said, we've got these French media reports that say that he will be holding a press conference tomorrow at the PSG Stadium where we
will find out more details about the contract that he will be signing with PSG -- Julia.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, and Saskya, I have to say I can't help but contrast what we saw there with him smiling and waving to the tearful goodbye when it
became clear both clearly to him and to the fans over at Barcelona that he was ultimately going to leave. I mean, wow, what a few days it's been for
this player.
[09:55:03]
VANDOORNE: Completely, Julia, and I think that's the thing, you know, as you said, he spoke about his sadness at leaving Barcelona. You know, he
spent two decades playing for Barcelona. He has described Barcelona as his home. He has even described his children as Argentine Catalan kids.
So, it was a tearful goodbye, but the fans here are just so excited to welcome him, and he has got many friends on the team. You know, he has
played with Neymar in the past. You also have had lots of other players who have come out even today saying how excited they were to play with Messi,
the greatest player in the world according to them.
So, a tearful goodbye to Spain, but a warm welcome here by the fans -- Julia.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, absolutely, and they have wasted their fireworks just a little bit early, but I am presuming, he was in there. He heard them
anyway, so huge celebrations there. Lots of fun.
Saskya, great to have you with us. Thank you for that, Saskya Vandoorne there over in Paris.
I just want to say a quick thank you to Dillon Rosenblatt, we will get you back on to talk about that non-fungible token drop.
Unfortunately, Mr. Messi there, or fortunately, stole the sport show today.
And that's it for FIRST MOVE. Stay safe.
"Connect the World" with Becky Anderson is next, and we will see you tomorrow.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:00:00]
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