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The Current Transcript for May 10, 2018

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

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GINA HASPEL: I think we did extraordinary work. To me the tragedy is that the controversy surrounding the interrogation program has cast a shadow over what has been a major contribution to protecting this country.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: To her supporters, Gina Haspel is an accomplished spy with decades in the CIA, and a commitment to protect the United States. To her critics, she is “Bloody Gina”, a counterterror expert who ran a black ops site in Thailand, oversaw the waterboarding of al-Qaida suspects, and ordered 90 tapes worth of video evidence of one man's torture destroyed. President Trump’s choice to run the CIA told her Senate inquisitors yesterday that she would not restart such torture programs today. In a moment, we'll hear from two men whose time at the agency overlapped her: the agent who blew the whistle on the CIA's enhanced interrogation, and a former director of the CIA.

AMT: Also today: solar geoengineering.

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DAVID KEITH: We turned down the sun a little bit. That brings the Earth's energy more into balance and that could reduce some of the risks like storms or extreme temperatures.

AMT: Later this year, Canadian physicist David Keith’s Harvard research team will use a high-altitude balloon to spray particles into the stratosphere to see if they can reflect a fraction of sunlight back into space and test the possibility of limiting the rise in global temperatures. It's an area of research some want to shut down before it begins. From scientists wary of unintended consequences to conspiracy theorists we're on that story in half-an-hour.

AMT: And Helena Morrissey became CEO of a British investment firm at the age of 35. She has nine children, and she believes in breaking the rules.

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HELENA MORRISSEY: I think that we women bring up our own skills the workplace. I don't think the answer is behaving like honorary men. I recognized that I had big breakthroughs in my own career partly because I was, in my parlance, leading like a woman.

AMT: Leadership Lessons in an hour. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is “The Current”.

Part one: Gina Haspel

Guests: John Kiriakou, Michael Hayden

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DONALD TRUMP: Gina Haspel by the way, who I know very well and worked very closely would be the first woman director of the CIA. She’s an outstanding person, who also I have gotten to know very well.

AMT: When he talks about Gina Haspel, his choice to head up the Central Intelligence Agency, U.S. President Donald Trump has been touting her qualifications. Not just as the first woman, but as a career officer with 30 years’ experience who knows the agency inside out. But as others in Washington have learned more about Gina Haspel, they've raised grave concerns over her CIA career - a long-time undercover operative who became a key figure in the so-called detention and interrogation program running a secret black ops site in Thailand. Someone who oversaw the torture including waterboarding of detainees picked up after 9/11. Democratic Senator Kamala Harris, among others, grilled the candidate at confirmation hearings yesterday.

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GH: Senator, what I believe sitting here today is that I support the higher moral standard we have decided to hold ourselves to.

KAMALA HARRIS: Can you please answer the question

GH: Senator, I think I've answered the question.

KH: No, you’ve not. Do you believe the previous techniques now armed with hindsight do you believe they were immoral, yes or no?

GH: Senator, I believe that we should hold ourselves to the moral standard outlined in the Army Field Manual.

AMT: In a few moments, I'll be joined by Michael Hayden, a former director of the CIA who says he believes Gina Haspel is the right choice to lead the agency. But first, a dissenting view. John Kiriakou is a former CIA officer who in 2007 exposed the agency's waterboarding program. He was convicted of disclosing classified information. He spent 23 months in prison. We have reached him in Arlington, Virginia. Hello.

JOHN KIRIAKOU: Hello. Thanks for having me.

AMT: How do you react to what Gina Haspel said in that confirmation hearing yesterday?

JK: You know this was a consistent theme from Gina yesterday. She really didn't answer questions. And the thing that was the most disappointing to me is that she never really expressed regret or remorse in any way for her integral role in the CIA's torture program.

AMT: What was that role?

JK: Well, she had several different rules. She was the chief of staff in the CIA's Counterterrorism Center - or CTC - working directly for the notorious Jose Rodriguez, who really was the creator - the godfather - of the CIA's torture program. She went out to the secret site where she personally oversaw the torture of Abdul al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the alleged mastermind of the USS Cole bombing. And then when she went back to CTC again, as chief of staff, she was the one that ultimately ordered the destruction of the evidence of the torture, which was videotapes of the actual torture sessions of Abu Zubaydah.

AMT: You have called her, and people yelled out in the confirmation hearings yesterday “Bloody Gina”. Where does that name come from?

JK: Well, it comes from that very period from the summer of 2002. You know Gina had ample opportunity to say no. She had ample opportunity to say that this program was immoral, it was unethical, and it was illegal. And she didn't say no. She said yes sir, and she went over and carried it out.

AMT: You know her supporters point out she is highly-qualified. She's a nonpartisan appointee. How do you respond to that?

JK: Yeah, that's true. But there are a lot of well-qualified people. There are a lot of non-partisan people. There are a lot of women in the CIA's senior intelligence service who would be marvellous CIA directors. Gina Haspel's actions in 2002, in my view, disqualify her.

AMT: You were the person who exposed what the CIA was doing, and called it torture. What went into your decision to do that?

JK: Well, I wish that I could tell you that I did it right off the bat when I learned of the torture program. I was asked if I wanted to be trained in the torture techniques. I'm sorry to say that I was the only person of 14 who were approached that said no. But I kept my mouth shut for five-and-a-half years waiting for somebody to say something. And finally, I came to the conclusion that no one was going to say something. And President Bush was going to continue lying to the American people, and saying that there was no torture program. And that's when I decided to go public.

AMT: You use the word “torture”, when you were first approached to be part of that program, the phrase was enhanced interrogation?

JK: That's right. And people like Michael Hayden, who you're going to have next on your show, still call it enhanced interrogation. And apparently, they have not read the Federal Torture Act of 1946, or the Supreme Court case in 1980 that set the definition of torture, or the United Nations conventions against torture, which the United States is a signatory to.

AMT: What were you doing in the CIA at the time? You were actually trying to find al-Qaida operatives, were you not?

JK: Yes, I had just returned to CIA headquarters from Pakistan, where I was the chief of the CIA's counterterrorism section.

AMT: And who did you capture?

JK: I captured Abu Zubaydah, and many dozens of lower-level fighters. But Abu Zubaydah was a big fish for us; we believed at the time that he was the number three in al-Qaeda. That turned out to not be true, but at headquarters, they were convinced that he had the information we needed to foil an impending attack. And so Abu Zubaydah was the first high-level prisoner to undergo torture.

AMT: What happened to him?

JK: He was waterboarded 83 times, which made his heart stop; he had to be revived just so he could be tortured again. He was kept in a dog cage for weeks at a time. He was kept in a coffin. He had an irrational fear of insects, and so they threw insects into the coffin with him just to make him crazy. He was subject to sleep deprivation. He was kept in a cell chilled to 50 degrees Fahrenheit, and then had a CIA officer throw ice water on him every hour until he fainted. And all of that was for nothing because he wasn't the number three in al-Qaeda, and he didn't have information on an attack.

AMT: Can you say with certainty that there was no information he provided for what they did?

JK: Yes. The information that he provided that was actionable he provided to the FBI, which was not torturing him. They had established a relationship, and he was opening up to them. But the CIA was frustrated at the pace, and they decided to take over from the FBI and to torture him. So I can say categorically that Abu Zubaydah provided no actionable intelligence, and he saved no American lives.

AMT: And what is Gina Haspel’s alleged involvement in in that treatment?

JK: Well, after of Abu Zubaydah was captured, we captured Nashiri and sent him to the same secret site. Gina was in charge of that site by then. And so she was the one who personally oversaw Nashiri’s torture.

AMT: There were also videotapes, were there not?

JK: There were videotapes. They were of the Abu Zubaydah torture sessions. Gina said yesterday in the hearing that she did not appear in those tapes, but she ordered their destruction anyway.

AMT: You have been celebrated as a whistleblower for coming forward with much of this information. But for many in the agency, you fundamentally betrayed the institution. How do you defend your choices?

JK: Oh yeah, that's nonsense. And it's nonsense because in the United States it's illegal to classify a crime. Torture is an international war crime period. And so the entire torture program by its nature ought not to have been classified. All I did was tell the truth. Remember, the American people own that information. The American people have the right to know what their government is doing in their name.

AMT: And yet, you know that the United States Justice Department, you know that the United States government does not agree that it did not see this as torture and no one has been charged with breaking or violating any laws.

JK: Well, we have three branches of government in this country. And what you're talking about there that the Justice Department didn't think it was torture. Those were two midlevel functionaries in the Bush administration's Justice Department. This this issue has been argued in the courts since the end of World War II. And the law is clear. Just because the Bush administration decided to ignore it did not make torture legal. And let me add something to that: in 1946, we executed Japanese soldiers who had waterboarded American prisoners of war. So why was torture illegal in 1946, but somehow magically legal in 2002? It wasn't.

AMT: At her confirmation hearing, Ms. Haspel vowed that she would not restart a detention and terror interrogation program. Does that give you any reassurance?

JK: No, because what she actually said was that she would respect the Army Field Manual. the Army Field Manual lays out exactly what an interrogator can do to a prisoner. But the Army Field Manual is not a law. That field manual can change with the stroke of a president's pen.

AMT: What message would her confirmation send?

JK: Oh, I think it's a very clear message, and that is that you can commit war crimes, you can commit crimes against humanity, and not only can you still get promoted, but you can be promoted to director. And it also tells our friends and allies overseas that when we come to you and we complain about human rights, and we demand that we respect human rights, we really don't mean it. Human rights are really not a concern in this country. That's the message that this sends.

AMT: John Kiriakou, we have to leave it there. Thank you.

JK: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

AMT: John Kiriakou, former CIA officer who exposed the agency's waterboarding program. He is the co-author of “The Convenient Terrorist: Two Whistleblowers Stories of Torture, Terror, Secret Wars, and CIA Lies”. We reached him in Arlington, Virginia. Well. Gina Haspel has her supporters. Just this week, 72 two former CIA officers signed a letter endorsing her nomination as CIA director, also on her side is retired U.S. Air Force General Michael Hayden. He was director of the CIA from 2006 to 2009. Before that, he led the U.S. National Security Agency for six years. He is also the author of a new book “The Assault on Intelligence: American National Security in an Age of Lies”. And General Michael Hayden joins us from outside Washington. Hello.

MICHAEL HAYDEN: Hey, good morning, Anna Maria.

AMT: Why do you think Gina Haspel is the right person to lead the CIA?

MH: Career intelligence, professional, wonderful record, full competence of people for whom she worked and worked for her. She enjoys the endorsement of the senior leadership at the CIA from the Trump, Obama, and Bush administrations. I know a lot of people want to relitigate the past, but mostly I think Gina is the right choice because of the present and the future. You just heard from John Kiriakou, he has made the point that there's an irony to the fact that he went to prison for exposing the CIA's use of waterboarding, and Gina Haspel is promoted for it.

MH: Well, actually, John had trouble with a lot. I deeply regret he had to spend time away from his family for revealing things that remain classified - legitimately classified. That's a separate story. The story about Gina is that I would prefer to talk about present and future, but if we want to relitigate the past yet one more time. Most CIA officers involved in the program would have a fair amount of disagreement with John's narrative. That most fundamentally, what the agency did at that time had been ordered by the president declared, illegal by the attorney general, believed to be operationally effective by the director, and briefed to members of Congress, who were supportive of the program overall. And so the view was that we were doing America's will.

MH: Well, in terms of relitication, Republican Senator John McCain, a former P.O.W., wrote Mr. Haspel a letter asking her to explain her involvement in these so-called enhanced interrogation program during the course of her CIA career. As a former P.O.W, Senator McCain has spoken out against torture for years. Here's a clip of him.

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JOHN McCain: I know from personal experience that the abuse of prisoners will produce more bad than good intelligence. Most of all, I know the use of torture compromises that which most distinguishes us from our enemies. Our belief that all people - even captured enemies - possess basic human rights. I know too that bad things happen in war. I know and are good people can feel obliged for good reasons to do things they would normally object to and recoil from. I respect their dedication and appreciate their dilemma. But I dispute wholeheartedly that it was right for them to use these methods which were neither in the best interests of justice nor our security nor the ideals we have sacrificed so much blood and treasure to defend.

relitigation aside, Senator McCain by his reasoning makes the point that the program that Ms. Haspel was running was fundamentally at odds with American values. What do you make of that argument?

MH I have the deepest respect for Senator McCain, but what the senator is pointing out here is a debate about the national decision to do this. And if we want to go back and re-examine that national decision, that's great. But Gina Haspel is not part of the national decision; she was a midlevel officer in the Counter Terrorism Center.

AMT: And you know as well as anybody that being a midlevel officer doesn't matter if there are allegations of actions that go against conventions that any government signs.

MH: So John Kiriakou said this was approved by midlevel functionaries in the Justice Department. Actually, it was approved by the Office of Legal Counsel, which is the definition of what actually constitutes American law. And those folks in that office said this did not violate our international or domestic legal obligations. That was the extant legal guidance for the agency. Think of the alternatives. You want CIA making up its own law?

AMT: So it was the Office of Legal Counsel under John Yoo and George Bush. That's right, And John Yoo was later accused of rewriting it. They looked at the laws and they figured out how to rewrite and how to reinterpret. You know there's been a lot of disagreement over Mr. Yoo's interpretation in order to make those enhanced interrogation techniques quote/unquote “legal”.

MH: And I rest my case. Go ahead and debate John Yoo's opinions. But within the government, you follow that guidance otherwise you have your espionage agency's making up their legal standards on their own.

AMT: Okay, so you obviously think you need to look forward not back. Why do you think Gina Haspel is the good choice moving forward for the United States and for the CIA?

MH: Yeah, and it has to do with Gina’s character of all things after the last discussion. Gina Haspel is exactly the person I want in the room with this president. I think President Trump makes an awful lot of decisions detached from the intelligence and other inputs he gets from the standing government which is there to serve him. We can parse out decisions with regard to Iran, decisions with regard to immigrants entering in the United States. I don't think they are particularly fact-based, and so I want a personality in the room who will not go into North-South auto Bob when the president says something outrageous and say your right boss. Gina Haspel won't do that. She will stand up and say Mr. President, a private word. I need to give you another view on that. She is to her core a CIA officer who will tell the president the truth.

AMT: If he orders her to do something, will she say no? Is that what you're saying?

MH: If she gets ordered to go do this, she will say no. She said she would say no. And let me tell you why she will say no. Gina lived this program. she believed it helped saved American lives. And she also believed she was doing America's will. And when the agency goes out and does that sort of thing, they believe that America and America's political structure has their back. They didn’t. And we changed administrations, CIA officers were put in legal jeopardy because of what was done in the next administration. Gina knows that. She loves the agency. She is never going to show her officers out there to do this kind of thing again because she knows what kind of jeopardy she would be creating for them. So if you want to guarantee that CIA is never going to go do this again, make Gina Haspel the director. And although Gina won't say this, I will, this is the last president for whom you would go out and do this kind of edgy thing - because this is the kind of president that would not back you up when the edgy thing begins to unravel.

AMT: So you're telling me you think she would be a good choice specifically because she can say no to Donald Trump, and she can save the CIA from any anything that he tries to make the CIA do?

MH: Absolutely. If she has a moral qualm, or she believes that the presidential directive would put the agency at risk, she's the one the rest of the country can bet on to simply say no. If you want evidence that Gina would do the right thing rather than the easy or convenient thing. She got asked a bunch of questions yesterday that would have been easy for her to simply say yes because it would have benefited her for the short term. But she refused to do so because it would have betrayed the agency and her officers for the long term. So when she is simply asked why can't you just look back now and say it's immoral? She refused to answer that question. It would have been for her immediate personal benefit at the expense of the people she led. And she took the personal loss, rather than do something that would cost her people. That's the kind of person we're going to have with director.

AMT: Michael Hayden, we have to leave it there. Thank you for your perspective.

MH: Thank you.

AMT: Michael Hayden is a retired U.S. general director of the CIA from 2006 to 2009. Before that, he led the National Security Agency for six years. He is the author of “The Assault on Intelligence: American National Security in an Age of Lies”. He joined us from outside of Washington. Let us know what you think of that discussion, and the ongoing choice for the United States for Gina Haspel as head of the CIA. Tweet us we're: @thecurrentcbc. Find us on Facebook. Go to our website: www.cbc.ca/thecurrent. Stay with us. The news is next, and then we're back. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is “The Current”.

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Part two: Solar geoengineering

Guests: David Keith, Daniel Cziczo, Janos Pasztor

AMT: Hello, I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. And you're listening to “The Current”.

[Music: Theme]

AMT: Still to come: women in the workforce have heard the advice “lean in”. But after her highly successful career, and an enviable work life-balance, Helena Morrissey says forget leaning in and consider toppling the system - change it altogether. The British businessperson joins me in half-an-hour to talk about what she means. But first, leaning into the fight against climate change.

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[Music: World music]

SPEAKER: Adaptation.

AMT: The threat of climate change can leave you feeling powerless. But what if you could fight climate change with a climate hack? Climate hackers as they are called argue that efforts underway today to curb emissions will still leave us well short of goals that have been outlined with the Paris Climate Agreement. They argue we need to be more proactive in our approach to the problem. Take, for example, solar geoengineering. It seeks to actually reduce temperatures on Earth by deflecting some of the sun's rays away from our planet. It is a controversial approach to some, who fear its unintended consequences. Others see great promise in it. And as part of our project “Adaptation”, we're giving the idea a closer look. Canadian physicist David Keith is at the forefront of solar geoengineering research. He is a Professor of Engineering and Public Policy at Harvard University. He's part of Harvard's solar geoengineering research program. And David Keith joins us from New York City. Hello.

DAVID KEITH: Hi there. Thanks for having me on.

AMT: Why do you think we need to be exploring the possibility of solar geoengineering?

DK: Because there's at least some prospect that a world with serious emission cuts and solar geoengineering might have less human and environmental risk than a world only with emissions cuts. So maybe to push back on something you said right at the beginning, this is certainly not climate hacking. And nobody who's sensible thinks this is an excuse not to cut emissions or a substitute for them. But it might be a way to reduce climate risks.

AMT: OK, so let's talk about some of the ways this happens. Your team will actually be doing a test; you're launching a high altitude balloon later this year. What are you doing?

DK: Probably next year, probably not this year. It's one of many things we're doing that is to understand some of the way that some particular aerosols in the stratosphere might interact with the chemistry of the stratosphere in ways that might cause say ozone loss. So to understand better the ways that these chemicals - say calcium carbonate or sulfuric acid - alter the ozone layer and how much light they absorb.

AMT: OK. And what would you be looking? To see if they absorb light and what they would deflect that kind of that some of the heat away?

DK: Maybe it's important to say this is not a test of geoengineering. So you can't test full-scale geoengineering. It makes no sense to do that. What we're doing is part of the normal thing that Geoscience does, which is to try and improve our models of the way say the stratosphere works by real-world experiments that test specific questions that then would improve the models. And those improved models could help us better understand what the risks of solar geoengineering might be and how effective it might be.

AMT: OK. So it's more of an experiment. What can you tell us about other methods of solar geoengineering that researchers are looking at?

DK: So I would say I mean, first of all, what is it? The idea is that humanity might reduce some of the amount of climate change - not just temperature - by altering the Earth's balance directly. And one example would be by putting reflective aerosols in the stratosphere. It's also possible to perhaps alter the reflectivity of some marine clouds. It's conceivable this could be done in space as well. There are a variety of methods, but they all really share the same underlying fact: they won't deal with the problem of putting CO2 in the atmosphere; we have to stop doing that. But they might reduce climate risks not just globally, but on a regional basis.

AMT: And so what might they do to the temperature of the earth?

DK: Well, that's probably one thing we can say with high confidence. So you can say with some certainty - I think it's not exaggeration - that solar geoengineering would enable the world to be highly confident of reaching the one-point-five-degree-centigrade stretch target of the Paris Agreement. So a combination of emissions, cuts, and solargeo could reach that with confidence, and confidence we can’t have if we do emissions cuts alone. But that's kind of an oversell because global temperature is really just a proxy for all sorts of things humans and the natural world actually cares about. So the local extreme temperatures, or the availability of water, or sea level rise, or extreme storms. So the question is how well does slushing measuring actually work to reduce those climate risks on a regional basis?

AMT: And the only way to find out is to do some experiments and check the modelling?

DK: Yeah, and the experiments don't tell you anything meaningful about that. For that you have to turn to global models - the same global models as we used to try to understand what the impacts of increased carbon dioxide will be. And so we've been doing that for example there's a suite of 12 models that have all been tested, basically all the world's climate models for solar geoengineering experiments. And when you try using solar geo to cut the total rise in temperature in half, what we find is that in essentially every region of the world, extreme temperatures are reduced. But more than that, so is the change in the hydrological cycle. So CO2 tends to make the dry drier and the wet wetter. It's one of the fundamental problems of climate change. and it turns out that solar geoengineering does a surprisingly good job of reducing that. So every one of the regions that we look at solar geoengineering tends to return the hydrological cycle towards pre-industrial, so making the places that got dryer a little bit wetter, and making the places that got wetter a little bit drier - back towards pre-industrial. And that's a really terrific thing that promises to significantly reduce some of climate risks that people care about.

AMT: OK. Well, David Keith, I want to bring someone else into this conversation. Daniel Cziczo is an associate professor of Atmospheric Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has expressed some concerns about some of this. He joins us from Cambridge Massachusetts. Hello.

DANIEL: CZICZO: Good morning Anna Maria. Thank you for having me on this morning.

AMT: So what are your concerns?

DC: So I think that much of what David says is correct, but it doesn't tell the full story. And so one of the things that your listeners I'm sure are familiar with is that greenhouse gases are leading to global warming. But that at the same time, we have been putting particles into our atmosphere, and those have been influencing our climate as well as creating clouds, which also, in turn, influence our climate. And right now, we acknowledge the addition of particles and the formation of clouds because of our activities. It’s one of the largest uncertainties - if not the largest uncertainty - in climate change. And so my major concern is that by changing particles yet further, that we're going to be having unintended consequences, and so David’s statement about that where we'll have a high confidence of a known temperature change I think it's a bit premature. It's much more likely that there's going to be unintended side effects that we don't know all of the dynamics of this problem, all of the chemistry of this problem, the transformation that these particles will undergo in the atmosphere. And so all of those things will lead me to believe that this is highly uncertain, and beyond that, there's also some side effects that I think we'll be also talking about.

AMT: Such as?

DC: Well, David mentioned one of them, which is that you know when we've seen additions of particles to the stratosphere before - the upper level of the atmosphere - we've also seen ozone loss. At the same time, as I just mentioned, particles often spawn the droplets in the ice crystals that clouds form on. And so one thing that will go hand-in-hand with any addition of material to the atmosphere is a change in precipitation, you know possibilities of higher precipitation in regions, and lower precipitation or droughts and regions.

AMT: Can I just interject?

DC: Oh, please.

AMT: When you say particles, are there specific particles that are of concern? Or are you talking about any particles?

DC: Yeah, I think a lot of the proposals for a so-called geoengineering have been edition of sulphates the atmosphere. And more recently, groups like Davids have proposed using different materials. He mentioned calcium carbonate to the atmosphere. But there's a lot that are known about these materials already just from simple laboratory studies on the ground that show that these materials, especially sulfates, can deplete ozone. And there are great unknowns about how some of the other particles will affect ozone, and what it might do to things like cloud formation and precipitation.

AMT: David Keith, I think you have some answers to that?

DK: Yeah, I mean my main answer is almost total agreement. So I absolutely agree with Dan that there are all sorts of pieces of the dynamics and chemical pathways we don't understand. And so if Dan thought I was saying we knew everything, I absolutely was not. I completely retract. What I was saying was that with respect to global average temperature, you can have high confidence. And I stand behind that and defend it. But the uncertainties here are deep. Let me maybe get to the core I think underlying concern politically, and then that technically. So the underlying concern of much of this is I think the likelihood that fossil-rich nations and fossil fuel companies that want to oppose emissions cuts will exploit research on solar geoengineering, over-claiming about how well it works to argue against emissions cuts. So really that one of the fears that's kept a taboo on this topic has been a fear that it will weaken efforts to cut emissions, and it's a fear I completely share. And each of the technical fears that Dan raised are ones that in many cases we've been the first to raise. So complete agreement. The issue is what we do. We don't have a choice to have a time machine and have all the CO2 out of the air. In 2050, we can have a world with emissions cuts, but still CO2 in the air that will be causing climate change. And we could have that with some solar geoengineering. Both those worlds are uncertain. Both of them are risky. The issue is which has less risk? I don't think we know the answer to that, but there's enough evidence that it might have less for us to do solar geoengineering than I think it merits serious research, including research that might well show it doesn't work, which would be fine.

AMT: Daniel, are you suggesting that the research shouldn't go ahead? He’s making the point we need to know more.

DC: No, not at all. And, in fact, you know I think David and I agree on a lot of points. One of the ones that I would make is that you know we know the heart of this problem, which is the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere. So you know one strategy is to do further research on carbon sequestration, which is to draw down that CO2 - the thing that we know is the problem, as opposed to doing something else to the atmosphere which will further complicate the situation that we're in. I certainly don't think it's a taboo, but I will raise the point with your listeners that you know I'm going immediately as you pointed out earlier, Anna Maria, to something like balloon launches and putting material in the stratosphere to look at it more or less flies in the face of the way that we actually do most of our aerosol and cloud research, which is to use laboratory chambers - laboratory systems - to look at it on a small scale and see what happens before actually perturbing the atmosphere. And so I do have concerns. Not only that this research is going to take away from more promising research with a higher probability of an outcome that we'd like to see, which would be, as I said, carbon sequestration. But also that there's this sort of rush to do deployments without really knowing the chemistry of the problem, without knowing the precipitation effects and the problem and so on.

AMT: We are absolutely not rushing to do deployments. I would unequivocally oppose. I've written in science magazine a clear argument for a global moratorium on deployments. There is no way in which that's true. And as Dan knows, we actually are doing laboratory experiments. Let me address the money: global spending on solar geo engineer research now is probably of order 20 or 30 million a year. U.S. spending on climate science alone - forgetting carbon sequestration - is three billion. Global spending on clean energy, of which carbon sequestration part is 300 billion, so I don't buy that concern that there's a big problem with misdirected research resources.

AMT: I'm going to throw in another little wrinkle here because there have been concerns that this could all be co-opted by people with other agendas. Among them the so-called chem trail conspiracy theorists - people who believe plumes we see in the sky trails from airplane exhaust are actually toxic chemicals that have been sprayed there is. Here's a clip of a YouTube bird named Mark Dice.

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MARK DICE: Chuck Norris is now taking on chem trails. He just published an article for World Net Daily about sky criminals, and addressing the dangers of geoengineering. So let's take a close look at his article, and at the actual admitted geoengineering experiments and disasters.

AMT: David Keith, I'm asking about this because people who talk about this have lumped your work in with the conspiracy. How does that affect the debate?

DK: It's hard to know, but there's no question it affects it. So my colleagues have done some really high-quality polling. About 30 per cent of Americans believe this. And of all the tweets in history that have dealt with geoengineering, the majority have dealt with chem trails. So I mean the number one thing is just it's hard to know how we have a functional democracy when really significant tracts of the population - 20 or 30 per cent - believe things that are just nonsense. I mean that 9/11 was an inside job, or chem trails. And often, actually those are the same people. It's a really disturbing thing. And the level of anger and hatred that I think comes probably from disempowerment is profound. I get really ugly death threats and anti-Semitic hatred. It's pretty disturbing. And I think it will affect the debate because it's many more people talking about this non-existent thing - chem trails - than about solar geoengineering.

AMT: And Daniel Cziczo, how much of the debate is about fears as opposed to real scientific concern on risks?

DC: Boy you know this is a difficult question to answer because you know we work as scientists and engineers on these problems. And so you know I leave a lot of this to the social scientists. I guess I would have that sort of take off my scientists hat for a moment to answer the question. And I could say that you know I completely agree with David when we look at folks that are dealing with things like chem trails, which you know sort of dates its history back to the Vietnam War and Agent Orange. But it's become perverted now and misunderstood. It is not a real phenomenon as David pointed out. You know you have to sort of fight against that when you look at the scientific goals. You know I would say that one of the fears and one that I think has some basis is actually you know taking some of this understanding this very inexpensive, possible solution to increasing temperatures, and using that as an excuse to continue to emit CO2 into the atmosphere. And I think that you know scientists and engineers, that's the one that's maybe more concerning to us you know here in the U.S. seeing folks that are in our government that deny that climate change is due to human activities, but are now supporting geoengineering. I think those are the bigger fears that we have.

AMT: And David Keith, you make the point that none of this can be done in isolation of each other things in terms of the efforts to reduce emissions - that there has to be almost like a basket of things to look at to consider as we move forward?

DK: Absolutely. I mean no complicated and worldwide problem like climate change has a single unitary solution. So we must cut emissions, but emissions cuts by definition can't make climate change go away because climate change has to do with accumulative amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. So if you cut emissions to zero, you just stop the problem getting worse. You don't make it better. It's very different from some other pollutant problems. Carbon removal is actually something I've put a huge amount of effort into. But it inherently is slow, and large-scale carbon removal will itself have environmental impacts that are non-trivial. Solar geoengineering will certainly have a real environmental impacts and risks. There's no risk-free solution unless we have a time machine to go back to a world where we never had fossil fuels. The issue is how we in democratic societies balance these different things, learn more about them, and make sensible decisions to manage the risk of the situation we find ourselves in. Not some hypothetical situation we wish we were in.

AMT: OK. Gentlemen, thank you for your time today.

DK: Thank you very much.

DC: Thank you.

AMT: That's David Keith, Professor of Engineering and Public Policy at Harvard part of Harvard's solar geoengineering research program. He joined us from New York City. Daniel Cziczo is an Associate Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He's in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Well, the idea of solar geoengineering not only raises scientific and environmental questions it raises political questions, including who would be in control of certain processes. Who would benefit? My next guest is leading a project that hopes to address that. Janos Pasztor is a former diplomat. He was once the UN's Assistant Secretary General on Climate Change. He's now the executive director of the Carnegie Climate Geoengineering Governance Initiative. He's in Geneva, Switzerland. Hello.

JANOS PASZTOR: Hello, Anna Maria.

AMT: So governing initiative. Why do you think setting up some sort of governance on this issue is important?

JP: It is important because much of the discussion about these technologies has been between scientists like we just heard in the earlier part of this program. But the people involved in climate change policy and also broader development policy have not been addressing these issues, neither at the international level nor at the national level - with some minor exceptions - but otherwise not. And it is really important to get our discussion of these issues of who is going to make the decisions for eventual deployment, even if it's not going to happen tomorrow because it will take some years before one gets there. But some of the governance questions are quite difficult, and it will take many, many years to address them. So it is not too early to start.

AMT: What kind of governance questions are you talking about?

JP: Well, the most important one is to make a decision whether or not one should use solar geoengineering is one of the number of tools we have to combat climate change. We know we can reduce emissions. We know we can adapt to some extent. And there are all these other options to remove carbon and to do solar geoengineering. But as David said earlier, each of these have their own risks, and we need some way to look at these in totality and manage their total risk of doing or not doing these activities. Now, we don't even have such a process where all of these different issues could be addressed together. So as a start the most important one is how the decision would be made about this issue and when? Because the question will arise do we wait until the temperature goes beyond 2-3 degrees centigrade beyond a historical average and then try to do something quickly and come up with a quick solution? Or do we think ahead and start thinking maybe we need it. And if we might need it, then let's work it out. Let's have a better understanding of the risks and benefits. As we heard again earlier, the risks and benefits are not well known that we could make decisions about them. So let's figure out the risks and benefits. And let's also understand the governance requirements and agree on them before we would go ahead and start thinking of deploying them.

AMT: So in other words, international rules perhaps?

JP: It has to eventually have some level of international agreement or agreements behind it because it's going to have an impact on everybody either positive or negative, but it will have impacts. So it will have to have some kind of global arrangement behind it.

AMT: Earlier this spring, a group of twelve researchers from the developing world published a commentary in the journal Nature, and they warned against moving too quickly on the issue, especially without consulting with and hearing from the global south. They warned about the potential for things like widespread famine or drought if the technology is used in the wrong way. How do you address those concerns?

JP: Well, they are absolutely right. And as I said just before, if we do solar geoengineering, it will have an impact on everybody. And it will have in particular impact on developing countries - again either positive or negative. So it's really important that developing countries are engaged from the beginning in the development of ideas for the governance of these technologies, instead of waiting until you know the developed countries develop these ideas, come up with the solutions, and then engage the developing countries. So our initiative, one of the things we're trying to do is to try to engage some of those very people who wrote that article and others to engage in discussion and solutions on the governance requirements.

AMT: But forgive me, it would be a bit like herding cats at times, would it not? We've seen all sorts of international rules that some countries break whenever they feel like it.

JP: That's right. I mean there are situations like that, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't strive to develop international rules. We should try to, for example, come up with their international agreements that would help to avoid unilateral, ungoverned, deployment of these technologies which might happen by a single country. But the international committee should also develop concepts of what to do if one or another country decides to go ahead in such unilateral ungoverned manner and how to react to that.

AMT: And these countries would presumably have to agree that climate change exists?

JP: Well, there’s one thing about the rising temperatures. And you don't necessarily have to accept the idea that climate change is happening because of human actions just to see that the temperature is rising. So it is conceivable that there may be some people who don't believe in human-caused climate change, but they might still be prepared to do something about the temperature increase.

AMT: That’s a pretty careful answer, Mr. Pasztor. So how open are politicians and governments to working on this?

JP: Well, it's interesting. I've been talking to senior government officials in the last year to a year-and-a-half. And what I find is that certainly when it comes to bilateral discussions they are very open to talk about it, and to try to see how one could begin to address these issues, for example, in some intergovernmental forum. But it is difficult to take the next step to be openly discussing these because in many countries, there seems to be in the policy space there seems to be some kind almost like a stigma against even talking about these issues. Partly, the fear that if we even talk about solar geo engineering, we might take away a political force and the energy from doing what we really have to do first, which is to reduction of emissions.

AMT: Okay, well we have to leave it there. But thank you for your thoughts today.

JP: Thank you.

AMT: That is Janos Pasztor, director of the Carnegie Climate Geoengineering Governance Initiative. We reached him in Geneva, Switzerland. Stay with us. In our next half-hour, she's been called a superwoman. We'll be talking to Helena Morrissey. She doesn't like that title. You can decide for yourself. This is “The Current”.

Part three: Gender balance in business

Guest: Helena Morrissey

AMT: Hello, I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. And you're listening to “The Current”.

SOUNDCLIP

SHERYL SANDBERG: Most of the top jobs are still held by men and we're going to lean in, believe in ourselves. I think like so many women at every stage I did what so many people do. You doubt yourself. You're not sure you can do it. We know that when men do something well, they believe it's them. And when women do something well, they believe it's help from others. And so Lean In is about helping women believe in themselves, helping women know that they can reach for opportunities. Throughout my career, you know all the people I've managed the men they're always you know in my office. I want the next job. I want the next opportunity. The women lean back more. And when I say you know you should apply for this, some of them say things like I'm learning in my current job. And men never say that. And that's what we need to change.

AMT: Sheryl Sandberg has become synonymous with her Lean In slogan. The Facebook CEO is speaking there a few years ago on U.S. morning television, offering an inspirational message to women as they headed into their work day: that the time has come to lean in and narrow the ambition gap as she called it with men. It's a message that has inspired many, but it's also inspired some backlash for seeming to put the onus on women to change what's been holding them back. My next guest says that instead of women leaning in the system needs to change. To be rebuilt in a way that's better for women and other groups that are underrepresented in businesses. That ultimately she says will be better for everyone, including men. Helena Morrissey is a former CEO. She's an investment group executive. In 2010, she started the 30 Percent Club with the goal of increasing female representation on the boards of British businesses. She's also the author of “A Good Time to be a Girl”. Not to mention being the mother of nine children. Helena Morrissey is with me in Toronto. Hello.

HELENA MORRISSEY: Hello.

AMT: You and Sheryl Sandberg are pushing for the same broad goal: more women in top jobs. Why do you disagree with the way she goes about it.

HM: Well, I think it isn't enough actually. I think leaning in to the existing workplace, which frankly probably isn't relevant for many men in today's digital world, isn't enough to really achieve equality for lots of women. It may encourage a few women to get more senior roles. But actually what I'm interested in is broader equality. Women who perhaps aren't privileged and who have a lot to offer, have ideas, who have ambition. And I do see as well the young men, in particular, look ahead and are very keen to work quite differently from their fathers. And I think that gives us a golden opportunity to work with men not in any way against them to create different ways of working where we share responsibilities around bring up families. And so it's a question of what we're leaning into that I'm challenging.

AMT: Okay, so let's step back first and look at your own life and your career in male-dominated finance. You became a CEO of an investment firm at the age of 35.

HM: That's right.

AMT: You're well-known in the finance world for your advocacy for gender equality. You have nine children. The tabloids often tell you what a superwoman. What do you think when you hear that?

HM: Well, it's a term that I don’t really like. I sort of understand why they use it because in lots of ways it looks unusual to have you know a big job and a big family. But actually, I think that all I do is the same as many working mothers do - just perhaps on a slightly bigger scale certainly in terms of numbers of children. And I think it might be off-putting to other women, particularly young women, who sometimes say oh, that’s a very unattainable ideal or a role model that I can't really relate to. Ahereas actually all I've done I'm not a most fabulously clever or talented individual. I'm quite ordinary and from an ordinary background. And I've just taken one step in front of the other. And I have believed in myself that’s something that I could do think that Sheryl Sandberg was absolutely right about that actually we do suffer from self-doubt. But I'm no superwoman. I'm just like everybody else.

AMT: Well, what was your experience in your early days as a woman in the finance industry three decades ago?

HM: It was pretty tough. I'd say it was actually a very hostile environment for women. I mean we're now very familiar with horrific stories about sexual harassment and discrimination. And I saw and experienced some of that, particularly when I have my first child. So I was aged 25, and when I returned from maternity leave - and I was the only woman in a team of 16, so perhaps I should have seen this coming - but I was passed over for promotion. And this was not a big deal promotion. This was moving from being a graduate trainee to not being a trainee anymore. And when I asked my boss – obviously a man - what I need to do differently to get the promotion next time? He said well, you know, your performance is great. It’s just that there's some doubt about your commitment with the baby. Now, I was not expecting that at all. I thought like I think many other women believe that how hard you worked your aptitude will determine how far you could progress. And I like to think at least I knew where I stood. And perhaps not surprisingly, soon after, I left that company and joined a company where I was able to thrive.

AMT: You turned your career around because it really made you think about who you were working for as well then, right?

HM: Yes, I realized that I didn't have the allies that I needed to progress. I'm not a quitter. Hopefully, my later career shows that. But I do think it's really important to recognize when we can't push water uphill. Ahen actually if you don't have allies, particularly powerful allies. Often, they will be men because that's who are mostly in power presence still and that actually you're destined to feel very disappointed. And there are environments where actually women are much more supported.

AMT: You give your husband a lot of credit for your move through your career as well.

HM: Rightly so. I mean when we had our fourth child - and our third and fourth are very close in age; just a year apart - he and I were chatting about how we can make it work. And we know things were quite stress for us at that time. Both of us were running around doing full-time jobs arguing or at least debating each day who would get home to take over from our live-out nanny - we never had live in help - and it was quite stressful. And he said one day he'd like to go freelance. And part of his rationale was he really wanted to spend more time at home bringing up our very young family. Since then, as we had more children, his desire and aptitude or ability to take on paid work obviously has dwindled. But actually Hugh says he really enjoys what he does. Our is perhaps quite extreme role reversal. And I'm not necessarily saying all the men have stay home and all the women work. But sharing responsibilities and working it out together, rather than just assuming women do one role and men do another is a big part of how we can change the system.

AMT: You know giving you full disclosure here: if you were a man with nine children, I would get to this part of the conversation maybe at the end. And I'm doing it at the beginning. But I have lots of questions about that. And you know you you've actually thought about that too. How we look at men with that number of children. I'm guessing that's why you of bristle at the superwoman thing that we don't do that with men?

HM: No actually, about 18 months ago, I guess I did BBC Radio 4’s “Today” program. And my theme involved interviewing a lot of powerful business men. And at the end of the interviews each time I asked them how do they achieve work-life-balance? And in each case, they were kind of floored by the question. I mean these were extremely articulate men who were very happy to talk about all aspects of their lives. And actually, as they settled into the question, they did in most cases actually credit their wonderful wives. And also talk about how they know tried to be home when they could and so forth.

AMT: And they probably didn't say we talked about it together and figured out what would work for us together the way you just did know.

HM: No, and I think my approach is very much about working in partnership with men generally. The 30 Percent Club, one of the secrets of perhaps surprising success in terms of actually being able to shift the numbers of women on UK corporate boards has been the not just the involvement of senior powerful businessmen, but actually their leadership around the issues that members of the 30 Percent Club are actually the chairmen an pretty all are men of big British businesses.

AMT: Can I ask one thing? When you talk about figuring out with your partner how to do something like this when you're raising nine children, which is a lot of children for anyone to raise. I'm always struck by women who talk about they’re in very stable relationships. We are not talking people who have been through three marriages or who are single moms. There is something about being able to choose well, or luckily, or having a stable partnership in order to do some of that. Am I wrong or not?

HM: No, I think that's that is a very good point to make. I mean I shared the stage once with a lady who is now in the House of Lords in the UK. She’s chairwoman of the BBC Trust, and when she was asked for her top tips for young women she said oh, marry well. And, of course, there was a bit of a sharp intake of breath, and people were sort of thinking that seems odd advice for career women. But actually, of course, she didn't mean marry somebody who's wealthy. She meant marry somebody who understands you and who you're going to work with as a partner through much of your life not just in love. Clearly, I've been very lucky. And I do want to credit my husband. But I do see young women are realizing that actually, it's a vital part of their support network. Very important that that person that you do end up with really understands you and wants you to succeed.

AMT: Which brings us back to the whole issue of leadership in a company because you're talking about changing a system really so that young men and young women coming up in their careers see leadership in a different way and work-life-balance and the ability to spend time with family - men as well.

HM: Yes, I mean two points: One is I mean the 30 Percent Club in the UK did a survey of university students, and over 90 per cent of both men and women said that work-life-balance was a top priority. I mean that is a massive change since I was at university. I don’t think the term work-life-balance had even been coined. And I also think that this is a big part of my emotional argument, although not necessarily something that people are embracing immediately. I think that we women bring often our own skills the workplace. I don't think the answer is behaving like honorary men. I recognize that I had big breakthroughs in my own career partly because I was in my parlance leading like a woman. I would try to build a consensus. I wasn't into dictating or command and control. And I think in today's networked world where people won't be told what to do by leaders they don't particularly trust. That is an incredibly important part of effective leadership. That gives great opportunity not just for women, but for men who are very empathetic as well.

AMT: Well, it's interesting because you have received some pushback from that. Because you see men and women as different yet equal in terms of leadership.

HM: Yes, and I think I sometimes joke and say you know a sample size of nine children: six girls and three boys. I do have enough evidence at my own home life to be quite confident that on average, there are some differences between boys and girls. It has become controversial. The academic literature on it is quite divided. And I'm not trying to stereotype, or just sort of have lazy sweeping generalizations. I actually do think we just need to celebrate our differences and actually be proud of being women. I enjoy dressing like a woman. I don’t want to be an honorary man. And I think that many of my female friends feel quite similarly. And I think that’s exciting that we can be ourselves at work.

AMT: You know we’ve been working on this for a long time now as societies, right? Why hasn't this been resolved already?

HM: Because I think we've tended to be treating diversity sort of as a special interest issue. And instead, what I think we should be doing is thinking actually you know we haven't really changed much about how we all work since our parents or our grandparents were all having long commutes, sitting at the same desk. We’re using technology to perhaps extend our working day. But actually, we could be much more radical than that. And I think gender equality we need to place it in the context of these big other changes around us and make it a big part of that sort of the centre of businesses.

AMT: So what's the biggest obstacle to bringing about the kind of change you want to see?

HM: I do think it is because we've gone down this track of thinking actually if we have these initiatives, eventually they will succeed. Whereas actually, what I'm trying to spark conversation about is saying what are the other things about how we recruit, how we promote, how we encourage all diverse talent? The best, most creative teams are likely to be diverse. But once we were in the door, they're often encouraged to just fit in with the status quo. And I think that takes us stepping back and reassessing a lot of the aspects of how we manage people.

AMT: So give me your business case for diversity, and tell me what diversity means to you?

HM: So it's funny because often I’m asked this question and we don't have to make a business case it seems for not having diversity. The financial crisis showed us rather painfully that having just one narrow group of individuals running anything could not be the optimal team. But there's obviously a lot of empirical evidence that actually the best teams are diverse. They're more innovative. They achieve better financial returns. People challenge me and say you can't prove causality. It might be that the more diverse talent joins the better businesses. And I’ve got to the point where they say well, maybe it doesn't really matter. Maybe it's a little bit that you create a sort of virtuous circle where you're got a great business culture, you attract and develop diverse talent, and you create better results. Diversity to me means ultimately bringing lots of perspectives to the table, listening to each other, and making decisions knowing that none of us have a monopoly on great ideas.

AMT: And, of course, we're not solely talking gender. We're talking race, in terms of physical abilities, disabilities, LGBTQ, we're talking a range of diversity.

HM: Exactly.

AMT: Where you want to see the door wider.

HM: Yeah, I think often companies start with gender because obviously, they are not a minority. It does seem quite hard to reconcile with so much about our lives, including women often having access to great education, that there is this discrepancy between numbers of men and women in senior roles. And so it's an obvious place to start. But to me it is the start not the end of the whole route.

AMT: Let's talk a little bit more about the 30 Percent Club pushing for more women on the boards of top companies.

HM: Yes, so actually now it is broader than that. But we have had I think I mean I'll be honest and say quite a surprising success in the UK about the numbers of women on UK corporate boards. We've gone from 12.5 per cent women on the top hundred boards to 28.9 per cent. It's tortuously close to 30 per cent. And over half of the 250 companies were all male when we started, and now it's a handful. And what's been fascinating is the combination of a voluntary goal - this is not a call for a quota. The involvement of men, many of whom are completely bought into the whole idea sometimes as of principle, sometimes because they’ve seen the dynamic improve when there’s women in the boardroom or in executive teams. And often for their daughters. But we've also I think been quite honest about the fact that we didn't have all the answers. And so it has been a question of you know people say well how are you going to do this? And we said well, we're not quite sure. But we're very open-minded. We want to hear what's not been working. So actually, we need to not follow an existing blueprint. Now, the focus is very much on women at all levels. And I'd say the thing that I'm most proud of really is not so much the increase in women on boards, but actually the fact we have a huge cross-company mentoring scheme and midcareer women. And encouraging those women who are at that danger zone in their careers when they just might be diverging from their male counterparts to just have that boost that you know actually you can do this, and have someone to talk to.

AMT: Talk to me a little bit more about that. So that's deliberately not entry-level, but midlevel level because you see things falling off middle level?

HM: Yes, and often - but not always - this coincides with the time that women will have children. Often, they've been working for maybe ten years. Perhaps have had some experience of not getting the opportunities that they thought they might and feel that might be associated with being a woman. Our mentors half of them are men. But often, the men say it's really eye-opening for them to hear from women who might not talk so candidly in their own companies, but we'll talk to someone different about the struggles that they face. Maybe there's internal demons that we have holding us back as Sheryl Sandberg pointed out. You know where we fear what might go wrong, rather than leaping before you look - one of my favorite expressions. And it has made a big difference. We track what happens to the women. Often, it just boosts their confidence to strategize a little bit more, but not to just be resigned to not getting the next job.

AMT: It also puts them on the radar, right? Because suddenly, the person who might be mentoring them will remember them when someone's looking for someone to fill another position.

HM: Exactly, and a big breakthrough... I mean I put a lot of that. I'm not saying it wasn't anything to do with me but you know I had a boss - a male mentor - who really believed in me, and made me feel very able to be myself. He made me feel very secure and very confident and very able to progress. I think we need to give a shout out to those men in our lives who want us to succeed and help us.

AMT: It might be worth letting our listeners know as well. So when you realized you weren't going to get promoted at this larger company, you end up moving to a smaller company where you they can see what you're doing, and you are mentored, and you then are well placed.

HM: Yeah, so I mean the contrast between my two early career moments could not be any greater: one, being positive that a promotion. And the second one, I became the chief executive within seven years after joining the firm in a very junior capacity. And my messages you know there are environments where you can thrive, but you do need to be welcomed for who you are and then take advantage of that and take the opportunities as they come.

AMT: What's your leadership style?

HM: Well, I think I'm very collaborative. I understand that being a leader requires you to take the decisions and be accountable for those decisions. But I recognize that I don’t have all the answers myself. I love to have wonderful people around me who know much more than I do about particular things and work together to form a vision together that we share. I think investment management firms actually are often run like that because often, the people who are very talented fund managers have a lot of opinions of their own. In some ways it's been an early indicator of how many businesses work now where you have to socialize what you're doing, you have to bring people with you.

AMT: It's worth noting as well when we talk about leadership you are not solely talking about equality issues. The company you're at now is actually saying that it wants to name and shame those companies that haven't reached climate change targets that you're actually taking a leadership role on investment in certain companies right now.

HM: Definitely, I mean legal in general is not well known outside the UK. But actually, runs a trillion pounds of money, so a very large UK pension fund manager. One of the reasons they joined the firm was because I'd seen it put its money where its mouth is, and actually both name and shame, but also name and fame. Those companies that are doing the most in areas like climate change like gender equality. So, for example, we last year, voted against the chairman of the boards of 37 of the Footsie 100 companies because they weren't doing enough we felt on diversity. So I think you have to follow through.

AMT: And again, that's another political side because gender equality is also political for some people. But in terms of leadership, when we talk about work life balance, you're also talking about how we live in our society then?

HM: Yes, and I think investors have theoretically quite a lot of power to work for good. And it's no good our sort of signing up in theory you know saying yes, we all believe in diversity, or action against climate change, but actually do something.

CO: And Helena Morrissey, you do not fit the stereotype. You have also taken a position in favour of Brexit, unlike many of your colleagues in finance. Why?

HM: So it's become a very divisive subject. So in some ways, it's become more controversial than I would have anticipated. But it felt to me that if we really believe in diversity of thought we need a proper discussion about the way the world is evolving. And how, in this case Britain, but you can apply it to other countries as well. Should be governed and how we take our place in the world. And to me the EU has in its true personal direct experience has turned to be very remote and a one-size-fits all. And I think today people want to have decisions taken on their behalf that are close to them. And so I'm a great believer in local government - having cities that are powerful. But, unfortunately, that's not really worth a discussion in the debate when in the UK, and it has become much more political. And to me it was an indication of how we hadn't really embraced diversity of thought. There was in theory this idea that we would welcome difference of opinion. But actually when people disagreed that was uncomfortable, and we're still working that through unfortunately.

AMT: There is a belief that the UK will suffer financially when it leaves the EU. Do you believe that?

HM: Well, I think we need to make sure that we follow through with what the people voted. If we get it right then it should enable us to be more globally, trading obviously with our partners in the Commonwealth - very strong relationships already with Canada. But, obviously, it is predicated on making sure that we have the confidence to construct an arrangement. And it's not turning our back on the EU. It's a different form of relationship. Perhaps the UK was always a little bit on the edge of not quite comfortable with what happened when we were part of the EU.

AMT: There are concerns that Brexit will lead to a slide backward in women's rights in the UK - a fear that has come up after the election of Donald Trump in the US and other, populist movements in other countries. And yet you say it's a good time to be a girl?

HM: I genuinely believe that actually the planets are aligning. I think a lot of the focus on gender equality and the worries about possible steps backwards - the focus on #MeToo, the glaring gender pay gap that have just been published in the UK. This creates the movement to seize. There is huge noise around the issue. At the same time, we have technology changing the nature of effective leadership enabling us to work in a different way. The next generation of men and women are expecting to work quite differently. And a realization that diversity of thought is what matters, so it's not about submerging our differences. That is a very powerful cocktail. I don't think Brexit has anything to do with where we go on gender equality in the UK. So that doesn't worry me but it does worry me that we might not see the moment, and we have to recognize it if we’re going to seize it.

AMT: Well, I guess so you're also pointing out we don't to be monolithic in thought. You're not looking for about equality to end up having all women who manage to be part of a more equal system think the same.

HM: No. I think it's to me about enabling more women whatever their backgrounds, whatever their ideas, whatever they have to offer to have more choices. And as I said for men have more choices to play a bigger role as they wish than their own families upbringing.

AMT: So what would the world need to look like for you to say you feel that the goals around gender equality have been reached?

HM: So I think it is when well, obviously, we've been talking about it a long time as you said already when we don’t have to talk about it anymore. Where it’s just expected in the way that perhaps naively expected when I joined the workplace that actually opportunities would be there irrespective of my gender. And I think it will happen in my children’s’ generation. I do believe that if we can seize the moment. When I speak at universities, I'm always impressed by how many men are that sign as asking Do you know who to talk about it and there's oh yes gender equality we think it's incredibly important and I think we need to work with these young men that we know men who perhaps feel that they haven't had the opportunity to say actually they don't want to work in this particular way to forge this more equal future. And I think we'll know it when we see it.

AMT: It's worth pointing out that a lot of men would actually want more flexibility in their careers and in their work hours and everything to deal with their home lives if there was more available, if it wasn't looked down upon in certain business sectors.

HM: No, I think that's true and actually my 14-year-old daughter was persuaded to go on the radio on the date when we were celebrating the hundred years since women some women got the vote in the UK. And she was asked by the present you know is your dad the new man at the school gates? And she said he used to be, but nowadays you know there were quite a lot of my friends’ fathers who collect them as well. Already we're seeing more entrepreneurs, more self-employment that has been a very big trend in the UK certainly we're seeing more flexibility around getting the job done. We just haven't completed the job yet.

AMT: So it's a good time to be a girl and a boy?

HM: It is! A good time to be an enlightened man, and a wonderful woman.

AMT: Thanks for coming in.

HM: Pleasure, thank you.

AMT: Helena Morrissey has spent 30 years in investment and finance. Her first appointment as a CEO came when she was 35 years old. She's the founder of the 30 Percent Club, which advocates for more women on boards of top businesses. And her new book is called “A Good Time to be a Girl: Don't Lean In. Change the system.” She joined me in our Toronto studio.

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May 10, 2018 episode transcript

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