we all lost hope in compromise in peaceful coexistence with ah, in awe with i'm african retention, we're going underground. coming up with a show i m. f, world bank after arguably discredited in organizations. attend yesterday's. g 20 afghanistan summit. we speak to former afghan president, cars, ice finance, minister, involved in negotiations with everyone from us, president biden,

to victorious taliban leadership plus in the week china hosts called 15 the world's largest by a diversity conference. in a decade. we ask if british prime minister morris johnson holding in my beth is basing his plans for leveling up on a plan of endless economic growth that will lead to humanities extinction. all the small coming up in today's going underground with 1st in the past 24 hours g, 20 leaders, as well as the united nations. the i'm after the world bank met to discuss the situation in afghanistan ahead of moscow summit next wednesday. one man who has seen every site of this crisis and has been intimately involved in negotiations with the international community and the taliban, is afghanistan's former finance minister, omar zacko, while he was a key player in the draft can dialog before the full of cobble and as previously served as the countries ambassador to pakistan. he joins me now from his timble. thank you so much, your ambassador for coming on the show. i mean, i should just start the scores were killed on friday attributed to the isis k mosque bomb. a british and american citizens have been told by their governments

not to go near the serena hotel and cobble a favorite of ex pats. amidst all this, what have you thought about the g 20 a virtual conference in rome? when the only thing i can expect and hope to see is a firm commitment for humanitarian assistance to understand the human genome situation, no doubt is diet. aside in the deeper economic crisis right now, it certainly is not just a minute here. it's also the responsibility of the international community to respond to the current economic in humanity and difficulties in our country. well, you can, but i mean, as far as chances on holiday monday, i don't know whether he's working from there. they say, is the european union,

apparently, altogether $1000000000.00 euros a tiny, tiny fraction of the cost of the water, nato countries which runs into trillions, variously variously quoted. have you been in conversations with joe biden about afghanistan? what, what does he like? what is his attitude? to afghanistan, i've known him, i've been in conversation with him since 2007 in many, many meetings was former president. and as well as a former president of me. yes. when he stays to be a lot of does it stand? i would say in different and i really often says, how is a son served in the u. s. military, we know thousands, tens of thousands killed or injured on the american. so i learned hundreds of thousands of afghans was a really indifferent. well,

even if you say you heard him back in 2008, 910, and his heart was not in the u. s. effort in afghanistan, he was not a very supportive. and he stated it even back then. and that the level of engagement of the u. s a son was not something that he was and off. and when he began the president, he showed that amid unfair because that meant, as we now know, he just didn't support the surge. that obama was supporting. he said that obama that we're using a young president does me when they did that surgeon 2010. i mean the read out from the meeting of this to have canister meeting in the past 24 hours. he says from the biden statement, the leaders discuss critical need to maintain laser focus, enduring counter terrorism efforts, including against threats or my sis. i, sis k. we wouldn't who is who funds isis. k. is it related to the isis,

the britain in the united states. de facto supported against us, out of syria, or is it not at all connected with that isis? and if not, why is it called isis? and then k, we don't really know, be honest with you, even when i was a niece of mine, is that in my own home province, i mean it was a mistake for the prior to that, a lot of number of the i see one of the back is tiny and members, and i did turn in to be the ice in surgery, no doubt. after the fall of the dropping of the mileage off all bombs, you need to understand the rigid publicity. give it to die. he attracted certainly maybe more committed members from regional countries

including pakistan and iran, and others a lethal force. and so actually donald trump catalyzed isis k. yeah. but what i'm saying is it, it doesn't mean a mysterious and particularly the funding of it because i'm in which they operate in the people who interacted with them. in fact, they came to the outskirts of my village and i personally got involved in defending my village by supporting or villages not to allow them to enter the village. there were only 5 kilometers from my village and that of the ability to take over by them . last month i went to my mom's grave, which was demolished by skin personally affected by it. but still it remains a mystery that's. that's unbelievable. given that is the 1st name check in president biden's g 20 summit. read out statement goes on to say we want to provide

humanitarian assistance directly to the african people through independent international organizations. promote fundamental human rights. i mean, there are independent organ stations are there. i mean, we heard from some people that the entire war, the purpose of it was to recycle us treasury money through the military, industrial complex, benefiting weapons companies back in home with her in britain of the united states . do you trust to africans trust any motive from the powers that invaded your country? really to when you are handling, when you are in dire need? you don't really go for a lot of your origins in the pope was in the more the welcome for, for the system you went in for an ss and corruption un does that. you know the gun, the government, you've been critical of that. i mean, yes, that just stand up. i mean,

i know people are now discrediting the story in the past few hours about after i've gone to a $169000000.00 in cash out the country, presumably you don't agree with that. and you don't know about that. how much of the monetary name gets stolen? it's not just even if you take the ceiling aside, it was when you want to trickle down to the people, still the admin cost is quite high. my one expectation will be $1000000000.00 committed on may. if there is no action and bob still 50 percent of this will give to the people. so another 50 percent minimum would admin cost into the last that i did by half in that, in the $90.00. we'll get that. but we'll still work on that because, i mean, yeah, yeah, and that's so sort of underlying, realizes that we, you know, we had, we had the brother of the so called lion of pen jay who, who died 2 days before 911 and one message on the program he's, he's been saying,

i don't know where the laugh or cry at the saying britain now can play a very constructive role. even replace the u. s. in afghanistan, he wants intelligence agencies there. what did you make of those initial reports after the fall of gobble that the valley was going to be the start of a new resistance back by the cia and who knows in my 6 to overthrow the taliban? i certainly do not support that. we certainly would want a. ready to go through a political settlement in negotiation engagement. we've had enough of these games in the past 4 years and they have led to nothing. and then now my naming or calling it is, i don't believe in what i want, i believe in engagement. and that's why i'm based in talk all i'm committed to remaining and i'm not on my own political independent thinking. i challenge a certain dollar bonds policy, particularly do it on women and women and also political inclusivity. but i do that

in public and me in the, the situation and what is good enough for me to be operating in stating that position. and if it's good enough for me, it could be good enough for a while. i did meet them when they were getting out of cobbling about when i was returning of the part of that. so i did talk to them. i told them and encourage them that we should actually engage with the taliban and try to return to top one. and take a position, a political position, and dad. it's more of the politics that i believe in because we have been tried. i've failed and they're going to feel again, well, i don't know. in fact, there's no one's really talking about that now anyway, to presume we're going back to cobble we get the taliban on this show. but of course, as you know very well, they're very diplomatic. the way they speak,

even about the fact that women's education of polling things we're hearing about girls schools be on the age of 12. what id like to negotiate and talk things out with the tell them. and i mean, do they think britain in the united states has a b role in helping? again, a start, i mean, britain is currently sending a warship to neighbors of afghanistan, china, and threatening iran, just like joe biden has been threatening. of course, iran as a border as well with afghanistan. well, i know that without international recognition, particularly by with they're going to be no financial that always the african budget depend on or developmental work, another study. so then they're not going to see that. but why, why do you want that? i mean, you presume that's what you're going to be saying and cobble, but we know what happens to developing countries. you take, i m f and world bank money currently, currently frozen, it has to be said,

why you seeking money from the very countries that ordinary african seas is committing atrocities. i mean, before you get the money, shouldn't you be investigating things like the atrocity on 18th of october 2012, the lawyer bag massacre of children by british troops as a lead, whether b, b, c, and sunday times countless atrocities, as ordinary africans think about rather than you technocratic talk about income. but go say that to somebody who tonight does not have the money to feed their children. what? so what you, what do you say is absolutely important, as might happen? it should happen by the same time was urgent is urgent. urgent is feeding the people we are going to population. and if it's from the same people who you mention, i've done this estella. again, if you see people we would welcome in. we'll encourage but not only sort of encourage you that you wanted a responsibility. because the,

the situation in which i wanted to ask people, it is a situation that is brought down on these people largely by the international community we've been, we've been, we've been of the international games, unfortunately, we've been played with. and that's where we are today. and that's certainly the more responsibility of the international community to do. he owns what it is to help us feed are people even though of course, many of the things that you are accurate or just very finally briefly. there's another summit next wednesday. moscow, should you not me just even, even though as you say there are people not being able to eat tonight, a 1000000 children at risk of starvation isn't it time now to seek money? humanitarian aid from china, russia, iran, which was so many african refugees and turn your back on the i m f world bank froze money, which is giving you nothing right now when we don't expect the nation from china or

russia already run. even even be sort of a small percentage of the broader the international systems and understand need ended up money. and china certainly has play support in russia is also explicit readiness. but again, money comes in the amount they're willing to pay pounds at house. but it's not going to be even close to 2 significant and well, thank you. thank you. after the break is you came by minister mars johnson holiday, and marcia leveling up to catastrophe. as communist china scott 15, the world's largest by diversity conference in a decade. we ask ecological economists to jackson who sustainability can only exist, post capitalism, all this more coming up about 2 of going underground. join me

every thursday on the alex salmon. sure. and i'll be speaking to guess on the world politics sport. business. i'm sure business. i'll see you then. ah ah, welcome back in the last 48 hours she didn't bring vladimir putin. prince charles and others have been speaking at this week's world leaders. cop 15,

somebody by diversity given little publicity by nature nation media with a 5th of the world's countries now facing ecosystems collapse. is it time to look again at the impact of new liberal growth? what with the u. s. a. c o. 2 emissions per capita, double those of china. earlier, i was joined outside of the studio by ecological economist, him, jackson, author of post growth life off to capitalism. tim, welcome to going underground. before we get to what your book says about corona virus and happiness, i've got to ask you because g d p numbers come out every couple of weeks. what have journalist got upside down when? i think every single journalist in this country lead loan around the world according to your book, gets it completely wrong when covering the statistic. you with success with gdc number a quarter after quarter. is it going up? is it going down? what's it doing? but actually, and this is where my book actually starts, is that we've known since robert kennedy, at least in 1968, the g d p is just not

a very good number. you know, it's kind of measures lots of things which are actually causing damage to, to us and to society, into the planet. and it leaves out a whole bunch of things that actually really matter to us like our relationships and our friendships and, and the work that we put in to look after our kids and so on and so forth. and so there is, is actually quite a, you know, now there's, there's an emerging consensus that is just the wrong thing to, to, to be measuring. and robert kennedy back in the day actually said, you know, it measures everything. sure. except that which makes life worthwhile, which is a kind of quite profound criticism of a number that everybody's chasing all the time. well, we're getting the g b and why it's not the best measure happens in a 2nd. but even if you were to believe g d p was a good measure of human happiness, you say you've lost count of the number of attempts to get the average growth

before the 28. what the chinese goal, the western economic crisis. even before then, it misses the point e actually, i mean i think, you know, one of one of the reasons why this critique of to the g d p is now being taken a little bit more seriously. is because it's become the gross that we've been looking for in that number has begun to go away. and as, as you say, you know, lots of nations to the financial crisis. and my analysis actually says something different. it's been going away since about the mid 19 sixty's for the advanced economy is the growth rates been slowing down? and actually, before the pandemic was slowing down almost point to 0 in a country like the, the a. and yet we go on believing that our future should progress our sense of prosperity depends on making that number bigger and bigger all the time. and in trying to make it bigger. while it's resolutely going down with crazy damage in

society, that's one of the sort of foundational arguments that i've, that i've been drawing out. of course i got to ask you why than a journalist partaking of this myth and promoting the myth in the 1st place. i mean, is there some sort of strong lobby to prevent us understanding the significance of what g d p really refers to? and there are lots of reasons why i mean, i think the most persuasive fun and it's a really important one in a way. we believe and under certain circumstances we can't have jobs for everyone unless we have a growing economy. and you know, there's a kind of a reason behind that which is that we as come this country is kind of obsess about labor productivity growth about doing things more and more efficiently with people and different things kind of more efficiently each year. so each, let's say each worker can produce more in each hour of work next year and the year

after and the year after that it just goes going, getting more and more efficient. unless we produce more economy, then that means people are going to be out of the job. so that pursuits a productivity, actually either you either have to count that by growing the whole economy, or you have to look at a way of employing less people having sure to working hours. or perhaps even this is a radical suggestion, slowing down the works and instead of everybody having to work harder and harder, maybe we work better and better. we focus on quality rather than quantity output. and in fact, our working lives can be transformed by thinking differently about is gross question. that's one of the fascinating things is that when you start to unravel what's wrong with an economy that's driven by grace in the g p. u, you inevitably have to delve down into the fabric of society and figure out where

we got those concepts wrong. why? for example, we ask our nurse the more and more patience why teachers have to teach bigger and bigger classes. why everything is forced into this prism of economic growth and, and, and you also open up the possibility of saying actually wouldn't life be a little bit better a little bit easier if we were able to work a little bit more slowly with quality rather than quantity as our guide, but i suppose, you know, the class war that is referred to in this book and i mean people have criticized g d p for decades in my life i'm divorce and death is good for the g. p numbers measuring. i happened, it hasn't just been a passive acceptance that as you say it more efficiency gains mean happen is, this is all good for us as we look at a passive acceptance in western european countries, and that's the way it is. it's just not gonna change as,

as we started by saying it's on the news. g d, b is up. that's good for us. yeah, i mean there has been a passive acceptance. i think that's, that's true. i'm not someone who believes that things don't change. i think they change constantly and they change the progress of ideas to the progress of our understanding by becoming better societies by caring more about each other by concentrating on the things that really matter. and, and the problem with the g p is, it's become a kind of own stultified me, that the more is better. and that has begun to undermine the things that matter and it undermines it, not just, you know, in the kind of obvious ways that we measuring the wrong things in our lives. it undermines it by making our lives more crowd more busy, more acquisitive. and that in its turn, begins to erode the values that connects us to each other. and that's, i think, is in my principal problem with it in a way,

my principal problem with the way that we organize a society around grace is it, it begins to create a, a less rich society in terms of social connection in terms of meaning in terms of purpose in terms of care as it, as it goes along where patients li, growing and growing and using up resources from the planet and undermining human relationships. and i think that's tragic. i think it's the point at which we have to say ideas don't go on forever. they all to change and that changing all the time . and we need to think about how that change occurs and what we want for society and ignoring for a moment the a vast proportion of the earth you might be watching right now who happened to be on the dollar a day. you talk about diet, mental health. these issues are crucially intertwined with g d. p growth. yeah, i mean national, that's a really important points in a way we shouldn't, we don't, and we, and i don't in the book, ignore those people for whom growth really,

really masses. but the reality is that even as we have in as 2000000000 people, almost still undernourished, we have more people dying from obesity and the disease is all over nutrition than we do dying from malnutrition. and that's an extraordinary state of affairs. the while there are people still desperately poor who do need that gross income in order to have decent lives. we in the western world, in particular, still pursuing a model which suggests that we have more and more. and even as you suggested in something as basic as food and diet, more and more does not lead to a person that actually leads to a less healthy person. and that, and that health risk has cost to society to individuals. and indeed, ultimately to the economy that are not being recognized in the existing model. so.

so it's, it's in a way it's, it's more to me and it's a fundamental principle in the book is more to me about thinking about where the balance lies between having more and having less and suggesting that in the western model. in particular, we've got that balance roll for food companies, want to say, we have to do that for competition. and i know you talk about different readings of darwin. and what about boris johnson then saying it's greed and capitalism with the inference. it's his growth model that allowed britain to be vaccinated far more than any other country. why do you think it's extraordinary? i mean, this is a re sing for an intelligent person to say, and i assume that verse is at least slightly intelligent because otherwise you wouldn't become prime minister. and he writes, you know, and really as an intelligent person with the richness of ideas and an understanding of history. and so i find that extraordinary that he would come out with something like that. and particularly because, you know, it's a miss really,

that's been busted for, for so long. the idea of adam smith's invisible hand, you know, through everybody's selfishness, we get to the social progress of society. i mean, it's something that's been said for 250 years. so, boris didn't just come up with it, but i failed to see entirely how he could look at what happened in the crisis and say that we saved ourselves 3 grade. i just don't believe that happened through the pandemic. we saved ourselves through the hard work and dedication of front line workers who had been neglected for decades. these conditions of work were precarious, and yet who still turned out day to day to provide food to care for patients to care for the dying that had nothing to me to do with greed. and of course, you can argue, if you create this greedy culture and capitalism, then you're going to get lots of people competing to make a vaccine to sold the current a virus crisis. the reality is actually the astrazeneca, from the beginning said,

we're not going to make profits from this. we're actually going to do this because we believe it's the right thing to do. it was science, it was integrity, but it's good. it's good. it's good. p r a, which is good enough for this country i just finally, before anyone gives up hope, just very briefly on, on what the corona virus found because taught us about the way capitalism can change. journal sixpence. what it definitely is, is that there are points in time points in our lives points in society where health actually is the priority rather than wealth. then it's almost as simple as that that, that we had to decide when the pandemic stroke. that's what we had to focus on, and that's the, one of the most fundamental learnings i think from, from the pandemic, is that sometimes it's help that matters and not wealth. but we also learned how much we had neglected. the people who protected us the people who actually allowed

us to, to pursue, helps to achieve how to protect health, and how much as if you like corns in a game in which gross was the ultimate master. they had been left to one side for way too long, and yet they turned out to be the most important people in society. so in a sense, as we learned those lessons, we did do something to protect them. we did do something more to value them. we did create conditions which were not about growth, but we're actually about protection of health, the protection of frontline workers. and what i want from, as we recover from this tragic year also, is that we remember those lessons and we think more clearly and more cleverly, actually about how to protect those frontline services that really matter in terms of creating a genuine prosperity that is based around the health of, of the individual of the health of the community, the health of society, and indeed the health of the planet. i'm jackson. thank you. ledger tim jackson

speaking to me earlier and that's for the show will be back on saturday. 59 years to the day of the start of the cuban missile crisis and 57 years in china responded to the u. s. u k. war that killed 20 percent of korea's population by designating its 1st nuclear weapon until then keep in touch with social media and let us know if you think capitalism and fighting climate change are compatible. with. with the world is driven by trainers shaped banks. concur some of those with

there's sinks, we dare to ask in ah, relatives of u. k. co, good, big timber voice, the anger at the government for parliamentary inquiry, find great mistakes, led to thousands of preventable that we've got stop letting these born to rule. as a private school, people run things, they don't understand. why is it that we allow, i minister, not that you know common sense to run a serious pun, dented, german city of cologne, give us the greenlight to broadcast. it was.