Is there a role for carbon credits in a just transition to net zero? | TED Countdown Dilemma Series

Did you have a position on carbon credits coming into today?

Tamara Toles O'Laughlin: Yeah. No, the position is no.

John Kilani: There must be something important in carbon markets,

otherwise, people would have given up long ago.

Nat Keohane: So I came in today thinking,

as a tool, carbon markets, carbon credits can be really valuable

in creating the kind of economic incentives we need.

Julio Friedmann: Today, the carbon markets have no supply,

no demand, no transparency, no regulation.

Other than that, they're perfect.

Donnel Baird: You buy a carbon offset from a forest

but now the forest has burned down

or they were going to chop the tree down but they didn't, and then they did.

Nili Gilbert: We know that we need carbon removals to scale dramatically.

Al Gore: Different points of view can add to the collective wisdom.

Inés Yábar: We'll work better if we work together.

How do we generate those connections that together move us forward?

James Dyke: The concern that I’ve got about net zero,

you're probably going to disagree about this,

it might be taking away some of the sense of urgency.

JF: We can be optimistic or we can be pessimistic.

But the work looks the same.

Is there anything that struck you about carbon credits

or carbon markets that you want to talk about?

AG: Well, I'll wait until the session is over

to give us some considered opinions on that.

[TED Countdown Dilemma Series]

[Is there a role for carbon credits in the transition to a fair,]

[net zero future?]

Lindsay Levin: Throughout the world,

we find ourselves faced with self-inflicted

and interconnected problems

that challenge our social fabric,

our economic security,

and the very ability of the Earth to sustain us.

We're certainly not short on ideas to address these problems.

But we often get caught up in arguments against one another

vying for supremacy instead of deciding on a course of action.

So how can we move forward?

It begins by acknowledging the difference between choices and dilemmas.

Some decisions come down to choice.

You weigh the alternatives, decide and move on.

But often, complex situations need both/and thinking instead of either/or.

They require us to hold competing values together

rather than make straightforward choices.

We call these dilemmas.

I'm Lindsay Levin, co-founder of TED Countdown.

And this is why we launched our Dilemma Series.

To look at some of the thorniest issues in the climate space

and see how, through deep listening and collaboration,

we find pathways forward.

In our first Dilemma event,

we tackled the question

Is there a role for carbon credits in accelerating the transition

to a fair net-zero world?

David Biello: First, let's start with some definitions.

A carbon credit is a tradable permit

that usually represents one ton of carbon,

either not emitted or removed from the atmosphere.

Carbon offsetting is the practice of buying carbon credits

to compensate for carbon emissions generated elsewhere.

Carbon markets are where carbon credits are bought, sold and priced.

Net zero refers to a theoretical state

in which overall human-produced carbon emissions are equivalent to zero

because any ongoing emissions have been compensated

or offset by removals.

LL: We're going to take you on a journey.

We'll explore why so many people have lost faith in how carbon markets

and net-zero targets operate in practice.

We'll hear from people working in frontline communities

to protect and restore nature and safeguard livelihoods.

And to close, we'll talk about solutions.

We hope this film will speak to those working in sustainability and beyond.

Whether you're directly able to influence the supply

or demand side of carbon markets,

or you're just interested in how we solve the climate crisis,

these issues affect us all.

Let's start by hearing about some of the promises and pitfalls

in a conversation between TED's David Biello

and Gilles Dufrasne of Carbon Market Watch.

DB: Now, carbon credits are being used as a big tool

to neutralize otherwise growing emissions.

Are they working?

Gilles Dufrasne: So my short answer to this would be that they're not.

First, because there is a major concern

around the actual quality of those credits.

They're each supposed to represent a full ton of CO2

that's been reduced or removed and permanently stored.

But in reality,

many of those credits actually don't represent that full ton of CO2.

In addition to that,

many credits are used in inappropriate ways by companies.

For example, a company that would make a net-zero claim,

a carbon neutrality claim for a specific product,

but with these claims actually only covering 10 or 20 or 50 percent

of the total emissions of that company or of the good.

And this ultimately is misleading.

It's misleading to the public, it's misleading to regulators,

it's misleading to business partners.

It gives the impression that these companies,

this product doesn't have a net-negative impact on the climate,

when in reality it certainly does.

DB: So what does it mean

when a company says it has neutralized the emissions

from its products or activities?

GD: Well, in most cases it means

the company has purchased a certain number of carbon credits,

but there is a lot of unclarity

around the actual quality of those credits,

what do they represent

as well as the share of total emissions that's really being covered,

that's really being compensated through the purchase of these credits.

And this issue of clarity, of transparency.

And so I think that's really something

that we need to seriously address right now

in the current context of a booming market

where there is a lot of interest,

a lot of investment in growing it quantitatively.

If we don't address the quality dimension of it,

we're going to grow a system in which there's not going to be any trust

or that trust is progressively going to erode

and ultimately that will destroy the value of the system itself.

DB: Sounds like something called greenwashing.

Can you give us some particularly egregious examples

of that kind of activity?

GD: Yeah, I think, you know,

carbon-neutral fossil fuels is an obvious one ...

(Laughter and applause)

... that many of you will certainly have had heard of.

I mean, to me, it's just an oxymoron,

it makes no sense.

It is flawed conceptually and practically.

At a conceptual level,

it gives the impression that we can continue to burn fossil fuels

in the way we’ve been doing it for decades --

exactly what has landed us in the crisis we are in today --

and that somehow, magically we can do this

without having a net impact on climate.

And that is fundamentally misleading, and it’s damaging.

It is harmful to our collective willingness

to adopt the behavioral changes and the costly investments

that we need to adopt

in order to transition to a safer planet.

LL: While we can agree

that cutting greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible is our ultimate goal,

the idea of net zero has inspired some pretty vigorous debate.

Here's Professor James Dyke

of the University of Exeter with his concerns.

JD: Within just a few years,

net zero has become the anchor concept

for the world's plans to avoid disaster.

It sounds simple enough.

Its central premise is that the risks of climate change

is that there is too much carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere.

So it follows, we must stop emitting more

and even remove some of it.

Hopefully by the middle of this century,

any residual emissions will be balanced by technologies

that remove carbon from the atmosphere.

But by introducing carbon removals into climate policies,

we have set a trap

because it is incredibly seductive to rely on carbon removals in the future

instead of rapid decarbonization now.

It gives the impression we are acting,

so businesses don't need to change their models

and governments don't need to propose bold action.

What this means is that it is now almost inevitable

that we will be entering a warmer and more dangerous world.

How did this happen?

How did the idea of net zero become so compromised, so corrupted?

A key moment for the development of net zero was the 2015 Paris Agreement.

The overall objective of this landmark climate treaty

was that global warming should be limited to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius

to reduce the risks of devastating impacts.

Many scientists, including myself,

were very skeptical that this was possible,

given the absence of radical proposals.

But there was also a deep sense of responsibility

to try to make the Paris Agreement work.

They soon discovered

it was impossible to get their models to decarbonize as fast as 1.5 required

if one assumed continuous economic growth.

The only way to make the models work was by introducing carbon removal.

More recently, attention has turned to DAC: direct air capture.

This would strip out carbon dioxide molecules directly from the air

and then pump them to underground storage sites.

The technology is interesting,

but attempts to scale up DAC face two fundamental challenges.

First, the process is extremely energy intensive,

requiring significant amounts of electricity

and sometimes natural gas to run.

Second, safely storing carbon dioxide is not a trivial enterprise.

It's likely to be the case that every carbon storage site

will need to be carefully tailored to the specific geological circumstances

at the injection sites.

Now such concerns with carbon removal are sometimes brushed away

with the sheer enthusiasm that surrounds these technologies.

The assumption appears to be that large-scale carbon removal will work

because it has to work.

Even if we assume these technologies do emerge at scale,

it's likely they will be very expensive to run.

Some studies estimate many trillions of US dollars

to no evident economic benefit,

since it's about clearing up carbon pollution and hiding it underground.

The time has come for us to voice our fears about net zero policies,

and that begins by leveling with the public

about the Paris Agreement.

At the moment, we are desperately trying to manage the narrative

and adjusting models

in order to avoid acknowledging that the Paris Agreement is failing.

A 2021 survey conducted by the science journal Nature

found that a majority of IPCC climate scientists who responded

thought we were heading towards a catastrophic

three degrees Celsius of warming.

Only four percent thought limiting to 1.5 was likely.

We can avoid climate catastrophe, but I fear we won't

if we don't confront our wishful thinking around net zero.

DB: As you can see,

carbon markets are not uniformly delivering what they promise,

and many believe they may actually be making things worse.

However, they are potentially a mechanism to provide investment

in vital natural solutions

and if done differently,

could bring significant money to people and places that need it.

Here is Kavita Prakash-Mani of Mandai Nature

to talk about ways to ensure that local communities

benefit from this growing industry.

Kavita Prakash-Mani: Let me start by saying that a ton of carbon

is not just a ton of carbon.

It embodies in it natural protection,

community interests and benefits,

as well as helping save us from disastrous climate change.

We have a lot of nature-based conservation organizations protecting

and restoring our ecosystems,

and they are all wondering

how they can be part of this carbon market.

Their ability to monetize carbon that they sequester

will be crucial for their long-term survival

and the impact that we all want.

After all, nature and climate are two sides of the same coin.

However, to get to those opportunities,

we need to address some really systemic challenges.

Take, for example, the technical aspects that we have on any carbon credit:

additionality, permanence, no leakage, baselining,

all very difficult concepts for these small organizations.

Add to that measurement and verification.

How do we get pre-feasibility studies,

feasibility studies, project development?

How do these small organizations take on these high costs

when the price of carbon is very low to deliver these documentation?

But that's not the problem with the larger players.

And there's a systemic imbalance of power.

Larger NGOs, companies, project developers

all have access to international markets and institutional finance.

The smaller organizations see the opportunity

but just do not have the means to tap into it.

We should also look one level higher, at governments.

Take, for instance, Indonesia,

a country with the highest potential

of carbon mitigation from nature-based solutions.

It's the third-largest tropical forest.

It has a coastline with mangroves,

and it has 15 to 30 million hectares of peatland.

But the government has restricted any new projects from being developed

or carbon credits from being sold to the international market.

This has merit because, after all,

developing countries also need to meet their nationally determined contributions,

and they do not have to sell cheap credits to developed countries

that have already destroyed part of their environment

or companies that are not decarbonizing.

However, it does restrict international finance from going into conservation

and into communities.

Some countries are trying to get the market to work.

In Asia, that's Vietnam and Cambodia.

But we still do not have the right market mechanisms to ensure that it's equitable,

safe and the impact that we want.

DB: As Kavita said, a ton of carbon is not just a ton of carbon.

To build on that,

here's Susan Chomba of the World Resources Institute Africa,

to talk in more detail about all the things we miss

when we think too narrowly about carbon benefits

and nothing else.

Susan Chomba: So I'm going to talk to you

about all the elements about carbon markets

that have got nothing to do with carbon.

Our forests, peatlands and oceans are more than the carbon that they store.

They're the foundation of livelihoods of billions of people

who depend on them directly and indirectly.

They provide the hydrological functions that ensure we have rivers, we have lakes

and that we can grow food successfully.

They are home to biodiversity.

They are also home to indigenous people

who protect them with their blood, sweat and tears.

So when we lose these ecosystems,

the livelihoods of local communities

and Indigenous people are adversely affected.

When you look at the way we designed the carbon markets,

we designed them with various assumptions.

First of all,

carbon markets perpetuate the notion

that our forests and peatlands are all about carbon.

They overlook the ecosystem services that these ecosystems provide,

such as clean water, healthy and nutritious food,

biodiversity and its related services

such as pollination, pest control

and even nitrogen fixation.

Companies are prepared to pay for carbon

because it helps them to tick either their compliance box

or the public relation boxes.

But rarely do we couple that

with the other ecosystem services

that these natural ecosystems are providing.

Carbon markets perpetuate the notion

that we can continue with our fossil fuel-driven lifestyles

and offset our externalities, and perhaps even our guilt,

on the poor local communities that are located in the Global South.

In fact, nowadays,

if a lot of projects provide a lot of ecosystem services

but are not solid on the carbon side,

they are often dismissed as poorly designed or poorly governed.

Carbon markets are based on complicated

and costly reporting and verification systems.

And these end up taking up most of the revenue

that is then coming from carbon.

And local communities get the leftovers if they are lucky.

The value and the price of carbon,

compared to alternative land uses such as mining,

fossil fuel extraction,

has been far too low for far too long.

And so what we are witnessing

is governments in the Global South continue to issue permits for mining,

for oil exploration,

in some of the most critical ecosystems: peatlands, forests.

I work a lot in the Congo Basin.

I see it every day.

LL: So we've heard what isn't working

and what existing carbon markets often miss on the ground.

Now let's dive into different ways of thinking

that could reshape the system

and actually generate the positive outcomes we want.

Here's Gabrielle Walker of Rethinking Removals.

Gabrielle Walker: I think the carbon market is immensely powerful

and immensely valuable,

and I do think we can use it as a powerful tool

for helping to solve the climate crisis.

But I've also started to think

that we've been thinking about it the wrong way.

There are three really big and important climate outcomes

that the carbon market could help with.

So there’s reducing fossil emissions as fast as possible;

there’s protecting natural carbon sinks;

and there's removing CO2 from the atmosphere.

Reduction, protection and removal.

And I found that in lots of people's minds,

those three get kind of smooshed together in one generic kind of, offset,

but it's worth separating them out

because those outcomes need different kinds of incentives.

I'll show you what I mean.

If you start with the first one,

reducing fossil emissions as fast as possible.

That's reduction credits.

Now, one problem with those

is that they don't actually neutralize emissions.

So if I put a ton of CO2 in the air,

and I pay you not to put your ton of CO2 in the air,

my ton is still there.

It doesn't get you to zero, it doesn't neutralize.

And this is the realm of quite a lot of traditional offsets.

Another issue with them, is they tend to be very cheap,

less than 20 dollars a ton.

So it can get immensely tempting just to buy loads of credits

and not do the hard work of reducing your own emissions.

And that is not where we should be putting the money.

But where reduction credits can help us

is in creating clean infrastructure

in places where it wouldn't have happened otherwise.

So if you think about it that way,

that's the outcome you're trying to get to,

then the incentives to build around reduction credits,

the highest-rated reduction credits,

will be the ones that drive money towards building clean infrastructure

in the Global South.

And the cheapest coal-fired power plant to shut down

will be the one in the Global South that was never built in the first place.

OK, so that's the first one.

Second one, protecting natural carbon sinks.

Now, these already exist in the carbon market,

like the reduction credits.

And like reduction credits, they don't neutralize emissions.

I put a ton of CO2 in the air,

you stop a ton coming out from a sink,

my ton's still in the air.

They also tend to get smooshed together.

There isn’t a separate category called protection credits -- yet.

And I think it's worth separating them out

because it's hugely important to drive money

towards protecting those sinks,

rain forests, peatlands.

So then what incentives do you build around?

What are the highest-rated protection credits?

They'd be the ones maybe with the biggest carbon stores,

maybe the ones that are most vulnerable,

maybe the ones that protect the most biodiversity,

maybe the ones that drive the money towards the communities

that are actually there husbanding and protecting those stores.

OK, third category, we’ve heard a lot about this,

third category: removal credits.

That's taking a ton of CO2 out of the atmosphere and keeping it out.

So unlike the other two categories of credit,

removals credits really do neutralize emissions.

If I put a ton of CO2 in the air,

I pay you to remove a ton,

you get to zero

because what goes up does come down.

Those are the only category of credits that can be used to claim net zero.

None of the others can do it.

They do already exist in the carbon market,

really tiny percentage of the total.

And we're going to need an awful lot more of them.

So at the moment,

every year we're removing durably maybe 100,000 tons of CO2.

And according to the IPCC,

carbon removals are now unavoidable to get to net zero by 2050.

And by 2050,

we're going to have to be removing billions of tons.

So to get from a 100,000 tons to billions of tons,

we're going to have to start really small in this almost nonexistent industry

and scale it up to the gigaton scale, affordably,

without causing other undesirable side effects

and making sure that these removals are real.

And we've got to get the cost down very quickly

the way that we did for solar and wind.

So that's the objective,

that's the outcome that we're trying to achieve.

DB: So that's a way to reorganize our overall thinking

around carbon credits.

But how should companies reshape their thinking?

Here is Derik Broekhoff of the Stockholm Environment Institute.

Derik Broekhoff: Net zero has become the dominant paradigm

for climate ambition.

Many countries have announced net-zero targets,

and so many companies are doing the same.

Today, I want to challenge the idea

that companies should emphasize achieving net zero for themselves

rather than focus on how best to contribute to global net zero.

I like the way Carbone 4 frames it:

"'A company is not carbon neutral.

It contributes to neutrality."

Let me explain why I believe it's essential to make this distinction.

Current net-zero frameworks presume that companies should imitate,

at a corporate level, what must happen globally.

That is, reduce their own emissions as far as possible

and balance out the emissions that remain with carbon dioxide removals.

Yet this notion is already leading to a perverse effect

on how companies spend their mitigation dollars.

According to at least one study,

just a handful of companies have already pledged more removals

than the entire world could provide.

At a global level,

removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere

will be essential for limiting global warming.

As the IPCC, for example, has made abundantly clear.

But having corporate actors purchase removals in bulk

to achieve their own mini versions of net zero

misses the forest for the trees.

The world desperately needs to reduce emissions.

To move the world towards net zero,

companies would do better in the near term to both reduce their own emissions

and help others do the same.

First, focus on the big picture.

The idea of achieving net zero at a corporate level is self-centered.

We need to change the narrative from:

“We’re no longer part of the problem if we’ve neutralized our emissions,”

to “We are part of a global solution to climate change.”

This means not just imitating what needs to happen globally,

but instead taking actions that beneficially advance

a global net-zero outcome,

including by prioritizing emission reductions over removals

in the near term.

Second, put equity front and center.

From a scientific perspective,

there's no reason why the correct level of emissions

for any given actor should be net zero.

What is fair and feasible could be net positive,

zero or negative emissions.

Companies should focus on making equitable contributions to global goals,

including through near-term support for emission reductions

outside their value chains.

Third, connect with larger policy efforts.

No company acting on its own can solve the climate crisis.

We urgently need to focus attention on collective action.

Companies that are truly committed to net zero

need to support climate policies at all levels of government

and internationally

that advance an equitable, comprehensive and coordinated global transition.

LL: We know many people think carbon credits

and the idea of net zero are deeply flawed.

But do they have to be?

In our next talk,

Annette Nazareth of the Integrity Council for Voluntary Carbon Markets

lays out a set of required core principles

to build a market that delivers robust, quantifiable

and climate-positive outcomes.

Annette Nazareth: Our starting point for the voluntary carbon market

is that it exists to accelerate a just transition to 1.5 degrees.

It is an important complementary tool to mobilize billions of dollars

that wouldn't otherwise be available

into climate mitigation that wouldn't otherwise happen.

But it will only deliver on that promise

if it is rooted in high integrity.

An important thing to know about the voluntary carbon markets

is that it is, as its name suggests, voluntary.

It's driven by private sector actors,

and it's not regulated by governments or by financial authorities.

But unregulated cannot mean chaotic or opaque.

I spent much of my career as a markets regulator,

and I know markets.

And I know that there are some who think

that markets are always looking for some new product to hawk.

And today, that product is carbon.

That's why in designing an effective market,

we have to start with integrity.

These core carbon principles, which we call CCPs,

will address the most critical elements of credit quality.

They include additionality,

permanence, robust quantification,

validation and verification,

no double-counting,

transition to net zero emissions

and sustainable development impacts and safeguards.

So let me unpack those a bit.

Additionality.

Additionality means that the emission reduction or emission

wouldn't have happened without the revenue from carbon credits.

Permanence means that those reductions and removals will stand the test of time.

And if they don't, they will be fully compensated.

An example of that would be a forestry project

that issues carbon credits that is then destroyed in a wildfire.

Robust quantification means that the impact of the credits

is accurately measured and accounted for conservatively

based on solid science.

Validation and verification means

that the numbers are genuine and meaningful

and are validated and verified by an accredited body

that has the integrity to do that job robustly.

No double-counting means

that a carbon credit is registered and issued only once,

and the emissions reductions and removals that that credit generates

will only be claimed by one party.

Meanwhile,

our colleagues at the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative, the VCMI,

are working on similar standards that will address credible claims

so that we can come to a common understanding

that carbon credits will only count

if they are used as a complementary tool within a legitimate net-zero pathway.

If we have integrity

in the supply of credits,

how they are traded and how they are used,

then a powerful price signal will emerge.

LL: The Dilemma Series was born out of a strong conviction

that when reasonable people disagree,

the way out is not to dismiss one side over another,

but in fact to hold and value different points of view

and see what we can generate together.

In dilemma thinking, this is called the resolution zone,

and reaching it is vital if we are going to make real progress on climate.

Let's hear again from some leading voices who we invited to share ideas,

ask questions and engage in productive debate.

NG: In my inbox, every day, are the debates in the climate community

about how exactly we're going to get this done.

And the debates are important

because this is the hardest problem that we've ever faced.

And so we have to have open ears,

even more open perhaps to our critics than to the ones who agree with us

because we have so much to figure out at

TTO: I had a good conversation about how,

as much as I would like to pretend we're going to get there on climate

because of trust and relationships,

we've wasted all the time for that

so we really need to get there by alignment.

If we can agree to a few things

that lead to not dying on a fiery gas ball,

I will build my relationships on the way to that.

NK: We heard in the first sessions about how to make sure

that the carbon market is working for people on the ground

and communities on the ground

who didn't do anything to contribute to climate change

are going to be often the most vulnerable to bearing the brunt of its impacts.

They're not thinking about the carbon market,

we heard that from Susan Chomba from her work in Burundi,

and from Kavita Prakash-Mani from her work with smallholders in Southeast Asia.

JF: The thing that shifted my thinking the most

was the way that Annette Nazareth talked about what is necessary to create

in an integrated and high-integrity carbon market.

That level of clarity I found actually shifted my mind

in terms of structuring a market in a valuable way.

DB: There were a lot of kind of, overlapping ideas

on how to get to solutions from people who don't really agree on everything.

JD: All carbon removal proposals need to be based on robust science,

engineering and economics.

Once we have a credible total amount of carbon

that can be removed by proposed technology

that includes its capture and safe storage,

then and only then can it be included in net-zero policies and models.

GW: So to get from 100,000 tons to billions of tons,

we're going to have to start really small in this almost nonexistent industry

and scale it up to the gigaton scale

affordably without causing other undesirable side effects

of making sure that these removals are real.

KPM: On the government side, we need clear guidance and clear regulation.

SC: Good carbon markets must help us to cut emissions from the source.

We have to decarbonize our supply chains.

We have to decarbonize our economies.

We have to decarbonize our lifestyles.

TTO: I think deep listening really matters

for conversations like the ones we had today

and the ongoing thorniness of people who feel threatened

by a planet in decline trying to make decisions.

JF: The heterodoxy of perspective and opinion stimulates new ideas.

And if you start the conversations with respect and with open minds,

you get to new places.

And we had that in our breakout group, for sure.

JD: But we need a kind of grounded sense of hope and optimism,

which has got kind of rough edges and realism.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: I agree.

JD: And we somehow need to embrace those fears

because often we don't want to, right?

TRC: So I think that a stubborn and determined optimism

lies on the other side of despair.

I think you have to go through that and you have to stare into the abyss

and say: “This is possible, it may even be likely, but you know what?

I'm going to do everything I can at this moment

to be the change, to create that difference."

TTO: I've never heard so many polite people

disagree about things they hate.

I've never met so many people who hate offsets,

who are still super nice and trying to figure out what could be useful

about a thing they're not sold on.

DB: It is useful to be reminded to like, be patient, to listen, to learn,

to be open, to be warm, to be generous and kind to people

who are on my side that I disagree with.

IY: Sometimes we do need to take a step back

and not put all that pressure on our own shoulders

that we're going to find the solution.

But it’s: How do we generate those connections

that together move us forward?

And maybe one day I will be sadder and I will be less optimistic,

but someone else will bring that hope to me.

AG: When we try to reason collectively,

it's really important and valuable to recognize

that different points of view

can add to the collective wisdom.

One of the most powerful telescopes in the world

had an innovative design when it was built,

including the decision to build two virtually identical telescopes

only 60 meters apart.

If they're looking at a supernova, 100 million light years away,

it turns out that the ability to view that object

from two different points of view only 60 meters apart

on a small planet makes all the difference

in the amount of information that can be collected and processed

and used to enhance our understanding.

And the same thing is true when we try to reason together in a group.

If there are different points of view,

then the different life experiences of everyone in the group

can add to the collective wisdom

and make the group far smarter

than the smartest individual in that group.