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What is net zero? - YouTube
Channel: The Economist
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climate change
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has a new poster boy companies from
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british airways to facebook
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and pop artists like billy eilish and
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massive attack
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have promised to make changes to bring
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their greenhouse gas emissions
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closer to net zero they're joining a
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club of more than 50 countries around
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the world
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this race to zero is a vital step
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towards managing climate change
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but what does net zero really mean and
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is achieving it
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even possible
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net zero has gone viral
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but like all simple slogans the reality
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of achieving it
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is far more complicated
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humans burning fossil fuels has resulted
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in more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
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which is warming the planet
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to stop the warming the level of
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greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has
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to stop rising
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the obvious way to do that is to stop
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emitting them
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but that's easier said than done for
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some industries such as aviation and
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manufacturing
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eliminating emissions is really hard
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in the years leading up to the
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copenhagen climate conference in 2009
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scientists realized something it wasn't
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possible to cut emissions fast and
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thoroughly enough
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to meet the temperature targets that
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policy makers wanted
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what was needed was to actively remove
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greenhouse gases from the atmosphere too
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people began to talk about a world in
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which greenhouse gas emissions and
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greenhouse gas removals
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balanced each other out so that the
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overall effect
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was net zero
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the countries that signed up to the
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paris agreement pledged to turn
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this idea into reality by agreeing to
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balance their emissions and removal of
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greenhouse gases in the second half of
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the century
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to achieve net zero emissions we need to
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do two things
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one which is more obvious is to cut our
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output of greenhouse gas emissions from
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things like burning fossil fuels
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but the other is actually to take
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emissions out of the air and that's the
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harder and
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sometimes more obscure aspect of getting
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to net zero
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this is known as negative emissions and
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the scale on which they might be
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required is one reason that net zero
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targets will be hard to achieve
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we'll need to go from a world economy
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that pumps out on the order of 40
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billion tons of co2 a year
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to one that sucks down that is removes
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billions of tons per year in the future
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to get to that net zero future
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there's different ways to do this
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forests do this naturally
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through biological processes or sinks
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but what
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we're really looking at now to achieve
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ambitious climate targets
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are man-made approaches
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some methods for removing greenhouse
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gases from the atmosphere are already
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being used at scale
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such as the planting of new forests and
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improving soil
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so it can store more carbon
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but there are new technologies at a much
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earlier stage of development
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among them ways of capturing carbon
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dioxide and storing it underground
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carbon dioxide could be poured directly
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from the air by machines
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or by growing plants burning them to
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generate electricity
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and then capturing the carbon dioxide as
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they burn
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there's a flurry of innovation in
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negative emissions technologies
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a range of ambitious to wacky
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and none of them are proven at scale and
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that's what makes them so problematic
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the world is counting on innovations
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that have not yet been demonstrated at
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scale
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to achieve targets that we're setting
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for ourselves and that's a big question
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mark
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we're hopeful but it is still a risky
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bet
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how much greenhouse gas needs to be
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removed from the atmosphere
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will depend on how much emissions can be
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cut
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the conundrum that is we need both
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massive reductions in emissions as well
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as a dramatic scale up and proving
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of the technologies for negative
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emissions
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there is a tension between the two and
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it's easy for governments and industries
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to kick the can down the road
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saying well let's go a little slower on
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the cutting of emissions now
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which will be better for the economy or
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for our profits because we can always
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make
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massive negative emissions reductions
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later when
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innovation makes those technologies
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cheaper and better
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the dirty little secret in that argument
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is that it may come too late
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and it may well give permission for
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polluters to get away with polluting
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much more than need be
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rather than innovating ways to reduce
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emissions now
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there's also the question of who takes
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responsibility for each molecule of
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greenhouse gas
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one of the most difficult challenges is
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that lots of
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countries and companies and individuals
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don't want to own up to their carbon
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footprint
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for example carbon intensive countries
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like india china other emerging markets
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that are producing enormous amounts of
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emissions today
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they point out that the goods they
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produce for example may be consumed by
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americans or europeans
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so they should do the negative emissions
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or they may say
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rich countries got rich putting carbon
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dioxide into the air
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now it's our turn to lift our people out
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of poverty so you pay for the negative
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emissions
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as yet there is no universal policy for
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accounting for and attributing emissions
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today
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governmental net zero pledges cover over
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two thirds of the global economy
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america and the eu are working towards a
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target of net zero by 2050
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and president xi of china the world's
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largest emitter
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has pledged to achieve carbon neutrality
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before 2060.
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some people see ambitious climate
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targets and say fantastic
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the problem's getting solved here's the
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problem
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a target is no guarantee that we're
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going to get to the goal
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it's important to have targets it binds
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society together
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it gives you a direction in which policy
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is going to go it gives investors and
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markets
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some idea and some degree of certainty
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as to what investments to make
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however we often fall short of targets
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also we should remember
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most government policies focus on
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cutting emissions rather than how to
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tackle negative emissions
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embracing enacting and scaling a
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negative emissions plan to get to
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net zero is a herculean task
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this is something far bigger than say
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the moon shot or
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other initiatives that it's often
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compared to because this involves
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really every economy on earth every
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government
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ultimately every citizen all of us have
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to be involved
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and change the way we live and it's not
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just a technological revolution
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we need a revolution in our mindsets
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i'm vijay vadis warren the economist
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global energy
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and climate innovation editor to keep up
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to date with all of our climate change
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coverage
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please click on the link thanks for
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watching
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and don't forget to subscribe
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