's irresponsible rebellion means the government cannot continue. he may not be ready to step aside yet. he may try to put together another coalition government. in hong kong, protesters have projected chief executive carrie lam's attempt to meet one of their demands. promised to look into the causes of the protest and how police responded. the move falls short of what demonstrators demanded, but indicates a softening of her stance. russia has resumed sharing data from its radiation monitoring stations in siberia after some were taken off-line following a deadly explosion at a missile range earlier this month, according to a weapons watchdog. russian authorities have not provided clear or consistent information about the accident. that has led to speculation about what happened and what type of weapon was involved. in thed has died down

canary islands in spain, allowing firefighters to make headway in battling the massive firefighters. -- fires. emergency workers evacuated more than 9000 people. the fire, described as a monster, began on saturday. global news 24 hours a day, on-air, and @tictoc on twitter, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. i'm mark crumpton. this is bloomberg. york,: it is 1:00 in new 6:00 in london, 1:00 a.m. in hong kong. i'm vonnie quinn. welcome to "bloomberg markets." from bloomberg world headquarters in new york, here are the top stories we are following. show me the slow down.

boston fed president eric rosengren says it is not up to the fed to make up for weakness in other economies. we will look at sentiment heading into this week's jackson hole symposium. watchdogs are rolling out the long anticipated overhaul of the volcker rule. streaming wars are gearing up. rollout itsto script fiction services by november, the company's first mediaay into subscriptions. first, a look at the markets with taylor riggs. halfway into the trading day. taylor: a little bit lower today. 2900 on theng about s&p 500. not getting very much and direction. take a look at the new york faang index. baidu coming out with

better-than-expected earnings, pushing that index higher. in the last three days, up 6%. facebook coming out, facing eu.trust scrutiny from the twitter, baidu leading the way. we mentioned apple as well. we talk about the market cap of these companies. atrosoft clearly in the lead $1 trillion. every time apple hits that show in mark, they bounce off and hover a little lower. -- we are awaiting that apple plus streaming service. we should get done by november. this as the streaming wars really heats up. apple is another big stock are watching. finally, some of the big earners we are watching today, hilton grand vacations. apollo is said to have approached them for $36 a share.

beyond meat is starting to bounce back. jpmorgan finally coming out, giving them the first upgrade since that earnings release, saying they should be a good company going forward. home depot, we test the gauge of consumer sentiment and the home market and where we stand. sayinging out and results were mostly in line with expectations. ignore the lumber price deflation. for now, it looks like we're all clear. vonnie: thank you. market sticking our breath as investors await news from jackson hole and the latest fomc meetings. here to discuss is peter coy. bernanke010 it was ben giving a hint to the markets about what was coming.

we won't get anything out of this week, will we? peter: we don't know. the last time the fed cut in july, in the press conference, powell described it as a midcycle correction. so the worldwide audience, and there are a lot of people paying attention to what he says friday in jackson hole will be listening. does he still describe it as a midcycle course correction, or is he more open to the idea that it could be a significant number of more cuts, or will he go in the direction of eric rosengren of the federal reserve bank of boston who says, we don't need to cut anymore. vonnie: he may do none of the above because it is an academic conference, he doesn't have to do anything for the markets. maybe a dangerous time to be signaling to the markets. peter: you watch closely, but you may come away with nothing. on the other hand, when he comes

up with a title like "challenges to monetary policy," it is pretty hard to avoid the fact that there are a lot of challenges to monetary policy and he is in the middle making those decisions. time, avery political time where the markets are sensitive. almost anything he says will draw some kind of market reaction. vonnie: we are getting a lot of , eveng from fomc members now, interesting who is coming out giving their opinion. talking toren kathleen hays, he was a dissenter. anything that he said that may spill over to other fomc members? peter: it is hard to tell if he is pulling over to his side -- people over to his side. you don't think of rosengren as being a particular hawk on interest rates. the fact that he is saying that

he doesn't think we need more cuts provides cover for others, maybe the more traditional hawks, esther george and so on, to say they, too, will dissent the next time around on a cut. vonnie: what are you working on for business week? peter: an article on the fact that the u.s. economy is looking fairly strong, and i don't think is in imminent risk of recession. that would kind of go along with the idea that maybe the market is getting ahead of itself and pricing in 2.5 or three cuts for the rest of 2019. vonnie: peter coy, thank you. have a look at the business stands. economic a look at how headwinds are playing out for hedge funds. , ceojoined by said haidar of hyder capital. haidar capital.

$650 million fund at the moment primarily long global bond markets? said: we are long global bonds. we think there are headwinds to growth all over the world currently. even in the u.s., forward-looking data has been slowing. even if you look at coincident data in the u.s., you are starting to see payroll growth, hours worked is turning to shrink. usually, the head of layouts, people start cutting hours on workers. it was aven though strong jobs report, that means you are seeing a slowdown coming. when do you see it arriving? are runningtly, we at a 300 month average of about 140,000 jobs a month. to 100,000, we may see the unemployment rate start to rise. even though the report looked pretty good, the workweek actually shrunk a little bit in

the last report. vonnie: we had a massive rally in bonds. do you anticipate that continues? said: i think we have more room. in the u.s. market, the long end of the curve is correlated with the global bond markets. the u.s. has the highest yields in the world, so you are starting to see flattening in the u.s. now even though the fed will cut rates. why is that? hawkish cut at the last fomc meeting, kind of botched the press conference. slow, stayingng behind the curve, and you will probably see the u.s. yield curve flattened further as people start realizing the fed is not going to cut aggressively enough to prevent a u.s. slowdown. vonnie: at what point do you start pulling back on these trades? how many more basis points does the 10 year or 30-year ago before you think, maybe this is

done at this point? said: so far, the fed is behind the curve, i think. in september, there are about 32 basis points priced in. more than one cut priced in. if the fed wants to get ahead of the curve, they will need to go 50 at some point. if they don't, you are going to get a rally on the long end of the bond market. vonnie: you are in until what point? said: we are watching the data. if the data doesn't turn, you have to hold fast. but you may want to shift your exposure around the curve. you have two dissenters at the last meeting on the 25 basis point cut. rosengren does not think the fed should be cutting because he is worried about financial stability and the fed causing asset bubbles. vonnie: the last time you were on, you said the german 10-year bund would go to -60.

where are you positioned? said: at the jackson hole conference, it's important to the fed besides speaking, three ecb officials will speak. in 2014 that preannounced what was happening in europe. it is clear that the europeans will announce some kind of package in september at the ecb meeting. it's a question of how big it will be and whether it will include large-scale asset purchases or qe. we think it will. we think it will include a rate cut that will be bigger than people used to think they can deliver because they will do cuts, but that it will also include a resumption of qe4 six to nine months. we are looking at italy today at 1.37 on the 10-year, spain at nine. quite the range of yields, but

we are low. yields have backed up compared to german yields. illiquidity in august, some of it has to do with this election risk. prime minister conte resigned today, blasted salvini. there is speculation that the centerleft party could make a coalition. if that happens, that is probably positive for the moment for btp's. the most upside is in the long end of the curve, past 10 years on, and that it is probably better to be long spread product, meeting france, belgium, spain, maybe if you want to take extra risk, you go into italy. vonnie: interesting, some of those spreads are never win, but france, germany, belgium, those

are the ones you are looking at. talk about emerging markets. i know you are interested in emerging sovereigns. also, currencies, do you go local? we expect emerging-market currencies, particularly higher beta currencies on a total return basis would do well against the dollar because the fed is cutting rates. now you have the fed cutting a little too slowly and some of the emerging-market currencies have been sold. some of this makes sense because they are involved with a lot of butese global trade issues, some of it is i think because the dollar is now serving as the safe haven currency, along with the yen and swiss franc. people are buying dollars as they see the world of deteriorating. vonnie: as are you, i take it? said: we have been adding a little bit too dollars, correct , correct, a little

more positive on yen, swiss franc, gold, but there is a limit to how much you can buy. see thewhere do you credit cycle with corporate credit and high-yield? i want your take on commodities as well. cds, it isyield basis pointsd 353 the last time i looked. the all-time low in recent years about earlier this year, .10, 315 it is off 100 basis points from the -- lower than the spreads that were hit in december of last year. internals of all these markets are deteriorating, we think. the risk is high-yield credit, involved in things like energy,

mining, things like that, are starting to widen out. high-yield has been decompressing versus investment grade. high-yield credit is starting to underperform investment-grade over time by more and more. vonnie: we have to leave it there. come back again very soon. continued good luck for the rest of the year. said haidar hater capital management. wall street gears up for volcker 2.0. how the rewrite possible five prop trading rules, and why our next guest says it is too little too late for traders.

vonnie: wall street regulators appointed by president trump have unveiled a long-awaited

overhaul of the volcker rule, which uses regulation on banks. let's welcome brian chappatta for what it all means. what happened to prop desks when big banks had to comply with volcker? >> it basically vanished, and for good reason. that is what brought -- what brought about the financial crisis. prop trading is still banned in bulk or 2.0, but they have eased the bunch of things, especially around the edges. we are going to find out soon enough was this is implemented, once we see under the hood of the banks, what exactly is going on. prop are some risks that trading could begin to prop up in some corners of the banks. vonnie: do we know if prop trading desks will expand or is this just easing compliance restrictions? brian: as far as we understand it now, trading securities is

still a, but there are some other securities. at least one fdic member has warned, they are available to be propped traded. it is still unclear whether it will happen, but there is a risk volcker opens this up. one of the main points we should take away, trading will not come back like it did before on wall street. there are a lot of structural reasons why, whether that is technological advancements, hedge fund declines. trading will not come back all of a sudden in great force just because we have over 2.0. -- volcker 2.0. vonnie: one of the changes it takes away the onus from regulators and puts it on the banks themselves. it gives them the benefit of the doubt. is that a good idea? brian: that was one of their biggest criticisms. jamie dimon said we had to have a lawyer and a psychologist to make sure that the trade at the criteria for when regulators are

looking for. now the regulators have to say this is a prop trade, this is not allowed. whereas the banks have to do that themselves before hand. vonnie: what does it mean for banks trying to invest money into private equity or a hedge fund? brian: it is making it easier. we are still waiting to see a few more proposals on that front, but it will be easier for them to invest in bonds. vonnie: i guess the jury is somewhat out. we will have to take the temperature again in a couple of months. still ahead, streaming strategy. details on apple's new movie and tv service are trickling out. how they plan to compete in the crowded space. this is bloomberg. ♪

vonnie: this is "bloomberg markets." i'm vonnie quinn.

let the streaming wars begin. apple is planning to roll out the apple tv plus movie and tv sets christian service by november. part of the drive to reach $50 billion in service sales by 2020. the company will introduce a small selection of shows and then expand catalog over the following months. let's bring in our media reporter in los angeles. we are to expect is by november. what is to attract us to the service? >> they will be rolling out a few shows with major stars, like jennifer aniston, reese witherspoon, steve carell, the first of "the morning show" which is about a morning show and the battles between the costars. one thing to look out for in that trailer, at the end, there is something at the bottom that says you will need the subscription. that gives you an insight into

the strategy of how they look at people to sign up for this. vonnie: how much is apple planning on paying for content? we know the likes of netflix, for example, have spent hand over fist in the land ground of the beginning of the streaming mars. >> definitely. me and my colleague yesterday thatted a figure of $9.99, is what apple is thinking of at the moment. of course, they have not confirmed any specific number, but there in competition with netflix. what apple has, like amazon prime, is a different strategy. they have other services that they can make sticky for their subscribers to rope you in. maybe you can subscribe to the news service or music. vonnie: what has apple itself budgeted for for what it spends

on content, holding onto them for example? >> the thing that apple has is more cash. tens of billions of dollars. have put a they billion towards this, but we have seen them spending huge amounts of money on shows. about $300 million on just "the morning show" for two seasons. it was reported, they are spending about $6 billion. it is hard to know because apple is very secretive about the shows it is commissioning. we don't know everything it has. vonnie: apple is a platform, we have a lot debuting in the next couple of months. differentiate apple beyond content? >> opera said when she went on offering, said it

would be linked into the iphone, which so many have. the estimate is they could have over 100 million subscribers by having that in road. the question is how they will compete with not a deep library compared to disney or comcast or netflix, who have already gone such a head start. you will be all over any deals, so we will follow your reporting. markets down about a quarter of a percentage point of peace. stay tuned for more "bloomberg markets." this is bloomberg. ♪

mark: i'm mark crumpton with bloomberg first word news. president trump will look of the president of romania to the white house this afternoon. the two are set to discuss security challenges and ways to

advance trade and energy partnerships. the visit occurs as romanians mark the 30th year since the fall of communism, and the 50 d a's membership in nato. the list of states and cities suing the federal government over new immigration rules is growing. new york state, new york city, connecticut, and vermont joined a lawsuit today, suing over new measures that would block ring cards for many immigrants who use public assistance including medicaid, food stamps, and housing vouchers. more than 15 other states have already filed suit. south korea wants to strengthen its economic ties with china. the government plans to speed up free trade agreement talks with china in the services and investment sectors. that comes at a time when japan has imposed limits on certain exports to south korea. boris johnson's bid to renegotiate brexit begins on the irish border. he sent a letter to the european

union saying he wants to explore different ways to prevent a hard border on the island of ireland. the prime minister promises not to build infrastructure or carry out checks between northern ireland and the republic of ireland. in return, he wants the eu to do the same. global news 24 hours a day, on-air, and @tictoc on twitter, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in over 120 countries. i'm mark crumpton. this is bloomberg. shery: live from bloomberg world headquarters in new york, i'm shery ahn. amanda: live in toronto, i'm amanda lang. welcome to "bloomberg markets." u.s. consumers keep delivering for the most part. reaffirms its guidance

but its stock is down. home depot shares take off. the head of canada's biggest pension fund weighs in on how negative yields are affecting his decisions. help wanted. workingnce industry is -- looking for a few good souls alo can get along with met colleagues. let's get a check on the major market averages. treasury yields falling again today, across the broader s&p 500. consumer discretionary, tech, utilities all seeing modest gains come but everything else is negative. materials are leading the decline for the dow. down pretty sharply more than 4%. consumer discretionary is strong. you can think the retailers for that. low passome depot and moving higher today.

we are watching the unfolding political drama in italy, conte offering his resignation. we saw the spread between italian bonds and bunds fall. an interesting interpretation of what happens next. there is a sense that nothing will happen quickly. shery: at least we know for certain, the uncertainty around the world will continue. this comes on the back of more u.s. china trade tensions, talking about those u.s. tariffs coming into place in two weeks. the next batch is expected september 1. that would put an additional 10% tariffs that have been delayed on some items. we are talking about $110 billion worth of chinese imports that will be hit on september 1 despite the delay. this has been exacerbated by the fact that the u.s.-china trade war may not be ending soon.

secretary pompeo saying huawei is not the only company that poses risks. this is posing risk for the retailers and consumer companies. 's gets 20% of its products in china. stocks have been plunging. the retailer posted second-quarter sales that missed expectations. morningstar's analyst david swartz who remains he joinsn the sector us now from chicago. great to have you with us. let's talk about those comp sales. they have been declining all year long, again disappointing investors. is nots the company getting any optimism from investors. were there any encouraging signs on the earnings results today? >> the company said in the last

few quarters, sales picked up, and they said trends were positive into august, but that does not overshadow the fact that for the most part of the year, comps have been poor. the reported a -3.4% cop in first quarter. that is below expectations for the year. that means they will be very dependent on the back-to-school selling season. of coarse later the christmas season. amanda: you lower your fair value estimate to $75. walk us through your thinking on that. has been a poor performing stock. all the retailers and apparel manufacturers have been among the worst performing stocks of the year on the entire stock market. they have consistently reported sales numbers that have fallen short, comparable sales numbers

that have fallen short. as i mentioned, it is very difficult now to see how they can pull out the full year because they will be so dependent on the back-to-school even moreas sales, than normal. they really need trends to reverse over the next three months. at this point, there is very little evidence that is happening. shery: are we seeing any evidence that perhaps tariffs are having an impact on these retailers, any idea what the september tariffs could do to these companies? wille september 1 tariffs be a big problem for retailers like kohl's. there is little they can do, considering their private-label merchandise especially which is sourced from china. tariffs cover a large amount of apparel, footwear, and for kohl's, women's apparel is a

critical category. unlike other manufacturers who have been able to manufacture outside china, retailers are pretty much dependent on the sources they have. with theirgotiate vendors and suppliers to try to offset the cost, but at some point, they will have to bear some of that expense. amanda: this is one example, as you refer to this and others moat macy's as no retailers. to bensumer does seem confident. what other retailers do you like in the sector? >> retailers that have been performing better right now on my list would be lululemon. for have been a problem kohl's and other department

stores because they are taking away so much of that women's apparel's sales. lululemon to be overvalued at the current price. of the retailers i cover, the ones that are doing better, mostly we consider them overpriced at this point. i also cover a number of apparel manufacturers, most of which have their own retailing. that has been doing mostly well. nike and adidas, they operate a lot of their own stores, have their own direct to consumer e-commerce. the retailers that are doing the best in my opinion are not the mass retailers like kohl's or macy's, but rather the branded retailers that are also the manufacturers selling directly to the consumers. lululemon is one of those companies. shery: what about nordstrom?

we have seen they have a very loyal, cultivated customer base. >> nordstrom has been reported a second-quarter yet. obviously, expectations are low because others have her reporting such low numbers. i believe nordstrom has an advantage over others like macy's and kohl's, due to the strength of the brand, customer loyalty. system, wengs believe nordstrom has a stronger customer base. nordstrom also has the chain of rack stores, which gives them a presence in the outlook categories which some of their competitors don't have. the housingave related retailers moving higher. home depot, lowe's. do you think they are the end of a new upswing or the beginning of another one? >> i don't cover those, so they are outside of my area. obviously, they have been

performing much better than the department stores. those specially retailers are part of the reason why department stores are suffering, and why many of them are no longer department stores, more like large apparel stores. they have lost so many of those sales to the specialty stores like home depot. amanda: great to have your thoughts, david swartz. thank you. we have been talking about the steepening yield curve in the u.s. and germany and whether that dampens fears of a recession, although central banks remain under pressure to ease monetary policy. i spoke to the president of the canada pension board for his perspective on the inverted yield curve and the impact of global pretensions. >> there is tons of research out it is oneh indicates of the indicators of potential recession but not definitive.

there are lots of other people doing research about what the current risk of recession is. side,looking on the sell various people predicting 10% and 40% risk of recession next year. one or two people calling for it next year in the u.s. is ank what you are seeing slow down on the industrial side of the economy. the u.s. consumer continues to be incredibly strong. household income, personal consumption is at record highs. on employment at record lows. sidere seeing the business really lower confidence, concern. if you are not sure where your exports are going to be, where be, itriffs are going to is holding people back from spending money on the next factory, hiring the next bunch of people, from opening the next

project. that is slowing down around the world. you see that rippling through germany, elsewhere. amanda: obviously, one of the main risks remains the trade tensions between the two largest economies. will make an upside surprise there, some relief there? >> i am not a political expert, but i think we should not bank on a quick solution. i think it is unlikely. i think it is a really complicated issue. it is a shame. i wish the first and second largest economies could get along and cooperate. a huge boost to growth across the world and relieve all of this pressure and concern from businesses around the world. but it is challenging. the politics are complicated on both sides. that was mark mei chen,

chief executive officer of the canada pension plan investment toward. aramco has chosen -- lazard decision to hire came as a bit of a surprise. of a surprise.

shery: this is "bloomberg markets." i'm shery ahn in new york. amanda: i'm amanda lang in toronto. bloomberg has learned saudi andco has picked lazard moelis to advise their second attempt at the worlds biggest initial public offering. aramco is planning and listing as early as next year. here with us is jessica summers. pretty interesting development.

where do you think they are on the path? this is the second run. theuite interesting, world's biggest ipo, eagerly anticipated. out, aramco has listed moelis and lazard to advise it on the ipo. they will play key roles in the advising process, including helping to enlist underwriters, listing venues, as well as manage expectations around valuation. one of the most interesting parts about this is lazard did not make the cut in 2016, when they were originally planning to list. as onenot choose lazard of the bank to be a part of the process, but now it has. shery: does that mean they will be replacing some of the other banks working on the first attempt? eessica: they hav moelis, butard and

our reporting says that they will be enlisting more. no final decision. i know they will begin listing as early as 2020. we are not sure about the details around those dates, but this ipo project was first announced in 2016, really to help saudi arabia modernize its economy. we will see if anything has changed on that front. it is quite interesting to follow what they want to do. i know they want to expand their downstream business, including through acquisitions at home and abroad. it will be interesting to follow that. amanda: our bloomberg colleagues reporting it was lazard with that successful bond sale that put them in the front running. what is your take on how this ipo will fare? to your point, aramco needs to diversify. jessica: this ipo will face roadblocks. i have been hearing that from many park it -- market

participants. aramco is trying to seek a $2 billion valuation. that may be difficult. isther issue or challenge the fact that demand for the share sale may be low due to the low price environment. we are finally hearing from some top institutional investors who may be concerned about parking their money in certain companies that contribute to climate change. shery: do we have any idea when it could happen? we keep hearing the ipo could come into place soon but we have no final dates. jessica: no final date. all we are hearing is as early as 2020. summers, thank you for that, the latest on saudi aramco's ipo. a and data science experts are topping employers wish list for new hires, but is it creating or killing jobs?

this is bloomberg. ♪

amanda: this is "bloomberg markets." i'm amanda lang in toronto. shery: i'm shery ahn in new york. time to look at the biggest business stories in a news right now. more problems for the largest operator of pizza hut restaurants in the world. nbc international's debt fell further into distress. they felt closer to breaching the terms of its bank credit lines. fortnite appears to have hit a speed bump. the game is actually slowing down. revenue fell 30% in may. the publisher, epic games in the to have a solution. the company is sponsoring more competitions after the success of last month's world cup.

that tournament attracted more than 40 million players. strong works about the wework ipo filing. they call them a masterpiece of obfuscation. they say we work must have put in a great effort to unseal -- concealed the economics of the company. work label some compensation as investment. the company is not commenting. chinaet's ex ma moment may be here. yet, some on the street are not arguing it will be man versus machine so much as man and machine. ai technology and data science have jumped 60% in the past year. for now we have our economy reporter. be an interim on the

road to machines taking over, but so far it looks like somebody needs to manage the machines. what are we seeing in terms of the listings and the qualifications that are attractive? >> everyone is worried about robots taking their jobs. we see this in retail, manufacturing jobs. even price waterhouse cooper put out a report saying one third of financial service jobs will be displays place with automation within 15 years. but optimists say there will be many finance roles added due to automation and this technology. linkedin says job postings in the finance industry that list skill sets with data science has jumped 60% in the past 12 months, so there is a lot of demand for people who can do finance and tech. shery: on the chart you are looking at jobs created due to technology. senior data scientist, sco specialist. what are some of the jobs being created by technology and

indirectly? >> we saw a lot of job postings for people that can make virtual forstants and chat bots banks as they expand their digital presence, less people going into the branch. they will be making virtual assistants, so you can speak with somebody online, on your phone. we have also seen for engineers who can work on credit scoring as well, to build, so we don't need people to put in all the data themselves. the algorithm will do that. we see this also within hedge funds and private equity. hedge funds were early on in automated trading. we have seen private equity start to create advanced algorithms that will search and identify potential firms to target themselves. amanda: it seems clear there will be some winners here. if you are a kid about to go to college, you should take a hard

look at computer science or data management. if you are an adult already in the field and you don't have those skills, they may be hard to acquire. do we expect to see job losses in traditional roles as these new ones move in? >> there will certainly be jobs replaced, certain monotonous tasks that you will not be doing any more. that is why it's important as an adult to upscale yourself. a lot of firms will also offer data analytics, coding courses within the firm, which you should take advantage of. keep up scaling yourselves so that you can protect your job. how easy or challenging is it to reinvent your career, re-skill yourself? >> there are plenty of part-time courses offered. transferablesame skills you have in finance can translate in different industries. i think it is very possible for someone with an finance to

upscale and get some tech those to thed meld viewer together. shery: the latest on finance and looking at ai and other jobs changing as we see more machine learning. if you missed any of the charts that we showed you throughout the programming, g tv is your function. catch up on past charts or save them for future reference. you can get analysis and much more. live from toronto and new york, this is bloomberg. ♪

>> i am mark crumpton with first word news. the italian prime minister announces resignation today. he blames the collapse of his populist government on his

deputy prime minister. addressing the senate, he scathingly quoted the recent demands for an early election so he could gain full powers by grabbing the premiership. he blasted him for putting italy at risk for a spiral of financial and clinical instability. most muslim or hindu refugees said they don't want to return to myanmar. very few have responded to plans for the repatriation. those who did so they are not going back. -- two years,000 ago and are staying in refugee camps in bangladesh. met with nordic leaders and representatives who gathered to discuss climate issues and environmental matters.