Tech companies from amazon to netflix are being targeted in a campaign from a large group of investors calling for transparency in Environmental Impact. Can corporations take the lead on stability . Facebook is launching a cryptocurrency called libra. Social media giant wants you to think of it like the u. S. Dollar but a currency you can use globally, if it is successful. Libra is known as a stable coin, a Digital Currency backed by government supported currencies and securities. It is the culmination of a yearlong effort as facebook seeks to spur growth on various platforms that count more than 2 billion users. Spotify, stripe, uber, visa, mastercard are among almost 30 Companies Supporting the project. Will this make it to the mainstream or will it be another overhyped facebook product that never quite takes off . One lawmaker has an opinion. Senator Sherrod Brown tweeted, facebook is already too big and too powerful and uses data to exploit privacy. We cannot allow facebook to run a risky new cryptocurrency out of a Swiss Bank Account without oversight. Join us joining us is julie and kurt. Kurt, lets start with what exactly is libra and can we use it . Kurt right now, you cant use it. It is not going to be available until the first half of 2020. The idea is you would take a physical currency, the u. S. Dollar, and convert it into this Digital Currency, and you could use it in the way you use other money online. You can send it to a friend, pay for a new of shoes with it. The idea is that you can use it around the globe. Not just within facebook and within the united states. Emily new Payment Methods often take years to take off. Just look at apple pay. Lets talk about the reality of how, if and when this is launched next year, how it will be used initially. Julie it would let me send money to someone in another country, maybe a friend that lives here. It is a way to get people using the platform and saying, to facebooks big advantage they already have millions of customers around the globe they could market this to. The issue is largely regulatory in terms of depending on what they use it for, that depends on which regulator gets involved. Thatwill keep an eye on especially with, as you mentioned, senators voicing criticism and skepticism. The goal is to launch it in the first half of next year but this thing could never get off the ground. It doesnt matter how smart your team is. If regulators give this a no, it is not ever going to become a product that we are using. Emily will it . Sonny the use case is great but regulation is an issue. Money transmissions licenses for europe, each state. It will be a battle. They have the right team but everything moves slowly in tech, regulations. Ound in terms of a global currency, it is similar to bitcoin. They have a 2 billion user base already. Emily the goal of cryptocurrency is decentralized, no middleman. Does it matter when it is backed by a Public Company called a publicly traded Company Called facebook . Sonny that is why they created a Nonprofit Group out of europe called the lever association, so facebook is just a partner. They have managing members and each person has equal membership , so it is a nonprofit, decentralized coin they are trying to sell it as. Emily talk to us a little bit about how this works. Facebook has responded to criticism from senator brown especially about what they get out of it. Kurt good question. If you think messaging in the way julie described it, payments could be a huge business for facebook, they have more than 1. 5 billion users on whatsapp and messenger. Messaging, doing banking services, lending money. More immediately, facebook would say, the more people who have a wallet on their phone with currency they are willing to spend, the more attractive we are as an advertising platform. If you are nike, maybe you want to go to facebook because people viewing your ad have the libra currency right there on their phone ready to spend. Emily lets take a listen to how facebook describes the currency stored in libra. It would back up whatever you have stored in it. We spoke to david this morning, theexecutive running project to also ran paypal. Take a listen. David the reserve is a very important component of the stability of this Digital Currency. We welcome open conversations with regulators to figure out how to drive accountability and transparency for the libra association, notably on the reserve. Emily how is the finance community receiving this idea . Julie it depends who you talk to. A lot of u. S. Based companies i talked to dont necessarily see a big as big of a use case as someone internationally. To see paypaling partnering with them as well as visa and mastercard. But you have to step back and see who is not on the list. None of the big temp Tech Companies, apple, amazon, google are absent. None of the big banks either. In the interview david gave, he did say he expects some of them to sign on by the time they launch. They have around 27 partners now and they want to get to 100 partners by next year. I think a component of this would be getting buyin from big tech and big finance. They do not have that right now. Emily the people excited about this are saying it is like aol for the internet, its going to bring cryptocurrency to the masses. Is that an exaggeration . Sonny i think it is definitely possible. It is the same use case that bitcoin had. Anyone can access it, it is cheaper than credit cards, it is outside the euro and the u. S. Dollar, and it has the right user base to go after it. In asia, a lot of people use we chat as payment options. Facebook is looking for the same option. I think they have the right foundation. I think the banks will come on board. What bank isnt going to want that money in their system . I think facebook has the power to make this happen. You have been covering social media a long time. There is a graveyard of facebook products that never really got off the ground. Lots of fanfare, and certainly, facebook would love to have a counter narrative to tackle the two years of bad news. What makes this different . Kurt i think the biggest difference is the collection of partners they are bringing in. It is one thing for facebook to roll something out that is facebookspecific and it doesnt work. That impacts facebook only and they can move on quickly. When it involves paypal, and visa, and uber, there are a lot of people who have at least some skin in the game. You could argue maybe facebook has the most and i would say they do at this point, but if they bring on a bunch of other partners, there will be lots of incentives for this to work and it wont just becoming from facebook. That might be a difference from the other stuff they launched. Emily some of the skeptics might say, facebook has so much of my information, why should i give them my Financial Information as well . Facebook also formed this other Organization Called calibra to handle privacy issues so it can be used in facebook as cant be used in facebook ads targeting. They need Something Like that, but how confident can we be . How much can we trust facebook in the execution . Julie they know going into it that they have to make sure that there is a separate entity for consumers to make sure that this is something that you will not be using my data to target me. They have to be careful and make sure they talk with regulators. There is nothing that happens that, the second they lose this trust and that is proven wrong, theres so little incentive for someone to come on and use this. Facebook has tried payments and other things before and it never taken off so this is like one last big shot to make it work. If you lose Consumer Trust in finance, that is big to come back from. Emily im sure will be covering it. Julie, kurt, and sonny, thank you all. Dish network is in talks to pay 6 billion for assets that tmobile and sprint are unloading. Dish had been on a short list of bidders favored by the justice department. Tmobile and sprint have already promised to sell boost mobile, sprints prepaid business, to get approval from the fcc. Coming up, President Trump announces that he and xi will have an extended meeting at the g20 after a very good phone call today. Can the leaders hash out a deal . That is next. If you like bloomberg news, check us out on the radio, the bloomberg app, bloomberg. Com, and in the u. S. , on sirius xm. This is bloomberg. Emily President Trumps top trade representative appeared before the Senate Finance committee and continued to stress the administrations view that chinas taking advantage of the united states. In addition, we have used section 301 to investigate unfair trade practices with china. We believe our economic relationship with china has been unbalanced and grossly unfair to american workers, farmers, ranchers, and businesses for decades. Emily bloombergs Sarah Mcgregor is with us, who leads our Economic Policy coverage. What were the highlights of what lighthizer had to say today . Sarah President Trump tweeted as lighthizer was about to speak about the fact that he and president xi jinping spoke by phone. They agreed to break the stalemate and have talks at the g20. Trump let us know that as of now, u. S. Officials and chinese officials after a months long impasse are trying to get a trade deal restarted again. Emily what should we read from President Trumps description of this phone call with president xi and the fact that the two sides will Start Talking ahead of their meeting at the g20 . Which will, he now says, be an extended meeting . Sarah as soon as the markets heard news that trump was saying the talks would happen at the g20, the Financial Markets jumped. Tech, industrials, this was seen as a really good sign. When you read between the lines, a white house statement came out saying that trump had said that there need to be structural changes. There needs to be a level Playing Field between the u. S. And china. It is clear that neither side is backing down from their position. We still find ourselves stuck between a rock and a hard place in these talks. The u. S. Wants china to make these reforms. Tech transfers, ip theft. The other hand, wants what it calls a balanced agreement. It is seeking to ensure it protects its own economy and doesnt give up to many things. Talks broke down when china backtracked from the commitment to codify changes into laws that would ensure the u. S. That it would protect ip, protect some address some things like subsidies. Those issues havent been resolved. Path and xi meeting is a for and more talks. Emily you have similar kind of mixed messages coming out of beijing. Chinese media saying xi jinping is willing to meet with President Trump and exchange views. Certainly in the united states, there are many who are unhappy with these tariffs. They have been incredibly unpopular. How does President Trump and president xi kind of walk this line between what they want to prove and what might be realistic . Sarah you said it right that these tariffs have been unpopular. Lighthizer was testifying before the Senate Finance committee, and many senators came out and said, while we agree on getting tough on china, the approach has been has not been working. Just doma street there was a public hearing on the proposed tariffs that trump wants to put on an additional 300 billion of chinese goods, which would hit toys, smartphones, and Consumer Products that have been spared so far. These companies are unanimous in saying the tariffs in place have hurt us. If you put them on the rest of chinese imports, this would be the final straw for us. It would raise Consumer Prices and cause pain and job losses. So it is hard to imagine. Trump is under pressure, launching his Political Campaign for reelection today, to spare the agricultural heartland and manufacturing. We just dont know how much he is motivated by this to get a deal with china that might fall short of some of the promises he has made to be super tough on them. Emily i know you will be beating the drum to the g20. Thank you very much, bloombergs Sarah Mcgregor. Coming up, calling out Big Tech Companies not over privacy but over their Carbon Footprint. Why investors are saying enough is enough. That is next. We are livestreaming on twitter. Follow us there technology. Follow our network tictoc on twitter. This is bloomberg. Emily google is pledging 1 billion dollars to tackle san franciscos housing crisis. The tech giant will repurpose 750 million worth of its own land for residential use. The other 250 million will go to incentives for developers to build 5000 Affordable Housing units. Thisll be over 10 years. The success of Silicon Valley has massively driven up housing prices in the bay area. Middle income residents have been squeezed out as tech earners have snapped up real estate with new apartments in short supply. Big tech names like amazon and facebook are being called out for how they report or dont report carbon emissions. They are among 700 Companies Targeted in a campaign backed by a large group of investors and Companies Like hsbc. They want Greater Transparency when it comes to the Environmental Impact of these companies. To talk about this and more when it comes to techs Carbon Footprint in new york, we have , jesse mikel keenan of harvard, who is also who has also advised cities and states. Another guest with a Venture Capital firm. They are focused on sustainable housing. Just how big is techs Carbon Footprint . You dont usually equate them with power plants or the makers of bluejeans, for example, but they do have a bigger Carbon Footprint in a different way . Yes. Footprint the footprint is from server farms. They have been sourcing some of that power from wind. There have been a big push to think in terms of sustainability, not just in terms of primary Energy Generation but also in terms of offset. I think a lot has been done but as you suggest, the next frontier is thinking across the organization and enterpriselevel Risk Management think about Climate Change and Climate Adaptation from primarily a Risk Management point of view. Emily what is your take on some new Companies Whose feet are held to the fire . It depends what new companies you are talking about. In the tech world, many of them are forward thinking about sustainability and impact for their shareholders, customers, and employees. That is a big motivating force for a lot of these companies. Theres a whole host of different methodologies that you can measure. Theres over 150 different frameworks used. Cdp is probably one of the most frequently cited, the carbon disclosure product. Emily how would you rate how transparent Tech Companies are at this moment about their Carbon Footprint . Jesse i think it varies. There have been some who are, pick on amazon first. Amazon has arguably an unsustainable model when it comes to logistics. They are largely, if a carbon tax or implemented, our amazon prime accounts would not have a great deal of economic parity. It would be too expensive. Then you have other companies that are really not oriented toward logistics or manufacturing or primary production retail, who i think are better suited to engage Energy Efficiency and other energy technologies. I think it runs the gamut. Emily amazon says they have set a goal to reach 50 of all amazon shipments with net zero carbon by 2030. But can we really rely on the companies themselves to do the right thing or do they need outside pressure from investors and activists . Abe i think they certainly need pressure. Theres a rising tide and trend of investor and stakeholder support, pushing for efforts. Pushing for disclosure and sustainability efforts. We could list about 10 different efforts in that area. This has all caused Tech Companies in general to do good things. 60 50 renewable is a good thing for amazon from their power procurement. They are going to 100 . They claim they will be disclosing their Carbon Footprint. That is all net positive. I think amazon has a unique challenge in that it is a tech company but it also ships a lot of stuff. Most Tech Companies dont. That is a huge Carbon Footprint. Emily we all get so many amazon boxes and we dont want to do know what to do with them. Abe i would love to find a Sustainable Packaging solution to replace the boxes. It is an economic problem, but we are filled with them. Emily this is all happening at that the Tr