WEBVTT - How to Reach Net Zero Within a Capitalist System

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<v Speaker 1>Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.

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<v Speaker 2>John Man, it's been a while since we talked. A

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<v Speaker 2>lot has happened, and I was thinking, what are we

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<v Speaker 2>going to cover in this tiny little bit that we

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<v Speaker 2>get to chat before we move on Finthia. What's it

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<v Speaker 2>going to be? So I've decided it's going to be

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<v Speaker 2>absolutely everything, and I hope you're down with that decision

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<v Speaker 2>because we've only got five minutes. So here we go.

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<v Speaker 2>Are you ready?

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<v Speaker 1>Okay? Gold gold?

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<v Speaker 2>How do you feel about gold?

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<v Speaker 1>Oh? Amazing, it's been up like it isn't a rule,

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<v Speaker 1>It's like, wow, this kind of you know, the gold

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<v Speaker 1>bugs were right all those decades ago.

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<v Speaker 2>The way what you're saying is, Maren, you were right.

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<v Speaker 1>Just as West Japan. You just have to be patient.

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<v Speaker 2>In the end, wait twenty years, you get there. So

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<v Speaker 2>new high after new high after new high. It's exciting,

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<v Speaker 2>but we know it's not the or up until now,

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<v Speaker 2>it has not been the Western retail investor, right, it's

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<v Speaker 2>been the retail investors in China in particular, it's been

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<v Speaker 2>central banks because we've seen outflows from from ETFs in

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<v Speaker 2>the West year after year after year, flattened out, maybe

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<v Speaker 2>turning around.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, the Japanese retail invested as well. I was reading

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<v Speaker 1>this morning a good piece by Charles Gav's son guy

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<v Speaker 1>his name escapes me visit Gavico, and he was pointing

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<v Speaker 1>out that after the last Bank of Japan Central Bank meeting,

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<v Speaker 1>where they were much more dubbish than expected, activity in

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<v Speaker 1>the Japanese version of the physical gold ETF just went behind,

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<v Speaker 1>as he puts it, And basically it sounds like the

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<v Speaker 1>Japanese are fed up with the nbing devalued, and now

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<v Speaker 1>the Chinese are getting fed up with the yuan being devalued,

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<v Speaker 1>and so everyone in those countries is basically reacting to

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<v Speaker 1>what they see as ramping currency debasement by buying gold.

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<v Speaker 1>So I mean, it's fascinating, Okay.

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<v Speaker 2>So everything that we've been talking about for is is

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<v Speaker 2>sort of slightly coming to fruition. People are increasingly concerned

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<v Speaker 2>and inflation is not going away, that the value of

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<v Speaker 2>the currency is not going to hold, that the dollar

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<v Speaker 2>is not what it was, that buying US treasuries is

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<v Speaker 2>not the answer to everything. So I wrote a column

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<v Speaker 2>about this earlier in the week where I said that

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<v Speaker 2>effectively gold is the everything hedge for central banks. And

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<v Speaker 2>if it's good enough for them, do you know what

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<v Speaker 2>it's good enough for us? So that's gold silver.

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<v Speaker 1>Silver was where is Sebastian Lion? Lion always described it

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<v Speaker 1>as gold on crack, So I think you should take

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<v Speaker 1>that exactly at face value, have a play with it

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<v Speaker 1>if you want to, but be very careful and don't

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<v Speaker 1>expect too much of it. You know, if it goes

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<v Speaker 1>up an awful lot, then maybe you should look at

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<v Speaker 1>taking Profit's definitely a trade rather than a buy and

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<v Speaker 1>hold portfolio insurance.

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<v Speaker 2>That's just from John, don't take too much crack? Thanks John? Right?

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<v Speaker 2>What else? The widening out of the US market. So

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<v Speaker 2>we've had this incredibly intense concentration into the Magnificent seven.

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<v Speaker 2>They're not all doing very well anymore. In fact, we're

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<v Speaker 2>now down to I think the Magnificent three in terms

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<v Speaker 2>of ones that are doing very well. And as to

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<v Speaker 2>someone intro out to me yesterday that in dollar terms,

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<v Speaker 2>gold has done better than the Magnificent seven so far

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<v Speaker 2>this year. So we're beginning to say the performance of

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<v Speaker 2>the megatech slide relative to everything else, We're beginning to

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<v Speaker 2>say widening out of the market, that seems like a

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<v Speaker 2>good thing right or does it tell us there's a

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<v Speaker 2>big crush coming right now?

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<v Speaker 1>If I'm one is that I think it's a good thing.

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<v Speaker 1>I think it boils down the market currently terms, but

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<v Speaker 1>the idea that maybe there's not going to be a recession,

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<v Speaker 1>and also feeling broadly optimistic about the economy's ability to

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<v Speaker 1>cope with higher interest rates. Maybe a bit of fear

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<v Speaker 1>of inflation thrown in because you can see the commodities

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<v Speaker 1>are coming back, and that's partly because China seems to

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<v Speaker 1>be leveling out, if not bouncing back, and certainly Chinese

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<v Speaker 1>stocks have rebounded strongly. So overall, I wouldn't say it's

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<v Speaker 1>something to be worried about, but you may have read

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<v Speaker 1>something that I haven't.

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<v Speaker 2>I'm always worried. I'm always worried, and you know, if

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<v Speaker 2>there is that if inflation is not defeated as you

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<v Speaker 2>and I have been talking about for ages, and we've

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<v Speaker 2>been talking for ages about higher for longer rather than

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<v Speaker 2>lower sooner. We've been worried about energy markets. We've been

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<v Speaker 2>worried about the oil price, in which we may well

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<v Speaker 2>have been justified. Is there an energy crisis ahead? Et cetera.

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<v Speaker 2>Will come to more of that in a minute. So

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<v Speaker 2>you know, I'm watching the oil price pretty closely. That's

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<v Speaker 2>always a worry. But I'm also looking at looking at

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<v Speaker 2>the big stocks and thinking, well, hang on, they've definitely

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<v Speaker 2>gone far enough. This concentration is out of control. So

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<v Speaker 2>what happens what happens next is that is there a

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<v Speaker 2>mini crisis there or do we get the second order

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<v Speaker 2>stock saying the ones that will definitely do very well

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<v Speaker 2>out of AI, but aren't the ones making the chips,

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<v Speaker 2>et cetera. Do we see them coming to the forefront,

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<v Speaker 2>which kind of what we saw in the nineties. Right,

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<v Speaker 2>So there's lots of interesting things going on in the markets,

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<v Speaker 2>which we will keep writing about. But moving on to

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<v Speaker 2>the next bit, which is the wrappers inside which you

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<v Speaker 2>keep those investments you've written about ices. We love ices,

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<v Speaker 2>we don't like to see interference and ice is you're

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<v Speaker 2>a bit worried about that? You I sed to say

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<v Speaker 2>them just beginning by the way, get that twenty grand in.

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<v Speaker 1>The problemse So it's a kind of leftish think tank.

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<v Speaker 1>The Resolution Foundation came out with a bit of an

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<v Speaker 1>attack on I as saying that essentially attax breaks are

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<v Speaker 1>too generous. So because not everyone can put twenty grand

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<v Speaker 1>a year in an ISA, and they do sympathize. The

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<v Speaker 1>suggestion is that, well, it's all of this tax relief,

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<v Speaker 1>if you like, is being weighted towards the wealthiest in society,

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<v Speaker 1>blah blah blah, So we should cap the overall amount

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<v Speaker 1>you can stick in an ISA the same way that

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<v Speaker 1>they had a cap on the pension the lifetime allowance

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<v Speaker 1>to one hundred pounds exactly. And I mean, it's just

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<v Speaker 1>it's a typical economist argument where they frame it in

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<v Speaker 1>kind of number terms, but really it just boils down

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<v Speaker 1>to your political viewpoint and they don't think about what

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<v Speaker 1>the knock on that problem will be as soon as

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<v Speaker 1>you start messing around with eyes as you get to

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<v Speaker 1>the same problem we've got with pensions, which is that

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<v Speaker 1>they are mercilessly messed up around with by governments on

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<v Speaker 1>a kind a semi annual basis, and that is one

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<v Speaker 1>good reason why people don't trust them. And if you

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<v Speaker 1>do the same way issis then that you know, you're

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<v Speaker 1>just putting a big target on the the side of

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<v Speaker 1>them for all future chancellors to either raid or mess about,

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<v Speaker 1>and it really would be an extremely damaging thing. To

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<v Speaker 1>do to what is a popular and still relatively simple

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<v Speaker 1>savings product. So I just think is a bad idea.

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<v Speaker 1>And at the same time I'm worried that it's the

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<v Speaker 1>direction of travel, because you know, we are getting a

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<v Speaker 1>labor government most likely, you know, in the next expert.

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<v Speaker 2>The labor government that has started talking about tax dodging

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<v Speaker 2>rather than dividing things up between evasion and avoidance, which

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<v Speaker 2>is so important. What is legal, what isn't legal. No

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<v Speaker 2>one can be criticized for tax avoidance. They can definitely

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<v Speaker 2>be criticized for tax avision, which brings us, of course

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<v Speaker 2>to poor Angela and Rna very briefly, and the I

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<v Speaker 2>don't need to talk about the issues around whether she

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<v Speaker 2>did or didn't or sort of shouldn't, because we have

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<v Speaker 2>no idea. But what it does show up is the

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<v Speaker 2>extraordinary complication of the UK tax system. And this is

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<v Speaker 2>the bit that I'm looking and going, well, hang on,

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<v Speaker 2>you know, so what someone like Angela Raina had to

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<v Speaker 2>do when living in a house with one person or

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<v Speaker 2>not living in a house with one person, I don't know.

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<v Speaker 2>But married, if you're married, you can only have one

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<v Speaker 2>principle home for tax purposes. How do you even know that,

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<v Speaker 2>How are people supposed to know that? And how are

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<v Speaker 2>they supposed to choose which one it is? How are

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<v Speaker 2>they supposed to understand the nomination process? How all these

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<v Speaker 2>things are impossibly complicated and difficult. And then you find

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<v Speaker 2>you do have to play capital gains on one house

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<v Speaker 2>because you didn't nominated, or because you live somewhere else,

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<v Speaker 2>or whatever it is. And then there are a million

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<v Speaker 2>allowances that you can claim against that. So what might

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<v Speaker 2>look like a twenty eight percent tax bill of a

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<v Speaker 2>ten plus thousand pounds can be brought down to zero

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<v Speaker 2>in the blink of an eye with exemptions and exceptions,

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<v Speaker 2>et cetera. If I were in government, which is never

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<v Speaker 2>going to happen because my Twitter account I'm sure would

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<v Speaker 2>never allow it. If I would be in government, the

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<v Speaker 2>first thing I would do is say, hang on. The

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<v Speaker 2>lesson we could learn here as a new government is

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<v Speaker 2>that this system is out of control, complicated. Let's go,

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<v Speaker 2>let's go simple, low and unavoidable. I've got a column

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<v Speaker 2>coming out on why that means it's time. It really

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<v Speaker 2>is time, And I'm sure at this point Angela Arena

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<v Speaker 2>would agree it really is time for a low, flat

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<v Speaker 2>rate of capital gains tax on all property sales in

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<v Speaker 2>the UK we brought in hand in hand with the

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<v Speaker 2>full abolition of stamp duty. Just agree with me, John,

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<v Speaker 2>You know you want to wait?

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<v Speaker 1>Are you talking about whole home sales even my family home?

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<v Speaker 2>Yes, your family home. And you know, while I'm at it,

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<v Speaker 2>I might withdraw that IHT exemption on your family home.

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<v Speaker 1>What melnha like bomb?

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<v Speaker 2>You know what I want you to do. Stop treating

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<v Speaker 2>that house as though it's the greatest investment in the

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<v Speaker 2>world because you don't have to pay any tax on it.

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<v Speaker 2>It's not an investment, it's your home. Put your investment

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<v Speaker 2>money somewhere else. That's all I want from you, John.

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<v Speaker 1>I think you should stand for prime ministers. So I

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<v Speaker 1>totally agree with this. In case anyone thought I wasn't joking.

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<v Speaker 1>That's a great idea.

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<v Speaker 2>No, simple, unavoidable. Let's do it. Talking to you, Kistarma,

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<v Speaker 2>talking to you Angela Reina. Do you think they're listening?

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<v Speaker 1>Yes, of course, of course.

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<v Speaker 2>Okay, excellent. So John, for our first week back from

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<v Speaker 2>our holidays, we've had this wonderful quick fire around. I

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<v Speaker 2>know everybody's enjoyed it. We didn't get anywhere near the

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<v Speaker 2>tax gap. I'm living that for next week. Actually know John,

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<v Speaker 2>John's going to write a column about a tax gap,

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<v Speaker 2>aren't you or am I? One of us is going

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<v Speaker 2>to we'll one of us. Well, anyway, first week back,

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<v Speaker 2>we're actually, unusually we are discussing a book by a

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<v Speaker 2>colleague of ours. No one from the outside this time.

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<v Speaker 2>We're all inside this week. Actually Rathi he's a senior

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<v Speaker 2>reporter on the team covering climate issues, and he hosts

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<v Speaker 2>his own podcast Zero, which obviously you should listen to.

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<v Speaker 2>He's written a book called Climate Capitalism, Winning the Global

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<v Speaker 2>Race to Zero Emissions. Now, John, the bit I like

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<v Speaker 2>about this, but I like about this, and I know,

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<v Speaker 2>I know you've read the transcript, is that it's called

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<v Speaker 2>climate capitalism, not climate destroy capitalism.

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<v Speaker 1>That works for me, Yeah, it's reassured as soon as

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<v Speaker 1>I hear the word claim it. You know, there's a

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<v Speaker 1>little bit of me that can daze and sage usually,

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<v Speaker 1>but it's uh, well, I mean, clearly dis duty the

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<v Speaker 1>uncontrolled effects of global warming. But other than that, it's

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<v Speaker 1>but not I think when you see it campagned with capitalism,

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<v Speaker 1>it's like we're starting to talk about this stuff like adults.

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<v Speaker 1>So that's good.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, and it takes us away from the whole.

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<v Speaker 2>In order to deal with climate change, we need to

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<v Speaker 2>absolutely destroy the system that created it, because you know,

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<v Speaker 2>you can either say, well that's just ridiculous because there's

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<v Speaker 2>the only system that works, or you can say there

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<v Speaker 2>isn't time for it anyway. Welcome to Merrin Dogs Money,

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<v Speaker 2>the podcast in which people who know the markets explain

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<v Speaker 2>the markets. I'm merensumset Web. Here's my conversation with Bloomberg

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<v Speaker 2>Senior reporter ak Chet Ratthi. Before Bloomberg actually worked for

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<v Speaker 2>Quartz and The Economist, and his work has been cited

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<v Speaker 2>in widely read global publications including The New York Times

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<v Speaker 2>in New York at, the Guardian and the Wallbury Journal

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<v Speaker 2>and the Financial Times. That's pretty much everything, actually, and

0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:33.520
<v Speaker 2>I discussed the main thesis behind his book, climate Capitalism.

0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:36.880
<v Speaker 2>So here we go. So thank you very much for

0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:39.880
<v Speaker 2>your book. I've enjoyed reading it enormously and I wanted

0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:43.280
<v Speaker 2>to start with the with the big, big picture stuff,

0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:47.840
<v Speaker 2>which is how you really feel about capitalism in that

0:11:47.920 --> 0:11:50.800
<v Speaker 2>when when someone picks up your book, they go straight in.

0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:53.400
<v Speaker 2>They're going to start at the introduction and the first

0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:55.240
<v Speaker 2>couple of pages they're going to hear a lot about

0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:59.800
<v Speaker 2>the extractive economic system built up to maximize profits, concentrate wealth,

0:11:59.840 --> 0:12:01.560
<v Speaker 2>and hands of the rich. They're going to go on

0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:07.080
<v Speaker 2>to unfettered capitalism and some discussion about the conceivable possibility

0:12:07.120 --> 0:12:09.760
<v Speaker 2>of overthrowing capitalism, etc. By the time they get to

0:12:09.800 --> 0:12:12.440
<v Speaker 2>page three, they're going to think that this is going

0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:15.360
<v Speaker 2>to be a book about overthrowing capitalism, changing the world

0:12:15.360 --> 0:12:17.800
<v Speaker 2>completely and introducing a different system, which of course we

0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:20.000
<v Speaker 2>know never works. But that's not for this podcast. That's

0:12:20.000 --> 0:12:22.360
<v Speaker 2>for another time. But of course, as we go through

0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:25.280
<v Speaker 2>the book, that's not really how you feel, is it.

0:12:25.320 --> 0:12:28.400
<v Speaker 2>So let's talk about your sort of slightly conflicted feelings

0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:31.200
<v Speaker 2>around what capitalism represents.

0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:35.000
<v Speaker 3>In a way, the conflicted feeling of capitalism is what

0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:40.320
<v Speaker 3>I observe in the audience right there, is all the

0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:43.560
<v Speaker 3>evils are sometimes put into this basket of capitalism and

0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:47.160
<v Speaker 3>very rarely defined what it is. But I also wanted

0:12:47.160 --> 0:12:50.640
<v Speaker 3>to start this book by taking the view that environmentalists

0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:52.920
<v Speaker 3>have taken, which is that there is just no way

0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:57.400
<v Speaker 3>to solve the climate problem without overthrowing capitalism, and they

0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:01.840
<v Speaker 3>never offer an alternative that actually worked, and so you

0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:05.080
<v Speaker 3>know by page three you also get Noam Chomsky, the

0:13:05.120 --> 0:13:08.800
<v Speaker 3>famous anti capitalist, who tells you, well, if this is

0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:10.880
<v Speaker 3>to be sold on a deadline, there is no way

0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:14.360
<v Speaker 3>to overthrow capitalism. You just have to modify it to

0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:19.480
<v Speaker 3>make it work. And my reporting shows that in around

0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:23.000
<v Speaker 3>the world, in countries of all types of economic and

0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:28.800
<v Speaker 3>political contexts, in all types of affordability, from developing countries

0:13:28.840 --> 0:13:31.920
<v Speaker 3>like India to rich countries like the US, there are

0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:35.400
<v Speaker 3>tweaks being made to the market system so that it

0:13:35.480 --> 0:13:39.600
<v Speaker 3>can start to finally address the climate challenge in a

0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:41.280
<v Speaker 3>scale that is necessary.

0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:46.520
<v Speaker 2>Okay, but the key thing here is that capitalism is

0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:50.240
<v Speaker 2>the solution to climate change, in that there is only

0:13:50.280 --> 0:13:52.599
<v Speaker 2>one system that we know has worked long term to

0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:56.000
<v Speaker 2>pull people out of poverty. Right about this yourself, about

0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:59.240
<v Speaker 2>the way the combination of capitalism and fossil fuels has

0:13:59.280 --> 0:14:03.480
<v Speaker 2>been the most extraordinary game changer for humanity in terms

0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:06.719
<v Speaker 2>of making us rich, making us prosperous, pulling people out

0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:09.360
<v Speaker 2>of poverty. And so the best thing for us to

0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:12.640
<v Speaker 2>do from here is to say, hey, this is really something,

0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:16.400
<v Speaker 2>and we should use the power of this to pull

0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:20.080
<v Speaker 2>ourselves out of the whole we've dug ourselves into we don't.

0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:24.440
<v Speaker 3>Have a better system to try and find this signal

0:14:24.520 --> 0:14:28.440
<v Speaker 3>in the noise around the world. Right markets provide this

0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:33.480
<v Speaker 3>really good sorting mechanism of connecting the buyers with the

0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:38.040
<v Speaker 3>sellers at ideally the right price. But what has happened

0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:42.560
<v Speaker 3>is that in this process we have as an economic

0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:46.840
<v Speaker 3>system ignored the cost of the pollution, and that is

0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:49.840
<v Speaker 3>now being incorporated into the economic system, and I think

0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:54.120
<v Speaker 3>that's what's changing climate capitalism to work.

0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:58.040
<v Speaker 2>So what we're doing here is we're recognizing that occasionally

0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:01.280
<v Speaker 2>the market doesn't include thing in the price, and we

0:15:01.360 --> 0:15:04.200
<v Speaker 2>have to give it a nudge to get the last

0:15:04.240 --> 0:15:09.080
<v Speaker 2>bit in the price correct. Okay, all right, So then

0:15:09.480 --> 0:15:11.440
<v Speaker 2>can we just talk before we go on to talking

0:15:11.440 --> 0:15:14.080
<v Speaker 2>about the wonderful stories in the book, because I mean,

0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:16.240
<v Speaker 2>I'm thrilled by your book, because John and I always

0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:18.760
<v Speaker 2>talk about how we expect human ingenuity to solve all

0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:21.520
<v Speaker 2>the problems, and you know, there's so much doom and

0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:24.240
<v Speaker 2>gloom and less doom and gloom, but in the end,

0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:28.120
<v Speaker 2>so far human ingenuity has always solved most of the problems.

0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:33.040
<v Speaker 2>But this is a slightly bigger problem than most, right

0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:38.320
<v Speaker 2>in that moving to anything close to net zero involved

0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:43.000
<v Speaker 2>the kind of transformation of global economics, global systems, global

0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:48.040
<v Speaker 2>living standards that has really never happened before, particularly given

0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:49.560
<v Speaker 2>the size of the global population.

0:15:49.680 --> 0:15:49.800
<v Speaker 1>Now.

0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:52.960
<v Speaker 2>So when we look back at previous transformations, you know,

0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:56.800
<v Speaker 2>say into fossil fuels, etc. Populations have been much smaller,

0:15:56.840 --> 0:15:59.680
<v Speaker 2>systems have been much smaller. It's a very different thing

0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:03.600
<v Speaker 2>to changing an energy system that drives the population of

0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:07.360
<v Speaker 2>say eight billion people. So it's a huge thing. So,

0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:12.120
<v Speaker 2>even with all the sort of rather exciting things that

0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:15.880
<v Speaker 2>you write about in the book, I wanted to get

0:16:16.000 --> 0:16:20.120
<v Speaker 2>a sense here of what you believe is actually possible

0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:23.280
<v Speaker 2>within say the next twenty thirty years.

0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:27.080
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's a very good question because previous transformations, say

0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:29.480
<v Speaker 3>going from wood to coal or from coal to oil

0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:34.160
<v Speaker 3>as the major source of energy, have happened over timelines

0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:38.920
<v Speaker 3>that were driven by the economics rather than a deadline

0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:42.400
<v Speaker 3>given to you by scientists. Right, that is the net

0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:45.640
<v Speaker 3>zero framework we have that until we reach zero emissions,

0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:49.240
<v Speaker 3>we keep warming the planet up and extreme weather events

0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:53.800
<v Speaker 3>keep increasing. Now, what is possible Theoretically net zero by

0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:58.400
<v Speaker 3>twenty fifty is possible. And I'd say theoretically because there

0:16:58.520 --> 0:17:01.600
<v Speaker 3>is a plan it's been put forward by the Intergovernmental

0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:04.679
<v Speaker 3>Panel on Climate Change that is being signed off by

0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:09.240
<v Speaker 3>one hundred and ninety five countries to deliver on that goal.

0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:13.359
<v Speaker 3>So it's certainly doable. Now what is practical is a

0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:16.280
<v Speaker 3>different question, because and let me.

0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:19.359
<v Speaker 2>Stop you there. Then when you say it's doable, what

0:17:19.400 --> 0:17:25.320
<v Speaker 2>would the be the consequences of doing it inside that

0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:28.040
<v Speaker 2>timeframe to that plan? I guess we'll move on to

0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:30.000
<v Speaker 2>the extent that whether it's practical or not. But when

0:17:30.040 --> 0:17:31.720
<v Speaker 2>you say it's doable, what do you mean?

0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:36.160
<v Speaker 3>So to think about the NAT zero challenge, it helps

0:17:36.200 --> 0:17:39.840
<v Speaker 3>to perhaps split it into four parts. For pieces of

0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:45.200
<v Speaker 3>the PI, say a quarter is electricity, a quarter is transport,

0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:49.240
<v Speaker 3>a quarter is industry, and a quarter is agriculture. And

0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:52.840
<v Speaker 3>what we now have is solutions for at least half

0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:56.399
<v Speaker 3>of them, which is how to get electricity sector to

0:17:57.119 --> 0:18:03.320
<v Speaker 3>zero emissions using solar wind batteries, geothermal hydropower, a combination

0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:09.840
<v Speaker 3>of large transmission across huge amounts of distances in transportation

0:18:10.040 --> 0:18:13.960
<v Speaker 3>again through electric cars, through lithium I in batteries, through

0:18:15.440 --> 0:18:18.720
<v Speaker 3>new modes of transport that are coming through in aviation

0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:22.280
<v Speaker 3>and shipping. There is a plan to get to zero

0:18:22.320 --> 0:18:26.960
<v Speaker 3>emissions industrial sector. We are at a younger stage in

0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:31.000
<v Speaker 3>those technologies, but those technologies are starting to become commercial.

0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:34.080
<v Speaker 3>So either you apply carbon capture, which is an ability

0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:38.400
<v Speaker 3>to take the emissions from the smokestacks of industry put

0:18:38.440 --> 0:18:41.560
<v Speaker 3>it deep underground, or you move to hydrogen, which is

0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:46.720
<v Speaker 3>happening in Sweden converting steel production from using coal to hydrogen,

0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:52.040
<v Speaker 3>or just use electricity to be able to convert iron

0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:55.080
<v Speaker 3>ore to iron, which is also starting to happen. That's

0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:58.840
<v Speaker 3>the industrial pie. And then agriculture is actually fascinating because

0:18:59.480 --> 0:19:03.080
<v Speaker 3>there are big challenges in that there are hundreds of

0:19:03.119 --> 0:19:05.719
<v Speaker 3>millions of farmers who need to be able to adopt

0:19:05.720 --> 0:19:09.040
<v Speaker 3>these solutions. But if you do adopt those solutions, you

0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:12.720
<v Speaker 3>actually start to use agriculture to store carbon into the

0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:16.560
<v Speaker 3>ground rather than be a producer of emissions. And so

0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:19.560
<v Speaker 3>that's what I say that this plan exists, that there

0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:23.640
<v Speaker 3>are technologies that are there, and slowly the economic systems

0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:27.360
<v Speaker 3>are also being put to make these technologies be deployed.

0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:29.960
<v Speaker 2>Okay, skip, you quick give back to agriculture because on

0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:32.800
<v Speaker 2>the previous three you explained what you meant, But when

0:19:33.000 --> 0:19:35.119
<v Speaker 2>what are the systems in agriculture you're talking about we

0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:41.479
<v Speaker 2>have we've done a podcast before on posture ad farming

0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:45.240
<v Speaker 2>and that kind of thing and sequestration in the soil.

0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:48.080
<v Speaker 2>Is that what you mean or is there something something else?

0:19:48.720 --> 0:19:52.800
<v Speaker 3>So agricultural emissions are split into perhaps two big gases.

0:19:52.920 --> 0:19:57.439
<v Speaker 3>One is carbon dioxide that has come from losing carbon

0:19:57.560 --> 0:20:02.000
<v Speaker 3>from the soil, and the second is nitrogen emissions that

0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:06.919
<v Speaker 3>come from using fertilizers that are made synthetically. Right, we

0:20:06.960 --> 0:20:13.040
<v Speaker 3>create ammonia from natural gas right now, So moving to

0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:16.480
<v Speaker 3>ammonia that's made from hydrogen that is produced from green

0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:19.439
<v Speaker 3>electricity is now possible. It is slightly expensive, but you

0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:21.720
<v Speaker 3>start to make it cheaper, you start to reduce the

0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:25.959
<v Speaker 3>emissions that come from ammonia production, but you'd still have

0:20:26.080 --> 0:20:29.560
<v Speaker 3>nitrogen emissions that are generated in the soil. Those need

0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:33.560
<v Speaker 3>to be managed by a counterbalancing force, which is you

0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:36.360
<v Speaker 3>start to absorb ceoto rather than produce. And so what's

0:20:36.400 --> 0:20:41.120
<v Speaker 3>happening on COO two, specifically on agriculture is there are

0:20:41.359 --> 0:20:45.840
<v Speaker 3>methods called regenerative agriculture where you can actually increase the

0:20:46.000 --> 0:20:50.080
<v Speaker 3>yield of a farm while increasing the amount of COO

0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:53.159
<v Speaker 3>to that is absorbed by those soils. Is just a

0:20:53.200 --> 0:20:55.280
<v Speaker 3>new way of thinking about how to do this, not

0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:58.040
<v Speaker 3>to say it's never been done in the past. Lots

0:20:58.040 --> 0:21:02.200
<v Speaker 3>of people around the world, Indigenous communities have mastered these ideas,

0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:05.960
<v Speaker 3>but we've moved to an industrial structure where it has

0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:08.960
<v Speaker 3>been much more extractive and not thinking about the regenerative

0:21:09.000 --> 0:21:11.439
<v Speaker 3>aspect as much. It just requires a change in thinking.

0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:16.199
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it it seems ambition is good, but it seems

0:21:16.200 --> 0:21:19.359
<v Speaker 2>an extraordinary ambition that you could achieve that across the

0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:24.159
<v Speaker 2>global agricultural sector in a couple of decades. Correct, And

0:21:24.200 --> 0:21:25.800
<v Speaker 2>when I look at the numbers, I mean, obviously what

0:21:25.840 --> 0:21:28.199
<v Speaker 2>was absolutely christlist to remind everybody that net zero is

0:21:28.200 --> 0:21:31.760
<v Speaker 2>not zero, right, because when you speak to people about

0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:34.399
<v Speaker 2>net zero sometimes there is a sort of an odd

0:21:34.440 --> 0:21:37.000
<v Speaker 2>assumption that it means that by net zero means that

0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:38.880
<v Speaker 2>we don't use fossil fuels at all, and of course

0:21:38.880 --> 0:21:40.639
<v Speaker 2>it means absolutely nothing of the sort. It means that

0:21:40.680 --> 0:21:43.400
<v Speaker 2>we work to get ourselves to a net level of zero.

0:21:43.440 --> 0:21:46.080
<v Speaker 2>But when you look at the numbers for the last

0:21:46.119 --> 0:21:48.359
<v Speaker 2>twenty years or so, and you see that we've worked

0:21:48.560 --> 0:21:52.680
<v Speaker 2>so hard on, for example, renewable when solo biofuels, et cetera,

0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:56.080
<v Speaker 2>and we've increased our use with them by fifty sixty times,

0:21:56.160 --> 0:22:00.240
<v Speaker 2>but we are still over eighty percent dependent on fossil fuel.

0:22:00.560 --> 0:22:05.000
<v Speaker 2>So whenever we talk about all these wonderful, optimistic things,

0:22:05.040 --> 0:22:08.360
<v Speaker 2>but then when we look at the raw data, it's

0:22:08.520 --> 0:22:13.600
<v Speaker 2>hard to see progress because of the rising demand for energy.

0:22:14.560 --> 0:22:17.360
<v Speaker 3>Yes, it is, and let me give you the practical

0:22:17.400 --> 0:22:20.000
<v Speaker 3>side of it in two forms. One, the challenge is

0:22:20.000 --> 0:22:23.320
<v Speaker 3>actually not as big as eighty percent, and I'll tell

0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:25.560
<v Speaker 3>you why. Because most of the fossil fuels that are

0:22:25.560 --> 0:22:31.200
<v Speaker 3>burned today in cars, in factories, in power plants are wasted.

0:22:31.440 --> 0:22:34.160
<v Speaker 3>And when I say wasted, the heat that is produced

0:22:34.200 --> 0:22:38.720
<v Speaker 3>that is actually converted into useful work is a tiny fraction.

0:22:38.880 --> 0:22:41.320
<v Speaker 3>In a car, it's like twenty five percent. In a

0:22:41.440 --> 0:22:45.560
<v Speaker 3>power plant, it's usually forty percent. And so when you

0:22:45.600 --> 0:22:48.560
<v Speaker 3>move to an electrical system, it is just a ton

0:22:48.720 --> 0:22:52.080
<v Speaker 3>more efficient. So for the same unit of energy in

0:22:52.119 --> 0:22:54.960
<v Speaker 3>an electric car, you can go four times the distance

0:22:55.000 --> 0:22:56.919
<v Speaker 3>as you would in a fossil fuel car. So you

0:22:57.000 --> 0:22:59.239
<v Speaker 3>don't need to replace a system that is say one

0:22:59.320 --> 0:23:02.240
<v Speaker 3>hundred un of energy today with one hundred units of

0:23:02.359 --> 0:23:05.000
<v Speaker 3>energy in net zero system, you actually need to do

0:23:05.200 --> 0:23:09.359
<v Speaker 3>only sixty units maybe, so that's one. But the second

0:23:09.359 --> 0:23:12.720
<v Speaker 3>side is absolutely right. The practicality of how quickly we

0:23:12.880 --> 0:23:17.440
<v Speaker 3>change this system is really hard and there are again

0:23:17.560 --> 0:23:21.119
<v Speaker 3>two sides to think about. This has always been the challenge,

0:23:21.200 --> 0:23:24.399
<v Speaker 3>right moving to a renewable system that would have even

0:23:24.480 --> 0:23:27.359
<v Speaker 3>ten or twenty or thirty percent on the grid was

0:23:27.359 --> 0:23:31.280
<v Speaker 3>thought to be impossible. There will be blackouts, Well we

0:23:31.320 --> 0:23:33.840
<v Speaker 3>are now. It's sixty seventy percent in some countries in

0:23:33.920 --> 0:23:39.080
<v Speaker 3>Europe on an annual basis, and those blackout fears haven't

0:23:39.080 --> 0:23:42.080
<v Speaker 3>come true. So there's the reality of faction.

0:23:42.280 --> 0:23:44.680
<v Speaker 2>That's but that's because we still have the backup systems

0:23:44.680 --> 0:23:47.480
<v Speaker 2>in place. We still have the you know, we've dealt

0:23:47.480 --> 0:23:50.159
<v Speaker 2>with the intermittency by still having gas and coal et

0:23:50.200 --> 0:23:53.800
<v Speaker 2>cetera in place. Correct, Yes, you know that there's a

0:23:53.840 --> 0:23:58.040
<v Speaker 2>push to the push to to not recognize intermittency. That's

0:23:58.080 --> 0:24:00.720
<v Speaker 2>where you run into trouble. And of course our grids

0:24:00.760 --> 0:24:05.520
<v Speaker 2>are increasingly old and creaky and we can't really i mean,

0:24:05.680 --> 0:24:07.600
<v Speaker 2>certainly in the UK, we can't really put up much

0:24:08.000 --> 0:24:10.399
<v Speaker 2>much more in the way of renewable We can't connect

0:24:10.480 --> 0:24:14.000
<v Speaker 2>much more without revamping the grid. Right, So we've got

0:24:14.000 --> 0:24:17.199
<v Speaker 2>to a certain point and we're very reliant on our

0:24:17.240 --> 0:24:20.600
<v Speaker 2>backup systems, and we're very reliant on a crumbling grid.

0:24:20.920 --> 0:24:24.480
<v Speaker 2>So I've interrupted you. I'm sorry, but I sort of

0:24:24.520 --> 0:24:26.720
<v Speaker 2>slightly feel we've got as far as we can go

0:24:27.560 --> 0:24:36.000
<v Speaker 2>without really doing some very significant building and without recognizing

0:24:36.080 --> 0:24:38.960
<v Speaker 2>the problem of intermittency slightly more than we have so far.

0:24:39.160 --> 0:24:39.640
<v Speaker 2>Is that wrong?

0:24:40.160 --> 0:24:40.679
<v Speaker 1>For sure?

0:24:40.800 --> 0:24:43.400
<v Speaker 3>I think you're absolutely right. We have done a significant

0:24:43.440 --> 0:24:46.840
<v Speaker 3>amount of building just deploying renewable assets here in the UK,

0:24:47.000 --> 0:24:50.760
<v Speaker 3>say offshore wind, but the interconnections need to come through,

0:24:50.960 --> 0:24:53.919
<v Speaker 3>the technologies to store energy need to come through. But again,

0:24:54.000 --> 0:24:56.800
<v Speaker 3>this challenge is a global challenge. So if the UK

0:24:56.960 --> 0:24:59.720
<v Speaker 3>and Denmark are places where you get fifty sixty seventy

0:24:59.760 --> 0:25:03.520
<v Speaker 3>percent and renewable electricity, you can make that happen in India,

0:25:03.560 --> 0:25:06.560
<v Speaker 3>which currently gets less than ten percent from solar and wind.

0:25:06.720 --> 0:25:06.960
<v Speaker 2>Right.

0:25:07.160 --> 0:25:09.119
<v Speaker 3>So India has a huge way to go, and so

0:25:09.960 --> 0:25:12.359
<v Speaker 3>you can start to see how this comes in place.

0:25:12.400 --> 0:25:15.359
<v Speaker 3>But going back to the practicality, you know one point

0:25:15.359 --> 0:25:17.639
<v Speaker 3>five degrees celsius and two degrees celsius. These are the

0:25:17.680 --> 0:25:20.879
<v Speaker 3>two goals set in the Paris Agreement. The likelihood of

0:25:21.240 --> 0:25:25.399
<v Speaker 3>us meeting one point five is becoming vanishingly small, but

0:25:25.440 --> 0:25:29.440
<v Speaker 3>the likelihood of actually reaching two is still very much possible.

0:25:29.600 --> 0:25:33.520
<v Speaker 3>And so you may not get the perfect outcome of

0:25:33.560 --> 0:25:35.679
<v Speaker 3>net zero by twenty fifty, but you might get net

0:25:35.760 --> 0:25:39.160
<v Speaker 3>zero by twenty seventy, which is still so much better

0:25:39.280 --> 0:25:41.880
<v Speaker 3>than the world we are headed towards right now, which

0:25:41.920 --> 0:25:43.639
<v Speaker 3>is three degrees celsius of warming.

0:25:44.800 --> 0:25:49.400
<v Speaker 2>Okay, all right, So in practical terms, it's just going

0:25:49.440 --> 0:25:55.560
<v Speaker 2>to take longer, be more difficult than the big optimist think,

0:25:55.760 --> 0:25:59.480
<v Speaker 2>but it's still possible within a slightly longer timeframe. And

0:25:59.480 --> 0:26:01.440
<v Speaker 2>of course we have no idea what happens next. We're

0:26:01.480 --> 0:26:05.400
<v Speaker 2>incredibly bad at predicting the future. We I mean, as humans,

0:26:05.400 --> 0:26:07.719
<v Speaker 2>we're really lousy at this. We think things are going

0:26:07.760 --> 0:26:10.080
<v Speaker 2>in one direction, and mostly they're not. We think something's

0:26:10.119 --> 0:26:11.560
<v Speaker 2>going to change the world, we find we've gone and

0:26:11.600 --> 0:26:14.200
<v Speaker 2>slightly the wrong direction. We think we've got everything under control,

0:26:14.200 --> 0:26:15.720
<v Speaker 2>and then we have a pandemic and find we don't

0:26:15.760 --> 0:26:18.600
<v Speaker 2>know how to make masks. You know, we're very bad

0:26:18.600 --> 0:26:20.639
<v Speaker 2>at this. So all sorts of things could happen in

0:26:20.680 --> 0:26:23.560
<v Speaker 2>the intervening period that show us that we're right or wrong.

0:26:23.680 --> 0:26:25.680
<v Speaker 2>We've got got red heiring here or red heiring there,

0:26:25.720 --> 0:26:27.600
<v Speaker 2>or gone down the wrong road with some kind of

0:26:27.600 --> 0:26:30.199
<v Speaker 2>electric car or something like that. But in the round,

0:26:30.760 --> 0:26:33.480
<v Speaker 2>in the round, you think that we are on the

0:26:33.520 --> 0:26:34.200
<v Speaker 2>correct track.

0:26:34.640 --> 0:26:37.240
<v Speaker 3>Yes, we are bad at predicting the future. And that's

0:26:37.560 --> 0:26:41.480
<v Speaker 3>why I think the capitalistic system is actually the better

0:26:41.520 --> 0:26:46.000
<v Speaker 3>one to rely on, because instead of a government choosing

0:26:46.400 --> 0:26:49.840
<v Speaker 3>a technology to back to get us to the answer

0:26:49.960 --> 0:26:53.119
<v Speaker 3>that we think we have, it is so much better

0:26:53.560 --> 0:26:59.480
<v Speaker 3>to have governments support a bunch of bets through market

0:26:59.600 --> 0:27:02.080
<v Speaker 3>directly that we need to get to a decarbonized grid,

0:27:02.119 --> 0:27:05.919
<v Speaker 3>but don't pick up particular winner. They allow the market

0:27:06.000 --> 0:27:08.720
<v Speaker 3>to have these signals and noise to come through and

0:27:09.320 --> 0:27:12.840
<v Speaker 3>show us which one works, because the solution for a

0:27:12.840 --> 0:27:15.560
<v Speaker 3>particular place may be different, you know. Or the UK

0:27:15.720 --> 0:27:18.760
<v Speaker 3>has offshore win. India may not have so much off

0:27:18.760 --> 0:27:20.280
<v Speaker 3>your win, but it has a ton of solar.

0:27:20.400 --> 0:27:22.520
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you have an amazing solar and at least I

0:27:22.680 --> 0:27:23.960
<v Speaker 2>know they get they get proper son.

0:27:25.000 --> 0:27:30.280
<v Speaker 3>Yes exactly. And so you allow for markets to participate

0:27:30.400 --> 0:27:34.000
<v Speaker 3>in a solution that they are well capable of delivering on.

0:27:34.440 --> 0:27:37.080
<v Speaker 2>Okay, So which country do you think is doing the

0:27:37.119 --> 0:27:41.639
<v Speaker 2>best job of nudging prices to make this work.

0:27:42.160 --> 0:27:44.840
<v Speaker 3>So climate capitalism sort of shows that this can happen

0:27:44.840 --> 0:27:49.679
<v Speaker 3>in different context Let's take three examples. The US is

0:27:49.720 --> 0:27:52.040
<v Speaker 3>doing it through the Inflation Reduction Act. Now it's the

0:27:52.160 --> 0:27:54.359
<v Speaker 3>last one to come to the party. The US has

0:27:54.440 --> 0:27:57.040
<v Speaker 3>dragged its feet on trying to do much on decarbonization.

0:27:57.200 --> 0:28:01.400
<v Speaker 3>You can blame the politics, you can blame other factors,

0:28:01.400 --> 0:28:04.720
<v Speaker 3>like it's become a fossil fuel giant, but now it

0:28:04.800 --> 0:28:08.280
<v Speaker 3>is at the party, at least under this presidency. The

0:28:08.320 --> 0:28:10.680
<v Speaker 3>Inflation Reduction Act, which is passed in twenty twenty two,

0:28:11.280 --> 0:28:14.159
<v Speaker 3>was passed despite the political divide between the Democrats and

0:28:14.280 --> 0:28:19.639
<v Speaker 3>Republicans on climate and the likelihood of it lasting regardless

0:28:19.640 --> 0:28:22.240
<v Speaker 3>of where the politics goes this year when the election

0:28:22.320 --> 0:28:26.639
<v Speaker 3>happens is quite high because of the way it was structured.

0:28:27.160 --> 0:28:30.200
<v Speaker 3>In this American system, it's all about tax credits, it's

0:28:30.240 --> 0:28:35.360
<v Speaker 3>all about giving benefit to companies building clean energy technologies.

0:28:35.800 --> 0:28:38.800
<v Speaker 3>That's not the system Europe has adopted. Europe has a

0:28:39.120 --> 0:28:42.160
<v Speaker 3>Green Deal which was signed over the last few years,

0:28:42.600 --> 0:28:45.440
<v Speaker 3>and it is very much a cat and stick model,

0:28:45.520 --> 0:28:48.800
<v Speaker 3>and the stick is typically bigger, and that's to do

0:28:48.920 --> 0:28:52.680
<v Speaker 3>with European countries not having quite the capacity to spend

0:28:52.680 --> 0:28:56.240
<v Speaker 3>like America does. But also because of the European system,

0:28:56.360 --> 0:29:00.280
<v Speaker 3>where the European Union has only so much power, all

0:29:00.280 --> 0:29:03.120
<v Speaker 3>the countries within it have to do the rest. And

0:29:03.160 --> 0:29:05.920
<v Speaker 3>then you have the Chinese system, which is data.

0:29:05.840 --> 0:29:08.240
<v Speaker 2>And we should sorry, I should just interrupt you to

0:29:08.280 --> 0:29:12.120
<v Speaker 2>say that despite all that a good news coming out

0:29:12.160 --> 0:29:14.040
<v Speaker 2>of the US, it's still it's oil production is still

0:29:14.040 --> 0:29:15.240
<v Speaker 2>at a record high, isn't.

0:29:15.040 --> 0:29:16.480
<v Speaker 1>It very much?

0:29:16.880 --> 0:29:20.320
<v Speaker 3>So not just oil productions, gas production is a record

0:29:20.400 --> 0:29:23.760
<v Speaker 3>high too. And you know, we live in this two

0:29:23.840 --> 0:29:27.280
<v Speaker 3>track world where you know, climate impacts will keep getting

0:29:27.280 --> 0:29:30.640
<v Speaker 3>worse as we extract more fossil fuels and put more

0:29:30.680 --> 0:29:34.200
<v Speaker 3>ginas gases into the atmosphere. But also because of the

0:29:34.320 --> 0:29:37.160
<v Speaker 3>urgency of the problem and because many of these technologies

0:29:37.200 --> 0:29:40.720
<v Speaker 3>are actually just cheaper, you're getting an acceleration of the

0:29:40.760 --> 0:29:43.280
<v Speaker 3>solutions that are being deployed. And so, you know, the

0:29:43.400 --> 0:29:46.719
<v Speaker 3>Chinese version has not been so much driven by the

0:29:46.760 --> 0:29:50.560
<v Speaker 3>emissions or by trying to meet climate goals. It's been

0:29:50.640 --> 0:29:55.240
<v Speaker 3>driven by trying to create domestic industries, to create export

0:29:55.280 --> 0:29:59.160
<v Speaker 3>industries and grow its economy. It did that with solar

0:29:59.360 --> 0:30:01.560
<v Speaker 3>and wind, and then it did it with batteries and

0:30:01.600 --> 0:30:04.400
<v Speaker 3>electric cars, and now it's starting to get into hydrogen.

0:30:04.760 --> 0:30:09.200
<v Speaker 3>And so because of its stayed driven capitalism and it's

0:30:09.200 --> 0:30:13.920
<v Speaker 3>sort of political nature where leader stays in power for decades,

0:30:14.520 --> 0:30:17.200
<v Speaker 3>it has had that ability to work on that problem

0:30:17.360 --> 0:30:20.720
<v Speaker 3>for a long time. And that's starting to give dividends

0:30:20.720 --> 0:30:24.160
<v Speaker 3>for that country and for the world because those technologies

0:30:24.200 --> 0:30:26.000
<v Speaker 3>have become cheaper as a result.

0:30:26.400 --> 0:30:29.240
<v Speaker 2>It's interesting though, I mean, China remains the biggest polluta.

0:30:29.440 --> 0:30:33.800
<v Speaker 2>It continues to burn what percentage of the planet's called

0:30:33.960 --> 0:30:36.440
<v Speaker 2>and I don't know, fifty percent something like that, and

0:30:36.600 --> 0:30:39.840
<v Speaker 2>continues to put up new coal plants at the same time.

0:30:40.320 --> 0:30:44.360
<v Speaker 2>Is doing all this so obviously, unlike other countries, there

0:30:44.400 --> 0:30:49.320
<v Speaker 2>isn't a feeling behind the Chinese shift of we want

0:30:49.360 --> 0:30:52.120
<v Speaker 2>to save the world. The shift is we want to

0:30:52.240 --> 0:30:55.800
<v Speaker 2>create new industries and control those industries and flog them

0:30:55.840 --> 0:30:58.320
<v Speaker 2>to the rest of the world. It's a slightly different dynamic.

0:30:58.560 --> 0:31:00.000
<v Speaker 2>I see a very different dynamic.

0:31:01.000 --> 0:31:03.760
<v Speaker 3>Yes, I mean that is the primary driver. But it

0:31:03.880 --> 0:31:07.320
<v Speaker 3>is also true that China recognizes the challenge because China

0:31:07.400 --> 0:31:09.680
<v Speaker 3>is one of the most vulnerable countries when it comes

0:31:09.720 --> 0:31:12.160
<v Speaker 3>to climate change. So, in this period where you had

0:31:12.200 --> 0:31:15.120
<v Speaker 3>tensions between US and China grow, and they still remain.

0:31:15.560 --> 0:31:18.840
<v Speaker 3>The one thing that through that tense period they continue

0:31:18.880 --> 0:31:22.320
<v Speaker 3>to collaborate on was climate because they see this as

0:31:22.360 --> 0:31:25.080
<v Speaker 3>a global problem. Without the two biggest emitters on the

0:31:25.080 --> 0:31:27.960
<v Speaker 3>planet actually working together, the rest of the planet doesn't

0:31:27.960 --> 0:31:28.480
<v Speaker 3>come along.

0:31:30.080 --> 0:31:33.240
<v Speaker 2>Okay, And do you I mean there is much discussion

0:31:33.520 --> 0:31:37.440
<v Speaker 2>about the problem that we create for ourselves when we

0:31:37.680 --> 0:31:43.200
<v Speaker 2>allow China to become to control so much of the

0:31:43.240 --> 0:31:49.240
<v Speaker 2>industry and the minerals around the transition. Is that a

0:31:49.280 --> 0:31:50.560
<v Speaker 2>problem for the rest of the world.

0:31:50.560 --> 0:31:54.240
<v Speaker 3>Do you think, Well, this is where the geopolitics and

0:31:54.680 --> 0:31:59.320
<v Speaker 3>the economics collide. Right in the economic model of trying

0:31:59.320 --> 0:32:02.200
<v Speaker 3>to get to climate solutions, you'd want the cheapest solutions

0:32:02.240 --> 0:32:06.120
<v Speaker 3>to win out, doesn't matter who produces them, And China

0:32:06.160 --> 0:32:10.240
<v Speaker 3>currently does make the cheapest of all clean technologies. And

0:32:10.280 --> 0:32:13.520
<v Speaker 3>if you just allow for only Chinese solar panels and

0:32:13.560 --> 0:32:17.200
<v Speaker 3>winterbines and batteries to power the clean energy future, we

0:32:17.400 --> 0:32:19.760
<v Speaker 3>are likely to pay a lower price to get to

0:32:19.760 --> 0:32:23.240
<v Speaker 3>net zero. But of course that's why the geopolitics collides,

0:32:23.280 --> 0:32:26.800
<v Speaker 3>because that means taking away jobs from places like the

0:32:26.920 --> 0:32:30.120
<v Speaker 3>US or Europe where they need to move away from

0:32:30.160 --> 0:32:34.360
<v Speaker 3>the dirty industries to the clean industries. And so you're

0:32:34.400 --> 0:32:37.120
<v Speaker 3>going to have to make difficult choices where it may

0:32:37.160 --> 0:32:40.239
<v Speaker 3>not be the most economically efficient way to get to

0:32:40.280 --> 0:32:44.160
<v Speaker 3>net zero, but it would be the most politically expedient

0:32:44.240 --> 0:32:46.560
<v Speaker 3>way to get to net zero, while you have to

0:32:46.600 --> 0:32:49.040
<v Speaker 3>pay a higher cost because you're going to bring that

0:32:49.080 --> 0:32:51.840
<v Speaker 3>manufacturing back to your shore. And some of that is

0:32:51.880 --> 0:32:54.600
<v Speaker 3>starting to happen in the US with this Inflation Reduction

0:32:54.680 --> 0:32:58.720
<v Speaker 3>Act money same things trying to be done by India

0:32:58.720 --> 0:33:01.200
<v Speaker 3>but also by Europe to try and get more solar

0:33:01.240 --> 0:33:06.000
<v Speaker 3>manufacturing in within those borders, or getting more battery manufacturing

0:33:06.080 --> 0:33:09.760
<v Speaker 3>or recycling in those borders. So it's going to be

0:33:10.440 --> 0:33:12.720
<v Speaker 3>a messy transition. I think that's a given, you know.

0:33:12.760 --> 0:33:15.600
<v Speaker 3>So you see these parts of net zero going from

0:33:15.600 --> 0:33:18.080
<v Speaker 3>where we are at forty billion tons of emissions to zero,

0:33:18.400 --> 0:33:21.000
<v Speaker 3>they look smooth. They're going to be nothing like it.

0:33:21.840 --> 0:33:24.720
<v Speaker 2>And do you worry? I want I want to get

0:33:24.760 --> 0:33:26.720
<v Speaker 2>onto the exciting stories in your book in a minute,

0:33:26.760 --> 0:33:29.400
<v Speaker 2>but before that, I want to ask you the extent

0:33:29.440 --> 0:33:31.320
<v Speaker 2>to which you worry, because I know you watched this

0:33:31.440 --> 0:33:33.240
<v Speaker 2>kind of thing all the time, much more, much more

0:33:33.280 --> 0:33:38.000
<v Speaker 2>than I do about the backlash against net zero that

0:33:38.040 --> 0:33:40.120
<v Speaker 2>we've seen a bit of in the UK, we've seen

0:33:40.120 --> 0:33:43.920
<v Speaker 2>a bit of in other countries, and we've seen, particularly

0:33:43.960 --> 0:33:49.120
<v Speaker 2>in the US, a major backlash against ESG, against investing

0:33:49.160 --> 0:33:53.000
<v Speaker 2>with environmental social governance factors and particular environmental factors at

0:33:53.000 --> 0:33:56.480
<v Speaker 2>the top on the basis that it doesn't appear to outperform, etc.

0:33:56.720 --> 0:33:59.520
<v Speaker 2>So we've seen that conversation around that. Do you feel

0:34:00.200 --> 0:34:04.200
<v Speaker 2>a backlash against the transition that may impact the transition?

0:34:05.080 --> 0:34:08.400
<v Speaker 3>Yes, and that backlash is very real and it's playing

0:34:08.400 --> 0:34:11.480
<v Speaker 3>out in multiple countries around the world right now. It's

0:34:11.520 --> 0:34:14.120
<v Speaker 3>not the only story. There are other places, like in

0:34:14.160 --> 0:34:19.239
<v Speaker 3>Brazil or in Australia where climate elections have driven governments

0:34:19.239 --> 0:34:21.839
<v Speaker 3>to do more. You know, you might see that here

0:34:21.880 --> 0:34:24.880
<v Speaker 3>in the UK later this year when the election happens

0:34:24.920 --> 0:34:27.320
<v Speaker 3>and maybe the Conservatives are booted out and labor is

0:34:27.320 --> 0:34:30.840
<v Speaker 3>brought in. But yes, that backlash is real, and the

0:34:30.880 --> 0:34:34.440
<v Speaker 3>reality is, perhaps if we were to find one answer

0:34:34.920 --> 0:34:39.719
<v Speaker 3>is that governments have not been good at communicating to

0:34:40.320 --> 0:34:43.400
<v Speaker 3>people what they have signed up to with net zero,

0:34:44.000 --> 0:34:47.719
<v Speaker 3>that what kind of transformation it's going to involve. For

0:34:47.880 --> 0:34:51.040
<v Speaker 3>people's everyday lives. What are the costs that people will

0:34:51.080 --> 0:34:54.759
<v Speaker 3>have to bear upfront, because many of these technologies are

0:34:55.160 --> 0:34:58.520
<v Speaker 3>expensive upfront, even if they're long run, they're cheaper than

0:34:58.560 --> 0:35:03.160
<v Speaker 3>fossil fuel alternatives now, And that these things will have

0:35:03.239 --> 0:35:07.200
<v Speaker 3>to be done in a consistent manner over decades. That

0:35:07.280 --> 0:35:09.880
<v Speaker 3>you can't just go this year, we are not focused

0:35:09.920 --> 0:35:12.239
<v Speaker 3>on net zero. Next year, we are focused on net zero.

0:35:12.320 --> 0:35:14.880
<v Speaker 3>These policies just have to stick around for much longer

0:35:14.880 --> 0:35:19.720
<v Speaker 3>for them to actually pay off. And that communication hasn't happened,

0:35:19.719 --> 0:35:23.239
<v Speaker 3>That reality check hasn't come from politicians, and I think

0:35:23.280 --> 0:35:27.000
<v Speaker 3>that may be perhaps the biggest reason to blame the

0:35:27.040 --> 0:35:28.520
<v Speaker 3>backlash the cost.

0:35:28.600 --> 0:35:31.640
<v Speaker 2>One of the things isn't it is that governments consistently

0:35:31.680 --> 0:35:34.680
<v Speaker 2>tell people that the transition will mean cheaper energy for them,

0:35:34.880 --> 0:35:37.360
<v Speaker 2>but they never add the words on the end in

0:35:37.440 --> 0:35:41.200
<v Speaker 2>the very long term, right, in fact, short term, that's not.

0:35:41.120 --> 0:35:44.880
<v Speaker 3>True, correct, Yes, And I think that conversation needs to happen,

0:35:44.880 --> 0:35:47.400
<v Speaker 3>and I think that backlash is going to focus the

0:35:47.440 --> 0:35:50.080
<v Speaker 3>minds of the politicians who understand the climate challenge to

0:35:50.120 --> 0:35:52.840
<v Speaker 3>get to this communication. But there's the second thing I

0:35:52.920 --> 0:35:56.800
<v Speaker 3>worry about, which as a climate journalist I have to

0:35:56.840 --> 0:35:59.640
<v Speaker 3>worry about, which is the unknown impacts that come from

0:36:00.680 --> 0:36:04.680
<v Speaker 3>the unknowns of climate science. There are tipping points and

0:36:05.040 --> 0:36:08.120
<v Speaker 3>acceleration in the climate impacts that we really don't understand.

0:36:08.160 --> 0:36:12.319
<v Speaker 3>For example, the record temperatures we are experiencing over the

0:36:12.360 --> 0:36:15.560
<v Speaker 3>past year around the world are not being explained by

0:36:15.560 --> 0:36:20.400
<v Speaker 3>climate models, and that is really alarming. Because climate models

0:36:20.440 --> 0:36:23.879
<v Speaker 3>have become better and better, our ability to understand where

0:36:23.880 --> 0:36:26.840
<v Speaker 3>we are headed has become better and better. But if

0:36:27.440 --> 0:36:32.000
<v Speaker 3>climate change and global warming is outrunning those models, then

0:36:32.120 --> 0:36:34.839
<v Speaker 3>those impacts may come sooner, and that can cause all

0:36:34.960 --> 0:36:37.919
<v Speaker 3>kinds of real world problems. Right, you might get more

0:36:37.960 --> 0:36:42.880
<v Speaker 3>migration because countries become destabilized. You might get agricultural production

0:36:42.960 --> 0:36:46.000
<v Speaker 3>falling in places you don't want it to fall, and

0:36:46.080 --> 0:36:50.080
<v Speaker 3>that could cause problems for net zero because imagine if

0:36:50.080 --> 0:36:53.200
<v Speaker 3>you have ten times as many people wanting to get

0:36:53.200 --> 0:36:57.080
<v Speaker 3>into America from the southern border, what the politics could

0:36:57.080 --> 0:36:57.480
<v Speaker 3>look like.

0:36:58.360 --> 0:37:02.360
<v Speaker 2>Well, we know about model, don't We very rarely correct,

0:37:02.440 --> 0:37:04.200
<v Speaker 2>but you never know which direction they're going to be

0:37:04.239 --> 0:37:07.319
<v Speaker 2>wrong in. Okay, let's move into the positive bed. Let's

0:37:07.360 --> 0:37:11.200
<v Speaker 2>talk about some of the fantastic examples of progress. You

0:37:11.600 --> 0:37:13.359
<v Speaker 2>write about in the book, and one of the things

0:37:13.400 --> 0:37:15.080
<v Speaker 2>that I've found one of the actually I found all

0:37:15.080 --> 0:37:16.600
<v Speaker 2>the chapters inted it and we might go onto the

0:37:16.600 --> 0:37:19.040
<v Speaker 2>reforma lator. I really like that. But let's talk about

0:37:19.040 --> 0:37:22.279
<v Speaker 2>India and solar and the entrepreneurialism around that.

0:37:23.800 --> 0:37:28.239
<v Speaker 3>So India is a low middle income country. I grew

0:37:28.320 --> 0:37:32.680
<v Speaker 3>up there. It's a very price sensitive market. If it's

0:37:32.840 --> 0:37:36.560
<v Speaker 3>not cheap, it is not scaling. And so in India,

0:37:36.960 --> 0:37:39.640
<v Speaker 3>you know, it came to the renewables party late, but

0:37:39.719 --> 0:37:42.719
<v Speaker 3>when it showed up, it really showed up. And so

0:37:44.120 --> 0:37:46.560
<v Speaker 3>the story that I chart is between twenty ten and

0:37:46.600 --> 0:37:51.520
<v Speaker 3>twenty twenty off India starting to realize that solar is

0:37:51.600 --> 0:37:54.239
<v Speaker 3>going to become the cheapest source of energy and that

0:37:54.280 --> 0:37:57.680
<v Speaker 3>it has a ton of potential. So governments brought in

0:37:57.800 --> 0:38:00.000
<v Speaker 3>some of the policies that we've seen in the world

0:38:00.239 --> 0:38:04.000
<v Speaker 3>where you have people being paid for producing so called

0:38:04.040 --> 0:38:07.960
<v Speaker 3>feed and tariff. But India is also a very difficult

0:38:08.000 --> 0:38:13.160
<v Speaker 3>place to do business. There is corruption, bureaucracy, government entities

0:38:13.200 --> 0:38:16.040
<v Speaker 3>that have to pay for solar production are delayed in

0:38:16.080 --> 0:38:20.400
<v Speaker 3>their payments. And so I feature the story of Sumantsina,

0:38:20.440 --> 0:38:23.360
<v Speaker 3>who's the head of renew which is one of the

0:38:23.440 --> 0:38:27.800
<v Speaker 3>largest renewable energy companies in India right now, and how

0:38:27.840 --> 0:38:32.040
<v Speaker 3>he went about finding his ways around the bureaucracy to

0:38:32.320 --> 0:38:36.480
<v Speaker 3>make solar deployment work at scale. And these are sometimes

0:38:36.800 --> 0:38:39.920
<v Speaker 3>very small, silly things like having a team that to

0:38:40.120 --> 0:38:43.560
<v Speaker 3>go and harangue the government officials to make sure the

0:38:43.560 --> 0:38:46.640
<v Speaker 3>payments are coming in, or they are more systemic things

0:38:46.800 --> 0:38:52.040
<v Speaker 3>where companies are informing governments on what kind of policy

0:38:52.080 --> 0:38:56.200
<v Speaker 3>is needed so that companies can deploy solar and make

0:38:56.280 --> 0:39:00.600
<v Speaker 3>the price of electricity cheaper for everybody and not things

0:39:00.600 --> 0:39:04.799
<v Speaker 3>that typically happen in the Indian market often enough. And

0:39:04.880 --> 0:39:07.959
<v Speaker 3>now that it's happened and through what renew was able

0:39:08.000 --> 0:39:12.600
<v Speaker 3>to do, it's really opened up the market. Solar story

0:39:12.640 --> 0:39:16.120
<v Speaker 3>in India has just been one of the most interesting

0:39:16.160 --> 0:39:19.880
<v Speaker 3>stories to watch as a technology story but also as

0:39:19.920 --> 0:39:22.520
<v Speaker 3>a business story over the past decade.

0:39:22.800 --> 0:39:27.399
<v Speaker 2>And can that model be extended to other countries? Would

0:39:27.440 --> 0:39:28.360
<v Speaker 2>it work elsewhere?

0:39:29.000 --> 0:39:31.520
<v Speaker 3>That was the hope that I wanted to see if

0:39:31.560 --> 0:39:34.360
<v Speaker 3>there are lessons that you can draw from India and

0:39:34.480 --> 0:39:38.719
<v Speaker 3>see if within that political economic context that is India,

0:39:38.840 --> 0:39:41.920
<v Speaker 3>those lessons could be applied to Nigeria, to Kenya, to

0:39:42.000 --> 0:39:45.399
<v Speaker 3>South Africa places which are rich and solar but are

0:39:45.480 --> 0:39:49.279
<v Speaker 3>developing countries, and some of that is starting to play out.

0:39:49.320 --> 0:39:53.480
<v Speaker 3>So in Nigeria, for example, which is an astonishing place

0:39:53.560 --> 0:39:58.840
<v Speaker 3>given you know, Legos has about one gigawot off power production.

0:39:59.440 --> 0:40:03.360
<v Speaker 3>Same side city, which is Shanghai, has thirty gigawats of

0:40:03.520 --> 0:40:06.759
<v Speaker 3>power production, and so you have this enormous population that

0:40:06.840 --> 0:40:10.200
<v Speaker 3>wants electricity but doesn't have it. And what's happened over

0:40:10.200 --> 0:40:13.120
<v Speaker 3>the past year is that diesel subsidies have been taken

0:40:13.160 --> 0:40:16.759
<v Speaker 3>off and so suddenly there's a solar boom in Nigeria.

0:40:16.840 --> 0:40:19.600
<v Speaker 3>And many of the lessons learned from what's happening in

0:40:19.600 --> 0:40:22.080
<v Speaker 3>India where you bring in some of the foreign capital,

0:40:22.160 --> 0:40:25.400
<v Speaker 3>but you also bring in reform on the electricity markets

0:40:25.680 --> 0:40:29.440
<v Speaker 3>are being applied now in Nigeria and we'll see over

0:40:29.480 --> 0:40:31.840
<v Speaker 3>the next few years. The rate of growth of solar

0:40:31.880 --> 0:40:34.359
<v Speaker 3>has been astonishing over the past year and it's likely

0:40:34.400 --> 0:40:36.600
<v Speaker 3>to continue fascinating.

0:40:37.280 --> 0:40:39.080
<v Speaker 2>Now, I want to talk about one of the other

0:40:39.200 --> 0:40:43.800
<v Speaker 2>chapters in the book about batteries, because none of this works.

0:40:44.239 --> 0:40:47.440
<v Speaker 2>None of this works unless we can really find a

0:40:47.480 --> 0:40:51.320
<v Speaker 2>way to store large amounts of energy over significant amounts

0:40:51.360 --> 0:40:55.839
<v Speaker 2>of time. Right, This is the big problem with intermittency

0:40:55.960 --> 0:40:59.040
<v Speaker 2>is if we can't store it, then we always have

0:40:59.160 --> 0:41:02.200
<v Speaker 2>to have that cup systems. But here you've seen significant

0:41:02.200 --> 0:41:03.200
<v Speaker 2>progress as well.

0:41:03.080 --> 0:41:08.040
<v Speaker 3>Right, Yes, So the battery chapter focuses on CTL, which

0:41:08.080 --> 0:41:11.359
<v Speaker 3>is now the world's largest lithium ion battery company in

0:41:11.400 --> 0:41:16.160
<v Speaker 3>the world. And it is an astonishing story given CTL

0:41:16.320 --> 0:41:21.240
<v Speaker 3>was only formed in two thy eleven, and the story

0:41:21.280 --> 0:41:25.960
<v Speaker 3>comes from a little bit of background in how China developed. Sorry,

0:41:26.680 --> 0:41:29.239
<v Speaker 3>and perhaps the story actually starts a decade before that.

0:41:29.680 --> 0:41:32.640
<v Speaker 3>So in its previous form, there was a company called

0:41:32.719 --> 0:41:36.520
<v Speaker 3>ATL that was created in nineteen ninety nine and China

0:41:36.640 --> 0:41:39.920
<v Speaker 3>was just about to join the WTO. It was starting

0:41:39.960 --> 0:41:42.719
<v Speaker 3>to become the factory of the world, and the founders

0:41:42.719 --> 0:41:46.600
<v Speaker 3>of ATL wanted to make batteries for the gadgets that

0:41:46.640 --> 0:41:49.160
<v Speaker 3>we were enjoying at that time. You know, I don't

0:41:49.200 --> 0:41:51.520
<v Speaker 3>think podcasts had been invented, but you had those little

0:41:51.520 --> 0:41:54.920
<v Speaker 3>workmen that we used for listening to music, and they

0:41:54.960 --> 0:41:59.480
<v Speaker 3>were supplying those batteries to those devices, eventually to Samsung

0:41:59.480 --> 0:42:03.439
<v Speaker 3>and Apple when they started making smartphones. But as soon

0:42:03.480 --> 0:42:07.080
<v Speaker 3>as they got into manufacturing lithium man batteries, they started

0:42:07.080 --> 0:42:11.960
<v Speaker 3>getting incoming from electric car companies unusually. The earliest one

0:42:11.960 --> 0:42:15.240
<v Speaker 3>they got was from an Indian electric car company called Reva,

0:42:15.920 --> 0:42:18.759
<v Speaker 3>which was running electric cars. These two seater cars on

0:42:18.920 --> 0:42:22.120
<v Speaker 3>lead acid batteries and wanted to use lithium man batteries instead,

0:42:22.760 --> 0:42:26.960
<v Speaker 3>and the founders realized that there's actually an opportunity in

0:42:27.080 --> 0:42:29.760
<v Speaker 3>moving to cars where you're going to need thousand times

0:42:29.800 --> 0:42:31.880
<v Speaker 3>the size of a battery we are putting in a gadget,

0:42:32.760 --> 0:42:36.680
<v Speaker 3>and it seems their policies being put in place both

0:42:36.719 --> 0:42:39.520
<v Speaker 3>in China but in other countries to move to electrification,

0:42:39.960 --> 0:42:44.360
<v Speaker 3>and so they created CTL. And unlike what other Chinese

0:42:44.360 --> 0:42:48.399
<v Speaker 3>manufacturers have been blamed for, this wasn't about stealing technology

0:42:48.600 --> 0:42:52.719
<v Speaker 3>or just making copycats of things that were being made

0:42:53.040 --> 0:42:57.080
<v Speaker 3>elsewhere in the world. They actually went out and bought

0:42:57.160 --> 0:42:59.799
<v Speaker 3>licenses for the technology early on, but also created a

0:43:00.040 --> 0:43:05.399
<v Speaker 3>search department to bring in technology innovation within COTL, and

0:43:05.440 --> 0:43:08.560
<v Speaker 3>that started to show up very soon. They landed contracts

0:43:08.600 --> 0:43:12.560
<v Speaker 3>with foreign car manufacturers. BMW was one of the earliest ones,

0:43:12.960 --> 0:43:16.280
<v Speaker 3>and now it has huge contracts with pretty much every

0:43:16.560 --> 0:43:20.760
<v Speaker 3>car maker, and so much so that its technology development

0:43:20.840 --> 0:43:23.960
<v Speaker 3>now is becoming the source of jealousy for many of

0:43:24.000 --> 0:43:27.360
<v Speaker 3>the large battery makers that existed before c ATL came around,

0:43:27.400 --> 0:43:30.400
<v Speaker 3>the Japanese ones, the South Korean ones, and even American

0:43:30.400 --> 0:43:31.600
<v Speaker 3>battery makers.

0:43:33.160 --> 0:43:38.960
<v Speaker 2>Do you think talking about batteries, one of the things

0:43:38.960 --> 0:43:41.320
<v Speaker 2>that we talked about earlier was problems with the grid

0:43:41.360 --> 0:43:45.719
<v Speaker 2>and the difficulties of delivering power and the difficulties of interconnectors, etc.

0:43:46.400 --> 0:43:49.040
<v Speaker 2>And of course I've been writing recently about about the

0:43:49.120 --> 0:43:51.480
<v Speaker 2>NIMBYs not in my backyard when it comes to the grid.

0:43:51.719 --> 0:43:54.640
<v Speaker 2>Nobody wants a great, big pylon in their back garden,

0:43:54.719 --> 0:43:57.799
<v Speaker 2>and they have massive impact on house prices, etc. And

0:43:57.880 --> 0:44:02.320
<v Speaker 2>so we've been looking at, you know, small modular reactors

0:44:02.320 --> 0:44:04.399
<v Speaker 2>and looking at how nuclear can solve that problem by

0:44:04.400 --> 0:44:06.960
<v Speaker 2>bringing the power to where it's needed rather than the

0:44:07.000 --> 0:44:09.680
<v Speaker 2>power having to be transmitted long distances. I mean, you

0:44:09.680 --> 0:44:11.799
<v Speaker 2>haven't written about this in the book at length, but

0:44:12.080 --> 0:44:14.439
<v Speaker 2>is nuclear a big part of the answer here? Maybe

0:44:14.480 --> 0:44:15.600
<v Speaker 2>a bad part of the answer?

0:44:16.360 --> 0:44:19.759
<v Speaker 3>Well, I wanted to write a chapter on nuclear. The

0:44:19.800 --> 0:44:24.200
<v Speaker 3>only country that is scaling nuclear in the era of

0:44:24.280 --> 0:44:30.160
<v Speaker 3>climate action is China, and I got no access to

0:44:30.360 --> 0:44:33.640
<v Speaker 3>China's nuclear fleet. There's just that is one place where

0:44:33.640 --> 0:44:37.600
<v Speaker 3>as a reporter you can't go, and so all these

0:44:37.640 --> 0:44:40.719
<v Speaker 3>other ideas on small modular nuclear reactors or even a

0:44:40.800 --> 0:44:45.320
<v Speaker 3>renaissance in trying to build large nuclear reactors is currently

0:44:46.200 --> 0:44:51.120
<v Speaker 3>a dream. And the costs of actually building nuclear are

0:44:51.200 --> 0:44:53.719
<v Speaker 3>so high that if you're going to try and do

0:44:53.880 --> 0:44:59.200
<v Speaker 3>that as a clean energy alternative with solar and batteries combined,

0:44:59.400 --> 0:45:02.399
<v Speaker 3>you're not able to compete. So if you look at

0:45:02.440 --> 0:45:08.920
<v Speaker 3>net zero projections, for example from BLOOMAGNEF, they see nuclear

0:45:09.040 --> 0:45:14.200
<v Speaker 3>contributing one percent of electricity in the twenty to fifty

0:45:14.719 --> 0:45:20.480
<v Speaker 3>net zero mix, which is nineteen percent lower than the

0:45:20.520 --> 0:45:24.839
<v Speaker 3>electricity that nuclear provides today to the global grid.

0:45:25.000 --> 0:45:30.200
<v Speaker 2>Day depressing, isn't it. How can an individual invest in

0:45:30.239 --> 0:45:33.120
<v Speaker 2>the transition take advantage of some of the exciting trends here.

0:45:33.560 --> 0:45:35.600
<v Speaker 3>The easiest way you could have done it maybe two

0:45:35.640 --> 0:45:40.600
<v Speaker 3>years ago was to move to responsible investing to ESG investing,

0:45:40.640 --> 0:45:44.080
<v Speaker 3>which is these options now are available in your pension parts,

0:45:44.120 --> 0:45:47.160
<v Speaker 3>in the places you can put money in. But that's

0:45:47.200 --> 0:45:51.480
<v Speaker 3>getting muddled because of two things. One there's the political

0:45:51.960 --> 0:45:55.520
<v Speaker 3>backlash that you're seeing from certain parts on ESG, and

0:45:55.560 --> 0:45:58.720
<v Speaker 3>then there is also just the muddling of ESG itself,

0:45:58.760 --> 0:46:01.399
<v Speaker 3>which is the metrics that it counts, and whether it's

0:46:01.400 --> 0:46:04.319
<v Speaker 3>investing in the right places or making false promises to

0:46:04.360 --> 0:46:08.240
<v Speaker 3>the investor that that money is going towards the transition.

0:46:08.719 --> 0:46:11.000
<v Speaker 3>So right now, it's actually not a good time to

0:46:11.080 --> 0:46:14.239
<v Speaker 3>think about how as an individual you can invest in

0:46:14.280 --> 0:46:17.719
<v Speaker 3>the transition. And it's a problem that investors need to

0:46:17.800 --> 0:46:21.080
<v Speaker 3>solve if they want the amount of capital that needs

0:46:21.160 --> 0:46:23.080
<v Speaker 3>to come through in the energy transition.

0:46:23.360 --> 0:46:26.000
<v Speaker 2>Okay, brilliant, Thank you so much for your time today

0:46:26.040 --> 0:46:30.640
<v Speaker 2>and listeners, Climate capitalism winning the global race to zero emissions,

0:46:30.719 --> 0:46:33.480
<v Speaker 2>highly recommend it, not least by the way by Bill Gates,

0:46:33.480 --> 0:46:35.319
<v Speaker 2>who says on the front and important read for anyone

0:46:35.400 --> 0:46:46.080
<v Speaker 2>in need of optimism. Thanks very much, Thank you, Right, John,

0:46:46.760 --> 0:46:50.400
<v Speaker 2>I know that you and I both feel conflicted about

0:46:50.400 --> 0:46:53.560
<v Speaker 2>a lot of the policy around climate change because we

0:46:53.719 --> 0:46:55.960
<v Speaker 2>tend to think, well, you know, you're making it worse here,

0:46:56.000 --> 0:46:58.480
<v Speaker 2>you're making it better? Are you're affecting living standards in

0:46:58.520 --> 0:47:01.160
<v Speaker 2>the way that you intended to? Are you making energy

0:47:01.200 --> 0:47:04.880
<v Speaker 2>too expensive? Is this even possible? You know, we worry,

0:47:04.920 --> 0:47:07.279
<v Speaker 2>don't we worry about some of the directions that have

0:47:07.320 --> 0:47:10.799
<v Speaker 2>been taken in policy terms, But did listening to this

0:47:10.880 --> 0:47:13.720
<v Speaker 2>conversation make you feel more rare assured.

0:47:15.880 --> 0:47:20.120
<v Speaker 1>If I'm honest. Yes, And the thing that stood out

0:47:20.120 --> 0:47:21.479
<v Speaker 1>to me is, I guess what we were talking about

0:47:21.480 --> 0:47:25.760
<v Speaker 1>in the introduction. It's like, actually makes the really important point,

0:47:25.840 --> 0:47:27.959
<v Speaker 1>and the one that we are always making about why

0:47:28.440 --> 0:47:31.080
<v Speaker 1>markets and capitalism are a good system is that it's

0:47:31.120 --> 0:47:35.240
<v Speaker 1>all about signalant and so you know, it's his point

0:47:35.440 --> 0:47:38.239
<v Speaker 1>is the capitalist system is the best one to rely

0:47:38.440 --> 0:47:41.880
<v Speaker 1>on because it's the one that tells you the best

0:47:42.040 --> 0:47:46.440
<v Speaker 1>sorts the places in which to put your resources. And

0:47:46.560 --> 0:47:48.560
<v Speaker 1>you know, and again, the whole point about this, and

0:47:48.600 --> 0:47:50.799
<v Speaker 1>I think the other thing that concerns us a lot

0:47:50.840 --> 0:47:53.560
<v Speaker 1>of the time when you talk about this is the

0:47:53.600 --> 0:47:56.720
<v Speaker 1>capitalism is the only system for making the trade offs.

0:47:57.200 --> 0:47:59.200
<v Speaker 1>There's an awful lot of the time when people talk

0:47:59.239 --> 0:48:01.480
<v Speaker 1>about this, the act as if there aren't any trade offs.

0:48:01.680 --> 0:48:03.399
<v Speaker 1>You know, the act is I, oh, well, we could

0:48:03.440 --> 0:48:06.319
<v Speaker 1>just do de growth without mentioning that that would mean

0:48:06.360 --> 0:48:09.520
<v Speaker 1>about six billion people would die anyway, because you know,

0:48:09.600 --> 0:48:12.520
<v Speaker 1>capitalism is the only thing that has made you know,

0:48:12.560 --> 0:48:15.399
<v Speaker 1>the current global population sustainable, et cetera, et cetera.

0:48:15.640 --> 0:48:19.400
<v Speaker 2>And they talk about transforming agriculture such that it produces

0:48:19.480 --> 0:48:21.920
<v Speaker 2>zero emissions without pointing out that would also mean many

0:48:21.960 --> 0:48:23.719
<v Speaker 2>millions of people would stop to death. Would kind of

0:48:23.719 --> 0:48:25.600
<v Speaker 2>be a bad Yes, great scheme exactly.

0:48:25.880 --> 0:48:30.360
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Yeah, the growth is basically a death cult, whether

0:48:30.360 --> 0:48:33.600
<v Speaker 1>people recognize it or not. Whereas this is good, this

0:48:33.680 --> 0:48:35.839
<v Speaker 1>is a kind of healthy way of looking at how

0:48:35.960 --> 0:48:39.000
<v Speaker 1>do we actually deal with the fact that we you know,

0:48:39.160 --> 0:48:43.600
<v Speaker 1>we need to stop pumping as much carbon dioxide into

0:48:43.640 --> 0:48:46.719
<v Speaker 1>the atmosphere, So let's do something sensible about it, rather

0:48:46.760 --> 0:48:48.120
<v Speaker 1>than saying we're all just going to go back to

0:48:48.160 --> 0:48:48.880
<v Speaker 1>the Stone age.

0:48:49.040 --> 0:48:54.520
<v Speaker 2>And he recognizes the recognizes that the difficulty of the

0:48:54.560 --> 0:48:57.560
<v Speaker 2>time frames that we put in place, and the absurdity

0:48:57.560 --> 0:48:59.960
<v Speaker 2>of saying we will meet net zero by a particular doubt,

0:49:00.040 --> 0:49:01.799
<v Speaker 2>and we have no idea whether we'll be able to

0:49:01.840 --> 0:49:04.360
<v Speaker 2>come up with the technologies to allow that to happen,

0:49:04.360 --> 0:49:07.200
<v Speaker 2>as we say, without going the growth and death, and

0:49:07.239 --> 0:49:10.759
<v Speaker 2>so all those contradictions are recognized in this conversation, which

0:49:10.760 --> 0:49:13.640
<v Speaker 2>is quite refreshing. We also talk about the problem of

0:49:13.680 --> 0:49:17.520
<v Speaker 2>intermittency and the ridiculous idea that you can have renewables

0:49:17.520 --> 0:49:20.880
<v Speaker 2>without backup and without batteries. It just can't work. We

0:49:20.960 --> 0:49:23.200
<v Speaker 2>talk about that, which which is very interesting, I think

0:49:23.239 --> 0:49:25.520
<v Speaker 2>because often you discuss these things with people and you

0:49:25.560 --> 0:49:31.440
<v Speaker 2>don't hear these really important restrictions on the speed at

0:49:31.440 --> 0:49:32.160
<v Speaker 2>which we can move.

0:49:32.840 --> 0:49:35.080
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and I mean I think it's there's a lot

0:49:35.080 --> 0:49:38.280
<v Speaker 1>of exciting stuff and as well, I mean the idea

0:49:38.320 --> 0:49:43.160
<v Speaker 1>of countries with ample sunshine, etc. You know, can I

0:49:43.239 --> 0:49:46.440
<v Speaker 1>be able to leap frog certain parts of the electricity

0:49:46.520 --> 0:49:51.719
<v Speaker 1>system and just rely in solar. I mean one thing

0:49:51.760 --> 0:49:53.879
<v Speaker 1>I would actually Lake explain to me in much more

0:49:54.000 --> 0:49:56.880
<v Speaker 1>detail being honesty. And I know that some of our

0:49:56.920 --> 0:49:59.120
<v Speaker 1>lesseners are engineers and things like that. But I don't

0:49:59.200 --> 0:50:04.600
<v Speaker 1>get why everyone who talks about this is still so

0:50:04.840 --> 0:50:08.520
<v Speaker 1>resolutely opposed to nuclear And now it's expensive, But why

0:50:08.600 --> 0:50:11.239
<v Speaker 1>is it expensive? Why is it less expensive and less

0:50:11.560 --> 0:50:15.600
<v Speaker 1>more expensive and more infrastructure heavy than havingly stick a

0:50:15.600 --> 0:50:18.600
<v Speaker 1>hole over the cables between different countries in the world,

0:50:18.640 --> 0:50:21.799
<v Speaker 1>because you know, the Soviet produces lots of sign and

0:50:21.880 --> 0:50:23.160
<v Speaker 1>we need in the UK. Do you know what I mean,

0:50:23.200 --> 0:50:24.320
<v Speaker 1>I'm startingly thinking.

0:50:25.040 --> 0:50:27.680
<v Speaker 2>I mean, when we talked about this before, the answer

0:50:27.760 --> 0:50:31.279
<v Speaker 2>is always regulation, and that the regulation around nuclear is

0:50:31.400 --> 0:50:35.759
<v Speaker 2>so intense, so difficult, and we will not relax it

0:50:35.800 --> 0:50:37.799
<v Speaker 2>in any way at all despite them. You remember our

0:50:37.840 --> 0:50:40.359
<v Speaker 2>conversation with Catherine brought her back a few months ago

0:50:40.480 --> 0:50:42.560
<v Speaker 2>when we talked about and about her that you know,

0:50:42.640 --> 0:50:47.040
<v Speaker 2>the incidence of nuclear accents is incredibly low, and the

0:50:47.080 --> 0:50:50.280
<v Speaker 2>incidence of death as a result of those nuclear accidents

0:50:50.400 --> 0:50:54.240
<v Speaker 2>is also incredibly low, lower than in all other parts

0:50:54.239 --> 0:50:57.359
<v Speaker 2>of the energy industry. But nonetheless we cannot find it

0:50:57.400 --> 0:51:00.640
<v Speaker 2>within us somehow to make it easier to build. But

0:51:01.320 --> 0:51:03.600
<v Speaker 2>I mean, there is change coming here because you know,

0:51:03.680 --> 0:51:06.480
<v Speaker 2>our big bad billionaires in the US. And we talked

0:51:06.480 --> 0:51:08.160
<v Speaker 2>about this the other day when we were talking about

0:51:08.200 --> 0:51:11.800
<v Speaker 2>AI and the extraordinary amount of energy that AI requires.

0:51:11.800 --> 0:51:13.319
<v Speaker 2>And someone asked me the other day, which I thought

0:51:13.320 --> 0:51:16.240
<v Speaker 2>was fascinating, said to me, has anyone done the sums

0:51:16.640 --> 0:51:19.840
<v Speaker 2>on the video and the four cast sales of chips.

0:51:20.160 --> 0:51:23.640
<v Speaker 2>If all those chips were used, how much energy would

0:51:23.640 --> 0:51:25.880
<v Speaker 2>be required? Well, I'm interested an insane amount, more than

0:51:25.920 --> 0:51:26.640
<v Speaker 2>more than we have.

0:51:26.840 --> 0:51:27.760
<v Speaker 1>You know, this is nuts.

0:51:28.000 --> 0:51:31.000
<v Speaker 2>So we must have nuclear And we can already see

0:51:31.200 --> 0:51:33.160
<v Speaker 2>in the US that the big billionaires are going there.

0:51:33.160 --> 0:51:35.680
<v Speaker 2>I look at Bill Gates in his activity there for example.

0:51:36.200 --> 0:51:38.640
<v Speaker 2>You know you can see that this is a solution

0:51:38.800 --> 0:51:43.120
<v Speaker 2>that bad capitalists or possibly good capitalists are looking at

0:51:43.239 --> 0:51:46.480
<v Speaker 2>very carefully. But from a public point of view, it's

0:51:46.480 --> 0:51:49.239
<v Speaker 2>all about I think, as I understand it, regulation. But

0:51:49.480 --> 0:51:51.440
<v Speaker 2>on the face of it, if an alien came down

0:51:51.480 --> 0:51:53.239
<v Speaker 2>today and looked at what we were doing and what I well,

0:51:53.280 --> 0:51:55.399
<v Speaker 2>hang on a tech you could do. You don't need

0:51:55.880 --> 0:51:58.239
<v Speaker 2>two hundred thousand acres for solo. You could just have

0:51:58.520 --> 0:52:02.719
<v Speaker 2>three acres for nuclear and the interconnectors would be so

0:52:02.800 --> 0:52:05.799
<v Speaker 2>much easier because the nuclear park can go where electricity

0:52:05.880 --> 0:52:09.120
<v Speaker 2>is required rather than somewhere else. You know, we have

0:52:09.160 --> 0:52:11.960
<v Speaker 2>our wind turbines, we have them way way way offshore,

0:52:11.960 --> 0:52:13.920
<v Speaker 2>and the interconnectors we have to create for that to

0:52:13.920 --> 0:52:15.960
<v Speaker 2>get them back to where we use the energy. This

0:52:16.080 --> 0:52:18.720
<v Speaker 2>is massive. Well, you can just put a little, little, small,

0:52:18.760 --> 0:52:22.920
<v Speaker 2>modular reactor right next to the town. So I don't know,

0:52:22.960 --> 0:52:24.719
<v Speaker 2>and I'm with you on this, I'm very confused by

0:52:24.760 --> 0:52:26.840
<v Speaker 2>And it's something that actually and I didn't talk about.

0:52:27.200 --> 0:52:30.200
<v Speaker 2>And I can only assume that governments have these conversations

0:52:30.200 --> 0:52:32.960
<v Speaker 2>at high levels when they talk about infrastructure spend and

0:52:33.040 --> 0:52:35.719
<v Speaker 2>how we simply can't afford that infructures spand obviously and

0:52:35.760 --> 0:52:38.120
<v Speaker 2>in the UK we clearly can't afford to do what

0:52:38.160 --> 0:52:40.239
<v Speaker 2>we need to do to revamp the grade in such

0:52:40.239 --> 0:52:42.680
<v Speaker 2>a way as to use solar and wind in the

0:52:42.680 --> 0:52:44.880
<v Speaker 2>way that we're talking about. I've rambled.

0:52:44.960 --> 0:52:49.120
<v Speaker 1>I've rambled. No, that's sort of sorry, John, kind of topic.

0:52:49.480 --> 0:52:51.520
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you speak, otherwise we'll get more of those emails

0:52:51.560 --> 0:52:52.920
<v Speaker 2>that say, Marin, let them speak.

0:52:54.239 --> 0:52:56.560
<v Speaker 1>Well, no, I was literally just that sort of I

0:52:56.600 --> 0:52:59.239
<v Speaker 1>was unrambling my head because I was thinking, everyone says, Race,

0:52:59.280 --> 0:53:01.640
<v Speaker 1>if you can plug in your electric cars and then

0:53:02.040 --> 0:53:04.440
<v Speaker 1>run the grid off the battery, why can't we plug

0:53:04.480 --> 0:53:07.160
<v Speaker 1>the nuclear submarines in overnight and run the country off

0:53:07.160 --> 0:53:08.000
<v Speaker 1>for their batteries.

0:53:08.480 --> 0:53:10.600
<v Speaker 2>Okay, this is exactly the kind of time when when

0:53:10.680 --> 0:53:13.920
<v Speaker 2>our producer, Summer is going to interrupt and say, Marin, don't.

0:53:13.680 --> 0:53:16.520
<v Speaker 1>Try to him speak, don't let him bring this, Bring

0:53:16.520 --> 0:53:19.000
<v Speaker 1>this to an end, stop the idiot from talking.

0:53:20.200 --> 0:53:23.840
<v Speaker 2>I think, bringing this to an end. If anyone knows

0:53:23.960 --> 0:53:26.600
<v Speaker 2>the answer to John's question why we can't just plug

0:53:26.640 --> 0:53:34.440
<v Speaker 2>the electricity grid into the submarines, let us know. Thanks

0:53:34.440 --> 0:53:36.520
<v Speaker 2>for listening to this week's Maren Talks Money. We'll be

0:53:36.560 --> 0:53:38.719
<v Speaker 2>back next week. In the meantime, you like our show,

0:53:38.800 --> 0:53:41.359
<v Speaker 2>rate review and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. This

0:53:41.400 --> 0:53:44.040
<v Speaker 2>episode was hosted by me Maren sumset Web. It was

0:53:44.080 --> 0:53:47.720
<v Speaker 2>produced by Samasari, additional editing by Blake Maple. Special thanks

0:53:47.719 --> 0:53:50.680
<v Speaker 2>to Action Rathy and to John Stebk. And actually, seriously,

0:53:50.680 --> 0:53:52.200
<v Speaker 2>the more I think about it, why can't we have

0:53:52.239 --> 0:53:55.880
<v Speaker 2>submarines offshore all around the UK and the grip plugged

0:53:55.920 --> 0:54:00.000
<v Speaker 2>into them? Answers to the usual email thank you