Speaker 1: Welcome to zero. I'm akshatrati this week, my money, your money,
Speaker 1: and Jeff's money. In February twenty twenty, Jeff Bezos, then
Speaker 1: the richest person on the planet, posted a picture to
Speaker 1: his four million Instagram followers. It showed the Earth from space,
Speaker 1: the North American continent peaking out from behind the clouds,
Speaker 1: and accompanying the post was a big announcement he was
Speaker 1: committing ten billion dollars to launch the Bezos Earth Fund.
Speaker 1: It is the largest commitment to climate philanthropy ever made,
Speaker 1: and the fund is due to give out all the
Speaker 1: ten billion dollars by twenty thirty. That money, as Bezos outlined,
Speaker 1: will fund and I quote scientists, activists, and geos, any
Speaker 1: effort that offers a real possibility to help preserve and
Speaker 1: protect the natural world. Already, the Fund has given out
Speaker 1: about one point six billion dollars to more than one
Speaker 1: hundred projects around the world, from the Congo Basin to
Speaker 1: the mainland US. About a third of that money has
Speaker 1: gone to nature and conservation spending, but the fund has
Speaker 1: also given out grants to projects involving food security, decarbonization
Speaker 1: of industry, and climate tech. Bezas has made appearances at
Speaker 1: high profile events like COP twenty six and the New
Speaker 1: York Climate Week to announce how the money will be spent.
Speaker 2: I'm pleased to announce a two billion dollar pledge allocated
Speaker 2: directly to restoring nature and transforming food systems. This is
Speaker 2: part of the Bezos Earth Funds ten billion dollar commitment
Speaker 2: to fight climate change, enhance nature, and advance environmental justice
Speaker 2: and economic opportunity.
Speaker 1: By most measures, ten billion dollars is a lot of money,
Speaker 1: but it is also a small fraction of the three
Speaker 1: point five trillion dollars that is needed annually to hit
Speaker 1: net zero by twenty fifty. To make an impact, it
Speaker 1: needs to be spent strategically and attract a lot more
Speaker 1: money from governments and corporations. My guest today is Andrew Steer,
Speaker 1: the CEO of the Bezos Earth Fund. With Bezos, he
Speaker 1: decides where that ten billion dollars is allocated and how
Speaker 1: to measure its impact. Before taking on this role, Andrew
Speaker 1: was the head of the World Resources Institute. He also
Speaker 1: worked as a Special Climate Envoy for the World Bank
Speaker 1: and as Director General of the UK's Department for International Development.
Speaker 1: I sat down with Andrew at the World Economic Forum
Speaker 1: in Davos to ask how the Bezos Earth Fund spends
Speaker 1: its billions, what counts a success, and whether climate philanthropy
Speaker 1: is the new super yacht. Andrew, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Akshat, looking forward to it.
Speaker 1: Now. What is the role of climate philanthropy over the
Speaker 1: next few decades and how does it change as we
Speaker 1: get closer to hitting our climate targets by twenty fifty.
Speaker 3: Well, philanthropy can act quickly. It can get ahead of
Speaker 3: the game. Governments take quite a while to get their
Speaker 3: money bad to spend. We're able to do it quicker.
Speaker 3: We're also able to take risks. So what we really
Speaker 3: need to do is to look at the challenges of
Speaker 3: this decade. They're about forty or fifty transitions we have
Speaker 3: to go through. We need to diagnose those, and we
Speaker 3: need to understand how do we get them to those
Speaker 3: positive tipping points at which stage change becomes irresistible and unstoppable.
Speaker 1: At COP twenty seven, you said, I don't think we
Speaker 1: should buy into the idea that climate philanthropy is somehow
Speaker 1: an alternative to government, because governments have an obligation and
Speaker 1: they are not living up to it to the extent
Speaker 1: they should How do you see the role of philanthropy
Speaker 1: and government being different and when do you think philanthropy
Speaker 1: and government should work together.
Speaker 3: I think philanthropy should often work together with government, although
Speaker 3: sometimes philanthropy will be supporting political activism against governments to
Speaker 3: change government policy. So philanthropy should not compensate for funding
Speaker 3: that governments choose not to make. On the contrary, philanthropy
Speaker 3: should try to urge governments to play the role that
Speaker 3: they should play. Governments have an obligation to address public goods,
Speaker 3: and protecting the atmosphere is a pretty important public obligation,
Speaker 3: so to speak. And we do complement each other because
Speaker 3: we are able to move quickly. We're able to take
Speaker 3: risks that perhaps they could not, and that means that
Speaker 3: we can go into things knowing that they may fail
Speaker 3: if we believe that the potential return is large enough.
Speaker 3: In that regard, we're a little bit more like a
Speaker 3: venture capitalist. Venture capitalists know that some of the companies
Speaker 3: they invest in will fail, but their view is that
Speaker 3: if I invest a million dollars and it fails, the
Speaker 3: most I can lose is a million dollars. If I
Speaker 3: invest a million dollars in it succeeds, it may be
Speaker 3: worth twenty million dollars very quickly. So I can afford
Speaker 3: to fail actually quite often, and still come out highly successful.
Speaker 3: For governments, it's actually much harder to do that because
Speaker 3: accountability mechanisms are somewhat skewed, quite honestly. So, for example,
Speaker 3: the Department of Energy in the United States has played
Speaker 3: an absolutely fantastic role in investing in early stage technologies,
Speaker 3: and companies like Tesla, for example, and a whole range
Speaker 3: of companies have done very very well based upon early research.
Speaker 3: But it just took one investment that went bad called Clindra.
Speaker 1: Soleindra was a US company that made solar panels. In
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine, then Vice President Biden announced that
Speaker 1: the company would receive a loan of five hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty five million dollars guaranteed by the US Department of Energy.
Speaker 1: Cylinder ended up going bankrupt in twenty eleven and defaulting
Speaker 1: on that loan. The same program also made a loan
Speaker 1: of four hundred and sixty five million dollars to Tesla.
Speaker 1: That company is now worth hundreds of billions of dollars,
Speaker 1: and yet Cylinder's bankruptcy continues to be used by some
Speaker 1: members of the government to criticize plans to invest in
Speaker 1: clean tech through legislations like the Inflation Reduction Act.
Speaker 3: They just took one investment that went bad for all
Speaker 3: of the congressional committees, all of the newspapers, the gotcha
Speaker 3: types to give that a hard time, and so that
Speaker 3: would illustrate the problems that the governments can have that
Speaker 3: philanthropy does not now.
Speaker 1: Twenty twenty two report by Climate Works said that only
Speaker 1: two percent of philanthropy dollars went toward climate mitigation in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one one. That's about twelve and a half
Speaker 1: billion dollars depending on how you count. But it's a
Speaker 1: tiny percentage of the eight hundred billion dollars that is
Speaker 1: given out as philanthropy every year. Why is that number
Speaker 1: given to climate solo?
Speaker 3: It is interesting how philanthropists have over the literally the
Speaker 3: last five to ten years, started to take climate change seriously.
Speaker 3: I mean ten years ago there was very little funding.
Speaker 3: There's still not enough, and that means that every dollar
Speaker 3: allocated has to be used carefully. So, for example, I
Speaker 3: have the privilege of being the CEO of the Basos
Speaker 3: Earth Fund, which is a ten billion dollar grand fund
Speaker 3: that will be dispersed entirely this decade. That sounds like
Speaker 3: a lot of money. It is to me and you,
Speaker 3: but it's a small amount of money compared to the needs.
Speaker 3: So we have to make sure that it is truly leveraged,
Speaker 3: and you can leverage in several ways. Now, when we
Speaker 3: talk about the two percent of total filmilanthropy that's going
Speaker 3: for climate mitigation, I've got to remember in addition to that,
Speaker 3: there's funding for nature, for example, which also helps climate,
Speaker 3: And there's funding for food and agriculture, which done right,
Speaker 3: also helps climate. There's funding for adaptation. But all in all,
Speaker 3: it's still knowing there enough. I do agree with that.
Speaker 1: Forty five philanthropic organizations signed up to the Giving to
Speaker 1: Amplify Earth Action initiative at Davos. The initiative aims to
Speaker 1: close the three trillion dollars of annual climate finance that
Speaker 1: needs to be met to get to the goals of
Speaker 1: the Paris Agreement. That's equivalent to about three percent of
Speaker 1: the world's GDP. How do you think philanthropic organizations can
Speaker 1: achieve that?
Speaker 3: So if you think about philanthropy today, as we discussed earlier,
Speaker 3: let's imagine it's roughly fifteen billion dollars a year. It
Speaker 3: would not be inconceivable at all to double that in
Speaker 3: the next few years. Should that happen, that's thirty billion
Speaker 3: dollars a year. Think about that. That's like one percent
Speaker 3: of the total investment that is required. So that one
Speaker 3: percent is a small tail wagging hopefully a bigger dog.
Speaker 3: So it needs to do it thoughtfully, and I think
Speaker 3: that's the goal that some of us in the philanthropic
Speaker 3: community have had. Wouldn't it be useful if we could
Speaker 3: bring the different pieces of the jigs or puzzle together,
Speaker 3: the different actors, and focus on, let's say an issue.
Speaker 3: The issue could be preventing deforestation, it could be getting
Speaker 3: rid of the internal combustion engine, it could be shifting
Speaker 3: diets towards plant based food. You need governments at the table,
Speaker 3: you need corporates at the table, you need carbon credits
Speaker 3: at the table, philanthropy at the table. And it's only
Speaker 3: when you do that that you actually then can get
Speaker 3: that kind of synergy.
Speaker 1: So one way in which institutions, especially government institution but
Speaker 1: also institutions that depend on donors giving money justify their
Speaker 1: presence their work is to sometimes measure it in how
Speaker 1: many more dollars for every dollar they spent were invested
Speaker 1: for those causes. Famously, NASA does that to justify that
Speaker 1: a space program is necessary for the United States. And
Speaker 1: then multiplier is large. If you're thinking of using thirty
Speaker 1: billion dollars to get to three trillion dollars, your multiplier
Speaker 1: is one hundred and none of the organizations I've looked
Speaker 1: at have ever produced that kind of number, So how
Speaker 1: do you think that will work?
Speaker 3: So it would be hubris to assume that if there
Speaker 3: weren't philanthropy, nothing else would happen. I mean, a lot
Speaker 3: of it would happen anyway, because we have some good
Speaker 3: governments out there, we have some good carbon credits, and
Speaker 3: we have some terrific companies that are wanting to invest
Speaker 3: in green So we don't need to over egg this
Speaker 3: issue in terms of overstating the importance of the leverage
Speaker 3: that philanthropy can have. Having said that, philanthropy can play
Speaker 3: a very useful role, and if you think about leverage,
Speaker 3: the easy and obvious way to think about it is
Speaker 3: we could de risk private investment. So private investors at
Speaker 3: the moment are not willing to go into certain technologies
Speaker 3: partly because it's risky. Sometimes it's country risk, sometimes it's
Speaker 3: technological risk. Price risk, policy, risk, philanthropy could help de
Speaker 3: risk that. But there are many many other ways of
Speaker 3: getting leverage. I mean, an obvious one is influencing policy.
Speaker 3: For example, we could influence a global price on carbon
Speaker 3: of one hundred dollars a ton. I mean, wow, that
Speaker 3: would have leverage. But there are many many policies that
Speaker 3: are required. For example, something we're working on right now
Speaker 3: is you know, everyone talks about green steel and green cement,
Speaker 3: which is very important. The problem is actually not the
Speaker 3: technologist to produce it, it's finding buyers who in the
Speaker 3: near term will have to pay a little bit more
Speaker 3: for it. So it turns out that fifty percent of
Speaker 3: all the cement in the United States is actually purchased
Speaker 3: by governments, mainly local government, but also federal government. So
Speaker 3: one of the things we're doing is supporting a program
Speaker 3: that seeks to change procurement rules at the state and
Speaker 3: city level, and it's being very successful. That in turn
Speaker 3: is creating a demand, which in turn will drive down prices.
Speaker 3: And once you reach a demand of a certain percentage,
Speaker 3: you actually can cross a tipping point because then steel
Speaker 3: companies or cement companies understand the direction the wind is
Speaker 3: blowing in and really go all in sort of thing.
Speaker 3: So that's another example of leaverage.
Speaker 1: Now you mentioned that the Basos Earth Fund is going
Speaker 1: to spend ten million dollars this decade. You spent about
Speaker 1: one point six billion dollars so far. Could you just
Speaker 1: walk us through what kind of projects you've funded so
Speaker 1: far and how do you go about choosing them?
Speaker 3: So, the way we go about choosing them is we
Speaker 3: try to ask ourselves what are the big transitions that
Speaker 3: are required this decade and next. So that includes eliminating
Speaker 3: the internal combustion engine, it includes greening financial markets, It
Speaker 3: includes shifting dyers toward more plant pased nutrition and so on,
Speaker 3: and they're about fifty of those. What we do we
Speaker 3: use an initiative called the System Change Lab, which we
Speaker 3: co run together with the World Resource Institute and others
Speaker 3: that are heavily involved in it. And what it does
Speaker 3: is it measures these fifty transitions and it asked where
Speaker 3: are they as they seek to approach tipping points? And
Speaker 3: then it asks what is the special source that seems
Speaker 3: to get some of these past those tipping points? And
Speaker 3: where are the barriers that are preventing others, and so
Speaker 3: what we try to do is look at those and
Speaker 3: identify barriers that we could be helpful in removing. I'll
Speaker 3: give you an example of something we're thinking about right now.
Speaker 3: We now know that not only must we reduce carbon emissions,
Speaker 3: we've actually got to take greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. Now.
Speaker 3: The best possible technology for that is planting a tree,
Speaker 3: for example. So we have a very significant program of
Speaker 3: landscape restoration trying to put a coalition together to regreen
Speaker 3: or restore one hundred million hectares in Africa. We also
Speaker 3: have a program in the United States doing the same.
Speaker 3: It turns out now that thirty five African countries are
Speaker 3: really interested in doing this. It also turns out that
Speaker 3: we have technology that we can measure it. We're financing
Speaker 3: that as well. It also turns out that there's quite
Speaker 3: a bit of public and private money sitting on the sidelines.
Speaker 3: And whilst there are actually thousands of community groups in
Speaker 3: Africa that are very good at this, there are no
Speaker 3: intermediating institutions. So what we think is what could we
Speaker 3: do well. We could play a role, getting the methodology
Speaker 3: and the satellite system to measure. We also could play
Speaker 3: a role in helping to create those intermediating institutions that
Speaker 3: would be an example of how we go about it.
Speaker 3: They also, though we've you and I have come to
Speaker 3: a conclusion that simply that technology of photosynthesis is not
Speaker 3: enough to take everything out. So we're actually looking at
Speaker 3: some other ways of taking carbon out of the air through,
Speaker 3: for example, the possibility of ocean absorption, the possibility of
Speaker 3: weathering where various chemical processes can take carbon dioxide. And
Speaker 3: even you know, there's some sort of frontier technologies that
Speaker 3: are nowhere close to commercialization, so no one's actually investing
Speaker 3: in them. For example, how do you take methane out
Speaker 3: of the atmosphere? Very very hard to do, But unless
Speaker 3: we invest now in that, we won't have the technologies
Speaker 3: we need twenty years from now, when it will sadly
Speaker 3: be essential.
Speaker 1: Now you're talking about carbon removal here, because we need
Speaker 1: to draw down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It will
Speaker 1: be a big thing that we'll have to work on.
Speaker 1: But currently the majority of the problem is to try
Speaker 1: and actually reduce emissions. But given as a climate journalist
Speaker 1: covering this subject, just the sheer amount of intellectual capacity
Speaker 1: that is going towards the offset problem, which remains a
Speaker 1: very small market billion dollars two billion dollars relative to
Speaker 1: the three trillion dollars worth of mitigation work that needs
Speaker 1: to be done. Why do you think when you thought
Speaker 1: of the right example to talk about where philanthropy can
Speaker 1: make a difference, was carbon offsets or carbon markets the
Speaker 1: right place to try and invest money or even bring
Speaker 1: that up as the star example that philanthropy is helping improve.
Speaker 3: Oh, maybe I was not clear. We've allocated three billion
Speaker 3: dollars for nature, a billion dollars for conservation, a billion
Speaker 3: dollars for restoration, and a billion dollars for food system transformation,
Speaker 3: and we're still obviously allocating that money at the BASEOS
Speaker 3: fund of that first, the conservation a very very small
Speaker 3: fraction of that, I mean so far it would be
Speaker 3: I don't know, maybe ten million dollars of that would
Speaker 3: be to help set standards for the carbon markets. We
Speaker 3: are spending, you know, one hundred and ten million dollars
Speaker 3: of grants in the Congo basin to help government and
Speaker 3: civil society conserve nature that carbon markets don't play a
Speaker 3: role in that At all, and we're doing exactly the
Speaker 3: same in Latin America and tropical Andes, for example. I
Speaker 3: think they do have a role, but much more important
Speaker 3: is conserving nature, because that's not a minor part of
Speaker 3: the issue. Rural space is responsible for more than a
Speaker 3: third of emissions, and so we really have to address that.
Speaker 1: After the break. Should Amazon be doing more to cut
Speaker 1: its own emissions? And what happens to the money when
Speaker 1: the decisive decade is done? The Visas Art Fund was
Speaker 1: completely new when you started it, and the money is
Speaker 1: supposed to be spent by twenty thirty. What happens next?
Speaker 3: Well, yes, I left a job where we had seventeen
Speaker 3: hundred people, and then I was employee number one in
Speaker 3: my new job, and we're sort of ramping up basically,
Speaker 3: you know, we're willing to take risks. We should inject
Speaker 3: funds very thoughtfully but boldly, and we'll see if it works,
Speaker 3: and we'll do our best to make sure it works,
Speaker 3: and if it does work, we will then ramp that
Speaker 3: up together with partners. And we do nothing on our own.
Speaker 3: We don't simply write a check and say could you
Speaker 3: come back tell us how you're doing a year from now. So,
Speaker 3: for example, the Congo Basin is the most precious ecosystem imaginable.
Speaker 3: It sequesters more carbon than the Amazon and Southeast Asia
Speaker 3: tropical forest combined, and it's massively threatened at the moment.
Speaker 3: So we wanted to go in there. But we've got
Speaker 3: to be honest, this is a difficult place to work in.
Speaker 3: Some parts of these countries are very remote and sometimes
Speaker 3: governance is not what it should be. So what we did,
Speaker 3: we said, we gather nine leading institutions, mainly NGOs, but
Speaker 3: scientific institutions that have deep roots there. We said, look,
Speaker 3: we're going to finance all of you. You have two jobs.
Speaker 3: Job number one is within your own sphere of expertise.
Speaker 3: You have to deliver the way we've discussed with you.
Speaker 3: Thing number two, you've got to be part of a
Speaker 3: team with us, so that as a team, for the
Speaker 3: first time ever, we're able to engage at the head
Speaker 3: of state level at any level we like, including with
Speaker 3: other donors. We're now working with a number of European donors.
Speaker 3: Let's do it together kind of thing, and then we
Speaker 3: would have full time person that would be helping to
Speaker 3: oversee and drive that joint program together. So that's the
Speaker 3: sort of way we would work.
Speaker 1: And so what happens after twenty thirty when the money
Speaker 1: is all spent.
Speaker 3: Well, of course this is the decisive decade, and the
Speaker 3: next decade will also be decisive. The reason this is
Speaker 3: especially decisive is if we don't get it right this decade,
Speaker 3: actually next decade, it will be impossibly expensive to do
Speaker 3: anything and will quite frankly be too late. So I
Speaker 3: have a full time job from now to twenty thirty.
Speaker 3: Clearly there will be all kinds of needs for the
Speaker 3: twenty thirties as well.
Speaker 1: So one example then would be COP fifteen in December,
Speaker 1: which has been called a Paris for nature, set out
Speaker 1: this goal of protecting thirty percent of land and oceans
Speaker 1: by twenty thirty. Ambitious goal, something that had been called
Speaker 1: for for years, and now all these governments have come
Speaker 1: together and agreed upon it. But as soon as that
Speaker 1: high level goal is agreed upon, it becomes a minefield.
Speaker 1: The number of questions about what does that that really mean?
Speaker 1: How do we measure it? Does it mean no humans
Speaker 1: can do anything in that land? How do countries in
Speaker 1: different parts with different capabilities and wealth work on those
Speaker 1: Is that something that you're working on to try and
Speaker 1: create clearer understanding of what thirty by thirty would mean,
Speaker 1: because it's really important that we not just tackle the
Speaker 1: climate crisis, but the biodiversity crisis and the solution sometimes overlap.
Speaker 3: Yes, indeed, I mean I think you've clarified the issue
Speaker 3: very helpfully. We need a political commitment based upon good science,
Speaker 3: and that's what we've now got. Getting to thirty will
Speaker 3: be a huge achievement. It will need to double essentially
Speaker 3: protection on land, and it will need to more than
Speaker 3: double protection of the ocean. And we've got seven years
Speaker 3: to do it. So this is difficult. And as you say,
Speaker 3: now the real challenge begins which thirty percent and what
Speaker 3: does it mean to protect? And I think there are
Speaker 3: definitions of what it means to protect pretty well. It
Speaker 3: doesn't mean totally and utterly no humans in it. On
Speaker 3: the contrary, in many parts it is indigenous people who
Speaker 3: live there that are responsible for doing a very good
Speaker 3: job at the moment in protection. And part of the
Speaker 3: way of insuring thirty by thirty is to give indigenous
Speaker 3: people more rights and the ability to protect those rights. So,
Speaker 3: for example, in Montreal, the Canadian government announced a massive
Speaker 3: increase in its own protected areas in four areas that
Speaker 3: are going to be overseen by first nations. But as
Speaker 3: you say, country by country governments need to decide do
Speaker 3: they want to really be part of it. If they
Speaker 3: do want to be part of it, we need to
Speaker 3: bring in whatever support we can. And yesterday here in Davos,
Speaker 3: we had ministers from Indonesia, from the Democratic Republic of Congo,
Speaker 3: from Bangladesh, Ghana, together with people like John Kerry and
Speaker 3: the German government, the British government, and then philanthropias like
Speaker 3: based Ors, Earth Fund, the More Foundation and others that
Speaker 3: care about this and basically are setting up a process
Speaker 3: by which we would be available to be helpful as
Speaker 3: a team to major countries that are serious about this.
Speaker 1: Is climate philanthropy the new superyacht. Will we see competition
Speaker 1: for who can do it bigger and better?
Speaker 3: I've been impressed by how philanthropists are able to work together.
Speaker 3: That's not to say that from time to time there
Speaker 3: would not be some competition. I have not witnessed that
Speaker 3: so far. I, on the contrary, have witnessed an enthusiasm
Speaker 3: for working together. So for example, a year ago when
Speaker 3: we were concerned that this thirty by thirty, political momentum
Speaker 3: was slowing, and only like fifty countries had said they
Speaker 3: thought it was a good idea. We worked with other
Speaker 3: philanthropists and as a group we were able to put
Speaker 3: five billion dollars of grants on the table, you know,
Speaker 3: at the United Nations General Assembly. We were able to say, look,
Speaker 3: we're serious, this is funds that we would if you
Speaker 3: guys can come up with an agreement on thirty by thirty,
Speaker 3: we're willing to put this totally online. And that was remarkable.
Speaker 3: I mean that was put together within two months, that
Speaker 3: whole idea. I found it quite inspiring, and I actually
Speaker 3: think working together is really important. Now Having said that,
Speaker 3: one of the great things about some modern philanthropists is
Speaker 3: that they're based upon wealth that came because of great
Speaker 3: ambition and brilliance on the part of their leaders. And
Speaker 3: actually that's pretty valuable in our space. For too long,
Speaker 3: environmentalism has been very well intentioned and often excellent, but
Speaker 3: hasn't necessarily benefited from the kind of leadership that some
Speaker 3: modern philanthropists can be helpful in providing.
Speaker 1: Amazon made Bezos fabulously wealthy given the money to be
Speaker 1: able to create this Earth Fund, but Amazon's emissions continue
Speaker 1: to go up. In twenty twenty one, they increased eighteen percent.
Speaker 1: And Bezos is the chair of the Earth Fund, but
Speaker 1: he's also the chair of Amazon. Why is it that
Speaker 1: Amazon continues to not go down the path that you
Speaker 1: would expect reduce their emissions in line with what's needed
Speaker 1: for meeting climicals.
Speaker 3: Well, just to be clear, I work for the Baseos
Speaker 3: Earth Fund. I do not work for Amazon. It's a
Speaker 3: totally different organization.
Speaker 1: But you must have conversations with Jeff Bezos about Amazon's
Speaker 1: progress given the skill of the organization.
Speaker 3: Well, one thing I would say is that this week
Speaker 3: hearing Davos, for example, members of the Climate Pledge, which
Speaker 3: is a group of businesses which was started by Amazon
Speaker 3: that is committed to net zero, ten years ahead of
Speaker 3: what the science tells us. We need to be yes.
Speaker 1: Yes, So that goal is to reach net zero by
Speaker 1: twenty one for Amazon and each.
Speaker 3: Of those each of those companies have plans in place,
Speaker 3: and that ranges from trying to address their scope three emissions,
Speaker 3: which is the entire supply chain and that's very hard
Speaker 3: to do, to electrifying their their delivery fleets for example.
Speaker 3: So you know this is a journey, and there will
Speaker 3: be times when when emissions go up, either because your
Speaker 3: sales go up or for some other reason. The point
Speaker 3: is to keep your eye on the prize to twenty
Speaker 3: twenty five, twenty thirty, twenty forty and so on.
Speaker 1: Now you've worked on climate issues for a long time,
Speaker 1: but we happen to be at this juncture facing two
Speaker 1: kinds of trends. One, we hit a record greenhouse gas
Speaker 1: emissions in twenty twenty two. Two we have never spent
Speaker 1: more money, more effort, more talent, more people power on
Speaker 1: trying to tackle the climate crisis. How do you live
Speaker 1: in this two track world?
Speaker 3: It's very well put. If you take two experts, well meaning,
Speaker 3: good people and you say how we doing, one will
Speaker 3: say it's fantastic. You know what I mean. The price
Speaker 3: of solar energy has fallen ninety nine point six percent
Speaker 3: since Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the roof of
Speaker 3: the White House in nineteen seventy nine. And they'll give
Speaker 3: many statements like that. And one hundred and twenty countries
Speaker 3: are committed to net zero. One hundred and thirty trillion
Speaker 3: dollars of assets under management are committed to net zero. Unbelievable.
Speaker 3: And then you talk to the other one, they say,
Speaker 3: you know, we're heading off a cliff like a bunch
Speaker 3: of lemmings.
Speaker 1: Never use more call they never put out more greenhouse
Speaker 1: gas emissions. There's never been more tension in the world
Speaker 1: in the last thirty years of knowing that's right, that
Speaker 1: climate change is a problem, geopolitics is fragmented, the immediate
Speaker 1: crises are growing in number, and terms like polycrises have
Speaker 1: been created.
Speaker 3: That's absolutely correct. Last year, what two point five trillion
Speaker 3: dollars were invested in the energy sector as a whole.
Speaker 3: Of that, two point five one trillion was in fossil fuels,
Speaker 3: and one point five trillion was in clean energy, including
Speaker 3: energy efficiency and all the renewables so to speak. You
Speaker 3: can look at that number and say that's incredible. I mean,
Speaker 3: and well over half of the new generating capacity last
Speaker 3: year was from renewables. Unbelievable. But if we're going to
Speaker 3: stay within one point five the renewables need to be
Speaker 3: three times as fast, and we need to close nine
Speaker 3: hundred and twenty five coal plants every single year. So
Speaker 3: sort of the analogy is sort of it's you know,
Speaker 3: the dog chasing the bus, and the dog is running
Speaker 3: faster and faster. That's us trying to solve the problem.
Speaker 3: And we've never run so fast, and we're we're so
Speaker 3: please with ourselves. The bus is accelerating away, and of
Speaker 3: course the dog could keep trying, running harder and harder,
Speaker 3: but will never catch up. And so, you know, continue
Speaker 3: the analogy. The dog needs, you know, an electric bike
Speaker 3: or something to we need a new way of doing things,
Speaker 3: and that's exactly what we you know, we and many
Speaker 3: others are focusing on. It's it yesterday when we launched
Speaker 3: this idea of could we work together on the thirty
Speaker 3: by thirty, you know, so instead of you know, thirty
Speaker 3: different NGOs and twelve different governments and six different multi
Speaker 3: national organizations and so many developers of carbon markets, all
Speaker 3: trying to be helpful to the democratic Republic of Congo
Speaker 3: or Brazil or Indonesia, and you know, all doing their best,
Speaker 3: and some of it is excellent, not adding up. What
Speaker 3: would it take to actually get it to add up.
Speaker 3: That's that's what we have to that's the electric bike
Speaker 3: for the dog chasing the bus.
Speaker 1: This was a great conversation.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much, Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Indeed, philanthropy's relationship to climate is a complicated one. It
Speaker 1: feels like we shouldn't have to rely on the whims
Speaker 1: of billionaires to fund projects that are necessary for humans
Speaker 1: to thrive, and yet when not enough money is available
Speaker 1: for those projects, we need all the help we can get.
Speaker 1: That shouldn't mean that where the money comes from or
Speaker 1: goes to gets less scrutiny. Thanks so much for listening
Speaker 1: to Zero. If you liked this episode, please take a
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Speaker 1: pod at Bloomberg dot Net. Zero's producer is Oscar Boyd
Speaker 1: and senior producer is Christine Driskell. Our theme music is
Speaker 1: composed by Wonderly Special. Thanks to Kira Bindram and Robin
Speaker 1: Pomeroy at the World Economic Forum for letting us use
Speaker 1: the podcasting studios in Davos. I'm Akshatrati back next week.