Speaker 1: This is Dana Perkins and you're listening to Switched on
Speaker 1: the b and EF podcast. Earlier this year, BNAF released
Speaker 1: our twenty twenty three edition of the G twenty Policy Scoreboard.
Speaker 1: This is an annual report that evaluates and ranks different
Speaker 1: governments and their climate policies. But in a year of
Speaker 1: turmoil with conflict on the European continent which has led
Speaker 1: to soaring energy prices alongside global inflationary pressures, what has
Speaker 1: changed within the G twenty member states in regard to
Speaker 1: their climate policies. Head of Global Policy at BNF, Victoria Cumming,
Speaker 1: has returned to the podcast today. She shares the countries
Speaker 1: that are at the top of the ranking, along with
Speaker 1: the biggest movers and those who fall near the bottom
Speaker 1: of the stack. She also highlights the impact the US
Speaker 1: Inflation Reduction Act has had. During the conversation, we dig
Speaker 1: a little bit deeper on some specific technologies and industries,
Speaker 1: including those impacting the hard to abate sectors, as well
Speaker 1: as our newest area being assessed in this report, agriculture.
Speaker 1: If you like this podcast, make sure you subscribe to
Speaker 1: receive updates on future episodes. Bn EF subscribers can access
Speaker 1: the full G twenty policy Scoreboard report at BNF on
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg terminal at bf dot com, or on our
Speaker 1: mobile app. If you'd like to join us for an
Speaker 1: upcoming summit taking place the day directly before the B
Speaker 1: twenty meetings, go to about dot BNF dot com forward
Speaker 1: Slash Summit and go to the tab titled New Deli Summit.
Speaker 1: Note that B and EF does not provide investment or
Speaker 1: strategy advice, and our full disclaimer can be found at
Speaker 1: the very end of the show. But right now I
Speaker 1: get to speak with Vicky about the G twenty policy scoreboard. Vicky,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming back to the show
Speaker 1: again today.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 1: So we're here to discuss the G twenty zero carbon
Speaker 1: policy scoreboard. That really rolls off the tongue, but I
Speaker 1: think that's because this is one of the media things
Speaker 1: that we do, is we really try and pull together
Speaker 1: what's happening across the G twenty in terms of the
Speaker 1: transition and the number of different things that are all
Speaker 1: simultaneously taking place. Before we get into the findings of
Speaker 1: this report, can you talk a little bit about what
Speaker 1: this is and really why we're doing it.
Speaker 2: Absolutely so. Policy government policy specifically has been a key
Speaker 2: driver of the energy transition. We really wouldn't have the
Speaker 2: volume of wind and solar power, for example, that we
Speaker 2: have installed now if it had not been for feed
Speaker 2: and tariffs and tax credits and renewables auctions. So the
Speaker 2: overall aim of this policy scoreboard is to give a
Speaker 2: snapshot assessment of the G twenty countries in terms of
Speaker 2: their decarbonization policies. And one of the reasons why it
Speaker 2: is such a MEATI report is because it covers the
Speaker 2: vast majority of the sectors across the economy. So we
Speaker 2: have power, fuels, transport, buildings, industry, waste, circular economy, and
Speaker 2: now also agriculture. And this is the third time that
Speaker 2: we've done this annual report, and so we're now also
Speaker 2: starting to be able to track progress or lack thereof
Speaker 2: in terms of the policies that governments have in place.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned agriculture that was not on the report
Speaker 1: last year.
Speaker 2: Correct, absolutely, yes, countries governments what we'll get more into
Speaker 2: it later are starting to look at how to decarbonize
Speaker 2: the agriculture sector, which is a particularly tricky sector to
Speaker 2: what we'd call hard to abate.
Speaker 1: Before we get into agriculture specifically, let's talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about how we go about assessing countries and really
Speaker 1: ranking them in this report. So you have three different
Speaker 1: ways of going about looking at its robustness, presence, and
Speaker 1: effect Can you talk a little bit about what those
Speaker 1: three are designed to do?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? So, first, I should say, somewhat confusingly, there are
Speaker 2: nineteen individual countries of the G twenty, the Group of
Speaker 2: twenty countries, and that is because the twentieth member of
Speaker 2: the G twenty is the European Union. So we assess
Speaker 2: the countries. Vast majority of them we look at just
Speaker 2: national level policy, but for the European Union member states France,
Speaker 2: Germany and Italy that are actually individual members of the
Speaker 2: G twenty, we also take account of EU level policy.
Speaker 2: And then because of the US and Canada sub national
Speaker 2: policies are so important in terms of the energy transition
Speaker 2: we've seen, we also take account of state and province
Speaker 2: level policies when we're looking at those countries. So, as
Speaker 2: you say, we have these three types of metrics, so robustness, presence,
Speaker 2: and effectiveness. So each of the G twenty countries are
Speaker 2: assessed based on about one hundred or so metrics. And
Speaker 2: then there are these three categories of metrics. So the
Speaker 2: first one is the presence, so what types of policies
Speaker 2: are in place in that country in these sectors, So
Speaker 2: for example, does it have a renewables feeding tariff, does
Speaker 2: it have purchase subsidies for electric vehicles, does it a
Speaker 2: carbon price on industrial emissions. Then we get into the
Speaker 2: biggest slice of the pie, I would say, is the
Speaker 2: robustness metrics. So those are our BNFS qualitative assessment of
Speaker 2: the policies that are in place. So we look at
Speaker 2: the kind of impact of the policies, whether it's having
Speaker 2: as an intended impact. We also look at the policy
Speaker 2: making process, so is it transparent, does it, for example,
Speaker 2: allow stakeholder consultation, does the government announce some changes to
Speaker 2: the policies, to the kind of stability of the policy process.
Speaker 2: And then the last bucket is quantitative metrics that try
Speaker 2: to assess where the policies are actually having the desired effect.
Speaker 2: So we look out, for example, whether a country has
Speaker 2: increased the share of renewable power generation, has it actually
Speaker 2: increased electric vehicle sales, has it decreased building sector emissions
Speaker 2: in recent history? So all those metrics come together, and
Speaker 2: so we have sector level scores and then we have
Speaker 2: an overall score for each country.
Speaker 1: Can we talk a little bit about the time horizon
Speaker 1: with which we look at these different scores, because when
Speaker 1: I think of effectiveness, I think that in some respects,
Speaker 1: there's what's happening right now, which is the result of
Speaker 1: policies that have been on the books for previous years,
Speaker 1: versus projected effectiveness of a policy in the future and
Speaker 1: what we think it may be designed to do and stimulate.
Speaker 1: One might use the USIRA as an example of something
Speaker 1: where there's a lot of discussion around what's going to
Speaker 1: happen in the future as opposed to retrospective looking impacts.
Speaker 1: Where does effectiveness fall on that time horizon for US
Speaker 1: and is it looking backward or looking forward or both.
Speaker 2: So we use the latest data that's available, and different
Speaker 2: types of data are available with different time horizons historically,
Speaker 2: so greenhouse gas emissions data takes a long time to
Speaker 2: collect and to do so on a consistent basis, So
Speaker 2: for some sector level emissions data, we're only looking at
Speaker 2: the most recent levels twenty nineteen. However, with other bits
Speaker 2: of data, especially the kind of data that we Bloomberg
Speaker 2: any F track ourselves. So when we're looking at electric
Speaker 2: vehicle sales or renewable power generation, we're probably looking over
Speaker 2: the last twelve months. As you say, we are seeing
Speaker 2: the impact of the policies that have been in place
Speaker 2: at least for a few years. We also though, because
Speaker 2: investors and developers they look ahead to what potential policies
Speaker 2: coming down the pipeline, So we have started to see
Speaker 2: some impact market level in terms of the effective nyfnessmetrics
Speaker 2: of policies like the Inflation Reduction Act, because for example,
Speaker 2: developers and investment in CCUS has started to creep up,
Speaker 2: and hydrogen started to creep up as well, So there
Speaker 2: is also there is also we take as much as
Speaker 2: possible with the forward looking, but yes, to some extent,
Speaker 2: it's historical as well, just in terms of the effectiveness metrics,
Speaker 2: which contributes about a quarter of a country score.
Speaker 1: And as you mentioned, it does take some time to
Speaker 1: get these greenhouse gases quantified and to be able to
Speaker 1: actually have data that we can work off of. So
Speaker 1: then question really comes down to, given this is the
Speaker 1: third time doing this, and we're doing this at roughly
Speaker 1: a one year interval. How much the things really change
Speaker 1: from one year to the next in terms of the
Speaker 1: results across robustness, presence, and effect do you see I
Speaker 1: suppose if you are looking at policy changes, you're going
Speaker 1: to see a lot of change in presence from one
Speaker 1: year to the next, depending upon what a specific country
Speaker 1: is doing. But given that effects are lagging and robustness
Speaker 1: may take some time to actually get under way in
Speaker 1: order to be able to assess that, do the numbers
Speaker 1: swing wildly in these rankings from one year to the next.
Speaker 2: It's funny because, as you say, you would think that
Speaker 2: the kind of changes might be fairly minimal, at least
Speaker 2: on the effectiveness metrics, but actually we have seen the
Speaker 2: differences a year to year. So one of the reasons
Speaker 2: for that is we try not to use kind of
Speaker 2: absolute changes in absolute volumes of things. We assess a
Speaker 2: country relative to the global to average in some cases.
Speaker 2: In some cases we as OECD countries with the OCD
Speaker 2: average and non OCD with the non OECD average. But
Speaker 2: there are significant changes even so. One of the metrics
Speaker 2: that's most likely to change year to year we've seen
Speaker 2: is actually in terms of electric vehicle sales and the
Speaker 2: share of electric vehicle sales out of all new vehicle cells.
Speaker 1: Well, okay, so let's talk about changes. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three report and what we're seeing. So one
Speaker 1: of the findings from the report is that Europe is
Speaker 1: essentially leading on some of these policies at the moment.
Speaker 1: So we're looking at what happened in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: That's what this report is looking to assess. Can you
Speaker 1: essentially give us a little bit of a punchline and
Speaker 1: which country or countries were the winners, Let's say, if
Speaker 1: you're looking at this as a ranking.
Speaker 2: So in terms of who are the winners, the biggest climber,
Speaker 2: I would say was the US, which jumped up ten
Speaker 2: percentage points, which is a bigger increase than any other
Speaker 2: country by some measure. Result, it's now in fifth position
Speaker 2: out of the kind of overall G twenty rankings. That's
Speaker 2: the biggest change.
Speaker 1: So againing is a form of winning.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, but that's a win anyway. Yes, yeah. So
Speaker 2: you might look at this and think, well, yes, it's
Speaker 2: Europe at the top again this year, but actually, if
Speaker 2: you look at the details, so last year, Germany was
Speaker 2: the clear winner by about six percentage points over France,
Speaker 2: but France, because it's made improvements in various sectors, including
Speaker 2: the building sector and industry, it has actually closed that
Speaker 2: gap just to be one percentage point, So we could
Speaker 2: see France overtake Germany next year, depending on how things go.
Speaker 2: The other change i'd flag in the top four is
Speaker 2: that the UK has fallen to fourth position and Italy
Speaker 2: is now in third. For various reasons. The UK tends
Speaker 2: to be pretty good in terms of the policy presence
Speaker 2: of the number of policies it has in place, but
Speaker 2: it also tends to fall down on the robustness because
Speaker 2: the government has a history of announcing support and then
Speaker 2: suddenly announcing changes to that support, generally right reducing it
Speaker 2: or scrapping it entirely.
Speaker 1: Not to name and shame, but who fell the most
Speaker 1: And I guess who's now at the bottom that you're
Speaker 1: not expecting to well, maybe weren't expecting to see there
Speaker 1: in the past.
Speaker 2: So we saw a few countries fall a down the ranking.
Speaker 2: I guess if you're looking generally at the non winners,
Speaker 2: we'll call them for it to be politically.
Speaker 1: Correct, nineteen countries.
Speaker 2: It's not a big surprise that say Russia, Saudi Arabia,
Speaker 2: Turkey are at the bottom. They especially compared with say
Speaker 2: Europe and now the US. They have very little policy
Speaker 2: support in place. They also tend to fall down in
Speaker 2: terms of having less than transparent and stable policy making processes,
Speaker 2: and they are also running behind in terms of the
Speaker 2: effectiveness metrics of things like the share of renewable power generation.
Speaker 2: They tend to be still heavily reliant on fossil fuels.
Speaker 2: A few countries have kind of fallen slightly in terms
Speaker 2: of their score. One is India. This has been in
Speaker 2: various sectors. Various policies have been subsidies have been reduced
Speaker 2: or withdrawn. Still well behind say other G twenty countries,
Speaker 2: even in the Asia Pacific region on electric vehicle sales,
Speaker 2: so kind of progress. Outside the power sector, it has
Speaker 2: very little industrial decarbonization policy in place, and it has
Speaker 2: little sustainable agriculture policy.
Speaker 1: Given that India is hosting the G twenty this year,
Speaker 1: do you think zero carbon policy is actually going to
Speaker 1: feature in those talks, especially given where they seem to
Speaker 1: be falling in terms of it is a priority versus
Speaker 1: some of the other countries that are actually involved.
Speaker 2: So I think climate change is definitely on the agenda
Speaker 2: for the G twenty and the B twenty this year,
Speaker 2: I think the focus will likely be on clean power,
Speaker 2: and all due to India. So that each country's in
Speaker 2: this score board, their total score is weighted by the
Speaker 2: share of the greenhouse gas emissions in their economy, so
Speaker 2: actually power sector emissions. The power sector accounts for a
Speaker 2: large share of emissions in India, so it's not unreasonable
Speaker 2: for them to be focusing on clean power to start with,
Speaker 2: and they've also got some very ambitious policies on clean
Speaker 2: power and elsewhere on things like biofuels and increasingly on
Speaker 2: electric vehicles. But I would imagine that they would be
Speaker 2: focusing on say the power and possibly transport sector these
Speaker 2: two twenty talks, and possibly also there's increasing interest I
Speaker 2: think in India and Asia more generally in terms of
Speaker 2: the carbon markets, so we could also see interest in that.
Speaker 1: So we might even see with the hosting this year,
Speaker 1: potentially them increasing in the rankings, and maybe we'll see
Speaker 1: some changes next year in terms of rising and falling
Speaker 1: on this list, much like the US has this year.
Speaker 2: The difference between I think the US and India is
Speaker 2: that in terms of clean power in deal already has
Speaker 2: both at national and kind of subnational level, various clean
Speaker 2: power policies, both to promote renewable energy and increasingly for
Speaker 2: energy storage as well. I would be surprised if they
Speaker 2: announce and therefore implement around the G twenty more policies
Speaker 2: that push them up the ranking to the extent that
Speaker 2: we've seen in the US this year.
Speaker 1: So if we think about this ranking and this kind
Speaker 1: of unique additional country that isn't a country added here,
Speaker 1: which is the European Union, where does the EU fall
Speaker 1: in all of this? Given that there's a number of
Speaker 1: member states of the European Union that actually rank quite highly,
Speaker 1: so I'd imagine it does bring up their average, But yeah,
Speaker 1: where did they fall?
Speaker 2: So, as you say EU policy, Without EU policy, Germany,
Speaker 2: France and Italy would not necessarily be the at top
Speaker 2: of the ranking, or at least their score would be
Speaker 2: significantly reduced. So one of the reasons is that is
Speaker 2: that in the school Board methodology, a country gets more
Speaker 2: points if policies are policy sticks, So if that means
Speaker 2: they're regulations or mandates that kind of force changed compared
Speaker 2: with say a financial or fiscal incentive that incentivizes and
Speaker 2: seeks to encourage change, and a lot of the EU
Speaker 2: level policy that we take account for France, Germany and
Speaker 2: Italy are those policy sticks. So things like the EU
Speaker 2: emissions trading system, things like mandates around energy efficiency, performance
Speaker 2: of buildings, all those, and various things around kind of
Speaker 2: the use of fertilizers and pesticides in the agriculture sector.
Speaker 2: So I think if the EU was considered an individual country,
Speaker 2: it would likely be at the top.
Speaker 1: Let's get into some specific technologies. Let's start off with agriculture,
Speaker 1: which is the newest entrant to our scoreboard. Now, what
Speaker 1: percentage of global emissions does agriculture actually represent?
Speaker 2: So agriculture that's excluding land use and forestry is around
Speaker 2: twelve percent globally according to the kind of latest twenty
Speaker 2: nineteen data. But that's share really varies across countries. So
Speaker 2: you have countries, for example, in the G twenty five,
Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia is just one percent of their national emissions,
Speaker 2: whereas Brazil it's forty eight percent. So agriculture sector it
Speaker 2: kind of represents a kind of widely different challenge depending
Speaker 2: on which country you're looking at.
Speaker 1: When given that it's such a different challenge. Are you
Speaker 1: seeing with countries that oftentimes, if there are really robust
Speaker 1: policies in place and they're doing well on the scoreboard
Speaker 1: across let's say, the power sector, that they're also doing
Speaker 1: well in agriculture or can it sometimes be an outlier.
Speaker 2: That's a really interesting question. So we found that the
Speaker 2: G twenty countries fell into three buckets. So there was
Speaker 2: one bucket which includes, for example, the European countries and
Speaker 2: the US, where they generally had a relatively good set
Speaker 2: of decarbonization policies in the agriculture sector, as well as
Speaker 2: all the other sectors that are covered by the policy scoreboard.
Speaker 2: But there were three countries, so Australia, Brazil and Argentina
Speaker 2: that scored particularly highly in the agriculture sector compared with
Speaker 2: the other sector, which is really interesting, I mean, and
Speaker 2: I think one of the reasons is that because agriculture
Speaker 2: actually accounts for a sizable share of their economies and
Speaker 2: their for greenhouse gas emissions. And then the final bucket
Speaker 2: were five countries that didn't perform well in agriculture or
Speaker 2: indeed across the other sectors.
Speaker 1: Of the different categories that exist, are some of these
Speaker 1: weighted more heavily, let's say, because of their percentage of
Speaker 1: greenhouse gases. So when you're looking at this overall score,
Speaker 1: is agriculture and industry for example, are they weighted evenly
Speaker 1: or is there a way that we kind of look
Speaker 1: at the policies in light of what they're actually affecting
Speaker 1: in terms of the industry that they're attacking, or is
Speaker 1: it overall we're looking at the greenhouse gas impact and
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter where it's coming from.
Speaker 2: So a country's total score is weighted by each sector's
Speaker 2: share of national emissions. So, taking examples we've just looked
Speaker 2: at before, Saudi Arabia did not score that well on
Speaker 2: agriculture policies, but that didn't matter so much for its
Speaker 2: overall school because it was only agriculture is only one
Speaker 2: percent of its total emissions, whereas for Brazil, it's agriculture
Speaker 2: school actually accounted for half of its total school.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, then let's go now to a technology that
Speaker 1: really is designed in many respects to attack some of
Speaker 1: the hardest to abate, the most difficult things to decarbonize.
Speaker 1: So we're looking at hydrogen now, hydrogen ccus so carbon
Speaker 1: capture utilization, storage and biofuels were all put together, but
Speaker 1: one could argue actually that all three of those have
Speaker 1: the same ultimate end use in that they're designed to
Speaker 1: tackle hard to abate. What percentage of emissions does this
Speaker 1: actually represent and kind of how has this area weighed,
Speaker 1: and then who are the winners in this category?
Speaker 2: So in terms of the waiting, it's a tricky ones
Speaker 2: for this actual category. So we look at fugitive emissions
Speaker 2: and other fuel combustion that isn't associated with another sector.
Speaker 2: In terms of how countries have so, the US has
Speaker 2: always tended to score fairly highly, especially and this is
Speaker 2: pre Inflation Reduction Act, especially compared with its other sectors,
Speaker 2: because it has had historically good at tax credits for
Speaker 2: CCUS and also policies for biofuels, And this year we
Speaker 2: saw it actually rise to the top of the ranking
Speaker 2: for this kind of low carbon fuels and CCUS sector
Speaker 2: that we count together. Then Canada also improved the number
Speaker 2: and quality of policies that are in place for these technologies,
Speaker 2: so it also climbed to third place this year. And
Speaker 2: then Germany has always been historically strong, especially when it
Speaker 2: comes to hydrogen and to letter extend, biofuels.
Speaker 1: For those who listen to this show regularly, they'll have
Speaker 1: noticed that over the last few weeks the Inflation Reduction
Speaker 1: Act has come up a few times, and it has
Speaker 1: had a dramatic impact on a number of the different
Speaker 1: industries that we cover, both now and looking forward, certainly
Speaker 1: not just in the United States, but also with other
Speaker 1: countries reacting in kind with their on policy incentives. So
Speaker 1: hydrogen is certainly at the center of that. There is
Speaker 1: a big conversation around hydrogen essentially maybe not to use
Speaker 1: too big of a word, but booming in the US
Speaker 1: at the moment. Is this what we're seeing right now
Speaker 1: in terms of this ranking? Are we already seeing the
Speaker 1: US make great strides in terms of how well I
Speaker 1: guess all three of the different areas that we look at,
Speaker 1: the presence, robustness, and effectiveness of policies around the hydrogen
Speaker 1: space in the US specifically as a result of the
Speaker 1: Inflation Reduction Act.
Speaker 2: So I think without the Inflation Reduction Act, although IRA,
Speaker 2: the US would not have increased its score to the
Speaker 2: extent it has this year. So in some sectors or
Speaker 2: for some technologies, it's introduced new policies. So for example,
Speaker 2: the hydrogen tax credit, and in that case, so the
Speaker 2: US has gone up in terms of its presence metrics.
Speaker 2: But even for technologies like CCUS, where the US did
Speaker 2: have of some kind of federal mechanisms already in place
Speaker 2: to incentivize them, the IRA, because of its generosity and
Speaker 2: the improved design of these policies, we have increased our
Speaker 2: robustness evalue relation of the US. So to take hydrogen specifically,
Speaker 2: it has likely the best low carbon hydrogen policy in
Speaker 2: place around the world, and certainly from the G twenty perspective,
Speaker 2: and we should see in future iterations of the Policy
Speaker 2: Scoreboard report that this then gets reflected in terms of
Speaker 2: the effectiveness metrics as well. One thing I would flag
Speaker 2: and question that I have got is why has the
Speaker 2: US not actually surpassed some of the European countries that
Speaker 2: are top of the school board this year and for
Speaker 2: that week talk again about the policy carrots versus policy sticks.
Speaker 2: So the policy carrots, like the tax credits within the IRA,
Speaker 2: while they can be very well designed and generous, they
Speaker 2: can only encourage change, whereas European countries, so the former
Speaker 2: and the current the European Union countries they have in
Speaker 2: place many more of these policy sticks that force changed,
Speaker 2: so things like carbon pricing, mandates on energy efficiency improvements,
Speaker 2: use of certain fuels, fossil fuel phase outs in the
Speaker 2: power and increasingly building heat sectors, and in various environmental
Speaker 2: regulations in agriculture sector. So that is why they retain
Speaker 2: the top spots for this year anyway.
Speaker 1: Well, so let's talk about another area where the US
Speaker 1: has actually done quite well in this ranking, and that
Speaker 1: has to do with industry. And for the uninitiated, will
Speaker 1: you also define how we're looking at industry because we
Speaker 1: separate out buildings in industry, which often are grouped together.
Speaker 2: So when we talk about buildings, we're looking specifically at
Speaker 2: the technologies needed to predominantly to heat buildings, so it
Speaker 2: tends to be gas boilers or it could be increasingly
Speaker 2: heat pumps. When we're looking at industry, we're looking at
Speaker 2: the kind of heavy industry manufacturer ring, steel, cement, petrochemicals.
Speaker 2: So those are the technologies that are needed to produce
Speaker 2: industrial heat for those processes.
Speaker 1: So in some respects, the same technologies that the CCUS
Speaker 1: hydrogen biole fuels are looking to provide part of the
Speaker 1: solution for.
Speaker 2: Absolutely So when we are looking specifically at the scores
Speaker 2: for low carbon fuels and CCUS. We're focusing on the
Speaker 2: incentives for the production the development of those technologies, Whereas
Speaker 2: when we're assessing a country's industry policies, we're focusing on
Speaker 2: policies to incentivize the use of those low carbon technologies
Speaker 2: in industry. So, for example, a government could require that
Speaker 2: a certain amount of steel that's produced must come from
Speaker 2: green technologies. One thing you could say, and would be
Speaker 2: useful to flag here, I think, is that while there's
Speaker 2: seen some progress in terms of industry policies, there's still
Speaker 2: really lags behind, say power and transport, where.
Speaker 1: A lot of the technologies are really more readily available.
Speaker 1: So it's a conversation around scale as opposed to R
Speaker 1: and D and development.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the technologies for power and for transport, those
Speaker 2: are fully commercialized technologies now and it's mass scale out
Speaker 2: is the next challenge or the current challenge. Whereas with
Speaker 2: buildings and certainly for industry and for agriculture. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: a question of jumping that commercialization gap.
Speaker 1: Now. There are different ways to cut all of this up.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned we have the G twenty and we've
Speaker 1: looked at on an individual country basis, but then the
Speaker 1: EU counts as a country. What are some of the
Speaker 1: other ways that we've assessed in this report kind of
Speaker 1: groupings of countries. Because you've got the G twenty, you've
Speaker 1: got the G seven, you've got other different trading blocks.
Speaker 1: How are we assessing these against one another? And what
Speaker 1: are some of the findings whence you start looking at
Speaker 1: the world that way.
Speaker 2: So if we're looking at different groupings of countries specifically,
Speaker 2: there's definitely a gap between what's referred to as developed
Speaker 2: versus developing economies. So members of the OECD that we're
Speaker 2: in the G twenty DA had an average score about
Speaker 2: sixty four percent this year, whereas non OECD members had
Speaker 2: an average of thirty six percent, so significantly lower. And
Speaker 2: I think there are several reasons for that, many of
Speaker 2: them economics driven in that to a certain extent, China
Speaker 2: accepted OECD countries were at the forefront of starting to
Speaker 2: kind of introduce renewable energy and to lesser saying, electric
Speaker 2: vehicles and really promote the scale up of those technologies.
Speaker 1: And that dichotomy between the OECD and non OECD countries
Speaker 1: and that gap that you just pointed out, which I
Speaker 1: think in many respects really gets to the heart of
Speaker 1: what we've seen some of the recent conversations around decarbonization
Speaker 1: at COP meetings. Now we have COP coming up this year,
Speaker 1: as we do most years, do these conversations at the
Speaker 1: G twenty oftentimes reflect or even said as a precursor
Speaker 1: to the way things actually start to play out at
Speaker 1: a COP.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think that both the discussions at G twenty
Speaker 2: we've got coming up in India in September, but also
Speaker 2: the G seven discussions that we had a few weeks
Speaker 2: ago in Japan, they can they often signal what topics
Speaker 2: are going to be under debate at COP twenty eight
Speaker 2: this year at the end of the year, and we
Speaker 2: also could see some of the participant's priorities. So I
Speaker 2: think at the G seven summit most recently, climate finance
Speaker 2: will once again be top of the agenda for COP
Speaker 2: twenty eight, and interestingly so the G seven countries are Canada, France, Germany, Italy,
Speaker 2: the US, the UK and Japan, and they have in
Speaker 2: their kind of statement that they released said that they
Speaker 2: want to deliver on the target to produce one hundred
Speaker 2: billion dollars a year of climate finance for developing countries
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty three, that maybe three years after they
Speaker 2: were due to actually deliver. The original deadline announced in
Speaker 2: twenty and nine was twenty twenty, but in Glasgow, when
Speaker 2: it was clear that they were not going to achieve
Speaker 2: that twenty to twenty deadline, the overall countries agreed that
Speaker 2: they would deliver by twenty twenty five, which I think
Speaker 2: disappointed a lot of developing economies. One of the things
Speaker 2: note about the climate negotiations is that climate finance and
Speaker 2: the delivery of it from richer nations is a bargaining
Speaker 2: tool in order to incentivize emerging economies to commit to
Speaker 2: more ambitious climate pledges. The thing about these emerging economies
Speaker 2: is that as there are emerging, they're seeing significant increase
Speaker 2: in terms of economic growth and therefore also GHG emissions.
Speaker 2: So it is crucial for achieving, say the Paris Agreement
Speaker 2: goals limiting global warming to one point five or two degrees,
Speaker 2: that these large economies commit to more ambitious emission reduction targets.
Speaker 1: So if we're really thinking about having the most meaningful
Speaker 1: impact on emissions, you invariably have cop center stage with
Speaker 1: climate and emissions, and that is the point of the meeting?
Speaker 1: Where is the G twenty meeting have a number of
Speaker 1: different directions that they may go in. Really, though, when
Speaker 1: we're looking at maybe some of the heaviest emitters, which
Speaker 1: we may argue are also in the G twenty, where
Speaker 1: do you think some of the most meaningful change can
Speaker 1: actually happen? And I guess the question really is, Vicky,
Speaker 1: which is your favorite meeting and where do you think
Speaker 1: the most ground is being made in terms of climate?
Speaker 2: Oh? Wow? Can I if we're talking about in terms
Speaker 2: of climate? Can I choose neither of them? I think
Speaker 2: that in theory, with fewer players in the room, the
Speaker 2: G twenty process can be more efficient, it can result
Speaker 2: in more concrete initiatives, and with fewer players hopefully stand
Speaker 2: a greater chance of implementation. That hasn't necessarily sn't been
Speaker 2: shown to be the case in recent history, but there
Speaker 2: have been some things, for example, the Just Energy Transition Partnerships,
Speaker 2: which were also kind of announced and highlighted a COP.
Speaker 2: I think the thing is with COP because it evolves
Speaker 2: the vast majority of countries in the world, and where
Speaker 2: each country has one vote to regardless of how big
Speaker 2: or how much political clout it has. It gives a
Speaker 2: chance for some of the smaller countries, especially those say
Speaker 2: small island states that are most exposed to climate change,
Speaker 2: gives them a voice at least at international level. But
Speaker 2: in terms of kind of efficiency, I would suggest that
Speaker 2: the G twenty is better.
Speaker 1: So it's certainly important that we contextualize what's happening globally
Speaker 1: from country to country and region to region, and is
Speaker 1: a big reason why we end up writing research like
Speaker 1: this across all the different policy teams that we have,
Speaker 1: and really why you have a role as somebody who's
Speaker 1: looking at the international policy landscape as a whole. And
Speaker 1: I guess my main question is what do you want
Speaker 1: people to take away from this year? Because as I
Speaker 1: mentioned at the very beginning of the show, this is
Speaker 1: a monster Over report and there is a lot of
Speaker 1: information in here, in a lot of different ways to
Speaker 1: go about ranking one against the other. So what was
Speaker 1: the thing that stood out most to you and what
Speaker 1: do you want the takeaway to be?
Speaker 2: I think one of my key takeaways is that countries
Speaker 2: have made a certain amount of progress in terms of
Speaker 2: implementing policy to incentifize clean power and electric vehicles or
Speaker 2: clean transport. I think there is still a significant lack
Speaker 2: of policy support for locom technologies in other sectors, specifically buildings, industry,
Speaker 2: and also now agriculture. So if we just look at
Speaker 2: the average score across the G twenty, the average power
Speaker 2: score was sixty one percent, fifty four percent for transport,
Speaker 2: but for the other sectors they had an average of
Speaker 2: forty seven and some of those, like industry, it was
Speaker 2: much lower. So my main takeaway is that if governments
Speaker 2: are listening to this, then that is where they need
Speaker 2: to start targeting their policy focus right now.
Speaker 1: All right, thank you for joining us today, Vicky and
Speaker 1: sharing your thoughts regarding well, not just the D twenty
Speaker 1: and how they rank with each other, but also looking
Speaker 1: ahead towards some of the cop meetings.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much for having me.
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