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Speaker 1: Welcome to zero. I am asha this week dictators, democrats,

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Speaker 1: and disasters. The time we have to take action on

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Speaker 1: climate change is in short supply. Emissions of greenhouse gases

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Speaker 1: need to peak within the next three years. If we're

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Speaker 1: to stay off, we have until with a massive warning.

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Speaker 1: It is now or never, and the lack of time

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Speaker 1: raises the question our democracies up to the challenge. Do

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Speaker 1: we have the time to let the natural course of

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Speaker 1: consensus building and debate play out, or should governments around

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Speaker 1: the world suspend the normal course of democracy in favor

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Speaker 1: of climate action? Is an eco authoritarian model the way

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Speaker 1: to go. In my travels to China, for all the

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Speaker 1: country's many problems, it was stunning to see how much

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Speaker 1: progress has made on green technologies. It has a plan

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Speaker 1: to reach zero emissions within decades, and the country typically

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Speaker 1: delivers on its promises. That's made many in the environmental

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Speaker 1: movement question whether more of us should be taking the

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Speaker 1: authoritarian route to zero. I wanted to put these questions

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Speaker 1: to Dan Fiorina, the author of Canned Democracy Handled Climate Change,

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Speaker 1: one of my favorite books on the subject. He's also

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Speaker 1: the director for the Center for Environmental Policy at American University.

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Speaker 1: Dan comes down strongly in favor of democracy, but readily

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Speaker 1: admits that no government is doing enough to meet the

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Speaker 1: challenges of climate change, and he worries that if left unchecked,

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Speaker 1: democracies themselves may fall victim to the stresses and strains

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Speaker 1: caused by our warming planet. A final note before we begin.

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Speaker 1: We open our conversation talking about the scientist James Lovelock,

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Speaker 1: who was still alive at the time of recording, which

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Speaker 1: sadly passed away at the age of one hundred and three.

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Speaker 1: Dan Fiorino, Welcome to Zero. It's great to be here.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. You open your book with a

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Speaker 1: quote from the scientist James Lovelock, the inventor of the

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Speaker 1: gaia hypothesis, and it reads, even the best democracies agree

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Speaker 1: that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put

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Speaker 1: on hold for the time being. I have a feeling

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Speaker 1: that climate change might be an issue as serious as war,

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Speaker 1: and it may be necessary to put democracy on hold.

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Speaker 1: Do you agree? No, I don't agree. And my point

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Speaker 1: in writing that book was that democracy has many many advantages,

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Speaker 1: and we don't necessarily know that suspending democratic institutions and

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Speaker 1: processes would improve our ability to deal with the causes

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Speaker 1: and the impacts of climate change, And so I thought

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Speaker 1: it was important to address statements like that climate change

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Speaker 1: is obviously a very substantial challenge to modern governments. But

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Speaker 1: I don't share the view that we need to suspend

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Speaker 1: democratic norms, institutions, and processes to be able to deal

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Speaker 1: with it. And what was it about this quote from

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Speaker 1: James Lovelock that made you want to open your book

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Speaker 1: with it. Well, the first reason is that it is,

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Speaker 1: to me a very stark statement of the lack of

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Speaker 1: confidence in democratic systems to be able to deal with

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Speaker 1: a fundamental challenge like climate change. The second reason I

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Speaker 1: cited that quotation is that James Lovelock is a leading environmentalist,

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Speaker 1: a leading scientist, and someone who obviously cares and has

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Speaker 1: made many, many contributions to our thinking and our ability

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Speaker 1: to deal with environmental issues. So I thought the quote

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Speaker 1: made the point very effectively, a point which I then

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Speaker 1: set out to refute. Those were the reasons that I

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Speaker 1: opened with that quote. I want you to entertain the

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Speaker 1: opposite view for a moment. Why are people advocating for it? Well,

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Speaker 1: the argument is that more top down centralized governments relatively

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Speaker 1: more authoritarian systems, that they are able to overcome entrenched interests,

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Speaker 1: they are able to force hard choices on populations that

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Speaker 1: may not appreciate the gravity or the complexity of the

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Speaker 1: climate challenge, and that only by forcing through these tough

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Speaker 1: decisions can the necessary changes be made. That's a very

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Speaker 1: dangerous set of assumptions and frankly not really borne out

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Speaker 1: by experience or history. Are the research tells us that

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Speaker 1: authoritarian systems aren't necessarily better and maybe even be less

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Speaker 1: effective in dealing with the causes of climate change. Let's

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Speaker 1: walk through those limitations. You know, what do you see

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Speaker 1: as the main flaws in the argument in favor of

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Speaker 1: a non democratic approach to actling climate I think the

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Speaker 1: main flaws are, first of all, that highly centralized, non

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Speaker 1: democratic government and leadership would be more inclined to pursue

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Speaker 1: both the mitigation and adaptation challenges of climate change. There's

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Speaker 1: really not a great deal of evidence. People often point

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Speaker 1: to China, which has made some progress in dealing with

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Speaker 1: climate change, although to some degree, I think a lot

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Speaker 1: of that was motivated by a desire to reduce levels

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Speaker 1: of harmful air pollution. So I'm not saying that authoritarian

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Speaker 1: governments are necessarily ineffective. But I think we have very

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Speaker 1: little evidence that non democratic systems and leaders can be

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Speaker 1: any more effective, and in fact, I think a lot

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Speaker 1: of experience and research tells us they're probably less effective.

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Speaker 1: If that's the case, let's then turn to democracies and

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Speaker 1: look at what the benefits of a democratic approach to

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Speaker 1: tackling climate change really are well. The overall argument is

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Speaker 1: that democratic systs are more adaptable, they are less corrupt,

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Speaker 1: and actually lower levels of corruption in democratic societies may

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Speaker 1: be an important cause of their relative ability to deal

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Speaker 1: with not only climate issues but a range of environmental, economic,

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Speaker 1: and social issues. Democracies achieve better levels of economic growth,

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Speaker 1: they provide better benefits for their citizens, obviously much better

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Speaker 1: record on rights and individual freedoms. The argument, though, against

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Speaker 1: democratic systems is that they're slow to change that. For example,

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Speaker 1: when you have an established fossil fuel industry, that's very

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Speaker 1: hard in a democratic system to overcome those kinds of

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Speaker 1: entrenched interests, and the record shows that indeed that is

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Speaker 1: very difficult. Whether it's United States or Canada or Australia

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Speaker 1: which relies very heavily on coal x sports that is

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Speaker 1: a major challenge, and generally societies that have not historically

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Speaker 1: relied on fossil fuels tend to have a better record

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Speaker 1: at dealing with the cause of climate change. So I

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Speaker 1: think the argument is that democratic systems can overcome those

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Speaker 1: entrenched interests. They can't convince people that changes in lifestyle

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Speaker 1: and energy systems and food systems and so on are needed,

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Speaker 1: and thus have a much more difficult time making the

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Speaker 1: required changes. And to some extent, the corruption point is

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Speaker 1: also that democracies are able to hold governments to account. Typically,

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Speaker 1: if you have a representative system and you have a

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Speaker 1: way to make your voicehood, if you see corruption, you'd

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Speaker 1: see people vote the regime out of vote the government outright. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think that identifies the benefits of democratic systems is

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Speaker 1: that there is a more open flow of information, There

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Speaker 1: are checks on the exercise of political power. You have

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Speaker 1: a free press that can actively highlight issues and problems.

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Speaker 1: So I think that generally accounts for the lower levels

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Speaker 1: of corruption democratic societies, And we certainly have lots of

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Speaker 1: evidence that where there are high levels of corruption that

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Speaker 1: in general, government policy is going to be far less effective.

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Speaker 1: So I think that corruption aspect is a very important

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Speaker 1: part of the superiority of democratic regimes in dealing with

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Speaker 1: a range of complex issues, and it not only climate

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Speaker 1: change but others as well. So I'm going to push

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Speaker 1: you back a little bit here, okay, Because by twenty twenty,

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Speaker 1: not a single democracy had sufficiently lowered their emissions to

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Speaker 1: meet the targets set in the Paris Agreement. And if

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Speaker 1: we take that data point, one can conclude the democracies

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Speaker 1: have so far largely failed in really dealing with climate change.

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Speaker 1: So you know, why don't democracy seem to be able

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Speaker 1: to take the requisite action? Yeah, well, I would say

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Speaker 1: no government has really succeeded in taking the requisite action.

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Speaker 1: Climate change really calls for some very transformational changes, and

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Speaker 1: these are very difficult to achieve in any system. So yes,

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Speaker 1: it is fair to say no nation has really stepped

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Speaker 1: up to meeting the climate challenge. In general, the European Union,

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Speaker 1: I would say, is better than many other countries, certainly

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Speaker 1: better than the United States in terms of meeting the

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Speaker 1: climate challenge. The United Kingdom actually has been making some

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Speaker 1: substantial progress, but no country is changing energy systems and

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Speaker 1: some of these other systems we've talked about at the

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Speaker 1: pace that is needed to get us where we need

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Speaker 1: to be by mid centuries. No government is currently acting

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Speaker 1: fast enough on climate change, but the top performers still

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Speaker 1: tend to be democracies. The Climate Change Performance Index ranks

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Speaker 1: countries on how well they're tackling emissions, and out of

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Speaker 1: the top thirty countries on that list, the vast majority

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Speaker 1: are democracies. Denmark is fourth, Sweden fifth, the UK seventh.

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Speaker 1: No countries filled the top three position on the list,

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Speaker 1: symbolizing the lack of progress. There are also important democracies

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Speaker 1: that feature much further down that list, some of the

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Speaker 1: world's biggest emitters. Out of the sixty four countries ranked,

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Speaker 1: the US ranks fifty five, Australia fifty nine, and Canada

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Speaker 1: sixty one. China is placed above all of them at

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Speaker 1: thirty eight. So I wanted to put a very specific

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Speaker 1: question to Dan based on this data, is the case

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Speaker 1: against democracies based on the actions of democracies as a

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Speaker 1: whole or the failures of a conspicuous few. Many of

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Speaker 1: the critics of the ability of democracies to deal with

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Speaker 1: climate change point to the United States. Certainly their fair

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Speaker 1: criticisms to be made there, Australia, Canada, which is perhaps

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Speaker 1: moving in a more progressive direction. I think it is

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Speaker 1: fair to say that there are certain outliers in terms

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Speaker 1: of climate performance. We look at the European Union, particularly

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Speaker 1: the northern European countries, or even France, which for reasons

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Speaker 1: really unrelated to climate change, invested heavily in nuclear electricity

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Speaker 1: generation in nineteen seventies, nineteen eighties and so on, we

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Speaker 1: see a lot more progress. So I think that is

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Speaker 1: an excellent point that certain democracies have not done well,

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Speaker 1: and they tend to fuel this perception that democracies are

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Speaker 1: incapable of meeting the climate challenge. One of the things

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Speaker 1: that anchors most people's attraction to authoritarianism is what China

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Speaker 1: has done, because China has become this leader in green technology. Yes,

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Speaker 1: it is the biggest amateur today, but its emissions are plateaued,

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Speaker 1: and it has this ability to be able to build

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Speaker 1: solar and wind and batteries at scales that no other

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Speaker 1: country has been able to. Is the pro authoritarian argument

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Speaker 1: mostly coming from people looking at China, because if you

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Speaker 1: look at other authoritarian regimes, it's very hard to make

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Speaker 1: the case for them. It is harder to make the

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Speaker 1: case with other authoritarian regimes. Certainly in the Chinese system,

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Speaker 1: once the regime decides to move in a certain direction,

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Speaker 1: that is more likely to happen than in democracies, where

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Speaker 1: you need to build consensus and build agreement and work

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Speaker 1: through institutions and deliver change in those kinds of ways.

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Speaker 1: I think China is a mixed case. Certainly, we've seen

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Speaker 1: some cleaning up of their energy system, some reductions in

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Speaker 1: emissions of various kinds. The catches with such a large

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Speaker 1: population and with their very high economic growth rates that

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Speaker 1: there's just a tremendous demand for energy, and they still

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Speaker 1: rely very heavily on coal. So I think it's still early.

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Speaker 1: The results aren't quite in on where China will be

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Speaker 1: in the longer term. But certainly I agree with your

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Speaker 1: assessment that the Chinese experience and the potential for change

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Speaker 1: in China has fueled a lot of the criticisms of

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Speaker 1: democratic systems. Right. There's also this middle ground between democracies

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Speaker 1: and authoritarian regimes. Emerging democracies such as Bolivia, Malaysia, and

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Speaker 1: Zambia are not yet considered full democracies right, but they

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Speaker 1: are moving that direction. Use site studies in the book

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Speaker 1: that show established democracies are the best at tackling emissions.

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Speaker 1: Then come authoritarian regimes, and then these emerging democracies, they

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Speaker 1: are the least effective when it comes to dealing with

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Speaker 1: climate change. If climate is the overwriting concern, which you

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Speaker 1: argue it is, then should we let emerging democracies fall

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Speaker 1: back into authoritarianism or do we have the time to

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Speaker 1: let them become mature democracies and then act on climate change.

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Speaker 1: You're citing some research that concludes that transitional democracies Latin

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Speaker 1: America or Eastern Europe, we'd have many examples, are still

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Speaker 1: sort of working to establish effective governments, to build the

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Speaker 1: right sort of political cultures to be able to deal

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Speaker 1: with complicated issues. I don't necessarily think that authoritarian systems

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Speaker 1: are going to be better than those transitional democracies, although

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Speaker 1: obviously that's a very mixed bag. And bear in mind

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Speaker 1: that climate change is only one of many many issues

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Speaker 1: facing governments in the modern world. It is an overriding issue,

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Speaker 1: to be sure, but health and safety and economic security

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Speaker 1: and all those kinds of issues are things that governments

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Speaker 1: have to deal with. So I think again, it would

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Speaker 1: be a very risky proposition to say that, well, we

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Speaker 1: should let them go evolve toward authoritarianism because that'll make

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Speaker 1: them better at dealing with climate change. A commitment to

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Speaker 1: democracy is the best way to deal with issues like

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Speaker 1: climate change. And one factor is that the ocracies tend

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Speaker 1: to not go to war with each other. And if

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Speaker 1: there's anything that's going to get in the way of

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Speaker 1: dealing with climate action, its instability and conflict around the world.

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Speaker 1: Here's the number one flaw in the pro authoritarian argument,

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Speaker 1: that the assume to be a benign dictator. Yes, I

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Speaker 1: think if you read some of the work critical of democracies,

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Speaker 1: this assumption that I call in the book ecological autocracy,

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Speaker 1: that ecological autocrats will emerge and they will place concern

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Speaker 1: over the environment and natural resources and climate mitigation and

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Speaker 1: climate adaptation, that they will put those at the top

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Speaker 1: of the agenda. And we really don't have any actual

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Speaker 1: evidence of that. So I think there's this assumption of

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Speaker 1: a sort of ideal authoritarian system that in fact doesn't

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Speaker 1: really exist. Generally, autheraitarian systems have been much harder on

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Speaker 1: the environment then democratic systems, so I think that is

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Speaker 1: a bit of a myth. The title of Dan's book,

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Speaker 1: Can Democracy Handle Climate change can be interpreted in two ways.

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Speaker 1: Our democracy is able to deliver action on climate change?

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Speaker 1: And will democracy survive the impacts of a warming world

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Speaker 1: after the break? I asked Dan which he's more concerned with.

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Speaker 1: I want to come back to the title of your book,

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Speaker 1: which is called Can Democracy Handle Climate Change? The two

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Speaker 1: sides to the word handle. One is active and one

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Speaker 1: is reactive. Are you more concerned with the farmer or

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Speaker 1: the latter, that democracies will fail to deal with climate

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Speaker 1: change actively, or that democracies will fail as a victim

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Speaker 1: to climate change. I think I'm concerned about both, but

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Speaker 1: I'm far more concerned about the first. Democracies tend to

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Speaker 1: react when there is an imminent threat. We may see

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Speaker 1: with sea level rise, with extreme heat, all these impacts

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Speaker 1: of climate change, Governments will have to respond. What I

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Speaker 1: worry about is that by the time we respond to

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Speaker 1: the immediate threats, much of the damage will already be done.

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Speaker 1: That's the big challenge to me of climate change is

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Speaker 1: that it requires us to think in longer time frames,

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Speaker 1: and governments and societies generally are not all that good

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Speaker 1: thinking in longer time frames. We tend to respond to

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Speaker 1: short term threats, so yes, I'm much more concerned about

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Speaker 1: our ability to anticipate and plan and take measures to

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Speaker 1: avoid longer term problems. Would it be fair to say

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Speaker 1: that the longer we wait to act on climate change,

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Speaker 1: the more likely we are to see democracy has become

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Speaker 1: destabilized because of climate impacts. I think that is a concern, certainly,

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Speaker 1: something that I and many other people working at environmental

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Speaker 1: issues are concerned about. So one side of the picture

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Speaker 1: is how effectively governments anticipate and plan for and take

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Speaker 1: action to mitigate the causes of climate change. The other

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Speaker 1: part of the question is what effects will the impacts

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Speaker 1: of a changing climate have on democratic systems. This is

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Speaker 1: an area where I think we all should be very worried.

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Speaker 1: If you look at some of the likely impacts, we

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Speaker 1: could have climate refugees, We could have lots of movement

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Speaker 1: of populations from some areas to other areas. Yeah, let

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Speaker 1: me throw some numbers at you. Yeah. Since two thousand

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Speaker 1: and eight, an average of twenty one point five million

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Speaker 1: people per year have been forcibly displaced by weather related events.

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Speaker 1: By some estimates, that number is likely to rise to

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Speaker 1: one point two billion by twenty fifty. Cumulatively, that is

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Speaker 1: a stunning increase, and that can have all sorts of

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Speaker 1: downstream impacts when food on conflicts on changing the politics

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Speaker 1: of the countries that they end up in, and there

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Speaker 1: will be economic decline. I mean that kind of threat

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Speaker 1: which for a long time people were thinking was alarmism.

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Speaker 1: People can now start to see that that might become real. Yes,

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Speaker 1: that absolutely as a worry. So as we have movement

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Speaker 1: of populations, whether it's in European Union or the southern

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Speaker 1: border of the United States, that has a couple of effects. One,

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Speaker 1: it can be destabilizing both in the places where people

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Speaker 1: are trying to leave and places where they're they're going,

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Speaker 1: And instability always makes concentrated, deliberate policy change difficult. Also,

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Speaker 1: I'm concerned about the impact that this could have on

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Speaker 1: sort of fueling interest and demands for right wing populist governments, which,

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Speaker 1: for reasons I've mentioned, tend to be not good, if

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Speaker 1: not actively hostile to climate mitigation to effective government in general.

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Speaker 1: A very serious long term concern is that conflict and instability,

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Speaker 1: all these different kinds of impacts of climate change can

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Speaker 1: actually undermine the effectiveness of democratic systems and governments in

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Speaker 1: general to deal with complex issues like climate change, and

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Speaker 1: so what do we need to do then to strengthen

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Speaker 1: democracies as they exist right now against the potential disruption

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Speaker 1: that is coming. It's not just about cutting emissions, is it. Well,

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Speaker 1: we certainly need to cut emissions, and we need to

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Speaker 1: actually prepare for what is needed to adapt to climate change.

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Speaker 1: We have to do more than just respond when the

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Speaker 1: problems become apparent. We have to build in resilience. One

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Speaker 1: of my students use the term we have to climate

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Speaker 1: proof society. We can work on building better democracies that

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Speaker 1: are more responsive. We can work on communicating to people

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Speaker 1: what this problem is and why it is so important.

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Speaker 1: We can frame issues in a way so that climate

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Speaker 1: change is one way of looking at it, but another

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Speaker 1: way of looking at this is, well, here's an opportunity

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Speaker 1: for clean energy systems, where there is less air pollution,

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Speaker 1: where there's technology innovation, and opportunities for exporting products around

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Speaker 1: the world. We know that renewable energy and energy efficiency

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Speaker 1: generate more employment, more jobs per unit of investment, so

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Speaker 1: we to make that case. So I think we have

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Speaker 1: to really persuade people that there are a number of reasons,

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Speaker 1: not only the climate reason to make these kinds of transitions,

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Speaker 1: and then we need to build more accountable, more effective

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Speaker 1: governments that are able to make the necessary decisions and

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Speaker 1: carry out these kinds of changes. And that's not going

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Speaker 1: to be easy to do, but you know, that's what

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Speaker 1: we ultimately have to do. And it's certainly something that

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Speaker 1: the IPCC reports, if you read them towards the end,

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Speaker 1: that's what they're saying. Many of the IPCC reports, after

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Speaker 1: they've laid out the impact and after they've laid out

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Speaker 1: what are the mitigation steps that we need to take,

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Speaker 1: they go into this place where they are creating essentially

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Speaker 1: a society that would be more democratic, more free, and

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Speaker 1: more enabling of the human potential, because all those things

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Speaker 1: also help fight climate change. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, climate

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Speaker 1: change is a relatively new and novel challenge, but throughout history,

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Speaker 1: we wanted good, effective governments that represent people's wishes, that

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Speaker 1: guarantee human rights, that maximize opportunities for people. So I've

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Speaker 1: always thought that democratic systems were the best way to

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Speaker 1: do that. So it's not just climate change, it is

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Speaker 1: generally it's just a better way of having government. There's

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Speaker 1: the famous Winston Churchill quote where he says that democracy

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Speaker 1: is the worst form of government pause except for all

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Speaker 1: the others that have been tried from time to time,

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Speaker 1: and I think that still holds true. Climate change is

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Speaker 1: going to place a huge strain on democracies around the world,

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Speaker 1: but this strain won't be felt by democracies alone. Authoritarian

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Speaker 1: governments will also feel the destabilizing effects of things like

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Speaker 1: mass migration, more extreme weather events, shortages of food, and

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Speaker 1: will face similar pressures to respond. So I asked Dan

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Speaker 1: about this, what's going to happen to authoritarian regimes as

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Speaker 1: they face up to the realities of climate change. It

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Speaker 1: could be destabilizing in those countries as well. First of all,

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Speaker 1: we certainly i'd hope that authoritarian governments and what are

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Speaker 1: called hybrid systems that share many characteristics of authoritarian governments,

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Speaker 1: if they're going to be able to deal with the

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Speaker 1: causes and the impacts of climate change. Because about half

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Speaker 1: of global emissions come from those countries, these factors could

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Speaker 1: be destabilizing in those countries as well. And you know,

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Speaker 1: whether that leads to them moving more toward democratic transitions

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Speaker 1: or sort of pushes them deeper into authoritarianism is an

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Speaker 1: open question and will probably vary a lot depending on

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Speaker 1: the country and the part of the world. You know,

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Speaker 1: I would say whatever the form of government, political and

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Speaker 1: economic instability undermines the capacity to deal with complex policy

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Speaker 1: problems like climate change. Right, just going back to the

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Speaker 1: point that you were making about authoritarian regimes, if we

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Speaker 1: take the example of the Arab Spring, partly cause because

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Speaker 1: of climate change and the rising food prices, you know,

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Speaker 1: people who are hungry will revolt whether it's a democracy

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Speaker 1: or an authority in regime. And if you look at

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Speaker 1: what's happened since the Arab Spring, now it's been more

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Speaker 1: than a decade, it hasn't really gone the way of democracies. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think that was a disappointment. I just read something

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Speaker 1: recently about Tunisia, where a lot of the movement certainly

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Speaker 1: associated with the Arab Spring occurred and now it's not

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Speaker 1: working that well. And rising food prices, that's another great

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Speaker 1: example of sort of instability that could come from a

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Speaker 1: change in climate. And it's just it's so hard to

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Speaker 1: predict generally, but the trend in recent years has been

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Speaker 1: sort of moving away from democracy, and I think that's

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Speaker 1: a concern for many of us. And just I mean,

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Speaker 1: when I look at what the situation in the world

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Speaker 1: today is with Russia attacking Ukraine and Europe really struggling

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Speaker 1: with its gas supplies that were coming from Russia. We

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Speaker 1: could have very easy seen a backslide on the European

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Speaker 1: climate agenda. And certainly there's been some increase in coal

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Speaker 1: in the short term, and there's some approval of gas projects.

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Speaker 1: But largely, if we look at the democratic process itself,

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Speaker 1: the EU has been going forward with all its major

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Speaker 1: climate targets, and it is now in this process putting

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Speaker 1: through legislation while these energy crises and the inflation and

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Speaker 1: economic crisis is also playing out. So that speaks very

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Speaker 1: highly of what democracies can do if there is enough

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Speaker 1: ways in which representation of what people want filters up

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Speaker 1: to the people in power. I agree. I think certainly

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Speaker 1: the invasion of Ukraine has created a number of challenges.

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Speaker 1: I think in general, the European Union has maintained a

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Speaker 1: commitment to clean energy, to wind and solar energy efficiency,

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Speaker 1: and to electrifying transportation and doing than many other things

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Speaker 1: that are required. Certainly it reinforces the logic and certainly

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Speaker 1: the case for a transition to clean energy, because they

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Speaker 1: really need to get off this dependence on Russian gas.

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Speaker 1: In the short term. It's a big challenge in countries

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Speaker 1: like Germany, but part of the problem there is that

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Speaker 1: there they shut down in their nuclear industry or they're

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Speaker 1: still wrapping that up, and they've had to increase reliance

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Speaker 1: on coal, which has had climate as well as public

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Speaker 1: health implications. So these issues are very difficult, but I

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Speaker 1: think in the EU that you know, we're seeing a commitment,

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Speaker 1: and in many ways this whole experience reinforces the commitment

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Speaker 1: to getting off fossil fuels. Thanks for joining, Dan. That

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Speaker 1: was a fantastic conversation. Well great, I enjoyed it. Thanks

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Speaker 1: for having me. The temptation to take the authoritarian route

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Speaker 1: is not new, but as we face up to challenges

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Speaker 1: that seem too big to handle, that temptation grows. And

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Speaker 1: as the conversation with Dan showed, the temptation isn't worth

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Speaker 1: falling for the countries that are taking the most effective

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Speaker 1: action on climate change, as messy as they may be

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Speaker 1: our democracies. Thanks for listening to Zero. If you like

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Speaker 1: the show, please rate, review, and subscribe. If you've got

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Speaker 1: a suggestion for a guest or topic, or something you

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Speaker 1: want us to look into get in touch at Zero

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Speaker 1: Pod at Bloomberg dot Net. Zero's producer is Oscar Boyd

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Speaker 1: and senior producer is Christine driscoll. Our theme music is

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Speaker 1: by Wonderly many people help make the show a success.

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Speaker 1: Each week, I'll tell you about one of them this week.

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Speaker 1: Thanks to Chewan Wagner, Bloombergreen's editor in London, an American

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Speaker 1: who's raised the bar for British small talk, I am

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Speaker 1: Ashatati back next week