Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to Drilled. I'm Ami Westervelt. This
Speaker 1: week a new report came out from the Inner Governmental
Speaker 1: Panel on Climate Change, often referred to as the IPCC Report.
Speaker 1: It's actually three main reports plus some smaller special focused reports,
Speaker 1: and this was the third of the big ones. It's
Speaker 1: on mitigation, so it focuses on what do we do
Speaker 1: about this crisis and why haven't we done it yet. Crucially,
Speaker 1: this round of IPCC reports included social scientists and their
Speaker 1: research a lot more than previous assessments have, and you
Speaker 1: really see it in this report. In particular, there are
Speaker 1: new chapters on things like demand, which sounds like demand
Speaker 1: for fossil fuel, but in fact it questions that whole
Speaker 1: notion altogether and asks how we can deliver the services
Speaker 1: that people need, getting to work, having lights on in
Speaker 1: their house, being able to cook, these sorts of needs,
Speaker 1: while also reducing emissions. So it really tackles the question
Speaker 1: of how do we mitigate climate and poverty. There are
Speaker 1: also new mentions of various things in here, including the
Speaker 1: role that colonization played in driving the climate crisis in
Speaker 1: the first place and the role that it plays in
Speaker 1: perpetuating the problem. This is the first time that we've
Speaker 1: seen the media mentioned in an IPCC report. Kind of
Speaker 1: wild given how much of a role the media has
Speaker 1: played in both informing and not informing the public. It's
Speaker 1: also the first mention of litigation as something that can
Speaker 1: influence policy one way or the other. There's a lot
Speaker 1: in this report, and because of the way that these
Speaker 1: reports are put together, a lot of media coverage tends
Speaker 1: to not get past this summary for policy makers that
Speaker 1: appears at the front of the report. It's a sixty
Speaker 1: five page ish summary of the report, but it's also
Speaker 1: the one part of the report that government representatives get
Speaker 1: to weigh in on and have to approve altogether. So
Speaker 1: we're talking about representatives from the governments of one hundred
Speaker 1: and ninety five countries having to agree on the language
Speaker 1: and content of a document, which you can imagine does
Speaker 1: not produce the most straightforward, clearly worded document. In this case,
Speaker 1: several things were removed and or watered down. So for
Speaker 1: that reason, and because this report is particularly important given
Speaker 1: the timing of it, I am going to spend the
Speaker 1: month of April reading all three thousand pages and bringing
Speaker 1: you information and analysis from them. Both here on the
Speaker 1: podcast and on our website at drill podcast dot com. Today,
Speaker 1: I'm looking at particularly chapter five. This is this totally
Speaker 1: new chapter that's never been included in an IPCC report before.
Speaker 1: I also spoke with Catherine Mitchell, one of the coordinating
Speaker 1: lead authors, on chapter thirteen, which is focused on policy.
Speaker 1: Super interesting chapter. Obstructionism comes up a lot in this chapter,
Speaker 1: as it should, and it also looks at the need
Speaker 1: for what Mitchell calls enabling conditions. So this idea that
Speaker 1: you could have all the amazing policies you want, but
Speaker 1: if you don't have sort of a functional government, if
Speaker 1: you don't have the ability to foster behavioral change, if
Speaker 1: you don't have finance all of these things, then those
Speaker 1: policies won't actually do anything. Unfortunately, my laptop totally ate
Speaker 1: the audio of that interview, but I did manage to
Speaker 1: catch one of the contributing authors to that chapter, Max Boycoff.
Speaker 1: I should say right up front that there is, as expected,
Speaker 1: some pretty dire news in this report, starting with the
Speaker 1: fact that we've all but lost our shot at one
Speaker 1: point five degrees of warming, and in fact, this report
Speaker 1: makes it clear that even keeping it to two degrees
Speaker 1: or less is a stretch on the current trajectory. In
Speaker 1: the last ten years, so the decade in which we've
Speaker 1: known the most about climate change, what it's going to do,
Speaker 1: what it's already doing, and what we can and should
Speaker 1: do to blunt those impacts, emissions have increased. So we're
Speaker 1: going not just not the right direction, but precisely the
Speaker 1: wrong direction. This is very bad news. It's very scary news. However,
Speaker 1: I do want to draw people's attention to all of
Speaker 1: the many ways of this report says we can and
Speaker 1: actually do something about this. Here's how. So today I'm
Speaker 1: going to start with Chapter five, which is this totally
Speaker 1: new chapter in the report that really looks at economics
Speaker 1: in a different way and upends the ways that we
Speaker 1: talk about energy demand. It incorporates some really new and
Speaker 1: interesting thinking from the field of economics as well as
Speaker 1: social science and questions this kind of long held belief
Speaker 1: that the energy market is entirely demand driven. So we're
Speaker 1: going to hear from a couple of folks who worked
Speaker 1: on that chapter that's coming up right after this quick break. Okay,
Speaker 1: so each chapter of the IPCC report has two coordinating
Speaker 1: lead authors, and they purposely choose one person from the
Speaker 1: Global South and one person from the Global North to
Speaker 1: fill those positions. The coordinating lead author from the Global
Speaker 1: South on chapter five is a woman named Joyashri Roi.
Speaker 1: She's an Indian economist who specializes in the fields of
Speaker 1: environmental economics, energy economics, and climate change mitigation. She's currently
Speaker 1: the inaugural Bangabandhu Chair Professor at the Asian Institute of
Speaker 1: Technology in Thailand, as well as a Professor of economics
Speaker 1: at Jadavpur University in India. I've been requesting interviews with
Speaker 1: Professor Roy and I haven't been able to reach her yet,
Speaker 1: but I did find some great talks that she's given online,
Speaker 1: so I'm going to pull some audio in from one
Speaker 1: of those.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 1: She's talking here about CDR or carbon dioxide removal, which
Speaker 1: is something that was mentioned a lot in the IPCC report,
Speaker 1: and the author specifically made the point of saying that
Speaker 1: just capturing carbon and as it's being emitted is not
Speaker 1: the same as carbon dioxide removal, and they specifically called
Speaker 1: out the potential need for carbon dioxide removal. What's interesting
Speaker 1: about Professor Roy's take on this here is that she
Speaker 1: makes the point that, hey, we haven't even begun to
Speaker 1: scratch the surface on what we could do to mitigate
Speaker 1: emissions and to reduce the demand for energy in ways
Speaker 1: that also actually improve quality of life for people. So
Speaker 1: while she's not arguing against carbon dioxide removal or CDR,
Speaker 1: she's saying, hey, let's do all the other things first,
Speaker 1: so that we don't necessarily have to spend a large
Speaker 1: amount of money on this, and we might not have
Speaker 1: to go so far as these technological solutions that aren't
Speaker 1: even really available yet. We might be able to do
Speaker 1: this with reforestation, a forestation and stopping deforts station.
Speaker 3: All the reports are clearly showing that we have to
Speaker 3: look at the portfolio of action, the whole bunch of
Speaker 3: actions together, and from that point of view, even one
Speaker 3: point five report also shows that it is possible to
Speaker 3: mitigate in such a way so that you might not
Speaker 3: need to go beyond just the reforestation or air forestations.
Speaker 3: So there is a pathway for the whole world to
Speaker 3: decide whether they want to go for high cost technological
Speaker 3: intervention more and more for CDR, or they want to
Speaker 3: mitigate more which are less costly. So when we talk
Speaker 3: of finance, we need to be really looking for where
Speaker 3: lies the list cost option where lies the most benefit.
Speaker 3: And from that point of view, you just cannot look
Speaker 3: into the CDR and how we can get the money
Speaker 3: for but we should look at as a whole group
Speaker 3: of actions with mitigation and the CDR and what kind
Speaker 3: of CDR and in what timescale and how the money
Speaker 3: will be flowing, because we must remember that. And in
Speaker 3: one point five report we could show it very clearly
Speaker 3: that even by looking into the mitigation options in the
Speaker 3: supply side and add to it the demand side responses
Speaker 3: ener deficiency and many other demand reduction, waste reduction and
Speaker 3: many of those behavioral measures which you can include in
Speaker 3: the societal scale and where you can generate more action
Speaker 3: and which are less costly, and then you reduce the
Speaker 3: demand for CDR more and more. We are now seeing
Speaker 3: even in the six assessment cycle that from the demand
Speaker 3: side intervention you can reduce the need for CDR a lot.
Speaker 3: So because unless we make these choices the societal's scale,
Speaker 3: we will not be able to say that how much
Speaker 3: money need to go to for CDR, right, so this
Speaker 3: is very important. I don't think we have done those
Speaker 3: research well. So it might be that we might be
Speaker 3: putting in money in something which we could easily do
Speaker 3: more list cost option way and more benefit.
Speaker 1: I did manage to speak to environmental economists Julia Steinberger,
Speaker 1: who was a contributing author for the chapter and whose
Speaker 1: group at the University of Lausanne and Switzerland has done
Speaker 1: quite a bit of research on some of the economic
Speaker 1: models underpenning parts of this chapter. Here's a bit from
Speaker 1: our conversation. Okay, I would like to ask for your
Speaker 1: opinion on the fact that there are authors and review
Speaker 1: editors and whatnot who are employees of oil companies, and
Speaker 1: whether that creates a conflict of interest, and you know
Speaker 1: what could or should be done about that?
Speaker 4: Just running how I'm just wondering how many bridges to
Speaker 4: turn here.
Speaker 1: I know that's why I was like that there comes up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think question I think it is.
Speaker 4: I think it does create a conflict of interest. I
Speaker 4: I know that there is a conflict of interest policy
Speaker 4: in place, so everybody has to fill out forms regarding
Speaker 4: their affiliation and obviously none of this was secret. But
Speaker 4: just because that person fills out forms does not mean
Speaker 4: that they don't have other interests at heart that are
Speaker 4: not reflective of the science and the public interest, but
Speaker 4: more reflective than their employer, and I think that that
Speaker 4: you know, at this late stage, and given what we know,
Speaker 4: and especially the kinds of things that your research has
Speaker 4: been uncovering prints since that conflict of interest is not
Speaker 4: tenable in a scientific report that is examining these industries
Speaker 4: and their role in what are past, present in future
Speaker 4: is I guess. The other thing that I would point
Speaker 4: out is that a lot of climate scientists, both on
Speaker 4: the physical science side but also on the sort of
Speaker 4: more mitigation side, social science side, are quite naive and
Speaker 4: ignorant about the role of the fossil hill industry in
Speaker 4: terms of disinformation attacking the science. And really there's sort
Speaker 4: of long interest, long history in successfully shaping public perception
Speaker 4: of the problem, and so a lot of people are
Speaker 4: quite naive about it, and I think that that is
Speaker 4: by itself a problem. So the fact that IPCC reports
Speaker 4: did not include that interest in understanding that aspect of
Speaker 4: the role of industry, not just emissions, but how they've
Speaker 4: intervened in politics and economics and consumption patterns and so
Speaker 4: on over decades. Is that's a topic of science, and
Speaker 4: I don't think that it's a topic of science that
Speaker 4: has been sufficiently reflected within IPCC reports or within the
Speaker 4: climate community at large.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's really interesting. I did see. I mean, I
Speaker 1: do feel like both in Working Group two and in
Speaker 1: this report. I haven't made it all the way through,
Speaker 1: of course, but I'm getting there, but that there was
Speaker 1: more reference to sort of entrenched interests and obstruction and
Speaker 1: misinformation in those kinds of things that I've seen in
Speaker 1: the past. But yeah, that's interesting to hear. Okay, So
Speaker 1: I want to talk about your chapter in particular, and
Speaker 1: was hoping that you could tell me, you know, what
Speaker 1: areas you focused on in particular in this chapter.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: So there were two chapters where I stuck my grabby
Speaker 4: little nose. So chapter three, which is when I was
Speaker 4: assigned to as a lead author, responsible for section three
Speaker 4: point seven and the box on inequality and poverty in there.
Speaker 4: So it's the chapter. It's the section that basically says,
Speaker 4: what are the long term trends in terms of what
Speaker 4: are consequences of long term trajectories of mitigation and sustainable development?
Speaker 4: And so that's that's what that section does. And the
Speaker 4: other chapter I was quite involved in terms of my
Speaker 4: actual my research expertise. So in chapter three it was
Speaker 4: more like, you know, do your job of reviewing the
Speaker 4: literature basically, but chapter five is the one that reflects
Speaker 4: my research more. And so I was a contributing author
Speaker 4: on chapter five, and a lot of my research and
Speaker 4: my PhD students and sort of general group's research is
Speaker 4: pretty much all over chapter five. I think we did
Speaker 4: good there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I thought. I was like, wait, I thought,
Speaker 1: I thought, Julia wie, Yeah it was five. And I
Speaker 1: looked at the list and I was like, wait, how
Speaker 1: did I confuse this? But okay, that makes sense now.
Speaker 4: I mean I signed up for chapter five, and then
Speaker 4: they didn't choose me for it because, like you know,
Speaker 4: they had to choose a whole bunch of people, and
Speaker 4: everybody wanted to be on chapter five. It's the new
Speaker 4: sexy chapter, so.
Speaker 1: There wasn't really right.
Speaker 4: Then I was like, oh, well, never mind. I went
Speaker 4: to the IPCC of this fand and then I was
Speaker 4: convinced to stay on in chapter three. They thought I
Speaker 4: could be useful there, so and I ended up my
Speaker 4: I think my section ended up being okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I wanted to ask you about this because I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm seeing a real resurgence recently of the
Speaker 1: sort of energy poverty argument for fossil fuels, and I
Speaker 1: know that you've done a significant amount of research that
Speaker 1: sort of debunks the idea that you know that the
Speaker 1: only way out of poverty is paved by fossil fuels.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but in fact, what we found, what we were
Speaker 4: able to demonstrate, is actually the contrary that I mean,
Speaker 4: that's one of the statements that's very clearly in the supplement,
Speaker 4: in the summary for policy makers is that there is
Speaker 4: no sustainable development or development full stop. But you know,
Speaker 4: sustainable development is not possible with that climate medication, Like
Speaker 4: unless you mitigate climate the impacts are get to catch
Speaker 4: you every step of the way and just make like
Speaker 4: people's lives increasingly hard and miserable, especially in global seth countries.
Speaker 4: And so this pathway of fossil field development is really
Speaker 4: a myth, it's not there is no substance there because
Speaker 4: of the destructive power that it comes with, as well
Speaker 4: as the negatives. I mean, you have negatives in terms
Speaker 4: of air pollution, and air pollution gets even you know,
Speaker 4: localize the air pollution on climate emissions, and that gets even
Speaker 4: worse with heating and heat waves.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
Speaker 4: It's just it's just a mess. So yeah, so that
Speaker 4: was that was actually quite interesting that it was that
Speaker 4: we were able to make that that statement quite so clearly.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. When I saw that in the in the summary,
Speaker 1: I was like, this will be very helpful in this
Speaker 1: because I just it's like the zombie that will never
Speaker 1: die that that argument. Okay, great, And then for chapter five,
Speaker 1: can you walk me through some of the pieces that
Speaker 1: either you or your students can try atributed most to
Speaker 1: in that?
Speaker 4: Okay, So, actually there's one thing that we contributed to
Speaker 4: that's quite We're basically all over the chapter five from
Speaker 4: the sort of concept aspect to the results. There's one
Speaker 4: nice thing that So there's one piece that we contributed
Speaker 4: which is the first decent living global decent living energy model.
Speaker 4: So decent living energy is a framework that was put together.
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't want to pretend like we're the
Speaker 4: only research group here, absolutely not. So living energy is
Speaker 4: something that was a research effort by Narasima Rao and
Speaker 4: his group at Yale. But we did the first global
Speaker 4: model as part of my group as in collaboration with Nausima.
Speaker 4: And so that's one of the things. And we also
Speaker 4: did so basically, Millward Hopkins, that's us so the first
Speaker 4: decent and that's reflected in the summary for policy makers
Speaker 4: that says that it's possible to have decent living conditions
Speaker 4: for everybody at half of current energy use. So that's
Speaker 4: a pretty big result because it basically puts together a
Speaker 4: lot of the things that we're talking about in chapter five.
Speaker 4: It says all we need is services, we don't need
Speaker 4: the energy use itself. Hey, let's think about how we
Speaker 4: deliver those services in a more efficient way. But when
Speaker 4: we can demonstrate exists already and you get to these
Speaker 4: results that are really quite staggering, that you can really
Speaker 4: do things very, very differently. Oh yeah, So if you
Speaker 4: look on page twenty five of chapter five, so that
Speaker 4: figure that basically highlights factors socioeconomic factors that allow societies
Speaker 4: to have better living so hiring needs satisfaction at lower
Speaker 4: energy use. That's the paper that comes from my groups
Speaker 4: as for my PhD student. If h'm Fogel, And that's
Speaker 4: a pretty cool result. I think it came in just
Speaker 4: under the wire in terms of the IPCC deadline, and
Speaker 4: it basically shows that things like equality and public services
Speaker 4: and infrastructure help a lot and extractivism, and you can
Speaker 4: on the growth not so much.
Speaker 5: Right, So yeah, right, I feel like this whole chapter
Speaker 5: is a really helpful rebuttal to the like poor people
Speaker 5: need fossil fuels yip story.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because the funny thing is, so there are lots
Speaker 4: of myths about the way we understand the economy. One
Speaker 4: of the myths is that it's demand driven. When it's not,
Speaker 4: it's supply driven. So you can imagine that a phase
Speaker 4: of the economy is sort of like, you know, when
Speaker 4: everybody's in poverty, then you know there's going to be
Speaker 4: a lot of demand that drives production. But after a
Speaker 4: certain phase, basically have an over productive industry that's constantly
Speaker 4: driving productivity and competitiveness through competition. And so at that
Speaker 4: point you start having overproduction and you need to find
Speaker 4: an outlet for that otherwise you cant economic crisis. And
Speaker 4: the outlet for that is various kinds of overconsumption or
Speaker 4: things like you know, find out's lessons, Like you have
Speaker 4: all these basic mechanisms for the economic production consumptions system
Speaker 4: to not have a crisis due to overproduction.
Speaker 1: We totally see with fossil fuels. I mean you see
Speaker 1: it in the in just the plastics move right now exactly.
Speaker 4: So it's basically like production is looking for outlets. And
Speaker 4: this was identified and termed the treadmill of production by
Speaker 4: Schneiberg and Gold, who are very famous American so environmental sociologists.
Speaker 4: And so this idea of the treadmill of production is
Speaker 4: basically the fossil fuel industries is using the narrative of demand,
Speaker 4: sort of this safe story of demand driven production to
Speaker 4: sort of excuse their activities. But as soon as you
Speaker 4: look at demand, the story crumbles. That's what's really interesting.
Speaker 4: This is the first time we've ever had a chapter
Speaker 4: on demand because there was just this really sort of
Speaker 4: basic idea that demand will increase with economic growth. Everybody
Speaker 4: wants economic growth, so everybody wants demand to increase, so
Speaker 4: that's untouchable. So and as soon as you start questioning it,
Speaker 4: you realize that it's a it's a god with clay
Speaker 4: feet that you just can you can do a lot
Speaker 4: better with a lot less. There's nothing preventing us from
Speaker 4: doing a lot better and using a lot less, including
Speaker 4: resolving poverty and deprivation around the world, like material poverty
Speaker 4: and deprivation around the world.
Speaker 1: Max Boycoff is a longtime researcher in this realm. He
Speaker 1: has specifically looked at media and climate and that's something
Speaker 1: that made its way into the report for the very
Speaker 1: first time in this mitigation report in chapter thirteen, which
Speaker 1: is focused on policy role of media, not only in
Speaker 1: helping to create the conditions for passing policy, but also
Speaker 1: how it has been used as a weapon to spread
Speaker 1: disinformation and how various forces like the fossil fuel industry
Speaker 1: and various trade groups have tried to use the media
Speaker 1: to block policy. Boycoff runs the Media and Climate Change
Speaker 1: Observatory at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and I
Speaker 1: asked him for his take on this report and his
Speaker 1: work in it and what he would like to see
Speaker 1: people do with it. So I was hoping you could
Speaker 1: start with telling me. I know, I've heard from a
Speaker 1: couple of people that there was a push in the
Speaker 1: last I don't know, five six plus years to really
Speaker 1: get more social science and social scientists involved in the
Speaker 1: IPCC process, not that they weren't involved before, but just
Speaker 1: kind of like involved in a more serious way. And
Speaker 1: I wonder if that holds true to your experience and
Speaker 1: kind of what you've seen that sort of look like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right. I think you know, it's
Speaker 2: happened for several reasons, But I think that's what led
Speaker 2: to the invitation that I received back in twenty nineteen
Speaker 2: to start to get involved. I just think there's a
Speaker 2: great understanding that there's much more work to be done
Speaker 2: in the social sciences and even humanities than simply more
Speaker 2: and more in the natural physical sciences. And so I
Speaker 2: said yes to the invitation to see what I could
Speaker 2: do to try to push things forward from a social
Speaker 2: sciences perspective.
Speaker 1: And what was the experience, Like, how did it go?
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you succeeded in that effort?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have mixed feelings, But overall, I really do
Speaker 2: still believe in the power of doing this work collectively.
Speaker 2: I do think that it was worth it. Although it
Speaker 2: did take a considerable amount of time. I took the
Speaker 2: job seriously. I was kind of a second wave of
Speaker 2: contributing authors. There's the two hundred and seventy eight main authors,
Speaker 2: and then I was one of the three hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty four contributing authors. But nonetheless, I spent a lot
Speaker 2: of time scouring literature trying to put together some koj
Speaker 2: and contributions across a few different areas of the report,
Speaker 2: and I think that it was successful in that a
Speaker 2: couple of statements appeared that I had written and contributed
Speaker 2: to that I hadn't seen before in IPCC reports. I
Speaker 2: was kind of amazed at how much heavy editing it
Speaker 2: really does go on. But to the point the pieces
Speaker 2: that I'm glad are in. There are a few statements
Speaker 2: about climate conturing counter movements, and then also around media
Speaker 2: and media representational practices, and so I had been asked to,
Speaker 2: you know, but by I think some forward thinking lead
Speaker 2: authors to put together some language. It was heavily scrutinized.
Speaker 2: I had really pushed for a particular passage to get
Speaker 2: into the summary for policy makers that ended up on
Speaker 2: page up one and eleven of the technical document. I
Speaker 2: can get into that if you'd like, but it didn't.
Speaker 2: And I should have known better, just knowing that summaries
Speaker 2: for policymakers is the one that's subject to line by
Speaker 2: line scrutiny from government delegates about one hundred and ninety
Speaker 2: five countries. I think that it was a little bit
Speaker 2: difficult for them to probably take it on board my
Speaker 2: best guess is they just struck it. But the technical
Speaker 2: summary is one that's prepared by authors of the report,
Speaker 2: so it does go through the review process by governments
Speaker 2: and experts, but ultimately the authors have a say there.
Speaker 2: So that's where I'm actually, you know, I feel a
Speaker 2: little bit optimistic that some of those statements made their
Speaker 2: way through.
Speaker 1: Would you be willing to read that passage for me?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah.
Speaker 2: As I read through it so far, I've probably found
Speaker 2: like seven places where I think my fingerprints are keyboard
Speaker 2: print is on them. But there's two that I'll highlight.
Speaker 2: The first is on page eleven of the technical report.
Speaker 2: There was just this passage at the end of a
Speaker 2: sort of a table about sciences progress on the left
Speaker 2: and continuing challenges on the right. And one of the
Speaker 2: continuing challenges was the statement accurate transference of the climate
Speaker 2: science has been undermined significantly by climate change counter movements
Speaker 2: in both legacy and new social media environments through misinformation.
Speaker 2: So that was the first one that I think could
Speaker 2: be of interest to you and your audience. And the
Speaker 2: second one is on page one eleven. In my pagination,
Speaker 2: it's a little bit longer. Here go is a letter
Speaker 2: rip the media shape the public discourse about climate mitigation.
Speaker 2: This can usefully build public support to accelerate mitigation action,
Speaker 2: but can also be used to impede decarbonization. Global media
Speaker 2: coverage across a study of fifty nine countries has been
Speaker 2: growing from about forty seven thousand articles in twenty sixteen
Speaker 2: seventeen to about eighty seven thousand articles in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: to twenty twenty one. Generally, the media representation of climate
Speaker 2: science has increased and has become more accurate over time.
Speaker 2: On occasion, the propagation of scientifically misleading information by organized
Speaker 2: counter movements has fueled polarization with negative implications for climate policy.
Speaker 2: So the reference to those numbers comes from the work
Speaker 2: that I do based here with a group of two
Speaker 2: dozen researchers called Art Media and Climate Change Observatory. The
Speaker 2: second one that I read to you on page one
Speaker 2: hundred and eleven was the one that we were pushing
Speaker 2: for to get into the summary for policy makers but failed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the other I mean, I saw an earlier draft
Speaker 1: of the summary for policy Makers that did include reference
Speaker 1: to you know, invested interest and things like that, but
Speaker 1: it seems like all of that got summary.
Speaker 2: Reading through the summary, he'd be interesting, who you think.
Speaker 2: It's just that there's no responsibility really garnered on anyone
Speaker 2: on that.
Speaker 1: The summary to me feels a lot like talking around
Speaker 1: the key issues, which is weird because the rest of
Speaker 1: the report actually really does a pretty great job of
Speaker 1: not doing that. I think it's like one of the
Speaker 1: most direct IPCC reports I want, you.
Speaker 2: Know, yeah, sort of, but SPM is like saying, my
Speaker 2: car hit your car, and then I take a responsibility
Speaker 2: or I hit it. You know, it's just a real striking.
Speaker 1: Right right, It's very yeah to me, Yeah, there was
Speaker 1: like a real start contrast between the summary for policymakers
Speaker 1: and the rest of the report. And you know, I
Speaker 1: talked to Katherine Mitchell and a couple of other folks
Speaker 1: who were kind of like, well, people get too hung
Speaker 1: up on the summary for policy makers, and you know,
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, like sure, government officials
Speaker 1: can you know, kind of neuter the language, but they
Speaker 1: can't do anything to change the underlying argument. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you know that's still very strong in all the chapters,
Speaker 1: which I think is true. But unfortunately I also think
Speaker 1: that because of the way that the IPCC release schedule
Speaker 1: is the vast majority of media are probably not going
Speaker 1: to make it much past the summary for policy.
Speaker 2: Means, Oh, absolutely agreed.
Speaker 1: So it's still important. Other I mean, I think if
Speaker 1: it wasn't important, the government representatives probably wouldn't fight so
Speaker 1: hard for certain things in it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just think it's sort of a bummer because
Speaker 2: it turns out to be a bit of a smoke
Speaker 2: screen for what's really the important part, which is hope summary.
Speaker 2: Because you know, like the process has been fraught since
Speaker 2: its inception in nineteen eighty eight and the first import
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety. The fact that one hundred and ninety
Speaker 2: five government representatives have to sign off on it is
Speaker 2: you know, it's it's just super problematic. It's a scientific body, then,
Speaker 2: is that were the s M Center for Policymakers is
Speaker 2: captured by governments? And so the distinction that I that
Speaker 2: I pointed out about how the technical summary is controlled
Speaker 2: by the authors of the report is it actually a
Speaker 2: lot more important than I think people ever really talk about.
Speaker 2: And so I'd rather people just skip the summary and
Speaker 2: go right into the technical reports. We've got the stomach
Speaker 2: for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not that much longer and it's like it's
Speaker 1: much I don't know, just more more robust.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's where you can hear the voices of
Speaker 2: those of us who have written on.
Speaker 1: It well, and they did put that out along with
Speaker 1: the summary for policymakers. As someone who studies, you know
Speaker 1: in part and you study lots of things, but I
Speaker 1: know one of the things is media and coverage and
Speaker 1: all that. So I'm curious to hear what you think
Speaker 1: about how the IPCC sort of handles its relationship with media.
Speaker 1: I saw a lot of what I'm assuming is your
Speaker 1: stuff after thirteen around the role that the media plays
Speaker 1: in all of this, but also just in terms of
Speaker 1: the kind of the process for releasing these reports. I'll
Speaker 1: just tell you that I heard from a lot of
Speaker 1: authors that like, well, we don't really expect journalists to
Speaker 1: cover this the day it comes out, so it doesn't
Speaker 1: really matter what time it comes out or how much
Speaker 1: time they have to read the report, because obviously it's
Speaker 1: a three thousand page report they're not going to cover
Speaker 1: the day of. And I was like, that is so cute,
Speaker 1: but that's not how media actually works anymore. So I
Speaker 1: just I feel like there's this giant disconnect between you know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. One person put it to me that
Speaker 1: they felt like that in a way, that there's more
Speaker 1: attention paid to sort of protecting the process than the
Speaker 1: report having impact. And I'm curious what you think about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's interesting. The process is really fascinating and I
Speaker 2: think troubling in some ways. I think the IPCC bank
Speaker 2: on just being a legitimate, legitimate and high profile scientific body,
Speaker 2: and so when they got the report coming out, they
Speaker 2: could release it whenever they feel like it, and they
Speaker 2: know that media will cover it, and so, you know,
Speaker 2: I've heard from some journalists that are frustrated, I think
Speaker 2: quite understandably by just how opaque that final Plenary negotiation
Speaker 2: sessions are. I to myself and really unclear. I've just
Speaker 2: happened to get inside, you know, insights from people who
Speaker 2: are involved. Otherwise it's just not well described. And so
Speaker 2: they have a fairly untransparent process. Doesn't really, you know,
Speaker 2: bode well for the IPCC really getting out what it
Speaker 2: wants to get out. And so it's kind of living
Speaker 2: by these fictions that we've you know, critiqued so much
Speaker 2: over time, is that good work will find itself to
Speaker 2: the right people that we know that doesn't work. That
Speaker 2: sounds a little bit unfair. I do know that there
Speaker 2: are actually there is an increasing group, a media group,
Speaker 2: and they do good work with the capacity that they've got,
Speaker 2: and so I don't mean to disparage that at all.
Speaker 1: No, I know, I know that there's a huge capacity
Speaker 1: issue and a resourcing issue too. So I think there's
Speaker 1: basically like one person handling all the press.
Speaker 2: It is wild and that person is doing heroic work.
Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, to me, that just it's like it's
Speaker 1: similar to the fact that like all of the authors
Speaker 1: are just putting in tremendous amounts of work for free,
Speaker 1: you know, Like I don't know. I'm like, this is
Speaker 1: a really important thing. It seems like maybe it's time
Speaker 1: to actually fund it appropriately.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a funny thing, isn't it. Yeah, But then.
Speaker 1: It's funny because I was I was talking to someone
Speaker 1: else who was like, there are a lot of issues
Speaker 1: that I would like to see addressed, but I also like,
Speaker 1: don't like to talk about the issues publicly because you know,
Speaker 1: the IPCC is so vulnerable and people are always wanting
Speaker 1: to like take funding away from it rather than you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: put resources towards actually solving these things. So it's just
Speaker 1: a it's a funny thing.
Speaker 2: I agree, I agree, there is there's a balancing act, right,
Speaker 2: Like I mean, I said it already and I'll say
Speaker 2: it again, like, I support it's work. I see the
Speaker 2: value of it.
Speaker 6: That's why I just dedicated the time I did to it. However,
Speaker 6: I think any good relationship involves honesty about what's good
Speaker 6: and what can improve, and so I'm also sharing that
Speaker 6: with you, and it's not hopefully not to be taken
Speaker 6: out of context because I think everybody recognizes.
Speaker 2: That there's more and better, more effective work that can
Speaker 2: be done through this process.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I believe this was the first time that the
Speaker 1: report really included media in this way. Is that is
Speaker 1: that true? Yeah? So that's I mean, that's pretty exciting
Speaker 1: that you know that it was included and that you
Speaker 1: were able to get in the stuff about how it
Speaker 1: can be weaponized so easily too. It's good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's why I said yes to it. That's
Speaker 2: why I still think it was worth worth taking part,
Speaker 2: and I really I do also appreciate the work of
Speaker 2: the lead authors on that chapter that you refer to
Speaker 2: that that is where I was contributing mostly, and they
Speaker 2: too had vision and commitment to seeing that through, and
Speaker 2: so I really think the lead authors did good work.
Speaker 1: I mean, I do think that it's noticeable just to
Speaker 1: me as someone who reads these reports. I think there's
Speaker 1: a very noticeable difference between AR five and AR six,
Speaker 1: specific to like greater inclusion of social scientists and like
Speaker 1: a more kind of interdisciplinary approach in general. There was
Speaker 1: a bunch of stuff in this report that I've never seen.
Speaker 2: We're just in a really different place than we were
Speaker 2: back then, even at AR five, and I think that's
Speaker 2: led partly to this. I mean, the shift to renewables,
Speaker 2: the clean energy revolution, the fact that solar wind batteries
Speaker 2: have come down, you know, eighty five percent in the
Speaker 2: last decade. All that stuff tributes to I think more
Speaker 2: of an appetite, more recognition of inclusion of these important pieces.
Speaker 1: Is there anything in particular in this report that you
Speaker 1: really want to draw people's attention to, because you know,
Speaker 1: it is a three thousand page roughly, and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of detail in it. I think there's a lot
Speaker 1: of things that can get missed. So yeah, I'm curious,
Speaker 1: what are the things that you particularly want people to know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's several. If I had to just pick, I
Speaker 2: think the recognition that politics and status quo interests, not science, money,
Speaker 2: or technology, are now the primary barriers to meeting climate targets.
Speaker 2: The fact that the IPCC can say that, even in
Speaker 2: a guarded manner, shows where we are, I mean, walking
Speaker 2: that tightrope of policy relevant but noticy prescripted. The mantra
Speaker 2: of the IPCC for all these years can't get away
Speaker 2: from the fact that the politics and status coal interests
Speaker 2: play a part, and you know, hand in hand with that.
Speaker 2: I think there were some fascinating moments in the news
Speaker 2: conference this morning. Did you get a chance to watch
Speaker 2: that I did. I mean two things stuck out. One
Speaker 2: is you and Secretary General Antonio Uterres. His I mean,
Speaker 2: it was very striking just how straightforward his comments were.
Speaker 7: The jury has reached the verdict and it is damning.
Speaker 7: This report of the inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change
Speaker 7: is a litany of broken climate promises. It is a
Speaker 7: file of shame, cataloging the empty pledges that put us
Speaker 7: firmly on track towards an unlivable world. We are on
Speaker 7: a fast track to climate disaster. This is a climate emergency.
Speaker 7: Climate scientists sworn that we are already perilously close to
Speaker 7: tipping points that could lead to cass skating and irreversible
Speaker 7: climate impacts. But high meeting governments and corporations are not
Speaker 7: just turning a blind eye. They are adding fool to
Speaker 7: the flames. They are choking our planet based on their
Speaker 7: invested interests and historic investments in fossing fools. When cheaper
Speaker 7: renewable solutions provide green jobs, energy security, and greater price stability.
Speaker 7: Climate activists are sometimes depicted as dangerous radicals, but the
Speaker 7: truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing the
Speaker 7: production of fossil fools. Investing in new fossing fool infrastructure
Speaker 7: is moral and economic madness.
Speaker 2: And then at the end of the press conference, I
Speaker 2: think it was a question from Sarah Capran from the
Speaker 2: Washington Post Jim Ski about you know, okay, this politics
Speaker 2: and status coincious. What are you going to do about it? Then?
Speaker 2: What should we do? And he went so far as
Speaker 2: to say that he was deliberately skirting the issue, and
Speaker 2: it just demonstrates that there is there are limits to
Speaker 2: the A PCC is an organization that can really address
Speaker 2: political corporate power. And so it's waking to me that
Speaker 2: while the i PCC has taken these steps, and I'm
Speaker 2: really glad that this the passages that I shared with
Speaker 2: you're in there, it shows that we can't, yeah, expect
Speaker 2: too much of this body. This is something that provides
Speaker 2: a foundation for further and ongoing work, and so that
Speaker 2: that's one thing that I just sort of came away
Speaker 2: with as I've been digesting it just today. There's certainly
Speaker 2: a lot of language within the report that is that
Speaker 2: is fascinating and into ternisting, but that kind of larger,
Speaker 2: that larger kind of yeah, way in which it was
Speaker 2: presented through the press conference, I thought was striking.
Speaker 1: That's it for this time again. You can find more
Speaker 1: about this on our website at Drilled podcast dot com,
Speaker 1: and I will be bringing you more on the IPCC
Speaker 1: report as I slowly make my way through all of it.
Speaker 1: If there's some part of the report that you would
Speaker 1: like us to focus on, feel free to shoot me
Speaker 1: a note either at Amy at Critical Frequency dot org
Speaker 1: or you can do that via Twitter. I'm on there
Speaker 1: at Amy Westervelt. We're making all of these IPCC episodes
Speaker 1: and write ups free to everyone. That is supported entirely
Speaker 1: by our paying members, So if you do want to
Speaker 1: support more of our work, you can do that by
Speaker 1: signing up either at drilled podcast dot com or at
Speaker 1: Patreon dot com slash drilled. Thanks for listening and we'll
Speaker 1: see you next time. Back back back back