Speaker 1: Welcome to Zero. I am Akshatrati this week kicking off
Speaker 1: COP twenty nine.
Speaker 2: So my first impressions of COP is that it reminds
Speaker 2: me of thinking day this girl scout gathering we used
Speaker 2: to do in like the school gymnasium, where every brownie
Speaker 2: true kind of pick a different country and represent it
Speaker 2: with some food and a little poster with some information
Speaker 2: about the country that you're in charge of, and you
Speaker 2: sort of wand around the gym all day.
Speaker 1: Well, this is what COP is like. It's just that
Speaker 1: the country's spending millions of dollars and it's adults rather
Speaker 1: than girl scouts making it.
Speaker 2: And some of the pavilions are pretty spot on. The
Speaker 2: UK had a big red phone booth, very recognizable.
Speaker 1: Cheesy, I guess for us, but I like the Kyrgyzstan pavilion.
Speaker 1: It had a really nice mountain tent, cozy from the inside,
Speaker 1: and very pretty.
Speaker 2: Kazakhstan also good showing these beautiful rugs draped across the
Speaker 2: place in some potteries and ceramics.
Speaker 1: You missed the headline. Next to Kazakhstan is the United
Speaker 1: States pavilion, and as the plainest pavilion there is It's
Speaker 1: almost as if they are preparing that Donald Trump is
Speaker 1: going to come back to power and pull the US
Speaker 1: out of the UN treaty.
Speaker 2: The mood does seem to be a little bit somber
Speaker 2: at the US Pavilion.
Speaker 1: Zero is an Azerbaijan in Baku for the twenty ninth
Speaker 1: Conference of the Parties, the annual climate summit that brings
Speaker 1: together heads of state and delegations from around the world
Speaker 1: for two weeks of intense discussions and hopefully major breakthroughs.
Speaker 1: If you heard the recent episode we did with avinash
Speaker 1: prasad Special Advisor on Climate Change for the Inter American
Speaker 1: Development Bank, you know that this year's COP is finance
Speaker 1: COP and the big question on the table is who
Speaker 1: will the growing sums needed to tackle climate change.
Speaker 3: That's the challenge with climate finance. The whole world benefits,
Speaker 3: and some more than others, some more climate vulnerable than others,
Speaker 3: and we're asking a different set of people who perhaps
Speaker 3: not suffering most from the climate today to make the
Speaker 3: biggest contribution, partly because they have contributed the greatest amount
Speaker 3: to the climate problem through a century of emissions.
Speaker 1: Driving through Baccu, the city's unique flame shaped skyscrapers are
Speaker 1: impossible to miss. It's a tribute to the region's history
Speaker 1: of fire worship, but also a constant reminder that this
Speaker 1: place was among the first to give birth to the
Speaker 1: modern oil industry. Azerbaijan's fossil fuel sector accounts for ninety
Speaker 1: percent of its exports and a third of its total
Speaker 1: economic output, but now it must focus on moving away
Speaker 1: from fossil fuels, which was the mandate all countries signed
Speaker 1: off on at So things kicked off on Monday.
Speaker 2: We're approaching the Baku Olympic Stadium and there's this loud hub.
Speaker 4: What is this?
Speaker 1: I think it's diesel generators. We can smell the fumes
Speaker 1: of diesel, and I assume that's how we're going to
Speaker 1: be powered for the next two weeks. It's shaping up
Speaker 1: to be an action pack two weeks, and I'm racing myself.
Speaker 1: So for today's episode, I bring you bits from my
Speaker 1: interview with COP twenty nine President Muktar Babayev to give
Speaker 1: you a sense of what's in store at this COP
Speaker 1: and Zero's producer Mightily Rao and I discuss why this
Speaker 1: meeting is shaping up to be very different from the
Speaker 1: cops of the past, and why the stakes of this
Speaker 1: COP are so big?
Speaker 2: Hi, Actually, I know that for climate reporters like you,
Speaker 2: COP is basically the Super Bowl.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean for Americans, yes, I would think better
Speaker 1: reference for me is the Cricket World Cup.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, the Cricket World Cup. So here we are
Speaker 2: Cricket World Cup twenty twenty four, also known as COP
Speaker 2: twenty nine. And I think even before we get into
Speaker 2: what's on the line over the next two weeks in Baku,
Speaker 2: we should probably rewind a little bit and go back
Speaker 2: to last year COP twenty eight in Dubai, another Petro state,
Speaker 2: another COP that was in some ways controversial, but it
Speaker 2: concluded with what I think we could all agree was
Speaker 2: a pretty big breakthrough. Can you remind listeners what was
Speaker 2: the biggest accomplishment of that COP and how it sort
Speaker 2: of sets the stage for what we're looking at now
Speaker 2: in Baku.
Speaker 1: One of the things that every COP has done since
Speaker 1: the Paris Agreement was signed in twenty fifteen is to
Speaker 1: try and get countries to take actions that would keep
Speaker 1: the goals of the Paris Agreement alive. Is trying to
Speaker 1: keep warming below one point five degrees celsius and going
Speaker 1: into COP twenty eight in Dubai, that one point five
Speaker 1: degree celsius target was really slipping away. So one thing
Speaker 1: that countries needed to agree on was to start to
Speaker 1: transition away from fossil fuels, and they signed off on
Speaker 1: that in a document that all countries agreed on, which
Speaker 1: is a big thing for a COP to achieve, because
Speaker 1: before that even the mention of fossil fuels in the
Speaker 1: final text was considered controversial. But COP twenty eight went
Speaker 1: a step further. It's not just about reducing the use
Speaker 1: of fossil fuels but also increasing the use of clean energy,
Speaker 1: so it set a goal for tripling renewable energy by
Speaker 1: the end of the decade. And it also did something
Speaker 1: for climate vulnerable countries by putting in the first money
Speaker 1: into the Loss and Damage Fund, which currently has some
Speaker 1: seven hundred million dollars in there, which is not enough,
Speaker 1: but at least it gets to a point where it
Speaker 1: can be operationalized with the help of the World Bank,
Speaker 1: and then poorest countries can draw from that fund when
Speaker 1: they're hit by climate change, hurricane drafts, floods, things that
Speaker 1: they cannot recover from without immediate assistance.
Speaker 2: And if each COP has its idiosyncrasies, some of that
Speaker 2: comes down to the personality of a person who's leading it.
Speaker 2: Last time, it was Sultan al Jabbar, someone you profiled
Speaker 2: in the run up to COP twenty eight at Dubai.
Speaker 2: What was his approach that made it a success?
Speaker 1: So Sultan Algebra wore many hats. He was the CEO
Speaker 1: of the oil company Adnock, the chairperson of Mazdar, the
Speaker 1: UA's renewable energy company, and somebody who'd been at climate
Speaker 1: summits representing the UA for almost a decade before that.
Speaker 1: So that combination of old world energy, New World energy,
Speaker 1: and climate diplomacy was crucial in trying to bring together
Speaker 1: these two hundred countries to sign off on what our
Speaker 1: contraver texts. Even today, he was able to do that
Speaker 1: because the UAE, the country, and the leader of the
Speaker 1: country gave him the mandate to actually get this deal done.
Speaker 2: Now Here we are in Iserbaijan, where there doesn't necessarily
Speaker 2: seem to be that kind of mandate coming from the government.
Speaker 2: Let's get into Iserbaijan's relationship to this process. How would
Speaker 2: you sort of explain where they sit in terms of
Speaker 2: trying to achieve big climate breakthroughs.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: One question that people keep asking is that why is
Speaker 1: Baku the home to COP And the procedural answer is
Speaker 1: that COP meetings rotate in different regions of the world
Speaker 1: every year.
Speaker 2: So in some ways it was their turn, or someone
Speaker 2: from that region had to have a turn.
Speaker 1: Correct. It was supposed to be an Eastern European COP,
Speaker 1: all countries in that region had to agree on who
Speaker 1: would host it, and Russia was playing the baddie by
Speaker 1: not allowing a European country like Bulgaria to host it,
Speaker 1: so eventually Azerbaijan was the only real option for this COP.
Speaker 1: But Azerbaijan as a country has not really been active
Speaker 1: in the climate space. One expert who's been to most
Speaker 1: COPS told me that from her memory, Azerbaijan has never
Speaker 1: stood up and spoken at a COP meeting before, never
Speaker 1: piped up no. It's climate plan, which was recently assessed
Speaker 1: by Climate Action Tracker, is rated critically insufficient. It does
Speaker 1: not have an at zero goal. If it followed that plan,
Speaker 1: the world would warm up by four degrees celsius, and
Speaker 1: Azerbaijan is heavily dependent on fossil fuels even for its
Speaker 1: own economic future. Europe, which was reliant on Russian gas
Speaker 1: is now trying to move away and it has to
Speaker 1: tap other sources of gas. One of them is likely
Speaker 1: to be Azerbaijan. Then there are geopolitical issues. The country
Speaker 1: has been at conflict with Armenia and over the past
Speaker 1: year has been trying to finalize a peace deal with
Speaker 1: the country. So there's a lot happening in Azerbaijan. It's
Speaker 1: got nothing to do with KOPP and yet this is
Speaker 1: what cops end up being. They end up being in
Speaker 1: places around the world where, regardless of the hundred issues
Speaker 1: that are at play, climate change and how to tackle
Speaker 1: climate change is going to be the focus for the
Speaker 1: next two weeks.
Speaker 2: So it's a delicate diplomatic balancing act. And there's a
Speaker 2: lot on the line this year and a lot of
Speaker 2: complications this year. But you caught up with Mukdharbarbayev.
Speaker 4: Your name is Akshatrakshya, and.
Speaker 2: You've got a chance to ask him a little more
Speaker 2: about what his approach is going to be. Like let's
Speaker 2: talk a little bit about him in particular.
Speaker 1: Mukhzharbabayev is the Environment Minister of Azerbaijan right now, but
Speaker 1: before that from nineteen ninety four to twenty eighteen he
Speaker 1: worked for Sokar, the Azerbaijani oil company, and he was
Speaker 1: in charge for efforts to limit Sokar's environmental impact, so
Speaker 1: he has some experience trying to figure out plans to
Speaker 1: reduce the missions. But nonprofits have also expressed their disappointment
Speaker 1: that yet again an executive from a fossil field company
Speaker 1: has been put in place to lead negotiations on how
Speaker 1: to move away from fossil fuels.
Speaker 2: And do you think he's up to the task.
Speaker 1: We don't know. The thing with COP presidents is that
Speaker 1: they're almost always doing the job for the first time,
Speaker 1: and it's not an easy job. You have to get
Speaker 1: two hundred countries to agree on something, plus you have
Speaker 1: to learn very quickly. You're typically only given the plan
Speaker 1: for hosting a COP about a year in advance. Azerbaijan
Speaker 1: had even fewer than twelve months to really prepare.
Speaker 2: And even before things started there was a lot of
Speaker 2: talk about concerns about the number of people who are
Speaker 2: going to be able to attend, the number of badges
Speaker 2: being given out.
Speaker 1: Right, Yes, this is certainly going to be a smaller
Speaker 1: COP than COP twenty eight in Dubai or even COP
Speaker 1: twenty seven in Egypt. I got a chance to ask
Speaker 1: Babayev about these complaints from NGOs on the number of
Speaker 1: badges and whether they'll be able to allow for all
Speaker 1: the people who really want to come. There have been
Speaker 1: lots of complaints from angios about number of badges that
Speaker 1: people are being given. Have you heard anything about it?
Speaker 1: Is there just a fewer number of badges this year?
Speaker 1: Is that how we just have to learn to deal
Speaker 1: with the fact that not enough.
Speaker 4: To hear much should frankly speaking, possibly, I don't know.
Speaker 4: I don't know in detail, but I think we will
Speaker 4: provide necessity badges and other permissions for entrance to other organizations.
Speaker 4: We have not any limitations in it.
Speaker 2: So it's not the most decisive answer, but it sounds
Speaker 2: like he was at least willing to acknowledge that this
Speaker 2: is an issue that they're aware of.
Speaker 1: And I also asked him about protests because that is
Speaker 1: something that is a big feature of COP meetings and
Speaker 1: Azerbaijan is known to be a repressive regime and protests
Speaker 1: are not typically free and open, So I asked him
Speaker 1: whether they are making our rangements for climate activists to
Speaker 1: show up at COP twenty nine and be allowed to protest. Shot.
Speaker 1: You know this.
Speaker 4: We announced that COPY in Baku will inclusive and transparent,
Speaker 4: and we invited all stakeholders to come to Baku to forum.
Speaker 4: We will provide all necessity conditions for the parties to
Speaker 4: come be a part of the discussions, debates, consultations at
Speaker 4: the same time.
Speaker 2: We'll see how that shapes up. Because this is my
Speaker 2: first COP, but I understand that that's usually almost a
Speaker 2: part of the joy of the proceedings is the noise
Speaker 2: company and the energy from the protesters. After the break,
Speaker 2: we'll talk more about how success will be defined at
Speaker 2: this cup. So actually, here we are in Baku. What
Speaker 2: are the big ticket items at this cup?
Speaker 1: All cops have a long list of agenda items, but
Speaker 1: there are really two big ticket items. One is something
Speaker 1: called NCQG, the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance. Yes,
Speaker 1: a mouthful, but really important because it's the money that
Speaker 1: rich countries are supposed to give to poor countries. Previously,
Speaker 1: that number was one hundred billion dollars and was agreed
Speaker 1: on in two thousand and nine that rich countries would
Speaker 1: reach by twenty twenty they didn't quite mean that in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, but eventually they say they got there by
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, and that was a big moment because,
Speaker 1: as we all know, the problem of climate has been
Speaker 1: created by the emissions from rich countries, and now poor
Speaker 1: countries don't have the carbon budget to use up all
Speaker 1: that coal and oil to develop themselves. Instead, they need
Speaker 1: to move to clean energy, and this money is supposed
Speaker 1: to help poor countries green their energy. But also because
Speaker 1: we're already at one point three degrees celsius of warming
Speaker 1: relative to industrial times, there are climate impacts as we
Speaker 1: see all around the world, and so some of that
Speaker 1: money is supposed to go for adaptation, to try and
Speaker 1: build infrastructure that would be ready for the warming that
Speaker 1: we have already created. So at COP twenty nine they
Speaker 1: need to come up with the new one hundred billion
Speaker 1: dollar figure, which is going to be much larger because
Speaker 1: the needs of poor countries have grown in that time.
Speaker 1: We talked to avinash Persad about this. The numbers being
Speaker 1: floated are as high as a trillion dollars or maybe
Speaker 1: even two trillion dollars, and if that is the size
Speaker 1: of the part, we should just recognize there just isn't
Speaker 1: enough money from rich countries that goes to poor countries. Today,
Speaker 1: all of the foreign aid budget annually adds up to
Speaker 1: only about two hundred billion dollars. So how are we
Speaker 1: going to reach that trillion dollars? Let's hear from Abinash.
Speaker 3: Developing countries have said the number we need is a trillion.
Speaker 3: Developed country have said, maybe maybe there's a trillion, but
Speaker 3: that's not coming from our budgets. There's no space there.
Speaker 3: So I think that the pathway to success would be
Speaker 3: that we have some real hard guarantees around it. If
Speaker 3: developed countries were to say sixty seventy percent is coming
Speaker 3: from the private sector, and we are going to put
Speaker 3: up the guarantees that will back sixty to seventy percent,
Speaker 3: and we're going to provide the guarantees that will help
Speaker 3: the MDBs to fill the savings bit, the two hundred
Speaker 3: to three hundred billion dollars per year that we need
Speaker 3: for investments and resilience and adaptation that can be postpaid
Speaker 3: from the savings, and then we're going to raise our
Speaker 3: budgets to do this cost bit. I think that that's
Speaker 3: the way to get there.
Speaker 2: Okay, so that's one big ticket item what else is
Speaker 2: on the table.
Speaker 1: The other one is called Article six, another jargon. This
Speaker 1: one refers to a specific article inside the Paris Agreement,
Speaker 1: which assigned in twenty fifteen, that deals with carbon markets.
Speaker 1: The idea is that countries that are doing better on
Speaker 1: emissions or have big forests that need protecting because they
Speaker 1: are sequesting all this carbon should be able to trade
Speaker 1: their carbon benefits with rich countries that are polluting more.
Speaker 1: And that would also create one more route through which
Speaker 1: rich countries are able to send money to poor countries.
Speaker 2: But it's also quite controversial, right, this is a market
Speaker 2: where there's a lot of opportunity for fraud or.
Speaker 1: Abuse, exactly why it's taken so long to actually agree
Speaker 1: to the rules around this market. At Bloombergreen, we have
Speaker 1: exposed many of these frauds in the voluntary carbon market,
Speaker 1: and there is a risk that if the rules aren't
Speaker 1: clear enough, those frauds will get perpetuated, perhaps even at
Speaker 1: a larger scale, because Article six will give this market
Speaker 1: a stamp of approval from the United Nations, which suddenly
Speaker 1: makes this market not just voluntary, but with a UN stamp.
Speaker 2: So this is when there's a chance to potentially course
Speaker 2: correct on this and make this carbon offset market have
Speaker 2: some real teeth, have some real meaning. This is something
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Green has been covering a lot, and you just
Speaker 2: published an investigation around this, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the one that we looked at was a specific
Speaker 1: type of offset called renewable energy offsets. These are generated
Speaker 1: when a renewable energy plant, say a solar farm or
Speaker 1: a wind farm, is built, and the claim is that
Speaker 1: it avoided the building of a coal power plant or
Speaker 1: a gas power plant, and thus it should be able
Speaker 1: to not just provide this green electricity, but also provide offsets.
Speaker 1: The problem is, we know solar and wind power are
Speaker 1: now the cheapest sources of new energy, so are they
Speaker 1: really avoiding the building of these coal power plants? And
Speaker 1: experts say these offsets are junk and they should not
Speaker 1: be part of any legitimate carbon market. The difficulty is
Speaker 1: these renewable energy offsets still exist on the market and
Speaker 1: are likely to be the first kind that will be
Speaker 1: available on the Article six carbon market if it is approved,
Speaker 1: and market participants need to be aware that they are
Speaker 1: perhaps at a risk of buying junk off sets right
Speaker 1: at the start of this new market.
Speaker 2: So those are the two big ticket items, ironing out
Speaker 2: the n CQG and then also sorting out Article six
Speaker 2: and what it means for carbon offsets in the future
Speaker 2: of that market. We've got two weeks ahead. What is
Speaker 2: the process of getting any of us done going to
Speaker 2: look like here and Baku.
Speaker 1: Well, you're already getting a hang of the jargon, so
Speaker 1: that's a good place to make SEEQG. Yeah, but yes,
Speaker 1: you're right. This is a long process, a long meeting,
Speaker 1: and we are on day one, typically the day when
Speaker 1: countries have what is called the agenda fight, where they'll
Speaker 1: fight and jostle over what actually ends up being discussed
Speaker 1: over the next two weeks. This time, there may not
Speaker 1: be much of a fight because we know there are
Speaker 1: certain things that definitely need to be done. Then day
Speaker 1: two and day three we'll see one hundred plus world
Speaker 1: leaders come and rally the troops, giving a mandate to
Speaker 1: their environment ministers, to their negotiating teams that they care
Speaker 1: about acting on this problem and it's not something we
Speaker 1: should sniff at. Because under the United Nations manner, Climate
Speaker 1: cop meetings are the largest meetings that the United Nations organizes.
Speaker 1: It often has more world leaders than even the United
Speaker 1: Nations General Assembly, which happens in New York every year
Speaker 1: in September, and so that'll be an important phase. But
Speaker 1: the real crunch time will come towards the second week,
Speaker 1: where after all this talking that will happen with multiple
Speaker 1: rounds going back and forth, the document that needs to
Speaker 1: be agreed on on MCQG and on Article six will
Speaker 1: have few in few square brackets, which is few in
Speaker 1: few points disagreement. There will still be some towards the end,
Speaker 1: and hopefully at the end of it all those disappear
Speaker 1: and you get a deal.
Speaker 2: I feel like I got a pretty good preview of
Speaker 2: this when we went to see the production of Kyoto
Speaker 2: put on by the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford upon Avon,
Speaker 2: a play that made the Kyoto Summit of nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: seven dramatic and fun and all these long meetings kind
Speaker 2: of poetic. But it's not going to quite be like that,
Speaker 2: is it.
Speaker 1: I hope that it's like that. But giving you experienced
Speaker 1: Kyoto of two weeks in two hours.
Speaker 2: Like beautifully theatrically choreographed two hours.
Speaker 1: Great actors, the dialogue, nice music, this one will be
Speaker 1: much more of a grind.
Speaker 2: Little grittier, little more real life, lots of time in
Speaker 2: conference rooms. We will buckle in. What are your predictions
Speaker 2: for what we're going to see in the next two weeks.
Speaker 1: I don't make predictions, but maybe let me give you
Speaker 1: some wild cards, things that are unlikely to happen, but
Speaker 1: if they happen, they could make a big difference. First
Speaker 1: one is that China comes out and says, you know what,
Speaker 1: we will actually contribute towards this NCQG. So the big
Speaker 1: fight right now is that it's rich countries giving money
Speaker 1: to poor countries. Now I say rich and poor, but
Speaker 1: the United Nations defines it very clearly in what are
Speaker 1: called Annex one countries and Annex two countries. And you'd
Speaker 1: be surprised, which if the countries that we would class
Speaker 1: poor are an Annex two but aren't really poor, like
Speaker 1: Singapore and the Ue and China. China is now the
Speaker 1: second largest economy in the world still on a per
Speaker 1: capita basis not quite there with Europeans.
Speaker 2: But these are slightly outmoded classifications.
Speaker 1: They are, and maybe China will say, you know, don't
Speaker 1: worry about the classifications. We have been spending all this
Speaker 1: money under the Belton Road initiative, some of which has
Speaker 1: gone towards infrastructure that is clean, that is towards electrifying
Speaker 1: the world. We should start to count those towards a
Speaker 1: contribution we are making as a country towards this goal.
Speaker 1: And then the wildest of them all, which is clearly
Speaker 1: not going to happen, but you know, one can dream
Speaker 1: is Russia says. You know, we were the ones who
Speaker 1: ensured that the COP meeting is happening in Baku. As
Speaker 1: a good will, We're going to contribute a few billion
Speaker 1: dollars towards this.
Speaker 2: One real surprise ending there, real unexpected twist. I guess
Speaker 2: never say never. We'll see what happens in the next
Speaker 2: two weeks. Lots to play for, obviously, but here we
Speaker 2: are at the very beginning. We've got a long ways
Speaker 2: to go before there's any kind of agreement at all,
Speaker 2: and it's not even clear whether Iserbaijan and the COP
Speaker 2: twenty nine President Makdhar Babe are fully prepared to make
Speaker 2: this a success. But has Aerbajan done anything so far
Speaker 2: that's really impressed you, Any kind of demonstration of ambition,
Speaker 2: any kind of indication that they want to throw some
Speaker 2: muscle into pulling off some great breakthrough here.
Speaker 1: Look, organizing a COP meeting is hard, especially if you're
Speaker 1: not a country that typically hosts one hundred were leaders
Speaker 1: on an annual basis, or has the infrastructure, the number
Speaker 1: of hotels, the number of flights that come in to
Speaker 1: get all these people in one place and get them talking.
Speaker 1: So far, we've seen the infrastructure and it works, so
Speaker 1: that's good. The other one is already Azerbaijan wants to
Speaker 1: host other COPS, so they put their name forward for
Speaker 1: COPS seventeen, which is the Nature COP to be hosted
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty six. They didn't get it. Their neighbor
Speaker 1: Armenia got it, but clearly they think doing this work
Speaker 1: for COP twenty nine was worthy enough that they wanted
Speaker 1: to host another COP. But if we look at narrower
Speaker 1: things at UAE, we had the government come out with
Speaker 1: a thirty billion dollar fund that they want to put
Speaker 1: toward clean energy, and that was a big number coming
Speaker 1: from a country on its own. We've seen Azerbaijan try
Speaker 1: to replicate that in the size that is alzer Vaijan
Speaker 1: and much smaller economy, not as rich, by creating a
Speaker 1: one billion dollar fund we'll find out whether there is
Speaker 1: real money in it and what actually it goes toward.
Speaker 1: But that ambition is there and Muktar Babee have told
Speaker 1: us a little bit about it. How much money have
Speaker 1: you secured in which other countries contribute to?
Speaker 4: So we are create a special working group. We invite
Speaker 4: the economies and different researchers to this working group, international
Speaker 4: group from the different countries, different international organizations, and now
Speaker 4: we are working on the program, working with the countries.
Speaker 4: We are preparing the correct concept of this fund and
Speaker 4: we're still continuing this discussion with the countries.
Speaker 1: I think there's also the fact that Azerbaijan has a
Speaker 1: major all company. It's the oil company that keeps the
Speaker 1: economy running, SOCAR, and SOCAR hasn't been one of those
Speaker 1: companies that you would be able to hold to account
Speaker 1: for its emissions or lack of environmental steps. But because
Speaker 1: the world's eyes are now focused on Azarbaijan, SOCAR has
Speaker 1: had to think about what exactly it's doing to reduce
Speaker 1: as carbon emissions. It's joined the Methane Pledge, it started
Speaker 1: to cap methane leagues, it has some sort of a
Speaker 1: decarbonization plan and Maktara talked about that too.
Speaker 4: Soccer Now in the transition to energy company, they already
Speaker 4: started to implement several green projects. They adopted the carbonization
Speaker 4: program for twenty fifty. They have several big projects on
Speaker 4: green hydrogen and other directions, renewable energy implementation, different projects
Speaker 4: off shore wind and others, and specifically the focus now
Speaker 4: the reduction of the mithin emissions at CHET.
Speaker 2: There's one thing we haven't talked about yet, which was
Speaker 2: the election last week. Donald Trump is going to take
Speaker 2: office in twenty twenty five. This doesn't necessarily change what
Speaker 2: happens at COP over the next two weeks in some
Speaker 2: ways because the delegation that was sent was already set
Speaker 2: up by the Biden administration. They've already got all their
Speaker 2: plans in place. So what changes with Trump being voted
Speaker 2: into office.
Speaker 1: Nothing directly because it's the same officials with the same
Speaker 1: mandate coming through. But how much credibility will they have
Speaker 1: in these complex negotiations, And that's something I wanted to
Speaker 1: understand from someone who has an insider view on this.
Speaker 1: We spoke to Jason Bordoff for our previous episode. He's
Speaker 1: the founding director at the Seer on Global Energy Policy
Speaker 1: at Columbia University, and here's what he had to say.
Speaker 5: Well, I think there would be a significant concern about that.
Speaker 5: I mean, as you said, the Biden administration leaders John
Speaker 5: Pedesta and his team will still be going to Baku
Speaker 5: to negotiate, but of course they're negotiating with people from
Speaker 5: other countries that worry whether anything that they say or
Speaker 5: commit to will still be binding in two or three
Speaker 5: months down the road. And that's not just the UN
Speaker 5: climate negotiations. That was tearing up the Iron Nuclear Deal
Speaker 5: when Trump came into power, how he thinks about NATO
Speaker 5: and other international agreements. This is about US credibility in
Speaker 5: the world, and are people going to be able to
Speaker 5: take us at our word if every four years we're
Speaker 5: pulling in and out of these important international agreements. That's
Speaker 5: a real concern and a real risk. And so that
Speaker 5: is there, and it's not at all clear to me
Speaker 5: that anything that the Biden administration commits to is necessarily
Speaker 5: going to be honored by the next administration. It's going
Speaker 5: to be very hard to mobilize capital at the scale
Speaker 5: that people are talking about, and frankly, the climate crisis
Speaker 5: demands and requires that is why, even though a lot
Speaker 5: was accomplished at COP twenty eight in Dubai, the US
Speaker 5: actually put a relatively modest amount of money into the
Speaker 5: new Fund for Climate trans for climate finance in developing countries,
Speaker 5: and other countries step up to fill the void, particularly
Speaker 5: the UAE, which you know, and the UAE and Saudi
Speaker 5: and Golf countries. To the extent the US pulls back
Speaker 5: from a leadership role in this sectors, others will step
Speaker 5: in to some extent, not probably enough. Golf countries are
Speaker 5: a good example of that, and they're doing it for
Speaker 5: geostrategic reasons, not just because they care deeply about climate change.
Speaker 5: But in this new world of great power competition, non
Speaker 5: aligned middle powers like Saudi Arabia, India, Brazil, they're being
Speaker 5: quite transactional and thinking about who they align themselves with,
Speaker 5: not establishing themselves in set redetermined blocks of powers around
Speaker 5: the world. All of that is a threat to the
Speaker 5: US US strategic and geopolitical leadership role in the world.
Speaker 5: And that's just one of the ways to think about
Speaker 5: the consequences of the US pulling back on this, Not
Speaker 5: just that we lose the ability to pay for clean
Speaker 5: energy in lower income parts of the world, which is
Speaker 5: why I hope there's some recognition on both sides of
Speaker 5: the aisle that it's important to still be part of
Speaker 5: these conversations.
Speaker 2: Actually, this whole conference is playing out with a really
Speaker 2: stark backdrop of war. Iran is one of Iserbajean's neighbors.
Speaker 2: Russia is another one. As we talked about another neighbor,
Speaker 2: Armenia has been in a drawn out process of trying
Speaker 2: to reach a peace agreement with Iserbajan over their conflict.
Speaker 2: In some ways, I feel like it's kind of amazing
Speaker 2: to see a diplomatic effort like this in action, even
Speaker 2: amid so much conflict. But it also kind of underscores
Speaker 2: just how hard it's going to be to make real
Speaker 2: strides in climate policy, doesn't it.
Speaker 1: It is, and we are sitting sort of in the
Speaker 1: middle and the north you've got the U Green Russia
Speaker 1: war going in the south is well, the attacks on
Speaker 1: Gaza and Lebanon, and climate diplomacy still happens because we're
Speaker 1: facing a decadal challenge in front of us. It is
Speaker 1: something I asked about.
Speaker 4: You know, when we are talking war, please do not
Speaker 4: forget that from war, from the conflicts, huge amount of emissions,
Speaker 4: huge amounts, millions of tones. That's why for us this
Speaker 4: issue is very important. That's why our one of our
Speaker 4: initiative truths also related to such call to the countries
Speaker 4: to announce the CEA is fire, to come to conclusion
Speaker 4: to stop the war because millions of tones of emissions,
Speaker 4: and I think it is the big impact to nature,
Speaker 4: big impact to the climate. And if we will have
Speaker 4: the positive reaction reflection from the countries to our call,
Speaker 4: I think it will be very good step to stop
Speaker 4: their conflicts.
Speaker 1: That's a hopeful note to end on. But we'll find
Speaker 1: out over the next two weeks whether that hope turns
Speaker 1: into reality. Thank you, action, Thank you, and thank you
Speaker 1: for listening to zero and now for the sound of
Speaker 1: the week, Tell me a lot.
Speaker 6: You're a Yeah, we are from a group we promote
Speaker 6: vegany ZM, and we are here to promote veganism because
Speaker 6: this is a solution for global varmis. And yeah, board began,
Speaker 6: mord began.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
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Speaker 1: in touch at Zero Pod at Bloomberg dot Net. Zero's
Speaker 1: producer is Mighty Lerau, Bloomberg's head a podcast is Sage
Speaker 1: Bowman and head of Talk is Brendan nunan Our. The
Speaker 1: music is composed wonderly special thanks to Gender Louis John Ainger,
Speaker 1: Schwan Wagner, Monique Mulima, Ethan Steinberg, Blake Maples and Jessica
Speaker 1: beec I am Akshadrati. Back later this week.