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Speaker 1: Welcome to Zero. I am Akshatrati this week imagining Utopia

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Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five. I love reading science fiction, and

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Speaker 1: one of the sci fi writers who has had an

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Speaker 1: impact on me in recent years is Kim Stanley Robinson.

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Speaker 1: Stan is perhaps best known for his Mars trilogy, published

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Speaker 1: in the nineteen nineties, but Zero listeners are likely to

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Speaker 1: know him for his writings over the past decade on

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Speaker 1: what climate futures here on Earth might look like. Be

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Speaker 1: it the underwater metropolis he imagined in his novel New

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Speaker 1: York twenty one forty, or how a United Nations agency

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Speaker 1: and its dark wing of eco terrorists tackle the climate

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Speaker 1: crisis in his book The Ministry for the Future. Stan

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Speaker 1: has been a guest on Zero before, but I wanted

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Speaker 1: to speak with him again because that book, The Ministry

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Speaker 1: for the Future has been on my mind recently. Although

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Speaker 1: it was published in twenty twenty, The story in the

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Speaker 1: book kicks off in the year twenty twenty five, and

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Speaker 1: well here we are. The book opens just after a

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Speaker 1: fictional COP twenty nine summit, as a deadly heat wave

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Speaker 1: hits India. The plot follows the choices faced by United

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Speaker 1: Nations officials in a new department called the Ministry for

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Speaker 1: the Future, as they try to cope with the spiraling

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Speaker 1: impacts of a warming planet. With twenty twenty five upon us,

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Speaker 1: I wanted to see how Stan was feeling about the

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Speaker 1: book's version of this timeline and find out what he

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Speaker 1: thought about the unpredictable direction real life events have taken

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Speaker 1: since he wrote it. We talked about the value of

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Speaker 1: science fiction as a way to see into the future,

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Speaker 1: as well as sci fi's dangers, and why a writer

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Speaker 1: who admires science and technology so much still remains enamored

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Speaker 1: with the unglamorous work of a body like the Yuan.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the show.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, Aukshott. It's good to be back.

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Speaker 1: So I listened to our conversation from a couple of

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Speaker 1: years ago, and I have to say you sounded optimistic,

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Speaker 1: and in twenty twenty three there were good reasons to

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Speaker 1: be optimistic. We talked about how after the Paris Agreement,

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Speaker 1: when the world was headed towards maybe four or five

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Speaker 1: degrees celsius of warming, we had these forces come together,

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Speaker 1: including the US turning around and having a climate law passed,

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Speaker 1: and there was a general sense of coherence in the

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Speaker 1: world trying to do something about climate change at a scale. Finally,

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Speaker 1: So now here we are sitting at the start of

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, the exact time period when the Ministry

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Speaker 1: for the Future sort of gets started on his journey,

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Speaker 1: and I thought it might be interesting to just revisit

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Speaker 1: and update our outlooks of where we are, sort of

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Speaker 1: a check in. We are in the future you were

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Speaker 1: imagining today it is here.

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Speaker 2: How are you feeling well? I want to say first

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Speaker 2: that you're in a better position to judge the situation

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Speaker 2: than I am, given your work, and that you're talking

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Speaker 2: to everybody, and I'd be very interested to hear your impressions.

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Speaker 2: As for me here in Davis, California, just looking out

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Speaker 2: at the world, I have this sense that everything is accelerating.

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Speaker 2: And that was already true in twenty twenty two. I

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Speaker 2: had realized that the dates that I had put in

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Speaker 2: Ministry for the Future were all wrong, and that I

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Speaker 2: had set things out happening in the far future of

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Speaker 2: a few decades from now that were going to happen

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Speaker 2: one way or another in the twenty twenty So the

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Speaker 2: acceleration seems to stay. You'll be speeding up, and I

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Speaker 2: mean by this, both bad things and good things. And

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Speaker 2: I suppose I should address what looks to be the

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Speaker 2: big reversal, which is the unexpected reelection of Donald Trump.

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Speaker 2: At least it wasn't expected by me. I had it

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Speaker 2: called exactly backwards. And I'm still shocked and dismayed. But

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Speaker 2: I'll point out that my novel Ministry for the Future

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Speaker 2: was written during Trump years. I was very angry then,

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Speaker 2: and it postulated a world in which the United States

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Speaker 2: was not a major player in dealing with climate change.

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Speaker 2: It was really the other nations of the world driving

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Speaker 2: the process out of necessity, and the United States being

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Speaker 2: a somewhat big rich kid and narcissistic child in the background,

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Speaker 2: being dragged along into the adult world of reality. And

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Speaker 2: maybe that's again a little bit true. But a lot

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Speaker 2: of things happened between twenty twenty and twenty twenty four

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Speaker 2: that are now path dependent in their own good way.

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Speaker 2: The good things have been speeding up as well as

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Speaker 2: the bad things. It's simply cheaper to build new clean

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Speaker 2: energy than old dirty energy, and this is crucial in

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Speaker 2: a capitalist world that every source of investment that isn't

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Speaker 2: government is looking for some kind of highest rate of return,

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Speaker 2: and if there is a higher rate of return that

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Speaker 2: can come to doing a green project rather than a

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Speaker 2: dirty project, then it will get done. So some guardrails

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Speaker 2: have changed a little. The I rebuild that the Biaden

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Speaker 2: administration got pasted was very important because it shows that

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Speaker 2: it's not just a matter of carbon quantitative easying of

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Speaker 2: the central banks and the government's cooking up new money,

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Speaker 2: which I think is important and really needs to happen,

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Speaker 2: but also simply legislation that legislators of the world, when

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Speaker 2: they vote in climate action, economic activities, and investments in

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Speaker 2: private businesses in their nation, states that good things can

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Speaker 2: happen and that they multiply.

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Speaker 1: I think you're right in that, yes, clean energy has

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Speaker 1: become cheaper than dirty energy, and that fact has sunk in.

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Speaker 1: But there are ways in which dirty energy is made

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Speaker 1: cheaper artificially to keep its life going, and we're going

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Speaker 1: to see a lot more of that. But I just

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Speaker 1: wanted to come back to the ministry because to me,

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Speaker 1: it is a good framework to start from. The climate

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Speaker 1: problem is a problem created of inequality, and there is

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Speaker 1: no way to solve it without bringing more equality to

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Speaker 1: bear on the planet. That is in the form of

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Speaker 1: wealth transfer, in technology transfer, in creating a carbon space

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Speaker 1: for developing countries to use, and COP meetings are the

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Speaker 1: place where that conversation around inequality comes to bear, and

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Speaker 1: the ministry for the future is created through the COP framework.

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Speaker 1: As you imagine. And you've been a regular listener of

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Speaker 1: this show, and I'm guessing you've followed the coverage of

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Speaker 1: what happened at COP twenty nine. How do you think

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Speaker 1: this year's COP stacks up against what you imagine cops

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Speaker 1: to be doing.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's pretty in line with the previous cops and

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Speaker 2: with what I portrayed in my book, which is a

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Speaker 2: process that is you might call necessary but not sufficient,

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Speaker 2: or a set of public promises in a society of

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Speaker 2: the spectacle where at least it gets discussed every years

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Speaker 2: in a way that the world pays attention to. So

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Speaker 2: I still think the COP process is crucial, but it's

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Speaker 2: not enough because it's built on a consensus model, so

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Speaker 2: it's necessarily glacially slow. So necessary but not sufficient. And

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Speaker 2: the other things have to happen that we're all doing

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Speaker 2: in individual nation states and in the internationally, just in

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Speaker 2: terms of trade and international relations that are more tangible

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Speaker 2: than the promises made at COP and their good things

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Speaker 2: can happen. Now, I want to point out that in

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Speaker 2: my Ministry for the Future, it starts as a tiny,

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Speaker 2: little functionary agency that is trying to rally year round

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Speaker 2: support to get COP promises adhere to. And in a way,

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Speaker 2: it's kind of an invention that creates a point of

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Speaker 2: view for a novel that is legible in that there's

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Speaker 2: characters with a plot. But at the same time, last September,

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Speaker 2: the UN out of the Secretary General's Office, issued a

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Speaker 2: Pact for the Future during their Summit of the Future,

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Speaker 2: which was their name for Climate Week last September. And

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Speaker 2: they're appointing an Envoy for the Future.

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Speaker 1: So well, you know that that sounds a lot like

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Speaker 1: the Ministry for the Future run by the UN in

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Speaker 1: your book. So did the book inspire this pact?

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Speaker 2: Yes, they tell me that it did it. They thought, oh,

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Speaker 2: what a good idea. And I have to say that

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Speaker 2: the UN's story is weirdly, you know, in some senses

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Speaker 2: the secret masters of the Universe in their black helicopters

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Speaker 2: and ultra powerful and then also at the same time

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Speaker 2: and maybe more accurately, another place of promises where all

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Speaker 2: the nation states go to talk to each other without

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Speaker 2: any power in particular of its own. The UN has

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Speaker 2: a lot of consensus, but it also has the post

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Speaker 2: World War two structure that means that it is not

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Speaker 2: a gigantically effective agency. So a novel that says, oh

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Speaker 2: my gosh, we got something done in the world by

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Speaker 2: something coming out of the UN. Naturally, my novel is

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Speaker 2: popular there amongst those young diplomats, and they're feeling like

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Speaker 2: the world is spinning out of their control, like all

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Speaker 2: of us, feel they're doing the best that they can,

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Speaker 2: and they think this is maybe one tool to focus

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Speaker 2: on the future, to focus on the narrative of the

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Speaker 2: member states nation states becoming member states in something larger

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Speaker 2: that manages to cope successfully with climate change. So yes,

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Speaker 2: by telling that story from that point of view, I

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Speaker 2: have inspired that particular group of people.

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Speaker 1: And fiction does have real consequences. We talked about some

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Speaker 1: of them in our last conversation. Another one that happened

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Speaker 1: is that Oxford University launched the Ministry for the Future

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Speaker 1: at Hartford College. There's supposed to be some real life

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Speaker 1: efforts being put underneath that. What do you hope those

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Speaker 1: can accomplish well?

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Speaker 2: It's a wonderful thing for me to see because Oxford

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Speaker 2: is a very powerful collection of smart and energetic people

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Speaker 2: who are very devoted to the cause of trying to

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Speaker 2: help the world. So an Oxford Ministry for the Future

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Speaker 2: is kind of a gathering space. It's not quite a

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Speaker 2: research center, not quite a think tank, series of public events,

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Speaker 2: and what I hope is that it will workshop ideas

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Speaker 2: for how to create a new political economy that's adequate

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Speaker 2: to coping with climate change. So they want it to

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Speaker 2: be a place of public outreach, of changing hearts and minds,

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Speaker 2: of explaining the story, of organizing the narrative and repeating

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Speaker 2: it and over and over again. It's not exactly a collaboration,

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Speaker 2: but I am a sort of senior advisor, instant le emeritus.

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Speaker 2: I'm hoping to a push to make sure that we

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Speaker 2: make it something that is of interest to the audiences

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Speaker 2: who come to it or hear about it.

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Speaker 1: So, as a science nerd, I have always seen technology

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Speaker 1: growth as a way to imagine futures, not just near futures,

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Speaker 1: but long futures. And that's why I love reading science fiction.

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Speaker 1: That's why I love reading the work you've put out

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Speaker 1: over the years. But there is a side of me,

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Speaker 1: as a journalist who sort of focused on the now,

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Speaker 1: who is to think about the near future because that's

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Speaker 1: my job that I'm noticing. Maybe it is politics, maybe

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Speaker 1: it is social media. Maybe it is the way we

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Speaker 1: consume media in general. That we as a people are

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Speaker 1: imagining the future less and less, or we are imagining

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Speaker 1: the future much nearer, that our horizons are not as

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Speaker 1: far as they used to be. Is that a perception

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Speaker 1: that is accurate or is it just in my mind?

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Speaker 2: I think climate change, since the pandemic is at least

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Speaker 2: ten times more prominent in everybody's minds, the world mind

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Speaker 2: than it was before. If a pandemic can punch us

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Speaker 2: in the nose, kill one out of every thousand persons,

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Speaker 2: and that's a success because it could have been far worse.

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Speaker 2: But we organize quickly to make up these vaccines. Climate

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Speaker 2: change could do that and make it even worse. It's

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Speaker 2: the poly crisis, as Adam Tooz calls it, all of

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Speaker 2: the crises of pollution of pandemics coming out of the

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Speaker 2: natural world, and then also the various political complications of

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Speaker 2: our own making. So there's a poly crisis. Well, I

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Speaker 2: feel like attention to that in the twenty twenties is

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Speaker 2: such that the farther futures are and this is finally

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Speaker 2: getting to answer in your questions. You don't think about, oh,

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Speaker 2: what will happen when we go to the stars, which

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Speaker 2: is always impossible. You don't even think about, oh, what

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Speaker 2: about the greatness that will happen when we all live

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Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty years and it's the year twenty

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Speaker 2: four hundred? Who can think that? When we are having

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Speaker 2: trouble thinking our way through the twenty first century. So

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Speaker 2: science fiction has collapsed to near future science fiction is

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Speaker 2: one way to call it.

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Speaker 1: And that difficulty of having sort of the world mind

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Speaker 1: or so many pieces of information held together to try

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Speaker 1: and make sense of the moment often collapses for individuals

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Speaker 1: in sort of the vibe, the emotion that is driving you,

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Speaker 1: and one that I think can be classed as the

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Speaker 1: emotion of twenty twenty five is we are starting off

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Speaker 1: on a bleak note. So is there a way if

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Speaker 1: I were to force you to imagine a utopia? Because

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Speaker 1: I know you do that sometimes for twenty twenty five?

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Speaker 2: What could it be an interesting question? And I think

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Speaker 2: it's possible there will be a realization that you can't

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Speaker 2: count on the leadership of the United States, and I

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Speaker 2: mean by that the leadership of the United States in

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Speaker 2: the world, but also the leadership of the United States

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Speaker 2: in terms of the incoming administration, which is looking to

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Speaker 2: be a kind of clown show. What would be the

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Speaker 2: utopian story is how there's always been idiots at the

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Speaker 2: top of the system and the governments of the world,

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Speaker 2: the bureaucrats, the technocrats, the scientists, the teachers. Society is resilient.

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Speaker 2: Civil society is real in which we help each other

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Speaker 2: out in daily life, transcend fools at the top shouting

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Speaker 2: and trying to wreck the system. So we have a

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Speaker 2: soap opera, But is the soap opera actually wreaking the

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Speaker 2: damage that it pretends that it wants to wreak. Everybody

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Speaker 2: actually wants their daily life to continue as best it

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Speaker 2: can in a positive direction. Everybody's stressed out, everybody's in

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Speaker 2: the precariat. The last thing you need is for the

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Speaker 2: soap app that the talk to actually be meaningful. And

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Speaker 2: if life goes on for everybody in their ordinary daily existence,

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Speaker 2: substantially the same. Because of the path dependencies of all

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Speaker 2: of our systems and the kind of resiliency of civil

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Speaker 2: society that in itself will be a victory. And I'm

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Speaker 2: not saying it's a sure thing by any means. This

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Speaker 2: is sort of an experiment. And how strong is the

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Speaker 2: American system If there is a group at the top

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Speaker 2: trying to wreck it, deliberately trying to wreck it, we'll

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Speaker 2: see we are in a corrupt political system and there's

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Speaker 2: huge challenges to democracy. On the other hand, votes are

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Speaker 2: still votes, and it's not entirely possible to buy them.

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Speaker 2: So it's a mix, right, It's a you can't actually

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Speaker 2: give up. You can't actually start celebrating. The twenty twenties

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Speaker 2: were always going to be a kind of crux in

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Speaker 2: human history, and they still are. And it might be

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Speaker 2: that the crux goes on for a decade longer than that.

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Speaker 2: It's not at all inevitable that things are going to

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Speaker 2: be all right, given the tendency of the forces of

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Speaker 2: disordered rising. But the situation is not impossible either, And

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Speaker 2: I guess you know is that the utopian statement the

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Speaker 2: good result is not impossible. Yet.

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Speaker 1: We've sort of talked about some of the things that

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Speaker 1: are big in front of our minds and on the

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Speaker 1: front pages of headlines. But they're also smaller things that

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Speaker 1: could become big that I would like to touch on.

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Speaker 1: So one that I know both you and I have

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Speaker 1: been interested in is Colombia's efforts to try and move

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Speaker 1: away from fossil fuels. Now, Columbia extracts coal and oil

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Speaker 1: and gas, and its economy has been dependent on it

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Speaker 1: for quite some time. But it is the first sort

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Speaker 1: of big and it's not very big, but it's still

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Speaker 1: a big ish producer of fossil fuels that has signed

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Speaker 1: up to the Fossil Fuel Non Proliferation Treaty. We had

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Speaker 1: Minister Susanna Muhammad, who has the Environment Ministry under her

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Speaker 1: talk on this podcast. And I know you've been thinking

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Speaker 1: about how this is going to play out, you wrote

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Speaker 1: to me after listening to that episode. So when you

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Speaker 1: try and imagine a future where a country has to

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Speaker 1: build its entire economy anew to move away from the

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Speaker 1: old stuff because the old stuff just can't continue at

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Speaker 1: current pace, how do you think that happened?

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Speaker 2: Well, thank you for that. I'm really interested in it.

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Speaker 2: The Petro states, those nations that depend on more than

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Speaker 2: fifty percent of their income on selling their fossil fuels.

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Speaker 2: They have also signed the Paris Agreement, and so they're

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Speaker 2: in a double bind. They are on the one hand

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Speaker 2: promising to stop selling fossil fuels. On the other hand,

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Speaker 2: that will bankrupt them and they could become failed states.

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Speaker 2: And we're talking about well more than a billion people

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Speaker 2: these petro states. What happens then we can't afford in

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Speaker 2: social senses to have failed states left right and center.

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Speaker 2: They need help. How could it come? Well, there's the

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Speaker 2: Loss and Damage Fund, there's a Paris Agreement itself, and

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Speaker 2: this Fossil Fuel's Non Proliferation Treaty is really important as

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Speaker 2: a framework that if a nation like Columbia, who is

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Speaker 2: a great example because they're the fifth biggest coal producer

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Speaker 2: on Earth, if they say we want to stop, help us.

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Speaker 2: Help needs to come. So at that point you need

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Speaker 2: a system that is arranged sort of like the cop

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Speaker 2: processes Lost in Damage or like the International Monetary Fund's

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Speaker 2: Special Drawing Rights, which is a mechanism to help countries

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Speaker 2: that are in trouble in paying their debts to get

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Speaker 2: them the money that they need. And so this system

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Speaker 2: would have to have these aspects of it that I've

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Speaker 2: considered and I throw it out there for others to consider.

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Speaker 2: It would need to be a discounted compensation. They can't

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Speaker 2: be paid as much as they would be for fossil

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Speaker 2: fuels as they stand on the market now that's like

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Speaker 2: one six hundred trillion dollars. What you would need is

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Speaker 2: a discounted system. They take a haircut. Also, it would

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Speaker 2: have to be amortized so that they get paid out

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Speaker 2: over a century like it would have been if the

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Speaker 2: fossil fuels had been burned, and then every country that

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Speaker 2: signs on would be getting a steady payment that would

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Speaker 2: also be entailed. You'd be signing something like the Extractive

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Speaker 2: Industry's Transparency Initiative eiiti that already exists, just like the

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Speaker 2: Fossil Fuels Non Proliferation Treaty and the IMF Special Drawing

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Speaker 2: Rights and the cop Loss and Damage Fund that three

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Speaker 2: hundred billion dollars was just promised into. When a nation

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Speaker 2: signed on that line, they would then have an income

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Speaker 2: stream that they had promised to keep from being corrupted,

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Speaker 2: and that it would be devoted to green projects and

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Speaker 2: the clean transition. And that way there would be a

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Speaker 2: a financial inducement for signing the Fossil Fuels Non Proliferation

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Speaker 2: Treaty and then also the physical and financial help to

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Speaker 2: make that transition possible and save these countries from falling

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Speaker 2: into dysfunction by way of bankruptcy and social disorder. It

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Speaker 2: seems to me it has to happen. And I've talked

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Speaker 2: to people about it at OECD and in other places,

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Speaker 2: other venues, other people in places of power, including the UN,

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Speaker 2: and I have to say it usually gets a cool

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Speaker 2: response or a visible shutter of oh my god. You know,

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Speaker 2: the Saudi's suggested something like that, even though they're rich

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Speaker 2: as creases, et cetera. Well, none of the past is

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Speaker 2: really relevant now in this respect, We've got seventy five

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Speaker 2: percent of the fossil fuels on this earth owned by

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Speaker 2: nation states that have governments that are responsible to their people,

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Speaker 2: and accommodation simply must be made. And when the question

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Speaker 2: then follows, oh, well, where could that much money come from,

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Speaker 2: you just answer quantitative easing. You point to two thousand

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Speaker 2: and eight, you point to twenty twenty. At the start

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Speaker 2: of the pandemic, trillions were generated. I'm gonna say out

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Speaker 2: of thin air, because the mechanisms involved are complicated, but

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Speaker 2: in fact, federal governments, central banks make up new money

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Speaker 2: all the time. The money can be made. And I'll

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Speaker 2: end with this, John Maynard Keynes really the most important

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Speaker 2: economists for our current moment. I would say, anything that

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Speaker 2: we have to do, we can afford to do.

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Speaker 1: After the break, more of my conversation with sci fi

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Speaker 1: writer Kim Stanley Robinson. And by the way, if you've

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Speaker 1: been enjoying this episode, please take a moment to rate

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Speaker 1: and review the show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. It

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Speaker 1: helps other listeners find the show. Well. There is a

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Speaker 1: yearning in the politics today of the past, of a

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Speaker 1: period where I don't know, gender, racial, wealth, hierarchies were enforced.

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Speaker 1: And it feels contradictory to me because you know, if

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Speaker 1: I were to be born anytime in history and I

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Speaker 1: had the choice, I would be born today because it's

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Speaker 1: a pretty good time to be born. You have a

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Speaker 1: whole set of diseases that we know how to defeat.

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Speaker 1: You have the ability to be able to travel across continents,

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Speaker 1: you have the ability to be able to speak to

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Speaker 1: anybody in any corner of the world for almost free,

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Speaker 1: and yet there is this yearning for the past. How

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Speaker 1: do you make sense of this yearning for the past

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Speaker 1: where none of these good things existed.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's a kind of a mistake. It's nostalgia, the

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Speaker 2: ache of the lost home, nostalgia in Greek. Nostalgia is

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Speaker 2: a very powerful feeling. I feel it myself, but it's

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Speaker 2: almost always a category error. What are you regretting your youth?

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Speaker 2: Your childhood? The world itself was just as messed up then,

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Speaker 2: and as you point out, it was often in many

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Speaker 2: material ways, much worse than now. But you don't know that.

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Speaker 2: Your lived experience is when you were younger, you were healthier,

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Speaker 2: Your life lay before you as a set of open

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Speaker 2: possibilities or a struggle to be had. But in any case,

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Speaker 2: nostalgia for the past is always a kind of delusion

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Speaker 2: that one has because the future is scary. Individually, you're

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Speaker 2: going to end up falling apart somehow and dying. The

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Speaker 2: future never looks particularly good for the individual. For the collective,

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Speaker 2: you can imagine that things will go on for our descendants,

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Speaker 2: and that they will be in a better world, and

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Speaker 2: that's the solace of being human. I myself am very

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Speaker 2: much in love with science right now. I should be

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Speaker 2: dead at this point. Medical science has saved me now twice.

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Speaker 2: I'm very grateful. I'm very cognizant that science is a

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Speaker 2: force for good, is a Utaon'tian effort in the world

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Speaker 2: that is making us all of our necessities and all

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Speaker 2: of our toys, and that when people are anti science,

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Speaker 2: when they speak against it, when they get sick, they'll

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Speaker 2: run to a scientist. So it isn't real. It's another

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Speaker 2: not a nostalgia, but a denial of reality that there's

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Speaker 2: this collective force in the world, a group of people

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Speaker 2: following a method that is enormously productive and is saving

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Speaker 2: our lives and keeping us going, and who knows what

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Speaker 2: it might accomplish in the future as a collective effort.

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Speaker 1: As somebody who trained in the sciences, I find it

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Speaker 1: are that most woments around the world do not have

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Speaker 1: more people with training in the sciences in the cabinet

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Speaker 1: of the highest level. But we might see some of

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Speaker 1: that coming through in the White House this time. There's

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Speaker 1: a bunch of Silicon Valley people who are yes investors,

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Speaker 1: but have science trainings, who want to come in with

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Speaker 1: ideas that may seem quite dangerous and are there dangers

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Speaker 1: of sci fi thinking that you could articulate.

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Speaker 2: Well, you've got to destrand that there's scientists and there's engineers.

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Speaker 2: So Silicon Valley is not a bunch of scientists. It's

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Speaker 2: a bunch of computer programmers. They're engineers, and they've read

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Speaker 2: science fiction and they have often become rich by being lucky,

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Speaker 2: and then they think they're smart. And so that crowd

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Speaker 2: in power is dangerous because they can be nice people.

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Speaker 2: It's suspicious how well that ninety five percent of them

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Speaker 2: are men. That's a sign that something's wrong in that

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Speaker 2: whole social world. But in any case, that crowd is

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Speaker 2: not to be trusted because often politically and philosophically they're

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Speaker 2: intensely naive. They seize on one idea and then that

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Speaker 2: explains everything, and because they're rich, they think they know

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Speaker 2: it all. Now, I am overgeneralizing here, and in my

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Speaker 2: own personal acquaintanceships with billionaires, because I am near Silicon

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Speaker 2: Valley and I am a science fiction writer, I've met

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Speaker 2: a few. They are very often nice guys. They are

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Speaker 2: very often meaning well. They are very often Democrats rather

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Speaker 2: than Republicans. So you have to go to soap opera

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Speaker 2: land to get a kind of a unicorn figure like

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Speaker 2: Elon Musk, who is particularly wealthy but particularly volatile and unhelpful,

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Speaker 2: you might say in his narcissism. Not all of the

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Speaker 2: Silicon Valley computer billionaires who go to Washington are going

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00:26:58,400 --> 00:27:00,399
Speaker 2: to be narcissists. A lot of them are going to

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00:27:00,440 --> 00:27:02,920
Speaker 2: be solid citizens, saying I've got more money than I need.

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00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:05,800
Speaker 2: Why don't we have progressive taxation? And also, why don't

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00:27:05,840 --> 00:27:08,280
Speaker 2: you try plan A, B, and C that we have

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00:27:08,400 --> 00:27:13,080
Speaker 2: carefully tested and it might work. So again, the technocrats,

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00:27:13,200 --> 00:27:16,199
Speaker 2: the billionaires, none of them can be trusted to be

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Speaker 2: the solution. In a way. It's like saying AI will

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00:27:20,200 --> 00:27:26,240
Speaker 2: solve a problems. These are artificial intelligences. These individual humans.

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Speaker 2: They're natural, but they're artificial in the sense of why

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00:27:29,560 --> 00:27:33,040
Speaker 2: are they so wealthy? The solution always comes from elsewhere,

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00:27:33,040 --> 00:27:35,240
Speaker 2: But actually it's a more collective thing. Really.

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00:27:35,560 --> 00:27:41,840
Speaker 1: Now, last question, fun question. If there was a wish

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00:27:41,920 --> 00:27:44,919
Speaker 1: that could be granted to you, it could be anything

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00:27:44,920 --> 00:27:49,280
Speaker 1: a climate fake, some investment, a particular technology, a policy change,

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00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:53,360
Speaker 1: diplomatic breakthrough, societal change, whatever. What would you ask for

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Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five?

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Speaker 2: Wow, I mean this is so hard. This is I

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Speaker 2: would ask for three more wishes to come true. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: I'll go back to the just the political economy level

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Speaker 2: because really this is Bloomberg Green, and I want to

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00:28:14,480 --> 00:28:18,200
Speaker 2: say again, thanks to Bloomberg Green. I followed it intensely

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00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:21,080
Speaker 2: through the last COP twenty nine by far the best

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00:28:21,119 --> 00:28:23,679
Speaker 2: reporting of COP twenty nine that I'm aware of, and

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00:28:23,800 --> 00:28:27,760
Speaker 2: just keeping people aware of the world of politics and economy,

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00:28:27,880 --> 00:28:31,520
Speaker 2: of business and government in interaction with each other. It's

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00:28:31,560 --> 00:28:34,760
Speaker 2: it's really crucial stuff. So at that level, I would

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00:28:34,800 --> 00:28:39,520
Speaker 2: say the European Union shows what happens when nation states

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00:28:39,720 --> 00:28:44,360
Speaker 2: become member states, and so the European Union is powerful

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Speaker 2: even though it includes many little countries that are in

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00:28:47,840 --> 00:28:51,000
Speaker 2: economic trouble, but they're part of a larger hole. They

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Speaker 2: hang together. It's fractious, it's difficult, it's hard to work it,

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00:28:55,960 --> 00:28:58,600
Speaker 2: but it's a change of consciousness in that when you're

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00:28:58,640 --> 00:29:02,520
Speaker 2: a member state, you have a different financial, legal, and

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00:29:02,760 --> 00:29:07,840
Speaker 2: emotional set of circumstances that guide you. If something like

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00:29:07,880 --> 00:29:12,040
Speaker 2: the UN or the WTO or the OECD taken seriously,

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00:29:12,360 --> 00:29:15,280
Speaker 2: as if those organizations had teeth and you had to

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00:29:15,360 --> 00:29:18,280
Speaker 2: do what was agreed there because you were a member

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00:29:18,360 --> 00:29:22,840
Speaker 2: in good standing, well that would make a huge difference now,

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00:29:23,040 --> 00:29:26,280
Speaker 2: who's most likely to ignore and flaunt that forever The

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Speaker 2: United States of America. The US has this slim majority

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00:29:31,520 --> 00:29:33,440
Speaker 2: that lives in a fantasy of, Oh, we can go

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00:29:33,520 --> 00:29:37,160
Speaker 2: it all alone. We're the best, not the best, can't

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00:29:37,200 --> 00:29:40,760
Speaker 2: go it alone. These fantasies hopefully will lose at the

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Speaker 2: ballot box after the probably spectacularly stupid political events at

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00:29:47,480 --> 00:29:50,360
Speaker 2: the top over the next couple of years, and then

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00:29:50,560 --> 00:29:52,880
Speaker 2: maybe that would be like the last flaring out of

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00:29:53,080 --> 00:29:58,040
Speaker 2: some resentful minority that's losing its power to the world majority.

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Speaker 2: Who knows, But here's my wish that every nation state

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Speaker 2: took its membership in the larger organizations dead seriously as

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Speaker 2: a guide to action, and then climate change would have

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Speaker 2: a chance to be solved by us.

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Speaker 1: Well, I didn't see it coming that. You want the

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Speaker 1: G twenty to be a real power. Thank you Stam,

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Speaker 1: Thank you Akshat.

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Speaker 2: It's been a pleasure.

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Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to zero. And now for the

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00:30:33,560 --> 00:30:48,000
Speaker 1: sound of the week. That's the sound of the trailer

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00:30:48,040 --> 00:30:51,880
Speaker 1: of a nineteen eighty three film called Endgame, which takes

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00:30:51,920 --> 00:30:54,840
Speaker 1: place in a fictional twenty twenty five, but of course

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00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:57,560
Speaker 1: it sounds a lot like nineteen eighty three and clearly

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00:30:57,720 --> 00:31:01,680
Speaker 1: no one imagined electric vehicles would be a thing. If

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00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:03,640
Speaker 1: you liked this episode, please take a moment to rate

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00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:06,480
Speaker 1: or review the show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Share

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00:31:06,520 --> 00:31:09,040
Speaker 1: this episode with a friend or with someone who works

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00:31:09,080 --> 00:31:12,440
Speaker 1: for the United Nations. Zero's producer is Mighty Lee Rao

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00:31:12,640 --> 00:31:15,640
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's Head of podcast is Saige Bauman, and Head of

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00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:18,800
Speaker 1: Talk is Brendan nunim Our. Theme music is composed by

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00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:23,120
Speaker 1: Wonder Lee. Special thanks to Schwan Wagner, Shan Chan, Ethan Steinberg,

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00:31:23,160 --> 00:31:26,160
Speaker 1: and Jessica beck I, am Aksha Thrati back So