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Speaker 1: Thank you, Welcome to Zero. I'm Aaron Rutcoff, executive editor
Speaker 1: of Bloomberg Green. Some of you listening to this podcast are,
Speaker 1: not doubt, among the seventy thousand people traveling to do
Speaker 1: Buy next week for the UN's Annual Climate Summit COP
Speaker 1: twenty eight. It's a huge event and a lot of
Speaker 1: the focus and the lead up has been on one character,
Speaker 1: Sultan all Jobber. He's COP twenty eighth President. He's charged
Speaker 1: with bringing everyone together and settling the Climate Summit's ambitions.
Speaker 1: He is also the head of the United Arabor Emirates
Speaker 1: State Oil Company ADNAC. This was to say the least
Speaker 1: a controversial placement. Earlier this year, Zero's regular host akshat
Speaker 1: Rothi wrote a profile of Sultan al Jobber. I came
Speaker 1: on the podcast to talk to Acshot about it and
Speaker 1: ask him basically what someone like al Jobber's leadership would
Speaker 1: mean for an institution like COP. If you'd like to
Speaker 1: listen to that episode, we've linked to it in the
Speaker 1: show notes. Today we're giving an update about everything that's
Speaker 1: happened over the past six months before Oxshot and the
Speaker 1: rest of the Green team goes to COP next week. Oxshot,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Hey, good to be here.
Speaker 1: All right, let's be honest, Doc Shot. Last time we
Speaker 1: talked about Sultan al Jobber, you just finish chased them
Speaker 1: around the world. We published your profile. That was probably
Speaker 1: the moment of peak Sultan panic in the climate world.
Speaker 1: You were having lots of conversations after the profile came
Speaker 1: out with diplomats and the types of climate people who
Speaker 1: turn up at COP every year, and many of those
Speaker 1: people were saying, you know, maybe quietly, maybe not on
Speaker 1: the record exactly, that they thought COP twenty eight being
Speaker 1: run by an oil ceo inside one of the world's
Speaker 1: biggest oil Nations was going to be somewhere between disappointment
Speaker 1: and a disaster. But you know, we've got here now,
Speaker 1: like six months later, on the eve of COP twenty eight,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't feel like we're really facing down the
Speaker 1: worst case scenario that some of those people were worried about.
Speaker 1: To me, it feels more or less like we're seeing
Speaker 1: the normal kind of disputes and battle lines that happened
Speaker 1: basically before every single cop.
Speaker 3: What do you think you're right for the months after
Speaker 3: the profile came out, that panic had turned into frustration,
Speaker 3: sort of bubbling frustration that little progress is being made
Speaker 3: on clearing up what the agenda at COPP will be,
Speaker 3: because it's a very important thing to start nailing that
Speaker 3: down early. There are just so many issues and so
Speaker 3: many people who care about those issues that to be
Speaker 3: able to come to a consensus, you have to start
Speaker 3: to create what are called in COP language landing zones,
Speaker 3: where you get many countries agreeing on certain things and
Speaker 3: then hash out the details so that everybody can on
Speaker 3: some of those things. And that just wasn't happening. And
Speaker 3: when I was in the UAE, I got told a
Speaker 3: couple of times, look over here, things happen at the
Speaker 3: last minute, and it does feel like things have happened
Speaker 3: in the last minute. There are now some real clear
Speaker 3: landing zones emerging a week before COP twenty eight that
Speaker 3: it feels like there will be an agreement. Now, we
Speaker 3: know by nature of COPS that agreement is never going
Speaker 3: to be enough, but comparing ourselves to February when I
Speaker 3: was doing the profile, there's certainly been plenty of progress.
Speaker 1: One of the signs of the larger potential for agreement
Speaker 1: now is the fact that we're seeing some initial two
Speaker 1: way consensus happening between the US and China, and that's
Speaker 1: usually like the key piece that has to precede anything
Speaker 1: that happens in the bigger COP environment. Can you kind
Speaker 1: of walk us through what we're seeing from those two
Speaker 1: countries right now?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we have two real good examples of this. The
Speaker 3: Paris Agreement happened because there was a US and China
Speaker 3: agreement going into Paris said we are going to try
Speaker 3: and do something on climate, and so it boards well
Speaker 3: for an agreement going into COP twenty eight that US
Speaker 3: and China have agreed on having language around tripling renewable
Speaker 3: energy into the final agreement.
Speaker 1: So let's look at that goal, triple renewables by twenty thirty.
Speaker 1: You know that sounds good, It sounds it sounds really good.
Speaker 1: I think there's something like sixty countries that have already
Speaker 1: signaled there on board with this. You got to get
Speaker 1: up to like almost two hundred, but sixty is a
Speaker 1: really good start. But if I'm being really honest, this
Speaker 1: goal also sounds like something that maybe would come to
Speaker 1: pass almost no matter what. This year twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: even with inflation and high interest rates. In a couple
Speaker 1: of wars, there's been just an absolutely mind boggling amount
Speaker 1: of solar built around the world, and especially in China.
Speaker 1: So is tripling renewables too easy? Should should the goal
Speaker 1: at copy something harder, like producing fossil fuels?
Speaker 3: So just a little bit of context. The reason why
Speaker 3: we are talking about tripling renewable energy is because this
Speaker 3: cop is where a technical thing happen, which is called
Speaker 3: the Global stock take, is the first taking of where
Speaker 3: things stand after the Paris Agreement was signed, and we
Speaker 3: knew going into the technical process that clearly, given that
Speaker 3: emissions are going to hit another new record this year,
Speaker 3: that we are not on the right path and so
Speaker 3: it was incumbent upon the Presidency to come up with
Speaker 3: the response, a political response from all countries to show
Speaker 3: that they are willing to try and fill that gap.
Speaker 3: And so tripling renewable energy is important because it allows
Speaker 3: for supply of clean energy to increase. The other thing
Speaker 3: that is likely going to be agreed upon is doubling
Speaker 3: energy efficiency. Another great thing, because you can use less
Speaker 3: energy to do the same thing. But you're absolutely right,
Speaker 3: just because you're increasing clean energy supply does not mean
Speaker 3: it will lead to reduction in emissions. And that's why
Speaker 3: phasing out fossil fuels is going to be a big
Speaker 3: talking point going into COP twenty Even though the Presidency
Speaker 3: hasn't yet committed to having that on the agenda, we
Speaker 3: know that the European Union is pushing for that language.
Speaker 3: There are some tweaks being made to it, as happens
Speaker 3: with these UN negotiations. The most recent one I heard
Speaker 3: was let's call it an orderly phase down off unabated
Speaker 3: fossil fuels. And maybe that is one place where many
Speaker 3: many countries will agree. But it's a fight that we
Speaker 3: are going to track as we're going to COP twenty eight.
Speaker 1: So our colleague Jendaluis who covers the US Climate Envoy
Speaker 1: John Kerry, and like you, runs around comple like crazy
Speaker 1: for a couple weeks. She's told us that she thinks
Speaker 1: the odds are good for finding that phrase that you
Speaker 1: just said in orderly phase down of unabated fossil fuels,
Speaker 1: that she thinks there's a pretty solid odds we're going
Speaker 1: to see that in the final document that has to
Speaker 1: be produced back insensus. At the very end that final
Speaker 1: communicate is likely where doctor Sultan, as the president, has
Speaker 1: the most amount of leverage. So first I wanted you
Speaker 1: to give us a breakdown of the jargon that you
Speaker 1: just used. We got phase down as opposed to phase out,
Speaker 1: and then there's this word unabated that seems like it's
Speaker 1: a code for something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it gets jogony so quickly because it's what countries
Speaker 3: need to agree on. They don't really care if the
Speaker 3: man on the street understands that language, but it's absolutely
Speaker 3: crucial to understand that language. We've met with businesses who
Speaker 3: then take a cop document and read through line by
Speaker 3: line to see if any of what is being said
Speaker 3: by these countries could become policy, could affect their business.
Speaker 3: So unabated is code for carbon capture technologies. This is
Speaker 3: something we've covered on the podcast previously. We've had two
Speaker 3: guests looking at carbon capture technologies both from smokestacks and
Speaker 3: from the air, and we know these technologies are important
Speaker 3: and will be crucial, but how much do we deploy
Speaker 3: them is a question up for grabs. We know that
Speaker 3: Sultan al Jabber as the president of COP twenty eight,
Speaker 3: but the CEO of an oil company wants oil and
Speaker 3: gas companies to show up at COP with solutions and
Speaker 3: carbon capture is their favorite solution, and so GENS reporting
Speaker 3: shows that there may be agreement around unabated because carbon
Speaker 3: capture technologies are something that many of the players coming
Speaker 3: into COP will be pushing for. And then orderly is
Speaker 3: also code for slow, to make sure that if there
Speaker 3: are panicky situations like a spike in prices or a
Speaker 3: supply crunch or disaster like COVID, that would be latitude
Speaker 3: given for making sure that fossil fuels still are in
Speaker 3: the mix for a little bit longer than perhaps the
Speaker 3: science says.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of actually what we've seen over the
Speaker 1: last year or so following Russia's invasion of Ukraine and
Speaker 1: the European effort to get off of Russian gas. We've
Speaker 1: seen that need for an orderly transition to be a
Speaker 1: justification for building new gas infrastructure in the US and
Speaker 1: elsewhere around the world.
Speaker 3: Right we have, and that means there's going to be
Speaker 3: additional lock in of emissions because these assets one s
Speaker 3: built will have to be paid for through their use
Speaker 3: in the future. But we have also seen a faster
Speaker 3: transition in other places. So even as Europe was struggling
Speaker 3: for fossil fuels and building new infrastructure such as liquified
Speaker 3: natural gas terminals that would import natural gas rather than
Speaker 3: getting it piped from Russia, countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh
Speaker 3: suffered from not having access to gas, and so they
Speaker 3: are now rethinking whether they should rely on gas as
Speaker 3: much when they have access to cheap solar power.
Speaker 1: So I want to also ask you to kind of
Speaker 1: sketch out what these big endgame moments are like. You know,
Speaker 1: I think at the beginning of cop there's hundreds of
Speaker 1: leaders from around the world usually present, and that'll be
Speaker 1: the case this year. Then there's like ten or twelve
Speaker 1: days of kind of the diplomats and the activists and
Speaker 1: everybody else kind of buckling down to business and it's
Speaker 1: a little less flashy. Then there's a moment at the
Speaker 1: very end where we get the high drama and everyone
Speaker 1: kind of tunes back in to see whether or not
Speaker 1: there's going to be a final We've seen in the
Speaker 1: past two years that we've been covering these things together,
Speaker 1: there's been tiers on stage at the very end. There
Speaker 1: have been angry walkouts or almost walkouts. You've spent this
Speaker 1: year trying to understand sultanal job or how he works,
Speaker 1: how he wields power. So how do you think this
Speaker 1: year's endgame is going to play out with him sort
Speaker 1: of at the podium bringing this all to a close.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's quite intense because you've been working for this
Speaker 3: two week period of intense work. You're putting in ten
Speaker 3: twelve fourteen hour days. By the end, people are running
Speaker 3: on very little sleep, and so you do get a
Speaker 3: lot of emotions coming out during the final negotiations. And
Speaker 3: the tears you mentioned were at COP twenty six where
Speaker 3: there was a last minute change that India and China
Speaker 3: and the US requested around the word phase out being
Speaker 3: turned into phase down and island nations were furious, but
Speaker 3: they let it go and Alok Sharma, who is the
Speaker 3: president in the UK, car up broke down. And if
Speaker 3: you're speaking plainly, there isn't very much difference between face
Speaker 3: down and phase out. But if it goes in a
Speaker 3: document that's agreed by two hundred countries, there is a difference.
Speaker 3: One says you will eventually not use fossil fuels. The
Speaker 3: other says you'll just keep using less and less fossil fuels.
Speaker 3: So it was a fight. May I don't know if
Speaker 3: it was worth having, but there you go. We face
Speaker 3: those situations as we go into the negotiations. Now, Sultan
Speaker 3: al Jabber as President has a pedigree of running big organizations.
Speaker 3: He built a clean energy company called Mastar and is
Speaker 3: now chairman of it. He now runs at Not one
Speaker 3: of the world's largest oil companies, and he has been
Speaker 3: empowered by the President of UE to be a minister
Speaker 3: in the government and commit to duties as a minister.
Speaker 3: But the role he is sitting in now is a
Speaker 3: very unique role. You have to bring two hundred countries
Speaker 3: to a consensus. It requires lots of delicate conversations, lots
Speaker 3: of give and take, and these are things that, at
Speaker 3: least from our reporting, are not things that Sultan al
Speaker 3: Jabber has done in the past. He's been a climate diplomat,
Speaker 3: but he hasn't been the leader who runs and who
Speaker 3: decides which is the place that there will be most
Speaker 3: agreement on. So that's probably the final test for Sultan
Speaker 3: al Jabber. Now that he has an agenda that seems
Speaker 3: to move the ball a little bit, will he actually
Speaker 3: be able to get all those countries to agree.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about money, because that's certainly one of
Speaker 1: the levers that are very wealthy country like the UAE
Speaker 1: has to pull here. It's always been one of the
Speaker 1: core central frustrations and disputes between rich and poor countries
Speaker 1: at cop where is the climate money going to come from?
Speaker 1: Just now, before we sat down to talk, there was
Speaker 1: a headline that ran that for the first time, after
Speaker 1: a decade of failing to reach one hundred billion dollars,
Speaker 1: the rich countries in the world, the Europeans, the United States,
Speaker 1: have finally met the goal of honeying up one hundred
Speaker 1: billion dollars in a year to help finance the climate
Speaker 1: needs of poorer countries. So I'm wondering with that as
Speaker 1: a sort of really positive sign coming into a week
Speaker 1: before COP. Do you think there's a deal to be
Speaker 1: had between rich countries and the global south on climate finance?
Speaker 1: What role can Sultan ol Jaber and the UAE play
Speaker 1: and kind of bringing together leap forward in one of
Speaker 1: the places where the world's always lag behind.
Speaker 3: So climate finance becomes a very complex issue very quickly.
Speaker 3: And earlier this year we had avinash Parsod, who's an
Speaker 3: economist in Barbados, come up on the podcast and really
Speaker 3: explain it in detail, and we'll link to that episode
Speaker 3: in the show notes. But the simplest way he put
Speaker 3: it was to think about it in three buckets. The
Speaker 3: biggest bucket is money that would go to word projects
Speaker 3: that would reduce emissions. Second biggest bucket is money that
Speaker 3: would go to deal with the impacts so adapt to
Speaker 3: the warming. And then the third biggest bucket would be
Speaker 3: to compensate for the damages that would be caused by
Speaker 3: climate impacts going into COP. The one hundred billion dollar
Speaker 3: figure is for the first two buckets that was agreed
Speaker 3: on in two thousand and nine and was supposed to
Speaker 3: be met by twenty twenty. That slowly developed countries would
Speaker 3: start giving more and more money every year, and buy
Speaker 3: twenty twenty they will give one hundred billion dollars every
Speaker 3: year until twenty twenty five, and then there will be
Speaker 3: more money coming. But that's for another COP. Finally, it
Speaker 3: seems according to our reporting that twenty twenty two is
Speaker 3: the year they finally met it. But for context, the
Speaker 3: total energy transition money that we need is four and
Speaker 3: a half trillion dollars, so it's kind of small money.
Speaker 3: We're already now looking at the third bucket, the loss
Speaker 3: and damage bucket, the bucket that caught some agreement at
Speaker 3: COP twenty seven that there would be a fund created,
Speaker 3: and we know now that at COP twenty eight there
Speaker 3: is an outline for what that fund would look like,
Speaker 3: and those details will be hashed out in the negotiations.
Speaker 3: This is where as you say, UAE as a rich country,
Speaker 3: could make a real difference.
Speaker 1: And damage the third bucket. I mean, this is something
Speaker 1: that gets called, you know, with some dispute behind it,
Speaker 1: climate reparations. Right, let's just explain how if this lost
Speaker 1: and damage fund existed, how it would work, who would
Speaker 1: get to drawn and where the money might come from.
Speaker 3: Yeah, those are very live conversations and that's what's going
Speaker 3: to be negotiated on the outline we've got so far
Speaker 3: is that in the interim, the World Bank is likely
Speaker 3: to host the fund. That fund will have to have
Speaker 3: contributions and very specifically voluntary contributions from all kinds of people,
Speaker 3: not just countries. Maybe philanthropies will put money, maybe corporations
Speaker 3: will put money in it. We don't know what the sum,
Speaker 3: what the total sum of that fund would be. We
Speaker 3: also don't yet have rules on how money will be
Speaker 3: drawn out from that fund or who will be eligible
Speaker 3: to draw that money out.
Speaker 1: We'll be back right after the break. If one of
Speaker 1: the big ongoing themes of UN climate summits is you
Speaker 1: know where is the money? You know, one of the
Speaker 1: answers is the UAE is extremely wealthy financial center. What
Speaker 1: can we expect to see the UA do to kind
Speaker 1: of bridge one of these constant gaps?
Speaker 3: So a good faith contribution coming to the Lost and
Speaker 3: Damage Fund from developed countries and the UA would be
Speaker 3: very very welcome by developing countries, and we're talking about
Speaker 3: it in billions of dollars. We know that the European
Speaker 3: Union has already said it will put in quotes substantial
Speaker 3: amount of money towards the fund. We also heard from
Speaker 3: John Kerry, the Special Climate on y for the US,
Speaker 3: who said the US will put several million dollars and
Speaker 3: that coused a ton of outrage among green groups. The UA,
Speaker 3: we understand, has a desire to contribute billions of dollars,
Speaker 3: but I think it's going to try and bring as
Speaker 3: many people to the table to contribute money towards this
Speaker 3: fund so that the fund can be substantial, and that
Speaker 3: would go a long way in making sure developing countries
Speaker 3: sign off on some of the major commitments at COP.
Speaker 1: So once this starts for the next two weeks, what
Speaker 1: is sultanel Jober doing during cop And I know we
Speaker 1: are talking about it like it's just one man, but
Speaker 1: there's obviously a large staff behind him. But what does
Speaker 1: exerting the role of president or leader look like in
Speaker 1: a diplomatic circus like this?
Speaker 3: It is a lot of listening to different groups on
Speaker 3: what are the sticking points, what are the big barriers
Speaker 3: for agreement, and then coming to a place where the
Speaker 3: president is able to figure out what could be compromises
Speaker 3: that one country group could make with another country. Group,
Speaker 3: so there could be agreement between them, and he left
Speaker 3: to do this again and again and again for the
Speaker 3: many things that are there on the agenda. So it's
Speaker 3: an exhausting process. Already. He's been doing that all through
Speaker 3: the year, the listening tour that he talks about, where
Speaker 3: he's gone around the world trying to understand what is
Speaker 3: it that countries want. But now in these two concentrated weeks,
Speaker 3: all that work is going to either pay off or backfire.
Speaker 1: Why did the United airb Memorates want to play host here?
Speaker 1: What's in it for a country bringing this really difficult
Speaker 1: challenge to their doorstep.
Speaker 3: This would be the biggest diplomatic exercise that the UE
Speaker 3: has committed to in history. We expect many, many were
Speaker 3: leaders showing up in one country. And yes, it's a
Speaker 3: big oil economy, it's rich, but it's never hosted anything
Speaker 3: of this heft before. So the UE is very clear
Speaker 3: it wants to show itself as the place in geopolitics
Speaker 3: where it can speak to the US and to Russia,
Speaker 3: it can speak to China and to the EU that
Speaker 3: it can be a champion of small island countries and
Speaker 3: get more from developed countries. It's a big ask and
Speaker 3: if Sultan al Jabber can pull that off, that's going
Speaker 3: to bring plenty of kudos to the UAE, something that
Speaker 3: they would like to have. But if it goes south,
Speaker 3: it's also going to risk making true all the criticisms
Speaker 3: that have been laid on it as an oil economy
Speaker 3: trying to host a climate conference.
Speaker 1: So there are two hot wars underway at the moment
Speaker 1: right Russia's still invading Ukraine and Israel is in the
Speaker 1: middle of an invasion of Gaza that followed the attack
Speaker 1: by Hamas inside of Israel. It's a really bad vibe
Speaker 1: for a global climate summit that's all about cooperation. So
Speaker 1: give me your sense. Does that sort of hostile backdrop
Speaker 1: actually affect the proceedings when you're in Dubai? Does it
Speaker 1: shape the outcome in anyway?
Speaker 3: Well, we can look at what happened when it was
Speaker 3: just Russia invading Ukraine, which had happened early in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty two, and going into COP twenty seven, we could
Speaker 3: already see lots of talk about energy cit security, about
Speaker 3: quote unquote orderly transition, and perhaps that did lead to
Speaker 3: not as ambitious an outcome from COP twenty seven as
Speaker 3: you would have expected. The Israel Hamas conflict has less
Speaker 3: impact on the energy world has not yet had a
Speaker 3: huge impact on prices of fossil fuels, so there isn't
Speaker 3: a clear outcome yet. But again it's a live situation.
Speaker 3: Things could go south very quickly. That said, though, there
Speaker 3: are some tailwinds that we should recognize to the fact
Speaker 3: that US and China are talking. That Joe Biden and
Speaker 3: Chi Jinping met at a conference in the US is
Speaker 3: a tailwind for an agreement at COP. So geopolitics has
Speaker 3: always complicated. Bringing two hundred countries to one consensus is
Speaker 3: never easy. None of what's happening in the world right
Speaker 3: now makes it any easier.
Speaker 1: There's one geopolitical wrinkle that I want to ask you about.
Speaker 1: This is we're about to go into COP twenty eight.
Speaker 1: We don't know where COP twenty nine is going to be,
Speaker 1: and that's because of geopolitics. Can you explain why we
Speaker 1: don't know where we would be a year from now?
Speaker 3: So cops rotate between different regions of the world. COP
Speaker 3: twenty nine was supposed to happen in Eastern Europe, and
Speaker 3: Russia is blocking any of its allied countries in Eastern
Speaker 3: Europe from hosting COP. So we are in that place
Speaker 3: where even if countries do want to host COP, Russia
Speaker 3: is going to veto their decision, and so by UNF
Speaker 3: Triple C rules which are still quite hard to understand,
Speaker 3: but the best we could make sense of it is
Speaker 3: that if no country hosts COP, then the UA continues
Speaker 3: to hold the presidency and the default location for COP
Speaker 3: becomes born in Germany, which is the headquarters of the
Speaker 3: UNF Triple C, the climate body that runs the COP meeting.
Speaker 1: All right, So you know, looking back at your time
Speaker 1: at Bloombergreen going to COP, I like to think about
Speaker 1: your leisure activities. You know you deserve a break too.
Speaker 1: I don't remember what you did for fun when you
Speaker 1: were in Scotland at COP twenty six, but last year
Speaker 1: at COP twenty seven in Egypt on the Red Sea,
Speaker 1: I definitely remember you haggling over the price of a
Speaker 1: snorkel and then spending your off hours checking out this
Speaker 1: amazing coral reef. So what does a climate nerd like
Speaker 1: you look forward to doing for fun in the glam
Speaker 1: oil city of Dubai.
Speaker 3: Oh, it is such a good question. I have been
Speaker 3: to the UE before, but never to the Bay, and
Speaker 3: I've been told it's a crazy metropolis that one has
Speaker 3: to see because nothing like it exists anywhere else. So
Speaker 3: I might actually go out and be a tourist and
Speaker 3: see the Bai, maybe go up the burges Al Khalifa,
Speaker 3: the tallest building there is.
Speaker 1: It's a good answer. I want to also bring this
Speaker 1: to a close by talking about your book Climate Capitalism.
Speaker 1: It's great, highly recommend it. It definitely has this climate
Speaker 1: positive point of view about what is capable based on
Speaker 1: human ingenuity and cooperation and effort in terms of bending
Speaker 1: the needle in the climate fight. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: a counterpoint to how everything seems to be getting hotter
Speaker 1: and worse all the time. So now like kind of
Speaker 1: channel the climate positive vibe that you take in the
Speaker 1: book towards COP twenty eight and give me like four
Speaker 1: or five things that would be signs things went surprisingly
Speaker 1: well at this COP.
Speaker 3: That's an interesting point. Look, I mean, the book was
Speaker 3: meant to be a book about solutions, and so it's
Speaker 3: kind of positive and optimistic from the get go. We
Speaker 3: as journalists write about all kinds of things. We write
Speaker 3: about all the problems, we do investigations, calling out power,
Speaker 3: but I think we should also give solutions some space
Speaker 3: to me. One solution that I think we underplay of COP,
Speaker 3: which is kind of seen as meaningless, is what happens
Speaker 3: outside the negotiating rooms. They're all these side events that happen.
Speaker 3: They're going to be seventy thousand people coming. The core
Speaker 3: work is done by a few thousand people. All the
Speaker 3: others are either coming for a trade show for networking,
Speaker 3: but also many many announcements we've heard over the years.
Speaker 3: Ten countries coming together to sign an agreement on deforestation,
Speaker 3: thirty countries coming together signing an agreement on methane, and
Speaker 3: there is very little follow up, and so people rightly
Speaker 3: feel like these are meaningless things that happen on the
Speaker 3: side of COP. But recently I came across one example
Speaker 3: where actually these side things can be quite meaningful. So,
Speaker 3: in COP twenty six, the Global Methane Pledge was signed.
Speaker 3: It said a bunch of countries voluntarily will come together
Speaker 3: and reduce methane emissions by thirty percent by twenty thirty.
Speaker 3: It was a small group of countries. That number has grown,
Speaker 3: and what we have seen is the oil and gas
Speaker 3: industry specifically took that to heart and has actually been
Speaker 3: investing in both methane emissions tracking and methane emissions reduction.
Speaker 3: It is something that we at Bloomergreen have been following
Speaker 3: and finally we are seeing numbers around investments that are
Speaker 3: actually leading to some deployment of solutions. So you know,
Speaker 3: these side shows can sometimes produce meaningful impact, but there
Speaker 3: will be a lot of dud ones too, all.
Speaker 1: Right, So that's one place to look kind of outside
Speaker 1: of the main event for signs of progress. But what
Speaker 1: would be the boxes that have to get checked to
Speaker 1: say this was like a very successful cop.
Speaker 3: So in the core negotiations, we already know that tripling
Speaker 3: renewable energy, doubling energy efficiency are kind of in there
Speaker 3: will get agreed on. If we get any type of
Speaker 3: language on fossil fuels with all those caveats attached to it,
Speaker 3: that will also be seen as a sign of real progress.
Speaker 3: If we get an agreement on how the Loss and
Speaker 3: Damage Fund is going to operate, who's going to put
Speaker 3: money in it, and who will get money from it,
Speaker 3: that would be a real success point. If we get
Speaker 3: money commitment already in the tens of billions of dollars
Speaker 3: into that fund. That would be huge success, and if
Speaker 3: we get an agreement on who's hosting COP twenty nine,
Speaker 3: that would be progress.
Speaker 1: We should just remind people that if they don't already
Speaker 1: get the Green Daily newsletter, we put out two editions
Speaker 1: a day throughout all COP and we have this really
Speaker 1: fun checklist that goes over sort of the wins and
Speaker 1: losses and other weird events that happen. We use emojis
Speaker 1: and it's actually fun. So sign up for the newsletter
Speaker 1: to find out whether we meet any of the goals
Speaker 1: acshot just outlined.
Speaker 3: We also dropped the payball on Bloombergreen during those two weeks,
Speaker 3: and so you can go and read not just all
Speaker 3: our COP coverage, but all the archive that's been built
Speaker 3: over the past four years that Bloomberg Green has been around.
Speaker 1: Well, Akshat, I'm really excited to watch you work at
Speaker 1: Dubai and I hope you managed to get some sleep
Speaker 1: at some point during the two weeks while you're out there.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you. Sleep is always a good wish to
Speaker 3: give to a Copcore.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to Zero. If you enjoyed this episode,
Speaker 1: please take a moment to rate and review the show
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Speaker 1: zero pod at Bloomberg dot net. Zero's producer is Oscar
Speaker 1: Boyd and the senior producer is Christine driscoll. Our theme
Speaker 1: music is composed by Wonderly Special Thanks this week to
Speaker 1: Stacey Wong and Kira Bindram for their help on this episode.
Speaker 1: We've put a link to the article The Oil Shakes
Speaker 1: Climate Fixer in the show notes. Zero will be back
Speaker 1: on Thursday.