WEBVTT - The Turning Point: What's Next for Guyana? 0:00:04.320 --> 0:00:08.559 In twenty twenty three, Guyana's vice president, Baratcha Gayo was 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:11.639 asked to speak at the oil and gas industry's biggest 0:00:11.720 --> 0:00:17.360 annual conference, Cambridge Energy Research Associates Executive Conference. It's put 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:19.959 on by S and P Global and everyone calls it 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:21.680 Sarah week at. 0:00:21.680 --> 0:00:25.120 It's my understanding, this is the fastest offshore oil development 0:00:25.160 --> 0:00:26.160 in history. 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:27.320 How did it happen? 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:33.960 Well, we support that vision, a fast baced development of 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:38.320 the resources offshore, particularly in the context of net zero. 0:00:38.760 --> 0:00:42.400 We believe it's a wide strategy to do as much 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:47.239 exploration as possible, now prove the resources, and then have 0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:52.640 them removed and transfer into financial assets that in the 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:55.440 future can serve to transform the country. 0:00:56.640 --> 0:01:00.280 Particularly in the context of net zero. Let's get fat 0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:08.000 oil out and sold as quickly as possible. Net zero 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:10.679 was meant to be a goal for companies and governments 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:15.680 to work towards in emissions reduction target, not an incentive 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:20.200 too fast track oil and gas production. But Jagdeo is 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:23.560 putting into plane words there what the fossil fuel industry's 0:01:23.600 --> 0:01:27.120 approach to net zero has been all along, despite a 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:31.880 whole lot of slickly produced ads to the contrary get 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:34.480 as much oil out of the ground and sold before 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:35.360 it's too late. 0:01:36.200 --> 0:01:44.520 Ghana is emblematic of what we are seeing in countries 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:48.920 around the world. It's emblematic this broader wave of extractive 0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:53.640 colonialism that is playing out in frontier countries across the 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:54.400 global South. 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:59.120 Carol Muffett, President and CEO of the Center for International 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:02.840 Environmental Law, has worked with Melinda Jinki, the attorney we 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:04.400 heard from earlier this season. 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:08.960 Countries that don't have a history or any significant history 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:12.760 of oil and gas development or oil and gas dependence 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:15.359 are being pushed into that dependence. 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:21.160 That push tends to include swift backlash to any opposition. 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:26.360 When people on the ground speak out against that development, 0:02:26.400 --> 0:02:29.760 when they ask difficult questions, when they ask why is 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:33.880 this investment happening, what are the risks? What is really 0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:37.320 in this for the people of our country. They come 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:42.280 under profound political pressure, they come under social and economic 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:46.560 pressure you and they are criminalized and intimidated. 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:50.320 Sometimes the pressure is just in the form of financial 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:54.680 incentives or brigging the system in a particular direction. 0:02:55.720 --> 0:02:58.800 It's important to right noize God is a very small country, 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:05.320 and that means that the universe of people with expertise 0:03:05.360 --> 0:03:10.200 in any given domain is also going to be comparatively small. 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:15.120 I think that means that for an actor like Exam, 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:21.200 it is really surprisingly easy and probably highly cost effective 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:25.400 to identify those people and to take them of the 0:03:25.440 --> 0:03:28.600 equation one way or now, whether it's by offering them 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:33.000 grants and donations, whether it's offering them jobs. 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:40.080 That's true of journalists as well. When Keanu Wilberg first 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:43.080 started covering the oil and gas beat for Kyter News, 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:46.520 she had five colleagues working on the desk with her. 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:50.160 Now it's just her. The others were all hired away 0:03:50.560 --> 0:03:52.680 by the government or the oil companies. 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:57.960 While company's typical incentive is that you get a car, 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:05.200 and almost every young journalist sees that as a very 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:07.360 good incentive to. 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:11.960 Switch. And I think also there's. 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:19.600 This sort of esteem these very sexy titles corporate public 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:26.440 and governance affairs, liaison for exemobile or snock or whats not. 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:32.839 There's an appeal to these titles. If I did not 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:39.440 see the need for staying and serving in my capacity, 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:44.520 I would have been gone to because I was offered 0:04:44.600 --> 0:04:45.479 multiple times. 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:50.200 So far in Guyana, the oil companies are sponsoring cricket 0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:54.280 making big donations to all of the environmental organizations that 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:58.400 might have been opposed to oil, and hiring journalists away 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:03.920 from newsrooms. Sometimes shutting down opposition is as easy as 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:08.160 just offering people a higher salary, a big donation, or 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:12.520 a free car. The critics who remain have to be 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:18.599 willing to withstand negative political and social pressure. Here's Vice 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:20.120 President Jagdeo. 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:24.520 Again, the industry had some negatives at home because of 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:30.440 what is taking place globally, this push the net zero. 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:33.600 We have a lot of NGOs that have descended on 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:38.159 the country, some saying don't leave the oil in the ground. 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:44.200 It's flawed. With ten FPSOs operating offshore, we will be 0:05:44.560 --> 0:05:48.560 carbon negative. We're already carbon negative. Where the world is 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:52.440 hoping to get to in twenty fifty, we're already there. 0:05:52.880 --> 0:05:57.280 Our force is bigger than England and Scotland combine, so 0:05:57.320 --> 0:06:02.279 it's a huge sink and they're for we have a 0:06:02.360 --> 0:06:05.920 balanced strategy to develop the oil and gas in the street. 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:10.400 This is something Jagdeo has been saying a lot lately 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:16.000 that even with ten FPSOs offshore, Guyana would still be 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:19.640 a carbon sink. It sounds like he's just making up 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:22.360 that ten pulling it out of the air, but it's 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:26.599 actually a reference to something specific. In twenty twenty two, 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:30.440 the government asked Exxon to include a new metric in 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:35.120 its environmental impact assessment for its latest drilling site. They 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:38.760 wanted the company to lay out what the accumulative impact 0:06:39.360 --> 0:06:43.520 of all of its existing and proposed offshore activities would 0:06:43.520 --> 0:06:48.680 be on the country's greenhouse gas emissions. It concluded that 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:53.400 even taking all of Exxon's biggest plans into account, the 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:57.800 country could have ten FPSOs offshore and still remain a 0:06:57.800 --> 0:07:02.080 carbon sink. But and this is a really big but, 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:08.000 it calculated only the emissions generated by extraction and refinement, 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:12.600 not the emissions that come from the actual use of 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:15.840 that oil and gas. To put that in perspective, the 0:07:15.880 --> 0:07:20.040 emissions associated with fossil fuels are about ninety percent how 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:24.280 you use them burning oil and gas, and about ten 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:28.840 percent how you got them to offset those operational emissions. 0:07:28.920 --> 0:07:32.440 One of Axon's partners in the offshore oil project, Has 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:35.440 Corporation has made a big commitment. 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:39.760 The government of Guyana on Friday signed the first sale 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:43.840 agreement of its carbon credits to HASS cooperation at a 0:07:43.920 --> 0:07:47.120 tune of US seven hundred and fifty The sale agreement, 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:50.600 which was signed on Friday State House, will support Guyana's 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:55.080 efforts to protect the country's vast forests and provide capitals 0:07:55.080 --> 0:07:57.680 to improve the lives of Guyana's citizens. 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:02.160 With this sale, announced last December, Guyana became the first 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:05.640 country to receive and sell carbon credits under a new 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:11.840 UN program designed to protect forests called Trees. Trees is 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:15.720 part of the UN's Red Project, which stands for reducing 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:21.240 emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. It allows polluting companies 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:24.720 and governments to pay other groups and governments to offset 0:08:24.760 --> 0:08:29.160 their carbon emissions. So remaining a carbon sinc isn't just 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:34.280 about greenwashing or promotion in Guyana. There's actual monetary value 0:08:34.320 --> 0:08:34.800 to it too. 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:39.240 Carbon offsets basically just open up this window for emissions 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:42.560 to actually get worse, because you can claim to have 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:46.960 neutralized your greenhouse gas impact without actually having done so. 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:51.440 Katain Joshi is a writer and energy analyst and something 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:55.080 of an expert on carbon credits and carbon offsets. It's 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:58.200 hard to see how Guyana's carbon credits will pencil out 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:01.840 on the emissions front, especially because around the same time 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:06.120 that this program was announced. The government made another big announcement. 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:10.640 We've put an auction fourteen properties offshore. You can bid 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:14.360 on any of them. About the maximum that would be allocated, 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:17.040 would be per successful better. 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:18.920 The reason is. 0:09:18.880 --> 0:09:24.320 That we want multiple companies there in Guyana exploring. 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:29.880 If you are constantly being criticized about one contract, sometimes 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:33.200 the best strategy is to throw fourteen new contracts in 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:37.000 the mix. Several oil majors paid the twenty five thousand 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:41.800 dollars fee required to enter the auction, that includes Chevron, 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:47.079 Shell and Yeah Exxon, but the auction has now been 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:50.440 postponed for several months, so we won't know until next 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:54.679 year whether any new companies will be drilling offshore. Which 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:57.640 brings us back to the question we've been grappling with 0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:02.960 all season long. How do we tackle energy poverty and 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:06.120 the climate crisis at the same time when there's no 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:08.839 real money in either for oil companies. 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:11.839 For all they talk about it, and oil. 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:15.160 Companies do talk a lot about getting energy to poor people. 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:18.560 It's like their sole purpose in life these days. The 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:21.680 reality is that in most places where they're drilling for 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:26.000 oil and gas, it's being exported for profit, not used 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:32.000 to provide sustainable reliable energy for locals. Nigeria, a Global 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:34.840 South country that's been in the oil business since the fifties, 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:39.480 for example, is currently last in the world for energy access. 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:46.320 The simplest answer, but not the one that anyone in 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:49.240 the global North seems to like very much, is to 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:53.080 reduce energy demand in the global North to allow for 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:56.920 an increase in demand in the global South. But that 0:10:56.960 --> 0:11:01.880 increase can't be to the excessive levels of say American 0:11:01.960 --> 0:11:06.920 consumers today, who are wildly wasteful with energy. But getting 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:10.360 everyone to it, doctor Narasima Rau calls a decent living 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:15.560 level of energy would change the math considerably for fossil 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:19.560 fuel developments in places like Guyana. If you're a global 0:11:19.559 --> 0:11:23.319 oil major and your product is oil and gas, you'd 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:27.880 prefer to just see demand a skyrocket everywhere, and that's 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:31.200 where things like carbon credits and carbon offsets can be 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:35.600 quite handy. They let people pretend they're reducing emissions, so 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:41.360 the incentive to reduce consumption disappears entirely. But while they 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:45.440 sound okay on paper, as does Jagdeo's creative math on 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:48.959 how Guyana can become a top oil producer and remain 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:52.080 a carbon sink, At the same time, none of it 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:57.120 changes how the atmosphere actually works, reducing the impact of 0:11:57.160 --> 0:12:01.000 Guyana's oil industry on the global climate system. What actually 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:05.680 requires shutting down the industry elsewhere like Texas for example. 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:10.560 That's our story today. I'm Iman Westerbilt and this is 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:13.920 the last episode of our special Drilled and Damages co 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:16.440 Production Light Sweet Crude. 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:18.000 Stay with us. 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:40.520 I'm originally from Guyana. I as a teenager, I represented 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:45.800 Guyana at Cricket. I was in the first class of 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:49.520 engineers graduating from the University of Guyana, and then I migrated. 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:51.960 We went to school in the United States and worked 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:57.240 for for amac at time as a senior patroller engineer. 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:01.280 I'm a Colledsta British but Trillium. 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:05.000 Vincent Adams went from his job as a petroleum engineer 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:08.640 at Amaco to the United States Department of Energy, where 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:11.120 he worked for thirty years. 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:14.400 I ended up at the highest level of the United 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:18.440 States government as a senior executive of the US government 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:20.679 within the US Department of Energy. 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:23.920 And then he fully intended to retire. 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:28.080 My plan was to do my my voluntary service that 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:30.520 I was doing for Diana, right you know, I was 0:13:30.559 --> 0:13:33.400 going to spend more time now in Diana that I 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:36.120 have the time to do that type of stuff. But 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:38.720 then a lot of my friends, you know, ministers and 0:13:38.800 --> 0:13:41.720 the president you know, said please could you? So I said, okay. 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:45.880 The President himself at to obill how long? I said, 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:48.360 see if I you know, I've been planning for this 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:51.280 retirement for a long time. I've been counting the days. 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:54.120 Then I said, okay, I'll give you three years because 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:56.480 I figured by three years i'll set up all the 0:13:56.520 --> 0:14:00.800 institutional systems and stuff like that. 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:02.920 As the previous president, David Granger. And the job is 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:07.040 a big one, updating Guyana's Environmental Protection Agency and starting 0:14:07.080 --> 0:14:11.840 a petroleum oversay program there because after decades of looking, 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:17.080 the country had finally found oil. Unlike Melinda Jenki or 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:21.080 Troy Thomas, Adams was not overly concerned about the climate 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:24.920 implications of this discovery or with the industry moving quickly. 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:27.720 In fact, he sees it as necessary. 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:33.280 We have an opportunity to get rich, and we have 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:36.280 an envelope, a small envelope, to produce as much as 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:40.440 we get because the entire world is moving towards renewables. 0:14:40.800 --> 0:14:46.040 But that doesn't mean he fully supports Exon's expansion into Guyana. 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:49.160 Exxon is doing it in a way that is very risky, 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:52.040 which is an absolute no no. 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:56.320 Adams has also said all along that Guyana should never 0:14:56.400 --> 0:15:01.120 have had a production sharing agreement that complicate contract we 0:15:01.200 --> 0:15:04.920 talked about early this season, and in both cases his 0:15:05.040 --> 0:15:06.640 reasoning is the same. 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:11.160 We absolutely do not have We do not have the 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:12.360 capacity to do that. 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:15.680 When he was put in charge of Guyana's EPA, Adams 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:18.320 says the office didn't even have a filing system, let 0:15:18.360 --> 0:15:22.240 alone a means to oversee major offshore oil production. By 0:15:22.320 --> 0:15:25.520 collecting fees that had been due to the agency for years, 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:28.160 he was able to put some of those systems in place, 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:30.920 hire more people, and even buy the agency a few 0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:35.119 vehicles to allow EPA officials to check up on permitted projects. 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:39.080 His recommendation for the floating offshore production rigs was that 0:15:39.080 --> 0:15:45.040 there should be an EPA official on those rigs overseeing operations. Similarly, 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:47.040 when it comes to the contract, he says for a 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:50.440 country to make a production sharing agreement work, they need 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:55.560 to have the capacity to be regularly auditing costs. Diana 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:59.440 doesn't have either the oversight or the accounting capacity, so 0:15:59.480 --> 0:16:02.640 Adam's recommended a more straightforward contract. 0:16:04.600 --> 0:16:10.200 We should go for nothing more than just straight taxes 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:13.720 and royalty contract or what is called a concession type contract. 0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:18.360 Give it a concession type contract, you know. Just to 0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:22.360 put it very simply, all it is, if you produce 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:26.600 one hundred buyers of oil. I let's say I decide 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:33.320 to be the government decided to take of that quantity. 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:36.760 If you produce one hundred buyers of oil, I take 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:39.920 torture buyers and you take you get seventy. I don't 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:42.440 have to worry about cost or anything. All I would 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:46.800 need is some high school kid who can count barriers 0:16:46.920 --> 0:16:49.800 as they're being produced. All I would need is a 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:53.160 mechanic or a good electrician to make sure that that 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:57.120 oil meter that measures the art it's running properly. I 0:16:57.120 --> 0:17:01.400 don't need all these accountants and everybody. Now, of course, 0:17:01.440 --> 0:17:06.560 that's putting it very very simplest giving. But that's the 0:17:06.680 --> 0:17:10.160 difference in the magnitude of the oversight that you've got 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:11.240 to work. 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:17.159 With these production sharing agreements or PSAs they're not going away. 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:21.000 As it prepares to auction off more offshore drilling blocks 0:17:21.000 --> 0:17:25.600 to global companies, Guyana has drafted a new and improved PSA. 0:17:26.359 --> 0:17:30.119 Government officials claim it solves all the problems people had 0:17:30.240 --> 0:17:34.520 with the Exxon contract, but Adam says the country is 0:17:34.720 --> 0:17:38.960 no better equipped today to manage these complex contracts than 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:40.879 it was seven years ago. 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:43.560 Is there our companies by the way that the introduced 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:47.719 this PSA nonsense because it solves them, especially like Sandy, 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:52.119 know that a PSA is a nightmare for a country 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:54.680 such as Guyana to verified cause. 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:58.560 Adam says, the oil auction is a distraction, an attempt 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:01.800 to shift the public's attention away from any problems with 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:05.600 Exon and make it seem like the government is fast 0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:07.280 tracking oil profits. 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:13.200 It's the biggest distraction that I've ever seen, which is 0:18:13.240 --> 0:18:16.960 the motusoprande. This is right in the middle of jag 0:18:17.040 --> 0:18:22.359 Diel's playbook. It's a distraction from this renegotiation state. So 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:26.200 now everybody are going to start talking about this new 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:32.720 model contract mechanism, Okay, And that's exactly where everybody are 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:35.280 right now. And even if you go ahead and look 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:39.440 at it, it's grossly it's to protect Exon. 0:18:39.480 --> 0:18:39.720 Again. 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:42.280 I'm telling you, Exon is calling all of the shots 0:18:42.280 --> 0:18:43.440 and running this country. 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:50.879 Exon, Chevron and shell all requested big packets for the auction, 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:54.720 and the government will announce next year which, if any, 0:18:54.920 --> 0:18:59.080 have decided to move forward with offshore drilling projects outside 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:02.040 of the Starbuck Plan where Exon has staked its claim. 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:07.200 So far, even if there are no takers, Excels drilling 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:10.520 alone is set to make Guyana the world's largest oil 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:14.840 producer per capita in the world by twenty thirty five. 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:18.280 The country is on track to become a major gas 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:21.919 producer now as well, with a new pipeline and gas 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:24.240 plant set to begin construction this year. 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:28.840 Ye're producing six hundred million cubic feet of gas a 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:31.439 d Okay, you know how much we're going to be 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:32.480 using in that by. 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:36.919 Fifty Neither the government nor Exon has announced yet what 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:41.520 the plan is for excess gas, but it could easily 0:19:41.600 --> 0:19:44.960 be sold on the global market, which brings us back 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:49.000 to that balancing act that doctor Narasima Rau mentioned a 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:52.760 couple of episodes ago. Is there a way to let 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:55.600 Guyana build as big an oil and gas industry as 0:19:55.600 --> 0:20:04.520 it wants without exacerbating the global climate crisis. So far, 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:07.520 the answer to that question from the government of Guyana 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:12.119 is first that it's only responsible for its own emissions, 0:20:12.400 --> 0:20:15.760 not for those associated with the oil and gas produced there, 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:20.439 which is exactly how everyone else in the world calculates emissions. 0:20:20.920 --> 0:20:23.400 The United States, for example, likes to point out how 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:26.119 our emissions have been on the decline in recent decades. 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:29.480 So does the UK, so does the European Union. The 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:32.840 oil and gas produced by American, British and European companies 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:37.119 all over the world that doesn't count. Guyana's leaders have 0:20:37.200 --> 0:20:42.320 also highlighted the country's leadership in forest conservation and consequently 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:45.280 the service that it provides to the world as a 0:20:45.320 --> 0:20:49.480 carbon sink. And here again, yes, that does give it 0:20:49.520 --> 0:20:52.760 a leg up on most other oil producing countries when 0:20:52.760 --> 0:20:59.800 it comes to climate action. What then, is the answer, 0:21:00.200 --> 0:21:03.560 Because what we've described in Guyana throughout this season is 0:21:03.640 --> 0:21:07.640 not just happening there. Guyana's neighbors are also getting into 0:21:07.640 --> 0:21:11.280 the oil business in a big way. Right next door 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:15.840 in Surinam, for example, Shell and Total Energies are regularly 0:21:15.880 --> 0:21:21.120 announcing big new offshore discoveries. Barbados were Prime Minister Mia 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:24.879 Motley has become a global champion for climate action. It 0:21:24.920 --> 0:21:28.160 had its own offshore auction right around the same time 0:21:28.240 --> 0:21:32.959 as Guyana's In Africa, new fossil fuel industries are springing 0:21:33.080 --> 0:21:37.960 up in Tanzania, Uganda, Mozambique, Namibia and more, and the 0:21:38.000 --> 0:21:41.880 global North is ramping up too. The so called climate 0:21:41.960 --> 0:21:45.520 President Joe Biden in the United States has approved multiple 0:21:45.600 --> 0:21:51.000 large scale drilling projects longtime industry leaders Katar, Saudi Arabia, 0:21:51.119 --> 0:21:55.000 the United Arab Immirates, and Norway. They're all drilling as 0:21:55.080 --> 0:21:59.439 quickly as possible. So is Brazil, which also supposedly just 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:04.280 elected a climate friendly president. It's a global game of 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:08.480 musical chairs where the company or the country left with 0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:12.960 the least untapped oil reserves wins and the rest of 0:22:13.040 --> 0:22:23.400 us lose in the biggest way possible. Unless unless the 0:22:23.440 --> 0:22:27.919 fever dream that capitalism built, this idea that more is 0:22:28.040 --> 0:22:32.160 always better, that the biggest consumers are the world's winners, 0:22:32.359 --> 0:22:36.239 gets tossed on its head. Even if we managed to 0:22:36.240 --> 0:22:40.520 do what a lot of climate advocates want and electrify everything, 0:22:41.040 --> 0:22:44.479 we must at some point grapple with the very simple 0:22:44.560 --> 0:22:47.760 fact that a lot of us on this planet consume 0:22:48.040 --> 0:22:49.560 a lot more than we need to. 0:22:50.880 --> 0:22:54.600 When I was first in Chile researching the social and 0:22:54.720 --> 0:22:58.720 environmental impacts of lithium mining there, and Chile is the 0:22:58.760 --> 0:23:01.800 world's number two producer of lithium, and also some of 0:23:01.840 --> 0:23:05.000 the kind of contentious politics around extraction of this mineral. 0:23:05.880 --> 0:23:08.280 I started to kind of think, you know, would it 0:23:08.600 --> 0:23:13.000 matter in terms of how much lithium was needed, how 0:23:13.040 --> 0:23:15.959 the sort of global energy transition is designed, or how 0:23:16.000 --> 0:23:19.280 the US energy transition is designed right THEA. 0:23:19.359 --> 0:23:22.720 Rio Francos is an associate professor of political science at 0:23:22.720 --> 0:23:26.520 Providence College and a member of the Climate and Community Project. 0:23:26.920 --> 0:23:31.080 Her research focuses on the impact of extractive economies and 0:23:31.160 --> 0:23:34.439 how we might rethink them, and she's been concerned for 0:23:34.560 --> 0:23:37.320 a while about the fact that if we keep everything 0:23:37.320 --> 0:23:41.639 else the same and switch to renewables tomorrow, we're pretty 0:23:41.680 --> 0:23:44.600 likely to end up with some major environmental crises on 0:23:44.640 --> 0:23:48.639 our hands. The land use and mining impacts of electrification 0:23:49.119 --> 0:23:52.280 are often cynically weaponized by those who would prefer to 0:23:52.320 --> 0:23:57.080 see us hooked on fossil fuels forever, but there's substance 0:23:57.160 --> 0:24:00.879 to them too, which got Rio Franco's thinking. Are we 0:24:01.040 --> 0:24:06.359 destined to replace one environmental problem with another? Or could 0:24:06.359 --> 0:24:10.960 we do things differently? And how differently would we need 0:24:11.000 --> 0:24:13.680 to do them to really change things. 0:24:16.760 --> 0:24:20.359 Are there futures in which less lithium and less of 0:24:20.400 --> 0:24:23.760 these other transition minerals are required than some of the 0:24:23.800 --> 0:24:26.600 most alarming kind of reports and predictions I began to 0:24:26.640 --> 0:24:29.160 see from the International Energy Agency and then the World 0:24:29.160 --> 0:24:33.240 Bank and multiple other forecasting agencies which were and remain 0:24:33.320 --> 0:24:35.560 pretty alarming in terms of how much mining they are 0:24:35.600 --> 0:24:37.400 predicting will occur or be demanded. 0:24:38.200 --> 0:24:41.560 Rio Francos recently looked at this question in great detail 0:24:41.680 --> 0:24:45.199 around transportation and whether there are decisions we could make 0:24:45.240 --> 0:24:49.840 today that would make the electrification of transportation more sustainable. 0:24:50.680 --> 0:24:53.119 So I was thinking a lot about an urgent and 0:24:53.240 --> 0:24:56.239 rapid and just energy transition in the US, but I 0:24:56.280 --> 0:24:58.000 was kind of thinking about both ends of the supply 0:24:58.080 --> 0:24:59.879 chain at once, Like here I am in Chile the 0:25:00.160 --> 0:25:03.040 to come at desert, seeing these mining related harms, and 0:25:03.080 --> 0:25:05.119 then there I go in the US kind of advocating 0:25:05.160 --> 0:25:07.639 for a rapid transition, like how do I align these 0:25:08.119 --> 0:25:11.359 two goals and how and is there a way to 0:25:11.440 --> 0:25:14.879 kind of have a less extractive energy transition, And the 0:25:14.920 --> 0:25:17.359 answer was that research didn't exist, at least not for 0:25:17.440 --> 0:25:21.359 the US transportation sector. I saw forecast after forecast that 0:25:21.480 --> 0:25:25.840 assumed basically a binary of the future. Right, Either we 0:25:25.880 --> 0:25:29.680 stay with the fossil fuel status quo and the existential 0:25:29.760 --> 0:25:32.040 crisis that that is causing for the planet and all 0:25:32.080 --> 0:25:38.119 of its people, or we transition to an electrified, renewably 0:25:38.160 --> 0:25:42.040 powered future. But that doesn't really change anything about how 0:25:42.119 --> 0:25:44.720 these sectors or economic activities are organized. 0:25:45.080 --> 0:25:49.040 There was a powerlessness to it all, a global giving 0:25:49.119 --> 0:25:53.880 up on ever doing things differently. Rio Franco's thought, surely 0:25:54.040 --> 0:25:57.439 this is not all actually set in stone. 0:25:57.880 --> 0:26:01.600 It's totally understandable to me that, you know, the vast 0:26:01.680 --> 0:26:05.240 majority of Americans use cars to get around because they 0:26:05.280 --> 0:26:08.680 live in contexts, even some urban contexts, but especially suburban 0:26:08.760 --> 0:26:12.240 and obviously especially rural context where there really is no 0:26:12.320 --> 0:26:16.760 other option. And so I neither blame individuals for those choices. 0:26:17.200 --> 0:26:20.359 But nor do I see our current transportation system as 0:26:20.400 --> 0:26:23.520 a paragon of freedom, right, I mean, especially when we 0:26:23.560 --> 0:26:28.000 consider how financially burdensome cars are for peign working class people. 0:26:28.280 --> 0:26:32.080 We're at a critical juncture in terms of specifically how 0:26:32.119 --> 0:26:35.679 that renewable energy transition is designed, who the winners and 0:26:35.760 --> 0:26:40.520 losers are, what decisions made around certain trade offs. Right 0:26:40.600 --> 0:26:45.880 in the thort of policy and resource decisions. So I'm 0:26:45.960 --> 0:26:50.640 worried that this moment, which could could if we think 0:26:50.680 --> 0:26:53.320