Speaker 1: Hey, it's akshat. I'm headed to Davos this week, reporting
Speaker 1: from the swisky village about how world leaders, finance chiefs,
Speaker 1: and business heads are thinking about climate change. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: I want to share an episode we published this time
Speaker 1: last year. It's an interview with Gail Weightman of Arctic
Speaker 1: Base Camp. Every year she camps outside in an Arctic
Speaker 1: science tent at the World Economic Forum to get the
Speaker 1: Arctic and climate change on the agenda. It's a good
Speaker 1: history of Davos and how climate change became a central
Speaker 1: topic at the conference. So I'm sharing it again this week.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Zero. I'm Akshatrati. This week thin ice, missing
Speaker 2: snow and a party for billionaires. Next week I'll be
Speaker 2: going to Davos, a ski resort town in Switzerland. But
Speaker 2: I'm not telling you about my holiday is that one
Speaker 2: week in January where Davos becomes the home of the
Speaker 2: World Economic Forum's annual meeting, an invite only gathering of CEOs, billionaires,
Speaker 2: select political leaders, and increasingly climate people. That's not always
Speaker 2: been the case. As recently as twenty fourteen, climate didn't
Speaker 2: even get a mention in the executive summary. That is
Speaker 2: sent to attendees before the meeting starts, and now Climate
Speaker 2: has broken through, with more than a quarter of the
Speaker 2: main panel discussions tied to climate issues one way or another.
Speaker 2: It's disorienting to be a climate journalist at Davos. On
Speaker 2: the one hand, you are close to the people who
Speaker 2: have power or money or both to make the decisions
Speaker 2: that can change the fate of the climate. The twenty
Speaker 2: twenty meeting, which was the last big one before the
Speaker 2: world shut down to deal with the pandemic, had one
Speaker 2: hundred and nineteen billionaires and fifty three heads of state attending.
Speaker 2: On the other hand, Davos is a petri dish for
Speaker 2: innovations in greenwashing. That same twenty twenty meeting ended with
Speaker 2: Davos attornees failing to find a consensus around carbon taxis,
Speaker 2: but it closed with a widely applauded initiative to plant
Speaker 2: one trillion trees. There is little doubt that the business
Speaker 2: world listens closely to what happens in Davos. So how
Speaker 2: did climate get to Davos? What made the world's business
Speaker 2: elite take notice. One person that deserves credit is Gail Whiteman.
Speaker 2: She's a professor of sustainability at the University of Exeter's
Speaker 2: Business School, and she physically brought climate science to Davos
Speaker 2: in twenty seventeen by giving climate scientists a space to
Speaker 2: present their data. She called it the Arctic Base Camp.
Speaker 2: The Arctic Base Camp is housed in an act polar
Speaker 2: tent used for Arctic exploration. Gail pitched the tent not
Speaker 2: too far from the main venue and has camped there
Speaker 2: every year since. It's not the most comfortable approach, but
Speaker 2: getting to Davos means unparalleled exposure to world leaders.
Speaker 3: We were packing up the tent and we saw there's
Speaker 3: a ton of security, so really, you know, guys, we've
Speaker 3: guns everywhere and snipers and so on. So we knew
Speaker 3: somebody fancy was going to be around. And then we
Speaker 3: saw mister Netanya, who walking by.
Speaker 2: Head of State of Israel at the time.
Speaker 3: Yes, he was absolutely and he walked up to me
Speaker 3: and he said, what the heck are you doing here
Speaker 3: with this big arctic tent And I said, well, we
Speaker 3: are Arctic scientists and we're bringing a message of climate
Speaker 3: risk to global leaders. And he said you're sleeping here
Speaker 3: and I said, yeah, we are. We slept here for
Speaker 3: three nights. Davos gives you the opportunity where you can
Speaker 3: make those unusual moments and just speak science to power.
Speaker 2: The tent is not a stunt. Davos is exclusive and
Speaker 2: accommodation at the meeting can run into the thousands of dollars.
Speaker 2: The tent was Gail's way of making things work, and
Speaker 2: she filled the tent with climate scientists and youth activists,
Speaker 2: people who couldn't normally afford to go. I wanted to
Speaker 2: talk to Gail about how she brought climate change to Davos,
Speaker 2: the limits of raising awareness among the elites, and what
Speaker 2: needs to happen for the Arctic Base Camp to succeed. Gil,
Speaker 2: welcome to the show.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me ak Shat, it's great to be here.
Speaker 2: Now. Tell us about the Arctic Based Camp. What it is,
Speaker 2: maybe starting with your motto, which is what happens in
Speaker 2: the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic.
Speaker 3: So Arctic Based Camp is a science communication platform. We're
Speaker 3: not for profit, and that's right. That is our motto
Speaker 3: that what happens in the Arctic doesn't stay there, and
Speaker 3: in fact it's really a barometer of global risks. So
Speaker 3: our mission and the reason why we set up Arctic
Speaker 3: Based Camp at Davos in twenty seventeen was we felt
Speaker 3: that we needed to speak science to power and communicate
Speaker 3: all the global risks that were hitting the planet coming
Speaker 3: from the Arctic and in fact coming from the polar
Speaker 3: regions more generally.
Speaker 2: Now the very existence of the Arctic Based Camp is
Speaker 2: tied to Davos, and we're going to talk a lot
Speaker 2: about Davos.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: Davos is a town in Switzerland which happens to host
Speaker 2: the World Economic Forum every year, but it's also a
Speaker 2: shorthand for something else. Help me describe for the listener
Speaker 2: what we are referencing when we say Davos.
Speaker 3: Well, it's funny because I think there's probably a couple
Speaker 3: of groups in the world those that when you say
Speaker 3: the word DeVos, they immediately get the desire like, oh,
Speaker 3: I've got to get there. I want to join the elite,
Speaker 3: the top of business, the top of policy and government,
Speaker 3: and the top of media to somehow get to the
Speaker 3: place where the move and shakers have been meetings since.
Speaker 4: I think nineteen seventy one.
Speaker 3: There's another group that will say, if you say the
Speaker 3: word Davos, they'll say, oh, that's where all the elite
Speaker 3: go not to try and save the planet or fix
Speaker 3: the problems, but actually just to make their lovely life
Speaker 3: that much more lovely. And maybe there's another group that
Speaker 3: have never heard of Davos at all, but the Davos
Speaker 3: that we want to talk to, and the reason why
Speaker 3: we go there is it is actually the place where
Speaker 3: the World Economic Forum convenes people that have power from
Speaker 3: all different stakeholder groups, and the mission in many ways
Speaker 3: has I think shifted over time from just trying to
Speaker 3: make the world a more economically viable place into actually
Speaker 3: a more sustainable place. Of course, not all of them
Speaker 3: around the program yet, but increasingly a number of them are.
Speaker 3: So we go to try and influence that group that
Speaker 3: have power, that are interested in really getting us to
Speaker 3: a safer space and a low carbon economy, and really
Speaker 3: try and show them just what the heck is happening
Speaker 3: in the Arctic and the scale and speed of change
Speaker 3: that is happening this January.
Speaker 2: Right, it's supposed to be a ski town, we are
Speaker 2: likely not going to see any snow because of the
Speaker 2: massive heat wave that has happened in Europe over the
Speaker 2: Christmas period. In the first week of January, what do
Speaker 2: you think that does to the people who come to
Speaker 2: Davos Now where between a quarter and a third of
Speaker 2: all the big panels that happen inside the Davos Tent
Speaker 2: are tied to climate change.
Speaker 3: Well, I hope it shocks the hell out of them.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, Switzerland in the winter should have snow.
Speaker 3: We have been camping outside of Davos except for this
Speaker 3: May when we were there, of course, and it was
Speaker 3: alpine summer.
Speaker 4: There's always snow.
Speaker 3: Now sometimes there's too much snow we have to dig
Speaker 3: ourselves in and out of our base camp tent. But
Speaker 3: it has never been the situation that we are going
Speaker 3: to be facing this year. And I hope it's a
Speaker 3: real reality check that it's not that climate change somehow
Speaker 3: has to be addressed by twenty thirty, which people sort
Speaker 3: of think it does, like, well, okay, we've got to
Speaker 3: get half emissions by twenty thirty. So people are thinking
Speaker 3: that we still have time, We still have time, and
Speaker 3: this should be a wake up call.
Speaker 2: But now climate impacts are happening everywhere. That goes from
Speaker 2: hurricanes in America to droughts in the Horn of Africa
Speaker 2: to heat waves in Europe. Why is it that you
Speaker 2: wanted to bring the Arctic to Dabbos and not all
Speaker 2: climate impacts.
Speaker 3: Well, in fact, we are bringing all the climate impacts
Speaker 3: to DeVos, because what happens in the Arctic is driving
Speaker 3: those impacts all around the world. So the Arctic is
Speaker 3: in many ways a remote and incredibly beautiful place that
Speaker 3: seems sort of far away, and maybe if you're a
Speaker 3: Canadian like me, or if you are a polar bear lover,
Speaker 3: you pay attention to what's going on in the Arctic,
Speaker 3: but it is a really important place in the global
Speaker 3: climate system. So the snow and ice in the Arctic
Speaker 3: acts really is a big insurance policy on runaway climate change,
Speaker 3: and as it has changed, as it has melted and thought,
Speaker 3: in fact, that has ramped up global climate change throughout
Speaker 3: the world, particularly extreme weather in the middle latitudes. So
Speaker 3: if you're worried about wildfires in California, you're worried about,
Speaker 3: you know, the polared vortex in the east coast of
Speaker 3: the US, or the extreme heat wave that we had
Speaker 3: in Europe this summer and that we're having right now.
Speaker 3: But also the shifting you know, monsoon patterns and typhoon
Speaker 3: patterns throughout the Asian side of the world. That's the
Speaker 3: Arctic calling and that's just the starting place.
Speaker 2: Let's do a Arctic climate science one oh one. The
Speaker 2: measure that often has talked about is sea ice coverage.
Speaker 2: Why is it that that measure how much of the
Speaker 2: Arctic is covered by sea ice is so important?
Speaker 3: Well, I think it's a good question, you know, a
Speaker 3: social scientist myself, I had to really do arctech science
Speaker 3: one oh one, and I've got some amazing world class
Speaker 3: colleagues that have really helped me understand why the sea ice,
Speaker 3: in particular the summer sea ice is so important.
Speaker 4: The first of all, the ice when it's there and
Speaker 4: the snow.
Speaker 3: Is white, and the sun light comes in from space
Speaker 3: and it hits the white and it most of it
Speaker 3: bounces back up. So the ice itself, the ice cover
Speaker 3: and the snow cover are really important because there are
Speaker 3: a protective barrier from that heat getting into the oceans
Speaker 3: or onto the land. That's the albedo effect that we've
Speaker 3: heard about, you know, in al Gore's film, and everybody
Speaker 3: talks about now the summer in the Arctic, there's always
Speaker 3: some melt, of course, because it's warmer than it is
Speaker 3: in deep winter, right when the ice is the thickest
Speaker 3: and has the biggest extent. But the real read is
Speaker 3: that in the summer, how small it's getting. And that's
Speaker 3: the worrying sign. So it's not this fluctuation that you've
Speaker 3: had a we have a little bit of that dark
Speaker 3: ocean showing up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it accelerates, right, because if you lose sea ice,
Speaker 2: then you're going to get more sunlight not being reflected
Speaker 2: by the white snow but in instead being captured by
Speaker 2: the dark sea, and that heats of the sea even more.
Speaker 2: That causes melting even more, and then it.
Speaker 3: Starts to change things like the circulation system of both
Speaker 3: the oceans but also the jet stream, and that's how
Speaker 3: extreme weather starts to change.
Speaker 2: And we can connect those jet stream fluctuations to things
Speaker 2: like the polar votex, which holds this cold typically inside
Speaker 2: the Arctic, then sometimes escapes, like we saw in the
Speaker 2: US when there was a cold snap in December, pushing
Speaker 2: temperatures in the negative in places like Texas. And if
Speaker 2: the polar votex doesn't flow as well as it does,
Speaker 2: it also causes heat waves like the one that we've
Speaker 2: just seen in Europe, which has melted all the snow
Speaker 2: indavors exactly.
Speaker 3: So it regulates that global climate system that gives us
Speaker 3: the weather that we're kind of used to, and then
Speaker 3: we start to see things get really strange. So parts
Speaker 3: of Switzerland this week have been twenty degrees celsius. That
Speaker 3: is not a Swiss January, let me tell you. So
Speaker 3: it's just completely different, which means there's knock on effects.
Speaker 3: It's not just that you can't ski as much as
Speaker 3: you might want. It's also that the whole biodiversity chain changes,
Speaker 3: because then trees start to think it's spring, or so
Speaker 3: do flies and other species. But there's also some really
Speaker 3: specific things that can happen that need to happen in
Speaker 3: the Arctic that aren't happening. The first is that as
Speaker 3: shipping opens up, there's a real need to get rid
Speaker 3: of heavy fuel used.
Speaker 2: By ships, right because these heavy fuels are really polluting,
Speaker 2: and when they burn that fuel to ships, they pump
Speaker 2: out all these really bad particles, dark particles onto snow,
Speaker 2: which makes snow darker and does makes it easier to
Speaker 2: melt exactly.
Speaker 3: Or the idea is that oh as the Arctic melts,
Speaker 3: we can get at oil and gas deposits that are there,
Speaker 3: and yet that's going to be you know, catastrophic, so
Speaker 3: don't do that. So it's a side of short lived
Speaker 3: economic games for some companies or some countries, and yet
Speaker 3: the rest will pay the price because the price tags
Speaker 3: are coming are not necessarily being felt by those that
Speaker 3: could gain from it. And there's lots of other things.
Speaker 3: We know that the big wild card is permafrost. So
Speaker 3: much of Siberia and certainly parts of Canada and the
Speaker 3: US in Alaska have permafrost which in that has carbon
Speaker 3: stored frozen and as it thaws, it releases methane, which
Speaker 3: is a much more concentrated greenhouse gas.
Speaker 4: But there's almost no.
Speaker 3: Direct sensors monitoring that situation that looks like it is
Speaker 3: potentially destabilizing as well. I think the whole of the
Speaker 3: Arctic terrestrial area we've got only two hundred and fifty
Speaker 3: on the ground sensors, which would be like one sensor
Speaker 3: per state of West Virginia or the whole country of Ireland.
Speaker 3: Like you can't it's not like you can get your
Speaker 3: cholesterol measured by having your neighbor down the roads lesterial
Speaker 3: measure and that means act shot you're okay, we actually
Speaker 3: need more measurement of something so important.
Speaker 2: Now, once you decided to go to Davos, because the
Speaker 2: Arctic needed to be talked about at Davos. Was it
Speaker 2: as easy as buying a ticket and submitting a panel
Speaker 2: idea and then they will be like, yes, that's a
Speaker 2: really good topic. It's very important, we should talk about it. Gail,
Speaker 2: please come along and set up a panel.
Speaker 4: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: No, no, it was not at all an easy process,
Speaker 3: and in fact how it started off was I was
Speaker 3: actually in Tromso, so I was in part of the
Speaker 3: Arctic Circle in Norway at an academic conference. I'm a
Speaker 3: social scientist and I have worked my entire career collectively
Speaker 3: and collaboratively with the natural scientists around the world, so
Speaker 3: I bring in the natural science into discussions of global risk,
Speaker 3: particularly in.
Speaker 4: Boardrooms around the world.
Speaker 3: So I was in Tromso and the conference at the
Speaker 3: time in twenty eleven was on tipping point, and all
Speaker 3: the Arctic natural scientists were absolutely worried about the global
Speaker 3: implications at that time.
Speaker 4: And that's over a decade ago now.
Speaker 3: And I said, you know, why are we talking about
Speaker 3: this in the Artic And they said.
Speaker 4: But that's where it's happening.
Speaker 3: And I said, yeah, but when you're talking global tipping points,
Speaker 3: the globe is not here.
Speaker 4: And that's when the light bulb moment for me was
Speaker 4: I said, we have to go to Davos.
Speaker 3: And then my fellow colleagues in the natural scientists said
Speaker 3: a couple of different things.
Speaker 4: First of all, they said, what is Davos.
Speaker 2: For example, you know a group that hadn't heard of Damas.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, they're like, well, what is that? Exactly? An explained.
Speaker 4: And then some of them who knew what Davos was.
Speaker 3: And then there was another group that also said, well,
Speaker 3: we do know what Davos is, but we're not sure.
Speaker 3: That's the role of science, And again this is over
Speaker 3: a decade ago. So scientists felt that their role was
Speaker 3: to do research, a rigorously peer review and publish it.
Speaker 3: And I certainly agree with that wholeheartedly. But in order
Speaker 3: order to get the implications of that research out, we
Speaker 3: have to sometimes go to places that we don't know
Speaker 3: where we are. So I very bravely said, you we've
Speaker 3: got to go to the World Economic Forum, we have
Speaker 3: to go to Davas.
Speaker 4: Let's go.
Speaker 3: And I had worked a little bit with the World
Speaker 3: Economic Forum, and I went down that summer to talk
Speaker 3: to some folks that I knew there, and they were
Speaker 3: very interested, I have to.
Speaker 2: Say, and this is we're talking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're talking twenty eleven, twenty twelve.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it was starting.
Speaker 3: Climate change was starting to be on the agenda, but
Speaker 3: again just sort of starting. But the Arctic was really
Speaker 3: seen as a niche part of that storyline, and there
Speaker 3: was a bit of work that was being done on
Speaker 3: the Arctic which was more about who owned the mineral
Speaker 3: rights or shipping this kind of stuff. So internally there
Speaker 3: was this idea, of course that it's a rich place
Speaker 3: of natural resources.
Speaker 2: So you go to the World Economic Forum and there
Speaker 2: is some interest in the ocade, Yeah, yeah, absolutely, so
Speaker 2: then what happens next?
Speaker 3: But it wasn't on the official program, but I did
Speaker 3: know that there was a series of side events, so
Speaker 3: I thought, well, we'll just do a side event. I
Speaker 3: completely under estimated the fact that you can't get a
Speaker 3: place to stay at Davos.
Speaker 4: The hotels are booked.
Speaker 3: Out in advance, and the World Economic Forum has guests
Speaker 3: who get the chance to book those rooms, and there's
Speaker 3: absolutely no way we could get a room and then
Speaker 3: even if we could get a room, the cost of
Speaker 3: those rooms during the Davos week for scientists, for academics
Speaker 3: impossible for us to be able to pay for that,
Speaker 3: even if we could. So I turned my way a
Speaker 3: couple of times onto a hotel list, like basically, you
Speaker 3: can have a closet if it's still available, but eventually
Speaker 3: I would get kicked off on that. And you can
Speaker 3: stay outside Davos, but then you've got to come in,
Speaker 3: and then you've got no place to present. So around
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen, I said, you know what, let's just bring
Speaker 3: an Arctic science tent, a weather have intent that scientists
Speaker 3: use in the field, and let's bring it and let's
Speaker 3: find a backyard we can put it in, and we're
Speaker 3: going to camp in it, and we're going to use
Speaker 3: that as our event space.
Speaker 2: And I did. I did. That's where the name Optic
Speaker 2: base Camp comes from. Yeah, so what should people picture
Speaker 2: when they're imagining the Arctic base camp tent? Inda of us.
Speaker 4: Oh, it's a pretty big tent.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's not a tent to get married in,
Speaker 3: so to speak, but it's a pretty big tent.
Speaker 4: So it's about two and a half.
Speaker 3: Three meters wide and about five meters long, and it's
Speaker 3: a big sort of domed tent and it's white with
Speaker 3: orange which is the classic weather Haven colors, and are
Speaker 3: big logo artic base camp. It's insulated, of course, it's
Speaker 3: got some insulation around it, and then we have smaller
Speaker 3: sleeping tents, which are a little yellow tents, two person
Speaker 3: tents that are set up around it.
Speaker 2: Base camps are typically camps that are set up at
Speaker 2: the base of a mountain, so like the ever Space
Speaker 2: camp would be a very famous one where exactly even
Speaker 2: climbing up to the base camp is quite the challenge,
Speaker 2: but of course that's just the base camp, and then
Speaker 2: you actually go to the peak. And so what you
Speaker 2: were trying to say with that is, now we've created
Speaker 2: this place actually physic place where people can come and
Speaker 2: if they so understand the importance of what's happening in
Speaker 2: the Arctic, well they can go to the next eleven
Speaker 2: and do something.
Speaker 4: About it exactly.
Speaker 3: And it was this idea that we could control this
Speaker 3: space and it was a space for science. And we
Speaker 3: were not fancy, and we were cold, and we were
Speaker 3: very thankful for any dinner anybody ever gave us.
Speaker 4: During any of the Davos weeks.
Speaker 3: To be honest with you, you know that first year
Speaker 3: it was minus twenty four celsius.
Speaker 4: It was freezing. It was freezing, and we.
Speaker 3: Ended up doing the actual event indoor at the research institute.
Speaker 3: Beside us that professor Conrad Stephan, who was a Swiss gleciologist.
Speaker 3: He'd just come back to Switzerland and he was in
Speaker 3: charge of a larger institute that had this Davos base
Speaker 3: for snow and avalanche research and he was completely supportive,
Speaker 3: so we co hosted it with him and his team.
Speaker 3: Let us use indoor facilities that first year to do
Speaker 3: the actual presentations, and we were super lucky. We had
Speaker 3: Vice President Gore al Gore joined us as a keynote,
Speaker 3: Christiana Figueras, we had Peter Barker, CEO of World Business
Speaker 3: CA Council, leaders from WWF, Noukoichi was there from the GEF,
Speaker 3: and it was a huge event. We had well over
Speaker 3: one hundred and twenty people and that was a rocky
Speaker 3: way of kicking off Davos.
Speaker 2: You've continued to do it since and many of the
Speaker 2: names you just recounted, like Alcore, are people who already
Speaker 2: understand the problem. So what was it that you had
Speaker 2: to do to bring in the other crowd, the crowd
Speaker 2: you really wanted to get to exactly.
Speaker 3: Well, the first thing is we had to change locations
Speaker 3: because it was not actually on the animal corridor of
Speaker 3: the Davos participant.
Speaker 4: They were not walking past that.
Speaker 3: They were maybe getting in their helicopter, but that was
Speaker 3: not enough to see us. We got a location in
Speaker 3: the second year which we've stayed at every year since,
Speaker 3: at the Schatzel Hotel, which is a glorious hotel a
Speaker 3: short vernicular ride up the mountain and it's one of
Speaker 3: the classic hotels in Davos, and it's also where they
Speaker 3: had the closing lunch every year. Lots of folks stay
Speaker 3: at the Shatsu. It has got major events happening all
Speaker 3: the time. You know, Bill Gates and Malala have done in,
Speaker 3: John Kerry have Doney Vet's and you know, a glorious view.
Speaker 4: So it's kind of on the World Leader Tour.
Speaker 2: That's handy, Yeah, that's handy.
Speaker 3: You know one here in twenty eighteen, I believe, where
Speaker 3: we were packing up the tant and we saw there
Speaker 3: was a ton of security. So really, you know, guys
Speaker 3: with guns everywhere and snipers and so on, so we
Speaker 3: knew somebody fancy was going to be around. And then
Speaker 3: we saw mister Netanya, who walking by with his wife
Speaker 3: in entourage.
Speaker 2: Head a state of Israel at the time.
Speaker 3: Yes, he was absolutely and he walked up to me
Speaker 3: and he said, what the heck are you doing here
Speaker 3: with this big artic tent. And I said, well, we
Speaker 3: are Arctic scientists and we're bringing a message of climate
Speaker 3: risk to global leaders. And he said you're sleeping here
Speaker 3: and I said, yeah, we are. We slept here for three.
Speaker 4: Nights and I was wearing the sweater i'd slept in.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, it was not the most glamorous
Speaker 3: meeting I would have to say.
Speaker 4: And then he said I want to see the tent.
Speaker 3: So they all came in and we talked about climate
Speaker 3: change and global risk and let him see some ice
Speaker 3: core samples, you know, that kind of thing.
Speaker 4: I'm not suggesting he was.
Speaker 3: On our target list for who we wanted to brief,
Speaker 3: but Davos gives you the opportunity where you can make
Speaker 3: those unusual moments and just speak science to power.
Speaker 2: After the break, I asked Gale whether what happens at
Speaker 2: Davos really makes a difference and what needs to happen
Speaker 2: to save the optic. If you like learning about big
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Speaker 2: Big Take wherever you listen to podcasts, Davos has been
Speaker 2: the place where climate change is being talked about more recently.
Speaker 2: Part of it is because of initiative like yours, bringing
Speaker 2: the Arctic based camp to Fruition and bringing more leaders
Speaker 2: to really understand this problem. But we also know that
Speaker 2: emissions haven't started falling. There was the one year in
Speaker 2: the pandemic that we saw a drop, and that was
Speaker 2: because of economic activity being halted. We saw emissions rise
Speaker 2: over the record high that was set in twenty nineteen
Speaker 2: last year, So now we have a new record high.
Speaker 2: That is why many people look at dubos and go, yes,
Speaker 2: they're talking about climate change, but if they are not
Speaker 2: doing something about it, isn't that greenwashing? How do you
Speaker 2: respond to that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I think, you know, I think the Forum
Speaker 3: has If I look at the international stage, it's really
Speaker 3: significantly changed over the years. So a decade ago, there
Speaker 3: was probably inside the World Economic Forum ten to fifteen
Speaker 3: people working on environmental issues. Now a decade later, there's
Speaker 3: probably over well over one hundred or one hundred and
Speaker 3: twenty people working on environmental issues, climate change, biodiversity, plastics,
Speaker 3: all kinds of stuff. So they have massively scaled up
Speaker 3: their teams and they've done I think tremendous work in
Speaker 3: all of those areas and work in the sense of
Speaker 3: mobilizing private sector action.
Speaker 4: They've got a CEO Climate Leaders Group, which.
Speaker 3: Is impressive, is bold, is ambitious, you know co leader
Speaker 3: is Yesper Broaden's CEO of IKIA. So you've got these
Speaker 3: really you know, interesting and I think relatively young CEOs
Speaker 3: that are active in this space.
Speaker 4: But you've hit the.
Speaker 3: Nail on the head here. If emissions do not fall,
Speaker 3: it doesn't matter, none of it.
Speaker 4: Matters.
Speaker 3: None of the science matters, of the media stories matter,
Speaker 3: none of the corporate CEO good statements matter.
Speaker 4: I don't think it's only greenwash, just.
Speaker 3: Like I don't think the work that I'm doing is
Speaker 3: necessarily self aggrandizing. I think what it is is that
Speaker 3: we've got intractable problems and when governments go back into
Speaker 3: their zone of say post pandemic recovery, they focus on
Speaker 3: short term gains. So you look in Europe the pushback
Speaker 3: to coal because of the war in Ukraine with Russia.
Speaker 3: You look at the UK flip flopping on what they're
Speaker 3: trying to do depending on who is the current Prime
Speaker 3: minister or not. But the real flip flip flop back
Speaker 3: and forth on how far and how fast, and should
Speaker 3: they bring that Cambo oil field online or not, or
Speaker 3: if we had two hundred years. Actually I would feel
Speaker 3: pretty optimistic because there's been a sea change in this
Speaker 3: decade since we've been trying to get to Dabos, an
Speaker 3: absolute sea change. But the problem is is that we've
Speaker 3: delayed action so long that physics is really pushing us.
Speaker 3: And I think extreme weather, which is the number one
Speaker 3: global risk around the world, is the wake up call.
Speaker 2: What specifically needs to happen at the World Economic Forum next.
Speaker 3: Well, from our perspective, because the Arctic is so important,
Speaker 3: you know, in terms of the future of humanity, what
Speaker 3: really needs to happen is it needs to become a
Speaker 3: central part of the Forum programming.
Speaker 4: We have to go from off.
Speaker 3: Broadway into the main tent, so to speak, and that
Speaker 3: means we have to become one of the projects. Not
Speaker 3: Arctic Base Camp, we're separate, but the Arctic or broadly
Speaker 3: the polar regions need to become part of the World
Speaker 3: Economic Forum. So they have stuff on water and oceans,
Speaker 3: they have stuff on trees, where's the cryosphere, which is
Speaker 3: the frozen parts of the planet. We know that they're
Speaker 3: so important, So we really absolutely need the Forum to
Speaker 3: pick this up as a project. And in order to
Speaker 3: do that, they need members. They need concrete two three
Speaker 3: companies or big foundations, philanthropic donors that say this is
Speaker 3: important enough. And it is because we cannot do any
Speaker 3: of the other things if we don't save the Arctic
Speaker 3: and the Antarctic.
Speaker 2: You use the word project. Now, lots of things can
Speaker 2: be projects, but what does it really mean to be
Speaker 2: a project of the World Economic Forum?
Speaker 4: Oh, oh, that's a good question.
Speaker 3: So the Forum has a Center for Nature and Climate
Speaker 3: that they set up, and underneath that they have probably
Speaker 3: about I don't know, fifty or one hundred projects. Those
Speaker 3: are the actual work projects that members work on throughout
Speaker 3: the year the World Economic Forum, of course, the annual
Speaker 3: meeting is at Davos, but that doesn't mean that's all
Speaker 3: that the Forum does. In fact, they have these workstreams
Speaker 3: that continue throughout the year. And that's why you want
Speaker 3: to get on a project. You don't want to just
Speaker 3: pop up as here's the Arctic again in January of
Speaker 3: every year. You actually want people working on the Arctic
Speaker 3: or the Polar regions more broadly throughout the throughout the year.
Speaker 2: So you want to be a protect And because of
Speaker 2: the presence of the Arctic based camp at Davos, you've
Speaker 2: been asked by CEOs and companies to come and give briefings.
Speaker 2: What does that involve and like what does it lead to?
Speaker 3: Its interesting we found because we're sort of seeing obviously
Speaker 3: as an unusual experience at Davos and one where the
Speaker 3: teams will bring up a CEO for we had we
Speaker 3: had one in May, large multinational company and incoming CEO
Speaker 3: his first time at Davos, and he wanted to come
Speaker 3: up and see different things, and he came into the
Speaker 3: Arctic based camp tent and we did a bespoke science briefing,
Speaker 3: which man it was just for him and his team,
Speaker 3: and we went through not just the latest in Arctic change,
Speaker 3: we then brought it into the global risk stuff. And
Speaker 3: for this company, they were incredibly focused on water risk
Speaker 3: and change over time and really did not know at
Speaker 3: the c suite level how much the art it would
Speaker 3: affect those water patterns throughout the world.
Speaker 4: So when we have a chance to do that, we
Speaker 4: do it. The same thing with food.
Speaker 3: The Arctic because of its role in the water and
Speaker 3: precipitation patterns around the world, it actually threatens the six
Speaker 3: bread baskets of the world. You know, Arctic risk is
Speaker 3: coming to our food system. The world is focused on,
Speaker 3: of course the bread basket in Russia and Ukraine, and
Speaker 3: rightly should be, but the other overlying threat on that
Speaker 3: one and all the others is actually Arctic change. Yeah.
Speaker 2: As a climate journalist, there's a shorthand that I've learned,
Speaker 2: which is climate change is caused by greenhouse gases in
Speaker 2: the atmosphere, but it really manifests through water on Earth.
Speaker 2: And of course when I think about water, I'm thinking
Speaker 2: rivers and lakes and oceans and sea level rise. But
Speaker 2: really it's not just water in liquid foam, but water
Speaker 2: in the frozen from in the poles, both in the
Speaker 2: Arctic and the Antarctic.
Speaker 3: I love that metaphor. You know, I don't know if
Speaker 3: you've ever talked to Lewis Pugh.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's interesting you bring up Lewis Pew because talked
Speaker 2: to him just a few episodes ago. And I hope
Speaker 2: list this can go back into the archive and listen
Speaker 2: to the episode on why protecting the oceans is so important.
Speaker 3: You know, he says this great line, ice is life.
Speaker 3: It's incredibly important from the water system. And then also
Speaker 3: you know sea level rise. We are seeing such instability
Speaker 3: in Greenland, which is the largest contributor right now to
Speaker 3: sea level rise, which threatens coastal communities everywhere. So I
Speaker 3: think Arctic Base Camp is a way of bringing the
Speaker 3: Arctic to Davos. But the real hero of the story
Speaker 3: is the Arctic itself. When you see the scale of
Speaker 3: change that's happening, whether it's in Greenland or you go
Speaker 3: to northern Canada or Alaska, or you're in Svalbart and onwards,
Speaker 3: and you see that scale of change, you feel a
Speaker 3: moral imperative to try and deal with that terrifying outcome.
Speaker 3: And that comes back to your point, okshot, what will
Speaker 3: happen at Davos when there's no snow and all the
Speaker 3: people that are used to seeing that snow and they've
Speaker 3: got they bring their big boots anyway, and they don't
Speaker 3: need them.
Speaker 2: Well, but Davos as the place of the powerful and
Speaker 2: the elite, meeting at the start of the year to
Speaker 2: set the agenda for the rest of the year. Typically
Speaker 2: in the way that it manifests is the tip of
Speaker 2: what capitalism does. How do you think morality is going
Speaker 2: to help shape that outcome?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, call me naive, but I actually think
Speaker 3: this is because I've seen it happen so many times. Ultimately,
Speaker 3: leaders are people, and when we touch their humanity and
Speaker 3: we combine that with self interest at times, but when
Speaker 3: we touch their humanity and they see the existential threats
Speaker 3: facing them, and we saw it with the pandemic for sure,
Speaker 3: we saw it to some degree with the war in Ukraine.
Speaker 3: People will rise or can rise to the occasion, not
Speaker 3: always will, and I think that will happen with the
Speaker 3: climate crisis. My worry is that it might not happen
Speaker 3: until it's too late to really avoid some major losses.
Speaker 3: So we're pretty close to the one point five c
Speaker 3: safe space, and you'll get scientists that will say we
Speaker 3: don't have a hope in hell of maintaining that. I
Speaker 3: stand on the side of optimism that as close to
Speaker 3: one point five as we can get is better than
Speaker 3: saying that that target's away, because it's not a target.
Speaker 3: It's really about a physical limit. So we have to
Speaker 3: keep going until it's too late, and even then we
Speaker 3: have to try to mitigate as much as we can.
Speaker 3: The pandemic did show us that when people were faced
Speaker 3: with it, not all there is gaming. There was all
Speaker 3: kinds of political expedient decision making at times around the world.
Speaker 3: But people will make decisions that are bigger than themselves,
Speaker 3: and I'm hoping that we can start doing that too,
Speaker 3: because time is running out.
Speaker 2: I hope you're right. That was a fascinating conversation. Thank you, Kayle,
Speaker 2: Thank you. Last year was the first time I went
Speaker 2: to Davos. It was in May instead of the usual
Speaker 2: cold January, and the discussion no surprises, focused on the
Speaker 2: war in Ukraine, the energy crisis that was to come,
Speaker 2: and how the global economy will deal with high inflation.
Speaker 2: Despite that, the climate remained a priority. Seven months on,
Speaker 2: things haven't changed all that much. The war continues to
Speaker 2: drag on, inflation is still too high, and energy security
Speaker 2: remains top of mind. Will climate still be a priority
Speaker 2: at Davos find out at Bloomberg dot com, slash Grain.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for listening to Zero. If you liked
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