WEBVTT - Big Take: COP29 Confronts Tensions Over Funding Clean Energy Transition 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.800 Hayzier listeners, it's mightily producer of the show. Uckjet is 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.000 still in Baku for COP twenty nine and we'll be 0:00:06.040 --> 0:00:09.119 bringing you more updates from the conference in the week ahead, 0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:12.280 but first we wanted to share the Big Take podcast 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:17.000 coverage of COP featuring Ukshet's reporting. Enjoy the show and 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:19.760 do listen back to Zero's recent COP twenty nine episodes, 0:00:20.280 --> 0:00:24.000 including an interview with excell and CEO Darren Woods, recorded 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:25.200 earlier this week. 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:33.800 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:38.200 The world's most important climate conference kicked off this week 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:43.040 in Baku, Azerbaijan, and this year it's all about money. 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:46.239 To go from the system that we have today to 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:49.360 a less carbon intensive systems is going to require money 0:00:49.400 --> 0:00:50.680 and it's going to be more expensive. 0:00:51.040 --> 0:00:53.360 You can't achieve anything if you don't have finance sects. 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:55.560 There is a wall of money there, but we just 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:57.360 need to find a way of deploying it. 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:02.080 That was Darren Woods, the CEO of Exxon, NGO, lawyer 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:06.640 Jacinda and GK and former UK Minister Alek Sharma. They're 0:01:06.680 --> 0:01:10.000 just a few of over fifty thousand people attending this 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:15.000 year's UN Climate conference called COP It's an annual meeting 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:18.319 where delegates from nearly two hundred countries come together to 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:20.840 address one of the most urgent issues of our time, 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:26.120 climate change. At last year's COP, members laid the groundwork 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:29.280 to transition away from fossil fuels and to reach net 0:01:29.400 --> 0:01:32.800 zero by twenty fifty. So this year they need to 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:35.880 decide who's going to pay for that transition. 0:01:36.160 --> 0:01:38.000 It's labeled the finance COP. 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:41.720 Akshat Rothi is a senior climate reporter for Bloomberg and 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:45.200 the host of the Zero podcast. This is the fourth 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:48.560 COP he's attended, but Akshat says the stakes of this 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:52.440 year's talks feel even higher than usual. And that's not 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:54.960 just because we're set to blow past the one point 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:58.920 five degree celsius temperatureized target outlined in the Paris Agreement, 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:02.320 because twenty twenty four is said to be the hottest 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:06.080 year on record, or because the financial commitment needed to 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:09.359 decarbonize could be as much as trillions of dollars. 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:12.640 It's because, on top of all that, there is a 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:15.760 Trump cloud somewhere in the sky all the time during 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:16.760 these negotiations. 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:20.360 Trump has been an antagonist to environmental efforts. During his 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:22.680 first term, he pulled the US out of the Paris 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:26.200 Climate Accords, and he's made no secret about his feelings 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:29.639 on fossil fuels. We have more liquid gold, well, I 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:32.360 guess we have more liquid gold than any country in 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:35.560 the world, more than Saudi Arabia, we have more than Russia. 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:39.520 It's this kind of rhetoric that has delegates concerned and 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:42.840 wondering what a second Trump presidency means for the US's 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:50.760 commitment to climate goals and to the Earth's future. This 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:53.720 is the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:57.440 today on the show inside COP twenty nine after a 0:02:57.480 --> 0:03:00.560 Trump win, how the world will calculate the cost of 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:10.280 fighting climate change and decide who's footing the bill. Okshot 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:13.240 Rathi has been on the ground in Baku since COP 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:16.919 twenty nine kicked off there earlier this week. He's trying 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:20.680 to get the pulse on how negotiations over climate financing 0:03:20.680 --> 0:03:25.000 are going and how global tensions are influencing the talks. 0:03:25.680 --> 0:03:29.240 So he's speaking to people there from vegan activists. 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:32.120 He are here to promote veganism because this is the 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:33.760 solution for global army. 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:39.200 Your excellences to Muktar Babayev, The oil executive who's currently 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:40.360 the president of COP. 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:42.480 Welcome to Azerbaijan. 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:44.760 Welcome to COP twenty nine. 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:49.520 That's Babayev at CoP's opening ceremony in his home country 0:03:49.640 --> 0:03:54.120 of Azerbaijan, a location that's been raising some eyebrows. 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:58.240 Azerbaijan is a petro state. Ninety percent of its exports 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:02.000 are oil and gas. Isn't the attention, certainly, but it's 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:06.000 also part of the process. You warned even the countries 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:08.560 that have fossil fuels to be a part of climate 0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:11.240 action because it's a global problem in every country has 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:11.880 to do its bit. 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:15.880 The negotiations happening at this year's COP revolve around what 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:20.480 responsibility the country's richest economies have to help smaller economies 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:23.600 adapt to a warming world. And by the time COP 0:04:23.640 --> 0:04:26.640 twenty nine is over, there are two main things that 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:28.080 delegates need to decide. 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:31.039 The first one is called Article six, and it's about 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:34.560 creating a carbon market where say a country like Indonesia, 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:37.400 which has a lot of forests, could be producing carbon 0:04:37.440 --> 0:04:40.440 credits and be selling them to Norway, which produces a 0:04:40.440 --> 0:04:43.479 lot of oil and has emissions that would allow money 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:45.640 to go to Indonesia, which it could use to try 0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:49.479 and move its energy transition faster. That got signed off 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:52.240 at least half of it on the very first day 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:55.560 of COP and maybe countries and companies will start to 0:04:55.640 --> 0:04:57.440 buy carbon credits from these countries. 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:00.320 Just after COP members finalize some of the rules for 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:03.760 international carbon trading and made plans to launch a UN 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:08.080 backed carbon market, Saudi Arabia launched its own carbon trading market, 0:05:08.320 --> 0:05:10.200 capitalizing on the new opportunity. 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:12.640 The second thing, which is a much harder thing, it's 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:16.680 called the new collective quantified Goal on Climate finance. Sorry, 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:20.120 it's a big phrase, but that's the official phrase, and 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:24.800 all it means is what will rich countries contribute towards 0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:29.039 helping poor countries reduce emissions adapt to the warming that's 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:32.960 already been caused. Because without that money, those countries could 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:36.320 not develop as much renewable energy and might end up 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:40.800 fossil fuels, which will exacerbate the problem. And the number, 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:43.640 which is going to be in the hundreds of billions 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:46.960 of dollars a trillions of dollars, is what is at 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:49.520 the heart of the contention over the two. 0:05:49.440 --> 0:05:54.080 Week period, Well, how do they decide how much responsibility 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:56.240 each country has to shoulder? 0:05:56.839 --> 0:06:00.520 There is no simple math here. It's not like you 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:02.839 put out a tennis permissions so you are going to 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:05.320 have to pay so much money. It is very much 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:08.400 the hard work of diplomacy. You look at the science, 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:12.560 you say, clearly, rich countries have done the most. Now 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:15.360 you should start to show how you can help poor 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:19.280 countries manage that. Rich countries will say, look, we are 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:22.360 having problems back at home, there's a cost of living crisis. 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:26.080 Whatever the reasons might be, those countries will have to 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:28.440 make those excuses, and then there will be a fight. 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:31.800 And that fight actually happens in like really boring text, 0:06:32.240 --> 0:06:36.479 legal text, but boring texts for you know, poets or 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:40.279 literature readers, but very important text. And the final thing 0:06:40.400 --> 0:06:44.640 is this is a very weird experiment because the cop 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:48.839 process only works by consensus. That means all countries, not 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:51.839 a single country can disagree. All countries have to agree. 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:54.000 Only then you get a deal at the end. 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:57.279 What about the private sector? How much of the responsibility 0:06:57.520 --> 0:06:58.520 will they take on. 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:02.080 The private sector is not directly involved in these negotiations. 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:06.360 It's very much a un process. But because the energy 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:09.840 transition and all these climate goals is trillions of dollars 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:13.920 of investments annually. There is no way that happens without 0:07:13.960 --> 0:07:17.720 the private sector participating. That's why at every cop we 0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:21.560 get not just government ministers but also company CEOs coming. 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:25.200 I spoke to the CEO of EGXON earlier this week, 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:27.880 and he very much made the case that the US 0:07:28.080 --> 0:07:31.360 should remain in the Paris Agreement, that Donald Trump should 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:34.920 keep the Inflation Reduction Act because for companies, it is 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:39.240 really important that the policies that governments set are stable, 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:43.440 are acceptable, and they have business certainty to go down 0:07:43.480 --> 0:07:47.400 this energy transition. So private sector doesn't play a direct role, 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:51.280 but it plays a central role in delivering the goals. 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:54.920 The interaction between the two is always fascinating to watch. 0:07:55.440 --> 0:08:00.600 Just how much money is needed to address climate change? 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:02.960 Is that a number you can share and quantify. 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:06.560 Yes, that number has been quantified, and there are estimates 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:11.160 of various kinds. So something like three trillion to five 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:15.000 trillion dollars is roughly the number that multiple estimates come to. 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:18.040 And that is investments all countries have to make towards 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:23.040 just reducing emissions. And today we make about two trillion 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:26.560 of that investment in clean energy. But there's a second 0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:30.760 aspect to spending money which is adapting to the warming 0:08:30.800 --> 0:08:34.679 that's already been caused. There's already heat waves of extreme 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:37.880 nature happening. There is sea level rise happening. We've seen 0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:41.840 floods in places like Spain very recently. There are droughts 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:46.640 in other regions, and those all have money figures attached 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:49.400 from the impacts. But there could be projects you could bill, 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:52.680 like managing the flow of a river or a sea wall, 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:56.040 that would allow you to avoid the impacts coming your way. 0:08:56.320 --> 0:08:59.200 And that number can be in the hundreds of billions 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:02.360 of dollars every year. So all of it it is 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:06.199 a large sum, but it is always worth remembering if 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:08.360 we don't spend this money now, we will have to 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:11.960 spend even greater sums dealing with climate impacts. 0:09:13.679 --> 0:09:17.640 After the break, the Trump question how the US's president 0:09:17.720 --> 0:09:20.560 elect could get in the way of global climate progress 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:33.120 at Future Cops and Beyond at COP twenty nine in Azerbajean. 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:37.040 This week, Bloomberg Senior climate reporter Akshat Rathi has been 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:41.040 reporting on how negotiations over the future of climate financing 0:09:41.080 --> 0:09:44.640 are going, but halfway through the ten day conference, there 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:47.760 are still a lot of unknowns one of the biggest 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:52.599 is how the US presidential election might influence things. So akshat, 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:56.840 there's still this big shadow hanging over cop and that 0:09:57.080 --> 0:10:00.320 is Donald Trump. Can you tell us more about how 0:10:00.360 --> 0:10:03.920 his leadership of the US might impact the country's participation 0:10:04.840 --> 0:10:08.800 in future cops in needing these eventual commitments. 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:11.480 In the past, Donald Trump pulled the US out of 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:14.520 the Paris Agreement, but he wasn't able to do very 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:16.679 much with it because there was a delay baked in. 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:19.640 By the time he left, Joe Biden had been elected. 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:23.280 This time around, when Donald Trump decides the US is leaving, 0:10:23.320 --> 0:10:25.520 it'll take one year for the US to leave, and 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:30.760 then the US cannot directly participate in negotiations and influence 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:34.720 the outcomes until perhaps a future president wants to join. 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:37.360 The other thing that Donald Trump can do is start 0:10:37.440 --> 0:10:42.520 to squeeze sources of finance that go towards climate, both 0:10:42.559 --> 0:10:47.000 domestically through things like cutting down financing for clean energy 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:50.800 through the Inflation Reduction Act, for example, or globally through 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:55.120 multilateral development banks where the US is the largest shareholder, 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:57.280 and it could give a mandate to these banks that 0:10:57.320 --> 0:11:01.080 they cannot anymore invest in climate. He could also take 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:04.320 money away from the UN system, which is something he 0:11:04.360 --> 0:11:07.080 has attempted to do in the past. And the United 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:10.079 Nations is a very important body, but it only works 0:11:10.120 --> 0:11:13.600 because all countries put in their contribution towards it, and 0:11:13.640 --> 0:11:16.760 the US contributes almost the fifth of its budget. There 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:19.400 is also a risk that Trump might pull the US 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:22.600 out of the underlying climate treaty altogether. 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:24.800 Part of the point of COP is that all of 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:30.959 these countries come together and have the shared commitment. If 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:35.120 the world's largest economy down the line is no longer 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:38.160 interested in fighting climate change, and if the US will 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:42.240 no longer be a leader on this, where does that 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:45.440 leave global efforts like COP. 0:11:45.720 --> 0:11:47.880 Look, there is no way to say it is a 0:11:47.920 --> 0:11:50.640 good thing. The US has a responsibility as the world's 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:54.600 largest historical emitter and as the current second largest emitter. 0:11:55.640 --> 0:11:58.920 If the US doesn't meet its responsibility, other countries will 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:02.439 feel like this might get a free pass. But then 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:05.199 you look at what happened when the US pulled out 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:09.200 of the Paris Agreement the first time. No other country left, 0:12:09.840 --> 0:12:12.960 and that's because the energy transition is one that is 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:15.000 better when done collaboratively. 0:12:15.520 --> 0:12:18.840 It's also because more countries are looking at the energy 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:20.600 transition as a good investment. 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:24.840 The price of clean energy has come down, the desire 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:29.280 for countries to create competitive industries that would build electric 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:33.800 cars or solar panels has grown, and so the US leaving. 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:38.679 As Ali Zaidi, who's then National Climate Advisor to President Biden, 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:42.720 told us, the US will actually fall behind countries like 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:45.559 China and India in the very technologies of the twenty 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:49.240 first century, and that could actually be economic harm to 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:49.800 the US. 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:53.320 It would be economic malpractice to put us back in 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:56.679 the position we were four years ago, where we're in 0:12:56.679 --> 0:12:59.960 a massive deficit in the leadership of these technologies. 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:03.199 And so right now we don't hear as if any 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:06.199 other country is following the footsteps that the US might 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:08.800 be about to take. But there is a risk that 0:13:09.120 --> 0:13:15.520 once the largest economy leaves, somebody might join the leaving party. 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:18.920 Akshat says that even at this tenuous moment for cop 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:22.840 and for the planet, there are some things bringing climate 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:24.120 activists hope. 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:27.440 Well, the biggest hope comes from China, which is a 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:30.320 weird thing to think about because China is currently the 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:33.520 largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions, has the most cold 0:13:33.559 --> 0:13:37.560 power plants in the world and produces almost thirty percent 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:40.280 of planet warming emissions, and yet it is also the 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:43.400 country that is deploying more clean energy than the rest 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:46.560 of the world combined. But I also get hope from 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:51.040 other countries, countries like India and Brazil and even Kenya, 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:55.760 smaller economies that see the potential for building clean energy 0:13:55.880 --> 0:13:59.680 as the route to prosperity, not just because it will 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:03.680 help reduce climate change, but also because they will find 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:07.000 ways to turn that clean energy into economic growth that 0:14:07.080 --> 0:14:11.199 will bring prosperity to their own people. And that perhaps 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:14.720 is the most hopeful note you can take when we 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:18.560 are almost certainly going to be facing many more and 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:21.400 more intense climate impacts over the next year. 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:24.200 And actually we've also been circling some of the challenges 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:27.680 facing COP, the tensions that are playing out beneath the surface, 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:32.640 the disappointments, or the knowledge that more work has to 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:36.360 be done after pass COPS. So I guess I'm just curious, 0:14:36.680 --> 0:14:40.840 how much does this conference matter? Why is it important 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:44.120 to keep convening every year and hashing this out. 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:48.560 Well, climate change is a global problem. It affects every 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:53.080 country everywhere. It is caused by every country everywhere, just 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:56.680 not proportionally because greenhouse gas emissions, once emitted, go into 0:14:56.720 --> 0:15:00.840 the atmosphere and stay there, and thus there has to 0:15:00.840 --> 0:15:05.040 be a global forum to address a global challenge. And 0:15:05.560 --> 0:15:08.480 as frustrating as cops are, as long as cops are, 0:15:08.720 --> 0:15:12.760 I find the event one of hope because it forces 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:15.680 all these people to come together. When I walk through 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:20.080 the COP venue, I see people wearing all sorts of dresses, 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:23.200 speaking all sorts of languages, and there is no other 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:25.880 place on Earth that I think you can experience that 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:29.560 level of diversity and that level of realization that we 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:30.880 are all in it together. 0:15:33.280 --> 0:15:37.240 COP twenty nine officially ends on November twenty second, but 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:41.480 it could take longer to reach a deal. This is 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:44.840 the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder. For 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:47.560 further coverage of COP twenty nine and more reporting from 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:51.280 akshat head to Bloomberg dot com or the zero podcast feed, 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:54.560 where you can also hear Okshot's interview with Exon CEO 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:58.280 Darren Woods. This episode was produced by Jessica Beck and 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:01.680 Adrianna Tapia, who also BacT check this episode. It was 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:05.240 mixed by Alex Suguiera. It was edited by Stacy Vannicksmith. 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:09.680 And Emily Buso. Special thanks to Mithalye Rau. Our senior 0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:13.400 producer is Naomi Shavin. Our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponso. 0:16:13.760 --> 0:16:17.640 Our executive producer is Nicole Beieamster bor Sage Bauman is 0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:21.240 Bloomberg's head of podcasts. If you liked this episode, make 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:24.040 sure to subscribe and review The Big Take wherever you 0:16:24.080 --> 0:16:27.840 get your podcasts. It helps people find the show. Thanks 0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:30.120 for listening. We'll be back next week.