Speaker 1: Welcome back to It Could Happen Here, the podcast about
Speaker 1: you know, the problems and stuff that are happening and
Speaker 1: how to maybe make them better. And speaking of the
Speaker 1: problems that are happening and how to make them better.
Speaker 1: Garrison Davis, Hi, Hello, that's so that's so weird, Segue.
Speaker 1: I wanted to introduce this video telling you guys that
Speaker 1: I just watched a movie that you should watch because
Speaker 1: it's pretty rad and it's ties into all the things
Speaker 1: we talked about. It's all the Pizza Gate massacred. It
Speaker 1: is a micro budget under a hundred thousand dollars film
Speaker 1: that looks great. They did a really good job with
Speaker 1: the budget they had about UM an Alex Jones employee
Speaker 1: type person and a mass shooter who go looking for
Speaker 1: UH to try to solve the Pizza Gate things. Oh boy,
Speaker 1: it is a an actually very nuanced and I think
Speaker 1: deeply knowledgeable commentary on specifically like the Texan conspiracy scene.
Speaker 1: Like it's a like film. They're Alex Jones character who's
Speaker 1: played by a woman in this They film in the
Speaker 1: original studio that he recorded in back and like the
Speaker 1: filmmaker who did this gets like the culture in the area,
Speaker 1: and kind of the relationship between the people who get
Speaker 1: radicalized and do ship and the people who just profit
Speaker 1: from it. It's a very good Um it's it is,
Speaker 1: by the way, a grindhouse horror movie. Like whatever you're expecting.
Speaker 1: It's not that it is, like it is an incredibly
Speaker 1: gory grindhouse movie. Um, but it's it's pretty it's pretty fun.
Speaker 1: What does that have to do with cup Nothing at all,
Speaker 1: but it has a lot to do with it could
Speaker 1: happen here because all right, well watch it anyway. Um,
Speaker 1: this is that could happen here. I show about how
Speaker 1: things are kind of falling apart and how we can
Speaker 1: then maybe slow that down or prepare for the uncertain future. Um.
Speaker 1: An episod it about cops, right, I mean, I mean
Speaker 1: we are we are planning an episode on Washington State Patrol. Um.
Speaker 1: But no, this is episode is a different a different
Speaker 1: kind of cop about just as useful. Um So, in
Speaker 1: the first five episodes of The Daily Show or season two,
Speaker 1: which if you haven't listened to you should definitely listen
Speaker 1: to those, as they kind of act as our show's
Speaker 1: manifesto of sorts. But nevertheless, the first time episodes of
Speaker 1: the scripted daily show put forth like a more like realistic,
Speaker 1: non sugarcoated look at what climate change will bring if
Speaker 1: we continue on our current course. Um, but not just
Speaker 1: looking at the obvious environmental and extreme weather effects, but
Speaker 1: also like the socio political effects. So when I was
Speaker 1: helping Robert out with the research for those episodes, some
Speaker 1: of the best indicators of like the mainstream conception of
Speaker 1: the scientific, environmental and political status of climate change was
Speaker 1: at the United Nations past uh I I PCC reports,
Speaker 1: which is the inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change, and
Speaker 1: the COP conferences. So during the first few weeks of
Speaker 1: this past November, November one, the twenty six annual COP
Speaker 1: conference took place in Glasgow. Um. And yeah, the name
Speaker 1: of the conference is kind of a decent indication on
Speaker 1: how useful these things actually are. But a COPS stands
Speaker 1: for a Conference of the parties, And for almost three
Speaker 1: decades they've been like the main international stage uh for
Speaker 1: for countries and companies to discuss climate related information and
Speaker 1: like they're alleged like goals. Um, so yeah, they're a
Speaker 1: good indicator not onlike sometimes they do present actual good
Speaker 1: science and like decent predictions, but they're often just like
Speaker 1: a good indication of what kind of the mainstream people
Speaker 1: think about what climate change is. And you know what
Speaker 1: the people in power, how they are viewing it and
Speaker 1: how urgent they think it's worth addressing versus how much
Speaker 1: money they want to spend on it. So the most
Speaker 1: notable COP in recent memory was in Paris COP twenty one.
Speaker 1: This is kind of where the Paris Climate Accords were born. Uh.
Speaker 1: The commitment was to aim for one point five degrees
Speaker 1: of warming and it was signed on by nearly all
Speaker 1: major countries. Of course the US signed on, left then
Speaker 1: resigned on. But anyway, under the Paris Agreement, countries committed
Speaker 1: to bring forth like a national plans UH figuring figuring
Speaker 1: out how they would reduce their emissions, but they would
Speaker 1: do it like by themselves, and they would be called
Speaker 1: n d c s or nationally determined contributions. And the
Speaker 1: idea was for every five years countries would gather up
Speaker 1: and present their current plans on the national stage. This
Speaker 1: was what COPPY was going to be. Now, it was
Speaker 1: delayed a year because of the pandemic, but COP twenty
Speaker 1: SI was the time for countries to present their n
Speaker 1: d c s on for like their updated versions on
Speaker 1: their plans to reduce some missions. So most of the
Speaker 1: NDCs got submitted before the conference and kind of led
Speaker 1: the discussion of the conference. UM By like mid October, Uh,
Speaker 1: think about seventy of the countries or uh, you know,
Speaker 1: states that signed on to the Paris Agreement submitted their
Speaker 1: submitted their version of the NDCs and and and those
Speaker 1: countries about a hundred and forty of them are responsible
Speaker 1: for the majority of global emissions. So that that that
Speaker 1: was what kind of led up to two COP twenty
Speaker 1: six from happening. UM. And the the overarching aim of
Speaker 1: the conference, according to UP president UM, when I try
Speaker 1: to pronounce this name um outlock uh sharma UM. He
Speaker 1: said that the the the idea for the conference was
Speaker 1: to like keep alive Paris Agreements target to keep global
Speaker 1: temperatures from rising above one point five degrees celsius above
Speaker 1: pre industrial levels. So that was that was like the
Speaker 1: goal of the conference going into it was to kind
Speaker 1: of keep this idea of the Paris Climate Accords of
Speaker 1: still being achievable. UM. And that's and that's not what
Speaker 1: happened at the top twenties. UM. Now it's it's it's
Speaker 1: important to kind of point out that the commitments laid
Speaker 1: out in the Pairs Accords don't come close to limiting
Speaker 1: global warming to one point five degrees, as it is
Speaker 1: said in the accords. Like like they they acknowledge that, um,
Speaker 1: which is what the kind of NDCs are for. But
Speaker 1: even still those are just non those are those are
Speaker 1: just non binding agreements. But anyway, so the cord the
Speaker 1: accords and the restrictions and goals and well there's no restrictions,
Speaker 1: it's just goals. The goals and them don't don't come
Speaker 1: close to limiting to one point five degrees. And we've
Speaker 1: already most likely shot way past the point of that
Speaker 1: being in any way achievable. Um. But you know, we
Speaker 1: can still limit things from being megabad like four degrees.
Speaker 1: But we are we are already on a certain path.
Speaker 1: So in in asking nations to set tougher targets by
Speaker 1: next year for cutting climate warming emissions, the new agreement
Speaker 1: at Glasgow acknowledge that the commitments that were in place
Speaker 1: are inadequate and if rigorously followed, the new national pledges
Speaker 1: so include the stuff including the Paras Accords and the
Speaker 1: new Glasgow packed um and all of the individual like
Speaker 1: uh n d c s. If all of those are followed,
Speaker 1: the world is now on track for a two point
Speaker 1: one to two point four degrees celsius of warming by
Speaker 1: the end of the century. And that is the lower estimate.
Speaker 1: As we'll see later on. Higher estimates were also um
Speaker 1: shown at at the at the Glasgow conference. So we
Speaker 1: have the the idea was to hopefully keep it to
Speaker 1: one point five and already we're pushing at back by
Speaker 1: almost a whole a whole degree if we're going to
Speaker 1: like two point four. Um, so that that's that's like
Speaker 1: the main one of the main impacts there is like
Speaker 1: just totally kissing one point five goodbye, Like no what,
Speaker 1: no one even is going to view that as a
Speaker 1: possibility at this point. Huh. So, I don't know how
Speaker 1: many people were still looking at that as really a goal.
Speaker 1: Apparently some people of the planners of copy apparently were,
Speaker 1: um but I mean, I know for us, we've we've
Speaker 1: been aware of that, and I'm not sure how you know,
Speaker 1: really what mainstream liberals were thinking before this, but hopefully
Speaker 1: at the very least, maybe Cop twenty six made them
Speaker 1: realize that maybe it's there's a there's kind of it's
Speaker 1: it's made maybe worse than what you were thinking. Um.
Speaker 1: But there there are other things did happen at at
Speaker 1: Glasgow that are that are worth looking into. Um. So
Speaker 1: the main quote unquote achievements of of the Glasgow Deal
Speaker 1: besides like revisiting the emissions cutting plants to try to
Speaker 1: keep stuff down, which of course we're you know, not
Speaker 1: not not met in shot way past. Um, but there
Speaker 1: we also had the first ever inclusion of a commitment
Speaker 1: to limit coal use. Now, the way phrasing is gonna
Speaker 1: work here is gonna be really interesting because the reason
Speaker 1: why this deal got passed is because some very specific
Speaker 1: shifts in their phrasing around coal use. Um. The other
Speaker 1: thing that CAT that CAT twenty six tried to do
Speaker 1: was increase financial help for so called developing countries and
Speaker 1: provide funds and assistance for like climate disasters. So like
Speaker 1: when when like extreme weather events happen, have a set
Speaker 1: of funds uh set aside to help countries in these disasters. Now,
Speaker 1: those are that that is a good idea, but as
Speaker 1: we'll see later, the way COPY actually did it is
Speaker 1: not actually doing it. It's like they're they're they're pushing there,
Speaker 1: they're postponing this kind of goal, but they're just making
Speaker 1: it a prospect. But back to coal. So, the Glasgow
Speaker 1: Climate Pact was the first ever climate deal to explicitly
Speaker 1: planned to reduce coal, which was a one one of
Speaker 1: the worst, like fossil fuels for four greenhouse gasses UM
Speaker 1: and and and coal really can be phased out. Coal
Speaker 1: can be phased out by um electric power really easily.
Speaker 1: It's it's it is the easiest one. UM. It's it's
Speaker 1: it's it's way easier to phase out cold than it is,
Speaker 1: uh natural gas or other um or sorry, let's see
Speaker 1: the the the other main one. There's three. There's a coal,
Speaker 1: natural gas, what's what's the last one? Regular gas? I
Speaker 1: guess so yeah, yeah, petroleum based stuff. UM yeah, But
Speaker 1: so the coals because coal is you mostly used for heat, um,
Speaker 1: electrically generated heat is way is way easier than all
Speaker 1: than those other two. So coal coal really should be
Speaker 1: phased out as soon as possible. UM. But the commitments
Speaker 1: to phase out coal that was introduced in earlier negotiations
Speaker 1: UM led to some fighting, specifically among India and China,
Speaker 1: who were in in strong opposition to the phrasing and
Speaker 1: the actual constraints of of the deal UM. And a
Speaker 1: lot of this is like the argument that like, if
Speaker 1: these countries are still developing, it's not fair to them
Speaker 1: to remove this resource when other developed nations had it,
Speaker 1: so that that that's that's the thing. We see that
Speaker 1: argument a lot around, like climate change stuff is like, oh,
Speaker 1: you you're just gonna stop other countries from developing because
Speaker 1: you you you got to get to this certain point
Speaker 1: of being a successful like wealthy nation um. And like
Speaker 1: you know with all this like an industrial development on
Speaker 1: the back of fossil fuels and stuff. But then now
Speaker 1: you're going to remove that opportunity for other countries. Now
Speaker 1: there is there is UM a lot of stuff around
Speaker 1: like the growth frameworks that address this issue and specific
Speaker 1: fickly try to try to get um fossil fuel savings
Speaker 1: like a decrease in emissions and be able to use
Speaker 1: some of those gains to assist countries in getting stuff
Speaker 1: set up to a decent standard of living UM. But
Speaker 1: you know that that is going to be addressed on
Speaker 1: a whole other scale around like capitalism and and how
Speaker 1: countries intervened in other countries. That that's part of a
Speaker 1: bigger political question but anyway, um, Indian China did not
Speaker 1: like that, did not like the coal deal. Um. So
Speaker 1: in the end, the countries did agree to phase down
Speaker 1: coal rather than phase out coal. So that that that
Speaker 1: is the phrase that they ended up using is phase down. Um.
Speaker 1: The people weren't super happy about this. Uh. The Cutty
Speaker 1: six president um Alec Sharma said that he was deeply
Speaker 1: sorry for how these events unfolded. And like focus on
Speaker 1: calls good. It's it's responsible for about of annual CEO
Speaker 1: two emissions. But also like just focusing on cole leaves
Speaker 1: of really big lack of discussion on oil and gas
Speaker 1: like there's like those are also like very bad and
Speaker 1: arguably we should be focusing on those a lot like
Speaker 1: those are those are the main ones we should get
Speaker 1: We should get rid of coal, yes, but if we
Speaker 1: just focus on that, then there's a lot of other
Speaker 1: stuff going on. So that is that is a lot
Speaker 1: of coal talk. Uh, you know who also uses coal.
Speaker 1: Our sponsors, we're entirely sponsored by Joe Manchin um big
Speaker 1: friend of the pod. Thank you, thank you for always
Speaker 1: having our back. Joe. Anyway, here's the ads and we
Speaker 1: are back talking about copy and there is there's a
Speaker 1: decent and there's stuff. Stuff did happen. So and I
Speaker 1: know it is going to be more of a sign
Speaker 1: C in numbers episode, but it is worth actually figuring
Speaker 1: out what what happened there because everyone just kind of
Speaker 1: had the perception like, oh, copy was a failure, because
Speaker 1: yeah it was, um, but it's it's it is good
Speaker 1: to know what actually is going on at things like
Speaker 1: this because if we're gonna get some kind of you know,
Speaker 1: liberal change, this is where it's going to happen. So
Speaker 1: it is good to keep an eye on what these
Speaker 1: types of people are thinking. So we we left off
Speaker 1: on talking about how their plans to phase down coal,
Speaker 1: and there was like a general lack of focus on
Speaker 1: oil and gas. And it is interesting, um if you
Speaker 1: So there was uh a group of activists led by
Speaker 1: this UH I think I think it's like an NGO
Speaker 1: called Global Witness. UM assessed the participant list published by
Speaker 1: the u N at the start of the meeting and
Speaker 1: they found that there was five hundred three people with
Speaker 1: links to fossil fuel interests who were like accredited members
Speaker 1: of the Climate Summit and so and they were like delicates.
Speaker 1: So COP twenty six delegates associated with fossil fuels outnumbered
Speaker 1: national delegate numbers for every other country, So there were
Speaker 1: more people representing fossil fuel interests than there were representing
Speaker 1: any individual country. So you're thinking, maybe maybe I wonder
Speaker 1: why this stuff is not going too good. Oh, it's
Speaker 1: because it's being run mostly by fossil fuel companies. That's
Speaker 1: that's uh huh. That's an interesting, interesting little thing there.
Speaker 1: Um yeah. So the the other the other kind of
Speaker 1: notable thing about copy is uh it uh it. It
Speaker 1: led to a quote unquote breakthrough in the rules for
Speaker 1: government led carbon markets. So this is the thing that
Speaker 1: the neoliberals are really excited about, is this idea of
Speaker 1: carbon markets, because it's a way to make more money
Speaker 1: kind of off of removing carbon and just to create
Speaker 1: a lot of red tape and bureaucracy around this idea
Speaker 1: of lowering emissions. So I guess one of the ways
Speaker 1: to describe carbon markets if you're kind of unfamiliar with
Speaker 1: this idea, is that countries that do not meet their
Speaker 1: emission reduction targets in their national climate pledges are like
Speaker 1: penalized for this. Um. So, so countries that countries that
Speaker 1: don't meet their emission targets or or want to just
Speaker 1: pursue like less, less expansive emission cuts. What what what
Speaker 1: this deal set out to do is that instead of
Speaker 1: actually lowering emissions, they can purchase like emissions reduction tokens
Speaker 1: and credits from other nations that have cut their emissions
Speaker 1: more than the amount that they pledged. Uh so, like
Speaker 1: by you know, moving to low carbon energy and various stuff.
Speaker 1: So the turn of phrase that people were using to
Speaker 1: discuss this to how you can like purchase purchase credits
Speaker 1: to represent emissions that you didn't cut but wanted to,
Speaker 1: is that this can potentially unlock trillions of dollars for
Speaker 1: protecting forests, expending renewable energy, and other projects to combat
Speaker 1: climate change. Um So, the idea here is that the
Speaker 1: money used to purchase these credits is going to get
Speaker 1: put into other things that will help fight climate change.
Speaker 1: But all of this is non binding and speculative, and
Speaker 1: it just furthers this whole carbon market concept, which I'm
Speaker 1: not thrilled about. Um yeah, we should, we should do
Speaker 1: like a full episode of carbon markets. But the thing,
Speaker 1: so I I I this is, you know, this is
Speaker 1: the thing I studied academically in college and is incredibly
Speaker 1: important for everyone to understand that carbon markets are fake
Speaker 1: and do not work at all. Ever, no one's gotten
Speaker 1: a national into work, and no one's ever gott an
Speaker 1: international one to work. Uh, implementation of carbon markets, Like
Speaker 1: China had a big thing that they're gonna implemented carbon market.
Speaker 1: Uh it was fake. It didn't work. Their carbon emission
Speaker 1: still increase, very very like how fucky carbon markets can be.
Speaker 1: So you get carbon credits if you're a business like
Speaker 1: Tesla that makes no emission electronic vehicles, and Tesla for
Speaker 1: a lot of its earlier history, made a significant chunk
Speaker 1: of its profits selling carbon credits to polluting industries and
Speaker 1: basically saying, you guys keep polluting, we got your back.
Speaker 1: Like the fact that we're putting electric cars out onto
Speaker 1: the street means you guys can keep admitting at the
Speaker 1: same Well, like that's that's like literally how how kind
Speaker 1: of the business can work. It's it's not the best
Speaker 1: way to fix the problem. Yeah, So there was a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of talk was around carbon markets. Um,
Speaker 1: because that's of course with the neil liberal establishment, neo
Speaker 1: liberal englishment is going to focus on because is it.
Speaker 1: It still is within their kind of worldview. Um, how
Speaker 1: do we monetize the rot? Yeah, how do we how
Speaker 1: do we make money off of the world ending? Um?
Speaker 1: Which I guess we're going to see a lot more
Speaker 1: of that uh in the next in the next few decades. Um.
Speaker 1: The the other the other thing that they decided on is, uh,
Speaker 1: next year there's gonna there's gonna be again. So there's
Speaker 1: there's They decided to procrastinate, which is just a general
Speaker 1: theme of COP conferences. We've been doing. It's what everyone's
Speaker 1: been doing about plimate change since forever. So yeah, the
Speaker 1: main thing they do is decide to procrastinate. Um. So
Speaker 1: next year there's gonna be a U N committee to
Speaker 1: report on progress towards delivering one billion dollar per year
Speaker 1: in a promised climate funding. Uh. This was after rich
Speaker 1: nations failed to deliver on the deadline four said funds
Speaker 1: um and then financing is gonna be discussed again in
Speaker 1: twenty four six at those conferences. Um. But this this
Speaker 1: deal left a lot of more vulnerable nations who were
Speaker 1: going to rely on this promised funding. Uh kind of
Speaker 1: just they just left them without things. So the whole
Speaker 1: idea was that like Yeah, we need this funding to
Speaker 1: help people in these disasters and different losses and damages,
Speaker 1: and to help, you know, start start making more um
Speaker 1: renewable energy technology in lieu of doing tons of tons
Speaker 1: of coal mining. And that's where this money was going
Speaker 1: to get used for, and it's not happening. Um so
Speaker 1: and this, this promise was initially made at a UN
Speaker 1: conference on climate change and we're still we're still pushing
Speaker 1: it back year by year. So this pledge is older
Speaker 1: than I am. Yeah, it sure is. Another pledgement too,
Speaker 1: as a nine to provide a hundred billion dollars to
Speaker 1: emerging economies was supposed to be made. That also was missed.
Speaker 1: Um and it was It was designed to help nations
Speaker 1: adapt to climate effects and make the transition to clean energy.
Speaker 1: Um and uh. The copp six president said that around
Speaker 1: five billion will be mobilized by so cool. Thanks for
Speaker 1: saying those numbers, which mean nothing. It's fun. It's fun
Speaker 1: how you can just talk and say things and it
Speaker 1: doesn't actually matter. It's It's one of the things that's
Speaker 1: so frustrating about this is trying to get a handle
Speaker 1: on like how how a lot of these solutions are
Speaker 1: supposed to work so like one of the articles if
Speaker 1: you're trying to actually if you're not just taking our
Speaker 1: word for it, which you never should, and trying to
Speaker 1: research like carbon credits and carbon markets and like how
Speaker 1: they might work or might help. Like one of the
Speaker 1: articles you're going to come across is an article in
Speaker 1: Nature dot org called making Carbon Markets Work for Faster
Speaker 1: Climate Action. And this is very much obviously from so
Speaker 1: it's pretty it's pretty recent, and it's not at all
Speaker 1: a climate denial piece. It's it's just kind of laying
Speaker 1: out a case for how carbon markets could be very
Speaker 1: effective of at reducing emissions. But you have to grapple
Speaker 1: the whole time you're looking at this with the fact
Speaker 1: that like they they haven't that that global global emissions
Speaker 1: are still shoo and they provide a number of like
Speaker 1: options for how this could work. And it's one of
Speaker 1: those things where I'm not gonna say it's impossible. I'm
Speaker 1: certainly not an expert on this, and you can read
Speaker 1: through the article um if you want, but it's it's
Speaker 1: certainly certainly think the thing you can say right now
Speaker 1: is that carbon markets have not led to a global
Speaker 1: decrease in emissions because we we have not had emissions
Speaker 1: decrease other than that little dip we had when a
Speaker 1: covid uh did it's it's sweet little dance. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: one month where we could actually see the sky again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was pretty rad um. But yeah, there's there's I mean,
Speaker 1: you you can check that article out for kind of
Speaker 1: the pro carbon markets case. It all seems I mean,
Speaker 1: one of the things that's frustrating to me about it
Speaker 1: is it all it's all like, yeah, uh, here's how
Speaker 1: it might work if you know, everybody got on board
Speaker 1: the Paris Climate Agreement and also all of this worked ideally,
Speaker 1: But there's there just doesn't seem to be a lot
Speaker 1: of I I just don't see any evidence that like
Speaker 1: they've shown that this is actually likely to be helpful. Um.
Speaker 1: It's more just like yeah, this, this could this could
Speaker 1: work if if we do these other things, um, which
Speaker 1: is frustrating. That's like all all of the kind of
Speaker 1: ship that you get at at at COP twenty six
Speaker 1: where it's like, yeah, I guess theoretically, if you were
Speaker 1: to do that, or if that were to work the
Speaker 1: way you're saying, or if that were to work with
Speaker 1: the assumption that like all these other factors don't grow
Speaker 1: over this period of time than than this might help.
Speaker 1: But we also know what's happened with emissions and global
Speaker 1: attempts to reduce climate change um which is not to
Speaker 1: say that like like emissions in the United States, like
Speaker 1: there have been there's been a lot that's been done
Speaker 1: to curb emissions from the United States. Now, the thing
Speaker 1: that's often left out of like the discuss should have
Speaker 1: these different things and how they impacted our emissions is like, well,
Speaker 1: a lot of those emissions got pushed off to other
Speaker 1: countries that are now making the things that we were
Speaker 1: making for I. Yes, So like that that's the big
Speaker 1: thing when people argue against the growth and they're like, no,
Speaker 1: you can. You can still keep growing your economy while
Speaker 1: lowering emissions, and like, yeah, one country can, but we
Speaker 1: still want the stuff, so we're just moving it to
Speaker 1: other countries to produce, so like we're not actually lowering
Speaker 1: it on a global level. You can lower you can
Speaker 1: lower it on like an individual country level, but not
Speaker 1: totally globally because we still want to consume the thing.
Speaker 1: This is one of the single most frustrating things about
Speaker 1: talking to people aball climate change is that Okay. You know,
Speaker 1: if you if you talk to the sort of Neil
Speaker 1: Book Carmon market people, right, if you talk about literally
Speaker 1: anything else, right, the only thing they ever talked about
Speaker 1: is how the entire world is interconnected, how the entire
Speaker 1: economies and connected, how we're more interconnected than ever. And
Speaker 1: then the moment you start talking about climate change, they go, oh, well,
Speaker 1: it's all the individual country, individual country, individual country. The
Speaker 1: economy is not connected at all. It's all about the
Speaker 1: visual policy makers some country. It's like, no, it's not
Speaker 1: the it's it's about like all all of the like
Speaker 1: the the the the the emissions are foreign direct investment driven. Right,
Speaker 1: it's about it's a it's about's about what it's about
Speaker 1: where investment money is going. And you cannot and you
Speaker 1: know this, this is this is why COP and somebody's like,
Speaker 1: this is why it doesn't work. And even though it's
Speaker 1: the only framework that could work, right, you have to
Speaker 1: have an international response that has to be coordinated. It
Speaker 1: has to be working across national lines because again that's
Speaker 1: how the economystem works. But it doesn't because a state's
Speaker 1: individual states can't and will not ever solve this and
Speaker 1: then be COP is like, Okay, so here's here's your
Speaker 1: international framework. But also we're just gonna have you know,
Speaker 1: the actual the the the actual international framework is going
Speaker 1: to be just essentially hammered up by a bunch of
Speaker 1: fossil fuel companies. And so it's just you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's the worst of both worlds. I mean, it's and
Speaker 1: it you can see, there's there's some kind of acknowledgement
Speaker 1: at the fact that this is an international problem in
Speaker 1: in like the basic idea of of carbon markets, which
Speaker 1: includes the idea that like, um, you can companies that
Speaker 1: that emit emit lesson, don't use up their carbon budget
Speaker 1: can like sell carbon credits and you can do this
Speaker 1: across international lines. And like if we hold if we
Speaker 1: hold companies to different like emission standards internationally based on
Speaker 1: things like the Paris Climate Agreement, then that will cause
Speaker 1: the carbon credit system to work better. Um, there's that
Speaker 1: acknowledgement that it is an international problem. But again I
Speaker 1: just don't I don't see I don't see evidence that
Speaker 1: it's working, and they like none of the evidence that
Speaker 1: I've read makes it seem like there's a very good
Speaker 1: case that this is going to at the very least
Speaker 1: that this is going to provide the kind of emissions
Speaker 1: productions that are necessary to forestall the worst case scenarios
Speaker 1: that are coming. Um. And if we're gonna be again,
Speaker 1: to be completely intellectually honest here, we can talk about
Speaker 1: d growth all day long. UM. I have a similar
Speaker 1: problem with that that I do to a lot of
Speaker 1: these the different kind of targets that Copy six introduced,
Speaker 1: stuff like carbon markets, where it's like, I don't I
Speaker 1: don't see that solving the problem either. It's like a
Speaker 1: theoretical it's it's yeah, if we were to get people
Speaker 1: to if if we've gotten people on board with deep growth,
Speaker 1: then you've already fundamentally shifted the very nature of global
Speaker 1: society um. And also the way in which Americans and
Speaker 1: people in other Western nations like conceived of economics at
Speaker 1: a fundamental level. UM. And so it's it's one thing
Speaker 1: to say that like, yeah, if people accepted that and
Speaker 1: and got on board with a lifestyle that is not
Speaker 1: based on this this kind of capitalist notion of endless growth,
Speaker 1: of ever increasing extraction from the world in order to
Speaker 1: create value, UM, then we could we could actually stop
Speaker 1: emitting at the kind of levels that are going to
Speaker 1: lead to these horrible consequences. Um, the question is like,
Speaker 1: I don't see, I don't see you you can are
Speaker 1: I think you can argue that de growth is more
Speaker 1: realistic in that, Yes, that would absolutely work as opposed
Speaker 1: to carbon credits and other things where it's like, well
Speaker 1: theoretically it might work if they do all this other stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it does. It does revolve on the cultural notion of
Speaker 1: America and the West completely changing. Um, it's a big
Speaker 1: it's a big ask, you know. Yeah, And I mean
Speaker 1: like there is there's smaller steps, like totally like reorganizing
Speaker 1: how cities work so we do not use cars, uh,
Speaker 1: like like like re redoing a public transportation like sector
Speaker 1: uh in you know, um, making like making like a
Speaker 1: cellar panels and a renewable energy I required part of
Speaker 1: like city infrastructure. Right there, there's a there's a lot
Speaker 1: of ways to push us towards that thing, but there's
Speaker 1: not one thing we can do right because it is
Speaker 1: in large parts of cultural change stuff. Stuff will help
Speaker 1: with emissions, like if we if we redesign cities around
Speaker 1: public transportation and make it so stuff is not as
Speaker 1: as far apart, and yeah, that that's going to help
Speaker 1: lower emissions if we if we require are all these
Speaker 1: other types of renewable energy projects to be built into
Speaker 1: buildings and added on to our current cities, and yeah,
Speaker 1: that that is going to help lower emissions. But you know,
Speaker 1: there's there's not one one big step that we can
Speaker 1: all do at the same time. And I think that
Speaker 1: that's I don't know. I'm of two minds about it.
Speaker 1: One part of me says that's absolutely the most intelligent
Speaker 1: way to go about it is focusing on things like
Speaker 1: reducing the use of like like like really all ending
Speaker 1: car culture in cities, because it's not even a reduction thing.
Speaker 1: It has to be like that that has to die. Um.
Speaker 1: But we're a lot closer to that than ending the
Speaker 1: idea of like, uh, capitalism, yes, because they're at number
Speaker 1: one one, because there are capitalists, very capitalist countries that
Speaker 1: have that do not have a car culture, that like
Speaker 1: stopped that and that actually like had one at one
Speaker 1: point and then reworked there. So that's that's and that
Speaker 1: would Yeah, that is a significant that's probably go that
Speaker 1: would probably lead to larger emissions reductions than any kind
Speaker 1: of carbon credit system could ever lead to. UM. I
Speaker 1: also and So yeah, I think that that's on an
Speaker 1: objective level. Yeah, that's it's smart to focus on stuff
Speaker 1: like that, where you're all you are arguing for reducing growth,
Speaker 1: but you're also arguing and for like, hey, your life
Speaker 1: will be more pleasant if you live in a city
Speaker 1: where you can walk everywhere and you're not at risk
Speaker 1: of getting run down by you know, two ton trucks
Speaker 1: anytime you cross the street, and like you're not dealing
Speaker 1: with smog and pollution and horrible like hour and a
Speaker 1: half long communes on these crowded, nightmare highways. Um. But
Speaker 1: it's also it's still incrementalist. You know, we we are
Speaker 1: we are talking here, we are kind of like walking
Speaker 1: through here, Um, all of the best incremental solutions and
Speaker 1: and what is the most realistic of those? Um. And
Speaker 1: I think that's fine. I think that's kind of where
Speaker 1: we have to be because that is what's most likely
Speaker 1: to actually happen to make the problem better. Um. But
Speaker 1: it is we have to acknowledge it is incremental, Like
Speaker 1: we're not we're not solving It would be very arrogant
Speaker 1: to say, like, here's how we solve this problem once
Speaker 1: and for all. You know, I just want to I
Speaker 1: think sometimes when you talk about stuff like deep growth,
Speaker 1: you can get into this, you can kind of it
Speaker 1: can come across as if you're trying to like simplify,
Speaker 1: like and if we do this, like it will be perfect.
Speaker 1: Like now, this would be like the hardest thing. That's
Speaker 1: that's like saying we have to confix it by all
Speaker 1: doing a revolution. It's like it's it's not okay, okay, cool, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, But anyway, we have to do some
Speaker 1: ads and then we'll be back to finish up kind
Speaker 1: of their closing expectations on Copy six and the other
Speaker 1: kind of things happening in the periphery. Um, here's ads. Okay,
Speaker 1: we are back and we're talking about kind of what
Speaker 1: happened towards the end of COP twenty six. So we
Speaker 1: already kind of discussed how the deal was made, what
Speaker 1: was in the deal, what things were talked about. Um,
Speaker 1: now we're kind of going to talk about, you know,
Speaker 1: the other kind of closing thoughts around it. Um in
Speaker 1: in in. In the lead up to to cut to
Speaker 1: play six, the United States Special Presidential Climate Envoy John Kerry,
Speaker 1: who's like he's supposed to be like our climate guy.
Speaker 1: Um he he also said the goal of the something
Speaker 1: it was to it was to you know, hope that
Speaker 1: we can limit stuff to one point in five degrees.
Speaker 1: And you know he he called this the last best
Speaker 1: hope for the world to get its act together. But
Speaker 1: by the time Cutty six came to the end, his
Speaker 1: language and attitude had kind of changed. Um after after
Speaker 1: two weeks of debate and negotiation, his his final remarks
Speaker 1: reflected the kind of the points we've been talking about,
Speaker 1: how um and and and said, like like the government
Speaker 1: energy policy is currently in place around the world are
Speaker 1: projected to result in about two point seven degrees celsius
Speaker 1: of warming above pre industrial levels, and government pledges to
Speaker 1: cut climate emissions would limit warming to two point four
Speaker 1: uh if they are met. So that's the again, we're
Speaker 1: just launching way past this like mythical fantasy of of
Speaker 1: one point five degrees. And the other scary things is
Speaker 1: that we're getting a lot, a lot closer to large
Speaker 1: scale feedback loops. Uh. Feedback loops are things like once
Speaker 1: we have reached a certain degree of warming, environmental effects
Speaker 1: will be triggered that will cascade and produce like exponential
Speaker 1: growth in warming. This is like a this it's not
Speaker 1: purely theoretical, but it is mostly stuff that we still
Speaker 1: probably can prevent, and we really need to get on
Speaker 1: it like a sap, because once these things start happening,
Speaker 1: they are very hard to reverse. One of the biggest
Speaker 1: ones that are that are already being affected is photosynthesis
Speaker 1: by plants on land and how that is decreasing its
Speaker 1: ability to suck up carbon um. About of our annual
Speaker 1: carbon emissions are removed by the air by photosynthesis um
Speaker 1: and the rest of which are dissolved in the ocean,
Speaker 1: causing ocean acidification or that you just hang around in
Speaker 1: the atmosphere, which causes you know, a bigger thermal blanket.
Speaker 1: So uh, photos that this is has like a thermal
Speaker 1: maximum beyond which carbon can only be taken so much
Speaker 1: of it in and then the process which by plants
Speaker 1: give off carbon and water actually increases. And we are
Speaker 1: already at that point in a in a lot of places,
Speaker 1: and we are we are at that we we achieve
Speaker 1: the warming required to get to that point a few
Speaker 1: times throughout the past decade. So land based carbon uptake
Speaker 1: is projected to decline by nearly fifty percent as early
Speaker 1: as and and these effects have not been included in
Speaker 1: any of the you know, published pathways leading to lower
Speaker 1: like lower degrees of warming. UM. And again this isn't,
Speaker 1: this isn't just as speculative. Like the biggest example of
Speaker 1: this that we can like point to is like the
Speaker 1: Amazon rainforest. How that is now a net emitter because
Speaker 1: it is no longer sucking up enough carbon to offset
Speaker 1: the amount of carbon and actually shoots out. So we
Speaker 1: need to stop deforestation to keep planting more trees essentially
Speaker 1: because that that sucks. And also just as a general
Speaker 1: kind of indicator of the cascading effects that are happening,
Speaker 1: and we are we're still on the path for kind
Speaker 1: of large, large scale disasters in a lot of places
Speaker 1: around the world. UM. The it's around ninet of the
Speaker 1: Earth's land area is in pretty pretty dire of risk
Speaker 1: on our current emission pathway of the Marshall Islands and
Speaker 1: all dol VI's UM, Vietnam, Southeast Asia, Middle East, parts
Speaker 1: of North Africa, and Central America. UM. Overall, around one
Speaker 1: third of the land humans occupied are predicted to either
Speaker 1: drowned by by sea level rise or became or become
Speaker 1: too hot for human life. Just by the end of
Speaker 1: this century alone, So that that will cause you know, migration,
Speaker 1: panics and wars and all, like a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: bad things that we can we can limit that, Like,
Speaker 1: that is something that we need to limit now, and
Speaker 1: if we don't, it's still it's still happening. So these
Speaker 1: are the other kind of things talked about at the end.
Speaker 1: Um So that was kind of copy as a whole. Um.
Speaker 1: The one last thing I want to mention is just
Speaker 1: how evil Facebook is. Um so kind of kind of
Speaker 1: an aside, but um, Facebook's vice president of Global Affairs
Speaker 1: UH talked um and about Facebook's efforts to combat climate misinformation.
Speaker 1: UM as the Glasgow somewhat began. But as this was happening,
Speaker 1: conservative media, let's like Newsmax or we're running ads on
Speaker 1: Facebook calling a global global warming a hoax, gaining hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands of views, stuff like you know Canadas so
Speaker 1: One's and Daily Wire, we're spreading climate misinformation. But and
Speaker 1: you know, as as Facebook is bragging about its ability
Speaker 1: to to combat misinformation around climate change. UM. The UK
Speaker 1: based think tank Influence Map, which identified misleading Facebook ads
Speaker 1: UH from several media outlets. UM A round copy also
Speaker 1: found that fossil field companies and lobbying groups spent half
Speaker 1: a million dollars on political and social issue Facebook ads
Speaker 1: during the summit, resulting in over twenty two million impressions,
Speaker 1: including content that promoted environmental effects under what we would
Speaker 1: call like green washing stuff like you know, the American
Speaker 1: Petroleum Institute putting up putting an ad out over like
Speaker 1: a natural landscape as it like touts its efforts to
Speaker 1: tackle climate change. Um, so all all of that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. So I just think it's really dumb because
Speaker 1: Facebook breaks about its ability to combat climate misinformation as
Speaker 1: its running ads saying climate changes the hoax and then
Speaker 1: doing generally green green washing is more common, but still
Speaker 1: it's frustrating. Um and yeah, just there's a note like
Speaker 1: we talked about this in the Facebook it as it's
Speaker 1: a bastards that dropped recently. But like the number one
Speaker 1: spreader right now of climate disinformation on Facebook is bright Bart,
Speaker 1: which a lot of the Facebook papers have gone on too.
Speaker 1: Like the extreme lengths, Facebook executives went to keep bright
Speaker 1: Bart as one of their like trusted news partners and
Speaker 1: continue putting their stuff out to a huge audience because
Speaker 1: it goes very viral. It was good for engagement on
Speaker 1: the platform, and that's the decision. Facebooks like whatever they say.
Speaker 1: This is like when we when we're talking about car
Speaker 1: carbon credits, when we're talking about like the different proposed solutions,
Speaker 1: I'll do a bit of waffling because I don't want
Speaker 1: to come across as too certain about what the right
Speaker 1: way to go forward is. When it comes to how
Speaker 1: Facebook has handled climate disinformation, it's very black and white. Um,
Speaker 1: they enabled it for direct profit and they talked about it,
Speaker 1: and people within the company were like, Hey, we're deliberately
Speaker 1: enabling climate change misinformation in order to make more money. Um,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a it's a very easy case to make. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So that wraps up my uh my report back on
Speaker 1: cop I know a lot of a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: was like those are there's a lot of headlines like
Speaker 1: before the somebody even ended, before the deal was even finalized,
Speaker 1: I was like, twenty is a failure, which is like yes,
Speaker 1: but I think I think it is worth actually really
Speaker 1: learning what happens at these things, because I think we
Speaker 1: have this idea that they're like some like mythic secret
Speaker 1: gathering of people to discuss plans, and it's like no,
Speaker 1: like you can actually like see everything they're talking about,
Speaker 1: like it's it's all out in the open, like you
Speaker 1: can actually see what what the plans are. It doesn't
Speaker 1: need to be all shrouded in it doesn't need be
Speaker 1: like shrouded in mystery. So I just wanted to give
Speaker 1: people like a rundown on what the actual people in power,
Speaker 1: how they're discussing climate change, and what their expectations are,
Speaker 1: and how you know, expectations have you know, the past
Speaker 1: five years have risen by basically a degree, right, because
Speaker 1: like we're like we can do one point five, and
Speaker 1: now we're like we can do two point five. So
Speaker 1: that is what we've done in five years. That's what's happened.
Speaker 1: And that's what justifies the kind of blanket pessimism about
Speaker 1: anything coming from COP twenty six, about anything being suggested
Speaker 1: by like a state actor and international organization, which is
Speaker 1: that like we've all watched the last twenty years, like
Speaker 1: they've said a lot of great stuff about what could work.
Speaker 1: It's like that Nature article about like okay, well, like
Speaker 1: you've got a bunch of math here arguing about how
Speaker 1: it might work. But we've got the last twenty years
Speaker 1: of policies to snay but it probably won't. Right. But
Speaker 1: it's almost certainly not going to work, right, So we
Speaker 1: we can say, like, yeah, theoretically this might be helpful,
Speaker 1: but like, realistically nothing, everything you guys have argued about
Speaker 1: in the same way has been a miserable failure pretty much. Well,
Speaker 1: that that wraps it up for us. Uh. You can
Speaker 1: follow the show on Twitter and apparently Instagram. Um at
Speaker 1: Happen Here pod and cool sid Media. We got a
Speaker 1: new cool Stone Media show dropping soon. Uh, Mega Corp.
Speaker 1: That's pretty exciting. Yeah, check it out. It's about how
Speaker 1: we love Amazon and you should pay the money. I
Speaker 1: don't think that's what it's about, but anyway, Yeah, so
Speaker 1: buy some carbon offsets from Amazon and with that. With that,
Speaker 1: we're closing the show. Happen It Could Happen Here as
Speaker 1: a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com,
Speaker 1: or check us out on the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
Speaker 1: find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening