Speaker 1: Welcome to zero I am Akshatrati. This week, we are
Speaker 1: entering a decade of climate caution. The war in the
Speaker 1: Middle East has forced countries to focus their attention on
Speaker 1: the short term. European countries are offering some subsidies to
Speaker 1: keep energy prices low. The US, under President Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: is pushing the oil industry to drill more to try
Speaker 1: to keep global oil prices from rising even further. China
Speaker 1: has halted the export of petrol and diesel, while India
Speaker 1: has engaged with Iran to secure shipments of liquefied petroleum gas.
Speaker 1: But beyond some of those immediate measures, the war hasn't
Speaker 1: stopped countries from continuing their long term planning. In the
Speaker 1: past month, we've seen two major plans from two of
Speaker 1: the world's biggest polluters. In March, China approved its fifth
Speaker 1: teenth five year Plan, which sets out the trajectory for
Speaker 1: its entire economy and gives us a clearer sense of
Speaker 1: how the government makes progress on its climate goals. Then
Speaker 1: a few weeks after that, India published its climate plan
Speaker 1: for twenty thirty five. The plan got both types of reactions,
Speaker 1: praising India's commitment to climate and criticizing it for its
Speaker 1: lack of ambition. Today, I'm joined by my colleague Lily Pike,
Speaker 1: who is Bloomberg Greens China reporter, to discuss what these
Speaker 1: plans signal for the next decade. In our conversation, we
Speaker 1: will also touch on two other major emitters, the US,
Speaker 1: where Lily used to live until last year, and Europe,
Speaker 1: where I live. Lily, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Great to be here, ak Shad, I'm a longtime fan
Speaker 2: of the pod.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's good to have you. So you're usually based
Speaker 1: in Singapore, and of course you report on China from there.
Speaker 1: But before we get to China, let's start with the
Speaker 1: US and tell me what the Trump administration has done
Speaker 1: over the past few months attacking climate policies and clean
Speaker 1: energy build out.
Speaker 2: That's right. I actually happened to be in the New
Speaker 2: York office today so I can moonlight as a US
Speaker 2: climate reporter for a bit. You know, it's always jarring
Speaker 2: coming back to the US from Asia because the energy
Speaker 2: and climate conversation is obviously so different here in the
Speaker 2: US right now. And you know, over the last year
Speaker 2: since Trump took office, we've seen a lot of rollbacks
Speaker 2: and a lot of attacks on climate and energy policy,
Speaker 2: the one that I think of first and foremost being
Speaker 2: here in New York, is the major battle over wind energy.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you're very familiar with this, but you know
Speaker 2: Trump has a particular animosity toward windmills, as he calls them,
Speaker 2: and he's been really focused on really kind of fighting
Speaker 2: wind energy projects in the US, particularly offshore wind. And
Speaker 2: just last week there was news that broke that the
Speaker 2: administration is actually going to pay total the French energy
Speaker 2: company a billion dollars for these leases that they purchased
Speaker 2: for offshore wind, so that they can then invest in
Speaker 2: natural gas development instead. So I think that kind of
Speaker 2: just highlights the extent to which the administration is anti
Speaker 2: wind and pro fossil fuels. You know, they're paying to
Speaker 2: have this company not develop wind energy. Clearly, from the
Speaker 2: administration side, it's been a very anti clean energy campaign,
Speaker 2: both on those wind projects, but also more broadly, if
Speaker 2: you look back at the tax bill, broad effort to
Speaker 2: slash the Biden era clean energy tax credits, and so
Speaker 2: that's having major long term implications for the speed of
Speaker 2: the clean energy deployment in the US versus say, China,
Speaker 2: where we've seen records every year. One of the biggest
Speaker 2: things on the climate frontier in the US has been
Speaker 2: the roll back and repeal of the so called Endangerment Finding,
Speaker 2: was the scientific finding back in two thousand and nine
Speaker 2: that allowed the EPA to set regulations on climate change
Speaker 2: and carbon emissions across the board in the US. So
Speaker 2: that has really wide ranging impacts for climate regulation going forward.
Speaker 2: And then kind of more broadly, obviously, we've just seen
Speaker 2: the US step back across the board from international institutions
Speaker 2: that includes all the main climate forums, the Paris Agreement
Speaker 2: Trump pulled out right after taking office again, and that's
Speaker 2: extended all the way to the Framework Convention on Climate Change,
Speaker 2: the unf Triple C, as well as the IPCC, the
Speaker 2: scientific body behind global climate action. And so we've really
Speaker 2: just seen a US retreat across the board.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's something we've talked about. We actually had
Speaker 1: the head of the IPCC on the podcast in March,
Speaker 1: so I hopelessness, we'll go back and listen. Because so
Speaker 1: much of climate science comes from the US, and if
Speaker 1: the U US government pulls out of that process, it
Speaker 1: can have pretty negative impacts for much much longer. Because
Speaker 1: these reports have so much impact on policy, but the
Speaker 1: US is only the second largest annual limitter. The biggest
Speaker 1: is China, which you cover extensively. And in the past month,
Speaker 1: we've had what would be China's defining strategy for the
Speaker 1: next five years. It's five Year Plan, a thing that
Speaker 1: it does well every five years, but it's sort of
Speaker 1: the planning document that everybody follows. So let's start there.
Speaker 1: What were the main headlines as they relate to energy
Speaker 1: and climate, so that.
Speaker 2: We have a lot to cover here. I was actually
Speaker 2: in Beijing this year for the release of the five
Speaker 2: Year Plan. Every year in Beijing there's an annual legislative
Speaker 2: meeting called the Two Sessions, and this was a special
Speaker 2: year because it was also the release of this five
Speaker 2: year Plan, which extends out to twenty thirty and so
Speaker 2: every year there's this tradition of foreign correspondents racing to
Speaker 2: get these documents before they're uploaded online to break the news.
Speaker 2: So everybody goes to the Great Hall of the People
Speaker 2: and races to get this stack of documents, which includes
Speaker 2: the five Year Plan targets. So my first read of
Speaker 2: these targets was done actually on the floor of the
Speaker 2: Great Hall of the people, they're no chairs, were just
Speaker 2: sitting on the floor scrambling to read.
Speaker 1: It's one of those things about working with the Chinese
Speaker 1: government that continues to stun me because even now, if
Speaker 1: you have to get like official comments from the government,
Speaker 1: you have to fax your questions in.
Speaker 2: It's very old school, yes, exactly. So it's a funny
Speaker 2: process to just get these paper documents and you know,
Speaker 2: we're talking about hundreds and hundreds of pages. So since
Speaker 2: then we've had some more time to digest all of
Speaker 2: these new targets and plans. But it's just worth underscoring
Speaker 2: how important the Five Year Plan processes in China. It
Speaker 2: really sets these major signals for climate, energy, the economy,
Speaker 2: or more broadly, you know, going back multiple decades now,
Speaker 2: it's been a really important way of you know, setting
Speaker 2: the guidelines for clean energy development in China and for
Speaker 2: the development of new technologies and manufacturing. So the kind
Speaker 2: of headline news out of this plan is really a
Speaker 2: balancing act that the Chinese government is doing where overall,
Speaker 2: you know, there's a statement that was included that was
Speaker 2: to continue to pursue the comprehensive green transformation of the economy,
Speaker 2: and so for you know I'm here in the US.
Speaker 2: That's a really you know, bold vision of moving from
Speaker 2: you know, this very coal based economy to a clean
Speaker 2: energy based economy, and that continues to be the direction
Speaker 2: of travel for China. And we see that all these
Speaker 2: signals in the five Year Plan on clean energy. However,
Speaker 2: you know, it's really important to look at some of
Speaker 2: the clear targets on climate change in particular which were
Speaker 2: less ambitious. And so when I wanted to highlight in particular,
Speaker 2: is this one the carbon intensity target? This is quite
Speaker 2: in the weeds, but it's really important. So this is
Speaker 2: the clearest climate target in the five year Plan. And
Speaker 2: the key thing to know is that there was a
Speaker 2: carbon intensity target set in the last five year Plan
Speaker 2: and China missed it, it seems, yeah.
Speaker 1: And it's the target where you take total emissions and
Speaker 1: then divide it by the gross domestic product of China.
Speaker 1: So that's why the intensity rather than the absolute emissions,
Speaker 1: which kind of if the economy continues growing, kind of
Speaker 1: allows China to creep growing its emissions even as the
Speaker 1: intensity might fall.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right. So it's basically, as you said, a
Speaker 2: way for China to set climate targets without having to
Speaker 2: really restrict its growth or put a hard cap on
Speaker 2: carbon emissions. And so actually China said that in this
Speaker 2: five year plan they would move toward a system where
Speaker 2: they would do what's called a dual control system, which
Speaker 2: is both that intensity target but also setting a firm
Speaker 2: cap on emissions. So going into this new five year plan,
Speaker 2: we were hoping we would see that kind of clear
Speaker 2: cap on emissions, and we did not get that. What
Speaker 2: we got was a new twenty thirty carbon intensity target
Speaker 2: to reduce carbon intensity by seventeen percent, and that is
Speaker 2: short of the ambition needed to meet China's Paris Agreement goals.
Speaker 2: And that is even after missing the previous carbon intensity
Speaker 2: target and the last five year plan. And so I
Speaker 2: think this just stepping back really highlights something that we
Speaker 2: all talk about, which is that China is thought to
Speaker 2: have set very conservative targets and then to overachieve those targets.
Speaker 2: But here we're seeing that, you know, due to some
Speaker 2: economic challenges in the last five year plan and continued
Speaker 2: challenges with the trade war, with the real wars going
Speaker 2: on around the world, China's become more conservative in its
Speaker 2: target setting, and in fact it seems, you know, missing
Speaker 2: these targets we look back in the last five years,
Speaker 2: and so I think that just kind of signals that
Speaker 2: China is in this era of climate cautions as you
Speaker 2: described well.
Speaker 1: But it's also true that China builds the most amount
Speaker 1: of clean tech in the world, deploys most of it
Speaker 1: at home, and does overperform. So why the caution, that's right.
Speaker 2: I think it's sort of hard to grapple with because
Speaker 2: we report on and read about all of these record
Speaker 2: breaking years with clean energy deployment, and it seems like
Speaker 2: China is able to do this year after year pretty easily.
Speaker 2: But what we've seen is at the same time, there
Speaker 2: are other areas of emissions growth. And so if you
Speaker 2: look back on last year, we saw China's emissions actually
Speaker 2: dip for the first time outside of the pandemic in
Speaker 2: a while, and so emissions fell just marginally, but by
Speaker 2: zero point three percent, and that for some experts, you know,
Speaker 2: it seems like a sign of optimism that emissions might
Speaker 2: actually start to plateau and fall, but it's too soon
Speaker 2: to say, because we also saw emissions in say the
Speaker 2: chemical sector, which we can talk more about, go up
Speaker 2: twelve percent and that's an area where emissions could continue
Speaker 2: to climb going forward. So we're seeing positive trends in
Speaker 2: transportation emissions as China's ev sales grow up to the
Speaker 2: fifty percent level last year, oil use has gone down
Speaker 2: in that sector, and we also see power sector emissions
Speaker 2: starting to decline with the growth of renewable energy. So
Speaker 2: in all those fronts we see optimism, and it seems
Speaker 2: like China should be able to continue to meet its
Speaker 2: rather conservative climate targets and perhaps exceed them, and so
Speaker 2: that carbon intensity target should be achievable. But at the
Speaker 2: same time, there's so much uncertainty in the world, and
Speaker 2: we see China also trying to extend the use of
Speaker 2: its fossil fuels at least in the next five years
Speaker 2: in these new sectors such as the chemical industry.
Speaker 1: And then there's an aspect of the Five Year Plan,
Speaker 1: which really is a Soviet tool that not just China,
Speaker 1: but even India where I grew up, uses it's very
Speaker 1: clearly laid out that can have huge impacts. So we
Speaker 1: know in past five year plans clean technologies have been mentioned,
Speaker 1: and once they've been mentioned, that has led to huge deployment.
Speaker 1: As we know of solar batteries, electric cars, and all
Speaker 1: the capacity in electrical equipment manufacturing that China has built,
Speaker 1: which is allowing China to cut emissions at home some
Speaker 1: of it, but really allowing so much other world to
Speaker 1: cut emissions. Were there technologies that were mentioned in this
Speaker 1: five year plan that China is aiming to work on,
Speaker 1: and when it starts doing that, it can really bring
Speaker 1: the cost down quickly.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, you know, just looking back, as you said, in
Speaker 2: the previous fiber plans, we get these mentions of these
Speaker 2: technologies which end up being you know, kind of bedrock
Speaker 2: technologies in the coming five to ten years. And so
Speaker 2: it's really important. Even if the five year Plan operates
Speaker 2: at a fairly high level and is super detailed, often
Speaker 2: on targets, those signals are very important to watch. And
Speaker 2: I was just thinking back to this map in the
Speaker 2: last five year plan which showed the potential locations for
Speaker 2: these clean energy megabases in China in the Northwest, and
Speaker 2: we've seen just a huge growth in those megabases in
Speaker 2: the past five years, at a scale that was unimaginable
Speaker 2: in the rest of the world, like hundreds of gigawatts.
Speaker 2: One of our reporters went to that region. Actually, a
Speaker 2: whole team of our reporters went to that region and
Speaker 2: visited one of these megabases in Inner Mongolia and described
Speaker 2: the scale as I think it was twelve Central park's
Speaker 2: worth of solar panels. This is just massive. So yes,
Speaker 2: it's really important to look at one of the name
Speaker 2: drops in the five year Plan as to what's coming
Speaker 2: up going forward. This year in the five year Plan,
Speaker 2: we saw a couple new sectors. Of course, there's still
Speaker 2: mentions of the bedrock technologies of clean energy as a
Speaker 2: share of total energy consumption, reaffirming those previous targets that
Speaker 2: have been set to increase that by twenty thirty. But
Speaker 2: beyond that, there are these frontier technologies that China really
Speaker 2: wants to develop further, and so we see a couple
Speaker 2: kind of new terms catchphrases that we might see going forward.
Speaker 2: One of those is this concept of a zero carbon
Speaker 2: industrial park. China set the goal of building around one
Speaker 2: hundred of those parks in the next five years. That
Speaker 2: is essentially kind of like a new type of factory
Speaker 2: or industrial park throughout China, and that would look like
Speaker 2: direct purchase of green electricity, greater use of green hydrogen
Speaker 2: when electricity use is impossible, large scale battery deployment, and
Speaker 2: then kind of advanced ideas of more synergy between different
Speaker 2: industries within the park to try to get emissions down
Speaker 2: as low as possible, and of course, because China is
Speaker 2: a manufacturing powerhouse, getting those emissions down is super important.
Speaker 2: So that's kind of like not one technology, but sort
Speaker 2: of an amalgamation of different technologies into more of a
Speaker 2: system going forward. Other concepts technologies that were mentioned the
Speaker 2: Vivier Plan include green fuels, So this is a really
Speaker 2: new area for development in China, and we see in
Speaker 2: a couple cases already the development of green ammonia and
Speaker 2: methanol which can be used in shipping and other areas
Speaker 2: where electrification is impossible, and that would involve the use
Speaker 2: of green hydrogen as well. So this is a really
Speaker 2: new area for China, but one to watch going forward. Equally,
Speaker 2: kind of on the frontier of technology is the idea
Speaker 2: of a zero carbon freight transport corridor, and China set
Speaker 2: the goal of building ten thousand kilometers of this new
Speaker 2: corridor in the Fiber Plan, and that really is referring
Speaker 2: to freight like long distance trucking e trucks, electric trucks,
Speaker 2: so that's something to watch. That might mean cool battery
Speaker 2: swapping on highways, better charging infrastructure across the board. And
Speaker 2: then of course there are these kind of more futuristic
Speaker 2: technologies like nuclear fusion, and that there is no clear
Speaker 2: target in the plan. It's just something that China has
Speaker 2: its eye on for further development and obviously would be
Speaker 2: really revolutionary if anything that significant happens in the next
Speaker 2: five years, but there's no there's no clear target behind.
Speaker 1: That, and some of these things really can make a
Speaker 1: huge difference. I mean, we are seeing real squeeze on diesel,
Speaker 1: for example, among all the refined products from the Strait
Speaker 1: of horm moves that come out, but diesel in particular
Speaker 1: is used in heavy duty trucks and it's become really expensive.
Speaker 1: So things like electric trucks as they become cheaper and
Speaker 1: their adoption grows because of China, but also other places
Speaker 1: build see more trucking electric. There's also talk about green
Speaker 1: fuels in Europe because Europe doesn't have much of its
Speaker 1: own fossil fuels, and especially in a war, you need
Speaker 1: jet fuel to be able to run all these planes.
Speaker 1: And so if the Strait of hormones is shut. You know,
Speaker 1: where are you going to get your jet fuel from?
Speaker 1: Perhaps you need to have green fuel capacity for war purposes,
Speaker 1: if not for climate goals. So coming to the war though,
Speaker 1: I mean, China has in some ways been preparing for
Speaker 1: a moment like this. Obviously, the one that it prepares
Speaker 1: for most is if there's a war with Taiwan and
Speaker 1: trying to capture it and what the US might do
Speaker 1: as a result. Choking up the Strait of Foremost is
Speaker 1: one of those things that it might do. Does any
Speaker 1: of what's happening with the war affect China's trajectory on energy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really been head spinning in terms of the
Speaker 2: speed of changes across the world the last few weeks
Speaker 2: since the Five Year Plan came out, and so we
Speaker 2: are looking at a different reality now. I would say
Speaker 2: the reality has changed more in other parts of Asia
Speaker 2: compared to China, because, as you said, China has been
Speaker 2: preparing for this moment for a long time. Chinese policymakers
Speaker 2: are obsessed with energy security. There is a major power
Speaker 2: crunch in China about four years ago, and that really
Speaker 2: led policymakers to double down on the backbone of the
Speaker 2: Chinese energy system, which is coal of course, So as
Speaker 2: clean energy deployment has really increased in China, so has
Speaker 2: the development of coal fired power plants. And also this
Speaker 2: you know coal to chemicals industry that we touched on earlier.
Speaker 2: All the experts I've been talking to you seem to
Speaker 2: think China is fairly well insulated from the energy energy
Speaker 2: shocks that we're seeing play out across Asia right now.
Speaker 2: You know, it has stockpiles of oil, it has the
Speaker 2: domestic coal resources that it needs, but of course it's
Speaker 2: not fully insulated. And so as we see oil prices
Speaker 2: go up, our colleagues that BLIMMERG Intelligence actually projected that,
Speaker 2: you know, if oil prices remain at the current levels,
Speaker 2: we could see coal use in the chemical sector double
Speaker 2: this year, which you know, if you think about how
Speaker 2: intensive that sector is from an emissions perspective, could really
Speaker 2: be significant for China's carbon footprint. So I think it's
Speaker 2: too soon to say exactly how this will shake out.
Speaker 2: You know, we don't know what the trajectory of the
Speaker 2: war is, but China's default is to revert back to
Speaker 2: cole at least to some extent in the short term,
Speaker 2: and I don't think that means abandoning the clean energy plans,
Speaker 2: but it might mean that we see an increase in
Speaker 2: emissions compared to with the pre war trajectory in this.
Speaker 1: Year after the break more of my conversation with Lily
Speaker 1: Pike and while I have you, please take a moment
Speaker 1: to rate or review zero on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Recently,
Speaker 1: amster Boo wrote clear and informative but engaging and made
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Speaker 2: So Akshat. Now to turn the tables, I wanted to
Speaker 2: ask you about some of the reporting you've been doing
Speaker 2: lately on what's happening in India, just the third largest
Speaker 2: emitter after the US and China. So you've covered this
Speaker 2: major new plan that was just released in India. I
Speaker 2: know you were waiting for this plan to drop for
Speaker 2: a long time. Can you explain what was in the
Speaker 2: plan and what it means for India's climate trajector going forward.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we got so many false starts about this plan
Speaker 1: coming out that it was getting boring by the end
Speaker 1: of it. Then it really did come out of nowhere
Speaker 1: because nobody was expecting it to happen while the war
Speaker 1: was playing out and India is suffering from an energy crunch.
Speaker 1: But yes, we got a plan that has targets set
Speaker 1: out to twenty thirty five. This plan, unlike the China
Speaker 1: Five Year Plan, is not a domestic plan. It's really
Speaker 1: a plan submitted to the United Nations as part of
Speaker 1: India's commitment to the Paris Agreement. And the Paris Agreement
Speaker 1: is one that requires all countries to act. And so
Speaker 1: you know, even though this plan is late, should have
Speaker 1: been submitted in February twenty twenty five, there were commentaers
Speaker 1: praising that India is still committed to acting on climate
Speaker 1: and even though it's late, just having that plan is
Speaker 1: better than say the US, where Donald Trump has pulled
Speaker 1: the US out of the Paris Agreement. The plane itself
Speaker 1: has set goals that are pretty weak. So it has
Speaker 1: also set, just like China, a carbon intensity target. And
Speaker 1: so those carbon intensity targets are set by the base
Speaker 1: being two thousand and five, and then by twenty thirty
Speaker 1: five there'll be a carbon intensity cut of forty seven percent. Now,
Speaker 1: this is only slightly above a forty five percent reduction
Speaker 1: in carbon intensity that India already is aiming for by
Speaker 1: twenty thirty then the other concrete target in the plan
Speaker 1: was to increase the share of non fossil fuel power
Speaker 1: in the grid mix to sixty percent by twenty thirty five. Currently,
Speaker 1: as of twenty twenty six, it's at fifty three percent,
Speaker 1: and the pace at which India has been deploying renewable energy,
Speaker 1: that goal of sixty percent would be very easily met.
Speaker 1: If anything, the India Power Ministry was aiming for something
Speaker 1: like seventy percent non fossil fuels by twenty thirty six,
Speaker 1: and so on the target side, those targets are weak,
Speaker 1: and again, just like China, they are signaling caution and
Speaker 1: it's to some extent understandable. Right, Both China and India
Speaker 1: went on their carbon intensive trajectory much later than Europe
Speaker 1: or the US did, and now that the US, which
Speaker 1: is the largest historical limitter of emissions, has pulled out
Speaker 1: of this process, there isn't that much pressure on India
Speaker 1: and China to aim higher. And sure Europe tried, but
Speaker 1: Europe on its own is not as big a motivator
Speaker 1: for India. So the targets we got were weaker targets,
Speaker 1: but at least India has committed to the process.
Speaker 2: We talked about China being known to set relatively conservative
Speaker 2: targets and overperform. Do you see these new targets as
Speaker 2: a way of setting a benchmark that is easily achievable
Speaker 2: so that India knows it will meet the targets or
Speaker 2: do you think that you know it's still possible that
Speaker 2: they won't be met.
Speaker 1: I say that at least India has done so in
Speaker 1: the past. So in twenty fourteen, Prime Minister Mode set
Speaker 1: a goal that India will build one hundred gigawards of
Speaker 1: clean energy by twenty twenty two, and it exceeded that target.
Speaker 1: Then it set a goal of trying to build five
Speaker 1: hundred gigawards of clean energy by twenty thirty and it's
Speaker 1: going to exceed that target. So, at least on clean power,
Speaker 1: India has been able to exceed on the goals it's set.
Speaker 1: But then India doesn't do as comprehensive a plan as
Speaker 1: China does on all the different sectors of the economy
Speaker 1: that contribute to emissions. So you know, when you look
Speaker 1: at Asian economies and the share of electric cars in
Speaker 1: their mix, now you know many countries are above fifty percent.
Speaker 1: Vietnam Singapore, Thaighland, China. India is less than five to
Speaker 1: ten percent even today and has tried some policies but
Speaker 1: really hasn't committed to it. There is also goals that
Speaker 1: India set for itself to try and build its own
Speaker 1: manufacturing capacity for solar and for batteries, and that is
Speaker 1: not going well because a lot of the equipment for
Speaker 1: making those solar panels and batteries has to come from China,
Speaker 1: if not the solar panels and batteries themselves, and there
Speaker 1: have been tussles between some of the Indian companies and
Speaker 1: Chinese suppliers and those equipment haven't been delivered, and so
Speaker 1: India is not able to build that capacity as quickly
Speaker 1: as it would like to. So sure it works on
Speaker 1: power on every other sector in you needs to do
Speaker 1: a lot more.
Speaker 2: So we're seeing climate caution in China and India. I'd
Speaker 2: say maybe climate antagonism in the US. Beyond caution. I
Speaker 2: wanted to go back to the European Union, since you
Speaker 2: said in London you're watching this more closely. The continent
Speaker 2: struggled to reshape its energy supply after Russia's invasion of Ukraine,
Speaker 2: and now we have another energy shock playing out. How
Speaker 2: is that impacting climate ambition in the EU?
Speaker 1: The EUS really stuck between a rock and a hard place,
Speaker 1: just having gone through COVID and then an energy shock
Speaker 1: has meant public purses have been really strained, and so
Speaker 1: this time around the amount of subsidies that are being
Speaker 1: put into the system to try and lower energy prices
Speaker 1: is modest. But I have to say throughout this period,
Speaker 1: even though there's been a little bit of caution on
Speaker 1: CLI climate, most leaders are committed to having climate targets
Speaker 1: being met, and both the UK and European Union as
Speaker 1: a whole have submitted their climate plans to the United
Speaker 1: Nations and they're pretty ambitious compared to what we've seen
Speaker 1: on caution in India and China and of course antagonism
Speaker 1: in the US. And it also makes economic sense from
Speaker 1: a europe perspective. The continent really does not have much
Speaker 1: of its own fossil fuels. We had the Energy Commissioner
Speaker 1: of the European Commissioner talk about how Europe spent three
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy billion euros just importing fossil fuels last year,
Speaker 1: and that's less than what it used to import, but
Speaker 1: it's still a huge amount, and so for them, it's
Speaker 1: very clear that having homegrown clean energy is key douce
Speaker 1: energy security at home. And so that's the trajectory Europe
Speaker 1: wants to come in to. Now can it pull it
Speaker 1: off with its purse tied up, its finances struggling, and
Speaker 1: with even today a lot of bureaucratic rules that slow
Speaker 1: down the deployment of many of these technologies.
Speaker 2: And I know we've seen some backtracking just maybe in
Speaker 2: the short term in terms of turning back to coal
Speaker 2: as we talked about, you know, in China as well.
Speaker 2: We've maybe seen that in a couple of countries in
Speaker 2: the EU. So we'll see how that plays out through
Speaker 2: the rest of the year.
Speaker 1: Right cole has been declining in the Parmis quite a bit,
Speaker 1: but yes, there are still countries like Germany and Poland
Speaker 1: that have large coal power plants. And we do see
Speaker 1: when gas prices spike the countries that do have access
Speaker 1: to coal power plants increase colburn, but it's going to
Speaker 1: be nothing like what we'll see in colburn increase in
Speaker 1: India or China.
Speaker 2: Now that we've talked about EU, in China, India and US.
Speaker 2: Of course there's the rest of the world still and
Speaker 2: you know, I think it's the rest of the world
Speaker 2: contribut it's about forty five percent of the remaining emissions.
Speaker 2: And as we talked about earlier, the war is really
Speaker 2: having an impact on energy futures in Asia and other
Speaker 2: parts of the world. How do you see the war
Speaker 2: impacting emissions in these countries.
Speaker 1: It's very hard to say. I mean, I think in
Speaker 1: the short term, again, countries that can get access to
Speaker 1: fossil fuels will use whatever fossil fuels they can colburn
Speaker 1: will go up, which means emissions will go up. But
Speaker 1: then most countries in this forty five percent are actually
Speaker 1: importing countries, and they're poor countries, and so at a
Speaker 1: higher energy price, they might actually see their economy struggle
Speaker 1: and as a result might not burn fossil fuels, which
Speaker 1: is not the way in which you want to cut emissions,
Speaker 1: because it will mean lower economic growth, which would mean
Speaker 1: harm to lots of poor people. And so it's going
Speaker 1: to be a mixed picture in the short term. But
Speaker 1: I think in the long term the trajectory for fossil
Speaker 1: fuel importing countries becomes even clear. To try and get
Speaker 1: down the clean energy path as soon as possible, and
Speaker 1: perhaps do it more systematically than places like Pakistan have
Speaker 1: done in the past. Something you're reporting on where there's
Speaker 1: been a big solar boom, but then that solar boom
Speaker 1: is causing all sorts of other problems. Hopefully there are
Speaker 1: lessons that countries can learn from what's happened in Pakistan
Speaker 1: to do it more systematically. So talking of stories to come,
Speaker 1: tell us a little more about the Pakistan story, but
Speaker 1: also what major stories you're looking to cover this year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was going to say the shared a mutual
Speaker 2: obsession we have with China's overseas clean energy footprint and
Speaker 2: exports is something I'm really focused on right now. And
Speaker 2: as you mentioned, you know, it really is one of
Speaker 2: the big factors coming out of you know, this early
Speaker 2: period of war, will China, will Chinese companies really surge
Speaker 2: their exports to these markets to help them with a
Speaker 2: clean energy transition as the economics become more favorable with
Speaker 2: oil and gas prices going up. And so that's something
Speaker 2: I've covered In Pakistan. We saw that while Pakistan's really
Speaker 2: in a hard place and cutting fuel usage, there was
Speaker 2: a study that we saw from Korea that Pakistan would
Speaker 2: be in a much worse place today had it not
Speaker 2: really embraced Chinese solar panels and this massive, really historical
Speaker 2: way back in twenty twenty two. So Pakistan now has
Speaker 2: basically exceeded its previous grid capacity in solar imports from China,
Speaker 2: and that's allowed it to really have a bit more
Speaker 2: of a buffer in the face of these really expensive
Speaker 2: oil and gas imports. So that's something that kind of
Speaker 2: broader question of how Chinese clean energy exports impact the
Speaker 2: trajectory of developing countries in Asia and around the world.
Speaker 2: That's something that we're both really focused on and particularly
Speaker 2: looking at kind of the implications that we may not
Speaker 2: see immediately in the news, but you know, the broader
Speaker 2: implications for geopolitical shifts, emissions, all of that is something
Speaker 2: readers and listeners can watch out for this year. Back
Speaker 2: on the domestic side in China, all the things we
Speaker 2: talked about today will be areas for reporting this year.
Speaker 2: I'm really interested in how these frontier technologies are actually
Speaker 2: playing out on the ground, and so I'm going to
Speaker 2: China as much as i can. I was just in
Speaker 2: Beijing and I hope to be back. You know, traveling
Speaker 2: from Singapore to China in the near term to look
Speaker 2: at both the implementation of these technologies but also something
Speaker 2: that you've covered, you know, the bottlenecks to the clean
Speaker 2: energy transition and decarbonization in China, and so that can mean,
Speaker 2: you know, infrastructure challenges, it can also mean you know,
Speaker 2: social impacts, you know, the major challenge of just shifting
Speaker 2: the workforce to new areas of employment and clean energy
Speaker 2: from you know, the current and pre existing fossil fuel economy.
Speaker 2: So those are those are all areas that I'll be
Speaker 2: covering going forward.
Speaker 1: Well, the China story is the clean energy story, and
Speaker 1: I really look forward to all the stories that you're
Speaker 1: working on, but also to working with you on many
Speaker 1: of these stories. So thank you, Lily for the chat
Speaker 1: and for I'll look at how China is shaping the future,
Speaker 1: and maybe India at some point will also well, I.
Speaker 2: Think the India story is equally important, and so I'm
Speaker 2: glad we got to talk about both today and yeah,
Speaker 2: so glad we get to tackle this global story together.
Speaker 1: And thank you for listening to zero. Now for the
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Speaker 1: and Sharon chen i'm Akshatrati back soon.