Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to Drilled. I'm Amy wester Up.
Speaker 1: Today we're bringing you the last episode in our season fourteen, Obstruction.
Speaker 1: We were looking at this book from the Climate Social
Speaker 1: Science Network that's pulled together all of the peer reviewed
Speaker 1: research on climate obstruction globally. That book is called Climate
Speaker 1: Obstruction a Global Assessment. There's a link in the show
Speaker 1: notes to download a free copy of it if you'd
Speaker 1: like it for a reference. I highly recommend you download
Speaker 1: it and read it and keep all the footnotes links
Speaker 1: to all the different studies. It's a super super handy reference.
Speaker 1: Today the final episode maps to the final chapter in
Speaker 1: that book, which is looking at one of the tactics
Speaker 1: that works to combat obstruction. Last week we talked about litigation,
Speaker 1: and this week we are talking about activism of various kinds.
Speaker 1: To do that, I'm joined by Jenny Stephens at National
Speaker 1: University of Ireland Manuth and Sharon Yadin from the University
Speaker 1: of Haifa. Each of them walked me through a different
Speaker 1: type of effective activism against obstruction, and I found both
Speaker 1: of those conversations super super interesting.
Speaker 2: I hope you do too. They're coming up after this
Speaker 2: quick break.
Speaker 3: I'm Jenny Stevens. I'm professor of Climate Justice at the
Speaker 3: National University of Ireland in Manuth.
Speaker 2: I actually wanted to ask you before we get into
Speaker 2: some of the more detailed questions just about this chapter
Speaker 2: in general, because it's one of the two chapters in
Speaker 2: this book that actually look at some of the pushback
Speaker 2: to obstruction and I guess I just want to ask you,
Speaker 2: sort of broadly the role that activism plays in that
Speaker 2: pushback and why it's effective.
Speaker 3: Yes, I think one of the things that we did
Speaker 3: in this chapter is really try to focus on how
Speaker 3: important the resistance to climate obstructionism is and the kind
Speaker 3: of revealing and expanding awareness, kind of the social exposure
Speaker 3: peace is a big part of it, but also that
Speaker 3: there's a lot of policy advocacy that's going on that's
Speaker 3: also really important. And then campaigns and protests and and
Speaker 3: you know, direct engagement with communities in mobilizing public concern
Speaker 3: is another big part of it. So those are kind
Speaker 3: of the three different areas that we looked at of
Speaker 3: how we can and we are and people have been
Speaker 3: for decades trying to resist and confront the denialism, the delay,
Speaker 3: and then also the distraction. Right because I think a
Speaker 3: lot of what we see is you know, putting up
Speaker 3: other issues that are trying to just kind of distract
Speaker 3: us from fossil fuel phase out or more transformative climate
Speaker 3: policy that's urgently needed and the science has showed us
Speaker 3: for so long that that it is needed.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Okay, So there's this point that comes up in
Speaker 2: the chapter that I thought was really interesting and important
Speaker 2: to talk about, which is that you kind of make
Speaker 2: this point that the research on climate obstruction and climate
Speaker 2: activism needs to also be happening outside of universities because
Speaker 2: of the academic capture problem on many university campuses. Can
Speaker 2: you talk through some examples of what that looks like
Speaker 2: and then also what the non university research looks like.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's hard for people to acknowledge that there's any
Speaker 2: credibility in the research that's happening outside of universities, in
Speaker 2: part because of you know, the think tanks and all
Speaker 2: of that stuff that have been involved in obstructionism too. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: examples of what the fossil fuel capture looks like and
Speaker 2: this sort of no fly zone of even researching fossil
Speaker 2: fuel phase out and things like that, and then what
Speaker 2: is the research that's happening outside of universities.
Speaker 3: So I've been studying climate action and transformative change toward climate,
Speaker 3: responding to climate crisis in academia for over thirty years.
Speaker 3: And what I experienced myself is realizing how much of
Speaker 3: the climate and energy research in academia is actually funded
Speaker 3: by fossil fuel interests. Right. They actually Charles Koch back
Speaker 3: in the seventies identified invest in universities because it can
Speaker 3: legitimize this market fundamentalism, pro business, anti regulatory regime, and
Speaker 3: universities are so powerful and legitimizing certain approaches, including fossil
Speaker 3: fuel friendly technologies like carbon capture and storage and solar
Speaker 3: gew engineering. And so my own experience in academia a
Speaker 3: lot of engagement with people, mentors who I looked up to,
Speaker 3: who then I started realizing are promoting fossil fuel climate
Speaker 3: obstructionist talking points, you know, in their academic research. So
Speaker 3: this is this is the idea of academic capture or
Speaker 3: corporate capture of higher education. And as part of the
Speaker 3: Climate Social Science Network, I was part of a group
Speaker 3: that you know, kind of has exposed some of this
Speaker 3: the degree to which fossil fuel interests have been investing
Speaker 3: in higher education, particularly in the United States, in the UK,
Speaker 3: in Australia and Canada for big fossil fuel countries, you know,
Speaker 3: is much deeper than many of us recognize, and it's
Speaker 3: been going on for decades. So it's deeply embedded within
Speaker 3: the academic climate and energy research culture. And so this
Speaker 3: is where you know, I started. Many of us have
Speaker 3: started to notice, why aren't we doing research on how
Speaker 3: to phase out fossil fuels in our universities? That should
Speaker 3: be the number one priority, right, but it isn't because
Speaker 3: of this capture. So I think what's been really really
Speaker 3: important is, as you mentioned, the non academic research, right,
Speaker 3: there's so many NGOs, investigative journalists like yourself and others
Speaker 3: who are you know, digging in exposing greenwashing and delay tactics,
Speaker 3: exposing carbon offsetting strategies and how those are not you know,
Speaker 3: just delaying things and net zero claims and corporate interests
Speaker 3: in climate policy. So there's NGOs around the world. Many
Speaker 3: of them are international and collaborating, some are specific to
Speaker 3: specific countries that are really trying to and have been
Speaker 3: really really important in exposing and how fossil fuel interests
Speaker 3: are so deep and in particular. I think some of
Speaker 3: the really important work has not just been with science
Speaker 3: and kind of exposing the corporate interest, but in climate finance,
Speaker 3: and I think you know, organizations like Oil Change International,
Speaker 3: they're banking on climate chaos. They've really just kind of
Speaker 3: exposed in ways that no academic is doing with the
Speaker 3: same rigor and focus and really, you know, really being
Speaker 3: able to create kind of a whole structure for trying
Speaker 3: to hold accountable year after year what's going on in
Speaker 3: all of these different contexts. So I think it's been
Speaker 3: that's where the non academic research is just so important
Speaker 3: because academic research, although it's supposed it is supposed to
Speaker 3: be independent and you know, free and academic to study
Speaker 3: what we want in the universities, there actually are these
Speaker 3: deep constraints because of funding. I've been told all kinds
Speaker 3: of things, very condescending, like, oh, you're so smart, why
Speaker 3: aren't you focusing on this, you know, this kind of thing.
Speaker 3: You know, I have a science an engineering background, like
Speaker 3: a lot of these people that we're talking about, and why.
Speaker 4: Are you wasting it studying justice? Jenny exactly.
Speaker 3: And this is where a lot of the people who
Speaker 3: have control over the research agendas really don't have very
Speaker 3: much social science or interest in understanding how to even
Speaker 3: study power dynamics. Right, So this is where there's just
Speaker 3: like a blinders if, like, oh, it's all technical this
Speaker 3: and this and economics and the money, and it's just
Speaker 3: about costs and technology and that's it. Everything else is
Speaker 3: just wishy washy. And that's where it's so constrained all
Speaker 3: the climate energy research and universities as well. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: so little in the social science and the well.
Speaker 2: And I feel like that made its way into the
Speaker 2: IPCC too, right, where like it was only in the
Speaker 2: most recent assessment that we even had social scientists included.
Speaker 2: But that's wild to me that It's like, how long
Speaker 2: have people been saying, oh, this is like a you know,
Speaker 2: an issue of political will and all of that stuff,
Speaker 2: but we're not going to have social scientists in here
Speaker 2: to talk about what creates or blocks political will.
Speaker 4: I know, it's frustrating.
Speaker 2: In the US, we're dealing with the second Trump administration
Speaker 2: and a huge amount of suppression of climate science in
Speaker 2: general and university research and scientists and all of that.
Speaker 2: I'm wondering if there's anything that's happened so far that
Speaker 2: surprises you from a suppression stamp point. We're obviously seeing
Speaker 2: like suppression of protest as well. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: it's all outrageous, but yeah, is there anything that that
Speaker 2: like particularly surprises you as a suppression tactic.
Speaker 3: I think what has surprised me the most is actually
Speaker 3: the power and kind of contribution of the tech bros, right,
Speaker 3: and how central they've been and I think AI and
Speaker 3: promoting tech at all costs. I mean, I think the
Speaker 3: tech companies have become major climate obstructionists. Right. They used
Speaker 3: to have kind of sustainability climate but they've kind of
Speaker 3: dropped a lot of that and they're now essentially getting
Speaker 3: into the fossil fuel business because they need so much
Speaker 3: energy for all the data centers and so they and
Speaker 3: I think that's what the Trump administration and this new
Speaker 3: era we're in, they are, you know, collaborating complicit in
Speaker 3: ways that it's just so powerful. And I don't think
Speaker 3: we even wreck you know, we're all coming to terms
Speaker 3: with how much power they have. But I would say
Speaker 3: that that is climate obstructionism, you know, but it isn't
Speaker 3: often framed that way. We don't think of it that
Speaker 3: way because it's climate is kind of off the agenda
Speaker 3: for in many of these discussions. But that's exactly you know,
Speaker 3: the most effective denial delay tactic is just don't talk
Speaker 3: about it and just pretend it's not there and proceed
Speaker 3: as if everything's fine and we can have all this
Speaker 3: AI proliferation and data centers everywhere and increase our energy
Speaker 3: demand for what. Like, it's not clear what AI is
Speaker 3: offering in terms of the multiple the humanity is facing
Speaker 3: right other than exacin no.
Speaker 2: I know, Well, there's this whole weird talking point about
Speaker 2: how AI is like just very vague with a lot
Speaker 2: of conviction the AI is going to solve.
Speaker 4: Climate change to like, Okay, I mean.
Speaker 2: I get, I get that there are things that AI
Speaker 2: can do efficiency wise to automate you know, energy efficiency
Speaker 2: in certain processes. But then I feel like that's got
Speaker 2: to be getting blown out of the water by the
Speaker 2: extent to which they're just cramming it into everything and
Speaker 2: creating huge energy needs and.
Speaker 4: Data centers and all of that stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's it's a set of tools that
Speaker 3: can be used for all kinds of things, but that
Speaker 3: doesn't mean that, yeah, you know, it's critical for all
Speaker 3: kinds of things. And even in the universities, the narrative
Speaker 3: of inevitability, like we have to use it, we all
Speaker 3: have to get on board to teach our students, and
Speaker 3: it's just I mean, for me, it's part of climate obstructionism.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's interesting to watch.
Speaker 2: Okay, So actually kind of related to the tech guys
Speaker 2: because I feel like a part of what they've done
Speaker 2: as well is take over the information ecosystem in this
Speaker 2: way that I don't know, we almost kind of didn't
Speaker 2: see coming. It's like everybody's been talking about social media
Speaker 2: for a long time, but I don't know that people
Speaker 2: understood the extent to which it was taking over the
Speaker 2: role of news media. Like people talked about how it
Speaker 2: was impacting the ad revenue model and you know, traffic
Speaker 2: and this and that, but not necessarily like connecting the
Speaker 2: dots to oh yeah, now it's becoming the way that
Speaker 2: people get information.
Speaker 4: And these guys have total control over it, which it's
Speaker 4: you know, a smart move if you really hate the
Speaker 4: media and you don't want people like prying into your business.
Speaker 4: So anyway, there was this line in this chapter that
Speaker 4: I'm going to read because I want to have you
Speaker 4: talk about it a little bit.
Speaker 3: I thought it was.
Speaker 2: It was really interesting. So those media actors must also
Speaker 2: navigate a public arena where authenticity or how easy it
Speaker 2: is to believe information is increasingly valued over facticity the
Speaker 2: degree to which the claims made can be verified. So
Speaker 2: you mentioned a couple of countermeasures that are combating that issue,
Speaker 2: especially around monitoring, and I'd love to have you talk
Speaker 2: about those, And I also am curious for your take
Speaker 2: on this attempt to label those kinds of measures as censorship,
Speaker 2: which has been an interesting and kind of effective strategy.
Speaker 2: I would say as well, So, yeah, what's working? And
Speaker 2: then what's your response to the idea that any attempt
Speaker 2: to I guess prioritize more factual information over not so
Speaker 2: factual information gets branded as censorship.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I think the role of the media in
Speaker 3: kind of countering the misinformation right is, I mean, is
Speaker 3: so important. And I think there are these several you know,
Speaker 3: we mentioned several of these kind of global coalitions of
Speaker 3: actors trying to provide monitoring and then counter claims right
Speaker 3: to hold accountable media representations that may not be accurate.
Speaker 3: So I think, you know, and there's there's many different
Speaker 3: ways that people are trying to do this, and I
Speaker 3: think one really interesting one is the Climate Action against Disinformation,
Speaker 3: which is a global coalition that is, you know, really
Speaker 3: trying to combat the spread of misinformation, particularly on tech platforms.
Speaker 3: And you know, I think that is just so important
Speaker 3: in terms of trying to hold accountable Google x Meta,
Speaker 3: like these big platforms that as we all know, have
Speaker 3: so much power in terms of influencing what we see,
Speaker 3: what we see, right, and what we don't see, and
Speaker 3: what we learn about and what we don't learn about.
Speaker 3: So I think these kinds of efforts are just so important,
Speaker 3: and you know, and and but they're under attack, as
Speaker 3: you mentioned, right, with being claims of of censoring the
Speaker 3: media or also you know, being being attacked or losing
Speaker 3: their funding. Right. I think that the Climate Nexus is
Speaker 3: one of these organizations that closed in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: But again, like throughout I mean the work that Drill does,
Speaker 3: d smug in Australia, there's Skepticalscience dot org. There there's
Speaker 3: also like Conscious Advertising Network, which is trying to get
Speaker 3: advertising to be more responsible make sure it's not promoting misinformation.
Speaker 3: So there are a lot of different efforts. The challenge
Speaker 3: obviously is that we're what we're up against, right in
Speaker 3: terms of the coordination and the very strategic algorithms that
Speaker 3: are able to filter what we see and what we
Speaker 3: what we have access to. So, I mean, these efforts
Speaker 3: to kind of monitor and counter the disinformation and misinformation
Speaker 3: are so important, and you know, it's really really hard work, right,
Speaker 3: as we all know, like it's it's really and being attacked.
Speaker 3: So it's it's challenging, challenging times for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the censorship industrial complex, that's what they call it. Okay,
Speaker 2: So I want to have you define these terms disinformation, rebuttal,
Speaker 2: and counterbalancing that come up in the context of lobbying
Speaker 2: for climate policy.
Speaker 3: So we characterize counter dirductionist lobbying as efforts in the
Speaker 3: policy making processes to refute and resist climate obstructionism. So
Speaker 3: this first term disinformation rebuttal refers to attempts to within
Speaker 3: the policy process and within the lobbying to refute misinformation
Speaker 3: on climate science or misinformation about the costs of specific
Speaker 3: climate policies that's often a big one, right, or refute
Speaker 3: information about the severity of climate risks. Right, There's a
Speaker 3: lot of part of climate obstruction is saying, oh, it's
Speaker 3: not that bad, we don't need to worry about it.
Speaker 3: So this disinformation rebuttal phrase that we is about refuting
Speaker 3: these obstructionist narratives in the policy process. The other term
Speaker 3: is counterbalancing, which is more about actually another form of
Speaker 3: counterpl structionist lobbying where actually refute the claims by pointing
Speaker 3: out alternative benefits or reasons why that climate obstruction narrative
Speaker 3: you know, in the policy process is it doesn't make sense.
Speaker 3: So for example, one example that I think is helpful
Speaker 3: to understand both of these is, for example, in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three in the EU, there was effort to weaken
Speaker 3: the ban on fossil fuel internal combustion automobiles by twenty
Speaker 3: thirty five, and Germany as a country was advocating on
Speaker 3: behalf of their auto industry, let's try to weaken this
Speaker 3: because you know, it's going to be too costly and
Speaker 3: we don't need it. So that disinformation or rebuttal was kind
Speaker 3: of saying, actually, it'll be more expensive, right if we
Speaker 3: don't do it because of these reasons there, and it
Speaker 3: will there will be environmental impacts if we don't do it, right,
Speaker 3: this kind of thing, and the counterbalancing is pointing out
Speaker 3: if we weaken the band, that would hamper all kinds
Speaker 3: of decarbonization plans that all these companies have across Europe,
Speaker 3: that would undermine the trust in public policy and climate
Speaker 3: policy and so like. So that's an example of those
Speaker 3: two the tactics I guess of counter obstructionist lobbying.
Speaker 2: You point to kind of localized mobilizations as a key
Speaker 2: counter obstruction tactic and a pretty successful one and one
Speaker 2: that can you know, inspire broader regional or even global
Speaker 2: action too. And I wonder and I feel like that's
Speaker 2: one of the things that is giving people like the
Speaker 2: tiniest sliver of hope these days, is like seeing communities
Speaker 2: mobilize and achieve things at the local level and then
Speaker 2: kind of seeing that spread a little bit. So I'm
Speaker 2: wondering if you could talk through the Bohol protests as
Speaker 2: an example of that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So in the Philippines, Bohol Island province in Central
Speaker 3: Philippines is an example where really local mobilization really expanded
Speaker 3: into regional, broader anti coal policy. So what happened there
Speaker 3: was that there was proposal for a new coal fired
Speaker 3: power plant and there was a local mobilization a coalition
Speaker 3: of citizens, business people, and members of the clergy. The
Speaker 3: Catholic Church was also involved, all resisting saying we don't
Speaker 3: want coal a new coal fired power plant here. And
Speaker 3: they very strategically, you know, used social media. They had
Speaker 3: a joint position paper that argued for the next you
Speaker 3: know why, it would be all kinds of negatives for
Speaker 3: the and they had public events and they really were
Speaker 3: successful and used kind of the local commitment to kind
Speaker 3: of protecting what you love. That was their social media
Speaker 3: campaign to protect our beautiful place and our space, but
Speaker 3: connecting it with larger national and international campaigns and struggles.
Speaker 3: And they were very effective and shifting kind of the
Speaker 3: goals and frames by connecting the local with the global
Speaker 3: in a powerful way. And it led to the government
Speaker 3: prohibiting future coal based development and they really had a
Speaker 3: very clear and coherent vision of a coal free future.
Speaker 3: And it was quite quite a powerful example. And one
Speaker 3: of our co authors on the chapter, Lawrence Delina, had
Speaker 3: studied that specific case in quite detail, and so it
Speaker 3: was it was a a powerful example of local mobilization.
Speaker 3: And this is in the whole section in the chapter
Speaker 3: about protests and campaigning and mobilization and I think there
Speaker 3: are so many examples, and it is especially now when
Speaker 3: you know there's so much at this high level, macro level.
Speaker 3: The news is kind of saturated with big picture geopolitical highlights, right,
Speaker 3: We're missing all of the resistance that is going on
Speaker 3: all around the world in so many different ways. And
Speaker 3: I think that, as you said, that is where people
Speaker 3: get empowered, that's where people can feel hope, and there's
Speaker 3: so much happening, and you know, this is where I
Speaker 3: think there's This is where we need to and there's
Speaker 3: so much opportunity for elevating these stories of resistance and
Speaker 3: demonstrating how mainstream it is. Right in such a distorted
Speaker 3: landscape in that we're told, oh, people don't care about
Speaker 3: climate anymore, it's off the agenda, and you know, but
Speaker 3: really it's not. It's just the powerful interests are controlling
Speaker 3: and limiting what we're seeing day to day, so it
Speaker 3: feels like it's off the agenda. But then I know
Speaker 3: that's I mean the work that you do as well,
Speaker 3: and I know that was one of the messages also
Speaker 3: in the Carbon Bros. Podcasts that you know, it's just
Speaker 3: the loud people are making these claims, but they actually
Speaker 3: don't represent the majority at all. They're just quite influential
Speaker 3: and powerful, and they're taking up a lot of space.
Speaker 3: But most people do want transformative climate action and do
Speaker 3: want a better future right, and are working toward that
Speaker 3: in different ways.
Speaker 2: Yeah, even the anti fascist protests are getting really suppressed,
Speaker 2: both on social media and in the traditional media too.
Speaker 4: I'm curious for your thoughts on that. Like, I know,
Speaker 4: I know just.
Speaker 2: From pertiononal experience, that the traditional media is very weird
Speaker 2: about covering protests like sort of seen as like not
Speaker 2: not a story.
Speaker 4: And I feel like, actually, way too many.
Speaker 2: Media outlets are more concerned about being accused of or
Speaker 2: seeming biased towards activists than they are about being perceived
Speaker 2: as or being biased towards corporate or political interests. And
Speaker 2: it really has shaped just how the public even understands
Speaker 2: resistance and understands actually how common it is and how
Speaker 2: many other people also care. There was actually in one
Speaker 2: of the other chapters in the book, John Cook talked
Speaker 2: about how that actually is a form of obstruction and
Speaker 2: of itself, that like when you reinforce the idea to
Speaker 2: people that nobody else cares, it has a silencing effect
Speaker 2: because people think right that like, oh well, I don't
Speaker 2: want to I don't want to be the squeaky wheel.
Speaker 2: Nobody else really cares about this or whatever. Anyway, I'm
Speaker 2: curious for your thoughts on how and whether better coverage
Speaker 2: of these things or information about these things, either in
Speaker 2: traditional media or in social media, could help to I don't.
Speaker 4: Know, spread them, or support them, or.
Speaker 2: Shift people thinking about, you know, what's going on and
Speaker 2: what can happen.
Speaker 3: I think that, as you mentioned, protests are often thought
Speaker 3: of as like fringe or these radical people standing out,
Speaker 3: and you know, we experienced that before I moved to
Speaker 3: Ireland in twenty twenty four. The campus protests right throughout
Speaker 3: the United States were suppressed and were vilified the protesters,
Speaker 3: and those of us who were supporting the protesters were
Speaker 3: you know, of not doing our jobs, and so the
Speaker 3: silencing and that kind of underestimation of the mobilization that
Speaker 3: people are doing and or want to do. But I
Speaker 3: but at the same time, I think we're seeing now,
Speaker 3: you know, just this morning, what's happening in Nepal like
Speaker 3: major resistance. Right We're at a point where there's you know,
Speaker 3: going to be more of this resistance because there's no
Speaker 3: other options, like you know, at what point you know?
Speaker 3: So I think there's I think the coverage of resistance
Speaker 3: and the coverage of protests and campaigning and local mobilization
Speaker 3: is restricted, definitely, and there's often an underestimation right of
Speaker 3: protest numbers like how many people showed up here or there?
Speaker 3: And I've seen that here also in the Irish media
Speaker 3: with protests. And this is where obviously in the United
Speaker 3: States it's very scary because protesting is being increasingly outlawed right,
Speaker 3: like it's it's you really risk being arrested or or
Speaker 3: work or violence. So I think the the upholding the
Speaker 3: right to protest right and the is so important and
Speaker 3: being involved in multiple different ways, right, There's so many
Speaker 3: ways that all of us as citizens can engage and
Speaker 3: in our professionally and then in our personal capacity within
Speaker 3: our communities at different scales, and I think that is
Speaker 3: what people are eager for confirmation of right that yes,
Speaker 3: you can connect with your community and get involved and
Speaker 3: there is a lot happening. So I think those those
Speaker 3: messages are are really valuable right now. But as you said,
Speaker 3: constrained because of the larger powerful interests that are trying
Speaker 3: to control a lot of what happens and also what
Speaker 3: we hear about.
Speaker 2: The climate justice movement has gone through a few a
Speaker 2: few like waves where you know, when when the Green
Speaker 2: New Deal was being talked about, there was this push
Speaker 2: for like, oh yeah, climate connects to human rights and
Speaker 2: social justice and inequality and war and even childcare and
Speaker 2: all of these other things.
Speaker 4: Right, and there was enormous pushback.
Speaker 2: I'm like, of course there was like the Fox News pushback,
Speaker 2: but like within the climate movement, there was huge pushback
Speaker 2: in terms of this like stay in your lane, you know,
Speaker 2: why are you connecting climate all these other things? Like
Speaker 2: we have a hard enough time getting people to you know,
Speaker 2: embrace energy transition, never mind all these other things.
Speaker 4: But I do feel like, I don't know, I feel
Speaker 4: like actually the climate.
Speaker 2: Movements resistant, well, some people within the climate it's resistance
Speaker 2: to connecting the climate issue to broader, you know, structural
Speaker 2: issues around power and justice and all of these things.
Speaker 2: Has made it very easy for the right when they're
Speaker 2: looking for escapegoat to pin the ills of late stage
Speaker 2: capitalism on. That's not the capitalists, to be like, oh,
Speaker 2: it's the climate elitist and it's this, and it's that
Speaker 2: you know, it's like, yeah, I don't know. I just
Speaker 2: people are like, oh, you know, how do we connect
Speaker 2: to populism?
Speaker 4: And it's like, well, actually.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've written about and I've coined this term climate isolationism.
Speaker 3: Oh interesting, where we try to keep the climate in
Speaker 3: the lane. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Like and it's a little like oh if like let's
Speaker 2: just talk about solar panels and batteries and then no
Speaker 2: one will be mad.
Speaker 4: Like, first of all, they are still mad. And secondly,
Speaker 4: you have now.
Speaker 2: Lost like your entire any kind of coalition that would
Speaker 2: have helped you, you know, win on any of these issues.
Speaker 4: You're ever going to win is just that it's too small, no.
Speaker 3: And the focus on greenhouse gas emission reductions and decarbonization
Speaker 3: is all still so technical too. It's not what people
Speaker 3: wake up and them running worried about. Right, So we've
Speaker 3: missed these opportunities in a big way. And I think,
Speaker 3: you know, within the climate justice movement, a lot of
Speaker 3: people have been saying the climate crisis is a symptom.
Speaker 3: It's not a cause, right, it's not the thing, it's
Speaker 3: not a technical problem that needs to fix. It's actually
Speaker 3: a symptom of this larger, extractive exploitative system that is
Speaker 3: coming to the four of how detrimental and destructive it
Speaker 3: is both for the environment and for people and communities
Speaker 3: and families and right, so we are in a new phase,
Speaker 3: I think with climate justice because it is more obvious,
Speaker 3: especially with the tech bros and with the authoritarian games,
Speaker 3: which are all showing off their petrovasculinity. And it's so blatant,
Speaker 3: right that this is counter to plauser for everyone. So
Speaker 3: I think that's where climate justice, or at least the
Speaker 3: framing that I use to talk about climate justice and
Speaker 3: the climate justice movement, and I mean it's you know,
Speaker 3: trans rights, it's connecting people and the humanization of people
Speaker 3: with what people need with a transformative change. And I
Speaker 3: think it's and again this is what you know, many
Speaker 3: of our those of us who've been working on this
Speaker 3: for decades, see that the mainstream techno fix approaches are
Speaker 3: never going to be sufficient or adequate, right, Like, we
Speaker 3: need the bigger transformative change and that comes with change
Speaker 3: in economic power, political power, and redistributing things. And that
Speaker 3: gets into stemach structural changes, which are a lot harder
Speaker 3: to do research on, harder to know, you know, how
Speaker 3: to promote but I think it's coming to the fore
Speaker 3: and people are realizing that in many more ways. So
Speaker 3: that's why I think these larger coalitions of climate justice
Speaker 3: connecting with a lot of other social movements around the world,
Speaker 3: it is really really powerful and gives me inspiration.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean people keep saying like, oh, the reason people
Speaker 2: are voting for authoritarianism is because they just they're voting
Speaker 2: for change. They're not necessarily like pro authoritarianism. They just
Speaker 2: like don't want to vote for the politician that's just
Speaker 2: kind of offering the status quo. And I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: we have like a pretty good change story, guys, why
Speaker 2: aren't we It's a lot better than fascism.
Speaker 3: But it's been it's been suppressed, right, it hasn't been
Speaker 3: allowed to come through lot of the mainstream political discourse.
Speaker 3: But I think it's coming.
Speaker 4: It's bubbling up. All right.
Speaker 3: That's good. Good.
Speaker 4: We'll end on that note of optimism.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 5: I'm doctor Sharon Yedin and I'm a senior lecturer of
Speaker 5: law and regulation and I'm very interested in climate policy
Speaker 5: and I'm also a CSSN scholar researching climate obstruction.
Speaker 4: Can I have you start by defining both the term
Speaker 4: social license and the term social exposure for me.
Speaker 5: Sure well, Companies often need at least two types of
Speaker 5: licenses to operate, so there's a legal one and also
Speaker 5: a social So the legal license allows them to pollute
Speaker 5: or do a certain amount or sell a certain product
Speaker 5: under specific terms. But interestingly, firms also often need social
Speaker 5: recognition or little legitimacy from stakeholders in order to exist.
Speaker 5: And these stakeholders include residents or consumers, investors, the media,
Speaker 5: as well as the public at large. So this can
Speaker 5: be also a lot of other groups like suppliers and
Speaker 5: creditors or NGOs, and these stakeholders can object to a
Speaker 5: company or an industry is operations in a way that
Speaker 5: can create problems for that industry and in terms of
Speaker 5: financial harm. So that's the social license. Regarding the social exposure,
Speaker 5: it refers to actions from civil society or even governments
Speaker 5: that expose wrongdoing by corporations, for example, climate obstructive actions
Speaker 5: like lobbying or litigating against clean energy bills, especially when
Speaker 5: they're doing it based on disinformation. And also social exposure
Speaker 5: is about highlighting greenwashing tactics that firms use, or sometimes
Speaker 5: we call it even climate washing in the context of
Speaker 5: climate change, and social exposure can be carried out through
Speaker 5: naming and shaming, which involves publication of the information as
Speaker 5: well as condemnation, and it can also be carried out
Speaker 5: through media coverage and other means. And it also aims
Speaker 5: to spend the public's awareness of climate obstruction and sometimes
Speaker 5: nudge stakeholders to act. So basically, a social exposure aims
Speaker 5: to revoke a company or an institution's social license, and
Speaker 5: it can do so, for example, through research in academia,
Speaker 5: and there's for example, there's a research uncovering shifts in
Speaker 5: narrative that the fossil fuel industry uses, like climate denial,
Speaker 5: the move from climate denial to climate delay. So that
Speaker 5: means that there's a shift from arguing that the science
Speaker 5: is wrong to arguing that no response is needed or
Speaker 5: urgently needed on a policy level.
Speaker 4: And I know you mentioned naming and shaming there and.
Speaker 2: This comes up in the chapter as well, but you've
Speaker 2: also written exceptedly about it, including this new book on
Speaker 2: how regulators in particular can get involved in shaming. And
Speaker 2: i'd love to have you talked a little bit about
Speaker 2: what that looks like, What does it look like when
Speaker 2: it's legislative bodies or regulators that are doing the naming
Speaker 2: and shaming.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well maybe the shaming In general, it can be
Speaker 5: a governance tactic. It can also be a regulatory tactic tactic,
Speaker 5: and it leverages the shamed entity social license I mentioned earlier.
Speaker 5: So it's a form of social exposure and it aims
Speaker 5: to resist an organization or entities efforts to appear as
Speaker 5: something that they are not, for example, social or environment
Speaker 5: environmentally responsible, or to expose their efforts to hide something illegal, immoral,
Speaker 5: or unethical that they're doing so. In the context of
Speaker 5: climate obstruction, both civil society and government actors can expose individuals, organizations,
Speaker 5: and even countries for their actions, omissions, or decisions that
Speaker 5: obstruct climate policy or may impede climate action. And these
Speaker 5: tactic targets firms, corporate executives, and even policy makers engaging
Speaker 5: in climate washing that I mentioned earlier also anti climate
Speaker 5: litigation or anti climate organizational policies, and the goal is
Speaker 5: to hold them accountable and deter ongoing or future climate obstruction. Importantly,
Speaker 5: shaming involves a moral message exposing the deceitful nature of
Speaker 5: climate obstructionists, usually naming specific people or entities. So this
Speaker 5: is the naming part in the naming and shaming, and
Speaker 5: the idea is to motivate action to counter these obstruction efforts,
Speaker 5: not really causing feelings of shame, especially when we are
Speaker 5: targeting entities or companies. And so this is basically the
Speaker 5: mechanism in my book Fighting Climate Change Through Shaming, I
Speaker 5: argue that regulators should use shaming tactics in addition to
Speaker 5: their more traditional tactics, which often do not achieve the
Speaker 5: desired fact. And I suggest that they convey what is
Speaker 5: oftentimes perceived as credible information to the public corporate unharmful
Speaker 5: corporate behavior that is contributing to climate change, with the
Speaker 5: aim of inducing corporations to comply with climate laws, rules, regulation,
Speaker 5: but also to adopt voluntary climate norms. Because we often
Speaker 5: lack climate laws and rules, et cetera, so we need
Speaker 5: to compliment that with with voluntary no norms as well.
Speaker 5: And the idea of regulatory climate chaming is that companies
Speaker 5: that wish to avoid being named or presented as contributing
Speaker 5: to climate change will adjust their actions so to refrain
Speaker 5: from reputational damage that may translate into financial damages.
Speaker 2: M and to maintain that social license that you talked about, Right,
Speaker 2: we definitely see this get turned around in the opposite
Speaker 2: direction sometimes too, So I'm curious for your thoughts on
Speaker 2: that that, Like, how does this work when, for example,
Speaker 2: it gets weaponized against climate activists. I know, I was
Speaker 2: just talking to a group of people. They're like professional
Speaker 2: winter sports athletes and they work on climate staff, and
Speaker 2: they were saying that, you know, the number one problem
Speaker 2: they have and that, especially when when they're trying to
Speaker 2: get other athletes to work with them, is that as
Speaker 2: soon as they say anything online, they get people saying, well,
Speaker 2: if you care about climate change, then you shouldn't be,
Speaker 2: you know, flying around the world snowboarding for example, if
Speaker 2: they're like as pro snowboarder or whatever.
Speaker 4: So yeah, and I know that this does.
Speaker 2: Have some impact with very visible climate activists now maybe
Speaker 2: individually have a large carbon footprint that can dissuade people
Speaker 2: from trusting in them too. So yeah, I'm just curious
Speaker 2: about your thoughts on that, like how it gets weaponized
Speaker 2: in the other direction.
Speaker 5: Well, that's a good point. I think that if we
Speaker 5: open the door to shaming and we become the shamers,
Speaker 5: we definitely might might end up as targets of shaming,
Speaker 5: and in the context of climate change, we need to
Speaker 5: consider definitely consider the industry's vast resources to fight back
Speaker 5: and restore their reputation or work really hard or on
Speaker 5: their own building their own credibility even before the shaming
Speaker 5: occurs and highlighting the let's call them up opponents agendas
Speaker 5: the NGOs, academia even media to hurt the other person's
Speaker 5: credibility or the other organization, and this may also create
Speaker 5: a cycle of shaming and promote shaming or a cancel
Speaker 5: car culture, which can be toxic for us as a society,
Speaker 5: so we need to be careful of that. However, many
Speaker 5: many shamers or those taking part in the shaming process
Speaker 5: by responding to it for example through the investment campaigns,
Speaker 5: remain anonymous and can't be shamed back, so in the
Speaker 5: age of social media, etcetera, this is very common a situation. However,
Speaker 5: I do think that when that happens to NGOs or
Speaker 5: a media platform for example, they need to highlight the
Speaker 5: significant difference in scale because most of the time the
Speaker 5: industry is put much more more than them, but more importantly,
Speaker 5: they engage in greenwashing on a much larger larger scale
Speaker 5: and operate behind the scenes to impede climate law and regulation.
Speaker 5: And that's that's that's what the message should be.
Speaker 1: I think that's super interesting.
Speaker 4: Okay, in at least in the US in the past,
Speaker 4: you're maybe a little bit more. But I would say
Speaker 4: even in some of in the UK and some of
Speaker 4: Europe too, it does seem like companies are I don't know,
Speaker 4: they almost seem emboldened and like they're responding less to
Speaker 4: particularly public naming, Like they almost seem to be taking
Speaker 4: this stance of yeah, whatever, we're oil companies. So yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm wondering what you think of that, and what regulators
Speaker 4: can do in response to these entities that sometimes seem
Speaker 4: you know, shameless.
Speaker 5: Right. Well, I think if we'll do the efficacy or
Speaker 5: the effectiveness of regulatory shaming, then we do have a problem.
Speaker 5: I think we do need to try and focus on
Speaker 5: improving these let's call them soft law tools. If we
Speaker 5: have a problem, we need to think about why that
Speaker 5: is and what we can do about it. Because this tool,
Speaker 5: as someone who've researched it a lot and I'm very
Speaker 5: interested in it, I think it's too valuable to lose.
Speaker 5: If we look at climate law, climate regulation, even climate governance,
Speaker 5: it's not doing so well. So international agreements are very
Speaker 5: weak and the Paris Agreement goals are not being met.
Speaker 5: And as we all know, global temperatures keep on rising
Speaker 5: and extreme weather events are happening all over the globe.
Speaker 5: And when we look at climate laws and regulations in
Speaker 5: various jurisdictions, they are insufficient and they're applied very loosely
Speaker 5: if they exist at all. So formal legal and regulatory tools,
Speaker 5: the Harlow tools, don't seem to do their job very well.
Speaker 5: So I think it's important to harness public opinion when
Speaker 5: we can and the public resources, which is the public's
Speaker 5: ability to put pressure on firms and to expose facts
Speaker 5: versus misinformation, disinformation and greenwashing, and highlight obstructive or manipulative
Speaker 5: corporate behavior. Each time companies want to influence narratives, public
Speaker 5: perceptions and therefore policy, we should expose that. I think
Speaker 5: we shouldn't give up so, and of course combines softlaw
Speaker 5: with hard low tools. But if we can't use shaming,
Speaker 5: then it would be so easy, too easy to influence
Speaker 5: people's perception, perceptions and promote false idea about climate change.
Speaker 5: And it's implies. So I think we need to try
Speaker 5: and encounter that by pointing the finger towards responsible entities
Speaker 5: and their manipulative tactics.
Speaker 2: Can I have you actually share an example of an
Speaker 2: effective shaming campaign or move or I don't know, just
Speaker 2: like an example of how this works when it works,
Speaker 2: so that people have a sense of it.
Speaker 5: Sure, there's a research, there's an important research in it's
Speaker 5: outside of the climate change field, but it's closely related
Speaker 5: because it concerns public health. And the agency that is
Speaker 5: responsible for Occupational Safety OSHA use this tactic, this regulation
Speaker 5: by shaming tactic for several years, and it used social
Speaker 5: media Twitter now x to a name and shame employers
Speaker 5: that were involved with the injuries or deaths incidents in
Speaker 5: their workplace, and the agency would post facts as well
Speaker 5: as very harsh condemning texts saying that this employer doesn't
Speaker 5: respect its employees' health and wellbeing and it prioritizeses the
Speaker 5: company's incomes rather than the employee's safety gear, et cetera.
Speaker 5: And so, of course they had a major backlash from
Speaker 5: the industry, but this is something that research has shown
Speaker 5: that is very effective. In fact, one press release about
Speaker 5: this was also accompanied with press releases. One press release
Speaker 5: by Ocean Naming and Shaming Employers was equivalent to two
Speaker 5: hundred physical inspections in terms of the deturns that it
Speaker 5: caused in the industry. So this really highlights the effectiveness
Speaker 5: as well as the resources that we can save by
Speaker 5: just using communication and words and texts and narratives and
Speaker 5: social media and we don't have to rely so heavily
Speaker 5: on agencies budget, which is not always so great.
Speaker 2: That's fascinating, but such a good example. I remember seeing
Speaker 2: those things and it did work really, really well. Okay,
Speaker 2: So towards the end of the chapter you talk about
Speaker 2: assessing the effectiveness of efforts to resist climate obstruction. Why
Speaker 2: do you think it's so hard to sort of assess
Speaker 2: the effectiveness? And related to that, I do feel like
Speaker 2: people are really quick after two years or five years
Speaker 2: or whatever it is, be like, oh, this tactic doesn't work,
Speaker 2: and kind of try to move on to something else.
Speaker 2: And I'm curious for your thoughts on that, because I
Speaker 2: do think that the the climate movement tends to suffer
Speaker 2: from like magpie syndrome. You know, the next shiny object
Speaker 2: is always attracting attention, So yeah, I'm curious when you
Speaker 2: think about it, why is it hard to measure effectiveness
Speaker 2: and why is there such a tendency to kind of
Speaker 2: throw out tactics so quickly within the climate space.
Speaker 5: Well, I think we're quite desperate to find the right tool. So,
Speaker 5: as I discussed earlier, we really don't have that many
Speaker 5: effective tools to tackle these problems. While the corporations have
Speaker 5: vast resources. But climate obstruction is it's a complicated issue
Speaker 5: and it's hard to assess its effectiveness, I think because
Speaker 5: it's happening in many forms and many jurisdictions. The I mean,
Speaker 5: first of all, the climate obstruction firts by multiple actors
Speaker 5: and and and these actors are very motivated to start
Speaker 5: obstruct climate policies. And this makes the problem very complex,
Speaker 5: and it's often hidden from public eye, so it's difficult
Speaker 5: to fight what we don't know that exists and where
Speaker 5: and how it takes place. At the same time, when
Speaker 5: when people are trying to counteract it, it's it's really
Speaker 5: hard to track it because it's happening on so many levels,
Speaker 5: from just regular people to companies and NGOs. There are
Speaker 5: that are trying to monitor monitor the web for this
Speaker 5: information for example, and even governments or international organizations. It's happening,
Speaker 5: I think, on too many levels and too many arenas.
Speaker 5: And as you mentioned, it's very dynamic, it keeps changing,
Speaker 5: so it's very hard to track its effectiveness. While at
Speaker 5: the same time, as I mentioned earlier, it's it's hard
Speaker 5: to see results and to measure the results. How do
Speaker 5: I know that lobbying efforts and litigation efforts have reduced
Speaker 5: as a result of specific action from trying to fight
Speaker 5: climate obstruction. So trying to resist climate obstruction, it's very
Speaker 5: hard to put the finger on the right tactic or
Speaker 5: person or initiative, and so as it's complicated to monitor
Speaker 5: climate obstruction, it's also complicated from a policy or research
Speaker 5: or point of view to measure its effectiveness.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 2: I do feel like probably because of the resource thing
Speaker 2: that you know, the industry can be using tactics at once,
Speaker 2: and a lot of times those who are pushing for
Speaker 2: climate policy have to just by virtue of time and
Speaker 2: money and energy, focus on one or two at a time.
Speaker 5: It's hard to keep track and to identify these tactics
Speaker 5: in real time.
Speaker 2: And to respond when they shift to Like I see
Speaker 2: this happen a lot where just about the time climate
Speaker 2: campaigners will figure out how to respond to one thing,
Speaker 2: the industry will sort of stop using that and shift
Speaker 2: to something else.
Speaker 3: So it's hard to hard to keep up.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we talked about naming and shaming a fair bit,
Speaker 2: But is there anything else that you want to make
Speaker 2: sure people understand about how this works. I know you
Speaker 2: wrote a whole book about it, so I'm sure you
Speaker 2: could talk for.
Speaker 4: A long time, But what are any other kind of
Speaker 4: key things.
Speaker 2: That we didn't talk about that people should know about
Speaker 2: how this works.
Speaker 5: Sure, I'm happy to share some the insights from my
Speaker 5: book and my latest articles. So I mostly discuss regulatory
Speaker 5: climate chaming, and the idea is that companies that wish
Speaker 5: to avoid being named or will adjust directions to refrain
Speaker 5: from reputational damage. So some of the schemes discussed in
Speaker 5: discussed in my book include, for example, implementing carbon rating
Speaker 5: and labeled labeling systems for products and services, And this
Speaker 5: is something we're starting to see sometimes from private organizations,
Speaker 5: but I think that policy makers should also develop these tools.
Speaker 5: Another type of scheme is publicizing regulatory rankings and blacklists
Speaker 5: of oil and gas companies or other companies that are
Speaker 5: also contributing to climate change, and this would be according
Speaker 5: to indicators of their level of contribution. We can also
Speaker 5: think about publicizing the details of climate litigation cases and
Speaker 5: enforcement actions that are brought against companies, posting condemnatory messages
Speaker 5: on social media like OSHA. And also we can think
Speaker 5: about the opposite of naming and chaming, maybe naming and
Speaker 5: faming just by lauding firms that are voluntarily reducing greenhouse
Speaker 5: guest emissions and are adopting climate friendly practices. So it's
Speaker 5: interesting to think about schaming more broadly and to think
Speaker 5: about various communication tactics. And what's interesting about regulatory climate
Speaker 5: shaming is that many people are very much interested in
Speaker 5: someone telling them how they can help in this climate crisis,
Speaker 5: what they can do, And there are a lot of
Speaker 5: informational gaps, as we discussed earlier, and people don't have
Speaker 5: enough information on who is responsible for the climate crisis
Speaker 5: and what to do about it. So I think it's
Speaker 5: important that regulators fill this gap by capturing the public's attention,
Speaker 5: especially with new and important information like climate obstruction. And
Speaker 5: I found that climate changing is especially effective when it
Speaker 5: points to corporate deceit or intentional harms like climate denial
Speaker 5: and climate washing, and when the information revealed is surprising.
Speaker 4: Super interesting and very helpful. Thank you, Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: This is really this is super interesting