Speaker 1: From Bloomberg News and I Heart Radio hits the Big Take.
Speaker 1: I'm West Kasova. Each weekday we dig into one important story,
Speaker 1: and today Egypt. It's hosting this year's UN Climate Summit,
Speaker 1: and rising temperatures there show what will happen everywhere if
Speaker 1: we don't get serious about global warming. Leaders around the
Speaker 1: globe getting together starting November six for the annual U
Speaker 1: n Climate Change Conference. It's known this year as COP
Speaker 1: seven because it's the one since the first one back
Speaker 1: in the idea, of course, to try to slow the
Speaker 1: warming of the world, and that is a tall challenge
Speaker 1: at the moment. With inflation and energy prices staring, some
Speaker 1: countries are putting climate promises on hold and leaning back
Speaker 1: into dirty fuel like coal and gas. One of the
Speaker 1: country's hardest hit by rising temperatures is Egypt. It's getting
Speaker 1: harder at twice the pace of some other nations. Mike
Speaker 1: Hallig Lava Milan in Madrid joins me. Now she reades
Speaker 1: about climate and she's covering the conference. Laura, thanks for
Speaker 1: being here, Thanks so much for having me. Can you
Speaker 1: give us just a little refreshing course exactly what is
Speaker 1: capped and what are they going to try to accomplish
Speaker 1: their cop Tent seven is the most important climate gathering
Speaker 1: of the year. It's sponsored by the United Nations and
Speaker 1: during this meeting, climate negotiators from all the countries in
Speaker 1: the world meet. The ultimate goal for all of them
Speaker 1: is to avoid catastrophic climate change. So at the moment,
Speaker 1: the planet is warming at a very fast pace, and
Speaker 1: if it continues like that, at the end of the century,
Speaker 1: we will have reached a level of warming of three
Speaker 1: degrees celsius compared to pre industrial times, so that will
Speaker 1: make some parts of the world unlivable. The mission of
Speaker 1: these negotiators is to find measures to cut greenhouse gas
Speaker 1: emissions in order to lower the level of warming. So
Speaker 1: in when the Paris Climate Treaty was signed, which set big,
Speaker 1: ambitious goals for all the world to follow to do
Speaker 1: exactly what you're saying, slow the rate of climate change,
Speaker 1: they set this goal of to degrees celsius. They were
Speaker 1: gonna try to keep the warming to that rate, and
Speaker 1: yet we're seeing it kind of creep above that already
Speaker 1: in some countries. Is it cynical of me to ask?
Speaker 1: Every year they come together, politicians and scientists and activists
Speaker 1: all have this conversation. It's all very serious, and they
Speaker 1: come forward with pleasures that they signed, and there's big
Speaker 1: photos taken and not a lot really happens after that. Well,
Speaker 1: that's one way to see it. Science tells us that
Speaker 1: warming below to the Greek Celsius by the end of
Speaker 1: the century is possible if we got the missions fast.
Speaker 1: Science also tells us that we have the technologies we
Speaker 1: need to lower the level of worming. And what would
Speaker 1: some of those be, those technologies that exists if we
Speaker 1: would just use them. Things that we are all familiar
Speaker 1: with today, like renewable energy, like better installation of homes
Speaker 1: or electric vehicles. All those sorts of things would help
Speaker 1: us lower emissions a long way. All these talks help.
Speaker 1: You have to imagine it in a way. You can
Speaker 1: imagine like COP is the top of a very long process,
Speaker 1: and at the end of that process are things like,
Speaker 1: for example, if you get in your country tax rebates
Speaker 1: for buying an e bike or an electric vehicle. It
Speaker 1: all starts at COPS. These big, big objectives are set
Speaker 1: at the COP meetings every year. We all must speed
Speaker 1: up our race to net zero. The United States are
Speaker 1: not only back at the table, but hopefully leading by
Speaker 1: the power of our example fronts. But broadly, the Open
Speaker 1: Union as well as the United Kingdom are today ready
Speaker 1: to meet their commitment. India the only big economy in
Speaker 1: the world that has delivered both in letter and spirit
Speaker 1: on its Paris commitments. Last year, the Cup Climates was
Speaker 1: in Glasgow and at the end of it, the big
Speaker 1: goal that they set there was each country was going
Speaker 1: to go home and do some homework. They were going
Speaker 1: to set new goals for each of their countries on
Speaker 1: what they could do to limit the you know, increase
Speaker 1: in the Earth's temperature coming into copy. Have those countries
Speaker 1: actually all submitted those plans? No, they haven't. Between Copton
Speaker 1: T six last year and Coptain seven this year, a
Speaker 1: lot has happened in the world. I mean, let's just
Speaker 1: name them. We have Russia invading Ukraine, which has put
Speaker 1: a huge pressure on energy and cause energy spikes, had
Speaker 1: huge heat spikes. What else, We've got food shortages, We've
Speaker 1: got inflation. So governments across the world have been super
Speaker 1: busy trying to deal with the immediate problems. Maybe they
Speaker 1: haven't been as busy thinking about the problems of what
Speaker 1: happens at the end of the century or in ten
Speaker 1: twenty fifty years time, So that's part of the reason
Speaker 1: why many of them haven't submitted new climate plants. Also,
Speaker 1: the language for the decision for at COP ten to
Speaker 1: six was a bit vague. It wasn't super clear that
Speaker 1: every country in the world had to submit new targets.
Speaker 1: So given what you just said, does it seemed to you,
Speaker 1: as someone who covers this all the time, that climate
Speaker 1: is always this very urgent important thing until anything else happens,
Speaker 1: and then it's one of the first things to be
Speaker 1: kind of pushed aside for more immediate concerns, and everybody says, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's important that we had to deal with this first.
Speaker 1: I think it used to be like that, but it
Speaker 1: isn't like that anymore. There is a tendency to do
Speaker 1: that when you have the immediate word in Ukraine, the
Speaker 1: risk of blackouts in Europe this winter. But it's also
Speaker 1: true that because the world swarming at such a fast space,
Speaker 1: we are seeing already the effects of climate change in
Speaker 1: the form of extreme weather events everywhere right now. So
Speaker 1: this is forcing politicians who might have the temptation to
Speaker 1: just walk away from this and focus on the problems
Speaker 1: of today. It's forcing them to realize that climate change
Speaker 1: is actually a problem of today. And one of the
Speaker 1: places where we are seeing the real results of climate
Speaker 1: change right now is Egypt, where this year's conference is
Speaker 1: being held. And I mean, I guess you could say
Speaker 1: that Egypt is sort of the case study of what
Speaker 1: happens if the world doesn't get serious about climate change.
Speaker 1: Can you describe what is happening with Egyptian Wyatt's become
Speaker 1: such an urgent problem there. Egypt is a country that's
Speaker 1: already covered by desert. The part that's not covered by
Speaker 1: desert is the Nile River. Flows from the Nile River
Speaker 1: are diminishing because it's raining less upstreme and also because
Speaker 1: country is like Ethiopia, while Ethiopia basically is building a
Speaker 1: giant dam upstream denial, so that means less water for Egypt.
Speaker 1: At the same time, Egypt is being impacted by sea
Speaker 1: level rice from the Mediterranean which is flooding the Delta
Speaker 1: and wreaking crops from cotton to all sorts of of
Speaker 1: grains essential to feed Egypt. Basically, because the country is
Speaker 1: desert itself, a lot of it it's affected by increasing heat,
Speaker 1: especially in cities which are becoming bigger because life in
Speaker 1: the countryside is becoming difficult. What we're seeing in Egypt
Speaker 1: is that it is warming at twice the rate of
Speaker 1: the rest of the planet. Yes, so we know that
Speaker 1: Egypt is warming about twice as fast as the rest
Speaker 1: of the planet. And we know that if temperatures keep
Speaker 1: increasing globally at this space, some parts of Egypt with
Speaker 1: the temperatures as high as fifty degrees celsius, for example,
Speaker 1: during heat waves, we know the average temperature in the
Speaker 1: country will rise by almost five degrees. This will mean
Speaker 1: that life in many places in Egypt will become almost
Speaker 1: impossible or really challenging. So I should say for those
Speaker 1: people listening in the US, we're talking about two degrees celsius,
Speaker 1: but we're talking about is three point six series in fahrenheaving.
Speaker 1: So if we're looking at the potential for five degrees
Speaker 1: celsius increased, that's nine degrees fahrenheit, So a very large
Speaker 1: leap and one that would have absolutely devastating effects. What
Speaker 1: do you think, given all of this, we can expect
Speaker 1: from the CAP twenty seven conference or what are the
Speaker 1: goals that they're trying to accomplish. So this Compton to
Speaker 1: seven will not end with one big agreement like we
Speaker 1: saw in Paris in twenty fifteen, for example. What the
Speaker 1: organizers are saying is that this is an implementation COP.
Speaker 1: What that means is that all the agreements that have
Speaker 1: been signed over the years they need to advance. They
Speaker 1: want to make sure all these little agreements or big
Speaker 1: agreements that have been signed through the years advanced. We
Speaker 1: will not have possibly a big headline coming out from COP,
Speaker 1: but it also means that implementation, that the actually how
Speaker 1: this becomes a reality will advance. And this is actually
Speaker 1: them almost as important as one big headline statement. My
Speaker 1: conversation with Laura will continue, but first I'd like to
Speaker 1: bring in my colleagues Salma l or Dainy for a
Speaker 1: view from Egypt. That's just after the break. We're going
Speaker 1: to continue our conversation now with Sama l our Dainy,
Speaker 1: energy reporter based in Cairo, someone we've been hearing all
Speaker 1: about how politicians are talking at a very high level
Speaker 1: about what nations can do working together to slow climate change.
Speaker 1: You've gone out into Egypt where the CAP twenty seven
Speaker 1: conferences being held to talk to people who are experiencing
Speaker 1: it right now. And Egypt, which is warming faster than
Speaker 1: the rest of the planet, UH is seeing the effects
Speaker 1: that everyone is talking about in these rooms, UH, in
Speaker 1: their everyday lives. Can you tell us what you saw
Speaker 1: and what people told you. So farmers, especially in the
Speaker 1: area where I did my story and where most of
Speaker 1: egypt food production and agriculture has been and has been historically,
Speaker 1: that's the delta. Egypt farmers have lived their whole lives
Speaker 1: and the lives of the grand grandparents on these lands,
Speaker 1: and now the nile is shrinking and the water doesn't
Speaker 1: reach them anymore, especially in the case of bal Team,
Speaker 1: the village where my story is. That's the top point
Speaker 1: in the delta strip, which means that it's almost touching
Speaker 1: the Mediterranean Sea, which also means it's vulnerable to the
Speaker 1: soil southernization because of the rise of the sea levels.
Speaker 1: Some of you spoke to one farmer and let's hear
Speaker 1: just a bit of what he said. The water quality
Speaker 1: is not helping and it's affecting the soil. I can't
Speaker 1: give it enough water, so it affects the crops, rice, cotton,
Speaker 1: in the all produce. In the past, we could farm
Speaker 1: with less water. It was good water. It was a
Speaker 1: fresh nile water. Now we're drinking treated wastewater in this
Speaker 1: whole area of around five thou dens. Everyone's drinking wastewater,
Speaker 1: not fresh water. We've been suffering from this water for
Speaker 1: more than twenty years. So yes, this is one of
Speaker 1: the farmers that I spoke with during my trip. His
Speaker 1: name is Shoklem Hamadad the Salem, and what he's talking
Speaker 1: about is a very is an everyday problem, and it's
Speaker 1: not just related to agriculture. Is actually related like what
Speaker 1: he's saying to even like the drinking water, the consumption
Speaker 1: of water. So while team is on the last line
Speaker 1: of it's it's part of delta, but it's it's pouring
Speaker 1: into the Mediterranean. So there's there's actually a beach there.
Speaker 1: But at the same time there are farmers. The main
Speaker 1: the main activity is farming there. And because it's very
Speaker 1: close to the Mediterranean, that's the water is very salty
Speaker 1: and the soil is very salty, and there's very scarce
Speaker 1: water resources, whether it's for irrigation or for consumption, and
Speaker 1: it's not fit for human consumption. For it to be
Speaker 1: to be fit for consumption, even they have to do
Speaker 1: a lot of treatment and which they not all of
Speaker 1: them can necessarily afford. And one of the big problems
Speaker 1: seems to be is salonization. That the water is becoming
Speaker 1: just extremely salty, yes, correct, And for that it means
Speaker 1: the water, unlike other places, maybe in Egypt, the water
Speaker 1: is very very high in salt, which means it needs
Speaker 1: a lot of treatment, and it needs a lot of
Speaker 1: chemicals to you know, to to make it barely you know,
Speaker 1: fits for agriculture, let alone drinking. Now you spoke to
Speaker 1: the same farm her son who is also working the land,
Speaker 1: and he talked about this problem with salt, which is
Speaker 1: essentially poisoning the water and making it unfit. The salionization
Speaker 1: is what's harming us the most. It makes us want
Speaker 1: to live here and go farm elsewhere, like in the
Speaker 1: desert where there aren't high salt levels. Here the salt
Speaker 1: concentration is high both in the soil and in the water.
Speaker 1: This farming water, as you can see here, is not
Speaker 1: fit for irrigation or agriculture. When you were there, were
Speaker 1: you able to see salt just sitting on top of
Speaker 1: the land that had essentially been left from the water. Yes,
Speaker 1: I it was very very visibility. You can see the
Speaker 1: white crust all over the crops. It's it's it's very
Speaker 1: alarming to see. And it's even for them, like for
Speaker 1: the farmers there, even for them, it's it's like a
Speaker 1: new phenomena um. And that's after they spent you know,
Speaker 1: the very little savings and the very little money they
Speaker 1: spent a lot of money on on treatment. And you know,
Speaker 1: I'm getting the water almost look like you know, fresh
Speaker 1: water that you would use for irrigation of mr. We
Speaker 1: take matters into our own hands. Our group of farmers
Speaker 1: living around this irrigation canal, collect money from each other,
Speaker 1: clean the canal and remove the drainage from it. Then
Speaker 1: we use the water to grow acrops. Do people like
Speaker 1: him have faith in the Egyptian government to address this?
Speaker 1: Obviously the country is suffering quite a bit, so it
Speaker 1: is unauthorized. You have to get up an an authorization
Speaker 1: to be able to protest. And at the same time,
Speaker 1: especially in marginalized areas like bald Team. Weald Team is,
Speaker 1: like I said, the furthest point of the delta line,
Speaker 1: so the services is not as good as further down
Speaker 1: on the delta line. So these people. They lack government services,
Speaker 1: and the government at the same time is railing from
Speaker 1: the effect of the war in Ukraine and before the pandemic,
Speaker 1: and there's not enough finances. And that's why you see
Speaker 1: you here all the time, the calls to get finances.
Speaker 1: And for even farmers that I spoke to in this
Speaker 1: very distant village, they were saying they hope that COP
Speaker 1: seven they will be able to get like finance and
Speaker 1: funding for the lands because they need it and because
Speaker 1: the government cannot afford that. So even these farmers who
Speaker 1: live far away from where government leaders around the world,
Speaker 1: they're discussing this question. Even they are aware of CAP
Speaker 1: twenty seven, are actually looking to it to see if
Speaker 1: something will be done. Yes, yes, I was fascinated. Like
Speaker 1: they're following the news. They know about it very well.
Speaker 1: Some of them are obviously cynical, but a lot of
Speaker 1: them is following it and they hope that it's going
Speaker 1: to affect their lives and it's going to avail funds
Speaker 1: that they need, the urgently need to save the lands
Speaker 1: and save the and feed them basically feed the kids.
Speaker 1: If you look down the road five years or ten
Speaker 1: years from now, Um, what will happen to agriculture if
Speaker 1: nothing is done to can slow the pace of climate
Speaker 1: change on the Nile. So again the problem in ease
Speaker 1: of is that the countries is very dependent on the
Speaker 1: Nine River and the farming and irrigation is about fresh
Speaker 1: water comes from the river rather than the rainfall as
Speaker 1: the case in other countries. So this is now contributing
Speaker 1: to make an age of even more vulnerable to climate
Speaker 1: change due to its primary in the dependence on the Nile,
Speaker 1: and that's effecting everything. Yields for for food crops are
Speaker 1: projected to decline due to higher temperature and water stress
Speaker 1: and increased salinity of irrigation water, which means more exports,
Speaker 1: which means more pressure on the country's finances and budgets.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me, Sugar.
Speaker 1: Thank you. After the break, my conversation with Laura Milan
Speaker 1: continues and we're going to explore some possible solutions to
Speaker 1: the climb the crisis Lavera. So we're just listening to
Speaker 1: some people in Egypt who are suffering the effects of
Speaker 1: what's happening from climate change right now, seeing what's happening
Speaker 1: when the Nile is greatly affected and makes it harder
Speaker 1: to plant crops and just harder to go about daily life.
Speaker 1: When you look at what's happening in a country like Egypt,
Speaker 1: which is not a big contributor to climate change, but
Speaker 1: is suffering the results from other nations. Really, what are
Speaker 1: we seeing in the cop Climate Conference world among these
Speaker 1: people who study this all the time about the responsibility
Speaker 1: of larger nations too smaller nations to try to reduce
Speaker 1: the effects. Well, that's actually going to be one of
Speaker 1: the main themes at coptal TO seventh conference this year,
Speaker 1: partly because, like you say, it's a big issue, but
Speaker 1: also because the conference is happening in Africa for the
Speaker 1: first time in a few years, and that always means
Speaker 1: that these sort of issues have a bigger presence. What's
Speaker 1: happening and what the ve it is about is that
Speaker 1: developing nations have not emitted historically as many emissions, nearly
Speaker 1: as many emissions as developed nations as rich nations, so
Speaker 1: they have contributed comparatively very little to the warming of
Speaker 1: the planet, and yet they're bearing the consequences of that
Speaker 1: warming disproportionately. These countries are seeking compensation from return nations
Speaker 1: and help when it comes to facing these terrible consequences,
Speaker 1: will those nations actually pay out? Because there was supposed
Speaker 1: to be a big payout from return nations to less
Speaker 1: wealthy nations for exactly this purpose, and they can never
Speaker 1: paid right. I think what you're referring to is the
Speaker 1: a promise of hundred billion dollar per year of climate
Speaker 1: finance to the developing nations, and that PLEDs that was
Speaker 1: signed at the copy in Copenhagen has never been fulfilled.
Speaker 1: Developing countries are asking that that is fulfilled. That as
Speaker 1: a starting point, but actually calculations from experts and scientists
Speaker 1: say that developing nations actually need much more money to
Speaker 1: recover from the extreme weather events that are suffering because
Speaker 1: of climate change. It is unlikely that developed nations come
Speaker 1: out of this cop happy. Hopefully some sort of agreements,
Speaker 1: some sort of mechanism will be agreed upon. And what
Speaker 1: are some of those things? I mean you talked about
Speaker 1: mechanisms that they can put in place. What would they
Speaker 1: be that developing nations would get from the more developed
Speaker 1: countries more than around figure what developing nations would be
Speaker 1: looking for this time is what they call a mechanism,
Speaker 1: so that means a system by which every time there
Speaker 1: is an extreme weather event that HiT's a country let's
Speaker 1: say Pakistan, for examt people, which has terrible slots, then
Speaker 1: there is a system by which funding can flow very
Speaker 1: quickly into the country, because it's been studies say that
Speaker 1: the faster you react to one of these extreme weather events,
Speaker 1: the faster you can recover from it. What kind of
Speaker 1: like we were talking before that you know, climate is
Speaker 1: at the forefront until immediate concerns wind up superseding them.
Speaker 1: There's always this kind of tension there between trying to
Speaker 1: ultimately save the planet from overheating and trying to keep
Speaker 1: immediate economic pain from hurting people. And so if you
Speaker 1: have very high prices for fuel and you have inflation
Speaker 1: everywhere and people are having a hard time, politicians around
Speaker 1: the world they're saying, well, I don't know, maybe just temporarily,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go back to using coal. We're seeing that
Speaker 1: certainly in China. We're even seeing some politicians in the
Speaker 1: US saying, no, this is not the time to be
Speaker 1: talking about renewable fuels. We need to get people back
Speaker 1: to work and be able to you know, heat homes.
Speaker 1: So at what point do you think there's going to
Speaker 1: be the feeling that when there's a crisis like the
Speaker 1: one we're in now, politicians say, no, this is the
Speaker 1: time where we have to say we're gonna take our
Speaker 1: pain right now in order to invest in clean energy
Speaker 1: that will get us through it from now. I think
Speaker 1: we've already seen this with the coronavirus crisis. So in Europe,
Speaker 1: all the lockdowns forced governments to basically spend lots of
Speaker 1: money to try to revive the economy, and they pass
Speaker 1: huge economic packages, and the European Union made very clear
Speaker 1: that it wasn't growth or climate it was growth through
Speaker 1: fighting climate change. What they made was all countries to
Speaker 1: commit to spending at least a third of European recovery
Speaker 1: funds in green policies. I think in a way, countries
Speaker 1: and envisions are still keeping climate change in mind when
Speaker 1: it comes to this recovery, to to this economic crisis.
Speaker 1: The message is that yes, there is a turn to
Speaker 1: call in some countries to cover these immediate needs. But
Speaker 1: over the long term, the hope is that the past
Speaker 1: towards the low emissions economy and towards net zero by
Speaker 1: mid century continues. Are there countries in the world that
Speaker 1: exert more pressure more effectively than others and countries to
Speaker 1: meet these more ambitious goals. Yes, absolutely so. When we
Speaker 1: talk about the talks that cop traditionally the US has
Speaker 1: been obviously as as the world's beecause economy and as
Speaker 1: the worlds also the world's bigguse emitter, they have had
Speaker 1: huge weight in these talks. And this changed a bit
Speaker 1: during a from a president from SPUNDAID because he had
Speaker 1: a very different vision on climate. But the US has
Speaker 1: come back as a leader of these negotiations under President Biden,
Speaker 1: and we expect them to send a huge delegation to
Speaker 1: COP and seven putting pressure on other nations to cut
Speaker 1: coal use specifically, but also to cut greenhouse gas emissions
Speaker 1: in general. Other key players are the European Union as well.
Speaker 1: Another interesting player this year will be Australia, which changed
Speaker 1: governments in the middle of the year. Other players to
Speaker 1: watch that are not the typical ones on when we
Speaker 1: talk about international discussions are the small island nations. So
Speaker 1: these are really truly at the forefront that that you know,
Speaker 1: they're battling climate change physically at their homes every day,
Speaker 1: and we're talking about islands like Barbados and other nations
Speaker 1: in the Pacific and in the Caribbean. Leaders from these
Speaker 1: nations have traditionally been really, really vocal in this forum,
Speaker 1: and they have compared to the relative size of their
Speaker 1: economies and their countries, they have a huge weight in
Speaker 1: these negotiations. Is there a point of no return that
Speaker 1: the people who think about this study attend these conferences
Speaker 1: have in mind, where if we don't do something about it,
Speaker 1: it's just going to be too late. This is an
Speaker 1: ongoing debate among scientists. Some scientists will say that we've
Speaker 1: already reached that point of no return and that all
Speaker 1: that we are doing now is just avoiding catastrophe. There
Speaker 1: are people that will say, well, this is true, but
Speaker 1: still not all is lost. There is time to make
Speaker 1: things not that, But I personally would like to focus
Speaker 1: on this glass huffle. Bill Blara, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: taking the time talk to me. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for having me, Thanks for listening to us here at
Speaker 1: the Big Take the Daily podcast from Bloomberg and I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. From more shows from my Heart Radio, visit
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Speaker 1: The Big Take is Vicky Burgalina. Our senior producer is
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Speaker 1: It's called Zero. They're heading to Egypt and they'll be
Speaker 1: reporting all the latest from the conference. I'm West Kasova.
Speaker 1: We'll be back tomorrow with another Big Take.