Speaker 1: Today on the podcast, we're going to take a trip
Speaker 1: to where else, Scotland and talk about the big climate
Speaker 1: change summit that just wrapped up there. If you're a
Speaker 1: climate hawk, are you happy about the summit? Disappointed both?
Speaker 1: Let's find out. Hello and welcome back once again to
Speaker 1: Parts per Billion, the environmental podcast from Bloomberg Law. I'm
Speaker 1: your host, David Schultz, So of course today we're gonna
Speaker 1: be talking about the twenty six Conference of the Parties
Speaker 1: to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. You
Speaker 1: might know it better as COP twenty six. This is
Speaker 1: the annual conference where in twenty fifteen the famous Paris
Speaker 1: Agreement was reached. Its goal was to keep the climate
Speaker 1: from warming by more than one point five degrees celsius
Speaker 1: from pre industrial levels, and since then the progress toward
Speaker 1: that goal has been kind of underwhelming for a lot
Speaker 1: of people. This year's COP was held in Glasgow, Scotland,
Speaker 1: and Bloomberg Laws Bobby McGill was there covering the whole thing.
Speaker 1: He's still in Scotland, so I thought i'd give him
Speaker 1: a ring and have him explained to me what exactly
Speaker 1: went down there and what it was like reporting on
Speaker 1: this famously difficult to cover event. Well, this is my
Speaker 1: third COP. I covered COPS twenty four in Poland and
Speaker 1: I stayed there for the first for the whole two weeks,
Speaker 1: and then I just one week in Madrid the second
Speaker 1: half of that conference in twenty nineteen, and this was
Speaker 1: the marathon. This was in part because this is this
Speaker 1: was such a big momentous COP. You know, this is
Speaker 1: this was such an important conference because it was where
Speaker 1: countries had to come back six years after the Paris
Speaker 1: Climate Accord to sort of ramp up their emissions cutting commitments.
Speaker 1: So as we're talking about this, I'm realizing that when
Speaker 1: you're talking about negotiations and and you know, covering these negotiations,
Speaker 1: it involves everyone being in the same place together, which
Speaker 1: is not necessarily something we can do now with the
Speaker 1: pandemic is still in play. What was that, like, how
Speaker 1: did the pandemic affect the ability of you to cover
Speaker 1: this and also of the negotiators to negotiate. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: they pulled it off. It happened. There was a lot
Speaker 1: of mask wearing and there was you know, they tried
Speaker 1: to get out The British government sponsored a vaccination schemes,
Speaker 1: so that as many people from the developing world could
Speaker 1: be vaccinated as possible. But the key here is that
Speaker 1: even though the conference went off without too much of
Speaker 1: a hitch, and you know, there were some cases. I
Speaker 1: don't think we know the final number, but there were
Speaker 1: some cases of COVID. The key issue here is that
Speaker 1: because of the hoops that people had to jump through
Speaker 1: to get to Glasgow from the developing world, there were
Speaker 1: activists and NGOs and other members of civil society who
Speaker 1: said that they did not have access to this the
Speaker 1: COP twenty six and the and the and the process
Speaker 1: that they would have previously, And there were voices that
Speaker 1: were not necessarily heard. But at the same time they
Speaker 1: did have And I don't know if the final number
Speaker 1: is available yet, but I think there was an estimate
Speaker 1: of about forty thousand people attending this COP which is
Speaker 1: a lot of people, and a lot of people in
Speaker 1: a very concentrated area. Because the US was there, there
Speaker 1: were a lot of different things that I had to
Speaker 1: cover compared to previous years. Yeah. Actually, well, and I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask you about that because this is the
Speaker 1: first COP that has happened since President Biden took office,
Speaker 1: and it sounds like, based on what you're saying, that
Speaker 1: changed like everything. I wouldn't say it changed everything. I
Speaker 1: would say that it certainly puts the US back on
Speaker 1: the map. You know, the US tried hard, it seemed to,
Speaker 1: you know, regain its credibility on the world stage and
Speaker 1: on its you know, with its with its climate agenda.
Speaker 1: This was, uh, this was notable because you know, in
Speaker 1: the previous two climate summits. Uh, you know, the US
Speaker 1: didn't have what they call a pavilion, which is it's
Speaker 1: where they host side events and basically get their message
Speaker 1: out to the world. This time, they hosted Interior Secretary
Speaker 1: Debt Secretary Deb Holland, and they had other and EPA
Speaker 1: Administrator Michael Reagan and other cabinet officials who were who
Speaker 1: were there to discuss the Biden administration's climate agenda. In
Speaker 1: previous years they didn't happen. Yeah, well, I mean that's
Speaker 1: that's a big deal onto itself, because I mean they're
Speaker 1: only you know, about a dozen and a half cabinet
Speaker 1: officials that exist, and two of them were there. At
Speaker 1: least two. It sounds like, okay, so let's get into
Speaker 1: what actually happened at the cop over All, I get
Speaker 1: the sense that people were a little disappointed with the
Speaker 1: outcome as specifically as it pertains to coal and coal subsidies.
Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about that and why
Speaker 1: some of the sort of environmental activists weren't thrilled with
Speaker 1: what happened there? Well, I think part of what happened
Speaker 1: was the very last minute there was in the US
Speaker 1: was a part of this. Actually there was a last
Speaker 1: minute deal to water down language on coal. But the
Speaker 1: difference here is that these fossil fuels have never been
Speaker 1: called out by name in any previous climate summit outcome.
Speaker 1: So even the Paris Climate Agreement didn't mention fossil fuels,
Speaker 1: and so the first time we get, you know, a
Speaker 1: mention of fossil fuels in the in the Glasgow Climate Tact.
Speaker 1: And that's significant because, especially with coal, even though the
Speaker 1: the language is watered down a bit, you know, I
Speaker 1: think it was perceived as writing on the wall for
Speaker 1: the for the coal industry. And basically the way they
Speaker 1: phrased it was the pact is calling for countries to
Speaker 1: help accelerate the phase down of unabated coal power. There's
Speaker 1: no metrics for that, right, but you know it says
Speaker 1: countries need to start moving away from coal, and the
Speaker 1: market's already doing that anyway. And the other thing is
Speaker 1: that it talked about a phase out of inefficient fossil
Speaker 1: fuel subsidies. What are inefficient fossil fuel subsidies? I don't
Speaker 1: know exactly, And and so you know, that's open to
Speaker 1: interpretation if if you think that, you know, if you
Speaker 1: are an activist and you think that climate change is
Speaker 1: the existential crisis of our time, this language sounds disappointing.
Speaker 1: But if you're familiar with this process, you and you
Speaker 1: see that this is actually calling for a shift away
Speaker 1: from you know, even in water down terms, from these
Speaker 1: traditional sources, these polluting sources of energy. You know, it's
Speaker 1: progress that's really interesting. I also I get the sense
Speaker 1: that China and India played a big role in this
Speaker 1: sort of last minute change too. As you said, water
Speaker 1: down this language. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 1: And and I guess also about the role that these
Speaker 1: countries that are sort of developing very very rapidly play
Speaker 1: in you know, combating climate change and potentially you know,
Speaker 1: wanting to hang on to fossil fuels for a little
Speaker 1: bit longer. Well, I think ultimately they want there, They
Speaker 1: want the same quality of life we have, and fossil
Speaker 1: fuels has brought that. And so you know, uh, these countries.
Speaker 1: India is not going to it doesn't plan to reach
Speaker 1: net zero until well into the second half of the century.
Speaker 1: And and so that's that. That means that they are
Speaker 1: going to be committed to the fossil fuels for for
Speaker 1: probably and possibly coal power for you know, possibly another
Speaker 1: fifty years. They were an active player in trying to
Speaker 1: water down that language. Let's talk about Alex Sharma, he's
Speaker 1: the president of this COP. He said at the end
Speaker 1: that you know, we're still one point five degrees is
Speaker 1: still a possibility, But he also said that it was
Speaker 1: you know, the pulse is weak, that it's a very
Speaker 1: very remote possibility. Can you unpack that a little bit
Speaker 1: and explain what he meant by that and and how
Speaker 1: how one point five degrees is even still a possibility. Well,
Speaker 1: he's right in that. So there was a UN report
Speaker 1: that came out just before COP twenty six that said
Speaker 1: that we that globally emissions have to fall by half
Speaker 1: by twenty thirty in order to reach one point five
Speaker 1: Is that realistic? I don't know, but I mean, I
Speaker 1: think we can all look around and look and and
Speaker 1: understand that the political will for that is probably not
Speaker 1: a strong it should be if we were, if we're
Speaker 1: at if we actually wanted to be on that trajectory.
Speaker 1: With all of the climate commitments that are on the
Speaker 1: table from more than one hundred and fifty countries. Right now,
Speaker 1: we are not on track for one point five. We
Speaker 1: are somewhere in the neighborhood. We're above two degrees, and
Speaker 1: that's still that's catastrophic climate change. And part of the
Speaker 1: problem here is that the the math that countries used
Speaker 1: to estimate their emissions cuts and their current levels of emissions,
Speaker 1: it's it may or may not be exact, and so
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of uncertainty in the system. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: countries are going to have to come back to the
Speaker 1: table and agree to do more, and so that's what
Speaker 1: the next step is. They they have to come back
Speaker 1: to the table at the end of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: presumably in Charmel shake Egypt next year for Coup twenty seven,
Speaker 1: and revisit those twenty three goals that they've had to
Speaker 1: cut emissions, and they and the mandate is to is
Speaker 1: to cut emissions even more deeply. All right, and finally,
Speaker 1: really briefly, let's talk about next year. You know, are
Speaker 1: we did did this COP kind of set things up
Speaker 1: really well for Sharmel Shake next year? Or do you
Speaker 1: think is there like a lot of are there a
Speaker 1: lot of open questions that you know are unanswered that
Speaker 1: will need to be answered before we get to Egypt
Speaker 1: next year? Well, I think that the big thing on
Speaker 1: the table is is you know, more ambitious commitments. So
Speaker 1: you know, we won't know until we we won't know
Speaker 1: until we get there ultimately, and you know there's going
Speaker 1: to be a lot of you know, intervening talks, you know,
Speaker 1: as there as there always are between now and then,
Speaker 1: but you know they're developed countries are going to be
Speaker 1: asked also to come back to the table and and
Speaker 1: you know, put up more money for to help other
Speaker 1: countries adapt and you know, to help countries they can't
Speaker 1: adapt to you know, account for their loss and damage.
Speaker 1: So there's there's a lot of progress to make. This
Speaker 1: was a significant step it COP twenty six in Glasgow
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, we'll just have to see how
Speaker 1: things go and in a year, all right. Well, that
Speaker 1: was Bobby McGill speaking to us from Scotland. Bobby, thank
Speaker 1: you so much. This was really great and have a
Speaker 1: safe trip back to the US of A Thank you, David,
Speaker 1: And that'll do it for today's episode of Parts per Billion.
Speaker 1: If you want more environmental news, check us out on Twitter.
Speaker 1: We use they handle at environment. Just that that environment.
Speaker 1: I'm at David B. Schultz. That's b as in Bobby,
Speaker 1: don't forget to buy me some Scotch. Today's episode of
Speaker 1: Parts per Billion was produced by myself, David Schultz. Partsber
Speaker 1: Billion was created by Jessica Coombs and Rachel Dagle and
Speaker 1: is edited by Rebecca Baker and Chuck McCutcheon, and our
Speaker 1: executive producer is Josh Block. Thanks everyone for listening and
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