Speaker 1: Welcome to zero I am Akshatrati this week farewell to
Speaker 1: fossil fuels. At the United Nations Climate Summit in Dubai
Speaker 1: in December twenty twenty three, all countries committed to transitioning
Speaker 1: away from fossil fuels, and yet in the years since
Speaker 1: there has been little progress. So there was a renewed
Speaker 1: push last year at COP thirty one in Brazil, more
Speaker 1: than eighty countries got together to seek a commitment to
Speaker 1: develop road maps to phase out fossil fuels. But even
Speaker 1: then they could not get it into the final agreement.
Speaker 1: So finally, out of frustration, these countries created their own
Speaker 1: forum to find ways to make progress.
Speaker 2: This was the first conference where you have sixty countries, academics, scientists,
Speaker 2: indigenous people, civil society unions at the table, business leaders,
Speaker 2: and you're not talking about whether fossil fuel face that
Speaker 2: needs to happen. You're talking about.
Speaker 1: How Sibora Berman is the chair of the Fossil Fuel
Speaker 1: Non Proliferation Treaty Initiative and the conference she's talking about
Speaker 1: took place in Santa Marta in Colombia in April. It
Speaker 1: was the inaugural conference on Transitioning Away from fossil fuels,
Speaker 1: and it looked to answer some practical questions. How exactly
Speaker 1: can a country like Colombia, dependent on fossil fuels for
Speaker 1: its economic development start to face down its extraction. What
Speaker 1: happens to fossil fuel import dependent countries like France when
Speaker 1: this phase down begins. Ministers and climate on voys from
Speaker 1: fifty seven countries showed up to try to find answers,
Speaker 1: and Berman says that the fossil fuels supply shock created
Speaker 1: by the Iran War made the resolve of many of
Speaker 1: these countries in attendance a lot stronger. So this week
Speaker 1: on Zero I asked Subora what did the conference achieve,
Speaker 1: why she believes this kind of conference can succeed where
Speaker 1: cop summits have not, and what would convince a country
Speaker 1: like Saudi Arabia to give up on its fossil fuels.
Speaker 1: As always, if you have feedback for the show, please
Speaker 1: email us at Zero Pod at Bloomberg dot net. Here's
Speaker 1: my conversation with Siborah Berman. Welcome to the show, Supporah Berman.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: So it's been nearly a month since the first conference
Speaker 1: on the Transition away from fossil fuels, concluded in Santa
Speaker 1: Marta in Columbia, and it's been nearly three months since
Speaker 1: the war on Iran began. Fossil fuels and our dependence
Speaker 1: on them is very much the central issue right now.
Speaker 1: But before we talk about all of it, tell the
Speaker 1: listeners a little bit about your journey working on climate
Speaker 1: and energy issues. What got you to this point.
Speaker 2: Well, I really started my journey in the Canadian oil
Speaker 2: sands because I'm Canadian, and for many years I was
Speaker 2: working on forest conservation and the trade of wooden paper products. Actually,
Speaker 2: and I actually remember the moment when I decided I
Speaker 2: had to start working on climate change and fossil fuels.
Speaker 2: There was a map came across my desk of millions
Speaker 2: of hectors of forests that were dying in Canada as
Speaker 2: a result of beetlekill and fires. And I remember that moment, thinking, God,
Speaker 2: I so in my entire adult life trying to protect
Speaker 2: these old growth forests from industrial logging, and now they're
Speaker 2: going up in flame or they're being eaten by beetles,
Speaker 2: you know, because beetles used to die at a certain
Speaker 2: temperature and now they don't because it's warmer. And it
Speaker 2: was at that moment that I realized, you know, in
Speaker 2: my head, I worked on forest conservation and other people
Speaker 2: worked on climate change, and I realized, no, I need
Speaker 2: to start working on climate change. These issues, as you
Speaker 2: know better than most, are super complicated. But what's not
Speaker 2: complicated is, you know, there are three things causing eighty
Speaker 2: six percent of the carbon trapped in our atmosphere. It's oil,
Speaker 2: gas and coal. In Canada at the time had a
Speaker 2: prime minister, Prime Minister Harper, who was determined to make
Speaker 2: Canada and oil superpower. Is going to triple the size
Speaker 2: of the oil sands. He had proposed five different pipelines.
Speaker 2: And so I started at home, really actually started around
Speaker 2: forest because of course to get it the oil, they
Speaker 2: have to cut down all the forests. But my time
Speaker 2: in the oil sands made me realize that no country
Speaker 2: is going to do this alone. Even when we got
Speaker 2: a new administration, the Trudeau administration, and you know, Trudeau
Speaker 2: came to Paris with his hand on his heart Canada's
Speaker 2: back and started putting in place a lot of really
Speaker 2: good policies, but on the demand side, to reduce the demand,
Speaker 2: to reduce the emissions. And it didn't make sense to
Speaker 2: me because demand is not Canada's problem. We don't have
Speaker 2: that big of a population. It's the fact that we
Speaker 2: produce so much very heavy carbon oil, as you know,
Speaker 2: and it's being export And so I started asking the question,
Speaker 2: what about production? Are we constraining supply? How do we
Speaker 2: do fossil fuel phase out if we're growing the problem?
Speaker 2: And for a long time, you know, I got a
Speaker 2: lot of pats on the head. You don't really understand
Speaker 2: climate policy, and it didn't make any sense to me.
Speaker 2: So I started looking around and trying to figure out
Speaker 2: what are other countries doing that are big supply side
Speaker 2: fossil fuel producers. You know, what's Norway doing, you know
Speaker 2: what's Argentina doing, what's happening across Africa? And as I
Speaker 2: started reaching out to academics around the world and climate
Speaker 2: policy experts around the world, I realized that there was
Speaker 2: this just this huge gap that fossil fuel supply and
Speaker 2: production and constraining production was not on the table either
Speaker 2: in the climate negotiations or in climate policy. And that's
Speaker 2: when I started organizing and started thinking about how do
Speaker 2: you do fossil fuel phase out? And can you get
Speaker 2: countries to cooperate? You know, as the TRADEAU administration told me, Yes,
Speaker 2: we need to phase out fossil fuels, but as long
Speaker 2: as the world uses oil, it might as well be ours.
Speaker 2: But every country wants to be the last barrel sold.
Speaker 1: This is something that you know, we've talked about in
Speaker 1: the context of the climate summits, the COP meetings for
Speaker 1: a long time that we've had thirty years of these meetings.
Speaker 1: It really took until twenty twenty three, and until COP
Speaker 1: twenty eight to even get the mention of fossil fuels
Speaker 1: in a consensus driven document that assigned at the end
Speaker 1: of it. And of course we've known about the science
Speaker 1: that fossil fuel consumption must be reduced to address climate
Speaker 1: change for much longer than thirty years. Why is it
Speaker 1: that it took until twenty twenty six for a global
Speaker 1: conference where governments, okay, not all government but a lot
Speaker 1: of governments, something like sixty countries came together to finally
Speaker 1: talk about transitioning away from fossil fuels. What was it
Speaker 1: that was needed to make this meeting in Santa Marta happen.
Speaker 2: There's not one thing that was needed. It was a
Speaker 2: lot of things, and it's been shifting over were the
Speaker 2: last five years. I would say probably since the Glasgow
Speaker 2: cop Actually, our first campaign of the Fossil Fuel Treaty
Speaker 2: at Glasgow was it's time to say the f words.
Speaker 2: At cop the words oil, gas and coal. Fossil fuels
Speaker 2: don't even appear in the Paris Agreement these it's not
Speaker 2: In some ways it's not a surprise that this was
Speaker 2: a plan by the oil and gas industry, the most
Speaker 2: powerful and one of the most profitable industries in the
Speaker 2: history of the world, to ensure that they wouldn't be
Speaker 2: faced with production constraints because that's their bottom line, right,
Speaker 2: That's how they make them that's how they make those
Speaker 2: crazy profits two point eight billion dollars a day every
Speaker 2: day for the last fifty years. And they were protecting
Speaker 2: those profits and overwhelming the climate negotiations and climate policy
Speaker 2: spaces with a framework that was about technology. We can
Speaker 2: just put in place some technologies and reduce emissions, preparel
Speaker 2: and we're gonna be fine. And I think it led
Speaker 2: to a real group think, a really warped approach. An
Speaker 2: economist would say, you can't cut something with one half
Speaker 2: of the scissors, and demand is one side and supply
Speaker 2: is the other half. We need to also cut supply,
Speaker 2: especially given the position that we're in. And so over
Speaker 2: the last five years we've seen that conversation grow within
Speaker 2: COPS but stagnate. And I think the tipping point that
Speaker 2: led to this conference was the moment in blem when
Speaker 2: countries realized that despite all their efforts, despite eighty countries
Speaker 2: signing onto the fossil fuel phase out commitment in Belem,
Speaker 2: despite a call for a production of road maps on
Speaker 2: fossil fuel phase out, they were not going to get
Speaker 2: anything significant or a plan in that agreement. And that's
Speaker 2: because the UN process and the COPS are by consensus.
Speaker 2: That was by design. Thirty years ago. Saudi Arabia put
Speaker 2: that on the table and insisted on it. And so
Speaker 2: when you have a consensus based process, you end up
Speaker 2: with vested interest being able to weaken the outcomes. And
Speaker 2: so when Columbia proposed this conference and Netherlands agreed to
Speaker 2: co host it outside the UN process, a diplomatic space,
Speaker 2: but outside the UN process without some of the big
Speaker 2: producers who have held these negotiations back, without them even present,
Speaker 2: and no fossil fuel lobbyists present, you know a lot
Speaker 2: of people said, Okay, let's try it, and when that
Speaker 2: conference was announced at Belam, there was a huge standing
Speaker 2: ovation on the floor.
Speaker 1: This conference happens in Santa Marta in April twenty twenty six,
Speaker 1: and you know, about sixty countries show up. But my
Speaker 1: understanding is that more countries would have showed up if
Speaker 1: there was, as some perceived, a threat of a treaty
Speaker 1: to be signed at the end of this. So I
Speaker 1: know that the conference was focused on figuring out how
Speaker 1: countries and how the world can transition away from fossil fuels.
Speaker 1: But you represent the Fossil Fuel Nonproliferation treat which is
Speaker 1: a separate but a related initiative. Talk me through what
Speaker 1: this treaty is and why some countries bolt at the
Speaker 1: fact that, oh, we don't want to sign another treaty,
Speaker 1: hence we are not showing up at Santa Marta.
Speaker 2: First of all, this conference wouldn't have happened without the
Speaker 2: Fossil Field Treaty, and I think that's important to understand.
Speaker 2: The idea actually was proposed almost two years ago at
Speaker 2: the ministerial meeting of a fossil Fossil Field Treaty meeting.
Speaker 2: So the countries who are participating in the development of
Speaker 2: the treaty, which is right now eighteen nation states and
Speaker 2: there's another ten coming as observers into the technical meetings
Speaker 2: and the ministerial meetings. At that conference, it was proposed
Speaker 2: a standalone diplomatic conference on fossil fuel phase out, and
Speaker 2: it was based on historical analysis because when you look
Speaker 2: at landmines, when you look at chemical weapons, nuclear a
Speaker 2: lot of these issues that were in transigent inside the
Speaker 2: UN system had separate outside processes and then developed treaties
Speaker 2: and then were brought back inside the UN system. So
Speaker 2: the Ottawa Convention that Canada hosted on land mines, which
Speaker 2: eventually led to the Landmine Treaty. So it was based
Speaker 2: on that history that we put together a proposal and said, look,
Speaker 2: we need a separate process in order to start developing
Speaker 2: this idea. And then Columbia announced it actually at Climate
Speaker 2: Week last year, and then and the Netherlin's joined them
Speaker 2: as co hosts in Belem and it became a different conference.
Speaker 2: So the conference was not about the fossil Fuel Treaty.
Speaker 2: It was about fossil fuel phase out, but certainly the
Speaker 2: fossil Fuel Treaty is one track of the discussions. There
Speaker 2: were also talks about subsidies. There were talks about the ISDS,
Speaker 2: trade agreements and other barriers to fossil fuel phase out,
Speaker 2: but fossil Fuel Treaty was one part of the conference.
Speaker 2: It's true that some of the countries, specifically you know,
Speaker 2: global North countries, have said that they don't need a
Speaker 2: new treaty, that that scares them, and I think we
Speaker 2: need to ask why they're scared to have new global
Speaker 2: governance mechanisms that might be legally binding and cooperation on
Speaker 2: fossil fuel phase out. The Fossil Field Treaty is about
Speaker 2: countries coordinating together to create shared timelines, and there's a
Speaker 2: couple of reasons why that's critical. One is because of
Speaker 2: the governance gap. I mean, if you don't have that,
Speaker 2: what you have is countries creating their own national phase
Speaker 2: out plans. The moment we're in demands more than that.
Speaker 2: And if we only have voluntary agreements, then you don't
Speaker 2: have equity, for example, built into those agreements. The wealthy
Speaker 2: countries in the North, they can produce their own phase
Speaker 2: out plans, sure the majority of the world can't do it.
Speaker 2: And when Columbia joined the treaty, this is a really
Speaker 2: important point actually because Columbia joined the treaty and President
Speaker 2: Petro said, we're one of the largest coal exporterers in
Speaker 2: the world. Every day we're making the problem worse because
Speaker 2: we can't stop, and we can't stop unless we have
Speaker 2: that are frameworks, international cooperation, new financial systems, because there
Speaker 2: are a lot of countries out there that are dramatically
Speaker 2: increasing fossil fuel production just to feed their debt. So
Speaker 2: this is about finance.
Speaker 1: You talked about how there are barriers to getting a
Speaker 1: transitioning away from fossil fuel agreement among countries. The one
Speaker 1: that we've talked plenty about on this podcast is the
Speaker 1: fossil fuel industry and many of the oil producing nations
Speaker 1: that have very powerful lobbies. But you said there are
Speaker 1: other issues. There are trade issues, their debt issues. Talk
Speaker 1: us through those issues that came up at this meeting
Speaker 1: and what was the sort of path forward that countries
Speaker 1: were pointing to.
Speaker 2: When you start looking at the barriers to fossil fuel
Speaker 2: face it, what you see is that there are financial
Speaker 2: and structural barriers that are pushing countries into greater production,
Speaker 2: and that the system it doesn't you know, it benefits
Speaker 2: the countries and the global North and the countries who
Speaker 2: are historically and they have had a real economic leg
Speaker 2: up as a result of the fossil fuel industry. So
Speaker 2: when you look at analysis of how fast countries need
Speaker 2: to stop expansion and wind down, I mean globally, we
Speaker 2: need to stop expansion now, and the science is very
Speaker 2: clear we need absolute emissions and production to climb now
Speaker 2: because we already have enough oil, gas and coal underproduction
Speaker 2: on the surface of the planet or fields that are
Speaker 2: that are being used to take us well past two degrees.
Speaker 2: So how quickly does the UK or Canada wind down
Speaker 2: versus Nigeria or a country that is very dependent on
Speaker 2: fossil fuel revenues for a huge component of their GDP
Speaker 2: or to meet their debt, and debt emerged in Santa
Speaker 2: Marta as an absolutely critical issue because there are just
Speaker 2: so many countries that are planning new fossil fuel production.
Speaker 1: And many of these are developing countries in Africa. So
Speaker 1: you know, one statistic here on debt, for example, is
Speaker 1: that in twenty twenty five, African economies spent as much
Speaker 1: as sixteen percent of their export in earnings on servicing debt.
Speaker 1: And these are places, many of them highly indebted and
Speaker 1: looking to find ways to reduce their debt, thus developing
Speaker 1: new projects, which from an equity perspective you would say
Speaker 1: is the right thing for them to do. But how
Speaker 1: do you square the circle in a way that would
Speaker 1: allow them to actually transition away from fossil fuels and
Speaker 1: grow economically, which is something that they desperately want.
Speaker 2: You find ways to relieve that debt because they need
Speaker 2: the space, the financial space, and the time to do
Speaker 2: economic diversification and competitiveness studies and replace those export revenues
Speaker 2: with something else. This year, for example, the IMF required
Speaker 2: several countries to show that they were going to increase
Speaker 2: fossil fuel production in order to receive their loans. And
Speaker 2: even the climate finance grants that you're seeing out there,
Speaker 2: the Green Climate Fund, et cetera, is often loans instead
Speaker 2: of grants. Let's look at renewable energy. People say, well,
Speaker 2: they could just invest in renewable energy instead, but the
Speaker 2: majority of the capital that's going into renewable energy is
Speaker 2: not good. Ninety eight percent last year didn't go to
Speaker 2: the Global South because of interest rates. So you have
Speaker 2: to deal with some of these financial structures. So what's
Speaker 2: on the table at the Fossil Fuel Treaty that countries
Speaker 2: are considering. One is debt swaps, and we've done a
Speaker 2: deep dive with some energy finance experts from the Global
Speaker 2: South into looking at what would that look like, what
Speaker 2: would a debt for renewables swap look like. The other
Speaker 2: big one that's emerging is debt resolution facilities supporting the
Speaker 2: countries to actually assess historical debts which are often much
Speaker 2: higher than they should be, and to renegotiate debts. Then
Speaker 2: there's debt suspension or even debt cancelation. These issues are
Speaker 2: absolutely critical for countries to operate on in order to
Speaker 2: relieve that pressure valve to be able to give countries
Speaker 2: the space to stop expanding the problem. So in the
Speaker 2: Fossil Fuel Treaty, what we're doing is putting in front
Speaker 2: of the countries some refined proposals on debt, but also
Speaker 2: on new forms of investment in trade and different ways
Speaker 2: for them to cooperate to replace fossil fuel revenues at
Speaker 2: scale and speed, like buyers clubs, divestment of sovereign wealth funds,
Speaker 2: and then on the investment in trade, looking at some
Speaker 2: really interesting options for international taxes and levies. Some of
Speaker 2: these mechanisms are going to be essential.
Speaker 1: After the break, I asked Sabora what happens next and
Speaker 1: why China wasn't invited to the conference, And Hey, if
Speaker 1: you like what you're listening to and want to help
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Speaker 1: Thank you. What happens next? This meeting concluded? Was there
Speaker 1: anything more concrete that you think came out of this
Speaker 1: meeting and what happens next?
Speaker 2: I think there's a number of concrete things, and it's
Speaker 2: not going to be that this the plan for a
Speaker 2: global fossil fuel phase out is not going to live
Speaker 2: in one place. It's not going to be one one
Speaker 2: tool or one agreement. And so I'm really excited about
Speaker 2: is what we felt in Santa Marta, what you saw
Speaker 2: on people's faces, Like it's hard to describe now a
Speaker 2: month out, but the fact is that for all this time,
Speaker 2: if there was a discussion about fossil fuel phase out,
Speaker 2: it was about arguments of whether it needed to happen.
Speaker 2: This was the first conference where you have sixty countries, academics, scientists,
Speaker 2: indigenous people, civil society unions, at the table, business leaders,
Speaker 2: and you're not talking about weather, fossil fuel face that
Speaker 2: needs to happen. You're talking about how and so what
Speaker 2: came out of that is a commitment to continue the process.
Speaker 2: So that's really important. Continue the diplomatic conference convening countries
Speaker 2: and having these conversations outside the UN space, and Tuvalu
Speaker 2: and Ireland agreed to host the second conference in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty seven and preparations are already underway for that conference.
Speaker 2: But secondly, there were outcomes that were proposed by the
Speaker 2: existing chairs, Colombia and the Netherlands, and some of those
Speaker 2: will live back inside the COT processes, and that's good.
Speaker 2: It's not going to live in one place. So there
Speaker 2: will be more national road maps and many countries committed
Speaker 2: to doing those, and I think that process will likely
Speaker 2: happen more in with support from the Brazilian roadmap process
Speaker 2: inside the COP process as part of countries and DC's
Speaker 2: as part of the global stock take, individual countries are
Speaker 2: going to start putting forward their roadmaps and increasing ambition
Speaker 2: on fossil fuel phase out. I think that this conference
Speaker 2: has changed the game. It is kind of the antidote
Speaker 2: to the climate hoax. Drill baby, drill noise we're hearing
Speaker 2: from the United States. It's country saying yes, we're going
Speaker 2: to work on fossil fuel phase out. We're going to
Speaker 2: do it in several different places.
Speaker 1: And this conference was planned before, obviously the war started,
Speaker 1: and the wars put the conversation around dependence on fossil fuels,
Speaker 1: especially on the importing countries most affected by it, even higher.
Speaker 1: Did that change a dynamic of this conference? Do you
Speaker 1: think hugely?
Speaker 2: You know that the crisis in the strait of Hormos
Speaker 2: isn't a disruption of the system. It's a revelation of
Speaker 2: how broken the system already is. And so it didn't
Speaker 2: weaken the case for phase out. It made it undeniable.
Speaker 2: It made it an emergency meeting in so many ways.
Speaker 2: And fossil fuel phase out was already an urgent climate priority,
Speaker 2: but it became an urgent economic necessity, particularly for Global
Speaker 2: South economies and major fossil fuel importers, countries with limited reserves,
Speaker 2: and it became for most countries an issue of economic
Speaker 2: and national security. I saw tip for the first time
Speaker 2: where you saw a lot of countries, especially the countries
Speaker 2: who are dependent on importing fossil fuels, start to recognize
Speaker 2: that fossil fuel expansion wasn't a development opportunity. It would
Speaker 2: lead to more dependency.
Speaker 1: But it's not like a country came out and said,
Speaker 1: you know, we do have fossil fuels. This shows us
Speaker 1: our dependence and we are actually not going to expand
Speaker 1: our fossil fuels. No developing country has done so so far.
Speaker 2: Do you expect yes, I mean, first of all, yes,
Speaker 2: Colombia has exactly done that. Columbia said we know, we
Speaker 2: need to stop expanding.
Speaker 1: Colombia is also about to have an election where there
Speaker 1: is a very strong likelihood that Gustavo Petro's policies which
Speaker 1: lead to the point of fossil fuel phase out, may
Speaker 1: be reversed because the winds are political winds up blowing
Speaker 1: in the opposite direction. So is the one country, but
Speaker 1: it's the one country that may also become the exception
Speaker 1: to the exception.
Speaker 2: It is, and that's in part because we're seeing enormous
Speaker 2: amounts of fear mongering around price and scarcity, which is
Speaker 2: what you see from the fossil fuel industry and advertising
Speaker 2: and in political spaces, and so yes, we will see
Speaker 2: what happens in Colombia. But we also heard many other
Speaker 2: countries from the floor, African nations in Nigeria for example,
Speaker 2: you know, saying that recognizing the need for phase out
Speaker 2: and saying we would like to do this, but we can't.
Speaker 2: And that's exactly why you need international cooperation and new
Speaker 2: global governance mechanisms for countries to cooperate to change the system,
Speaker 2: to support each other to ensure that it's possible.
Speaker 1: And Nigeria is also talking about joining the International Energy Agency,
Speaker 1: so it is part of OPEQ right now, but it
Speaker 1: also wants to be part of the International Energy Agency,
Speaker 1: which of course is focused not just on the oil side,
Speaker 1: but also on the transition. Now, one country that was
Speaker 1: missing at this meeting was China. Now it is the
Speaker 1: world's largest polluter, of course, a huge fossil fuel extractor
Speaker 1: in coal, doesn't have that much oil and gas. It
Speaker 1: does have oil and gas, but not that much.
Speaker 2: It is financing oil and gas around the world though
Speaker 2: it is.
Speaker 1: But it has also done the most to tackle climate
Speaker 1: change by building all these next generation industries that would
Speaker 1: give it a trade edge. You know, it is the
Speaker 1: world's largest trade surplus, a trillion dollars worth of trade surplus,
Speaker 1: a lot of it down to selling these clean energy products.
Speaker 1: So China wasn't there. I understand, it wasn't even invited.
Speaker 2: Why you know that, I cannot say, because the invitation
Speaker 2: list was made up by the current co hosts, which
Speaker 2: were the Netherlands and Columbia, and they didn't release a
Speaker 2: list of criteria of how they came up with the
Speaker 2: I think it was only eighty countries that were invited
Speaker 2: at sixty game and something like that, and so we
Speaker 2: I'm not really sure, but I do know from talking
Speaker 2: to Minister Mana from Tuvalu that there is the criteria
Speaker 2: under development of the new co hosts that they really
Speaker 2: want to be transparent about which countries can come and
Speaker 2: which can't and what are the what shows a real
Speaker 2: commitment to fossil fuel phase out. They really want countries
Speaker 2: there who are committed to fossil fuel phase out. And
Speaker 2: there was some strange invitations. I thought, as a Canadian,
Speaker 2: I didn't know really what Canada was doing there when
Speaker 2: they have they're dramatically expanding production in chact. My country
Speaker 2: was the only country who spoke from the floor and
Speaker 2: managed to not say the words fossil fuels, so that
Speaker 2: was fascinating. We'll see what Tuvalu and Ireland do, but
Speaker 2: I expect China will be invited to the next conference.
Speaker 2: I expect the US and the UAE will not. But
Speaker 2: we're going to have to see what the next co
Speaker 2: hosts do, because they really who co hosts these conferences,
Speaker 2: because it's not within the UN system, they designed the process.
Speaker 1: Well, it is an interesting geopolitical moment we are living through.
Speaker 1: The chaos allows you to think differently. So you know
Speaker 1: the fact that China actually had been planning for the
Speaker 1: closure of the Street of Hormuz from a security perspective
Speaker 1: for twenty years. Part of it was, of course going
Speaker 1: and getting fossil fuels from other places, but part of
Speaker 1: it was building this clean energy industry internally so that
Speaker 1: if this happens, China doesn't get affected as drastically as
Speaker 1: it could have had it not prepared. We also have
Speaker 1: the UAE quitting Opek saying we'd like to drill as
Speaker 1: much as possible, as quickly as possible, which, in a
Speaker 1: very weird way, is a phase out conversation. Okay, it's
Speaker 1: not saying we'll stop extracting what we have, but it
Speaker 1: is saying we see that this thing is coming to
Speaker 1: an end. We'd like to make as much money as
Speaker 1: possible now so that we can transition away to an
Speaker 1: economy that is not dependent on fossil fuels. So you
Speaker 1: could be looking at in writing the UAE, it's a
Speaker 1: creative moment for years.
Speaker 2: Academics, you know, they refer to it as the green paradox,
Speaker 2: when when a problem is identified and countries start moving
Speaker 2: on it, then there is then it gets much worse
Speaker 2: before it gets better. That there is a kind of
Speaker 2: last gasp in this case of the fossil fuel industry
Speaker 2: where they're trying to get new infrastructure and they're trying
Speaker 2: to get new development in because they can see the
Speaker 2: writing on the wall. And there is no question that
Speaker 2: all the oil producers can see the writing on the wall.
Speaker 2: With the uptaken electric vehicles, that is beyond anyone's imagination
Speaker 2: in the last year.
Speaker 1: There is an aspect of this which I know you
Speaker 1: have given a thought about, which is that the other
Speaker 1: treaties where this coalition of willing came together and then
Speaker 1: grew affected things that weren't so central to how any
Speaker 1: economy worked. This has always come up as a climate challenge,
Speaker 1: which is, yes, you can do it for ozone depleting
Speaker 1: gases because it's a small industry, and sure it takes effort,
Speaker 1: but you can convince them to get a Montreal Protocol
Speaker 1: and then a Kigali amendment. Carbon fossil fuels are so
Speaker 1: embedded in everything, how do you get countries to actually
Speaker 1: join whence it's such a central pain point for them, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, what would it take to convince Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 2: They have to see the benefits of it and not
Speaker 2: just the costs. Right, So first of all, you know,
Speaker 2: we needed We couldn't have done this treaty ten years
Speaker 2: ago because renewables have to be cheaper than fossil fuels,
Speaker 2: because you have to have the technology at scale. We
Speaker 2: have that now. Then you need the you know, incentive,
Speaker 2: which of course the Climate Emergency is incentive, but it's
Speaker 2: not enough. It's proven to be not enough. Now you
Speaker 2: have a real recognition, maybe not for Saudi Arabia, but
Speaker 2: certainly for a lot of other countries of how vulnerable
Speaker 2: the fossil fuel system makes them, how they are so
Speaker 2: dependent on a very small number of companies, people's or
Speaker 2: people or countries and they want to get out from
Speaker 2: under that. The number of countries I heard say these
Speaker 2: wars have made us realize. You know, there was one
Speaker 2: country in Europe said to me, we went from being
Speaker 2: dependent on Putin's gas to being dependent on Trump's gas.
Speaker 2: And now even the right in my country are saying
Speaker 2: that fossil fuel phase out is a national and energy
Speaker 2: security priority.
Speaker 1: So if we've talked a little bit about how the
Speaker 1: moment towards this conversation is growing, but there are also
Speaker 1: lots of signs of the momentum actually going away, how
Speaker 1: do you get more than sixty countries into this conversation
Speaker 1: Because if sixty countries agreed to do this and the
Speaker 1: remainder one hundred and thirty don't, this doesn't work right.
Speaker 2: It's true, but I think it's not about how many.
Speaker 2: And that's you know, it's a game that everyone likes
Speaker 2: to play, like, oh, it's sixty, and will it be
Speaker 2: eighty next year? And you know, ken it be one
Speaker 2: hundred and ninety. When you look back in history at
Speaker 2: other major moments that five other treaties that changed the
Speaker 2: game on those issues, you had a small group of
Speaker 2: countries that were a coalition of the willing who created
Speaker 2: really strong rules and those and those rules and frameworks
Speaker 2: in some cases, like with the Landmine Treaty, were designed,
Speaker 2: were locked and then it's referred to in political theories
Speaker 2: the build it and they will come model. So here's
Speaker 2: a plan, we've decided on it, these thirty countries, and
Speaker 2: now we're inviting other countries to join. And then other
Speaker 2: countries joined. I mean one hundred and sixty countries joined
Speaker 2: the Landmine Treaty, and the big players some of them
Speaker 2: never joined, but they changed their practices because that process
Speaker 2: and those rules shifted the social norm so it became
Speaker 2: unacceptable in other negotiations of foreign policy if you were
Speaker 2: a country that was stockpiling or using more land mines
Speaker 2: or stockpiling nuclear weapons. So that social norm shift will
Speaker 2: have an impact. So I personally don't think it's about
Speaker 2: whether there are more countries. It's whether there are committed countries.
Speaker 2: I actually don't even think it should be a coalition
Speaker 2: of the willing. It should be a coalition of the ambitious.
Speaker 2: What I believe and what I think is happening, is
Speaker 2: that courage is contagious as these countries step out like
Speaker 2: Prattro did, like Denmark did with creating BOGA and committing
Speaker 2: to end expansion, you know, like the UK has recently done,
Speaker 2: it starts to move into other countries. Leadership at this
Speaker 2: moment in history matters, and it matters as much as
Speaker 2: the finance and as much as the technology. We have
Speaker 2: the technology there now, and we know that renewables are
Speaker 2: cheaper than fossil fuels and battery storage is way cheaper
Speaker 2: than we thought it is now. The difference between this
Speaker 2: oil war and previous oil wars is when they happened,
Speaker 2: we didn't have the solutions at scale at a price
Speaker 2: that was viable that we have now. But what has
Speaker 2: to shift is the politics and the culture and the courage,
Speaker 2: and I think this process helps ensure that that can happen.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Suburga, thank you. It's an exciting moment, and
Speaker 1: thank you for listening to Zero. Now for the sound
Speaker 1: of the week. That is the call of the Colombian chachalaka,
Speaker 1: a frugivrous bird that is one of Colombia's almost nine
Speaker 1: thousand endemic species. If you like this episode, please take
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Speaker 1: The music is composed by Wonderly Special Thanks to Somarsadi,
Speaker 1: Laura Milan and Sharan chen i'm Akshadrati back soon.