Speaker 1: The idea of loss and damages has been a real
Speaker 1: focal point of the twenty seventh Conference of the Parties,
Speaker 1: the annual UN Climate negotiations happening in Egypt last year
Speaker 1: in Glasgow. Global North countries fought to keep the topic
Speaker 1: off the agenda when it was made. This year's host country, Egypt,
Speaker 1: vowed to put it on the agenda early and keep
Speaker 1: it there, and they've kept that promise. But I've been
Speaker 1: seeing a lot of big gaps in the media coverage
Speaker 1: on this issue. Global South countries are often treated like
Speaker 1: a monolith, and the discussion around how to handle countries
Speaker 1: that are both on the front lines of the climate
Speaker 1: crisis and a major target for oil production is almost
Speaker 1: non existent. It's something I've been thinking about a lot
Speaker 1: because we've been reporting a new season for the past
Speaker 1: two years on Guyana and that country's emergence as an
Speaker 1: oil producing country, but also because I've spent so much
Speaker 1: time looking at the history of climate policy and how
Speaker 1: certain narratives have been shaped. The remarkable news out of
Speaker 1: this year's cop is that negotiators, including those from the US,
Speaker 1: which has historically been a big blocker to loss in damage,
Speaker 1: agreed to officially establish a lost in Damage fund, but
Speaker 1: there are still a lot of lingering questions around how
Speaker 1: the global North and the global South can move forward
Speaker 1: on addressing climate together. There's the failure of negotiators to
Speaker 1: agree to include any language in the final agreement around
Speaker 1: phasing fossil fuels out, of course, but there are a
Speaker 1: bunch of other conversations that need to happen to you,
Speaker 1: and those are all mostly informed by a history that
Speaker 1: seems to be widely unknown or just ignored. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to Drilled. I'm Amy Westervelt. In this episode, we're going
Speaker 1: to get into that history and unpack some of the
Speaker 1: messier details around cop and loss and damage that's coming
Speaker 1: up after this quick break.
Speaker 2: We have to ask ourselves, can we ever attain the
Speaker 2: ultimate objective of the convention, which is to prevent dangerous
Speaker 2: anthropogenic interference with a climate system. By failing to meet
Speaker 2: the objective of the convention, we may have rapified our
Speaker 2: own doom. And if we have failed to meet the
Speaker 2: objective of the convention, we have to confront the issue
Speaker 2: of loss and damage.
Speaker 1: That's Yeb Sano, the Philippines chief negotiator in the United
Speaker 1: Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNF Triple C.
Speaker 1: UNF Triple C is the basis for the annual Conference
Speaker 1: of the Parties. Those parties are the countries that have
Speaker 1: signed on to the Framework Convention on Climate Change at SCHOOL. Initially,
Speaker 1: it was to bring the countries of the world together
Speaker 1: to stop catastrophic climate change. During the twenty thirteen COP
Speaker 1: in Warsaw, Sano's country was being devastated by super typhoon
Speaker 1: High End, prompting Sauna to make the argument that the
Speaker 1: UNF Triple C had failed to accomplish its original goal
Speaker 1: and must now reassess.
Speaker 2: Loss and damage is a reality today across the world
Speaker 2: and developed country emissions reduction targets are dangerously low and
Speaker 2: must be raised immediately. But even if these were in
Speaker 2: line with the demand of reducing forty to fifty percent
Speaker 2: below nineteen nine to levels, we will still have luck
Speaker 2: in climate change, and we still would need to address
Speaker 2: the issue of loss and damage.
Speaker 1: After giving that speech, Sano went on a hunger strike,
Speaker 1: saying he would not end it until global North countries
Speaker 1: committed to funding loss and damage. And here's fact number
Speaker 1: one that I haven't seen in any news reports on COP.
Speaker 1: Those countries. At the twenty thirteen COP they agreed wealthy countries,
Speaker 1: including the United States, agreed that by twenty twenty they
Speaker 1: would be putting one hundred billion dollars a year into
Speaker 1: a loss in Damages fund, But so far only about
Speaker 1: twenty one billion dollars has ever been put in it,
Speaker 1: and most of what was supposed to be effectively grant
Speaker 1: money to global seuth countries in need of adaptation funding
Speaker 1: was turned into loans. More debt is not something the
Speaker 1: majority of global sealth countries need. Last year, Barbados Prime
Speaker 1: Minister Mia Motley made history when she convinced the International
Speaker 1: Monetary Fund to help her hit pause on Barbados's debt
Speaker 1: payments so that they could devote some of their GDP
Speaker 1: to climate adaptation instead and hopefully get ahead of some
Speaker 1: of the climate impacts that they know are heading their way.
Speaker 1: This year, Motley is at COP with a proposal that
Speaker 1: would help all Global South countries do the same. It's
Speaker 1: called the Bridgetown Agenda. Here's Motley introducing it at COP.
Speaker 3: Looks still too much like it did when it was
Speaker 3: part of an imperialistic empire. The Global North borrows between
Speaker 3: interest rates of between one to four percent, the global
Speaker 3: south of fourteen percent, and then we wonder why they
Speaker 3: just energy partnerships are not working. Similarly, we ask ourselves,
Speaker 3: if countries that want to finance their way to NEET
Speaker 3: zero and want to do the right thing can't get
Speaker 3: the critical supplies, will they not have to rely again
Speaker 3: on natural gases that clean bridge This is the ball reality,
Speaker 3: and we have come here to ask us to open
Speaker 3: our minds to different possibilities.
Speaker 1: Motley laid out the specifics of her plan in that
Speaker 1: speech too, the establishment of a climate mitigation trust that
Speaker 1: unlocks five trillion dollars of private sector savings, provided that
Speaker 1: the IMF will allow the use of its five hundred
Speaker 1: billion dollars special Drawing Rights reserve. That would require not
Speaker 1: just a decision by the IMF but also its member states,
Speaker 1: particularly the United States. As Motley made clear.
Speaker 3: We believe that we have a plan. We believe that
Speaker 3: there can be the establishment of a climate mitigation trust
Speaker 3: that unlocks five trillion dollars of private sector savings if
Speaker 3: we can summon the will to use the SDRs five
Speaker 3: hundred billion of SDRs special drawing rights in a way
Speaker 3: that unlocks the private sector capital We believe that that
Speaker 3: requires a change in the attitude of Congress, because the
Speaker 3: agreement that establishes the International Monetary Fund requires eighty five
Speaker 3: percent to change that agreement, and if the United States
Speaker 3: government has seventeen percent of the quarter, then it can't
Speaker 3: be done, mister Gore without your cognis.
Speaker 1: She nodded to al Gore there because he spoke just
Speaker 1: before her about the need to open up financing for
Speaker 1: global self countries looking to adapt. But the bridget agenda
Speaker 1: isn't just about debt, restructuring and the IMF.
Speaker 3: We believe that it is critical that we address the
Speaker 3: issue of loss and damage. The talk must come to
Speaker 3: an end, and I'd like to salute Denmark in Belgium
Speaker 3: and Scotland for their own modest ways of trying to
Speaker 3: accept the precepts and principles of loss and damage as
Speaker 3: critical and as morally just. But for loss and damage
Speaker 3: to work, we believe that it can't only be an
Speaker 3: issue of asking state parties to do the right things,
Speaker 3: although they must.
Speaker 1: Mat We also made a convincing argument for drawing fossil
Speaker 1: fuel companies into the web of accountability at cop It
Speaker 1: was a particularly interesting proposal given that once again the
Speaker 1: industry has more delegates at COP than any one country.
Speaker 3: But we believe that the non state actors and the stakeholders,
Speaker 3: the oil and gas companies and those who facilitate them,
Speaker 3: need to be brought into a special convocation between now
Speaker 3: and COP twenty eight. How do companies make two hundred
Speaker 3: billion dollars in profits in the last three months and
Speaker 3: not expect to contribute at least ten cents in every
Speaker 3: dollar of profit to a loss of damage fund. This
Speaker 3: is what our people expect, and I ask us, as
Speaker 3: we reflect on what a loss and damage fund can
Speaker 3: look like and who should access it, that we convene
Speaker 3: a special convocation that doesn't only involve of state parties,
Speaker 3: but non state actors such as the same companies.
Speaker 1: Motley has indicated that the G seven countries Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan,
Speaker 1: the United Kingdom, and the United States seem generally supportive
Speaker 1: of her plan. None of them has officially signed on yet,
Speaker 1: but it would be a really big deal if the
Speaker 1: final COP agreement contains some version of the Bridgetown Agenda,
Speaker 1: particularly the requirement that fossil fuel companies contribute to loss
Speaker 1: and damages US Climate star John Carey has been talking
Speaker 1: about the need for the private sector to fund loss
Speaker 1: and damages, and his idea to make that happen is
Speaker 1: a carbon market. But if you're going to ask fossil
Speaker 1: fueld companies to pay for the carbon they're emitting today,
Speaker 1: what about their historic contributions to climate change? Where's the
Speaker 1: private sector accountability on that front. Motley's proposal at least
Speaker 1: names that particular elephant, which brings me to the broader
Speaker 1: history of COP and the fossil fuel industry. As I've
Speaker 1: talked about in previous episodes, the industry was at the
Speaker 1: table from Jump. They were there influencing government officials when
Speaker 1: the UN Framework Conventional Climate Change was drafted. Way back
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety two at the Real Earth Summit, the
Speaker 1: guy we've talked about a lot on this show, E.
Speaker 1: Bruce Harrison, brought together the various industries and companies that
Speaker 1: might be impacted by emissions regulations into a group called
Speaker 1: the Global Climate Coalition. He also started working internationally in
Speaker 1: advance of the Real Earth Summit because he saw this
Speaker 1: whole cop situation coming a mile away. That's because back
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy two, Harrison had seen the impact of
Speaker 1: the first UN environmental summit, the United Nations Conference on
Speaker 1: the Human Environment, which earthed the Stockholm Declaration. This groundbreaking
Speaker 1: document made environmental issues global that emphasize is conservation, the
Speaker 1: redistribution of resources, and state responsibility for environmental damage both
Speaker 1: within and beyond their borders. It also had zero concern
Speaker 1: for business, to the extent that industry was included at
Speaker 1: all in the UNCCH negotiations, it was as a culprit
Speaker 1: and a threat, not a partner. The first principle put
Speaker 1: forth in Stockholm Declaration reads quote man has the fundamental
Speaker 1: right to freedom, equality and adequate conditions of life in
Speaker 1: an environment of equality that permits a life of dignity
Speaker 1: and well being. And he bears a solemn responsibility to
Speaker 1: protect and improve the environment for president and future generations.
Speaker 1: Later on, the Declaration reaffirms nation's sovereign right to extract
Speaker 1: their own resources, but notably balances that right with the
Speaker 1: mandate that countries must quote ensure that activities within their
Speaker 1: jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment
Speaker 1: of other states or of areas beyond the limits of
Speaker 1: national jurisdiction. The Stockholm Declaration led to the creation of
Speaker 1: new international laws, norms, and organizations focused on environmental protection,
Speaker 1: including the United Nations Environmental Program, which was formed as
Speaker 1: a permanent agency to act as the environmental conscience of
Speaker 1: the UN. The Stockholm Declaration, combined with the creation of
Speaker 1: the EPA and the passage of the Clean Air and
Speaker 1: Clean Water Acts in the US, was a massive pr
Speaker 1: crisis for American industry and a huge opportunity for a
Speaker 1: Bruce Harrison. Throughout the eighties, Harrison scored himself invitations and
Speaker 1: speaking engagements at various UNIP events, where he pushed the
Speaker 1: idea that the more companies participated in the creation of
Speaker 1: environmental policies, the more effective those policies would be. To
Speaker 1: be clear, Harrison was not the only person getting that
Speaker 1: idea in the eighties, nor was his message a hard sell.
Speaker 1: Plenty of people were happy to embrace a business friendly
Speaker 1: approach that required no economic trade offs, but given his
Speaker 1: domestic and international influence, Harrison was a driving force. In
Speaker 1: the late nineteen eighties, he created two organizations, the Global
Speaker 1: Climate Coalition, which brought together manufacturers, oil companies, automotive, rail
Speaker 1: and various other industries into a group that could shape
Speaker 1: the global response to climate change, and envirocom an international
Speaker 1: network of PR firms that would all use the same
Speaker 1: corporate messaging on environmental issues. Their state admission was to
Speaker 1: monitor emerging environmental policy all over the world for their
Speaker 1: clients and to influence that policy through strategic lobbying. Was
Speaker 1: to fully integrate industry into the international approach to environmental issues,
Speaker 1: and the strategy was enormously successful. At the nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: two Rio Summit. There was none of the urgency or
Speaker 1: directness of the Stockholm Declaration. Gone was the emphasis on
Speaker 1: government regulation. It was replaced by a sort of big
Speaker 1: tent approach that included business interests and prioritized compromise. Agenda
Speaker 1: twenty one, one of the defining documents out of that
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two summit, reads, in order to meet the
Speaker 1: challenge of environment and development, states have decided to establish
Speaker 1: a new global partnership. It is recognized that for the
Speaker 1: success of this new partnership, it is important to overcome
Speaker 1: confrontation and to foster a climate of genuine cooperation and solidarity.
Speaker 1: It was at the many events run by a business
Speaker 1: surrounding that nineteen ninety two REO or summit that Harrison
Speaker 1: presented his paper on the concept of sustainable communication, or
Speaker 1: what we now call greenwashing. Here's Melissa Aronchick, a media
Speaker 1: studies scholar at Rutgers University and author of the book
Speaker 1: A Strategic Nature, which unpacks a lot of this history.
Speaker 4: I think it would be unfair to say, you know,
Speaker 4: he invented the idea of corporate social responsibility. That would
Speaker 4: be a little too much. But what we can say
Speaker 4: is that he did invent the idea of sustainable communication,
Speaker 4: which was so genius when you think about it, because
Speaker 4: what is sustainable communication means? It means communicating in such
Speaker 4: a way as to maintain sustainable relationships with the people
Speaker 4: that matter, the people who are going to vote for you,
Speaker 4: or the people who are going to support whatever it
Speaker 4: is your clients are doing. It does not mean sustainable
Speaker 4: practices or behaviors to protect the environment.
Speaker 1: Person wasn't exactly delivering his message to an unfriendly audience.
Speaker 1: Maurice Strong, the organizer of the Rio Earth Summit, was
Speaker 1: a former oil man himself and often talked about the
Speaker 1: need for industry to be part of any effective climate solution.
Speaker 4: It's also really important to remember that Maurice Strong, who
Speaker 4: was the organizer of that United Nations conference, was committed
Speaker 4: to having business participate in the conference. Maurice Strong was
Speaker 4: quite compelled or convinced by the idea that if you
Speaker 4: did not have business as a key stakeholder in these
Speaker 4: conversations about sustainable development, that you would never be able
Speaker 4: to enforce it. You needed to have business at the
Speaker 4: table and in agreement.
Speaker 1: In contrast to the nineteen seventy two convening, the un
Speaker 1: encouraged business community participation in Rio in nineteen ninety two
Speaker 1: and industry groups were ready to take advantage.
Speaker 4: Because business communities had been invited to the conference, and
Speaker 4: because they knew that their buying was so important, they
Speaker 4: planned extensively in the lead up to the conference to
Speaker 4: be able to present what they called their own sustainable
Speaker 4: development Charter. And as you can imagine, this charter was,
Speaker 4: you know, it did not contain anything that would have
Speaker 4: really transformed how companies did business. It was a very
Speaker 4: business as usual document, but it paid a lot of
Speaker 4: lip service to the idea of going green, being sustainable,
Speaker 4: being very concerned about the environment. And because they got
Speaker 4: out in front of the actual conference and the other
Speaker 4: types of events that were being designed. They were really
Speaker 4: able to put that document forward and stave off other
Speaker 4: kinds of more binding legislation or more draconian regulations that
Speaker 4: would have caused problems for these companies profits.
Speaker 1: By the time the third cop in Kyoto rolled around,
Speaker 1: industry was deeply entrenched in the process and absolutely determined
Speaker 1: to prevent a binding treaty from ever being ratified by
Speaker 1: the US. The Global Climate Coalition was at its peak
Speaker 1: at this point, fully funded and fighting the idea of
Speaker 1: Kyoto at every turn. Here's Brown University environmental sociologist doctor
Speaker 1: Robert Brule.
Speaker 5: The fossil fuel guys, they don't appeal to your head.
Speaker 5: They appeal to your emotions. And then when it comes to,
Speaker 5: you know, the economic impact, they're gonna basically, you know,
Speaker 5: you're gonna be cold and dark, eating you know, raw vegetables,
Speaker 5: you know. And it's an emotive function. That what the
Speaker 5: pr genius is. And you know, if you look at
Speaker 5: the commercial for the Global Climate, the gccs it's not
Speaker 5: global and it won't work. They get a map of
Speaker 5: the globe and they start cutting out the countries that
Speaker 5: don't have to comply, you know, with the Kyoto Protocol
Speaker 5: and they're cutting out China, India, and all of Africa,
Speaker 5: South America, and then they all that dispap all of
Speaker 5: these holes in it. You know, they said, this isn't fair,
Speaker 5: it won't work, and it's not fair. And that's what
Speaker 5: they ran on and guess what it worked.
Speaker 1: They worked with Senators Chuck Hagel and Robert Byrd to
Speaker 1: bake that idea into a resolution governing whether or not
Speaker 1: the United States could ratify Kyoto. Here's a Global Climate
Speaker 1: Coalition Chair Constance Holmes talking about it all back then.
Speaker 6: In July nineteen ninety seven, the Senate passed the bird
Speaker 6: Hegel Resolution on a ninety five to nothing vote, almost
Speaker 6: a nonprecedented vote. That resolution said, in essence, the Senate
Speaker 6: would not ratify an agreement that is not global, or
Speaker 6: would not ratify an agreement that caused the United States
Speaker 6: economy harmed. The Kyoto Protocol does not meet either test
Speaker 6: of the bird Hegel Resolution. The restrictions of the Kyoto
Speaker 6: Agreement apply only to thirty eight countries of the developed world,
Speaker 6: with no provision for participation of even the more developed
Speaker 6: of the rest of the world. On the first day
Speaker 6: of the Buenos Aires meeting the developing countries acting as
Speaker 6: a group, the Group of seventy seven in China refused
Speaker 6: to let the subject of developing country voluntary participation remain
Speaker 6: on the agenda.
Speaker 1: Fast forward thirty years and now it's the fossil fuel
Speaker 1: industry arguing that those seventy seven countries really need to
Speaker 1: be able to delay emissions reductions. Why because international oil
Speaker 1: companies need those countries oil to replace their reserves, and
Speaker 1: they need their citizens to keep burning fossil fuels as
Speaker 1: citizens in the Global North are reducing their usage. Without both,
Speaker 1: the industry is doomed. Here's Steve call, investigative journalist and
Speaker 1: author of the book Private Empire, about Exonmobile.
Speaker 7: They need the oil they have to replace what they
Speaker 7: pump every year, and they're just aren't that many places
Speaker 7: left where an American oil company can own the oil
Speaker 7: that they produce, And that's what Wall Street judges them by.
Speaker 1: That's very different from the picture of the US fossil
Speaker 1: fuel industry pains today when they talk about their projects
Speaker 1: in the Global selth or about the benefits of quote
Speaker 1: unquote cheap energy to those countries. Here's Mandy Gunnisakara a
Speaker 1: spokesperson for the CO two coalition, sort of a modern
Speaker 1: day global climate coalition, testifying to Congress on this front.
Speaker 8: This country's ability to harness our vast energy resources and
Speaker 8: a responsible in an efficient manner has changed millions of
Speaker 8: lives for the better. It is why life expectancy and
Speaker 8: economic growth, both important indicators of human flourishing, have significantly improved.
Speaker 8: Advancements in fossil based energy, and the development of modern
Speaker 8: economies has provided access to life saving technologies like heat
Speaker 8: during winter, water treatment, medicine, and refrigeration. A stark contrast
Speaker 8: exists today in countries that do not have sophisticated energy
Speaker 8: systems or access to affordable, reliable electricity, and parts of
Speaker 8: the developing world, life expectancy today is ten to twenty
Speaker 8: years shorter, and children under five regularly succumbed to preventable diseases.
Speaker 8: The reality is that we could change these outcomes by
Speaker 8: sharing our successful energy technologies, not by prohibiting their use
Speaker 8: as a result of misaligned environmental policies.
Speaker 1: The conversation gets a little messier when oil producing countries
Speaker 1: in the global South advocate for the ability to develop
Speaker 1: and use the fossil fuels within their borders for longer.
Speaker 1: And it makes sense. How dare the global North, which
Speaker 1: has amassed so much wealth thanks to abundant fossil fuels,
Speaker 1: turn around and tell the global South that they can't
Speaker 1: do the same. I asked Melinda Jenki, an attorney who's
Speaker 1: fighting to shut down oil drilling in her country, Guyana,
Speaker 1: this question, especially because it's not just Exonmobile making this
Speaker 1: argument about the benefit of oil to Guyana, but many
Speaker 1: of her fellow citizens too.
Speaker 9: The global North has basically broken the global climate system
Speaker 9: as a result of greenhouse gas pollution, and I think
Speaker 9: we should stop talking about emissions and call it what
Speaker 9: it is, which is pollution from fossil fuels. It is
Speaker 9: incredibly stupid for anybody to say, well, because you did
Speaker 9: something bad and broke it, we now have a right
Speaker 9: to do something bad and break it.
Speaker 1: Even further, Steve call notes that you need only look
Speaker 1: at the last one hundred years or so to see
Speaker 1: that when oil comes to town citizens are not in
Speaker 1: fact lifted out of poverty.
Speaker 7: Does not pan out for anyone other than the elites
Speaker 7: of those countries. That's what the record shows, and development economics,
Speaker 7: you know, it may not be a hard science like physics.
Speaker 7: But it has pretty well established that the so called
Speaker 7: resource curse in developing countries is a real thing, over
Speaker 7: and over again. And it's not only oil. Other resources
Speaker 7: can produce the same cycle. But partly what happens is
Speaker 7: that the elites that control the resource that produces sudden
Speaker 7: wealth and sudden opportunity generally don't distribute the benefits equitably.
Speaker 7: And I'm not even talking about some utopian socialist kind
Speaker 7: of perfect distribution, but even just to reinvest it in
Speaker 7: a sustainable strategy of private enterprise lad development just generally
Speaker 7: doesn't happen. There are a few examples of rulers who
Speaker 7: lived for ten or fifteen years and who weren't so
Speaker 7: selfish as to keep it all for themselves and so on,
Speaker 7: but they are more the exception than the rule. And
Speaker 7: it's not just about the greed of elites. It's also
Speaker 7: about the way sudden wealth distorts the patterns of investment
Speaker 7: in a country by essentially alleviating the pressure to educate
Speaker 7: a new generation of young scientists and tech entrepreneurs or
Speaker 7: wealth creators, or people who are going to figure out
Speaker 7: how to save and improve agriculture in an era of
Speaker 7: climate Chain said all of these urgent problems that emerging
Speaker 7: countries face in the global South, I mean, they get
Speaker 7: displaced by the easy money that comes from a resource boom,
Speaker 7: and so you end up not only running out of
Speaker 7: the bounty when the oil is depleted, but you've missed
Speaker 7: the opportunity to pursue, you know, course of development, like
Speaker 7: the one easy example that is often cited I think
Speaker 7: for good reason, and it can be distorted around, you know,
Speaker 7: issues of culture or race and can be I think misstated.
Speaker 7: But with that caveat, I mean, in the nineteen fifties,
Speaker 7: Nigeria and South Korea had roughly the same per capita
Speaker 7: income and they were both very poor countries. South Korea
Speaker 7: had just emerged from a terrible long experience of Warnaki
Speaker 7: patient and Nigeria was blessed with this huge oil bounty,
Speaker 7: and South Korea chose to kind of industrialize on its
Speaker 7: own without a lot of resources. And in you know,
Speaker 7: a single generation, one country got rich and the other one, uh,
Speaker 7: you know, cycled through the resource curse. And you know,
Speaker 7: economists point to that and say, you know, statistically, Nigeria
Speaker 7: may look like it had greater wealth, but in the
Speaker 7: experience of its society, the wealth you know, ran off
Speaker 7: shore and often kind of displaced opportunities that Nigeria might
Speaker 7: have had to build a more sustainable economy.
Speaker 1: And the vast majority of cases, the big winners in
Speaker 1: these deals are not global self countries, but the global
Speaker 1: north companies that profit from their oil, much of which
Speaker 1: is exported out of the country, and no matter where
Speaker 1: you are in the world, proximity to oil and gas
Speaker 1: development is more guarantee of cheap energy. In the US,
Speaker 1: for example, Gulf Coast residents have some of the highest
Speaker 1: electricity bills in the country, which brings us back to
Speaker 1: where we began. Given the presence of fossil fuel influence
Speaker 1: on COPS since its inception, and the rising number of
Speaker 1: fossil fuel delegates every year, maybe it's time to include
Speaker 1: them as official parties just as responsible for turning the
Speaker 1: tide on climate and paying for damages as the governments
Speaker 1: they have manipulated over the years. At a minimum, it's
Speaker 1: interesting to think about Motley's suggestion that a sort of
Speaker 1: interim can meaning with fossil fuel company is held accountable,
Speaker 1: could happen in between cops. Lots to think about and
Speaker 1: I'll definitely be keeping tabs on how everything continues to unfold.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next week. Don't
Speaker 1: forget also to subscribe to our weekly newsletter. As the
Speaker 1: future of Twitter remains a bit unpredictable, I am starting
Speaker 1: to do a lot of the things that I did
Speaker 1: on there in this weekly roundup of climate coverage, So
Speaker 1: you'll get a list of five or six of the
Speaker 1: stories or studies that I think are really important in
Speaker 1: the week and why, delivered to your inbox. You can
Speaker 1: sign up for that at Drilled podcast dot com. Drilled
Speaker 1: is an original Critical Frequency production. Our producer is Sarah Ventry.
Speaker 1: Sound design, mixing and mastering are by Peter Duff, who
Speaker 1: also wrote our original score. Our First Amendment attorney is
Speaker 1: James Wheaton at the First Amendment Project, and the show
Speaker 1: is reported, written and hosted by me Amy Westerbelt.