Speaker 1: Welcome to Zero.
Speaker 2: I'm Oscar Boyd and I'm Christine Driscore.
Speaker 1: Weird the producers on Zero wishing you a very happy
Speaker 1: end to twenty twenty three, and we are joined as
Speaker 1: always by Akshat Ratty Actua. Welcome, Hey, loquacious as ever.
Speaker 2: So as it's the holiday season and everything's a bit
Speaker 2: quiet at the end of the year, we thought we'd
Speaker 2: bring back our popular climate guessing game and recalling it.
Speaker 2: Whose number is it? Anyway?
Speaker 1: Super fans of the show will be familiar already. But
Speaker 1: the rules are simple. Each one of us presents a number,
Speaker 1: and then the other two have to figure out what
Speaker 1: that number represents. Each person can ask three questions, you
Speaker 1: can ask the clues if you get stuck, and then
Speaker 1: you have to guess.
Speaker 3: And as always, the thing I care about is the prize.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this game is all about prizes. Last time, the
Speaker 1: very lucky winner, Christine, got a copy of your book,
Speaker 1: act Shat. This time the prize is probably our best
Speaker 1: one yet, all the way from Cop twenty eight from
Speaker 1: the Arabian Desert, the Jar of sand.
Speaker 3: I love this, okay, I guess it's more real than
Speaker 3: the first prize, which was like carbonov set.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it exists, it's in a jar.
Speaker 2: I think I'm more motivated than ever to win.
Speaker 3: You make it such low stakes, it's so fun. Okay,
Speaker 3: so let's play whose number is it?
Speaker 1: Anyway?
Speaker 2: Oscar? Would you please go first?
Speaker 1: All right, hopefully my number is better than the prize.
Speaker 1: My number this time on the numbers game is thirty
Speaker 1: six point two million.
Speaker 3: All right, Well, I think we should start with the units.
Speaker 2: I'm wanting Okshot to waste his question on this.
Speaker 3: On the units, you know, like I have a feeling
Speaker 3: it's dollars, but like we really need to know it's
Speaker 3: a guess.
Speaker 1: Right. You don't just get to ask what the units are.
Speaker 1: You have to say, is the units X?
Speaker 3: Is the unit money dollars?
Speaker 1: The unit is not money or dollars. It is not
Speaker 1: a monastery.
Speaker 2: Figure is the unit people?
Speaker 1: The unit is people. So it's thirty six a two
Speaker 1: million people. Yes, it's not wheels, and it's not the
Speaker 1: number of people inside cars or anything like that.
Speaker 3: That's a deli sized population of people.
Speaker 2: Okay. Is this a number of people who have done something?
Speaker 2: They have taken an action, whether it's a purchase or
Speaker 2: a decision, and it is in the past.
Speaker 1: I would say it's more kind of ongoing. It's not
Speaker 1: a past decision.
Speaker 3: They're not that many things that thirty six point two
Speaker 3: million people can do. No, unless they're all distributed and
Speaker 3: not in one place. Is that the case. They are
Speaker 3: distributed and not in one place, yes, or one country
Speaker 3: or whatever. Okay, not in one country, not in one place,
Speaker 3: not in one city. Then there are so many things.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, is does this have to do with food?
Speaker 1: This has nothing to do with food. Okay, Well, I'm
Speaker 1: going to ask the Christine question. Is this got to
Speaker 1: do with cycling? Yes, it is the number of people
Speaker 1: competing in the Tour of France. Nothing to do with cycling.
Speaker 1: I will give you a hint. It is to do
Speaker 1: with jobs.
Speaker 3: Is there's the number of people on LinkedIn who have
Speaker 3: transitioned or are interested in a climate oriented.
Speaker 1: You're kind of close, but not exactly that.
Speaker 2: That's a very Christine guess, because I feel like that's
Speaker 2: an order of magnitude off of what's even possible. Are
Speaker 2: there even thirty six two point two million people on LinkedIn?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Oh really, I haven't spent a lot of time on there.
Speaker 2: My guess is that is the number of people who
Speaker 2: will be working in clean energy in the next five years.
Speaker 1: Oh, I think on balance Christine just gets it. There's
Speaker 1: not completely right, but she's she's used some keywords there.
Speaker 1: So thirty six point two million people is the number
Speaker 1: of people working in clean energy in twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: according to a report by my favorite source. I swear
Speaker 1: this is accidental. It is from the International Energy Agency
Speaker 1: and it's from World Energy Employment Report.
Speaker 3: What about the number of people working in fossil fuels.
Speaker 1: Well, thirty six point two million people is higher than
Speaker 1: the number of people working in fossil fuelds. There are
Speaker 1: currently about thirty two million people working in fossil fuels
Speaker 1: as of twenty twenty three. And what's interesting is seeing
Speaker 1: the growth in both these numbers. So this report from
Speaker 1: the International Energy Agency, it tracks the numbers from twenty
Speaker 1: nineteen to twenty twenty three, so it goes through the
Speaker 1: pandemic period, and renewables or working in clean energy has
Speaker 1: grown by about six million. So between twenty nineteen and
Speaker 1: now it's gone from about thirty million to thirty six
Speaker 1: point two million over that same time period. Fossil fuels
Speaker 1: has actually fallen just before the pandemic, there were about
Speaker 1: thirty three million people working in fossil fuels. That has
Speaker 1: now gone down to thirty two million clean energy workers
Speaker 1: overtok fossil fuels in twenty twenty one, and that difference
Speaker 1: has only grown with time.
Speaker 2: Interesting, I feel that our episode from last year had
Speaker 2: something to do with this.
Speaker 1: Well, that's exactly so I didn't go to the International
Speaker 1: Energy Agency's website and just look for the latest report.
Speaker 1: We had this episode last year called how to Quit
Speaker 1: Your Job for Climate, where we heard all the stories
Speaker 1: from people who had made some kind of transition from
Speaker 1: a job outside of the climate space into a job
Speaker 1: in the climate space. So I was trying to look
Speaker 1: for a study that showed broader trends within that field,
Speaker 1: and that's when I found this World Energy Employment report,
Speaker 1: and it is fascinating. The fact that there's now more
Speaker 1: people working in clean energy than fossil fuels, I think
Speaker 1: is very hopeful.
Speaker 3: And it speaks to the point that this is just
Speaker 3: the start of the energy transition. On almost every metric.
Speaker 3: We are behind on net zero and we are only
Speaker 3: really starting to sell electric cars and real numbers or
Speaker 3: clean energy deployment in real numbers, and so when politicians
Speaker 3: say it's about jobs, you better believe it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And most of the growth that we have seen
Speaker 1: in the clean energy sector, that's come down to five sectors,
Speaker 1: so that's SOLOPV, wind electric vehicles, and battery manufacturing, heat pumps,
Speaker 1: and critical minerals mining. These are just the numbers in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. So when you look forward, the International
Speaker 1: Energy Agency makes predictions about how many more jobs will
Speaker 1: be created over the next seven years to twenty thirty,
Speaker 1: and the organization says, based on today's policies, there will
Speaker 1: be another eight million clean energy jobs added worldwide by
Speaker 1: twenty thirty. So that's based on today's policies, but if
Speaker 1: everyone agrees and gets on track for the net zero scenario,
Speaker 1: it will be even higher. There'll be something like seventeen
Speaker 1: million clean energy jobs generated by twenty thirty, which will
Speaker 1: more than replace all the jobs that are lost in
Speaker 1: the fossil fuel sector. And they take actually great pains
Speaker 1: to go and point out that many of the people
Speaker 1: who work in the fossil fuel sectors have very relevant
Speaker 1: skills and in demand skills in the clean energy sector.
Speaker 1: So it's not like those people will just lose their
Speaker 1: jobs and have no options available, they will have the
Speaker 1: skills and the ability to make the transition themselves into
Speaker 1: the clean energy space.
Speaker 2: And that's like a shout out to our Carbon Capture
Speaker 2: episode with Emily Grubrut. She said this great thing about
Speaker 2: oil companies or fossil fuel companies don't need to be
Speaker 2: part of the transit, Like who cares about the corporate structure.
Speaker 2: The skills that people have is actually much more meaningful.
Speaker 2: And I just really like that because sometimes if you're
Speaker 2: a very practical person, you're like, oh, I guess we
Speaker 2: do have to negotiate with oil companies, But really it's
Speaker 2: the people who do the work.
Speaker 1: And people can move with their feet. They don't like
Speaker 1: the kind of work that they're doing for a fossil
Speaker 1: fuel company and they don't like the direction it's taking. Then,
Speaker 1: as we heard in the Climate Critics episode, we put out,
Speaker 1: people are already saying I want to do other things.
Speaker 1: I want to work for companies that I can feel
Speaker 1: proud and invested in the kind of work I'm doing
Speaker 1: A good number. Yeah, I think I will give the
Speaker 1: point to Christine and that one. So Christine, you are
Speaker 1: one step closer said sad. Congratulations, May it last you
Speaker 1: a long time. I believe Actuat it is your go next.
Speaker 3: My number is ninety seven. Ninety seven okay, sorry, where
Speaker 3: is ninety five?
Speaker 2: Please leave that in?
Speaker 3: What change?
Speaker 1: It's It's like the humidity reading in your in your room.
Speaker 2: It's the temperature.
Speaker 3: Yeah, start again, Start again. My number is ninety five.
Speaker 2: This feels like a percent Is it a percent?
Speaker 3: It is a percentage? Great?
Speaker 1: Is it to do with the location of the manufacturing
Speaker 1: or extract of some kind of technology or mineral?
Speaker 3: It has to do with something to do with extracting
Speaker 3: something correct?
Speaker 2: Yes, wow, I really liked how broad that guest was.
Speaker 2: But also you did get it. Okay, does this have
Speaker 2: to do with extracting a element that's really important in
Speaker 2: clean tech?
Speaker 3: No, it's not.
Speaker 1: If the word element had been changed to compound or
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 2: I really thought about that.
Speaker 3: I was like, I'm not being I am not being
Speaker 3: a difficult chemist. Bit too pedantic again, Yeah, I have
Speaker 3: left my days in the lab long back. Rather than
Speaker 3: being the percentage of something, is it like a percent
Speaker 3: increase of something that's happened to a percent decrease. It
Speaker 3: is a percent decrease. Of something.
Speaker 1: Correct.
Speaker 2: Does this have to do with the amount of like
Speaker 2: oil and gas being extracted in like one specific region. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: this is a really tight game this round.
Speaker 3: You're getting all the hints, You're getting all the yes.
Speaker 1: Is it some kind of prediction out to twenty fifty, So,
Speaker 1: like from today's date to twenty fifty or so, someone's
Speaker 1: gas or oil will fall by ninety five percent?
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, I'm ready to guess. I'm guessing that Norway
Speaker 2: says it will decrease the amount of oil and gas
Speaker 2: it's going to extract by ninety five percent over some
Speaker 2: very long period of time.
Speaker 1: What about you ask, I'm going to say this is
Speaker 1: like a to get on a net zero target. That's
Speaker 1: the falling gas and oil extraction worldwide that needs to
Speaker 1: happen by twenty fifty.
Speaker 3: So I would say projections are not typically good news.
Speaker 3: So I think Christine's a little bit closer. It is
Speaker 3: geographically still in a different place, which is it's in
Speaker 3: the Norzia, and this is tied to gas production in
Speaker 3: the Nazia, which is set to decline ninety five percent
Speaker 3: by twenty fifty, even after new rounds of oil and
Speaker 3: gas licenses were announced by the UK government recently and
Speaker 3: had they not been announced, it would have fallen by
Speaker 3: ninety seven percent.
Speaker 1: And is that for because obviously the North Sea does
Speaker 1: provide Norway and it does provide UK so that's the entire.
Speaker 3: No, this is just for UK's not c gas. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but the point is, you know, there's a whole chat
Speaker 3: happening around how the UK is backtracking on its green goals,
Speaker 3: and much of it is just rhetoric and not reality.
Speaker 2: Is there more gas in the North Sea? Is it
Speaker 2: truly people walking away from it or is it that
Speaker 2: you know it's been tapped.
Speaker 3: No, it's just a depleted and depleting field.
Speaker 2: And then also for people who are not conversant in
Speaker 2: the UK, the North Sea oil and gas production has
Speaker 2: like there's a lot of history there.
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean the UK, as the home of Industrial Revolution,
Speaker 3: had a lot of coal mining and then in the
Speaker 3: twentieth century, mid twentieth century they discovered oil and gas
Speaker 3: in the Nazia and really ramped up production and that enabled,
Speaker 3: at least in the nineties and even early two thousands,
Speaker 3: a move away from coal because gas was abundant and
Speaker 3: cheap available, and so that allowed the UK to move
Speaker 3: away from coal and reduces emissions. So its emissions have
Speaker 3: been declining since the nineteen nineties, partly because of that
Speaker 3: gas field, but now it's declining because both gas production
Speaker 3: is declining and renewable energy production is on the up.
Speaker 1: The actual field peaked a while back, though, right, so
Speaker 1: this is not like we've just had a new peak
Speaker 1: as of this year and then it's going to full
Speaker 1: ninety seven twenty fifty.
Speaker 3: Correct, it peaked in two thousand, so you know, the
Speaker 3: lesson is take your politicians announcements with a grain of salt.
Speaker 1: Interesting well, hopefully by that point the UK will be
Speaker 1: entirely on solar wind batteries and a bit of nuclear
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 3: Or if you want to go to the very first
Speaker 3: episode of Zero and listen to Briani Worthington, maybe the
Speaker 3: UK is net negative after twenty forty five, which would
Speaker 3: be something that may be necessary from an equity perspective,
Speaker 3: as the country that put out all these greenhouse gases
Speaker 3: to create the problem in the first place.
Speaker 2: How about people ponder that, and then after the break,
Speaker 2: we'll guess my number.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the show. Two guesses so far, one
Speaker 1: to go. Christine's actually already won the jar of sands.
Speaker 1: She's come closest both times. It is now your victory lap, Christine,
Speaker 1: and your number.
Speaker 2: My number is six hundred and forty two point eighty four.
Speaker 3: Wow, that's a very specific that point eight is.
Speaker 2: We could round it up. We could do six hundred
Speaker 2: and forty three. Is this to do with money, Yes,
Speaker 2: it always has to do with money, Okay, so it's
Speaker 2: is it a dollar figure?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Okay. Is it to do with the price of
Speaker 1: a particular clean technology.
Speaker 2: It has to do with clean technology. It does not
Speaker 2: have to do with the price of technology specifically.
Speaker 3: Has it got anything to do with government money toward
Speaker 3: a clean technology?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: Is it just six hundred and forty three dollars or
Speaker 3: is it six hundred and forty It's just.
Speaker 2: Six hundred and forty three dollars that I feel like
Speaker 2: this might be too hard, This might be.
Speaker 1: Too Can you give us a clue to that? Wrote
Speaker 1: down slightly?
Speaker 3: It has to do with me your electricity bill in
Speaker 3: the month of November.
Speaker 2: That would be very sad if that was the good news.
Speaker 1: You're really putting us on the spot for how well
Speaker 1: we know you.
Speaker 3: Nah, well, I'm going to I'm going to get a gut.
Speaker 3: I'm going to just make a guest now because I
Speaker 3: think it is at that point, go for it. How
Speaker 3: much does it cost in labor to install a heat
Speaker 3: pump M in your house?
Speaker 2: Interesting?
Speaker 1: But no, is it how much you're paying to go
Speaker 1: to school and learn about solo oscar?
Speaker 2: You got it. This is the cost of a single
Speaker 2: class at the local community college to learn about the
Speaker 2: physics of solar photobal taic technology. It's the name of
Speaker 2: the class. I have been very inspired being around scientists
Speaker 2: and engineers working on this, and I've often been like
Speaker 2: kind of frustrated that I don't know in a more
Speaker 2: hands on way how solar works. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: technologies other than solar, but that's the one that's like,
Speaker 2: you know, I think even since I was a little kid,
Speaker 2: it is like that's the future. And behind the scenes
Speaker 2: of this show for people who don't know, is a
Speaker 2: lot of like annotating and listening to kind of jargon
Speaker 2: but beloved jargon about how kind of works. Jargon I
Speaker 2: don't want to invold in any critiques, but yeah, so
Speaker 2: there's a lot of like sitting and annotating conversations and
Speaker 2: being like, Okay, what is a cathode?
Speaker 3: Was it?
Speaker 2: What is an anode? And I really enjoy doing that stuff,
Speaker 2: And then we put out another episode and I completely
Speaker 2: forget I ever learned that stuff, And so I just
Speaker 2: want to spend some time thinking about it more and
Speaker 2: learning about it.
Speaker 3: That's cool. Solar is the first source of energy that
Speaker 3: we developed where we didn't have to move things to
Speaker 3: get electricity. Everything else is run on turbines and turbines
Speaker 3: powered by steam, so solar was the first one where
Speaker 3: you didn't have to do that. I mean even on
Speaker 3: wind you actually have to move the rotors off a
Speaker 3: wind turbine do make wind power, but with soda, just
Speaker 3: shine the light.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I'm very excited about this. I should say too
Speaker 2: that Oscar's work on the Martin Green episode, even though
Speaker 2: I was not the one annotating it, Oscar relaying to
Speaker 2: me the red photon blue photon thing.
Speaker 1: I was like, this is so cool, MutS and Green
Speaker 1: being one of the pioneers of soda tech.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, the godfather of solar who has a bunch
Speaker 2: of patents and all of this stuff, and it is
Speaker 2: a little bit self important that me studying. This is
Speaker 2: good news for the climate. But really I think it's
Speaker 2: amazing that this is available. It's part of a renewable
Speaker 2: Energy certificate that the college offers for people to just
Speaker 2: get training in renewal energy, whether it's like how it's financed,
Speaker 2: how it works, how it gets installed. And I'm really
Speaker 2: excited to go see what that's like.
Speaker 3: And you never know, just like Martin Green, both the
Speaker 3: entire Chinese solar industry. By teaching students, you might be
Speaker 3: a part of the US solar industry's return.
Speaker 2: The solar coaster.
Speaker 1: Well, luck for your course, Christine, and thank you guys
Speaker 1: for playing this special third round of whose number is
Speaker 1: it anyway? And congratulations on your prize. Christine a jar
Speaker 1: of sand fresh from COP twenty eight. Thank you guys, Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you, thanks, Thank you so much for listening to Zero.
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed this episode, please give us a rating
Speaker 1: or a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Check out
Speaker 1: the show notes for the links to the numbers we
Speaker 1: chose in today's episode.
Speaker 2: Zero's producer is Oscar Boyd and senior producer is me
Speaker 2: Christine driscoll. Our theme music is by Wonderly Special.
Speaker 3: Thanks as always to ciro bindram i'm actua thradi. We'll
Speaker 3: be back in the new year.