Speaker 1: Hi, it suckshat. This week I joined The Big Take
Speaker 1: podcast to talk about the global consequences of President Donald
Speaker 1: Trump's rollback on climate We wanted to share that episode
Speaker 1: with zero listeners to so take a listen and do
Speaker 1: follow The Big Take for daily news coverage from Bloomberg.
Speaker 2: Reporters, Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio News. Since taking office
Speaker 2: in January, President Trump has set in motion a series
Speaker 2: of sweeping rollbacks on US climate policy.
Speaker 3: The President slashing funding to combat climate change.
Speaker 2: President Trump on social media is again calling for FEMA
Speaker 2: to be shut down. The latest firings hitting Noah, the
Speaker 2: nation's top weather and climate agency, hundreds let go, and
Speaker 2: on Tuesday, the few times Trump mentioned climate policy in
Speaker 2: an address to Congress, he didn't hold back.
Speaker 3: I terminated the ridiculous green news scam. I withdrew from
Speaker 3: the unfair Paris Climate Accord, which was costing US trillions
Speaker 3: of dollars that other countries were not paying.
Speaker 2: His remarks highlighted the ways his administration has dismantled efforts
Speaker 2: to combat climate change, and they were the culmination of
Speaker 2: weeks of actions that pushed climate change into the background
Speaker 2: at a time when governments around the world have lagged
Speaker 2: behind their stated environmental goals.
Speaker 1: Twenty twenty four was the first year when for the
Speaker 1: entire year, the world averaged over one point five degrees celsius.
Speaker 2: Akshad Rothy is a senior climate reporter for Bloomberg News
Speaker 2: and host of the Zero podcast.
Speaker 1: Any amount of warming, any point one degree celsius of
Speaker 1: warming makes the planet worse. And what happens when Trump
Speaker 1: or other countries start to pull away from these targets
Speaker 1: is that we start to get more warming because we
Speaker 1: move away from the focus of trying to get more
Speaker 1: clean energy and rely less on fossil fuels.
Speaker 2: So just how did we get here, How have Trump's
Speaker 2: actions played out since his first day in office, and
Speaker 2: how will these last few weeks of climate policy reversals
Speaker 2: impact the US and the rest of the world.
Speaker 1: It is a job of a government to try and
Speaker 1: provide for welfare of society. That is why governments are elected.
Speaker 1: But if you are not going to be believing in
Speaker 1: the facts of climate change, which are scientifically true and
Speaker 1: have consensus around the world, then you're not going to
Speaker 1: be able to make informed decisions that will help you
Speaker 1: to protect people from the harm. That's coming their.
Speaker 2: Way today on the show Trump and the Climate, a
Speaker 2: walk through some of his administration's key climate actions, the
Speaker 2: international fallout, and what it all means for the global
Speaker 2: fight to stop the warming of the planet. This is
Speaker 2: the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder, so Aksha.
Speaker 2: Trump has taken several actions to reverse US policy on
Speaker 2: climate since the start of his second term, but the
Speaker 2: one that really set the tone was him pulling out
Speaker 2: of the Paris Climate Agreement on day one. So let's
Speaker 2: start there. He's pulled out of the accord before, during
Speaker 2: his first term in twenty seventeen. But what's different this time.
Speaker 1: Well, you're right, this wasn't a surprise because he'd said
Speaker 1: he'd do it, and he's done it in the past.
Speaker 1: But there is certainly something different about this time. So
Speaker 1: on the negative side, Trump has more backers for his
Speaker 1: anti climate bush because there's been a right wing turned
Speaker 1: in politics around the world. There's also the fact that
Speaker 1: companies and countries that had set targets to meet as
Speaker 1: soon as twenty thirty are way off track from meeting
Speaker 1: those climate targets. And we've also just lived through the
Speaker 1: hottest year in twenty twenty four, we've breached for the
Speaker 1: first time one point five degrees celsius, which is one
Speaker 1: of the two most ambitious targets we have under the
Speaker 1: Paris Agreement. So there is the sense of whether we'll
Speaker 1: ever be able to keep under the Paris goals of
Speaker 1: not warming the planet by two degrees solsius, And so
Speaker 1: the urgency to act has grown. But clearly the companies
Speaker 1: and countries aren't doing all that much. That's the bad side.
Speaker 1: There's also a good side that is different this time.
Speaker 1: So when Trump quit the Paras Agreement the first time around,
Speaker 1: global clean energy investments stood at about four hundred billion
Speaker 1: dollars according to Bloomberg NEF. In twenty twenty four, they
Speaker 1: breached two trillion dollars two point one trillion dollars to
Speaker 1: be precise. And there is something fundamentally different about this moment,
Speaker 1: which is today clean energy is much much cheaper than
Speaker 1: the last time Trump pulled out of the Paris Agreement,
Speaker 1: and climate impacts are much much more severe, and so
Speaker 1: people have a recognition that this problem is only going
Speaker 1: to get worse. But fortunately the solutions are also getting cheaper.
Speaker 1: The other thing is that there were always these rumors
Speaker 1: that once the US, the world's largest historical emitter of
Speaker 1: greenhouse gases the world's largest economy, pulls out of a
Speaker 1: global treaty, other countries will follow. That didn't happen last time,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't seem like it's going to happen this time.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you've given us the good news and the
Speaker 2: bad news. I'm wondering a little more about how other
Speaker 2: world leaders and business leaders are reacting to Trump's moves.
Speaker 2: Just how strong are other countries climate commitments and who
Speaker 2: might step up and fill the void left by the
Speaker 2: United States.
Speaker 1: There's certainly been a muted response this time. Let's take corporations.
Speaker 1: Last time around, these big tech companies were jostling to
Speaker 1: be the climate leaders in the world. Elon Musk quit
Speaker 1: a Trump advisory council as a result of Trump pulling
Speaker 1: out of the Paris Agreement. Well, this time around, none
Speaker 1: of the tech bosses are saying anything about Paris. Elon
Speaker 1: Musk is in the Trump government, and from a country standpoint,
Speaker 1: there isn't the same bulwark of climate forward leaders that
Speaker 1: was there the last time. We had Angela Merkel. We
Speaker 1: had justin Trudeau, who had just been elected this time. Yes,
Speaker 1: Ursula V on their lane from the European Union did
Speaker 1: say that europe is going to stay the course. But
Speaker 1: even Lula in Brazil, who is going to be hosting
Speaker 1: a COP meeting later this year, let his deputies react
Speaker 1: to a Trump exit. So there's this sense among world
Speaker 1: leaders who are facing economic issues that they are not
Speaker 1: willing to try and push back against an embolden Trump.
Speaker 2: Last time we spoke, the big questions at the COP
Speaker 2: summit in Baku were around money. Who is going to
Speaker 2: pay for the energy transition, how much developed countries will
Speaker 2: spend to support developing countries. How does the US pulling
Speaker 2: out change those calculations.
Speaker 1: That is perhaps the most significant question. So at Baku,
Speaker 1: all countries, including the US, agreed on a goal to
Speaker 1: triple climate finance from one hundred billion dollars to three
Speaker 1: hundred billion dollars by twenty thirty five.
Speaker 2: That's money developed countries promised to put specifically toward helping
Speaker 2: developing nations respond to climate change and invest in clean energy.
Speaker 1: So they have ten years to get to that goal,
Speaker 1: but it means they have to start ramping up right
Speaker 1: away because it is a big goal to meet and
Speaker 1: Now that the US, the world's largest economy, is out
Speaker 1: with all its banks and all its heft, it's unlikely
Speaker 1: that that acceleration from one hundred to three hundred will
Speaker 1: happen at the same pace as it would have if
Speaker 1: the US were part of the agreement. Now we will
Speaker 1: certainly see a rise in climate finance because other countries
Speaker 1: will start to step in. But maybe we are already
Speaker 1: looking at the three hundred billion dollar goal being missed.
Speaker 1: Even if the US is not putting any money directly
Speaker 1: from the government side under a Trump administration towards climate finance,
Speaker 1: it does contribute to these multilateral development banks like World
Speaker 1: Bank or the IMF, which then go on to contribute
Speaker 1: to climate finance. And the US is the largest shareholder
Speaker 1: in most of these MDBs, and it could start to
Speaker 1: try and pull back money that these banks were previously
Speaker 1: giving to climate finance, So that could have a multiplier
Speaker 1: effect if Trump so wishes right.
Speaker 2: And meanwhile, Trump has been cutting domestic spending on the
Speaker 2: climate too, with the help of Elon Musk's Doge Task Force.
Speaker 2: An EPA administrator Lizelden has been cutting millions in EPA
Speaker 2: grants focused on environmental justice what do we know about
Speaker 2: how these cuts could impact climate regulation and climate research.
Speaker 1: There is just so much that is happening, and it
Speaker 1: is unclear just how wide spread this impact is going
Speaker 1: to be till we start to come to the places
Speaker 1: where we expect an APA regulation to come through because
Speaker 1: industries need to move on and start to buildings, or
Speaker 1: a climate science report has to drop because there was
Speaker 1: a deadline to produce that report and then it doesn't
Speaker 1: come Those are things we are looking out for which
Speaker 1: are in the future, but there are already impacts that
Speaker 1: we can see. So in trying to keep climate out
Speaker 1: of the conversation, out of research, there was a downstream
Speaker 1: impact where a climate scientist in the US who is
Speaker 1: supposed to be heading a very important working group of
Speaker 1: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is the world's
Speaker 1: premier body for all climate science research, could not make
Speaker 1: it to her meeting in hano and China because the
Speaker 1: Trump administration said that NASA cannot fund anymore climate science work.
Speaker 2: What does it mean for that researcher to miss that meeting?
Speaker 2: What didn't happen?
Speaker 1: Well, the US is one of the world's largest funder
Speaker 1: of climate science research, about a fifth of all the
Speaker 1: authors of these big IPCC reports are Americans. That is
Speaker 1: twice as much as the next biggest country, which is
Speaker 1: the UK. And so when you stop bringing American scientists
Speaker 1: into the climate conversation, you lose a big chunk of
Speaker 1: climate science understanding of the world. And Okay, that for
Speaker 1: now is fine, but these reports which will come in
Speaker 1: twenty thirty will start to become worse today. And so
Speaker 1: this sort of pull one string and then the fabric
Speaker 1: starts to fall apart is something we expect to see
Speaker 1: more and more.
Speaker 2: Of after the break. More on what climate policy reversals
Speaker 2: could mean for the green technology sector and for the
Speaker 2: world's reliance on fossil fuels. Pulling out of the Paris
Speaker 2: Climate Agreement was only the first and a flurry of
Speaker 2: climate policy changes since Trump took office.
Speaker 3: We ended all of Biden's environmental restrictions that we're making
Speaker 3: our country far less safe and totally unaffordable.
Speaker 2: His administration has blocked the enforcement of environmental justice law
Speaker 2: US stopped a global air quality monitoring program, and started
Speaker 2: to roll back rules around corporate climate disclosures. Last month,
Speaker 2: Bloomberg reported that the EPA was recommending the government throw
Speaker 2: out its conclusion that greenhouse gases endanger the public. But
Speaker 2: there's another piece of the story that I asked Bloomberg's
Speaker 2: oxshot ROTHI to unpack more where this all leaves investments
Speaker 2: in green technology. When the Paris Agreement was first signed
Speaker 2: in twenty sixteen, there was this rapid rise in investment
Speaker 2: in climate tech companies, and there was more funding for
Speaker 2: projects that focused on the energy transition. With Trump in office,
Speaker 2: how could that picture of global investment change.
Speaker 1: It can have pretty big impacts because a lot of
Speaker 1: the funding that went into nascent climate technologies came from
Speaker 1: the US, went to US startups that were at the
Speaker 1: forefront of developing these technologies. But it does create opportunities
Speaker 1: for other countries to be able to absorb some of
Speaker 1: this talent that sits in America that has developed this technology,
Speaker 1: that wants to build these plants that will reduce greener's
Speaker 1: gas emissions, that will make electricity cheaper, that will make
Speaker 1: electricity more easily accessible because it will tap into renewable resources,
Speaker 1: not just the sun and the wind, but also geothermal resources.
Speaker 1: And it creates an opportunity for countries that are climate forward,
Speaker 1: have climate forward leaders to give home to American startups.
Speaker 1: Because it's clear, at least from this administration's steps taken
Speaker 1: so far, that they don't care about climate technologies.
Speaker 2: What are the countries that are set up best to
Speaker 2: take advantage of this opportunity?
Speaker 1: I mean, the simplest answer there is China. Out of
Speaker 1: the two point one trillion dollars that were invested in
Speaker 1: the energy transition last year, eight hundred billion dollars came
Speaker 1: from China. That is more than the US, European Union,
Speaker 1: and the UK combined. But that's not to say that
Speaker 1: China is the only country that can win these other
Speaker 1: technologies that China doesn't have a lead in, like carbon catcher,
Speaker 1: like green hydrogen, like heat pumps, where local manufacturing in
Speaker 1: other parts of the world can certainly catch up, and
Speaker 1: so you might see competition on green tech outside of
Speaker 1: America that will produce losers and winners.
Speaker 3: We have more liquid gold under our feet than any
Speaker 3: nation on Earth, and by.
Speaker 2: Far akshat, strengthening America's fossil fuel industry is central to
Speaker 2: Trump's economic agenda. He emphasized that in his speech to
Speaker 2: Congress this week.
Speaker 3: It's called drill, Baby, drill.
Speaker 2: But what about the economics of not investing in the
Speaker 2: energy transition and not investing in these kinds of things.
Speaker 2: Could this actually hurt the US's economic competitiveness in this space.
Speaker 1: So there is perhaps something to be gained by trying
Speaker 1: to drill baby drill in the short term. If you
Speaker 1: have higher oil and gas prices, you might be able
Speaker 1: to profit from it or make oil and gas cheaper
Speaker 1: for American consumers. But that is a short term gain
Speaker 1: for a long term loss. So one thing that most
Speaker 1: experts agree on is that the future of energy is
Speaker 1: to go towards distributed energy that comes from renewable sources
Speaker 1: because they are widely available, they're easy to tap, and
Speaker 1: now they're also very cheap to tap. But certainly ten
Speaker 1: or fifteen years from now, if we look back, we'll
Speaker 1: see this period as one where the US started to
Speaker 1: lose its competitive edge in green technologies.
Speaker 2: Well, akshat, this is of course all happening on the
Speaker 2: heels of those devastating fires in la Just a few
Speaker 2: weeks ago, Trump moved to end climate related work and
Speaker 2: eliminate the use of climate related terms in the Department
Speaker 2: of Homeland Security, which typically responds to natural disasters. If
Speaker 2: the US government is no longer interested in addressing or
Speaker 2: acknowledging climate change. What does that mean for the country
Speaker 2: if and when more extreme weather EVAs happen, What does
Speaker 2: it mean for the world.
Speaker 1: I think that was a feeling that many experts had,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, when we were talking about climate
Speaker 1: change in the nineteen nineties, it was a problem that
Speaker 1: was a decade or two decades away. Well, it's here.
Speaker 1: The la fires are a really good example or study
Speaker 1: that just came out said they were made thirty five
Speaker 1: percent worse by human caused climate change. But the reality
Speaker 1: has also sunk in among the people who were hoping
Speaker 1: that the alarm of extreme weather will cause people to
Speaker 1: ask for more climate action. That's not happening at the
Speaker 1: scale we want. I mean the elections around the world,
Speaker 1: not just Donald Trump's, are a proof of that. So
Speaker 1: there is a pivot that we are seeing among world
Speaker 1: leaders but also climate advocates that economic growth and progress
Speaker 1: on other metrics are also something that people care deeply about.
Speaker 1: That any climate action that goes against those progress metrics
Speaker 1: is not going to fly. You have to find a
Speaker 1: way to make all these metrics work together, and you
Speaker 1: have to find a way to ensure that good information
Speaker 1: gets to people for why these decisions are being made,
Speaker 1: and so the hope that actually weather events will finally
Speaker 1: get us on the path of acting on climate is
Speaker 1: one that fewer and fewer people are relying on.
Speaker 2: This is The Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder.
Speaker 2: This episode was produced and sound designed by Jessica Beck.
Speaker 2: It was edited by Aaron Edwards and Emily Buzo. It
Speaker 2: was mixed by Alex Sugia and fact checked by Adriana Tapia.
Speaker 2: Our senior producer is Naomi Shaven. Our senior editor is
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Ponso. Our executive producer is Nicole beamsterbor Sage Fouman
Speaker 2: is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. If you like this episode,
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Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow. Roun MHM