WEBVTT - Can climate capitalism work? 0:00:02.920 --> 0:00:06.480 Welcome to Zero. I'm Kira Bendram, editor of Bloomberg's Greener 0:00:06.519 --> 0:00:09.840 Living section and a good friend of the Pod. Today 0:00:09.920 --> 0:00:12.479 is a special day on Zero because today is a 0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:15.520 day your usual host has been waiting on for months. 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:19.800 Climate Capitalism, a new book by Akshat Rapi, is now 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:24.079 on sale. Climate Capitalism sets out to answer an important question. 0:00:24.600 --> 0:00:28.120 If capitalist systems are set up to maximize profits, how 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:32.760 can they also prioritize the planet. Over twelve chapters, Akshot 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:36.720 introduces a dozen people who are already making climate capitalism work, 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:40.239 from the engineer who shaped China's electric car policies, to 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:43.000 the politician who helped make net zero a UK law, 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:45.920 to the CEO who fought off a takeover attempt so 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:49.960 you could stick with a sustainability strategy. Akshat and I 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:52.640 have known each other for almost seven years now, and 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:55.000 what comes across in his book is what comes across 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:58.000 every time I talk to him. A lot of very 0:00:58.040 --> 0:01:01.320 smart and very interesting people are working on climate problems. 0:01:01.960 --> 0:01:04.759 Many of them are proof positive that the capitalist framework 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:08.080 can be effective. As Akshot writes in the book's very 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:11.160 first line, it's now cheaper to save the world than 0:01:11.200 --> 0:01:15.160 destroy it. I also know how much work Ashot has 0:01:15.200 --> 0:01:17.759 put into this book, so after reading it, I thought 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:19.560 it might be fun to put him on the hot 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:23.280 seat for once, because I wanted to ask aksha if 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:33.240 climate capitalism is so doable, why does it seem so difficult? Akshat, 0:01:33.319 --> 0:01:35.959 Welcome to your podcast. How are you feeling nervous? 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:38.920 Because I don't usually get interviewed, I'm not on this 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:40.839 side of the screen. 0:01:41.400 --> 0:01:44.240 I'll try to be gentle. The underpinning of the book, 0:01:44.280 --> 0:01:46.039 I would say, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:49.880 is that capitalism and climate progress are compatible because they 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:52.560 have to be. You say in the intro, changing our 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:56.280 entire economic system and our entire energy system in the 0:01:56.320 --> 0:01:58.440 time that we need to do it to affect change 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:02.040 with the climate is just really not feasible. And I'm 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:05.200 curious whether you think most people would agree, Like if 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:07.720 you sort of set out with these two things are compatible, 0:02:08.040 --> 0:02:09.919 do you think of that as a statement of fact 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:12.040 an article of faith? Do you think you're making a 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:14.520 provocative argument? Where do you think most people land on 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:16.919 this question of whether these two ideas can work together? 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:20.120 Sadly, the answer is that most people haven't thought about it. 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:25.000 The trouble with climate is that there are very loud voices, 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:29.840 very few of them on opposite side of the political spectrum. Yes, 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:31.800 there's a whole range of voices in the middle, but 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:35.600 that's also a small population. Most people aren't thinking about 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:39.320 climate solutions. But if we speak to the climate crowd, 0:02:39.600 --> 0:02:42.799 I think most people will not agree that capitalism can 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:47.680 be a solution. And that's because the root of environmentalism, 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:50.959 or the root of most people who are trying to 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:54.320 work on solutions, has been to try and overcome this 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:57.919 economic system that we must accept has been a part 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:02.919 of the problem, has been driving force of profit maximization 0:03:03.400 --> 0:03:07.440 over making sure all the impacts of that process are 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:11.239 taken into consideration. And so there is no doubt it's 0:03:11.280 --> 0:03:14.480 a provocation. That is how the publisher pitched it to me, 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:17.639 which is, if you're going to give people something they 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:20.360 will read, you have to be a little provocative. But 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:22.080 as I wrote the book, and as I tried to 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:25.600 tell the stories, it actually became easier because I wasn't 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:28.839 trying to create something that wasn't happening. I wasn't trying 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:32.360 to make a case for something that should happen. I 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:35.520 ended up writing a series of stories of things that 0:03:35.560 --> 0:03:36.880 are already happening. 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:39.080 So the way you've structured the book, as you're alluding to, 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:41.600 is each chapter you give us a person who is 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:44.120 working towards climate campus is not just one person, but 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:45.840 there is sort of an anchor person in most of 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:48.200 the chapters. So for example, we've got Wan Gang, who 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:50.840 is not a household name the way Elon Musk is 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:53.120 in terms of electric cars, but has plays a huge 0:03:53.200 --> 0:03:56.880 role in ev development in China. Or we've got Brian E. Worthington, 0:03:56.920 --> 0:03:59.280 who was actually the very first guest on Zero, who 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:00.920 was the lead author of the two thousand and eight 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:03.880 Climate Change Act in the UK. I'm curious what made 0:04:03.960 --> 0:04:05.760 you want to approach the book in this way where 0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:08.600 it's centered around people, instead of maybe looking at a 0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:11.440 different technology in each chapter, or even a company, or 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:13.280 even just telling the story linearly over time. 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:16.040 Our driving force for the kind of journalism that I've 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:18.760 kind of learned with Yukira, starting at Qurts and then 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:23.200 now at Bloombergreen has been to try and tell stories 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:26.240 that have not already been told, or tell them in 0:04:26.279 --> 0:04:30.400 a way that has not already been done. Take Bill 0:04:30.400 --> 0:04:34.120 Gates's How to Avoid a Climate Disaster. Really good book 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:37.039 makes the case for what needs to be done with 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:40.640 some small case studies of what's already being done. Or 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:44.640 This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein, which is in the 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:50.359 subtitle The Climate Versus Capitalism, which is a rhetorical powerful 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:54.200 exposition of what's wrong with the system and why we 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:57.159 must break it down. I wanted to take the journalistic 0:04:57.240 --> 0:05:01.080 instincts of taking the story of I, really one individual, 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:03.880 but then building out the context in which and the 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:07.800 decades over which some of these stories play out. And 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:10.800 my hope was that having the anchor person will allow 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:13.280 people to read those stories in a way that they 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:16.440 won't get lost in the abstract ideas that are all 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:18.720 around us to deal with the climate problem. 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:20.520 It almost reminds me of when you're a kid and 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:23.400 you think politicians are just like such adults and like 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:25.359 these people that make all these huge decisions, and the 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:28.080 older you get, you're like, right, they're just we're just humans. 0:05:28.120 --> 0:05:29.719 I'll try to figure it out, and they're just people 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:33.440 now my age, with my level of expertise shaping policy, 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:35.479 and there's something a little terrifying about that, but there's 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:38.719 just some comforting that These are human beings actively working 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:41.280 to solve these problems, who are really applying themselves to it, 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:44.120 and they are turning the abstract into something quite tangible. 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:45.680 Or you can affect change. 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:50.040 And that their actions are directed but are also shaped 0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:52.919 by the chance encounters and the chance events that they 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:53.480 live through. 0:05:54.160 --> 0:05:55.800 Is there anyone in your mix of people? I know 0:05:55.800 --> 0:05:57.560 you don't want to choose a favorite child, but I'm 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:00.479 curious of the people you spoke with or focused on 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:02.320 in the book, is there anyone you think about the 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:04.880 most often or you find yourself relaying their story the 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:06.599 most often when you're talking to other people. 0:06:07.080 --> 0:06:10.720 You already mentioned his name. It's One Gang really, because 0:06:11.440 --> 0:06:14.040 it's sort of a character as a Chinese bureaucrat you 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:17.240 rarely hear about. You know, you probably are aware Hi 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:19.880 Jinping as the leader of the country, but you're unlikely 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:22.839 to know very much beyond that as a general news reader. 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:26.200 And also One Gang doesn't own a social media platform, 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:30.599 so you get this place where this individual within a 0:06:30.680 --> 0:06:34.320 system has made a huge impact on the ev transition, 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:37.520 getting the Chinese state to spend tens of billions of 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:41.680 dollars in a decade to move the technology, which we 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:45.040 are all benefiting from but people don't know who was 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:47.960 the driving force, what are the policies, what are the 0:06:48.040 --> 0:06:50.400 massive changes that have allowed this to happen. So it's 0:06:50.400 --> 0:06:53.279 the story I bring up very often. The other one 0:06:53.640 --> 0:06:55.640 that I don't bring up that often, but I think 0:06:55.680 --> 0:06:59.279 about quite often is the story of Fati Birol. Fatti 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:02.320 Birol is the head of the International Energy Agency, and 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:04.159 in the set of seven year period that I have 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:08.000 been a climate journalist, he's gone from being the character 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:10.880 who was hated by the climate movement to being the 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:14.400 character that is loved by the climate movement. That is 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:18.160 reflected in how he approaches the problem, even though you 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:21.920 know he runs an international organization, you can see he 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:25.880 has really understood the climate problem and gone from this 0:07:26.520 --> 0:07:29.520 energy agency that was built as an organization that was 0:07:29.600 --> 0:07:33.160 very fossil fuel oriented to being this organization that really 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:35.080 wants to drive the energy transition. 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:37.280 For me reading that chapter, and he was also a 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:38.920 guest on the pod, we have another person who was 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:42.239 a former zero guest. You're struck almost by how recent 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:44.040 a lot of this evolution is happening, that it's all 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:47.120 moving quite quickly, and that one agency is a good 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:49.720 sort of stand in for how quickly the conversation changes. 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:51.760 I want to ask you about. What I'm thinking of 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:54.280 is like the thumbs that capitalism allows to be put 0:07:54.280 --> 0:07:56.840 on the scale outside of market forces. So I'm thinking 0:07:56.880 --> 0:08:00.480 about regulations, I'm thinking about subsidies, and as we've heard 0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:02.560 on the podcast very recently, I'm thinking about tools like 0:08:02.600 --> 0:08:05.160 shareholder activism, things you can do to affect change within 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:08.480 a company. In your view, and having done all this reporting, 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:10.800 do you think that those tools are sufficient to sort 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:15.400 of check capitalism's most profit driven in individualism driven instincts. 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:18.080 We can answer that in multiple ways. Right There is 0:08:18.120 --> 0:08:21.120 actually no one form of capitalism in the world. The 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:25.000 American capitalism is very different from the Indian capitalism, very 0:08:25.000 --> 0:08:29.280 different from the Nordic capitalism, to being very different from 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:32.959 the Chinese capitalism, and each of those at the core 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:36.880 of it have two tenets profit maximization driven in a 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:42.560 competitive market. However, a market is never free. It's always 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:45.360 regulated in some form if you want a market to 0:08:45.440 --> 0:08:49.400 function and do the job it needs to do for society. 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:53.000 And to what level that is regulated is different in 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:56.760 different countries, and we can see there are benefits to 0:08:56.840 --> 0:08:59.520 the level of regulation that may exist in a particular 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:01.440 ccumstance versus another one. 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:03.320 I mean, it sounds like you're saying that you have 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:06.520 to shape the tools of capitalism to the society and 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:09.960 like the system you're in, and it's all about the execution. 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:13.920 Yeah, we probably will never have the perfect way of 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:17.120 making capitalism work for the planet. But what we do 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:20.559 have is a series of experiments currently happening in different 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:23.280 parts of the world. And what we can see is 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:26.080 things that are working well in one part work well 0:09:26.120 --> 0:09:29.680 because of a certain mix of those tools. And something 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:31.720 I try and do in the book is to learn 0:09:31.800 --> 0:09:34.640 from the successes that are enabled in that context and 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:38.400 whether we can translate those successes in other places where 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:40.840 maybe there is a different form of capitalism. 0:09:41.040 --> 0:09:43.320 So I think I agree with you that adjusting a 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:45.800 capitalist system at the margins, or sort of finessing the 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:48.400 nuance of it, versus trying to overthrow it, is the 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:52.240 logical move. But for fun, just for fun, I wonder 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:54.680 what you'd say if we found out tomorrow that we 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:57.280 actually have another century to deal with climate change. In 0:09:57.320 --> 0:10:00.560 other words, if we could somehow remodel our econom system 0:10:00.600 --> 0:10:03.040 and energy system at the same time, would you change 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:03.719 your answer. 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:07.200 In a way. We already ran that experiment, right, We 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:13.480 knew the science was pretty certain. Early nineties, mid nineties, 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:17.439 the latest didn't really do very much. So as a 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:21.800 society we chose not to. And sure you can blame 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:25.640 certain actors in society directing this, but the end result 0:10:25.679 --> 0:10:28.120 is we kind of choose. But if we do have 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:31.479 another one hundred years and suddenly that is a possibility, 0:10:32.200 --> 0:10:33.840 I think there are a few things we could do. 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:38.920 One is we should not try and slow down the 0:10:39.000 --> 0:10:43.120 transition in the sectors that are already on the move. 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:47.200 The move to electric cars is a really good one. Yes, 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:49.840 we're going to need more metals and that's a thing 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:52.240 that we need to deal with, but we will cut 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:55.160 air pollution in cities everywhere in the world, and that's 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:57.560 a good thing. And you could do that for renewables. 0:10:57.600 --> 0:11:00.480 It would be a much better world to have sources 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:04.480 of energy distributed across the world, rather than being concentrated 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:07.160 in some places where you have to take a pipe, 0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:10.240 drill it down, get some black go out, ship it 0:11:10.280 --> 0:11:13.880 to a refinery, put in tons of energy to try 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:17.040 and draw out energy. It's just not a good system. 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:20.559 But the biggest advantage we will get with time is 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:23.960 not really to slow down the fossil fuel transition. It 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:26.760 is more that we'll have more time to do diplomacy, right, 0:11:26.960 --> 0:11:30.040 that we'll have more time for countries to actually come 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:33.200 together and agree on something, or we'll have more time 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:36.400 to find a way in which countries that are going 0:11:36.440 --> 0:11:39.800 to struggle can be uplifted and be brought along for 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:43.440 the transition, rather than what is a reality for some 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:46.200 countries getting drowned at sea levels rise. 0:11:46.960 --> 0:11:48.440 I want to ask you one more question in the 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:51.400 sort of high level macro capitalism conversation, and I don't 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:52.960 want this question to come out wrong, so I hope 0:11:52.960 --> 0:11:54.320 you know that I love you and I respect you, 0:11:54.440 --> 0:11:57.400 and I don't mean anything by this, But do you 0:11:57.480 --> 0:12:00.840 think sometimes that you are too much of an up missed? 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:03.319 Which I asked because I said in the beginning, And 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:05.000 I think it's true, you, more than anyone I know 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:07.520 or have worked with, have really helped me see that 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:11.520 it is possible to reach net zero technically, scientifically, like 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:14.440 all of those things can fall in place, but we 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:17.160 are off track to meet net zero by twenty fifty. 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:19.679 We are still in a place where the wealthiest one 0:12:19.720 --> 0:12:22.880 percent of humanity is responsible for as many emissions as 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:26.720 the poorest fifty percent. We are not really succeeding at 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:28.600 the level that we need to. So if, as you 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:31.760 argue in the book, capitalism can solve the climate crisis, 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:34.080 the biggest question is why does it seem to be 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:35.120 failing at it. 0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:37.800 It might be to do with something in my brain 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:40.400 chemistry that I prefer to think this way, but I 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:43.040 can also justify it, right. It's not that I have 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:46.719 an ideological stance of only writing about optimistic solutions, right. 0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:49.319 You know, as a journalist, I do all sorts of things. 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:52.880 I write about problems, I write investigations exposing all the 0:12:52.920 --> 0:12:56.400 flaws that companies have and people have. But I also 0:12:56.440 --> 0:13:00.200 think one aspect of journalism that is less celebrated, is 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:03.640 less pursued, is to look at successes and what we 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:07.080 can learn from them. So the optimism is kind of 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:10.480 baked into doing the book because I wanted to focus 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:14.160 on the successes. If I wanted to focus on the problems, 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:17.280 that book's already been written. It's called The Uninhabitable Earth, 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:20.480 And so I wanted to provide a narrative that would 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:24.000 be more corrective to where we sit where it feels 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:27.280 like this problem is so big that we will not 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:29.600 be able to fight it, that we will not be 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:32.160 able to solve it. And yet if you just look 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:35.439 at the numbers, we are not on track for five 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:38.880 or six degrees celsius of warming, which was within the 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:42.679 realm of possibility as recently as twenty fifteen. And then 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:45.520 we sign the Paris Agreement and now we're on track 0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:48.920 for three degrees celsius. It's not enough, but at least 0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:50.320 we may progress. 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:58.079 After the break. How exactly is climate capitalism supposed to work? 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:09.640 I want to dig into some of the mechanics here 0:14:09.679 --> 0:14:12.439 of marrying capitalism and climate progress, and I'll start with 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:15.080 a big question, which is we have seen arguably a 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:18.559 recent example of capitalism succeeding and failing at the same time, 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:21.760 which is the COVID vaccine. So, with state support, we 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:25.360 had private companies that were able to develop vaccines extremely quickly, 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:28.720 but the distribution was very, very unequal around the world, 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:30.320 and we see that with all kinds of tech, where 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:33.520 poorer countries that would benefit from a quicker access ultimately 0:14:33.600 --> 0:14:36.560 don't get it. Is it possible to address that type 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:38.920 of inequality within the capitalist framework. 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:42.720 The COVID example is such a good one. It's one 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:46.360 that we taught about as climate journalists at large as 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:49.280 a good parallel. Shouldn't we think of what happened with 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:54.000 COVID and apply it to climate And there are parallels 0:14:54.040 --> 0:14:56.320 to be drawn, but they are not one to one. 0:14:56.640 --> 0:15:02.640 The COVID vaccine was created to deal with an emergency 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:07.040 in the human timescale we think of emergencies. Right, climate 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:10.000 emergency is also an emergency, but it's not on the 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:13.960 same time scale as a COVID vaccine. Did science and 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:17.960 technology help us avoid what could have been an even 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:24.360 worse disaster? One hundred percent? Right? Take any other global 0:15:24.400 --> 0:15:28.120 panamic of this kind. When you didn't have an mRNA vaccine, 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:31.240 which just won the Nobel Prize earlier this month, we 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:33.600 would not have been able to create a vaccine at 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:36.240 the pace at which we did. So you could take 0:15:36.640 --> 0:15:39.920 some lessons, which is technology can help, and that global 0:15:39.920 --> 0:15:45.280 diplomacy is crucial in making a global problem solvable. But 0:15:45.400 --> 0:15:49.360 then with climate change, we have time, not to say 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:52.200 if you have plenty of time or we have infinite time, 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:54.960 but we have decades and that allows you to think 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:59.320 about that problem differently. In COVID, you kind of needed 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:03.720 one silver bullet solution, You needed a vaccine. In climate, 0:16:04.040 --> 0:16:06.760 you don't have that shortcut. You need all kinds of 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:10.200 solutions to work. And that's a much harder problem in 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:13.120 a way than the COVID vaccine. In some cases, we 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:16.000 also don't kind of have the technology at scale for 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:20.360 some of these problems to be solved. So the parallels exist, 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:25.320 but not enough. And I don't think the failure that 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:28.080 was COVID or the success that was COVID, because you 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:31.800 can slice and dize it either way, will determine whether 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:34.120 we solve the climate problem or not. 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:37.120 It's interesting that you fin I mean, obviously it's different timeframes, 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:40.280 but pandemic was three four years and the next ten 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:42.760 twenty years are like pretty important. You write in the 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:44.800 book about how research and development responds to like a 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:48.040 brute force strategy that like something so important happens, that 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:51.040 everybody mobilizes around something with such urgency that just like 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:53.240 makes it happen, And that is generally what happened with 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:56.960 mRNA vaccines. Don't we need a brute force moment for climate? 0:16:57.040 --> 0:16:59.200 Like it does feel like if we could take a 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:02.040 little of urgency. See that was implied by the pandemic. 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:04.919 It would be more effective because, as you say, that 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:06.719 is the thing that tends to move the ball forward 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:08.479 on technology. 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:11.239 And we kind of have the brute force method in 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:16.159 different places. A ban on selling fossil fuel cars by 0:17:16.200 --> 0:17:19.000 twenty thirty five, which now exists in more than twenty 0:17:19.040 --> 0:17:22.320 countries around the world, including most of the major car markets, 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:26.440 is a brute force strategy, especially if you ask a motorist, 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:29.520 especially if you ask somebody who loves their gasoline car. 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:32.040 At some point, we're going to have to talk about 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:34.720 eating less meat. That's going to sound like a brute 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:39.159 force strategy. And so yes, there are uncomfortable choices that 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:41.400 we have to make, and policy will have to play 0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:44.520 a role there. If you talk to utilities, they're going 0:17:44.560 --> 0:17:47.840 to tell you in the two thousands and twenty tens, 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:50.280 it was a brute force strategy to come in and 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:52.880 say you need to have ten percent renewables in your 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:55.879 mix by this date. Now they look back and they're like, 0:17:56.000 --> 0:17:58.680 of course, duh, it was so easy. But at the 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:01.240 time they also have but their lobby groups coming around 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:03.280 and saying that's not good. We are not going to 0:18:03.320 --> 0:18:07.120 be able to make that transition work. So yes, it's 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:08.840 not a brute for strategy in the sense of a 0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:11.439 COVID vaccine that there will be a silver bullet solution, 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:15.480 but we are starting to apply some of those in 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:18.800 many different parts of the transition. You could very well 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:20.960 argue not enough parts of the transition. 0:18:22.040 --> 0:18:24.639 Let's keep talking about timescale for a second. So also 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:26.880 in the book, you write about how clean tech development 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:30.399 basically operates on a longer timescale than most venture capital 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:32.320 and one of the chapters you go in depth on 0:18:32.359 --> 0:18:35.080 Bill Gates breakthrough Energy ventures, which decided to work in 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:37.800 a twenty year timeframe instead of the typical ten years. 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:41.880 What other aspects of traditional investing do you think need 0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:44.560 to be rethought here or are being rethought in an 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:47.879 era of clean tech being instead of Internet companies. The 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:50.480 dominant thing that is getting a lot of investment. 0:18:50.680 --> 0:18:54.359 A big missing one that I could not have written 0:18:54.359 --> 0:18:57.119 a chapter on because there isn't a successful story around 0:18:57.520 --> 0:19:00.560 is how do you move large amounts of cap We're 0:19:00.560 --> 0:19:03.800 talking tens to one hundreds of billions of dollars from 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:07.000 developed country markets to developing country markets. If you look 0:19:07.040 --> 0:19:10.520 at the energy transition today, You can slice the numbers 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:13.080 many ways, but one way in which you can do 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:16.440 it is see that develop countries are actually spending as 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:19.280 much as is needed on an zero transition. They're not 0:19:19.320 --> 0:19:21.960 spending it in the right way, not in the right places, 0:19:22.000 --> 0:19:25.600 they don't have the right policy mix available. But in 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:28.840 terms of pure capital that money is starting to flow 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:33.680 in developed countries. The gap with developing countries is massive, three, 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:36.879 four or five times as much more money is needed 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:41.280 in developing countries, in the places where energy is not 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:44.680 accessible to hundreds of millions of people, in places where 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:49.280 energy demand is growing, and in places where you can't 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:52.480 tell them not to use the fossil fuels that they 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:56.879 have in their ground. But you can enable them to 0:19:56.920 --> 0:20:00.720 transition faster if you allow for money to flow to 0:20:00.800 --> 0:20:04.840 places where solar is already the cheapest source of electricity. 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:09.080 Except that all these cash bottlenecks and other bottlenecks, but 0:20:09.160 --> 0:20:12.399 definitely cash as one bottleneck that needs to be sorted, 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:15.239 and there isn't a good solution. We're currently in that 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:18.760 place where some experiments are happening. There's the Just Energy 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:21.520 Transition Partnership, which many of the G seven countries are 0:20:21.520 --> 0:20:24.879 trying with South Africa, with Indonesia, with Vietnam. They're messy. 0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:27.520 It's not kind of working right now, but it's at 0:20:27.600 --> 0:20:30.560 least one experiment in moving tens of billions of dollars 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:33.840 to these countries. We'll need many more of those. 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:36.159 When I was trying to think about to answer this 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:38.960 question for myself, are there aspects of the investing mindset 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:40.760 that we would need to change for clean tech? One 0:20:40.760 --> 0:20:42.920 of the things that came to mind for me is failure. 0:20:43.440 --> 0:20:45.560 And I'm thinking here of Cylindro, which, for the listener, 0:20:45.720 --> 0:20:48.440 Cylindro went bankrupt in twenty eleven, and it had received 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:50.880 this five hundred and thirty five million dollar loan from 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:53.720 the US Department of Energy, and it became this huge 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:56.080 talking point for why the Department of Energy should not 0:20:56.119 --> 0:20:58.600 give out loans, even though the Department of Energy also 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:00.840 gave Tesla a big loan which worked out quite well. 0:21:01.359 --> 0:21:03.720 Do you think that there's a lower tolerance for failure 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:05.399