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Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us.

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Speaker 2: Of course, there's a lot going on.

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Speaker 1: I know when we look at the policies surrounding climate change,

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Speaker 1: whether it's slipped down because of conflicts in the Middle East,

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Speaker 1: because of conflicts in Ukraine, and what you're expecting here

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Speaker 1: in Davos.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think there's going to be a lot of

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Speaker 2: fruitful discussion about climate here. I hope we can make

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Speaker 2: some further progress. So you know, the conference in Dubai

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Speaker 2: where you did such great coverage, ended with an agreement

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Speaker 2: to phase out fossil fuels. Some of those who signed

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Speaker 2: up to that pledge are now trying to claim it

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Speaker 2: was optional and trying to walk it back a little bit.

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Speaker 2: But it's an important commitment that must be kept. As

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Speaker 2: for your question, will it fall down the agenda, I

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Speaker 2: don't think so. Mother nature has other intentions. Unfortunately, the

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Speaker 2: climate related extreme weather events, they are underway right now today,

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Speaker 2: every day, every day, and we're continuing to add add

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Speaker 2: a huge additional amount of heat trapping pollution to the

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Speaker 2: sky every single day. The good news is that once

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Speaker 2: we get to true net zero and stop adding, the

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Speaker 2: temperatures will stop going up almost immediately, with a lag

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Speaker 2: of as little as three years, and if we stay

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Speaker 2: at true net zero, half of the human caused greenhouse

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Speaker 2: gas pollution will fall out of the atmosphere and as

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Speaker 2: little as twenty five to thirty years. But getting there.

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Speaker 2: Getting there is very tough. It's a big hit, but

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Speaker 2: it's not an impossible if, because we now have better

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Speaker 2: technologies that are cheaper in almost the entire world without pollution.

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Speaker 2: Decades ago, one of the Saudy energy ministers famously said

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Speaker 2: to his king, we better remember that the Stone Age

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Speaker 2: didn't end because of a shortage of stones. It ended

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Speaker 2: because something better came along. Well, something better has come

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Speaker 2: along to replace fossil fuels. But the power of the

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Speaker 2: fossil fuel industry and the petro states that depend on

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Speaker 2: that revenue has been a major obstacle blocking progress. Little

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Speaker 2: by little, that's beginning to give way. And I want

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Speaker 2: to thank my friend John Kerry for his terrific service

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Speaker 2: to OSCAR, to the US, and I think people around

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Speaker 2: the world am a dead of gratitude for his tireless work.

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Speaker 1: What does John Kerry sipping down mean for efforts on

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Speaker 1: a climate change?

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Speaker 2: Well, he'll be hard to replace because he brought the

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Speaker 2: stature to have the kinds of meetings that a climate

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Speaker 2: envoy needs to have, And of course he shouldn't be

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Speaker 2: judged just by the final result in dubai He's been

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Speaker 2: there for several COPS, and you know in the Summer

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Speaker 2: Olympics when they judge the diving competition, the degree of

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Speaker 2: difficulty has a great deal to do with the final score,

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Speaker 2: and he undertook a tremendously difficult task and really did

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Speaker 2: a terrific job.

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Speaker 1: In my opinion, Vice Present, you've called for the way

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Speaker 1: that COP works to change. Yeah, yeah, Willetts, are people listening.

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Speaker 2: I think they are. It would be it's difficult to

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Speaker 2: change it, but I think the time has come because

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Speaker 2: for one thing, Look, this is the second year in

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Speaker 2: a row we're going to have a petro state hosting

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Speaker 2: the COP with an oil and gas veteran as the

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Speaker 2: president of COP. Come on, I mean really, And the

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Speaker 2: percentage of revenue coming from oil and gas in Azerbaijan,

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Speaker 2: the host of this year's COP, is even larger than

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Speaker 2: what it was in the United Arab Emirates. And it's

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Speaker 2: not that they're bad people or have bad intentions, they

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Speaker 2: just have a structural conflict of interest. Also, There is

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Speaker 2: another problem when the UN selects different regions. They rotate

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Speaker 2: the through regions of the world, as you know, and

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Speaker 2: any nation within that region has a veto power over

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Speaker 2: where the COP can be held. So Russia in this

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Speaker 2: instance said, no, you can't have it in any country

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Speaker 2: that has sane policies. My editorial ad there any NATO country,

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Speaker 2: et cetera, and so it ended up in one of

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Speaker 2: the ancient homes of the petroleum industry. Again, I personally

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Speaker 2: believe that the Secretary General should have joint authority with

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Speaker 2: the host nation to name the president of the COP.

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Speaker 2: Secretary General Gutaris does not want that authority, and I

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Speaker 2: understand that, but I think the time has come to

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Speaker 2: reform this process. The world is getting understandably impatient and

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Speaker 2: frustrated that these conferences are rigged. They're rigged. The deck

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Speaker 2: is stacked in favor of the fossil fuel ends.

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Speaker 1: So we did have agreements, So again, how do you

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Speaker 1: have such.

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Speaker 2: As they are? How as such as they are? There's

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Speaker 2: so many loopholes and so many tricky phrases. And it

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Speaker 2: took twenty eight cops twenty eight years of gods before

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Speaker 2: we even could use the phrase fossil fuelds. The climate

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Speaker 2: crisis is a fossil fueld crisis, That's what it is.

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Speaker 2: And yet it's taken us this long to overcome their

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Speaker 2: resistance and even name the problem.

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Speaker 1: What happens to climate change pledges from the US if

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Speaker 1: President Trump becomes has a second term.

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Speaker 2: Well, first of all, let me say that I think

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Speaker 2: that in spite of the loopholes I mentioned in this agreement,

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Speaker 2: and in spite of the frustration many of the climate

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Speaker 2: advocates such as I have felt about it, nevertheless we

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Speaker 2: see the direction of travel, as they use that phrase

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Speaker 2: for both business and government, shifting inexorably toward low carbon,

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Speaker 2: renewable energy and toward net zero. We see the same

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Speaker 2: thing here at the World Economic Forum. This place is

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Speaker 2: sometimes criticized. It's unique in bringing all kinds of people

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Speaker 2: together in a way that doesn't happen anywhere else. So,

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Speaker 2: and your question was.

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Speaker 1: If President Trump gets to the White House, what does that?

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Speaker 2: First, of course, hope that doesn't happen. There are many

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Speaker 2: of my fellow Americans who who are for him. You know,

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Speaker 2: look at the last time when he became president, we

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Speaker 2: continued the march toward renewable.

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Speaker 1: Energy, the business side on the.

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Speaker 2: Business side, and state governments continued to pursue carbon reduction.

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Speaker 2: Here in Davos, a Republican red state governor from Georgia

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Speaker 2: is leading off but talking about the virtues of electric vehicles.

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Speaker 2: We are seeing with the legislation that President Biden got past,

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Speaker 2: the Inflation Reduction Act, as it's called the biggest climate

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Speaker 2: legislation any nation's ever passed in history. We're seeing a

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Speaker 2: change in the political realities on the ground in the

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Speaker 2: US with the creation of tens of thousands of new

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Speaker 2: jobs in electric vehicles, batteries, wind solar efficiency, green hydrogen,

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Speaker 2: and now some of these Red states in particular, they're

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Speaker 2: now seeing the benefits of all these new jobs being created.

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Speaker 2: It's really changing the reality.

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Speaker 1: Do you think Donald Trump won't try and touch that.

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Speaker 2: I wouldn't even begin to predict what goes on in

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Speaker 2: his calculations. And of course tonight we will see the

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Speaker 2: results of the first contests, which all the pundits teleses

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Speaker 2: likely to win. But in New Hampshire it could be

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Speaker 2: a different story. I'm not a political pundit myself, so

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Speaker 2: I want opine on that, but I don't think even

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Speaker 2: were he to be elected, and I know that kind

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Speaker 2: of looms over many people's calculations these days, even if

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Speaker 2: he were to win, I think we would see a

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Speaker 2: continuation of this progress towards zero carbon