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Energy Gang
What happened at COP 30? The key points on cutting emissions, adapting to a warming world, and raising the finance to pay for it
00:56:45
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- [00:01]
Amy Harder
What I'm about to say is weird at a very high level, but followers of the climate process will understand it. At least there wasn't a successful attempt to add some sort of acknowledging the role of fossil fuels into the future. Things could have been worse, I guess, is what I'm saying. And the fact that it wasn't included I think is a success.
- [00:20]
Simon Evans
Lots of countries saying, guys, we really need to get with the program. This is. We're way off track and hello, you know, fossil fuels are like by far the biggest source of emissions, so we really ought to talk about it again.
- [00:32]
Lisa Jacobson
We're still kind of in a situation where the amount of money that we need is never going to be met in the short term. Like if there are technologies that can be transformative in the way that technology holds promise. We need to look at everything because we are running out of time.
- [00:52]
Ed Crookes
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- [01:27]
Lisa Jacobson
Foreign.
- [01:30]
Ed Crookes
This episode is brought to you by the American Council on Renewable Energy. Based in Washington, D.C. aECOR is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes investment in American clean energy infrastructure, development and innovation. In partnership with a broad membership that spans the energy value chain, AECOR advances the public policies, market research and industry convenings to position the United States as a global leader in clean energy deployment. Whether it's the latest policy and market developments, the legislative and regulatory tracking, industry data and analysis, or marquee events like the Finance Forum in New York or the grid forum in D.C. aCOR unites clean energy investors, developers, energy buyers, power generators, manufacturers and energy providers and more. To learn More about joining ACOR, get to ACOR.com membership. Hello and welcome to the Energy Gang, a discussion show from Wood Mackenzie about the fast changing world of energy. I'm Ed crookes and the COP 30 climate talks in Belem, Brazil are finally over. They concluded at about 1:35pm on Saturday afternoon. Pretty standard for cops. There were about a day later than scheduled and there's been quite a wide range of reactions to the outcomes. Simon Steele, who's the Executive secretary of the UNFCCC sounded reasonably upbeat. He's got the quote here. COP30 showed that climate cooperation is alive and kicking, keeping humanity in the fight for a livable planet with a firm resolve to. To keep 1.5 within reach. I'm not saying we're winning the climate.
- [03:17]
Giampiero Nachi
Fight, but we're undeniably still in it.
- [03:20]
Ed Crookes
And we are fighting back. So that's him on one side, but I've also seen plenty of people describing COP30 as a failure and someone said a form of climate denial in the final statement that came out of the cop. So to discuss which of those views is closer to the truth, I'm drawn by three of our regular comments climate experts on the energy gang. Amy Harder is the national energy correspondent for the news service Axios. Hi, Amy, how are you?
- [03:45]
Amy Harder
I'm doing well. Thanks so much for having me on again.
- [03:47]
Ed Crookes
Yeah, great to have you back. It's also good to welcome back Lisa Jacobson, who's the president of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy in the us. Hello, Lisa.
- [03:56]
Lisa Jacobson
Hello. And it's great to be back with you, too.
- [03:58]
Ed Crookes
Great talking to you. Now, you were actually in Belem, weren't you? You've just got back, I think. That's right.
- [04:02]
Lisa Jacobson
Yes, that is true.
- [04:04]
Ed Crookes
Fantastic. Yeah. We're looking forward to hearing all about your experiences there. And it's also a great pleasure to welcome back Simon Evans, who is the DEP editor of the climate science publication Carbon Brief. Hi, Simon, how are you?
- [04:15]
Simon Evans
Yeah, recovering. Thanks for having me back. It's great to be here.
- [04:20]
Ed Crookes
Yes. Great to have a chance to talk to you. So, look, as I say, I'm interested in kind of digging into exactly what happened at COP30 and how you view the outcome. Perhaps should we start just on those broad kind of headlines of success or failure? How do you view the talks overall? Maybe Amy, start with you. What's your reaction been?
- [04:40]
Amy Harder
Well, you know, I often think in terms of metaphors and I like to run. So, building off what you quoted just a moment ago from Simon Steele, sometimes it's just enough to stay in the race and not fall down and completely fail. And that's what we saw out of Belem. And I think given the backdrop of everything going on geopolitically and the Trump administration and all the ripple effects from America backing out, I think it is, you know, the best climate leaders could hope for at this point.
- [05:19]
Ed Crookes
Simon, what do you think?
- [05:20]
Simon Evans
Yeah, no, I really like that metaphor, Amy. I mean, honestly, I mean, I guess I find it slightly frustrating that every year we have this sort of same conversation. Because the outcome of the COP is always a disappointment. But you know, there's always something in there, right? And sure, it wasn't as, you know, it wasn't nearly as ambitious. You know, the COP president said in the closing plenary he knew that lots of countries had wanted a more ambitious outcome, particularly in relation to fossil fuels, which I'm sure we'll come onto. But, you know, they kept the show on the road. The Brazilians had hoped to wrap things up really early. They wanted to make a really strong punchy statement about how alive and kicking multilateralism was. You know, despite everything that Amy mentioned going on in the world, they didn't manage to do that. They just had a very standard, we're about a day late, but they wrapped it up, they got a deal. You know, lots of people were unhappy, but you know, they kept the ship on the road.
- [06:17]
Ed Crookes
And so Lisa, what do you think that you were there? What did it feel like actually in Belem?
- [06:22]
Lisa Jacobson
Well, just to say, I'll take these two comments on the race analogy and say it's a marathon. This is not a short term endeavor and it's not going to be linear. It's not every year is not going to be breakthrough year. We had several breakthrough years already since Paris and one of them was in Dubai where we completed the global stocktake, acknowledged some really stark scientific findings and the process had to move into another phase. And we'll be in this phase probably for the next decade. So I wouldn't take any one year as a measure of success. There's a lot going on in the atmosphere of the COP that kind of mirrors what you heard from Amy at the start. I mean, there's a lot of churning, there's a lot of anxiety about how the climate is impacting people and how do we recognize that and how can multilateral systems in the modern digital age really function well to serve those needs? I think I left actually continuing to feel like this is a very unique and important forum. But I don't look to it every year to have a breakthrough on negotiations. We had the Paris Agreement and that is the North Star. We are in an implementation and action phase and that's what we found. You know, the Business Council for Sustainable Energy's business members found the most practical, rewarding and moving the ball forward. But I mean, being there the second week in particular, with all the ups and downs with the negotiation and the continued atmosphere being in the Amazon, which, you know, intentionally was a very smart move, I mean, it raised attention to forests. It raised attention to carbon sinks and nature based solutions in ways I think all delegates, unless they'd spent time in the Amazon, were not aware of. And also it was hot. It was just hot everywhere. And you know what, our planet is hot and many people live that way without air conditioning. And so there were maybe some logistical elements that weren't intended, but I don't think they were negative after all, because ultimately that's what we are facing and that's what billions of people live with every day. So you know, being a little uncomfortable is okay. You know, on the other hand, last thought on this is have technology so people don't have to be uncomfortable. We just need to get it in their hands and we to make it more affordable and we need to just protect people from, you know, these disasters we're facing and the heat that billions of people will continue to encounter. So it was mixed, but definitely mixed and left me thinking a lot of different things. And I'll be continuing to reflect on it for the weeks ahead, for sure.
- [09:09]
Ed Crookes
Yeah. And certainly to your point about we have technologies to make people more comfortable and we have technologies to make people more resilient and to protect them against the impacts of climate change. That did seem to be one of the bigger themes coming through was a lot more talk about adaptation, how do we adapt to a warming world. However successful efforts may be to curb emissions, mitigate global warming, it's still the case that the planet is going to continue to get hotter. And we do need to think much more about how we tackle that. And it felt like that was much more on the agenda this time around at cop 30 than it ever has been before. Do you think that's right?
- [09:53]
Lisa Jacobson
I do. I think it's a natural progression of where we've been over the last few years, as well as the Brazilians prioritization of adaptation. But there's still a lot of struggles there. I mean, most of the conversation was about funding and we all know how challenging that is right now, but also essential. So I think they also took great strides under the Brazilian leadership to recognize the private sector. And that's the key to unlocking, making these technologies available is finding ways to drive private capital in this direction and then working with governments and multilateral development banks and others to close the gaps, to make financing more economic for industry or have the right investment environment in certain jurisdictions. But that gave me hope too.
- [10:41]
Amy Harder
One observation I've had about the rise of adaptation in general, but certainly at these annual UN meetings is yes, of course, it's rising on the agenda because it's happening. We are living in a warming world and we have to address the impacts. I also am noticing sort of a parallel structure forming where we have the discussion of mitigation of how to reduce emissions. The discussion of adapting to a warming world is really other than the political leaders, it's a totally different set of people who are responsible for it. You're not looking at new types of startup funded technologies to solve the adaptation problem, at least not historically. Maybe a startup will come around that can solve wildfires in a way that they can scale clean energy. But it'll be interesting to see how these UN meetings unfold in the years and decades to come because it's really two parallel problems that we have to deal with. And I just think that creates a unique challenge because this is such a big issue.
- [11:49]
Ed Crookes
Right. And so that's really then at the heart, I think, of one of the key issues at COP 30 which was this question of climate finance, which is meant to be both finance for mitigation, cutting emissions and also for adaptation. And as you say Amy, in large part, as far as we know at the moment, adaptation is not one of those things that can be fixed by the clever application of technology. Maybe sometimes it can. Things like new air conditioning technologies, some of the things that are possible with AI in terms of weather forecasting and analyzing risk and that kind of thing can make contributions. But a lot of the time it's just fire prevention, clearing away vegetation, it's building flood defences. It's a lot of kind of large scale civil engineering projects. And it is things that often don't have an immediate commercial return. So they're hard to finance. And so governments have to get involved. And the thing that we've been hearing from low income countries is that they badly need significantly larger flows of capital from higher income countries in order to be able to finance both adaptation and mitigation. And that was a big issue on the agenda at COP 29 in Baku a year ago there was this call for a trillion dollars a year or more of climate finance to flow. In the end the commitment was for just 300 billion DOL dollars a year and that was only going to be achieved by 2035. There was a lot of pressure then to get that on the agenda again here at COP30 and to make some real progress on that. What happened in the end? I mean Simon, you've been following this, I think in terms of what was actually agreed. Has there been any shift in climate finance?
- [13:35]
Simon Evans
Yeah, so I mean A couple of reflections before I go on to what they talked about in Belem. One of the things that strikes me is, I mean, you talked about what it actually takes to start adapting to climate change. In a way, it's not totally dissimilar with mitigation, rolling up your sleeves, getting your hands dirty, financing projects, getting stuff built. You can't do that. You can't sort those things out in a negotiating hall with 200 countries. So in this phase that we're in with the Paris agreement, it's been around for 10 years and it's supposed to be one of the big things that the Brazilians wanted to emphasize was this idea that we're now moving into an implementation phase. And so the expectation put on the COP to be this big bang moment where you somehow solve everything. Like that just doesn't. That just doesn't track. When you're talking about individual projects, you know, individual flood defences or, you know, early warning systems for extreme weather events, whatever it might be. All of those things, you know, are much more granular, much more kind of country led. That sort of strikes me as quite interesting. The other thing is just that in terms of, you know, people wanted absolutely to talk about finance, particularly finance for adaptation. But as you said, we had this big new collective goal for climate finance agreed in Baku last year. And so like, in a sense, you know, we had, you know, we had the finance COP last year. And so this year was meant to be like the adaptation cop, and they were meant to be agreeing these indicators for how do you measure progress towards, you know, being adapted around the world? Then that kind of agenda got slightly hijacked from two different directions. So you had one lot of people saying, well, hey, come on guys, if you want us to talk about measuring progress on adaptation, how are we going to make progress if we don't have any money for this? So that was from one side, from developing countries saying, well, if we're going to talk about starting to have indicators of progress on adaptation, then guys got a pony up and actually help us with the money to do it. And then on the other side, you had a lot of developed and vulnerable countries, small island states saying, actually, do you know what, guys? Adaptation. That's great, we can talk about that. But we still really need to talk about mitigation, we still need to talk about cutting emissions. We've just had this big round of new climate pledges and we're still way off track. And then you can see how these different groups start to feel put out because they're like, guys, we were going to be talking about adaptation. And they're like, sure, but we've just had this synthesis report from the UN and it says we're way off track. We really should talk about that too. So you've got all this. That's how you end up with a real mess. So coming back to your question, specifically, what they agreed was the decision text that came out of the cop was a call to triple adaptation finance by 2035. Now when you're looking at legal text from the UN, you have to read it really carefully. They helpfully put all of the verbs in italics and they do that for a really good reason because the choice of the verb is really, really important. So calls on it, calls on parties, effectively calls on all of the countries to triple adaptation finance. And calls on is literally the most weak and woolly version of verb that they could possibly have chosen. There's literally a menu of verbs that you can choose for specific types of sentence in a legal text. And calls on is at the bottom. So that's the first thing to say. They call on parties to triple adaptation finance by 2035. Now, the developing countries, a big group of them had said that they wanted, not only did they want it by 2030, a tripling, but they also wanted a specific number. So they wanted tripling to $120 billion a year. We've got this much vaguer thing now, which is tripling from an unknown baseline, which is probably 2025, but we don't know, and it's all quite vague. And calls on.
- [17:24]
Ed Crookes
Right. And of course, in terms of a parallel, you think back to the original climate finance pledge all the way back in the 2000s. When was that? 2008, I think that was first conceived. Or maybe 2009, which was meant for $100 billion a year to flow from higher income to lower income countries. That target of 100 billion a year was only hit right at the end of the 10 year period, didn't it? It took more than a decade to actually get those amounts to flow. And so as you say, if the language is kind of calls on, it's the weaker kind of language that does not presumably inspire a lot of confidence in this money actually flowing.
- [18:06]
Simon Evans
I mean, I guess we'll see ultimately what this comes down to at the end of the negotiations. The way it was was the EU was saying we really wanted to talk about mitigation, we really wanted to talk about fossil fuel roadmaps, getting off fossil fuels. And sure, we can be pushed, you can push our red lines on adaptation finance. We can go firmer and faster, but only if you agree to something on fossil fuels. And that became the ultimate standoff at the end. And since there was a complete, you know, very, very firm red line on fossil fuels from, you know, lots of quite, you know, quite a number of countries, that meant that we ended up with the woolly language on adaptation finance.
- [18:46]
Amy Harder
I just think, you know, money is what it all comes down to. And going back to my previous comments about adaptation and mitigation sort of having these two diverging paths. I will be watching when it happens next year in Turkey, which has been decided, you know, how does the debate begin pitting adaptation dollars against mitigation dollars? There's only so much money to go around. We've already seen a big debate about public health dollars and climate dollars. And I think that's something that could likely happen. And it raises the question of, well, how should clean energy be developed in lower income countries? And the argument has been, well, rich countries will develop it and it'll just work out that it'll then be deployed in low. And that's far from a guarantee. I think we could very much see clean energy technology be deployed in richer part of the world while poorer countries remain based on fossil fuels, as we've seen. Lastly, I also worry that to the degree money goes into adaptation, it'll be the richer countries that can deploy novel technology to put out the wildfires, for example, leaving lower income countries further behind. And you know, this is the sticking point and you know, the one random topic to throw in there, but it's relevant from a cost perspective, is that the sudden rise in discussion about solar geoengineering and how that promises to be a controversial but very affordable way to lower the global temperature. And we've already seen some discussion of that in the last few weeks and I anticipate it'll be a bigger part of our conversation going forward.
- [20:31]
Ed Crookes
And this is the idea of what putting some, is it hydrogen sulfide? What is the, the product you'd put in the air?
- [20:38]
Giampiero Nachi
Right.
- [20:38]
Amy Harder
It would be a type of pollution particle that dims the sun in a way that would lower the global temperature temporarily. Now, there's been a lot of science on this and I don't want us to get too off track because this is certainly a can of worms, but at a high level it's a very affordable technology that we already basically know how to deploy. And I just worry and wonder how that that juggernaut will enter the conversation.
- [21:08]
Ed Crookes
Yes. Are we really seeing any government starting to take that seriously, though. It feels like one of those ideas that occasional sort of scientists, some somewhat fringe thinkers, maybe some of the tech entrepreneurs like the idea of it because it seems like a kind of a technological fix to climate change. Do you think it's actually going to move towards the policy mainstream?
- [21:30]
Amy Harder
I think it is. I'm working on a story about it right now. You're seeing startups be invested in that would aim to do this. I think you often see governments as a lagging indicator. So you're seeing sort of entrepreneurs and scientists inching toward this and then governments will inevitably have to address it. And I'm just suddenly seeing it everywhere and just in the media, I think the Atlantic and the New Yorker and magazine all in the last week have had major articles about it. I interviewed Bill Gates about it a couple weeks ago and my story will feature his comments. I'm just seeing a shift here and it's a significant one that we should watch closely.
- [22:12]
Ed Crookes
Wow. Okay. Yeah, that is definitely going to be something to watch. We should come back to that. Definitely on a future show, I think. Hello, Ed here. If you like Energy Gang and you want to go deep into the world of climate solutions, I have a recommendation for you. Zero is a podcast about tech tactics and big ideas on climate and energy. It's hosted by our friend Akshat Rathi, who you may remember from the show in the past. He's a senior climate reporter at Bloomberg Green. You'll hear conversations with world leaders such as Mia Motley, billionaire green tech investors including Vinod Khosla, and CEOs of ExxonMobil, Uber, Siemens Energy and many plucky climate startups as well, all grappling with the ups and downs of the energy transition? New episodes drop every Thursday. Search for Zero from Bloomberg wherever you get your podcasts. Got power? At Hythium, we make sure the answer is always yes. Recognized seven times as a B&F Tier 1 best provider and ranked top two globally for battery shipments for 2025, Heum delivers safe, reliable and profitable energy solutions that keep the clean energy transition powering forward. Let green energy benefit all trusted worldwide. Built to last. Discover more at www.Hythium.com and let's talk energy that works for good. Just going back though, to Amy's point, Lisa, about sort of there's a finite pool of dollars and these can be allocated between mitigation and adaptation. What about the impact of the falling cost of low carbon energy? Is it not the case that because Costs of low carbon energy, particularly renewables, have fallen very significantly and continue to fall. And those costs are very often lower in low and middle income countries than they are in developed countries where all sorts of issues often add to the complexity of getting projects developed and so on. Doesn't that mean that you will continue to see a transition to lower carbon energy and therefore a curbing of emissions growth, at least, if not actual reductions in emissions and maybe also in time reductions in emissions coming in those low and middle income countries, so that actually the need for large transfers of resources from higher income countries to lower income countries to pay for investment in renewables and so on is actually going away. I know. What do you think?
- [24:42]
Lisa Jacobson
I wouldn't necessarily tie both of those things together. I think in theory, right, as we deploy more low and zero carbon technologies, as those costs have come down, we get more for every dollar invested, we get more output for that. So yes, but I think the amount of investment is, we're still kind of in a situation where the amount of money that we need is never going to be met in the short term. We need so much investment in infrastructure and in the energy sector globally to just give energy access to the billions of people that don't have it, that we are like far behind on just that metric of providing energy access. But thinking about what Amy was saying and this question about dollars spent and are we going to run into a situation where we have really a strong competition? Probably always should have been a strong competition, but in the past decade it's really been mitigation and adaptation has been secondary or even below secondary in terms of prioritization. But I think the way our industries look at it, they look at what can we get multiple benefits for now, is this going to solve all the adaptation problems? No, but there are certain aspects of adaptation where you can get mitigation and adaptation at the same time and you can do it very affordably and you can get public health benefits. And I'm thinking about building technologies, for example, buildings, 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions. It's where people shelter, it's where people live, it's where people can be made more comfortable if we do this right. So that's just one example where we do have commercially available technology. Now, of course there are still issues with making sure that all countries have the resources to make those investments, but we need to look at all technologies. And back to Amy's point, yes, I mean, I think if there are technologies that can be transformative in the way that technology holds promise, we need to look at everything because we are running out of time.
- [26:46]
Ed Crookes
And to your point, Lisa, that you were making earlier about the role of the private sector, there's a very interesting report I saw which McKinsey contributed some data analysis to, I think from the Climate Policy Initiative, talking about the importance of equity investment and talking about how really for low income countries it's actually much more important to get equity investment to flow for climate mitigation, for emissions reduction in particular. And clearly then the way you can do that is if you have commercially viable projects that the private sector wants to invest in. Do you think we're seeing progress in that? Is it actually becoming more appealing for the private sector to invest in low carbon energy in lower income countries around the world?
- [27:34]
Lisa Jacobson
I think what they need as a foundation is just basic fundamentals to protect their investments. So they need regulatory, legal certainty, they need known and trusted partners, they need to cut down risk. So I think the appetite is there. It's just they need, you know, where you're going to see investment is where you have all that full package together. And what's happening much more now than say 10 years ago is all the parties in the investment community are looking to fill those risk gaps and that is what is exciting. So I think the next several years will be telling, but I think that message is also much clearer now. And I think the role of the Paris Agreement and the nationally determined contributions, those are three words nobody like outside the climate world would even pay attention to. But basically like national climate plans that have been proposed and reproposed, that drives this conversation about what are the enabling environments for investment. I can tell you, like my first 15 years in the process, that's what the business community was talking about and they weren't as willing to kind of see, be creative and think outside their comfort zone. But countries, all countries, were kind of, well, you should just come and meet us where we are. And now there's much more of a convergence of the two worlds. So I think what's going to make it more accelerated in developing countries is going to be the recognition of what it takes to attract investment in a sustained manner.
- [29:11]
Amy Harder
I think one big elephant in the room in this component is China. And China is fast moving to deploy. It's been doing this for decades. But deploying its clean energy around the world, we're seeing it even more. I think Pakistan is a great example of where solar energy is growing because it's getting solar panels from China extremely cheap. And this opens up a whole new conversation of how does the world decide about how much it wants to depend on China versus moving fast on clean energy. And we did see China step somewhat into the void of the US this cop. I would love to hear more from Simon and Lisa on that. But, you know, we also heard from some China officials there that they were disappointed that the US has stepped back. So it's not like China is trying to, you know, take over everything the US was doing in terms of global leadership. But they've, you know, so that's one big trend that I'm seeing. And then, you know, with us being the world's biggest producer of oil and gas, you know, there's really a stark choice right there.
- [30:15]
Ed Crookes
Yeah, great point. So what is your sense of it, Simon? How did you see the role of China at COP30?
- [30:20]
Simon Evans
Yeah, it's really fascinating. So my colleague Annika Patel, our China analyst, basically spent the first week in Belem camped out in the China Pavilion. I mean, not literally, but more or less. And she was really just really closely watching for the signals. How are they talking about this? There were so many newspaper articles in the run up to COP about is China going to step into a leadership role? Now the US is stepping back, is it going to be about China cooperating with the global South? And I mean, it's quite fascinating in a way, because that sort of climate finance conversation, mitigation finance particularly, I think people say that and then you immediately think, oh, well, this is about the west giving money to poor countries to invest in renewables or whatever. And sure, actually to the point about, is this a trade off with adaptation finance? EU Climate Commissioner Hoekstra said very explicitly after the summit, sure, we're going to raise adaptation finance, but that's not going to be a bigger bill for EU taxpayers. We're just going to basically put money that was going towards other things, towards adaptation instead. So there's that going on and this lack of sufficient climate finance from developed countries. But then on the other hand, you've got this, this, as Amy says, this huge kind of surge of clean energy exports from China. We published some really fascinating analysis earlier in the year looking at exactly where those exports are going. And I can tell you it's literally every, you know, all around the world, but particularly big, big developing countries, Brazil, Malaysia, Pakistan. You mentioned already Saudi Arabia is a fascinating one. Not just solar panels, but huge investments by Chinese firms in solar panel factories because Saudi Arabia burns tons of oil to generate electricity and they've worked out that solar's so cheap they might as well generate solar Power and then they can sell more, the more of the oil overseas. Right. So I mean, you know that, that is like such a, you know, so, so sort of regardless of what China is actually saying at the cop, you know, how much of a leadership role, you know, so, so to be clear, Annika said she was watching very carefully and they, they deliberately avoided saying anything about leadership. The people talking about Chinese leadership in the China Pavilion were not chines. People like Selwyn Hart, one of the kind of UN climate people talking about Chinese leadership. The Chinese themselves didn't want to talk about that. But then what they're doing on the ground, no matter what they're doing in the negotiating halls, what they're doing on the ground is actually making already a really big difference to emissions around the world.
- [32:55]
Ed Crookes
Yeah, that is really fascinating and actually as you say, Saudi Arabia, really fascinating example. I watched on YouTube recently a speech that was given by Saudi Arabia's energy minister at their Future Investment forum in Riyadh two, three weeks ago. And the whole subject that he wanted to talk about was power and in particular how Saudi Arabia had this incredible low cost power generation. And he highlighted low cost wind and low cost solar as two of the prime examples of that. So as you say, it's really interesting the way that the transition to lower carbon energy is cropping up in perhaps some unexpected parts of the world. I mean, to your point about, about China and talking about Chinese leadership, I mean you, you were saying that China didn't talk about being a leader. China almost talked in the opposite and they had about, you know, there was, I saw a statement from someone saying China does not want to be a leader, doesn't want to go ahead of everybody else in cutting emissions. And of course, anytime anyone talks about Chinese climate leadership, you always get the pushback in terms of, well, look how much new coal fired generation capacity they're building. What's it, 48 gigawatts, I think they added last year and so on. So put it this way, it's a mixed picture, is it not, that in some respects China is advancing a transition to a low carbon future? In some respects it absolutely isn't. I don't know. Lisa, what do you think?
- [34:16]
Lisa Jacobson
Well, I just keep looking at the data year after year, see that the United States is number two to China in global energy transition investment and then you look at the list and see who's next. So they are leaders, depending on the metrics. But I agree it's a very complex situation and I still hold hope, especially driven by the sub national leaders that represent much more than half of the US GDP and more than half of the US population. They were there as well, representing what they're doing on the ground in their states and jurisdictions. We're not out of it. You know, the US Is in the game.
- [34:55]
Ed Crookes
So Simon, I want to go back to something else you were talking about. You talked about the language around fossil fuels and transitioning away from fossil fuels. This clearly was a very contentious issue, as you were saying, Lisa, in that last week of the talks in particular, there was a big push from a large number of countries. I think it was more than 80 countries that wanted a commitment to saying something about transitioning away from fossil fuels in the final statement in the end. And that didn't appear there after the strong resistance from a number of other countries to putting that in. Does this whole debate matter at all, do you think? I mean, I think the fact that there was no language on transitioning away from fossil fuels was taken by some people to be evidence of another failure at COP 30. Simon, what do you think?
- [35:42]
Simon Evans
Well, I'd say very quickly to recap for your listeners in case they're not up on where this strange phrase transitioning away from fossil fuels actually came from. Lisa, you mentioned earlier on about the global stocktake. This is under the Paris Agreement that every five years we collectively have a moment to reflect and see how we're doing. And that concluded in Dubai at COP28 two years ago. One of the things that they agreed coming out of that stocktake was this phrase that everyone was meant to contribute to a global transition away from fossil fuels amongst a list of other things like tripling renewables and so on. And that in itself had been hard fought over because lots of countries wanted phase out fossil fuels. Then other people said how about phase down? And then they went off into a back room somewhere and someone smart came up with a slightly different word that everyone could agree to. So that's where transition away came from. And everyone agreed to it. Right. It was in Dubai, it was in the uae, it's a petro state. People didn't necessarily expect that to happen. So that was seen as quite a big moment, a big breakthrough. And then since then we've had these kind of repeated flare ups of can we agree to say again what we said back then two years ago? And so to your question, does that matter? I mean, I guess people see the fact that countries that signed up to that two years ago are no longer willing to say it again and they say, well, that's Backsliding, what's changed? Is it the geopolitics? Is it the state of the energy transition? What is it? That's meaning that they're no longer willing to restate that, that. But you know, this wasn't something that was meant to be on the agenda at this cop. It was just as I mentioned, you know, I said, you know, lots of countries saying, guys, we really need to get with the program. This is, we're way off track and hello, you know, fossil fuels are like by far the biggest source of emissions. So we really ought to talk about it again. I mean, you know, it doesn't matter. You know, I guess it comes back to that thing about you can't negotiate in the blue zone at the cop, you can't negotiate away coal fired power stations in China, you can't negotiate away petrol cars in the States. So I don't know whether it really matters. I guess what we will be watching over the next months ahead is what happens now because there wasn't an agreement to have that as part of the formal legal text that came out of the cop. But the Brazilian COP presidency did say that they would launch some sort of process, some sort of way to develop a roadmap away from fossil fuels with I guess a coalition of the willing. What exactly that looks like, what it amounts to, I don't know, but we will find out soon, I suppose.
- [38:18]
Amy Harder
Yeah, I think it matters a lot actually, just to provide a different opinion. I think it matters what the words that they include and whether or not they include fossil fuels. I think it was very significant two years ago. I remember talking with you about this two years ago, Ed, and I thought it was a big deal then. And what I'm about to say is weird at a very high level, but followers of the climate process will understand it at least there wasn't a successful attempt to add some sort of acknowledging the role of fossil fuels into the future. Things could have been worse, I guess, is what I'm saying. And the fact that it wasn't included, you know, obviously isn't what a lot of people wanted. But the fact that there wasn't some additional language that really tried to reverse what was agreed to in Dubai, I think is a success insofar as finishing the race is a success. To go back to that metaphor, I think in the world we're living in, it is not outside the realm of possibility that some actors, whether it's the Saudis or, you know, if the Trump administration were to have been there, I would have guessed would have definitely tried to insert some line about how fossil fuels are important to humanity going forward. That's what they tried to do the first time around with their. The panel discussion they held about the importance of coal. So I think that's a success insofar as it wasn't something positive about fossil fuels wasn't included. And I think that's significant.
- [39:42]
Ed Crookes
Right. So another issue that could be read in a couple of different ways, I think, is this question of the NDCs that Lisa mentioned. So these new nationally determined contributions, the commitments from different countries to cut their emissions, that was meant to be originally the key focus for this COP was an update of every country's ndc, making it more ambitious to put the world on track for an emissions pathway that would lead to achieving the Paris Goals for limiting global warming. When you look at what actually came out, both in the reviews of existing NDCs and the new commitments that were made, there were quite a lot of new commitments. I think there were 86 new NDCs were out there, weren't there?
- [40:31]
Simon Evans
No, we're up to something more like 120 something by now. I think a lot came in really late.
- [40:35]
Ed Crookes
Oh, wow, okay. Right, right, okay. So a lot more NDCs were out there, but it is the case, I think I'm right in saying this, aren't I, that there is not a single major economy that is on course to meet its goals under its NDC for reducing emissions by 2030. And even if you take all these NDCs, and I think this probably includes all the new ones you're talking about, Simon, there is still a trajectory for global emissions that is not on track to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement even after all these new NDCs have been published. Is that right?
- [41:11]
Simon Evans
Yep. That's 100%, right. I don't know if it's exactly 15%, but it's of that order. I mean, I guess what I would say is that during the cop, the UN climate body published an update on their assessment of where these new pledges gets us. And they published a really great graph with that. I think I'd encourage your listeners to find. Was shared on social media by Simon Steele and it basically shows, you know, because, sure, like only cutting emissions 15% by 2035 or 12%, whatever it is. That sounds pretty bad. You know, we're still, still pretty much on track for about two and a half degrees of warming, give or take, depending on who you ask. But the reason this graph was, I think, really good, was that it showed where we were headed 10 years ago. And effectively, you won't be able to see this if you're just listening, but we had this graph going way up into the sky and it was heading for four degrees, three and a half, four degrees. And now we've got this graph which is like, sure, flattening off, starting to go down a bit now, not going down nearly as steeply as we would need to if we wanted to get back to 1 1/2 degrees of warming by the end of the century. But significant progress nonetheless.
- [42:20]
Lisa Jacobson
And I would say, I mean, of course not all of those policies will be enacted, but there'll be new things that we can't think about. And if we really were to scale enough to reduce our emissions globally by 10 to 15% in the next decade, we would have dynamic impacts that we can't forecast now. So that assumes a very static snapshot in time view. And I think the key thing is that we keep moving forward. And as you've said repeatedly, Ed, these technologies in many cases are less expensive than they were five or 10 years ago. They're much more readily available and they are deployable and understood by the marketplace. And so we're in a much different position than we were 10 years ago. And I can't rattle off necessarily all the stats that I heard over the two weeks, but that's certainly one that Simon talked about. In 10 years, we did make a difference, and it wasn't an insignificant difference, it was a big difference. But then there are many other metrics we can look at and it's because we are driving in this direction. We have an annual accountability in a range of forums, but in particular at the cop, where people come and say, this is where I'm at and this is where my problems are and this is where I need help. And you know, we need that transparency over time. So I think that's what's important about this. And it's not just large emitters, it is potentially any country that wants to have a voice. And we don't have another setting where that can occur.
- [43:47]
Ed Crookes
Right. So we've talked about adaptation, we've talked about climate finance, we've talked about the NDCs, about their statement on fossil fuels. Interested in kind of final thoughts? How did this leave you feeling about the effort on climate change overall and the world's ability to address this? We're going to be back here again. I'm sure it'd be great to talk to all of you again a year from now after Cop. 31, it's going to be in Turkey. How hopeful are you that the world is actually making any real progress on this issue? Amy, what are your thoughts?
- [44:23]
Amy Harder
I am going back to the running metaphor and Lisa's comment that this is a marathon. When you run a marathon, it's not like you run every single mile at the exact same pace. So I don't know where we're at in the marathon, but we're not done. And, you know, we finished this tough round and I think it's an important realignment and readjustment to the political realities, and I like to think in stark terms. So on a scale of one to 10, how hopeful am I? I'm on a six or seven. Maybe five or six. Somewhere between five and seven. That's where I would put my final answer.
- [44:58]
Ed Crookes
Yeah, that's pretty good. That's, you know, I think greater than 50%. I don't hate those odds. Simon, what do you think? What's your score?
- [45:06]
Simon Evans
I mean, I think I'm in quite a similar place to Amy. I mean, listen, we should be really clear about this. Two and a half degrees of warming is really, really bad. Right. We're already seeing pretty disastrous impacts around the world in terms of extreme weather events and so on at nearly one and a half degrees. So we're not heading to a good place. But genuinely, we're doing a lot better than we could have been. And there's always the potential to keep going further. Right?
- [45:31]
Ed Crookes
Right.
- [45:32]
Simon Evans
It's not over. We're not doomed to two and a half degrees. We can keep making progress. I think next year is going to be fascinating because there's this very complicated arrangement between Turkey and Australia, who both wanted to host the cop. It's going to be in Turkey, but Australia is going to be president of negotiations. Although technically I believe Turkey is still going to be sort of holding the gavel, you know, the literal gavel that they bring down at the end of the summit. It'll be fascinating to watch. Also really interesting is that Australia was one of the countries pushing for a roadmap away from fossil fuels. And I understand this is, you know, that this isn't completely confirmed, but I'm pretty sure that Turkey was on a list that hasn't yet been made public of countries that were opposing a roadmap away from fossil fuels. So just right there off the bat, you can see that there's potential for complexity next year. But, you know, this is messy, as Lisa said, it's not linear. So, yeah, it's always fascinating and I guess that's why it's a great area to be working and writing about.
- [46:30]
Lisa Jacobson
Well, I would just say, I mean, the gravity of the situation definitely weighs on me. I just got back today, so the day that we're recording this, so it's still very much front of mind, but the process showed persistence and resiliency and it's an institution. Right. It's not the goal in and of itself. It's a facilitating process to help governments and people tackle an extremely complex set of challenges. So I think I'm glad, as Amy said, we didn't see any significant backsliding and we're just going to have to keep focused on driving ahead.
- [47:07]
Ed Crookes
Yeah. And certainly it's going to be great to keep talking to you all and to see how much progress, what progress is made when we come to the next next COP and beyond. Many thanks, Amy.
- [47:19]
Amy Harder
You're very welcome. Thanks again for having me on.
- [47:21]
Ed Crookes
Many thanks, Lisa.
- [47:22]
Lisa Jacobson
Thank you.
- [47:22]
Ed Crookes
Many thanks, Simon.
- [47:23]
Simon Evans
Thanks. Great to talk with you all.
- [47:25]
Ed Crookes
Yeah, it's been great talking to you all. So we were talking in that conversation about climate finance and the need to mobilize capital to pay for climate adaptation and emissions reduction in low and middle income countries. To dig into that subject in more detail, I talked to Jen Piero, now Gianci, who is the managing director for climate strategy and Delivery at the European bank for Reconstruction and Development, the ebrd. Hello, Gian Piero, welcome to the show.
- [47:52]
Giampiero Nachi
Good afternoon. How are you?
- [47:54]
Ed Crookes
Yeah, very good, thanks. Very good. Great to see you. So you've just been at cop 30. Do you want to just tell us a little bit about your general impressions of the conference? I've seen contrasting views about COP30. I saw Simon Steele, the executive secretary of the UNFCCC, saying that climate cooperation is alive and kicking, keeping humanity in the fight for a livable planet. That was his quote. But I've also seen people describe the talks as a complete failure that didn't really make any real progress on all the big issues relating to climate change that they were supposed to be tackling. What's your sense of it?
- [48:30]
Giampiero Nachi
Well, I would distinguish, I would say from the negotiations, the formal negotiations and the rest of the event. Maybe let me start from the latter component because, you know, it was a very well attended COP with many people from the financial sector from of course the country representation, country delegates, but also civil society. I haven't seen a COP so well contributed and participated as this one.
- [48:57]
Ed Crookes
Right.
- [48:57]
Giampiero Nachi
The demonstration, for example, outside were very welcomed by the participants because they brought a Positive energy and also managed to bring to the attention of the participants what the real issues are and the very fact to be in Belem, I guess everybody. Again, we're looking into Belem with a mix of curiosity and perhaps also trying to understand what the city would look like and, you know, how the whole setting would look like. And okay, despite some, a bit of troubles at the beginning, and we know about the fire. But I must say that first of all, the city itself was very well prepared, very welcoming. There was a very positive environment within and outside the cop. So that part, I think, was very positive. A lot of people, a lot of interactions at all levels when it comes to the negotiations. I think both sides have a point because I believe Simon is right. Ultimately an outcome has been delivered. Certainly a few important topics were high in the agenda. Of course, the launch of the Tropical Forever Forestry Fund, which is set, I think, an important precedent in terms of. Of rewarding environmental services. Equally. The final outcome, while perhaps a bit below expectation, particularly when it comes to fossil fuel exit, but at the same time clearly advanced the awareness and the importance of looking at pathways for exiting fossil fuel. So the fact that many, many countries ultimately pushed in this direction, I think was a positive signal and to an extent, unprecedented. It's not the first time that it's been talked about, but the first time there was such a coalition of countries from advanced, from developing countries. So that coalition, in my view, is a positive signal, but also would represent a core of interactions and convergence which in my view provides a lot of hopes for the. For coming cop, but also, you know, between now and cop 31. The other positive signal, I believe was a strong emphasis on adaptation. This was a topic that was discussed across, you know, multiple conversations, multiple events, and clearly this aim to increase substantial adaptation finance was very central in many conversations. And I can tell you that was also the pressure that as MDBs were being exposed to because, you know, clearly there is a significant ask for MDBs to step up on adaptation finance.
- [51:21]
Ed Crookes
Yes. So MDBs for people who might not know, multilateral development banks. So that is, including the ebrd. Yeah, let's talk a little bit about that adaptation finance then. So. So you had a statement on that. As you say, it does seem to be an area where a lot of people are calling for these multilateral development banks to do more. Not least because adaptation finance is, according to people I talk to in the private sector very often, something the private sector finds really difficult to do. It's hard to design and develop projects that have an Obvious commercial return to them, which is the kind of thing obviously that that a private sector bank likes to finance. Is that right do you think? Is that why there is a particular role for these MDBs in that area of adaptation?
- [52:07]
Giampiero Nachi
I think there is and I think we've been quite clear both in terms of activity and outcomes, but also in terms of signals that we provided before and during the cop in terms of the concrete outcomes. You may have seen that the MDBs, the Multilateral Development banks, we issued a statement on the Monday on the 10th of November where we ultimately reiterated our commitments to do more adaptation. We shared some of the climate finance results of 2024. We showed that strong progress in the provision of adaptation finance, particularly towards low and middle income countries. But it's true that while the economic case for adaptation investment is increasingly clear, the commercial clays is more difficult to make. So that's an area where we need to work more substantially.
- [52:58]
Ed Crookes
And how do you interpret this increased focus on adaptation then? Does it reflect a recognition that the goals of the Paris Agreement are not going to be met? That actually global warming is going to exceed 2 degrees C? Goal of the Paris Agreement was to limit it to well below 2 degrees. And so. So if that is the case, if we are on course for significant warming still to come, we are just going to have to adapt to that. And that's why let's say there is this increased demand for adaptation finance.
- [53:31]
Giampiero Nachi
Well, I would not put necessarily the question in this way because it is not a zero sum game. At the end of the day we need to do as much as we can to limit the emissions of greenhouse gases. At the same time, indeed invest in preparing the cities, the businesses, the infrastructure we have to deal with global warming. So the way I see it, first of all, yes, there is an issue in terms of maintaining the temperature goal well below 2 degrees. We know that much more needs to be done. There are some positive signs. For example, the very substantial growing of renewable energy capacity that that's been installed in the last few years, last year in particular, and that trend is not stopping. So that's a positive sign. It's true that clearly the emissions are not declining to the extent that we want, but we should continue to work in that direction. As I said before, the signal about the fossil fuel pathway in my view is a positive one that will probably continue to coalesce interest from many, many countries. Now what I would like also to reflect because clearly Paris Agreement has some objectives, but as a framework continues to represent a valid operational and policy framework because ultimately push the responsibility on countries, but also provide the mechanisms for trying to support international cooperation, for example, including in terms of the development of the carbon market. So the Paris Agreement per se, I think has still the structure and the type of component that can deliver. Clearly it's about the willingness of individual countries and alliance of countries to ultimately act upon it. And when it comes to adaptation finance, certainly the need to invest more is just not a matter of finance. It's also a matter of regulation, it's a matter of planning. But there's also an element of a improved risk assessment, tools and models that are recognized by the market so that the whole financial sector can recalibrate its risk analysis to reflect physical climate risk. But it's also an element of improving the way regulation works, standards and planning. So what I'm trying to say, it's not only a matter of investment, it's also a matter of an entire system which is still behind. Because if we look at adaptation, it's probably where mitigation was, I don't know, ten years ago. Right. In terms of the understanding of the implications and how ultimately policy, regulation and market mechanisms can play a role in shifting the direction of travel.
- [56:13]
Ed Crookes
Yeah, no, that's a really interesting point. So you mentioned COP31 earlier. When we look ahead to COP31 a year from now, what do you think are going to be the crucial items on the agenda then? And what do you think is going to be important for the global effort on climate change to address between now and then?
- [56:33]
Giampiero Nachi
So three main output of COP30, you know, the report of the circle of Finance Minister, the report of the high level expert group on climate finance and the Baku to Belem roadmap. All these three reports, they do three things. You know, first of all, they define the direction of travel in terms of climate finance in a much more rigorous ways than in the past. Second, they give clear signals where the money needs to be deployed. And third, they speak to the private sector. Not only they speak to of course, the policymakers, but they also speak to the private sector. And this particular last point is particularly important in my view because we see an appetite for private investors to have a clear direction of travel and the clear identification of which investments are needed and when. The role that these three reports together will play in my view is going to be quite substantial and we'll see things happening in the next year. So I really hope that the Turkish and Australian authorities are going to really build on these three reports and focus on the implementation. And the second reason of, you know, mild optimism is also indeed goes into the, you know, quite unusual process that is going to happen in COP31 because it's hosted by Turkey. But at the same time, the negotiation is going to be led by Australia. And the combined convening power of Turkey and Australia, in my view, can be extremely powerful. You have a country that speaks to the emerging economies, that is integrated with many processes. Then you have Australia, which is, of course an advanced economy, but also with a strong exposure, direct or indirect, to the effect of climate change. So I hope that the combination of the leadership of Australian authorities, Turkish authorities, will ultimately create that momentum to address some of the elements that have emerged at COP30 in Belem but haven't been fully materialized.
- [58:38]
Ed Crookes
Yes, that's a great point. It certainly is going to be interesting to see how that unusual structure plays out a year from now. And I hope you'll come back on the Energy Gang to talk to us about it then and talk about what progress has been made in climate finance. For now, though, Giampir and Nachi, thanks very much indeed. Great talking to you.
- [58:54]
Giampiero Nachi
Thank you very much. All the best.
- [59:00]
Ed Crookes
And we're going to leave it there. Thanks again to Amy Harder, Simon Evans and Lisa Jacobson. Thanks to our producers, Stuart Duffy, Toby Biggins, Gilchrist and Dan Cottrell. I and above all, many thanks to all of you for listening. We really do value your feedback, so please keep that coming and we'll be back soon with all the latest news and views on the future of energy. Until then, goodbye.