← This Week in Global Development
This Week in Global Development
Live from London Climate Action Week
00:29:01
As London Climate Action Week gets into full swing, we break down the key talking points from the conference so far. With the city in the midst of a scorching heat wave, the discussion of climate change feels even more urgent than usual. We explore...
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- [00:02]
Host
Well, welcome to our special live edition of this week in Global Development. We're live from London Climate Action Week. And I'm delighted to be here on stage and to be joined by our reporters, Jesse Chase Lubitz and inatmercy. So let's kick it off. You guys have been here all week going to all sorts of sessions. So let's talk about the big themes that have kind of emerged for you guys. Jesse, do you want to go first?
- [00:32]
Jesse Chase Lubitz
Yeah. So basically one of the biggest themes going on right now, and it's coming from the COP31 presidency, it's coming from Bonn, which happened just before this week, is electrification. And there's this big push by the COP31 presidency to have 35% of final energy coming from electricity by 2035. So it's 35 by 35. And here at London Climate Action Week, several countries kind of signed onto this or showed support for it. We have UK, US, the COP30 presidency from Brazil, Barbados and Ethiopia, which is hosting COP32. And so it's an exciting kind of push to get energy on and electricity on the agenda in some way, especially after fossil fuels kind of didn't make it to the end of the discussions last year. But importantly, it's not actually on the agenda. This is an action item. So I've been sort of following how far the COP31 presidency is going to push this to become like something to sign onto. And the other kind of topics that I'm looking at is what the COP31 presidency is looking at on the agenda. So this is adaptation finance and general finance. These are not new topics. These were huge topics at COP29 two years ago and last year, developing countries want to see more finance provisions. So not just mobilization, where to put the money, but where the money's coming from. They want to see more. And developed countries are saying, been there, done that, we need to move on and just talk about mobilization. But this is definitely not a closed case issue. We're going to keep having to deal with this. And then same for adaptation finance. Last year they said that we'd triple adaptation finance. Again, not on the official agenda, which means there's nothing to kind of make sure this happens. So, yeah, those are sort of the main COP related topics that I've been following so far.
- [02:30]
Host
Yeah, the two of us talked a little bit before we took some time to put together an article looking at the state of climate finance. And I think parlors would be a good way to describe it. Really. It's such a dysfunctional system, looking at the handful of players who really matter here and how little they're actually providing, and the fact that we have to triple the amount of finance that's supposed to flow from the global north to the global South. But a very large chunk of the finance that's already there is rubbish, really. Very poor quality, including famously, funding for airports and for coal, power stations and all that sort of stuff. Did you have any reaction to what Jesse was talking about? And do you want to tell us about what it is that you've been looking at this week as well?
- [03:20]
inatmercy
Absolutely, yeah. I'll tell you about some of the stuff that I thought was most interesting. One of them was I went to listen to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres speak a couple of days ago, and he formed this new AI Environmental Transparency Initiative. I'm sure everyone in the room knows that AI has a huge environmental impact, of course, in terms of emissions and water use and land use. By 2030, there's estimates that artificial intelligence could consume more electricity than all but five countries in the world. So the stakes are pretty high. And so what he was calling for in that conversation was that for all AI companies to publicly disclose their environmental impact. So that means emissions, water and land. And so, you know, and of course it's. They have to disclose it. They have an interest in also ensuring that this happens because 80% of data centers around the world are actually susceptible to things like climate risk like flooding, wildfires and extreme heat. So there's this really interesting feedback loop emerging. So I think that's just been something that I've been tracking and finding. Interesting, right? It's like, how are we actually going to hold these companies accountable for their environmental impact? Because it's, you know, if it's all but five countries, it's like a huge new country coming online by 2030, right? It's like, how do we deal with that environmental impact? So that's one thing I'm watching. Another thing I cover development finance in Africa. So I'm always interested in those sorts of conversations. And the thing that really strikes me is this tension sometimes between the push for African countries to industrialize as the world is decarbonizing. So those don't necessarily need to be different things, but they often are, right? Like what powers industries, what has powered the industries and the global North. It's been not green methods of power. So, you know, one conversation that comes up a lot here in UK and Europe is cbam, the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. I went to a really interesting conversation that was hosted by ODI a few days ago. And so basically this is, you know, if Europe is putting a. European producers are basically getting taxed for production of goods. So like they want companies moving production elsewhere and just exporting products back to Europe.
- [05:35]
Marcine Mitchell
Right.
- [05:36]
inatmercy
So what this means is that some countries they have identified, a lot of people have identified Mozambique as a really exposed country. So basically Mozambique produces a lot of aluminum. It's a very poor country, it's a least developed country, and its aluminum is one of the few industries that it has that is helping it export value added goods. But the problem is if, if CBAM is fully implemented, then the price of Mozambican aluminum becomes uncompetitive completely. And there's some estimates that show that it could reduce. If Mozambique is not able to export aluminum to Europe, GDP could shrink by 1.6%. So the stakes are really, really big. And so the question is, how do countries like Mozambique actually respond to European efforts to tax carbon? So this is a conversation that I'm watching very closely, and it's one that a lot of African countries that are kind of on the verge of industrializing have potentially a lot to lose from. And so they really need to find some new creative methods of responding to the risks.
- [06:42]
Host
Yeah, I mean, I guess these two themes that you two have been talking about, electrification and African industrialization, they kind of go together. Africa's trying to electrify and industrialize at the same time. That's got to be extremely challenging to, to try and thread the needle between those two things. You've also been watching a little bit the kind of the journey to COP32 at the same time that you've been watching the journey to COP31. What are you seeing about that?
- [07:04]
inatmercy
Yes, so COP32, that'll be in 2027 in Ethiopia. So it'll be the first COP in Sub Saharan Africa since Durban in 2011. And so I'm actually seeing industrialization as a really big theme. I mean, they're, you know, under the framework of green industrialization. So how does Africa push for industrialization to happen in a green way? And where did all the money come from?
- [07:25]
Marcine Mitchell
Right.
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inatmercy
It's like green industrialization is not cheap. So how can we get finance from global sources, but also domestic African sources, regional sources, through blended finance and things like that? How do we ensure that that's actually financing green industrialization is a big theme and I think something to watch quite closely.
- [07:44]
Host
Yeah, And I mean, it takes us back to the conversation that we had again about the state of finance Climate finance is extremely problematic. We continue to see a real struggle to mobilize more finance. And really just a handful of countries are responsible for the vast majority of finance, the United States, and for the vast majority of emissions. United States, China, European nations, and they're kind of struggling a little bit to, to step up to the plate on this one. It's been an interesting week here at London Climate Action Week, just because it's been. Everybody's talked about it. It's so damn hot. It's unbelievably hot. The British are not made for this at all. When the temperature goes over about 25, we're not really in a position to cope. This is a country that's built for a light and continuous drizzle, not for this type of weather. How has that kind of changed the conversation? It's kind of brought a new urgency to this. It's really kind of generated a focus on the fact that the climate is changing and we need to do something about it. Jesse, do you want to go?
- [08:50]
Jesse Chase Lubitz
Yeah. Yeah. I think as uncomfortable as it is, it's a helpful reminder in a similar way that like Belem was so uncomfortable for so many people from the global north. And it made it very clear that, you know, the climate is going to affect everybody's life. I think it highlights the urgency for sure. And you can feel it. That heat. There was one heat emergency talk that got canceled. I think the adaptation conversation is very clear. But this also plays very well into the electricity and green industrialization conversation because we're facing pressure to find a way to cool cities, especially, that don't at the same time make them hotter and green. Renewable energy sources are typically a way to do that. So I think we, in sort of a silver lining way, I think there might be a little bit more of a consensus around the need for swifter action. Obviously, we're still dealing with a far more transactional world when it comes to finance, especially from the eu, like with cbam. I think they're talking a lot more about, okay, what do we actually get out of our partnerships with the developing countries. We can't just, you know, give money. We need to find a way to make this bankable and profitable. And so I think, like, we have to watch for the ways that these conversations are changing in a way that they're not as donor based and a little bit more private sector based. The other thing really pushing the conversation, of course, is the war in Iran and the cost of energy as a result of that. And, you know, just how much. We really, the urgency of the world has really pushed us into this situation. So, yeah, it's uncomfortable. It's, you know, oil and gas is really expensive. All these things are happening. But the silver lining is a lot of urgency around it. Whether or not that's going to translate into, you know, solid commitments is I'm not sure. But I think we're seeing a lot of people come together and say we have to find a way forward.
- [10:52]
Interviewer
In the Northern Hemisphere before summer even officially began, we've already seen record breaking heat in places like the uk, France, Spain and beyond. And yet, even as temperatures rise, so too does skepticism about climate action, about what it costs, and about whether any single country organization can really make a difference. But underneath the headlines, there is a quieter story that tends to get far less attention, and that is the momentum building behind climate solutions that are already working and already scaling. So as many in the climate community gather for London Climate Action Week, I wanted to sit down with someone who sees that momentum up close and who thinks about it through both a conservation lens and a financial one. Marcine Mitchell is Senior Vice President for Climate Change at the World Wildlife Fund, where she leads WWF's climate work in the US and around the world with a particular focus on nature based solutions. Marcine, thank you so much for joining me. Great.
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Marcine Mitchell
Well, thank you for having me. It's nice to be here.
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Interviewer
So I want to start with the cost of climate action. The notion that amidst finite resources and so many competing demands globally, that climate action is just simply too expensive right now, or that any one country is too small for its efforts to matter. When you hear that, how do you respond?
- [12:15]
Marcine Mitchell
Well, Kate, we're in a period of experiencing a lot of disruptions, right? There are high fuel prices, we have energy insecurity, and there are economic and affordability issues around the globe. So it makes people very nervous about what's to come. But it's an old idea that you have to choose between economic growth and climate action. That's outdated. Increasingly, the real economic risk is climate delay. Some analysis show that unchecked climate change could shrink global GDP by as much as a third by the end of the century. So climate change has already caused quite a bit of damage. 3.6 trillion damages globally since 2000, and they're accelerating as extreme weather worsens. What we need to do is understand that climate action is increasingly becoming an economic and competitiveness strategy. It's addressing some of the issues that we are concerned about and seeing today, such as energy security, such as low prices and that many nations may feel that what they have to do doesn't make a difference if the big nations are not moving rapidly enough. But truthfully, climate change shows us how we're all interconnected and we are part of a global economy and there's global responsibility for moving forward. We all need to do our part and we all need to have a seat at the table in order to influence others. So the other good news though is that 90% of the global economy has been beginning to decouple between emissions and economic growth. So now it's a yes. And we can grow and we can decrease our emissions. So this is good news for the world.
- [14:05]
Interviewer
Yeah, I love that. The yes. And it can be an opportunity rather than just a cost. And what are some of these solutions that are already scaling, already working, that can give you confidence that that transition can stay on track even amidst all of these geopolitical and economic headwinds we are seeing?
- [14:26]
Marcine Mitchell
Yeah, well, many climate solutions are now faster, cheaper and more scalable than the legacy energy systems that we've been living with. Over the last decade, the cost of utility scale solar has fallen more than 90%, making it one of the cheapest sources of electric in history. And battery costs that we use in electric vehicles and in power stations, those costs have also fallen around 93% since 2010. And so energy now, clean energy, is scaling at historic speed.
- [15:00]
Interviewer
So most people probably know WWF for your conservation work. You know, Panda is one of the most recognizable logos in the world, but fewer people know about the climate work that you've done just been describing. So can you tell us a little bit more about that side of the house? What role is WWF actually playing in helping to scale these solutions? And where do you see opportunities for partners and funders to get involved?
- [15:27]
Marcine Mitchell
Yeah, so WWF increasingly works at the intersection between climate, nature, finance and resilience because all these systems are interconnected. And one of the biggest shifts we're seeing is that nature is increasingly seen as a critical infrastructure tied directly to our water systems, our food systems, our supply chain and economic resilience. More than half of global GDP, that's roughly $44 trillion, depends on nature and ecosystem services. So for many years, 25 years, WWFS has worked with major companies to reduce emissions scale, renewable energy and drive system. Right now we are really focused on the acceleration of renewable energy and the impact that has on nature and people. We think that we can do this clean energy transition in a way that's different from the fossil fuel era, where we really focus on the benefits of renewable energy. At the same time, we look and make sure that we're minimizing the impacts on nature. We're investing in circularity so that we don't have to continue to come back to the earth for raw virgin materials, but we can recycle what we have. And we're trying to take a broader view and lens about the impact of extracting materials, critical minerals, on people, not just at the site, but across the whole infrastructure. Doing those things differently, I think, gives us a chance to really make a difference and accelerate renewable energy and bring in a clean economy in a way that has the best impacts on nature and people. I also want to say that WWF is also heavily focused on adaptation, because many of the climate impacts that we're feeling today, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere, are even more severe in the Southern Hemisphere, where we do a lot of our work, and that we cannot wait any longer to really help people adapt to and become resilient to climate change. And so we are doing all sorts of things to help populations adapt to climate change, such as using nature as a natural source of adaptation. And I think this is a really important thing for the climate world to recognize that it's time to not only continue our good work on decarbonization, on mitigation, but also to really step up our work on resilience.
- [18:05]
Interviewer
Well, Marcine, this has been a hopeful conversation and a really good reminder that alongside all of the dire headlines about heat and cost and political noise, there is a lot of quiet progress happening. So thank you so much for joining me, and thank you to WWF for partnering with us on this conversation.
- [18:25]
Marcine Mitchell
Thank you.
- [18:27]
Host
I mean, one thing that we're looking at in Europe right now is how unstable and how unreliable our traditional energy sources are. And that's another kind of driving force pushing us to kind of deal with this climate crisis, because basically, we can't rely on the sources that we've historically relied on at all. I wanted to skip to another topic that people have been talking about this week, which is the fact that London Climate Action Week has actually become a lot more central, in part because it's so difficult to have a sensible conversation about climate in the United States right now. Traditionally, a lot of the conversation has taken place in New York Climate Action Week alongside the United Nations General Assembly. People are just not as comfortable having the conversation in that location anymore. And I think what we're seeing this week, what I'm hearing, is that we're seeing more of the conversation move here to this particular event.
- [19:28]
inatmercy
Yeah. It's certainly a big shift that we're witnessing. I think that one thing that I have found interesting is that in terms of the push for renewables, although the environment, the ecosystem, for talking about those conversations in the US has certainly changed the economics, have it? It's people in the US or in the UK or anywhere understand the economics of renewables is good. It makes a lot of monetary sense. So I think that was an interesting point that Guterres made when he was asked a question of what's going on with the us what's going on with Trump and the environment. He says, listen, Trump doesn't control the world. He doesn't even control the American economy. And the economics of renewables speak for themselves. And so while you might not see official engagement from the US on some of these issues, I mean, the business environment is still. The business sector is still very much engaging. And I think. I mean, I think there's nothing to really change people's mind on that.
- [20:27]
Jesse Chase Lubitz
Can I add to that?
- [20:29]
Host
Go ahead.
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Jesse Chase Lubitz
Yeah, I definitely agree. And I think from like, a journalistic perspective, it's actually been harder to talk to people about climate over the last year or two, especially in the US because they want to keep doing what they're doing, but they don't want to bring too much attention to themselves, which I can understand, as frustrating as that might be. But it does show that, you know, when we emerge from this, if and when we emerge from this period in the United States of distancing ourselves from climate, we could see that a lot of action has continued and it's just a lot quieter. So I agree, you know, the center of gravity has moved to London, I think, in the last two years. From New York Climate Week, I heard someone say that there's more people here, more events here than there were last year. So the interest is there. It's just coming from a lot of different sources, rather than maybe looking at these countries that really need to be active, as we wrote about in that finance piece, the countries that are emitting the most, maybe we can't look to them. But it's going to be interesting to try to account for how much has changed after Maybe some American NGOs and companies are a little bit more open to talking about it.
- [21:34]
Host
Yeah, it's an interesting thing. We were looking at the conversation that took place there, and a lot of what's happened in the United States is just camouflage. We're seeing people shift towards talking about energy and electrification and sustainability, like just using code words effectively. They're carrying on the conversation, but they've moved underground. But that creates an interesting challenge for the, for the non profit climate sector, for the development climate sector, because they're the ones who are supposed to be campaigning on these issues, talking about this sort of stuff, actually standing up and saying we need to do something about the climate. And you can't move campaigning underground very effectively. It's got to be out in public. And the search for funding is also interesting for the same reason. If you want to find funding, there's definitely an impetus to move away from climate and to say, hey, we're actually working on a health project, we're working on a food project, we're working on something different and that might be the right way to go about driving your kind of fundraising journey. But then that creates a problem when you're quiet on the campaigning issue. You said something really interesting to me, Jesse, before we, Yesterday when we were talking about this, you quoted one lady who said that support for climate was paper thin among the general public. And so I kind of wanted to finish up by talking about this, this communications challenge that we have here.
- [23:06]
Jesse Chase Lubitz
Like, yeah, yeah, she, this was very much in the UK context actually. And she had referenced, I think it was a carbon brief article that had measured the amount of references there had been in the news media on climate. I forget the years maybe like 2024 to now, and it's just completely dove down. Like the amount that the news is talking about climate or using the words climate to talk about climate has really, really shrunk. And yeah, I mean, it's very scary. But again, it doesn't mean that the action's not happening. It just means that a lot of people are talking about it in a different way. I think kind of going off of what you just said, we see that for sure in electrification. I mean, we've been talking about fossil fuels for the last several decades and that has not, I mean, it's, we've gotten relatively far with it, but it's, we've really kind of hit a wall. Electrification is not different from, they're not entirely different from phasing out fossil fuels. It's a different way to talk about it. But I do think overall there's consequences to not talking about climate change as we used to and not talking about, about it openly. Because if we're just doing, you know, a health project or a food project or an electricity project, you're not thinking about the people who are suffering the most from the effects of climate. You're not, you know, you get hit by a heat wave and you're like, this is about climate change. We do still need to talk about it in that way. So yeah, I think this support, the lacking support from the US has spread. And while we're seeing some countries step up and some development banks step up into that role, it's definitely easier to kind of push climate a little bit to the side for now and highlight other things like health and food and stuff like that.
- [24:51]
inatmercy
Yeah, and just wanted to jump in. I mean, I'm based in Kenya. Right. So in Africa. I mean, the conversations about climate are still happening. But one thing that I find is really interesting is that there's still many conversations about continuing hydrocarbon exploration. Right. Right now they're in the midst of creating an African energy bank that will be based in Nigeria, that is with the explicit mission to finance oil and gas projects. And so this is a new initiative, a new project. I think it's supposed to start up in July and it's backed in part by Afrexim bank and there's going to be $5 billion capitalization to start. So this is a huge new bank that's literally just for fossil fuels. And it's interesting to think about whether this would have happened in a different climate environment, that is the climate environment that we existed in 10 years ago. I don't know that it would or wouldn't have, but it's just an interesting thought exercise.
- [25:44]
Jesse Chase Lubitz
I just want to add something to that as well. I mean, we've been covering that. The World Bank's Climate Change Action Plan, which is its only sort of institution wide plan for financing 45% financing to climate change to align the institution with the Paris agreement to phase out fossil fuels. Yesterday and today are I think the last meetings of the board and the management to decide whether or not they're going to extend this climate action plan. And it expires at the end of this month, which is like, I don't know, three days or something. And it's been a really big, big controversy because if suddenly this massive development bank no longer supports or outwardly kind of supports climate change, we could see a huge dip in financing. So yeah, in line with that is very concerning.
- [26:35]
Host
It is really essentially what I'm kind of taking away from this and the conversations we've had over the past week is we have to be able to successfully make the case for climate. And unfortunately the United States is kind of the only game in town here really. It's such a dominant force here in terms as a historical emitter, by far the largest, by far the largest world economy. If we cannot persuade the United States to take this seriously, it is going to be extremely difficult to actually really move forward. And it's not just the United States itself, but all the other people who are looking at the US Government and saying, okay, it's hard for us to do this without the kind of political coverage that exists there. And so I think we have to be able in some way, shape or form to make the case that climate change is important. And that means building the case with the public and not just politicians as well. Right. Okay, well, I think we're coming to time now. I. I wondered if either of you had any kind of final words that you'd like to say, or.
- [27:45]
Jesse Chase Lubitz
I mean, one little extra thing is security. There is money in the world and then a lot of it's going to defence and security now. And so something I'll be watching is whether or not the climate world can make a case for climate resilience and using the money going into defense to support on adaptation and resilience.
- [28:05]
inatmercy
Yeah, I think that one other thing that I'm really interested in is just the conversations about nuclear power that are happening in this broader context around energy security as well. This is happening a lot in Europe and also in Africa. I wrote about it recently. You guys should look up that article. But I think the conversations about nuclear are something to watch and exciting in this time.
- [28:29]
Host
These are all fascinating things that I would love to have much longer to talk about than we have here right now, but I think we're going to have to wrap it up. So it just remains for me to say thank you very much to both of you and to our live audience. It's a great pleasure to do this in front of a live audience for once instead of sitting in a podcasting booth. So. Okay, and we'll wrap it up there. Thank you so much.