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Al Gore is optimistic about our climate future
Former US Vice President Al Gore is known to many as the Paul Revere of climate change, alerting the world to the dangers of a warming planet and other "inconvenient truths" at a time when only 2/5 Americans were onboard with his message. It earned him a Nobel Peace Prize.
But today, Al Gore has good news to share. In a wide-ranging interview with Ian Bremmer on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Gore is clear-eyed but optimistic about our climate future.
"If we get to true net zero and stop incrementally adding to the amount of heat-trapping gas that's there, the temperatures will stop going up almost immediately with a lag of as little as three to five years. Now, that's new science. It's well-confirmed now. They used to believe that it would keep going even after we reach net zero, but no, it will not. The even better news is that if we stay at true net zero, then half of all the human-caused CO2 and methane will fall out of the atmosphere in as little as a quarter of a century."
Watch the full GZERO World episode: Al Gore on US elections & climate change
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week at http://gzeromedia.com/gzeroworld or on US public television. Check local listings.
Al Gore on US elections & climate change
Ian reports from the 54th World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where the theme this year is “Rebuilding Trust in a Fractured World.” And for sure, confidence in major institutions like governments, churches, and the media is at historic lows. Add to that equation a year that will test democracy like none we’ve seen—as many as 70 elections will take place around the world in 2024. None will be more watched—whether in Davos or Des Moines—than the US presidential election.
Al Gore is no stranger to contested elections, and shares his take on the current state of American politics and some positive news about the progress of climate action. The conversation touches on the most pressing topics at Davos: artificial intelligence, climate change, and deep concerns about the 2024 US election and American democracy.
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week at gzeromedia.com/gzeroworld or on US public television. Check local listings.
Al Gore's take on American democracy, climate action, and "artificial insanity"
Listen: In this episode of GZERO World podcast, Ian Bremmer sits down with former US Vice President Al Gore on the sidelines of Davos in Switzerland. Gore, an individual well-versed in navigating contested elections, shared his perspectives on the current landscape of American politics and, naturally, his renowned contributions to climate action.
While the mainstage discussions at the World Economic Forum throughout the week delved into topics such as artificial intelligence, conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, and climate change, behind the scenes, much of the discourse was centered on profound concerns about the upcoming 2024 US election and the state of American democracy. The US presidential election presents substantial risks, particularly with Donald Trump on the path to securing the GOP nomination.
Subscribe to the GZERO World Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published.
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The Global South is angry and mistrustful - Ian Bremmer
Frustrated with the lack of equitable access to vaccines, economic challenges, and climate change impacts while wealthier countries fail to fulfill their pledges, the Global South is angry and mistrustful, said Ian Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group, during a Global Stage livestream event at UN headquarters in New York on September 22, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
"They feel like their agenda is irrelevant, that they are the takers, not in any way the collaborators or makers on the rule space and how we're going to deal with global governance challenges," Bremmer says.
Its leaders, however, have already started acting to position themselves as key players in the global governance discussions. Before the United Nations General Assembly, dozens of world leaders met for the first-ever Africa Climate Summit in a bid to take agency. They are set to advance the conversation at the COP28 in Dubai next month.
The discussion was moderated by Nicholas Thompson of The Atlantic. It was held by GZERO Media in collaboration with the United Nations, the Complex Risk Analytics Fund, and the Early Warnings for All initiative.
Dive into the conversation to learn about how countries like Brazil and India are shaping the AI space: Can data and AI save lives and make the world safer?
Climate change: are we overreacting?
Climate experts agree that climate change is real and human-caused. But how far should the world go to combat it? Will the worst-case scenarios forecast by climate scientists end up a reality?
On GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, author Bjorn Lomborg says the answer is no. Climate change is indeed a problem, he says, but “it’s not the end of the world.”
We're not talking about ‘we need to double or triple [renewable energy capabilities].’ We need a hundred-fold increase,” Lomborg tells Ian Bremmer. “We are far away from this actually being something that will scale even in rich countries and certainly not in poor countries.”
Lomborg worries that policy priorities are out of whack and billions of dollars are being wasted on incremental climate mitigation when there are so many urgent issues, like education or maternal mortality, where that money could be used more effectively.
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week at gzeromedia.com/gzeroworld or on US public television. Check local listings.
Podcast: Challenging the climate change narrative with Bjorn Lomborg
Listen: On the GZERO World Podcast, Ian Bremmer sits down with Danish author Bjorn Lomborg, a controversial figure in the world of climate change. Lomborg is unequivocal that climate change is a real problem and that humans are responsible for causing it. But where he differs from the global climate narrative is that the current focus on reducing carbon emissions is misguided and ineffective. Lomborg argues the world is too fixated on stopping climate change at the expense of… everything else.
He worries billions are being spent on incremental climate mitigation when that money could be spent more effectively on things like education or maternal mortality. Bremmer challenges Lomborg on a range of issues, from the exponential advancements in renewable technology to the disproportional impact of climate disasters in poor countries. While the two don’t agree on everything, their conversation affirms that climate change is a complex issue that requires nuanced thinking and effective solutions to avoid worst-case scenarios for future generations.
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Climate emergency: limited Biden executive power
Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, DC, shares his analysis on US politics:
What is President Biden doing now that his legislative agenda is all but over?
Congress is getting ready to throw in the towel on 2022, racing to pass several pieces of legislation dealing with healthcare, drug prices and subsidies for the semiconductor industry before they go on their annual recess beginning in August. Some Democrats are holding out hope they can still pass a broader bill to finance green energy investments. But others are already writing the eulogy for the 117th Congress, recognizing how hard it is to legislate in a 50-50 Senate and a narrowly divided House and looking forward to Republicans taking control of at least one branch of government next year.
So what is President Biden going to do without Congress? He doesn't have great options. Democrats are looking to President Biden to drive action on abortion access, voting rights, and now climate change. All issues that Congress could not find big enough majorities to legislate on this year. This week, the Biden administration is attempting to claim progress on their very ambitious environmental agenda. Biden came into office with the goal of getting to a carbon pollution free power sector by 2035 and net zero emissions in the economy by 2050, and he had a plan to get there. An analysis from a team of Princeton University found that the Build Back Better plan passed by the House would've cut greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2 billion tons by 2030, well on the way towards Biden's goal of cutting carbon emissions in half by that point. But unfortunately the Senate couldn't pass that bill. And this week, the White House floated an idea supported by environmental groups, which is declaring a climate change emergency that would give him extraordinary powers to regulate fossil fuel emissions and regulate the carbon footprint of the federal government. But, these powers would likely still be incredibly limited.
The Supreme Court has indicated they would look skeptically on any expansive use of authorities under the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon emissions. And short of sweeping new regulations, Biden's powers are limited to things like redirecting federal funds towards research and development, establishing renewable energy purchase targets for the entire federal government, limiting the expansion of US oil and gas drilling and halting court mandated onshore lease sales. He's politically limited here as well. Anything that hurts domestic energy production is a political risk given high gas prices. The cumulative effect of these policies would fall far short of what would be needed to achieve his emission reductions target. Without congressional support there's only so much Biden can do, and these actions will fall far short of what Senator Sheldon Whitehouse called "executive Beast Mode", surely leaving climate activists disappointed and concerned as the incoming Republican majority in the House is not likely to do anything to reduce emissions.
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- Supercharging US clean energy & achieving net zero 2050 globally - GZERO Media ›
War in Ukraine sets energy transition in "hyperdrive"
GZERO Media caught up with Microsoft's Chief Environmental Officer Lucas Joppa at the World Economic Forum in Davos to discuss ways to keep nations focused on climate change amid the converging crises of war and pandemic.
Tony Maciulis: When you have these very immediate and acute crises happening concurrently like pandemic and now of course the war in Ukraine, has it been a challenge to keep the focus on climate change?
Lucas Joppa: I would say yes and no. It's a challenge because obviously these are crises in and of themselves and they need to be dealt with and focused on. But on the other hand, I think that these crises, what they've done is they've really shown society that we have things that are going to happen to us. And if we know that they are coming, it would behoove us to do something about them now to prepare for it now. The biggest thing that we have coming for us is the impacts of a rapidly changing global climate system. It's front and center of our minds. We know we have to get out and do something about it. And so on the one hand, yes, we're focusing on these crises, but it hasn't shifted focus off of climate either.
Tony Maciulis: One thing that the war in Ukraine has certainly done is make some countries like Lithuania, for example, rethink their dependence on Russian gas. To what extent do you think the war has an opportunity to change the way countries think about energy in general? And will it in some way hasten a shift toward alternative energies?
Lucas Joppa: Well, it's really put everybody's thinking about the energy transition in hyperdrive. It has forced people to start thinking about the future of energy in a way that they hadn't had to before. We are at a critical juncture where people can choose a more clean, just, equitable future from an energy perspective or double down on the energy sources of the past. I think we know what a mistake that latter option would be. And so I'm just really excited about the fact that people are getting out there really thinking through and starting to put in place the infrastructure investments that they're going to need to pull off that net zero carbon transition.
Tony Maciulis: We last spoke to you, of course, in Glasgow for COP26. That's more than six months ago. What kind of progress has been made since then? And are you optimistic that by the time we get to Sharm el-Sheikh, there'll be something tangible to show?
Lucas Joppa: Well, I think that the world has been occupied with dealing with some of these crises that are in front of them. But I think that, especially with the energy crisis in Europe, there is actually a lot of progress, a lot of unexpected progress in a clean energy transition. And so that's fantastic. I think as we go from Scotland to Egypt, from COP26 to COP27, you're going to see a significant shift from not just focusing on mitigation from a climate perspective, but also adaptation and helping to build a more just and equitable future. And so I think that that's going to be an incredibly important addition to the conversation that the world's been having over the past decade or so.
Tony Maciulis: When you say adaptation, explain what that means exactly.
Lucas Joppa: Well, adaptation simply recognizes that climate change isn't something that's going to happen into the future. Climate change is something that's already happening today. And no matter how quickly we achieve a net zero economy, there are going to be human impacts of climate that have changed. And so we need to be able to help people adapt to that. We need to be able to shift our energy, our agriculture, and our other socioeconomic systems to help people adjust to the changing climates that we know are going to come. Whether that's a 1.5 degree celsius temperature increase, a two degree celsius increase, or something in between. We know that that temperature increase is going to lead to changes for human society and it behooves us to start focusing now on how we're going to help people adjust to those climactic changes.
Tony Maciulis: So one thing that you hear as a solution out there when it comes to adaptation is, okay, the temperatures are getting hotter. So we have to rely on more coolants, more air conditioning, right? How do you adapt to climate change without creating a bigger carbon emission problem?
Lucas Joppa: Well, that is the question. You can either adapt to climate change by making it worse or you can adapt to climate change by making it better. I mean, even if you just think about the built environment, the built environment is one of the largest sources of emissions across all sectors. And why is that? Well, it's because we've never been all that efficient with the way that we build, the way that we design, site, build, and then operate these buildings all around us. And so we know there are incredibly simple things, whether it's just the directional facing that we put buildings, the insulation and the energy efficiency that we build into these buildings. I think all of that is stuff that we can start doing now. It's not rocket science. We've known how to do it. But really it just sharpens the focus on making sure that all of this is coming together in a way that, as you said, adapts people to the changing climates, but does so in a way that also hastens our net zero transition as opposed to postpones it.
Tony Maciulis: And finally, here we are in Davos as the world economic forum is now in day two. Obviously climate and energy are on the agenda, but what are you hoping to hear and see? And what do you think would be a great result to have come out of this?
Lucas Joppa: Well, I think, A, it's fantastic to see that climate and sustainability remains as a top priority on the world economic forum agenda. That's fantastic. And now we really need to see the organizations, whether that's public, private sector that are here really start moving the conversation from pledges, which was really a focus of Davos in 2020, people pledging the progress that they were going to make. We need to move from the pledges to actually the progress that we need to make. And so seeing people really doubling down on their commitments, seeing people really doubling down on operationalizing and executing against their commitments, that's going to be critical.