Zero: The Climate Race

This week on Zero, reporter Akshat Rathi sits down with Renee Salas, an emergency medicine physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School and a leading expert on the health impacts of global warming. The intersection of health and climate change is a growing area of research, and an increasingly urgent one: Heat deaths among seniors, for example, are projected to increase 370% by mid-century.  But even the young and relatively healthy are at risk. “The take-home I want everyone to go away with is that we all are at risk for this,” Salas says, “especially as we get into more and more extreme conditions.”

Explore further:

• Past episode with climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe about how higher temperatures results in “global weirding”
• Past episode with John Vaillant, author of Fire Weather: A True Story from A Hotter World
• Past episode with Eleni Myrivili, Global Chief Heat Officer at UN-Habitat about designing cities to face extreme heat

Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Mythili Rao. Special thanks this week to Kira Bindrim, Matthew Griffin, and Jessica Beck. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green.

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Upgrading the grid for a net-zero world isn’t just a matter of building new infrastructure. Yes, miles of additional cables will be needed, as will more transformers, more substations and more engineers and technicians. But plenty of existing technology will also need to be updated. On the third episode of Zero’s grid series, TS Conductor founder Jason Huang discusses the material science breakthroughs that have enabled his company to create cables that have twice the conductivity of existing cables — and just as much strength. 

Explore further:

• Past episode with grid expert Sanjeet Sanghera about the global challenge of updating the grid
• Past episode with Scottish Power CEO Keith Anderson about the kinds of government interventions that can speed the march to electrification 
• Past episode with Bill Gates about the tech startup investment landscape

Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Mythili Rao. Special thanks this week to Kira Bindrim, Matthew Griffin, and Jessica Beck. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As the world moves away from fossil fuels, the electricity grid will need to be able to handle a greater and greater load. In the second installment of Zero’s grid series, Akshat Rathi sits down with Scottish Power CEO Keith Anderson to talk about what that looks like in the UK. They discussed the promise of GB Energy, the challenges of hiring qualified engineers, and what the new Labour government can do to speed up the UK’s energy transition. 

Explore further:

• Past Grid Series episode with National Grid’s Sanjeet Sanghera about the challenges of updating the grid around the world
• Past episode about the role of the UK’s Climate Change Committee in shaping net zero policy
• Past episode with Vesta’s CEO Henrik Andersen about the wind industry’s hurdles

Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Mythili Rao. Special thanks this week to Kira Bindrim, Matthew Griffin, and Anna Mazarakis. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Even before we turn on a light switch or plug an appliance into an electric outlet, the atoms that power our daily life have traveled a long journey across the grid to reach our homes. And to meet the demands of a net zero future, that grid will need an upgrade. BloombergNEF analysis estimates that the world will need to nearly double its grid network to 111 million kilometers– a distance almost three quarters the way to the sun– by 2050. How will we get there?  Former BNEF grid expert Sanjeet Sanghera, who is now working on strategic futures at the National Grid, tells Akshat Rathi about the challenges and opportunities presented by the enormous transformation of the world’s biggest machine.

Explore further:

• Past episode with Stacey Abrams on how Americans can switch to electric heating and appliances in their homes
• Past episode with Jenny Chase of BNEF on how the world can triple renewables by 2030.
• Past episode with MIT’s Priya Donti on how AI’s climate change applications may include grid optimization
• Past episode with Vestas CEO Henrik Andersen on the recovery and growth of the wind industry 

Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Mythili Rao. Special thanks this week to Siobhan Wagner and Matthew Griffin. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green.

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Lucie Pinson is a climate activist focused on the banks that fund fossil fuel projects. But she doesn’t march, chant, picket corporate headquarters, or glue herself to the road. Instead, she and her team at the Paris-based nonprofit Reclaim Finance get to know Corporate Social Responsibility officers, trawl through company statements and portfolios, and join shareholder calls. Reclaim Finance’s strategy is all about finding ways to pressure big financial institutions from the inside– and it works. She tells Akshat Rathi about some of the successes her organization has had, and why even bank employees who don’t care about green issues might find reasons to work with her.

Explore further:

• Past episode with Richard Curtis of Make My Money Matter about the push to make retirement plans greener
• Past episode on the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and what happens when a “climate bank” goes under 
• Past episode with Brynn O’Brien of the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility, a shareholder activist organization focused on publicly traded companies with net zero targets 

Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Mythili Rao. Special thanks this week to Kira Bindrim, Matthew Griffin, Natasha White, Alastair Marsh, and Mohsis Andam. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green.

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At the Bloomberg Green Festival, Akshat Rathi sits down with voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams and Ari Matusiak, who leads the nonprofit Rewiring America. Together, Abrams and Matuisiak are trying help middle and low-income families access the tax breaks that can help them affordably electrify their homes. They discussed why household emissions are such a big deal, how to connect existential questions about the future of the planet to kitchen-table decisions, and whether Joe Biden is still the right Democratic candidate for 2024. 

Explore further:

• Past episode with Bill Gates about what another Donald Trump presidency could mean for green investments
• Past episode with Bill Gates about the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act
• Past episode with political scientist Leah Stokes on whether the US could become a global climate policy leader

Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Mythili Rao. Special thanks this week to Kira Bindrim and Matthew Griffin. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In fractured times, what does it take to reach agreement? That’s the question writers Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson set out to explore in a new play about the drama of climate negotiations. Kyoto, now running at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Swan Theater in Stratford-upon-Avon, tells the story of the 1997 Kyoto Summit as seen through the eyes of Don Pearlman, a notorious fossil fuel lobbyist and chain-smoking lawyer dubbed “the high priest of the Carbon Club” by der Speigel. Actor Stephen Kunken, who plays Pearlman, tells Akshat Rathi why he was drawn to the character, and what Kyoto can teach us about how agreement is achieved.   

Explore further:

• Past episode with Al Gore about breaking the petrostates stranglehold on climate progress
• Past episode about climate change storytelling with Kim Stanley Robinson, author of Ministry for the Future
• Past episode with Extrapolations writer and executive producer Dorothy Fortenberry about the growing demand for climate stories

Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Mythili Rao. Special thanks this week to Kira Bindrim, Alicia Clanton, Anna Mazarakis, and Jessica Beck. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tackling climate change now requires not just reducing planet-warming emissions to zero, but also finding a way to draw down existing carbon dioxide from the air. Over the past few years, tech companies have taken the lead to seed hundreds of startups that want to sell carbon removal credits and help companies meet climate goals. But the failure of a major startup, Running Tide, has raised questions about the long-term viability of the market. This week on Zero, we hear from Nan Ransohoff, head of climate at Stripe, and pioneer of the carbon-removal market.

Explore further:

• Past episode with Jennifer Wilcox of the US Department of Energy’s two gigantic carbon removal hub projects 
• Past episode with Mark Trexler of The Climatographers about what’s wrong with carbon offsets and how to fix them
• Past episode with Notre Dame professor Emily Grubert about the state of carbon capture

Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Mythili Rao. Special thanks this week to Kira Bindrim, Alicia Clanton, Anna Mazarakis and Jessica Beck. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Earlier this month, tech billionaire Bill Gates broke ground on a new nuclear plant in Kemmerer, Wyoming– a historic coal town. Gates tells Zero why he hopes the plant, which uses sodium for cooling, rather than water, will be the first of many in the country– no matter who wins this year’s election. “The idea of the US being more energy secure and US innovation allowing us to export, those things are still somewhat bipartisan in nature,” he says. Plus, he weighs in on AI as both a major generator of emissions and as a potential source of climate solutions.

Explore further:

• Past episode with BNEF’s Claire Curry on how energy startups can dodge the valley of death
• Past episode with Brookfield Asset Management CCEO Connor Teskey on making renewables a profitable bet
• Past episode with Bill Gates on the significance of the Inflation Reduction Act

Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Mythili Rao. Special thanks this week to Kira Bindrim, Kate Evans, and Alicia Clanton. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We are living through the hottest year on record. That’s not news, but growing climate impacts make bigger and bigger news. At 1.3C of warming beyond pre-industrial levels, people are reckoning with a planetary system that’s out of whack. It’s not like the scientists didn’t see worsening impacts coming, but many of them have been surprised by the ferocity with which some have played out. On this week’s episode of Zero, Bloomberg Green’s Akshat Rathi speaks with his colleague Eric Roston, and Texas Tech University professor Katharine Hayhoe explains why we’re all experiencing “global weirding.”

Explore further:

• Past episode about the role fire will play in shaping the 21st century.
• Past episode with UN’s global chief heat officer about redesigning cities.
• Past episode about finding trillions of dollars needed for climate adaptation.

Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Mythili Rao. Special thanks this week to Kira Bindrim, Anna Mazarakis and Alicia Clanton. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.