Zero: The Climate Race

Are fossil fuel companies needed in a clean energy future? Is the UK really backsliding on climate progress? And how can you find out more about solar? In the last episode of Zero for 2024, host Akshat Rathi and producers Oscar Boyd and Christine Driscoll talk about some of their favorite statistics that show people taking action on the climate crisis.

Read more: 

• World Energy Employment 2023 – Analysis - IEA 
• Annual North Sea oil and gas licences - Energy Live News
• The Godfather of Solar Predicts Its Future - Bloomberg
• How to Quit Your Job for the Climate
• How to Crisis-Proof Climate Action

Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd and our senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Special thanks to Kira Bindrim. Email us at [email protected]. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit bloomberg.com/green.

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Today we're sharing an episode from another climate podcast that you might like, Drilled. Zero’s host Akshat Rathi was a guest on Drilled earlier this year talking about his book, Climate Capitalism, and we’re dropping that episode in the feed today. If you like what you hear you can follow Drilled wherever you get your podcasts. 

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Today we’re sharing an episode from another climate podcast that you might like. It’s The Anti-Dread Climate Podcast from KCRW. If you like what you hear, check them out wherever you get podcasts. 

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COP28 comes to a close. 200 countries came together, 100,000 people flew in, and what did they produce? A piece of text. But sometimes that piece of text can have real world consequences. In this week’s episode Akshat speaks with producer Oscar Boyd about what is in the final COP28 text and the significance of agreeing to transition off of fossil fuels. 

Read More: 

• COP28 Nations Reach First-Ever Deal to Move Away From Fossil Fuels
• Climate Fight Takes Aim at Food in First Ever Net-Zero Plan
• Sign up to the Green newsletter

Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd and our senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Special thanks to Kira Bindrim. Email us at [email protected]. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green.

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Four billion people live in countries where climate change-related disasters are becoming more severe and frequent. Spending money to adapt, known as “climate adaptation finance” is a fraught topic. Who will pay for those adaptations and how, as well as a global goal on adaptation are all being discussed at COP28. To find out more, Akshat speaks with Patrick Verkooijen, head of the Global Center on Adaptation about the history of climate adaptation finance, what negotiations are taking place, and why the money promised still hasn’t arrived.

Read More:

• A quick Q&A with Patrick Verkooijen at COP28
• A UN report shows that the climate adaptation gap is growing 
• Sign up to the Green newsletter
• Fill out Bloomberg Green's climate anxiety survey

Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd and our senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Special thanks to Kira Bindrim. Email us at [email protected]. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green.

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Former US Vice President Al Gore has been going to COP summits since the beginning. But he’s much more than a COP-goer. Many of today’s climate activists say that Gore’s climate documentary An Inconvenient Truth was the reason they became activists. The movie won an Academy Award in 2007 and also bagged him that year’s Nobel Peace Prize alongside the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Gore has become the de facto spokesman for climate change. In recent years and especially before COP28, he’s become much more vocal in calling out the villains. He has castigated the role of petrostates and oil companies who shape the COP agenda, saying they’ve “taken the disguise off” and are not good faith partners.

Bloomberg Green senior reporter Akshat Rathi spoke with Al Gore at the Bloomberg Green Summit at COP28 in Dubai to ask him how to break the stranglehold petrostates have over COP, why tackling climate change solves many other major problems, and why big emitters can no longer hide. 

Read more: 

• Al Gore Wants to Weaken Petrostates’ Power Over Global Climate Decisions — Bloomberg
• Akshat Rathi's book of essays about climate activists inspired by Al Gore
• Sign up to the Green newsletter
• Fill out Bloomberg Green's climate anxiety survey

Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd and our senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Special thanks to Kira Bindrim. Email us at [email protected]. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green.

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Tripling renewables is one of the goals the COP28 discussions are circling around. It sounds good, but what will meeting it actually entail? Jenny Chase of BloombergNEF joins Akshat to break down where more investments are needed and why decarbonizing energy is the easy part. 

• Listen to our previous episode with Jenny Chase on solar's explosive growth
• Sign up to the Green newsletter
• Fill out Bloomberg Green's climate anxiety survey

Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd and our senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Special thanks to Kira Bindrim. 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.

Today is the start of COP28. And for the next two weeks, Zero will be in the United Arab Emirates, along with more than 70,000 people who will come for the year’s biggest climate conference. These are set to be difficult negotiations. Getting every single country to agree to one common text is a gargantuan task. So for this first episode from COP, we wanted to hear from someone who’s been on the inside; someone who has helped forge global climate agreements from the ashes of broken diplomacy. 

Christiana Figueres is the cohost of the podcast Outrage & Optimism, and was formerly the head of the UNFCCC, the body tasked with running COP meetings. She took over the role at a low point in global climate negotiations in 2010 and her efforts culminated in the signing of the Paris agreement in 2015.

Now, the world is way off track to meet that goal. So we wanted to hear from Christiana about what can be expected from COP28, the role the fossil fuel industry plays in negotiations, and whether the climate summit is still fit for purpose.

More:

• Listen to Christiana's podcast, Outrage and Optimism
• Sign up to the Green newsletter
• Fill out Bloomberg Green's climate anxiety survey

Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd and our senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Special thanks to Kate Mackenzie and Kira Bindrim. Email us at [email protected]. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green.

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Trillions of dollars are needed to shift the world to a low-carbon future, but where will all that money come from? While momentum is growing in rich countries, developing countries are still struggling for finance. Without significant increases in the amount of money spent, the world is unlikely to meet its climate goals, and yet international negotiations are at a deadlock. 

Avinash Persaud has a plan: the Bridgetown Agenda. He’s the special envoy on investment and financial services for Barbados and is working with his country’s prime minister, Mia Mottley, to transform the global financial system. Together they are putting pressure on the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to turbocharge the roll-out of clean technologies in developing countries.

This week on Zero, Akshat Rathi sits down with Avinash to discuss his plan, and why he thinks now is the time these aging financial institutions can finally be reformed.

Read more: 

• A deep dive on the Bridgetown Agenda
• Mia Mottley’s full speech at COP27
• Making polluters pay for loss and damage
• Cheaper currency risk hedging could unlock trillions
• Read a transcript of this episode
• Fill out Bloomberg Green's climate anxiety survey

Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd and our senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Special thanks to Kate Mackenzie and Kira Bindrim. 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.