Zero: The Climate Race

How do you turn climate change into compelling TV? What scenarios do you draw on? And how do you make sure a call for climate action isn’t lost to a feeling that a dystopian future is inevitable? 

When Extrapolations premiered in March, it became one of the first major TV shows to put climate change at the core of its narrative. Packed with A-list actors like Meryl Streep, Kit Harington and Sienna Miller, Extrapolations begins in a not too distant 2037. The world feels all too familiar, and with each episode the temperature becomes a little bit hotter, and the impacts of climate change a little bit worse. The planet is less hospitable, but humanity remains much the same.

This week on Zero*, host Akshat Rathi interviews Extrapolations writer and executive producer Dorothy Fortenberry about the growing demand for climate stories, how reality is overtaking the premise of the show, and how choices made this decade will impact the next.

(*this interview was recorded before the ongoing Hollywood strike action)

Read more: 

• Apple TV’s futuristic climate show is already coming true 
• NRDC Rewrite the Future
• Zero’s interviews with Kim Stanley Robinson and Amy Westervelt

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

True crime is one of the most popular genres in every form of storytelling. But can that pull be used to tell stories about the environment? This week, Akshat speaks with Amy Westervelt, a climate reporter for over twenty years, and the creator of the podcast Drilled - a true crime show about climate change. Westervelt launched it after being turned away by large production companies but found over a million listeners in the first season. 

This is the second of three episodes talking with climate storytellers on Zero. Listen to hear why and how Westervelt decided to use “true crime” as a way to talk about Big Oil, the history of climate denial, and how reporting on the climate crisis has changed for the better. 

Read More:

• Climate Activists Say Big Oil Is Taking Cycling Fans for a Ride
• Check out Drilled 
• Check out the first episode in the series with Kim Stanley Robinson
• A transcript of this episode

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

To tackle climate change, we need good stories and we need good storytellers. Kim Stanley Robinson is a climate fiction author who has written more than 20 novels, including Ministry for the Future, which was published in 2020. It opens in 2025, with a heatwave that kills millions in India. It’s a grim scene, and what follows is the story of humans striving to cope with an increasingly inhospitable planet — there’s ecoterrorism, high-finance, wild chases over the Swiss Alps. What emerges in Ministry is the a ‘optopian’ roadmap, in which the world gets to grips with the climate crisis and begins to rectify the situation.

In the first of three episodes talking with climate storytellers on Zero, we hear from Robinson about how he crafts a good story out of a desperate situation, what he thinks the limits of climate storytelling are, and how his thinking has changed since publishing Ministry for the Future.

Read more: 

• Kim Stanley Robinson’s columns for Bloomberg Green
• Zero: High hopes for biodiversity, but who will pay? 
• A transcript of this episode

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What’s worse for the planet than Big Oil? The world’s food system, argues environmental journalist and campaigner George Monbiot in his new book Regenesis. He makes a passionate case for how current agricultural practices not only damage the environment, but prevent vast amounts of land from being rewilded and restored to its natural state. Monbiot speaks with Bloomberg Green reporter Akshat Rathi about his proposed solutions, which include an end to livestock farming entirely and using new technologies like precision fermentation to meet the world’s rising demand for protein.

Read a transcript of this episode, here.

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the next three years, 1TW of solar power will be added to the global grid and competition is driving solar prices even lower. And after years of innovation in China, Japan, and Germany, the U.S. is finally getting in the game in a major way through its IRA which offers incentives to manufacture cleantech in the U.S. In early 2023, the South Korean company QCells announced it would build a domestic supply chain in the U.S. to gain access to enormous tax credits. But in a global marketplace, is this worth doing? Despite solar's potential, manufacturing its parts has never been a reliable business.

This week Akshat talks to Jenny Chase of BloombergNEF and an expert on the solar industry about its boom/bust cycle, why solar's growth means electricity may soon be free during the day, and what QCells is up against. We also hear from Lindsay Cherry of QCells about how the company will achieve its ambitious goal to build a solar supply chain from scratch.

Akshat will be traveling to Singapore, Sydney, Melbourne and Delhi over the next few weeks. Fancy meeting for a drink? Sign up here. 

Read More: 

• Preorder Akshat’s book
• Preorder Jenny's book
• Biden Push to Spur Solar Production Gets $2.5 Billion Boost 
• Zero: How Europe ditched Russian fossil fuels with spectacular speed
• How solar is making free electricity during the day
• Read a transcript of this episode

Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd and our senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Special thanks to Kira Bindrim, Brian Eckhouse, Nayeli Jaramillo-Plata, and Abraiya Ruffin. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit bloomberg.com/green 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Where’s all the oil money going? What’s happening with cycling in France? And how far behind China is the US on solar? There are many climate numbers out there that we don’t get to talk about on Zero but that deserve attention. In this bonus episode, host Akshat Rathi and producers Christine Driscoll and Oscar Boyd talk about some of their favorite stats showing people taking action on the climate crisis.

Akshat will be traveling to Singapore, Sydney, Melbourne and Delhi over the next few weeks. Fancy meeting for a drink? Sign up here. 

More Links: 

• Big oil’s pullback from clean energy matters less than you might think 
• Stats on US solar installations
• Cycle Lanes in France
• Shell, Repsol, Petronas Ads Banned in UK for Greenwashing

Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd and our senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Special thanks to Kira Bindrim, Dave Sawyer, Gernot Wagner, Nayeli Jaramillo-Plata, and Abraiya Ruffin. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit bloomberg.com/green 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Canada is a leading producer of oil and gas. It’s also one of the few G7 members with a carbon tax. As Minister of Environment and Climate Change in 2015, Catherine McKenna was charged with getting Canadians on board with that policy. One of the most important tactics was calling it “a price on pollution.” Carbon taxes are having a moment after the Paris Climate Finance Summit and Cath joins Akshat this week to talk about the political practicalities of passing a carbon tax. She has advice about who to lean on, handling threats, and why focusing on outcomes above all else is the key to climate policy that works.   

Akshat will be traveling to Singapore, Sydney, Melbourne and Delhi over the next few weeks. Fancy meeting for a drink? Sign up here. 

More Links 

• Interview of Justin Trudeau
• Carbon taxes at the Paris Climate Summit
• Transcript of this conversation with Catherine McKenna
• The World Bank 2023 Report on the State and Trends of Carbon Pricing

Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd and our senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Special thanks to Kira Bindrim, Dave Sawyer, Gernot Wagner, Nayeli Jaramillo-Plata, and Abraiya Ruffin. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit bloomberg.com/green 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

China is the world’s factory, and has the emissions to match. But in a planned economy, with weak environmental regulation, can anyone take on this pollution? Today’s guest, Ma Jun, did. In 2006 he began publishing “Pollution Maps” online that detailed levels and sources of air and water pollution. Ma Jun faced pushback, but his work made it possible for people in China to discuss pollution and climate change in a serious way. His work has since gained acceptance from the government and the corporations like Apple and Nike that he tracked down as sources. Ma Jun joined Akshat in Davos for a conversation about the power that data can have, how environmentalism has changed in China, and the role the rest of the world must play in asking questions. 

Read more: 

• Ma Jun’s book China’s Water Crisis 
• A case study of Ma Jun’s work and its effect on environmentalism in China from Columbia University 
• A recent history of air quality in China from University of Chicago 
• Panel at Columbia: Meeting the Energy and Climate Needs of Emerging Economies
• Bonus episode: How wildfire smoke and air pollution affect your health

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Policy can make or break climate action. Usually, national policy gets the most attention, but what local and regional governments do can make a bigger difference, especially in large countries like the US, India and China. This week, Akshat Rathi speaks with three US governors – Jay Inslee of Washington, Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, and Eric Holcomb of Indiana – about how they navigate partisan politics and the need for climate action. As governors who control state budgets and priorities, their decisions now could supercharge national climate action, or hinder it.

More on the topic: 

• How solar is becoming the midwest’s new cash crop
• Podcast: How wildfire smoke and air pollution impacts your health
• Zero’s episode with Leah Stokes about working on the IRA with Gov. Jay Inslee
• Crash Course: Conservatives vs. EGS with Saijel Kishan
• A transcript of this episode

Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd and our senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Special thanks to Brian Eckhouse, Aaron Clark, Jen Dlouhy, Gilda Di Carli and Kira Bindrim. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit bloomberg.com/green 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last week, 50 world leaders met in Paris with the goal of moving trillions in climate finance to developing countries. What was achieved, and what is still left to do? Akshat Rathi was on the ground and gives Oscar Boyd his key takeaways.

More:

• Climate Change and Poverty Are Our Era’s Existential Battles
• We need trillions to fix the climate. Finally there’s a serious plan.
• Five Takeaways From the Paris Summit to Fix Global Climate Finance
• A transcript of this episode. 

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.