0:00

Welcome back to Drilled. I'm Amy

0:02

Westervelt. Today I'm bringing

0:04

you an episode of one of my favorite

0:06

climate podcasts, Outrage and Optimism,

0:09

where every week they examine issues at the

0:11

forefront of the climate crisis, interview

0:14

changemakers, and transform

0:17

anger into productive dialogue about

0:19

building a sustainable future.

0:22

It's hosted by Cristiana Figueres, Tom

0:25

Rivett Karnak, and Paul Dickinson,

0:28

and then usually they'll have a guest on as

0:30

well. Today

0:31

we're bringing you an episode entitled

0:33

How to Talk About Climate Change So People

0:36

Will Listen.

0:37

It's an interview with communications

0:39

expert John Marshall, CEO of

0:41

Potential Energy Coalition, to talk

0:44

about climate change's marketing

0:46

problem and how to solve it. It's

0:48

essential listening for anyone who

0:50

wants to understand how to communicate

0:52

about this massive crisis. Check

0:55

it out. I think you'll like it.

1:09

Hello

1:09

and welcome to Outrage and Optimism. I'm Tom Rivett

1:11

Karnak. I'm Cristiana Figueres. And

1:14

I'm Paul Dickinson. And hello to listeners

1:16

to Drilled. We are recording this to introduce you to

1:18

Outrage and Optimism. Thanks for being here.

1:29

So friends, we are now doing

1:31

this very exciting feed drop with Amy Westervelt

1:33

and our friends at Drilled. And we are now

1:35

have an interesting and exciting task

1:37

ahead of us. But first of all, which of you wants

1:39

to tell listeners to Drilled what Outrage and Optimism

1:41

is all about?

1:43

Cristiana? Paul

1:45

wants to do that.

1:59

getting in the flow, we

2:03

are able to express

2:05

and communicate and hold and be

2:08

with the outrage that

2:11

you cannot be involved seriously

2:13

in climate change and not feel outraged, but

2:15

not end up in the

2:18

rabbit and headlights unfortunate position

2:20

of not knowing what on earth is going on, but instead

2:23

move through that to the optimism and

2:26

boy have we had some incredibly optimistic,

2:28

positive and brilliant people,

2:30

which brings us on to the question, like who do we choose for

2:33

this drill podcast? There are always thousands of new

2:35

friends from drills. First of all, Cristiano, what

2:37

do you think? Is that a good nailing of what

2:39

outrage and optimism is?

2:42

Yeah,

2:44

I think that's a very important aspect, is

2:46

to really be able to balance

2:49

the anger, the

2:51

grief, the pain of what we have not done and

2:53

what we have lost with the excitement of

2:55

what is going on and the ambition

2:58

and the vision of what

3:00

can be. So yes, the balancing of

3:02

that is very important. But the other thing

3:04

that I think that we do, and I

3:07

put it to you to react and tell me

3:11

whether you think this is true. I

3:14

think that despite the fact that

3:16

the three of us are climate

3:18

wonks, I think we do a

3:21

pretty good job at putting

3:24

out the information, the news,

3:26

the analysis in ways

3:28

that are very understandable to

3:31

everyone. We really try to stay away

3:33

from acronyms and weirdo language

3:36

and just make it very accessible

3:39

and fun. That's probably

3:41

the most important.

3:41

Yeah, I mean, I think when

3:43

we first started this journey, we kind of realized

3:45

that there's an increasing number of people that are really concerned

3:48

about what's happening, right? This sense of anxiety

3:50

is rising as the impacts get worse. But

3:53

we're not prepared to give up yet. So where

3:55

do we put our trust? Where do we double down? What

3:57

action do we take? What's the point give

4:00

up episodes. We're not

4:02

prepared to give up at all. So what this podcast

4:05

tries to do is help people understand where

4:07

we are, how we can not give up, how we

4:09

can dig in and really make a difference. And that

4:12

actually brings us to an interesting task

4:14

we have ahead of us. So Drilled have invited

4:16

us to do this feed swap and we have

4:18

to select an episode that the listeners to Drilled

4:20

are now going to get to hear. So what do you

4:22

think? Which of our episodes from the three years we've

4:25

been on air should we offer to Drilled

4:27

for them to put out?

4:28

Paul, which would have been like

4:30

our most distinguished

4:32

guest. Let me see. King's

4:34

Mill Bond from the Rocky Mountain Institute

4:36

was very distinguished. Not Jesus, just

4:38

extraordinary name, King's Mill Bond. But no, I

4:41

liked, because we've been doing this for a few years. So

4:43

we spoke to the Prime Minister of the UK to

4:45

raise a maid. Remember that? That was fun. We

4:48

just spoke the other week to Al Gore, who is, he's

4:50

so powerful when he said, I'm pressing

4:52

my own button on this one. And he's kind of

4:55

filled up the microphone. It was

4:57

amazing to speak to Greta Thunberg

4:59

or David Attenborough or

5:01

the brilliant musician Aurora. We had, do

5:04

you remember, we had the massive attack on and

5:06

they actually made a mix of you, Christiana

5:09

speaking, which is pretty cool. John

5:11

Kerry is great. We had like the Chief Executive

5:13

of Shell and then everybody thought that we were

5:15

very bad and did the interview wrong and we had

5:17

the Chief Executive Greenpeace came here and told

5:20

us how badly we interviewed the Chief Executive of Shell. So

5:22

those are the ones that spring to mind, but there's so many

5:24

others, like brilliant people. So

5:26

it's gonna be a difficult choice. But

5:29

let's think about the listeners to Drilled.

5:32

What are they most interested

5:34

in? Because that's the way that we should choose.

5:35

Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, that's probably

5:38

more to do with like, how do we tell the story

5:40

around the climate? And we should get to that. I

5:42

have to say some of the other ones that I've really enjoyed

5:44

that I would just put forward is like, you know, the three of

5:46

us often end up going to the COP negotiations

5:49

or to the World Economic Forum or to the

5:51

New York Climate Week and we sit up late at night after

5:53

these negotiations and kind of reflect what's been going

5:56

on and share the inside story. So

5:58

those, even though they've us

6:00

like having a drink late at night. Those have been some of

6:02

the most fun times for me. Are you saying that we're the best people who've been on our

6:04

podcast? Well, of course I agree, but it's a little

6:06

bit disturbing saying

6:08

that. But what about, well,

6:11

Christiana, what do you think? Well,

6:14

yeah, I think it should be about storytelling,

6:16

about the challenges that we are,

6:19

that we're having. Everyone in the climate community

6:21

is really, really challenged. But how do

6:24

we tell stories that

6:27

seem very contradictory? The one story, of

6:29

course, is the terrible impacts of

6:31

climate change that we have been witnessing, especially

6:33

this

6:33

number, this number from health.

6:35

But the other story is the

6:37

very, very exciting progress, in fact,

6:40

exponential progress that we're seeing

6:42

on the technology side, on the solution

6:44

side. But storytelling is so

6:47

important because it

6:49

really determines the way you

6:51

think and eventually the way you act.

6:54

So that is where

6:57

transformation starts, is

6:59

in storytelling and what we tell

7:02

ourselves what is in our head. So

7:04

from that perspective, I would say,

7:07

John Marshall.

7:08

John Marshall, John is such a star. So

7:11

I think that's a really good idea. Paul, do you agree? Yeah,

7:14

I mean, I do really like Jane Fonda

7:16

or Noah Uofl Harari, who's been twice

7:19

on the podcast. I could go on, but you're right.

7:21

In terms of comms, John Marshall

7:23

is the world expert. So

7:26

listen to drill. I think that's a decision.

7:28

So we are going to play that episode. We introduced

7:31

John during this conversation. So even

7:33

if you don't know who he is, before his interview comes on

7:35

in a few minutes, we will provide the introduction.

7:37

This episode we put out, it's now early

7:39

October, we put it out a couple of months ago. So some

7:41

elements of the chat may be a bit dated. I

7:43

was just in New York for the UN General Assembly

7:46

Week and I got a chance to catch up with John. And

7:48

actually, the work he's done even since

7:50

we did this interview has been really remarkable

7:52

in terms of assessing everybody

7:55

in the G20, large numbers of people in the G20

7:57

to look at really what are the main drivers. that

8:00

can precipitate climate action. How do

8:02

we in the US in particular, invest

8:05

thoughtful, strategic money to actually

8:07

move voters to get them to vote on climate as

8:09

an issue? That's something he talks about in this episode. So

8:11

I think this is a great choice, Christiana. Let's go

8:13

now to that episode and listen to Drilled.

8:16

We're thrilled to meet you. So hope you like Outrage

8:18

and Optimism and see you soon. Hello.

8:20

See you again.

8:21

Bye. Bye. Join us.

8:35

Hello and welcome to Outrage and Optimism. I'm Tom Rifikhanek.

8:38

I'm Christiana Riedes. And I'm Paul

8:40

Vikinson. This week we talk about what happened in

8:42

Bonn and the negotiations. We look forward to

8:44

the finance summit in Paris. We

8:46

speak to John Marshall, CEO of Potential

8:48

Energy, and we have music from Hazel

8:50

May. Thanks for being here. It's

8:56

good to see you both. And I'm going to see you in person next

8:58

week, Christiana, which is very exciting. I am on

9:01

my way to London. I know, Paul,

9:03

I'm sad you're not going to be there. Unless you are. Why

9:05

am I not going to be there? Plum Village in France

9:07

next week. I'm not going to be there. No. Okay.

9:10

Well, I wish I would catch you anyway. Yeah,

9:12

we'll wish you were too. I'm on my way at the

9:14

moment to Global Citizen Festival in Paris

9:16

on Thursday. I know you're on your way to London,

9:19

Christiana. We've got various meetings lined up and then

9:21

Plum Village next week. So looking forward

9:23

to seeing you all. But for now, I

9:25

wonder if we should start by just diving

9:27

in to the negotiations that just finished

9:29

in Bonn. These are the intersessional

9:31

negotiations that happened between the cops, but

9:34

they do very much set the agenda for what's

9:36

to come. And we're now halfway towards

9:38

the much anticipated COP28 in the UAE. Dr.

9:42

Sultan Al-Jabir, the incoming president,

9:44

beleaguered incoming president, we might say, was

9:47

there. And I think there were lots of signs all over

9:49

Bonn. Christiana, you sent me some that you received.

9:52

Try, you know, continuing to repeat the phrase

9:54

that we need to get oil out of the negotiations. This

9:56

is the narrative that is really building.

9:59

But I think that the. SBs themselves,

10:01

the negotiations were regarded as

10:03

a mixed success to say the

10:06

least. Christiana, do you want to

10:08

kick off? What's your impression of what just happened

10:10

in Bonn?

10:11

Well,

10:12

I'm thrilled to hear

10:14

you say that it's a mixed

10:17

report. At best, I say. Have

10:21

you ever heard that story of

10:23

the curate's egg? Like this junior

10:25

person goes to the

10:27

kind of boss's house, this religious thing, gets this served

10:30

a bad egg, which is inedible basically.

10:32

And the host says, how is it? And he said,

10:35

good in parts. Exactly.

10:39

Good in parts.

10:41

Good in parts. So,

10:45

you know, Tom, I don't know if you

10:47

had joined us by this

10:49

time

10:49

or not, but I do

10:51

remember

10:52

one of these

10:56

subsidiary meetings

10:58

in which it took parties

11:00

two days to agree to an agenda. And

11:03

I

11:03

remember how the press was— I can't remember that. Oh,

11:05

you were there. Okay, good.

11:06

So, I remember how the press was just

11:09

in total, total disbelief.

11:11

How can it take two days to agree to an agenda?

11:14

Well, an agenda is actually pretty important

11:16

to agree on in these multilateral negotiations

11:19

because it determines what,

11:22

you know, how much time is going to be spent on each

11:24

topic. And

11:27

so, I was actually, what

11:31

should I say, wounded, and I carry

11:33

still a scar from those SBs

11:36

where we—it took us two days to

11:38

agree an agenda. But at this

11:41

SB, they agreed the agenda

11:44

one day before closing. And

11:47

SB, just for people, a subsidiary body, right,

11:50

which is the meeting that is the title of this two-week

11:52

meeting. Yeah, thank you.

11:53

These are the sort of the intersational

11:56

meetings between COPs.

11:59

the one in Bonn just

12:02

finished.

12:02

And they

12:05

spent essentially 13

12:08

or 14 days deciding the agenda.

12:11

No, they actually went

12:13

into topics without an agreed agenda. But

12:16

had they not agreed

12:17

an agenda, then nothing

12:19

that they had discussed would have

12:22

had any legal value. The fact is that

12:25

very little of what came out has any legal value

12:27

or any legal value. And they had no

12:31

real of what came out has any legal

12:33

value or any legal value add,

12:36

I should say, because most

12:38

of the items were simply procedural

12:41

decisions that

12:43

you Paul and you Tom will remember,

12:46

which is the kind of language

12:48

that you throw into a document

12:51

when there's absolutely no way

12:54

to do it. And basically the procedural decision

12:57

says,

12:57

and parties shall continue to

13:00

discuss.

13:00

Agreement to agree in the

13:02

future. Yeah.

13:03

So I'm

13:05

actually, I'm

13:08

quite despondent about

13:10

these last two weeks.

13:13

But Tom, you said, how

13:15

did you paint it?

13:16

Good in parts, make success. Okay.

13:18

Well, what was the good part?

13:21

Yeah, what's the good part? Which part of the ego are you

13:23

going to eat, Tom? I actually don't have an answer

13:25

to that.

13:27

And the reports I received were quite concerning for

13:30

the reasons you described as well as other things. So

13:33

one thing that struck out to me was the secretary

13:35

at the UNFCCC has taken on very much

13:37

its responsibility to try to track

13:40

and police net zero targets. We talked

13:42

a lot on this podcast about this sort of, you know,

13:45

concerned about is there green washing

13:47

and there was the UNS secretary general's high

13:49

level expert group on what does a good disclosure

13:52

look like and who should be tracking. Tired

13:54

by the brilliant Catherine McKenna. Yeah, by the brilliant

13:56

Catherine McKenna who came on the podcast and talked about it. And

13:59

the, you know, UNF Triple C executive secretary Simon

14:01

Steele ran a session where he

14:03

talked about the role that the UNF Triple C was

14:06

now going to play. And multiple

14:08

people who were in the room are messaging me saying,

14:10

the parties are not accepting this. Everybody

14:13

is saying, you've blindsided us, this is overreach

14:15

of your role. We don't want you

14:17

doing this in different

14:20

kind of language. Well,

14:22

they are setting themselves up as

14:25

the place that sets the standards

14:27

and that manages the disclosure process potentially

14:30

of all of the non-state

14:32

actors out in the world. And you should disclosure

14:34

process it in non-state actors. Interesting.

14:37

I'm not laughing or talking about it myself. I

14:39

think you do. So I think

14:41

it's just the UNF Triple C is such an important

14:44

institution. It needs to be able to like

14:46

bring parties with it to do big important

14:48

things. And I think the readout

14:51

I received, and we should maybe get Simon back to talk

14:53

about it is that it was

14:56

at best good in parts, but there was a lot of

14:58

pushback and a lot of we don't think

15:00

this is the role for you. So that

15:02

confuses the role of the secretary

15:05

at the UN Climate Secretary at a really critical

15:07

moment in terms of what is their role around

15:09

all these issues now that many issues

15:11

that were under negotiation before have

15:14

been resolved and we're moving to implementation.

15:18

Just a thought. I think

15:20

the United Nations is an invitation and

15:23

like every other right thinking person

15:25

I know, I accept the invitation and I

15:27

think it's absolutely right and proper

15:30

that we all do all we can to support

15:32

Simon Steele and the secretary to

15:34

achieve their goals. And

15:37

I'm very upset to hear about this

15:39

hiccup. Let's hope it is a hiccup. Well, that

15:41

sounds like a pretty big hiccup. Yes. Well,

15:44

watch this space. There'll be more to come. I do think on

15:46

Brighton, I think, and you circulated Christiane,

15:48

Dr. Sultan's speech, which would seem a lot

15:51

better than the ones he's given before. Yes.

15:54

Yes. The speech that he

15:56

held in Borne was clearly...

16:00

the result of of deeper

16:02

listening and of I

16:06

think shows a very

16:08

steep learning curve in what the role

16:10

of the cop president is so I was actually

16:13

quite quite Quite

16:16

delighted to to read that

16:18

and to see definite

16:20

improvement then

16:22

Can I ask a question?

16:25

I mean, I think that the the role of the own efficacy

16:27

in terms of Supporting the global stock

16:29

take and the role of non-state actors is absolutely

16:32

critical We should be very supportive of that and

16:34

the cops are in themselves very important

16:36

because the world's attention is really focused but

16:39

is it possibly the case that climate

16:41

change is really moving towards more now

16:43

of a kind of national issue and it's How

16:45

nations and national governments are responding

16:48

and that there's less of necessarily

16:50

an international character to it Let's say that

16:54

Would we not think that maybe this is the time

16:56

when the rubber hits the road and

16:58

how nations individually responding in in groups?

17:01

like the EU Increasingly

17:03

important. Well, I mean one

17:05

thing that tees us up nicely Maybe for the next topic which

17:07

is one area where that is absolutely not the case is around

17:10

financing So we actually do need

17:12

a lot of international agreement to ensure that

17:14

the appropriate financing can be put in place to support

17:17

Developing countries emerging economies to

17:19

make these kinds of transitions This is an issue as we

17:21

said many times that many of them have done little

17:23

to cause and yet They're suffering the worst impacts

17:26

and as we know from previous conversations of

17:28

people like Avanash Pissar countries

17:31

are paying very significantly more

17:33

to borrow money to invest in infrastructure

17:35

projects to try and transform their economies

17:37

and That makes it very unprofitable

17:40

for them often to invest

17:42

in renewable energy projects to invest in adaptation

17:45

projects and That's something that this

17:47

summit is taking place this week in

17:49

Paris The summit for a new global

17:52

financing pact is going to try to deal

17:54

with should we go there or anything else to say about?

17:56

the SPs

17:57

well and and the other thing that is related

17:59

to

17:59

to that, Tom, is this new

18:02

World Bank report that comes out and

18:04

says, you know, we are wasting

18:07

trillions of dollars subsidizing

18:09

fossil fuels, subsidizing farming,

18:11

subsidizing fishing, all

18:14

of which are causing, quote unquote,

18:16

environmental havoc. And

18:19

many of these countries that are doing that are

18:21

actually developing countries, spending

18:24

so much, so much money on

18:26

harmful subsidies than

18:29

they do on health, on education,

18:32

on poverty reduction.

18:34

And if these countries

18:35

were to reform those

18:38

subsidies, reduce those subsidies,

18:41

there would be quite a

18:43

bit of funding available to

18:46

address climate change, to address

18:49

biodiversity, to address,

18:52

you know, the pressing issues.

18:54

So these are really toxic

18:57

subsidies that are sort

18:59

of a leftover from last

19:02

century where it was

19:04

perhaps important to subsidize fossil

19:06

fuels

19:07

so that

19:08

a majority of people could have access, but that

19:10

is not so anymore.

19:13

That report

19:15

says that we collectively

19:17

are subsidizing to the tune of seven

19:20

trillion dollars a year.

19:23

It's just, so

19:27

let's rebrand that not as

19:29

subsidy, but as an investment

19:32

into our own destruction.

19:36

Unbelievably terrible. And it does come

19:38

a little bit to that issue of get

19:40

oil out of the negotiations. Now, clearly

19:43

we know that the UAE is in a very

19:45

sort of unique position because the economy is

19:47

very much based on fossil fuels. Just parking

19:50

the UAE presidency for a minute and the extraordinary

19:52

position of Dr Sultan. I think

19:54

that there is something very

19:56

strange. I mentioned this before about a

20:01

In last week, I think it was about the Tobacco

20:03

Industry Convention, this UN convention

20:05

signed by 168 countries that says,

20:08

in setting and implementing their public health policies

20:11

with respect to tobacco control, parties

20:13

shall act to protect these policies from commercial

20:16

and other vested interests of the tobacco

20:18

industry in accordance with national

20:20

law. And Cristiano, you pointed

20:22

out in response to me that

20:25

there isn't really a sort of, tobacco

20:28

is meant to end. And we were talking

20:30

a little bit about the notion

20:32

of energy companies being welcome,

20:35

but fossil fuel companies not being welcome. And

20:38

I mention this specifically because what

20:40

is the definition of

20:42

a fossil fuel company? And

20:45

I think the definition, if I might give it

20:47

to you, is from Shell, the new

20:49

Shell. The new CEO

20:52

just gave a speech in New York, I think just this week,

20:54

the chief executive, Wayol

20:56

Sawant said he sought to increase

20:59

investor confidence with the promise of, and

21:01

this is a quote, ruthless

21:04

focus on financial performance, spending 10,

21:08

15 billion of next three years on low carbon energy.

21:10

Sounds good, doesn't it? But 40

21:12

billion over the same period to spend

21:14

on oil and gas production. And here

21:16

again, I'm quoting him, he says, ultimately,

21:19

what we need to do is to be able to generate long

21:21

term value for our shareholders. The

21:23

answer cannot be, I'm going to

21:25

invest in clean energy projects and

21:28

have poor returns. And that's going to vindicate

21:30

my conscience. That's wrong,

21:32

he said. So the question

21:34

really is, is he a kind of monster

21:37

or is he doing what he's

21:40

been set up to do, which is be

21:42

put in there by shareholders who want higher

21:44

returns? And isn't it really

21:46

our responsibility to change the

21:49

laws so he doesn't get

21:51

higher returns from putting more money in fossil

21:53

fuels? Is he to blame for

21:55

this? Or are we to blame because

21:57

we're not good enough at changing our national laws?

21:59

so he doesn't make money by doing

22:02

the wrong thing. Sorry Paul, but I

22:04

am certainly not going to take responsibility

22:07

for that speech or

22:10

what it represents. I'm sorry. We're

22:13

all adults. We all have

22:15

climate information in front of us. I

22:18

don't think that you can exempt

22:21

the CEO of a major oil

22:23

and gas company from any responsibility

22:26

because our national

22:28

regulation is not

22:29

sharp enough yet. That

22:32

does not excuse him. You're going to have a clear answer. Yeah,

22:34

and you can't just say

22:37

my only responsibility is to make every decision

22:39

to maximize return at this moment and

22:41

I don't care about anything else. I mean that is

22:43

a form of capitalism that we know has

22:45

created innumerable problems. Of course,

22:48

nobody's saying that Shell should run itself into the ground

22:50

and lose all his money and there needs to be a

22:52

pathway to transition that is profitable and

22:54

brings the shareholders with them. But to

22:57

say I have no responsibility for that, I'm just going to make

22:59

money unless the laws are changed, I'm not doing anything is

23:01

wildly irresponsible. How many listeners

23:04

to this podcast have got some

23:06

sorts of investments where their

23:08

investment managers selected

23:10

him, selected

23:12

him as the next chief executive of Shell

23:15

because he was willing

23:18

to say these things and act

23:20

in this way? I

23:23

agree with you, Cristiano, but I think the culpability

23:25

does lie with us to some degree. He

23:28

was selected to close the gap between

23:30

the valuations of the US oil

23:32

and gas companies and the European ones and

23:35

he's talking about being, what

23:37

was his stupid word he used, about being

23:39

ruthless and

23:41

not being about, what was

23:44

it, trying to sort of absolve the consciousness.

23:47

I mean, it's a connected point. So

23:50

there's more to say about this, but on financing.

23:53

So Paul, we're going to have to move on, unfortunately,

23:55

to our guest. It's an interesting point and

23:57

it's one we should get into. It's one we're all very familiar with as well.

24:00

well, but to claim, I don't have responsibility.

24:02

I'm just meeting the needs of my shareholders. Everything else can

24:04

go hang. I don't care about anything else. It's

24:06

wildly irresponsible. There's absolutely no other

24:09

way to look at it like that. And history will judge

24:11

that incredibly hard. I agree

24:13

with that. But we've got to own this system

24:15

because we're in it. I think everybody

24:18

has to have responsibility for taking us to where we need

24:20

to go. And if we say our responsibility or their

24:22

responsibility or someone else, the butt just continues

24:24

to be passed, right? That's where we've been for a long

24:26

time. The secret is good communication. Now, who knows

24:28

about that? Now, yes, very good point. So we're going

24:30

to get John Marshall in a minute just very quickly before we do. I mentioned

24:33

earlier that there's a big summit this week in Paris. I'm

24:36

sure many listeners know about it. The summit for

24:38

a new global financing pack has been pulled

24:40

together by Emmanuel Macron and Mia Motley,

24:42

Prime Minister Barbados, and President of France.

24:46

And it's going to be an interesting moment. There has

24:48

been this set of ideas called the British town initiative,

24:51

which is an attempt to into review

24:54

and reform international finance. We don't

24:56

have time to get into it now. But I think after

24:58

the summit, we will invite someone deeply involved

25:00

to come back and report on what

25:02

happened and have we really moved forward. Now,

25:10

John Marshall, who we're going to let into the call in just

25:12

one second, is a completely brilliant

25:14

individual who I've known, we've all known for a number of years,

25:16

he's the CEO, and founder of the

25:19

potential energy coalition, which is a nonpartisan,

25:22

nonprofit coalition that brings

25:24

together the leading creative,

25:26

analytic and media agencies in the US

25:29

to shift the conversation on climate change. John

25:31

Marshall knows more than pretty much anyone

25:33

else about how do you develop new narratives

25:36

that help people understand the issue and engage

25:38

audience on a personal level and

25:40

build demand for a better world. So,

25:43

hey,

25:43

John.

25:44

Nice to be with you.

25:46

John, so thank you so much for joining

25:48

us here on outrage and optimism.

25:51

We're so excited to have you, John,

25:53

I actually can't believe

25:55

that we hadn't had you before. I was

25:58

appalled.

25:59

to realize we are not at all. Very

26:02

odd, because here we are thinking that

26:04

we're communicating

26:05

on climate change and we haven't had the

26:08

number one top, top expert.

26:10

So let this be a public

26:14

sign of contrition, John.

26:16

So we're repairing that

26:18

damage today. John, is

26:21

it possible for you before we jump into

26:23

the here and now, which is highly

26:26

complex, is it possible

26:28

for you to give us a

26:30

little historical overview

26:33

of, you have

26:35

been in this field of communicating on climate

26:37

change for decades. Would

26:40

you be able to give us a

26:42

little general overview on

26:45

how it has changed

26:48

since you have been leading

26:51

this field? Where were

26:53

we several decades ago as

26:55

opposed to where we are now? And

26:58

what have been the factors that have led for

27:00

that evolution?

27:02

Yeah, great question. Well, actually, I've

27:04

been thinking about it for decades. Potential energy

27:07

has been in business for, I guess, our

27:09

fourth anniversary is coming up in the next couple

27:12

of weeks. Thanks

27:14

to my 17-year-old locking me in the house one weekend

27:16

and telling me I needed to do something with my

27:19

life. So my... Yay!

27:21

Good job, 17-year-old. That's excellent. You

27:23

can go out with action. Get that. My

27:26

past life was selling credit cards and soap,

27:28

and so he said, you've got to try and sell something that matters. So

27:30

I think we still have a challenge

27:33

in front of us, to be honest. I guess

27:35

my observation would be we've

27:37

had a lot of solutions. We've had great policies. We've

27:39

undersold those in the last couple of

27:41

decades. I think that seems to

27:43

be changing. I think we've now... The policy

27:45

world is catching up to things that

27:48

we've actually made some more progress on in

27:50

the last few years. But I guess I

27:52

would say we still have a long way to go with

27:54

the general public. So I'm going to start with my outrage

27:56

story. I'll get to my optimism story. But...

28:00

have under communicated to

28:03

your average person. And so I think the reason that

28:06

we started potential energy was to find a way for

28:08

us to be an accelerant. There's

28:10

been a gradual increase in salience

28:13

of the issue. But in terms of urgency

28:15

of the issue, the number of people globally who say

28:17

this must be our top priority, we

28:19

still need to gain ourselves another 10 points really

28:22

fast. We're somewhere between 30

28:24

and 40% globally in terms of this being a high

28:27

priority issue, a

28:28

very high priority issue when it should be the

28:30

highest priority issue. And so

28:32

my perspective is a long way to go

28:34

still. But

28:36

John, 30 to 40, if that's where

28:38

we are right now, that's actually

28:40

an

28:41

improvement from where we were 10 or 20 years

28:44

ago, are we not?

28:45

Or in fact, 30 years ago when

28:47

or 40 when I started this.

28:49

Yeah, I did an interesting analysis

28:52

on a whole bunch of different countries and where they are

28:55

in terms of overall salience of the issue and tried to correlate

28:57

that to

28:58

strength

29:00

of climate policy. And

29:02

the higher correlation is actually

29:04

the polarization.

29:05

And so the gap between one

29:07

and one extreme and another extreme

29:10

is more correlated than the overall level.

29:12

So if you look at the UK, you've got a 14 point

29:15

gap between labor and conservatives

29:17

in terms of how important is the issue. And

29:19

in the US, you have a 59 point gap. Wow.

29:21

And you see these big gaps in Australia, you see them

29:24

in the US, you see them in South Africa and other

29:26

countries. That tends to be a bigger

29:28

driver of support

29:31

for policy than even the absolute level. You

29:33

see the absolute levels in different countries actually fairly

29:36

similar, but the degree of difference

29:38

in some is fairly high. So we've

29:40

been trying to crack this tough

29:42

puzzle of how do you get everybody to care

29:44

rather than how you get a smaller

29:46

group of people to care. And a lot of

29:49

that is about a rebrand in a way. And

29:51

I'm not necessarily saying we don't use the term

29:53

climate change. That's a big brand. It's a brand that exists.

29:56

I'm sad that we called it climate change. And

29:58

it's not the best brand. It doesn't initially mean

29:59

I

30:00

mean that much, but a brand is

30:02

kind of the sum of imagery that you think about when

30:04

you think about a problem. And so to move the climate

30:07

change brands to the relevance

30:09

today, as opposed to a

30:11

more abstract idea, is a pretty

30:14

big motivator.

30:15

Wow. So two things come up for me right away.

30:18

So what is the brand, John Marshall? What

30:20

is the new name?

30:26

And the other that comes up from the data

30:29

that you pointed out, the difference between the

30:31

USA, Australia and EU,

30:34

it's because of the polarization in addition

30:36

to the polarization. It's because of the political

30:38

parties, right? Because

30:40

we have somehow aligned

30:44

issues with a political

30:46

party, a political agenda. And

30:49

so my question to you is, is

30:51

that where climate change ought to be

30:53

aligned with a political agenda, or

30:56

how do we rescue climate change

30:58

out of this political nightmare? Because

31:02

as far as I can tell, climate

31:04

affects all political

31:06

parties equally in each country.

31:10

Well, the good news is that it's doable. And

31:12

we see this from our data. You really can move everybody.

31:15

It's kind of simple in a way. It's

31:17

about understanding who they are, what they care about, and what they

31:19

want and what they might miss. And

31:23

relating to folks, to your first question

31:25

about the brand of climate change, I think it's

31:29

the surrounding attributes that are the challenge, maybe

31:31

not so much the brand. No

31:34

one wakes up in the morning and says, what a great day for some

31:36

decarbonization. And those of us

31:39

in the climate elite are,

31:41

this is a smart crowd. This is a smart crowd of

31:43

people listening to this podcast. And they

31:46

understand the concepts of net zero in 2040 at 1.5 degrees

31:48

and decarbonization and

31:51

methane and anthropogenic and all that stuff. But

31:53

that's not how regular people think about the world. And

31:55

so we've got a bubble problem on our

31:57

hands. We've had a big mess with our term. of

32:00

our language with our goals. And

32:02

I kind of wish that marketers were

32:04

brought in earlier. I guess my thought, like

32:07

we think about the framing of net

32:09

zero. I think those people are starting to understand it, but we

32:11

lost a lot of ground because it doesn't, it's not

32:13

necessarily an intuitive idea and no one wants

32:15

to go to zero. It's not like a that

32:17

I want to go to. Why do we even have

32:19

a word net? So I think, I

32:21

think in terms of the attributes of the brand,

32:24

we just, we need to humanize the

32:26

way we talk about this and we need to simplify

32:28

it. We kind of have three tenants that

32:31

we're using, which is simplicity, humanity, and accountability.

32:34

So in simplicity, we just need to scrap

32:36

all those words and start talking

32:38

regular speak. In humanity,

32:40

and this, I think this does get to a way to enact

32:43

everybody. We have definitely found that the messages

32:45

that work the best are

32:47

have a person that

32:48

have a person like me and talk about how that

32:50

person is being affected. If you, we

32:52

did a little AB test where we had a

32:54

message that, you know, a lot of climate

32:57

philanthropists really like, which is a conceptual message.

32:59

Look at our opportunity for economic

33:02

advantage and competitive advantage and

33:04

job gains and all the conceptual stuff.

33:07

And then you just have another message with a mom

33:09

talking about her kid. The second message out performs

33:12

the first by a factor of four to one. And so

33:14

when we start to humanize the conversation and

33:16

take it out of the conceptual terms where it's

33:19

been for a long time, we get

33:21

a lot of effectiveness. But the last

33:24

thing is about the rebrand. I don't think

33:26

the concept of fighting climate change means that

33:28

much to people. I mean, people don't really

33:30

understand it that well.

33:31

I think the right rebrand is to fight the

33:33

pollution that's causing climate change,

33:35

or fight the polluters who are causing climate

33:38

change. Because we can fight a polluter or we can fight pollution. That's

33:40

a very identifiable thing in somebody's mind. But

33:43

it's really hard to fight an abstract concept

33:45

that most people think is caused by recycling

33:47

and plastics and those own holes. And

33:50

it's just not a very specific idea.

33:53

So probably the biggest part of the rebrand to your

33:55

question is to make this a pollution issue,

33:57

particularly in the global South as well where air pollution is

34:00

just such a scourge and really make that

34:02

the rallying cry of ending

34:04

the pollution problem. I love the

34:06

work you do and the humanizing point

34:08

is really good and I will put in

34:11

the show notes some links some of the ads you've done which

34:13

have been fantastic and always employ humor and

34:15

connections and help people see the issue in a different way.

34:18

I just want to ask also, you said there

34:20

about a campaign that reframes

34:22

it, talks about polluters and how do we think

34:24

about this differently but I want to ask

34:27

specifically about at this moment actually

34:29

the most effective campaign is being run against

34:32

people who are trying to do something about climate change.

34:34

We've talked a lot on this podcast about the anti-ESG

34:37

movement, about this attempt to slow

34:39

down what financial institutions are doing, the

34:42

insurers and others and so quickly

34:44

it seems they've been able to throw uncertainty

34:47

and confusion in a manner that appears

34:50

to be unraveling a significant

34:53

amount of work by loads of people over decades

34:55

to actually get momentum here. So the

34:57

question is from a communications perspective, how

35:01

did that happen? How were they able to do

35:03

that so quickly? And secondly, what

35:05

should we now do about it? Do we have a responsibility

35:08

to reclaim the narrative and if so, how do we do

35:10

that? Well, it's a really good

35:12

question. I think the first lesson I would get is

35:14

that this is a narrative war more than

35:16

anything else and it does seem to work

35:19

and I will say that the brand,

35:22

Woke Capitalism, is an effective brand.

35:24

It connotes an idea simply

35:27

and quickly and that idea, you

35:30

know, when people hear it will be, oh politics

35:32

is dominating my investment concerns which

35:34

people don't want and so the brand has, the brand

35:36

achieves a goal fairly effectively.

35:39

The good news is there are narratives that

35:41

beat it hands down. We just have to start using

35:43

those narratives and I think that the temptation

35:45

is to get stuck in the

35:48

complexity of it. Less than 30 percent of people have even

35:50

heard of the SG. And so the

35:53

SG defense campaign is a proposition

35:55

for elites. It's not a proposition for regular people.

35:57

So what do people care about? People

35:59

care.

35:59

They care

36:00

about the cost

36:03

of extreme weather events. They care about their pension

36:05

fund, fund under-risk. They

36:08

don't want the government running their money. And

36:11

so there is a counter narrative for that,

36:13

which is really effective. It turns out from our research,

36:15

the thing that seems to

36:17

work the best is equating

36:19

climate change with materiality and saying,

36:22

we can't obscure the data that

36:24

actually quantifies the risk around climate.

36:27

And we need the freedom to invest. And

36:29

we can't have limitations on using the data

36:32

that's associated with environmental risk.

36:35

And those limitations actually cost

36:37

everyone the cost of tax payer, so they cost the

36:39

pension holder. I totally agree

36:42

with you that there's something insane

36:44

about the ESG thing. It's like censorship. I

36:47

really didn't think the US was the land of

36:49

censorship. Although I did

36:52

want to pick something up with you. I was

36:54

watching a little bit of Fox News, as I often do,

36:57

actually just last night. There

37:00

was a little segment about the wildfires, you

37:02

know, and the terrible smoke and the haze in

37:04

New York. Well, you might have thought that was to do with climate

37:06

change. Turns out it's not because

37:09

they interviewed somebody called Daniel Turner from Power

37:12

the Future, which would appear to be a pro fossil

37:14

fuel lobbying group. And straight

37:16

to the camera, both the interviewer

37:18

and the person being interviewed who seem to agree with

37:21

each other in a spectacular amount, they

37:23

said that when we use fossil fuels to the

37:25

fullest, we manage our forests and fossil

37:28

fuels are the solution. And it also

37:30

helped with world hunger. And we need less

37:32

bad advice from the green crowd. Now

37:35

I've sent the link to that to put

37:37

in the show notes if anybody listening to this

37:39

program would like to watch a particularly deranged

37:41

segment of television. But you know,

37:43

you can't say on TV that the Holocaust

37:46

didn't happen. You can't say on TV

37:48

that cigarettes are good for your health. Why

37:51

can you say this on TV? I mean, the

37:53

good news is that the truth beats the lies

37:55

by an order of magnitude. Most people are inclined

37:58

to believe and do make

37:59

the associations between climate change and these

38:02

extreme weather events. And so the message, both

38:04

on the higher side, will crush

38:06

that ridiculous message

38:07

that you just said. So part

38:08

of the answer is we've got to give them the game. We've

38:11

got to give them the game. But the moment things happen, we need to be ahead

38:13

of the game when we know. I mean, this

38:15

is the sad truth. The outrage part of the truth is

38:17

we know that there are 15 or 20 things

38:19

that get people's attention when it's associated with climate

38:21

change. We know there are a set of extreme weather events that are

38:23

going to happen. We know what

38:26

they are. We can be ready for those.

38:28

We should have our messages

38:30

ready at the right time because our messages

38:33

beat their messages by an order

38:35

of magnitude. But

38:37

we just need to put more investment into getting the

38:39

right people in the right places at the right time. I'm

38:41

not as worried about disinformation

38:44

as I am worried about underinvestment in educating

38:46

people because educating people is relatively cheap and

38:48

very effective. We've got a 25% increase

38:50

in suburban women who are growth,

38:53

perhaps on growth in suburban women who care about climate

38:56

change from communicating to them. And so it's

38:58

not that they've got an effective message.

39:00

It's that we have a message we need to say more. We've

39:02

got to awaken 8 billion people on the planet to this

39:04

thing that's happening. If

39:06

we don't invest in that, we've got a big sleepwalking problem.

39:09

And right now, less than 20% of

39:11

people think clean energy has gotten cheaper

39:13

over the last decade. Okay? Solar

39:16

has gone down by 90% points. And so we have a message

39:18

problem as much as the communications gap.

39:21

How could that be that people don't realize?

39:23

And many people still think

39:26

of clean energy as an expensive luxury

39:28

when, in fact, the truth is that it's plummeting and bust,

39:30

and it's one of the least expensive

39:33

sources of energy we have. So we have a message dissemination

39:36

opportunity in front of us that we really need

39:38

to take advantage of. And we know, like, one of the things

39:40

that we've learned is there are a

39:42

few moments in the course of a year where people

39:44

are really going to care about climate change. There is a hurricane

39:47

brewing off of the capabilities right now

39:49

in June, which looks like it has a 70% chance

39:52

turning into a real storm. We need to be prepared

39:55

for when that happens to have all of our spokespeople lined

39:57

up in order to get our message across so

39:59

we're not so... subject to the disinformation. Well,

40:02

you've just said there is really fascinating, which is we

40:04

spend a lot of time thinking about what's the right message and how

40:06

do we persuade people actually, we've got the messages,

40:09

but the reality is that fossil fuel companies are spending

40:11

an enormous amount of money to protect their current

40:13

investments. And we're not matching that in terms

40:15

of our investment to get our message out, it's as simple as that.

40:17

No, that's exactly right. And we've been running

40:20

this data machine for the last few years,

40:22

and we've now served and measured about 2.5 billion ads. So

40:24

we're starting to learn, what is the

40:26

cost to actually turn someone into a climate

40:28

supporter? And it's not that expensive. People want

40:30

to do something about the issue. What

40:33

does it cost out of interest? From 13

40:35

reads that we've done, 13 large

40:37

scale experiments, the average has been $12.70 per person.

40:43

But our last read was $6.80. So it seems

40:45

to be getting cheaper. Maybe we've gotten a point where

40:47

people are starting to remember the message. You

40:49

have some decay on that message, but if

40:52

you think about what the stakes are, there's

40:54

a pretty high ROI to communicating,

40:57

educating on climate change. It's

40:59

a pretty high ROI. It's reasonably

41:01

an effect of inexpensive really.

41:04

John, does that data come from US

41:06

or is that global

41:06

those 12 or 16? It

41:10

would be, that is US data,

41:12

but it'll be similar. I mean, it'll probably be a lot

41:14

cheaper in parts of the global South

41:16

where media is cheaper, but it'll be similar,

41:19

I think in other countries just based

41:21

on how they're, we can correlate research

41:23

tests and in market tests to a high degree. So

41:25

I think it would be a similar cost in other countries.

41:28

So we have the facts. We know what the messages

41:30

are. It's cheap to educate, but just not

41:33

darn prepared.

41:34

So $6 each, maybe 5 billion

41:36

people, $30 billion. Come on philanthropist,

41:39

whoever's listening. It's about the size of

41:41

the video game market. Yeah,

41:43

in the context of the benefit we gain.

41:46

Yeah, but we don't need to educate 8 billion,

41:48

right? Let's remember

41:49

that. That's why I kind of went for five, sort of half. Let's

41:52

just do the US, that's 2 billion. And

41:54

that's like, what is that? 2% of

41:57

the cash Google or Apple account. To

42:00

your point about the last couple of decades,

42:02

Christiane, at the beginning, I do think

42:05

that we haven't necessarily taken

42:07

a marketing mentality to the problem. And

42:09

so what do marketers do? They

42:12

start with a customer, and then they design the product.

42:15

So if you're one of the great double

42:18

stuff Oreos, you

42:20

go out and you figure out what does someone care about,

42:22

what's their identity, what

42:24

motivates them, what do they love, what do they fear? And

42:27

then you figure out how do you package what you have to

42:29

say in order to engage them and add

42:31

value to their lives. Communications has

42:33

been at the tail end of the

42:37

climate movement for a long time. And we get to a point

42:39

in time, it's like, oh, that's

42:41

hard to sell. So I have a big piece of research coming

42:43

out in a month or so called Nice Policy

42:45

Can You Sell It, which is a big, big study

42:48

in the globe in the G20 as to like, what can

42:50

you actually, I think we're learning this over time.

42:53

It's been hard to sell a carbon tax. It's

42:55

really hard to sell a carbon tax to conservatives because

42:57

it's climate change tax and universal

43:00

basic income potentially rolled into one.

43:03

It's really important that we start with the

43:05

audience and figure out how do we position our

43:07

policy solutions in a way that

43:09

they can accept and not get

43:11

it positioned for us. There's a reason

43:13

that 20 states in the US have bans on gas bans,

43:15

right? Because if it gets positioned as a ban, that's

43:19

a tricky positioning. And so positioning

43:21

things as upgrades over bans or advantageous

43:24

versus costly, inexpensive

43:26

versus expensive, we need to think

43:28

about that before we

43:31

go so far on the policy path that we don't end up

43:34

being able to sell that we need to do. Yeah, I

43:38

mean, I was just speaking the other day at

43:40

a seminar for an NGO with

43:43

the former environment minister, Catherine McKenna. And

43:46

I said, oh, you got a carbon tax in and she kind of

43:48

jumped through the screen and said, it's not a carbon tax. The

43:51

Supreme Court have made clear it's not a carbon tax.

43:53

It's a price on pollution. And she

43:56

also talked about how they went through the testing just

43:59

as you have done. We

44:01

can't complement you enough for doing that kind of research

44:03

and acknowledging that people

44:07

have a big problem with the tax, but should

44:09

you be allowed to pollute for free? No. Should

44:12

there be a price on pollution? Yes. And then

44:14

the idea that the tax is entirely

44:16

neutral, so it doesn't stay with the government

44:18

that gets paid straight out to people in a check. And

44:21

each year, the amount of money going back to

44:23

the public from the pollution,

44:25

the price on pollution

44:27

is increasing. The reason I ask this

44:30

is I just wondered if you had a general

44:33

bit of advice for the sort of aspiring

44:36

policymakers who listen to this podcast

44:39

all over the world, who may

44:41

be in political parties or their advisers.

44:44

How do you think, what's the secret sauce

44:47

for developing climate policy?

44:50

Well, I think there's an explanation

44:53

to your neighbor test that I want you to go through.

44:58

There's one thing to think about. We did

45:00

a poll where we asked citizens across

45:02

the globe, what's the UN target for an acceptable

45:04

degree of warming? We

45:07

talk about 1.5 degrees a lot. The answer to

45:09

that question is across eight countries,

45:12

four degrees centigrade. And

45:15

so I just think there's a lot of, like

45:18

a piece of advice, number one, is burst your bubble,

45:20

look at what you're saying,

45:22

think about how you're relating,

45:24

talk to your neighbor.

45:26

1.5 is a very small number,

45:28

so is four, but no, it's not. It's catastrophe

45:31

and get human about it. And then

45:33

I think the secretary general has done a good job on this, by

45:36

the way. I think that language

45:38

is human and real and it's about accountability

45:40

and things that are happening. But

45:43

we got to get out of the 2040. By the way, the same number of

45:45

people think we should get to net zero by 2040 is 2050. That's

45:48

interesting. That doesn't mean anything to people. They don't

45:50

think about it. So we've got to get out of

45:52

the 1.5 and the decarbonization in the 2040. And we've

45:54

got to get into people like me

45:57

are being affected. OK, who are who are those

45:59

groups of people? do they care about? Everybody's got

46:01

a reason to care and policymakers

46:03

have got to connect to that more. Which

46:05

is tricky because it's a big conceptual challenge and

46:07

it requires a lot of big brains to be able to tackle

46:10

but we need to make it way simpler.

46:12

John, this may be an unfair question

46:15

but can you crystallize

46:18

your wisdom and experience

46:20

that you've been gathering into, I

46:23

don't know, one sentence, two sentence,

46:26

three words? If I am trying

46:28

to communicate on climate change, what is your top

46:32

suggestion to me? Well,

46:34

we've said simplicity, humanity, and accountability.

46:37

Keep it simple, make it about humans and make it

46:40

be able to identify the source of the problem and communicate

46:42

that right away. I think the other piece of advice

46:44

that I often give is test

46:47

yourself that whenever you say the phrase climate change,

46:50

put a consequence of that within six

46:52

words. The

46:53

climate change that is causing extreme fires,

46:55

the climate change that is raising people's food prices,

46:57

the climate changes that are causing your air conditioning

47:00

bills to be unacceptable, the climate change

47:02

that caused extreme flooding in Pakistan, make

47:05

it a consequence because the

47:07

second part is irrelevant, the first part

47:09

isn't. Because

47:11

we called it climate change instead of something much better

47:14

like the pollution blanket or something like that, because we

47:16

did that, we got to live with that, but we got to surround

47:18

it with an actual consequence that people are feeling so

47:20

that they're fighting the consequences, they're

47:22

not necessarily fighting this bigger and more

47:25

and more of a concept of climate change.

47:27

Well, I'm going to do a search on all

47:29

of my writings and speeches and everything.

47:32

That was

47:32

very helpful. Yeah, it's

47:35

a negative of the, in advertising people

47:37

would say features not benefits. So you say, rather

47:39

than saying this car has an air conditioner, you'd say keep

47:41

cool in this new car. So the same

47:44

thing replies in reverse rather than sort of saying,

47:46

you know, there's climate change, you say there's climate change and it's,

47:48

you know, but John, did you say just last

47:51

little prompt that I picked up from your TED talk

47:53

that in Florida, if you say to people, do you

47:56

want to reach net zero? They say no. And if you

47:58

say to people in Florida, do you want to do something? about the

48:00

flooding, they say yes. Is that right? Yeah, quite

48:02

specifically, we tested it. We tried to get people

48:04

to sign petitions, and it's five

48:06

times more expensive if

48:09

you say, let's get to net zero by 2040 than it

48:11

is to simply say, let's

48:13

save Florida. Five times more expensive. Don't

48:15

get five times more people to act on climate

48:17

change if I talk about saving Florida than

48:19

I talk about getting a net zero.

48:21

So that's, I guess, Christiane, that would be my

48:24

one piece of advice is do that. It

48:26

would be practical. Yeah, amazing. John,

48:30

thank you so much. It's been so insightful as ever. I

48:32

always love talking to you and learning about these things. And thanks for

48:34

coming on and speaking to our listeners. Before

48:36

we let you go, we've got to ask you, you know, someone who

48:38

sees the world and understands what's coming in

48:41

a whole variety of ways that are sort of hidden

48:43

to many of us. Can you please give us something

48:45

you're outraged by and something you're optimistic

48:47

about? Well, I'm outraged by

48:50

the thing you brought up, which was this

48:52

attack on ESG. I think that caught

48:54

the movement by surprise and had a

48:57

big impact and sort of reinforced

48:59

the idea that narrative matters because it's a narrative

49:02

that caught on fairly quickly. I'm

49:04

optimistic that

49:06

well, first of all, we made a ton of progress.

49:09

We can market that progress and marketing

49:11

works. So let's market with those marketer wins. This

49:14

is like a lot to say. So I'm up.

49:16

We've got some if

49:19

the problem statement is we're trying to convince people we

49:21

make progress on it in marketing. You have a thing called

49:23

the RTV reason to believe. And so in 2023,

49:26

we have a lot more RTVs than we had

49:28

in 2022. And every year goes by. So let's market the

49:30

heck out of those. And I think we'll get there. Love that.

49:33

Yeah. RTV. Marketing

49:35

works. People spend $600 billion a year because they believe

49:39

in that point. And I think they're right.

49:40

John, thank you so much, really. Thank

49:42

you. Thank you. Thank you for

49:44

that. And thank you for continuing this.

49:47

You've been working. You say you've

49:49

only started your company four years ago,

49:51

but actually that's just the format

49:53

because you've been at this for

49:56

such a long time. So thank

49:59

you for. for staying over this

50:01

for such a long time. And thank you for continuing

50:04

to support all of us twits

50:07

who think

50:07

we're communicating and are actually not.

50:10

It's

50:13

great to be here as well. Love the podcast.

50:15

Great, great, great time together. Thank you all

50:17

so much. So

50:22

I always feel I learned so much talking to John Marshall.

50:25

He just understands, I think, in

50:27

such a fascinatingly cold commercial

50:30

way, how do you sell something to someone? And

50:32

that's just not how we've thought about this issue. We

50:34

sort of said, you should believe because

50:36

it's important or you should understand. And of course,

50:39

it's been a real struggle and I think we can learn a lot from him.

50:41

What did you both take from that?

50:43

I'm just astounded at the simplicity

50:45

of his message. Money. This

50:47

is not rocket science. No, it's not even money.

50:50

It's not rocket science. It's standing

50:53

back from the belief that data and

50:57

complicated words are going

50:59

to

50:59

make a difference. And just

51:02

the simplicity and the impact

51:04

of just cold marketing.

51:08

In

51:10

the climate movement, I actually dare

51:13

think that in the past, hopefully

51:15

we're getting over it. We're stood

51:18

back from marketing because it's sort

51:20

of tainted and maybe we

51:22

were.

51:25

How we got here is icky. Yeah, it's

51:28

icky. We're too good

51:30

for marketing. We're too righteous. Right.

51:32

We know. We're on the right

51:34

side of history. And

51:38

maybe it's

51:40

as simple as

51:43

basic marketing. Yes. And

51:46

Tom did mention money that a lot of

51:48

the secret of good marketing is very

51:51

expensive, creative people coming up with very brilliant

51:53

plans, increasingly digitally

51:55

deployed now. Things have changed.

51:58

And also to be able to buy. or have

52:01

that media somehow. So I actually

52:03

wonder if there's a role for the leading

52:05

brands in the world to start being

52:07

the agents of these messages. You know, why

52:09

wouldn't major brands want to communicate

52:12

some of the messages that the climate movement has shown that

52:14

they're part of the solution and not part of the problem? And

52:16

actually, if we can tap into those major

52:18

global budgets and that reach, then

52:20

we might find ourselves very quickly changing

52:22

the public mood. And that is, I guess, the crux

52:25

of the whole world. You both remember this, I always say here, that

52:27

about a year or more ago, we met a very

52:29

famous person somewhere, and

52:31

that person posted about our podcast

52:34

and more than 100 million subscribers,

52:38

and it made no difference to our download numbers.

52:41

And that's when I really realized the intersection

52:43

of money with communication in social

52:45

media and elsewhere. These things only

52:47

appear in people's feeds, they're only promoted

52:49

in a manner that leads to an outcome if money

52:51

is put behind them. And we've been thinking

52:54

that we can go on Twitter with our thousands of

52:56

followers and put stuff out and change the conversation,

52:58

it's just not working. Actually, there

53:01

are those entities who are putting real money into

53:03

protecting their vested interest. And

53:05

as you taught me many years ago, Paul, no

53:07

one is investing to protect future revenue streams

53:09

that they don't currently have. So there's a massive

53:11

gap from those who are prepared to actually

53:14

invest in changing people's minds to

53:16

bring about the regulations and the industries of tomorrow.

53:18

And as you said, Christian, it's incredibly simple. We

53:21

just haven't done that work. And even

53:23

today, philanthropies don't really

53:25

understand that they need to do this. There's

53:28

still a desire to focus on like crunchy

53:30

nuts and bolts things, comms is a bit woolly. Actually,

53:33

what John showed us is it's not. You can work

53:35

out how many dollars you have to invest to persuade

53:37

a person to do something different and to believe

53:39

in something different and to find a narrative that works.

53:42

We need to do this really urgently

53:44

at a scale we've never done it before if we're

53:46

going to make the progress we need to. Yeah, absolutely.

53:49

And we can get people to believe something into

53:51

existence. And John is showing exactly how

53:54

fascinating it is. Okay,

53:57

lovely to see you both. Yeah, lovely

53:59

to see you too. Hazel May with

54:01

Golden Chains is this week's song. Thanks

54:03

for joining us and we will maybe

54:05

be together in person or maybe some of us will be next

54:07

week. But anyway, we look forward to

54:10

engaging with you and talking to you next week. Thanks

54:12

for joining us. Bye. Bye.

54:24

Hello, Outrage and Optimism. My

54:26

name is Hazel May and I'm a finalist in the

54:29

Environmental Music News. I

54:31

wrote my song Golden Chains as a bit

54:33

of an angsty climate anthem. It was

54:35

originally a poem written on a day where I was

54:37

feeling pretty low. I really was searching

54:39

for hope at the time in a world where I

54:41

noticed most people in power were choosing

54:44

profit over conservation. Let's

54:46

be real, it can still feel this way. And

54:48

also, there are so many people

54:51

fighting back and coming together to advocate

54:53

for change. And that's pretty amazing.

54:56

When I think of outrage, I think of people who purposely

54:59

bring harm to others. Whether that be through

55:01

their words or actions is just

55:03

never cool. In saying that, I am truly

55:05

optimistic about how much kindness and

55:07

empathy I see every day. And I'm

55:10

so excited to see what positive change

55:12

people can continue to bring

55:13

into this world.

56:00

We're looking for this. We're

56:03

running out of time. We're

56:07

all the lake and most so. It's

56:10

sharing good and hard. The

56:14

service just needs less. Let's

56:17

do the Jamie E.V. This

56:21

paradise is ending. We'll

56:24

have the heartbeat. Maybe

56:58

we will die in golden change. Crying

57:06

over lies of golden dreams. Maybe

57:12

we will die in golden

57:15

change. Crying

57:20

over lies of golden dreams. Crying

57:25

over lies of golden

57:27

dreams. Crying

57:34

over lies of golden

57:38

dreams. I

57:40

don't want to die in golden

57:43

change. Crying

57:48

over lies of

57:50

golden dreams. I

57:53

don't want to die in

57:55

golden dreams. I don't

57:58

want to die in golden dreams. It's

58:30

so fun. Come on.

58:33

The sand asks us to watch the whole train. Argh

58:35

the listening frequency. I

58:46

can't stand my faith.

59:00

You