0:02

Hello, and welcome to The Energy Gang, a

0:04

discussion show about the fast-changing world of energy.

0:07

Coming to you again from the COP28 climate

0:09

talks in Dubai. I'm

0:11

Ed Crooks. And

0:14

it's my great pleasure to welcome today in person,

0:16

we're all sat around the same table, which is

0:18

a very rare thing for us to be able

0:20

to do. Most often we record these podcasts remotely.

0:22

So it's a great pleasure to be here in

0:24

person with old friends, Melissa

0:26

Lott, who is the Director of Research

0:28

at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy

0:30

Policy, and also newly appointed Professor of

0:32

the Climate School. What

0:35

is that new job you've got? I'm a professor at the Climate School.

0:37

Congratulations again on that appointment. And great to see you

0:39

here, as I say, in person. And

0:41

also great pleasure to be joined by

0:43

Michael Weber, who is the Maquetta Centennial

0:46

Energy Chair in Engineering at the University

0:48

of Texas in Austin. Michael, great

0:50

to see you also. Thanks for having me. It's good

0:52

to see you in person. So I'm

0:54

kind of overwhelmed, I have to say, by being

0:56

here. I've been here only about three or four

0:58

days and already it feels like, as

1:01

they say, my head is full. I've seen and heard

1:03

too much to be able to make sense of it

1:05

all properly. And

1:07

I suspect you will feel the same way

1:09

as well. It's a very overwhelming experience being

1:12

here. I'm interested to hear how

1:14

you feel about it both, because I know for both of

1:16

you, it's your first COP, right? Neither of you have been

1:18

before. I have been to a COP before, but not for

1:21

a long time. I went to COP 15, and

1:23

we're back in 2009. I'm

1:26

sure you've heard some few stories about that, which we might

1:28

want to get into later on. But

1:30

first of all, let's think about COP 28 and

1:33

where we are now. I mean, Melissa, how

1:35

has it struck you then for the

1:37

days that you have been there? What are your first

1:40

impressions? I think last night I

1:42

summed it up pretty well. I was chatting at our dinner

1:44

that we had last night that was on financing the transition,

1:46

how do we move money? And somebody

1:48

said, how long have you been at COP? And I was

1:50

like, technically a day and a half, but it feels like

1:52

about three weeks. They

1:55

laughed and said, that's every single COP. That's

1:57

how it feels. One day is at least a week.

2:00

We packed so much end of the time that we're here because it's such

2:02

a short period of time. I guess that makes sense. And

2:04

what about you, Michael? How does this talk to

2:06

you? I describe it as Disneyland for climate enthusiasts.

2:08

So it's sensory overload. There's just too much to

2:10

see and do. And you have to choose constantly

2:12

about which booth or pavilion or thing to go

2:15

see and visit. And it's also physically huge or

2:17

geographically huge. It covers a huge area. It's outdoors

2:19

like Disneyland. So you have to walk out

2:21

of the heat from place to place. It's hard to find

2:23

shade. And then there's often a long

2:26

line for the main attractions or food. And

2:28

then just like Disneyland, you're exhausted at the end. But then you

2:30

say you'll come back because it was kind of fun. And as

2:32

most of us said, you get to see your friends and that

2:34

kind of thing. So it feels like an amusement park for people

2:36

like us who care about these topics. Does that mean it's

2:38

the happiest place on Earth? It's not the happiest place on

2:40

Earth. But I never believe that for Disneyland either. And

2:44

it is kind of extraordinary, I think, how

2:46

these talks have evolved over time and

2:48

what they turned into. Because there is

2:50

a kind of so there is a hardcore

2:52

at the middle of all

2:55

this jamboree, this huge theme

2:58

park of climate related activity.

3:00

The hardcore is negotiators

3:02

from just about every

3:04

country in the world getting together to try

3:06

and forge global agreements

3:08

that will constrain

3:11

and direct countries to

3:14

a greater or lesser degree in order

3:16

to address the threat of climate

3:18

change and to drive down emissions and to help

3:21

adaptation to climate change and so on. And

3:24

then around that hardcore, there

3:26

is this enormous sort of

3:29

outgrowth now from that little seed, if

3:31

you like, this huge kind of flowering

3:33

shrub has grown, which is lots

3:37

of other governments, local

3:40

regional governments, civil

3:42

society organizations, NGOs, activist

3:44

groups, international organizations,

3:47

multilateral development banks, the

3:49

World Bank, other organizations, and

3:52

then businesses. It is a huge business event

3:55

now and you get lots of CEOs coming

3:57

along, you get banks, you get investors, you

3:59

get... everyone trying to pitch

4:01

their climate-related technology and so on. It's

4:03

a sort of a huge trade

4:06

fair really, as much as any kind of

4:08

sort of diplomatic conference it always seems to me. Does

4:12

that, I mean, what does that make

4:14

you feel about being here and about

4:16

this process? Is that a

4:19

good thing, do you think, for the purpose that we're

4:21

all meant to be here for, which is tackling

4:23

climate change and then helping the world move

4:26

to a more sustainable path? Or

4:28

does that as a huge kind of

4:30

superstructure of activity around that hardcore

4:35

actually detract from the work that the COP is meant

4:37

to be doing? I

4:39

think it adds to it, but Michael, I'm curious

4:41

what you use. I think it's that. Of course, I can't

4:43

compare to prior COPs, I don't know exactly, but we were

4:45

discussing earlier about how many people are here and we don't

4:47

know the firm number of 70,000 or 85,000 or

4:51

100,000. I was told by someone that there are

4:53

24,000 negotiators here and 14,000 observers, which

4:57

means the other 30,000 to 60,000

4:59

people are in the financial world

5:01

or they're buying something or selling

5:03

something or negotiating something in the

5:06

business side, not the diplomacy side. And that's pretty

5:08

interesting. And I think that should be additive. It

5:10

just means that more of the world, more sectors

5:12

than just diplomats are stopping to talk about climate

5:14

change for several days or several weeks. In fact,

5:16

I heard, just this morning, I haven't fact checked

5:18

it, but the COP 28 news

5:21

stories are the biggest news stories in the world

5:23

right now. They're streaming ahead of whatever celebrity divorce

5:25

is happening or wildfire or something like that. So

5:27

that is a good sign that people are starting to

5:29

pay attention. And part of that's because of the

5:31

CEOs or other people, the investors who are here. So

5:33

I think that's pretty interesting. Yeah,

5:35

as you say, I think those numbers are very interesting.

5:38

I hadn't heard that breakdown of the attendance just

5:40

to kind of benchmark it for people as you say, 35,000 or

5:42

whatever people in

5:45

the sort of the inner core of this,

5:47

which is what they call the blue zone

5:50

of the talks, which is sort of the

5:52

most tightly constrained area. Even that, as I

5:54

say, got 85,000 people inside it. That makes

5:56

it bigger than Burning Man, which apparently had

5:58

73,000, but not quite as much. down.

8:00

So I suspect it was helpful, all those negotiations.

8:02

And now there's some inertia with it. And

8:05

I think that's a very good point, actually, in terms

8:07

of, as you say, it's

8:09

easy to underestimate the impact that the past

8:12

20, 25 years of climate negotiations have had.

8:14

And in particular, I guess when you think

8:16

about the trajectory that the world is on

8:18

at the moment, it's

8:21

not great. We're absolutely as this exercise,

8:23

the global stocktake that we're doing here

8:25

at COP28 is showing we're absolutely not

8:27

on course to limit global warming to

8:30

1.5 degrees C. Where

8:32

we were 20 years ago, it looked like we were

8:35

on course for 4.5 degrees C or something like

8:38

that. And we're certainly

8:40

not at that anymore. Things like

8:43

the idea that basically the

8:45

world would have ever increasing

8:47

coal consumption and that coal would

8:49

end up in very steep escalation

8:52

in greenhouse gas emissions. We've kind of moved

8:55

away from that and climate policy has been,

8:57

I think, a crucial factor in putting us

8:59

onto that trajectory, not least because of course

9:01

what happened was that we had a lot

9:04

of subsidies and support going

9:06

into renewable energy, which helped that get to

9:08

scale, which helped bring the costs down, which

9:11

meant that now renewables are much more competitive and

9:13

we're going to have a much bigger share of

9:15

renewable energy in total global power generation

9:17

than we would have had before all this climate

9:19

effort started. So yeah, I do think that's

9:21

right. As you say, we shouldn't

9:24

exaggerate the kind of the dismissals of the

9:26

cops in the past. And I'm a cynical

9:28

guy, but I'm telling myself, don't be too

9:31

cynical about the past. I

9:33

don't think there's anything bad in this conversation. There's

9:35

nothing bad about we get together every single year and

9:37

we force ourselves to set aside time for something

9:39

because there is so much going on in the world.

9:41

We've talked about this how many times that which is

9:43

that there's so much going on in the world.

9:45

We didn't have a forcing function known as COP. Would

9:48

we actually be making the progress we are? So I

9:50

don't want to run the counterfactual. I'm

9:52

excited that we're in a place where we're having

9:54

these conversations and we push it. But I think

9:56

Ed, before we started recording today, you were talking

9:58

about how some of these climate stories and cop

10:01

are at the top of the readers list right

10:03

now. And I've had questions, I know anecdotally from

10:05

people who, you know, they know what I do

10:07

sort of, but we don't talk about it a

10:09

lot. And they're like, tell me more about this

10:11

cop COP thing. You know, what is going to

10:13

be accomplished there? What's the point of it? What

10:15

are you trying to do? Who's involved? And the

10:17

fact that it's raised into the conscious to that

10:20

point, I don't think can be a bad thing.

10:22

Absolutely. I do think that's right. In fact,

10:25

Toby, our producer was telling me that his

10:27

mum has been listening to the podcasts that

10:29

we've been doing. Hi, Toby's mum. Yeah, exactly.

10:31

Toby's awesome. And asking questions about it. And

10:33

I'm not sure Toby whether she would ordinarily

10:35

have been interested in listening to the energy

10:37

gang. I don't, she's, maybe

10:39

she's a regular listener, but even

10:41

so, as you say, just that

10:43

example of kind of COP28 raising

10:46

the consciousness of climate in

10:48

the public generally. That's absolutely

10:51

a good thing. And what I heard a member

10:53

of parliament from the UK say this yesterday that

10:55

this conference of parties also

10:57

brings together the leaders of

10:59

the dirtiest polluters together with

11:01

the leaders of the poorest, most vulnerable nations. And they

11:03

have to look each other eye to eye in

11:05

the vulnerable get to say, what are you going to

11:08

do about it? And it's a lot different if you're

11:10

in person talking to them and you realize, oh, wait,

11:12

my pollution doesn't stop at my borders. It's going to

11:14

affect this small island nation or whatever it is. And

11:16

that's valuable. And I think that has at

11:18

least changed the consciousness of

11:21

what the impacts are of our emissions.

11:24

100%. And it's helped us to understand the places that

11:26

we're all coming from when we come to solutions. So

11:28

you talked about national policy earlier, Ed. Absolutely.

11:31

National policy is very important, but if

11:33

you want practical pathways forward that solve

11:35

things, having that community voice, having a

11:38

diversity of voices, extremely important. Otherwise we

11:40

get solutions that don't maybe

11:42

make a whole lot of sense sometimes.

11:44

Or make sense for one actor, but not the rest. Exactly.

11:47

Absolutely. And actually, this is a point I've talked

11:49

about before, but this has been something which has

11:52

struck me again really forcefully. Being here is

11:54

just what a diverse place the world is. If you

11:56

just look at everyone kind of walking around and the

11:58

way they're they look and

12:01

then you think about the differences in political

12:04

systems, social structures, financial

12:07

systems, their economies, their

12:09

geography, their geology, their

12:12

weather conditions, all

12:14

the vast diversity of

12:17

humanity, all of it

12:19

represented, ideally just about all of

12:21

it represented in some way at these talks.

12:23

And as you say, the chance for people

12:25

just to see each other face to face

12:28

and to talk about the issues they're facing

12:31

and to talk about what they want

12:33

to see happen and the challenges that they

12:35

face and just to kind of even

12:37

just at the level of even if

12:40

they don't reach agreement on things just

12:42

to understand each other's positions better, I

12:44

do think that's hugely valuable and that's certainly something which

12:47

yeah definitely justifies this whole exercise.

12:49

Yeah and I think it exposes what is at

12:51

the core where we actually agree so the idea of

12:53

how do we have our communities continue

12:55

to be healthy and to be healthy over

12:58

time, have opportunities for continued growth and

13:00

then what things are not in the core but actually

13:02

are on more of the margins where we disagree. So

13:04

what technologies, how quick will it be a role for

13:07

fossil fuels or not in the short term, in the

13:09

long term? So we can get so caught

13:11

up in thinking that the argument is 90% of

13:13

what's going on, it's much less than that. Like the

13:15

arguments are there but they're not actually at the full

13:17

core. I think when you go around this group you'll

13:20

see at least the people that I speak to which

13:22

are from very diverse backgrounds, they have different positions, they

13:25

still have a core set of goals

13:27

that are broadly aligned. Yeah

13:30

I do think that is absolutely right. So

13:32

now tell me in then the past

13:34

few days that you've been here what do

13:37

you think is the most interesting and significant

13:39

thing that you've seen or heard? Michael what

13:41

has it been for you? A few things

13:43

come to mind, I think there's a subtle

13:45

change in language around fossil fuel phase out

13:47

or phase down and that the

13:50

word unabated has been added which I think makes a

13:52

lot of sense and I've been arguing loudly for this

13:54

for many years that we don't need to phase down

13:56

fossil fuels, we need to phase down unabated fossil fuels.

13:58

It's not the fuel self that's in the world. Snowball

16:00

effects though Ed, it's like we have a snowball, we're

16:02

starting to roll it down the hill. Eventually it gets

16:04

momentum to the point that we move

16:06

beyond can we have a loss and damage fund, does it

16:09

make any sense, okay we're gonna have one and now we're

16:11

actually putting money into it. And it's

16:13

not enough, that's true. Hopefully we end

16:15

up mitigating and being able to adapt

16:17

to what we can't mitigate enough that we

16:19

don't need it to be exceptionally massive.

16:22

But it's gaining momentum and it's a reality where

16:24

I think if you went back and I'm picturing

16:26

that my colleagues, it was in the White House

16:28

at the time, if the cop you went to

16:30

and their faces when they came back from what

16:33

was a not exactly uplifting

16:35

set of conversations and we fast forward today and

16:37

we have a loss and damage fund with money

16:39

in it. That is a big difference and I

16:41

think we should just acknowledge as we

16:43

acknowledge we need more that we've already made a

16:45

big jump. It's like we need

16:48

a hundred billion a year and it's less than a

16:50

billion so it's a tiny slice. I think the American

16:52

contribution is like 17 million or some small number but

16:55

still it's not zero and a billion is more

16:57

than zero. So it's a step

16:59

in the right direction. And we have

17:01

this concept of reclamation with our

17:04

wastewater and our solid waste and reclaiming old money.

17:06

So we do this in other parts of society.

17:08

We will pay to recover or

17:10

reclaim or restore things. We

17:12

might as well do that because of climate effects as

17:14

well. So it makes sense frankly. So

17:17

you mentioned this issue of the language that is

17:19

expected to come out of the cop on the

17:21

future of fossil fuels. I think this language is

17:23

very important because I've got a very Texas view

17:25

of major oil and gas producer and

17:27

Texas is increasing its oil production and

17:29

gas production and wind production and solar

17:32

production and battery storage implementation and hydrogen

17:34

production and carbon capture sequence and all

17:36

of it. So they don't have to

17:38

be in competition and people

17:40

might not like the oil and gas but that

17:42

gas is displacing a lot of coal and frankly

17:45

Texas gas could displace coal in Indonesia, India

17:47

and China as well. So there's a story

17:49

made that actually the rise of certain fossil

17:51

fuels can be used to shut down other

17:53

fossil fuels. But if we

17:55

just say no fossil fuels that can

17:57

create a recalcitrance. But if we say

18:00

add this word, they cannot be unabated, which means you can't

18:02

just dump the waste in the atmosphere. You

18:04

have to either scrub it at that point, convert it,

18:06

or recover it later with direct recapture

18:09

or something like that. So that addition of the

18:11

word by the Americans aligns with the Gulf States

18:13

and Russia. It puts us an interesting company, but

18:16

I think is important from the American perspective. And

18:19

I'll just say along these lines of the unabated, the

18:21

conversation was coming up in the last COP as well.

18:23

And we left that with this unsatisfactory

18:26

where it was like, okay, it's unabated.

18:28

So what does unabated mean? If

18:30

I capture 2%? It's abated. Yeah.

18:33

What threshold is it abated? Yeah. I'm

18:35

really interested to see where that whole unabated-abated

18:37

conversation goes. I know my colleague, Chris Bataille,

18:39

who's here. He's an IPCC lead author on

18:41

decarbonization of industry. And he literally wrote the

18:44

paper on what a science-aligned abated target needs

18:46

to be. And it's been picked up by

18:48

the Canadian government. And he wasn't

18:50

willing to come to COP. And he's here because

18:53

they came in and said, you've written the paper

18:55

on this. You've done the analysis on this. Can

18:57

you come in and get into these discussions and

18:59

help us understand what degree of abated we need?

19:01

And his answer is it's in the probably 90

19:03

to 95% round in a lot of these applications.

19:07

So you clean up the rest of it a

19:10

different way, but you're not capturing 20% or 5%

19:12

or even half. You're capturing the vast majority of

19:14

emissions that come out. And so

19:16

that, I think, is the argument you'll hear from a lot

19:19

of people, certainly a lot of people I've been speaking to

19:21

here at the COP who are kind of hardliners for, no,

19:23

no, the language has to be strictly

19:25

we commit to phasing out

19:28

fossil fuels, simple as that,

19:31

because they say, as you say, you can

19:33

make the kind of a theoretical argument about

19:35

abatement and unabatement. And you say, well, as

19:37

long as you're capturing the emissions from fossil

19:40

fuels, then it's OK to continue to use them,

19:42

except that they would argue in practice,

19:45

we don't capture the emissions. And

19:48

you can say, I mean, there has actually

19:50

been a tremendous increase in interest in

19:52

carbon capture in the past few years,

19:55

not least driven by the Inflation Reduction Act and the

19:57

incentives that that's got in the US, but quite a

19:59

few other countries. and

22:00

you have to scrub or remove it

22:02

from the smokestack, the tailpipe, or the

22:05

atmosphere, that'll probably cost

22:07

in a decade or two something like 50 to 100 bucks

22:10

a ton, if we believe

22:12

some of the technological learning pathways. That

22:15

means to manage CO2 waste

22:17

in the United States will cost

22:19

50 to $200 billion a year,

22:22

which is in line with what we spend on solid

22:24

waste management in the United States for landfills and trash

22:26

pickup and liquid waste management. Solid waste

22:28

is $100 to $200 billion a year, and it's

22:30

hundreds of thousands of employees. And

22:32

liquid waste is something like $100 billion a year

22:34

or less, but also tens of thousands of employees,

22:37

these are big sectors. And we can't imagine not

22:39

having solid waste or liquid waste management today. So

22:41

we can create a whole new industry that would

22:43

employ a lot of people that would

22:45

clean up the system. And

22:48

that seems entirely doable to me. That

22:50

doesn't seem preposterous. So

22:52

put like that, it seems very compelling. I

22:55

agree. And if the argument does sound convincing,

22:57

certainly for the US, I

22:59

guess one question then that I would have about that is,

23:02

what about other countries in the world?

23:04

What about, I guess, countries in emerging Asia

23:06

in particular that have huge

23:09

reliance on coal fired power generation,

23:11

and enormous install stock, big fleet

23:13

of coal fired power plants, and

23:16

are still building more to beat

23:18

their growing demand for energy? Are

23:22

they also going to create

23:24

this huge new industry to capture

23:27

and store all their carbon dioxide emissions? And

23:29

in particular, as you say, because part of the way

23:32

you can make that manageable is by

23:34

cutting the emissions in the first place very

23:36

significantly by shifting to clean the fields in

23:38

the first place. Maybe, so I'm actually optimistic

23:40

that will happen. So if you believe some

23:42

of the announcements or analysis from China, Chinese

23:45

oil and gas companies said that peak

23:47

oil consumption happened this year, 2023.

23:49

The oil companies are saying they're worried

23:52

about declining revenues because of the rise of electric vehicles.

23:54

It looks like coal plant construction, despite

23:57

tens of gigawatts of new coal plants in China.

23:59

They're also shutting down 10 to gigawatts. So it looks

24:01

like it actually might be plateauing right now. A

24:03

lot of the coal mining and coal plant

24:06

construction in China is more political than energy

24:08

needs. They have other energy options, but coal

24:10

mining and coal plant operations are very politically

24:12

important. But because of the air pollution from

24:15

those coal plants and the 2 million people

24:17

a year who die from them in China, they'll

24:19

have other reasons while they need to shut down on

24:21

coal, frankly. So I expect they'll follow the same curve

24:23

as the United States or the UK, maybe

24:26

at a different time. So we started in 2006, maybe they start in

24:28

2030 or something, but

24:31

I think they'll follow the same trajectory. You're gonna say,

24:33

and on this point, this COP is the first

24:35

ever health day, a COP that has a health day. And

24:37

I think the numbers that we're looking at this morning, we

24:39

were well north of 100. I think we're going

24:41

towards like 130 pulse signatures the

24:44

health declaration that's coming out. That is not

24:46

insignificant. I mean, I've been writing about this

24:48

climate and health connection, talking about decarbonization health

24:50

and the air pollution connections, because of course

24:52

the sources of greenhouse gas emissions are very

24:54

often sources or primary sources of different types

24:56

of pollutants that hurt our bodies, our lungs

24:58

and our hearts. And it's

25:01

really significant to see that here, because

25:03

it's like climate change is affecting our health. But

25:05

also there's all these other health related impacts from

25:07

the technologies that are producing our energy today, and

25:09

that may produce our energy in the future. And

25:11

so when it comes to this phase down, phase

25:14

out, which I tell you that

25:16

has been at the heart of so many conversations

25:18

and points of tension here, the

25:20

health component is definitely not lost. And having that

25:22

health day early with the

25:25

trade conversations and everything else, I

25:27

think was a very interesting strategic move. That

25:29

is a really interesting point. Going back to

25:31

the phase down, phase out. Yeah,

25:34

so what I wonder about

25:36

that is, how much does it matter? Because

25:38

viewed from one perspective, I

25:40

think it could seem quite

25:42

a philosophical and abstruse issue.

25:45

Does it really make a difference whether we

25:48

insert one particular word or

25:50

another into the communique coming out

25:53

of a Culp meeting? I mean, that's

25:55

it. I think it matters hugely. And

25:57

I honestly will be surprised. Everyone

26:00

can hear this recorded and we'll see if I

26:02

am surprised if it's anything but phased down. It's

26:04

not going to be phased out coming up in

26:07

these discussions. And I think that push between those

26:09

words matters a lot to different countries. So

26:11

different countries who right now get all their revenue

26:13

or produce a ton of their energy with social

26:16

fields, which fairly is all of us. But some

26:18

countries have easier pathways than others to actually bring

26:20

those emissions down. And I'm thinking even within countries,

26:22

I know last summer when I was in Iceland,

26:25

it was like, you could talk to the people

26:27

around Reykjavik who were like, geothermal, hoorah, let's go

26:29

with hydro for our industry. And then you're

26:31

out in the Eastern Western fjords and they're

26:33

like, practically electrifying this stuff makes no sense.

26:35

We're going to do offsets. That's what we're

26:37

going to do. And you take that

26:39

on a global level and you have actual countries who are in

26:41

the same boat. I would say my view is

26:43

the same that every word matters. And

26:46

the philosophical approach I take is if

26:48

you tell important stakeholders, say, a

26:50

lot of countries in their large oil and

26:52

gas sector say that they don't have a

26:54

place in the future, they

26:56

will resist that future. But

26:58

if you say you have a place in the future

27:01

and here's how, then they're more

27:03

likely to embrace that future. I think it's

27:05

very important. And we probably

27:07

want these companies because they know how

27:09

to drill for geothermal or sequestration. They know how to move

27:11

all the children around in pipes. They know how to do

27:13

offshore. They know how to do project management. There are a

27:15

lot of things that we need that they know how to

27:17

do. And if we sort of say,

27:19

well, you don't get a role in the future,

27:22

that's not going to work. Because it's beyond picking

27:24

winners like we do when we talk about

27:26

electrification and renewables and what the best technologies

27:28

are there. It's actually defining losers if you

27:31

say phase out. And we're saying, okay, everyone

27:33

can be at this table. This table's a

27:35

net zero table. So come to

27:37

it, bring your skills, bring your technologies. If

27:39

you can be a part of this, that's

27:41

awesome. Find your role in this past. Versus

27:43

saying because of the past or this exact

27:45

moment in the present, you are out of

27:47

this conversation. And back to your question about

27:49

who's here at COPED. I think this is

27:51

really the important part of the conversation, having

27:53

the fuel producers to give us the fuel

27:56

we use today, who can also help to

27:58

accelerate change. Another thing you were talking about, earlier was

28:00

this goal of tripling renewable power

28:02

generation capacity by 2030, which seems

28:06

to often get linked with the fossil fuel that, thankfully,

28:08

I think people see

28:11

a connection between them and people

28:13

see that we should

28:15

be boosting renewables in

28:17

order to expedite this phase

28:20

down slash phase out of fossil

28:22

fuels. Is that

28:25

a less controversial issue? You say you've been in

28:28

plenty of conversations about that goal

28:30

as well. Is that something,

28:32

in fact, that everyone is agreed on? Or

28:34

just by the same token that you have

28:36

people who are wanting to

28:38

essentially defend the place of fossil fuels in

28:40

the energy system? Do you

28:42

also get them saying, therefore,

28:45

because of that, we don't want to be

28:47

too ambitious about the growth of renewables? No,

28:49

I mean, I don't when it comes to renewables

28:52

tripling goal, I'm curious if you all have been

28:54

in different conversations, but it's been more, that's great.

28:57

We talked about it before COP started

28:59

about how tripling is definitely ambitious. It's pushing

29:01

beyond what you'd expect anyway, but there's an

29:03

economic argument for renewables. A lot of the

29:06

pace is being defined by non-technical barriers, barriers

29:08

in supply chains, et cetera. It's

29:11

saying, okay, how can we do that? More

29:13

to the point, how do we do that

29:15

not in countries who already have amazing energy

29:17

infrastructure? How do we actually get this tripling

29:19

to happen as we build up the infrastructure we need

29:21

to get those hundreds of millions of people in this

29:23

world that don't even have access to electricity? Not just

29:25

the billions who don't have access to enough of it

29:28

on to a system where they have

29:30

those opportunities for growth, opportunities for prosperity

29:33

that come from having access to modern

29:35

energy systems. Yeah, just as

29:37

a data point on the ambition of that

29:40

goal, I talked about these numbers before, but just to

29:42

drop them into this conversation as well, our

29:44

forecast at Wood McKenzie in terms of what we call our

29:46

base case, though that's our view of what's most likely to

29:49

happen, but as 6,600

29:51

gigawatts of renewable energy

29:54

generation capacity worldwide in 2030, that

29:57

tripling goal implies 11,000. So

30:00

that's about a 65%

30:02

uplift then from the

30:04

course that it looks like we're on the moment. So yeah,

30:06

I mean, certainly it does seem like a stretch goal. Was

30:08

there a Michael on that target? Does it seem sensible

30:11

to use to set that kind of goal? I

30:13

think it's fine. I don't know how you enforce

30:15

that kind of goal. So it strikes me mostly

30:18

as signaling that this is desired by the countries

30:20

and by the regions and by the companies, perhaps.

30:22

I think it's very exciting. There was another announcement

30:24

of tripling of nuclear, which I thought

30:26

was really remarkable. Although I can remember the

30:29

time, I think it's a later timeline than the renewables one.

30:32

It's by 2050. By 2050. So

30:34

that includes United States, Japan, and France, major nuclear powers.

30:37

In some ways, I thought that was great because I think nuclear is

30:39

an important part of the solution. But also

30:41

the fact that it exists is an interesting

30:43

emission of the problems of renewables, which is maybe we can't

30:45

raise them by a factor of 10. We can only triple

30:47

them. And we're going to need more

30:49

than tripled of something. So nuclear might

30:51

be that other thing. And so I thought

30:54

the tripling of renewables is great, but not enough.

30:56

But tripling of nuclear and tripling of renewables, like,

30:58

OK, well, that's pretty interesting. There's

31:00

a 400 plus gigawatts nuclear in the world

31:03

right now. So triple A means a terawatt

31:05

of nuclear, which is

31:07

non-trivial globally because it has such high

31:10

capacity factors. So combine that with all

31:12

the terawatts of renewables that have maybe

31:15

a third capacity factor and we got a lot of terawatts

31:17

of clean stuff. Yeah. And I

31:19

want to say around all these things, the renewables tripling, the

31:21

methane announcements that have been made, the nuclear announcements, a lot

31:23

of them, if not all of them, are going

31:26

to be done. And I'm racking my brain

31:28

to think if I can think of an exception here.

31:30

But there are things we can do with existing technology,

31:32

stuff that actually in some cases one

31:34

could argue we could accomplish without big announcements that

31:37

a cop. But in

31:39

other cases, maybe it is pushing and signaling. So the

31:41

US coming and saying, we are going

31:43

to get behind something that is about increasing nuclear power.

31:45

And so question one is, how does that play out

31:47

at home? Are we actually going to put in new

31:50

reactor technology? Are we going to reform the NRC? Are

31:52

we going to do all the things that need to be done to actually

31:55

get technologies out there? Or are we going

31:57

to be saying, hooray, it was a success because it happened outside of

31:59

our So the

32:01

US is talking about exporting small modular

32:03

reactor technology around the world and they've

32:05

got some promising looking export

32:08

markets in Europe, Romania, Poland, some

32:10

countries in Africa, Ghana, very interested

32:12

in developing its nuclear industry.

32:15

It seems a bit tricky though to me for

32:17

the US to be going out there setting, we're

32:19

going to sell this technology to the world, but

32:22

apparently they can't get one of those plants built

32:24

in the United States and the new scale SMR

32:26

plant apparently collapsing basically for

32:28

lack of interest because the buyers couldn't

32:30

be fine to take the electricity from

32:32

that plant. That doesn't

32:34

send a great signal really about the viability

32:37

of this technology, does it? We have at

32:39

the local and state level a

32:41

lot of bipartisan and Republican and Democratic support for

32:43

nuclear and at the federal level you have a lot

32:45

of bipartisan support for nuclear or nuclear. Hydrogen

32:48

and carbon capture tend to be

32:50

the forms of energy or energy action that

32:52

gets the most bipartisan support. So nuclear has

32:54

a good policy condition.

32:57

Melissa mentioned reforming the NRC. It

32:59

has a slow regulatory condition combined

33:02

with a policy support and so maybe can reform

33:04

the NRC. There's even whispers that maybe

33:06

the Navy would take over licensing of the small modular reactors

33:08

because they have so many decades of experience with it. It

33:11

could spin out some technology. So this is all pretty interesting.

33:13

From a climate perspective, we want a lot of nuclear, a

33:15

lot of places probably and it's a great export market for

33:17

the United States if we can figure it out. It's probably

33:20

faster to build in the UAE or Ghana than it

33:22

is the United States. We've learned that lesson a few

33:24

times. From a Department of

33:26

Defense national security perspective, it makes the Pentagon nervous

33:28

to think about a lot of nuclear materials and

33:30

experts in a lot of corners of the world

33:32

where we don't have great visibility. So

33:35

you might see tension within one stakeholder, the

33:37

U.S. government, where there are pro-nuclear

33:39

people and sort of concerned about

33:42

nuclear people in terms of all the locations

33:44

it might show up. But those

33:46

other places might be the first markets because the United States

33:48

is so tough. Having said

33:50

that, United States, we have data centers

33:52

that require hundreds of megawatts of 24-7

33:54

clean power that might be the first

33:56

customers for nuclear because they're having trouble

33:59

getting you to... utility hookups because utilities say we

34:01

can't provide it to you. We don't have the substation, we

34:03

don't have the wires, we don't have the power. So

34:05

you might see behind the meter solutions. In fact, a

34:08

lot of these announcements are coupled with someone

34:10

from Microsoft or someone like that, our data center

34:12

will use this. Xenergy, a small-modular

34:14

reactor company who canceled their IPO,

34:17

has a deal with Dell Chemical, for example. So we

34:19

might have behind the meter customer

34:21

solutions demand for small-modular reactors,

34:24

but maybe not at the bulk grid yet. We'll

34:26

see. Yeah, that's going to be

34:28

very interesting. Certainly something to watch. It does

34:30

feel like though something needs to happen. There needs

34:33

to be some projects that actually get built,

34:35

demonstrate they can be made to work and

34:37

actually start supplying power to somebody.

34:40

Because if not, then if it's all

34:42

still vaporware, it's going to be very

34:44

hard for international sales to take

34:46

off as well, I think. Quick anecdote in

34:48

Texas where we have a very Republican, very

34:50

conservative state, a very Republican, very conservative governor.

34:52

And I was at an event with him

34:54

just like six weeks ago, an announcement around

34:56

small-modular reactors with Dell Chemical and Xenergy. And

34:58

he made this piece like, we need clean

35:00

power. It needs to be reliable, sort of

35:02

an anti-wind, anti-solar, but pro-nuclear speech. And we

35:04

need it within the next five years. The

35:07

CEO of Xenergy said, well, how about eight?

35:10

It was a very awkward kind of press

35:12

conference to have. So the issue,

35:14

I think, is mostly the timing. Of

35:16

course, it works. We know it'll work

35:18

eventually. Can we make the timing work?

35:20

The economics was complicated. Great

35:22

discussion the other day. I have some

35:24

other people about how airlines do it. They

35:27

don't manufacture their new Boeing 777 or

35:29

whatever it was. I dated myself with a 90s

35:31

plane, but they don't actually start manufacturing until

35:34

they have a book of orders of like 200 planes. And

35:37

then they go build. And maybe small-modular

35:39

reactors need to be more like that. So

35:42

I think we've probably covered all the key

35:44

headlines. In our discussion

35:46

with that we've been having, this feels like we've addressed

35:48

all the kind of the big news items

35:50

that have come out of the cop, things that have

35:53

been making the headlines that people have been reading around

35:55

the world. What else? What else has

35:57

struck you as interesting? that

36:00

maybe going under the radar a little bit that

36:02

you think are important, that you've been

36:05

hearing about, talking to people about, that

36:08

they haven't been noticed so much yet. I've

36:11

got one, and it's around gender.

36:13

So I was at a women

36:15

leading on climate event yesterday, packed

36:17

house, standing room only, overflow rooms,

36:19

it was incredible. And

36:21

we were sitting there talking about how many

36:23

women are actually part of the negotiations, answer

36:26

is small one. There have been that, you

36:28

know, there are those goals and ambitions towards

36:30

having it be 50-50 representation, but

36:33

it's not there yet. And actually even in the attendees

36:35

of the COP, I can't wait to see the final

36:37

numbers come out, and if they're going to publish those

36:39

numbers to see how many, you know, women we

36:41

have who are here. And I will

36:43

say from all of the younger women that I was on

36:45

that panel with, and that I spoke to after the event,

36:48

they communicated how hard it had been for

36:50

them to even get into the blue zone,

36:52

and how just talking amongst their peers, they

36:54

really struggled to get badges, to get access

36:57

to the conversation. And in

36:59

particularly those who are non-native English

37:01

speakers. And I know that efforts

37:03

have been made, I will just, we should

37:05

give credit where credit is due. Efforties have

37:07

been made this year to bring in young

37:09

women and to bring translators with them to be

37:12

a representation from communities where English is not something

37:14

that you have access to, and you do not

37:16

learn that over time. So give credit where credit

37:18

is due, but it was a notable conversation. And

37:20

I will say in terms of under the radar,

37:22

it was not one that I heard in other

37:24

conversations outside of those pockets, and it's not in

37:26

headlines yet. And so that was just a big

37:28

one. Is there change happening, do you think? If

37:30

we come back at COP 29, do we think we're going to

37:32

see the gender balance being better than

37:34

it is here? Is the actual progress being made

37:36

or not really? What was your sense of it?

37:38

I mean, in terms of a step

37:40

function progress, incremental progress, sure. A

37:43

step function progress takes an intentional decision and

37:45

then sticking with that decision. And right now

37:47

we aren't 100% sure

37:49

who's going to host the COP next year. So

37:51

I think there's just a lot of questions on

37:53

how far this is going to be up in

37:56

people's priority list, because that's the deal. If it's

37:58

not in your top 10, incremental. Sure,

38:00

but actual step change functions? I

38:03

don't think so. Location matters. And those countries are

38:05

more friendly for women visitors. Some countries women

38:07

can't travel without a letter from their husband

38:09

or something. So I think the location will

38:11

matter. What about you, Michael? In terms of

38:13

things going under the radar, what's really interested

38:15

you? Starting to hear artificial intelligence pop

38:18

up in a variety of panels. And I don't

38:20

know if it was here last year or not,

38:22

but it's certainly on people's minds now as a

38:24

source of growing demand for power, but also

38:27

a tool that can be used to improve

38:29

energy systems. Or help do the

38:31

science for fusion we talked about earlier, something like that. So

38:33

artificial intelligence as an accelerant of

38:35

the solutions, but also an accelerant

38:38

of demand will be interesting to watch so

38:40

attention sort of play out and how that, what

38:42

that sorts out. I got to flag one thing

38:44

on AI. So David Sandolo, who I think you both might

38:46

know who's on our team at Columbia. He

38:49

and a number of colleagues came out with a report

38:51

about AI before COP. He's here at COP. And

38:53

I mean, he's all over the

38:55

news, all over discussions talking about how can it

38:57

help in the near term? Where can it help?

39:00

What does it do on the demand and supply side

39:02

in the longer term? What can that actually change? But

39:04

I'm going to go back to a conversation that we

39:06

had at the World Economic Forum Global Future Councils, which

39:08

I can't remember I told you about this one, but

39:11

I asked a world leading professor from Berkeley about like

39:13

how much can AI change things? And he was talking

39:16

on the stage in the opening plenary, which is online

39:18

for folks who want to watch it. And

39:20

he was saying, look, everyone is talking about AI kind of

39:22

like in energy, we talk about biofuels as if it's

39:24

going to solve everything, but there's not enough biofuels

39:27

in the world to solve everything. On AI, he

39:29

said, I'm now the solution that everyone thinks is

39:31

going to solve everything. I'm going to tell you

39:33

it's going to change things on the margin, significant

39:36

ways, but not completely transformational changes in the

39:38

next bit, where it's going to be transformational.

39:41

And this actually relates to the Dendro conversation

39:43

is around education and then the knock on

39:45

effects on energy. So let me explain that.

39:48

Can you imagine AI systems? We're

39:50

really close to this today where every single person

39:52

in this world could have a personalized tutor through

39:54

their entire life. Talk about education

39:57

access. And we know what increasing access to

39:59

education does. in terms of population

40:01

growth, in terms of access to education, in

40:03

terms of development, in terms of gender parity.

40:05

I mean, the knock-on effects of that are

40:07

massive, and energy is not immune to those

40:09

effects. And so that's not a change happening

40:12

tomorrow, but it's a change that could be

40:14

very transformational before 2050 and certainly 2060. That

40:17

is really fascinating. And Michael, you may remember

40:19

we were on that Energy Gang show earlier

40:23

this year when we talked about AI and energy. And

40:26

I think the general consensus, I think certainly

40:28

I think the consensus from you and Amy

40:30

Meinz-Jaffee was also on the show. She is

40:32

much more optimistic and positive, I think,

40:34

than either of us were on that

40:37

in that discussion in terms

40:39

of the impact in a

40:41

positive sense that she thinks AI can

40:43

have on demand for energy and really

40:46

help manage energy demand and increase efficiency

40:48

very significantly. I was

40:50

quite skeptical then. I'm wondering if

40:52

I ought to moderate my position a bit. And

40:54

I think definitely think we should come back and

40:56

talk about it again. Because even just in the

40:59

year or so, however long it's been since we

41:01

last talked about it, there have been a lot

41:03

of developments. And in fact, like you, I've also

41:05

been talking to a lot of people about it

41:07

while I've been here at the COP and certainly

41:09

there's something which there is great

41:12

deal of interest in. I mean, I guess I

41:14

think my kind of instinctive position had been close

41:16

to that, both Professor, you're talking about, which is,

41:18

yes, it's significant, but it's at the margin. It's

41:20

not necessarily changing everything. But I think

41:23

it's important to keep an eye on it because

41:25

it's such a fast moving field. Well, and

41:28

I'm just an energy systems modeler, right? Been doing

41:30

that for a long time back when I was

41:32

one of your students, Michael. And I think about

41:34

what I don't consider or what I take for

41:36

granted in those models. I take

41:38

GDP growth for granted. I take population

41:40

for granted. I take different service sector

41:42

and other developments in the economy for

41:44

granted. Those are assumptions. They're exogenous. They're

41:46

defined outside of my model. What

41:49

if they're wrong? Like I just, I just...

41:51

We all have the same assumptions and they all could all be wrong. They could

41:54

all be wrong. And what does that mean? And what

41:56

does that mean in particular country cases? And

41:58

then when you take a couple of those... countries that actually

42:00

are really impactful when it comes to bending

42:02

the curve or not in the very near

42:04

term. Who a wrong assumption in just

42:07

a couple of those is interesting. So I'm just trying

42:09

to take my blinders off. That's it. So I just

42:11

want to put it out there as a conversation. It's

42:13

a good one. It is a great conversation.

42:15

As you say, it's a fascinating topic and we should

42:17

definitely come back to it in the future. Um,

42:20

for now we ought to just about wrap it

42:22

up. I think before I let you go, I

42:24

just want your kind of final thoughts about COP

42:27

28 and what you've seen here. And

42:30

I guess the fundamental question I have, which

42:32

I've been asking myself and I don't know

42:34

what the answer is, but what

42:36

has changed in your view of climate

42:39

and energy as a result of being here in

42:42

the sense of, I guess in particular,

42:44

has it made you more or less

42:46

optimistic, positive about our ability

42:48

as a world to come together such

42:51

that we can avoid those

42:54

catastrophic consequences of global warming?

42:57

Michael, I'm really curious. We're about to say the

42:59

same thing. I really am. So I

43:01

bet we are. I should get you to write it down on

43:03

the piece of paper. Maybe

43:06

I'll go first. You

43:09

get the last word. I'm

43:13

more optimistic. I'm always

43:15

optimistic, but I'm more optimistic

43:17

because the pledges, though perhaps

43:19

unenforceable, they exist and

43:21

that gives some sense of accountability.

43:23

I'm optimistic because the investment in

43:25

business community is here. I'm

43:28

optimistic because of the number of people here. I'm

43:30

optimistic by the number of families with kids and

43:32

strollers I see in the green zone, which

43:34

means it's a family affair. It's not just

43:37

for the diplomats negotiating. And I'm really

43:39

encouraged by the students here and

43:41

the different academic delegations from different universities.

43:43

It's not just the faculty and staff,

43:46

the researchers like us here on this conversation with

43:48

you, but also the students. I spoke at the student

43:51

energy summit a couple of days ago in Abu Dhabi

43:53

with more than 600 students from around

43:55

the world, the most geographically diverse audience I've ever spoken

43:57

to. And they're serious about this.

43:59

this and it's their life mission. So I leave

44:01

enthused and encouraged. I think this is great. Is

44:04

that what you were going to say? So yeah,

44:06

it's written down here on my paper, students who are

44:08

with me and also attending, so I know just from

44:10

my climate mitigation class, I have a student who's shadowing

44:12

me, Lucas, who's been directly participating, asking questions. I know

44:15

he was an event with you earlier this weekend as

44:17

well. It's fantastic to have

44:19

him there and here's contributions. And I

44:21

also have a student from my mitigation

44:23

class, Kasia, who was part

44:25

of the Polish delegation and for I think it was

44:27

five years before she came back to graduate school and

44:29

she's here organizing the youth and a ton of events.

44:32

And those are just tip of the iceberg. There are students

44:34

all over the place, not just from Columbia, but

44:36

from universities around the world and schools around the world. And

44:39

that that's exciting. So that's great.

44:42

So I, as I was saying,

44:44

I wasn't sure how to feel, but actually, I

44:46

think both of you have really convinced me I'm

44:49

now feeling much more optimistic as well.

44:51

But I was at the start of

44:53

this conversation, most important first toughest audience.

44:56

No, but it's the, the pledges, the goals, they

44:58

exist and they're achievable. And we have those solutions

45:01

and the people, the people are at the heart

45:03

of it. So I'm glad you're

45:05

feeling more optimistic. Excellent. No, that is fantastic.

45:07

That makes me, as I say, I was very pleased to

45:09

see you at the beginning of this conversation. I'm

45:11

even more pleased to see you now we've had this

45:14

talk. I think it's been, it's been great, been great

45:16

talking to you both. Thank you very much for sharing

45:18

that with us today. Thanks very much for your time.

45:20

Melissa, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me here.

45:22

It's been great. And thanks very much, Michael. Thanks so

45:25

much. Let's do it again next year. Absolutely. In the

45:27

meantime, I hope you both get some sleep during the

45:29

rest of class. Because I don't know. Thanks very much

45:31

to all of you for listening. We'll be back again

45:33

with more news and insight from all the latest at

45:36

COP28 in the next few days. Until

45:38

then, goodbye.