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Is there any hope for the UN's climate goals?
57 Plays9 days ago
Amy and Anthony discuss the ongoing COP29 summit in Baku: first, checking in the vibes (bad), the chances for climate finance (mid), and the possibility of oil and gas companies leading the way on sustainability (maybe not as bad as you might think). They also tackle the recent Shell case in the Netherlands, where a court overturned a decision forcing Shell to cut emissions.
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:10
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Innovation Matters. It is the podcast about sustainable innovation brought to you by Lux Research. I am Anthony Sciavo. I'm the senior director here at Lux and I am joined by my wonderful co-host, Amy Harris. Amy, how are you doing? I'm doing pretty good. Thanks. Happy that it's Friday.
00:00:29
Speaker
Yeah, for real. We had a short week in in America here ah with with Veterans Day, but it was still not short enough, frankly speaking. Short weeks end up feeling longer for some reason, but we also had a short week in Canada ah for Remembrance Day.
00:00:46
Speaker
Yeah, they always they always end up feeling more stressful, but I'm looking forward to the weekend. I have kind of a weekend off, you know no substantial parental duties, anything like that. I get to chill out for the first time and in a while.
00:01:02
Speaker
so i ready to ease into the weekend for sure. But before we do that, we have the very important business of podcasting ahead of us.
Understanding COP 29
00:01:13
Speaker
um And we have a couple of things on the docket. It's just us, first of all, I should say. Just just Amy and Anthony, the the chaos configuration. We've gotten those bozos, Mike and Kartik, out, fully out of the podcast. Mike being, of course, in Tokyo for our Tokyo Forum.
00:01:31
Speaker
um But yeah, we are we are here to talk about two things and there are two kind of related things, but we wanted to touch on the big one, which is COP 29. If you don't know, that is not a police officer. It is the a Conference of Parties. It is a large scale meeting held by the United Nations um every year. And it is the meeting that essentially
00:02:05
Speaker
facilitates and in some level adjudicates the international agreements on combating climate change, right? Particularly ah the Paris Accords, which are the agreements, the international agreements for every country to reduce their carbon emissions in order to try and hit net zero by 2050 and also limit global climate change to less than 1.5 degrees C.
00:02:34
Speaker
And you know this is not a new thing. This has been ongoing, of course, for many years now, um starting in Kyoto in 1997, I believe. But I think the vibes, I guess I'd start with the vibes, as I often do. um and And I have to say that the vibes this year are not good. um I think that's probably the dominant story of COP 29. It's being held in Azerbaijan, ah which is A bit of a questionable choice at a baseline, right? There was a lot of pushback last year that was held in Abu Dhabi, I believe, um which is obviously a major, major, major oil and gas producer, which is the problem. ah Azerbaijan, similarly, is a major natural gas ah producer and is sort of pretty dramatically ramping up its natural gas production right now.
00:03:26
Speaker
There's also a host of other ah issues, of political issues and ethical and, you know, military issues happening in Azerbaijan right now. The government is not particularly but liberal or open, let's say. So, you know, this is a controversial pick. Right. And I think the baseline doesn't help people, you know, necessarily go into the conference with good vibes.
Political Engagement at COP
00:03:52
Speaker
Then, of course, you have the Trump election and the sort of, I think, broader defeat of, you know, the liberal order, the broader defeat, maybe the liberal order is the wrong thing to say, but, you know, the parties that were in power during 2020 and 2021,
00:04:09
Speaker
2022 have been losing elections all around the world. right Whether that's in the UK, whether that's in the US, whether that's in um you know Europe more more broadly.
00:04:24
Speaker
and so When we think back to COP26, which was held in 2021, this was really kind of a high watermark for global client climate interest. We had world leaders. We had Joe Biden. We had Boris Johnson. We had lots of prime ministers from around the world, Narendra Modi of India. um And it was held in Glasgow and there was this really big focus on committing to combat and climate change. And we got a lot of important ah pieces of of international framework, right? We got the the the Glasgow framework. And so this was you know this big, big high watermark of of interest. And now it seems like we're at a,
00:05:08
Speaker
a real low watermark, right? um Very few world leaders have chosen to attend the event. um There has been a lot of discussion of the number of oil and gas ah representatives who are at this event. um And even um there's been pushback from people like Ban Ki-moon, the former Chair, un climate chief excuse me the former UN n Secretary General, the former UN n Climate Chief. They published a letter saying that Cop is no longer fit for purpose, right? It's it's not serving its function as this big event that is going to push us towards climate change. So
00:05:47
Speaker
Bad vibes. Bad vibes all around, Amy. And I guess what what's, you know, where are you at? What's the what's the Amy Heroes vibes cast on, you know, the the conference of parties here?
Why Azerbaijan for COP 29?
00:06:01
Speaker
Well, yeah, I was interested i was interested in figuring like why was Azerbaijan chosen um to host the um on Prince this year and in previous years, why have other nations that have been referred to as petro states been hosting? And um I found an article that kind of explains the process. And basically, there's um the host country rotates between five regions. So there's the African region, Asia-Pacific, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean, and then Western Europe. And this year, it was Eastern Europe's turn to host.
00:06:38
Speaker
um And among um a number of the options, ah Russia blocked the selection of of certain countries, like Bulgaria, Slovenia, Moldova, um because there's been sanctions over Ukraine. So like the international conflicts are really kind of impacting the selection of of these nations. So I guess that's one thing to keep in mind. like um Climate change is a global issue. and And all I think there's kind of a growing awareness that really we need to work together um to combat the issue. But at the same time, there are all of these political um um maneuverings and conflicts going on that's hindering the the process, even the process of selecting where the the conference is being held. So I think there's like there's a fundamental tension there, despite the desire for countries to work together. There's there's big challenges.
Oil and Gas at COP
00:07:37
Speaker
um
00:07:38
Speaker
I guess the other thing I was thinking though, um is like having representatives of the oil and gas industry or people, I think that one of the, um and let me find my notes, I think one of the the the the person who's presiding um over the this year's president um is, the the ah the president um was previously the vice president of the state oil company of Azerbaijan. So yeah, definitely um these oil and gas,
00:08:10
Speaker
representatives are are playing a huge role in the in the conference. While we might say, OK, this is problematic, I think it's also fundamental that oil and gas companies are part of the discussions and part of the solutions. Because if all of these conversations take place without reference to the reality that oil and gas corporations exist and continue to operate, it it will also be difficult to come to any consensus. So I think it's not necessarily a bad thing to have
00:08:44
Speaker
a variety of voices at the table. um But I think and it may, I guess, okay, this is a weird theory and maybe just delete this part, but I just want to- No, I'm here for this. is This is the juice that you only get from the Amy and Anthony podcasting duo here. Later on. So when you study revolutions,
00:09:06
Speaker
I'm so new to this. You study revolutions that have happened in the past. um No revolution um has ever been fully successful without the participation of the elites.
00:09:18
Speaker
um and so you know you have you know Often revolutions start with grassroots movements, a desire to overthrow the system, but usually a successful revolution requires the existing elite to buy in.
00:09:31
Speaker
um on some level. um So we can think of this in terms of independence movements in Latin America. They were fundamentally led by the elites, um the French Revolution. Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to go to. I love this metaphor, by the way. This is extremely good. I'm listening to right now, re-listening, I should say, to Mike Duncan's incredible revolutions podcast, which I don't know if you've... All of our listeners should absolutely check out, but please.
00:09:59
Speaker
Yeah, so I guess thinking that if we think about those lines, and we we do need kind of a revolution in terms of our approach to to the environment, um having the elites, the existing ruling elites, which may we might think of as the oil and gas industry, participate and buy in and be part of it, I think is it fundamental. So perhaps not such a bad thing.
00:10:24
Speaker
Well, I think you're definitely right. And I think that um it it's certainly true that the revolutions have always had a pretty strong elite character. you know um And often, you know there are elites who are representing a pretty diverse set of interests. right And you know the the French Revolution is this classic revolution where you have the aristocracy, and then you have the bourgeoisie, and then you have like the people, you know the sans culottes, the masses. right but In reality, across those those lines, you had a lot of different people supporting different elements of of what the revolution would ultimately become. um It wasn't simply that everyone in the bourgeoisie was was pushing for
00:11:09
Speaker
you know the new bourgeois society and everyone who was an aristocrat was a monarchist, right? There was a lot of monarchist support among the peasantry and a lot of you know radical thinkers among the bourgeoisie and even some aristocrats who wanted to really tear down the whole system. And in a lot of ways they did, you know this big tide came in and then sort of came back out ultimately, but really dramatically changed things.
Corporations and Climate Infrastructure
00:11:33
Speaker
And I think that's um And I think that's very true because one of the things I've been thinking a lot about, specific to oil and gas companies, is who or what institution or group of people has the capability today to build large-scale infrastructure, right? Right. but I want to touch on climate finance, but you know part of a big part of the focus of this COP29 is climate finance. And you know there's estimates of $2.4 trillion of spending that needs to happen.
00:12:03
Speaker
but like
00:12:05
Speaker
We're not talking about Bitcoin, right? We're not talking about $2.4 trillion dollars of financial assets being moved around, right? We're talking about $2.4 trillion, dollars theoretically, of meaningful physical changes happening in the world. And that needs to be done physically by people and coordinated and maintained over decades, right? And when you think about the institutions that have the capability to really do that, it's basically governments to some degree and corporations. Those are the big ones.
00:12:38
Speaker
And I think the last 40 years, or maybe even the last, you know, certainly in America, since the end of World War II, there's been this steady, steady decrease in state capacity, right? From the time of World War II, when the state was basically running everything, right? You know, the economy was state directed, you had Rations and quotas and you know, there were private companies obviously But the economy was really fully fully fully in the wartime effort plus you just come out of the the New Deal, right? You know you had all these these state construction projects of infrastructure dams power the Tennessee Valley Authority I mean the the pendulum was almost entirely state power at that time and over the last you know 80 years or so and
00:13:24
Speaker
about 60 years, however long it's been, depending on when you want to time it um from the 40s or the 60s. The things have been slowly so swinging towards corporate power right and and away from state power. It's been a diminishing um state capacity in the United States, um which is not necessarily a bad thing. Certainly, I don't think it makes sense to have a wartime economy be like the permanent state of of operations, right? But what it means is now we're at this crisis, we're at this point of crisis, and the capacity, the groups with the most capacity to actually implement or construct, to actually actualize that 2.4 trillion dollars of activity and turn it into something real is corporations, right? They're the groups that have the institutional knowledge. They have the the engineers work in those institutions, right? They are comfortable and familiar with
00:14:16
Speaker
um
00:14:19
Speaker
actually building stuff, maintaining infrastructure over decades. These are the institutions that have done it you know and are doing it most successfully right now, um and are doing it, I think, at a very large scale. And you know the government has retained this type of expertise in specific areas, military to some extent, although that's been privatized a lot.
00:14:41
Speaker
things like roads. But even in the United States, you know certain things like rail, the government has essentially entirely ceded its capacity to build. you know It's not really building power plants and excuse me any anymore either, um to a certain degree that that's really been ceded. And things like transmission lines are you know It's not like how it used to be. the The capacity is not that strong. So I think you're right in the sense that whether you conceptualize the elites as the individuals themselves, like CEOs of oil and gas companies, need to be brought along for the ride, or at least need to buy in on some level to sustainability. Or you think of it from an institutional lens, which I very much do.
00:15:26
Speaker
um I completely agree. I think that it doesn't really, because we have to act now, I mean, we don't have 30, 40, 50 years know to to build up a new institution right that can that can do these things. We need to act now. And part of that will definitely means getting the government to rebuild some of that muscle for sure. But I do think a big part of it has to be getting these existing institutions too to act the way we need to act, them to act. I think the question is how do we get them to change, right? Because that is the the big question. And I think the story of the last three to four years is that
00:16:08
Speaker
You know, these voluntary efforts and these sort of, even incentives, things like the IRA have not made a, I don't want to say they haven't made a meaningful dent or a meaningful change. I think they have. I think there is some meaningful level of change, but they certainly haven't. um created a permanent change or a change that's resistant to any type of outside pressure. And we've seen that with companies like Shell, you know, kind of BP and all these oil and gas companies sort of retrenching back into oil and gas.
00:16:41
Speaker
Yeah and I think that that kind of comes, I do want to talk about the finance aspect of COPPA because I think that's big but maybe we can talk first about this idea of whether or not um corporations can be held apart responsible um and I guess this comes back to this idea of how do we actually enforce any of these agreements and There's um the, I guess, the recent case where this is in the Netherlands, where and in 2021, a head court had ruled um in favor of the Friends of the Earth, which is an environmental ah group, and 17,000 citizens
00:17:25
Speaker
that mandated Shell to align its emission cuts with the Paris Agreement. And that was kind of one of, I think that was the very first time that a court had ordered a private company to to make changes to their emissions to align themselves with an agreement.
Corporate Responsibility: Shell Case
00:17:43
Speaker
um um and And this ruling was was appealed and it was just recently overruled. um And so I guess,
00:17:54
Speaker
um There's concerns. There's concerns again that, you know, um who's going to take responsibility in in the long term for this, and despite all of the agreements that are going to be made um at COP and and future meetings, if corporations don't have to comply with these regulate these global agreements? How are individual nations going to be able to reach some of their their targets and their goals? And who has the power to kind of enforce?
00:18:32
Speaker
Yeah, it's an interesting one, the shell one, because, you know, as you mentioned, the courts had ordered them to cut emissions by 45% compared to 2019, by 23. So, you know, 50% almost reduction over a decade. And the interesting thing is that in the ruling, there are two things got pulled out, right? Like, one, it did uphold the fact that Shell has some obligation or duty of care to limit emissions, right?
00:19:11
Speaker
um So it's not like they said, okay, Shell, you can do whatever you want, or Shell, you have no duty of care, you have no recourse here, you you don't need to do anything. There is some duty of care here. But um they annulled specifically that 45% target, right? And they said, okay, that part is thrown out. And I think the point it makes, which is interesting, is that this ruling only targeted Shell, right? And so a lot of the ruling is like, well, there's no particular consensus on what an individual company should be doing, right? In order to be climate change.
00:19:56
Speaker
And it points out somewhat, I don't know, we'll get into this. And it says, okay, you know, for Shell to reduce CO2, basically a lot of that CO2 essentially would just go to other parties, right? If Shell stopped trading in fuels, other people would take over that trade. And I think it's so interesting because ah first of all,
00:20:21
Speaker
it's it's expressly It can be read as an express cry for global regulation, right? The whole point of this, they say we can't force just one company to do this. A, because it's because it's ineffective potentially, but B, because it's it's not really fair, right? um Which is essentially saying we need global regulation, the kind that so far, or at least national level regulation, the kind that so far you know the United Nations has really failed to deliver on, right?
00:20:50
Speaker
um But the other thing that's so interesting to me is like, you know, it says Shell can meet that obligation by seizing the trade and fuels, other companies would then take over that trade. But it's not clear to me that that's true, um or at least it's just assumed that that is true, that if Shell seizes certain types of operations so naturally other groups would come in and step in and and and do that. And I think that is one of the big challenges with climate change. You know, you can look at natural gas wells. This is this thing I hope, but bugbear, I always come back to, but like.
00:21:25
Speaker
you know One of the big ways that major oil and gas companies are reducing emissions is by taking old natural gas wells, which are leaky, and getting them off the books. But they're not plugging them or sealing them. They're just selling them to other companies who are extending their lifetime and thus increasing or extending the lifetime of those emissions. right right and you know I think there's a lot of compelling evidence to suggest that it's true, but it's really zero sum thinking.
00:21:48
Speaker
it's a really really like Well, then it's impossible to do anything because even if every company in the world stopped doing this type of stuff, then some new companies were just formed to to take it over. yeah i said yeah And so it's like it's just very zero sum thinking from the court. and And I think it's funny because if you applied this mental model to a lot of other stuff, it just doesn't make any sense. It's like, well, we can't actually charge this person with you know shoplifting, right? Because if we put them in jail, other people would just take over the shoplifting. So there's no there's no like strong reason to to actually do that. it's like It's a logic that doesn't really make sense under other contexts, right? You know you can make the argument that would by by saying, hey, we're going to court order Shell to stop doing this, other companies would look at that and say, oh, if we spend a lot of money,
00:22:44
Speaker
trying to buy into Shell's old business, we will then get screwed. right like we We'll get court ordered. right yeah so you It potentially decreases the value of doing this trade at all. right so it's like its it's a very um It's a very facile argument, right? And it's a very thin argument. um And it's very funny where you see these you know these legal arguments being used to to you know who they get deployed in service of. And it's not surprising that it's the Netherlands you know doing that in in the defense of Shell, right? But yeah, I was curious for what you thought about the whole but whole Shell case and and how it fits in here.
00:23:27
Speaker
I think what stood out to me, because again, I was looking at Shell's arguments. And one of the things they also said was that it was unrealistic to try to hold Shell accountable for its consumers' choices. So again, pushing it back to like, well, people want to people are buying cars, and people are filling their cars with gas. And so um it's not our fault that people just are buying this, right? And it's not our fault that we're making money off of this.
00:23:54
Speaker
um So, and I think um consumers in general have a feeling that often the responsibility um for climate change falls on them in a way, although they're not the ones who are producing the technology but it's, it falls on them to try to make um different choices, often more expensive choices, or um find a way to reduce their own kind of eco footprint while living in a society where the polluting is still going to continue. It's just that they personally won't contribute as much, right? And so I think that's another interesting thing to think about is responsibility, right? I guess it's weird it's all shared in the end, but um
00:24:37
Speaker
Yeah, again, i it's really interesting because again, I think there's there's a very sort of facile legal argument here, which is that Oh, well, it's it's really just the other people's choices, which is just like, again, it's like, I mean, like they left their shop. They didn't even lock up the merchandise. So, you know, it's really their lack of responsibility that's, that's responsible for my shoplifting of, you know, of this bag of Twinkies, right? Like, you know what I mean? Like it's, it's an argument that completely falls apart in a lot of other cases.
00:25:11
Speaker
I am interested in to dig a little more deeply on the consumer side though, because you sort of mentioned there's like this there' this idea of like personal responsibility, right? Where individual consumers, we feel like their lifestyle choices or people's lifestyle choices are responsible for um climate change. And thus, it's sort of a way of negating responsibility in a certain sense. Like, oh, I'm just one of... 8 billion or whatever. And then you also have you know these sort of recurring stories. like I think there's this famous Guardian storyline I just pulled up here from seven years ago, 2017. Just 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions, study says.
Accountability: Consumers vs Corporations
00:25:58
Speaker
And I think this is a number you've probably heard. This quote, this 100 companies responsible for 70% of emissions like statistic, i've I've seen it
00:26:07
Speaker
circulated online and in conversations even with people, you know. And it's also not really true in the same way that like the individual choices you know are not really responsible for climate change either. Right. Like, you know, you don't really choose to live in a place with coal fired power or whatever. But on the flip side, it's like, no, like those hundred country companies are like they're part of a ah bigger superstructure of economic commerce. You know what I mean?
00:26:37
Speaker
So and again, it seems like it's a little bit like just sort of externalizing the responsibility, right? Where it's just like, well, it's not my fault climate change. It's these 100 companies, right? If they just stopped doing what they were doing, everything would be fine, right? Or whatever. yeah So i'm I'm curious as how you or what you guys think about this sort of externalizing of climate change or this externalizing of of responsibility that seems to be even though the narratives are like really diverse and like some of them are like very like personalized and some of them are like very like
00:27:13
Speaker
Big corporate like it seems like that's sort of the through line there. So I'm curious as to what you think about that Yeah, I think it I think it kind of speaks to a sense of um Lack of agency that a lot of people feel when it comes to um Comes to climate change right they feel they can only do so much and so it's very it's very easy to to um to see it as an external problem that you individually can't solve. And I think this is something we've talked about a lot already in the podcast, but like recycling, um where you know you can have very good intentions and you can wash your glass jars and all your plastic jars before you put them into the recycling bin. And you can do all the research and make sure you're recycling things properly. But in the end, you don't have much say over how much actually gets recycled or how it gets recycled or whether the recycling process is
00:28:08
Speaker
is also damaging to the environment. And so I think for a lot of consumers, there is a sense of like, well, what can I actually do? um And
00:28:23
Speaker
i don't know I guess like also just recognizing that it is like a big systemic issue. if There isn't one individual or one group of corporations. It's it's how we have organized society broadly. It requires massive massive like restructuring and changing it daily daily behaviors as well as like economic structures. And so because of that, I think it's hard um yeah consumers often i think feel there's only so much they can do. And it's nice to have someone to blame because it helps to shift the guilt, I guess.
00:29:03
Speaker
Yeah. And I think like recycling, the big challenge is that a lot of stuff is really unintuitive. Yeah. Like global shipping is a good example where, you know, people, again, this is like, you see, you hear these stories about, Oh, like pairs get shipped from, you know, Thailand, you know, or from South America to Thailand and then back to the United States. And it's like, yeah, that's true. And that on a certain level isn't great, but actually like,
00:29:33
Speaker
sea travel is, you know, large scale ocean shipping is so emissions efficient, that there's probably more carbon emissions in your drive to the grocery store than there is in shipping that stuff all over the world. because And so it's like, you know, buying local or whatever, it's like, Oh, it's this great thing, but it's it's You know, it's like when you do the math, it's it's not necessarily like the most carbon efficient or the benefits are not nearly as obvious as you might think. It's like, oh, I'm going to like live like a pastoral farmer or whatever. And it's like, no, the people who have the lowest carbon footprint in America
00:30:11
Speaker
are people who live in like midtown Manhattan, right? Like on average, because they're not driving that much. They're not, you know, flying that much. They're like, those are the big, the the heat and the energy they receive to heat their homes is really efficient um because they're living in apartments. And that's just a way more energy efficient thing to do than and heating a house. So it's like, you know, that that little farmstead is actually you know way, way less carbon energy, carbon emission is efficient than the person in Midtown Manhattan. And that you know it it cuts against a lot of people's, I think, held beliefs of like you know what sustainability is and nature, yeah like this idea of eco-friendly. It's very different than how
00:30:58
Speaker
you know concentrating everyone into like Mega City 1 or whatever is like actually, from a sustainability perspective, like a really good idea, even though the vibes are like dystopian or whatever. Yeah, it doesn't feel So it's just, it's just funny. um But I guess the last thing I wanted to touch on, you know, this is supposedly the finance cop.
00:31:22
Speaker
There is a lot of focus theoretically on setting the new collective quantified goal. These are the goals for funding and particularly funding for ah climate mitigation, climate adaptation. I think we're supposed to be funding to a tune of $100 billion dollars each year. um That's the current commitment, which is both not being met and also, even if it was being met, is not enough. um So that's great.
00:31:52
Speaker
um and
00:31:59
Speaker
i I mean, high level, I'm curious if, you know, when people, what people think about like climate change adaptation and loss, and especially like the sort of international elements of it. um But I guess on a sort of more macro level, what you think about, you know,
00:32:27
Speaker
if it's even possible, in we're in this sort of era of anti globalist backlash, right, where, you know, international nano nationalism is on the rise, certainly it's on the rise in America, it's on the rise everywhere in Europe. um There's a there's a backlash against international cooperation And it's not just people's attitudes, as you pointed out with the selection of of Baku, which I didn't know was really interesting, right? Just how much international conflict that really shaped, played a role in shaping
00:33:01
Speaker
um the selection process there, right? So, you know, ah do you think it's, I guess, possible?
Colonialism and Climate Justice
00:33:08
Speaker
um Or what do you think about the potential for this type of international cross-border funding? and And how are people viewing climate mitigation as as part of this broader question of actually beating climate? Yeah, I think what stood out to me with on it was, I guess on Wednesday, there were a number of island nations um that kind of talked about how hard hit they were with um catastrophic weather. um There was Grenada's Prime Minister talked about like a 15 month of drought. Then they were hit by a category five hurricane. Antigua and Barbuda talked about the the devastating impacts of climate change on the island. And so I think um one of the things
00:33:57
Speaker
that came up here was a discussion of colonialism. They're linking the access to safe living conditions and clean drinking water and safe air and all of these things to to human rights. And they're also linking they're making ah a link back to colonialism. And I think there's been a history where nations in the global South have been used for resource extraction, extraction of raw materials, which were then used to um fund industrialization and
00:34:30
Speaker
in Europe and so I think a lot of the nations that are are facing climate change view it as a situation, a global situation that impacts them disproportionately and that it's a situation that is not necessarily of their own making um and the need for the the nation the industrialized nations who have economically benefited from colonialism to make reparations. So I think although there is this movement away from global crops cooperation,
00:34:58
Speaker
I think there is ah also a growing awareness of the long-standing impact that colonialism has and an increasing awareness of climate justice and recognizing that certain nations are disadvantaged, not just because of where they sit today, but because of long-standing relationships they've had with other nations.
00:35:21
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's important to recognize this is not a historical phenomenon, right? This is ah a current ongoing phenomenon. Especially, you know, you can look at textile manufacturing as a great example of this where Now, since the 90s, a huge amount of it has been pushed to like free ports and other special economic zones you know that are essentially these carve-outs. And in a lot of cases, there is some level of cooperation from the the country. right But they're essentially these carve-outs, these sort of stateless zones where
00:35:57
Speaker
Things like basic labor rights don't apply. right There's no organizing and taxes and all this stuff. And it's really a way to, of course, you know it's it's being done in the name of economic efficiency or whatever, but it's really a way of ah resource extraction, that resource being labor.
00:36:16
Speaker
um And, you know, the the ongoing externalities of consumption are very much pushed to the the global south still. um And so it's a softer form of colonialism, but it's certainly not.
00:36:31
Speaker
you know It certainly is a form of colonialism, right? And I think that there's a ah surprising amount of legal and corporate structures that essentially entrenched that. I think more than more than people realize or more than people want to realize. And I think you know one of the big questions going forward is,
00:36:54
Speaker
Beyond just is it possible to combat climate change without substantial substantial societal and economic reform changes, you know new systems? I think the answer to that is pretty obviously no. We need these big changes. right Corporations are not really capable.
00:37:11
Speaker
um They haven't responded to the the pressures of the last four years with with substantive change, right? But I think the question is, does linking these somewhat disparate political and historical grievances and harms accelerate the process of solving climate change or does it ultimately end up delaying it? right is it will we have and Is it possible to address climate change without addressing these these these grievances and harms? right You can imagine that kind of
00:37:47
Speaker
theoretically at least a kind of carbon neutral economy that still you know does a lot of the structures the harmful structures right where ah that that we have today and that we've had historically. um And you know one of my theories has always been that the technologies of climate climate tech will will lead to some change in this naturally because I think to scale them up successfully,
00:38:14
Speaker
requires you as an organization to be thinking about and making choices that benefit other people. right Because if you're just acting in the sort of current corporate, like narrowly defined self-interest, you wouldn't choose these technologies in the first place. And that's often what we've seen with this retrenchment. And like the act of, if if you're really, truly going to actually scale these things up, and you are at some level going to think about other other groups, you know these these these broader issues. they're gonna You're going to get pulled in there.
00:38:43
Speaker
But I don't know if that's actually true. And that's something that I think is true. But there's not really a lot of good evidence. And certainly Elon Musk, I think, proves that you can really successfully and aggressively scale theoretically clean tech technologies and um still, you know, be bad, right? Still be bad for for in a lot of different ways. ah Or certainly, um you know, not necessarily embrace like left wing politics, right?
00:39:12
Speaker
I guess like i it it depends on how people are defining sustainability. There can be a very like environmental um definition that stops at the environment. And then I think other people, and especially when we look at consumer conversations, their definitions of sustain sustain sustainability are often broader and they include things like um labor,
00:39:31
Speaker
um um ah animal welfare, ah human rights, and that sort of thing, ethical ethical approaches to to business. And so those things are kind of tied up in the consumer perspective together, where sustainability isn't just protecting the environment, it's like a it's a more holistic approach. um So I don't know, I don't think everyone shares that view. um But I think the UN, when we look at the UN's, what are those things called again? Sustainable development goals? They do include, they they are a broader definition, right?
00:40:12
Speaker
I'm reading, a it's interesting, I'm reading this book, Climate and the Anthropocene by, I think, Kohei Seto. I don't have it up in front of me yet, so I may have messed the name up, I'm sorry. um And the first chapter is, so Sustainable Development Goals are the Opiate in the medicines right which is and stop you know there's this this takedown of of the of the structure and the ah the nature of those goals and the way they're enforced. um It's an interesting book, but it's i'm I'm still only a few chapters in, so maybe we'll do a little book club that one we began later at some point. Well, listeners, dear listeners, we appreciate you coming along with
Closing Remarks
00:40:51
Speaker
us. If you want more Innovation Matters, there's more Innovation Matters to be had. Of course, you can subscribe to our podcast. You can like and rate it. We do appreciate that. You can also check out the Innovation Matters blog. It's on LinkedIn.
00:41:04
Speaker
We're probably going to get it going, but there's also the Lux Research Blog where you can get all sorts of good stuff, www.luxresearchinc.com. Check us out and thanks so much. Innovation Matters is a production of Lux Research, the leading sustainable innovation research and advisory firm.
00:41:21
Speaker
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