Latest / The Smart Cookies podcast / Funding our own Demise: Why do we keep pumping money into FOSSIL FUELS, with IISD's Tara Laan
Transcript
- Zaza Tara Laan is a senior associate with the International Institute for Sustainable Development's energy program. She leads the Institute's energy taxation work and has over 14 years experience on energy subsidy reform. Before joining IISD, Tara held several positions in the Australian government, including senior advisor for trade policy in the prime minister's department and advisor on natural resource management and environmental conservation issues. She is the lead author of the new report that sounds a little bit scary, Fanning the Flames. G20 provides record financial support for fossil fuels which is what we're going to be discussing today. Tara, welcome to Eurotrash. Tara (01:00.239) Thank you very much, it's great to be here. Zaza (01:02.35) pleasure. I've just read a very startling article that outlined how four major oil companies, Chevron, Conoco, Philips, Exxon and Shell reported record profits last year, totalling more than one trillion dollars. Meanwhile, we went through and are still going through quite a nightmarish summer being battered by the effects of the climate crisis on every corner. The popular phrase on this is going to be the coldest summer for the rest of your lives. Why on earth are our governments providing financial support for an industry that is not just wreaking havoc on the environment and our lives now, but also bringing in record profits already on its own without any help? Tara (01:49.495) Yeah, no, it's a really good question. I think it's even worse than you say. I mean, four companies made a trillion dollars worth of profits. But if you look across the whole oil and gas industry, I think profits were around four trillion last year for the oil and gas majors and national oil companies. So, you know, vast, vast profits. That's just profits in one year. At the same time, you know, governments were shelling out for consumer subsidies and, you know, we're facing the climate crisis. So to answer the question. You've got to look at the history of why governments put these measures in place. And in the case of producer subsidies, they, you know, looking for oil and gas and coal used to be a risky proposition. You didn't know what you'd find. It was expensive to go looking, you know, then you've got to have a lot of infrastructure to mine or develop wells and so on. And so government said, well, this is very risky for you. We'll try and reduce those risks with some subsidies, tax support and so on. So that's why they put them in place. And why do they want to have a domestic fossil fuel industry? Well, it's, I guess it's jobs, it's, you know, energy security, it's energy supply. It might reduce costs if you can convince those companies to provide them out, you know, at a low price to the domestic market. So lots of good reasons why these policies were put in place. But the situation has changed dramatically. As you say, prices are now very high, so that reduces a lot of that risk and they're likely to stay high. But also our technology is a lot better, it's a lot less risky to go hunting for fossil fuels because you know what the reserves are likely to be, we can sense what's under the ground basically. But the biggest thing that's changed and the real, you know, the main issue at the moment is that we know there should be no new oil, gas or coal. Zaza (03:45.288) Right. Tara (03:45.367) if we are to keep temperatures below 1.5 degrees Celsius increase as a global average. So we know that there's no room for new oil and gas or coal. So governments subsidising this is completely crazy and at odds with their climate commitments. Zaza (04:05.446) Yeah, when you're talking about how it used to make sense in the past, I was thinking about that movie, There Will Be Blood. Did you see that movie? Okay, it's Daniel Day Lewis. And it's somewhere in the States 100 years ago. And it seems really dangerous. You know, these expeditions, drilling and finding these places. But like you said, yeah, it doesn't seem like that any anymore. Everything seems just like automated and a short thing, right? Tara (04:12.835) No. Zaza (04:33.758) On top of that, yeah, the climate crisis is here. By the way, how do these fuel subsidies actually work? So governments just take money from our taxes and pump them straight into these oil giants? Or is it a bit more complicated than that? Okay. Tara (04:46.799) A little bit more complicated. There's a couple of ways to think about it. One way is to separate out consumption subsidies from production subsidies. So consumption subsidies reduce obviously the cost of using fossil fuels. And one of the biggest ones that we see is what we call price support. And that is when a government, say like Saudi Arabia, might sell, it might sell petrol or gasoline at say 60 cents a liter, its cost of supply for that country. Say the international market price is like a dollar a litre, the government is forgoing that revenue. It's selling it more cheaply than it could get on the open market. So it is giving the local consumers a benefit that wouldn't be available if they were from other countries. So that's a big form of support done by a lot of countries. And we also see a lot of consumer support through say more wealthy countries. Zaza (05:33.812) Okay. Tara (05:46.107) giving transfers or tax breaks for consumers to reduce their heating costs, reduce their gasoline or diesel bills, particularly during the energy crisis and also for industry, right? You have a low cost of coal-fired electricity to hope to promote industrial development. So there's the consumer side. On the producer side, these are subsidies that reduce the cost of supplying fossil fuels. And it's often focused on the early stages of exploration and development. So these are subsidies like tax breaks. It means that a company can say not pay any tax on the oil and gas it's producing because it's investing in new supply. And this is really problematic because it means that in order to avoid paying tax, you keep supplying fossil fuels. Zaza (06:24.162) Hmm Tara (06:42.911) And it means that the government's missing out on current tax revenue, but it's also locking us into future supply. So that's the big problem with producer tax subsidies, and well, producer subsidies generally. Zaza (06:53.438) Is there any oversight there? Yeah, like, are, do we know exactly how this, where this money is going and how is it being spent? Or not? Or does it get murky once they, you know, dish it out? Okay, great news. Yes. Tara (06:55.702) Oversight? Tara (07:06.12) Yeah, look, if that- It gets super murky. I mean, I think, yeah, well, with producer subsidies, the difficulty is that once you start getting into how much a company is paying in tax and how many, and it's tax deductions, you really have to know what its tax would have otherwise been. And so you've got to know its turnover and its profits and all the details of its financial arrangements in order to then know what tax cuts it's drawing from. I mean, governments could choose to make this more transparent and companies could too, but they don't really want to. So this is one of our big jobs is to try and get more transparency in this area so we know exactly what it's costing budgets and the benefits that are flowing to producers and their effects. Zaza (07:55.306) All right, one of the main arguments of subsidies from the consumer side, like you said, is that they keep our energy bills kind of stable and low, right? What would happen to our bills if we suddenly stopped subsidizing fossil fuel? Tara (08:11.759) Well, I think it depends where you live, but for most of us, it would make absolutely no difference. Like... Zaza (08:17.885) Really? Tara (08:21.015) It depends who you are and where you are. Yeah. Zaza (08:21.898) I mean, I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised given the industry that we're discussing. But I did know it would be such a straightforward answer. Tara (08:30.831) No, no, I haven't. That was just the beginning of the answer. I think for people like me that are living in Australia in a country where you have mostly deregulated markets, and I'm not in a category that gets targeted support, it wouldn't make a big difference for me. And for many consumers, you wouldn't notice if some of these subsidies were removed. So that's the first thing. It's not going to be the end of the world. Zaza (08:33.961) Okay. Tara (08:56.503) If you are living in say a developing country where the government has been suppressing prices, then you'll notice that your fuel prices will go up. And this is of course not a huge problem for the wealthy, but for the poor who use less fuel generally, but that support they're getting is really important, right? You know, you might only be using a tiny amount of kerosene, for example, to light your, you know, light your lamps. But if that price goes up, it's going to be very, very difficult for you. So the critical point is what the government does with the savings. And lots of modeling has shown that if you remove fossil fuel subsidies and you put it into either targeted social welfare or any kind of productive use in the economy, something that's going to create jobs, something that's going to build infrastructure, it's going to improve the economy, even education or health support. All those things grow the economy and the modelling just invariably shows that countries are better off and people are better off because fossil fuel subsidies are really economically inefficient and there are just so many better ways to spend government money. Zaza (10:06.626) But the other side keeps bringing this argument forward. For everybody in Europe, I'm from Europe, they keep saying, yeah, your energy bills are going to skyrocket if we stop subsidies, if we stop drilling for new oil. In the States, I've heard that. I'm a news junkie. I follow a lot of news, read a lot of CNN and other news outlets. And they keep banging on about your energy bills are going to get sky high if we stop subsidizing. Zaza (10:36.894) somewhat effective this tactic. People are really scared and rightly so because you know cost of life is going up as it is. But you're telling me that it's a bit of a... Tara (10:50.247) So I think it is a scare tactic and I think it is used by people who support the fossil fuel industry. What it fails to recognise is that one, as I said, governments can use subsidies for better purposes. And so if you're worried about your fuel bills going up, you could be given that cash instead. So if you're currently receiving, I don't know, $1,000 a year in benefits from cheap fuel, Zaza (10:57.76) Of course. Tara (11:18.967) If you then receive that thousand dollars in your hand instead, I can't see how you could possibly say you're worse off. You know, you're going to be better off because you can choose what to spend that money on. And if you want to spend it all on fuel, go right ahead. So I think, as I said, it's really important to recognise that governments have these fossil fuel savings. And I think it's also really important to recognise that we now have cheap renewable energy. So maybe in the past, if fossil fuels were the total sum game and you reduce supply, then yes, prices will go up. But now we've got the levelized cost of renewable energy has come right down so far that we have alternatives, right? And we can electrify transport, we can electrify industry. And there are ways to keep energy prices low, but we have to invest in them. And again, you can use subsidy savings for those investments and to increase clean energy supply. Zaza (12:14.334) OK, if we stay with that topic and if we're being a bit more precise, if we shifted some or all of that subsidy money elsewhere, what could we do with it in terms of a green transition? Tara (12:25.775) Yeah, so coming back to the Fanning the Flames report that we're releasing shortly, what we found is that the G20 spent $1.4 trillion on subsidies in 2022 and could raise another trillion from minimum levels of carbon tax. So we're talking 2.4 trillion in 2022 alone. Now, what... Zaza (12:47.838) Okay, I'm sorry, I have to stop you here. What is a carbon tax? Because I'm still confused. I read about it, but I still don't get it. Can you explain carbon tax for dummies? All right, thank you. Tara (12:51.559) Okay. Yeah. No, so can't we? Yeah. Okay. Well, maybe the best thing to do is with an analogy, right? What governments have done in many countries in the world has been to tax cigarettes because of the negative effect on people's health, right? So cigarettes normally might be sold for five dollars a packet or something like that, if they were just left to the market price. But governments put in place taxes to increase those prices. Zaza (13:01.847) Yes. Tara (13:21.603) up to, you know, I don't even know what they are, but you're talking 20, 20 or so dollars, you know, so quite big taxes. And that has two effects. One is that it encourages people to stop smoking. Two, it encourages cigarette manufacturers to manufacture less because they've got to sell it for a very high price instead of being able to sell it sort of cheaply. And the taxes go to the government, don't go to profits for the companies. And the other big effect is revenue. So then the government is receiving revenue, which you can use to pay for some of those health costs, hospitalizations, reduced productivity, et cetera. Yeah, so carbon tax is just the same. I mean, carbon has a cost to society in the form of climate change. So what we're doing is adding a premium, a tax on top of anything that contains carbon. And the idea is to get investors and energy consumers to switch to clean alternatives, just with that price signal. Zaza (13:53.694) Got it. Okay, great analogy. Yep. Tara (14:18.319) and also raise revenue that can be used to ameliorate some of these impacts of climate change, but also to maybe support clean energy transition. Zaza (14:29.53) I read an article about the IMF, I mean on the IMF's website, I think, and it reports that financial support for the fossil fuel sector is going to rise. I repeat, rise from 6.8% excess of GDP in 2020 to 7.4% of GDP in 2025. How is that possible? What are we doing? Tara (14:52.967) So I think it's important to recognise that the IMF includes what it calls implicit subsidies in its estimates. So when you look at subsidy estimates, most international organisations just include what we call explicit subsidies, which is the tax transfers, sorry, the direct budgetary transfers, the tax breaks, that kind of thing that you would normally think of as a subsidy. So the IMF also includes externalities. which are the social costs. So just before I was talking about the cost of carbon, well, fossil fuels have other social costs as well, particularly air pollution. So air pollution is just increasingly understood to have huge costs for society. So from fossil fuels, it's particularly particulate matter and various sort of sulfur, dioxides and nitric oxides. And all these things have big effects on human health. Zaza (15:24.568) Mm-hmm. Tara (15:47.855) which then causes hospitalisations, reduced productivity, etc. So these are very real costs to society and to government caused by burning fossil fuels. And what the IMF says is that if you fail to price fuels or tax them according to the... and collect those, you know, those... reflect those costs, then that's a subsidy. So the IMF is saying that as we continue to use fossil fuels... those social costs are going to increase the effects of climate change, the effects of air pollution and so on and therefore those subsidies are really increasing. I mean particularly in the case of carbon, the longer we leave it, the worse those impacts are going to be, right? So if you continue to allow fossil fuels to burn and carbon to accumulate, you're going to get worse effects of climate change and dealing with those climate change impacts is going to cost more and more. So hence the growing... Zaza (16:22.126) Mm-hmm. Tara (16:45.193) estimates of support by the IMF. Zaza (16:48.066) What about specifically those, I forgot what you called it, exploration for oil subsidies? What's happening with those? Do we have any insights into that? Is it? Yeah, go ahead. Tara (16:56.995) Look, they're not really declining. I mean, from what I can see, they've stayed pretty steady. Governments are continuing to support fossil fuel exploration and production. And even more worryingly, I think we found in this latest report that government-owned companies, so state-owned enterprises, are continuing to invest in fossil fuel support. So not only are they supporting private companies to do it, But even the government owned enterprises are investing in fossil fuel production to the tune of about 322 billion in 2022. So we're not really seeing governments living up to their commitment to redirect financial flows away from these carbon intensive industries. In fact, it seems to be the opposite. Zaza (17:45.406) I mean, I'm just slightly speechless, given the summer that we've just had climate change, climate breakdown is finally here. I should address it more appropriately. You have some insight into this. I mean, a lot of insight. Why are governments doing this? What's happening? Tara (18:04.867) I think politically it is very challenging to change. So that really is what it comes down to. I think we know what we need to do. We know we have the technologies to address. Zaza (18:15.754) We've known for a couple of decades now, right? Tara (18:18.627) Exactly, exactly. Yeah. As I said, I mean, the G20 first committed, I don't know if I said this, but the G20 first committed to remove fossil fuel subsidies back in 2009. And we thought at the time, well, that's a breakthrough, brilliant. And here we are seeing record high fossil fuel subsidies now. So there'll always be an excuse to provide these subsidies. And the energy crisis is the latest excuse. The energy crisis has meant that governments have said, well, we've got to support our consumers. by keeping prices low, by capping these peaking prices. And also the energy crisis was born because of the Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And so governments are also saying, we need to shore up our domestic supplies. So we need to increase coal production. We need to increase domestic gas and oil production because we can't be beholden to the international market or particularly certain suppliers. My response to that is that fossil fuels will always be a volatile source of energy, right? They'll always be price volatile. They'll always be geopolitically risky if you look at some of the big sources of supply. So let's get away from them. Let the energy crisis be the last time we go through this because it wasn't the first energy crisis and it won't be the last. But what we need to do is say renewables provide a relatively price stable source of energy. and we can move across to that and move away from this whole system of fossil fuels. It's not just the pollution, it's the political risk, it's the economic risk, and we can just get away from it. And it's time to do that now. Zaza (20:03.414) Yeah, I just don't get it because the math probably just doesn't add up anymore. I mean, this year we had expensive worst wildfires in Canada, I think, in history, the biggest surface wildfires. And then we had boiling oceans and we had deadly heat waves in Southern Europe. In Australia, I think you had really deadly wildfires a couple of years ago, right? I mean, the costs for all of this probably outweigh the the guaranteed money that's supposed to trickle in from fossil or that's going to happen in a couple of years or something like when is the state going to recognize that the risks outweigh the so-called benefits and the guaranteed money that's trickling in? Tara (20:50.479) Look, I don't know. I mean, I find it absolutely flabbergasting. I mean, I was sort of learning about climate change when I was in high school and, you know, I'm no longer in high school. And it's been a long time and I just can't see what else it will take to get governments to act. I mean, I have seen a huge shift in the debate, which is fantastic. You know, climate change has gone from being, oh, this is something that might happen in the future. It's, you know, maybe mentioned in scientific journals and so on. But now it's front page news, right? And it is commanding the attention of world leaders and it is deciding elections in some countries. So there has been a big shift. And of course we've seen in the debate and we've also seen renewable energy prices come down. So that's fantastic, but we are not seeing enough. And I think that this example of support to fossil fuels from governments Zaza (21:33.951) in the debate. Tara (21:49.267) is the bit that I find the most challenging. I can understand that it's hard to turn a shipping tanker around in a hurry. But when our governments are making commitments to keep within 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius temperature increases to align public financial flows with low carbon scenarios, and that's just not happening. I just, I don't find the excuses good enough anymore. They really need to put their money where the mouth is and, you know, actually implement these policies. And we can do it. We know that there are the technologies out there that can provide energy. We don't need, we're not waiting for any big breakthroughs, you know. We could shift these public financial resources across to clean energy and start to see much more rapid change. Zaza (22:38.278) Right. I like the analogy of the tanker, you know, you can't move it fast enough, but it's been 30 freaking years You know, I wasn't like you said I was in the first grade of elementary school The country was still Yugoslavia a country that doesn't exist anymore And we had a subject called nature and I remember very clearly That they were already teaching us about the greenhouse effect and that was 31 years ago I'm now a 38 year old man. And here we are. It's really I don't know, I'm running out of adjectives to be honest, bad adjectives. A large part of the scientific community is claiming that politics has been completely hijacked by the fossil fuel industry. What do you think of that assessment? Tara (23:21.599) I'd have to 100% agree. I mean, if you look at Australia, both of our major political parties fully support new coal, oil and gas development in Australia. And we're seeing new coal mines approved every couple of months. And they're huge ones, huge coal mines, you know? And yeah, it's kind of the politics though has become a bit ridiculous because in Australia, we have a government that's supposedly pro climate change doing something about it. Zaza (23:35.04) Jesus. Tara (23:48.979) and we have actions to reduce Australia's domestic emissions. And yet we're still exporting massive amounts of gas and coal. It's absurd. Zaza (24:00.462) I'm sorry, but this is getting quite, this sounds quite ridiculous. You know that movie Don't Look Up with Leonardo DiCaprio? Ah, okay. It's about an asteroid is coming. It's an analogy for climate change. And everybody just, yeah, people are just reacting in these sort of ways. And the media just keeps going on with like celebrity scandals and all that stuff while the, you know, the asteroid is coming closer and closer. And the scientists are like, hey, guys. Tara (24:07.755) No. Zaza (24:25.846) Maybe we should focus on this thing up in the sky that we can see with our naked eye now, but people just keep going on. And it feels like we're already there, that we're living in this absurd scenario. Tara (24:39.607) It is completely absurd and it would be funny if it wasn't so tragic. Um, yeah, as a person who's also worked on, you know, environmental, um, conservation and, you know, I've got an ecology degree, you know, we talk a lot about climate change affecting humans, but there's just, you know, there's obviously such huge impacts on the natural world as well. Um, all of our ecosystems already pushed to the brink because of, you know, habitat loss and so on, and then pushed even further. So. Zaza (24:43.336) Exactly. Tara (25:07.899) We're in the middle of a mass extinction event. And again, people are just wanting to ignore it and move on and live their lives. I think because the problems are so vast that it is overwhelming. And I admit, I feel overwhelmed by it too. But as I say, I think the solutions are there. And that's the bit that is really important to remember that people are now aware of the issues and they are aware, it's almost a cliche that we have the solutions. We don't need anything new. We just need to actually do it. And it is about political will. And it's about people maybe being willing to make those kind of sacrifices themselves that are, and make climate change the priority when they vote, not maybe a tax cut or something that might affect their hip pocket directly, which it's valid as well. And I think increasingly though, people are realizing that they need to put climate change at the top of the list. Zaza (26:04.206) The Fanning the Flames report that you authored found that G20 countries provided a record 1.4 trillion, right, of US dollars of public money to support fossil fuels last year. Which countries are the worst offenders and which countries are actually improving in this regard, if any? Tara (26:25.595) So, I mean, I'd say that the biggest subsidies, as I mentioned, are price support. So countries that keep the retail cost of fuels below exactly on the consumer side. So big consumer subsidies, we're seeing that they're much higher, especially in 2022, than the producer side. And the biggest subsidies are from countries like Russia and China and Saudi Arabia. Zaza (26:35.714) So the consumer side, right? Tara (26:53.399) So, you know, in the case of Russia and Saudi Arabia, they're big producing, you know, oil and gas producing countries, and they just keep the domestic price very, very low, which results in large subsidies. And also tax breaks and so on in Russia and in Saudi as well. So these are some of the biggest offenders. In terms of improvement, I think India is a really good example. So India provided tax breaks for gasoline and diesel. for many, many years up to about 2014. And then it removed those tax breaks. And as a result, its fossil fuel subsidies have reduced by about 75% to 2022. And that's a huge achievement. And they did this partly just through having an agenda of economic reform, but partly because citizens could see that the government was providing other benefits like universal electricity access was happening during that period of time. There were subsidies for clean cooking, for example, which are problematic as well in their own way, but people could see that those who needed support were getting some. So there are signs of progress. I think also what we need to do is recognise that for a lot of developing countries, I'm not talking about upper middle income or sort of middle income, I'm talking really poor countries. They have very few other mechanisms to provide support to their people. They don't have tax systems, complex tax systems. They don't have social welfare systems. And so one easy way to provide economic support is to reduce the prices of energy. And as I said, it's a very inefficient way to do it because the ones who consume the most get the most benefits. But I think what those... What those countries need to do is put in place social welfare mechanisms, cash transfers. And we've seen that that's possible. Like Indonesia did it. I think Ghana and several countries have managed to put in place these social welfare systems and fund it through fossil fuel subsidy savings. Zaza (29:05.738) It seems that during a lot of these global climate change summits, one thing that's consistently an issue is that the rich developed nations that have historically pumped the most CO2 into the atmosphere are reluctant or don't want to provide enough support for developing countries, right? Which seems really unfair. What do you think of that? Tara (29:34.543) Yeah, so I think there was a commitment, I think was part of the Paris Agreement for rich countries to provide 100 billion in clean energy financing per year or climate change financing, sorry, per year to developing countries. And they are getting close to that target. I think it's about 17 billion off at the moment. So, but that target was meant to be met years ago, and it still only it still hasn't really been met now. So you're right, it's it hasn't been sufficient. And It's completely at odds with climate justice, as you say. Many countries are suffering the effects, and they're not the cause of climate change. So this is what's very frustrating about the G20, right? They are really relatively wealthy countries. I mean, even the emerging economies are wealthy compared to many least developed countries and developing economies. They need to be the ones that act, particularly the developed country members. And we're just not seeing it. So I think in 2023, international public financing for fossil fuels was around $50 billion. And international public financing for clean energy was around $13 billion. So that's 2021 numbers. Anyway, point being, governments are still providing funding more for fossil fuels than for clean energy. So if they wanted to, these governments... could be funding renewable energy development in developing countries. They have that ability, they have the funds available, so what we need to see again is a switch across to more funding for clean energy. Zaza (31:19.618) The United Nations Climate Change Conference 28 or COP 28 is approaching soon. I think it's in November, right? I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. And it's, yeah, it's already ripe with many controversies. It just came out that the United Arab Emirates, the host nation failed to report its methane emissions, which is really basic stuff I've been told. They have also announced that they are ramping up oil production. Sounds, yeah, quite mad. Tara (31:27.363) Yeah. End of the video. Zaza (31:48.034) Furthermore, none of the past 27 cops have been able to even mention fossil fuels yet. So the only global cooperative body that's supposed to take us out of this cataclysmic predicament can't even bring itself to name the one thing it has to decouple us from. Are these summits just a farce at this point? Tara (32:13.647) The challenge is that I can see the frustration and I'm not a person who's hugely enamored with these international processes, that's not really my field. But I mean, climate change is a global issue, right? So it does need global cooperation to deal with it. Whether or not those mechanisms are working, evidently not. And I also think that reform needs to happen at the domestic level. So, you know, from my experience back at Prime Minister and Cabinet in Australia, the only reforms that ever go through is when that consumers, not consumers, sorry, citizens believe the reform is in their best interest and international people don't vote. Right. So the decision makers are only listening to their domestic you know, clientele. And therefore, it's at that level that change happens. So, there are some benefits though for international processes, and that is to sort of increase the level of ambition to kind of shame countries into acting. You know, if everyone else is sort of saying they're going to do something, then you know, then there's more pressure for other countries to also say they need to do something. The trouble comes exactly what I just said. They say they're going to do something. Zaza (33:11.698) Right. Yeah. Tara (33:39.723) And we're just seeing this huge implementation gap. Countries have committed to stuff, but their policies, domestic policies, just aren't aligned with their international commitments, which makes those things a farce, as you say. I mean, to have the G20 say in 2009 that it's going to end inefficient fossil fuel subsidies and have record high subsidies 14 years later, it just shows that these international commitments are of dubious value. But to say that they should be... you know, that they're not worth attending. I don't know. I mean, I think, I think we have to keep trying. Zaza (34:14.398) Right. I just read that most of the people attending are actually lobbyists for big oil. I mean, isn't that pretty insane? Now, for the first time, I think they will have to identify themselves as such, which is just mad because we had 28 of these summits in 30 years. And they've just now figured this out. And yeah, I hosted a renowned professor of climate hazards, Professor Bill. Tara (34:20.649) Really. Tara (34:32.283) Good. Zaza (34:43.422) Maguire who just released a book called Hot House Earth. It's a really scary read. And he was part of one of these cops, and he was just so supremely disappointed. He said he's not putting any hope into these summits anymore, because like you said, everybody talks the talk, but that's where it kind of stays at. Tara (35:08.899) Yeah, look, I think it's difficult for environmental organisations because it has become a bit of a trade fair where you go along and you explain what you do. And so if you're not present there, and you're not explaining to donors, or you're not being seen and showing what you are, what your efforts are, then, you know, there's a bit of a question mark about maybe, you know, what your, what your, your levels of engagement, right? In terms of the meeting itself, then, yeah, I think you've just got to look at the record, just got to look at the record of what's been achieved. Zaza (35:47.046) Yeah. Yeah, I've been following COP28 on social media. And it's such a nice, lovely campaign that they're putting on. The president of the summit is meeting with indigenous leaders, and then he's meeting with youth climate activists, and he's doing all the right things. But there's not a word about fossil fuels or about ending fossil fuels. It's just, yeah, it's bizarre to watch. But. Tara (36:14.408) Yeah, I'll just in the G20 as well, I'm at fossil fuel. Yeah. Zaza (36:17.27) A lot of greenwashing is what I want to say, I suppose. Yeah, go ahead, sorry. Tara (36:22.591) The fossil fuel subsidies aren't even on the agenda for the G20, despite them being record high at the moment. So you can understand why they don't want to talk about it. But the fact that they're getting away with not talking about it is, I think, the big worry. Zaza (36:29.219) great. Zaza (36:38.418) A study from Barcelona's Institute for Global Health has found that more than 61,000 Europeans died in Europe last summer as a result of extreme heat. What's the best way for us ordinary folks, ordinary citizens, to exert pressure on our governments to stop subsidizing the industry that's now literally killing us? Tara (36:59.824) Well, unfortunately, the stats are even worse because if you look at deaths due to air pollution, I think that a recent study by Harvard found that one in five deaths globally is due to fossil fuel pollution due to particulate matter causing heart disease and lung disease. So absolutely. Yeah, yeah, huge. Zaza (37:16.554) Really? Oh my god, so 20% of deaths are related to air pollution. Fantastic, I live near the airport now. This is great news. Tara (37:23.547) Yes. Tara (37:27.972) Time to start wearing a mask and getting a filter in your house. Oh, I don't know. I think the filters are supposed to work. I mean, you know, if you keep your... Oh, you know, those air filters that go in your room and they filter out a lot of the pollution. When people are living in cities like Delhi and Jakarta, it's quite common to have a filter in your room that just cleanses the air, runs constantly, and, you know, it does... Zaza (37:31.643) Okay, does that work? Zaza (37:35.551) What kind of filter? Sorry, this is now of personal concern. Zaza (37:43.184) Mm-hmm. Tara (37:54.691) make a big difference apparently. I don't know in this situation, yours, whether it would make a difference. Zaza (37:56.346) Oh wow. So, okay. So even these like small particles, they're getting expunged from your surroundings if you have an air filter. I thought that just like kind of, yeah, I don't know. I didn't know. Okay, I'll look into it. I'm a bit of a hypochondriac. So I'm definitely looking into this. Tara (38:11.747) to be a good one. Yeah, yeah, no, it has to be a good one. But I think they do work. I know people in Delhi in particular, I've got colleagues that work there. And they say that during the burning off season when the pollution is really bad, that you really have to have a filter to, you know, make your room. Oh, no, that's okay. I can't remember what I was talking about. Zaza (38:18.732) Okay. Zaza (38:26.43) Right. Sorry, I interrupted you with my neurosis. Please go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah, I was asking you what's the best way for us ordinary folks to kind of exert pressure on our government. What do you think? Tara (38:42.255) Well, I mean, obviously voting is the biggest thing, you know, how you vote. But also I always support organizations that are doing things that I would like to do myself. So, I mean, I work on fossil fuel subsidies globally and that's, you know, where I make, where I try and have an impact. But in Australia, I fund several environmental organizations that are doing that lobbying directly. So, there's organizations that are, you know, basically, lobbying governments to change, change these policies. And if you can't be doing that yourself, you know, you're like, I'm busy, I've got a job and I've got my life. If you just spend, you know, a certain amount of money a month, it doesn't have to be huge. But if you directly support those organizations, they're doing the lobbying for you, then I mean, you know, it's a win-win situation. Um, and also I think you've got to vote. You've got to send that market signal, um, not so much about fossil fuel subsidies, but to the private sector. If you say. I'm going to buy an electric car or I'm going to take the train instead of driving or whatever. If you just, in everything that you do, you send a market signal that you are rejecting fossil fuels or you're rejecting pollution, it does make a difference. I mean, you know, what will change in this world is when the profit-making apparatus changes, you know, when people stop making profits from fossil fuels and, you know, clean energy becomes, you know, a force that can then take on the fossil fuel industry. So it's important to support that transition just in all our choices. Zaza (40:13.878) Mm. Professor McGuire said that, yeah, he's doing all of those things. He has an electric car, solar panels on his house, all of that stuff. But he said that now it's time for climate activism. What do you think of that? Tara (40:29.615) I mean, it was probably time for that 20 years ago. But I think personal choice now will have limited impacts. And really, it's governments that need to make those decisions now. And governments are the ones that have the big levers in their hands, like regulations, like taxation. And it really sits with them now. I think individuals we can. Zaza (40:32.579) Okay, fair enough. Right. Tara (40:58.119) try and push our governments to make these better policy choices. But in terms of choosing, making, well, I think you've got to send the market signal, but really you're trying to push for big changes at the governmental level. Zaza (41:16.778) Like we said, this summer has been absolutely brutal, killer heat waves, flash flooding, record temperatures all around. Half of my home country of Slovenia was submerged during the worst floods in recent memory, floods that have cost lives. The scenes were brutal and quite heartbreaking. And you always think, I think a lot of us, or maybe human psychology works in a way like, oh, it's not I'm safe where I am, you know. You always read about it in the news and it's some other country. But then when it hits you... You're like, you know, it's still a shock, even though everybody's been talking about a climate crisis for a long time. However, yeah, Slovenia is far from an isolated case. The climate crisis is like here now. And like we said, there's no place to hide anymore. Would you say that the attitudes of our governments are reflecting that in any sort of way? Are there some? efforts to address this crisis going on in some room in the background that we're not seeing? Or is it still just like more of the same? Because that's what it seems like and our conversation so far makes me think that unfortunately this is what it really is. You know you always hope that your leaders have some sort of contingency plan for things to go Tara (42:33.135) Mm. Zaza (42:40.082) and they've thought about it in advance. And they have some secret, secret room where they just gather and they're like, okay, this is getting serious now. We're gonna do this and this and this. It's a bit of a comic book reassuring image, but I think a lot of us are like, okay, somebody's got to think about this. But the news is saying the opposite. Anyway, sorry, I'm going on for two. Tara (43:02.187) Yeah, look, from my experience working in government, and I wasn't at the political level, I was at the, you know, public service level, but, you know, advising government and seeing how it works. And then when people say, oh, you know, COVID is a conspiracy by the government or whatever, I think you should go work in government because you'd realize that it just it doesn't have the capacity to pull off, you know, a conspiracy on that scale. So The idea that there's a back room where people know exactly what's going on and have a plan, I think is unfortunately, you know, a nice bedtime story you can tell yourself maybe at the end of a long day. But the reality is that I think the governments are just responding, you know, day by day to things that come up and they are just hoping to get re-elected and therein lies the problem that it's a lot of short-termism. These long-term issues like climate change are probably going to really bite on someone else's watch. And if they do bite on your watch, you can say, oh, well, we've put some money into this, so we've put some money into that. And it's just these, as you say, it's a bit like greenwashing. So I think, as I mentioned before, there has been a lot of change. And now we are seeing a lot of serious politicians really putting a lot of effort into this. It's often the independents, it's often the minor parties, I mean in Australia anyway, and then you have some pretty major parties in Europe and doing fantastic things in terms of carbon taxes and the emissions trading system and support for renewable energy. So we have seen some really good results from certain countries. The trouble is on a global scale, it is just too little and it's possibly too late. I mean, the chances of us actually keeping global temperatures to below 1.5 degrees Celsius are getting very, very slim, particularly the trajectory we're going on at the moment. So we really need all countries, not just a few, to actually start doing the right thing or to increase their level of ambition. Zaza (45:11.682) You have seen now in articles on climate change that more and more they're scrapping 1.5 point Celsius. And now the new number they keep mentioning is 2 degrees Celsius, which is a huge difference because we're already seeing these crazy effects of climate's breakdown at 1.2 where we're at now, almost 1.3, right? Tara (45:36.635) Yeah, no, I think it's really important to maintain that 1.5. And we've got to keep focused on 1.5, because the next number after 1.5 is not 2. The next number after 1.5 is 1.51. And in putting in place abatement technologies to bring us down to 1.5, abatement and mitigation and carbon capture and so on, we can't just let go of that target. And the difference between 1.5 and 2 is, you know, it might not, it does sound quite a lot to me, but that is like 70 or 80% of reefs being destroyed by coral bleaching and climate change, or 100%. You know, I mean, I can't remember what the exact numbers are, but this is what we're talking about. We're talking like all coral reefs wiped out if we go to that two degree limit or two degree average global warming. So yeah, we've got to try and keep the debate to 1.5. and not allow it to shift. Zaza (46:39.07) Yeah, I mean, like you said, it doesn't sound like a lot to most people. But if we go on like this, I read somewhere that Slovenia, which is a country with a proud skiing tradition. My father was a skiing coach in 2050. The climate is going to be that of southern Spain. You know, and Europe is warming up twice as fast as the as most of the other continents, which is, I mean, it's beyond scary. It's just insane. Tara (46:56.881) Wow. Tara (47:03.425) in. Tara (47:06.479) the poles even more so. I mean, an average temperature of two degrees Celsius globally adds up to, I mean, again, I don't know the exact figures, but we're talking like 10 degrees at the poles, you know, on average, you know, hotter, hotter temperatures. So vast, vast changes there. And I think really what I always think of when I think of these slight, you know, what seeming, seems to be a slight increase in global temperatures, you've got to look at countries like South Sudan, you know, countries that are really dry, really hot. people are really poor, they are barely hanging on under current circumstances. If the summer is getting up to 47 at the moment there, if the summer start going up to 49, 50, it just becomes unlivable. Now that becomes a critical point at which people cannot survive those temperatures living outside as they do without air conditioning or whatever and insufficient water. So then you start to get massive migration into other places and that's when... Zaza (47:43.382) Jesus. Tara (48:01.755) things really start to go a bit crazy from a global perspective. Zaza (48:05.51) I'm in Japan right now where I spent my summer and the heat waves were just brutal. I spent the entire summer indoors. It's not how I wanted to spend my time. The summers are always hot here, but this year it's extremely hot and I keep getting warnings from the government on my cell phone every day. Stay indoors, stay indoors, stay indoors. And when you go out just to the nearest store for five minutes, Usually it was 37-38 degrees but Google said feels like 43. And you've you I mean this heat is unbearable already at 37 degrees. I've never experienced anything like this before. It's just you step outside and it's burning on your skin like it's a completely new sensation. It's brutal. So how is it in Australia? Yeah I mean... Tara (48:55.567) Yeah, we had a day here. Oh yeah, look, it's, well, see, very interestingly in Australia, because we've had, we've affected by these big global cycles of temperatures. So we've actually had in the south of Australia anyway, three years of cooler wet weather, which is, you know, we have these cycles that happen every, you know, every so often. So as you mentioned, a couple of years ago, we're at the end of a long dry cycle. where we're having temperatures in the high and the mid 40s, even in southern Australia like Melbourne. And then of course, those massive wildfires that just burnt vast areas of forest, killed something like 10 billion animals, they estimated, and would have wiped out some very fragile ecosystems that would just never come back. They're gone. So then we've had these sort of this cycle of relatively wet weather, which has been great, but now we're heading into that dry cycle again. And... think a lot of people are very nervous because we think, well, you know, those dry cycles were bad enough pre kind of big effects of climate change, the idea of heading to one of these sort of nine year droughts where we end up with, you know, there was those very high temperatures, very little rain over a long period of time in a climate change environment. I think a lot of people are extremely nervous about what that will mean for us. And I think everyone's nervous about what climate change is going to mean for us. And you know, we just We don't really know what we're getting into. It's volatile, and weather activity. Zaza (50:24.674) Hmm. If we leave governments on the side, what about people's attitudes? Would you say that they're slowly changing or changing fast? I mean, there were some minor local successes yesterday, I think, Ecuador voted at the referendum to stop and most of the people voted for this motion to stop all new drilling for new oil in the Amazon. I know the European Zaza (50:54.094) accepted a bunch of laws for the conservation of nature. Switzerland has had a referendum as well along those lines. Would you say that when people are giving the chance, they are aware of the severity of the climate crisis? Tara (51:09.039) Yeah, look, I think by and large, we are seeing increased awareness and we are seeing a lot of positive attitudes towards change. What worries me though is that, for example, just today, I was reading Twitter X and yeah, there was a post about, something I thought was really positive about climate change. It was saying, look at the fires that are currently taking place. Zaza (51:15.202) Right. Zaza (51:28.967) Oh yes. Tara (51:38.247) I don't remember which country it was, it was just something happening today. I think it was in Canada actually, it was at fires again in Canada. And then, you know, of course you click on and read the responses and some of the top responses are, yeah, I don't even want to repeat them, but they are climate deniers and they are conspiracy people and you've just got to, you know, these people are out there and they vote and this is the problem that, you know, there's a lot of Trump supporters Zaza (51:48.211) the comments. Yep. Tara (52:08.607) and more than you think probably. So yes, I think there has been a lot of progress in people's attitudes, but there's also been probably maybe even some backsliding in climate change becoming, what would you call it, synonymous for them with the evil left wing, you know, liberals, monoliberal, you know, the enemy basically, it's become the enemy for some people. And this is really unfortunate, there's become so politicized and that science itself as failed to convince some people of that it is telling the truth. People think that science is also a conspiracy because they don't understand it. And so I think it's a matter of taking two steps forward, one step back. I think we are making progress, but we've got a lot of people to bring with us that don't wanna come. And yeah, politicians are in that position where they need to sort of balance out. these different parts of the population and make decisions that are acceptable to the broad majority. And hopefully that's going to change. Maybe it's generational change, maybe it's socioeconomic change, maybe it's education. Hopefully we're moving in the right direction. That's all I can say. Zaza (53:24.69) Yeah, Twitter is just a cesspool. It's depressing to go on there. I follow a lot of climate scientists. And under every post that they make, like you said, top comments are always like, they're politicizing the weather. What does that even mean? And then this person who wrote that looks in his backyard and the forest is literally burning around him. Like, you know, a lot of Canadians, like, it's arson. You know, Australia, I've. Tara (53:51.888) Yeah. Zaza (53:54.782) I've read the same. It's just like really 400 arsonists at the same time working like a group of ninjas to just, you know, create this massive conspiracy. What's, come on, come on. Tara (54:03.527) Well, I mean the implication I saw from this Twitter article I just read was that the climate people were the arsonists because it's supporting their claim that climate change is happening. You know? It's like, well, that's pretty convoluted logic, right? I mean, we're burning down our forests that we find so precious just to prove our point. Zaza (54:18.071) Hahaha Zaza (54:26.806) All right. Yeah, I heard that one before when Bolsonaro was president of Brazil. And there were these massive wildfires happening in the Amazon. And he said Leonardo DiCaprio is to blame because he's supporting a lot of these environmentalist organizations. And they were the arsonists to prove his point that climate change is happening. It's quite complicated. All right. Tara (54:46.563) Right, okay. So this isn't a new theory, this is an old theory that just gets peddled out every time there's a big fire. It's a worry. Zaza (54:57.066) Sorry, come again? Yeah. Yeah, staying with Twitter just a second longer. Yesterday, Peter Kalmus, the notable climate scientist and activist wrote on his Twitter, it's heartbreaking being a climate scientist. Climate anxiety is real. How do you keep your spirits up? Tara (55:18.251) I don't always. Um it's always a matter of sort of sometimes the last thing you read. If you read something positive, you're feeling positive for a while and if you read something negative, you might feel negative for a while. Um in general though I have faith that humanity can address issues when they come up and you know when I was sort of seventeen and I was you know thinking about the issues of the world and I was quite a you know serious seventeen year becoming aware of world issues. A friend said to me, an older friend, a friend of the family said that he got some advice when he was a child, going through a similar thing. And this person said to him, there has always been trouble. And he took that on board to be like, OK, the current trouble in his generation might have been nuclear war or, you know, and it's still an issue for all of us. And I think it's really useful to remember that. Like there's never been a time in human history where we've been completely free of major, major troubles, but we've overcome them. And this one does seem worse than the rest, right? I mean, the fate of the planet is at stake and you know, the species, but you know, life will go on. Whether that includes humans is probably, you know, the thing in question at the moment, but there has been trouble and humans have been able to respond to it. And you know, we saw from the... Zaza (56:25.802) Yes. Yep. Tara (56:41.703) COVID response we saw from the energy crisis response, the governments, they have the money and they have the ability to act quickly and they have the power to step in when there's a crisis. And I think, I don't know what it's gonna take, but at some point, governments globally are gonna act and do something to avoid this climate crisis. I just don't know when that's gonna happen and what it's gonna take and how much we're gonna lose in terms of ecosystems and environments and loss of life and so on to get to that point. But I do feel confident that we can solve this and we've got the technologies available now. It's just a beautiful world. Will we? Yeah, that's the big question. I really don't know. I mean, I think it's a nice edge. I honestly think it's a nice edge. I think I can see two futures. One is where... Zaza (57:26.71) We can, but will we? Zaza (57:32.334) I'm sorry, yeah. Okay. Tara (57:39.431) We don't solve this and we suffer vast, almost sort of apocalyptic type consequences, which people think is extreme, but many climate scientists really see that we're heading for major problems on a species level scale. But I can also see like a possible really bright future. I imagine a situation where we improve renewable energy. It's getting cheaper and cheaper by the day. We improve it to the point where we have unlimited, you know, renewable energy from, you know, from the sun and from wind and so on. If you're in a situation where you've got unlimited cheap energy, you can do all sorts of things. You can desalinate water as much as you like. You can, you know, concentrate all your food production around in deserts that are currently out of productive. You could have, you know, rewilding of places, you know, if we could grow meat and so on in much more concentrated or even synthetic type situations. then we'd be able to liberate vast areas of the planet for reforestation and for rewilding. And it's almost a utopian type future that is within sight. I mean, it's not without existing technology, but not far off. It's just a matter of choice, if people make these choices. Zaza (58:53.375) Right. Last thing before I let you go, what do you think of carbon capture? It seems that a lot of governments are putting their hopes up in some sort of a technological solution. But a lot of climate scientists are just calling it more greenwashing because the technology is not really scalable, at least not yet. And, you know, so they can just keep pumping more money into fossil fuel at the same time. Tara (59:21.251) Yeah, I think your assessment is spot on. It's carbon capture and storage is an unproven technology. It's always that technology that holds lots of promise that's just around the corner, but is never reached. In Australia, we've got a big gas field. I think it's called the Gorgon gas field that was only approved because it would sequester the carbon it created in production. And I think only about a third of the carbon that was meant to be captured has actually been captured. And you see this all around the world, you know, these big CCS projects are just failing to deliver. They're extremely expensive. So governments essentially are pumping subsidies into this type of technology when the abatement potential is really unproven and is a really expensive way to reduce carbon emissions. So instead, if governments put that money into sort of clean renewable energy generation, it's just a much better and more guaranteed way of reducing emissions. So yeah, look, I think carbon capture and storage is, unfortunately, I would be saying that we should not be putting any more money into it. We've got other mechanisms that are much more effective to reduce carbon emissions. Zaza (01:00:41.25) Tara, thank you so much. This was a very sobering conversation, but a much needed one. Where can people find the report? Tara (01:00:49.719) Yes, so if you go to the IISD website and you look for and you even Google fanning the flames, G20 provides record support for fossil fuels. That is the name of the report and it is released on 23rd of August and you can also google my name so Tara Lahn and fossil fuel subsidies and my publications will come up. Zaza (01:01:12.915) Do you have any social media that you'd like to share where people can follow your work? Tara (01:01:15.611) Yes. Yeah, so just you can follow IISD on Twitter, or you can follow me just Tara Alain. My Twitter handle is just Tara Alain. One word. Zaza (01:01:21.261) Okay. Zaza (01:01:25.674) Are you still fighting the good fight on Twitter? Or are you just passively observing what's going on? What do you think of social media activism? Tara (01:01:31.096) No, to be honest, I... Tara (01:01:36.439) Look, I think you're just generally preaching to the converted, you know, so, and then, and then of course, being attacked by the people who aren't converted. Yeah, I had a nasty experience where I was, you know, tried to increase my, my tweeting and tried to be a bit more active on social media. And then I had someone kind of attack me. I can't ignore it. I don't find I'm not comfortable being attacked. And so I, I tend to leave it to the organisation to promote our work and not sort of be a keyboard warrior myself. Zaza (01:01:39.519) Right, right. Zaza (01:02:05.844) All right. Thank you so much. Thanks again. Tara (01:02:08.219) Great, thanks, Zaza.