Podcast: Can we fix the planet the same way we broke it? Elizabeth Kolbert on extreme climate solutions

TRANSCRIPT: Can we fix the planet the same way we broke it? Elizabeth Kolbert on extreme climate solutions

Elizabeth Kolbert:

The fact that we have unwittingly geoengineered the planet puts us in an extremely awkward position. And you can say, "Let's try to think this through rationally. And can we come up with technologies like solar geoengineering to mitigate or counteract our own reckless geoengineering?" Or you could say, "Would you trust this group that completely willy-nilly re-engineered the climate, would you trust them to re-engineer it in a rational way? This group that can't even get its act together to cut emissions?"

Ian Bremmer:

Hello and welcome to the GZERO World Podcast. Here you'll find extended versions of the interviews from my show on public television. I'm Ian Bremmer. And today, if the pandemic is the crisis of the moment, and it certainly is, many experts say climate change is the crisis of our lifetimes. This year's UN climate report has been described as a red alert. Record high temperatures, rapidly melting ice in the Arctic, all as carbon emissions continue to climb. While an overwhelming number of people globally believe governments can and should be doing more, politics continues to get in the way.

As President Joe Biden prepares to host an international Earth Day summit, his most important diplomatic effort on the global stage to date is the climate right for real change, both domestically and abroad. I'm talking about that today with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Elizabeth Kolbert. She's a staff writer at The New Yorker and her new book, Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future examines the tough choices needed to save the planet. Let's get right to it.

Announcer:

The GZERO World Podcast is brought to you by our founding sponsor, First Republic. First Republic, a private bank and wealth management company, places clients' needs first by providing responsive, relevant, and customized solutions. Visit firstrepublic.com to learn more.

This podcast is also brought to you by Walmart. We all depend on a healthy planet. That's why Walmart, along with the Walmart Foundation, is committing to help protect, manage, or restore at least 50 million acres of land and one million square miles of ocean by 2030, focusing on ecosystems that produce food and other consumer products. Learn more at walmart.com/sustainability.

Ian Bremmer:

Elizabeth Kolbert, thanks so much for joining me today.

Elizabeth Kolbert:

Oh, thanks for having me.

Ian Bremmer:

So I want to get to all of the solutions and some of the insane ones that you're talking about in your book. But before I do, turning to where we are today, I saw the United Nations put out a report just in February that said that we are nowhere close to achieving the climate goals that we would need to be on a 1.5 or even two centigrade degree trajectory for global warming. It was a red alert from their perspective. In your words, how screwed are we?

Elizabeth Kolbert:

Pretty. Pretty screwed. Every year basically the UN puts out a report that's the Emissions Gap Report, which is the gap between what the trajectory we're on and the trajectory we ought to be on. And unfortunately, every year the gap is quite large.

Ian Bremmer:

The biggest change, of course, from the Trump to the Biden administration has been on climate. We are now looking at trillions of dollars of infrastructure in a new proposal, but a lot of that is also about renewables. It's also about climate. How significant are the changes that you see in the United States right now?

Elizabeth Kolbert:

Well, I think the answer is we don't know yet. Biden has signed a slew of executive orders, including on his very first day in office, that could have a significant impact on emissions just through executive order. He also, as you mentioned, has proposed a very large infrastructure plan that has a lot of different tons of different moving parts. Some of those are potentially very significant for climate, but we haven't seen whether those are going to pass. So we really just don't know at this point. But as you say, it's certainly a very significant change in the rhetoric coming out of the administration.

Ian Bremmer:

Do you think that the change in trajectory in the United States is, I mean, have we passed the tipping point in terms of awareness and momentum that we are transitioning out of fossil fuels, or is it way too early to say that?

Elizabeth Kolbert:

I don't in any way want to minimize that we're at some kind of watershed. Whether we're really at an inflection point where emissions are going to start, not just flatlining, which they have basically been flatlining in the US, but really going down at a very rapid re, which is what we really need to see if we are, if the world has any hope of reaching those UN goals, is very much an open question at this moment.

Ian Bremmer:

When you talk to an average American that is not super politically engaged and you want to explain, "This is why you should care," what are the couple of arguments that you find most compelling to get someone who isn't paying much attention to say, "I really need to"?

Elizabeth Kolbert:

Well, I think that the single clearest argument is that climate really underlies everything that we do. It's what we eat, where we farm, where we can live, sea level rise, all of these, all aspects of American life will be affected by climate change, are already being affected by climate change. The great American cities, New York, Washington DC, San Francisco, Boston, LA are all going to be contending with higher sea levels as a result of climate change. That's already happening, and the question is, how much damage are we going to do before we try to change course? And these are unfortunately questions that we're going to be grappling with for the rest of our lives and our kids and our grandkids are going to be grappling with for the rest of their lives.

Ian Bremmer:

Do you think it's a mistake that so many of the numbers that we talk about, whether it's sea level rise or whether it is the increase in average temperatures that we're talking about frequently, a baseline of what happens by the year 2100? Most people won't be alive that you're talking to. We have a hard enough time thinking about what we're doing tomorrow.

Elizabeth Kolbert:

We sat on our hands long enough so that 2100 is not actually that far away. A kid born today should still be alive in 2100. So the longer we sit here twiddling our thumbs, the closer 2100 approaches. But I do think you're right that people tend to think a decade maybe at the most in front of them. Unfortunately, though, we could be talking in decadal terms. Every decade now is warmer than the decade before, and we're seeing the damage pile up. This is not a secret here. We saw the tremendous wildfire season in California last fall, the hurricane season in the Gulf. These are all connected to climate change, and we're just going to keep seeing more of that. It's much more difficult to pinpoint exactly what kind of climate related disasters you're going to see in that sense than it is to say what the average global temperature is going to be in 2100. But the evidence is unfortunately all around us.

Ian Bremmer:

I wonder when we talk about climate and we talk about countries that are so much poorer, that are being so much more affected by these trends, and that haven't yet had their chance to industrialize, how do you tell them, "Actually no, we need you to do much more of the belt tightening?"

Elizabeth Kolbert:

Well, the good news, I suppose you could say, is we're not saying that to them. I mean, if we want to meet, for example, the target set by the UN, the big changes have to occur in those parts of the world that are the big emitters. I mean, that's actually how the math works. The US is the single biggest emitter in a historical sense. It's the-

Ian Bremmer:

Correct.

Elizabeth Kolbert:

Second biggest emitter now on an annual basis, but it's still the biggest emitter in a historical sense. And we have to show that there are different ways of developing. If we can't do that as the most technologically advanced country in the world, then A, it's sort of sad. And B, then we probably are in a pretty desperate situation.

Ian Bremmer:

Well no, but China is going to be the largest economy in the world in short order. They are already the largest carbon emitter by a significant factor in terms of annual right now. And of course, they're still a poor country. India is going to be the second largest emitter in relatively short order. They're an incredibly poor country. Brazil, responsible for so much of the forest cover in the world, clear cutting it now with reckless abandon, but they're still a poor country and we're not prepared to pay them very much to stop doing that. So how much of this needs to be an equity conversation from the wealthy countries with the poorer countries in the world? And do you think that that is actually something that the rich countries are in any way prepared to do?

Elizabeth Kolbert:

Well, I think you're absolutely right that equity is an enormous issue in climate change. And that is absolutely one of the great challenges of trying to imagine a way through to 2100. But the alternative is just throwing up your hands and saying, "Well, this is the way it's going to be. It's going to be a hellscape for our kids in 2100 or our grandkids." And I don't think that most Americans to start with, I can't really speak for people in other countries, I don't think that they really want to say that. So these are the challenges that we're going to have to try to think our way through. That there's no other option.

Ian Bremmer:

How much does it bother you, how much time do you think about the fact that the two wealthiest men in the world, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are spending a lot more time actually thinking about outer space than they are about climate on the planet we're on?

Elizabeth Kolbert:

Well, I think it's a missed opportunity, let's put it that way. I mean, Jeff Bezos has recently handed out a lot. A lot of cash, what, for environmental community, counts as a lot of cash. But as you say, both of them are pushing and you can hear Elon Musk talk about how we're going to have to all live off Earth. And many people have made the point that it would be extremely difficult even if we really devoted ourselves to it, and we're doing as much as we can to make life difficult on planet Earth for ourselves. But there's virtually nothing we could do to make it as difficult as life on Mars where there's, among other things, no oxygen. So why very smart and very wealthy men, I'm afraid they're usually men, think that this is the way to go? You're going to have to ask them.

Ian Bremmer:

You talk about a lot of exotic solutions for climate change technologically from geoengineering to genetic engineering of coral. Give us a little bit of the range of where you see technologies playing the biggest role in how we think about responding to climate change today.

Elizabeth Kolbert:

Well, I think we could sort of group them into three baskets. We have technologies to reduce emissions. We have technologies to potentially actually remove carbon from the atmosphere. That's another huge research project right now, are we going to have technologies that actually pull carbon out of the atmosphere? And then on the cutting edge, more sci-fi right now, we have the idea of geoengineering, of re-engineering the atmosphere to counteract the ways that we have re-engineered the atmosphere.

Ian Bremmer:

Since we're sort of moving into the realm of near future and science fiction. I suspect, I haven't asked you this, but I suspect you've read the book Ministry of the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson.

Elizabeth Kolbert:

Yes, yes.

Ian Bremmer:

So I just finished it about a month and a half ago, and it's obviously very on point with your recent book in the sense that it starts, in addition to this mass death event in India, because the temperatures are unlivable for masses outside and they have started to geoengineer. They have started to shoot all of these sulfur particles into the sky to try to reduce the global temperature because people have not done enough. People haven't moved fast enough, and otherwise they're just, they're not going to have a country, basically. When you read that, how did it affect you?

Elizabeth Kolbert:

Well, it was interesting. I think it's a really interesting book. In that book, as you say, India sort of single-handedly decides to geoengineer to shoot reflective particles into the stratosphere on a sort of short-term basis to alleviate suffering, massive suffering in the country. Science fiction is a wonderful way to think things through. I don't think that from a geopolitical or even geophysical point of view, we should take that as the most realistic scenario. How's that? Geoengineering isn't something you do in your garage. It's something that requires a fleet of airplanes that can reach the stratosphere. If other countries didn't want India to do this, they wouldn't allow it to happen.

Ian Bremmer:

They'd be shot down. They'd be stopped by economic sanctions and all the rest. But the interesting thing about this, and again, you write about it in your book, Bill Gates has been trying to do some research around it, is that of all of the engineering on a planetary scale, this is not only scientifically possible, but it's comparatively cheap, right? I mean, you're talking about tens of billions of dollars. You're not talking about trillions. And basically, you're replicating the impact of a massive volcano in terms of bringing down temperatures with all sorts of knock-on effects that have never been scientifically modeled out. When you think about the future of where we are heading, how likely do you think we are going to start grasping for solutions that are, let's say, very deeply suboptimal?

Elizabeth Kolbert:

I think that's one of the great questions of our century, and I don't have a crystal ball. I think we're going to hear more and more conversation. I guess my crystal ball extends that far. There was recently, just the other day, a report from the National Academies about a research agenda for geoengineering. That sort of crossed a threshold that I think a lot of people, even just a few years ago would not have thought the National Academies would do. Now, they were very, the leaders of that panel were very adamant and tried to make as vigorously as possible the point that this cannot substitute for emissions cuts, even if you were to go forward with some kind of geoengineering research agenda, you should not take your foot off the gas in terms of emissions cuts because-

Ian Bremmer:

Bad analogy, but yes.

Elizabeth Kolbert:

Yeah, sorry. Sorry. Excuse me. Forgive me. But I do think we're going to hear more and more conversations about it in both scientific and political circles. And if we actually see a hundred million dollars worth of research, that's a huge step.

Ian Bremmer:

Over the past 50 years, what have we been doing but geoengineering? We've been pushing amounts of growth by taking carbon out of the Earth and shooting it into the atmosphere. We haven't been doing it with intention or with strategy, but I mean, human beings' history on the planet has been a history of geoengineering. Wouldn't it be reckless not to be spending an enormous amount of money researching how that can be done in a strategically useful way?

Elizabeth Kolbert:

The fact that we have unwittingly geoengineered the planet puts us in an extremely awkward position. One way to go is to say, "Well, we've unwittingly geoengineered the planet. Let's try to think this through rationally, and can we come up with technologies like solar geoengineering to mitigate or counteract our own reckless geo-engineering?" Or you could say, "Would you trust this group that completely willy-nilly re-engineered the climate? Would you trust them to re-engineer it in a rational way, this group that can't even get its act together to cut emissions?" So I think both are pretty compelling arguments.

Ian Bremmer:

When you think about all of the new technologies that are being developed now, what are the ones that strike you as having most promise, most potential to be game changers?

Elizabeth Kolbert:

Well, I mean, they're not nearly as sexy as shooting particulate matter into the stratosphere, but I think that there are technologies, for example, how are we going to store energy? We have a huge issue of renewables. The renewables we have right now, the solar and wind that are intermittent sources. We need lots and lots of energy storage if we're going to sort of keep the lights on at night or on days when there's no wind. So we need probably breakthroughs in battery storage. There's a question of are we going to get breakthroughs in safer nuclear power? We're not building any nuclear now because it's very expensive and we don't have anywhere to put all of the nuclear waste that we've already made. Are we going to get nuclear fusion? That has always been the energy source of the future, and maybe always will be the energy source of the future, but a breakthrough on that front would certainly be huge for climate change.

Ian Bremmer:

You didn't mention carbon capture. Is that because the scale, it's too expensive, it seems just too out there right now?

Elizabeth Kolbert:

Well, I mean, carbon capture is something that we know how to do. It doesn't even require tremendous breakthroughs. It just requires a lot of energy and it requires a huge infrastructure. And so if you are saying, "Well, we're going to just keep burning fossil fuels and you capture the carbon." Then you need a carbon capturing infrastructure that's on the scale of your fossil fuel burning infrastructure, and that's just humongous.

Ian Bremmer:

Whenever I look at the range of what's responsible for putting carbon into the atmosphere, I'm always struck by how little of it is individual consumption directly, and how much of it is about industry and infrastructure and the rest. How much do you think it really matters for the average person to be thinking "carbon footprint" as opposed to be thinking about, "We just need our government and our companies to be looking very, very different?"

Elizabeth Kolbert:

Well, I think that that's a big sort of debate right now in environmental circles. I guess my answer would be both are true. If we're going to make big changes in our emissions, it is going to require, I think, changes in the way we live. We all have to take our share of that infrastructure, as it were. If you were doing carbon accounting, yes, there are some companies and corporations that are huge emitters, but we all then go and burn the gasoline or whatever that ExxonMobil is refining. So we all have to move, be moving in the same direction here. But certainly if you ask me, "What is your number one priority, what would you do to try to move this battleship in a new direction?" It requires public policy levers, and it requires, unfortunately, probably I don't see any way around it, though I would be willing to be convinced otherwise, some pretty serious legislation. And that brings us back to the question of the Biden administration and a very evenly divided Senate. Are we going to be able to see any legislative action, meaningful legislative action on climate change?

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah. Obviously, it's challenging in a 50/50 situation where West Virginia has the most powerful senator on the democratic side. I get you. Tell me, of all the things that you think about your own life personally, since you say we all have to do more, what's the thing that you're doing right now that you really should stop to feel more personally responsible in terms of our future on this planet?

Elizabeth Kolbert:

Well, I mean, if I look at my own carbon footprint as a journalist, I travel a lot. I fly a lot. If everyone did that, the world would be in even worse shape than it is now. So I think that that is something that I think about a lot. Every trip I take to report, most of them are for reporting, but that is probably one area of my life where it's very difficult to reduce the emissions from those flights. It's impossible for me to do that. I would have to not take them.

Ian Bremmer:

Elizabeth Kolbert, thank you so much for joining me.

Elizabeth Kolbert:

Oh, thanks for having me.

Ian Bremmer:

That's it for today's edition of the GZERO World Podcast. Like what you've heard? Come check us out at gzeromedia.com and sign up for our newsletter, Signal.

Announcer:

The GZERO World Podcast is brought to you by our founding sponsor, First Republic. First Republic, a private bank and wealth management company, places clients' needs first by providing responsive, relevant, and customized solutions. Visit firstrepublic.com to learn more.

This podcast is also brought to you by Walmart. Walmart has spent over 15 years working to reduce emissions in our operations and collaborating with suppliers, scientists, and community leaders to reduce emissions across the global supply chain. In response to the growing climate crisis, we're targeting zero emissions across our global operations by 2040 without carbon offsets. Learn more at walmart.com/sustainability.

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