Do I appreciate Al Gore's efforts to keep the public informed and optimistic about the prospects of mitigating the climate crisis? Sure. That said, at the end of the day, it's hard to be encouraged when the United States doesn't send a delegation and when the final product is a largely toothless agreement.
Maybe, as Gore says, the fossil fuel industry isn't the hegemonic power it thinks it is. It's still the elephant in the room, though.
People do love freedom, and it’s critical (if we are to preserve it) that we emphasize that the rule of law (which is under the same level of assault by the current regime as the climate) is the foundation of our freedom. Respect for law and objective truth must be emphasized whenever possible as we fight for effective climate action. Thank you (and Al Gore) for your excellent work on all fronts!
I wish the interview had gotten beyond the implicit assumption that it’s not too late to maintain a livable climate and civilization with a sharp reduction in emissions from fossil fuels reaching Net - zero by mid-century.
The best case as long as we rely on emission reductions alone is that humanity and the natural world will face literally centuries of temperatures and impacts sharply sharply greater and more dangerous than occur today even after Net zero is reached. Temperatures and impact will not get better at that point.
That conclusion is the consensus of the IPCC and virtually every climate scientist with many climate scientists demonstrating including James Hansen that temperatures of 2° and even more are already baked in no matter what we do.
The only way to avoid leaving a dystopian world for every person on the planet for all these centuries is to dramatically increase the scale of carbon removal and to directly cool the climate by reflecting more of the heat that enters the atmosphere out into space.
Yet those two critically important remedies are both strongly opposed by Al Gore.
I asked him in person about solar radiation management at an event on the sidelines of COP 29 in Baku and he gave me his well-known Al Gore scowl as he briefly articulated his strong opposition.
As long as Mr. Gore and much of the rest of the Climate cognoscenti focus on emission reductions alone- as absolutely critical as they are - then even winning that battle in the next couple of decades is still losing the war.
Wake up folks it’s time to urgently use every tool in our Climate toolbox and not put critical ones out of reach.
I love Hayhoe's "cat hanging on". I would have liked to hear from Al Gore what he believes is a realistic hope for peak CO2 levels since 1.5 C seems to now be a pipe dream.
I'm not even sure what Gates does as a "climate philanthropist." I'm very clear about his climate investments. But in billionaire-world there seems to be some weird overlap.
Jigar Shah, on the Open Circuit podcast points out that before a previous COP Gates put out another epistle which wasn't all that different from this one. And he points out that pandering to Gates-ism diverted a lot of the IRA effort towards Bill's twin climate/energy obsessions with "innovation" and "firm, clean" power, and away from wind, solar, batteries and efficient electrification. It's also distracted a lot of "centrist" politicians trying to support "climate/clean" and avoid visibly fighting for "green new scam" power. Shah and others have pointed out for years that this group of tech/VC billionaires and their energy advisors are very self-referential and keep wanting investment in their revolutionary "clean, firm" dreams (e.g. fusion) instead of the evolutionary innovation approach that brought us cheap wind, PV and batteries and efficient electrification.
Gates has been great at medical/health philanthropy. Maybe he's trying to avoid battles with MAGA world on two fronts because at some point the MAHA types probably don't like some of the drugs or vaccines his groups promote. Self-interest, peer pressure, who knows, pundits can pontificate on motives.
One of the unexpected recent turns in the "energy transition" is that PV/battery systems are sweeping into the most impoverished parts of Africa via small businesses. Providing home power and village power and powering the water treatment and health clinics that Gates supports. But a lot of this has supposedly taken off outside the purview of all the NGOs and international philanthropies and development banks, etc.
The "Help the poor," instead of "Spend on XYZ," framing has been going on forever and ever. Not really some smartest guy epiphany! As long as there are any "poor" anywhere, someone can say that. XYZ could be "green premium" or parks or arts or preservation or astronomy or treating very rare conditions or research of most any kind. Makes me think of Gil Scott Heron's "Whitey on the Moon."
As far as the "Oh, stop saying it's the end of the world, it's not so bad." Again, echoing this group of smartest guys in the room who seem to just hate "green." Sure, no it's not the end, but agreeing to that, doesn't mean that it's not going to be pretty bloody awful in a lot of places, a lot of the time, when we get at +5F and still emitting tons of GHGs. Maybe not Seattle above the high tide line, though.
I think in regards to Gates I would just repeat what I said before about the memo. Imo it came about because of a massive drop in aid funding, not just USAID but European countries as well. As far as I'm aware too, Gates does support a carbon tax which is a type of fossil fuel subsidy.
I just think there might be a sort of defensiveness to this which maybe blinds people on the left to the arguments being made. Like it seems to be an attack being made accusing people of not wanting to fund malaria vaccination for poor children in Africa, in favor of climate funding, when I believe the argument is just that there are current decisions being made with limited funds and that is the reality.
I've said it before but I don't know what the answer would be if the choice was building a solar farm for an African village or more vaccinations. It isn't accusing one of not caring about the climate or not caring about kids having malaria to recognize there are hard choices that have to be made. I wish more than anything we still lived in the world where the IRA was law and USAID was funded but we don't.
So I just have to say for me personally even though I didn't agree with everything in the memo, when I show up to things like "No Kings" my focus is on USAID. Even though I deeply care about climate and this newsletter and your work, climate action in general has taken a back seat for me.
But I do want to say for climate it is such an utter disaster the US wasn't there to lead it like it was during the Biden years, even if there are faults with it like Gore mentioned.
Do I appreciate Al Gore's efforts to keep the public informed and optimistic about the prospects of mitigating the climate crisis? Sure. That said, at the end of the day, it's hard to be encouraged when the United States doesn't send a delegation and when the final product is a largely toothless agreement.
Maybe, as Gore says, the fossil fuel industry isn't the hegemonic power it thinks it is. It's still the elephant in the room, though.
People do love freedom, and it’s critical (if we are to preserve it) that we emphasize that the rule of law (which is under the same level of assault by the current regime as the climate) is the foundation of our freedom. Respect for law and objective truth must be emphasized whenever possible as we fight for effective climate action. Thank you (and Al Gore) for your excellent work on all fronts!
I wish the interview had gotten beyond the implicit assumption that it’s not too late to maintain a livable climate and civilization with a sharp reduction in emissions from fossil fuels reaching Net - zero by mid-century.
The best case as long as we rely on emission reductions alone is that humanity and the natural world will face literally centuries of temperatures and impacts sharply sharply greater and more dangerous than occur today even after Net zero is reached. Temperatures and impact will not get better at that point.
That conclusion is the consensus of the IPCC and virtually every climate scientist with many climate scientists demonstrating including James Hansen that temperatures of 2° and even more are already baked in no matter what we do.
The only way to avoid leaving a dystopian world for every person on the planet for all these centuries is to dramatically increase the scale of carbon removal and to directly cool the climate by reflecting more of the heat that enters the atmosphere out into space.
Yet those two critically important remedies are both strongly opposed by Al Gore.
I asked him in person about solar radiation management at an event on the sidelines of COP 29 in Baku and he gave me his well-known Al Gore scowl as he briefly articulated his strong opposition.
As long as Mr. Gore and much of the rest of the Climate cognoscenti focus on emission reductions alone- as absolutely critical as they are - then even winning that battle in the next couple of decades is still losing the war.
Wake up folks it’s time to urgently use every tool in our Climate toolbox and not put critical ones out of reach.
I love Hayhoe's "cat hanging on". I would have liked to hear from Al Gore what he believes is a realistic hope for peak CO2 levels since 1.5 C seems to now be a pipe dream.
I'm not even sure what Gates does as a "climate philanthropist." I'm very clear about his climate investments. But in billionaire-world there seems to be some weird overlap.
Jigar Shah, on the Open Circuit podcast points out that before a previous COP Gates put out another epistle which wasn't all that different from this one. And he points out that pandering to Gates-ism diverted a lot of the IRA effort towards Bill's twin climate/energy obsessions with "innovation" and "firm, clean" power, and away from wind, solar, batteries and efficient electrification. It's also distracted a lot of "centrist" politicians trying to support "climate/clean" and avoid visibly fighting for "green new scam" power. Shah and others have pointed out for years that this group of tech/VC billionaires and their energy advisors are very self-referential and keep wanting investment in their revolutionary "clean, firm" dreams (e.g. fusion) instead of the evolutionary innovation approach that brought us cheap wind, PV and batteries and efficient electrification.
Gates has been great at medical/health philanthropy. Maybe he's trying to avoid battles with MAGA world on two fronts because at some point the MAHA types probably don't like some of the drugs or vaccines his groups promote. Self-interest, peer pressure, who knows, pundits can pontificate on motives.
One of the unexpected recent turns in the "energy transition" is that PV/battery systems are sweeping into the most impoverished parts of Africa via small businesses. Providing home power and village power and powering the water treatment and health clinics that Gates supports. But a lot of this has supposedly taken off outside the purview of all the NGOs and international philanthropies and development banks, etc.
The "Help the poor," instead of "Spend on XYZ," framing has been going on forever and ever. Not really some smartest guy epiphany! As long as there are any "poor" anywhere, someone can say that. XYZ could be "green premium" or parks or arts or preservation or astronomy or treating very rare conditions or research of most any kind. Makes me think of Gil Scott Heron's "Whitey on the Moon."
As far as the "Oh, stop saying it's the end of the world, it's not so bad." Again, echoing this group of smartest guys in the room who seem to just hate "green." Sure, no it's not the end, but agreeing to that, doesn't mean that it's not going to be pretty bloody awful in a lot of places, a lot of the time, when we get at +5F and still emitting tons of GHGs. Maybe not Seattle above the high tide line, though.
Cool interview!
I think in regards to Gates I would just repeat what I said before about the memo. Imo it came about because of a massive drop in aid funding, not just USAID but European countries as well. As far as I'm aware too, Gates does support a carbon tax which is a type of fossil fuel subsidy.
I just think there might be a sort of defensiveness to this which maybe blinds people on the left to the arguments being made. Like it seems to be an attack being made accusing people of not wanting to fund malaria vaccination for poor children in Africa, in favor of climate funding, when I believe the argument is just that there are current decisions being made with limited funds and that is the reality.
I've said it before but I don't know what the answer would be if the choice was building a solar farm for an African village or more vaccinations. It isn't accusing one of not caring about the climate or not caring about kids having malaria to recognize there are hard choices that have to be made. I wish more than anything we still lived in the world where the IRA was law and USAID was funded but we don't.
So I just have to say for me personally even though I didn't agree with everything in the memo, when I show up to things like "No Kings" my focus is on USAID. Even though I deeply care about climate and this newsletter and your work, climate action in general has taken a back seat for me.
But I do want to say for climate it is such an utter disaster the US wasn't there to lead it like it was during the Biden years, even if there are faults with it like Gore mentioned.
So the COP is in need of reform - so who/what/when is that going to happen?
We need specifics or is it just wishful thinking?
Thanks, as always for your excellent journalism, Emily. I’m glad Al Gore has reasons to be optimistic. I guess it’s better than the alternative.