Climate Priorities at UNGA and Climate Week NYC

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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. This is the week the UN General Assembly is meeting for this year at UN headquarters here in New York. As most of you probably know when world leaders with different interests come together to talk, the UN can be inspiring. It can be disappointing. It can be infuriating. It can make things better. It can make things worse. We'll see this week if they accomplish anything on the conflicts in Ukraine or Sudan or the Middle East, or on the perennial challenge of world hunger and humanity's vast inequalities.

Central to the agenda on these first few days, and certainly overlapping with the equality and justice issues, has been the climate. For our climate story of the week, which we're doing every Tuesday on the show all this year, we'll check in with a journalist who's been closely covering the climate aspect of the General Assembly session this week and the activities, in what activists call, climate week, which takes place in the city simultaneously.

I want to begin this by playing a pretty remarkable 1-minute clip from a media interview last year of the prime minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, giving what she sees as the long-term big picture as to why island nations like hers in the Global South are more burdened by the effects of climate change but have to depend on wealthier nations to help finance solutions.

Mia Mottley: Why is it that we're not talking about the fact that these countries became independent, having allowed those countries that colonized them to extract significant portions of their wealth, such that we had no proper housing, no proper education, no proper healthcare systems, no proper legal systems, no proper- across the whole stream, and certainly nothing to do with building social capital like community development and cultural enterprises.

What has happened is therefore that we have spent the time since independence trying to give our people what the Global North has taken for granted and has supported by the extrication of centuries of wealth to give their people out of our blood, sweat, and tears. Now, when our blood, sweat, and tears finances the Industrial Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution then causes the climate crisis, and then I have to pay for the consequences of the climate crisis because of the Industrial Revolution financed by our blood, sweat, and tears, then I think they have no moral authority to tell me anything about the financing of the climate or about why we don't have enough.

Brian Lehrer: The prime minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, in an interview with a Swedish journalist last year. With us now, Valerie Volcovici, who covers climate issues for the Reuters news service and is covering the UN General Assembly's climate talks this week. Valerie thanks for joining us. Welcome to WNYC.

Valerie Volcovici: Hi, good morning.

Brian Lehrer: Relevant to that, Prime Minister Mia Mottley of Barbados clip, one of your stories this week begins with a line, "Developing nations on Monday pleaded at the UN General Assembly for the world's richest to do more to help them cope with the hardships they face from climate extremes. What are the developing nations asking? Your word is pleading with the United States and other of the richest nations to do.

Valerie Volcovici: Yes. Well, I mean, the issue of climate finance is always a central issue in the climate talks. This year, as we're heading to break records in terms of global temperatures, we're seeing more intense storms that are fueled by climate change across almost every continent, developing nations are saying, "Okay, it's time to really focus attention on delivering aid to countries to make sure that when they are given climate assistance from developed countries, it's not just in the form of loans that they have to pay back with high interest." They're saying now is the time to really focus on meeting climate finance goals and coming up with a new figure, a new number in the trillions to really help these countries cope with disasters that they did not cause, that have been mainly caused historically by the industrialized countries.

Brian Lehrer: You quote leaders of small island nations most at risk from rising sea level, saying it's time for the wealthiest and most climate-polluting nations to stop paying lip service, lip service to the problem, meaning, of course, merely lip service. Is the clip we played of Prime Minister Mottley, from the small island nation of Barbados, fairly representative of how the leaders of those nations generally view the causes of their climate woes, industrial wealthy nation extraction of their resources, etcetera? Who's responsible for addressing them?

Valerie Volcovici: It certainly is. I think the island nations have always been the moral compass for these climate talks and a reminder in the starkest terms about what happens when the climate crisis is not addressed head-on. You have countries that are on the brink of disappearing as nations because they're being subsumed by sea level rise. You have countries that are unable to cope with disaster after disaster that is piling on and the developed nations that have the money and the multilateral institutions that have the money to help them are not really equipped to scale up the amount of finances that they need to cope and to survive.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners who has a question or comment or a story as we talk about the climate developments at the UN General Assembly session here in New York the last few days, and some news that we'll get to from the simultaneous climate week advocacy events which happen here at the same time each year, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 it's our climate story of the week, looking at UN General Assembly-related climate hopes and politics for today. 212-433-WNYC, call or text with a story, a comment, or a question. 212-433-9692.

For example, listeners, is anyone out there right now in or from or with ties to Barbados or any other island nation feeling disproportionate effects from climate change and want to describe anything from there? 212-433-WNYC. Anyone from anywhere with your take on the responsibility of the richer and more climate-polluting nations to change our ways faster or finance the adaptation needs of the poorer, more climate-vulnerable countries of the Global South? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. This, I think, is one of the useful things about the UN General Assembly.

Living in the New York area or anywhere else in the United States, you don't really have Barbados or Samoa or anywhere like that top of mind when you're making your own energy decisions or thinking about these issues, but there are disproportionate polluters. There are disproportionate feelers of the effects of those polluters in the world. Anyone else with anything else for our guest covering all this? 212-433-9692, call or text for Valerie Volcovici, who covers climate issues for Reuters.

Valerie, you quote the natural resources and environment minister of Samoa, Cedric Schuster, saying, "The vulnerable nations of the world are drained by the lip service." He's the one who said lip service and that he said, "I wonder if our countries are moving further and further away from the unity and the moral fortitude we require to protect our people." Is there a sense at the General Assembly that things are moving in the wrong direction on limiting global warming and on finance or in the right direction, even if not quickly enough?

Valerie Volcovici: Right. Well, I think lip service is a perfect phrase. There are a lot of speeches about what countries are doing to address climate change. Different countries, well, different leaders this week will talk about their great climate plans. President Biden will be. He's speaking at the UN General Assembly, but also at a climate week event, talking about his record on climate change.

A lot of what the Biden administration has focused on is huge investments in tax credits and spurring renewable energy development domestically. The US has made some global pledges to ramp up climate finance, I think something to the order of $11 billion. But compared to the figures that we're seeing from developing nations in the order of trillions, there's a huge disconnect between what is being pledged, what is possible to be mobilized and appropriated in different national governments, and what's needed.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call. Here is John in Queens, who I think says he's originally from Guyana. John, you're on WNYC. Hello.

John: Hello, Brian. I just want to say that I know Guyana is not technically part of the Caribbean. It's in South America, but we are part of the Caribbean community. If you look at ExxonMobil, Hess, and Chevron, they all have gas fields in Guyana, and they're taking a lot of the profits, almost 90% or more, while things such as, if there's an oil spill, Guyana, which is a coastal country, will be decimated and there's nothing being done for that.

Brian Lehrer: Is Guyana a country you've reported on at all in this context, Valerie?

Valerie Volcovici: Not specifically on Guyana, but I think to the caller's point, you have-- I mean, that's another issue. The world leaders last year have made a commitment to transition away from fossil fuels. What we're seeing is more and more interest in investment and developing the resources of developing nations that have expressed a desire at times to develop their resources and to make the wealth that industrialized countries have.

I think that in Guyana and even in parts of the United States, these are issues of climate or environmental justice, where companies operate, they make profits, they might deliver some benefits to local communities, but when there's a spill, then the residents are really affected. It takes a long time for them to be compensated for damage, and, in many cases, the environmental damage cannot be remediated so they have to kind of bear the brunt of that development. While there might be short-term financial gains, I think, for those frontline communities, whether it's Guyana or Coastal Louisiana, the impact really stays with them.

Brian Lehrer: A listener writes in a text message, "I was at a UN event yesterday with Brazil's finance minister presenting, what he called, an ecological transition plan and Global Forest Fund, which would be a transition to an economic model based on forest protection, green energy, social justice, and funded proportionately, meaning, big Global North polluters pay more. Can the guest comment on this idea and its feasibility?" Have you heard of this?

Valerie Volcovici: I've been hearing about this. Of course, next year we'll be hosting COP 30, the 30th round of climate negotiations. It's the 10th anniversary of the Paris Climate Agreement. I think there's going to be huge emphasis on forests, how forest protection can be both a part of the climate solution in terms of its impact on helping to offset emissions, growing emissions, but also a financial engine for countries with forests that they can really generate income by protecting their forests instead of developing, clear-cutting their forests. I could see that Brazil is going to make forests central to their COP presidency. They're going to put a focus on it. We'll try to kind of embed it in the overall picture of what needs to be done and how to mobilize finance and really how to take a chunk out of growing emissions.

Brian Lehrer: This can sound idealistic pie in the sky to some people when they hear the language, like in the text, that there would be a transition to an economic model based on forest protection, green energy, social justice, when there are so many energy consumption needs worldwide, certainly disproportionately in the wealthy countries like the United States, the way people live, but globally as well. Yet you also report on a few interesting developments during the UN session this week involving major businesses and the climate. One is that executives from some major companies, including what you call massive energy user Amazon, and also power companies, urged world leaders to follow through on an agreement made last year to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030. What does that term mean, renewable energy capacity?

Valerie Volcovici: Right. Well, this was one of the major outcomes of last year's climate summit held in Dubai, was getting countries to agree to triple renewable energy capacity, the amount of wind, solar, I guess, to some extent, small hydro projects, the amount that they can bring on the grid to replace traditional fossil fuel-based electricity. Now, what we're seeing, and I think today there will be a lot of focus on it, we'll have a session of ministers focusing on how to turn that tripling goal into action. They need to outline what this means for their national plan. It's okay to have this goal. You can have a number, but what does it mean in different countries?

There are obstacles that they'll need to overcome. A lot of countries don't have enough transmission lines. A lot of countries are really behind and lagging in battery storage that can take that intermittent renewable energy and make it a usable baseload form of energy, meaning something that's continuous and more reliable. I think today we'll see a call by different countries to really call on other countries to outline what the specific steps they'll take to deliver on this kind of overarching goal.

I think companies are looking for that clear guidance from governments as they decide where to do projects. Another interesting thing to keep an eye on is this tremendous demand for power by tech companies. Companies such as Amazon moving towards AI, that's an enormous source of electricity demand. Can renewable energy meet those needs? I think we're beginning to see in the US, we're beginning to see some of that power demand met by more traditional gas and even coal-fired power. While it was nice to have that goal last year, now we need to get a better understanding of how this can be delivered upon.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Why would a company like Amazon be lobbying for increases in renewable energy capacity rather than just lobbying for it to be able to continue to do its business without too much government interference? If that means reliance on fossil fuels, so be it. From Amazon's perspective, why would they be lobbying for increases in renewable energy capacity?

Valerie Volcovici: Well, Amazon, like several of the major tech companies early on had net zero goals. They have these ambitious renewable energy goals to, I think in the case of Microsoft, for example, have negative emissions. I think they're finding now with the development of AI, it's quite difficult to stay on track. I think by getting behind this push on renewables, they're trying to stay closer to those commitments that they made a few years ago, but they're really struggling with now given the-- It wasn't really planned for, this surge of power demand with the expansion of AI.

Brian Lehrer: If you're just joining us, it's our climate story of the week, which we do every Tuesday on the show this year today with Valerie Volcovici, who covers climate issues for Reuters. As we talk about the climate agenda these last few days, climate has been pretty front and center at the UN General Assembly, which is taking place in New York this week as it does every September around this time of year, particularly not just emissions reductions goals and the talks about those, but also climate finance, how it's so unequal in the world, which countries pollute from a climate standpoint, which countries like small island nations face the brunt of the effects of those climate impacts and without the finances to deal with them on their own.

Let's take another call. David in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, David.

David: Hi. Hi, Brian. Thank you for taking my call. I'm calling because I work closely with an organization in the hills in central part of Puerto Rico called Casa Pueblo de Adjuntas. They've been a leader in solar energy and getting folks in the island, especially to get all fossil fuels and start relying more on the sun and other renewable sources of energy. This is important because, unfortunately, the US media and others and the United Nations often forget that Puerto Rico is by default or by colonization, a part of the United States.

Well, with 3 million US citizens continue to live and where power is so unreliable, Brian, that after Hurricane Maria, where thousands of people were killed not by the actual storm, but by the neglect and the incompetence and corruption of the local elected officials, the failure of the US government and others to deliver life-saving equipment and goods to the people of Puerto Rico. Seven years later, we continue to have widespread blackouts throughout Puerto Rico because of the privatization of the generation of energy and the privatization of the distribution of energy by US and Canadian-based concerns including LUMA Energy and New Fortress Energy that is also expanding its LNG exports throughout the world, not just to Puerto Rico, but also to Jamaica and Angola and Mexico and Nicaragua and you name it.

Right now we've been saying in Puerto Rico that we don't want fossil fuels. We don't need fossil fuels. We know that we can be powered by the sun and other renewable forms of energy. We want to be that model in the Caribbean and elsewhere where solar energy and renewable sources of energy can be the norm. Now more than ever in Puerto Rico, that a small island nation, we know the aftereffects and the continued effects of climate change.

This summer alone, and my family lives there, there have been days where it's been 110, 120 degrees, so a heat wave in a tropical island is something to be so concerned about. We know that people are dying every single day because they can't power their life-saving equipment. Schools, teachers and parents, and school kids have been out in the streets protesting because they can't turn on their air conditioners, and it's so hot in these classrooms and so we [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: David, who's got the power to change these awful things that you're describing? Is it the UN at all? Since Puerto Rico is a possession of the United States, territory of the United States.

David: Colony. Let's call it for what it is. It's a us colony and right now we're being run by a fiscal control board that was imposed on the people of Puerto Rico by the US government when Obama was president. This fiscal control board is the one that's making the decisions, life and death decisions with 3.2 million Puerto Ricans every single day. They were the ones that brought in these privatized concerns, including New Fortress and LUMA, to basically wreck the system because they haven't been able to put the lights on, and yet the people in Puerto Rico continue to be subjected to tariffs and rate increases that are right now astronomical and above anything else that the people in the United States have to pay for. It's outrageous [sound cut] and we need to continue to elevate the conditions in Puerto Rico that nobody will tolerate in any US town.

Brian Lehrer: David, thank you very much for elevating them here. I don't know that that gets taken up by the United Nations per se, as opposed to it being a United States domestic issue. You tell me, Valerie.

Valerie Volcovici: Yes. Well, it's definitely a domestic issue. I myself was out in Puerto Rico with the EPA administrator Michael Regan two years ago. This administration has made several trips, particularly the energy secretary. She's made, I think, over a half dozen trips to Puerto Rico. There's a real emphasis on loan guarantees and grants to get solar projects up and running there. I do remember talking to local residents who still had no power at that time about their frustration with not being able to access solar. I think it's something that this administration seems to be putting a focus on. I know that the internal politics of Puerto Rico are complicated. I know that there have been obstacles to allowing for more solar deployment. It's certainly been an emphasis by this administration, at least the Energy Department and the EPA.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, coming up later in the show this morning, we're going to speak to Mother Jones' voting rights correspondent Ari Berman about that major development you may have been hearing out of Georgia the other day, where they're now going to be required, and this may get challenged in court yet, but it looks like if this stands, they'll be required to count all the ballots in the presidential election by hand in Georgia. We don't know how long that will take. We don't know how long that will delay the results of the actual election or give what people are assuming would be the Trump side, the opportunities for mischief post-election day.

Ari Berman is coming up. Tiffany Cabán, New York City Council member, coming up on Eric Adams issues and the police shooting in the subway, including her take and maybe some of yours on the body cam footage that was quietly released late on Friday night. All of that coming up on the show today. We'll continue and finish up with Valerie Volcovici from Reuters on the climate aspects of the UN General Assembly this week, right after this.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Few more minutes with Valerie Volcovici, who covers climate for Reuters, as we talk about the climate-related discussions that are going on at the UN General Assembly this week. It seems like they've been front-loaded to take place largely in the first part of the week, and it's later when they're going to be talking about some of the conflicts in the world, obviously, Sudan, Ukraine, the Middle east, other things. President Biden is speaking right now, and we're going to be digging into those on the show later in the week. We are taking climate first, the same reason we're doing a climate story of the week every Tuesday this year, because it tends to disappear from the headlines in the face of things that move faster than the pace at which the climate actually changes. We don't want it to get lost at the UN General Assembly week either.

Here is a caller who's going to refer to something that we brought up a few minutes ago, a session with a representative from Brazil at the UN on a vision for forest-friendly and social justice-friendly climate development. This is Edson in Manhattan, originally from Brazil, calling in. Edson, you're on WNYC. Hi, there.

Edson: Hey. Hi, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. Yes. I was at a Brazilian event yesterday, and then I found out that 97% of the forests in the Amazon are preserved. I found that very interesting because we hear a lot about fire and deforestation over there. I also found out that Brazilians over there in the Amazon, they do a lot of recycling. I want to ask your guest about the corruption that happens in those countries because, I wouldn't say that it's easier, but we blame a lot of the developed world regarding underdevelopment countries and how developed countries take the resources of it there.

I want your guests to take a look on that because Brazil, for instance, half of the Brazilian population, Brian, they don't have a sewer system over there in Brazil, and 40 million, they don't have drinkable water. Would you think that we should blame the developed countries for those disparities in those third-world countries and middle-level countries?

Brian Lehrer: Let me ask you a follow-up question to that question because the clip we played, if you've been listening from the top, the clip we played at the beginning from the prime minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, she was actually responding to a question about corruption in the developing nations, maybe in her country in particular, I'm not sure, from a Swedish journalist. She asked, "Why do you always ask first about corruption in our countries in the Global South when there's plenty of corruption in the rich, polluting countries as well? Plus they've colonized and then they've extracted natural resources, and then they turn around and blame us, claiming corruption when things don't turn out well economically here. With that context, what do you think you would say back to the prime minister of Barbados?

Edson: Well, I would tell him, yes, there is this history, there is this history, I understand, but how much can we really blame developed countries regarding the problems that is affecting underdevelopment countries? For instance, remember 1989, the Valdez crisis with the oil over there, the spill? I believe that since then they put some regulation, some strict regulation so it's not that the companies, the oil companies go to countries and just extract oil without any taking consideration the laws in that country. I found that there are some blames also in the countries.

Brian Lehrer: Edson, thank you very much. Valerie, anything from you on this? We've heard some very different points of view now from Edson there, from the earlier caller from Guyana, and in the clip of the prime minister of Barbados. Is it kind of a multi-point-of-view debate that took place at the Brazilian session yesterday or in general, at the General Assembly climate talks?

Valerie Volcovici: Of course, this is all part of the ongoing, these global climate negotiations have been going on now for years. They go through different governments, different regimes that really can shift radically from one administration to the next, including the United States. The issue of governance and corruption is definitely part of the talks. I think that's why they've built in a system in the Paris Agreement of nationally determined contributions. These are national climate plans that every country can look at, every country can track. They're trying to create some level of transparency and accountability for different countries.

Obviously, it changes from year to year, but in a multilateral multinational organization like the UN and the UNFCCC, which is the climate framework, yes, it's that transparency around what countries are doing and then trying to hold them accountable. Some of these countries do require the assistance of developed nations to simply, they don't have the means to carry out some of what they've been pledging and, yes, I think that's why, with the focus on finance, I think there also is a lot of discussion around making that transparent and having some guardrails and accountability there to make sure that when money is deployed, it's not misspent in these countries.

Brian Lehrer: Through corruption, yes.

Valerie Volcovici: All these are all things that are constantly under discussion.

Brian Lehrer: Before we run out of time, I'm curious to ask, and I haven't seen it in your reporting the last few days, so maybe you don't know, but what's the role of China in all this? It's the number one or two climate polluter along with the United States, but also a developing country economically in certain ways. They get a certain amount of leeway, I believe, to develop renewables more slowly in the Paris Climate Treaty to balance working their way out of poverty, but that also generates resentment in the United States. Why does China, which is such a big polluter and big world power, get to go more slowly than us? Is that duality being discussed, or for the island nations, who've been mostly the focus of this segment, is China seen as more a rich polluter or more a vulnerable recipient of climate change?

Valerie Volcovici: That's another central theme in the climate discussions. China is the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions. It's obviously a rapidly developing economy, and it itself is a donor of climate finance or finance in developing nations, particularly around Africa. China's, certainly, trying to help build infrastructure in different countries. One of the central questions now is, in addition to how much money should be raised for climate finance to support vulnerable nations, is who should pay? You will see a lot of back and forth on this. The United States, the EU, they would like to see China become a donor of climate finance rather than a recipient.

Technically, China is a developing country. It's a leader of the G-77 group of developing nations. It's a complicated thing. The developing nations tend to work with China quite a lot. The United States is also, bilaterally, working with China to come to some sort of agreement on certain things like methane emissions, and other greenhouse gases besides carbon.

I think that bilateral relationship between the US and China, which was restored after Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement, has been helpful in trying to bring countries to consensus on some of the big issues, like the tripling of renewables or sticking to net zero by 2050, but there are huge areas of disagreement, such as how quickly China should reduce its emissions, how quickly it should phase out from using coal. Something that we'll see at this year's climate summit is whether China should be on the hook for some of this climate finance that the most vulnerable countries are calling for.

Brian Lehrer: Fascinating. Valerie Volcovici, who covers climate for Reuters, covering it at the UN General Assembly this week. That's our climate story of the week. Valerie, thank you so much.

Valerie Volcovici: Thank you, Brian.

 

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