Season 5, Episode 180 : Breaking Down COP28: The Critical Climate Conference

Will Richardson 00:10

Hi, and welcome to Sustainability Solved. Today, we're gonna do things a little differently. Cop 28 is only weeks away. And on this episode of the podcast, we've invited guests with really strong opinions to join us and to share their views on this one of the highest profile events in the sustainability calendar.

Georgia Elliott-Smith 00:29

I think this is the COP, where it needs to break down in order to be rebuilt. So I almost want to see this COP fail utterly.

Will Richardson 00:40

You'll hear more from those guests in a moment. But first, I'd like to introduce myself. I'm Will Richardson, the founder and CEO of the Green Element Group, incorporating Green Element, Compare Your Footprint, and of course Sustainability Solved. And today, I'm joined by a new co host, a voice you may well recognize as the host of Homes By The Sea and Building The Dream. Charlie Luxton is an architectural designer and TV presenter with a long held interest in sustainability and the environment. And I'm hoping I might be able to persuade him to become a regular fixture on the podcast. Welcome, Charlie.

Charlie Luxton 01:18

Thanks. Will, nice to be here.

Will Richardson 01:19

Now, Charlie, can I start by asking you? What do you know about COP?

Charlie Luxton 01:25

Well, I'm not I'm not totally sure. It's a bit vague to me. I do recall the Rio Summit in 1992. I think I think I was 18 back then. And I remember it being a big deal. And then it sort of went a bit quiet and then this thing called cop started to happen. I know that the Paris 2015 I think was cop I think and I know that Glasgow last year was COP 27 I'm reaching here and I think what I do know is that next year is cop 28. Have I got this all wrong. Have I got this all wrong? I've got I think I've got this all wrong.

Will Richardson 02:02

No, you haven't got it wrong. Egypt was Egypt was 27. And bit I remember the most is that agenda 21. Because I learned about at a university and I think it was quite big thing at university.

Charlie Luxton 02:14

So that was the Rio one, wasn't it? That was that was the big first international get together...

Will Richardson 02:18

No that came.... Yeah, that came after Rio.

Charlie Luxton 02:20

It's very confusing. I'm confused. I think we're all confused. Hopefully, someone's going to tell us what on earth is going on. And why the next one is so important because that one is in the UAE, isn't it that's COP 28. And that is the thing that sort of setting the the world of sustainability a bit on its head because all those sustainability people are going to effectively a petrostate to talk about climate change, which is a bit conflicting. And hopefully we'll at the end of this podcast, you and I are going to know a little bit more.

Will Richardson 02:48

Let's introduce our guests, we've got Georgia Elliott Smith, who is the founder and managing director of sustainability consultancy, Element Four. She's also an engineer and activist. Welcome, Georgia.

Georgia Elliott-Smith 02:59

Hi, Charlie. Hi. Will, thank you very much for having me.

Charlie Luxton 03:03

That's fantastic. Thank you for coming along. And hopefully, you're gonna do clear the fog on the cop process. That's what we're hoping for.

Georgia Elliott-Smith 03:10

I'll do my best.

Charlie Luxton 03:12

And we've got Emma Littlewood, and she's the Creator & Director of Strategy at Compare Your Footprint. Welcome, Emma,

Emma Littlewood 03:18

Welcome to you, too, Charlie, lovely to meet you.

Charlie Luxton 03:21

So first of all, can I ask Who here has actually been to a COP? And and what does COP stand for? And what's it like? Georgia.

Georgia Elliott-Smith 03:34

So I've been to a COP. I was at COP 26. COP stands for Conference of Parties. And what that means is it is a conference for all of those parties. The nations that have signed up to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change Framework Convention on Climate Change so UNFCCC,

Will Richardson 03:59

oh, what does UNFCCC stand for? Now? Emma and I were talking about this. Apparently, she was listening to a program. And they were this genius.... The Genius Programme? And they asked these apparent geniuses what it stood for, and they didn't have a clue what it stood for.

Georgia Elliott-Smith 04:17

I think most people don't know even people in sustainability. Yeah, so UNFCCC stands for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Okay, and so that is a convention it is. It's been signed up to by the member nations of the United Nations. And those are the parties to the conference. And so when we say cop, what we're talking about is a gathering of all of those nations representatives from the nations of those signatories to this Framework Convention on Climate Change. Does that make a bit more sense

Charlie Luxton 04:55

Has every nation on earth or every nation within the UN signed up? To this,

Georgia Elliott-Smith 05:00

yeah, all of the members of the United Nations have Yes. And you'll have to forgive me because I don't know how many that is. But it's a lot. It's almost all of them.

Emma Littlewood 05:08

It's 197. Georgia, I think. They always round it up to 200. But I think it's actually 197 or 198. If you include the EU,

Georgia Elliott-Smith 05:19

there we go.

Emma Littlewood 05:20

I haven't actually been to a COP. Yeah.

Georgia Elliott-Smith 05:28

Excellent. So there we go. So it's a lot.

Will Richardson 05:30

So how many countries, are there in the world? Does anyone know?

Charlie Luxton 05:35

More than 200? And I think he's how you define a country?

Will Richardson 05:39

What percentage? What percentage of countries have signed up? And what percentage haven't? It sounds like it's the majority of the world has signed up to COP.

Georgia Elliott-Smith 05:49

Yeah, the vast majority? Yeah, again, I, I'm afraid that's a gap in my knowledge. I don't know which countries, but none of the major nations. I mean, we've got all of the big E's, we've got the Indians and China's USA, and so on. But we've also got many, many small nations, you know, small island states, like Papua New Guinea, and you know, very small African countries. And so yes, it's a very, very broad range of the global emissions.

Emma Littlewood 06:17

And also the EU only counts as one member. So for example, you can't really kind of look at it. It's in terms of countries versus countries in the world, because some some countries get together and they joined as one member, for example, the EU,

Will Richardson 06:37

gotcha. Okay. Okay, that makes sense.

Emma Littlewood 06:41

But, Charlie, you're quite right about the Rio Summit in 1992, was where there was the signing of the original treaty that Georgia was referring to the UNFCCC and after that there was a, you know, 97, we had the Kyoto Protocol. And then following on from that later on, of course, the iconic Paris Agreement in 2050.

Charlie Luxton 07:05

So that's the kind of those are the big milestones that have been reached through that process is that is that a fair sort of assessment,

Georgia Elliott-Smith 07:12

there's, there are a number of different terms that we use, and we talk about Kyoto. But, you know, in environmental circles, we talk about Kyoto, we talk about things like Montreal Protocol, and we talk about these things. And these are basically just big conferences where United Nations countries get together and form agreements. And, and there are these key milestones. And Paris was the biggest, but you know, most recent one, which was in 2015. And the Paris agreement now forms the basis of what we talk about at these cop conferences. The Paris Agreement of 2015 was the one where, you know, the world was celebrating, really, there was a big fanfare, that we had come to an agreement that we would all endeavor to keep the global temperature increase below 1.5 degrees centigrade. And that's a global average warming temperature. The other figure that sometimes people talk about is two degrees centigrade. So we have these two kind of parallel conversations which and and parts of the science which talk about 1.5 degrees, which is trying to keep the global average below that, and well below two degrees centigrade. So we've sort of got the sort of best option and less good option, but we talk about 1.5, and two degrees kind of simultaneously and climate science.

Charlie Luxton 08:34

So tell me about the kind of the process of actually, the event. I mean, who organises it? How many people come who are the people that are at this event? And what is the process by which these agreements, good, bad enacted or not enacted are kind of come to because it does sound like a quite an extraordinary event.

Georgia Elliott-Smith 08:56

It is. It's astonishing. When you go to these COPs, it is an absolute circus is what it is, in my mind. But the circus is really what we call the green zone. It's what goes on on the periphery of the actual conference. So the actual cop conference at its heart is a meeting of civil servants from and negotiators from each of the signatory countries. And that's what the conference is we call the blue zone. And the blue zone is sort of the inner ring. And that's where these nation, you know, national representatives get together and they have their meetings, and they make their presentations. And that's where the true negotiations go on. And so as a as a participant at a cop, I was what was known as an observer, an international observer. So I had access to both the green and the blue zone, the green zone, the green zone, like I say, that's kind If the outer ring and that's where businesses go, that's where members of the public go. That's where a lot of the talks and the the sort of what I found quite exasperating, which I'm sure we'll talk about later, goes on in that green zone. And that like say that's the sort of circus is in town, the blue zone bit, that's really, really boring. It's really boring. It's where you go. And it's essentially a business meeting. And they have an agenda. And they have this very, very detailed agenda that they have to work through through each day of the two weeks of a cop conference. And on that agenda is all the boring business of agreeing the language that goes into the documentation, you know, of countries discussing their targets, but not in an exciting way that's really dynamic in a way that just makes you want to fall asleep and curl up and go, Oh, my God, this thing is just so glacially slow. It's unbelievable. So there's, there's a kind of layers of activity at COP. And when we talk about a cop conference, we do have to be careful about what we're talking about. Are we talking about the big circus trade show that goes on? Or are we talking about the national negotiating teams that are getting together within this inner ring, doing the actual business of the conference, which is international agreements about how we are going to achieve reduced carbon emissions. And that is, like I say, each country has a negotiating team. And that will be made up of prominent people, prominent negotiators, they could be cabinet ministers, they often are cabinet ministers from the UK, leading civil servants, so department heads from places like Defra and designators. And these different departments, and then also teams of civil servants whose job it is, is to work out policy in the country and align our policy with our commitments. The conference and

Charlie Luxton 11:54

How far in advance is the shedule of the issues that they're going to tackle set out. I mean, it doesn't sound like that sort of busked on the spot and worked out as they're going through is this. I mean, who is setting that framework? And that agenda? Is that something that's agreed, say at COP 27 to be taken forward at COP 28? Or is? Or is it? Is it more sort of bureaucratic? Or is it more freeform? How does that work?

Emma Littlewood 12:18

What happens is there's a process that yes, initially will be commenced at the previous COP. But you have a committee of people who are all appointed, and you have officials, heads of state and industry leaders through to sort of civil society representatives, these all get together and you have a cop 28 team. And so for this cop, there's a team of people who are under the auspices of the United Nations, which is the host, ultimately of all of this, through the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. And they slowly develop what the agenda is going to be. But all of the members all have what they call the Conference of the party. So it's all of the parties, they contribute to that process. And at the moment, it really ramping up a lot of the PR around it, and a lot of the fighting over the agenda. And obviously this year, there's been a departure from the usual way that cop is hosted, because the President is actually somebody from the business world. And usually it's someone who is solely either somebody from a member state or a party state, but they're not usually having crossover links with an industry and very pertinent lead significantly this year, that industry happens or perhaps it's not so much happens to be one of the biggest oil and gas companies in the world...

Georgia Elliott-Smith 13:51

Which is a horror show, clearly,

Emma Littlewood 13:52

Which is a horror show!

Charlie Luxton 13:54

right, I think we've finally got to the nub of the issue here, haven't we?

Emma Littlewood 13:57

Yeah, we finally got to the nub. I mean, the primary cause of the climate crisis is fossil fuels. And they benefit from an eye watering $30 million a minute of subsidies. So throughout 2022 $30 million a minute was subsidizing oil and gas. And that is according to something called the IMF, which is the International Monetary Fund. That's about double what is spent on education globally. So I mean, from my point of view, this is a unique PR opportunity for the UAE national oil company, which is called Abu Dhabi national oil company or ADNOC because, for example, there's just been a report out recently that there are two senior executives from ADNOC who are working with the core COP 28 team right now as the as the country is wrapping up. It's ramping up the PR campaign ahead of the summit. And there are multiple reports raising concerns about the crossover, therefore, that there are actually members within the COP 2018, who are also high professionals within the oil company known as ADNOC. So there's a sort of blurring of the lines here, which is really have some concern.

Charlie Luxton 15:20

And I can see, obviously, that really bothers you will you've got a slightly different take on this, haven't you?

Will Richardson 15:25

Well, it's not, I've got a different take, I do totally agree with Emma. And I'm just throwing it out there. The northern countries have all been in the energy making world for a very long time, and were quite advanced with energy. We had the colonial period beforehand, where we actually made a huge amount of money out of the majority of the southern countries, we had that money, we were then able to put together industry, we were then able to explore for oil and gas. And now we've got quite advanced renewable energy techniques. And I just wonder if there's an air of we are telling that global south to do it, and that we can't have anything to do with oil and gas, because we are advanced and you know, within the energy sector, I may be completely wrong. But I do think we have to tread very carefully with regards to telling the global south what it is they can and cannot do.

Georgia Elliott-Smith 16:32

I agree Will, but I think that's a very different issue. I totally agree about social justice. It's a huge part of my work is a huge, huge part. And I think one of the biggest opportunities that we have missed as environmentalists is the opportunity to bring people along with us. I think not even just in the Global South, I think right here we are currently struggling with populism, you know, there's agenda about net zero, the whole, just complete horror show of Sunak. And these massive, you know, turns backpedaling, Utah and Exactly. Sorry, I'm trying not to swear. What we have done is we have gone at Pace thinking that everybody is on the same page. And we've tried to drag, you know, a green revolution through and in the past have not really paid attention to that social justice issue. And I think, you know, a lot of the work that I do with chi changes climate, a lot of my work, you know, I'm legal activist, I'm all about justice. And I think that that is a huge thing. But I do think that that is separate from the issue of fossil fuels, because I think the issue of the growth of fossil fuels, it is, it is a fact, you know, the International Energy Agency has said, you know, several years ago said, if we are to achieve our climate goals, you know, the Paris agreement and the 1.5 degrees centigrade, or even the well below two degrees centigrade target, there must be no new fossil fuels. And that is simply not happening. You know, fossil fuels are in fatigue continuing to increase, you know, as Emma's talked about subsidies, actually, in 2021, slash 22, global fossil fuel subsidies doubled at an all time peak of a trillion US dollars. We are increasing fossil fuel production at pace

Charlie Luxton 18:18

Just out of interest, how does that relate to the subsidies on sustainable energy? Because Because my understanding is that at the moment in, in the south PV is probably the cheapest way of generating, you know, a megawatt of electricity. So how is that reality not playing out?

Georgia Elliott-Smith 18:32

Because of government subsidies? I mean, if we just talked about the UK, for example, the UK government since the Paris Agreement has given 20 billion pounds more to fossil fuels than it has to renewable energies. So both receive a level of subsidy. But fossil fuels are significantly more funded by governments so out of our pocket than they are renewables. And I think there's a very, very sinister,

Charlie Luxton 18:58

why are we subsidizing fossil fuel companies when they're so profitable?

Georgia Elliott-Smith 19:02

Yeah. Good question.

Emma Littlewood 19:05

I would put it down to crony capitalism. A lot of the people who make decisions are also the people who have huge investments in oil and gas, sometimes direct, as in, perhaps, Rishi Sunak. family firm Infosys has just made huge investments in BP just prior to the announcement of maxing out on North Sea oil and gas. And we've just heard about the....

Georgia Elliott-Smith 19:33

Half a billion pounds. They've made half a billion pounds they made out of Rishi Sunak announcement that hundreds of gas licenses would....

Will Richardson 19:40

Is that illegal?

Emma Littlewood 19:40

No,

Georgia Elliott-Smith 19:41

it should be. Should be.

Charlie Luxton 19:44

I'm sure there's paper walls. Before before we get the legal team here, sure it is all legal. Whether it is right is another question and whether the legal is correct to deal with. It is another question but I'm sure it's legal.

Georgia Elliott-Smith 19:57

One of the shocking things that I have discovered as I've started to become more political. And I'm now working with a political party called true and fair. One of the key mandates there is to improve standards in in public life, because actually, there is a shocking absence of rules for our policymakers. Many of them act as consultants while they're sitting MPs. Many of them have second jobs in companies that that do profit from the sorts of decisions that get made, you know, where there is, the register of lobbyists is completely ineffectual. Because there's all kinds of ways around it and loopholes. And so, you know, we find these traditional industries, which are enormous ly powerful, you know, they make billions of profit. And a lot of that does get funneled into pet projects of our MPs and our civil servants and policymakers. And there's enormous corruption that goes on, you know, and so there's, this is a massive problem that we need to tackle. And a very good question, Charlie, why do they still receive subsidies when they make billions of pounds in clear profit?

Charlie Luxton 20:57

Are we saying that the problems that we're now discussing on a national level are pretty much the same problems that are kind of shifting the way that COPS operating Emma

Emma Littlewood 21:06

The infiltration of oil and gas lobbyists, investors, people who actually run the companies into the COP process is enormous. In recent years, oil companies have completely rolled black on their climate pledges. And they continuously have lobbied against climate regulations while reaping. Absolutely, I watering record profits, and paying vast dividends to their shareholders. And we've seen what that's done to the world. And this is where climate and social justice meet at a very not sweet spot, but it's our spot, because the irony is that those who've contributed least to climate breakdown, are suffering the impacts the most intensely and acutely and chronically. And that links into what What will we say and what Giorgio was saying about what we now call global south countries, we have to be careful with that phrase, because the global south is not a homogenous being it's a heterogeneous being. The UK pulled out of the United Arab Arab Emirates, where cop 28 is to be held in November, in 1971. Oil was found there in the 50s. It is extremely rich, wealthy company country. Now the problem here is that we've wanted to have conversations at COP about oil and gas, fossil fuel companies coming to the table and speaking with them, and Christiana Figueres who was the UN chief for many years. For many, many years, she advocated for oil companies that they should be involved in the policy making talks. And she had hoped that that would work. She has now changed her position on that completely. She says I was wrong, that she naively thought fossil fuel firms could change. She says they cannot, they aren't there only to obstruct, and to try to prevent the progress of reducing and completely eliminating any new exploration for new oil and gas. No one is saying that we can switch off oil and gas today, tomorrow. Or what is happening is that these subsidies are going into exploration for new oil and gas. They're not going into where they should be going to which you quite rightly talked about Charlie, which is subsidies into renewables.

Charlie Luxton 23:37

So Emma, you don't see a role for the big energy companies. And if we take oil and gas out of it, that's what they would argue they are. And I think you're saying no, they're not the oil and gas companies. They're not energy companies. But Georgia, do you see a role for the energy companies, let's say, having a seat at this table? And I'm going to add another question to that is, okay, so let's say they are at the table, what are the control mechanisms to try and ensure that they don't subvert the processes that we've seen Exxon doing in America ran a climate change conversation, and they've now been called out on that. And I think there's some lawsuits being put together by certain states against the big oil and gas companies. How is COP going to stop that? That subversion?

Georgia Elliott-Smith 24:19

I think there's a lot of modeling in people's minds about what COP is, I think, no energy company, no vested interest, whether positive or negative, deserves a seat at the table. I don't believe any corporate body at all should be represented at COP. What cop is, is a group of policymakers coming together to talk about how we are going to achieve our global ambitions as countries as policymakers. Now within that it is up to each country's you know, we will decide on what our national contributions are to the problem of climate change, we will agree what our goals are. And then we'll go away and nationally in each country, we then need to decide what policy mechanisms need to be created to stimulate renewables and to reduce energy consumption, which I mean, let's not forget, this isn't just about oil and gas and renewables. It's about reducing our energy consumption. But it's about policymaking. It is not the place of any body corporate, to be at the table at COP. And I think that's where the waters have been muddied, is, Why are these people there? Why are they there? They're only there, because they have a financial vested interest. And that is not appropriate. When we're talking about policymaking. We're talking about huge global problems, like climate change, which are beyond the body corporate, the conversation should be just between countries about what are our obligations here? What are our responsibilities? What do we have to do? Where are we going? Then we go back to our countries and we work out, what is our national capability? Do we have the ability to come off fossil fuels? If not, why not? If we don't have the right investment in renewables? How are we going to stimulate that? And then, you know, that's the place where you then start talking to industry to say, how are we going to deliver on the commitments that we've made internationally to reduce climate change?

Will Richardson 26:25

That makes complete sense and it's interesting, isn't it? Because we can see that role in industry and government merging in the UK, and it has done around the world? And actually, that's probably what's happened with cop as well, because it's naturally and it makes sense. You want government to be completely separate. It's a neutral place. We've been talking, talking, talking, talking around the world and media and everything. And actually, what we haven't been talking about is the crux of it is, why are they there? Why is industry there?

Georgia Elliott-Smith 26:57

Why are they there? The only reason they're there is to feather their nest. I think the the circus around COP is incredibly toxic, it has just become a place to be seen a massive greenwash show and taken out as well, whether it is just revolting. I mean, actually, when I was there, I was I, I was fully activist when I was there, I was standing up in all kinds of presentations and conferences, challenging, and, you know, confronting corporate CEOs from big listed companies saying that we could fix the climate crisis, if we bought more of their stuff, you know, and it's just like, shut up, go away. Really take account of these issues, and work out how we're going to fix these problems. Stop coming here and treating it like a trade show, where you can just say, you're super green, you let you know, being seen a cop. I mean, it's just, I have a past for this year's cop, and I'm wrestling with myself about whether or not I'm going to go, unless I am asked to speak in a forum in which I think I can contribute meaningfully, you know, to the meaningful change, I will not go because what it has become is a place where everyone is just going to be seen. They're exchanging business cards, everyone's pandering to big corporates, everyone's looking for business. You know, everyone's just talking crap. It's all greenwash. And, you know, and, and really, it's distracting from what it is at its core. And I think we should just get rid of that circuit, and have an alternative trade show where we talk about, you know, the solutions, and the fact that people don't know what cop is.

Emma Littlewood 28:35

And I mean, I really agree with that. Yeah, because we were asked as Green Element to go along to COP28 To present climate change education, sort of in November in Dubai, to sort of some of their youth delegates. And we declined that we didn't exactly 100% decline if we asked for some more information about the organization behind the education, and what their links to cop were, what their attitude to UAE human rights standards were. But also, I really didn't feel that it would be a good place for green element to position itself just to be seen a cop delivering education, on climate change, having just created two tons of carbon per person to fly out to Dubai. It kind of reminds me of a tutor of mine, who was an internationally renowned pollution expert, who told me she loved the London congestion charge because it cleared the streets so that she could drive her SUV into the centre of London. And I just find that the complete kind of paradox of flying out to a conference which has become, to all intents and purposes, a kind of marketplace, and a place for people to do deals inside rooms in order to have some kind of standing in the so called sustained For world, I know that we may be coming over as rather negative about what is able to be agreed but but let's not forget, we did have the Montreal Protocol we did have the Kyoto Protocol we did have, as Georgia has talked about the well below two, and then eventually changed to 1.5 pledges from Paris in 2015. We are hoping that some miracle could happen, which Christiana Figueres it's also said she hopes for she lives in eternal optimism, that there will be an uncompromised deal to phase out oil and gas to phase out all fossil fuels. That is the only good thing apart from obviously, firmer commitments in the loss and damage fund and actually showing showing some actual dollars to contribute to the loss and damage fund as opposed to rather, just pledging that there'll be dollars. But those two clear goals for me, I think, will be something that everybody will be overjoyed if if we could achieve that if there could be some kind of global consensus that oil and gas now has to go. I'm very skeptical that that could happen. Let's not mess about with our words here. They have lobbied for years. And they have spent a lot of investment in denying climate change. When that no longer washed, they moved into the greenwash. So you get shell green go and all this other green wash going on. And now what now that that's not working so well, they're trying to use what's called the energy crisis and the war in Ukraine as a reason to rollback, which is what our prime minister in the UK has, has used as the excuse, energy security,

Georgia Elliott-Smith 31:57

energy security, I was gonna say this new word energy security, which is the latest tactic that the oil and gas sector has embraced to give policymakers comfort that they're doing the right thing, you know,

Emma Littlewood 32:14

yeah. And we get energy security from renewables.

Charlie Luxton 32:18

Have we effectively sort of poisoned the well, if you know what I mean? Because I mean, my perspective, I think that capitalism has to be a core part of solving climate change. I think there's no two ways around that we just need to change the rules of capitalism, and surely having big businesses near political events to try and understand how that meshing policy and capital, the capitalist motor, if you like, can be adapted to to move towards, you know, hopefully holding 1.5 or not, but are you saying that that shouldn't actually be the role of cop that we need to completely disentangle those two, those two sort of factors and have them integrate at another venue? Yes. How would you how would you change it? Well,

Georgia Elliott-Smith 33:01

I would, I would, I would have very, very strict new rules around the intervention and of corporates and vested interests in the process, the whole corporate influence needs to be utterly routed out of cop, and we need to just have some truth around what's really going on. I mean, at COP 26, the fossil fuel lobbyists, were the largest delegation larger than any country's delegation. At cop 27, it was 25% higher than at COP 26. And so you can see this is just unbelievable the vested interests that are present that needs to be completely routed out, and there needs to be a wall built between policymakers and corporate. I agree with you that there is a role here, you know, that capitalism, and I think we're seeing this in the UK right now. I think there are so many companies who are transitioning to net zero, you know, they're doing a lot to decarbonize. They've embraced this, the messaging around climate change, and they're doing a lot. But this flip flopping of government who is in the pockets of these, these lobbyists, is actually preventing industry from moving as fast as it wants to, you know, we've got this uncertainty, you need certainty in order to raise investment in order to make a strong direction. While the government's flip flopping around, you know, there's no way that corporates can move forwards. And so a lot of progressive businesses are just crying out for better regulation, you know, rather than deregulation, which has been, historically what industry has been after, I think, but the progressive companies are now saying, Come on, we need a carbon tax otherwise, without that we can't, you know, we can't, we're failing in our fiduciary duty as directors to protect the financial interests of this company. If we decarbonize because that's hitting our profits. If you put in place a carbon tax, we are then able to justify decarbonisation on the basis of improved profits, you know, and reduced costs. And so, you know, we're getting this really strong movement now for Some progressive corporates to try and push the dial forwards. But what we need and I do think if we think if we look at capitalism, if we look at its roots, you know, with the Adam Smith model of capitalism, what people often don't talk about is the fact that Adam Smith put forward a model of responsible capitalism, where he talked very clearly about capitalism only works for the good of people. If you have strong government, if you have strong regulation, and we you create very strong boundaries within which capitalism operates. And unfortunately, that has failed. What we now have is a crossing over of lines, we have companies interfering in elections, we have companies interfering, you know, with policymakers, and putting them in their pockets paying for all sorts of things that is interfering. And so this neoliberal fantasy of the market, being able to sort itself out doesn't work when you have lobbyists interfering with policy, you know, and I think that so for me, that's where I've landed.

Charlie Luxton 36:01

Are you concerned that what we're seeing on a national level is effectively what is happening at COP? There is a lack of clarity in the directions that are being set out by the panel, and you're the, you know, that the promises set out by the International form, and that that is going to slow development? And does that mean, Emma, that fundamentally, cop is a busted flush? And we need to move on and find a different forum? Or do we need to try and rejuvenate it and regulate it and changes its rules?

Emma Littlewood 36:29

I think COP has become a victim of its own success. I think it was set up, hand on heart in good faith. Wherever there's money involved, corruption will follow. Unfortunately, unless as Georgia has set out there is very, very strong governance and very strong rulemaking and boundaries. The irony of this and the hypocrisy of this is not lost on people. They might not know the acronyms and they might not know all of the ways of the blue zone and the green zone and all the rest of it. But what they can smell is corruption and the powers that be making walls up to suit themselves. The reparation fund really really needs to be finalized at COP 28. They were there the types of lots of losses that will qualify for payments, who pays in and who receives the funds. There are pledges being made by the President of COP28 Sultan Al Jaber who is saying, yes, they will increase the amount of money they're paying into these reparation funds and what they call climate finance. For me, that's a bit like buying offsets. That company is set to hugely expand their exploration into oil and gas and new oil and gas and increase the volumes. I don't have the numbers of trillions of barrels of oil, but they are massively.

Georgia Elliott-Smith 38:07

It's 25%.

Emma Littlewood 38:09

It's 25%.

Georgia Elliott-Smith 38:11

In total, it's 25%. They're they're planning a 25% increase in output,

Emma Littlewood 38:16

right. And at the same time, what they're doing is saying, Oh, we're giving all this money for climate, finance, and reparation. Like a kind of offset.

Georgia Elliott-Smith 38:25

Yeah, exactly. I think if I can just come back on that, that COP, I do believe that cop is the right vehicle to solve this problem. I do believe it. For all its faults. I just think it has gone severely off track. And I think it is time now. And I think that this cop 28 is just inexcusably corrupt, and has got to its lowest point in terms of interference with vested interests. And I think that this ought to now be the Platt that sort of springboard from which we have a very serious conversation about the future of COP and about what is cop for? Who is it appropriate to put in charge of this process? I think the rules need to be tightened up. And I think we just need a step change in the way in which it's operated. But I do think cop is the solution. It just needs much, much better governance,

Will Richardson 39:22

it'd be good to have the media more behind what it is that you're saying with a with an understanding, we actually need the media to be talking about it and educating all of us on this subject for change to happen?

Georgia Elliott-Smith 39:38

Absolutely. But I mean, there you have as well, a lot of vested interests. You know, big media is a real problem. And it's not just oil and gas, you know, that we're talking about here, for example, the meat industry, the Brazilian meat industry is enormously powerful, and they directly altered the wording their lobbyists change. The wording of the Paris Agreement in you know, there was a resolution wording that came out talked about reducing meat consumption. Now that wording was altered to say that we ought to move to a more plant based diet. But they took the word meat out of it, because the lobbyists were up in arms about it now. So it's an it's a lot of vested exactly, there's. So this is why I say that I do think COP is the right forum. But I think that the rules of engagement must change,

Emma Littlewood 40:29

I would say the United Nations is really the only body that is able to bring all of these parties together. There are people who have been the United Nations governor, and still to this day, who have worked extremely hard to try and make these processes of stopping climate breakdown, reducing the impacts of the climate emergency on those who are suffering most and who will suffer most, and working out what the world really can do about this. And they have become extremely disheartened. And extremely, I guess, cynical. Eventually, Antonio Guterres has said it's not global warming, it's global boiling. And that unless out of this conference comes an absolute definitive commitment to phasing out oil and gas. And I mean, Georgia mentioned meat, agriculture, and mostly meat out culture of agriculture and fossil fuels received between them 13 trillion subsidies in 2022, a lot of those subsidies are going into areas which if we are being really honest, need to be rolled back rather than reinforced. And therefore what we need to be able to do is have leaders around the world and there are such leaders who are supported, who aren't pointing the finger at each other. UK government officials love to point the finger at China and say, China has so much more emissions produces so much more emissions than the UK, what's the point in us worrying about a bit of North Sea oil and gas? China has millions more people than us, it's a per person thing.

Georgia Elliott-Smith 42:27

And also China produces most of our stuff. You know, this is the reason that a lot of China's emissions are created in the first place is because they're producing all of the steel that we use in our construction. They're producing all of the furniture that we're putting in our homes and offices, they're producing all the clothes and fast moving consumer goods. Yeah. And also, they are a massive part of the Green Revolution. And you know that and the thing about it as well is that when you look at climate action, yes, they are the planet's biggest emitters, but they are also reducing their emissions faster than any other countries.

Will Richardson 42:59

They were the first country in the world, but I believe 10% of all their energy produced into renewables. And they put that in place about 15 years ago, you know, they were very forward with an aggressive was that,

Charlie Luxton 43:14

okay, but how do we get the change? How do we get the change?

Emma Littlewood 43:18

Have you heard of the people's COP? If you put together people in a sort of civil assembly, and allow them to be the decision makers, and you have groups of people, you have NGOs, you have citizens, you have people who represent underrepresented minority groups. And there isn't any money on the table there is this is not about deal making. This is about how you come together to solve a problem. And I think if you can do that, there's something called the environmental justice organization. And they have got together a kind of alternative cop. Now, I'm not saying that that could become a powerful decision maker at this point. But it's a way that we bring together people from within society, from the grassroots up. And they come together in an organized way a bit like, you know, Ireland has the citizens assemblies, that they make all these decisions by referendum. What we need is to have citizens assemblies, and we need to have an alternative cop that is actually about looking at the real problems. This is not something you can do alone. I always say to people business can't solve this business. It's doing everything it can in the UK, but government is not backing there. We can't do this alone. But what we need to have as citizens sort of like grassroots level people coming together to understand these issues, and start to feel empowered to be a part of the process. So they're not in the green zone and they're not in the Greta Tunberg zone, which is outside the Green Zone, which is where I would be you know, campaigning against To all sorts of things to do with human rights, and to do with climate change and climate justice, what we need is for them to be at the center of the decision making instead of on the outskirts. That is how I see it going forward. If that were possible,

Charlie Luxton 45:16

Georgia, what are your thoughts? How do we change this thing? How do we turn this this this this oil tanker, pardon the analogy around?

Georgia Elliott-Smith 45:24

I firmly believe it's about narrative. And it's about storytelling. Because what we've what we have seen is that a move that is blatantly pro human, which is about saving lives, and making everybody better off and making everybody's lives better. That messaging has been hijacked by vested interests, you know, we've seen the Exxon Mobil and shell and all of the cynical moves by the fossil fuel industry to change the narrative around climate change. You know, we've we've allowed that narrative to take hold now that actually, environmentalism and climate care is about having less and being worse off and suffering. And that's not what it's about. It's about beauty and life and nature and abundance and joy and community, you know, and I think that hasn't come through that has not been the narrative that we've been telling, I mean, clean air, how could you be against clean air, it's just nonsense, that somehow this narrative has become politicized and has been about, you know, it's them against you. It's about our lives, our children, our health, you know, it's about really these things, it find it very strange that this narrative has gone down this particular route. And I think that we as environmentalists have also been negligent in that because I think a lot of the activism has been about less, you must consume less, you must fly less, you must worry more, you must be anxious about this, you must be fearful about it. And I think we need this time. Now, you know, and I'm an activist, I'm part of this, but I think we've got to a point now where we need to evolve, we need to take a step forward. And we need to own this narrative. And I think, what made me so disgusted by the Sunak speech, about the rolling back of these environmental regulations, and the net zero targets, what made me so disgusted about it was his cowardice, because I think I compared it, you know, in a LinkedIn, post the to a speech that Churchill made when we were, you know, looking for the nation to really get behind our efforts going to war in Europe. And it was about, it's about positioning, it's about saying, Look, we have to come together, we have to step up, we have to have courage and vision, we need strong leadership, we need people who are going to own this narrative and say, look, it's not ideal, we've got ourselves into a bit of a pickle. But together, we're going to get out of it. And together, we're going to create a bright and beautiful future for our children and our grandchildren and the species on Earth. And we're going to reverse all this damage that we've created. We didn't know what we were doing. But now we know better, we will do better. And here's the benefits. You know, here's the skills, here's the innovation, here's the efficiency, here's the you know, exportable intellectual property, here's the brilliant stuff that's ahead of us if we can solve these problems together. And I think, you know, that messaging about a meat tax and the seven recycling bins and all that stuff. And then what Churchill have said, you know, oh, no, don't worry about the meat tax, you know, no, we would have said, Guys, if a meat tax is the only thing we need to suffer, in order to get all of these incredible benefits, then come on, let's do it. You know, I mean, I just I found that that kind of leadership was sniffling, and just really disgusted me when I think there's an opportunity to take this narrative and turn it into something beautiful and aspirational.

Will Richardson 49:03

I think I think that's perfect. I think that's absolutely perfect.

Charlie Luxton 49:07

But my question, my question remains, how do we turn the UN and cop look around to actually give it the teeth or to give it the focus that it wants had and recreate that and just on to add on to that bolt on? What would you want to see coming out of this year to restore your faith in?

Georgia Elliott-Smith 49:28

Okay, so, the first part of that, if I may go straight into it is all of these people, the United Nations, our governments are all beholden to the people. They are all just representatives of the people. So you know, the UN is just a group of nations, you know, they have no power. They are just a way of convening nations together. But the governments of each nations represent the people and I think if we have a cultural shift, where other people demand better of their leaders, then I think those leaders will take that spirit to the United Nations. So you see Antonio Guterres and Christiana Figueres with their intense frustration, because there's nothing they can really do. All they're doing is convening. And it's these individual nations that need to bring that energy and need to hold each other to account. And so I do think that this is a thing that we start at each at a national level about changing the narrative around climate change, because then we will have leaders in place who are actually going to the United Nations saying, Come on, we've got to do better, we're going to play our part, instead of trying to roll everything back. So I think that's the star. And I think in terms of, sorry, what was your second question was, what do I want to

Charlie Luxton 50:41

see if you'd like to see what outcomes from COP would restore your faith?

Georgia Elliott-Smith 50:45

I think this is the COP, where it needs to break down in order to be rebuilt. So I almost want to see this cop fail utterly. It sounds really bizarre to say that because I think every sustainability person would say that they want cop to succeed, but I feel like from the ashes of this cop, I think could rise a much better way of proceeding. So I feel like we've got so bad I thought, Coca Cola sponsorship of cop 27. You know, and I, I was the one that started the petition, I got half a million signatures on that.

Charlie Luxton 51:24

You couldn't write it good. You really couldn't write.

Georgia Elliott-Smith 51:26

I know. But I wrote to the United Nations with a petition half a million signatures, you know, to say, what are you going to do about this? I didn't get an answer. I wrote to everybody within the UNFCCC I wrote to Antonio Guterres, I wrote to various different departments within the UK Government, I wrote to policy ministers, everybody, I did not get a single response to half a million people signing that, which is what makes me worry about this process so much is that it really isn't about the people. So I feel like we've got so low, if we can now recognize it. If we can fail in this cop, we can actually then come together and say, Okay, how are we going to do better next time instead of it just, you know, continuing dragging its corpse along every year?

Charlie Luxton 52:09

And what would you like to see? What would what would what would sort of make you feel restore your faith in COP?

Emma Littlewood 52:16

There's only one outcome that will make any kind of substantial difference to the climate crisis, which is already very well underway. And there's an immediate end to exponential exploration for new oil and gas and a bump binding, I would say a binding global deal on phasing out fossil fuels within the next 10 to 30 years.

Will Richardson 52:38

Well, that's it for this episode of Sustainability Solved the sustainable business podcast. Thank you so much to Georgia Elliot Smith, and Emma Littlewood. For more information on podcast our guests and everything we've discussed today. Please check the show notes. If you have any feedback or questions you can get in contact with us at Green Element on social media. And don't forget to follow this podcast in your favorite app, and go on write us a review