November 18, 2025 • 32 mins
Former US Vice President Al Gore is one of the grandees of the climate world and knows just how much power America can wield on the international stage. So with President Trump on the warpath against climate action, how should other nations deal with an increasingly rogue US?
Gore joins Akshat Rathi on Zero to talk geopolitics, polarization, and energy-hungry artificial intelligence.
Explore further:
- Listen to part 2 of the conversation.
- Al Gore Says Trump’s Energy Policies Are a ‘Tragedy’ for the US
Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd. Special thanks to TED Countdown House, Sommer Saadi, Mohsis Andam, Sharon Chen and Laura Millan. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at zeropod@bloomberg.net. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Zero. I am Akshatarati.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
This week Al Gore on a Rogue US. Last week
at COPP, I had the great privilege of speaking with
former US Vice President Al Gore, one of the grandees
(00:26):
of the climate world. His film An Inconvenient Truth won
him an OSCAR and has inspired generations of climate activists,
and alongside the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, he was
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to obtain
and disseminate information about the climate challenge. Vice President Gore
(00:46):
has been a guest on Zero before, back in twenty
twenty three, when a lot of wind seemed to be
in the sales of climate action. But since Trump's return
to office, those fair winds have dropped, at least in
the US, and climate action seems on a much more
turbulent course worldwide. So I wanted to catch up with
Vice President Core to hear what his experience in the
(01:09):
US government and his understanding of how the US can
wield power on the global stage can teach us about
the current moment. We had a wide ranging conversation at
COP thirty in plen and we are going to split
that conversation over the next two episodes, Part one today
and part two on.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Thursday this week.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Subscribe to zero to hear part two later in the week,
and send me a feedback on zero pod at Bloomberg
dot net.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
For now.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Here is part one of my conversation with Al Gore,
recorded at a live event at Ted coumdown House during
COP thirty in Brazil. We'll discuss how countries should deal
with the rogue US, whether countries are being pulled into
China's orbit ais climate impact, and how to depolarize climate action.
(02:00):
Vice President Akshatt Welcome to Ted Kanda House, as Paul.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Simon saying, you can call me al either that or
your adequacy.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
So I know we are at a climate summit.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
We'll talk a lot about climate, but I want to
start with a bigger question. The US government is attacking
the rules based order that previous administrations help build. How
exactly should were leaders deal with a rogue US when
they are worried about defending their borders that are dependent
on US guarantees, when they are worried about maintaining their
(02:34):
industry that is dependent on US exports that they make,
when they are dependent on US for an aid to
fight poverty when they aren't able to keep visual on
the infectious diseases that could become the next pandemic that
the US is now cutting outbreak monitoring for.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
How to deal with the rogue US?
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Yeah, well, everybody wants to know the answer to that question.
And I wish I knew a definitive answer oxshot. But yes,
under President Trump, his administration is launching an assault on
the rules based order. And the rules based order also depends,
(03:16):
at the most basic foundational level on a decent respect
for truthfulness in communications among nations and within democracies, and
he has discarded any notion of respecting truthfulness, and so
it's a major challenge for the entire world. However, it's
(03:41):
important not to over emphasize the singular importance of the
US in the world system. It's natural that we do that,
in part because for the last seventy plus years since
World War Two, the US has been the natural leader
(04:02):
of the world system. Forgive me if that sounds like
too much American pride, but it's been the case and
widely recognized. And so now when that changes, there's a
natural inclination to say, oh my gosh, what now, But
to put it in the context of climate Ten years
ago in Paris, one hundred and ninety five nations assigned
(04:23):
the agreement. Only one has withdrawn only one. And a
friend of mine who's the leader of another country said,
you know, there's an equation that's worth remembering. One hundred
and ninety five minus one does not equal zero, and
to say that a different way. Even though there is
(04:46):
a great deal of harm and even more risk associated
with the US withdrawal from Paris and withdrawal from the
rule space to order, it does also create a space
with in which other nations can discover a new path
for themselves. There is no other successor to the US
(05:09):
as the leader of the world system that is easily identified.
The EU has the base of values that most people
around the world have respected when they look at the US,
But they have a multiple voices problem and a very
fine chief executive, but not a strong chief executive. It
(05:29):
could be they could evolve into a role of that sort.
China very much wants to be the successor to the US,
but because they do not share the values, or at
least do not manifest in their behavior and their laws
and policies, the values that most people around the world
(05:51):
aspired to. I think it's highly unlikely that the world
will follow China. So we're in this period where one
era is ending and the other is struggling to be born.
One of the great poets in the Spanish language, Antonio Machado, said, traveler,
there is no road. You must make the path as
(06:12):
you walk. And I think that's the situation that we
are we're confronting now. But people are continuing to move
in the right direction. You know, if you look in
the US in the first year of well, look last
year in the US at all the new electricity generation installed,
(06:32):
ninety seven percent was renewable. That's unlikely to change very much,
at least just because Donald Trump says, reopen these coal plants,
stop building new renewables. It's like King Canute saying stop
the tide. You know, it doesn't work. And now it
(06:53):
does have some implications, of course, and it emboldens bad
actors like Saudi e ray Be, for example, to be
more even more aggressive in trying to halt any kind
of climate solutions. And it also gives a little bit
of cover to some forces within Allied countries that are
(07:13):
not enthusiastic about climate solutions gives them a little covert
to slow things down a little bit. But overall, if
I could offer you a visual metaphor, what I see
in my perception of the world is there's a big
wheel turning very powerfully in the right direction, and within
it there's some little wheels going in the opposite in direction,
(07:37):
and we tend to focus on each one of those
little wheels that pops up, but even they are being
moved inexorably in the direction of this sustainability revolution, which
has the magnitude of the industrial revolution coupled with the
speed of the digital revolution. It is unstoppable. I'm thoroughly
confident on that. Solar electricity famously is the cheapest actress
(08:00):
the entire history of the world, and it continues to
get a cheaper still, wind is almost there. The only
thing that's come down faster in costs and photo all
takes is utility scale batteries, and now they're being installed
throughout the grid. So I think that this very shocking
change in the posture of the United States under Donald
(08:22):
Trump is unfortunate. It's regrettable, but let's don't overreact to it.
Let's keep moving because the world is continuing to move
in the right direction.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Countries definitely react to crises with creative solutions, and we
are starting to see that in many places. But it's
important also to note that it's not just attack on
the rules based order, it's breaking norms of all kinds.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
So here at cop we have to get any agreement
through consensus.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
I'm going to come to you about copery form a
little bit later, but there are other multi latter forums
where you can get a majority vote to be able
to force the world.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
To follow a path.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
And so for the last many years, the International Maritime
Organization has been working to try and get a global
carbon tax on shipping, which could have the kinds of
implication that Paris Agreement had where there would be a
global price on carbon.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Finally, and we were very close in October.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Countries were very confident that they had enough votes for
a majority decision, that's all that was needed. And then
comes in the US and we have heard extraordinary stories
of what happened to try and get that vote sunk,
which the US was a part of norms of all
sorts broken, not just threats made to countries on the
(09:44):
White House website saying.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
We'll tire a few if you vote for it.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
But personal calls made to diplomats, to bureaucrats saying we'll
revoke your visa to the US, that we'll put individual sanctions. Now,
as Vice president, you know how much power where the
US can veield on the global stage. How should countries
be preparing for what other types of shenanigans come from
(10:10):
the US?
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Well, they should stiffen their spines. And by the way,
what happened with the IMO is a specific example of
a dynamic that I referred to earlier. I don't think
and people who know more about these negotiations than I
do have also come to the conclusion that it's unlikely
(10:31):
Saudi Arabia would have deep six played the role they
did if they had not been able to hide behind
Trump and pushed along with Trump. So we do need
to beware of other such situations. We saw it on
the Plastics treaty as well and other negotiations. So you know,
(10:55):
this is a time for nations around the world world
who understand how much of our future is at risk
to be firm and stand up. I had a mentor
when I was a child who said, we all face
the same choice in life over and over again. It's
the choice between the hard right and the easy wrong.
(11:19):
And I'm sure that resonates with a lot of people
in our personal lives. We face that throughout our lives.
Nations also face it, and right now it's particularly important
for nations to send up to this bullying. And I
was glad, for example, that the United Kingdom and some
(11:41):
other nations took the stand they just did on the
blowing up of these boats in the Caribbean. You know,
these are snuff movies. This is murder for entertainment, and
the UK and others said no, we cannot abide by this.
And there's so many other The Catholic bishops just made
(12:03):
a conservative group in the main just made a very
bold and brave statement on the mass deportations without proper
due process. And when the next climate proposal comes up,
when the next international treaty of any sort, where they
try to bully other nations to make the wrong choice,
(12:26):
the easy wrong choice, it's important for nations to stand up.
I mean, Trump himself is a kind of an emergency
facing the world. There will not be a third Trump term.
He has definitively Finally, even stopped joking about that. So
there is a lame duck a vibe that is new
(12:48):
in Washington. The elections a week ago Tuesday were a
dramatic surprise for most of the prognosticators who predicted and
our state of New Jersey, for example, they thought, well,
either candidate can win. We don't really know what she
won by a much a huge landslide, massive landslide. Same
(13:10):
thing in Virginia, same thing in two important elections in Georgia,
elections in Pennsylvania, on the Supreme Court, the California redistricting plan. Now,
there's no way to look at a crystal ball and
assure yourself that that's going to determine the results a
year from this month and the off term congressional elections.
(13:33):
But I guarantee you that Republican members of the House
and Senate paid very close attention. And we've seen now
four Republican Senators break from the President on one of
the major tariff votes. We've seen several House Republicans break
with him on some of the economic policy votes and
(13:54):
on some other matters. We also have seen the Supreme
Court take a very different approach and the oral arguments
two weeks ago. I'm getting into the weeds here a
little bit, but it's important because the oral arguments on
the Big tariff case convinced many observers of the Supreme
Court that the deference or obsequiousness that the Supreme Court
(14:18):
has shown to Trump in so many other cases over
the last year is not going to prevail in this case.
I don't know it's a prediction, but it sure seems
as if they may take away his radical, unstable use
of care. I mean, no single person should have that
much falls, especially in the United States. My larger point, though,
(14:43):
is that there may be a change. We may have
passed peak Trump. You know, we may have. I don't
know if that's the case for sure, but there's a
famous old joke about somebody who falls off an e
story building and passes a window washer on the fourth
(15:03):
floor and says, so far, so good. So it hasn't
even been a year yet, and you know, you've destroyed
the east wing of the White House. And I don't
want to You've triggered me now, and I don't really
want to spend too much time talking about him.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
I'm afraid you're going to have to send a little
more time.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Now. One way in which we've seen reaction from world
leaders is actually to not stand up to Trump to
try and make deals. There have been some leaders who
have stood up to Trump, and some of them are
in this continent. We've had President Lula from Brazil stand
up to Trump even though the tariffs have been going
up and up. There's been President Petro from Columbia who
(15:48):
has stood up for the attacks that are happening in
the Caribbean on those boats. Even India has stood up
to Trump to some extent when the tariffs were increased.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Oh okay, can I pause for a moment. So the
journalists have given me the clear impression and have reported
facts that clearly imply that what happened on those tariffs
on India is that Trump got on this gig where
he was trying to make claim credit for stopping wars
(16:18):
all over the world. India Pakistan was the biggest example.
And the Deputy Prime Minister of Pakistan, having learned one
of the lessons that world leaders have learned that if
you flatter the hell out of Trump, you're more likely
to get what you want, he nominated him for a
Nobel Peace Prize and so Trump called Mody and he
wanted Mody to join Pakistan and nominating for the and
(16:42):
Modi from the reporting said, what the hell are you
talking about? I did that, You had nothing to do
with that. The very next day, you put a fifty
percent tariff on India. After decades of bipartisan efforts in
the United States, the administrations of both parties trying to
pull India more in the US sphere. The Indo Pacific
(17:04):
concept is part of that whole effort, and just to
throw that out the window because of a personal aggrievement
over he's not getting enough credit for this or that.
That is a clear example of why the founders of
the US were so correct and saying no person should
have such unlimited power. There have to be checks and balances.
(17:27):
Of course, the Republican majority in the Congress has been
so cowardly. They're frightened as hell of Trump and he
says jump and they say yes or how high? And
I think that that's changing, as I said earlier, and
I think we may soon face a new political reality
in the US.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
And we are seeing that through a geopolitical lens. So
all these three countries, Brazil, Columbia and India have now
done so and got closer to the China orbit. You know,
India and China share a border. They've had tense relationships
and there's been a detont because of what's happening from
the white hose China, as you know, and numbers you
have cited from Bloomberg reporting, which is now, if you
(18:06):
look at exports from fossil fuels in the US and
they count them in billions of dollars, and then you
take exports of clean energy technologies from China in billions
of dollars, China is ahead.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Yeah, China is exporting a higher value goods in the
green tech sector with a higher value then the US
is exporting with all of the fossil fuel, all the LNG,
the coal, the oil, the gas, and clearly clean technology
is the future. It's there's really no argument, no reasonable
(18:39):
argument against that. So Trump is shooting the US in
both feet, really hobbling the US ability to compete in
the leading economic sector of the twenty first century. And
it's really a tragedy. It can be reversed, but it
will take time to reverse it.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Join us after the break for more of my conversation
with Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States,
And if you'd like more from bloombergreen at cop thirty.
Sign up to our newsletter For daily coverage on the ground,
sign up at bloomberg dot com Forward Slash Newsletters. How
(19:31):
worried are you that now more and more countries are
going into the China orbit? I gave you three examples.
There are more examples I can pull off. Kennya, for example,
recently reoriented its dollar bond into a yuan bond. Why
because it's got lower interest rates from China and anyway,
it wants to import goods from China that are going
to help it build clean energy. Sitting as Vice president
(19:52):
two decades ago, China was seen as a scare for
the Western order. Does that not worry you?
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Now? Yeah? I think I said does worry me? And
I do agree that one of the many consequences of
Trump's mismanagement of America's destiny is that it gives China
advantages that it has not earned on its own. I
do think that what I said earlier applies, and that
(20:20):
is that over time, I think nations around the world
are going to be reluctant to follow China. You use
the example of Kenya. You know, there's a history there
of China acting like a loan shark. In Kenya and
throughout many parts of Africa, there are these predatory and
abusive loan provisions where they you know, collect the collateral
(20:46):
and end up owning the railroad and owning the port
and so forth. So there is there's building resistance. But
that's a time when the US should take advantage of
that rather than put p wishing nations toward China.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Coming to US competitiveness. A lot of conversation has happened
this year on how much AI and data centers are
consuming electricity, and how much more electricity the world is
going to have to produce, and how difficult it is
to be able to build any electricity supply in the US.
Now we are talking about an increase of one percent
(21:24):
in the past to two maybe three maybe four percent,
which seems large. Now China or India are building electricity
infrastructure at ten percent growth every year, when the White
House is so keen on making sure no clean energy
technologies get a foothold in America. You know, Donald Trump,
(21:46):
as you said, is going to leave the White House
at some point. What happens when a next president comes
in and wants to get back into the electricity game.
What does the lost years of Trump do to us
competitiveness on electricity?
Speaker 3 (21:59):
Well, first of all, there are a lot of things
I want to say in response to that. And first
of all, I think that the energy to the electricity
demand growth associated with the generative AI data centers is
caused for concern but not panic. But some people seem
to be using it as the leading edge of a
(22:20):
wedge to say, see, this is why we have to
stop worrying about climate, because we need all this energy
for generative AI and we can't get chat GPT ten
if we don't really bust all the emissions budgets. I
think this story is still unfolding. There's a lot we
have to yet to see on the generative AI story.
(22:43):
And many of the power users, the hyperscalers as they're called,
are also consumer facing companies that actually do still care
a lot about how their consumers view their approach to climate,
and many of them are now trying to in much
larger solar plus batteries facilities for power. Some of them
(23:08):
are using some novel techniques that are going to try
to avoid the emissions.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Not all.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
Unfortunately, there is some increase in emissions, for sure, but
it's not a cause for panning. Let me give you
an example. I know we're going to hope, we're going
to talk about climate trace later, but some of our
data at Climate Trade shows, for example, that you can
take all of the generative AI data centers and the
total emissions are not bigger than those from uncovered landfills
(23:36):
around the world. I mean, it's not a high tech
challenge to cover a damn landfill. There are local materials,
people are shovel ready, creates jobs. There are many other
examples of how we can compensate for the increased emissions
from these AI data centers. Also, you know, the deep
(23:57):
seek model in China looks like there's growing appeal to
the open source models rather than what open AI and
Google and the others are offering in the US. So
this story is still unfolding.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
It certainly is, and it's good to have numbers in
front of us, because you talked a little bit about emissions.
But if you just take energy use between twenty five
and twenty thirty five, if you look at where electricity
consumption is going to rise. If AI is one unit,
air conditioning is twice as much, industry is four times
as much. So we do have an energy equation where
(24:36):
more and more of our lives are getting electrified.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
That's actually a good thing because it's a much more.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
Efficient electrify everything, end quote. It has been one of
the pillars of the climate response strategy. I totally agree.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
But it's also the competitiveness edge now you will have
over other countries, and so coming back to the US,
where you need to be able to compete on a
gloup stage on electricity technologies.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
But the US is right now not just not.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Part of the game, it is actively pulling itself out
of the race to try and electrify the economy. Yeah,
to build electricity industries.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Well, the Trump administration may be doing that, but American
business is not doing that. You know, the clean tech
spending has increased quite dramatically in the nine months since
Trump has been in office. The first time he was president,
he tried the same thing, and during those four years,
(25:32):
solar doubled, EV's doubled, clean deck investment doubled, fossil went
down because of this big wheel turning. I also want
to point out before we passed away from the AI discussion,
that it's very real that AI is going to provide
(25:52):
some ways to reduce emissions that were not accessible and
available to us in the past. Whether it's a bubble
or not, I'm not qualified to say. I'm not a
macroeconomic economist. I don't hold myself out as an expert
in macro but there is a discussion about a bubble.
(26:13):
I'm not sure. I don't think maybe it's not. And
of course there's history that some bubbles end up being
useful to you know, after the first users pass away,
then the next find them valuable. And I think that
the US is hurting itself tremendously, but I think that
(26:34):
the momentum in the private sector is still going to
keep the US in that game very much.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Outside the US, we're already seeing lots of right wing
parties taking either the stunts that Donald Trump ticks or
start to break down on climate consensus. So I live
in the UK.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
The UK, as you know, has been a climate leader.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
It had a cross party support for climate consensus that's
not now starting to break down. The opposition party Conservatives
want to get rid of the Climate Change Act, for example,
The same thing is happening in Australia right now. Just
this week, we've been told that the Opposition Party, if
it comes to power, they could reverse the climate goals
(27:16):
that Australia has set. And we're seeing this happen in
Europe in many other parts. One thing that the climate
community has done over the past ten years, out of necessity,
is to try to specialize in the many, many, many
sectors that we need to recognize, to put rules, to
put targets, to try and figure out the technological solutions,
(27:37):
the policy solutions. But in the process there has been
a gap. How do you get the public to know
what you're doing is actually in their benefit? And right
now they are not seeing it, and that's why they
are willing to vote for parties that would bring down
climate policies, even if that harms them. So what is
(27:58):
a new pact? How do you take a new pact
with the public to see that climate action is in
their benefit.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
Well, first of all, if I may quote Abraham Lincoln,
he said, public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, everything
is possible. Without it, nothing is possible. Having a clear
process for reasoning together collectively and lifting up what is
in the best interests of the public is the poly
(28:27):
solution for this poly crisis. We really have to fight
back against this. There's an elite project, for example, to
buy up mainstream media outlets. The autocrats and the brologarchs
and the petro states are trying to buy up access
to communications. We have to fight against that. And the
(28:51):
role of these predatory and abuse of algorithms that direct
attention flows on the Internet really has to be addressed.
Now is beginning to be addressed. But these algorithms that
create the rabbit holes that people are sucked down into
that creating a social crisis. They're particularly among young men
(29:12):
and young women around the world. And now the layered
on top of it, these AI companions that sometimes aid
in the bit suicidal tendencies, and there are many other
abuses they pull people down these rabbit holes. You know
what's at the bottom of the rabbit hole, That's where
the echo chamber is. And if you spend too much
(29:34):
time in the echo chamber, you've become vulnerable to a
new kind of AI artificial insanity. And that's where climate
denial and the flat Earth society and QAnon and all
this wacky stuff you attributed the popularity of some of
these right of center populist movements to failures in implementation
(29:58):
of climate solutions. I think that's partly true, in my opinion.
I think there's a lot else that needs to be
put into that equation. We had the pandemic, we had
the sadistic Russian invasion of Ukraine which completely upended a
lot of the energy supply chains. We've had hyper globalization
(30:22):
since China joined the WTO at the beginning of this millennium,
with the centrifugal redistribution of high wage jobs to low
wage venues, and so in the wealthier countries, when publics
are saying, you know, we need to give more foreign
aid to these countries where a lot of manufacturing jobs
have just been sent it's not sustainable politically. So there
(30:45):
are many factors involved. As our case is new, we
must think anew but one of our priorities has to
be to listen to what President Lula is saying about
this COP. This must be the truth COP, and I
think in COPS going forward, we have to pay careful
attention to this asymmetry of information because it deeply affects
(31:08):
the formation of public sentiment in favor of what we
have to do now. I do think that there were
specific failures in the US in the too slow implementation
of the IRA, the big climate law that passed early
in Biden's term, and people didn't see the installation, and
(31:29):
by the time it was beginning then you know, there
was no way to use the examples that people had
hoped would be there. So that is definitely a part
of the problem. And one other things. The whole cop
process in a way is shifting toward implementation, and so
I think that we really do need to focus on
(31:51):
implementing the right policies in a very practical, effective way.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Thank you for listening to Zero.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
The second part of my interview with Al Gore will
come out on Thursday this week, so subscribe to zero
to get it straight in your podcast feed. If you
liked this episode, please take a moment to rate and
review the show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. This episode
was produced by Oscar Boyd with the help from the
team at ted coundown House. Our theme music is composed
by Wonderly Special Thanks to Soamersati Moses Andam, Laura Milan
(32:28):
and Sharon chen I.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Am Akshatrati back soon
Welcome to Zero. I am Akshatarati.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
This week Al Gore on a Rogue US. Last week
at COPP, I had the great privilege of speaking with
former US Vice President Al Gore, one of the grandees
(00:26):
of the climate world. His film An Inconvenient Truth won
him an OSCAR and has inspired generations of climate activists,
and alongside the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, he was
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to obtain
and disseminate information about the climate challenge. Vice President Gore
(00:46):
has been a guest on Zero before, back in twenty
twenty three, when a lot of wind seemed to be
in the sales of climate action. But since Trump's return
to office, those fair winds have dropped, at least in
the US, and climate action seems on a much more
turbulent course worldwide. So I wanted to catch up with
Vice President Core to hear what his experience in the
(01:09):
US government and his understanding of how the US can
wield power on the global stage can teach us about
the current moment. We had a wide ranging conversation at
COP thirty in plen and we are going to split
that conversation over the next two episodes, Part one today
and part two on.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Thursday this week.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Subscribe to zero to hear part two later in the week,
and send me a feedback on zero pod at Bloomberg
dot net.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
For now.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Here is part one of my conversation with Al Gore,
recorded at a live event at Ted coumdown House during
COP thirty in Brazil. We'll discuss how countries should deal
with the rogue US, whether countries are being pulled into
China's orbit ais climate impact, and how to depolarize climate action.
(02:00):
Vice President Akshatt Welcome to Ted Kanda House, as Paul.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Simon saying, you can call me al either that or
your adequacy.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
So I know we are at a climate summit.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
We'll talk a lot about climate, but I want to
start with a bigger question. The US government is attacking
the rules based order that previous administrations help build. How
exactly should were leaders deal with a rogue US when
they are worried about defending their borders that are dependent
on US guarantees, when they are worried about maintaining their
(02:34):
industry that is dependent on US exports that they make,
when they are dependent on US for an aid to
fight poverty when they aren't able to keep visual on
the infectious diseases that could become the next pandemic that
the US is now cutting outbreak monitoring for.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
How to deal with the rogue US?
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Yeah, well, everybody wants to know the answer to that question.
And I wish I knew a definitive answer oxshot. But yes,
under President Trump, his administration is launching an assault on
the rules based order. And the rules based order also depends,
(03:16):
at the most basic foundational level on a decent respect
for truthfulness in communications among nations and within democracies, and
he has discarded any notion of respecting truthfulness, and so
it's a major challenge for the entire world. However, it's
(03:41):
important not to over emphasize the singular importance of the
US in the world system. It's natural that we do that,
in part because for the last seventy plus years since
World War Two, the US has been the natural leader
(04:02):
of the world system. Forgive me if that sounds like
too much American pride, but it's been the case and
widely recognized. And so now when that changes, there's a
natural inclination to say, oh my gosh, what now, But
to put it in the context of climate Ten years
ago in Paris, one hundred and ninety five nations assigned
(04:23):
the agreement. Only one has withdrawn only one. And a
friend of mine who's the leader of another country said,
you know, there's an equation that's worth remembering. One hundred
and ninety five minus one does not equal zero, and
to say that a different way. Even though there is
(04:46):
a great deal of harm and even more risk associated
with the US withdrawal from Paris and withdrawal from the
rule space to order, it does also create a space
with in which other nations can discover a new path
for themselves. There is no other successor to the US
(05:09):
as the leader of the world system that is easily identified.
The EU has the base of values that most people
around the world have respected when they look at the US,
But they have a multiple voices problem and a very
fine chief executive, but not a strong chief executive. It
(05:29):
could be they could evolve into a role of that sort.
China very much wants to be the successor to the US,
but because they do not share the values, or at
least do not manifest in their behavior and their laws
and policies, the values that most people around the world
(05:51):
aspired to. I think it's highly unlikely that the world
will follow China. So we're in this period where one
era is ending and the other is struggling to be born.
One of the great poets in the Spanish language, Antonio Machado, said, traveler,
there is no road. You must make the path as
(06:12):
you walk. And I think that's the situation that we
are we're confronting now. But people are continuing to move
in the right direction. You know, if you look in
the US in the first year of well, look last
year in the US at all the new electricity generation installed,
(06:32):
ninety seven percent was renewable. That's unlikely to change very much,
at least just because Donald Trump says, reopen these coal plants,
stop building new renewables. It's like King Canute saying stop
the tide. You know, it doesn't work. And now it
(06:53):
does have some implications, of course, and it emboldens bad
actors like Saudi e ray Be, for example, to be
more even more aggressive in trying to halt any kind
of climate solutions. And it also gives a little bit
of cover to some forces within Allied countries that are
(07:13):
not enthusiastic about climate solutions gives them a little covert
to slow things down a little bit. But overall, if
I could offer you a visual metaphor, what I see
in my perception of the world is there's a big
wheel turning very powerfully in the right direction, and within
it there's some little wheels going in the opposite in direction,
(07:37):
and we tend to focus on each one of those
little wheels that pops up, but even they are being
moved inexorably in the direction of this sustainability revolution, which
has the magnitude of the industrial revolution coupled with the
speed of the digital revolution. It is unstoppable. I'm thoroughly
confident on that. Solar electricity famously is the cheapest actress
(08:00):
the entire history of the world, and it continues to
get a cheaper still, wind is almost there. The only
thing that's come down faster in costs and photo all
takes is utility scale batteries, and now they're being installed
throughout the grid. So I think that this very shocking
change in the posture of the United States under Donald
(08:22):
Trump is unfortunate. It's regrettable, but let's don't overreact to it.
Let's keep moving because the world is continuing to move
in the right direction.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Countries definitely react to crises with creative solutions, and we
are starting to see that in many places. But it's
important also to note that it's not just attack on
the rules based order, it's breaking norms of all kinds.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
So here at cop we have to get any agreement
through consensus.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
I'm going to come to you about copery form a
little bit later, but there are other multi latter forums
where you can get a majority vote to be able
to force the world.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
To follow a path.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
And so for the last many years, the International Maritime
Organization has been working to try and get a global
carbon tax on shipping, which could have the kinds of
implication that Paris Agreement had where there would be a
global price on carbon.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Finally, and we were very close in October.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Countries were very confident that they had enough votes for
a majority decision, that's all that was needed. And then
comes in the US and we have heard extraordinary stories
of what happened to try and get that vote sunk,
which the US was a part of norms of all
sorts broken, not just threats made to countries on the
(09:44):
White House website saying.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
We'll tire a few if you vote for it.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
But personal calls made to diplomats, to bureaucrats saying we'll
revoke your visa to the US, that we'll put individual sanctions. Now,
as Vice president, you know how much power where the
US can veield on the global stage. How should countries
be preparing for what other types of shenanigans come from
(10:10):
the US?
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Well, they should stiffen their spines. And by the way,
what happened with the IMO is a specific example of
a dynamic that I referred to earlier. I don't think
and people who know more about these negotiations than I
do have also come to the conclusion that it's unlikely
(10:31):
Saudi Arabia would have deep six played the role they
did if they had not been able to hide behind
Trump and pushed along with Trump. So we do need
to beware of other such situations. We saw it on
the Plastics treaty as well and other negotiations. So you know,
(10:55):
this is a time for nations around the world world
who understand how much of our future is at risk
to be firm and stand up. I had a mentor
when I was a child who said, we all face
the same choice in life over and over again. It's
the choice between the hard right and the easy wrong.
(11:19):
And I'm sure that resonates with a lot of people
in our personal lives. We face that throughout our lives.
Nations also face it, and right now it's particularly important
for nations to send up to this bullying. And I
was glad, for example, that the United Kingdom and some
(11:41):
other nations took the stand they just did on the
blowing up of these boats in the Caribbean. You know,
these are snuff movies. This is murder for entertainment, and
the UK and others said no, we cannot abide by this.
And there's so many other The Catholic bishops just made
(12:03):
a conservative group in the main just made a very
bold and brave statement on the mass deportations without proper
due process. And when the next climate proposal comes up,
when the next international treaty of any sort, where they
try to bully other nations to make the wrong choice,
(12:26):
the easy wrong choice, it's important for nations to stand up.
I mean, Trump himself is a kind of an emergency
facing the world. There will not be a third Trump term.
He has definitively Finally, even stopped joking about that. So
there is a lame duck a vibe that is new
(12:48):
in Washington. The elections a week ago Tuesday were a
dramatic surprise for most of the prognosticators who predicted and
our state of New Jersey, for example, they thought, well,
either candidate can win. We don't really know what she
won by a much a huge landslide, massive landslide. Same
(13:10):
thing in Virginia, same thing in two important elections in Georgia,
elections in Pennsylvania, on the Supreme Court, the California redistricting plan. Now,
there's no way to look at a crystal ball and
assure yourself that that's going to determine the results a
year from this month and the off term congressional elections.
(13:33):
But I guarantee you that Republican members of the House
and Senate paid very close attention. And we've seen now
four Republican Senators break from the President on one of
the major tariff votes. We've seen several House Republicans break
with him on some of the economic policy votes and
(13:54):
on some other matters. We also have seen the Supreme
Court take a very different approach and the oral arguments
two weeks ago. I'm getting into the weeds here a
little bit, but it's important because the oral arguments on
the Big tariff case convinced many observers of the Supreme
Court that the deference or obsequiousness that the Supreme Court
(14:18):
has shown to Trump in so many other cases over
the last year is not going to prevail in this case.
I don't know it's a prediction, but it sure seems
as if they may take away his radical, unstable use
of care. I mean, no single person should have that
much falls, especially in the United States. My larger point, though,
(14:43):
is that there may be a change. We may have
passed peak Trump. You know, we may have. I don't
know if that's the case for sure, but there's a
famous old joke about somebody who falls off an e
story building and passes a window washer on the fourth
(15:03):
floor and says, so far, so good. So it hasn't
even been a year yet, and you know, you've destroyed
the east wing of the White House. And I don't
want to You've triggered me now, and I don't really
want to spend too much time talking about him.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
I'm afraid you're going to have to send a little
more time.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Now. One way in which we've seen reaction from world
leaders is actually to not stand up to Trump to
try and make deals. There have been some leaders who
have stood up to Trump, and some of them are
in this continent. We've had President Lula from Brazil stand
up to Trump even though the tariffs have been going
up and up. There's been President Petro from Columbia who
(15:48):
has stood up for the attacks that are happening in
the Caribbean on those boats. Even India has stood up
to Trump to some extent when the tariffs were increased.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Oh okay, can I pause for a moment. So the
journalists have given me the clear impression and have reported
facts that clearly imply that what happened on those tariffs
on India is that Trump got on this gig where
he was trying to make claim credit for stopping wars
(16:18):
all over the world. India Pakistan was the biggest example.
And the Deputy Prime Minister of Pakistan, having learned one
of the lessons that world leaders have learned that if
you flatter the hell out of Trump, you're more likely
to get what you want, he nominated him for a
Nobel Peace Prize and so Trump called Mody and he
wanted Mody to join Pakistan and nominating for the and
(16:42):
Modi from the reporting said, what the hell are you
talking about? I did that, You had nothing to do
with that. The very next day, you put a fifty
percent tariff on India. After decades of bipartisan efforts in
the United States, the administrations of both parties trying to
pull India more in the US sphere. The Indo Pacific
(17:04):
concept is part of that whole effort, and just to
throw that out the window because of a personal aggrievement
over he's not getting enough credit for this or that.
That is a clear example of why the founders of
the US were so correct and saying no person should
have such unlimited power. There have to be checks and balances.
(17:27):
Of course, the Republican majority in the Congress has been
so cowardly. They're frightened as hell of Trump and he
says jump and they say yes or how high? And
I think that that's changing, as I said earlier, and
I think we may soon face a new political reality
in the US.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
And we are seeing that through a geopolitical lens. So
all these three countries, Brazil, Columbia and India have now
done so and got closer to the China orbit. You know,
India and China share a border. They've had tense relationships
and there's been a detont because of what's happening from
the white hose China, as you know, and numbers you
have cited from Bloomberg reporting, which is now, if you
(18:06):
look at exports from fossil fuels in the US and
they count them in billions of dollars, and then you
take exports of clean energy technologies from China in billions
of dollars, China is ahead.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Yeah, China is exporting a higher value goods in the
green tech sector with a higher value then the US
is exporting with all of the fossil fuel, all the LNG,
the coal, the oil, the gas, and clearly clean technology
is the future. It's there's really no argument, no reasonable
(18:39):
argument against that. So Trump is shooting the US in
both feet, really hobbling the US ability to compete in
the leading economic sector of the twenty first century. And
it's really a tragedy. It can be reversed, but it
will take time to reverse it.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Join us after the break for more of my conversation
with Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States,
And if you'd like more from bloombergreen at cop thirty.
Sign up to our newsletter For daily coverage on the ground,
sign up at bloomberg dot com Forward Slash Newsletters. How
(19:31):
worried are you that now more and more countries are
going into the China orbit? I gave you three examples.
There are more examples I can pull off. Kennya, for example,
recently reoriented its dollar bond into a yuan bond. Why
because it's got lower interest rates from China and anyway,
it wants to import goods from China that are going
to help it build clean energy. Sitting as Vice president
(19:52):
two decades ago, China was seen as a scare for
the Western order. Does that not worry you?
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Now? Yeah? I think I said does worry me? And
I do agree that one of the many consequences of
Trump's mismanagement of America's destiny is that it gives China
advantages that it has not earned on its own. I
do think that what I said earlier applies, and that
(20:20):
is that over time, I think nations around the world
are going to be reluctant to follow China. You use
the example of Kenya. You know, there's a history there
of China acting like a loan shark. In Kenya and
throughout many parts of Africa, there are these predatory and
abusive loan provisions where they you know, collect the collateral
(20:46):
and end up owning the railroad and owning the port
and so forth. So there is there's building resistance. But
that's a time when the US should take advantage of
that rather than put p wishing nations toward China.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Coming to US competitiveness. A lot of conversation has happened
this year on how much AI and data centers are
consuming electricity, and how much more electricity the world is
going to have to produce, and how difficult it is
to be able to build any electricity supply in the US.
Now we are talking about an increase of one percent
(21:24):
in the past to two maybe three maybe four percent,
which seems large. Now China or India are building electricity
infrastructure at ten percent growth every year, when the White
House is so keen on making sure no clean energy
technologies get a foothold in America. You know, Donald Trump,
(21:46):
as you said, is going to leave the White House
at some point. What happens when a next president comes
in and wants to get back into the electricity game.
What does the lost years of Trump do to us
competitiveness on electricity?
Speaker 3 (21:59):
Well, first of all, there are a lot of things
I want to say in response to that. And first
of all, I think that the energy to the electricity
demand growth associated with the generative AI data centers is
caused for concern but not panic. But some people seem
to be using it as the leading edge of a
(22:20):
wedge to say, see, this is why we have to
stop worrying about climate, because we need all this energy
for generative AI and we can't get chat GPT ten
if we don't really bust all the emissions budgets. I
think this story is still unfolding. There's a lot we
have to yet to see on the generative AI story.
(22:43):
And many of the power users, the hyperscalers as they're called,
are also consumer facing companies that actually do still care
a lot about how their consumers view their approach to climate,
and many of them are now trying to in much
larger solar plus batteries facilities for power. Some of them
(23:08):
are using some novel techniques that are going to try
to avoid the emissions.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Not all.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
Unfortunately, there is some increase in emissions, for sure, but
it's not a cause for panning. Let me give you
an example. I know we're going to hope, we're going
to talk about climate trace later, but some of our
data at Climate Trade shows, for example, that you can
take all of the generative AI data centers and the
total emissions are not bigger than those from uncovered landfills
(23:36):
around the world. I mean, it's not a high tech
challenge to cover a damn landfill. There are local materials,
people are shovel ready, creates jobs. There are many other
examples of how we can compensate for the increased emissions
from these AI data centers. Also, you know, the deep
(23:57):
seek model in China looks like there's growing appeal to
the open source models rather than what open AI and
Google and the others are offering in the US. So
this story is still unfolding.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
It certainly is, and it's good to have numbers in
front of us, because you talked a little bit about emissions.
But if you just take energy use between twenty five
and twenty thirty five, if you look at where electricity
consumption is going to rise. If AI is one unit,
air conditioning is twice as much, industry is four times
as much. So we do have an energy equation where
(24:36):
more and more of our lives are getting electrified.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
That's actually a good thing because it's a much more.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
Efficient electrify everything, end quote. It has been one of
the pillars of the climate response strategy. I totally agree.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
But it's also the competitiveness edge now you will have
over other countries, and so coming back to the US,
where you need to be able to compete on a
gloup stage on electricity technologies.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
But the US is right now not just not.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Part of the game, it is actively pulling itself out
of the race to try and electrify the economy. Yeah,
to build electricity industries.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Well, the Trump administration may be doing that, but American
business is not doing that. You know, the clean tech
spending has increased quite dramatically in the nine months since
Trump has been in office. The first time he was president,
he tried the same thing, and during those four years,
(25:32):
solar doubled, EV's doubled, clean deck investment doubled, fossil went
down because of this big wheel turning. I also want
to point out before we passed away from the AI discussion,
that it's very real that AI is going to provide
(25:52):
some ways to reduce emissions that were not accessible and
available to us in the past. Whether it's a bubble
or not, I'm not qualified to say. I'm not a
macroeconomic economist. I don't hold myself out as an expert
in macro but there is a discussion about a bubble.
(26:13):
I'm not sure. I don't think maybe it's not. And
of course there's history that some bubbles end up being
useful to you know, after the first users pass away,
then the next find them valuable. And I think that
the US is hurting itself tremendously, but I think that
(26:34):
the momentum in the private sector is still going to
keep the US in that game very much.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Outside the US, we're already seeing lots of right wing
parties taking either the stunts that Donald Trump ticks or
start to break down on climate consensus. So I live
in the UK.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
The UK, as you know, has been a climate leader.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
It had a cross party support for climate consensus that's
not now starting to break down. The opposition party Conservatives
want to get rid of the Climate Change Act, for example,
The same thing is happening in Australia right now. Just
this week, we've been told that the Opposition Party, if
it comes to power, they could reverse the climate goals
(27:16):
that Australia has set. And we're seeing this happen in
Europe in many other parts. One thing that the climate
community has done over the past ten years, out of necessity,
is to try to specialize in the many, many, many
sectors that we need to recognize, to put rules, to
put targets, to try and figure out the technological solutions,
(27:37):
the policy solutions. But in the process there has been
a gap. How do you get the public to know
what you're doing is actually in their benefit? And right
now they are not seeing it, and that's why they
are willing to vote for parties that would bring down
climate policies, even if that harms them. So what is
(27:58):
a new pact? How do you take a new pact
with the public to see that climate action is in
their benefit.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
Well, first of all, if I may quote Abraham Lincoln,
he said, public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, everything
is possible. Without it, nothing is possible. Having a clear
process for reasoning together collectively and lifting up what is
in the best interests of the public is the poly
(28:27):
solution for this poly crisis. We really have to fight
back against this. There's an elite project, for example, to
buy up mainstream media outlets. The autocrats and the brologarchs
and the petro states are trying to buy up access
to communications. We have to fight against that. And the
(28:51):
role of these predatory and abuse of algorithms that direct
attention flows on the Internet really has to be addressed.
Now is beginning to be addressed. But these algorithms that
create the rabbit holes that people are sucked down into
that creating a social crisis. They're particularly among young men
(29:12):
and young women around the world. And now the layered
on top of it, these AI companions that sometimes aid
in the bit suicidal tendencies, and there are many other
abuses they pull people down these rabbit holes. You know
what's at the bottom of the rabbit hole, That's where
the echo chamber is. And if you spend too much
(29:34):
time in the echo chamber, you've become vulnerable to a
new kind of AI artificial insanity. And that's where climate
denial and the flat Earth society and QAnon and all
this wacky stuff you attributed the popularity of some of
these right of center populist movements to failures in implementation
(29:58):
of climate solutions. I think that's partly true, in my opinion.
I think there's a lot else that needs to be
put into that equation. We had the pandemic, we had
the sadistic Russian invasion of Ukraine which completely upended a
lot of the energy supply chains. We've had hyper globalization
(30:22):
since China joined the WTO at the beginning of this millennium,
with the centrifugal redistribution of high wage jobs to low
wage venues, and so in the wealthier countries, when publics
are saying, you know, we need to give more foreign
aid to these countries where a lot of manufacturing jobs
have just been sent it's not sustainable politically. So there
(30:45):
are many factors involved. As our case is new, we
must think anew but one of our priorities has to
be to listen to what President Lula is saying about
this COP. This must be the truth COP, and I
think in COPS going forward, we have to pay careful
attention to this asymmetry of information because it deeply affects
(31:08):
the formation of public sentiment in favor of what we
have to do now. I do think that there were
specific failures in the US in the too slow implementation
of the IRA, the big climate law that passed early
in Biden's term, and people didn't see the installation, and
(31:29):
by the time it was beginning then you know, there
was no way to use the examples that people had
hoped would be there. So that is definitely a part
of the problem. And one other things. The whole cop
process in a way is shifting toward implementation, and so
I think that we really do need to focus on
(31:51):
implementing the right policies in a very practical, effective way.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Thank you for listening to Zero.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
The second part of my interview with Al Gore will
come out on Thursday this week, so subscribe to zero
to get it straight in your podcast feed. If you
liked this episode, please take a moment to rate and
review the show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. This episode
was produced by Oscar Boyd with the help from the
team at ted coundown House. Our theme music is composed
by Wonderly Special Thanks to Soamersati Moses Andam, Laura Milan
(32:28):
and Sharon chen I.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Am Akshatrati back soon
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