January 8, 2026 • 39 mins
President Donald Trump wants US companies to rebuild Venezuela's oil fields after the capture of Nicolas Maduro.
This week on Zero, US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse joins Akshat Rathi to discuss why the US is acting like a petro bully, how countries can resist an increasingly aggressive Trump administration and why Democrats are making a mistake by shying away from talking about climate action.
Read more:
- Venezuela’s New Leader Is the Oil Industry’s Long-Time Ally
- Venezuela’s Rule by Fear Endures After Maduro Capture: Photos - Bloomberg
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to zero. I am Akshatrati. This week America the
Petro bully. In twenty twenty five, there was a growing
(00:21):
chorus of voices saying that the US was acting like
a petro state. In the opening days of twenty twenty six,
that has become undeniable. Over the weekend, President Donald Trump
authorized the capture and extraction of Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro
from the country's capital, Caracas, and in the press conference
discussing the reasons for the action, Trump said, one of
(00:44):
America's main priorities in Venezuela was to get access to
its vast oil reserves, the largest in the world.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
We're going to have our very large United States oil companies,
the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions
of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure,
and start making money for the country.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
If there was any doubt that America is doubling down
on oil, that doubt is now gone.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
We built Venezuela oil industry with American talent, drive, and skill,
and the socialist regime stole it from us during those
previous administrations, and they stole it through force this constituted
one of the largest thefts of American property in the
history of our country.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Back in November at COP thirty in Brazil, I was
able to sit down with the US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
to ask how countries can stand up to America the Petrobulli.
White House has been the Senator of the state of
Rhode Island since two thousand and seven, and he has
been an outspoken advocate for climate action. On that front,
He's been critical of both the Trump administration and Joe
(02:00):
Biden's administration before that. In this conversation, we didn't talk
about Venezuela, but you'll see how clearly he connects the
dots to explain why the US is taking these kinds
of actions. I also ask Senator white House how countries
can resist an increasingly aggressive Trump administration, why Democrats are
shying away from the climate debate, and why he believes
(02:23):
we can't win the climate fight without carbon pricing. By
the way, if you have feedback for Zero or guest suggestions,
please write to Zero Pod at Bloomberg dot net.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Senator, welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
Thank you, wonderful to be with you.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
So there are very few people with your ability to
communicate climate issues and your experience of doing it for
the length of time that you have done it. We
will talk a lot about climate, but I want us
to start a little bit in history. If you look
at what the Trump administration is doing on all sorts
of policies domestically and abroad, not just climate, where would
(03:03):
you put Donald Trump in America's historical context and what
it's doing to the geopolitics.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
I think he would probably consider himself a Jacksonian disruptor
in the great sweep of American history. I think he
is actually the first great collapse into corruption of American democracy.
I think that the benchmark of essentially everything he does
(03:34):
is corruption.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
And this is something that Americans, because of their history
of not having a corrupt government for very long, seems
an aberration. But for places where I come from, in
India or here where we are in Brazil, in developing countries,
corruption has been an issue.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
So it also means that Americans aren't as attentive and prepared.
We have lived in a very happy pair of centuries
in which corruption really was not very significant national issue,
and now suddenly we're deep into corruption.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
And then when it comes to climate policies itself. We've
seen the Trump administration have obviously attack domestic climate policies,
turn back the tide on the Inflation Reduction Act, go
after oil and gas drilling rights in all sorts of places,
including alaskam or recently, but globally, in the first Trumpet administration,
(04:30):
there hadn't been that much impact. This time around, they're
way more effective. Why are they so effective.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
This time They are more effective because the relationship between
them and the fossil fuel industry is now one that
has no boundary. The fossil fuel industry is essentially running
the United States government from the inside. It's a desperate industry.
They know that clean renewable energy is cheaper. They know
(04:59):
that they only compete by virtue of massive subsidies from
being allowed to pollute for free, which nobody should be
allowed to do. And they prop all of that up
with enormous amounts of political corruption and leverage and a
huge climate denial fraud campaign. So for them to be
able to seize and capture the Trump administration and drive
(05:21):
their desperate agenda is essential. It's a survival thing for them.
So with Trump having handed them the keys, they're now
in survival mode and they're attacking everything that they can
that is a threat to the continued dominance of fossil fuel.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
So we have seen an actor on the international stage
who has been very effective at being able to keep
fossil fuel activities for longer, which is Saudi Arabia. They
train some of the best diplomats here at COBB, but
at many other multilateral forums. They know where to find
the loopholes to try and block progress. The US has
(05:59):
some very good diplomat too. If that is the level
of effectiveness we're going to see in year one of
Donald Trump, there are three more years. How much damage
does that do to American credibility at the global stage,
and how do you get America back If there is
a president who cares about climate change.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
It could do a lot of damage. I think it
is important to see America pushing back against this regime
and its corrupt fossil fuel policies. So we get now
to the communications problem that you mentioned earlier. I think
(06:39):
if America is just sitting around idly, you know, whistling
and looking at the ceiling while Trump does all this
damage and behaves really like a thug and serves his
big political donors in the fossil fuel industry exclusively, and
there's no quarrel with that. There'll be a lot more
damage to America's if that kicks off a strong quarrel,
(07:02):
which it ought to, because he is not representing the
American people. The American people are miles away from Trump
policies on all of this, then I think the recovery
of our reputation and standing will come much quicker now.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Looking forward to trying to get people elected in America
who would act on climate action, they need to get
a message out that actually gets people voting for them.
And right now, if we look at the Democrats, one
strand of Democrats who are succeeding are succeeding because they
(07:36):
are not talking about climate change. Does that worry you No?
Speaker 4 (07:40):
And I don't even know that that's true. I wouldn't
accept that premise. I see it differently. I think that
for a long time the Democratic Party has been way
too timid on climate stuff. President Obama walked away from
Nancy Pelosi's cap and trade bill when he had the
votes to pass it, but he just didn't want to
(08:01):
put the effort in and he didn't want to have
a fight, so he literally walked away from a winning position.
Joe Biden couldn't say a serious word about climate to
save his life. They wouldn't pick any fights with the
fossil fuel industry. They settled for an IRA bill that
(08:22):
was not an adequate solution to the climate crisis. It
was rare for him to mention climate except when he
was dealing with climate related advocates. We had no courage
of our own convictions, and I think that communicates itself
to people. When you see a party that is half
(08:43):
hearted and hedging about an issue where you feel passionately,
where you know the science, where you see the urgency,
it's hard to get very excited about that party. So
I think what's been missing all along is a sense
of urgency. The American public is a head of the
Democratic Party on this, and we have multiple advantages. First,
(09:06):
the public is ahead of us, but second, the Republican
Party is in the pockets of the fossil fuel industry.
Nobody would ever point that out. The Biden administration would
not talk about a villain under any circumstances. They thought
that being officer friendly and mister nice guy was going
to get them through the climate crisis. Meanwhile, on the
other side of the table is this gang of fossil
(09:29):
fuel monsters running the biggest climate denial fraud campaign in history,
running a huge dark money corruption operation, trying to undermine
and destroy the clean energy industry. I mean, it's a
very very dangerous and malevolent group of people, and we
(09:50):
acted as if they were either not there or that
that was normal. So I think what people want is
for the Democratic Party to take a much more clear
fighting stance on this issue. And it's all going to
become a lot more real as it starts to land
in people's homeowners insurance, electric bills, mortgage availability, the economic
(10:11):
side that is under a really immediate climate threat.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
So if we look at the recent successes in the
Democratic Party, those are the issues that those successes came on.
Zoran Mandan in in New York City, in Virginia, in Georgia,
in New Jersey. It was price of energies, price of housing.
That is the stuff that won the Democrats, not climate change.
(10:35):
But yes, these things are connected to climate.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
Issues, and one can connect them. But part of the
problem is that we haven't done a very good job
of it. I mean, I have sat in on high
level briefings to the Democratic Senate Caucus, where the polsters
that were brought in to brief us on the issues
hadn't bothered to ask a question about climate change, where
(10:59):
they hadn't bothered to ask a question about dark money corruption.
We have simply not been engaged in this in a
way that has allowed us to be confident about the
message that we can win with on this.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Where are the experiments happening in the Democratic Party to
try and make those connections happen. Because the winning Democrats
right now are winning on the issues but not connecting
them to climate.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
I think we are going to see this more in
the coming elections along the Gulf Coast. The first Democratic
candidate for governor in Florida is already talking a lot
about homeowners' insurance and what a catastrophe that is for Floridians,
and how Republicans can't be trusted on this subject because
(11:44):
they're completely in the pocket of the climate deniers. And
that's the heart of the insurance problem. In Texas, we
just took a poll Ninety two percent of Texan voters
are concerned about homeowners insurance. Two thirds of them connect
that to climate change, weather. That's a big issue for
Democratic candidates down there. Ninety two percent was more than healthcare,
(12:08):
more than groceries, so this is an available, front of
mind issue for voters. The Democrats have misunderstood and ignored
and were only better than the Republicans because they're absolutely
awful on this and are on the payroll of the
fossil fuel industry.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
If you look at other communicators who are able to
get their climate message out, are there people that you
look up to, who are people who are making their
voices heard and actually connecting it to the issues that
people care about because you need those votes.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
Well, I think the Australians have done a very very
good job. They had the same thing we had. They
had a right wing government that was in the pocket
of in its case, coal industry as much as oil
and gas. They were denying climate change. It was the
full fossil fuel nonsense package. And then the Labor government
came in and reversed their bad climate policies and started
(13:02):
to talk about climate in a different way and act
on climate in a different way. And now they've run
up to I think forty percent of Australian homes have
solar panels on the roof, and they're headed for seventy
eighty percent, and they're building behind that having domestic battery storage,
so you're off the grid on your own battery. They
(13:24):
are working on a plan to give Australians three free
hours of electricity a day because they've built so much
abundance of solar and wind that they can do that.
And they just got re elected with a big, big, big,
big margin and they had put climate at the front
of their policy agenda. So I think Australia is very
(13:45):
good proof of if you're actually doing things, if you're
not half hearted, and if you're bringing people along economically
with all of this, this can be a big win.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
It's very good at doing it cheaply. A soda panel
on the rooftop costs about eight hundred dollars a KILLO
vote in Australia, whereas it costs twenty five hundred dollars
a KILLO vote in America. But take a case of
the country I live in, the UK, which you know
just on numbers is a climate leader. Has cut the
most emissions among the G seven countries and the fastest,
(14:20):
and it doesn't have much of the fossil fuel industry left.
The Nazi oil and gas industry is has been declining.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
For results of that is that both of your parties
are reasonable on climate. It was a Conservative government that
got into that aligned with the Seabam.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Indeed, but they are no longer. And that is what
I wanted to ask you, which is if you look
at the politics in the UK, now Labor government has
a clear majority and has three and a half years
left on the clock. But on the opposition that's Conservative
Party and now an upswing in Reform party. Both of
them want to get rid of net zero goals. The
(14:57):
Conservative Party which brought in the NAZER now I wants
you to get rid of the Climate Change Act itself.
So it's not just fossil fuels. What else is driving
this backlash against climate.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
I don't know. I'm not familiar with UK politics. In
the US, it is fossil fuel, fossil fuel and fossil fuel.
In the EU, I think it is a little bit
of fossil fuel. I think a lot of it is
also Russia, Putin and his manipulation in European democracies. His
is a petro state. He is a petro dictator. My
(15:33):
friend in the Senate, John McCain, used to say that
Russia is a gas station run by gangsters that happens
to have an army, and you take away the gas
station and the whole game collapses. He can't pay off
his oligarchs any longer, so for him it's pretty existential.
Those to me have been the prime movers, and they've
(15:54):
been able to turn it into a bit of a
culture war phenomenon.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Also, and one way in which you think globally we
can start to actually get on pace with climate action
is through what is in the European jargon known as
the carbon border adjustment mechanism, which is really just a
SEABAM is a nice acronym but a fancy way of
saying a carbon tariff. That if you are going to
(16:20):
send in goods from India or China, which have typically
higher emissions intensity, but they come into Europe where if
the same good is made it will have lower emissions intensity.
The difference between the two is where you pay a
carbon tariff, and thus you protect domestic industry who are
doing the activities in a cleaner way.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
Prevent cheating against proper environmental standards.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Right, And this is something you can do domestically. The
European Union has agreed to set it up, and it
has extra territorial impacts. China's carbon pricing partly was driven
because Europe was very clear that it's going to do
this at some point. Then comes the US and we
know that extra territoriality right now for the Trump administration
(17:06):
is an issue that they would bully other countries to
back down on. They are doing this not just on
climate but on ESG issues like reporting on emissions. From
a corporate level, they're doing this on the tax that
EU and Canada wanted to put on tech companies, which
(17:27):
tend to be American. Extra territoriality from a climate perspective
is great, but from a perspective of ensuring it lasts
for decades to come seems difficult. So how do you
make Ceman work when America is not interested?
Speaker 4 (17:45):
First, a couple of things about SEABAM. It's already law
in the EU and to unwind it would take a
lot of parliamentary activity, so this is not just a proposal,
it's there. Second, the UK is in the final stage
of joining. They're already in a place where they don't
have to pay tariffs, and they're working towards charging their
(18:06):
own tariffs. Australia's right out there also, they're getting ready
to join as well. There's every reason to believe that
Canada should also join. And nobody understands the dangers to
the world economy from climate better than Prime Minister Mark Carney,
who was a leading voice when he ran the Bank
of England. So it's a growing, I hope, safety measure
(18:29):
as well as a solid safety measure. The Trumpsters are
probably going to try to attack it. They recently launched
a really, really brutal and devilish attack against the International
Maritime Organization that was putting a shipping fee, an emissions
fee on shipping that its members agreed to. The major
(18:52):
shippers wanted this. There's no American ship involved because we
don't do container shipping. The price effect on American consumers
would be negligible, certainly compared to Trump's tariffs, and so
there was no real reason for the savagery of their attack,
which in diplomatic terms was unprecedented, and yet they did it.
(19:17):
So why did they do it? They did it because
Trump is the face of fossil fuel, the real face
of fossil fuel, not the friendly smiling mask you get
here at cops and things like that. The real face
of fossil fuel is Trump and his activities. So what
the Sabaan folks need to do is to understand that
(19:38):
they're coming and be ready to steal themselves for that fight,
to be prepared, and to understand that they can't let
individual countries chicken out be picked off. One thing about Trump,
if you are resolute in standing up against him, and
if you're a group and you stand together and don't
(20:00):
back what way can't pick off individuals, He will move
on to something else.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Give me an example.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
The universities that told him to go shove it when
he tried to take over their internal policies. The law
firms that told him to shove it when he tried
to demand tribute from them. Those institutions have actually done
very well for doing that, and they found others and
(20:27):
they stuck together. The ones that gave in turned out
to have been in a very difficult situation. In fact,
the law firms that gave in are having trouble hiring
because people don't want to work for a firm that
would cave in like that, and they're having trouble with
their clients. Because if you want a lawyer who is
going to cave in to political pressure from administration, what
(20:48):
happens if you need to sue the administration, you can't
have a lawyer who's proven they won't fight for you.
So I think those are some examples of where not
like being deliberately unpleasant, not putting a stick in the
eye of the administration, but just saying no, just standing
fast and refusing to be bullied. That works. But you
(21:13):
will do better at standing fast and refusing to be
bullied if you appreciate that that's what's coming and you
need to be ready for it.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
After the break, I ask Senator Whitehouse why climate advocates
seem to steer away from decisive action after they get
into power. And if you're enjoying zero, please take a
moment to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
and YouTube. It helps new listeners discover the show.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
Thank you, you brought up Canada. You brought up McCartney.
You're right, he's probably the only world leader in G
seven country who was a UN Climate Champion before he
(22:06):
took on that role. His first policy sign off after
getting elected was to get rid of the consumer carbon tax.
His most recent policy update in the budget has been
to get rid of the oil and gas cap on
emissions that the that the previous administration under Justin Trudeau
(22:26):
was going to bring in. Claudia Scheinbaum, you know, an
environmental engineering graduate who knows this stuff really well, but
her policies on climate are nowhere close to the level
of action that is needed. Say you were to run
for president and become president, you know the stuff in
and out. What we've seen from other world leaders is
(22:48):
that when they get into power, they change, even when
they know the science, how do you stick with it?
Speaker 4 (22:56):
I'm not in that position, so would you run for president?
But I'm not sure that. I haven't had a chance
to speak to Prime Minister Carney. I know that he
knows as well. I know that he understands the dangers,
and I don't know what his plan is as to
how to go forward. Maybe his plan is to join
(23:18):
this EVAM, in which case that's probably stronger. Consumer carbon
taxes have never been effective, and they've never been good.
The carbon pricing measures that I have recommended have always
been at the extraction or importation level. And a lot
of that then goes away before it gets you through
multiple corporate layers and down ultimately to an oil pump
(23:41):
or a plastics product or whatever. And you don't have
to start very big to have a market effect as
long as the companies that are doing the polluting, that
are buying these products know that here's where it's going
to be in five or ten years. So you can
plan a quite intelligent and very effective emissions reduction regime,
(24:04):
but you also have to be willing to communicate about it.
You've got to be willing to communicate that. You know,
people shouldn't be allowed to pollute for free. People get that.
I mean that's a huge. Seventy four to ten Americans
believe that people who pollute should pay the cost of
their pollution. That's a huge I mean, that's a wipeout
of a majority. So we can step into that, we
(24:24):
can take advantage of that. I think this is an
issue that the political class has misunderstood.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
You have used the analogy that carbon pricing is a lifeboard,
that without this we don't have a chance of actually
tackling climate change.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
Correct. There is a.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Danger with that message. Is the danger with the one
point five degree celsius message that, oh, if we can't
keep global warming below one point five degrees celsius, we
are doomed. That message also doesn't go well with public
There's a clock on the UK pavilion that says, after
three years, two hundred and fifty nine days and seventy
(25:07):
two hours or whatever, you're going to have irreversible climate change.
And that's the kind of message that hasn't I.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
Don't think it's sexually correct either. So there's a lot
of stupid stuff that is fed in the climate space.
So you can't just go chasing down the rabbit holes
of every stupid thing that gets said in the climate space.
You've got to focus on what counts, and what counts
right now is that our chance that a pathway to
climate safety requires ending the economically wrongful and morally wrongful
(25:41):
freedom of the fossil fuel industry to pollute. That is
a violation of basic laws of economics. It is also
a violation of basic laws of decency and good manners.
So we shouldn't have a big fight about that. We
also know, when you look at the twelve hundred climate
scenarios presented to the IPCC, the only eleven remain that
(26:01):
get us a pathway to climate safety. All eleven require
there to be a price on carbon. Because we have
failed for so long on climate and satisfied ourselves with
broad talk about ambition, we haven't focused on what we
actually need to do, and we now need to come
into focus. What we actually need to do is end
the free to pollute business model. Even then all those
(26:24):
eleven scenarios overshoot, we will go above one point five degrees.
So we also have to be able to have the
technology to pull that excess carbon dioxide back out of
the air to reduce the Earth's carbon concentration to a
livable level for humankind. These should not be complicated things
to discuss, except for the fact that the fossil fuel
(26:48):
industry has this massive apparatus of lying and propaganda and
climate fraud, and they're bribing and corrupting administrations and governments
with the enormous amount of money that they get from
having it be free to pollute. So we just have
(27:08):
to steal ourselves for that fight and know that the
public will be with us because it's common sense.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
But if we go with common pricing is the lifeboat,
and we end up in a place where the eve
you know, through years, because it might take years before
the votes to undo SEABAM happens. If that comes through.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
Then we're done. Then we've made an incredibly stupid and
irresponsible decision for our children and grandchildren, and the generation
that does that will be a generation that will be
last in shame through history. We have to stand up
to this problem, and we have to do it now,
(27:47):
and we can. There is a winning path.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
If you look at the damages done from climate change
insured non insured damages altogether last year. One assessment says
it was one point forllion dollars.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
More than eight hundred billion dollars of that was in
the United States.
Speaker 4 (28:04):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
This happened under a Joe Biden presidency. He was president
last year.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
Yeah, I don't think the presidenc seems to blame for that.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
No, but the message didn't get to if eight hundred
billion dollars of American economy was wiped out because of
climate damages alone, why is the economic message not?
Speaker 4 (28:25):
Really? Because name one time Joe Biden spoke about that
they were terrible about communicating the climate problem. They we
had to fight them to get a methane fee. They
were trying to undermine the seamam. The fact that we
got the IRA through was something that they There's a
lot of self laudatory noise about that, but basically, the
(28:49):
Biden administration was a climate failure. And you can't look
at a climate failure and say, you know, your messaging
didn't work. Of course it didn't work. You were a failure.
Had they done it correctly, had they talked about the danger,
had they talked about the damage, had they pointed out
what was already starting to happen in Florida to homeowners insurance,
(29:09):
it would be a very different world.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Who are other people in the Democratic Party who you
look up to, who will form this alliance to try
and finally bring the climate message in the way it
needs to be brought to the American people.
Speaker 4 (29:22):
Well, in the Senate, I have a little triumvirate that
has been working together, my climate trio at Senator Shots
who is likely to be the next Democratic whip the
number two position in the Senate. And Martin Heinrich, who
is a trained engineer, so he understands all this stuff.
(29:42):
And he's from New Mexico, which is an oil and
gas state, so he has to be really good about
messaging what he's doing. He just won big as a
huge climate advocate in an oil and gas state, so
I think people like him are a good messengers for us.
(30:05):
I also think that Catherine Cortes Masto has done a
good job politically with this issue. When the Biden administration
was panicked about gas prices and the huge apparatus of
lies of the fossil fuel industry was calling this the
Biden gas price hike, she was running in Nevada, a
(30:29):
very purple state, and they were trying to come after
her with this. Most Democrats went and hid, tried to
change the subject. She seized that topic, and she went
after her opponent and said, look at all of your
climate connections, look at who you've lobbied for, look at
what your party does. She went on offense, and by
the time that race was over, this was her issue
(30:51):
that she was beating her opponent down with, rather than
something where she was trying to hide and find shelter.
And when the Biden administration finally this up and took
the fight back to the fossil fuel industry and pointed
out the grotesque profits that they had made during this period,
Suddenly the issue shifted in the public mind. So it
proves that when you have a smart position and pursue
(31:15):
it aggressively, you can turn this around. Our problem is
isn't the climate messages can't win? Our problem is that
we haven't had smart climate messages that we have pursued aggressively.
They are there, we just didn't do it. And obviously,
if you've got polsters, it won't even pull the question.
You're a party that hasn't really got very good situational
(31:35):
awareness about this.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
We just had a fifty four day shutdown in the
US and we saw how committed Donald Trump is not
blinking first, So what is the lesson there for other
countries such as the Europeans?
Speaker 4 (31:50):
On CeMM, I think that the Trump administration responds very
poorly to provocation and insult. I think they respond very
respectfully to resolute firmness. They are bullies, it is their tactic,
(32:13):
and once a bully knows that he can push you around,
he is going to continue to push you around because
he knows he can do it. So I think it
becomes very important that you not necessarily tease the bully,
but that you stand firm against the bully. The surprise
(32:33):
attack against the IMO came quite suddenly. I was at
the Ocean's conference in June and met with the IMO
and said, how's this going to go. You're going to
be able to hang in on this because this is
a really important test for the future. This is an
actual price on carbon emissions and we need that to
succeed on climate. Oh no, we got this. This is fine. Yeah,
(32:54):
I know the Trump people don't like it, but we've
really put a lot of effort into us. The companies
that are the leading company all support us. We're good
to go. There's no danger of anything happening. Well, then
came the surprise attack and this unprecedented level of diplomatic bullying,
and the whole thing fell apart. So I hope that
(33:15):
that's a lesson for other international groups that you really
have to steel yourself and not allow yourself to be
panicked and picked off. They picked some of the weaker
members off first and began to take advantage of that.
I think if the IMO had seen that attack coming,
they might have been more resolute about standing up.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
But arguably you've already seen the Europeans compromising when they
signed the trade deal and agreed to seven hundred and
fifty billion dollars worth of imports of natural gas and
oil from the US. So why do you think they
can stand up to Trump on SEABAM.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
It's hard to figure that out. There's always back and
forth when tariffs are being negotiated. I do think when
it's as vital as the SEAVAM, when it is in
fact the last lifeboat, if we don't have that carbon
pricing regime and we just cascade forward and do worse
and worse economic and financial disasters because of the climate threat,
(34:10):
then we will regret that very very very deeply. So
and you know what the foss feel industry wants to target.
They live on a seven hundred billion dollars subsidy in
the United States alone. The value of being allowed to
pollute for free seven hundred billion dollars is a lot
of money. It motivates a lot of corruption. It makes
money available for enormous flotillas of front groups to operate
(34:37):
the climate fraud operation that they run. It's a big,
big operation, and I think you've got to distinguish between
when that operation comes after you using Trump administration officials
and just the ordinary back and forth and give and
take of regular, sometimes difficult negotiations on the c BAM.
They've got to be ready for that operation coming at
(34:58):
them using Trump its tool right now. Our success or
failure on climate largely hangs on whether or not the
c BAM is protected and whether or not it grows,
whether or not the UK and Australia continue to come
on in, and that perhaps the most important thing that
(35:19):
the EU countries are doing for the future. A heroic
moment is to do this and to hold. But the
IMO ought to be a lesson to them that the
Phosphel administration is desperate and engaged in evil behavior constantly.
(35:40):
Unless you think climate denial, fraud and dark money corruption
are fine, it's pretty evil stuff. And they have the
United States government right now as their tool to bring
pressure to bear, so you really have to be prepared
for unusual amounts of pressure. But the lesson of Trump
is that if you do in fact stand up to him,
(36:00):
and if you don't break ranks and flee, then you
can prevail.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
One country that has stood up to Trump has been China,
and it has some Trump cards, like the critical minerals
that it produces and refines the in a monopolistic way,
almost and it has succeeded wildly in being able to
get its way with the Trump administration. But crucially, it's
(36:26):
also the place which is bringing energy prices down, bringing
electricity prices down, building the most amount of electricity infrastructure,
the form of energy that's the form of energy the
twenty first century needs. Once at the same time, the
US is moving away from clean energy, but moving away
from electrification more importantly, How worried are you about the
(36:47):
competitiveness issues that will raise when Trump leaves office?
Speaker 4 (36:53):
Very economic competition, technological innovation. Those are races and different
economies compete to do the best in those races, and Trump,
for the benefit of his fossil fuel donors, corruptly is
hobbling his own country in that competition. And you know,
(37:19):
you can hope and believe that because of American innovation
and entrepreneurship is so great that if we have to
stop in a race and let other countries run past
us and away for years, we can get back in
the race at some point and catch up. But how
stupid is it to step out of the race for
those years? And I think there's going to be a
(37:40):
significant economic price that the country will pay for that.
You know, I've driven by the BYD dealerships here in Brazil,
and Brazil's a big market for vehicles. This would be
a nice place to have a lot of American cars
be sold. But the Chinese are mopping up in the
Brazilian market in our hemisphere, in a fellow democracy. All
(38:01):
of that. So, I don't see the wisdom of kicking
our own automotive companies in the teeth and saying you've
got to build internal combustion engines when the future is
going a different way. Does anybody any good except his
fossil fuel patrons. This is corruption, this is payback. You've
got to see it in those terms.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
The Bwady factory in Brazil was built on the same
site as the Ford factory.
Speaker 4 (38:28):
How about that for a metaphor?
Speaker 1 (38:30):
Thank you, senator, good to be with you, and thank
you for listening to zero. Now for the sound of
the week. That is the sound of bees making honey
(38:50):
inside their hive. Reporting from Bloomberg shows that honeybees are
under threat in the US as grasslands are transformed to
grow corn for bio fuelds. Read the full article on
bloomberg dot Com forward slash screen. It's also linked in
the show notes. If you like this episode, please take
a moment to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
(39:11):
and YouTube. This episode was produced by Oscar Boyd and
our theme music is composed by Wonderly Special Thanks to
Jennifer de Louis, Samersadi Moses Andim Laura Milan and Sharon
chen I am Akshatrati Back soon.
Welcome to zero. I am Akshatrati. This week America the
Petro bully. In twenty twenty five, there was a growing
(00:21):
chorus of voices saying that the US was acting like
a petro state. In the opening days of twenty twenty six,
that has become undeniable. Over the weekend, President Donald Trump
authorized the capture and extraction of Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro
from the country's capital, Caracas, and in the press conference
discussing the reasons for the action, Trump said, one of
(00:44):
America's main priorities in Venezuela was to get access to
its vast oil reserves, the largest in the world.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
We're going to have our very large United States oil companies,
the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions
of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure,
and start making money for the country.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
If there was any doubt that America is doubling down
on oil, that doubt is now gone.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
We built Venezuela oil industry with American talent, drive, and skill,
and the socialist regime stole it from us during those
previous administrations, and they stole it through force this constituted
one of the largest thefts of American property in the
history of our country.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Back in November at COP thirty in Brazil, I was
able to sit down with the US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
to ask how countries can stand up to America the Petrobulli.
White House has been the Senator of the state of
Rhode Island since two thousand and seven, and he has
been an outspoken advocate for climate action. On that front,
He's been critical of both the Trump administration and Joe
(02:00):
Biden's administration before that. In this conversation, we didn't talk
about Venezuela, but you'll see how clearly he connects the
dots to explain why the US is taking these kinds
of actions. I also ask Senator white House how countries
can resist an increasingly aggressive Trump administration, why Democrats are
shying away from the climate debate, and why he believes
(02:23):
we can't win the climate fight without carbon pricing. By
the way, if you have feedback for Zero or guest suggestions,
please write to Zero Pod at Bloomberg dot net.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Senator, welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
Thank you, wonderful to be with you.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
So there are very few people with your ability to
communicate climate issues and your experience of doing it for
the length of time that you have done it. We
will talk a lot about climate, but I want us
to start a little bit in history. If you look
at what the Trump administration is doing on all sorts
of policies domestically and abroad, not just climate, where would
(03:03):
you put Donald Trump in America's historical context and what
it's doing to the geopolitics.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
I think he would probably consider himself a Jacksonian disruptor
in the great sweep of American history. I think he
is actually the first great collapse into corruption of American democracy.
I think that the benchmark of essentially everything he does
(03:34):
is corruption.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
And this is something that Americans, because of their history
of not having a corrupt government for very long, seems
an aberration. But for places where I come from, in
India or here where we are in Brazil, in developing countries,
corruption has been an issue.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
So it also means that Americans aren't as attentive and prepared.
We have lived in a very happy pair of centuries
in which corruption really was not very significant national issue,
and now suddenly we're deep into corruption.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
And then when it comes to climate policies itself. We've
seen the Trump administration have obviously attack domestic climate policies,
turn back the tide on the Inflation Reduction Act, go
after oil and gas drilling rights in all sorts of places,
including alaskam or recently, but globally, in the first Trumpet administration,
(04:30):
there hadn't been that much impact. This time around, they're
way more effective. Why are they so effective.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
This time They are more effective because the relationship between
them and the fossil fuel industry is now one that
has no boundary. The fossil fuel industry is essentially running
the United States government from the inside. It's a desperate industry.
They know that clean renewable energy is cheaper. They know
(04:59):
that they only compete by virtue of massive subsidies from
being allowed to pollute for free, which nobody should be
allowed to do. And they prop all of that up
with enormous amounts of political corruption and leverage and a
huge climate denial fraud campaign. So for them to be
able to seize and capture the Trump administration and drive
(05:21):
their desperate agenda is essential. It's a survival thing for them.
So with Trump having handed them the keys, they're now
in survival mode and they're attacking everything that they can
that is a threat to the continued dominance of fossil fuel.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
So we have seen an actor on the international stage
who has been very effective at being able to keep
fossil fuel activities for longer, which is Saudi Arabia. They
train some of the best diplomats here at COBB, but
at many other multilateral forums. They know where to find
the loopholes to try and block progress. The US has
(05:59):
some very good diplomat too. If that is the level
of effectiveness we're going to see in year one of
Donald Trump, there are three more years. How much damage
does that do to American credibility at the global stage,
and how do you get America back If there is
a president who cares about climate change.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
It could do a lot of damage. I think it
is important to see America pushing back against this regime
and its corrupt fossil fuel policies. So we get now
to the communications problem that you mentioned earlier. I think
(06:39):
if America is just sitting around idly, you know, whistling
and looking at the ceiling while Trump does all this
damage and behaves really like a thug and serves his
big political donors in the fossil fuel industry exclusively, and
there's no quarrel with that. There'll be a lot more
damage to America's if that kicks off a strong quarrel,
(07:02):
which it ought to, because he is not representing the
American people. The American people are miles away from Trump
policies on all of this, then I think the recovery
of our reputation and standing will come much quicker now.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Looking forward to trying to get people elected in America
who would act on climate action, they need to get
a message out that actually gets people voting for them.
And right now, if we look at the Democrats, one
strand of Democrats who are succeeding are succeeding because they
(07:36):
are not talking about climate change. Does that worry you No?
Speaker 4 (07:40):
And I don't even know that that's true. I wouldn't
accept that premise. I see it differently. I think that
for a long time the Democratic Party has been way
too timid on climate stuff. President Obama walked away from
Nancy Pelosi's cap and trade bill when he had the
votes to pass it, but he just didn't want to
(08:01):
put the effort in and he didn't want to have
a fight, so he literally walked away from a winning position.
Joe Biden couldn't say a serious word about climate to
save his life. They wouldn't pick any fights with the
fossil fuel industry. They settled for an IRA bill that
(08:22):
was not an adequate solution to the climate crisis. It
was rare for him to mention climate except when he
was dealing with climate related advocates. We had no courage
of our own convictions, and I think that communicates itself
to people. When you see a party that is half
(08:43):
hearted and hedging about an issue where you feel passionately,
where you know the science, where you see the urgency,
it's hard to get very excited about that party. So
I think what's been missing all along is a sense
of urgency. The American public is a head of the
Democratic Party on this, and we have multiple advantages. First,
(09:06):
the public is ahead of us, but second, the Republican
Party is in the pockets of the fossil fuel industry.
Nobody would ever point that out. The Biden administration would
not talk about a villain under any circumstances. They thought
that being officer friendly and mister nice guy was going
to get them through the climate crisis. Meanwhile, on the
other side of the table is this gang of fossil
(09:29):
fuel monsters running the biggest climate denial fraud campaign in history,
running a huge dark money corruption operation, trying to undermine
and destroy the clean energy industry. I mean, it's a
very very dangerous and malevolent group of people, and we
(09:50):
acted as if they were either not there or that
that was normal. So I think what people want is
for the Democratic Party to take a much more clear
fighting stance on this issue. And it's all going to
become a lot more real as it starts to land
in people's homeowners insurance, electric bills, mortgage availability, the economic
(10:11):
side that is under a really immediate climate threat.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
So if we look at the recent successes in the
Democratic Party, those are the issues that those successes came on.
Zoran Mandan in in New York City, in Virginia, in Georgia,
in New Jersey. It was price of energies, price of housing.
That is the stuff that won the Democrats, not climate change.
(10:35):
But yes, these things are connected to climate.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
Issues, and one can connect them. But part of the
problem is that we haven't done a very good job
of it. I mean, I have sat in on high
level briefings to the Democratic Senate Caucus, where the polsters
that were brought in to brief us on the issues
hadn't bothered to ask a question about climate change, where
(10:59):
they hadn't bothered to ask a question about dark money corruption.
We have simply not been engaged in this in a
way that has allowed us to be confident about the
message that we can win with on this.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Where are the experiments happening in the Democratic Party to
try and make those connections happen. Because the winning Democrats
right now are winning on the issues but not connecting
them to climate.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
I think we are going to see this more in
the coming elections along the Gulf Coast. The first Democratic
candidate for governor in Florida is already talking a lot
about homeowners' insurance and what a catastrophe that is for Floridians,
and how Republicans can't be trusted on this subject because
(11:44):
they're completely in the pocket of the climate deniers. And
that's the heart of the insurance problem. In Texas, we
just took a poll Ninety two percent of Texan voters
are concerned about homeowners insurance. Two thirds of them connect
that to climate change, weather. That's a big issue for
Democratic candidates down there. Ninety two percent was more than healthcare,
(12:08):
more than groceries, so this is an available, front of
mind issue for voters. The Democrats have misunderstood and ignored
and were only better than the Republicans because they're absolutely
awful on this and are on the payroll of the
fossil fuel industry.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
If you look at other communicators who are able to
get their climate message out, are there people that you
look up to, who are people who are making their
voices heard and actually connecting it to the issues that
people care about because you need those votes.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
Well, I think the Australians have done a very very
good job. They had the same thing we had. They
had a right wing government that was in the pocket
of in its case, coal industry as much as oil
and gas. They were denying climate change. It was the
full fossil fuel nonsense package. And then the Labor government
came in and reversed their bad climate policies and started
(13:02):
to talk about climate in a different way and act
on climate in a different way. And now they've run
up to I think forty percent of Australian homes have
solar panels on the roof, and they're headed for seventy
eighty percent, and they're building behind that having domestic battery storage,
so you're off the grid on your own battery. They
(13:24):
are working on a plan to give Australians three free
hours of electricity a day because they've built so much
abundance of solar and wind that they can do that.
And they just got re elected with a big, big, big,
big margin and they had put climate at the front
of their policy agenda. So I think Australia is very
(13:45):
good proof of if you're actually doing things, if you're
not half hearted, and if you're bringing people along economically
with all of this, this can be a big win.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
It's very good at doing it cheaply. A soda panel
on the rooftop costs about eight hundred dollars a KILLO
vote in Australia, whereas it costs twenty five hundred dollars
a KILLO vote in America. But take a case of
the country I live in, the UK, which you know
just on numbers is a climate leader. Has cut the
most emissions among the G seven countries and the fastest,
(14:20):
and it doesn't have much of the fossil fuel industry left.
The Nazi oil and gas industry is has been declining.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
For results of that is that both of your parties
are reasonable on climate. It was a Conservative government that
got into that aligned with the Seabam.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Indeed, but they are no longer. And that is what
I wanted to ask you, which is if you look
at the politics in the UK, now Labor government has
a clear majority and has three and a half years
left on the clock. But on the opposition that's Conservative
Party and now an upswing in Reform party. Both of
them want to get rid of net zero goals. The
(14:57):
Conservative Party which brought in the NAZER now I wants
you to get rid of the Climate Change Act itself.
So it's not just fossil fuels. What else is driving
this backlash against climate.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
I don't know. I'm not familiar with UK politics. In
the US, it is fossil fuel, fossil fuel and fossil fuel.
In the EU, I think it is a little bit
of fossil fuel. I think a lot of it is
also Russia, Putin and his manipulation in European democracies. His
is a petro state. He is a petro dictator. My
(15:33):
friend in the Senate, John McCain, used to say that
Russia is a gas station run by gangsters that happens
to have an army, and you take away the gas
station and the whole game collapses. He can't pay off
his oligarchs any longer, so for him it's pretty existential.
Those to me have been the prime movers, and they've
(15:54):
been able to turn it into a bit of a
culture war phenomenon.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Also, and one way in which you think globally we
can start to actually get on pace with climate action
is through what is in the European jargon known as
the carbon border adjustment mechanism, which is really just a
SEABAM is a nice acronym but a fancy way of
saying a carbon tariff. That if you are going to
(16:20):
send in goods from India or China, which have typically
higher emissions intensity, but they come into Europe where if
the same good is made it will have lower emissions intensity.
The difference between the two is where you pay a
carbon tariff, and thus you protect domestic industry who are
doing the activities in a cleaner way.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
Prevent cheating against proper environmental standards.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Right, And this is something you can do domestically. The
European Union has agreed to set it up, and it
has extra territorial impacts. China's carbon pricing partly was driven
because Europe was very clear that it's going to do
this at some point. Then comes the US and we
know that extra territoriality right now for the Trump administration
(17:06):
is an issue that they would bully other countries to
back down on. They are doing this not just on
climate but on ESG issues like reporting on emissions. From
a corporate level, they're doing this on the tax that
EU and Canada wanted to put on tech companies, which
(17:27):
tend to be American. Extra territoriality from a climate perspective
is great, but from a perspective of ensuring it lasts
for decades to come seems difficult. So how do you
make Ceman work when America is not interested?
Speaker 4 (17:45):
First, a couple of things about SEABAM. It's already law
in the EU and to unwind it would take a
lot of parliamentary activity, so this is not just a proposal,
it's there. Second, the UK is in the final stage
of joining. They're already in a place where they don't
have to pay tariffs, and they're working towards charging their
(18:06):
own tariffs. Australia's right out there also, they're getting ready
to join as well. There's every reason to believe that
Canada should also join. And nobody understands the dangers to
the world economy from climate better than Prime Minister Mark Carney,
who was a leading voice when he ran the Bank
of England. So it's a growing, I hope, safety measure
(18:29):
as well as a solid safety measure. The Trumpsters are
probably going to try to attack it. They recently launched
a really, really brutal and devilish attack against the International
Maritime Organization that was putting a shipping fee, an emissions
fee on shipping that its members agreed to. The major
(18:52):
shippers wanted this. There's no American ship involved because we
don't do container shipping. The price effect on American consumers
would be negligible, certainly compared to Trump's tariffs, and so
there was no real reason for the savagery of their attack,
which in diplomatic terms was unprecedented, and yet they did it.
(19:17):
So why did they do it? They did it because
Trump is the face of fossil fuel, the real face
of fossil fuel, not the friendly smiling mask you get
here at cops and things like that. The real face
of fossil fuel is Trump and his activities. So what
the Sabaan folks need to do is to understand that
(19:38):
they're coming and be ready to steal themselves for that fight,
to be prepared, and to understand that they can't let
individual countries chicken out be picked off. One thing about Trump,
if you are resolute in standing up against him, and
if you're a group and you stand together and don't
(20:00):
back what way can't pick off individuals, He will move
on to something else.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Give me an example.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
The universities that told him to go shove it when
he tried to take over their internal policies. The law
firms that told him to shove it when he tried
to demand tribute from them. Those institutions have actually done
very well for doing that, and they found others and
(20:27):
they stuck together. The ones that gave in turned out
to have been in a very difficult situation. In fact,
the law firms that gave in are having trouble hiring
because people don't want to work for a firm that
would cave in like that, and they're having trouble with
their clients. Because if you want a lawyer who is
going to cave in to political pressure from administration, what
(20:48):
happens if you need to sue the administration, you can't
have a lawyer who's proven they won't fight for you.
So I think those are some examples of where not
like being deliberately unpleasant, not putting a stick in the
eye of the administration, but just saying no, just standing
fast and refusing to be bullied. That works. But you
(21:13):
will do better at standing fast and refusing to be
bullied if you appreciate that that's what's coming and you
need to be ready for it.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
After the break, I ask Senator Whitehouse why climate advocates
seem to steer away from decisive action after they get
into power. And if you're enjoying zero, please take a
moment to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
and YouTube. It helps new listeners discover the show.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
Thank you, you brought up Canada. You brought up McCartney.
You're right, he's probably the only world leader in G
seven country who was a UN Climate Champion before he
(22:06):
took on that role. His first policy sign off after
getting elected was to get rid of the consumer carbon tax.
His most recent policy update in the budget has been
to get rid of the oil and gas cap on
emissions that the that the previous administration under Justin Trudeau
(22:26):
was going to bring in. Claudia Scheinbaum, you know, an
environmental engineering graduate who knows this stuff really well, but
her policies on climate are nowhere close to the level
of action that is needed. Say you were to run
for president and become president, you know the stuff in
and out. What we've seen from other world leaders is
(22:48):
that when they get into power, they change, even when
they know the science, how do you stick with it?
Speaker 4 (22:56):
I'm not in that position, so would you run for president?
But I'm not sure that. I haven't had a chance
to speak to Prime Minister Carney. I know that he
knows as well. I know that he understands the dangers,
and I don't know what his plan is as to
how to go forward. Maybe his plan is to join
(23:18):
this EVAM, in which case that's probably stronger. Consumer carbon
taxes have never been effective, and they've never been good.
The carbon pricing measures that I have recommended have always
been at the extraction or importation level. And a lot
of that then goes away before it gets you through
multiple corporate layers and down ultimately to an oil pump
(23:41):
or a plastics product or whatever. And you don't have
to start very big to have a market effect as
long as the companies that are doing the polluting, that
are buying these products know that here's where it's going
to be in five or ten years. So you can
plan a quite intelligent and very effective emissions reduction regime,
(24:04):
but you also have to be willing to communicate about it.
You've got to be willing to communicate that. You know,
people shouldn't be allowed to pollute for free. People get that.
I mean that's a huge. Seventy four to ten Americans
believe that people who pollute should pay the cost of
their pollution. That's a huge I mean, that's a wipeout
of a majority. So we can step into that, we
(24:24):
can take advantage of that. I think this is an
issue that the political class has misunderstood.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
You have used the analogy that carbon pricing is a lifeboard,
that without this we don't have a chance of actually
tackling climate change.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
Correct. There is a.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Danger with that message. Is the danger with the one
point five degree celsius message that, oh, if we can't
keep global warming below one point five degrees celsius, we
are doomed. That message also doesn't go well with public
There's a clock on the UK pavilion that says, after
three years, two hundred and fifty nine days and seventy
(25:07):
two hours or whatever, you're going to have irreversible climate change.
And that's the kind of message that hasn't I.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
Don't think it's sexually correct either. So there's a lot
of stupid stuff that is fed in the climate space.
So you can't just go chasing down the rabbit holes
of every stupid thing that gets said in the climate space.
You've got to focus on what counts, and what counts
right now is that our chance that a pathway to
climate safety requires ending the economically wrongful and morally wrongful
(25:41):
freedom of the fossil fuel industry to pollute. That is
a violation of basic laws of economics. It is also
a violation of basic laws of decency and good manners.
So we shouldn't have a big fight about that. We
also know, when you look at the twelve hundred climate
scenarios presented to the IPCC, the only eleven remain that
(26:01):
get us a pathway to climate safety. All eleven require
there to be a price on carbon. Because we have
failed for so long on climate and satisfied ourselves with
broad talk about ambition, we haven't focused on what we
actually need to do, and we now need to come
into focus. What we actually need to do is end
the free to pollute business model. Even then all those
(26:24):
eleven scenarios overshoot, we will go above one point five degrees.
So we also have to be able to have the
technology to pull that excess carbon dioxide back out of
the air to reduce the Earth's carbon concentration to a
livable level for humankind. These should not be complicated things
to discuss, except for the fact that the fossil fuel
(26:48):
industry has this massive apparatus of lying and propaganda and
climate fraud, and they're bribing and corrupting administrations and governments
with the enormous amount of money that they get from
having it be free to pollute. So we just have
(27:08):
to steal ourselves for that fight and know that the
public will be with us because it's common sense.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
But if we go with common pricing is the lifeboat,
and we end up in a place where the eve
you know, through years, because it might take years before
the votes to undo SEABAM happens. If that comes through.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
Then we're done. Then we've made an incredibly stupid and
irresponsible decision for our children and grandchildren, and the generation
that does that will be a generation that will be
last in shame through history. We have to stand up
to this problem, and we have to do it now,
(27:47):
and we can. There is a winning path.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
If you look at the damages done from climate change
insured non insured damages altogether last year. One assessment says
it was one point forllion dollars.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
More than eight hundred billion dollars of that was in
the United States.
Speaker 4 (28:04):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
This happened under a Joe Biden presidency. He was president
last year.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
Yeah, I don't think the presidenc seems to blame for that.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
No, but the message didn't get to if eight hundred
billion dollars of American economy was wiped out because of
climate damages alone, why is the economic message not?
Speaker 4 (28:25):
Really? Because name one time Joe Biden spoke about that
they were terrible about communicating the climate problem. They we
had to fight them to get a methane fee. They
were trying to undermine the seamam. The fact that we
got the IRA through was something that they There's a
lot of self laudatory noise about that, but basically, the
(28:49):
Biden administration was a climate failure. And you can't look
at a climate failure and say, you know, your messaging
didn't work. Of course it didn't work. You were a failure.
Had they done it correctly, had they talked about the danger,
had they talked about the damage, had they pointed out
what was already starting to happen in Florida to homeowners insurance,
(29:09):
it would be a very different world.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Who are other people in the Democratic Party who you
look up to, who will form this alliance to try
and finally bring the climate message in the way it
needs to be brought to the American people.
Speaker 4 (29:22):
Well, in the Senate, I have a little triumvirate that
has been working together, my climate trio at Senator Shots
who is likely to be the next Democratic whip the
number two position in the Senate. And Martin Heinrich, who
is a trained engineer, so he understands all this stuff.
(29:42):
And he's from New Mexico, which is an oil and
gas state, so he has to be really good about
messaging what he's doing. He just won big as a
huge climate advocate in an oil and gas state, so
I think people like him are a good messengers for us.
(30:05):
I also think that Catherine Cortes Masto has done a
good job politically with this issue. When the Biden administration
was panicked about gas prices and the huge apparatus of
lies of the fossil fuel industry was calling this the
Biden gas price hike, she was running in Nevada, a
(30:29):
very purple state, and they were trying to come after
her with this. Most Democrats went and hid, tried to
change the subject. She seized that topic, and she went
after her opponent and said, look at all of your
climate connections, look at who you've lobbied for, look at
what your party does. She went on offense, and by
the time that race was over, this was her issue
(30:51):
that she was beating her opponent down with, rather than
something where she was trying to hide and find shelter.
And when the Biden administration finally this up and took
the fight back to the fossil fuel industry and pointed
out the grotesque profits that they had made during this period,
Suddenly the issue shifted in the public mind. So it
proves that when you have a smart position and pursue
(31:15):
it aggressively, you can turn this around. Our problem is
isn't the climate messages can't win? Our problem is that
we haven't had smart climate messages that we have pursued aggressively.
They are there, we just didn't do it. And obviously,
if you've got polsters, it won't even pull the question.
You're a party that hasn't really got very good situational
(31:35):
awareness about this.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
We just had a fifty four day shutdown in the
US and we saw how committed Donald Trump is not
blinking first, So what is the lesson there for other
countries such as the Europeans?
Speaker 4 (31:50):
On CeMM, I think that the Trump administration responds very
poorly to provocation and insult. I think they respond very
respectfully to resolute firmness. They are bullies, it is their tactic,
(32:13):
and once a bully knows that he can push you around,
he is going to continue to push you around because
he knows he can do it. So I think it
becomes very important that you not necessarily tease the bully,
but that you stand firm against the bully. The surprise
(32:33):
attack against the IMO came quite suddenly. I was at
the Ocean's conference in June and met with the IMO
and said, how's this going to go. You're going to
be able to hang in on this because this is
a really important test for the future. This is an
actual price on carbon emissions and we need that to
succeed on climate. Oh no, we got this. This is fine. Yeah,
(32:54):
I know the Trump people don't like it, but we've
really put a lot of effort into us. The companies
that are the leading company all support us. We're good
to go. There's no danger of anything happening. Well, then
came the surprise attack and this unprecedented level of diplomatic bullying,
and the whole thing fell apart. So I hope that
(33:15):
that's a lesson for other international groups that you really
have to steel yourself and not allow yourself to be
panicked and picked off. They picked some of the weaker
members off first and began to take advantage of that.
I think if the IMO had seen that attack coming,
they might have been more resolute about standing up.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
But arguably you've already seen the Europeans compromising when they
signed the trade deal and agreed to seven hundred and
fifty billion dollars worth of imports of natural gas and
oil from the US. So why do you think they
can stand up to Trump on SEABAM.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
It's hard to figure that out. There's always back and
forth when tariffs are being negotiated. I do think when
it's as vital as the SEAVAM, when it is in
fact the last lifeboat, if we don't have that carbon
pricing regime and we just cascade forward and do worse
and worse economic and financial disasters because of the climate threat,
(34:10):
then we will regret that very very very deeply. So
and you know what the foss feel industry wants to target.
They live on a seven hundred billion dollars subsidy in
the United States alone. The value of being allowed to
pollute for free seven hundred billion dollars is a lot
of money. It motivates a lot of corruption. It makes
money available for enormous flotillas of front groups to operate
(34:37):
the climate fraud operation that they run. It's a big,
big operation, and I think you've got to distinguish between
when that operation comes after you using Trump administration officials
and just the ordinary back and forth and give and
take of regular, sometimes difficult negotiations on the c BAM.
They've got to be ready for that operation coming at
(34:58):
them using Trump its tool right now. Our success or
failure on climate largely hangs on whether or not the
c BAM is protected and whether or not it grows,
whether or not the UK and Australia continue to come
on in, and that perhaps the most important thing that
(35:19):
the EU countries are doing for the future. A heroic
moment is to do this and to hold. But the
IMO ought to be a lesson to them that the
Phosphel administration is desperate and engaged in evil behavior constantly.
(35:40):
Unless you think climate denial, fraud and dark money corruption
are fine, it's pretty evil stuff. And they have the
United States government right now as their tool to bring
pressure to bear, so you really have to be prepared
for unusual amounts of pressure. But the lesson of Trump
is that if you do in fact stand up to him,
(36:00):
and if you don't break ranks and flee, then you
can prevail.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
One country that has stood up to Trump has been China,
and it has some Trump cards, like the critical minerals
that it produces and refines the in a monopolistic way,
almost and it has succeeded wildly in being able to
get its way with the Trump administration. But crucially, it's
(36:26):
also the place which is bringing energy prices down, bringing
electricity prices down, building the most amount of electricity infrastructure,
the form of energy that's the form of energy the
twenty first century needs. Once at the same time, the
US is moving away from clean energy, but moving away
from electrification more importantly, How worried are you about the
(36:47):
competitiveness issues that will raise when Trump leaves office?
Speaker 4 (36:53):
Very economic competition, technological innovation. Those are races and different
economies compete to do the best in those races, and Trump,
for the benefit of his fossil fuel donors, corruptly is
hobbling his own country in that competition. And you know,
(37:19):
you can hope and believe that because of American innovation
and entrepreneurship is so great that if we have to
stop in a race and let other countries run past
us and away for years, we can get back in
the race at some point and catch up. But how
stupid is it to step out of the race for
those years? And I think there's going to be a
(37:40):
significant economic price that the country will pay for that.
You know, I've driven by the BYD dealerships here in Brazil,
and Brazil's a big market for vehicles. This would be
a nice place to have a lot of American cars
be sold. But the Chinese are mopping up in the
Brazilian market in our hemisphere, in a fellow democracy. All
(38:01):
of that. So, I don't see the wisdom of kicking
our own automotive companies in the teeth and saying you've
got to build internal combustion engines when the future is
going a different way. Does anybody any good except his
fossil fuel patrons. This is corruption, this is payback. You've
got to see it in those terms.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
The Bwady factory in Brazil was built on the same
site as the Ford factory.
Speaker 4 (38:28):
How about that for a metaphor?
Speaker 1 (38:30):
Thank you, senator, good to be with you, and thank
you for listening to zero. Now for the sound of
the week. That is the sound of bees making honey
(38:50):
inside their hive. Reporting from Bloomberg shows that honeybees are
under threat in the US as grasslands are transformed to
grow corn for bio fuelds. Read the full article on
bloomberg dot Com forward slash screen. It's also linked in
the show notes. If you like this episode, please take
a moment to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
(39:11):
and YouTube. This episode was produced by Oscar Boyd and
our theme music is composed by Wonderly Special Thanks to
Jennifer de Louis, Samersadi Moses Andim Laura Milan and Sharon
chen I am Akshatrati Back soon.
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