March 10, 2025 • 17 mins
Since taking office in January, President Trump has set in motion a series of sweeping rollbacks on US climate policy. This comes at a time when governments around the world have lagged behind their stated environmental goals.
In this episode of the Big Take, host Sarah Holder is joined by Akshat Rathi, host of the Zero podcast, to talk through the Trump administration’s key climate actions, how they could impact investment in green energy, and what it all means for the global fight to stop the warming of the planet.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, it suckshat. This week I joined The Big Take
podcast to talk about the global consequences of President Donald
Trump's rollback on climate We wanted to share that episode
with zero listeners to so take a listen and do
follow The Big Take for daily news coverage from Bloomberg.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Reporters, Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio News. Since taking office
in January, President Trump has set in motion a series
of sweeping rollbacks on US climate policy.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
The President slashing funding to combat climate change.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
President Trump on social media is again calling for FEMA
to be shut down. The latest firings hitting Noah, the
nation's top weather and climate agency, hundreds let go, and
on Tuesday, the few times Trump mentioned climate policy in
an address to Congress, he didn't hold back.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
I terminated the ridiculous green news scam. I withdrew from
the unfair Paris Climate Accord, which was costing US trillions
of dollars that other countries were not paying.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
His remarks highlighted the ways his administration has dismantled efforts
to combat climate change, and they were the culmination of
weeks of actions that pushed climate change into the background
at a time when governments around the world have lagged
behind their stated environmental goals.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Twenty twenty four was the first year when for the
entire year, the world averaged over one point five degrees celsius.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Akshad Rothy is a senior climate reporter for Bloomberg News
and host of the Zero podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Any amount of warming, any point one degree celsius of
warming makes the planet worse. And what happens when Trump
or other countries start to pull away from these targets
is that we start to get more warming because we
move away from the focus of trying to get more
clean energy and rely less on fossil fuels.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
So just how did we get here, How have Trump's
actions played out since his first day in office, and
how will these last few weeks of climate policy reversals
impact the US and the rest of the world.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
It is a job of a government to try and
provide for welfare of society. That is why governments are elected.
But if you are not going to be believing in
the facts of climate change, which are scientifically true and
have consensus around the world, then you're not going to
be able to make informed decisions that will help you
to protect people from the harm. That's coming their.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Way today on the show Trump and the Climate, a
walk through some of his administration's key climate actions, the
international fallout, and what it all means for the global
fight to stop the warming of the planet. This is
the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder, so Aksha.
(02:59):
Trump has taken several actions to reverse US policy on
climate since the start of his second term, but the
one that really set the tone was him pulling out
of the Paris Climate Agreement on day one. So let's
start there. He's pulled out of the accord before, during
his first term in twenty seventeen. But what's different this time.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Well, you're right, this wasn't a surprise because he'd said
he'd do it, and he's done it in the past.
But there is certainly something different about this time. So
on the negative side, Trump has more backers for his
anti climate bush because there's been a right wing turned
in politics around the world. There's also the fact that
(03:40):
companies and countries that had set targets to meet as
soon as twenty thirty are way off track from meeting
those climate targets. And we've also just lived through the
hottest year in twenty twenty four, we've breached for the
first time one point five degrees celsius, which is one
of the two most ambitious targets we have under the
Paris Agreement. So there is the sense of whether we'll
(04:02):
ever be able to keep under the Paris goals of
not warming the planet by two degrees solsius, And so
the urgency to act has grown. But clearly the companies
and countries aren't doing all that much. That's the bad side.
There's also a good side that is different this time.
So when Trump quit the Paras Agreement the first time around,
(04:24):
global clean energy investments stood at about four hundred billion
dollars according to Bloomberg NEF. In twenty twenty four, they
breached two trillion dollars two point one trillion dollars to
be precise. And there is something fundamentally different about this moment,
which is today clean energy is much much cheaper than
the last time Trump pulled out of the Paris Agreement,
(04:47):
and climate impacts are much much more severe, and so
people have a recognition that this problem is only going
to get worse. But fortunately the solutions are also getting cheaper.
The other thing is that there were always these rumors
that once the US, the world's largest historical emitter of
greenhouse gases the world's largest economy, pulls out of a
(05:08):
global treaty, other countries will follow. That didn't happen last time,
and it doesn't seem like it's going to happen this time.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Okay, so you've given us the good news and the
bad news. I'm wondering a little more about how other
world leaders and business leaders are reacting to Trump's moves.
Just how strong are other countries climate commitments and who
might step up and fill the void left by the
United States.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
There's certainly been a muted response this time. Let's take corporations.
Last time around, these big tech companies were jostling to
be the climate leaders in the world. Elon Musk quit
a Trump advisory council as a result of Trump pulling
out of the Paris Agreement. Well, this time around, none
of the tech bosses are saying anything about Paris. Elon
(05:55):
Musk is in the Trump government, and from a country standpoint,
there isn't the same bulwark of climate forward leaders that
was there the last time. We had Angela Merkel. We
had justin Trudeau, who had just been elected this time. Yes,
Ursula V on their lane from the European Union did
say that europe is going to stay the course. But
even Lula in Brazil, who is going to be hosting
(06:18):
a COP meeting later this year, let his deputies react
to a Trump exit. So there's this sense among world
leaders who are facing economic issues that they are not
willing to try and push back against an embolden Trump.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Last time we spoke, the big questions at the COP
summit in Baku were around money. Who is going to
pay for the energy transition, how much developed countries will
spend to support developing countries. How does the US pulling
out change those calculations.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
That is perhaps the most significant question. So at Baku,
all countries, including the US, agreed on a goal to
triple climate finance from one hundred billion dollars to three
hundred billion dollars by twenty thirty five.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
That's money developed countries promised to put specifically toward helping
developing nations respond to climate change and invest in clean energy.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
So they have ten years to get to that goal,
but it means they have to start ramping up right
away because it is a big goal to meet and
Now that the US, the world's largest economy, is out
with all its banks and all its heft, it's unlikely
that that acceleration from one hundred to three hundred will
happen at the same pace as it would have if
the US were part of the agreement. Now we will
(07:33):
certainly see a rise in climate finance because other countries
will start to step in. But maybe we are already
looking at the three hundred billion dollar goal being missed.
Even if the US is not putting any money directly
from the government side under a Trump administration towards climate finance,
it does contribute to these multilateral development banks like World
(07:55):
Bank or the IMF, which then go on to contribute
to climate finance. And the US is the largest shareholder
in most of these MDBs, and it could start to
try and pull back money that these banks were previously
giving to climate finance, So that could have a multiplier
effect if Trump so wishes right.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
And meanwhile, Trump has been cutting domestic spending on the
climate too, with the help of Elon Musk's Doge Task Force.
An EPA administrator Lizelden has been cutting millions in EPA
grants focused on environmental justice what do we know about
how these cuts could impact climate regulation and climate research.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
There is just so much that is happening, and it
is unclear just how wide spread this impact is going
to be till we start to come to the places
where we expect an APA regulation to come through because
industries need to move on and start to buildings, or
a climate science report has to drop because there was
a deadline to produce that report and then it doesn't
(08:59):
come Those are things we are looking out for which
are in the future, but there are already impacts that
we can see. So in trying to keep climate out
of the conversation, out of research, there was a downstream
impact where a climate scientist in the US who is
supposed to be heading a very important working group of
(09:20):
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is the world's
premier body for all climate science research, could not make
it to her meeting in hano and China because the
Trump administration said that NASA cannot fund anymore climate science work.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
What does it mean for that researcher to miss that meeting?
What didn't happen?
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Well, the US is one of the world's largest funder
of climate science research, about a fifth of all the
authors of these big IPCC reports are Americans. That is
twice as much as the next biggest country, which is
the UK. And so when you stop bringing American scientists
into the climate conversation, you lose a big chunk of
(10:03):
climate science understanding of the world. And Okay, that for
now is fine, but these reports which will come in
twenty thirty will start to become worse today. And so
this sort of pull one string and then the fabric
starts to fall apart is something we expect to see
more and more.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Of after the break. More on what climate policy reversals
could mean for the green technology sector and for the
world's reliance on fossil fuels. Pulling out of the Paris
(10:43):
Climate Agreement was only the first and a flurry of
climate policy changes since Trump took office.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
We ended all of Biden's environmental restrictions that we're making
our country far less safe and totally unaffordable.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
His administration has blocked the enforcement of environmental justice law
US stopped a global air quality monitoring program, and started
to roll back rules around corporate climate disclosures. Last month,
Bloomberg reported that the EPA was recommending the government throw
out its conclusion that greenhouse gases endanger the public. But
there's another piece of the story that I asked Bloomberg's
(11:18):
oxshot ROTHI to unpack more where this all leaves investments
in green technology. When the Paris Agreement was first signed
in twenty sixteen, there was this rapid rise in investment
in climate tech companies, and there was more funding for
projects that focused on the energy transition. With Trump in office,
how could that picture of global investment change.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
It can have pretty big impacts because a lot of
the funding that went into nascent climate technologies came from
the US, went to US startups that were at the
forefront of developing these technologies. But it does create opportunities
for other countries to be able to absorb some of
this talent that sits in America that has developed this technology,
(12:03):
that wants to build these plants that will reduce greener's
gas emissions, that will make electricity cheaper, that will make
electricity more easily accessible because it will tap into renewable resources,
not just the sun and the wind, but also geothermal resources.
And it creates an opportunity for countries that are climate forward,
have climate forward leaders to give home to American startups.
(12:27):
Because it's clear, at least from this administration's steps taken
so far, that they don't care about climate technologies.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
What are the countries that are set up best to
take advantage of this opportunity?
Speaker 1 (12:40):
I mean, the simplest answer there is China. Out of
the two point one trillion dollars that were invested in
the energy transition last year, eight hundred billion dollars came
from China. That is more than the US, European Union,
and the UK combined. But that's not to say that
China is the only country that can win these other
technologies that China doesn't have a lead in, like carbon catcher,
(13:04):
like green hydrogen, like heat pumps, where local manufacturing in
other parts of the world can certainly catch up, and
so you might see competition on green tech outside of
America that will produce losers and winners.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
We have more liquid gold under our feet than any
nation on Earth, and by.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Far akshat, strengthening America's fossil fuel industry is central to
Trump's economic agenda. He emphasized that in his speech to
Congress this week.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
It's called drill, Baby, drill.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
But what about the economics of not investing in the
energy transition and not investing in these kinds of things.
Could this actually hurt the US's economic competitiveness in this space.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
So there is perhaps something to be gained by trying
to drill baby drill in the short term. If you
have higher oil and gas prices, you might be able
to profit from it or make oil and gas cheaper
for American consumers. But that is a short term gain
for a long term loss. So one thing that most
experts agree on is that the future of energy is
(14:11):
to go towards distributed energy that comes from renewable sources
because they are widely available, they're easy to tap, and
now they're also very cheap to tap. But certainly ten
or fifteen years from now, if we look back, we'll
see this period as one where the US started to
lose its competitive edge in green technologies.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Well, akshat, this is of course all happening on the
heels of those devastating fires in la Just a few
weeks ago, Trump moved to end climate related work and
eliminate the use of climate related terms in the Department
of Homeland Security, which typically responds to natural disasters. If
the US government is no longer interested in addressing or
(14:53):
acknowledging climate change. What does that mean for the country
if and when more extreme weather EVAs happen, What does
it mean for the world.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
I think that was a feeling that many experts had,
which is, you know, when we were talking about climate
change in the nineteen nineties, it was a problem that
was a decade or two decades away. Well, it's here.
The la fires are a really good example or study
that just came out said they were made thirty five
percent worse by human caused climate change. But the reality
(15:25):
has also sunk in among the people who were hoping
that the alarm of extreme weather will cause people to
ask for more climate action. That's not happening at the
scale we want. I mean the elections around the world,
not just Donald Trump's, are a proof of that. So
there is a pivot that we are seeing among world
(15:45):
leaders but also climate advocates that economic growth and progress
on other metrics are also something that people care deeply about.
That any climate action that goes against those progress metrics
is not going to fly. You have to find a
way to make all these metrics work together, and you
(16:06):
have to find a way to ensure that good information
gets to people for why these decisions are being made,
and so the hope that actually weather events will finally
get us on the path of acting on climate is
one that fewer and fewer people are relying on.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
This is The Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder.
This episode was produced and sound designed by Jessica Beck.
It was edited by Aaron Edwards and Emily Buzo. It
was mixed by Alex Sugia and fact checked by Adriana Tapia.
Our senior producer is Naomi Shaven. Our senior editor is
Elizabeth Ponso. Our executive producer is Nicole beamsterbor Sage Fouman
(16:48):
is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. If you like this episode,
make sure to subscribe and review The Big Take wherever
you get your podcasts. It helps people find the show.
Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow. Roun MHM
Hi, it suckshat. This week I joined The Big Take
podcast to talk about the global consequences of President Donald
Trump's rollback on climate We wanted to share that episode
with zero listeners to so take a listen and do
follow The Big Take for daily news coverage from Bloomberg.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Reporters, Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio News. Since taking office
in January, President Trump has set in motion a series
of sweeping rollbacks on US climate policy.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
The President slashing funding to combat climate change.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
President Trump on social media is again calling for FEMA
to be shut down. The latest firings hitting Noah, the
nation's top weather and climate agency, hundreds let go, and
on Tuesday, the few times Trump mentioned climate policy in
an address to Congress, he didn't hold back.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
I terminated the ridiculous green news scam. I withdrew from
the unfair Paris Climate Accord, which was costing US trillions
of dollars that other countries were not paying.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
His remarks highlighted the ways his administration has dismantled efforts
to combat climate change, and they were the culmination of
weeks of actions that pushed climate change into the background
at a time when governments around the world have lagged
behind their stated environmental goals.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Twenty twenty four was the first year when for the
entire year, the world averaged over one point five degrees celsius.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Akshad Rothy is a senior climate reporter for Bloomberg News
and host of the Zero podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Any amount of warming, any point one degree celsius of
warming makes the planet worse. And what happens when Trump
or other countries start to pull away from these targets
is that we start to get more warming because we
move away from the focus of trying to get more
clean energy and rely less on fossil fuels.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
So just how did we get here, How have Trump's
actions played out since his first day in office, and
how will these last few weeks of climate policy reversals
impact the US and the rest of the world.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
It is a job of a government to try and
provide for welfare of society. That is why governments are elected.
But if you are not going to be believing in
the facts of climate change, which are scientifically true and
have consensus around the world, then you're not going to
be able to make informed decisions that will help you
to protect people from the harm. That's coming their.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Way today on the show Trump and the Climate, a
walk through some of his administration's key climate actions, the
international fallout, and what it all means for the global
fight to stop the warming of the planet. This is
the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder, so Aksha.
(02:59):
Trump has taken several actions to reverse US policy on
climate since the start of his second term, but the
one that really set the tone was him pulling out
of the Paris Climate Agreement on day one. So let's
start there. He's pulled out of the accord before, during
his first term in twenty seventeen. But what's different this time.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Well, you're right, this wasn't a surprise because he'd said
he'd do it, and he's done it in the past.
But there is certainly something different about this time. So
on the negative side, Trump has more backers for his
anti climate bush because there's been a right wing turned
in politics around the world. There's also the fact that
(03:40):
companies and countries that had set targets to meet as
soon as twenty thirty are way off track from meeting
those climate targets. And we've also just lived through the
hottest year in twenty twenty four, we've breached for the
first time one point five degrees celsius, which is one
of the two most ambitious targets we have under the
Paris Agreement. So there is the sense of whether we'll
(04:02):
ever be able to keep under the Paris goals of
not warming the planet by two degrees solsius, And so
the urgency to act has grown. But clearly the companies
and countries aren't doing all that much. That's the bad side.
There's also a good side that is different this time.
So when Trump quit the Paras Agreement the first time around,
(04:24):
global clean energy investments stood at about four hundred billion
dollars according to Bloomberg NEF. In twenty twenty four, they
breached two trillion dollars two point one trillion dollars to
be precise. And there is something fundamentally different about this moment,
which is today clean energy is much much cheaper than
the last time Trump pulled out of the Paris Agreement,
(04:47):
and climate impacts are much much more severe, and so
people have a recognition that this problem is only going
to get worse. But fortunately the solutions are also getting cheaper.
The other thing is that there were always these rumors
that once the US, the world's largest historical emitter of
greenhouse gases the world's largest economy, pulls out of a
(05:08):
global treaty, other countries will follow. That didn't happen last time,
and it doesn't seem like it's going to happen this time.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Okay, so you've given us the good news and the
bad news. I'm wondering a little more about how other
world leaders and business leaders are reacting to Trump's moves.
Just how strong are other countries climate commitments and who
might step up and fill the void left by the
United States.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
There's certainly been a muted response this time. Let's take corporations.
Last time around, these big tech companies were jostling to
be the climate leaders in the world. Elon Musk quit
a Trump advisory council as a result of Trump pulling
out of the Paris Agreement. Well, this time around, none
of the tech bosses are saying anything about Paris. Elon
(05:55):
Musk is in the Trump government, and from a country standpoint,
there isn't the same bulwark of climate forward leaders that
was there the last time. We had Angela Merkel. We
had justin Trudeau, who had just been elected this time. Yes,
Ursula V on their lane from the European Union did
say that europe is going to stay the course. But
even Lula in Brazil, who is going to be hosting
(06:18):
a COP meeting later this year, let his deputies react
to a Trump exit. So there's this sense among world
leaders who are facing economic issues that they are not
willing to try and push back against an embolden Trump.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Last time we spoke, the big questions at the COP
summit in Baku were around money. Who is going to
pay for the energy transition, how much developed countries will
spend to support developing countries. How does the US pulling
out change those calculations.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
That is perhaps the most significant question. So at Baku,
all countries, including the US, agreed on a goal to
triple climate finance from one hundred billion dollars to three
hundred billion dollars by twenty thirty five.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
That's money developed countries promised to put specifically toward helping
developing nations respond to climate change and invest in clean energy.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
So they have ten years to get to that goal,
but it means they have to start ramping up right
away because it is a big goal to meet and
Now that the US, the world's largest economy, is out
with all its banks and all its heft, it's unlikely
that that acceleration from one hundred to three hundred will
happen at the same pace as it would have if
the US were part of the agreement. Now we will
(07:33):
certainly see a rise in climate finance because other countries
will start to step in. But maybe we are already
looking at the three hundred billion dollar goal being missed.
Even if the US is not putting any money directly
from the government side under a Trump administration towards climate finance,
it does contribute to these multilateral development banks like World
(07:55):
Bank or the IMF, which then go on to contribute
to climate finance. And the US is the largest shareholder
in most of these MDBs, and it could start to
try and pull back money that these banks were previously
giving to climate finance, So that could have a multiplier
effect if Trump so wishes right.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
And meanwhile, Trump has been cutting domestic spending on the
climate too, with the help of Elon Musk's Doge Task Force.
An EPA administrator Lizelden has been cutting millions in EPA
grants focused on environmental justice what do we know about
how these cuts could impact climate regulation and climate research.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
There is just so much that is happening, and it
is unclear just how wide spread this impact is going
to be till we start to come to the places
where we expect an APA regulation to come through because
industries need to move on and start to buildings, or
a climate science report has to drop because there was
a deadline to produce that report and then it doesn't
(08:59):
come Those are things we are looking out for which
are in the future, but there are already impacts that
we can see. So in trying to keep climate out
of the conversation, out of research, there was a downstream
impact where a climate scientist in the US who is
supposed to be heading a very important working group of
(09:20):
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is the world's
premier body for all climate science research, could not make
it to her meeting in hano and China because the
Trump administration said that NASA cannot fund anymore climate science work.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
What does it mean for that researcher to miss that meeting?
What didn't happen?
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Well, the US is one of the world's largest funder
of climate science research, about a fifth of all the
authors of these big IPCC reports are Americans. That is
twice as much as the next biggest country, which is
the UK. And so when you stop bringing American scientists
into the climate conversation, you lose a big chunk of
(10:03):
climate science understanding of the world. And Okay, that for
now is fine, but these reports which will come in
twenty thirty will start to become worse today. And so
this sort of pull one string and then the fabric
starts to fall apart is something we expect to see
more and more.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Of after the break. More on what climate policy reversals
could mean for the green technology sector and for the
world's reliance on fossil fuels. Pulling out of the Paris
(10:43):
Climate Agreement was only the first and a flurry of
climate policy changes since Trump took office.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
We ended all of Biden's environmental restrictions that we're making
our country far less safe and totally unaffordable.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
His administration has blocked the enforcement of environmental justice law
US stopped a global air quality monitoring program, and started
to roll back rules around corporate climate disclosures. Last month,
Bloomberg reported that the EPA was recommending the government throw
out its conclusion that greenhouse gases endanger the public. But
there's another piece of the story that I asked Bloomberg's
(11:18):
oxshot ROTHI to unpack more where this all leaves investments
in green technology. When the Paris Agreement was first signed
in twenty sixteen, there was this rapid rise in investment
in climate tech companies, and there was more funding for
projects that focused on the energy transition. With Trump in office,
how could that picture of global investment change.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
It can have pretty big impacts because a lot of
the funding that went into nascent climate technologies came from
the US, went to US startups that were at the
forefront of developing these technologies. But it does create opportunities
for other countries to be able to absorb some of
this talent that sits in America that has developed this technology,
(12:03):
that wants to build these plants that will reduce greener's
gas emissions, that will make electricity cheaper, that will make
electricity more easily accessible because it will tap into renewable resources,
not just the sun and the wind, but also geothermal resources.
And it creates an opportunity for countries that are climate forward,
have climate forward leaders to give home to American startups.
(12:27):
Because it's clear, at least from this administration's steps taken
so far, that they don't care about climate technologies.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
What are the countries that are set up best to
take advantage of this opportunity?
Speaker 1 (12:40):
I mean, the simplest answer there is China. Out of
the two point one trillion dollars that were invested in
the energy transition last year, eight hundred billion dollars came
from China. That is more than the US, European Union,
and the UK combined. But that's not to say that
China is the only country that can win these other
technologies that China doesn't have a lead in, like carbon catcher,
(13:04):
like green hydrogen, like heat pumps, where local manufacturing in
other parts of the world can certainly catch up, and
so you might see competition on green tech outside of
America that will produce losers and winners.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
We have more liquid gold under our feet than any
nation on Earth, and by.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Far akshat, strengthening America's fossil fuel industry is central to
Trump's economic agenda. He emphasized that in his speech to
Congress this week.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
It's called drill, Baby, drill.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
But what about the economics of not investing in the
energy transition and not investing in these kinds of things.
Could this actually hurt the US's economic competitiveness in this space.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
So there is perhaps something to be gained by trying
to drill baby drill in the short term. If you
have higher oil and gas prices, you might be able
to profit from it or make oil and gas cheaper
for American consumers. But that is a short term gain
for a long term loss. So one thing that most
experts agree on is that the future of energy is
(14:11):
to go towards distributed energy that comes from renewable sources
because they are widely available, they're easy to tap, and
now they're also very cheap to tap. But certainly ten
or fifteen years from now, if we look back, we'll
see this period as one where the US started to
lose its competitive edge in green technologies.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Well, akshat, this is of course all happening on the
heels of those devastating fires in la Just a few
weeks ago, Trump moved to end climate related work and
eliminate the use of climate related terms in the Department
of Homeland Security, which typically responds to natural disasters. If
the US government is no longer interested in addressing or
(14:53):
acknowledging climate change. What does that mean for the country
if and when more extreme weather EVAs happen, What does
it mean for the world.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
I think that was a feeling that many experts had,
which is, you know, when we were talking about climate
change in the nineteen nineties, it was a problem that
was a decade or two decades away. Well, it's here.
The la fires are a really good example or study
that just came out said they were made thirty five
percent worse by human caused climate change. But the reality
(15:25):
has also sunk in among the people who were hoping
that the alarm of extreme weather will cause people to
ask for more climate action. That's not happening at the
scale we want. I mean the elections around the world,
not just Donald Trump's, are a proof of that. So
there is a pivot that we are seeing among world
(15:45):
leaders but also climate advocates that economic growth and progress
on other metrics are also something that people care deeply about.
That any climate action that goes against those progress metrics
is not going to fly. You have to find a
way to make all these metrics work together, and you
(16:06):
have to find a way to ensure that good information
gets to people for why these decisions are being made,
and so the hope that actually weather events will finally
get us on the path of acting on climate is
one that fewer and fewer people are relying on.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
This is The Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder.
This episode was produced and sound designed by Jessica Beck.
It was edited by Aaron Edwards and Emily Buzo. It
was mixed by Alex Sugia and fact checked by Adriana Tapia.
Our senior producer is Naomi Shaven. Our senior editor is
Elizabeth Ponso. Our executive producer is Nicole beamsterbor Sage Fouman
(16:48):
is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. If you like this episode,
make sure to subscribe and review The Big Take wherever
you get your podcasts. It helps people find the show.
Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow. Roun MHM
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