December 7, 2023 • 9 mins
Edelman CEO Richard Edelman discusses the firm’s Climate Trust Barometer and takeaways from COP28.
Hosts: Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec. Producer: Paul Brennan.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and
Tim Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
We've got some numbers for everybody to chew on. Ninety
three percent of respondents said that they believe climate change
poses a serious and imminent threat to the planets. Seventy
one percent say the weather where they live has gotten
more extreme over the past few years. We have certainly
seen it this year, and eighty two percent worry that
climate change will make life extremely difficult and unpleasant for
(00:26):
all of us and our families.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
I can relate to a lot of this, given Carol,
I'm in New York. I've lived through three once in
a one hundred year storms, I know, and that's like,
you know.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
It's supposed to be anomalized, not as much.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Once in a century storms.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Well, the figures we just talked about, right, I know,
it's dramatic, but we're living it. The figures come from
Edelman's twenty twenty three Trust Barometer special report Trust and
Climate Change, released this month. Richard Edelman is in the house,
he CEO of Edelman, the global public relations firm. Of course,
behind the Trust Barometer. We've talked about it over the years.
He's just back from COP twenty eight, the UN's annual
Climate change Conference, which this year is being held in
(01:04):
the UAE, and it's just about halfway over at this point.
As we said, he's here in studio. How are you
You are just back? Yeah, a little jet lagged a
little bit. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
I actually feel good about the progress at COP twenty eight, Carol,
because the importance of the finance unlock cannot be understated.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
What do you mean by that?
Speaker 1 (01:27):
So in a sense to have a remediation fund that
was passed the first day by the assembled multitude is
a big deal. And also that UAE and Bloomberg Philanthropy
has announced a big fund thirty billion dollars to invest
in climate technologies. That's making finance work for climate remediation.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
How has that not happened in the past, because I
feel like in an ESG world, I think we thought
all this money was coming in.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
It's called COP twenty eight, not COP one, but.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
The other twenty seven haven't come to these kinds of agreements.
And so the five hundred million dollars already voted for
remediation funds, they need a lot more. And also, let's
face it the reality of fusion and hydrogen and all
these things that need actually to be invested in and
(02:23):
made available at a right price. And it's the key
thing that binds the North and the South together. Think
that before you always had this kind of well you
Western guys have already had yours, and now we want ours.
And so the remediation fund. So, for example, Lula of
Brazil got up and said, listen, give me remediation so
(02:44):
I can stop people cutting the forest and Amazon makes sense,
we have to pay farmers not to do that. And
so this remediation kind of thing, or the venture fund
is part of we hear you South. We want to
be helpful to you in supposed to opposing.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
In terms of technology, in terms of solutions. What moves
the needle here?
Speaker 1 (03:07):
I think optimism And so our study, the Trust Study
on sustainability, showed that people who believe that they actually
the climate change can be dealt with will change their behavior.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
I was so interested in these numbers. They were so
much higher than I thought, and I thought to myself,
go do this in Congress and see what members of
Congress actually But.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
A person who is optimistic is two and a half
times more likely to change his behavior about shorter showers
or evs or whatever else, as opposed to the half
of the world that says, I give up, it's too late.
What the hell I may as well, you know, drive
a gas callsler.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
But is somebody who's coming out of an emerging economy,
maybe they're the first generation to actually have running water
and electricity. Do they care how that electricity is generated
to the same extent that of you know, my neighbors
who say, after the storm here in New York on
September twenty ninth, they say, you know what, We're going
to pay thirty thousand dollars for solar because we think
(04:03):
it's a good investment and we need to do something.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
And we need to use Look, I think in developing
world it's about the price, because it's a price and access.
And if I don't have the ability to have a
light so that my kid can read and get educated,
then I want the light and I should feel like
I should get it. But as to where it comes from,
meaning whether it's oil or solar, they don't care. But
(04:29):
it has to be affordable, and that's the key point
of this. But I think another key point in this
study is the relatively low trust in business. You know,
we've always talked about how business is much more trusted
than government, not unsustainability, because we're seen as having talked
a lot and delivered a little. And so I really
(04:49):
like that so many companies showed up to COP twenty
eight and it's an agriculture, or it's an energy, or
it's in tech.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
I feel like it's starting to you know, ESG right.
The original idea, right was that these ESG elements would
affect your business. And I feel like climate is now
affecting people's business in other words, whether it either shuts
it down or I mean, I think about the beer
producers or you know, we talked to a lot of
(05:18):
folks in the wine industry, the fires, the you know,
soils changing it's dry or whatever. But I think in general,
it's companies are really being hit and impacted by it,
and so they've got to do something well. And that's fair.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
It's totally fair, Carol, that they want to be part
of change because their supply chains are deeply disrupted otherwise.
And so why regenerative agriculture for Unilever, because they're going
to make the soybeans that going to the mayonnaise that,
you know, and they're going to have to do it
in a way that the soil is able to keep producing.
(05:56):
And I heard something fascinating in in cop fifty percent
of the farmers who own cattle are sixty five plus
or something. There's a whole generation change and it's fifty
percent of all farms are people who are fifty plus.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
It makes sense.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
So the youngers they.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Want to move to the city, they don't want to
be doing correct.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
But we have to get younger farmers. So there's a
generation change possible. Who will want to do it differently,
a differently approach, a different approach.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Well, you know we always talk about well consumers they care,
like we've had conversations my daughter, you know, or but
is it true? Is that really moving the nut? That
is somebody going to say, I'm going to buy this
because that company stands for what I believe in. But
it's going to cost me double the price. So will
we do that?
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Consumers won't pay more? Yeah, And they told us. We
did a study with NYU over the summer and if
it's good for me and good for the planet, I'll
do it.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
You know, I wrote this all the time, Like I
think it's FedEx or ups or like even you know,
buy tickets for an airline and they're like, do you
want to pay a few more dollars to offset? I'm
like no, Like why is that with uber? Like go
for a green car, you know, yeah, but oftentimes that's
like less expensive. You know when we were on the
West Coast and every car.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Was yeah, that's it was easy on the West.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Yeah, it's so that that's so interesting to hear.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
But but a company like Hundai that has fifty thousand
dollars EV, it's going to sell more than than ones
that are for eighty or ninety or that's true. But
because in a pyramid in the marketing business, we've got
to get to the big middle. Yeah, and those are
the people who we.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Talk about it, right, we'd love to own EV's.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Yeah, we live in the city where we can't even
get parking. Yeah, it's tough, but but look at over
the last six months the way EV sales in the
US have fallen off a cliff essentially, and in favor
of internal combustion engines. I mean, as a year ago,
hybrids are doing well, but they're still used.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Gas well ev sales passed a million units this year
out of seventeen million. And you know, again, the producers
are anticipating it's going to be a quarter of the
market in the two or three years. But they're going
to have to have infrastructure such that it makes it
easy for you to refill.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Is the US of China doing enough? They're important in
all of this, the biggest emitters right when it comes
to the impact.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
So the Chinese continue to do coal plants, and yet
they're also the biggest implementers of solar because their energy
use is continuing to soar. So the hope is that
the COP twenty eight will stimulate them to focus more
on the solar than the coal because the coal is cheap.
(08:44):
And again it's the price issue for developing markets. But
if consumers start and this is where I think COP
has to go to a next step in COP twenty
nine or thirty and actually say to consumers, you know,
we want you to affirmatively change your behavior and byproducts
that are sustainably sourced.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yeah, bonuses on all of us too, write.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Correct shorter again, shorter showers called water wash. There are
all sorts of small things that we need to do.
But it's really interesting, Carol, that just quickly the source
of information has to be scientists, but also people like you,
somebody who's a friend and family. We've got to get
to the pastor or other people informal sources because they
don't just believe experts anymore.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
That's really interesting your community, right, It has to be
kind of putting pressure on you. You well, so good
to see you in studio.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Happy holidays, Thank you so much, Happy holidays.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Richard Edelman of course, CEO of Edelman joining us in studio.
You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and
Tim Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
We've got some numbers for everybody to chew on. Ninety
three percent of respondents said that they believe climate change
poses a serious and imminent threat to the planets. Seventy
one percent say the weather where they live has gotten
more extreme over the past few years. We have certainly
seen it this year, and eighty two percent worry that
climate change will make life extremely difficult and unpleasant for
(00:26):
all of us and our families.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
I can relate to a lot of this, given Carol,
I'm in New York. I've lived through three once in
a one hundred year storms, I know, and that's like,
you know.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
It's supposed to be anomalized, not as much.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Once in a century storms.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Well, the figures we just talked about, right, I know,
it's dramatic, but we're living it. The figures come from
Edelman's twenty twenty three Trust Barometer special report Trust and
Climate Change, released this month. Richard Edelman is in the house,
he CEO of Edelman, the global public relations firm. Of course,
behind the Trust Barometer. We've talked about it over the years.
He's just back from COP twenty eight, the UN's annual
Climate change Conference, which this year is being held in
(01:04):
the UAE, and it's just about halfway over at this point.
As we said, he's here in studio. How are you
You are just back? Yeah, a little jet lagged a
little bit. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
I actually feel good about the progress at COP twenty eight, Carol,
because the importance of the finance unlock cannot be understated.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
What do you mean by that?
Speaker 1 (01:27):
So in a sense to have a remediation fund that
was passed the first day by the assembled multitude is
a big deal. And also that UAE and Bloomberg Philanthropy
has announced a big fund thirty billion dollars to invest
in climate technologies. That's making finance work for climate remediation.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
How has that not happened in the past, because I
feel like in an ESG world, I think we thought
all this money was coming in.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
It's called COP twenty eight, not COP one, but.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
The other twenty seven haven't come to these kinds of agreements.
And so the five hundred million dollars already voted for
remediation funds, they need a lot more. And also, let's
face it the reality of fusion and hydrogen and all
these things that need actually to be invested in and
(02:23):
made available at a right price. And it's the key
thing that binds the North and the South together. Think
that before you always had this kind of well you
Western guys have already had yours, and now we want ours.
And so the remediation fund. So, for example, Lula of
Brazil got up and said, listen, give me remediation so
(02:44):
I can stop people cutting the forest and Amazon makes sense,
we have to pay farmers not to do that. And
so this remediation kind of thing, or the venture fund
is part of we hear you South. We want to
be helpful to you in supposed to opposing.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
In terms of technology, in terms of solutions. What moves
the needle here?
Speaker 1 (03:07):
I think optimism And so our study, the Trust Study
on sustainability, showed that people who believe that they actually
the climate change can be dealt with will change their behavior.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
I was so interested in these numbers. They were so
much higher than I thought, and I thought to myself,
go do this in Congress and see what members of
Congress actually But.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
A person who is optimistic is two and a half
times more likely to change his behavior about shorter showers
or evs or whatever else, as opposed to the half
of the world that says, I give up, it's too late.
What the hell I may as well, you know, drive
a gas callsler.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
But is somebody who's coming out of an emerging economy,
maybe they're the first generation to actually have running water
and electricity. Do they care how that electricity is generated
to the same extent that of you know, my neighbors
who say, after the storm here in New York on
September twenty ninth, they say, you know what, We're going
to pay thirty thousand dollars for solar because we think
(04:03):
it's a good investment and we need to do something.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
And we need to use Look, I think in developing
world it's about the price, because it's a price and access.
And if I don't have the ability to have a
light so that my kid can read and get educated,
then I want the light and I should feel like
I should get it. But as to where it comes from,
meaning whether it's oil or solar, they don't care. But
(04:29):
it has to be affordable, and that's the key point
of this. But I think another key point in this
study is the relatively low trust in business. You know,
we've always talked about how business is much more trusted
than government, not unsustainability, because we're seen as having talked
a lot and delivered a little. And so I really
(04:49):
like that so many companies showed up to COP twenty
eight and it's an agriculture, or it's an energy, or
it's in tech.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
I feel like it's starting to you know, ESG right.
The original idea, right was that these ESG elements would
affect your business. And I feel like climate is now
affecting people's business in other words, whether it either shuts
it down or I mean, I think about the beer
producers or you know, we talked to a lot of
(05:18):
folks in the wine industry, the fires, the you know,
soils changing it's dry or whatever. But I think in general,
it's companies are really being hit and impacted by it,
and so they've got to do something well. And that's fair.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
It's totally fair, Carol, that they want to be part
of change because their supply chains are deeply disrupted otherwise.
And so why regenerative agriculture for Unilever, because they're going
to make the soybeans that going to the mayonnaise that,
you know, and they're going to have to do it
in a way that the soil is able to keep producing.
(05:56):
And I heard something fascinating in in cop fifty percent
of the farmers who own cattle are sixty five plus
or something. There's a whole generation change and it's fifty
percent of all farms are people who are fifty plus.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
It makes sense.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
So the youngers they.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Want to move to the city, they don't want to
be doing correct.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
But we have to get younger farmers. So there's a
generation change possible. Who will want to do it differently,
a differently approach, a different approach.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Well, you know we always talk about well consumers they care,
like we've had conversations my daughter, you know, or but
is it true? Is that really moving the nut? That
is somebody going to say, I'm going to buy this
because that company stands for what I believe in. But
it's going to cost me double the price. So will
we do that?
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Consumers won't pay more? Yeah, And they told us. We
did a study with NYU over the summer and if
it's good for me and good for the planet, I'll
do it.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
You know, I wrote this all the time, Like I
think it's FedEx or ups or like even you know,
buy tickets for an airline and they're like, do you
want to pay a few more dollars to offset? I'm
like no, Like why is that with uber? Like go
for a green car, you know, yeah, but oftentimes that's
like less expensive. You know when we were on the
West Coast and every car.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Was yeah, that's it was easy on the West.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Yeah, it's so that that's so interesting to hear.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
But but a company like Hundai that has fifty thousand
dollars EV, it's going to sell more than than ones
that are for eighty or ninety or that's true. But
because in a pyramid in the marketing business, we've got
to get to the big middle. Yeah, and those are
the people who we.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Talk about it, right, we'd love to own EV's.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Yeah, we live in the city where we can't even
get parking. Yeah, it's tough, but but look at over
the last six months the way EV sales in the
US have fallen off a cliff essentially, and in favor
of internal combustion engines. I mean, as a year ago,
hybrids are doing well, but they're still used.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Gas well ev sales passed a million units this year
out of seventeen million. And you know, again, the producers
are anticipating it's going to be a quarter of the
market in the two or three years. But they're going
to have to have infrastructure such that it makes it
easy for you to refill.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Is the US of China doing enough? They're important in
all of this, the biggest emitters right when it comes
to the impact.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
So the Chinese continue to do coal plants, and yet
they're also the biggest implementers of solar because their energy
use is continuing to soar. So the hope is that
the COP twenty eight will stimulate them to focus more
on the solar than the coal because the coal is cheap.
(08:44):
And again it's the price issue for developing markets. But
if consumers start and this is where I think COP
has to go to a next step in COP twenty
nine or thirty and actually say to consumers, you know,
we want you to affirmatively change your behavior and byproducts
that are sustainably sourced.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yeah, bonuses on all of us too, write.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Correct shorter again, shorter showers called water wash. There are
all sorts of small things that we need to do.
But it's really interesting, Carol, that just quickly the source
of information has to be scientists, but also people like you,
somebody who's a friend and family. We've got to get
to the pastor or other people informal sources because they
don't just believe experts anymore.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
That's really interesting your community, right, It has to be
kind of putting pressure on you. You well, so good
to see you in studio.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Happy holidays, Thank you so much, Happy holidays.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Richard Edelman of course, CEO of Edelman joining us in studio.
Hosts And Creators
Tim Stenovec
Carol Massar
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