 reflections on the G20 and COP26, lots of reflections, lots of international conferences, lots of issues, especially climate change with Carlos Juarez, who is really the host of the show, Global Connections. Hi, Carlos. Hey, great to see you, Jay, always, and to reconnect, of course. And yeah, I mean, an opportunity for us as we often come together to talk story about what's happening in global politics today, Joe Biden returned from a trip to Europe. It took him initially to Rome, the G20 summit meeting, actually the first in-person meeting they've had in a few years since the pandemic. The G20 is, of course, an important forum, brings together many countries, but in many ways, it's overshadowed by what's happening right now, what began a few days ago, this COP26, the Global Climate Summit that's happening in Glasgow in Scotland. And we'll talk a little bit about that and maybe weave into that. An overall view of Joe Biden comes back from Europe, he's obviously going there to apologize and try to win back the trust of our allies and the rest. It's a challenge. And one thing, when you look at the image of the US, while many European leaders will certainly welcome a return to diplomacy and engagement, on the other hand, it doesn't take one to look at American politics and be a little bit both confused and maybe worried, uncertain. We wake up today some rather alarming alarm bells, if you will, in domestic politics here, the shellacking that the Democrats took in Virginia losing a race there that might have been expected to go for the Democrats. My point being that for international observers and for many leaders, they look at US politics and after having gone through the Trump period and now the transition, it remains uncertain what's gonna happen. I mean, we're going into midterms next year that are still unclear, the role of the past president and the like. So I think many look at American politics and remain a little skeptical, maybe welcoming on one hand Biden as just a little bit of the old style, but at the same time also a little bewildered by what they see in domestic politics. But let me ask you, Jay, what's on your mind about looking at this, the US role in the world right now and Biden, what are your thoughts? I think you're right to say that the EU is, the world is skeptical, but I don't think it's a little skeptical. I think it's a lot skeptical. I mean, they read the paper and they see CNN and MSNBC the same way we do. They see the BBC the way we do. Every time I talk to somebody in a far off land, I ask them, are you watching American television? Oh yeah, every day, no less than you, Jay. So they know what's going on here. And so all you have to do is put yourself in their shoes. And that includes leaders of state who may not be as understanding as Angela Merkel, who was an understanding and tolerant, a good person who can make the distinction. But I think a lot of them are into the real values, the real expectations of their country and their administrations. And they look at Joe Biden and they see a president who can't get anything done, whose every initiative has been swore it. And right now it's, he said he was gonna try to get something done before he made the trip, nothing got done. Now he's back, will anything get done? I think his priorities may be a little bit off the plate and they know it. So if you ask me what kind of influence he had, what kind of success he might have had at these G20 and COP26 meetings, I would say, that people were being diplomatic with him. They were expressing perhaps a little skepticism, but under the hood, it's a lot of skepticism. Yeah, yeah, I mean, again, there's a lot of reasons to be skeptical. There are so many pieces of the puzzle, especially on this issue of climate change and maybe in understanding this COP26, this large summit that's happening, just to put it in the context, it's part of a framework, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, as it's known, the UNF, CCC. But over the many years now, since about, I wanna say, that's probably 1995 now, we've seen a series of these meetings, they're called COP, which are the climate summits, most prominently back in 2015, it was the Paris climate, of course, right? Others have reached things like platforms in Bourbon, South Africa, the protocols of Kyoto. And let me say this, that obviously they're meeting now, it's gonna be ongoing. And on one hand, it's gonna be disappointing for many because a lot of dull speeches and a lot of the same stuff. And yet on the other hand, there's an argument that these meetings are still necessary because it is the place. So that despite these differences, it's where people do come together and have to continue this dialogue. And so we're looking at understanding the process because it's one that brings together science, obviously climate change requires an understanding of that diplomacy, the political leaders have to come together, negotiate, make agreements, activism, civil society NGOs, there are those that have a lot of passion and what's at stake. And finally, public opinion, which is being, of course, shaped and influenced by all these different actors in different ways. Basically, we live in a world, Jay, with eight billion people that, if we don't make some effort, understand that an economy powered by coal, oil, natural gas has its limitations. But one of the challenges of these things is, look, we may all agree on that, but how do you get the change made? And long ago, there was a classic study done in the late 60s. It's an article that we often continue to read now. It's called the tragedy of the comments. And it refers to this issue where we may all know and understand that this issue, we have to do something about it, but it's the free rider problem. Why should I do it? Or it's also the time horizon. Political leaders live by a need to survive. And if they're elected officials, they make shorter-term decisions. They're not gonna bite the bullet for something that's gonna happen in 10 or 20 or 30 years. So unfortunately, that's the trade-off that, you may all agree, but who's gonna take the move? I mentioned the free rider, and that's from economic theory where, if I can get the benefits or not have to pay the price and still have the same, why should I, where are the incentives? So a lot of reasons why you can have me skeptical about this and yet on another level, just like we can criticize and often do the United Nations, it is the forum, it is the place where the world comes together. And these forums is where you have all these different stakeholders coming together. And if it's not happening, then I suppose things would be worse, but at any rate, it is what it is. I am reminded of a charitable event. I went to years ago where the guy who was moderating the meeting, there were a lot of people in the room with the dinner charity benefit thing. He decided he was going to create a kind of reverse bidding contest. So he said, Carlos, how about you giving 10 bucks? Because Joe is sitting a few seats away from you, he's giving 10 bucks, why don't you give 10 bucks? And Jay, why don't you give 20 bucks? And it went around the room like that and his job was to, like an auctioneer in reverse, trying to get people to bid up the other guy. And it was an invidious comparison sort of thing where you didn't want to say no because everybody would think you were in cheapskate. And that's the way he raised a lot of money. And I make the parallel because I think that's the way a cop works. Everybody goes there and they may have a number but then they see that the country sitting next to them has another number and they try to look good. They try to show that they're equally committed and so forth. Then the problem as you point out though is are they really going to do that? Their term expires in office in a year or two or three and they're not going to be around and they're not responsible for what their successor does and their successor is not committed the way they are. You know, at the end of the day it's what the country actually commits to not what they say at COP26. And I think a lot of people made promises that were empty as they have in the past. And I think, you know, the answer is that Joe Biden's got to come back and get the beef. He's got to go to Congress and say I want X dollars because that's what I told them I would get or that's what I hoped I would get. And how about voting on that boys and girls? Well, you know, the Republicans aren't going to do that. They don't believe in climate change. I mean, they have their own way of looking at truth in the world. And it's not like Joe Biden or it's not like COP but it's not like any of the people who support action against climate change. So I think, you know, the US cannot be it is not a leader anymore if it ever was in climate change. And at the end of the day it is money. It's a matter of committing money. But Carlos, I want to add something, you know, that came up and that's this, you know, one solution for decarbonization is so obvious, which is kind of a sacred cow is nuclear energy because nuclear energy does not emanate greenhouse gas. It does not emanate carbon. It does not involve carbon at all. Nuclear energy is all around the world. And if you just check Google, you will find that there's a lot of countries in the world who have nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, sometimes for both, you know, like Iran. But, you know, nuclear energy is Hitherian. Even in this country, nuclear energy is alive and well. We don't hear that much about it, but it generates as much electricity, for example, as clean energy does around the same percentage of the total pie. So it really surprised me to find that. At the same time, you know, China is building half a trillion dollar plant in nuclear energy. It understands this. And India Modi, we're having a show about this at five o'clock with Mumbai has promised at COP26 that he's going to deliver a, you know, fossil fuel economy by the year 2070, which is a long way as far as I'm concerned. But how is he going to do that? I'll tell you one of the ways he can do that, which probably was not discussed, is a sacred cow, is by nuclear energy. If every country adopts nuclear, we'll get there that way, but they're not saying that's the way. Yeah, that's fascinating. And, you know, I kind of want to build on what you spoke earlier about it, the idea that, well, you mentioned maybe Biden is not leading, but I think that's fair to say about most of these world leaders. Right now in this two week summit that's going on in Glasgow, you have about 115 leaders. And, you know, from all over the world, you have people coming from, you know, even at the governors and, you know, municipal leaders, obviously the activists diplomats, everybody. And many, particularly the political leaders, they've come to say how they plan to, in some ways they're there to apologize first, how they're going to plan to atone for their carbon sins. And then, you know, interestingly, they're giving a lot of speeches, you know, rather dull speeches in many cases that are less about leading than following. What do I mean by that? So the reality is that the global climate system, it doesn't impose any sanctions if you miss the emissions. So if you don't do it, well, nobody, no cop is going to come around and find you. And similarly, you know, if you don't pledge to do enough to keep checking, you know, warming and check, rather it relies on what we might call moral suasion. And, you know, and that's what these meetings are doing, the sense of shame of leaders before their peers if their countries are seen as laggards. So they have to go there and promise this and that and that. And so it does seem very, in some ways, you know, well, kind of phony because the idea here is that it keeps them coming back again and again to these events each time squeezing out higher commitments. The goal is to build a sense of inexorable progress. We're doing something, we're meeting, we're making commitments. Well, now having said all that, and again, you've got it all across. You've got Biden, you've got Macron, you've got, you know, Boris Johnson, the European commissioner, the commission president Ursula von der Leyen, all of them gave speeches that didn't really advance a lot of, you know, big pledges. I mean, some tinkering on the margins here. You mentioned Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India. He stirred up the meeting just in the last day with a pledge to reach this net zero by 2070 and with Swiss faction during the 2020. Well, again, it remains to be seen, but he's certainly during up the pot. But having said all that, I mean, let me add here that, you know, we can be cynical, we can criticize these things, but at the end of the day, these meetings do actually have some concrete actions. Today we're seeing this, of 26 over a hundred countries have pledged to halt and reverse deforestation, which is, you know, one of the crucial steps in combating climate change. Now again, even though it requires suspending disbelief that the pledge includes Brazil, a country that has really probably done more and reached the highest levels of that. So that's one example. Another, a second pledge that's just come out and it's about a hundred countries that are seeking to lower the global emissions of methane. This is the second largest contributor to climate change after carbon dioxide. And so they've made some specific pledges. Again, the paradox, the irony here is that it includes huge oil and gas producers like Nigeria, many of the Gulf Petro States, and they would have to undertake very painful and very unlikely policy changes to make that happen. So again, it's one thing to going on and say, you'll do it, but you know, you're a Petro State and good luck, because that's your source of revenue. You know, one interesting thing I was gonna mention there was a delegate that I saw the president of the Pacific Island of Palau. He traveled through all kinds of pandemic disrupted airports, took him five days to get the glass though. And there, you know, the cruel sort of almost, you know, the cycle of codependency is that he has to go there and look for partnerships with the very nations whose emissions threatened their very existence and you know, the survival of this, you know, small Pacific Island state. So it's an interesting paradox, but I say that because, you know, gosh, there are some things that come out of that and that are important and commitments, but there's also a lot of hot air. And so rather than going there and leading, I mean, interestingly, we have the activists, you know, Greta Thunberg is probably seen as one of the, well, certainly a civil society leader. I saw, she got a lot of criticism for, you know, some of her cursing and curse words. So one of her tweets, she issued a statement that she's gonna go, I think net zero cursing or something. I don't know, kind of taking it tongue in cheek. But anyway, I guess this idea of when we look at how, you know, these meetings come together, they do result in some concrete action at a time, but a lot of it is more just the showmanship, you know, sort of, you know. I think there's a large group of people who recognize exactly that. There were protests outside of COP26 by the greenwashing people. This is like the progressives in a Democratic Congress. Whatever the moderates wanna do, they're not satisfied because they're more aggressive. And so the people who are protesting the whole COP21 is just a greenwashing experience. They're not satisfied, they're enough. Action is actually being taken and promised. And I can stand, you know, that's where she is. That's where Greta is right there. She's a, you know, beyond the pale progressive. It's okay. That's what the younger generation should be doing. I think what's, what interesting piece about COP26 is that there were multinational corporations, some of them, you know, legitimately sincerely wanted to do this. Otherwise, you know, probably had their arms twisted who committed funds in the many billions. I don't remember the number through address climate change going forward. That's not government. That's not government. That's business. And so, you know, you have to look at that as a bit of a bright spot because maybe they will, maybe even the chances are even better. But I wanna add one other thing on that. This is technology counts. And we have technologies now that good count. You talk about reforestation. We've interviewed a company in California and I saw one in the paper this morning about reforestation. They use high tech systems. Oh, and there's one here. There's one here in the University of Hawaii. Camilo, Camilo is his name. And he is with the southwest, I think. And he plants trees using high tech scientific systems. Okay, this is really important. And as you go on, they have ways to drop it from a drone and they can plant thousands of trees in Brazil or anywhere else. And this kind of technology leverages every dollar that is spent. Now, unfortunately, governments don't understand this yet, but they will, they'll find out that technology can make it much easier. But the other thing I think that really comes down on top of it is that people don't really understand. And this is, you know, it's a sort of a biblical thing. They're not gonna understand that it affects them directly until they have the wildfire in their backyard until their house burns down. It's the same thing like right-wing politics. You know, when people are involved in a war where a lot of human beings are massacred and young people die, then they start getting a little wiser about geopolitical issues and how to avoid wars. It's the same thing with climate change. What will activate awake, you know, the same group of people of the same group of nations is if we have a really bad climate change effect, a fire that's really terrible, extreme weather that's really awful, sea level rise like in the South Pacific, these things will be so compelling that people will have to take action. Yeah, no, those are fascinating points. And I like how you describe these, you know, the technological opportunities because it allows some places, particularly developing countries to leapfrog and kind of move quicker to, you know, something that might not, well, it would have taken otherwise more time. And, you know, at the end of the day, particularly this neighborhood we're in, in Asia, we look at Asia, this is where, you know, the challenge and the logic is more pressing than ever. And we have about a billion and a half Asians who live in the tropics and hundreds of millions of them live near the coast and for their economies to continue to grow, they're gonna need ever more energy. And, you know, again, the challenge is, you know, what kind of energy you described, you know, the option of nuclear, I don't know where it fits into those places, but I imagine it could. But if it comes in the fossil fuel manner that we've been doing now for decades, they're gonna have to bear the mounting costs of adapting to and living with floods, with storms, with heat waves, with droughts long before they get rich. I mean, and so again, technologies may help us move quicker to, you know, avoid some of this. But at the end of the day as the world heats up, you know, for countries that are like, you know, latecomers that are poor underdeveloped, they end up having to run faster just to stay in the same place. And it is a challenge there. But in the long run, the only way to keep growing, I think is by leaving fossil fuel behind because, you know, while it's there, keep it easy, the deleterious effects and negative aspects are just challenging all around. But you have political forces that fight with those who would like to address climate change. You have the coal industry and Joe Manchin is an expression of that. You have large companies in fossil fuel. They actively lobby against climate change. I mean, taking action on climate change. You know, one party that's not at the table, which I find very interesting and I want to express that to you now. You know, when Joe Biden went to Rome, you know, for the, I guess the G20 thereabouts, he met with the Pope. That's right. And, you know, he probably confirmed his commitment to the Catholic church. There was an issue about whether he kits the Pope's ring or didn't, maybe he did it in private. All of that is just, you know, super- People magazine. Yeah, but it does raise the question of religion. Why is religion silent? Why is the Catholic church effectively silent on this? They influence so many people and so many governments, if you will, these days. You know, that fellow I talked about, Camilo Amora, who teaches at U-Age and who is into reforestation. His remark that caught me and still catches me today, he said, I want to go to heaven when I die and I want God to admit me into heaven. And so I have committed to plant a million trees and when I get to the gates of heaven, I'm going to say, God, you know, can you please let me in? I think, I've done well. I've done well. He's from Columbia, you know, in Latin America and he is religious Catholic and all this and it's important to him. But the reality is he is planting a million trees right now today, following through with his technology and his projects here and on the mainland and it's people like that. But, you know, I mean, I don't want to, you know, try to define exactly what his motivations are, but it does suggest to me, okay, that religion and religious organizations could have a huge effect on climate change, but they don't. Yeah, you know, yeah. And again here, I can't, I'm just thinking a lot right now. I'm just thinking the challenge of science and religion, you know, it's a delicate nexus, let's say. And I would guess there are some maybe smaller church denominations that are, you know, maybe more, you know, supportive of the science, et cetera, and others that just, well, you know, where we take care of the spiritual, the moral, leave the science to others, I don't know. It's fascinating to think about that, but gosh, what are the things that, you know, as we finish our chat today, I mean, one of the things that's interesting about this climate change issue, it really does, it's one of these rare things that weave together everybody. And of course, by that, I mean, you know, all of society, business, you know, environmental interests, business, you know, the government, no doubt. And there are so many stakeholders. And what you were describing, some of the challenges here are there, or why, you know, leaders do this. At the end of the day, we all have our different interests. And when we study as a political society, we all study how these come together, how they interact. We begin by looking, well, what are their interests? And it's not like interests are always fixed or clearly defined, they can change, they can evolve. You know, it's not fair to say all business interests are this, it depends, right? But the interests are there, and that's what, you know, shaped people's, you know, I guess motivations, as we were describing this, and why does he do this? Well, he's got a passion. And, you know, people have passions, whether it be about protecting the environment, about making money, or about fostering collaboration, whatever it might be. But it is fascinating to see that this is again, one of those things where you need scientists and experts, you need politicians who have to make decisions and legislators have to make, you know, choices. You need civil society to be on board, to support it, to fight the bullet, you know, to pay the higher prices that are things they're gonna cost. And boy, just weaving all this together is not easy at all. Now, having said all of this, I think it's fair to say, and I've seen it in my lifetime, perhaps, you know, I've raised two sons that are now young adults, and they have a different consciousness about environmental things. I think, you know, in the last generation, we have people growing up now who are more aware than, let's say, older generation, in general. And that's encouraging to me, to some extent. It doesn't say the challenges aren't there. And I began earlier, I mentioned this tragedy of the commons, and it is this idea that, look, we can all agree we gotta do this, but how do we get there? And, you know, that's the challenge. It's a biblical test for all of us. Yeah, I remember I was at a dinner party. I keep thinking of this, Carlos, the day that the Al Gore movie came out in Inconvenient Truths, and we had just finished our entrees, and somebody at the table began talking about this movie that they had seen, and we were going into dessert. And it took me, it just took me. We were not too far from the Varsity Theater, okay, on University Avenue. And I stood up and I left the table, myself, my wife was wondering what happened to me, and I went up the street to the Varsity Theater, and I had to watch that movie. And I've been, you know, committed to climate change really ever since, but I don't think everybody reacts that way. I don't think they see this as an existential threat. No, of course. It's a big problem. So my question to you is two questions. One is how do you rate Joe Biden's performance at G20 and at the COP26? That's the first part of the question. Would you give him a 10? Would you give him a five? What would you give him? No, certainly not a 10. I mean, he didn't win any, you know, thing. No, I mean, like many of these other leaders, he's gone and done. Oh, he's apologized for, you know, his predecessor. He's made commitments, but I think as I started at the beginning, I think there's a healthy skepticism, particularly because people are looking at American policy and saying, well, Biden, you know, we may like him, we may like his policy, but can he get it done? And look what's, you know, right now, he's got the control of the legislature, but he can't get it done. His opposition is these two senators that are so confusing for some, you know, particularly Europeans who have, you know, most of them work in parliamentary systems where once you have a majority, you get it done. Otherwise, you're not in the party. There's a lot of party discipline. And here we've watched for the last couple of months now, these, you know, the senator from West Virginia and the senator from Arizona who are simply, you know, holding all this. And even, for example, the immigration reform, which was supposed to be part of Biden's, you know, social spending. And now it's kind of leaving. It looks like that's not going to happen. So getting back to your first question overall, I mean, I don't know, I think people see him, but, you know, it wasn't like he came off, you know, with any, you know, anything particularly disastrous or positive. So I'd give him a seven and a half. He did what he had to do. No, that's very, that's kind of you. Yeah. We asked the same question earlier today in another show, and he had mostly sevens. Seven and a half. I mean, that's generous. And again, maybe because he didn't fail, but beyond that, well, again, I mean, you go to these meetings, but I think as we started the status really more, there continues to be some healthy skepticism about the U.S. because of our domestic politics. And, you know, it underscores how international relations really is connected to our domestic politics. And, you know, if we don't have our house in order, the world is going to, you know. That's my question. This is my last question to bear some discussion. And that's this. So everybody knows that Congress is not going to help him. Sorry. He's a nice guy, but nice guys don't build railroads. Nice guys, you know, are unable to get it done in the face of this kind of challenge. And so in terms of world leadership, it's really questionable about what the United States under him or under his successor for that matter, is going to be able to do much on climate change. And so what you have is a lot of rhetoric in Scotland. You have a lot of countries who are making grandiose statements without the likely prospect of following through intentionally or unintentionally. And you have the inexorable increase of climate change events, which actually are not mathematical. They're not geometrical. They're logarithmic. And they go faster than you would ever imagine. So my last question to you based on what we learned, I'm forgetting G-20 for a minute because I actually don't think that's as important. What we are learning, because it's not over until I think the 12th of November. But what we learned at least from the statements of world leaders, where is this gonna go? What's it gonna be like with the increase in climate change events, but the failure of humanity, of the world as a, of the global community to do substantive work on it. Where is it gonna go? And how is it gonna affect you? And more to the point, how is it gonna affect me, Carlos? I need to know. Well, it depends. And at the end of the day, I don't know. But now I'm more serious. I mean, look, these are tough issues. And yeah, we're gonna, like so many things, we can all look at the same set of facts and come to some different conclusions about it. And I say that because some will look at the summit and say, well, again, a lot of hot air, a lot of bill speeches, not much happening. Now, at the end of the day, rich countries are, you know, and they have long promised the poor countries that they will pay for the original sin of their early industrialization. In other words, this is what brought climate change to the world. It was brought by a modernization, industrialization development. And at least in theory, the idea is that by delivering money to help the poor countries develop using fewer fossil fuels, the aim is to provide as much as $100 billion a year in climate science, climate finance. But it's a goal that rich countries today are not meeting. And it's one with poor countries. Obviously they want it raised, but they're skeptical too. So boy, I mean, you can throw your hands up and say it's useless or otherwise just understand that, look, it's not something that's gonna be easy and neat, but at least we need to be moving forward. We need to have a dialogue. We need to make commitments. And, you know, at the end of the day, these summit meetings like this one now, maybe it's not going to have as much concrete, but it's gonna hold some of the leaders, you know, under the fire and they have to play the game that they're doing. And look, political leaders, it's all about survival and for the elected officials, you know, they're not gonna be able to bite the bullet as easily. So it's a flaw. It's a flaw in the way the world is organized in the face of global challenges like this. So I understand that she did not show up at the conference in Scotland. I'll take a guess. That's right, no. I'll guess that Vladimir Putin didn't show up either at the conference. He has not, unless- So you have major powers who don't even feel this is important enough to make the trip. What does that tell us? Well, something of a disconnect, I guess, and maybe, you know, different interests. You mentioned those two important world leaders. I would add even the Mexican leader, Amlo, who ironically, he's a populist left-wing leader. He has never gone to any of these meetings. He sent his foreign ministry as usual, but kind of paradoxically, here's a left-wing leader who normally would be pro-environment and, you know, head of science. He is a very nationalistic in his energy policy and it's been criticized as being, you know, very heavy on, you know, he's spending massively on a new oil refinery and he is limiting foreign investment in ways that's raising some concerns because that's where the technology and the investment comes from Mexico to approach more green technologies. And so right now, there's a lot of criticism of what's happening under this current president. And I only mentioned that because of course, Mexico is so important to the U.S. and, you know, if they don't figure it out, we're gonna sort of be part of that problem as well. So gosh, no easy answers. Yeah, I wish I could just say, it's all gonna work out, it's gonna be fine. But, you know, that's not how the world works. Instead, it's kind of incremental and it's a few steps forward and a few steps back. Well, we don't have any sacred cows here on ThinkTech. So we can continue to have this conversation. And although, you know, I don't like to be skeptical, I don't like to be cynical, I think the reality is we have to examine all sides of this, including the side that the press takes and certainly the side that these politicians take. And so, although I know you have many people in your lineup, Carlos, I hope we can get together again in a conversation like this and follow the action. Absolutely. Always a pleasure, Jay, and great to reconnect here on our Global Connections. It's your show, it's my show, it's ThinkTech's show. So it's always great and I look forward to the next conversation. Thank you Carlos, aloha.