Name: Securing a Sustainable Future
Uploaded: 2022-09-30
Duration: 13 min 49 s
Description: It’s been over forty years since Al Gore first raised the alarm to congress about a rapidly warming planet.

It’s been over forty years since Al Gore first raised the alarm to congress about a rapidly warming planet and since then, he has used every tool in his arsenal to combat climate change. Hear how the Nobel Peace Prize winner is investing in a sustainable revolution, what his hopes are for the country’s first ever climate legislation, and why he believes “political will is itself a renewable resource.”

Securing a Sustainable Future

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It’s been over forty years since Al Gore first raised the alarm to congress about a rapidly warming planet.

It’s been over forty years since Al Gore first raised the alarm to congress about a rapidly warming planet and since then, he has used every tool in his arsenal to combat climate change.

So I'm going to jump right in actually with the news. You were in the news this week on the topic of the World Bank President David Malpass whom you called a climate denier. And that led to directly some tough questions for him in which he could not acknowledge that the climate crisis is human caused. Um, I wonder what the response has been since then, but also if you think this is a time to call out more leaders who might be in positions uh, like this and who might not share this really kind of fundamental viewpoint. Thank you very much for having me here and I'm happy to just jump right into that question. Uh, my comments uh, were not aimed at him personally, but at the absurdity of having someone in that key position who does not really believe in or support the the goal of reaching true net zero by 2050 and cutting emissions in half by by 2030 Malpas has a long history of climate denial and more significantly at the World Bank under his leadership, he has directed continued funding of fossil fuels, which is ridiculous. Even indirect funding of coal infrastructure. I mean, it's really, really bet, but here's the larger reason why this is so important. If you look at the world's challenge, we have to reduce emissions that you know, but behind me, if I may just briefly digress is a picture from the international space station that shows how thin the earth's atmosphere is that that thin blue line is the troposphere. If you could drive an automobile straight up in the air at interstate highway speeds, You'd get to the top of that blue line in about 5-7 minutes and all of the global warming pollution would be below you above you couldn't breathe anymore without mechanical assistance. So this thin line, that's what we're using as an open sewer and we're putting 100 62 million tons of human caused global warming pollution into it every day. Molecule for molecule, it lingers there an average of 100 years so it builds up and the accumulated amount now traps as much extra heat as would be released by 600001st generation atomic bombs exploding every 24 hours. That's why these hurricanes are rapidly intensifying like the one going on right now. Uh, and last week devastating Puerto rico and then Canada and coastal Alaska Category five in Japan. That's why most of the american west is in drought. Why our biggest reservoirs are near deadpool status. Why there was a 70 day heat wave in china above 100 and four degrees with nothing even minimally comparable in prior history. That's why we've had five once in 1000 year downpours in the US in the last two months. I mean we have to change this. But if you look at the global dimensions of the problem, we have to make it possible for developing countries to have access to capital at reasonable interest rates in order to finance this dramatic and miraculous sustainability revolution last year, If you look at all the new electricity generation uh installed worldwide, 90% of it was renewable, but developing countries don't have access to capital. If you want to put a new solar farm in Nigeria, your interest rates will be seven times higher than the O. E. C. D. Countries. So the World Bank has the task of removing those top layers of risk, political risk, climate risk, etcetera, in order to equalize the access to capital for these developing countries and the projections are that going forward? Almost 90% of the increase emissions will come from developing countries. They want government to government aid uh, sign me up. But that's politically challenging and is unlikely to happen in the in the dimensions of aid necessary. Private capital is financing most of this sustainability revolution, but they're walled off from participating by the global capital allocate system that is supposed to be fixed in this particular by the World Bank and the other M. D. B. S. So to have a Climate Denier who was named by the previous president, also a Climate denier in charge of America's lead institution in helping to deal with the dimensions of this global capital allocation problem is ridiculous. That's why he needs to be replaced immediately. Thank you for that. And apologies for jumping right in time is short. And so I want to make sure that we get you press the button. Sorry. If my answer was to know, I mean, you're making an excellent point, which is that we think so much about structural barriers to tackling this problem. And they might be politics and they might be uh disinformation from the oil and gas industry, but they might also be an individual in charge of directing significant investment, who is not on board with the plan. And I think it's really important that you made that point and made it obvious and that there are probably many more like him. Yeah, there are. And I'm not one who believes that capitalism is the problem or the cause of the climate crisis. I think that there are features in our current version of capitalism that are extremely damaging and harmful and must be changed in order to redeem the promise of democratic capitalism as the global ideological Hegeman of choice. It works, but it only works if we have the courage and boldness to to reform those features that are causing such serious problems. We we we have to have multi stakeholder capitalism and we have to address the inability of the developing countries in the world to gain access to markets in order to finance these incredibly attractive solutions, solar electricity, wind electricity, electric vehicles, batteries, region of agriculture, sustainable forestry, green hydrogen, green ammonia. The circular economy, we know what to do. And the Iaea, the International Energy Agency has told us the world has everything it needs right now with proven deployment models to cut emissions by 50% in the next eight years. We have what we need talking about pie in the sky options for the future. Let's continue putting R and D okay, but let don't pretend that we don't have what we need to get started right now. And by the way, the, you know, every night on the T. V. News is like a nature hike through the book of revelation. If you if somebody listening has not yet been convinced that this is an existential challenge to the future of civilization you will be because it's getting steadily worse. It is insane for us to continue down the path that we're currently marching on. I want to ask you a little more about this intersection of capitalism and climate and whether there is hope to be found, we share uh an economist friend in Laura Tyson, who mentioned to me um after cop 26 that although people left, that that gathering, feeling depressed about governments that there was potentially hope to be found in the fact that a lot of money has started to move, I can attest to that as investor, you are an investor in these technologies? I wonder how important is risk, as a driver of capital? How uh, you know, having spent so much of your career in politics, is it possible that we may find some solutions in global finance that wouldn't be palatable to politicians otherwise. Yes, I think that's definitely the case. Um, however, we can't pretend that we can successfully ask business and the investment community to do things that only governments are suited to do. I'm very optimistic and grateful for the passage of the inflation reduction act chuck schumer and joe Manchin and the house and senate, they've done a wonderful job. President biden's leadership is absolutely sparkling on this question. Um, and so this is great and we have a methane tax in this legislation which is also great. Uh, but government needs to do much more and, and business and investors can do much more. Um, and I'm very heartened by the fact that 75% of the global economy is now in nations that have made a net zero pledge and that cop cop 26 in Glasgow, as you mentioned, we left there with inspiring pledges made by banks and businesses and industries. Unfortunately, it's become clear in the aftermath that some of those who made pledges really didn't form an actual plan to meet those pledges. Uh, some did, but all must uh, and uh, investors are increasingly holding businesses to account because they want their capital to be deployed in ways that make the world a better place, don't contribute to destroying the future. I also want to ask you and one of the speakers earlier today mentioned that this may be a theme at cop 27 about adaptation and resilience when you first started writing about climate change, you were pretty firm on uh you know, the topic of adaptation and resilience as a waste of time and energy that new needed to go toward mitigation. Now it's quite clear that we have tipped right, we are not going to be able, this is quite clearly spelled out in the latest iPCC report that we are not going to be able to avoid some of the worst impacts of climate change even if we stop emitting right now. And and you have also uh changed your position a little bit on adaptation and resilience. I wonder where you find yourself now with that that conversation as somebody who hosted uh a show at Market place called how we survive. Yeah. Well 25, years ago, uh the the idea that uh an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure was dominant in my thinking, the really harsh impacts that not really begun. And I I wanted to keep the focus on cutting emissions and preventing the crisis. But now obviously we have a moral obligation to help those who are already suffering these impacts to to to become more resilient to adapt to them. Yes, absolutely. We need to do both. Prevention or mitigation as it's sometimes called alongside the creation of more resilience and assistance to adapt. It's important to realize that even now however, uh there are some things that we would not be able to adapt to if well let this run its course. Uh So but we have to have a mix of the two, we're seeing a repeat of this discussion a little bit now with the issue called loss and damage uh demands by some developing countries to be compensated for the harms they have experienced disproportionately caused by the majority of global warming pollution that has come from uh the the the developing uh the rich countries in the past uh and so that the world will have to deal with that as well. Uh but I do think that the top priority must be on preventing the problem and avoiding the absolutely catastrophic consequences that would occur unless we sharply reduce emissions in the meantime. Yes, aid for resilience and adaptation is a moral requirement. Al Gore is founding Partner and chairman of Generation Investment Management. I wish we had a whole other hour, but I'm delighted for this time together. Thanks so much for being here. Thank you. Thank you so much. Um I think that was just a fascinating conversation. In addition to his eloquence. Al gore, I think you gave us all background envy. So thank you for that. Um with that we are going to wrap this year's Fortune Global sustainability forum. Thank you all for joining us today. A big thank you to all of our discussion leaders who brought their expertise and experiences patients to our conversation. This has just been such a great group and great conversations here. Lots of helpful information on sustainable strategies, how to keep the paris climate change targets within reach. I'd also like to express our appreciation and thanks to our partners. Once again, thank you to our knowledge partner, boston consulting group and to our partners, NASDAQ and Salesforce. We appreciate the input from everybody today. Keep your eye on your email for upcoming fortune events in the weeks ahead. Take care everybody stay healthy and goodbye.