Some Future Day

Marc Beckman: Amy, welcome to Some Future Day. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm very excited to get into this conversation with you. How are you?
Amy Video: I'm very good, Mark. It's a pleasure to be here with you.
Mark Beckman: So, I compiled some data surrounding, Our country, as well as the rest of the world's, commitment towards renewables and renewable technology. and I just want to read, I want to start by reading this off to you. I imagine they're from, solid sources. So, United States and Canada will spend a cumulative 12 trillion on renewable energy generation by 2050.
Our Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, committed to, a 100 billion, he said, he just recently stated that he, that we spent, the United States spent 100 billion over the past two years as it relates to our commitment towards the 2030 [00:01:00] SDGs. the United States, excuse me, the United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, recently called for a SDG stimulus package of sorts.
I don't think he called it a stimulus package, but he's asking for another 500 billion dollars annually to support the SDG initiative. and then, there seems to be like a little bit of a conflict. So the United Kingdom's interior minister, Suella Braverman, said that green should not bankrupt the British people, and they shouldn't, in fact, increase their commitment.
So, um, it seems to me in like looking at this data and looking at this information that there's some sort of an inherent. complex as it relates to the feasibility of renewables and renewable technology. all of that comes at a time where I believe from my research that the global [00:02:00] economy has been 85% dependent on fossil fuels.
For the last 50 or 60 years, so I guess my question to you is, how do we reconcile this massive financial commitment on a global scale and the feasibility of actually moving the needle to reduce fossil fuels and ending the use of oil?
Amy Video: So, I think the 1st thing we have to do is we need to step back from the way people characterize it. Like, this is going to be too expensive for people, or this is what we have to do to avoid the climate crisis. And, you know, we have these sort of thematic, political, social, cultural statements. And we have to, you know, clarify what we're talking about because sometimes when people talk about it that way, it gives the misimpression that we're not going to spend any money to have fossil fuels.
We [00:03:00] would only be spending this money to switch over to clean energy. And of course, we're going to have to spend money to have energy. We still have millions of people across the globe that don't have any access to any forms of energy. And so what we're really talking about is how do we alleviate poverty and meet some of the other SDG goals at the same time, decarbonizing, economic activity.
Right? So how do we do the things we need to do in a way that, you know, is not destructive to the planet. And people have come up with sort of lingo for that. Uh, there's, you know, green industrialization or green growth is one of the ways that people are thinking about it. so I think the 1st point I'd like to make is the following.
Some things are not equivalencies. We know that every [00:04:00] time you put a gallon of gasoline into a vehicle, every time we use oil to make plastics or whatever the function is going to be. We know that that activity, that resources immediately disappears the 2nd, we use it and it disappears into, you know, pollution into the atmosphere.
I mean, why do we call renewables renewables? You know, once we put up. a field full of solar panels, or once we develop an offshore wind installation. Or once we use digital and AI technology to make the energy use of a building go down, or to make a vehicle much more fuel efficient, that lasts for a decade or more decades.
And so we're not constantly having to drill for more, drill for more, drill for more. And, you know, the thing I like to point out to people, even when, you know, people stand up and say, oh, well, you know, we're going to have to mine for lithium. for [00:05:00] electric vehicles, well, you know, let's not forget that once I have that battery in my car, I'm going to be able to drive around with it.
I mean, I have to recharge it, but the physical metals resource is not only going to stay in my car for 10 years, or maybe even slightly longer. But then when I take it out of my car and put in a new battery, I can recycle the battery I had. Whereas when I put gasoline in my car, I use it and it's gone and it's polluted, right?
So I think the first step we have to think about is we're going to spend money bringing energy services to people regardless. And actually when, I mean, I just recently did a study with a group of other scholars and specialists. Looking at what we call the levelized cost of energy, comparing these different resources, you know, this year, and, in [00:06:00] 2030 here in the United States.
And what that shows is that, solar energy and some of these other energy sources are actually going to be cheaper. and more economical than fossil fuels. So that begs the question, how reliable, how stable, how resilient, can we build our energy system? The more renewables we put into the system, you know, what do we have to do to organize it?
So that, you know, we have stable energy and low prices when the sun isn't shining. And, for onshore wind anyway, there's periods of time where suddenly for 2 days, it's not windy in Oklahoma. So, we know what those solutions are, but, you know, organizing them and organizing them, to connect to.
You know, additional jobs, other kinds of co benefits for, for people in different communities. that is a [00:07:00] massive job for governments and that's where we're getting a lot of the political noise. Was that too long an answer?
Mark Beckman: No, that's, that's great.
Amy, when you mentioned, you keep alluding to like the politics of climate change, and that leads everyone to believe that there's like something deeper at play here. it's not just about renewable energy and investment. How would you describe this bigger ecosystem where The, the energy sector is playing a significant role, but it's only one cog in this bigger system.
Amy Video: I mean, there's just so much change happening in society in general. And a lot of that change comes from technology, people talk about the fourth industrial revolution or the fifth industrial revolution. You know, we had the, first it was digital, but now it's, you know, artificial intelligence and.
And, you know, taking it to yet another level. and that kind of change is dislocating.[00:08:00] And when we're talking about on top of that, we're going to change, you know, how we use energy and, and what forms of energy we're going to use. I don't like it when people talk about winners and losers. I like to really think about it more in the.
Sort of way that society is going to change. So the kinds of ways we think about what we wear, what we do, what we eat is evolving. Some people, you know, don't like to learn how to work a computer. Some people don't want to have a robot car, pick them up. some people just don't want to, you know, change certain things.
There were people who've worked in the coal industry for generations, and they want to continue to work in the coal industry for future generations. There are other people who have dedicated themselves. To driving, radical and rapid change, to protect nature. So, it's hard to create sort of like a uniformed [00:09:00] mission, where everybody can embrace the direction we're going, and feel that they are gonna benefit from, the changes that are coming. And those changes are coming, whether you feel passionately about climate change or whether you feel it's a hoax, you know, there are changes coming in the energy system, coming in the way people think about and address what they eat and what they wear.
These changes are coming. And they're, they're coming partly because of technology. So the story I, I like to tell, is I was, commissioned to be the keynote speaker in this giant technology convention they had every year in Washington, D. C., sponsored by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency. I'm going to be the lunch keynote speaker and the people organizing this.
Conclave that's in a convention center with, you know, technology booths and everything. And then there's going to be a luncheon for like 2000 [00:10:00] people and they're imagining that Hillary Clinton is going to be president. And so they're asking me to come and give a keynote speech about the interplay between technology and climate change.
And of course, this thing is a week after the election and president Trump is president. Donald Trump is president. And. People from the EPA greet me, you know, ahead of this luncheon, and they're like, what are you going to do? And I said, I can give the same talk I was planning to give without mentioning climate change, and they're shocked.
And I say, no, no, no, I need you to just understand, the broad trends of, You know, industry and economy, and you're going to see, like, I don't even have to show you my slides. You're just going to see it's going to work. And I stand up in this room and I ask everybody to raise their hand. If they have a smartphone, [00:11:00] and, of course, the whole audience raises their hand, maybe some of that's economically driven, but, you know, basically everybody in the room is a smartphone.
And this is what I asked them. I said, suppose. Somebody were to come to you today and tell you that, you know, God only knows how much you're spending on your phone package. If you have children or teenage children, they have a data package. I can only imagine what your bill is. Imagine if somebody came to you and said, listen, we're going to put an analog phone back in your home and we're going to guarantee you.
that your bill will only be 25 a month. We're going to make telephone service 100 percent affordable for everyone. And then what we're going to do is we're going to have an infrastructure bill and we're going to put telephone booths, you know, that you can use with a card and we're not going to go back to quarters, we're going to come up with some kind of electronic telephone booth and we're going to build telephone booths all across the United States at train stations, airports, street corners [00:12:00] and we're going to go back so that we're going to eliminate all these horrible expensive costs.
from this technology. Raise your hand if you would vote for that bill, for that legislation, and of course, no one raises their hand,
Mark Beckman: sure.
Amy Video: and I say, why didn't you raise your hand? You didn't raise your hand because your smartphone is a superior technology, even though it's more expensive, it's providing you, you're basically walking around with a computer, an unbelievable computer that also has You know, GPS navigation.
It has all these different services that you're getting. You can watch television on it. It's providing you with all these services that you are not willing to give up to save money. And also, all the services that your phone provide are driving jobs and economic activity from all the different things that your telephone can do.
I said, so if we in the United States went back to landline phones and we had telephone booths again, [00:13:00] it's not like anybody in China or Brazil or Africa would agree to follow our lead, like, because it's a superior technology and the way we need to think about where we're going in energy is we're going to be able to go to superior technologies, to things that are going to provide services in our households, in our businesses, in our communities.
that are going to be able to do that and not emit carbon. And so why would we agree to stay on a internal combustion car that only uses 30 percent or 40 percent of the energy we stick in it and then the rest of it goes out as waste heat and pollution, right? Why would we agree to continue to do that?
Because someone has developed a vehicle that is much more efficient. In terms of using the energy we stick in the battery and also provides us with all kinds of other things, which might include, self navigation and, and, and all kinds of other benefits. Um, we're not going to go backwards.[00:14:00]
Mark Beckman: well, it's, it's interesting that, you know, you, you gave that speech and you, you, you presented that question of going backwards in the context of an EPA meeting. And the reason that's interesting to me is because you're talking about innovation, entrepreneurship coming from the private sector, the iPhone.
Under the veil of big government, so I guess a question to you is, part of this mission in pushing renewables forward, although it's coming from the government, right? I think the government is really, at least here in the United States, is really leading the charge in many ways. Do you think it's the private sector that's going to get us there?
beforehand, like will, will superior product design, innovative technology, and, like just American entrepreneurship get us to this point of, you know, this is better product and you can, there's more utility to it. And that will help move people into ending their use of fossil fuels versus [00:15:00] the government forcing it down on industry and on private citizens.
Amy Video: You know, let's really talk about the ecosystem, because, of course, there are a lot of people in this, again, you know, you asked me the political question, some people, if you're a libertarian, you know, your whole thing is, it's got to be the private sector, government gets in the way, and, and if you're coming, maybe from some, uh, more, left orientation, you know, you're thinking that government needs to do this, through regulation and it's really a mixture in the following way.
I mentioned your smartphone, but do you realize do people actually realize where GPS came from? GPS came from the Pentagon realizing That Russia was ahead of us in satellites. So we had the Sputnik satellite. Now that we are understanding the national security challenge of the satellite on only the Russian side that can, do all the things that satellites can do in the United States does not have that capability.
So, the first thing [00:16:00] we had to do is we had to develop the scientific ability to follow that satellite and know where it is and what it's doing. And that was GPS. That is how we got GPS. We got GPS because we were having to follow the Sputnik satellite. So, government.
Mark Beckman: fueled that, that item.
Amy Video: Correct.
So there's a role for government to play in R& D and in, fostering focused innovation. A lot of times, unfortunately, even self driving vehicles, I don't think people realize all of that came from a Pentagon contest in the Mojave Desert. And all the people we think of who are the famous people who might be doing that at Waymo or might be doing that in some other company, all those people started with this Pentagon contest.
So, maybe what the Pentagon does is, is geared to national security. What the EPA does is geared towards environmental protection. So government has a role to set these [00:17:00] priorities, to where we're trying to take technology and absolutely the government, you know, as we did with the Inflation Reduction Act, the government needs to be setting priorities to make environmental protection, and the preservation of nature as a key element.
To what we're trying to give companies incentives to do to innovate, uh, and also where government money is going to be spent on innovation. so that's like, you know, step number 1, but, you know, I'm a big believer, you know, China spends like, you know, 10 times more than we do probably on doing the same thing and they started earlier.
so that, you know, is a threat to our economy and at some level, you know, could even be a threat to our long term national security for these military applications. So, but what we, what do we have going for us here in the United States is that we do have this unbelievably innovative private sector that knows how to commercialize these technologies or might [00:18:00] develop technologies that we can't even imagine as a solution.
And, you know, I'm teaching a class this semester, on the clean technology ecospace and, you know, what are the trends and, and, and what, what is the sort of, means of innovation and what's hot today and clean tech and what's not. And, you know, the important thing that we, we had a class on is this new interest.
maybe it's not new. It's starting to be, you know, sort of more like more companies are thinking about it of, you know. Expressing yourself as a corporation or as a small business. With a mission driven focus, you know, how do I align how I'm making money with a mission driven focus or an impact SDG oriented focus.
And we have a lot of people, you know, succeeding in business with either a mission or an SDG impact focus. And of course, investors. Uh, you and I, [00:19:00] when we think about what we want to do with our pension fund, if somebody came to you and told you that I could take your pension money and earn you a better rate of return, if we put your money into this Mission FOSUS business, and we put your money into an impact oriented business, and we could make the same money as owning Thank you.
You know, Exxon Mobil stock, or, you know, some other kind of stock. Well, that's really interesting to me as an individual because of my own values.
Mark Beckman: So you're seeing some, you know, we've seen some success stories where the private sector and, and the government cooperate. I mean, certainly the Elon Musk, Tesla story is remarkable. as it relates to, you know, evolving technology to, create a, you know, a better, more livable planet, are there any other stories that you can highlight where government and the private sector come together, make an investment, and we've seen some impact like that to, move us away from fossil fuels?
Amy Video: Well, you know, I mean, of course, [00:20:00] the Tesla story was a big win, you know, the government, Gave a loan to Tesla and, you know, enabled them to have their 1st manufacturing. So that was an important achievement, but in that same period where people were helping out Tesla, less well known.
was that U. S. government loan guarantees were given out to developers of utility scale solar. So that's when I'm building a giant, Solar farm, somewhere in the Western United States, those same loan guarantees also went for wind projects. and one of the things the loan guarantee program did in that period, which say between 2009 as part of the 2009 stimulus, you know, through 2012, is it at that time, it was a little risky.
The technology was still a little untested in terms of how it would perform and whether it would perform, you know, say with battery storage and because, companies and developers had this backing of the U.S [00:21:00] Government you They were able to fully finance these giant. Utility systems in renewables and they scaled out, like, they were successful.
They made money. They paid the government back in full. and so that meant that now, somebody could go out and do that and they don't need a US government loan guarantee. You can just get financing because we know you're going to be able to make money, you know, doing these projects. So, that was another example of the government.
Bye. partnering with private sector, to bring scale up, of renewable energy facilities in the United States.
Mark Beckman: But Amy, it's, it's interesting when you look at that, um, there's the, the, the starting point where private sector and government funds are used as a spark for innovation and entrepreneurship. And now we're seeing an interesting dynamic happening, as it relates to, um, solar. At individual's homes, right?
Like, all of a [00:22:00] sudden, our strong economy is, you know, hurting a little bit. We're seeing inflation, we're seeing higher interest rates, and as a result, the individual homeowner is a little bit more reluctant to invest in solar. So there's a funny dynamic there where the government can influence entrepreneurship, but then can they thread the needle all the way to the finish line and get the individual homeowner to buy the solar, product in, in, in, you know, the face of increasing expenses on a, on a, you know, inflationary level plus interest rates,
Amy Video: so listen, I mean, you have state government, you've got federal government. You know, we'll give you a tax break. Of course, that presumes that you have taxes to take a tax break. They're also grant, like a grant structure, that's been sort of set up by the Biden administration for communities that have been underserved historically, uh, same thing.
but like my story about, you know, the [00:23:00] smartphone and what it enabled, we know what's coming. and the question is, you know, how do you set up a business to be profitable to do this? So, um, it's not just getting a solar panel on your house, it's, do you have an inverter system, which is the thing that helps your solar panel integrate with your house?
You know, can it integrate with your car or with a battery inside your house? and can that serve you? Right? So. That could serve you in multiple ways. It could be that it serves you because there's some problem with electricity in the town or the state where you live because of a weather event or some other event.
And you still have full electricity, full air conditioning, full, full car charging because of your solar panel, right? You could actually sell electricity, you know, in some states, they have it set up well, where you can actually You don't need all the electricity that you can generate with the panel on your house.
So you can actually sell that electricity back to the grid and therefore [00:24:00] your electricity is relatively free because your panel is providing you, they're making you what's called a prosumer. So you're trading electricity
Mark Beckman: I know that Siemens is doing that right now, um, where surplus energy could be traded on chain, on the blockchain in areas, um, I think it's around Bavaria in Germany right now, but I wonder if like the government would ever allow in the United States, the private sector to take control so much of the trade of energy.
Amy Video: Well, you know what, here's a good example just happened last week. So, Vermont, believe it or not, I mean, we all hear about California and New York City. But actually, Vermont is one of the communities that the farthest along on renewable energy. I mean, like, 90 to 100 percent of their generation, but that, you know, includes, some imported hydro, but they are pretty much on track for 100 percent renewable energy generation for the [00:25:00] state.
They put in a lot of solar, you know, hard to believe because we think of it, you know, they have to come out with a snow thing and take the snow off the solar panel. So it's, you know, hard to envision that Vermont's that far ahead. But, but the bottom line is their utility, Green Mountain, just announced that their pilot program where they were leasing batteries for people's homes that have solar panels was successful.
And they're proposing that if they were to get approved to spend 1. 5Billion dollars, putting more batteries strategically in, in homes and businesses across the state, that that could save billions of dollars in repair costs for things like their flooding event or other kinds of weather events that knock out electricity by wire.
And they're proposing this sort of virtual power plant where you aggregate the batteries in multiple locations in people's homes and businesses and so forth as their climate change solution for reliable [00:26:00] electricity. And they're showing in numbers in base, you know, brick case, base utility rate numbers, how that's going to be a cheaper solution than um,
Mark Beckman: I'm more
Amy Video: to figure out how to build a natural gas peaking plant or how to, cut trees down to make sure the wires are stable and so forth.
They have a total plan that does not involve chopping down trees to provide electricity.
Mark Beckman: So Amy, going back to like the ecosystem then, it's kind of interesting because the folks in Vermont, it seems like culturally they want to fight climate change. So they're motivated. They're solution oriented. What you just described is incredible, but part of the ecosystem also includes are our friends worldwide, and even countries like China.
and it's my understanding that China is building one new coal fired power plant every single week. and interestingly, they're the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, and that is [00:27:00] getting bigger. and I also understand, you could correct me if I'm wrong, I'm just Getting this information from my research, but it's also my understanding that China is still permitted to emit a certain amount of pollution as it relates to the Paris Accords.
So when we look at the economics of it all, how can we justify, justify using taxpayer dollars to help create a, um, more, renewable approach to our, our, our environments here in the United States, if countries like China are essentially undercutting the United States investment by continuing to pollute.
And, and, you know, we could take it further also. I think it's interesting because I understand that China is the world's biggest provider of renewables right now, of solar, and I think wind as well. But are they doing that for other reasons? I know I threw a lot at
Amy Video: listen.
Oh, okay. Listen, let's, let's, let's dissect the Chinese situation. Um, [00:28:00] China does have a much bigger, renewable energy program than most countries. And they also fund Renewable energy construction and equipment, you know, that goes to Africa, that goes to Southeast Asia, even in Latin America.
So, part of what they have is the problem of just a giant population and how do they, you know, square the knot between pushing everything to renewables and cleaning up and, and, and really not, and really suspending coal. Right, so at least in the last meetings in prior to Glasgow, the United States pushed China along with Europe and other international, participants, and they got the Chinese to commit to stop funding coal in other places.
So, everything's a progression, how do we convince countries to speed up? And, you know, part of what you need to [00:29:00] do is a credential to, to really press other countries as part of a global accord to speed up on, ending coal and ending emissions is to do it yourself. So you cannot not have a program here in the United States or not have a program in Europe, and then go around the world and ask everybody else to do it.
You know, it's a collective action problem and committing yourself by example and then leading by example to other nations is part of the credibility, you know, one has to have. but, you know, of course, if all we're doing is eliminating our emissions to make space for somebody else to admit, that's a bad thing.
So, it takes a tremendous amount of diplomacy. to really try to get countries to commit to doing the right thing. Now, Europe has taken a much more aggressive approach. Their approach is. If you're China or India or some other place, and you think you're going to use coal to produce something that you're going [00:30:00] to sell in Europe, we're going to tax you with the border for the carbon that is embedded in your steel that you're sending us or any other thing, whether it's a children's toy or whatever you're sending us, you know, not to start children's toy, but we're going to pick heavy duty products.
Europe is going to phase in a carbon border adjustment tax. And that's going to mean that countries have a economic incentive, to clean up, and it's going to mean that domestic firms in Germany or in the United States or wherever that this carbon adjustment mechanism is going to apply, will have an economic advantage.
It's going to be like a carbon tariff, right? I'm going to protect those companies that are already cleaning up in Germany or in the UK or wherever. By having this carbon border adjustment, so people have thought about how to address that with both a [00:31:00] carrot and a stick.
Mark Beckman: Is it working, Amy? Is it, is it already implemented in, in Europe and is it working?
Amy Video: It's about to be implemented and honestly, I believe that the European carbon border adjustment just as a threat, right? Means that oil companies in the United States that are planning to sell energy to Europe have to worry that that carbon border adjustment will eventually be applied to their shipments.
And so they have to clean up their methane that leaks from their operations. I do believe that the Chinese take the carbon border adjustment seriously and understand that they also need to accelerate their policy. and so I, I do think that it will be impactful. And, I work with governments from other countries and I can tell you in Brazil, in Indonesia, in South Africa, in countries.
Where we are thinking that they are not ambitious enough on climate, [00:32:00] those countries are actively studying and thinking of implementing a carbon price, which, of course, is something that gives industry the incentive. and the compensation to invest in clean innovation, and which has worked well in California, and did propel the tech industry even to think about how to make their data centers cleaner.
so we're now moving to those kind of, you know, people from Indonesia, from China, from India, from South Africa, from Brazil are coming and looking at what California did and thinking about how to launch their own markets. And, you know, here in the United States, we're like laggards. You know, in our political system, we're just criticizing California for having these environmental policies, but in the end, other countries that we're pointing a finger at are literally talking about putting in a carbon price, which your party has.
[00:33:00] So. You know, we're not even as far along as Brazil, as Indonesia, as India, in thinking about how to implement a carbon price. South Africa has a carbon tax already. India has a coal tax. So there's a lot of things that the countries we're talking about are already doing that we're not even doing.
Mark Beckman: Right. So we'll, so we'll look externally, right. We'll look at, at countries all over the world, but you know, we also have the issue of policy change when the executive branch of our government, the president, switches parties, right? So can all of these steps that the Biden administration is currently taking the investment and all of the positive steps towards Technology, innovation, renewables, et cetera.
be, kind of scaled back or, or go backwards if a Republican is in office after this coming election?
Amy Video: Well, I like to think, uh, we'll see, you know, time will tell. I like to [00:34:00] think that a lot of these policies Obamacare, you know, the Republicans talked against Obamacare, talked against Obamacare, but in the end. You know, people need health insurance. And so when the Republicans did come in, they didn't actually rescind people's health insurance because that would have been unbelievably unpopular.
Mark Beckman: Almost. I
Amy Video: So, a lot of,
Mark Beckman: really stopped that, right? It was like almost single handedly, if you remember.
Amy Video: right, but there are a lot of red states, there are Ohio, the deep South on the East, Eastern part of our country. Uh, I'm trying to think of other states, Arizona, there are a lot of states. That are getting the manufacturing plants for clean energy, you know, even in Texas, I mean, Elon Musk and Tesla, they not only have a factory now there, but, but Elon Musk lives in Austin,
Mark Beckman: it's a big deal and I know he set up a mega factory in Nevada too, so.
Amy Video: Correct. And, and, you know, you [00:35:00] have, um, Texas for all their, you know, talking about natural gas and, you know, Governor Abbott is, you know, pounding his fist on the table about, fossil fuels, the bottom line is Texas is putting in a giant amount of batteries to help support their electricity distribution and transmission systems.
And, uh, part of the thing that's keeping them from having a blackout this year versus last year are those batteries and, you know, their Tesla batteries and other kinds of batteries. and you've got, different states around the country, Oklahoma, Texas are putting in energy innovation hubs that are literally looking at things like sustainable aviation fuel, looking at, you know, battery and other kinds of electricity technologies.
So, there is a disconnect. Between what politicians say, because they think that'll give them a great meme soundbite make people like them and what's actually happening on the ground. And, you know, my whole [00:36:00] thing in thinking about myself as an energy expert is how do I get people to understand what these technologies are bringing them?
How positive they can be? In, weather crises and in our national defense, like, how can we understand how this is shaping in a positive way? In a way that I will just ignore, you know, what some politician is saying, because it doesn't even match and jive up with the reality.
Mark Beckman: Do you think it's because the politicians don't really understand it as well as, as the people like you who are on the ground and, experts and impacting and entrepreneur in the private sector? Do you think that's part of the problem?
Amy Video: You know, I tell an anecdotal story is a true story. So there's an organization called the Aspen Institute. That's sort of like a think tank and they have programs and they make these congressional education programs. [00:37:00] And like your question, I thought I spent a lot of time, you know, writing some white paper document and then sending it to everybody I knew who worked on the Hill and, and, and getting the ear of congressmen and going to visit and doing all these things.
And then 1 year, I went on this Aspen Institute meeting. With, you know, 30 or 40 different, congressmen and senators from, you know, different parts of the aisle, different parts of the country and what the Aspen Institute does, which is, you know, quite good is they have experts like me come and come for these programs and then different meals and coffee breaks and excursions.
They seat you with different people. So you actually meet and talk to everyone. And 1 of the things I discovered. In doing that program, which I commend, it's a great program, is that these congressmen and senators were much more informed than I thought they would be
Mark Beckman: Great.
Amy Video: and that
they were cynically [00:38:00] saying stuff that their constituents thought to be popular with their constituents.
I hate to say it, but
Mark Beckman: So politics gets in the way.
Amy Video: Politics gets in the way. And so then I decided that for me, that meant that I had a partner. With different kinds of organizations, so I actually, you know, have had over the years, I had a partner with the AAA Auto Club. where I traveled around with them and talked to their membership about how, fuel economy standards and electric vehicles were not a negative thing for drivers.
And I had to have a whole education program together with the AAA, to really get it. So that the Congress people and senators would speak. Favorably about using energy innovation technology in the automobile sector, and that way we could change the politics on the ground. And if you think about it as early as 2007, which is, you know, kind of when I started on that campaign, still working on it, but, you know, we passed a great bill, to, you know, do these ambitious things for fuel [00:39:00] economy in the United States.
And, of course, now we have more programs to help people move into electric vehicles. And a lot of that came from really just helping the public understand. What is the real technical aspect or, you know, what are we talking about product wise and helping people understand? I mean, I just saw a recent report, you know, people said, oh, you know, all kinds of people are going to lose their jobs in the car industry when we switch to electric cars.
And now the new statistics are that actually that no, it's turned out the opposite, right? That actually takes more people to do this. Even with the robotics that's being
Mark Beckman: I mean, time and time again, as innovation and technology advances, we've, I mean, we saw this shift from horse and buggy to, automotive. I know that we actually started automotive in electric, not with gas. we see that issue over and over [00:40:00] again. People are scared of change and people are afraid to embrace technology.
Amy Video: Well, and, you know, as I've written in my book, Energy's Digital Future, a lot of people were employed in the New England, in the, you know, U. S. East Coast in hay. Like, that hay was a major employer of people,
Mark Beckman: Right, right,
Amy Video: And no one would say to themselves today, geez, if only we'd have stayed with my work in hay.
Um, you know, you know, I mean, I mean, people have so much. Yeah, we've evolved beyond hay and worrying about hay jobs.
Mark Beckman: important is it then when you, when we go back to the bigger ecosystem and we, we look again, just, on the international landscape, how important is it for us to bring or influence, um, the poorer countries, for example, to, to bring them along? For example, you mentioned South Africa, but let's look at the continent of Africa in its entirety.
So, I've found some interesting data that I'd like to share with you. Of the [00:41:00] 52 low and middle income countries that have defaulted on their debts this past, you know, within the past 12 to 18 months, 23 of them are actually located in Africa. and as a result of rising interest rates, Africa's debt repayments will surge to 62 billion this year.
Up 35 percent from 2022. So to put this figure into context, Africa is now paying more in debt service than the estimated 50 billion a year the Global Center on Adaptation says it needs to invest in climate resilience. I know that, Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry, recently went to Africa for the Africa Climate Summit to address the climate crisis and these related topics, but how do we get these poor nations that don't have the money, and frankly, might [00:42:00] prioritize issues like their health, like vaccinations, ahead of, you know, investing in renewables?
Like, how does that work? How do we figure that piece of it out? It's very complicated.
Amy Video: So let me just say 1 thing. me point out something about renewables in Africa. And then I'm going to talk to you about climate justice and finance, because we have a very unjust international system for climate finance. So, many countries in Africa that have been made more progress, achieving their SDG goals and providing universal electrification have done so with hydroelectric power and geothermal power.
Kenya has a huge success, I think it's something like 40 percent of the population gets their energy from, from geothermal. Right? And, and hydro, you know, we have these African power pools where electricity is [00:43:00] produced and traded among a group of African states. And a lot of that is hydro related.
There are countries that have achieved electrification in their nation, through hydro. And so it's not correct. To believe that Africa has maintained whatever economic activity they have. By using coal, or by using natural gas, the country that has the most energy poverty. So the most citizens who don't have energy services is Nigeria, a country that literally flares natural gas into the sky because of the corruption and inefficiency of their energy sector.
Right, they literally burn the natural gas into the
sky
Mark Beckman: seen the images.
Amy Video: Right, so, so,
Mark Beckman: I've seen the images.
Amy Video: so, but, but the other thing we know is that among the countries that are most globally vulnerable to the catastrophe of climate change, whether that's drought [00:44:00] or heat wave or flooding. we know that Africa, a lot of the different countries in Africa are the most vulnerable countries and some of them are the least able, both capacity wise and finance wise.
to provide adaptation services, going even beyond, Africa's contribution to global carbon emissions is unbelievably small. like I said, not only they already use a lot of renewable energy, but their economic activity in some countries is limited. So they're only like 3 or 4 percent of global emissions.
Like, we're not worried so much about where they're going. Except in the fact that we want them, like us, to have their future economic planning be tied to, a less carbon intensive pathway, but what we have is a very unjust system where, like you mentioned, if you're already an indebted country, you know, people talk like, oh, we're going to do it through green [00:45:00] bonds.
Well, none of these countries, you know, I shouldn't say none. A lot of these countries won't be able to raise green bonds because either they don't have the, you Intellectual and institutional capacity to do the legal and, and finance, intensive work that it takes to, you know, put together a green bond offering.
But most green bonds are also offered not in local currency. Only like 3 percent of the green bond market is in local currencies because of the currency risk. So, most of the countries in Africa can't even participate in the green bond market. they're not going to be able to, raise capital, through the international banking system.
and so we need to re, we need to completely rethink and rechange how we do, global climate finance. And indeed, I've done a study for the UN Commission on Africa. That shows that even for something like the Adaptation Fund and some of these UN oriented funds and donor aid that comes from the [00:46:00] OECD, it's not an Africa going to the most vulnerable nations.
Some of the money, a lot of the money is going to countries that already have capacity, like Morocco, where people have already have economic trading relationships, and the countries in Sub Saharan Africa, in East Africa, and other parts of Africa that have no capacity, who are suffering most from the impact of climate change, are literally getting zero funds.
And we need to change that. And, you know,
Mark Beckman: though? Why, why is that though? Like what, like who's controlling the disbursement of these monies?
Amy Video: because donor countries decide how to disperse, and if I'm a donor country, you know, I can't prove this, but, you know, you have a relationship with a country and you have trade relations, or you have political relations, and so it's easier for you to distribute donor aid To countries you're already dealing with.
And so if you're [00:47:00] some country that nobody wants the metals in your country, and nobody wants the oil in your country, and nobody wants to trade goods and services and manufacturing with you, or they don't thinking that we're going to build a wire from your country to bring solar energy to Europe. it's hard to get the attention and you might not even have the capacity.
To apply to UN institutions. That would give you funding. You have to be able to assess where you want to spend the money. You have to be able to develop projects where you're going to come up with flood control or come up with sustainable agriculture projects. And then also, when the money's dispersed, it also, I mean, most countries.
That we surveyed in this study, they want assistance in agriculture and not all of the aid is going to agriculture. So, if a lot of the aid is going to develop renewable energy, but people need aid to do agriculture, there's a disconnect there too.
Mark Beckman: [00:48:00] So it's, it's super complicated because it's not just the obvious negative impact on these marginalized communities. There's a deeper level as it relates to even giving them the opportunity to dig themselves out of where they are today.
Amy Video: Correct. and the other thing that people miscalculate. So, 1 of the things that, you know, fossil fuel companies say is that. We don't understand. We're going to keep using oil because, countries are going to develop and they're going to need the oil to go forward. And they're not taking into account how badly climate change curbs.
GDP growth, so take a country like Pakistan that had those massive floods last year, their GDP growth was cut, you know, substantially by those floods. And it's not going to be solved in 1 year, like that lack of progress, that's going to go forward. Academic research shows for 10 years, just from [00:49:00] that 1 event. Right? But then they're going to have continual events.
And I say to people, you know, when you project how many Indonesians are going to have a car, or how many people in India or Pakistan are going to have a car, that presumes that you're not going to have the infrastructure of roads and bridges knocked out by climate change and that people are going to be able to afford a car.
But maybe if we don't do something about climate change, none of that is going to happen. So even these projections about what we're going to need in the future are incorrect because we're going to have to change our energy infrastructure and how we put it together because we have to respond to the challenges that climate change is going to create.