The fault lines at Climate Week
Mia Mottley, the prime minister of Barbados, and Ajay Banga, the president of the World Bank, discussed changes the bank could make at a live climate event on Thursday.Calla Kessler for The New York Times
Resolving the climate crisis is the hardest joint project humanity has ever taken on
Today was the day for The New York Times’s annual Climate Forward live event in Manhattan. David Gelles, Somini Sengupta and other Times reporters talked with some of the climate sector’s most vital newsmakers to share ideas, work through problems and answer tough questions about the threats presented by a rapidly warming planet.
As the day progressed and we heard from people like Michael Bloomberg, Al Gore, Mia Mottley and Ajay Banga, some common themes emerged.
Resolving the climate crisis is the hardest joint project humanity has ever taken on. On that much, the policymakers, activists and business leaders seemed to agree. But there are still big differences of opinion on how to get the job done. And in the meantime, the cognitive dissonance between hope and despair is enough to make everyone’s head spin.
“The future is very bright and every day is a freaking crisis,” Jason Grumet, C.E.O. of the American Clean Power Association, told my colleague Astead Herndon.
Who gets a seat at the table
Divisions were most clear over the questions countries are set to consider in the global climate negotiations in Dubai this November: Is it time to start phasing out fossil fuels now? And how much should oil companies be involved in that process?
Al Gore warned that fossil fuel interests are trying to co-opt climate action, especially with a top oil executive, Sultan al-Jaber of the United Arab Emirates, leading this year’s global climate talks in Dubai.
“That’s just, like, taking the disguise off,” Gore, the former vice president, told David. “They have captured control of the political and policymaking process in too many countries and too many regional governments, and they’ve reached out to try to capture the U.N. process.”
Fossil fuel industries, Gore added, “have portrayed themselves as the source of trusted advice that we need to solve this crisis. But they are responding to powerful incentives to keep digging and drilling and pumping up the fossilized remains of dead animals and plants and burning them in ways that use the atmosphere as an open sewer, threatening the future of humanity. It’s enough already.”
But some corporate and government leaders onstage today, including the billionaire philanthropist Michael Bloomberg, were adamant that the world is not yet ready to give up fossil fuels. Bloomberg also said al-Jaber was a smart choice to lead the COP28 talks.
“We are not going to get away from using oil for the next 10 or 15 years and we are not going to say everybody that has a gas-guzzling car can’t drive it anymore and they will have to start walking today,” he told David. “Big oil is part of the problem. They are also part of the solution.”
A lack of capacity to change
Projections by the International Energy Agency say nations must stop approving new oil, gas and coal projects for the world to keep warming below dangerous levels. Still, oil producing nations and corporations haven’t yet shown any signs that they are ready to slow down.