Full Transcript for Live from COP31

room. And I think Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has just spoken and tried to kind of uh, do a call to arms to keep, uh, to keep things on track. Interesting. Otherwise, this coffee has been, uh, interesting. It has been, it's very well organized once you get into the venue. 00:04:01 Speaker 1: Oh, well, that's a bonus. That's not always the case. So props to Turkey on that one. 00:04:07 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:04:08 Speaker 4: You've got, you've got guys handing out free buffalo vada people. When you get in in the morning, there's free fruit for breakfast. If you skip breakfast, um, So it's a lot of work has gone into host a good party. 00:04:20 Speaker 2: That's interesting. 00:04:21 Speaker 1: Were there really long lines to get your badge and things like that? I heard people complaining about that. 00:04:26 Speaker 4: I was very lucky and skipped it. But yesterday on Monday, there was 4,000 people were left, a couple of thousand people were left waiting outside, even as the formal process got underway. So it's been a There's been some teething pains, I think. 00:04:43 Speaker 1: Okay. In terms of the actual negotiations, anything new happening? Any news coming out? I know it's pretty early. It's just day three, right, of the COP? 00:04:55 Speaker 4: Yeah. Day three, yes. There's a couple of things. So yesterday it was reported that Turkey has found too many oil fields and was very excited about this information. So that kind of comes in the background as the process gets underway. It is obviously still very early in the negotiations. So now the work begins of working out, well, what are people going to actually agree to? 00:05:13 Speaker 1: Right. 00:05:14 Speaker 4: But one of the things that has come up is that there has been this big electrification agenda that Turkey has been promoting with Australia also in support of it. But there has been a very cool reception to this proposal by other countries, particularly countries like the UK and Europe, because the language of this proposal doesn't have the word clean in it. Interesting. Yes, you may want to bring global electrification up to something like 30% by 2035, up from 20% where it is today. 00:05:43 Speaker 2: Oh, but you don't want it to be like coal-fired, right? Interesting. Yes, yes. 00:05:50 Speaker 4: And if you ask Australia, Australia would say, well, like, if you electrify it, it doesn't really matter where electricity comes from. It's still more efficient and still better than not. 00:05:59 Speaker 2: Australia would say that. I bet India might say that as well. 00:06:05 Speaker 4: In certain other countries might be in agreement, but the EU is taking a line saying, well, can we at least get the word clean in there? 00:06:12 Speaker 2: Interesting. 00:06:13 Speaker 4: And that seems to be a sticking point. 00:06:15 Speaker 1: Although, I mean, I feel like the word clean is up to interpretation as well. 00:06:21 Speaker 2: So, yeah. 00:06:23 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:06:24 Speaker 4: Yes. But then, I mean, not having it in there at all kind of leaves you a gas tanker-sized loophole to which you drive whatever you want. Yeah. 00:06:32 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:06:33 Speaker 4: And may end up being used to justify new coal plants. Yeah. So, you know, here we are. 00:06:37 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:06:37 Speaker 2: Oh, that's interesting. That's really interesting. What have you seen around the Blue Zone? Any, like, blueprints? country booths that stand out or themes? 00:06:48 Speaker 4: But I can definitely say that the politics, once again, on display very clearly from how things are working out. For instance, Turkey, the host, has the biggest, tallest pavilion in the center of the room. The Australian pavilion is across the way. China has a very large pavilion and seems to be a very popular pavilion. And then you see Azerbaijan, also close to Turkey and other kind of big petroleum states and associated ones. So that has been an interesting part of the process. 00:07:16 Speaker 1: What's the media room like? How many media people are there? Does it seem like a lot of people came? 00:07:21 Speaker 4: Yeah. Oh, it's actually pretty full. I'm sitting in there now, which is I'm sitting by an exit, so you can probably hear that. But it's pretty full. There's a lot of interest. A lot of tables are full. What has been interesting, though, is, at least from an Australian perspective, there is a reporter from News Corp Australia who seems to have been sent halfway around the world to investigate the coffee queue at the Australian Pavilion. 00:07:47 Speaker 1: Well, the Australian Pavilion is well known for having the good coffee at COP. 00:07:51 Speaker 2: This is a thing. 00:07:53 Speaker 4: What? It is, but if you go to their socials, you see these videos of Vox Pops with earnest people with interesting European accents and nice suits drinking lattes and flat whites provided by the Australian taxpayer, which this reporter is suggesting is a waste of Australian taxpayer money. Although I can confirm a Turkish official in the queue told me that Australia does very good coffee, and they said that's strictly off the record, which I feel like is a soft power win. Okay. 00:08:21 Speaker 1: Obviously I had to go check this out for myself and it is truly something. Here is just one of this reporter's clips from Instagram. 00:08:33 Speaker 5: I'm at the COP 31 conference here in Turkey, and this is the Australian pavilion. Now this is where taxpayers are paying $ 32, 000 for this coffee machine here to make all these people who are lining up free drinks. Now, they've got paper cups here. They're making a range of drinks, flat whites, lattes and long blacks. 00:08:53 Speaker 2: Now, if you come with me down. 00:08:54 Speaker 5: Here, we'll look at the queue of people waiting to get coffees here. Now, remembering Australian taxpayers are paying for this here at COP 31. So, let's find out, is the coffee here any good? Really good.

00:09:08 Speaker 2: It feels like authentic arrabbiata. 00:09:12 Speaker 4: And I'm also happy it's for free. 00:09:14 Speaker 6: I want to thank the taxpayers for this coffee and for the joy it gives me. 00:09:20 Speaker 2: Well, first of all, it looks lovely and the service was great. And it's, well, it's a long line. It seems to be the perfect attraction here in the pavilions. Thank you, Australia taxpayers. We are very grateful. 00:09:34 Speaker 4: Amazing. I'm amazed by the fact that the crema on the long black is there. It's chowing, so amazing. 00:09:42 Speaker 7: No, very good. 00:09:44 Speaker 6: The coffee is delicious. Yeah, it's a very long line over here. Every time, whenever you come to Australian Pavilion, they always provide really, really tasty coffee, and you always see a bunch of people lined up, queued up to get that coffee. 00:09:58 Speaker 5: It's lunchtime here on day one of the conference, and there's plenty of people lining up for coffees here that Australian taxpayers are funding back at home. 00:10:08 Speaker 1: So, you know, if you see Sophie at the Australian booth, she's not operating in good faith. Also, can I just say that. 00:10:18 Speaker 4: $ 32, 000. 00:10:18 Speaker 1: Doesn't sound like a lot of money for the Australian taxpayers to be paying. I'm sure they pay at least that at various energy conferences they attend as well. Not to mention the fact that News Corp spent how much to send this ridiculous lady to the Australia coffee line? 00:10:37 Speaker 2: OK, back to the conversation with Royce. 00:10:42 Speaker 4: So, you know, I think it's worth noting, given the strain on newsroom budgets and the decision about where to send a reporter is probably. 00:10:50 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting. 00:10:52 Speaker 1: I actually was just reading this morning the COP newsletter from CAD, Climate Action Against disinformation just like a coalition of a bunch of ngos and they were kind of warning there's apparently quite a few sort of um like fringy right-wing outlets at cop trying to sort of do a lot of gonzo gotcha journalism there so keep an eye out. 00:11:17 Speaker 7: For that yeah yeah And that kind of oppositional stuff is really interesting and something that was kind of new in the context of this process, because usually the people that go to the effort and the expense of coming out here are pretty well engaged. 00:11:30 Speaker 2: Interested in the process in some way, yeah. 00:11:35 Speaker 4: Yeah, involved. Even the people trying to sell you on Facebook. strange gas projects and things like that are at least interested in the process. 00:11:45 Speaker 1: You mentioned earlier that Albanese said something in the leadership summit. Are you getting any like rumors out of, um, that room? I know it's again, just for the people, um, reporters are not allowed in any of these rooms. 00:11:59 Speaker 2: It's very weird. 00:12:01 Speaker 1: Uh, you, you, as an NGO observer, you can go into some of the rooms, but

I believe not the leadership summit. 00:12:09 Speaker 2: Um, so, um, it's really quite opaque, um, this process. And then they sort of. 00:12:17 Speaker 1: Come out and announce like, this is the agenda or this is what we're going to commit to, um, for, for this process. 00:12:25 Speaker 5: So yeah. 00:12:25 Speaker 2: What are you hearing so far? 00:12:27 Speaker 4: Well, from what I've, everyone is basically stressing that it is still very early. It is very early in the process. Basically the work is getting underway. Um, and, um, There is varying degrees of speculation, suspicion about what will move. There's been reports of some rooms moving quickly and some rooms not. Again, we're not in them, so we don't know. Also, given Australia in particular's involvement in a kind of ceremonial capacity, a lot of the focus right now seems to have been very much on Let's get the ball rolling. Let's do the speeches and say the nice words and get the process underway. And then we'll start to see how things turn out. Given the transport issues and given the leaders' summit today, a lot of places have actually cancelled a lot of public press conferences and things of that nature because you just can't get people in. Yeah. So even if it is day three, we're still kind of right at the beginning. Yes, this is the starting point of this process. But I can confirm a lot of beautiful words have been spoken. We will see where that ends up in two weeks. 00:13:32 Speaker 2: How have you seen If At All? 00:13:35 Speaker 1: The past COP presidency, the Brazilians kind of showing up here with their roadmap for transition away from fossil fuels. 00:13:43 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, and that is something that has been interesting to watch because, as you and I know, because we were there from last year, that was kind of initiated in response to Colombia doing their thing. So these two kind of aligned with slightly separate processes. And I think Brazil's, the previous COP presidency has committed to kind of continuing to steward that and encourage their takeover going forward. It is still voluntary, though. People don't have to do it. But having those sorts of documents and those processes, I mean, is going to be kind of important going forward because it offers a release valve and an outlet that may ultimately push the process into taking up those issues more seriously. 00:14:22 Speaker 1: And just to remind people, it's a blueprint really towards implementation, which is I think kind of mirrors what we're seeing in the Santa Marta conference from this year and the ongoing efforts there to transition off of fossil fuels and actually start to figure out the nuts and bolts of what that looks like, what's required, how it might work, all of those kinds of things, which has mostly not been ever on the agenda at COP. You know, people were excited about after the Abu Dhabi COP that the words fossil fuels were mentioned for the very first time in that process. But it seems like we've kind of gone backwards a little bit from that point where now... You know, there's more reticence. Yeah. 00:15:12 Speaker 4: And I mean, that was the first time they kind of named the problem, so to speak. And I mean, and I mean, that was agreed and that still stands, right? That hasn't gone anywhere. It's still there. It's just that in recent years, there's been less willingness from certain parties to allow similar language back in or a strengthening of language to explain this in very simple terms, like the two issues. Long-running issues that cause the most tension and most friction and frustration is both the future of oil, gas, and coal, and also this question around climate finance. Developed countries want to talk about mitigation and a managed phase-out of oil, gas, and coal. And developing countries say, hang on a minute. You guys agreed to stump up the cash on climate finance before you talk about mitigation and this phase-out stuff. If you give the cash, we'll do the mitigation. So where's the cash that you promised us? Now, that block of countries also includes the Arab bloc. And the Arab bloc have no particular interest in maybe slowing that process down. 00:16:11 Speaker 2: Particularly Saudi Arabia. They have a reputation for a reason. 00:16:15 Speaker 3: Yes. 00:16:15 Speaker 1: Yes. 00:16:16 Speaker 4: Yeah. And that is kind of the work that is beginning currently because... like those issues get worked out through negotiations the electrification stuff that turkey's promoting is voluntary as part of the action agenda it's a good headline if they can get it yeah but the the core part of it is the workaround though like those two and other issues that get handed up to negotiations so the big question going forward is how will australia in particular and chris bowen who is in charge of overseeing that conversation how will they deal with that, because that is a very tough hand to be dealt at this point. 00:16:50 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:16:51 Speaker 4: Especially when the read seems to be that without the United States, we're just not going to get a transformative arrangement until Donald Trump leaves office, essentially. 00:17:01 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:17:02 Speaker 4: Interesting. 00:17:03 Speaker 1: I was going to ask you about that, too, if there's any sense from people there that, like, I don't know, it's in some ways so, like, Americans who care about climate action were very excited about the midterm election results, right? There was a huge changeover of, um, Congress and the Senate. And that should mean that there's less of a block around policy and things like that. However, the fact remains that, um, you know, it's not like Trump is going to rejoin Paris or anything like that. 00:17:34 Speaker 4: Right. 00:17:35 Speaker 1: So it's almost, I almost wonder if it in some ways is worse for an international, um, negotiation like this, where it's like, oh, well, if we just hang on for two years, then the U.S. will be back in.

And like, you know what I mean? 00:17:51 Speaker 2: I don't know. I'm curious how you're hearing it spoken about. 00:17:55 Speaker 4: Absolutely. And I think that is the issue. I mean, I think there is a long running view that as was said in Brazil last year, that the US has pulled out before, and the US itself can be quite obstructionist in many ways. So without the US, there are new opportunities. However, I do agree that there is also a potential risk that reading the midterms as a win for climate, which in some ways it was, does not change the current status of the US as a nation. And basically everyone's wishing upon a return to normal, a mean reversion, a return to average. And you're assuming that even if the U.S. reenters Paris, the U.S. is going to act in the same way when it's quite possible the facts on the ground as they are have radically changed by the time the U.S. decides to reenter and then resume a position in the part of this process. I mean, we're already seeing China... massively manufacture and sell, you know, just solar panels as the cheapest form of power. EVs, you know, those are flooding the market across the board. There's a question of whether China wants to play a more active role in this process. It hasn't stepped up yet, but it's looking like it may in the future and there's signals that it might. And I think a lot of the, there's a lot of diplomatic analysis based, at least, like wishing and hanging on the hopeful future where Donald Trump leaves. Democrats take over and the US re-enters this process and everything will go back to normal. I suspect that that says a lot about the particular countries making that analysis and perhaps might be a misread of the global circumstances. 00:19:45 Speaker 1: I think there's no way in which the Iran war is not having an impact on all of those things, right? Have you heard any kind of discussion around that or around volatility of oil prices in general, the kind of larger geopolitical situation that this COP is unfolding and all that kind of thing? 00:20:06 Speaker 4: Well, that is the interesting thing that's supposed to feed into this electrification push, right? Because that's supposed to kind of capture a lot of those anxieties and fears and concerns from countries. And for many observers, their electrification stuff seemed like something that would have been non-controversial and a non-brainer and would have got up. But I think with European countries in particular kind of being like, well, where's the clean energy, guys? And kind of being a bit cooler on this process. That then makes other countries go, well, why should we sign up to this voluntary commitment if Europe's not going to? And then that kind of makes the momentum much harder to get going. And if Turkey and Australia can't get agreement on that, then that's what should have been a pretty easy headline that has not been achieved. So that does not bode well for things going forward. That said, it is no one's interest to allow this process to fail. The goal seems to be the goal is everyone's in survival mode. So they want this to achieve something, even if it's not nothing. Yeah. 00:21:09 Speaker 2: That makes sense. OK, last thing I wanted to ask you about is protest. 00:21:13 Speaker 1: When we were in Brazil last year, like the first thing we saw coming up to the blue zone was. 00:21:19 Speaker 2: A massive protest. 00:21:21 Speaker 1: Right. And then that led to just quite a lot of military police presence the rest of the time. 00:21:27 Speaker 4: Sure, sure was. 00:21:29 Speaker 2: So, yeah, I'm curious what you're seeing in Turkey. 00:21:32 Speaker 4: Just off the bat, I mean, I haven't seen any protests so far. I understand that I've been here before. and certainly not on the scale of Brazil. I think part of that has been to do with the transport issue, frankly, because you cannot get people to a place at a particular time. 00:21:44 Speaker 1: Perhaps a strategic move on behalf of the Turkish government. 00:21:49 Speaker 2: No, I don't think so. 00:21:53 Speaker 4: I actually think it's just kind of probably a happy byproduct of something that they would... I also know that the Turkish government. 00:22:01 Speaker 4: It's been said to me that they've been approaching this with a degree of perfectionism, and they want to host the best possible party. um so i think the transport issues are a bit of an embarrassment that they would like to fix as quickly as possible so people stop talking about it um but even just to get into where the blue zone is you have to cross a highway across that bridge across a highway and there are men with they're very heavily armed uh military guys sitting on that bridge as part of the security process and then you've got to get to the blue zone proper which has a kind of a Similar to Belang, you had the area which is just kept clear of all traffic and all people. So it's like an exclusion zone. So there haven't been any protests at the Blue Zone yet. I haven't had a chance to visit the Green Zone yet. So I don't know what is planned or what might be happening elsewhere. But it's the combination of logistical issues and distance and some of the security set up, I would imagine, has maybe made some of that civil society stuff more difficult than it might be than maybe was initially intended. 00:23:03 Speaker 1: Just to unpack that for people who don't know all of the COP terminology, the Blue Zone is where the negotiations happen. It's where the ministers are. You have to have a special pass to go into the Blue Zone. The Green Zone is the civil society space. It's open to the public. 00:23:19 Speaker 2: Anyone can go. 00:23:20 Speaker 1: There's often a lot of art and culture exhibits there and it's where a lot of the protests happen, but I know at, um, at Brazil they had, and I've seen this at other cops too, that they've had like sort of specific, you know, you apply in advance to do an action and then you're given

this like assigned space, which is really funny to think about from a protest standpoint, but like, um, this assigned time and space to do your action and like, whatever. 00:23:48 Speaker 2: Um, is that happening at this cop that you've seen? 00:23:53 Speaker 4: There is a lot of, really interesting things about this where part of this is, I think, perhaps even cultural. Whereas in Brazil, rural is kind of raucous and rowdy and there's, you know, multiple Indigenous communities that, like, have been a long history of protests and are engaged. And so they were willing to turn up. They, you know, kind of did that protest where they kind of stormed security at one point, which is, you know, which is very part of that kind of, I want to say volatile, but that sounds like an insult. I don't mean it that way. But a very rowdy Brazilian democracy. Robust dissent, yes. Robust, yes. Whereas here, I mean, for instance, like, in the same way that you can like i think in the past we've talked about how the green zone is kept separate from the blue zone you know to kind of keep the rowdy protesters in the civil society groups away from the serious politicians and the people um you know to get to the greens and there is a transfer bus and i haven't yet caught it i don't know where it goes but it's not here um so i i would be i'm curious to see where the green zone is relative to this but i haven't slate iron upon it yeah so there's those factors as well but then there are places within the blue zone so for instance there's the class the ngos and society groups do fossil of the day the award so there's yeah yeah yeah so last night there was a guy dancing around in a you know dinosaur bone costume doing the muscle for the day stuff so there was a bit of that going on in places as well which is so you might say that's more managed yeah it's opposition than some of what we've seen. 00:25:22 Speaker 1: Previously it's more sort of like you know Approved protest. 00:25:28 Speaker 4: Yes. 00:25:28 Speaker 2: Yeah, interesting. 00:25:29 Speaker 4: Okay. 00:25:30 Speaker 1: Well, excited to catch up in a couple weeks and hear about things as it's wrapping up. 00:25:37 Speaker 2: And good luck with the transport woes. I hope it gets better. Thanks for making the time. 00:25:45 Speaker 7: No, no, no. 00:25:45 Speaker 4: Thank you for having me. Thank you. 00:25:54 Speaker 1: The Spill is a regularly recurring segment of the Drilled podcast. It comes out every Friday when we're not in the middle of a narrative season. If you have ideas for folks you'd like to see us interview on here, let us know. 00:26:07 Speaker 2: We're at Drilled Media on all social. 00:26:09 Speaker 1: Media platforms, or you can email me at amy at drilled.media. Links to all the stories we mentioned and to pre-order my book are in the show notes. The Spill is produced by Peter Duff. Our theme song is Bird in the Hand by Fournone. Artwork by Matthew Fleming. Our First Amendment attorney is James Wheaton. 00:26:31 Speaker 2: And Jake Flanagan. 00:26:58 Speaker 5: Thank you.