The Problem with Jon Stewart (2021) s01e06 Episode Script
Climate Change
- [producers, writers chattering]
- [phone ringing]
- [Chelsea] I had a question.
- [Stewart] Yes.
Do you feel like recycling doesn't work?
- Yes.
- Recycling doesn't work.
But if every single person did it,
it would do something.
It would do nothing.
- It wouldn't do nothing!
- [Rob] It wouldn't solve the problem.
First, in 40 years, we've only recycled
about 10% of the plastic we use.
So if seat belts only worked
10% of the time,
we'd have to fix seat belts.
They wouldn't fucking work.
- But what it does, it makes us feel good.
- Dopamine.
[Rob] Right. So we recycle,
and we're good people.
It's worse for the environment.
- [Chelsea] Because it's making you feel--
- Because we're not fixing the problem.
- [producers laughing]
- [Brinda] Wow.
Would you guys like to sit next
to each other?
People are going to be
so fucking mad at me about this.
Oh, yeah. There should be a warning
before this episode
being like, "Take your Xanax."
Here's the only warning
that needs to be on the episode.
Jon doesn't read your tweets.
[all laughing]
[audience cheering, applauding]
Welcome to The Problem with Jon Stewart.
So excited you're joining us
for the program tonight.
Um…
[stammers, sighs]
So, here's the thing, though.
We have to begin the show-- I have--
It's-- [sighs]
Urgent news.
[audience chuckles]
And, unfortunately, it is not particularly
of the good variety.
Right now, we're facing
a man-made disaster
of global scale.
Climate change.
The first real catastrophic effects
of climate change will be felt by 2040.
It we don't do something about it,
it is the end of the world as we know it.
[inhales sharply]
[audience laughs]
Am I the only one
whose first instinct was to go…
And I feel fine ♪
[audience laughing]
[laughing intensifies]
You know, it's funny. I heard--
I would go into
"We Didn't Start the Fire,"
but I think
we did actually start the fire,
so I can't do that.
But, uh-- [stammering] So, it's here.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
What changes can we expect from this?
…historic, record-breaking drought.
…record-breaking rains, epic flooding,
a number of tornadoes…
…record-breaking temperatures…
…upwards of 105 degrees.
[reporter] 116 degrees.
130 degrees.
[imitating auctioneer]
140 degrees. Do I hear 145 degrees?
- [audience laughs]
- 150 degrees. Going once. Going twice.
You're dead.
[laughing continues]
[normal]
Uh, this actually seems quite serious.
This is a climate damn emergency.
People are dying. They are dying.
We are digging our own graves.
And in this heat.
[audience laughing]
130 degrees,
and we're digging our own graves. [groans]
By the way, digging your own grave,
the most popular exercise in New Jersey.
[audience laughing, applauding]
You're welcome. It's true.
That's…
It's right after-- I think the second
most popular is digesting a cheesesteak.
It's a wonderful place to live ♪
[grunts]
So, judging from
our first two sound bite packages,
we're fucked.
So that's the end of us.
Uh, is there anything we can do?
Small changes to your daily routine
can reduce your carbon footprint
and help save the earth.
Reduce your carbon footprint.
Cut your carbon footprint.
Stop doing things
that leave a large carbon footprint.
Well, that sounds reasonable.
How do we reduce our carbon footprint,
thus saving the earth?
Riding your bike to work
instead of driving.
[audience chuckles, laughing]
I'd love to help…
[audience laughing]
I actually fly to work
in a jet made of Hummers.
- Um…
- [audience laughing]
But-- But, uh--
That's really a beautiful jet.
But all right, uh, ride your bike to work.
Earth saved?
Just by wearing your clothes
for nine months longer,
it can reduce your carbon footprint.
Nine months longer than what?
[audience laughing]
I've been wearing a Bon Jovi T-shirt
under this sweater since my prom.
[audience laughs]
But all right, all right.
Uh, ride your bike.
Never change your clothes.
Earth saved?
There's one easy thing
you could do to green your life,
and that's not have a child.
[audience laughs]
[cheering, applauding]
[audience laughs]
Well, then, who exactly
are we saving the earth for?
[audience laughs]
Just us?
Just-- We're all gonna just be 70,
like, "This is nice."
[audience laughs]
"Got a lot of room."
I gotta tell you,
the urgency of the problem versus
the scale of what we are being told to do
doesn't really seem to…
Check out this green
carbon footprint-type icon here.
Reminder to turn off
at least half the lights.
What the fuck is going on here?
You're telling us the world is ending.
The temperature's going up
a trillion degrees.
We're all gonna be underwater
and on fire at the same time.
But all you need to do is
put a little piece-of-paper green foot
right next to the light.
No, no, not all the lights.
Just half the lights.
Here's another little green footprint.
There's no fucking way that's gonna work.
[audience laughs]
Who planted the idea
that reducing your carbon footprint
is the way out of this catastrophe?
[interviewer]
What size is your carbon footprint?
Ah, the carbon footprint.
That I don't know.
The effect my living has on the earth
in terms of the products I consume?
[audience chuckling]
I don't want to be a--
I don't want to be a conspiracy guy…
go all tinfoil hat on you people,
but something appeared on that screen.
I want to see if we can--
Can we get that back on the screen
and enhance it or-- You know, I--
Yeah. I-- You kno--
[machine beeping]
I don't know if that's a watermark
or something,
but it's something that almost suggests,
like, an oil company.
Look, it almost resembles a logo
of a petroleum company
of the British persuasion.
But why would a company
that deals in fossil fuels
make it seem like if you would just
fucking ride your bike to work,
we'd all be fine?
Maybe it's because
100 fossil fuel companies are responsible
for 71% of the world's carbon emissions.
A hundred.
That's fewer companies than there are
dalmatians in Cruella de Vil's coat.
[audience laughing]
Yes, fewer.
You see, it turns out fossil fuels
popularized the carbon footprint
so that we would blame ourselves
instead of them.
But Big Oil didn't just popularize
the carbon footprint.
Recycling, our most treasured act
of environmentalism,
was another ploy pushed by Big Oil.
Here's Larry Thomas, the former president
of a plastics lobbying group,
who wouldn't say this on camera.
[Thomas] If the public thinks
that recycling is working,
then they're not going to be
as concerned about the environment.
[whispering] Motherfucker.
You know, we should've known
recycling was a scam
when they made the bins out of plastic.
[audience laughing]
And then, even when we came up with
solutions to the fossil fuel problem,
like wind energy,
oil companies gave money to folks
who made commercials like this one.
[announcer]
Wind power, the energy of the future.
But there's a catch.
- [impacts]
- [audience groaning, laughing]
Wind power kills birds.
- [spectator] Oh, my God.
- It's okay, you can laugh.
The bird that was killed in that footage
was a pedophile.
[audience laughing]
[laughing, cheering, applauding]
He knows what he did.
[audience laughs]
All right, here's the thing.
Maybe that wind turbine killed a bird.
But you know what else kills birds?
The earth heating up
and boiling them to death.
But, hey, look, it's oil companies' money.
They can spend it however they--
I'm sorry. I'm being told that
taxpayers give fossil fuel companies
$20 billion in subsidies every year.
Now, look, it's easy
to demonize fossil fuel companies.
The truth is, they've actually,
literally been the engine of our progress
over the past few hundred years,
and we are as addicted to them
as they are to us.
Climate change is
an unintended consequence
of our success as a species.
We are crushing it.
There's, like, eight billion of us now.
I'm sure gorillas are sitting there,
going, "We have opposable thumbs.
Why can't we?
Have we all just been spending
too much time in the mist?"
[scattered laughter]
Have I-- Have I dated myself on that one?
[audience laughs]
The-- The gorillas oftentimes spend time
in the-- in the mist.
You really-- You should google that.
[audience laughs]
Fossil fuels power
our comfort and convenience,
and the fact that they may also be
the architect of our impending doom
probably won't get us to change our ways.
Truth is, we're not a
"sacrifice for the greater good"
kind of species,
which you may have noticed
during a recent, and perhaps current,
international coronapalooza.
[interviewer] Before you got sick,
if you had a chance
to get the vaccine and prevent this,
- would you have taken the vaccine?
- No.
No.
So that guy can just leave the hospital
and continue to expose people
to libertarianism.
[audience laughing]
In the mist.
[audience laughing]
You see, the problem
with climate change is really…
the problem with humans.
We're not a prevention folk.
We're an "angrily lash out
at our lack of preparation
in the middle
of a preventable emergency" folk,
while eating tacos
stuffed inside of chalupas.
We just want to know that
when we plug in the mini fridge
on the makeup vanity
that cools our skin care products,
that it works.
Yeah, I said it.
We refrigerate our skin care products,
'cause guess what?
This doesn't just happen.
[audience laughing, applauding]
This doesn't just happen with…
[applauding continues]
- Thank you.
- [audience laughing]
You think this happens
with room-temperature collagen peptides?
[audience laughing]
These peptides gotta be cooled.
So we're going to need our politicians
to act now and to act urgently.
Just like they've been saying they would
for decades.
We come to Rio
with an action plan on climate change.
Kyoto is a genuine turning point.
What we have achieved in Copenhagen
will not be the end,
but rather the beginning.
We are determined to succeed
here in Paris.
So let this be the moment that
we answer history's call here in Glasgow.
Yeah, let this be the moment.
And you know what was interesting?
Three weeks
after President Biden made that speech,
history did call,
as Americans prepared to travel
on a holiday weekend
and gas prices were a tad higher
than we were accustomed to.
So the president of the United States,
because of this historic moment,
put his foot down.
Fortunately, that foot was on a gas pedal.
This afternoon, President Biden revealing
the administration will now tap into
the strategic petroleum reserves,
the nation's emergency supply,
to help bring down gas prices.
Son of a gun!
[audience laughing]
Even the president who proposed
the most progressive climate agenda
for Mother Earth
still has to dance for Daddy Oil.
And Daddy like it dirty. Come on now.
[audience laughing]
All right. Take a look at this.
I'm Ed Begley Jr.
For the past 51 years, I've lived
in an environmentally friendly house.
Nobody's done more
to help save the earth than me.
And it's hell.
Living like this fucking sucks.
If the government doesn't take action,
you too will have to drink
your own pee through a filter.
[slurping]
This is my daughter Hayden.
He made me bike six hours
to the Emmys in a ball gown.
I don't have a television,
to save electricity,
so I just watch the squirrels dance.
Look at him scamper.
Look at him.
My dad makes me do
full-on climate apocalypse drills.
In the event of a climate apocalypse,
I'll grab these vegetables
and roller-skate
to an undisclosed location,
where I'll live in a beaver dam.
Toilet paper.
You don't have to be the sexiest actor
in Hollywood to live like this.
[slurping]
You can be normal-looking or even ugly.
Sometimes I fill up this bucket
with rainwater.
Sometimes I just sit on this bucket,
think about how much I hate
the taste of rainwater.
For doing all this, I should be allowed to
kill one very rare bird and eat it.
I would never do that,
but I should be allowed to.
Please, help me stop living like this.
[audience cheering, applauding]
Welcome back to the program.
Uh, we're gonna get
right to the conversation.
Joining me right now, Katherine Dixon.
She's a chief counselor
for the International Energy Agency
and a former VP of strategy
for energy transition at Shell.
Jesse Jenkins is a professor
of energy systems engineering
at Princeton University,
and Heather Toney
is the VP of community engagement
at the Environmental Defense Fund.
Guys, thank you so much for joining us.
[audience cheering, applauding]
So, I think the conversation
about climate change,
to a large extent, has focused on
activists versus oil companies
and the virtue of individuals
to get us to net zero by 2050,
or a better position by 2030,
or to keep global warming down
to 1.5 degrees.
But we're still not having
a real conversation with the people
about what's in store.
There's so many dichotomies when we talk
about, "These are the high-level--"
It's, "We have 10 years to save the planet
or we're all screwed." Or--
That's the rhetoric that I'm locked into.
And that's the public rhetoric so often
because we're trying to simplify things
to mobilize the public.
But the reality is
so much more complicated than that.
Every tenth of a degree matters, right?
I mean, the goal
of these global agreements was
to try to stop dangerous climate change.
Look around.
We d-- We failed at that, right?
I mean,
there's already dangerous climate change.
But at the same time,
we've avoided
the totally apocalyptic scenarios
that were where we were trending,
just as soon as--
as recent as 2014.
There are many solutions
that are available
and are far more affordable
than I think a lot of people realize,
thanks to innovation over recent years.
But the scale of the challenge is so large
that these transitions take time.
And so, we are talking about
changing the way we make and use energy
all across the world in transportation,
in heating, in industry,
in how we, you know, produce food,
in how we produce our electricity.
And so each of these sectors
has to be transformed,
and those are not small tasks.
So much
of the climate conversation talks about
the transition to this new,
more feasible energy grid,
with solar and wind and renewables
and industries turning over.
But what it really seems to me is
these next 30 to 50 years,
being realistic,
is going to be about managing chaos,
the chaos that occurs
from the climate crisis
and the communities
that are gonna be impacted.
So we're talking about, you know,
migration of people
out of untenable areas.
We're talking about, uh,
if the price of fossil fuels that people
still rely on go up, you know--
We haven't come up with anything better
than the combustion engine.
And switching that is gonna cause
big problems.
I mean, the industry is in the process
of switching that right now.
So that's partially true, but if you look
at sales globally of electric vehicles,
in 2021, they're expected to be
10% of global vehicle sales,
cars and trucks, are gonna be electric.
That's up from 4% the previous year
and 2.5% the year before that.
So these are not straight-line trends.
They're exploding.
[Toney] You mentioned managed chaos,
and we talk about transition
as if there's a light switch turning on.
And when that happens,
we end up with people
who are scared and say,
"Oh, no, I can't get gas at Walmart.
Let me rush out
and put it in a plastic bag
and tie it up and, you know, get"--
When, in reality, transition works
just like your transition lenses do.
You walk outside, and it slowly
transitions from light to dark.
Like, that's the process that we're in.
There are some opportunities.
We can reduce methane
in the world right now.
We know that reducing methane by 30%
helps us to slow the warming.
- Right this moment--
- How do you do that?
So, we can look at energy sources,
also landfill and waste, agriculture,
three main ways that we reduce methane.
But agriculture would be--
You're talking about animal agriculture?
Animal agriculture.
But doesn't that mean-- And listen--
Vegetarian Subway.
- I-- I eat-- I don't eat meat…
- Well--
…and I annoy people.
[audience, panelists chuckle]
But, you know, vegetarians are still,
even after all this time,
after all the health benefits,
after all the climate benefits,
vegetarians are still a smaller part
of the population, percentage-wise,
than dentists who recommend sugared gum.
[audience laughing]
That's not true, is it?
Four out of five dentists
recommend sugarless gum,
which means 20% of dentists say,
"Fuck it. Sugar."
[Dixon, Jenkins laugh]
Vegetarians are 10%
of the population at best.
At the same time,
that's an all-or-nothing thing.
You could not eat any meat
or you could eat less meat.
And in the US,
demand for beef has peaked, for example.
We're eating less beef every year.
So these trends are slow but transitional,
and we're making progress.
But how does that square, then,
with the time horizon we've been given?
[Toney]
I agree. It's not the all-or-nothing,
but let's look at
what's happening in transition.
I like bacon, but I'm just not gonna eat
as much bacon, maybe, possibly.
But I'm still gonna eat bacon.
Part of this has to do with what--
- That bacon has a name, Heather!
- I know it has a name!
[audience, Dixon laughing]
- I get it.
- That bacon is a very, very good boy.
- [Toney] And--
- [Dixon laughs]
- And Wilbur and Charlotte--
- [laughs]
And you're gonna use their names? [growls]
- But their barbecue is delicious. [laughs]
- [Stewart] All right!
- I get it.
- [audience applauding]
- I've been where you are.
- [Toney laughs]
But no, seriously, I mean, it-- [stammers]
We do need to take into the fact that,
you know, quite frankly,
I can't go into my church congregation
and tell them,
"Everybody, we're gonna stop
eating chicken and stop eating bacon."
Because the church mothers
are gonna put me out,
and my pastor might look at me
a little strange.
Like that--
We have to look at what are solutions
that work across a number
of different prospects.
We've made solar power
the cheapest source of energy
pretty much everywhere in the world now.
It's ten times cheaper
than it was ten years ago.
So we can make clean energy cheap.
It takes time, it takes innovation,
it takes investment,
and it takes public policy.
So let me push back on that
just a little bit.
My understanding of solar,
very similar to yours.
We both probably studied
at the same institutions.
[Dixon, audience laughing]
I have also…
eaten lunch in Princeton.
[Jenkins, audience laugh]
Place called Hoagie Haven.
If you ever go there…
[audience cheers, applauds]
…literally, like, two dollars
for a six-foot sub.
Has to be a drug front.
There's no way
that this place is a viable business.
But the problem with solar
and with wind is intermittency.
That, to me, makes it seem as though
solar and wind are actually not as viable
and not as close
as we have been led to believe.
So wind and solar can do
a lot of the work,
but they can't do all of it, right?
They-- It is dark at night.
Science can't really do
anything about that.
[imitating rich person]
Not in Princeton, it's not.
[audience, Jenkins laugh]
We do need something that can run
for days or weeks at a time
when we don't have enough wind
or solar power.
- Right.
- And the challenge,
the remaining innovation challenge,
is to do what we did for wind and solar
and make clean, reliable technologies
that can displace natural gas cheap enough
by 2030 or 2035 that they can do that job.
But isn't that a very different answer,
though, than,
"Oh, yeah, we've got the technology,
and we just need implementation"?
Well, so, here's the thing to think about.
The energy system is so big
that there is no silver bullet
or magic technology
that's gonna do all of the work.
Even today,
natural gas is the largest source
of electricity in the United States.
- And it's only 35% of our electricity.
- Right.
I tend to think people spend a lot of time
thinking about the supply side of energy.
They think, "Oh, we'll build more solar.
We'll put more windmills up,
you know, and then we'll get there."
But at the same time,
we have to remember that only 20%
of energy demand is currently electrified.
So there's this whole-- You know, there's
this whole piece of energy demand, 80%,
that is not currently able to use solar,
not able to use wind power.
So what we've really got to focus on now
is, how do we transition that 80%?
So we're talking about transport.
We're talking about heat.
We're talking about industrial processes.
We're talking about food.
I mean, a couple of hundred years ago,
you know, we made food
from the energy from the sun.
We now make it from oil.
Forty to fifty percent, you know,
of our food system is used--
made using synthetic fertilizers
from fossil fuels.
That sounds delicious.
[Dixon, audience laugh]
But it's-- So much has got to change.
And until we start looking at
the demand side of it,
thinking about each sector,
what does each sector require--
These are really complicated
technology transitions.
We're gonna take a little break,
come back.
I want to discuss the role that we can--
Rather than villainizing oil,
how do we get them to actually help
with this transition?
So, we'll take a step away,
and we'll be right back.
[audience cheering, applauding]
[no audible dialogue]
To all of you good humans
working to save the polar bears…
you stupid motherfuckers.
We want you morons dead.
You think a sad picture of me is gonna
move the needle?
I will eat your ass,
and not in the good way.
Not the millennial way,
the old-fashioned way.
The ass-eating… [stammers]
Don't worry about saving us.
Save yourselves.
'Cause we're coming for you.
And we can fucking swim.
Bitch.
[audience cheering, applauding]
[Sunita Narain] We don't need anyone
to tell us that climate change is here.
The poor of India can see
devastation all around them
when it rains too much,
when there are increased cyclones,
when it is too cold, too hot,
and crops fail.
The deal was very simple.
There were a certain set of countries
that had created the problem.
They were to reduce.
The other set of countries, which still
needed development, had the right to grow.
There would be money
and technology provided
so that these countries
would grow differently.
Now, unfortunately,
in the last three decades,
there has been no money,
there has been no technology transfer,
and the dialogue has been,
"Oh, these countries want our money now.
They want us to pay them money
even though they're the contributors
to climate change."
We're all being preached to
and talked down to,
and we're being told,
"Sorry, you know, the party is over."
And that is true.
I mean, at the end of the day,
the hard facts of it is that
the world has run out of carbon space.
We cannot combat climate change
unless we understand
we live in an interdependent world.
We will have to work together.
The rich and the poor.
It is a prerequisite
for an effective climate agreement.
Because if you created
the problem in the past,
the poor will add to emissions
in the future.
[audience applauding, cheering]
Welcome back to the program.
I'm joined by Katherine Dixon,
Jesse Jenkins and Heather Toney.
Uh, America's put more carbon
in the atmosphere
than any other country
since the beginning
of our industrial revolution.
- Like, we've powered a lot of this crisis.
- Yeah.
And we have comfort
second to none in the world.
And now we're going to go to countries
that are not as industrialized and say,
"I know you want the fridge
to put your collagen peptides in."
[Toney, audience chuckle]
"But unfortunately,
you don't get to have the advantage
of industrialization that we did."
How can we, with a straight face,
go to countries suffering
and put any limits on their growth?
I mean, the reality is, we can't.
They're sovereign countries.
They do what they want,
and they have every right to develop.
And so the only thing we can do
in the United States
and other rich countries
is use our purchasing power,
use the power of the federal government
and our investments,
to make clean energy cheap enough
to power the world.
And we're doing that.
A hundred of these companies
create 70% of our global emissions.
Wouldn't it be better to hold our noses,
to not villainize them,
to understand that no industry
is ever gonna cut its own throat
and take away its profits?
How do we bribe them?
Like, if you had to sit down
with the guy from Shell
and ask them a question
or get them on board,
what would you say?
I would look at the question
in a slightly different way.
How meaningful is it
to hold someone to account
when what they--
when they're working as part of a system?
You know, putting so much focus
and attention on the energy company,
if we're gonna do that,
we're definitely gonna fail,
'cause we actually have to look at
the whole system.
What we need is to change the conversation
away from this combative argument,
"You win, I lose."
And it needs to be much more
about cooperation.
How do we get countries to work together,
to scale technologies?
You were at Shell for a bit.
They were sued by activists,
and a judgment was won
that Shell had to reduce their emissions
by-- I think it was something like 40%.
Is that also a tool
that will be used in the future
to incentivize some of these companies
to come along?
I think, you know, Shell can change.
But the problem is,
if a company like Shell exits
sectors like aviation or shipping,
all these really hard-to-abate,
high-carbon sectors,
the net effect--
Shell might transition.
Shell might lower its carbon footprint.
But the net effect on the energy system is
pretty unchanged.
I mean, when I was at Shell,
I advocated quite strongly
that Shell shouldn't try and sell
its high-carbon businesses,
that it had a responsibility
to work with its customers
and to think through how it helps them
transition their business.
I'm not really sure
that these kind of legal judgments
necessarily help shift the energy system.
What I would say
to the Shell argument, too, is:
Maybe Shell cuts their things
by 30% or 40%,
but you're talking about--
Saudi Arabia's a petrostate.
Russia has gas. But, like--
they would be happy
to make up the shortfall.
And all of a sudden,
over this 30- and 50-year transition,
all we're really doing is enriching
some of the most egregious governments
throughout the world.
The system is so big,
you can't only solve it
by suing oil companies.
You need to make everybody's investment--
you know, business decisions--
You know, when you go to the dealership
to buy a car,
it should just be a better decision
for you to buy an electric car.
When you choose
where you get your electricity from,
it should just be a better decision
for you to get green electricity.
But I'll be honest with you.
I don't choose where I get my electricity.
- Yes, the utility will.
- I get it from, uh, Bruce Springsteen…
[Jenkins, audience laugh]
- …who powers New Jersey…
- Yeah.
…with his love of the everyman.
[Jenkins, audience chuckle]
I think the key word here is
accountability.
Accountability and transparency.
Some of the groups, Shell included,
but also other chemical companies,
petrochemical companies,
oil and gas companies,
that have been seated, quite frankly,
on some of the very same land
that plantations were on
in the American South,
or in vulnerable populations
in the Global South
that have a history of mistrust
and mistreatment--
Asking those very same people--
To say, "Trust us, we'll fix it.
When you rain the sulfur down,
we'll give you a rain slicker."
Like, they don't get that.
- [chuckles] Nor should they.
- Right.
Talk about accountability,
you can try to hold a company accountable
for selling products we demand from them.
Okay. But you can definitely hold
a company accountable
for going in and opposing legislation
that will make us move faster
towards a clean energy economy.
You can shine a spotlight on companies
that run misleading advertising
that makes everybody think
things are fine when they're not.
Those are the kinds of actions
that affect the political power balance,
that really do either slow down
or accelerate this transition.
So, when oil and gas companies are
on the wrong side of that,
yes, we should hold them accountable.
But the only entity powerful enough
to stand up to enforce
incumbent industries to change
is the US government
or other federal governments.
So we need national policy that says,
"We are going to do this differently,
and we're gonna make it profitable
for you to do it differently."
And either Shell will do that,
or someone else will.
But don't you have to do that
'cause they have us over--
and please, God, forgive me for this pun--
- they have us over a barrel?
- [Jenkins, audience chuckle]
When you talk about how to get it done
in the policy level,
that's where we run into problems.
So if the laws that are created
don't allow for us to implement,
how can the government do anything?
- That's right.
- If we don't have voting legislation,
because according to a Yale climate study,
no offense to Princeton…
[Jenkins, audience laughing]
…you know, Black and brown people are
more likely to vote for climate policy
than anybody else in this country.
But if Black and brown people
are being kept from voting,
then how can the government even have
people in place that will push the policy?
[audience cheering, applauding]
Now that-- Political power sounds like
the most urgent part of this solution.
Fossil fuel companies
have so much power in this country
and they have the power, unfortunately,
to destabilize the governments
that would do the most
to make that transition.
And so what I'm saying is,
co-opt whatever their greed principle is
to make it so that
they own this transition,
or at least part of it,
so that they're no longer incentivized
to oppose it.
Because that accountability never happens
because behind closed doors,
there's too much money involved.
And so, in some ways,
we have to bribe them.
[Jenkins] But it's a feedback loop, right?
You need policy to change the incentives
so they have an incentive
to invest in the right stuff
so that the policy gets easier,
and that's how we win. [chuckles]
So you need to intervene
in that loop somewhere,
and that takes people power.
That takes concerned investors.
- So wherever you can get into that loop…
- Right.
…and lean on that lever
and move it faster,
- that's how we get that going.
- What do you think would be faster?
The grassroots investing strategies
of putting pressure on them,
or saying to them, "30 years from now,
you won't have a business.
But here's how you would have a business."
- It takes policy to make that threat real.
- I think it's a combination of both.
You've got young people who are moving
and not only standing outside
and protesting
but running for office.
So what's one thing that you would do
that you think
really needs to be accomplished
to get this done in a less chaotic,
more timely fashion?
I mean, you think what happened
in the 20th century
with the rise of nuclear weapons.
We completely transformed
our international system,
and diplomats kind of learned
how to talk the language
of nuclear weapons, biological weapons.
Well, we need our diplomats
to learn to talk the language
of, you know, biofuels and hydrogen
and different countries having
these climate targets.
It's gonna be through really, deeply
understanding the technologies
and getting them to be really deployed
as quickly as we can
through different economies.
[Toney] If you ask one of the things
that is part of the solution,
it is centering equity
in every single piece.
- That's hard work. That's not easy.
- [Stewart] For you, is that--
Would you say that's the single thing
that needs to happen to get this going?
I think certainly it's one of
the biggest things that has to happen
is centering equity
in a way that people are included
and we're building trust in this process.
We get it.
It's not gonna happen overnight.
But if equity is not centered,
then we are creating sacrifice zones.
And we've got to ask ourselves honestly,
are we okay with continuing to have
poor people, vulnerable people,
literally being our defense
in terms of the climate crisis
and sacrificing in ways
that they have sacrificed for years?
Making that a part of not just equality
but of equity?
Of equity. Absolutely.
- And when you're president…
- [Toney laughs]
[audience laughing]
Uh, I thank you guys very much
for this conversation.
You're all optimistic,
and you work in the field,
and that's encouraging to me.
Because I sit outside of it
and just get super sad.
But my face looks great
because I chill my collagen peptides.
[audience laughing, applauding]
We'll be right back.
Thank you all for coming in…
[narrator] I used to be like you.
Weak, sad,
unable to get erections.
[audience laughing]
Maybe it's about time you stopped
begging big-city,
liberal politicians for electricity
and started taking it…
from the sun.
Because a real man wouldn't rely on
a Communist wire
to keep his family warm and his beer cold.
The sun is hot as shit.
Look that sun right in the eye and say,
"Listen, pal, you work for me now."
Be a man.
Man-god in charge of the sun.
Sun-powered god-man.
Gets boners, no problem.
Be a man.
Sack up and go solar.
[audience cheering, applauding]
[Stewart] Hello. I should start with that.
Uh, Ben van Beurden.
Thank you so much for joining us.
You are the, uh, chairman commissar?
Huh? What? O-Of Shell--
Shell PLC. I'm the CEO.
The CEO. Chief executive officer.
- [Stewart] CEO?
- Yeah.
I really thought you would've had
a black mustache to twirl,
because you are Big Oil.
You're the villain in this story.
You haven't done enough.
You're holding us back.
Well, I hear
that type of narrative quite often.
But the reality
is actually different, Jon.
So, first of all,
while I believe the pursuit of profit
is absolutely essential
if you want to be a sustainable entity--
- Sure.
- Yeah.
We're also an entity
that's made up of 70 thousand people
who want to be
on the right side of history as well.
I mean, you'll have to think that,
'cause I think
it's clearly the way it's going.
I guess my point is
everybody keeps talking about,
"We've got 10 years. We've got 20 years.
If we wanna hold-- If we get to net zero,
then there's 1.5 degrees Celsius
of warming,
and we can hold that line.
And we all wanna fight global warming."
But we haven't.
And we're 30 years in,
and we're staring down,
really, a disaster.
Thirty years ago,
we had 30 years more to deal with it.
And for some reason or other,
society couldn't quite get there
- in time to start acting, yeah?
- Well… Yes.
- Some people say, "That's your fault."
- To be fair, it's not all your fault,
but it is fair to say though.
Oil companies, fossil fuel companies,
fought that transition pretty hard.
And continues to fight it.
Well, I can't speak
for the entire industry,
but I can speak for my company.
All the way back to the early '90s,
we have been clear
that something needed to be done.
You can look back on 30 years
of advocacy and say,
"Were we brutal enough?
Could we have done more?"
Why didn't you?
- That was not the mood of the day, Jon.
- Yeah.
And it, uh-- And it, uh--
And many of the advocacy points
fell on relatively deaf ears.
I-I'm-- What I'm trying to get to is,
the fossil fuel industry has fought
a lot of the changes
that would make this transition easier.
And my point is, of course they have.
Are we being stupid
to look for any kind of cooperation
or solutions
when the commodity of oil is
the greatest profit driver in history?
I mean, you still make
billions and billions of dollars.
We are a corporation.
[stammers]
You know, we need to be in business.
- But we are critically dependent…
- Right.
…in terms of our lifestyle
and our societal health,
on the provision of affordable energy.
- So it's not--
- And when it's not affordable,
you see the instability politically
that spreads throughout the world.
Also that.
So it's not an easy thing to change.
Unless corporations re-incentivize
the shift from a fossil fuel economy
to a renewable economy.
That's exactly where I think a company
like us, perhaps, then, is different,
where we believe
our societal responsibilities lie
and where we also believe
a significant pool of profit lies.
So, how do you transition us?
Because, boy,
you'd be hard-pressed to think
that wind and solar and hydrogen are gonna
bring you the kind of money that oil did.
I fully agree with you
that that business has an intrinsically
lower return characteristic.
- It also has a lower risk attribute.
- Absolutely.
- People don't build wind farms--
- And there's no exploration money--
No. You don't build wind farms
where there's no wind.
- Sure. Correct.
- It doesn't happen.
But the point is that if you want
to thrive in the energy transition,
you're going to get most of your money
working with customers.
And if you look at what is happening
at the moment,
you have thousands of companies say,
"We want to be net zero
because I feel
that it's morally the right thing to do."
- But the day after making the pledge…
- Yeah.
…they realize they have no conception
of how to get there.
And then, indeed, companies like us
come into play to help them--
So, how much of that is your business now?
Oh, not enough.
But it needs to be increasingly,
of course,
- over the decades to come.
- Right. Right.
Decarbonizing your personal mobility needs
is relatively straightforward.
We now know how to do this.
You can have an electric vehicle.
- Right.
- Uh, you, uh--
But it's clearly not as convenient
as the fossil,
'cause there's not as many stations--
No. So that all needs to be built out.
So my company is going to have
two and a half million charge points
by the end of the decade.
Because we see a huge opportunity in that.
So why hasn't that happened
at the speed at which it should've?
The-- The place where it is starting,
at this point in time,
is where governments have been
able to be bolder with mandates.
So the moment a government says,
"By X year,
no more internal combustion engines"--
Who's done that?
Uh, the UK, Germany,
France, the Netherlands…
Energy companies play
an enormous role in that.
Nobody has more influence
with the government on mandates.
And so if the fossil fuel industries
truly believed
the story that they're telling us,
then it would behoove them
to be lobbying fiercely
for these mandates.
- Yeah. And that is--
- And they're not.
- That is what is happening--
- They're doing the opposite.
- Well, okay.
- The industry fought that.
- I mean, that's, you know--
- No, we haven't.
Well, API has.
The American Petroleum Institute
has fought that.
I mean, to this day,
they've fought against any mandates.
They fight against states being able
to regulate, uh, fossil fuel usage.
You know, their position is pretty clear.
I guess my point is
I don't know of a business in the history,
certainly not one
that's been as profitable
for as long as it has
as the fossil fuel industry,
that cuts its own throat.
Yeah.
Well, let me not talk too much about API
other than to say we don't agree with them
on everything and we--
Aren't you on their board?
Uh, yes. And we are working very hard to,
of course, change the stance
of the API in areas
that we believe is important.
But we are fiercely lobbying
behind the scenes
- to make these mandates work.
- [laughs]
And listen, Jon.
There is no, sort of, uniform solution.
The solutions we're going to need
to cut the demand on aviation
is different from steel
is different from--
- It's got to go sector to sector.
- Sector by sector.
So what do you need--
What will you need from the government?
What do you need the government to do
to help you transition?
In every sector, there's a different type
of government involvement needed.
Sometimes putting a price
on carbon would help.
Sometimes subsidies may actually be
really helpful to kick-start something.
Sometimes it's going to be a standard
or a mandate
that needs to be set in there.
And each industry is gonna fight
these mandates differently.
Some will welcome them,
but a lot of them will fight it.
Yeah, well, if they are poorly designed,
they will fight it.
And then from large governments
like the United States,
we need international leadership.
Because if you think you can decarbonize
the aviation industry on a national basis,
- that's not gonna work.
- Right.
If you look at aviation,
you can fly on biofuels.
The problem with biofuels is
they're three times as expensive
as petroleum-based fuels.
What you have to do is
get around the table,
not only with energy companies,
- but also with airlines…
- Right.
…and with airports, and with regulators,
and with governments.
Two years ago, when I had my first
dialogue with a grouping like this,
we had no concept, collectively,
of how we were going to decarbonize.
That was--
Two years ago was the first time?
After 26 COPs, this was the first COP
that the word "sector" was being used.
Before then, everything needed to be done
by the nation-states--
So there have been 26 climate conferences?
Yeah.
And this is the first one
where everybody said,
"We should probably look at this
sector to sector."
Yes.
So, why is that?
Why are we still talking about this
as something we should be doing…
- Yeah. [inhales deeply]
- …not something we are doing?
I think it is because of the, uh,
unbelievable complexity of the problem.
[stammers] The fragmentation.
How big a change would it be, though,
if these energy companies
were to, together,
announce an ambitious plan
for building out the infrastructures,
sector to sector,
using the profits of the legacy business
as seed money
to that transitional infrastructure?
We will need to use
some of our oil and gas cash flows
to build the hydrogen business
of the future.
Because if I was just only allowed
to use the hydrogen income,
it would take a century to build.
Interrupting what is
a brilliantly profitable business,
which is oil and gas.
Like, maybe the real people
you need to convince are the shareholders
of a company so accustomed
to these incredible profit margins.
So truthfully, in my mind,
unless we can convince energy companies
- that they own a lot of this future…
- Yeah.
…we can't make that transition
with the speed
that we need to make it with.
So here's maybe a different thought.
Cleanup.
Planet Earth
as a Superfund site for carbon.
Let's pay energy companies,
the companies that extracted this fuel
in the first place--
Let's pay you to clean it up.
You cannot solve the problem
by just sequestering the carbon
that we take out--
You can't just pull it out of the air
and jam it into the ground.
That's not a system-wide solution.
The first thing you have to do is
make the problem a whole lot smaller.
And then, indeed, you cannot reduce it
all the way down to zero.
- We will always have use…
- Right.
…for carbon-based energy,
- whether you like it or not.
- Understood.
If we are going to get to one and a half
degrees by the end of this century…
- Right.
- …it may well be that by 2050,
we are over one and a half degrees.
Then we need the second half
of the century to clean up.
And some of it will, indeed, have to be
capturing the CO2 out of the air
and sticking it either in the ground
or in a plant.
And we need to be as aggressive as we can.
Um, and I think there's a role
for governments to play.
There's a role for companies
like us to play.
Uh, and I think the sooner that we
as a society get aligned on the idea,
the more progress we can make.
But you do have people who believe
it's just prolonging the life
of fossil fuels.
In many respects, some of those
are opinions expressed by activists,
and activists have the least amount
of power in this equation.
I disagree with you there.
- Really?
- Absolutely.
Activists aren't the ones
that are keeping the government
from mandating these things.
The industry is.
The activist's power has gone in through--
deep into society,
and now we have discussions
with our investors, who just say,
"Society doesn't want this.
So why are you looking for the solution."
They've done an amazing job
of raising the consciousness of this
- and of putting pressure--
- Good on them.
But, man, if we're having
a lifetime achievement award
where we put energy lobbyists
and customers of fossil fuels
and governments and activists
in the same room,
like, those first three I mentioned
hold the real power.
- Yeah.
- And so,
how does an industry regain
the trust of a public
that so needs them to lead this transition
when we're so accustomed to being,
in some ways,
forgive the pun, gaslit by the industry,
that they're far more concerned about this
when you know what their core business is
and that trust is at an all-time low?
Well, it, um--
That's indeed a very difficult question.
There is no way I can talk to you, Jon,
or to the public at large,
- and say, "Trust us."
- Mm-hmm. Right.
Ultimately,
the trust is going to be regained
by delivering the proof points of change
and by delivering
the proof points of solutions.
- Thank you. All right, sir.
- You're very welcome.
[audience cheering, applauding]
That is it for tonight's episode.
If you want to learn more
about the climate change thingy,
uh, look out the window.
Or you can check out
some of these organizations
who are trying to stop
a global apocalypse from happening.
Of course, only if you have the time.
Uh, I hate to impose upon you with
the obviously looming global apocalypse.
For even more on the topic,
listen to our podcast.
It's available
on all the major podcast platforms.
Which I don't know what they are.
I don't listen to podcasts.
[audience laughs]
I have one.
Like all of us do.
[audience laughs]
Also, check out our website.
You know what?
I'll check out your website.
Bitch.
[audience laughing]
See you next time.
[audience cheering, applauding]
[Chelsea] Award speeches.
- When a celeb gives an award speech--
- Yes.
You can get up there,
you can thank your agent or manager,
or you can maybe tell people
there's a water crisis.
It's the only thing that works.
[all laughing]
I always like them because they're--
It's always about climate change,
but you're in show business,
which is the least
energy-efficient organization--
- What? We have glasses.
- Glasses.
- Yeah, now we do, after--
- [all laughing]
- Everybody's like, "What the fuck?"
- [Brinda] Sorry.
We did the perfect show business thing.
We got glasses for show.
- [Brinda] Oh. True.
- Ooh.
Well, we did it for more than that.
We did it because there's a man on Twitter
who keeps writing me,
and he follows up every tweet with,
"Do you understand?"
- Do you?
- [Rob] Oh!
He's like, "Water bottles on the table.
It's very bad. Do you understand?"
And then I just keep writing back, "No."
- [all laughing]
- I don't get it.
- [phone ringing]
- [Chelsea] I had a question.
- [Stewart] Yes.
Do you feel like recycling doesn't work?
- Yes.
- Recycling doesn't work.
But if every single person did it,
it would do something.
It would do nothing.
- It wouldn't do nothing!
- [Rob] It wouldn't solve the problem.
First, in 40 years, we've only recycled
about 10% of the plastic we use.
So if seat belts only worked
10% of the time,
we'd have to fix seat belts.
They wouldn't fucking work.
- But what it does, it makes us feel good.
- Dopamine.
[Rob] Right. So we recycle,
and we're good people.
It's worse for the environment.
- [Chelsea] Because it's making you feel--
- Because we're not fixing the problem.
- [producers laughing]
- [Brinda] Wow.
Would you guys like to sit next
to each other?
People are going to be
so fucking mad at me about this.
Oh, yeah. There should be a warning
before this episode
being like, "Take your Xanax."
Here's the only warning
that needs to be on the episode.
Jon doesn't read your tweets.
[all laughing]
[audience cheering, applauding]
Welcome to The Problem with Jon Stewart.
So excited you're joining us
for the program tonight.
Um…
[stammers, sighs]
So, here's the thing, though.
We have to begin the show-- I have--
It's-- [sighs]
Urgent news.
[audience chuckles]
And, unfortunately, it is not particularly
of the good variety.
Right now, we're facing
a man-made disaster
of global scale.
Climate change.
The first real catastrophic effects
of climate change will be felt by 2040.
It we don't do something about it,
it is the end of the world as we know it.
[inhales sharply]
[audience laughs]
Am I the only one
whose first instinct was to go…
And I feel fine ♪
[audience laughing]
[laughing intensifies]
You know, it's funny. I heard--
I would go into
"We Didn't Start the Fire,"
but I think
we did actually start the fire,
so I can't do that.
But, uh-- [stammering] So, it's here.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
What changes can we expect from this?
…historic, record-breaking drought.
…record-breaking rains, epic flooding,
a number of tornadoes…
…record-breaking temperatures…
…upwards of 105 degrees.
[reporter] 116 degrees.
130 degrees.
[imitating auctioneer]
140 degrees. Do I hear 145 degrees?
- [audience laughs]
- 150 degrees. Going once. Going twice.
You're dead.
[laughing continues]
[normal]
Uh, this actually seems quite serious.
This is a climate damn emergency.
People are dying. They are dying.
We are digging our own graves.
And in this heat.
[audience laughing]
130 degrees,
and we're digging our own graves. [groans]
By the way, digging your own grave,
the most popular exercise in New Jersey.
[audience laughing, applauding]
You're welcome. It's true.
That's…
It's right after-- I think the second
most popular is digesting a cheesesteak.
It's a wonderful place to live ♪
[grunts]
So, judging from
our first two sound bite packages,
we're fucked.
So that's the end of us.
Uh, is there anything we can do?
Small changes to your daily routine
can reduce your carbon footprint
and help save the earth.
Reduce your carbon footprint.
Cut your carbon footprint.
Stop doing things
that leave a large carbon footprint.
Well, that sounds reasonable.
How do we reduce our carbon footprint,
thus saving the earth?
Riding your bike to work
instead of driving.
[audience chuckles, laughing]
I'd love to help…
[audience laughing]
I actually fly to work
in a jet made of Hummers.
- Um…
- [audience laughing]
But-- But, uh--
That's really a beautiful jet.
But all right, uh, ride your bike to work.
Earth saved?
Just by wearing your clothes
for nine months longer,
it can reduce your carbon footprint.
Nine months longer than what?
[audience laughing]
I've been wearing a Bon Jovi T-shirt
under this sweater since my prom.
[audience laughs]
But all right, all right.
Uh, ride your bike.
Never change your clothes.
Earth saved?
There's one easy thing
you could do to green your life,
and that's not have a child.
[audience laughs]
[cheering, applauding]
[audience laughs]
Well, then, who exactly
are we saving the earth for?
[audience laughs]
Just us?
Just-- We're all gonna just be 70,
like, "This is nice."
[audience laughs]
"Got a lot of room."
I gotta tell you,
the urgency of the problem versus
the scale of what we are being told to do
doesn't really seem to…
Check out this green
carbon footprint-type icon here.
Reminder to turn off
at least half the lights.
What the fuck is going on here?
You're telling us the world is ending.
The temperature's going up
a trillion degrees.
We're all gonna be underwater
and on fire at the same time.
But all you need to do is
put a little piece-of-paper green foot
right next to the light.
No, no, not all the lights.
Just half the lights.
Here's another little green footprint.
There's no fucking way that's gonna work.
[audience laughs]
Who planted the idea
that reducing your carbon footprint
is the way out of this catastrophe?
[interviewer]
What size is your carbon footprint?
Ah, the carbon footprint.
That I don't know.
The effect my living has on the earth
in terms of the products I consume?
[audience chuckling]
I don't want to be a--
I don't want to be a conspiracy guy…
go all tinfoil hat on you people,
but something appeared on that screen.
I want to see if we can--
Can we get that back on the screen
and enhance it or-- You know, I--
Yeah. I-- You kno--
[machine beeping]
I don't know if that's a watermark
or something,
but it's something that almost suggests,
like, an oil company.
Look, it almost resembles a logo
of a petroleum company
of the British persuasion.
But why would a company
that deals in fossil fuels
make it seem like if you would just
fucking ride your bike to work,
we'd all be fine?
Maybe it's because
100 fossil fuel companies are responsible
for 71% of the world's carbon emissions.
A hundred.
That's fewer companies than there are
dalmatians in Cruella de Vil's coat.
[audience laughing]
Yes, fewer.
You see, it turns out fossil fuels
popularized the carbon footprint
so that we would blame ourselves
instead of them.
But Big Oil didn't just popularize
the carbon footprint.
Recycling, our most treasured act
of environmentalism,
was another ploy pushed by Big Oil.
Here's Larry Thomas, the former president
of a plastics lobbying group,
who wouldn't say this on camera.
[Thomas] If the public thinks
that recycling is working,
then they're not going to be
as concerned about the environment.
[whispering] Motherfucker.
You know, we should've known
recycling was a scam
when they made the bins out of plastic.
[audience laughing]
And then, even when we came up with
solutions to the fossil fuel problem,
like wind energy,
oil companies gave money to folks
who made commercials like this one.
[announcer]
Wind power, the energy of the future.
But there's a catch.
- [impacts]
- [audience groaning, laughing]
Wind power kills birds.
- [spectator] Oh, my God.
- It's okay, you can laugh.
The bird that was killed in that footage
was a pedophile.
[audience laughing]
[laughing, cheering, applauding]
He knows what he did.
[audience laughs]
All right, here's the thing.
Maybe that wind turbine killed a bird.
But you know what else kills birds?
The earth heating up
and boiling them to death.
But, hey, look, it's oil companies' money.
They can spend it however they--
I'm sorry. I'm being told that
taxpayers give fossil fuel companies
$20 billion in subsidies every year.
Now, look, it's easy
to demonize fossil fuel companies.
The truth is, they've actually,
literally been the engine of our progress
over the past few hundred years,
and we are as addicted to them
as they are to us.
Climate change is
an unintended consequence
of our success as a species.
We are crushing it.
There's, like, eight billion of us now.
I'm sure gorillas are sitting there,
going, "We have opposable thumbs.
Why can't we?
Have we all just been spending
too much time in the mist?"
[scattered laughter]
Have I-- Have I dated myself on that one?
[audience laughs]
The-- The gorillas oftentimes spend time
in the-- in the mist.
You really-- You should google that.
[audience laughs]
Fossil fuels power
our comfort and convenience,
and the fact that they may also be
the architect of our impending doom
probably won't get us to change our ways.
Truth is, we're not a
"sacrifice for the greater good"
kind of species,
which you may have noticed
during a recent, and perhaps current,
international coronapalooza.
[interviewer] Before you got sick,
if you had a chance
to get the vaccine and prevent this,
- would you have taken the vaccine?
- No.
No.
So that guy can just leave the hospital
and continue to expose people
to libertarianism.
[audience laughing]
In the mist.
[audience laughing]
You see, the problem
with climate change is really…
the problem with humans.
We're not a prevention folk.
We're an "angrily lash out
at our lack of preparation
in the middle
of a preventable emergency" folk,
while eating tacos
stuffed inside of chalupas.
We just want to know that
when we plug in the mini fridge
on the makeup vanity
that cools our skin care products,
that it works.
Yeah, I said it.
We refrigerate our skin care products,
'cause guess what?
This doesn't just happen.
[audience laughing, applauding]
This doesn't just happen with…
[applauding continues]
- Thank you.
- [audience laughing]
You think this happens
with room-temperature collagen peptides?
[audience laughing]
These peptides gotta be cooled.
So we're going to need our politicians
to act now and to act urgently.
Just like they've been saying they would
for decades.
We come to Rio
with an action plan on climate change.
Kyoto is a genuine turning point.
What we have achieved in Copenhagen
will not be the end,
but rather the beginning.
We are determined to succeed
here in Paris.
So let this be the moment that
we answer history's call here in Glasgow.
Yeah, let this be the moment.
And you know what was interesting?
Three weeks
after President Biden made that speech,
history did call,
as Americans prepared to travel
on a holiday weekend
and gas prices were a tad higher
than we were accustomed to.
So the president of the United States,
because of this historic moment,
put his foot down.
Fortunately, that foot was on a gas pedal.
This afternoon, President Biden revealing
the administration will now tap into
the strategic petroleum reserves,
the nation's emergency supply,
to help bring down gas prices.
Son of a gun!
[audience laughing]
Even the president who proposed
the most progressive climate agenda
for Mother Earth
still has to dance for Daddy Oil.
And Daddy like it dirty. Come on now.
[audience laughing]
All right. Take a look at this.
I'm Ed Begley Jr.
For the past 51 years, I've lived
in an environmentally friendly house.
Nobody's done more
to help save the earth than me.
And it's hell.
Living like this fucking sucks.
If the government doesn't take action,
you too will have to drink
your own pee through a filter.
[slurping]
This is my daughter Hayden.
He made me bike six hours
to the Emmys in a ball gown.
I don't have a television,
to save electricity,
so I just watch the squirrels dance.
Look at him scamper.
Look at him.
My dad makes me do
full-on climate apocalypse drills.
In the event of a climate apocalypse,
I'll grab these vegetables
and roller-skate
to an undisclosed location,
where I'll live in a beaver dam.
Toilet paper.
You don't have to be the sexiest actor
in Hollywood to live like this.
[slurping]
You can be normal-looking or even ugly.
Sometimes I fill up this bucket
with rainwater.
Sometimes I just sit on this bucket,
think about how much I hate
the taste of rainwater.
For doing all this, I should be allowed to
kill one very rare bird and eat it.
I would never do that,
but I should be allowed to.
Please, help me stop living like this.
[audience cheering, applauding]
Welcome back to the program.
Uh, we're gonna get
right to the conversation.
Joining me right now, Katherine Dixon.
She's a chief counselor
for the International Energy Agency
and a former VP of strategy
for energy transition at Shell.
Jesse Jenkins is a professor
of energy systems engineering
at Princeton University,
and Heather Toney
is the VP of community engagement
at the Environmental Defense Fund.
Guys, thank you so much for joining us.
[audience cheering, applauding]
So, I think the conversation
about climate change,
to a large extent, has focused on
activists versus oil companies
and the virtue of individuals
to get us to net zero by 2050,
or a better position by 2030,
or to keep global warming down
to 1.5 degrees.
But we're still not having
a real conversation with the people
about what's in store.
There's so many dichotomies when we talk
about, "These are the high-level--"
It's, "We have 10 years to save the planet
or we're all screwed." Or--
That's the rhetoric that I'm locked into.
And that's the public rhetoric so often
because we're trying to simplify things
to mobilize the public.
But the reality is
so much more complicated than that.
Every tenth of a degree matters, right?
I mean, the goal
of these global agreements was
to try to stop dangerous climate change.
Look around.
We d-- We failed at that, right?
I mean,
there's already dangerous climate change.
But at the same time,
we've avoided
the totally apocalyptic scenarios
that were where we were trending,
just as soon as--
as recent as 2014.
There are many solutions
that are available
and are far more affordable
than I think a lot of people realize,
thanks to innovation over recent years.
But the scale of the challenge is so large
that these transitions take time.
And so, we are talking about
changing the way we make and use energy
all across the world in transportation,
in heating, in industry,
in how we, you know, produce food,
in how we produce our electricity.
And so each of these sectors
has to be transformed,
and those are not small tasks.
So much
of the climate conversation talks about
the transition to this new,
more feasible energy grid,
with solar and wind and renewables
and industries turning over.
But what it really seems to me is
these next 30 to 50 years,
being realistic,
is going to be about managing chaos,
the chaos that occurs
from the climate crisis
and the communities
that are gonna be impacted.
So we're talking about, you know,
migration of people
out of untenable areas.
We're talking about, uh,
if the price of fossil fuels that people
still rely on go up, you know--
We haven't come up with anything better
than the combustion engine.
And switching that is gonna cause
big problems.
I mean, the industry is in the process
of switching that right now.
So that's partially true, but if you look
at sales globally of electric vehicles,
in 2021, they're expected to be
10% of global vehicle sales,
cars and trucks, are gonna be electric.
That's up from 4% the previous year
and 2.5% the year before that.
So these are not straight-line trends.
They're exploding.
[Toney] You mentioned managed chaos,
and we talk about transition
as if there's a light switch turning on.
And when that happens,
we end up with people
who are scared and say,
"Oh, no, I can't get gas at Walmart.
Let me rush out
and put it in a plastic bag
and tie it up and, you know, get"--
When, in reality, transition works
just like your transition lenses do.
You walk outside, and it slowly
transitions from light to dark.
Like, that's the process that we're in.
There are some opportunities.
We can reduce methane
in the world right now.
We know that reducing methane by 30%
helps us to slow the warming.
- Right this moment--
- How do you do that?
So, we can look at energy sources,
also landfill and waste, agriculture,
three main ways that we reduce methane.
But agriculture would be--
You're talking about animal agriculture?
Animal agriculture.
But doesn't that mean-- And listen--
Vegetarian Subway.
- I-- I eat-- I don't eat meat…
- Well--
…and I annoy people.
[audience, panelists chuckle]
But, you know, vegetarians are still,
even after all this time,
after all the health benefits,
after all the climate benefits,
vegetarians are still a smaller part
of the population, percentage-wise,
than dentists who recommend sugared gum.
[audience laughing]
That's not true, is it?
Four out of five dentists
recommend sugarless gum,
which means 20% of dentists say,
"Fuck it. Sugar."
[Dixon, Jenkins laugh]
Vegetarians are 10%
of the population at best.
At the same time,
that's an all-or-nothing thing.
You could not eat any meat
or you could eat less meat.
And in the US,
demand for beef has peaked, for example.
We're eating less beef every year.
So these trends are slow but transitional,
and we're making progress.
But how does that square, then,
with the time horizon we've been given?
[Toney]
I agree. It's not the all-or-nothing,
but let's look at
what's happening in transition.
I like bacon, but I'm just not gonna eat
as much bacon, maybe, possibly.
But I'm still gonna eat bacon.
Part of this has to do with what--
- That bacon has a name, Heather!
- I know it has a name!
[audience, Dixon laughing]
- I get it.
- That bacon is a very, very good boy.
- [Toney] And--
- [Dixon laughs]
- And Wilbur and Charlotte--
- [laughs]
And you're gonna use their names? [growls]
- But their barbecue is delicious. [laughs]
- [Stewart] All right!
- I get it.
- [audience applauding]
- I've been where you are.
- [Toney laughs]
But no, seriously, I mean, it-- [stammers]
We do need to take into the fact that,
you know, quite frankly,
I can't go into my church congregation
and tell them,
"Everybody, we're gonna stop
eating chicken and stop eating bacon."
Because the church mothers
are gonna put me out,
and my pastor might look at me
a little strange.
Like that--
We have to look at what are solutions
that work across a number
of different prospects.
We've made solar power
the cheapest source of energy
pretty much everywhere in the world now.
It's ten times cheaper
than it was ten years ago.
So we can make clean energy cheap.
It takes time, it takes innovation,
it takes investment,
and it takes public policy.
So let me push back on that
just a little bit.
My understanding of solar,
very similar to yours.
We both probably studied
at the same institutions.
[Dixon, audience laughing]
I have also…
eaten lunch in Princeton.
[Jenkins, audience laugh]
Place called Hoagie Haven.
If you ever go there…
[audience cheers, applauds]
…literally, like, two dollars
for a six-foot sub.
Has to be a drug front.
There's no way
that this place is a viable business.
But the problem with solar
and with wind is intermittency.
That, to me, makes it seem as though
solar and wind are actually not as viable
and not as close
as we have been led to believe.
So wind and solar can do
a lot of the work,
but they can't do all of it, right?
They-- It is dark at night.
Science can't really do
anything about that.
[imitating rich person]
Not in Princeton, it's not.
[audience, Jenkins laugh]
We do need something that can run
for days or weeks at a time
when we don't have enough wind
or solar power.
- Right.
- And the challenge,
the remaining innovation challenge,
is to do what we did for wind and solar
and make clean, reliable technologies
that can displace natural gas cheap enough
by 2030 or 2035 that they can do that job.
But isn't that a very different answer,
though, than,
"Oh, yeah, we've got the technology,
and we just need implementation"?
Well, so, here's the thing to think about.
The energy system is so big
that there is no silver bullet
or magic technology
that's gonna do all of the work.
Even today,
natural gas is the largest source
of electricity in the United States.
- And it's only 35% of our electricity.
- Right.
I tend to think people spend a lot of time
thinking about the supply side of energy.
They think, "Oh, we'll build more solar.
We'll put more windmills up,
you know, and then we'll get there."
But at the same time,
we have to remember that only 20%
of energy demand is currently electrified.
So there's this whole-- You know, there's
this whole piece of energy demand, 80%,
that is not currently able to use solar,
not able to use wind power.
So what we've really got to focus on now
is, how do we transition that 80%?
So we're talking about transport.
We're talking about heat.
We're talking about industrial processes.
We're talking about food.
I mean, a couple of hundred years ago,
you know, we made food
from the energy from the sun.
We now make it from oil.
Forty to fifty percent, you know,
of our food system is used--
made using synthetic fertilizers
from fossil fuels.
That sounds delicious.
[Dixon, audience laugh]
But it's-- So much has got to change.
And until we start looking at
the demand side of it,
thinking about each sector,
what does each sector require--
These are really complicated
technology transitions.
We're gonna take a little break,
come back.
I want to discuss the role that we can--
Rather than villainizing oil,
how do we get them to actually help
with this transition?
So, we'll take a step away,
and we'll be right back.
[audience cheering, applauding]
[no audible dialogue]
To all of you good humans
working to save the polar bears…
you stupid motherfuckers.
We want you morons dead.
You think a sad picture of me is gonna
move the needle?
I will eat your ass,
and not in the good way.
Not the millennial way,
the old-fashioned way.
The ass-eating… [stammers]
Don't worry about saving us.
Save yourselves.
'Cause we're coming for you.
And we can fucking swim.
Bitch.
[audience cheering, applauding]
[Sunita Narain] We don't need anyone
to tell us that climate change is here.
The poor of India can see
devastation all around them
when it rains too much,
when there are increased cyclones,
when it is too cold, too hot,
and crops fail.
The deal was very simple.
There were a certain set of countries
that had created the problem.
They were to reduce.
The other set of countries, which still
needed development, had the right to grow.
There would be money
and technology provided
so that these countries
would grow differently.
Now, unfortunately,
in the last three decades,
there has been no money,
there has been no technology transfer,
and the dialogue has been,
"Oh, these countries want our money now.
They want us to pay them money
even though they're the contributors
to climate change."
We're all being preached to
and talked down to,
and we're being told,
"Sorry, you know, the party is over."
And that is true.
I mean, at the end of the day,
the hard facts of it is that
the world has run out of carbon space.
We cannot combat climate change
unless we understand
we live in an interdependent world.
We will have to work together.
The rich and the poor.
It is a prerequisite
for an effective climate agreement.
Because if you created
the problem in the past,
the poor will add to emissions
in the future.
[audience applauding, cheering]
Welcome back to the program.
I'm joined by Katherine Dixon,
Jesse Jenkins and Heather Toney.
Uh, America's put more carbon
in the atmosphere
than any other country
since the beginning
of our industrial revolution.
- Like, we've powered a lot of this crisis.
- Yeah.
And we have comfort
second to none in the world.
And now we're going to go to countries
that are not as industrialized and say,
"I know you want the fridge
to put your collagen peptides in."
[Toney, audience chuckle]
"But unfortunately,
you don't get to have the advantage
of industrialization that we did."
How can we, with a straight face,
go to countries suffering
and put any limits on their growth?
I mean, the reality is, we can't.
They're sovereign countries.
They do what they want,
and they have every right to develop.
And so the only thing we can do
in the United States
and other rich countries
is use our purchasing power,
use the power of the federal government
and our investments,
to make clean energy cheap enough
to power the world.
And we're doing that.
A hundred of these companies
create 70% of our global emissions.
Wouldn't it be better to hold our noses,
to not villainize them,
to understand that no industry
is ever gonna cut its own throat
and take away its profits?
How do we bribe them?
Like, if you had to sit down
with the guy from Shell
and ask them a question
or get them on board,
what would you say?
I would look at the question
in a slightly different way.
How meaningful is it
to hold someone to account
when what they--
when they're working as part of a system?
You know, putting so much focus
and attention on the energy company,
if we're gonna do that,
we're definitely gonna fail,
'cause we actually have to look at
the whole system.
What we need is to change the conversation
away from this combative argument,
"You win, I lose."
And it needs to be much more
about cooperation.
How do we get countries to work together,
to scale technologies?
You were at Shell for a bit.
They were sued by activists,
and a judgment was won
that Shell had to reduce their emissions
by-- I think it was something like 40%.
Is that also a tool
that will be used in the future
to incentivize some of these companies
to come along?
I think, you know, Shell can change.
But the problem is,
if a company like Shell exits
sectors like aviation or shipping,
all these really hard-to-abate,
high-carbon sectors,
the net effect--
Shell might transition.
Shell might lower its carbon footprint.
But the net effect on the energy system is
pretty unchanged.
I mean, when I was at Shell,
I advocated quite strongly
that Shell shouldn't try and sell
its high-carbon businesses,
that it had a responsibility
to work with its customers
and to think through how it helps them
transition their business.
I'm not really sure
that these kind of legal judgments
necessarily help shift the energy system.
What I would say
to the Shell argument, too, is:
Maybe Shell cuts their things
by 30% or 40%,
but you're talking about--
Saudi Arabia's a petrostate.
Russia has gas. But, like--
they would be happy
to make up the shortfall.
And all of a sudden,
over this 30- and 50-year transition,
all we're really doing is enriching
some of the most egregious governments
throughout the world.
The system is so big,
you can't only solve it
by suing oil companies.
You need to make everybody's investment--
you know, business decisions--
You know, when you go to the dealership
to buy a car,
it should just be a better decision
for you to buy an electric car.
When you choose
where you get your electricity from,
it should just be a better decision
for you to get green electricity.
But I'll be honest with you.
I don't choose where I get my electricity.
- Yes, the utility will.
- I get it from, uh, Bruce Springsteen…
[Jenkins, audience laugh]
- …who powers New Jersey…
- Yeah.
…with his love of the everyman.
[Jenkins, audience chuckle]
I think the key word here is
accountability.
Accountability and transparency.
Some of the groups, Shell included,
but also other chemical companies,
petrochemical companies,
oil and gas companies,
that have been seated, quite frankly,
on some of the very same land
that plantations were on
in the American South,
or in vulnerable populations
in the Global South
that have a history of mistrust
and mistreatment--
Asking those very same people--
To say, "Trust us, we'll fix it.
When you rain the sulfur down,
we'll give you a rain slicker."
Like, they don't get that.
- [chuckles] Nor should they.
- Right.
Talk about accountability,
you can try to hold a company accountable
for selling products we demand from them.
Okay. But you can definitely hold
a company accountable
for going in and opposing legislation
that will make us move faster
towards a clean energy economy.
You can shine a spotlight on companies
that run misleading advertising
that makes everybody think
things are fine when they're not.
Those are the kinds of actions
that affect the political power balance,
that really do either slow down
or accelerate this transition.
So, when oil and gas companies are
on the wrong side of that,
yes, we should hold them accountable.
But the only entity powerful enough
to stand up to enforce
incumbent industries to change
is the US government
or other federal governments.
So we need national policy that says,
"We are going to do this differently,
and we're gonna make it profitable
for you to do it differently."
And either Shell will do that,
or someone else will.
But don't you have to do that
'cause they have us over--
and please, God, forgive me for this pun--
- they have us over a barrel?
- [Jenkins, audience chuckle]
When you talk about how to get it done
in the policy level,
that's where we run into problems.
So if the laws that are created
don't allow for us to implement,
how can the government do anything?
- That's right.
- If we don't have voting legislation,
because according to a Yale climate study,
no offense to Princeton…
[Jenkins, audience laughing]
…you know, Black and brown people are
more likely to vote for climate policy
than anybody else in this country.
But if Black and brown people
are being kept from voting,
then how can the government even have
people in place that will push the policy?
[audience cheering, applauding]
Now that-- Political power sounds like
the most urgent part of this solution.
Fossil fuel companies
have so much power in this country
and they have the power, unfortunately,
to destabilize the governments
that would do the most
to make that transition.
And so what I'm saying is,
co-opt whatever their greed principle is
to make it so that
they own this transition,
or at least part of it,
so that they're no longer incentivized
to oppose it.
Because that accountability never happens
because behind closed doors,
there's too much money involved.
And so, in some ways,
we have to bribe them.
[Jenkins] But it's a feedback loop, right?
You need policy to change the incentives
so they have an incentive
to invest in the right stuff
so that the policy gets easier,
and that's how we win. [chuckles]
So you need to intervene
in that loop somewhere,
and that takes people power.
That takes concerned investors.
- So wherever you can get into that loop…
- Right.
…and lean on that lever
and move it faster,
- that's how we get that going.
- What do you think would be faster?
The grassroots investing strategies
of putting pressure on them,
or saying to them, "30 years from now,
you won't have a business.
But here's how you would have a business."
- It takes policy to make that threat real.
- I think it's a combination of both.
You've got young people who are moving
and not only standing outside
and protesting
but running for office.
So what's one thing that you would do
that you think
really needs to be accomplished
to get this done in a less chaotic,
more timely fashion?
I mean, you think what happened
in the 20th century
with the rise of nuclear weapons.
We completely transformed
our international system,
and diplomats kind of learned
how to talk the language
of nuclear weapons, biological weapons.
Well, we need our diplomats
to learn to talk the language
of, you know, biofuels and hydrogen
and different countries having
these climate targets.
It's gonna be through really, deeply
understanding the technologies
and getting them to be really deployed
as quickly as we can
through different economies.
[Toney] If you ask one of the things
that is part of the solution,
it is centering equity
in every single piece.
- That's hard work. That's not easy.
- [Stewart] For you, is that--
Would you say that's the single thing
that needs to happen to get this going?
I think certainly it's one of
the biggest things that has to happen
is centering equity
in a way that people are included
and we're building trust in this process.
We get it.
It's not gonna happen overnight.
But if equity is not centered,
then we are creating sacrifice zones.
And we've got to ask ourselves honestly,
are we okay with continuing to have
poor people, vulnerable people,
literally being our defense
in terms of the climate crisis
and sacrificing in ways
that they have sacrificed for years?
Making that a part of not just equality
but of equity?
Of equity. Absolutely.
- And when you're president…
- [Toney laughs]
[audience laughing]
Uh, I thank you guys very much
for this conversation.
You're all optimistic,
and you work in the field,
and that's encouraging to me.
Because I sit outside of it
and just get super sad.
But my face looks great
because I chill my collagen peptides.
[audience laughing, applauding]
We'll be right back.
Thank you all for coming in…
[narrator] I used to be like you.
Weak, sad,
unable to get erections.
[audience laughing]
Maybe it's about time you stopped
begging big-city,
liberal politicians for electricity
and started taking it…
from the sun.
Because a real man wouldn't rely on
a Communist wire
to keep his family warm and his beer cold.
The sun is hot as shit.
Look that sun right in the eye and say,
"Listen, pal, you work for me now."
Be a man.
Man-god in charge of the sun.
Sun-powered god-man.
Gets boners, no problem.
Be a man.
Sack up and go solar.
[audience cheering, applauding]
[Stewart] Hello. I should start with that.
Uh, Ben van Beurden.
Thank you so much for joining us.
You are the, uh, chairman commissar?
Huh? What? O-Of Shell--
Shell PLC. I'm the CEO.
The CEO. Chief executive officer.
- [Stewart] CEO?
- Yeah.
I really thought you would've had
a black mustache to twirl,
because you are Big Oil.
You're the villain in this story.
You haven't done enough.
You're holding us back.
Well, I hear
that type of narrative quite often.
But the reality
is actually different, Jon.
So, first of all,
while I believe the pursuit of profit
is absolutely essential
if you want to be a sustainable entity--
- Sure.
- Yeah.
We're also an entity
that's made up of 70 thousand people
who want to be
on the right side of history as well.
I mean, you'll have to think that,
'cause I think
it's clearly the way it's going.
I guess my point is
everybody keeps talking about,
"We've got 10 years. We've got 20 years.
If we wanna hold-- If we get to net zero,
then there's 1.5 degrees Celsius
of warming,
and we can hold that line.
And we all wanna fight global warming."
But we haven't.
And we're 30 years in,
and we're staring down,
really, a disaster.
Thirty years ago,
we had 30 years more to deal with it.
And for some reason or other,
society couldn't quite get there
- in time to start acting, yeah?
- Well… Yes.
- Some people say, "That's your fault."
- To be fair, it's not all your fault,
but it is fair to say though.
Oil companies, fossil fuel companies,
fought that transition pretty hard.
And continues to fight it.
Well, I can't speak
for the entire industry,
but I can speak for my company.
All the way back to the early '90s,
we have been clear
that something needed to be done.
You can look back on 30 years
of advocacy and say,
"Were we brutal enough?
Could we have done more?"
Why didn't you?
- That was not the mood of the day, Jon.
- Yeah.
And it, uh-- And it, uh--
And many of the advocacy points
fell on relatively deaf ears.
I-I'm-- What I'm trying to get to is,
the fossil fuel industry has fought
a lot of the changes
that would make this transition easier.
And my point is, of course they have.
Are we being stupid
to look for any kind of cooperation
or solutions
when the commodity of oil is
the greatest profit driver in history?
I mean, you still make
billions and billions of dollars.
We are a corporation.
[stammers]
You know, we need to be in business.
- But we are critically dependent…
- Right.
…in terms of our lifestyle
and our societal health,
on the provision of affordable energy.
- So it's not--
- And when it's not affordable,
you see the instability politically
that spreads throughout the world.
Also that.
So it's not an easy thing to change.
Unless corporations re-incentivize
the shift from a fossil fuel economy
to a renewable economy.
That's exactly where I think a company
like us, perhaps, then, is different,
where we believe
our societal responsibilities lie
and where we also believe
a significant pool of profit lies.
So, how do you transition us?
Because, boy,
you'd be hard-pressed to think
that wind and solar and hydrogen are gonna
bring you the kind of money that oil did.
I fully agree with you
that that business has an intrinsically
lower return characteristic.
- It also has a lower risk attribute.
- Absolutely.
- People don't build wind farms--
- And there's no exploration money--
No. You don't build wind farms
where there's no wind.
- Sure. Correct.
- It doesn't happen.
But the point is that if you want
to thrive in the energy transition,
you're going to get most of your money
working with customers.
And if you look at what is happening
at the moment,
you have thousands of companies say,
"We want to be net zero
because I feel
that it's morally the right thing to do."
- But the day after making the pledge…
- Yeah.
…they realize they have no conception
of how to get there.
And then, indeed, companies like us
come into play to help them--
So, how much of that is your business now?
Oh, not enough.
But it needs to be increasingly,
of course,
- over the decades to come.
- Right. Right.
Decarbonizing your personal mobility needs
is relatively straightforward.
We now know how to do this.
You can have an electric vehicle.
- Right.
- Uh, you, uh--
But it's clearly not as convenient
as the fossil,
'cause there's not as many stations--
No. So that all needs to be built out.
So my company is going to have
two and a half million charge points
by the end of the decade.
Because we see a huge opportunity in that.
So why hasn't that happened
at the speed at which it should've?
The-- The place where it is starting,
at this point in time,
is where governments have been
able to be bolder with mandates.
So the moment a government says,
"By X year,
no more internal combustion engines"--
Who's done that?
Uh, the UK, Germany,
France, the Netherlands…
Energy companies play
an enormous role in that.
Nobody has more influence
with the government on mandates.
And so if the fossil fuel industries
truly believed
the story that they're telling us,
then it would behoove them
to be lobbying fiercely
for these mandates.
- Yeah. And that is--
- And they're not.
- That is what is happening--
- They're doing the opposite.
- Well, okay.
- The industry fought that.
- I mean, that's, you know--
- No, we haven't.
Well, API has.
The American Petroleum Institute
has fought that.
I mean, to this day,
they've fought against any mandates.
They fight against states being able
to regulate, uh, fossil fuel usage.
You know, their position is pretty clear.
I guess my point is
I don't know of a business in the history,
certainly not one
that's been as profitable
for as long as it has
as the fossil fuel industry,
that cuts its own throat.
Yeah.
Well, let me not talk too much about API
other than to say we don't agree with them
on everything and we--
Aren't you on their board?
Uh, yes. And we are working very hard to,
of course, change the stance
of the API in areas
that we believe is important.
But we are fiercely lobbying
behind the scenes
- to make these mandates work.
- [laughs]
And listen, Jon.
There is no, sort of, uniform solution.
The solutions we're going to need
to cut the demand on aviation
is different from steel
is different from--
- It's got to go sector to sector.
- Sector by sector.
So what do you need--
What will you need from the government?
What do you need the government to do
to help you transition?
In every sector, there's a different type
of government involvement needed.
Sometimes putting a price
on carbon would help.
Sometimes subsidies may actually be
really helpful to kick-start something.
Sometimes it's going to be a standard
or a mandate
that needs to be set in there.
And each industry is gonna fight
these mandates differently.
Some will welcome them,
but a lot of them will fight it.
Yeah, well, if they are poorly designed,
they will fight it.
And then from large governments
like the United States,
we need international leadership.
Because if you think you can decarbonize
the aviation industry on a national basis,
- that's not gonna work.
- Right.
If you look at aviation,
you can fly on biofuels.
The problem with biofuels is
they're three times as expensive
as petroleum-based fuels.
What you have to do is
get around the table,
not only with energy companies,
- but also with airlines…
- Right.
…and with airports, and with regulators,
and with governments.
Two years ago, when I had my first
dialogue with a grouping like this,
we had no concept, collectively,
of how we were going to decarbonize.
That was--
Two years ago was the first time?
After 26 COPs, this was the first COP
that the word "sector" was being used.
Before then, everything needed to be done
by the nation-states--
So there have been 26 climate conferences?
Yeah.
And this is the first one
where everybody said,
"We should probably look at this
sector to sector."
Yes.
So, why is that?
Why are we still talking about this
as something we should be doing…
- Yeah. [inhales deeply]
- …not something we are doing?
I think it is because of the, uh,
unbelievable complexity of the problem.
[stammers] The fragmentation.
How big a change would it be, though,
if these energy companies
were to, together,
announce an ambitious plan
for building out the infrastructures,
sector to sector,
using the profits of the legacy business
as seed money
to that transitional infrastructure?
We will need to use
some of our oil and gas cash flows
to build the hydrogen business
of the future.
Because if I was just only allowed
to use the hydrogen income,
it would take a century to build.
Interrupting what is
a brilliantly profitable business,
which is oil and gas.
Like, maybe the real people
you need to convince are the shareholders
of a company so accustomed
to these incredible profit margins.
So truthfully, in my mind,
unless we can convince energy companies
- that they own a lot of this future…
- Yeah.
…we can't make that transition
with the speed
that we need to make it with.
So here's maybe a different thought.
Cleanup.
Planet Earth
as a Superfund site for carbon.
Let's pay energy companies,
the companies that extracted this fuel
in the first place--
Let's pay you to clean it up.
You cannot solve the problem
by just sequestering the carbon
that we take out--
You can't just pull it out of the air
and jam it into the ground.
That's not a system-wide solution.
The first thing you have to do is
make the problem a whole lot smaller.
And then, indeed, you cannot reduce it
all the way down to zero.
- We will always have use…
- Right.
…for carbon-based energy,
- whether you like it or not.
- Understood.
If we are going to get to one and a half
degrees by the end of this century…
- Right.
- …it may well be that by 2050,
we are over one and a half degrees.
Then we need the second half
of the century to clean up.
And some of it will, indeed, have to be
capturing the CO2 out of the air
and sticking it either in the ground
or in a plant.
And we need to be as aggressive as we can.
Um, and I think there's a role
for governments to play.
There's a role for companies
like us to play.
Uh, and I think the sooner that we
as a society get aligned on the idea,
the more progress we can make.
But you do have people who believe
it's just prolonging the life
of fossil fuels.
In many respects, some of those
are opinions expressed by activists,
and activists have the least amount
of power in this equation.
I disagree with you there.
- Really?
- Absolutely.
Activists aren't the ones
that are keeping the government
from mandating these things.
The industry is.
The activist's power has gone in through--
deep into society,
and now we have discussions
with our investors, who just say,
"Society doesn't want this.
So why are you looking for the solution."
They've done an amazing job
of raising the consciousness of this
- and of putting pressure--
- Good on them.
But, man, if we're having
a lifetime achievement award
where we put energy lobbyists
and customers of fossil fuels
and governments and activists
in the same room,
like, those first three I mentioned
hold the real power.
- Yeah.
- And so,
how does an industry regain
the trust of a public
that so needs them to lead this transition
when we're so accustomed to being,
in some ways,
forgive the pun, gaslit by the industry,
that they're far more concerned about this
when you know what their core business is
and that trust is at an all-time low?
Well, it, um--
That's indeed a very difficult question.
There is no way I can talk to you, Jon,
or to the public at large,
- and say, "Trust us."
- Mm-hmm. Right.
Ultimately,
the trust is going to be regained
by delivering the proof points of change
and by delivering
the proof points of solutions.
- Thank you. All right, sir.
- You're very welcome.
[audience cheering, applauding]
That is it for tonight's episode.
If you want to learn more
about the climate change thingy,
uh, look out the window.
Or you can check out
some of these organizations
who are trying to stop
a global apocalypse from happening.
Of course, only if you have the time.
Uh, I hate to impose upon you with
the obviously looming global apocalypse.
For even more on the topic,
listen to our podcast.
It's available
on all the major podcast platforms.
Which I don't know what they are.
I don't listen to podcasts.
[audience laughs]
I have one.
Like all of us do.
[audience laughs]
Also, check out our website.
You know what?
I'll check out your website.
Bitch.
[audience laughing]
See you next time.
[audience cheering, applauding]
[Chelsea] Award speeches.
- When a celeb gives an award speech--
- Yes.
You can get up there,
you can thank your agent or manager,
or you can maybe tell people
there's a water crisis.
It's the only thing that works.
[all laughing]
I always like them because they're--
It's always about climate change,
but you're in show business,
which is the least
energy-efficient organization--
- What? We have glasses.
- Glasses.
- Yeah, now we do, after--
- [all laughing]
- Everybody's like, "What the fuck?"
- [Brinda] Sorry.
We did the perfect show business thing.
We got glasses for show.
- [Brinda] Oh. True.
- Ooh.
Well, we did it for more than that.
We did it because there's a man on Twitter
who keeps writing me,
and he follows up every tweet with,
"Do you understand?"
- Do you?
- [Rob] Oh!
He's like, "Water bottles on the table.
It's very bad. Do you understand?"
And then I just keep writing back, "No."
- [all laughing]
- I don't get it.