Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. We begin today with our Climate Story of the Week, which we've been doing every Tuesday on the show all this year. Today, it's our lead as it's the final day of the COP28 Climate Summit in Dubai, which some of you were just hearing about on the BBC, which has been embroiled since our coverage of it last Tuesday in a debate among the nation's delegates, whether to include a total phase-out of fossil fuels in the language of its closing statement.

Hopefully, we'll find out from our guests live from Dubai in a minute, how it's turning out. To remind you of the essential conflict that's been dominating headlines from COP28, former Vice President Al Gore, who's made climate his central focus since leaving office in 2001, was on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday, astonished at the conflict of interest he sees that was baked into this conference by having Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber from the United Arab Emirates government and who runs their big oil company as the conference president.

Al Gore: It's the appointment of the CEO of one of the biggest and least-responsible oil companies on the planet to be the head of the conference. Here's the reason that's a direct conflict of interest, Jake. He's charged by the UN with the responsibility of guiding the world toward a sharp phase-down of these greenhouse gas emissions, which mainly come from burning fossil fuels. He's charged by his sovereign and the company that he heads with a massive expansion of fossil fuels. They've got a plan to expand production of both oil and gas by an enormous amount starting the minute the gavel bangs to end this conference. That's a direct conflict of interest and it's not a nitpicking thing to point that out.

Brian Lehrer: Al Gore with Jake Tapper on CNN. Last Tuesday, we played the very controversial clip of Sultan Al-Jaber at that conference, saying a phase-out of fossil fuels is not necessary to meet the global target of no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming, and that a phase-out would take the world back to caves as he put it. The other big issue from the conference we discussed was how much aid the wealthy, high-polluting countries like the US would agree to send to poor developing countries so they could grow their economies, but not on the backs of fossil fuels like we did.

COP28, COP, which stands for Conference of the Parties, the parties to a 1994 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. This is the 28th follow-up conference, COP28. Back with us again live from Dubai, Nina Lakhani, senior climate justice correspondent for The Guardian US. Nina, thanks for the generosity of your time two weeks in a row. Welcome back to WNYC.

Nina Lakhani: Thank you very much. You're very welcome. First point, it's very unlikely that it's going to finish today. [chuckles] We're preparing for an all-nighter at this point. Things are not going as quickly or as well as we'd hoped maybe.

Brian Lehrer: Wow. Well, what we've been saying for months leading up to this and for the last 10 days or so during it or I guess really two weeks during it is two-week conference ending on December 12th. It's December 12th. What happened?

Nina Lakhani: Well, we're talking about 185 countries. Each country has its own needs of, basically, its own populations. Every country has come with wanting different things. All countries are actually organized into blocks. Many countries are in multiple blocks as well. Different things matter to different people. It's hard, right? Negotiations are hard. You're trying to please everybody. In some way, you're never going to please-- and you can't please everybody, right? People have to give up things. Give and take, that is what it's about.

Yesterday, we had the latest version of what's called the Global Stocktake. It's not that only, but it's the big point of negotiation this year. The Global Stocktake, it's an assessment of the collective progress made by all the countries in implementing what was agreed in the Paris Agreement, where we've got things like mitigation, adaptation, all of those things. Really, that text, that document, it's being argued, the fossil fuel phase, that language that you refer to.

That text will then be used by all the countries to inform their own country-specific plans going forward. It's really important. It's complicated. The draft that we got last night was not great, to be honest. No one seems very happy about it at all. I'd say some developing countries are more happy with it than others, but I think there's a huge amount of disagreement and a real feeling that it lacks ambition. It certainly lacks finance. It's all great saying, "We want to do A, B, and C." If there's no finance, then we're just talking about empty words in the end.

Brian Lehrer: Well, let's get into some of the details of some of those things. You mentioned some of the keywords, mitigation, adaptation, finance, but can you tell us in more detail about the language debate? Is it phase-out versus phase-down fossil fuels or what wording exactly have they been parsing for the final language in that respect?

Nina Lakhani: Well, I don't know if you remember and if the listeners remember. At the end of our conversation last week, I said the thing to watch out for would be the word "unabated," right? Unabated fossil fuels is the language that at least, publicly, the US and its umbrella group of developed wealthy nations is really pushing for. For developing countries and certainly for that small island states and the most vulnerable countries, that is completely unacceptable.

Because unabated, it's a get-out clause for the fossil fuel industry, and not just the industry for countries who are expanding their fossil fuel production like the US, like Norway, like Saudi Arabia because it really opens the door to say, "We're going to keep on expanding. We're going to keep on producing and extracting oil and gas, but we're going to catch the emissions." We're going to capture the emissions using technologies, which are completely unproven and have, so far, shown to be very ineffective and are very expensive.

If you have the phrase "unabated fossil fuels," first of all, it's not going to work. Even if they were as brilliant as they claim to be, they would only ever capture about 3% of the emissions when we need to be capturing them all. We need to be getting rid of them all. Secondly, they're only going to be available to countries with money. It means if you're Mozambique or if you're, I don't know, Uganda and you have lots of natural resources in oil and gas, you'll have to stop.

You'll have to phase out because you can't afford these abatement techniques. Whereas if you're the US or the UK, you can. It's just discriminatory and injust, right? While countries like the US and the UK are very much saying, "We're all for the fossil fuel phase-out," that just is disingenuous. That's been really strongly called out by developing countries and many analysts today.

We're about to publish an article just on that saying, "It's hypocritical because it's not genuine," whereas countries like Saudi Arabia and others are saying, "Honestly, we're not going to do this. We're not agreeing to this language." I think that there is a lot of hypocrisy and a lot of sort of back-- There's a lot of dishonesty happening among some countries because you're right. The UAE is a massive economy.

I think as I said last year, the biggest, by far, producer of oil and gas this year is the US. The US is the biggest exporter of gas. When you look at the production or the plan production of oil and gas up to 2050, a third of that is the US. It's completely unfair and inaccurate to just calling out the Arab states and others because the biggest producers currently are not those countries.

You can say one thing in public and absolutely mean something else. Do you know what I mean? I think a lot of analysts and people who have been following these negotiations for much longer than me are saying, "It feels like a lot of the wealthy countries are setting up the scene to come across as climate champions while blaming some of the poorer countries," and we've seen that before.

Brian Lehrer: Well, you know how some of the dictionaries release their words of the year around this time of the year. Maybe one of them should include "unabated" as a climate word of the year for allowing more fossil fuel production on the assumption that it's going to use this carbon capture technology. The carbon capture technology hardly captures any carbon as of today. Let me follow up with you on what you just said about the United States.

Nina Lakhani: Sure.

Brian Lehrer: I saw your tweet yesterday that said, "The US paws are all over the text, which civil society analysts say lacks ambition and science. We've got stronger language on phasing out coal, which the US doesn't use much, and weaker language on oil and gas." Then you wrote the same thing you just said, which I think many, many, many of our listeners have no idea is the case, "The US is the biggest producer of oil and gas in the world." It is?

Nina Lakhani: By a long way. It's the biggest exporter of gas. In the first two years of the Biden administration, they approved more oil and gas leases than President Trump did in his first two years in power. There is currently huge battles going on because of planned and proposed expansions of LNG or liquified gas in the Gulf, in Louisiana, all around there, which will be a climate disaster and environmental justice disaster.

It's the biggest producer and it's the country with the biggest plans to keep producing. It's very easy for a country like the UK or the US to say, "Let's get rid of coal," because the coal's run out in these countries, right? To say that to someone like India or to South Africa, where countries that are very energy-poor, they are already having planned blackouts every day. Many of their people don't have regular access to energy and they are very reliant on coal.

To say to them, "You need to phase that coal," without coming up with their legally required under the Paris Agreement, another very key phrase, which we've been trying to explain to people today is means of implementation. Without giving these countries the means, and that means of finance, access to technology, the capacity-building to get off coal or whatever fossil fuel and transition to renewables, is completely unjust.

These countries are trying to develop and improve the living conditions and the social protections for their populations. Europe has done already. North America has done already, right? If you want these countries to get rid of fossil fuels, you have to also match that with what you are obliged to do under the Paris Agreement is to provide the means of implementation.

The South African environment minister yesterday said, she said, "Developing countries are not lacking ambition. What we're lacking is the means of implementation." Nobody here wants to continue with fossil fuels. The poorest countries are the ones that are suffering the most from the climate crisis. By far, they have most to lose. You cannot tell them to stop producing oil or coal without giving them the means to implement that change. That just isn't fair.

Brian Lehrer: Now, listeners, we can take your questions for Nina Lakhani, senior climate justice correspondent for The Guardian US, live from the COP28 Conference in Dubai, which was supposed to be ending today, but it looks like we'll go into tomorrow overtime as they hash out the details of their final draft. 212-433-WNYC. Questions and comments both welcome on the phones or in a text message, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Still, on whose US paws, P-A-W-S, would those be all over the text? If you're saying, "US paws are all over this text," John Kerry, President Biden's climate envoy, who I believe was at COP28, generally talks a good game about being climate-ambitious. Is it John Kerry's paws or can you name any US names here?

Nina Lakhani: I assume John Kerry isn't acting independently. Do you know what I mean? I'm sure he's acting with instructions from the administration. I think, also, it's just the US like most developed economies or actually most economies generally are so entwined with the fossil fuel industry. You'll have seen our reporting of the-- There's at least 2,450 fossil fuel lobbyists here at COP, right? Many others are also involved in lobbying for carbon capture, these false-solution technologies.

There's also lobbyists here from well-known-- or representatives here from well-known climate denial think tanks and groups. All of this is playing a role. We know, I'm sure your listeners, this won't come as a surprise to them, that fossil fuel companies and their allies contribute a huge amount of campaign financing to lawmakers. That's not a US-focusing, it's other countries too, right? These are not independent or mutually exclusive entities.

John Kerry talks a good talk. President Biden is a self-proclaimed climate president. The reality on the ground is very, very different to that. For me at least, action speaks louder than words, right? I think the coal part but also the carbon capture and other technologies, those are written in. There's a whole paragraph about that in the text, which is absolutely a false solution.

All climate scientists will tell you that that type of technology may play a small role in helping the hard-to-decarbonize industries like steel, like cement, that sort of thing, but a minor niche role, and yet billions of dollars are being invested into these technologies that just do not have a track record of working. Furthermore, most of the carbon that's being captured is actually being used to help extract hard-to-reach oil. Honestly, I know that sounds like I'm being some sort of conspiracy theorist, but I'm not. That is actually true.

Around that, there is nothing written into the text at the moment about safeguarding populations. If you keep extracting oil even if you were to capture 100% of it, that doesn't get to tackle the fact that fossil fuel extraction has a terrible track record of land grabs, of water contamination. Oil and gas extraction kills five million people a year from air pollution. All of that will just continue. Even if it was as good as they claim it to be, which we know it's not, all of these other harms would just continue.

Brian Lehrer: Which is to say there are non-climate reasons for considering a phase-out of fossil fuels. We talked last week, Nina, about how Sultan and oil CEO Al-Jaber's position was not entirely unreasonable, though he certainly has a conflict of interest and a certainly tone-deaf in the way he presented it. His position that the world could achieve its climate goals and still produce some fossil fuels that would help keep energy more affordable for more people and help develop low-income nations. If that is reasonable, why is the phase-out camp insisting on that word, which sounds like zero fossil fuels?

Nina Lakhani: Well, I don't think that is reasonable. That is not based in science. What you've just said, what I think he was saying and what is reasonable is for a phase to happen, back to this phase of a means of implementation, there has to be funding. There has to be technology transfer, technology corporation. There has to be capacity-building funded by developed countries because that would be fair. That's what's written in the Paris Agreement to make up for what countries will lose. I'll give you an example.

This has happened in both Ecuador and Columbia, countries that have both said they want to keep their fossil fuels in the ground to meet their climate targets because their countries are already suffering a huge amount from the climate crisis, because of the pollution, because of land grabs, all of those things. In both of those cases, when they made those announcements, their international credit ratings dropped because these were natural resources that were taken into consideration by international credit agencies. That then makes it much more expensive for these countries to access credit on the market. Just too expensive.

There has to be financing through international corporation, which, by the way, is an aid. This is money that countries have agreed, signed a binding treaty to provide because of their historical responsibilities in the climate crisis. My job, I'm climate justice. That's my beat. What does that mean? It means we are not all in this together. We did not all contribute all equally and we're not all suffering to the same extent. We don't all have the same access to adapt, to mitigate, to become more resilient. That is what this is about. Developed countries have a legally binding responsibility to provide the means of implementation.

If that was to happen and if countries would show commitment to do that, which they do not want to do, I think lots of countries would be much more like-- and lots of poor countries in developed countries are saying, "We'll talk about phase-out, absolutely, when the money's on the table. When the means of implementation are there, but without that, forget about it." Honestly, I have a sympathy with that. All countries want to phase fossil fuels out. Saudi Arabia is heading towards 50 degrees Celsius. I'm sorry. I'm not very good at Fahrenheit. That's 120 or something. 125 Fahrenheit summers. They don't want that. I'm sure, right?

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Nina Lakhani: I am oversimplifying it here because I know there's money involved. There's profits to be made, but the climate crisis is very expensive to deal with for every country. It's threatening lives, but you have to give countries the way of getting out of it. You can't just say, "Get out of it, transition away," without providing them the means to do that.

Brian Lehrer: 50 degrees Celsius, I just looked it up, is 122 degrees Fahrenheit just for the record. All right, so you're the climate justice correspondent for The Guardian. Orin in Manhattan, I think, has a climate justice question on what you've been discussing. What's required in terms of transfer from big, rich, developed countries like the US to developing countries? Orin, you're on WNYC with Nina Lakhani from The Guardian US. Hi.

Orin: Hi there. Hello. As we're talking about these countries that are looking to build themselves up and a way to provide them with alternatives to fossil fuels, these are hot and sunny countries. I'm wondering why there isn't some talk of providing them with some sort of massive solar power system. Looking at it more cynically, I feel like there's somebody who could get very rich off of this, and maybe that would be the incentive to make it happen.

Nina Lakhani: That's a really good point. I guess our whole world is built on the fossil fuel energy system. Let's take South Africa for an example. Their team has told me previously that they suffer a huge amount of energy poverty. They cannot provide enough energy for their people and they're very reliant on coal. They have lots of sun, but they cannot get financing to build out solar because they're already in lots of debt. Their credit ratings are bad.

This is money that could and should be coming from the developed world. They have an obligation to do that. It isn't just as easy as building out solar panels because you have to build. This is happening in the UK and in the US right now as well. You need to change the whole grid. You need to change to build transmission lines. Changing energy systems is going to be really difficult. It's complicated. It's expensive. It requires technology. It requires capacity-building and all of that.

It's not easy, but you're absolutely right. Solar, wind, we don't need these niche technologies that don't work. We have these technologies that do work, but they need to be properly funded. They need to be fairly distributed. Believe me. Coal mining is a horrible, horrible industry in terms of human health. We know that from the US. We've seen how much people have suffered in places like Virginia and West Virginia from the long-term health impacts. Getting away from that is everybody's ambition, but you have to help people do that.

The funding right now, the financing is all being directed. Countries are being told to look for it on their international financial markets. They can't afford it. They can't get it and they're already in huge amounts of debt. These are countries that are still working to provide basic needs for their people, clean running water, education, basic health services, all these things that we take for granted because they've been done already in the US and the UK because we've had all these fossil fuels for so long.

These countries are still working to provide. I think that's another big point that I've really learned at the conference this year is that you can't think about climate action separately to thinking about sustainable development. Countries cannot come up with trillions of dollars for climate action and trillions of dollars to eradicate poverty. They have to go hand in hand. That's a much broader conversation.

It's one that the developing countries are really pushing for. Unfortunately, in general, the developed, wealthy countries just don't want to talk about that. They really just want to keep things about money in silos and keep pushing countries to the private sector, which is just failing. It's failed, right? You're right. It is as simple as that. It should be as simple as that.

Brian Lehrer: Orin, thank you. A listener tweets kind of to the point you were just making, I think, about the need to do this in a holistic way in developing countries. Listener writes, "Yes, developing countries should be assisted to transition, but there is way too much, 'You were reckless and ruined the environment. Now, it's our turn. We know better. Coal must be stopped.'" I think that speaks to a tension between giving more leeway to develop fossil fuels to developing nations so they can improve their economies and get more people out of poverty versus drawing that line at no more coal and helping them in other ways. Is that part of the debate?

Nina Lakhani: Yes, for sure. When we talk about a just and equitable transition, which is what developing countries really want to talk about and lots of developed countries don't, that's exactly the point saying, "Let's talk about phase-out," but it's unfair and unrealistic that-- I'll go back to South Africa because we're just talking about them, should have to phase out coal on the same day that the US phases out coal because, A, South Africa is much more reliant on it and, B, the US has used such a big share of the carbon budget already.

It's developed so much, thanks to the fossil fuels it has extracted. The US and the UK, in a way, they should have to be phasing out. The date for them should be different to the date for other countries. It has to be differentiated. That is, I think, another thing that countries are really pushing for, saying, "For it to be just and equitable, you can't all just say phase down, phase out on the same day."

There has to be a timeline, which reflects countries' needs, countries' own situations, and how much development they still need to do, and how much, I guess, carbon they've already used up by expecting and using fossil fuels in the past. That historical context is something, I think, a lot of the wealthy countries are very, very keen to not have on the table, but I don't see how you can start just thinking about carbon emissions as of 2020 or as of 2015. It has to have some historical context.

Brian Lehrer: Laura in Warren, New Jersey, you're on WNYC with Nina Lakhani, senior climate justice correspondent for The Guardian US, live from Dubai, where the COP28 conference is going to wrap up, we think, sometime in the next day. Hi, Laura.

Laura: Hi. Can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Laura: Thanks for taking my call. Yes, I wanted to agree with your speaker about, I think, this carbon capture technology as being overhyped is not the answer to our problems. I wanted to ask a basic numbers question. I know we've really increased our liquefied natural gas exports. A lot of that, I believe, and I'd be interested in your facts on that, was created by Russia's invasion of Ukraine to decrease the Europeans' reliance on Russian natural gas, and also the phase-out of nuclear creation of electricity in at least some European countries, markedly Germany, and so increasing their reliance on fossil fuels at the same time. I don't know how much that contributed to our increase in natural gas exports.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Laura. Interesting question. You got it, Nina, how much the cutoff of Russia to Europe in conjunction with the war in Ukraine increased US production and help make us the number one, by far, developer of natural gas?

Nina Lakhani: The US gas expansion started several years before Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It has happened very quickly. That is why. Don't quote me on the exact dates because, honestly, I don't have them at the tip of my fingertips. Five or six years ago, maybe five, six, seven years ago, the US was an importer of gas. It's now the world's biggest exporter. That gives you--

Brian Lehrer: Wow, that was a fast turnaround.

Nina Lakhani: Very, very fast turnaround. It started before Russia's war on Ukraine. Has that contributed now and I think also the prices on the market have changed and stuff? Yes, that is true. I don't know. Germany was very, very reliant on Russian gas. I don't think that the nuclear disarmament in Germany impacted the US production of gas because I think they were getting really predominantly almost all of theirs from Russia. I think there are complicated reasons.

I think if we're going to learn a lesson from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the lesson could be that we-- Russia's war in Ukraine has been described by many analysts as a fossil fuel war, right? It's over gas and it's been, I guess, funded by gas and oil and so forth. If there was ever a good example of why we need to get off of fossil fuels that wean ourselves off this dependence on fossil fuels, this has to be it. Do you know what I mean?

Why not spend the money and the investment that we're investing in-- continuing to expand gas production on solar, on wind, on other renewable technologies that we know work rather than just keeping going and keeping that sort of-- The thing is we have to get off fossil fuels. The longer we leave it, the more painful it's going to be as a world, right? The sooner we start on this part of weaning ourselves off this addiction to fossil fuels, the easier it will be for the planet and for humanity. It just doesn't make any sense apart from-- I guess it's making some people in some companies very rich. It doesn't make any sense for humanity. It doesn't make any sense for the planet at all.

Brian Lehrer: As we begin to run out of time, here's a kind of ultimately skeptical question from a listener by a text message who writes, "Is there really any convincing reason to think that the whole COP process is just public relations and has no real substance?"

Nina Lakhani: I'm an old journalist. Of course, cynical is my middle name. Honestly, there are many things to be cynical about, but I have to say there is no other place or platform or venue in the whole world ever where every single country is in the same room and has a chance to have their say and make their case. I was having breakfast next to somebody from Yemen today whose country, war-torn, terrible geopolitical situation, very, very vulnerable to the climate crisis.

Well, Yemen's here with a very small delegation with seven people, but it's at the same table as the US, as Saudi. Is this a perfect process? Absolutely not. As someone said to me when I asked the same question last week to some people who have been coming to these for a long time, they said, "It's completely not perfect, but it's hard and it's complicated and messy because this is hard. What we're trying to do is hard. Whatever else we set up would be equally difficult."

I don't think it needs to be this hard. I think allowing fossil fuel interests, lobbyists, officials, executives to be here is absolutely outrageous. It has to be a reason why so little has been achieved in the last 28 years and why we've had to have 28 COPs, right? Why countries allow fossil fuel industries to be here and to have influence is so cynical and perverse. It could be a lot better and it could be a lot faster and more transformative. I think as a process, I think it is a one place where everybody has a seat at the table.

Brian Lehrer: Last question. Whatever the final text is of a COP28 agreement, let's say they do call for a phase-out of fossil fuels. How binding is it on anyone?

Nina Lakhani: This text has to inform the national-- They're called NDCs. I won't give you another complicated term, but national plans on mitigation and adaptation on their climate goals. Those are binding under the Paris Agreement. It is important. It's very much about the ambition. It also will send a very clear message to the fossil fuel industry and also to the money people that this is going to end. The world has committed that it's going to end. Stop funding fossil fuel expansion. Again, it's a long-term thing. It's not going to stop all deals being done here or anywhere tomorrow, but it is a very strong signal. That's where the world is going. I think that in itself would be transformative. We don't want "unabated." Look out for "unabated." [chuckles]

Brian Lehrer: Word of the year. Nina Lakhani, senior climate justice correspondent for The Guardian US. I can tell from our calls and texts, so many listeners have so appreciated you coming on with us and many of the things you've said last Tuesday and today live from Dubai. Thank you so, so much.

Nina Lakhani: You're welcome. Thanks, Brian.

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