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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. If there's a silver lining to come out of the pandemic, it's probably this and it may sound crazy, but the pandemic has actually created market forces. That, for the moment, are pushing up wages for some of the lowest-paid, most underpaid, and most essential workers in our economy and it turns out, according to Washington Post Columnist, Ishaan Tharoor that it's not just in the United States. Ishaan will join us in just a second.

This slightly improved environment for some of the most taken advantage of workers in the wealthiest nations is fascinating for any number of reasons. One of them, for me, was to learn from Ishaan's column that it's happening in Europe too, because the other big thing that's going on in this country right now, as you know, is President Biden trying to get his next-generation social supports bill passed, what they call the human infrastructure, or Build Back Better bill. It really needs a name. In aiming for new childcare, elder care, paid family leave, and college access programs, we always hear that we'd be catching up with Europe.

It's interesting to me to see that this up our stinky wages movement is going on over there, too. We'll talk to Washington Post Global Affairs Columnist, Ishaan Tharoor about that and about the preview that he wrote up of the big upcoming climate summit in Scotland. Ishaan, always great to have you on the show. I always learn stuff when you're on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Ishaan Tharoor: Thank you so much for having me, Brian, it's such a pleasure to be with you.

Brian Lehrer: The headline on that column is The Great Resignation goes global. Can you remind us briefly what the term, the Great Resignation refers to and what's driving it right?

Ishaan Tharoor: The Great Resignation is a term that we've heard over the last few months here in the US describing what is essentially still very much a uniquely American phenomenon. Basically, this year starting roughly around spring, economists and those who track the American labor market have noticed steady and really at this point, record numbers of Americans leaving their jobs. You had 4 million in April and then a record 4.3 million in August, and of course, significantly similar numbers in between.

This idea of the Great Resignation is of course tethered to the pandemic, tethered to the fact that a lot of these people leaving these jobs are leaving jobs that were either in difficult conditions or relatively low paid. Many of these people had a bit of a boost from government spending programs that gave them an infusion of cash. Many of them also recognize during the pandemic, that maybe they don't want to be working, in the context that they've been working for so long.

Then now what we're seeing is, especially in recent months, that a lot of the reason why people are leaving their jobs is because they have the opportunity to get higher wages elsewhere. Because of the way in which the pandemic hit the country, it led to a lot of layoffs, it led to a lot of businesses to contracting, but now demand is back. The economy is worrying again in various ways, of course, there's some real problems. A lot of businesses are finding that their major shortages of labor and they're finding that they need to be more competitive in recruiting people.

The Great Resignation, from one angle, it's worrying because obviously, it impacts the productivity of the American economy, but on the other hand, this is what a lot of labor rights activists are saying, is that the Great Resignation comes as a correction to a much longer and prolonged stagnation, greater stagnation in the wages and benefits of the American of those [crosstalk] American economy.

Brian Lehrer: As you remind us in the column, the Great Resignation in the United States was proceeded by a far greater stagnation in worker wages and benefits as workers lost bargaining power over decades, which is probably one of the most common things we've ever talked about on this show and what to do about it. You include a really interesting tweet from your Washington Post colleague, the Economics Reporter, Heather Long, who notes, "Workers who switched jobs--", and workers, if you don't like your job, take note.

"Workers who switch jobs almost always earn bigger raises than those who stay at the same firm, and that gap is now the widest in two decades." Let me get to the idea that I set up in the intro, which is for you as a global affairs columnist, you point out that in Western Europe with its social democracies, a stronger safety net has led to less disruption, but still similar trends are at play. Can you describe some of the European manifestations of these labor shortages and other trends?

Ishaan Tharoor: Absolutely. We're not seeing something on the scale of what's happening in the US but the pandemic is a global phenomenon and invariably, it's hitting various economies in similar ways. For example, the UK has a major labor shortage issue as well. I think in the summer, it was posting the largest number of vacancies that's ever had in their economy. The German Federal Ministry for Employment has recently said that the country now is in a situation where it needs to be importing hundreds of thousands of skilled workers every year to make up shortfalls that they've not seen in their economy.

Also in Germany, which is, of course, Europe's largest national economy, you're seeing a situation where its factories, its meat processing industry, its lower end agricultural sectors have been massively hit by the pandemic because they're not getting the same cheap labor from Central and Eastern Europe that came to work in factories in Northern Europe and Western Europe. Now, there's a whole issue around incentivizing higher pay for industrial workers as well.

That course correction that's happening across these liberal democracies where you have seen wages stagnate in various ways, does seem to be happening. I don't think we can invoke the same frame of the Great Resignation to fit entirely there but as you said, there is this sense that, "Okay, we're in a moment now, and this is perhaps part of a much lengthier and political engagement that we've been in over what a national economy should look like. How workers' rights can bolster payments." I think this is a moment for organized labor.

You're seeing strikes across the US, you're seeing trade unions really take lead in certain places. The German election that just happened a few weeks ago was won by the central left, the party that has the strongest backing of the trade union movement there. These are concerns that are on everyone's minds. The pandemic has created this interesting moment for workers' rights. Now, we'll see, especially as other pressures come to bear, inflationary ones as well, how long the political center gravity will center on workers' concerns as opposed to deconstructive businesses.

Brian Lehrer: The similarities with the US are interesting, the differences with the US are interesting, and of course, the big US political story right now, and I'm going to ask Cory Booker, one question about this. Coming up in our next segment is President Biden's push for making the social safety net here, more like Europe's, especially for childcare and eldercare and paid family leave. By the way, listeners, coming up later this hour, I meant to mention it at the top.

We're going to continue on New York, New Jersey geography quiz series that we're doing in the fall membership drive, and our guest quiz leader for your New Jersey geography questions will be Senator Cory Booker. That's coming up in a little while. Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post Global Affairs Columnist with me right now. Let me go to the other recent column of yours that caught my eye. That I know you're very interested in talking about this is from last Friday about the upcoming climate summit in Scotland, known as-- do they say CLP 26 or Cop 26? We'll cover closely when it happens, but can you preview what the summit is supposed to be for?

Ishaan Tharoor: This is, of course, a major moment in the global struggle against climate action. Against climate change, you're going to have dozens of world leaders, maybe over a hundred world leaders convening there. You're going to see tens and close to 30,000 delegates arrive from the political world, public sector, private sector, multinational companies, even celebrities. It's going to be a Davos on steroids around climate change, all taking place in Glasgow. This is, of course, a UN conference that is designed to essentially reset the world's battle on climate change to gin up new commitments from various governments, as well as the private sector on curving missions.

It has been built for months in advance as this last moment, this rallying moment for the world to reckon with a warming planet, and to address the goals and commitments that were made in 2015 at the Paris Climate Accords where governments committed to this very abstract target, but that one that is very real for our climate, which is preventing a rise of temperatures above this figure of 1.5 degrees Celsius or around 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. That right now looks like a pretty tough task. What my column argued it was essentially making the point that there is a mounting pessimism surrounding this conference. Not just because what is intended to be the target of the Glasgow summit is already a difficult task, but because we're not seeing the commitments that we need to even get close to being on track.

For example, you have a study that came out today that essentially said that the world has to basically stop adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere by 2052. We're nowhere close to doing that. The US, for example, and this is a work of the Biden administration, they've been really leading the charge on cutting carbon and setting up a scenario where the bulk of the American economy is producing clean electricity by the end of this coming decade, but politically, that's proving a very difficult ask. If the US cannot manage that politically, and we're seeing this right now, in the wranglings over the reconciliation bill, then how can the US go and lecture China and India about the commitments they need to be making around coal?

This summit was supposed to be the end of coal. There are big declarations made about how after Glasgow the world we're committing to essentially phase out coal as quickly as possible. That does not look like it's going to happen this time. Rather than coming away with a renewed sense of collective action of climate change, we're very likely to see acrimony. We're very likely to see the gaps and the differences between governments on how to go forward.

Brian Lehrer: You report that John Carey along these lines, who is president Biden's climate ENVOY has been traveling to places including Mexico and Saudi Arabia in advance of the summit. Why there?

Ishaan Tharoor: He's been traveling to a lot of places. Mexico, Saudi Arabia of course are major fossil fuel extractors and sellers, so I think he's hoping to get some top-line commitments from them before the summit. He's been doing the same, he's been shuffling around the world to various capitals, to a lot of the Gulf Arab kingdoms that are major oil producers, of course. To India, to China. He's been on the front lines to this and he's trying very hard to get new and significant commitments because there is a recognition that these major fossil fuel producers, as well as these consumers in Indian and China who are using coal to fire up their massive economies need to be on board as the west also figures out how to transition as well.

There's two parts of this. One is addressing the developing world and saying, "Okay, what can we do to win you off your need for these fossil fuels right now?" But the other and far more politically complicated exercise, and that first part is also politically complicated, is addressing your own economies and your own countries and saying, "Okay look, we have to transition and we have to do it quickly. We have a very narrow window now." Basically the span of less than a generation to become essentially carbon zero or carbon neutral.

That will require a huge amount of investment, a huge amount of adaptation in the way we go about things that is technically complicated and politically even more fraught. This climate summit is happening at a time where there's tremendous volatility in energy prices. Europe is getting ready for a winter where rising natural gas prices and heat costs may lead to a whole wave of debts because people can't afford their electricity bills. There are more short-term concerns and short-term political concerns that will outweigh, or obscure, or undermine the need for a long-term collective vision.

Brian Lehrer: We're just about at a time but I want you to end on one other thing that you put in your column on this that I think is so important and so fascinating. As we look at the current US politics of climate and that same human infrastructure bill we were talking about a minute ago that includes eldercare, and childcare, and paid parental leave that would buffer people from the worst effects of a recession like we had during the pandemic, the height of the pandemic, that same bill, of course, includes a lot of climate protections and it is maybe the main reason that Senator Joe Manchin is blocking the bill because, of course, he represents the coal state of West Virginia.

We have Joe Manchin on the one hand single-handedly trying to rescue the coal industry and so far succeeding in the United States, and the rest of the world about to meet in Scotland to try to put an end to the environmentally very damaging coal industry. What a conflict, Joe Manchin against the world, but in this respect the climate summit politics and goals might actually run up against the human infrastructure bill goals. The thing you put in the column that I find so relevant is for people who oppose climate controls because they say they cost the economy. You point out how climate change itself is already exacting a significant price on the American economy. Climate change itself. Give us about a half minute on that and then we're at a time.

Ishaan Tharoor: There's a study that found that this year alone the United States has experienced over a dozen extreme weather events that cost the American economy, at least individually a billion dollars each year or more each time. We are in an age of climate change. We are experiencing this in various ways constantly, and that is only going to get worse. The question is yes, the country needs to be ready to adapt to a warming planet. A lot of the damage has already been done, but there's a real social incentive to work on addressing the deteriorating weather effects.

If we get above 1.75 degrees in warming, scientists-- and there's no debate over this at this point. There is a profound amount of scientific consensus here that our planet isn't for troubling times and it's going to be more vulnerable parts of the world than our worst hit, but the US is already feeling it. New Yorkers felt it this year in a really profound way with the flooding. There should be a Clarion call for all of us to recognize the need to get real, and serious, and focused on climate change

Brian Lehrer: Ishaan Tharoor, global affairs columnist for the Washington Post. Ishaan we always really appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Ishaan Tharoor: Thanks so much, Brian.

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