Zero: The Climate Race

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Introducing: Elon, Inc. Nov 10, 2023

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At Bloomberg, we’re always talking about the biggest business stories, and no one is bigger than Elon Musk.

In this new chat weekly show, host David Papadopoulos and a panel of guests including Businessweek’s Max Chafkin, Tesla reporter Dana Hull, Big Tech editor Sarah Frier, and more, will break down the most important stories on Musk and his empire. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

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Big promise, little success: The state of carbon capture Nov 09, 2023

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The U.S. is spending billions on carbon capture as a climate solution, but is it realistic? The method has been around for 50 years and used primarily as a way to extract more oil. To find out how and if carbon capture can work as a climate solution, Akshat speaks with Emily Grubert, a professor at Notre Dame about what tech demonstrations have actually demonstrated and where this precious resource should be deployed.
This is the first in a two part series about carbon management.

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Occidental Quietly Ditched World's Biggest Carbon Capture Plant
What Carbon Capture Failures Say About Its Future
Fill out Bloomberg Green's climate anxiety survey

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Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd and our senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Special thanks to Kira Bindrim. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at zeropod@bloomberg.net. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit bloomberg.com/green.

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The loudest champion of the climate vulnerable Nov 02, 2023

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Saleemul Huq was a pre-eminent climate scientist and champion for developing countries. For many years, he was a lone warrior trying to bring the issues of adaptation and loss and damage to the UN negotiating table. His death last weekend caused an outpouring of emotion across the climate world. Ahead of COP28, Zero hears from some of Saleemul’s colleagues about his life, legacy and the hole he leaves behind in climate diplomacy.

Saleemul Huq's obituary
Saleemul Huq and Farhana Sultana's Guardian op-ed

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Best of: How the ‘rich man’s energy club’ became a climate champion Oct 26, 2023

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This week, the International Energy Agency published its flagship report: The World Energy Outlook. It's hundreds of pages long and makes some bold claims. It says in the year 2030, there will be 10 times as many electric cars on the road as today, 80% of all new power generation will be solar or wind, and demand for fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas – will have peaked.

The report is dominating climate news because what the IEA says makes a big difference to how governments tweak their energy policies. But how did an organization formed by a handful of countries in response to the 1973 oil crisis come to hold so much influence over our response to the climate crisis?

For the answer, this week we’re revisiting one of our favorite episodes: an interview with Fatih Birol, the head of the IEA. As we approach COP28, hosted by an oil power and led by the CEO of an oil company, it’s good to understand how international organizations can be successfully transformed in the face of climate change.

Read the World Energy Outlook
Global Oil Demand to Reach Its Peak This Decade, IEA Says— Bloomberg
Want to know more about the IEA story? Order Akshat’s book, Climate Capitalism, here.
Read a transcript of this episode here

Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd and our senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Special thanks this week to Eric Roston, Kira Bindrim and Will Mathis. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at zeropod@bloomberg.net. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green.

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The EV revolution isn’t just on four wheels Oct 22, 2023

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Cars are only half the electric vehicle story. There are also billions of two and three wheelers that need to be electrified, as well as bigger vehicles like vans, trucks and buses. In this bonus episode of Zero, we’re joined again by Colin McKerracher, BloombergNEF’s head of advanced transport, to look beyond electric cars and hear how electrification is going for other forms of road transport. Are batteries still the answer?

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Peak oil is here. Well, maybe. Oct 19, 2023

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Peak oil is here, or is it? Depends on how you measure, but at least one person is sure crude isn’t coming back. This week Akshat speaks with Bloomberg Opinion columnist David Fickling about why he thinks the world has reached peak crude oil demand, what comes next, and what it all has to do with the American soap opera Dallas.

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David’s original article:Peak Oil Has Finally Arrived. No, Really
Not everyone agrees: The Harsh Truth: We're Using More Oil Than Ever
Latest IEA forecasts: Global Oil Demand to Reach Its Peak This Decade, IEA Says
Read or pre-order Akshat’s book Climate Capitalism

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Can climate capitalism work? Oct 12, 2023

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It is now cheaper to save the world than destroy it. But is capitalism up to the challenge of preventing the climate crisis?

In his new book Climate Capitalism, Zero host Akshat Rathi introduces a dozen people who are already steering capitalism to solve the climate crisis: from the engineer who shaped China's electric car policies and the politician who helped make net-zero a UK law to the CEO who fought off a takeover attempt so he could stick with a sustainability strategy. Akshat argues that not only is capitalism capable of taking on the climate crisis, but harnessing it is the only way to solve the climate crisis in the time we have available.

And yet while some improvements have been made over the past few years, the world is off track to meet its 2050 climate targets. So today on Zero, Bloomberg’s Greener Living editor Kira Bindrim sits down with Akshat to discuss his new book, and asks him: If climate capitalism is so doable, why does it seem so difficult?

Read more:

Order Akshat’s new book,Climate Capitalism
Listen to the interview with Fatih Birol that Akshat mentions
Hear Akshat and Kira talk about the reality of carbon footprints
Read a transcript of this episode

Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd and our senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Special thanks to Anna Mazarakis, Gilda di Carli and Kira Bindrim. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at zeropod@bloomberg.net. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit bloomberg.com/green.

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It's done. The future is electric cars. Oct 05, 2023

Show notes

The rise of electric cars is staggering. In 2016, just 700,000 electric cars were sold worldwide, this year it’ll be over 14 million. However, we are still off-track to meet climate goals. Colin McKerracher, head of Advanced Transport at BloombergNEF, joins Zero to discuss how electric cars can get on track to meet net-zero targets, why China has succeeded where others haven’t, and when we’ll finally see more electric cars on the roads than those burning fossil fuels.

Read more:

China Reaches Peak Gasoline in Milestone for Electric Vehicles
Electric Vehicle Sales Top $1 Trillion in Wake-Up Call for Carmakers
Electric Cars Are Winning Out Because of Consumers, Not Politicians
Pre-order Akshat’s new book,Climate Capitalism
Read a transcript of this episode.

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How to keep fossil fuels in the ground, from the boardroom Sep 28, 2023

Show notes

Brynn O’Brien not only reads corporate climate plans, she crunches the numbers. When they don’t add up, she calls her friends who manage trillions of dollars in assets and they all ask to speak to the manager. Brynn is the Executive Director of the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility, a shareholder activist organization that works to ensure that publicly traded companies with net zero goals are conducting their coal mining, electricity generation, and other activities in a way that ensures we hit the 1.5C Paris target. Recently, ACCR has replaced part of a board, brought forward coal plant closures, and filed a lawsuit that’s taking on greenwashing.

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Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd and our senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Special thanks to David Stringer and Kira Bindrim. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at zeropod@bloomberg.net. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit bloomberg.com/green.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our favorite climate numbers #2 Sep 25, 2023

Show notes

Are two wheels better than four? Can cutting commuting cap carbon consumption? And where’s all the clean energy coming from? There are many climate numbers out there that we don’t get to talk about on Zero but that deserve attention. In this bonus episode, host Akshat Rathi and producers Christine Driscoll and Oscar Boyd talk about some of their favorite stats showing people taking action on the climate crisis.

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