In this episode of Planet, People, Profit, we have Dr. Alissa M. Kleinnijenhuis, a Senior Researcher and Climate Finance Professor at the Cornell SC Johnson School of Business, in conversation with Outlook Business Editor, Neeraj Thakur.
Together, they dive head-first into one of the most urgent global debates: the future of coal and the complexities of balancing economic development, global equity, and environmental sustainability.
Building on the conversation, they delve into the future of India, the escalating pollution levels, and the urgent need to raise awareness and embrace sustainable solutions. Join them as they explore actionable steps and uncover the path to a cleaner, greener future—one thoughtful decision at a time.
Together, they dive head-first into one of the most urgent global debates: the future of coal and the complexities of balancing economic development, global equity, and environmental sustainability.
Building on the conversation, they delve into the future of India, the escalating pollution levels, and the urgent need to raise awareness and embrace sustainable solutions. Join them as they explore actionable steps and uncover the path to a cleaner, greener future—one thoughtful decision at a time.
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00:00Climate change is a trillion dollar problem, which requires a trillion dollar solution.
00:06India is the first to be really hard hit with climate change impacts.
00:10It may literally in the next 30 years be the first to become more uninhabitable.
00:14So far, the way climate negotiations are happening, it's a blame game which is going wrong.
00:19Ultimately, things are driven by financial incentives.
00:22It's in the economic interest of India to transition fast.
00:25It's in the economic interest of developed countries to pay for them.
00:29So if we don't do it, frankly, our own survival is at risk.
00:45Hello and welcome to Planet People Profit, the podcast where we discuss the world of sustainability
00:51and its impact on our lives, businesses and planet.
00:55Today, we are joined by Dr. Alisa Kalani-Chanvis.
00:59She is a senior researcher, a climate finance professor, a member of the Sustainable Finance
01:04RPN at the Center for Economic Policy Research and a faculty fellow at the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability.
01:11So welcome, Alisa, to Planet People Profit.
01:14Before we dig into the serious issue, I would like to begin this podcast series with a question, a lighter one, where I want to understand.
01:23You have a stellar CV and what does it feel like, you know, to be dealing with so many positions and so many things in the world of sustainability?
01:33Well, I guess it depends on where your heart lies.
01:38And in my case, I genuinely care about trying to find a solution to climate change.
01:44So, you know, if I did this just as a job, I would probably be very tired at this point.
01:51But because I'm actually trying to bring a solution, all those engagements with different academic institutions,
02:00but also think tanks and public policy institutions are something that I actually very much enjoy,
02:08because we need to ultimately maximally collaborate across groups to bring about a global transition.
02:16My second question, Alisa, COP29 just concluded.
02:21And even though there was a commitment of $300 billion annually by the developed nations in 2035,
02:29but it is not being considered to be enough to meet the climate change mitigation targets, especially by the developed nations.
02:35So how do you feel, you know, about the reluctance of developed nations to commit what is expected
02:43and what has been suggested by the climate finance economists and experts?
02:49And do you think that your work, the Great Carbon Arbitrage,
02:54suggests those measures that can actually make the climate finance win-win situation for all the parties?
03:02Absolutely. So, yeah, it's a big question with multiple parts.
03:06So let me try to break it down in part.
03:08So first, you know, whether the COP29 commitment is enough.
03:13And the simple answer is it's not, right?
03:16It's too little. It's too late.
03:18It's too late.
03:19And it's of too many sources.
03:21So, you know, let's maybe start with too late, actually.
03:27So I just put out a joint statement.
03:29I don't know if you saw it with the leading or one of the possibly the leading climate scientists in the world,
03:37Johan Rockström, which is called the COP29 outcome and the delivery on or the new quantified goal of climate finance.
03:45And it's delivery on the one half degree Paris agreement goal.
03:50And in this joint statement, which you put out after COP, we made it very clear that currently the remaining carbon budget to stay within one half degrees of warming is basically down to 200 gigatons,
04:06which at the current approximate rate of emissions of 40 gigatons a year will be exhausted by 2029.
04:15And if you assume a linear reduction from where we are today to net zero staying within that carbon budget, we need to be net zero as a world actually by 2035.
04:29So so and what Johan Rockström explains is that one half degrees, which is the ambitious temperature limit of the Paris agreement.
04:40Right. The other one is two degrees.
04:42It's not really a goal.
04:45It's a physical limit.
04:47So if we go beyond one and a half degrees, we are at risk of very high climate extremes and also at risk of crossing a very significant tipping points.
05:01And I guess for India specifically, right, you are, I guess, already facing more days, for example, where it's extremely hot and humid.
05:08You get might get more hot bulb events.
05:10And literally, India might be one of the first concepts may face more areas that are practically uninhabitable.
05:18So so what we would have needed is climate finance at scale starting in 2025, also to make sure that countries such as India can implement ambitious nationally determined contributions
05:34that essentially stipulate its climate plans that are aligned with the Paris agreement goals and ideally the one and a half degree goal.
05:44For example, one other paper I brought out during COP is to decarbonize its power sector because we know how to do that.
05:51The technologies are there.
05:52There's really no excuse to keep running on coal as it's still very heavy in India.
05:58So that's my point on too late.
06:01Now, too little and I guess too many sources are a bit interlinked because the idea was that developed countries would offer very concessional finance from their own public coffers or ideally grant equivalent climate finance that could then be used to.
06:21Well, well, this is my own view, but pay for early closure of fossil fuels, but importantly, to help crowd in private finance for renewables and other things that are necessary to reach net zero.
06:34So the idea was that that that public commitments of developed country finance to developing countries could be helped to crowd in private capital, for example, with blended finance.
06:44Now, in the ultimate agreement, essentially, they agreed to buy 2035, which is too late, offer the 300 billion from all sorts of sources, public, private, MBDs, right, multilateral development banks, other sources, whatever it is.
07:02And then actually the 1.3 trillion goal, which is also in the NCQG, NCQG is new common quantified goal of climate finance agreement of COP29 is it was also from private and public sources.
07:15So it's actually incoherent.
07:16The idea was that 300 billion should be public only in it should have been grant equivalent climate finance, but it was not.
07:24And so it's also then very hard to get to 1 trillion if you don't actually commit enough public funds, right?
07:31So that's my answer, I guess, on whether the NCQG is good enough.
07:37And the answer is it's too little, too late, too many sources.
07:40And then I think you had one related question that you also wanted me to answer.
07:45Can you remind me of what that was?
07:47Basically, can mechanisms like the great carbon arbitrage effectively demonstrate the economic feasibility of scaling of contributions?
07:54Yeah, absolutely.
07:55So I think, right, like the question is, and let me take one sip of water.
08:01Why did COP29 not deliver, right?
08:04And I don't know.
08:06I haven't been inside the negotiation chambers, although I have, you know, been in touch with those that were.
08:14But my sense is that one of the difficulties was that you needed to get a global agreement, right, where there was unanimous buy-in.
08:22And, for example, the Arab negotiation group said we cannot mention fossil fuels.
08:29We cannot target any specific sector, including fossil fuels.
08:33So you heard the top developed country negotiators like Bobko Hoekstra, who was the top EU commissioner, and John Podesta, who was the top US negotiator, say, right, there's no way a deal is going to come together unless we can tie it to emission reductions.
08:50Because they understood that ultimately, if we want to take away the risk of climate change and also ultimately, you know, avoid large climate damages and adaptation costs in developed countries themselves, if they think from a self-interest perspective, climate finance has to be tied to mitigation, right?
09:08It has to be tied to emission reduction, which is what they were not able to do.
09:12So one other thing I say is, you know, adaptation finance is really important, climate finance.
09:16But mitigation is paramount, because if we don't mitigate, adaptation needs are going to spiral further, and also loss and damage needs are going to spiral further.
09:26So what my current idea is, and I haven't actually published it yet, so you will get the preview, but we're doing this with the same group of authors, is to basically say, well, you don't necessarily need a global agreement.
09:41You can form coalitions of the self-interest, which is also discussed in the Great Carbon Arbitrage, where you can have a group of developed countries, possibly excluding the US, because, you know, Trump is likely to step out of the Paris Agreement, that basically commits to providing climate finance at scale and in time of the right type, right?
10:05So grant equivalents, to those developed countries that commit to credible nationally determined contributes or country plans of decarbonization.
10:16And I guess, additionally, there can be adaptation compensation, right?
10:21So the idea is that you can try to replicate something like the Just Energy Transition Partnerships that have been agreed with Indonesia, Vietnam, South Africa, Senegal, and there's an ecology one now with Brazil.
10:34But you would make adjustments compared to those, because they have been criticized, right?
10:41One is they were not at the right scale.
10:43And two, it was mostly concessional loans, which adds to the, as you later will ask me about, I think, the debt burden of countries.
10:51So you really want to make sure it's sort of grant money, right?
10:54You want to make sure it's grant equivalent, so that you don't really add to the debt burden.
11:00And then you can compensate and sort of beside, in addition, it cannot just be geared towards renewable addition.
11:07To stay within the carbon budget and to decarbonize in time, which has to happen largely before 2035, we need to close fossil fuels early.
11:17But that's not going to happen unless you can compensate those who are left behind.
11:22So the workers of coal mines in India.
11:26But even, you know, this is what our paper argues, even the coal owners, so that it's in their economic interest to partake and they won't block it.
11:33So I can, of course, you know, I guess, elaborate more, but maybe one thing to say is that this has to some degree been done successfully in Germany, where the German government had subsidies to phase in renewables, to incentivize the phasing of renewables.
11:50And they held auctions where they compensated coal-fired power plants for early closure.
11:56And these coal-fired power plants partook because they knew that what they would get from the auction was better in terms of money than what they would get on their business as usual.
12:06And then I guess the final thing to say, you know, so what we basically are showing this paper is that striking such deals is in the economic interest,
12:15because mostly people tend to be driven by sort of their own incentives of the key stakeholders involved.
12:22It's in the economic interest of developed countries, because the money that they would need to give is smaller than the climate damages and adaptation costs, the escalating ones that they would otherwise suffer.
12:34It's in the interest of financial markets to partake, because now the public funds basically de-risk investments in developing countries, where typically the cost of capital is still prohibitively high.
12:44So that they're willing to come in.
12:46And it's in the interest of coal owners and coal communities, because they are made at least as well off as they would have been had they continued coal usage.
12:55And of course, another really, really important benefit for India is that coal is a massive air pollutant.
13:04So, you know, actually, my TA, Yuxa Badana, she's from India, I think she's even in New Delphi right now.
13:11You know, she showed me, I think, that in New Delphi, the air pollution level is like 76 parts per cubic micro, whatever, micro, whatever.
13:23Yeah, so that's very, very bad for health.
13:29It is a huge cause of death.
13:30So for India, right, why is it in the interest of India to partake in such a country deal and accept money and, you know, implement decarbonization?
13:39Because India is the first to be really hard hit with climate change impacts.
13:45It may literally in the next 30 years be the first to become more uninhabitable.
13:50And it is a massive, you know, if you reduce coal, almost instantly air pollution, the benefits are almost instantaneous in terms of lower air pollution.
14:02And therefore, you know, much healthier population.
14:06All right, Alisa, in your long answer, there are three points that I picked up.
14:11One thing you mentioned that several nations can come together and form their own groupings to negotiate the climate deals, you know, even if Donald Trump walks out of the COP agreement.
14:25But my point to you, Alisa, is that United States of America is the most richest and most powerful country.
14:31And of course, Donald Trump supports the fossil fuel lobby.
14:35Do you think it would be really possible for other nations who are actually dependent on their security, you know, military security, as well as economic security?
14:45They are dependent on the U.S. to actually walk a path which is not being followed by the world's most powerful nation.
14:54I mean, take the example of Europe.
14:56How do you think any of those countries, do you think they will have the courage to go against Donald Trump's dictates that he will be issuing?
15:04He just said, you know, anyone who tries to have their own trading currencies, they be ready to waste 100 percent import duty.
15:12So he's not going to allow any kind of climate negotiation that goes against the fossil fuel lobby.
15:19What is your take on this?
15:20Yeah, that's I mean, I have I'm not fully up to date on his active retaliation measures that he is now, I guess, threatening with.
15:27What we are, I guess, arguing and I know that there is a big appetite in Europe.
15:33I actually got a letter from from the EU commission in response to my joint statement, which to me indicates that they are very keen to take the lead.
15:44So I guess what what we are trying to do within Europe and I'm also talking about all the places that I am.
15:52I'm a non-resident fellow at Bruegel, which is a leading the leading EU think tank on economics.
15:58So what we are trying to to basically do is to, you know, work with the various institutions in Europe and try to make them step up and actually assume a leadership position without the US.
16:13Right. And it's, you know, in some sense, it's very much in the interest of Europe to do that.
16:20And frankly, it's in the interest of China to do it because they can become a global leader in the renewable transition, which sooner or later, it's inevitable to happen.
16:32Right. That's the one thing that, you know, most people agree on is that, you know, renewables are coming, becoming ever more cheaper.
16:40That's actually a paper by my former PhD supervisor, which is often quoted in The Economist.
16:45So you have this learning by doing effects, you know, which you can model with the rights law.
16:50Which have meant that over the last 20 years, with every doubling of renewable insulation, the costs have come down by like 20, 25 percent and likewise for batteries.
17:03So, you know, Trump's presidency will not be able to stop the renewable transition.
17:10But the question is, will it happen fast enough?
17:13Because we are under a time constraint set by the carbon budget.
17:18Right. And so we cannot just wait, you know, actually, frankly, until 2050.
17:23Or I think, you know, India's target now is 2070 to get to net zero.
17:28It must happen now.
17:30And that's why, you know, it's so incredibly important to have developed countries or other rich countries to step up.
17:36Because, indeed, A, developing countries, you know, typically are not wealthy enough to pay for their own transition.
17:46But I also, and they're right, like they, morally, they don't really have the responsibility to pay, obviously, because it's the other countries that pollute it.
17:54But what we're trying to say is like, we, you know, rather than saying, oh, climate finance is a moral obligation, which is not a very strong incentive or impetus for developed countries to pay, because with morality, charity, you know, you might be willing to give $100, but not a trillion.
18:11Right.
18:11So we're trying to say with this paper, and we're showing empirically, that it's not just equitable for developed countries to help pay for India's, or actually completely pay even for India's transition.
18:25It is also in their own economic interest.
18:29And if you tie it like that, it becomes much more likely that they're willing to offer scale because they know it is ultimately also in their interest, like it is in India's.
18:38Do you think that the climate deal would be more accepted to the developing countries like India if it was projected or maybe, you know, in a different kind of a manner?
18:49Because so far, the way climate negotiations are happening, it's a blame game which is going on.
18:56India, other developing nations, they rightly believe that, you know, it's a developed nation, it's an industrial revolution that led to all this problem in terms of climate change.
19:05Whereas the developed nations say, no, in absolute numbers, now China and India are also polluting the world.
19:12So this tale made, do you think that we need a new language of negotiation, which allows both parties to come on a stage where they do not see each other as, you know, each other's enemies or trying to extract something more out of each other in this deal?
19:32Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's what my previous answer was trying to allude to.
19:37You know, I'm not denying the existence of moral obligations, right?
19:44And then, you know, some have maybe polluted more than others.
19:48But the, I think the, I don't know if you call it brilliant, but like the insight that comes out from our paper is that, you know, you can,
19:56when you focus the debate on morality, right, which is where that blame game arises from, you will never be able to find the resolution because with morality, it's, you know, you can keep on talking about morality and not settle anywhere.
20:11The fundamental thing that, you know, that economists understand is that ultimately things are driven by financial incentives, right?
20:19And that's also why, you know, the renewable transition won't be stopped necessarily, because renewables are simply becoming cheaper.
20:26So people want to move there.
20:28So what Nobel Prize winner, you know, William Nordhaus, who run the Nobel Prize for the economics of climate change, not the economics of the transition, but anyway,
20:39he, you know, wrote an American economic review paper in 2015, about climate clubs, and he wrote a foreign affairs article in 2020 about it, where he says, you know,
20:53climate change is a trillion dollar problem, which requires a trillion dollar solution.
21:00So we need a robust incentive structure, right?
21:03And this is exactly what my paper is about, what it says is, we can, you know, like we can do for a climate barbie club, we can form a climate finance club, essentially, between the developed countries of the willing and the recipient countries of the willing.
21:20If you want to resolve that bickering, frankly, right, between developed and developing countries, who should pay?
21:27We need to move away from the discussion about morality and simply talk about economic interest, because the truth is, it's in every single country's economic interest to transition.
21:40And, you know, underlying that or above that, as you said, it's in the people's interest, right?
21:47So what we just want to show is that it's in the economic interest of India to transition fast.
21:54It's in the economic interest of developed countries to pay for them, right?
21:59So that's exactly where also my new paper will be about that.
22:03And I think if we move the conversation away from morality to economics, we will, you know, be a lot better off.
22:11And of course, you know, last notion on that, you know, there's, of course, a reason why we talk about morality, right?
22:18Which is that it's very much embedded, ingrained in the language of the climate negotiation.
22:23So, you know, in 1992, when the first climate accord was agreed, the UNFCCC, there was this idea of like common but differentiated responsibilities, right?
22:36And that was taken up as part of the Paris Agreement.
22:39And also in the Paris Agreement, you constantly have language in each of the articles that, you know, they are common but differentiated responsibilities that developed countries should take the lead, etc.
22:48And that's all correct, right?
22:51But what we're saying is morality is not enough to get the action at scale that countries like India needs.
22:58So let's talk about economics instead.
23:01Acknowledging that morality is a thing.
23:02But when we anchor the negotiates in economics, it becomes a lot easier.
23:08Right, Alisa.
23:09Alisa is just talking about the economics of climate transition, where you are saying that, you know, it's in the economic interest of India and other countries to become net zero as early as possible.
23:25So, India has said the date of 2070, but for the world, you are saying it's 2035.
23:30My question to you, Alisa, is that because your paper, The Great Carbon Arbitrage, it talks about subsidies and helping, you know, compensating those coal companies and fossil fuel companies for transitioning from being in the business of dirty fuel to renewable energy.
23:47But there is one thing that I believe, Alisa, that gets ignored in this fact that, you know, whenever someone has to transition, right?
23:54For example, I'll give an example.
23:56India's largest coal producer is coal India Limited.
23:59You might compensate that company with subsidies and, you know, some climate finance to transition into renewable energy.
24:07But it is also a fact that not every company would be able to transition, you know.
24:12And how will you deal with that fear?
24:14Because there are always inefficiencies in transitioning of business.
24:19Certain businesses might be able to take it off and certain business will die.
24:25And how will, does your paper answer these kind of inefficiencies?
24:30Do you address these issues?
24:32I guess to answer your question, let me take one step back and then I'll fully get there.
24:37So I think one of the big things that we are proposing in this paper and in the follow-up papers is that actually we should not be focusing on project-based finance to get an at-scale and speed transition of a country.
24:55We need to, and we, I'm also saying, military development institutions who have so far mostly done project-based finance and likewise for private finance.
25:05We need to move to a countrywide transition.
25:09Why?
25:11And then I'll get to your question, right?
25:13But essentially, like, the way to think about it is that, you know, you know for India what its business-as-usual emissions would, you know, be projected to be if it goes on its current trajectory.
25:23But then what you can do is you can project how India's emissions would need to come down over time to be net zero in time, but also to stick within the carbon budget, right?
25:35So given that you can basically say, okay, how can India implement that emission reduction?
25:41So, and this is a new paper that we're going to publish, and we'd love to share that with you.
25:46Which coal-fired power plants and other fossil fuel assets would need to come offline when to implement that emission reduction?
25:54And, you know, which are the most dirty that you might want to be able to phase out first or the first that are willing to do it?
25:59Anyway, so you can basically specify the phase-out pipeline to implement that emission reduction.
26:05And then you say, okay, how do we make sure that India doesn't get an energy shortage?
26:09Because obviously that's paramount, right?
26:11You need to make sure that India at all times can meet its energy demand, including any growth in that demand because of AI or because of other, you know, population growth and so on.
26:22So you want to then replace that fossil fuel energy with renewable energy so that you keep up with growing demand.
26:30And so you basically specify the phase-in pipeline, not just of renewables, but also of batteries, short-term line batteries and electrolytes that can produce green hydrogen for long-term storage and grid extension and so on.
26:44So you need to specify what is needed to, you know, properly replace fossil fuels and have a stable, sufficient energy system.
26:51So when you then think about compensation, as you mentioned, right, for early fossil fuel closure, there could be instances where it is the coal-fired power plant itself that would turn into the renewable provider.
27:10But in principle, what we're proposing is that this is done at the country level and the coal-fired power plant that closes can just take the money and go home, right?
27:20Or they can decide to use that money and build a new business.
27:24But the point is that just like Germany did, the packages of compensation to close coal-fired power plant are in some sense separate from the package of compensation to build renewables in its place, which, you know, if you think about it, you know, maybe there's a particular area of India where there's just plentiful sun and there's a lot of free space.
27:46So you just want the Indian government to build a lot of that there, and it's not necessarily the old coal-fired power plant that is doing that.
27:53So what we are basically saying is you want to, the key thing is to make a country plan where you in advance specify the phase-out and the phase-in pipeline, what needs to be phased out when and phased in when, so that at all times you don't get an energy shortage that you plan in advance.
28:11And that it's not necessarily, although it could be, the coal-fired power plant that becomes a renewable provider, it could be someone else.
28:19So is that a helpful answer?
28:22Yeah, definitely, Elisa, but my next question is literally this thing only.
28:26The solution that you have suggested, it may work in a country like China where you're paying a nation as a whole, and then that particular country decides, you know, that, you know, which, how much of that money needs to be invested in setting up new businesses,
28:40and how much of money is to be given as part of compensation.
28:44In a democracy like India, where there are so many stakeholders, any kind of centralized decision-making becomes very difficult.
28:51In India, we have seen the, you know, the issue of stubble burning by Indian farmers in the northern part of India.
28:58The government has been trying to reduce that thing, to ban that thing by putting penalties, by giving compensation to people.
29:06But eventually, it becomes a very political issue, and the government fears losing votes, you know.
29:12And this is why any kind of energy transition becomes very difficult.
29:17We have seen the same kind of a thing in world's most powerful democracy, that's United States of America.
29:22Just one, you know, the defeat of Joe Biden and the victory of Donald Trump has just turned the tables against, you know, the whole idea of climate finance.
29:35So, do you think that, you know, the world would have been able to take a better decision if large number of powerful countries,
29:46especially those who have the money and those who are supposed to take the lead in this decision-making of climate change negotiations,
29:54they were not democracies.
29:55It's a very political question.
29:56But I want to have an understanding from you on this.
29:59Yeah, and let me just ask you one question, just to clarify that I understand what you mean.
30:04So, are you saying that you're asking me whether it helps if the developed countries take the lead in paying for India's transition?
30:12Is that what you're saying?
30:13No, I'm saying whatever tools and mechanism you're suggesting, they would rather function in non-democracies.
30:22Because in democracy, it becomes very difficult to take any kind of a decision to compensate people.
30:27India, as a democracy, finds it very difficult to convince all the people that, okay, take this much money and stop, you know,
30:35indulging in practices which are against the climate, you know, in terms of burning fossil fuel or in terms of, you know, burning farm stubble.
30:46Because I think the North India's air quality is poor simply because, you know, the farmers in North India,
30:54they've been burning stubble in their fields and the Indian government has completely feared to stop them from doing so.
31:00And that's simply because every government, every politician in India fears losing the next election if they tell people to take any kind of a decision.
31:10No, absolutely. That's a very excellent question. And I'm not claiming I have all the answers, right?
31:18And I fully agree, right? Like the key thing is that, you know, is to make sure that whatever transition package is being implemented is one that politicians feel they can implement
31:30because they would not lose their voters. And I guess, you know, it's not the full answer, certainly, but, you know, one thing to say is, you know,
31:44certainly without compensation, if you're just telling, you know, coal-fired power plants and communities around it to shut down,
31:51that's certainly an election loser, right?
31:54So that is why we are saying that, you know, if you want to alleviate political opposition and get political buy-in,
32:02it is critical to compensate them at least as much as they would have earned on their business as usual, if not more, right?
32:08Like in Germany, probably the coal-fired power plants are deemed to have taken home more than they would have earned otherwise.
32:14And that's why they did it. So I think, you know, and in part, it's also a matter, I think, of, you know, leadership,
32:21because what our paper shows is that it is in the interest of individual people in India to partake in that transition.
32:29In fact, they might be losing their livelihoods, if not their lives, if they're not, you know, transitioning.
32:35So it's extremely, no offense, but it's extremely myopic not to transition, right, for your own sake.
32:43But I think it is important, you know, I guess, I don't know exactly how I would do it in India,
32:52but you can obviously break down, you know, a countrywide plan into a regionwide plan, right?
32:58Like the countrywide plan can be a composition of regionwide plans,
33:01which itself can be a composition of citywide plans, as long as they're coherent,
33:07where at each level you do that, you know, phase out and phasing concurrently.
33:13And I think it's really important to communicate to the, well, one other thing, by the way,
33:17that I don't know, we didn't mention so far, we argue that as part of the compensation,
33:22there should also be retraining of the population for employment elsewhere,
33:27or, you know, for the new industry that is arising, right?
33:31Or wherever else they want to work.
33:33So I think, you know, it's really important if each region of India were to transition
33:39and basically offer that compensation that is paired with essentially an educational program
33:47that really explains, you know, to all the people like, look, you know,
33:52if we're not going to transition, you know, you're already experiencing, I don't know,
33:56you know, more droughts of your crops or more extreme rainfall.
33:59You already see that your harvest is often failing.
34:03If we're not going to, and also, you know, the asthma that your child has,
34:08it's actually because of air pollution.
34:10And if we're not going to do this now, in five years, it's going to be 10 times worse, right?
34:15So I think if you can explain that and also, you know, explain, look,
34:20if you're adopting this new practice, right, or you're moving jobs, you know,
34:26A, you're not being made worse off.
34:27You get more money than you would have otherwise gotten.
34:31And B, there is a credible alternative, right?
34:34Because indeed, you're kind of right.
34:35Like, if you just say them, look, stop.
34:37And even if you give them money, they may not do it.
34:40But if you also offer them a credible alternative, then, you know,
34:45with sufficient education, it could work.
34:46But I'm not denying, right?
34:48I'm not denying that it's not easy.
34:52But I guess, you know, I mean, one thing, and this is not necessarily a developed country,
34:58but, you know, if one example that I like is JF Kennedy saying, you know,
35:04let's go to the moon in 10 years before the decade is out.
35:08Or actually, Emmanuel Macron saying we need to rebuild the Notre Dame in five years.
35:16And, you know, John F. Kennedy explicitly said it's not going to be easy.
35:19It's going to be very expensive.
35:21And you need to be committed and willing to, you know, not just in terms of hours,
35:28but, you know, of your entire willingness to do this thing, which is hard and expensive.
35:33But I believe that by the end of it, we can come out victorious, right?
35:38And so I think, likewise, this is the attitude that we must have, right?
35:44It's not going to be easy.
35:46But with the right leadership and commitment,
35:49and actually, I think we should put a shorter timeline where, you know,
35:53because 2050 is like kicking the can down the road.
35:57No, I think we need to be net zero by 2035.
36:00And basically, because we have all the technologies, by and large,
36:05and the rest we can innovate.
36:06But we just need to get the people together to want to embark on this greatest challenge
36:12probably mankind has ever faced, and at the same time, greatest opportunity.
36:17Because if we don't do it, frankly, our own survival is at risk.
36:21All right, Alisa, I want to put one interesting question that was asked by India's finance minister,
36:27Nimla Sitaraman, recently, just said that, you know, that sustainability or, you know,
36:32climate change is not just about, you know, just shifting from one field to another.
36:39It's also about controlling your lifestyle.
36:41Because at the end of the day, it's all about what kind of lifestyles we live in the world.
36:46And the West, if you just look at the per capita income, I think the United States of America
36:52has per capita income, about $58,000.
36:54$58,000 actually means, you know, they are consuming that much amount per capita of energy,
37:01right?
37:02And if you just look at India, we are just $2,700.
37:04If you go to Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, it would be much less.
37:08So, do you think that the ultimate way to be a sustainable planet actually goes through
37:17the road of consuming less and less and reducing the per capita expenditure, if not income, of
37:24developed nations?
37:27That's a really interesting question.
37:30I don't know if I'm able to answer that.
37:32As in, I haven't thought about it enough, but I do know that there are economists, right,
37:37who are saying that we cannot just, you know, assume we can continue growing in terms of,
37:44you know, everything like productivity, GDP, energy consumption, right?
37:50Like, that's kind of, I think, the narrative that tech people would love to sell that, right?
37:55Like, we can sort of, with new technologies, we can just sort of innovate ourselves out of
38:01sort of a planetary scarcity constraint.
38:06And I don't have a, you know, a full answer, but I do know that the one thing that is true
38:12about renewable energy is that it's a renewable, literally, resource, right?
38:18You can draw it from the sun and from the wind and, you know, from water.
38:25But, of course, you need to build something to be able to draw it.
38:28And it turns out, as the energy transition report of the, I don't know who wrote it,
38:35shows that there is, in principle, you know, to power the entire global transition
38:40at, you know, current, at least until end of century projections of, you know, future growth
38:47in energy demand.
38:48There is sufficient raw materials to, in the earth, to be able to power that global transition.
38:56Obviously, we need to make sure that when we mine that, right, we are also aware of biodiversity
39:02and local livelihoods.
39:04But one of the big points that this report makes is that, you know, you indeed have to
39:10mine renewable raw materials once, like copper and so on.
39:15But in principle, you can then recycle renewables so that you can keep using those same raw materials.
39:22Whereas with fossil fuels, you have to keep pulling that out of the earth.
39:28Because every time you burn it, it's gone.
39:30And you have to, you know, continue doing that.
39:33And then it comes with all those environmental destructions that have to keep being repeated.
39:37So I'm not sure if I have a full answer to this.
39:41But I think that, at least in the short run,
39:44we do not necessarily need to reduce consumption.
39:49We can actually make a transition globally with, you know, the abundance, frankly,
39:56of renewable resources that we have by a combination of the sun, the wind, and raw materials.
40:05All right, Elisa.
40:06Thank you very much for talking to us on Planet People and Profit.
40:10It's a first podcast, and we're glad that you spoke with us.
40:14And we hope that the world comes to a consensus, a climate consensus,
40:19where the developing nations and developed nations,
40:21they come on the same page when it comes to deciding on who will finance the energy transition.
40:29And till that time, we hope you keep writing new papers
40:33and enriching our knowledge about climate finance.
40:35Well, thank you so much.
40:37It was a great pleasure to talk with you.
40:40And I'm very much looking forward to listening to your other podcasts as well.
40:44Thank you very much for joining us.