Good COP, Bad COP?

Foreign Policy Live

Foreign Policy

Politics, News Commentary, News

4 • 601 Ratings

🗓️ 15 December 2023

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Leaders from nearly 200 countries agreed to transition away from fossil fuels at this year’s annual U.N. climate summit, known as COP28. But the agreement is nonbinding, and questions on how to finance such a transition remain unanswered. This week’s guest, however, might have those answers—and it all comes down to public-private partnerships, the reform of multilateral lenders, and better political will. Rajiv Shah served as administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development under President Barack Obama. He is now president of the Rockefeller Foundation and the author of Big Bets: How Large-Scale Change Really Happens. Suggested reading: Rajiv Shah: Big Bets: How Large-Scale Change Really Happens Christina Lu: Good COP or Bad COP? Lili Pike: The Climate Envoys Who Could Shayak Sengupta and Abhinav Jindal: Are Global Climate Partnerships Fit for Purpose? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Ravi Agrawal, Foreign Policy's editor-in-chief.
0:05.4	This is FP Live.
0:09.6	Welcome to the show.
0:11.7	The UN's annual climate summit, COP28, came to a close in Dubai this week with what some have called a breakthrough.
0:19.7	For the first time ever, countries agreed to
0:22.4	transition away from fossil fuels. They also agreed to curb methane emissions and triple
0:28.7	renewable energy capacity in the next seven years. It has taken 28 years for COP to put down the
0:37.2	F words on paper.
0:39.0	That's fossil and fuel.
0:41.2	But while it's good, they've agreed to transition away from coal, oil, and gas.
0:45.9	It is long overdue, and it's not binding.
0:49.6	In other words, there is no way to force anyone to comply with anything that was agreed this week at COP.
0:57.2	So was the Dubai cop a failure or a success?
1:02.4	It depends on who you ask.
1:04.4	I spoke to someone this week who framed it a bit differently.
1:07.8	Ultimately, it's all about the money.
1:10.5	Many of the technologies to create clean
1:12.9	electricity already exist, whether it's solar or wind. The problem, as always, is how to pay for it,
1:20.3	especially if you're in the developing world where many countries are already burdened
1:24.9	with high interest payments on their existing debt. And those
1:28.8	ones, they struggle to raise more funds to invest in their futures. How do we help them?
1:35.1	Well, my guest this week is Rajiv Shah. He's the president of the Rockefeller Foundation.
	...

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