We need trillions to fix the climate. Finally there’s a serious plan.

Zero: The Climate Race

Bloomberg

Technology, Business, Science

4.7 • 219 Ratings

🗓️ 15 June 2023

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Trillions of dollars are needed to shift the world to a low-carbon future, but where will all that money come from? While momentum is growing in rich countries, developing countries are still struggling for finance. Without significant increases in the amount of money spent, the world is unlikely to meet its climate goals, and yet international negotiations are at a deadlock.

Avinash Persaud has a plan: the Bridgetown Agenda. He’s the special envoy on investment and financial services for Barbados and is working with his country’s prime minister, Mia Mottley, to transform the global financial system. Together they are putting pressure on the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to turbocharge the roll-out of clean technologies in developing countries. Next week, he’ll be presenting the latest version of the agenda to world leaders in Paris, at a summit hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron.

This week on Zero, Akshat Rathi sits down with Avinash to discuss his plan, and why he thinks now is the time these aging financial institutions can finally be reformed.

Read more:

A deep dive on the Bridgetown Agenda
Mia Mottley’s full speech at COP27
Making polluters pay for loss and damage
Cheaper currency risk hedging could unlock trillions
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 Kate Mackenzie and Kira Bindrim. Email us at [email protected]. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Zero. I'm Akshutrati. This week, Canaries, coal mines and a call for cash.
0:19.3	Every now and then, I get to hear an idea that if it's pulled off will be truly transformational.
0:25.7	This episode is about one of those ideas.
0:29.2	At COP 27 last year, there was a moment that took the conference by storm.
0:34.1	Mia Motley, the Prime Minister Barbados, took to the stage in front of world leaders and in a
0:38.9	blistering speech gave her vision to fix the climate crisis.
0:42.3	I come from a small island state that has high ambition, but that is not able to deliver
0:49.2	on that high ambition because the global industrial strategy that we have has fault lines in it.
0:57.0	Typically at these meetings, poor countries ask for money from rich countries and don't get it.
1:03.0	It's a reasonable demand because poor countries didn't cause the problem but need to be a part of the solution.
1:09.0	So to break the deadlock, Motley had a different idea.
1:12.6	She proposed a plan to unlock trillions of dollars in private investments
1:16.6	that could turbocharge the build out of climate solutions,
1:19.6	like solar and wind power, in developing countries.
1:23.6	The global north borrows interest rates of between 1 to 4%.
1:28.3	The global south of 14%.
1:32.3	This is the ball reality.
1:34.3	And we have come here to ask us to open our minds to different possibilities.
1:40.3	We believe that we have a plan.
1:43.3	That plan is known as the Bridgedown Initiative Initiative and it calls for the reform of the current
1:48.5	global financial system that was built in the aftermath of World War II.
1:53.0	At that time, half of today's countries didn't exist.
	...

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