No Clear Path Forward on Climate After Poland

to be getting pretty bleak today. We're going to be discussing the future of climate change with Bloomberg Environments Bobby McGill. Bobby just got back from an international climate conference in Poland, and based on his reporting from there, things aren't looking that great. We will see if Bobby can offer us some rays of hope later on in the program. But first we've got the famous Parts per Billion news quiz.

As you probably know by now, the way this works is we bring in a couple of reporters and ask them a few questions about what happened in the news this week. This is a totally serious, not jokey quiz, so you guys better bring your a games very. The stakes are very high today. We actually today is the first for the news Quiz, and that we have not just reporters, but also an editor. Thank you for joining us to our editor, Chuck McCutcheon, and we also, of

course have Bobby McGill. Let's get started. Question number one today is January eighth. We are now in the eighteenth day of the federal government shutdown. However, this is not the longest shutdown ever. How long was the longest federal government shutdown ever? Bobby is ringing in twenty one days. That is correct. That is a very very correct answer, twenty one days. The longest shutdown ever lasted from December fifteenth,

nineteen ninety five through January sixth, nineteen ninety six. This will become the longest shutdown ever if it goes past this Friday, and all signs are pointing to it doing just that. The score is one to zero. Question number two, there was some deal making in Congress this week. The one hundred and sixteenth Congress has convened and they're already cutting some deals. The EPA agreed to stop trying to repeal an Obama era protection on farm workers who are

exposed to pesticides in exchange. Senate Democrats agreed to do what So the EPA said, we were trying to repeal these farm worker protections, but we're not going to do that anymore. The Exchange Democrats will do what Chuck McCutcheon move nominations forward. That is also correct. The Senate Democrats agreed to stop blocking two EPA appointees. One of them is Alex Dunn, the head of the Chemicals Office, which oversees farm worker protections, and the other one was Chad McIntosh,

the head of International and Tribal Affairs. So it looks like Democrats are in a deal cutting mood at least comes to that, although not when it comes to reopening the government, although it doesn't seem like Republicans want to cut any deals there either. Question number three. The score is one to one. This question will determine who wins this week's quiz, and it has to do with where you just were. Bobby McGill. Marius Tcherikowsky holds the NHL

record for most points scored by a Polish national. He's also from a town just seventy miles north of Katavisa, which is where the climate conference you were just at is held how many points did he score over his fourteen seasons in the NHL. And just to clarify this as prices right rules, which means that whoever wins will be the person who comes closest without going over. So you both get one of you both guess how many points did Mark Marius Tchikovsky, the leading NHL points scorer score.

And also here's another you guys are looking a little puzzled. Here another hint. Wayne Gretzky has the all time record with eight hundred and fifty seven points. Marius Tchikowsky is significantly worse than Wayne Gretzky. He does not approach two eight hundred fifty seven. I'll say two hundred, two hundred, Chuck goes to two hundred, three hundred and fifty two, three hundred fifty two. Your experience in Poland must have

helped you out, because you are right, Bobby McGill. Marius Tchikowsky scored four hundred and thirty five points in his sixteen seasons in the league. He played for Boston, Edmonton, the New York Islanders, Montreal and Toronto. Congratulations, Bobby, Sorry, Chuck, you look really crestfallen there. We are not going to take a quick break and come back with more of Bobby's thoughts on what went down in Poland and maybe

whether Marius Tchikowsky thinks that climate change is real. Stay tuned and we will be right back, and we're back with Bloomberg Environments. Bobby McGill, who just got back from Katavica where he was Cataviza, catavitza, sorry rhymes with pizza, kata Viza. Thank you Bobby for some context here. At the twenty first conference. A few years ago the world reached the landmark Paris Climate Agreement. So this UN Climate

Group is a pretty big deal. But before we get into what happened in Poland, tell me about the place where it was held, this kata Viza. Yeah. So Kataviza is a city west of Krakow and about twenty five

miles north of Auschwitz, actually in southern Poland. It's a coal producing region and the site of COP twenty four was literally on top of a closed coal mine and the city of Katavitz, you know, everybody at the you know, countries and the city had these exhibits at COP twenty four and Kataviatz's exhibit was all about coal and they had like piles of coal in a case, and you could go and they showed you how to order a like jewelry made of coal nuggets, which and we should

mention coal is one of the primary contributors of greenhouse gases to the environment, the burning of coal. It sounds like the the air pollution or the air quality in this at this conference was not great. From what you mentioned, well, it varies. The city of Katavitz's air quality is actually

a bit better than the surrounding regions. But you know, most southern Polish households burn coal in their in their furnaces to heat their homes, and you know, you can walk down the street and you can see it billowing out of the out of their chimneys and it's a you know, the air quality there is pretty choking. So speaking of coal, you know, the US was sent some representatives to Poland, and it seems like they were talking about coal, but I get the sense they didn't get

a very warm reception. Can you talk a little bit about that, Well, you know COP twenty four and the Paris Climate Agreement are we should say, sorry to interrupt their COP Well, let's explain what COP is. COP is an accurate in the stands for it's the Conference of the Party twenty fourth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change COP twenty four COP COP is a much easier way to say that. And so the twenty fifteen Paris Climate Agreement was struck

at COP twenty one. Yeah, and this conference solidified, you know, some of the rules for implementing that agreement. Right anyway, sorry, getting back to the US. At COP twenty four, which was in Poland, the US sent some representatives over to Poland to you know, participate in this conference, but it seemed like, based on your reporting, they mainly wanted to

talk about coal what was going on there. Yeah, So keep in mind that this is the globe's primary coordinated effort to solve a you know what happens to be a you know, a crisis facing humanity, right, and the Trump administration walks in and they did this the previous year as well, at COP twenty three in Bond and they basically wanted to talk about coal and and the

wonders of fossil fuels. You know, wells Griffith, the uh, you know, one of Trump's energy and climate advisors walks in and he stands up before a room full of activists and journalists and said, alarmism should not silence realism. And their attitude is it's not realistic to wean ourselves away from fossil fuels. So they want to They were promoting the idea that we can burn fossil fuels cleanly. And how did the activists and journalists react to that?

Did they didn't carry them out on their shoulders, did they? No? They tried to stop the proceedings, and you know, this was a side event, It wasn't the actual negotiations obviously, and they they demanded that they you know, that the US keep it in the ground, referring to oil and coal, and Griffith's response was, you know, it's it's not realistic to keep it in the ground. We have to burn it. Okay,

So let's get to the actual conference itself. You know, we mentioned COP twenty one that was in Paris where the Paris Agreement was reached. That was this huge landmark agreement. Was there any new agreements that were reached at this most recent one in Poland? Or was this just kind

of an incremental type thing. Well? Cop twenty four was about finalizing the rule book for implementing the Paris Climate Agreement, which means that you know, the the Paris Agreement can't go into force really without these rules, and this was the next step in the process. So they accomplished that to a point. There were a couple of you know, emissions accountability questions that they punted to COP twenty five sometime in the next year, and which, by the way,

is going to be in Santiago, Chile, right in Chile. Yeah, yeah, but we don't know exactly one yet, So it sounds like, you know, they maybe made some decisions, but not really that many. Well it's significant, but I think what may be more significant or just as significant. On top of the rule book was this idea of ambition and trying to this political movement to encourage countries to go above and beyond their commitments to cut climate pollution that they

made as part of the twenty fifteen Paris Agreement. So, you know, you had Euan Secretary General Antonio Gutera standing up and you know, framing this is an urgent crisis that needs to be solved, and he sort of framed it in moral terms as well. But and that actually leads me really nicely into my next question, which is that you know, we all know that the US has pulled out of the Paris Agreement. I mean, I think, well, we haven't pulled out. You haven't pulled out, You're right.

I was about to mention that we haven't technically have not pulled out yet, we've signaled our intent to correct pull out of the agreement. Given that, is this the conference of the parties? Is this un you know, can mention on climate change? Is this becoming sort of irrelevant? If the US doesn't participate in this and it's just every country except for the US and a few others,

does this really matter anymore? Or could this actually still make a big impact on the issue of climate change even if the US is not a part of it. I think if other countries come together and cut their own emissions, despite you know, the potential absence of the US, I think it's better than nothing. But you know, the next administration could could bring the US back into the agreement. So it's important for the agreement to be there, for

the for this process to be ongoing. Because I mentioned, as I mentioned earlier, this really is the the only the globe's only UH coordinated effort to take to address

climate change. So this is where we get into the UH possibly depressing UH section of the podcast, because the I've been was reading your dispatches from Poland, and one of the things that really, you know, they reminded me, or really highlighted for me, is just how little time the uh you know, world has to address climate change before we see some really significant, kind of scary impacts.

Do you do you see any reasons to believe that that will happen, or that could happen, or that we can avoid you know, the worst of the consequences of climate change, or based on what you heard in Poland and what you've been reading, do you see the the you know, all signs point to things getting worse before they get better, if they ever get better, Well, things are going to get worse before they get better. The science says that, Yeah, I guess maybe let me rephrase that,

will things ever get better? There's there's a significant amount of warming that's that's sort of baked into the system, right. The question is can humanity prevent it from getting significantly worse? And I think that's an open question, you know, there's there's obviously you know, momentum in uh some parts of the world too to take this seriously and uh, you know,

to cut to cut emissions as much as palatable. But you know, people are still you know, fossil fuels are still an integral part of the global economy and that's not going to change anytime soon. But companies are making announcements to cut their their uh their carbon footprint. Local governments are doing the same. A number of countries are

taking this seriously. That's a positive step. So you think that maybe that you know, the the rate the rate of hope in as much as they are rays of hope or come from you know, maybe smaller countries other

than the US and companies, the private sort of industry. Well, I think that, you know, as the impacts of climate change become more evident to average people, when they see extreme weather affecting them in ways that it never used to, you know, they're going to be demanding action at some point, and some of them already are. And I think that when politicians hear that, that that may make a difference. All Right. That was Bloomberg Environments. Bobby mcguil talking about

the UN Climate conference in Kadaviza, Poland. For more of his reporting, visit our website at news dop Bloomberg environment dot com. That website once again is news dop Bloomberg Environment dot com. And this episode of Parts Pavilion was produced by myself with help from Jessica Coomes. Our editor is Marissa Horn and our audio engineer is Nicholas and Zelata. The music for Parks Pavilion this week is a Message by Jazarre and Polsky Obertoski by Metislaw Kazowski. Thank you for listening. M