Welcome to Zero.
I'm Oscar Boyd and I'm Christine Driscore.
Weird the producers on Zero wishing you a very happy end to twenty twenty three, and we are joined as always by Akshat Ratty Actua. Welcome, Hey, loquacious as ever.
So as it's the holiday season and everything's a bit quiet at the end of the year, we thought we'd bring back our popular climate guessing game and recalling it. Whose number is it? Anyway?
Super fans of the show will be familiar already. But the rules are simple. Each one of us presents a number, and then the other two have to figure out what that number represents. Each person can ask three questions, you can ask the clues if you get stuck, and then you have to guess.
And as always, the thing I care about is the prize.
Yeah, this game is all about prizes. Last time, the very lucky winner, Christine, got a copy of your book, act Shat. This time the prize is probably our best one yet, all the way from Cop twenty eight from the Arabian Desert, the Jar of sand.
I love this, okay, I guess it's more real than the first prize, which was like carbonov set.
Yeah, I mean it exists, it's in a jar.
I think I'm more motivated than ever to win.
You make it such low stakes, it's so fun. Okay, so let's play whose number is it?
Anyway?
Oscar? Would you please go first?
All right, hopefully my number is better than the prize. My number this time on the numbers game is thirty six point two million.
All right, Well, I think we should start with the units.
I'm wanting Okshot to waste his question on this.
On the units, you know, like I have a feeling it's dollars, but like we really need to know it's a guess.
Right. You don't just get to ask what the units are. You have to say, is the units X?
Is the unit money dollars?
The unit is not money or dollars. It is not a monastery.
Figure is the unit people?
The unit is people. So it's thirty six a two million people. Yes, it's not wheels, and it's not the number of people inside cars or anything like that.
That's a deli sized population of people.
Okay. Is this a number of people who have done something? They have taken an action, whether it's a purchase or a decision, and it is in the past.
I would say it's more kind of ongoing. It's not a past decision.
They're not that many things that thirty six point two million people can do. No, unless they're all distributed and not in one place. Is that the case. They are distributed and not in one place, yes, or one country or whatever. Okay, not in one country, not in one place, not in one city. Then there are so many things. Oh my god, is does this have to do with food?
This has nothing to do with food. Okay, Well, I'm going to ask the Christine question. Is this got to do with cycling? Yes, it is the number of people competing in the Tour of France. Nothing to do with cycling. I will give you a hint. It is to do with jobs.
Is there's the number of people on LinkedIn who have transitioned or are interested in a climate oriented.
You're kind of close, but not exactly that.
That's a very Christine guess, because I feel like that's an order of magnitude off of what's even possible. Are there even thirty six two point two million people on LinkedIn?
Yeah?
Oh really, I haven't spent a lot of time on there. My guess is that is the number of people who will be working in clean energy in the next five years.
Oh, I think on balance Christine just gets it. There's not completely right, but she's she's used some keywords there. So thirty six point two million people is the number of people working in clean energy in twenty twenty three, according to a report by my favorite source. I swear this is accidental. It is from the International Energy Agency and it's from World Energy Employment Report.
What about the number of people working in fossil fuels.
Well, thirty six point two million people is higher than the number of people working in fossil fuelds. There are currently about thirty two million people working in fossil fuels as of twenty twenty three. And what's interesting is seeing the growth in both these numbers. So this report from the International Energy Agency, it tracks the numbers from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty three, so it goes through the pandemic period, and renewables or working in clean energy has
grown by about six million. So between twenty nineteen and now it's gone from about thirty million to thirty six point two million over that same time period. Fossil fuels has actually fallen just before the pandemic, there were about thirty three million people working in fossil fuels. That has now gone down to thirty two million clean energy workers overtok fossil fuels in twenty twenty one, and that difference has only grown with time.
Interesting, I feel that our episode from last year had something to do with this.
Well, that's exactly so I didn't go to the International Energy Agency's website and just look for the latest report. We had this episode last year called how to Quit Your Job for Climate, where we heard all the stories from people who had made some kind of transition from a job outside of the climate space into a job in the climate space. So I was trying to look for a study that showed broader trends within that field, and that's when I found this World Energy Employment report,
and it is fascinating. The fact that there's now more people working in clean energy than fossil fuels, I think is very hopeful.
And it speaks to the point that this is just the start of the energy transition. On almost every metric. We are behind on net zero and we are only really starting to sell electric cars and real numbers or clean energy deployment in real numbers, and so when politicians say it's about jobs, you better believe it.
Yeah, And most of the growth that we have seen in the clean energy sector, that's come down to five sectors, so that's SOLOPV, wind electric vehicles, and battery manufacturing, heat pumps, and critical minerals mining. These are just the numbers in
twenty twenty three. So when you look forward, the International Energy Agency makes predictions about how many more jobs will be created over the next seven years to twenty thirty, and the organization says, based on today's policies, there will be another eight million clean energy jobs added worldwide by twenty thirty. So that's based on today's policies, but if everyone agrees and gets on track for the net zero scenario,
it will be even higher. There'll be something like seventeen million clean energy jobs generated by twenty thirty, which will more than replace all the jobs that are lost in the fossil fuel sector. And they take actually great pains to go and point out that many of the people who work in the fossil fuel sectors have very relevant skills and in demand skills in the clean energy sector.
So it's not like those people will just lose their jobs and have no options available, they will have the skills and the ability to make the transition themselves into the clean energy space.
And that's like a shout out to our Carbon Capture episode with Emily Grubrut. She said this great thing about oil companies or fossil fuel companies don't need to be part of the transit, Like who cares about the corporate structure. The skills that people have is actually much more meaningful. And I just really like that because sometimes if you're a very practical person, you're like, oh, I guess we do have to negotiate with oil companies, But really it's the people who do the work.
And people can move with their feet. They don't like the kind of work that they're doing for a fossil fuel company and they don't like the direction it's taking. Then, as we heard in the Climate Critics episode, we put out, people are already saying I want to do other things. I want to work for companies that I can feel proud and invested in the kind of work I'm doing A good number. Yeah, I think I will give the point to Christine and that one. So Christine, you are
one step closer said sad. Congratulations, May it last you a long time. I believe Actuat it is your go next.
My number is ninety seven. Ninety seven okay, sorry, where is ninety five?
Please leave that in?
What change?
It's It's like the humidity reading in your in your room.
It's the temperature.
Yeah, start again, Start again. My number is ninety five.
This feels like a percent Is it a percent?
It is a percentage? Great?
Is it to do with the location of the manufacturing or extract of some kind of technology or mineral?
It has to do with something to do with extracting something correct?
Yes, wow, I really liked how broad that guest was. But also you did get it. Okay, does this have to do with extracting a element that's really important in clean tech?
No, it's not.
If the word element had been changed to compound or I know.
I really thought about that.
I was like, I'm not being I am not being a difficult chemist. Bit too pedantic again, Yeah, I have left my days in the lab long back. Rather than being the percentage of something, is it like a percent increase of something that's happened to a percent decrease. It is a percent decrease. Of something.
Correct.
Does this have to do with the amount of like oil and gas being extracted in like one specific region. Yeah, okay, this is a really tight game this round.
You're getting all the hints, You're getting all the yes.
Is it some kind of prediction out to twenty fifty, So, like from today's date to twenty fifty or so, someone's gas or oil will fall by ninety five percent?
Yeah, okay, I'm ready to guess. I'm guessing that Norway says it will decrease the amount of oil and gas it's going to extract by ninety five percent over some very long period of time.
What about you ask, I'm going to say this is like a to get on a net zero target. That's the falling gas and oil extraction worldwide that needs to happen by twenty fifty.
So I would say projections are not typically good news. So I think Christine's a little bit closer. It is geographically still in a different place, which is it's in the Norzia, and this is tied to gas production in the Nazia, which is set to decline ninety five percent by twenty fifty, even after new rounds of oil and gas licenses were announced by the UK government recently and had they not been announced, it would have fallen by ninety seven percent.
And is that for because obviously the North Sea does provide Norway and it does provide UK so that's the entire.
No, this is just for UK's not c gas. Yeah, but the point is, you know, there's a whole chat happening around how the UK is backtracking on its green goals, and much of it is just rhetoric and not reality.
Is there more gas in the North Sea? Is it truly people walking away from it or is it that you know it's been tapped.
No, it's just a depleted and depleting field.
And then also for people who are not conversant in the UK, the North Sea oil and gas production has like there's a lot of history there.
Yes, I mean the UK, as the home of Industrial Revolution, had a lot of coal mining and then in the twentieth century, mid twentieth century they discovered oil and gas in the Nazia and really ramped up production and that enabled, at least in the nineties and even early two thousands, a move away from coal because gas was abundant and cheap available, and so that allowed the UK to move
away from coal and reduces emissions. So its emissions have been declining since the nineteen nineties, partly because of that gas field, but now it's declining because both gas production is declining and renewable energy production is on the up.
The actual field peaked a while back, though, right, so this is not like we've just had a new peak as of this year and then it's going to full ninety seven twenty fifty.
Correct, it peaked in two thousand, so you know, the lesson is take your politicians announcements with a grain of salt.
Interesting well, hopefully by that point the UK will be entirely on solar wind batteries and a bit of nuclear as well.
Or if you want to go to the very first episode of Zero and listen to Briani Worthington, maybe the UK is net negative after twenty forty five, which would be something that may be necessary from an equity perspective, as the country that put out all these greenhouse gases to create the problem in the first place.
How about people ponder that, and then after the break, we'll guess my number.
Welcome back to the show. Two guesses so far, one to go. Christine's actually already won the jar of sands. She's come closest both times. It is now your victory lap, Christine, and your number.
My number is six hundred and forty two point eighty four.
Wow, that's a very specific that point eight is.
We could round it up. We could do six hundred and forty three. Is this to do with money, Yes, it always has to do with money, Okay, so it's is it a dollar figure?
Yeah? Okay. Is it to do with the price of a particular clean technology.
It has to do with clean technology. It does not have to do with the price of technology specifically.
Has it got anything to do with government money toward a clean technology?
No?
Is it just six hundred and forty three dollars or is it six hundred and forty It's just.
Six hundred and forty three dollars that I feel like this might be too hard, This might be.
Too Can you give us a clue to that? Wrote down slightly?
It has to do with me your electricity bill in the month of November.
That would be very sad if that was the good news.
You're really putting us on the spot for how well we know you.
Nah, well, I'm going to I'm going to get a gut. I'm going to just make a guest now because I think it is at that point, go for it. How much does it cost in labor to install a heat pump M in your house?
Interesting?
But no, is it how much you're paying to go to school and learn about solo oscar?
You got it. This is the cost of a single class at the local community college to learn about the physics of solar photobal taic technology. It's the name of the class. I have been very inspired being around scientists and engineers working on this, and I've often been like kind of frustrated that I don't know in a more hands on way how solar works. There's a lot of technologies other than solar, but that's the one that's like, you know, I think even since I was a little kid,
it is like that's the future. And behind the scenes of this show for people who don't know, is a lot of like annotating and listening to kind of jargon but beloved jargon about how kind of works. Jargon I don't want to invold in any critiques, but yeah, so there's a lot of like sitting and annotating conversations and being like, Okay, what is a cathode?
Was it?
What is an anode? And I really enjoy doing that stuff, And then we put out another episode and I completely forget I ever learned that stuff, And so I just want to spend some time thinking about it more and learning about it.
That's cool. Solar is the first source of energy that we developed where we didn't have to move things to get electricity. Everything else is run on turbines and turbines powered by steam, so solar was the first one where you didn't have to do that. I mean even on wind you actually have to move the rotors off a wind turbine do make wind power, but with soda, just shine the light.
Yeah.
So I'm very excited about this. I should say too that Oscar's work on the Martin Green episode, even though I was not the one annotating it, Oscar relaying to me the red photon blue photon thing.
I was like, this is so cool, MutS and Green being one of the pioneers of soda tech.
Yes, yes, the godfather of solar who has a bunch of patents and all of this stuff, and it is a little bit self important that me studying. This is good news for the climate. But really I think it's amazing that this is available. It's part of a renewable Energy certificate that the college offers for people to just get training in renewal energy, whether it's like how it's financed, how it works, how it gets installed. And I'm really excited to go see what that's like.
And you never know, just like Martin Green, both the entire Chinese solar industry. By teaching students, you might be a part of the US solar industry's return.
The solar coaster.
Well, luck for your course, Christine, and thank you guys for playing this special third round of whose number is it anyway? And congratulations on your prize. Christine a jar of sand fresh from COP twenty eight. Thank you guys, Yeah, thank you, thanks, Thank you so much for listening to Zero. If you enjoyed this episode, please give us a rating or a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Check out the show notes for the links to the numbers we chose in today's episode.
Zero's producer is Oscar Boyd and senior producer is me Christine driscoll. Our theme music is by Wonderly Special.
Thanks as always to ciro bindram i'm actua thradi. We'll be back in the new year.