- 2 days ago
On the heels of President Donald Trump’s U.N. General Assembly speech on Tuesday, in which he called climate change the “greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,” global business leaders are making it clear that the world is still moving towards renewable energy, with or without the United States.
“If there's one hoax, there's one con, it's that we in the global south are not acting on climate change because the United States told us to,” said Arunabha Ghosh, CEO of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water. “We're acting on climate change because it makes sense for us, because we are vulnerable, but we also have an agency to combat this crisis.”
“If there's one hoax, there's one con, it's that we in the global south are not acting on climate change because the United States told us to,” said Arunabha Ghosh, CEO of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water. “We're acting on climate change because it makes sense for us, because we are vulnerable, but we also have an agency to combat this crisis.”
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NewsTranscript
00:00good evening everyone um and you know welcome to this great discussion uh we're going to have i
00:06think entitled powering the future um it's been a weird year for climate uh weird week for climate
00:13um i think there's a lot of things obviously that are uh challenging the challenging geopolitics if
00:20anyone was listening to the un the uh return of climate denial um and then you know the the real
00:27costs that we're feeling of disasters that are related to climate um at the same time you know
00:34sometimes i'm asked to say something positive and i and i say it's really hard in this in this in
00:38this atmosphere um but by coincidence there's three folks on this stage and we're going to have four
00:44but three who throughout the course of the year i think have given me doses of optimism um and so i'm
00:50excited to to dive into this conversation about powering the future uh you know building on sylvia
00:56earl's comments um you know seizing this moment uh in the best way that we can uh and so let me
01:03just quickly introduce uh again the the folks here we've got andrew forrest who's the chairman of
01:08fortescue john kreitz uh who is the ceo of rmi uh and then arunaba gauche who is the ceo of the
01:16now i'm this is the one that i have to double check i get it right so you have council on energy
01:22environment and water and special envoy for south asia for cop 30 so let me just start you here with
01:28you andrew um you know you're an outspoken voice in the uh business community about the opportunity
01:37uh with climate and and so despite all of these these sort of headwinds what is the business case
01:43where we sit here in september 2025 for continuing on on this push for for climate
01:49okay ladies and gentlemen i think the killer app isn't what you've all been hearing of
01:55for the 21st century which is ai i think what's going to influence your lives even if you've got a
02:01administration here which wants to back the oldest most feeble horse in the race fossil fuel
02:07um the killer app of the 21st century is just simply solar and a battery that is going to drop
02:15the price of energy all over the world it is doing it now fortescue's harnessing technology
02:21on a mammoth scale to send the steel industries green wherever we can to send countries and continents
02:31who are brave enough to come with us to give their people lower 24 7 baseload energy power costs we
02:39apologize to the administration that it's green but we don't apologize for the fact that we're going
02:45to take you down fossil fuel industry on raw economics this is coming and the people will be the winners
02:52you know well well said
02:55so so john you can pick up on that but i i would love to ask you specifically i mean one thing that
03:03i think you're so well spoken on is uh the grid and the challenges with the grid in the u.s is we have
03:09rising electricity demand uh and a lot of folks uh are trying to do a fairly large fossil build out gas
03:16build out to try to uh you know provide new generation and you talk very well about the uh you know
03:22opportunities for innovation for the grid uh other alternatives so i would love for you to touch on
03:27that you can build off of andrew's point as well yeah certainly the the grid is it is the factory
03:35that's the machine it's the the engine of competitiveness and of of frankly um of wealth
03:42here going forward when we think about what we need for industry in a planet and as andrew said we have
03:49new tools today like battery and storage that allow us to manage the grid differently and redesign it
03:55but we also have a lot more that we can do and especially here in the united states we've invested
04:00quite literally trillions of dollars in a grid that today runs at about 40 utilization right so this
04:10massive capital intensive asset that we have is barely used relative to what its potential is and
04:18that's because in the 1950s we didn't have a way to actually run it differently but now we do
04:23we have ways to use energy efficiency and to manage the amount that we need on the grid quite
04:30dramatically we have ways to respond and and use load or the different things like our thermostats and
04:39our our um uh our draws on the power differently we have ways to also automate the grid differently and
04:48and through new reconductoring technologies that allow us to get more power through the same rights
04:54of way on transmission lines or using ai for smart for a smarter grid allow us to balance the grid
05:02differently that we should be expecting a lot more from our grid and right now the projections are that
05:08the costs of electricity in the united states are likely to go up as much as 40 percent here over
05:14the next five years and that's if we do it the dumb way which is really focusing on supply side
05:21before we ever think about adding new generation to the grid we should be making the grid a lot smarter
05:26and in the process we drive down the cost and we ultimately improve and modernize the grid
05:33for a future that is going to be much more heavily electrified and the u.s has done this before in
05:39the 70s to the to 2000 quite literally we dropped the real cost of energy in the united states for
05:47three decades straight and it's only over the last 20 years that we've started to increase those costs
05:53um with receiving less and less benefit from this massive and important machine that is quite
05:59literally the engine of of industry here going forward and arunaba i i guess i'd love to get a
06:07global perspective on some of these these questions here um how are how are folks that you're engaged
06:14with thinking about these questions of balance of new fossil generation and some of these other
06:19technologies that are that are growing just in first fall we have to recognize that uh the energy
06:25transition is going to be really playing out in emerging markets and developing economies nearly
06:3190 percent of all new electricity demand will come from those geographies over the next two decades
06:36and yet before we think uh they are just locked into a fossil future the reality is that in many
06:42countries whether it's in southeast asia take vietnam in in india in sub-saharan africa in in latin america
06:51there are many countries that actually have a higher share of renewables in their electricity mix than
06:56you get here um so there is a double leapfrog happening one there are about 600 million people
07:03who's close to 700 million people who still don't have access to electricity um india electrified 130
07:10million people within 18 months um that was 11 000 human beings getting a wire into their homes every
07:17hour now the world needs to electrify 11 and a half thousand human beings every hour right out of
07:232030 to meet the sustainable development goal meanwhile there is this massive push on clean
07:28electrification uh so india has now crossed uh 50 percent of its uh installed electricity capacity is now
07:35coming from clean uh from non-fossil uh we hope to increase the generation share up to 50 percent and
07:43that will depend on how we optimize for the grid so that's these are these two leapfrogs that are
07:48happening but there's one more thing here which is how do we use the energy transition to drive the
07:55economic transformation and when we look at that you see small businesses uh medium-scale enterprises
08:01form the bulk of the industrial base in many developing countries they can be electrified they are not making
08:06steel they're making t-shirts toys etc you electrify and send clean electrons through them
08:12and then you look at the heavy industry um india has just come out with the world's first green
08:18steel taxonomy we've got the world's largest green hydrogen mission so we've got to put all these
08:24building blocks in place and leverage both the technology but also the business models and
08:29competitive markets to drive prices down and growth up so prices growth uh new technological
08:38developments these are key factors i wonder if you might also comment uh on energy security right
08:44so we're in this fractured geopolitical environment uh energy security and having access to energy is a big
08:50concern how are you seeing that play out you know when we think of energy security we're having this
08:56conversation about 50 years after the first oil shock the entire energy security architecture we have in
09:01the world is actually for the fuels of the past soil and gas etc they're not off the market yet
09:08but it is about the fuels of the past what we need is an energy security architecture for the fuels of the
09:13future um that could be a solar panel it could be a wind turbine it could be a hydrogen electrolyzer
09:19it could be a battery what does that architecture look like we've got to make sure that we are using
09:26comparative advantage in our respective economies to make not the entirety of a panel not the entirety
09:33of a turbine but the components in which india has a comparative advantage the components in which the
09:38united states has a comparative advantage which australia has a comparative advantage and then you
09:43create interdependent value chains that way your green industrial policy becomes that much more
09:50sustainable secure interdependent codependent um and not a free-for-all and we've got to avoid this
09:57free-for-all scenario because that will slow down the transition rather than accelerate john do you want
10:04to come in there i mean we had a a good chart up from rmi on some of the uh clean manufacturing of
10:10these technologies but i would just love to hear your thoughts you know which of these technologies are you
10:14most excited about yeah i mean it's very clear that when it comes to the electrification technologies
10:22solar storage uh continue to drive down in cost at tremendous levels you know we're seeing 15 to 20
10:29reductions per year they are going to be the core of the next energy economy but we also we need green
10:35molecules too um uh because there are places where we're going to need to move around we're going to
10:41need energy as we move around we're also going to need uh uh to power intense heat especially in heavy
10:48industry and and so bringing hydrogen in particular to a level of economic cost competitiveness is hugely
10:58hugely important for us here going forward um you know when we think about that uh especially um the near term
11:07most cost effective ways to make hydrogen work is actually through ammonia and through green shipping
11:15which my my colleague here next to us is certainly a pioneer in and i'm sure you can talk about this
11:20here in a moment andrew but also for things like fertilizer which is used globally um and we we see the
11:28opportunity for us to remake global industry here in a much more sustainable mode in a very short order
11:36and the good news is that we're doing that right now that we've already got 130 projects globally
11:41that are focused on how do we take and convert what was a very carbon intensive fossil intensive
11:49global footprint and keep in mind about a third of the global global emissions come from heavy industry
11:55we have 130 plants about a quarter of a trillion dollars right now that has been invested today and is helping to
12:04build out new green ammonia manufacturing plants new uh um uh carbon capture uh and cement plants which
12:13are just coming online new uh um chemicals plants that are all going to be critical to this next
12:19energy industrial clean industrial economy and the really interesting thing is that while while the u.s
12:28while china while the eu are the among the leaders right now in investment we're seeing a whole swath of
12:36countries kind of an industrial sun belt that is emerging including australia but also including brazil and
12:43including india including countries like egypt uh uh morocco that are becoming the natural places to take
12:51advantage of this new cheap solar that we have uh to help us industrialize in a way where the products
12:58that we build the products that we use can all be produced in a low carbon way
13:04yeah that's that's great and i would love to pull on this thread of of i mean you know uh observing this
13:12as a journalist the the rest of the world finding ways to get on on with it without without the u.s
13:16uh and and making constructive things like that that sun belt that you describe andrew do you want
13:22to talk about green pioneer i mean it feels like the the obvious time to to to to tee that up no look
13:28i'm really delighted dove i'm learning a great deal i'm excited by everything that india's doing
13:33the fact you've got 40 percent excess capacity in your grid means that we should be pumping it full of
13:4024 7 baseload power unapologetic that it's green it's just going to be cheaper um
13:45sitting out there on pier 36 in the flat iron district of this beautiful city is the world's
13:53first uh pollution free ship um we invented the technology as to how to harness ammonia if
14:01you've ever smelt ammonia in your cleaning products you probably gather that it's been
14:06shipped all over the world forever um but we've taken it and we've learned how to capture it as a
14:12flame inside a cylinder um and if you can do that then you can use it to drive internal combustion
14:18engines and the beauty of ammonia is that because it's hydrogen and nitrogen and if you take a cubic
14:25meter of ammonia the nitrogen molecules compress the tiny hydrogen molecules just with gravity
14:33so much so that you get more hydrogen which is the miracle fuel in a cubic meter of ammonia than
14:40you do in a cubic meter of hydrogen so it's got massive potential and when i began to read um that
14:48there was a pushback from north america against one of the best things i've ever seen which is
14:54a big multilateral huge industry which is in danger of causing all of us as organic life huge grief which
15:02is the global shipping industry it accounts for three percent of all emissions growing to 10
15:08now as organic life we can't afford that that's going to make a hell of a difference to temperatures
15:15humidity which we're not equipped to handle as humans which is killing people as i speak so when
15:22we learned that then when we learned america was basically pushing back hard on the international
15:28maritime organization setting itself up to start going green in 2027 around the corner and getting
15:36almost fully green by 2035 still very close um and we were being threatened with tariffs in australia
15:43with visa cancellations economic bullying if we voted for something which is fundamentally good for
15:49humanity um and we're a big shipper right i'm in the iron ore industry the one i'm part of a big player
15:55in is the heaviest shipper the biggest shipper on earth by tons and we're prepared to do it so
16:02where's the problem here baby and and so so and here's north america saying no no this is going
16:09to be terrible uh and so i thought well hell we're going to sail this ship right into the lion's den
16:15called new york in the middle of hunger and you're welcome
16:19you're welcome to come and to come on board pier 36
16:25thank thank you thank you for that i i want to just stick with you one one more beat here speaking
16:30of north america and you know president trump's remarks at at unga um you know calling climate
16:37change a hoax and various other things you know in addition to your role as a uh you know business
16:43leader you are a marine phd marine ecologist and so i just you know we heard from sylvia earl but it
16:50would be great to hear from you a little bit about you know the realities of climate change
16:55and then i i also just want to prod you a little bit on this question of who's responsible uh for
17:02paying for some of those costs okay look the greatest heap of rubbish i've heard for all time
17:08is some society leader saying global warming was the greatest con of all time i mean i just i find
17:18that gobsmackingly illogical i've just want to invite your president down to our cattle ranches
17:27we have several million acres now come to my home you'll see the devastation that global warming is
17:34causing you know come and dive i'm a marine ecologist come and dive on the largest reef systems in the
17:39world to the great barry reef like i do come and dive on the on the ningaloo reef the largest fringing
17:46reefs in the world 5 000 kilometers the other side of the australian continent come up into the indian
17:53ocean like i've just done and dive on those islands and see the devastation of those reefs they were
18:01once the most beautiful ecosystems on earth and then are covered in moth they are destroyed this is the
18:07first of the great tipping points ladies and gentlemen scientists have been talking about
18:12forever and you know that's just australia in the pacific i mean i've been searching for my uncle's
18:20remains for many years now at least five years he was shot down by the japanese died with american forces
18:28in world war ii his body has not been recovered my family still has this open wound and so i've been
18:35going up to these remote islands searching for his aircraft and his remains and i've made friends
18:42with all the villages all the chiefs etc as you can imagine and even in five years i've watched them
18:47having to move their villages back further and further and further as the tides and storms come up
18:54higher and higher and take out their houses take out their homes take out their schools
18:59and i'm thinking you're causing real damage president trump this misleading of the american public and
19:08anyone else who's going to think well you're the u.s president we should believe you you're causing
19:13real damage to the lives of very real families and communities all over the world and i'm just saying
19:21this is not good mr president you've got to tell the truth global warming is absolutely real
19:27thank you
19:34i i want to shift gears we were supposed to have uh damiola ogambibi uh here and unfortunately um
19:44due to our late start she she had to run to another engagement but of course she runs us
19:47se for all uh and does does great work uh you know with with developing countries emerging market
19:53countries on on on the energy transition and energy access issues but i want to go to to uh to to you
20:00both to you both have global perspectives um and just to maybe reflect on the opportunities uh in this
20:09moment for uh work to happen you know outside of the u.s outside of some of the traditional uh sort of
20:16places that have led or led you know quote unquote um the uh you know the sort of center of the climate
20:25conversation what are what are those opportunities uh going forward and we can start with you john and
20:31yeah i the thing i would say that we all should take in mind here is that eighty percent of the world is still
20:38very much moving on the fast track toward clean energy because it makes economic sense because it
20:46makes sense from a resiliency perspective because it makes sense from an employment and a job perspective
20:52and ultimately it makes sense from an equity and inclusion perspective and you know when rmi works in
21:00in over 50 countries around the world we work in sub-saharan africa and the power that you give to a
21:08community by providing a local microgrid right that has solar and storage that enables the growth and
21:17the industrial you know kind of just a local productivity of having a rice mill that's able to
21:24take some of the human drudgery out of the local economy or that allows you to start
21:30powering your own electric two-wheeler or three-wheeler on your farm that that enables you to actually get
21:37around and spend more time doing useful things rather than walking from place to place allows you to
21:45to take people to medical um uh support these are things that we can afford much more cheaply now
21:54um and that communities around the world are starting to benefit from at scale and there's no question
22:03about the benefit and the scale of not just the opportunity but the real momentum that's happening
22:10outside you know in economies led by i think india in a very powerful way to help support what can be a
22:20much more equitable approach to to growth to to development and ultimately to to harmonizing
22:27a bit of our economies with their needs relative to the available and plentiful things like
22:36the natural uh sunshine that we all experience every day justin let me uh answer your question by
22:44giving the stories of three women one is a lady called raj kor she's in amritsar in punjab in northern
22:52india uh she drives a pink tuk-tuk that pink tuk-tuk is one of 1200 tuk-tuks that have converted to
23:00electric tuk-tuks in that one city alone um but what's actually happening i i i would i would hazard a
23:09guess that no one in here knows that india sold 1.9 million evs last year not a single one of them
23:17was a tesla not yet but 93 percent of those were two wheelers and three-wheeler tuk-tuks most of the
23:28remainder were buses this is our version of a sustainable transport revolution second lady
23:39uh kuhi deruri she's from our eastern state of udisha uh often gets uh that state gets buffeted by
23:47climate extremes she's a silk realer silk is reeled on uh women's thighs they sit on the floor and reel
23:55it uh it's a task of drudgery she has become a solar silk realer and she's trained 500 other women's
24:02silk realers do this the prime minister referred to her in his radio broadcast it's from a company
24:09that we've been supporting a cw portfolio of startups using clean energy for rural livelihoods
24:16guess what's the scale of that market in india 50 billion dollar opportunity for using clean energy
24:24for rural livelihoods last story usharani a natural farming practitioner in the state of andhra pradesh
24:35an arid semi-arid area in the southeast of india in a half acre plot of land she was growing 15 crops
24:44when i visited her a few years ago natural farming eliminates fertilizers uses the soil or soil nutrients
24:54and you're able to have much more climate resilient output india that state has the largest program on
25:00natural farming in the world over 1.5 million farmers are now doing this what i'm trying to say here is
25:06that if there's one message you want to take away from this dinner if there's one hoax there's one con
25:13it's that we in the global south are not acting on climate change because the united states told us to
25:20act on climate change we're acting on climate change because it makes sense for us because we are vulnerable
25:26but we also have the agency to combat this crisis and we're doing it when you're doing it at scale
25:33start telling our stories and you'll have a much nicer dinner
25:40thank thank you that is a that is a great a great note to to end on i i have to say i mean the
25:49telling the stories around the world of things that are still happening that are affecting real people
25:54in positive ways is so important so i thank you for that john i think you laid out uh the the picture
26:00with technology perfectly um it's great to hear that and and andrew i i appreciate i mean it's it's
26:07sad to say but it's important that in 2025 uh folks in the business community are still comfortable with
26:14saying climate change is real and we need to act on it and this is the business case so thank you to all
26:19of you for taking the time it was very appreciated thank you thank you thank you
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