Fossil Fuels, Lobbying & The Real Cost of Climate Inaction w/ Patrick Galey from Global Witness | S04E09 - video Dailymotion

Tangelic Life

🎙️ The fossil fuel industry is the richest in human history. And it's using every dollar to slow the transition to clean energy. How?  In this episode of Tangelic Talks, hosts Victoria Cornelio and Andres Tamez sit down with Patrick Galey — Head of Fossil Fuel Investigations at Global Witness — to expose the mechanisms behind one of the most consequential battles of our time: who controls the pace of the energy transition, and why.  Patrick spent nine years reporting from the Middle East before turning his investigative lens on the fossil fuel industry. What he found was a playbook built on hidden science, captured politicians, rigged subsidies, and a system designed to ensure that the people profiting most from fossil fuels get to decide when we stop using them.  This is not a conversation about doom.  It's a conversation about who's pulling the strings — and what we can do about it.  In This Episode, We Explore: 🕵️ Patrick's journey from financial journalism in Beirut to fossil fuel investigations at Global Witness 🔥 Why the fossil fuel industry switched from science denial to greenwashing and soft power lobbying 💰 Why the entire system is financially rigged in favor of fossil fuels over renewables 🏗️ Infrastructure lock-in — how new pipelines and LNG terminals are used to delay clean energy 📊 The $7 trillion in annual fossil fuel subsidies — and what redirecting them could achieve ⚖️ BP's green retreat, investor pressure and what it reveals about capital and climate 🌍 COP's role, its real failures, and the new Colombia fossil fuels phase-out conference 🌱 Why 70% of Reform voters in flood-prone UK regions say they actually care about climate change 🔑 Climate change as a threat multiplier — the message that could change how people vote  🔹 About Our Guest: Patrick Galey is the Head of Fossil Fuel Investigations at Global Witness. A former journalist based in Beirut and Paris, he now leads data-driven research exposing how the fossil fuel industry shapes policy, lobbies governments, and slows the transition to clean energy around the world.  💬 Join the Conversation: Is the fossil fuel industry the biggest obstacle to climate action — or are governments failing us? Drop your thoughts below 👇  🌱 Support the Mission: Help us amplify stories of clean energy, equity, and climate justice. 👉 TangelicLife.org  🔖 #FossilFuels #ClimatePolicy #GlobalWitness #ClimateLobbying #ClimateCrisis #EnergyTransition #COP30 #ClimateJustice #Greenwashing #ClimateAction #NetZero #ClimateFinance #EnergyPolicy #ClimateNarrative #JustTransition #TangelicTalks  🏷️ fossil fuel lobbying, climate policy, Global Witness, fossil fuel investigations, climate crisis, fossil fuel subsidies, energy transition, COP climate negotiations, greenwashing, climate finance, Patrick Galey, cost of living climate, climate action, fossil fuel industry, net zero, BP strategy, Tangelic Talks

Transcript

00:00i was always under the impression that like if you if you tell people the truth like if you say

00:07hey look we are heading for a future where earth is a hellscape um where it is uninhabitable and

00:15and your life is dangerous and unhealthy and and yeah displaced that that would be enough to enact

00:23change that the people would be like oh my goodness that's bad

00:28there's been so much pushback since then because that's a rabbit hole right if you start like

00:32investigating all the origin stories of all of your consumer products then you wouldn't use

00:37anything you'd be overwhelmed bp is such a mess of a company as i said it's got debts um it

00:43doesn't

00:43it's got big problems finding new oil and gas which is a key thing for profit for valuability

00:49within oil companies um there's many many reasons why bp underperforms its peers but somehow it got

00:55messaged that it's underperformed because it went too green and this has now become like this has

01:01become folklore amongst even like well-meaning industry covering journalists certainly are you

01:09in the warm and engaging for your podcast consider great tell me as a suggestion that combines an upbeat

01:14and abiding spirit without any micro music welcome to tangelic talks your go-to podcast from tangelic

01:21where we dive into the vibrant world of clean energy development sustainability and climate

01:27change in africa we bring you inspiring stories insightful discussions and groundbreaking innovations

01:33from the continent making waves in the global community tune in and join the conversation toward

01:38a brighter greener future let's get started

01:44welcome to tangelic talks a podcast at the intersection of energy equity and empowerment with

01:49your co-hosts victoria cornelio and andres james in today's episode we're joined by patrick gailey

01:54head of fossil fuel investigations at global witness patrick leads data-driven investigations that expose

02:00how the fossil fuel industry shapes policy influences climate negotiations and protect this commercial

02:05interest often in plain sight welcome patrick thanks for having me guys so i think our listeners will

02:12understand why i wanted you on due to my endless rants on cop but before we jump in there

02:20how did you find yourself at this intersection looking into something like fossil fuel investigations

02:25and working at global witness so my background is in journalism uh i graduated uh in the teeth of

02:32the financial crisis in 2008 and um took a job in the roots uh i was i was actually on

02:40the bloomberg

02:41graduate scheme i had a place on the bloomberg graduate scheme doing financial because that's all

02:45anyone was getting jobs in at the time of course and then an email landed in my inbox saying do

02:50you

02:50want a reporting job in beirut and i was like who says no to that so i spent the next

02:54nine years in the

02:55region um as a general reporter and then i switched to climate change uh ended up writing for an international

03:05newswire for many years and when i got when i started covering climate my mentor was a chap i'm going

03:12to

03:12shout out his he's an absolute legend his name's marlo hood and he's been doing the climate beat for like

03:1730 years and he knows his stuff and he's not gotten like the the the warming frog thing like he's

03:25he's

03:25still shocked every day by things that audiences just sort of accept and shrug about and move on

03:31and yeah i'm not sure if i can swear but he has this thing that he calls the os moment

03:39uh that happens

03:40to everyone they get into covering climate which is my goodness this is so like unreconstructed and

03:49terrifying and people should be like i understand why they're not because we have empathetic bandwidths

03:56and we have to get on with our day and most people are too busy looking after their kids or

04:00paying their

04:00bills or keeping the heating on like i do get that but really um this was this was a time

04:06sort of

04:062018 uh so the ipcc sr 15 came out which was like here's precisely how screwed we all are if

04:14we go past

04:141.5 and here's where we're going um and i guess i was in paris at the time i should

04:20say so there was

04:21there was a big sort of upswell foreign following the paris agreement and this was sort of the time that

04:26like extinction rebellion was coming out like just stop oil uh greta was like you know in her origin

04:33story and um it really felt like there was a genuine you know a genuine sort of upswell in awareness

04:40and

04:41conscientiousness and then of course covid happened and ironically you know we got the one year

04:49in the decades since the paris agreement where emissions actually fell all it took was a complete

04:54standstill of the global economy and that's by the way that's the exact same amount of emissions we need

05:00to fall by each year by 2030 to stay on track so we needed like the equivalent yes mission savings

05:08of a

05:08pandemic every year but what really got me was like the the resolute failure of international of the

05:18international order to learn lessons and and take opportunities from crisis we had a once in a

05:24generation chance to clean up our economies to clean up our acts to change how we power and organize the

05:32daily economy of life in a way that the planet can take and that will secure a sort of livable

05:38and

05:38healthy future for everyone and the way that the fossil fuel industry co-opted all the kind of

05:42reconstruction grants the various um um stimulus that you know and this wealth transfer and so this also

05:54prompted i think a bit of a it feels like 2019 was sort of a high watermark for a lot

06:00of things but also like

06:01the climate movement and sort of the public because there was so much people were so understandably

06:07because the the privations throughout covid and the you know the social and mental damage that that

06:14caused were desperate to get back to normal and they were sold well normal is fossil fuels like normal is

06:19is flying like 40 times a year normal is like putting gas in your car and normal is us subsidizing

06:25all

06:26of the fossil fuel fuel extraction and purchases that really got me like i i something broke in me

06:32where i was like i can't just go i can't just carry on doing journalism because i was always

06:38under the impression that like if you if you tell people the truth like if you say hey look we

06:45are

06:46heading for a future where earth is a hellscape um where it is uninhabitable and and your life is

06:54dangerous and unhealthy and and and yeah displaced that that would be enough to enact change that the

07:01people would be like oh my goodness that's bad there's been so much pushback since then and

07:08i really wanted to get to the bottom of like the mechanisms and like the like who's telling our

07:15governments to do things where i was just about to ask that where do you think the pushback is coming

07:20from

07:20so the fossil fuel industry right is the most successful singular industry in human history

07:28okay it's the richest and therefore it's also the most devious and the fossil fuel industry we we know

07:37about the exxon new okay they knew back in the 70s or 80s that their products were going to cause

07:42catastrophic global warming and they hid it and they spent many years just straight up lying about it

07:47um disputing the science what abouting stuff and then once the science became unimpeachable they

07:54switched to things like false solutions and softer power in terms of lobbying politicians in terms of

08:03like astroturfing in terms of greenwashing in terms of global southwashing and i'm happy to go into any of

08:09these but they are basically mobilizing their immense wealth in the form of soft power policy influence

08:19and this is why you know when we get onto cop this is why are we 10 years on from

08:24the paris agreement

08:25and emissions are still rising my answer is because you continue to allow the arsonists into the building

08:32you continue to invite the mosquitoes to the malaria prevention conference you continue to let the

08:38fuel people wander the corridors of power get in the ears of policy makers and that means that they

08:44get to define the scope of the possible and the speed of the transition and this is why we're going

08:50in the wrong direction in my opinion so this is this might be a little bit of a multi-layered

08:54question but

08:54i have like a train of thought about this right because it's always been sort of a mystery to me

09:00why they

09:01didn't try to establish themselves as um as leaders in renewables and in renewables they would have

09:11a lot less spending that they would need to do um to generate power they could give power cheaper and

09:18make

09:18similar gains right um if if if they had established the infrastructure back in the day but instead they

09:26lobbied against nuclear right they they very successfully lobbied against nuclear they

09:30very successfully um sort of stifled any other sort of renewable industry um is it just because of

09:39like the petrodollar is it just because the not because oil as a as an actual product but oil as

09:46a

09:46commodity like is it because of the petro like what why why is that do you have any sort of

09:52idea so

09:54i think about this a lot and and and we do a lot of global witness do a lot of

09:58work on the super majors

09:59so the big the big six they are now exxon chevron total bp shell and any um and we do

10:05a lot of work

10:06on bp and bp um greatest thank you bp you know you guys will know about deepwater horizon um you

10:15know which

10:15bp is still paying off by the way um bp financial accounting every year essentially all of their accounts come

10:23with an asterisk they're like it's they call it replacement cost profit which is this is the

10:28money we would have made if we weren't still paying off deep water which is an insane way to run

10:34a

10:34business right and but lots of people so it's it's former ceo um a guy called bernard looney who had

10:43to

10:44step down because of extremely inappropriate workplace endeavors um he instituted um

10:52uh a fairly modest investment program in low carbon and and we can talk gas is low carbon but

11:01like that he did make a concerted effort to diversify the company right because he saw the writing of the

11:09walls he saw the way the macro trends are going he saw the s-curve adoption of renewables and evs

11:15and

11:15and you know evs like they're going to put terminal demand decline on oil right because that's that's

11:24really what we use it for is diesel and jet fuel um and he saw it and and it kind

11:29of it didn't really

11:30take off because the pandemic happened um and bp is such a mess of a company as i said it's

11:36got debts

11:37um it doesn't it's got big problems finding new oil and gas which is a key thing for profits for

11:43valuability within oil companies um there's many many reasons why bp underperforms its peers but

11:50somehow it got messaged that it's underperforming because it went too green and this has now become

11:56like this has become folklore amongst even like well-meaning industry covering journalists where

12:01they're like bp went too green too hard investors didn't like it so now it announced its reset last

12:07year it's got its new institutional investors elliott's i don't know if you're aware of them

12:11but they are full-on black pillars feeding puppies into the wood chipper to try and make money like

12:17they are completely anti-climate they're like let's do all the oil and gas right and investors weren't

12:24impressed but the the point of that story is that they got spooked by their own greenwash

12:30to believe that investing in renewables was a less sure way of making money and in renewables in a very

12:38loose sense too which is kind of crazy to their credit so but another i don't think they're wrong

12:46i think you make more money per kilowatt hour selling oil and gas than you do renewables but

12:51there's a key reason for this so shell's ceo while seven um he said quite he said the quiet part

12:59loud

13:00quite recently um at an energy conference he was like i'm paraphrasing that but he was like why would

13:04i sell renewable energy at ten dollars per kilowatt when i can sell oil and gas at eighty dollars per

13:13kilowatt so he's he's saying that yeah and the reason he can sell oil and gas at 80 or whatever

13:21is because the whole system is rigged towards fossil fuels okay because they are subsidized

13:26to the tune of trillions of dollars every year so yes uh an integrated energy company which is what

13:33they're all called now oil and gas companies more money selling oil and gas than it does the equivalent in

13:39renewables right at the moment yeah that's because of macroeconomic trends which are shifting

13:45and every year that passes that imbalance gets more sort of even and and more finance flows towards

13:52renewables so in my mind all of this new oil and gas which they're investing in which is not compatible

13:57with 1.5 is is kind of like good money after bad is this cost fallacy yeah um and so

14:04that's why i think

14:06they are slowing down this transition away from fossil fuels i think they've accepted it's inevitable

14:12i think they've accepted that eventually we will have to stop digging up and selling fossil fuels but

14:18they want to do it on their own time frame and unfortunately that yeah on with earth's time frame

14:23yeah and kind of make the last bit of money they can while still doing it i guess one of

14:28the arguments

14:29we hear a lot is that a big argument pro renewables is that it is abound because it's using the

14:36resources

14:36that we already have on earth right solar is the sun is there no one can take it away from

14:42you wind is

14:43wind is everywhere all these things whereas oil and gas and petrol have to be digged there are finite

14:48resources and therefore makes sense in economics that they would be more expensive than something that

14:55you just plug out from the earth right yeah quite i mean in a sense every barrel of oil that

15:03you

15:03extract is one fewer that you have right so a finite resource is going to have inherently inflationary

15:12pressure because you're dealing with diminishing returns and actually you know whether i don't know

15:19how geeky you want to get into when you drill an oil well but like it it takes it takes

15:25sort of like

15:27parabolically more energy and resources to continue producing the same amount of oil as the resources

15:31decrease because you've got to maintain pressure artificially etc it's like entropy um and

15:38i guess what spooked investors for a while was the upfront cost of renewables infrastructure

15:44and there's also this this is another thing that the fossil fuel industry has done which is

15:48i call it sort of infrastructure lock-in which is where they're like hey you could switch to

15:54renewables right america yeah you've already spent money on all your lng terminals right you've already

16:01spent money on your pipelines like you're not going to use them like these things are good for 40 years

16:06and they're doing it still they're building new gas infrastructure in particular in europe and saying

16:11well you could use hydrogen in these in theory eventually so why not just you know you've got the

16:16infrastructure here use it and this is actually one of what's happening with big tech it's this data

16:22center infrastructure build out they're like well we built these ocean boiling internet rephrases you

16:27may as well use them and yeah scared for a long time by um the upfront cost of renewable infrastructure

16:34but

16:35that is that economy is in scale right and it's sort of s-curve adoption so you start off relatively

16:41slow and then you have a big big thing and then it platters out and places like china

16:46um so actually i was reading smp's uh energy predictions today for 2026 and they said um

16:54global renewables growth is going to slow it's going to be less more than before so whereas we

17:01were growing at like 17 year on year it's going to be 10. and that's actually a thought of china

17:05being

17:07so fully adopted in renewables like all of china's demand growth has been has been met by renewables

17:13and of course like that means you can't keep scaling it up forever you get to a stage which is

17:19amazing

17:20you get to a stage where yeah money you've built a hell of a load of solar farms and wind

17:25farms

17:25now you get to use them right and that yeah cash money the investment paid off exactly exactly like

17:31this is what annoys me about subsidies reform so i i mentioned i lived in france for many years there

17:37was the gilet jaune protests which was morphed into a kind of like anti-elite anti-government thing but

17:44it was started because the government tried to remove subsidies on diesel uh because they're like no diesel

17:50is artificially too cheap it's costing the environment and it's costing you taxpayers even if you never use

17:56diesel and people were up in arms they're like you're making our lives more expensive and it's

18:01true you shouldn't pass on any sort of cost to consumers but what grinds my gears is that it's

18:08not zero-sum right this money can be reinvested somewhere else you can take your money you can

18:14take your seven trillion that the world spends each year's on fossil fuels right and you can reroute it

18:18to make renewables artificially cheaper if you wanted to you can heal cancer or global poverty or

18:26whatever why do you think we're not getting to those conclusions because it sounds obvious when

18:32you lay it out but do you think it's this black and white thinking or is it just we don't

18:36have

18:36enough people with time or with the incentive to think this way what's stopping us from getting there

18:42i mean i think it's the lobbying it doesn't help and it's lobbying right it's not just for cop right

18:50it's all year round um and and you you guys will know how the sort of political narrative capture that

18:57the industry has in the us and and i do a lot of work on eu and uk lobbying um

19:02i guess one thing i could

19:05say is that there is a fear that if you remove subsidies off like it should be said by the

19:13way

19:13most of the fossil fuel subsidies in the world go to keeping it cheaper for customers right so there's

19:20the fear then that if you if you reroute them away from fossil fuel products let's say in the uk

19:26where i am now it's it's gas right and specifically it's electricity because post russia we have supplies

19:33yeah and gas network distributions and so yeah exactly exactly um and they're selling it i don't

19:40know what it is per kilowatt hour at half five local time it may have gone up you know since

19:44twenty past

19:45five um given given the state we are um but there is a fear that they make the the cheapest

19:53available

19:54option more expensive overnight and that causes and i think i think a lot of governments have learned the

20:00wrong lessons from countries that have tried subsidies reform badly like okay like chile chile was meant

20:06to host cop in 2018 but there was anti-government protests meant it got held in madrid um but they

20:13started because they uh they wanted to the government uh wanted to reduce uh subsidies on like um diesel and

20:21train uh and um fuel for the metro okay onto consumers and and so i think i think governments

20:29have sort of got sort of scared themselves um because any subsidies any meaningful subsidy reform

20:34has been attempted in a in a in a not consumer friendly way i i do think i and i

20:41think that's exactly

20:42to your point like one of the things that i that i rage on and on about right because like

20:47what do you

20:48do right if you're an american citizen and you don't have access to cheap uh electric vehicles

20:54because you're a you're a closed loop right i think it's the same in europe right you don't have access

20:59to the chinese electric vehicles uh for moral reasons uh but it's all just a a bunch of baloney um

21:07regardless of the morality that's a whole different conversation

21:11um but so you're you're stuck outside of that and then you so you're dependent on the fossil fuels

21:19and you're dependent on gas uh and diesel and there's a lot of money flowing into like like and

21:28i'm i'm i'm always a broken record about this but like there's a lot of money the government has given

21:33a lot of money to companies that make a lot of money and don't need money like nvidia right now

21:38with

21:38the data centers um they're putting a lot of money in ti that all that money can go into what

21:44china

21:45did it's like it didn't take china that long um and then you have this false narrative was like that's

21:52just not the way we do it in america it's like no actually america has done this multiple times like

21:58the the electric grid was a huge the electric grid itself was a huge social project in in the united

22:06states that was pushed in order to get electricity because they thought it was a good idea to get

22:12electricity to every single person in america no matter how remote and it was costly right um

22:19because there's a lot of remote people in america it's very different from other countries that where

22:23you see the the like australia where you see the centers of population and then the no one lives here

22:29no in america everyone lives some everyone lives somewhere it's very it's very interesting right

22:34well that's the messaging they have here in the uk with a great grid upgrade right we have to make

22:39sure everyone has reliable access to energy that's why we're upgrading right and so you you have this

22:47money that can that you are giving to a company that prints money instead of saying all right we are

22:53going to partner with a company are we going to do it ourselves it's like like or we're going to

22:59do it

22:59ourselves and maybe sell it or maybe keep it socialized i don't care how you're going to do it right

23:03but build out the renewable infrastructure like it's not that hard china did it so quickly and how

23:10do they do it by doing it like people people rag on how expensive it is to do nuclear half

23:16of the expenses are the

23:18insane regulations that come from lobbying they didn't come from any sort of real concerns in the

23:23united states specifically because that's what i know about the history of it i think you're voicing

23:28a lot of the frustrations people have with cops specifically right it's like why do we have to meet

23:33every year to talk about the same thing can we just go out and do it yeah and like to

23:38that point

23:39there's a large constituency globally that like is doing its policy making outside of cops

23:44you know there's cities that have announced net zero like gavin newton fine people of california

23:50you know uh i think there's like i don't know how many thousands of businesses but like the cbi which

23:57represents businesses here in the uk they're like no everyone everyone needs net zero and everyone is

24:02on board this is on board there's some like heavy industries that are slower but like i think i think

24:11there's a couple of things like cop is really the only functional forum where global majority

24:18countries are in theory treated as equals around the table in practice they get condescended to and

24:24bullied but like there's it's really the only like forum where like proper things like loss and damage

24:29finance and adaptation finance can get discussed and this is where you get 100 billion a year which we're

24:34still not doing like there is this there's this inaugural uh fossil fuels phase out conference in

24:40santa marta colombia in april which is going to be a big moment for us and our campaigning arm because

24:45like cop is kind of like the cop is like the climate at large whereas this is like a forum

24:51for

24:51specifically debating how we solve the how we do the one thing that we know will work

24:57and yeah i understand why people are frustrated and and like from you know with my sort of like

25:04i i don't want to say it's like my environmental bias i hate when people refer to me as an

25:09environmentalist it's like no i'm just a guy here trying to make your future like more affordable and

25:13healthier um but like we we really want this to work we want this conference to work and we don't

25:19want it repeating the mistakes the cop has had and like there's a there's this there's you know going

25:26back to your point andres like yeah china did it okay china also like uses a lot of coal and

25:34we know

25:34this right but china did it um because i guess how to put this it didn't have practical not moral

25:42reason

25:42it didn't have to worry about like local opposition to infrastructure projects did it you know it did it

25:48and like in the uk in particular like i'm sitting in a country that's spending currently a billion

25:53pounds a kilometer for a train track and everywhere i cycle a lot every every time i go on my

26:00bike it's

26:01like no to new wind farms no to new solar farms no to this no to this like an eyesore

26:05um and

26:09governments are afraid governments are afraid of like you know people

26:15people people sort of people's distaste in it and it's unfortunate you you can't really

26:21hide like renewable infrastructure but what i always say is like that there's this big debate

26:26about the cost of net zero okay i'm sure it's happened happens everywhere but in the uk there's

26:31it's a particularly acute moment because you've got the rise of reform and um and um basically this this

26:37backlash that i was sort of alluding to at the start and everyone's saying oh it'll cost this

26:42much to invest to upgrade the grid as you say victoria um and it'll cost y to electrify our

26:49transport and it'll cost this and this that's always posited as against a future

26:58absent of climate costs like they're always like this is just this is just an outlay and business

27:06as usual would cost zero right whereas of course we know that business as usual is going to collapse

27:10the economy as we know it and i just wish more people like understood this idea that we are at

27:17a key

27:18inflection point in humanity's ability to live on this planet and there are tough choices and

27:26like maybe that's another reason why we're kind of losing this narrative is because we aren't going

27:31like oh everything's fine and it's easy and you just want to carry on i see what the fossil fuel

27:36industry is doing right with it is it's going to be short-term painful because how else do you do

27:43and and and and they just come back and say yeah you could do all of that or you could

27:47just yeah well

27:48because i think what you said at the start there's so much overwhelm because there is so much going on

27:52there are so many shifting priorities there's there's always a reason for you to not look up

27:57right like the movie i think something i've noticed a lot is i do a lot of community engagement and

28:03when

28:03you talk to someone that is against a wind farm a lot of it is well the countryside is precious

28:09it looks

28:09ugly or why is my money going into that those are the same things that you hear about people back

28:16in

28:17the day when they live close to mining towns or when they started building things that weren't eyes

28:22or like a data center in these days the concerns are a lot of times the same so are we

28:28just failing

28:29at the narrative like would that be the crux of it is it that there is more money in loving

28:35data centers

28:37do seem to actually data centers do actually seem to be making people sick so yeah you know you sit

28:45sitting down someone i tried to explain to an indie that as ugly as it is it's not killing the

28:51birds

28:52but that's the narrative in the countryside in new yorkshire so they think it's killing the birds

28:57you know what i mean so how do you get a message a hundred percent and like and data centers

29:04are

29:04making people sick that you'll get that when you stick half a dozen gas turbines on a building um

29:09i i think i think we thought a lot and hard of this not just myself my organization but the

29:14climate

29:15community at large about how we get these messages across like how do you cut through and i'm i'm very

29:21much saying i spent a lot of my life really um warning about the bad and someone told me a

29:31very

29:32dear friend who works in the climate movement too she took me aside one day i think it was at

29:36a cop and

29:36i was like brain fried and being like why how do they get away with this and why don't people

29:41worry about

29:41it and she said it's not enough to be right okay you've got to speak to what matters to audiences

29:47and

29:47what inspires them and so i think we need to do a much better job of um messaging the positives

29:53messaging

29:53like here's what your future could look like um the architect of the paris agreement uh i wrote a book

30:02uh the the title escapes me but it's essentially a double a double scenario it's a scenario where the

30:08paris goal is implemented and like people have parks and trees and businesses and homes to live in and

30:16everyone's using evs and the water's clean and there's animals running around and like this is

30:22like a a future of abundance cheap plentiful energy um that could sustain uh and manage energy demand

30:31growth in a sustainable way and then of course the inverse scenario is one where we just do what we've

30:36been doing and it's hell on earth and i really do think like yes it's true that i agree that

30:42a wind farm

30:43is ugly okay but you we need this and what you'll get out of it is eventually you'll get lower

30:50energy

30:51you'll have cleaner air your children won't be you know forced to fight over scraps of food in the

30:57street when society breaks down like all of these things are necessary and there's all upside for this

31:04long term like okay i know but we're recording this now when the strait of hormones is blockaded

31:11yeah and prices are going bananas and the iea just unleashed its like biggest ever strategic reserve

31:19uh to try and to try and catch up right and i guess my question to your listeners is like

31:25how long are you going to let your government's addiction to fossil fuels continue to hold

31:32you hostage to what's going on in the world because if we switch to renewables it doesn't

31:38matter if the straightforward moves gets blocked okay it doesn't matter if an entire continent

31:43disappears from the map you've got your own integrated energy infrastructure that doesn't

31:47rely on imports and doesn't rely on extremely expensive se climate wrecking extractive practices

31:52when are we going to learn what what crisis is going to take yeah and it's it feels like a

31:58standstill doesn't it because you talk to people and you explain to them the bad and it doesn't

32:05scare them enough you explain the good and you know have this imagination of how beautiful it could be

32:11you know kind of this futurism and they're like well that's too far the messaging around finances seems

32:17to be one of the hardest to nail right we all know that there are greedy corporations out there that

32:24have too much money and they spend it in the worst ways but is that enough of a narrative how

32:29do we

32:29talk about finance for example as investment to this beautiful future we're talking about

32:35and not as a waste of money we can't afford right now because my bills are too high i don't

32:40want to

32:40bad mouth like representative democracy because like it's quite a good theory but like kind of

32:47necessarily necessitate short-term thinking and funding cycles for lawmakers right yeah it's just

32:55it's just it's it's very basic it's like if you've got a potential infrastructure project that's going

32:58to cost you 50 million in four years and no one will see any better until 12 years time what

33:05are you

33:05going to do like it's it's it is it is tricky like but again going back to your point like

33:12people have

33:13quite short memories and it took hundreds of years for us to establish this current power infrastructure

33:20that we have and a lot of money i think like one thing that we've gotten a quite a bit

33:26of narrative

33:27cut through is is um drawing audiences attention to what is driving the cost of living cost of greed crisis

33:36like it's the spoiler alert it's always fossil fuels like fossil fuels always makes your energy more

33:42expensive at key inflection points such as right now but it also makes making stuff more expensive

33:47because we still use gas to manufacture a lot of things it makes buying things it makes transporting

33:53food around the world more expensive like 50 of the cost volatility in foodstuffs is due to cost

34:00volatility in oil and gas like globally and that should really blow people's minds because like

34:08sorry i i i i don't i don't have dividends from shell i i don't get any benefit from this

34:14so why am i

34:15pinging why is it all debit for me every time something and we've worked we're working on a story by

34:21the

34:22time by the time this goes out it will be out but the six majors have seen 120 billion increase

34:29in their

34:29share price in two weeks since around of course like that alone is that not enough to convince

34:39audiences like hang on are these ladies like profiting off of war isn't that something you're

34:44really not meant to do morally but i i i i i do sometimes struggle to like keep my composure

34:53when i'm

34:53talking to people who are like we can't afford net zero we can't afford this or that because it's like

34:58if you're angry about the cost of your energy bills right now you're going to be furious when you hear

35:04how much climate change is going to cost you and that i i think that's a moot argument i think

35:09there's

35:10so much money being weight burned in the thrown to the money pit uh that that because like i i

35:18i just

35:18don't believe the there's not enough money for it narrative at all like there is no world in which uh

35:25we cannot divert money going to the money burning pit well we'll link that story when it comes out

35:32on the blog because i think that'll be really interesting one thing i did want to pick your

35:36brain about is because you work in this area of geopolitics as well right fossil fuels is very

35:42political and very geopolitical at that um and i've always wondered because private companies don't have

35:50a political cycle where you need to be re-elected and you need to be liked by the people and

35:55you need

35:55to you know like complete a project within your tenure at number 10 for example to be re-elected

36:03they can kind of just do it in their own time and is that something that makes them kind of

36:11because they don't have to appeal to the public necessarily do you think that's why they can get

36:15away with a lot of this as long as they're managing the narrative around it or the other way is

36:20that

36:20why political will is so low because it's beholden to well if we can't communicate this correctly people

36:27are going to be mad at us it's really it's really tricky like i i think i don't know i

36:36think

36:37if people had a moment to stop and think about like where we currently get our energy from and the

36:42processes involved like they only see the end product right they only see this see the stuff

36:48you put in your car or you you you heat your water with and they don't really see and and

36:55that's also

36:55that's exactly how it's marketed right you don't you no longer see like shell and bp putting like oil

37:00rigs on the front of their annual reports it's all like wind farms and like lp looking on lpg and

37:06global

37:06majority countries that they you know provided for them and i don't know whether

37:12there's public interest and appetite to because that's a rabbit hole right if you start like

37:17investigating all the origin stories of all of your consumer products then you wouldn't use anything

37:22you'd be overwhelmed yeah quite quite so so i'm not sure like i i've i've sort of spent a large

37:31part of

37:31my life trying to explain to people the links between the ad industry and what they're experiencing

37:38and i think we did a pretty good job of that during the ukraine price surge crisis and we're probably

37:44going to have to do that again um but like getting back to the start and this is not this

37:50is not there's

37:51no implication of fault here it's just it's just the way humans function like they remember stories end

37:59right they remember how like they remember oh yeah we had a pandemic and then everyone got vaccinated and it's

38:05fine and i didn't need to learn anything from it and governments are the same they're like oh yeah we

38:10uh we spent hundreds of billions of euros and pounds and dollars um and we had to build like

38:17an entire industry's worth of infrastructure in two three years but we did it we we like we swapped

38:23russian gas for other gas and they're gonna have to do it again and i i do wonder when the

38:30penny's gonna

38:30drop and i i it's strange because you see like every single poll um ahead of we've got local elections

38:38here in may every single poll is like what are your main concerns as voters and they're like cost of

38:44living crisis number one still or like inflation the affordability crisis and i'm like it's funny that

38:50because who's doing that like who's making this a cost of living crisis you might be interested though

38:56it's these people oh and you're also interested in climate change so maybe it's just more about like

39:01leaning the dogs more frequently rather than sort of sitting down and being didactic well tying

39:06everything together right because we like to say that climate change is a human crisis you know the

39:13earth is going to be fine without us we saw that during covet if we disappear the earth would flourish

39:19so our focus is for people to flourish and for societies to keep going right i want us to try

39:25to close

39:25off with that how would you tie it together if you had for example if you were going to talk

39:30to

39:31a voter before may or you were communicating something new to someone that just came into this phase

39:36without the overwhelm what's that cut through message that you'd like them to kind of walk away with

39:41i guess i would like people to factor in climate change to their models of their lives so everything that

39:51is what a voter is concerned about whether some of these things are problems but let's say they are

39:57viewed as problems by a voter cost of living crisis uh food inflation immigration yeah like disinformation

40:09uh what else like wars conflict you know these things climate change is a threat multiplier

40:18everything you view as a potential problem now or in the future how much of a problem it becomes what

40:25transpires is directly dependent on how much we are successful in limiting climate change and

40:32there was a time where it was pretty impossible it was it was uh scientifically and economically impossible

40:41to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels but now it's cheaper to go for renewables and the science is

40:50there you could have solar powers on on your roof tomorrow and the government would pay you for it

40:54like just just try and like engage with people and be like hey if you if like if you like

41:02your life or

41:03if you're scared about threats perceived real or otherwise you're going to need to vote on the

41:09basis that mitigates all of these things and that is vote for the people who have the best climate policies

41:15thank you so much patrick for your time i really hope that cuts through we're going to have more

41:20resources and information on the blog at angeliclife.org as well as how you can follow global witness and

41:26padrick himself and we'll catch you guys on the next one bye

41:37let's stop power let's stop change for rural eyes to brighter days equity rising voices strong we're

41:46building tomorrow where we all belong angelic talks energy equity pride empowering the world side by side

41:57a spark becomes a fire a vision that's true together we rise it starts with you

Fossil Fuels, Lobbying & The Real Cost of Climate Inaction w/ Patrick Galey from Global Witness | S04E09

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