Can We Vote Our Way Out of the Climate Crisis?

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Commons Team

October 22, 2024

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Government seems to move slower than the pace of climate change, so do our votes for climate candidates and policies actually make a difference?

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In this episode, we're connecting the dots between climate and policy and hearing from people around the world about how their governments’ policies are affecting their lives and their regions. We're also catching up with HEATED editor-in-chief Emily Atkin to hear how climate reporting has changed over the past couple of presidential terms and how she keeps her head above water after a decade of reporting on climate. We'll also talk to Commons founder Sanchali Seth Pal about climate policies around the world that have actually worked.

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If you're looking for resources to help you vote for the planet in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, or any upcoming U.S. election, here are some resources that could help: Vote Climate U.S. PAC's Voter Guide, Climate Cabinet's Climate Scorecard, League of Conservation Voter Scorecard.

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Here are some of the people you'll hear from in this episode:

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Episode Credits

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Listener contributions: Anandi Yadav, Clara, Danielle Bird, Lindsay Kerns, Michael Chase, Nick Blocha, Shai
Editing and engineer: Evan Goodchild‍
Hosting and production: Katelan Cunningham

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Resources and Further Reading

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Full Transcript

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Katelan (00:00):

Hey, welcome back to Second Nature, a podcast from Commons. Are you trying to figure out how you can make a difference in the world through sustainable living? Well Commons can help you out. Tens of thousands of people use the app to guide their sustainable lifestyles and understand their impact as they go. And on this show, we talk to people to find out how they're living sustainably in an unsustainable world.

Katelan (00:29):

At this point, no one's life is untouched by the impacts of climate change. You'd be hard pressed to find a country or a city that hasn't experienced unprecedented rainfall, winds, heat, fire, cold, drought, or other natural disasters. This rise in natural disasters. It's inextricably scientifically linked to climate change. And climate change is inextricably and scientifically linked to a rise in the use of fossil fuels. That's oil, gas, and coal. As individuals, we collectively have the power to reduce the use of fossil fuels. When we do things like ditch plastic or drive less, I think these everyday actions are like incremental votes for the kind of world that we want. And make no mistake, when you add them all up, these incremental votes, these incremental actions, they can steer the economy. But the other votes that matter are the ones at the ballot box. The votes for local and national leaders who can make hugely impactful decisions in the form of regulations for the fossil fuel industry or blocking deforestation and pipelines or passing laws that hold companies accountable for the waste that they generate.

Katelan (01:40):

So today we are connecting the dots between climate and policy. I will be your guide, Kaitlyn Cunningham. And coming up on this episode, we're gonna hear from our community, people around the world about how their government's policies are affecting their lives and their communities. We're catching up with the editor-in-chief of heated Emily Atkin, who's taking a quick break from her busiest time of the year to chat with us about why you're seeing climate change in more headlines. Finally, why speaking out really does matter. And of course the upcoming presidential election presidential. I'll also be talking with commons founders, St. Charlie, St. Paul, to do the math on real climate impact of actual policies in the US and around the world. Let's get into it.

Katelan (02:34):

Here in the US we are nearing what is hopefully the end of a really brutal hurricane season, which came right on the heels of the hottest summer on record. Second only to last summer. The World Health Organization estimates that from 2030 to 2050, climate change will cause 250,000 deaths per year from under nutrition, malaria, diarrhea, and heat stress alone. And studies show that people in the global south and people of color suffer the most from the effects of climate change. In addition to the cost of human lives, climate disasters also cost us a ton of money. The US keeps track of what are called billion dollar disasters, which are just what they sound like. In the 1980s, the US had a few billion dollar disasters per year. Now we have about two per month from heat waves and floods to tornadoes and hurricanes. Climate disasters in 2023 alone costed the US nearly $93 billion.

Katelan (03:34):

So what, if anything, could governments have done to prevent these catastrophic storms? What could the government have done to save hundreds of lives, billions of dollars and years of rebuilding? Well, for one, they could have listened to Exxon, which I'm sure is not what you expected me to say, which in the 1980s, Exxon's own research warned that staving off global warming quote would require major reductions in fossil fuel combustion. And they said that if we didn't burn less fossil fuels, there was a likelihood of quote potential catastrophic events. That's because put very simply burning fossil fuels exudes heat and the ocean absorbs 90% of excess heat from our emissions. And it's the warming oceans that are fueling much more powerful hurricanes in addition to other huge natural disasters. Of course, the government didn't heed Exxon's warning. Exxon didn't even heed their own warning. Since that research 40 years ago, global emissions from fossil fuels have nearly doubled by and large companies have shown that they're not going to stop doing the bad thing if the bad thing makes them money. And that's why government rules and regulations are so important. And just voting for a climate minded candidate like every other climate solution is not the one thing that's gonna get us out of climate change. But we certainly can't get out of the climate crisis without some serious government action. We wanted to hear from you about how your local and national governments are doing when it comes to climate policy and how it's impacting your life.

Speaker 2 (05:08):

What more needs to happen for governments around the world to take climate change? Seriously, we see these extreme weather events happening all over the world. We see so much loss and so much damage. All we see around us are certain regulations, but there's no enforcement on those regulations.

Michael (05:27):

In Florida, our current governor has taken action to remove climate change from the mention of any state policies or publications, which is obviously the exact opposite of what we need.

Shai (05:42):

I'm gonna be honest, there's not a whole lot of climate leadership here in dc. Like there's not a particular politician that I look at and go you climate champion of the year. That being said, as a district, we have quite a few programs in place to support biodiversity resilience and the environment. Here in the district there are rain barrel programs, solar installation. You can get native pollinators planted in your yard. You can also get trees planted in your yard on a neighborhood level. They are working to build infrastructure, community resilience hubs that are centralized locations for climate action before, during, and after a climate related emergency.

Danielle (06:25):

They have committed to net zero on all council operations by 2030 in residents and businesses by 2045 where I live not seeing much action or how as this is a very ambitious target, they are also developing a local nature recovery strategy and take part in campaigns like no MO may. So there are signs of things happening, but we maybe haven't seen enough yet as to as to how they're getting there.

Clara (06:52):

The biggest environmental policies that would make the biggest impact on my life would be for companies to actually be demanded to compensate their impact on a much larger scale than only carbon.

Shai (07:08):

Locally. I'm just hoping for some good old public transportation walkability, things that improve the sense of communal living in our communities and pushing us away from car-centric infrastructure.

Katelan (07:22):

I feel very fortunate because California and LA have passed some really good composting laws recently, whereas before it felt like composting was, you know, this burden that individuals had to bear.

Danielle (07:36):

Well, once I finished my degree in environmental science, I started working in energy. I learned a lot more about energy policy in the uk and then we were soon hit with the energy crisis. The former conservative government had introduced policies which banned onshore wind developments, encouraged gas and oil exploration and had leaders disparaging things like solar farms. Renewables was finally cheaper than fossil fuels, but we were still making policies in favor of fossil fuels. This is what really got me engaged in politics and began to understand how politics is at the forefront of climate change. And well everything. Of course,

Michael (08:09):

The overturning of Chevron V-N-R-D-C in the US by the Supreme Court, it severely lessens the strength and agency that the United States federal organizations have in controlling, implementing and enforcing environmental policy. Seeing global leaders take committed action on a lot of our big problems would have the biggest impact on me.

Shai (08:38):

When we see the planet through its resources, it becomes an exploitative relationship. 80% of the world's biodiversity is protected by indigenous defenders. So ensuring that 80% of our, our funding, our infrastructure, our capacity building goes towards supporting indigenous communities, working with them to create protections for what they do. There's active stewardship going on there. It's not that indigenous knowledge will help us save the world. Indigenous leaders will save the world.

Nick (09:15):

I do think we need to live as a society in accordance with nature in a part of this ecosystem that we are one small part of. And I think our policy needs to reflect that coming together and protesting that is our right. Whether it's talking to our politicians and sending them emails, giving them calls, that is our right to do. So.

Michael (09:35):

The way that I take political climate action is the best way. Voting.

Katelan (09:46):

When you're doing what you can to live a climate minded life within a system that's doing the bare minimum, it can feel like an uphill battle sometimes. Right? It's especially difficult when you're a climate journalist who has spent over a decade shouting the dangers of climate change from the rooftops and then reporting back on how not enough people are listening. Emily Atkin is one said journalist. She's the founder and editor-in-Chief of Heated, which is an awesome weekly newsletter dedicated to accountability, reporting and analysis on the climate crisis. She's also a contributing columnist to M-S-N-B-C and has covered climate for the New Republic Think Progress and Slate among other publications. And this time of year it's especially busy for her with all the extreme weather events and of course the election. But she very graciously took the time to answer some of our burning questions about climate change and what our government is doing about it.

Katelan (10:41):

Hi Emily.

Emily (10:42):

Hello.

New Speaker (10:43):

Thank you for joining us.

Emily (10:46):

Thank you for having me.

Katelan (10:47):

So I wanted to start with the fact that I feel like as recently as like five years ago, we weren't really hearing about climate disasters like heatwaves and wildfires being connected to climate change. And it seems like it's more frequent now, but I wondered what are your thoughts on how we're talking about climate change in the media and like do you think we're doing a decent job of it?

Emily (11:08):

Oh man, <laugh>, I could talk about this for a long time. It's interesting that you say you weren't hearing people connecting climate change to disasters five years ago because I've been trying to help people connect this for at least 10 years at this point. Yeah. But I will say what you're probably latching onto is the fact that the science has gotten a lot better over the last five years at connecting disasters and climate change. Mm. So there's this new field of research that's really become very robust in the last five years called attribution science. And it allows scientists to detect what percentage or how much of a certain natural disaster was made more likely because of climate change. Like how would this disaster have looked free climate change versus how it looks now. And it's a complicated process, but I've talked to many scientists about it and I see it's how I'm able to as a journalist communicate to audiences how much of this was climate change and how much wasn't.

Emily (12:10):

These peer reviewed studies will come out and help us make that connection. However, I would argue that we didn't really need it to be able to communicate that link because what we've known for many years is that, let's say for hurricanes, we know that climate change makes, uh, stronger storm surge more likely because of sea level rise the sea. We know the sea level is rising. So when a hurricane comes and storm surge happens obviously, and the same thing for stronger rainfall. Yeah. We know that a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture. So when a rainfall event happens, it's made more intense by climate change. We live in a climate change world. So every single weather event that we experience is affected by climate change. Every single weather experience we have because the climate has already changed. Yeah. So I think that media has started to do better on more rapidly making the connection between extreme weather and climate change.

Emily (13:05):

Where I think we still have a long way to go is media connecting climate change to the things that cause climate change, AKA fossil fuels deforestation and mass overconsumption. You'll now see in most articles and most newscasts that this storm was made worse by climate change or climate change is fueling wildfires. But you might not hear that fossil fuels are fueling wildfires. That deforestation is fueling hurricanes, that mass overconsumption is fueling flooding. Yeah. And that I think is the connection that we really need to make in order to get people to understand and digest what is it that has to be done to fight climate change. I know that climate change is happening, I know it's making things bad, but what do I do? Why is it happening? That's the connection we really need to be making and fighting for media to be making.

Katelan (13:54):

I also just wonder if people know what we mean. Like you're saying, like people, do people know what we mean when we say climate change? It's not this sort of like un preventable like untouchable thing that just magically happened over here, <laugh>. It's like this is something that we have control over.

Emily (14:09):

It's so interesting 'cause it's like human caused climate change and then you're thinking to yourself, human caused. So that means that I caused it. Right? Yeah. And it's sort of a misnomer because yeah. Human caused, but there are a few humans that cause it way more than other humans. You know, we've been fighting for so long, particularly activists and people like me in the media who are really pushing for media literacy on climate change to start attributing things to human cause climate change. But then once they're doing it we're like, but also it's not all humans. Yeah. Right. Like all humans are not contributing equally. We need you to explain that so that we're not focusing all our attention on ourselves for some reason. Like, oh crap, I really need to change my behavior. And like yeah, you do. But the energy has to be focused towards changing those few people's behavior that are really fueling the mess. Majority of this crisis.

Katelan (15:01):

Yeah. There are so many like layers to unpack <laugh> to get to the point where we need to get, um, you wrote a piece on whether we should vilify the oil and gas industry. You made this fascinating point I thought, which you said, um, that all energy production has negative environmental and human impact effects and that fact alone doesn't make the oil and gas industry a villain. Can you unpack that a little bit more for us?

Emily (15:28):

I think particularly me as a journalist, I expect people to make mistakes. And I expect industries in general to pollute. What is evil is when you do not acknowledge the massive harm of what you're doing and then you publicly deny those harms while knowing internally that they're happening. And then you make false promises to fix those harms. Yeah. And then you spend billions to delay solutions. Then I think it's fair to say that you've entered a villainous territory. The reason I say it's appropriate to vilify the oil and gas industry is that they have not shown themselves to be good faith participants in the conversation about climate change. The crisis that they primarily are causing fossil fuels are responsible for at least 75% of all historical emissions. And that's according to the IPCC. So it's one thing if you're responsible and then you try to be a good faith participant in the solution, but the oil and gas industry has repeatedly demonstrated that it is a horrible faith participant in those discussions.

Emily (16:39):

It has lied and it has delayed solutions and is a reason that we're in the debacle that we're in right now. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I don't love admitting that. Like I went into journalism to be fair. To really be able to bridge gaps Yeah. Between people and to find that fair and balanced perspective and to really try to find the truth. And unfortunately I think it was really disheartening to find over that many year career trying to unearth the truth about climate change. That like you can't trust this industry. This industry has never been a good faith actor. Yeah. When it comes to solutions. And at a certain point, if your job is to derive fact from fiction and you're still trusting people that have only lied to you for decades, then you kind of look like a fool. It's like with the oil and gas industry, I think about it like Trump, you know, it's like the media had to learn with Trump over the first campaign that they can't like present what Trump said versus what like a scientist said or what their opponent said. That you have to be really comfortable with saying like Trump is lying about this. Yeah. And for some reason that hasn't caught on with the oil and gas industry, even though the oil and gas industry has been lying to journalists for way longer than Trump has.

Katelan (17:55):

Obviously in the us you know, we're able to vote for representatives and even protest policies when we don't agree with them, which is a privilege that we have. But um, in one of your articles you brought up the fact that that's not a privilege everywhere you said across the world, particularly in the global south, environmental defenders are killed every week for trying to speak out against similar existential threats. So I was wondering how you would like to see more people in the US speaking out against climate inaction, especially because we are one of the prominent actors worldwide.

Emily (18:27):

Yeah. It's very interesting to see so many people feeling so apathetic in the US about speaking out for climate action. And in a way I like truly understand. Yeah. Listen, this is what I do for a living. Every day is right about climate change. And uh, it can be really disheartening. Yeah. Let's look at the presidential race. You look at Harris versus Trump and you look at analyses of what would happen if either one of them got elected into office. And you see that with the policies currently being proposed by both of those campaigns, that neither one would bring us to net zero by 2050, which is what needs to happen to preserve a livable planet that can really make you throw your hands up and be like, well then what am I even doing? Yeah. You kind of have to bring yourself back a little bit and dive a little deeper into what those analysis are saying.

Emily (19:25):

You look at the first line and it says neither will bring us to net zero by 2050, but it says that a Harris administration would at least get us halfway there. Okay. Whereas the Trump administration would drive us completely off of a cliff. Yeah. And then you're like, well what's the difference between halfway there and the cliff, that area in between is hundreds of billions of dollars. Wow. $900 billion in climate damages to be exact. That's a $900 billion difference between electing Harris and electing Trump and literally millions of lives. Yeah. Like I think that's something that's been hard for me to kind of adjust to and understand is that solving climate change is not a cliff where all of a sudden when you don't solve it, you drop off and a bunch of bad happens. It's a staircase into hell. Right. <laugh>. So once we're, and we're kind of already down that staircase.

Emily (20:23):

Right? Okay. And what we're trying to do right now is remain on the highest step possible. Every single step represents hundreds of billions of dollars and millions of lives. And it's like a thing to think that you have to fight for. Oh I have to try to fight for the least bad outcome. And to go back to your earlier what you said about there are people in other countries, environmental defenders literally getting killed every day for speaking out. Yeah. That's what those people are fighting for too. You know, obviously they want to stay at the top of the staircase, but it is a privilege to be able to speak out. And I think it's also important to note that it does work. I can't tell you how much I've seen politics change in the last 10 years that I've been covering climate change. It's just not as fast as you would think. It's measured on, on larger timescales.

Katelan (21:18):

So Biden, you know, made some progress. There is the IRA, he put some fees on methane production, things like that. I'm wondering if when you're looking at Harris versus Trump, are any of the climate policies that have happened under Biden at risk of being rolled back by either of these candidates?

Emily (21:34):

There is only one candidate that has pledged to roll back current climate policies. <laugh>, you know, before Biden was in office, we were in a really dismal state with climate policies. We had really passed nothing huge on a federal level to spur renewable energy development. And the one good thing you can say about Biden on a climate level is that he did spearhead and sign the Inflation reduction Act, which put hundreds of billions of dollars, if not billions, I'm not sure at the top of my head. But into spurring the clean energy development in the United States. Only one candidate has pledged to roll all those policies back and it's Trump while in conversation with oil and gas industry donors telling him that he would roll all those policies back in exchange for a billion dollar donation from them. And then after that meeting started seeing a bunch of influx of donations from the oil and gas industry.

Katelan (22:33):

I covered the first Trump administration. I don't think that Trump would need a billion dollars from the oil and gas industry to roll back all those policies because I covered that administration. And that is all he, he did the entire four years he was in office, he hired literally comic book villains from the oil and gas industry to run all the environmental protection agencies. And every single day of my life as a journalist was being like writing the headline like, Trump administration rolls back waste protections for drinking water. Right. And you're just like, every day was that. I don't see any evidence that all of a sudden that wouldn't just happen again. Yeah. Hovering the Biden administration has been just a different experience. Right. It's been a more nuanced experience. It's been a difference between like, okay, the Biden administration strengthens regulations to require cars to be less polluting. Okay. Biden administration puts a pause on new permits for LNG terminals. Right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But then there's nuance to that to be like, but you know, those regulations still allow all these new LNG terminals to be built.

Katelan (23:43):

Speaking of that, you know, our government is so massive and we hear a lot of feedback just in general, whether it's government or just like the economy, when you're just, you know, your own person like sitting inside of your house, it's hard to imagine that, that you matter for this bigger thing. And so when it comes to that, you know, grassroots organizing often comes up as a promising way to sort of break through. And I'm just wondering, does it work? Like have you seen examples of local groups driving real change that expounds throughout their city and maybe even bigger than that?

Katelan (24:13):

I have, and I could give you a bunch of examples, but I think that what I'm really struck by with what you just said was like people say like thinking to themselves. They're like, oh, I don't matter in this society. Well it's like the reason that you think that way <laugh>, at least this is kind of what I'm coming up on, is that like you've been made to think that you have to do everything by yourself is that we live in like a really individualistic culture that says you need to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and you need to figure out how to do this for yourself and no one out there is gonna help you.

Katelan (24:46):

Yeah. Yeah.

Katelan (24:47):

But that's a lie. If you are doing this all by yourself, then yeah. You're absolutely gonna fail.

Katelan (24:51):

Yeah. Yeah.

Katelan (24:53):

Period. Like that's just true. What you have to do is find communities to be part of that. You can do this together. We cannot fix climate change on our own. Yeah. It's just not gonna happen. You have to find people that you want to do this with. And I honestly don't think that it's helpful for me to like list all of the things that activists have done. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> more so than it is helpful for me to tell you that everything that has been done has been done in a large group.

Katelan (25:25):

So Will and Wisconsin asked what can small cities do to improve their climate impact, even if residents don't highly value climate solutions.

Emily (25:34):

It's interesting. I don't know if I have a specific answer to that because I don't know this person's actual community, but one of the things that I thought was really interesting, I was attending a workshop during Climate Week about communicating climate solutions to people is that if you're in a community that isn't making the connection between climate change and some of the problems that they're experiencing in their communities, 'cause I think that that's also something that happens. It's like climate change is affecting your community, but maybe the people in your community don't see how it's affecting them. I heard this very interesting thing from a professional communicator of climate solutions was saying, you don't really have to make it about climate change. You can make it about fossil fuels, about pollution, about the source of the problem that is causing climate change. Because fossil fuels are harming people in a lot of other ways as well.

Emily (26:27):

Living near fossil fuels, you know, having gas powered buses versus electric powered buses. The gas power buses pollute your community more. They're louder. Uh, they're more expensive. They require a product that is completely fluctuating in price all of the time. Right. Versus charging on a battery, which might be Yeah. A little less expensive. There are so many other ways to get people to understand the dangers of a fossil fuel economy that have nothing to do with climate change. Now sometimes I'm a little wary of making this kind of argument because I'm like, I'm not gonna stop talking about climate change just because somebody refuses to acknowledge that it's real. Right. But at the same time, there are a lot of other truths about the dangers of a fossil fuel economy that are pertinent and that maybe haven't been as politicized as the climate issue. Yeah. That you can use, I think, to talk to people in a more politicized community. A community where, where people don't wanna hear it. You know? So hopefully that's helpful.

Katelan (27:29):

I think that's great advice. Okay. One more question, which is how do you write about this stuff every day and not feel like you're throwing in the towel or banging your head against a brick wall? <laugh>? How do you keep doing it?

Emily (27:43):

I do feel a lot like I wanna throw in the towel or like I'm hitting a brick wall. I don't wanna romanticize it in any way. I went through a very public burnout in 2022 where I literally had to step away for six months. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I couldn't do it anymore. And part of it was because I was putting the problem completely on myself. I was really like I have to do, I was pushing myself so hard and the only way that I stay able to do it today is if I am very aware of when I am starting to feel like I'm banging my head against a wall and when I wanna throw in the towel and then giving myself time to step away and really acknowledging, really like kind of drinking my own Kool-Aid a bit and being like, I can't do this myself and it's not on me to do this myself.

Emily (28:36):

I'll do everything I can and then I'll step away when I need to. It was a reality check that I just needed to transform the way I did this type type of work and the way I thought about this type of work. Ultimately going to bed at night and knowing that I did my best <laugh> to try to tackle this problem Yeah. Is way better than going to bed at night being like, I'm trying to insulate myself from this problem. 'cause it never works. Something's always gonna break through and get you and make you feel guilty. Yeah. I hope that's helpful.

Katelan (29:06):

That's super helpful. Thank you so much for taking the time. I really appreciate it. Thanks for coming on the show.

Katelan (29:12):

Thank you for having me.

Katelan (29:19):

If you wanna read Emily and her team's fabulous reporting every week, I highly recommend subscribing to their newsletter. Heated. We'll of course include a link in the show notes. So we've heard a lot about how our governments have fallen short, but there are some big policies that have actually made a real difference. I called up commons founders, Sanchali Seth Pal, to get a rundown of some of the biggest climate laws and regulations and find out what kind of impact these systemic rollouts are actually having. Hello again. Sanchali.

Sanchali (29:49):

Hey Katelan.

Katelan (29:51):

All right. So we have known for many decades how human action fuels climate change. And it feels like, I don't know, it feels like we're really feeling the effects of climate change the past few years more than, than we have in the years past.

Sanchali (30:04):

It's so true. I feel like climate change and natural disasters have just been in the headlines so much more than than they were when I was little.

Katelan (30:10):

Yeah. So we have known for many decades how human action fuels climate change and there definitely have been some climate policies that have gone through, but it's hard to, you know, like keep track of the progress. Like are these things actually working?

Sanchali (30:24):

For sure. It's feels like it's time for a check-in.

Katelan (30:27):

Yes, please. So what climate policies are out there and which ones are actually getting the job done?

Sanchali (30:33):

So let's start with the first question of what climate policies are out there. Broadly speaking, we can think about climate policies in two buckets. There's market-based incentives and direct regulation market-based approaches basically create incentives for businesses to reduce emissions. They say we're gonna set a price on emissions and it's theoretically more cost-effective because it allows the businesses that are willing to pay that price to emit more. It doesn't rely on the government to be all knowing and perfectly set, you know, company A has to admit this much and company B has to emit this much, so it's more flexible. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But the problem is you don't really know how many emissions you're gonna end up with in the system. In the end. You can't say predictably, this is gonna reduce emissions by 50%.

Katelan (31:16):

Gotcha.

Sanchali (31:17):

On the other hand, there's direct regulation, which is also called command and control. It's when we set something like a quota or a cap on emissions that says we can only emit a certain amount. It's really predictable, which is great, but it's also pretty rigid and critics say it's not really that efficient. Um, it can end up being really costly because the government is setting a certain amount without really knowing how the ins and outs of that industry work.

Katelan (31:43):

Okay. That distinction's really helpful, these two groupings, but it sounds like they come with their own pros and cons. Have we seen either of these make some measurable progress in any of the countries or regions that are implementing 'em?

Sanchali (31:56):

This is a great question. This has been historically really hard to know and people have argued both sides. But there's some really new exciting research that starts to demystify this. And it just came out a few months ago in August, 2024. This research basically evaluated 1500 climate policies that have been implemented over the last 25 years and tried to identify which ones were most successful at reducing emissions.

Katelan (32:21):

Ooh. Exciting. We love a new study.

Sanchali (32:24):

I know. I'm really excited to nerd out about this. And <laugh>, this study in particular was super comprehensive. They analyzed 48 types of policy interventions across sectors in 41 countries that together account for over 80% of global emissions. And they used that data set to find the best policy combinations for closing the emissions gap.

Katelan (32:47):

Okay, perfect. This is exactly what we wanna know. So what did they find?

Sanchali (32:51):

Okay, so first, when policies were effective, they were really effective Of the policies that had a major impact, the average reduction in emissions was 19%.

Katelan (33:00):

That's super impressive. More impressive than I would've thought. What kinds of policies are getting us to that 19%?

Sanchali (33:06):

Their biggest takeaway was actually that no single policy on its own was as effective as combining policies. 70% of the times when policy was measurably reducing emissions, it was achieved through a combination of two or more policies. And this was true across the board, across countries and across industries.

Katelan (33:27):

Once again, this theme comes up that there's not one perfect climate solution. We can't put all of our eggs in one basket.

Sanchali (33:34):

I know everyone's always looking for a silver bullet and there never is one <laugh>. It's like subsidies or regulations alone have rarely worked like just banning gas powered cars. It is unlikely to significantly reduce emissions on its own. Usually it has to be combined with other types of instruments like a carbon tax or energy regulation.

Katelan (33:57):

Okay. What does that look like? What are, what are examples of these different types of policies and taxes working together?

Sanchali (34:04):

So one really interesting example was in the UK in 2016, historically people thought the big emissions reduction that happened in the electricity industry, there was due to the EU emissions trading system that was implemented a few years before in 2013.

Katelan (34:19):

Hmm. What is that exactly? What's an emissions trading system?

Sanchali (34:22):

The emissions trading system was a system that said all companies in the EU that produce energy have to get their emissions down to a certain level or cap. But if they wanted to emit more than that, they had to buy a permit from another company within that system in order to emit more.

Katelan (34:38):

Got it. Okay. That makes sense. So there's always this maximum that they're working within, but there's some flexibility for the energy companies to sort of meet the demands of their business.

Sanchali (34:48):

Exactly. And this was generally considered a really successful policy. The researchers found that it was effective, but they found that it was effective because it was part of a wider policy mix that included other interventions as well. So there was also stricter air pollution standards. There were also direct regulations that those energy producers had to scale up their renewable energy percent and they also had other types of tariffs. So the combination of all of those policy interventions was what resulted in a really significant amount of emissions reduction around that time.

Katelan (35:20):

Okay, cool. Outside of the EU though, have any individual countries had a similar result?

Sanchali (35:27):

Yes. There was a really interesting parallel that happened in China in 2016. So really different country context, similar time period. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, they tried a similar intervention and emissions trading system and that made some impact, but the reason why they had a really big impact was because they also cut back some fossil fuel subsidies that year and the year before they had opened up some new financing for energy efficiency investments. And so together that combination of things resulted in the impact happening a lot faster.

Katelan (35:55):

Got it. Okay. Cool. We love to hear that.

Sanchali (35:57):

Basically it's really hard for any one policy to be effective on its own, but there was just one policy intervention that was effective on its own.

Katelan (36:07):

Ooh, drum roll. What is it?

Sanchali (36:08):

It's taxation. Taxation was the only type of policy that has been effective on its own across sectors and countries. It's pretty rare that way.

Katelan (36:17):

Okay. All right. So some policies worked in some places better than others is what I'm hearing.

Sanchali (36:22):

Yeah. So overall combining policies always worked best. Sometimes taxation works on its own, which makes it different from anything else. And basically everything else varies on the context. So regulation was more critical in the transportation industry. Subsidies were more effective in electricity also. Different country contexts required different interventions. Generally market-based approaches like pricing and subsidy policies were more effective in developed countries, whereas more regulation and command and control approaches tended to be more effective in developing countries.

Katelan (36:58):

I guess that makes sense because in developed countries there's presumably more money to support these kinds of initiatives.

Sanchali (37:04):

Exactly. It suggests where there's more money, more incentive based and market approaches can be more effective. And where there's less infrastructure to enforce those market-based approaches, more command and control regulations can be realistic.

Katelan (37:18):

Got it. So it sounds to me like we need to do more things <laugh>, ideally things that we know are gonna be more successful in the type of economy that we're in regionally. Um, but I don't know, like if you had this expectation that there's gonna be this golden ticket policy or candidate out of climate change, that's not the case, right? <laugh>?

Sanchali (37:40):

Yeah. Uh, there's no golden ticket. It is kind of positive. I think though, because it's not all riding on one thing. It's not all one decision. One election. We all have an opportunity to show up in our local elections in our city council meetings. And yes, once in a while in our federal elections. Uh, but it's a diversity of changes that add up to make a real difference when it comes to lowering our greenhouse gas emissions.

Katelan (38:07):

I like that take. It's not all writing on one vote every four years. <laugh>.

Sanchali (38:12):

<laugh>. Exactly. We have lots of votes that add up.

Katelan (38:15):

Awesome. Well, thank you so much. I was so excited to dig into this paper and I can't wait to read more. Thanks

Sanchali (38:21):

For getting into the details on policy with me. This was fun.

Katelan (38:24):

Yeah. All right, see you next time.

Sanchali (38:26):

Bye.

Katelan (38:30):

When people in office make decisions about things like fossil fuels, pollution and deforestation, they're making decisions that impact our health, our safety, and our survival. They're making decisions that impact our energy supply, water supply, air supply, and even our resilience to natural disasters. So when you vote in elections for your district, your county, or your country, remember that every vote is a climate vote. The environmental voter project estimates that over 8 million environmentalists did not vote in the 2020 presidential election, and over 13 million environmentalists skipped the 2022 midterms. Please don't skip those midterms and local elections. A lot of really important decisions are made there. And look, I know it can be hard to compare candidates climate policies, especially when there are so many other really important life or death issues and policies at stake. And the truth of it is a lot of those issues affect or are affected by climate policy, especially US climate policy.

Katelan (39:33):

So climate is this all encompassing thing. It touches every aspect of our lives. Plastic, for example, plastic is made of fossil fuels, and in the US less than 6% of it's recycled. The rest of it is combusted sent to landfills or ends up in waterways leading to plastic pollution in our water and our air. And in turn, we get microplastics in our food and our bodies. And yet plastic producers aren't required to take responsibility for this massive pollution and health problem that they're creating. Policy could change that. Deforestation has a huge impact on climate change globally. We destroy over 12 million acres of forest each year. The vast majority of that is in the tropics, and 41% of that deforestation is just for beef laws and regulation against deforestation could preserve forests, which are not only invaluable carbon sinks, they're vital for entire species ecosystems and protection from climate disasters.

Katelan (40:30):

Even war takes a huge toll on climate. Not only do we lose hundreds of thousands of human lives each year, we lose decades of ecosystems, acres of forest and cropland while creating pollution in our water and our air. The emissions from just the first four months of active warfare in Gaza were equal to the annual emissions of Greenland, no matter which way this presidential election goes. Please don't shut up about climate change because research shows that it is working. Emily Atkin recently wrote a piece on this, which I'll link to in the show notes. The more we share stories and facts with our friends and family, the more folks will realize that we all have the opportunity to take action every day, and we all have something at stake. And right now, those stakes are very, very high. Thank you to our listeners who shared what's going on in their corners of the world today. You heard from one and the other.

Speaker 10 (41:26):

Lopez, Lindsay Michael Chase, Nick Block Shyla.

Katelan (41:31):

This episode was edited and engineered by Evan Goodchild. It was written and produced by me, Kaitlyn Cunningham. Next week we are taking a little break, but on the first week of November, we will meet you back here with some warm and fuzzy community stories all about buy nothing groups. I'm obsessed. I can't wait for you to hear it. Until then, see you at the ballot box.

Speaker 11 (41:58):

Is it still okay to fly? Should

Speaker 12 (42:00):

All of our careers be focused on climate? How do we parent in this time of climate crisis? Join us, the host of Outrage and Optimism, the podcast about nature, climate, politics, and everything in between. We are launching our brand new series on how to live a good life in a climate crisis.

Speaker 11 (42:16):

This series is really about how small changes by many people can make big differences.

Speaker 12 (42:22):

Join us for how to live a good life in a climate crisis. Subscribe to the Outrage, optimism podcast.

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APPLE PODCASTS

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Can We Vote Our Way Out of the Climate Crisis?

APPLE PODCASTS

SPOTIFY

‍

Government seems to move slower than the pace of climate change, so do our votes for climate candidates and policies actually make a difference?

‍

In this episode, we're connecting the dots between climate and policy and hearing from people around the world about how their governments’ policies are affecting their lives and their regions. We're also catching up with HEATED editor-in-chief Emily Atkin to hear how climate reporting has changed over the past couple of presidential terms and how she keeps her head above water after a decade of reporting on climate. We'll also talk to Commons founder Sanchali Seth Pal about climate policies around the world that have actually worked.

‍

If you're looking for resources to help you vote for the planet in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, or any upcoming U.S. election, here are some resources that could help: Vote Climate U.S. PAC's Voter Guide, Climate Cabinet's Climate Scorecard, League of Conservation Voter Scorecard.

‍

Here are some of the people you'll hear from in this episode:

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Episode Credits

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Listener contributions: Anandi Yadav, Clara, Danielle Bird, Lindsay Kerns, Michael Chase, Nick Blocha, Shai
Editing and engineer: Evan Goodchild‍
Hosting and production: Katelan Cunningham

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Resources and Further Reading

‍

Full Transcript

‍

Katelan (00:00):

Hey, welcome back to Second Nature, a podcast from Commons. Are you trying to figure out how you can make a difference in the world through sustainable living? Well Commons can help you out. Tens of thousands of people use the app to guide their sustainable lifestyles and understand their impact as they go. And on this show, we talk to people to find out how they're living sustainably in an unsustainable world.

Katelan (00:29):

At this point, no one's life is untouched by the impacts of climate change. You'd be hard pressed to find a country or a city that hasn't experienced unprecedented rainfall, winds, heat, fire, cold, drought, or other natural disasters. This rise in natural disasters. It's inextricably scientifically linked to climate change. And climate change is inextricably and scientifically linked to a rise in the use of fossil fuels. That's oil, gas, and coal. As individuals, we collectively have the power to reduce the use of fossil fuels. When we do things like ditch plastic or drive less, I think these everyday actions are like incremental votes for the kind of world that we want. And make no mistake, when you add them all up, these incremental votes, these incremental actions, they can steer the economy. But the other votes that matter are the ones at the ballot box. The votes for local and national leaders who can make hugely impactful decisions in the form of regulations for the fossil fuel industry or blocking deforestation and pipelines or passing laws that hold companies accountable for the waste that they generate.

Katelan (01:40):

So today we are connecting the dots between climate and policy. I will be your guide, Kaitlyn Cunningham. And coming up on this episode, we're gonna hear from our community, people around the world about how their government's policies are affecting their lives and their communities. We're catching up with the editor-in-chief of heated Emily Atkin, who's taking a quick break from her busiest time of the year to chat with us about why you're seeing climate change in more headlines. Finally, why speaking out really does matter. And of course the upcoming presidential election presidential. I'll also be talking with commons founders, St. Charlie, St. Paul, to do the math on real climate impact of actual policies in the US and around the world. Let's get into it.

Katelan (02:34):

Here in the US we are nearing what is hopefully the end of a really brutal hurricane season, which came right on the heels of the hottest summer on record. Second only to last summer. The World Health Organization estimates that from 2030 to 2050, climate change will cause 250,000 deaths per year from under nutrition, malaria, diarrhea, and heat stress alone. And studies show that people in the global south and people of color suffer the most from the effects of climate change. In addition to the cost of human lives, climate disasters also cost us a ton of money. The US keeps track of what are called billion dollar disasters, which are just what they sound like. In the 1980s, the US had a few billion dollar disasters per year. Now we have about two per month from heat waves and floods to tornadoes and hurricanes. Climate disasters in 2023 alone costed the US nearly $93 billion.

Katelan (03:34):

So what, if anything, could governments have done to prevent these catastrophic storms? What could the government have done to save hundreds of lives, billions of dollars and years of rebuilding? Well, for one, they could have listened to Exxon, which I'm sure is not what you expected me to say, which in the 1980s, Exxon's own research warned that staving off global warming quote would require major reductions in fossil fuel combustion. And they said that if we didn't burn less fossil fuels, there was a likelihood of quote potential catastrophic events. That's because put very simply burning fossil fuels exudes heat and the ocean absorbs 90% of excess heat from our emissions. And it's the warming oceans that are fueling much more powerful hurricanes in addition to other huge natural disasters. Of course, the government didn't heed Exxon's warning. Exxon didn't even heed their own warning. Since that research 40 years ago, global emissions from fossil fuels have nearly doubled by and large companies have shown that they're not going to stop doing the bad thing if the bad thing makes them money. And that's why government rules and regulations are so important. And just voting for a climate minded candidate like every other climate solution is not the one thing that's gonna get us out of climate change. But we certainly can't get out of the climate crisis without some serious government action. We wanted to hear from you about how your local and national governments are doing when it comes to climate policy and how it's impacting your life.

Speaker 2 (05:08):

What more needs to happen for governments around the world to take climate change? Seriously, we see these extreme weather events happening all over the world. We see so much loss and so much damage. All we see around us are certain regulations, but there's no enforcement on those regulations.

Michael (05:27):

In Florida, our current governor has taken action to remove climate change from the mention of any state policies or publications, which is obviously the exact opposite of what we need.

Shai (05:42):

I'm gonna be honest, there's not a whole lot of climate leadership here in dc. Like there's not a particular politician that I look at and go you climate champion of the year. That being said, as a district, we have quite a few programs in place to support biodiversity resilience and the environment. Here in the district there are rain barrel programs, solar installation. You can get native pollinators planted in your yard. You can also get trees planted in your yard on a neighborhood level. They are working to build infrastructure, community resilience hubs that are centralized locations for climate action before, during, and after a climate related emergency.

Danielle (06:25):

They have committed to net zero on all council operations by 2030 in residents and businesses by 2045 where I live not seeing much action or how as this is a very ambitious target, they are also developing a local nature recovery strategy and take part in campaigns like no MO may. So there are signs of things happening, but we maybe haven't seen enough yet as to as to how they're getting there.

Clara (06:52):

The biggest environmental policies that would make the biggest impact on my life would be for companies to actually be demanded to compensate their impact on a much larger scale than only carbon.

Shai (07:08):

Locally. I'm just hoping for some good old public transportation walkability, things that improve the sense of communal living in our communities and pushing us away from car-centric infrastructure.

Katelan (07:22):

I feel very fortunate because California and LA have passed some really good composting laws recently, whereas before it felt like composting was, you know, this burden that individuals had to bear.

Danielle (07:36):

Well, once I finished my degree in environmental science, I started working in energy. I learned a lot more about energy policy in the uk and then we were soon hit with the energy crisis. The former conservative government had introduced policies which banned onshore wind developments, encouraged gas and oil exploration and had leaders disparaging things like solar farms. Renewables was finally cheaper than fossil fuels, but we were still making policies in favor of fossil fuels. This is what really got me engaged in politics and began to understand how politics is at the forefront of climate change. And well everything. Of course,

Michael (08:09):

The overturning of Chevron V-N-R-D-C in the US by the Supreme Court, it severely lessens the strength and agency that the United States federal organizations have in controlling, implementing and enforcing environmental policy. Seeing global leaders take committed action on a lot of our big problems would have the biggest impact on me.

Shai (08:38):

When we see the planet through its resources, it becomes an exploitative relationship. 80% of the world's biodiversity is protected by indigenous defenders. So ensuring that 80% of our, our funding, our infrastructure, our capacity building goes towards supporting indigenous communities, working with them to create protections for what they do. There's active stewardship going on there. It's not that indigenous knowledge will help us save the world. Indigenous leaders will save the world.

Nick (09:15):

I do think we need to live as a society in accordance with nature in a part of this ecosystem that we are one small part of. And I think our policy needs to reflect that coming together and protesting that is our right. Whether it's talking to our politicians and sending them emails, giving them calls, that is our right to do. So.

Michael (09:35):

The way that I take political climate action is the best way. Voting.

Katelan (09:46):

When you're doing what you can to live a climate minded life within a system that's doing the bare minimum, it can feel like an uphill battle sometimes. Right? It's especially difficult when you're a climate journalist who has spent over a decade shouting the dangers of climate change from the rooftops and then reporting back on how not enough people are listening. Emily Atkin is one said journalist. She's the founder and editor-in-Chief of Heated, which is an awesome weekly newsletter dedicated to accountability, reporting and analysis on the climate crisis. She's also a contributing columnist to M-S-N-B-C and has covered climate for the New Republic Think Progress and Slate among other publications. And this time of year it's especially busy for her with all the extreme weather events and of course the election. But she very graciously took the time to answer some of our burning questions about climate change and what our government is doing about it.

Katelan (10:41):

Hi Emily.

Emily (10:42):

Hello.

New Speaker (10:43):

Thank you for joining us.

Emily (10:46):

Thank you for having me.

Katelan (10:47):

So I wanted to start with the fact that I feel like as recently as like five years ago, we weren't really hearing about climate disasters like heatwaves and wildfires being connected to climate change. And it seems like it's more frequent now, but I wondered what are your thoughts on how we're talking about climate change in the media and like do you think we're doing a decent job of it?

Emily (11:08):

Oh man, <laugh>, I could talk about this for a long time. It's interesting that you say you weren't hearing people connecting climate change to disasters five years ago because I've been trying to help people connect this for at least 10 years at this point. Yeah. But I will say what you're probably latching onto is the fact that the science has gotten a lot better over the last five years at connecting disasters and climate change. Mm. So there's this new field of research that's really become very robust in the last five years called attribution science. And it allows scientists to detect what percentage or how much of a certain natural disaster was made more likely because of climate change. Like how would this disaster have looked free climate change versus how it looks now. And it's a complicated process, but I've talked to many scientists about it and I see it's how I'm able to as a journalist communicate to audiences how much of this was climate change and how much wasn't.

Emily (12:10):

These peer reviewed studies will come out and help us make that connection. However, I would argue that we didn't really need it to be able to communicate that link because what we've known for many years is that, let's say for hurricanes, we know that climate change makes, uh, stronger storm surge more likely because of sea level rise the sea. We know the sea level is rising. So when a hurricane comes and storm surge happens obviously, and the same thing for stronger rainfall. Yeah. We know that a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture. So when a rainfall event happens, it's made more intense by climate change. We live in a climate change world. So every single weather event that we experience is affected by climate change. Every single weather experience we have because the climate has already changed. Yeah. So I think that media has started to do better on more rapidly making the connection between extreme weather and climate change.

Emily (13:05):

Where I think we still have a long way to go is media connecting climate change to the things that cause climate change, AKA fossil fuels deforestation and mass overconsumption. You'll now see in most articles and most newscasts that this storm was made worse by climate change or climate change is fueling wildfires. But you might not hear that fossil fuels are fueling wildfires. That deforestation is fueling hurricanes, that mass overconsumption is fueling flooding. Yeah. And that I think is the connection that we really need to make in order to get people to understand and digest what is it that has to be done to fight climate change. I know that climate change is happening, I know it's making things bad, but what do I do? Why is it happening? That's the connection we really need to be making and fighting for media to be making.

Katelan (13:54):

I also just wonder if people know what we mean. Like you're saying, like people, do people know what we mean when we say climate change? It's not this sort of like un preventable like untouchable thing that just magically happened over here, <laugh>. It's like this is something that we have control over.

Emily (14:09):

It's so interesting 'cause it's like human caused climate change and then you're thinking to yourself, human caused. So that means that I caused it. Right? Yeah. And it's sort of a misnomer because yeah. Human caused, but there are a few humans that cause it way more than other humans. You know, we've been fighting for so long, particularly activists and people like me in the media who are really pushing for media literacy on climate change to start attributing things to human cause climate change. But then once they're doing it we're like, but also it's not all humans. Yeah. Right. Like all humans are not contributing equally. We need you to explain that so that we're not focusing all our attention on ourselves for some reason. Like, oh crap, I really need to change my behavior. And like yeah, you do. But the energy has to be focused towards changing those few people's behavior that are really fueling the mess. Majority of this crisis.

Katelan (15:01):

Yeah. There are so many like layers to unpack <laugh> to get to the point where we need to get, um, you wrote a piece on whether we should vilify the oil and gas industry. You made this fascinating point I thought, which you said, um, that all energy production has negative environmental and human impact effects and that fact alone doesn't make the oil and gas industry a villain. Can you unpack that a little bit more for us?

Emily (15:28):

I think particularly me as a journalist, I expect people to make mistakes. And I expect industries in general to pollute. What is evil is when you do not acknowledge the massive harm of what you're doing and then you publicly deny those harms while knowing internally that they're happening. And then you make false promises to fix those harms. Yeah. And then you spend billions to delay solutions. Then I think it's fair to say that you've entered a villainous territory. The reason I say it's appropriate to vilify the oil and gas industry is that they have not shown themselves to be good faith participants in the conversation about climate change. The crisis that they primarily are causing fossil fuels are responsible for at least 75% of all historical emissions. And that's according to the IPCC. So it's one thing if you're responsible and then you try to be a good faith participant in the solution, but the oil and gas industry has repeatedly demonstrated that it is a horrible faith participant in those discussions.

Emily (16:39):

It has lied and it has delayed solutions and is a reason that we're in the debacle that we're in right now. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I don't love admitting that. Like I went into journalism to be fair. To really be able to bridge gaps Yeah. Between people and to find that fair and balanced perspective and to really try to find the truth. And unfortunately I think it was really disheartening to find over that many year career trying to unearth the truth about climate change. That like you can't trust this industry. This industry has never been a good faith actor. Yeah. When it comes to solutions. And at a certain point, if your job is to derive fact from fiction and you're still trusting people that have only lied to you for decades, then you kind of look like a fool. It's like with the oil and gas industry, I think about it like Trump, you know, it's like the media had to learn with Trump over the first campaign that they can't like present what Trump said versus what like a scientist said or what their opponent said. That you have to be really comfortable with saying like Trump is lying about this. Yeah. And for some reason that hasn't caught on with the oil and gas industry, even though the oil and gas industry has been lying to journalists for way longer than Trump has.

Katelan (17:55):

Obviously in the us you know, we're able to vote for representatives and even protest policies when we don't agree with them, which is a privilege that we have. But um, in one of your articles you brought up the fact that that's not a privilege everywhere you said across the world, particularly in the global south, environmental defenders are killed every week for trying to speak out against similar existential threats. So I was wondering how you would like to see more people in the US speaking out against climate inaction, especially because we are one of the prominent actors worldwide.

Emily (18:27):

Yeah. It's very interesting to see so many people feeling so apathetic in the US about speaking out for climate action. And in a way I like truly understand. Yeah. Listen, this is what I do for a living. Every day is right about climate change. And uh, it can be really disheartening. Yeah. Let's look at the presidential race. You look at Harris versus Trump and you look at analyses of what would happen if either one of them got elected into office. And you see that with the policies currently being proposed by both of those campaigns, that neither one would bring us to net zero by 2050, which is what needs to happen to preserve a livable planet that can really make you throw your hands up and be like, well then what am I even doing? Yeah. You kind of have to bring yourself back a little bit and dive a little deeper into what those analysis are saying.

Emily (19:25):

You look at the first line and it says neither will bring us to net zero by 2050, but it says that a Harris administration would at least get us halfway there. Okay. Whereas the Trump administration would drive us completely off of a cliff. Yeah. And then you're like, well what's the difference between halfway there and the cliff, that area in between is hundreds of billions of dollars. Wow. $900 billion in climate damages to be exact. That's a $900 billion difference between electing Harris and electing Trump and literally millions of lives. Yeah. Like I think that's something that's been hard for me to kind of adjust to and understand is that solving climate change is not a cliff where all of a sudden when you don't solve it, you drop off and a bunch of bad happens. It's a staircase into hell. Right. <laugh>. So once we're, and we're kind of already down that staircase.

Emily (20:23):

Right? Okay. And what we're trying to do right now is remain on the highest step possible. Every single step represents hundreds of billions of dollars and millions of lives. And it's like a thing to think that you have to fight for. Oh I have to try to fight for the least bad outcome. And to go back to your earlier what you said about there are people in other countries, environmental defenders literally getting killed every day for speaking out. Yeah. That's what those people are fighting for too. You know, obviously they want to stay at the top of the staircase, but it is a privilege to be able to speak out. And I think it's also important to note that it does work. I can't tell you how much I've seen politics change in the last 10 years that I've been covering climate change. It's just not as fast as you would think. It's measured on, on larger timescales.

Katelan (21:18):

So Biden, you know, made some progress. There is the IRA, he put some fees on methane production, things like that. I'm wondering if when you're looking at Harris versus Trump, are any of the climate policies that have happened under Biden at risk of being rolled back by either of these candidates?

Emily (21:34):

There is only one candidate that has pledged to roll back current climate policies. <laugh>, you know, before Biden was in office, we were in a really dismal state with climate policies. We had really passed nothing huge on a federal level to spur renewable energy development. And the one good thing you can say about Biden on a climate level is that he did spearhead and sign the Inflation reduction Act, which put hundreds of billions of dollars, if not billions, I'm not sure at the top of my head. But into spurring the clean energy development in the United States. Only one candidate has pledged to roll all those policies back and it's Trump while in conversation with oil and gas industry donors telling him that he would roll all those policies back in exchange for a billion dollar donation from them. And then after that meeting started seeing a bunch of influx of donations from the oil and gas industry.

Katelan (22:33):

I covered the first Trump administration. I don't think that Trump would need a billion dollars from the oil and gas industry to roll back all those policies because I covered that administration. And that is all he, he did the entire four years he was in office, he hired literally comic book villains from the oil and gas industry to run all the environmental protection agencies. And every single day of my life as a journalist was being like writing the headline like, Trump administration rolls back waste protections for drinking water. Right. And you're just like, every day was that. I don't see any evidence that all of a sudden that wouldn't just happen again. Yeah. Hovering the Biden administration has been just a different experience. Right. It's been a more nuanced experience. It's been a difference between like, okay, the Biden administration strengthens regulations to require cars to be less polluting. Okay. Biden administration puts a pause on new permits for LNG terminals. Right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But then there's nuance to that to be like, but you know, those regulations still allow all these new LNG terminals to be built.

Katelan (23:43):

Speaking of that, you know, our government is so massive and we hear a lot of feedback just in general, whether it's government or just like the economy, when you're just, you know, your own person like sitting inside of your house, it's hard to imagine that, that you matter for this bigger thing. And so when it comes to that, you know, grassroots organizing often comes up as a promising way to sort of break through. And I'm just wondering, does it work? Like have you seen examples of local groups driving real change that expounds throughout their city and maybe even bigger than that?

Katelan (24:13):

I have, and I could give you a bunch of examples, but I think that what I'm really struck by with what you just said was like people say like thinking to themselves. They're like, oh, I don't matter in this society. Well it's like the reason that you think that way <laugh>, at least this is kind of what I'm coming up on, is that like you've been made to think that you have to do everything by yourself is that we live in like a really individualistic culture that says you need to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and you need to figure out how to do this for yourself and no one out there is gonna help you.

Katelan (24:46):

Yeah. Yeah.

Katelan (24:47):

But that's a lie. If you are doing this all by yourself, then yeah. You're absolutely gonna fail.

Katelan (24:51):

Yeah. Yeah.

Katelan (24:53):

Period. Like that's just true. What you have to do is find communities to be part of that. You can do this together. We cannot fix climate change on our own. Yeah. It's just not gonna happen. You have to find people that you want to do this with. And I honestly don't think that it's helpful for me to like list all of the things that activists have done. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> more so than it is helpful for me to tell you that everything that has been done has been done in a large group.

Katelan (25:25):

So Will and Wisconsin asked what can small cities do to improve their climate impact, even if residents don't highly value climate solutions.

Emily (25:34):

It's interesting. I don't know if I have a specific answer to that because I don't know this person's actual community, but one of the things that I thought was really interesting, I was attending a workshop during Climate Week about communicating climate solutions to people is that if you're in a community that isn't making the connection between climate change and some of the problems that they're experiencing in their communities, 'cause I think that that's also something that happens. It's like climate change is affecting your community, but maybe the people in your community don't see how it's affecting them. I heard this very interesting thing from a professional communicator of climate solutions was saying, you don't really have to make it about climate change. You can make it about fossil fuels, about pollution, about the source of the problem that is causing climate change. Because fossil fuels are harming people in a lot of other ways as well.

Emily (26:27):

Living near fossil fuels, you know, having gas powered buses versus electric powered buses. The gas power buses pollute your community more. They're louder. Uh, they're more expensive. They require a product that is completely fluctuating in price all of the time. Right. Versus charging on a battery, which might be Yeah. A little less expensive. There are so many other ways to get people to understand the dangers of a fossil fuel economy that have nothing to do with climate change. Now sometimes I'm a little wary of making this kind of argument because I'm like, I'm not gonna stop talking about climate change just because somebody refuses to acknowledge that it's real. Right. But at the same time, there are a lot of other truths about the dangers of a fossil fuel economy that are pertinent and that maybe haven't been as politicized as the climate issue. Yeah. That you can use, I think, to talk to people in a more politicized community. A community where, where people don't wanna hear it. You know? So hopefully that's helpful.

Katelan (27:29):

I think that's great advice. Okay. One more question, which is how do you write about this stuff every day and not feel like you're throwing in the towel or banging your head against a brick wall? <laugh>? How do you keep doing it?

Emily (27:43):

I do feel a lot like I wanna throw in the towel or like I'm hitting a brick wall. I don't wanna romanticize it in any way. I went through a very public burnout in 2022 where I literally had to step away for six months. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I couldn't do it anymore. And part of it was because I was putting the problem completely on myself. I was really like I have to do, I was pushing myself so hard and the only way that I stay able to do it today is if I am very aware of when I am starting to feel like I'm banging my head against a wall and when I wanna throw in the towel and then giving myself time to step away and really acknowledging, really like kind of drinking my own Kool-Aid a bit and being like, I can't do this myself and it's not on me to do this myself.

Emily (28:36):

I'll do everything I can and then I'll step away when I need to. It was a reality check that I just needed to transform the way I did this type type of work and the way I thought about this type of work. Ultimately going to bed at night and knowing that I did my best <laugh> to try to tackle this problem Yeah. Is way better than going to bed at night being like, I'm trying to insulate myself from this problem. 'cause it never works. Something's always gonna break through and get you and make you feel guilty. Yeah. I hope that's helpful.

Katelan (29:06):

That's super helpful. Thank you so much for taking the time. I really appreciate it. Thanks for coming on the show.

Katelan (29:12):

Thank you for having me.

Katelan (29:19):

If you wanna read Emily and her team's fabulous reporting every week, I highly recommend subscribing to their newsletter. Heated. We'll of course include a link in the show notes. So we've heard a lot about how our governments have fallen short, but there are some big policies that have actually made a real difference. I called up commons founders, Sanchali Seth Pal, to get a rundown of some of the biggest climate laws and regulations and find out what kind of impact these systemic rollouts are actually having. Hello again. Sanchali.

Sanchali (29:49):

Hey Katelan.

Katelan (29:51):

All right. So we have known for many decades how human action fuels climate change. And it feels like, I don't know, it feels like we're really feeling the effects of climate change the past few years more than, than we have in the years past.

Sanchali (30:04):

It's so true. I feel like climate change and natural disasters have just been in the headlines so much more than than they were when I was little.

Katelan (30:10):

Yeah. So we have known for many decades how human action fuels climate change and there definitely have been some climate policies that have gone through, but it's hard to, you know, like keep track of the progress. Like are these things actually working?

Sanchali (30:24):

For sure. It's feels like it's time for a check-in.

Katelan (30:27):

Yes, please. So what climate policies are out there and which ones are actually getting the job done?

Sanchali (30:33):

So let's start with the first question of what climate policies are out there. Broadly speaking, we can think about climate policies in two buckets. There's market-based incentives and direct regulation market-based approaches basically create incentives for businesses to reduce emissions. They say we're gonna set a price on emissions and it's theoretically more cost-effective because it allows the businesses that are willing to pay that price to emit more. It doesn't rely on the government to be all knowing and perfectly set, you know, company A has to admit this much and company B has to emit this much, so it's more flexible. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But the problem is you don't really know how many emissions you're gonna end up with in the system. In the end. You can't say predictably, this is gonna reduce emissions by 50%.

Katelan (31:16):

Gotcha.

Sanchali (31:17):

On the other hand, there's direct regulation, which is also called command and control. It's when we set something like a quota or a cap on emissions that says we can only emit a certain amount. It's really predictable, which is great, but it's also pretty rigid and critics say it's not really that efficient. Um, it can end up being really costly because the government is setting a certain amount without really knowing how the ins and outs of that industry work.

Katelan (31:43):

Okay. That distinction's really helpful, these two groupings, but it sounds like they come with their own pros and cons. Have we seen either of these make some measurable progress in any of the countries or regions that are implementing 'em?

Sanchali (31:56):

This is a great question. This has been historically really hard to know and people have argued both sides. But there's some really new exciting research that starts to demystify this. And it just came out a few months ago in August, 2024. This research basically evaluated 1500 climate policies that have been implemented over the last 25 years and tried to identify which ones were most successful at reducing emissions.

Katelan (32:21):

Ooh. Exciting. We love a new study.

Sanchali (32:24):

I know. I'm really excited to nerd out about this. And <laugh>, this study in particular was super comprehensive. They analyzed 48 types of policy interventions across sectors in 41 countries that together account for over 80% of global emissions. And they used that data set to find the best policy combinations for closing the emissions gap.

Katelan (32:47):

Okay, perfect. This is exactly what we wanna know. So what did they find?

Sanchali (32:51):

Okay, so first, when policies were effective, they were really effective Of the policies that had a major impact, the average reduction in emissions was 19%.

Katelan (33:00):

That's super impressive. More impressive than I would've thought. What kinds of policies are getting us to that 19%?

Sanchali (33:06):

Their biggest takeaway was actually that no single policy on its own was as effective as combining policies. 70% of the times when policy was measurably reducing emissions, it was achieved through a combination of two or more policies. And this was true across the board, across countries and across industries.

Katelan (33:27):

Once again, this theme comes up that there's not one perfect climate solution. We can't put all of our eggs in one basket.

Sanchali (33:34):

I know everyone's always looking for a silver bullet and there never is one <laugh>. It's like subsidies or regulations alone have rarely worked like just banning gas powered cars. It is unlikely to significantly reduce emissions on its own. Usually it has to be combined with other types of instruments like a carbon tax or energy regulation.

Katelan (33:57):

Okay. What does that look like? What are, what are examples of these different types of policies and taxes working together?

Sanchali (34:04):

So one really interesting example was in the UK in 2016, historically people thought the big emissions reduction that happened in the electricity industry, there was due to the EU emissions trading system that was implemented a few years before in 2013.

Katelan (34:19):

Hmm. What is that exactly? What's an emissions trading system?

Sanchali (34:22):

The emissions trading system was a system that said all companies in the EU that produce energy have to get their emissions down to a certain level or cap. But if they wanted to emit more than that, they had to buy a permit from another company within that system in order to emit more.

Katelan (34:38):

Got it. Okay. That makes sense. So there's always this maximum that they're working within, but there's some flexibility for the energy companies to sort of meet the demands of their business.

Sanchali (34:48):

Exactly. And this was generally considered a really successful policy. The researchers found that it was effective, but they found that it was effective because it was part of a wider policy mix that included other interventions as well. So there was also stricter air pollution standards. There were also direct regulations that those energy producers had to scale up their renewable energy percent and they also had other types of tariffs. So the combination of all of those policy interventions was what resulted in a really significant amount of emissions reduction around that time.

Katelan (35:20):

Okay, cool. Outside of the EU though, have any individual countries had a similar result?

Sanchali (35:27):

Yes. There was a really interesting parallel that happened in China in 2016. So really different country context, similar time period. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, they tried a similar intervention and emissions trading system and that made some impact, but the reason why they had a really big impact was because they also cut back some fossil fuel subsidies that year and the year before they had opened up some new financing for energy efficiency investments. And so together that combination of things resulted in the impact happening a lot faster.

Katelan (35:55):

Got it. Okay. Cool. We love to hear that.

Sanchali (35:57):

Basically it's really hard for any one policy to be effective on its own, but there was just one policy intervention that was effective on its own.

Katelan (36:07):

Ooh, drum roll. What is it?

Sanchali (36:08):

It's taxation. Taxation was the only type of policy that has been effective on its own across sectors and countries. It's pretty rare that way.

Katelan (36:17):

Okay. All right. So some policies worked in some places better than others is what I'm hearing.

Sanchali (36:22):

Yeah. So overall combining policies always worked best. Sometimes taxation works on its own, which makes it different from anything else. And basically everything else varies on the context. So regulation was more critical in the transportation industry. Subsidies were more effective in electricity also. Different country contexts required different interventions. Generally market-based approaches like pricing and subsidy policies were more effective in developed countries, whereas more regulation and command and control approaches tended to be more effective in developing countries.

Katelan (36:58):

I guess that makes sense because in developed countries there's presumably more money to support these kinds of initiatives.

Sanchali (37:04):

Exactly. It suggests where there's more money, more incentive based and market approaches can be more effective. And where there's less infrastructure to enforce those market-based approaches, more command and control regulations can be realistic.

Katelan (37:18):

Got it. So it sounds to me like we need to do more things <laugh>, ideally things that we know are gonna be more successful in the type of economy that we're in regionally. Um, but I don't know, like if you had this expectation that there's gonna be this golden ticket policy or candidate out of climate change, that's not the case, right? <laugh>?

Sanchali (37:40):

Yeah. Uh, there's no golden ticket. It is kind of positive. I think though, because it's not all riding on one thing. It's not all one decision. One election. We all have an opportunity to show up in our local elections in our city council meetings. And yes, once in a while in our federal elections. Uh, but it's a diversity of changes that add up to make a real difference when it comes to lowering our greenhouse gas emissions.

Katelan (38:07):

I like that take. It's not all writing on one vote every four years. <laugh>.

Sanchali (38:12):

<laugh>. Exactly. We have lots of votes that add up.

Katelan (38:15):

Awesome. Well, thank you so much. I was so excited to dig into this paper and I can't wait to read more. Thanks

Sanchali (38:21):

For getting into the details on policy with me. This was fun.

Katelan (38:24):

Yeah. All right, see you next time.

Sanchali (38:26):

Bye.

Katelan (38:30):

When people in office make decisions about things like fossil fuels, pollution and deforestation, they're making decisions that impact our health, our safety, and our survival. They're making decisions that impact our energy supply, water supply, air supply, and even our resilience to natural disasters. So when you vote in elections for your district, your county, or your country, remember that every vote is a climate vote. The environmental voter project estimates that over 8 million environmentalists did not vote in the 2020 presidential election, and over 13 million environmentalists skipped the 2022 midterms. Please don't skip those midterms and local elections. A lot of really important decisions are made there. And look, I know it can be hard to compare candidates climate policies, especially when there are so many other really important life or death issues and policies at stake. And the truth of it is a lot of those issues affect or are affected by climate policy, especially US climate policy.

Katelan (39:33):

So climate is this all encompassing thing. It touches every aspect of our lives. Plastic, for example, plastic is made of fossil fuels, and in the US less than 6% of it's recycled. The rest of it is combusted sent to landfills or ends up in waterways leading to plastic pollution in our water and our air. And in turn, we get microplastics in our food and our bodies. And yet plastic producers aren't required to take responsibility for this massive pollution and health problem that they're creating. Policy could change that. Deforestation has a huge impact on climate change globally. We destroy over 12 million acres of forest each year. The vast majority of that is in the tropics, and 41% of that deforestation is just for beef laws and regulation against deforestation could preserve forests, which are not only invaluable carbon sinks, they're vital for entire species ecosystems and protection from climate disasters.

Katelan (40:30):

Even war takes a huge toll on climate. Not only do we lose hundreds of thousands of human lives each year, we lose decades of ecosystems, acres of forest and cropland while creating pollution in our water and our air. The emissions from just the first four months of active warfare in Gaza were equal to the annual emissions of Greenland, no matter which way this presidential election goes. Please don't shut up about climate change because research shows that it is working. Emily Atkin recently wrote a piece on this, which I'll link to in the show notes. The more we share stories and facts with our friends and family, the more folks will realize that we all have the opportunity to take action every day, and we all have something at stake. And right now, those stakes are very, very high. Thank you to our listeners who shared what's going on in their corners of the world today. You heard from one and the other.

Speaker 10 (41:26):

Lopez, Lindsay Michael Chase, Nick Block Shyla.

Katelan (41:31):

This episode was edited and engineered by Evan Goodchild. It was written and produced by me, Kaitlyn Cunningham. Next week we are taking a little break, but on the first week of November, we will meet you back here with some warm and fuzzy community stories all about buy nothing groups. I'm obsessed. I can't wait for you to hear it. Until then, see you at the ballot box.

Speaker 11 (41:58):

Is it still okay to fly? Should

Speaker 12 (42:00):

All of our careers be focused on climate? How do we parent in this time of climate crisis? Join us, the host of Outrage and Optimism, the podcast about nature, climate, politics, and everything in between. We are launching our brand new series on how to live a good life in a climate crisis.

Speaker 11 (42:16):

This series is really about how small changes by many people can make big differences.

Speaker 12 (42:22):

Join us for how to live a good life in a climate crisis. Subscribe to the Outrage, optimism podcast.

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