Speaker 1: With a round segle and from London and Gerard read
Speaker 1: from Berlin. This is redefining energy today on ref Energy. Chiard,
Speaker 1: We're going to Brazil.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been there a long while, so looking forward
Speaker 2: to going there again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, except we're not at COP thirty in Belem. But
Speaker 1: we have a special guest who's there is in the
Speaker 1: thick of the action, and that's Bruce Douglass. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: good to have Bruce on.
Speaker 2: He's the CEO of the Global Renewables Alliance and he's
Speaker 2: a great guy and a friend we've known for a
Speaker 2: long while.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he's been named Time one hundred Climate Leader,
Speaker 1: so it's really a voice. He's been advocating for tripling
Speaker 1: on wabbels. But at the same time, we all know
Speaker 1: how difficult that UN processes. We've seen last month the
Speaker 1: UN Industional Might Team organization, you know, they had a
Speaker 1: big plan to the carbonized and everything has been destroyed
Speaker 1: by the US. So is there a future in any
Speaker 1: UN process? And on your hand, can we do without
Speaker 1: it even if it's toothless. So you know, this is
Speaker 1: the questions ask ourself every year when couple arrives exactly,
Speaker 1: So that's why it's really good to actually have a
Speaker 1: live update from what's going on. Okay, let's go live
Speaker 1: to Belem and we're live from bellm COP thirty and
Speaker 1: we are with us our good old friend Bruce Douglass,
Speaker 1: who is a CEO of the gr A. So what's
Speaker 1: the g RA. What are you doing there?
Speaker 2: Hello?
Speaker 3: Great to teach you again as always. So the GRA
Speaker 3: is the Global Renewables Alliance where the single voice for
Speaker 3: the private sector renewables industry internationally. So we represent when
Speaker 3: solo thermal hydrofile on the generation side, but also green
Speaker 3: hydrogen batteries, long duration storage grids, so basically the whole
Speaker 3: power system on the private sector side.
Speaker 2: So tens of thousands of.
Speaker 3: Companies who are all in on the energy transition.
Speaker 1: Don't way copies organize you founders and well you've got
Speaker 1: a green zone and a blue zone, so maybe probably
Speaker 1: explain what is it and where you are right now?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the GRA we're always present at cop Climate
Speaker 3: Change conference. Indeed there's like, well there's more than two zones.
Speaker 3: There's multiple zones as negotiators of the parties, which is
Speaker 3: the countries, and then they have an area called the
Speaker 3: blue zone, which is restricted access for many for the
Speaker 3: countries and observers, so we are treated an official observer,
Speaker 3: and so the private sector companies, NGOs and civil society
Speaker 3: have access there. But then also there's a green zone
Speaker 3: which is then full public access which allows exhibitions and
Speaker 3: a great format for interaction with the community and with
Speaker 3: other actors in the Amazon. And located in Belen, which
Speaker 3: is actually a huge city. It's a couple of million people.
Speaker 3: And I've been walking around the last couple of days
Speaker 3: before the event started and I'd say, you lot, it's
Speaker 3: really exciting to be I do understand why they brought
Speaker 3: it here.
Speaker 2: I mean, logistically it's a nightmare. I have to say.
Speaker 3: It's thirty thirty five degrees and high humidity. The organization
Speaker 3: is not great, but just being here in the Amazon,
Speaker 3: you can see the impact that humans are having in
Speaker 3: the urgent need to address climate change. You know, this
Speaker 3: is where the impacts are felt and then will be
Speaker 3: felt over the coming decades, more than anywhere else.
Speaker 1: You were last year in Baku, So how would you
Speaker 1: compare in terms of size, in terms of zeitgeist? What
Speaker 1: do you see what you hear in terms.
Speaker 3: A size About same as Baku's sim number people the
Speaker 3: vibe this year.
Speaker 2: It's a really important.
Speaker 3: Cop this year because of the climate plans. So the
Speaker 3: UN said a deadline of September for the country to
Speaker 3: submit their climate plans. What we're seeing over the last
Speaker 3: week or so is the heads of state we're here
Speaker 3: at the end of last week announcing their climate plans,
Speaker 3: and although being covered quite extensively that the plans are
Speaker 3: not ambitious enough to meet at one point five degrees
Speaker 3: or even the tripling goal of renewables, there's some good news,
Speaker 3: and the good news is that Paris is working. So
Speaker 3: countries are announcing their plans on climate, so they all
Speaker 3: believe that climate is a thing. Those who are submitting
Speaker 3: their plans there's one hundred and ninety four countries here,
Speaker 3: so again the multilateralism is still a thing, and the
Speaker 3: markets are moving. Seventy eight percent of the climate plans
Speaker 3: we've seen include a reference to renewables. That's a huge
Speaker 3: increase on previous statements from countries. Again, what we're hearing
Speaker 3: from the leaders, so this is not us speaking, this
Speaker 3: is the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guitarez, in his
Speaker 3: speech on Friday, said that clean energy is winning on price,
Speaker 3: performance and potential. Couldn't agree more. President Lula himself is
Speaker 3: pushing for an agreement or a work program to end
Speaker 3: dependence on fossil fuels. I think the translation of the
Speaker 3: is something like get rid of fossil fuels. It's calling
Speaker 3: at the cop of truth, the cop of implementation. Truth
Speaker 3: is an interesting concept is you know, low scients and
Speaker 3: facts don't seem to cut it anymore, But the focus
Speaker 3: on truth theory is important. More important is to focus
Speaker 3: on implementation. You know, we don't need any more negotiations,
Speaker 3: we don't need any more targets.
Speaker 2: We need action. We need Okay, how.
Speaker 3: Can we deploy this technology as fast as possible to
Speaker 3: phase out fossil fuels.
Speaker 1: Well, Brazila oil production is up thirty three percent pastena
Speaker 1: or so. Yeah. Is there a bit of a double
Speaker 1: language here.
Speaker 2: Well, you know there's a polarization in Brazil for sure.
Speaker 3: That domestic politics and the international positioning is quite different.
Speaker 3: As you've seen a couple of weeks ago, they authorized
Speaker 3: the license with exploration of new oil and gas in
Speaker 3: the Amazon. We'll see if there is actually enough oil
Speaker 3: and gas there. But at the same time, the government
Speaker 3: is i say, pushing very strongly on renewables, grids and
Speaker 3: the phase out of fossil fuels. The President of and
Speaker 3: the President of Brazil are two different people, and so
Speaker 3: that the polarization you see, it's important to have this
Speaker 3: climate conference here in Brazil. They have over ninety percent
Speaker 3: renewable penetration, so that grid is ninety percent renewables. They
Speaker 3: have ninety nine point nine percent connectivity, so you know,
Speaker 3: there's ninety nine percent of the population is connected to electricity.
Speaker 3: So it's incredibly impressive development that Brazil has seen over
Speaker 3: the past few years, and they're all in to continue that.
Speaker 3: They're facing different challenges now, which is like almost too
Speaker 3: much renewables in certain areas the northeast of Brazil. The
Speaker 3: members that we have they're operating see curtailment at average
Speaker 3: twenty five percent, some projects up to eighty percent.
Speaker 2: So they're not in the money.
Speaker 3: I mean very few people there, yeah ouch indeed, so
Speaker 3: business models don work. Very few companies actually making money
Speaker 3: on renewables in Brazil. So there's some reforms going on
Speaker 3: there to adapt that. Of course, we need everything We've
Speaker 3: always been saying law, you need anticipatory investments and grids
Speaker 3: storage development and of course increased command off take so
Speaker 3: industrial electrification, electrification in general build that demand for these
Speaker 3: abundant streen electrons.
Speaker 1: Between Barris and Belem, there was Glasgow, and in Glasgow
Speaker 1: pretty much the old financial sector gathered in new acronyms,
Speaker 1: chief funds, the net zero banking and everything seems to
Speaker 1: have like vanished to steal see bankers around, or they've
Speaker 1: become extremely shy.
Speaker 2: You don't often see that many bankers in cop itself.
Speaker 3: Last week I was in South Paolo at the Business
Speaker 3: and Finance Forum with Bloomberg and others. There we met
Speaker 3: a lot of bankers. I mean I won't name names,
Speaker 3: but you know, we had a lot of discussions with them.
Speaker 3: My take is it on where they can get returns.
Speaker 3: They're all in, but you know better than me, Lah,
Speaker 3: in the finance world, it's pretty brutal. They will capital
Speaker 3: will flowed to where the returns are best. Fossil fuels
Speaker 3: still have double digit returns. Renewables still struggle to get
Speaker 3: single digit returns, So that capex conundrum, the irony of
Speaker 3: the fact that renewables are cheap, So that's the l
Speaker 3: theory of renewables is low wants to build them, but
Speaker 3: high capex at the beginning and low margins. So yeah,
Speaker 3: this is the challenge in our face. We need to
Speaker 3: de risk renewables as fast as possible, so public money,
Speaker 3: concession finance, and accelerate the build out of renewables in
Speaker 3: those emerging markets, those places where interest rates are high.
Speaker 1: Excuse me, that's for me, that's an old way of thinking.
Speaker 1: If I look at the investment in clintech, so we're
Speaker 1: going to put solar, wind batteries, evs and so on.
Speaker 1: This is two trillion a year right now. And if
Speaker 1: I look at the capex of oil and gas seven
Speaker 1: hundred billion, and if I agree with the IA, eighty
Speaker 1: percent of it is just to maintain the production. And
Speaker 1: this is industree going from one hundred million barier level
Speaker 1: oil the day to maybe one hundred and one. I mean,
Speaker 1: this industry has really plateaued, whatever they say. Whereas we
Speaker 1: as renewable, as we are growing batteries of forty percent
Speaker 1: evs plus twenty five percent. So question is do we
Speaker 1: really need a bit of a top down world bank
Speaker 1: cup organization or is it just organice And we're kind
Speaker 1: of spectators of what's going on what's your take.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I like those two options. I think there's more
Speaker 3: options than that, but I definitely agree with him.
Speaker 2: Is Michael Barnard.
Speaker 3: You're a colleague and friend who said the energy system
Speaker 3: doesn't obey our ideology, it obeys economics, and the economics
Speaker 3: are clear, So we don't offer renewables. You don't need
Speaker 3: this top down approach anymore. The market are working over
Speaker 3: ninety percent of power additions last year with renewable energy,
Speaker 3: and of those more than ninety percent of those projects
Speaker 3: and now generating power cheaper than fossil fuel alternatives, saving
Speaker 3: something like four hundred and ten billion dollars per year
Speaker 3: in volatile fossil fuel imports. So it's done. This is
Speaker 3: definitely a transition, it's not an addition. And the markets
Speaker 3: are moving very fast. Renewable energy is growing at six
Speaker 3: percent per year. Fossil fuel is still increasing importunate, but
Speaker 3: only by like one one point two percent a year
Speaker 3: and slowing down. So the trajectory is absolutely clear. This
Speaker 3: is a revolution, electro and renewable revolution.
Speaker 2: I just put an opinion.
Speaker 3: Piece in the Financial Times with Kingsmill Bond for member,
Speaker 3: saying exactly that at the end of the petro state
Speaker 3: and the start of this electro tech revolution. So that's
Speaker 3: what we're seeing. But what I will say is on
Speaker 3: the other side you mentioned, do you need that into
Speaker 3: government interventions? Absolutely in those technologies that are not seeing it,
Speaker 3: So grids for example, difficult business models, large cappex, long
Speaker 3: operation times thirty forty years. Who do need public money
Speaker 3: there to do risk and incentivize build out of grids?
Speaker 1: I don't know. If you speak a lot about the
Speaker 1: eight hundred pound gorilla the US, do you see any
Speaker 1: US guys around or not? No?
Speaker 3: And there's no senior US delegates here, so the negotiations
Speaker 3: are going on without them. As you know, he's pulled
Speaker 3: out of the Paris Agreement. I mean legally they're still
Speaker 3: in the unf Triple C. So they could come, and
Speaker 3: I don't anticipate they'll come. And they've seen what they
Speaker 3: did with the plastics treaty, with the IMO, the International
Speaker 3: Maritime Organization, So the interference there, and it's political interference,
Speaker 3: it's not negotiational diplomacy, and so we anticipate they might
Speaker 3: do something like that here.
Speaker 2: Let's see.
Speaker 3: Going back to my point, the positive is that one
Speaker 3: hundred and ninety four other countries are all here and
Speaker 3: mostly all in all the countries that.
Speaker 2: We meet, and I don't know how.
Speaker 3: Many ministerial meetings we've got lined up these weeks, but
Speaker 3: dozens of countries. And this is emerging markets, not developed countries.
Speaker 3: These emerging markets saying how do we do this? It's
Speaker 3: not why, it's how do we do it? What should
Speaker 3: we do? And a private sextor companies that I represent
Speaker 3: are here en mass in force, saying let's get this done.
Speaker 3: And just over the last twenty four hours, I've had
Speaker 3: meetings with Ultipurse, with best US, with cip and many
Speaker 3: others who are here representing the industry, speaking to the governments,
Speaker 3: working together with investors to get it done.
Speaker 2: So we do talk.
Speaker 3: About the elephant in the room, of course, but for us,
Speaker 3: it's a distraction, it's noise. US is six percent of
Speaker 3: six to eight percent of renewables investment in the world.
Speaker 3: There's a lot more excitingly going elsewhere. Growth markets are
Speaker 3: elsewhere now, And the latest BNF numbers show that you
Speaker 3: and your investments in the US are down thirty six
Speaker 3: percent and they're up in Europe thirty six percent. So
Speaker 3: capital moves as soon as it gets uncertainty somewhere it
Speaker 3: they'll move very fast to somewhere else. The other interesting
Speaker 3: fact for you laugh and this will annoy the US,
Speaker 3: is the US anticipate to have a record growth this
Speaker 3: year of renewables again and that will continue to twenty
Speaker 3: twenty seven. Now that's pipeline projects. You know, record renewable
Speaker 3: growth in the US out of twenty seven is not
Speaker 3: something that maybe that administration would want. But that's economics.
Speaker 3: That's the state level investment, corporate private sector investment, and
Speaker 3: the financial institutions. Let's focus on the signal and not
Speaker 3: the noise.
Speaker 2: It's happening and happening fast.
Speaker 1: Are there a lot of conversation around AI data centers
Speaker 1: or not really?
Speaker 3: Last week in South Pari it's focused an event with
Speaker 3: the Ministry of Fine and so Minister hadad Here and
Speaker 3: vis Abad that they're actually bringing out a new law
Speaker 3: called the REDATA that they're proposing, which is about centivizing
Speaker 3: and almost obliging new data centers to use renewable energy.
Speaker 2: I mean, we're calling it no dirty AI.
Speaker 3: So if you have to go down the AI route
Speaker 3: to build data centers, then it should be clean we're
Speaker 3: open about what clean means. But you know, obviously renewable
Speaker 3: energy for us is the cheapest, fastest way. And the
Speaker 3: data center hyperscalers that we talked to used to be
Speaker 3: five years ago is you know, not used to be
Speaker 3: give us affordable and clean power. Okay, then firm, then fast.
Speaker 3: Now it's give us fast, firm, affordable, and then clean.
Speaker 1: I mean no, I mean, come on, when you put ocgts,
Speaker 1: when you put fuel cellers, when you put whatever rid
Speaker 1: decent generators, it's not clean, and it's not even affordable.
Speaker 2: No, it's not fast either.
Speaker 3: So what what I was saying is the answer to
Speaker 3: those questions is still renewable. I mean, renewal is the fastest,
Speaker 3: cheap brist power for those off takers.
Speaker 1: And of course one of the great point of excitement
Speaker 1: around the UN negotiation is all that question about Article
Speaker 1: six carbon market. Do we see any procasts there because
Speaker 1: there's a lot of talk but not a lot of action.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, there's been a lot of talking that for a
Speaker 3: long time, and the Article six was supposed to success coming.
Speaker 2: Out of Top twenty nine last year.
Speaker 3: I haven't heard much about it. It is on the
Speaker 3: table again. It was discussed last week a bit in
Speaker 3: TA power, but I've to say I haven't been keeping
Speaker 3: track of that one.
Speaker 1: I have a question for you, Saudi Arabia. How much
Speaker 1: money do they put in climate efforts outside the region
Speaker 1: versus how much money do they put in organizing boxing matches.
Speaker 3: That's not a statistic I have at top of mind level,
Speaker 3: but it's a great question. I mean, what I will
Speaker 3: say is they invest a lot in energy transition in
Speaker 3: their country. I mean, their target is sixty percent renewable
Speaker 3: by twenty thirty, and although they're not quite on track
Speaker 3: for it, they are developing renewables, wind and so scale.
Speaker 3: They're doing it so that they can then export the
Speaker 3: oil instead of burning oil for power generation. But listen,
Speaker 3: that's my opered this morning, and you FC was basically
Speaker 3: saying the end of the petro state. All countries, all markets,
Speaker 3: even those with huge oil and gas deposits, are now
Speaker 3: investing in renewable energy in electrotech, either for their own
Speaker 3: domestic use, for the purposes for manufacturing and export.
Speaker 2: China is a great example.
Speaker 3: So you know, this shift is unstoppable and happening in
Speaker 3: countries you'd never expect.
Speaker 1: You're on a very POLITITIONI do you not reply to
Speaker 1: my question?
Speaker 3: I don't know the stats on the boxing matches in Saudi.
Speaker 1: It's all times more, four times more in boxing than
Speaker 1: in helping the climate negotiation. So we have the US
Speaker 1: doing MMA at the IMO and the Saudi organizing boxing matches. Now,
Speaker 1: of course Kopp loves acronym and alphabet soup. So I
Speaker 1: heard that one of the great innovation was something called
Speaker 1: the t F f F, which I probably would rename
Speaker 1: the wt F f F. Is it for real or
Speaker 1: just a few guys with a few bit of budget
Speaker 1: trying to reinvent something.
Speaker 3: The Brazilian government, when they successfully getting the cop wanted
Speaker 3: three things they want. The forest Amazon is absolutely critical here.
Speaker 3: You know, being in the Amazon you can see it,
Speaker 3: and so.
Speaker 2: Their focus is on that.
Speaker 3: The t FFF is about that forests, and you know,
Speaker 3: luders looking for billions to basically monetize valorize tropical rainforests
Speaker 3: so that they survive.
Speaker 2: And I think it's a great thing.
Speaker 3: It's not our personal mission, but you know, they are
Speaker 3: essential for the survival of the planet. The second thing
Speaker 3: is sustainable fuels, which is a rebrand of biofuels. They've
Speaker 3: got a four times pledge on that, again not our thing,
Speaker 3: and the final pieces on the financing there will be
Speaker 3: a cover decision out of COP. So that that's what
Speaker 3: we anticipate, which is good cover text, which should summarize everything.
Speaker 3: What we want to see in there is of course
Speaker 3: the continuation the implementation of the tripling renewables. Do not
Speaker 3: take the put off accelerator on that. That's the quickest, fastest,
Speaker 3: cheapest way to decarbonize. And the second thing we're looking
Speaker 3: for is the grids and storage. Really some action on
Speaker 3: that to follow up with what's been discussed before.
Speaker 1: Well, Bruce, you're in the thick of it. So at
Speaker 1: every coup there's the same question, cop off, flop, Amazon
Speaker 1: or Iceberg? How do you see the result of that cup?
Speaker 2: The cops are not the be all and end all
Speaker 2: for us.
Speaker 3: At a moment in time where a multilaterism comes together
Speaker 3: and they countries have to talk about this, the peer
Speaker 3: pressure it works. I genuinely think it works this particular cop.
Speaker 3: Let's see if it is a flop. I think the
Speaker 3: Brazilians are doing a good job trying to navigate and
Speaker 3: steer this towards success. And again, as I's say, success
Speaker 3: for us looks like continued action on renewables and most
Speaker 3: importantly on grids and storage. You know, we're delivering jobs
Speaker 3: and one stat for you before I leave the job
Speaker 3: increase of renewables. We're adding eight thousand jobs a day
Speaker 3: now and thirty So this is for the politicians that
Speaker 3: say to us, what's in it for me? Are those
Speaker 3: jobs inward investment, growth, security, independence, and affordable clean power.
Speaker 3: You can't argue against that. I don't think it's a
Speaker 3: bad word to be said about renewables anymore. We're winning
Speaker 3: that argument with the policy makers. My concern is been
Speaker 3: wider narrative. The disinformation out of this cop could well be, oh,
Speaker 3: it's a flow, climbings are carn and renewables are scam.
Speaker 3: It's not true. That's what I would think.
Speaker 1: What you're saying is whatever the sign or they agree
Speaker 1: on to phasing, phase out, phase down is irrelevant. We
Speaker 1: are now reach a point of technological maturity and pure
Speaker 1: economics that our side is winning, and the question is
Speaker 1: how fast can we scale? And it's never decided that
Speaker 1: cup is decided that government or oh, investor.
Speaker 3: Level absolutely totally agree with you. The private sex of
Speaker 3: investors and you know, let us do it. I wouldn't
Speaker 3: say it completely unconstrained renewable growth, but let us do
Speaker 3: what we need to do remove some of the barriers.
Speaker 3: I mean the denial, delay, the distraction, and it's really
Speaker 3: that that's the main issue right now.
Speaker 1: Bruce, thank you so much for your action in relation
Speaker 1: to promoting renovableles, and thank you for your report from
Speaker 1: the Cup and we'll talk again next year.
Speaker 3: Treasure Law and preachings from a very hot and sweaty Balain.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Thank you for listening to Redefining Energy.
Speaker 2: Don't forget to rate the show and subscribe on Apple, Podcast, Spotify,
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