The Next Economic Shock Is Coming. Green Energy Is The Only Way Out | Aaron Bastani Meets Tessa Khan

Even if you are a multi-millionaire, our food systems are globally integrated. You know, if there's a drought in Spain or wildfires in Italy, like that's coming for your food supply chain. And actually, food price inflation in the UK has been driven by extreme weather in southern Europe and other places where we're always going to be a net food importer in the UK. Um, so yeah, there's just there is no world in which you can escape the effect of climate change. You know, even if you don't believe in climate change, climate change is coming for you. [music] It's fair to say that here on Downstream, we're on a bit of a roll when it comes to conversations around the climate crisis. In recent weeks, we've had Kevin Anderson and Bill Magcguire, climate scientists, who are very keen to emphasize what's headed our way over the rest of the 21st century. And of course, these are timely conversations because Britain has just endured its driest, warmest summer on record. Nevertheless, it's pretty reassuring that so many of you want to watch and hear these conversations. Today's guest is following in that line of thought, although it's somewhat different. Having established how big the crisis is, it's worth talking about what happens next. Even amongst people who accept the reality of climate change, you'll often hear the retort, "Well, that's all very well and good, but fundamentally I don't want to pay for it." There is, we're told, a bit of a contradiction, attention, in terms of addressing the climate crisis and transitioning beyond fossil fuels and the cost of living. Today's guests couldn't disagree more. They insist that Britain is indeed energy rich. Uh it's just not with oil and gas. It's with wind in the North Sea. The politics of climate change for people seeking public office invariably boil down to costs and opportunities. That's why people vote the way that they do. And my guest today is very very certain of one thing. The opportunities for Britain when it comes to moving beyond oil and gas are immense. Tessa Khan, it's great to have you on Downstream. Welcome to the show. >> Thanks so much. It's great to be here. >> I haven't seen you in person, I think, since 2021. >> Yeah, exactly. In Glasgow. >> And yeah, Glasgow for COP. That's right. >> Was it COP 26? >> It was indeed. >> There are so many I lose track. >> There's one every year apparently, so it's easy to do that. Yeah. >> Are you going to the one the next one? >> No. >> Have you given up on COP? >> No. No. I mean, it has a role to play. I think if you've always been kind of realistic about how much these multilateral processes can actually catalyze national action, which is ultimately what climate change is. It's a challenge that involves every government in the world doing its part. Um then I think you know you kind of accept that it has a role to play. It's not going to be transformative, but it still has value. >> What was the last one? >> The last Brazil. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. >> And Prince William went, I think. >> Did he? >> That's my abiding memory is Prince William and his strides and his moccasins. >> Sounds about right. >> That's that's that's the politics of climate change, isn't it? For >> Exactly. for for sort of liberal and patrician classes. [snorts] >> We're talking today specifically about North Sea oil. >> Yeah. >> Um we've had a run of really great interviews when it comes to climate change in the last few weeks and months. >> I hope not to disappoint. >> You won't disappoint. Um, and I have to be real, when we tried to talk about climate change in the past, it hasn't always got the best numbers. >> People kind of were indifferent or whatever, but this summer's clearly changed a lot. >> Another part of the conversation that's changed is Andy Bernham is now the prime minister, >> right? >> And we have had quite a lot of spin about the Labour government under him opening up this or that site in the North Sea. So for people who are coming fresh to this, they know there is historically oil and gas in the North Sea. >> Yeah. >> That we can get. How much is left in that basin? >> So basically the UK North Sea basin is what's known as an ultra mature basin, which is to say that companies have been drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea since the 1960s. Um production peaked in the late '9s and it's been in decline ever since. And estimates are that roughly 90% of the resource that's recoverable has already come out of the North Sea. Um, and >> that's that's oil and gas or just oil? >> That's oil and gas. And actually what's mostly left at this point, more than 70% of what's left is oil. And so there is actually vanishingly little gas left. Um, and so the idea that the North Sea might be some kind of panacea for the UK's energy security or that we could ever produce volumes that would make a material difference to the price that we pay for oil and gas, which is the thing that's really keeping people up at night and has been for years in this country is completely nonfactual. >> And on the Norwegian side, because obviously Norway is a very wealthy country, it's much smaller population, 5 million people. Is there more oil and gas on their side of the kind of line? Because of course we're we're sharing resources here that are in the North Sea. >> Yeah. Yes. There are a couple of things at play that explain the distinction between the reserves that Norway has access to and what the UK has. Um the first is that there is a difference in the geology between kind of what is on the Norwegian continental shelf and what's in the UK. Norway's got access to the barren sea and basically other parts of the continental shelf that are still relatively productive compared to what the UK has access to. The other thing though crucially is that the way that the oil and gas sector has been managed in both countries has been very different. So Norway has always had a very state-driven approach to extraction and they have managed the depletion of that basin um in a way that has basically managed it for the long term. Whereas in the UK under thatcher primarily uh oil and gas companies, private companies were given license to basically take out as much as they could as quickly as they could which has led to a faster rate of decline of oil and gas in the UK. So there's just been a difference both in geology but also crucially as I said in the role that the state has played and therefore the overall management of those reserves. >> That's really interesting. I didn't know that. So you're saying that production on the British side peaked in the late '9s when of course energy prices were historically low. >> Y >> so if we'd waited a bit longer if we' done it in a more sustained fashion y >> I don't mean sustained as in you know ecologically sustainable but making sure this resource lasts longer >> in the aggregate we actually would have got more money. we well we would have got more money but crucially the fact that you know Norway's got a trillion dollar sovereign wealth fund that's been built off the back of its oil reserves is because they have taxed that industry at a much higher rate historically than the UK has as well and they've invested that. So there are a number of decisions policy decisions that were made in the UK that were pretty different from the way that the Norwegian government approached its oil and gas reserves. Yeah. So, a punter watching this who's, you know, curious about the North Sea, they might have strong opinions about it one way or the other, but they're not, you know, sure about those opinions. They might think we need to drill because it makes sense. The Norwegians do it after all, or they kind of >> understand that it probably is better staying in the ground. They would say, well, hold on. Norway's drilling. They get all the oil and gas out. They are adopting electric vehicles at the highest rate anywhere in the world. They are, you know, transitioning very quickly to a postcarbon economy. Why can't we just do something similar? Bring that remaining oil and gas. There's not much of it, but you know, oil there is a fair bit still. Why can't we bring that into public ownership? Why can't we use the resources from selling that to do the exact same thing? What would your answer to them be? You know, this could pay for wind turbines. It could pay for electrified rail. It could pay for tram systems. that could pay for EV infrastructure. >> Yeah. I mean, the first thing that I would say and you know why I would contest the idea that Norway is like this great global ecoitizen that's doing the right thing for the climate is that the science is crystal clear that if we were to burn the reserves in existing oil and gas fields and those that are planned, we would shoot straight past what scientists and governments have accepted is a threshold for a safe climate. And even that is arguably given what we've already seen in just the last couple of months um an underestimate really of where we should be aiming for in terms of global average temperature rise. So there isn't room for us to add new oil and gas supplies or coal supplies for that matter to existing fossil fuel reserves globally that we can burn if we're going to stay within 1.5 degrees of temperature increase compared to pre-industrial levels. So that is a fact and there is no way that you can reconcile as I said opening up a major new oil field like the Rosebank oil field which is currently on the government's desk um to approve or reject and the Norwegian government is ignoring the science and making decisions that are at odds with the safety for the vast majority of the planet even if it is enriching Norwegian pensioners which it absolutely is in in terms of contributing to their sovereign wealth fund. I think the other thing that I would say is that because the UK's uh part of the North Sea basin is so mature and there is so little left, there is basically just a shrinking tax base that we can tap into to contribute to the UK's coffers. So if you look at the Office for Budget Responsibilities forecasts for what the UK's domestic oil and gas industry could contribute to Treasury in 2030 before um things started kicking off in Iran and oil prices spiked, they were estimating that it would be a.1 billion pound contribution in 2030 from the oil and gas sector. If we have average prices like that is a rounding error as far as the Treasury is concerned. It's not going to pay for anything. It's certainly in the first instance not going to offset the significant amount of pain that ordinary households are facing every time oil and gas prices spike. So this is an industry that now is just making profits for a handful of already very wealthy companies that have again gotten rich off the back of another war the second time in five years. And it's doing so little in the broader public interest. Not to mention the fact that it's also driving climate change. So people watching or listening would hear there's not much left. It's not going to bring much into the coffers. >> So when reforms say we need to drill baby drill >> in the North Sea, >> yeah, >> are they saying that because they aren't apprised of the facts? You know, are they are they under a misunderstanding about actually how much oil and gas is left there or do they know that and they're just playing sort of political rhetorical games? What's your what's your sort of suspicion on that? Well, I >> Sorry to interrupt. Not many people are actually apprised of the fact. >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I'd say if you're, you know, in politics and you're making policy proposals, you have an obligation to be apprised of the fact. So, if we were to be generous, right, I think it you could say that reform UK politicians are under the same misapprehension that lots of people seem to be, which is that a there is a lot of oil and gas left in the North Sea. But, as I said, that's not the case. and the government's own statistics and the oil and gas regulators data backs that up. The second thing I'd say is this idea that it is it is our oil and gas and therefore it's something that we can decide you know goes into British industry or cars or homes as opposed to the reality which is that it belongs to private companies who sell those reserves to whoever will pay the highest price for it on regional and international markets. So even taking the oil that's left in the North Sea, more than 80% of what's produced ends up being exported. So in the middle of, you know, arguably a global oil and gas supply crisis. The idea that the answer to shoring up Britain's energy security is drilling for more North Sea and gas doesn't survive contact with the reality that the companies doing that drilling are private actors. It's not a nationalized industry. They will and they've admitted for example the developers of the Rosebank oil field that that oil will go straight onto a tanker and will be sold onto a regional market. >> So you've said Rosebank a few times. Yeah. >> There are two sites Rosebank and Jack Door which I'm sure some people watching listening will have heard of already or they will do in the months to come. >> Yeah indeed. >> What are Rosebank and Jack and why do they matter? >> So the Rosebank oil field is the largest undeveloped oil field in the UK. It is big. It's about 500 million barrels of oil and gas equivalent um that is up for production and burning those fossil fuels would create emissions that are equivalent to 70% of the UK's annual emissions. So that's pretty substantial. Um and Rosebank is a field that the developers who are um a few companies Ecuinor the Norwegian state-owned oil company who as we've discussed you know basically channels its profits into the pockets of Norwegian pensioners um and their execs uh Shell who people will have heard of um as well as another company called Ithaca which is um a subsidiary company of an Israeli energy company called Delich. So those three companies have tried to develop Rosebank. They had their um proposal to develop the field approved by the Conservative government in 2023. Um uplift my organization and Greenpeace successfully legally challenged that approval on the basis that in deciding to approve the field, the UK government didn't take into account the environmental impact of burning the oil in Rosebank. um which is kind of astonishing given it's an it does an environmental impact assessment didn't take into account the single biggest environmental impact. Anyway, the courts agreed um and so that consent was invalidated and now the developers have redone their kind of environmental assessment and they have put that to the government again um asking for approval. So that's now sat with the UK government. The Jacko gas field is a much smaller field. It is gas as opposed to oil. Um, and it uh is being developed also by Shell. Um, and that has gone through a similar legal process to to Rosebank. And so that's also now up for approval or rejection. >> And how much? So there's primarily gas at Jack Door, not oil. >> Yeah, that's some oil at Jack Door or >> No, it's a gas field. And Rosebank is 90% oil, 10% gas, right? Yeah. So overwhelmingly oil. And do the politics therefore sort of differ across the two sides? Because as I understand it, again, correct me if I'm wrong, when we sell particularly oil on a global market, the more a country produces, it very has basically no impact on domestic prices. It's slightly different with gas. Is that true? >> It doesn't make a difference to domestic prices. No. No. No. The price that we pay for our gas because of the interconnection between our domestic market and our regional market means that those prices are set regionally. So no, we will never produce enough gas to move the needle here in terms of >> prices. The US, right? They say that you have the >> Yeah. And the US is the number one largest oil and gas producer in the world, you know, like they are in a materially completely different position from the UK. Um and so the gas that's produced at Jack Door does uh a larger proportion of the gas that we produce domestically does stay in the UK compared to um the oil that we produce. So that's also arguably a difference between Jack Door and Rosebank. Um but ultimately it doesn't change a the price that we pay for it and b as I said you know neither of those really pass any kind of credible climate test. >> I want to come back to Rosebank and Jack in a minute and contemporary politics which will unfold probably over the next three to six months I guess but you talked about um passing 1.5. >> Yeah. >> Which we kind of already have. I think now with Elino next year people want 1.7. Um, of course 1.5 or higher is down to this strange methodology of 11 years out of 20 years and then you've passed 1.5. Um, where do you think we are going to land? Because we've spoken to a bunch of people recently, very esteemed people in climate science and they're kind of doomers. You know, they're not doom as in saying, "Don't do anything. Everything's pointless." But they're saying realistically, we're looking at warming of at least 2.5 in the decades ahead. Where do you stand on that? >> Uh well, I think, you know, doom is a luxury really. Um my family is in Bangladesh, which is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to the impacts of climate change. Um I think you know 1.5 degrees as a target is a moral responsibility and it was fought for by the countries in the world who are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. So small island states you know countries in the Pacific, countries like Bangladesh, Vietnam and others. Um, and so, you know, I would say that regardless of what the current projections are based on current policies, we have a responsibility to fight like hell to stop every fraction of a degree of warming because every fraction of a degree will make a material difference to the futures of the people in those countries today and to future generations. So, I I mean, I read the science every day. I follow the projections for where global temperature trajectories are going. But I still think that that means that we have a responsibility to fight as hard as we can to address the root cause, which has been crystal clear from the beginning, which is burning fossil fuels. And we are actually now at a point that we've never been before um in human history, which is where we have well in kind of modern human history where we have scalable, affordable, alternative energy sources that are available to us that could maintain a quality of life globally that we've become accustomed to. Arguably, you know, there are major inequities in in obviously the standard of living that people enjoy across the globe, but the alternatives are there. Uh it is a matter of fighting the incumbent industries, which is what I get up and do every day. Uh making the argument publicly and politically that there is so much upside to the alternative. And that to me feels like a winnable fight. >> We've got two events at Navar Media coming up in the next couple of weeks. I'm afraid, however, that one is sold out. That's with Ashra Taylor and Naomi Klein in Brighton. However, there are still some tickets remaining for our event with Katherine Louu uh on the 21st of September. Also, Darren McGarvey, I'll be speaking to him. Uh it's a really really interesting conversation focusing on trauma and how that interconnects with the politics of personal branding in the 21st century. That's on Monday the 21st September. Like I say, some tickets are left. 7 PM at Earth Theater in Hackne. I think it's going to be box office. I have to say, Katherine, you for me is one of the most important thinkers on the left right now. Come and join us to get a ticket. The link is in the description below. I mean, I say that because I've felt this in the last few months, and I think many other people have as well, is that things are going to get very bad very quickly. And not just the countries you've named, Pacific Islands, Bangladesh, but for Northern Europe as well. >> Yeah. >> Um, and there was a a kind of Eureka moment for me. I was speaking, I've said this before, maybe it sounds cliched. I was speaking to my electrician. I was speaking to this electrician in Portsmouth, right? These are the t blueco collar tradesmen. These are the target voters for reform. And he was telling me he's installed air conditioning. Um, and he's installed air conditioning because that's just how it's going to be now. It's summers are always going to be like this now. And I thought, isn't it interesting that this is what people are actually doing? Don't listen to what people say, listen to what they do, how they spend their money. That's that's revealed a preference. Um, and you've got people like Richard Tyson, Nigel Farage saying something rather different. So that was really intriguing for me. But yeah, the deeper I've looked recently, you know, the more I think that we're we're hitting two 2.5 probably the middle of this century. Um, and the consequence of that are going to be really really really hard. And I do actually think particularly after this summer in Britain, lots of people know that. So I'm I'm not saying that when I say dumerism, I'm not saying that to sort of be flippant. Oh, we shouldn't do anything. But I think now there's a there's a sort of change in the zeitgeist a bit where people are probably a bit more favorable to your arguments particularly about the North Sea because they might have said a year ago >> that's great in the long term we should do something. In the short term, no, we actually shouldn't. And I think there's a much more meaningful argument against bringing this stuff out now >> for the majority of the public. I mean, I agree with you last I agree with you. 5 years ago, but you know, not many well, not everybody did. >> Yeah. Sure. >> And do do you find that the the sort of events of the last summer, >> well, since 2023, let's say, that incredible summer when Yeah. >> wasn't just in Britain. We had 49 degrees C in British Columbia in Canada. >> Yeah. >> Has that also changed people's minds in terms of your message? Yeah, I mean it certainly has made it quite clear that climate change isn't some distant threat on the horizon that won't ever touch the middle class in a country like the UK, but that it's coming for all of us. Um, and you know, I think what you know, I I mean, I agree with everything that you've said, and I think the one thing that the last couple of months have made really clear for people, given we've had five heat waves in a row, the hottest summer on record in the UK, the driest July ever um, in the UK, you know, large parts of the country in drought, billions of pounds being compromised in terms of productivity of the farming sector and everything else, not to mention health costs, disruption to schools, transport systems and everything else. I think what that's made clear is that not only do we need to urgently focus on cutting our dependency on fossil fuels, but we've also got to provide for the impacts that we're experiencing now and make sure that people's homes are insulated. You know, that we have systems in place for when the flooding arrives, when the wildfires arrive, when the heat waves arrive, that our infrastructure is resilient to those effects. So, we are now in a world where we've got to do both at once. What's your position on air con? Because for Tyson Farage, they say, "Oh my goodness, you know, the left, they they want degrowth. They want low energy." What do you think about air con? >> Amazing. Amazing what the right can turn into a culture war. >> They believe it. They believe in climate change now, it turns out. >> Yeah, exactly. Um, you know, I like I um don't have air conditioning. I live in a pretty energyefficient flat. Um, I obviously think it's important that people stay cool and especially people who are older, people with health challenges. Uh, I think heat pumps, you know, there are heat pumps that can be reverse cycle that can also be turned into air conditioning. Like air conditioning doesn't have to be um a technology that's super polluting or super energy intensive. So again, you know, as I said, like the tech exists now and that's what we should be focusing on is making that affordable, scaling it, making people's lives better. I did love that pivot over the summer where reform went from saying climate change isn't real to oh we probably should have air conditioning now why should we have air conditioning that's the question that >> you [snorts] should probably be asked you know actually sticking on electoral politics not labor >> but on reform in the conservative party >> of reform and the tries which party and I know you're in the you're in the sort of interest representation business so you're not going to go around slagging off politicians I understand that but which of the two parties has the kind of more wacky position on this stuff Um well I mean [laughter] uh they're I think fighting hard for claiming the crown in that particular race but um I think reform has people like Richard Ty have made statements that are outright climate change denial and I think the Tories are trying to stay on the right side of the science in so far as like recognizing that climate change is a human-driven phenomenon. Um, so that is a bizarre premise from which to start I would say but you know neither party for whatever reason is taking seriously the challenge of addressing climate change. I mean what's even more baffling really is if the conservatives accept that climate change is a problem. Um you know the question then is like so so what are you guys proposing we do to address that? And that's when they currently don't have answers. They're just keen to rip up existing solutions. >> Yeah, I I totally agree. You know, if you're a climate change denier, then of course you don't think we should do net zero. But Kevin Badnock is saying, "No, it's real. 1.5 is probably coming." But >> you know, I'm thinking, "Okay, that's kind of crazy. That's kind of wild." Although what I will say is that the parts of the country that have like re elected reform governments locally >> um they are in the parts of the country that have significant renewable energy industries so like Andrea Jenkins for example or in Hull um and that is also where the moment they're in elected office their position in relation to renewable energy starts to shift quite quickly because they've seen that it is creating jobs in their local constituencies and so having a hard line like a kind of Trumpesque hard line whereby you want to go up ripping up EV infrastructure or you know switch switching off wind turbines like that's just not going to fly if you're genuinely going to try and represent the interests of your local constituency. You talked about the changing technology which is here, right? Um it's already very cheap to generate electricity from PV cells in the south of England for instance. Where does the continued denial of this stuff come from? Because sometimes I'll talk to relatively intelligent people. I have to admit online most of the time, but offline as well. And I'll say, look, my mother-in-law has um solar panels on the roof of her home for six months a year. She doesn't pay any bills for electricity. And by the way, she doesn't even have a battery, right? It's just just during the daytime. They're a bit older, so you know, they don't use much at night. They go to bed quite early, I imagine. Um, but she basically doesn't have electricity bills, you know, and maybe in the autumn she's paying 20 quid a month or something. Why? And I'll say to them, why do you oppose that? And they just they they claim that I'm lying about the economics of photovoltaic cells, but I'm not. I'm saying to you, you know, this is a real thing or or electric vehicles. They'll say, "No, they're not economical." Where do you think that comes from? Is that sunk cost fallacy? because they've said this stuff for 20 years, they'll keep saying it. Or is it because of the the oil and gas lobby or >> Yeah, I think it's all of the above. I mean, there is an incredibly powerful lobby that is pushing a narrative uh about the kind of security, affordability, um and safety of the status quo, namely a fossil fuel-based energy system. So, we really shouldn't underestimate, I think, all of the ways the kind of insidious nature of that narrative that the oil and gas lobby and its proxies are constantly embedding across our media. Um, but you know, I think the other thing is that it is also true that the way that the UK's electricity market is currently structured, you know, the UK has been adding increasing amounts of renewable energy to our electricity mix and people's bills haven't been coming down. Um, and that is because the way that our electricity market currently works, gas sets the price of electricity still the majority of the time. And there are lots of conversations happening about how to restructure that market. But we we basically don't have a system that allows us to feel the benefit of the affordability and how cheap wind energy in particular is in the UK at the moment. So that's a policy problem. So somebody like Liam Halagan >> uh who he tries to pretend he's kind of a just a financial you know journalist he was at GB News and the Telegraph he was also he studied under a guy called Norman Stone >> um and he knew uh Dominick Cummings at university. I think he was even roommates with Dominic Cummings if you want to know about his politics but he's trying I'm just you know I'm just looking at the facts. uh he would say, and there's some truth to this, of course, with intermittency problems with wind and with solar, you're always going to have a certain part of the sort of backbone, which is going to be gas and nuclear. And for as long as that's the case, and you require gas, even if it's for 20 minutes in 24 hours, you don't want blackouts. So, if that if that is true, how would you move away from pricing energy and and sort of pegging it to gas? How could you do that? Would we need more nuclear or do you use hydrogen? What's the proposal there? >> Yeah. Well, so I mean like this is kind of diabolically complicated electricity market uh arrangements that we're talking about. But at the moment gas um sets the price of electricity because it's the kind of last unit that is added to the mix. Um, and even in the last couple of years with the amount of renewable energy that's being added to the grid, gas has gone from setting the price 95% of the time to 85% of the time. So actually, it is possible to bring down the amount of time that gas sets the price of electricity. I think the other thing to say is that >> So he's So he's wrong. >> Yeah, he's definitely. >> So if we got down to say 10% of overall supply from gas, then it would it might still set the price, but like 30%. >> Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. And I mean the other thing to say is that you know places that are really going hell for leather in the addition of renewable energy to their grid um and who are taking this problem really seriously like the state of California um they're now going for periods you know in 24 hours where they're using battery storage which is the thing that people who generally are pro gas don't want to talk about um which is the other way of making sure that you have dispatchable power when it's nighttime or you know when you don't when the wind isn't blowing as much as it otherwise would like there are solutions to this that engineers have been thinking about for ages um and so that's where the conversation needs to go um and it is not going to be the people who I think have interests in defending the incumbent industries who will who are reliable guides to that >> I saw this idea of basically converting um wind and solar into hydroelectric but via turning mountains or hills into batteries. So I thought what a clever idea. So you know when you've got lots of solar and wind >> you have the water going up >> Yeah. >> defying gravity and you know when you need it to go down you know electricity it can go down. That's like so clever. Well, I mean, a dam is like the original battery, you know? It's like this is this is the thing like we there are so many different solutions and a lot of them are really cool, like you know, heating up rocks basically and just then being able to dispatch that heat when you need it. You know, that's a battery. Anything's a battery that can store energy and then release that energy at a later point. So, yeah, we do have an array of different technologies, including really old ones that can serve that function. So on the oil and gas lobby when we hear that labor are considering Rosebank and Jack Door sources say yeah you know at Navar media we try and be relatively assiduous as journalists you know you dig and dig and dig and you speak to some labor people and you speak to some people maybe a government department or something and they say have no idea where this has come from. Yeah, >> but it's in the media. It's in the times in the Telegraph, even sometimes the BBC sources say, >> you talk to Burnham's people maybe or people around, you know, around the periphery of Burnham and they'll say, "No idea." >> Where is this coming from? >> Well, I mean, it's definitely coming from the oil and gas industry. Like, it's in their interests, right, to sort of b to create some momentum behind the idea that these approvals are coming. That gives them an opportunity to ventilate all of their arguments for why these fields should be approved. So I mean I don't have better intel than you do Aaron about you know where the records come from but I what I will say you know as someone who watches what the oil and gas industry lobby does very closely and understands how they operate like they absolutely it is 100% part of their playbook to circulate these kinds of rumors so that this is at the top of the agenda. It's constantly as I said providing them an opportunity to to express their arguments >> and are people like Navar Media and leftists online are we part of the problem? You know, if we do a a sharable on Instagram and we say Andy Burnham is going to are we being played by oil and gas lobbyists, you know, are they bouncing us into bouncing Andy Burnham into doing something because they think, well, these people are saying it anyway, screw it. >> Yeah. Well, look, I mean, if the debate's already happening and you guys are helping to kind provide some space for the counternarrative, then I don't think you're part of the problem. Um, I think it's really important actually to have people, voices, platforms that are challenging the conventional wisdom on this stuff which has been 100% defined over decades by the oil and gas industry that North Sea oil and gas is what will give us energy security. It will bring down your bills. It will create jobs. All of which can be challenged and there is an empirical basis for challenging all of that. So, no, I would be delighted for you guys to keep talking about this stuff. I suppose basically my my sort of thinking here is and it's particularly salient now that we have a party to the left of the Labour party with members of parliament. Yeah. >> You know someone like Zach Palansky there is a political electoral upside to say look sources say Andy Bernham is going to open up Rose Bank and Jack door and that's exactly what the oil and gas lobby want to happen. Um, and I wonder, you know, because we're so used to two party politics, this is a this is a new way of of having to navigate these these things. And I I think that, >> you know, sometimes we can be a little bit naive as to how we're being played on this stuff because it does seem to me, tell me if I'm wrong, because you are so um well-versed in how these people operate. >> Everything is an opportunity for them. Every a new leader, somebody resigns, somebody comes in, droughts, floods, anything is an opportunity for these people. they'll try and switch it to their advantage. >> Yeah. Yeah. I think that's right. And I mean the other thing I would say is that because of the historical narrative and favorable political attitude towards North Sea oil and gas. It suits the oil and gas lobby to keep the conversation around climate change tied to North Sea oil and gas as opposed to all of the other things that we could be doing to address climate change and get fossil fuels out of our system that don't have as simplistic a narrative attached to them in terms of jobs and everything else. You know, it's like they don't want to talk about the fact that you can buy balcony, you you can buy solar panels for your balcony at little now, you know, and and you know, like your relatives are doing, bring down your electricity bills that way. They, you know, they don't want to talk about the solutions. They want to talk about the big things that they think they have a narrative hold over like new oil and gas fields. And I mean, the truth is that they're wrong about that. But it does suit them, I think, to keep the conversation there. So, somebody who's not necessarily favorable to to to you to the cause of climate change, let's say, my abstract reform listener. >> I was speaking to somebody actually a very right-wing publication the other day. They said, "Darstream is my favorite YouTube interview show." There you go. That's fabulous. Good. Um, they might say, "Tessa, you've convinced me on everything." I agree. I'm a convert to Uplift, but the reality is we're only 1% of global CO2 emissions. >> China is huge. Russia is huge. the US is huge. >> Why should we bother? >> Yes, they do often say that. Um, so I would say a couple of things. The first is that uh well actually I'm going to say three things. The first is that the UK may only be about 1% of global emissions today. But if you take into account its historic emissions as the country where the industrial revolution started, it is within the top 10 countries globally in terms of its contribution to the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Like over the last 200 years, the UK has benefited in an extraordinary fashion from the burning of fossil fuels. So arguably there's some responsibility that comes from that. The second thing is that climate change is overwhelmingly a problem of small countries that contribute less than 2% of the problem to the global total. And if every country had the attitude that we're too small to make a difference to that, we would be in deep trouble and all of our climate targets would slip out of reach. And the final thing that I would say is that the UK is in an exceptional position. And I say this as someone who's been to these UN climate summits that we were discussing earlier, but the UK still punches above its weight diplomatically and countries really pay attention to what the UK does as you know a country with historical responsibility as a rich country as a country with an outsized global diplomatic presence. You can bet that if the UK and when the UK has reversed course on addressing climate change, the Indonesian delegation at these talks or the Nigerian delegation will be like, well, how the hell you expect us to do something about this if a G7 economy isn't prepared to take this seriously. So, there are at least three reasons I would say for the UK to take its responsibility seriously. >> I don't know about you, but this summer for me was a huge wakeup call. I've always taken climate change very seriously, but this is no longer something we need to talk about in the future tense. It's here, including in wealthier countries like the UK. As a result, we've spoken to some great guests on the topic. Kevin Anderson, Bill Magcguire, big numbers, big audiences for fundamentally the big challenge of our lifetimes. If you want to support those kinds of conversations, that kind of content, getting a discourse out there, which fundamentally is just not existent when it comes to legacy media, why not support our work? So important. One pound a month can make such a difference for us here at Navara Media. It can be more of course, but just a little bit really helps. If you think that makes sense, then go to navar.media/support. Help us build a new media for different politics. help us build a media that is serious about deep meaningful conversations about the future of climate systems breakdown. It's interesting, isn't it? Because the right are often saying on the one hand Britain is an exceptional country is a great country, but then at the same time it's like we've got no agency. We can't change anything. >> Global Britain or not, you know, like which one is it, guys? >> They want NPC Britain. It turns out in Dominick Cummings speak, which means no non-player character. >> Yes, indeed. >> Um, >> what does Uplift do? You've said your your organization is Uplift. What when did it start and what's its mission? >> So I started Uplift in 2021. Um and the impetus for doing that was a couple of things. The first was recognizing that um the problem of climate change is a problem of burning fossil fuels and the power of the fossil fuel industry in deploying a whole suite of tactics to slow down our transition towards cleaner forms of energy. Um, and that the UK is in a pretty remarkable position in that it is both a major oil and gas producing country, but it's also a country that has huge opportunities to transition away from oil and gas. Um, because we have one of the best offshore wind resources in the world. Um, and so if any country in the world, and we desperately need countries to start doing this, particularly rich countries, um, to show that these transitions are possible and that they can be done in a way that creates jobs, that creates prosperity for communities that were previously tied to oil and gas. Um, and so Uplift exists to basically support that transition, to try and make sure that it's aligned with the trajectory we need to stay within safe climate limits, but also to show that we can do that transition in a way that does look after workers, that looks after local communities in places like Abedine, where the oil and gas industry is based. And then crucially, you know, Uplift functions, you know, we produce a lot of research and policy analysis to counter the huge amount of material and narrative that comes out of the oil and gas industry lobby, which is otherwise constantly defining the terms of the political and public debate. >> So, you're kind of lobbyists. You're lobbyist, but for the truth. >> We're lobbyists for the public interest. >> For the public interest >> is what I would say. Yeah. I mean, that's sort of the difference between advocating for what's in the interests of BP or Shell versus what's in the interests of all of the communities that have lived through five successive years. >> You're like Jean Jacqu Rouso meets a lobbyist, right? The general will is that uh you know the public good rather than the particular wills of Shell and BP. So, how did you find yourself in this >> job in this position? How did you get involved in the climate movement and then find yourself after 2021 in uplift? Because most people associate climate activism with being on the streets, with yelling, >> "Hands up, I've done it." With shouting, with direct action. >> Yeah. >> At this point in time, you've gone down a different route. Tell me about that journey. >> Well, um, I mean, in terms of how I got here, I started my career as a lawyer. I worked as a human rights lawyer internationally for several years and sort of clocked more than 10 years ago. um that climate change and I was living in Southeast Asia at the time that you know if you care about human rights and you care about economic justice which were the things that I was working on at the time that climate change is the thing that will undo all of the progress that has been made particularly in countries in the global south because of their kind of correlation with vulnerability to the impacts of climate change. Um, and so it just seemed totally logical to focus on climate change, which I did. And I spent several years um, doing that using legal tactics. I co-founded an organization that basically supported people to bring litigation against national governments that weren't moving fast enough in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And we, you know, won some pretty high-profile cases. After doing that for five years, I was like, it's very useful to have courts involved and you know, it's governments have legal obligations to protect the public from the impacts of climate change and it's helpful to have courts as a sort of neutral arbiter of this stuff like surface what the facts are um and hold the fossil fuel industry accountable and governments accountable. But clearly we need more ambition, more ways of addressing the lock that the oil and gas industry in particular has on the media, the political realm, the narrative generally and the sort of public consciousness. And so, as I said, I thought what would be really helpful is if a country like the UK showed the rest of the world that you could move away from oil and gas and do it contrary to what the industry would have you believe in a way that creates economic upside and prosperity and and you know really like long-term livelihoods for people who work in that industry. H we could talk more about the economic upside because there was a great article in the uh Financial Times a couple of years ago now >> and it said what if solar energy is so abundant we can't make money from it you know and I thought this is really because obviously it's it's deflationary right it's it's getting cheaper every year so it's very hard to profit from a def a deflationary good >> and this is something that's been ellighted on by um Brett Christophers has that book the price is wrong saying that just because a just because you have a good or you know a commodity which is getting cheaper and cheaper that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be reflected in prices because ultimately people also have to profit from it within a market system. >> Yeah. >> So how do you how do you circumvent that? So just to be clear >> the costs of producing electricity from solar and wind could get cheaper for the rest of our lives but because we live in a for-profit energy model >> y >> that can't work right. Somebody has to make profit for that energy to be generated because >> it's a for-profit model. It's a market system. >> Yeah. So how how do you envisionage that working in the long term? You you would bring all energy into public ownership. >> We are certainly in favor of the government having a much bigger stake in renewable energy generation and I think that's exactly where the debate is in the parts of the country where most renewable energy is being generated. So in Scotland for example which is you know we have a fifth of global offshore wind capacity. Um there are 50 wind farms like massive amounts of renewable energy being generated off the Scottish coast in particular and Scotland is seeing very little benefit in terms of uh the contribution to government coffers and that is because those those are private companies or often they're stateowned companies but it's the Irish stateowned company or the French stateowned company um who have stakes in those projects. So we're supporting a campaign in Scotland called our power which is actually calling for the government to take a stake in offshore wind projects and also when it comes to smaller onshore renewable energy projects of which there are also hundreds across the country that communities get an option for municipal ownership or local ownership but that there is that that profit motive is increasingly diminished within the system. so that the benefits of that incredibly cheap abundant energy flow directly to us and we don't have to worry about the fact that it's not making enough money for someone upstream. >> That point about public ownership but by other countries, it it does make me laugh. You know, when we had a privatized rail system in this country, people say, "Well, public ownership of trains doesn't work." And I'm saying, "Well, you're you know, you're using publicly owned trains. It's just not by this country." >> Yeah. >> Exactly. >> In terms of the wind turbine, so yeah, obviously we're in the North Atlantic. We're gonna get lots of solar. I don't like this idea that, oh, because it's a cold country, we're not going to get solar energy. >> Yeah. >> Um, >> photosynthesis a is a is a is a chemical reaction powered by the sun. You might have noticed there lots of grass and trees in Britain, but primarily renewable electricity here is going to come from wind. >> Yeah. >> How much of the supply chain in terms of wind turbines etc are actually built here in the UK? >> A tiny fraction. And that is a huge problem actually. And that's been I mean a big focus of our work is trying to remedy this. And we work with trade unions and other partners um across the country on this problem. But the reason that the UK hasn't benefited from a massive jobs boom despite all of this renewable energy infrastructure that it's creating is because we import the vast majority of the kit that we use to build and operate our offshore wind farms. So only I think a third of your average wind turbine comprises components that were built in the UK. So >> and where is that still is it Vestus in the aisle of white or is that is that shut down as well or >> uh that's building that domestically. Do you know what the sites are or? >> Yeah, there are a couple of sites across across the country in Scotland um as well as in the aisle of white. But yeah, we have we have missed out on a huge opportunity by not incentivizing more of that domestic production to happen and manufacturing to happen here. And I think that there is still an opportunity for the UK to actually build a manufacturing base because it's the same supply chains that support the oil and gas industry that can support offshore wind. I mean and again this is kind of exactly the opportunity that I was alluding to before when I set up Uplift. I was like you there is a 90% overlap in terms of the skills that are exist in the oil and gas workforce and the offshore wind workforce the supply chains you know whether they're >> developing vessels or logistics or subc cables like all of that stuff you can pivot to offshore wind. We have the expertise, the engineering, the capacity, the universities to develop a manufacturing base here for offshore wind. But because the there's never been industrial policy that thinks about that as being an outcome that would serve the public interest or would help regional economic diversification or development. You know, I mean, none of that has been a priority obviously under the Tories in particular. Um, but I would say that in the last couple of years, the Labor government has started taking that stuff more seriously. And hopefully if Bernham's serious about his re-industrialization agenda and regional inequality, then he will have to see that that is the only way in which you actually make the most of the huge amount of wealth that's being generated by offshore wind developers in this country, but for their for their own pockets. >> It does feel like if you're serious about growth in every postcode, that's a big part of it, right? >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I mean, it's one of the few areas in which the UK has competitive advantage. Like the stuff that make the North Sea an amazing place for oil and gas. Like it's shallow, it's accessible, it all really good for offshore wind as well. It's obviously very windy. Um, and so the government has started doing things like a bit like in the US under the inflation reduction act, you know, they've started introducing financial incentives for companies that bid to develop offshore wind farms in the UK. they get basically financial incentives to create their supply chains here and their manufacturing bases here. And so that's already something that is that is attracting investment that will create thousands more jobs. We just need to do way more of it faster at a larger scale and with more public investment behind it. >> So right now where do most the wind turbines come from? I think 90% globally of PV solar cells come from China. Yeah. Is it the same with wind? >> Yeah, I mean the Chinese manufacture a chunk. The Germans manufacture a chunk. the Danes do as well. Um, so yeah, that it like now is the moment to establish some kind of competitive advantage in that race or we will lose that the way that the Chinese are kind of leaping ahead in relation to other renewable tech. >> And would you would you say to somebody who says, well, look, you're you're saying that energy security goes hand inhand with renewables, right? Yeah. more lithium-ion batteries, more wind turbines, more solar cells. A really informed skeptic, which is not many skeptics of this stuff, might say, "Well, hold on. Yes, it's true that if we want oil and gas, generally speaking, we have to be integrated into global supply chains that expose us to Russia and West Asia. >> But equally, if we get really into renewables, we're exposed to supply chain choke points potentially in Congo, in China." Yeah, >> fundamentally the argument about energy security is a bit of a misnomer. >> Yeah. >> What do you say to that? >> Well, I mean I >> if the Chinese want to stop exporting this stuff to us, we're screwed. >> Yeah. Well, I absolutely agree that we really need to diversify our supply chains and so that's part of what this is about. You know, I mean there is like lithium and Cornwall or you know, as I said, we could be manufacturing some of this stuff domestically. So, it absolutely should be a goal of our industrial policy to diversify those supply chains to circumvent choke points. But you know what I would say is that there is just no world in which even if all of all critical mineral production, all renewable tech production was concentrated in five countries, would it be comparable to the chokehold that you know a handful of Gulf States has over fossil fuel supplies? And that is because once you buy a solar panel, you're good for 20 years, you know, and so whereas once you burn a barrel of oil or gas, you have to buy another one the next day. And so you are constantly at the mercy of these global markets. Whereas with renewable energy tech, you know, yes, you absolutely do need to invest quite a lot initially in the capital kind of construction of the technology, but the input after that is free and [clears throat] forever. Um, and you know, I mean, I think the other thing to keep in mind is that the the minerals within these technologies, again, unlike fossil fuels, which you just burn, which I just think within decades, we're just going to think it's so primitive that that is how we got our energy is just burning stuff. But unlike, you know, renewable energy tech, you can recover the core critical components of those technologies, whether that's lithium or copper, and you can recycle them. And we are way behind where we should be in terms of recycling facilities for those minerals and inputs in Europe. But theoretically there is a world in which you can continue recycling them almost to a point of circularity. And there are lots of people who are working on that. But you can ultimately decrease the amount that you have to mine this stuff and get it out of the ground. There's a great statistic about the sun >> which really blows my mind which is that in our solar system 99.7% of all mass in our solar system is the sun. >> Yeah. >> That's how big it is and that's pure energy. >> Y >> and you think wow like you say it's so primitive to be >> digging up. >> Yeah. Yeah. The other great line about the sun that um Bill McKibben, the climate activist, said recently was, you know, the sun has to travel 90 million miles to get to Earth and not a single one of those is through the straight of Hormuz, you know. >> So that's like just the advantages are manifold. >> Yeah. Do you ever get climate anxiety? You know, you seem quite a happy person. Um but most people in this space be the effect of being on this podcast. >> Exactly. You know, makes a change, doesn't it? Leave the office. Um, do you feel climate anxiety? Somebody often who is this surprised the facts, you're looking at the data all the time, etc. It can be quite overwhelming. It's something I often find with younger people. >> Yeah. >> But maybe that's because, you know, I don't know. Maybe they they haven't yet developed the skills to to deal with this stuff. I don't know. Or it could be that because they're going to live longer than you and me, they feel that they'll, you know, live the experience in a different way. >> Yeah. >> Do you get anxiety from this stuff? Um I mean I feel deeply concerned about it. Um but that doesn't manifest in a way that it it it for me that's fuel for action actually. And I think you know I mean and this is something that lots of people in our movement say but you know action generates hope. You know there is nothing worse than the feeling of pacivity. And so the more that you work on this stuff and I guess in our work we are every day identifying who is standing in the way of this transition and it's clear that the transition is possible. As I said we know what that world looks like. We know that it's possible and so I feel pretty motivated um and pretty annoyed by the bad faith of the people who are standing in the way. I feel pretty motivated to do the work. Well, Bill Maguire spoke to us recently and he said, "I don't understand these fossil fuel CEOs because they have kids and grandkids." Yeah. And some of them know that they're creating a completely uninhabitable planet for their for their descendants. It's quite an extraordinary thought when you think about it, isn't it? >> Yeah. I mean, I guess they think and actually I think maybe this is one useful outcome of what's happened across Europe in the last few months is that people especially I think if you're privileged imagine that they will somehow be insulated from the effects of climate change that they'll be able to constantly kind of dodge whatever's coming next and and that maybe that culminates in buying a bunker in New Zealand but you know if you're CEO of a fossil fuel company presumably you think you'll be one of the last guys who doesn't have to deal with the problem. >> Yeah. I think often on the left as well, we try and censor the people who are most at risk. So we talk about people in the global south. We talk about, you know, the very poorest people, people living less than two, three, four, $5 a day. >> But often when I see stuff like the California wildfires, I say no, we should send to the rich. Actually, let's center the center to the experience of multi-millionaires and even billionaires who are having to flee their homes because of >> climate related climate change related extreme weather events. Yeah. >> Because actually, like you say, >> your wealth doesn't protect you. >> No. >> Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And I think that's the other thing that is becoming increasingly clear even in the UK that um even if you are a multi-millionaire, our food systems are globally integrated. you know, if there's a drought in Spain or wildfires in Italy, like that's coming for your food supply chain. And actually, food price inflation in the UK has been driven by extreme weather in southern Europe and other places where we're always going to be a net food importer in the UK. Um, so yeah, there's just there is no world in which you can escape the effects of climate change. You know, even if you don't believe in climate change, climate change is coming for you. Yeah, it definitely is. I think 2026 will be a year where a lot of people switched on this stuff. You know, quite affluent uh waitro shopping people in the home counties are taking it very seriously, but not for ideological reasons, you know, not because they agree or disagree with this or that movement because the empirical reality is increasingly obvious. So, as somebody in the space who's a lawyer, who is interested in the policym process in using legal institutions, etc. What's your view on organizations like just up oil for instance who engage in direct action to uh garner attention or to highlight an issue? >> Yeah. >> Do you think sometimes they take things too far? Are there diminishing returns on that kind of activism? Should there be more of it? So I I mean what I find kind of interesting is the extent to which and maybe you know the only thing I find challenging about um some of the higher profile actions that people take is the way that it kind of obscures actually the very diverse movement of people who oppose new oil and gas fields in the UK. So yeah, just up oil obviously does and that's what motivates their tactics, but you you know the the general secretary of unison came out recently and said that the government shouldn't approve Rosebank. There are churches that have said the same. The British Medical Association said the same recently. You know, we work with parents groups. We work with musicians. Just there is a hugely diverse group of people across the public of all kinds of demographics who all get the science and understand that it is lunacy to approve a field like Rosebank. And I think the challenge is just that um you know organizations that block roads are the ones that tend to get all of the media attention and they're the ones that are obviously like a red rag to a bull for some of the right-wing press when as I said it is very mainstream actually to want to oppose an oil field. And there was a petition that went into number 10 um under Kiama that was signed on behalf of a million people across the British public who don't want Rosem to be approved for example. >> Do you think it actually hinders the cause for it to be code as radical? >> Uh yeah, in so far as it's not radical, it's like deeply kind of conventional science to think that you shouldn't be adding new fossil fuels to global fossil fuel supply. So yeah, I think that's unhelpful if if it just somehow characterizes the underlying position as extreme because it's, as I said, deeply rooted in a mainstream peer-reviewed position that's been validated by, you know, hundreds, if not thousands of peer-reviewed and academic articles and and studies. >> But it's also politics that's informed by caution, right? You know, we're we're worried that, okay, well, maybe we only get 1.5 degrees warming and that's still bad, but it's manageable. But if we reach three or four degrees and that's you know that's >> civilizationally challenging. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> That to me is almost a a small C conservative position which is well hold on we should be more cautious in terms of how we allocate resources to stop that from happening. The the idea that that's a radical position. I think we've just completely inverted the meaning of the words. >> Oh yeah. Also, you know, I mean I think the thing is that as others have said there are no non-radical futures left at this point. Like either you're dealing with a two and a half or three degree world if we just continue with business as usual which is you know what people are calling for if they think it's too radical to take climate change seriously or we do engage in the biggest material transition of our economy that's happened in modern human history which is shifting away from fossil fuels. So either way something's going to change. Um and so the idea that you can maintain a conservative position and just continue with business as usual and everything's fine is I think yeah completely misconceived. >> What do you make of the Greens? Because obviously as a political variable they won four MPs in the 2024 general election. But I think you know it's really in the last year 18 months that they've become a a major national political force winning a bi-election for instance May local elections. They control >> I think nine local authorities nationally now, maybe more. >> Yeah. >> Have they helped the conversation on this stuff or you I'm curious about this because as I said earlier on >> this is what politicians do of course they they try and criticize their opponents. >> So if Labor doing something good the Greens can say well actually it's not good enough. And >> where do you sit on that? >> Yeah >> because the worst thing you want is for them all to be the same because I feel like that sentiment is what's feeding reform right now. >> Yeah. Well, I mean, I don't think I think the Greens have been pretty robust on this stuff. Um, I think just today actually, there was a letter sent to number 10 on behalf of um Green MPs and peers and the co-leaders or the leader leadership um saying that the government shouldn't approve New England gasfield. So, you know, I think their position is principled on this. And I guess, you know, there's been this narrative that the Green's popularity has coincided with them shifting away from centering climate and environmental issues, but I don't know, the clue's in the name, you know, like they are still a party that is fundamentally committed to ecological sustainability. And every time they get asked about this stuff, their position is science aligned and and really robust, as I said. So I think it's extremely important to have a party that is committed you know from a first principles basis to this as being a core part of their agenda and it it dovetales with a time when you know as we've been saying acting on this agenda also delivers all of the other outcomes that you want in terms of cheaper energy cleaner streets like jobs in the parts of the country that need them a re-industrialization agenda like that is all coming from the same place now. >> So, do you think because we've obviously got a bi-election coming up in Herban and St. Pancress? >> Yeah. >> Um I I live in a different part of the the country, but it sounds to me like you think it makes sense to have a Labor, if there is a Labor government, which is going to be clear to next general election, it's helpful for the Green Movement to have a party trying at least to outflank them on these kinds of issues to push them in a positive direction. Is that is that kind of congruent with your theory of change on this stuff? Yeah, I mean absolutely important to have a like a party that is creating political accountability for sure and that is what the Green Party seems to be doing on this. >> That's a great way of phrasing it. I haven't heard that but that's true, right? That's true. >> Yeah. And that's I guess and that that is reflective of my perspective which is that we just need accountability. You know, I was previously interested in legal accountability. Now I'm interested in public accountability. It's like these the government has a duty, a responsibility to put the public interest first, to not prioritize oil and gas company profits, to be honest about, you know, what is going to deliver prosperity in the long term and what won't. And so having someone constantly asking them like why it is that they might put the interests of an oil and gas company over the British public is super important. M I saw a great talk from you on YouTube where you compared what we need to do to the shift in the 1960s away from using coal to generate electricity to to to gas. >> Yeah. >> Explain that to me because it sounds like you think there's a historical template we might look to. >> Yeah. Well, it's just that I think, you know, people often find the idea of transitioning away from fossil fuels to just be at a scale that seems impossible and technically too daunting from a policy perspective, too daunting. Like when have we ever as a country, you know, done something like transition the material basis of our economy? And I guess the point that I was trying to make in that talk is that after actually ironically we started ex tapping the North Sea for oil and gas, it became clear that we had this at the time in the 1960s abundant gas reserve on our doorstep. And so instead of generating gas from coal, which is how most people were heating their homes, that we should switch all of our infrastructure over to generate gas to use natural gas, so-called natural gas from the North Sea. And so in the course of a decade we basically you know retrofitted 30 million appliances created whole transmission networks and a distribution grid and did that because the government basically saw that it was cheaper in cleaner in the public interest an opportunity and they just kind of got on with it and they did it in relatively short order and that's exactly the kind of project that we need to undertake now which is unfortunately that's now led to our dependency on gas, which is what is sending up the cost of people's home heating, you know, shooting up electricity bills. So now we've got to do exactly the same thing but with renewable energy. And again, we're in this amazing position where we have tons of it and it's really cheap. >> Why do you think there's such a lack of imagination with many people actually about this stuff because like you said, it's happened before many times. You you go to >> the vast majority of the country will walk past house with chimneys, right? Yeah. And people used to have to sit around a fire to stay warm, you know, within living memory for some people who are still alive. we didn't have cars. So why is it why is it so hard to imagine the world that you're describing for some people do you think? >> I think it has a lot to do with the fossil fuel lobby and the ways in which they are constantly trying to hold back change. I mean I know I sound like a broken record on this stuff but I really do think that they are in the ear of policy makers. They are talking to journalists. they are constantly foregrounding short-term costs, you know, which we would describe as investments um over all of the medium to long-term benefits that are yielded by a change in that technology. And I think they have just so successfully managed to obscure all of the costs of the status quo. All that people talk about is the cost of changing. And what they don't talk about is the cost of what we currently have, which has been, you know, since Russia invaded Ukraine and wholesale gas prices increased tenfold. The government had to spend60 billion pounds supporting household energy bills. You know, the status quo cost a shitload of money and we've just seen a similar crisis happening with what's happening in Iran and West Asia. Like this is half of the recessions that the UK has experienced since the 1970s have been related to fossil fuel price shocks. This is not a cost-free system and that's to say nothing of climate change, air pollution, all of the other ways in which our dependency on fossil fuels is costing us, degrading our environment, you know, making our health worse. So, that I think is just a rhetorical and narrative slide of hand that the oil and gas industry has pulled off that is a major block to us actually moving forward on this stuff. >> Um, you just said a statistic there which is extraordinary and I've got it down in my notes here. half of British recession since 1970 caused by fossil fuel energy price shocks. >> Mhm. >> That's crazy. >> It is crazy. >> And we would have had one of course with Liz Trust if there hadn't been this massive intervention by the state. >> Yeah. Yeah. And that's why, you know, the climate change committee, which are the government's sort of independent advisers on climate change, they've made it clear that the cost of getting to net zero by 2050, you know, which is the goal that everybody talks about as needing to be achieved if you want to take climate change seriously, that now costs less than the cost of one more Ukraine style fossil fuel price shock. like between the tens of billions of pounds that the government had to spend supporting household energy bills, the tens of billions of pounds that households and businesses had to pick up anyway because they still had unaffordable energy bills. Like this stuff is just sending us broke and that is what is holding back. If you, you know, talk to businesses, it's what's stopping industrial development. It's what's keeping people up at night because they are worried about the winter and being able to turn their heating on. like it is genuinely a major drag on the quality of life here and I would say you know our economic prospects more broadly. >> I'll add one more thing. So you're saying that one of the reasons why people struggle to imagine the shift that's required even though we've gone through multiple shifts in the past. There's that great quote isn't there by Henry Ford. If I gave consumers what they wanted they would have had a faster horse and cart rather than of course the Ford Model T in a car. Uh but we've had these transitions many many times and it's unimaginable for so many people today and yes I agree with you part of that is uh oil and gas lobby part of it is media ownership but I also wonder Tessa is it a function of an older society you know we now have in this country a median age of something like 41 42 >> you know I think a society where the median age is 24 25 >> just has a whole different outlook on the world and I'm not saying it's better or worse you know an older society is probably less prone to violence >> yeah It's got more wisdom in that regard. But in terms of having oomph and optimism and courage for the future, I think it makes a big difference. There's one statistic that really sticks in my mind. So I think in 1968 when Manchester United were the first English club to a European Cup, the average age of a season ticket holder in the Stretford End was 17. Can you imagine the Stretford End and today you go to Stretford End Old Trafford? >> I don't mean to be horrible. I'm 42, but it's people in their 40s, their 50s, their 60s, and yeah, occasionally kids and grandkids. And that to me is a >> a profound shift which I think >> progressives have really struggled to come to terms with. The politics of hope, the politics of transformation, the politics of optimism are much harder to sell to an older population. >> Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I mean, they've got less to gain in really, I think, clear terms. Um there there's a book recently written about gerontocracy in the US I think and about the fact that that's actually the political phenomenon we need to talk about as much as the influence of extreme wealth on our politics but you know the influence of demographics. I mean I haven't really thought about it in the context of the UK but there's no question that younger generations unborn generations have the most skin in the game in terms of ensuring that we have a habitable planet. Although I would say that, you know, if you're a retiree that lives in the south of Spain um on the in the Costadel Soul, uh you probably also don't want the Mediterranean to be 100° and wildfires lapping at your door. Like this is as I said now a problem for everybody regardless of how old you are. >> I think those are real conversations. Well, I'm not saying I think they are real conversations, aren't they? I was speaking to my wife the other day and she was saying a friend of hers wants to move to Spain and I thought, >> yeah, >> I wouldn't do that. >> Yeah, exactly. You know, I would rather do the Mil Bill Magcguire thing. Go to the Peak District 1 a thousand feet above sea level and get an acre of land. I mean, again, to be clear, that's not an option for everybody. Yeah. >> But it's more um certainly more future proof. >> Yeah. Well, no. I mean, I think it's a genuine current crisis for southern European economies that the tourist season is just changing. You know, you you'd be crazy to go to some parts of southern Europe now in July or August. It's like the temperatures are unbearable and the wildfire risk and the you know drought and everything else that we've seen year on year. I think people are now like, "Oh, maybe we should be going to Northern Sweden, you know, in August rather than, as I said, the Costadel Soul, >> Scotland. That'll be the big summer break." >> Yeah, absolutely. Yes. Lower carbon footprint and great. So, >> or sunny Bournemouth if you if you really want to baking temperatures on the sun, go to Bournemouth. Um, my last question, it's about Andy Burnham. We've just seen a bit of a bit of a historic break in terms of foreign policy um with Israel Palestine. Yeah. Now, I don't think it's gone far enough, but basically, our government's doing something it should have done in 1967. >> Yeah. >> Um, but it's still a big rupture in terms of how the UK does foreign policy. It's very much a middle powers foreign policy shift away from America. So, it it's quite clear that this government is capable of not necessarily radical things, but certainly different things. If you had the the ear of Andy Burnham, what would you say to him as somebody who wants to transition our economy away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible? Um I would say that uh first of all that the sort of spectre of more oil and gas production in the UK is a distraction from the need to focus minds on the opportunity that we have but it's a kind of window that is closing to really take advantage of the potential to develop a thriving domestic renewable energy industry in the UK. So the North Sea oil and gas stuff is a distraction. Um, if you really care about jobs, if you care about leveling up the parts of the country that have been left behind, if you care about thriving regional economies in the north, then you need to get on with the job of incentivizing domestic manufacturing. We need to support the workforce in not just the oil and gas industry, but all of the downstream sectors that rely on fossil fuels in the UK. So whether that's refining or petrochemicals, even steel manufacturing, you know, automotive manufacturing, all of these sectors have a limited future already because they're uncompetitive for reasons that have nothing to do with climate change. But if you make a deliberate decision to move away from oil and gas, you know, you've got to start taking very seriously what comes next for those communities. And that the time is now to come up with a plan, make sure that the communities are the ones that are driving that plan, back that up with investment, take industrial policy seriously, and make sure that unlike oil and gas, we actually get the benefit of the huge amount of wealth that is being created in those industries. >> Tessa Khan, it all sounds such common sense. Uh, thanks for joining us on Downstream. >> It's been a pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.