# The Turning Point: What's Next for Guyana?

An episode of [Drilled](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1439735906), 2 May 2023, 36 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/SxlTEPDY7xDg35RXkASs/pdrl.fm/3e5572/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/9a7ab5ee-ce11-48ff-a544-b3ec00ea9b1e/530c7270-9fd8-457c-907c-b3ec00f0289a/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=7f82f371-6316-4ea6-a108-b3ec00ea9b2d

Will Guyana become the fossil fuel industry's newest profit center or can it chart a different path? In the last episode of our "Light, Sweet Crude" season we look at what's next for Guyana, and for other Global South countries grappling with poverty and climate change at the same time. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:04] Speaker 1: In twenty twenty three, Guyana's vice president, Baratcha Gayo was
[0:08] Speaker 1: asked to speak at the oil and gas industry's biggest
[0:11] Speaker 1: annual conference, Cambridge Energy Research Associates Executive Conference. It's put
[0:17] Speaker 1: on by S and P Global and everyone calls it
[0:20] Speaker 1: Sarah week at.
[0:21] Speaker 2: It's my understanding, this is the fastest offshore oil development
[0:25] Speaker 2: in history.
[0:26] Speaker 3: How did it happen?
[0:28] Speaker 2: Well, we support that vision, a fast baced development of
[0:34] Speaker 2: the resources offshore, particularly in the context of net zero.
[0:38] Speaker 2: We believe it's a wide strategy to do as much
[0:42] Speaker 2: exploration as possible, now prove the resources, and then have
[0:47] Speaker 2: them removed and transfer into financial assets that in the
[0:52] Speaker 2: future can serve to transform the country.
[0:56] Speaker 1: Particularly in the context of net zero. Let's get fat
[1:00] Speaker 1: oil out and sold as quickly as possible. Net zero
[1:08] Speaker 1: was meant to be a goal for companies and governments
[1:10] Speaker 1: to work towards in emissions reduction target, not an incentive
[1:15] Speaker 1: too fast track oil and gas production. But Jagdeo is
[1:20] Speaker 1: putting into plane words there what the fossil fuel industry's
[1:23] Speaker 1: approach to net zero has been all along, despite a
[1:27] Speaker 1: whole lot of slickly produced ads to the contrary get
[1:31] Speaker 1: as much oil out of the ground and sold before
[1:34] Speaker 1: it's too late.
[1:36] Speaker 4: Ghana is emblematic of what we are seeing in countries
[1:44] Speaker 4: around the world. It's emblematic this broader wave of extractive
[1:49] Speaker 4: colonialism that is playing out in frontier countries across the
[1:53] Speaker 4: global South.
[1:55] Speaker 1: Carol Muffett, President and CEO of the Center for International
[1:59] Speaker 1: Environmental Law, has worked with Melinda Jinki, the attorney we
[2:02] Speaker 1: heard from earlier this season.
[2:04] Speaker 4: Countries that don't have a history or any significant history
[2:09] Speaker 4: of oil and gas development or oil and gas dependence
[2:13] Speaker 4: are being pushed into that dependence.
[2:16] Speaker 1: That push tends to include swift backlash to any opposition.
[2:21] Speaker 4: When people on the ground speak out against that development,
[2:26] Speaker 4: when they ask difficult questions, when they ask why is
[2:29] Speaker 4: this investment happening, what are the risks? What is really
[2:33] Speaker 4: in this for the people of our country. They come
[2:37] Speaker 4: under profound political pressure, they come under social and economic
[2:42] Speaker 4: pressure you and they are criminalized and intimidated.
[2:47] Speaker 5: Sometimes the pressure is just in the form of financial
[2:50] Speaker 5: incentives or brigging the system in a particular direction.
[2:55] Speaker 4: It's important to right noize God is a very small country,
[2:59] Speaker 4: and that means that the universe of people with expertise
[3:05] Speaker 4: in any given domain is also going to be comparatively small.
[3:11] Speaker 4: I think that means that for an actor like Exam,
[3:15] Speaker 4: it is really surprisingly easy and probably highly cost effective
[3:21] Speaker 4: to identify those people and to take them of the
[3:25] Speaker 4: equation one way or now, whether it's by offering them
[3:29] Speaker 4: grants and donations, whether it's offering them jobs.
[3:36] Speaker 1: That's true of journalists as well. When Keanu Wilberg first
[3:40] Speaker 1: started covering the oil and gas beat for Kyter News,
[3:43] Speaker 1: she had five colleagues working on the desk with her.
[3:47] Speaker 1: Now it's just her. The others were all hired away
[3:50] Speaker 1: by the government or the oil companies.
[3:53] Speaker 6: While company's typical incentive is that you get a car,
[3:58] Speaker 6: and almost every young journalist sees that as a very
[4:05] Speaker 6: good incentive to.
[4:09] Speaker 7: Switch. And I think also there's.
[4:11] Speaker 6: This sort of esteem these very sexy titles corporate public
[4:19] Speaker 6: and governance affairs, liaison for exemobile or snock or whats not.
[4:27] Speaker 6: There's an appeal to these titles. If I did not
[4:33] Speaker 6: see the need for staying and serving in my capacity,
[4:40] Speaker 6: I would have been gone to because I was offered
[4:44] Speaker 6: multiple times.
[4:46] Speaker 5: So far in Guyana, the oil companies are sponsoring cricket
[4:50] Speaker 5: making big donations to all of the environmental organizations that
[4:54] Speaker 5: might have been opposed to oil, and hiring journalists away
[4:58] Speaker 5: from newsrooms. Sometimes shutting down opposition is as easy as
[5:04] Speaker 5: just offering people a higher salary, a big donation, or
[5:08] Speaker 5: a free car. The critics who remain have to be
[5:12] Speaker 5: willing to withstand negative political and social pressure. Here's Vice
[5:18] Speaker 5: President Jagdeo.
[5:19] Speaker 2: Again, the industry had some negatives at home because of
[5:26] Speaker 2: what is taking place globally, this push the net zero.
[5:30] Speaker 2: We have a lot of NGOs that have descended on
[5:33] Speaker 2: the country, some saying don't leave the oil in the ground.
[5:38] Speaker 2: It's flawed. With ten FPSOs operating offshore, we will be
[5:44] Speaker 2: carbon negative. We're already carbon negative. Where the world is
[5:48] Speaker 2: hoping to get to in twenty fifty, we're already there.
[5:52] Speaker 2: Our force is bigger than England and Scotland combine, so
[5:57] Speaker 2: it's a huge sink and they're for we have a
[6:02] Speaker 2: balanced strategy to develop the oil and gas in the street.
[6:07] Speaker 1: This is something Jagdeo has been saying a lot lately
[6:10] Speaker 1: that even with ten FPSOs offshore, Guyana would still be
[6:16] Speaker 1: a carbon sink. It sounds like he's just making up
[6:19] Speaker 1: that ten pulling it out of the air, but it's
[6:22] Speaker 1: actually a reference to something specific. In twenty twenty two,
[6:26] Speaker 1: the government asked Exxon to include a new metric in
[6:30] Speaker 1: its environmental impact assessment for its latest drilling site. They
[6:35] Speaker 1: wanted the company to lay out what the accumulative impact
[6:39] Speaker 1: of all of its existing and proposed offshore activities would
[6:43] Speaker 1: be on the country's greenhouse gas emissions. It concluded that
[6:48] Speaker 1: even taking all of Exxon's biggest plans into account, the
[6:53] Speaker 1: country could have ten FPSOs offshore and still remain a
[6:57] Speaker 1: carbon sink. But and this is a really big but,
[7:02] Speaker 1: it calculated only the emissions generated by extraction and refinement,
[7:09] Speaker 1: not the emissions that come from the actual use of
[7:12] Speaker 1: that oil and gas. To put that in perspective, the
[7:15] Speaker 1: emissions associated with fossil fuels are about ninety percent how
[7:20] Speaker 1: you use them burning oil and gas, and about ten
[7:24] Speaker 1: percent how you got them to offset those operational emissions.
[7:28] Speaker 1: One of Axon's partners in the offshore oil project, Has
[7:32] Speaker 1: Corporation has made a big commitment.
[7:36] Speaker 3: The government of Guyana on Friday signed the first sale
[7:39] Speaker 3: agreement of its carbon credits to HASS cooperation at a
[7:43] Speaker 3: tune of US seven hundred and fifty The sale agreement,
[7:47] Speaker 3: which was signed on Friday State House, will support Guyana's
[7:50] Speaker 3: efforts to protect the country's vast forests and provide capitals
[7:55] Speaker 3: to improve the lives of Guyana's citizens.
[7:58] Speaker 5: With this sale, announced last December, Guyana became the first
[8:02] Speaker 5: country to receive and sell carbon credits under a new
[8:05] Speaker 5: UN program designed to protect forests called Trees. Trees is
[8:11] Speaker 5: part of the UN's Red Project, which stands for reducing
[8:15] Speaker 5: emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. It allows polluting companies
[8:21] Speaker 5: and governments to pay other groups and governments to offset
[8:24] Speaker 5: their carbon emissions. So remaining a carbon sinc isn't just
[8:29] Speaker 5: about greenwashing or promotion in Guyana. There's actual monetary value
[8:34] Speaker 5: to it too.
[8:36] Speaker 8: Carbon offsets basically just open up this window for emissions
[8:39] Speaker 8: to actually get worse, because you can claim to have
[8:42] Speaker 8: neutralized your greenhouse gas impact without actually having done so.
[8:48] Speaker 1: Katain Joshi is a writer and energy analyst and something
[8:51] Speaker 1: of an expert on carbon credits and carbon offsets. It's
[8:55] Speaker 1: hard to see how Guyana's carbon credits will pencil out
[8:58] Speaker 1: on the emissions front, especially because around the same time
[9:01] Speaker 1: that this program was announced. The government made another big announcement.
[9:06] Speaker 2: We've put an auction fourteen properties offshore. You can bid
[9:10] Speaker 2: on any of them. About the maximum that would be allocated,
[9:14] Speaker 2: would be per successful better.
[9:18] Speaker 7: The reason is.
[9:18] Speaker 2: That we want multiple companies there in Guyana exploring.
[9:25] Speaker 5: If you are constantly being criticized about one contract, sometimes
[9:29] Speaker 5: the best strategy is to throw fourteen new contracts in
[9:33] Speaker 5: the mix. Several oil majors paid the twenty five thousand
[9:37] Speaker 5: dollars fee required to enter the auction, that includes Chevron,
[9:42] Speaker 5: Shell and Yeah Exxon, but the auction has now been
[9:47] Speaker 5: postponed for several months, so we won't know until next
[9:50] Speaker 5: year whether any new companies will be drilling offshore. Which
[9:54] Speaker 5: brings us back to the question we've been grappling with
[9:57] Speaker 5: all season long. How do we tackle energy poverty and
[10:03] Speaker 5: the climate crisis at the same time when there's no
[10:06] Speaker 5: real money in either for oil companies.
[10:09] Speaker 1: For all they talk about it, and oil.
[10:11] Speaker 5: Companies do talk a lot about getting energy to poor people.
[10:15] Speaker 5: It's like their sole purpose in life these days. The
[10:18] Speaker 5: reality is that in most places where they're drilling for
[10:21] Speaker 5: oil and gas, it's being exported for profit, not used
[10:26] Speaker 5: to provide sustainable reliable energy for locals. Nigeria, a Global
[10:32] Speaker 5: South country that's been in the oil business since the fifties,
[10:34] Speaker 5: for example, is currently last in the world for energy access.
[10:43] Speaker 5: The simplest answer, but not the one that anyone in
[10:46] Speaker 5: the global North seems to like very much, is to
[10:49] Speaker 5: reduce energy demand in the global North to allow for
[10:53] Speaker 5: an increase in demand in the global South. But that
[10:56] Speaker 5: increase can't be to the excessive levels of say American
[11:01] Speaker 5: consumers today, who are wildly wasteful with energy. But getting
[11:06] Speaker 5: everyone to it, doctor Narasima Rau calls a decent living
[11:10] Speaker 5: level of energy would change the math considerably for fossil
[11:15] Speaker 5: fuel developments in places like Guyana. If you're a global
[11:19] Speaker 5: oil major and your product is oil and gas, you'd
[11:23] Speaker 5: prefer to just see demand a skyrocket everywhere, and that's
[11:27] Speaker 5: where things like carbon credits and carbon offsets can be
[11:31] Speaker 5: quite handy. They let people pretend they're reducing emissions, so
[11:35] Speaker 5: the incentive to reduce consumption disappears entirely. But while they
[11:41] Speaker 5: sound okay on paper, as does Jagdeo's creative math on
[11:45] Speaker 5: how Guyana can become a top oil producer and remain
[11:49] Speaker 5: a carbon sink, At the same time, none of it
[11:52] Speaker 5: changes how the atmosphere actually works, reducing the impact of
[11:57] Speaker 5: Guyana's oil industry on the global climate system. What actually
[12:01] Speaker 5: requires shutting down the industry elsewhere like Texas for example.
[12:06] Speaker 5: That's our story today. I'm Iman Westerbilt and this is
[12:10] Speaker 5: the last episode of our special Drilled and Damages co
[12:13] Speaker 5: Production Light Sweet Crude.
[12:17] Speaker 1: Stay with us.
[12:32] Speaker 9: I'm originally from Guyana. I as a teenager, I represented
[12:40] Speaker 9: Guyana at Cricket. I was in the first class of
[12:45] Speaker 9: engineers graduating from the University of Guyana, and then I migrated.
[12:49] Speaker 9: We went to school in the United States and worked
[12:51] Speaker 9: for for amac at time as a senior patroller engineer.
[12:58] Speaker 9: I'm a Colledsta British but Trillium.
[13:01] Speaker 1: Vincent Adams went from his job as a petroleum engineer
[13:05] Speaker 1: at Amaco to the United States Department of Energy, where
[13:08] Speaker 1: he worked for thirty years.
[13:11] Speaker 9: I ended up at the highest level of the United
[13:14] Speaker 9: States government as a senior executive of the US government
[13:18] Speaker 9: within the US Department of Energy.
[13:21] Speaker 1: And then he fully intended to retire.
[13:24] Speaker 9: My plan was to do my my voluntary service that
[13:28] Speaker 9: I was doing for Diana, right you know, I was
[13:30] Speaker 9: going to spend more time now in Diana that I
[13:33] Speaker 9: have the time to do that type of stuff. But
[13:36] Speaker 9: then a lot of my friends, you know, ministers and
[13:38] Speaker 9: the president you know, said please could you? So I said, okay.
[13:42] Speaker 9: The President himself at to obill how long? I said,
[13:45] Speaker 9: see if I you know, I've been planning for this
[13:48] Speaker 9: retirement for a long time. I've been counting the days.
[13:51] Speaker 9: Then I said, okay, I'll give you three years because
[13:54] Speaker 9: I figured by three years i'll set up all the
[13:56] Speaker 9: institutional systems and stuff like that.
[14:00] Speaker 1: As the previous president, David Granger. And the job is
[14:02] Speaker 1: a big one, updating Guyana's Environmental Protection Agency and starting
[14:07] Speaker 1: a petroleum oversay program there because after decades of looking,
[14:12] Speaker 1: the country had finally found oil. Unlike Melinda Jenki or
[14:17] Speaker 1: Troy Thomas, Adams was not overly concerned about the climate
[14:21] Speaker 1: implications of this discovery or with the industry moving quickly.
[14:25] Speaker 1: In fact, he sees it as necessary.
[14:28] Speaker 9: We have an opportunity to get rich, and we have
[14:33] Speaker 9: an envelope, a small envelope, to produce as much as
[14:36] Speaker 9: we get because the entire world is moving towards renewables.
[14:40] Speaker 5: But that doesn't mean he fully supports Exon's expansion into Guyana.
[14:46] Speaker 9: Exxon is doing it in a way that is very risky,
[14:49] Speaker 9: which is an absolute no no.
[14:53] Speaker 1: Adams has also said all along that Guyana should never
[14:56] Speaker 1: have had a production sharing agreement that complicate contract we
[15:01] Speaker 1: talked about early this season, and in both cases his
[15:05] Speaker 1: reasoning is the same.
[15:07] Speaker 9: We absolutely do not have We do not have the
[15:11] Speaker 9: capacity to do that.
[15:12] Speaker 1: When he was put in charge of Guyana's EPA, Adams
[15:15] Speaker 1: says the office didn't even have a filing system, let
[15:18] Speaker 1: alone a means to oversee major offshore oil production. By
[15:22] Speaker 1: collecting fees that had been due to the agency for years,
[15:25] Speaker 1: he was able to put some of those systems in place,
[15:28] Speaker 1: hire more people, and even buy the agency a few
[15:31] Speaker 1: vehicles to allow EPA officials to check up on permitted projects.
[15:35] Speaker 1: His recommendation for the floating offshore production rigs was that
[15:39] Speaker 1: there should be an EPA official on those rigs overseeing operations. Similarly,
[15:45] Speaker 1: when it comes to the contract, he says for a
[15:47] Speaker 1: country to make a production sharing agreement work, they need
[15:50] Speaker 1: to have the capacity to be regularly auditing costs. Diana
[15:55] Speaker 1: doesn't have either the oversight or the accounting capacity, so
[15:59] Speaker 1: Adam's recommended a more straightforward contract.
[16:04] Speaker 9: We should go for nothing more than just straight taxes
[16:10] Speaker 9: and royalty contract or what is called a concession type contract.
[16:14] Speaker 9: Give it a concession type contract, you know. Just to
[16:18] Speaker 9: put it very simply, all it is, if you produce
[16:22] Speaker 9: one hundred buyers of oil. I let's say I decide
[16:26] Speaker 9: to be the government decided to take of that quantity.
[16:33] Speaker 9: If you produce one hundred buyers of oil, I take
[16:36] Speaker 9: torture buyers and you take you get seventy. I don't
[16:39] Speaker 9: have to worry about cost or anything. All I would
[16:42] Speaker 9: need is some high school kid who can count barriers
[16:46] Speaker 9: as they're being produced. All I would need is a
[16:49] Speaker 9: mechanic or a good electrician to make sure that that
[16:54] Speaker 9: oil meter that measures the art it's running properly. I
[16:57] Speaker 9: don't need all these accountants and everybody. Now, of course,
[17:01] Speaker 9: that's putting it very very simplest giving. But that's the
[17:06] Speaker 9: difference in the magnitude of the oversight that you've got
[17:10] Speaker 9: to work.
[17:11] Speaker 5: With these production sharing agreements or PSAs they're not going away.
[17:17] Speaker 5: As it prepares to auction off more offshore drilling blocks
[17:21] Speaker 5: to global companies, Guyana has drafted a new and improved PSA.
[17:26] Speaker 5: Government officials claim it solves all the problems people had
[17:30] Speaker 5: with the Exxon contract, but Adam says the country is
[17:34] Speaker 5: no better equipped today to manage these complex contracts than
[17:39] Speaker 5: it was seven years ago.
[17:41] Speaker 9: Is there our companies by the way that the introduced
[17:43] Speaker 9: this PSA nonsense because it solves them, especially like Sandy,
[17:47] Speaker 9: know that a PSA is a nightmare for a country
[17:52] Speaker 9: such as Guyana to verified cause.
[17:55] Speaker 1: Adam says, the oil auction is a distraction, an attempt
[17:58] Speaker 1: to shift the public's attention away from any problems with
[18:01] Speaker 1: Exon and make it seem like the government is fast
[18:05] Speaker 1: tracking oil profits.
[18:08] Speaker 9: It's the biggest distraction that I've ever seen, which is
[18:13] Speaker 9: the motusoprande. This is right in the middle of jag
[18:17] Speaker 9: Diel's playbook. It's a distraction from this renegotiation state. So
[18:22] Speaker 9: now everybody are going to start talking about this new
[18:26] Speaker 9: model contract mechanism, Okay, And that's exactly where everybody are
[18:32] Speaker 9: right now. And even if you go ahead and look
[18:35] Speaker 9: at it, it's grossly it's to protect Exon.
[18:39] Speaker 3: Again.
[18:39] Speaker 9: I'm telling you, Exon is calling all of the shots
[18:42] Speaker 9: and running this country.
[18:46] Speaker 5: Exon, Chevron and shell all requested big packets for the auction,
[18:51] Speaker 5: and the government will announce next year which, if any,
[18:54] Speaker 5: have decided to move forward with offshore drilling projects outside
[18:59] Speaker 5: of the Starbuck Plan where Exon has staked its claim.
[19:02] Speaker 5: So far, even if there are no takers, Excels drilling
[19:07] Speaker 5: alone is set to make Guyana the world's largest oil
[19:10] Speaker 5: producer per capita in the world by twenty thirty five.
[19:15] Speaker 5: The country is on track to become a major gas
[19:18] Speaker 5: producer now as well, with a new pipeline and gas
[19:21] Speaker 5: plant set to begin construction this year.
[19:24] Speaker 9: Ye're producing six hundred million cubic feet of gas a
[19:28] Speaker 9: d Okay, you know how much we're going to be
[19:31] Speaker 9: using in that by.
[19:32] Speaker 1: Fifty Neither the government nor Exon has announced yet what
[19:37] Speaker 1: the plan is for excess gas, but it could easily
[19:41] Speaker 1: be sold on the global market, which brings us back
[19:45] Speaker 1: to that balancing act that doctor Narasima Rau mentioned a
[19:49] Speaker 1: couple of episodes ago. Is there a way to let
[19:52] Speaker 1: Guyana build as big an oil and gas industry as
[19:55] Speaker 1: it wants without exacerbating the global climate crisis. So far,
[20:05] Speaker 1: the answer to that question from the government of Guyana
[20:07] Speaker 1: is first that it's only responsible for its own emissions,
[20:12] Speaker 1: not for those associated with the oil and gas produced there,
[20:16] Speaker 1: which is exactly how everyone else in the world calculates emissions.
[20:20] Speaker 1: The United States, for example, likes to point out how
[20:23] Speaker 1: our emissions have been on the decline in recent decades.
[20:26] Speaker 1: So does the UK, so does the European Union. The
[20:29] Speaker 1: oil and gas produced by American, British and European companies
[20:32] Speaker 1: all over the world that doesn't count. Guyana's leaders have
[20:37] Speaker 1: also highlighted the country's leadership in forest conservation and consequently
[20:42] Speaker 1: the service that it provides to the world as a
[20:45] Speaker 1: carbon sink. And here again, yes, that does give it
[20:49] Speaker 1: a leg up on most other oil producing countries when
[20:52] Speaker 1: it comes to climate action. What then, is the answer,
[21:00] Speaker 1: Because what we've described in Guyana throughout this season is
[21:03] Speaker 1: not just happening there. Guyana's neighbors are also getting into
[21:07] Speaker 1: the oil business in a big way. Right next door
[21:11] Speaker 1: in Surinam, for example, Shell and Total Energies are regularly
[21:15] Speaker 1: announcing big new offshore discoveries. Barbados were Prime Minister Mia
[21:21] Speaker 1: Motley has become a global champion for climate action. It
[21:24] Speaker 1: had its own offshore auction right around the same time
[21:28] Speaker 1: as Guyana's In Africa, new fossil fuel industries are springing
[21:33] Speaker 1: up in Tanzania, Uganda, Mozambique, Namibia and more, and the
[21:38] Speaker 1: global North is ramping up too. The so called climate
[21:41] Speaker 1: President Joe Biden in the United States has approved multiple
[21:45] Speaker 1: large scale drilling projects longtime industry leaders Katar, Saudi Arabia,
[21:51] Speaker 1: the United Arab Immirates, and Norway. They're all drilling as
[21:55] Speaker 1: quickly as possible. So is Brazil, which also supposedly just
[21:59] Speaker 1: elected a climate friendly president. It's a global game of
[22:04] Speaker 1: musical chairs where the company or the country left with
[22:08] Speaker 1: the least untapped oil reserves wins and the rest of
[22:13] Speaker 1: us lose in the biggest way possible. Unless unless the
[22:23] Speaker 1: fever dream that capitalism built, this idea that more is
[22:28] Speaker 1: always better, that the biggest consumers are the world's winners,
[22:32] Speaker 1: gets tossed on its head. Even if we managed to
[22:36] Speaker 1: do what a lot of climate advocates want and electrify everything,
[22:41] Speaker 1: we must at some point grapple with the very simple
[22:44] Speaker 1: fact that a lot of us on this planet consume
[22:48] Speaker 1: a lot more than we need to.
[22:50] Speaker 10: When I was first in Chile researching the social and
[22:54] Speaker 10: environmental impacts of lithium mining there, and Chile is the
[22:58] Speaker 10: world's number two producer of lithium, and also some of
[23:01] Speaker 10: the kind of contentious politics around extraction of this mineral.
[23:05] Speaker 10: I started to kind of think, you know, would it
[23:08] Speaker 10: matter in terms of how much lithium was needed, how
[23:13] Speaker 10: the sort of global energy transition is designed, or how
[23:16] Speaker 10: the US energy transition is designed right THEA.
[23:19] Speaker 1: Rio Francos is an associate professor of political science at
[23:22] Speaker 1: Providence College and a member of the Climate and Community Project.
[23:26] Speaker 1: Her research focuses on the impact of extractive economies and
[23:31] Speaker 1: how we might rethink them, and she's been concerned for
[23:34] Speaker 1: a while about the fact that if we keep everything
[23:37] Speaker 1: else the same and switch to renewables tomorrow, we're pretty
[23:41] Speaker 1: likely to end up with some major environmental crises on
[23:44] Speaker 1: our hands. The land use and mining impacts of electrification
[23:49] Speaker 1: are often cynically weaponized by those who would prefer to
[23:52] Speaker 1: see us hooked on fossil fuels forever, but there's substance
[23:57] Speaker 1: to them too, which got Rio Franco's thinking. Are we
[24:01] Speaker 1: destined to replace one environmental problem with another? Or could
[24:06] Speaker 1: we do things differently? And how differently would we need
[24:11] Speaker 1: to do them to really change things.
[24:16] Speaker 10: Are there futures in which less lithium and less of
[24:20] Speaker 10: these other transition minerals are required than some of the
[24:23] Speaker 10: most alarming kind of reports and predictions I began to
[24:26] Speaker 10: see from the International Energy Agency and then the World
[24:29] Speaker 10: Bank and multiple other forecasting agencies which were and remain
[24:33] Speaker 10: pretty alarming in terms of how much mining they are
[24:35] Speaker 10: predicting will occur or be demanded.
[24:38] Speaker 1: Rio Francos recently looked at this question in great detail
[24:41] Speaker 1: around transportation and whether there are decisions we could make
[24:45] Speaker 1: today that would make the electrification of transportation more sustainable.
[24:50] Speaker 10: So I was thinking a lot about an urgent and
[24:53] Speaker 10: rapid and just energy transition in the US, but I
[24:56] Speaker 10: was kind of thinking about both ends of the supply
[24:58] Speaker 10: chain at once, Like here I am in Chile the
[25:00] Speaker 10: to come at desert, seeing these mining related harms, and
[25:03] Speaker 10: then there I go in the US kind of advocating
[25:05] Speaker 10: for a rapid transition, like how do I align these
[25:08] Speaker 10: two goals and how and is there a way to
[25:11] Speaker 10: kind of have a less extractive energy transition, And the
[25:14] Speaker 10: answer was that research didn't exist, at least not for
[25:17] Speaker 10: the US transportation sector. I saw forecast after forecast that
[25:21] Speaker 10: assumed basically a binary of the future. Right, Either we
[25:25] Speaker 10: stay with the fossil fuel status quo and the existential
[25:29] Speaker 10: crisis that that is causing for the planet and all
[25:32] Speaker 10: of its people, or we transition to an electrified, renewably
[25:38] Speaker 10: powered future. But that doesn't really change anything about how
[25:42] Speaker 10: these sectors or economic activities are organized.
[25:45] Speaker 1: There was a powerlessness to it all, a global giving
[25:49] Speaker 1: up on ever doing things differently. Rio Franco's thought, surely
[25:54] Speaker 1: this is not all actually set in stone.
[25:57] Speaker 10: It's totally understandable to me that, you know, the vast
[26:01] Speaker 10: majority of Americans use cars to get around because they
[26:05] Speaker 10: live in contexts, even some urban contexts, but especially suburban
[26:08] Speaker 10: and obviously especially rural context where there really is no
[26:12] Speaker 10: other option. And so I neither blame individuals for those choices.
[26:17] Speaker 10: But nor do I see our current transportation system as
[26:20] Speaker 10: a paragon of freedom, right, I mean, especially when we
[26:23] Speaker 10: consider how financially burdensome cars are for peign working class people.
[26:28] Speaker 10: We're at a critical juncture in terms of specifically how
[26:32] Speaker 10: that renewable energy transition is designed, who the winners and
[26:35] Speaker 10: losers are, what decisions made around certain trade offs. Right
[26:40] Speaker 10: in the thort of policy and resource decisions. So I'm
[26:45] Speaker 10: worried that this moment, which could could if we think
[26:50] Speaker 10: about it, critically, organize around it, and advocate for it,
[26:53] Speaker 10: maybe put us on a slightly less car dependent path.
[26:59] Speaker 1: Spoiler alert, none of it is set in stone. It's
[27:02] Speaker 1: absolutely possible to shift energy demand and behavior with policies
[27:07] Speaker 1: that support those shifts.
[27:08] Speaker 10: But if we just take that snapshot year of twenty
[27:11] Speaker 10: fifty and we look at lithium demand, our worst case
[27:14] Speaker 10: scenario to our best case scenario is in ninety two
[27:18] Speaker 10: percent difference. So if we just take the year twenty fifty,
[27:21] Speaker 10: this future that we're looking at as er emission transportation sector,
[27:24] Speaker 10: our worst case scenario is we maintain current levels of
[27:28] Speaker 10: car dependency, car usage, Cars have this outsize kind of
[27:32] Speaker 10: share of overall transportation modes, Vehicle ownership rates remain like
[27:35] Speaker 10: the same as they are now, and we also get
[27:40] Speaker 10: to continue on the trend of bigger and bigger batteries
[27:42] Speaker 10: right that are getting more and more out of step
[27:43] Speaker 10: with global averages.
[27:45] Speaker 8: That's our worst case scenario.
[27:46] Speaker 10: Things get kind of actually worse but electrified, and our
[27:50] Speaker 10: best case scenario is we bring battery sizes back to
[27:53] Speaker 10: sort of reasonable size. We expand how many folks are
[27:57] Speaker 10: using buses or cycling. We densify our suburbs a bit,
[28:01] Speaker 10: we have maximum levels of recycling and recovery that are
[28:03] Speaker 10: technically feasible. That second future is ninety two percent less
[28:07] Speaker 10: lithium than the first future. And I know that the
[28:11] Speaker 10: ambitious future is probably beyond the realm.
[28:14] Speaker 1: Of what feels ploki possible right now.
[28:17] Speaker 10: And I understand that. You know, I am not like
[28:20] Speaker 10: living in the clouds. I'm aware of that, but I
[28:22] Speaker 10: think that having that option on the table, because in
[28:25] Speaker 10: that most ambitious future, we totally limited emissions and everyone.
[28:29] Speaker 1: Has a way to get around.
[28:30] Speaker 7: Right.
[28:31] Speaker 1: But even in the least ambitious, most politically feasible future
[28:36] Speaker 1: that Rio Francos and her colleagues imagined and modeled, some
[28:40] Speaker 1: pretty simple decisions made a big difference.
[28:44] Speaker 10: Another finding that I really like, just because it addresses
[28:47] Speaker 10: folks who are understandingly concerned, all like, there is no
[28:50] Speaker 10: America without car detent. You know, we can't move away
[28:52] Speaker 10: from being heard a pentent.
[28:53] Speaker 8: We just have to suck it up.
[28:54] Speaker 10: And I say to those people, we could stay in
[28:56] Speaker 10: scenario one, which is the one where we keep levels
[28:59] Speaker 10: of car usage and vehicle ownership rates, and we don't
[29:01] Speaker 10: identify anything and we want to sprawl. We can stay
[29:04] Speaker 10: sorinary one and we can just bring our batteries to
[29:07] Speaker 10: like the right size or not this gargantuan size, and
[29:11] Speaker 10: in twenty fifty we could use forty two percent less
[29:13] Speaker 10: lithium with the same amount of cars and the same
[29:16] Speaker 10: amount of car usage and vehicle ownership if we just
[29:19] Speaker 10: make the batteries a more normal size, like rather than
[29:22] Speaker 10: the super size.
[29:22] Speaker 1: It's not a smart car.
[29:24] Speaker 10: You know, those tiny European cars. You know, I'm not
[29:26] Speaker 10: even going there because again I know my audience, I
[29:28] Speaker 10: know my limits of what I can suggest.
[29:29] Speaker 11: So no, we're talking.
[29:30] Speaker 10: About the Nissan Leaf, or we're talking about what people
[29:33] Speaker 10: drive in Berlin or whatever.
[29:35] Speaker 1: Narasimhrau and joyshri Rue both mentioned similarly small shifts with
[29:40] Speaker 1: big payoffs.
[29:42] Speaker 11: New homes in the US are significantly larger than new
[29:46] Speaker 11: homes in some of the richest countries in Europe, and
[29:51] Speaker 11: that's something that is not something one can regulate.
[29:54] Speaker 12: In cold and one countries, sometimes we make it so
[29:57] Speaker 12: hot and so cold in the rooms that it becomes
[30:01] Speaker 12: not comfortable anymore. The default setting can be done in
[30:08] Speaker 12: such a way so that overheating and overcooling can be reduced,
[30:13] Speaker 12: and that can have a very high health implication, And
[30:16] Speaker 12: we could see that without reducing employment, without reducing human
[30:23] Speaker 12: well being, actually forty to seventy percent of twenty to
[30:27] Speaker 12: fifty level of projected emission can be reduced by working
[30:32] Speaker 12: on the demand side.
[30:33] Speaker 11: I think we need to have incentives policy incentives for
[30:37] Speaker 11: healthier diets that are more environmentally friendly.
[30:40] Speaker 7: We do need policy that helps food planners, choice architects,
[30:45] Speaker 7: city planners, investors to plan complexities with walking, sightly lanes,
[30:51] Speaker 7: public transit systems to help people to make better choices
[30:55] Speaker 7: for their own health and environment.
[30:58] Speaker 1: Eating slightly less meat, living in more walkable cities, and
[31:01] Speaker 1: in slightly smaller homes. None of these are actually the
[31:05] Speaker 1: massive sacrifices that they're often made out to be. In fact,
[31:09] Speaker 1: these are all things that tend to cost individuals less
[31:12] Speaker 1: money while also improving health and quality of life. But
[31:16] Speaker 1: it's important to understand that simply shifting demand or consumer
[31:20] Speaker 1: behavior will not automatically curb fossil fuel production. We know
[31:26] Speaker 1: this from history time and time again. Absent policies that
[31:30] Speaker 1: manage an energy transition, fossil fuel companies will simply find
[31:34] Speaker 1: new markets. The plastic boom is a great example. When
[31:38] Speaker 1: demand for fossil fuels in transportation and residential energy decreased,
[31:43] Speaker 1: the industry focused its attention on ramping up petrochemicals as
[31:47] Speaker 1: a revenue stream that could make up the difference. It's
[31:51] Speaker 1: happening with the fossil fuel push in the Global South
[31:54] Speaker 1: right now too. The headline here is that there is
[31:57] Speaker 1: a path forward, There is time to do something. There
[32:01] Speaker 1: is a way to address global poverty and global warming
[32:04] Speaker 1: at the same time. But it requires action, and it
[32:08] Speaker 1: requires choices in the global North that might be briefly,
[32:13] Speaker 1: briefly a little bit painful or a tiny bit unpopular. Historically,
[32:19] Speaker 1: our politicians have not excelled at embracing short term pain
[32:23] Speaker 1: for long term gain. But that doesn't mean they cannot
[32:28] Speaker 1: or will not behave differently, just that they're unlikely to
[32:33] Speaker 1: unless pushed. In the meantime, Global South countries like Guyana
[32:40] Speaker 1: are going to continue to fund both development and climate
[32:45] Speaker 1: adaptation anyway they can, even if it means selling oil
[32:50] Speaker 1: to pay for sea walls.
[32:55] Speaker 9: Address the.
[32:59] Speaker 3: Immediately.
[33:00] Speaker 5: That is it for this episode and this season. Thank
[33:04] Speaker 5: you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed it.
[33:06] Speaker 5: Don't forget to check out our discussion guide for the season,
[33:10] Speaker 5: debunking the moral case for fossil fuels. There's a link
[33:14] Speaker 5: to it in the show notes. Also, don't forget to
[33:17] Speaker 5: subscribe to our newsletter for weekly analysis and our list
[33:21] Speaker 5: of the five climate must reads each week. It never
[33:24] Speaker 5: takes more than ten minutes to read, and it will
[33:26] Speaker 5: keep you up to date on climate coverage. Light Sweet
[33:32] Speaker 5: Crude is a co production of Drilled and Damages, both
[33:35] Speaker 5: Critical Frequency original shows.
[33:38] Speaker 1: Our senior producer and editor.
[33:40] Speaker 5: Is Sarah Ventry. Sound design and mixing by Martin Saltz Ostwick,
[33:44] Speaker 5: who also composed some original music.
[33:46] Speaker 1: For the season. The song Beiji Boggi is written and
[33:55] Speaker 1: recorded by Bill Rogers and licensed from the BBC Music Library.
[34:00] Speaker 1: Long nam Tera Dishmann is performed by Joyce or Milla
[34:03] Speaker 1: Harris in Guyana. The song Liquidator is a cover of
[34:08] Speaker 1: a Harry J Allstars song performed by the Young Ones
[34:12] Speaker 1: of Guyana, licensed by b Ame Music.
[34:18] Speaker 5: Our fact checker is Anna Poujol Mazzini. Our first amendment
[34:22] Speaker 5: attorney is James Wheaton. Our artwork is by Matthew Fleming.
[34:26] Speaker 5: Graphic design for the discussion guide was done by E. J.
[34:29] Speaker 5: Baker at Maybe Ventures. Marketing and PR were handled by
[34:33] Speaker 5: Maggie Taylor and Tink Media. Huge thanks to Keana Wilberg,
[34:41] Speaker 5: our reporter in Georgetown, for her help and amazing work,
[34:45] Speaker 5: and to Antonio Juhas for her reporting and insight. Thanks
[34:49] Speaker 5: also to all of the people in Guyana who opened
[34:52] Speaker 5: their homes and offices to us and were so generous
[34:55] Speaker 5: with their time, especially Annette Our June, Dane Gobin, Glen Law,
[35:00] Speaker 5: and Melinda Jenkie. And thanks to Michael McCrystal, Salvador de Karrez,
[35:05] Speaker 5: and Jamal Thomas for helping us navigate Guyana, and to
[35:08] Speaker 5: Chef Delvin Adams for showing us Georgetown's incredible markets and
[35:12] Speaker 5: his charming backyard cafe. This show is me possible in
[35:20] Speaker 5: part by generous grants from the Dock Society's Climate Storytelling Lab,
[35:25] Speaker 5: the William Collins Kohler Foundation, the File Foundation, and you
[35:29] Speaker 5: are listeners. We appreciate the support and can't wait to
[35:33] Speaker 5: bring you another season soon. In the meantime, don't worry,
[35:37] Speaker 5: We'll still be bringing you weekly episodes on all things
[35:40] Speaker 5: climate accountability, Thanks again and we'll see you soon.

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