America’s Secret Sauce Is At Risk, UK Climate Envoy Told SXSW London

SXSW London last week drew a panoply of high-level speakers, from His Majesty, King Charles III, to Idris Elba, Orlando Bloom and Bryce Dallas Howard, to business leaders from across the U.K. and the global economy. This was the first SXSW outside the annual Austin, Texas event. A few other government leaders spoke too, including Rachel Kyte, UK Climate Envoy, who spoke at SXSW London’s Nature & Climate House, which was hosted by Bellwethers Group.

As usual, Rachel Kyte did not mince words, while also showing her diplomatic skills.

Here are highlights from Kyte’s conversation with David Gelles of The New York Times on June 3^rd at the Nature & Climate House:

• We have the money: “There is no question whether or not we have the money, we have the money,” Kyte told Gelles and the audience. “We have wealth funds, we have ways of generating more income. We can remove subsidies, we can put taxes and levies on the things which are highly polluting. Pollution is extremely concentrated into certain sectors of the economy, certain companies and certain tiers of wealth in the world. And if we were to, you know, rethink that, then there’s no doubt that there’s the money.”
• “Climate change (can) destabilize our financial systems”: “This (is) the ability of climate change to destabilize our financial systems, our economic systems to undermine people’s prosperity and wealth. This is charging at us at like a gray rhino, right? Political science. It’s a gray rhino event, which means that you’re standing on this pathway and a very big, terrifying and lethal animal is running towards you. And we’re like sitting there, right? And we’re writing reports and we’re relying on research reports from the IMF and things like that. We have got to get out of the way and we’ve got to tame this rhino.”

• People vote for a “populous party” because they feel “insecure”: “We’ve lost the public, and we have to be clear about that,” Kyte admitted, though, “there is no evidence that people vote against net zero.” Meaning that, “people may vote against an elite version of environmentalism that they think is going to cost them something, but everybody can observe that climate change is really happening.”

She added that, “the reason why people maybe vote for a populous party or for a party, fringe either the left or the right, they vote because they feel insecure economically, they feel socially insecure, and they’re just not sure that the direction of travel is going to go up and not down. And we have to get into that faith.”

• “China is more important than ever”: “China is more important than ever before because nature abhors a vacuum. And if other countries walk away from the multinational system and from the ultimate collective objective of trying to work out how to live comfortably on this planet, they will fill the vacuum,” Kyte said. She added that China has a foothold in developing countries because they, “pursued a belt and road initiative, so a massive phase of investment in the emerging markets and developing economies at a time when the West wasn’t doing that.” Yet, “here we are and we need to go forward,” stressing the need for countries in the West to forge partnerships on energy, technology, water and transparency around climate.
• “But there are things we agree on” with China: Kyte also pointed out that, “There are things we agree on, things we disagree, or we agree to disagree, and then things where we flat disagree. That’s the challenge, right? How do you have a nuanced approach at a time when, from a geostrategic point of view, we’ve got rising tensions both in trade and in militarization?” She pointed out that there’s agreement on making sure grids work most efficiently and on the need to limit methane emissions. “So this is a complicated moment for China and for us.”

Gelles pointed out that the Biden administration’s investments in clean energy boosted the U.S.’s ability to compete with China in building a clean energy-climate resilient economy. But the Trump administration is trying to gut it all, and knee-capping the scientific community and the climate movement in the U.S., including “firing scientists, upending regulations,” and defunding and closing scientific research centers.

What does Kyte think of the Trump administration’s actions?

• “Why would the United States shoot itself in both feet in terms of its economic future?”: That is a question Kyte said she hears a lot, adding that it refers to reversing U.S. renewable energy growth. “What they also mean by that is, the attack on the extraordinary alchemy that exists in the United States and nowhere else in the world between science research, pure research, capital, and entrepreneurship.” They wonder why the administration would intentionally destroy that advantage and cancel projects that were bringing thousands of jobs to U.S. communities.

“The second thing I think, is that the loss of the climate team at NASA is fundamentally disruptive to the global enterprise of understanding what climate change is and how it’s affecting the planet,” Kyte stressed, adding that, because its work was “fundamental to the work of the (U.N.) International Panel on Climate Change,” that “the destruction of NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the National Weather Service) has a huge impact, not just on the United States.”

Kyte added that these cuts are “scary” for anyone in the U.S., especially as hurricane season begins. Kyte lived in the U.S. for 15 years, including when she served as Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General and CEO of Sustainable Energy for All.

“Americans are less secure,” Kyte warned. As a result of the Trump administration’s actions, “There are going to be less well paid jobs in the renewable energy sector for sure, and, these (actions) are undermining or hollowing out the potential for green growth.”

“The future is cleaner energy,” she added, “and it is remarkable that that would not be the secret sauce of the future of a strong America.”