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00:00Ivan welcome to Black in Focus. I'm Karen Tool here in New York. And today we are in conversation with Professor Gregory Jenkins from from Penn State University. We're talking about COP 26 Climate Change and climate justice. Professor Jenkins is a professor of meteorology atmospheric science geography and African studies at Penn State. Professor Jenkins good to see you. Good morning. Good to see you too Carol. So the cop 26 court climate talks are underway and world leaders are discussing ways to curb green greenhouse gas emissions that are contributing to rising sea levels higher temperatures more radical and severe weather. So far more than 40 countries have pledged to shift away from coal. But the biggest coal dependent countries Australia China India and the US have not signed the pledge to hit the Paris Accord 2050. Targets that were previously agreed to nations would have to eliminate almost an African continent sized amount of emissions every year. So these are very very lofty goals and some would say perhaps almost impossible to meet. So Professor Jenkins when we talk about climate change it seems to many observers including me that in some ways these are these are talks about inequality. They're a climate. It's climate inequality talks between the haves and have nots with all countries being asked to make pledges. But poorer countries saying that they need the time to develop their economies and their businesses that wealthier countries were able to do without being measured or judged during their own industrial revolutions. What do you think is happening at these talks under way this week. What's come out of it that's so far that's caught your attention. I would say that they are two big things that have come out. Is this net zero target. Another one is reducing deforestation or really sending it to near zero and then the methane reductions because methane is super potent. That's more or less the science side. And I'm waiting to hear more about the equity side of you know the pledges that will go towards developing countries and to underserved or under-resourced communities. So on the pledges front global leaders pledged about 100 billion dollars to two poorer countries. I think that was about 10 years ago. But so far only 80 billion dollars has actually been committed. What do you think the issue is there. Why. Why is that happening. That's a very good question. I think the mechanism to get money down on the ground to make change in terms of adaptation is extremely difficult. You know the top down approach is hard when you've got to have all this money flowing in to address specific problems. So I would say and I haven't really seen a change when I go to the continent. You know I'm seeing extremes and I'm wondering who is helping these folks out. And I think the other part about the pledges are that they can't necessarily be loans because that's debt on the poorest people in the world. So it's a complicated process. They're about getting the money on the ground. I want to run through some numbers. India has pledged to be net zero by 2017. That that's 20 years past the past the 2050 goal. But it's worth noting that the average Indian person consumes about one eighth of the energy of the average American right. Other stats a Tanzanian person takes eight years to consume as much electricity as an American consumes in one month or a freezer in the U.S. consumes 10 times more electricity than a Liberian person consumes in a year. And just making a cup of tea in Britain boiling a kettle twice daily uses five times as much electricity as a person from Mali uses in a year. The inequality in in lifestyles and access to energy is just staggering globally. Are these talks even the right framework. It's the voices from the bottom three 4 billion that I really don't think will make it into the rooms of nice suits and world leaders. G Twenty seven I think there's just not it's not going to make it there. We'll be talking about the countries that already have access to resources. And I don't know an easy way to make that happen because it's really kind of a we're talking about the redistribution of of resources credits on Bergen and other activists who have have dismissed some parts of this meeting this week as just greenwashing. Does she have a point. I think if you're living in many parts of the world or even the U.S. he has a point. I mean it's it's really not evident to the average person what these CAC 26 talks are all about or what they produce. Now that doesn't mean they're not important but I just think there is like this big gulf between the average person and these high level discussions. So let's talk about about the average person. President Biden. If we look here in the US he was elected with great support from from equality and racial justice folk and climate change support. But his legislative agenda has really just been been kind of gummed up. Are you concerned about climate justice progress. Even just if we just take a moment to look at the US are you concerned about what's happening in the US. Just read you. Are you afraid about stagnation and perhaps even heading in the opposite direction. Well Karen I think about climate justice a lot. And for me climate justice is the intersection between climate change environmental justice and social justice. And you have to be working in some kind of coherent member way to deal with all of those. We don't really see the E.J. issues being dealt with major issues are tied to climate change especially in the sense that many extractive industries are responsible for both warming the planet and doing harm to people of color. And then social justice issues global. You know you can't you're not going to be able to get the momentum that you need to face the climate crisis if people don't believe in local national or global government governance. Well perhaps we should talk about what a comedy called you really looks like in some communities and I'll leave that to choose it for you to choose in a developed country and then a developing country because I think when people hear about climate change again we think about rising sea levels. We think about the Maldives that lovely chain of islands that is unfortunately I think they sit around three feet above sea level. So they're really facing perhaps being flooded in in a lifetime. But this isn't just about rising seas. It's about it's about the heat in cities. It's about deforestation. It's about transportation deserts about so many things. Can you talk this through some examples of what the average person who might be watching or watch later what they should look out for and go oh OK. That's what climate justice is. Well the there are many examples but let's just take red urban cities all across America where 90 years ago the federal government had a role in determining what was an undesirable area and putting people of color in those areas those areas or not desirable. They may have flooded quite often. They didn't necessarily have lots of green space and there was no development there. So there was white flight. Schools became bad. All these injustices were picking up over time. Climate change. The system starts to warm. And now we see the folks are most vulnerable in those communities. So you get more flooding there. The heat the urban heat island effect is greater and the warming is greater. And you couple that on top of you know the how the health outcomes like asthma for black and brown communities. And we know it's going to be worse in the future. So we're looking at you know this this kind of setup for disaster in many communities of color. Of course if you live long coastlines maybe you hadn't had this problem before. But whether you're rich or poor you can't stop the sea from rising and you will become a front line community. You had your good years. The rough ones are coming. Well so it is. Are there any communities around the world that seem to be getting things right in a way. I say Miles maybe there there are a few but. I think the problem is so big with respect to climate change and climate justice. We need good examples so that other countries can follow that. The issue though is if you're getting flooding right now you need a solution. Not only not only need a solution now. You need a solution for 50 years from now. Our infrastructure is old. It was built 1970s. It's not built for twenty one hundred. So I paused to say there's a country that's doing it right. And and they would also have to be dealing with the social justice issues. So you can't just do the climate change part. Right. You have to take care of the people. And those people have to see that they're part of the solution. So what are there. Are there government policies or practices that would be beneficial for example. E bikes. I think there's legislation making its way through Congress that will give them a tax incentive up to a 750 dollar write off for people earning under seventy five thousand dollars a year if I have that right so that they can theoretically afford e bikes. But E bikes are expensive. That tax benefit may not actually help. Some of the poorer people actually need those bicycle which is helpful because it will take them out of out of cars or taxes. It will provide more more space on our public transportation systems. And of course it's just environmentally more friendly. Are those types of programs things that more communities should be looking at. I hope so. I think Justice 40 agenda that's been discussed will help underserved and communities of color. But this is such a big problem in terms of how do we do the multiplier effect. How do we reduce energy reduce inequity you know reduce health impacts. So I feel like the Ivy sector is going to be really important in terms of making the air more readable for communities that are currently suffering. But we got to be real careful about that because we have to say where's the cobalt in the lithium coming from. Now if it's coming from Congo and we have child labor and we have the very poorest people working for just a few pennies a day to mine that coal but that doesn't work well for me. And if that becomes a kind of a conflict zone that also doesn't work for me. So we have to really think through this from beginning to end in terms of how this all plays out. Are you encouraged at all. CAC Bloomberg We've been reporting more and more on the ESG sector and how more and more stakeholders and companies whether they're shareholders or supply chain are paying more attention to ESG and climate is becoming part of that. Do you think that's going to spur or support development understanding progress when we look at client climate apology. I would hope that it does. But you know the shareholders or the average person may not be thinking about not just profit but people and the planet and part of this is an education piece. Until we have a full understanding of how a company works you know and making sure that they're not doing anything negative that people or the planet and they're making sustainable profit but not at the cost of everyone. That's that's the trouble. Everyone wants profit but it takes understanding these companies were already built. And I think it'll take some time before we go. Are there are there any any programs any policies that you think are low hanging fruit that are either currently in place and just need to be scaled up and modeled in other places. Or is there something new where new policy a new group a new way of thinking about all of these issues combined environmental climate and then layering in the justice on top of it. What are you looking forward to. Well I'm hoping that. Both the infrastructure and the reconciliation packages will move through. Those can have big impact and communities are under pressure now. So I'm sorry that they've removed the whole community college piece because we have to have a more educated group of young people who have access can do something with their lives and contribute to helping us solve this climate crisis. We need we need that money in the communities that has to happen. But it can't just be money. That's just dumb. It has to be money that helps to empower communities that you know helps us to deal with the climate crisis at the same time. And all the health issues tied to extractive industries. So I think there's something that lead pipes replacing all their pipes whether it's Flint or Philadelphia or Benton Harbor. We need that now. I think we just got to just get moving and we got to really push the young people. Young people are going to have to deal with this morning. Anyone else. They need the opportunity to take a shot at the problem. We got it. We got to unleash them. And it is. And therefore it's an awareness issue. Do you think this will be the last question. Do you think that even though perhaps the cop 26 meetings under way right now is some people saying they're underwhelming. Do they. Does the meeting itself serve a purpose of just simply raising awareness. At least we're talking about issues for example just the disabled amongst the people. One of the communities very affected by climate and environmental justice. And we saw the Israeli minister wasn't able to get into a building because it wasn't wheelchair accessible. So does that does the does the meeting itself the CAC 26 meeting itself is just serving a purpose just by raising global awareness perhaps with young people who may not be paying as much attention. Yeah we got to keep the cops going because at the government level things have to happen to deal with the climate crisis. You've got to have policies in place but we still need something else to really bring other young people into the conversation. And I'm not sure what that is. But certainly at the local level we all need to be talking about how climate is playing out. Climate change and the climate justice pieces is playing out on Friday. Well Professor Jenkins from Penn State University thank you so much for joining us today for this conversation. And hopefully we'll talk with you again to see where things stand on climate justice. Coming up next week on Black in Focus. Just ahead of Transgender Awareness Week a conversation with the CO leads of holding a sister initiative focused on mobilizing resources for trans girls of color. Great conversation. So I hope that you'll join us for that. But until then I'm Karen Tumulty. And this is Bloomberg Daybreak.

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Black in Focus: COP26 with Professor Gregory Jenkins

Professor Gregory Jenkins, Professor of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science, Geography, and African Studies at Penn State, talks to Bloomberg's Karen Toulon about COP26, climate change and climate justice.

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