What needs to change to ensure climate action? Sandrine Dixson-Declève, Laurence Tubiana and Philippa Nuttall

Heatwaves and floods dominated the headlines in the summer of 2024. This lived reality of climate change is taking place against a backdrop of political shifts as far-right parties across Europe win shares of the vote that would have been unimaginable only a few years ago.    

To uncover what is happening and explore what campaigners, politicians and businesses can do to ensure climate action in the run up to COP30 in Brazil in 2025, Philippa Nuttall spoke to Laurence Tubiana, CEO of the European Climate Foundation and a key architect of the Paris Agreement, and Sandrine Dixson-Declève, co-president of The Club of Rome and executive chair of Earth4All. 

Sandrine and Laurence discuss the growing trend of right-wing politics in Europe and its impact on climate action, emphasising the urgent need to address social inequality and injustice in the energy transition. They highlight strategies for accelerating a globally just transition and call for a comprehensive reform of COP and climate governance to ensure effective implementation of the Paris Agreement.  

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Full transcript:

Philippa: Welcome to the Club of Rome podcast exploring the shifts in mindset and policy needed to transform the complex challenges facing us today. I'm Philippa Nuttall, a freelance journalist and editor of Sustainable Views, and in this episode, we're discussing the road to COP30, which will be held in Brazil next year, and what needs to change to ensure that timely climate action is agreed and implemented.

With me today I have Laurence Tubiana, CEO of the European Climate Foundation, and a professor at Sciences Po in Paris. Laurence previously chaired the Board of Governors at the French Development Agency, the board of Expertise France, and is best known for being France's Climate Change Ambassador and Special Representative for COP 21 and a key architect of the landmark Paris agreement. We also have Sandrine Dixson-Declève, co president of the Club of Rome and executive chair of Earth for All. Welcome to both of you today. Thank you. So Laurence, I'd like to start with you. In 2024 we're seeing heat records broken constantly. We've had many months where the temperatures are 1.5 degrees above pre industrial levels. And yet, in many countries, we're seeing people vote, including in France, for parties which whose vision is not aligned with with climate action, who want to slow or even halt climate action. And even if these parties are not, perhaps getting the support that they expect, that they're still there. And we've seen a swing very much to the right, and even the far right, in the European Parliament. Could you explain to us a bit what you think is going on here, and how much perhaps poor communication or mixed messages around climate change are responsible for what we're seeing?

 

Laurence: I think first of all, this trend towards the right-wing is, of course, now a trend that is distributed across many, many countries, including mostly in Europe, but not only in Europe, as we see in United States and other countries at the same time. It's a probably more nuanced evaluation, because you see in some countries where very much pointing to the right-wing has been showing other direction as well. And Poland is a good example. In Europe, we see the resistance and of Spain and the more progressive parties. So, it's a mixed bag, but you see that the polarisation is there. And I think there is a big element of understanding for that. We have inflation. We have the problem of security because, of course, of the invasion of Ukraine, and of course, these incredible energy prices that have damaged so much, not only to consumers accusative power, but as well the industry and the economy, but the sense that we are missing a very, very important social element in all this, that people feel marginalised. They feel not listened to. They feel that they are not represented. And I think that is a main issue for the climate community at large, the climate policy in general, that the social element should be the first entry point to this big transformation of society we are aiming at, and it cannot. It had been discarded. It has not been taken seriously enough so people legitimately think that they, and that a number of poles are signaling it, that they are paying for the reduction of emission that others are finally the origin of. And in particular, of course, the more affluent people, the higher middle class and even the higher income households that are finally polluting much more than they are, but they are paying the cost for it. So, I think this social dimension is certainly now that's a big moment to rethink all what we do in terms of climate policies. So, it's not only communications even because people feel the climate change impact, but they feel the solutions are not fair. And just one example, you pay a lot of tax on your gasoline when you drive, but then you don't pay any for the one who are flying all the time. So that, I think, is a justice element, and the social element is a key element, in my view, and that's why we see that in France, and the economic insecurity, if you add on that, that you have recommendation that you have to change your boilers or to go to electric vehicle you cannot even buy. And you know, it's a very interesting study recently by OECD, people who have access to mobility and collective transport care about climate change. The people who don't have access to public transport, they tend to deny and don't want to talk about climate change. So, you know, it's a problem of access and fairness much more than anything else.

Philippa: Yeah, no, I think that's come out really clearly in the elections in terms of the pushback. We've heard a lot of this that it's not fair and people shouldn't be paying for the energy transition, especially poorer people in society. And how do you think, why do you think this message has not got through? I mean, the just transition has been mentioned as part of the energy transition, but perhaps not as a core point. And why do you think this message has got lost? And how do you think this can now be changed? Is this something that needs to happen at a national level, or is it something that can work through the international process?

Laurence: Why are government afraid? Because, in a way, I must say, most government hasn't taken the issue of social fairness and justice really seriously enough. Because the trend on the evolution of the economy is a consensus on, you know, that finally, inequality was not a big issue. And so, the response to that, look at the reform of the tax system, for example, that we are now currently discussing at European level. The government doesn't dare to go in that direction for the moment. So, in a way, the only thing they can offer is, you know, more right-wing type of argument, like immigration is a big problem, where, in reality, social justice is a real problem. So, they don't want to reassess the model, and then they don't have the tools or the mindset or the philosophy, the political philosophy, that they can respond to the issue. So, the main, and that has been very, very evidently, even in France, the main response was to talk about security in the hard terms, police and, you know, control and immigration, when they should be talking about social justice. And that, in my view, a contradiction. If we continue doing that, we will never, never have an ambition climate action at home. So, it's a very crucial juncture point. And that's all, of course, all the battle we have in political terms in France these days.

Philippa: Thanks Laurence. Sandrine, the Club of Rome and Earth4All, you've done lots of work around the importance of inequality and social justice. Do you agree with the conclusion that Laurence has come to, and how do you see that this discussion or these policies can now change?

 

Sandrine: I completely agree, and I think that what's, I must say, a bit disappointing is that we're in a situation, at least at the Club of Rome as saying we warned you and we told you, so if you look at the Limits to Growth, and if you look at the culmination of social and environmental tipping points, which were already pretty much drawn out in our scenarios in 1972 where we indicated that in the 2020s we would start to see these pressure points. And then I think the culmination, obviously, with the polycrisis, exactly as Laurence indicates, and the impacts have made it really difficult at this time to put in place and roll out the climate legislation and the climate implementation that we need. So coming back to the core of the issue, which is the inequality in the poverty issue, better understanding actually what leaders need to do at this time is fundamental for people like ourselves, people like Laurence trying to actually guide our policy leaders so they don't get caught with their pants or their skirts down, as we say, and really have the solutions that they need. And we have to remember that the yellow vest protest was truly a protest, both about wealth issues, because several weeks before, the wealth tax that had been proposed was actually eliminated, as well as a diesel tax issue. And when we look at most of the data that we have from a variety of different sources today, what we see is really interesting, and we've done an analysis of this also because we've been working directly with President von der Leyen's team on communications. One, most people, exactly as Laurence says, understand climate change is here, and they're suffering. They're ready to pay their fair share. The issue is, what's fair, when we see 2.8 billion windfall profits by oil and gas companies per day globally, when we see that actually, we don't and we're not able to pass a wealth tax, when we see that we continue to give subsidies to fossil energy, but not actually to renewables or industrial agriculture, rather than farmers who want to shift to regenerative agriculture. So there are so many perversities in our market and also in the signals that we see from policy that we need to really start to unpack what this means for people's lives. Our most recent IPSOS survey, which actually was undertaken in G20 countries, showed that all citizens across G20 countries believe that we need a new economic reset, that we need to think through indicators that go beyond just productivity, and think through indicators that might place a value on education, place a value on access to health care, social care, etc. And I think the last point Philippa, and this is how we need to get better at describing where we are, is showing the cost of inaction, and then figuring out what does that look like in practice. So new data that's come out of the Potsdam Institute shows very clearly that if we continue at 1.5 degrees, and we know we probably will hit 1.5 degrees very soon, we're already at 1.1 that actually we will start to look at a definite GDP loss of going from 10% between 1.5 to two degrees and potentially more. We'll also look at 26% income loss. So, we need to translate those figures for leaders and then give them the solutions. We've got the solutions. The question is, do we have the political will, and that is where it gets complicated at this time, when we've moved much more towards the radical right.

Philippa: Yeah. I mean, it's interesting what you're saying. You've quoted polls whereby people are in favor of paying their fair share, but the politicians that have been voted in at a European level are not representative of that at the moment. So do you feel that the new European Parliament, which is clearly there is a majority towards the right, has a mandate to introduce what you've just discussed, and also, what are those solutions that they need to put in place, very concretely.

Sandrine: So, I think the first thing is that with this new European Parliament, what we've been saying, and Laurence has also participated in our letter, where we claimed we really needed to have a Green Deal. The Green Deal is still a green and social deal. We need to pass the Green Deal into a moment of implementation. This also means and Laurence was absolutely right- how do we get national parliaments and national governments to start to move towards implementation? And I would take it one step further as well, and bring forward all the mayors and the local governments that are firmly anchored in both the social and the green, because they see it in their cities. And how can we get them more involved? You know, you've got so many incredible mayors who are working in this area across Europe who are fundamentally convinced that this is the way to move forward, and then in terms of solutions, I mean, there are fiscal solutions that are actually already being put in place. We've got now the new letter report, which was actually put forward on the single market, and how importantly, we were able to participate in that process, how important the single market is in terms of ensuring that we implement the Green Deal, we need to ensure that that single market facilitates, as does the IRA and the US, the possibility of more technology transfer between the member states, more implementation of the legislation, the distributional effects of electrification, which we don't see for the moment, and we see huge blockage, reduction of bureaucracy, increasing permitting, so that it goes much faster, all of these kind of single market constraints that we see today, which is why the IRA has been seen and touted as so much better at getting industrial, green industrialization to the US and not to Europe, all of that needs to be facilitated.

Philippa: Thanks Sandrine. And Laurence, where do you see the key solutions? I mean, you're an economist, where do you see the key sort of fiscal or economic solutions that can be put in place, especially because we're talking about fiscal space. But at the same time, we've seen in the elections, there is still a push for low taxes across most of Europe. I mean, the UK is not part of the EU, but the election campaign ended up being very much around low taxes, even though the social justice element was there to a certain extent. So, so how do you change this, this narrative, so that people understand how the the transition can be paid for, and it's paid for in a just way.

Laurence: So of course, we have to recognise that we need a massive investment in Europe and elsewhere. We need at least 2.4 trillion per year by 2030 for the transition developing countries, if we exclude China, and we need at least to double the investment in Europe from 100 billion to 800 billion a year. So that, how we do that in a moment where there is no fiscal space left, there is, of course, reluctance because of these political balances to for the moment, to relaunch a collective European effort to borrow, for example, at international level, to allow for this investment to be recognized as not a debt, but really an investment. I think, by the way, I think we should pursue that avenues that we should not put and recognize investment in the future and in the transition as a normal debt. That's not the same one than to, you know, borrow to pay for the day-to-day expenditure. So we need to invest. We need, of course, to mobilize private capital to do so. So, we need public guarantees. So, we have to think very seriously. And that's why this idea of really having a financial, integrated internal market is so important, because we need to mobilise the resources where they are. How we do that is really to give clear, clear direction of travel, so not to backtrack on the Green Deal, because, if not how will investor, a private investor will go in that direction. So ,we need to keep going in the same direction. And many of them, many of the big companies and the small companies are asking for that clarity. But then we need at the same time, because again, the social element, you cannot have a transformation with, without a social contract that has to be redefined. Yes, it's not a good period, because you have, we have let this far right, very nationalistic or very individualist type of thinking develop, and that migration finally was a problem for everyone, which, of course, is not true, because we know that if, by the way, the all the immigrants in Europe stopped working, one day the economy stopped, that we should be careful about that. We in Europe, we have, in a way, a strong social contract, but still with even in Europe, we have left inequality of revenue, as Sandrine was mentioning, but just to grow enormously and and that I think we need to look at that. And that's why I think now I see that as a more popular initiative, finally, to really tax the 1% or even the 0.2% or whatever the percentage, but the people who are really benefited so much of this crisis. Sandrine was referring to this windfall profit that the oil and gas not only did in 2022 but continue to get and so on the same time, how as taxpayers, we are funding the subsidies for this oil and gas company to continue working. So that is just it's not rational from the point economic point of view, we need to lower the bill of electricity for the consumers, as well as to help them invest into having more energy efficiency. But at the same time, it's not fair that this 1% finally pay a very what on average because of both of their mostly their capital revenue, pay so little tax compared to the average citizen. And that is not that will not work on the long term. So, if we don't want to have this terrible and you know, we have seen that in the past, we have tragical past in Europe. And when you look at what is the discourse and the images and what is happening now, including in France, when I look how the society is divided, we are preparing for very dramatic political revolution. So, I think that the moment where politicians should be serious and responsible, and that really to a tax system that is much more fair, and we need to do that. And yes, we need to have wealth tax absolutely we cannot, just not, because that will solve all the financial problem. Of course not, but it will increase the idea that the other system is not always against the same people, and that where the middle class and the lower middle class are feeling that they are really not recognised, and that's terrible that you create enemies between people finally, that doesn't have access to power. Just so unfair. I'm sure I must say, these days I'm furious. I'm really furious, and it's not my normal state of mind, but in this particular context, I'm really furious about the responsibility of many, many politicians these days.

Philippa: Thanks. Laurence, I think, yeah, lots of people are quite furious at the moment. Who, yeah, who are not seeing the change that they feel should be, should be happening. And Sandrine, what do you think the role is of civil society organisations like the Club of Rome or other organizations? I mean, often we, as a journalist, you know, I received press releases about how people should be installing heat pumps or buying an electric vehicle, but we're talking about social justice. Many people, I mean, rural France, for example, lots of people don't even have access to a bus service. So, do you think that civil society also needs to change the way it's communicating and bring in more of this social justice narrative, and actually, perhaps focus the pressure a bit more on the issues that Laurence has just raised, rather than perhaps individual behavior change?

Sandrine: Yeah, no, absolutely. I think there are several levels to that question. I think the first thing is, as the Club of Rome, we're in a unique position, because we gather, obviously, economists, scientists and former decision makers, and so I see our role, as well as working with other NGOs, as one that does several things. One is continue to base our decision making and our pressure points around science and evidence building, because the other key risk here is that we're getting into this media flurry without actually going back to evidence. You know, as we said, we can see it on our doorstep that climate change is here, and yet somehow the radical right has hijacked the narrative so that people are going to potentially start to vote against climate legislation. The perversity is there, so we need everything that we do to be evidence-based, but what we need to do, and that's why we actually, in our commemoration of The Limits to Growth, wrote Earth For All our entire desire within that publication and the initiative was to streamline the evidence into narratives that would bring people on the journey one is not to forget the reality of the situation, but two, to actually give them hope. And giving hope is not about just talking about the individual. I mean, let us remember that the carbon, some of these carbon models and carbon tracking have actually been invented by the oil companies. Very interesting that actually BP and Shell were the first who were pushing for individual carbon tracking of your own footprint. I think we need to be very clear here that it's the collective action the responsibility, exactly as Laurence indicated, and why we're so angry, of leadership, leaders to set the tone through the legislation, and then obviously, through the fiscal mechanisms that we put in place to start taxing the externalities, to start putting a value on green and social projects, rather than the reverse, which is actually happening. Now how do you do that? Well, one thing we need to do is, actually, I think we need to be on the offensive, not on the defensive. I personally think that the entire climate community has been too much on the defensive and not enough on recreating the visions that we need of a future that actually can be a positive future. That's why we're working with many governments around GDP plus three. You know, how do you actually really shift from just productivity to putting a value on, as I said, education, access to health care, access to social care, etc, etc. How do you actually work with influencers? How do you work with Tik Tokers? How do you work with new media so that we actually go out to an audience that most of us don't have access to. We've been working with some influencers now that have simplified the importance for this shift towards a new economy and what that looks like for every person in the street, and why it's so important. So, it's all those different conversations that we have to have at the same time with a great deal of intelligence and intuition, both emotional and intellectual intelligence when we're moving forward.

Well, one is that I think we need to really move into a space of, as I said, bringing more citizens on the journey. That's why many of us have gone out and started talking about citizen assemblies. That's why we've gone out and said that we need to understand what citizens need and what they're willing to do within this current decade of action, and I think that's part of it. The other is, personally, I think we need to get nastier. I mean, the other side has very simple messaging, and they know exactly what they want. I often talk about the European elections also being hijacked by both Putin and Bannon. Bannon came up when Trump was not reelected, he came to Europe, and he clearly indicated that he and several financial institutes from the United States would actually invest in the right-wing parties across Europe. And here we are, and they did. So, you know, we need to be smarter. We need to be on the offensive. We need to be more strategic and we need to be more tactical. And this is not about us. Clearly, we're doing this because we feel that this is the greatest existential threat that humanity has ever faced.

Philippa: Thanks Sandrine, those are powerful words. Laurence, obviously you were an architect of the COP 21 Paris Agreement, when there was a lot of optimism. And I can remember the feeling there was a real sense of, this is a moment. The world's going to shift. It's going to change. Sandrine has just talked about being on the offensive, about getting nastier. Is this a time as well that not just at a national level, but also an international level, in terms of the moving towards COP 30, that something needs to shift to really sort of ramp up momentum and actually bring about change. And how can that happen?

Laurence: Yes, totally. I think we have to be on the offensive, because it's a crucial battle. It's a battle is not something easy to do. It is difficult. And of course, there are forces that doesn't want to change, for obvious because of their obvious interest in maintaining the situation as it is so. But a number of things have changed. The fact that now, you take the train in France, and people are talking to you about the carbon footprint. You have, of course, an offensive on the side of the incumbents. And you see now in the COPs. COPs were not the place where you would feel or think that a lot of oil and gas contracts would be signed and that now is what is happening. So, you initially, I can understand that, meaning they fight for their legitimate or that they think legitimate interest, and it happens that the polluters don't pay for the pollution they are the origin. So, I think that we are very sort of controversial movement and moment, and that's why I think we need to revamp the system, the governance system, as I know that Sandrine has worked in this excellent climate governance, and we need to really bring many more actors that are understanding this transition the need to happen. We can't have COPs that continuously have a sort of affair of many initiatives you don't know what they happen with afterwards, to have many people doing commitments and at the same time not really having a commitment and accountability. So that's where I think we have to work at and you have different in the chain of accountability. You have a role for different actors in democratic countries. Parliament has a role to make government accountable of what they are committed to. But then we have to integrate accountability mechanism for the companies so the financial actors as well, and to, in a way, redefine the political economy, if I must say, so, just that create this reciprocal accountability, because we need to go all together, because nobody can do that alone. And so how you create accountability in the system, in the climate regime system? And that's why I think we need a reform of the climate governance. And we have been working with Sandrine on how we make this happen, how we don't have all this initiative, we don't know go where, and because it's beginning to weaken the system itself, where you see now countries saying, Oh yes, we agree that in Glasgow, or we agree that in Sharm or in Dubai, but finally, it doesn't commit us very strongly. And so we are at the moment where the system can be weakened from the inside, because there is too many things outside that finally are diluting the effort we are we are geared to. So, I think that we have a fragmentation of the system, which is too dangerous, fragmentation from the geopolitical point of view as well as the in a way, commitment point of view. We have somehow because, of course, the imbalance politically, in particular, the tension between US and China. So we need the Paris Agreement is not a Bible. We have to make it evolve. It's really important. It has to be a living organism. It is living organism, by the way. So we have to revise the structure from time to time to make it more efficient and to include this element of society that are pushing for the implementation.

Philippa: And just very briefly, then, I mean, how optimistic are you that this can actually happen? Because you've said it's not just, you know, national issues or problems in Europe, there's obviously a lot of geopolitical issues. Donald Trump could be in the White House in a couple of months, and obviously he took the US out of the Paris Agreement. So, you know, in a sort of couple of words, how optimistic are you that we can move anywhere towards what you're saying and actually go on arrive in COP 30 within a better place than we are now.

Laurence: You know, I've been in this fight together with Sandrine and with so many others since I know, I don't want to remind how many years. It's not a linear process. We have high and lows. We are absolutely in a low moment. And of course, a potential election of Trump will not improve things, but we have a COP in Brazil with a government that want to link social justice, democracy and climate action. And that's really, really important. And so that one, I think opportunity we have that we make us could be optimist if we are on the offensive side. On the other side, I think people and Sandrine mentioned that earlier on, and maybe we don't factor in enough the cost of the impact of climate change. The government should be asked to table the impact on climate change, on the economy for the different temperature scenarios. But we need to ask these people, this government, to be serious and transparent about risks they are making their society run, and this not on the table now you have a sort of distance between what the government says they want to do or the way they express their concern about climate change, but they don't tell the truth. And I organised, I chaired the convention of on climate change of the French citizen. There was a big, big exercise with 150 people. They told us at the beginning, even if they, of course, listen something about climate change all the time, they nobody told us the gravity of the problem in a way, in transparent and serious and fact-based elements. And that, I think that the dishonesty of the system you talk about climate change, you make beautiful speeches. You say, oh, look at the impact. The floods there, the drought here. You don't say, Look, if we continue, we will lose that much money, and that will cost jobs and health, could death. And that is honesty that should be I would love to see that by COP 30. Let's try to do it.

Philippa: Thank you, Laurence. And then Sandrine, a final word from you, just in terms of of how optimistic are you that we can achieve the vision that you've been setting out?

Sandrine: Well, I think we all have to stay optimistic. We can be angry and frustrated, just like Laurence said, but we wouldn't be continuing to push if we didn't have some level of optimism. I think there are a few things that I want to bring in. One is that the personal feeling right now that both Laurence and myself and others who are the next generation, the third generation, from parents or grandparents that fought actually in the war, and realize that this is a 1930s moment, and I'm going to bring that in as a symbolism. We have to remember that we built back and we built back better, but we built back also because people came together. This is a moment where our coalitions now, whether they be coalitions politically in the European Parliament context, whether they be the coalition in France. People need to show, as leaders, their greatness, because this is a moment where we need to build back better. It's a moment where, as Laurence says, we're really in the low of that roller coaster ride that we've been living, and we have to show the greatness of Europe. Then what I want to add is the new partnerships that we need. We need to be humble enough in Europe and in the United States to realise that geopolitically, we're no longer in the same power positions that we were before. That means that we need to build a totally different relationship with China. We need to build a totally different relationship with the Global South. And the beauty is that some of you know the leads of the bricks, for example, like Brazil as exactly as long said, want to build, want to do things differently, Lula has made it very clear. So I have a lot of hope in not only COP 30, but also in the G20 discussions that Lula is actually leading as well in the way in which we can think about both the new economics, but also the conversations we're seeing with Mia Motley on the Bridgetown Initiative, where we're rethinking our fiscal architecture, because at the end of the day, we are going to have to move into deeper systems change in order to as we started the conversation, come back to the real elephant in the room, which is poverty and inequality is going up, in particular in the Global North, not necessarily the Global South. And so I think those types of conversations, they're live, and now we need to see, how can we actually hijack them, hack them, so that they come to fruition with some real specific shifts that we need at this time, whether it be debt cancelation, new special drawing rights, or whether it be a European Green Deal that is fully implemented the way in which we can work transatlantically with the IRA and a new relationship, I hope, with China. That's that's how I would leave it. So, lots to build on, and that should be exciting. Complex, difficult, yes, but that shouldn't stop us, as we say in those in the sports world, no pain, no gain. And I think that we saw that from building from the Second World War, and we can build better as we move forward.

Philippa: Thank you, Sandrine for those positive words. And I'd like to thank everybody for listening to this podcast. And for more information, please visit Club of Rome.org