[Cities 1.5 main theme music] 

00:00:07 David

I'm David Miller and you're listening to Cities 1.5, a podcast by University of Toronto Press, produced in association with The Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy. Join me as I connect with leading mayors, experts, policymakers, and youth leaders who are helping ensure a 1.5 degree world by leading city-based climate action.

Each week, we delve into the necessary transformative solutions to today's most pressing climate challenges. The fight for an equitable and resilient world is closer than you think. [main theme music fades out]

[urgent, percussive music] In the global shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy, natural gas is often touted as a transition fuel. From a carbon emissions perspective, the continued use of natural gas is incompatible with the 1.5 degree goal of the Paris Agreement, and it must be rapidly phased out. The dirty truth about natural gas is that there's nothing clean or green about it, and in fact it's as dirty as coal. We've been hiding behind misnomer labels like “natural” for too long. That's why you'll hear it referred to in this episode as “fossil gas” to underscore the fact that it's a fossil fuel and not a natural or clean source of energy. [urgent, percussive music fades out]

[upbeat, energetic music] The global energy crisis we're currently facing has shone a light on our over-reliance on fossil gas and the social and economic costs it imposes on society. This crisis can only be addressed by reducing our dependence on fossil fuels and furthering investment in energy efficiency measures. Compared to fossil fuel energy, renewable energy is cheaper, more reliable, and has the potential for more good, green jobs. Bottom line - it just makes sense. So, what's the holdup?

Cities around the world are already leading the transition by creating policies that support the phasing out of fossil gas, reducing demand, expanding access to renewables and decarbonizing, heating and cooling. But there's still a lot of action that needs to be done. [upbeat, energetic music fades out]

[light, rhythmic music] For this episode, I had the distinct pleasure of sitting down with Rachel Huxley, the Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy’s own deputy editor. Rachel leads C40’s knowledge and research work to develop and provide cutting-edge analysis to support cities in their transition to a green and just economy.

I also spoke with Brian Motherway from the International Energy Agency or the IEA. The IEA is at the centre of the global dialogue on energy and it works to provide authoritative analysis, data, policy recommendations, and real-world solutions to help all countries provide secure and sustainable energy.

So, let's dive in.

Recent C40 research demonstrates the social, economic, and environmental costs of fossil gas and what needs to be done at the city level for an effective and swift phase out of this anything-but-natural energy source. C40's recent report, “The cost of fossil gas” found that, in 2020, fossil gas contributed to nearly as many premature deaths in C40 cities as coal. That is the real dirty truth of fossil gas. [light, rhythmic music fades out]

But it's not all doom and gloom. C40's modelling also shows that a swift energy transition away from fossil gas could help in avoiding 200,000 premature deaths in C40 cities by 2035, and nearly 800,000 by 2050. Rachel Huxley is one of the authors of C40’s October, 2022 report on fossil gas, and I'm very excited to hear directly from her about  the dirty truth behind this fossil fuel. I reached Rachel for a remote interview at C40's office in New York on December 15th, 2022.

We're here today with a fantastic guest. Rachel, welcome to Cities 1.5.

00:04:48 Rachel Huxley

Pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me.

00:04:50 David

So, your team recently released a report that demonstrated very clearly, contrary I think to public perception, that natural gas is as harmful as coal, and that's what I'd like to talk to you about today. It's a fascinating report that speaks to a whole range of issues. Can you tell us about the findings of the analysis and why is gas as dirty as coal?

00:05:15 Rachel Huxley

Yeah, absolutely. And, I mean, one of the things that we wanted to look at was the role of gas in this transition that we know we need to do, in terms of energy, in order to reach our 1.5 degree goal. And there's new and emerging evidence that is showing that gas is neither clean nor green, and that's why we're calling it “fossil gas”, because natural gas gives the impression that, somehow, it is both clean and green. And the research that we did was to look at, you know, “What is the role of fossil gas in a 1.5 degree world?” and the findings, overall, showed us—and we were very surprised by this really—that even not taking into account leakages from methane, fossil gas is incompatible with our 1.5 degree goals, so we know that, when we looked at the C40 Cities and, globally, we analyzed what needed to happen, we can see that in order to be compatible with 1.5 degrees, we really need to see fossil gas use declining by 30% and, instead, what we're seeing is a lot of announced gas expansion that is going to increase GHG emissions from fossil gas by 86%. So, we're going in completely the wrong direction.

00:06:33 David

Well, that's an extremely worrying conclusion. Methane leaks are an issue that make fossil gas less clean than it appears. But, even without them, it's incompatible to the goal of having, by 2030, on a path to net zero by 2050, to rely on fossil gas as a transition fuel at all. Can you unpack that a bit and explain what the research shows?

00:07:00 Rachel Huxley

So, fossil gas largely consists of methane, and methane is a very potent greenhouse gas. It's 28 to 80 times more potent than Co2, depending on over what timescale you're looking at it. But, it's a potent greenhouse gas and the climate advantage of fossil gas becomes marginal if even around 3% of this methane escapes into the atmosphere before being burned, and what we were seeing from other people's research is that there's a growing body of evidence showing that methane leaks are much more substantial than previously thought. They're very difficult to measure. There's no real incentive to measure them, and so they're largely going underestimated and undetected, but the small evidence that we have is showing that they're much more substantial than previously thought. So, that really negates a lot of the climate advantage of fossil gas, and it could be dirtier than coal, although I would say coal is still very dirty—we kind of need to get rid of both—but once you take into account those methane leakages, that climate advantage of fossil gas is greatly negated. That's other people's evidence. Our evidence took into account some of the methane upstream leakages, but we really couldn't take into account all of it because that evidence, you know, as I say, it's very, very hard to measure, so even without taking into account all of the impact of methane leakages, our work showed that fossil gas use is not compatible with 1.5 degrees, and that's the current kind of fossil gas use, business as usual, and we use a global database of the latest and best evidence to see where more gas infrastructure investments and construction are planned and underway, and that's what takes us to this 86% increase above where we need to be when we should be looking at a 30% decrease.

All of that is by 2035, so we looked at a slightly longer margin than normal because normally our analysis is to 2030. But, with fossil gas, we chose 2035 because, if we invest in gas now, we're looking at timescales of 30 or 40 years when that infrastructure is going to be online, and so we really wanted to look ahead a little bit more to 2035.

00:09:19 David

Well that's a very sobering set of conclusions. It's against the backdrop of some, in the fossil fuel industry, arguing very strongly that gas is an adequate transition from coal, which clearly the report shows it isn't. So, if we shouldn't be relying on gas, and if it means the planned expansions mean we can't meet our climate goals, collectively, what does the research suggest we should be doing?

00:09:49 Rachel Huxley

So, just to start with, by totally agreeing and emphasizing that our research shows there's just no place for new gas infrastructure, and we need a managed decline of the infrastructure that we've got. So, that was very clear from our research, so renewables are really the way forward. [light pizzicato string and percussive music] We looked at the viability of those, you know? “What's the cost implications? What are the job implications of that?” and what we find when we look at the alternatives—so a switch to clean energy—is we work with Bloomberg New Energy Foundation, we use their latest cost data on electricity, and we looked at the cost of renewables, so solar and wind, in comparison to the cost of fossil gas, and we found that renewables are already cheaper in all but one C40 city, and that we're really seeing, in the next few years, renewables are going to be cheaper everywhere.

And, furthermore, when we look at price trends, while gas prices have soared recently, the price of renewables continues to drop. [light pizzicato string and percussive music fades out] So, wind and large-scale PV costs have declined by 51 and 85% over the past decade or so, so we're seeing this very clear trend of declining renewables, soaring gas and unstable sort of gas prices, so it’s very volatile, and the trend really is it's cheap already in most places in the world. There are very few countries where it's not the case, but it will be, in the next few years, cheaper everywhere. That's what we're on trend for. 

So, in a nutshell, this switch to clean energy is obviously desirable from a climate perspective, and it's viable from a cost perspective, and desirable from a cost perspective, as well. And we also looked at the impact in terms of jobs and we absolutely need to be very concerned and considerate around the impact of these sorts of energy transitions on people's jobs, people's lives, people's livelihoods. That matters enormously, and what we found when we looked at the employment impact of fossil gas use compared with the clean energy transition, is that clean energy offers greater employment potential, especially in areas where city climate action is concerned, such as residential retrofit and residential PV.

So, for every million invested in utility scale renewables, we generate 1.7 times as many jobs as the same investment in fossil gas power plants. And investment in those high-potential areas, residential retrofit and residential solar, can generate 6 times as many jobs. So, we're really seeing a greater job opportunity from a transition to renewables. Now, that's not to say that we... As I said before, we need to be very mindful of the need for a just transition for people who will be affected by that energy transition and that move to clean energy.

00:12:43 David

I assume that there must be some health impacts here, as well. We've talked about costs. We've talked about jobs. Anything else that the report showed?

00:12:53 Rachel Huxley

Absolutely. So ,when I set out at the start that new and emerging evidence is showing that fossil gas, it is being presented as a green and a clean fuel, and our, and other people's, evidence is showing that it's neither. Now, I've already talked about the green side of things in terms of GHG emissions. What we're seeing in terms of, sort of, the cleanness of fossil gas in relation to air pollution, is that, again, there's growing evidence that fossil gas causes much more air pollution than we thought. We saw that across a number of studies, and wanted to explore it ourselves, so we modelled the impact on air pollution and the resulting health burden of that across our C40 cities, and this result really surprised us. It showed that fossil gas use in and around C40 cities causes almost as many premature deaths as coal-generated electricity.

00:13:47 David

Whoa.

00:13:48 Rachel Huxley

That's kind of a very shocking result, and I think goes completely against what we hear time and time again when people are pushing for fossil gas as a transition fuel.

00:13:56 David

Well, I think it goes against our intuition, as well.

00:13:59 Rachel Huxley

Yeah.

00:14:00 David

That is a very powerful conclusion.

So, the report shows that we need to dramatically reduce the use of fossil gas, that it isn't a transition fuel, and that when you include leaks of methane, it's almost as much—or perhaps even more as much—of a problem, from a climate change perspective, as coal, that clean sources of energy are cheaper, and have a much lower health impact. So, what's inhibiting the transition? It seems, you know, clear from the report that we can make a much more rapid transition to the job-creating clean energy. What do we need to do to provoke action? And what do cities, in particular, need to do?

00:14:48 Rachel Huxley

I think one of the first things we need to do is share this evidence because there is really a perception, and there's a big, big push and lobby for fossil gas to be extensively used as a transition fuel. So, I think one of the things we need to do is communicate these sorts of findings so that people understand that fossil gas isn't green or clean, and that's the first thing we set out to do with this report, in terms of sharing it with mayors. But, in terms of what cities can do, we see there's a huge role for cities in this, and there's an awful lot that they can do. [gentle music] One of the first things we should think about is making our buildings more energy efficient, because reducing the kind of demand for energy, overall, really helps with that energy transition that we need to make, and cities are in a prime position to do that, and there's a whole range of other benefits from that, including for energy poverty, for kind of health, in people living in improved thermal-comfort homes. So, that would be one of the first things to do. [gentle music fades out]

We need to electrify, so as boilers—gas boilers—and stoves are coming to the end of their life, we should replace them with electric alternatives and, therefore, we need to increase renewable energy generation and decarbonize electricity generation, so we need to phase out fossil gas from electricity generation, and we really need to ramp up renewables, including storage options which we're seeing coming online and being viable in various places around the world now, so that renewables, solar and wind plus storage, are really becoming viable options.

And then, lastly, is the industrial areas. We really need to phase out fossil gas from industry processes as well, so [chuckles lightly] we need to tackle gas use in our buildings, we need to tackle gas use in electricity generation, and we need to tackle gas use in industry, and I think one thing just to sort of say is that we know this isn't going to be a simple transition, and it's not going to be an overnight one. What we're asking for is a planned transition away from fossil gas that starts now, that is faster in countries that have the resources and the responsibility, so largely talking about sort of global north countries, and we've done a more phased approach in global south countries, recognizing a sort of fair and equitable approach to kind of phasing out.

So, we're not talking about stopping gas tomorrow. We are talking about stopping new investments in gas tomorrow, and then we're talking about a planned phase-out. We looked at three cities: Montreal, Bogota, and Johannesburg to kind of dig into the question that you just asked David, like, “How do we do this on the ground?” And so, there are some key examples of city use cases that are available in the report that people can see.

00:17:44 David

[driving music] Doable, starting now. Is it doable and feasible?

00:17:47 Rachel Huxley

Yeah. The trajectories that we modelled, we really balanced out the requirements and what's viable. What we also found is that the alternative is preferable. With so many of these things, we've got a decision to make, right? Do we invest more in a technology that we know is incompatible with 1.5 degrees, that we know is killing hundreds of thousands of people, and will do so if we continue to invest in that, that's likely to turn into stranded assets for national governments, for states, for utilities, for cities? Because fossil gas might not be on the way out right now in terms of, like, the mainstream, but it will be shortly. [driving music fades out]

There's a short shelf-life here. The costs are going to kick in harder and harder. Investing in fossil gas at the moment just doesn't make sense from an economic, from an environment, or from a sort of social and health perspective. So, it's doable, and it's preferable. It's always hard, changing course, both from sort of changing the ways that we think, but also kind of changing all of our infrastructure, both hard infrastructure, pipelines, et cetera, and soft infrastructure, in terms of financial procurement arrangements. But, we've seen these sorts of transitions before. You know, if you look back over how we've powered and heated our homes in the last 100 years, we've done this before, so, yes, doable.

00:19:13 David

And it's time to do it again. Thank you, Rachel. Again, we’re with Rachel Huxley, the C40’s Director of Research, speaking to the very recently-issued report, addressing the very serious climate, economic, and health consequences of fossil gas, and the excellent news that the alternatives are starting to be far cheaper and create far more jobs. For those who are interested, where can they find the report to find out more?

00:19:41 Rachel Huxley

Yeah, so the report’s available on C40’S Knowledge Hub, which is simply c40knowledgehub.org, but you can just Google “C40 Knowledge Hub” and you can find it there very easily. One of the nice things in the report, I definitely signpost people to, is Chapter 3, which shows all of the things that cities are already doing. [light, rhythmic music] So, this isn't a future conversation. We're seeing action happening already now. Cities are leading and showing it's entirely possible, and making it happen, and it's really a very positive aspect of the report.

00:20:15 David

Fantastic. So, please, listeners, go to C40’s Knowledge Hub and look at the excellent examples of what can be done today to help us avoid climate breakdown through avoiding the expansion and use of fossil gas. Rachel, thanks again for being with us today. Terrific.

00:20:32 Rachel Huxley

Pleasure. Thank you.

00:20:37 David

[light, rhythmic music continues] There's plenty of scientific evidence supporting the need to transition away from fossil gas, but providing practical actions and policy recommendations to guide governments through the transition is essential, and that's where the IEA comes in.

Brian Motherway is Head of the Energy Efficiency Division at the International Energy Agency and overseas, a range of analytical and outreach programs supporting energy efficiency worldwide. I reached him for a remote interview at his office in Paris, France, on November 9th, 2022.

Brian, thanks so much for joining us today on our podcast.

00:21:18 Brian Motherway

Thank you very much for the invitation, David. It's great to be here.

00:21:20 David

For our listeners, could you just provide a sort of high-level outline of the current state of the global energy crisis—as we record this, it's late in 2022—and what role our reliance on fossil fuels is playing in this crisis?

00:21:39 Brian Motherway

So, first of all, I think let's pause on that term, “global energy crisis”. This is probably truly the first really global energy crisis the world has seen, in the sense that everybody's affected. It's across all fuels. We've had a real shock this year, maybe a kind of a waking up to the downsides of our dependence on fossil fuels, particularly imported commodities, where the price is very volatile, that the security supply has now really come into question, never mind all we knew about the emissions and the climate dimensions. 

So, there's a real moment now where there's an understanding that things have to change, and that's why, in the depths of this crisis and all the challenges we face and all the hardship it’s causing, we are, in the IEA, quite optimistic that we're seeing an awakening moment, that 2022 could be a turning point where people realize that solving the climate crisis and solving the global energy crisis that we find ourselves in the midst of all call to the same actions, in terms of getting out of fossil fuels as quickly and smoothly as possible, becoming more dependent on our own clean resources, becoming more efficient in how we use energy, so the missions really align, and I think governments are starting to see that.

00:22:51 David

To me, that's a very interesting comment, coming from the International Energy Agency. Climate advocates have been arguing for quite a long time that one of the best ways of meeting our climate goals is to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels through things like energy efficiency. Do you sense, in the support the agency has in its work, from members and others, an increasing recognition of that link and that silver lining that you just potentially mentioned, and in the current challenges, because there is an awakening to recognize what needs to be done?

00:23:27 Brian Motherway

Well, we work for governments around the world, and I'd first say that I don't think there's ever been any sense of disagreement with your core point. I think it's been maybe a question of prioritization: “Which comes first?” “How quickly can we do this?” “At what cost?” I think that maybe the level of really serious political and societal commitment, maybe hasn't all been there compared to now. But I think, as well ,that sometimes maybe certain people would pitch energy security and clean energy transitions in opposition to each other because they’d say, “Look, if we move to variable renewables, maybe the lights will go out,” or, “If we don't keep heating our homes with gas, you know, will our homes continue to be warm?” But I think, certainly, that's been the big step forward in 2022, that nobody can seriously say right now, “Why, I wish we had less renewables at our disposal. I wish we were even more dependent on fossil fuels.” There's a real sense of alignment, but I think that comes in the context of the last couple of years, where we came out of the Paris Agreement, you know, six or seven years ago when we were on track on current policies around the world for maybe a global temperature warming of more than three degrees by the end of this decade. 

Since Paris, and especially coming into Glasgow, last year, governments representing more than 4/5 of the world economy, more than 4/5 of the energy system, more than 4/5 of our greenhouse gas emissions, have now seriously, at the highest level, committed to net zero pathways, many by 2050, some a little bit longer, and many have now backed those up with, really, you know, significant, firm policies and investment commitments so we're far away from where we need to be. [sparse, driving music] The pace really need to accelerate, but I think we shouldn't underestimate how much solid progress towards delivering on our aspirations has been made in the last few years.

00:25:06 David

And those commitments, in and of themselves, the fact that there are serious commitments by serious governments, help create the sense that there needs to be a different path. Is that a fair way of summarizing the point you just made?

00:25:19 Brian Motherway

It makes it credible because I think, obviously, first of all, business and investors are always looking to govern for the signals. You know, “If I start investing in renewables, if I invest in innovative efficiency technologies, you know, will the policy environment be conducive in the coming years? Are you serious about doing this? Is society serious about doing this?” And I think there's been a real step forward in that in the last year or two.

I think, as well, even for people who may be understood, you know, in abstract terms, climate is a serious issue. It probably wasn't a day-to-day issue for many people, but so many more people around the world see energy, its cost, its reliability, the impact of a lack of energy in their lives, is so much more at the top of people's minds in 2022 that I think there's a real moment where societies, citizens as a whole, businesses, are getting the click moment where they start to realize all of this does align, and all of this does need to happen quicker than we were doing in the past. [sparse, driving music fades out]

00:26:14 David

In that context, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has caused some significant issues around energy, globally, but certainly in Europe. I think the context is very interesting, given your comments about the overall framing of this, and businesses and others starting to realize the necessity to make change today.

The International Energy Agency put out a ten-point plan on how to reduce European reliance on Russian gas. Can you give us some highlights of that report? And there are some aspects I'd like to ask you about because, from a city-based climate organization, some of the strategies in that report are of considerable interest.

00:26:52 Brian Motherway

I think, in our role in advising governments on energy issues, even before the Russian invasion, we were getting worried that maybe governments weren't taking these issues seriously enough, and then, particularly, as soon as the invasion happened and we saw what was happening in energy markets, what was going to happen, we were quick to say to governments, “You need to take action now and there are actions you can take,” because I think maybe some governments were saying, “What can we do that would really have a short-term impact?”

So, in our action plan on gas, and then our subsequent one on oil and other plans, we always focus on what can you do very quickly and, if you act firmly, you can make a difference very quickly. And, of course, that's spread across the supply of energy and demand for energy and, on the supply side, we've already seen very firm action in response to our ten-point plan in terms of diversifying where our gas comes from. We've seen some fuel switching, some of it which is positive. We've seen electrification in certain cases, maybe lower climate emissions. In some cases, not so positive in the short term, where you see countries maybe using more coal for electricity generation, where they were using gas before - not good for the climate but, as long as it doesn't get locked in, as long as it's a short-term effect, it doesn't have a huge negative effect either.

But, of course, we also reminded the governments in our ten-point plan, as did C40, that, really, you’ve got to think about the demand side. You’ve got to think about how people are using energy, realize that we can all become a lot more efficient in our energy use, and help people, help citizens, businesses, cities, societies do that, because you can help them by giving them advice on how to remain comfortable while using energy at home. You can help them by giving them subsidies to improve the insulation of their home or upgrade to a heat pump. You can give businesses access to free advice services to reduce their costs, quickly.

All of these have been proven. Everything in our ten-point plan was something we see happening in some countries and achieving important benefits and, really, the goal now is for everybody to do more of this and more quickly. So, the ten-point plan is really focused on both the supply and how we use gas, and what actions governments and societies can take, together, that can move quickly, can scale up quickly, and have a short-term impact.

00:28:57 David

I just want to follow up on that point, Brian because I found it powerful and interesting, coming from the International Energy Agency, such a focus in this ten-point plan and, not just on alternative, short-term sources of gas and other fuels to help Europe get off Russian supply, but a focus on accelerating energy efficiency, heat pumps, renewables like solar and wind. Can you just speak to the potential of those measures, first of all, to help Europe deal with its current challenges, but more importantly, globally, to help lessen our reliance on fossil fuels so that nations can actually meet their greenhouse gas reduction commitments?

00:29:40 Brian Motherway

There’s a natural response, David, that if I say, as a government or an individual, “I can't buy what I want to buy from the normal source. Well, I'll just buy it from somewhere else,” and that applies a lot more widely than energy. But, in the case of gas, here in 2022, the first point is that there simply isn't enough gas on the global market to start buying it from somewhere else.

First of all, a lot of our infrastructure is locked into Russian gas flowing through pipelines. Secondly, even if we did have the facilities and the ability to bring in LNG by ship, which is the main alternative way of doing it—liquid natural gas—so bringing a shipload of gas, instead of bringing it through the pipeline, there simply isn't enough gas on the market. Everybody else wants to buy it too, particularly in Asia and elsewhere, so there just simply isn't the opportunity to continue business as usual and simply buy gas from another place.

Even if that were true, this is the moment where we think about, “Well, do we need all this gas? Are there somewhat better ways to meet our needs, economically and socially, in terms of how we heat our homes, how we cool our homes, how we run our businesses?” A, by becoming more efficient, so by simply using less energy to achieve the same goal, and, secondly, using clean sources such as wind and solar, which of course are powering ahead in Europe, as they are anywhere. They've never been cheaper, they've never been rolling out faster. We’re seeing a real uptick in the deployment of wind and solar right across the world because the prices have come down so much.

We are seeing annual gains in the world becoming more energy efficient. Every year, we get more out of the energy we use. We become more efficient in our homes, we become more efficient in our cars because the technology is getting better because our behaviours are adapting, so it's really a moment to look at all of this and realize that huge gains are possible by a shift to clean energy, through energy efficiency, through renewables, and we see governments responding. We see governments acting on all of the points in our ten-point plan in terms of faster rollout of renewables, more emphasis on efficiency. Here in Europe, nearly every country across Europe has been rolling out behaviour and awareness campaigns to help citizens understand how they can save energy, you know, behaviour change that maybe wasn't even on the table a couple of years ago where governments, kind of, really weren't asking their citizens to be active parts of this clean energy transition. We see real shifts there now, here in 2022, and I think they will have lasting, positive effects.

00:31:54 David

Yeah, I was quite struck by the fact, in the ten-point plan, turning down your thermostat could save so much energy and was one of the points recommended, and I assume that's what you're speaking to about consumer behaviour, and change encouraged by governments.

00:32:10 Brian Motherway

[light pizzicato string and percussive music] So, very few people know that if you just go to the thermostat on your wall and it’s set—I'm going to use European units now—but, if it's set for 24 degrees for heating or 19 degrees for cooling or something of that, in the case of heating, if you change it down by 1 degree, you won't even notice the difference in your house, I guarantee you, but you'll save 7, 8, 10 percent of your gas usage just by that little adjustment. And, as you say, if everybody across Europe, if everybody across the world did that, David, the savings would be huge. But, I have to say, we debated quite a bit putting that point in, because you start saying, “Are people willing to do that? Does that sound like a negative point where you're asking people to kind of go without?” but we said, “No, it's important to remind people how easy it is to save energy. You're not going to be any less comfortable. It's something you can do in a moment, and something you will benefit from, on an ongoing basis.

And I have to say, when we put it out, quite a few governments and commentators said, “The IEA, there's something in the drinking water over there because they're now telling people to turn down the thermostats.” But since then, I've seen many, many governments including that exact message in their behaviour campaigns. I've seen posters on the side of buses or messages on the Internet in Country X or Country Y saying, “Please turn down your thermostat by 1 degree.” It just reminds me that something is happening in our global discussions of energy, of climate, of the citizens’ role in clean energy transitions, and I think 2022 has really sparked a very interesting opportunity there.

00:33:33 David

Well, it's my experience that people are actually looking for something they could do, so from a city government perspective, I think people are all in favour of the IEA making recommendations for change that people can be part of and support, which I think brings me to my final question. C40 is an organization of mayors of the world's largest cities. Some control their electric utility. A few actually control gas utilities. Many don't. Many have influence over policies like energy efficiency. Do you have some thoughts, based on the IEA's views of how to address the current European challenges, how cities could contribute to ensuring that we make this transition to cleaner energy and start to use less, in the meantime?

00:34:22 Brian Motherway

I mean, these issues are global, David, as you know, not just European, and, equally, the centrality of the role of cities is global. I really think it's really important, and that's why I'm delighted that C40 is doing so much leading work here, and that we're able to engage with you, because it's so important because, for so much of the clean energy transition on renewables and efficiency and other things, it’s all about something that sounds simple on paper, making it happen on the ground fast enough and at big enough scale, and then you're facing all the complexities of rollout, of implementation, of getting citizens willing to upgrade their homes, of getting the supply chain of technology, and people to install new technologies, of unlocking finance and doing all that faster than ever before, particularly here in the midst of this global crisis. 

And cities have a great power to do that in so many ways in terms of engaging with citizens, cities are much closer to their citizens than maybe national governments often are. They often have the mechanisms in place for providing finance or for rolling out initiatives, or for engaging on a community level. There’s so many examples, certainly here in Europe and beyond, where there’s a sense of people feeling part of a community, part of an energy community, specifically, so that creates such a great set of foundations for building faster action. I really think the role of cities in getting this done on the ground as quick as we need to is absolutely vital.

00:35:40 David

I do have one more. One of the challenges national governments and cities face is that sometimes, some commentators set actions to lower our reliance on carbon-emitting fuels in opposition to economic strength, and blame those measures, in effect, for challenges, economically. It's obviously the view of cities that both can be successful, but do you have any comments on that perspective and how to address the fact that many of the things you're talking about are going to produce jobs and economic opportunity?

00:36:17 Brian Motherway

For many aspects, David, of clean energy transitions, the further down the road we go into the real implementation phase, the more the risk of politicization, you know, because, as change brings concern, it brings winners and losers, it brings nervousness, it brings opportunities for people to blame others or, you know, correctly or incorrectly, and let me be very clear in this, the global energy crisis is not caused by our climate or clean energy policies in any way. The evidence is absolutely against that.

And, secondly, and I think this is very clear from the data, but also, I think it's very clear to governments and people around the world, the path out of the global energy crisis is also the path towards clean energy transitions. The alignment of the two issues is very close indeed, and the more we understand that people who incorrectly try to blame clean energy issues for current high prices or security challenges, we need to realize that that's just not correct. We need to stay the course, and I have to say that I'm encouraged by seeing how many governments are determined to stay the course, and are using this moment to realize that, actually, our need to accelerate clean energy transitions is greater than ever, and the need for pace is greater than ever, and I think that's really important.

And I think it is important that all the evidence is showing that, first of all, we track jobs in energy, and this year, for the first time ever, globally, there are more jobs in clean energy around the world than there are in conventional energy, so clean energy is growing. It has overtaken fossil fuel energy in terms of being an employer, and if governments meet their targets for 2030 by the end of this decade, there'll be 20 million more jobs in clean energy than there are today. There's already something like 35 million in clean energy today. By the end of the decade, there'll be more than 50 million jobs in clean energy if we meet our targets. It's going to create employment. It's going to reward innovation. It's going to create new opportunities for countries that are more nimble, that are faster moving in terms of innovating. It's going to accelerate this shift towards energy that is Indigenous, is clean, is resilient, that we're not dependent on the likes of Mr. Putin for whether we can afford to heat our homes.

[gentle music] There’s just huge positive opportunities in the clean energy transition. I really believe that some of those realizations are really happening around the world today, and will really reinforce the need to accelerate clean energy transitions, globally.

00:38:33 David

Incredibly well put, Brian. Thank you so much for being with us today. That's Brian Motherway, Head of the Energy Efficiency Division of the International Energy Agency, and clear and powerful speaker on these issues. Thanks so much. [gentle music fades out]

00:38:47 Brian Motherway

Thank you, David.

00:38:48 David

[pensive music] The global energy crisis of the past year proves that our reliance on fossil fuels is not sustainable. But we also know, through research and analysis by C40 and the IEA, that investing in renewables just makes more sense from an economic, societal, and ecological standpoint.

Cities have a big role to play in the energy transition. Cities can influence the shift from fossil fuels to clean energy, and directly benefit from the health, social, and economic outcomes that transition will deliver. Fossil gas is part of the problem, not the solution. [pensive music fades out]

Since the sustainable energy transition has been delayed for far too long, we're forced to make this transition happen at an incredibly fast pace. [upbeat, energetic music] But also, we can be optimistic that the energy transition is not just possible, but right around the corner. [upbeat, energetic music continues]

Subscribe to Cities 1.5 and tune in next week to learn more about the global actions happening today that are helping to create a more sustainable and equitable future tomorrow. [upbeat, energetic music fades out]

[Cities 1.5 main theme music]

Thanks for listening to Cities 1.5. I'm David Miller, the Managing Director of the C40 Centre for City Climate Policy and Economy. I was the Mayor of Toronto, Canada, and know, first-hand, the impact cities can have in solving the climate crisis.

Cities 1.5 is produced by Jessica Schmidt. Our executive producers are Isabel Sitcov and Jessica Abraham. Our music is by Lorna Gilfedder. Cities 1.5 is a production of the University of Toronto Press and the Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy.

To find out more, visit the show’s website link in the episode notes. See you next time. [Cities 1.5 main theme music ends]