06 | The conjuncture of geopolitics, energy and climate

The Polycrisis team’s taking a short break, we’ll be back next week. 

In the meantime we’re sharing an episode from NuVoices where they interview Kate Mackenzie. 

NuVoices host Solarina Ho asks Kate whether the topic of climate change has been weaponised amid the US-China trade war. Also how the global rush to electric vehicles served global needs, both strategically and environmentally. Kate shares her insights into the latest trend of climate collaboration, renewable energy development, and how we could save our planet at a time of geopolitical uncertainty.

NuVoices is an international editorial collective. It celebrates and supports the diverse creative work of women and other underrepresented communities working on the subject of China (broadly defined).

The Polycrisis is hosted by energy and climate finance expert Kate Mackenzie, and Tim Sahay from the Net Zero Industrial Policy Lab at Johns Hopkins University. They co-author The Polycrisis newsletter, which explores connections between energy, geopolitics, climate change, finance and industry. 

• Produced by Sarah Allely
• Original music by Russell Stapleton
• Mixed by Bethany Stewart

Contact us at: polycrisispodcast@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Hello, Kate McKenzie here. The Polycrisis team's having a short break. We'll be back in a week or two. Meanwhile, we're sharing an episode from New Voices where they interviewed me about the main themes that we focused on in season one. The intersection of energy, geopolitics, climate, and development. It's a decent deep dive chat. Take a listen.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

I'm Solerina Ho, your host for today's episode in saying hello from Toronto, Canada. Joining me 15 hours ahead in Sydney, Australia, is Kate McKenzie. She's a researcher, writer, and strategist, and an expert specializing in the political economy of climate change. She was instrumental in getting financial climate risk regulation off the ground in Australia through her think tank work, and she co-authored the first peer-reviewed and frequently cited paper on the use, or perhaps misuse, of climate models for business analysis purposes. She's one of the co-authors of the monthly newsletter, The Polycrisis, which explores the intersection between energy, geopolitics, finance, industry, and of course, climate change. Polycrisis is also now a podcast which she co-hosts with her co-author, Tim Sahai. Kate, welcome to the New Voices Podcast. Thanks, Silerina. It's good to be here. And yeah, hi from the future. Just to start, can you explain or define for our listeners what the political economy of climate change means and why it matters?

SPEAKER_01 1:48

I'll start with what it is not, I suppose. A lot of climate, a lot of the sort of thinking and the policy work, academic work around how to tackle climate change, which is this it's now like decades of work behind this. A lot of it initially has been very narrowly focused on emissions and particularly carbon dioxide emissions. And often there's been a, you know, both in the scientific literature and the more, you know, social sciences literature and the economic literature, policy relevant work, there's been this tendency to be, I guess, very, yeah, just very focused on emissions. Like we just tackle emissions and everything else remains the same. If we make the scientific case and if we make the economic case, both of which, you know, are like completely unassailable, right? There's no rationale for tackling climate change, you know, quite aggressively if one considers the risks of not doing so. But I think that assumption for a long time has driven a lot of the thinking and talking and analysis around climate change is like we'll just tackle, we'll just think very narrowly about emissions. So Tim and I actually connected on Twitter five years ago now, um, and we were both working in climate advocacy at the time, and both had this sort of feeling, this frustration that a lot of it was very siloed. A lot of the work on how we tackle climate change, how we cut emissions was very narrowly focused, very technocratic, and wasn't really taking into account the other elements of societies and of politics and of economies. So that's like a, I guess, a big picture explanation. And the more prosaic explanation would be it's the what are the real power dynamics behind how we tackle climate change and also, of course, how how climate change affects different communities, different people. There's not just an economic rationale behind this, there's a there's some very complex politics in every country. There's different power elements, you know, there are industries, there are groups, there are constituencies that you know have more power than others and can veto things, even changes that would be very beneficial for everyone. So it's kind of looking at it a bit more broadly and a bit more intersectionally, I suppose, like along with, you know, like what are the different industries that are affected, but not just sectors, but what are the different aspects of the society, what are the different sort of political elements that that are affected? Because basically, like tackling climate change means a lot of things have to change. Changing energy systems and agriculture is is huge. And there will be, you know, the however it's managed, it creates winners and losers, right? Any big change can can create winners and losers.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

So and I guess one of the uh key themes in polycrisis is just the geopolitics of the energy transition with the idea that clean energy is particularly valuable for developing countries, and so they're not reliant on gas and oil-rich countries. Can you talk about, I guess, the the evolution of the newsletter and and the podcast?

SPEAKER_01 4:54

For me, one of the really profound things that happened in COVID was that it was it was a really big time in terms of the debt burden for a lot of global South countries. There was a lot going on in the decade leading up to 2020. A lot of countries had been borrowing more borrowing for the first time on private markets. So it it was already, even without COVID, it would have been a difficult time. But that was when, you know, this sort of sovereign debt crisis for a lot of global South countries became a very real thing. And the it became it was very clear at that point that this long-standing sort of historic tension in international climate negotiations about development versus tackling climate change was going, was, was really gonna have to be confronted in a different way because lower income countries want to become higher-income countries and and so they should. That's something that really informs our thinking, I guess. And Tim, having grown up in India, he's lived in the States for for quite a long time now. But we think a lot about like not just the things like the financial subordination of global South countries, but also the agency of global South countries. And yeah, that's something that is it's it's it's kind of a nice like different perspective between us, because you know, he'll kind of sometimes go, Well, you're just having this first world lefty kind of view of business being like having no agency, but you know, coming from India, it's like it's it's it's a it's a very big and powerful country. Um, and yeah, like actually there are domestic issues going on in that country, as with every other country, where you know, you've got different power interests that are determining what really happens, like what change really happens there. And it's you know, it's like international climate negotiations are a big concern for a lot of countries, but the roles that they play in those negotiations are are often really informed by their domestic politics and the domestic political goals, obviously, of the government, whatever type of political system they have.

SPEAKER_00 6:49

And I wanted to, I guess, go into the uh the podcast and the some of the topics that you discussed. But first I wanted to say as an aside, when I was listening to the first episode that you mentioned in Sydney that rooftop solar panels are so common that they're making the electricity grid free in the middle of the day, which I have to say blew my mind. And it really highlighted just how we all live on the same planet, but just everyone's in such different places as far as you know the transition goes. And it was just, I found it really a fascinating little nugget that you had included.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Yeah, it's a good, it's a great thing, and I'm I'm I'm looking forward to it. It's coming in June or July. I think it's been sort of mandated since then, but Australians really love rooftop solar. We've been installing it at like I think 20% of houses last time I looked have have solar panels. It's it's been very successful here, and then that creates issues for the for the balancing and the grid. But yeah, it's it's really good that they figured out this is, you know, there is some way that we can collectively benefit from this. And in that first episode, like talking to Hania Isad, who's an energy analyst in Pakistan, we didn't include all of this in the podcast, but she explained really well how the incredible explosion of like a solar installation, rooftop solar installation in particular in Pakistan has been obviously like really beneficial for lots of households and businesses and remote villages who didn't have reliable electricity or some in some cases didn't have electricity at all. But the flip side, or you know, it it also creates issues because Pakistan had borrowed a lot of money to build coal-fired power plants financed by China. They'd also finance uh various like gas fired power plants and come, you know, come up with these complicated financial arrangements with the power plant operators. And these things are really tricky to figure out when a country installs a lot of renewables. It's not often the the sort of the legacy arrangements mean that it's hard to realize all of the benefits of that, like basically free electricity.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

And so in that episode, you talk about China and the US with Chinese electrical vehicles and and cheap solar panels flooding the markets around the world and US really focusing on on petrol and how it's a struggle or a tug of war between the two superpowers. If the US continues to prioritize oil exports while China kind of dominates the clean energy supply chains, do you feel that it's the US is is ceding these industries of the future to China, like a country that is viewed by many in the US government as it's its geopolitical rival? And what does this mean in terms of where the US is going in the future?

SPEAKER_01 9:39

Yeah, I think the US is absolutely, I mean, as it is right now, it's absolutely ceding the future of the technological leadership and you know, manufacturing leadership of clean tech generally got quite a boost during the Biden administration. But for such a big, wealthy, technologically advanced country to be just now like under an under an administration that's not just kind of giving up on those industries, but really like pushing back on them pretty aggressively wherever it can. It's kind of incredible because even from the perspective of a petrostate, it's still very much the case that these are the these are the emerging industries, right? Like this is where broadly things are going. And you can see that with the Gulf states. Saudi Arabia has been becoming like very, very active in renewable energy deployment domestically and even um even externally, like you know, they're financing big solar plants in Turkey, for example. The rationale, I mean, there's it's you know, it's complex, like there's issues there, there's calculations there about keeping preserving their oil for export only, because you know, your export earnings are the most important thing, and doing that upfront capital investment now to to make their own domestic electricity supply, you know, cheap and and free ultimately, I guess. But to just abandon clean energy because you're nominally self-sufficient in crude oil and natural gas, methane gas, is very strange. It's not really like a symmetric contest between China and the US on energy. The US has got there's this political and kind of cultural, very vibes-based attitude to energy dominance and wanting to maintain oil and methane gas as the like predominant energy systems around the world because those are systems in which the US is incredibly powerful. It's now the biggest crude oil exporter in the world and the biggest LNG exporter, which is something that would have surprised everyone in the energy world a decade ago when they weren't exporting LNG at all. I don't think that that's driving the this recent spate of US, um, I don't know what to call it, like military adventurism. I think it's fair to say, like, you know, that's an element of it and projecting the continuing dominance of fossil fuels as the central world energy system is is certainly of interest to the administration. It's not necessarily like, oh, we want to keep selling everyone oil because that's so important to us. The US makes money in many, many other ways as an economy, but as a sort of almost like a cultural plank of their of US hegemony, that's really important. Whereas China, by contrast, China's coming at it, its role as a global energy player from a completely different perspective. It's almost like China's clean energy role in the world is a side effect of its own domestic economic goals.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

So at the risk of perhaps oversimplifying the issue, is there inevitability in terms of who will win, I guess, this contest, if you can describe it as such?

SPEAKER_01 12:51

In so many cases, in so many situations, renewable energy, clean energy, and storage, it just makes more sense. It removes your dependence on constant this constant feedstock, oil and gas for combustion, right? There's a different, you know, upfront capital cost is a bit different, the the financing structure is different to fossil fuels, um, fossil fuel installations and so forth. But the benefits are are kind of very apparent, and except for a few situations where it's still maybe a bit difficult to really transfer into completely clean energy systems, in even in a lot of you know, industrial situations, industrial locations, the advantages are already there and they're already clear. And this stuff is getting cheaper, better all the time, partly again as a side effect or you know, positive externality of China's industrial policy and China's own economic goals and developmental goals. But the gear is getting better, storage is getting better, chemical substitution and so forth is always kind of innovating in storage. And Chinese EVs have just um you know really taken the world by surprise in terms of how good and cheap they have become like so quickly. So, and the advantages are for countries of not either if you're an importing country, if you're importing, relying on importing oil and oil products and gas, the the advantage of not having to rely on that so much, even before this Middle East war, those advantages are are really huge. You know, it's not just financial advantages, it's security advantages, just removes a whole lot of risk. And now those risks and costs are obviously so much more front of mind. I think it's inevitable in terms of timing. Who knows? There's so many things that can you know accelerate or decelerate the pace. Just seeing tariffs, you know, there have been a lot of barriers to importing of Chinese clean tech goods, even in a lot of global south countries. That's you know, just countries trying to wanting to protect their own in industries, for example. That's like slowed down the takeout in a lot of those countries. But then, you know, in quite a few countries, those they've seen the advantages and are now going, okay, actually it's easier to just import this stuff now, and then we can start building our own industries, or we can start doing deals with China on green FDI to have our own factories that we, you know, co-develop with Chinese investment and know-how.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

So far, we've seen the US use oil as a leverage in things like tariff negotiations with other countries. So I guess maybe put another way, how long can they weaponize, I guess, in a way, fossil fuel access as a viable strategy? Is it just kind of helping China accelerate its own efforts uh along with other countries' efforts at energy independence through renewables? And on the flip side, there is also criticism around China leveraging these benefits and perhaps exploiting uh some of these countries. What are your thoughts on these two sides of the issue?

SPEAKER_01 16:05

The US attempts to really force countries into buying um not just their oil, not I mean, not really so much their oil at all, because oil's fairly traded in a what we call like liquid fungible markets, right? So oil kind of sells itself. LNG is um which which has you know become like a a much bigger source of energy in a lot of parts of the world in the last 15 years, um, and particularly in Asia. That's a bit more dependent on long-term, you know, one-to-one contracts. Um I can't remember the exact percentage. I think maybe it's about half of LNG now. It used to be, there used to be a lot more, is um is contracted. So, you know, it's like like Pakistan, for example, would buy, has, you know, long-term contracts with Qatar to get 10 LNG shipments a month. And then it's got another, gets another two a month from any an Italian company. Australia, where I'm, you know, where I am, we have various really long-term, I think 25-year contracts in some cases, I think, with Japan, South Korea, China to sell LNG. So LNG is a bit more lumpy, and the US, it's interesting that the US was forcing or trying to force, for example, Europe to commit to buying a lot more US LNG as part of its trade deals, so or trade deal with the EU. So in that whole tariff, in all of that tariff bargaining and threatening and cajoling that was going on between the US and the EU, getting, extracting some commitment from the EU to buy $750 billion worth of LNG over three years. I think that was the order of it. That was one of the conditions that the US administration was putting down to avoid, you know, incredibly punitive tariffs that the EU had to commit to this. And now, interestingly, I saw just last week the, I think it's a US, a top sort of US diplomat in Europe was was sort of doing reversing that and then threatening the EU that they wouldn't be allowed to buy, that the US might withhold LNG if Europe wasn't more supportive on the US's attacks on Iran, basically. So the US is like very interested in using it directly. LNG in particular, it's it's a bit easier to weaponize, it's a bit more scarce, it's a bit more of a lumpy kind of market. Whereas oil is, you know, it's more what you call like a spot market where things can be bought and sold in a more fluid way, a more dynamic way. The second part of the question about China, how China kind of exerts its power and influence with energy is it's a really interesting question. There's this whole sort of misconception of debt trap diplomacy that that China supposedly engaged in in the under the Belt and Road initiative. And I don't think that's, you know, yeah, I think it's kind of widely agreed by experts that this is like a bad characterization or just mischaracterization. But the extent to which China wants to, like the or Ch Chinese entities are supporting the expansion and and rollout of clean energy in in the rest of the world is it's really interesting. And the ways in which that is happening are I think it's going to be really important. I think there's a there's a big question around for a lot of countries around jobs, because manufacturing is often is a potentially very good industry in terms of, you know, something you want to have domestically that has good high-skilled jobs and maybe allows some export earnings as well. Look, that's an issue for for a lot of countries with China. And yeah, my my co-author Tim's work, um, his kind of main his day job is is very focused on this question of how can countries collaborate with China and get their own jobs and so forth domestically, their own domestic manufacturing rather than just importing, you know, like no, like no state wants to be a vassal state of the US or China. The dynamics are very different for the two of them in terms of in energy. And and then there's the whole, you know, monetary um financial aspect of this as well.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

Moving a little bit towards EVs specifically, so I was in China last summer and I was struck. It's one thing to read and hear about their EV, I guess, explosion, and another to experience it. We were there for three weeks traveling by cars multiple times a day every day. And I think during that entire time we sat in maybe one gas car. The way governments were incentivizing the purchase of EVs, the price, the sheer variety, the convenience, it was really remarkable. And then I've seen, meanwhile, the vast solar fields across deserts and mountain landscapes. How did China get to where it is today?

SPEAKER_01 20:38

Look, it's been it's been a long process and a big project, you know, just one of you know many big projects in China, of its, again, it's you know, developmentalist industrial policy in Made in China 2025 strategy and this idea of focusing on the new three solar panels, electric vehicles, and storage batteries. These were effectively, you know, directives that were that came from central government and provinces were encouraged to you know develop their own champions in those fields. And so I think, you know, at one point there were 200 EV manufacturers in China. Um I I don't know. But but but Tim Tim just Tim has this way of articulating as like a fitness center. It's like the domestic market becomes the fitness center. So you have all these different, there's all these different car companies from from different parts of China, and you know, their own local governments are that you know wanting to champion the homegrown company, but they all then have to fight it out in an incredibly competitive domestic Chinese market. So only the only the really good ones survive. So it's quite different to say, you know, some of the like Western national champions. You've just got one company and they get state support and lots of lots of diplomatic support in securing deals. You know, say if you were like an aerospace company, for example, or um some other kind of manufacturer in in China, it was this this real process of like they have to compete against each other domestically. And then they get so good that taking on international markets is easy because you know they're competing against companies that are much older, you know, Western and East other Korean, Japanese companies, well, that are much older, that are really anchored in internal combustion engine technology, that have in many cases been resisting any government attempts to encourage electric vehicle development. You know, certainly in Germany, that's very evident. In Japan, that's also very evident. If you look at Volkswagen and other German car companies or Toyota, you know, they've they've really actively resisted EV, even a lot of fuel efficiency measures, let alone, you know, really things that would would um compel them to increase their EV focus and ditto for US companies. These things take time and they take complex policy uh orchestration. And, you know, China has just been the Chinese central government and the way that it has worked with uses different policy tools. So it's not just industrial, you know, it's not just like it's not that they're directly subsidizing. There's a sort of misconception that they're just directly subsidizing these companies, and that's that's not the case. It's a very, it's a mix of different policy, a mix of different supports, you know, energy finance, the energy availability and financing, and just, you know, kind of directive incentive that has just yeah, created this ecosystem where there's some very good EV companies now making very good products. It is really funny to hear people in the US and Canada. I know Canada has all had like almost a kind of ban, not quite, but like there's almost been a ban on Chinese EV import from 2024, I think early 24, till I I know it's just been somewhat lifted now. Yeah, and same when I'm talking to, I remember talking to Tim in the US and and our um one of our editors, Jack, there, who's who's also in New York, and they were just amazed when I said there's you know, there's Chinese EVs everywhere here, like in Sydney. And that's it's much more so the case now. And yeah, you know, you guys in North America are not are not seeing that, but a lot of the rest of the world is.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

A lot of uh protectionist policies here, at least uh for now, anyway. But I I remember um just even technologically, we were in a taxicab that was also an EV, and the guy was like, Oh, my battery's low, I have to change it. So in my mind, I'm thinking, oh, we have to go to a station and charge it, and this is gonna take forever. And he's like, it's just gonna take a minute. So he pulled up to this station just for tabs, and it was literally, it went on some kind of platform, it raised a car and apparently swapped out the batteries, and then he drove off, and that was it. And that was just like blew my mind.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

I've heard about this in China that they've been really good at, you know. And then obviously, obviously, again, that requires like a lot of a lot of infrastructure, right? So it's investment, it's you know, it's policy support. Here where I am in like a fairly inner suburb of Sydney, there's a lot of EV charging stations around now, but that's been it's only really in the last year or so that I'm starting to see them pretty commonly. And I expect we will get to that point where you can do that battery swap out thing that it's really quick.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

And given the resistance with the traditional car makers, um, and just the fact that it's harder to be agile when you're older, maybe, and your technology is from a different era, maybe, I guess, for a simple way of explaining it. And given how far ahead China, the head start that China has had, how long would it take to catch up, or can they catch up?

SPEAKER_01 26:03

Oh I think in time, yeah, sure, they can catch up. But um look, it's really hard. Yeah. Like you can see the resistance still persisting today. I did look a bit at what the reaction was in Canada to some of the government decisions or government announcements earlier this year under you know, Carney's kind of you know new projection towards the US. And there seems to be this ambivalence there, you know, around whether allowing some Chinese EV imports is a good idea. And the government seems to be very much promising this will lead to that this is a way to get tech transfer from China and know-how from China and you know, start cooperating with Chinese EV companies, which will give the Canadian auto industry an alternative, um, a way out of being locked into the, you know, because the two that it's so locked into the US auto industry, right? Like they're such a sort of closely intertwined. And yeah, the US auto industry is just going full, you know, is now is now not full, but you know, very much kind of again constrained, locked into this ice, you know, gas guzzling future or gas guzzling um models and strategies, which most of the world doesn't really seem to want to buy those cars so much anymore. It's certainly pretty hard to see that people are still going to be wanting to buy really inefficient internal combustion engine cars, especially now, especially after this shock, that is gonna it's gonna be really painful.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

Changing tracks a little bit, China's also obviously been making a lot of heads headlines in the AI space. And there's been a lot of discussion around the enormous amounts of energy that AI consumes. And we know China's built out clean power at a scale that hasn't been matched by the US. Does their infrastructure give it an advantage or a geopolitical advantage? Things like semiconductor band, export bans and things like that offset. Like, where does that place China with in terms of just energy and AI?

SPEAKER_01 28:31

That's such a complex one and so interesting. Only just the energy availability or the energy landscape in China versus the US. I don't have like I don't have like super deep insight into this one, but it's been obvious that electricity, like energy availability in the US for this industry, whether it's the data centers or um or other parts of it, like manufacturing, but particularly the data centers, has been a real problem. And in some parts of the US, you know, just more traditional manufacturing kind of heavy industry companies are are kind of getting outbid for electricity by data center companies and hyperscalers and whatnot. So, you know, you've got this competition for electricity, reliable electricity supply, uh, which seems really detrimental for those manufacturing industries. Whereas in China, yeah, like this is just you can see this degree, there's there's so much more coordination, and it doesn't seem to be this, there isn't quite this kind of race to the bottom in terms of get the electricity, because again, this is excelling in AI and all kinds of related sectors like robotics has been part of the stated strategy for a long time. And then, you know, building out lots of energy infrastructure, lots of clean energy, electricity supply in particular, and making sure that that is available to these new industries has has been something that's just proceeding at an incredible pace in China. Oh, yeah. On the chip the export controls and all kinds of things. I mean, the general thinking seems to be that China's is, and we saw this with Deep Sea, for example, that the restrictions that have been imposed by the US, and you know, this is under administrations from from both sides of politics over the last decade or so in the US, those restrictions have, you know, encouraged or really encouraged like more domestic development in China, more some more innovation in terms of getting around. I think it still remains to be seen how that is going to pan out, but it doesn't seem like it would be safe to bet that it's this um, you know, never-ending zero-sum thing where the US and Western allies, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, for example, can hold out on allowing technologies into China, that they can, you know, permanently hobble China's ability to develop its own technology. And then there's also this interesting thing where China's kind of focusing more on efficiency in in its semiconductor and AI capabilities rather than whereas the US, it's more scale, you know, it's just like make things bigger and bigger, and then China's necessarily had more of a focus on make them more efficient. That's an advantage in itself, right? Being more efficient, because you don't want to just have to keep building more and more and more stuff.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

Kind of winding down to my last question, at the risk of sounding naive or perhaps idealistic about the world, you know, when everything is driven by rivalry and economics and profit, it kind of feels like the most important issue, climate change itself, maybe is losing somehow. And correct me if I'm wrong, some people might argue that energy consumption of AI or the vast fields of solar panels taking over landscapes and the enormous manufacturing, the rise in the cheap EVs, it isn't necessarily great for the environment either. How do you view this? I guess making coming full circle with climate change, but also the topic of the uh the the economics and geopolitics of it all. Is climate change losing in the end, or does it still benefit ultimately, regardless?

SPEAKER_01 32:18

I think it's not losing. I think there is a narrative around, and it's really hard not to feel disheartened. There is a bit of a retrenchment from talking about it and having that kind of focus and media attention and so forth on climate change, on mitigation. The reality is a bit different to the narrative. And you know, it's a funny thing about climate change and attitudes to climate change. It's like polling consistently finds that more people care more about climate change than people believe. So there's always this if you poll publics, and this is true in many parts of the world. I'm not 100% sure if it's in the case in China, but I wouldn't be surprised is that the belief about how much your fellow constituents care about climate change always comes up lower than what it actually is. So, you know, people go like, oh, I think only 30% of you know Australians really care about climate change. But actually, like it's more, it pretty consistently polls as a high concern for a majority of citizens in most parts of the world, and this is global south as well as um as well as global north. I'm not disheartened really by what I I think there's been this you know vibe shift, narrative shift, but I don't think it's yeah, I don't think it's borne out by reality. I don't think it's borne out by actual changes that are happening. And again, you know, somewhat kind of happy accidents, uh, externalities of of Chinese policy are are important in this, in making a lot of clean tech stuff just cheaper to the point where it's just a no-brainer, you know, it it improves your energy security, removes, reduces financial vulnerability and and so on. So yeah, and you know, AI also requires electricity. Um it's not uh like you know, there's an there's an electrification kind of element to it. There's a grid strengthening element to it. Um yeah, that's not to say there are not a lot of a lot of risks, um a lot of potential, a lot of hazards around what does get built and what does get prioritized, but most of the new energy, most of the new electricity generation is act for for AI, you know, even in the US, is it's it's not fossil fuel powered um at all. It's it's clean. I think it might be worth mentioning at this point that China is like a a different kind of global power in this space to the US. It's not necessarily, and we make this point in the podcast, you know, it's not just this like benevolent hegemon ride. It's pursuing its own, it's it's pursuing its own interests, just like every other state does in the world, really. But there are some benefits that are coming out of this that are based are public goods, you know, global public goods, like having clean gear is is a global public good. On this like electrification, and I think you're kind of maybe getting at like the mining and the resources that are involved in transitioning our energy supply and demand systems and the extraction that's involved and the and actually the energy that's involved in making the new systems, these are really important questions. Researchers and and experts like uh Theo Ria Frankus, for example, has been looking at this question of, you know, it's not just the the environmental implications of this, but also the implications for the you know resource-rich countries in like how do they how do they get the most out of this? Because you know, a lot of resource-rich countries have been not done well from their resources, especially if they're you know former colonies or or other um types of global south countries getting good deals is is tricky. And we see that obviously this is really pertinent for you know a lot of Latin American countries, but also particularly sub-Saharan African countries. And in their dealings with China as a big buyer, um, but also, you know, Europe and the US, that question of like how much, how good a bargain can they drive in in their own interests is, you know, that's yeah, look, it's super important. It's there's a lot of things that have to go right for those countries to get a good deal. It would be great if there was, you know, if more African countries could act more as a bloc in the same way that European countries do to an extent. But again, these things are hard, you know, it's hard, hard to get this coordination between countries. Optimistic or hopeful that that there will be more of that. And you do see some countries driving, you know, better, better and better bargains, not just with China, but but also with Europe and to an extent the US. You know, like one of the examples we have is Angola. Um, Angola, I think, has been pretty, pretty canny the last couple of years in its dealings with with both the Europeans and China in terms of um financing, debt, renegotiation, renewable energy finance support, um, export financing, that kind of thing. So, you know, I think I think that's some good signs there. But yeah, it's a it's a big issue for sure.

SPEAKER_00 36:53

I really appreciate your uh insight and expertise on all of this. We could delve into a lot more, but just wanted to kind of wind things down for today. But before we go, we always ask our guests to share any self-care tips or recommendations on something they've either read or watched or heard on anything. So just wanted to kind of throw that out if you had anything you'd like to share.

SPEAKER_01 37:18

Yeah, I guess I've been pretty focused on the world and work-related things the last couple of months. So it's a bit tricky. I I can't think of anything like really uh like genuinely escapist, I suppose. But um, it in fact, like something I've just been enjoying the the last week or so is I've just been listening to the audiobook of How Asia Works by Joe Studwell, which I have read a long time ago, but just it I'm just re-reviewing it because I want to, he's got a new book called How Africa Works, which I'm looking forward to. That's kind of nice. Quite an interesting narrative about the role of of agriculture and different developmental strategies in different Asian countries. And I guess in terms of something more escapist, I went to see this The Moment at Charlie, a Charlie XEX film. It's this mockumentary about Charlie X, and I went to see it with my son, and we really enjoyed it. We really like her music, and it is a very interesting film. And I think she yeah, there were some really interesting things about like how women and men how you know deal dealing with kind of I guess in in these creative industries, which is very far removed from my life, but how how the sort of the creative process and how you know women's confidence in their kind of vision can can be exercised and and also can sort of be undermined by men, and um and yeah, the importance of that creative having that kind of that vision. And yeah, it was really nice.

SPEAKER_00 38:52

And mine, I guess the first one is uh the the uh Disney Pixar film Elio. I saw that with my kids, and it was one of those, it came out I think around the same time that K-pop Demon Hunters did, and it sort of didn't really do so well. And we when we finally checked it out, I was actually surprised how much like it didn't seem as uh captivating initially, but after we watched it, I just I was very charmed by um the film. So I do recommend it, even though it kind of fell under the radar last year. And then the other one, it's already been recommended previously on our podcast, but I wanted to put a spotlight on it again. It's uh Careless People by Sarah Wynne Williams about Facebook. I listened to it as an audiobook, which is read by the author. And it was just a really eye-opening and extremely unflattering look at the people and the system behind uh Facebook. And it also sparked a lot of interesting debates with friends over issues like culpability and reliable narrators and just the ethics of quitting a job and when and why and that sort of thing. So that was my two recommendations.

SPEAKER_01 40:01

And actually, on that note, I was um I have the audiobook by uh the Miami Herald reporter who who was, you know, really critical in the Jeffrey Epstein um investigations. Um, I just I really want to find her name. Um Julie Kay Brown, that's it, for version of justice. That one's very interesting as well, because she talks about her, you know, her struggles as a journalist and single mother, as well as like doing this incredibly challenging investigative reporting.

SPEAKER_00 40:33

Thank you so much again for uh joining us. I really appreciate your time. Oh, thanks so much, Solerina. It's really good to talk. You've been listening to the New Voices podcast with me, Solerina Ho. Our producer is Wing Kuang, and our editor is Rebecca Liu. Our managing editor is Megan Cattell, and music is by April Zhu. Follow us on X at New Voices, on Instagram at New Voices Collective, and at newvoices.bsky.social on Blue Sky.

SPEAKER_01 41:07

Thanks for listening to this episode of New Voices at the Polycrisis Podcast. Tim and I will be back in your feeds next week.