Pod Save the World - Rhodes goes to Glasgow

Episode Date: November 10, 2021

This week, Ben calls in from the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow where he’s traveling with President Obama. In this episode Ben and Tommy cover the latest news from COP26, the increasingly dire civil war in Ethiopia, recent Biden administrations actions against ransomware hackers and the spyware for profit industry, a drone attack in Iraq, the US reopening its borders, and the #Fartghazi scandal lingering in the UK. Then Ben speaks to climate activists Hannah Martin and Luisa Neubauer, and former Secretary of State John Kerry about the intense climate negotiations in Glasgow.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, please visit crooked.com/podsavetheworld. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome back to Posit of the World. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Rhodes. Ben is coming to us all the way from Glasgow, Scotland, where he is attending the COP 26 summit with President Obama. Ben, is it true that you just left a protest with Greta Thunberg where you were throwing pigs blood at an Exxon CEO? Is that accurate? I read that. Close. Close to it. But yeah, I, uh, there, you know, there was some pretty intense protester, like right before we got here. Um, actually it was kind of, I mean, I'm not just telling this to aggrandiz Barack Obama. It was just kind of a funny Scottish police thing. We were driving to one of his events and they said, oh, there's a big protest where we're concerned about this just so you know, you should be aware. And we arrived. It wasn't a

protest. It was just like a lot of people that wanted to see Barack Obama. There we go. So, you know, I mean, that was good. Turn that protest into a parade. We're going to to talk a lot more about COP 26 and what you're doing over there in a minute. Before we jump into the show, let me tell folks what the other issues we're going to cover today are. We're going to talk about the increasingly alarming news out of Ethiopia. Efforts by the Biden administration to stop ransomware hackers in the sale of for-profit spy technology by companies like the NSA group, one of our favorites. A drone attack in Iraq. U.S. borders are now open to travelers. It's very welcome news to a lot of people. And we'll talk about why carbon dioxide

and methane emissions aren't the only unwanted emissions being talked about and making news at COP 26. Also, Ben, I know you've had a ton of free time while traveling with the former president, but if you haven't yet listened to the latest episode of offline, do not miss this week's conversation with John and Peter Hamby about all the ways the internet and Twitter have distorted and broken political reporting and political conversations and local news in all the ways that some companies are trying to fix it. It is fantastic. And if you're in the market for even more great conversations and interviews, check out Hysteria with host Aaron Ryan and a list from Master Monaco.

So offline drop Sundays on the Potsave America feed, Hysteria posts every Thursday, and you can subscribe wherever you get your podcast. Is Obama listening to any podcasts in the car? Do you guys just like put on a speakerphone? Yeah, no, he's a big cricket listener, Tommy. I mean, we know that, but that's well established. That's well established. Okay. So let's talk more about COP26, the climate summit that you're at right now.

We're at week two. Most of the big political leaders have left. Now it's down to the experts to try to reach an agreement among all the participants at the summit and cut side deals and just like do everything they possibly can to make progress towards our emissions reduction goals and dealing with global climate change. Basic question, Ben, what's the vibe out there? And why did President Obama say that he is John Kerry's DJ Khalid this week? What the hell is he talking about? So the vibe here is it's interesting. I mean, there's a lot. lot of stuff happening, right? And we've talked about these commitments of methane and deforestation, which are the big ones by governments. But then what there's also been is this effort to kind of mobilize the private sector and to mobilize financing of adaptation. So helping poor countries mitigate the effects of climate change, but also develop clean energy and also help essentially transition the global economy from carbon to a low carbon future. And so you hear these numbers,

like $135 trillions of dollars in finance and all this stuff. And on the one hand, that would be great, right? We need that. We need people to spend enormous amounts of money to make investments to solve this problem. On the other hand, it feels very abstract. You know, like how is this money actually going to be spent or is this just a bunch of people doing a PR exercise? And so the vibe here is that the activist who are out in the streets and I talked to a couple of them for the podcast today. they don't trust, they just don't trust the numbers. They don't trust the governments. They don't

trust the commitments. And with good reason, right? Because, like, there's not a really clear roadmap of how the money is going to be spent or how people are going to reach their net zero targets. On the other hand, you know, people are trying to get shit done in the summit. And what honestly, like, and I interview John Kerry, John Kerry's like the hub of the this whole thing. Like, he is working, like, 18-hour days. He's, like, probably in the absence of world leaders, like, the most prominent guy here. And so Obama was really trying to buck him up, you know, and he's trying to get other countries like China that have been laggards to make more commitments. So it's just this kind of mixed feeling here that, like, you know, people are trying

to take this seriously. They're making big promises. But it's not clear to activists and to the general public whether those promises are real or not. And so the proof of this, of, of, of, of Bosgo is going to be not at this summit. If they do everything that they say that they're going to do here, that would be great. But the suspicion is a concern is that maybe they won't. Maybe that people just make these announcements and then they don't follow through. Yeah, I mean, I should have mentioned the top of the interviews this week are your conversations with these two amazing activists and then with John Kerry about everything that's happening at the summit. So stick around at the end for that. But you know, you really actually sort of anticipated my question, which is I keep reading about the

disconnect between what's happening inside and people like John Kerry doing yeoman's work to try to bring this massive group of countries and officials together to actually take meaningful actions, or at least make meaningful commitments. And then the frustration that's happening outside among activists, you know, Greta Thunberg was sort of saying blah, blah, blah, that's all that's happening inside. We want real action. Do you see a path forward? I know you're mixing and mingling with both sides of the equation here. Do you see a path forward or anyone who is sort of able to bring both sides together to do more, do faster, or I mean, I don't know, are they just sort of naturally enabling each other, the political pressure on the outside, pushing the people on the inside?

Like, how do you see this working? I mean, that's what Obama was trying to do to some extent in at least bringing them together from a dialogue perspective. He could talk to both audiences, and that's kind of what he did. But he's not going to obviously be the one to make all this happen, given that he's not president, and no one person could. Here's what I think, Tommy, is your might, like, take away from this whole thing, which is that the most important thing is going to be figuring out how to transition

from these commitments to really concrete things that everybody can see. Now, in some of this, in the national government commitments, you do see some things. Like in the U.S., you've seen the growth of a solar energy industry. You've seen the growth of battery technology and electric vehicles, and you can see the ways in which our economy is changing. But when you, for instance, about like a hundred billion dollar green climate fund, right, which was promised to Paris and they're trying to fulfill here. They're coming up a little short and a lot of the activists are upset about that. You know, part of what's interesting to me about that is it's less the number that ends

of getting committed. That money's not being spent enough yet, you know? And so to me, I think the next step in this whole process is there's been such a focus on getting commitments that can get us to 1.5 degrees Celsius as a target. You know, let's start seeing some projects. You know, like, let's start seeing, there's 2,500 coal plants around the world, right, that really matter at this point. Let's just start seeing those get shut down and transitioned into solar plants or something, right? There's a lot of talk about methane.

Like, let's see how those leaks are going to get plugged, you know. There's a lot of talk about adaptation. Let's see some money really go into the island nations that are going to have to start moving people, right? You know, that to me is the thing that is going to be most important coming out of this is that the whole gap is, and the trust gap is entirely between the scale of these pledges, some of which, you know, are real, right? Like, there has been a shift in the U.S. economy, not as much as we would like, but it's, you know, it's happening. We can see it. But some of this stuff, particularly on the finance side, particularly on the like, you know, there was a comment about $135 trillion of

finances can be made available. But who can trust a number like that, right? And until they start to see the money flowing. And so to me, what Greta and these activists rightly want to see is like, well, where is this money? You know, like, where is it going? Where is it going to adaptation in poor nations in the global south? Where is it going for, you know, shutting down fossil fuels, not just, you know, beginning to transition off of them? And look, a lot of, I mean, the funny thing about being here, and this is why Obama was talking about being DJ Elliott. You know, the climate negotiators are the ones that want to get it done, right?

Like, if it's up to John Kerry, we'd have the clean power plant rule, I'm sure. We'd have, like, a really ambitious climate plan. So the people kind of in the summit, you know, by and large are the well-intentioned people. But I think what's important about the activists is that, yeah, they're holding everybody to account. And that's, there's no way that the degree of the things that have happened would be happening without that activist pressure. And so that's why it's also important that they should keep it up. They should be pissed, you know. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, reason for cynicism, you know, Haley News, our excellent producer pointed out a Washington Post story that said, the largest delegation at the COP 26 summit is from the fossil fuel industry. They sent more delegates total than any single country and more than all the delegates combined from the most impacted countries. So I imagine them just like hosing people down with oil and handing out lumps of coal as they walk around Glasgow.

But, you know, we talked to David Roberts yesterday. POTS of America who runs a newsletter called Volts. It's all about clean energy and politics. And he was describing to even me, someone who worked for Barack Obama, just how impactful the 2009 investments in clean energy were in that stimulus bill. And you know, you and I, like having worked in the White House, just had the shit kicked out of us over Cylindra and all these are made up Fox News scandals. But in fact, that that investment was transformative. And if, you know, world countries can come together to do these big investments that you're talking about. If Joe Biden's $555 billion clean energy build back better bill can pass and that money starts getting invested, that would

make an enormous dent in the problem that we are trying to solve. That's right. I mean, you know, Kerry in the interview that I did with him later, you'll hear, you know, the international energy agency, the IEA projects it if, if capital I and F, the commitments made in Glasgow or followed through on, that gets you to 1.8 degrees Celsius, right? Not 1.5 where you need to get, but that's, like, huge. That's really good. That's really good relative to where we were a bunch of years ago. So it's not as if these aren't potentially very meaningful steps. And like you said, the 90 billion in Obama's stimulus far exceeded what we thought it would do in terms of seeding solar. So we know it is also possible to get a good return on investments. There's just these

questions. And there are other questions, too, like a lot of the commitments are kind of delayed. Like, China's talked about ending coal. China's still building coal plants in China and other countries. Like, they need to stop doing that, you know, and they're not really playing ball at Glasgow, right? The U.S., you know, is going to have to start shutting down the things like the use of fossil fuels and coal, certainly. So, you know, it's possible. I mean, people need to realize, It's like this, we can solve this problem. It's very multifaceted. It involves governments, involves finance, it involves the private sector.

It involves cities and local. You know, we saw today, Tommy, like, governors are here, right, from the U.S. Members of Congress are here. Mayors, right? We saw AOC today. We saw Nancy Pelosi. We saw J.B. Pritzker from Illinois. So this is, everybody's in on this.

And that's great, but it also is hard, right? because who's coordinating all these moving parts, you know? And that's why the activists are important, precisely because it's so diffuse. If you don't have pressure on everybody without someone really driving it, it's the activists who have to help drive them. Yep, agreed. All right, we're going to talk about a couple other areas before we get to your interview

with John Kerry and these activists. Let's start with Ethiopia because the news out of Ethiopia is getting increasingly dire. For about a year, the country has been consumed by a civil war that pitted the Ethiopian government and at times neighboring Eritrea, their military, against former Ethiopian leaders and other rebel groups in the northern Tigray region. The latest reports say that the rebel forces from Tigray are now advancing towards the capital in Addis, Ethiopia's capital. The rebel forces say they're doing this, they're making this military advance because

the Ethiopian government is cutting off all aid to Tigray and people are literally starving to death. Jeff Feldman, Biden's special envoy for the Horn of Africa, is now back in Ethiopia, trying to work with the leadership there, with the African Union and others to broker some sort of ceasefire or peace agreement, whatever. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiyamed has called on average citizens to take up arms in this fight. There are pro-government rallies calling criticism of the Ethiopian government, quote, fake news. So thank you, President Trump, for that legacy and that export. Aid organizations have not been able to get the Tigray for weeks.

The UN estimates that 400,000 people in Tigray are living in famine-like conditions. So Ben, you know, we've been covering the story for about a year now. In hindsight, I don't know that we have adequately conveyed how bad this could get. Thousands are already dead. Millions of civilians have been displaced. There are horrific reports of execution, sexual violence, potential genocide. Ethiopia is home to 120 million people. It's like 117, 118.

So like many, many lives are at risk here. And that doesn't even take into account the potential spillover if the violence gets into neighboring countries like Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, et cetera. So, Ben, it seems like the right entities are in Ethiopia now meeting the U.S., the U.S., the U.N., the U.N., the U.S. Do you think there's more than needs to be happening? Is there a role in your mind for President Biden himself to do something more personally, be more personally engaged? I think so, Tommy. And I've had the same, I'm glad you framed it the way you did. I was thinking about this. I've, you know, talked to some people about this. And I think we have failed to convey that this could end up, if you have like, you know, a conquering of Otis and then just kind of like a dissent into full-blown ethnic civil war across the country.

This is like beyond Syria, right? This is like, you know, Congo, you had millions of people die over years of fighting in Congo. Syria, obviously, you had hundreds of thousands of people. This is like, there's a risk. It's not a certainty, obviously, that it enters the category of discussion that we associate with like a Syria or a Congo or the really devastating civil wars of the 21st century with that loss of life, that kind of migration flow. So yes, I think it's interesting, you know, and Ethiopia is also like a very important country.

It's interesting that it hasn't gotten the same degree of attention that Assyria does, for instance. And so I do think you need kind of heads of state to get involved. Joe Biden and others, frankly, others in Africa, because we can all see this happening before our eyes. It's playing out in the worst way. It's been steadily in the worst case scenario category. And so I think the degree of diplomatic attention that needs to be brought to bear. And look, you know, things like the UN Security Council, that's always difficult because of the Russians and Chinese, that doesn't mean you don't.

don't try to push it more and more there and spotlight this thing. Make some news. Get the African Union involved. So yeah, I think people really need to start ratcheting up their contemplation of the worst case scenario and think, you know, better to think now what you don't want to, you know, look back and wonder like what do you wish you would have done as frankly, I think we all do on Syria in terms of the diplomacy at the front end of that conflict. Never mind the questions of a military intervention because nobody's calling for military intervention here. You know, I think you just need, you don't want to leave any, any tool unused, any diplomatic effort untried if you are contemplating that degree of suffering. Yeah, I mean, look, a year ago when the fighting started,

I think it was understandable that people would be confused or maybe slow to act because Abiyamed, the prime minister of Ethiopia, had literally been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize two years ago. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, today we're reading that the State Department has ordered non-emergency U.S. government employees and family members to get out of Ethiopia. People are sounding the alarm across the continent of Africa. So, you know, we really need to get on this. It's a huge, huge deal. Yeah, yeah. And then the Biden team has been on it, but I think you're right. Yes. You dial it up. You know, you get Biden involved and see you may not be able to fix it, but, you know, you can try. Yeah. Let's turn into ransomware, because on Monday, the Department of

Justice announced arrest and charges against a group of ransomware hackers and they announced the recovery of more than $6 million from this ransomware group. Ransomware for those lucky enough to be unfamiliar with it is basically when a group encrypts all the data on your laptop, your computer, and so you can't access until you pay them to unlock it. Treasury also announced new sanctions in the State Department added a group called Ari Evil to a program that pays out cash for tips that can lead to information about their identities and whereabouts. That hacking group is the one that targeted the world's largest meat supplier this past spring. According to the White House, Ransomware payments totaled over $400 million last year. Many of these groups are believed to operate out of

Russia with tacit support from the government. In this instance, arrests were made in Romania and Poland, so not Russia proper. Interestingly, Ben, CNN reported that CIA director Bill Burns met with Vladimir Putin in Moscow last week to convey serious U.S. concerns about Russia's military buildup on the border with Ukraine. But then the Russian side of the meeting said that cybersecurity came up to. So what do you want to bet that Bill Red Putin, the riot act about these hackers and like a very sort of quiet, whispered, but firm, perfect Russian? Yeah, I mean, Bill Burns was once, you know, the ambassador to Russia among many of the things. And so he's deeply known and I think respected by the Russians as much as the Russians can have respected American official. And look, yeah, I do think that, you know, under the radar here, there was a lot of attention on ransomware attacks.

in a lot of tension on Ukraine early in the year. You had that kind of summit. Maybe the Russians chilled things out a little bit after that, but it's not unusual for them to do that and then just start ratching stuff back up. And what's clear is that they're just not at all monitoring the steady escalation of behavior that they've engaged in for a long time now. And, you know, on the Ukraine side, like, you know, they make troop movements.

They, they, they tend to to escalate to gain some leverage. And, you know, and the worst case scenario, they usually avoid in terms of like a full-scale ratcheting up with the invasion. But on the ransomware side, you know, I'm sure that the message has to deal with, like, what are we going to do in terms of potential offensive operations and response? That most likely, I'm just guessing here. But, you know, it's clear that. Putin, you're managing. You're not stopping him from doing these things. You're trying to

contain it and manage it and warn him against escalation. And that's where we are. But this is part of the landscape now. Yeah, not an easy job, but Bill Burns is probably the guy for it. Speaking of cybersecurity, Ben, there's been a flurry of news about our old friends at the NSO group. The NSO group is an Israeli private spyware firm founded by former members of Israel's version of the NSA. It's the much cooler named Unit 80s. 200. The NSO group created the Pegasus spyware, which has been sold to authoritarian governments and used to spy on journalists, activists Jamal Khashoggi's fiance, reportedly five French cabinet ministers, so a lot of folks. Last week, the Department of Commerce put two Israeli tech firms,

the NSA group and another company called Kandiru, I guess is a competitor, on something called the entity list, which bars them from being able to buy software and other technology from U.S. companies unless they get a special license. So it's a big step. In their press release, commerce accused both companies of enabling, quote, transnational repression that threaten the rules-based international order. So strong statement there. Treasury also took action against a company in Russia and one in Singapore in the same entity list announcement. On Monday, Ben, the Associated press announced to the NSO Group software had been detected on the phones of six Palestinian human rights activists, half of which were affiliated with groups that Israel just accused of being involved in

terrorism. We talked about that designation, I think, on last week's show and why we were a bit skeptical of the claims that these well-known human rights groups had ties to terrorism. The AP report add some credence to the theory that you've heard out there that the NSA group was basically doing, you know, off-the-book spying that advances Israeli government interests, but in a way that gives them some deniability. Ben, you know, this step by the Biden administration seems like a pretty big one to me in this broader effort to crack down on the spyware for profit industry, something, you know, you and I have kind of been racking our brains on many shows, trying to figure out how they can do that? But what do you make of the move and how big of a deal is it

to get slapped on the entity list if you're a company? I think it's a great move. And we should really credit the Biden administration for this because it's, you know, it's two things, right? It's taking on this kind of spyware and private intelligence industry that is growing and has been, you know, all too unchecked by the U.S. government. And it's also, you know, doing something punitive related to an Israeli entity, which is not something that the Biden administration has seemed. It's tough politics, yeah. It's tough politics, right? So I think that that's important, and it does have an effect on them. It affects their capacity to access certain technologies, for instance. You know, they rely on some kind of U.S. origin technology and their capacity to

to draw on that technology and to export their products is compromised by this, and that's important. I think there's a bigger problem here, Tommy, and we've talked about it. We haven't beat around the bush, but like, I don't believe that the NSO group of former Israeli intelligence operatives working with some of the most sensitive relationships in Israeli foreign policy could possibly be doing these things without some either wink or coordination with the Israeli government. So if you think this is a blacklisted type behavior, what is the conversation with the Israeli government about this? I think there's also the question of these designations of the Palestinian groups. And the evidence thus far that has kind of

come out is very weak sauce. I mean, it's just not even the stuff that they've kind of put out or leaked out is not anywhere near like justifying a terrorism designation. Yeah. So on the specifics there, like a 72-page sort of dossier leaked out. Apparently, in the context of the reporting about this dossier was from this, the AP got a copy of it. And basically, the dossier that was leaked and then reported on failed to convince European countries to stop providing funding to any of these groups. And some of these Palestinian rights groups think that the terrorism designate,

nation was timed to distract from the disclosure that these groups had been spied on by the NSO group. Now, we obviously can't confirm or deny that, but it is troubling that you can just declare a human rights group is somehow supporting terrorism and try to sanction them without any real evidence of it. Yeah, and these are, again, mainstream. There'd be like somebody coming in and, you know, designating like Human Rights Watch, MDC International, Human Rights First, like, these prominent groups, right? And so the anti-democratic, look, we talked a lot about a kind of Palestinian policy or Iran policy as relates to Israeli government, this interconnection with anti-democratic activity, you know, shutting down NGOs, exporting spyware to people

like Victor Orban and Hungary, who acknowledged, by the way, even the Orban government acknowledged that they're engaged in this activity over the course of the last several days. For Narendra Modi, who's taken an authoritarian turn in India, or the increasing reports about the Egyptian and Israeli and potentially Gulf support for the coup in Sudan. There needs to be a conversation with the Israeli government about democracy, you know, separate even and apart from a two-state solution. And look, and I say that, again, I always try to go to my way to say. I think there needs to be a conversation in America about our country.

commitment to democracy, the Republican Party would be fit in the same category of what we're senior. So this is something that's happening everywhere, right? But given the fact that we give so much assistance to Israel, I think we have a right to ask questions about these kind of anti-democratic activities, which, you know, to be fair, all of which would have had their origin in BBNNNN Yahoo's government, right? Right, right. So, you know, except the decision to designate these groups was under the new government. So that implicates them as well. Yeah. And look, just to close a loop on this section, I mean, all of this, when we're talking about the treatment of the Palestinians, kind of dovetails together because there was a major Washington Post report that detailed how Palestinians

living in the West Bank now basically live under constant surveillance thanks to a network of cameras, smartphone tracking, and facial recognition technology that really, when described, sounds more like the kind of infrastructure and activity that you would find in China, specifically Xinjiang, where the Uyghurs are than a democracy. The technology is called Blue Wolf. And according to this Washington Post report, the members of the Israeli military were tasked with going out and just taking smartphone photos of random Palestinians,

often against their will, including children, and then uploading them. And the units that got the most photos were awarded prizes. It's this sort of like dystopian surveillance state activity that is constant and pervasive in suffocating. And so like that's kind of the broader, context here because, you know, these technologies like the NSO group or this kind of surveillance technology can get implemented one place and that has a cost, but that can also get exported to other

places and has a cost around the world. And I think that's why it's something we talk about so much because it's a new thing and it's troubling and it's a growing trend. We talk about our concern, not just about Jingjiang, but about the potential export of Chinese, the kind of Chinese toolkit of, you know, surveillance cameras, artificial intelligence, facial recognition technology, basically the toolkit that allows a government to have total surveillance of our population and to use artificial intelligence to kind of monitor every single person in an area and to control them through that kind of technology. And I don't know why we'd be concerned about it in one place.

and not another, you know. To me, it's something that concerns me everywhere. Yes, agreed. Let's turn to Iraq, because over the weekend, there was a drone attack on the home of Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Qadimi. I don't believe these were, you know, sophisticated drones like a Reaper or a predator drone that you would think about in America. They were talking about smaller drones. I think probably have a grenade or some sort of, you know, explosive strap to them and then are directed onto a target by GPS or someone, you know, controlling it with a remote control. Regardless, very scary stuff. Luckily, two of the three drones were shot down and the one that hit the PM's house

didn't hurt him, but it did injure members of his security detailed. This all happened as Iranian-backed militia groups continue to protest the results of the most recent parliamentary elections. So I'm not sure what else to say about this one, Ben, but, you know, seems bad. Hope it doesn't happen again. Pretty scary. Seems bad. And look, I mean, Iran's activity in Iraq, you know, is, you know, is.

deeply undermining of the capacity of Iraqis to make their own decisions. But it's also like generally pissed off Iraqis, you know, over the years. Like it's turned a lot of them off of Iran. And look, I think it's something that bears watching. You saw Iran simultaneously condemning this attack, but it has the blueprint or the hallmarks of what Iranian proxies do. And so, you know, I think it's worth getting to the bottom of it. and naming and shaming whoever we can establish was responsible. And trying to utilize it, you know, not just to have this kind of ongoing kind of proxy

conflict with Iran instead of Iraq, but to help mobilize Iraqis to say, like, we don't want anybody trying to control our affairs and certainly kill our leaders and to push back against that kind of activity. Yeah. Ben, a little bit of good news for you, for all travelers, for anybody who wants to come to the United States, the U.S. or for a lot of people that want to come to the U.S. The U.S. is now lifted its two-year-old COVID travel ban for vaccinated travelers for 33 countries. That includes most of the European Union, the U.K., China, India, Iran, Brazil, and South Africa. Travelers will have to be vaccinated or show proof of a negative test or a recent recovery from COVID that proves you have natural immunity, Beijing, Aaron Rogers.

The land borders with Mexico and Canada are now reopened to vaccinated people. So, I don't know, some generally good news, make the world feel a little more connected, a little more back to normal, you know, some nice big hugs at airports, like, you know, a holiday movie, you might say, I don't know, that's up. I love actually kind of stuff. It will love actually, exactly. I'll say this, like, Tommy, and I actually just got my PCR test so I can reenter the United States tomorrow.

It was, I'm here in the UK. It was front page news here, you know. COVID, you know, it's a big, important country. Front page news and all the tabloids that people could return to the U.S., huge enthusiasm. That's good. Yeah, it's interesting. It makes you. realize like, you know, we spend all this time talking about kind of foreign policy and

relationships between governments, but, you know, relationships between people matter too. And the capacity of Americans to engage with people from other countries is hugely important. So, yeah, I'm really excited about this. Yeah, me too. Okay. Our last story here, the final story of the day also has to do with unwanted emissions. I'm going to need you to put on your royal correspondent hat, please. It's very good that you're in Scotland here.

So the Daily Mail, a British tabloid, reported that Camilla Parker Bowls, the Duchess of Cornwall, will not stop talking about President Biden farting in front of her in a recent event around the COP 26th summit in Scotland. A source told the mail, quote, it was long and loud and impossible to ignore. Prince William was also at this reception. Again, we extend an invite to him to come on this show to talk about public farting, Afghanistan. whatever you want. Ben, I have a lot of questions for you on this. Have you had the chance to ask President Obama about the story and whether Biden as vice president had a known history of letting rip at summits? I'm not going to comment on that. I did not. I'll say I did not ask him. No, the second part, definitely not. No discussion of past religion. I will say this. You can't

avoid the story. It's like a big story here, actually. Like I said that the people being able to come to America is a big story. Like we couldn't help but notice the story. How's it playing? How's it playing in the tabloids over there? I mean, I imagine his approval rating in Ireland went from 95 to 100%. I mean, it's the thing is like, I mean, look, it's just kind of like it's a human story, right? I mean, not everything has to be about like someone's political standing.

It's like, hey, you know, like stuff, you know, is that? Who among us, right? Has never... Are you trying to tell me that Prince Philip and Boris Johnson have never once let risk in front of the queen or Camilla or anybody else? Look, this is where I'm going to defend the honor of our president, Joe Biden. You're telling me Boris Johnson has never once let slip. Come on. A guy who, like, you know, the news here is the guy passed out next to David Attenborough, you know, the icon, without a mask on, even though David Adenborough is like 94 years.

old. So there's a lot of poor behavior here, you know, and this and the scale of it, you know, I think we can all give a, I was about to say we should all give a pass to Joe Biden, but maybe that's not that's frame. Is this technically fracking? How do we define? We need to name this one. Fartgate, fart, Russia fart, I don't know, pee tape. What should we go with there? We need to brand this. I don't want to be the way. I don't want to be the way. I don't want to be one to be responsible for the branding, but I support the idea of it. I have no problem with it. I mean, like, people are human beings, right? Stuff happens. My last question for you, and I'm going to need you to just get real high before you answer this. Camilla Parker Bulls can usually

be rearranged to spell Camilla Parker Bowels. Makes you think, doesn't it? Well, I'm not in California where marijuana is illegal, so I'll contemplate that. Yeah, I'll contemplate that. And, um, Yeah, I mean, you know, I was going to make an emissions joke. I was just like, that's way too easy. The whole summit's trying to, it's about reducing methane emissions. The joke's just right there on the table. It's right there. It's right there. So do whatever you want. Do whatever you want with it, guys. Listen, I respect. There's nothing more confident. When you first start dating somebody, you are not coming close to this kind of behavior, right? It's only when you are fully comfortable. The sign of love and friendship. Ben, this is a special relationship is when you can just fart with reckless abandon in front of the person with you. I think you just nailed it.

I mean, this is something, you know, this is a sign of intimacy of a special relationship between nations. The Churchill bust is rolling over in its Obama, Doug grave. Okay. We are going to take a quick break and we come back. You're going to hear Ben's interviews from Scotland, from the COP 26 summit. He talked to some inspiring climate activists and John Kerry, who's running around that place, like a chicken with his head cut off, trying to get everybody to reduce emissions and come together and do something meaningful to save the fucking planet. So thank you to that guy. So stick around for those interviews.

I'm here with Hannah Martin, who runs Green Deal, UK, right? Green New Deal, UK. So, Hannah, I just wanted you to tell our listeners a little bit about the work you do. And then we can get in what's going on here in Glasgow. Thank you. It's great to be here. So yeah, I run Green Deal UK and Green Deal Rising. And we're a youth movement really designed to disrupt the political system and elect Green Deal champions and win a Green Deal. And I think what we've been doing at COP is using it as an opportunity to come together. We've had hundreds of young organisers in a warehouse in Glasgow coming together to train to build relationships, but also to take action. We went on the March, we've done actions together. And I think COP is a really important moment for movements to both show their power on the streets and show that they mean business and they're going to hold people accountable, but also to build those kind of organising bonds that you're only really

get when you're out in the rain in hour four of whatever protest you're doing. And you can kind of take that, that buzz and that relationship back into your everyday organizing. You know, we're building a plan to the next election here in the UK. and so it's been really amazing to come together and be inspired by delegates from all over the world and by each other. So that's what we're up to. And what was your view of the pledge by the current British government leading into COP? Well, it's interesting. I think that movements in the UK have done a huge amount. You know, the Youth Strike Movement, amongst others in 2019, really pushed the UK government to commit to net zero by 2050,

to declare a climate emergency. But, you know, we still see a huge lack, both in the finance that's currently committed to the delivery of that plan and also in the substance, you know, there isn't really a huge amount on the table yet in terms of how we're actually going to enact that plan. You know, targets are great, they're symbolic.

But emissions don't respond to targets. They respond to plans, they respond to policy, and they respond to money. And so we don't have that in place yet. And so I think whilst the UK government has a role in, you know, sort of, they want to see themselves as climate leaders in the space. I think that leadership will only become real when the sort of other parts of the plan are real. And also there are some symbolic things that, not symbolic, but, you know, there are some real things that are still not being done.

You know, the new Canbo oil field in the UK, there's a new coal mine proposed. There are some, you know, there's billions being spent on new roads instead of public transport. And I think that with a country, you know, we have a country that has a historic responsibility. both through our colonial activities and through, you know, being the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. You know, we have emitted hugely over our history. And so we need to be doing more and doing faster. So, you know, symbolic actions are fine, but plans are better. Do you have any, like, solidarity coordination with the Green New Deal folks in the US? So we've been in touch with the Sunrise movement. We take a huge inspiration from that movement.

I think both in terms of how they've, you know, they've disrupted the political conversation with actions, you know, things like occupying, you know, Nancy Pelosi's office was, I think, a hugely symbolic moment of saying, you know what, we are going to hold the Democratic Party to account. Even in a moment when Trump is in power, we're going to say, actually, you guys need to be platforming and using climate action as a key part of your, you know, what you're offering to voters. And I think that that then translated into, you know, the Bernie campaign. And then I think into Biden's platform, I think that Biden has absorbed a huge amount of that movement energy. And I think that the youth vote was hugely impactful in his victory. And I think that that is inspiring, I think, in the UK where we are seeing a, you know, we've had 10 years of austerity politics here. And actually, we need to see the narrative change to something where, like,

you know, a huge investment program that creates millions of good green jobs where we can, you know, roll out insulation to every house in this leaky country. We have the leagiest homes in Europe. You know, there's a huge political opportunity there. And so we have been in touch with movements in the US around the Greenie Deal. I mean, the Green Deal was originally a UK, kind of came out of the UK and then was picked up by OEC and the Summrise movement. So it's kind of, I think, a natural exchange of ideas and inspiration between those two

movements and yeah we're really inspired by what's going on there and what's your your favorite cop glasgow memory going to be that's such a good question i think you know we we brought together organizers from all over the uk but we also had a cohort from our leadership program green leader rising leadership program who were you know from places like coventry and bradford and places that have been chronically underinvested in in this country. And some of those young people had never really been involved in climate action before. And seeing them not only come to Glasgow, come to a cop, but lead in our spaces. And seeing their leadership grow, that as an organiser is all you can really hope to do

is essentially multiply your efforts by organising with and empowering other people to do the same. and that's, you know, there are some amazing, there's amazing young woman called Amina who is leading at the front of our march, and Gina, who's leading at the front of our march, who haven't done much climate action before, and they were taking the mic, and they're going to be the future leaders, and I find that really inspiring. That's an awesome note to end on.

Thanks so much for taking some time. Okay, I'm here with Louisa Newbauer, who we've had before on Potsie of the World, and now we're here in Glasgow at Cop. Louisa helps run Fridays for the future has mobilized massive activism in Germany and was doing that here so thanks for joining us

so Louisa what is your takeaway right now of Glasgow what do you think has happened here what's your mood mixed feelings I would say I am being asked all the time is not a failure is success and I do

very worry about this black wide view on this because this is not a black and white uh black and white event here i mean so many people organizations civil society indigenous groups have worked like years to come here and to organize here and to make their voices so it and we do see that at least in some parts it's actually working out not enough it's very exclusive still but all that people power here that is visible that's out there and that's not for nothing um that's that's huge and so looking just on that perspective or on that side i think, yeah, things are moving and people are gaining confidence and that's so important. People are seeing, they're realizing I'm not alone in this. And we won't get things done

if we don't have that belief that someone else on the other side of the planet who have never met before as having my back, is working alongside me, is doing the job somewhere else. And here things really come together. So that's amazing. On the political side of things, it's much more worrying. seeing that so many governments turn up here knowing they have failed to stick to their promises they've met in the past. But instead of, you know, focusing on that, facing that, being honest about that, more promises are being made. And then everyone is surprised that we activists are not excited about that because we see, we believe that there's action when we see the action. And we have grown very, very tired of those promises, which so often are just full of loopholes and

turn out to be empty a lot of the times. So I'll come back to that, but I mean, what is to take people inside who aren't here, I mean, a lot of people listen to this, I think, are kind of rooting for you, right? What was it like inside those protests? Who's there? How global is it? You and I've talked about globalizing the movement to bring in more voices from the global south.

What was the feel in those protests? Yeah, I mean, I think most people have no idea just what COP is. and that's bad because I think it's something where people should know, you know, what's going on. It concerns all of us. So there is these huge conference halls, those very long floors, the people in the suits doing the very important paperwork, yet also something that feels often very distant to us. You know, it's paragraphs and you kind of wonder like, where's reality here, where's nature in here, where's life in here?

And then there is the activist side of things. And that is really in Glasgow that's special. We see that there's a climate justice summit happening organized by local citizens. And we see those massive protests. We are just two last week. And you would look around and you would really see, you know, indigenous folks leading it. You would see the chants from the Latinas. You would see the African voices being so powerful and strong.

You would see signs in every single language. And on the stages, we would see a majority, an absolute majority of BIPOC voices, of indigenous people, of young folks, of women. of people really from the most marginalized places on earth speaking truth to power. And you would hear the most incredible voices and stories of people who are usually not listened to, usually don't have a platform. And because of that, we build those platforms as citizens as movements, and we make space for people because there is surely enough space. We just need to create that.

And I want to ask you one question about Germany. You and I talked last before the election. You know, the results are in, the government's not formed yet, it seems like it's probably going to shift a bit left and the Greens might have a bigger role, but, you know, it's still an unclear result. How do you feel about things in your home country? Yeah, that's a very interesting one. I mean, I think it's a quite historic thing, actually, that while a climate conference is happening, there's a coalition building happening in one of the richest countries on Earth. So technically the German, the new government in Germany would have the responsibility to put into action directly what is being discussed here at COP. And we have that opportunity because all the three parties that are going to form our future government have agreed on the 1.5 degree target.

They have agreed on drastic climate action. All of them put climate action on their placard boards, you know, knowing that the majority of voters would really care for the climate. And yet we're seeing this huge distinction between what is happening in Berlin right now and what's happening in Glasgow and across the world. And we're actually really worried because people, you know, the awareness is huge. People know what's going on. People want to see action. And again, we see the parties kind of lagging behind being, you know,

don't having, not having the courage that would be needed right now. And yeah, we are really trying to kind of bring some Glasgow spirit back to Berlin. making sure that they know this is a global event they're hosting right there in Berlin because of countries like Germany, some of the richest countries on Earth don't get stuff done. Who else is? If we don't shut the coal power plants down, you know, who can we expect to do so? And so this is really a crucial moment and we really hope and also, you know, need more global spotlight on what's happening in Berlin.

We need global pressure. And of course, well, on the people pressure side, we're on it. We're doing what we're on it. Well, what's next for you? What's next for your movement? Well, it's Glasgow, I think, will force this all into a very long weekend and a lot of sleep afterwards. And then, of course, we need to hit things off. We're seeing that in many places a transition is kind of starting, but this doesn't always mean it's just or quick enough. So we're really trying to also call out false solutions, fake solutions that are being promoted.

We need, of course, a lot more work in, or we need to see lots more being done in place that have not yet seen large mobilizations. And we're trying to bring some of that spirit, some of the lessons learned that we had, for instance, in Germany and some of the European countries to other places. You know, how to turn an election into a climate election, how to get unions and churches and schools together behind climate justice and those things. So I think we're really in a phase where at one point we want to, you know, make sure that what we did in the last three years can happen, but much more efficient and much faster in basically everywhere around the world. And at the same time, we really need to have a discussion about what climate justice is and what a solution could be and what solutions shouldn't be and that just create more inequality that just, you know, keep on going with the exploitation that mimic colonialist structures that we are trying to really, you know, end. Well, one last question. What, what do, is there most powerful memory you have? I mean, is there an image you're going to take away from the cop?

Is there is one thing that that stands out to you? I do think there are these moments when, you know, you're in a room full of people and you, you've, most, don't know most of them. And then they, they start telling their story and, you know, they might look really shy or, you know, they might look, you know, very, very overwhelmed and they start talking. and telling us those powerful things. And you would get goosebumps and realize, well, this is something we're all in together.

And the pandemic that has isolated people and the climate crisis itself is an isolating thing just because we feel so alone in this. Just the crisis is so big and we are so small and you feel like your shoulders aren't big enough to carry that weight. And every day, and I think that's something that many people here realize

and, you know, see, every day I meet those people that are doing the bravest things out of the most, you know, hardest circumstances. I speak to people from Sudan, from Uruguay, from Costa Rica and from Tanzania, and, you know, listening to those people, those folks who are, you know, facing every oppression you can imagine and who are keeping going just because they don't have a choice. it really makes you humble about it. And as someone who has a choice, I could decide whether they want to be a climate activist or not.

It's, yeah, it's a most beautiful thing. I hope people take that from this conference and not, you know, the empty promises or the potential failure about that energy, that spirit, that vibe, that knowledge that we can do this. We can, in fact, really get stuff done. Yeah, that's so cool. Well, it's good.

I mean, this is my third cop, Copenhagen, Paris, and this one. And the activist movement and presence and pressure has built exponentially each one. And it's having an impact, even if it's not everything that we'd want. But thanks so much for taking some time with us. Okay, I'm very pleased to be joined by John Kerry, our country's envoy on climate and here in Glasgow. Thanks for joining us, Secretary. Happy to be with you.

Thank you. You know, last time. It's a great respite. I will. It's a bit of a deja vu to see you at Summit. You were Secretary of State. I was in the White House. Now I have a podcast. And you're saving planet. So you continue to work wonders. Just to start, how would you assess the progress that's been made so far? How should people back home think about this summit that they're looking at on their TV screens? Well, I think, Ben, that what is happening here is different from almost any cop I've been to through the years. there's much greater energy, much greater focus, much more discipline about the choices of what we might do. There's a huge sense of urgency. And I think the science has progressed very significantly from where we've been previously.

So now there's a greater certainty about interactions between moisture, water, coal dust, particulates in the air, all these things. And the evidence is accruing. I mean, Mother Nature has been pretty tough in sending us a message these past years. So I think this cop is poised to do exactly what we wanted to do, which is not quite exactly, almost exactly, which is we wanted the raising of ambition by all countries. Most countries are raising their ambition. There are few that aren't where we think they ought to be. but we're still at a point where we have a really solid shot at keeping 1.5 degrees alive.

And whereas before the cop, we were heading up to 2.7 degrees or more of temperature increase, the latest estimate from the IEA, the International Energy Agency, as to where we are with all the promises that have put on the table, we could be at 1.8 degrees. So this cop is getting in the right direction. And if we have to, if we have 10 years to close that gap, that means the next two, three years are absolutely critical. And so the fight becomes even bigger and more defined.

And I think that's a huge plus, if that's where we come out. We have a couple of difficult issues, adaptation, folks who are already feeling the impacts of climate, want more money. And some people feel they owed something for the loss and damage that has occurred to their country, and they've had nothing to do with it. So that's a thorny, tricky issue, but it's one that has to get its proper hearing here, and it will. So one of the things that we experience in government was how much the United States is central to cop and to any kind of international summit process.

When you came in in January 20th, to get from there to hear, without the U.S. having been at the table for four years, how hard was it to plug back into this very complicated, multifaceted process of trying to get the private sector and every country in the world and everybody in philanthropy to be raising their ambition? What was that experience like for you? I think it was hard in the beginning. It's fair to say that there was a lot of skepticism and even anger. People were frustrated at our country for screwing up a global, initiative, unlike the United States that you and I know, certainly not Barack Obama's years, but we had a president who decided without economic rationale, without any really, no science,

no real evidence decided just to pull out. Thankfully, we had governors, Republican and Democrat, and we had mayors across the country, Republican and Democrat, who were deeply committed to moving forward. So even as the president pulled out, the American people stayed in, the vast majority. And there are about 37 states, and the district of Columbia all stayed in, and they succeeded in advancing the ball for the United States. And more than a thousand mayors were fighting to stay in. So we came back with a measure of credibility people weren't aware of.

That helped us. And President Biden has been terrific at putting a very significant amount of money on the table, $11.4 billion to help other countries. We have now gotten the $100 billion pledge, almost completely fully filled, starting in 22, or about $98 billion now. I think we have time yet to close that gap. And going forward, there'll be money. More importantly, we brought the private sector to the table in a gigantic way, and that's representative of trillions of potential dollars for investment, and they've put it on the table. They've said, yes, we're ready to invest. So I feel that our credibility is, I mean, you have to leave it to another nation to make the judgment.

I'm probably not good at saying exactly where it is, but I can tell you that we're working with other nations. We've been really forward-leaning. President Biden has put forward a deforestation plan backed up by $9 billion. He's put forward a methane plan, which 109, 8 nations have already joined. And that's critical for us. So I think we're earning our spurs back and we're not going to, you know, there's no arrogance and there's a lot of humility and we're just going to keep working at it. So I want to ask about governments and then private sector. On the government side, you've seen some, you know, like you said, methane and deforestation, some good multilateral commitments.

The UK here put out a, you know, I thought it exceeded some people's expectations on their commitment, other countries, South Korea. Obviously, China is, you know, usually the laggard and was the key to unlocking Paris. Xi Jinping's not here. You know, China's continuing to build coal plants. How do you bring China along? What should we be looking for both here and in the year to come or so to see that China's raising its ambition in line with a lot of the other countries here? Well, we're talking with China.

We've had a lot of meetings with China over the course of the year. I went to China twice. We spent two days at a time there and had meetings all day long. We've been meeting here at the cop. We met in London a couple weeks ago. We're trying to bring China to a place where we can both agree. on certain things that we can do. It's complicated by the fact that the relationship is tense right now over other issues.

I'm still hopeful. I believe that it's possible that we could get something going. China is the largest emitter of CO2 and greenhouse gases in the world. And they are very dependent on coal. They have come out with a new plan now to reduce that coal over time. There are a lot of people nervous about the fact that their emissions are going to go up before they go down. But that's one of the things we're working on and thinking about. But we can't get where we need to go as a world if China, Russia, India, you know, a bunch of countries don't come to the table.

Now, while it's true that Xi obviously isn't here, President Xi didn't come to the opening, He has a very capable team here, and we've worked with them, and I know them very well. We negotiated Paris with them, and we've negotiated with them for more than 25 years or so. And we're talking in good faith about things that might and might not be done to accelerate everybody's efforts. That's where we are. And when you look at the private sector, some of the people watching this back home, people listening to this podcast, you know, follow it, and they see these big numbers. You know, trillions of dollars in finance and $100 billion, you know, in adaptation and resilience and mitigation. But the numbers are so big that they almost seem unreal to people.

What's it going to take coming out of this to kind of show people results that this is real money that's going to do things? It's going to help Pacific Island Nation adapt or it's going to shut down a coal plant. What kind of concrete progress can make some of these skeptics? optical activists who've been protesting outside believe that people don't just come to summits like this and put out a number, but they're actually following through. They need to see it happen. They need to see us working to make it happen. And we will.

The only way to win this battle, first of all, no government in the world has enough money to just put it. I mean, they don't have trillions to, they have a trillion dollar economy, but they may not, they don't have a trillion dollars in cash to, throw around or available funds. And so what we need to do is build bankable deals, i.e., let's say you're going to go to South Africa and you want to get them off a coal plant. We're going to have to go there and show them the technology that's available for them to open up a different source of power, and we're going to have to show them how the finances

of that deal can work. What does it take to close the plant? over what period of time, what happens with the workers, how do you manage that shutdown and transition, and how do you manage the build-out of whatever the alternative source of energy will be, and you have to coordinate it. It's a big operation. These are big, big deals that are going to take place country for country, different from country to country. We need to do that with Mexico. We need to do that with Indonesia. We're going to do it. We're committed to doing it, And we're going to put a team together that has the experience and knowledge of how you go in and cut those deals.

But here's what makes it feasible. This is why it's not pie in the sky. Prime Minister Modi has pledged that he's going to deploy 450 gigawatts of renewable energy, solar and wind. That means that if they hook it up to their power sector and grid, that electricity, people are going to pay for it. And if they're going to pay for it, it has a revenue stream. That revenue stream can become the basis of a financial transaction where people lend money on the basis of the stream. Stream pays the debt plus, and you still have, you know, you have room for the profit.

You have room for the transition and the energy base. So it's just a legitimate commercial transaction, which we help in by, you know, by, you bringing the multi-development banks to the table who could put some concession of money on the table that reduces the risk, makes it more attractive, could lower the rates that have to be charged, and therefore makes it more palatable. So there clearly are equations that make this happen. It's going to take mentoring by developed countries, working with less developed country, emerging markets, and helping to make it work. But it's not a one-way street. It's not just those the private sector coming to the table with the money, governments are going to have to

say those guys need to live with accountability. They need to have transparency. They need to have a rule of law, which means if there's a dispute, you have a way of resolving it. I mean, those are all parts of the equation people measure. And so countries are going to need to step up to. And their act has to get stronger. They have to accelerate decision-making, Make sure the land is available for the site. Make sure the transmission lines can move from one place to another. Set up a structure where the distributors are working in concert with it. There's just a lot of moving parts.

But it can happen. No reason it can't happen. And there are countries around the world that have had the experience already of doing this. UAE is already invested in India. They already have solar plants that are out there. So there are plenty of folks around who could help make this happen. So you've been a very successful politician and a diplomat, and as anybody who listens to this will know,

someone who's basically an expert on these sets of climate energy issues. Part of what you're describing is a very, you know, not top down, but you're talking about governments and finance and moving capital. And then you've got, you know, people suffering the effects of climate change. already, young people just kind of pissed off. How do you close the gap? You know, since you're one of the few people in the world, right, who's had to go out and run for office and explain complicated things to people and mobilize them,

but then also come into rooms like this. And how do you close this kind of trust gap or confidence gap that the, let's face it, these are complicated solutions. I mean, there's no way to talk about them that doesn't involve, you know, multilateral development banks and mobilizing it. financing finance and individual national plans? Well, you make it simpler, obviously. I mean, for a lot of folks just want to know what the bottom line is.

I think Ben, and you know this better name, but you've been deeply involved in very successfully in politics. I mean, you know, you can count on one or two hands the people who are as close to a president of the United States as you were and play this critical role in framing these kinds of messages. I think that what people feel today and what is driving on, you know, a lot of the anger in the world is palpable. And it's understandable.

There's no mystery to it. A lot of people have gotten screwed for the last 20, 25, 30 years. And not everybody is clear as to maybe who screwed them. And politicians manipulate who the boogeyman is. But the bottom line is this populism is deserved. We have a terrible, terrible tax system in the United States of America. And it's completely unfair. And globalization has got a bad name because it allowed and perpetuated the unfairness of our tax structure and the distribution of income.

And so the anger over things like inequality, inequality, connect to anger over climate change. Totally, totally. And people are led to believe they can blame the climate or blame the environment when really President Biden and President Obama when he was in fought hard to have a just process, a just charge. transition. Environmental justice is very much at the table here at this cop. People are deeply concerned that whatever we do, the working folks are not going to get killed by the transition. And that's one of the things that President Biden's putting into the legislation that we hope will pass is help and assistance so that people aren't left behind. But there are other bigger things we've got to fix in terms of our democracy and our process, obviously.

but this is one of them. Yeah. Is there a moment that stands out to you thus far? Like a human moment, an experience you've had here in Glasgow with a counterpart or an activist that gave you, what's your favorite moment, like human moment that you've experienced? I have to tell you something. This job of running around a cop, certainly the first days, is inhuman. Yeah, I was going to say, is anything to puncture that?

Does anything, you know, anything break through that, you know, like where you're like, The work is worth it. They're wonderful. Knowing you, it might be the three-am negotiating session because you want to do the work. No, no, no, no. I honestly, I had hoped only to have one three o'clock in the morning night, and that would have been Friday night coming, not Monday. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But we did. We had late nights. But it's young folks who come up to you. And I just was walking down the street, and the guy said, hey, you just gave my grandparents. graduation address and so and so. I loved it. I took notes of so inspiring and I'm here because of that. Yeah, that's great. That's the best thing in the world. Oh, yeah, that's great stuff. Yeah, because I want to know where you get, like I, I don't have as much energy as you and I'm, well, I was born by the sort of amount of energy. My parents lamented it. Yeah, yeah. But I don't know. I just

find that, you know, the title of my book that I did after I served as secretary of, with you guys was every day as extra. Yeah. And I really believe that. Speaking of which, we just lost Max Cleland today. Oh, I didn't see that. He passed away. Oh, I'm sorry.

And a triple amputee who lived so far beyond into his 70s, is extraordinary. Yeah, I did see that. I'm sorry, I know you're close to him. Well, look, thanks so much. We're really grateful to you for joining us, and for everything you're doing. Thank you, Ben.

Good to be with you. Ben, thank you to you, to Fartters Everywhere. to Secretary Kerry. What do I call him now? What's his title? He's still Secretary Kerry. Okay. Thank you, too.

What are the names the activist? You talked to? I haven't heard the interviews yet. Hannah Martin, who runs the kind of Green New Deal campaign here in the UK, which actually, I think, originated here in the UK. And Louisa Newbauer, who we've had on the show before. Oh, yes. She's awesome.

Fridays for the Future in Germany, one of the leading young activists here. That's very cool. I guess I probably should ask you that before the listeners heard. the interview, but that's great. Thank you to you for staying up. What is it, like 10 p.m. over there. 10 p.m. But I also have slept like a total of like five hours in two days because not because I'm that busy per se. It's because I'm so out of practice with like traveling eight hours out of time zone that I'm just messed up. I was all fucked up from the one hour time change. I was literally thinking of you this morning because I finally felt like a human being again because

I slept well last night. And like I just can't believe we used to do these summits all the time. You'd go away for 10 days and I would just not sleep for like two or three nights. And you just feel like a lunatic. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad, you know, I'm glad this is only a few days. Let's just say, I'm not 32 like I was when we used to do that at the beginning.

You look even younger. Well, I'm glad you're there. I glad you did it. It sounds like Obama actually had an impact and it was a very cool. He did. He pumped people up. I mean, it was, you know, he really gave his shot of adrenaline here. So it was good.

Excellent. Well, that's all we got. And next week, we'll be coming to you listeners live from good old Los Angeles. So talk to you next week. See you. Pod Save the World is a crooked media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our producer is Haley Muse.

It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Segglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Yale-Fried, and Phoebe Bradford who film and share our episodes as videos each week.