>> [ Speaking Spanish ] ♪♪ >> Colombia has a new president, former guerrilla fighter Gustavo Petro.

>> As war ends, the country's first leftist president in a ceremony filled with symbolism and promise of change.

>> I feel happy.

This is a victory we've been hoping for for more than 40 years.

>> The Colombia of what's possible starts today.

>> Hello and welcome to "GZERO World."

I'm Ian Bremmer, and today I'm bringing you an exclusive interview with a man who has upended South American politics.

In a historic election that featured unprecedented turnout by young Colombians, Colombia's first leftist candidate reached the highest office in the land, and now, President Petro has vowed to put marginalized Colombians of all ages at the center of policy and enact sweeping social, environmental and political reforms, but will he be able to make his promises a reality and how will the warm U.S.-Colombia relationship cool under his stewardship?

And speaking of environmental reform, U.S. climate envoy John Kerry will join me later to talk about how recent legislative victories have put the U.S. back in the driver's seat in the climate fight.

But first, a word from the folks who help us keep the lights on.

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Additional funding provided by... ...and by... >> Who is Colombia's new president, Gustavo Petro?

Well, he's a 62-year-old ex-leftist guerrilla turned mayor turned opposition leader who rode a wave of voter anger to a victory over a populous construction magnate last June.

Got all that?

Now, when I say young people were key to Petro's victory, I do mean it.

There are nearly 9 million Colombian voters today age 28 or younger, and that's the most in the country's history.

It's a quarter of the electorate.

And what became known as the, and I quote, "national strike," young people led anti-government marches across Colombia last year to protest growing inequality and corruption that resulted in dozens of deaths and it dominated news coverage across the country.

With 10% annual inflation, a 20% youth unemployment rate and a 40% poverty rate, the most educated young generation in Colombia's history felt betrayed by decades of failed government policies.

And Gustavo Petro promised something very different for all marginalized Colombians.

And so, Colombia elected its first leftist president in modern history.

For decades, Latin America's longest standing democracy -- that's right, that's Colombia -- has also been one of the region's most conservative.

Colombia's violent history with leftist guerrilla groups, such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC, has meant that the office of the presidency was out of reach for left-leaning candidates, but the tiempos, as they say, they are a-changing.

The less violent rebel group that Mr. Petro himself was a part of in his youth demobilized back in 1990 and the FARC signed a historic peace deal with the government in 2016, and all of that paved the way for a viable political left in Colombia.

Petro's running mate, Francia Márquez, also made history as the country's first Black vice president, which kind of sounds familiar.

She brought with her an unprecedented number of Afro-Colombian voters.

She's pretty fascinating in her own right.

Her environmental activism in the past led to death threats and even a grenade attack in 2019, but that's a story for another show.

On the night of Petro's victory, flag-draped supporters chanted, "Yes, he could, yes, he could," and they were riffing on Barack Obama's famous 2008 slogan.

But when it comes to Petro keeping his campaign promises, how long can that chant hold true?

Depends on how you define "could," I suppose.

Petro's ambitious social and health and agricultural proposals include free university education, phasing out new oil exploration, sorts of policies that one former finance minister called economic suicide.

Petro plans to finance this social spending by overhauling the country's tax system.

He wants to raise taxes on the richest Colombians by 200%.

Critics, though, say the rich will just hide their wealth abroad.

Maybe in the United States.

Another big hurdle -- While Petro has amassed majorities in Congress, they may not last long and they don't ensure full support for his policy agenda.

If he doesn't prioritize policies, analysts say, he risks getting nothing done.

Colombia's new government also vowed to formally restart relations with its controversial neighbor to the east, Venezuela, after Colombia severed diplomatic ties in 2019.

Now, Petro won't veer anywhere near as far to the left as Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro, though his opponents fear exactly that, but let's just say officials in Washington are wary of the warming relations.

Speaking of Washington, Petro has vowed to reassess that relationship too, especially on drugs and trade.

Colombia has long been the United States' staunchest ally in Latin America, and any meaningful shift in relations would have regional repercussions.

But all that said, Petro has claimed there is still plenty of common ground between Bogotá and Washington.

How will Petro's new government reshape Colombia, Latin America and the U.S.-Colombia relationship?

Let's ask him.

Here's my conversation with Colombian President Gustavo Petro.

President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, thank you so much for joining us today.

>> [ Speaking Spanish ] >> For our international audience, tell them what's the most important thing they need to know about you as the new president of your country.

If you watch the American news and the international news, everyone loves to say, "Oh, this man is the first leftist president ever of Colombia," and I know you don't love that term.

Tell me how you feel about it when you hear that in the West.

Now, the model that has most failed in terms of competence in economic governance is your neighbor, Venezuela, and you, of course, are a peacemaker.

And you've said that you want to reach out to Nicolás Maduro and rebuild a relationship with him.

What should the Venezuela-Colombia relationship look like?

And is it possible that that country can once again prosper?

How can that happen in your mind?

Absolutely.

Millions of refugees.

Millions of refugees.

I haven't asked you yet about your own country, and I should start.

I remember during your victory speech in June, you said that you intended to develop capitalism.

Now, there aren't many people saying positive things about capitalism these days, so I wonder if you could explain what you meant by that.

And this year, that number's going up.

Now, can we say that capitalism has been rather overdeveloped in terms of coca production in Colombia right now, not to the benefit of the Colombian people or anybody else.

What's your plan?

What can be done to help eradicate the production and the transit of illegal narcotics out of Colombia?

And yet, deforestation is at record levels right now, so you have to turn that around.

So, my last question for you, since you've been president, you've met with some American officials, including today.

Given your meetings and given your understanding of the United States, do you think the U.S. wants to help you?

President Gustavo Petro, thank you so much for joining us.

♪♪ As you heard in my interview with President Petro, one of his most urgent objectives -- and he talks about it all the time -- is to ramp up the battle against climate change, and he'll find a friend in U.S. climate envoy John Kerry, who joins me now to talk about how he thinks Biden's new climate bill will reshape the global initiative.

Secretary John Kerry, great to see you as always.

>> Happy to be here.

>> Quick questions for you.

First of all, given the fact that we now actually have something to talk about legislatively on climate, what's the reception been around that?

Is there leadership?

>> Well, people around the world are excited that the United States is stepping up to do what it says it would do, and the legislation that President Biden got signed into law puts the United States in a place where we will meet our goals, and that's really important for our credibility and the diplomacy of climate.

We still need to get more finance.

That's the big challenge now, is the money that's going to help a big emitter in another part of the world to be able to transition.

There are just a group of countries that don't have the money, don't have the ability to be able to transition quickly.

They need technology and they need some concessionary funding to grease the skid, so to speak, to make things move.

>> Now, António's speech this year was, if it could be, a little bit more bleak even than last year's in part because there's more emissions this year with Russia-Ukraine, of course, and the knock-on.

Also, because privately, he's talking about the fact that a lot of banks seem to be backsliding on ESG because fossil fuels are more attractive to invest in.

How much have you seen that?

How much do you worry about that?

>> There is some embrace of new fossil-fuel projects because of the situation with Ukraine and Russia having cut off gas.

There has to be some replacement of gas to enable the European economy to be able to make it through a winter and make it grow.

So there's a lot of uncertainty in that, and the price is way up obviously, and inflation has been higher, but the fact is that I believe most of those countries are going to be able to deploy much more renewable energy.

Germany, for instance, is heading towards 80% of its energy base is going to be renewable.

That's extraordinary.

And I think other countries are realizing the message of Ukraine, the message of Putin, is you've got to be able to control your own future with respect to energy.

That means get energy-independent as fast as you can.

We in the United States are blessed because we did that a number of years ago.

We're the biggest oil and gas producer in the world, but we're also pushing to transition to renewables, and I think we're going to be in a place where we can help a lot of other countries do that over the course of the next couple of years.

>> Last question.

Technology at scale you are most excited about in helping facilitate a transition?

>> Well, they're not at scale yet.

None of the ones that are really critical are yet at scale, but I think they're poised to begin to make that journey.

Battery storage, I think green hydrogen, electrolyzers, Next Generation, Maybe carbon capture.

A lot of money's going to go into carbon capture and it should to exhaust the possibility or make it work.

One or the other.

But who knows what's going to happen with fusion?

There's a new excitement about it.

There's a new level of investment in it as a result.

So there are a lot of possible game changers, but not yet ready to come to scale, but all kinds of things happening in an exploratory process in terms of direct-air carbon capture.

Nuclear is going through a certain evaluative renewal and we'll see where we come out on it, but I think President Biden's position is we need all of the above for the moment in order to make the transition, but he's very clear.

We're going to make the transition, and by 2030, we will be halfway there in terms of electric vehicles.

2035, his plan is to have the entire power sector of our country carbon-free.

So we're really moving and I'm confident that at some point, we're going to have breakthroughs in these technologies.

>> John Kerry.

Wish you luck this week.

>> Thank you.

>> Thank you.

That's our show this week.

Come back next week and if you like what you see or you want to see a different president -- you never know what president you're going to get on "GZERO" -- why don't check us out at gzeromedia.com?

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ >> Major corporate funding provided by founding sponsor First Republic.

At First Republic, our clients come first.

Taking the time to listen helps us provide customized banking and wealth-management solutions.

More on our clients at firstrepublic.com.

Additional funding provided by... ...and by...