December 26, 2024

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Amanpour & Company.

Here's what's coming up.

We look back at a year of unprecedented weather events and climate solutions.

First, my conversation with the Atlantic's George Packer and climate policy expert Leah Stokes on how our changing planet will shape our politics.

Then, leading scientist Michael Mann on the importance of fighting back against climate deniers.

Plus, on the move, author and investigative reporter Abrahm Lustgarten explains the perils of climate migration and how Americans can prepare.

And finally, a win in the battle against deforestation.

My conversation with the Brazilian president Lula da Silva.

(MUSIC) Amanpour & Company is made possible by the Anderson Family Endowment, Jim Attwood and Leslie Williams, Candace King Weir, the Sylvia A. and Simon B. Poyta Programming Endowment to Fight Antisemitism, the Family Foundation of Leila and Mickey Strauss, Mark J. Blechner, the Filomen M. D'Agostino Foundation, Seton J. Melvin, the Peter G. Peterson and Joan Ganz Cooney Fund, Charles Rosenblum, Koo and Patricia Yuen, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities, Barbara Hope Zuckerberg, Jeffrey Katz and Beth Rogers, and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

Welcome to the program, everyone.

I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.

In this holiday edition of our show, we look back at how 2024 was a standout year and not in a good way for our environment.

It was the hottest year on record and global warming officially exceeded the 1.5 degree threshold for the very first time.

In June, more than 1,300 people perished from extreme heat on the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.

And it's not just heat.

In Valencia, Spain, residents are reeling from historic floods in late October that killed hundreds of people.

And in the United States, communities are rebuilding after Hurricanes Helene and Milton devastated whole communities.

And yet, with all of this, climate denialism just doesn't persist.

It spreads.

Now, the United States, the world's biggest polluter after China, has elected as president someone who has called climate change a hoax.

President-elect Trump has promised to undo climate progress both at home and abroad.

And he's nominated a slew of fossil fuel industry stalwarts to key environmental departments.

With all that in mind, we want to revisit with people who are sounding the alarm and providing solutions to this existential threat.

So, first up, my conversation with staff writer at "The Atlantic" George Packer and climate policy expert Leah Stokes.

Welcome both of you to the program.

George Packer, I just want to start because yours is entitled "Phoenix is a Vision of America's Future."

Describe how, what are all the intersecting issues that make it a vision of the future?

Yeah, "The Atlantic" wanted me to go somewhere that would give us at least a laboratory where we could see how America is doing and where it's going.

And Phoenix, I think, is about as good a lab as you can find, because it really has all the major themes and conflicts and issues of our time.

It has political extremism in a big way.

Every election year is a tense year in Arizona, and this year is no exception.

It has a climate crisis that you just described and that I reported on in my piece with unbearable heat, as well as disappearing water in some parts of the state.

And it also has the border and immigration as a huge factor in the coming election.

Abortion is another one.

It's got this incredible nexus of issues, some of which divide people almost hopelessly, and others have this odd effect of overcoming some of the divisions that seem so permanent and insuperable in our country.

So, before we get to some of the, you know, policies and things, I just want to read a little bit from your article, because you experienced that extreme heat firsthand, and you struggled to walk even a mile from your hotel to an interview without feeling unwell.

Here's a quote.

"Last summer, heat officially helped kill 644 people in Maricopa County.

They were the elderly, the sick, the mentally ill, the isolated, the homeless, the addicted.

Methamphetamines causes dehydration and fentanyl impairs thought.

And those too poor to own or fix or pay for air conditioning, without which a dwelling can become unlivable within an hour, even touching the pavement, is dangerous."

You know, were you prepared for that kind of extreme?

No.

I don't like really hot weather, so I dreaded it.

But when you're in it, you have this sense of real danger, imminent danger.

If I lose my way on a walk, if I stay out too long, if I can't find water, you are risking your life.

And people who are homeless, people who are vulnerable in the ways that I described, are risking their lives every day and dying every day.

And the emergency rooms over the summer fill up with people coming in whose body temperatures are 106 or 7, which is heat stroke and can be fatal.

People find ways of coping.

The city of Phoenix has lots of innovative methods of allowing people to come inside and cool off in these cooling buses and cooling buildings.

They are trying to plant more trees and build more shelters because it's a kind of naked exposed city in the summer.

But it all feels unsustainable, because driving, which is one way to cool off, because you're in your car, which is air conditioned, is also burning you up, because air conditioning causes 4 percent of global emissions.

So, there -- and the temperature rises every year.

There is no abating of it.

And who knows where it will be in 25 years.

So, there is a sense of eight months of the year, it's paradise, and that's why people move there.

And four months of the year, it's deadly.

Leah Stokes, let me ask you about -- you study this.

You also study the -- you know, the politics around it, environmental politics.

So, one of the things that George said, he quoted in his book, in the article, whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting.

You know, there's a lack of water, but apparently people didn't seem to think that that was something that, you know, should be an election issue or political issue.

What are you seeing in terms of the politics around this now?

Well, that's a great question.

You know, the fact is, as we just heard, the climate crisis is happening now.

For decades, it was sort of viewed as a problem for the future, something that would affect our grandchildren or maybe poorer people in developing countries.

You know, maybe something for somebody else.

And what we are seeing is that this is the climate crisis.

It is on our doorsteps.

This is what we are seeing in the United States at just one and a quarter degrees centigrade of warming.

What happens when we blow past that 1.5 degrees target that, you know, governments around the world are trying to hold us to?

What if we go to 2 degrees or 2.5 degrees?

What does life look like for everyday people?

And so, this is becoming a really important political issue.

And in the United States, for example, with the upcoming election this fall, there's going to be a very clear choice between somebody who says he, quote, wants to be a dictator on day one to drill, drill, drill -- that's, of course, Donald Trump -- and somebody who really is the best climate president this country has ever seen and has really focused on this issue.

Will that play out in the election?

Will people show up to vote for President Biden because of his climate record?

I think it's too early to tell, but we're certainly seeing the impacts are hitting everyday Americans every day.

Leigh, I want to ask you a little bit more about the politics, because George says, you know, solving the problem of water depends on solving the problem of democracy.

Here's another quote.

The Republican Party there is more radical than any other state, but the chief qualification for viability is an embarrassingly discredited belief in rigged elections.

So, you've got that.

How does that affect what people think about climate policy, Leigh?

Because there are conservative Republicans who do believe -- I mean, they may be a small group, but they do believe that climate should be a unifier.

And way back when, Republicans were -- you know, it wasn't a partisan issue.

You are absolutely right.

This is something that I've written about in my book and many other political scientists have studied.

In the past, right-wing parties around the world were more supportive of climate action.

For example, George H.W.

Bush and even George W. Bush were supportive of doing things on climate change.

But unfortunately, the fossil fuel industry has really taken hold of right-wing parties, like the Republican Party in the United States, but many right-wing parties around the world.

They have become really a chief constituency in the Republican Party.

And you'll hear, for example, Senator Whitehouse from Rhode Island talk about this a lot.

The unlimited campaign contributions that we're seeing in the post-citizens United world means that fossil fuel companies can pour so much money into our elections.

And they really have, for example, primary the few Republicans, people like Representative Bob Inglis, who cared about climate change.

And even people like, for example, Senator McCain from Arizona, who cared about climate change.

These people were challenged in part with fossil fuel money by having these primary challenges.

And that is part of why the Republican Party has moved so far away from climate action.

And, George, when you were, you know, getting testimonials from all these people, you know, whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting, but on the other hand, you know, there's no conspiracy theory, I'm paraphrasing now, that can account for a dry well.

What feeling did you get from ordinary people in Phoenix about whether this was an issue that should be legislated, that climate should be something that governments, not just individuals, take care of?

I think when you put it in the biggest terms possible, which is climate change, it immediately gets pulled into the vortex of the culture wars and the partisan wars.

And the sides line up and nothing gets done legislatively.

But if you look at it locally and in terms of a community's water supply or even the well in somebody's backyard in a rural county, a conservative rural county in southern Arizona, once people find that they're losing their water and it's -- in Arizona, it's partly because in rural areas there is no regulation.

Phoenix is highly regulated.

And Phoenix has a lot of water.

It's not about to run out.

But exurban communities around Phoenix and even more rural areas around the state are risking their groundwater.

And it's because it's unregulated and big agribusinesses are coming in from out of state and even from other countries and pumping relentlessly.

Local people, including MAGA Republicans, are upset about that and are now starting to demand that their state representatives allow legislation to pass that would regulate groundwater.

It's still stuck in the partisan gears of the Arizona state legislature.

But what's interesting to me is to watch actual personal experience of that incontrovertible fact, my well is dry, change the mind of a voter.

And that seems to me like the beginning of a sane politics around climate.

In other words, when it happens to me, no matter what side of the political aisle I am on, I can see the devastating effects of it.

And in your piece, basically you say Joe Biden's infrastructure, microchip, climate bills are sending billions of dollars to the valley where you were, but I hardly ever heard the mention.

I want to ask both of you, basically we're not hearing much about climate in, you know, in any of the political manifestos and talking points that both parties are using right now on the campaign trail.

Leah, let me ask you about that.

Do you think it's -- do you think people will vote on climate, young people?

Well, I certainly hope so.

You know, the fact is the Republicans have put out a plan.

It's called Project 2025.

And people like Bill McKibben have written about this in The Nation.

And it is a very detailed plan for how to dismantle our federal infrastructure.

Things like getting rid of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which literally just keeps track of, you know, data around what is happening to our earth.

You know, they want to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency.

We saw what a first Trump administration would do, rolling back, you know, almost 100 environmental rules, pulling us out of the Paris Climate Agreement.

And what does a well-organized second Trump administration look like?

If you want to know what it looks like, look at that Project 2025 document.

It's very scary.

By contrast, what the Biden folks want to do is they want to keep delivering.

And as you're saying, why don't people know about it more?

Well, this law is just beginning to roll out.

And we really need those four more years for all of those jobs to start rolling into these communities, for people to get electric vehicles, for them to put in a heat pump, to start seeing those benefits.

You know, laws take time to really take hold.

And with those crucial years before 2030, whoever wins this fall election will really be rewriting, you know, world history when it comes to the climate crisis.

So, I certainly hope people understand the climate stakes of this election, because they are monumental.

Well, interestingly, one of his previous transition people did say that they would reverse everything that Biden has done.

Do either of you know whether any of Biden's climate initiatives have a sort of baked in or all or many of them reversible?

George?

Well, what I would add to what Professor Stokes said is I'm not sure that policy and voting are as connected as we think they are or as they used to be.

I think people vote more and more along what I would call tribal lines.

This is my identity.

This is who I vote for.

And if they discover that Biden's three big legislative achievements have brought a battery plant to their town, they may not think, therefore, I will vote for Biden.

It may just kind of go in one ear and out the other.

I saw a lot of that, just national politics and the ins and outs of Washington legislation having very little effect on people's thinking about the election.

And it's also, I think, the failure of the Biden administration itself to defend its achievements and to speak for them.

And that goes to the president himself, who is not a master of rhetoric and rhetoric is important in politics.

So, it doesn't quite answer your question, but I do think we shouldn't expect there to be a logical cause and effect if a bill gets passed by a president that leads to certain electoral results.

And, Professor Stokes, you know, overseas, we've just seen the European elections and the greens didn't do very well, which is very different to what happened the last time where there were these parliamentary elections.

Why, you know, all this emotion and enthusiasm around Greta Thunberg, which really powered a green sort of momentum in Europe a few years ago, seems to have not materialized this time.

What are you seeing overseas as well?

Because even the Europeans have tried to have a, you know, a green recovery, so to speak.

Yeah, I mean, look, the polling going into those elections in the last few days was worse than what the actual outcome was.

It's true that the green parties did not do very well and there were some surging in the far right, but it was not as bad as people were predicting in the polls.

And the coalition that will continue to govern does want climate action.

And, of course, as you know, what really matters is who is controlling the countries in the European Union.

So, for example, the election coming up in the U.K. within a month, which looks like the labor government -- the labor party may regain government.

It's going to be crucial that they actually govern on climate change, that they use these years up till 2030 to make a difference.

Because, as you were saying, we could be seeing rollbacks in the United States.

In fact, we would be if Donald Trump becomes president.

And so, countries around the world really need to be electing climate leaders and having them deliver.

Because 2030 is just really one election cycle away.

The elections this year will determine the fate of our climate goals.

You know, we have been reporting on young people, for instance, in Montana and the United States and elsewhere, elderly people in the U.S. and in places like I think it was Switzerland, who took, you know, the authorities, government, whoever it was, to court for their own human rights in terms of the right to be, you know, healthy and to have their wildlife, et cetera.

Do you think, Leah and even George, that they have weight in the political universe right now?

First to you, Professor Stokes.

Yeah, I really think that George's reporting is showing what the front lines of climate change look like, as are these court cases.

You know, people are connecting the dots.

They're starting to understand that climate change is happening now.

And that's even starting to break some of the partisan division, as George was talking about.

And so, these court cases are really starting to change the dialogue.

There's also laws beginning to be passed, like in Vermont, really just in the last couple of weeks, that say that the fossil fuel companies who lied about climate change, they will be responsible for paying for some of the damages that they caused.

So, we're really moving into the climate change era where damages are happening now.

And I think that is going to start to shift the politics.

And last final quick word to you, George.

Did you come away with any optimism from all of that very intense reporting?

Again, when I was very close to people's lives as they lived them and as they experienced them, yes, people were sane.

They were rational.

They made rational choices about what they needed in order to make sure they would have water or even they would not die of heat.

But I think the bigger this issue gets, the more abstract, the more global, the harder it is to move people on it.

Climate is a very low priority in most polls before elections.

It matters hugely who gets elected, as Professor Stokes was saying, but it doesn't necessarily get people elected.

And that's the worry I have year after year and why we keep kicking the can down the road.

George Packer, Professor Leah Stokes, thank you both very much indeed for joining us.

Now, as the discussion around climate change is embedded in the culture wars, even objective evidence and truths are questioned.

And there's been a sharp rise in personal attacks on climate scientists.

I spoke to one who decided to fight back.

Michael Mann, distinguished professor of environmental sciences at the University of Pennsylvania.

He sued for defamation and he won after a pair of conservative climate deniers accused him of faking his data back in 2012.

I asked him about what he calls a victory for science just after a jury awarded him a million dollars in damages.

So firstly, you know, congratulations, especially as you frame it as a victory for science.

What was it that, you know, that caused you to take on this case?

And it took you 12 years.

Thanks, Christiane.

Well, you know, we sort of drew a line in the sand.

It's one thing to criticize scientists.

That's all, you know, appropriate in science.

In fact, good faith criticism, skepticism plays an important role in moving science forward.

But making false and defamatory accusations, accusations of fraud and comparing a scientist to a convicted child molester, which is what the plaintiffs did and what the defendants did in this case, clearly goes beyond the line.

And we we sort of you know, we had no choice.

We asked them to take down those defamatory posts and to apologize.

They refused to do that.

And so we moved forward with the litigation and it did take 12 years to play out.

But we're very pleased that the jury saw, you know, through the smoke and mirrors that they tried to put up during the trial, saw to the heart of the matter that they had engaged in false and defamatory allegations.

They had done so with malice, hence the award of a million dollars in punitive damages.

So to be clear again, you have, you know, fought this because of the science.

And you said, I hope this verdict sends a message that falsely attacking climate scientists is not protected speech.

And of course, this happens in a year where we've just reported several times now the news, the shocking news that this year, 2023, the past year, you know, was the first 12 consecutive months of the passing the one point five threshold.

What exactly does that mean?

Yeah, you know, I'm glad you ask about that, because as it also happens, just a few months ago, I published a book called Our Fragile Moment.

And it's about really two very important things.

The lessons we can learn from studying past climate changes about the climate crisis today.

But it really communicates two very important, mutually compatible and complementary facts that there is urgency.

And you've just spoken to that.

We see the urgency in the unprecedented, extreme weather events that we are seeing play out in real time now.

And 2023 was unlike any other year in terms of the extreme heat, the wildfires, the floods, the devastating consequences we're already seeing.

So that's the urgency.

But at the same time, there is agency.

It is not too late to act.

And it's really important that we convey both of those things, because urgency without agency leaves us nowhere.

It's not too late.

Doomism doesn't play a role here.

We should not buy into false doomism and despair.

Instead, we should be engaged.

We should recognize it's not too late to fight this fight.

So on that fight, as we said, and maybe you can you can explain it from your perspective, that the climate science appears to be increasingly unassailable, obviously.

So those who still don't want to do the work of reversing this and stopping this, this crisis are attacking people like you, i.e.

the scientists trying any which way to not do the work that it takes.

Do you think I mean, are they is there any sort of way you have of measuring whether they're being successful in the same way that for decades, the deniers were and the global fossil fuel industry has been?

Yeah, well, I'll tell you, actually, it's funny, because the book that I wrote prior to that, our fragile moment was called The New Climate War.

And it's about what you're talking about.

Look, it's very difficult to deny that climate change is happening today for polluters to deny that it's happening, because we can all see it with our own two eyes.

We know it's happening.

So they've moved on to other tactics.

That's what the new climate war is about, to delay, to division, to even doom mongering.

Because ironically, if they can convince us it's too late to do anything about the problem, it potentially leads us down that same path of inaction as outright denial.

So we have to recognize the new tactics that they're using.

They're trying to disengage us.

They're trying to convince us it's too late.

They're trying to convince us through any means possible that we don't need to take action.

And we do.

And it's not too late to do so.

So let's talk about the action for a second.

You mentioned the two books that were really groundbreaking on what lies ahead.

And you also are famous for The Hockey Stick Graph.

We're going to put it up.

I mean, listen, as somebody who played hockey and was forced to play hockey at school, I don't really recognize that.

But I see the point that it's going right up very, very sharply.

And people, you know, less people even believed you then.

It was it was made part of Al Gore's documentary, the one that won the Oscar, Inconvenient Truth.

And I recently spoke to him about what you're talking about.

You know, like people have to do something.

But here are the people who really have to do something, as he told me.

All we have to do really is to overcome the political power and influence of the fossil fuel companies, which have, you know, been trying to persuade people that this is not such a big deal.

They're trying to extend their business plan.

And the Petrol states put up a lot of resistance in the international negotiations.

We are getting there and we will solve this.

People should be of good good hope on this.

But the question is, will we solve it in time?

We have to speed up this process.

So, Michael Mann, I'm sure you agree with that.

But the question is how, you know, in one of your books, you know, shows how fossil fuel companies have waged like decades on 30 year campaign to deflect the blame, As we've been saying and put it on people, on individuals.

And, you know, our wonderful reporter, Bill Weir, and many, many others in the climate sphere have been telling us how incredibly invested individuals are.

The recycling, the buying of the electric vehicles and this and that and all the things that they do.

Eating less meat, all of that.

How much, though, can be ascribed to individuals fixing this and how much has to be transformative, you know, industry, government policy?

Thanks.

I'm glad you played that clip by Al Gore.

I was become a good friend and he's a hero of mine.

He is he has been fighting the good fight for decades and he's still out there making a difference.

And, you know, it's we face this false dichotomy when we talk about climate action between individual action and systemic change.

The reality is we need both.

Right.

We should all do everything we can to decrease our own individual carbon footprint.

In many cases, those actions make us healthier.

They save us money.

They make us feel better about ourselves.

They set a good example for others.

But one of the tactics in the new climate war, those D words is division.

There's do monitoring.

There's delay and there is deflection.

They have sought to deflect attention away from the needed systemic changes, pricing carbon and providing incentives, renewable energy, leveling the playing field in the energy market.

They don't want any of that because it'll hurt their profits.

But it's absolutely essential if we are going to achieve the reductions that are necessary.

We need systemic change to do that.

So they want to deflect the attention entirely towards individual action as if it's just about us changing our voluntary behavior.

We need both.

Let's do everything we can as individuals.

But the most important thing we can do as individuals is engage in collective action.

And that means voting.

And we have an election coming up here in the United States that will define going forward whether or not we tackle the climate crisis.

So actually, I want to ask you about that, about the power and the political power of young people, because you teach at the University of Pennsylvania.

You teach this climate science there.

What are your conversations with the young students and how engaged are they and how ready are they to go and, you know, put their, you know, sort of money where their vote is?

I love my students.

I love the kids here at Penn.

They are wonderful.

They're great students.

They're inquisitive.

They're curious.

They work hard and they're working hard to change the world and make it better.

And so I see my role as a professor here to help provide them the tools, the training and the tools to go out into the world and make a difference.

And so many of them are charting a course to do just that.

And that's one of the things that gives me hope.

People ask me why I'm hopeful.

Where do I get my optimism from?

It's from young folks.

It's from the passion and the engagement of young people who recognize that this is about the world that they and their children and grandchildren are going to inherit.

And if we don't act now, that, you know, we leave behind a degraded planet for future generations.

It would be deeply unethical and immoral.

And I have faith that young folks are going to be the critical ingredient here in why we actually rise to the occasion.

We rise to the challenge.

We will do this.

And I know that, you know, obviously, doom mongering doesn't help anybody, but we do keep seeing these reports.

And today a study released says that the Amazon Rainforest, known as the lungs of the world, I think, could reach a crucial tipping point in 2050.

That's not that far from now.

It's about 25 years or so.

It's up till now proved pretty resilient to this crisis.

You know, 65 million years.

It's threatened now.

Tell us about the studies.

Tell us what's at stake, what it means.

Can that be reversed?

Yeah, it's actually one of the themes in our fragile moment is that the climate system to an extent, the Earth system is resilient up to a point.

But if you push too hard, you you leave that sort of zone of resilience and you enter into the domain of fragility.

And we're right on that edge.

That's what this latest study shows with respect to the Amazon rainforest.

There was a study out just a few days ago showing that there's another potential tipping point in the collapse of the Great Ocean conveyor.

This was popularized in the film The Day After Tomorrow.

The film was a caricature of the real world.

But bad things would happen if this climate, if this current system were to collapse.

There are lots of these potential tipping points that lie out there.

We don't know exactly where they are.

So the only sensible strategy, it's like the blind person walking towards a cliff.

The only sensible strategy is to stop walking towards the end of that cliff.

And that's what we have to do when it comes to the climate crisis.

That's what we have to do when it comes to reducing our carbon emissions.

We can still do it.

There's still a window of opportunity, but we have to take advantage of it now.

So how do people like yourself who under regular attack and also all those scientists who contribute to the annual or the periodical U.N. reports on the climate crisis.

Some of them have said over the years that, you know, we might as well not bother if nobody's going to listen to what we're recommending.

You know, it's very depressing for us.

This is our life's work.

These are the alarm bells that are flashing.

And it just doesn't seem to be this part of it reaching a tipping point.

How do you all in this field continue, really?

Well, we continue because we do see progress, and it's really important for us to keep these seemingly contradictory notions in our minds at the same time.

It can be true.

It can be both true at the same time that we're making real progress and that we're not yet making enough progress.

We have to accept that duality.

And we have seen carbon emissions level now globally.

They need to come down and they need to come down rapidly.

But the first step is to stop going up that mountain.

We've reached the summit of that mountain.

We've got to go down the other side.

And we've got to reduce carbon emissions by 50 percent over the next decade to avert a catastrophic three degree Fahrenheit warming of the planet.

And so that window of opportunity is shrinking, but it's not yet gone.

And if we see the policy actions that build on the progress we've already made, we can do it.

I'll come back to this next election because this next presidential election is going to determine the future path of global action on climate.

Without U.S. leadership, there will be no global leadership on climate.

We have to set an example and we have to do so by electing, you know, by electing politicians, policymakers who will act on our behalf, who will act on the climate crisis rather than just be tools of special interests and polluters.

I just want to ask you for a little bit of a personal thought on what you thought was achieved at the UAE, the Dubai Climate COP just just just happened.

And the next one is going to be held in Central Asia, another massive fossil fuel country.

And in addition to which the government has apparently, you know, put no women forward to be on their boards or anything like that.

And many people say that's ridiculous because women are very conscious and really much on the front lines all over the world of the climate crisis and the reverberations.

What hope do you have for the next COP?

Yeah, let me just start out by saying that educating women, you know, in developing countries is probably the most important thing we can do to solve the climate crisis.

The more empowered women are with education, the more likely it is that they will be in a position to make the changes that we need to make.

And so I have been disappointed and I haven't hidden it.

I've been outspoken about the last climate conference in UAE, where, first of all, there were all sorts of issues about the host country and human rights.

You've already alluded to that.

And there was no real progress because the host country was a petrol state.

And the head of COP 28, the head of the conference was a formal former and actually not even former, was a fossil fuel executive.

And so the UN climate conferences have almost become a caricature in recent years and they're straying from their mission.

And we haven't seen the progress since COP 26 that we hope to see.

COP 26, two years ago, it was a real breakthrough and it was the developments of COP 26 that led to an agreement among the countries of the world to lower carbon emissions in a way that probably now keeps us below three degrees Celsius, below five degrees Fahrenheit.

That's real progress because we were headed towards maybe twice that much just a decade ago.

We made real progress at COP 26.

We've seen carbon emissions levelized, but they've got to come down.

We need more progress and we haven't seen it at COP 27 and COP 28.

My view, there needs to be fundamental revision of the UN COP process right now because it is broken.

Even though they did call for a transition away from fossil fuels eventually.

Michael Mann, thank you so much.

It was some lip service.

Thank you.

And now our next guest warns that much of humanity is on the verge of a great climate migration.

Abram Lustgarten is a climate reporter and he says Americans are already being displaced by this climate crisis and it's only going to get worse.

His book On the Move explores how this is about to profoundly reshape life as we know it.

And here's our conversation from earlier this year where he laid out some advice for how we can best prepare.

Abram Lustgarten, welcome to the program.

Tell me, how does your personal experience and the moves you've made inform this book about Americans moving around due to climate?

Yeah, it was the catalyst for taking a story about global migration in response to climate change local and starting to look at how Americans might also be displaced from climate change.

I had been working on a story for a couple of years for the New York Times about displacement around the world and we had a terrible fire season.

This was 2018, 2019.

A string of fires near where I live in the San Francisco Bay Area.

And it really made clear how much Americans are also being affected by rising heat, by smoke, by the danger of fires, by sea level rise on our coasts.

And it caused me to start looking not only at my own situation but to consider from a reporter's perspective what this means for Americans as the climate gets hotter.

So we're going to discuss the effect in a moment.

But in your book you write, "People have always moved as their environment has changed.

But today the climate is warming faster and the population is larger than at any point in history."

In one chapter you talk about Hurricane Katrina and what it did to Louisiana.

You detail the life of one woman who became a climate migrant.

Just one story.

But explain how climate affects just this one individual.

Yeah, so Colette Pichon Battle is the subject of this story.

And she is from a town called Slidell, Louisiana.

It's just a little bit north of New Orleans.

And when Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005 and her area, her town was really devastated, she was living in Washington, D.C. And she moved back to Louisiana.

And she moved back with this hope of from a legal perspective and from an organizational perspective and as a member of her community seeing if she could help rebuild and help keep that community in place and kind of prevent this migration, this diaspora.

And her story is a 15-year battle to do that and sort of slowly coming to realize that in some sense it is a losing proposition or a difficult proposition in southern Louisiana.

And that's because Hurricane Katrina so many years ago was really the start of a shift of population out of that region.

And we see along the Louisiana coast, which is sinking and being subsumed by sea level rise already, a gradual decline in population.

And so Colette's story is kind of an example of the nuance of American climate migration where it's not black and white, it is not a disaster happens and people move, but it is sort of a long and emotional battle and a difficult decision to make.

You try to stay, you leave for a short time, you come back, you try to rebuild, the rebuilding doesn't work out or it's too expensive, and then slowly you kind of give up.

And she's still there and she's still fighting that battle, but that's what her community has gone through over all these years.

>> And interestingly, though, you know, we're often looking at, for instance, Colette's story and stories around the world, you know, migration is often associated with catastrophe and calamity, and where they go next, they're even worse off or barred from going to places where they could find some kind of life.

But you also say that there are potential positives to moving from one location to another in the United States, positives for whole new parts of the country.

>> Yeah, I mean, my hypothesis is that when I look at the data that projects the climate risks across the United States geographically, it's going to squeeze from the coasts, from the west especially, and from the south northward, and that you likely see a shift of population in the United States over the next couple decades northward into the northern Midwest and into the Great Lakes region where there's ample water.

And what that means is a potential revitalization for a lot of those communities or at least a lot of the opportunity for growth that comes with a growing population, maybe an influx of younger families, you know, energized middle class families.

But to seize on that growth, a lot of the experts that I talk to talk about the need to carefully plan, develop policies that support that migratory movement, that prepare things like infrastructure and prepare things like housing, and, you know, are ready to witness and smooth the path for that movement.

But if that is done, that, yeah, there's enormous growth potential for certain parts of the country and of the world just as there will be difficulties in other parts.

>> Yeah, so you're describing sort of climate migration boom towns, as you say.

And you say if, you know, if the system reacts to this.

Is there any evidence that there is preparation for this?

Are there any parts of the country which are preparing to welcome, you know, new migrants from inside?

>> Yeah, I think that's beginning, but it's early days.

So, for example, I did quite a bit of reporting up around Detroit and the southern Michigan area.

And there people were starting to have conversations, deep planning discussions about this issue, but hadn't necessarily put those plans into action.

But there was a recognition of the need for the kinds of things I said, like investment in infrastructure.

You see cities like Buffalo, New York, claiming there will be a climate refuge and marketing themselves that way, but not really developing the policy yet.

But presumably that would come.

And another interesting case study that I looked at in my reporting is the city of Atlanta, which in some ways is the furthest along.

Atlanta is modeled to be a real recipient of potentially millions of American climate migrants.

And Atlanta has spent the last decade greening and improving its infrastructure across large parts of the city in really positive ways that make parts of the city more sustainable.

But now it's grappling with a new set of challenges, which is sort of a teaching moment, you know, which is defending against the gentrification that's resulted from some of their greening and the need to, you know, to protect some of those communities as you plan for incoming climate migration.

So that's just an example of how some cities are beginning to think about this now.

>> And I want to ask you about the balancing act and how the balancing act has to be gotten right.

On the issue of farming, you also talk about that.

You know, that this could cause industries and habits to change.

Southern regions, you know, could get, you know, less yield.

Northern regions.

Talk to us about farming, which is so central to Americans.

>> Yeah.

So, I think there's two main things that we need to do.

One, examine the water scarcity in the western United States, in the Colorado River basin in particular, which feeds a great deal of our winter fruits and vegetable production in southern California and also a good deal of the agriculture across Arizona and New Mexico.

And the second is to understand that the water in that region is extraordinarily imperiled.

It will need to really reorient its use of water if it hopes to remain in the region where it's currently operating or potentially we might have to see that agriculture shift.

And then more broadly, I use proprietary data analysis from the Rhodium Group, the economic and environmental research firm.

And they have found that there's a significant decline in crop yields.

And we've seen a significant decline in crop yields since the 1960s.

And now Rhodium projects that those crop yields could decline as much as 90% in southern Texas, 30 to 40% across the Great Plains where we have, you know, really the bread basket of the country.

And all of that suggests that with rising temperatures, which is what is really affecting those crop yields, we're going to have to reconfigure and reimagine our agricultural industry.

We're not going to face food shortages in the United States, but where that food is grown might change.

Wheat, for example, that we export and that we use for foreign aid, that also might shift.

There's just really enormous changes in store over the next two to three decades, even under a fairly modest climate warming projection.

Well, one huge question that comes up when you look demographically at where people live in the United States is why, as climate impacts have grown, as hurricanes have become more common and more powerful, and as heat has overwhelmed the south, why those are still some of the fastest growing parts of the country.

And there's a lot of reasons for that, but one of the sets of reasons is a host of perverse incentives that the United States has always had to attract people and effectively blind them from the risk that they face in moving to places like coastal Florida.

And one of those subsidies is the provision of homeowners insurance or property insurance.

And Florida is a great example of this.

After Hurricane Andrew in 1992, insurers were leaving the state, and it might have suggested that property was uninsurable, but the state stepped in and said we don't want all these people to leave the state because of this economic risk.

We are going to provide our own insurance.

And so they created a state subsidized plan that basically said anybody can get insurance and we'll promise it's going to be cheaper than any other insurance on the market.

And that's the type of thing that has attracted many more people to Florida and has been replicated across 30-odd states in the country.

And that's a kind of just one example of policies that tend to sort of blunt the risk and the personal economic household decision-making that people have to make about where they live in this country.

>> And now if you pull back a bit and look sort of more globally, when you see the progress or not being made on trying to achieve that, you know, the magical 1.5 degrees, well, I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon.

But do you see globally sort of any progress towards maybe slowing this migratory process that you see?

>> Yeah, so there's this study about the human habitability niche.

And it basically projects that conditions that support human life are shifting northward.

And as that is happening, somewhere between 2 and 6 billion people on the planet could be, you know, displaced from those ideal conditions, potentially migrating.

And so that research suggests that if you cut emissions, if you keep temperatures closer to, you know, to 2 degrees Celsius, which maybe is a realistic target at this point, that the number of potential migrants globally and in the United States would be cut by, you know, by up to half, by close to half.

So it really makes a big difference how quickly we cut emissions.

You know, we have reduced our warming projections from where we were six or seven years ago.

That's some progress.

And the kind of displacement that's been passed in the United States and the goal set here is some progress.

It gives me a little bit of hope, but none of it's happening fast enough.

And globally we don't yet see the signs of countries like India and China hopping on board, changing as quickly as needs to happen to reduce the net global emissions.

And it's just critical that that happens immediately at this point, you know, to also stem the flow of that human displacement.

>> You just mentioned India.

China, I don't know whether you noticed there was a fairly interesting positive analysis about what Xi is actually doing and that he might yet be seen as somebody who did push the green agenda.

Do you see that, even though they still have their coal fired and trying to figure out how to kick start their own economy?

>> I think the smart thing that China is doing is establishing its leadership in a renewable economy, in electric vehicle production and producing batteries and in creating renewable energy resources.

So that's all great.

And I think that's what that analysis was about.

And I have no bones with that.

But its emissions are still astronomical.

And those emissions, they just have to plateau or decline as quickly as possible, almost immediately.

And the sooner that that happens, the more the global effects of warming will be blunted and by extension, again, the migration that will result.

So, yeah, there is a positive example that China is setting.

It's opportunistic, which is great.

It should seize that opportunity to shift its economy towards renewables.

But as long as it's still using all of those carbon emitting energy sources, that their work is not done.

>> And then very briefly, we've got about 30 seconds left.

Are you concerned about, you know, since the evidence of Trump in his first term was to, you know, roll back so many protections, are any locked in and sort of Trump proof now?

>> No, nothing's locked in.

And there's enormous risk of reversing some of the positive progress, not both American emissions cuts, which have been legislated, but the example that we set globally.

So I think it's a very precarious position.

And if you take back some of those measures, it will have dramatic consequences globally.

>> Abrahm Lustgarten, thank you so much indeed.

And finally tonight, it's all about leadership.

And amid many grim milestones this year, there have also been moments of hope and progress.

In Brazil, deforestation fell over 30% in 12 months.

And it's a direct result of President Lula da Silva's enforcement of environmental laws there.

And his pledge to end deforestation by 2030.

Here's what he told me about that win ahead of this year's hugely contentious climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan.

There's been some good news for your country.

Deforestation in the rainforest is at its lowest level since 2015.

And you are getting credit for that.

You pledged to end deforestation by 2030.

Are you on target?

>> Well, I do have a commitment, Amanpour, that no one asked me to take this commitment.

I'm the one that took this commitment to announce that until 2030, we would end with the deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.

This is my commitment.

And the same way, Amanpour, that I could say to you that Brazil is experiencing a very interesting moment.

Because when we're talking about discussing the climate change and the energy issue, Brazil has to be undefeatable in producing wind power, solar power, biomass power, biofuels, green hydrogen.

Brazil has an extraordinary energy potential.

And we want to take advantage of this opportunity so that Brazil, amongst many things, we could have a low carbon agriculture output.

You know that Brazil has 90% of its energy matrix clean energy source.

And so we have 50% of the total energy matrix is clean.

And when the rest of the world has only 15%.

So on the climate aspect and on the energy transition, Brazil will make things happen.

And that's why my commitment with the deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.

And I hope that the rich countries, and I hope that the rich countries give a contribution with money that they have to contribute.

Because to keep the forest standing costs a lot of money.

And because under each tree, there's an indigenous people that lives.

There's a fisherman.

There's a peasant.

And we need to take care of the people that live in the forest.

They are human beings and they need to live.

They need to have their livelihood.

So it's important that people that deforested in their countries that have industrialized 200 years ago, now they should take the commitment to pay for those countries that still have forest standing to preserve their forests.

Because I will not be taking only care of the Amazon rainforest.

I'll be taking care of the planet Earth.

That is the interest of the U.S. That is the interest of China.

That is the interest of Russia, Mexico, and that's the interest of Chile.

So that's why people have to have the awareness that to keep the forest standing in the Amazon, in the Americas, in Congo, and Indonesia, there's a price to pay for that.

And people have to pay for that price.

And this is what we want to do so that credit, carbon credit, will really start working to help those countries to keep their forests standing.

So you know what President Trump did in his first term.

He pulled the United States out of the landmark Paris Climate Accord.

Do you think he's going to do the same thing again?

Well, I believe that President Trump, he has to think as an inhabitant of the planet Earth.

And if he thinks as the ruler of the most important, richest country in the world, most important, that has the high-technology, and that is better prepared from the arms viewpoint, he has to have the notion that the U.S. is in the same planet that I am, and that an island of 300,000 inhabitants is.

And so all of us, we have to take responsibility for the maintenance of this planet, of the Earth.

We need to guarantee that the planet should not suffer a warming of more than 1.6 degrees.

We need to guarantee that the rivers should continue healthy with clean waters.

And so we need to guarantee that the biomes of all the countries should be preserved.

And so this is a commitment that I have not only as the president of Brazil, as a human being that lives in a planet called Earth, and that there's no other place to live, only Earth.

An encouraging message to leaders around the world to step up, save our planet before it's too late.

That's it for now.

Thank you for watching and goodbye from London.

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