289: Behind the Scenes at Kyoto: Drama and diplomacy on the world stage

Paul: [00:25:09] Also, the comments by Farhana that was almost like a high watermark for science informing government policy, leading to legally binding targets and timetables. In my words, science based policy. That's an incredibly exciting framing. And, um, Nick also made this wonderful comment about all the patents that followed Kyoto. If you think of the sort of delta between, you know, how the industry grew. Nick talked about the EU actually putting $450 billion in its budget for decarbonisation, and that actually helped seed the the Chinese solar and wind industries in the European wind industry. So the massive renewables industry, in the transition industry we have today, which is double the capital investment of the fossil fuel industry. We owe to some of this. But I mean, just on a kind of slightly frightening note, Nick did also talk about now we have a worrying lack of the solidarity and the empathy that brought the world together at Kyoto. And I say that I referenced that word empathy deliberately within the context of Elon Musk criticizing empathy as a bug in Western civilization that's being exploited. So just, you know, that's a very unpleasant irony.

Tom: [00:26:18] Yeah. I mean, I thought that the panelists is such a good job of talking about the legacy. I mean, what's so interesting, if you look back now in Kyoto, the sensitivity of these initial conditions, like all these different ways in which the structures and the rules and all of that were put together good and bad, we've lived with. Right? I mean, even just the nationally determined element of it is the way you have to structure an international agreement. But it meant that taking a sector lens, which is a different way of cutting the universe, didn't come until much later. So you have to take a view. But what's interesting now, looking back over 30 years, is some of those structural things have fitted really well and others have had to evolve over time, which I suppose is always true. But one of the things I thought was interesting. We talked about the power we see in the play of major emitters and economies, versus the small but powerful voice of smaller nations, who are often more climate vulnerable. That's something brought out so clearly in the play by the representative from Kiribati.

Clip from Kyoto Play: [00:27:10] Permit me to say the unsayable, Mr. Chairman. There is one country among us with less than 5% of the world's population responsible for over a third of its greenhouse gas emissions. It prides itself on world leadership but has shown none at these talks. I am only sorry its distinguished delegate does not consider our survival a matter of substance.

Tom: [00:27:36] Farhana represented another small island nation at the time. Let's have a listen.

Farhana Yamin: [00:27:40] I think the play really picks up a theme which is so alive now, which is actually we're seeing the consequences of colonialism ending and a desire for a very different world. And you saw that in the play coming out the the developing world is coming out. You know, my country that I've represented, the Marshall Islands really only became an independent in the 90s. You know, many small islands achieved their independence in the 70s. 80s and 90s not, you know, a hundred years ago. And you're seeing that right now. And I think there's a vast desire, a very deep desire to have a fairer world and to have those cultures, whether they're indigenous cultures that are smaller nations or smaller cultures. And I hope that Brazil maybe helps that dynamic correct itself. Brazil has played, again, a hugely important role throughout this whole time was a major broker in Kyoto itself. You wouldn't have the emissions trading and all of those provisions without without Brazil being there. I think the other thing that was happening, which is really relevant, is the trading system. So as a as a young lawyer in the early 90s, you know, the WTO was being negotiated and set in motion. And that was the other powerful dynamic. And I feel like these two worlds that I was kind of witnessing, I wasn't in that world. But some of my colleagues were, you know, they did the trade environment. That world is sitting ill at ease. And I think that's the world that we haven't made an inroad in and which we need to reform. We've got the better tools, platforms, ideas, the better coalitions. And they haven't actually they're the they're stuck in a very old international relations real dynamic that I feel like, you know, we as environmentalists have not thought of our disciplines, our experience as really important and worth, you know, taking out to to those other places.

Tom: [00:29:40] As ever so powerful from Farhana. And it's interesting, the incredibly powerful and important role that the small islands have played as a voice of conscience for the world over so many years and decades. But there's also an interesting question as to whether they're still able to play that role in today's new world of global power politics. With Trump talking about great powers, it feels like we've dialed the clock back many decades. What do you think, Christiana? What's the role of small island states in today's world?

Christiana: [00:30:05] They are not going to give up.

Tom: [00:30:07] Good. They can't.

Christiana: [00:30:08] They are just not going to give up. I mean, Kyoto I think was at least for me as someone being there and before the first time that they really spoke up. But you know, Tom, when you say the voice of conscience, if you see how that word is spelt, it is con and science. They speak not just out of moral Conscience. Yeah, they speak based on science because they are the ones that are the most vulnerable to any policy that is not based on science. And so for both reasons, both for the morality of this, both for the injustice, the absolute cruelty of unaddressed climate change on these islands, but also on so many other people in other countries. Both from the morality but also from the science point of view. They are the ones who understand the science best. They were the ones who brought the 1.5 degree aspiration and got it accepted into the Paris Agreement. And coming from a small country myself, I totally understand that small countries have, let's say, less political muscle, and certainly what they can reduce is much less. Since we have fewer emissions, we can make fewer reductions, but we can definitely be true to what we know is true. And what is very concerning to me now is that the difference between science and fake science, or between science and non-science is really getting very, very murky. But they do not confuse science with non-science, and we're all relying on them to continue making that difference very clear.

Paul: [00:32:03] Yeah, I mean, Farhana also spoke about how this is about fairness, really in international negotiations and a desire for things to be fairer. This is sort of shocking, lack of empathy that is now starting to be worn as a badge of honor by the wrong people in the United States. You're probably familiar with this idea that there's a Statue of Liberty in New York, and many people say there should have been a statue of responsibility, you know, in San Francisco, because liberty without responsibility is essentially Brutality. The small island states are the people with the existential risk. But you know, our world will never be safe and flourish until we are able to support each other. And I'm sure that the dominant Donald Trumps of this world will be the people who need care in the future. We need to support each other. And I think that was the great message of Kyoto. And when I first saw the play as as you did Christiana, when you first saw the play, it was the small island state representative when she spoke with such passion that tears came to my eyes.

Christiana: [00:33:03] Absolutely.

Tom: [00:33:05] Absolutely. And I mean totally with you on the representing science and the power of driving forward. You just fear. I mean, there's a lot at the moment about Trump talking about spheres of influence, the emergence of, you know, talking about these crazy things like Greenland and Canada and Panama and whatever else. And you just fear that we might look back on this period between when the wall fell and the early 2020s as a period of great multi-polar, multilateral world. I mean, who knows what the future holds, but I, I think the role that the small island states has been so powerful and will continue to be going forward, to hold us to account and ensure we're doing the best we can to stay on track.

Christiana: [00:33:42] And then there's another group that I think is moving forward, perhaps to step into the vacuum that the United States is leaving for the third time. Uh.

Paul: [00:33:54] When will we learn that?

Christiana: [00:33:56] That's another thing that we have to, you know, not panic about the United States withdrawing because this is the third time that they have withdrawn. And, you know, the world continues to spin. But it's very interesting that while we had the United States and and Europe to a certain extent, and, and then the small islands on the other side, so we had big economies making their arguments and we had the small economies. What's very interesting now is we update this story is that now we have big Developing economies, which was not a voice that we heard in the 1990s. The BRICs and we've already had one episode where we have been talking about the BRICs, but the BRICs, which are the largest developing countries that absolutely have most of the population of the world. They are really emerging as a coherent force, not only in economic meetings, but very much in climate negotiations. And they're expanding. It used to be four. Then it went to Five Nations, and now they're up to nine nations. So I think that is one thing to be looking at as we go to Brazil for this cop this year, because Brazil is one of those Bric nations. It's going to be very interesting whether they are able to pull their Bric colleagues onto the progressive, very environmentally mentally responsible position that the Brazilians hold, but that are not held by all of the other BRICs.

Tom: [00:35:34] Yeah, such a good point. Well, let's let's move into what we've learned since Kyoto. And actually, let's play another clip from the panel. And in this one they actually reflect on Kyoto's inheritance, the world we're living in today as we gear up for this critical cop that you just talked about in Brazil, Christiana.

Ed King: [00:35:49] There was a kind of curious circularity about watching the performance today where you have a difficult us. Do you feel we're in a better situation than we were in Kyoto times, given the solutions are more obvious in terms of where we go as opposed to back then when I guess wind and solar weren't necessarily the sort of emerging markets that they are now.

Farhana Yamin: [00:36:10] Yes, I feel like we're in a much better place because the impact of the negotiations, including Kyoto, has been to transform the world, transform its economy. You know, we have a massive renewable industry now, which we wouldn't have had if it wasn't for Kyoto. Actually, in the climate negotiations, in large part. It's the cheapest and the fairest, and that's why it's being attacked so much more. So in some in some ways, the lack of progress at the cops is is less important. But symbolically, I would say it's more important that we keep that sense of solidarity together. You know, whether it's a million or 10 million or 10 billion, it doesn't matter. But ensuring that their voice is heard when they talk about loss and damage, for example, is really, really important.

Nick Mabey: [00:36:58] We are definitely in a better place economically again. It was only because of Kyoto that Europe had targets. It spent. You know, its first renewable site was €450 billion of subsidy that created the Chinese solar and wind industry and the European wind industry. It was actually quite expensive to solve climate change. We did some interesting numbers. They weren't completely wrong, um, on the other side. But now it's really cheap. And so the numbers are much easier. So that's great. Now I can I can say that because it's okay, But read the book I wrote in the 90s.

Farhana Yamin: [00:37:29] We haven't got as many subsidies as the fossil fuel industry are still getting.

Nick Mabey: [00:37:32] We don't need subsidies. We're twice the size of the fossil industry. That's the great thing. I don't want them to have subsidies. But we have, you know, again, let's not talk ourselves down. We have created an amazing revolution in the global economy. And that's the most amazing thing I've ever seen. A group of people who had no power do. And so we've got to be aware of that.

Ed King: [00:37:49] Last words. Are you Richard?

Richard Kinley: [00:37:50] Well, I don't disagree at all with what Nick and Hannah have said, but I would have a slightly different perspective. I think for me, the multilateral process was coming to the end of its utility for huge gains. We are in a period now where we don't need new international agreements. What we need is implementation of the current agreements. And in that sense, I think that there's an opportunity for countries to ignore the United States. Key countries in Europe. United Kingdom China. Other middle powers and to. As they did. You were mentioning this before in the previous rejections by the United States to basically push ahead. But it's in a coalition of the willing or a coalition of the committed type of approach where the focus is not on lofty long term targets, but on how to implement actions. Now that will reduce emissions. And I think that's where the focus needs to be. And for that, I mean, it would be great to have the United States, but all of these countries can go ahead without the United States.

Ed King: [00:39:04] I think we can all agree to that.

Tom: [00:39:09] So interesting. I thought that all of the panelists agree that we're in a better place economically, and there's no denying that we would have taken this moment in a heartbeat all those years ago, knowing how much cheaper the solutions are than the problem. So does that convince both of you that we're in a better place now than we were in 97?

Christiana: [00:39:24] I think so because several reasons. I mean, we do have now the Paris Agreement that brings all countries under one roof. Uh, in 1997, we only had the developed countries with reduction commitments. So now we have everyone there, both those that have the historical responsibility as well as those that have the present and future responsibility differently, but everybody under one roof. And so I think that is very helpful. When Richard said that the multilateral process is coming to the end of its utility, I think what he meant is that the negotiation part of the multilateral process is coming to the end of his utility. And I totally agree, because the Kyoto Protocol was meant for five years, and then we extended it five years more. So from the start, it had a very short time period attached to it. The Paris Agreement is meant to guide the decarbonization of the global economy for decades. For decades to come. Certainly to 2050. And so to Richard's point about should we focus now on implementation? Absolutely. It's no longer necessary now that we have rules of the market, and we may have some things that we have to pick up, for example, the fund that supports the most vulnerable countries. But by and large, we have the bulk of the agreements that we need. It's now about executing what countries have agreed to. But I do think it's helpful to be accountable to each other and hence reporting on the implementation. Within a multilateral setting, I think continues to be very helpful.

Tom: [00:41:09] Paul, what do you think? We're in a better place?

Paul: [00:41:11] Yeah. You know, you've said before, Christiana, in a certain sense that the Paris Agreement was was a sort of meta agreement that allowed us to really focus on the implementation. I pick up on Richard's excellent points. You know, we now need to implement the existing agreements. We can do that without the USA. There are coalitions of the willing. And I'm going to throw into one more point, which I think is incredibly important. Two little technical factoids. Deep sik from China looking like it can achieve AI with sort of 1,020% maximum of the power we were expecting. Byd coming forward with a car that can take a 249 mile charge in five minutes. We're at a point where great leaps forward in gigantic multi hundred billion dollar technology, alongside a mechanism which is largely established, can allow the countries that want to power ahead, to power ahead. And if you want to look back, you know, to the sort of fossil fuel stone age power system. And if the USA wants to shoot itself in the foot, well, fine. The rest of the world is not going to wait because humanity is going to deal with climate change. This is non-negotiable. And surely that was the spirit. Christiana. And I love that phrase you used. It was the spirit that came out of Kyoto where the world recognized that it had a risk. It's maybe not brilliant at doing long term planning for risk, but it can do it if it focuses with its brain and its heart and its soul.

Tom: [00:42:32] Yeah. So, I mean, I would agree, I think we are in a better place. I think Nick said it very well. In the panel. We talked about the fact that now the clean energy industry is twice the size of the fossil fuel industry. I mean, this is remarkable progress we've made. And in many ways, these agreements were put together to try to stimulate and precipitate a private sector response that changes the cost base, of course, and you've both mentioned it as well. We're also 28 years further into the impacts, and we've not done enough on adaptation. We've not done enough on justice. And so we may be moving towards a solution, but we're also moving towards disaster. So I find it hard to say we're in a better place because those years have run on. And even though we've made progress, it's not been enough. But certainly we've got everything to play for.

Paul: [00:43:12] I just give a last word to the playwrights who said we should all work together artists, scientists, diplomats. I think that that's an under, uh, area that has not received enough attention. And the play Kyoto absolutely communicates the incredible potential. I've met the playwrights, and I said hello, and I said, I think you're the most exciting thing happening in climate change right now, which is a bit of a simplification, but partially true.

Tom: [00:43:35] Well, that's a that's a perfect segue into the break, which I was going to say. We'll be back after this short break, hearing from the playwrights that Paul has already given you an introduction to. So come back in a second. Okay. Welcome back. So in this short second half, we are going to bring you part of the conversation that Christiana had on stage with Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson, the two playwrights who produced this, I would say masterpiece of Kyoto that we went to see.

Christiana: [00:43:59] Very young playwrights.

Tom: [00:44:01] Very young.

Christiana: [00:44:03] Tom, how old they were. One of them was seven years old in 1997 and the other one was 11.

Tom: [00:44:11] Amazing, amazing. Well, there. And it took them three years. I mean, the level of detail they went into to write this thing is absolutely unbelievable. I think they are now probably world experts on the process that led to Kyoto. And what they've done is amazing, in part, Christiana, because they've actually made the cop engaging and fun. Indeed, you made a point on the stage about how we've tried to do this before.

Christiana: [00:44:30] Well, I know that you walked around at least one or 2 or 10 negotiating sessions with a filming crew who then eventually said, forget this. This is the most boring thing we have ever thrown a camera at. We resign. Um, and they and and.

Tom: [00:44:48] That could have been me of course. I'm not sure if that was a COP.

Christiana: [00:44:52]  No, I, I.Think that was definitely the camera crew that was following you around. And I have done, you know, something as as dumb as that, but it's very difficult. It really is very, very difficult to to dramatize something like this. So the fact that they have done it so exceedingly well, really, they just deserve such recognition.

Tom: [00:45:12] Absolutely. So we were lucky enough to be joined by the show's two playwrights, Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson, and Christiana interviewed them on stage to learn a little bit about their process. Let's have a listen.

Christiana: [00:45:22] How did you keep our attention during 2.5 hours? Obviously, you took a lot of liberty, but why originally, did you even think in your wildest dreams that a multilateral negotiation would be worth taking to stage?

Joe M: [00:45:44] What a great and deep and and difficult question. I mean, I don't think it takes us to say that these are really difficult times in multilateralism. It also doesn't take us to say that it's really worth emphasizing that it's human beings that operate the multilateral forums that we have. But it was really interesting to us. I mean, we we set about this journey about three years ago. We were really concerned that this time that we were in had become a kind of age of disagreement, that we're really struggling to enter a process of agreement of compromise, and that actually a story that that valorize and put on a really important pedestal, the idea of agreement might be a real contribution. It might be really helpful to all of us as global citizens to go know that is something worth aiming for. As difficult as that process is. And that was what turned our minds towards the Kyoto Protocol, which is an unbelievable story of agreement, something absolutely against the odds, something that refutes the the idea of the times that we live in currently and something, therefore, that's worth putting on stage.

Joe R: [00:46:56] And to your to your question about how you keep an audience engaged during 2.5 hours, we spoke to as many people as we could find. Many of them are in this room, actually, who were there, who negotiated it, who sort of were on the battlefield from Bonn to Geneva to Kyoto. And and we were struck to the core by the emotion with which people talked about those experiences by the pride that they felt for these. For these sort of multilateral moments. They were, you know, for a lot of people, the proudest moments of their lives. And as artists, always trying to find a way to talk about climate change in a way that really connects with people, that really engages people. Actually, we realized it was a lens on this subject that that was at its heart human, that was at its heart emotional, that there was a jeopardy, a drama that actually, if you put that all together and bottled that emotion that you could you could create a way of talking about this that connects with an audience.

Christiana: [00:47:48] What I think is fascinating about that answer from both of you is that as I was trying through my tears to watch what was going on, I realized part of the magic that you have there is that you, of course, steer away from many of the, I don't know, factual truths that are incredibly boring. But what you do is that you have your characters Express in words the emotions that we were all feeling, but that we couldn't express in words. So you have actually sort of gone into all of us who were there, and all those characters figured out what the emotion was and given it words which we couldn't do.

Joe M: [00:48:35] And we must pay a huge, huge thanks to everyone who was so generous as we went about researching this. I mean, as Joe said, we knew nothing about this and so many people who many of whom are in this room right now, were so generous with their with their time and energy and offering us insight into these, these amazing things.

Joe R: [00:48:52] But helping to laypeople understand.

Joe M: [00:48:54] Yes, indeed. Which which we hope to pass on. But, um, one of our favorite playwrights, Ibsen, his favorite bit of advice that he was given when he was setting about writing plays was a great play is one in which all the characters think that they're right, and in Kyoto, and.

Christiana: [00:49:11] It's never happened in a negotiation.

Joe M: [00:49:14] But sort of transposing that idea onto this subject matter and this situation. You have lots of lots of countries, lots of representatives of delegations who believe in very different ways that their right and those viewpoints come into combat with each other. That turns out to be the plot of the play. The amazing thing about Kyoto is, of course, that those those countries who are so different in so many ways do find a way to reach agreement.

Tom: [00:49:39] It's so wonderful to be joined by Joe and Joe on stage. I've just left with such admiration and respect for the time and care they took to really understand the facts of everything that happened, and as a result of that, produced something completely brilliant. Thoughts from either of you on that conversation.

Paul: [00:49:55] I mean, I picked up on them talking about the emotion that they encountered when they talked to people about, you know, people who were there, the pride and talking about it as a lens that was a heart human, you know, with jealousy and drama. You wouldn't see that if you filmed it in real time. But if you understood what was going on, then you start to understand that this is a drama of the most epic scale. And I mean, once again, I'm going to go back to the representative from from the small island states. If you think states are going to be dominant, the climate is the most dominant force on this planet. You know, the entire economy is a subset of the environment. And it's beginning to to shake us. And we should be humbled by it rather than feeling we have domain over it.

Christiana: [00:50:39] You know, the other thing that I thought was brilliant was to write this play for a circular stage. Mhm. Usually, you know, we, we have these sort of the audience on one side in the stage and the actors on the other side, and the fact that it is a circular stage, I just thought it was so symbolic. A it symbolizes the planet, it symbolizes everyone on the planet, essentially in equal rights about what is going to happen to their present and their future. And it was just from a relationship between stage and audience. You almost felt like you were sitting at that negotiating circle or negotiating table yourself. And so the division, the physical division that you usually feel as an audience, there's usually a huge distance between you and what is going on. That was completely erased by the fact that it is a circular stage, and that certainly the first, but the second and the third rows of audience are almost right there.

Paul: [00:51:46] In the play. You know, some audience members were at the in the negotiations and were kind of somewhat co-opted. Be aware if you were in the front row theatre in the round. And I mean, it does remind me of actually part of the extraordinary, terrifying, heartbreaking genius of the Holocaust memorial in Berlin, where there is no edge to it. It melts into us. We are it and it is us.

Tom: [00:52:07] Yeah. Okay. I mean, what a pleasure and a privilege to go and see this play and have a chance to speak to these brilliant people, the playwrights and this great panel, these people who have done so much over the course of the last 30 years to keep us on a good track with climate. This is the first of two episodes that we're going to do about this experience. Next week we'll be back and we'll talk more specifically about the central character of the play, Don Perlman, and the role of fossil fuel lobbying, both in Kyoto and in the years since. So a huge thanks to the team at the conduit and the team at Kyoto, at the theatre itself for their help in putting this episode together. And thank you, of course, to our wonderful panelists. If you're in London. Kyoto is still playing at Soho Place until May the 3rd. There are not many tickets left, and I'm sure there will be even less after this podcast goes out. So if you want to see it, I would encourage you to go get one as soon as you can. We'll be back next week with more from the event that we ran at The Conduit. Thank you for joining us this week. We'll talk to you soon.

Christiana: [00:53:04] Bye bye.

Tom: [00:53:05] Bye.