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In this limited podcast series from Oil Change International, host Shady Khalil pulls back the curtain on the true cost of fossil fuels and the villains blocking climate action. Through candid conversations with global climate leaders, the podcast explores the damage caused by fossil fuels, the obstacles in our path, and how people-powered movements are forging the path towards a just and equitable transition that leaves no one behind.
From the frontlines of the climate crisis to the global halls of power, we look at the political, economic, and people-powered battles shaping our future. This is not just a fight about climate and carbon, it’s a fight for people and justice. Together we can create the livable future we deserve.
New episodes will be released every week. Find out more at https://oilchange.org/burned/
Shady Khalil (00:04)
Hello everyone, this is Shady Khalil from Oil Change International. You are listening to Burned: The Price of Oil, a podcast where we expose the true cost of fossil fuel and the villains blocking climate action. And how a movement of people power is fighting back to create momentum for just an equitable transition that leaves no one behind. About who we are at Oil Change International, we are a research, communication and advocacy organization that have been working for 20 years.
with the global climate movement to expose the true cost of fossil fuels and advocate for just an equitable transition to renewables energy. On this episode, joining me, Shereen Talaat, the director and the founder of MENA FEM movement. Shereen, thank you so much for joining us and welcome to the show.
Shereen Talaat (00:52)
Thank you, thanks for watching and I'm very excited.
Shady Khalil (00:55)
Same here, same here. for our listeners, Shereen is a dear friend, a feminist, an artist, and she is the director of MENA FEM movement. It's a feminist network in the Middle East and North Africa working for just transitions that leaves no one behind with the global effort and concentration to bring international financial system transformation. We want our listeners, obviously, to get to know you. We would like to start with your journey.
in fighting justice, but really how did your journey started and how you are working to envision a future that is feminist, but also envisioning futures that are just, are equitable, that are joyful, that are community driven. Can you take us back to the beginning, to the moments that brought you here doing this amazing work?
Shereen Talaat (01:46)
Thanks a lot, Shadi. Actually, I was born into activism. I'm a daughter of academics, both my dad and my mother, but they were very involved in the leftist movement in Egypt. But what was a turning moment to my life was the Egyptian Revolution that changed my life completely. It didn't, it actually emphasized on my beliefs, but as you can see,
I was an activist filmmaker and now working on economical and ecological justice, more into feminist economics and monitoring the international financial institutions came from the Egyptian Revolution. I was searching for a moment of hope and I believe that we can change even if we are doing small changes, but we can. And that's actually brought me here.
Shady Khalil (02:47)
Thank you so much, Shreen. And it's amazing that you're bringing the Egyptian Revolution because it also was a moment of transformation for me. It's where I started actually engaging with feminists for the first time, where I started volunteering and working, getting to know people. So it was also the entry point for me to the kind of work that I'm doing right now. But Shreen, you're also an artist. You're also a filmmaker. And to my understanding, you've brought also the intersection between
the environmental and the climate work into the filmmaking. It was part of your journey.
Shereen Talaat (03:19)
I consider myself lucky being born in this small community in Egypt. I had access to different kind of knowledge, if I may say. And that also shaped my path as a filmmaker. I'm graduated from the Academy of Cinema Art and Technology. The lead of this academy was the director, Ra'afat Almihi, my godfather, my mentor, and I owe a lot to him.
I was focusing more on documentary filmmaking and I actually teached documentary in a period of my life. And I remember my first documentary after it was my last year in the academy. It was called Wahdun. It was about the child protection law in Egypt and we managed to change some articles in the child protection law in Egypt. So I really liked the idea that I can change with my films. And then I was part of...
the ⁓ Egyptians Against Coal campaign. It was a very important campaign that also shaped the path of my activism in the climate and environmental space. And through the campaign, we produced a documentary about coal in Egypt, not only coal in Egypt, but also the investment of the international financial institutions that was supporting coal at the time with the IFC.
one of the World Bank arms. And it was also an important momentum in my career as a filmmaker after the revolution, which led to a lot of things after that.
Shady Khalil (05:02)
Thank you so much, Shreen, for sharing this journey. There are environmental organizations in the Middle East and North Africa. And there are feminist organizations in the Middle East and North Africa. And with MENA, FEM movement, when you started this, obviously you have identified a gap. Why MENA, FEM movement? Why bringing this sort of interconnection work between feminism, climate, environmentalism? Why is it important?
Shereen Talaat (05:28)
Actually, the Minafem movement came from anger, hope, and a huge gap. I couldn't ignore. I saw women across the region resisting that austerity, climate collapse, but were very invisible in the policy space and the international space. And the global financial institutions make decisions that hurt
people, especially women, lives while calling it reforms. So we wanted a space led by women from our region. We are super under-heard as a region, as Swana region, Mena region, whatever we are going to call it. understand the colonial roots behind the name, but the very important thing is what we agree on and what we understand and what we decide.
not other people to decide for us. So we wanted this space to build knowledge, solidarity and political power. So Minafem grew from that, from that need to connect a feminist struggle for economic and ecological justice to make our movement speak with one voice from Palestine to Morocco to Iraq. And we are a collective act of resistance.
build on research and care and solidarity. And the problem is, and this is my interpretation, that actually the patriarchal system was fighting feminism by putting us away from the core of this struggle, the struggle against death, the struggle against austerity, against ecological and a collapse and the climate crisis. But what we are trying to do is actually to put
this discussion in the heart of the feminist struggles in the region. So when systems are silenced, you create your own platform. That's what Minafem became.
Shady Khalil (07:38)
That's amazing. also, I mean, from my experience within the climate movement, MENA FEM walked in not only in the regional space, but also in the international space with so much value. Because as you have said, the way systems are operating, it's in a way, in a very technocratic, hyper-masculine way, where it really rejects anything transformational and make you believe in the status quo. And I've heard you speak about dreaming, dreaming, dreaming. And for me,
Feminism is a lot about this. It's about dismantling, having the carriage and the imagination to understand that you can have a world beyond the system that they have designed to us and envision a world where collective care, as you have said, can exist, where prosperity can exist to everyone and not only for the few. Let me take you to a huge part that I know that you're working on through your work on MENA FEM movement and also some of the individual work that you're also leading, which is...
advocating for the finance needed to fund a just transition on fair terms. And we know that just transition on funded fossil fuel phased out is affordable. And you out of everyone know that the money is there and within reach. But instead of rich countries providing the public finance needed to make it happen, they are derailing the process by putting forward a failed private finance-led approach. Even though they have the trillions in their public finance,
pay for the climate debt and reparation. Shereen, if you can explain to our listeners, some of them might want a breakdown about the climate debt and reparation. There are terms that we use a lot. What does it really mean?
Shereen Talaat (09:19)
Well, climate debt means that those who actually committed the crime, those who are responsible of where we are now in terms of climate change and global warming, and nobody can ignore it now that people are dying from climate change. People are facing displacements and migration because climate change.
It is a reality that my people actually can not only smell it or feel it, are eating it. But that is actually the responsibility of the huge, the big companies, the big investments on fossil fuels, the global north countries that is still pushing and putting more pressure on keeping investing on fossil fuels. So that is the climate.
those countries and those companies owes my people. And by my people, I'm speaking about the global majority. And I'm speaking about the South majority, Africans and people from the MENA region that are not responsible of this crisis at all. didn't actually, and our contribution in the emission is nothing. They owe us debt. Reparation.
Reparation actually is not only on climate from my perspective, but on years and years of colonialization and extractivism of our resources. I remember we were having a composition within the IMF last annual meetings and the representative of the IMF was saying that, yes, know that Ustari Tihirt, we know that people
have vulnerable economies, et cetera, et cetera. But what we can do, we have policies and you can not only take money without giving it back. Let's stop here and not forget that we actually weren't born like this in the universe. God, whatever you believe in, didn't create us poor people. And indeed, But we actually were made.
poor and in need because of hisches and years that are still doing different shapes like what Kaumene Kroma mentioned of colonialization, of extracting our resources. First with tanks and guns and actually it wasn't, I thought it was ended but the genocide remind us.
but didn't end at all. But taking a new shape of international financial institutions, development projects that is creating more extracting models. We were just speaking about the European Pact, Mediterranean European Pact, and it's another form of extracting again. when we speak about reparation, we have to speak about the colonial reparation and the debt.
and the climate reparation hand in hand.
Shady Khalil (12:43)
This is legitimate that the global north countries are not giving gifts. This is not aid. As that goes to the global south, this is money owed. They have built their wealth, their development from colonialism, from emissions that they have put out and caused what we are facing now out for climate change. And now they have to pay for it. They have to pay for it because it's the spirit of international cooperation.
of the UN talks of everything that they have promoted and they have created and invented and based those values on. And this is what Shireen and many people around the movement are actually working to get. It's a climate debt and the reparations that is owed to the global South. And this is the form of justice that we are expecting here. And Shereen, I will take you to a very sad moment to all of us, which is last year's COP and the UN climate talks.
And in the final moments, our movement, you know how outraged, and I've seen you outraged at the final outcome. We have fought hard for rich countries to put up the trillions in public finance needed to fund the transition away from fossil fuel that governments have committed to. instead of getting trillions, we got 300 billion climate finance, which I would frame it as a scam. It's nowhere near what's needed and it's not debt free.
Even the number, you just put it there and there's a lot of private finance that can actually lock countries in the global south in debt. How did you feel personally? Because I've seen you, I remember, I've seen you outraged. What do you think about this outcome?
Shereen Talaat (14:21)
I couldn't feel anything but anger during that time. And also we were in the middle of the genocide. And I cannot, I didn't believe how, in a very human way, how people can do this kind of things to other people. When I saw the outcomes of the COP29 decision, the new collective quantified goal, the NCQG.
I felt anger and frustration. didn't feel a bit of relief. The same people, the same key players, that is always blocking our rights. So it falls short and on many levels. it actually also, how it was framed, market-directed, and actually more debt and debt traps. And because
I work from the men in the region and the global feminist movement. I know how much more is required and needed and how much harder it is for our people, for women, for climate vulnerable context to access funding and shape a finance mechanism to challenge this extractivism structure. it was very, very frustrating and I don't have...
high expectations to the upcoming COP as well because of that kind of frustration. But it is a fight that we have to go through as well.
Shady Khalil (15:58)
Yeah, let me stop when you said like the same actors are blocking. you have, is this like the rich countries in general or are you speaking about specific countries?
Shereen Talaat (16:09)
Definitely the rich countries, but not in general, but I mean like a country like the US, all who are benefiting from and come under European Union. Also a lot of countries around the EU were blocking. don't want to, they are keeping our money that they extracting from us for years only for themselves. And not only they are not
⁓ paying their debt to us, but they are actually controlling our lives. They don't care if we're dying from climate change. The government of the US, of course, is actually ignoring all the climate change impacts and pushing other, the international financial institutions like the World Bank and the IMF to call it, to not speak about climate change, just to call it
critical weather events. Imagine our people in Oswan dying from critical weather events. Our people in Morocco, because of the ecological collapse, either the earthquake or the floods, dying from a critical weather event. It's not raining hard, Habib.
Shady Khalil (17:25)
It's no one's responsibility. It's a critical weather event. It's crazy how language matters. I know you know this, but language matters. it's one of the things that I would say global north countries weaponize, right? It's the language, how we transform the language in that sense so it can actually serve them. So from climate change, you are responsible, you are accountable, you have to pay to... It's a critical weather event. It's no one's fault.
Shereen Talaat (17:51)
exactly.
Shady Khalil (17:52)
So, Shereen, maybe diving deep to our lesson here is on the question of private finance. Global North countries are pushing strong proposals around private finance as a solution, as a magic solution for everything, where I find it unrealistic and unfair in so many ways. And even the data is not a personal opinion. Even the data shows that it attracts four to seven times less private finance.
than they have promised. So they always say, yeah, private finance attract private finance, but actually it's way less than they actually have promised. Market forces cannot fix the challenge that we are facing right now to transition away from fossil fuel into renewables in a fair and just way. It cannot be done through market and private finance. And specifically, as you have mentioned, the shortfalls are greatest in the lowest income countries and for critical transition projects outside of
renewable and even electric vehicles. This means funding for things like public transit, for example, support for impacted workers and communities, grids, energy efficiency will be missing, which will impact the day to day to people, as you have mentioned. And from your work, as you have mentioned, around the World Bank, the IMF, can you explain the limitation of private finance? First, the approaches when it comes to the energy transition and how can it create unjust systems and why?
Things like what MENAFEM called for, like debt-free public finance on fair terms, is critical to the fair fossil fuel phase out.
Shereen Talaat (19:24)
Let's be agreed, private finance cannot deliver justice. This is the start of the discussion. We are calling it in Arabic. This is our Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Private finance cannot deliver justice. The global north pushes it to shift responsibility. It replaces public obligation with market logic. Private investors seek profit, not justice. They fund what is bankable, not what communities need.
So that means less money for adaptation, care, loss and damage, especially in the poor or conflict affected countries. our countries, our middle income countries, they are in the low rank of the middle income. We are poor as well. Data from OECD shows that less than 15 % of private finance mobilized since 2016.
went to adaptation and almost none reached local actors. So a fair just transition needs public finance and democratic control. And that is what Nina Femme and Oil Change and other colleagues are advocating for. So wealthy countries must meet and go beyond their public finance promises. Reparations, not investments. That needs to be clear.
Global South countries need debt cancellation to free fiscal space for green and care economists. Women and communities on the front line must be able to shape where money goes. Otherwise, it's not going to be just. That means direct grants, not loans, or blended schemes. So you cannot build justice through profit. You cannot build justice without redistributing of power and results. And you cannot build
specifically on energy discussion justice without the channeling technology that can be owned by us as well as it is actually a result of extracting our minerals, our resources, even our fossil fuels. So this is actually what MENAfem is working towards to end advocating for.
Shady Khalil (21:38)
Thank you, Shereen. I think by 2025 right now, we understand that capitalism cannot solve everything, market cannot solve everything. that's why the work that you are leading is exceptionally helpful when it comes to this. And you have mentioned the word that we use it a lot, the financial architecture, which is, it feels that this is, like for me, I envision it as if it is this big monster.
that is eating and eating and like serving specific rich countries. So for example, we know that rich countries can unlock $6.6 trillion every year through fair taxes, through ending fossil fuel subsidies and cancelling unjust debts, as you have mentioned. But OLC countries have been blocking the reform to that unfair global financial architecture. you're not actually means they can do it as you said, which is
The fourth, I think, that frustrates me the most and the disappointment that really, really outrages me, like you can do it, but you don't want to do it because you have those rich people on the top of this big monster, which is the wealthy, billionaires controlling it. They don't want to get tax. They don't want to give the money to their people, even within their countries, in the global north countries, or as reparation and climate debt to the global south. So can you tell us?
when it comes to the global financial architecture and like expand on this part more and Shereen is it by coincidence or by design? Is this the coincidence that the failure of the global financial architecture to deliver or is it ⁓ designed? And should the big financial institution, multilateral banks think or reform?
Shereen Talaat (23:27)
Is it a coincidence? No, it's not a coincidence. It was crafted. Kamino Kroma in the 60s, who was the president of Ghana after the independence, he said that the colonial act or the colonial persona is taking another form to do the same thing. And the form that this colonial act is taking is the international financial institutions.
the global financial architecture. He said that it will come in forms of institutions and companies and this is what is happening now. So no, it's not a coincidence. It is meant to be. This is the colonial surviving mechanism. So the global financial architecture was built on itself to protect power, not people and planet. How it exists now. And we see
The global financial architecture, the multilateral system after what is happening in the rising of the right wing and what is happening in the international forum now, is super revealing that it's not a multilateral system anymore. Or maybe it wasn't like this. Aslam, it's a unilateral system where we are following ⁓ who controls and who owns the money.
when the dollar speaks, not people speaks, if you any, either in all the international financial institutions, especially the IMF and World Bank, who are actually putting this kind of global policies and impacting our life on daily basis. You have to see how the governance system and the institution works. You don't have a vote. You don't have a power. You and Aya Shady can have
a 0.00.00.00.00.1 voice as Egyptians. So how is this governance system, how it was built? It was built to protect power, not people. This controlled by creditor nations and that is controlling the IMF, the oil ban, even the G20 voting power follows money, not justice. This system rewards the fossil fuels dependency.
MDP is still financing oil and gas and carbon-intensive infrastructures, while claiming climate leadership. Between 2022 and 2023, G20 public banks borrowed more than 55 billion into fossil projects, mostly in the Global South. So climate-burnable countries spend more on debt service than on climate adaptation.
That is a structural violence disguised as finance. That is violence. mean, violence against, we're putting it as a category of violence against women. A just transition is impossible under these rules. So decision-making must shift from creditor clubs to a democratic-based process. That's why we're having a hope in the UN system. Although...
Reform needs to be done also within the UN system, but I believe a decision-making mechanism under the UN system can work. Debt cancellation and climate reparation and colonial reparation are essential for phasing out of fossil fuel fairly. Our countries, our global south countries, need fiscal sovereignty to invest in renewable energy and community.
resilience, not austerity. mean, people are dying from austerity. It's not, now it is crimes. Crimes are committed under the systems. mean, like the 12 farmer workers, women who died in Egypt two months ago, who was killed on the road in Egypt two months ago, was because of austerity measures, cutting on and subsidizing fossil fuels.
Shady Khalil (27:40)
If the governance model is not adjusted to be democratic governance model that makes the voice of the most vulnerable count and the global south countries count and not a creditor club, then this is not functional. Like in a blunt way, the rules of the game is not working in the favor of the most vulnerable, of the global majority. So the most vulnerable are not the minority. And I love this terminology and this clarification to our listeners. We are the global majority.
It's only a club of rich, some rich countries, some rich people who are trying to put the rules of the game in their favor. And we as the global majority trying to shift this to our favor. So we are ⁓ impacted. We are the one who most suffering, but we are definitely not the minority. Let me take you to one of the final questions that we have here. But as you have said, the finance is currently insufficient, right? But then...
You have mentioned something that I would like to take a pose on, which is debt and how even the finance, the little finance that they are giving extract more value than it gives. Again, it extracts more values than it gives. So they give you one dollar by the hand and extract a hundred. And Shreen, if you can explain to us like how debt and loan structures trap countries' independency in fossil fuel and extractive industries that actually lock them.
into fossil fuel and does not allow them to transition to renewable.
Shereen Talaat (29:14)
Of course debt is a tool to trap our country's fossil fuel extractions. countries that ⁓ are coming from the most indebted countries in the world is from our region. So our countries are pushed to invest in fossil fuels according also to the international financial restitutions.
plans to keep investing in fossil fuels and doing projects and ⁓ a lot of effort around fossil fuels to be able to pay their debt back. Because in the mentality, is with the market values, one of the most credited and safe and wealthy investments that will allow our countries to pay back their debts and to
To pay back their debt interests, most of our countries, mean, at least Jordan, Egypt and Tunisia in the region are paying the IMF surcharges. Surcharges is a penalty that you pay if you are one of the most in need countries, if you are taking a lot more times than needed to pay back and if you borrow in a frequent way. It's something like we are punishing you because you are in need. And this can be a huge percentage of
the debt itself, but you're going to pay it. So fossil fuels is part of how you can pay back in a fast way. So many low and middle income countries borrow money expecting to repay with revenue from fossil fuels production or exports.
Shady Khalil (31:03)
But like IOCs, international oil and gas companies, they jump on these opportunities. They always walk into government and say, okay, you know what, let's make this deal. It will help you pay your loans, but take more loans. It's crazy when you look into projects specific, how they get locked in like country by country into fossil fuel extraction with unfair terms just to pay their debt. But eventually they end up getting more in debt. You are working with big
massive systems, mean, those amazing creative tools. What is the one thing that makes you wake up every day and you decide, okay, I'm going to keep working on this massive beast? know it's not an easy question, but what it is.
Shereen Talaat (31:46)
Again, going back to the Egyptian Revolution, because it's a very important moment in my life. What actually kept me ⁓ alive, I may say, was hope. And I believe in people. And I ask this specific question to myself in the middle of the genocide. When I was watching our people being killed every day on TV.
And I was asking myself what I'm doing here, advocating for canceling the debt ending austerity with whom? With people who are actually killing our people now on TV? But I can see hope in fighting back. I can see hope in resistance. I can see hope on people. And I can see this every day. mean, even how the genocide in Palestine or the killing that is happening today in Sudan.
is very harsh and evil, but it's also creating a movement of resistance that we can or be able to build with reach, can build change, by the way. And I'm a mother, Yashadi. I have written to my daughter. She is the essence of my life. And I have to keep up fighting for her if this planet survives.
to have the minimum of decent life, to be able to breathe fresh air and to be able to find fresh water. I don't want my daughter to fight over water after a couple of years from now. I don't want this life. And I still have the chance. And we are a very strong and honest movement. So I believe in our movement. And I also want to put the outcomes of the Rabat.
meeting and the robot declaration and roadmap where feminists came together from the global fora, especially from Africa and the MENA region, from around the global South, to put together what is our plans and what is our demands and how can we can turn this to our global roadmap. So hope is there, solidarity is there, and alternatives.
Shady Khalil (34:07)
Thank you so much, Shereen. And if I would respond to this question, it would be the work that you lead and the feminism that you're bringing to this table is the thing that brings me hope, to be honest, because it envisioned the transformations that I want to see. I always say that I don't work for emission reduction. I work for systems transformation. And feminism is the roadmap.
that I see and the work that you are leading and envisioning is one of the key roadmaps that I see leading us there. So thank you for everything that you have been doing. It's an honor to have you with us on this episode of Burned: The Price of Oil.
Shereen Talaat (34:46)
Thank you, Shady.
Shady Khalil (34:51)
Thanks so much for joining us for this episode of Burned: The Price of Oil. Subscribe and stay tuned for the next episode for more conversations uncovering the hidden cost of fossil fuels and imagining the just energy future that we want. Don't forget to rate us and review us on whatever app you get your podcasts on. more information you can always check our website at oilchange.org and follow us on social media @PriceofOil.
Thanks a lot for listening.
Voxtopica.