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A weekly podcast about the forces shaping politics, power and technology, and how they affect you.
Elliot Costello (00:00)
every conversation in climate sessions and workshops talked about AI. And it was like the elephant in the room if it wasn't brought up with the second or third question asked.
Matt Kendall (00:15)
Hello and welcome to Worth Knowing, a weekly podcast about the forces shaping politics, power and technology and how they affect you. I'm Matt Kendall and beaming in all the way from New York this week is my co host, Elliot Costello. How's things in New York, Elliot?
Elliot Costello (00:32)
Interesting, a typhoon rolled through 24 hours ago. So right now it's dark and wet and wild. The winds are really ramping up. It's due to pop in to see some old friends who run Global Citizen Festival today. They canceled the whole festival. So that's how wild it is. And it was a bit of a rush for
Matt Kendall (00:56)
Yeah, wow
Elliot Costello (00:57)
so many people to get out of New York last night before the wind started.
And so I think Sophie's constantly checking the weather app to make sure I can get my flight out tomorrow. But I stuck around for the week and yeah, I'm hoping to head home tomorrow.
Matt Kendall (01:12)
Yeah, wow, that that sounds wild. It's it's almost like Mother Nature. It's like
Mum is pissed off. She's banging on the door saying this party's over and she's cracking down hard. what has been the the vibe on the ground there generally?
Elliot Costello (01:27)
Yeah, well, ironically, was 24 hours even earlier, none of those leaders would have had the chance to leave. But it just, the rain has added such complexity to an already crazy and demanding city. Every hotel is full, every train on the subway is full. New York's a busy place at the best of times. You add in UNGA and Climate Week at the same time.
And it is manic. So the level of checkpoints, street closures, protests, event, stacked on event, stacked on event. it is just manic, like getting through from my hotel, you know, 10 blocks away through to the UN on Wednesday morning took about an hour and 40 minutes. the buildup, the pressure, the ID checks, security. So it is a little demanding and, think.
Mother Nature has now sent the rain to wash away a pretty demanding week for all New York inhabitants.
Matt Kendall (02:32)
well hopefully you get home, get we'll safely tomorrow. but you've been there for of course Climate Week, New York. and for for me, you know, before you went over there, I think I was sort of saying this is gonna be really interesting to see the straws in the wind. We've obviously got COP in Turkey coming up in November. And I was interested to see what the straws in the wind were going to be. Obviously AI was going to feature heavily
But and I mean I'm interested to hear your take on this, is it from what I was seeing, it might as well be called AI and and data center week. in fact there was there was some some reporting from the Wall Street Journal which which really shocked me. now these are some quotes from s from some venture capitalists. Climate is out, power is in, less carbon removal and more power in compute and physical AI.
Elliot Costello (03:30)
Hmm.
Matt Kendall (03:30)
Decarb
is dead for now. Too much exposure to carbon removal was a mistake. Those markets aren't as healthy as we'd once hope. Now, those are not quotes from AI VCs. They are quotes from climate tech VCs, which is really a a bit of a mask off moment. And I I don't want to tar all climate tech VCs with the same brush. we know some, we know they're the real deal.
they're not taking their money anywhere. But mate, that's along with a few other things which we'll get into a little bit later, that's quite concerning from my perspective.
Elliot Costello (04:07)
Yeah, Matt, that's a perfect analysis. What you've read in the Wall Street Journal matches my experience this week. And it really does highlight the fact that the anchor for so many conversations has been AI, not climate. And the reality that so much money is required for the AI boom and the AI growth without deep consideration for climate.
And so we're going to unpack that in this episode, but those comments from Wall Street Journal match certain investors. I won't say it's all climate investors. I had lunch with the Superorganism VC founders yesterday. If you want to see a good climate VC at early stage, check out Superorganism. They are not slowing down. The investments they're making are very
interesting and pushing boundaries. So I'm sure that's a sentiment of some. Why I think the Wall Street Journal quotes resonate with me is every conversation in climate sessions and workshops talked about AI. And it was like the elephant in the room if it wasn't brought up with the second or third question asked. So that's from Axios House with media and congressmen and a bunch of politicians.
you know, major brands, NVIDIA, Amazon, GE, Nestle, Mars, invariably everything came back to what AI can do and the role it will play in the climate movement. Interestingly though, Matt, and I did read a headline how AI became the anchor piece of UNGA this week. I spent about four and a half hours in session at the UN and
It wasn't until about the third and third and a half hour that where AI was even mentioned, which is staggering. So it's kind of the irony is not lost on the fact that it's mentioned. AI is mentioned embedded in all the conversations within industry and certainly within media. And it kind of felt lost a little bit when you're talking about leaders who are supposed to be setting up the guardrails globally. It was brought up.
you know, three or four hours into this session, I was at the UN.
Matt Kendall (06:35)
Yeah, and clearly those guardrails are needed. You know, some some big news dropped during the week. Obviously Anthony Albanese was over there, Australian Prime Minister and news broke that week that open AI agents had hacked into Australian government health records. which kind of puts paid to that whole thing that possibly the hugging face was a marketing
exercise. So there's obviously an alignment issue here, which I think we'll get into a little bit later. and there seems to be no real action. Obviously Trump, with America having the major frontier labs, you know, really America should be leading that charge and they're just not going to with Trump. But to to bring it back to climate, if there's a lot of talk about AI
And what it's going to do for climate, I from my understanding, what it's going to do to climate is it's going to make it worse. there's some reporting in in Bloomberg which says that the amount of the gas consumption to produce electricity for data centers is expected to grow so much that it's essentially gonna be take up more gas than is currently consumed by all nations except China, Russia.
Iran and the US itself. Now
Elliot Costello (07:55)
Hmm.
Matt Kendall (07:55)
that that's a brown boost that we haven't got those credits. Well, you know, the IPCC, all the climate scientists told us a long time we do not have those credits in the bank. so a brown boost like that over the next five to ten years basically just tips us like over 1.8 on the road to two and beyond, which is a catastrophe. A, was that spoken about at all? B
how is did any was anyone actually specific about how AI is going to solve climate for us?
Elliot Costello (08:30)
A lot of, so to validate your point, head of sustainability at Amazon, Kira was speaking about how they've committed to the 2040 by full net zero, the decarbonisation plan, the suppliers that work with Amazon, how they've got to commit to a decarbonisation plan. So the reality is that the objectives remain the same, but Axios,
media interviewer opened it up by saying, yeah, but you also just invested in a major natural gas extraction project.
Matt Kendall (09:07)
Yeah, exactly.
Elliot Costello (09:09)
So one hand she's like, we're still committed. This is our journey. We're going to get there by 2040. We're bringing our supply chain along with us. But we need all that gas over there. You had congressman, I listened to congressman from California, the governor of Hawaii, very optimistic about
how AI can reduce power bills, much like conversations in Australia. A lot of pressure on power bills for consumers and of course gas bills for cars, what we call petrol. A big belief that AI and investment in renewables can see power bills come down, but it's kind of like, you're talking about five to 10 years away. So it didn't feel, it felt a bit disingenuous to a degree.
The other point is, you know, hearing from Nvidia's senior management team, head of sustainability, who talked openly about the fact that they've got a branding problem. 70 % of Americans do not want a data center in their backyard. But he's kind of got this optimistic view because he's talking from the company, talking points about how AI would drive, would build new jobs, it would deliver
increasing, innovation, towards a net zero economy. huge proponent that we need to speed up. can't put guard rails in place, you know, and Nvidia, you know, obviously we'll talk about Jensen and some of his comments this week too. So Josh is clearly talking about the virtues of AI with a promise that it will deliver all this innovation. We're going to be fine. And it just reminded me of Sarah.
Wines Wilson's whistleblower book, Careless People, about Mark Zuckerberg. So when you sit in front of Nvidia and Amazon and GE and others and you hear their sustainability leaders talk, you just realize how many drafts that's gone through to be approved. How many people have looked at that messaging and said, this is what you need to say and this is how you communicate it because there's congressmen in the room, there's media organizations and there's industry. So I...
valued Sarah's book, I think it taught me a lot about how scripted these major businesses are to ensure everyone's talking and aligned to the company talking points. But yeah, I think that the short answer is there's a wish and a hope, but the reality is the demands on on existing traditional energy sector are only going to rise. And that's the concerning thing for elephant in the room is if we're going to keep at pace.
with our investment in the AI industry and the data centers that are required around the world. The renewable market, even though it's below price parity and it's having its time in the sun, pardon the pun, and there's a lot of optimism about renewables given the sort of economic reality, but it cannot meet the demand that major AI companies need for their growth in data centers.
Matt Kendall (12:20)
It's it's really concerning. I just hear just hearing w what you just said there, it's really only platitudes in terms of, you know, innovation will solve climate.
you know, where it's
Elliot Costello (12:35)
Yeah, trust us. We're going to be fine.
Matt Kendall (12:37)
yeah, like what are the examples? Like what what are the strategies? You know, where do they identify the opportunities being? How much compute have are they dedicating towards the problem? do they have any
projects or examples or case studies of of things that are really exciting that are in the nah, none of it. It's because they're so busy racing towards AGI that and all they're and and expanding and and and making sure that they're getting enough compute and data centers that they're not there's it's just platitudes. and it's almost like a religion. It's kinda like we we will be saved if we get to the promised land, we will be saved. And there was a you you
You being so busy over there, you probably wouldn't have heard it, but it's it was the the timing was perfect because it was released last week where Ezra Klein interviewed NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang.
I'd seen other interviews where he'd been quite humble.
And a bit of a a voice of reason. And in the last few interviews, just even the last few weeks, him on stage at the All In conference with Trump calling in, saying, Yeah, let's rip to this conversation now with Ezra Klein, he's almost got like a bit of a God complex. I'm I'm reminded of that quote, you know, we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology. Well, this is the dude that's sitting on top of that godlike technology and presuming he is God.
'Cause th
Elliot Costello (14:04)
Mm.
Matt Kendall (14:04)
the whole tone throughout the interview was like, Daddy's here, he's got this, this is how it's gonna pan out. And already he was he's been proven wrong. He was saying that open AI and you know, the frontier labs are going to behave themselves, they don't need regulations. They're not going to put things out into the world that are gonna damage things because that's not good business. He's like just like you wouldn't put a bad car out into the world. Well, Jensen, the reason why there's not a lot of bad cars out in the world is because of regulations.
mean that if you've got a dangerous car out there, you are going to have there's going to be a recall and that is really economically damaging. So car companies do every it's an incentive to do everything they possibly can to make sure that they don't have recalls. Now, something like that needs to happen with AI because once it what happened after just after he released that that podcast was released, that news was announced that obviously the Australian the hack of the OpenAI agent hack of the Australian government
And when you've got that kind of hubris at the top of the pile with all of this power, with all of this money, right at the end of this, it was almost kind of buried at the end of the interview. He talks about, I had to actually go back and check it. He actually the I'll I'll have to read it out. He said, well, initially he said, I think we need to we have to acknowledge we got ourselves really gummed up with climate change and sustainable energy.
And then Ezra calls him and says, Hold on a second, what do you mean by gummed up there? And he says, Well, in the near term, energy production requires fossil fuel. And because there's so much angst about fossil fuel energy production, if you look at our country, we've pro we've produced very little net new energy for a long time, which which is rubbish. But then he goes on to later to then say, talk almost as like as if AI and the AI Frontier Labs and and everybody, you know, working in that space is going to be like a surgeon.
And that they've got to save you. They've got to hurt you first. That's the nature of surgery. They've got to cut you open to save you. They've got to inflict an enormous amount of pain and suffering on you so that they can save you. I mean, it's it's kind of psychopathic in in many ways. And he goes on to say, I think AI is kind of like that. Over the next few years, we unfortunately have to use fossil fuels because we don't have enough sustainable energy to make a difference. Then after that, hopefully we can transition to that.
Now that is
Elliot Costello (16:30)
Yeah.
Matt Kendall (16:31)
basically what they're saying with that brown boost, that's gonna tip us over. the UNEP report came out and told us that we need to, change course drastically and immediately. And what they're saying is pedal to the metal, but once we get to the promised land then we'll be able to solve climate, which is blows me away.
Elliot Costello (16:48)
It's
one narrative. It's a very loud narrative and it's a very important narrative, but it's not the only narrative I heard this week. closer to sort of where my politics sit, Biden's former energy advisor, Ali Zaidi, spoke on Monday and he completely tore that argument apart.
in a very, you you don't become an energy advisor with Hapeng Superbright, but effectively talked about the latency and the urgency to close some of the coal energy sources because the plants are getting old, they're retiring, you're not going to keep investing in them. You know that they're a costly source of energy. And that phase out of plants creates opportunity for what is already cheaper sources of energy. He also spoke about
how we need to build reliable, resistant, decentralized and dispersed energy systems. So if you are building data centers in different locations and good luck to the 30 % of Americans that want the data center near them, because it's coming thick and fast, you cannot rely on the existing grid. And you need to build independent decentralized sources of energy that are bespoke.
creates the opportunity. you know, clearly solar has a huge opportunity to play or, you know, pending its location as does wind to avoid drawing from the existing energy grid system and have a decentralized. And that's probably where part of the AI movement could have a win by being a good corporate citizen, by investing in renewables, by advancing good technology.
And certainly helping avoid pulling from the existing energy grid and maybe even using surplus energy to fund community energy power and bring down local prices. That was another conversation just about how bad the optics are around AI companies right now. It was the founder of Emerald AI, I forget his name, but super bright guy, former Biden administration advisor.
just done a capital raise, and it's 12 months old company and it's, know, a you know, million dollar valuation, crazy stuff you commonly hear in America. But he was talking that the backlash against AI companies means that they should be focused on being good corporate citizens. And what that means is when you're embedded in a community, actually serving the community, not extracting from the community. So multiple conversations, I think.
We should also put a disclaimer in there. We're not energy experts.
Matt Kendall (19:48)
Mm-hmm.
Elliot Costello (19:49)
This is really complex. We live with the benefits of innovation. We flick on a light. We don't think about the sources of energy, where that comes from and how it's transported and the reliability of it and how frustrated we get when public utilities fails us. But again, energy is only one conversation.
A very, very important one because that's the, I guess in a Venn diagram, which matches our branding quite well too. That's this segment that AI and climate are overlapping. Matt, you built our brand. I don't think you did that intentionally. We do talk a lot about
Matt Kendall (20:30)
Mm.
Elliot Costello (20:30)
AI and climate, but if you look at that sort of piece in the middle, that overlap, I think energy is the sort of major focus right now.
given the expectation to grow data centers and the energy demands that come with that.
Matt Kendall (20:47)
Yeah, I mean and energy sits at the at the absolute center of of our culture and our economies and our society and the whole global system. As we're discovering now with the war in Iran gumming up all the the oil coming out of the the Middle East. and obviously the the sun and the wind doesn't have to pass via the Strait of Hormoons. so there's a lot of there's a there's a lot of positivity around from
That was some of the positive news I saw is that off the back of Climate Week is that renewables are on a tear at the moment. Solar, wind, hydro, and obviously then batteries. And and look, a s Australia is one of those success stories. You know, we've got solar and battery here. It it's it's mind blowing. you know, just on a personal level, but then
Amortizing that out across the whole nation. The news came out during the week that at one point 80% of the grid was renewables. I think at some point last week, and 50% of that was solar. and then obviously with the Albanese's battery program and and rebates, you know, like hundreds of thousands of households have have taken those up. So that was almost a little bit of a surprise because obviously Trump
had pulled back a lot of the incentives and a lot of the the policies that were supporting that in America and everyone was expecting that to have a a negative effect. But because it's the best technology, because it's the cheapest way to generate energy, then that's it is a really good news story.
Elliot Costello (22:26)
Two years ago, you're right, Trump came into the office, came back to office and tore up the Inflation Reduction Act. Everyone was nervous talking to climate investors in the energy sector. That did create anxiety. The regulatory tailwinds might have changed, but the economic stack up and it...
the investments are strong. I really like your piece there on positive news. I do want to talk about some if I may, because it wasn't just me sitting in audience and throwing daggers at the Nvidia's and others who are pushing us further, further away from solving this climate emergency. A couple of people that I was really impressed with.
Ryan Gillett, who's the CEO of Patagonia globally. He spoke very openly and progressively about the fact that how many corporate leaders still have anxiety to speak up out against Trump. And that has given him such frustration because he's been very open at doing so. How there's apathy at the heart of the political crisis and he's encouraging business leaders to find their voice.
and not be lost in history for staying silent in this moment. And then more directly how Patagonia is funding the opposition against Kushner's plans in Albania. So what the Kushner and Ivanka Trump want to do about building that resort on the island in Albania, that will impact the largest and maybe even final free flowing river
in Europe and Patagonia sees that as such a crucial fight. It's not their fight, they're backing the community and the community have come to the streets. Loved hearing from Patagonia and Ryan specifically. Andrew Forrest, we all know, you know, the Uncle Twiggy. Quite impressive to be fair for a guy that sits on 17 billion and...
you know, the complex relationship we all have with Twiggy being a mining magnet. But he gave a presentation on the economy of nature and how, you know, if business, if your business is destroying nature, that's a failed business model. And really was calling out leaders and saying, your business must improve and support nature. Otherwise you're going to die in business model. Sort of playing on this.
I guess, economic argument that was quite interesting and helpful. The last and definitely most impressive, my favorite of the week was Dr. Sylvia Earle, a 91-year-old marine biologist, someone I haven't come across and very happy that I have found her. She, there's just something about people that have been through a lot more than us.
She's 50 years older than me and has seen generations come and go. She spoke about how it's taken us 4.5 billion years to get here and we're blowing it all up. And in just this soft, powerful voice just started to call out our current path. But then also just remind us how a quote was around, knowledge is the key to caring.
And caring is the key to action and evoke this mission that we need to organize and respond. And how this is the last chance we have at saving our planet. But that was a positive message. She did it in this way of, my time is wrapping up, but we should have excitement about this movement. we, yes, it's...
challenging and we're facing a lot of headwinds as we've unpacked but the reward for doing so the reward for winning and She was very direct at saying we've got five years to sort this out like five years That's it
Matt Kendall (26:51)
Mm-hmm.
Elliot Costello (26:51)
decisions have to be made now for the next five years and take it in a positive open optimistic way of Making sure we get on the front foot and win this fight
Matt Kendall (27:02)
Yeah, it's I r I read your notes on on her talk. It was quite inspiring. And I think it there there's a path through that for us, you know, in in the face of all this incumbent power and and seeming hopelessness. it's a a recurring theme. I think, you know, I it is hard to find hope. but I think once again as a parent, I believe I I I have to
You have to have to find hope and and and fight for a a a world worth living in for my daughter and and and for all the next generations. And I think I suppose that sort of brings us to to a nice kind of I suppose to a roundup point, which is whether whether you've been an activist fighting for this, that hasn't worked. Whether you've been a centrist saying we can keep doing what we're doing, we just need to sort of fiddle at the edges.
that hasn't worked either. And look, if you're if you're on the far right and you think this is all a hoax and a scamble, then I I can't help you. But and you're probably not this far into this podcast. but if we don't change direction soon, we're gonna end up where we're going. That seems like a really obvious statement. And like once again, like I was saying, as a strategist, you you've got you've you've got a goal as a society, you've got shared goals.
And you aim for it and we've just been aiming just for GDP. And that doesn't account for any of the damage that we're doing to our ecosystems or to our climate. We've got you know, we're also in the face of ecological collapse, you know, off the back of climate.
and on that, a concept that has lit up my my feeds this week is been Tenzin Selden's gross domestic regeneration, where it takes into account all of these natural resources that we need for life, you know, it's our oceans and our air and our ecosystems and our soils and our aquifers and our waterways, you know, glaciers even, and making sure that all the activity that we're doing.
All the AI that we're building, all of these things are in service to regenerating these essential components for life. There is no economy without an a working ecology. it's the the bad news is in the post on that front. It is not too late to turn it around. We've got the solutions. We've discussed that before. What we don't have at the moment is the power, the collective power.
to fight against the incumbency that's pushing us off the cliff, to start to turn that around. And I think that's the the job that's ahead for all of us.
Elliot Costello (29:41)
It is. If anyone's sitting there thinking that the climate crisis will be solved at COP31 this November, you are fooling yourself. Tragically, we're likely to see a lot of nations not even turn up to Turkey. That's what I heard this week. So there won't be a binding outcome from Turkey, which if Chris Bowen is listening to this, apologies in advance.
He's obviously the Australian Energy Minister that is the COP31 president. But it isn't about the political institutions now. And I think that's what I've really been reminded of this week. There is finance there. There is community activism there. There is certainly from certain segments, political will and technologies that are available. And it's about pulling them together.
there's a lot of problems, you know, that AI brings, you know, having a great chat with us around innovating in the energy sector and the cost margins he can offer a dwarfed by the AI, you know, promises, and the returns there. So making it really hard to stack up, good investments into, innovating in the energy sector when the incumbent, you know, is there and it's a behemoth that's, hard to fight and bring down.
But there's enough glimmer of hope across the climate movement. It's in the room with capital now because of the returns it can offer when you're talking about, you know, solar and wind given the price position. So I hope to end this in a half-decent note. It might not sound in my voice. It's 11 p.m. end of a long week and I'm exhausted. Need to get some sleep before returning home tomorrow. But...
Yeah, I'll just go back to Sylvia's message around it will be our generation and at this time that can step up and solve this in the next sort of five to 10 years and reminding ourselves that the battles are difficult, but the war isn't over. And the time is now to ensure that we stay on the front foot.
Matt Kendall (31:58)
Yeah, I think that's a great note to finish on. we are gonna have to get busy. We're gonna have to get started. but thanks so much for giving us the report from the ground over there, Elliot in Typhoon blasted
Elliot Costello (32:12)
You
Matt Kendall (32:13)
New York. and wishing you a a safe trip back and we'll see you all next week for another episode of Worth Knowing.