Amanpour and Company

>> The U.N. agency has revealed that global sea levels are rising at double the previously recorded rate.

The world meteorological organization's report, which has been released right before earth day on Saturday, shows Antarctica CIs receding to record lows last year and shows oceans were at the warmest on record.

As the Biden administration commits another billion dollars to the international effort to combat climate change, we asked the climate activists if there's any hope of avoiding disaster.

>> thank you so much for joining us.

The most recent climate science reports, I don't know if I can find any optimism in what they are saying and Xavier Becerra and how we are passing by all those benchmarks that we earlier agreed to to try to keep climate emission slow.

>> it's tough as far as having optimism, but this is what we live in when you work in climate change and climate action.

The way I described the last few years is a time of both high hopes and high anxiety where these dire warnings keep coming out, but also, we are just at the cusp of may be the most ambitious climate legislation and climate action we've seen in the U.S. and around the world.

It's an interesting dichotomy of both our wins, but also setbacks, and also what happens for what we see in the environmental community is the winds are quickly followed by setbacks and we see ambitious legislation followed up by whittling away at the details and may watering things down or projects being approve that really push us in the opposite direction and fuel process -- projects continuing to go forward at the same time we say we are pushing for a more clean energy future.

So the dire warnings we see coming out of this is nothing new.

It's really just increasingly alarming as far as the more recent ones where it's like, in less than a decade we could see us crossing that threshold that has been a barometer for votes.

We need to stay below 1.5 degrees Celsius temperature increase to stay away from some of the most alarming effects of the climate crisis.

>> threw two interesting things that I see in the report.

U.S. Secretary-General was calling this report the how-to guide to diffuse the climate timebomb and the other part is that it's asking for countries like the U.S. to start curbing emissions may be 10 years earlier than other developing countries.

>> I want to adjust the name of the report because I think there's a lot even in that name.

The two themes that I see playing out with recent developments in the climate movement and a focus on getting into the details, so providing a roadmap, so it's even in the name where these are civil -- the solutions that have come forward to actually solve things, for so long we had seen general calls for climate action words like, we have to take action on climate but not really getting into the details.

What's happening as we see people getting into the details that provides a roadmap forward.

So there are a big five solutions that various folks in the media have latched onto that we can tackle right now with deforestation.

And the other piece that I see is a trend is the way people are talking about this is being real about it, calling it the climate crisis, calling it a timebomb and actually pointing out that this is an emergency and a crisis and using that language, I think both of those pieces are providing a roadmap forward but also being real about it and using the language appropriate for it is great, getting back to your question about bringing developed countries on board 10 years faster than a lot of developing countries, this has been one of the crux of the problem for decades trying to solve this.

There is argument that the developed world contributed much more massively to the climate crisis with emissions over decades before the developing world caught up with those emissions, so arguably, the developed world should shoulder more of the burden in bringing admissions down.

>> since the last Earth Day the Biden administration has passed the inflation reduction act, which set aside some $370 billion to -- for carbon emission reductions, green technology initiatives, is that enough?

Is the money getting out, will it work.

>> The short answer is no, it's not enough, that said, it is really the largest piece of climate legislation that this country has ever seen and probably just because of the size of the U.S., that the world has ever seen.

That's what I was alluding to earlier, mentioned that it was a time of tying Zaidi, we see these big developments, we see ambitious legislation that a lot of us had thought was dead because it really had stalled in that climate action that was coming out of this administration the last couple of years, all the sudden the inflation reduction act comes out and it's really quite ambitious, it is not really what the climate wants or what scientists say that we need to bring emissions down to stay below that 1.5 degrees -- threshold, so there's that and the other piece that makes it complicated is the legislation is not a ban on emissions or a ban on fossil fuels, it's not even a tax on emissions or fossil fuels, it's really providing incentives for people to move things in a positive direction.

There's a lot in there around tax incentives and tax credit so that people can take advantage of buying electric vehicles, to electrify their homes, to make it more energy efficient.

There's a lot more that people have to take advantage of but the projections of how much the legislation will bring down omissions depends on people taking action.

That makes it more complicated because it's not an outright ban, it's not saying you cannot use fossil fuels anymore after this date or even putting a tax on it.

Really people would respond to even more strongly than credits, so it's a complicated picture in that, if not enough, even if everyone took advantage of it, but it depends on people taking advantage on credits and incentives that a lot of people may not be aware of.

I know people that have made retrofits to their homes, and after they did they realize that they could not have gotten subsidized for this, and we need a big public messaging campaign around this to get people on board and say, you want to move things in the right direction on climate change.

There are things you could do that would benefit your wallet, your home, your lifestyle and bring emissions down.

>> We can look at the reduction act as a large piece of climate legislation that's working in maybe the right direction, there are a lot of concerns from environmentalists that the Biden administration has also issued more permits for fossil fuel drilling than the Trump Administration did at this point in that presidency.

>> The environmental community is quite upset about the idea that this White House said they were going to be ambitious on climate action, we did see progress, a great deal of progress, but then these fossil fuel infrastructure projects continue to get approved.

This is what we have seen for decades, if you are in the environmental community or the general public is paying attention to this, it's two steps forward, one steps -- one step back and this is how it always is.

Putting money towards clean energy but continuing to subsidize fossil fuels.

We make efforts around reducing emissions but we are still approving projects that are going to make a emissions rise for decades to come.

Some people are pretty upset in the environmental community about the recent approvals of some infrastructure projects in Alaska.

There are dire warnings from experts about what that will do to our climate change goals, and this is just part of the course, unfortunately about how this goes as far as making progress when we take steps back and what the environmental community would like to see is in end to fossil fuel projects.

We are not getting anywhere by continuing to locker selves in for decades and it makes economic sense.

In a lot of cases renewable energy are more cost-effective than these fossil fuels.

>> given the by demonstration ran on such a pro climate agenda , what's the report card on the administration so far?

>> I guess if we are judging this administration on a curve, -- it's a lot more ambitious than anything that has come forward.

So there is that.

So I do think that people have got in more realistic about climate change in the last few years, so there was a lot of pressure on Biden as he was running for office, to please the younger demographics of people, people who care about climate action, the environmental community overall, the demands became more ambitious because the climate crisis has become more dire.

So there was a lot of pressure to make those commitments, and then, it looked like for a while the administration was altering on following through and some of the orders that have come out of the White House on climate change really have been unprecedented.

We have not seen anything like this as far as climate action in the U.S. or really around the world, just given the size of the U.S. new so, that is great, but then we have a lot of setbacks.

I think if we are not judging on a curve, it could be a low B as a report card.

If we are judging on a curve, it could be a higher B.

>> last month there was a report by the White House Counsel economic advisor and there's obviously other powers that the presidency has, and it was pointing out that the federal government should reassess what kinds of incentives and disincentives we put in the way and lots of other parts of our society.

Are we subsidizing farming in certain areas, are we kind of creating other kinds of risks after wildfires with what we actually put money out with?

>> I think that report you are referring to is really interesting for a couple of reasons.

On the Wednesday and, it's interesting the White House is saying it out loud.

This is something people have known for a long time and a lot of folks have talked about for a long time.

The idea that we are continuing to make bad decisions where we say that we want to take action on climate change and make our country more resilient to the effects of climate change or just more resilient in the face of potential disasters, but then we subsidize things that are really going to push us towards disaster and throw billions of dollars at areas that really shouldn't be built there, whether it's prone to floods, prone to wildfires, whatever the potential natural disaster is, we do things that just don't make any economic sense and put the governments money behind it.

On the other hand, the administration said it, I don't think that there are any concrete plans as of yet to do anything about it because there is a lot of pushback.

So I've heard examples of communities that have had reports around this area is really going to be prone to wildfires in the future, and it was really just looking at this situation going forward, trying to put a realistic perspective on how certain communities might be vulnerable to wildfires.

In the community in which this report was released was really up in arms after that in the report had to be buried because people did not want to hear it, even though it was stating the facts.

It didn't say anything would be done about it, but people didn't want to hear it.

I think in some progressive communities that lean towards being more environmental, even those communities can be a bit hypocritical when it comes to building in an area where you should not be building.

I think that what we need overall is a really holistic, all hands on deck look at how do we reduce emissions and also make ourselves more resilient?

How do we put money towards moving things in the right direction and stop putting money towards moving things in the wrong direction.

We are throwing money away because we are subsidizing things we know will be more vulnerable.

They aren't as resilient as other options we could put in place.

That White House report really names the issue.

Now it would be great if we could get people on board to act on it.

>> One of the storylines we've seen in the last few months, this has been around since the popularity of Bitcoin, but the idea that cryptocurrencies and basically the mining of them is so energy intensive, that there's a report from the University of New Mexico recently talking about how mining Crypto is as bad for the environment as raising cattle, mining gold.

>> We have known for basically the entire existence of Crypto that the process to create it is really bad for the environment.

It moves us in the wrong direction on climate in missions , related to what I was talking about before about a lot of communities not really wanting to accept the reality, even people who really care about climate action and with robust support for climate action, I do think turn a blind eye to this idea that Crypto is moving us in the wrong direction.

I think there is some hypocrisy there about saying that we want climate action even among certain groups that would really want that and then people not really being willing to face the reality when it comes to Crypto because it's something they are very excited about.

>> this week you had a virtual event and one of the themes that you focused on was how to be a climate communicator.

You say that there is a distorted perception of how people feel about climate initiatives in this country, so how do we change and how do we decrease the gap between how people feel about climate and what type of action to take?

>> One thing we talk about in Earth Day initiative is being a climate communicator.

While more than seven out of 10 people support robust climate action, people estimate that number to be far lower.

The reason is, there is what folks in the environmental community and climate communications committee have called a spiral of silence around climate change.

While most of us support climate action, people don't talk about it.

There are various reasons.

I find people are intimidated to talk about it.

I'm not a climate scientist.

I don't really want to dig into that or get into an argument on such a complicated issue, don't -- people don't want to rock the boat.

It has been a controversial issue so people don't want to get in an argument with their friends or family, but that means that there's not a lot of discussion about something that people actually support.

So if people talk about it, you start to realize, I care about climate action, you care about climate action, most people around us care, a lot of studies show that you are one of the most powerful influences on the people around you.

If I start talking about it and say I'm going to a climate straight, do you want to come, or there's this webinar on climate action I was going to attend, or any number of things that I'm doing in my own life to bring down my own emissions, if I talk about that, you are much more likely to get involved and more likely to realize that we share this thing in common and that the number is seven out of 10 people support robust climate action rather than feeling like you are very alone on this topic.

>> JOHN, Executive Director of the Earth Day initiative.

Thank you for joining us.