Sustainable Views: 2024: a crazy year in the world of sustainability

Hi everyone, welcome back to the Sustainable Views podcast where we talk about all things sustainability related. So this is the latest podcast of this year, which has been a very busy and stressful year in the world of sustainability. And before we get going, I'd like to thank our listeners for tuning in this year. And do get in touch via the website sustainableviews.com if you want to give any feedback, negative or positive, about what you've heard this year or what you'd like to hear on the podcast in 2025. So today's a very special podcast because you get to meet the whole Sustainable Views editorial team.

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So today we're going to do things a little differently. We're going to have a bit of a chat about what happened in the crazy year that was 2024 and what our journalists think will be happening in 2025, which trends they see, and in a year which may be even crazier than 2024, given that Donald Trump will be fully ensconced in the White House. So, Marie, great that you're here with us today. So what's the key things have you been seeing in 2024?

Yeah, very happy to be here. Unfortunately, not going to be so jolly in my next kind of comments. Unfortunately, it has been quite a disappointing year for international climate finance, I think it's fair to say. So while there's, I guess it's fair to say, probably a consensus on the fact there needs to be a lot more funding going towards funding climate change adaptation and mitigation globally, and particularly in developing economies, The ongoing arguments are about who's actually going to stump that up and how that's going to be structured. So although at COP29 a few weeks ago we did see agreement on what was called the new collective quantified goal, very nice title, it fell way below what many campaigners and developing economies actually said would be necessary. So the final number that they got to was $300 billion US. But the main figure that's been kind of banded around in recent months is more like $1 trillion US annually. And the other thing that upset everybody was the fact that this agreement actually said that this money can come from lots of different sources. So the developed economies aren't actually even committing to kind of stump that up. They're saying, oh, it could come from us, it can come from other people as well. So that's, as I say, that's a bit of a damp squib agreement that came out of that meeting. And then at COP16, which was the biodiversity conference, similarly we saw, well, at least at COP29 we had an agreement. At COP16 there wasn't any agreement on nature finance. So those discussions have kind of just rolled on and we don't know if there's actually going to be any nature funding agreed to. I don't want to be too doom and gloom though. You know, I'm trying to find some Some kind of positives to talk about. Something that's been on the agenda for quite a long time is multilateral development bank reform. That's been talked about a lot and how the likes of the World Bank and other MDBs should be using their balance sheets far more aggressively and directing far more capital towards climate change projects. So they kind of came out a few weeks ago and said between them, they expect to spend about $120 billion a year on climate finance by 2030. And to be fair, that is a scaling up. That is a lot more than has been the case even just a few years ago, but it's, again, it's not Interesting enough, the G20 has come out with some proposals at their most recent meeting and everybody seems quite positive about those. So we'll see if something actually kind of happens there. That's something to look out for. And another thing I'm keeping my eye on is levies on high-emitting industries. This is a concept that seems to be gaining some traction. So that would be levies on industries like aviation, shipping, and oil in order to generate, again, funds to invest into climate change. And there was a task force set up at COP28 in Dubai a couple of years ago, and they're going to report next year at COP30. COPs, sorry, all these different COPs, and produce some full proposals. And interestingly, the main advisory body, the Independent High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance— I know I'm throwing a lot of different groups and terms here out, but that's the main body that advises governments and so-called parties at COPs about where climate finance should be coming from. They've kind of thrown their weight behind levies. So we'll see if that happens. And then one final one, if I've got time, is just on debt for nature and debt for climate swaps. So these are kind of relatively innovative instruments. Work, very, very basic explanation, by giving countries, particularly developing economies, the chance to restructure their international debt. And in exchange for that, they agree to fund biodiversity projects or climate change projects. They're quite complex to set up because they require bespoke arrangements. But at COP16, we did see the creation of a coalition that wants to try and scale that market to about $100 billion in the coming years. So again, hopefully that's something that will bear some fruit.

So a lot there that happened this year and a bit of a mixed bag. So it's true that we've seen lots of international meetings this year. We've had COP29, the climate COP, biodiversity COP, and COP16, another COP16, which is the desertification summit in Saudi Arabia. So yeah, lots and lots of meetings. It's rare, but for this year we've had all three of the COPs have come together. So mixed bag from, from Marie. And perhaps also just to complement what you were saying as well, that the discussions around the financing at COP16, they've agreed they will continue next year. So I suppose there is hope there that, you know, they might come to some form of agreement in 2025. So Lizzie, was it also a mixed bag for you in 2024 then, or do you have any positive news to share with us?

So the first thing that I thought worth raising is extreme weather. So I think we all kind of agree that climate change is already here. Insurance companies have been saying for years that these events are becoming more common and more expensive, and businesses— and I'm particularly focused on the US— are increasingly kind of realizing that that is true and investing in adaptation. I think while the Biden administration has been quite focused on mitigation and obviously the Inflation Reduction Act, investing a lot in energy, businesses are seeing that these events are becoming more common and they are costing them more money. There was an MIT study in the summer where more than half of surveyed businesses said that they, their company had suffered physical property damage due to weather. A quarter of them had relocated physical infrastructure due to the climate risk. And I think this is interesting because it seems to transcend ideology. Whether or not you believe that fossil fuels are causing this extreme weather, you still have to acknowledge that it is happening. And just one more stat to throw at you. So those kind of extreme weather events causing more than $1 billion in damage, while they happened every 4 months in the '80s, they're now every 3 weeks. Obviously, the incoming US administration is not going to be even focused on mitigation. So I think that that will continue to be a major theme for businesses, kind of thinking like, OK, we're not really bothering to try to stop this anymore, so we need to protect ourselves. The other thing that I think was a big theme this year but is going to be even bigger next year is trade as the new climate frontier. President-elect Trump has promised sweeping tariffs with Canada, China, everyone in between. And we've seen a little bit of a kind of pandering to him already before he takes office. From world leaders obviously very concerned about this. This will obviously have major implications for renewables and EVs given China's leading role in these industries. But at the same time, we're seeing climate kind of acknowledged in trade agreements around the world. This Agreement on Climate Change, Trade, and Sustainability, ACCTS, was signed at COP29, and it's not many signatories. It's kind of who you'd expect. It's Costa Rica, Iceland, New Zealand. But it is the first trade agreement that explicitly excludes fossil fuel subsidies, and that is a big deal. So again, another thing that's going to be massive next year.

Yeah, and I think that's really interesting, this idea that whoever is in charge in whichever country, you've still got these real impacts of climate change on business, and there will be a cost there ultimately. And around trade, I think it's also interesting, perhaps we've just signed— we've just seen the EU and South America sign the Mercosur deal. Whereby certain partners say that sustainability, climate is embedded in the deal that they've actually signed. Others are very, are much less sure about that. We see the farmers, I think, are protesting in Brussels again today because they say it's going to have an impact on them. Various climate campaigners also say it's very bad for, in terms of climate action. So yeah, this is going to be a big theme. And perhaps the other thing in terms of trade to mention is also the CBAM, the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, which the EU is now got in place for certain countries, and we're slowly starting to see the impacts of that. So definitely plenty to look out for in 2025 around trade. So Flo, you're based here in London and have been focusing on the UK largely this year. Perhaps you could tell us a bit more what you've seen since the Conservative government lost the election and Keir Starmer and his Labour government came into power.

So there's been quite the transformation in messaging from the UK government around climate. Previous Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was largely seen to be a climate delayer, having rolled back a series of deadlines and policy targets around electric vehicles and other kind of decarbonization of heating. Keir Starmer has come into power and really tried to position this government as being more progressive on climate, both nationally and internationally. At COP29 this year, Starmer announced the UK's nationally determined contribution, which is their kind of overall emissions reduction target, which is a reduction of 81% by 2035 compared to 1990 levels. This was presented as being quite ambitious and was largely welcomed. However, the kind of specifics of how that target is going to be met are, are yet to be seen. But in announcing this target, Starmer really wanted the UK to be perceived as a climate leader. It was very explicit in his remarks, and he called on other countries to kind of join the UK's ambition. There's also been some positive signs in the national context, so announcements like Great British energy moves around planning, particularly for onshore wind, and the National Wealth Fund and other kind of finance mechanisms have been positive announcements. But while we've seen good words and signals, much of the action is really to follow, and we'll have to see what comes in 2025. Also, the government's main kind of messaging and line of thought since coming into power in July has been around this idea of growth. Much of their kind Net zero and green announcements have been aligned with that talk about net zero-aligned growth, and particularly announcements around energy. So it will be interesting how other aspects of climate policy which don't have such short-term returns, such as international climate finance, biodiversity loss adaptation measures, they've largely been a bit more absent from government messaging. And I think looking to 2025, it will be interesting to see where these things come up and whether the government can show equal ambition in these areas.

Yeah, I know that. I think that's really interesting. And another aspect that's interesting, I'm based in Brussels and it's been interesting to see these increasing calls for the EU and the UK to work closer as well on clean tech and climate ambition, which was something which was unthinkable under the Conservative government. So it'll be interesting to keep an eye on that. And I think you've also been looking quite a lot at the fashion sector and there's various legislation coming in around that. Perhaps if you want to just explain a bit more what you've seen in 2024 as a sector which very much needs to change given its large environmental impact?

Yeah, definitely. I think in the fashion sector, we've seen a real kind of ramping up. Regulations around traceability are taking hold, particularly in the EU, where you have the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive really kind of being finalized now and coming into force. I think fashion companies are very much aware of this, and they say that they're committed to meeting the requirements of the regulations, particularly around traceability. But fundamentally, this is going to be a huge, huge challenge given the way that fast fashion companies currently operate, which is that they use multiple suppliers located in different countries to kind of drive down the cost of production, in turn selling very cheap garments. This obviously has huge environmental impact, is incredibly wasteful, and is very energy and water intensive. So a lot of the campaigners that I speak to on this area are concerned that fashion companies really haven't got the memo in terms of the fundamental business change that will need to happen to make this sector more sustainable. The EU's Eco-Design for Sustainable Products regulation, which the secondary legislation, which is the actual rules on how it will work, is, is yet to be finalized. But that could be really ambitious in terms of dedicating aspects of the regulation to particular textiles which can be used, how fabrics and clothing should be disposed of, and whether it should be recycled or how it should be recycled. As I say, we don't really know what this is going to look like yet, but it could be very promising However, it's important that the EU is mindful of ensuring that all these regulations are harmonized. For example, in 2025, they're bringing in textile waste collection, but there is concern that this is simply going to lead to more waste streams which are then going to be sent abroad for disposal instead of actually being recycled and managed because the policy isn't in place to do that recycling within the EU. So I think it's an area that's really interesting to follow, but remains to be seen how the specifics are going to work.

Thanks, Flo. That's great and really nice to zoom in there on a specific sector. So, Claudio, we're seeing an increasing body of ESG, of sustainability regulation. At the same time, as Flo's outlined for the fashion industry, it's not always easy, or companies or industries don't necessarily want to reform at the speed they're being asked to reform at. And we're seeing in certain countries as well this pushback against sustainability legislation. We've obviously got Donald Trump coming into the White House, who is likely again to perhaps even undo some of the legislation that we've seen. So in terms of litigation then, what trends have we seen in 2024, and has it been a year where litigation has picked up or has things calmed down a little bit?

Yeah, litigation remains definitely a top spot for our audience as well. So especially in the US, it remains the top spot for litigation. In the world, it has also seen a rise in anti-ESG lawsuits, so basically going against any kind of sustainability policy implementation. According to the calculations by the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, the total number of US climate litigation cases to date is approximately 1,800 out of a total of 2,700. So definitely most lawsuits today do focus on the US. However, there might be indications that the numbers of lawsuits are kind of plateauing compared to previous years. But experts have told me that this is because the parties are trying to concentrate efforts on areas anticipated to have high impact. So we can perhaps now zoom in on two defining lawsuits that for me have been quite important to cover over the last few months. One of them is Shell's win on appeal in the Netherlands just a few weeks ago. So this is a situation where the Court of Appeal overturned this historic 2020-21 ruling that had imposed specific emission reductions on Shell. So the court overturned this, arguing that there is a lack of consensus about how companies should decide to implement scope 3 reduction pathways. So, scope 3 emissions are those derived from the purchase, the use, and the disposal of products, and just covered the full supply chain. So, this was quite a different dynamic to what campaigners had seen in 2021. However, and this is a really important point to make, experts do agree that this is just a small setback for environmental campaigners and that Shell should actually be quite careful going forward. Because the court, while overturning the previous decision, it also had expressed a willingness to hear cases around the company's future planned investments in new oil and gas fields and whether those would be potentially in violation of the company's duty to reduce emissions. So this is quite an interesting trend to keep track of, especially because similar challenges to the expansion of fossil fuel supply chain have been seen in other countries such as in the UK and in Norway, where where courts have actually overturned the permits for new oil and gas developments on the basis that governments actually need to assess the impact of scope 3 emissions before allowing new oil and gas exploration, extraction, or power plants to go ahead. So that's one lawsuit which I think was quite defining for this year. Another one, which is perhaps slightly less talked about, but I think in terms of impact and structure will be quite interesting to keep track of, is a case in Hawaii, which actually featured youth plaintiffs. So here the court actually managed to put through a climate settlement between the parties. So the youth plaintiffs had challenged the local government to court around the plans regarding decarbonizing the Hawaii transportation sector. So the parties, instead of continuing years-long, potentially years-long litigation, actually decided to come to the table and agree on a concrete decarbonization path for the transportation sector in Hawaii. And by doing so, actually managed to create this unprecedented climate settlement, which could be replicated in future lawsuits. So that's quite an interesting positive development, probably, in the litigation space on how parties can actually come to agreements and see how it can be implemented in the future.

Great. And good to bring a bit of positive news there. You mentioned in the first bit of what you were saying that experts are focused on areas where they feel they can have high impact. What are those kinds of areas? Can you give us a sense of what they see as where they can really have an impact and make a change?

Yeah, specific policymaking is probably one of the areas where we have seen some success as well, especially in the UK over the few years. The government's carbon budget has been challenged in court multiple times, and actually campaigners have always been on the winning end because the UK has this very interesting climate act where Budgets are being agreed on a few years basis. It doesn't matter how you reach the carbon budget, but you have to, you're legally bound to maintain it within those limits. So government needs to bring forward policies that are credible and scientifically driven to reach those carbon budgets. And the previous government has lost several lawsuits because the court has found their policy not to be sufficient to reach the carbon budget. So that's one example, for instance, where there has been really high impact. Another one would be the one on Scope 3 emissions for new fossil fuels. And then there are also obviously lawsuits on the other side, especially in the US, which are challenging actually the implementation of sustainability lawsuits, which will be certainly a growing area under the new administration. But even now, the SEC rules, for instance, on climate disclosures are being challenged, and it's unlikely that they will probably be going ahead So there are a few extremes, but definitely high impact on both ends of the spectrum.

Super.

And that's a lovely link to moving forward now to 2025. So we've heard what's happened in 2024, not masses of good news there. So, Marie, what are you seeing happening in 2025? And are there any positive developments, or are you just focusing what may be rolled back?

So something that I think, yeah, everyone will really be keeping an eye on in the next couple of months particularly is we'll see the next batch of NDCs, or nationally determined contributions, being published by signatories to the Paris Agreement. Flo mentioned this a little while ago in terms of the UK already publishing its target, but the deadline for all those NDCs to be submitted to the UN is actually the 10th of February. So as I say, over the next couple of months, we'll see a lot more countries coming out with their targets and their plans. I mean, it's really important this year. I mean, it's always important, but I think the UN kind of set the tone in October. It issued quite a damning assessment of countries' progress so far around NDCs. I think the exact quote was something like, countries are falling miles short of what's needed to Stop global heating from crippling every economy. And they, you know, the kind of, they asked, the call was that all NDCs this time around must deliver a dramatic step up in ambition. So that's the kind of tone that's been set. Whether we'll see that remains to be seen. So far we've only seen two countries kind of submit like kind of actual NDC plans. And the UK, as Fleur mentioned, has submitted a target. So Brazil and the UAE have both published kind of more detailed NDC proposals. Brazil's was quite interesting. So they've set out to cut emissions by between between 67% and 59% compared to 2005 levels. And kind of campaigners have said if they hit the upper end of that spectrum, that's pretty good. And that would put them on course to achieve net zero by 2050. But if it's more the lower end, then that would not be the kind of level of ambition that we need to see. The UAE, on the other hand, I think it's fair to say their kind of proposals were quite roundly criticized. They're aiming to reduce emissions by 47% compared to 2019 levels. But the massive kind of glaring hole in what they kind of put together really is that They didn't really include proposals to reduce their kind of the country's oil extraction. It was all around, it didn't kind of COVID their exported emissions if that's the kind of correct term for that. So yeah, it just seemed a bit weak really. And as Flo mentioned, the UK's target is 81% reduction compared to 1990 levels, which everyone has said is really, really ambitious, but that detail is still to come in terms of how the UK is actually going to do that. And that's something that a lot of kind of businesses and private sector representatives want to see is more detail around these NDCs. Because of course it's really, really good for countries to come up with ambitious targets. But as I kind of was talking about right at the beginning, the big issue all the time is how to actually fund these things and get this stuff to happen. And the private sector really wants to see more kind of linkages between NDCs and kind of government policy so that they know specifically how they can invest in different sectors to enable that stuff to happen. And there's quite high hopes that the UK, when it does publish its full NDC, it will include some of that detail. And another, just finally, a kind of elephant in the room, of course, and we've mentioned the US election quite a few times, but it's quite significant in this context because, of course, Trump's coming in on the 20th of January. The deadline, as I say, for these NDCs is the 10th of February. Several open questions here. Will the US even submit an NDC at all? If it does, will the Biden administration try and get that through before Trump comes in? Will Trump just rip it up anyway? And the US obviously is currently the world's largest oil and gas producer, so it really has quite a big role to play here, I guess, in terms of its own emissions reductions, but also influencing what others do. If it doesn't publish an NDC or it publishes quite a weak one, that probably gives other kind of heavy emitters a bit more leeway themselves about, oh, well, we're not going to really be super ambitious. So really a really interesting area to watch, I think, over the next couple of months.

Yeah, definitely. And also, we've already seen the influence of Trump, or we seem to at COP29, when we saw Argentina walk out of COP29 and suggest it could also potentially leave the Paris Agreement. So yeah, plenty to watch there. So Lizzie, the US perhaps what trends are you looking out for in the US this year? We've heard about the potential NDC or non-NDC, but what about more from a business point of view?

Yeah, so the US is, as ever, going to be impossible to ignore next year. So I looked up this word, it is actually a real word. I've put it as the corporatisation of the US government. I think that business interests have always been well represented in the US government, but this incoming administration is unprecedented. Obviously Elon Musk in particular, but you've got Vivek Ramaswamy who made his money in pharma, writing the book Woke Inc. And then you've got investment bank leaders, hedge fund managers, and the CEO of the energy company that sued the SEC over its climate disclosure rule coming in as the energy secretary, as long as he does get nominated. That obviously gives some indication of where the SEC's rule might end up. But I think that that is, you know, they've got plans to completely restructure the US government. I think they want to take trillions off the federal budget. They will be targeting agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency. And obviously there's huge implications for democracy and justice in general there. But on the environmental front, there's quite a few Democrat state leaders that have already said that they're kind of shoring up protections. So I think we're going to see a massive kind of fracturing of the regulatory landscape in the US, which will just make it more difficult for businesses to operate across state lines.

Yeah. And I was just— I think there was a headline I saw at the weekend that the Trump cabinet is worth $340 billion at the moment overall. So just a small slice of money And I think also it's going to be interesting to see the impacts this has on the EU and the UK. We can see in the EU, for example, that we've had this swathe of regulation on sustainability that's coming in recent years. And we can see there's an increasing pushback now. There's been a move to the right in the European Parliament, and there's a big push around competitiveness and how, whether this also means cutting legislation, cutting rules, and making it easier for business to happen without necessarily those protections in place for climate, environment, etc. So yeah, the influences that are coming as the EU tries to compete with the US is going to be very interesting to watch as well. And Flo, in the UK, do you see these sort of similar headwinds, or is there a bit of a different situation?

Yeah, I think there's plenty to watch in the UK going into 2025 as the government kind of is still relatively new, so there's still a lot to kind of watch out for. In recent weeks, there's been a big kind of up and down about the UK's zero-emission vehicle mandate, which is the central policy ensuring that fossil fuel-powered cars are phased out currently by 2035, but the Labour government has said that they're going to bring that forward to 2030. There's been a lot of lobbying from big car manufacturers, but then on the other hand, there's been data published by a research organization called New Automotive which found that actually manufacturers as a whole across the industry are doing quite well on these targets and they are meeting them. So it seems to be some very vocal voices which aren't really investing in the transition to electric vehicles are now pushing back against policy. I think it's going to be one to watch as to whether the government kind of bows to that pressure or whether they hold firm on the mandate. It currently looks like they want to stick with it, but yeah, definitely one to watch. Also, I think around food and agriculture is a big thing to watch in the UK. There hasn't been much in the way of announcements, and there is a national food strategy due due probably next year, early-ish in the year, although it's yet to be confirmed. The department doesn't want to confirm precisely when that is. There has been an announcement around marketing of high-fat, salt, sugar products to children in particular. So yeah, that's been interesting, but that was a legacy policy that's now been kind of implemented. And you mentioned the farmers' protests in Brussels. We've had our own farmers' protests here in London which were to do with inheritance tax. However, it will be interesting to see what happens around agricultural policy in the UK. We've had one of the wettest years on record. It's very clear that something needs to change in terms of the way that food is produced in this country. However, given the farmers' protests, I don't know whether the government's going to be a little bit more shy when approaching agricultural policy going forward. So definitely another one to watch next year.

Yeah, definitely super interesting. And obviously there was the sort of promise by Michael Gove that UK farming would become green once the UK left Brexit. There'd be no more payments from the Common Agricultural Policy. And that's not really happened. And obviously back in Brussels, there will be some form of strategy announcements around agriculture in the first 100 days of the new commission. So it'll be interesting to compare what's happening in the UK and in the EU. And I think also Keir Starmer said at the recent business summit that he wanted to also take a bonfire to red tape. So we'll see how long that EV mandate lasts or not. So Claudia, in the space of legislation and litigation, what are you seeing?

Yeah, so I'll be looking out for the plastics treaty. You all might remember that talks in Busan, Korea failed just a few weeks ago. So the question is whether countries will be able to reach an agreement on a global plastics treaty in 2025 under the UN framework. So a new meeting has yet to be set, but parties have in theory agreed to meet up again next year to see if they can agree on this. Unprecedented plastics treaty. However, there are clear opposition on some of the terms. So there are a few countries who really want to focus this treaty on recycling and waste management. A majority of countries, however, really want to see clear targets on plastic production cuts and address the issue of harmful chemicals. So over the next few months, we'll try to figure out in what direction this conversation is going and whether the UN framework can support this at all, or whether there will be a major break and countries will have to sort of go ahead and do it on a more regional basis or potentially bilateral agreements on this. We'll see what comes out. But on the subject of chemicals, I think chemical pollution in general is definitely a growing issue of public concern, especially on the topic of forever chemicals, which we call PFAS, kind of becoming on everyone's mind recently. The new EU Commission has said it wants to provide clarity on these forever chemicals. It is likely to revise its chemicals regulation over the next few years. So it will be interesting to see to what extent they will really take into account these long-lasting chemicals that are pretty much found everywhere, including in our bodies. So it is definitely a growing health issue as well. In the UK, it's also picking up speed. We've We've recently seen lawmakers actually asking for legislation in Parliament on the level of PFAS in drinking water, because at the moment that's not regulated at all in the UK. So we will definitely be watching the space for new developments in the coming months and see how chemical pollution fits into sustainability regulation.

And that was in the competitiveness report that came out from Mario Draghi recently, was the fact that REACH, along with other sustainability regulation, is seen as a brake on competitiveness. So yeah, let's see whether they become more or less ambitious despite the, the health risks. So I mean, there's so much going on that nobody's going to get bored in 2025. So once again, I'd like to thank the great Sustainable Views team for all your work and insights that you've brought to everybody this year. Thank you again to our listeners, and I'd like to take this opportunity to wish all our listeners a well-deserved rest and some relaxation in the coming weeks so that we all come back fully charged for 2025. And remember, if you want to read our journalism, follow up on any of the issues you've heard during this podcast, please go to sustainableviews.com.