34 episodes
Zero iHeartPodcasts and Bloomberg
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- Business
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4.7 • 72 Ratings
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Zero is about the tactics and technologies taking us to a world of zero emissions. Each week Bloomberg’s award-winning reporter Akshat Rathi talks to the people tackling climate change – a venture capitalist hunting for the best cleantech investment, scientists starting companies, politicians who have successfully created climate laws, and CEOs who have completely transformed their businesses. The road to zero emissions has many paths and everyone’s got an opinion about the best route. Listen in.
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How the ‘rich man’s energy club’ became a climate champion
How do you rebuild an international organization for the climate era? That’s what the Paris-based International Energy Agency has done over the past decade. Founded in 1974 to secure oil supplies for its members, the IEA has become a leading voice on the need to cut emissions. This week on Zero, Akshat Rathi asks Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA, when global emissions will peak, if it’s possible to get there sooner, and why India’s solar revolution is keeping him optimistic.
Want to know more about the IEA story? Pre-order Akshat’s book, Climate Capitalism, here.
Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd and our senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Special thanks this week to Eric Roston, Kira Bindrim and Will Mathis. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at zeropod@bloomberg.net. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. -
Why the new IPCC report is so important
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest report is out and it makes for sober reading. Published roughly every seven years, IPCC reports are the most established body of knowledge on climate change and unique in that their summary gets a signoff from every country on the planet. The report’s findings feature in everything from government policy to investment decisions. In this bonus episode, Akshat Rathi and Oscar Boyd talk about what the latest IPCC report says, and why it matters so much.
Read more about the latest IPCC report, about how one sentence in an IPCC report changed the climate game and about how IPCC reports become a showdown between science and global politics.
Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd and our senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Special thanks this week to Eric Roston and Kira Bindrim. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at zeropod@bloomberg.net. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. -
What the Silicon Valley Bank collapse means for climate tech
What happens when a "climate bank" goes under? This week, Bloomberg Green reporter Akshat Rathi interviews the CEO of an AI battery startup that had just received $3 million in funding about the stresses of recovering money from Silicon Valley Bank as it collapsed. Then, Bloomberg reporter Mark Bergen explains what made SVB so important to climate tech funding and which institutions might be poised to take its place.
Want to read more about the collapse and its impact on climate tech? Check out Bloomberg Green’s reporting.
Special thanks this week to Venkat Viswanathan, Brian Eckhouse, Mark Bergen, Coco Liu, Olivia Rudgard, Josh Saul, David Baker, Sommer Saadi, and Kira Bindrim.
Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd and our senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at zeropod@bloomberg.net. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. -
What it takes to become a climate tech CEO, with Katie Rae
If you’ve got the technology that can change the world, are you the best person to implement it? Investors pay careful attention to the CEO of any company, but in climate tech, they deserve special scrutiny – much of the science has never been brought to scale and they are competing against the status quo, massive trillion-dollar industries. It takes business acumen to launch a profitable business and the stakes are high, so some investors prefer a seasoned entrepreneur to a scientist.
Bloomberg Green reporter Akshat Rathi talks to Katie Rae, who has a different philosophy. Katie is the head of The Engine, a venture firm affiliated with MIT that invests in early stage climate tech companies, often helmed by scientists. How does she make the case to investors and what does she teach the scientist wanting to be a CEO?
Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd and our senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Special thanks to Kira Bindrim. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at zeropod@bloomberg.net. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. -
Building a future where humanity will thrive, with Achim Steiner
Since the Human Development Index was established in 1990, it has trended gradually upward, as people’s health, wealth and opportunities have improved. But in 2019, it went into a decline then made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic and the fallout from the war in Ukraine. The impacts of these events on reversing human progress could be dwarfed by climate change, says Achim Steiner, head of the United Nations Development Programme. However, the solutions to the climate problem also offer the potential to build a more inclusive and fair future that allows humanity to thrive.
Bloomberg Green reporter Akshat Rathi asks Steiner about the opportunities and threats climate change poses to global development, how countries can plan for more climate refugees, and what rising inequality means for a world facing multiple crises.
Read Oxfam’s report on inequality and climate change, here.
Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd and our senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Special thanks to Kira Bindrim, Sommer Saadi and Stacey Wong, as well as Robin Pomeroy at the World Economic Forum for arranging studio space. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at zeropod@bloomberg.net. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. -
How Europe ditched Russian fossil fuels with spectacular speed
When Russia attacked Ukraine last year, it expected to win in a three-day blitz. Instead, it’s become a protracted war with impacts felt far and wide — disrupting food systems, supply chains, geopolitics and the global economy. Europe’s most remarkable response to the war isn’t to do with sending in tanks or billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine. Instead, it’s been the surprising speed with which it has ditched Russian fossil fuels and strangled the source of funding for Russia’s war machine. In this episode, Zero’s producer Oscar Boyd asks Bloomberg News reporters Will Mathis and Akshat Rathi how Europe managed this feat, and what that means for the continent’s climate goals.
Read Akshat and Will’s full article, complete with charts and graphs that show the speed of the transition. This is what a LNG tanker looks like.
Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd and our senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Special thanks to Todd Gillespie, John Ainger and Kira Bindrim. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at zeropod@bloomberg.net. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Customer Reviews
Probably the best climate podcast
I especially loved the Curb Your Enthusiasm-esque music that played when Akshat, Venkat and Chamath got in the weeds.
Add this one to your feed
I pressed play on “high octane capitalism meets climate change” with great skepticism. There’s so much media out there meant to pacify us. I knew Rathi was a good reporter and wanted to see what he would bring to the table, and he brought a quiet fire that held power to account. I listen to a lot of podcasts and I always pay close attention to how reporters do their job, so often they leave out important context or create a false equivalence. Akshat and his team put together a good episode with great editing pulled sound bites together with snappy flair. But more than that every time I started to give the guest “the side eye” the host would ask the right question give the right context and leave it up to the listener to pay attention. Looking forward to seeing where this pod goes.
Informative and down to business!
I love this podcast. The guests are knowledgeable, articulate and engaging, the topics are timely and relevant and the host is asking all the right questions. You can tell the host comes into each interview with excellent preparation and I so appreciate that there’s no unnecessary fluff - it’s just right down to the facts. I learn something new from each episode, thanks so much!