Economics is key to actually get climate policy on track. Economists know about incentives. They know what actually is needed to restructure the economy, and climate policy is about economics, about actually putting the right incentives to consume in a different way, to invest in a different way to produce energy in a different way. Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you are in the world. Welcome to episode 230 of the Climate Confident Podcast, the go-to show for best practices in climate emission reductions. I'm your host, Tom Raftery, and if you haven't already, be sure to follow this podcast in your podcast app of choice, so you never miss an episode. Before we get going, a huge thank you to this podcast's, incredible supporters, Jerry Sweeney, Andreas Werner, Steven Carroll, and Roger Arnold. Your backing guys keeps this podcast going and I really appreciate your help. If you're not already a supporter and you do get value from this podcast, you can support the show for as little as three euros or dollars a month, less than the cost of a coffee, and your support would go a long way to helping me keep the podcast going. You just need to click the support link in the show notes or visit tinyurl.com/climate pod. Now you know how everyone's talking about climate tipping points, those terrifying thresholds we mustn't cross. What if I told you there are also positive tipping points, economic ones that are accelerating climate action faster than most people realise? My guest today is someone who spends his time tracking these shifts and helping shape them. He's worked with governments, advised the IPCC and understands how policy, economics, and behavior collide to either stall or supercharge climate progress. In this episode, he explains why doom isn't destiny, why clean tech is winning because it's cheaper, and why policy is starting to catch up, not out of ideology, but out of opportunity. Before we get into it with Climate economist Michael Jacob, in the upcoming episodes in the coming weeks, I'll be speaking to Ori Shaashua, co-founder and CCO of Giga Blue. Chris Moyer, founder and president of Echo Communications, Heikki Pöntynen, CEO of Norse Power, and Emily Wilkinson, director at ODI. But as I said, my special guest on the show today is Michael. Michael, welcome to the podcast. Would you like to introduce yourself? Yeah. Hi Tom. Thanks for having me. My name is Michael Jakob. I'm a Berlin based climate economist. I work on research and consulting under the label of Climate Transition Economics. Fantastic. And michael, I've invited you on the podcast today because you've recently published a book called The Case Against Climate Doom. Not alone have you published that book, but you've also made it freely available to anyone who wants to just go and download it. So talk to me a little bit about that. Yeah. I was very much enticed to write this book, to give people a sense of hope of agency, and I want as many people as possible to read it. So I decided to cover the open access costs, which are quite considerable, by the way, by myself. I've been in this field for almost 20 years now, and I realised that recently many people are getting more and more desperate about climate change, about climate policies, researchers, but also people in the public realm. That many people have the impression well it's actually too late to do any meaningful action against climate change that we have actually missed our last chance to save the planet, to save humanity, and that we are doomed actually to live with the climate catastrophe. And with this book, I want to challenge this notion, and I want to say that there are many things we still have in our hand, and especially I want to highlight all the things that have actually gone well in the last decades which are often overlooked Okay, Michael, I'm gonna play devil's advocate here for a second, because you are an economist. You're not a physicist, you're not a climate scientist, you're not an environmental scientist. So what does an economist know about climate? Economics is key to actually get climate policy on track. Economists know about incentives. They know what actually is needed to restructure the economy, and climate policy is about economics, about actually putting the right incentives to consume in a different way, to invest in a different way to produce energy in a different way. And I think actually on this front, many things have happened. For instance, just look at the cost development of key technologies. Solar energy prices have dropped by 90% in the last two decades. Wind energy has become 80% cheaper. Same for battery storage, which is very important to actually stabilise power grids or make electric vehicles possible. This is one important point. The other important point where economics con contribute is to inform policy design. What actually can policy makers do to post the right incentives? So for instance, I've worked a long time on carbon pricing. Which is well known to be a cost effective way to reduce emissions. But of course, devils in details. And there we have learned a lot about how to design carbon pricing schemes and also what the distribution implications are and what you can actually do to prevent adverse social impacts of carbon pricing or any other climate policy. We hear a lot about tipping points in climate collapse. But you are talking about in the book tipping points towards progress. So what are a few that we may have already passed? Well, I'm talking about tipping points in the sense that there are certain critical thresholds and once you've passed the thresholds, the system shifts in different direction. So basically, once renewable energy becomes cheaper than fossil energy, people will switch. And it's very unlikely that they'll switch back. And even if there's some adverse policy developments, you actually get a kind of lock in in clean technologies. So basically for renewable energy, that's the case. Electric vehicles in many instances are also already at this point, especially if you look at China. Electric vehicles are already cheaper than internal combustion engine. Just, if you look at the sales price and if you look at the life time, price it even gets much more favorable. So these are some social tipping points. Also, if you think about how people discuss climate change, the awareness of climate change, I think we've reached the point where there's no reason to doubt that climate change is happening, and many people are aware of that. Climate change has become a mainstream issue that is discussed in the media, in culture everywhere. Even though people might not yet fully act on it I think we've still reached tipping points in terms of actually getting this on the agenda. Okay, everywhere except the United States, but we, ignore. We'll ignore that for now. I, Tom, Tom, if, if I may interrupt here if I look at the polls, actually, people are quite aware, even in the United States, even in the states, majority of people are concerned about climate change. I think it is in the public's mind. Even it doesn't translate into policies because policy doesn't fully respond to what people want and people think. But still I maintain that they're like. Two sides to it. If there are enough people who really care about climate change, policy makers need to respond. And the other hand also, if things become easier to implement, if we know more about policies, if we technologies get better, it, it also becomes easier for policy makers to implement policies. Yeah, it doesn't seem to impact people's vote on the United States, Mm, yeah. I mean, the US is a very special case for actually climate change has become part of the culture wars, has become part of an identity politics thing. I think this is a very big concern, not only in the United States, everywhere that actually climate policy is attacked by populists as a kind of, yeah ploy by the elite, that kind of trick poor people, or the normal people of their money and just oppose new regulations, new taxes, to take away individual freedoms. That's a real concern I have. That's one of the biggest obstacles to climate policy or to actually climate change mitigation in my view. But still, in many cases this might hold up policy, but still will only do a little bit to obstruct change because even if you are a climate denier, if you can make good money with renewable energy, or if the electric vehicle is cheaper than the combustion engine, people will actually switch to clean technologies. I mean, if you look at the US look at Texas. Texas has become the green energy powerhouse of the US. It's not because people are concerned about climate change. It's just because renewable energies are cheap and people make good money out of it. Yeah, yeah. Texas and, and California. California might not be that surprising, but Texas certainly is. I saw a report just recently from Ember talking about how 24 by seven solar power is now possible. So 24 hour day solar power, seven days a week is now possible in many cities throughout the world. Economically. So bringing economics in, to your point economically, it comes now at a cost of about a hundred dollars per megawatt hour. And that price is only falling day by day by day. As to your point earlier, the renewables and the battery storage get cheaper. And when I say solar power, I mean obviously solar power. For it to be 24 by seven, it has to be firmed up with battery storage. So they're, they're saying in most, well, in a lot of the, the sunny regions, they talk about Los Angeles and lots of other cities where this is now possible. So that has to give people hope, right? I think it should and that's just the beginning I mean new battery technologies are being developed also new ways actually to interconnect grids or other ways to store energy not only batteries Also there new approaches to store heat that are being used like sand batteries and so on for heat. I think there's so much possibilities and really if we put our minds to it we can do that. And that's what I want to say with this book So don't get me wrong I'm not saying everything is fine. We should not worry. I'm saying okay the situation is serious We should worry a lot but we should not let this concern bring us down and despair. Rather we should look at all the opportunities there are and all the possibilities we have and think about how we can actually tap into these possibilities It's great that the renewables and storage are becoming so cheap, but do you see that translating into policy change? Yes Yes I think I think it does actually because it's just become so much easier to implement policies So if you look at what has happened around the world like the number of climate policies that have been implemented skyrocketed. Now globally there are about 5,000 climate policies. Things like starting from carbon pricing, renewable energy standards, building codes, fuel efficiency standards and so on. And I think the technological developments have helped actually to bring these policies into place. And basically I'm talking to many people from low and middle income countries and there there's a lot of momentum actually to reap these possibilities of clean energy and also give policy support So just take Ethiopia as one example that has banned combustion engines Mm. And say okay now we go fully electric. We have all this renewable energy and we can use this to actually power the transport sector. This is very encouraging and especially many benefits that come with that are not yet fully realised. Like for instance air pollution is like a huge issue that if you switch away from combustion engines or from coal fire power plants you clean up the air and this greatly improves public health. And this of not appropriate taking into account or the whole geopolitical situation. So many countries are actually dependent on fossil fuel imports. But if you switch to renewables you get more autonomous in terms of your energy supply. And this is a great benefit that countries can reap in addition to actually the climate benefits and in addition to the cost savings of renewable energies. Also I may add to that yeah I've worked in Vietnam. Vietnam is also one success story when it comes to renewables and actually they are building up solar big time. And actually they have realised that the story's not that they should build coal because it's cheap. They've realised they should build solar because firstly it's cheap and it has a lot of additional benefits I think more and more countries are going this direction. Do you think the private sector or governments are now leading the charge in the energy transition? That's a very good question I think it's like a co-development, a co-evolution of both that actually private sector are driving technology progress this progress actually enables governments to implement more ambitious policies And these policies again actually drive innovation because you see there's a demand. If you see well for instance in the European Union we have a carbon price. There's actually a lot of demand for clean technologies not only for the power sector but also for instance for industry. And if you put your money to this you can actually benefit from it if you are one of the first movers and you can capture the market share. Think about steel production think about aluminum production. Think about all these hard to abate energy intensive sectors and there's so much going on on both sides. There's a lot of research and development going on in the private sector but there's also a lot of new regulation going on. Again if you come back to the European Union story there's for instance Net Zero Industry Act. there's the Clean Industrial Deal like the idea to actually make clean industries the growth engine of future EU prosperity I think there's a lot of policy support for clean technologies On that topic, if we look at, the actions of China versus the actions of the US, China is powering ahead. We saw that in 2023, China rolled out record amounts of renewables, and then they blew through that again in 2024. And so far in 2025, they've blown through again what they installed in 2024. At this time, in 2024, they're, they're way ahead in 2025. It's not just rollout of renewables, it's also the electrification of transportation. Both road rail and they're starting into maritime and buses as well, of course. Whereas, as I said earlier, the US is backpedaling furiously on its commitment to climate. And you talked about first mover advantage. The future is obviously just if you look at the economics alone, renewable energy because it's cheaper and cleaner and faster to deploy. So it's a no-brainer that it is the future. Whereas the US is doubling down on the old stuff. So if you look to the future, you gotta think China is going to power ahead because (a, they've got all the advantages of renewables (b they know how to do it because they've done it for themselves. So now they've got the expertise and so they can export that knowledge and they have to be, you would think the global economy of the future, given all these advantages that they have, while the US hands them their role as the future leader. I think you're absolutely right. China is actually using the development of clean technologies to overtake the US and I mean the US has a lot of potential too I mean just think about geothermal. There's so much knowledge about drilling technologies. There was also a lot of activity in carbon dioxide removal. So techniques to take out greenhouse gases outta the atmosphere. The question is what if this will survive if they're dealing with the government that deliberately tries to hinder them. They might just move elsewhere. Might be China might be Europe might be somewhere else on the planet. It's hard to tell but yeah, I think the US is about to miss the bus not only in terms of climate change but really in terms of future economic development. Europe has just rolled out the CBAM, the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. That's both praised and criticised. How do you see it shaping global climate policy and trade in the next few years? Yeah I work a lot on the CBAM I think it's actually a very encouraging development because firstly it should be clear that some kind of leakage protection is necessary otherwise dirty industries carbon intensive industries would simply just move out of the EU and just export their products to the EU and they can produce elsewhere at much lower costs cause they don't have to bear the carbon costs. So this would just undermine actually the new climate targets without really reducing global emissions Basically what the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, the CBAM does is to impose a carbon price comparable to the one in the European Emission Trading System to certain imports from carbon intensive sectors So this is for instance steel, fertiliser, aluminum, cement, electricity and so on. That's very important actually to extend this carbon pricing to imports to have like a level playing field between European producers and other producers. And I think this is actually a very encouraging development because it allows the European Union to carry through their climate policies. At the same time it also provides incentive for firms in other countries to become cleaner. It's not only a disadvantage for other countries. It can also become an advantage if you're cleaner than your competitors you can gain market share on the European market. And in your experience advising policy makers, what kind of framing actually gets them to move? Would it be fear? Opportunity? Something else entirely? Definitely opportunity. Policy makers think about okay what's in it for me in a way in terms of votes, or in terms of standing of the particular ministry or agency, I'm working with. And they want to see something coming out of what they do. So policy makers like to see some kind of action on the ground to either have a project realised or have a certain policy put in place somewhere. I'm working a lot in the development corporation context So I'm advising the German foreign office in their dealings with Indonesia. There's like this Just Energy Transition Partnership which mobilises funds to support the Just Energy Transition in Indonesia. And of course if we could do something that actually shows how 3rd world development funds have helped to propel the interest in Indonesia That's very good for policy makers here who are doing that. Cause that's their mission statement. You talk in the book about climate doom being both inaccurate and unhelpful. Why do you think the narrative of despair still dominates so much of climate communication? There are different reasons. One this fear has of course been used to mobilise people to tell them okay if we don't act something very terrible will happen and I think actually there has been a lot of misunderstanding about the tipping points, 1.5 degree targets because in the media it has often been presented as like an absolute target. And if we've missed that we're doomed. Like it's game over. Which is not the case of course. This is a very sensible target. And if we still allow 1.5 degrees of global warming, we have a very good chance to avoid the most serious impacts but even if we go above 1.5 or even if we go above two degrees every single ton of CO2 we avoid helps to lower the probability of catastrophic impacts. That's one point. The other point is that there's at least some evidence that this narrative of climate doom is also deliberately used by people who have a strong interest to maintain the system as it is. Basically when I started doing research on climate there was this whole movement of climate skepticism. People saying well climate change isn't happening or it's not manmade or it's not that bad. And all this actually has been discarded. And now actually the last line of defense is okay well it's happening it's bad but there's nothing we can do about it anyway. So just accept it Just continue burning coal continue burning oil as much as you can because the end is coming anyway. How do we strike the right balance though on communication between acknowledging the real risks and avoiding paralysis through fear? My understanding of the research on actually framing this issue is that people do respond to fear and danger if you give them also a sense of agency to say well There is a clear threat but there are many things you can do. This is one important thing and the other thing is to really connect it to their lives, to really say okay what does it mean What can you do? What are actions that you can take? And how do you matter in the bigger picture? And thirdly you can also say, not only what you need to do or what you need to sacrifice but also what you can benefit? How the world could look like? How carbon neutral world could look like and what could also be advantages of that? Addressing climate change is like a big social challenge and you need to make a lot of reforms, changes. And these changes can also work for the better. Like for instance if you think about transport it's not just about Doing everything the same way we did just going to electric cars. We can just design our cities in a better way that we have brought travel distances which can not only reduce emissions but also improve our qualities of life. So many things you can do. Also if you think about social justice, there's a lot of injustice connected to energy use emissions. Lower income people are more affected by air pollution. And if you reduce air pollution by actually switching renewable energies you also close the gap between higher and lower income people in terms of their health exposure. Paris is a great example. What they've done, with just small changes to the the likes of where cars can travel within the city and improving public transportation. The air quality in Paris has increased enormously over the last five years under the mayor Anna Hidalgo it's a lot of her policies that have pushed this through. Exactly Exactly And many of these things are actually no regret options So this would be worthwhile even if climate change were not an issue Yeah, you've got less noise pollution, less air pollution, phenomenal health impacts, for the citizens of, of Paris. Great. Do you think climate optimism could risk though feeding complacency, or is that just a lazy critique? It could if it's framed in the wrong way I mean there are some people saying okay everything's fine. Like for instance there's this whole movement of techno optimism saying well We are gonna invent some cool technologies that will solve everything anyway. I mean that's definitely not the right way to do it And I I don't believe this is going to happen. I believe every one of us has to actually play out an active part in the transition. And with my book I definitely don't want to promote this kind of optimism that leads to complacency but rather to action. Back to saying the future is not written yet. It's in our hands and I'm very optimistic that we can do it if you really want and if we really try. In the book you do write that progress in one area of climate action can unlock progress elsewhere. Have you any examples of that in action? Yeah just think about technology adoption. People who actually are aware about climate change but often reluctant to incur high costs to switch to cleaner technologies. With falling costs they also change the behaviors and they also change their attitudes because they say Well if electric car is like five times more expensive than combustion engine they say okay why should I carry the burden of climate change. Others also don't actually contribute. But then if the electric car gets financially attractive they say okay well I can be a part of this. I can do something against climate change. And they also start to care more about this. So this is one important issue. The other issue is like this interlinkage between technologies and policies I think lower technology costs make it easier to put policies and more climate policies also crowd in new developments so there are a lot of good examples where actually you have these interactions What's one section of the book that you wish more people would stop and really absorb maybe something that surprised even you while you were writing it? Good question one thing actually I would like people to know about more is the whole issue of carbon pricing. Basically there's still a lot of criticism about carbon pricing that it's not working, that it's not going to work which to me is a bit weird because, well reality has shown that it is implemented in many countries and it has actually effectively reduced emissions. Like in the European Union Emissions Trading system we have reduced emissions by 50% in 20 years So that's quite impressive. And also you have all this empirical evidence from so many countries so the argument that it's not effective cannot really be upheld. And also the argument that it's not going to happen because it's politically contentious is also disproved by reality. So I think people should definitely read this chapter. What I was not so well aware of are especially the chapters on social aspects And especially if you think about media or about culture and the arts, there were a lot of pleasant surprises how widespread the climate discourse is also in these circles that so many artists from different fields are taking up climate change as an issue be it musicians, be it painters, be it writers and so on. I think this helps a lot to actually have like this social reflection on what climate change means for us, how we relate to the society and actually allows many people to make up their own minds how they actually relate to climate change and how they can actually be part of this Right, and what gives you the most confidence that we're on the right track? Even if progress isn't always visible in the headlines. Again I think technological developments. So we talked a lot about renewable energies and storage technologies but that's not all I mean look at building decarbonisation. Heat pumps are getting so much better so much cheaper and are more widely used. Also look at the industry sector. There's a huge drive towards industrial electrification cause there's so many things you can do that are actually at very low costs. For instance substituting a gas boiler with a heat pump that actually allows to decarbonise these hard to abate sectors There were always called hard to abate because people thought okay it's very hard to do something there because there's so few options. But actually there are much more options than we think. And this is just again the beginning. People are inventing new technologies Also recycling is a huge thing. You can recycle steel that's It has been done for many many years. It even saves costs and this is not even a real technological innovation. It's more like an organisational policy innovation to just actually put the right systems in place to recycle steel. And you can also recycle cement It's just not done because it's financially not worthwhile. But if government's put the right incentives you could also do that. These are just a few examples What role do you see for economic reform or degrowth debates in the climate conversation going forward? Successfully addressing climate change definitely needs economic reforms. You need to have the system, the market prices structured in a way that they actually reflect what's good for society. And if you subsidise fossil fuel of course that's the wrong way. And there are still many such subsidies like for instance tax breaks for company cars and so on. And we need to remove those. And on the other hand there's more support you will need for clean technologies like innovation support or carbon prices and so on. I think there we're on the right track. Regarding degrowth I have written quite a lot on this degrowth debate. actually not a big fan of degrowth in the sense that you attack economic growth because I think you can have actually a better environment, a better quality of life in a growing or in a shrinking economy because it's just about GDP and GDP is just a number. What degrowth really contributes and where you could definitely look at is the whole issue of changing lifestyles. To do things in a smarter way whatever you name it like downsizing living in small apartments actually repairing things instead of throwing away and buying new stuff or building communities. And I think also this connection to the social realm is very valuable in the degrowth debate. If you disregard this whole growth degrowth thing I think the degrowth community has a lot of inspiration of actually changing lifestyles and changing ways of social organisation that one should definitely take into account. Okay. Not an economist. So this is obviously a question being asked from ignorance and naivety rather than anything else. But would you say that switching from an internal combustion engine car to an electric vehicle is a form of degrowth because you're consuming far less? Yeah, that's the, that's exactly the question. You can say it's degrowth because you actually put in fuel resources, but the economist would say, no, it's not degrowth, it's just more efficiency. And actually you get the same service. Like GDP would actually measure the amount, the value of what you get out of it. So if you get out the same or even more, with low resource input economically, this would be economic growth. And maybe if you come back, there's Herman Daley, one of the apostles of the degrowth movement who actually coined this concept of a steady state economy, but actually even Daley does not really talk about degrowth in the sense of shrinking GDP, he says, okay growth is about consuming more stuff and actually a steady, steady economy is about getting better stuff. So the idea is to have like a steady level of resource use that's actually sustainable, but still having some innovation. You can always make better stuff and do things in a better way. I mean, I'm not only talking about technological innovation, but also social innovation. So if you get like a good quality of life, everyone is healthy, has what they need, you could understand this also is economic growth at a low resource input. And so I think this question, whether it's growth or degrowth, I think it's more semantic. And what we really need to care about is how to ensure a good life for everybody without actually ruining our planet. For anyone who's listening who wants to stop doom scrolling and start doing something productive, what's one concrete action you'd point them to today? If you want to make your behavior more sustainable, the very obvious entry points are mobility, flying less, active travel, so biking or walking instead of taking a car or switching to public transport. These are very simple options to reduce emissions. The other thing is food. So of course animal products produce a lot of emissions. So if you can forgo, especially beef or any kind of meat, that actually can help save a lot of emission. But of course it goes much further because climate change needs a systemic change. So you can also be part of this broader systemic change. That's very much depends on what your, let's say special abilities are. So if you're an artist, you could use your arts to actually communicate climate change. If you work with children, you can explain to them what climate change means, or if you are in the policy sphere, you could of course put your skills to work, to actually work towards more sustainable policies. And I would, argue that the most powerful thing people can do is to prioritise climate, when it time to vote. Prioritise it over absolutely everything else. Look for the political party in your area that has the best climate policies. Ignore all their other policies and vote for climate. Definitely, definitely, I very much agree. Yes. Okay, a left field Question for you, Michael. If you could have any person or character, alive or dead, real or fictional as a champion for climate action, who would it be and why? Oh, whoa, that's a really big one. I guess I would choose Albert Einstein. I think he, I mean, I think he would have the necessary charisma and people would believe, if he says so, that it must be right. Brilliant. Okay, superb. We're coming towards the end of the podcast now, Michael, is there any question I didn't ask that you wish I did or any aspect of this we haven't touched on that you think it's important for people to be aware of? We've covered quite a lot of material. I mean, one thing we could delve into a little bit is the whole issue of international climate negotiations. You know, because many people are only looking at the international level and say, okay, well there's not much progress there. This actually is a lost cause. And I would also like to put a little bit more realism in what you can expect from such global negotiations and how necessary they are. Many people actually think that as climate change is a global challenge, we need a global solution. And we have the UNFCCC, United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change and actually annual Conference Of the Parties where climate negotiations are taking place. And we don't see a lot of progress there. And many people think this is like, a sure sign that we cannot advance on climate policy, but I think this is only true up to a point because what really matters is what happens on a local level. So what policies governments implement and what actually consumers, investors do. And there's a lot of progress there, even without this overarching international framework that puts tight legally binding commitments on countries. And I think actually the international agreements have nevertheless paved the way towards getting some understanding of the problem. It has actually helped to mobilise civil society to pressure the governments to do more, even if there's no legal architecture that demands them. Like the Paris Agreement, for instance, only asks of countries to submit voluntary commitments, so called Nationally Determined C ontributions, and they can actually commit to whatever. I mean, they don't recommit. They can just lay down a plan and they can even lay down a plan that says, okay, we're gonna increase our emissions a lot, then they will still have fulfilled the legal obligations. But actually many countries have put forth ambitious NDCs, and this has actually helped to shape policy formulation. And also these international negotiations have helped a lot to build the institutions on the local level that actually countries or governments have started to think about, okay, what can we do? What can we put in our NDC? What are our national capabilities and what do we need? What kind of support do we need? And so in the sense it also actually contributes to digital cooperation that international institutions like the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, actually help countries to devise climate plans, to devise climate projects, and also really puts things on the ground like for instance, support the buildup of renewable energy or support the upgrading of electricity grids. I think you should more think about the climate governance architecture as so-called polycentric agreement. That actually, or polycentric architecture that actually has like many different parts that play together and this international climate diplomacy only one part of this very complex picture Great. Okay, lovely. Michael, if people would like to know more about yourself or any of the things We talked about on the podcast today, where would you have me direct them? To my website, www.ctminuseconomics.net. And by the way, the book is available open access, so everybody can just download it and I hope read it. Fantastic. Michael, that's been really interesting. Thanks a million for coming on the podcast today. Thanks so much, Tom. It was a great pleasure. Okay, we've come to the end of the show. Thanks everyone for listening. If you'd like to know more about the Climate Confident podcast, feel free to drop me an email to tomraftery at outlook. com or message me on LinkedIn or Twitter. If you like the show, please don't forget to click follow on it in your podcast application of choice to get new episodes as soon as they're published. Also, please don't forget to rate and review the podcast. It really does help new people to find the show. Thanks. Catch you all next time.