Axios House: Al Gore criticizes COP hosts as “petro states”

NEW YORK – Former Vice President Al Gore criticized the selection of COP presidents and the recent number of host locations in "petro states," calling it "ridiculous," during an interview at Axios House for Climate Week and the UN General Assembly.

Why it matters: COP convenes climate leaders annually to discuss the path forward for climate change solutions and progress toward goals.

• Gore highlighted how this year's COP29 is the third year in a row where the conference is hosted in a petro state and urged the United Nations to open up the location selection process to a shared decision.

The details: Axios House hosted a special edition of News Shapers featuring prominent leaders in the climate industry.

• The event was sponsored by Bank of America.

Former secretary of state John Kerry said the fossil fuel industry causes the world to fall short of climate goals by pushing for natural gas and carbon capture instead of cutting its dependency on fossil fuels.

• "There's a massive movement in the fossil fuel industry now to sort of suggest that 'gas is going to be green and gas is going to be the future'. But gas is 87% methane, and methane is…20 to 80 times more damaging than CO2," said Kerry.
• Kerry added that the promises made at COP28 last year to ramp up phasing out fossil fuels to reach the goal of net zero by 2050 isn't happening. "We're not doing that, we're not implementing."
• "We need to speed up, we must come to scale faster."

When it comes to growing the sustainable food industry, chef Alice Waters said re-directing public school systems' procurement money towards slow food instead of fast food could be a global climate solution.

• "We could make this really globally connecting. So we could learn from people around the world, like we have, about what plants you can grow in very hot places and cold places and wet places. It could be the most positive, and I daresay delicious, solution to climate," Waters said.

In a separate interview, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson discussed the decision "unanimous" to have the two astronauts remain in space after discovering malfunctions on the Boeing spacecraft that brought them to the International Space Station.

• "It was unanimous in NASA. My decision is the final decision. It was easy…And in this day and time of putting two test pilots' lives on the line, we just were not going to take that risk," said Nelson.