Faten Aggad, the founder and executive director of the African Future Policies Hub, discusses the future of climate diplomacy, African industrialization, CBAM, and how she’s helping build Africa’s policy negotiation capacity.
Faten Aggad is the Founder and Executive Director of the African Future Policies Hub, where she works to advance African ambition in green and digital economies. Previously, she served as Senior Advisor to the African Union on AU-EU relations and as Senior Advisor on Climate Diplomacy & Geopolitics at the African Climate Foundation. Faten is also an adjunct professor at the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance and has worked for a wide range of think tanks and multilateral agencies across Africa and Europe.
Show Notes
Transcript
[00:00:00] ROSE MUTISO: Hey, everyone. This is Rose here. I just wanted to let you know that we recorded this episode on January 7th before a wave of major shifts in U. S. development finance and climate policy. The past few weeks have literally turned the space upside down, and we recognize that some of what we discussed may no longer be fully up to date or capture all the latest developments.
[00:00:25] ROSE MUTISO: With more changes likely ahead, we remain committed to bringing you thoughtful conversations that expand how you think about these issues and highlight the people driving positive change in the energy world. So let’s get into it.
[00:00:35] ROSE MUTISO: I’m Rose Mutiso.
[00:00:43] KATIE AUTH: And I’m Katie Auth, and this is High Energy Planet, the podcast from the Energy for Growth Hub about new ideas to solve global energy poverty and the people behind them.
[00:00:51] ROSE MUTISO: Faten Aggad, the founder and executive director of the African Future Policies Hub. Where she works to advance African ambition in green and digital economies. Throughout her career, Faten has worked at the intersection of international diplomacy and development.
[00:01:07] ROSE MUTISO: Previously, she served as Senior Advisor to the African Union on AU EU relations, and as Senior Advisor on Climate Diplomacy and Geopolitics at the African Climate Foundation. Faten is also an adjunct professor at the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance and has worked for a wide range of think tanks and multilateral agencies across Africa and in Europe.
[00:01:25] KATIE AUTH: And I was thinking back about when Faten first came on our radar, and I think it was through her Twitter presence, because she would post these really informative, deeply researched takes on African politics and international trade and climate policy issues, but she had such a sharp, , witty, kind of searing voice.
[00:01:47] KATIE AUTH: And Rose and I were like, Oh, this woman does not mess around like we need to get to know her. And then we did. And we’re so glad. And we’re excited to have her here today because while she has done quite a bit of work on energy policy and climate, her work is inherently much broader than that. And it’s about Energy and climate in the context of geopolitics and trade policy and regional sovereignty.
[00:02:09] KATIE AUTH: And so one of the things that I’m looking forward to in this conversation is opening our own aperture a little bit and thinking about energy investment and policy in in slightly different and new ways. So, Faten, thank you so much for being here.
[00:02:25] FATEN AGGAD: for having me.
[00:02:33] KATIE AUTH: So we’re going to start with the same question we always start with with our guests, which is, tell us something about where and how you grew up and how it shaped the person that you are today.
[00:02:45] FATEN AGGAD: So what what many people don’t know is that I’m originally Algerian. I’m Algerian. And I grew up. I grew up in Algeria, studied, did my schooling in Algeria, and then got my, my baccalaureate and then moved to South Africa,
[00:03:00] KATIE AUTH: were you from a city in Algeria or,
[00:03:03] FATEN AGGAD: Yes, from a city called Annaba, which is in the east of the country.
[00:03:07] FATEN AGGAD: It’s, it’s a beautiful city, a very old city that used to be called the Hippon under the Roman Empire. It’s the city of St. Augustine, for, for, for the Christians who know,
[00:03:20] ROSE MUTISO: Ah, interesting.
[00:03:21] FATEN AGGAD: Yeah, so he still has his basilica, actually, in the city. It’s still standing. So yeah, it’s the city of, of St.
[00:03:28] FATEN AGGAD: Augustine, and just a stunning coastal, coastal town. But I lived, actually, I grew up, in different parts of Algeria. My parents traveled around, so in my Childhood years, I spent them in the Sahara and a couple of Algerian cities there. And then we moved back to the northern coast. And yeah, my last day was in Algiers before moving to South Africa.
[00:03:52] FATEN AGGAD: And I studied in South Africa. I did all my studies there and it’s, I still consider South Africa as my second home. So yeah, I lived in Pretoria and in Johannesburg and then relocated to the Netherlands for, um, private reasons at the time, yeah.
[00:04:10] ROSE MUTISO: That’s really amazing. I think that, I’ve seen you describe yourself as a Pan Africanist and I, I really do believe that your story embodies that. It’s like the northern tip to the southern tip and everything in between. And now you’re like in Kenya, so you’re kind of tying it all together in the middle. What would you say, kind of is one of the most, this kind of unique, what do you think is the biggest way that this unique background has shaped you and the problems you’re focused on? It
[00:04:39] FATEN AGGAD: really seeing, I mean, I, I grew up in a, in a country, a socialist country, where public service was extremely important. So I was, in fact, as I said, I just came back from Algeria and I was telling someone last week that, I, you know, my education is essentially thanks to, to that, you know, public finance that’s available for schooling and, and, and bursaries, et cetera.
[00:05:05] FATEN AGGAD: So I, I pride myself in that, but. But I also come from a family that’s, my parents moved themselves up the social ladder because, because of work, but we constantly kept our connections with, with both my, my, my grandparents on both sides and, and they come from very humble. backgrounds there. They come from poor backgrounds.
[00:05:30] FATEN AGGAD: And so spending my time constantly, you know, every holiday and summer, et cetera, in that context. And, and, and I still, you know, up to now, I still keep that contact particularly on, on my mother’s side. And, and it humbles you to some degree in terms of what are the realities. I think it’s, it’s very easy when you.
[00:05:52] FATEN AGGAD: You know, when, when you, you went up the social ladder to forget that the majority of, of, of people do not, cannot necessarily, for example, afford solar panels, and those kind of, of, of things, to, yeah, so to me, going back to, to that, Average average life, so to speak, off off off. From my background, has been has been extremely empower.
[00:06:18] FATEN AGGAD: Yeah, empowering. And has shaped to be honest, my thinking quite a bit. But I think it’s the other factor to me is the fact that, as I said, Algerian lived in South Africa now in Kenya. But I traveled across the continent quite extensively. Again, dealing with different facets, I come, you know, I started my career working on governance.
[00:06:41] FATEN AGGAD: And so, you know, dealing with, with people from, from very different backgrounds, I do sometimes think that in the climate space, it tends to be a rather elitist. And, and again, but because of that background, keeping touch to some degree with reality has shaped my thinking in this space quite a lot.
[00:06:59] KATIE AUTH: That makes a lot of sense.
[00:07:01] ROSE MUTISO: So, Faten, you spent two decades working across major African and global institutions on international development and diplomacy. And as we said, at the top of the program, you’ve covered really wide range of topics from trade and security to governance and everything in between. So in recent years, you’ve become deeply engaged specifically on climate diplomacy and energy issues.
[00:07:22] ROSE MUTISO: And. We are really curious to know what drew you to focus more explicitly on this topics and, and was there a particular moment or insight that made you, that made you see them as especially critical?
[00:07:34] FATEN AGGAD: So in, in 20 17, 20 18, I joined the African Union Commission as advisor on, the negotiations that African countries were at the time, having with the European Union. There’s a multilateral, multiannual framework, that’s negotiated every 20 years and I happen to, to advise, on that.
[00:07:56] FATEN AGGAD: And in the course of the negotiations the issue of climate Climate change came up. The EU at the time was preparing the carbon border adjustment mechanism. They were preparing certain, legislative measures around, for example, Deforestation and they wanted to squeeze that into into the negotiations and I felt at the time We were not Equipped as, as, as advisors and African negotiators on, on those new emerging issues, looking around also across the continent for think tanks that could potentially come to, to, to backstop us on that, did not necessarily yield result results because many.
[00:08:39] FATEN AGGAD: Needed still to transition into, into this new subject. And so I felt, I felt we were, we were not up to speed essentially with those issues. And, and it, it also, what was becoming evident is that it also touched on, on the economy, on, on our development altogether, and, and unless we, we, we got that right and, and build the capacity to engage on these issues, on the continent, we would not be able to do it.
[00:09:07] FATEN AGGAD: Have a strong negotiating position that is informed. And so to me, that was the turning point. And so when the negotiations ended and an agreement was concluded and and then looking at what would be my next step after that, I was quite clear that that was an area that I wanted to, to go, yeah, to deepen my knowledge on.
[00:09:28] FATEN AGGAD: And that’s how actually I ended up at the African Climate Foundation.
[00:09:32] KATIE AUTH: So I wanted to pick up, you mentioned very briefly the CBAM, the carbon border adjustment mechanism. And I know you’ve written pretty extensively about this. But you’re one of the, or at least I think of you as being one of the preeminent voices kind of calling attention to what the CBAM, which is a trade slash climate policy might mean for not only Africa, but other lower income regions around the world.
[00:09:54] KATIE AUTH: Can you explain really quickly? What is the CBAM, and then what is your biggest concern with how it may potentially play out?
[00:10:04] FATEN AGGAD: So, the the CBAM. The carbon border adjustment mechanism is a measure. It’s a it’s a measure that the EU, um, put Um, to essentially make sure so that you for a few years, for a few decades has carbon pricing. It doesn’t It forces its companies, polluting manufacturers essentially, to pay a price on carbon.
[00:10:30] FATEN AGGAD: And with time, there was a feeling that that internal EU market measure meant that the European manufacturers were Less competitive. And that there was a risk of what’s called carbon leakage, meaning that, investments would go to, less stringent jurisdictions in terms of carbon pricing. And so the EU essentially, through the CBAM, um, wants to internationalize this, this carbon pricing mechanism that it has, to say that if If you want to import into the EU, you need to have, to, to, to, you need for your production to be subject to similar requirements around carbon pricing.
[00:11:15] FATEN AGGAD: And so that’s, that’s why they introduce, the carbon border adjustment mechanism. Essentially the way it would work is, it’s, it’s back to what’s called the emission traded system of the European union, which is, a carbon market. So the price can be today 80 and the next day, um, 50 or 100. You don’t
[00:11:33] KATIE AUTH: Mm hmm. Mm
[00:11:34] FATEN AGGAD: And, and as, if you’re importing from outside of, of, of, of the EU, you need to buy what’s called CBAM certificates and that CBAM certificate, the price per ton. Is the price per tonne in this carbon trading scheme that the EU has, and, and so that creates a level playing field, between arguably between European manufacturers and non European manufacturers.
[00:11:59] FATEN AGGAD: So that was, that was the idea is really to try and, and, and force this, a decarbonisation of the industry internationally. my concern, you asked about my concern, is that what we, what we see from, from, from modeling work that we have done is that Africa collectively as a continent would lose, as a direct consequence of that measure, would lose 25 billion per annum.
[00:12:26] FATEN AGGAD: Now, to put it in perspective, We get around 30 billion per annum in climate finance, annually on the continent. And so that’s that’s about a similar, a similar figure. The concern is, is not that Within Africa, there’s no interest to transition. The challenge is how do you fund that transition to ensure that you remain competitive, that you still have that market access to the European Union.
[00:12:50] FATEN AGGAD: But it’s also, it’s also about the soft infrastructure around it. So you, you, for example, need to know how much you’re emitting, in your steel production. And that accounting mechanism requires an infrastructure behind it, to say, you know, Your electricity, how you’re using, how much, how much emission, how many emissions out of this, your production process, how much emission, and that soft infrastructure, with the exception of South Africa to some degree, but the rest of the continent doesn’t have it.
[00:13:24] FATEN AGGAD: So we’re lagging behind and we’re asked to transition within the space of, we were given a couple of years to do that and it’s simply not, not fair. There
[00:13:35] ROSE MUTISO: from the African perspective to, you know, to create a more just transition in this process?
[00:13:44] FATEN AGGAD: are a few layers, of, of, of the ask. I think the first, the first immediate one is a fair transition period. The EU itself, took three decades to develop its carbon, trading scheme, they supported countries such as China and India since the nineties for them to, you know, for China and India to be.
[00:14:06] FATEN AGGAD: much more advanced and have the current system that they have. You know, so, so to say for, for continent like Africa, you have three years to transition, is, is, is a concern, as I said. And so the first ask is. To review this transition period for us to have a longer, more realistic one. Now, of course, the transition period alone is not sufficient with it.
[00:14:30] FATEN AGGAD: We need to look at climate finance at scale. We need to also look at technology and access to the technology that will allow, you know, way. That will allow this decarbonization of the industry. We speak, for example, off of green steel, as as a transition from from the regular steel, the technology to move towards green steel is not cheap.
[00:14:57] FATEN AGGAD: And so having affordable access to that technology would be would be would be quite important. And then some capacity building because I mean, the see them is a very complex piece of legislation. And making sure that the manufacturers understand what they need to report, build the systems for that reporting, all of that, and support for that, is, is quite important.
[00:15:22] ROSE MUTISO: To what extent are these kind of asks of African continent versus other trading partners or even EU manufacturers? So when you talk about green steel, like the barriers are also high in Europe. And kind of coming to terms with this complicated accounting would also be challenging in Europe. So to what extent can African, you know, to what extent are African negotiators making common cause with other people?
[00:15:49] ROSE MUTISO: Or to what extent is this issue more universal?
[00:15:54] FATEN AGGAD: yeah. So for, for developing countries, it’s, it’s a common, it’s a common ask. We see it from South America. We see it in Asia. So in that sense, it is there. That being said, it’s not, it’s not a global South kind of block altogether because of The scope of CBAM, this tends to be more of a concern to more industrialized, developing countries.
[00:16:21] FATEN AGGAD: Even though some of them are concerned by the discussion around the expansion of the scope of, of the CBAM, the CBAM currently covers only five sectors. Um, the European Commission wants to expand that, for example, to include maritime shipping, within the scope of CBAM. If I take the case of Africa, 91 percent of our international trade happens in Africa. through shipping. And so all of the sudden you would have countries, for example, like Kenya, that is not impacted by the current scope off of CBAM, potentially becoming the country affected, affected by CBAM because of its, you know, flower exports, et cetera. So, and, and, and to your question, Rose, also within the EU, there are systems though, to not all, there is criticism by the way, even by some of the, in the European manufacturing sector of the CBAM.
[00:17:17] FATEN AGGAD: But. But many are also getting support in terms of accounting, there’s financing, there’s an infrastructure that’s available, to support the industry for, for transition. There’s also financing, there’s a, a European fund, innovation fund. fund, for example, that companies can tap into, to, to finance some of the decarbonization efforts.
[00:17:40] FATEN AGGAD: So there is a, yeah, the readiness, so to speak, from a kind of a, architecture for this decarbonization is, is, readier than let’s say in Africa.
[00:17:51] KATIE AUTH: So the, the negotiations that, related to the CBAM, those were an AU EU sort of structure. But I want to ask about the COP process, because I know that you’ve also participated in many, do you, do you even remember how many you’ve gone to?
[00:18:08] FATEN AGGAD: Actually not that, not that many, um,
[00:18:10] KATIE AUTH: Oh, okay.
[00:18:11] FATEN AGGAD: three so far, yeah. Yeah,
[00:18:14] ROSE MUTISO: than me.
[00:18:15] KATIE AUTH: Yeah. So to me, the future of that structure feels very perilous at the moment. You know, obviously global emissions have not come down. Low income countries haven’t gotten the degree of finance that they need. The U S is likely going to pull out of the Paris agreement I’m interested in.
[00:18:34] KATIE AUTH: Kind of, if you were in a room speaking to a group of African heads of state who want very much to have a more assertive, effective voice in shaping climate and energy policy, where would you tell them to put their focus? Is it still the cop structure? Is it bilateral relationships now? Kind of, what are the most viable pathways to, to have those conversations, in an effective way?
[00:19:01] FATEN AGGAD: that’s that’s a very good question. And I think one that’s extremely timely, certainly with with the outcome of COP 29. I think there are questions on whether the COP is fit for purpose. And and my sense personally is that it’s it’s not yet. It’s not, it’s not fit for purpose considering the, it hasn’t caught up with the fact that we’re now speaking real economy.
[00:19:24] FATEN AGGAD: We’re not, we’re not speaking, you know, classical environmental issues. I think to me, the, I feel that the focus more on, on the financing, aspect and, you know, we speak of the world bank, but, but not only, so the, where the financing will, will come from. I, I think the conversation there continues to be.
[00:19:47] FATEN AGGAD: Managed primarily by finance ministers, and we haven’t necessarily done the homework of ensuring that a whole of government’s approach or at least The line ministries in charge of the affected sectors be it energy be it agriculture are also involved in these in these conversation because we’re in a situation now if you go and discuss adaptation finance let’s say for for agriculture at the COP, you’re told, you know, look for that funding at the World Bank.
[00:20:18] FATEN AGGAD: And, but the, you know, a minister in charge of agriculture is not necessarily speaking to the Minister of Finance in terms of his engagements or her engagements at the World Bank to do that. So I’d say The, the finance aspect, and I think, I think also, with some key partners and I’m thinking particularly the EU and, and, and China, we need to put more efforts in these, bilateral slash, multilateral kind of a forum.
[00:20:46] FATEN AGGAD: What I mean by that is that. The relationship is bilateral, but we do have forums such as FOCAC and such as the EU Africa space, to, to, to kind of challenge some of these issues, and put them on the table and come to an agreement. Yeah,
[00:21:03] KATIE AUTH: mentioned the EU and China. Do you at this point, are you writing off kind of Africa US relationships for the next couple of years, or how are you thinking about that?
[00:21:14] FATEN AGGAD: Yeah. I think even though some people are very. very enthusiastic within the continent. I think some may be surprised about the incoming presidency in the U. S. To me, it’s I’m saying this more from the perspective of the track record of what the U. S. Africa partnership has delivered, and I feel it’s it’s too little, for it.
[00:21:36] FATEN AGGAD: I mean, it’s obviously of a political nature. They for some countries in some sectors like around Agoa, etcetera. The U. S. Remains important, but I feel on on climate. It’s, Yeah, it hasn’t delivered a climate infrastructure around those energy infrastructure, those kind of issues hasn’t necessarily delivered.
[00:21:59] ROSE MUTISO: So You’re currently doing something incredibly cool, you know, building on your work in this space over the past couple of decades. So you’re standing up a new think tank. I don’t want to give it away.
[00:22:10] ROSE MUTISO: I want to hear in your own words, what’s your mission?
[00:22:14] FATEN AGGAD: Yeah, so we’re starting a, what we call a policy support hub, negotiation support hub, that focuses on, on these kind of issues that we’re discussing, just now. So, making sure that there is a capacity available for, Negotiations and for policy formulation of the continent. Within within the continent, we tend to be largely consumers of data, of information, of analysis on these issues from outside of the continent.
[00:22:42] FATEN AGGAD: And I felt that, we need, we need more context specific, data and analysis available to our negotiators. But also kind of, advised that that helps us connected the dots in terms of our engagements also within the continent, right? And so, yeah, so this hub is now created. It’s, it’s headquartered in, in Nairobi.
[00:23:09] FATEN AGGAD: And we’re focusing on, on, on few issues for the time being. Three of them. One is around climate finance. The second one is all these issues around the trade climate nexus. So CBAM, we’re also looking at maritime shipping. And then, the third one is around industrialization. We speak a lot of the potential that the green transition offers to Africa because, for example, of its natural resources, the, you know, the fact that we have a population, that, that can support, large scale manufacturing, for example, of, of new technologies, bringing the manufacture of those new technologies closer to the source of the natural resources.
[00:23:52] FATEN AGGAD: But how do we, how do we concretize that vision? Is, is, is, is, is a challenge. And so, we felt that a lot of the, kind of, the thought leadership was, was required. The support, directly within the countries, to, to help articulate, say, an industrial policy, a green industrial policy moving forward, was needed.
[00:24:14] FATEN AGGAD: So, so yeah, so this is what we focus on. And we do have the ambition with time as well, too. Move to the digital, to the digital, governance issues. For example, there are negotiations internationally on, on how do you manage AI? How do you use AI? And, and some of. The African countries have already expressed interest, for example, to, yeah, for support to be provided on those issues.
[00:24:40] FATEN AGGAD: It’s highly geopolitical issue. So how do you, how do you engage with it? Why aware, of, of the opportunities and the challenges, geopolitically.
[00:24:52] KATIE AUTH: That’s so cool, Faten. And congratulations
[00:24:54] FATEN AGGAD: Thank you.
[00:24:55] KATIE AUTH: it up and running. It’s so exciting. You mentioned kind of the big opportunities that people see for Africa in green industrialization. And that’s certainly a topic that gets, you know, written about a lot and talked about. I’m curious, what are the specific opportunities that you see in that space as being most viable and most important for people to pay attention to?
[00:25:19] FATEN AGGAD: Yeah. I think that the one that that, that could be quite exciting is, is this whole idea off of shortening the supply, the supply chain. So, Uh, there’s great demand within Africa, for example, on the energy transition and the rollout of renewables. And yet we’re importing most of the technology from outside of the continent, even though we have very small, for the very small, i i I give that point.
[00:25:46] FATEN AGGAD: Manufacturers currently on, on the continent, but I think there is a great opportunity to say, look, the African market is large enough to justify the localization of manufacturing. And I think we do need to tell the story also, from the African side, right? I mean, I spoke to a few investors. From China, who said, look, would be very interested, but the market in, in, let’s say, South Africa alone is very small.
[00:26:19] FATEN AGGAD: And, and the point is, you know, we failed if, if the investors think it’s just the South African market. We’re speaking of a much larger market on the continent.
[00:26:29] KATIE AUTH: Yeah.
[00:26:30] FATEN AGGAD: Where, where we could, you know, scale up, there’s a need for, inclusive, inclusive access to, to, to energy. And, and I think the demand is there.
[00:26:39] FATEN AGGAD: So I think in that sense, I do see kind of the manufacturing of those new technologies there. The other point is, is, you know, we, we tended to look at some sectors individually. So. If I take the hydrogen, the green hydrogen conversation, for example, the way it started on the continent is that we would produce green hydrogen, let’s say in Namibia, and then we’d export it to Germany.
[00:27:03] FATEN AGGAD: There’s where the demand is. And it’s nonsensical in every single way, be it economically, be it, be it in terms of the very transport technology, be it in terms of the cost. And the alternative to that is, is. Is a green hydrogen for industrial, powering within the continent. So we wouldn’t then be exporting the hydrogen would be exporting products produced from that green hydrogen on, on the continent itself.
[00:27:34] FATEN AGGAD: You’re adding value, but that would require us to connect the regional markets a bit more efficiently, and we’ll need to look at, at the stronger kind of regional conceptualization. Of this green industrialization. At the moment, the countries are looking at it more individually, but we need to kind of open up that space and capitalize on things such as the continental free trade area to do that.
[00:27:57] FATEN AGGAD: Let
[00:27:59] ROSE MUTISO: A little bit of a finer point on this, your, your final, your, your final thought on the continental free trade agreement, help us understand how this, the specific pathway or modality of the African future policies hub, where you’re really targeting negotiation negotiators. So on all of these topics you’ve discussed AI, you name it, there are a lot of interlocutors right now.
[00:28:23] ROSE MUTISO: In Africa, outside of Africa, but it appears to me that this interface with negotiators that you’re focused on is so unique. Can you just maybe give us and the listener a little bit of texture about why specifically that backstop at that specific level is missing and needed on, on a topic like, I don’t know, green hydrogen or green industrialization.
[00:28:47] FATEN AGGAD: me illustrate it with one specific case. Let’s say, resource based industrialization. There’s a lot of talk at the moment within Africa on the beneficiation of our natural resources and to move up the value chain. But the fact is that, internationally, we’re not aligning the subjective with what we’re concluding.
[00:29:10] FATEN AGGAD: So if I have to take the case of the European union, the EU has a, a, has signed few MOUs with African countries. It does have a directive on, on, the security of the supply chain of critical minerals. And what that legislation on the EU side says is that they will process the natural resources to a great degree, I believe up to 40 percent within the EU, they will limit the imports of, of such critical minerals, from individual countries to anyway, the few, the few requirements there.
[00:29:44] FATEN AGGAD: And, and, and the argument that I’ve been putting to our negotiators is that you’re signing all these MOUs and you’re signing this agreement with the EU, but you’re not connecting it to your ambition domestically. What, what you need to be telling the EU is actually, we disagree with that. And the only way, the only document that we will sign.
[00:30:05] FATEN AGGAD: Including in our trade relations, because the incentive in terms of exporting processed goods is not there. You actually pay more if you’re exporting processed goods. To say, let us align our trade agreements, let us align our MOUs, to say processing needs to happen closer to the source. And here is what’s needed.
[00:30:27] FATEN AGGAD: And I personally believe that’s a win win, if I take Europe Africa. But, but from a negotiating point of view in Africa, to me, this is, this has been a missing link and that’s why I feel that by focusing on the negotiators, we’re also looking at the enabling international enabling context. That will allow us to achieve the stated objectives that we have set, domestically.
[00:30:52] ROSE MUTISO: This is a really, really interesting example, just yeah, puts into focus how we’re almost at cross purposes.
[00:31:00] ROSE MUTISO: All right. So Faten, it’s, it’s time to play Short Circuit, which is a rapid fire round of serious, , but also mostly silly questions.
[00:31:10] ROSE MUTISO: , so don’t overthink it. Just take them as they come. So are you ready?
[00:31:14] FATEN AGGAD: Yes, I’m curious.
[00:31:16] ROSE MUTISO: Okay.
[00:31:17] KATIE AUTH: Good enough.
[00:31:19] ROSE MUTISO: All right. So what’s your favorite subject to take photographs of?
[00:31:22] FATEN AGGAD: My child is the most photographed one.
[00:31:26] ROSE MUTISO: Oh, that’s sweet.
[00:31:27] KATIE AUTH: And listener, we realized in doing this research on Faten that she’s an amazing photographer. So if you ever have the opportunity to see her work, you should. , follow up question, who is your favorite photographer?
[00:31:39] FATEN AGGAD: Ah, that’s a very good question. I don’t think I have an individual favorite photographer, to be honest. , No, I’m not. I’m yeah, I have the same with music. I don’t have a favorite singer.
[00:31:52] ROSE MUTISO: Okay. What we’ll say is, what we’ll say is if you had a favorite photographer, they’d be African. Let’s leave it at that.
[00:31:57] FATEN AGGAD: Yes. There’s amazing African photography, by the way, as well.
[00:32:01] ROSE MUTISO: who has been your most influential mentor?
[00:32:05] FATEN AGGAD: Unfortunately, he passed, to the surprise of many of us, Peter the Costa, who’s, I, to be honest, I, I own where I am today to him, cause he got me at a rather difficult period in my life and my career and helped me refocus. So to, yeah, many of us, to be honest, around the Nairobi circle also know Peter the Costa.
[00:32:30] FATEN AGGAD: So yeah. And his memory.
[00:32:32] ROSE MUTISO: That’s very sweet.
[00:32:34] KATIE AUTH: Fill in the blank, cop 29 gets my thumbs up for blank and thumbs down for blank.
[00:32:42] FATEN AGGAD: I’d say thumbs up, thumbs up and not in a positive, rather in a sarcastic way, perhaps. For, for managing to somehow squeeze in lobbyists as, as developing country representatives at a rate like we’ve never seen before. , and it’s a thumbs thumbs down for the manner with which the negotiations on the NCQG, , have been managed, , in a way that, , sidelined.
[00:33:12] FATEN AGGAD: In fact, the majority of the developing world,
[00:33:18] KATIE AUTH: and you spoke to this one a little bit earlier, but, , in a couple words, maritime shipping policy matters to Africa because blank.
[00:33:27] FATEN AGGAD: 91 percent of our trade is conducted by ships.
[00:33:31] ROSE MUTISO: All right. So final question, would you rather publish a bestselling novel or record a hit song?
[00:33:38] FATEN AGGAD: I have a horrible voice, I’d go for the novel.
[00:33:43] ROSE MUTISO: It’d be that much more of a, of an accomplishment if you, if you did the hit song then. I mean, we know, we know that you can write and that you’re a thinker. So that one would be like a bit more obvious.
[00:33:54] FATEN AGGAD: I used to sing, though. I used to be a backup, whatever, support singer in my middle school, singing group. So,
[00:34:02] KATIE AUTH: So you have some talent.
[00:34:04] ROSE MUTISO: I mean, that was like a little bit from father deep, deeper, deeper in, in the archives than I expected middle school, but
[00:34:10] ROSE MUTISO: for those of you who have stuck around, we now have a bonus question from our previous guest. So last episode, we talked to Mark Thurber, who is associate director of program of the program on energy and sustainable development at Stanford university, where he’s researching how to best integrate growing shares of renewables into power markets and is helping regulators understand electricity market incentives.
[00:34:33] ROSE MUTISO: So, , this is Mark’s question for you. He asks, from your area of expertise, what is one principle or thing that you understand from the area in which you work that you wish more people understood about climate , and or energy?
[00:34:48] FATEN AGGAD: But things are not that simple. It’s not one plus one equals two, , that their systems and there’s a, some people can get. afraid of, you know, structural change. , but a structural change matters if, if they want to have, , yeah, sustainable solutions included as perhaps even more in this particular conversation around climate transition
[00:35:14] KATIE AUTH: Based on our conversation today. Like, structural change not only matters, but it’s, it’s, like, undeniably the only pathway we have, right?
[00:35:23] ROSE MUTISO: Yeah. And, and I was just going to say like, , it’s just such a testament to Your background, , so if we have many types of guests and I think a more technology person might have said something different, but you obviously have been in the trenches of like just political dysfunction, negotiation. So you have a special appreciation for complexity. So, thank you so much, Faten. It was really nice having you on the show today. It’s a really fun conversation. We’ve learned so much about kind of your neck of the woods,
[00:35:52] FATEN AGGAD: Thank you for having me.
[00:35:54] KATIE AUTH: Thank you.
[00:35:55] ROSE MUTISO: That’s it for today’s show. High Energy Planet is a production of the Energy for Growth hub, matching policy makers with evidence-based pathways to a high energy future. For everyone, find out more@energyforgrowth.org and share your questions and thoughts with us at Energy for Growth on X and LinkedIn.
[00:36:16] KATIE AUTH: And if you liked today’s episode, please be sure to rate and review the podcast and tell a friend about us. Audrey Zenner is our senior producer. Join us next time for more high energy planet.