Shadowing Practice: Investing in Carbon Markets As Climate Policy Shifts - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
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This is a story about carrots and sticks and whether we need both if we're to make real progress on climate change.
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This is a story about carrots and sticks and whether we need both if we're to make real progress on climate change.
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Various governments have tried their hand at reducing carbon emissions, from setting limits to providing billions of dollars in incentives to go green, but President Trump's return to the Oval Office has put climate change on something of a back burner for the U.S. government.
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-I terminated the ridiculous green new scam.
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I withdrew from the unfair Paris Climate Accord, which was costing us trillions of dollars.
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Westin: While governments try their various approaches and adjust them from time to time, the challenges from climate change just keep increasing, with the world sending over 35 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year, and the average global surface temperature in 2024 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th-century average, which raises the question whether private markets may help the situation with or without active government support.
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-It's about financing climate, and that's a complicated problem because it's going to take trillions of dollars.
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Westin: After serving as vice chair of Bank of America, Anne Finucane is now chair of Rubicon Carbon, a carbon credit management firm run by TPG.
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-So it's a piece of the puzzle. I think it's an effective one.
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It could be a lot more effective than it's been, but I think as European market matures, as the American market matures-- and I know there are issues right at the moment-- but nonetheless, I think that we will see it as a component and an important component in the capital stack that will underwrite this change.
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Westin: Lambert Schneider has studied carbon credit markets at the Oeko-Institut in Freiburg, Germany, and is coauthor of an OECD paper on the interplay between voluntary and compliance carbon markets.
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-Carbon credits is an instrument where someone, a private entity or public entity, can invest in mitigation projects in climate and then claim the emission reductions.
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Like, a practical example would be if a company invests in an afforestation project somewhere, the trees grow, they absorb CO2, and then for each tonne of CO2 that is absorbed, a tonne of carbon credit is being issued, and then these carbon credits can, for example, be used to achieve voluntary climate goals.
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Prominent examples is avoiding deforestations, and then there are projects which burn greenhouse gases, waste greenhouse gases.
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There are projects which use renewable energies, and there are also projects who suck CO2 out of the atmosphere, like, for example, direct air capture and carbon sequestration in geological reservoirs, so you take CO2 out of the atmosphere, and then you store it underground.
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Many companies have said voluntary mitigation targets, they have said, "We want to do action "beyond reducing our own emissions, to do beyond value chain mitigation," and compliance markets are markets that are established by governments or multilateral organizations where companies have an obligation to meet certain targets or quotas.
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The most prominent example for compliance market is international aviation.
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Under the International Civil Aviation Organization, airline operators must compensate part of their emissions, and so each airline needs to purchase a certain number of carbon credits.
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Westin: Despite the promise of carbon credit markets, they have yet to live up to their full potential.
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-I would say they have not developed the way that we had hoped.
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It's been pretty flat market, quite frankly, for the last 4 years or so.
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Tom Montag was a colleague of Anne Finucane as COO of Bank of America and president of Global Banking and Markets.
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Since 2022, he has been the CEO of TPG's Rubicon Carbon, working with the firm's Rise Climate fund, chaired by former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, and with chief science officer and Nobel Prize winner Dr. Jennifer Jenkins.
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-When you do a carbon project, David, you go to registries, and you get-- they give you carbon credits based on their read of your project and where it is and what it's doing, and, in retrospect, some of the projects used baselines that weren't so good and other things like that that led to them being overstated, too many credits being issued.
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-Well, the early days of carbon credits were-- there were problems.
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There were problems with verification of what the project was.
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The project itself may have had some issues, and those that were validating it, developing it, and selling it may have had some issues.
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A few years ago, it was imagined that it could be $200 billion.
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It's a fraction of that, a very small fraction of that, and we need to do some things to make it change.
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We need to have standards.
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We need to have rating agencies.
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In the same way you would have any financial market, you have to have a developer or a manufacturer of the product.
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You have to have a broker.
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You have to have a rating agency.
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Governments will get involved, and then you have to create a larger market, but those things are happening on a small scale now, and I mentioned Europe.
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Europe is going to require it and in requiring it-- where they sort of did the stick, not the carrot-- they're beginning to think about what's the carrot here.
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-There's a new mechanism, and that standard is really more ambitious than anything that we had before.
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It really tries to draw on the lessons learned from the past, and to avoid the mistakes that were made in the voluntary carbon market and set a higher bar.
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Westin: So what does Rubicon Carbon bring to this that's needed?
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-We came with kind of an institutional backing with, you know, Anne Finucane and I coming from Bank of America and TPG funding it.
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We have a filter.
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Everything we show and do go through our science team, gets a score, so we bring the quality and the transparency that people need to invest in the markets.
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One of the things we're trying to do is to develop a product that makes it more liquid and transparent for people that don't have the infrastructure or need to understand these projects and what are the risks of these projects and where they are.
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It isn't like a stock, where you can get a prospectus and just read it, and, you know, these are very complex areas with different systems and new technologies, and so we kind of developed two new projects to do that.
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One is that we call the Rubicon Carbon Tonne.
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It's like an ETF.
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If you buy tonnes out of the Rubicon Carbon Tonne-- and we have them in nature or we call super pollutants or removals-- then you get a portfolio of curated tonnes underneath that that we're always managing as we go.
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We just did the other first of its kind-- a Rubicon Rated Tonne, and that was a tonne of-- a portfolio of credits that are rated not only by our guys but by BeZero, which is kind of the Moody's of rating carbon projects.
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Westin: In order to create a market for trading carbon credits, there has to be some way to translate the climate effects across a wide array of activities, all of which can reduce carbon released into the atmosphere but in very different ways.
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-There's a whole list of different kinds of projects and things that can range from literally filtering, filters that take carbon out of the environment, which is expensive, to what they call biochar, which is high temperature burning of biomass that sits stored underground instead of decaying into the environment.
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There's a reforestation where we're replanting degraded land, and there's methane capture or gas capture at source and destruction, so that wide range, and the prices of those, David, can be anywhere from, you know, $5.00 to hundreds of dollars.
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Westin: Do you at Rubicon Carbon yourself or do you pay somebody else to go back and audit to see whether the farmer planted the tree and the tree's there?
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-We do a lot of work.
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You know, satellite imagery is amazing these days, so you can really get granular in what you can see, so we do a combination of site visits, and also we buy the best satellite imagery you can possibly find to check on the trees and what the tree cover is, have they been planted, are they still there, all those types of things.
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Westin: There has been some changes in various governments, including the United States, and some of the governments seem to be backing off some of the commitments on climate.
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Is that hurting your business?
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-I think it would help our business at the end of the day because people will realize the government's not going to do it for them.
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Westin: To its credit, Rubicon Carbon has notched one very significant deal-- a Microsoft purchase of carbon removal credits.
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-A big deal like Microsoft really matters because, first of all, it's huge.
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It's 18 million tonnes and 500 square miles of carbon sequestration and reduction, and it's called an offtake deal, where they're buying it over a series of years.
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I also think that there is an appreciation that-- particularly with technology companies, but not just technology companies-- we need more energy and we need all energy, so the idea that we weren't incentivizing those to do more production in clean energy along with, perhaps, more traditional energy, it seems like we're tying a hand behind the American back.
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I do think we are capitalists, and there is a market opportunity we would not want to miss, and we surely don't want China to go ahead of us.
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Westin: Carbon markets need transparency, standards, and depth, but even then, they're only as good as the difference they make in the real world, and Rubicon Carbon already has some projects starting to make a difference in reducing net carbon emissions.
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-You're taking barren land and creating a nature-based solution, so imagine something that has gone to waste that is now productive again, or direct air capture is the idea that you're capturing the carbon emissions, so either of those are certainly accretive.
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I think that you're going to see work on farmland where they will work with farmers in the years to come, particularly in Europe, of generating carbon credits by farming a little bit differently, more in a regenerative way, and measuring the soil and how the better use of soil, the better use of less water, is going to be accretive, but we have a project called Spekboom that we're working on.
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It's in South Africa.
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It's the reforestation of an area.
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Spekboom is actually a plant.
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We, along with a couple of other funders, are putting capital in so that they can build and grow this.
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I'd like to just say one thing about climate change.
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It's about clean energy.
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It's about enough water for the world, and it's about being able to breathe clean air.
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This isn't about politicizing anything.
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It's just the reality that the science community tells us.
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We're capitalists, so we like to take advantage of something that could have capital returns, and I think this will.
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Why practice speaking with this video?
This video about carbon markets provides an excellent opportunity for shadow speak, a technique that enhances speaking skills by imitating the speaker. The discussion on climate policy shifts opens a vital dialogue on current environmental issues, making it relatable and interesting. As you learn English with YouTube, you'll not only improve your language proficiency but also gain awareness of significant global challenges. Practicing speaking with this video will help you develop your vocabulary on complex topics and improve your fluency, critical when preparing for exams like the IELTS speaking practice.
Grammar & Expressions in Context
As you listen to the transcript, pay attention to these key grammatical structures and phrases:
- Present Perfect Tense: The speaker uses “have said” to express actions that occurred at an unspecified time in the past but are relevant now. This tense is useful for discussing experiences in English.
- Conditional Sentences: Phrases like “if we’re to make real progress” highlight the use of conditional structures, which are essential for discussing hypothetical situations.
- Modal Verbs: The use of "could" in “it could be a lot more effective” exemplifies how to express possibility and recommendations, vital for critical discussions.
- Passive Voice: Terms such as “carbon credits can be used” demonstrate the importance of passive constructions in formal contexts.
Incorporating these structures into your practice will enhance your conversational skills and comprehension, allowing for clearer discussions on intricate subjects.
Common Pronunciation Traps
When practicing your speaking skills, it’s important to pay attention to pronunciation to avoid common traps. Here are a few tricky words and phrases from the video:
- “Carbon credits” – Make sure to articulate both words clearly, as they are often heard in discussions about environmental policy.
- “Afforestation” – This longer, technical term can be challenging; focus on breaking it down into syllables: af-fore-sta-tion.
- “Mitigation” – The pronunciation can often be confused; practice saying it slowly at first to ensure clarity.
- Accents: The speaker’s accent and intonation can present additional challenges. Listen carefully to capture the rhythm and pitch changes throughout the video.
Using a shadowing app can aid in mimicking the speaker’s pronunciation, helping you improve your overall English pronunciation and confidence when discussing topics like climate change.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.
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