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Infrastructure Negotiations; Interview With British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired November 02, 2021 - 14:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[14:31:53]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Next hour, President Biden will hold his final press conference of the U.N. climate summit in Scotland.

He spent the last day of his trip calling on democracies to lead the way on fighting the climate crisis.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer joins us now from Edinburgh.

Wolf, the president announced a lot of ambitious goals during this trip, so what do we expect to hear from him later?

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Well, I think he's going to tout some of the achievements. And there have been some dramatic achievements that have occurred here in Scotland over the past couple of days, some major announcements dealing with climate change.

And this is so important to protect the world's forests, for example, nothing, a lot of good stuff. He's going to be touting, I'm sure, all of that.

When the questions though, start at the news conference, I suspect the White House reporters are going to ask him a whole bunch of questions about what's going on also back home, back in the United States, especially, what, 24 hours ago, we were all together when Senator Joe Manchin announced that, yes, he wanted that bipartisan infrastructure legislation to finally pass the House of Representatives.

It's already passed the Senate. It will then go to the president for a signature. That's really significant. But he was expressing grave doubts about the broader $1.75 trillion social program, including about $500 billion for climate change. That's still very much up in the air.

And White House officials are really worried about that right now. So I assume the president's going to be asked a whole bunch of questions about that at the news conference. We will see how many questions actually that he takes from White House reporters.

He then will get on a plane and fly back to the United States. There's a lot going on, as we all know, back home. One of the things that I suspect he won't necessarily address unless pressed by the reporters is that, yes, there were dramatic achievements here among those world leaders who participated, but there are a whole bunch of world leaders, including countries that really pollute the planet, including Russia, China, Brazil, for that matter, India.

The Indian leader was here, Prime Minister Modi, but there's still a lot of work that needs to be done. These are critical moments as well.

I'm going to be speaking with the former U.S. Vice President Al Gore during our special "SITUATION ROOM." It'll air today, by the way, from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. Eastern right after the Biden news conference.

And Al Gore, who won a Nobel Prize for his work on climate back in 2007, he's got a lot of specific thoughts on what needs to be done. He's worried about the world right now. He's always been worried about the world. He's got some specific ideas.

I'm looking forward for our viewers hearing what he has to say.

CAMEROTA: I bet.

We all will be. That will be a very timely interview. I have heard him speak. He's like an encyclopedia on this stuff.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

BLITZER: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Wolf, thank you very much for previewing all of that for us.

And stay with CNN. President Biden will be speaking next hour, and we will bring you that live.

Meanwhile, in this exclusive sit-down, chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour spoke with the host of this year's climate summit, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

And they discussed the massive problem that the climate crisis presents and how countries can keep their promises when it comes to fighting climate change.

[14:35:04]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST: So, you were a little bit doom and gloom before this all started.

You -- in a classroom full of children, you said it's touch and go whether we will achieve the target of 1.5.

You know, you have talked about defusing the doomsday bomb or the clock. Are you doom and gloom?

BORIS JOHNSON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: I think you have got to be doom and gloom. And you have got to remain doom and gloom until we really think that we have fixed this thing. This is a massive problem.

I thought that David Attenborough's presentation yesterday morning was absolutely spellbinding, because he set out for everybody to understand so clearly the link between the rising carbon, the percentage, the proportion of carbon in the world's atmosphere and the rise in temperatures.

And you can see that link over thousands of years. And then, suddenly, you see this spike in carbon, and you see the beginnings of the rise in temperature. And you know what is going to come. And you can see the risk to the planet.

And so the threat is huge. I think it has been very humbling, really, to listen to some of the testimonies from countries like Bangladesh or the Maldives, the Seychelles, people who are in the front line.

And the...

AMANPOUR: But let me ask you about those.

JOHNSON: So, I think people have been really thinking about what more they can do.

AMANPOUR: Some of these front-line countries, including like Barbados...

JOHNSON: Yes. Yes.

AMANPOUR: I talked -- I spoke to the prime minister yesterday...

JOHNSON: Mia.

AMANPOUR: ... Mia Mottley. She's an amazing woman.

JOHNSON: Brilliant.

AMANPOUR: And she actually gave a rip-roaring speech to the plenary.

(CROSSTALK)

JOHNSON: ... brilliant speech.

AMANPOUR: And she basically is calling code red on you all, particularly on China, some of the biggest polluters.

JOHNSON: Correct.

AMANPOUR: But she also says that you all are kicking the can down the line.

In other words, the rich countries, which are meant to provide a lot of money, $100 billion per year to help mitigate the effects of climate change on the poorer or more developing countries, it's not happening yet. Why not? These pledges have been made, but not kept.

JOHNSON: Well, Mia -- I thought Mia's speech, again, was like Attenborough's, I thought it was -- David Attenborough -- I thought it was brilliant.

And she set out the position of the small island nations, what they're really facing, the reality of more hurricanes, the reality of poverty and destitution as a result of climate change. And we have to recognize.

So, what I'm saying is, we have to -- before we claim that things are getting better or that we're making progress, we have to be humble in the face of the scale of the problem we have. This problem is huge.

Now, are we starting to inch forward at COP? Yes, I think that, arguably, we are. And I think that, in some important ways, you're seeing some good commitments on trees today, on forest, which is very important for tackling climate change. You're seeing some important contributions on accelerating the move away from coal. You heard a big announcement from Japan today about money, to get to Mia Mottley's point.

Now, we have got until the middle of the month. You have got less than two weeks to go. How much more progress can we make? And that's the issue. And what -- everybody knows what we have to achieve. Everybody knows that we have to do enough, we have to commit enough to reducing CO2 output through reducing coal use, through stopping vehicular emissions from cars, planting more trees, funding new technology around the world.

We have to have a program that will enable us to say that we have kept alive the goal of only increasing temperatures by 1.5 degrees.

AMANPOUR: So, will you then -- because, clearly, I ask all the leaders who I talk to, well, what are you doing to show that you're credible and that your nation is credible in these pledges, and it's not just rhetoric, that it's reality?

So, as you know better than I do, there are coal -- coal fields planned for, coal digging plan for Cumbria in this country. And would you say that, at this point, given everything you're saying to me now, you would intervene to stop that?

JOHNSON: I don't have the legal powers. That's something for local planning.

AMANPOUR: But local planning has already ruled on it and it's come back to the government.

JOHNSON: But what we're already saying, and if you look at what has already happened in the U.K., is, we have moved away from coal at extraordinary speed.

The story of U.K. coal -- don't forget what happened in our country. We had -- when I was -- when I was a kid, we had 80 percent of our power came from coal. And when I was mayor of London, when you first inter -- when you interviewed me last time, it was 40 percent, all right?

[14:40:02] So, between that interview, Christiane, and this one, we have gone from 40 percent to less than 1 percent, in the space of two interviews.

AMANPOUR: Less than 1 percent?

JOHNSON: Less than 1 percent. It's roughly -- it's roughly there.

And it's going to go down to zero by 20 -- going to go down to zero by 2024.

AMANPOUR: So, why not just say -- as a man with goodwill after this summit that you're hosting...

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: ... and for everything you're saying -- because I understand it's come back to the government, to the minister in charge.

JOHNSON: Because I -- because we are a legal -- a legally scrupulous and punctilious country. And there's a planning decision that has to be taken. And I'm not the planning authority.

But I don't want...

AMANPOUR: But it is your government.

JOHNSON: I don't want more coal. And our government doesn't want more coal. And we're going to...

AMANPOUR: And would you intervene to stop it?

JOHNSON: We will do what is legally -- we're legally able to do. But this is a planning decision.

And if you look at the reality, the reality is, we have powered past coal. We will get to -- we will be able to get to net zero energy production, clean energy production, by 2035.

We're going ahead with no new internal combustion engine vehicles by the end of this decade, all right? That is going to be like eight years away by Christmas, by the end of this year. This is an incredible speed to do things.

The U.K.'s nationally determined contribution for reducing CO2 is on -- 68 percent on 1990 levels. But the reason we have credibility, Christiane, in doing this -- you asked about the credibility of the U.K.

AMANPOUR: Yes. And I have got another one on...

(CROSSTALK)

JOHNSON: ... is because we have already cut CO2, by how much? Forty- four percent. AMANPOUR: OK, that's wonderful.

JOHNSON: Forty-four percent on 1990 levels.

AMANPOUR: But you still won't tell me why your government won't intervene to stop the coal in Cumbria, because it's -- I understand it's come to Minister, Secretary, however you describe it here, Gove.

But, in any event, let's move on to Cambo in the Shetlands off -- off the Shetlands in the North Sea.

Your Scotland minister has said -- and that is for oil and gas drilling, right? And your Scottish secretary has said, 100 percent, we need to have it done, we cannot run away from oil and natural gas.

Doesn't that fly in the face of everything you're telling me now, that we do actually...

JOHNSON: No, not at all.

AMANPOUR: ... have to fly away those CO2-emitting fuels?

JOHNSON: There's -- don't forget, there's a future for hydrocarbons if you liberate the hydrogen from the carbon and you sequester the carbon.

That's what we're -- that's what we're going to do. We have massive plans for creating green hydrogen and blue hydrogen, and for carbon capture and storage. And so there's a -- there's an agenda in the U.K. to be at the cutting edge of new technology to drive change.

And, yes, of course, the oil fields and the gas fields in the North Sea and in -- in Scotland have been of great importance to our country for decades and decades ago, again, when I was a kid, and they remain important.

But what you're seeing is young people in those industries now moving into the incredible growth of wind farms. And...

AMANPOUR: And let me ask you about wind farms. When you were mayor...

JOHNSON: They are -- they are extraordinary.

AMANPOUR: When you were mayor...

JOHNSON: And if you look at -- if you look at what we're doing, I think we now have the biggest -- so the U.K., which has only 0.7 percent of the world's population or 0.8 percent of the world's population, is the biggest producer of offshore wind in the world.

AMANPOUR: OK, so when you were mayor...

JOHNSON: We are a wind superpower.

AMANPOUR: ... you wrote an article in "The Daily Telegraph" -- it might have just been before you were mayor -- in which you said wind turbines could not -- are so puny, they could not even rip the skin off a rice pudding.

For our viewers, a rice pudding is a very famous English dessert.

JOHNSON: It's not just an English dessert. It's a global dessert.

AMANPOUR: OK, it's a global dessert.

JOHNSON: The whole world eats...

AMANPOUR: A global British dessert.

JOHNSON: Are you saying that the viewers of CNN are unfamiliar with rice pudding? Everybody knows what a rice pudding is.

And...

AMANPOUR: OK, so have you changed? You have clearly changed your mind, right?

JOHNSON: Yes, I have. I have.

AMANPOUR: Because now you're spouting: wind farms.

JOHNSON: And I have.

AMANPOUR: What made you a convert?

JOHNSON: Technology. Technology, the -- it's -- the development in the technology of wind farms has been unbelievable.

And so, if you look at the sophistication of the nacelles, the turbines now, the size of the turbine and the way they're able to build sail, build wings, blades, propeller blades for the turbines, that are twice the size of the London Eye, right?

So, the diameter of the turbines we're now putting up in the North Sea are twice the diameter of the London Eye. Imagine that. These are enormous creations. They're actually rather beautiful.

The issue is, what do we do in the North Sea to make sure that they're integrated into the ecosystems? How do we protect the marine life? How do we make sure that birds don't suffer?

There are lots of ways of doing that. But you have got a source of long-term clean, green energy.

[14:45:07]

AMANPOUR: So, do you think this is -- I want to ask you one last question on the climate.

JOHNSON: And the Dogger Bank -- and the Dogger Bank, by the way, the reason we -- I just want to just give you a geographical...

AMANPOUR: Yes, I know, but we're running out of time. I don't know what Dogger Bank is. JOHNSON: The Dogger Bank is -- the Dogger Bank is the -- is the -- 6,000 years ago, Britain was connected to Holland by a stretch of land, right, which called Doggerland, where the Dogger people lived did and whatever they did.

And there was then a catastrophe, a cataclysm in -- called the Storegga, where there was a landslip, and under -- sorry -- undersea landslide in -- off the coast of Norway, which inundated all of Doggerland.

The result is that -- to cut a long story short, it's very shallow. And people are always dredging up artifacts from the Dogger civilization. And you can put wind turbines there in great numbers and harvest the very violent winds of the North Sea.

Now, go ahead.

AMANPOUR: Going back to the U.S. and climate -- and this will be the last question -- you have obviously seen that there have been successive American administrations who have signed on to various climate summits...

JOHNSON: Yes.

AMANPOUR: ... like Kyoto and Paris and the others...

JOHNSON: Yes.

AMANPOUR: ... and then others who have pulled out.

What do you say to fellow leaders? What do you think yourself about, how far can one trust any U.S. administration that, whatever you might say and do and promise, another one might just pull out of what you have all achieved?

JOHNSON: So, I'll tell you what's made it -- what's changed.

I think -- so, I was at Paris. I was at Copenhagen, right? I was there more than 10 years ago, 12 years ago in Copenhagen. And -- well, it was six years ago in Paris. I remember these events very well.

And they were totally different. They were very different, because what was happening then was that you had kind of global leaders -- and Copenhagen, hardly anybody covered. I mean, you might have been there, but it wasn't a huge international story.

AMANPOUR: It wasn't. You're right.

JOHNSON: Paris was much bigger.

AMANPOUR: Yes.

JOHNSON: But, again, it sort of felt like the delectable disputations of global leaders, rather than something that was really being driven by popular feeling. What's changed now, Christiane, is that the -- I think the voters in

our countries want change. And the voters in our countries want us to fix this thing. And I believe that goes for all the great Western democracies. But I think it also goes for populations around the world, because one thing you saw with COVID is that people are not fools.

And they can -- and when they see something that they don't like and they think is a natural disaster impending, like COVID, they took action. People stopped mingling in the way that they had before, even without governments telling them to do so.

People can see that climate change is a problem. They can see what's happening with the wildfires and the flooding. They know that something out of the -- out of the normal run of events is taking place. And it's moving up their agenda.

And I believe that Joe has -- understands that. Joe Biden, the president of the United States, understands that. And I think that he's -- people are very enthusiastic about his agenda to fix it.

But I think that any future president of the United States is going to be responding to strong, strong democratic pressure to join and support the rest of the world in fixing climate change.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: All right, fascinating and timely interview.

And, yes, Mr. Prime Minister, we all know rice pudding.

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: He really took issue with the rice pudding definition.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

CAMEROTA: But I think that they zeroed in on exactly the issue, which is rhetoric and promises are one thing, and action is another.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

CAMEROTA: And that, in the past, world leaders have promised to do something, and they haven't followed through. And this time has to be different.

BLACKWELL: And the enthusiasm that we're seeing from some countries and not others.

I mean, President Xi of China, they didn't attend because of COVID. He hasn't left China in quite a long time, but not even a video statement. They said in a written statement. How much does that reflect their commitment to some of the goals that they have set?

Christiane also pressed the British prime minister on the COVID elements, the restrictions there, and he says that they really don't see any reason to deviate from the plan they were on, encouraged people, of course, to get vaccinated.

Again, thanks to Christiane Amanpour for that exclusive interview.

CAMEROTA: OK, so stay with us, because President Biden's agenda may have cleared one hurdle.

We're going to go live to Capitol Hill with exactly where the negotiations are right now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:53:15]

BLACKWELL: Well, there is some progress in Congress on passing the president's Build Back Better plan.

CAMEROTA: According to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democrats have just worked out drug pricing provisions. That was one of two outstanding issues Speaker Nancy Pelosi says needed to be ironed out.

CNN's Jessica Dean is live on Capitol Hill.

So, what's left, Jessica?

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, OK, so we got prescription drugs done. Just in the last few minutes, we got that announcement.

And immigration is the other key issue that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she wanted ironed out today. She continues to push forward, hoping to have -- in fact, Speaker Pelosi, you're going to see her right -- walking right behind me here in just one quick second.

But she was saying that she wants to immigration done today and that she wants prescription drug prices. So they have got one down. They have got one more to go. She's hoping to get that text done by today, get it to the Rules Committee tomorrow. That's the next step in the legislative process, and then hopefully have floor action this later this week.

Now, quickly, Victor and Alisyn that prescription drug package, that is going to cap the most expensive drugs, including insulin, which will be capped at $35. And we're told that Senator Kyrsten Sinema does support this. In fact, her office just put out a statement, saying she's in support of this.

She had been the major roadblock here or one of the most -- the biggest roadblocks. So that's a big one for Democrats to mark in the completed column. Again, they have still got to get immigration and other details surrounding other issues as well, including, will they expand Medicare to include dental and vision, Alisyn and Victor?

BLACKWELL: So, let's talk about Senator Joe Manchin, who's made the big news over the last 24 hours moving pieces on the board. Where is he now on Medicare expansion? We know that two elements were

taken out. There's one that was left. Is he supporting that? And is there any hope for paid leave for progressive Democrats?

[14:55:00]

DEAN: At this point, paid leave looks like it's going to remain out of this package.

Manchin said just a few hours ago he doesn't believe it is right to go into reconciliation. He doesn't think that the parliamentarian, that they would allow it by the rules. Now, a Senate Democratic aide pushed back on that and said, that's not true. But, again, it looks very dim for paid leave to be included in this package.

Now, as far as Medicare, I just spoke with Senator Bernie Sanders about 15 minutes ago, as he was coming out of this lunch. He held up a little piece of paper to us. And he said: Look, this is polling. And I showed all of my colleagues that people, the American people want dental and vision added to Medicare at the top of their list.

This is what this polling shows, he said. And so he's continuing to push even though, Victor and Alisyn, Manchin continues to be adamant that he is not open to that. It remains to be seen how this is going to play out. These are two really powerful forces in this Senate negotiation.

CAMEROTA: OK, Jessica Dean, thank you for bringing us up to speed.

BLACKWELL: Any moment now, President Biden will hold a press conference.

Of course, he will be asked about the domestic goings-on. This is the last press conference at the COP 26 conference, last one of his foreign trips.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:00:00]