Stories on why we find it so hard to save our own planet, and how we might change that.
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Can the internet ever be green?
The big tech firms of the world have reported record profits during lockdown. These firms are some of the industrial titans of the digital age. Their ability to manipulate vast quantities of data is revolutionising, well, everything. From streaming games and movies, to automating mining operations, controlling medical devices and even simple emails, the internet has brought incredible advances right across the globe. But we now know that previous industrial revolutions placed a huge burden on the planet. Our climate question this week is: Will this one be any different? Facebook has pledged to use only renewable energy by the end of 2020, not 2030, as we stated in the programme. Guests: Dr Rabih Bashroush - IT infrastructure expert, The Uptime Institute Dr Stephanie Hare - Author and tech researcher Mats Lewan - Tech reporter, Stockholm Presented by Graihagh Jackson and Neal Razzell Produced by Jordan Dunbar Researched by Soila Apparicio Edited by Emma Rippon
Will Africa really leapfrog to renewables?
Africa has an electricity crisis. Hundreds of millions of people lack cheap, steady supply, crippling lives in countless ways. Every other continent has electrified off the back of fossil fuels but Africa, on the face of it, has the opportunity to do it differently. Researchers found that some 2,500 power plants are planned across the continent. But the majority are expected to run on fossil fuels threatening to lock Africa into dirty energy for decades. In this edition of The Climate Question, we ask: What would it take to bring clean power to every African? For answers, we have one of Africa’s leading experts on power. Damilola Ogunbiyi ran the Lagos power authority before taking over efforts to electrify Nigeria’s rural communities. Today, she’s the CEO of Sustainable Energy for All and the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All. We are also joined by Tony Tiyou, the Cameroonian CEO of the firm Renewables in Africa. And we hear from a community in Nigeria where people just want the lights on, now.
How can we live with the SUV?
Lockdown saw historic drops in global emissions in every sector, except one: sports utility vehicles, or SUVs. They are among the best-selling cars in markets around the world, from India to China, South Africa and Germany. But these vehicles pollute much more than a normal sized car, and require more fuel to move and energy to make. Seen as a status symbol and wrongly thought of as safer than other cars, what can we do to wean ourselves off this polluting vehicle? Featuring World Service India reporter Arunoday Mukhardji; New York Times Shanghai editor Keith Bradsher, author of High and Mighty: The Dangerous Rise of the SUV; Jillian Anable, Professor of Transport and Energy at the Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds; and Jim Holder, editorial director, Haymarket Automotive.
Does Africa have a voice on climate?
Ugandan activist Vanessa Nakate is on a mission to make sure Africa is listened to on climate justice. In early 2019 she started taking to the streets of Kampala to protest about climate change. It was a lonely pursuit. She was often on her own, or at best with a couple of her siblings or friends. But she quickly started gaining recognition, and has since spoken at the UN and Davos. However, a year ago she was thrust into the spotlight for all the wrong reasons when the Associated Press cut her out of a photo with four other white youth climate activists at an international climate conference. That painful experience has since informed her activism and role within the climate movement: "We will not have climate justice without social and racial justice", she says. So, of all the problems the African continent is facing, why did she choose to raise her voice on climate change - and is anybody listening?
Jakarta: A warning?
As sea levels rise due to global warming, what does the future hold for our coasts? Already threatened by rising tides, Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, is in a perilous situation - it is sinking. We join reporter Resty Woro Yuniar on a crumbling sea wall to hear the reality of living under sea level, and speak with the engineer responsible for fighting flooding from both the sea and the mountains. We hear about plans to abandon the city as a capital, and try again on drier land. Author Jeff Goddell describes being next to the glacier that could show just how high the oceans could rise. Solutions in the past have involved building our way out of this problem, but some locations will be too expensive to save. Is Jakarta a warning to us all?
A year to save the world
Five years ago, there was widespread celebration after world leaders signed up to the Paris Agreement. However, despite pledging to pursue efforts to limit global warming to just 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, emissions have continued to rise. Many are saying the COP26 conference in late 2021, where world leaders will meet again, is a make-or-break moment to turn words into action. What needs to be achieved? What is the cost of failure? And where are the signs of hope for success? Justin Rowlatt and Navin Singh Khadka talk to Laurence Tubiana, CEO of the European Climate Foundation (ECF), who was previously France’s climate change ambassador and special representative for COP21, and a key architect of the landmark Paris Agreement. They are also joined by Christiana Figuerres, who was Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) between 2010 and 2016, and Dr Emily Shuckburgh, director of Cambridge Zero at the University of Cambridge, and reader in environmental data science at the Department of Computer Science and Technology. Producer: Zak Brophy Researcher: Soila Apparicio Editor: Ravin Sampat Sound Design: David Crackles
2020: A year of extremes
Not only has this year been one of the hottest on record, but there has also been a catalogue of record breaking extreme weather events. From the unprecedented bush fires in Australia to the most active Atlantic hurricane season on record, we pick apart how climate change is impacting weather systems and the lives of millions of people around the world. Justin Rowlatt, the BBC’s Chief Environment Correspondent, and Navin Singh Khadkha, the multi-lingual environment correspondent for the BBC’s World Service, are joined by Dr Friederike Otto, associate director of the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, and an associate professor in the Global Climate Science Programme; Prof Adam Scaife, the head of long range forecasting at the UK's Met Office; and Laura Meller, a Greenpeace spokeswoman on board their ship the Arctic Sunrise. Producer: Zak Brophy Researcher: Soila Apparicio Editor: Ravin Sampat Sound Design: David Crackles
Are Catholics ignoring the Pope on climate change?
In 2015, Pope Francis asked Catholics the world over to protect our planet. But five years on, with emissions and extinctions rising, what difference has it made? And have any other religions followed suit? For answers, Neal and Graihagh are joined by two leading voices on the environment: Christiana Figueres, who helped the world reach the Paris Climate Agreement, and Cardinal Peter Turkson, the Pope’s leading climate advisor. They’ll hear evidence from Poland, a Catholic country that runs on coal and where Church leaders are not always in step with the Vatican’s teaching on the environment. They’ll also assess the global impact of the Pope’s green push, and talk about the role of faith in fighting climate change. Produced by Anna Meisel and Eleanor Biggs Editor: Ravin Sampat. Sound Design: Tom Brignall
The secret solution to climate change
If we educate and empower girls and young women, they are likely to have more control over their fertility. And with fewer people on the planet, it becomes the number one climate change solution. But it’s more complicated than it sounds, and not without controversy. Experts: Christina Kwauk, a fellow in the Center for Universal Education at Brookings, and Paul Hawken, founder of Project Drawdown Reporter: Ashley Lime Producer: Jordan Dunbar Researcher: Eleanor Biggs Editor: Ravin Sampat Sound mixer: Tom Brignell
How to hurricane-proof our world
The record-breaking Atlantic hurricane season has devastated parts of the Caribbean and Central America. We’ll hear what it has meant to one neighbourhood in Nicaragua. In a speech this week, the UN Secretary General said that “apocalyptic fires and floods, cyclones and hurricanes are increasingly the new normal.” What, if any, is the link between hurricanes and climate change, and should we be preparing for even stronger storms? Presenters: Neal Razzell, Graihagh Jackson, Alfonso Flores Bermudes Researcher: Zoe Gelber Studio manager: Tom Brignell Producer: Anna Meisel Editor: Ravin Sampat
A degree away from carnage
Climate scientists have shifted the definition of what they believe is the "safe" limit of climate change. Researchers argued the global temperature rise must be kept below two degrees Celsius by the end of this century to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. But what are those worst impacts in reality? What does it mean to people, communities and the world we live in? In this episode, we go to the people who see the effect of the rising temperature in their daily life. Produced by Eleanor Biggs & Jordan Dunbar Edited by Ravin Sampat
The war on trees and what it means for disease
Many people have worried that the Covid-19 pandemic meant the harm of climate change was being ignored. But could the opposite be true? Neal Razzell and Graihagh Jackson look at the links between both emerging pandemics and deforestation. We’ll be on the ground in Nigeria, with BBC reporter Nkechi Ogbonna showing us the reality of farming and land use change in the tropics. While in the bush, she meets an illegal logger to find out their take on climate change and pandemics. Professor Thomas Gillespie studies emerging infectious diseases, the types we don’t even have a name for yet. His work has shown the problems of land use change for mining and agriculture and the emergence of diseases that jump from animals to humans, like Covid-19. The more we cut down, the closer we get to diseases we’d never encountered before. We also hear about global solutions from World Service environment correspondent Navin Singh Kadhka, and how we can help in the fight to save the rainforests.
America v China
Will a Joe Biden presidency be better for the environment than President Trump’s policies? Is China really set to take the lead on tackling climate change? And can the world's two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases work together for the good of the planet? We're joined by former governor of California Jerry Brown, now with the California-China Climate Institute at Berkeley, and Daily Telegraph journalist Sophia Yan. Presenters: Neal Razzell, Graihagh Jackson, Vincent Ni Researcher: Eleanor Biggs Producer: Anna Meisel Editor: Ravin Sampat
Introducing The Climate Question
Not just a show about climate, it’s also about how we can change. What’s stopping us from stopping climate change? Finding new ways of understanding what is happening to our world and the solutions that are out there.