It’s time for some cheerful climate news

overstating it. I, I actually struggle with this assignment. I trawled the internet looking for positive climate news to cheer me up and it wasn't a very, pretty easy finding anything recent that really made me smile. I don't know about you whether you had the same issues. I had to sift through a lot of doom and gloom actually to get to these five happy news bits today. Hey, there's silver linings in every little story. If you search

for it, the eternal optimist aren't you? Yeah, maybe that's me. My career choice and focus on climate change. Yeah. No, I didn't find it too bad. I think what was very clear was that the solutions or the positive aspects tend to be hidden at the end of stories and stories tend to get written with the kind of doom and gloom to start with. Yeah, that was interesting. Alright. We'll get into all of that later, but it's our beloved weekly quiz.

Now, last week, Li Ling, I asked you about the populations of certain countries that believed that climate change was a threat to their country and now you got them. All right. It was quite amazing. Now, on a symbol of vein, I want to know which populations have the brightest outlooks rank these countries by respondents who are optimistic about the future. All four options. A South Korea B is China C Australia and D, Sweden. Oh man, another ranking quiz. I feel like I've exhausted all my

brain cells for the last one already. Ok. So the four countries South Korea, Australia, China and Sweden. Yep, that's it. Let me have a think. Ok. Answers at the end. Now this week we're going to skip right over news time. Sorry Le Ling. We won't be coming to you in the newsroom because that is going to be the thrust of our main segment this week. I'm not in my newsroom. I'm in my living room actually. But same. Well, you're gonna use the clip, right? And you see the home, obviously,

I'm in my living room. And so are you ok? Hey, my office is my newsroom. Yeah. Well, it's an occupational hazard for all of us. Yeah, my dog is literally lying behind me. As famed climate change scientist, Katharine Hayhoe said to us here on climate conversations last week, communicating solutions to the existential crisis that is climate change is so important to inspire action and to come up with collective solutions big

and small. Now we've taken that message to heart and both of us have searched the globe for recent and interesting and positive stories about how humanity is finding hope in the gloom. Now, some of these will be monumental. Some might seem significant some less so, but we hope you'll hear them and go, that's a reason to be optimistic. So the format we're gonna take it in turns to chat briefly about five stories. Each, we haven't divulged the stories to

each other beforehand. So we'll be coming in fresh like you to hear about them and interesting to see both of our responses to those stories. I'm ready to smile for planet Earth. Are you ready for that, Lili? Oh, yeah, let's do that. Cheer for Planet Earth. Woohoo. Ok. My story number one. Now, these are not in any order. I'm gonna kick us off with this very cool story. It was courtesy of Bloomberg.

It's about a trial that's been going on since last month between Singapore Airlines, Qantas and New Zealand and Garuda, Indonesia. And they're choosing the exact air routes that they fly. Basically, they're taking shortcuts. In the sky. The aim is to be more efficient, use less fuel and create fewer greenhouse gas emissions. So basically, there are 38 different routes where this is happening already.

And for Singapore Airlines that includes flying to Sydney to Perth, to Christchurch among a bunch of other places. And the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore has already said that airlines can potentially save up to 1.7 tons of fuel for a flight between Singapore and Melbourne simply by taking a faster path, a more efficient route. And the idea is that this could actually be extended to many other cities. Europe has been looking at this for a long time. So for me, seems like a win, right.

We're flying faster to our destinations, fewer emissions and given the struggles that seem to be persisting with sustainable fuels smart. Right. Yeah, this, I'm kind of surprised because I had always just assumed that planes would take the shortest route possible, right. But there are dynamics, I guess in the sky they've got wind, you've got the shape of the earth. Yes, I guess it's a bit surprising. We're not doing this already but better late than never. Yeah. Good, good. Oh,

I'm really happy about that start. I'll see your flying shortcuts and raise your cargo for shortcuts. Alright. So Japan has plans to build this giant 500 kilometer road and tunnel conveyor belt system to move cargo between two of its busiest cities Tokyo, you've stolen my conveyor belt. Oh, did I sorry? Beat you to the punch. So this conveyor belt system think conveyor belt sushi, right? But just a bit bigger actually a lot bigger and it solves two big issues for

the country. First, it addresses a shortage of truck drivers that is becoming increasingly worse as the population ages and then it also helps to slash transport emissions. Now, freight transportation accounted for more than 7% of Japan's total co two emissions. And this so called auto flow road reportedly can carry the same amount of cargo as 25,000

trucks a day. And it involves, I looked at the pictures of this and it involves belts either in the middle of the highway or on the road shoulders as well as underground tunnels to transport the cargo. It all goes according to plan, it will be ready in about 10 years. So I think it will be quite a sight to see and really if anybody could pull this off, Japan could, yeah, this is Japan in my mind like coming up with these like high tech ideas that we always associate

with the country. Yeah, I mean efficient logistics makes a lot of sense, moving some goods I think would be much faster, I think especially like fresh food, for example, could be moved in a much more efficient manner. I bet it's gonna be super expensive. But yeah, some blue sky thinking for sure. My story number two. This one's also from a few weeks back. But I think it's worth mentioning because we often talk about this issue about fossil fuel financing back

in my backyard. One of the major banks in Australia, the country's largest lender, the Commonwealth Bank announced that it'll be moving away from funding fossil fuel companies that don't have proper emissions reduction plans. Supposedly, it's ditching coal, it's ditching gas if those lenders don't have policies that are in line with the Paris Agreement. Good news, right. This has already been happening to a degree.

The CB A has dropped its fossil fuel loans already by 92% over the past few years and halved its exposure to oil and gas. And there are a number of reasons why they're doing this. These are increasingly uncertain investments that can add risk to a bank's portfolio. It also increases their exposure to lawsuits and climate activism.

And we always talk about how climate financing is so important and the lingering trails of fossil fuel investment is a big complication to why we're not reaching our climate goals and many banks are not moving very fast. If you look around this region, the fossil fuel investments are still happening. They're still in the pipeline of many of our banks.

When banks do this, I think it's well worth celebrating. Absolutely. Ok. Speaking of fossil fuels and the transition away from them, I have something, some good news about the cost of renewables. And of course, a lot of this has to do with demand and supply. So new renewable power capacity set a record in 2023 with over 470 gigawatts of new installed capacity. This is from a report issued this month by the

International Renewable Energy Agency and it loss. Yeah, the big dogs and this is a 54% increase compared to 2022. It's the largest annual growth since around 2000 I believe. Now. Also encouraging is that it found that the cost of electricity generated from renewable power is dropping rather significantly. Get this of new or additional renewable power last year was cheaper than fossil fuel. And the global weighted average cost of electricity fell rapidly between 2010 and 2023.

So I know this is a lot of numbers but try and keep up. Now this decline in cost includes a 90% plunge in the cost of power from solar photovoltaics and a 70% decline in onshore wind power cost. So basically it means that utility or large scale renewable power is getting cheaper at a very encouraging pace. Sit there very good. Now we just need to upgrade all of our grids and transmission lines to really make the most of this increasingly cheap energy infrastructure.

Ok. Changing pace a little bit emojis. Are you a big fan slash user leading of emojis? I don't see you using them that much. No, not really. I'm not even a fan of the exclamation mark. So emojis that could be a bit aggressive, right? The exclamation. I just realized that so many of my messages come across as like, too serious and mean. So I have started using emojis. Yes, I'm all about them. I use them a bit too much. Even in professional emails I probably

should stop. There are going to be some new ones coming up. Yay. Ok. That's not the full news because of course, there are so many emojis already, but from next year, there's going to be a new set released with at least one of them having the environment in mind. This might not sound positive, but this new emoji is a leafless tree and it's dry and it's suffering from drought. The idea is that having this little picture can help people communicate about the changing planet and drought is like

a massive issue for many communities around the world. And it seems that environmental groups are pretty happy about this, like seemingly insignificant news. But as Catherine told us last week, the best way to combat climate change is to talk about it. So here's another way that we can do it. There are other interesting emojis not really related to the climate, but you'll soon be able to have a fingerprint, a shovel. It's like a

purple splatter kind of thing. I don't know what that's for and a yellow face that's looking completely exhausted with bags under its eyes. So I reckon maybe that's one you could start to use or on group chat. Yeah, I know you're working hard. So I think you're working. Moving on. All right, I'll take your emojis. I'll see your emojis and raise you Royal British goats. Thanks to King Charles the third who in July bestowed a royal title to a rare gold haired goat breed

that is seemingly at risk. And according to the associated press, the breed now has the special title of Royal Golden Guns Goat. And the title applies to the breed anywhere in the world. It recognizes their value to biodiversity, the environment and sustainable food production and their milk is apparently quite good chock a win for the goat royal milk. You'd be drinking. I don't think milk is royal, but the goat is, although I suppose the milk would be royal too,

then wouldn't it? So hang on. Why is it a royal goat? Because King Charles the third likes it and I think they wanted to preserve it because it's a vulnerable breed. Yeah, we just need more species, maybe a knighted sheep or something. Money flowing to these goats. Uh Yeah. Yeah, it could be just symbolic. I don't know,

but hey, it grabs attention, right? A goat, royal goat breed story four is about a I your favorite topic and we had an episode a few months back where we talked about how A I is helping in the environmental space. And I think they were really interesting examples in our region. And now Google is teaming up with Griffith University and they're gonna use A I technology to monitor humpback whale migrations. So normally my understanding of tracking whales is really time

consuming and really logistically difficult. But now they're going to deploy these underwater microphones and they'll use Google A I to continuously detect whale sounds, track their location, classify species. And it should give the researchers a clearer picture about how whales are behaving and where they are moving. So yeah, and in the end, it might help us to conserve and protect the species. So A I once again stepping in and doing the tasks that we don't like

or we're unable to in an efficient way. Absolutely. A good news story undeniably. Yes. Yes. Fantastic news. Always happy to hear good news about very scary A I OK. What do I have? I've got plastic eating microbes. Now, the French beauty brand Loxy than has an almond oil shower gel bottled in a plastic pe T flask made from plastic, recycled through the digestion of used bottles by microbial enzymes. So basically these microbes digest use plastics and then what they digest is then made in

to new poly ethylene Terrel bottles. So it's a product by French Biotech company, Carbs in partnership with Loxy. And it's an example of what microbes can do to help the environment and address this massive waste problem that we are seeing around the world. Now, it's from the Nature Journal and it says that research is underway to see how they can be harnessed these microbes, how they can be harnessed to eat pollutants from what we call forever chemicals to cyanide,

as well as petroleum. It's a proven signs and the market for this so called bio remediation is expected to grow by more than $8 billion by 2028 compared to last year. And part of the explanation is that bacteria, our microbes can mutate and evolve quickly to adapt to their environment and consume whatever carbon sources are available and that includes plastic. So new discovery, new research potential A I,

are you afraid of? You know, I am I like the microbes, not such a fan of A I but I I recognize its value. Alright. Last story going to Italy. Now my partner and I were thinking about planning a trip recently to Sicily. It's been on my list for quite a few years. Have you been? No, I hear it's very dry now. Well, yeah, it is dry and that's one of the reasons why we decided actually against it.

I'd read news about the extreme drought situation that was happening there over the past few months and I felt like tourism during times of resource shortages is a bit irresponsible. I don't know, I just felt like ah, maybe we shouldn't go there when people are struggling with having enough water and the farmers don't have enough water and you're adding to the strain of a community that's very thoughtful of you. It was at least a factor. It was at least a factor now,

incredibly thoughtful of you. Jack. I've got my respect for you. Right. So now though, they have found a huge underground water reserve, 17 billion cubic meters of water. Now, that's a lot of water and it dates back millions of years. And basically, it's the equivalent of 6.8 million Olympic size swimming pools or the equivalent of giving every single person in the world

a 2000 L tank of water. So it's an immense discovery actually, they think it was discovered about 20 years ago, but they've done some proper research on it. Now, it's pretty far underground. Obviously, lots of people want to utilize the water for drinking needs, for animals, for farming and Sicily has been suffering. So undoubtedly, of course, there will be some bureaucratic obstacles studies that need to

be done. But yeah, it could be a little lifeline for the people there and maybe I will get to go on that holiday without the guilt of using up their precious resources. Ok. So we've got the last one and I think this is quite fitting. It's about climate therapy for those of us who have had enough of the doom and gloom and need a little bit of self care. There are resources that you can tap into so people with eco distress, so called eco distress can

get group therapy. Now, it's called the Good Grief Network. And they started out from research at the University of Utah. They now offer group climate therapy sessions across the world. This is based from a report from insight, climate news.org. It said in early September that this is the brainchild of a psychiatrist who started up the therapy support network a decade ago to help front line climate

workers overwhelmed by global warming. It involves a 10 step program for resilience and empowerment in a chaotic climate. And that begins with acceptance grieving over harm caused and investing in meaningful effort. Sounds a bit like alcoholic anonymous. If it's across the world, is it like an in person thing or online or I'm not sure. But I think they have like representation in different parts of the world. And

I'm sure that they have online courses. I didn't really look into this, but I will because I'm quite interested in signing up. I think we get a lot of trauma from doing this podcast and having to sift through all the doom and gloom, right? Maybe not you. But yeah, let me know how it goes. It's pretty gloomy material. Ok. Anyway, we hope that those stories were a little bit uplifting in a way, at least showing some of the solutions that are out there. Not everything is about

the end of the planet. All right. Shall we do the quiz now? Oh, you're excited for the quiz. Ok. I'll give you the question again. Rank these countries by respondents who are optimistic about the future, South Korea, China, Australia and Sweden. So I'm gonna go with Australia first because you're Australian and you're really quite optimistic. So I'm guessing it's kind of part of the national collective DNA. So Australia tops the list for me.

Then I'm going to go with Sweden because Nordic countries keep topping the World Happiness Index. So I think it might translate into the optimism over climate change. Then I'm going to go to South Korea, but only because it's smaller than China, which has a massive surface area, vulnerable to multiple effects of climate change and with its population of over 1.4 billion people. So I imagine it's harder for the country as a whole to be very

optimistic about climate change. How did I do? Interesting logic. You've got one out of four. I love that. You thought Australians are so optimistic. I think we generally are, but we're also hit by a bunch of hard stuff. So Australia comes in at 2nd, 55% of people are optimistic about the future still pretty low. But second on this list, South Korea, you got correct in third place. Only 36% of people are optimistic. There top is China, 71% are

optimistic and the bottom was Sweden, 35%. Despite all they've got going on for them over there, they still have this negative view of the world. They're like constantly ranking top, you know, top five on in and they're so difficult to please. Jeez. So there you go. Not as good as last week, but good effort. That's ok. We all learn something new and that's what matters indeed. Alright. That's it for climate conversations. Thanks as always for

joining us. We'll be back next week and until then, I'm Li Ling Tan Ari Dei and I'm Jack Boyd. Thanks as always to the team that put together this podcast, Tiffany Ang, Janani, Jahari, Kristina Robert and SA NC. Bye.