In 2021, Mayor London Breed released the San Francisco Action Plan, which aims to achieve net zero emissions for the city by 2040. The plan not only charts the course for eliminating emissions over the next two decades but also includes commitments to ensure that the benefits of climate action are extended equitably to all communities. That was three years ago. So what progress has been made? And what strategies are in place to get the city to its 2040 target? Guest: Tyrone Jue, Director of the ...
May 01, 2024•18 min
Batteries are a critical part of the transition away from fossil fuels. From electric vehicles to grid scale storage for wind and solar, demand for batteries is expected to grow 500% by 2030. In order to meet that demand, we’re going to need a lot more batteries. And while companies like JB Straubel’s Redwood Materials are building capacity for recycling, for now that means a lot more mining. With the battery supply chain only growing more critical as the electric vehicle market matures, we’re r...
Apr 26, 2024•1 hr 9 min
The Golden State has staked much of its reputation on its green credentials, with state leaders often touting its role on the leading edge of global and national climate progress. But California is falling behind in meeting its ambitious emission targets, and has been criticized for over relying on emerging clean energy technologies that may not bear out — and worse, increase harm to communities of color and low-income households. What role should regulators and community advocates play in ensur...
Apr 24, 2024•21 min
On behalf of the People of the State of California, Attorney General Rob Bonta has filed a lawsuit against five of the world’s largest oil and gas companies, along with the lobbying organization American Petroleum Institute, for willfully misleading the public about climate change. How big a deal could this lawsuit be? Guest: Rob Bonta, California Attorney General Did you enjoy this conversation? Wish you could've been there to see the full show? Tickets for the rest of SF Climate Week at Climat...
Apr 23, 2024•20 min
Artificial intelligence can do some pretty amazing things, including for the climate. AI can help optimize the electric grid, make heating and cooling buildings more efficient, and pinpoint exactly where greenhouse gas emissions are coming from all around the world. On the other hand, the energy use of AI is massive and growing. A recent study estimates that in just a few years, the extra energy needed will equal whole countries the size of Sweden or Argentina. How do we make sure the benefits o...
Apr 19, 2024•57 min
In August 2022, Congress passed the biggest piece of climate legislation in our nation’s history: The Inflation Reduction Act, which put $400 billion into boosting the transition to a clean energy economy over the next ten years. The IRA has spurred companies to announce nearly $110 billion of investment in new factories to build EVs, batteries and renewable energy facilities. That’s driving investments, reshoring of manufacturing, and real change. This week we check in on the impact of the IRA ...
Apr 12, 2024•1 hr
Even before Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” brought climate change to the mainstream, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Elizabeth Kolbert was on the beat. Her reporting in the early 2000s culminated in her book “Field Notes from a Catastrophe,” which sounded the alarm on the causes and effects of global warming. Nearly 20 years later, Kolbert is still bringing the climate story to the public with her new book “H Is for Hope: Climate Change from A to Z.” The book is told in bite size vignettes ...
Apr 05, 2024•56 min
Climate change means extreme weather, shifting landscapes, and generally more instability. More and more, you can feel the impacts of climate disruption in your wallets. Drought is pushing up the cost of candy and leading to shipping delays in the Panama Canal. Globally, researchers say climate could add one percent to inflation every year until 2035. The costs of car insurance, health insurance and property insurance are rising. And whether it’s tea in the morning or wine in the evening, disrup...
Mar 29, 2024•57 min
The places that most people call home are coming under increasing threat from climate change. From rising seas and more frequent floods to stronger hurricanes and cyclones, to more devastating droughts and wildfires, the most habitable parts of our world are becoming far less so. Over time, our cities will be forced to transform — and hundreds of millions will have to move. People who have the means are already starting to relocate to places that market themselves as climate-proof. But not every...
Mar 22, 2024•58 min
As heat waves, storms, droughts and wildfires continue to worsen, talking can seem like a seriously insufficient climate solution. It’s fair to ask: Are we just engaged in blah, blah, blah? Too often, talking is one sided – more of a lecture aimed at conveying information or solely stating one's own point of view. And yet, when done right, real conversations and true listening can help us find common ground, which can then lead to collective action and change. So how do we make those conversatio...
Mar 15, 2024•1 hr 3 min
Kumi Naidoo is a world renowned activist and climate leader. Before going on to lead Greenpeace International then Amnesty International, Naidoo was a 15 year old anti-apartheid activist in South Africa. The boycotts he organized led to him being a target of the Security Police. He fled South Africa and lived in exile in the UK. As a climate activist, Naidoo has been arrested for scaling oil rigs, has negotiated with heads of state, and rubbed shoulders with the most powerful people at the World...
Mar 08, 2024•59 min
If you’re a climate-conscious person, you likely already know some of the main ways you can reduce your contribution to greenhouse gasses: buy less, eat less meat, ride your bike. But there are other, less obvious methods we don’t always think of: voting, having climate conversations, engaging with your local government, changing where your money is invested. And while our role as individuals does matter, we’re more powerful when we work together in collective action. Guests: Jon Foley, Executiv...
Mar 01, 2024•56 min
When most people hear the phrase renewable energy, they imagine fields full of solar panels or giant spinning wind turbines. But another source may be heating up: geothermal. Twenty years ago it was thought that geothermal could provide at most 10% of any given area’s electricity, and only in very limited regions. There were also environmental concerns about depleting groundwater. But new technological advances may have unlocked the potential for scalable geothermal energy just about anywhere. A...
Feb 23, 2024•56 min
As fossil fuels are phased out, shuttered coal plants, contaminated landfills, and abandoned mine lands across the U.S. are finding new life as renewable energy projects. More than 23 states have 100% clean energy goals, and in order to reach those goals, some states are starting to convert what was once considered “dirty” into “clean” energy generation. But what happens to the infrastructure, workers, and community after a coal plant shuts down? And as billions are dispersed through policies li...
Feb 16, 2024•1 hr 4 min
A settlement for the largest civil penalty resulting from the Clean Air Act has just been reached. The EPA, DOJ and the State of California have agreed to a $1.7 billion fine for engine maker Cummins Inc. The fine is the result of Cummins being caught using “defeat devices” to fool emissions testers into thinking the engines pollute less than they really do. Does that sound familiar? It’s exactly what Volkswagen was caught doing nearly 10 years ago. VW and Cummins aren’t the only ones; it’s an i...
Feb 09, 2024•52 min
Jane Fonda has spent the last several decades fighting for Indigenous peoples' rights, economic justice, LGBTQ rights, peace, gender equality and more. Now, she is devoting herself to the climate emergency, beginning with Fire Drill Fridays, the national movement to protest government inaction on climate change she started in October 2019. Through the Jane Fonda Climate PAC, she is focused on defeating political allies of the fossil fuel industry. At 85, Fonda continues to fight for the most vul...
Feb 02, 2024•56 min
We often talk about a “just transition” from dirty to clean energy as if the term means the same thing to everyone. Indigenous people have seen their resources extracted and exploited to further the wealth of others for centuries. Now renewable energy is looking to expand to Indigenous land. How can renewable energy help Tribes leapfrog the twentieth century technologies that put them at the end of the line for corporate-controlled electricity? How can we, as Chéri Smith, Founder of the Alliance...
Jan 26, 2024•54 min
What we wear defines us in so many ways. But in recent decades we’ve moved away from long-lasting, quality pieces in favor of disposable fast fashion, with major consequences for our climate and environment. From mechanized farming and pesticides to grow fiber crops, to energy for manufacturing and transportation, fossil fuels are embedded in the clothing industry at every step of the process. Companies large and small are working against this trend, with some setting lofty goals for reducing ca...
Jan 19, 2024•1 hr 1 min
The climate crisis can feel distant — like it’s someone else’s problem — until your town is flooded, your home is damaged by storms, or you're struggling to pay electricity bills as the summers get hotter. Figuring out the specifics of how a region is vulnerable to climate impacts can be the difference between adaptation or disaster, especially for communities that don’t have a lot of climate or environmental expertise among their members. Community science — defined as communities and scientist...
Jan 12, 2024•55 min
From the climate movement’s earliest days, young people have been at the forefront of activism. But the first major international climate conferences took place 30 years ago. The first cohort of youth activists are now adults, some with children of their own. The emotional cost of seeing so little payoff for years spent fighting can be agonizing at any age, but perhaps more so for young people who put so much of themselves into the effort. Many youth activists burned out along the way, frustrate...
Jan 05, 2024•1 hr 5 min
Can you imagine if everything you needed in your everyday life was just a walk or bike ride away? That’s the goal of the 15-minute city, a new name for an old idea. Reducing the need for cars cuts emissions and gets autos off of the roads, which is a boon for safety, air quality and the climate. But, as is often the case, good ideas become a lot more difficult when you have to implement them in real places, with real people, who don’t always share the enthusiasm for the idea. What will it take t...
Dec 29, 2023•1 hr 5 min
Ben Santer has spent decades researching and identifying the human fingerprints on the climate system changes we’re now all seeing. He was lead author on the historic 1995 conclusion of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which proclaimed that “the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.” That was the first time the IPCC authoritatively stated humans are causing climate change. At the time, Stephen Schneider told Ben Santer that the sentence he wr...
Dec 22, 2023•1 hr 1 min
It’s been a year of weather extremes — again. But there’s also been cause for renewed hope about our climate future. On the heels of this year’s international climate conference held in the oil-rich Middle East, Climate One hosts Greg Dalton and Ariana Brocious review major climate stories of the year, both lows and highs. This special episode features excerpts from some of Climate One’s most surprising, moving and compelling interviews of 2023, including conversations with luminaries Rev. Lenno...
Dec 15, 2023•54 min
This week, we’re reporting from Dubai, where the 28th UN climate change conference (COP28) is now underway. Ever since the Paris Agreement was signed at COP21, the central issue has remained the same: How do the nations of the world keep global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels? This year marks the first “global stocktake,” where the data on how well we’re collectively doing on meeting the Paris targets are front and center. Across the board, countries are failing. How m...
Dec 08, 2023•1 hr 1 min
The 28th annual Conference of the Parties, COP28, opens this week in Dubai. For the 28th time, the nations of the world have gathered to see what progress they can make on addressing the increasingly global climate crisis. It’s fair to wonder why, after three decades, we still haven’t taken the collective action necessary. And it’s equally fair to wonder why diplomats continue to bother with what Greta Thunberg famously called “blah, blah, blah.” This year’s COP marks the first “Global Stocktake...
Dec 01, 2023•1 hr 1 min
Most Americans support climate action, but you wouldn’t know it from Congress or the courts – or from most of the media. People on both the left and the right experience the same devastating floods, the same life-threatening heatwaves and the same catastrophic wildfires. Yet individuals tend to socialize within insulated political tribes, operate in completely different information bubbles and see the problems and solutions through different lenses. How can we learn to bridge ideological divides...
Nov 24, 2023•56 min
From The Coolest Show: The City of Atlanta has leased 381-acres of Weelaunee Forest, stolen Muscogee land, to the Atlanta Police Foundation for a police military facility funded by corporations. This would be the largest police training facility in the US in a primarily Black community who overwhelmingly oppose the project. Despite over fifteen hours of public comments against the project, the City Council has approved $67 million in public funding for Cop City. The plans include military-grade ...
Nov 21, 2023•34 min
One of the most common questions people ask about climate is: what can I do? Since time is one of our most valuable resources – and we spend so much of our time at work – changing jobs may be the most effective individual climate action a person can take. Those changes could be big or small: Leaving the oil and gas industry for geothermal, or helping to bring down the emissions where you already work. The truth is, almost any job can be a climate job. But how do people actually make the transiti...
Nov 17, 2023•55 min
Climate affects everyone, but not equally. Those affected first and worst are often the same communities that suffer from housing and income inequality, and climate and societal injustice. Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr. has made striving for social, economic, and climate justice his lifelong pursuit. Rising to prominence in the Hip Hop community, Yearwood brought like-minded artists and creatives together to advocate for justice with the Hip Hop Caucus by harnessing the power of film, podcasts and co...
Nov 10, 2023•57 min
Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit has been examining hope and the unpredictability of change for over 20 years. In 2023 she co-edited an anthology called, “It’s Not Too Late,” which serves as a guidebook for changing the climate narrative from despair to possibility. How can we find hope on a warming planet? Guests: Rebecca Solnit, Writer, Historian, Activist For show notes and related links, visit our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nov 03, 2023•53 min
