A podcast on climate change hosted by the Danish Minister for Development Cooperation and Global Climate Policy, Dan Jørgensen. Inviting some of the world’s leading experts, policy makers and activists to share their thoughts with us. Not only to address the challenges and dilemmas inherent in climate change. But also to talk about its possible solutions.
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In the 3rd episode of Planet A’s third season, Dan Jørgensen talks with Inger Andersen, the Under-Secretary-General of the UN and Executive Director of UNEP (the United Nations Environment Programme). UNEP recently published this year’s “ Emissions Gap Report: The Heat Is On ”. The Gap Report is a science-based assessment of the gap between countries’ climate pledges and the reductions required to deliver a global temperature increase of below 2°C by the end of this century. UNEP also publishes ...
In the 2nd episode of Planet A’s third season, Dan Jørgensen talks with David Livingston and Varun Sivaram. Livingston and Sivaram serve as Senior Advisers to President Biden’s Special Envoy for Climate, John Kerry. Thus, they play a key role in fulfilling President Joe Biden's climate policy on the world stage. In this episode, Livingston and Sivaram discuss the US priorities and expectations for COP26. They argue that COP26 can act as an accelerator for more ambitious climate targets, while th...
In the 1st episode of Planet A’s third season, Dan Jørgensen talks with Dr. Juergen Voegele, the World Bank’s Vice President for Sustainable Development. Dr. Voegele is one of the world’s leading experts on the interplay between food production, agriculture and climate change. In his current capacity, he oversees the World Bank’s entire efforts on agriculture, food, climate change and the environment. In recent years, Dr. Voegele has emerged as a thought leader on the challenges that the growing...
In the 10th episode of Planet A’s second season, Dan Jørgensen talks with Jason Bordoff, the Director of Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy and the Dean of the University’s Climate School. They touch upon the lessons learned from the COVID-19 crisis and the temporary decline in global energy consumption, the Biden administration and climate politics in the US. And they discuss the geopolitics of climate change, where Bordoff argues there is a difference between the influence th...
In the 9th episode of Planet A’s second season, Dan Jørgensen talks with Jennifer Morgan, the Executive Director of Greenpeace International. Over the last twenty years, Morgan has worked with climate change at leading NGOs such as World Resources Institute (WRI) and World Wildlife Foundation (WWF). Moreover, she has participated in every single COP and served as Review Editor for the 5th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. During the interview, they discuss the i...
In the 8th episode of Planet A’s second season, Dan Jørgensen talks with Microsoft’s Chief Environmental Officer, Dr. Lucas Joppa. Dr. Joppa has worked at the nexus of data and sustainability throughout his career and is now leading Microsoft’s efforts to become a carbon negative company. Furthermore, he leads the company’s work on data and tech solutions that can help decarbonize the entire world. Perhaps unbeknownst to many, the use, storage and processing of data emit as much CO2 as the globa...
In the 7th episode of Planet A’s second season, Dan Jørgensen talks with the journalist and author, Elizabeth Kolbert. Kolbert first achieved international prominence when her bestselling book “ The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History ” was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2014 and the Guardian named it the best non-fiction book of all time. She has worked for the New York Times and the New Yorker magazine since the early 1980’s. A recurring theme in her writing has been the consequences of envi...
In the 6th episode of Planet A’s second season, Dan Jørgensen talks with the American economist and Nobel Laureate, Joseph Stiglitz. Stiglitz explains why he is a strong supporter of a “Cross Border Adjustment tax”, which adds the cost of carbon emissions to the price on imported goods and thus prevents carbon leakage. The economist underlines the importance of imposing a higher social cost of carbon and believes it should be upwards of 100 US dollars per emitted ton CO2. Stiglitz and Jørgensen ...
In the 5th episode of Planet A’s second season, Dan Jørgensen talks with the British writer, activist and environmentalist, George Monbiot. Monbiot has been a regular columnist for The Guardian since 1996 and authored ten books on social justice, climate change and other environmental issues. He achieved global acclaim for his award-winning book “ Feral: Searching for Enchantment on the Frontiers of Rewilding”. In the book, Monbiot advocates that humanity must “ rewild ”; that society must free ...
In this 4th episode of the 2nd season of Planet A, Dan Jørgensen talks with the American writer Jonathan Franzen. Franzen is the author of numerous short stories and essays, but is most widely known for his novels “ The Corrections ”, “ Freedom ” and “ Purity ”. Furthermore, he has been a contributor to “ The New Yorker ” Magazine since 1994 and written seminal essays on climate change and environmentalism. During the interview, Franzen talks about his essay “ What if We Stopped Pretending? ” th...
In the 3rd episode of the 2nd season of Planet A, Dan Jørgensen talks with Dennis “Denny” McGinn, a retired Vice Admiral from the United States Navy, about why climate change is a threat to global security and stability. Prior to his retirement, Vice Admiral McGinn served as the Commander of the 3rd US Fleet and as the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations. He crowned a distinguished military career by working as President Obama’s Assistant Secretary of the Navy from 2013 to 2017. In this capacity, V...
In the 2nd episode of season 2 of Planet A, Dan Jørgensen talks with Li Shuo from Greenpeace East Asia about Chinese domestic and international climate politics ahead of COP26. Li Shuo works as Greenpeace’s Senior Climate and Energy Policy Officer in Beijing and leads the NGO’s international political delegation at the COP-meetings. Thus, he offers a unique insight regarding China’s domestic environmental policies and its relationship to the international climate negotiations. Li Shuo argues tha...
In this episode, David Wallace-Wells challenges traditional climate narratives, arguing the media has misled the public on the speed, scope, and severity of global warming. He outlines the far-reaching impacts across economic, social, and health sectors, even under best-case scenarios. However, Wallace-Wells also points to significant, rapid progress in public and political engagement on climate since 2018, emphasizing the shifting economic consensus that decarbonization offers profound benefits, not just costs. The conversation also explores the complexities of technology, individual versus collective action, and the geopolitical shifts necessary to achieve a more equitable and sustainable future.
In the 14th episode of Planet A, Dan Jørgensen talks with Sharan Burrow about how we can make the green transition fair for workers. Burrow is General Secretary of “ITUC” (the International Trade Union Confederation), a Brussels-based union organization that works to promote and defend workers’ rights and interests around the world. During Burrow’s tenure as General Secretary, ITUC has become an increasingly important voice on climate action but remains deeply committed to a “just transition” an...
In the 13th episode of Planet A, we commemorate the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement, as Dan Jørgensen talks with Alden Meyer about the history of the international climate negotiations. Meyer is one of the world’s most prominent advisers on climate policy and served as Director of Strategy and Policy at the Union of Concerned Scientistsfor four decades. Today he is senior associate for the climate think-tank E3G . During the conversation, Meyer takes us through from the adoption of the ...
In the 12th episode of Planet A, Dan Jørgensen talks with Poland’s Minister of Climate and Environment, Michał Kurtyka, about his experience as President of COP24 as well as his country’s goal to reduce coal power and build more renewable energy. This is no small feat, considering how important coal mining is to the Polish economy. Thus the overarching theme of this episode is the question of a “just transition” and its impact on Poland. The country has been the European heartland of coal mining...
In the 11th episode of Planet A, Dan Jørgensen talks with the former Maldivian President, Mohamed Nasheed. Mr. Nasheed managed to put his country on the map of global climate politics during his tenure as President of the Maldives (2008-12) and became one of the strongest global voices on climate action. After being ousted in 2012, Nasheed was exiled to England where he was granted political asylum. However, two years ago, he returned to the Maldives and last year his party ( The Maldives Democr...
In the 10th episode of Planet A, Dan Jørgensen talks with Barack Obama's former Secretary of Energy, Dr. Ernest Moniz. Dr. Moniz holds a doctoral degree in theoretical nuclear physics and made his first foray into Washington-politics as President Bill Clinton’s Under Secretary of Energy (1997-2001). He is widely recognized as one of the most knowledgeable people on the planet, when it comes to energy, science and politics. Thus, it should be no surprise that POLITICO ranks him as a leading conte...
In the 9th episode of Planet A, Dan Jørgensen talks with Germany’s Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, Svenja Schulze Minister Schulze is one of the world’s most important decision makers in contemporary climate politics. In her current job, she is not only facing the monumental task of decarbonizing Germany, Europe’s largest economy. Minister Schulze is also shouldering a vital international task, as Germany holds the presidency of the European Council ...
The 8th episode of Planet A is a special edition, featuring highlights from the preceding 7 episodes of the podcast. The roster of guests is (in order of appearance on this episode): Christiana Figueres, former Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Dr. Jane Goodall, Primatologist and Conservationist Katherine Richardson, Professor in Biological Oceanography at the University of Copenhagen Lord Nicholas Stern, Chairman of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate C...
In the seventh episode of the podcast, Dan Jørgensen talks with Dr. Julio Friedmann, who served as Lead of President Obama’s Research and Development program for Carbon Capture and Storage and CO2 utilization in the U.S. Department of Energy. Dr. Friedmann is renowned as one of the world’s leading experts on Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) as well as Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) . The discussion on the podcast covers CCS – the process of capturing carbon and storing it undergr...
In the sixth episode of the podcast, Dan Jørgensen talks with Christiana Figueres, the former United Nations’ Climate Chief about the past, present and future of the international climate negotiations. Figueres was appointed Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC in July 2010 and five years later she successfully rallied 195 nations around the Paris Agreement. She recounts the change from COP15 in Copenhagen to COP21 in Paris, resulting from gradually changing the political mindset from one of confro...
In the fifth episode of the podcast Dan Jørgensen talks with Dr. Jane Goodall, the world’s leading primatologist, about the similarities between chimpanzees and humans as well as how climate change impact us all. She describes how the changing climate disproportionally affects wildlife and the poorest people around the globe. Dr. Goodall argues, that the world must overcome poverty, consumerism and population growth to prevent an environmental catastrophe. Particularly people in the developed wo...
In the fourth episode of the podcast, Dan Jørgensen talks with Katherine Richardson, Professor in Biological Oceanography at the University of Copenhagen and one of the world’s leading experts on climate change. Based on her research article “ Climate tipping points - too risky to bet against ”, they discuss the notion of climate tipping points - such as the loss of the Amazon rainforest and the West Antarctic ice sheet – and how they can cause irreversible damage to the global eco-system. Richa...
In the third episode of Planet A, Dan Jørgensen talks with Professor Lord Nicholas Stern, Chairman of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics. Jørgensen and Stern discuss the economics of climate change, climatic change feedback mechanisms and the need to build sustainable infrastructure in the coming decades. Stern argues that the consequences of climate change is “far, far worse” than he anticipated in his 2006 report “The Economi...
In this second episode of the podcast, Dan Jørgensen talks with Jeffrey Sachs, Professor and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University. They discuss climate change and the urgent need for a swift global green energy transition in light of Sachs’ new – and very timely – book, “The Ages of Globalization”. A discussion that also touches on the subjects of poverty, sustainability and happiness. Professor Sachs started his illustrious career as an academic and is perha...
In this first episode of the podcast, Dan Jørgensen talks with former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry about the outlook for climate politics, in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. They discuss the consequences of COVID-19, the urgent need for global leadership on the climate issue, the promise of the Paris Agreement and the importance of big investors engaging in the green transformation. Furthermore Kerry shares his view on the resurgence of activism and the potential of the climate movement. ...
The fact of the matter is that we do not have a “Planet B”. Welcome to Planet A - a podcast on climate change hosted by the Danish Minister of Climate, Energy and Utilities, Dan Jørgensen. This podcast will invite some of the world’s leading experts, policy makers and activists to share their thoughts with us. Not only to address the challenges and dilemmas inherent in climate change. But also to talk about its possible solutions. The first three episodes will feature former Secretary of State J...
