More than two thirds of our planet is covered by the oceans, but there’s still much to be uncovered about the role that these watery worlds play in climate change. But recent scientific research claims that bottom trawling, a method of fishing that involves dragging heavy nets across the seafloor, emits about the same amount of carbon annually as aviation. Seabed sediments, which act as huge carbon sinks, are churned up, resulting in carbon dioxide emissions. So should trawling – commonplace aro...
May 23, 2021•28 min
South Korea’s economic development has been the envy of many nations: from war, famine and poverty to one of the richest countries on Earth, all within just a couple of generations. In 1955, gross domestic product was just $64 per capita. Last year, it was $31,000. But this growth was turbocharged by fossil fuels, and has come at a high environmental price. Seventy percent of the power generated in the country comes from fossil fuels and, compared to many rich nations, its commitment to renewabl...
May 16, 2021•28 min
Indigenous people represent only about six percent of the world’s population, but they inhabit around a quarter of the world’s land surface. And they share these regions with a hugely disproportionate array of plant and animal life. According to the UN and the World Bank, about 80 percent of our planet’s biodiversity is on land where indigenous people live. Global climate policy has however been slow to recognise that indigenous knowledge - built up over centuries - is worth listening to. This i...
May 09, 2021•28 min
From fruit rotting in fields, to retailers turning down funny shaped vegetables, and consumers scraping leftovers into the bin, food waste is everywhere. It’s estimated that around a third of all our food ends up not being eaten. If we could sort this, total greenhouse gas emissions would reduce by around eight percent. To put that in context, the only countries that are responsible for emissions of that size are China and the US. So, what can be done? Graihagh Jackson and Jordan Dunbar discuss ...
May 02, 2021•26 min
More companies are rolling out carbon dioxide emission labels on products to help us make greener choices. Unilever, the global consumer goods giant, recently announced it is committing to put carbon footprint information on 70,000 products, while multi-national companies Oatly and Quorn have already started adding labels like this to their packaging. But this is not the first time companies have tried this. In the 2000s, for example, an international supermarket put carbon labels on hundreds of...
Apr 25, 2021•29 min
President Biden has invited the world’s major polluters to a summit on Earth Day (April 22nd). It may be the biggest climate summit ever organised by an American leader. On the campaign trail last year, Mr Biden said climate change was his “number one issue.” Now, the pressure is on for him to make a big announcement. But while the US has rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement, it has no official plan to hit the Paris targets. Frantic work is underway in the US to come up with something that satis...
Apr 21, 2021•27 min
Cities, money, roads, beef burgers and telephones, in fact pretty much all of human civilisation as we know it, would probably not exist were it not for one simple invention. The plough. This humble yet revolutionary tool enabled us to cultivate vastly greater amounts of food than our hunter gatherer forefathers giving rise to villages, cities and empires. But it has come at a cost. Nearly 10,000 years of cultivated agriculture have released billions of tonnes of carbon from the soil into the at...
Apr 11, 2021•27 min
For centuries, we’ve been reading, watching and listening to science fiction. And all too often, it’s pretty pessimistic about our future, especially when it touches on the topic of climate change. This is leading some to ask whether these doom and gloom stories are doing the climate fight more harm than good - causing us to feel so anxious and powerless that we don’t take action. So for this week's climate question, we’re asking: Is sci-fi holding us back? Graihagh Jackson is joined by: Amy Bra...
Apr 04, 2021•27 min
Bangladesh is a country that is exceptionally vulnerable to climate change. With a low elevation and high population density, as well as poor infrastructure and an economic reliance on farming, it is naturally susceptible to extreme weather. The intensification of conditions due to climate change means more people are being driven from their homes and land by sea level rises, storms, cyclones, drought, erosion, landslides, flooding and salinisation of the land. It's estimated that by 2050, one i...
Mar 28, 2021•27 min
A Peruvian farmer is suing a German fossil fuel company, the city of Baltimore has filed a lawsuit against 26 oil and gas firms, and a Polish coal mining company was taken to court by its own shareholders. Activists, investors and everyday people are increasingly pursuing climate litigation as a means to exert pressure on companies and shift our societies onto a more sustainable trajectory. But success is far from assured. Our climate question this week is: Can companies be held accountable for ...
Mar 22, 2021•27 min
As the world becomes more populous, experts say we’re likely to use 25 percent more concrete in the next decade. But concrete is also responsible for eight percent of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions. There are concerns that the industry isn’t taking its carbon footprint seriously enough. So our climate question this week is: Must our future be cast in concrete? Guests: Arpad Horvath, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Berkley Professor Karen S...
Mar 15, 2021•28 min
The rise of renewables is good news for the climate, but for millions of families who rely on fossil fuels for a paycheque, it means big changes. People have been talking about a “just transition” for decades. The term was first used in the 1990s, when US unions were demanding help for those who'd lost their jobs because of tightening environmental laws. Now it means looking at how we decarbonise our economies around the world, without leaving certain people behind. Neal and Graihagh hear from C...
Mar 08, 2021•27 min
Drastic change is needed to limit the increase in the global temperature caused by climate change. More than two-thirds of global greenhouse gas emissions come from how we live our lives. But the behaviours that drive these emissions tend to be deeply habitual and hard to shift - the way we heat our homes, what we eat and how we travel to work. And our behavioural good intentions all too often fail to translate into action. So our climate question this week is how we can be nudged, or even shove...
Mar 01, 2021•28 min
It seems we all love trees. Politicians, celebrities and big businesses love trees too. They’re seen as a natural climate fix because they eat carbon dioxide, one of the main gases that cause global warming. The number of trees pledged in the coming years runs into the billions. Pakistan wants to plant more than three billion trees in the next couple of years. Ethiopia claims to have planted 350 million in one day! Neal Razzell and Graihagh Jackson try to see the wood from the trees amongst all ...
Feb 22, 2021•28 min
When a man sitting on nearly $9 trillion dollars of funds speaks, CEOs, investors and politicians listen. In late January, Larry Fink, boss of the world’s largest hedge fund, BlackRock, announced in his annual letter that "climate risk is investment risk. But we also believe the climate transition presents a historic investment opportunity.” He's not alone in championing big money's green awakening, but the titans of finance remain invested in the fossil fuel industry to the tune of hundreds of ...
Feb 15, 2021•24 min
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 th...
Feb 08, 2021•27 min
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, ...
Feb 01, 2021•23 min
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 ...
Jan 25, 2021•27 min
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 ...
Jan 18, 2021•24 min
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 G...
Jan 11, 2021•27 min
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 Ro...
Jan 04, 2021•27 min
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 Wo...
Dec 28, 2020•27 min
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 c...
Dec 21, 2020•29 min
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 mi...
Dec 14, 2020•26 min
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 Bermude...
Dec 07, 2020•26 min
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...
Nov 30, 2020•26 min
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 Gil...
Nov 23, 2020•23 min
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 Big...
Nov 16, 2020•23 min
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.
Nov 02, 2020•6 min
