Global News Podcast - COP 28 special: Your climate questions answered

Episode Date: November 26, 2023

Our climate editor Justin Rowlatt and The Climate Question presenter Graihagh Jackson address issues including whether the oil-producing UAE is the right host for the meeting, what one thing we can all do to save the planet, and is a plant-based diet on the agenda?

Hello, this is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service, with reports and analysis from across the world. The latest news seven days a week. BBC World Service podcasts are supported by advertising. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Thank you. Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. This is a Global News Podcast special climate edition from the BBC World Service. I'm Nick Miles in London and in this edition recorded at 14 hours GMT on Friday the 24th of November ahead of the COP28 climate meeting in Dubai.

We're joined by Greya Jackson, who's not just a scientist, but also the presenter of The Climate Question. Hi there. Hello. And by the BBC's climate editor, Justin Rowlatt. Hiya. Thanks to you both.

We will be putting your questions to them about everything from new technology to tree planting and what can be done by us, the sort of people who don't get invited to big international conferences like the one in Dubai. There is a lot to get through. So without further ado, let's get started. The fire is on Front Street and it is time to go. The boats in the harbour, most of them were burned and had sunk. The historic section, Lahaina Town, which used to be the capital of Hawaii,

was burned to the ground. The historic buildings, the church. There are plenty of houses, plenty of houses, but they are all corn. These are some of the rocks that destroyed people's houses here in three ways in Blantair when Sykes and Freddie made landfall in Malawi. Some of these rocks are four times my size and when I was going up Sochi Hill... This is what it looks like here in Derna at the moment. The buildings, the cars were swept out to sea and all that's left is rubble and dirt and destruction. Some of this year's news coverage of fires in Hawaii,

the devastation in Southeast Africa caused by Cyclone Freddy and the destruction in Libya from Storm Daniel. And data suggests this is very likely to be the hottest year on record. It is against this background that world leaders are gathering in the United Arab Emirates for COP28. That's the UN Climate Change Conference, the 28th such meeting to promote coordinated action to tackle climate change. First up, Justin, our climate editor. In a nutshell, what are the delegates and organisers hoping will come out of COP this year?

Well, 70,000 people going, 167 world leaders, the Pope, the King. There's a huge kind of amount that they cover. And they're saying this is going to be a really crucial COP. I mean, to be fair, they always say this, don't they, Graham? They always say it's crucial. But there is a very important moment. This is the moment we do the global stock take, the first global stock take since Paris. And Paris back in 2015 was really significant because, and listeners may find this bizarre, that was the

first time that all the countries in the world agreed that they'd get together and would tackle it. Before that, it was only developed countries that were going to tackle climate change. So that was a watershed moment for climate. This is the first time we assess how effective the action that countries, all the countries of the world, have been in doing the things that they said they were going to do to try and tackle climate change, because the agreement is that they decide. They do nationally determined contributions.

That's them deciding what they're going to do on climate change. So we're going to be looking at the synthesis, bringing that together, saying how well we're doing. And we're not doing very well. We know that because they published that earlier on. We know that we're way behind where we should be. And the other thing on the agenda is to change the way those nationally determined contributions,

those commitments that people make about how to cut emissions and take action on climate generally, how those are defined to try and ratchet up ambition. Because the idea at Paris was that you gradually raise ambition over time. And so this is the moment where we begin to see, and almost certainly some of those will be pushed into next year. The deadline for all of this is 2025. And Brazil is hosting COP30 in 2025.

And that's when they're going to have to come up with these new commitments to tackling climate change. So plenty to discuss, plenty to get. That's just the beginning, Nick. I was going to say there's quite a lot more I think people are looking for at COP. And plenty of questions as well. Let's hear from some listeners. It's fair to say there is some scepticism about these in-person meetings like COP28. I am Sachin Arana from India. The climate conference being held in Dubai is unlikely to solve any problems. The jet flights which carry these politicians travel long distances. They consume millions of gallons of oil

and they release tons of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide into the air. Instead of traveling such long distances, these world leaders should stay home and they can discuss climate problem using various online media platforms. Hello there, this is John Langridge from Spain. I think the fact that there is going to be yet another in-person climate summit is frankly an offensive outrage. How many private jets or first class travel will there be? How many guided tours? How many luxury hotels will be occupied? How much greenwashing of the host nation will there be? The whole thing should be done over Zoom. So Justin, let's look at this one. The value

of this in-person meeting. Better example not to fly, I suppose, but can you get as much done? Well, let's look at it another way, because there's a lot of criticism of these COP conferences, and people say, well, nothing ever comes out of it. And I think we should take a really broad perspective on this, right? You're an alien looking down on the earth and thinking about the nature of the problem that people are trying to tackle. So everyone, all of us are responsible in our tiny way for the problem, because one way or another, everything we do involves burning fossil fuels. So we need to get the world together to talk about how to do this. And just so happens that our world is divided up into nation states, which, I mean, they don't determine what happens

within their boundaries, but they kind of, they sit above their countries. And so the first thing your alien is going to say is like, guys, you need to talk about this, right? You need to get together. And this is actually the biggest meeting of world leaders on the planet every year, far bigger than, for example, the UN General Assembly. This is when world leaders get together. It's a unique thing. And it's an extraordinary thing, right? You know, Russia is going, there will be representatives from Ukraine. There's a Palestinian representative, the representatives from Israel, warring countries will be sitting together talking about how to solve this problem. That is frankly a miracle, right? And we should acknowledge that and recognise this is a really important meeting. Point two, so it's really important, number one. Point two, do you get more done in person?

The example of this is COVID, right? The UN decided not to have a meeting during COVID. We all, Zoom had happened by then and we knew that there were alternatives to it. So I remember saying to the UN, look, why on earth that you just have it on Zoom? Why are you delaying? Because there's a year lost of climate action that's lost. And they said, listen, you know, we do conferences all the time. That's basically what the UN does is get people together to talk about stuff. They say we just know that you get more effective action if you've got people sitting face to face with each other. And frankly, the scale of the problem we're facing and the minute emissions caused by this, relatively speaking, because remember, we're talking

about solving this massive global problem. This is a drop in the ocean. And this is one of the few opportunities the world has to really do something to turn the dial on this. And there's the serendipity, isn't it? Sort of bumping into people on the sidelines, Greer. Yeah, absolutely. You know, you think about it in the office as talking to someone at the water cooler. You know, there's these informal interactions that are really important in building relationships.

And ultimately, if you have good relationships with people, you're more inclined to get a better climate deal out of it at the end of it. We heard from our second listener asking about greenwashing of the host nation, Dubai, or alleged greenwashing. A point also picked up by Catherine, a listener from Boston in the USA. She says, how can world leaders effectively work

to reduce global emissions at COP28 with Sultan Ahmed al-Jabba, the head of one of the world's biggest oil companies, leading the negotiations? How will leaders and delegates ensure that al-Jabba, the head of one of the world's biggest oil companies, leading the negotiations. How will leaders and delegates ensure that Al-Jabba and the UAE do not act in the interests of oil? Justin. Well, I should declare an interest here because I'm working on a story that speaks to this and is evidence of, in a sense, bad faith on this issue by the UAE and by Dr. Sultan. But let me put their defence. I mean, people will see my story as it comes out. Let me put their defence. And they say, listen, yeah, we're an oil producer.

But unless you draw us into the discussion, unless we're part of the discussion, yeah, we're part of the problem. But so are you. You use our oil. And we all need to talk about how to solve this. And I do think there is force and validity in that argument. Yeah, the other argument I've heard from Dr. Al-Jabba is that because he is from oil, from big oil, he runs Adnok, the national oil company, that precisely because of that, he has that background, he knows the industry, he can make oil producers sit up and listen in a way that they haven't done in past corps. I remember Poland was criticized in the past, wasn't it? A big coal producer. Well, hold on, hold on.

The UK, you know, we're doing the last gasp of oil and gas from our oil field. No, absolutely. Egypt, which hosted it. So we were two COPs ago. Egypt, the last COP, has huge natural gas resources. Very few people can afford to cast stones at others, can they? I think the proof is in the pudding. You know, sometimes COPs look not all that promising when you're going into them. And there's something about the alchemy

of bringing all these different people together from all walks of life that can create something that nobody expects. So I think you have to just wait and see. You can't prejudge these things. So on this one, you're doing the positive bit and I'm going to do something a little bit negative on the UAE, which is that, you know, I was at the pre-COP meeting in Abu Dhabi, where he did his kind of introduction and his ambitions in front of, I think, 96 environment ministers from around the world. And he said, look, the target we need to achieve is a 43% cut in greenhouse emissions by 2030, which is what the UN's climate body, the IPCC, says needs to happen. At the same time, though, the UAE has published,

or Adnot, the UAE's state oil company, which Mr Al-Jabbar is in charge of. He's the CEO. They published their plans for increasing capacity, and they want to increase capacity by 2030 by 600,000 barrels of oil. They produce about 2 million at the moment. So they're increasing by about a third at a time when he's publicly saying the target for this conference should be a

reduction of 43 percent. And I mean, at the very least, I'll say I think there is a little whiff of hypocrisy about that. Controversies all around here. Let's move on to a couple of other questions from two school students in Indonesia. Hello, my name is Emily. As someone who lives in Indonesia, the temperature in this country received a dramatic increase. The sun's ultraviolet UV rays cause damage to people's skins, eyes, and even their immune system. How has the temperature increased so much

and what is the best way to stop this? Hi, my name is Shaina. My question is, in the face of unpredicted climate challenges, are global leaders' collaborations adequate or are stronger measures required and commitments needed for effective change? Greya, Emily's question first. It really gets to the heart of it, doesn't it? How has the temperature increased so much and what's the best way to deal with it?

Primarily, it's been by burning fossil fuels to create energy. So that's coal, oil and gas. And when we burn those three fuels, we essentially create carbon dioxide, a key planet warming gas. And that acts like a big blanket around the earth. It traps the heat in and that's what's causing our planet to warm. There are other reasons why we get planet warming gases into the sky, cutting down forests which act as a drawdown of carbon dioxide, producing food but energy really is the key one. It's something like two-thirds, three-quarters of our emissions. So the solution is to switch to low carbon and renewable energy sources. So that's harnessing the wind, solar power, the waves, the tides, you know,

anything that the earth is producing, we harness it. And Justin, let's look at Shyma's question now. She asked about stronger measures and commitments. I don't know, based on previous COPs, can we take their commitments seriously? We talked about the synthesis report, which looks at people's actions and shows how far behind we are. So I think there is a real question about whether countries are really doubling down and taking the action they need to. But I'm really reluctant, as you'll have gathered, to say that these conferences don't deliver outcomes. And there are things, for example, that we're going to see at this COP, which are positive. So there was a commitment. One of the key things is going to be finance, right? So how do you create the finance needed mostly for the developing world to afford the technologies which now exist,

which is, frankly, a miracle and is an amazingly good news. We've got renewable technologies, wind and solar, that are now cheaper than fossil fuels. And therefore, there's really powerful economic arguments. But there's a lot of cash up front needed. Developing countries often pay very high interest rates, much higher than in developed countries. For historical reasons, they perhaps haven't paid their debts as much. But it means it's way more expensive for them to invest in renewables. And there are some really interesting efforts to look at ways

that you can reduce the cost of renewables, which involve the multinational development banks. So the World Bank and the IMF are the key examples of that. And there's an effort to change the way they've done lead. And we've done it on the climate question with the wonderful Mia Motley, who's the president of Barbados, a country with 200,000 people, which is less than one single London borough. They're like the little kind of boroughs that London's divided. Smaller population who led this argument, which frankly, she's won the argument. They want to do this and change it. That will be a huge debate

at COP. There was a commitment made way back in, I think, 2017 that we'd come up with $100 billion a year to give to developing countries for climate adaptation, climate mitigation, cutting their emissions. That will almost certainly be delivered. It has been delivered. Well, they say, but it hasn't actually been certified. So there are really positive things coming out of it.

There was a loss and damage fund. That was a big debate at Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt last year. Well, it was agreed and they've now agreed. I mean, there's a big question about whether anyone's going to put significant money into that. But look, there are other things that are going to happen that probably will begin to have an effect. Yeah. And I'm kind of interested to see what side deals are going to come out of this. You love your side deals. I love side deals.

They're really interesting and they don't get as much coverage. But COP is a place where people come together and make these side deals. So, for instance, the pact when deforestation by 2030 or the Just Energy transition partnerships where richer countries are paying developing countries like South Africa to transition away from coal. So these are really exciting things that are going on. Graeme, you just mentioned the issue of deforestation. This listener is concerned about one of the other big topics discussed at COP summits all the time,

how to protect and renew the world's forests to try to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This is Ralph Bruni in Alameda, California. Efforts to plant millions, even billions of trees to combat climate change are a form of greenwashing. Though such efforts will make participants feel good and can burnish the image of politicians, why are we not honest with ourselves? Trees usually take 20 to 30 years to reach full maturity. A sapling is not expected to absorb the same amount of carbon dioxide as would a full-grown tree.

You also cannot plant and forget. Some organisation must tend to these trees to create a monocultural forest, which also has less biodiversity. So, Greer, does Ralph have a point? There are some issues with, I think what he's describing is offsetting, right? And this is the idea that you buy a load of credits, if you like, you pay for some trees to be planted somewhere, and that somehow offsets your lifestyle or your company or your business, right? And there are issues surrounding offsets. There have been lots of investigations into them. And some of them suggest that exactly the things that the listener Ralph is pointing out,

that sometimes these trees are planted, they're never looked at again and they die. So they don't get their full carbon potential, so to speak. But also they might catch fire and you release all that carbon back into the atmosphere. And some offset schemes actually logging is accounted for. So these trees might eventually be logged in the atmosphere. And some offset schemes actually logging is accounted for. So these trees might eventually be logged in the end. But I think the key thing here is there's not enough land to plant the trees for the amount of carbon we emit. So it doesn't get around the fact that we need to reduce our emissions, right? That said, trees are great. They're great for the climate, they draw down carbon, they're great for people, they're great for wildlife, they're great for

biodiversity. So I'm not saying don't plant trees, but they're just not panacea that everyone thinks they are. I'd make exactly the same point. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. And like it may not, you know, some of them may not work, but some of them may help. There's a big question about trees die, and at that point they rot and they release their carbon dioxide.

So there has to be a kind of end-of-life plan to store the carbon embodied in them. And the other thing that I think the critics of carbon offsetting miss is this is a really good way to draw finance into the whole process. So you can get money to do stuff that might be hard to do, particularly in developing countries, might not always be perfect. And we journalists do tend to focus on the sometimes rare imperfections in these things. I'm not saying that's the case in all offsetting. I think quite a lot of it has questions about it. But look, it's a way of drawing money into things that otherwise, I mean, if it's working, wouldn't happen, mostly in developing countries.

And that is a good thing. Provides jobs, food, income for local people. Well, and resources to make the transition and invest in renewable energy and all those other things as well. So, yeah, these are potentially very positive. Nick's waggling. No, no, no. Listen, we've got another great question on this theme as well. This one from a listener to the climate question, in fact.

Hi there, I'm Chris Cummins and I'm a climate journalist at the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation's FMThea in Vienna. I've just been on a trip to the Sahado in Brazil. That's a savannah forest area, so the trees are shorter and further apart than in some forests, but they have an incredibly rich root system full of carbon, of course. The Sahado is being destroyed at an alarming rate. I've heard there's a move to broaden the definition of a forest at COP28, or at least make protection better for, quote, non-forested areas that are carbon sinks. The UN guidelines on forest protection are currently quite narrow, say conservationists.

So it made me wonder, in your opinion, when is a forest a forest? Turned into a philosophy port, hasn't it? Greya, what do you reckon? Look, I mean, under current definitions, what our listener is describing there is not a forest, right? But there are plenty of other non-forest ecosystems, as he points out, that are really important for climate change. He mentioned savannas, but there's also grasslands and peat bogs and mangroves. These are all really important resources that don't necessarily involve trees, but it's still really important when you're looking at the sort at the carbon cycle.

And actually, I've read that grasslands can hold something like two times more carbon than tropical forests, so they're not to be ignored. What happens when they die? I mean, some of it is taken up by the soil. And the soil, I was going to say, but that's especially the case with peat bogs.

What about seagrass? Seagrass as well? Even with peat bogs, right? I mean, so like some of the peat in the peat bogs here in Britain, you know, comes from the Ice Age. You know, it's been there for so long. A thousand years.

But there is a, yeah, 12,000 years. But there is a question about, you know, at some stage that will rot away. So it's a, you know, we have to be careful with these carbon stores that they will one day release. But I think you're right. Essentially kind of what little strands of nature we have left in the world compared to what we were bequested a hundred years ago, we need

to look after everything we've got. Yeah, and exactly. And I think this is the fear by a lot of campaigners who have actually written a letter to COP28 saying that we need more focus on these non-forest systems because otherwise we jeopardise how we fight climate change. All these natural systems are important.

They take global cooperation or certainly at a local level anyway. What about other things that we as individuals have control over? What about what we eat, for example? Let's listen to a question on that. Hi, my name is Bridget Ringdahl. I am from KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. And my question to all those meeting at the Climate Summit is, when are food choices and the promotion of a plant-based diet going to be on the agenda?

It's the easiest thing to change, as nobody has to wait for technology or politicians to make decisions. We can all start eating less animal products now, today. Apart from being a major contributor to the climate collapse, animal agriculture is responsible for huge biodiversity loss, the creation of dead zones in the ocean and a major use and polluter of fresh water. In my mind, it's a win-win for everybody and everything. So, Grey, is this something that delegates at COP will be talking about, do you think? I just want to come back to something she said in that I feel like you could argue this point for most solutions that we have. We know how to solve the climate crisis. We know we need renewables. We know we need less fossil fuels. We have all the

technology and knowledge here. And the question is, how do we put that into place? And so there are stumbling blocks here along the way. But with something like behavioural change, I do think that's quite hard to tackle. Because remember, the people that are making these policies are politicians, and those politicians have to be voted in. So they want to create popular policies. Telling a population they're not allowed to eat certain foods is not likely to be a vote winner. So I think it's quite difficult politically to do. And the other thing I just want to cover is that this, we need to eat less meat, applies very much to the Western world. There are huge swathes of the world where actually meat is a really important part of people's diets,

malnourished basically is what I'm saying. And so this sort of advice doesn't really apply to a large population of the world. That's not the answer, Justin. But in many developed countries, there is already a process that's happening without the intervention of politicians where people are beginning to eat less meat. And I think any order, if people, you know, if somebody told me I couldn't eat meat, I probably would go out and eat meat that very day. Just out of sheer cussedness. I think we can't order people to do it. And we give people examples of foods that are delicious but are hopefully cheaper and equally healthier and more nutritious that they can eat instead. And then they can occasionally have meat on a celebration, for example.

And that's a model that would work. We shouldn't think you have to be plant-based. We can be omnivorous, but just eat a bit less meat. Yeah, and I think the other thing I've heard that really sticks out to me is that there is a tipping point in the population in terms of behaviour. So apparently if 25% of the population start enacting this behaviour, so in this case eating a plant-based diet, it becomes normalised. And so much of the rest of the population do it.

And I think that's what you're describing. We're starting to see that in areas of the world. We're beginning to see the transition. And also, look, obviously it's better if we do this quickly because we want to cut emissions. But big changes can happen with small individual changes. So it can make a big difference over time, I guess is what I'm saying. OK, so lifestyle choices will come slowly, perhaps,

and then rather more quickly as it becomes socially far more normalised. Gradually and then suddenly. Yeah, exactly. Listen, Justin, you mentioned a little bit earlier about clean energy sources as one of the key themes of COP28. This listener is wondering about an alternative to fossil fuels. My name is Heather and I'm from the state of Vermont in the US. With nuclear fusion now having been achieved and the prospect of using it as a widespread source of infinite energy

being projected in the next 25 to 30 or so years, what updates and infrastructure will need to take place in advance to prepare us for a quick and smooth conversion to energy derived from nuclear fusion. Wow, there are so many ifs and buts in this one, Justin. It's been knocking around for decades, hasn't it? It's kind of always 30 years away. And yeah, they've proved for the first time they've had an experiment which had an energy surplus

on the energy put in, not any of the embodied energy in constructing the device, which was huge in the first place. Look, it seems to me that we probably will be able to master nuclear fusion one day, i.e. we'll be able to have long running reactions, the reactions that take place within the reactor that generate a surplus of energy. But it's hard to see, given how difficult it is. We've been trying to do this for like 70 years. It's really, really tricky. It's hard to see how it's ever, and this is a crucial word, going to be economic, right? And at the moment, as we've already discussed, we've got box-ready

solutions, solar and wind, for example, that we could start putting in place now that are already cheaper than fossil fuels. So there's a really powerful economic argument for using them. It would be great if we mastered fusion, but I think let's buckle down with the things we've got and start making them work.

I'm not saying don't invest in fusion. I believe in technology and I want the investments to be made, but let's not think that it's going to happen, I'm really sorry, in 25 years. It's probably not going to happen in 50 years. I think most experts agree that it's not going to happen in time for what we need for net zero in terms of 2050. Do the simple things now which are getting better and more economically viable and don't think about a pipe dream for the

future. And I think the other thing right is that we're going to need lots of new technologies to be able to make this a reality. This is a totally different kind of reaction than we see in conventional nuclear power plants. So we're going to need new plants, the grid's going to have to be redesigned because it's going to have huge surges of power and then very little. So there is some, not only sort of some scientific things that we need to get going, there are some technological and engineering things that we also need to solve before we can even think about it powering our grids. Listen, we are nearly out of time, but just one last question for both of you. Hello, my name is Nicola from London in the UK. My question is, if everyone could do one thing to help

that would have the most impact, what would it be? Justin, you first. I think we look at this another way, right? It's like, what do you want to do? What do you want to do? I wouldn't advocate that everybody has a plant-based diet, for example. Eat less meat. But think what you're good at and what you want to do? I mean, I'm not saying, I wouldn't advocate that everybody has a plant-based diet, for example. Eat less meat. But think what you're good at and what do you want to do and then apply yourself to it.

Because if you want to affect change, choose what you want to change and then just get to work on it. And it could be something local. You know, you could be working on a project to restore your park. That is doing your bit. You could be wanting to campaign or something. That could be doing it a bit. You could want to advise your MP. All sorts of things.

Look around and look at the levers that you can pull, what you're good at, what you're interested in, and then just go and do it. Yeah, because that's the most sustainable thing, ultimately. You know, thinking about your agency, what change can you affect? But if you're a bit stuck, you can go online. There are lots of sort of personal carbon footprint trackers

that you can look at your carbon footprint roughly and see which areas that you can improve. And that might be a useful starting point for someone who, you know, has no idea what they want to do. Yeah. Sorry, one last thought. Don't seek perfection. We're none of us going to be perfect. Begin to do something is better than doing nothing. So don't do nothing because, you know, you want to fly on holiday. You can fly on holiday and do something and then maybe in the future you'll think, maybe I don't want to fly on holiday. But just start doing something now, I think, is a really good injunction.

I think we all worry that we're going to be criticised for not being perfect and don't want to kind of put our heads above the parapet and start acting. Start acting. Strong, strong, strong finish. All I was going to say was, and don't underestimate how important those steps are, because other people see them and they start to do the same.

We talked about the ripple effect. It's really exciting. It's potential. And it's not about depriving yourself, as you would say. It's doing something that can be constructive and positive yourself. Yeah, exactly. And that's all from this special edition of the Global News Podcast. Looking ahead to COP28.

Our thanks to Justin Roller, the BBC's climate editor, and to Greer Jackson, presenter of the BBC World Service programme, The Climate Question. And also to you for all the questions that you've sent in to us. There will be a regular edition of the Global News Podcast later. And as always, if you want to comment, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast. bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X, formerly known as Twitter, at Global News Pod.

This edition was mixed by Mike Campbell. The producers were Phoebe Hobson and Stephen Jensen. A special thanks to Jackie Leonard, who can't be here. The editor was Karen Martin. I'm Nick Miles. Until next time, goodbye. Get current affairs podcasts like Global News, AmeriCast and The Global Story, plus other great BBC podcasts from history to comedy to true crime, all ad-free. Simply subscribe to BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts.