Global News Podcast - Warmest January on record puzzles climate scientists

Episode Date: February 6, 2025

Last month was ‘warmest January on record’; Also Donald Trump says no US troops would be needed to take over Gaza, and selfie-taking officially now one of world's most dangerous activities.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Janet Jaleel and at 14 Hours GMT on Thursday the 6th of February, these are our main stories. Scientists say January was the hottest on record, raising fresh concerns about the pace of climate change. After a storm of global criticism, Donald Trump says no US troops will be needed

as part of his plan to take over Gaza, as he'd earlier suggested, saying Israel would hand over the territory instead. The Syrian embassy in Sweden says its citizens were among those killed in Tuesday's mass shooting at an adult education centre. Also in this podcast, scientists in Australia create the first kangaroo embryo using IVF, which could help in the efforts to save endangered marsupial species like koalas. We can preserve the genetics of animals that they are dying, that we can in the future use and transfer to reintroduce that genetic into the population. European Union scientists say the world has just experienced the hottest January on record.

It had been expected that the weather phenomenon known as La Niña would have a cooling effect. Instead, last month continued a run of record- breaking global temperatures over the past couple of years. The Copernicus climate service says the average temperature was 1.75 Celsius above pre-industrial levels. That's above the internationally agreed target. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are still increasing so scientists expect global temperatures to keep rising. Professor Bob Watson led the international UN body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for five years. He's one of the world's most eminent voices on this topic, and he explained to Anna Foster what exactly the figures show us,

and particularly why they confounded expectations. There's no question the earth is warming and what the data now shows is it's consistently warmer than maybe any scientist expected. 18 of the last 19 months have been the warmest on record, all of them exceeding one and a half degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial. So the data showing us the Earth is warmer and probably greater than most scientists would have expected. And the interesting thing about this particular set of figures is that people thought that this January would buck the trend. Last year, 2024, did exceed one and a half degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average.

And many of us put that down to, well, we were going through something called a Nelmenio, which is a warming spell. And so the thought was that by the time we came to this year, January of this year, we probably would not expect to see the January temperature this year exceeding that of last year and it has. The question now really is, why is the earth warming as much as it has? Have we as scientists underestimated just how sensitive

the climate system is? That question of why, do we know the answer? No, I don't think we do. I think what we expected the Earth to continue to warm, no question about that, but it appears that the warming even exceeds what we might have expected. Yeah, what are the dangers in that? Last year, 2024, we saw wildfires all around the world. We saw floods in different places. We saw droughts in different places. Now, the question is, what's happening? While the governments of the world have said we need to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. To be honest, government action around the world

is not going to limit warming to 1.5. We're on a pathway to 2.5 to 3 degrees Celsius. If we see all of these wildfires, floods and droughts at 1.5. What will the world look like if we're seeing two and a half, three or three and a half degrees Celsius in the next few decades? What would that look like? Well what it means is we're going to have major challenges around the world. We're going to have challenges of food security, especially places that have difficulties today such as Africa. We're going to have difficulties with water quantity and quality. There'll be challenges on human health, heat-related deaths, vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue, and our nature, our tropical forests, our coral reefs, our cloud forests,

will all be threatened by these changes in temperature accompanied by changes in precipitation. This is one of those issues, isn't it? One of those things that can make people, all of us, feel a bit powerless. You feel like the direction is already set and that there's not a great deal that we can do to reverse things. There's no question Governments working together and working with the private sector. We can start to address this We need to produce our energy cleanly That means no more fossil fuels but use renewable energy such as solar energy

wind energy, hydropower. We need to use our energy more efficiently with efficient buildings, mass transportation, efficient transportation, etc. We can do something. Professor Bob Watson, koalas, Tasmanian devils and hairy-nosed wombats, these are just some of the endangered species in Australia that could be saved by a breakthrough in in vitro fertilisation. Scientists there have produced the first kangaroo embryo through IVF. Although kangaroos are not themselves a threatened species, the researchers say this achievement could help to save other marsupials from extinction. Our reporter in Queensland, Simon Atkinson, told me more about

why this research is so important. Over 20 years here in Australia and elsewhere in the world as well, they've been trying to create an embryo from a marsupial. They can do it for other creatures, they can do it for cows and for horses, but they've been really trying to grapple with how to manage this with marsupials. So it's a real breakthrough, particularly here in Australia, where, you know, there are lots of marsupials. Australia's got, you know, some of the biggest variety of flora and fauna in the world, but it's also got the highest extinction rate among mammals. So there are issues and some of those in particular threat are marsupials. So the lead researcher in

this project Dr. Andreas Gambini from the University of Queensland explained why it is so important to help preserve marsupials in the future. We can understand a lot of the reproductive biology and this can help us to design new conservation tools. But at the same time, what we can do with this technology, combined, of course, with all the conservation strategies, is we can preserve the genetics of animals that they are dying. So we can preserve the sperm, we can preserve the eggs,

and then have embryos that we can, in the future, use and transfer to reintroduce that genetic into the population and contribute to conserving that species. And Simon, tell us which species specifically that researchers are hoping to help. So the reason they've used kangaroos is because, well they're everywhere here in Australia, you know, you see them in the fields, you see them jumping across the road when you're driving, particularly in the morning and the evening. So they've used kangaroos because they're plentiful.

It's a good animal to do the research on. But obviously because there's so many of them, that's not what they're trying to protect. There's other species. I mean koalas, for example, you know, most famous of animals perhaps here in Australia, they are endangered. There's also a creature called the hairy-nosed wombat, which is endangered and also a variety of possum as well. So these are some of the ones which they hope to be able to help and they're saying that because of this technology they can preserve the,

as the professor was saying, they can preserve the genetics of those creatures. So even if, you know, down the track if there's a danger of these becoming extinct they can reintroduce them. Simon Atkinson in Australia. A day after Donald Trump's global allies condemned his jaw-dropping proposal to take over Gaza to turn it into a luxury holiday resort, he has now backed down on his suggestion that US troops could be sent there. In a post on social media, he now says it will be Israeli forces who hand over Gaza to the US once the fighting there has ended and that no American troops will be needed to maintain stability. Earlier, the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had sought to clarify Mr Trump's position and it seems to row back on any idea of permanently excluding

Palestinians from Gaza. What he's very generously offered is the ability of the United States to go in and help with debris removal, help with munitions removal, help with reconstruction, the rebuilding of homes and businesses and things of this nature so that then people can move back in. Nowhere has the condemnation of Donald Trump's plan been stronger than in the Arab world, which has fiercely pushed back against the suggestion that they should take in the Palestinians of Gaza.

The Assistant Secretary General of the Arab League, Hossam Zaki, said such displacement would be a crime against humanity. He told the BBC that Palestinians who had endured months of Israeli bombing would never leave their homes. This is an idea that promotes ethnic cleansing, a forcible transfer of a civilian population outside of their land. It's a crime against humanity. All those proud Palestinians who were all those proud Palestinians who were seen days back after the ceasefire was reached, rushing back to the rubbles that they call their homes. How can you possibly imagine that they will accept willingly to move out of their territory? This is not going to happen.

Israel is now trying to capitalize on Mr Trump's controversial Gaza plan. The Israeli defence minister has ordered the army to look at beginning what he calls the voluntary departure of Palestinians from Gaza. Israel cats said they should be taken in by countries like Spain and Ireland, which have criticised Israel's conduct in its war against Hamas. With more, here's our correspondent in Jerusalem, Joe Inwood. The statement that he's put out says that the Israeli defence forces should try and make arrangements to allow Palestinians to leave Gaza and that seems to be the way that he's framing this, not in the way that much of the rest of the world has done it as an attempt to force Gazans to leave their homes, but as giving

them the option. He says that in the statement here that all Palestinians, all people should have the freedom of exit and immigration as is customary elsewhere in the world. Another rather interesting part of this statement, we should say this plan doesn't come with any details about how this would be achieved, whether it would involve the right to return. It is light on detail. But he also says that countries like Spain, Ireland, Norway and others, which have made, as he puts it, false accusations and plots against Israel, are legally obligated to allow every Garzón resident to enter their territory.

So that is the way that it's being framed, certainly by the defence minister. And it tallies as well with what we've heard from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has described the plan as bold and something worth considering. Joe Inwood, but the former Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Olmet said Donald Trump's Gaza plan is nonsense and will never happen. I don't take it seriously. This is not serious. It's just said that it may affect the possibility of moving towards an agreement on the complete ceasefire and end of the war. I don't think that Netanyahu wants it. I think that Netanyahu wants to restore the stability for his cabinet. Our chief international correspondent, Lise Doucette, gave us her assessment. What seems to be clear now is that it isn't really a plan.

I mean, reports in Washington are saying that even members of President Trump's own government were shocked by it. They hadn't heard of it. And there are people putting on social media closeups of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who's standing next to President Trump when he dropped this bombshell. And even he looked surprised and then delighted. And but yesterday evening, hours after he had dropped it, shocking capitals the world over, he was still saying that everyone loves it.

And yet, you know, as we've been reporting hour after hour yesterday, and into this morning, one country after another, including American allies and adversaries have condemned the plan, including those countries, Arab states, neighbors whose cooperation and cash would be needed to work are saying, no, we're not going to take part in this, the word you use, plan, which seems to contradict President Trump's own big goals of slashing government spending, pulling back from overseas engagement. But words like that are now giving way to wishes within within Israel. We've just had a statement from the Defense Minister, Israel Katz, welcoming President Trump's ideas and saying that he's instructed the Israeli defense forces to prepare a plan to allow Gazan residents to leave

voluntarily. Many are saying that there is a plan and the plan supported by many capitals, including Britain, is for a two-state solution, not a Riviera in the Middle East. Please do set. Well, since taking office just over two weeks ago, Donald Trump has also been making sweeping changes within America. He's issued more than 50 executive orders on border security, immigrant rights and recruitment freezes within the federal government. Now he's entered into the highly contentious area of transgender rights. He's banned transgender athletes from female sports competitions. Under the Trump administration we will defend the proud tradition of female

athletes and we will not allow men to beat up, injure and cheat our women and our girls. From now on women's sports will be only for women. Nearly half of US states have already passed laws banning transgender girls from sports. But how important is this issue to Americans? Our correspondent in the US Peter Beaux spoke to Nick Miles. Polls have shown that there is a significant majority of Americans who oppose allowing transgender athletes to take part in women's sports. In other words, they agree with the

action just taken by President Trump. Last month, for example, there was a poll that reported that 79% of respondents supported a ban. Generally speaking, views on this are politically polarised, Republicans agreeing with a ban, Democrats not, although the divide isn't as sharp as in some other areas of politics. And Peter, what does it mean in practice? Will there be fines for people who transgress this executive order? Well in practice this executive order means that any school, college or university that receives federal funding, that central US government funding, must comply with the ban on transgender girls and women participating in female sports. If an institution allows transgender athletes

to compete in those sports it risks losing that funding. States can pass their own laws protecting transgender athletes' rights, but these laws do not override the federal order for institutions that receive federal funds. Now, states that strongly oppose the order could provide alternative funding to schools that wish to defy the federal policy and of course private institutions that refuse federal funds are not bound by the order at all wherever they are based in the country. So there are several nuances to this. Peter, I've seen there's already been reaction to this. One of the big national college athletic associations says that we are going to align our policy with this new order

Presumably because of the very things you've been outlining that they're going to lose money, aren't they? Yes, that is the threat that these organizations face and it clearly without money They wouldn't be able to operate at all But there has been other reaction to for example from the LGBTQ advocacy group the Human Rights Campaign opposes what Donald Trump has just announced said that it could expose young people to harassment and to discrimination. Peter Boes and the future of the world's largest single donor USAID the United States Agency for International Development is now very uncertain. One of Mr Trump's executive

orders paused almost all foreign assistance for 90 days while a review is carried out. He has said that USAID is run by quote radical left lunatics and is getting away with quote tremendous fraud without providing any evidence. The sudden and unexpected halt of payments has caused shock for governments, aid groups and charities around the world. According to government data the US spent 68 billion dollars on international aid in 2023 and Elon Musk, the billionaire tech mogul who was appointed to identify spending cuts in the US government, has said the USAID program should be shut down as it's beyond repair.

Well all this has prompted intense discussion and an international law student and anti-corruption activist from Uganda has gained a lot of attention on TikTok on the subject. Here's a clip from Janice Nkaja. We have depended on USAID for over 60 years and the moment the owners of the money say let's take a 90-day pause that I audit where my money's going, suddenly the whole country goes into a frenzy. And this should be a moment of reflection for Uganda and the African continent in general.

We have been asking for a very long time to be liberated from colonialism, neocolonialism. And now that the opportunity presents itself, for some reason, we are complaining. She told the BBC more about why she'd filmed this video. African nations have struggled to have sustainable sustainability systems. And particularly in that video, I was speaking to the context of Uganda in which USAID was heavily funding the largest health care system supporting

people living with HIV and AIDS. And this becomes a very problematic thing because millions of lives in Uganda are currently laying in the balance or hanging in the balance because there's no sustainability structure in essence. So essentially what USAID was doing for African nations, yes it was helping hundreds and millions of lives, but at the same time, there was a lactancy to create infrastructure that was supporting so many lives in Africa or in Uganda, because this aid was constantly coming in. And this is where I stood to say this presents itself

as an opportunity for African nations, for Uganda particularly, to now think about how are we going to create sustainable structures in healthcare in regards to economic, in regards to innovation, given the fact that USAID has been funding so many government led projects, health projects, education projects, to the extent that over four million Ugandans, four million children in Uganda are not going to be able to receive an education because USAID has been shut down. The Ugandan activist Janice Enkecha. A product made from meat grown in a laboratory is going on sale for the first time in the UK. It's not food for humans though, but for dogs.

The chicken treats are produced by cultivating animal cells. The company which makes them says they have a significantly lower carbon footprint than traditional meat products, as our climate editor Justin Mollat explains. We often talk about our carbon footprint. We don't talk so much about those of our pets. But there are some 13.5 million dogs in the UK and they eat a lot of meat. Meatly, the company behind these new lab-grown treats, advertises its product as a healthy way of reducing the climate impact of man's best friend. The company says its breakthrough has been finding ways to grow animal cells much more cheaply and it

believes what's good for the dog should be good for its owner too. If this product does well it plans to apply for a licence to sell its lab-grown meat for human consumption too. Just in Rowland. Still to come on this podcast we go to Ukraine. This is a story of the beginning of the war when a sound engineer is trying to record unique sounds of birds and eagle in particular. To hear how the country's diverse wildlife has been affected by the fighting. You're listening to the Global News Podcast. An inferno. That's the way Swedish police have described the scene that awaited them when they responded to a gun attack at an adult education centre in the central city of Eribru on Tuesday. It's the country's

worst mass shooting. Ten people were killed and at least six seriously wounded. The gunman also died and as police tried to establish his motive, they gave this update a short time before we recorded this podcast. Our Europe Region Editor, Warren Bull, was listening. The police this morning said that they were alerted at 12.33 to a suspected gun attack and within five minutes they were on the scene. They had 130 officers involved in the operation and once they arrived at the Riesberger campus they said the perpetrator appeared to start directing his fire at the officers as they entered rather than the students and staff. Now inside the building they describe what they called an inferno. They said there were dead bodies on the ground, people screaming and smoke from what they called some kind

of pyrotechnic and they don't know what they are yet. When they reached the suspect they said he was dead, but alongside him were several weapons, about 10 empty magazines and a large amount of unused ammunition and that he appeared to have taken his own life. They then continued to the secure the scene until they were sure there was no other attacker on the campus and that he'd acted alone. And what do we know about the victims? Well in the media conference this morning they said that they still haven't established a motive but what do we know? We know that this was an adult education college that holds courses for people who didn't finish their high school education or foreign

citizens who need to get Swedish qualifications, including Swedish as a foreign language. Now, the Swedish media, rather than the police, say the gunmen had enrolled in these colleges several years earlier. So there appears to be a connection with the site. And the police chief, Anna Berkvist, who's heading the investigation, said these victims were from multiple nationalities, different genders and different ages. Now, the Syrian embassy has said that some of its citizens are among the victims, but as I said, the police say they still haven't established an ideological motive or any other motive

for the worst mass shooting in Sweden's history. Warren Ball. To Afghanistan now, and the Taliban authorities have shut down a women's radio station in their latest move to exclude women from work and public life. They said Radio Begum had violated broadcasting rules by airing content from foreign-based stations. The radio station broadcasts several lessons a day along with health, psychology and spiritual programmes for women across Afghanistan. The station has declined all media requests for interviews, fearing for the safety of its detained staff, but its founder, Hamida Aman, told the BBC about the raid.

A service incident occurred yesterday in Kabul involving radio Begum staff. Officers from the Ministry of Interior, assisted by representative of the Minister of Culture, assisted by representative of Minister of Culture, raided Begum's camp in Kabul. They were holding Begum's team, and while they were searching the premises, they seized computers, hard drives, files,

and forms from the staff, and they kept two of our male employees into custody. They scared all the ladies, it was a big shock for them and it lasted at least a few, and they stayed more than three hours in our in our compound. And as I said they took almost everything and I'm very worried for our colleagues who are still kept in jail and I'm trying everything I can do to release them. It's important to remind that Bigum and all his staff have been living with the swore of Democrats hanging over our heads since we established the radio.

Four years ago, in March 2021, when I launched this radio station, we knew that this radio station may be interrupted one day because of the new rules in the regime. That's why I set up Begum TV from France in order to be able to keep the Afghan women voices up and to avoid that the regime never get into silence the voice of the Afghan woman. Hamida Aman from Radio Begum. With the third anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine approaching later this month, a new Ukrainian film attempts to capture the destruction caused to the country from

an unusual perspective. Animals of War is a collection of seven episodes each featuring a different animal which tells the story of the war's impact on the natural world. From Kyiv its producer Olexi Makukhin has been talking to James Kumrasami. He began with a role in one of the episodes of an Oscar-winning Hollywood actor. So we start from a story which is called Eagle, the story featuring Sean Penn. This is a story of the beginning of the war when a sound engineer is trying to record unique sounds of birds and eagle in particular. birds and eagle in particular.

And while doing this, accidentally he recordings the very beginning of the war. So that's the explosion that the sound engineer inadvertently captures, and it marks the beginning of the war. It's heard back in L.A. by the producer played by Sean Penn. How did you get Sean Penn to appear in it? First of all, Sean Penn was supporting Ukraine a lot and he was doing his own documentary. And so through some friends who worked with him in Ukraine, we managed to connect to him. And he replied one Keith morning, which was late night in LA,

that, yeah, he is ready to talk about this project. And he quite fast, he agreed to participate. Now tell us about the rabbit, because the director's rabbit, I understand, actually, well suffered very directly and died as a result of the war. Yes, it is done by a young filmmaker. He had his own white rabbit, which helped him during the first months of war. So it was his best friend and emotional connection. And really he died one day just from heart attack,

because animals also have stress from everything what is going on. And this chapter is without words. So it is done in such a way, it's another cinematic language, so it's done all without words, only with visuals and music. I suppose the obvious question people ask is why focus on the animals when there is so much human suffering? I think there is quite a lot of films and documentaries about human suffering. Probably not all people in Ukraine and especially outside of Ukraine realize the scale of, we claim to say that it is, ecocide. We give

statistics at the final credits of our film that more than 10 million animals have been killed, including 8 million domestic animals, 50,000 dolphins for example, millions of birds. It's not only Ukrainian tragedy, but it is influencing the whole continent and probably the whole world. Migration of birds for example. This humanitarian catastrophe destroys everything around us. And for us, the fact that figures like Sean Penn or Imagine Dragons, we have a soundtrack

from them, have joined us in this effort underscores the urgency of addressing this eco-site in Ukraine. Olexi Markukhin on how the war in Ukraine has affected its animals. Adding cameras to mobile phones has spawned a new generation of budding photographers and selfie takers but the technology has come at a cost. Hundreds of people risk their lives every day in search of the best-ever selfie and as Wendy Urquhart reports the search for perfection often comes at the ultimate price. We've all seen those stomach-churning photos from the edge of a cliff,

from the top of a skyscraper, in extreme weather conditions or at other hazardous locations. But the number of fatalities linked to selfies is soaring. The search for the ultimate picture has claimed nearly 500 lives since 2018. The Grand Canyon in the United States is the world's deadliest selfie spot, where it seems people tumble off the edge of the cliff on a regular basis. Some fatalities are tragic accidents, but others really were the result of very bad choices. A Chinese woman was hit by a train after walking onto the railway tracks in Japan to get the perfect image of Otaru's

sloping street which featured in the movie Cities in Love. A man was mauled to death after he climbed over the fence at a zoo in India to take a selfie with a lion. And another man was hit by lightning while he was taking a picture with a metal selfie stick on top of a mountain in the UK. But it's Russia that appears to be leading the way when it comes to risk taking selfies. That's the sound of Russian daredevil Alexander Chernyakov setting himself on fire, then jumping off the top of a nine-storey building into a pile of snow. He walked away without a scratch and says he's proud of himself. I felt a sense of victory, joy and pride in myself that I was able to do it and survive.

In that moment you are standing on the line between life and death. If something goes wrong you may die. After a number of deaths in Russia, the government launched a safe selfie campaign under the slogan A cool selfie could cost you your life. The ultimate selfie can generate millions of likes on social media, which often leads to magazine and television interviews and eventually celebrity status. So, despite the rising death toll from selfie related incidents, the hunt for the best picture continues. Maybe that's why selfie taking has just been added to a

list of the world's most dangerous activities. Stick to radio. Wendy Irkout reporting there. And that's all from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or topics coverage, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast.bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at Global News Pod. This edition was produced by Alice Adley. It was mixed by Martin Baisker and the editor is Karen Martin. I'm Janet Jalil. Until next time, goodbye.

Yoga is more than just exercise. It's the spiritual practice that millions swear by. And in 2017, Miranda, a university tutor from London, joins a yoga school that promises profound transformation. It felt a really safe and welcoming space. After the yoga classes I felt amazing. But soon, that calm, welcoming atmosphere leads to something far darker a journey that leads to allegations of grooming trafficking and exploitation across international borders I Don't have my passport. I don't have my phone. I don't have my bank cards

I have nothing the passport being taken the being in a house and not feeling like they can leave World of secrets is where untold stories are unveiled and hidden realities are exposed. In this new series, we're confronting the dark side of the wellness industry where the hope of a spiritual breakthrough gives way to disturbing accusations. You just get sucked in so gradually and it's done so skillfully that you don't realize. And it's like this, the secret that's there. I wanted to believe that, you know, that whatever

they were doing, even if it seemed gross to me, was for some spiritual reason that I couldn't understand. Revealing the hidden secrets of a global yoga network. I feel that I have no other choice. The only thing I can do is to speak about this and to put my reputation and everything else on the line. I want truth and justice. And for other people to not be hurt, for things to be different in the future. To bring it into the light and almost alchemize some of that evil stuff that went on. And take back the power. World of Secrets, season Six, The Bad Guru.

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