Climate Change
06/03/20 - Tropical forests may be heating Earth by 2035 Climate change so far has meant more vigorous forest growth as greenhouse gases rise. The tropical forests may soon change that. Within about fifteen years, the great tropical forests of Amazonia and Africa could stop absorbing atmospheric carbon, and slowly start to release more carbon than growing trees can fix.
18/02/20 - RADIO: The Life Scientific: Myles Allen on understanding climate change (36 mins) Professor Myles Allen has spent thirty years studying global climate change, trying to working out what we can and can't predict. He was one of the first scientists to quantify the extent to which human actions are responsible for global warming. As a lead author on the 3rd Assessment by the International Panel on Climate Change in 2001, he concluded that ‘most of the observed global warming was due to human influence’. More recently, (having established that calculating a safe concentration of greenhouse gases was very difficult indeed), he worked out instead how many tonnes of carbon would be acceptable, a shift in emphasis that paved the way for the current Net Zero carbon emissions policy. Myles tells Jim Al-Khalili how our ability to predict climate change has evolved from the early days when scientists had to rely on the combined computing power of hundreds of thousands of personal computers. He sheds light on how the IPCC works and explains why, he believes, fossil fuel industries must be forced to take back the carbon dioxide that they emit. If carbon capture and storage technologies makes their products more expensive, so be it.
25/10/19 - SUVs second biggest cause of emissions rise, figures reveal If SUV drivers were a nation, they would rank seventh in the world for carbon emissions. Growing demand for SUVs was the second largest contributor to the increase in global CO2 emissions from 2010 to 2018, an analysis has found.In that period, SUVs doubled their global market share from 17% to 39% and their annual emissions rose to more than 700 megatonnes of CO2, more than the yearly total emissions of the UK and the Netherlands combined.
10/10/19 - In its insatiable pursuit of power, Silicon Valley is fuelling the climate crisis Big tech isn’t interested in a better world, just a more profitable one. To beat it, we need to break its stranglehold on us. The climate crimes of big tech are legion. This summer the Amazon burned. Why? In part because of the policies of the new anti-environmental, anti-human-rights president, Jair Bolsonaro. How did Bolsonaro rise to prominence and then the presidency? YouTube, and certain of its algorithms that push people toward more extreme content, played a large part. As the New York Times reported in August, not long ago Bolsonaro was “a marginal figure in national politics – but a star in YouTube’s far-right community in Brazil, where the platform has become more widely watched than all but one TV channel”. Members of the nation’s newly empowered far right – from grassroots organisers to federal lawmakers – say their movement would not have risen so far, so fast, without YouTube’s recommendation engine.
22/09/19 - Climate change: Impacts 'accelerating' as leaders gather for UN talks The signs and impacts of global heating are speeding up, the latest science on climate change, published ahead of key UN talks in New York, says. The data, compiled by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), says the five-year period from 2014 to 2019 is the warmest on record. Sea-level rise has accelerated significantly over the same period, as CO2 emissions have hit new highs. The WMO says carbon-cutting efforts have to be intensified immediately. Perhaps most worrying of all is the data on sea-level rise.
14/09/19 - WWF: Planting hope: Seagrass Seagrass is a wonder-plant that lives in shallow, sheltered areas along our coast. It is vital to the health of our seas and can help address environmental problems. Seagrass captures carbon up to 35 times faster than tropical rainforests and, even though it only covers 0.2% of the seafloor, it absorbs 10% of the ocean’s carbon each year, making it an incredible tool in the fight against climate change. Seagrass is also vital for marine life. In the UK, up to 92 per cent of our seagrass has disappeared in the last century. We’re working with Sky Ocean Rescue and Swansea University to bring these incredible underwater meadows back to life, by launching the biggest seagrass restoration project ever undertaken in the UK. One million seagrass seeds have been collected this summer from various sites around the country by a team of volunteers. The seeds will be cultivated, before being planted in Dale Bay in Pembrokeshire this winter, where they will grow into a 20,000 m2 seagrass meadow.
29/08/19 - Climate change: Big lifestyle changes needed to cut emissions People must use less transport, eat less red meat and buy fewer clothes if the UK is to virtually halt greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, the government's chief environment scientist has warned. Prof Sir Ian Boyd said the public had little idea of the scale of the challenge from the so-called Net Zero emissions target. However, he said technology would help. The conundrum facing the UK - and elsewhere - was how we shift ourselves away from consuming, he added. In an interview with BBC News, Sir Ian warned that persuasive political leadership was needed to carry the public through the challenge.
19/08/19 - RADIO: Beyond Belief: Religion and Climate Justice Barely a day goes by without some dire warning about the state of the environment. But we also hear that if we act now we may be able to avoid the worst consequences of man-made climate change. The vast majority of the world’s population hold to a faith tradition. So what role can religion play in bringing about the kind of change that is needed? Religion appeals not only to science but to deeply held beliefs and values. Religion can talk the language of hope as opposed to fear and can tap into vast networks and mobilise communities. So what difference can religions make, what kind of things are already happening and are they doing enough to tackle a problem that will connect all people regardless of faith and belief? Joining Ernie Rea to discuss religion and climate justice are Dr Husna Ahmad is Chief Executive Officer of Global One 2015, a Muslim Independent non-governmental organisation led by women, Gopal Patel, Director of the Bhumi Project, which works to mobilise the Hindu community on environmental issues and Martin Palmer former Secretary-General of the Alliance of Religions and Conservation.
10/07/19 - UK credibility on climate change rests on Government action over next 18 months The UK has legislated for net-zero emissions by 2050 – now the UK Government must show it is serious about its legal obligations to tackle and prepare for climate change, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) says today in two new reports on reducing emissions and preparing for climate change impacts. UK action to curb greenhouse gas emissions is lagging far behind what is needed, even to meet previous, less stringent, emissions targets. Over the past year, the Government has delivered just 1 of 25 critical policies needed to get emissions reductions back on track.
25/06/19 - It’s the climate emergency, stupid Speech by Sir James Bevan, Chief Executive of the Environment Agency Aldersgate Group, London, 25 June 2019. At Harvard Business School they teach you that success in any organisation comes down to following a simple principle, which is this: ‘The main thing is to make sure that the Main Thing really is the main thing.’ I’ll be honest: I’ve been Chief Executive of the Environment Agency for over three and a half years now, and it’s taken me a while realise what the Main Thing is. And the answer, which I now say to myself every day, is this: it’s the climate emergency, stupid. That’s because the biggest single threat to everything we all care about, and the biggest threat to everything the Environment Agency exists to do – protect people from flood and drought, enhance the environment, support sustainable growth – is climate change.
27/05/19 - EU plans first satellite fleet to monitor CO2 in every country Europe is readying a new fleet of satellites that will monitor CO2 emissions at every point on earth, creating the first worldwide system to independently track polluters. The fleet of three satellites is slated for launch in 2025, in time to inform the UN’s global stocktake of greenhouse gas emissions three years later, the European Space Agency (ESA) confirmed to Climate Home News.
15/05/19 - RADIO: Costing the Earth - Eco Anxiety (30 mins) Is the future of the planet making you depressed? Do you feel paralysed, unable to imagine the happiness of future generations? As global governments fail to respond to the existential crisis of climate change it’s understandable that some people seem unable to conjure up a sense of hope, understandable that dozens of young British women have joined the Birthstrike movement, refusing to bring more children into the world. Verity Sharp meets the eco-anxious and asks if they are ill or simply more perceptive than the rest of us.
02/05/19 - UK “climate emergency”: What does it really mean? After the vote on Wednesday, Parliament has shown that it intends to be symbolically at war with climate change with the declaration of a UK “climate emergency”. After Extinction Rebellion protests that made London stand somewhat still for 11 days, searches for climate change online peaked to the highest they have been for 10 years and images of the climate activist Greta Thunberg speaking to politicians over twice her age are everywhere you look.
01/05/19 - MPs have approved a motion to declare an environment and climate emergency This proposal, which demonstrates the will of the Commons on the issue but does not legally compel the government to act, was approved without a vote. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who tabled the motion, said it was "a huge step forward". Environment Secretary Michael Gove acknowledged there was a climate "emergency" but did not back Labour's demands to declare one. The declaration of an emergency was one of the key demands put to the government by environmental activist group Extinction Rebellion, in a series of protests over recent weeks.
01/05/19 - RADIO: Costing the Earth - The Youth are Revolting (30 mins) Greta Thunberg and the global youth strikes for the climate have directed the worlds attention to the potential future they face on a warming planet. The words and actions of these young people have been noted by global leaders and promises of change have been made but for their efforts to have a lasting impact the promises need to become policy. Tom Heap asks one of the young organisers Tom Bedford if young people are really changing the narrative on climate change.
25/04/19 - UK's 'creative carbon accounting' breaches climate deal, say critics The UK is breaching the Paris agreement on climate change by excluding international aviation and shipping figures from carbon budgets, according to a leading NGO. The Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg accused the British government this week of “very creative carbon accounting” after the government defended its work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The UK government does not include emissions from global flights or shipping when it states it has reduced emissions by more than 40% since 1990. Instead, international aviation and shipping are monitored by two UN agencies, but there are growing doubts that – in the case of aviation in particular – the bodies have the power or ability to tackle major transport carbon emitters.
22/04/19 - RADIO: The Fast and the Curious (30 mins) Tom Heap sets off on a guilt trip road trip to find out why people like him won't give up the things they know are destroying the planet. Tom loves his powerful car. Despite a pretty thorough knowledge of the science of climate change and the contribution that his petrol-powered Subaru makes to a warming world he doesn't want to give it up. He's not alone. Most of us have dirty pleasures we have no intention of foregoing, whether that's eating meat, buying fast fashion or flying to our favourite holiday destinations.
22/04/19 - RADIO: Losing the Earth (5 x 15 mins) Nathaniel Rich tells the story of how climate change could have been stopped in the 1980s and why it wasn't. In 1979, the science of climate change was known – what was happening, why it was happening, and how to stop it. In the US, over the next decade a variety of activists, scientists and politicians worked tirelessly to safeguard the environment but despite their efforts they couldn't. Losing Earth is American novelist Nathaniel Rich’s account of the decade when the world came tantalizingly close to signing binding treaties that could have made a difference.
18/04/19 - TV: Climate Change: The Facts After one of the hottest years on record, Sir David Attenborough looks at the science of climate change and potential solutions to this global threat. Interviews with some of the world’s leading climate scientists explore recent extreme weather conditions such as unprecedented storms and catastrophic wildfires. They also reveal what dangerous levels of climate change could mean for both human populations and the natural world in the future.
02/04/19: PODCAST: Forest 404 Forest 404 is set in the 24th century, after a data crash called The Cataclysm. Pan, our protagonist, is a young woman with a boring job sorting and deleting old sound files that survived the crash. She uncovers a set of sound recordings from the early 21st century that haunt her. They are recordings of rainforests – places which no longer exist – and Pan feels compelled to hunt down the truth about how the forests of the old world died. All the time she is pursued by the agents of the new world’s ruling powers.
25/03/19 - China and India are making a greener Earth Human efforts are producing a greener Earth. But the news is not all good, because some of the greening comes from fertiliser pollution.
11/03/19 - RADIO:The Age of Denial From credit cards to climate change, we bury our heads in the sand. Isabel Hardman explores our capacity to deny what's in front of us. The idea of being "in denial" is well known to psychologists. But how does it operate at a community level? The series begins in Norway, with a town where the response to the obvious impact of climate change was...silence.
11/12/18 - East Antarctica glacial stronghold melting as seas warm Nasa detects ice retreat probably linked to ocean changes in region once thought stable. A group of glaciers spanning an eighth of the East Antarctica coastline are being melted by the warming seas, scientists have discovered. This Antarctic region stores a vast amount of ice, which, if lost, would in the long-term raise global sea level by tens of metres and drown coastal settlements around the world. Freezing temperatures meant the East Antarctica region was until recently considered largely stable but the research indicates that the area is being affected by climate change.
05/12/18 - What Greenland's 'unprecedented' ice loss means for Earth The ice sheet is melting faster than in the last 350 years—and driving sea levels up around the world. That doesn’t bode well for the future, particularly because air temperatures in the Arctic are rising faster than anywhere else on the planet. “What we're seeing right now is really unprecedented. These melt increases are driven by warming, which is caused by humans pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere,” says Ellyn Enderlin, a glacier scientist at the University of Maine who was not involved in the study. “The feedbacks the Earth has, the checks it has—they can't make up for that. The system can't adjust to the rate of change right now.”
03/12/18 - David Attenborough: collapse of civilisation is on the horizon Naturalist tells leaders at UN climate summit that fate of world is in their hands. The naturalist was chosen to represent the world’s people in addressing delegates of almost 200 nations who are in Katowice to negotiate how to turn pledges made in the 2015 Paris climate deal into reality. As part of the UN’s people’s seat initiative, messages were gathered from all over the world to inform Attenborough’s address on Monday. “Right now we are facing a manmade disaster of global scale, our greatest threat in thousands of years: climate change,” he said. “If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon.” BBC report and video
30/10/18 - Fight for your World This TV advert tells the first generation to know they are destroying the world that they could be the last to reverse the damage. The World Wildlife Fund's flagship Living Planet Report shows that the population sizes of the planet’s wildlife have plummeted by 60% since 1970 – in less time than an average person’s lifetime. The campaign, called "For your world", mobilises the first generation to know they are destroying the world to highlight that they could be the last who can reverse this damage. While the UK public cares more than ever before about environmental issues such as plastic pollution and climate change, they are also lacking the empowerment to make real change happen, according to WWF’s research.
08/10/19 - Final call to save the world from 'climate catastrophe' It's the final call, say scientists, in the most extensive warning yet on the risks of rising global temperatures. Their dramatic report on keeping that rise under 1.5 degrees C says the world is now completely off track, heading instead towards 3C. Keeping to the preferred target of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels will mean "rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society". It will be hugely expensive - but the window of opportunity remains open. After three years of research and a week of haggling between scientists and government officials at a meeting in South Korea, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued a special report on the impact of global warming of 1.5C.
26/04/18 - 'We're doomed': Mayer Hillman on the climate reality no one else will dare mention “We’re doomed,” says Mayer Hillman with such a beaming smile that it takes a moment for the words to sink in. “The outcome is death, and it’s the end of most life on the planet because we’re so dependent on the burning of fossil fuels. There are no means of reversing the process which is melting the polar ice caps. And very few appear to be prepared to say so.” Hillman, an 86-year-old social scientist and senior fellow emeritus of the Policy Studies Institute, does say so. His bleak forecast of the consequence of runaway climate change, he says without fanfare, is his “last will and testament”. His last intervention in public life. “I’m not going to write anymore because there’s nothing more that can be said,” he says when I first hear him speak to a stunned audience at the University of East Anglia late last year.
08/02/18 - What we get wrong about migration and climate change The chance to prevent climate-linked migration passed decades ago. But there are things governments could do to help. Most of what you know about climate-linked migration is probably wrong. The media usually report on the connections that are most dramatic or tragic, skewing the picture. This doesn’t mean that people won’t move because of the impacts of climate change. They absolutely will. For millions of people, migration is already how they are adapting to climate change. Droughts, hurricanes, floods and sea level rise are all forcing people to move. In fact, 23 million people moved due to climate and weather-related disasters last year. But the way people will move, and where they will move from and to, is often unexpected.
15/11/17 - RADIO: Costing the Earth: Bonn Climate Talks: Where Next? (30 mins) Tom Heap is in Bonn for the United Nations annual climate change discussions. It is the first year with Donald Trump in power as president of the United States of America and Tom will be exploring what impact his climate stance will have on the conference talks and any future agreements. Tom's guests are Lou Leonard, senior vice president of climate and energy at WWF US. He leads their climate program in the US and he is in Bonn to represent the 'We Are Still In' movement, referring to President Trump's desire to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement. Rachel Kyte is Chief Executive Officer of Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL), and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All. Oliver Maurice is Director of The International National Trusts Organisation: the organisation that oversees all of the national trust organisations around the world, and Mark Pershin. Mark fronts an organisation called 'Less Meat, Less Heat' and he tells Tom about something called the 'Climatarian' diet. Tom will be taking stock of some of the topics disucssed in this series of Costing The Earth and asks how our attempts to combat climate change are proceeding and will proceed in the future. Will public responsibility and engagement with the problems that are now being faced galvanise more of the world's population into action?
08/06/17 - Beneath the waves, coral reefs are dying on a massive scale. These scientists and filmmakers are fighting to stop it. Chasing Coral is now streaming on Netflix. Directed by Jeff Orlowski who previously directed Chasing Ice, which showed time-lapse sequences of melting glaciers.
28/02/17 - What Shell knew about climate change in 1991 In 1991, Shell produced a public documentary on global warming called Climate of Concern. It warned that trends in global temperatures raised serious risks of famines, floods and climate refugees. But in the quarter century since, Shell has continued to invest heavily in fossil fuels.
21/01/17 - Westerners urged to reduce carbon footprint Top UK climate scientist says global carbon emissions could be cut by a third within a year if well-off westerners changed their lifestyle.Kevin Anderson, professor of energy and climate change at Manchester University, in the UK, says a major reduction in personal air travel is a key starting point. More than half of the carbon dioxide pollution that causes a large part of global warming comes from the 10% best-off people on the planet, he argues.
24/12/16 - Wealthy threaten China's emissions cutbacks China’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are being undermined by increased Western-style consumption habits among the urban rich.Around 20 million people every year move from rural to urban areas in China in search of better jobs and more comfortable lifestyles. New research shows that this mass movement of people – part of what is the largest internal migration in human history – is not only leading to growing income inequality between the countryside and the cities, but is also threatening China’s goal of radically cutting back on its emissions of greenhouse gases.
29/11/16 - Arctic tipping points put planet at risk A warming climate is exposing the Arctic to the possibility of radical changes that could affect the rest of the planet, scientists say. If the world fails to slow the pace of climate change very soon by cutting emissions of the greenhouse gases that are heating the planet, Arctic tipping points threaten to overwhelm the region.
12/11/16 - Trump’s climate plans look stormyThe US president-elect has called global warming a hoax and climate science bullshit. What do Donald Trump’s climate plans mean for international agreements?
05/11/16 - Arctic Ocean could be ice-free before mid-centuryTwo scientists have worked out what it would take to melt all the ice in the Arctic Ocean. If their sums are right, then by the time human beings have burned enough fossil fuels to add 1,000 billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, the Arctic Ocean will be free of ice in September – the annual minimum – and the world’s shipping will have a new, safe, fast route across the Arctic Circle. Quite when this moment will happen depends entirely on the rate that humans add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
09/10/16 - Aviation industry plans to curb emissions International aviation is among the fastest growing sources of greenhouse gases. Up until this week, airlines have resisted any kind of restriction on emissions, particularly in the US, where there is a very high volume of domestic air travel. Since the ICAO’s general assemblies take place only every three years, the deal would have had to wait until 2019 if it had not been accepted last Thursday.However, to make sure it went through, several issues were fudged and put aside for specialist working groups to come up with solutions. This is the same technique that has been used many times in the main climate talks to keep the negotiations on track and avoid a breakdown.
01/10/16 - Greenland rises as ice sheet melts faster New research shows that Greenland has been losing billions more tonnes of ice than thought – and gaining height as bedrock rises under less weight.
05/06/16 - Europe’s floods come as no surprise Scientists have warned that the extra moisture in warmer air will mean more intense rainfall, but floods still leave governments unprepared. At least 18 people have lost their lives in central Europe as severe floods engulf the continent from France to Ukraine. In Paris the River Seine reached 6.1 metres (20 feet) above normal, and tens of thousands of people have fled their homes.
04/06/16 - Paris floods: Seine level starts dropping after 30-year high The river level rose to 6.1m (20ft) above its normal height overnight. Floods also forced parts of the metro system and major landmarks to close, while the Louvre and Orsay museums were shut while staff moved art to safety. Despite the water level falling on Saturday morning, Paris remains under the second-highest alert, which warns of a "significant impact". Forecasters had warned the river could reach as high as 6.5m above it normal level.
03/06/16 - Europe’s renewables spending hits 10-year low The reputation of Europe as a renewable energy leader has taken a serious knock as its investment dropped by 21 per cent last year while global figures reached record levels. Much of Europe prides itself on its determination to act resolutely on climate change, but in at least one key respect it has failed to back its rhetoric with action. Its investment in renewable energy showed a significant drop in 2015, falling to its lowest level in almost a decade.
14/05/16 - Shock impacts hit Greenland’s ice New research indicates that melting of the Northern Hemisphere’s biggest ice sheet is being accelerated by the seismic impact of waves crashing against Greenland’s coastline.
24/04/16 - Something Understood: Changing the Climate (30 mins) Mark Tully asks if climate change offers an opportunity for us to improve our lives - not just by consuming less and respecting nature more, but by finding a deeper relationship with nature and each other. Mark discusses the prevailing economic wisdom of ever increasing growth, and ever increasing demand to feed that growth, with leading Indian economist Rajiv Kumar who believes that economics can and must change to reduce our impact on the climate. But Mark also acknowledges the benefits of human ingenuity and curiosity which have led to so many technological advances, as well as enhancements in our lives. He considers how a move towards a new way of life might be evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, while reminding us with the help of a Native American Cree proverb that "only when the last tree has been cut down, the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will man finally realise we can't eat money."
22/04/16 - Why the Paris climate change goals may already be slipping beyond reach World leaders convened at the UN this week in support of the historic deal, but epic challenges lie ahead if the promises of Paris are going to be put into action. World leaders have failed to come to grips with the epic challenge of phasing out fossil fuels and running the entire global economy almost entirely on clean energy by the middle of this century, experts said this week.
22/03/16 - The Life Scientific: Carolyn Roberts (28 mins) Barely a month goes by without news of another catastrophic flood somewhere in the world, like the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004 or the flooding of New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina a year later, and the role of climate change is often mooted. Here in the UK this winter, flood victims were once again caught in a cycle of despair and anger as they tried to make sense of why their homes were flooded and what could be done to prevent it happening again. Jim Al-Khalili talks to environmental scientist, Professor Carolyn Roberts, who is pre-occupied by problems like this. She applies water science, in particular, to work out why such events occur and the role we humans play in them.
08/01/16 - COP21: Paris deal far too weak to prevent devastating climate change, academics warn The Paris Agreement to tackle global warming has actually dealt a major setback to the fight against climate change, leading academics will warn. The deal may have been trumpeted by world leaders but is far too weak to do help prevent devastating harm to the Earth. “What people wanted to hear was that an agreement had been reached on climate change that would save the world while leaving lifestyles and aspirations unchanged. The solution it proposes is not to agree on an urgent mechanism to ensure immediate cuts in emissions, but to kick the can down the road.”
12/12/15 - James Hansen, father of climate change awareness, calls Paris talks 'a fraud' “It’s a fraud really, a fake,” he says, rubbing his head. “It’s just bullshit for them to say: ‘We’ll have a 2C warming target and then try to do a little better every five years.’ It’s just worthless words. There is no action, just promises. As long as fossil fuels appear to be the cheapest fuels out there, they will be continued to be burned.”
11/12/15 - This unscripted film expresses four childrens' thoughts and feelings about climate change, and the actions they want politicians to take. It was shot at the time of the COP21 Paris negotiations on climate change and delivered by hand to David Cameron's constituency office on 11th December 2015.
22/11/15 - ‘Our melting, shifting, liquid world’: celebrities read poems on climate change Actors including James Franco, Ruth Wilson, Gabriel Byrne, Maxine Peake, Jeremy Irons, Kelly Macdonald and Michael Sheen read a series of 21 poems on the theme of climate change, curated by UK poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy. Includes two bonus poems from Byrne and Franco.
13/11/15 - Extreme weather, human error and why the world floods Since 2007, Gideon Mendel has photographed lives turned upside down by floods. What do his latest images reveal?
24/06/15 - Dutch government ordered to cut carbon emissions in landmark ruling Dutch court orders state to reduce emissions by 25% within five years to protect its citizens from climate change in world’s first climate liability suit.
13/06/15 - Explosive intervention by Pope Francis set to transform climate change debate The most anticipated papal letter for decades will be published in five languages on Thursday. It will call for an end to the ‘tyrannical’ exploitation of nature by mankind. Could it lead to a step-change in the battle against global warming?
14/05/15 - Turning the tide: Coastal communities and conservation Tropical coastal ecosystems such as coral reefs, mangrove forests, and seagrass beds, are some of the most biodiverse in the world and have essential economic and cultural functions. Yet, threatened by overexploitation and climate change, a loss in marine biodiversity would have profound implications on ecosystem function (including the carbon cycle) and human well-being. It would impact the ability of communities to be resilient in response to a changing climate.
07/04/15 - Talking Climate Change with the centre-right: Election 2015 What if there were ways to talk about climate change with centre-right voters in ways that resonate with their communal values? Building on extensive research and two previous reports, COIN have produced an election guide and video that they hope will help people engage in meaningful conversations about climate change running up to the election and beyond.
31/03/15 - RADIO: The Life Scientific: Jane Francis (28 mins) Just twenty years ago, the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) would not allow women to camp in Antarctica. In 2013, it appointed Jane Francis as its Director. Jane tells Jim Al-Khalili how an intimate understanding of petrified wood and fossilised leaves took her from Dorset's Jurassic coast to this icy land mass. Camping on Antarctic ice is not for everyone but Jane is addicted, even if she does crave celery and occasionally wish that she could wash her hair. Fossils buried under the ice contain vital clues about ancient climates and can be used to check current computer models of climate change. The earth can withstand a great range of temperatures: Antarctica was once covered in lush forest. But the question is: can humans adapt? As the ice caps melt, sea levels will continue to rise. And, says Jane, the time to start planning for that is now.
31/03/15 - RADIO: Costing the Earth: Climate Change: Inconvenient Facts? (30 mins) With arctic sea ice shrinking and Antarctic sea ice growing, Tom Heap asks what is happening to the climate. Despite the consensus of scientists around the world, there are still some anomalies in the computer models of the future climate. Tom Heap is joined by a panel of experts to tackle some of the difficult questions that lead to uncertainties in our understanding of the changing climate.
15/03/15 - Cyclone Pam - Vanuatu death toll rises. 'Lack of urgency' on climate change, says World Bank V-P Rachel Kyte, World Bank vice president and special envoy for climate change, said there appeared to be a disconnect between policy and the increasingly-frequent weather-related disasters the world is suffering. In the past three or four years we’ve seen category fives coming with a regularity we’ve never seen before. And that has some relationship with climate change. It is indisputable that part of the Pacific Ocean is much warmer today than in previous years, so these storms are intensifying. We may have helped communities become resilient to the kinds of storms we experienced in the past, but resilience to a storm with wind speed of up to 300km per hour – that’s a whole new intensity.
10/03/15 - Keep fossil fuels in the ground to stop climate change There is nothing random about the pattern of silence that surrounds our lives. Silences occur where powerful interests are at risk of exposure. In the fourth piece in the Guardian’s major series on climate change, George Monbiot argues that once coal, oil and gas are produced, they will be used. And yet, after 23 years of UN negotiations there have been almost no steps taken to stop the production – rather than the use of – fossil fuels.
07/03/15 - Climate Change . . . It's Time to Act 20,000 people march to Westminster. We demand that our elected representatives show courageous leadership at this pivotal time. We want a bold climate deal at Paris in line with the science, which prioritises the phasing out of fossil fuels with no future delay. We want legislation for the common good which bans fracking outright; we want investment in renewables, which are available now. This means a dedicated workforce to creating the infrastructure - with one million climate jobs. We want a fair commitment from the UK on climate mitigation and finance, and action which will encourage others to demonstrate similar ambitions.
06/03/15 - If enough of us decide that climate change is a crisis worthy of Marshall Plan levels of response, then it will become one Naomi Klein
01/01/15 - VIDEO: The Wisdom to Survive (3m 10s) Climate change is taking place. Will we have the wisdom to survive? The film features thought leaders and activists in the realms of science, economics and spirituality. The focus: how we can live creatively and even joyfully in the face of this catastrophe. Because they are doing the work that needs to be done, they inspire the viewer to want to join the "team."
17/11/14 - Will geoengineering make people give up cutting their carbon footprint? Wealthier people are more susceptible to the trap of saying they won’t take action on emissions when they think engineering the planet’s climate is a possibility.
13/11/14 - Lightning strikes will increase due to climate change For every 1C of global warming lightning strikes will increase by about 12%, new research shows, but scientists don’t yet know where increases will occur. The findings provide further evidence that climate change is having far greater effects on weather patterns than initially anticipated.
12/11/14 - Sinking Jakarta Starts Building Giant Wall as Sea Rises If you worry that rising sea levels may one day flood your city, spare a thought for Michelle Darmawan. Her house in Jakarta is inundated several times a year -- and it’s 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) from the coast. Whenever there’s a particularly high tide or heavy rain, the Ciliwung River and its network of canals overflow, swamping thousands of homes in Indonesia’s capital. In January, a muddy deluge washed over Darmawan’s raised porch, contaminating her fresh-water tank and cutting off electricity for three days.
07/11/14 - '2071' at Royal Court Theatre, London. Urgent call for the greatest collective action in history. The facts are sombre in Chris Rapley’s compelling 75-minute talk on climate change, but his belief in human ingenuity knows no bounds. Chris Rapley CBE is Professor of Climate Science at University College London and previously Director of the Science Museum, London, and Director of the British Antarctic Survey.
04/11/14 - COIN's launch of George Marshall's new book, Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change. Introduced by George Monbiot before an audience of 200 at Holywell Music Room, Oxford who joined a thought-provoking climate conversation examining why, despite the overwhelming scientific evidence, we are so adept at side-lining climate change. FULL VIDEO(1hr 30 mins) OR this 4 minute trailer for the book:
02/11/14 - IPCC: rapid carbon emission cuts vital to stop severe impact of climate change Most important assessment of global warming yet warns carbon emissions must be cut sharply and soon, but UN’s IPCC says solutions are available and affordable.
21/10/14 - Research reveals current climate engagement strategies are failing to reach young people . COIN releases ‘Young Voices’, a major new report looking at young people’s attitudes to climate change. Supported by the Grantham Institute at the London School of Economics, it is the first study to ask young people themselves how to engage their peers more effectively, and to propose and test new climate change narratives specifically designed to engage 18-25 year olds.
08/10/14 - COIN's launch of Naomi Klein's new book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate at a packed Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford.
23/09/14 - 'What's Possible': The U.N. Climate Summit Opening Film Presented to world leaders at the United Nations Climate Summit in New York, this short inspirational film shows that climate change is solvable. We have the technology to harness nature sustainably for a clean, prosperous energy future, but only if we act now. Narrated by Morgan Freeman, it calls on the people of the world to insist leaders get on the path of a livable climate and future for humankind.
21/09/14 - Hundreds of thousands of people across 150 countries took part in protests dubbed the People's Climate March - flagged as the biggest ever call-to-action to demand that world leaders take immediate action on climate change at the UN Climate Summit in New York City the following Tuesday.
19/09/14 - RADIO: My Family and Other Ibex (30mins). Chemist and broadcaster Andrea Sella returns to the mountain landscape of his childhood to see how this icy world has changed over the past century. In his father's study hangs a photograph that Andrea has always been told was taken by Vittorio Sella, a distant relation regarded by many as the greatest of all mountain photographers. It depicts the Cogne valley in north-western Italy, a place where Andrea, and his father before him, spent summers as a children hiking and climbing the surrounding peaks. Described as, "unspoiled" in guidebooks, on the surface the valley looks just as it did when Andrea was a child. But look closer and things have changed. After a visit to the archive of Vittorio's photographs where he finds a time capsule of the mountains of the late 19th century, he sets out to see the mountains today.
06/03/14 - RADIO: Inside Science. The recent extreme rainfall has left many asking, is this weather linked to climate change? A new project 'weather@home' 2014, aims to use a large citizen science experiment to run two sets of weather simulations. One will represent conditions and "possible weather" in the winter 2014, and the second will represent the weather in a "world that might have been" if human behaviour had not changed the composition of the atmosphere through greenhouse gas emissions. By comparing the numbers of extreme rainfall events in the two ensembles, 'Weather@Home' will work out if the risk of a wet winter has increased, decreased or been unaffected by human influence on climate. [Results: so the risk of a very wet winter has increased by around 25%.]
04/03/14 - Living on the edge of disaster -climate's human cost. Each year, millions of people are driven from their homes by natural disasters such as floods, storms, and droughts. Most live in the world's poorest and most conflict-ridden states, and lack the resources to recover after a crisis. As climate continues to change across the globe, natural disasters will become more frequent and more severe. This short film from Refugees International examines the toll that our changing climate is having on some of the world's most vulnerable people, and the efforts being made to address this growing threat.
20/01/14 - Moving Stories – Latin America. Migration, displacement and climate in Latin America. The Latin American region is one of the most vulnerable to climate change. Many of its countries are located in the hurricane belt; others depend on the thaw of the snow and ice deposits in the Andes to supply water to their urban and agricultural sectors; and several are at high risk from major disasters such as floods.
13/01/14 - Climate Change: Challenges and Solutions. A FREE online course from the University of Exeter. Their very first MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) begins on 13th January 2014 on the Open University's FutureLearn platform, and lasts for eight weeks. The free course is open to absolutely everybody – whether you are a student considering coming to university or are simply interested in learning more about climate change. The course is delivered entirely online covering a different topic each week. VIDEO(1m 38s)
01/12/13 - VIDEO: Are Hurricanes Getting Worse? (2m 50s) Explore how climate change is affecting hurricane intensity and frequency, and what other factors will affect the future of tropical storms.
02/04/13 - Poll: It doesn’t matter what’s causing it - UK adults believe the government must act on climate change Are scientists, communicators and policymakers too preoccupied about whether people 'believe' in human-caused climate change or not? Polling by Carbon Brief shows that while people may not be sure whether humans are warming the planet, the majority still wants action now to abate climate change.
29/03/13 - Watch the extensive ice fractures in the Beaufort Sea The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi NPP satellite captured this view of extensive sea-ice fracturing off the northern coast of Alaska. The event began in late-January and spread west toward Banks Island throughout February and March 2013.
18/02/13 - RADIO: The Drowning City (5 min clip) In October last year, Hurricane Sandy ripped into New York, taking lives, sparking a huge fire, flooding subways and tunnel connections and leaving thousands without power for days. Isabel Hilton reports on the aftermath of the hurricane in New York. As sea levels are predicted to keep rising, she looks at what New York and other threatened coastal cities might do to prepare for future storms. Hurricane Sandy was a wake up call to New York and to many other coastal cities that have to face the reality of rising sea levels and increased chances of hurricanes and storm surges. Much of lower Manhattan was up to ten feet underwater and the storm sent a 14-foot surge into New York's harbour that continued for miles up the Hudson River. As the city continues to mop up, Isabel looks at the ways in which it might prepare for future storms and flooding, from building great walls and sea defences to sealing the subways and tunnels. She also considers the lessons that New York has to offer other threatened coastal cities - along the Eastern Seaboard of America and right around the world.
14/02/13 - RADIO: In Our Time - Ice Ages (43 mins) Jane Francis, Richard Corfield and Carrie Lear join Melvyn Bragg to discuss ice ages, periods when a reduction in the surface temperature of the Earth has resulted in ice sheets at the Poles. Although the term 'ice age' is commonly associated with prehistoric eras when much of northern Europe was covered in ice, we are in fact currently in an ice age which began up to 40 million years ago. Geological evidence indicates that there have been several in the Earth's history, although their precise cause is not known. Ice ages have had profound effects on the geography and biology of our planet.
21/01/13 - VIDEO: Watch 62 Years of Global Warming in 13 Seconds NASA have produced this amazing 13-second animation that depicts how temperatures around the globe have warmed since 1950. You’ll note an acceleration of the temperature trend in the late 1970s as greenhouse gas emissions from energy production increased worldwide and clean air laws reduced emissions of pollutants that had a cooling effect on the climate, and thus were masking some of the global warming signal.
30/12/12 - Climate Change you can't ignore it Anne Karpf is not a climate-change sceptic, she's a climate-change ignorer. She knows it's happening – the floods, Arctic ice melt, Hurricane Sandy – but after a flash of fear, helplessness takes over and she 'tunes out'.