Alasdair talks to Rachel Rose Jackson, director of climate research and policy at Corporate Accountability to discuss their new research which found considerable flaws in the 50 most used offset projects.
Europe was going to halve pesticide use – what happened?
Alasdair talks to Dr Martin Dermine, Executive Director of Pesticide Action Network Europe, about why EU regulation of agrochemicals is moving so slowly.
Alasdair talks to Sir Dieter Helm, Professor of Economic Policy at The University of Oxford, about his new book 'Legacy: How to Build the Sustainable Economy'.
Bertie speaks to environmental journalist Stephen Robert Miller about his new book, 'Over the Seawall: Tsunamis, Cyclones, Drought, and the Delusion of Controlling Nature'.
Alasdair talks to Professor Jonas Fossli Gjersø about the history of Equinor - previously Statoil - and the way it has shaped Norway's economy, history, and environmental policy.
Are genetically engineered seeds harming human health?
Alasdair talks to Professor Bart Elmore, author of 'Seed Money', about the history of American company Monsanto and its impact on people, plants and animals.
Has the Africa Climate Summit been “hijacked by foreign interests”?
Bertie talks to Kenyan campaigner Omar Elmawi about the controversy surrounding McKinsey and other organisations involved with next week's inaugural Africa Climate Summit.
How is EU lobbying blocking climate farming reform?
Bertie speaks to Lighthouse Reports' Lead Food Systems journalist Thin Lei Win about their new investigation into Copa-Cogeca, Europe's largest agricultural lobby group.
Edward speaks to Dr Gergis about her experience as the lead author of Working Group 1 of the IPCC's latest assessment report (AR.6), as well as her own experiences of facing up to the scale of the challenges posed by a rapidly warming natural world.
What are the politics behind nuclear energy in France?
Alasdair speaks to Thomas Pellerin Carlin, Director of the EU Programme at the Institute for Climate Economics, about the French politics of nuclear energy and sufficiency.
Is the UK losing its leadership status on net zero?
Alasdair speaks to Dr. Doug Parr, Greenpeace UK's Chief Scientist, about the UK's place on the global stage, how its net zero policies are progressing, and how the country is taking dangerous risks with nuclear and aviation.
Bertie speaks to Wijnand Stoefs, Carbon Market Watch's policy lead on Carbon Removal, about how EU policy is developing around greenhouse gas removals.
Bertie speaks to fashion journalist and sustainability consultant Lucianne Tonti about her new book Sundressed: Natural Fabrics and the Future of Clothing.
Why has EU law not stopped pesticides from harming ecosystems?
Alasdair speaks to Professor Mike Norton, Environment Programme Director at the European Academies Science Advisory Council, about newly published research on neonicotinoid pesticides.
Alasdair talks to Roger Smith, Japan Director for Mighty Earth, about Japanese biomass imports and the risks of the country's coal power stations switching to wood-burning.
Climate diplomacy expert Dhanasree Jayaram tells Bertie about the environmental risks that could threaten Antarctica before then, including illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, militarisation, bioprospecting, increased tourism, and resource extraction.
Bertie spoke to Professor Andrea Baronchelli and Dr. Max Falkenberg from The IRIS Academic Research Group about rising climate scepticism and denial online.
Alasdair speaks to Kelly Stone, Senior Policy Analyst at ActionAid, about her time at COP27 and where international diplomacy is taking offset markets and their governance.
Harvard scholar Rosetta Elkin explains how large-scale tree planting in otherwise treeless environments rarely makes ecological sense. Historically, these projects have been used as instruments of colonial forestry, as a way of staking claim to land.
Are carbon removal targets unrealistic about land requirements?
Alasdair spoke to Dr. Kate Dooley, an author of the Land Gap Report which found that national policies for carbon removals "could push ecosystems, land rights and food security to the brink."
Are biofuels worse for the climate than petrol and jet fuel?
John DeCicco, Professor Emeritus at University of Michigan, has been studying transport emissions & biofuels for decades. Alasdair asked him about the alarming findings of his research: liquid biofuels could be worse for the climate than fossil fuels.
Alasdair spoke Finlay Asher, founder of Safe Landing, about the reasons technological and market-based solutions to aviation emissions are not going to get us to net-zero, and what the sector should be doing instead.
What does Australia’s new Labor government mean for climate politics?
On 23 May 2022, the Australian Labor Party entered government for the first time since 2013, under the leadership of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Alasdair spoke to Dr. Marija Taflaga, Director of the Australian National University's Center for the Study of Australian Politics, to talk about shifting climate politics in the county, and what the new government could mean for the green transition.
Can palm oil be ethical and sustainable in Indonesia?
Lauren talks to Tania Li, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Toronto, about the sustainability of the oil that's in 50% of supermarket food products - and the issues with labour and land rights in Indonesia's palm oil industry.
Has environmental policy contributed to the crisis in Sri Lanka?
Bertie speaks to Melani Gunathilaka, a Sri Lankan climate activist who has become a leading voice in the Gotagogama protests. They discussed the role of climate policy in the cascading crises and corruption allegations that have recently plagued the country.
Is a utopian future still possible with climate breakdown?
Bertie talks to Drew Pendergrass, coauthor of Half Earth Socialism, recently published by Verso books. They discuss geoengineering, population scaremongering, climate colonialism, and the big question for many on the left: will we be able to mitigate the climate crisis under capitalism?
How has climate change affected Lebanon? With Assaad Razzouk
Lauren talks to Assaad Razzouk, host of the Angry Clean Energy Guy podcast and British Lebanese clean energy entrepreneur. They talk about the recent elections in Lebanon, systemic problems with climate finance, and the ways a clean energy transition could help struggling economies.
Daniel Klier is CEO of ESG Book, and was previously HSBC's first Head of Sustainability, and Chair of the Bank of England Climate Risk Working Group. Alasdair spoke to him about how banks are confronting climate mitigation, and what needs to be done for banks and the finance industry to meet net zero targets.
Human rights, climate change, and the Philippines – with Yeb Saño
Bertie talked to the Executive Director of Greenpeace Southeast Asia, Yeb Saño, about the conclusion of a 7 year inquiry into human rights and climate change in the Philippines.
How are assumptions around science and migration undermining climate policy? With Sonia Shah
Award winning author and journalist Sonia Shah talks to Alasdair about her book, The Next Great Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move. She talks about what we can learn about human migration from wildlife, why climate migration should be seen as an adaptation strategy rather than a coming crisis, and the dangers of elitism in scholarly science.
Did you know that methane is more than 25 times more potent than CO2 in terms of trapping heat in the atmosphere? In this episode we look at reducing methane emissions without mandating veganism. Our guests Anatoli Smirnov and Sabina Assan are researchers at Ember, international data analysts for clean energy solutions in the power sector.
What are the issues threatening oceans in the Pacific? With Dame Meg Taylor DBE
The day before 80 countries meet in Palau to discuss ocean governance, Bertie talked to Dame Meg Taylor DBE about the changes the Pacific Elders' Voice are campaigning for, including pollution of plastics and nuclear waste, illegal and unsustainable fishing, and loss and damage.
CCS: what are the right (and wrong) ways to do carbon capture and storage?
Bertie talks about the issues and benefits of different CCS technologies with Dr. Howard Herzog, a world expert on carbon capture, having studied it at MIT's Energy Initiative for over 30 years.
Roxane Andersen explains why peatlands are the “superheroes” of carbon storage
Bertie talked to renowned peat expert Professor Roxane Andersen about the Flow Country in Scotland, her research on restoration, monitoring, and peatland fires, and more generally about why peatlands are so important for climate mitigation.
Is climate modelling undermined by economics and ideology?
Alasdair MacEwen talks to Associate Professor Wim Carton of Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies about offset markets, carbon removal technologies, and IPCC modelling.
How Europe funds illegal Russian logging, and why timber sanctions matter – with Earthsight’s Sam Lawson
With the invasion of Ukraine ongoing, Bertie talks to Sam Lawson, Director of investigative NGO Earthsight, following a public letter from 120 NGOs calling for a boycott on Russian and Belarusian wood.
Sami Yassa, senior scientist at the US based NGO the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and their scientific lead on forests and forest biomass, sets out NRDC research on the use of Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) which looks at whether it can really produce negative emissions.
Does bioenergy increase CO2 emissions even more than burning coal?
Alasdair talks to Professor John Sterman about his seminal research that proved burning wood for energy will "increase atmospheric CO2 for at least a century".
Are offsets helping or deterring climate progress?
Louisa Casson from Greenpeace explains her work looking into carbon offsets and how they have developed since COP26. She also gives her view on the development of voluntary carbon markets.
Phasing out fossil fuels: is real progress being made?
Romain Ioulalalen from NGO Oil Change International (OCI) tells Alasdair where we are on the global phase out of fossil fuels, what the current challenges are, how COP26 was significant and what political changes to expect in the next few years on oil and gas.
Ending Fossil Fuels: Why Net Zero is Not Enough with Holly Jean Buck
Is the net zero approach to climate mitigation working, or is it an unrealistic framework that does more to help corporations than the planet?
Bertie talks to Professor Holly Jean Buck, from the University at Buffalo.
Lauren asks Mark Bould about his new book 'The Anthropocene Unconscious'.
They discuss whether fiction goes far enough in representing narratives of climate crisis, ranging from Jane Austen’s ‘Mansfield Park’ to the 'Fast & Furious' franchise.
Edward Struzik on the urgent need to restore our peatlands
Bertie talks with veteran climate journalist Edward Struzik about his new book, Swamplands: tundra beavers, quaking bogs, and the improbable world of peat. They talk COP, burning peat for energy, the process of rewetting peatland, and Edward gives a cultural & historical background to bogs, fens & marshes.
Is Drax UK’s single biggest CO2 emitter? Think-tank Ember give us the answer
Alasdair talks to Phil MacDonald, Chief Operating Officer of think-tank Ember, about the the energy think-tank's latest analysis which places Drax as the UK's single biggest emitter of carbon dioxide in the UK and among the top 5 emitters in Europe.
In this episode Alasdair MacEwen talks to Lina Burnelius of Protect the Forest Sweden about the Swedish forestry model and the threat that industry poses to biodiversity and the survival of ancient Forests.
Gareth Redmond-King talks about the preparations for the next climate talks. He explains the UK's role as a climate leader, recent odd missteps leading to the talks and his take on existing progress.
Chief Operating Officer of energy think tank Ember, Phil MacDonald, talks to Alasdair about the new challenges of decarbonising the global energy sector and what has been achieved so far in Europe in the UK.
Edward and Alasdair speak to Sasha Stashwick, climate expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), on how the Biden Administration is gearing up to tackle climate change and issues with the use of biomass for tackling climate goals.
Mike Norton on “transformative change” and science policy
Prof Michael Norton speaks about the need to understand what 'transformative change' actually is, the gap between science and policy urgency on environmental boundaries and on the flawed concept of GDP.
Doug Parr speaks about how British climate policy has changed and what might happen after the pandemic and greenhouse gas removal technologies, what 'negative emissions' are and the risks of rising 'institutional greenwash' in climate policy and business.
