Episodes
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Climate science and reporting are vital to understanding how our climate is changing and what we can do about it. But false information about climate change spread online is causing big problems. It’s no longer just about saying that climate change isn't happening; it’s increasingly about spreading uncertainty about its causes, its speed and the solutions. That’s making climate misinformation and disinformation harder to spot - and more divisive.
Host Jordan Dunbar is joined by Jacqui Wakefield, Global Disinformation reporter with the BBC World Service.
Guests:Marco Silva, Climate Disinformation journalist at BBC Verify Prof Michael E Mann, Climatologist and Director of the Center for Science, Sustainability & the Media at the University of Pennsylvania
Researcher: Tsogzolmaa ShofyorProducer: Osman IqbalEditor: Simon Watts
Tell us what you think of the show or send us your own climate question. Email: [email protected] or Whatsapp: +44 8000 321 721
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Everyone who steps outside can appreciate the value that the natural world brings to our lives.
To some people, the idea of placing a monetary value on trees and mangrove forests is wrong because nature and its gifts are priceless. But others say the love of nature has not stopped it from being polluted or destroyed.
The natural world plays a major role in capturing the carbon from our atmosphere. A marketplace now exists where countries and big businesses can pay others to protect their forests, swamps and bogs in return for offsetting their emissions. But several of these schemes have faced scandal and corruption. Could the world’s largest biodiversity conference in Colombia, COP16, help put a stop to that?
Tell us what you think of the show or send us your own climate question. Email: [email protected] or Whatsapp: +44 8000 321 721
Presenters Kate Lamble and Jordan Dunbar are joined by: Kevin Conrad, founder, Coalition for Rainforests Tina Stege, climate envoy, Marshall Islands Pavan Sukhdev, chief executive officer, GIST
Producers: Darin Graham & Graihagh Jackson Researcher: Natasha Fernandez Reporter: Gloria Bivigou Series Producers: Alex Lewis & Simon Watts Sound engineers: Graham Puddifoot & Tom Brignell
Photo: A tree frog (Getty Images)
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In this episode, Climate Question listeners take over the programme again with their head-scratchers. Graihagh Jackson and her panel ponder the impact of deforestation and marvel at the beauty of sequoia trees, which can live for more than 1000 years. There are also questions on the carbon cost of generative AI, the discovery of "black" oxygen in our oceans and deep-sea mining. Plus, which animal has the biggest carbon footprint?
If you've got a query, email us at [email protected] or leave a Whatsapp message on +44 8000 321 721
PanelJustin Rowlatt, BBC Climate EditorAkshat Rathi, Senior Climate Reporter, Bloomberg News and Host of Bloomberg's "Zero" podcastCaroline Steel, Presenter of Crowdscience, BBC World Service
Producer: Osman IqbalSound mix: Gareth Jones and Tom BrignellEditor: Simon Watts
Photo: A sequoia tree (Getty Images)
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The southern US state of Georgia has received billions of dollars in investment in clean technology, creating tens of thousands of jobs at solar power factories and electric vehicle factories. It is also on the front-line of extreme weather - facing the threat of hurricanes, heatwaves and drought. So will voters in this swing state be considering climate change when they cast their ballots for the US presidential election in November? And how are politicians in Georgia talking about the issue. Jordan Dunbar takes a road trip across the state to find out.
Got a question you’d like answered? Email: [email protected] or WhatsApp: +44 8000 321 721
Presenter: Jordan DunbarProducer: Beth TimminsSound Mix: Tom BrignellEditor: Simon Watts
Photo: Atlanta, Georgia (Getty Images)
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Geothermal energy is renewable, reliable and powerful. So, why is most of it untapped?
That’s what our listener, Anna in the UK, wants to know. Full disclosure, she’s a geologist and is thoroughly perplexed by the lack of uptake. Geothermal is renewable, reliable and abundant and yet, less than 1% of the world’s energy is generated from it.
Host Graihagh Jackson hears about a team in Iceland who hope to "super-charge" geothermal power by drilling directly into volcanic magma. And she travels to Germany to visit Vulcan Energy, a company which is combining geothermal with extracting one of the world's most sought-after metals: Lithium. Plus, our reporter in Indonesia tells Graihagh about local opposition to some geothermal power plants.
Got a question you’d like answered? Email: [email protected] or WhatsApp: +44 8000 321 721
Host: Graihagh JacksonReporter in Indonesia: Johanes HutabaratProducer: Osman IqbalSound Mix: James BeardEditor: Simon Watts
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Experts predict that millions of people around the world will have to migrate by 2050 because of sea level rise linked to climate change. How will they cope? Jordan Dunbar hears stories from Fiji and the UK.
Email us your comments and questions to [email protected] or WhatsApp: +44 8000 321 721
Presenter: Jordan DunbarProducers: Octavia Woodward and Graihagh JacksonSound mix: Tom BrignellEditor: Simon Watts
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The United Nations has just published a worrying new report about the rate of sea level rise in the Pacific. BBC climate reporter Esme Stallard talks us through the details.
Plus, Mexico is preparing for the inauguration of an environmental scientist as its new president. The BBC's Will Grant heads to a bustling market in Mexico City to report on Claudia Sheinbaum's record in her previous job as mayor of one of the world's biggest metropolises.
And we hear how climate change is fuelling a crisis for cocoa growers in Ivory Coast - and sending global prices for chocolate sky high. John Murphy from the BBC's Assignment podcast has that story.
Email us your comments and questions to [email protected] or WhatsApp: +44 8000 321 721
Presenter and Producer: Graihagh JacksonReporter: Esme Stallard, Will Grant, John MurphySound engineer: Morgan Roberts and David CracklesEditor: Simon Watts
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BBC Climate Editor Justin Rowlatt travels to Somalia to investigate the links between global warming and the decades-long conflict there. He hears how Somalis are responding by launching businesses and their own renewables industry.
Presenter: Justin RowlattProducer in Somalia: Stuart PhillipsProducers in London: Miho Tanaka, Sara HegartySound Mix: Tom Brignell and David CracklesEditor: Simon Watts
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Climate change is transforming wine production around the world. New wine-growing regions are emerging, where the conditions have never been better; while for many traditional producers, drought and rising temperatures are causing a crisis. How is the changing climate impacting the taste and origin of wine, and who are the winners and losers?
Presenter Sophie Eastaugh heads to the Crouch Valley in Essex, England, to find out why the area’s becoming a hotspot for boutique wine. And she travels to Penedes in Catalonia, where one of Spain’s oldest family wine companies, Familia Torres, are battling a four-year drought. How can traditional wine growers adapt to the challenge of a warming world?
Featuring: Katie & Umut Yesil, Co-founders of Riverview Crouch Valley wine in Essex Duncan McNeil, vineyard manager in Essex Miguel Torres, President of Familia Torres in Spain Josep Sabarich, Chief Winemaker at Familia Torres Mireia Torres, Director of Knowledge and Innovation at Familia Torres
Email us your comments and questions to [email protected] or WhatsApp: +44 8000 321 721
Production team: Presenter: Sophie Eastaugh Producers: Sophie Eastaugh, Jordan Dunbar and Osman IqbalProduction coordinator: Brenda Brown Sound designer: Tom BrignellEditor: Simon Watts
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Extreme weather, such as droughts and storms, is increasing the risk of more girls being pushed into child marriage. Graihagh Jackson speaks to girls and parents in Bangladesh who are experiencing these impacts first hand, and finds out why this is happening and what is being done to stop the problem.
A huge thanks to UNICEF and Save the Children's Gabrielle Szabo, for their help in making this programme.
Got a climate question you’d like answered? Email: [email protected] or WhatsApp: +44 8000 321 721 Presenter: Graihagh JacksonReporter: Tasnim KhandokerProducer: Octavia Woodward Additional Production: Farhana HaiderProduction co-ordinators: Brenda Brown, Sophie Hill Sound Engineer: Tom BrignellEditor: Simon Watts
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Engineers across the globe, from China to East Africa and the US, are turning to a new, nature-based solutions to fight floods, which are becoming more likely in many places because of climate change. They’re taking a pickaxe to asphalt and concrete and instead are restoring wetlands, parks and riverbanks, turning our metropolises into so-called ‘sponge cities’. Plants, trees and lakes act just like a sponge, mopping up rainwater instead of letting it pool and eventually flood our homes.
Professor Priti Parikh tells Jordan Dunbar how these spongey solutions have many benefits beyond flooding, encouraging biodiversity, helping our mental health and storing the planet warming gas, carbon dioxide. The BBC’s China Correspondent, Laura Bicker, meets the man who came up with the concept, Professor Kongjian Yu, and visits Zhengzhou, a sponge city in the making. And Katya Reyna tells Jordan how her NGO is helping low-income communities in Portland in the US to ‘depave’ disused car parks, turning them into plant-oases.
Got a climate question you’d like answered? Email: [email protected] or WhatsApp: +44 8000 321 721
Contributors:Priti Parikh, Professor of Infrastructure Engineering and International Development, University College London and a Trustee at the Institution of Civil EngineersLaura Bicker, BBC China Correspondent Professor Kongjian Yu, Professor of Landscape Architecture at Peking University in Beijing Katya Reyna, Co-Director of Depave, in Portland, USA
Producers: Graihagh Jackson, Ben Cooper and Joyce Liu Mixing: Tom Brignell and Andy Fell Editor: Simon Watts
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Presenter Graihagh Jackson and her regular panel take Climate Questions from listeners. BBC Climate Editor Justin Rowlatt, Prof Tamsin Edwards of King's College London, and Dr Akshat Rathi, senior climate reporter for Bloomberg News, discuss ideas for geo-engineering the atmosphere, the links between climate change and shipping, and which animals do the best job of helping us store carbon.
Plus, Graihagh visits a Climate Question listener to investigate his idea of using yoghurt to keep our homes cool in heatwaves!
If you've got a head-scratcher, email us at [email protected] or leave a Whatsapp message on +44 8000 321 721
Producer: Osman IqbalSound Engineers: Andy Fell and Tom BrignellEditor: Simon Watts
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Climate change has been tightening its grip on the people of Afghanistan, with flood after flood and drought after drought. It’s considered one of the most vulnerable countries in the world, not just because it’s warming twice as fast as the global average, but because its people’s ability to fight back has been severely hampered by decades of conflict and war. To add insult to injury, Afghanistan has contributed very little to the industrial emissions that fuel the global climate crisis.
Since the Taliban takeover in 2021, financial aid to help locals adapt has drastically dropped, leaving Afghans to take matters into their own hands. But presenters Graihagh Jackson and Barry Sadid hear how the diaspora is helping villages back home to build life-saving dams and protect themselves against extreme weather. And we ask if there’s a way for foreign governments to financially support Afghanistan without legitimizing the Taliban.
Experts include: Dr Orzala Nemat, Development Research Group LTD Najib Sadid, an Afghan hydrologist based in Germany Naim Yosufi, Project Manager for the Daikundi Irrigation Project Mohammad Ayoub, Keil Mosque, Germany
Have a question you’d like answered? Email: [email protected] or Whatsapp +44 8000 321 721, starting your message with "climate"
Producers: Jordan Dunbar and Barry Sadid from BBC Monitoring Sound Engineers: Tom Brignell and Hal Haines Production Coordinators: Debbie Richford, Sophie Hill, Brenda BrownEditor: Simon Watts
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In this special programme, the Climate Question team join forces with our World Service colleagues from People Fixing The World to share some of our favourite ways of fighting the impacts of climate change.
Jordan Dunbar and Myra Anubi discuss solutions big and small - from tidal power in Northern Ireland to floating solar panels in Albania. Plus, we hear about pioneering community initiatives to protect forests in Borneo and Colombia
Production team: Osman Iqbal, Zoe Gelber, Craig Langran, Tom Colls, Jon Bithrey and Simon WattsSound mix: Neil Churchill, Hal Haines, Gareth Jones and Tom Brignell
Got a question for The Climate Question? Email us: [email protected] Whatsapp +44 8000 321 721, starting your message with "climate"
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The acclaimed US sci-fi author Kim Stanley Robinson is also a star in the world of climate activism because his work often features climate change - on Earth and beyond. Robinson has been a guest speaker at the COP climate summit, and novels such as The Ministry For The Future and The Mars Trilogy are admired by everyone from Barack Obama to former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres. Robinson's books are not just imaginative but scientifically accurate, and some of their ideas have even inspired new thinking about climate-proofing technology. Kim Stanley Robinson has been talking to the Climate Question team.
Presenters: Jordan Dunbar and Graihagh JacksonProducer: Ben CooperEditor: Simon WattsSound Mix: Tom Brignell
Got a question for The Climate Question? Email us: [email protected]
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Some of the world's biggest carbon emitters - including the EU, India and Indonesia - have just had elections. Will the results change their climate policies?
Graihagh Jackson and Jordan Dunbar are joined by Anna Holligan, BBC correspondent in the Netherlands; Carl Nasman, BBC climate journalist based in Washington; and BBC climate reporter Esme Stallard.
Producers: Ben Cooper and Graihagh JacksonProduction Coordinator: Brenda BrownEditor: Simon WattsSound mix: Tom Brignell
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With more and more people moving to cities, informal settlements are expected to grow. When floods hit these unplanned places, it can be disastrous, as we often don’t know much about them. Crucial questions often remain difficult to answer, like how many people live there, what are the buildings made of, and could they withstand a flood? In the township of Alexandra in Johannesburg, the BBC’s Nomsa Maseko visits a project using drones and artificial intelligence to shed some light on the situation, helping authorities prevent the worst impacts of flooding. And in Porto Alegre in the south of Brazil, we hear how an innovative digital map helped the emergency response – and will soon be available to all for free across the world.
Featuring: Rodrigo Rocha, Partner at the Responsive Cities Institute, Porto Alegre Dr Caroline Gevaert, Associate Professor at the International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation, University of Twente Nomsa Maseko, the BBC’s South Africa Correspondent Email us: [email protected] Presenter: Jordan Dunbar Producer: Osman Iqbal Researcher: Octavia Woodward Editors: Sophie Eastaugh and Simon Watts Sound designer: Tom Brignell Production Coordinator: Brenda Brown
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This little-known pollutant is making us sick and driving the climate crisis. It commonly comes from burning coal, diesel or wood and has a habit of getting stuck in people’s lungs as well as causing glaciers to melt. In Nepal, home to some of the world’s most beautiful glaciers, we meet journalist Tulsi Rauniyar, who tells us all about the impact black carbon is having on women and children. She meets Tenzing Chogyal Sherpa, a glacier expert who maps the ice losses in the Himalayas. Zerin Osho from the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development helps us understand why black carbon is so important - but often forgotten - in the fight against climate change, and how we can change that. Got a question you’d like answered? Email: [email protected] Presenter: Graihagh Jackson Producer: Ben Cooper Researcher: Octavia Woodward Production Coordinator: Brenda Brown Editor: Simon Watts Sound Designer: Tom Brignell
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The Paris Olympics are less than a month away. The last games in Tokyo were one of the hottest on record, with more than a hundred athletes suffering heat-related illnesses. And France, the host of this year’s Olympics, is no stranger to heatwaves – the country has seen 23 since 2010.
So how are top athletes training their bodies to not only perform at their best in high temperatures, but also to protect their health? Presenter Qasa Alom heads inside a sweltering, state of the art heat chamber at Leeds Beckett University to find out how one of the fastest marathon runners in Britain, Phil Sesemann, is maximising his chances of success in his Olympic debut.
Other athletes are more used to these conditions. We join India’s top triathlete, Pragnya Mohan, for a training run and hear what it’s like to compete when the thermometer climbs above 45 degrees Celsius.
More and more athletes are adopting heat training strategies in a warming world - but do they affect men and women the same? Dr Jessica Mee, Research Fellow at the University of Worcester tells us about her pioneering research into the impacts of heat on women’s bodies.
Featuring: Phil Sesemann, Team GB Olympic marathon runner Pragnya Mohan, Indian National Champion and South Asian Champion triathlete Dr Jessica Mee, Research Fellow in female health and heat strain at the University of Worcester Dan Snapes, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Sports and Excercise Physiology at Leeds Beckett University
Email us at: [email protected]
Presenter: Qasa AlomProducer: Sophie Eastaugh Editor: Simon Watts Sound Engineer: Tom Brignell Production Coordinator: Brenda Brown
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As a new play depicts the landmark global climate change agreement, the Kyoto protocol, Jordan Dunbar has a front row seat. He heads to the historic English town of Stratford-Upon-Avon to watch the opening night of the play, Kyoto, at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. He hears why the writers, Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson decided to dramatize the seemingly slow and tedious action of a global climate change conference. And the duo explain their goal to highlight Kyoto as a ‘parable of agreement’ in a world full of disagreement.
The programme also hears from two veterans of many real world climate change negotiations, including the Kyoto Protocol, the first global agreement to set legally binding targets. Christiana Figueres was responsible for leading climate negotiations as the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and Farhana Yamin provided legal and strategy advice to the leaders of AOSIS, the Alliance of Small Island States at Kyoto and nearly every UN climate summit since. Christiana is now the host of the 'Outrage And Optimism' podcast.
Got a question, comment or experience you’d like to share? Email: [email protected]
Presenter: Jordan DunbarProducers: Phoebe Keane and Octavia WoodwardEditor: Simon WattsSound mix: Tom Brignell
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