911爆料网

In this special episode of our Generation One Podcast, we look back at the year through some of our favourite moments from Series 4.

Our hosts Mark Maslin and Simon Chin-Yee explored climate action in a multitude of forms: from groundbreaking climate science and AI, to innovative policy solutions and inspiring stories of individual activism. With fantastic guests spanning multiple disciplines and industries.

Reflect with us on what鈥檚 been done, and what there is still to do, with our Series 4 highlights.

Views expressed by our guests are their own.

• Listen to this episode听on:听听/听听/听

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Transcript

UCL Minds 听0:02 听
We are the first generation to feel the impact of climate change and the last generation that can do something about it.

Versha Jones 听0:10 听
We're quite pedestrian compared to Just Stop Oil, we are not throwing cans of soup.

Annabel Rice 听0:17 听
I hope that this election has a climate framing but I think realistically it's going to be fought and lost on the cost of living.

Kris de Meyer 听0:24 听
Actions drive beliefs. It's the things that we start to do that change the perceptions that we have.听

Mark Watts 听0:30 听
Cities that get the least credit in the West, but in some ways are doing the most are our Chinese member cities.

Mark Maslin 听0:41 听
This is Generation One from University College London, turning climate science and ideas into action.

Simon Chin-Yee 听0:54 听
Hi, and welcome to this slightly unusual special episode of the Generation One podcast from UCL. I'm Simon Chin-Yee from UCL School of Public Policy and my research focuses on international UN negotiations and domestic climate policy implementation. Today, we are going to take a look back at some of the best bits from the past seven episodes of Generation One. There were some highlights, and there were some lowlights.

Sims Witherspoon 听1:25 听
I'm really excited about what's coming for general intelligence. I genuinely believe that we're not too, too far away from systems that can solve a variety of challenges and do it to human capability or greater. And so hopefully he'll be using those kinds of systems when he's my age. Right bud?

Mark Maslin 听1:42 听
Can鈥檛 bloody do it now, can I?听
The ONS is the UK鈥檚 largest independent producer of official statistics, statistics, statistics, statistics.听

Adam Batstone 听1:59
Mark? Can I just make a suggestion?

Mark Maslin 听2:00
驰别补丑.听

Adam Batstone 听2:02
With the greatest respect, you鈥檙e struggling with the word statistics.

Mark Maslin 听2:04
Yeah, I hate it.听

Simon Chin-Yee 听2:06
And you鈥檝e said it five times.听

Mark Maslin 听 2:07
Yeah, I know because you've literally鈥�every鈥︹�渟tats鈥�.

Simon Chin-Yee 听2:15 听
I feel like I'm very much like the Adele of UCL.

Mark Maslin 听2:17 听
I thought, yes, exactly. That's why I need to-

Simon Chin-Yee 听2:21 听
Should I sing Skyfall?

Mark Maslin 听2:25 听
My brain has literally completely fuzzed up. Okay.

Simon Chin-Yee 听2:29 听
And I spend my time at COPs Mark liaising with our member states and our partner organisations to work on, uh鈥�

Mark Maslin 听2:38
What do you work on?听

Simon Chin-Yee 听2:39
I don't know. I don鈥檛 know anymore. I鈥檓 literally going 鈥渄o I do this?鈥� I don鈥檛 know.

I made my Generation One debut back in October, joining regular host Professor Mark Maslin, who's with me in the studio right now.

Mark Maslin 听2:56 听
Well, thank you, Simon. Well, as you know, I鈥檓 Mark Maslin, and I'm a professor of Earth System Science here at 911爆料网. And again, what does Earth System Science mean? It means that I study climate change in the past, the present and the future. As always, with this podcast, we wanted to help our listeners to understand what were the key issues to watch out for at COP, and try to decode some of the jargon that gets thrown around in the UN settings. So having made a series of predictions about what might happen in Dubai, Simon and I regroup back in London. Still struggling with jetlag and decompressing from the insanity that is COP, we discussed which of our predictions had materialised and what were the other stand out moments.

Simon Chin-Yee 听3:45 听
There was a loss and damage fund on the very first day that was agreed upon by member states. That's a win, for example, but then again, how much money is in that loss and damage fund. And the last time we talked Mark, we discussed the fact that there was zero in the bank when it comes to loss and damage fund. Now, as of after two weeks of negotiating, there is 700 million US dollars in this fund.

Mark Maslin 听4:10 听
Which of course Simon sounds a lot, but it's nowhere near the $400 billion that has actually been estimated that we will need to help least developed and developing countries deal with the impacts of climate change. And to put it in context. Okay, we were in the expo centre. And this had basically been built by the United Arab Emirates for cost of about 7 billion US. Admittedly it ran for six months and was used for a COP, but that is a huge amount of money, and we have a piddling 700 million.听

Simon Chin-Yee 听4:49 听
But the agreement on loss and damage was somewhat overshadowed by what at first glance appeared to be a far more significant announcement in Dubai, an end to the global oil and gas industry. Wow. What a big deal, right? But as ever with COP agreements, the devil was in the detail,

Mark Maslin 听5:06 听
We get this final text and I鈥檒l read it out. And it says 鈥淭ransitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just orderly and equitable manner, accelerating actions in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science鈥�. Now, that's not phased out or phased down, but this is the first time that fossil fuels, all fossil fuels, are in a climate agreement. It basically says we're going to transition away from them, which many people have heralded 鈥淭his is the first time that we have said that fossil fuels are causing climate change, and they will end鈥�. But it's transitioning from the energy system. And so that weasely word gives some get out. We also know that in the main text, it talks about unabated and abated. Now, for people that don't get the technical terminology, guess what? Unabated means that you burn coal and CO2 goes into atmosphere. But abated coal means that you burn the coal, get the energy, but you capture the CO2 and somehow transport it and store it. And hopefully it's in the ground and never comes back. And so, the fossil fuel countries and companies are giving themselves an out, which is we can still use fossil fuels, as long as we capture the carbon and the pollution that it creates.

Simon Chin-Yee 听6:35 听
Post COP Generation One turned its attention to how the sustainability debate was playing out in the UK and around the world. And because we are all about turning climate science and ideas into action, we wanted to look at what different people, whether lawyers, politicians, business leaders, or activists, are actually doing to tackle climate change.

Mark Maslin 听6:56 听
To set the scene, Ian Townsend of the Office of National Statistics 鈥� and yes, I know I have a problem with that word 鈥� gave us the facts on what British people and businesses think about the threat of climate change, and what they may be doing to combat it.

Ian Townsend 听7:13 听
Thinking first about individuals. So around the time of last year's UN climate conference, COP28, we asked adults in Great Britain where they'd made any changes to their lifestyles to help tackle climate change. We found around three quarters said that they had made at least some changes. And that includes the 8% of all adults that say that they've made lots of changes. It's worth highlighting here that this is people's self-reported actions through the survey, so we aren't able to assess the impact of any changes that they may or may not have made. So we also asked those that were making changes why they were doing so. And we found the most reported motivating concerns were for the effect on future generations by about 69%. And the loss of natural habitats and wildlife at 66%. About half pointed to the direct effects of climate change on other people, followed by about a third saying it was because of the direct effects on themselves. We also note that 28% of people said that they had not made lifestyle changes and the most reported reasons among this group were thinking that such changes would have no effect. So about two fifths, and about a third of people each thinking that either large polluters should change before individuals do, and that making changes is too expensive. Also about one in 10 of this group thought that the effects of climate change were exaggerated and about 7% of the group that they didn't believe in climate change.听

Simon Chin-Yee 听8:29 听
But despite the high percentage of people who tell pollsters that climate change is a priority for them, Annabel Rice from the political lobbying group Green Alliance told us that when it comes to the general election in the UK, it will probably be issues around the cost of living that most influences people's decisions on how they cast their vote.听

Annabel Rice 听8:48 听
We're getting into a sort of race to the bottom in terms of climate action. And I don't think that we've got really any of the major parties presenting a really positive agenda for climate. I think that obviously there's some who have better policies than others. But I think the positive vision is what's lacking. And I hope that this election has a climate framing, but I think realistically it's going to be fought and lost on the cost of living. And that is really, really impacting people's day to day lives.

Mark Maslin 听9:16 听
So if voters are not focused on environment, does that mean governments will feel less pressure to meet the commitments they have made as part of the global stocktake? Pierre Cannet from Client Earth, an organisation which seeks to hold governments and businesses to account by the means of the law, told Generation One that his organisation will take legal action to ensure governments and businesses deliver on their net zero carbon pledges.

Pierre Cannet 听9:48 听
When you look at the, what we call global stocktake, that was concluded and negotiated at the COP28, it's clear from the numbers I just shared. Nobody is at the level. No one on earth, no country is really the big champion. This said, it's important as well, that we are looking in the climate laws about the targets and the numbers. So we might have, for instance, ambitious countries while it's going to net zero in terms of targets and pledges. Let's say for instance, the EU carbon neutrality by 2050, the UK has its own net zero as well pledges, but at the end, what is, to us, Client Earth, critical for Client Earth is to look in the details, understanding what is currently being implemented and done. What are the key strategies to make sure that these pledges are being implemented?

UCL Minds 10:53 听
You're listening to UCL Generation One, turning science and ideas into climate action.

Simon Chin-Yee 听11:03 听
When UCL graduate student Sims Witherspoon came to the studio to discuss the impact of artificial intelligence on the sustainability agenda, she was accompanied by our youngest contributor: her three month old son Pierce.

Mark Maslin 听11:16 听
So Sims, congratulations on the birth of your son Pierce, who is here joining us. So if you hear any crying, it's not me, it鈥檚 not Simon, it's probably our producer.

Simon Chin-Yee 听11:30 听
And our youngest ever podcaster.

Mark Maslin 听11:33 听
I know! Three months old, three months old and we have the full range.

Simon Chin-Yee 听11:39 听
Pierce proved to be one of our very best-behaved guests and resisted the temptation to interject with his own opinions, as his mother explained how she believes that while it is not a magic wand, AI does have the potential to be a valuable tool in the battle against climate change.

Sims Witherspoon 听11:55 听
Climate change is such a broad challenge and area, right. So AI is not always going to be the best tool, we start by saying that, you know, it's a social issue, a political issue and economic issue, you know, and also this big scientific challenge. And when we think about using AI, AI is going to excel in the areas and the problems where you can actually, you know, define the problem well. Where there's enough data that is accurate and representative of the problem at hand. And also where you have really clear benchmarks and success criteria. So that's kind of overall where AI can excel. And the types of problems that will help you kind of opt in or opt out: is AI right for the challenge that we're facing here. I think more specifically, the way I like to think of the framework is that AI can help with understanding optimising and accelerating in these challenge areas. So when I say understand, I mean, AI can help us understand climate change and its effects on Earth's ecosystems. It can help us optimise current systems and infrastructure that we rely on today. And it can also help us accelerate the breakthrough tech that we need for tomorrow. And if you think about that framework, it really is applicable in almost any area, whether you're talking about industry, or agriculture, or energy systems, climate science. And you know, I think that's why it's really an exciting tool to be using in this space.

Mark Maslin 听13:27 听
And what she set out in terms of a theory is already being deployed in the real world. Buffy Price helped to set up Carbon Re, which is using AI technology to transform processes used in heavy industry, notably, cement manufacture, which if it were a country would be the third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases after the USA and China. Buffy explained how the AI technology has the potential to transform the entire production process, saving money and cutting carbon emissions.

Buffy Price 听14:06 听
I mean, it's extraordinary. So one of the reasons we set up Carbon Re was we wanted to have something that would have direct impact on carbon emissions in the short to medium term. We set up during lockdown, as I mentioned, it's a Cloud-based software. We don't have to go on site, we don't deploy any on prem technologies, no hardware, no capex costs. And we know that the savings that we can achieve through our software are achievable within the current operating processes. So we're not changing anything, we're just being much more efficient, and you can take 1 to 5, 8% reduction on a global scale. That's Giga tonnes of carbon emissions reduced every year. And that's really, really significant. And actually, for the industries themselves, they get much more insight about what's going on in the plant, they get better quality, they have less downtime. So there's, you know, it's a shifting landscape. Three years ago, people were sort of not that interested. But it feels much more of an open door. I think things like ChatGPT and opening up the conversations around what artificial intelligence can do in the last few years has really changed that conversation, as we sit down with a cement plant producer.

[Song 鈥淲e Tried鈥� by Louise Harris]

Simon Chin-Yee 听15:55 听
That's a clip from the song 鈥淲e Tried鈥�, which was written and performed by our next guest, Louise Harris. We wanted to look at the issue of climate activism and what different types of protests are most effective.听

Mark Maslin 听16:08 听
One of the themes we have discussed a lot on Generation One is around climate anxiety. And the extent to which particularly young people are feeling high levels of stress, thinking about the impacts of climate change.听

Simon Chin-Yee 听16:23 听
And all of these COP conferences we keep talking about, the youth voice is getting stronger. But are those who campaign within the law being listened to? Or are they being ignored? Louise Harris from Just Stop Oil believes that the time for chanting and demonstrating is over and direct action is needed to focus attention. She's already been to prison for her part in disruptive protests.

Louise Harris 听16:44 听
I've taken nonviolent direct action multiple times with Just Stop Oil mainly, so demanding no new oil and gas licences from the UK Government. So yeah, I've been you know, arrested multiple times, I was sent to prison on remand, etc. Now I have a suspended sentence. So if I were to get convicted of anything, you know, I'd be in prison for quite a while. So I feel like that's not the best use of my resources, my energy now, it's to kind of try and I guess mass mobilise people into collective climate action, whether that's actually taking direct action themselves or volunteering behind the scenes, donating, but trying to get a mass movement.

Mark Maslin 听17:27 听
For others like Versha Jones, a volunteer with the Climate Reality Project, the most effective form of activism is targeted on particular issues and particular places. For her, it was a trip to the Isles of Scilly which triggered her campaigning.

Versha Jones 听17:45 听
This is the UK. So we are suffering from climate change right now. We're quite pedestrian compared to Just Stop Oil. We are not throwing cans of soup. We have the same, we share the same discontent. And our groups, all of these organisations are different. Because I think that's where the change makers are, the real change makers that are shifting the narrative. Now, scientists 鈥� I know, I apologise, and academics, I apologise. Yeah, when you leave the room, those problems are still there, because people are gonna think about them. We don't have time to think about these problems. The next five years are crucial.

Simon Chin-Yee 听18:28 听
One of the most notable global figureheads for climate activism is Greta Thunberg. But her campaign has attracted criticism. Former UCL student and political lobbyist Annabel Rice shared her concerns on targeting Greta and the wider global youth climate movement.

Annabel Rice 听18:44 听
For young people like myself, Greta was and is really inspirational. And what she did particularly like when originating with the school strikes, that felt like a real global moment. And I know I felt it myself, that it felt like people were having conversations about climate change, you know, in schools and universities, she really got the message going. And so, I also think that we should be cautious when we're talking about young people, you know, I think, I can't remember how old she was when she started these strikes at 14? 15? I mean, which one of us would want to be that much in the public eye at that age? And so of course, she's got criticism and backlash, which you know, you might feel is justified or you might not. I don't think that she, I think she's done a lot for young people in getting the message out. I think that also she's been a really incredible ally in terms of, you know, passing the mic, we have the classic line. But she has been really good at amplifying others in the youth space. And I think a lot of the way in which she's portrayed is sort of the only youth figure, it goes back to the conversations that we were having before. It's just youth are just not acknowledged that they are in these spaces, like young people are there, but there's so many different roles for everyone in the climate crisis. It鈥檚 that some people are amazing spokespeople, and I think she is an amazing, amazing spokesperson. But that's not the only role. You know, there's people who need to be involved in policy. There's people who need to be involved in operations and all these kinds of things. So, yeah, it's a difficult question to answer. Because, yeah, I love Greta, I think she's great. And I feel really sad that we've got to a space in the media where a young person expressing their passion about an issue can be so villainized.

Mark Maslin 听20:23 听
And it wouldn't really be Generation One if we didn't step back from the frontline of climate activism to consider an academic perspective on this subject. Our guest Dr. Kris de Meyer is a neuroscientist at the UCL climate action unit, who has researched what type of activism is most effective.

Kris de Meyer 听20:47 听
Actions drive beliefs. Like, much more often than our beliefs changing our action, or driving our action, it's the things that we start to do that change the perceptions that we have. And so, once you go down a certain route, once you start to become active in a certain way, that will then also start informing your view again, and reinforcing your view of like, this is the thing that is necessary. So it's not a problem that people are drawn towards different types of action and activism. What is a problem is if people start to believe that that's the only way to make change happen, because then you get sort of like, groups of people who are concerned about climate change coming together, and starting to fight with each other about like, 鈥測our way is not a good way of doing it, my way is the only way of doing it鈥�.

Simon Chin-Yee 听21:35 听
Because London is one of the great cities of the world, or as Mark would have you believe, the greatest city in the world, we concluded this series of Generation One by discussing how climate change is impacting cities and whether their response is a template for action across the globe.听

Mark Maslin 听21:52 听
Shirley Rodrigues was the Deputy Mayor of London with the responsibility for the environment. She told us that cities have a huge impact on climate, not only because of their emissions, but also because of their influence over Environmental Action.

Shirley Rodrigues 听22:09 听
People will look at what's important to them: is it air pollution, is it the cost of living, is it you know, their ability to heat their homes and keep warm in their homes. And the solutions to those are the ones that tackle climate change. So energy efficiency, retrofitting that will help keep your homes warm in winter, but also cool in the summer. And we're seeing increasingly the impacts of those climate impacts in London now, you know, heat waves, extreme heat waves, flash flooding, you know, impacting us all the time. On health, for example, air pollution is killing people, literally killing people, and long-term illnesses and diseases. And we know that fossil fuel use, largely from cars in London, are driving that. So how do we, you know, so they want action on that. And when they realise the solutions are things like ULEZ, or more walking and cycling, more public transportation, you know, if you get people focused on those solutions, then you get that engagement. If you just talk about things like that are quite esoteric, like climate, well, they're worried about it, they don't see the relevance, then they switch off. So you've got to talk to people in, you know, on the agendas that they want to talk about and show how climate action, environmental action will help bring all those benefits to them.

Simon Chin-Yee 听23:16 听
Mark Watts is the executive director of C40 cities: an alliance of almost 100 of the world's major cities collaborating to address climate change. He said some of the most significant and rapid innovations and improvements were happening in a country which has been thought of as the source of much of the world's greenhouse gases.

Mark Watts 听23:37 听
Cities that get the least credit in the West, but in some ways are doing the most, are our Chinese member cities. The shift to electric buses in Shenzhen and then Nanjing and now across all of our Chinese member cities has transformed the entire global market for electric buses. It was only four or five years ago that we were talking to the biggest bus manufacturers in the world who said they were not intending to sell electric buses in Latin America until 2035. Now, most of our C40 cities are up to 10, 20% of their fleets electric and will go fully electric within the next few years. That's only possible because there was such a big investment in China. And then the Chinese companies came into the market and completely changed what was possible. And I'm also quite inspired having just been out there seeing the way that Shanghai, Guangzhou have just physically greened post the pandemic. I mean, they look more like Singapore.

Mark Maslin 听24:33 听
Mark Watts there from C40 cities talking about China's green credentials.

Simon Chin-Yee 听24:45 听
So that's it from the highlights episode of Generation One. So Mark, what did you think about it?

Mark Maslin 听24:50 听
Well, firstly, I think it's fantastic that you鈥檙e a co-host and I've had such a laugh. I really wish some of the audience could actually be a fly on the wall when we record this because a, I can't pronounce half the words, two, you work so hard that you never have a voice. So it would just be wonderful if people could actually be here and see how we put these together. I'm always inspired by doing this. And this is why I hope that we can keep this podcast going on, and on and on.

Simon Chin-Yee 听25:20 听
And we'd be remiss if we didn't mention that there's an entire production team behind the Generation One podcast: Caitlin Mullin, Adam Batstone, Jane Yelloly 鈥� there's a whole team that finds the guests, contacts them and edits these podcasts together for your entertainment.听

Mark Maslin 听25:37 听
And all we do Simon is we turn up, talk to the wonderful guests they found, and then it all gets magically edited and sent out into the world.

Simon Chin-Yee 听25:47 听
So what are you looking forward to in the future? We have a yearly COP coming up in Azerbaijan.

Mark Maslin 听25:53 听
So I'm not sure if I can say I'm looking forward to going to Azerbaijan in December. But again, this is another stepping stone: can we actually push the agenda forward? Can we get countries to be more ambitious? And of course, there is a huge stepping stone, because the COP that everybody is waiting for is going to be in the following year in Brazil, where expectations are through the roof.

That's it for this episode of Generation One from UCL, turning climate science and ideas into action. Listen on demand to all our episodes on your favourite platform. If you'd like to ask a question or suggest a guest that you'd like to hear on Generation One, you can email us on podcasts@ucl.ac.uk. Otherwise, for more information about 911爆料网鈥檚 work in the climate space, head to the UCL Generation One website, or follow us on social media, #UCLGenerationOne.