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Give it a try at mintmobile.com... Hello,

1:23

Jordan Dunbar. Hello,

1:29

Kreia Jackson. It's really lovely to be

1:31

working again with you on the climate

1:33

question. It is, it is. And what an

1:35

episode to be back on. Yeah,

1:38

before we dive into that, though,

1:40

I really loved your energy efficiency

1:42

program. Classically boring

1:44

subject that you were tasked to

1:46

make sexy and somehow you made

1:48

energy efficiency sexy. Does that mean

1:50

you can make anything sexy now?

1:52

Yeah, that's my official rule now on the

1:54

BBC World Service. Next up, we have the

1:57

technical details of installation. Well, I've been interrupted

1:59

by... all the climate news. Yes,

2:01

so the really big moment in the

2:04

last week was the UN Secretary General.

2:06

He's been issuing dire warnings again about

2:08

what we're doing to our planet. Like

2:11

the meteor that wiped out the

2:13

dinosaurs, we are having

2:15

an outsized impact. In

2:18

the case of climate, we are

2:20

not the dinosaurs. We

2:22

are the meteor. We

2:25

are not only in danger, we

2:27

are the danger. But

2:29

we are also the solution. Antonio

2:33

Guterres has such a way with words, doesn't he? So

2:36

poetic and passionate. He

2:39

also called fossil fuel

2:41

companies, quote, Godfathers of

2:43

climate chaos. Tell us how you

2:45

really feel, Antonio. Don't hold back. But

2:48

it's not all bad though. As

2:50

he says, there are solutions out

2:52

there. And I'll be speaking to

2:54

global energy experts at the International

2:56

Energy Agency about the wrackled good

2:58

news on renewables. Yeah, I've got

3:01

the short straw because I'll be looking

3:03

at my personal nightmare. Violent turbulence on

3:05

planes and recent flights that have ended

3:07

up in injuries. It was

3:09

very scary. It was the worst

3:12

experience, honestly. I'm airplane and I've

3:14

been flying back and forth for years and

3:16

I was really scary. We hit a pocket of

3:18

turbulence where we dropped for about five seconds. You'd

3:21

see people hitting the roof, food and things everywhere,

3:23

and a few injuries from that. What's

3:25

the link to climate change and what can we do about

3:28

it? So

3:34

renewables, we're talking about things like

3:37

solar and wind power, clean and

3:39

green because they don't produce any

3:41

planet warming gases like carbon dioxide.

3:44

I've been speaking to Tim Gould

3:46

all about them because he's just

3:49

written a report on how much

3:51

cash is going into these vital

3:53

new technologies. He works as the

3:55

chief energy economist at the International

3:57

Energy Agency. And the IEA, as they're known,

3:59

comes up. all the time on Climate

4:01

Question because they're basically the world's energy

4:04

watchdog. Exactly. Here are

4:06

Tim's highlights. Tim, lovely

4:08

to meet you. Thanks so much for making time for

4:10

us. That's a great pleasure. Thanks a lot

4:12

for the invitation. So, the IEA has

4:14

just released its World Energy Investment Report and

4:17

it struck me that there's loads of good

4:19

news in there, isn't it? What were the

4:21

highlights for you? So, I think the

4:23

first thing to say is there's quite a lot of money going into the

4:26

world's energy sector. So, for the first

4:29

time this year, we think the amount

4:31

of capital going into different energy projects

4:33

to produce new energy supply, but also to

4:36

improve efficiency and allow us to electrify some

4:38

of the things that we need, that's

4:40

going to be more than $3 trillion worldwide

4:42

this year. And I think the

4:45

other really interesting thing to

4:47

know is that most of that

4:49

increase is coming from spending on clean

4:51

energy. Yeah, what was

4:53

striking to me is that there's

4:55

just been this huge uptick in

4:58

solar PV, solar powered panels, and

5:00

mostly in China. What can

5:02

we learn from that? I think

5:04

it's primarily because it's abundant and

5:07

right now it's extremely cheap as well. So,

5:09

China has invested heavily in manufacturing and that's

5:11

really driven down the prices of solar modules.

5:14

And the biggest market for that is for

5:17

China at home. So, when we look at

5:19

the numbers for 2023, China on its own

5:22

installed the same amount of solar

5:24

as the whole world did the

5:26

year previously in 2022. So, that's

5:28

an indication of quite how fast

5:30

things are going for solar at

5:32

the moment. And there's another twist

5:34

that we saw in this year's

5:36

numbers is that investment in solar

5:38

is now higher than investment in

5:40

all of the other generation technologies

5:42

put together. So, wind and nuclear

5:45

and gas and coal and bioenergy

5:47

and everything else put together is

5:49

less than solar. Now, that's an

5:51

indication of how central solar has

5:53

become to the transformation of the global

5:55

energy sector. And in many ways, it's

5:57

a very encouraging message. It's not.

6:00

not all good news in your report.

6:02

There were also some more

6:04

challenging findings. We've talked about all

6:06

that investment in China and cleantech,

6:08

but it's not the same

6:11

everywhere in emerging economies, is it? So,

6:13

that's, I think, extremely important to

6:15

understand. The places that are

6:18

doing well are doing extremely well, and

6:20

China is among them, but also we're

6:22

seeing a real uptick in

6:24

spending in Europe, to

6:26

a degree also in the United States and some

6:28

other advanced economies. But elsewhere,

6:30

we have a situation where because

6:33

financing costs are higher and risks

6:35

are bigger, the investments that

6:37

we need in clean energy in other

6:40

emerging and developing economies are simply not

6:42

coming through in the volumes that we

6:44

need. And that's a very worrying signal

6:46

because these are the countries where

6:49

energy demand is growing. And so,

6:51

they're the ones that desperately need

6:53

safer, more affordable, secure energy. Why

6:55

is that investment so low? Because

6:57

when you look at like countries

7:00

or continents even, like Africa, we

7:02

talk about leapfrogging fossil fuels and

7:04

going straight to renewable. There seems

7:07

to be some frision of excitement

7:09

and opportunity. So, why

7:11

isn't that happening? Just as

7:14

an illustration of how it isn't happening, is

7:16

that if you look at all of the

7:18

solar power that's been installed in Africa, and

7:20

that's one of the most solar rich continents

7:22

in the world, you add all of that

7:25

together and it's less than the

7:27

amount of solar that's been installed in

7:29

the Netherlands. And it doesn't take much

7:31

imagination to work out that Netherlands is

7:33

not the ideal place for solar. And

7:35

so, it really comes down to risks.

7:37

It really comes down to the willingness

7:39

of companies and investors to

7:42

put money into parts

7:44

of the world that they just see as a bit

7:46

more risky. And so, they demand a higher return and

7:48

then that makes it complicated to move ahead with projects.

7:51

So, how do we make it

7:53

less risky for investors to stimulate

7:55

that investment? So, I think there's

7:57

a combination of things. Some of it has to do... with

8:00

that national policy vision in the

8:02

country's concerned about, you know, building

8:04

these affordable, clean technologies into their

8:06

own vision of how their energy

8:09

system will develop. And

8:11

part of it also has to do with the way that

8:13

the international community acts to provide

8:15

support, because there's an important role

8:18

here for international financial support,

8:20

not to take on the whole

8:22

costs of these projects, but to

8:24

absorb certain risks and allow more

8:27

private money to get into these types

8:29

of technologies. Another thing, particularly in

8:31

African countries, that we need to have in

8:33

mind is that the grid infrastructure is very

8:35

weak. And so, building out

8:37

grids, you know, where the losses of

8:40

electricity or less is going to be

8:42

an extremely important part of the picture.

8:45

And finally, we need to integrate into

8:47

all of this thinking the

8:49

realization that there are still huge numbers

8:51

of people in Africa without any access

8:54

to electricity and who rely on firewood

8:56

and other solid fuels for

8:59

cooking. And so, we need to

9:01

integrate our thinking about

9:03

new, affordable, sustainable sources also

9:05

to solve that problem. Yeah,

9:08

and some of the solutions for those

9:10

are really interesting, like turning sewage into

9:12

biogas, which we can cook on, which

9:14

I like to call cooking on fast,

9:16

even though it's probably not quite like

9:18

that. But I mean, it's

9:20

striking to me, Tim, that we're talking

9:22

at a time where we're seeing lots

9:25

of climate fuel disasters around the world

9:27

from scorching temperatures in India to floods

9:29

in Brazil. Several parts of Asia have

9:31

been grappling with unusually high temperatures this

9:34

summer. It's a trend that scientists say

9:36

has been worsened by climate change.

9:38

Now, rescue efforts are continuing in Brazil

9:40

as the south of the country grapples

9:42

with days of heavy rains that have

9:44

killed at least 31 people. The

9:48

extreme weather has been caused by a rare

9:50

combination of hotter than average

9:52

temperatures, high humidity and strong

9:54

winds. And at

9:56

the same time, we're also seeing lots of investment, as you

9:58

say, at a time when we're trillion in oil

10:01

and gas and coal, which is

10:03

presumably still far too high to

10:06

meet our goal. So, how

10:08

do all these things fit together

10:10

in a jigsaw? So I think

10:12

there's reasons to be hopeful. I mean,

10:14

we have many of the tools that

10:16

we need. Some of the technologies that

10:18

are going to be crucial to that

10:20

cleaner energy system are readily available and

10:23

mature. The costs are attractive. But we

10:25

need to get them into parts of

10:27

the world where investment has traditionally been

10:29

difficult. And so bridging that

10:31

gap seems to us to be absolutely

10:33

crucial. Right. And one final question

10:35

to him, if I may. I assume

10:38

you've seen the UN General Secretary's comments

10:40

on fossil fuels calling those

10:42

companies the godfathers of climate chaos.

10:44

And I just wonder, what do

10:46

you think the role of big

10:48

oil is in getting us to

10:50

net zero? So we need to recognise that,

10:53

you know, whether we like it or not, fossil

10:55

fuels are still an extremely important

10:57

part of today's system. And so

11:00

we need those energy services that

11:02

they currently provide. But we

11:04

need to provide them in ways that

11:06

don't have the same damaging effect on

11:09

our environment. That's what we're very

11:11

focused on, is trying to scale up

11:13

clean energy. And there are some technologies

11:15

where we think that the oil and

11:17

gas industry could play a hopeful role.

11:19

I mean, they are skilled

11:21

at working offshore. They could be much more

11:24

active in offshore wind, for

11:26

example. And we can't do

11:28

everything with electricity. We're still going to need some

11:30

clean fuels. You know, many of these companies also

11:32

have a lot of skills in dealing with liquids

11:34

and gases. Those skills could be

11:36

deployed in producing low emissions liquids

11:39

and gases. And there is some movement in

11:41

that direction. But one of the things that

11:43

we looked at in the analysis that we

11:45

released today is, you know, how much

11:47

of the money that's being spent by the

11:49

oil and gas industry is going into those

11:51

clean energy solutions. And it varies

11:54

a lot by company. But overall, it's

11:56

about 4% of the total. That's

11:58

not going to shift the dial. That doesn't

12:00

yet amount to the industry playing its

12:02

full part by any means. So you're

12:05

saying big oil companies have a role

12:07

to play, but they're not

12:09

fulfilling that role yet. That's essentially it.

12:11

There's a lot more that in our view that

12:13

could be doing. Tim, thank you

12:16

so much for your time today. I really

12:18

appreciate it. It's a great pleasure. Thanks so much.

12:26

Jordan, you were listening to that interview

12:28

with Tim. Yeah, you can see

12:30

my facial expressions, couldn't you? I've

12:32

literally popped out. So many numbers,

12:34

but the China numbers for solar

12:37

is absolutely extraordinary. I mean, what

12:39

a big reason for optimism, because

12:42

that's just one, albeit very big

12:44

country, installing more than everyone else.

12:47

I know it's crazy, isn't it? It's

12:49

absolutely insane. And you just think

12:51

that America, also very large, very rich

12:54

country, imagine they were matching that. What

12:56

the amount of clean green energy would

12:58

be. It'd be incredible. I looked at

13:00

the figures and it's about half the

13:02

US is investing, about half what China

13:04

is investing. And the fact that so

13:06

much solar is being installed worldwide more

13:08

than any other type of energy is

13:10

super interesting. Yeah, really, really good

13:13

news that surprised me. And

13:15

also we talked loads about

13:17

solar, but wind, which is,

13:19

you know, one of the other biggest renewables that

13:21

didn't really come into it. The cost of wind

13:23

had gone up in recent years. Quite a lot

13:26

of projects in the US and Europe had dropped.

13:28

As Tim said, solar is really cheap. The more you

13:31

make of it actually becomes cheaper. If

13:33

wind drops too, imagine

13:35

how much more clean energy you will have

13:38

because not everywhere, sunny, certainly where I'm from,

13:40

isn't. But it's very windy. That again is

13:42

next year. If the price of wind comes

13:44

down, we could see huge numbers. Yeah.

13:47

Yeah. Yeah. We absolutely could. And Tim

13:49

said, even though there might be a

13:51

blip this year in terms of wind,

13:53

the overall trajectory is still up. The

13:56

sheer size, though, of the investment in

13:58

fossil fuels shows. to answer our question,

14:01

are we doing enough renewables to put the brakes

14:03

on climate change? No, not

14:05

at the minute. And that is bad news,

14:07

especially for those countries that are extremely vulnerable.

14:10

We've had an email in from Leah Seccora.

14:12

She wrote to the climatequestion at bbc.com and

14:15

said, I listen to your podcast regularly and

14:17

very much enjoy it as well as the

14:19

diversity of climate related topics you cover. That's

14:22

nice. Thank you. Later. She

14:24

continues the fourth small island developing states

14:26

SIDS conference took place in May in

14:29

Antigua and Barbuda. And I would be

14:31

extremely interested to hear more about it

14:33

on your podcast. So

14:35

small island nations, extremely

14:37

vulnerable to climate change,

14:40

lots of extreme weather, but also

14:42

sea level rise. Right. So it's

14:44

not that lives are in danger,

14:46

but in fact, their entire country

14:49

is in danger, could be below

14:51

the waves. So pretty serious. One

14:54

of the top things on the

14:56

agenda was adaptation. So how do

14:58

we adapt to that

15:00

extreme weather? So early warning systems

15:03

was a big topic of discussion,

15:06

maybe even re-situating entire communities

15:08

so that they're safe from

15:10

the waves. And the

15:12

other thing was climate finance, which

15:14

of course comes up all the time because

15:17

all of the adaptation you're talking about, plus

15:19

the damage caused by the more extreme weather

15:21

requires money. And it's getting much, much harder

15:23

for countries to get money because they're going

15:25

into debt as a hit with disaster after

15:27

disaster. Just like you and I go into

15:30

the bank, it gets harder to get money

15:32

and becomes more expensive the more you borrow.

15:34

Exactly. But hang on, listen to

15:36

us rabbeting on. It's that time again, Jordan.

15:39

Time for a reminder that you're listening to

15:41

the climate question from the BBC World Service.

15:46

Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. At MidMobile, we like

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Post your free job on

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linkedin.com/spoken today. I'm

16:50

Jordan Dunbar. And I'm Gray Jackson. This

16:53

week, a roundup of the latest climate

16:55

news. We've just heard some

16:58

positive news from the IEA that

17:00

investment in clean energy is double

17:02

that of dirty fossil fuels. In

17:05

other news for the climate history has been

17:07

made in Mexico. Climate scientist

17:09

Claudia Scheinbaum will become Mexico's first

17:11

woman president later this year. We

17:14

will be facilitating this work with

17:17

the new president. The

17:21

new president saying there that she

17:23

will protect investment and development while

17:25

respecting the environment. Guaranteezando siempre

17:28

el respeto el medium

17:30

biente. Yeah. And

17:32

just as she was voted in, news

17:34

came in from the EU's climate service

17:36

and it said every month of last

17:38

year has set a new global temperature

17:40

record. Those rising temperatures are having

17:42

effects that I hadn't thought about. Gray,

17:45

you may have seen the terrifying footage

17:47

of the Singapore flight a few weeks

17:49

back. Yeah. Horrifying,

17:51

terrifying stuff of nightmares. So that

17:53

was a flight where a plane plummeted

17:55

over a thousand feet in three seconds

17:57

and then anyone not wearing a mask.

18:00

seatbelts was catapulted into the ceiling and here

18:02

are two passengers describing their ordeal. I think

18:04

we both thought it was the end. Yeah,

18:06

I thought I was going to die. Yeah,

18:09

I think that's why everyone was thinking on that

18:11

plane. You could hear people making last-minute

18:13

phone calls and voice messages to family members and

18:16

it was quite a weird experience. Less

18:19

reported though was a flight from Doha

18:21

in Qatar to Dublin in Ireland, which

18:23

went through something similar. What happened

18:25

there? Six people ended up

18:27

in hospital with injuries from that flight. To

18:30

talk about the climate change angle and all

18:32

this, we have our climate colleague in BBC

18:35

News, Ismay Stallard with us. Hello, Ismay. Hello,

18:37

guys. Ismay, you wrote

18:39

about this turbulence for the website,

18:41

didn't you? What's going on with

18:44

these flights? Well, I'm

18:46

sure anyone that's flown might have experienced a

18:48

little bit of turbulence. There's lots of reasons

18:50

for it, but basically there are different forces

18:52

acting on a plane and that can happen

18:55

when we basically get a change in air.

18:57

And that can happen when there's bad weather,

18:59

sometimes when there's buildings or mountains in the

19:01

way which changes the way the air reacts

19:04

around the plane, or even sometimes when there's

19:06

a plane in front of you and some

19:08

of the air movement from behind that plane

19:10

can also affect you. Now, in these two

19:13

flights, particularly the Singapore one, we don't know

19:15

exactly what caused the turbulence. We think

19:17

because it was severe turbulence, which is

19:19

quite rare, it's likely to be caused

19:22

by two things really. Either it was

19:24

thunderstorms or it was

19:26

something called clear turbulence, which is quite

19:28

a rare phenomenon, but really challenging to

19:31

predict. Okay, clear air turbulence. So, clear air isn't

19:33

good in this instance, is it? It isn't good

19:35

because you can't see it. So, if you are

19:37

a pilot and you are driving, is that the

19:40

right word? I don't know, flying the plane? Flying.

19:42

That's the word, flying the plane. You

19:45

can probably see the thunderstorms ahead and the

19:47

Met Office can predict those. So, it's more

19:49

easy to sort of alter your route depending

19:51

on where they are. Clear air turbulence, as

19:53

the name suggests, you cannot see it. There

19:56

are pockets where it's more likely to occur,

19:58

but really what's happening is that there's

20:00

a change of wind direction around the

20:02

jet stream, which is this really fast

20:04

flowing river of air around sort of

20:06

30 to 60,000 feet. So, a difficult

20:08

one to see and can result in

20:10

severe turbulence if you come across it.

20:13

So, is there going to be more of

20:15

this clear air turbulence because

20:17

of the change in climate? Well,

20:19

there was a really interesting study last

20:21

year from scientists at Reading University which

20:24

looked at clear air turbulence,

20:26

particularly within the North Atlantic and they

20:28

found between 1979 and 2020 that type

20:30

of turbulence had increased

20:34

by 55%. So,

20:36

that's quite significant. And the

20:38

reason they think that is because

20:40

that warmer air that we're getting

20:42

from climate change and from increasing

20:44

greenhouse gas emissions is changing

20:46

the wind speed around the jet stream.

20:48

So, certainly it seems that clear air

20:51

turbulence might become more of an issue in the

20:53

future. Right. And as well

20:55

as clear air turbulence, you also

20:57

mentioned thunderstorms may have been a

20:59

cause. I think thunderstorms are a

21:01

bit trickier to know what's happening when it comes to

21:04

climate change. Are they on the rise? Do we know?

21:06

It is tricky because when

21:08

we talk about thunderstorms, we're not just

21:10

talking about rain, right? We're talking about

21:12

wind, we're talking about hail

21:14

and things like that. But what we do

21:16

know is that tropical storms, which is where

21:18

that Singapore flight was flying in

21:20

within that region where tropical storms occur,

21:23

we know that they are increasing because

21:25

of climate change. There's strong evidence for

21:27

that from the UN climate science body,

21:29

the IPCC. And the reason for that

21:31

is kind of twofold. So, when

21:34

we're warming our planet up, a lot of

21:36

that warmth is absorbed by our oceans. And

21:38

that means you're going to get more

21:40

water evaporating and more heat being added into

21:43

the atmosphere. At the same time, the air,

21:45

when it's warmer, can absorb more of

21:47

that moisture. So, if you think about it,

21:49

we're getting more moisture in the air

21:51

and we're getting hotter, which is all

21:53

just the perfect conditions for creating more

21:56

of a stronger tropical storm. And we

21:58

know for this Singapore flight, that

22:00

there were tropical storms nearby at the time,

22:02

although they haven't finalised that that is the

22:04

reason, but that could be another reason for

22:07

the severe turbulence that was experienced. As

22:09

someone who doesn't like flying, this doesn't

22:11

sound like very good news. So, climate

22:14

change is likely making turbulence more intense

22:16

and more frequent. Can I ask my

22:18

pilot to avoid it? Can they take

22:20

a different route? So, I want

22:23

to reiterate severe turbulence is rare to the

22:25

extent that we're talking about. What pilots can

22:27

do is, and they do do this, is

22:29

they spend a long time planning their

22:32

routes. They take in a lot of

22:34

evidence from meteorological organisations. So, for thunderstorms,

22:36

they are more easy, say, than clear

22:38

air turbulence to predict and to navigate

22:41

around. But like I said before, there

22:43

are areas within kind of a

22:45

flight path which are highlighted as maybe at-risk

22:47

areas for this clear air turbulence. So, they

22:49

can do that. But I would say one

22:51

thing you can do as a passenger is always

22:54

keep your seatbelt on unless you sort of need

22:56

to go to toilet. Often when that little sign

22:58

flicks off after you've taken off, you think, oh

23:00

great, I'll take my seatbelt off, I can relax.

23:02

But actually as we saw in the Singapore flight,

23:04

sometimes there was absolutely no warning it's about to

23:07

happen. And those people that were injured were those

23:09

not wearing their seatbelts. Or not go

23:11

to the toilet on the flight, which is something

23:13

I used to do when I was really little

23:15

when we used to fly over and see family

23:17

in the US, which is a very long flight,

23:19

because I was terrified of the noise those toilets

23:21

used to make. Yeah, I'm not sure if fellow passengers

23:23

would appreciate if you were at the seat, but I

23:25

don't know, maybe the injuries would be safe. I was

23:28

just a little six, seven. Whilst we're

23:31

on the topic of weather and clouds,

23:33

there is another quite interesting related story

23:35

that I spotted on the BBC News

23:37

website. A new satellite was launched into

23:40

space to measure clouds' impact on the

23:42

climate. It was

23:45

a joint different

24:00

by the European Japanese Space Agency. And

24:02

rather sweetly, the satellite was called EarthCare.

24:05

Very cute, yeah. And the

24:07

BBC science correspondent Jonathan Amos spoke to

24:10

BBC News about the backstory to this

24:12

mission. The first sort of concept

24:14

proposal was put forward in

24:17

1993 by a Reading University

24:19

scientist called Anthony Illingworth. And

24:21

he battled away to get his

24:23

ideas accepted. And eventually

24:26

the European Space Agency accepted it

24:28

way back in 2004. And

24:31

that satellite has just been launched

24:33

two decades later. Just shows the

24:36

difficulty, the challenges, the technical challenges.

24:39

They had to try and find a way to

24:41

make the laser work in the vacuum of space.

24:43

If you're going to operate in

24:45

space, your tools need to work

24:48

in a vacuum, right? And that took them

24:50

several years to work out. These things, they

24:52

don't come cheap and they don't come quick.

24:54

But the data they can return certainly can

24:57

be profound. I love

24:59

the sound of space missions using lasers

25:01

to look at clouds. It all sounds

25:03

so exciting. But Esme, clouds are one

25:05

of Earth's biggest mysteries. Like we don't

25:07

really know what's going on in our

25:10

climate system, do we? It's

25:12

very difficult to predict long term how clouds

25:14

are going to change as a result of

25:16

climate change. And therefore, there also their effect

25:18

on climate change is one of the probably

25:20

most difficult things to put into computer models,

25:23

which help us forecast how our climate will

25:25

change due to those increasing levels of greenhouse

25:27

gases. So, why do we

25:29

need to know this? How important is this mission?

25:32

It's really important because hopefully it will give

25:35

us more certainty about how those clouds are

25:37

going to behave. I mean,

25:39

clouds operate in a very different way.

25:41

So, they're not always just absorbing radiation.

25:44

What also happens is some

25:46

of those lower thicker clouds will reflect

25:48

that radiation back up and then those

25:50

high thin clouds will sort of trap

25:52

that solar radiation as well. So, there's

25:55

a lot of different activities going on

25:57

within that system. It's really important

25:59

that we know. know how that's going to behave

26:01

in the future. Yeah, so it's interesting. So

26:04

if they're reflecting the radiation, the heat, they're

26:06

obviously reflecting that heat back out into space

26:08

and cooling the Earth, whereas if they're trapping

26:10

it, then actually that means

26:12

that the Earth is getting warmer as

26:15

a consequence. So it's really hard to

26:17

know what the balance is, I guess,

26:19

between those two quite different effects. Yeah,

26:21

effectively, I mean, that system of kind

26:23

of trapping the heat is really important.

26:25

You know, many people probably learn when

26:28

you first learn about the Earth's formation

26:30

and learning about our climate is that that's really

26:32

important. If we didn't have that, we'd be freezing

26:34

and probably wouldn't be sat here. But often when

26:36

that's gone too far, so we're trapping too much

26:39

of that heat, that's when it becomes a problem.

26:41

So what we need to know is, first of

26:43

all, how are those clouds going to change in

26:45

the future as a result of climate change? Are

26:47

they going to be trapping more heat? And then

26:50

what could that look like in terms of rising

26:52

temperatures? And also, how is climate change

26:54

going to affect them as well? So it's a

26:56

really complex system. We need to figure out. Thank

26:59

you, Esme. Lasers, clouds and planes. Appreciate it.

27:01

Thank you for talking to us. Great

27:03

to be with you. See you, Esme. Bye. Bye. Now

27:12

Mr Dunbar, you've been looking at

27:14

our email inbox. You have the

27:16

climatequestion at vbc.co.uk. If you'd like

27:19

to get in touch, what are

27:21

our lovely listeners saying? We have

27:24

had loads of emails with questions and

27:26

comments. So thank you very much, everyone.

27:28

And this one I enjoyed. If you

27:30

want to. Yeah. Okay.

27:32

Hi, my name is Mathieu. I

27:36

live in Ghana. My question is,

27:38

are there any organisations that partner

27:40

with schools to teach sustainability? I

27:43

believe it's important to educate children

27:45

on climate change here and other

27:47

environmental issues, which would be good

27:50

for the planet. Thanks. Well, Mathieu,

27:52

I have good news because right

27:54

here on the climate question, we've

27:56

been creating YouTube explainer videos on

27:58

really basic things. things like what

28:00

is climate change, why is 1.5 degrees

28:02

so important and how the big climate

28:04

conferences work and you can find them

28:06

on YouTube. I think those would be

28:08

really, really helpful. And BBC

28:11

Bitesize has some great content for lots

28:13

of different children of various different age

28:15

groups. You can find that by just

28:18

googling BBC Bitesize and climate change, but

28:20

we've also put a link in the

28:22

podcast show notes as well. But

28:25

for now, that's

28:27

all we have time for, I'm afraid. The

28:31

production team on this episode were Stevie

28:33

Woodward, Ben Cooper, Simon Watts, Neil Churchill

28:36

and Tom Brignell. And of course you,

28:38

Jordan Dunbar and me, Graeia Jackson. We'll see

28:40

you next week, same time, same place. Or

28:42

if you can't get enough of the climate

28:44

question, you can always subscribe to the podcast.

28:47

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29:10

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