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Hi, I'm Greya

0:02

and this is the Climate Question, where

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we ask simply, what on earth can

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we do about climate change?

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Podcasts from the BBC World Service are

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supported by advertising.

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In 2012, a

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new charity bursts onto the scene.

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It's called Believe in Magic and

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it grants wishes to seriously ill children.

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It has the support of the biggest boy band

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in the world, One Direction. It's

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run by an inspirational 16-year-old

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girl called Megan Bari, who

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herself is battling a brain

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tumour. I've been in and out of hospital and

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seen so many other very poorly children. But

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when questions arise about her story, they

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reveal she could be facing another,

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very different danger. What is

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this girl going through?

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It wasn't supposed to end like this. Listen

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to Believe in Magic with me, Jamie

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Bartlett.

1:02

Hello,

1:08

this is the Climate Question

1:11

from the BBC World Service. I'm the BBC's

1:13

climate editor, Justin Roller. And

1:15

the things I have to do for the BBC,

1:18

it is five o'clock in the morning.

1:21

I've just left my home in North London and I'm

1:23

about to set out on a journey that's

1:26

going to last most of this programme. It's going to involve

1:28

several modes of transport, each one

1:31

with a very different carbon footprint. Now,

1:34

if you're not sure what a carbon footprint

1:36

is, well, it's an important

1:38

concept in this programme. It measures

1:40

how big an impact your journey has

1:42

on our planet's climate. And confusingly,

1:46

it doesn't only depend on how much

1:48

carbon dioxide your journey puts in

1:50

the atmosphere, as we're going to discover later

1:52

in the programme. Anyway, I'm starting

1:55

my own journey with possibly the

1:57

lowest carbon transport of them all.

1:59

to pick up a rental bike using

2:02

an app on my phone. Let me just get

2:04

it up. There we go and it is incredibly

2:07

easy to use.

2:09

There we go. Now admittedly

2:12

I am being a bit lazy. This bike

2:14

is actually an electric bike. In

2:16

other words that not all the energy will be coming

2:18

from my legs. Some of it will have come

2:20

from the British electricity grid and

2:23

in this country we burn a fair bit

2:25

of natural gas to generate our electricity

2:28

and that dials put carbon dioxide in the

2:30

atmosphere all the same. It's

2:32

a pretty low carbon start

2:35

to what is going to be a very long

2:38

day of travel.

2:50

So what is this all about you may be wondering.

2:52

Well it all started with an investigation

2:54

I did last year. Now if you've ever

2:57

googled a plane journey that you were thinking

2:59

of making you may have noticed that near

3:01

the top of the search results Google

3:03

gives you a little table of flight

3:06

options and if you click through it can

3:08

also tell you what the carbon

3:10

footprint of each flight is. But that's

3:12

not all it will sometimes offer you a train

3:15

as a low carbon alternative which

3:17

is why I've come here to London's

3:19

St

3:20

Pancras station to catch the Eurostar

3:22

high speed train to Rotterdam in

3:25

the Netherlands. Bonjour

3:27

Monsieur. Have

3:30

a good day. Gracie. Right

3:34

I'm on the platform I want coach nine.

3:36

Now you may be thinking well that's a great thing that

3:38

Google's trying to steer you towards

3:41

a more climate friendly mode of transport

3:43

because passenger planes spew out

3:46

huge amounts of carbon. Right

3:48

here we are.

3:55

Right in my seat now the problem is when

3:57

you dig a little deep.

3:59

as I did a few months ago, you discover

4:02

that Google's carbon footprint calculations

4:05

are actually seriously

4:07

wrong. The figures it gives for planes

4:09

are way too low. Meanwhile, Google massively

4:12

overestimates the carbon footprint for

4:14

some train journeys, like this Eurostar

4:17

train I'm on now. That's why

4:19

I'm on my way to Rotterdam. And it's also

4:22

why today's climate question is, how

4:24

much can a traveller like me actually

4:27

trust these carbon footprint

4:29

calculations

4:29

at all?

4:37

I'll have a croissant Americano

4:39

with milk and an orange juice, please.

4:41

Thank you. Right,

4:46

I'm in the buffet car. We've just come out of the tunnel

4:48

into northern France and I want some breakfast.

4:51

But I'm also wondering whether other passengers

4:53

on the train are as interested in

4:55

their carbon footprints as I am.

4:59

Mate, have you got a moment? Yeah, got it. I'm

5:01

from the BBC. We just wanted to ask you a couple

5:03

of questions, mate. Go for it. So where are

5:05

you travelling to and why? To

5:07

watch Westam. Who

5:09

are they playing? Who's going

5:12

to win? Westam. Listen,

5:15

why have you chosen the Eurostar? GV's

5:18

method. Did you think about your carbon

5:20

emissions, how much carbon you're emitting? No,

5:22

not really. I just compared

5:24

prices. I'd pick the cheapest one. So

5:26

tell us, where are you going? Amsterdam.

5:29

It's a joint

5:31

birthday. Oh, nice. To be

5:33

honest with you, I do organise it. I'm just like, tell

5:36

me where I'm going, how much I'll be there.

5:38

I mean, do you think that whoever

5:40

it was took into account the carbon emissions

5:42

of the journey? Probably not.

5:46

Why did you choose

5:49

Eurostar?

5:50

It was cheaper than the flights

5:54

and it's easier to go from the centre of

5:56

one city to the centre of the next.

5:58

What about your carbon impact? Did

6:00

you think about that? That's also great,

6:03

but I was mainly looking at

6:06

ease of the trip and the financial aspect

6:07

of it. I mean, do you have a look on, when you're booking

6:09

flights, do you have a look on Google? Yes,

6:12

and you can see carbon emissions. Do

6:14

you ever use that? I mean, is that something? Yes, sometimes.

6:16

I mean, do you think about carbon emissions? You do? Yes.

6:20

And how much do you trust the calculations that you

6:22

get from Google?

6:23

I trust them entirely, whether

6:26

or not that is appropriate

6:28

or not. If it's Google, I

6:31

just do what it says, right? After

6:39

more than three hours on the train, I've

6:41

arrived at Rotterdam station, where

6:44

I'm meeting Eurostar's head of sustainability,

6:47

Andrew Murphy.

6:50

Hi, Andrew. Hi, I'm Justin. Hey, Justin. Good

6:53

to meet you. Good to meet you. Right,

6:56

so we're in Rotterdam. Now, presumably,

6:58

your rivals on the London

7:01

Rotterdam route are mostly airlines, is

7:03

that right? Yeah, almost exclusively

7:05

airlines. So what are the

7:07

big selling points? Where's the competition

7:09

between you and airlines? Well, the competition,

7:11

we feel very strongly on the sustainability

7:14

aspect. Our airline competitors will operate

7:16

almost exclusively with fossil jet fuel. We

7:19

operate largely on

7:20

renewables and low carbon energy. No,

7:23

but that's what you want to compete on. What do you think the customers

7:26

are thinking about? Because I've got to be honest, we spoke to

7:28

people travelling on the Eurostar on the way here,

7:30

and all of them said the main driver

7:33

was kind of price or convenience. Yeah,

7:35

and we're happy that they found our tickets good cost

7:37

and convenience. What I'm getting a lot ahead

7:40

of sustainability is questions from our

7:42

corporate travel clients. They're really

7:44

eager to reduce their own business travel emissions,

7:46

particularly if you're a bank or a consultancy

7:49

where you don't have huge amount of emissions

7:50

in energy or production. So travel

7:52

is a huge part of that. So have

7:55

you calculated Eurostar's

7:58

carbon footprint? And if so...

7:59

What is it? Eurosize carbon footprint

8:02

is very low. 90% of our emissions

8:04

come from electricity. But the electricity

8:06

in the countries we operate in is already

8:09

quite low because we use a lot of renewables, there's

8:11

not much coal. As a result, getting

8:13

the train between London and Rotterdam would have 7kg of passenger

8:17

CO2 equivalent. That's 83% less

8:19

CO2 than an equivalent flight. Now,

8:22

you know, say your footprint depends on

8:24

renewable energy. So, like, it's

8:26

a pretty windy day today. On a windy

8:28

day, would my carbon

8:29

footprint as a passenger be

8:32

lower? Yes. So, when it's windy,

8:34

when it's sunny, renewables kind of flood into the system,

8:36

the footprint goes down. Unfortunately,

8:38

when it's not as windy or sunny, gas comes into

8:40

the mix and then it goes up a little bit. But

8:43

if you just take a step back and look at the last 5 or 10

8:45

years, the electricity grid is cleaner now

8:47

than it was 5 years and 5 years before then. And

8:50

the electricity grid will be even cleaner in 5 or 10

8:52

years. So, as it is, we're

8:54

the cleaner choice in flying and we're only going to

8:56

get cleaner as the grid decarbonizes. But

8:58

we're not a company that's just sitting

8:59

around waiting for the grid to decarbonize.

9:02

We're also actively participating in that. We

9:04

signed a long-term contract to purchase renewable

9:07

electricity in the Netherlands. Likewise,

9:09

we're signing similar contracts in the UK. We're discussions

9:11

with operators in France and Belgium. Now,

9:15

as you're aware, Google offers Eurostar

9:17

as an alternative to flying on

9:19

its Google Flights app. And

9:21

the estimate it has for your carbon

9:23

footprint is significantly higher than

9:26

the actual footprint. How do you feel about

9:28

that? As I understand,

9:29

they were using EU average for the electricity

9:32

grid. That includes some countries still dependent on coal.

9:34

So the electricity grid does vary

9:37

country to country. So it's a little bit of an extra calculation.

9:40

But I think Google probably has the resources at

9:42

a time for the accurate calculation. Well,

9:44

looking at the calculation, we went on to Google yesterday.

9:47

Google says the carbon emissions for London Rotterdam,

9:50

which is the journey we've just made is 16

9:52

kilograms of carbon per passenger. You're

9:55

saying it's seven kilograms. That's

9:57

a huge difference. As a company

9:59

that...

9:59

boast about its sustainability.

10:02

I'd be a tiny bit annoyed

10:04

and Andrew I'm not getting the impression you're being quite

10:06

kind of generous towards Google

10:09

I'd say. You know I've been working on sustainability

10:11

for a long time. I know these calculations

10:14

can drive people a bit mad. I'm a little

10:16

sympathetic you know maybe a coffee

10:18

or a drink is needed to get this straight. To

10:21

have a discussion over a coffee or a drink.

10:27

All

10:30

right so that

10:33

was Andrew Murphy head of sustainability. You're

10:35

a star and I'm now in a taxi.

10:38

Excuse me can I can I just ask you

10:40

what fuel does this vehicle use?

10:43

It's a diesel car.

10:46

Okay well we're burning

10:48

diesel on our way to Delft University

10:51

to ask about another mode of transport

10:54

and this one the one we're going to talk about is

10:56

the biggest carver emitter of them all.

11:00

Could I

11:02

have a red carrot burger

11:05

and dirty fries please.

11:07

So my name is Vijiayin. I'm currently

11:15

assistant professor from the Faculty of Aerospace

11:17

Engineering. I work on calamity

11:20

effects of aviation.

11:21

How much carver

11:24

per kilometer do planes produce?

11:27

That's a tough question because

11:29

depending on like the distance

11:31

you fly the passengers

11:34

in general planes are more like really

11:36

efficient vehicles

11:37

compared to the road traffic. Yeah so

11:40

if you were driving a car on your own it's

11:42

about the same emissions as being a passenger on

11:44

a plane per kilometer is that right?

11:46

If you compare in that way for shorter

11:48

distances cars are usually more

11:51

environmental friendly but however if you

11:53

go to long distances in general long

11:55

haul is more efficient so for long haul

11:57

you're mostly spending in a cruise altitude

11:59

where the efficiency is better.

12:03

And the engines usually for large

12:05

aircraft are more efficient.

12:06

How difficult is it

12:09

to calculate emissions per passenger in

12:11

terms of CO2 from planes?

12:13

In general with the current scientific understanding

12:16

you can predict the fuel consumption based

12:19

on aircraft engine type. What

12:22

is challenging is the number of people

12:24

that is getting on board which is usually fluctuating

12:27

and also how much payload you carry.

12:30

So if you take all of those factors into

12:32

account in terms of CO2 it is quite straightforward

12:34

to calculate the emissions. Yeah it's

12:37

directly linked to fuel consumption. So

12:39

up till now we've just been talking about

12:41

the carbon dioxide produced from burning fuel

12:43

but there are other impacts aren't there that

12:46

planes have in terms of climate

12:48

change?

12:49

So there are also non CO2 emissions

12:52

for instance in nitrogen oxide which

12:54

creates ozone. Ozone is

12:56

a greenhouse gas and also

12:58

formation of contrails at a high altitude.

13:01

So contrails when a plane is flying

13:04

you see the white lines behind the aircraft.

13:07

Those are what we mean by contrails. So

13:09

they are thin layer of clouds. They

13:12

form at specific atmospheric

13:14

conditions in terms of their effects.

13:17

So in the night imagine that

13:20

you have a blanket on top of your head. So

13:22

they kind of trap the outgoing

13:24

light radiation from the earth that's

13:27

a warming effect. But during the day

13:29

it's still a blanket however

13:32

it also reflects the sun radiation

13:35

coming to the earth. So these

13:37

two balance determines whether it

13:40

has a warming effect or cooling effect.

13:42

So what I'm getting from this is that it's

13:44

really complicated with cooling and

13:46

warming effect. So how big

13:48

are these non CO2 effects

13:50

that you're talking about?

13:51

So rot of sun potentially it

13:53

can double the CO2 emissions impact.

13:57

It doubles the impact. So these are

13:59

actually really important. factors. How

14:01

hard are they to measure? I mean do they vary

14:03

between different flights? So it really depends

14:06

on where you fly and when you fly. Whether

14:08

you're flying a hot day or when

14:11

you are flying at a lower altitude or higher

14:13

altitude, even day in the night.

14:15

Makes it really difficult to calculate

14:18

the impact that you're having on the atmosphere when

14:20

you travel in a plane. Right, so

14:22

it is complex but very interesting.

14:27

That was Phaedra Yinn of Delft University

14:30

speaking to me over lunch in the Netherlands

14:32

a couple of days ago.

14:38

Well we're now taking a break from my journey

14:41

and I'm speaking to you from a studio

14:43

in Cardiff in Wales. As Phaedra

14:46

explained, when you look at the climate impact

14:48

of taking a plane trip, the carbon

14:50

emissions from burning jet fuel are

14:52

only half the story.

14:54

Just as important are those non-carbon

14:57

effects from contrails and the like,

14:59

which is why I was very surprised last

15:01

year to discover that Google

15:03

had stopped including those effects

15:06

in its carbon footprint calculations.

15:10

Now a quick word on language

15:12

here. It may seem odd to include non-carbon

15:15

effects in a carbon footprint calculation

15:18

but this is actually quite a common problem

15:20

across many industries beyond aviation.

15:23

And what most industries do is convert

15:26

the non-carbon effects into the equivalent

15:28

amount of carbon dioxide that would have

15:30

the same warming effect and then

15:32

add that to their carbon footprint to

15:35

get a complete measure of their total

15:37

climate impact.

15:40

So why did Google stop

15:43

doing this on its flights app? It's

15:46

an important question because aviation

15:48

accounts for almost 4% of global

15:51

warming. That's equivalent to the whole

15:53

of Japan. And as for Google,

15:56

not only is it the world's biggest

15:58

search engine, it's

15:59

also now sharing its carbon calculator

16:02

with a consortium of major online

16:04

flight booking companies like Skyscanner

16:07

and Booking.com, so they can use

16:09

it on their websites, which means

16:12

Google's figures are going to be seen by

16:15

a lot of people.

16:18

When I spoke to Google last year, they

16:20

told me it simply wasn't yet possible

16:23

to calculate these non-CO2

16:25

factors accurately for individual

16:27

flights, which was especially problematic

16:30

as the vast majority of the warming effect is

16:32

caused by a small minority

16:34

of flights. They therefore decided

16:37

to list only the direct CO2,

16:40

but Google promised they were working with leading

16:42

scientists to improve their estimates so

16:45

the non-carbon effects could be included

16:47

in future.

16:48

Nine months on

16:50

and nothing has changed. The calculations

16:53

still don't include any non-carbon

16:55

effects and now we learn Google's calculations

16:58

for high-speed trains like Eurostar are

17:00

way too high. As you can

17:03

imagine, climate campaigners are

17:05

not happy. Here's Doug Parr,

17:08

Chief Scientist and Policy Director

17:10

at Greenpeace UK.

17:13

We're disappointed because Google does style

17:15

itself as a climate leader, it has done some good stuff,

17:18

but their travel emissions calculator looks like

17:20

a dodgy ad for the aviation industry. And

17:23

I think it's disappointing that they aren't

17:25

currently including at least some estimate

17:28

of the non-CO2

17:30

effects in calculating a

17:32

flight's impact. Now obviously

17:34

I've gone to Google and asked them to

17:36

explain and they say, look, it's really difficult

17:39

and you know, speaking to scientists, that seems

17:41

to be true. It is difficult on individual

17:43

flights

17:43

to calculate the non-CO2 effects

17:45

of flying. And they say, look, we don't want to give

17:48

people inaccurate figures, so

17:50

we're just going to give them the stuff they know. And there's

17:52

an argument there, isn't there?

17:54

I mean, yes, of course there's uncertainty,

17:56

but uncertainty is not a reason for ignoring

17:58

stuff.

19:59

an aviation researcher at the International

20:02

Council on Clean Transportation,

20:05

a non-governmental organisation that

20:07

analyses transport climate policy.

20:10

She pointed out that carbon

20:12

footprints aren't just used by

20:14

travellers to choose the best flight.

20:18

One goal of disclosure is

20:20

to compare flights, but the other really important

20:22

goal is to make people aware of how

20:24

much they're emitting when they take a flight and

20:27

when companies want to reduce

20:29

their emissions, they also need to have the

20:31

correct baseline. So from accounting

20:34

perspective, it is really important to get the

20:36

actual number right. So I think

20:38

at least from our perspective, we would

20:40

recommend having that

20:43

version of the calculation available

20:45

and then if possible, you can show both

20:47

of them,

20:48

right, like having a tick box or something

20:50

that says carbon emissions only

20:52

versus total emissions.

20:54

How many people do you think look

20:56

at the carbon emissions when they make a decision

20:58

about flying? So there's

21:00

not a lot of empirical research on this because

21:03

this is such a new thing. There

21:05

weren't this kind of information available until

21:08

like a couple of years ago. So

21:10

there are surveys about, you know, what people be willing

21:13

to pay a little bit more for lower

21:16

emitting flights and then generally the answer

21:19

is yes. And especially for business

21:21

travel, it is harder for leisure travel,

21:23

right? Like you're going on vacation

21:25

and one vacation of a year and then you

21:27

have a budget, like then it's more likely

21:29

for you to prioritize the price and then time

21:31

and everything else. But you know, business

21:33

travelers have the way of choosing

21:36

a different flight, even if the price

21:38

and time are slightly different. Right

21:40

now, there's pressure from, you

21:42

know, certain companies having going travel policies

21:45

and wanting to modify

21:47

their travel behavior, more so than individuals

21:50

actively trying to modify their behavior.

21:52

So how big an issue is

21:54

calculation of carbon emissions in countries

21:57

outside of kind of Europe and America and places

21:59

like China and India?

21:59

India, do you think? Right.

22:02

I think even between Europe and

22:04

the States, we see a lot of discrepancies

22:06

in how much people care about

22:09

environmental information and fair consumption,

22:11

right? I think it's fair to say that in

22:14

emerging markets, the awareness is

22:16

even lower. And then it also

22:18

depends on countries' priorities, right? For

22:21

countries like China and India that

22:23

do have a large total emissions

22:27

for praying, they're focusing on a lot of other sectors

22:29

and then leaving aviation

22:31

out as like, it's a really

22:33

small percentage in those countries'

22:36

total emissions. I think large public

22:39

companies are facing definitely

22:41

some of the pressure that the public companies in

22:44

mature markets are facing. I actually just

22:46

chatted with a public company

22:49

in China who's been disclosing

22:51

their CO2 and CO2 emissions

22:53

from corporate travel, but now

22:56

they're seeing everyone else not doing it. So

22:58

they're debating if they should take it out.

23:01

So Lu Chiang from the International Council

23:04

on Clean Transportation.

23:08

Well despite what she had to say about that Chinese

23:10

company, it does sound like the biggest

23:12

demand for accurate carbon footprint calculations

23:15

is coming from business class travellers

23:18

or more specifically from big

23:20

corporations under pressure from their

23:22

climate conscious investors to

23:24

disclose and abate their

23:26

corporate carbon footprints. But

23:29

what about economy class? What

23:31

about the ordinary plane passengers who

23:33

might actually use Google's Flights

23:36

app to buy their tickets?

23:37

Can they live with their consciences?

23:40

And if so, then perhaps they need to be charged

23:42

more for their plane ticket to

23:44

reflect their carbon footprint. In other words,

23:47

a carbon tax. Well,

23:50

back in the Netherlands, there was only one way

23:52

to find out.

23:56

Now this really is a whistle stop tour.

23:59

It's two o'clock in the afternoon. afternoon and I'm at Rotterdam

24:01

Airport. Some of you may think

24:03

it is hypocritical of me as the

24:06

BBC's climate editor to

24:08

be taking a flight home, but sometimes

24:10

I do have to take flights to report the stories

24:12

I cover. In this instance, the

24:14

flying is an essential part of the story

24:17

as you look at it. I

24:20

have just come through passport control and

24:22

I want to talk to my fellow passengers about

24:25

their decision to fly rather than

24:27

taking the train. Can we

24:29

ask you a couple of questions? Yes, you can. She's hiding. She's

24:31

hiding behind her hair. So first of all, tell me where you're

24:37

going to. We're

24:38

going to London because she's at the British school and

24:40

she's never been in the UK. Oh really?

24:43

So you're coming to practice your English. Practice.

24:45

She has the better English than I have. Can I ask

24:48

you though, did you think about the carbon impact

24:50

of flying? Yes, because the school

24:53

asked us to calculate our carbon print

24:55

for the year. But it's my

24:57

first time this year taking the flight and

25:00

I think even if I do everything

25:03

right when you take it once, you burn

25:06

all your carbon print

25:09

in one time. Yeah.

25:10

Yeah. Where are

25:12

you flying to? London. And why?

25:15

We're going to Elton John. Oh are you? Yeah.

25:18

Oh, you've got tickets. And can I ask

25:20

whether you thought about carbon emissions when you

25:22

chose to fly to London? No.

25:26

You didn't? Fair enough. That's great

25:28

that you're on. I mean, do you think if the cost

25:30

of flying was a bit higher, you might be tempted

25:33

to take the train?

25:34

Yes, I like the train normally. Yeah,

25:36

so it's not really a matter of price.

25:38

It's more convenient actually to train. I mostly

25:41

think about price. I tried to take the train but it's usually quite expensive

25:45

compared to this as well. So if there was a

25:47

carbon tax and flying was a bit more expensive,

25:49

do you think that would affect your decision? Yeah, probably.

25:52

I am conscious about it. So, you know, I feel

25:54

bad sometimes.

26:04

Still, it seems that for most plane

26:06

passengers, a guilty conscience is

26:09

not enough to make them change their

26:11

ways. But if the solution is

26:13

a carbon tax, then there's

26:15

one snag. The government imposing

26:18

that tax needs to know what

26:20

it is actually taxing. In other words,

26:23

there's no escaping it. If we want people

26:25

to reduce the climate impact of their flying,

26:28

then we need accurate estimates

26:30

of what the climate impact is.

26:33

And what is clear is

26:34

it is very hard for consumers to

26:36

get that at the moment, even from

26:39

Google, a company which usually

26:41

prides itself on accuracy.

26:49

Thank you for listening to the Climate Question from

26:52

the BBC World Service. The producer

26:54

of this programme was Lawrence Knight, the

26:56

series producer is Alex Lewis and

26:59

the editor is Chyna Collins. Mixing

27:01

was provided by Tom Brignall.

27:04

If you have any climate questions of your own you'd

27:06

like us to answer in future episodes, then

27:09

please email them to us at theclimatequestion

27:12

at bbc.com. If you

27:14

send it as a voice note on your phone,

27:17

we might even broadcast you on the

27:19

radio

27:19

to our 100 million

27:22

listeners worldwide. In 2008,

27:32

23-year-old Norwegian student

27:35

Martina Vik Magnusson went

27:37

missing after a night out with friends in

27:39

London. I wonder what on

27:41

earth could have happened. We were so

27:44

obsessed with just finding

27:45

her. Police investigating

27:48

the

27:48

murder of a Norwegian socialite in

27:50

central London. Hours after her death,

27:52

the only suspect in the case fled the

27:54

UK to Yemen. His name is Farouk

27:57

Abdel-Haq. He's never been questioned

27:59

by the police. the police. Nobody's

28:01

been able to speak to him. Until

28:04

now.

28:04

It got me like feeling a little

28:06

bit sick to my stomach. I've never been

28:08

open. I'm Noelyn McAfee

28:10

and I've been following this story since Martina

28:13

was killed, making a promise to Martina's

28:15

family to find out what happened.

28:18

Murder in Mayfair. You can listen

28:20

to the whole story now. Search

28:23

for the documentary wherever you get

28:25

your BBC podcasts.

28:31

In 2012, a new charity

28:34

bursts onto the scene.

28:37

It's called Believe in Magic and

28:39

it grants wishes to seriously ill children.

28:42

It's run by an inspirational 16-year-old

28:45

girl called Megan Bari. I

28:47

just wanted to give them the magical experiences

28:50

back. It has the support of the biggest

28:52

boy band in the world. One

28:55

Direction. Believe

28:58

in Magic quickly

28:58

becomes a household name in the child cancer community,

29:02

putting on parties, sending thoughtful

29:05

gifts, even organising trips to Disney.

29:08

Every single child there felt

29:10

like they were so important and they weren't poorly, they weren't in a hospital.

29:13

It was out of this world.

29:16

Megan is adored by all

29:18

those she helps. She had more

29:21

sympathy and love for people than

29:24

I'd ever met anybody before. Because

29:26

she herself is extremely unwell with

29:29

a life-threatening brain tumour.

29:32

Her handbag was so heavy none of us

29:33

could ever carry it and it

29:36

was full of medicine.

29:38

When something doesn't add up about Megan's story, a

29:42

small group of parents start to question

29:44

whether Meg is really ill. I'd

29:47

call it a witch hunt kind of thing, asking questions

29:49

like, which hospital

29:52

are you in? They know that they're not being

29:54

honest about her illnesses. We

29:57

collectively said we won't let it drop, we'll

29:59

find out this time.

30:02

But is Meghan actually facing a very

30:04

different danger? It's

30:07

awful. It's really not nice

30:09

listening to that, was it? What

30:12

is this girl going

30:13

through?

30:14

I'm Jamie Bartlett, a journalist and

30:17

author, and together with the producer Ruth,

30:19

we've spent the last year trying to get

30:21

to the bottom of what really happened

30:23

to Meghan Barrie and her charity

30:26

Believe in Magic.

30:27

I cannot for the life of me understand why

30:30

you've done what you've done to us. It

30:32

takes us on a journey far stranger.

30:35

I just saw a Mercedes, I thought it was it. It's

30:38

not her car. It's not her car, is it? And far

30:40

darker than we ever expected.

30:43

I know what the truth is. I've read the records

30:46

and they just come in and lie

30:48

to me. It wasn't supposed to end like this. Listen

30:52

to Believe in Magic.