Planet A - Talks on Climate Change

In the 3rd episode of Planet A’s fourth season, Dan Jørgensen talks with Dr. Debra Roberts co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC). The IPCC recently released its report ” Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability ” that assesses the impact climate change could have on ecosystems, biodiversity and human communities. Dr. Roberts calls the report a clear wak...

In the 2nd episode of Planet A’s fourth season, Dan Jørgensen talks with Lutz Weischer, Head of Policy for the NGO Germanwatch.   Germanwatch works on a wide range of environmental issues, but is perhaps best known for its annual publication of “CCPI” - the Climate Change Performance Index .   As evident in numerous international assessments, the world is currently not on track to limit the rise o...

In the 1st episode of Planet A’s fourth season, Dan Jørgensen talks with Professor Joseph Nye of Harvard University. Professor Nye gained global fame by introducing the term “soft power”, that is the ability of a country to persuade others to do what it wants – without using force or coercion. In this episode of Planet A, he explains how soft power is particularly relevant to address transnational...

In the 5th episode of Planet A’s third season, Dan Jørgensen talks with Dr. Kate Marvel. Dr. Marvel is a research scientist at Columbia University and works for NASA, studying how climate change affects our planet.  Her research has not only made her an eminent expert on the interplay between clouds and climate change, but also brought her international prominence for her TED Talk “Can clouds save...

In the 4th episode of Planet A’s third season, Dan Jørgensen talks with Laurence Tubiana and Tomas Anker Christensen about the complexity of negotiations at COP26 in Glasgow, the significance of the outcome and the nature of the COP proces. Laurence Tubiana is CEO of the European Climate Foundation (ECF) and the former French Climate Change Ambassador and Special Representative for COP21. In this...

In the 3rd episode of Planet A’s third season, Dan Jørgensen talks with Inger Andersen, the Under-Secretary-General of the UN and Executive Director of UNEP (the United Nations Environment Programme). UNEP recently published this year’s “ Emissions Gap Report: The Heat Is On ”. The Gap Report is a science-based assessment of the gap between countries’ climate pledges and the reductions required to...

In the 2nd episode of Planet A’s third season, Dan Jørgensen talks with David Livingston and Varun Sivaram. Livingston and Sivaram serve as Senior Advisers to President Biden’s Special Envoy for Climate, John Kerry. Thus, they play a key role in fulfilling President Joe Biden's climate policy on the world stage. In this episode, Livingston and Sivaram discuss the US priorities and expectation...

In the 1st episode of Planet A’s third season, Dan Jørgensen talks with Dr. Juergen Voegele, the World Bank’s Vice President for Sustainable Development. Dr. Voegele is one of the world’s leading experts on the interplay between food production, agriculture and climate change. In his current capacity, he oversees the World Bank’s entire efforts on agriculture, food, climate change and the environm...

In the 10th episode of Planet A’s second season, Dan Jørgensen talks with Jason Bordoff, the Director of Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy and the Dean of the University’s Climate School. They touch upon the lessons learned from the COVID-19 crisis and the temporary decline in global energy consumption, the Biden administration and climate politics in the US.  And they discuss t...

In the 9th episode of Planet A’s second season, Dan Jørgensen talks with Jennifer Morgan, the Executive Director of Greenpeace International.  Over the last twenty years, Morgan has worked with climate change at leading NGOs such as World Resources Institute (WRI) and World Wildlife Foundation (WWF). Moreover, she has participated in every single COP and served as Review Editor for the 5th Assessm...

In the 8th episode of Planet A’s second season, Dan Jørgensen talks with Microsoft’s Chief Environmental Officer, Dr. Lucas Joppa.  Dr. Joppa has worked at the nexus of data and sustainability throughout his career and is now leading Microsoft’s efforts to become a carbon negative company. Furthermore, he leads the company’s work on data and tech solutions that can help decarbonize the entire worl...

In the 7th episode of Planet A’s second season, Dan Jørgensen talks with the journalist and author, Elizabeth Kolbert.  Kolbert first achieved international prominence when her bestselling book “ The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History ” was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2014 and the Guardian named it the best non-fiction book of all time.  She has worked for the New York Times and the New York...

In the 6th episode of Planet A’s second season, Dan Jørgensen talks with the American economist and Nobel Laureate, Joseph Stiglitz. Stiglitz explains why he is a strong supporter of a “Cross Border Adjustment tax”, which adds the cost of carbon emissions to the price on imported goods and thus prevents carbon leakage.  The economist underlines the importance of imposing a higher social cost of ca...

In the 5th episode of Planet A’s second season, Dan Jørgensen talks with the British writer, activist and environmentalist, George Monbiot.  Monbiot has been a regular columnist for The Guardian since 1996 and authored ten books on social justice, climate change and other environmental issues.  He achieved global acclaim for his award-winning book “ Feral: Searching for Enchantment on the Frontier...

In this 4th episode of the 2nd season of Planet A, Dan Jørgensen talks with the American writer Jonathan Franzen.  Franzen is the author of numerous short stories and essays, but is most widely known for his novels “ The Corrections ”, “ Freedom ” and “ Purity ”. Furthermore, he has been a contributor to “ The New Yorker ” Magazine since 1994 and written seminal essays on climate change and enviro...

In the 3rd episode of the 2nd season of Planet A, Dan Jørgensen talks with Dennis “Denny” McGinn, a retired Vice Admiral from the United States Navy, about why climate change is a threat to global security and stability.  Prior to his retirement, Vice Admiral McGinn served as the Commander of the 3rd US Fleet and as the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations. He crowned a distinguished military career b...

In the 2nd episode of season 2 of Planet A, Dan Jørgensen talks with Li Shuo from Greenpeace East Asia about Chinese domestic and international climate politics ahead of COP26.  Li Shuo works as Greenpeace’s Senior Climate and Energy Policy Officer   in Beijing and leads the NGO’s international political delegation at the COP-meetings. Thus, he offers a unique insight regarding China’s domestic en...

In this first episode of a new season of Planet A, Dan Jørgensen talks with David Wallace-Wells about the multitude of interlinked problems created by climate change.  Wallace-Wells, a journalist and deputy editor of New York Magazine, achieved global fame by writing the long-form essay “The Uninhabitable Earth” in 2017.  The essay laid out – in excruciating detail – just how dire the climate cris...

In the 14th episode of Planet A, Dan Jørgensen talks with Sharan Burrow about how we can make the green transition fair for workers. Burrow is General Secretary of “ITUC” (the International Trade Union Confederation), a Brussels-based union organization that works to promote and defend workers’ rights and interests around the world.  During Burrow’s tenure as General Secretary, ITUC has become an...

In the 13th episode of Planet A, we commemorate the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement, as Dan Jørgensen talks with Alden Meyer about the history of the international climate negotiations.  Meyer is one of the world’s most prominent advisers on climate policy and served as Director of Strategy and Policy at the Union of Concerned Scientistsfor four decades. Today he is senior associate for t...

In the 12th episode of Planet A, Dan Jørgensen talks with Poland’s Minister of Climate and Environment, Michał Kurtyka, about his experience as President of COP24 as well as his country’s goal to reduce coal power and build more renewable energy. This is no small feat, considering how important coal mining is to the Polish economy. Thus the overarching theme of this episode is the question of a “j...

In the 11th episode of Planet A, Dan Jørgensen talks with the former Maldivian President, Mohamed Nasheed.  Mr. Nasheed managed to put his country on the map of global climate politics during his tenure as President of the Maldives (2008-12) and became one of the strongest global voices on climate action. After being ousted in 2012, Nasheed was exiled to England where he was granted political asyl...

In the 10th episode of Planet A, Dan Jørgensen talks with Barack Obama's former Secretary of Energy, Dr. Ernest Moniz.  Dr. Moniz holds a doctoral degree in theoretical nuclear physics and made his first foray into Washington-politics as President Bill Clinton’s Under Secretary of Energy (1997-2001). He is widely recognized as one of the most knowledgeable people on the planet, when it comes...

In the 9th episode of Planet A, Dan Jørgensen talks with Germany’s Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, Svenja Schulze Minister Schulze is one of the world’s most important decision makers in contemporary climate politics.  In her current job, she is not only facing the monumental task of decarbonizing Germany, Europe’s largest economy. Minister Schulze is...

The 8th episode of Planet A is a special edition, featuring highlights from the preceding 7 episodes of the podcast.  The roster of guests is (in order of appearance on this episode):  Christiana Figueres, former Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Dr. Jane Goodall,  Primatologist and Conservationist Katherine Richardson, Professor in Biological Oceanography at the...