The Climate Question

China currently has 53 nuclear power plants with plans to scale up significantly in the next decade, while India is planning to build 10 new power plants over the next three years. South Korea’s new government has committed to restarting its civil nuclear programme and even Japan’s prime minister has pledged to resume nuclear power in a country that has long been resistant. Following Russia’s inva...

There are over 10 million electric cars on the road globally after a decade of rapid growth, representing around 1% of the world’s car stock. But there are questions about whether there is the infrastructure to match. In many countries there are not enough chargers being installed to cope with the number of electric cars being sold. There are also doubts about whether existing electricity grids ha...

The renowned climate scientist and IPCC author Maisa Rojas has been making headlines after being appointed as Chile’s new Minister for the Environment. She has pledged to deliver a green, sustainable and resilient future – and a ‘just transition’ to renewables from an economy that has to date been reliant on mining, forestry and agriculture. The legacy of General Augusto Pinochet has cast a long s...

When talking about climate change, the term net zero has become popular with politicians over the last few years. More than 130 countries have now pledged to go net zero to help slow global warming. Reaching net zero means reducing the amount of emissions as much as possible and removing any that remain from the atmosphere. We hear from communities in South Africa, where the government plans to re...

Hundreds of youth activists travelled to Glasgow, Scotland, to have their voices heard. As we approach the halfway point between COP26 and COP27- to be held in Egypt - we want to know how young people are feeling about progress made. We speak to Maria Reyes from Mexico, Edwin Namakanga from Uganda and Farzana Faruk Jhumu from Bangladesh, who all attended the conference. Is the world on course to p...

As more countries launch more rockets into orbit for commercial and scientific reasons, the space industry is experiencing rapid growth. It’s on the verge of an even greater increase as space tourism takes off. The International Space Station is now open to tourists and private companies have developed rockets that can be reused – all meaning more launches into space. But rocket exhausts contain p...

In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, parts of the world are so dependent on Russian gas that they have no option but to continue to buy it. This week’s episode looks long term plans for improving energy security, particularly in Europe where the biggest focus is on increasing renewables. Whilst this sounds like great news for the climate, Europe only accounts for 10% of the worlds’ emissio...

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been met with harsh financial sanctions. These have come from North America and Europe. The US and Canada have also banned Russian oil and gas, but Europe has found itself unable to do so - even as natural gas prices soar. The EU receives 40% of its natural gas from Russia, and for many countries, if they turn it off, the lights will go out and they’ll be unable...

Scientists say extreme weather is intensifying and becoming more frequent because of climate change and the impacts are causing huge losses. People living in Brisbane and other parts of eastern Australia dealt with those impacts recently, when heavy rain fell for days - destroying thousands of homes and at least 22 people are known to have died. Authorities declared it a once in a-100-year-event,...

As climate change brings rising temperatures, droughts and shifting patterns of rainfall, animals are adapting to keep pace. Bird’s bodies are growing smaller, their wingspan longer, lizards are growing larger thumb pads to help them grip more tightly in hurricane strength winds, beak size is changing. We visit the Galapagos, where evolution was first discovered by Charles Darwin, and investigate...

"A brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity” is how a new major climate change report from the UN described the effect of rising emissions. Already 40% of the world's population is "highly vulnerable" to the impacts, according to the latest report from the International Panel on Climate Change. And it’s all happening much more quickly than previously thought. Sophie Eastaugh and Jordan Dunb...

The need to be able to store electricity as part of our low carbon future, has increased dramatically as the use of renewable energy has expanded. Both solar and wind energy rely on sunlight and weather, only providing intermittent power. Electric cars need to be able to travel greater distances on one charge and cost less to have mass market appeal. It’s clear batteries are a key - but evolving -...

We hear a lot about how melting glaciers are contributing to sea-level rise but not so much about the impact inland. In places like Tajikistan, glaciers feed rivers and are a significant water source. As they melt climatologists expect water flows to increase, contributing to a rise in mudslides and floods. But in the long term, the melting ice will lead to water shortages. We look at mountain com...

For nearly a century, governments around the world have measured the health of their economies by a single metric: GDP, or Gross Domestic Product. It measures a country’s economic growth, and over the years has become a shorthand for national progress; a rising GDP is generally understood to mean more people in work, more companies in business, living standards on the rise. Yet, as experts have ar...

Ahead of COP 26, a rush of businesses declared their commitment to “net zero” emissions targets. But concerns were raised about how credible these targets were. Critics pointed out that many companies’ plans did not require them to change behaviour any time soon, or be held accountable for realising them - and that some of their promises just weren’t good enough. In this edition of The Climate Que...

At the UN climate summit in Glasgow last year, China and the United States announced they will work together on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Experts say this is a significant move because China and the United States are the two largest economies and polluters. China emits the most greenhouse gasses, around 27% of global emissions, but it is walking a narrow path between its energy crisis and...

Written into many of the promises made by countries about how they intend to achieve their UN climate pledges to reduce emissions is an assumption that technology will help them make this happen. But this technology either does not currently exist or is in its infancy. This includes schemes to take carbon out of the air via carbon capture and storage or direct air capture and to replace our depend...

Everyone who steps outside can appreciate the value that the natural world brings to our lives. To some people, the idea of placing a monetary value on trees and mangrove forests is wrong because nature and its gifts are priceless. But others say the love of nature has not stopped it from being polluted or destroyed. The natural world plays a major role in capturing the carbon from our atmosphere....

Billions of dollars are being invested in electric vehicles in the name of fighting climate change. World leaders are backing them as the green fix for our burgeoning road transport emissions. But when you factor in the carbon emissions that come from manufacturing EVs, how well do they stack up against their petrol and diesel counterparts? If all the cars on the road switched to EVs, could we mee...

For centuries, we’ve been reading, watching and listening to science fiction. And all too often, it’s pretty pessimistic about our future, especially when it touches on the topic of climate change. This is leading some to ask whether these doom and gloom stories are doing the climate fight more harm than good - causing us to feel so anxious and powerless that we don’t take action. So for this week...

Images are a key part of communicating climate change, and shape how we understand the crisis unfolding around us. But while lots of research has been done into the language we use to talk about climate, images are often left out of the conversation. As a result, over time, a limited set of images have come to dominate how we think of climate change – like polar bears and melting glaciers - which...

For decades scientists have warned us about the risks of climate change. Yet humans are badly psychologically designed to face up to the challenge of changing our behaviour. Research shows that constant threats of impending doom make us hit the snooze button rather than waking us up. And our evolutionary shortcomings mean we respond to the threat of immediate danger rather than what might happen i...

If there were fewer of us, would the amount of greenhouse gasses we emit reduce? It’s a question that often creeps up in discussions about climate change. Studies show that the global population will decline eventually and populations in many rich nations are already declining. However, 11,000 scientists signed a paper warning of “untold suffering due to the climate crisis” unless society transfor...

The journey from catwalk, to wardrobe, to landfill is getting shorter and shorter. Our demands for fast fashion mean around 100 billion garments are produced every year. We’re buying more, then wearing them less often. Many will end up in the trash. Not only that, there’s been a big growth in clothes being made out of synthetic materials originating from crude oil. In this edition we ask can fashi...

In 1985 British scientist Jonathan Shanklin and colleagues published a study that shocked the world. The study revealed a hole in the Earth’s atmosphere right over Antarctica. It had been caused over time by chemicals known as CFCs, used in things like fridges, air conditioning units and aerosol cans. These were destroying the layer of ozone in the stratosphere which protects us from most of the s...