The Land & Climate Podcast

Alasdair speaks to former politician and French investigating magistrate Eva Joly about corporate corruption, tax evasion, and how these issues relate to the climate crisis. They reflect on her investigation into financial corruption at the French oil giant Elf Aquitaine, and her current campaign work with the International Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT). Fu...

Ed speaks to Brett Christophers about his new book The Price is Wrong: Why Capitalism Won’t Save the Planet. Brett Christophers is a professor of human geography at Uppsala University’s Institute for Housing and Urban Research and the author of four books on economic geography and political economy. Brett and Ed discuss the commodification of electricity, the role of the state in renewable energy...

Few countries have specific targets about converting to organic farming, and when they have, it's often failed - Sri Lanka dropped its national organic policy within months in 2021, and only three weeks ago, France scrapped its relatively conservative ambition for 15% of farmland. Bhutan may be small, but on this issue it's a global outlier. Motivated by its policy to measure development...

Alasdair speaks to Peter Wohlleben about his new book How Trees Can Save the World . Peter Wohlleben is a forester and author who has written over 30 books on ecology and forest management. Peter and Alasdair discuss the problems with plantation forests, the power of trees to influence their local ecosystems and what modern forestry gets wrong. How Trees Can Save the World was published in March a...

Alasdair speaks to Faustine Bas-Defossez about the relationship between sustainable farming policy and the European farmers' protests. Faustine Bas-Defossez is Director for Nature, Health and Environment at the European Environmental Bureau, a Europe-wide network of environmental citizens' organisations. Alasdair and Faustine discuss the Nature Restoration Law, reforms to the Common Agri...

Alasdair speaks to environmental attorney Peter Lehner about US agriculture's contribution to global emissions. Peter Lehner is the managing attorney of Earthjustice's Sustainable Food and Farming Programme and former executive director of the National Resources Defence Council. Alasdair and Peter discuss the future of the US farm bill, the adverse climate effects of crop insurance and t...

Does our society have an addiction to short term thinking and planning? Is our failure to mitigate climate change a result of this? Vincent Ialenti spent three years doing fieldwork in Finland, interviewing experts working on Posiva's Safety Case for the world's first long term nuclear repository, Onkalo. His book about that fieldwork, Deep Time Reckoning: How Future Thinking Can Help Ea...

Bertie speaks to Austin Frerick about his new book Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America's Food Industry . Austin Frerick is an agricultural and antitrust policy fellow at Yale University, and has advised on policy for senior US politicians including Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, and Joe Biden during his presidential campaign. Bertie and Austin discuss lobbyi...

Last month an investigation by Transport and Environment (T&E) exposed a number of challenges facing Eni's African biofuel projects. The Italian oil giant's "second generation" biofuel crops have not met production targets in Kenya and Republic of the Congo. The investigation found that key promises have not been met around intercropping, and collected testimonies of allege...

Following new allegations from the BBC that a UK power station is "burning wood from some of the world's most precious forests" in British Columbia, Bertie speaks to Richard Robertson about Canada's forestry sector. Richard Robertson is a Forest Campaigner at Stand. Earth, and recently contributed to a report prepared by numerous NGOs, which accused the Canadian government&apos...

As the EU butts heads with the UK over fishing policy, Bertie speaks to Steve Trent, CEO of the Environmental Justice Foundation, to get a more global overview of fishing regulation and its importance to environmental and human rights. They discuss past and future EU policy and its impact in South East Asia, and use Thailand as a case study to discuss the issue of durability with environmental ref...

This week, the EU's Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra warned that "You cannot magically CCS yourself out of the problem". But the new policy he was presenting that day still called for 280 million tonnes of carbon dioxide to be permanently stored underground. The extent to which carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology should be a part of climate planning is contentious, but ad...

What are the impacts  of new flying technologies? Are policymakers and the aviation industry taking the right steps to avoid global warming exceeding 1.5 degrees? Alasdair speaks to Dr Daniel Quiggin, senior research fellow at the Chatham House Environment and Society Centre. Dr Quiggin is an expert in the analysis of how national and global energy systems will evolve to 2050 and author of recent...

Bertie speaks to Agathe Bounfour, Oil Investigations Lead at Transport and Environment , about her investigation into the fossil funded research group CONCAWE. The investigation revealed that CONCAWE undermined the European Union's attempt to regulate human exposure to benzene, a carcinogenic pollutant. After oil industry lobbying and research, the new regulated limit from 2024 will be ten ti...

In this episode Alasdair caught up with Rachel Rose Jackson, director of climate research and policy at campaign organisation Corporate Accountability to discuss their new research with the Guardian which found considerable flaws in the 50 most used offset projects.  He asked about the recent research and what value offset projects might actually have. The Land and Climate podcast is produced by V...

2023 was expected to be a big year for Europe in reducing harm from agrochemicals. But in a surprise move in November, European Parliament rejected a law to halve pesticide use. That same month, The European Commission stated it would renew the controversial approval of glyphosate for another 10 years. What happened? Alasdair talks to Dr Martin Dermine, Executive Director of Pesticide Action Netwo...

Alasdair talks to Sir Dieter Helm, a Professor of Economic Policy at The University of Oxford, about his new book Legacy: How to Build the Sustainable Economy. Cambridge University Press has published the work online as a free open acess title. Further reading:  Read Legacy for free here .  Video presentations and slides on the book's components can be found here .  The Idea of Justice by Ama...

Bertie speaks to environmental journalist Stephen Robert Miller about his new book, Over the Seawall: Tsunamis, Cyclones, Drought, and the Delusion of Controlling Nature. Spanning Bangladesh, Japan, and Arizona in the US, it covers the risks involved in adaptating to changing climate and weather, and the deadly costs of poor planning. Also featuring our new theme music - let us know what you think...

Nuclear energy is not renewable, but it is low-carbon. Whether it should be part of the post-fossil fuel power grid is heatedly debated. Bertie took this question to Dr. Paul Dorfman, an Associate Fellow of the University of Sussex's Science Policy Research Unit, and the Chair of nonprofit institute the Nuclear Consulting Group . Dr. Dorfman is an expert in nuclear risk and has advised the Ir...

Alasdair talks to John Vaillant, author of the Baillie Gifford shortlisted book Fire Weather: A True Story From A Hotter World and explores how fire is evolving in the 21st century and if humanity is going to be sufficiently prepared to tackle its advance. Fire Weather tells of the catastrophic wildfire in Fort McMurray in Canada in May 2016, and asks if the fire's surprising power and devast...

In a controversial decision this week, the UK government approved development of a huge new oil and gas field in the North Sea. The Rosebank oil and gas field is majority owned by the Norwegian state-owned energy company Equinor. Following this news, Alasdair talked to Professor Jonas Fossli Gjersø (University of Stavanger) about the history of Equinor - previously Statoil - and the way it has sha...

 American agrochemical firm Monsanto was the world’s largest maker of genetically engineered seeds until merged with German pharma-biotech giant Bayer in 2018. Its Roundup Ready® seeds, introduced twenty-five years ago, are still reshaping farms, landscapes and ecosystems all over the world.  Bart Elmore is a professor of environmental history at Ohio State University, as well as an award-winning...

At the beginning of August, hundreds of NGOs signed a letter to Kenyan President William Ruto, alleging that US and European governments and companies had "seized" the inaugural Africa Climate Summit due to begin in Nairobi on Monday 4th September, in order to "hijack Africa’s just energy transition".  Their criticism paid particular mention to international management consulta...

 A new investigation has revealed that a biofuel company called System Ecologica scammed the International Sustainability Carbon Certification, petrol companies, and EU governments, in a biofuel fraud case totalling tens of millions of euros. Regulators are increasingly worried that other companies may similarly be passing off unsustainable, imported vegetable oil as used cooking oil (UCO). This w...

Last week, after intense debate between member states, the UN's International Seabed Authority decided not to fast-track licences to start mining the deep ocean floor. But while waters have calmed for now, nothing is set in stone: talks renew in 2024. Ahead of the conference, Alasdair spoke to Professor Mats Ingulstad, who is leading the TripleDeep research project at the Norweigan University...