The Land and Climate Podcast

We cover a new topic with an expert, every other Friday.

  • Economics
Can we build a sustainable economy?
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'.
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  • Adaptation
What happens when climate adaptation goes wrong?
Bertie speaks to environmental journalist Stephen Robert Miller about his new book, 'Over the Seawall: Tsunamis, Cyclones, Drought, and the Delusion of Controlling Nature'.
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  • Energy
Is nuclear needed for net-zero?
Bertie talks to nuclear policy expert Dr. Paul Dorfman about whether nuclear power has a part to play in decarbonisation.
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  • Adaptation
Are we now in the century of fire?
Alasdair talks to John Vaillant, author of the Baillie Gifford shortlisted book 'Fire Weather: A True Story From A Hotter World'.
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  • Energy
Has Equinor made Norway dependent on oil?
Alasdair talks to Professor Jonas Fossli Gjersø about the history of Equinor - previously Statoil - and the way it has shaped Norway's economy, history, and environmental policy.
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  • Agriculture
Are genetically engineered seeds harming human health?
Alasdair talks to Professor Bart Elmore, author of 'Seed Money', about the history of American company Monsanto and its impact on people, plants and animals.
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  • Diplomacy
Has the Africa Climate Summit been “hijacked by foreign interests”?
Bertie talks to Kenyan campaigner Omar Elmawi about the controversy surrounding McKinsey and other organisations involved with next week's inaugural Africa Climate Summit.
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  • Bioenergy, Policymaking
Is biofuel fraud undermining EU climate policy?
Bertie speaks to investigative journalists Eli Moskowitz and Mira Sys about biofuel fraud in the EU.
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  • Materials
Should we mine the deep sea?
Alasdair speaks to Professor Mats Ingulstad about deep sea mining, and the history of extraction in Norway.
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  • Agriculture
How is EU lobbying blocking climate farming reform?
Bertie speaks to Lighthouse Reports' Lead Food Systems journalist Thin Lei Win about their new investigation into Copa-Cogeca, Europe's largest agricultural lobby group.
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  • Materials
Does mining bring wealth to Chile, or harm?
Alasdair speaks to Professor Ángela Vergara about the history, economics, and environmental impact of mining in Chile.
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  • Culture, Policymaking
Is there still a case for hope on climate change?
Edward speaks to Dr Gergis about her experience as the lead author of Working Group 1 of the IPCC's latest assessment report (AR.6), as well as her own experiences of facing up to the scale of the challenges posed by a rapidly warming natural world.
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  • Culture
Is overpopulation a climate risk, or dangerous rhetoric?
Bertie asks Professor Diana Ojeda (Universidad de los Andes) why many scholars and activists are wary of populationist narratives in climate planning.
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  • Energy
What are the politics behind nuclear energy in France?
Alasdair speaks to Thomas Pellerin Carlin, Director of the EU Programme at the Institute for Climate Economics, about the French politics of nuclear energy and sufficiency.
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  • Materials
Chinese forced labour and renewable supply chains: how big is the problem?
Bertie speaks to Professor Laura Murphy about international supply chains and forced labour in China's Xinjiang Autonomous Region.
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  • Policymaking
Is the UK losing its leadership status on net zero?
Alasdair speaks to Dr. Doug Parr, Greenpeace UK's Chief Scientist, about the UK's place on the global stage, how its net zero policies are progressing, and how the country is taking dangerous risks with nuclear and aviation.
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  • Removals
How is EU policy on carbon removal developing?
Bertie speaks to Wijnand Stoefs, Carbon Market Watch's policy lead on Carbon Removal, about how EU policy is developing around greenhouse gas removals.
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  • Energy
Will fossil fuels ever be history?
Professor Paul Stevens, of University of Dundee and Chatham House, discusses the history of energy transitions and the fallacy of ‘peak oil’.
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  • Agriculture, Materials
What would truly sustainable fashion look like?
Bertie speaks to fashion journalist and sustainability consultant Lucianne Tonti about her new book Sundressed: Natural Fabrics and the Future of Clothing.
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  • Agriculture, Policymaking
Why has EU law not stopped pesticides from harming ecosystems?
Alasdair speaks to Professor Mike Norton, Environment Programme Director at the European Academies Science Advisory Council, about newly published research on neonicotinoid pesticides.
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  • Diplomacy, Energy
Fuelling the fire: does Russia have its head in the sand about the future of fossil fuels?
Lauren talks Professor Thane Gustafson about how Russian leaders' commitment to climate change is affected by factors both at home and overseas.
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  • Bioenergy
What are the risks with wood burning in Japan?
Alasdair talks to Roger Smith, Japan Director for Mighty Earth, about Japanese biomass imports and the risks of the country's coal power stations switching to wood-burning.
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  • Diplomacy
Is Antarctic governance still working?
Climate diplomacy expert Dhanasree Jayaram tells Bertie about the environmental risks that could threaten Antarctica before then, including illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, militarisation, bioprospecting, increased tourism, and resource extraction.
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  • Culture
Why is climate scepticism growing on Twitter?
Bertie spoke to Professor Andrea Baronchelli and Dr. Max Falkenberg from The IRIS Academic Research Group about rising climate scepticism and denial online.
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  • Diplomacy, Removals
What happened at COP27 with removal offsets?
Alasdair speaks to Kelly Stone, Senior Policy Analyst at ActionAid, about her time at COP27 and where international diplomacy is taking offset markets and their governance.
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  • Bioeconomy, Removals
Why can’t we ‘just plant trees’?
Harvard scholar Rosetta Elkin explains how large-scale tree planting in otherwise treeless environments rarely makes ecological sense. Historically, these projects have been used as instruments of colonial forestry, as a way of staking claim to land.
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  • Energy
Will the Russian economy survive fossil phase-out?
Lauren talks to Thane Gustafson about the future of Russian Oil through the Climate Crisis and the context of the ongoing war in Ukraine.
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  • Bioenergy, Removals
Are carbon removal targets unrealistic about land requirements?
Alasdair spoke to Dr. Kate Dooley, an author of the Land Gap Report which found that national policies for carbon removals "could push ecosystems, land rights and food security to the brink."
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  • Diplomacy
Why has international diplomacy failed on climate loss and damage?
Bertie speaks to Dr. Karim Ahmed about his recent white policy paper on loss and damage, which is being presented at COP27.
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  • Bioenergy
Are biofuels worse for the climate than petrol and jet fuel?
John DeCicco, Professor Emeritus at University of Michigan, has been studying transport emissions & biofuels for decades. Alasdair asked him about the alarming findings of his research: liquid biofuels could be worse for the climate than fossil fuels.
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  • Materials
How badly have microplastics harmed ecosystems, climate, and human health?
Bertie talks to science journalist Matt Simon about his upcoming book; A Poison Like No Other: How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies.
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  • Aviation, Bioenergy
Is there any hope for a green aviation industry?
Alasdair spoke Finlay Asher, founder of Safe Landing, about the reasons technological and market-based solutions to aviation emissions are not going to get us to net-zero, and what the sector should be doing instead.
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  • Policymaking
What does Australia’s new Labor government mean for climate politics?
On 23 May 2022, the Australian Labor Party entered government for the first time since 2013, under the leadership of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Alasdair spoke to Dr. Marija Taflaga, Director of the Australian National University's Center for the Study of Australian Politics, to talk about shifting climate politics in the county, and what the new government could mean for the green transition.
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  • Bioeconomy
Can palm oil be ethical and sustainable in Indonesia?
Lauren talks to Tania Li, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Toronto, about the sustainability of the oil that's in 50% of supermarket food products - and the issues with labour and land rights in Indonesia's palm oil industry.
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  • Policymaking
Has environmental policy contributed to the crisis in Sri Lanka?
Bertie speaks to Melani Gunathilaka, a Sri Lankan climate activist who has become a leading voice in the Gotagogama protests. They discussed the role of climate policy in the cascading crises and corruption allegations that have recently plagued the country.
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  • Culture
Is a utopian future still possible with climate breakdown?
Bertie talks to Drew Pendergrass, coauthor of Half Earth Socialism, recently published by Verso books. They discuss geoengineering, population scaremongering, climate colonialism, and the big question for many on the left: will we be able to mitigate the climate crisis under capitalism?
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  • Development
How has climate change affected Lebanon? With Assaad Razzouk
Lauren talks to Assaad Razzouk, host of the Angry Clean Energy Guy podcast and British Lebanese clean energy entrepreneur. They talk about the recent elections in Lebanon, systemic problems with climate finance, and the ways a clean energy transition could help struggling economies.
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  • Markets
Is the finance industry on track for net zero?
Daniel Klier is CEO of ESG Book, and was previously HSBC's first Head of Sustainability, and Chair of the Bank of England Climate Risk Working Group. Alasdair spoke to him about how banks are confronting climate mitigation, and what needs to be done for banks and the finance industry to meet net zero targets.
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  • Policymaking
Human rights, climate change, and the Philippines – with Yeb Saño
Bertie talked to the Executive Director of Greenpeace Southeast Asia, Yeb Saño, about the conclusion of a 7 year inquiry into human rights and climate change in the Philippines.
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  • Culture, Migration
How are assumptions around science and migration undermining climate policy? With Sonia Shah
Award winning author and journalist Sonia Shah talks to Alasdair about her book, The Next Great Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move. She talks about what we can learn about human migration from wildlife, why climate migration should be seen as an adaptation strategy rather than a coming crisis, and the dangers of elitism in scholarly science.
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  • Energy, Policymaking
How to tackle methane in a meat-eating world?
Did you know that methane is more than 25 times more potent than CO2 in terms of trapping heat in the atmosphere? In this episode we look at reducing methane emissions without mandating veganism. Our guests Anatoli Smirnov and Sabina Assan are researchers at Ember, international data analysts for clean energy solutions in the power sector.
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  • Diplomacy
What are the issues threatening oceans in the Pacific? With Dame Meg Taylor DBE
The day before 80 countries meet in Palau to discuss ocean governance, Bertie talked to Dame Meg Taylor DBE about the changes the Pacific Elders' Voice are campaigning for, including pollution of plastics and nuclear waste, illegal and unsustainable fishing, and loss and damage.
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  • Removals
CCS: what are the right (and wrong) ways to do carbon capture and storage?
Bertie talks about the issues and benefits of different CCS technologies with Dr. Howard Herzog, a world expert on carbon capture, having studied it at MIT's Energy Initiative for over 30 years.
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  • Bioeconomy
Roxane Andersen explains why peatlands are the “superheroes” of carbon storage
Bertie talked to renowned peat expert Professor Roxane Andersen about the Flow Country in Scotland, her research on restoration, monitoring, and peatland fires, and more generally about why peatlands are so important for climate mitigation.
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  • Markets, Removals
Is climate modelling undermined by economics and ideology?
Alasdair MacEwen talks to Associate Professor Wim Carton of Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies about offset markets, carbon removal technologies, and IPCC modelling.
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  • Bioenergy, Policymaking
How Europe funds illegal Russian logging, and why timber sanctions matter – with Earthsight’s Sam Lawson
With the invasion of Ukraine ongoing, Bertie talks to Sam Lawson, Director of investigative NGO Earthsight, following a public letter from 120 NGOs calling for a boycott on Russian and Belarusian wood.
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  • Bioenergy
Can BECCS really provide negative emissions? NRDC’s senior scientist Sami Yassa presents new research
Sami Yassa, senior scientist at the US based NGO the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and their scientific lead on forests and forest biomass, sets out NRDC research on the use of Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) which looks at whether it can really produce negative emissions.
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  • Agriculture
Should we radically change the way we farm? Liz Carlisle talks regenerative agriculture
Professor Liz Carlisle talks to Bertie about her new book, 'Healing Grounds - Climate, Justice, and the Deep Roots of Regenerative Farming'.
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  • Bioenergy
Why bioenergy increases CO2 emissions even more than burning coal – with MIT’s John Sterman
Alasdair talks to Professor John Sterman about his seminal research that proved burning wood for energy will "increase atmospheric CO2 for at least a century".
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  • Markets
Are offsets helping or deterring climate progress? Greenpeace’s Louisa Casson’s view
Louisa Casson from Greenpeace explains her work looking into carbon offsets and how they have developed since COP26. She also gives her view on the development of voluntary carbon markets.
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  • Energy, Policymaking
Phasing out fossil fuels: is real progress being made? OCI’s Romain Ioualalen explains.
Romain Ioulalalen from NGO Oil Change International (OCI) tells Alasdair where we are on the global phase out of fossil fuels, what the current challenges are, how COP26 was significant and what political changes to expect in the next few years on oil and gas.
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  • Policymaking
Ending Fossil Fuels: Why Net Zero is Not Enough with Holly Jean Buck
Is the net zero approach to climate mitigation working, or is it an unrealistic framework that does more to help corporations than the planet? Bertie talks to Professor Holly Jean Buck, from the University at Buffalo.
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  • Culture
Can the novel capture the climate crisis?
Lauren asks Mark Bould about his new book 'The Anthropocene Unconscious'. They discuss whether fiction goes far enough in representing narratives of climate crisis, ranging from Jane Austen’s ‘Mansfield Park’ to the 'Fast & Furious' franchise.
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  • Bioenergy
Chatham House’s Duncan Brack on the huge emissions from burning US wood overseas
Ed speaks to Duncan Brack, Associate Fellow at Chatham House and author of numerous reports into industrial-scale biomass and forestry policy.
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  • Bioeconomy, Culture
Edward Struzik on the urgent need to restore our peatlands
Bertie talks with veteran climate journalist Edward Struzik about his new book, Swamplands: tundra beavers, quaking bogs, and the improbable world of peat. They talk COP, burning peat for energy, the process of rewetting peatland, and Edward gives a cultural & historical background to bogs, fens & marshes.
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  • Bioenergy
Is Drax UK’s single biggest CO2 emitter? Think-tank Ember give us the answer
Alasdair talks to Phil MacDonald, Chief Operating Officer of think-tank Ember, about the the energy think-tank's latest analysis which places Drax as the UK's single biggest emitter of carbon dioxide in the UK and among the top 5 emitters in Europe.
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Lina Burnelius on Sweden’s forestry model
  • Bioenergy
Lina Burnelius on Sweden’s forestry model
In this episode Alasdair MacEwen talks to Lina Burnelius of Protect the Forest Sweden about the Swedish forestry model and the threat that industry poses to biodiversity and the survival of ancient Forests.
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  • Bioenergy
What is BECCS and what does it mean for climate policy?
In this episode, Alasdair speaks to Dr Dan Quiggin, Senior Research Fellow at Chatham House currently researching the implications of using Bioenergy with Capture and Storage or BECCS.
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How are preparations for COP26 going
  • Diplomacy
How are preparations for COP26 going?
Gareth Redmond-King talks about the preparations for the next climate talks. He explains the UK's role as a climate leader, recent odd missteps leading to the talks and his take on existing progress.
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Ember’s Phil MacDonald on powering past coal
  • Bioenergy, Energy
Ember’s Phil MacDonald on powering past coal
Chief Operating Officer of energy think tank Ember, Phil MacDonald, talks to Alasdair about the new challenges of decarbonising the global energy sector and what has been achieved so far in Europe in the UK.
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Sasha Stashwick on Biden and climate change
  • Bioenergy, Policymaking
Sasha Stashwick on Biden and climate change
Edward and Alasdair speak to Sasha Stashwick, climate expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), on how the Biden Administration is gearing up to tackle climate change and issues with the use of biomass for tackling climate goals.
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Mike Norton on transformative change and science policy
  • Bioenergy
Mike Norton on “transformative change” and science policy
Prof Michael Norton speaks about the need to understand what 'transformative change' actually is, the gap between science and policy urgency on environmental boundaries and on the flawed concept of GDP.
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Doug Parr on climate change policymaking
  • Bioenergy, Policymaking
Doug Parr on climate change policymaking
Doug Parr speaks about how British climate policy has changed and what might happen after the pandemic and greenhouse gas removal technologies, what 'negative emissions' are and the risks of rising 'institutional greenwash' in climate policy and business.
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Europe already has the tools it needs to end forced labour
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  • Materials
Is corruption and slavery the cost of a mobile phone?
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Green extractivism mirrors the fossil fuel era, and the Global South suffers
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  • Materials
Sacrifice in the salt flats, for a greener future
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  • Adaptation
What happens when climate adaptation goes wrong?
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