The Land & Climate Podcast

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. Pacific Elders' Voice is a group of diplomats, academics, and creatives who work together to platform issues important to the future of the Pacific Islands. Meg Taylor's distinguished career includes serving as the Ambassador of Papua New Guinea to the United States, Mexico and Canada (1989-1994), Vice President of the International Finance Corporation (1999-2014), and most recently, Secretary General of the Pacific Islands Forum (2014-2021). She was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2002.Further Reading: Read more about the Our Ocean Conference 2022Read the Pacific Elders' Voice Statement on Oceans 'UN ocean treaty summit collapses as states accused of dragging out talks', The Guardian, 21 Mar 2022'Nations commit to develop a legally binding agreement': press release announcing the proposed treaty on plastic pollution, with links to the full text. 'This dome in the Pacific houses tons of radioactive waste – and it's leaking', The Guardian, Fri 3 Jul 2015Follow Pacific Elders Voice here on Twitter, and here on Facebook.Send us Fan MailClick here for our website to read all our most recent Land and Climate Review features and pieces.

Dr. Howard Herzog is a pioneer of carbon capture and storage research, having studied it since 1989 in what is now called MIT's Energy Initiative. He was also a Coordinating Lead Author for the IPCC's 2005 Special Report on Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage, and he is author of the 2018 book Carbon Capture. Bertie talked to Dr. Herzog about the different forms of CCS, issues around direct air capture's cost, why enhanced oil recovery and CCUS are not the way forward, and what policies need to be put in place to incentivise CCS deployment.Further reading: Read Bertie's series of CCS long reads on Land and Climate:What is happening with carbon capture and storage? Why Carbon Capture and Storage matters: overshoot, models, and moneyCapturing and storing problems Publications by Dr. Herzog from recent years on CCS include:Hard-to-Abate Sectors: The role of industrial carbon capture and storage (CCS) in emission mitigation Applied Energy (2021).Assessment of CCS Technology in a Climate Mitigation Portfolio (CCS Assessment Phase 1 Report) MIT Joint Program Special Report (2019)Read Dr. Herzog's 2018 book Carbon Capture, part of the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series.Send us Fan MailClick here for our website to read all our most recent Land and Climate Review features and pieces.

Bertie talked to renowned peatland expert Professor Roxane Andersen, of the University of Highlands & Islands, the Environmental Research Institute, and the Flow Country Research Hub. They talked 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. After our podcast last year with Ed Struzik, listeners got in touch to say they wanted more content on peatlands, especially covering the science! We reached out to Professor Andersen, and were delighted she agreed to come on the show: do get in touch with recommendations or feedback, if there is anything you would like to hear about. We love hearing from you all.Further reading from this episode: - Read about the InSAR monitoring technology here, and in even more detail here!- Read about the FireBlanket project here- Read about the damaging afforestation on peatlands in the UK in the 1970s and 1980s here- Read about the Flow Country here, including the application to make it a UNESCO world heritage siteSend us Fan MailClick here for our website to read all our most recent Land and Climate Review features and pieces.

Alasdair talks to Associate Professor Wim Carton of Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies about offset markets, carbon removal technologies, and IPCC modelling. They wade into some tricky questions: are scientists watering down recommendations to make them politically palateable? How are neoclassical economics affecting the world's approach to climate mitigation? Why do the IPCC working groups have contradictory messages on saviour tech?Further reading - Carbon Unicorns and Fossil Futures: Whose Emission Reduction Pathways Is the IPCC Performing?- Seize the Means of Carbon Removal: The Political Economy of Direct Air Capture- Undoing Equivalence: Rethinking Carbon Accounting for Just Carbon Removal- The meaning of net zero and how to get it right- Social Science SequesteredSend us Fan MailClick here for our website to read all our most recent Land and Climate Review features and pieces.

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. The public letter was led by Ukrainian environmental groups in response to the invasion, but Earthsight have been investigating illegal and unsustainable Russian and Belarusian logging for years. Their work has exposed major failings of EU, UK, and US law, and particularly of certifiers like FSC, SBP and PEFC.  NOTE: this is a faster-moving story than we normally cover in our podcasts. Since recording this conversation on Tuesday 8th March, SBP and FSC have both announced that they are longer certifying Russian wood. Further reading: ·         The campaign backed by 120 NGOs to boycott Russian and Belarusian wood·         Russia’s timber oligarchs – new Earthsight analysis·         Earthsight’s ‘Taiga King’ investigations exposing illegal Russian logging for European export·         IKEA’s House of Horrors – Earthsight’s investigation into IKEA’s illegal Russian supply chain·         2020 investigation by The Telegraph exposing unsustainable Russian logging in Drax’s supply chainSend us Fan MailClick here for our website to read all our most recent Land and Climate Review features and pieces.

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.  He also explains NRDC's work with the US Congress on biomass.Further reading from Sami Yassa:·         NRDC's recent research on BECCS·         Further explanatory documents and data from the research ·         NRDC US Congress work around biomass and ensuring scientific independence for US environmental agenciesSend us Fan MailClick here for our website to read all our most recent Land and Climate Review features and pieces.

Liz Carlisle talks to Bertie about her new book, soon to be published by Island Press: 'Healing Grounds - Climate, Justice, and the Deep Roots of Regenerative Farming'. The agroecologist, Environmental Studies Professor and award-winning author has spent the last year talking to Indigenous communities & farmers of colour across North America about their approaches to land, crop cultivation and livestock. Originally looking to learn more about soil sequestration, she was confronted with bigger picture issues about the relationships between climate policy, social justice, and agriculture.Liz's further reading: ·        HEAL Platform for Real Food·        Soul Fire Farm·        Vox’s coverage of Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren’s farming legislation·        IPES Food reports ·        Adam Calo’s work on Scottish low carbon farming·        You can order Liz Carlisle’s previous books on agroecology on her websiteSend us Fan MailClick here for our website to read all our most recent Land and Climate Review features and pieces.

Alasdair talks to John Sterman about his groundbreaking research that found burning wood for energy will "increase atmospheric CO2 for at least a century". John Sterman is the Jay W. Forrester Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management, the Director of the MIT System Dynamics Group and the Director of the MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative. His team developed a model for dynamic bioenergy lifecycle analysis, which he hoped would prove burning "wood was part of the solution" for the climate. Instead, "it came out the other way". Further reading: ·         Professor Sterman’s paper about the outcomes from his bioenergy modelling·         More details on the study, in reply to a comment on the paper·         En-Roads, MIT Sustainability Initiative’s interactive climate simulator that allows users to explore the impacts of different climate policies·       Read more about bioenergy and BECCS, and listen to more podcasts on the topic, in Land & Climate's bioenergy hubSend us Fan MailClick here for our website to read all our most recent Land and Climate Review features and pieces.

Louisa Casson from Greenpeace (now on an Antarctic expedition) 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.Here is some of Louisa's suggested further reading on the issue:- Oxfam’s report on the use of offsets in net zero  - European Climate Foundation CEO, Laurence Tubiana's commentary on offsets Send us Fan MailClick here for our website to read all our most recent Land and Climate Review features and pieces.

"There is more CO2 contained in the oil and gas reserves already being extracted than in our entire global carbon budget to keep warming under 1.5 degrees C."Romain Loulalalen 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.  He also comments on whether the oil majors are genuinely committed to net zero targets.Further reading: Production Gap Report 2021Managing Peak Oil: a recent report by Carbon TrackerOil Change International's Big Oil Reality CheckBeyond Oil and Gas AllianceThe Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty initiativeSend us Fan MailClick here for our website to read all our most recent Land and Climate Review features and pieces.