The Land & Climate Podcast

Many governments are wary of providing transparency around their militaries' emissions, and campaigners can be hesitant to focus on the carbon footprint of conflicts, rather than more obviously humanitarian issues. But Ukraine has helped to shift opinion this year, after pushing for more accountability for wartime environmental harm. Recent estimates put the CO2e cost of Russia's invasion of Ukraine at 175 million tonnes, and day to day military operations - not including conflicts - at a staggering 5.5% of global emissions.Bertie spoke to Lindsey Cottrell, Environmental Policy Officer at the Conflict and Environment Observatory, about the military emissions gap in carbon accounting, and the campaign for UNFCCC rules to be changed to acknowledge it.  Further reading: 'Russia’s war with Ukraine accelerating global climate emergency, report shows', The Guardian, June 2024'Revealed: repairing Israel’s destruction of Gaza will come at huge climate cost', The Guardian, June 2024'National climate action plans must include military emissions', CEOBS Blog, June 2024'UNEA-6 passes resolution on environmental assistance and recovery in areas affected by armed conflict', CEOBS Blog, March 2024'Does reporting military emissions data really threaten national security?', CEOBS Blog, February 2024'Ticking boxes: are military climate mitigation strategies fit for purpose?', CEOBS Blog, February 2024 Estimating the Military’s Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions, 2022Send us Fan MailClick here for our website to read all our most recent Land and Climate Review features and pieces.

Alasdair speaks to Jonas Algers about steel decarbonisation; what the options are, where there are challenges, and what is happening so far.  Jonas Algers is a PhD candidate at Lund University, Sweden, researching steel decarbonisation policy.  Further reading: 'Leading with Industrial Policy: Lessons for Decarbonization from Swedish Green Steel', Roosevelt Institute, 2024'Phase-in and phase-out policies in the global steel transition', Climate Policy, 2024'Building a stronger steel transition: Global cooperation and procurement in construction', One Earth, 2023'Paris compatible steel capacity: Contraction and replacement for zero emissions', Environmental and Energy Systems Studies, Lund university, 2023Send us Fan MailClick here for our website to read all our most recent Land and Climate Review features and pieces.

Bertie speaks to fashion expert and journalist Alden Wicker about her book To Dye For: How Toxic Fashion Is Making Us Sick - and How We Can Fight Back. Drawing from case studies in Alden's book, they discuss the health risks with chemicals modern clothing is often treated with, and whether there has been enough research and regulation on the issue.Further reading: Buy To Dye For from Penguin Random House. Visit Alden's website, EcoCult, for more reporting on these issues. 'Hitting the gym or going to yoga? Your workout clothes could be doing more harm than you realize', CNN, 2023 'That Organic Cotton T-Shirt May Not Be as Organic as You Think', New York Times, 2022'Sick of smelly, plastic clothes? Blame oil and industrial farming', Land & Climate Review, 2023Send us Fan MailClick here for our website to read all our most recent Land and Climate Review features and pieces.

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). Further reading: Tax Wars, ICRICT'Global minimum tax on multinationals goes live to raise up to $220bn', Financial Times, 2024'McDonald’s to pay more than €1B to settle French tax case', Politico, 2022It is time for a global asset registry to tackle hidden wealth, ICRICT, 2022'L`affaire Elf en résumé', Challenges, 2007Send us Fan MailClick here for our website to read all our most recent Land and Climate Review features and pieces.

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 projects and why markets can’t be relied on to decarbonise the energy sector. The Price is Wrong  was published in February and is available to buy from Verso books here. Audio engineering by Vasko Kostovski. Further listening:  'Are markets the right tool for decarbonizing electricity?', Volts, 2024'Everything You’re Told About Green Capitalism Is Wrong', Novara Media, 2024Further reading: 'Antimarket', London Review of Books, 2024'The Price is Wrong - Brett Christophers on saving the planet', Financial Times, 2024Other books by Brett:Our Lives in Their Portfolios: Why Asset Managers Own the World, 2023Rentier Capitalism: Who Owns the Economy, and Who Pays for It?, 2020The New Enclosure: The Appropriation of Public Land in Neoliberal Britain, 2018Send us Fan MailClick here for our website to read all our most recent Land and Climate Review features and pieces.

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 in Gross National Happiness rather than GDP, the South Asian nation has been slowly working towards becoming 100% organic since 2012 - and now has a target date of 2035.Bertie spoke to Dr Sonam Tashi, an organic agriculture expert and Dean of Research & Industrial Linkages at the College of Natural Resources, Royal University of Bhutan, to hear about how Bhutan's organic transition is going.Further reading: 'Bhutan's challenges and prospects in becoming a 100% organic country', Heinrich-Boell-Stiftung Asia Global Dialogue, 2022Case Studies of Successful Farmers, Agri-enterprises and Farmers' Groups and Cooperatives in Bhutan, 2022'Farmers’ perception on transitioning to organic agriculture (OA) in Tsirang district, Bhutan', Research Journal of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences, 2022'Bridging the Gap between the Sustainable Development Goals and Happiness Metrics', International Journal of Community Well-Being, 2019'Gross national happiness in Bhutan: the big idea from a tiny state that could change the world', The Guardian, 2012Send us Fan MailClick here for our website to read all our most recent Land and Climate Review features and pieces.

Peter Wohlleben, a renowned forester and author of over 30 books on ecology, dives deep into the flaws of commercial forestry. He highlights how plantations often fail to replicate the ecological benefits of natural forests, emphasizing the importance of preserving original forests for ecosystem recovery. Wohlleben also discusses the power of trees in combating climate change and advocates for reform in forestry education. The conversation is both a critique of modern practices and a call to action for sustainable management and personal contributions to environmental health.

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 Agricultural Policy and what the upcoming European elections might mean for the future of EU agriculture.Audio engineering by Vasko Kostovski.Further reading: NGOs unite against EU’s rollback of green policies for the agrifood sector, EuractivEurope is not prepared for rapidly growing climate risks, European Environment Agency Open letter from the ECVC and IFOAM to Ursula Von der Leyen on CAP simplification, European Coordination Via Campesina  European Pact for the Future, European Environmental Bureau Orbán-backed Think Tank Courts Farmers Linked to Far Right Ahead of EU Poll, DesmogSend us Fan MailClick here for our website to read all our most recent Land and Climate Review features and pieces.

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 the influence agrochemical lobbies have on agriculture across America. Audio engineering by Vasko Kostovski.Further reading:Peter’s recent articles for the American College of Environmental Lawyers:Building on the IRA’s Farm Policy MomentumHarvesting Climate Benefits from the 2024 Farm BillRipe for Change The Real Cost of FoodPeter’s book:Farming for Our Future: The Science, Law, and Policy of Climate-Neutral AgricultureSend us Fan MailClick here for our website to read all our most recent Land and Climate Review features and pieces.

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 Earth Now, explores the idea of "shallow" and "deep" time thinking. Dr. Ialenti uses Onkalo as a case study for how policy can involve ongoing work over decades, and look ahead towards potential impacts hundreds of thousands of years into the future - if expertise is as trusted and depoliticised as it is in Finland. Bertie spoke to Vincent about the book, and how policymakers and the climate sector can think beyond the next generation or electoral cycle. Dr. Vincent Ialenti is a Research Associate at California State Polytechnic University Humboldt’s Department of Environmental Studies. Audio engineering by Vasko Kostovski.Further reading: Buy Deep Time Reckoning from MIT Press here. 'The Art of Pondering Earth’s Distant Future', Scientific American, 2021'The benefits of 'deep time thinking'', BBC Future, 2023'Temporality, fiction and climate – reading Mark Bould’s Anthropocene Unconscious', Land and Climate Review, 2022Send us Fan MailClick here for our website to read all our most recent Land and Climate Review features and pieces.