ClimateGenn hosted by Nick Breeze

In this episode of Shaping The Future, I am inside the COP attending talks and speaking mainly to scientists but also half listening to the pledges and commitments being made. What is striking is the sense of foreboding from people who have followed these negotiations for many years. Contents: 00:00 Intro by Nick Breeze 01:00 John Kerry speaking to C40 mayors 01:23 Professor Richard Bamba (excerpt) 02:09 Kevin Anderson discussing ‘inside the cop’ The noise of the globetrotting political class presents an image of absolute urgency and seemingly sincere desire to do something about it, however, the pledges being put forth, not only fall short of the level of action the science says we need, it also is non-binding. ‘Mission' accomplished? History has shown us that what is said at COP stays at COP. The fanfare and celebrations that many are seeking at the end may well and UK Prime Minister Johnson may well get his opportunity to smirk at the cameras and declare his mission accomplished. Ironically, the word ‘mission’ is attached to lots of initiatives in the climate action sphere but perhaps submission is a more worthy moniker, as the much-vaunted ambition slumps into a commitment that will see ice sheets and glaciers succumb to rising temperatures in the atmosphere and the oceans. Eyes & ears on the science More interviews discussing the science will follow and serve as a brief intro into the reality that we are facing. If we don’t radically change direction then society will enter a phase of chaos and collapse in the face of destabilised weather and rapidly rising seas. What this may look like has been widely speculated and everyone has their own version of the nightmare to contemplate. Who possesses the agency to act? This being the case, now is the time to question the direction that our leaders and the powerful in society are taking us. Failure is not assured and the angry voices of people outside the COP are starting to be heard. Currently, the politicians and the powerful control the narrative and possess the agency of divination but is anyone truly listening anymore? We have heard for decades, the promises that are founded on urgency and deception. The agency that has been taken away from people in terms of a top down ruling of society, with people clambering up the greasy pole to wag their fingers at those below, has now had its day. Every one of us is in a position to contemplate the agency that we possess in our daily lives and in the communities we inhabit. It is essential now that we use that agency in whatever way we see fit to raise the level of real action to a point where apocalyptic visions of the near-future can be consigned to fiction. Find out more on Genn.cc or back my work on Patreon: https://patreon.com/genncc

In this episode of Shaping The Future, I am speaking to professor Rupert Read on the eve of his trial that has since taken place resulting in a guilty verdict and a very modest fine handed down. Links: Live Event 8 Nov '21 in Glasgow https://youtu.be/ItixWfasssk - Patreon: https://patreon.com/genncc My site: https://genn.cc Here we discuss the role of disinformation organisations like the Global Warming Policy Foundation who have spent the last decade denying the threat that climate change poses to ordinary people. As we head to COP26 Glasgow, many politicians, let alone climate scientists are calling this summit: 'a last chance to save the future of humanity'. Despite this, pundits and mainstream media outlets such as The Economist are warning us to prepare for disappointment. This should come as no surprise, thus confirming the successful work of climate denialism over the last decades. The job ahead is too unpalatable for policymakers to sell to civilians despite the growing eco-anxiety among us all. From Sunday I will be reporting from the COP speaking to many people who I have interviewed for this podcast and many more. We will also be live-streaming an event on the 8th of November titled Adapt Now - on my Youtube Channel, so please do join us. I have 2 more interviews to present very shortly but time is making it hard to turn these around but I’ll do my best. Thanks for listening to all these interviews and sharing your feedback which I always try to read. You can subscribe on Youtube or any major podcast channel. You can also support my work via Patreon.

In the run-up to COP26 we face a new onslaught of mainstream media coverage of how this conference will decide the fate of humanity. The truth is that even the best outcome being sought by policymakers is far short of what the science tells us is needed to stabilise the global climate. Since the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, where the accelerating decline of planetary systems was acknowledged and leaders expressed the need for change, nothing has been achieved to stop the catastrophic circumstances that we are facing today. In this episode of Shaping The Future I am speaking with Professor Kevin Anderson about his (and colleagues) new paper to be published on the 17th October titled, Three Decades of Climate Mitigation: Why Haven’t We Bent the Global Emissions Curve? In this analysis also emerges potential opportunities that could shift the locus of where we are in entrenched greed by a powerful few, towards a better prepared and resilient future for the majority of us. In the next episode, I am speaking with Jakapita Nanganda on her struggle to oppose oil drilling and the contamination and destruction of forests in Namibia, and the struggles her family is confronting in the face of severe drought. Jakapita will be traveling to COP26 as part of Fridays For Future International to demand a brighter future for her generation. You can subscribe to Shaping The Future on all major podcast channels and Youtube and you can also support my work via Patreon. Please visit GENN.cc for more information.

Support channel on: https://patreon.com/genncc or visit: https://genn.cc Dr Saleemul Huq is a highly respected climate scientist from Bangladesh who has worked for decades to progress the safety of the most vulnerable people up the climate policymaking agenda. Traditionally the most vulnerable people have been from places like Saleem's own country, Bangladesh, but in this interview, he stresses that we have crossed a new threshold. What we have been seeing in the US and Northern Europe clearly shows that the most vulnerable could be ourselves, our neighbors, or our loved ones. Global climate extremes have arrived at our door and the time to adapt and build resilience is now. As an expert in this field, Saleem gives us some pertinent insights into what makes resilience really work. It is not technology and it is not wealth. Thanks for listening to Shaping The Future, there are many more episodes being produced in which we are striving to increase our own understanding and help create a future that we all want to live in. Subscribe on any podcast channel or Youtube and you can also back my work via Patreon.

Support this Podcast via Patreon: https://patreon.com/genncc or visit main site at https://genn.cc Support the work of the World Food Programme on the ground: click here In this special episode of Shaping The Future, I am speaking with Menghestab Haile, Regional Director for the World Food Programme in Southern Africa, In particular, we are discussing the climate driven drought in southern Madagascar that has over 1 million people on the brink of starvation, including many children in a state of malnutrition. The situation is a dire emergency and very much deserves our attention because the drought that is causing the famine is caused directly by emissions from those of us in developed countries. However, there is a direct link to the previous episode in this series with Alice Hill discussing the need for adaptation and readiness for climate extremes. As Menghestab points out, southern Madagascar is in a period of transition, and given the right support, they can continue to grow crops here and adapt to new emergent conditions. I initially contacted the WFP to do this interview to highlight the humanitarian emergency, however, it has been striking that this is what a real-time climate red alert really looks like. This is a region where many people live by subsistence farming and, no matter the outcome of climate conferences, adaptation is critical.

Please visit https://genn.cc for more content or support my work via https://patreon.com/genncc In this episode of Shaping The Future, I am speaking with Alice Hill who was Special Assistant to President Obama at the White House and Senior Director for Resilience Policy at the National Security Council, working on climate change and pandemic preparedness. In her new book, ‘The Fight For Climate After COVID-19’, to be published on the 5th September, Alice makes the case for why it is imperative that we begin the necessary planning for adaptation for concurrent and consecutive climate extremes that threaten society the world over. With COP26 on the horizon, we are seeing decades of climate policy on mitigation come to virtually nothing as emissions still rise. Timestamps based on interview Questions: 01:20 Most of the narrative around our climate change response at the moment is very focussed on mitigation and debate rages on, regarding whether we are doing enough, fast enough. Your book is a very pragmatic and, in many ways reassuring, breakdown of what we need to do to adapt to climate impacts. Can you start by giving us some background on what led you to write a book that is essentially a global climate preparedness strategy? 03:16 Early on in the book you refer to failures of imagination that mean we cannot prepare effectively. Can you elaborate on what this means and the tools that will need to be developed and deployed in order to fill the imagination gap? 06:40 We are getting strong signals now of what extreme climate-driven impacts look like. You discuss preparedness for concurrent and consecutive disasters. Can you give an example of this kind of scenario and the resilience that would be needed? 09:00 If you take the US, or Europe, for example, we don’t seem to hear much talk about preparation for adaptation, compared to places like Bangladesh, despite the impacts becoming more severe and widespread. Why is it so hard for developed nations to get ahead on this? 14:10 You outline some excellent examples of leadership success and leadership failures, making the point that leadership matters. Looking at how countries have responded to the pandemic, there are obvious winners and losers but, generally, are you seeing the leadership qualities we need to steer us through the critical resilience building years ahead? 15:40 Another major theme you highlight is the borderless nature of climate change and how our response should be equally borderless. If you take a country like the UK and even the US, it seems that we have an unhelpful obsession with borders. How does greater resilience relate to greater cross-border cooperation? *Include water sharing (17:25). 19:10 You use the term ‘survival migrants’ in the book - what are these and how do they fit into the landscape of global change we are entering? 20:05 Is this one issue perhaps a great test of our empathy and humanity? 28:00 How close are we to the point where insurers (and re-insurers) stop insuring? 31:25 In a press conference a few days ago with an agricultural producer in the US I asked how much of their climate strategy was allocated towards adaptation. The answer came back that the focus was purely on mitigation. Can you end by summarising why adaptation planning and mitigation strategies must be treated with equal seriousness right now?

Visit: https://genn.cc for more information or https://patreon.com/genncc Contents with Timestamps Hybrid Warfare 01:35 Resilience targeting 4:35 Politics, economics and fossil fuel interests 5:30 Sources of disinformation are a national security threat 8:00 Cyber Aggression 9:00 Climate migrants and nationalist politics 10:30 Tackling societal breakdown due to climate resilience failure at source 12:40 Local knowledge versus models and remote assessments CUT Dependency on fossil fuel supports regimes responsible for disinformation 14:40 Geoengineering, risk and attribution CUT A UN Security Council Specifically for Climate Change 17:35 Opportunities for positive diplomatic solutions | Building trust in time 19:10 Planning a pragmatic route to the future from Phase Zero 21:08 In this episode of Shaping The Future, I am speaking to Global Security expert, Dr Chad Briggs at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Chad advises many global organisations on the intersection between climate change and national and regional security issues. His clients include the US State Department, US Air Force, the Swedish Armed Forces, the European Union, as well as US Dept of Energy, among others. Chad explains the linkages between climate change and hybrid warfare situations that are going on now and will continue to pose a massive threat to societies around the world. These include government level sources of disinformation, such as the Global Warming Policy Foundation in the UK or the Heartland Institute in the US, who are funded by fossil fuel interest groups to sow doubt and chaos that drive us further down the road of climate catastrophe. I want to thank the Global Military Advisory Council on Climate Change (GMACCC) for their help in organising this series of interviews with security experts. The next interview will be with former Obama White House advisor and Head of the US National Security Council for Climate, Alice Hill about her new book due out in September. Additional segments on Geoengineering and models versus first-hand knowledge from this interview with Chad will be available later this week to Patreon backers via GENN.cc. This will be accompanied by an overview of the forthcoming interviews and reflections on key points that are emerging from the series. Thanks for listening to Shaping The Future - you can subscribe on Youtube or any podcast channel and sign up for email updates on GENN.cc. I will also be covering COP26 in Glasgow and conducting interviews with a wide range of participants. So do stay tuned and if you can, please support my work via Patreon. You can also subscribe via the Cambridge Climate Lecture Series at climateseries.com

Back on Patreon: https://patreon.com/genncc Visit website: https://genn.cc Centre for Climate Repair: https://www.climaterepair.eng.cam.ac.uk/ In this episode of Shaping The Future, I am speaking with the Director of the Centre for Climate Repair in Cambridge, Dr Shaun Fitzgerald about how buildings can be adapted for climate resilience and the potential for flipping them from carbon sources to carbon sinks. With many of the world's largest future cities yet to be built and much of the existing infrastructure in developed countries being unfit for extreme climate scenarios, it is essential that building development projects and innovation are able to meet and beat the challenges that lay ahead. Recent extreme climate catastrophes demonstrate that we need to start adapting to climate change right now and at scale. The theme of adaptation planning is one that I will be exploring more in the coming weeks. If you are listening on Youtube or GENN.cc or another podcast channel, please do post your thoughts on the content in the comments and I will always read and try to reply. Your feedback is most appreciated. Please do subscribe to Shaping The Future at GENN.cc where you can also see the whole podcast archive as well as interviews, panels and articles from the last 5 COP’s as we head towards COP26 Glasgow. If you want to support my work please do so via the Patreon links on genn.cc. I’ll be covering COP26 with filmed interviews and lots of additional content throughout the 2 weeks.

In this episode of Shaping The Future, I am speaking with former UK Government Chief Science Advisor, Sir David King. Sir David has recently set up the Climate Crisis Advisory Group (CCAG) to respond with agility to the real-time climate crisis. The first report is linked in the notes and focuses on the Arctic as a key regulator of global climate stability and more recently, chaotic disruption. Please consider supporting this work at: https://patreon.com/genncc and subscribing at https://genn.cc Key points: Jet Stream Omega Event Johanne Rockstrum: Arctic tipping point has passed. Are accelerating impacts at risk of outpacing action? Scientists have mismanaged the modelling of climate change events. Greenland ice sheet is sitting in warm air and losing ice rapidly. We are not prepared for what we are currently seeing! We need a UN Security Council For Climate Change. Our future as a civilisation depends on a rapid response to the situation. UK Policy on China: Timing-wise it could not be worse! The EU, China and US are all talking together. Greenhouse Gas Removal: Build up oceans to what they used to be and we could absorb 30-40 billion tonnes per annum. Refreezing the Arctic: If we don’t manage this we are cooked! The CCAG Report is for Governments, Businesses and Financial operations. The time for action is now! Sir David discusses the mantra they are trying to get into the mainstream consciousness of climate action: Reduce, Remove and Repair. The message is clear that climate is now the main issue threatening our civilisation across the globe. We are now crossing tipping points and the time rapid scaled up action is now. Sir David also suggests the creation of a UN Security Council for Climate Change to deal specifically with the international efforts of nations and regions to tackle arising issues. This connects to my interview next week with NATO and US Government Security Advisor on Climate Change, Chad Briggs. Next week I will also be talking to Dr Shaun Fitzgerald OBE, Director of the Centre for Climate Repair in Cambridge about how we need to flip our building infrastructure from a massive carbon source to carbon sink. This includes existing buildings and the colossal amount that needs to be built with resilience around the world to weather the tide of climate adversity. Thank you for listening to Shaping The Future. You can see the full archive of podcast interviews and reporting from the last 5 COP’s at GENN.cc. Please subscribe to the podcast on any of the main channels and please do consider backing my work on Patreon.

In this episode of Shaping The Future, I am speaking with Adrian Tait, co-founder of the Climate Psychology Alliance about his contribution to the new Deep Adaptation book. Links to buy Deep Adaption: https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Adaptation-Navigating-Realities-Climate/dp/1509546847 Support this channel: https://patreon.com/genncc Cambridge Climate Lecture Series - Shaping The Future: https://climateseries.com/climate-change-podcast Nick Breeze's site with full archive: genn.cc Climate Psychology Alliance: https://www.climatepsychologyalliance.org/ This newly published volume edited by and contributed to by Jem Bendell and Rupert Read includes an updated version of the original Deep Adaptation paper as well input from a total of 20 contributors across a range of fields that deal with issues related to Deep Adaptation and the subject of collapse. Deep Adaptation, with its subheader of ‘Navigating The Realities of Climate Chaos’ is divided into 3 parts: The Predicament, Shifts In Being and Shifts In Doing. Adrian’s contribution gives a broad overview of the evolving field of climate psychology, including the symptoms of distress and denial assisting us to recognise and empathise when we detect them in peers and/or colleagues. Deep Adaptation covers a range of subjects including the future of activism, leadership, the study of collapse itself and related ideas. It is itself a starting point to explore themes around feeling, assimilating and responding to systemic as well as ecological collapse. This subject of this book contrasts and compliments another book that will be published later this year titled ‘The Fight For Climate After COVID-19’ by Alice Hill. Alice has previously served as special assistant to President Barack Obama and senior director for resilience policy on the National Security Council staff and will be discussing her new book here in late August just ahead of publication. Thank you for listening to Shaping The Future. You can now see the full archive of episodes at GENN.cc along with the archive of interviews and footage recorded at the last 5 COP’s. As we prepare for COP26 in Glasgow, it is worth considering that the climate threats anticipated 30 years ago at the Rio Earth Summit are now among us creating suffering and loss on a daily basis, while not one policy fit for purpose has been implemented to prevent them. Someone might have warned George Bush Senior when he stated that the American way of life is not up for negotiation, that nature cares not for political grandiosity. You can subscribe to Shaping The Future on all the usual channels and also support my work via Patreon. Thank you.