Climate Now

In November 2021, representatives from around the world gathered to update their climate commitments at the 26th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP 26) in Glasgow, Scotland.The conference received substantial attention from media and climate groups around the globe, the likes of which we haven't seen since COP 21 - the 2015 Paris Climate Accords.So why was there so much anticipation leading up to this year's COP? What were the expectations, and were they met? And do the new commitments made at COP 26 put us on track to meet global climate targets?Megan Darby, Editor of Climate Home News, a UK-based news organization that covers the international politics of the climate crisis, joined Climate Now to unpack the key results from COP 26.Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.Contact us at contact@climatenow.comVisit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.

Wind energy is one of the cheapest sources of energy today, but it accounts for only ~6% of global electricity generation.To limit global warming to 2 degrees C or less, wind energy will need to scale up to about 5 times its current size. | So, how can this be achieved? What are the challenges to scaling wind energy to this degree? How does off-shore wind fit into this equation? And what needs to happen this decade to put us on track?Climate Now is joined by Dr. Simon Watson, Director of the Delft University of Technology Wind Energy Institute, to discuss the role of wind energy in the transition to a low-carbon economy.Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.Contact us at contact@climatenow.comVisit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.

Much of the focus surrounding climate action is on mitigation: how do we reduce the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and avoid catastrophic climate change in the coming decades?But the reality is the climate is already changing - and will continue to change even under the most optimistic mitigation scenarios. So what is being done to adapt and prepare for these changes?Beth Gibbons, Executive Director of the American Society of Adaptation Professionals, joined Climate Now to discuss how - and whether - North American cities are adapting to a changing climate, and what still needs to happen to ensure people and places are protected.Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.Contact us at contact@climatenow.comVisit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.

"The [investment market] we have in place now is not working for people, it's not working for the planet, and it's actually not working for most investors."This is according to Amit Bouri, Co-founder and CEO of the Global Impact Investing Network (the GIIN), an international community dedicated to increasing the scale and effectiveness of impact investing.Impact investments are made with the intention of producing a positive change, for example in addressing the climate crisis, while simultaneously earning financial returns. And it appears more and more investors are showing interest, as the impact investment market reached $715 billion in 2020, according to the GIIN, and is expected to keep rising.Climate Now sat down with Amit Bouri to discuss the growing impact investment market and its drivers, how climate change plays a role, and how investors can measure the impact of their dollars.Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.Contact us at contact@climatenow.comVisit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.

A growing population, groundwater depletion, poor water infrastructure, overuse, and water waste threaten our global freshwater supply.Throw climate change into the mix, and the water crisis is exacerbated, as precipitation becomes less reliable and average global temperatures rise.The water crisis, like the climate crisis, is projected to get worse, but there are solutions both corporations and governments can adopt to mitigate the negative impacts and prepare.Climate Now spoke with Will Sarni, Founder and CEO of Water Foundry and a global thought leader on water challenges, to learn about the strategies and technologies available to assuage the water crisis.Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.Contact us at contact@climatenow.comVisit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.

Most climate models in use today are based upon large-scale, well-understood physical relationships that drive global temperature and precipitation trends. But the effects of complicated interactions that occur on smaller scales, which may still be significant, are harder to capture in these models.That is why Dr. Laure Zanna of New York University and her colleagues are employing machine learning techniques, which can "learn" the effects of these interactions without explicitly solving the physics, to improve climate modeling.  Climate Now spoke with Dr. Zanna to learn more.Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.Contact us at contact@climatenow.comVisit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.

What does it take to turn an idea that could help fight climate change into a self-sustaining business? We often hear the glamorous stories of startups that have made it, but little about the struggles, the learning, and the luck required to get there.Pol Knops, Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Green Minerals, joined Climate Now to share his ongoing journey to design, develop and market a process that transforms carbon dioxide emissions into a useful product.Green Minerals speeds up the natural process of mineralization, in which CO2 chemically reacts with iron, magnesium or calcium-rich minerals to form a new mineral, permanently trapping the CO2. The Green Minerals mineralization process uses olivine to react with captured CO2 to create feedstocks for the concrete and paper industries. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.Contact us at contact@climatenow.comVisit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.

How do we finance the cost of mitigating climate change, while discouraging continued use of fossil fuels? The largest public statement of economists in history argues for a carbon tax - which would charge a fee for every ton of carbon dioxide emitted.But, if one country charges a different carbon tax than another, what would happen to international trade? Would fossil fuel use and emissions-intensive industrial processes actually decrease, or just move to a country without a carbon tax?Carbon border adjustments attempt to address these issues, and come with their own legal, economic and practical complexities.Listen to Climate Now's new podcast episode featuring conversations with Dr. Adele Morris, former Policy Director for Climate and Energy Economics at the Brookings Institution, Dr. David Weisbach, Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, Dr. Brian Flannery, Visiting Fellow for Resources for the Future, and Shuting Pomerleau, Climate Policy Analyst at the Niskanen Center. These experts help us unravel how carbon border adjustments could work, and their role in building solutions to the climate crisis.Time Codes:0:00 - carbon border adjustment economics13:45 - carbon border adjustment logistics30:00 - carbon border adjustment legality34:30 - carbon pricingFollow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.Contact us at contact@climatenow.comVisit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.

A rapidly expanding list of companies have announced plans to go "carbon neutral" or "net zero". Often, these plans include at least some offsetting of greenhouse gas emissions by purchasing credits from forest carbon offset programs.But buyers beware: our look into how forest carbon offsets are determined and sold suggests that there is a lot of work to be done before we will be able to monetize the carbon absorptive power of trees in our effort to reduce net emissions.Climate Now spoke with four experts: Dr. Charles Canham of The Cary Institute, Dr. Danny Cullenward, Policy Director of CarbonPlan, Dr. Grayson Badgley of Black Rock Forest and Columbia University, and Christine Cadigan of the American Forest Foundation to better understand what is and is not working in the forest carbon offset market. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.Contact us at contact@climatenow.comVisit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.

For businesses, a changing climate is not just about worsening weather patterns. Businesses must be prepared for what is likely to be an era of rapidly accelerating change to many dimensions of their operations, including changes in shareholder expectations, supply chains, multi-dimensional risks to physical assets, and impacts on labor, among others.A critical dimension to preparing for these changes is risk assessment and reporting. The Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) was established in 2015 to provide businesses with guidance on how to disclose both financial risks and opportunities that are associated with our changing climate.Emily Wasley runs WSP USA's Corporate Climate Resilience practice. We spoke with Emily to gain a better understanding of the TCFD guidelines, and some perspective on the growing interest from businesses seeking to become resilient to a changing climate.Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.Contact us at contact@climatenow.comVisit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.