Can we be green and rich?

Beyond Today

BBC

News

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 2 March 2020

⏱️ 20 minutes

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Summary

In Paris in 2015 world leaders agreed on a binding commitment on climate change. They committed to keeping the increase in global temperatures to just 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Heathrow airport has been planning to expand by building a third runway. But last week environmentalists successfully challenged the third runway on the basis that it couldn’t demonstrate how the expansion of the airport was consistent with the UK government’s commitments on climate change. It’s the first major demonstration of the impact of the Paris climate accord on the UK’s CO2 emissions, and it has huge implications for future infrastructure projects. What could the ruling mean for the future of the UK economy? We discuss with Mike Berners-Lee, a professor in the environment centre of Lancaster University, and Kingsmill Bond, an energy strategist at the financial think-tank Carbon Tracker. Presenter: Mathew Price Producers: Rory Galloway and Duncan Barber Editor: Harriet Noble Mixed by Emma Crowe

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.
0:06.0	Hello, I'm Matthew Price and this is Beyond Today from BBC Radio 4,
0:10.8	where we ask one big question about one big story.
0:14.0	Today, can we be green and rich? It was a huge moment, even if we didn't see it.
0:35.0	It was accepted.
0:39.0	It was a huge moment, even if we didn't see it at the time. In 2015, in Paris, countries around the world
0:47.8	agreed to massively cut CO2 emissions to try and limit climate change. Right now, even though Donald Trump has put
0:56.1	in the paperwork to remove the US from the agreement, I withdrew the United States
1:00.6	from the terrible one-sided Paris Climate Accord was a total disaster.
1:05.0	Every country in the world is still signed up, including the UK.
1:10.0	I'm proud that the UK has now enshrined in law our world-leading net-zero
1:15.7	commitment to reduce emissions. Now since Paris happened Britain has written even
1:21.5	tougher rules into law.
1:25.1	They commit us to cutting our greenhouse gas emissions
1:28.0	to almost nothing by 2050.
1:30.3	It's one of the strongest commitments made anywhere in the world.
1:34.0	And then we decided to fly more planes into and out of the country.
1:42.0	The Prime Minister enjoyed a majority of 200,000. planes into and out of the country.
1:42.6	The Prime Minister enjoyed a majority of 296 when MPs voted on plans to expand Heathrow
1:48.9	Airport on Monday night.
1:51.9	Eighty million passengers fly Night.
1:53.0	Eighty million passengers fly in and out of Heathrow every year.
	...

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