Cheating the Atmosphere

Discovery

BBC

Science, Technology

4.3 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 11 December 2017

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

All countries are supposed to measure and report their greenhouse gas emissions but BBC environment correspondent, Matt McGrath, reveals there are gaping holes in national inventories. He uncovers serious failings in countries’ accounts of warming gases with many not reporting at all. There are disturbing signs that some banned warming chemicals, which are supposed to have been phased out completely, are once again on the rise. And evidence that worthless carbon credits are still being traded. Meanwhile scientists are growing increasingly frustrated by the refusal of countries to gather and share accurate data in the face of this planetary emergency

(Photo: The Jungfraujoch Air Monitoring Station in Switzerland. Credit: Jungfraujoch)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.
0:04.7	My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.
0:08.5	As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.
0:18.0	What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,
0:24.6	poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.
0:29.7	If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC
0:35.4	Sounds. These haunting harmonic voices from Fiji fill the halls at the recent UN climate
0:50.5	negotiations in Bonn. But behind the sweet music there are some very off key notes being struck when it comes to the
0:57.0	measurement and reporting of data on emissions of greenhouse gases.
1:00.9	I'm Matt McGraw, environmentent, and in this episode of Discovery on the BBC
1:05.4	World Service, I'm investigating the murky and multifaceted world of carbon accounting.
1:10.9	I'll be looking at the ongoing evidence that countries are misreporting
1:14.6	emissions data.
1:15.9	People go to jail for under-reporting their taxes, right? And it only thing it jeopardizes is a few
1:20.8	government expenditure here and there. Here if we are systematically
1:24.0	seeing a case of under-reporting we are jeopardizing the whole planet. This is
1:27.8	way more serious. I'll be finding out why only a handful of poorer countries are
1:32.0	filing emissions reports even though all of them are
1:35.2	required to do it.
1:36.2	At the moment we only have less than 40 reports from developing countries who are supposed to do that every two years and since
1:43.9	2014 we only had 40 so really countries are struggling and I'll be examining
1:50.5	why worthless carbon credits will continue to be traded for decades to come.
	...

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