COP26: Floods, Fire, and the Future
The Briefing Room
BBC
4.8 • 731 Ratings
🗓️ 22 July 2021
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Right across the world unpredictable and extreme weather has led to devastating consequences: homes washed away by floods in Europe and China with hundreds dead; extreme heat and giant wildfires in North America and in Siberia, and we now hear that the Amazon rainforest is emitting more carbon dioxide than it is soaking up.
Scientists are clear that man-made climate change is playing a significant role in all this.
In November senior representatives from 197 countries plus the European Union are supposed to be gathering for COP26 in Glasgow. Can this gathering - and the pronouncements made there - help save us from extreme climate change?
Joining David Aaronovitch in the Briefing Room are:
Alina Averchenkova, Distinguished Fellow from the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics.
Michael Jacobs, Professor at Sheffield University’s Political Economy Research Institute.
Carly McLachlan, Professor of Climate and Energy Policy, Manchester University, and Director of Tyndall Manchester.
Dr. James Dyke, Senior Lecturer in Global Systems, University of Exeter.
Presenter: David Aaronovitch Producers: John Murphy, Sally Abrahams and Kirsteen Knight. Sound Engineer: James Beard Editor: Jasper Corbett.
Image: People wading through flood waters following heavy rains in Zhengzhou in China's central Henan province. Credit: STR/AFP via Getty Images
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:05.2 | Welcome to the briefing room with me, David Aronovich. |
| 0:08.1 | This is the virtual space where a big current topic gets together with you, me and the top experts for 28 minutes. |
| 0:16.0 | This week, torrential downpours, floods, forest fires and preparations for a giant climate conference. |
| 0:22.6 | What on earth is going on? |
| 0:29.6 | We've got off-the-scale record temperatures in North America and huge wildfires. |
| 0:34.6 | The same in Siberia. |
| 0:36.6 | 100-year weather events causing fatal floods in Europe and China, |
| 0:41.7 | and news that the Amazon is now emitting more carbon dioxide than it absorbs. The effects of |
| 0:47.8 | man-made climate change are moving from future threats to present reality. In November, the biggest ever gathering of world leaders on |
| 0:56.2 | British soil is due to take place in Glasgow, known as COP26. Will it help save us from extreme |
| 1:03.8 | climate change? Step into the briefing room and together we'll find out. Let's begin with a definition, and bear with me. |
| 1:13.5 | COP 26 is the 26th conference of the participants |
| 1:17.3 | to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, |
| 1:21.5 | which was first agreed in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. |
| 1:26.0 | So beyond that, what is this meeting in Glasgow about? |
| 1:30.3 | To help answer that, I'm joined in the briefing room by Elina Avachenkova, |
| 1:34.3 | a distinguished fellow from the Grantamth and Research Institute |
| 1:36.7 | on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics. |
| 1:41.6 | Alina Avachenkova, what is COP26 about? |
| 1:46.0 | This session of international negotiations is a very important one. It's a conference about |
| 1:51.7 | ambition. So in 2015, when Paris Agreement was adopted, countries recognised that the ambition |
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