Hello and welcome to the Green Alliance News Review, hosted by Matt Williams and Amy Mount.

Green Alliance is the charity and think tank that is all about achieving ambitious leadership

for the environment. And with this podcast, every two weeks or so, we'll bring you the latest

insights on environmental

policy and politics, both in the UK and abroad. Please keep your comments coming in. You can find

us on Facebook and Twitter at Green Alliance UK. In this episode, are we going back to the 20th century?

We'll look at plans for a new coal mine in Cumbria, which have just been approved by the

local council. We'll also talk about CPRE's new report on how new homes should be built on

recycled land to spare the countryside. But first, the early spring has meant that we've been

seeing some signs of climate change here in the UK, but in the global south, the impacts have

been far more dramatic.

So we're looking at Cyclone Idai, which hits Mozambique a couple of weeks ago and made its way down to Malawi and Zimbabwe causing unbelievable devastation. 2.5 million people are

now in need of emergency assistance. There's been an estimated 750 fatalities, but that number is expected to rise considerably,

because there's hundreds of square miles that are still covered by floodwater,

and it's expected there's a lot of bodies that will probably be discovered once those floodwaters recede.

It's wiped out a year's worth of crops.

I mean, we, you know, as you were saying, you know, we are starting to feel the impacts of climate change here in the UK,

but in the global south, where people are much more vulnerable in a lot of places, less resilient, the effects are

catastrophic already.

And is there a definite connection between this cyclone and other natural disasters and

climate change? What's the evidence and latest thinking about that?

I think it's always hard to pinpoint a specific weather event as being

...