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BBC Inside Science

Extinction Rebellion, UK net zero emissions and climate change; Nobel Prizes

BBC Inside Science

BBC

Technology, Science

4.51.3K Ratings

🗓️ 10 October 2019

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Extinction Rebellion is in the news with its stated aim of civil disobedience and protest, and goal to compel governments around the world to act on the climate crisis. Meanwhile, the UK government this week announced that it was overruling its own Planning Inspectorate, by approving in principle new gas-fired turbines at the Drax power station in North Yorkshire. The Inspectors had advised that the new developments would undermine UK climate policies on carbon emissions. In the UK we are committed to reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050, in order to comply with our ratification of the Paris agreement, which aims to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees. So what are we to do? Are the government policies and commitments enough, and are we sticking to them? Adam Rutherford discusses these questions with Jim Skea, Professor of Sustainable Energy at Imperial College, London, and co-chair of the Working Group tackling reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This week has been the annual jamboree and drama of the Nobel Prizes: the announcements of the biggest gongs in science. The Physiology or Medicine Prize went to William Kaelin from Harvard University, Sir Peter Ratcliffe from the Crick Institute in London and Gregg Semenza from Johns Hopkins University for their work on how the body responds to changing oxygen levels. The Physics Prize went to James Peebles of Princeton for cosmological discoveries, and Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz, then at the University of Geneva, for the 1995 discovery of the first exoplanet, 51 Pegasi b. And the Chemistry Prize was awarded for the invention of something that we utterly rely on every day, the lithium battery. The winners are John Goodenough, University of Texas at Austin, Stanley Whittingham, State University of New York, and Akira Yoshino of the Asahi Kasei Corporation in Japan. These awards offer plenty to discuss, so Adam is joined by Lisa Kaltenegger, Director of Carl Sagan Institute & Associate Professor of Astronomy, Andrew Pontzen, Professor of Astrophysics at University College, London, and reporter and presenter Marnie Chesterton, who spent some time with chemistry laureate John Goodenough.

Transcript

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0:00.0

LOU, this is the podcast of Inside Science from BBC Radio 4 first broadcast on the 10th of October 2019.

0:07.0

I'm Adam Rutherford.

0:08.0

It's been the annual Nobel Jamboree announcements of the three science categories for the top gong in science land.

0:14.3

We pick apart the research, the culture of the nobles, what they mean to the public, to scientists,

0:19.6

and whether they misrepresent science.

0:21.8

But first, Extinction Rebellion is in the news with their stated aim of civil disobedience and protest,

0:27.0

their goal to compel governments around the world to act on the climate crisis.

0:32.0

And it's not all youthful exuberance, one Stanley Johnson was

0:35.9

there yesterday wearing an exile badge and speaking on their behalf, he was labeled as an uncooperative

0:41.4

crusty by none other than his own son, the Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

0:46.0

Meanwhile, Johnson's government this week announced that they were overruling their own planning

0:51.1

inspectorate by approving, in in principle new gas-fired turbines

0:55.6

at the Drax Power Station in North Yorkshire. The inspectors had advised that the

0:59.6

new developments would undermine UK climate policies on carbon emissions.

1:03.4

The current position is that in the UK we are committed to reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050

1:09.7

in order to comply with our ratification of the Paris Accords which aim to limit global

1:13.6

temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. So what are we to do? Are the

1:19.5

government policies and commitments enough and are we sticking to them?

1:23.2

Currently about 40% of our electricity comes from burning gas and it was reported that at times

1:28.6

this year for the first time renewables were generating more energy than fossil fuels.

1:33.0

Jim Skee is Professor of Sustainable Energy at Imperial College London

1:37.0

and the co-chair of the Working Group tackling reducing emissions of greenhouse gases

...

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