Svalbard’s climate change fight

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 27 October 2022

⏱️ 26 minutes

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Summary

Svalbard is the fastest warming place on earth. Deep inside the Arctic Circle, it is home to the world’s northernmost settlement, Longyearbyen, which is estimated to be heating at six times the global average. People living here have a front row seat for the climate crisis - melting glaciers, rising sea levels, avalanches and landslides. Add to this an energy crisis in Europe fuelled by the war in Ukraine, which many experts believe is now undermining the fight against climate change. Nick Beake finds out what is being done to try to save Svalbard as we know it. Producer: Kate Vandy

Transcript

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0:00.0	Well this is a picture of serenity. It's nearly midnight although you wouldn't believe it because
0:12.0	it's still extremely bright. The light is bouncing off a huge glacier. You can see the blue
0:20.4	tinge of the ice in the snow. And we've just come across the beluga whales. It's probably about
0:27.6	two dozen of them. The only noise you can hear is when they dive down and then resurface again.
0:35.2	But they're having to adapt to our warming world. Just like all the wildlife here. It's getting
0:41.7	hotter in the water. It's getting hotter in the air as well. And it's having a big impact.
0:48.1	I'm Nick Beak and for this week's assignment here on the BBC World Service, I've traveled to
0:58.8	the Arctic Circle, the top of the world. And to the place that's warming faster than any other
1:04.7	on earth. This is Sphalbad, the archipelago between the North Pole and Norway.
1:10.7	Yeah so welcome on board Nick. Thank you. Beautiful boat. Yeah it's a fish and top here.
1:20.9	Big enough for day trips and overnight trips and small enough to just enjoy and go out and
1:28.9	go to the air you like. Our guide is the explorer Hilda Falunström, who has seen her surroundings
1:35.4	change massively in the nearly 30 years she's lived here. So this is how it looks like. This is
1:41.6	going to be our home for a couple of days. Well from as I was guest on board. Are we going for a ride
1:47.5	or boat trip? Using a map on the table Hilda points out where we're going and considers what we
1:54.4	might encounter. If we're lucky we could see a whale, reindeer and birds of course, maybe an
2:03.2	Arctic fox and if we're super lucky I mean it's all a bear. Heading out into the fjord and the sea
2:10.6	is calm all around us breathtaking vistas. Ah wow I think the mountains are so beautiful,
2:18.5	they are so full of colors and the glacier is I mean it's amazing it's blue and white and
2:26.3	the ocean here is a little brown because of all the melting coming from underneath the glacier
2:33.2	and also in the rivers so but it's full of nutrition but it's changing this ocean is also changing.
2:41.7	Hilda's husband Steiner is at the helm charting our course through the gentle waves.
	...

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