Brian Lair on WNYC on Day 6 of Climate Week NYC which coincides with world leaders gathering

here for the annual UN General Assembly. Normally on the Brian Lair show we do a climate segment

of the week on Tuesdays but this week we brought climate week here by airing the segment

every day in conjunction with covering climate now, a media collaboration that includes this

show and WNYC and other news organizations. This week we've already spoken with a few of the winners

of the covering climate now, 2023 Journalism Awards. Today we have another recipient with us,

a journalist of the year award, three people, including two who were on the show earlier in the

week have been awarded this. Today it's Damian Carrington, environment editor at the Guardian. In his

15 years as an environment correspondent he has showcased accountability journalism at its finest

says covering climate now. A few of his pieces highlighted in his award include his reporting on

carbon bombs so-called and methane bombs so-called in which he detailed exact names and locations

of projects that threaten to push the planet past the 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming which is

the goal of the UN to keep it within that as well as the corporate and governmental agents responsible

for their funding. So we'll talk about that as well as some of the events of this week at the UN

including the Climate Ambition Summit. Damian thanks for coming on, welcome to WNYC.

Thanks very much, Brian. It's great to be here. Can I start on your recent story about the UK

in which the Guardian is obviously based, not being invited to speak at the Climate Ambition

Summit which Secretary General Guterra said was only for countries serious enough about climate

change action? Of course, yeah so the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterra has been really

outspoken about how serious the problem of global heating is. He talked about opening the gates

of hell this week and so in his role he can't command things to happen around the world but he can

certainly put pressure on political leaders and so this week in New York he said come and talk if

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