What did the climate talks achieve?
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 15 November 2021
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What was really at stake at the COP26 negotiations in Glasgow, and how much have the politicians done to avert a climate disaster?
Justin Rowlatt speaks to two researchers on the frontline of the climate crisis. Carrie Lear, professor of earth sciences at Cardiff University, explains why she fears the Antarctic ice sheet could melt far quicker than people assume, inundating coastal cities around the globe. Meanwhile Professor Daniela Schmidt of Bristol University says the chemistry of the world's oceans is changing so fast that it could take marine ecosystems millions of years to recover.
Given how high the stakes are, how significant was the progress made in the latest iteration of climate talks? Justin speaks to sustainability expert and veteran climate diplomat Rachel Kyte, dean of the Fletcher School of international affairs at Tufts University in America.
(Picture: Globe balanced on the edge of a shelf; Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Justin Rowland. Welcome to Business Daily. With the COP26 Global Climate Conference all wrapped up, we speak to the researchers on the front line of climate change. |
| 0:12.1 | The change we are currently seeing is the fastest we think we have seen since the extinction of the dinosaurs. |
| 0:17.9 | Ecosystems will recover, but the question is, do we as humans |
| 0:21.0 | have two million years |
| 0:22.3 | time to wait for that? |
| 0:23.5 | And that is determined |
| 0:24.7 | right now by our politicians. |
| 0:28.0 | What we do now |
| 0:29.3 | will be felt |
| 0:30.4 | for centuries to come. |
| 0:32.6 | So what's the verdict? |
| 0:33.7 | Have the politicians |
| 0:34.6 | delivered? |
| 0:35.5 | That is today's |
| 0:36.8 | business daily. Thank you. Have the politicians delivered? That is today's Business Daily. |
| 0:44.9 | I'm at the Portage Glacier Visitors Centre in Alaska. It's a tourist attraction about 50 |
| 0:51.6 | miles from Anchorage, the state capital. And the reason it's here is that this |
| 0:56.5 | was a great spot to see the once mighty Portage Glacier. Well, it was in the 1980s when this place was |
| 1:04.6 | built. Since then, the glacier has retreated up the valley and all the way around the corner. |
| 1:10.4 | All you can see from the visitor |
| 1:12.4 | centre now is a large lake. Well, I'm here to report on how climate change is reshaping our world |
| 1:20.3 | as part of the BBC's coverage of the COP26 UN Climate Summit. Because all the way across the Arctic |
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