Fear and Wonder

Should poorer countries be compensated for climate disasters that aren't their own making?

The concept of "loss and damage" was debated at the United Nations COP27 climate summit in Egypt in November 2022 – which resulted in an historic agreement to establish a loss and damage fund to compensate countries that are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

In our final episode of Fear & Wonder, we hear from Senegalese meteorologist Aïda Diongue-Niang, who called us from COP27. She explains how African nations are already highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. She also takes us inside the gruelling final approval session of the IPCC's Synthesis Report. Her behind-the-scenes account reveals the dedication and determination of the scientists involved.

We also hear from Mauritanian public health expert Guéladio Cissé, who details how more intense rainfall is already increasing the risk of water-borne and vector-borne diseases. Finally, we recap what we've learned throughout this podcast. We reflect on how the event that sparked its creation – the Australian Black Summer bushfires of 2019–20 – has inspired survivors to fight for climate action.

In case you're new here: Fear & Wonder is a new climate podcast, brought to you by The Conversation. It takes you inside the United Nations’ era-defining climate report via the hearts and minds of the scientists who wrote it. The show is sponsored by the Climate Council, an independent, evidence-based organisation working on climate science, impacts and solutions.

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If you liked this episode, you might also like to subscribe to The Conversation's new Science Wrap newsletter: https://bit.ly/406nQgk. And if you really like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation – we're a non-profit newsroom who rely on the support of our readers to fund our expert-led journalism: https://bit.ly/42ABoCi.

If you'd like to support the Climate Council and receive your free copy of Joelle's book Humanity's Moment, click here: https://bit.ly/40sQ4BP.

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"The problem [of climate change] is getting worse," explains Greg Nemet, a Canadian renewable policy expert and IPCC author. "But we've got solutions now that are so much more affordable than they were."

After studying advances in solar technology, which has seen rapid expansion and price reductions, he's optimistic about our capacity to avert the worst possible climate outcomes. 

In this week's episode of our climate podcast Fear and Wonder, we speak to Greg about the pace of change in the solar industry and whether it can be replicated for other technologies.

We also hear from fellow IPCC author and Algerian energy policy expert Yamina Saheb, about the emission reductions that are possible by adopting age-old sustainability concepts.

In case you're new here: Fear & Wonder is a new climate podcast, brought to you by The Conversation. It takes you inside the United Nations’ era-defining climate report via the hearts and minds of the scientists who wrote it. The show is sponsored by the Climate Council, an independent, evidence-based organisation working on climate science, impacts and solutions.

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If you liked this episode, you might also like to subscribe to The Conversation's new Science Wrap newsletter: https://bit.ly/406nQgk. And if you really like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation – we're a non-profit newsroom who rely on the support of our readers to fund our expert-led journalism: https://bit.ly/42ABoCi.

If you'd like to support the Climate Council and receive your free copy of Joelle's book Humanity's Moment, click here: https://bit.ly/40sQ4BP.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"I'm often asked if I feel hopeful for the future," says former IPCC climate scientist Lesley Hughes. "For me, hope is a strategy, rather than an emotion. Because if we don't have hope and optimism, then we all give up, and if we all give up, then we are truly lost."

In this live bonus episode of Fear & Wonder, recorded on May 1, host Michael Green spoke with Hughes, alongside current IPCC authors Mark Howden and Frank Jotzo to unpack the latest Synthesis Report. All three guests have been at the forefront of climate science in Australia for decades. They trace how climate science went from a relatively peripheral topic to one of central importance to scientists and governments around the world.

They reflect on their respective journeys, the key takeaways from the IPCC's most recent Synthesis Report, and they imminent challenges and opportunities for Australia and the world.

In case you're new here: Fear & Wonder is a new climate podcast, brought to you by The Conversation. It takes you inside the United Nations’ era-defining climate report via the hearts and minds of the scientists who wrote it. The show is sponsored by the Climate Council, an independent, evidence-based organisation working on climate science, impacts and solutions.

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If you liked this episode, you might also like to subscribe to The Conversation's new Science Wrap newsletter: https://bit.ly/406nQgk. And if you really like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation – we're a non-profit newsroom who rely on the support of our readers to fund our expert-led journalism: https://bit.ly/42ABoCi.

If you'd like to support the Climate Council and receive your free copy of Joelle's book Humanity's Moment, click here: https://bit.ly/40sQ4BP.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Around half of all life on Earth is on the move because of climate change.

That staggering statistic shows just one of the ways climate change is impacting animal species around the world, which is the topic of this week's episode.

In case you're new here: Fear & Wonder is a new climate podcast, brought to you by The Conversation. It takes you inside the United Nations’ era-defining climate report via the hearts and minds of the scientists who wrote it. The show is sponsored by the Climate Council, an independent, evidence-based organisation working on climate science, impacts and solutions.

In this episode, hosts Michael Green and Joelle Gergis speak to Finnish fisherman and IPCC scientist Dr Tero Mustonen about the changes he has observed on the lake ice in his village of Selkie in North Karelia, Finland, and how his community has led a successful rewilding project.

We also speak to Australian marine ecologist Professor Gretta Pecl, whose research has helped map the rapid redistribution of life on Earth. Through her dives off the Tasmanian coast, we learn that plants and animals are moving faster in the ocean than they are on land – with a little help from Nemo.

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If you liked this episode, you might also like to subscribe to The Conversation's new Science Wrap newsletter: https://bit.ly/406nQgk. And if you really like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation – we're a non-profit newsroom who rely on the support of our readers to fund our expert-led journalism: https://bit.ly/42ABoCi.

If you'd like to support the Climate Council and receive your free copy of Joelle's book Humanity's Moment, click here: https://bit.ly/40sQ4BP.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"The wet gets wetter and the dry gets drier".

That's one of the key messages from the chapter in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) latest report on how climate change is impacting Earth's water cycle. And it's the topic of our latest episode.

In case you're new here: Fear & Wonder is a new climate podcast, brought to you by The Conversation. It takes you inside the United Nations’ era-defining climate report via the hearts and minds of the scientists who wrote it. The show is sponsored by the Climate Council, an independent, evidence-based organisation working on climate science, impacts and solutions.

In this episode, hosts Michael Green and Joelle Gergis speak to scientists Paola Arias from Colombia and Krishnan Raghavan from India about how climate change is intensifying the extremes of wet and dry. They discuss the Australian floods of 2020 to the South Asian monsoon and the devastating Pantanal wetland fires in Brazil's Amazon.

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If you liked this episode, you might also like to subscribe to The Conversation's new Science Wrap newsletter: https://bit.ly/406nQgk. And if you really like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation – we're a non-profit newsroom who rely on the support of our readers to fund our expert-led journalism: https://bit.ly/42ABoCi.

If you'd like to support the Climate Council and receive your free copy of Joelle's book Humanity's Moment, click here: https://bit.ly/40sQ4BP.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fear & Wonder is a new climate podcast, brought to you by The Conversation. It takes you inside the United Nations’ era-defining climate report via the hearts and minds of the scientists who wrote it. The show is sponsored by the Climate Council, an independent, evidence-based organisation working on climate science, impacts and solutions.

The show is hosted by Joelle Gergis, a climate scientist and lead author for the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and her friend Michael Green, an award-winning journalist.

In this episode, we're unraveling one of the major shifts in the public communication of climate change – the attribution of extreme weather events to climate change. In the past, we knew climate change made extreme weather more likely, but couldn't say for sure if an individual weather event might've happened in a cooler world too. But scientists have now developed more sophisticated models to help determine how connected or influenced the shift in climate is on individual weather extremes.

We speak to climatologist Fredi Otto about a rapid attribution study of a heatwave in Toulouse, France. Then scientists David Karoly and Tannecia Stephenson help us understand how climate models are built and what they can tell us about our changing weather.

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If you liked this episode, you might also like to subscribe to The Conversation's new Science Wrap newsletter: https://bit.ly/406nQgk. And if you really like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation – we're a non-profit newsroom who rely on the support of our readers to fund our expert-led journalism: https://bit.ly/42ABoCi.

If you'd like to support the Climate Council and receive your free copy of Joelle's book Humanity's Moment, click here: https://bit.ly/40sQ4BP.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fear & Wonder is a new climate podcast, brought to you by The Conversation. It takes you inside the United Nations’ era-defining climate report via the hearts and minds of the scientists who wrote it. The show is sponsored by the Climate Council, an independent, evidence-based organisation working on climate science, impacts and solutions.

The show is hosted by Joelle Gergis, a climate scientist and lead author for the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and her friend Michael Green, an award-winning journalist.

In the last episode, we heard about some older, natural and human records that show us how the climate is changing. In this episode, Michael and Joelle continue that trail to the present day, investigating some of the new ways that scientists are observing the changing climate, particularly sea level rise.

Icelandic scientist Guðfinna ‘Tolly’ Aðalgeirsdóttir explains how she got into glaciology, what the advances are in the measurement of glacier and ice sheets, and takes listeners on a field trip to measure the summer snow melt on a glacier. We then hear from oceanographer Matt Palmer, who talks about advances in the measurement of ocean depth.

If you liked this episode, you might also like to subscribe to The Conversation's new Science Wrap newsletter: https://bit.ly/406nQgk. And if you really like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation – we're a non-profit newsroom who rely on the support of our readers to fund our expert-led journalism: https://bit.ly/42ABoCi.

If you'd like to support the Climate Council and receive your free copy of Joelle's book Humanity's Moment, click here: https://bit.ly/40sQ4BP.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fear & Wonder is a new climate podcast, brought to you by The Conversation. It takes you inside the United Nations’ era-defining climate report via the hearts and minds of the scientists who wrote it. The show is sponsored by the Climate Council, an independent, evidence-based organisation working on climate science, impacts and solutions.

The show is hosted by Joelle Gergis, a climate scientist and lead author for the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and her friend Michael Green, an award-winning journalist.

In this episode, Michael and Joelle introduce the series and look at observations of climate change over time – how we know the climate is changing. They cover what the IPCC is, what its monumental climate reports contain, how they're put together and what it feels like to be a climate scientist at this important juncture in the earth's history, with a bit of help from leading French scientist Valérie Masson-Delmotte.

They speak to Kim Cobb, a US-based paleoclimatologist, who describes the destruction of the coral reef she has researched her whole career in the El Niño event of 2016. They also chat to Ed Hawkins, who explains how reconstructions from past records are significantly improving what we know and how we model the present and future climate. He tells the story of a citizen science project to digitise the extraordinary weather records from the highest peak in the UK.

If you liked this episode, you might also like to subscribe to The Conversation's new Science Wrap newsletter: https://bit.ly/406nQgk. And if you really like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation – we're a non-profit newsroom who rely on the support of our readers to fund our expert-led journalism: https://bit.ly/42ABoCi.

If you'd like to support the Climate Council and receive your free copy of Joelle's book Humanity's Moment, click here: https://bit.ly/40sQ4BP.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Co-hosted by IPCC scientist Dr Joelle Gergis and journalist Michael Green, Fear and Wonder will take listeners inside the defining scientific advice on the climate crisis that threatens every human society on Earth, via the hearts and minds of the scientists who wrote it. Subscribe now to be the first to listen.

Sound recording from Yle (Finnish Broadcasting Company) Archives.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.