The Daily Climate Show : Johnson addresses Youth Climate Conference, 6 Actions to keep 1.5 Alive…

Issues discussed on today’s Daily Climate Show include…

• COP26 President Alok Sharma announced that more than 100 world leaders will attend November’s climate conference in Glasgow – but that will not include Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
• UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson addressed the pre-COP26 Youth4Climate summit in Milan. He reiterated that there are four focus points for COP26 – Coal, Cars, Cash and Trees.
• A poll conducted by Opinium for the Conservative Environment Network found that only 25% of voters believe that a Boris Johnson led government is the best option to deal with climate change, whereas 32% believe that Keir Starmer and a Labour government would do better. The polling also showed that only 50% of Conservative voters think that Boris Johnson is the best choice. The Government’s target of reaching net zero by 2050 found favour with nearly three quarters of those polled, who also believe tackling climate change should be one of the top two spending priorities along with the NHS.
• The Energy Transitions Commission, chaired by Lord Turner, has published a report, ‘Keeping 1.5°C Alive : Closing the Gap in the 2020s‘, outlining six actions to keep global warming below 1.5C…
  1. Significant and rapid reductions in methane emissions
  2. Halting deforestation and beginning reforestation
  3. Decarbonising the power sector and accelerating the phaseout of coal
  4. Accelerating the electrification of road transport
  5. Accelerating supply decarbonization in buildings, heavy industry, and heavy transport
  6. Reinvigorating energy and resource efficiency
• The UK Government has announced that all companies bidding for major government contracts over £5million must now commit to net zero by 2050.
• A survey by WWF has found that many global brands are failing to tackle the issue of deforestation by unsustainable palm oil production.
• A report says that lab-grown meat could add £2.1 billion to the UK economy by 2030, support 16,500 jobs and account for 12% of consumer demand of meat, if it is approved for sale in the UK by the end of 2022.
• In French Polynesia Josh Humbert farms pearls sustainably at Kamoka Pearl Farm.

Presenter Samantha Washington was joined by guests Kate Blagojevic, UK Head of Climate for Greenpeace, and Stuart Roberts NFU Deputy President and organic farmer, to discuss some of these issues.