At the Paris Climate Talks in 2015 195 countries made pledges how to keep global warming under 2 degrees Celsius - or even better 1.5 degrees. However there is very little information as to how or if at all - these pledges are being honored.
Kevin Anderson is Professor of Energy and Climate Change at the University of Manchester, and Deputy Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. Before having this extraordinary academic career, Kevin Anderson was a mechanical engineer and worked on oil rigs and gas platforms. His dual background in engineering and academia make him a sought after consultant. Anderson reported on aviation-related emissions to the EU Parliament, advised the Prime Minister's office on Carbon Trading and has contributed to the development of the UK's Climate Change Act.
With his colleague Alice Bows, Anderson's work on carbon budgets has been pivotal in revealing the widening gulf between political rhetoric on climate change and the reality of rapidly escalating emissions. His work makes clear that there is now little chance of maintaining the rise in global temperature at below 2 degrees celsius.
In March 2016 he came for a whirl wind speaking tour of Ireland and sat down for an interview in Dublin with John Gibbons from the National Trust for Ireland. Gibbons calls Anderson one of the world's best known and most influential " and outspoken " climate specialists.
This program features an interview about Anderson's well researched analysis, ranging from CO2 emissions in agriculture, to his opinion on the million dollar question: is a 2 degree Celsius temperature rise unavoidable - and what if we were to go to 4 degrees? Anderson also unpacks the false promise of green growth.
In the second half of the program Anderson offers an intriguing proposal for carbon rationing; the fifth great extinction; the miserably small amount of money offered to the non-industrialized countries in the global climate fund. He poses a provocative challenge to all of us: Are we choosing climate disaster or are we choosing a way out that requires courage and dramatic changes to the way we live? Because given the reality of our time and the clear state of science, says Kevin Anderson, this is the decision we are making now - not in 5 or 10 or 20 years. If we continue CO2 emissions as we do now it will be too late - possibly as early as in 5 years.
http://www.tucradio.org/
- KBOO