Planet A - Talks on Climate Change - David Wallace-Wells – Are we creating an ‘Uninhabitable Earth’?

David Wallace-Wells – Are we creating an ‘Uninhabitable Earth’?

01/29/21 • 53 min

In this first episode of a new season of Planet A, Dan Jørgensen talks with David Wallace-Wells about the multitude of interlinked problems created by climate change.

Wallace-Wells, a journalist and deputy editor of New York Magazine, achieved global fame by writing the long-form essay “The Uninhabitable Earth” in 2017.
The essay laid out – in excruciating detail – just how dire the climate crisis is for the prospects of human civilization. Wallace-Wells went beyond the traditional portrayals of rising sea levels and extreme weather events, by focusing on how it also affects food security, access to freshwater, spread of communicable disease and armed conflict.
In 2019, David Wallace-Wells expanded on the article and wrote a book with the same title that reached the number one spot on the New York Times Bestseller List.

On the podcast, Jørgensen and Wallace-Wells discuss how the media’s coverage of climate change has been misleading on three counts:
1) speed, 2) scope and 3) severity.

Furthermore, Wallace-Wells describes not only the range of possibilities for the destruction of our physical world, but also puts the spotlight on how climate change will affect us as human beings.

However, Wallace-Wells warns against taking a fatalistic view and points to the rapid development of renewable energy as a cause for optimism.

In this first episode of a new season of Planet A, Dan Jørgensen talks with David Wallace-Wells about the multitude of interlinked problems created by climate change.

On the podcast, Jørgensen and Wallace-Wells discuss how the media’s coverage of climate change has been misleading on three counts:
1) speed, 2) scope and 3) severity.

However, Wallace-Wells warns against taking a fatalistic view and points to the rapid development of renewable energy as a cause for optimism.

Previous Episode

Sharan Burrow – On workers’ rights, a green recovery and the need for a just transition

In the 14th episode of Planet A, Dan Jørgensen talks with Sharan Burrow about how we can make the green transition fair for workers.

Burrow is General Secretary of “ITUC” (the International Trade Union Confederation), a Brussels-based union organization that works to promote and defend workers’ rights and interests around the world.

During Burrow’s tenure as General Secretary, ITUC has become an increasingly important voice on climate action but remains deeply committed to a “just transition” and calls for measures to protect workers, their families and communities.

She argues that unions and employers should strengthen their dialogue and create a “floor”, a strong basis of worker’s rights, as it is the case in the Nordic countries.

It is not only a question of providing job training for skills needed in the renewable energy sector, but also about shielding workers from the economic turmoil that the transition creates.

Thus, we should learn from the mistakes made during the financial crisis and shun austerity measures, and increase taxation on the wealthiest and international tech-companies.

Burrow also points to the importance of national transition agreements such as the one the Spanish government concluded with its coal miners. However, to attain a truly just transition, we must focus on all sectors as exemplified by Scotland’s “Just Transition Commission”.

Next Episode

Li Shuo – On China’s domestic and international climate politics

In the 2nd episode of season 2 of Planet A, Dan Jørgensen talks with Li Shuo from Greenpeace East Asia about Chinese domestic and international climate politics ahead of COP26.

Li Shuo works as Greenpeace’s Senior Climate and Energy Policy Officer in Beijing and leads the NGO’s international political delegation at the COP-meetings. Thus, he offers a unique insight regarding China’s domestic environmental policies and its relationship to the international climate negotiations.

Li Shuo argues that the Sino-American relationship has deteriorated during Trump’s Presidency and is now at rock bottom. Thus, even though both countries realize that they have to work together in order to achieve a successful outcome at COP26, it will be quite difficult to resume the bilateral collaboration that forged the Paris Agreement.

Accordingly, the EU could play an important role at COP26, in what Li Shuo describes as a “tricycle dynamic ”. Due to Europe’s ambitious climate goals and policies, it acts as the tricycle’s front wheel, while the US and China have been acting as parallel rear-wheels.

Li Shuo also provides a different perspective on China’s recent dual goals to peak carbon emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. He argues that the announcement of the goals in and by itself should be seen as a trial balloon to gauge the level of consensus within the Chinese leadership for unilateral climate action.

Furthermore, he explains how China’s remarkable economic growth over the last four decades was largely spurred by coal-based manufacturing. However, while economic growth remains a priority for the Chinese leadership, the resulting air pollution has emerged as a defining political priority.

However, while China’s leadership is trying to wean the country off coal, it faces stiff opposition from the domestic coal industry that retains preferential access to the electricity grid and seeks to delay deployment of renewables.