Is climate modelling undermined by economics and ideology?

03/18/22 • 26 min

Alasdair talks to Associate Professor Wim Carton of Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies about offset markets, carbon removal technologies, and IPCC modelling.
They wade into some tricky questions: are scientists watering down recommendations to make them politically palateable? How are neoclassical economics affecting the world's approach to climate mitigation? Why do the IPCC working groups have contradictory messages on saviour tech?
Further reading

- Carbon Unicorns and Fossil Futures: Whose Emission Reduction Pathways Is the IPCC Performing?
- Seize the Means of Carbon Removal: The Political Economy of Direct Air Capture
- Undoing Equivalence: Rethinking Carbon Accounting for Just Carbon Removal
- The meaning of net zero and how to get it right
- Social Science Sequestered

Click here for our website to read all our most recent Land and Climate Review features and pieces.

Click here for our website to read all our most recent Land and Climate Review features and pieces.

Previous Episode

How Europe funds illegal Russian logging, and why timber sanctions matter

With the invasion of Ukraine ongoing, Bertie talks to Sam Lawson, Director of investigative NGO Earthsight, following a public letter from 120 NGOs calling for a boycott on Russian and Belarusian wood.
The public letter was led by Ukrainian environmental groups in response to the invasion, but Earthsight have been investigating illegal and unsustainable Russian and Belarusian logging for years. Their work has exposed major failings of EU, UK, and US law, and particularly of certifiers like FSC, SBP and PEFC.
NOTE: this is a faster-moving story than we normally cover in our podcasts. Since recording this conversation on Tuesday 8th March, SBP and FSC have both announced that they are longer certifying Russian wood.
Further reading:

· The campaign backed by 120 NGOs to boycott Russian and Belarusian wood
· Russia’s timber oligarchs – new Earthsight analysis
· Earthsight’s ‘Taiga King’ investigations exposing illegal Russian logging for European export
· IKEA’s House of Horrors – Earthsight’s investigation into IKEA’s illegal Russian supply chain
· 2020 investigation by The Telegraph exposing unsustainable Russian logging in Drax’s supply chain

Click here for our website to read all our most recent Land and Climate Review features and pieces.

Next Episode

Why are peatlands the "superheroes" of carbon storage?

Bertie talked to renowned peatland expert Professor Roxane Andersen, of the University of Highlands & Islands, the Environmental Research Institute, and the Flow Country Research Hub.
They talked about the Flow Country in Scotland, her research on restoration, monitoring, and peatland fires, and more generally about why peatlands are so important for climate mitigation.
After our podcast last year with Ed Struzik, listeners got in touch to say they wanted more content on peatlands, especially covering the science! We reached out to Professor Andersen, and were delighted she agreed to come on the show: do get in touch with recommendations or feedback, if there is anything you would like to hear about. We love hearing from you all.
Further reading from this episode:
- Read about the InSAR monitoring technology here, and in even more detail here!
- Read about the FireBlanket project here
- Read about the damaging afforestation on peatlands in the UK in the 1970s and 1980s here
- Read about the Flow Country here, including the application to make it a UNESCO world heritage site

Click here for our website to read all our most recent Land and Climate Review features and pieces.