Transcripts For DW The Day 20240713 : vimarsana.com

Industry. The technology to really know its done for the queen for. Also coming up a u. S. President trying to end the trade war with china last week trump added schiemann rights in hong kong to that equation in beijing has now reached but trump is showing no signs of a rethink no signs of regret. I. Just want to make you. Go to our viewers on p. B. S. In the United States and all around the world welcome we begin today with Global Warming happening faster than what scientists told us just a year ago and the worlds biggest Climate Centers giving few signs that they are willing to atone for any thing this is where the world stands as the u. N. Climate change conference in madrid starts 2 weeks to nail down. The details left open in that historic 2015 Paris Climate Accord 2 weeks to finally agree on how to turd words into action and to create a viable alternative to fossil fuels of the head of the un trying to sound more resolute than resigned says that the worlds biggest polluters i. E. China and the us despite solid data and extreme weather well they remain resistant to real change that is needed to slow Global Warming here is the un head and tony of the terrorist speaking today. That was not disappointed by the pledges made by those that made pledges many countries 70 countries that. Want to be Carbon Neutral in the 2050 Many Companies many. Managers banks that really are committed to Climate Action what im disappointed with those that did not commit and unfortunately we still have a serious problem with the biggest emitters you can hear right there from the head of the u. N. Prepare for plenty of naming and shaming over the next 2 weeks will it be enough to compel countries to take action and do what they have already promised to do we take a look now at what is at stake in madrid. There is no sign of a slowdown in Greenhouse Gases concentrations in the atmosphere let alone a decline. That is according to a recent study by the United Nations if this trend continues experts say the result will be disastrous future generations will be confronted with even higher temperatures droughts floods storms and wild files will become more severe and more frequent. After a year of protests the pressure on governments is mounting scientists are also urging governments to act they say that countries should increase their carbon reduction ambitions in order to prevent that even more catastrophic outcome. At the top of the Climate Conference agenda as a global emissions trading system it would allow countries that exceed their self set emissions reduction target to sell a right to emit some claim the system could create incentives to further reduce emissions. The u. N. Says that time is of the essence the last time that earth experienced such a high concentration of c o 2 was 3000000 years ago back then the average temperature was 2 to 3 degrees warmer and sea levels were 10 to 20 metres higher. Or im joined tonight by helen bell ford shes Vice President of World Resources Institute Climate Economics Program in washington d c ms now ford is good to have you on the program you write today excuse me in a piece in the Financial Times that Carbon Pricing is now mainstream and that its thrive and you say to think otherwise would be lazy because of the high profile outliers those outliers there are countries such as the u. S. And china can Carbon Pricing cant it be a success if the 2 largest economies are not fully committed to. So interestingly actually both of those economies do have some form of Carbon Pricing in place at the moment we have 40. 00 countries around the world and 36. 00 states are provinces which have some form of Carbon Pricing in place now today or of how to put it in place they havent scheduled that includes the whole economy in china in the u. S. Of course its been a very difficult issue at the federal level theres been a lot of discussions about Carbon Pricing bills here at the federal level the work of thing action there but where we are seeing action is at the subNational Level that we now have 10. 00 u. S. States which have Carbon Pricing in place and another 3 that are looking to add it in the coming in the coming year or so so i think Carbon Pricing it is it is an absolutely not its definitely not enough that were not there yet and in most places where we have current pricing the praises of the moment are to love that being said we are seeing them rising and a number of countries in regions and were seeing a much wider spread so id say its really on the i wouldnt say were there yet but we are actually Building Momentum and there is a growing spread of Carbon Pricing around the world contrary to Public Opinion so i think that is the difference i would i would distinguish there what would you say needs to happen in the next 2 weeks in madrid are we at a do or die level now what has to happen. And there are some critical steps we do need to advance in the trend i would not quite call it do or die i think the challenge right now is that we are really seeing from the science and from the evidence on the ground that Climate Change is advancing more quickly than the scientists expect and were starting to see the impacts today here now everywhere around the world and thats only getting worse so theres an urgency to actually advancing Climate Change that that we did not feel last year at the same time there are a number of processes approaches that are moving forward both at the National Level but also at the subnational as i mentioned the going got some exciting momentum building from the finance sector and mine at sector is finally waking up to the risks of Climate Change in terms of their investments but also the risk of stranded onsets if they dont ship it to a low Carbon Economy and shift their investment that way quickly so were starting to see some momentum the science is changing youre correct about that because weve reported just in the last few months that Global Warming is occurring much more quickly than scientists said just a year ago is the paris climate agreement then is it already out of date. The Paris Agreement is not out of date what it said there in terms of the science i think still holds what it said is globally the country signing on to the pairs agreement its a really aim to keep global temperature rise below 2 degrees and ideally moving towards 1. 5 degrees celsius what were seeing from the science of Climate Change now is that we really should focus on that 1. 5 c. Target to the extent possible it is not easy that that should be where were aiming given the difference in terms of the impacts how much more we will lose in terms of communities in terms of lives lost to to climate impacts floods droughts wildfires but we dont have that even though well we should aim for 1. 5 i mean thats the problem is its a very interesting at the moment yeah absolutely absolutely were seeing interesting lisa some very important pockets of political will and were hoping those will actually galvanize if not even embarrass some of the others so for example weve got 68 countries which have signed up and said they will step up their pears agreements are gets next year so 68. 00 countries have already done so many of those are small economies and often the most vulnerable to Climate Change and they are saying they are going to move forward weve seen as i said the finance sector weve had a number of investors particularly Pension Funds and and some others who said what they were shifting away from fossil fuel financing completely they moved away from coal before theyre now moving away from other fossil fuels and theyre also going to be theres some that committed in september to go towards investment for portfolios that are 100 percent net 0 completely getting rid of admissions and their investment portfolios so were seeing some action thats building in the us weve actually got a really exciting story to tell in terms of whats happening at the subNational Level right now of the states cities and businesses that have said they are still. To achieve in the u. S. Paris Agreement Order account for almost 70 percent of our economy you said you talked about the your role is not that you talk about the United States i just want to share this with you had a very long layover at the airport in new york yesterday i spoke with people there who were live leaving big carbon footprints every day they did not show a sense of urgency or panic at all i was alarmed by that they were not alarmed at all what have people like you lot of people like myself what have we got wrong here in europe. Well i think i think there is in the us in particular there is a discourse around. Whether people understand climate and climate impacts or whether they associate it with Something Else so we get people who talk about whether they believe in Climate Change or not now we get that from that from the top in the u. S. We get them from tweets from the white house but when you actually look at what the scientists are saying in the u. S. Including in this administration they are very clear last year there was a National Climate assessment report released 13 federal agencies their top scientists engaged and they said Climate Change is hitting the u. S. Now it is getting worse and it is it is largely our fault we are actually creating the emissions that are leading to Climate Change so theres theres a debate that goes on in this country which in some ways is quite bizarre we dont get that in other countries we dont see people challenging scientific accepted Acceptance Around Climate Change and other countries so much so i think there is a real challenge here i think another challenge were seeing is that there is this idea that its going to be costly to the economy or jobs where is weve actually seen its the opposite in a lot of countries and actually helping to boost jobs and growth and we know the growth will not be sustainable if you dont tackle Climate Change so so theres a few things there we need to be better at communicating helen out for Vice President of the world resource institutes climate Economics Program joining us from washington d. C. Tonight is not for the time in your insights thank you thank you great to speak to. Every year vast swathes of indonesian forest or cleared for Palm Oil Plantations and a lot of that land is cleared by burning more than 4000 square kilometers this year alone the fires do more than destroy fours they release much more Carbon Dioxide than the fires in the amazon around the same time. The native landscapes are disappearing with. Every year if thomas has large swathes of rain forest mainly to make way for palm all plantations. Also burning peat lands a type of wetland that still has huge amounts of natural cotton when people burns it releases Carbon Dioxide and causes toxic smoke thats taken and more dangerous than smoke from the forest is going to say ok i. Got treated with oxygen because the 1st barratry problems when he came back after 2 weeks we observed that his condition had become much less. Alongside the great health risks they pose as had a devastating impact on our climate scientists found that peak fires in indonesia pumped hundreds of millions of tons of Greenhouse Gases into the atmosphere this year. Also notoriously difficult to put out because they continued to small to underground. We cannot extinguish the tries completely specially in the dry season we can only stop them from spreading. The majority of peat fires still to be deliberately lit. Other result of bad farming. In addition to slash and burn practices farmers are also draining peat land to grow palm trees rendering the soil dry and flammable. For years Palm Oil Cultivation has been the go to means to make a living for farmers and some outre but some are starting to make the switch. This 58 year old farmer got rid of his palm trees to grow chile a crop which doesnt degrade the land. Very very fast in the soil because its mainly organic matter while. His son supports the switch to alternative crops but says farm is cannot rescue peat lands alone. Got 99. 00 models up on the money im going to use that people have to be versatile it said they dont burn so easily its completely wasteful to fan down. In 2016 indonesias government established an agency to restore some 2000000 hectares of people and by 2020. But critics say much more what is needed to put an end to the fires that are destroying the countrys precious ecosystems and our clan its. A question for china how do you hit back in the u. S. Where it hurts without it hurting well the answer you can tell the u. S. Navy to find somewhere else to park if youre a little puzzled here youre not alone china today announced that it will no longer allow u. S. Warships to drop anchor in hong kong and xing also imposed sanctions on several u. S. Based in geos all of this retaliation for evolve passed last week in washington that makes it easier to slap sanctions on chinese officials for human rights abuses especially in hong kong last week u. S. President donald trump saw in the hong kong human rights and democracy act of that requires the president to annually review the citys favorable trade status and threatens to revoke it if the territorys freedoms are curtailed china and slam the wall as interfere. John moncktons only shine urges the u. S. To stop interfering and commenting on chinas internal Affairs China will take further action as we deem necessary as the situation develops and will firmly protect hong kongs perspire ac. On sibylla sea on the National Sovereignty Security Development and interests. And im joined tonight by eric gomes hes the policy analyst for defense in Foreign Policy studies in east asia at the Cato Institute he joins me from washington its good to see eric i want to start with these n. G. O. S. Who are they and what if any effect will this decision by beijing have. A number i believe it was or 5 n. G. O. S that were saying by china and all of them work extensively on human rights if years especially the ongoing democratic protests in hong kong and all of them its difficult to say what effect the sanctions will have because china had already limited the amount that foreign n. G. O. S could operate in china especially ones directed at. The human rights issues so its unclear exactly what effect this will have it will probably make their work even harder ok and weve got the big sign u. S. Naval ships allowed here that is china is supposed indignation at what it calls american meddling in its Domestic Affairs is that in your opinion is that going to bother anyone in washington. Im not sure i mean the the port visits are something that the u. S. Navy likes to do somewhat frequently but dont really have too much more of an impact on u. S. China naval cooperation like you said its really more symbolic than anything else its symbolic and to say that its also. A rather weak response isnt. Somewhat i mean right now like you said china doesnt really want to push the u. S. Too hard on any one issue because if you push too hard on any issues here then you might risk the trade deal collapsing or you might risk other problems in the relationship so theyre trying to link hong kong to other issues in the u. S. Trying to relationship but like you said kind of hesitant to go any further at the moment although this might change especially if the protests continue or if they spread to other parts of what does this confirm what weve been hearing the entire time from u. S. President donald trump that the u. S. Hands the leverage has the upper hand when it comes to the trade dispute with china fits the fickle to say especially because the United States and china have seen such a little progress in the trade dispute there really hasnt been Much Movement at all so its hard to say who has more leverage or who has more ability to influence things at this point but its definitely a sign of worsening u. S. China relations and i do worry about in the future if the china u. S. Relationship becomes more contentious we might see more serious measures by china such as like denying access or denying meetings with high ranking u. S. Security officials were weve got so many things going on weve got the trade war with with the United States weve