ClimateGenn hosted by Nick Breeze Nick Breeze

Discussing the critical drought situation in Europe with a focus on Italy. Visit https://genn.cc for more information. View more in the water series by backing this channel on Patreon or by becoming a Youtube member. 

Quote by Dr Francesco Avanzi:

“Droughts are often called the creeping disaster because at the very beginning, you don't realise that it's coming up. And when you realise that it's often too late. And in that the dynamic is somehow similar to how the COVID pandemic played out in the early months. That awareness came when somehow it was already too late.”

“what we also see is a shift towards earlier snow seasons. So a later start, earlier melt out date. There are data from some colleagues of ours from CIMA, that have just showed that the duration of the snow season right now is unprecedented over the last 600 years in the Alps. So that's also part of the problem. So this means that, on the one hand, we have to cope with less water from snow, coming earlier than usual during spring. This means that we will have to rethink, to some extent, some of our practice in terms of where and when we store water, and when and how we use it. Last year gave us already quite a lot of lessons and I think to some extent it raised our awareness of changes that are happening. We will have to continue that adaptation and mitigation.”

Nick Breeze: This reminds us, as Francesco said at the outset, that drought is a creeping disaster. The water is stored as snow in the mountains. It runs down into rivers, into the soils and is stored beneath as groundwater. It is a mechanism that we regard as an infinite cycle. Human made climate change is interrupting the cycle by erasing the source of the water.

Dr Francesco Avanzi

“…snow that is not accumulating in a mountain during winter is water that we are not going to have during summer. That's when we need water the most for agriculture, for freshwater supply, and that translated into significant streamflow deficit…

“Groundwater is a savings account. We can take from that to cope with a single dry year. But then when we look at several dry years in a row, that reserve may dry up.”

The UN Climate COP’s are not succeeding in solving the longterm problem of overshooting our Paris climate commitments. This episode focuses on the emerging voices that are defining the overshoot agenda. Full transcript at: https://genn.cc/2023-overshoot/ You can support this work on Patreon: https://patreon.com/genncc

In this ClimateGenn episode, recorded on the last night of the extended COP in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, I am speaking with US COP veteran and legal expert, Professor Dan Bodansky from Arizona State University.

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Dan has extensive experience working with the US negotiating team over the years and shares his insights as to what motivates negotiators and how the nature pot the COP’s themselves are changing from bureaucratic conferences to mega-COP jamborees where the circus atmosphere leeches into the proceedings and influences the outcomes.

However, none of this appears to be stemming the rise of global emissions to below 1.5ºC, the scientific red line that is commonly used to measure the effectiveness of climate policy.

As the breakdown of trust between Global North and South countries continues to haunt the talks, a new think tank appeared at COP27 called The Overshoot Commission tasking itself with looking at navigating a climatically unstable world.

With geoengineering in the form of carbon dioxide removal and solar radiation management firmly back on the table, Dan highlights that these investigations are currently about the exclusion of technologies that will not deliver, rather than the selection of technologies for deployment.

The clock ticks and the world is moving into new territory on multiple fronts.

Thank you for listening to this podcast. Please check the genn.cc website for the full COP27 interview and session list. Patreon backers will have access to extra content collected from the conference.

In this COP27 interview with Dr Saleemul Huq we discuss the arrival of Loss & Damage into the negotiations. We also discuss the need to urgently reduce emissions, first in the wealthy nations that have caused, and are causing, so much suffering and destruction, and then with assistance, across the Earth.

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Saleem has been involved in the negotiations here since day 1 so is well placed to discuss the function and dysfunction of the COP process whilst keeping in mind that this is the only forum in the world where poorer vulnerable nations have a seat at the table, even if, as he says, they are not listened to.

All this must change, and fast if we are going to survive the onslaught of accelerating extreme climate impacts like fires, floods, and droughts.

Here at the COP, in the wake of incredible destructive flooding that took lives and destroyed heritage, the nation of Pakistan offers this portentous warning: “What happened in Pakistan won’t stay in Pakistan

Recorded in week 2 of COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

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Professor Hayhoe is a Canadian climate scientist and communicator at the Nature Conservancy and Texas Tech University on the United States.

I this episode we discuss the shifting momentum away from 1.5ºC as a boundary for climate heating, as well as the new arrival of Loss & Damage into the negotiations.

Are the public becoming too cynical and are we all, on the outside, powerless to have any impact? Katharine gives her take on all these issues.

In this ClimateGenn episode, I speak with Professor Jason Box about his recent research that identifies the amount of Greenland’s ice sheet that is committed to melting in the coming decades.

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This so-called Zombie Ice is not included in the mainstream models, and when added to other sources such as glaciers and even the Sleeping Giant, Antarctica, then sea level rises will far exceed current forecasts.

You can find out more on Jason’s dedicated Faster Than Forecast Youtube Channel that I have linked to in the text.

Next week I will be reporting from COP27 in Egypt. It is widely assumed that the conference can deliver nothing in the way of meaningful change in global emissions. Many are shunning the conference and it is easy to see why.

It is worth stating that for billions of people in the Global South, the COP is the only forum they have to make a case for climate justice and seek help as they try to adapt to the catastrophic impacts they are facing today because of our continued sustained burning of coal, oil, and gas.

On the flip side, many global south communities are pushing forward with adaptation strategies and becoming as resilient as possible. As climate chaos spreads, we will need their expertise in order to respond to climate extremes that are now arriving in the Global North.

Thanks for listening.