CBC Radio's The House: Is COP26 our 'last, best hope'?
Here is what's on this week's episode of The House
Making the most of the 'last, best chance'
The COP26 conference in Glasgow, which starts next week, has been hailed as the "last, best chance" to stop catastrophic climate change. But going into the conference, is there any sign that countries have set themselves — and the planet — up for success?
Catherine Abreu, a member of the Canadian delegation to the conference and head of the group Destination Zero, and Jennifer Allan, who has attended roughly 40 UN conferences and is an adviser to the de facto record of global environmental negotiations — the Earth Negotiations Bulletin — join guest host Laura Lynch to preview what an effective COP26 would look like.
Plus: Chatham House's Anna Åberg and the World Resource Institute's Taryn Fransen provide a handy jargon-buster. Why is it called a COP? What is an NDC? The two answer those and other questions about the technical language that tends to dominate climate change conferences.
Canada's climate questions
While Canada gets most of its energy from renewable sources, it is also one of the globe's biggest exporters of fossil fuels.
This week saw the release of the Production Gap report, published by the UN and other research groups. It analyzes the gaps between countries' plans for fossil fuel production and the amount of production that can actually happen while limiting the rise in global temperatures.
Peter Erickson of the Stockholm Environment Institute, one of the groups that co-authored the Production Gap report, tells The House why Canada's production of oil and gas is at odds with its climate goals. Simon Donner, professor at the University of British Columbia and a member of Canada's Net-Zero Advisory Body, explains what Canada has to do to meet those goals.
The effort to end oil and gas
Several countries, including Canada, have said they will reach net-zero emissions by 2050 — while simultaneously approving new projects in their oil and gas industries. That's a "paradox," said Denmark's energy minister.
That country is co-leading an effort called the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance to get nations to back an explicit transition away from fossil fuels. Denmark's climate ambassador, Tomas Anker Christensen, sits down with guest host Laura Lynch to discuss what he hopes it will achieve and whether Canada should join.
A matter of life and death
Catastrophic climate change poses a threat to the entire world, but in a small island country like Maldives, that threat is already all too apparent. And like many other vulnerable nations, the state lacks the resources to mitigate some of those climate-driven risks.
Abdulla Shahid, the Maldivian foreign minister and current president of the UN General Assembly, joins The House to talk about the threat to his home country and the need for rich countries to chip in.
