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The Current Transcript for December 10, 2019

Host: Laura Lynch

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Covered in ash, looking quite badly burnt. Obviously, requiring a transport helicopter meant they were very sick anyway. So they were in fairly serious condition.

LAURA LYNCH: A helicopter pilot describing the condition of tourists he rescued from an exploding volcano on a New Zealand island. They survived what they thought would be a thrilling, but safe excursion. Others though, are dead or missing. Today, we find out more about what happened, why and whether it could happen here in Canada. That's first up. After that.

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VOICE: Aviation is really looking at electric. This will be the point in history that people look back and say, this is the day it started.

LL: It's a long way from the Wright brothers and their flying machine making its first short journey more than a century ago. Today, new hopes take flight in Vancouver. Battery powered, sold as climate friendly, an electric plane is ready to go. That's in half an hour. Also today, Vladimir Putin is centre stage as his country faces condemnation from abroad for war with Ukraine, meddling in foreign elections and doping its athletes. And yet he persists. That's in an hour. I'm Laura Lynch and this is The Current.

'Surreal feeling' as cruise ship awaits news of missing in New Zealand eruption, says Canadian tourist

Guests: Sylvain Plasse, Alan Clewlow, Glyn Williams-Jones

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: The helicopter pilot moved around the island and did so for some time and so brought back that report that unfortunately there was no sign of life.

LL: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern delivering the grim news about White Island. Six people are confirmed dead and eight are still unaccounted for after Monday's volcanic eruption. Information about the victims is still coming in. We do know tour groups went to the island that day to see this specific volcano. Some of the missing are part of a tour group on the cruise ship Ovation of the Seas. Sylvain Plasse is a Canadian who took the cruise trip. We reached him on that ship in Tauranga, New Zealand. Hello.

SYLVAIN PLASSE: Hello Laura.

LL: What did you see?

SYLVAIN PLASSE: I was coming down Mount Maunganui, which is right by the ship, it's a famous landmark mountain. And I came down and as I came down I was taking pictures of the beaches and the ocean, and I could see in the distance this island — it's about 90 kilometres from where we are, in Tauranga and I could see this huge white plume of smoke going up in the air. And they were quite large and I thought: "Maybe there's industry there and probably there's smokestacks." And one of the locals who was jogging there, she stopped and told me, she goes: "Wow, it's your lucky day. You get to witness one of our volcanoes erupt." and I was like, I was amazed. I was excited and so happy to be able to capture it and see that with my own eyes. So I just kept looking at it until I walked back to the ship thinking, ok great, I just saw a volcano erupt, and wow, how lucky I was, until the bad news came.

LL: Right, and the captain made an announcement. What did the captain say?

SYLVAIN PLASSE: He advised us that, you know, for those of you not aware, there was a catastrophic eruption of the volcano, where guests and crew were on a tour. But he did not have any updates. And one thing that stuck to my mind, is he said this ship will not be leaving this port until every passenger and crew is accounted for.

LL: What was your reaction when you heard that?

SYLVAIN PLASSE: I had tears in my eyes, and I was holding back, and I was shaking. And even just telling you now it's getting emotional again. It's a surreal feeling to hear this, where people that I talked to the night before were supposedly on that tour. It's just like it hits close to home, even though you don't know these people personally. They're you know, you've crossed paths, we're all here on a cruise having a great time and here you want to experience something exceptional and then just to kind of put myself in their shoes, it was just completely surreal.

LL: How are the other passengers reacting?

SYLVAIN PLASSE: Everybody was really, really quiet and everybody was turning on their devices to listen to stream live new Zealand news because they were having helicopters. The prime minister, who is adored here, she did a wonderful job like trying to console people and informing people that, that's I think when something critical like this happens, the most important thing is getting information. People crave details. Same as us on the ship we want, we're curious to know, we just because we feel shaken by this emotionally,.

LL: What went through your mind when you started to hear just how serious it was?

SYLVAIN PLASSE: Yeah, I didn't realize at what point how serious it was until the captain made that announcement and it just hit me, and I just remember putting my hands on my face and just holding my mouth, and the tears were welling up my eyes, and it was just like. "Wow, this could be could have been anybody that decided to sign up for this tour." And these thoughts go through your head so fast, like having lost close people to me and then some people now are going to experience that most likely, and and this being my 105th cruise on Royal Caribbean the last 10 years, I've made a lot of friends that are crew members and there were crew on there. And you just don't know if your friends are actually caught up in that. It's the roller coaster of emotions that goes through at 100 miles an hour inside of you. It's hard to describe, it's unbelievable.

LL: So what is the mood like on the ship right now?

SYLVAIN PLASSE: It's a lot more sombre than it was before this happened. Considering we're halfway through a 12-day cruise, today is day seven of the 12 days. The mood definitely has changed. The amount of passengers going to venues. I went to a show last night at 10 o'clock and there was a lot less people than normally was on previous cruise, because I've been on here since November 23rd. And it's definitely changed. I mean, the only thing that has not changed, and I hope we can give a shout out, is to the crew — the servers, the entertainers, everybody on the ship. They're performing as they were before, smiling and taking excellent care of us, spoiling us. 1,200-1,300 crew members on here, over 4,000 passengers and iit becomes once you leave port, you start your cruise, you already start making connections, talking to people, seeing the same people over and over. And then you always wonder, was that person part of it? Were they part of it? That couple that was on their honeymoon that I spoke with two nights ago in the concierge lounge, the guy's first cruise ever, and the wife was so excited, she said "I'm making sure that we do an excursion every single port stop that we go to." They haven't been seen since the incident. They weren't in the lounge last night.

LL: How long are you going to be on the ship?

SYLVAIN PLASSE: Well, it's supposed to end on the 16th of December, but right now we don't know what's going to happen, if it's going to continue or if it's going to go back to Sydney. We have no idea, there's just a whole bunch of rumours going on.

LL: Sylvain, thank you.

SYLVAIN PLASSE: Thank you Laura.

LL: Sylvain Plasse was in Tauranga, New Zealand. Volcano tours like the one on White Island happen all over the world. Alan Clewlow runs Volcanic Experiences and he's been taking people on tourism volcanoes for more than two decades. He's in Bromsgrove, England. Hello.

ALAN CLEWLOW: Hello Laura.

LL: You've been to White Island in New Zealand. What is it like?

ALAN CLEWLOW: It's quite a scary place. You can't but feel the force of nature when you get onto that island or as you approach it. You know, it takes an hour to get there. If you go by boat, it looms large and it gets larger and larger with a constant plume of steam coming out of it in large quantities. It's a landscape that is very difficult to describe. It's quite awe inspiring, the fact that you're stepping into a crater of a live volcano.

LL: What makes it scary, though?

ALAN CLEWLOW: I think it's a combination of the landscape itself, which is bright yellow sulphur, lots of steam, bubbling hot springs and water. Also, the feeling that it's a primaeval force. You do feel that it could erupt at any time. It doesn't normally do that, I would say that, you know, otherwise they would never take tourists there. But the ground does feel alive.

LL: But were there safety precautions then when you went?

ALAN CLEWLOW: Yes there's safety precautions in that when you when you first arrive, the company which organises that particular excursion gives you a full briefing on safety. They tell you what to do in the event of an eruption. They provide you with hard helmets and face masks to keep the gas out of your face, which is, you know, quite, it's sulphurous gas, which does make you cough and it does make your eyes smart as well.

LL: What did they tell you to do in case of an eruption?

ALAN CLEWLOW: Basically to try to find some shelter behind rocks and to make your way back to the harbour as quickly as possible.

LL: I'm curious on the tours that you offer, do you get up close to lava?

ALAN CLEWLOW: There have been trips that I've done. For example, in Hawaii where we've got fairly close to the lava in the past. And also on Mount Etna in Italy. But quite often lava, although it's hot and flowing, it does flow more slowly, obviously, but it flows like a river in a particular channel. So you can approach it from the side, although the wall of heat will keep you some distance away from it. You get a good view of it going past you. It's not going to change course and come at you at all.

LL: What do you do to keep people safe on your tours?

ALAN CLEWLOW: Well, I only take people to places where there are well used footpaths with proficient local guides. These are tours where there are tens of thousands of visitors per year. Those guides are licenced by the national authorities and they don't tend to take you to places where there's any real danger. Every volcano has the potential to erupt, but some do have a propensity to erupt violently and produce more explosive eruptions. And if that's the case, then the guides would keep you well away from the crater areas where any explosions would be likely to occur.

LL: How common them are injuries or deaths in the volcano tourism industry?

ALAN CLEWLOW: I would say know in comparison to other types of tourism they're probably very, very low. There was one person that I can recall earlier this year that got killed on the island of Stromboli when that erupted. But they weren't with a guide. They'd gone up on their own and used a path which was not used by tourists really. I would say that the accident that occurred yesterday is really very, very unusual.

LL: Will it change the way you do anything with your work?

ALAN CLEWLOW: It won't change anything that I personally do. I think hindsight is a great thing. And for example, 10 years ago, it was possible to go with guides to the very top of Mount Etna, the main crater. And, you know, the authorities following eruptions, which didn't actually kill anybody, the Italian authorities stopped people going some distance away from the main crater. I mentioned strongly before, which erupted earlier this year, you know, I've climbed that 20 times or more since the eruption that took place this summer. Then what's happened is the Italian authorities have stopped any access to the upper parts of the volcano, but you can still observe the eruptions. But what I'll be doing next year is taking the group to view the eruptions from below rather than from above.

LL: Mr. Clewlow, thank you.

ALAN CLEWLOW: Thank you, Laura.

LL: Alan Clewlow is the owner of Volcanic Experience as he was in Bromsgrove, England. Volcanoes are a risk all over the world, even here in Canada. There are more than 200 of them in this country.

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[Sounds from Mount Meager]

LL: What you're hearing there is some of the sound that I recorded last year, atop Mount Meager, northwest of Whistler, B.C. That hissing sound is a mix of steam and poisonous gas. And the scientists who took me there is Glyn Williams-Jones. He's a professor of volcanology at Simon Fraser University and the co-director of the Centre for Natural Hazards Research. He's been studying the sights, sounds and rumbles of Mount Meager to predict when it may next erupt. Glyn Williams-Jones joins me from our Vancouver studio. Hello.

GLYN WILLIAMS-JONES: Hi there.

LL: Glyn, I should correct myself. That was two years ago when we were up there. But the smell of that gas is still I can just recall it so clearly. What were your thoughts when you first heard about the deadly eruption on White Island?

GLYN WILLIAMS-JONES: You know, sort of shock and fear for the people that are going through that situation. You know, some of my former graduate students are working in the New Zealand sort of response. And you can just imagine the crisis situation that they're in, just trying to, you know, to get in there and try to find the remains of those that have been been lost.

LL: Do you think this eruption could have been predicted?

GLYN WILLIAMS-JONES: No. And I hate the term predicting because it's, you know, see how well we do predicting weather a few days in advance. Take that same complex, difficult situation and put it underground. It's just a chaotic, really almost impossible situation to predict. We can forecast these things. And what makes this worse is this very what is really a small eruption, it was a steam driven eruption. And these are really very, very subtle signals before they erupt. So almost impossible to predict.

LL: Well, in that sense then, what do you think of the idea of volcano tourism?

GLYN WILLIAMS-JONES: Again, it's sort of mixed emotions. You can see the up, the positive, the upside, better education of the broader population, you know, the positives of the economy, the tourism component, especially in other developing countries. This is an important resource. But at the same time, of course, people are being exposed to some dangers. As your former guest Alan mentioned, other adventure tours are typically much more dangerous. You just think of some of the accidents that happen, skiing in the mountains and things like that.

LL: Well, how can tour guides mitigate the risks then?

GLYN WILLIAMS-JONES: Remaining informed, working closely with the local agencies, be the park officials or in this case, the science team and the network that monitor volcanoes in New Zealand. And just trying to be as as much informed as possible.

LL: Have you yourself ever stood on a volcano that was erupting or close to it?

GLYN WILLIAMS-JONES: Yeah, actually, I worked on a volcano in Costa Rica that would erupt about every half hour or so. Small eruptions and we were down on the lower flanks where we could observe it and do that safely. I've been into active craters filled with acid lakes. Again, you try to be careful. It's easier to be careful if you have that knowledge.

LL: Right. OK. So is there any chance of us in Canada facing a similar eruption?

GLYN WILLIAMS-JONES: Maybe. Again, the most likely, if there was to be some kind of activity, would be where we went to Mount Meager, northwest of Whistler and Pemberton. Different type of volcano. You know, we're looking at there something where we've got gases moving their way up through a glacier. From the hazards perspective, it's very, very difficult to get to. You have to fly in with a helicopter and there are some guided tours that do go in there and there the big risk is, as you mentioned, is the toxic gases. So they take the precautions. They go in with gas monitoring equipment to make sure that they're not at dangerous levels. But this kind of eruption, this sort of unpredictable steam blast, we've not seen anything like that in Canada. Not to say that we won't sometime in the future.

LL: Right. How many active volcanoes do we have here? Active ones.

GLYN WILLIAMS-JONES: Well, as far as we know, one. But we need to do a better job of looking for them. And this is where I'm hoping we can leverage, you know, the citizen scientists in Canada who are out in the back country just observing and looking for, you know, abnormal behaviour, abnormal things in the ground. If they see hot areas or know areas where snow has melted, where it typically doesn't. So, you know, we don't know a lot about our volcanoes. They're big. They're remote. They're hard to get to and they're costly to get to.

LL: Now there have been fatalities from volcano eruptions in Canada, haven't there?

GLYN WILLIAMS-JONES: Yes. In fact, the one that we know the most about is a project that we're working on northwest of Terrace.

LL: In northwestern B.C.

GLYN WILLIAMS-JONES: In northwestern British Columbia. That's right. And as far as we know, it was back in the late 1770s and the oral traditions from the Niska people suggest that three villages were were destroyed by this eruption. In this case, a long, fast moving lava flow.

LL: So let's go back to Mount Meager. What is your research there looking at?

GLYN WILLIAMS-JONES: At Meager, it's a complicated system because we have this active volcano. It's not erupting at the moment, but gases are coming out. So we're trying to bring all sorts of different tools together to look inside the volcano using geophysics and geochemical measurements of the gases, mapping of the rock. But the other bigger problem too from a hazards perspective, is the mountain is very, very unstable.

LL: I remember you calling it rotten.

GLYN WILLIAMS-JONES: It is very, very rotten because of those same acid gases that we're seeing coming out of White Island. That turns the rock into very weak kinds of clays. And so it's a super unstable system and in fact, the site of Canada's largest landslide in 2010. So we're seeing areas that using satellites that are moving at centimetres per month and potentially ten times the size of that 2010 failure. So it's a very complicated, difficult place to work because it is so big. But we're getting there.

LL: What impact of climate change had on Mount Meager and on other volcanoes?

GLYN WILLIAMS-JONES: That's really an interesting subject that we're starting to try to tackle because as we as see this at Meager, as the glaciers are receding, the melt water flow is changing within the rock. And again, as we saw it at White Island that water interacts in the subsurface forms that we call hydrothermal systems. And this interplay between the changing dynamics can start to potentially increase the destabilisation of the mountain. So this is something we're trying to grapple with it at Meager, but, you know, similar problems are potentially occurring in other ice covered volcanoes, say in the Andes, for example.

LL: So we've got about 30 seconds left Glyn. Should we be monitoring all volcanoes in Canada? Should we have a system?

GLYN WILLIAMS-JONES: Absolutely. But it's a difficult thing. It's a costly exercise. However, if we don't look, then we won't know. And the key thing is we need baseline information so that we have a chance at forecasting the next eruption.

LL: Alright Glyn, thank you very much.

GLYN WILLIAMS-JONES: My pleasure.

LL: Glyn Williams-Jones is a Canadian volcanologist and professor of earth sciences at Simon Fraser University. He's also co-director of the Centre for Natural Hazards Research and he was in our Vancouver studio. The CBC News is coming up next. Then, electric planes and creating jet fuel out of thin air. Meet the Canadian innovators who are imagining a new low carbon future for aviation. I'm Laura Lynch, and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

First all-electric seaplane takes flight in B.C.

Guests: Steve Oldham, David Zingg

LL: Hello, I'm Laura Lynch, and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

LL: Still to come, after five years of fighting a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine, but what will it take to win a lasting peace? That's in half an hour. But first, the future of flying.

[Music]

LL: Later today in Vancouver, we could see a world aviation first. Harbour Air is aiming to debut the world's first all electric seaplane. The motor of the six passenger beaver float plane is powered by a lithium ion battery. Last week at the company's hangar in Richmond, B.C., there was a flurry of activity as workers made final preparations. Greg McDougall is Harbour Air CEO.

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VOICE: When I started thinking about what was the genesis of this idea, for me personally, it was because I'm a Tesla owner. When the first Teslas came to Vancouver, I was one of the first guys to get one. I've always been really interested in disruptive technology and I've been an early adopter. I was the first guy with an iPhone in Vancouver, even when you didn't even you know technically you have service for them. I got an American account. You know, whatever. So I'm an early adopter. So I kind of started thinking, well, why wouldn't we transfer this whole technology to aircraft? And it's becoming with the battery evolution, it's becoming actually possible to do that. And also somebody has to pioneer the regulatory side of this. And everything that we're demonstrating here this afternoon that, you know, Transport Canada officials are here. There's a lot of people looking very, very closely at this. So I'm the pilot, by the way. So I'm the test pilot. So, you know, I had to go through a rigorous interviews and whatever to make sure that I had sufficient experience to do that. I do, because I flew one of these aircraft every day for 10 years. We're looking at very strict parameters on weather. So it has to be, you know, no visible moisture and 10 knots, maximum wind. So this time of the year, that's a bit of a tough call, but it's looking good. I have absolutely no qualms about flying the aircraft. This is a tried and true airframe and it just has a different motor on it. When you think about the safety standards, all we have to do is prove that this aircraft is as safe or safer than the existing technology we have today. And that's not hard to do because this is a much more hi-tech system. The other thing about this is that that this is basically a test platform to certify this technology, this motor, this battery system and all of the components with it. But our plan ultimately is to transfer this propulsion system into our bigger aircraft, which is the single otter. As we go through this process, which is, you know, I mean I'm hoping it's no more than a couple of years, the battery evolution is still happening. So we're using very, very low energy batteries at the moment, which means reduced range. So this aircraft can can really only fly, you know, about 15 minutes of flight plus 25 minutes of reserve, which is adequate for our purposes. And so by the time we get there with the certification, you're going to see the watt hours per kilogram will be up dramatically from where they are. It's super exciting as a company to be, you know, here we are kind of toiling away in British Columbia doing our thing and, you know, it's a fairly sort of a unique kind of market and then all of a sudden here we are able to do something that's significantly going to change how it all works and we're certainly super proud of that. We're also proud of the fact that it is Canadian. Canadian innovation in aviation has been historic. And so, you know, with Bombardier and Havilland and Whitney and in my mind it's continuing on with that legacy. And I think that's really important. It's history in the making. Like that's the magnitude of it.

LL: Harbour Air CEO, Greg McDougall. You probably caught there that this battery is only good for a 15 minute flight, which is fine for a small airline that makes short pond hopper jumps between Vancouver Island, the Gulf Islands and the mainland. But it's not the only way that Canadian innovators are trying to reduce the carbon footprint of aircraft. There's a major competition going on right now organized by the government of Canada to develop low emission jet fuel. One of the finalists is Carbon Engineering. Its technology captures carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere and transforms it into fuel. CEO Steve Oldham is in Vancouver. Hello.

STEVE OLDHAM: Good morning.

LL: Can you explain to me first how the carbon capture part of this technology works? How do you remove carbon dioxide from the air?

STEVE OLDHAM: So crucially, the first thing to remember is that we capture CO2 directly from the atmosphere. So that means we can be located anywhere on the planet because air is everywhere. And then basically we have a liquid chemical process. I like to say that we use high school chemistry and we pull through a giant farm. Those fans then react with various liquid chemicals and that way we capture the CO2 from the air. And once you have that CO2, you can make a hydrocarbon such as kerosene for jet fuel.

LL: Okay. I'm no scientist. Can you give it a try here? How do you turn air into liquid into fuel?

STEVE OLDHAM: So fundamentally, once you have CO2 from the atmosphere, to make a hydrocarbon, you also need hydrogen. So we make hydrogen from electrolysis. We basically put electricity through water. It splits into hydrogen and oxygen. Then you have for us CO2, carbon dioxide and hydrogen. Then the technology to combine those two together into a liquid, a fuel that's been around since the 1920s. It's a process called fissure tropes.

LL: OK. So so is the fuel gasoline such as we put in our cars or is it another step to turn it into something that you can use in a jet?

STEVE OLDHAM: So fundamentally, what we make is synthetic crude, very similar to the crude that comes out of the ground. And then you take it to a refinery and the refinery will split it into gasoline or diesel or jet fuel, depending on what the customer wants.

LL: Alright. Planes do need powerful fuel. They also use a lot of fuel. How much are you able to produce at your plant?

STEVE OLDHAM: So our standard plants will do 2000 barrels of fuel per day. We have an existing facility in British Columbia, but it's a much smaller one where we make about one barrel of fuel per day.

LL: What do you think it would take for you to scale up your production?

STEVE OLDHAM: Well, so you mentioned earlier on the sky's the limit challenge. That's the government of Canada, a competition to find a sustainable jet fuel. The fundamental challenge with jet fuel is a lack of feedstock. So the feedstock is the thing that makes the synthetic fuel, fossil fuel obviously just comes out of the ground as a fuel. But if you're making a synthetic fuel, you have to have a feedstock, something to work with. So fundamentally, what we do is we use air as our feedstock. You'll have heard of corn based and soybean based synthetic fuels. Those are fantastic, but they're limited because there's only so much corn you can grow and only so much soybean you can grow for us. We use air, so our ability to scale to meat market is really only and is really only limited by the speed at which we can execute and that desire of the of the customer base. So as we see regulation coming in saying how long called jet fuel and airlines must decarbonise, we're expecting demand will grow and will be ala scale to meet that demand.

LL: The other big challenge with alternative fuels has been the cost. How expensive is it to make jet fuel from carbon captured from the atmosphere?

STEVE OLDHAM: So generally speaking, our crude is about 25 percent more expensive than crude that comes out of the ground. So, you know, it's a lot to pass on to a customer. However, carbon credit programs, as we move towards decarbonise society, we're seeing governments put incentives and penalties in place for carbon content. For us, we expect those will make up that 25 percent.

LL: Okay. There are some environmentalists though that say that carbon capture gives people that kind of false hope that we won't have to change our behaviour and curb emissions. What do you think about that?

STEVE OLDHAM: So I think we need to do all things we can to address climate change. It's such a huge problem. One of the other uses of our technology is we capture CO2 directly from the air and then bury it back underground. So that makes a negative emission. We hear all the time about emissions and how we have to control them. But one of the other solutions is to pull CO2 molecules back out of the Aragon again and bury them underground and uniquely. That's what our technology does. So in our view, yes, we should move to electric cars. We should remove, too. We should move to renewable electricity. But combining all those things together quick enough is can be very challenging. The idea of doing negative emissions allows us to move faster towards getting to net zero, which is essential for us to address climate change.

LL: What are the biggest challenges you're facing right now in bringing the technology to market?

STEVE OLDHAM: So for us, we're building our first large scale plant. It's going to be in Texas. It'll be a one megaton facility. So we capture a megaton of CO2 per year to give you an idea of that. That's the work of 40 million trees. And once we build that first one, it'll become operational in 2023. We expect to scale around the world and build many of these plants. And, you know, when people ask me about decarbonising aviation, what Harbour Air is doing, what Greg is doing there is fantastic, but it's inherently limited by battery size. So to decarbonise aviation for long haul, the idea of instead sequestering a similar amount of CO2. So what I mean by that is if a flight from London to New York emits 20 tons of CO2, if you can't stop that emission, maybe you capture 20 tonnes of CO2 from elsewhere and bury it underground.

LL: Wwe know that you're you're competing for government funding here, but I'm wondering, how has investor interest gone for your company and your project?

STEVE OLDHAM: So really good. So we've raised $100 million this year from a variety of different investors. Some of them our strategic investors that help us with our business plan. Chevron, for example, that people will know. They see Chevron gas stations on the street and also from investors like Bill Gates and Murray Edwards and the Thompson family here in Canada. So, yes, we've had a lot of interest.

LL: What would it take them to get your carbon fuel into aeroplanes around the world?

STEVE OLDHAM: So what it takes is regulation. So we need governments to apply to the airline sector the necessary incentives for them to decarbonise. We need the public to understand that decarbonising aviation has to be done, even if it means an increase in ticket prices. And finally, we need technologies like ours and the other finalists who are competing in sky's the limit to demonstrate large scale. The aviation industry is a huge consumer of fuel, so whatever solution we bring to the table has to be very scalable.

LL: Steve Oldham, I thank you for your time.

STEVE OLDHAM: Thank you very much.

LL: Steve Oldham is the CEO of Carbon Engineering in Vancouver. His company is one of the finalists in The Sky's the Limit Challenge for Sustainable Aviation Fuels organized by the Government of Canada. So electric planes making jet fuel from carbon dioxide sucked out of the air. It sounds like the future is now, right? Cool your jets a bit. There are still some pretty serious challenges ahead. David Zingg is Distinguished Professor in Computational Aerodynamics and Sustainable Aviation at the University of Toronto, and he joins me in our Toronto studio. Hello.

DAVID ZINGG: Hello, Laura.

LL: Harbour Air isn't the only company in the race to build electric planes. What kind of work are we seeing in the area?

DAVID ZINGG: Well, electrification is really a big deal right now. But as was mentioned by the previous interviewee, the applications to long range aircraft are very limited because of the weight of the batteries required. So electric aircraft are wonderful for the application that Harbour Air has in mind in short range flights like that and for urban air mobility, but for flying five hours and up, that's it's long way away.

LL: So are there many other electric planes in development right now?

DAVID ZINGG: Yes, especially in the urban air mobility sector, the air taxi.

LL: Around the world?

DAVID ZINGG: Yes.

LL: OK. Greg McDougal is optimistic though that as batteries improve, he'll be able to power a 14 seat otter aircraft. How big a plane could reasonably be powered by electricity?

DAVID ZINGG: I think it's a combination of size and range. So I think it'll be a long time before you can fly, say over. I mean, if you look at the range of electric cars, it's quite limited and cars aren't as limited in terms of weight. They can carry a heavy battery around, but an aircraft, a heavy battery is very punitive. So I think it'll be a long time before you'll be flying more than, you know, 50 to 100 miles on an electric aircraft.

LL: And in an aircraft the size of an otter? Would that be possible as well or do you think that that's just simply too big a weight to carry?

DAVID ZINGG: No, I think the aircraft size is less of a concern than the range.

LL: OK. So what are the limits on the potential then of electric planes? Is it just that, that they just can't be able to carry a big enough battery to go?

DAVID ZINGG: Well, I don't think we can say can't, because it depends on the evolution of battery technology. But I don't think we'll see, for example, an aircraft the size of a 737 for over 20 years with an electric engine.

LL: OK. So we also heard about the alternative fuel that Carbon Engineering is developing. What do you see as the potential of that technology?

DAVID ZINGG: So that's huge. And really, Carbon Engineering deserves a lot of credit for what they're doing. Just a few things to keep in mind is that one is that the impact of aviation on climate change is not solely due to carbon dioxide. So if we eliminate or effectively eliminate the carbon dioxide emissions, then we're still left with the other contributions, which include the nitrogen oxides and condensation trails, which form aviation, what we call aviation induced cirrus. So carbon dioxide is about 40 percent of the impact of aviation on climate change. So eliminating that would be wonderful, but we still need to work on the other 60 percent.

LL: Steve Oldham suggested airlines start building their carbon capture plants now to decarbonise the industry. What impact would that have?

DAVID ZINGG: So that would be enormous.

LL: But do you see that happening? That the industry would adopt it that much?

DAVID ZINGG: Yes, I think that the 25 percent premium he mentioned is significant, but not a show stopper. And I think what we need to do in combination is design more fuel efficient aeroplanes and come up with more fuel efficient engines that would make up for that 25 percent.

LL: And how is the industry doing in that area?

DAVID ZINGG: Very well. I mean, progress is slow and steady, I would say. So we probably progressed with the efficiency of aircraft about 1 percent a year, which sounds small, but it adds up. But one of the problems is that governments are very big on supporting, you know, biofuels and things like that, but they do a lot less to help develop more fuel efficient aeroplanes and things like that, which is just as important.

LL: So can you give me an idea of what a low emitting aircraft might be like? I mean, I know, weren't they building the Max 8 to be more fuel efficient?

DAVID ZINGG: Yeah. I mean, one of the sort of problems with the PR of the aviation industry is that the planes all look the same and have looked the same for a long time. But yeah, the modern aircraft is far more fuel efficient than aircraft of 30 years ago. But the next generation of aircraft may be appearing and maybe the 2040 timeframe could look radically different for example, a flying wing type of aeroplane or something which might offer fuel savings of up to 20 percent.

LL: So what about the worry then that these kinds of technologies and changes mask the real issue that people just need to fly less?

DAVID ZINGG: Yes, people should fly less and and be very conscientious in deciding how important a flight is. But I think that if we can counteract the need to fly less by doing things more efficiently and doing this carbon capture and working electrification into the process, hopefully we can still fly, baybe not have to reduce our flying as much as we would otherwise.

LL: But we still would have to.

DAVID ZINGG: I think everyone should be conscious of reducing their carbon footprint and I think there are things I would give up before flying, like I was reading just recently, that streaming and the server farms associated with streaming are contributing a lot to of CO2. So I would give up streaming before I'd give up flying.

LL: A number of major airlines, Qantas, British Airways, Air France have pledged to get to net zero emissions by 2050. I'm wondering how realistic you think that is.

DAVID ZINGG: I think they are talking again strictly about carbon dioxide and so that they still would have that doesn't mean net zero climate change impact. So I think it's important for people to realize that. But as far as a claim like that, I think it's based heavily on offsets. So it doesn't really mean that we're carbon neutral. It means that we're doing something else to offset the flight. So the only real hope of being truly carbon neutral is to combine to do as much as we can in every way, but to combine biofuels and the kind of carbon capture that was discussed earlier.

LL: And how much is biofuels playing a part in aviation right now?

DAVID ZINGG: Very little right now, but I think that it's huge part of the future for for reducing the impact. But it shouldn't be perceived as a silver bullet. There are lots of costs and even energy requirements. Even the carbon capture requires a clean energy, a clean source of energy. So it does all come down to having clean energy sources.

LL: Alright. We will leave it there. David Zingg, thank you.

DAVID ZINGG: Great. Thank you for having me.

LL: David Zingg is University of Toronto Distinguished Professor in Computational Aerodynamics and Sustainable Aviation. He was in our Toronto studio.

[Music]

DAVID ZINGG: Tomorrow on The Current, my conversation with another aerospace innovator, Andrew Rader is a mission manager at SpaceX. The first private company to successfully launch orbit and recover a spacecraft, among other milestones, Raider's new book is called, Beyond the Known: How Exploration Created the Modern World and Will Take US to the Stars.

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VOICE: So people often sort of think of the modern world as resulting from the conquest of the world, basically by Europeans. And they often think that Europeans had superior technology and set out to kind of conquer and colonize the world. But if you look at Europe at the time, relative to Asia, particularly China, China was actually far more advanced than Europe at the time in the 14 hundreds in Asia was as well, and far wealthier, in fact. I think there's a strong argument to be made that the centre of the world was actually the Indian Ocean. And we often think of the Mediterranean as sort of the centre of the world. That's literally what the word means, actually, Mediterranean. But I think a true centre of the world was actually India, which because it was positioned between China and Europe and for thousands of years, India was sort of the market of the world, the place of commerce where Chinese would come and Indonesians would come and Europeans would come. The Romans actually went to India 2000 years ago. In fact, 2300 years ago, the Greeks had a travel guide of the Indian Ocean and the world is a lot more connected than we usually think about. But I think that what actually happened is Europe was excluded from the spice market. We have obviously know that Europeans went out to find spices and also lacquer and Chinese porcelain. And what happened was Europe went out to expose itself to ideas and developed a commanding position and through the exploration actually drove the incentives that drove their technology and it went hand-in-hand with the scientific revolution. And so Europe kind of turned a disadvantage of being in an economically weaker position and technologically weaker position and through the challenges that it embarked upon, created the incentives that caused a massive increase in technology and eventually that was the world that we arrived with.

LL: Andrew Rader, a mission manager at SpaceX and the author of Beyond the Known: How Exploration Created the Modern World and Will Take US to the Stars. He's my guest on the program tomorrow. Coming up in our next half hour, a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine, but at what cost? I'm Laura Lynch, and you're listening to The Current.

[Music]

What Ukraine-Russia peace talks say about Russia’s footing on the world stage

Guests: Bruno Lete, Aurel Braun, Bessma Momani

LL: I'm Laura Lynch, and you're listening to The Current. Ukraine's new president has said he would make a deal with the devil himself to bring peace to eastern Ukraine. And yesterday in Paris, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskiy agreed to implement a ceasefire.

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[Sounds from conference between Putin and Zelenskiy]

LL: At the closing news conference, President Putin emphasized he wanted to see changes to Ukraine's constitution, giving permanent special status to the Donbass region. And some worry that in this quest for peace, Ukraine and its European partners might be persuaded to give up too much to end a conflict that's claimed more than 13,000 lives. For a closer look at what was agreed to yesterday and the complicated geopolitics behind it, I'm joined by three experts. Bruno Lete is a senior fellow of security and defence at the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Brussels. Aurel Braun is a professor of international relations and political science at the University of Toronto. He's with me in our Toronto studio. And Bessma Momani is a professor of political science at the University of Waterloo and a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance and Innovation. She is in Waterloo. Hello everyone.

BRUNO LETE: Hello.

BESSMA MOMANI: Hello.

AUREL BRAUN: Hello.

LL: Bruno Lete, let's begin with you. How significant is this ceasefire agreement?

BRUNO LETE: Sure. Thank you. Well, let's put it in a nutshell. Clearly, the meeting yesterday did not help to put an end to conflict in eastern Ukraine. I think that it's fair to say what we saw was rather a series of small step decisions rather than symbolic, I would say. But the real issue at the core, meaning Russian intrusion in eastern Ukraine, has not been addressed. So in that respect to the expectations before the meeting were low. And I think exactly that's what we saw as an outcome yesterday as well.

LL: Can you outline what actually was agreed to?

BRUNO LETE: Sure. So some small decisions, such as an agreement where Russia and Ukraine will swap prisoners. We saw that there was an agreement to increase the access points to the Donbass region. There will be increased efforts to de-mine, also the region there's a big problem with mines already over there. And of course, perhaps for me personally, the most significant decision I would say is that at least the leaders already agreed to meet each other again in a few months from now in March 2020. I think that was very important to really set a new date for a new meeting. I hope that in the meantime, the diplomats of the Normandy countries will be able to explore further solutions.

LL: Could you remind us why the Donbass region, where it is and why it's so important?

BRUNO LETE: So the Donbass region is a region in Ukraine's east, which borders with Russia. Historically, it has always been the industrial heart of Ukraine. So that region was basically intruded by Russia. What happened is that when Ukraine decided in 2014 to strengthen its relationship with European Union, separatists in those region, rebels that were supported by the Kremlin took control of two major cities in that region. It's Luhansk and Donetsk and basically proclaimed independence republics in what is supposed to be Ukraine's sovereign territory. So that's why what we have now is a frozen conflict, meaning basically that we are at a conflictual situation. There is no agreement on the future of the region. And that's why yesterday there was a meeting to see how this can be resolved.

LL: Bessma Momani, who do you think came out ahead in these talks in the agreement yesterday?

BESSMA MOMANI: Well, I think it was a draw. I mean, I think many people had worried, particularly some nationalists in Ukraine, that somehow Putin was going to basically steamroll over the landscape, particularly because, I mean, obviously, Putin is much older, more experienced, has certainly a lot of experience as a statesman. And, of course, is very deceptive. Zelenskiy is new to the entire political scene. He was a comedian, very much a newcomer to Ukrainian politics. And many nationalist, again, inside Ukraine were very much worried that, you know, basically Putin was going to have his way. And I think most people could say that probably that's not the case. What we saw was no real progress on a lot of things. I mean, you know, the cease fire is useful, but, you know, this is the 20th ceasefire. So it's been broken many times before. And some of the other parts of the agreement may have helped whether, you know, kind of building some sort of confidence measure. But we certainly haven't resolved the biggest, thorniest issue, which is, of course, what to do with Donbass. So it's very much, I think, a draw between the two. Well, you call it the what you say is the 20th ceasefire. Do you think this one will hold? No, unfortunately, it's not really different. The conditions haven't really changed much. You know, unless I think we have a serious conversation about what to do in eastern Ukraine, we're going to have the same results that have happened in the past.

LL: OK, Aurel Braun your turn. Who do you think came out ahead yesterday?

AUREL BRAUN: I think to say it was draw is fair. What we have seen is an exercise in conflict management, not in conflict resolution. We are very far from that. You will notice that there was not much talk about Crimea. So there's almost a kind of tacit acceptance that Crimea now is firmly in the hands of Russia. Yet that is very important because that was not only an act against Ukraine, it was an act against international law. It was an act against the international community. It violated all sorts of agreements. It was an affront to the United Nations. Yet the world is not doing much about it. And to that extent, Mr. Putin is apparently winning. But what I think is happening also the winds that Putin is having internationally are not translating into real gain for the Russian people. There are these external victories do not compensate for the fact that Russia is failing as a modern state.

LL: And I do want to get into that in a little while, but you bring up Crimea, which, yes, the Crimean peninsula is in Russian hands. How much hope can there be for long term peace in Ukraine as long as Russia controls the peninsula? You seem to think that it's game over there. That's not even a conversation to have anymore.

AUREL BRAUN: I'm not sure it's entirely game over. But it is an indication of how far Russia has managed to convince the international community, particularly the Europeans, where you see Mr. Macron, who is an extraordinarily ambitious politician, who wants to take over basically from Angela Merkel.

LL: The president of France. Yes. Macron.

AUREL BRAUN: Macron and Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany, who is going to be retiring and he is very conciliatory towards Russia. And Ms. Merkel herself, who is very favourably inclined in some ways towards Ukraine, at the same time she has refused to provide military aid. She is averse to exercising really strong pressure on Russia. So in a sense, Russia went in with certain advantages.

LL: Okay, well then Bruno Lete, I'm wondering what you think about how France and Germany are positioning themselves in these negotiations and where their interests lie?

BRUNO LETE: Well, I think it was very clear yesterday that France and Germany are satisfied with the status quo. Clearly, Macron, President Macron and Chancellor Merkel are balancing their support for Ukraine against France and Germany's relationship with Russia. And that balance may not necessarily build in Ukraine's advantage. Except France has recently indicated that it desires a reset of diplomatic relations with the Kremlin. France is actually interested to potentially work together with Russia on issues such as terrorism, for instance, and Germany for its part, is interest in Russian gas to feed its growing domestic energy demand.

LL: And that gas has to come through Ukraine.

BRUNO LETE: That gas has to come through Ukraine. Obviously that is also why Paris and Berlin will not give up on Kiev. There needs to be a degree of stability, but neither will Paris and Berlin take a strong stance against Moscow, given their interests at stake.

LL: Alright. Bessma Momani, I'm wondering what you think Canada wants to see from this latest peace effort, given its vocal support for Ukraine.

BESSMA MOMANI: Yeah, we've seen a number of statements by the new foreign minister, Champagne on Twitter actually saying that, you know, Canada stands by the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Certainly, I think trying to be, I wouldn't say overly supportive of the Normandy conversations or talks, but in a sense really trying to really support Ukraine. Of course, there's a long history of Canada, Ukrainian relations through migration patterns. And, you know, even our previous foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, was, of course, a very strong advocate of Ukraine. And so I think that is probably going to continue. But, you know, I hate to say this in many ways, we're not a real big player in this. It really has unfortunately been a lobby to the Europeans. And I have to agree with my previous or my colleagues here and what they said previously. You know, in many ways, France is trying to re-engage. But, you know, I think many are looking at even the body politics of how we saw, you know, Macron greeting Putin. You know, we've seen this new relationship with Russia, the French and Russian relationship strengthening, and many worried that this is coming at the expense of Ukraine. And we saw just, again, microns body language with Putin being warm and hugs and kisses and was a landscape very cold. And so there's many fears inside Ukraine that there is going to be an attempt by both France and Germany. Of course, Germany does have this lame duck presidency, but the fact of the matter is, they're the biggest beneficiaries of a Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a second pipeline that would bypass Ukraine. And so their real goal is to sort of normalize things and get things back to normal so that they could continue dealing with Russia and getting this valuable gas in to the EU. And so that really makes a lot of Ukrainians very worried about what is really going to happen behind the scenes. And it's not a coincidence, I think, that we have Lavrov visiting Washington, D.C. today.

LL: The Russian foreign minister.

BESSMA MOMANI: Exactly. Meeting with Trump, you know, what's being negotiated behind the scenes. And of course, just to add more drama to the mix, you have, of course, Ukraine and his phone call, Trump's phone call with Zelenskiy being a real big part of the impeachment process. So there's lots of moving parts in this, but I think, you know, we're many of us who are looking at what's happening are very fearful that Ukraine might get the short end of the stick.

LL: Well Bessma, you anticipated my next question. Aurel Braun because of what is happening in Washington with the impeachment proceedings being linked to President Trump's conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the US seems to be stepping out from this. Doesn't seem to be getting involved in the Ukraine process at all. And I'm wondering what how that factors into all of this.

AUREL BRAUN: It's definitely not a positive for Ukraine, but we must not forget that this administration in Washington has been willing to provide Ukraine with lethal defensive armaments like javelins, which is absolutely crucial both symbolically and substantively. And if there's anyone else or anyone outside that we can really help Ukraine, it is the the Americans because they have the means and they have the weight. The Europeans are not likely to do it. And the Europeans are allowing themselves particularly Germans to become more dependent on energy. There has been pipeline diplomacy on the part of the Russians to use energy as a means of leverage. And that again creates additional vulnerabilities. So it is a vey complex picture, but I think at the same time, we should not overestimate the strength of Russia. Russia itself is also vulnerable. And why is Russia so keen on making sure that Ukraine doesn't succeed? And the reason for that is that what Russia fears most is not even the enlargement of NATO, they fear a successful democratic Slavic state on its border. They fear democratic contamination. They fear he challenged to a rule that is top down. The power vertical, a kind of corrupt kleptocracy. And so what Zelenskiy needs to do is he needs to buy himself time and breathing space and get Ukraine to succeed. There's no reason why Ukraine, a wealthy country with enormous scientific talent, could not succeed.

LL: OK. Bruno Lete, I'm wondering what you think of that.

BRUNO LETE: Well, again, the picture is pretty complex. I agree with my colleagues on the line that the United States always played a very critical role towards Ukraine, but now effectively the US-Ukraine policy is crippled, it's paralyzed, and that is no good news for Ukraine indeed. Perhaps NATO here can offer some some relief, but even in the context of the alliance and the alliance is doing quite a bit for Ukraine in terms of training and education, even there, you know, we see that perhaps NATO is not always aligned in their support for Ukraine. When it comes to Ukraine being a transit country, energy plays a role in all of this obviously. Ukraine, in my belief, will continue to play a role as a transit country, but that role will diminish. There is active building of several pipelines, not only the famous Nord Stream 2, but we're also talking about Turk stream. Turk stream is another pipeline that actually goes through Turkey. So, you know, it is a very complex geopolitical game issue snd I am not sure, you know, where or where things will end for Ukraine, especially if Europeans and Americans do not entirely have Ukraine's back on this issue. It seems to me that the costs for Ukraine will be pretty high.

LL: Let's put the focus now more on Russia. Aurel Braun, you were already talking about Russia. I want to ask you about another development yesterday. The World Anti-Doping Agency banned Russia from international sports events for four years following allegations that Russian officials tampered with that in a Moscow lab. Russia says it's going to appeal. Can you help us connect the dots between Russia's behaviour in the world of sports and geopolitics?

AUREL BRAUN: When we look at Russia, it is a strange combination with a claim to be winners and victims at the same time. That they are outplaying the West, but at the same time, they are encircled and they're pressured and this is why they moved to Ukraine, because they feared western encroachment and enlargement. But the reality is that the Putin regime has been operating under the kind of fantasy, a superpower fantasy, which is manifested in aggressive sort of actions on its borders and this plays of sports supremacy. And this is why doping was not something that surprised anyone in the sports world. It is all about politics. You look at what Russia spent at the Sochi. It was obscene, over $50 billion as a showcase. It was really a white elephant. And so the use of sport is part of trying to build the image of Russia to create an impression that Russia is a superpower or it's going to be a superpower again. It won't be. It has 143 million people. Its nominal GDP is only that of Italy's. So Russia will fight very hard to try to appeal this, but even if he doesn't succeed, it will look for subterfuges. And that is, it will try to insert its athletes under other guises. They could come and participate, not under the Russian flag. They did that before. And some who have been disappointed by this decision by the anti-doping agency that it did not ban athletes across the board. Some suggested that that is what should have happened, not to allow this kind of entry to subterfuge for Russia.

LL: Bessma Momani, we heard Aural Braun talk earlier about the domestic support for Putin at this point and the international moves he seems to be making. When you see this, the banning of the athletes, when you see the situation with Ukraine, when you see the Russia being under investigation for meddling in foreign elections, how does the Russian government sit with its own people right now?

BESSMA MOMANI: Well, it's always hard to tell. You know, I mean, Russia controls the government, at least. You know, 80 percent of of media. So it's very difficult. And we know what happens to freethinking journalists. They're killed, whether it's abroad or at home. And so it's really difficult to get a sense of exactly what the Russian people feel. I think there is support for Putin. Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that there isn't. And I think there is a part of this enormous historical kind of imagery that's being evoked throughout all of the political incidences that are happening inside Russia and outside that this is some great empire that is being denied its rightful place in history. As Professor Braun mentioned, you know, plays this victim and yet is very much a declining power, but yet suggests that all of the action. From the banning of their athletes to what's happening in Ukraine, to the way Putin's been sanctioned, and although the global sanctions on it is really about trying to deny Russia's rightful place in history, that it's a great empire that's being denied an opportunity. And this is a way of punishing Russian athletes. Obviously, they see this solely through a political lens. In fact, some of the commentary that's coming out on Russia today was really about the timing of this particular announcement and the banning of athletes as somehow an attempt to basically undermine Putin in negotiations at the Normandy summit. So, you know, Putin has always tried to basically, frankly, sow chaos abroad to make himself look good. And this is unfortunately the way, you know, he thinks he gets this kind of respect as a state leader. You know, it's only by showing how the Western European countries have problems with migration. They have problems with diversity. All the sort of progressive ideals of a liberal democracy are basically undermining it from within. I mean, you just have to watch RT unfortunately for a few hours to see this common theme.

LL: Russia today being Russian state television that's broadcast abroad. Its English language as well. Bruno Lete, I'm also in the times that I've been reporting in Russia, I've noticed it largely outside of the cities, largely outside of Moscow, people love Putin because he is a strong man. And I'm wondering whether that is still holding, whether people view him with that kind of ardour or whether that is wearing thin.

BRUNO LETE: No. Well, I think strong people are being respected in Russia not only today, but also historically. If you only imagine the Russia is a massive country. Just look at it on the map. And especially when in the 90s, when the Russia was flirting with democratic experiences, there is a sentiment that this really didn't work well for the average person in the streets, for the people. And so there is a sentiment that to manage this immense landmass, you need to have a strong leader. You need to have a centralization of power. So I think that perhaps we can argue that the support for Putin's autocratic style may well be because the democratic experiments of the 90s didn't really work out the way that some would have hoped for in Russia.

LL: And how do you Europeans who live next door to Russia generally feel about Russia's behaviour across the board?

BRUNO LETE: Sure. You know, it's a bit of a complex spectrum, I would say. Obviously, one thing we cannot change sitting here in Europe is the fact that Russia is your geographic neighbour. This is simply something we cannot change, whether we like it or not. So there must be some sort of dialogue with his neighbour. And even in real life, when you have a disputes with your neighbour or you don't agree with your neighbour, you will need to try some sort of modus vivendi. Of course, those that are close to the border with Russia, I'm talking about countries in the Baltics, Poland, they rightfully so are, of course, concerned for their security because of the unpredictability of Russian behaviour. And those that are further removed from the Russian border generally tend to be more open to a dialogue with Russia. So I think what we see here in Ukraine is, sorry in Europe, is some sort of divisive approach between countries that want a strong deterrence and to basically address the Russian escalation strategies versus those that are in favour of really a dialogue and a conversation with Russia and do not necessarily see Russia as a threat to their security.

LL: Alright. Aurel Braun, what do you think that we will see in terms of Russia's influence on the world stage in 2020?

AUREL BRAUN: They will certainly try to disrupt because this is what the forte of the Putin regime is. And so they will claim certain external victory. They're proud and probe the West. But it doesn't really help him domestically. I'm not as pessimistic about the prospects for long term democracy in Russia as some other people are because the dictatorship is not working. The social contract with Mr. Putin is unravelling. The standard living is not growing. Russia is stagnating economically. There is a lot of dissatisfaction. People may not understand Jeffersonian democracy, but they do understand that the system, this power vertical, this kleptocracy, is simply not working.

LL: Putin has survived for an awfully long time.

AUREL BRAUN: He's survived for a long, but nothing lasts forever. And what we know from the history of the countries in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, things can unravel and they can unravel quickly. And Mr. Putin himself is not immortal. He is in his 60s. And when a tent cannot continue standing, then it stops going on. And we see all sorts of disturbing signs. He tries this kind of political magical realism where he combines the repressive and with the ridiculous to create an image. But it is subject to all laws of diminishing returns.

LL: Bessma Momani, same question to you. What do you think we'll see in terms of Russia's influence and behaviour in the new year?

BESSMA MOMANI: Unfortunately, are going to get more of the same. Again, this idea of sowing chaos abroad to make it look good is really a way to also, you know, make Putin not just seem like the strongman, but also the bearer of stability inside the country. And, you know, there's a famous idea that, you know, the Russians often choose the TV over the fridge. This idea that, you know, they much prefer having a strongman on TV who projects Russian power, brings back feelings of the Russian empire over the fridge, which has, you know, more of economic issues. But I agree with Professor Brian. You know, the economics, you know, the kind of future for Russia does not look good. It's an economy that hasn't diversified overly dependent on oil. Oil prices are declining. And frankly, it doesn't have a lot of solutions for a lot of young people. The young, I think activists that are out there continue to show up and we saw in municipal elections in Moscow recently. You know, youth really kind of objecting to the way politics are being presented to them by Putin. So I think there's also a generational change there. But the economy is, I think, one that is frankly not emblematic of a rising empire. It is very much a declining power and is going to have to come to some change of that social contract.

LL: Alright. We will have to leave it there. Certainly bears watching in the new year. I thank all three of you.

BESSMA MOMANI: Thank you.

BRUNO LETE: Thank you.

AUREL BRAUN: Thank you.

LL: Bruno Lete is a senior fellow of security and defence at the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Brussels. Aurel Braun is a professor of international relations and political science at the University of Toronto. And Bessma Momani is a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance and Innovation and a professor of political science at the University of Waterloo. That is our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for Q with Tom Power. If you missed any part of the show, you can always listen to it on the free CBC Listen app. You can discover the best in Canadian audio from CBC Radio, Podcasts, Music. You can listen to our show live from anywhere on your phone or tablet and you can catch up on the highlights on demand at anytime. Earlier in the show, we were discussing the dangers of volcano tourism and one person who's visited active volcanoes all over the world is the filmmaker Werner Herzog. In his 2016 documentary, Into the Inferno, Herzog travelled the world, capturing the incredible sight of volcanoes erupting and speaking to people who live in their shadows. We'll end with his thoughts on volcanoes, in a conversation with scientist, Clive Oppenheimer. I'm Laura Lynch. Thanks for listening to The Current.

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[Scene from documentary, "Into the Inferno"]

Dec. 10, 2019 episode transcript

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