2023 Podcasts

Climate Change: Towards a New Paradigm?

Kattan, Emmanuel; Hunter-Hart, Monica Beatrice; Ali, Abdibasid

Today, more than ever, climate change and its effects are in the news. One the one hand, what we learn is a constant cause for alarm: the number and the intensity of hurricanes is on the rise; forests the world over are being decimated by wildfires; and communities in low lying lands (like Bangladesh and Pakistan) are devastated by floods. Many countries are not keeping up with their carbon-zero commitments. But perhaps we should also draw comfort from news coverage on climate: it’s a sign that the threat of climate change is being taken seriously by an increasingly large part of the population. And there are some positive developments, too. The US is back in the Paris Agreement. The COP 27 recently led to a breakthrough on “loss and damage” funding to support developing countries suffering the worst effects of climate change. So, does this amount to a real shift? Have we finally reached a tipping point in our collective determination to fight climate change? Will historians of the future say: the 2020s was the decade where humanity started walking away from the precipice?