Speaker 1: You're listening to AC N A podcast. Hey, guys, the
Speaker 1: Climate Conversations Team will be taking a break in December, hooray.
Speaker 1: But we'll, but we'll be back in January 2025. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, we're bringing back some of the most memorable
Speaker 1: episodes from this year in case you've missed them. Have
Speaker 1: a listen and enjoy the holidays. Talk to you next year.
Speaker 1: Bye for now.
Speaker 1: Can you feel that it's summer and this year it
Speaker 1: feels hotter than ever. Is your air conditioning on right now?
Speaker 1: Mine is, and for good reason, right across Southeast Asia,
Speaker 1: sweltering temperatures are taking a toll on our workplaces, our schools,
Speaker 1: our commutes and the health of our loved ones. Is
Speaker 1: this the new reality this week? We're battling the heat.
Speaker 1: Hi and welcome to Climate Conversations.
Speaker 1: I'm Jack Boyd, your new host of the podcast. Let
Speaker 1: me introduce myself. I'm CN A's climate change correspondent and
Speaker 1: I'm based in Bangkok. I do lots of on the
Speaker 1: ground reporting all around Southeast Asia and sometimes when I'm
Speaker 1: lucky beyond and things might be sounding a little bit
Speaker 1: different as we start a new season of the show.
Speaker 1: The format is changing a bit. We're gonna be bringing
Speaker 1: you closer to the CN A newsroom to the stories
Speaker 1: that my colleagues in Singapore and all around the region
Speaker 1: are covering in this space. And you'll be hearing about
Speaker 1: some of my stories too and the journeying I'm doing
Speaker 1: to bring this huge and challenging topic to life.
Speaker 1: And I'm also excited to tell you about my co-host.
Speaker 1: She's here. It's Li Ling Tan. She's in Singapore. She's
Speaker 1: done lots of awesome journalism throughout her career all around
Speaker 1: the world. Li Ling. Hello. Hi there, Jack and a
Speaker 1: big hello to everyone joining us on the show. I
Speaker 1: am executive news editor at Singapore des I cover climate
Speaker 1: sustainability and the environment
Speaker 1: themes that we'll be addressing here on the new climate
Speaker 1: conversations and yes, there will be doom, there will be gloom,
Speaker 1: but we'll also be talking about solutions breakthroughs and game
Speaker 1: changing policies. So all up for discussion.
Speaker 1: Very nice to be hosting this with you. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: start you out by really testing your climate knowledge and
Speaker 1: the climate knowledge of the listeners as well. We're starting
Speaker 1: with a climate question. We're gonna do this every week.
Speaker 1: Are you ready? Yes, I am. And it's gonna be
Speaker 1: heat related. What is the hottest temperature ever recorded in
Speaker 1: Southeast Asia? Where do you think it was? And when
Speaker 1: do you think it was, I'll give you the length
Speaker 1: of the podcast to think about your answer. No, it's
Speaker 1: not in Bangkok today. Although it feels like it might
Speaker 1: be and we'll see how you go towards the end. Ok.
Speaker 1: I'll have a think about it.
Speaker 1: Let's look at some of the interesting climate environment stories
Speaker 1: from this week, Lee Ling, you're right there in the newsroom.
Speaker 1: Take us through what's captured your attention over the past
Speaker 1: week or so.
Speaker 1: Dengue. Dengue danger, Dengue danger alert. We've already topped 5000
Speaker 1: cases in just the first three months of the year.
Speaker 1: And that's in Singapore. It's a bit worrying, you know,
Speaker 1: not too long ago, we hit a record high of
Speaker 1: 35,000 Dengue cases. This was back in 2020 we had
Speaker 1: about 32 people dying from it.
Speaker 1: The numbers did go down a little bit before surging
Speaker 1: again two years ago. And, you know, this is an
Speaker 1: ongoing battle. It's endemic in Singapore, but it's not just
Speaker 1: Singapore's battle, Malaysia and Indonesia. They've also seen numbers going
Speaker 1: up and a big part of this is due to
Speaker 1: El Nino which causes hotter drier weather as well as
Speaker 1: the rainy season.
Speaker 1: What we're also reading about is part of Singapore's anti Dengue.
Speaker 1: Arsenal includes the Wolbachia bacteria. You may have heard of
Speaker 1: this Jack, they inject the mosquito with this Wolbachia bacteria
Speaker 1: and then they release it into the wild. And what
Speaker 1: it does is it suppresses Mozzie eggs from hatching.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like a trojan horse. But with
Speaker 1: mosquitoes and going by the numbers, I think it seems
Speaker 1: like it's work in progress in an ongoing battle and
Speaker 1: we know climate change is making these types of diseases worse. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Speaking about El Nino, we're looking at rice prices in Indonesia,
Speaker 1: rice prices have been going up and it continues to
Speaker 1: hit in
Speaker 1: in Asia, especially hot. Now, remember this is a country
Speaker 1: with the largest population in the region and the highest
Speaker 1: rice consumption that dwarves any other country here in Southeast Asia. Now,
Speaker 1: El Nino last year meant longer dry seasons that disrupted
Speaker 1: production prices have also gone up more than 24%. The
Speaker 1: lead up to Ramadan
Speaker 1: also meant more demand for the staple and that put
Speaker 1: more pressure on prices. So this really is another sign
Speaker 1: of how vulnerable food systems in the region are to
Speaker 1: changes in climate patterns and weather patterns and the need
Speaker 1: to diversify our food choices and our food sources. Yeah,
Speaker 1: really tough when rice which is so important is becoming
Speaker 1: so expensive.
Speaker 1: And then finally a more of a novel but kind
Speaker 1: of a sad story about the Sakura blossoms in Tokyo. Yes,
Speaker 1: they came late in Tokyo this year. I'm sure a
Speaker 1: lot of you have heard about this, I think on
Speaker 1: average it was four days later. But get this, this
Speaker 1: Jack is an anomaly in an anomalous trend. And what
Speaker 1: that means is they flowered earlier last year and they
Speaker 1: also flowered early
Speaker 1: in 2021 and then the year before that 2020 as well.
Speaker 1: And the Japanese Meteorological agency says the average start date
Speaker 1: has been getting earlier by about 1.2 days every decade.
Speaker 1: So it's another sign of the impact of the weather
Speaker 1: system and of course, makes it more difficult. Definitely make
Speaker 1: sure you planning your
Speaker 1: holiday even more difficult. I tried to see the Sakura
Speaker 1: one year and I was there way too early now.
Speaker 1: You missed out. When were you there? It was about
Speaker 1: 10 years ago. I really tried to see the cherry blossoms.
Speaker 1: No one or you could come to Singapore. I think
Speaker 1: there's a cherry blossoms thing going on at gardens by
Speaker 1: the bay right now. Ok. That's always an option. I'll
Speaker 1: take you there. Let's go.
Speaker 1: Now, as promised, we're gonna dig into our main story
Speaker 1: for this week. It's getting hot in here, right? Things
Speaker 1: are getting hotter around here. If you're listening right now
Speaker 1: from anywhere in Southeast Asia, you'll know that the mercury
Speaker 1: has been soaring recently. Heat is a silent killer. And
Speaker 1: the scary thing is this could just be the start
Speaker 1: of longer, hotter days and nights
Speaker 1: if temperatures rise by 1.5 °C, the best case scenario
Speaker 1: under the Paris Agreement, 2.3 billion people could be vulnerable
Speaker 1: to heat waves with the majority of them in Asia.
Speaker 1: Three quarters of the entire global population will be exposed
Speaker 1: to deadly heat conditions every year by 2100 under the
Speaker 1: current trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions. And that's according to
Speaker 1: the Asian Development Bank
Speaker 1: here in Bangkok right now it's a blistering 37 degrees
Speaker 1: peak summer. What about you, Lee Ling, I'm sure Singapore
Speaker 1: isn't much better. Oh, I'm just pulling up the thermometer
Speaker 1: on my phone. Just give me a second. It is
Speaker 1: a scorching. It's, oh, wait, it's 30 degrees. But it
Speaker 1: feels a lot hotter. I came out of home on
Speaker 1: the way in and I was just drenched. So,
Speaker 1: yes, it's hot. It's erratic. Some days it's wet and sticky.
Speaker 1: Other days it's just absolutely scorching. I'm sunburned or sweaty.
Speaker 1: My plants are either soggy or crispy. It is miserable,
Speaker 1: but at least I'm in the newsroom where there's air
Speaker 1: conditioning most of the day. You're out in the elements though,
Speaker 1: aren't you Jack? How do you cope?
Speaker 1: It's really tough at this time of year being out
Speaker 1: in the field and carrying around heavy camera equipment. It
Speaker 1: just makes everything a struggle. But we can hardly complain.
Speaker 1: We have officers with air conditioning all the time. It's
Speaker 1: the marginalized people in the community that have no choice.
Speaker 1: The rice farmers, the grab delivery riders,
Speaker 1: the construction workers who really can't escape the heat that
Speaker 1: I really feel for, especially this time of year and
Speaker 1: we better get used to it as well. The projections
Speaker 1: are that it'll get even hotter over the next few
Speaker 1: decades and by the end of the century, almost every
Speaker 1: day will be a very hot day. That's based on
Speaker 1: recent projections out of a Singapore climate change study. And
Speaker 1: they're saying, compared to now, when we
Speaker 1: about 21 very hot days a year come 2099 or 2100,
Speaker 1: we could get about as many as 351 days of
Speaker 1: very hot days. In the worst case scenario, we're going
Speaker 1: to need some real solutions. Right. Yeah, absolutely. I don't
Speaker 1: think we'll be around but certainly our kids and does
Speaker 1: the report go into what might happen
Speaker 1: in the rest of the region as well? Yes, it
Speaker 1: does cover the rest of the region and it's projecting
Speaker 1: around 5.5 to 6 degrees warmer weather in a high
Speaker 1: emissions or worst case scenario by the end of the century,
Speaker 1: like you said, our children's lifetime
Speaker 1: and their children's lifetime. So it's actually not that far
Speaker 1: off if you think about it. Actually, we're feeling it
Speaker 1: but other people in the rest of the parts of
Speaker 1: the world will be feeling it even worse. It really
Speaker 1: comes down to the impact it has on people and places. Today,
Speaker 1: we recently did
Speaker 1: a study at CN A Singapore desk about the impact
Speaker 1: of heat stress on people and industry. Here's an excerpt
Speaker 1: from the piece by Marcus Tan remo construction work site.
Speaker 1: He's speaking with Perry Asami Saravanan who is a workplace
Speaker 1: safety and health officer on duty.
Speaker 2: These construction workers are feeling the full effects of the
Speaker 2: midday sun. It falls to safety and health officers like
Speaker 2: Saravanan to call his colleagues in for wellness checks and
Speaker 2: water parades
Speaker 2: on a big project like this. There are plenty of
Speaker 2: opportunities for signs of heat stress to manifest. Saravanan cites
Speaker 2: physical symptoms like rashes and breathing problems or mental symptoms
Speaker 2: like confusion,
Speaker 2: all of which could lead to accidents happening on the
Speaker 2: job for drivers or operators and also the worker working
Speaker 2: under the hot sun. So the rules require higher mental
Speaker 2: faculties and decision making abilities, construction site or susceptibly to
Speaker 2: impairment by heat stress.
Speaker 2: Six in 10 construction workers survey in the project heat
Speaker 2: safe studies say they felt fatigued due to heat stress.
Speaker 2: Nearly two in five also complained of headaches brought on
Speaker 2: by prolonged heat exposure.
Speaker 1: And so it messes with brain function, screws with decision
Speaker 1: making and balance which can cause workplace injuries that marketers
Speaker 1: had touched on that. Now, more bricks to cool off
Speaker 1: and you know, water breaks. These also disrupt schedules and
Speaker 1: construction deadlines. So it hits at the bottom line. The
Speaker 1: study estimates that the impact could cost the country billions
Speaker 1: of dollars a year in productivity.
Speaker 1: So how do we adapt? We turn on our air conditioner.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it feels like we probably can't live without air
Speaker 1: con on. I remember speaking to an expert on heat
Speaker 1: who said that, you know, air conditioning can't be the
Speaker 1: problem if you keep using it. It's like you're getting fatter,
Speaker 1: but instead of going on a diet, you just keep
Speaker 1: buying larger pants. Yeah, it's not sustainable, right? It just
Speaker 1: makes the problem worse, especially when
Speaker 1: you're talking about living in cities in the urban Heat
Speaker 1: Island effect. Experts are also saying that air conditioning is
Speaker 1: not the best solution it takes in too much energy
Speaker 1: spits out too much emissions, very bad for the environment,
Speaker 1: very bad for cities, very bad for the planet.
Speaker 1: So experts are saying we should start to think about
Speaker 1: acclimatizing to the warmer weather. Stop the air con addiction
Speaker 1: and dependency or at least dull it back by not
Speaker 1: setting the thermostat so low. Which kind of makes sense
Speaker 1: because you know, when you enter malls in Singapore, you're
Speaker 1: kind of going from scorching heat to like optic freeze
Speaker 1: in the cold weather in Singapore, which is just ridiculous.
Speaker 1: I'm a 24 degrees kind of guy with my air con.
Speaker 1: I think that's not too bad.
Speaker 1: But obviously, whenever you have the comfortable temperature inside, you're
Speaker 1: creating the heat outside. And that energy consumption is a problem.
Speaker 1: And also one thing we don't think about is it
Speaker 1: increases the inequalities between communities, people who can afford air
Speaker 1: con and people who can't. And that's something I see
Speaker 1: a lot in my daily work. And of course, rising
Speaker 1: heat is changing the way that we live and we
Speaker 1: work and we play
Speaker 1: and it's not just air conditioning, but how we build
Speaker 1: and how we design cities. And Singapore obviously is at
Speaker 1: the forefront of that lot of cities around the world.
Speaker 1: And when I travel and speak to experts, they're often
Speaker 1: looking at what Singapore is doing as kind of this
Speaker 1: prototype model of a hot city trying to get cooler.
Speaker 1: What have you learned about that Li Ling in Singapore?
Speaker 1: We're looking at more sustainable district
Speaker 1: cooling systems exploring innovative building materials because the built environment
Speaker 1: is really a big part of this, right? It takes
Speaker 1: up so much energy to develop and construct. So we
Speaker 1: are looking also at reflective pain, for example, to keep
Speaker 1: buildings cool. So there's less pressure to cool it internally.
Speaker 1: We're planting trees where we can, we've got rooftop gardens.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of thought that goes into not
Speaker 1: just the built in
Speaker 1: but the landscaping as well. So that overall there's less
Speaker 1: energy intensiveness. What about you, Jack? What's Thailand doing to
Speaker 1: cool down? I think the challenge is much greater than
Speaker 1: maybe Singapore's experience and we're a little bit further behind
Speaker 1: but definitely a range of different innovations. They're trying to
Speaker 1: utilize cool roofs, cooling technologies to minimize this air conditioning demand.
Speaker 1: Looking after workers to prevent them from such high levels
Speaker 1: of heat stress, I know they're trying to do things
Speaker 1: like green roofs and walls, planting more trees, bringing back
Speaker 1: mangroves in different parts of the coastal areas near the city,
Speaker 1: little pocket parks in this. What is a very dense
Speaker 1: urban landscape. But I mean, if you've been to Bangkok before,
Speaker 1: you know that the greenery is pretty limited. So a
Speaker 1: long way to go.
Speaker 1: Just one aspect that I think we also maybe underappreciate
Speaker 1: is there's just a lack of data around which parts
Speaker 1: of cities are hot, which parts of cities are dangerous
Speaker 1: for workers or commuters. And I profiled a company in
Speaker 1: the UAE actually at the end of last year when
Speaker 1: cop 28 the UN
Speaker 1: climate change talks are being held there. And basically they're
Speaker 1: aiming to become the google of temperature and they want
Speaker 1: city planners to be able to immediately visualize temperature times
Speaker 1: locations so that they're able to actually put in solutions
Speaker 1: and make plans around keeping
Speaker 1: cities cooler. So I thought that was pretty interesting if
Speaker 1: you were able to just search your building or your
Speaker 1: street in this platform and find out, oh, how hot
Speaker 1: is it five degrees hotter than the next street? Why
Speaker 1: is that? Yeah, it would help us make, you know,
Speaker 1: better decisions about where to go to cool off instead
Speaker 1: of relying on air conditioning as well.
Speaker 1: OK, quiz answer time. A reminder of the question, the
Speaker 1: hottest temperature ever recorded in South East Asia. Where do
Speaker 1: you think it was? And when do you think it was?
Speaker 1: I gotta say it probably was last year, right. Jack
Speaker 1: around the Asia heat wave, I remember some
Speaker 1: staggering numbers 43 degrees I think it was in Laos,
Speaker 1: 44 in Vietnam, 45 in Bangkok. But I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if that's the highest on record. It would be really
Speaker 1: worrying you're spot on there. That last year's heat wave
Speaker 1: was crazy. And a lot of countries actually broke their
Speaker 1: all time records. Now, I'm kind of cheating with this
Speaker 1: answer because it wasn't the real temperature, it was the,
Speaker 1: feels like temperature and that was 54 °C
Speaker 1: in Bangkok last April. And I've just heard recently that
Speaker 1: we're expecting plus 50 again this summer in Thailand.
Speaker 1: And that's gonna lead us into another segment we'll be
Speaker 1: doing each week, which is the sustainability word of the week,
Speaker 1: something that we think you might have been hearing in
Speaker 1: the news and you're wondering what does it mean? And
Speaker 1: why is it important for me to know about it
Speaker 1: and sticking with the heat theme this week, the word
Speaker 1: we've chosen is heat index. So that kind of plays
Speaker 1: into what I was just talking.
Speaker 1: This feels like temperature and you might see it on
Speaker 1: your phone app when you're checking the temperature that there's
Speaker 1: a discrepancy between the real temperature and the feels like temperature.
Speaker 1: So this heat index is also known as the apparent temperature.
Speaker 1: It's a measure of how hot it feels to the
Speaker 1: human body when you also take into account air temperature
Speaker 1: and humidity.
Speaker 1: It also then considers how difficult it is for the
Speaker 1: human body to regulate temperature. So I think that's a
Speaker 1: useful way to think about temperature and heat impact these days.
Speaker 1: We don't have to just look at the raw number,
Speaker 1: but think about actually what that temperature is doing to
Speaker 1: our body.
Speaker 1: Alright. That's all we have for this week. Everyone. We
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed this conversation. We have an important favor
Speaker 1: to ask you
Speaker 1: first go and click follow on any major podcast platform
Speaker 1: like Spotify or Apple. And as we close the episode,
Speaker 1: we'd like to call out for listeners to send us
Speaker 1: your questions and we'll answer them each week because we
Speaker 1: would like your input as part of the climate conversations.
Speaker 1: And finally, if you've got any feedback, hit us with
Speaker 1: it too. Our thanks to the CN A podcast team
Speaker 1: until we chat again next week. I'm Li Ling Tan.
Speaker 1: I'm Jack Ford.