Speaker 1: You're listening to AC N A podcast.
Speaker 2: Sometimes we all need a bit of positivity. If you
Speaker 2: listened to our episode, last week, we learned about the
Speaker 2: power of communicating solutions and optimism when it comes to
Speaker 2: climate change and the state of our planet,
Speaker 2: we've taken some inspiration from that discussion and this week
Speaker 2: we bring you nothing but good news. Hi and welcome
Speaker 2: to climate conversations. I'm Jack Boyd. Hello, Li Link Tan.
Speaker 2: How are you? Feeling? Excited, feeling, positive, excited might be
Speaker 2: overstating it. I, I actually struggle with this assignment. I
Speaker 2: trawled the internet looking for positive climate news to cheer
Speaker 2: me up and it wasn't a very,
Speaker 2: pretty easy finding anything recent that really made me smile.
Speaker 2: I don't know about you whether you had the same issues.
Speaker 2: I had to sift through a lot of doom and
Speaker 2: gloom actually to get to these five happy news bits today. Hey,
Speaker 2: there's silver linings in every little story. If you search
Speaker 2: for it, the eternal optimist aren't you? Yeah, maybe that's me.
Speaker 2: My career choice and focus on climate change.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I didn't find it too bad. I think
Speaker 2: what was very clear was that the solutions or the
Speaker 2: positive aspects tend to be hidden at the end of
Speaker 2: stories and stories tend to get written with the kind
Speaker 2: of doom and gloom to start with. Yeah, that was interesting. Alright.
Speaker 2: We'll get into all of that later, but it's our
Speaker 2: beloved weekly quiz.
Speaker 2: Now, last week, Li Ling, I asked you about the
Speaker 2: populations of certain countries that believed that climate change was
Speaker 2: a threat to their country and now you got them.
Speaker 2: All right. It was quite amazing. Now, on a symbol
Speaker 2: of vein, I want to know which populations have the
Speaker 2: brightest outlooks rank these countries by respondents who are optimistic
Speaker 2: about the future. All four options. A South Korea
Speaker 2: B is China C Australia and D, Sweden. Oh man,
Speaker 2: another ranking quiz. I feel like I've exhausted all my
Speaker 2: brain cells for the last one already. Ok. So the
Speaker 2: four countries South Korea, Australia, China and Sweden. Yep, that's it.
Speaker 2: Let me have a think. Ok. Answers at the end.
Speaker 2: Now this week we're going to skip right over news time.
Speaker 2: Sorry Le Ling. We won't be coming to you in
Speaker 2: the newsroom because that is going to be the thrust
Speaker 2: of our main segment this week. I'm not in my newsroom.
Speaker 2: I'm in my living room actually. But same. Well, you're
Speaker 2: gonna use the clip, right? And you see the home, obviously,
Speaker 2: I'm in my living room. And so are you ok? Hey,
Speaker 2: my office is my newsroom. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 2: it's an occupational hazard for all of us. Yeah, my
Speaker 2: dog is literally lying behind me.
Speaker 2: As famed climate change scientist, Katharine Hayhoe said to us
Speaker 2: here on climate conversations last week, communicating solutions to the
Speaker 2: existential crisis that is climate change is so important to
Speaker 2: inspire action and to come up with collective solutions big
Speaker 2: and small. Now we've taken that message to heart and
Speaker 2: both of us have searched the globe for recent and
Speaker 2: interesting and positive stories about how humanity is finding hope
Speaker 2: in the gloom.
Speaker 2: Now, some of these will be monumental. Some might seem
Speaker 2: significant some less so, but we hope you'll hear them
Speaker 2: and go, that's a reason to be optimistic. So the
Speaker 2: format we're gonna take it in turns to chat briefly
Speaker 2: about five stories. Each, we haven't divulged the stories to
Speaker 2: each other beforehand. So we'll be coming in fresh like
Speaker 2: you to hear about them and interesting to see both
Speaker 2: of our responses to those stories.
Speaker 2: I'm ready to smile for planet Earth. Are you ready
Speaker 2: for that, Lili? Oh, yeah, let's do that. Cheer for
Speaker 2: Planet Earth. Woohoo.
Speaker 2: Ok. My story number one. Now, these are not in
Speaker 2: any order. I'm gonna kick us off with this very
Speaker 2: cool story. It was courtesy of Bloomberg.
Speaker 2: It's about a trial that's been going on since last
Speaker 2: month between Singapore Airlines, Qantas and New Zealand and Garuda, Indonesia.
Speaker 2: And they're choosing the exact air routes that they fly. Basically,
Speaker 2: they're taking shortcuts. In the sky. The aim is to
Speaker 2: be more efficient, use less fuel and create fewer greenhouse
Speaker 2: gas emissions. So basically, there are 38 different routes where
Speaker 2: this is happening already.
Speaker 2: And for Singapore Airlines that includes flying to Sydney to Perth,
Speaker 2: to Christchurch among a bunch of other places.
Speaker 2: And the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore has already said
Speaker 2: that airlines can potentially save up to 1.7 tons of
Speaker 2: fuel for a flight between Singapore and Melbourne simply by
Speaker 2: taking a faster path, a more efficient route.
Speaker 2: And the idea is that this could actually be extended
Speaker 2: to many other cities. Europe has been looking at this
Speaker 2: for a long time. So for me, seems like a win, right.
Speaker 2: We're flying faster to our destinations, fewer emissions and given
Speaker 2: the struggles that seem to be persisting with sustainable fuels smart. Right. Yeah, this,
Speaker 2: I'm kind of surprised because I had always just assumed
Speaker 2: that planes would take the shortest route possible, right.
Speaker 2: But there are dynamics, I guess in the sky they've
Speaker 2: got wind, you've got the shape of the earth. Yes,
Speaker 2: I guess it's a bit surprising. We're not doing this
Speaker 2: already but better late than never. Yeah. Good, good. Oh,
Speaker 2: I'm really happy about that start. I'll see your flying
Speaker 2: shortcuts and raise your cargo for shortcuts. Alright. So Japan
Speaker 2: has plans to build this giant 500 kilometer road and
Speaker 2: tunnel conveyor belt system
Speaker 2: to move cargo between two of its busiest cities Tokyo,
Speaker 2: you've stolen my conveyor belt. Oh, did I sorry? Beat
Speaker 2: you to the punch. So this conveyor belt system think
Speaker 2: conveyor belt sushi, right? But just a bit bigger actually
Speaker 2: a lot bigger and it solves two big issues for
Speaker 2: the country. First, it addresses
Speaker 2: a shortage of truck drivers that is becoming increasingly worse
Speaker 2: as the population ages and then it also helps to
Speaker 2: slash transport emissions. Now, freight transportation accounted for more than 7%
Speaker 2: of Japan's total co two emissions. And this so called
Speaker 2: auto flow road reportedly can carry the same amount of
Speaker 2: cargo as 25,000
Speaker 2: trucks a day. And it involves, I looked at the
Speaker 2: pictures of this and it involves belts either in the
Speaker 2: middle of the highway or on the road shoulders as
Speaker 2: well as underground tunnels to transport the cargo. It all
Speaker 2: goes according to plan, it will be ready in about
Speaker 2: 10 years. So I think it will be quite a
Speaker 2: sight to see and really if anybody could pull this off,
Speaker 2: Japan could,
Speaker 2: yeah, this is Japan in my mind like coming up
Speaker 2: with these like high tech ideas that we always associate
Speaker 2: with the country. Yeah, I mean efficient logistics makes a
Speaker 2: lot of sense, moving some goods I think would be
Speaker 2: much faster, I think especially like fresh food, for example,
Speaker 2: could be moved in a much more efficient manner. I
Speaker 2: bet it's gonna be super expensive. But yeah, some blue
Speaker 2: sky thinking for sure.
Speaker 2: My story number two. This one's also from a few
Speaker 2: weeks back. But I think it's worth mentioning because we
Speaker 2: often talk about this issue about fossil fuel financing back
Speaker 2: in my backyard. One of the major banks in Australia,
Speaker 2: the country's largest lender, the Commonwealth Bank announced that it'll
Speaker 2: be moving away from funding fossil fuel companies that don't
Speaker 2: have proper emissions reduction plans.
Speaker 2: Supposedly, it's ditching coal, it's ditching gas if those lenders
Speaker 2: don't have policies that are in line with the Paris Agreement.
Speaker 2: Good news, right. This has already been happening to a degree.
Speaker 2: The CB A has dropped its fossil fuel loans already
Speaker 2: by 92% over the past few years and halved its
Speaker 2: exposure to oil and gas. And there are a number
Speaker 2: of reasons why they're doing this. These are increasingly uncertain
Speaker 2: investments that can add risk to a bank's portfolio.
Speaker 2: It also increases their exposure to lawsuits and climate activism.
Speaker 2: And we always talk about how climate financing is so
Speaker 2: important and the lingering trails of fossil fuel investment is
Speaker 2: a big complication to why we're not reaching our climate
Speaker 2: goals and many banks are not moving very fast. If
Speaker 2: you look around this region, the fossil fuel investments are
Speaker 2: still happening. They're still in the pipeline of many of
Speaker 2: our banks.
Speaker 2: When banks do this, I think it's well worth celebrating. Absolutely. Ok.
Speaker 2: Speaking of fossil fuels and the transition away from them,
Speaker 2: I have something, some good news about the cost of renewables.
Speaker 2: And of course, a lot of this has to do
Speaker 2: with demand and supply. So new renewable power capacity set
Speaker 2: a record in 2023 with over 470 gigawatts of new
Speaker 2: installed capacity.
Speaker 2: This is from a report issued this month by the
Speaker 2: International Renewable Energy Agency and it loss. Yeah, the big
Speaker 2: dogs and this is a 54% increase compared to 2022.
Speaker 2: It's the largest annual growth since around 2000 I believe. Now.
Speaker 2: Also encouraging is that it found that the cost of
Speaker 2: electricity generated from renewable power is dropping rather significantly. Get
Speaker 2: this of new or additional renewable power last year was
Speaker 2: cheaper than fossil fuel. And the global weighted average cost
Speaker 2: of electricity fell rapidly between 2010 and 2023.
Speaker 2: So I know this is a lot of numbers but
Speaker 2: try and keep up. Now this decline in cost includes
Speaker 2: a 90% plunge in the cost of power from solar
Speaker 2: photovoltaics and a 70% decline in onshore wind power cost.
Speaker 2: So basically it means that utility or large scale renewable
Speaker 2: power is getting cheaper at a very encouraging pace. Sit
Speaker 2: there very good. Now we just need to
Speaker 2: upgrade all of our grids and transmission lines to really
Speaker 2: make the most of this increasingly cheap energy infrastructure.
Speaker 2: Ok. Changing pace a little bit emojis. Are you a
Speaker 2: big fan slash user leading of emojis? I don't see
Speaker 2: you using them that much. No, not really. I'm not
Speaker 2: even a fan of the exclamation mark. So emojis that
Speaker 2: could be a bit aggressive, right? The exclamation. I just
Speaker 2: realized that so many of my messages come across
Speaker 2: as like, too serious and mean. So I have started
Speaker 2: using emojis. Yes, I'm all about them. I use them
Speaker 2: a bit too much. Even in professional emails I probably
Speaker 2: should stop. There are going to be some new ones
Speaker 2: coming up. Yay. Ok. That's not the full news because
Speaker 2: of course, there are so many emojis already, but from
Speaker 2: next year, there's going to be a new set released
Speaker 2: with at least one of them having the environment in mind.
Speaker 2: This might not sound positive, but this new emoji is
Speaker 2: a leafless tree and it's dry and it's suffering from drought.
Speaker 2: The idea is that having this little picture can help
Speaker 2: people communicate about the changing planet and drought is like
Speaker 2: a massive issue for many communities around the world. And
Speaker 2: it seems that environmental groups are pretty happy about this,
Speaker 2: like seemingly insignificant news. But as Catherine told us last week,
Speaker 2: the best way to combat climate change is to talk
Speaker 2: about it. So here's another way
Speaker 2: that we can do it. There are other interesting emojis
Speaker 2: not really related to the climate, but you'll soon be
Speaker 2: able to have a fingerprint, a shovel. It's like a
Speaker 2: purple splatter kind of thing. I don't know what that's
Speaker 2: for and a yellow face that's looking completely exhausted with
Speaker 2: bags under its eyes. So I reckon maybe that's one
Speaker 2: you could start to use or on group chat. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I know you're working hard. So I think you're working.
Speaker 2: Moving on. All right,
Speaker 2: I'll take your emojis. I'll see your emojis and raise
Speaker 2: you Royal British goats.
Speaker 2: Thanks to King Charles the third who in July bestowed
Speaker 2: a royal title to a rare gold haired goat breed
Speaker 2: that is seemingly at risk. And according to the associated press,
Speaker 2: the breed now has the special title of Royal Golden
Speaker 2: Guns Goat. And the title applies to the breed anywhere
Speaker 2: in the world. It recognizes their value to biodiversity, the
Speaker 2: environment
Speaker 2: and sustainable food production and their milk is apparently quite
Speaker 2: good chock a win for the goat royal milk. You'd
Speaker 2: be drinking. I don't think milk is royal, but the
Speaker 2: goat is, although I suppose the milk would be royal too,
Speaker 2: then wouldn't it? So hang on. Why is it a
Speaker 2: royal goat? Because King Charles the third likes it
Speaker 2: and I think they wanted to preserve it because it's
Speaker 2: a vulnerable breed. Yeah, we just need more species, maybe
Speaker 2: a knighted sheep or something. Money flowing to these goats.
Speaker 2: Uh Yeah. Yeah, it could be just symbolic. I don't know,
Speaker 2: but hey, it grabs attention, right? A goat, royal goat
Speaker 2: breed
Speaker 2: story four is about a I your favorite topic and
Speaker 2: we had an episode a few months back where we
Speaker 2: talked about how A I is helping in the environmental space.
Speaker 2: And I think they were really interesting examples in our region.
Speaker 2: And now Google is teaming up with Griffith University and
Speaker 2: they're gonna use A I technology to monitor humpback whale migrations.
Speaker 2: So normally my understanding of tracking whales is really time
Speaker 2: consuming and really logistically difficult. But now they're going to
Speaker 2: deploy these underwater microphones and they'll use Google A I
Speaker 2: to continuously detect whale sounds, track their location, classify species.
Speaker 2: And it should give the researchers a clearer picture about
Speaker 2: how whales are behaving and where they are moving. So
Speaker 2: yeah, and in the end, it might help us to
Speaker 2: conserve and protect the species. So A I once again
Speaker 2: stepping in and doing the tasks that we don't like
Speaker 2: or we're unable to in an efficient way. Absolutely. A
Speaker 2: good news story undeniably. Yes. Yes. Fantastic news. Always happy
Speaker 2: to hear good news about very scary A I OK.
Speaker 2: What do I have? I've got plastic eating microbes. Now,
Speaker 2: the French beauty brand
Speaker 2: Loxy than has an almond oil shower gel bottled in
Speaker 2: a plastic pe T flask made from plastic, recycled through
Speaker 2: the digestion of used bottles by microbial enzymes. So basically
Speaker 2: these microbes digest use plastics and then what they digest
Speaker 2: is then made in
Speaker 2: to new poly ethylene Terrel bottles. So it's a product
Speaker 2: by French Biotech company, Carbs in partnership with Loxy. And
Speaker 2: it's an example of what microbes can do to help
Speaker 2: the environment and address this massive waste problem that we
Speaker 2: are seeing around the world. Now, it's from the Nature
Speaker 2: Journal and it says that research is underway to see
Speaker 2: how they can
Speaker 2: be harnessed these microbes, how they can be harnessed to
Speaker 2: eat pollutants from what we call forever chemicals to cyanide,
Speaker 2: as well as petroleum. It's a proven signs and the
Speaker 2: market for this so called bio remediation is expected to
Speaker 2: grow by more than $8 billion by 2028 compared to
Speaker 2: last year. And part of the explanation is that bacteria,
Speaker 2: our microbes can mutate and evolve quickly to adapt to
Speaker 2: their environment and consume whatever carbon sources are available and
Speaker 2: that includes plastic. So new discovery, new research potential A I,
Speaker 2: are you afraid of? You know, I am I like
Speaker 2: the microbes, not such a fan of A I but
Speaker 2: I I recognize its value.
Speaker 2: Alright. Last story going to Italy. Now my partner and
Speaker 2: I were thinking about planning a trip recently to Sicily.
Speaker 2: It's been on my list for quite a few years.
Speaker 2: Have you been? No, I hear it's very dry now. Well, yeah,
Speaker 2: it is dry and that's one of the reasons why
Speaker 2: we decided actually against it.
Speaker 2: I'd read news about the extreme drought situation that was
Speaker 2: happening there over the past few months and I felt
Speaker 2: like tourism during times of resource shortages is a bit irresponsible.
Speaker 2: I don't know, I just felt like ah, maybe we
Speaker 2: shouldn't go there when
Speaker 2: people are struggling with having enough water and the farmers
Speaker 2: don't have enough water and you're adding to the strain
Speaker 2: of a community that's very thoughtful of you. It was
Speaker 2: at least a factor. It was at least a factor now,
Speaker 2: incredibly thoughtful of you. Jack. I've got my respect for you. Right.
Speaker 2: So now though, they have found a huge underground water reserve,
Speaker 2: 17 billion cubic meters of water. Now, that's a lot
Speaker 2: of water
Speaker 2: and it dates back millions of years. And basically, it's
Speaker 2: the equivalent of 6.8 million Olympic size swimming pools or
Speaker 2: the equivalent of giving every single person in the world
Speaker 2: a 2000 L tank of water. So
Speaker 2: it's an immense discovery actually, they think it was discovered
Speaker 2: about 20 years ago, but they've done some proper research
Speaker 2: on it. Now, it's pretty far underground. Obviously, lots of
Speaker 2: people want to utilize the water for drinking needs, for animals,
Speaker 2: for farming and Sicily has been suffering. So undoubtedly, of course,
Speaker 2: there will be some bureaucratic obstacles studies that need to
Speaker 2: be done. But yeah, it could be a little lifeline
Speaker 2: for the people there and
Speaker 2: maybe I will get to go on that holiday without
Speaker 2: the guilt of using up their precious resources. Ok. So
Speaker 2: we've got the last one and I think this is
Speaker 2: quite fitting. It's about climate therapy for those of us
Speaker 2: who have had enough of the doom and gloom and
Speaker 2: need a little bit of self care. There are resources
Speaker 2: that you can tap into
Speaker 2: so people with eco distress, so called eco distress can
Speaker 2: get group therapy. Now, it's called the Good Grief Network.
Speaker 2: And they started out from research at the University of Utah.
Speaker 2: They now offer group climate therapy sessions across
Speaker 2: the world. This is based from a report from insight,
Speaker 2: climate news.org. It said in early September that this is
Speaker 2: the brainchild of a psychiatrist who started up the therapy
Speaker 2: support network a decade ago to help front line climate
Speaker 2: workers overwhelmed by global warming. It involves a 10 step
Speaker 2: program for resilience and empowerment in a chaotic climate.
Speaker 2: And that begins with acceptance grieving over harm caused and
Speaker 2: investing in meaningful effort. Sounds a bit like alcoholic anonymous.
Speaker 2: If it's across the world, is it like an in
Speaker 2: person thing or online or I'm not sure. But I
Speaker 2: think they have like representation in different parts of the world.
Speaker 2: And
Speaker 2: I'm sure that they have online courses. I didn't really
Speaker 2: look into this, but I will because I'm quite interested
Speaker 2: in signing up. I think we get a lot of
Speaker 2: trauma from doing this podcast and having to sift through
Speaker 2: all the doom and gloom, right? Maybe not you. But yeah,
Speaker 2: let me know how it goes. It's pretty gloomy material.
Speaker 2: Ok. Anyway, we hope that those stories were a little
Speaker 2: bit uplifting in a way, at least showing some of
Speaker 2: the solutions that are out there. Not everything is about
Speaker 2: the end of the planet. All right. Shall we do
Speaker 2: the quiz now? Oh, you're excited for the quiz. Ok.
Speaker 2: I'll give you the question again. Rank these countries by
Speaker 2: respondents who are optimistic about the future, South Korea, China,
Speaker 2: Australia and Sweden. So I'm gonna go with Australia first
Speaker 2: because you're Australian and you're really quite optimistic. So I'm
Speaker 2: guessing it's kind of part of the national collective DNA.
Speaker 2: So Australia tops the list for me.
Speaker 2: Then I'm going to go with Sweden because Nordic countries
Speaker 2: keep topping the World Happiness Index. So I think it
Speaker 2: might translate into the optimism over climate change.
Speaker 2: Then I'm going to go to South Korea, but only
Speaker 2: because it's smaller than China, which has a massive surface area,
Speaker 2: vulnerable to multiple effects of climate change and with its
Speaker 2: population of over 1.4 billion people. So I imagine it's
Speaker 2: harder for the country as a whole to be very
Speaker 2: optimistic about climate change. How did I do? Interesting logic.
Speaker 2: You've got one out of four. I love that. You
Speaker 2: thought Australians are so optimistic. I think we generally are,
Speaker 2: but we're also hit by a bunch of hard stuff.
Speaker 2: So Australia comes in at 2nd, 55% of people are
Speaker 2: optimistic about the future still pretty low. But second on
Speaker 2: this list,
Speaker 2: South Korea, you got correct in third place. Only 36%
Speaker 2: of people are optimistic. There top is China, 71% are
Speaker 2: optimistic and the bottom was Sweden, 35%. Despite all they've
Speaker 2: got going on for them over there,
Speaker 2: they still have this negative view of the world. They're
Speaker 2: like constantly ranking top, you know, top five on in
Speaker 2: and they're so difficult to please. Jeez. So there you go.
Speaker 2: Not as good as last week, but good effort. That's ok.
Speaker 2: We all learn something new and that's what matters indeed.
Speaker 2: Alright. That's it for climate conversations. Thanks as always for
Speaker 2: joining us. We'll be back next week and until then,
Speaker 2: I'm Li Ling Tan Ari Dei and I'm Jack Boyd.
Speaker 2: Thanks as always to the team that put together this podcast,
Speaker 2: Tiffany Ang, Janani, Jahari, Kristina Robert and SA NC. Bye.