The Land & Climate Podcast

In April, the International Maritime Organisation held the 83rd session of its Environment Protection Committee, where it established a system of penalties and rewards to advance shipping decarbonisation. This follows 2023 industry commitments to reduce emissions by 30% by 2030. 

Alasdair speaks with Simon Bullock about whether the recent agreement is strong enough to meet climate goals and explores practical actions that can be taken now without relying on greenwashing, expensive infrastructure, or scarce biofuels. 

Simon Bullock is an interdisciplinary climate change Research Associate at the Tyndall Centre, University of Manchester. He recently completed his doctorate, with his th...

Yesterday, the U.S. Congress approved President Donald Trump's so-called 'Big Beautiful Bill'. This controversial federal budget is set to defund a huge proportion of the nation's climate and environmental science - what will the impacts be for America, and for global efforts against the climate crisis?

Bertie spoke to John Holdren, who served as President Barack Obama's Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy from 2009-2017, becoming the longest-serving Science Advisor to the President in U.S. history. He is now a Research Professor of Environmental Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. 

In 2022, Gustavo Petro became the first left-wing candidate to win the Colombian presidential election. During his election campaign, Petro pledged to end the granting of new oil and gas exploration contracts, a commitment his government has so far succeeded in maintaining. 

This week, Alasdair speaks with third-year doctoral student Guy Edwards who has interviewed over 50 people - from former government ministers to academics and industry representatives - about the impact of Petro’s pledge on Colombia’s energy transition.  

Guy and Alasdair discuss what the pledge entails, how it was received by the fossil fuel indust...

Germany's 2025 federal election saw the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) double its support to 20.8%, becoming the second largest party, while the Green Party fell from 14.8% to 11.6%. The AfD denies climate science and opposes environmental policies on economic grounds. 

This week, Alasdair interviews academic Felix Schulz, whose recent research has examined public attitudes toward climate policy across six countries - three in the global north and three in the global south.  

The research found that core values – particularly those derived from neoliberalism and free-market ideology – are more effective than socioeconomic factors in indicating how people will re...

From widespread industrial pollution to emerging as a green powerhouse, China’s economic evolution shows how grassroots activism has pushed ecological issues to the political forefront.  

Tianjie and Bertie discuss China’s green evolution, Pan Yue’s introduction of environmental nationalism (now championed by Xi Jinping), flawed provincial reporting, and whether the country’s model can be sustained. 

Ma Tianjie is a freelance writer and environmental activist based in Beijing. He worked as Greenpeace’s Program Director for Mainland China until 2015, and then as Director of China Dialogue Beijing until 2022. His book, In Search of Green China...

A UK government agency recently announced it would spend £57 million on a controversial project to develop geoengineering technologies.   

The Exploring Climate Cooling Programme will fund 21 international research teams to conduct small-scale, controlled outdoor experiments to thicken Arctic sea ice and brighten clouds, to prevent global warming from increasing past irreversible tipping points. 

Geoengineering has long been a point of contention amongst scientists, environmental academics and conspiracy theorists - each firm in their beliefs about whether such interventions are necessary, effective, or risk irreversibly damaging the planet. 

Alasdair speaks with two academics studying geoengineering - Alb...

On 6th June 2023, the Nova Kakhovka dam was breached while under Russian occupation, releasing a wave of toxic pollution into Ukraine’s rivers. The number of casualties – both human and animal – may never be fully known. 

Ukraine is one of a small number of countries to include ecocide in its domestic criminal code, and the destruction of Kakhovka Dam is one of hundreds of incidents that prosecutors are studying while building environmental damages cases against Russia. On the global stage, Ukraine is leading efforts for the International Criminal Court to recognise ecocide as the fifth core international crime...

In 2022, the Swedish government granted an exploitation concession to Jokkmokk Iron Mines AB — a subsidiary of British company named Beowulf Mining — to develop an open-pit iron mine in Northern Sweden. The decision has been opposed by both Indigenous and environmental activists, who have expressed concerns about the mine’s impacts on Saami communities and the surrounding ecology.

Bertie speaks to Tor Tuorda about the long history of extraction and exploitation in the region, the erasure of Saami culture, and resistance from Indigenous and environmental activists. 

Tor Tuorda is a nature photographer and Indigenous campaigner based in Jokk...

Nearly half of the global agriculture market is controlled by four companies. This level of concentration - driven by decades of mergers and poor regulation - has allowed agribusiness “titans” to dominate the farming sector.  

Alasdair talks to Dr Jennifer Clapp, author of a new book about corporate domination of the farm sector and why it matters. Alasdair and Jennifer discuss how and why mass-merging has led to market distortions and high prices, and what solutions could improve the state of the sector.  

Dr. Jennifer Clapp is a Professor at the School of Environment, Resources and Su...

It is becoming common for the fossil fuel industry to sue governments that attempt to decarbonise over “lost future profits.” They do so via an obscure part of international law called international-state dispute settlements (ISDS) that can allow them to extract billions in public money. 

Alasdair speaks to Eunjung Lee, a senior policy advisor at think tank E3G. The two discuss how ISDS began, how the international treaties came to being predatory, and what measures countries should take to prevent the exploitation of the claims.  

Eunjung Lee is a senior policy advisor at think tank E...

With India kicking off 2025 with an historic space-docking experiment, and Elon Musk's growing power in the US government raising questions over the future of his spacecraft and satellite companies SpaceX and Starlink, we may be at the dawn of a new era for space exploration.

Unlike the 20th Century Space Race, however, it will likely be private companies that cross new mildstones - not public agencies. But who will regulate mining on the moon and tourism in space, and what are the environmental implications? 

Bertie talks about these issues with D. Raghunandan, Director of the D...

Alasdair speaks to journalist Margot Gibbs about her investigation into a US government-funded PR firm that profiled pesticide scientists. 

Last autumn, Lighthouse Reports - in collaboration with media partners across Europe - published an investigation into v-Fluence, a US-based PR firm that worked to discredit anti-pesticide scientists and campaigners.

Alasdair speaks to Margot Gibbs, a journalist who led the investigation, about its findings and what it reveals about the agro-chemicals lobby.

Margot Gibbs is an investigative reporter at Lighthouse Reports focusing on money trails and food systems reporting. Before joining Lighthouse she was a...

Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 shocked global energy markets, and changed the EU's long and short-term plans for decarbonisation. But how have three years of conflict changed Ukraine's own policies and plans around energy security and net zero? 

Bertie discusses this issue with Ukrainian economist Maksym Chepeliev, Research Assistant Professor at the Center for Global Trade Analysis, Purdue University, USA. 

Read Professor Chepeliev's research: 

In a recently published report, “Criminalisation and Repression of Climate and Environmental Protests”,  Dr. Oscar Berglund and his colleagues identified four key mechanisms through which climate and environmental protests are repressed: the introduction of new anti-protest laws, the broadening use of existing legislation, excessive policing and killings and disappearances of activists. 

Alasdair and Oscar discuss the findings of the report and the ways in which the clampdown on climate protest represents a threat to both democracy and net zero targets. 

Oscar Berglund is Senior Lecturer in International Public and Social Policy in the School for Policy...

“The capitalist system is necessarily built on creating ecological crises.”

Bertie speaks to Ståle Holgersen about his new book Against the Crisis: Economy and Ecology in a Burning World, in which he argues that, contrary to popular economic thought, economic crises are not triggered by ecological ones but instead the capitalist economy benefits from ecological crises. 

Bertie and Ståle discuss the ways in which crises are defined, the drawbacks to arguments for degrowth and the potential solutions to the climate emergency. 

Ståle Holgersen is a Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at Stockh...

One month ago, Prabowo Subianto was inaugurated as the new president of Indonesia. An investigation by The Gecko Project has revealed that Subianto has invested in or owned companies involved with rainforest logging, coal mining, palm oil production, and industrial fishing - but many of the companies appear to be inactive.

Do these investments representing potentially concerning conflicts of interest, or are they par for the course? Are his own claims of enormous wealth accurate or exaggerated?

Alasdair speaks to the author of the Gecko Project research, Margareth Aritonang, who is also the Pulitzer Center's 2024...

This year, Land and Climate Review’s first investigative series has documented more than 11,000 breaches of environmental law at North American wood pellet mills. 

Alasdair MacEwen speaks to Camille Corcoran, whose recent reporting was published with The Times in the UK, and Bertie Harrison-Broninski, who normally co-hosts with Alasdair, but here discusses Land and Climate Review’s Canadian investigations, which were featured on BBC Newsnight. 

They discuss the process of uncovering environmental violations at wood pellet mills owned by Drax Group, which operates the UK’s largest power station, and how residents in Mississippi and British...

As the UN Biodiversity Conference draws to a close Bertie speaks to María Arango, a lawyer at the international human rights organization Forest People’s Programme, about the impacts of the sugar cane industry on Black communities in the Cauca River Valley region of western Colombia. 

A new report titled The Green Illusion finds that more than 80% of the region’s wetlands have been drained in order to plant sugar cane, resulting in Afro-descendant peoples being displaced from their ancestral lands and stripped of vital resources.

Bertie and María discuss the report’s findings...

“In 2022, Indonesia only consumed about 70,000 tonnes of wood for electricity. In 2023, we consumed almost half a million.”

Alasdair speaks to Timer Manurung, Chairman of the Indonesian NGO Auriga Nusantara, about a new report he worked on with five other environmental charities.

Titled Unheeded Warnings, the report warns that the Indonesian government’s plans for biomass power risk harming 10 million hectares of untouched primary forest, and "the deforestation of an area roughly 35 times the size of Jakarta — resulting in CO2 emissions almost five hundred times higher than current levels.”

Alasdair and Timer discuss the investigat...

Bertie speaks to Sherri Goodman about her new book, Threat Multiplier:
Climate, Military Leadership, and the Fight for Global Security.

From 1993-2001, Sherri Goodman served as the first US Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Environmental Security, making her the Pentagon's Chief Environmental Officer. She then went on to help deliver influential reports that helped to establish climate change as a national security threat in the US. 

Threat Multiplier documents key environmental and climatic challenges during her career, such as negotiations around the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, and managing geopolitical risk in the Arctic as melting p...

Last week, Greenpeace Africa published their new report “Fast Fashion, Slow Poison: The Toxic Textile Crisis in Ghana”. The report outlines the shocking environmental and public health impact of the second-hand clothing industry in Ghana - revealing that every week, up to half a million items of clothing from the Kantamanto Market in Accra end up discarded in open spaces and informal dumpsites.

Bertie speaks to the report's author, Sam Quashie-Idun, about his findings, who is responsible for the harmful textile imports and what can be done to alleviate the problem.

 Sam Quashie-Idun is Head of In...

In 2015, 196 countries signed the Paris Agreement, a legally binding treaty with the goal of limiting global heating to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

Since then, climate planning has increasingly revolved around overshooting this target, with the hope that temperature levels can be brought back down in later decades. Temperature overshoot models are now the default, but also a cause of scientific concern, as the devastating impacts of crossing this threshold may not be reversible. 

In their new book Overshoot: How the World Surrendered to Climate Breakdown, Andreas Malm and Wim Carton study this risky approach to poli...

Many governments are wary of providing transparency around their militaries' emissions, and campaigners can be hesitant to focus on the carbon footprint of conflicts, rather than more obviously humanitarian issues.

But Ukraine has helped to shift opinion this year, after pushing for more accountability for wartime environmental harm. Recent estimates put the CO2e cost of Russia's invasion of Ukraine at 175 million tonnes, and day to day military operations - not including conflicts - at a staggering 5.5% of global emissions.

Bertie spoke to Lindsey Cottrell, Environmental Policy Officer at the Conflict and Environment Observatory, about...

Alasdair speaks to Jonas Algers about steel decarbonisation; what the options are, where there are challenges, and what is happening so far. 

Jonas Algers is a PhD candidate at Lund University, Sweden, researching steel decarbonisation policy. 

Further reading: 

C...

Bertie speaks to fashion expert and journalist Alden Wicker about her book To Dye For: How Toxic Fashion Is Making Us Sick - and How We Can Fight Back.

Drawing from case studies in Alden's book, they discuss the health risks with chemicals modern clothing is often treated with, and whether there has been enough research and regulation on the issue.

Further reading: 

Alasdair speaks to former politician and French investigating magistrate Eva Joly about corporate corruption, tax evasion, and how these issues relate to the climate crisis.

They reflect on her investigation into financial corruption at the French oil giant Elf Aquitaine, and her current campaign work with the International Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT).

Further reading: 

Ed speaks to Brett Christophers about his new book The Price is Wrong: Why Capitalism Won’t Save the Planet.

Brett Christophers is a professor of human geography at Uppsala University’s Institute for Housing and Urban Research and the author of four books on economic geography and political economy.

Brett and Ed discuss the commodification of electricity, the role of the state in renewable energy projects and why markets can’t be relied on to decarbonise the energy sector.

The Price is Wrong  was published in February and is available to buy from Ve...

Few countries have specific targets about converting to organic farming, and when they have, it's often failed - Sri Lanka dropped its national organic policy within months in 2021, and only three weeks ago, France scrapped its relatively conservative ambition for 15% of farmland.

Bhutan may be small, but on this issue it's a global outlier. Motivated by its policy to measure development in Gross National Happiness rather than GDP, the South Asian nation has been slowly working towards becoming 100% organic since 2012 - and now has a target date of 2035.

Bertie spoke to Dr Sonam Tashi, an...

Alasdair speaks to Peter Wohlleben about his new book How Trees Can Save the World.

Peter Wohlleben is a forester and author who has written over 30 books on ecology and forest management.

Peter and Alasdair discuss the problems with plantation forests, the power of trees to influence their local ecosystems and what modern forestry gets wrong.

How Trees Can Save the World was published in March and is available to buy from Harper Collins here.

Audio engineering by Vasko Kostovski.

Further reading:  

Alasdair speaks to Faustine Bas-Defossez about the relationship between sustainable farming policy and the European farmers' protests.

Faustine Bas-Defossez is Director for Nature, Health and Environment at the European Environmental Bureau, a Europe-wide network of environmental citizens' organisations.

Alasdair and Faustine discuss the Nature Restoration Law, reforms to the Common Agricultural Policy and what the upcoming European elections might mean for the future of EU agriculture.

Audio engineering by Vasko Kostovski.

Further reading: 

Alasdair speaks to environmental attorney Peter Lehner about US agriculture's contribution to global emissions.

Peter Lehner is the managing attorney of Earthjustice's Sustainable Food and Farming Programme and former executive director of the National Resources Defence Council.

Alasdair and Peter discuss the future of the US farm bill, the adverse climate effects of crop insurance and the influence agrochemical lobbies have on agriculture across America. 

Audio engineering by Vasko Kostovski.

Further reading:

Peter’s recent articles for the American College of Environmental Law...