UK Gov funding Geoengineering: Between grinding rocks and a very hard place - Interview with Dr Shaun Fitzgerald

Intro with clips - Prof. Jason Box (Geological Survey of Denmark & Greenland), Prof. Kevin Anderson (Tyndall Centre for Climate Research), Prof. Heidi Sevestre (AMAP, Arctic Council), Joshua Aponsem (Green Africa Youth Organization, Ghana), Anni Pokela (Operatatio Arktis, Finland) Lord Rowan Williams (Fmr. Archbishop of Canterbury).

I started recording interviews on geoengineering over ten years ago and the thought back then that in the mid 2020’s nothing would have been achieved in global emissions reduction, would have been too depressing to contemplate. Yet here we are.

The Paris Agreement was meant to steer the world towards a cleaner brighter future but it has been ignored. Emissions from forest fires and melting permafrost are way beyond their thresholds and extreme weather impacts are testing infrastructure and ecosystems all over the planet. 

Climate activists are even being locked up with cruel prison sentences for trying to act for the collective good. I discuss this in my next episode with XR cofounder, Gail Bradbrook.

The UN Climate summit, COP29 will be held in one of the most significant cradles of the fossil fuel industry - Baku in Azerbaijan. There is no expressed intention to reduce emissions but instead the the COP29 President-Designate Mukhtar Babayev has a (quote) a ’vision to enhance ambition and enable action.’ - whilst the widespread extraction of fossil fuels continues unabated.

With all this in mind, the conversation of engineering interventions to try and delay the most destructive impacts of extreme climate, is moving along. It is controversial and divisive and yet voices from across the world, including in the Global South are saying that we need to take the research seriously. 

In this interview with Dr Shaun Fitzgerald, Director of the Centre for Climate Repair at the University of Cambridge, we discuss the controversy and the viability of schemes. The news broke during our recording that the UK government agency, ARIA, have put out a call for proposals, offering £56.8m in grant funding for geoengineering projects. The largest government funding of it’s kind.

The failure of the global negotiations is discussed in my book COPOUT - How governments have failed the people on climate that is available worldwide in paperback and audiobook format. Sadly, the failure of the 3 decades of global climate summits means we are getting much deeper into the era of consequences. Central Europe is experiencing deathly storms and flooding while the smoke from Portugal’s forest fires are spreading a toxic blanket over Spain and beyond. From the Amazon to Asia, ecosystems and infrastructure are being pummelled by natures response to carbon pollution. Next week I will be recording a 3 way interview with Dr Paul Davies from the UK Met Office and Dr Hayley Fowler from Newcastle University about their recent research paper titled 'A new conceptual model for understanding and predicting life-threatening rainfall extremes’ - which is both important and fascinating.

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