The roadmap to recovery with Dr. Paul Behrens

In this episode IDE members Dr. Callum Swift and Dr. Margaret Brennan chat to physicist, climate scientist and author Dr. Paul Behrens about the changes humanity need to make in order to meet the goal of limiting earths warming to 1.5 degrees. We discuss his remarkable book 'The Best of Times, the Worst of Times: Futures from the Frontiers of Climate Science', and Paul takes us through the five broad changes that he has laid out:

1. The continual enfranchisement of women globally; aspirations for higher standards of education and healthcare around the world as a priority, well managed migration in society, investment in people

2. A deep and sustained shift to electricity as the main energy carrier, generated by as much renewable energy as possible; sophisticated electricity grids with as much storage and transmission as possible

3. Three large changes in food systems: shifting diets, reducing waste, and improved food-production technologies. The ultimate aim would be to decrease the impacts and the amount of land needed while continuing to improve yields

4. The implementation of regulation and policy that we know will help to reduce emissions but can be politically difficult: frequent flyer levies, banning petrol vehicles in urban areas, large scale building retrofit schemes and afforestation

5. The replacement of GDP as a measure of societies success with something that contains a broader conception of value - to measure the importance of the environment and society as intrinsic values rather than converted into commodified monetary amounts. A universal basic income and universal basic services will be needed