31: Was COP26 a success or failure? With Prof David Reay

Prof David Reay, director of the Edinburgh Climate Change Institute, gives his verdict on COP26. The commitment to 1.5 degrees of warming is, he says, 'on life support'. David also talks about plans for his climate-friendly farm on the beautiful Mull of Kintyre. Tweet us @LocalZeroPod or email localzeropod@gmail.com

Episode Transcript:

[Music flourish]

Matt:  Hello and welcome to Local Zero. I’m Matt and I’m joined by Becky and Fraser. How are you doing, guys?

Rebecca:  Good thanks, Matt. Excited for today’s episode.

Matt:  Absolutely, yeah. Fraser, how are you getting on?

Fraser:  I’m good. I’m almost... almost human again after COP.

Matt:  Almost.

Fraser:  Finally decompressed...

Matt:  Good.

Fraser:  ...and finally feeling ready to go after getting out from under the mountain of emails.

Matt:  Yeah, you look refreshed. Yes, your colour is back [laughter] in your cheeks.

Rebecca:  Yeah, the colour has come back in your face [laughter].

Fraser:  I’m not crying. I’ve finally stopped crying [laughter].

Matt:  No, out of the bedroom. That’s good. Well, I’m glad to hear it and, in fact, I think we’re kind of picking up on the COP26 theme a little bit and maybe getting a bit of closure to events. We’ve got Professor Dave Reay with us today to talk a bit more about COP. Some of you may remember Dave from our very first episode. Dave is a professor of Carbon Management and Education at Edinburgh University. He’s also the director of the Edinburgh Climate Change Institute and also – a long list – Policy Director at Climate Exchange.

Dave:  These solutions are not a silver bullet. Okay, if we scale this up to everyone, how many planets would we need? I think we’d need about ten; so making that kind of reality check in terms of what the science is behind this kind of nature-based solution approach but also its limitations and the context it’s working in.

[Music flourish]

Matt:  Dave really knows what he’s talking about and has been very close to COP26.

Rebecca:  Yeah, absolutely. I bumped into him there and it was absolutely brilliant to see him [laughter] and have a quick chat with somebody who really knew what was going on. A really special episode to have Dave back. We started Local Zero with a year to go to COP and Dave’s insights about what that coming year was going to leave us with having to do to prepare and so it seems so fitting to have him back after COP.

Matt:  Absolutely, yeah. We’re really looking forward today for him to kind of translate what the outcomes of COP26 have been for you and me and bring it right down to the personal and local level. Of course, it has been a full year since we did this last. We are now, Fraser, 28 episodes in. This is the 28th?

Fraser:  This is episode 28 and not including our COP diaries. So actually, technically, we’re well over 30 episodes now.

Matt:  We hear from our trusted producers that we’ve had 20,000 listens...

Fraser:  Wow!

Rebecca:  Whoo!

Matt:  ...which is fantastic. So thank you to all of you who have been listening over the past year. It’s been an absolute whirlwind. We’re back and, Fraser, I think you’re even back with Future or Fiction? later.

Fraser:  I am. The thing that everyone has been waiting for. I’m sure our listens are going to go up again [laughter] now that people know that Future or Fiction? is back.

Matt:  Stay tuned, yeah, [laughter] or just skip frantically forward to the end bit.

Rebecca:  Yeah, I do [laughter].

[Music flourish]

So before we get into our chat with Dave, just a reminder that if you want to follow our conversation on social media or reach out to us for suggestions for future episodes, find us on Twitter and follow us there. We are @LocalZeroPod and if you’ve got some longer thoughts you want to share (because I certainly can’t fit it all into a tweet), feel free to email us. We are LocalZeroPod@gmail.com... but for now, let’s get into the interview.

Dave:  I’m Dave Reay. I work at the University of Edinburgh and I direct the Edinburgh Climate Change Institute.

[Music flourish]

Matt:  Welcome back. It will have been some time since we last had you on. In fact, you were our very first guest, so it’s an extra special welcome back. Since we saw you, a little event happened a couple of weeks back which I think we were both at and which was COP26. I think we must begin there and just ask you how was COP. Did you have a good one? What were your highlights and your lowlights?

Dave:  I had a good COP. I mean it was exhilarating every day just in terms of the people from all over the world all focused on climate action. It’s like a dream come true, I guess, for a climate geek like me but it was exhausting as well. Certainly, given it’s two weeks, by the second week, I was flagging and by the final weekend when they were still working on the final wording for the Glasgow Climate Pact, I think everyone was really tired. The poor negotiators... hopefully, they all get a bit of a holiday after COP. Yeah, a really good experience. I was really glad to be there. I think Glasgow nailed it as a host city and I’m really proud that Scotland did such a good job more generally. I guess the big kicker to COP26 for me, just aside from the outcomes – some of them were good and some of them less impressive – is just what happens next. As ever with a COP, you have that intense two weeks with lots of announcements but, as we know, carbon is still being emitted and CO2 concentrations are still going up into the atmosphere. Time is running out, definitely, on the Paris climate goals. Certainly, as academics, we can’t rest on our laurels and say, ‘Okay, we’ve done that. We’ll do COP again next year.’ Certainly, for heads of states, cities, local government and for everyone, we’re still in this decade of action and so every day that ticks by before the next COP needs to lead to more action.

Rebecca:  You said it’s been a bit of a rollercoaster. I definitely couldn’t echo that feeling more. One minute, you’re right at the top and things are going great [laughter] and the next, you just feel like you want to crawl under the covers. Just reflecting back on some of those highs and some of those lows, what for you came out as a key success over the two weeks, particularly thinking about the Glasgow Climate Pact?

Dave:  Yeah, the biggest success for me was around the Paris rulebook. That has a context which goes back, obviously, to the Paris Agreement in terms of how all of the commitments at a national level, which add up to global action on climate change, actually work, how robust they are, how transparent the reporting is, what timescales and how things like carbon trading should work. All of those things were long-running areas of contention. At the last COP in Madrid, an agreement wasn’t reached, particularly on Article 6 which covers carbon trading. We got agreement on that rulebook at Glasgow and, in general, it was pretty robust. It addressed some of the big worries. So, for me, that was probably the biggest success. It was one of those outcomes, I guess, the media didn’t cover much because it’s so wrapped up in UN speak and it’s quite geeky but actually, for me, it was crucial. If we had loads of great commitments, and we’ll probably come on to this... we didn’t get anywhere near enough in terms of national commitments to reduce emissions and to adapt to climate change in line with the Paris Climate Agreement but actually, even if we had had those, if the rulebook hadn’t been agreed or if it had been full of loopholes, then that would have undermined the whole thing. So actually, that rulebook for me was a real success.

Matt:  So it’s about the integrity of those commitments; so how you can deliver on net zero. You can have a very ambitious Nationally Determined Contribution but unless the rulebook backs that up and that action is clear and agreed upon amongst different parties, one set of commitments may not actually mirror or be comparable to another.

Dave:  Yeah, I mean there are lots of elements to the rulebook. One of them is transparency just in terms of what you’re saying you’re doing because the way the Paris Agreement works is there isn’t a big UN stick to beat people with for failing. It’s down to their domestic politics. We have the Climate Change Act here in the UK which is, essentially, our stick for keeping government on track but one of the key things for those commitments that nations make is that transparency. How are they reporting progress? Are they hiding bad practices? Are they just lacking any capacity to actually report? A key one was that the transparency of action on climate change was agreed upon as part of the rulebook. The other one was there were big loopholes around carbon trading and carbon markets in the original text or interpretations that you could make which could, in theory, have been used to say, ‘Yeah, we’re doing really well in terms of sequestering carbon or keeping carbon locked up in our forests in this particular country but we’re also selling all of the climate benefits of that to another country or a business overseas,’ so they can count it as well. Obviously, all the atmosphere sees is one bit of progress rather than doubling it; so that double-counting issue. There are still some double-counting risks within the rulebook but the really big gaping holes in those were closed and that was crucial.

Rebecca:  I want to come back to what we were just saying about these Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs which, as we were saying, sit alongside the rulebook. You said you didn’t think that we’d gone far enough and that we’ve not been ambitious enough. Is this something that you’re seeing as perhaps an area of failure? Ultimately, do you think that we are or can get on track to keep that 1.50C alive which has been the slogan of the conference?

Dave:  It has been, hasn’t it? I mean it was a failure. I’m an overoptimist always with COPs in terms of what they’ll deliver but this had the strongest evidence base to it and it felt like the most listened to in terms of the scientific community and the IPCC. Obviously the Sixth Assessment Report and the Working Group I report came out before COP26. We’ve had, I guess, a really strong voice of academia in terms of what’s required and that wasn’t translated into those national commitments. Nationally Determined Contributions run to 2030 and they’re crucial. A lot of nations have come through with longer-term net-zero targets for the middle of the century or beyond and they’re good to see but even if all of those, and that’s a big if, are delivered on, 1.50C still dies. For me, not just as an optimist but as someone who loves the fact that science is being listened to across all walks of life, not just in terms of the climate crisis, that was a disappointment that even with that kind of overt message from us, as a community, the commitments and the political will didn’t match the science. Is 1.50C still alive? Again, going back to the science and the physics, possibly. It’s been called on life support and if we look at, like I say, all those commitments and the uncertainty around climate sensitivity and how much warming you get for a certain amount of emissions, then we could still limit temperatures to 1.50C during this century but probably with a line or a trajectory where we go over that during this century and then we come back down to 1.50C by the end of the century which you would definitely call a failure if you’re being hit by the impacts of that. So yeah, you can not bend the science but you can interpret the science and our uncertainty in terms of things like climate sensitivity to say 1.50C is still alive but, wow, is it on life support, yeah.

Rebecca:  Just for people that might not be completely on top of the science, why is that 1.50C so important?

Dave:  1.50C has got many dimensions to it. As you go over 1.50C, you get increased climate impacts and increased climate risks. We get that with every fraction of a degree increase in global temperature. One of the key things we’ve got with 1.50C and 20C, which are the key numbers in the Paris Agreement, is that the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and climate scientists around the world have specifically looked at those two numbers. They’ve looked at what additional negative impacts you get as you go between 1.50C and 20C and they are massive, not just for humans with millions of livelihoods affected negatively but also for ecosystems. We know, as we push towards that 20C and certainly above it, that we also have negative impacts on ecosystems which, at the moment, are helping us limit climate change by storing carbon up and sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. The more we push beyond those, the more we start to lose control and actually, we get into a situation of these feedback mechanisms kicking in with things like forest dieback.

Matt:  Forests and peatlands and the like.

Dave:  Yeah, so that 1.50C is partly a success story because within the Paris Agreement, if you read the text of that if you’re feeling like you need some sleep... if you get to that bit, you’ll see that was an ambition. So 20C was really the target and then the ambition to actually limit warming to 1.50C. The narrative has changed completely around that because the impacts we’re already seeing at 1.10C and 1.20C are very big and very negative. At 1.50C, they get significantly more and so 1.50C is not a safe climate limit but it limits a lot of the extra damage that we would see if we let temperatures rise up to 20C or above.

Matt:  So, Dave, where does that leave us in terms of the next steps through this COP process? Some listeners will be aware and some won’t. COP26 has just been because there were 25 COPs prior to this... actually, 27 years I think because we missed a year but next year, it goes to Egypt for COP27. With that, as I understand it, these countries are going to have to come back with their Nationally Determined Contributions.

Dave:  Maybe.

Matt:  Maybe. So could you fill us in on what the process is going forward now?

Dave:  The Glasgow Climate Pact I think was a really useful document. It’s reasonably long as far as these things go and part of what it does is it requests all nations to come up with renewed commitments for climate action. Like you say, the Egypt COP will be next November, so in the next 12 months, and that’s recognition that we’re not on track for 1.50C and that we can’t wait another five years. Basically, there’s a mechanism in the Paris Agreement to say that every five years, nations will increase their ambition; a ratchet mechanism to move us towards the Paris climate goals. Obviously, like we were talking about on a scientific basis, we haven’t got five years just to wait. Actually, we need to ratchet up that ambition more quickly, so doing it in the next 12 months but that is not something which is going to happen in all countries. So there is the request there and the expectation that all nations will update their contributions and their commitments. A lot of countries won’t. We had about 40 who didn’t for Glasgow and they were supposed to. A lot of countries who did will say, ‘Well, we’ve just done ours and we haven’t got the capacity to do it again. We can’t get things through domestically over that time period.’ So it’s important to have it as a signal to say, ‘Look, five years is too long to wait before we do this again,’ but in reality, expecting all 197 parties at the climate change convention to bring in new Nationally Determined Contributions for the Egypt COP, even as an overoptimist, that’s not going to happen.

Matt:  So does that leave us in a potential bind where if we’re going to keep 1.50C alive and many of these countries aren’t necessarily going to come back to the table with improved Nationally Determined Contributions, i.e. improved ambition, then doesn’t that shortfall between 1.50C and the currently stated ambition just persist...

Dave:  Possibly.

Matt:  ...beyond the next COP process?

Dave:  Yeah, so it’s not so much the numbers as who updates their NDCs and what that further ambition is. One of the surprising things at COP was the clear dialogue that was going on between the US and China, as the two biggest emitters and huge economic powers as well. Actually, we’ll see what happens in terms of their NDCs. The US and China could make a huge difference if they up their ambition but also what we saw at COP were quite a few multilateral declarations and initiatives which will, if they’re carried through, cut emissions very significantly and limit warming. They’re things like cutting methane and stopping deforestation. Those kinds of things would be not, strictly speaking, within NDCs because they’re multilateral and they might be represented in some of the NDCs but they give you an additive effect. In terms of that keeping 1.50C alive, if we’ve got a chance of it, in reality, it’s going to be the big emitters increasing their commitments. It’s going to be these multilateral processes giving us more emissions outside of, essentially, the UNFCCC process. It’s going to be that happening not just for Egypt and then we wait another five years but actually, this is going to have to be part of the cycle every year and asking, ‘What is the science telling us?’ We know, next year, we’ll get the rest of the Sixth Assessment Report. We’ll get the mitigation, the impacts and adaptation reports. They are going to give stark messages again and hopefully, a big impetus to say, ‘Look, we are well short here but we know what we need to do to give us a chance of limiting to 1.50C.’ The onus then will come on to, as it has to, the richest countries and the countries with the most ability to act and the biggest emitters. Finance will play into that obviously in terms of making sure that action is commensurate with what’s needed.

Rebecca:  Absolutely and while we’re picking on countries, let’s talk about the UK [laughter]. How have we done in terms of our own contribution and commitments? Do you think that we need to be more ambitious but more to the point, what’s that actually going to mean now, assuming that we see follow-through?

Dave:  In one way, you can say we’ve got ambitious targets in the UK and Scotland and you can say they’re aligned with Paris climate goals. You can argue against that by saying that, for one, they’re based on domestic emissions and a significant amount of our emissions are outside of our shores through imports and export of industry over the last few decades. My main two criticisms of the UK effort are if you look at the fair share... so if you look at our historical responsibility for emissions and you also look at our capability to act, actually, our targets aren’t Paris compliant on that basis. To make up that gap, we need to finance a huge amount of climate action overseas and we’re not seeing that from the UK in terms of its financial commitments. The other criticism I would say is that our domestic targets, yes, they’re ambitious compared to other nations but actually, the actions we’re taking to meet those are nowhere near what’s required. I think the Climate Change Committee’s estimate is that we’re 25% in terms of the actions which are being taken compared to what’s needed to deliver our net-zero target but also the five-year carbon budgets. We’re talking a reasonable talk but not really walking the walk I’d say for the UK.

Matt:  So I just wondered, Dave, on that front, will the legacy of COP26 change much do you think from the UK perspective? We’ve seen the UK Government position itself, rightly or wrongly, as the leader of this COP26 process. Obviously, there was the presidency and Alok Sharma. There was quite a lot of political capital intertwined with the success of COP which is natural but looking forward to delivering on the Glasgow Pact, do you see the UK Government and devolved administrations stepping up to lead the way in terms of ensuring that action meets the ambition or do you see business-as-usual continuing?

Dave:  I wish I had a crystal ball. The devolved administrations are really interesting because we saw Scotland stepping up on some issues like loss and damage which are going to be hugely important for the African COP in Egypt and going forward. Scotland, I think, was the first nation to actually commit money, albeit a drop in the ocean, in terms of dealing with climate change which is already happening and which is going to happen even with adaptation, so negative impacts. Part of our fair share is making sure those financial flows do flow to where they’re needed and that’s where there’s a question over the UK presidency over these next 11 months. There was a failure for the $100 billion a year for climate finance and that was a failure of all rich nations but definitely a failure of the presidency to make that happen. There is a kind of a fudge equation in terms of saying, ‘We’ll go above that by 2023 and so, on average, it will be $100 billion.’ For me, what the UK Government absolutely needs to do in the run-up to COP27 is say, ‘We have delivered that $100 billion a year in terms of climate finance,’ and that they actually are looking at the way the UK finances climate action overseas being in the context of what is a fair share. Is it just double-counting stuff which is international aid? Are they loans rather than grants which actually hinder that development overseas? There’s a big question, I think, about the role of the UK Government in showing leadership there. Leadership isn’t just about those targets, particularly some of the targets which this government won’t be... the personalities won’t be part of the government when they’re due those targets but it is about that international leadership. For me, that is getting that finance flowing back to Copenhagen and that commitment of $100 billion but going beyond that and addressing loss and damage and getting to that fair share in terms of reaching the Paris climate goals. 

Fraser:  You mentioned the $100 billion, Dave, and obviously, we know we can be doing more in the UK in general. Do you think there is maybe an issue here of accountability on these promises and on the commitments that we’re trying to make and is there any way to improve that formally to make sure that we’re sticking to what we need to do but also trying to prompt other countries to do what they need to do as well?

Dave:  Yeah, the strength and the weakness of the Paris Agreement is it’s only as strong as the nations and how they’re held accountable domestically. The Climate Change Act is useful but we’ve seen, over the past year, things on finance like the cuts to ODA (Official Development Assistance) budgets and the double-counting of funding as well that’s being used under the banner of climate finance. That needs to be called out. Part of that is a role for us, I guess, as academia and for independent bodies like the Climate Change Committee. It’s a real role for parliament, actually, and for cross-party committees to question this and challenge the government because it is going to be something where... yes, public finances are really tight. We’re in a pandemic and all nations are. So it must be hugely tempting for the Treasury to try and get away with doing the minimal on climate action, particularly international climate action, because there are so many other interests you want to meet. There’s the political context of trying to stay popular as a government but the reality is that if they listen to, hopefully, their advisors and if they listen to certainly the scientists but also just take a long view about this country, which I imagine they really care about its future, then the best investment they can make is to make real climate finance contributions for international action. That 1.50C we’re talking about will affect the UK somewhat directly in terms of the impacts but massively indirectly through migration pressures, political instability, commodity prices and all these things that the Treasury really cares about and the government really cares about. Taking that long view is something that I know is difficult in a four or five-year parliamentary period to do but they’ve got to do that. That’s still a gap in my view, inevitably, for most governments around the world. I’m not a spokesperson for the Scottish Government by any means but, for me, in terms of developed-world governments, it’s a government that gets it more than most in terms of that long view, the just transition view of that, not making the mistakes of the past and, like I say, our role internationally and not just domestically in tackling climate change.

Rebecca:  Golly, like the conversation so far just highlights how many different facets there are to what went on at COP [laughter]. No wonder the negotiations went right through to that final weekend. I feel like we could probably talk for hours about all of this but this is Local Zero, so I just want to take some of this and bring it back to what this actually means in the UK and in Scotland. You said that the UK is only delivering about 25% of what we actually need to be doing but let’s assume that that ramps up and we do start delivering action. First of all, is that likely but secondly, and more importantly for me, what’s that actually going to mean? What’s that going to mean for our cities, businesses, communities and households? How is that going to translate into day-to-day life?

Dave:  I do believe it will happen and that ramp-up will happen just because of the scrutiny our government has and because of the legal basis for our carbon budgets. Folk at the Climate Change Committee are being pretty hard-nosed about what needs to be done as well as parliament itself. I think what that means for all of us is that it’s a lot of stuff which is not going to be a surprise because we’ve had it announced what needs to happen in terms of transport; so much more mass transit systems, electrification of our transport system and for our homes, retrofitting is huge. That’s something that probably all of us are going to experience during this decade because we have to. If we’ve got a home at the moment and we’ve got, essentially, a fossil-fuel-powered heating system (gas), that’s going to have to change. It might be that the actual boiler doesn’t look that much different, depending on whether it’s a heat pump or it’s a hydrogen boiler but there will be some disruption for us. For those people who can afford it, there will be a cost because there’s a saving for these things in terms of their running costs, a bit like electric cars in many cases, but for it to be progressive rather than regressive, it needs to take into account the economic status of individuals and communities, so that whole levelling-up agenda. One of my biggest frustrations is that if we do net zero as a nation and we do it in a really well-thought-out way in terms of the current inequalities across our society and spatially in different regions, we can address some of the really deep-rooted problems in our nation; so that just transition concept. Hopefully, we will see that but I think for our everyday lives, it will be a lot more around, like I say, how we heat our homes and how we travel about. I think in terms of what we see day-to-day, we’re already at a really high level of awareness of climate change. There was a survey out today indicating it was people’s priority in terms of action within the UK off the back of COP26. I suppose that’s all pushed up awareness but then it comes to our working lives, our schools, what our kids are learning and what we’re doing in our jobs. How are we using energy in our offices? How are we travelling to work? How are our jobs actually contributing to the net-zero transition? So outside of the disruption of someone changing your boiler, actually, it’s that mainstreaming. It is about climate change being a bit like Covid has been in the last 18 months or more but in a much more positive future-proofing way with climate change being mainstreamed into everything we do, from what we buy in the shops through to where we go on holiday. That must be where we get to.

Matt:  So, Dave, on that and maybe to finish on this, I read a fantastic article in The Guardian earlier this month which covered some of the work that you’re doing outside of the day job or, at least, a cross-over. Given this is Local Zero and we’re talking about personal and local action to tackle the global issue of climate change, I wondered whether you could tell us about some of the fantastic things that you’re personally doing in Scotland on your own land. Obviously, landscape change and transformation are key parts of how we store and manage carbon. The listeners, no doubt, will be interested to hear what you’re doing and how you’ve found it really.

Dave:  I’m mainly have a lot of fun, Matt, because I love...

Matt:  [Laughter] It did look a lot of fun, I have to say.

Dave:  Yeah, I love the outdoors generally but our farm is on the West Coast of Scotland, so it’s beautiful. I’m a bit of a soil and carbon geek and it’s got a lot of soil. Sometimes, that’s mainly mud actually at this time of the year given the rain we’ve had but it’s about just understanding it. I’ve done a lot of measuring of how much carbon is in the soil and that’s been really interesting just to understand, from one field to another, why one has higher carbon than the other and baseline all of that. We’re planting trees not on all of it because some bits we want to keep as meadows and enhance the biodiversity there but generally, I guess I want to manage the farm to try and sequester more carbon but do that, and again going back to my carbon geek roots, in a way that’s quantified. They’re all native tree species but how do certain tree species change the soil carbon? How fast do they grow in those Atlantic storms? What happens in terms of biodiversity? I’m loving it because it’s getting muddy and seeing stuff grow. Going over and seeing the trees grow is so exciting.

Matt:  Dave, this was formally a sheep farm...

Dave:  It was, yeah.

Matt:  ...or is still a sheep farm and it’s 30 hectares on the coast there.

Dave:  Exactly, yeah. We’ve taken sheep off a third of it already and so that’s where we’re doing a lot of tree planting and intensively looking at what’s happening in terms of the soil carbon. My plan, and that’s now going to be realised (fingers crossed in terms of Covid), is to take our students over there. I’ve got an ulterior motive which is for them to help plant trees...

Matt:  Of course, yeah [laughter].

Dave:  ...but more importantly, to discuss what we’re doing over there on a really small scale in terms of sequestering more carbon and enhancing biodiversity but to talk about the role of these nature-based solutions in the context of the livelihoods of the sheep farmers and the community and also how these solutions are not a silver bullet. If we scaled this up to everyone, how many planets would we need? I think we’d need about ten. It’s about making that reality check in terms of what the science is behind this kind of nature-based solution approach but also its limitations and the context it’s working in. Hopefully, a big band of happy students with free pizza and beer will mean lots of trees get planted.

Matt:  It’s making me want to do another degree, Dave [laughter]. We’ll finish on this but I just loved the bit in there where you said it made you want to live forever so you could actually see the impact of what you were doing which I thought was a nice sentiment.

Dave:  Yeah, some of the trees we’re planting, particularly oak, are going to be in their prime long after I’m gone and I’m gutted I won’t get to see them. I suppose one of the really nice things is seeing now that they’re growing and knowing that maybe in a hundred years’ time, there will be a field course over there and they’ll be measuring the oaks and saying, ‘Some weird climate geek called Dave Reay planted these.’ That would be a great legacy.

Matt:  That would be a lovely legacy. Well, Dave, thank you so much and I hope you might be able to stick around very briefly for our Future or Fiction? game. I honestly can’t recall whether you did it last time you were on but if you haven’t, it’s worth sticking around for. So if you’re willing and able, Fraser... over to you.

[Music flourish]

Fraser:  Yeah, we’re back finally. I know the listeners have had to trudge through just hours of us talking and whinging about COP but here’s the good stuff again, the stuff we’ve all been waiting for. For the uninitiated, Future or Fiction? is a game that we play at the end of every episode with the panellists and with the hosts and where I present you with a new innovative idea or technology. You decide if it’s real, i.e. it’s the future, or if you think I’ve completely made it up. Becky, are you ready for this one? I know you like the titles a lot.

Rebecca:  I love your titles. Come on, hit me with it [laughter].

Fraser:  This episode’s innovation is called... Volcano Way Jose [laughter]. I couldn’t keep a straight face for that, sorry. That is Volcano Way Jose. The premise of this is simple. We know that geothermal is a great and vast source of energy but how about this? States and regions with lots of volcanos are locating new tech and industrial projects at the bases of those volcanos to harness the massive geothermal power as their main source of energy. Do we think it’s the future or do we think it’s fiction?

[Music flourish]

Rebecca:  Well, I have a lot of opinions on this because I lived in New Zealand for some years [laughter] but I’m going to hand it over to Dave first because I feel like if you’ve got to grips with the land and the farming, then maybe you’ve got some special insights that Matt and I can hang our own ideas on [laughter].

Dave:  I mean it would be somewhat wonderful if we still had active volcanos on the West Coast but also a bit worrying [laughter]. This seems likely to me just in terms of what Iceland has done and, like you say, Becky, New Zealand. In a lot of areas in the world, we’re seeing use being made of volcanic activity and geothermal energy, so I’m going to go for it being true that this is expanding.

Fraser:  Okay, straight off with a future. Guys, what do you think? Do you want to leach off Dave’s expertise here?

Matt:  I just wanted to press you a bit more, Fraser. I feel like I’ll put you in the dock and cross-examing you a little bit more.

Fraser:  This always goes well.

Matt:  That’s obviously what I’ve done wrong in the last 35 episodes [laughter]. How does this work? Obviously, there’s lots of heat being generated by these volcanos. I’m assuming what you’re saying is there is some district heating system that’s drawing heat away from it, so a heat exchanger, and pushing it around a development like a little town.

Fraser:  Yeah, they’re not on the top of a volcano with a huge extractor.

Matt:  Because that would be silly, wouldn’t it? [Laughter]

Fraser:  That would be ridiculous. That would be crazy [laughter]. Yes, as you would understand tapping geothermal mines, for instance, and like Dave said about the Iceland idea.

Matt:  Well, I think it’s future because it’s probably also present if they are already doing this but certainly, there’s a source of energy there that needs tapping into but I will defer to Becky who, again, has the engineering background to prove otherwise [laughter].

Rebecca:  I don’t think that’s ever helped me in any of the previous episodes [laughter]. I’m inclined to believe bits of this. I’m very inclined to believe in the possibility of tapping into these as sources of energy. I’m not quite as inclined to believe that it’s leading to local business and industry. I only say that because I think I see more instances of where this is actually energy that’s then fed into the grid in some capacity and moved around. Perhaps this isn’t true for everywhere but, my goodness me, when I went to certain parts of New Zealand where there was this activity [laughter], it smelt really bad. The sulphur smell is overpowering [laughter] and so I don’t know if that’s going to have any bearing on the choice of where to locate your business. I kind of see the possibility of harnessing that and generating energy but I’m going to go with fiction for this one.

Fraser:  So you challenge more the application and you don’t see it as like a Thunderbirds evil lair-type situation where it’s powering...

Matt:  Mostly challenging the smell, I think [laughter] and locating next to this would be horrible [laughter].

Rebecca:  Also with active volcanos, there is a wee bit of risk. 

Matt:  They’re dangerous, yeah.

Fraser:  A wee bit [laughter]. A small risk, yeah [laughter].

Matt:  They have been known to erupt... see Pompei as Exhibit A [laughter].

Fraser:  Dave, just before I give you the answer, as we do every single time, once Matt and Becky give their answers, as a courtesy, we let the guest decide if they want to change their answers because the two are famously wrong a lot [laughter]. So are you sticking with your original, Dave? Are you sticking with future?

Dave:  I’m going to stick with it. Becky’s point is really, really good but I’m thinking you could use that energy to make dispatchable energy so you could move it around, potentially, just in terms of turbines and things getting it into the grid. So I’m going to stay with future.

Fraser:  Sticking with it, okay.

Matt:  And even with your Chris Tarrantism there, Fraser, I’m not changing my mind either. That is my final answer [laughter].

Fraser:  Okay, so we’re sticking with it. We’ve got one fiction and two futures. The answer is... it’s the future. The government in El Salvador, specifically, has already trialled a new industrial development at the Tecapa volcano with the country’s leading Bitcoin company set to launch a huge mining warehouse at another volcano in the Gulf of Fonseca early next year.

Rebecca:  I want to see the risk registers [laughter].

Fraser:  Yes!

Matt:  And the insurance policy [laughter]. Very interesting.

Fraser:  There you go.

Matt:  Brilliant.

[Music flourish]

Rebecca:  Just to say thanks to everyone. Obviously, thanks to Dave for the brilliant explanation of all things COP and also thanks to everyone for listening as well. You’ve been listening to Local Zero with Matt, Becky and Fraser. If you haven’t already, go and find us and follow us @LocalZeroPod on Twitter to get involved with discussions there and you can also email us if you need to share longer thoughts. Send your emails to LocalZeroPod@gmail.com. For now, thanks and see you next time. Bye.

Matt:  Bye-bye.

Dave:  Bye. Thank you.

Fraser:  Bye, bye, bye, bye.

[Music flourish]

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