Sea levels are rising – and the United States has a lot to learn from countries that are already adapting. Reporter Shola Lawal of the podcast Threshold explores how two communities in Nigeria are dealing with it.
Lagos, the booming coastal city of Nigeria, is growing even as rising water levels threaten its future. Lawal visits the informal community of Makoko, where people have learned to live with water: Many homes are built on stilts. In a community where many people make a living fishing, small houses rise above the water, vendors sell vegetables and goods from floating markets, and locals ferry people to destinations in canoes. A lack of dry land has forced residents to innovate in creative ways. But the government has threatened to destroy Makoko, declaring the neighborhood an eyesore.
Next, Lawal visits Eko Atlantic City, an “ultra-modern” luxury city that a development company is building on sand dredged up from the ocean floor. In contrast to the scrappy adaptations Makoko residents have made to live on water, the million-dollar apartments of Eko Atlantic are protected by an enormous seawall.
Each year, global leaders gather to discuss the climate crisis at COP, the United Nations climate conference. Threshold Executive Producer Amy Martin talks with Reveal host Al Letson about this year’s COP27. While nearly every country on the planet attends these annual conferences, a much smaller number – about 20 economies – are responsible for 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions. That’s left more vulnerable countries asking – what are the richest countries going to do to pay for the damage they’ve caused?
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
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from the centre for investigative reporting and p r eggs, this is reveal a mallet. I grew
have been jackson. Florida
The sunshine state you are never far from a beach smile.
When I need some peace, the ocean,
it demands that you be in the moment you ve gotta, leave
phone. Your work. In all your worries on the shore. We go to the beach to get away
What happens when the water comes to us in the ocean,
comes a source of our worries scientists per day
average sea levels at the end of this century, will be about a foot high.
Then they were in two thousand and that's if the
succeeds in curbing greenhouse gas emissions. So that's an optimistic scenario:
the bad news version we could be in for as much as six
feed of sea level rise in the
who s
so there from new york to florida in California are spending billions to trial.
Appear for the rising waters.
but as the united states tries to adapt, we have
to learn from other parts of the world that know what it's like to live with. Water lotta
it's raining like crazy. Today in lagos and every
is flooded
front of me. Honestly. I see school kids coming back from school is around three and they have their school
found out and it doesnt work him in what I call the whatever so high on this point.
show me the wall reporter from nigeria and the what are really comes, pretty close to the door, handle mamma said I
recorded that during the summer rainy season in lagos completely,
ordinary experience in lagos. You no legal house
We reported each system so
threats and beauty is get flooded all the time
and when you add the rising cease to the makes you realize realize that is actually disappearing, the course
the right now is, is already eroding. Legos lagos is the largest city in africa's most populated country.
It's also one of the major ports in africa. So let us is basically split between them
and the island is a case of two cities
really on the mainland, is where a lot of middle income workers leave, because it's it's much cheaper than the island and then there
breach that connects the mainland to the island. The island, of course, is where you know all the high earners leave and work
and is also where the business district of lagos is. So you see a lot of offices there. Legos is also one of those booming coastal cities that
owing even as the waters rise and more people are,
in all of the time from other parts of nigeria, and then there are more people.
I in from neighbouring countries, people coming in for work, it'll be people coming in for business, real estate prices, of course, because of this are really expensive, really sort of way out of reach for a lot of people, so folks are kind of leaving just where
They can their building informal communities without basic infrastructure just to survive and make sure that these thing in the city
in one of those informal communities. When people read
land, they started building homes right in the war on stilts and they get around by boat. It's called Michael
a bustling community that sits on top of the rising wars. Shoulda went there,
but the pod guess threshold in the sum of twenty twenty one.
their latest season- is about the global race to curb climate change and respond to it. His showed I'm walking through muckle a pot of lead us I've never visited before this part is a man,
and its lively, chaotic and congested around me. I see men, one motorcycles trying to get around
she remained cell in fish smoked fish like the calls from the legal lagoon Michael, is what many people would call a slum. It's an informal community where residents have very little when it comes to material possessions or security, but they do have something many legal actions. Don't a potential solution to rising sea levels
while the rest of legal is in a constant battle with water. People here are learning to live with it, and I mean that
literally half of the homes in muckle aren't on land at all. The builds on spills
lagos lagoon, so I'm currently waiting on the streets for my feet, then, is to join me, and he will take me. Hopefully, the philippine community alone
Also, the dentist just joined me, as my guide to Michael, is dennis uncanny he's going to take me to the part of the community that sits on the water, has lived here all his life and knows this place inside and out. He and I speak
back together, it's one of the main native languages of nigeria
stuck into dennis about where he gave me. He says it was fun right on what I find his. Basically, people have lived in mechanical since at least the nineteenth century, and fishing has always been at the centre of life here. There's a huge fish market in the community and the people of Marco polo selfish in markets in autumn possibly goes too
So we smoking, placing lawful, I'm not sufficient search picture, looks delicious really
It's hard to know how many people actually leave here. Estimates placed between forty thousand two three hundred thousand people,
that range is so wide because there's never been an official census. It's a community that grows and changes. All the time
these houses trendy people here are cramped together in tight quarters from anyone apartment. You can hear the conversations going on in neighbouring houses,
we walked through rule after rule of small houses on swampy land.
and I know I'm getting close to the water when I start to see houses on short stilts and when my feet start to sing visa,
the ground. As I walk
reaching the what's a community, so we arrive at the edge of the legacy of good. It's a big pool of water about thirteen miles, long protected from the full force of the atlantic ocean
by long sense. So just two types of us, the houses there, honest
This rising above
london going is dark
london.
The houses are just floating above its dozens of teenage boys, had paddling wooden votes between the rows of houses that appeared to float underwater
the boys like copies. They know where everybody leaves and they take you where one
for small female, so we
at the hotel functional now I think
That's different boats dennis helps me into a wooden canoe, the deeps, from side to side, as I step in,
yes successful. I struggle to find my balance
All around me, tiny kids,
men with mountains of smoked fish to sell
and the young girls out so groceries expertly navigate the waters. Muckle is a tangle of waterways as busy as any legal street collusion
me. I really almost spilett do about this
feel an underwater is not necessarily about climate change for people in muckle that doing this, because they knew
need some way to leave and there's not enough
land in lagos and is not a crime,
change and rising waters. Don't impact the people of Michael.
but leaving in homes in the leg us lagoon, where what our rises and false throughout the day may be helping them to prepare for these impact. They have first hand leave experience with ever changing sea levels and
build their homes on stilts. With those changes in mind, they figure out how to treat
move around their community in canoes instead of cars or buses.
Full of michael are doing what people have done in all kinds of habitats for all of human history, really that turn in this unlikely police into a home using their resourcefulness and their determination.
Front of me. The house that is being when Dennis introduces mean through a carpenter named Michael Fatah.
everyone here- just calls him father. His specialty is built.
Then on water,
gravity.
She's here. My
I you know me from Waimea fellow tells me that the trick to building a what's our house is a very strong foundation. He says his thoughts with stilts about twelve feet. Long, we keep pounds is Haas way into the bed of the lagoon
He uses a special new that doesn't easily wrought. It's called back in
see if the language, video borders you couldn't or wouldn't lie, I'm not going to my leader but make the foundations of the homes, and then people have their own personal touches. Some houses here are painted in bright, colors and others are
Please would to build a home here in muckle. You spend
out a millionaire. That's around too.
Thousand dollars market, its much cheaper than by a house and not a parcel lagos, still
In nigeria, the minimum wage is low as the equivalent of about seventy? U s dollars a month, so spend in two thousand dollars to build a floating home is big money from many people thought our seas. It takes a lot of efforts to make the foundations for the fulton houses weeks sometimes, but that if one pays off, he says houses here can stand for twenty years before collapse and into the lagoon still a lot of basic infrastructure.
is missing in multiple most people have electricity, but there's no indoor plum in or proper garbage disposal, and there are no hospitals and a community fathers. Wife Victoria told me that the difficulty in get into a health centre can actually lead to some very dangerous sitting.
Issues, especially for women. My will do more bitter one or two of you, my boy, my moment on our lovely. Do not mix tells me that it takes a while to paddle a pregnant woman in labour out to government hospitals on the land, for many women have died because of that she says, and now some even too scared to have babies,
Then it's a nice get back into the canoe as paddle around. I get. A strong sense of community
Everyone knows each other here. People laugh a lot of themselves and a new comers. Like me book,
find the balance in the canoes, but I also get the feeling that I'm intruded many reporters have come here over the years.
I see people look at me now with distrust by their thinking. Oh another,
cider coming to see how far we are. What else is new?
and in some ways they are right,
though I leave in lagos for a decade, I'm kind of shocked by some aspect of life. Here, there's garbage inhuman, poop floating all around us. The water itself has a smell,
I'm not a funnel because it stated in one place for too long. The smell sticks to the back of my tongue, making it hard to swallow. Sometimes I hold my breath till I feel light headed a little.
People dream about leaving next to a beautiful, wide open beach, but to leave in right in the water, especially if that water is a stagnant lagoon is another thing entirely it's hard, but it may also be the wave of the future full lagos. The city has a growing population, limited land area, poor drainage systems and a natural, tent
and see to flood when the heavy rain starts as they do every year in April and in october the water
nowhere to go the way
hello, civilization is known to be,
told around water in mesopotamia and said
These have always settles around water because of agriculture. Infrastructure transportation
that's coolly idea me an architect from lagos. One of his passions is affordable and sustainable house in an essay is watching the city struggle with
then in inspired him to design buddhas that adapts to nature rather than fight it,
I remember, driving around the entire street was covered became the river and there was little
like an epiphany, that's while many
This is a lagos that we think
land actually just very
point flooding and they might really just be covered with water. This
really triggered my past
for building not just on land, but also on water quality research. Many
models, we for realising that the answer might just be right outside his door in Michael
code to mean that people who lived in macro cool building, some of it,
because dwellings they have found it
to develop
communities and almost a city and do it
bring it on water, not land, people, a macbook or action
at the forefront of an emerging global trend in the netherlands, new floating communities are being planned and prototypes. It's also happening in the maldives and other countries, but Michael, is way past them.
Lynn stage, as happened in people, are leaving this experiment right now and calais has ideas for how to improve it will develop
infrastructure. Solutions for managing wastes, managing water, clean water and
Vision is to create water cities and develop communities like makoko into modern, thriving, inclusive and beautiful settlements. Many
Africa's large cities are on the coast and in lagos half of the population liza within
two meters of the sea not six feet in the next. Fifty years, seas are predicted to rise by emitter here, thou displease about
two to three million people here, lagos alone, but this is definitely not just an african problem. Some version
what's happening to link us right now is likely to happen in coastal cities from bangkok to miami. So how lagos deals with climate change could hold lessons for everyone clearly says this inspired him to innovate. He developed a prototype structure for muckle back in twenty tools. It was a floating school built right on the water, the first in africa. The project was praised as a success.
The legal state government supported it, and the united nations is made international news and brought a lot of positive attention to mechanical about storm destroyed the school a few years later, but who s? Company has kept refining their process now they are building float in hot
in other places in africa, asia and europe and coolly wants to come.
I can do more. In fact, he wants to redesign all of morocco who, for the people who lived there now coolly things that with new and better designs, Muckle could be more livable and more pleasing to look at the evil things that it could be an attack.
Shall, I believe us we see macro coup as a place of open.
I am pleased that it has a lot of history and we can reach
the thing about preserving places like this enhancing the culture. It's what people doing different parts of well. Why do you go to the floating markets in in in thailand? What have they got?
we don't have clay has worked closely with the community before
and many people in muckle, especially young residents,
like my guide, then is love these ideas, but not everyone shares coolies vision for mechanical, especially some officials in legal state. Most political and business leaders here are eager to sell the city to the world as a place to make deals, shoot movies, turn vacations or meat and mingle with minor as glitterati, but Michael doesn't fit into that story.
While the major bridges into downtown lagos looks out over muckle go instead of seeing a model or resourcefulness and climate adaptation, though cecily does see an ice or it's not attractive to invest as they want to learn to make. Us first was used to come a visit
I still want to play this said our dwelling houses as shanties. This is paula. Francis Ngannou he's one of the five chiefs that govern macro cool. His full title is actually ballot. Elisha Balam is chief in europa and alaska.
Means commander. The bullet tells me that many people came to muckle from coastal villages in the beginning, with public as a small country that borders nigeria. The migrants,
happened back when they were neocolonial brothers who let themselves from briefly areas. As you show me, the games
our backing in simple way. Why swampy, when
the treaty of life. The ballot
Take the legal swale family? Let the first settlers leave here so they could be close to the water and fish is what about report because we are what about we are fishermen. Are we live on? What legal, what that is our main
game, even though people have been living
air for generations, the leg us authorities wants them out. They ve tried to get them to vacate the area multiple times the plan is to move the residents. Do I boa an area more than thirty five miles away? If that happens, residents would have to walk about two miles to get to the water,
which means this community efficient people would have to find a whole new way of life. The leg us governments has even try to demolish muckle by force, send in the police to knocked down and clear away houses. The most recent attempt
was in twenty twelve one man died into confrontation between the community and the security forces, his death, goody attention of human rights organizations and fast.
of a man to abandon the idea of removing the settlement, at least temporarily, but the residents of Michael leaving constant fear that one day they'll be back, especially since the legal authorities have demolished several other communities in recent years. So there's a lot at stake here for a lot of people. When I asked the barley what he would like me to tell the authorities he said just a month ago should not be demolished with support from the city he thinks
If people here can survive and thrive, especially a sea level rise as you talk about climate change, dissoluble donning upside down flood,
in lagos is getting worse by the ballot
then worried about his community because they leave on and with the water. We both of us all of those these saw month. Governments can give us this. We do come to ameliorate image, like most of you very, very, more done
I was his roominghouse everyone I spoke to him operable told me that they wants league us officials to stop trying to destroy their homes, but there's a split in the community when it comes to coolly idea, may speak
While the younger generation sims really excited about a great in this maize or floating shocks into an aesthetically pleasing
mike bali and the other chiefs answer shore. They worry that the architects ideas could provoke the government to send in the security forces again they want to keep quiet and try to stay on the radar for now legal authorities of focusing elsewhere. They see a lot of opportunities and money in developing
pricey residential estates places for very different types of legal issues than those who leave here on the lagoon few.
Then ten miles away from Michael one of those upscale com,
greece is under development, now, like just like, I think gave it feels like
we're about to enter dubai or then it's called echo atlantic and it's a very different
to living with rising waters. You're listening to reveal,
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From the centre for investigative reporting, mp p ex this is reveal a male.
today were in lagos. Nigeria learning about
two very different approaches to coping with sea level rise. We would
stem marco grew. A community that generations ago came up with an ingenious way to live with the water
They build their houses on stilts and commute on boats people here
or in their community is unofficial. The government thinks marco, who is an ice or and wants to tear down instead its pudding.
Support behind a very different solution to rising waters.
The porter shoulder in the wall, with the pod gas threshold decided to check it out. Ok, it's a very sunny after us. Shoulder is on her way to echo atlantic a brand new,
ultra modern city that still under construction instead of building on water, they d,
added to create new land and protected,
with a huge seawall, I'm driving down a busy legless highway with my sister, this role,
used to be right on the water's edge, but not anymore. All around me, I can see lots of
structure material. All of this is behind the gated fence.
four kilometres. I don't know how many kilometres a lot. This giant construction site sits on land that didn't exist a decade ago. It's brand new territory made of sand.
From the ocean it's as if one
it has grown a new wing a new.
an insular, and
In the horizon. I can see a number of very tall buildings Murray, impose in structures that Alex quite quite far away. This is a core munting anew.
Luxury many city, it's big, ten square kilometres or about four square miles
I actually used to live near here back when this land didn't exist when it was just open water here and every day bit by bit. I saw
And heard an endless stream of trucks ringing in sand and stones to build this place near their right in front of us is the third floor
they used to be my room, but even though I watched eclat month, it emerged from the sea. I never actually got in. There is surrounded by fences. Any comments just come and go freely.
Now with the to go inside
He probably not let me in, but I'm dressed for the occasion I have a pink top and pink scarf. When I have my earrings, hopefully they'll. Let me in let's see the equipment was designed for a very specific class of people and, as my sister and I drive up to the gates in my noisy blue toyota, matrix, I'm very aware that I'm not in that class. I'm hoping, though, that I can win the guards over with my charm.
our approach and engage the gaieties. I say security guards.
Their approach in our like just lake, at the gate. He feels like whereabouts about to enter dubai or something
We don't want to see it quite lengthy dogma.
But I will wasn't the restaurants,
I will now will spend money.
the god gives us a pass that allows us to drive around as long
We don't get out of the car with breast them.
struck by is just how huge this new penance is, while its much bigger- and I actually thought
The second thing I noticed other roads there, pristine, smooth and wide.
it's very different from the roads that I'm used to in lagos.
Love, nourish dreams. I like what all everywhere it got mounting feels different, because it is different
Everything were looking at is carefully planned. It's a manufactured place, the roads, the
students, even the land itself, a privately owned for years, the atlantic
russia has been eating away at the legal shoreline as the climate gets hotter and less predictable the risk of
The un and dangerous storms is going up after a particularly bad storm in two thousand
five. The government decided to try to fix the problem permanently is held a contest asking
These ideas on how to protect lagos
The winning design came from a development firm called the chicago regroup mice
there are an eye, a kind of awed by one,
see, as we drive around we ve seen
is opaque atlantic online, showing
of the million dollar apartments and restaurants. Atlantic is a unique new city within a city, that's what they didn't repair or how it feels to actually be
aspirational, accessible and built for success is impressive.
run for miles into the distance until we can't see their curves anymore, the lined with palm trees and theirs
I'd send everywhere up ahead. We can see a group of toll shiny buildings. I think this is a residential part. I fear
one two. Three four by buildings that are complete, gray, color, huge driving around equipment ec city. It's him!
to believe that Michael is less than ten miles away. The contrast between
The two communities couldn't be must start in morocco, people's struggle to come up with two thousand
all is needed to build a humble home on the water here, people by apartment with stunning ocean,
He was for around a million dollars, it's more
the empty now. But when it's done, this place good house up to three hundred thousand people. But although this two places feel very different, they are both potential solutions to the same problems too much water and not enough land and as the world heats up. Both
problems are getting worse. I could only see so much without stepping out of my car, so I decide
that I need to come back with a guide. A few days later
with David, deleting the
the occasional money Jeff way quite mounting city at the time were reported this story. We meet up in a huge meeting room with gleaming floors,
and a tiny model of lagos on display on the walls are different stages of a quiet mantic, as the city formed in the atlantic seals office and dispatch of glofish. So you can see to my left a scaled down version of the of the project. David tells me that the storms in the two thousand,
It's directly led to the construction of a quantic, but to really understand the story of this place. We need to start much much earlier. This project started in two thousand. It was the process that led to project started long before started in the early nineteen hundreds. He tells me that the flooding in lagos easy cause only by climate change, but also by a mother deadly force colonization. He says the british dredged the lagos harbor more than one hundred years ago.
So bigger ships could come into shore, but when they did that they changed the natural flow of the water and the way that it moved the sand. What
it is most important beaches Bobby began to disappear.
and then the shoreline began to recede baby. The fifty fifties about half of babbage's was already
the waters of the atlantic ocean were moving closer and closer to the heart of the city, and the situation became really critical in the early two, thousands back, then
glenn storms, floods, city streets in lagos, fish porn onto the roads,
expensive office buildings formerly caused at prime real estate were abandoned. Some of them are still standing marked by water line
The solution that issue we group came up with was to be
a huge sea wall
feel in the space behind it with rocks and sand. They essentially,
created a barrier island except it's a peninsula. They call it
wait wall of lagos, the wool attic space
over fifteen because white. What is what protection equipment?
victoria funding from devotion.
Wall is made from thousands of concrete blocks that each way five tonnes is about
four miles long and it still growing David, takes me on a tour around the city in the flashy black gyp would get out by the great war.
And strolled along the elevated sidewalk below us. I can see the blow
that make up the wall piled on top of each other. The ways of palm oil in the wall- and it appears to be
and its job. So far when it flows and
rest of lagos, equal atlantic city state dry there under
I'm doing it systems here, but carry the
out when its wings and ocean waves haven't cleared the wall. A list
not yet. All of this is done mathematically, it's very technical, the putting all the data that you need to put into factoring the weather. That's how we knew that this is able to withstand the worst possible two thousand years. So, just to recap,
this wall that surround in return ellen unequal atlantic, its unbreakable,
This one is unjustifiable.
I am troubled by David certainty, especially in a wall. That's heating up as quickly as ours.
We're seeing the so called hundred year. Floods happen every decade now and there's just no telling how things could play out when more extreme weather conditions sets in still for some people. Eko atlantic city holds a lot of hope. David says, architects from neighbouring countries like ghana and Senegal are coming here for tips on how to respond to sea level rise in their own countries, because it's not just in nigeria and issues, an issue that west africa shows
we put a stop to coastal erosion because people live in these places, so we need to find a sustainable solutions for them
but even if the sea wall holds, does a deeper question of who its protection
This whole community is designed for a lot lately, has its own power grid, its own sanitation system, its own house in most schools and an olympic sides swimming pool, it's a privately owned and privately operated
unity as they and I drive around, I see just one family that appears to actually leave here their white, the only people who can afford a quadratic city, a nine just wealthiest one percent and foreigners with big pockets. Talking to David. I get the sense that something else is a plea for him and the developers behind equipment co
the majority most populous block mission in the world. There is a simple
there is a mindset that people are touched. Nature
and then you need something like this. Both states image on this logic,
for public indecency, but for like for a child confidence for something that Jones need to be able to post stuff, and this is what this project provides to nigeria and nigerians all over the world
What david is saying is that a quota,
There is more than just a place for wealthy people to live. He believes this
It gives legal something to be proud of and that it can be
I mean monument, something like the empire state building or lady liberty and command respect for nigeria on the world stage for david
What matters is more than just a climate solution. It's an image,
and story about what led is and what it will be in the future
that was shoah. Wall from the pie casts threshold,
how we respond to rising waters, its further dividing rich and poor communities like michael coup and echo atlantic.
and its dividing more vulnerable countries from ritual
around the world absolutely arrogant, behaviour by the rich countries, rich polluting countries, when we come.
Who will pay the bill for global warming? Your listening to reveal hi my name's catherine was Caskey, and I'm a senior reporter and producer here reveal reveal, is a nonprofit news organization, and we depend on support from our listeners. Donate today at reveal news dot org.
Donate thanks from the centre for investigative reporting and p r eggs? This is reveal omelette or Michael goo and echoed
We are trying to solve a problem that communities all around the globe face as europe heats up and sea level rise. The changing climate effects
We want, which means solutions for confronting it have to work on a global scale. We need to figure out,
to cut greenhouse gas emissions and learn how to adapt our lives to a warming planet. But what about people whose
I was in communities have already been destroyed. Who pays for them to start again? The issues are overwhelming. Still at this very moment, people from almost
we country in the world are gathering in Sharm EL sheikh Egypt to wrestle with these questions there taking part
what's become an annual diplomatic ritual over the past three decades. The glow
the united nations climate change conference? Is there? No?
cops, and this year is cop. Twenty seven Amy Martin,
secular producer and founder of the podcast threshold covered less
is gathering in Glasgow. Scotland and she'll be
watching. This year's talks closely amy great every back on the show.
oh great, to be here so
These talks have been happening for twenty seven years now, who goes to the kind of the whole world
There are tens of thousands of people who come, who have official credentials to enter the u n zone and be part of the talks or watch them.
report on them, but then there's
So tens of thousands of people who come just to be in the city where it's happening to protest or to gather their side conferences that get set up. So it's a bit of a circus, but in theory they
I want the same thing right to figure out how to address climate change yeah
exactly in theory. That is what these talks are about. Wherever greenhouse
gases are released, they go up into the
one atmosphere that we all share. The pollution does not stay within a national border. It's coming.
We have one giant well of atmosphere to drink from and when somebody poisons that well with greenhouse gas emissions, it hurts all of us.
Though we all have to work together to solve the problem, there are different camps at these.
conferences right I mean how does I break down to just understand about the broadest level? I would divided into three big group
There are the historic major emitters- the? U s in europe than there
trees out of more recently started emitting carbon like india and china, and then there's a big group of countries,
I have never emitted much carbon and are still not emitting much carbon and some countries in that.
group. Our eritrea in somalia baton most of the small island developing states. So all these three
from groups come into these conferences with different agendas. Indifferent things are trying to do the g20 economy,
is that the world's twenty biggest economies are responsible for about eighty per cent of greenhouse gas emissions. So there's almost two hundred countries at these talks, but just the the g twenty economies, they're responsible for eighty percent of the problem,
so coarse, all the countries that are not part of that. Eighty four
you're, saying: hey, we ve done almost nothing causes problem, but worst of dealing with the consequences of it and that's not fair. So, what
the people I followed at cop twenty six was doktor silly mole hook and he's the
director of the international centre for climate change and development based in bangladesh- and he described it this way- this isn't about charity- about giving up hoping hunt to poor people. This is about admitting responsibility. They became rich countries.
but they caused the damage by emitting greenhouse gases. They must accept that responsibility, and they also must accept that that is causing harm to poor people in work, and they have some responsibility too
with that. That sounds really contentious. What
Actually like these talks, it is in fact contentious
Nobody wants to be told to take responsibility for cleaning up their masses, and nobody
to deal with the masses of other people and be stuck dealing with all those consequences on their own. So there's a lot.
conflict in the air, but it's all couched in these very diplomatic goober, polite terms and one of the things that
really confusing about. It is the whole thing is run by consensus, so every part of a climate agreement
has to be agreed on by all of the parties who sign onto its were trying to get to
the countries in the world to say yes to one document and if
ninety nine percent of countries want something in one country says: I'm not gonna agree too, that the whole thing can start
in that that happens all the time. So another person I followed at last year's climate
conference in glasgow was doktor adele, thomas she's, a senior fellow
climate analytics and university, the bahamas, she's
also elite author on multiple, you and scientific reports, and she
kind of walked me through how the process of building a climate agreement actually works on the ground, so they collect inputs from all of the different parties and groups, and they try to come up with some compromise that takes into account everyone's once and so everyone's disappointed, but that's how it works doesn't exist.
hosty thankless, maybe because you're never gonna be able to please everyone right once everyone is upset, then that's a bad outcome, but they do get to a point where they agree on something
I sometimes usually, they have come up with some kind of agreement and the most significant win? That, probably everyone's heard of is the paris agreement in two thousand and fifteen, and that was huge because we finally
reed as a globe on two big things: a global climate goal and a framework for achieving it and the
all was to limit warming to no more than two degrees celsius over pre industrial levels and aiming to keep it to no more than one point five degrees. So that's great. We have goal theirs.
an outline for how to achieve it. Unfortunately, the
is still not on track to meet that goal, and this happens with all kinds of different issues at these conferences, for instance,
several years ago the world's richest countries pledged to pay a hundred billion dollars per year to help the poorer nations in
clean energy and adapt to the impacts of climate change, recognising that some kind,
have done more damage than others. But after making this,
pledge in getting a lot of credit for making the pledge the rich countries have actually never made good on that promise. So
have they got away with them well, in some ways, its distant age, old game of power. That, though, wealthy countries just keep coming up, billions of
the short and the other countries. Don't really have a lotta leverage to make them follow through, and that has led to a lot of mistrust.
the negotiations, the sounds, really frustrating yeah. It is
very frustrating. And another thing: that's pretty infuriating for people from a lot of the developing countries is that there has been almost no conversation around an issue called loss and damage the richer.
Since don't want to talk about lawson damage at all laws and damage mean that
It sounds like an insurance claim. What? What exactly is that laws and damage?
is a way of talking about the irrevocable losses of the climate crisis. For example,
As you know, many island nations that could become totally uninhabitable or their species that already have gone extinct or more, that we'll go extinct and there is also a cultural
I says you know, there's languages and cultural practices that may become lost as eco systems change due to the climate crisis,
All the people who are advocating for funding
attention to go to lawson damage there saying like. Yes, we need to reduce emissions. Yes, we have to figure out how to adapt here, but we also have
We recognise that some of the losses are inevitable and they have already occurred.
there's gonna be more and those countries that have caused those losses in that damage need to take responsibility for that one of the richer countries. Think about this.
The wealthier countries have been really resistant to thinking about this talking about it and they ve blocks movement. On it,
this year, though, at cop twenty seven in egypt, it looks like things might be changing, but there is
a lot of resistance. You know there's desists long.
Very ugly history of people from poorer countries trying to get wealthy nations to take responsibility for their actions and the people of more power.
think flow sorry that should really inconvenient for us right now we hear you,
Oh, but nothing we can do, and people are sick of that at cop twenty six. The unit
states and the eu kind of did that they said a lot, a nice things in public leading up to the conference about loss or damage, but when it came down to it,
people who are in the rooms told me that they were blocking progress. Here
but celine from bangladesh had to say on the file day at a conference when that became clear, absolutely arrogant, behaviour by the rich countries, rich polluting countries, not just rich, the polluters,
It is going to take any responsibility whatsoever itself to the victims of their pollution in our face.
I think it's really great example of how the climate crisis is not just in emissions problem. It's in inequality, problem and the longer thy
bent thinking about carbon, washing it and thinking about it. After the fact I was really struck by
global warming and inequality. I think really are the same problem. There just manifesting, indifferent ways cause,
there is a direct relationship between countries out of emitted, a lot of carbon and have had strong.
it grows, and you know what
The cruel ironies of this whole thing is that those who ve done the least to cause the problem tend to be.
It was vulnerable like we're all vulnerable, we're all going to be affected or are already affected by climate, but people in the poorest nations definitely tend to get hit first and worst,
Is there any reason for optimism going into this year's talks in Egypt? Well, you may be surprised.
Here this given everything I said: Vida, yes, actually
I think there is reason for optimism, even though this process is slow and frustrating prague
was made last year, maybe most importantly, the world all seems to still mostly agree that we need to aim for keeping temperature rise to below one point: five degrees. That's
enough, but am
We could have a thing where half of the world is starting to say: we have to give up on one point five and we're just going to aim for two point: five, and that would be disastrous. So, even though this process is
maddening and really someone's heartbreaking. Even there is an increased
the ideal is take endeavour going on underneath here when you think about it, we were trying to write a document that almost all of the planet's human societies can agree to, and I think everybody can understand that is hard. I don't know how
It can be to get your whole family decide where they want to go out for dinner, but I think most of us have experienced a process like that
we're getting five people who, like each other to do something, can be hard. I can't handle the five people in my house. Oh yeah, I mean it's only.
bring about how hard it can be justified
a family to agree on something in this is the whole world has to agree in the
I see them of my show threshold. The thing that I kept repeating was you know this is the most complicated highest stakes group project the world has ever known, and I have some real respect and sympathy for that. Work at the same
I'm that I, like everybody, I know, wants to make a gopher faster. You know so I don't think that we really have a choice. We just have to keep trying
I'm gonna hold onto a little bit of your optimism thanks so much
in his day me thanks for having me,
Amy Martin as executive producer and founder of the pike s threshold. They were
partners on this. We shall check
their latest season about the world's response to climate change. It's called time to one point: five,
This we show was produced by catherine, miss gaussian edited by talk. You tell it needs. It was reported,
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Transcript generated on 2023-07-28.