Global News Podcast: UN: World not tackling climate change 'fast enough'

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You're listening to the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service.

Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. This edition is published in the early hours of Saturday,

the 9th of September. The UN says the system for tackling global warming is working,

but nowhere near fast enough. Documents released in the US state of Georgia show the grand jury

in the Trump racketeering case also recommended in dating Senator Lindsey Graham and the American

scientist who's fallen ill in one of Turkey's deepest caves. As you can see, I'm up on the

lurg, I'm talking, but I'm not healed on the inside yet. So I need a lot of help to get out of here.

Also in the podcast, Pakistan says advanced weapons left behind in Afghanistan after the US

troop withdrawal are now being used against its soldiers. And the Mercury Music Award goes to

As a collective represents something very special because we met in a youth club. Do you hear what

I'm saying? The first jazz band to get the prestigious prize.

The world is currently way off target in its efforts to prevent dangerous global warming.

That is the conclusion of the first official progress report on reaching the Paris climate

goals. In its global stock take, the UN concludes that the world needs a rapid transformation

in the way we work, eat, travel and consume energy. At a news conference at the G20 summit

of wealthy nations in the Indian capital Delhi, the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres

said that the call for action was urgent and could no longer be ignored.

We have no time to lose. The climate crisis is worsening dramatically. But the collective

response is lacking in ambition, credibility and urgency. The climate crisis is spiraling

out of control. Together G20 countries are responsible for 80 percent of global emissions.

So G20 countries must assume leadership. Antonio Guterres. The report does suggest that hope

isn't yet lost, with many countries even those divided by war working together to tackle global

warming. Yuri Rogal is a climate scientist from Imperial College London. I'm in the place of

hope and despair. Despair because we have warmed the planet already well beyond one degrees.

These are worrying places to be in. I also have hope because we see how countries are putting

together real plans to change their entire economies, to change their entire societies

and we see how they are being implemented. Well for his assessment I spoke to our climate

editor Justin Roelat starting with the reasons for optimism. Yeah let's start with the good,

always a good way to begin. If you were an alien looking at the world and looking at the challenge

of tackling climate change and you said what needs to be done the first thing you'd say is all these

weird nations this planet has need to work together and what the UN's saying today is that is happening.

That was the plan after the big UN conference in Paris in 2015. The plan was to get everybody

working together on this and the UN says look virtually every country on earth acknowledges

that climate change is a huge challenge and needs to be tackled urgently and is already

taking some action. The bad news is we're simply not doing it fast enough at the moment. In what

way? We need says the UN to switch massively over to clean technology to renewable power. We need

to phase down fossil fuels as quickly as possible unless the carbon dioxide emissions are captured

and stored permanently underground. We need to stop deforestation by 2030 and begin to replant

the forests we've lost. We need to change the way agriculture works. We need a systemic global

overhaul is what the UN says and it's very frank about this. It says look this is going to be really

expensive. It's going to cost trillions of dollars. It says the developed countries will need to help

developing countries. We need the private sector to get on board but it says we do have the technologies

we need to do this. We just need to begin to implement them with more ambition and drive.

It can be done it says. So what's holding us up? A lack of money? A lack of political will?

A lack of political will is holding us up. A lack of cash flowing into the right places.

I mean this is a call to action for world leaders ahead of the big climate conference COP28 that's

going to happen in the United Arab Emirates and they're saying you know enough of the big speeches

let's see action. Let's see strategic plans for how you're going to deliver on the commitments. 90%

of the world has said they are going to try and get to net zero. Okay so you want to get to net

zero. How are you going to do it? Please outline what you're going to do and then start to actually

deliver on the targets that are embedded in those strategic plans. That's what the UN wants to see.

You mentioned the money hundreds of billions is still spent on fossil fuels and not enough on

I mean more than hundreds of billions on fossil fuel hundreds of billions of subsidies for fossil

fuels by governments and the UN says first of all let's get rid of that let's try and phase it out.

It's a real dilemma look there is a recognition that countries like India this is something

Narendra Modi has been saying will need fossil fuels to lift hundreds of millions of people out

of poverty and there is a recognition by the UN that they cannot be denied that right to deliver

development for their people but it says we do need to make the transition happen as quickly as

possible that's the real sense of urgency that needs to be engendered firstly at the G20 and

then they need to bring that enthusiasm and energy to the COP28 in UAE in which begins at the end of

November. Our climate editor Justin Rolat will scientists say climate change is making extreme

weather much more likely one of the worst affected countries at the moment is Greece.

After a record summer heat wave and a series of wildfires it was hit this week by torrential

floods that killed at least 10 people during a visit to one of the worst affected areas on

Friday the Greek Prime Minister Kiryakos Mitsotakis warned that the country was facing a very

unequal battle with nature. Sofia Betitza reports from Greece.

Entire villages are almost completely under water after the area was hit by the heaviest

rainfall the country has seen in decades homes have been swept away others are without power

and several roads have been badly damaged even though the rain has eased many people are still

trapped on their roofs in some areas helicopters have been deployed to take people to safety

we find Senya outside her house she's lived there with her family for more than 30 years

now her home is completely submerged in floodwater I never thought this could have happened

that my house would be under one and a half meters of water my home is completely destroyed I have

nothing left all I have is my work this house and my children and now our home is gone climate

change is causing more extreme weather Greece faced its worst summer of wildfires on record

many people here are furious at the Greek authorities they accuse ministers of using

climate change as an excuse for poor building projects I'm standing next to a bridge near the

town of Almiros it collapsed three years ago so they rebuilt it but now it's completely destroyed

again many Greeks see this as a symbol of government failure emergency services are still unable to reach

many of the worst hit areas because the water is so deep teams are preparing for another night

of rescue operations but the concern is that the number of dead will increase further

Sophia Betitzer in Greece the new military rulers in the West African state of Gabon have moved

faster than other coup leaders in the region to give their regime a civilian veneer appointing a

prime minister in a transitional government Gabon's president Ali Bongo was ousted by soldiers last

week after disputed election results gave him victory the newly appointed prime minister remand

donkzima is an opposition leader who was defeated in those elections the announcement was made on

state tv on thursday décret numéro 006 portant nomination du premier ministre chef du gouvernement

de la transition well at the same time Ali Bongo has been told he is now free to leave the country

while the coup leader has pledged a return to civilian rule albeit without giving a timescale

using a translator my colleague julian marshall spoke to remand donkzima first of all why did he

accept the post of prime minister in a transitional government led by the military because the situation

is a very tense and so everyone has to make an effort to make change the new military rulers of

Gabon have not named a timetable for a transition to democracy how confident are you that Gabon will

see a democratically elected government maybe in a few years time the military committee

said that it was up to the civil society and the political parties to meet and set out the timetable

for the elections and to come back to the democratic rule in coming days there will be a meeting with

all the components of the society to meet to set out the that do you yourself have timetable

in your mind for a return to democracy they have said in a document that i've published that that

should be done within two years the new leader of gabon brice oligine gemma is a cousin of Ali

bongo so has the military coup ended the political influence of the bongo family in gabon no you

cannot end the political influence of a family that has ruled for over 50 years in one day because

they are in direct influence so what has changed in gabon therefore what has changed is that the

military has refused to beat up the population and we have a promise that we look into the

institutions to come back to the democratic rule should ali bongo be allowed to travel abroad as

the military government indicated yesterday that he could or should he remain in gabon and be tried

for gross embezzlement what is interesting for people is not to open the case i don't think it

will be viable to open the case at this moment gabon's new interim prime minister raymond and

dong sima talking to julian marshall last month the former u.s president donald trump was charged

with racketeering in the state of georgia he and 18 co-defendants are accused of trying to overturn

joe biden's 2020 election victory there on friday we learned that the special grand jury in the case

had also recommended inditing 20 others including u.s republican senator linsey graham also in the

frame were former senators kelly lefler and david purdue as well as mr trump's former national

security adviser and three lawyers but the district attorney decided not to pursue charges against them

i asked our washington correspondent gary o donahue why the jurors had recommended those

indictments in the first place we don't know what their reasoning was because that's not been

published and we don't know what the evidence they saw was what we really have is just the outcomes

and this special grand jury spent seven months effectively investigating the allegations and

at the end of that process they came up with recommendations which involved charging 39 people

including the 19 who were finally charged but also three republican senators one who's still

serving linsey graham to former georgia republican senators and in donald trump's former national

security adviser michael flinn now fanny willis who's the district attorney in falton county down

there in atlanta she wasn't obliged to go along with all those charges and all those indictments

that that first grand jury recommended and she set up an indictment involving the 19 and took

that to this final grand jury who effectively rubber stamped the indictment that's the process

we're looking at so it was her decision not to go after these 20 or so people that's right these

were only recommendations from the first special grand jury as it's called when you dig down into

the detail of this report what we do see is the voting patterns on these various individuals and

you can see for example in the case of certainly some of the senators one of the senators that there

was a fair old chunk of people who voted against inditing linsey graham and you can see if you're

the district attorney you might think well that's in a sense a test run of what might happen

in the real circumstances of a trial so maybe i don't have the evidence to go ahead with that one

linsey graham of course quite a well-known figure what's he been saying about this

he's come out today and given a very long sort of press conference and said he's very worried about

this process he was just doing his job as a senator that's effectively his defense and of course

we do know that he was one of those people who rang up the georgia secretary of state

exactly the same thing that donald trump did if you remember in that famous taped interview that

was released but lindsey graham says well i was just asking about mail-in ballots and whether

the things were going to be worked properly for the senatorial elections which there were two

coming up very shortly after the general election he's not used explosive language that the trump

campaigners used talking about politically motivated investigations but he has said that he stands by

donald trump he supported him for president he would support him again gary o donahue in washington

five years ago the world was captivated by the rescue of a young football team stuck in a tai

cave system for 18 days now 150 rescuers from around the world have converged on one of turkey's

deepest caves to try to bring out an american scientist trapped a kilometer underground

mark dickie was part of an international team exploring the morca cave in the torus mountains

when he fell ill with gastrointestinal bleeding he recorded this message mark dickie from nearly

a thousand meters and i want to thank everyone that's down here and thank the response of the

caving community the the caving world is a really tight-knit group and it is amazing to see how many

people have responded on the surface we're still waiting for communications to actually reach down

here so right now it's a a day to two days worth of travel for information to get back and forth

as you can see i'm up i'm alert i'm talking but i'm not healed on the inside yet so i need a lot

of help to get out of here well burza shimshek of the bbc turkish services following the rescue

operation she told us the latest on mark dickie's state of health the doctors are currently trying

to improve his condition so that the rescue operation can start he's stuck down below in

one thousand forty meter uh as far as we understand he also said in his video message that he can talk

can be he's alert but obviously his condition needs to improve before the rescue operation can

start he is a kilometer beneath the surface but presumably that's not just straight down i mean

i i used to do caving at university as amateur so i i'm a bit familiar with the caves and caves are

divided into two you have vertical caves and you have horizontal caves this is a vertical cave this

is the third deepest cave in turkey and he is stuck down below one thousand forty meter and most of

the cave is i mean you can imagine as if like climbing to a mountain but you are doing it underground

you are climbing up and down with a rope you need to go through twists and turns in narrow spaces

so basically that's the situation he is in right now so how will they be able to get him out and

how long could it take that's what they're trying to figure out so as far as i understand the european

cave rescue association has made out a plan they have divided the cave into seven sections and

there are different teams from european countries and each country will be taking care of one section

for example the bulgarian team will take him from one thousand forty meter to nine hundred meter and

then they will hand over to another team that's their plan but the discussion is whether they can

now use a stretcher or not because it's a vertical cave you know it might be difficult to rescue him

with a stretcher which means that he needs to be quite strong before the rescue operation can start

it's a very important story in turkish press as well but we will see what's going to happen

and still to come on the global news podcast some of the wives of the male astronauts didn't want

the women you know flying in the jets with their husbands overall they got through it and

nasa is much better for it a new book about the challenges faced by the first generation of female

astronauts before that andrew peaches here with news of this week's happy pod yes this week on the

happy pod a familiar voice to global news podcast listeners my bbc colleague oligurian on how she

managed to get back into yemen to catch up with a little boy who teaches his fellow pupils at school

we're also going to hear about a new app that's teaching hundreds of thousands of people literacy

skills in the hall of africa we're off to a greek island where they repair reuse or recycle

pretty much everything and if you heard me asking for your little win the thing that's made your

week prepare to meet a us navy lieutenant in washington state and a proud dog owner in western

australia the happy pod in this feed every saturday as i mentioned earlier the g20 club

of the world's richest nations is meeting in india but two leaders are notable by their absence

russia's vladimir putin and the chinese president sejin ping the host of the summit indian prime

minister narendra modi is still hoping to use the gathering to highlight india's increasingly

important role in the world and one of the ways he's doing it is by inviting the african union

to join the g20 speaking at a news conference in delhi the president of the european council

char michelle said he looked forward to welcoming the au for many years i'm absolutely convinced

that we we need to make sure that the developing countries including in africa are more represented

on the international stage at the international level if we want decisions that are implemented

we need more inclusivity at the international level well for more on the addition of the au to

the g20 and details of how india intends to smooth over disagreements about the war in

ukraine i spoke to our south asia correspondent yoghurtilamai for india in its year of presidency

one of the things that they've tried to project themselves as is the voice of developing countries

around the world and in keeping with that indian prime minister narendra modi actually wrote to g20

leaders saying that the african union should be included into the g20 a wider range of voices

around the world should be included there was an op-ed he actually wrote for an indian newspaper

which came out ahead of the summit yesterday and he said people shouldn't just be looking at the gdp

growth or economic growth as a measure for countries voices should be heard of all countries around

the world and so i think that's one of india's big efforts is to portray and showcase its position

in the world but its position as a voice of developing countries now interesting that two

of the countries in the g20 are not sending their leaders china and russia and the head of the un says

that if we are indeed a global family we resemble a rather dysfunctional one is the g20 still fit

for purpose i was actually at the press conference held by the un secretary general antonio guterish

was exactly the question that i asked him because he described this as a pivotal summit

but when you have two really powerful heads of state of those nations not coming they are also

permanent members of the un security council what really can you hope to accomplish his answer of

course was that it doesn't matter who's representing the country the countries need to understand

their responsibility what india as the host country particularly wants is that despite

the divisions and the deepening disagreements over the war in ukraine that there will be a joined

statement from all members at the end of the summit on sunday that wording is going to be

extremely complicated for them to agree on but i think what india will look at as a success as

the host country this year would be that there's some joint statement that everybody can agree on

and is issued yoghurt lemay in delhi ukraine's foreign ministry has condemned a visit by a

chinese singer and chinese bloggers to the russian-occupied city of mariaupol ukraine has been angered

by a video that apparently shows a woman singing a russian folk song inside the ruins of the mariaupol

theater destroyed by russian bombing last year resulting in the deaths of many people with more

details here's daniel aberhardt it's a powerful rendition the woman standing on a balcony sings

ketusha it's a soviet era love song to a man fighting to defend his motherland which became

famous in the second world war but the video has incensed kiv the destruction of the mariaupol

theater in march last year was one of the worst atrocities of the war many people using the

building as a shelter were killed some estimates put the figure at 600 a spokesman for ukraine's foreign

ministry called the performance an example of complete moral degradation he's called for china

to clarify what he called an illegal visit daniel aberhardt pakistan says advanced weaponry left

behind in afghanistan after the u.s withdrawal is now being used by insurgent groups to launch

attacks across the border the comments came after hundreds of pakistani taliban militants

carried out a cross-border raid on security posts in the remote mountainous district of chitral

earlier this week with more details here's our south asia regional editor and barasen etirajan

the foreign ministry in islamabad said the issue of advanced weapons in afghanistan

meditated international attention it's estimated that billions of dollars worth of modern weapons

were abandoned when the u.s forces withdrew in august 2021 pakistan says some of the equipment

have now fallen into the hands of insurgent groups like the tekere ke taliban or the pakistani

taliban the clashes with the group earlier this week led to the death of four pakistani soldiers

and 12 insurgents the pentagon has denied u.s troops had left any of the weapons behind when

they left afghanistan it has blamed the afghan military for abandoning their american weapons

when the taliban took over islamabad says pakistani taliban militants have set up bases across the

border in afghanistan but Kabul denies the charges the pakistani taliban group has stepped up attacks

on security forces after it called off a ceasefire late last year and barasen etirajan before the end

of this decade an american astronaut could become the first woman to set foot on the moon more than

50 years after neil armstrong it will be one giant leap for womankind in a journey that began back

in 1978 when nasa reversed its previously male only recruitment process to select six elite women

to become astronauts one of the six sally ride became the first american woman in space here she

is talking about her training program i really don't think that there is any aspect of the training

or of the flight where it's made any difference that there have been women astronauts on the crew

or not the women and the men go through exactly the same training the women and the men do exactly

the same jobs on orbit and weightlessness is a great equalizer you don't need to be

strong to do things up there there is really no difference lauren grush space reporter for bloomberg

news tells the story of these pioneering women in her new book the six she told julian marshall

about their rigorous survival training and how they had to fight the misogyny of their age thankfully

the country had changed during the time between the apollo program and when the first six women

came on board you know we had the civil rights movement and the feminist movement and nasa was

getting a lot of questions about why they had not included women and people of color before and so

it was really top of mind for them when they opened up the astronaut corps to a more diverse

class of individuals you know not everybody was on board within nasa you know a few men who just

weren't used to working with women in a professional capacity like this there was some friction few of

them not taking the women seriously there were also some women who weren't very happy with the

women being in the astronaut corps some of the wives of the male astronauts didn't want the women

you know flying in the jets with their husbands that but overall they got through it and nasa is

much better for it and once selected these six women then underwent the same rigorous training

as the men yes one of the probably more fun aspects of training was they had to stay current in

nasa's fleet of t-38 jets some of the women were pilots when they came onto the program but

they only got to fly in the backseat and they weren't allowed to take off and land though

i've spoken to a few of their former colleagues who said that they did maybe let them take off

and land when they were in the backseat did nasa though have to adapt to accommodate women in

space and i literally mean accommodate yeah of course that included things like adding a women's

bathroom at the locker room also some of the equipment that they had on board for the shuttle

obviously the way that men went to the restroom in space during the Apollo program wasn't going to

cut it and nasa had absolutely no idea of the number of tampons they had to provide unfortunately

that was something that the male engineers at nasa had to learn the hard way so there's a really

great moment where sally ride was performing her bench checks ahead of her flight where you look

over all of the equipment that you have to bring on board and and included in that dwelletry kit

she saw a pink plastic and she had kathy solovan with her at the time to help her out with this

and they grabbed the pink plastic and pulled on it and out came another pink plastic tube and

another pink plastic tube chained together like sausages and the engineers asked sally if a hundred

tampons would be enough for her week-long trip in space and she politely told them you could

cut that in half and you would be fine you've spoken about the intense media scrutiny of the

women while they were training but did that change to a claim when they started to undertake their

duties it was a mixture of both obviously some criticism but a lot of fanfare it was still very

burdensome because everybody wanted to talk to her everybody wanted to celebrate her and so she

really went through it when she came back to earth it was something that really weighed heavy on

her you know she wound up seeking therapy over it just because of how intense that media blitz

became but yes ultimately i think everyone was so enamored with her that's why it was so chaotic

lauren grush space reporter for bloomberg news telling the story of nasa's first female astronauts

in her new book the six the mercury music prize celebrates the best british or irish album of the

year this year the ezra collective became the first jazz act to win the band who met at a club for

at-risk youth recorded their winning album where i'm meant to be during the pandemic they saw of

competition from the arctic monkeys and jesse where here's drummer feme colioso accepting the prize

ezra collective represents something very special because we met in a youth club do you hear what

i'm saying and this moment that we're celebrating right here is testimony to good special people

putting time and effort into young people to play music do you hear what i'm saying

well the jazz musician jamie cullum is one of the mercury prize judges what does he make of the

ezra collective it is a very very tricky thing to be one of the judges on the mercury prize

it's curating this incredible list of great current british and irish music however on the

night we crown a winner and i think ezra collective's album was a brilliant album which is the most

important thing it represents a big leap forward for the band who've been around now for a while

but actually i think this year it's a really exciting moment to spot like what's been happening

in british jazz over the last oh 10 years or so british jazz has always been exciting just sometimes

it takes a while for the press to catch up the music itself has bringing together all these

elements that make the country what it is and bringing it into this joyous sounding music so

all the sounds that make this country tick are coming forth within their music and it is the

sound of a joyous opportunity for a beautiful future and the band really represent that and that

for me is why they want in order to achieve the levels of virtuosity that they have as musicians

the sheer amount of hours that you need to spend to be that good at your instrument that good at

improvising the ability to play with that much freedom the graft is quite unimaginable actually

and i think that you develop a lot of humility particularly in that world of jazz where really

you come to the table and all that matters is whether you can play you don't start playing

jazz music to win a prize like the mercury prize or to be on television or to be doing interviews

it is something you do because it's inside you and you enjoy the struggle you enjoy that journey of

trying to improve your musicianship and the freedom that you then get with playing with other musicians

and that was Jamie Cullum talking about the Ezra Collective the first jazz band ever to win the

prestigious mercury music prize now just before we go a quick thanks to the listeners who spotted

our error at the start of yesterday's podcast yes we do realize it is september this month

and not as i said november thanks to pradeep and mickey and hector for pointing it out i'd like to

say it was a deliberate error but it was simply a slip of the keyboard finally thanks to julie

smith allen who thought it might have been my way of checking if you were all listening well

julie it wasn't but it's very good to know you are and that's all from us for now but there'll

be a new edition of the global news podcast very soon this one was mixed by philip ball and produced

by emma joseph our editor is caron martin i'm oliver conway until next time goodbye

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Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.