Oct 10

Fact-check: Is China missing a billion people?

A viral video circulating online claims the population of China is actually a billion people lower than the UN and China say. A billion is big number, you'd think the Chinese would notice if that many were missing - and the claim is certainly false.However, as the team dug into t ... Show More

8m 58s

Oct 7

Is the UK state pension really the lowest in Europe?

Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news. This week: (00:42) Is the UK uniquely miserly when it comes to the state pension? That’s the story a viral social media post is telling - but have they adjusted to account for complicated structural differences between nat ... Show More

28m 42s

Oct 3

The Uzbekistan-shaped hole in an influential climate cost paper

How much could climate change cost the global economy? That would be a very useful thing to know, and scientists have developed statistical models that they think can help give a reasonable answer. These involve finding the patterns in economic data associated with temperature ch ... Show More

8m 59s

Jan 2023

Why are we still subsidising fossil fuels?

In 2009, the G20 countries pledged to phase out 'inefficient' fossil fuel subsidies, which have long been seen as an obstacle to fighting climate change. But today, subsidies for oil and gas producers are at record levels -- $64 billion in 2021. It’s not just to do with the war i ... Show More

27 m

Oct 2022

How green is green finance?

We’ve been told that big finance is crucial to the transition to net zero, and billions of dollars are invested in so-called sustainable finance every year. But the BBC’s Climate Editor Justin Rowlatt, together with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, have been looking into a ... Show More

27m 19s

May 2024

Why rich countries could struggle to come up with more climate cash

Wealthy nations belatedly met their goal of sending billions of dollars in climate aid to developing countries. And now, they’re gearing up again to negotiate the next amount of funding they are willing to give, which will likely be a tougher task because the cost of fighting cli ... Show More

9 m

Nov 2023

Big promise, little success: The state of carbon capture

<p>The U.S. is spending billions on carbon capture as a climate solution, but is it realistic? The method has been around for 50 years and used primarily as a way to extract more oil. To find out how and if carbon capture can work as a climate solution, Akshat speaks with Emily G ... Show More

34m 45s

Apr 2021

What is the cost of climate reform?

It’s been a week of tough talk on climate action. President Biden set out US plans for fighting climate change and called on the industrialised world to join his efforts to dramatically slash carbon emissions this decade. The global shift towards a greener world is transforming t ... Show More

49m 50s

Jun 2023

We need trillions to fix the climate. Finally there’s a serious plan.

<p>Trillions of dollars are needed to shift the world to a low-carbon future, but where will all that money come from? While momentum is growing in rich countries, developing countries are still struggling for finance. Without significant increases in the amount of money spent, t ... Show More

46m 54s

Nov 2021

Climate Ambition vs Energy Reality

David and Helen talk to Jason Bordoff, Dean of the Columbia Climate School and former Special Assistant to Barack Obama, about climate, COP26 and the enormous challenges of the energy transition. How can we balance the need for energy security with the need to wean the world off ... Show More

51m 55s

May 2021

Can oil dependent countries adjust as the world shifts from fossil fuels?

<p>England’s National Health Service is preparing to scrape the medical histories of 55m patients into a database it will share with third parties, and dozens of American companies that suspended political contributions after the US Capitol attack are sitting on $28m in unspent c ... Show More

8m 49s

Do fossil fuels get $7 trillion in subsi...