This is the Decarbonisation Dialogue, a podcast
from Salix. Welcome to Delivering on Climate
Change, our collective challenge, Decarbonisation
Dialogue. I am Hannah Walker, and I believe that
the best way to communicate a message is by being
passionate about what you are talking about.
Through that passion, I believe you take people
with you and create action using your influence
to make change and make a difference. My guest
today is Professor Peter Cox, who is Director
of the Global Systems Institute at the University
of Exeter. The Global Systems Institute aims
to be thought leading in understanding global
changes, solving global challenges and helping
create a future world through transformative
research, education, impact and engagement. As
well as his role with the Global Systems Institute,
Professor Peter Cox is Professor of Climate Systems
Dynamics and Mathematics at the University of
Exeter. He has previously worked at the Met Office
Hadley Centre and the UK Centre for Ecology and
Hydrology. He is an international leader in understanding
of interactions between the land biosphere and
climate change. Professor Cox is also lead author
on the fourth, fifth and sixth assessment reports
of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
and a member of the UK government's DEFRA Scientific
Advisory Council. He has been named as a highly
cited author by Thomson Reuters for every year.
from 2014 onwards. From 2006, he's been driving
the development of world -leading climate research
at the University of Exeter. So it's fantastic
to have Professor Peter Cox with me today. Thank
you, Peter, for joining us. No problem, Senna.
Thank you. So we're going to go straight to our
first question because I'm intrigued. I'd love
to know a little bit more about your career.
You're a highly successful author and an expert
in climate change and science and have led global
research with big impact. How did you get to
where you are today and why climate? Mostly where
you get to is luck, I think. I actually started
out as a physicist. I was working on, well, I
got very interested in physics when I stopped
being so interested in cricket. although I never
stopped being so interested in cricket, but got
very interested in physics. And then I did a
degree in physics and I did a PhD in plasma physics.
I was working on nuclear fusion research in the
day. Believe it or not, Hannah, we thought we
were going to run out of fossil fuels when I
was doing my PhD in the mid 80s. I was doing
it not because I thought climate change was a
problem, but because I thought we were going
to run out of fossil fuels and run out of energy.
And so by the time I got to the end of my PhD,
which was late 80s. the climate change agenda
had emerged and i thought this is fantastic from
a i was one of these scientists who was not good
in the lab so i became a theorist almost by default
really because i used to break stuff in the lab
so when i went to um uh when i finished my phd
the climate change issue came up and it was a
modeling problem was a mathematical modeling
problem i thought it's very exciting so i went
to the metaverse hadley center at that stage
with basically no knowledge of I was a physicist
with very little knowledge of trees and plants
and ecosystems. And as they did in those days
at the Met Office, they said, well, you think
you're a bright guy. Go and do something you've
not been qualified to do, weirdly. So I got put
on modelling vegetation and the carbon cycle.
And that's where I started my career and had
a great team there. And it's gone from there,
really. So a lot of kind of, I suppose everyone's
career is a bit like this. There's a lot of sort
of random turns in a way. And you end up hopefully
in a nice place. So to talking about climate,
we're not talking about something new here. So
but we are looking at massive challenges as we
face climate change, not least of the very threat
to humanity. Why can't we all agree on what is
happening to our planet? Because the way I see
it, you know, we switch on the news every day.
Climate is in the news. The need for action has
never been more urgent. What changes we're looking
at? I mean, what is happening to our planet?
Yeah, well, so the headline figure is always
that the planet is warming and has warmed quite
significantly. By about, well, the last year,
2024, was the hottest year on record globally.
2023 was the previous record. Previous eight
records are all the previous eight years before
it. Not in order, but the last 10 years on record
are the warmest. So we know the climate changing.
We've actually had the science of this. Since
the 19th century, actually, we've understood
the concept of greenhouse gases and we know carbon
dioxide is going up because of fossil fuels.
So we know the climate changing. We know and
we're getting more and more circumstantial evidence
that at least increasing weather extremes. So
if you warm up the climate, you tend to get more
water in the atmosphere. That means when it does
rain, it rains heavier. It also means when it's
not raining, it evaporates faster. So you get
an intensification of the hydrological cycle,
which means you get more floods and droughts,
bizarrely, both of them. And so there's bigger
and bigger impacts on people. And at the same
time, the climate change is as clear as it could
possibly be. We have the reemergence of scepticism,
especially in the US, but with the US goes everyone
else. So it is a very weird world we live in
at the moment. But it feels like if I'm in my
optimistic mood, Hannah, I'd say I hope it's
the death throes of climate denialism. because
it seems such a weird thing to be doing that
right now when it's so obviously wrong. But people
can be misled by the fact the media is controlled
by very few people, but by people who can buy
bits of the media. So we're in a dangerous situation,
but I'm hoping it's a short -term thing as we
make that transition towards basically a net
zero world or something like it. Yeah, I certainly
do want to touch on the idea that we've got to
be positive, but also... we are facing serious
times. And when you talk about that global warming,
you talked about 2023 being a record, and then
we moved to 2024 and that hit a new record. So
what is that? We see it in the news, we see flooding,
we see drought, we see these extremes, as you
say. Tell me a little bit about that measurement.
I mean, is there an answer to net zero? Net zero,
will reaching net zero, we have rather a lot
of targets, we can also talk about that, but
will reaching net zero solve the climate change
issue? It will stop climate change to a very
high accuracy. It's a really interesting thing
that when I started my career in the early 90s,
we always knew the climate problem was difficult.
And I was working on vegetation, the climate
system, there was all sorts of issues to do with.
whether climate change might kill forests like
the amazon forest and i worked on that for a
long time but something emerged in 2009 from
a number of studies which is quite remarkable
like a lifeline for humanity really for understanding
the problem so it turns out despite all the complexity
of the weather and all the complexity of the
earth system if you plot the total emissions
that have been produced from fossil fuels and
deforestation since about 1850 against global
warming it's a lovely straight line And that
means that there's that's where the concept of
net zero comes from. If you stop emitting CO2,
you pretty much stop global warming. When you
stop global warming, you stop most of the impacts
of climate change. So it's an approximation is
a very good one. And it's an extraordinary simplification,
really. I mean, if when it was first published
and I unfortunately I wasn't on the papers, but
I thought this is ridiculous. It's too simple.
Can't be like that. But it does turn out to play
out like that. And we can see that in models
as well. to a very good approximation, if we
get to net zero, and it's easier said than done,
but if we get to net zero, we will stop 90 %
climate change, maybe a bit more than that. Okay.
So in terms of simplification, because I'm not
a scientist, but to keep global warming, where
are we? No more than 1 .5. Is that the figure
at the moment? Well, that was the aspirational
figure that came out of the Paris Agreement.
Two was always the upper limit. At the moment,
um well so if you look at the individual year
2024 was hotter than 1 .5 compared to pre -industrial
now the way you can say that that doesn't mean
that paris the lower limit paris has been broken
as you think about longer term averages when
you think about the climate so in five year averages
we're probably more like 1 .3 similar to 1 .3
and 1 .4 but it's very unlikely we're going to
avoid 1 .5 degrees now you know even if you take
five year averages we're going to probably burst
through it so 1 .5 And it was never intended
to be an upper limit, but 1 .5, avoiding 1 .5
is not going to happen now. So we are far from
where we need to be right now, today. For 1 .5,
yeah, I mean, it really depends. The limit that
was set at the Copenhagen COP, which was in 2009,
which defined dangerous climate change, believe
it or not, was two degrees of global warming.
And that's the one that you were not supposed
to exceed, right, with Paris. At the moment,
the current commitments from governments would
take us way beyond two degrees. So the bigger
issue for me, at least, is we're going to crash
through 1 .5. The world will not end, but it
will get harder. But we mustn't crash through
two. And that needs a lot more work than we're
currently doing collectively across the globe.
And let's talk for a moment about the Global
Systems Institute. What role? What is the role
of the Global Systems Institute and what next
for the climate research? We are facing so many
challenges in today's world, aren't we? Geopolitical
strife, we're facing famine, we're facing war,
we're still recovering from the pandemic. So
what is the role in terms of the GSI going next?
Yeah, so the GSI, I mean, it's a very... It's
quite a difficult term to define. What we've
done since I've been director is basically say
we're centred on the climate problem. It's a
systems institute in the sense that we want to
connect that to everything that might affect
it or be affected by it. Because climate is so
ubiquitous and so central to everything, it pretty
much gives us a free reign to do anything. But
it is centred on the climate problem. So there
are issues obviously connected to human wellbeing
and health. There are issues associated with
technology and renewable energy and carbon capture.
maybe even radical things like geoengineering.
There's issues to do with equity because climate
change says to hit the people at least responsible
hardest. So it connects us. There's issues to
do with the economy. How do you transform your
economy to be a low -carbon economy without affecting
people's well -being? So we are centred on the
climate problem, but we're very interested in
these connections, and we believe the connections
are key because they imply what we might call
emergent properties. things about the total system
that you can't get from the individual parts.
And you might think of the Industrial Revolution
and climate change as one of those things. You
know, the tipping point was in the use of fossil
fuels to fuel an economy and steam engines and
so on. And then it led to these unexpected consequences.
So anyway, cut to the chase. The GSI is interested
in interactions. We're also very interested in
emerging properties like things called tipping
points. You've probably heard about these. abrupt
changes so in the climate system there are some
we can see them in the historical record in the
past the uh the atlantic meridional ocean circulation
which keeps us warm has shut down and we're concerned
it might in the future we're also concerned that
um warming especially in a lot um because the
greenhouse gases could lead to amazon's getting
dry and dying back and there are a number of
other things that we worry about so there are
these assisting tipping points we major on but
what we've lately been realizing is that there
are huge tipping points on non -linearities abrupt
changes in the human realm and they're the ones
some of those we need to stimulate to make a
transition to more um sustainable ways of operating
so what we're doing in the gsi amongst other
things is to say we now understand these abrupt
changes and we're scared of some of them want
to avoid them there are other abrupt changes
that would get us onto a more sustainable path
we might want to use they might be transitions
that we can use and i think what we're seeing
in the world you know coming back to the question
we were discussing earlier with these weird political
um socio -political flip -flops are also kind
of non -linearities and tipping points that um
that in principle can be frozen in one way or
the other so when you get to an instability in
the system and it could go two ways you get to
choose actually if you know about it you get
to choose and so we are studying what we call
positive tipping points, which are things where
you might say, at this point, maybe an injection
of something like a little bit of money or incentive
could flip it to the other state. And that means
that we'd be in a position where we could take
a systems view, not just in order to avoid these
horrible non -linearities, but use the non -linearities
to make a change. And that's one of the things
we're doing at the GSI. Other things too, but
that's one of the things. climate change should
unite the world, shouldn't it? It's not just
an issue we're facing here in the UK. And although
we can move forward and we make, to a large extent,
we're making great strides on the green energy
front and looking at new technologies, but it's
a global issue. If you were to look at... countries
overseas like India? I mean, India has made huge
strides in solar power and China, China also
looking at solar and wind. Where would you look
to? Because we are, I mean, are we in the UK,
are we leading, would you say, or are we trailing
behind, especially when you look at countries
like India and China and their work with solar
and wind? Yeah, I mean, I think we've, our record
on carbon emissions production is actually pretty
good in the UK. And other European countries
hold us up as a good example of how you can do
things like the Climate Change Committee. And
actually, we've been lucky in the sense that
successive governments have not denied climate
change. You might argue we've gone slower than
we could, but there's generally been good progress.
So on the big picture, maybe because we're fortunate
and we've not got an economy that's growing really
fast, we're doing well. Where the emissions are
growing, it's either because there's not been
action on getting to more sustainable ways of
doing things, moving to renewable energy, for
example. All the economies are growing quickly,
and that's true of India and China. So Chinese
emissions have grown, but they are much faster
to make a transition than we were or the US was
or other developed economies were. And we hope
that's because we've all learned something. We
now have technology that can be used and actually
makes sense economically, quite apart from sustainability.
So I think they are making progress, and especially
in China, moving relatively quickly away from
fossil fuels. were very, very fossil intensive
not long ago and still are quite fossil intensive
and have a huge demand for energy. So they will
be key players in this. And as far as the U .S.
is concerned, the U .S. is no longer the biggest
emitter in the world. So we'd love them on board.
But in a sense, the economies that really need
to be changed are the ones that are going through
the transition, the one that we did and the U
.S. did and most developed European countries
did on fossil fuels needs to be not done that
way. And we've got the technology, so that doesn't
have to be the case, actually. Yes. So do you
think when we're talking about these climate
issues, we're on the cusp of great technology.
We're looking at other countries and seeing how
they're progressing. But a lot of people like
you and me, we're going about our daily lives.
What do you think is the trigger to make us change
our lifestyle? Government, business, big business
has got to work together. But you talked about
the cynicism earlier, you know, cynicism in climate
change. How do you get everybody else involved
in this conversation? Yeah, I mean, I think...
Without it becoming this huge catastrophe. Yeah,
that's one of the problems. Doomism also turns
people off, except some people who get extremely
depressed by it and frozen into inaction. We
have to keep in mind that things can be done.
It isn't rocket science in the sense we sort
of know what needs to be done, right? We've got
all the tools we need to a large extent to do
this stuff. We know that the transition to electrifying
our economy is one way to do it, but we've also
got economic barriers to that. So things that
are unsustainable are often cheaper than things
that are sustainable even now. You know, electricity
is much more expensive than natural gas if you
want to heat your home, which is kind of ridiculous.
We've got a situation where flying, which does
a lot more damage to the environment, is much
more extensive than train travel. This is absurd,
right? And in our university, we're now even
trying to get a levy on flights from our own
staff so we can subsidise their train travel.
But it is bizarre that organisations have to
do it on their own and it's not being done anyway.
It just feels like there is a will, but not enough
to fiddle with the economy. Never enough to fiddle
with the economy. So I do think there's two things.
One is an education thing, so you have to keep.
the issue on the agenda without it becoming doom
-laden and very much associated with a better
way of living, really. So we want better air
quality, even if people couldn't care less about
climate change. They do care about the air they
breathe. They do care about the water they drink.
And these things are all connected with how we
fuel our economies. So I think there's that.
The other thing is there is a positive tipping
point in social networks, right? Why do we all
recycle now when we didn't 20 years ago? It's
because all our neighbours are doing it and we
can see them doing it. And you feel guilty when
you don't. So there is a social tipping point
that can work in our favour. But there's also
vested interest associated with historical commitments
to fossil fuels and other ways of doing things
that will fight against that. But in the end,
I think the number of people that are connected,
directly connected to each other, that think
of ways of doing things in a different way. We'll
win. It's just whether we could do it fast enough
to get it done quickly. Right. I mean, it feels
like the tipping points are in our favour in
that sense. Social networks are tipping points,
but communication between them is still controlled
by a few rich people. Right. Quite often. And
that makes it more difficult. And it's that understanding,
isn't it? Because when people understand, it's
not just knowing about it, but it's actually.
having it explained in a simple way without being
patronising. It's that sharing. Because the more
people understand, I suppose, the more people
can prepare for any risks and challenges around
it as well. Yeah, I think we've done quite well
in the UK in getting the issue across. I think
there's another gap between that and affecting
people's lifestyles. So things like dietary changes
is one of the things individuals can do. It's
quite hard to get across because there is a counter
view that, you know, roast dinners are really,
I mean, I still think roast dinners are lovely
things, even though I try not to eat women and
meat, I still think of them as lovely things.
When I fly back into the UK, I want to see green
fields, even though they're far from natural
and they're not maximum carbon storage. I quite
like seeing cows, even though I know they're
bad for the environment. So there's very much
an association with what you're used to, what
makes you comfortable because it's like you're
used. but some of those things need to change
and that's going to take a while and it is a
bit like um replacing those sort of um nostalgic
views of the past with even more attractive views
of the future that might even be more natural
you know we'll have we'll have woodlands rather
than grasslands kind of thing yes but it's quite
hard to get across even for someone like me even
i think fly back in uk i think it wasn't lovely
to see the green and pleasant lands they're basically
all farmland right yes grazing land um And doing
quite a lot of damage to the environment. So
it's quite a difficult thing to think up all
that. You're right. It's changing the way we
think and changing the norms, I suppose, because
it's clearly when we look at we obviously want
everybody to move forward and we need to address
this issue because truly the cost of floods and
droughts is costing the economy billions anyway.
It's costing us across the world, isn't it? So
there isn't that much longer that people can
start to say, particularly world leaders can
start to say this doesn't matter anymore because
it's going to become too costly to bear, isn't
it? The cost of climate change. It's really interesting,
actually, that one of the first organisations,
and you might think, well, this is not surprising,
but the first organisation to collect good data
on the impacts of changing extremes for the insurance
industry, actually. responsible for insuring
our homes and and and dealing with issues when
we have accidents and they are more and more
concerned by this so they've got really good
data they can collect also on claims and also
uninsured losses and they're kind of frightening
so um the evidence the evidence for extremes
extreme damages predominantly comes from the
insurance industry because they have to keep
good data to work out what the premium should
be and so on and so forth so when big businesses
like that get involved there's two things one
is It's serious economically or else they wouldn't
be doing it. And secondly, they have some leverage
on things because they are an enormous part of
an economy or economies worldwide. So that's
a plus. And some of the organisations, insurance
organisations, reinsurance organisations, have
been very active in wanting an action on climate
change. It's not just about driving up premiums.
They want their businesses not to break because
the losses get too large. So to me, that's when
you know it's not purely environmental scientists
like me. ringing the alarm bell too loud. These
are the people ringing it loudest, the people
that have an interest in, you know, insurance,
and actually whether insurance is even feasible
after a while. Okay, so you, though, as a scientist,
what's the next trigger for climate change? We've
talked about the 1 .5 figure, we've got a 2050
target. We've got countries across the world
looking at air and solar and all of the other
types of, whether it's geothermal, all the other
nuclear. For example, we've started to think
again, haven't we, about the way we use nuclear
in this country. So what is the next trigger,
though, for climate change? What should we be
looking out for next? You did mention the fact
that, well, the world's not going to end tomorrow.
It's not going to end. There's not a sudden answer,
is there? There's no sudden result for this.
But what is the next trigger? What should we
be looking at in terms of climate change? So
I think we've got to keep our eyes on the rising
impacts in climate change and try and understand
how the extremes are being affected by climate.
That's happening anyway. But one of the things
that are emerging at the moment is when we look
like we're going to miss targets that are associated
with dangerous climate change or... With the
agreement what dangerous means, like 1 .5 and
2, people are now thinking, and we're working
on this as well, whether there are emergency
measures you need to be working on. So the thing
about CO2 is ultimately you've got to get greenhouse
gases down if you want to stabilise the climate.
But what if we can't do it fast enough and we
crash through some of these targets? Would you
do something else? Now, there is a really radical
thing, I don't know if you've heard about this,
that's called geoengineering, which is this idea
that you either suck CO2 out there, which is
also slow, but could be done. Or you just make
the planet brighter deliberately. And this is
sort of what happens after volcanoes, some volcanoes,
mostly volcanoes like Pinatubo that went off
in 91, cooled the global climate down by about
half a degree, probably. So some ideas that have
been around a long time are re -emerging. And
I don't think, from a physics point of view,
I'm a physicist, as you remember, it makes a
lot of sense. From a sort of socio -political
point of view, it's really dangerous because
it's one person with a finger on a button possibly
to cool the planet down a bit. But in principle,
you could do this, right? You could as an emergency
call down the planet. And for a while, this research
has been underground. It's been a taboo to talk
about it. But if you really wanted to call the
climate down quickly, it's the only way we know
how to do it. And I think this research now needs
to be out in the open, partly because we might
need an emergency measure and partly because
people need to know what's being researched as
well. So I think the thing that's going to emerge
now is this idea of solar radiation management
as an emergency measure. Well, the other stuff
is kind of there. So we haven't done the work
we need to do on extracting CO2 from the air,
which is possible in principle, but expensive
and requires a lot of energy. But I do think
there'll be more and more about whether we have
emergency measures in case we need them. It's
a bit like saying, some people say we don't want
that because it will mean we'll just... we will
never cut our fossil fuel emissions so you can't
have that situation you have to do that but if
you wanted to chop the top off it might be the
only way you can do it and lots of my scientist
colleagues disagree with me on this they don't
even think i should talk about it but i think
we should talk about it because i think we are
getting to the stage where we are in a kind of
climate emergency we don't know how bad it's
going to get and we might need some measure like
that that doesn't say that that doesn't um Go
against the idea that the ultimate thing has
to be to get to net zero. That's when you know
you stabilise the system. You don't have to have
any sticky tapes. But I think there is a case
for thinking more and more about geoengineering
and doing it openly. OK, so geoengineering and
it's all about those CO2 emissions. When I think
and when a lot of people think about our climate,
we do tend to think about. beautiful places in
the world and how our landscapes are changing,
how our wildlife is changing. And you, indeed,
we think might think about the Amazon. Now you've
done, you did a huge amount of research into
the Amazon forest dieback. Can you talk to me
a little bit about that? What did that involve?
Yeah, so what we did, this was in the days when
I was in the Met Office. So I left my PhD, I
went to the Met Office. I remember they said
to me, well, you're a physicist, now do biology.
And so I was asked to set up a group to put vegetation
dynamically into climate models um and i went
they first thing they sent me to the us to meet
some other experts and they all kind of laughed
at me the idea was going to try and do this but
because i wasn't really i was i was young and
probably a bit wet behind the ears i thought
we'll do this anyway and we did do it and so
we did the first experiments in modeling experiments
of simulations where we had vegetation moving
around the globe if it was able to And we had
carbon being absorbed by vegetation and the ocean.
And we ran this simulation in the early 2000s.
We published a paper in Nature in 2000 where
we basically said, in this particular model,
these feedbacks that have been missing would
accelerate climate change a lot. Like global,
instead of being four degrees, being five and
a half. And the reason it happened was because
carbon started to be released from the land,
especially from soil. And really most... And
worryingly, the Amazon rainforest died in that
model. So it got hot and dry. The forest couldn't
survive. When the forest starts to die, it stops
recycling water. It gets hotter and drier still,
and you've got a feedback loop. You lose the
forest. Now, this turns out to be quite an extreme
response from that particular model. And for
years, we did experiments and analysis to try
and work out how feasible this was and convinced
ourselves it's not all that likely in the real
world. But the latest climate models are showing
more and more of this, actually. So not just
the metaverse model. In fact, almost everything
but the metaverse model is now showing evidence
that the Amazon forest could die back under climate
change scenarios, which is a real worry. And
the Amazon is getting drier, too. And we think
that's not just because of carbon dioxide. It's
actually a rather unfortunate consequence of
cleaning up the air. So the other thing that
we did in the 60s and 70s and 50s was burn sulfurous
coal. Now, my parents talk about the pea supers
in London where you couldn't see a hand in front
of your face. And that was because we were burning,
putting a lot of sulfur dioxide out with CO2.
Sulfur dioxide, even though it's a horrible pollutant,
has a weird effect of making clouds brighter.
It forms sulfate particles and droplets can form
around them. You get more drops in a cloud. It
reflects more sunlight. And so for a long time,
we accidentally counteracted global warming with
arguably even worse pollutant. And then we quite
sensibly said, this is really bad for our...
health for our respiratory health so we'll take
the sulfur dioxide out and we've therefore got
a kick the global warming that's happened just
in 2020 we finally took sulfur out of shipping
fuels and there's circumstantial evidence that's
one of the reasons the oceans have been so hot
since i've been getting hot because that sulfur
dioxide was actually reflecting sunlight by virtue
of making clouds a bit brighter and keeping those
areas a bit cooler than they would have been
Anyway, long story short, we mainly emitted sulfur
dioxide in the northern hemisphere because that's
where all the industrial nations were. So as
we reduced those sulfur dioxide, we got a warming
that meant that what's called the intertropical
convergence zone, the place where there's lots
of rain and cloud move northwards. And in the
process, away from Amazonia, as it made sub -Saharan
Africa a bit wetter, which is good, but it made
Amazonia drier, especially southern Amazonia.
And we think that's what's going on. This is
part CO2, but a lot of it's due to doing something
really sensible, which is to clean up the air.
And we are getting a bit of that going on. We
can see that in the satellite record. The planet
is warming now as much or a bit more because
it's getting darker than it is because it's getting
less good at emitting radio. Now, if we're turning
the conversation, trying to be perhaps look at
the more positive, one of the aspects of this
climate change discussion, is that it does draw
people together. Just when I think about the
kinds of people I'm speaking to, like yourself,
our podcast guests, speaking to people from a
range of careers, professions, backgrounds, from
scientists to artists, a whole range of incredible
people who are talking about this. And you work
at Exeter, so you work with a lot of young students
as well. So there are two questions here. So
do you see hope in terms of your students, in
terms of the students there for the future? And
do you see a way of this? Do you see a way of
the climate crisis, climate emergency? Because
it is a climate emergency. I know you said it
was a kind of climate emergency, but it is a
climate emergency. Do you see the way that people
can work together on this agenda a positive?
Absolutely. So, I mean, we're all in a bit in
bubbles sometimes, aren't we? And the people
that I'm surrounded. who are equally concerned
about the climate problem and interested in it,
actually, scientifically, it's a real thrill
to be involved with that. But the other thing
is, in some ways, this is a bit of a test for
humanity, this, right? Because, as you said,
Anna, there's no way for us to solve this on
our own. There could be one polluter in another
part of the world and we'll never get to net
zero globally. So it requires a degree of...
global cooperation than we haven't managed before.
That means it's hard, but it also means that
in order to solve it, we probably have to get
something even better, which is global cooperation.
So I sort of see that as a positive. It might
be, as you sort of were hinting, the thing that
draws us together. It won't be all of us. There'll
always be some dissenters, but there might be
enough of us that are drawn together by this,
that it not only helps us to resolve the climate
problem, which is significant, but it could be
even bigger problems like inequality and war
and so on. These things will be affected by the
fact we're connected. by a common interest and
a common desire to stabilise the climate. So
that's in my very optimistic moments. I do have
the opposite as well, which is, crikey, we're
never going to do this. But it does feel to me
like it's a hard problem because it involves
people working together. And that means it's
doubly worth doing. I was actually going to ask
you whether you get terribly depressed doing
your job monitoring this or whether you, but
there's obviously, there's that hint of optimism
there too, isn't there? Because there has to
be for you to do your work. I mean, I'm also
a scientist, so this always sounds like a sort
of evil scientist thing to say, but it's a really
exciting thing to study the world as it's changing.
I mean, you worry for your kids and you worry
for your grandchildren, but in terms of studying
a problem, there's nothing more interesting than
this at the moment, I think, from a sort of science
point of view, because you're constantly being
stretched to understand what's going on. So it
is an unintended experiment. I wish we weren't
doing it, but if we're going to be doing it,
I want to understand it and try and help to solve
it. And that last one, even if you deal with
it, climate change is happening anyway. The best
thing I can do is to try and understand it and
help in some way. And it does keep me going.
You kind of answered my last question, actually.
I always like to kind of finish up with a very
last question, which is really asking about what
next for you. You've got a highly successful
career to date, but what are your ambitions next?
I mean, the most exciting thing for me, the most
rewarding thing is to develop new scientists.
So I'm in my 60s now. I'll carry on being interested
in this, but you start to see people coming through
that can do things I could never do. They're
going to be much more effective than I was. So
developing people is a really key part of it.
And then there are problems you build up in your
career that kind of get put on the back burner
and they turn into a very tasty stew you'll have
one day. Meat -free stew, I must say, it has
to be. But, you know, a stew in the background
that you'll have. And so there's always this
thing when you get close to retirement is that
all those pet projects you'll be able to do.
The problem is I'm going to need young hands
to help me get the data and massage it. But I
think that's doable. So one thing is about understanding
this thing about the darkening planet, which
is really exciting to me. Another thing is about
understanding how you might detect a tipping
point that you approach quickly. That's also
a technical problem, but very interesting. And
I think we're close to solving it. So, yeah,
there's plenty of problems to keep it going.
I really love that idea of that stew. And it
is certainly not a time to sit back or sit on
your hands. This is a time to carry on and, as
you say, draw in a lot of fresh other new perspectives
as well. Well, thank you very much to Peter.
Thank you very much for providing such a tremendous
amount of insight today. There can be no doubt
that climate change is the biggest challenge
of our time. Today we must reduce greenhouse
gas emissions to slow global warming. Today we
must act for tomorrow, adjusting our lifestyles
to current and future impacts of climate change.
Today we must use our collective wisdom to deliver
on our climate commitments. Today we work for
tomorrow's world. Thank you very much to Peter
Cox, to Professor Peter Cox for joining me today.
Really appreciate your time. Thank you. My pleasure.
You've been listening to the Decarbonisation
Dialogue, a podcast from Salix. For more information
about our work and to find more content, please
visit salixfinance .co .uk forward slash podcasts.