Hi there.
Today I'm going to talk about something very topical.
We've had huge hot temperatures in the UK in the last couple
of weeks and all across Europe.
How does this relate to climate change?
So I'm gonna talk through an idea to help with climate change and you're gonna get
some wonderful vocabulary that's very topical, will help you in conversation
and also will be good for those of you who are faced with doing IELTS tests or
other English language tests and exams.
So some great vocabulary today, some interesting statistics and an
idea about climate change as well as great English listening practice.
So last week in the UK and across Europe, we had extremely hot temperatures,
record breaking temperatures actually.
That means the highest temperatures that we have recorded before.
So 40 degrees in the UK.
When it's hot in the UK, we don't have air conditioning, we don't have swimming pools
in our gardens, so we just get very hot!
That heat was all across Europe and there are many countries in Europe
who are battling serious wildfires as a result of those high temperatures.
So the UK Met Office or Meteorological Office, to give it its full title
- that's M E T E O R O L O G I C A L.
I'll do that again.
M E T E O R O L O G I C A L - the Meteorological Office.
Basically the people who do the weather in the UK.
Well, they were commenting that climate change and the rise in temperature across
the world makes this type of weather 10 times more likely in their estimation.
How much climate change has there been?
Well, apparently since pre-industrial times there has
been a one degree Celsius rise.
It doesn't sound very much, but its implications are great.
That rise doesn't sound a lot, but that one degree Celsius does make a difference.
And of course, as we know, the problem is CO2 or carbon dioxide emissions.
We've got the highest levels of CO2 in our atmosphere because
of the burning of fossil fuels.
So that's coal, oil and gas.
This gets trapped in our atmosphere and gives us the so-called 'greenhouse
effect', which has a 'heating effect' on world temperatures.
A 'greenhouse' that's G R E E N H O U S E - that is a glasshouse.
And it's what we might use in our gardens to grow plants.
So it's necessarily hotter inside the greenhouse than it is outside.
Hence we call it the 'greenhouse effect', this global warming effect.
So what climate targets have we set?
Well, the UN target is to limit global temperature increases to
1.5 degrees Celsius higher than those pre-industrial levels.
So the levels before widespread industry arrived in many parts of the world.
This 1.5 degree Celsius limit was arrived at in the 2015 Paris agreement.
However, to achieve that those carbon emissions need to stop rising
right now and start falling by 2025.
That's not very long, is it?
And those are ambitious targets.
It's estimated also that emissions need to halve by 2030.
Again, that's just seven and a half years away - also sou
nding ambitious that target.
But even more ambitious, we are asked to be at 'net zero' by 2050.
'Net zero' means that as much carbon is being removed from the atmosphere as
we are emitting, as is being generated.
How easy is that to achieve?
Well, it looks pretty impossible at the moment.
It's estimated that in 2021, CO2 emissions actually went up by
6%, despite a global pandemic.
So we really aren't doing enough yet to bring down those CO2 emissions.
We have massive challenges on our hands here.
There was another big UN conference in Glasgow last year in 2021,
and other promises were made.
Other targets were talked about.
It was estimated that if governments honour their promises, we will
be still looking at a 2.4 Celsius temperature increase by the year 2100.
So although these targets are ambitious, it's still going to get a lot hotter.
And those sorts of 40 degree Celsius temperatures that we saw
over the last couple of weeks are going to become more commonplace.
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So if we need to get to 'net zero' by 2050, so we need to be not emitting any
more carbon than is soaked up, than is reabsorbed, than is 'taken back in', then
we've got to change what we're doing.
One way of doing this is to try to bring down the amount
of carbon in the atmosphere.
How might we do that?
Well, we can reduce the amount of CO2 by perhaps planting more trees.
Stay with me.
This is a different idea, perhaps.
Planting more trees would help our planet absorb more CO2.
Trees and forests absorb carbon dioxide through their process of photosynthesis.
I suspect 'photosynthesis' is probably the same word in your language.
It's P H O T O S Y N T H E S I S - 'photosynthesis'.
It's what plants and trees do.
And basically they act as 'stores' for carbon dioxide.
So when you look at the burning of fossil fuels, what we're doing
is releasing long-held carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere.
But trees and plants and bushes take it in and effectively, the earth can become
a long-term store for carbon dioxide.
So having more plants and trees would help reduce the amount of
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
That's logical, isn't it?
It's not such a crazy idea this because in 2019, NASA
conducted a study into this idea.
There's a link in the transcript if you're interested in
reading more about the study.
Basically, they concluded that if we were to plant trees so that there
were 25% more forested areas, 25% more forests across the world, that
would be half a trillion trees.
So a trillion T R I L L I O N.
Or in other words, 2.2 billion acres more trees across the
world that would have an effect.
How much effect?
Well, it would remove the last 20 years of carbon emissions.
That doesn't sound like as much as you might hope - the last
20 years of carbon emissions.
Another statistic they gave, because it's difficult to imagine such an
effect - it's difficult to quantify?
They said that 25% more forest would reduce the carbon in
the atmosphere by about 25%.
In other words, 25% more trees in the world would remove about half the
carbon that's been produced since 1960.
That sounds a bit more encouraging.
Planting that many trees sounds to be a huge effort.
But one other idea, which is of interest.
If you leave areas of land untouched for a period of time in locations
where trees grow anyway, then trees and forests do naturally regenerate.
I notice that near to where we live, there is an area of land,
which was cleared several years ago.
All the vegetation, the plants, the bushes, the trees were removed.
I don't know who did that because I don't know who owns the land.
But having done that, they didn't do anything else.
The land has just been left and actually there are now quite large trees and bushes
and plants covering this piece of ground.
So nature has regenerated.
So we may not actually need to plant this half a trillion trees.
We might be able to let some of it happen naturally.
Given the right conditions, nature will regenerate and indeed in this NASA
report, It does give the example of how land in Africa is being protected
so that it can naturally regenerate and trees will start to grow again
and cover the land once again.
One of the challenges is though that it takes trees a while to grow.
So it can be up to a hundred years before an area of forest
reaches maturity and reaches its peak at absorbing carbon dioxide.
The trees need to be big enough to make a difference.
And enough of them.
Obviously this depends on the climate that you're in and the
type of tree that you're planting or allowing to regrow, regenerate.
Some tree types and some areas can be more carbon- absorbing than others.
Another potential problem with all of this, if we're going to free
up the land to enable more trees to grow, how does that match with
the need to produce more food?
So one of the reasons why deforestation, the removal of trees has occurred is
forests get cleared in order to create ground, land, to plant crops on.
There's a lot of us on the planet and we need feeding.
And that's another problem.
So trees are taken down not only for their wood, but to enable the planting
of crops and the grazing of animals.
I think here, we're gonna have to look at the way we use land
and what we eat and look at more intensive types of farming food.
Things that are more ecologically sustainable than
current farming practices.
25% more forest does sound doable.
And although it would be a huge effort and use a lot of land, it does mean a
significant reduction in carbon dioxide.
It would have a positive effect.
But of course it's not enough on its own.
We can't just carry on as we are with our carbon emissions.
We still need to change the way that we live, but planting trees is
an idea worth looking at, I think.
Let us know what you think.
Let us know whether you found this topic interesting, and whether it helped
increase your English language vocabulary.
Enough for now.
Have a lovely day.
Speak to you again soon.
Goodbye.