 Joe Biden hosted a virtual climate summit that was intended to symbolize the reassertion of American leadership on climate change after four years of Donald Trump. And in words at least, Biden's intervention was a world away from his predecessor. All of us, all of us, and particularly those of us who represent the world's largest economies, we have to step up. You know, those that do take action and make bold investments in their people and clean energy future will win the good jobs of tomorrow and make their economies more resilient and more competitive. So let's run that race, win more, win more sustainable future than we have now, overcome the existential crisis of our times. We know just how critically important that is because scientists tell us that this is the decisive decade. This is the decade we must make decisions that will avoid the worst consequences of the climate crisis. That was Joe Biden, obviously sounding very, very different to Donald Trump. He's encouraging a race between the big emitters to reduce emissions, which, you know, if we're going to have geopolitical races, that's probably one of the better ones to have. On that front, in terms of competing as to who can reduce emissions first, Britain had a decent story to tell. So we'll see if they follow through on it, but they have committed to reduce emissions by 78% by 2035 level. That's compared to 1990 level, sorry. However, in his intervention, the Prime Minister's more memorable line from the event was not what the UK would do, but rather what he himself was not. It's vital for all of us to show that this is not all about some expensive politically correct green act of bunny-hugging or how do you want to put it? I'm not going to be bunny-hugging, but you know what I'm driving at, friends and colleagues. This is about growth and jobs, and I think the President was absolutely right to stress that. Now, many people on Twitter said that was a gaffe from Boris Johnson. I mean, I'm pretty sure that is exactly the kind of clip Boris Johnson quite likes to go out. He's trying to make a point to say, when I'm talking about green things, I'm not saying you have to consume less or live like a hippie. What I'm saying is let's have growth and green jobs. I think there was a plan there, and he likes people finding him funny. There you go. Let's go to probably, well, definitely a much more significant leader than Boris Johnson when it comes to fighting climate change. That's China's Xi Jinping. He used the occasion to reassert some pretty ambitious targets drawn up from Beijing. China will strive to peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. China has committed to move from carbon peak to carbon neutrality in a much shorter time span than what might take many developed countries. So the point he's making there, obviously China, because it's developed much later than the Western countries, is not going to have as ambitious reductions by 2030 or 2035 as Britain or America. But he's saying, look, we're going to peak in 2030, and then we're going to go from the peak to net zero in 30 years, which would be very ambitious if they managed to pull it off. He also said they would be phasing down coal consumption in the five years from 2025. So that's a more immediate target. Obviously, the closer the target is, the easier it is to hold a politician to account for it. How these summits and negotiations and COP26 will work is by voluntary contribution commitments. I think I've used slightly the wrong term there, but essentially nationally determined contributions. That's what it is. My apologies. What this means is that each country basically gets to offer what their commitment will be, how much they will reduce their emissions by and by what date compared to what baseline level. I'm going to get you up where we currently stand with the different countries and regions in the world right now. This is from the FK. The European Union have said they will reduce their emissions by 55% by 2030. That's compared to the 1990 baseline. The UK compared to 1990 will reduce its emissions by 78% by 2035. The United States who compare their levels to 2005, they will halve their emissions by 2030. Canada, who use the same baseline as the US, they'll reduce theirs by 40% to 45% by 2030. Japan, who compare theirs to 2013, will reduce their emissions by 46% by 2030. China and India on here, that's even more complicated because this isn't them saying there's going to be a 65% reduction. They are going to have a 65% reduction per unit of GDP by 2030. They're basically saying by 2030, each unit of growth we have, each unit of economic production will be much greener, much efficient than it currently is. India, similar. They will make each unit of GDP emit 33% to 35% less carbon emissions. My apologies. That's all quite complicated. There's some quite, I suppose, important political reasons as to why they've all chosen different baselines, but that's what they've decided to do, makes my job slightly harder to discuss whether these pledges are enough. And if they're credible, which is probably most important, I'm joined by Laurie Laborn Langton. Now, let's imagine they follow the plan, they do it. How far do these pledges get us to averting climate catastrophe? They get us much closer. And I think we have to appreciate that a lot of progress has been made off the back of these targets having come through around the time of this summit. And it was good that America hosted that summit, particularly in comparison to the previous era, as you were saying. It's pushed countries to sign up to more stringent reductions like the UK, for example. There will be detailed analyses, mainly by scientists associated with the UN, that will look at precisely how much this has closed the emissions gap in the jargon between where we are and where we need to get to to keep temperatures down to a certain level. But it certainly takes us a bit closer. Whether it actually delivers is still a very big question and one that I'm sure many scientists will say, this is a good next step, but we're still nowhere near really closing that emissions gap. So we have a shot at ensuring that the temperature rise does not go above 1.5 over the course of the next decade or so. And again, sticking to their targets, so assuming they meet them, looking through that, which of those countries are you most impressed by? Who do you think is still lagging behind? Is Boris Johnson to correct or say that we've got the most ambitious target and therefore we're leading the way? Yeah, the UK target is very impressive. It would have been almost unimaginable even a few years ago to think that a governing Conservative Party with a large majority headed by Boris Johnson would sign up to targets that essentially lead to one of the greatest or demand one of the greatest changes in the economy that we've ever seen in this country. You know, there was a really interesting interview over the course of the week or a clip I saw on Twitter where Julia Hartley Brewer was pointing to an interview on Sky News with Fatima Ibrahim, who's the head of a group called Green New Deal UK, where she was being asked by the presenter how much the economy would have to change and the presenter was very much understanding that there would have to be huge changes to the economy. And Julia Hartley Brewer was saying, I want a minute. No one told us that this was going to happen. And that's baked into what the Conservatives are signing up to. So I think that's a really significant thing that we have to look at. We also have to admit that some of the big changes that China and India are promising are themselves very big steps compared to the international climate politics that we saw, particularly in the last decade, where the huge tensions between countries that were very wealthy and became wealthy because of the burning of fossil fuels over the last 200 to 250 years were very much pitted against those countries who were saying, rightly, we didn't really contribute to this problem. We want to develop like you guys have, but you're telling us that we can't. And that China and India are starting to sign up to more ambitious targets, particularly China with its net zero target. And we're sure that India will deliver one soon is a real significant change in the international politics that we're seeing. And then with the US as well, we had, you know, the head of ExxonMobil is the sector of state in America not too long ago. So it's very positive that these changes are happening. But again, they are still not probably the numbers need to be crunched properly. Anywhere near the kind of shift, well, they're not the kind of shift that we will need to try and minimize the risk of rising temperatures. Yeah, I mean, as I think one way of putting it, you know, maybe they could get us there, but the risk is still really, really high. If you want to avoid the risk of catastrophic climate change, it's going to have to be much more ambitious, eh? Yeah. And I think anyone who's looking at this and wants to lend a critical eye to to these this summit, the summits that will be happening across this year, there are three kind of tests that people need to be applying. One is around consumption. So our leaders talking in a way in which they recognize that the challenge isn't just swapping all the dirty stuff for clean stuff, which has an environmental cost, you know, we have to omit emissions at least at the moment to make all the clean stuff. And we'll also damage other parts of the environment and doing so. So can can can the things that we're signing up to the ways we're going to deliver on those targets ensure that we're not just able to swap the dirty for the clean, but also can answer the question of how we do that, in a way in which we're expecting countries to adopt a Western high consumption lifestyle across the world. And there's a massive question over whether we basically have the environmental budget to continue to push countries or countries to adopt that kind of high environmental impact consumption lifestyle. The second test is equity, so that countries are actually delivering on their targets in a way that involves communities and speaks to the huge global inequalities that we were alluding to earlier. And then the third and really crucial one that cuts across that is power. Our leaders talking about emissions reductions in the context of policies that will challenge the entrenched power of those interests that benefit from environmental destruction. And that's not just fossil fuel interest. It's also massive food producers that are cutting down the Amazon to feed hungry, based Western diets. So those are the three tests I think we need to have at the forefront of minds in what is a crucial year for environmental summits. When you look at those targets in the different countries involved, are there any of them where you think, look, if you're going to achieve that, you definitely cannot keep this policy that you currently have that you've made no indication that you're going to drop. What I'm supposed to take Britain as the obvious example, because that's where we are, for them to achieve that 78% target, what would they have to do to make you believe to be convinced that, yes, they're serious about this, they're going to do that? Not have basically committed to building a coal power plant in one part of the country. They talk a good game about making sure they contribute to international fairness when it comes to this. And the UK has commitments to making sure that it also supports countries around the world to phase out its emissions. We can't say that we're going to support countries around the world, and then at the same time cut our long-standing commitment to supporting those countries through overseas development assistance. So that's another one that is crucial, and has really scuppered the UK's claim to be a leader in convening things internationally this year, through this UN climate conference that we're doing at the end of the year. And then the third one I just just start there is that we have to have proper rules that ensure that banks aren't continuing to invest in fossil fuels. They cannot be voluntary agreements. We've had global banks, including ones based in the UK, investing trillions of dollars into fossil fuels since the Paris Agreement in 2015 was signed. And this government isn't serious unless it actually is developing and implementing strong, enforceable rules that stop those companies from behaving in that way. I listened to Joe Biden's speech, which I mean, it wasn't delivered perfectly because, he's not the best for the teleprompter. He's an older guy. He's 78, 79. It's tough. He's not the top of his game. 10 years ago, he was obviously a much better public speaker. But the words, what he was actually saying, the substance of the speech, which of course is what matters, was really impressive, I thought. And if you listen to that, which I would implore people to listen to, I think they played it on the world at one, quite a big excerpt of it yesterday. So listen to that on BBC Sounds. And I thought, you know what? I am on the Malaki Express. I am on the Biden Malaki freight train, right? Direct decarbonisation by 2050. It was really, really impressive. But I think underneath it all was the fact that China was looking to decarbonise just 10 years after the US. If that happens, it's such an astonishing achievement. Just absolutely astonishing. I think the big thing is, and people say, you know, technological fix, the reality is this won't happen if certain technologies aren't online. Can we produce steel, concrete, glass without creating massive CO2 emissions? If there are technologies that can do that before 2050, these aren't just commitments. But if for whatever reason, these technologies don't come online, it's going to be very, very hard to do. You'd apply that also to potentially cellular agriculture, you know, meet with our animals. There's a few other things too, but I think those are the big ones. Built environment, of course aviation, but aviation is only 3% of global CO2 emissions. The built environment and I think food, if we can decarbonise those, I think we can be optimistic. And the reality is as well, Michael, CO2 emissions per head in Europe, Britain, North America are already below their peak levels. Now, some people say that doesn't include, you know, aviation and travelling abroad. Well, okay, fine, we should be flying less. But regardless, that's still good. All the fact that, you know, they're consuming manufactured goods from elsewhere, which are produced generally in China, which is why China wanted that stipulation of, you know, per unit of GDP. That's also accurate. But it's pretty clear, I think that CO2 emission per person isn't going up in the global North. If you look at the US, you look at the EU, you look at UK, in the UK again, under a Tory government, 99% of all UK solar capacity has been installed since 2010. Now, it's not because the Tories are wonderful, mostly that's off the back of new labour policy and Gordon Brown subsidies, but it's because of the falling price of solar generation. And at some point in this decade by the mid 2020s, electric cars on price performance are better than petrol. You know, wind is cheaper than most fossil fuels from most of the planet. So I think, you know, the technology is driving a lot of it. The question is how quickly can we get things done to what extent is their political will. And until the last year, I would have said there isn't the political will, you know, we're going warp speed to hell, right, four degrees plus. I'm a little bit less sure of that, you know, I think, I think it's very possible we could decarbonize by 2060. And we actually have a huge amount of money invested into sequestering CO2 from the atmosphere, you know, building, you know, these wild habitats, which we're going to have to have across the planet to enhance biodiversity and so on. So it's not guaranteed, it's not priced in, but that we are seeing action now, I think partly because of COVID, right? I think people, you know, policymakers and politicians know the connections between biodiversity loss and, you know, do not expel over like COVID-19, they don't want that to keep on happening. That was very much a result of, you know, that's a climate change issue, leading to what has been the biggest pandemic since 1919. I think that's kind of kickstarted something, but it's been going for a couple of years now. I think it's hugely positive news. I just don't think we should sit back on our, on our backsides or rest on our laurels proverbially. I think we need to push forward because ultimately, you know, you can't expect politicians to keep to these ambitions, but like Laurie said, you know, the idea that Boris Johnson of all people would be leading on this five years ago would have been impossible to imagine.