In April, President Biden held the first Leaders Summit on Climate which saw a number of countries commit to more ambitious reduction targets. Research intern Matthew Page speaks to Associate Professor Matt McDonald from the University of Queensland about Australia’s hesitancy to set a target date for emission reductions, the impacts of climate on Australia’s national security and whether investment in hydrogen and carbon-capture and storage technologies will significantly reduce Australia’s carbon emissions.

The financial and social impacts of Covid-19 and the increased time people are spending online have been described as factors which may make people more vulnerable to radicalisation. Dr Teagan Westendorf speaks to Nafees Hamid, Research Fellow at Artis International, about pathways to radicalisation, including the significance of sacred values, and the importance of community in preventing radicalisation.

Brendan Nicholson is joined by Katherine Stewart from the International Committee of the Red Cross for a conversation about her experiences working in the Australian Defence Force and the ICRC. They discuss Kath’s experiences working in Bougainville and Iraq and most recently, in Israel and the Occupied Territories, and the importance of neutrality in the Red Cross.

Mentioned in this episode:

- https://theconversation.com/the-neuroscience-of-terrorism-how-we-convinced-a-group-of-radicals-to-let-us-scan-their-brains-114855

Guests (in order of appearance):

Matthew Page: https://www.aspi.org.au/bio/matthew-page

Associate Professor Matt McDonald: http://researchers.uq.edu.au/researcher/634

Dr Teagan Westendorf: https://www.aspi.org.au/bio/teagan-westendorf

Nafees Hamid: https://artisinternational.org/nafis-hamid/

Brendan Nicholson: https://www.aspi.org.au/bio/brendan-nicholson

Background music: Stylish Groove by Scott Holmes Music via the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Scott_Holmes/media-music-mix/stylish-groove

Image: "Greenland Ice Sheet" via WikiMedia: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d6/Greenland_Ice_Sheet.jpg/2560px-Greenland_Ice_Sheet.jpg