Earth Matters

Malaysia has one of the world's fastest deforestation rates. To conserve forests, Cleantech21's Nick Beglinger believes that distributed ledger technology could be the solution; but María José Sanz Sánchez from Basque Centre for Climate Change explains why it's not that easy.

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Led by Canada and Britain, more than a dozen countries have formed an international alliance to phase out coal by 2030. Which countries are in, and which ones are not? Find out the heroes and villains of the UN climate talks.

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We speak to the Obama Administration’s lead climate negotiator about his thoughts on Trump’s Paris Agreement withdrawal and coal support, and whether sub-national governments and businesses can make up for it all.

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In conjunction with Universal Children's Day this year, we speak to Claire Sancelot, a zero-waste advocate and the director of The Hive, and her 7-year old daughter Lucie Padmanaban, about their zero-waste way of life. There are also special appearances by Charlotte and Emily Padmanaban, Lucie's five-year old twin sisters.

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The Paris Agreement made at the 21st Conference of the Parties in 2015 is to keep global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius. Just before the parties reconvened at the 23rd Conference of Parties of the UN Climate Change Convention in Bonn, UN Environment released the Emissions Gap Report to assess current mitigation efforts. UN Environment’s Erik Solheim updates us on - among others - global greenhouse gas emissions, coal phaseout, and how small island nations are most affected.

Researchers at the World Resources Institute have found that tenure-secure indigenous forestlands provided significant global carbon benefits. In Bolivia, Brazil and Colombia alone, they say this is worth between USD25bn to USD34bn over the next 20 years – equivalent to taking between nine million and 12.6 million passenger vehicles off the roads for a year. Dr. José Manuel Vieira Fragoso's work addresses matters related to this - the role of biodiversity in carbon storage, the influence of culture on resource use, the sustainability of human-occupied tropical forests in an increasingly globalized world, and the socio-ecological sustainability of rural livelihoods in the Amazon. He joins us to discuss his research, and to highlight why it’s not just a moral argument to maintain peopled forests, but how it’s essentially a very cost-effective way to reduce emissions for the benefit of the planet.

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Just last month, international advisory company Climate Focus released three reports, which laid out how emissions from land use sector — with a focus on deforestation and diets — can be eliminated in a couple of decades, and quantified how much this could contribute to Paris Agreement goals. Joining us to share more is Charlotte Streck, the Co-founder and Director of Climate Focus, who will discuss why we need more and better climate finance, and why the choice to eat beef has a particularly large impact on climate, forests and soils.

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Pun Pun, which translates from Thai to mean "a thousand varieties" is an organic farm cum learning center for sustainable living in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Founded by city worker turned farmer Jon Jandai, the Pun Pun Center of Self Reliance works very much against prevailing models, and focuses on simplicity, affordability, communal living and a shared sense of responsibility for each other's well-being. Jon himself gained an international following, after his TEDx talk "Life is easy. Why do we make it so hard?" went viral, having garnered over 6.2 million views and counting. He joins us to share his philosophy of living a simple life, and how that can benefit ourselves and the environment too.

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In 1999, Von Hernandez, a former literature professor from the Philippines, successfully led the campaign in making the Philippines the first nation in the world to ban waste incineration. For that, he was honored with a 2003 Goldman Environmental Prize, considered to be the Nobel Prize for grassroots environmental leaders and in 2007, he was named one of Time Magazine's Heroes of the Environment. These days, Von is at the forefront of the movement to break away from the use of plastic, and we find out more about his tireless work as the Global Coordinator of the Break Free From Plastic (BFFP) movement.

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Conceptualized and organized by not-for-profit environmental organization, EcoKnights, the Kuala Lumpur Eco Film Festival is a platform to facilitate building a nation of ecologically conscious people, through on-ground activities and film screenings focused on environmental issues and stories. Back for it's 10th installment, we find out what's in store from Yasmin Rasyid, the President of EcoKnights.

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