this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines at the top of the hour, as newsday continues straight after hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk, i'm stephen sackur. barely a month goes by without new data illustrating the scale of the climate emergency confronting us. records are being consistently broken, be it in the warming seas, the melting ice caps or average global temperatures. at the same time, worldwide greenhouse gas emissions are still rising. my guest isjim skea, chair of the un's intergovernmental panel on climate change.

a recent poll of international climate scientists pointed to growing despair. are we humans bungling our chance to avert disaster? jim skea, welcome to hardtalk. thanks for the invite. it is great to have you in this studio. let's start with a blunt first question. is it time for the international community to junk this idea that there's any possibility of limiting worldwide temperature rise to below the 1.5 degrees celsius? when we produced our landmark

report five years ago, we said it was possible within the laws of physics and chemistry, and the biggest obstacle to keeping within the limit was actually on the social and institutional side. we, i think, now need to move to the position, we have to look very hard at whether we will be pushing against technical and economic barriers in terms of limiting warming to1.5. it is not absolutely impossible, but the chances are diminishing. and, really, it's hanging on a thread at the moment. right. isn't that a tactful way of saying, "i'm not in a position to be conclusive about this, "but as far as i'm concerned, as an experienced scientist, "it is simply not going to happen"? the average temperature rise is going to go appreciably beyond 1.5. yeah, ipcc�*s job is to assess the literature that we have out there already, and we haven't got quite the literature yet to absolutely write off the 1.5 limit. and we need to be very careful about what we mean by 1.5 degrees. mm—hm. we mean a 20—year average

of temperatures by the end of the 21st century. and it is possible that we could go over 1.5 degrees temporarily, by perhaps a tenth of a degree, something like that. ah, i see what you're saying. so, this is a 20—year average, but... i'm interested to see that the barcelona supercomputing center, which i imagine you're familiar with, has suggested there is actually a very strong chance that in 2024, if you average it over the year, we will go beyond that threshold. but you're saying that might be interesting, but it wouldn't be conclusive about a longer—term average? no, we are very specific that 1.5 is a 20—year average, to take out all the variations that happen to take place from year to year. so, one year, certainly it's things to be worried about, but it's not absolutely conclusive. see, you as an experienced scientist are saying to me, "well, you know, "we might just teeter over that 1.5, "and then it's possible in years to come we might come back," suggesting that we're somewhere in that ballpark.

there are many of your colleagues in the climate science community — many of whom work with you on the ipcc — who have been polled, most recently by the guardian newspaper. and almost 80% of them apparently foresee an average warming of 2.5 degrees celsius, way beyond 1.5. yeah, these conclusions are actually entirely in line with the last report that we produced. we were very clear — if governments carry on with the policies they have in place at the moment, we are headed towards perhaps 3 degrees warming by the end of the century. so, i think what the poll... forgive me. what's really important when you say that is, you mean if governments carry on with the policies they currently have, which include some commitments not going far enough for their critics, but some commitments to big reductions in emissions. you're saying even with those current policies in place, we could be heading to 3 degrees? yeah, let's distinguish between the targets government have set and the policies

on the ground, because not all of the targets can be met with the current policies. you would have to step up the current policies even to hit the current targets. so, when scientists tell us that we're on our way to 2.5 or 3 degrees, that's as much a statement about their belief about what governments will do, rather than a scientific statement about the way that the atmosphere operates. and it is not inconsistent at all with what we said in the last report. some scientists — and, again, i'm referring to this guardian newspaper poll and survey — some scientists talk about their absolute despair with where we are and where they believe we are heading. do you think despair is a very worrying emotion for climate scientists to be feeling right now? it's one that would bother me a lot because we mustn't be complacent about the scale of the risks that we're actually facing for the planet, in terms of human systems, in terms of natural systems. but we also need to remember it is within our grasp

to avoid the worst effects of climate change if we can up our policy ambition — first of all by reducing emissions, but also taking steps to adapt to the kind of climate change which is inevitable. sure. but you have to safeguard your credibility, don't you? and, you know, you've been at this climate science and having a big public platform for some years. i'm just looking back at quotes of yours going back — this is two years — to 2022, when you said quite explicitly, "it is now or never" for a full—on commitment to a low—carbon economy and society. well, we're two years on from then. if it was "now or never" then, what is it now? yeah, hands held up — we risk sounding like a broken record on the window of opportunity closing, the now—or—never. the assessment that we've got, one of the tests that we put in place in the last report was to say in emissions pathways that limit warming to 1.5 degrees, global emissions peak by 2025. we're about 18 months away

from that kind of target. and certainly within this decade, i think we will be able to make much more conclusive statements about whether or not this magic number of 1.5 will be exceeded. right. now, to help people make sense of these different numbers, 1.5 degrees celsius above pre—industrial levels as opposed to, say, 2.5 or even 3 degrees celsius above, how... how much worse is, let's say, 2.7 degrees celsius than 1.5 when it comes to real—world impacts for people around the world? well, if i can bring it a little closely, one of the things we were asked to do was to compare global warming at 1.5 with just 2 degrees. and between 1.5 and 2 degrees, there are big differences, especially in terms of extreme events — intense storms, rainfall, extinction of some species. all of these things, there is a significant difference between 1.5 or 2 degrees.

by the time you get to 3 degrees, we are in very worrying territory indeed, because we could be looking at impacts on the yields of staple crops like rice, maize and wheat. we could be getting it into the zone where you risk major tipping points in systems like the greenland ice sheets or the west antarctic ice sheets. there, you're beginning to take on much bigger risks. so, at the moment, we could keep warming into somewhere between 2 and 3 degrees, based on current policies. it's within our grasp to do far better than that and reduce the worst of the risks. and yet, let's talk about what governments have achieved and not achieved. you've been going to these so—called cop meetings, these global conferences under un auspices, for many, many years. and what is pretty extraordinary to me, given the commitments we've heard year upon year from leaders around the world, it's extraordinary to me that if you actually just look

in absolute terms at the amount of greenhouse gas emissions going into the planetary atmosphere, they are still rising. they're still rising, though let's be slightly optimistic about it. we can actually identify avoided emissions from policies that have already been taken by governments. the kyoto protocol has made a difference, support for renewable energy has made a big difference, there have been big advances on avoiding deforestation, which have all helped us, but they have not gone far enough. that's quite clear because we are certainly not on a track to limit warming to 1.5 or even 2 degrees at the moment. and isn't it true to say that there is a fundamental shift going on — we're in the middle of it — of the emissions sort of problem, if you like, shifting from west to east? it's not to absolve the west of responsibility. but in terms of what is happening day on day in terms of emissions, then we have to look at china, we have to look at india, we have to look at those fast growing, developing economies,

which now are belching greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere at an unprecedented rate. yeah, so just to say... i mean, climate change is a global problem, so every kind of country has to play their part in that. and i don't think, if you pick out countries like india and china, you can say that they are just doing nothing. china... no, i'm not saying that at all. i just want to be realistic about where the emissions are coming from today. and isn't the clear truth that china stands tall, by far the greatest emitter today across the world? china is the biggest emitter. it's also got the second largest population now in the world, so it's not surprising that its emissions are going to be high. and china is doing a lot. it's got the largest deployment of wind energy, solar energy, electric vehicles. so, a lot is happening there. the chinese have it in their five—year plans that their emissions will peak before the end of this decade, and i don't see any reason to disbelieve them.

you believe that? i am happy to... even though you obviously are very well aware still that so much of their power is coal—fired, their methane emissions certainly top the world rankings, but you believe that by 2030, they're going to be significantly better performing? well, to take an example, methane emissions, it is very possible to reduce methane emissions very substantially, with a big impact on global temperatures. it's a short—lived, powerful greenhouse gas, and taking action on methane will make a difference. and as i say, they are displacing fossil fuels within their energy system by renewable energy, by nuclear power, that are not leading to emissions. so, they're heading in the right direction. now, as chair of this intergovernmental panel, i appreciate that while you are a scientist, everything you say has political ramifications. are you wary about focusing on what china is doing today, or indeed india? and ijust, by way of parentheses, would note that in the last year,

india has opened, started operating new coal—fired power plants to the tune of 14gw of power, and it's got big plans to expand that over the next few years. is it difficult for you to put too much emphasis on that side of the emissions equation? we have to take a global view of the climate problem, so we would tend to talk about the characteristics of countries rather than singling out individual countries. but it's very clear that, for example, countries like india, for example, have done a lot in terms of forests, for example, in terms of abating emissions, taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. and i've already mentioned other countries where the investment in renewable energy and electric vehicles has been impressive. mmm. i suppose what i'm striving to understand is the degree to which you have to be political as part of yourjob. although you and your panel of scientists are there to gather the data, to present it

to politicians and have them decide what to do with it, you also surely have to take a view on the degree to which the rich world — that is, the world that for hundreds of years has profited from fossil fuel economies — the degree to which that rich world now has to be involved in funding a massive clean energy transition for the developing world, the global south — call it what you will. i mean, how clearly do you stake out a position on that? well, we are not advocates, so we don't take out a position in terms of making recommendations. but in our last report, we were very clear about the unequal contributions to emissions, both historically and in the present. between europe and north america, that accounts for 40% of historical emissions of greenhouse gases. least developed countries and the small island developing states, about 0.5% each. and it's very much the case that those who are most vulnerable

to the effects of climate change have contributed least. at the moment, south asia, typically, i think about two tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per head, compared to approaching 20 in north america. there are very big differences, and we mustn't forget that the third goal of the paris agreement is about improving the means by which countries can achieve their climate objectives, which does include transfer of finance. of course it does. means means money. yes, it does. means means money... means means finance. yes... exactly. and look at the economists nicholas stern and vera songwe, who did this work and came up with a report suggesting that $2.1; trillion would be needed by 2030 to shift developing countries — and this isn't including china, this is without china — to low—carbon economies. and they reckon that at least a trillion of that would have to come as a transfer, if you like, a sort of climate justice transfer from the rich world to the poor.

does that sound about right to you? well, in our last report, we were very clear that the amount of finance needed for reducing emissions, if we were going to be compatible with the paris agreement, we would need to scale up by a factor of 3 to 6. so, it is entirely consistent and i entirely agree. we're talking about trillions, not hundreds of billions... there's no sign of it happening. it's a lot... it's a lot of money. it's a lot of money and there's no sign of it happening. it is happening... the key to unlocking it is to get more private finance to come into this because, frankly, the public sector pockets are not deep enough to make some of these transfers. and we are beginning to see a movement of private finance. they're playing for renewable energy projects, deforestation, avoided deforestation projects in other parts of the world. and there's a carbon price out there. people are putting a value on carbon, and that will help to stimulate some of these financial flows, cos there's money to be made out of it. isn't the difficult truth behind a lot of our discussion

that there is one industry that has proved to be remarkably resilient, and that is the oil and gas industry? you would like to see fossil fuels phased out, i'm guessing. that was the language that was sought at the last cop in dubai. we were very careful about the language in our reports. we do not recommend it or advocate it. we will say, "if, then" — if you want to limit warming compatible with the paris agreement, fossil fuel use will need to go down. and we've quantified it in our report... hang on. i used the phrase "phased out". are you saying you don't agree that oil and gas production need to be, quote—unquote, "phased out"? if we're going to limit warming within the goal of the paris agreement, then absolutely. we talked about transitioning out of fossil fuels, transitioning into... but that's mealy—mouthed stuff. transitioning away is easy to sign up to, phasing out is much more concrete. we used the phrase "phasing out"

continually through the last report, alongside transitioning out of fossilfuels and transitioning into renewables. we were very clear that phasing out of fossil fuels or transitioning out — however you want to put it — is part of it. the key thing for us was the numbers, and we did put numbers on that. yeah, but isn't. .. the problem you've got is that whether you use the concrete "phasing out" or the slightly more ambiguous "transitioning away from", the world is nowhere near this ambition. let's start... before we get to what's happening in developing economies, where they've discovered oil and gas, let's talk the united states, where oil and gas production is on the rise. there are huge ambitions — and let's think about what would happen if donald trump came back into power — huge ambitions to keep expanding america's domination of the oil and gas business. yeah. from our point of view, the moment that fossil fuels make a contribution to climate change is when they're burned and emissions take place.

in our last report, we were very clear that most of the fossil fuel reserves around the world would need to stay in the ground if we were to limit warming within the terms of the paris agreement. we quantified it in the report. and it's very clear if people add to these reserves, they pose for themselves the risk of stranded assets, not being able to use these assets in the future. as a scot and a former adviser to the british government, what did you make of the uk government recently deciding it was going to issue new licences for oil production in the north sea? yeah, well, this is a classic example of where ipcc finds it quite difficult to comment on an individual country. but what we would point out from a global perspective — if you add to reserves of fossil fuels, it means more of them need to stay in the ground if you're going to limit warming in lines with the paris agreement. and we've talked about the united states and the uk, and you could argue what they're

doing is sort of backsliding on the decarbonisation, transitioning away from fossilfuels argument. if that's what they're doing, how do you think that works when it's seen in the developing world? i'm looking at senegal, for example, which is massively expanding its gas output. and the leader of senegal, macky sall, says, "leave your resources in the ground? "there is absolutely no sense in that, "and it is not fair to countries like mine." well, the importance of equity in climate policy is absolutely important. and it's not surprising, really, that this issue has come out. i mean, countries like the uk and the us, i have mentioned the fact that europe and north america contributed to 40% of historic emissions of greenhouse gases. it is not surprising that the equity argument is coming to the fore. yeah, i should have said "former president macky sall", because he's no longer in power. i just wonder, when we've talked about the way in which oil and gas production in many ways

looks set to expand further, how confident are you that some of the other mitigation weapons, if you like, in the arsenal, how confident are you that they can have a significant impact? i'm thinking, for example, of carbon capture and storage. yeah, carbon capture and storage... i mean, there were big, big ambitions for carbon capture and storage about a decade ago. and i think at the moment, we've got about 20, 25 projects running worldwide... yeah, it hasn't been scaled up at all. it has not been scaled up. it's not because of a fundamental technical problem. we know how to do carbon capture and storage. the barrier for carbon capture and storage is getting the right kind of business models and getting the right kind of policy framework in place for it to be carried forward. if you put carbon and put it back under the ground again, it's no use to any human being. it's just sitting there. so people need to be paid to do it, and it needs the right kind of policy framework put in place for it to happen. and do you think the world has got it wrong on nuclear power — which, of course, comes with issues

about how dangerous it might be, what you do with the radioactive waste, but it is, in the sense of this argument, clean. and many governments have decided it is not a path they want to go down. ipcc is splendidly agnostic on the question of nuclear power. it's very clear... can you afford to be agnostic on these key issues at this particular time? it's very clear that different countries have chosen to go in different directions. let me just say, in the scenarios that we have been assessing, nuclear power expands globally in all of the ambitious mitigation scenarios, so there's no way... sorry, that's a bitjargonistic, but you're telling me... oh, sorry... you're telling me that, in your scenarios, nuclear power is a very effective way of combating dangerous levels of global warming/heating? yeah. just to say, we don't have scenarios, we assess other people's scenarios. and in those that are ambitious and are compliant with the paris agreement, there is a big expansion of nuclear power in these scenarios.

it is not as large as the expansion of renewable energy, which is becoming increasingly cost—effective, but nuclear power is part of the picture overall. will there come a time, do you think, when your advice to politicians, based on the science, is for them to focus more on adaptation to a crisis that is already upon us, rather than mitigation to try and avoid the worst of it? yeah, i wouldn't characterise it as adaptation versus reducing emissions or mitigation. we need to do the two things at the same time... yeah, but you talk about means, and there are limited means, so you have to choose priorities. if we decide that, frankly, the situation is so dangerous, the global heating is going to come down this track, then maybe we should reprioritise and put more of that money and priority on adaptation? yeah, just to say, we are going to spend a lot more effort looking at adapting to climate change in this next cycle. governments have specifically invited to produce reports

that are dedicated to the topic of adaptation. but still, the most effective way of avoiding the worst impacts of climate change is to avoid putting emissions into the atmosphere in the first place. we looked carefully in the last cycle by comparing the costs of reducing emissions and comparing that with the impacts that would be avoided if you got emissions down. and there is a very clear story that in the long term, this will pay off. you've been at this for decades. how confident are you that we — we human beings as a species — are capable of the strategic thinking, the cooperation and collaboration, maybe the selflessness that is sometimes needed to get a climate change strategy that works? if we don't let the best be the enemy of the good... and that's a risk. we are making progress at the moment. if i think where we are now compared with where we are 20, 25 years ago, we have come much further.

all the countries of the world have now accepted that human beings are unequivocally the cause of the climate change that we are seeing. we've got recently an undertaking to transition away from fossil fuels. we have an expansion of renewable energy and clean energy sources that we couldn't have anticipated ten years ago. so, i am optimistic that we're going in the right direction. what the challenge is, can we up our efforts to reach the kind of goals that we set ourselves under the paris agreement? jim skea, i thank you very much forjoining me on hardtalk. thank you. thank you very much. hello.

thanks forjoining me. the weather, this bank holiday weekend has been a little hit and miss. this is what we had earlier on during the course of saturday. storms breaking out quite widely across england, parts of wales, some across the irish sea as well, and outbreaks of rain in scotland. now further showers are expected not just on bank holiday monday, but indeed the rest of the week. temperatures will be near normal, nothing spectacular. but at least by the end of the week, it does look as though these low pressures should finally pull away as we see high pressure building. but the winds will still come in from the north. so there's certainly no major warm up in the forecast. ok, let's have a look at the forecast then for the short term. so by the end of the night through the morning, we will have had some clearer weather in the south, further north, always more cloud and some showers first thing. and these are the temperatures around seven a:m., typically double figures in most of our major towns and cities.

so clouds will be bubbling up through the morning. there'll be plenty of sunshine in most areas right from the word go. but storms will also develop, particularly across northern and eastern parts of scotland. now the showers will be very hit and miss. as far as the temperatures go. no real change compared to what we've had in the last few days. so typically mid or high teens, a little on the cool side. now, the thunderstorms may continue into monday evening across parts of northern and eastern scotland. elsewhere, the sky should turn clear before the next area of low pressure rolls in first thing on tuesday morning. and you can see outbreaks of rain crossing the country as the weather fronts sweep in. i think the year's going to be quite close. temperatures on tuesday despite the cloud still getting up to about 18 degrees in some spots. and actually later in the day, we'll probably see sunshine developing or at least a little bit. now, wednesday midweek, we're expecting showers to develop almost anywhere, but more especially across eastern parts of the uk. one or two rumbles of thunder can be expected.

i think come the late afternoon the skies should clear out towards the west and it should be a fine, sunny end to the day, for example, in cardiff, plymouth and along the south coast of england. so here's the summary for the week ahead. plenty of shower clouds most days and those temperatures hovering near normal, perhaps a little bit low at times. that's it for me. bye— bye.

welcome to newsday, reporting live from singapore, the headlines. at least 30 people, including children, have been reportedly killed in israeli airstrikes on rafah. the idf says they targeted a hamas controlled compound. in the uk — labour discusses their plans for the economy — promising not to increase income tax — if they win the general election. meanwhile, rishi sunak says he'll bring back mandatory national service for 18—year olds if the conservatives win. rescue teams search for survivors in the aftermath of a huge landslide in papua new guinea, where almost 700 people are feared dead.