hello this is bbc news with ben brown. the headlines: no delay to the vote — downing street insists tuesday's crucial commons vote will go ahead as the prime minister warns the uk will be in ‘uncharted waters‘ if the commons rejects her brexit deal. leading brexiteer boris johnson tells the bbc the vote should go ahead — but insists the uk can negotiate a better settlement with the eu. "we have to change it, it's a relatively simple job to do, we can have a withdrawal agreement that does not contain the backstop, we can do much much better than this" police in new zealand investigating the murder of british backpacker grace millane say they have found a body. more than 1,700 arrests in france after another weekend of violent protests — police use tear gas and rubber bullets on the streets of paris and the french prime minister calls for unity. the us, russia, and others criticise an ipcc study into the impact

of a 1.5—degree rise in global temperatures — as the un climate change conference continues. there were lines. over now it's time for click. this week: can tech save the world? we've got plastic soup, solar islands and recycled cars. planet earth is under attack... from us.

we are depleting its resources, contaminating its waters and poisoning its air. and nature is responding. this week, world leaders have come together once again at the un's climate conference in poland. on the agenda, the latest findings from the inter—governmental panel on climate change, which contain damning results. we are failing to meet the targets to slow down global warming. if we don't take action, the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon. meanwhile, some at the highest

levels of power a re still not convinced. yeah, i don't believe it. no, no, i don't believe it. this, despite rigorous scientific models and increasingly vocal warnings from nearly all of the scientific community. we know from insurance how much money we're losing every year, it's hundreds of billions of dollars each year. it's happening. eventually this will hit people enough that people will start acting. and we can act. we can use less energy, we can just use less in general. the less we consume, the less we'll discard. we're all told how much we throw away every single day. but, wow, i have to say, this place really rams it home. this is where the mixed recycling

bins outside our homes end up so they can be sorted into different materials. there is a really mechanical way of sorting the recycling into different sizes and shapes. smaller, lighter bits of papers get thrown over the top. the smaller heavier objects fall through the gaps. and the heavier and larger objects roll down these wheels to be collected at the bottom. the speed of these things are travelling through this place is incredible. this plant can sort 230 tonnes of waste in a day. that is almost 30 trucks worth, although it's just a fraction of what we throw away, and the problem is not all of our plastic ends up in the recycling. and even then, not all can be recycled. i think the truth is, a lot of us pop the plastic into the recycling bin and we think that's it, job is done, our conscience is clear. but of course it is nowhere

near as simple as that, but there are some people who have decided to deal with plastics in a much more drastic manner. well, it all started at home, during the preparation of our dinner. first we decided to try to experience zero waste at home, to avoid contributing constantly to this tremendous problem all around the world. at the end, when we as a consumer and a lot of consumers don't buy this any more, the industry doesn't make this any more. so i thought, well, what can i do with waste plastic? can i build something out of that? not a toy, or a sculpture, or an adorable thing, but something useful. everybody said, well, you can't do this. it's not possible. meet liesbeth and edwin, two ordinary people with extraordinary ambitions.

they spent the past three years designing and building a solar—powered vehicle that is almost entirely made of plastic from the rubbish bin. and we are notjust talking about a vehicle to drive on their local flat dutch roads, no, this is one built to withstand the toughest conditions — antarctica. the couple will drive 2&00 kilometres from union glacier to the south pole and back... ..in a car made from rubbish. they want to show just how wasteful it is to throw away plastic in the quantities that we do. another way of thinking about waste, waste is not waste, waste is valuable, it is raw material, it's not at the end of its life—cycle but at the beginning of it. this actually the raw material

we use building the solar voyager. it is collected by children from the primary school. we called it "urban mining". they sort it, the waste plastics, on types, and they have cleaned it and made chips out of it. while doing this, the children are asking, "are you happy?" "is this 0k?" how many we already have collected and how nice the material is. what you see is that they are starting to feel more attached with the material, because they do not see it as waste, they see it as raw materialfor building the solar, for instance. the plastic shreds are melted into a filament for a 3—d printer. 30 of these have been working continuously for six weeks to produce a 4000—piece plastic jigsaw puzzle designed to fit

together to make the shell, the interior and two trailers. this is only the flat part. we also have those, which can give us the flexibility to make all kinds of shapes. to test the durability, the couple took the vehicle to iceland in april. the pace looks slow and it is — four kilometres per hour, but they plan to drive the solar voyager during every hour of antarctic sunlight that's available which, at this time of year, is 2a hours a day. and so, in continuous shifts of three hours, they'll navigate some of the trickiest terrain on earth. what i can see in this data where the crevasses are. this data is from half a year ago, maybe one year ago. but the crevasses,

they are always in the same area. maybe they have changed 10 or 50 metres but i can warn them a few days in advance that they are getting to a crevasse area. henkjans is running the mission back at base, in the netherlands. he's watching the terrain, the vehicle's progress and the weather, which can be just as treacherous as the moving crevasses. there is a lot of ice so hopefully the car will manage. wednesday the 28th of november, the solar voyager has arrived at base camp. after years of prep it is day one of the mission. we are heading for south pole. at the moment, with at speed of 2.5 knots nautical miles per hour. this is amazing. this is super, super cool. the entire round trip could take a0

days, which means liesbeth and edwin should be on their way back from the south pole, when they get to celebrate a drastic but fantastic plastic christmas. hello, and welcome to the week in tech. facebook was again in the news this week, as the digital media, culture and sport committee released company e—mails which appear to show that the social network made secret deals to give app developers special access to users' data. facebook had objected to the release of the documents, and said they were presented in a very misleading manner, which required additional context. it was also the week for the ministry of defence to carry out its biggest ever exercise

of autonomous vehicles. millions of 02 customers found themselves without data service, as the network was hit by software issues. forbes released its list of the world's highest earning youtube stars. number one was seven—year—old american toy reviewer, ryan, of ryan toysreview, who earned over £17 million. imagine all the toys he could buy! ...0h, wait. top gun and mission impossible star, tom cruise, took time away from climbing, falling, running and saving the world, to tell us how to improve the picture quality on our smart tvs and turn off motion smoothing. and if you're worried that your plants never get enough sun, then this robot plant hybrid by mit might be right up your garden. researchers place electrodes onto its leaves that read signals based on the plant's reaction to light. the signals are then passed on to the wheels underneath which guide it towards the light. hey presto — your very own cybernetic life form.

careful not to run over a thorn! 0ceans cover 70% of our planet, yet most of us know little about what goes on beneath the surface, so we travelled to norway, which has the second longest coastline in the world, and the country is leading the way in technology aiming to better the health of the sea and to help us protect our planet. this is absolutely stunning. i can't believe that this is part of a day's work, but what we're about to take a look at could be even more impressive. it's not just about the scenery, it's about what's going on under the water and it's notjust about fish and plants but also

what we we're going to see which should not be there. so we're putting to the test the blueye underwater drone, which is now available for consumers, providing eyes under the water — no goggles needed. as blueye explores the waters here, it is both astonishing and saddening to discover what goes on beneath the flawless surface. we have glow in the dark sharks in a way. it is really cool. and in this place i found at least 5 or 10 different snails but in between all this there is also a lot of trash and i think people would be horrified if they see the amount of trash that's located on the bottom of this floor. it is easier to just drill a whole in your boat and sink it. and this is one of the few places that freeze over during the winter so they've been just driving cars out in trucks, and just when the ice goes, the truck goes away and out

of sight out of mind. the drone is sending the live video feed back to a device on—board the boat. whilst the operator can control exposure and camera settings as well as navigating positions. ok, so it is underwater now. the footage can either be watched on a phone, tablet or via this digital headset, although does seems a bit of a waste to block out the surroundings when here. but the very idea is that you do not need to be. the aim being that blueye could give anyone anywhere eyes under the sea. i sincerely feel like to make people want to take care of the ocean you have to place the love for the ocean in here and up here. you have to know what you want to take care of and you also have to have this emotional relationship to it, so by bringing the ocean floor into people's homes is a really great way to make people just appreciate what is down

there and make them really have this inner motivation to do some slight changes in their lives. the shores here have been the test—bed for plenty of other innovations too. even the boat we travelled on is drowning in sensors, tracking temperature, water depth, ph levels, currents and if there are any signs of life below, allowing that data to be saved and analysed. but whilst these ideas may help us get a clearer view beneath the sea, to better the situation, us humans clearly to improve our behaviour. wow, that was lara in norway. back at the plant, i'm learning that recycling plastic isn't as simple as just melting it all down. your milk bottle is made from a different plastic to your cola bottle and your yoghurt container, so they all need to be separated.

this is a really interesting way of separating different types of plastic at high speed. so here's all the plastic whizzing down this conveyor belt, most of it falls off the end, but there is a near—infrared sensor just above the gap and it's looking for a particular type of plastic. when it spots it, a little airjet shoots just that bit of plastic up into the air and itjumps over the gap and into the special collection pot. that's really clever! finnish company zenroboticsis now building on this technology, adding 3—d sensors, high—res cameras, metal detectors and machine learning to the mix. the sad truth is, the vast majority of plastics are rejected by recycling plants because they're not fit for reuse. now there's a company

in silicon valley who thinks it's found a way to break down those plastics so they don't find their way into our oceans. dave lee reports. this is a story that starts with a pile of this, which is put into this. you then whir it around a bit in here and then eventually it becomes this, or this. it's easy when you know how. let's start from the beginning. i'm visiting biocellection, they're a tiny company experimenting with what could be a revolutionary new technique, recycling technique. the company was formed by two young entrepreneurs who wanted to do something about this. the enormous almost unthinkably large global plastic crisis. you think that when you put it into the blue bin that it's going off to a good place. when they're mechanically recycled, the products are not valuable enough to justify the plastic costs. that's why they end up in the landfill. stick them in landfill anyway.

right. so biocellection is focusing on this stuff, the plastic film you often see in packaging or wrapped around food. in fact, this is the most common type of plastic but right now it's the least recycled all. so this plastic, if you envision, it's a long chain of carbon, carbon, carbon, carbon atoms and thousands of them. what our catalyst is able to do is basically cut this chain into selective small molecules. we're talking about... from thousands of carbons to, like, four carbons. those products are very valuable. now, they wouldn't show as the entire technique on camera but the end result is what's known as a chemical intermediate, and it forms the building blocks for other materials such as nylon. it can also be used to make electrical components. biocellection is the first company to achieve this with recycled plastic film. our process, we're talking about hours.

just after hours, it becomes this. we consider this up—cycling, right? we're not exactly making the same thing, but we're making something else that is more valuable and it actually displaces petroleum use, right, because we're using plastic waste instead of petroleum. there is, of course, an awful long way to go before the hard work here can make a dent in the enormous amount of plastic we chuck into landfill every year. the plan is to take this process and bring it on the road. how do you take this idea from being in a lab like this and scaling it to an extent where it can help solve this global plastics problem that we have? we would like to make a piece of equipment that can process this material fairly efficiently, which we would locate on—site, and then the product we would take to, you know, some kind of a central site where we would purify it to our specifications.

the company has raised $3 million in funding so far, but in silicon valley, that's pocket change. if this plan works, it could be a very big deal. that was dave lee. climate predictions are based on solid data, some going back as far as a few hundred years. in reading at the national centre for atmospheric research, the old weather instruments are still in use alongside the modern ones. now, the reason that they're still using these pretty old—fashioned devices is for consistency. so you know the readings you're getting today were measured in exactly the same way they were 100 or 150 years ago. supercomputers crunch sea, ice and dust data from past years and try to simulate the weather that occurred in each year. now it's been fine—tuned to correctly reflect what actually happened,

researchers have started changing the environment and watching the effects. what we can do with a model is we can lower the temperature in this part of the world and see whether or not we still produce that many hurricanes. i'm assuming then you have done that, you have lowered the sea temperature to see how it affected the number of hurricanes, what happened ? that certainly played a role. around half of the hurricanes happen because the sea surface temperature was up warmer in that year. professor vidal also told me in the future tropical storms are predicted to originate further north, and importantly curve east and back towards europe. so that means parts of the world that have never had to be hurricane—ready before will have to start thinking hurricanes? yes, they do. but the search is on for cleaner, greener forms of energy. the most established alternative to burning fossil fuels is solar power, and lara has travelled to a very special island just off norway.

we've travelled west now to 0st norway. it is so calm here. it's absolutely beautiful. but not far from here, the waves can reach up to three metres, and that's where we're heading, because we're going to go and take a look at an island which is made up of solar panels, and the idea is that they need to fare 0k whatever the weather. oh, thank you! i've made it. wow, we're walking on water! these certainly aren't the first floating solar panels, but the innovation being tested here is the fabric itself, creating a cost—effective weather resistant material that could easily be scaled. there's talk of a setup near the equator the size of a football pitch. this has been designed to withstand wind, rain and ice.

but round the edges, these barriers prevent any sea waterfrom getting in. so while you can see i'm standing in a pretty large puddle right now, that's from last night's rain. what i'm actually standing on is less than 1mm thick, and it really feels it, it's quite hard to stay balanced. it's made from polyester coated in a polymer. what makes this polymer special is how lightweight yet strong it is, meaning its ideal for this type of installation. in the not too distant future, we think we can build systems that are comparable with the so—called ground mount installations on land, and that will be a big breakthrough for floatable parks, because then you have suddenly large surface areas where you can build cheap, renewable energy very close to large consumer groups. and making use ofjust a fraction of the sea's vast surface area, as well as taking advantage

of the water's ability to keep the panels cool, means the scaling of this does seem plausible. the solar power being harnessed is being used here on this fish farm. now, the island has been developed to be the exact right size to harness the right amount of power in the summertime, that's presuming the weather's good. the rest of the year it's running on diesel, so obviously you can see the environmental benefits of this. but the suggestion is an island this size, if anchored in the london area, could power 20 average uk homes. make the island the size of a football pitch, and that could rise to 200. but, of course, the investment needed is huge, so moving forward on this could prove more complicated than the proof of concept. that was lara in norway. you know, if you've seen the pixar film wall—e, you will know in the distant future

the earth gets covered in cubes of rubbish like this, mountains of these cubes and humanity has to leave. and at the moment, no matter how much recycling we do, i get the feeling that that future is getting more and more likely. something's got to be done. see ya. hello. the winds are pushing off

into northern france now, and then we open the daughter that northerly airflow, bringing chilly with it. that will try to hold on during the week, but the mild air in the south—west will try to fight back. many of you will see some sunshine, but further showers across northern scotla nd but further showers across northern scotland falling as sleet and snow. 7-9 scotland falling as sleet and snow. 7—9 in southern scotland, and in southern and eastern areas, dry and sunny throughout. a bit of sunshine in northern ireland with some showers, the same with north and west wales. the rest of england and wales after this morning's showers and strong winds, still a little breezy, but it will be much brighter, and temperatures here up to around i! or 12 celsius. tonight, showers continue for a time and push into northern england on the north west midlands. away from that, most

will have a dry night, blue colours on the map widely across scotland indication of temperatures freezing oi’ indication of temperatures freezing or below, a touch of frost possible anywhere across central and eastern england, and maybe in some well sheltered spots towards the day dry and bright tomorrow, dumfries and galloway into the north of england may be catching a few showers in the morning, but then we will see increased cloud towards parts of england and wales and northern ireland, again one or two spots of rain possible. a dry day for most, sunshine at best in the afternoon in eastern areas, but feeling rather chilly, temperatures across devon, up chilly, temperatures across devon, up to 12 degrees. here begins the battle between the mild air working its way through the atlantic and cold air holding on for many of us. cold air is heavier than mild, so difficult to shift, so it could be a painful process this week. on tuesday the cold air holds out, a wide frosty start, but areas of cloud meandering around, some

sunshine breaking through, rain held off to the west to begin with, but asi off to the west to begin with, but as i said, the rain will push through the week, preceded by some snow, and particularly for thursday and friday. goodbye for now. hello. good afternoon. the brexit secretary stephen barclay has insisted the government will push ahead with the vote on the brexit deal in the house of commons on tuesday despite the possibility of theresa may's proposals being rejected. the former foreign secretary boris johnson meanwhile has said a defeat in parliament could strengthen the prime minister's hand in getting a better dealfrom the eu. he claims there'd be widespread cross—party support for the existing deal if the irish backstop proposals were removed. here's our political correspondent nick eardley.