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tv   Click  BBC News  January 7, 2023 1:30am-2:01am GMT

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this is bbc news, the headlines: there are signs that the historic deadlock in the us house of representatives could be coming to an end. the senior republican kevin mccarthy says he's confident he'll win enough votes to be elected speaker. so far, he's failed 13 times. mr mccarthy has been repeatedly blocked by hardline conservatives. ukraine has accused russia of continuing its offensive, despite president putin announcing a 36—hour ceasefire to mark the russian orthodox christmas. ukraine never agreed to a truce and they've dismissed it as a cynical ploy by the russians to resupply their forces. the mexican president has defended the military operation that captured drug cartel leader ovidio guzman —
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the son ofjailed drug trafficker el chapo. violence erupted in culiacan, a stronghold of the cartel. at least 29 people were killed. now on bbc news, click. as cop27 winds up in egypt, this week, we'll look at some of the latest tech that's trying to clean up our planet. we'll muster up a mass of moss that's mopping up the mess in the air. that's easy for you to say. we'll find out if hydrogen can do the heavy lifting... and check out our latest merch. if you don't like the band, don't worry, the logo comes back off.
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once again, the leaders of the world have been coming together in an effort to fight climate change. as cop27 comes to a close in egypt, campaigners and climate scientists are warning some key commitments aimed at securing the future of the planet are at risk. in the year since cop26 happened here in glasgow, there's been a lot of criticism that the event was all talk, not much action. change is not going to come from inside there. that is not leadership. this is leadership! these un climate summits bring together thousands of delegates from governments, science, and pressure groups from around the world. the aim is to provide the support for all countries to be able to reduce their carbon emissions and deal with any issues that climate change will inevitably cause. the world is warming because of emissions produced by burning fossilfuels like oil, gas, and coal.
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yet global temperatures are heading towards 1.5 celsius above pre—industrial levels. and if they go to 1.8 celsius, scientists warn that half the world's population could be exposed to life—threatening heat and humidity. climate scientists have warned that change needs to come from the top — from governments and companies — but science and innovation will play an important part. yeah, so this week we'll look at some of the latest green ideas. and first off... take a deep breath. deep breath. if you live in the green, it's easy to forget what life is like in the grey. the air literally can smell sweeter, and it's definitely cleaner. the world health organization says air pollution poses a major threat to health and climate, and it kills an estimated seven million people worldwide every year.
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now, we're not all going to move back to nature, but what if we could bring nature into the cities? just outside berlin, this company is trying to freshen up our urban air. this is a bio—filter, which is sucking air in through the bottom and pumping it back out through this wall of moss. to illustrate that, we've got a smoke machine from the local discotheque. and if i just show you... there you go — it's going in through the bottom, and out through the moss. and what happens to the air as it comes back out through the moss is where the magic happens. moss eats pollution. it sticks to its tiny leaves. it's absorbed, digested, and then is turned into more moss. so, as fans draw dirty air in, the bad stuff is left on the moss�*s leaves, leaving cleaner air to flow back out.
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the idea of using moss' natural filtering properties came to the founder after he went for a jog. so, i was in shanghai, and i did a lot of exercise outdoors to get back in shape. i used to go out for runs, and after i think 2—3 months, i started to have difficulties breathing. and that's when i thought maybe i caught the flu, maybe i caught the cold, and it kept on lasting until the point i really left china, left shanghai, and went back to germany. and only after i came back, i realised, "hey, there's definitely a connection to the air quality in china and my personal health." that's when it clicked, and i realised i have to do something about the air quality in cities. for the past eight years, green city solutions have been growing moss up to 15 times faster than in nature. each moss mat takes just under 12 weeks to grow. and i have to say, there's something very soothing about being in their greenhouse.
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do you just come in here and stroke the moss? she laughs. when i'm stressed. they laugh. what's cool about moss is that this plant doesn't have roots, so they can capture all nutrients through the walls' leaves, or leaf surface. so, you can imagine, like, the normal plants, it takes the nutrients from the earth — but this moss, it can capture everything. the second thing is, like every plant, moss can absorb c02, because it needs for photosynthesis, for the energy. but the benefit is the density of the moss is pretty high. so we need this high leaf—surface ratio to capture as much as possible. so, now we're going to take a sample. i can do it? yeah, for sure. ok. let's tweeze some moss. got some. perfect. now we can have a look on the microscope. here we go. and it's in the lab where we'll get to see moss' superpower.
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the plant acts a lot like a human lung, whose high surface area can absorb a lot of the air in one go. and just like the lungs of a smoker, which end up getting blackened by tar, moss could act like the lungs of a city, eventually being covered in the stuff that we don't want to breathe. so, this is from our one active product. and the black bits are the... exactly. this is the fine dust, or particles from polluted air. and these are the green cells. and it means that the moss is still healthy, because it's green. but they are pretty powerful, really. moss fan. yeah, i am somehow! they laugh. as well as pulling pollutants out of the air, there's another advantage to these bio filters, too. here's a piece of moss, and here's a thermal imaging camera. and you can see the
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temperature's about, what, room temperature. but look — when i point this at the air that's coming out of the moss when you switch the ventilation on, look how much cooler it is. so not only does this clean the air, it cools it, too. and, of course, pulling pollutants out of the atmosphere could help cool more than just your local surroundings. air pollution and climate change are also directly related. we have pollutants in air pollution — for instance, black carbon — which speed up the heating of the planet. and by binding those pollutants, we also help to decelerate climate change. you'll already see these bio—filters in several cities around the world — although you might not have realised that you're sitting in front of a load of moss. and to make sure the moss is as effective and long—lived as possible, the health of each moss mat can be monitored from ho. an algorithm can control the irrigation depending
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on the individual conditions. so, in the future, i would envision that many buildings and the facades of the buildings would be covered in our solutions. and of course you could also have motorways, large stretches. you could also use our moss filters to clean and cool the air, and maybe even protect it from noise. moss on its own won't solve the climate crisis, but in amongst the talk of inventing greener technologies, it may be worth taking a lead from something that's been right under our feet the whole time. after all, nature has been regulating the environment much longer than we've been disrupting it. moss — who'd have thought it could be so useful? the lungs of a city! mm—hm, nature's naturalfilter. now, as companies try to reduce their carbon footprint and their impact on the climate, there are lots of different things that they could try. you could change your manufacturing process, how you transport goods, or even move factories. but all of these are big things
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to do, so you really need to know which is going to work best. how do you do it? answer — get yourself a digital twin. you make a virtual copy of your entire business and try stuff out in that first. alasdair keane's been to see the makers of dettol, who are trying to assess whether they can make their new products more sustainable or not. alasdair: we use these kinds of products every day, from cleaning table tops to personal hygiene and health. these brands are made by one company called reckitt, and the industry to get them from factories to our homes is fast—moving and comes with a big impact on the planet. not huge, but important that we look at that carbon footprint and think, "how are we going to reduce it, decarbonise it?" the product carbon footprint — that's everything from the raw materials all the way through to people using products — has to come down by 50% by 2030. that's going to take
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a longer process. that's where we have to think not just about our factories, but the ingredients we use, the packaging that we use. to work out how they can meet targets, the company's turning to a digital replica of everything they do through a programme called risilience. so, this is it, this is the digital twin. this is risilience. this is risilience's version of different companies. we map them as a digital twin. we're looking at the data from a pretend company — but the programme is bringing together lots of information, such as the miles that individual ingredients are shipped, or how much energy each factory uses. it then runs lots of scenarios over the company to see how sustainable it is now and in the future. we've got a large team of analysts who compile a lot of data, forecasts out into the future, looking at how policy is likely to change in different countries of the world, and how taxes are likely to change. the digital twin is also helping firms map the impact climate change is already
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having on their operations. so this is an example of its factories in the united states, and how they might be subjected to future patterns of hurricane risk. and we look at how often it's going to get disrupted, the cost to the business of that particular thing. and then a company can then start to make changes in the laboratories here — they can work on a new product, put it into the programme, and find out if it will make a difference? exactly, yes. so that's where we're heading next. safety goggles on, as i've been given rare access to the room where the next big thing in cleaning could be on the verge of discovery — and where they're also adjusting existing product lines. we changed one of the ingredients, so it now uses lactic acid. that's plant—based, and it has a lower carbon footprint. and so we looked at what risilience was telling us about where carbon footprints and maybe carbon tax in the future will affect us. and we thought, "what are the ingredients we can change?" and by moving to lower—carbon ingredients, things like lactic
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acid, which is developed from fermenting maize, we were able to reduce the carbon footprint, and that means it's set up for the future — a low—carbon, low—water economy. reckitt aren't the only ones turning to this tech. there are estimates the market for digital twins could be worth billions of dollars over the next decade. but having all the data on sustainability is one thing — companies need to act on it. i think when a lot of people hear about big companies and sustainability, they probably roll their eyes because big companies are out to make money. what is the balance there between being more sustainable and still bringing pounds in? well, the key here is how we can decarbonise and still grow. so if we can achieve our ambition to be net zero by 2040, we can grow, as well. and that decouples those two topics. it could be years before we know if the decisions companies are making now will really help the planet. this tech is making that
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a little bit less of a gamble. that was alisdair, and now it's time for a look at this week's tech news. google has agreed to pay nearly $400 million to settle a privacy case. it had been accused by a0 american states of misleading users into believing location tracking was switched off. the search engine says the claim was based on policies that changed years ago. ride—hailing app uber says it expects people to keep using it, even as their budgets get squeezed. the firm is branching out to let users book trains and buses in the app. it also told the bbc more drivers have joined them. for uber, potentially we can serve those needs of those customers who decide no longer to have their own car but to use uber instead. and actually, in tough economic times, to me that makes total sense. meanwhile, food—delivery firm deliveroo says it is quitting australia
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because of tough economic conditions. the country's government has been putting pressure on companies to improve gig workers' conditions. and... animal crossing's very first e—cycling centre! ..and in a bid to help people reduce e—waste, intel has created a land on the game animal crossing to help educate us on how to recycle old tech. the firm says electronic waste is rising three times faster than the world's population. laura: the steam train — first built in 180a, it made rail travel cheap, and suddenly everything seemed much closer to home. industry rolled on, and by the 1960s, electric and diesel trains had replaced steam. and today, around the world, most high—speed trains are powered by electricity. at the historic bo'ness
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and kinneil railway, engineers have also moved on from the past and into technologies of the future, where they're working towards cleaner rail travel. and this — this is the little train that could be powered by hydrogen. the train itself is not new. instead, this is where old technology meets new, and a test of where hydrogen power might be a viable option on our railways. the technology beneath my feet is relatively new for the railway, but one of the interesting things about this project is that this train is actually quite old — built in 1979 — and it's been retrofitted to run on hydrogen. so, what was a class 314 headed for the scrapheap is now a class 614 hydrogen—powered train. the hydrogen is stored in tanks underneath the carriages, along with the hydrogen fuel cell, which converts the hydrogen back to electricity,
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which powers the train. all that is emitted is steam and water. the hydrogen needed to power the train is made on site. electricity from renewable sources is used to split water, creating hydrogen. that's then compressed, compressed again... ..and then stored, ready for refuelling the train. but if most of the uk rail network is electrified, what part will hydrogen play? some commentators say that hydrogen is actually a bit of a distraction, and what we should be focusing on is fully electrifying our railway lines. so, if you've got a route where you can't do overhead electrification, and the route is too long or too demanding, or there isn't a time to charge or the infrastructure to charge to run a battery train, then the hydrogen train fills that gap. you can get a range approaching diesel, you can refuel very quickly, and you can transport hydrogen in multiple ways. so the hydrogen train
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fulfils some operational requirements you can't meet with other approaches. it's not the only area of transport looking to use this element. aberdeen is a city built on oil and gas — but it's now home to the first hydrogen—powered double—decker buses in the world. how does this work? what we have... watch your head. in total, holding 25kg of hydrogen. they will pump the hydrogen down to the fuel cell down here. it mixes with fresh air, and in a process... ..what we end up is getting electricity that comes out. this electricity gets sent to a battery, and from the battery, it goes to the battery controller, just the same as an electric vehicle. to get these clean and green buses from a to b, hydrogen refuelling stations were set up around aberdeen. it's just like filling the bus with diesel. instead, the pumps are stocked with hydrogen. when do you think diesel is consigned to the, you know,
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the garages of history, and the majority of your fleet are running on renewable products? 5—10 years? definitely. i think it's — i mean, certainly first, as a group, will not be buying any more diesel buses in the future. it will be electric or gas, or hydrogen buses. thank you, driver. thank you. but it's notjust buses looking to hydrogen as a fuel of the future. this is the first of its kind zero—emission hydrogen electric hgv, which runs off renewable electricity. and, like the hydrogen buses, water is its only waste. in the hgv sector, we're seeing that hydrogen is the only technology that's able to give the long range, the heavy payloads, and the quick refuelling time. if you think about what we currently do, which is we drive around with flammable liquid in our cars, with small explosions going on around our knees and a tank of flammable liquid behind us, hydrogen is much safer
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because these tanks are very solid — they've got triple—layer carbon fibre reinforced. so there's a place for hydrogen in transport. if we continue at our current rate, scientists estimate our fossil fuels will be burned out by 2060. we know that the way we travel must change, and we can no longer rely on non—renewable energy sources to fuel our way of life. with hydrogen and electric hybrid set to be the future, clean solutions are here to stay. that was laura. in my coat! i noticed that, actually — we got a uniform now? did i miss a memo? yeah, that's right. anyway, talking of coats — or more generally, clothing — we talked in the past about the problems with fast fashion. these are clothes that are so cheap, they kind of feel disposable. we've seen new ways of being able to recycle fabrics — but this week, we're taking a look at a problem that i, for one, didn't even know existed.
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but luckily, shiona mccallum's found the solution. shiona: we know that fashion hurts the earth. more than 92 million tonnes of textile waste is created every year. recycling is possible, but chemical dyes and prints often prevent this. if you're anything like me and buy merch every time you go to a gig, then you may have loads of band t—shirts. but sometimes, your musical tastes do change and you're stuck with these logos forever. well, one team here in gothenburg are trying to change that. the idea is that they print the t—shirts, strip them back, and reprint them so they can be used again, again, and again. the start—up, called vivideye, isn't changing traditional fabric inks. and we'll get you a lab coat. instead, it's developed an invisible layer that goes onto the fabric first... voila. ..made from entirely earth—friendly ingredients. this can be dissolved away later, allowing the top
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design to be removed. what's the cool tech that goes into creating this perfect recipe? it's all about a balance, and trying to find the sweet spot for both the functionality, but as well as stability. then we look into the viscosity of it. we look at the charge of our components. we study the films that we create through microscope, as well as the textiles that we are applying the print to. is there any waste products at all here? when we want to try something, we create the volume necessary for what we're trying. the mix is applied at an industrial partner, where it's easily brought into the screen—printing process. hi! johanna. welcome! nice to meet you. welcome to sweden and gothenburg. thank you so much. so i think you've got a surprise in store for me. yes, i do. today, we're actually going to print a click band t—shirt. exciting!
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i'm really looking forward to seeing how it all works. let's get started. the final result is here. i love it! how could i ever want this to be removed? use it as long as possible, and then remove it. just for you guys, i'm going to take this t—shirt back to the lab and see if the technology can completely remove the logo. right now, this means putting the t—shirt in a bowl with the removable chemical. it's then treated at high temperatures and left for about an hour. afterwards, there is a secret technique in getting the print to physically come off — and this should get better as the recipe and the process is fine—tuned. so, yeah, this, see, we have some traces left. so the click band logo has gone, and i can only see a few speckles of pink.
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pretty good job. i mean, i reckon you could probably print on top of that and you wouldn't notice. no. and this would be good for recycling, would it? that's definitely good for recycling. which is the main point, so it won't end up in landfill along with traditionally inked—up garments. and another test, processed more precisely without the delays of us messing about filming, has come up even cleaner. you can get it more or less completely off. we are 100% sure about that, yeah. but wearers aren't expected to strip their own tees at home. the printing companies use our technology. people get to use the printer and the textile, and then we take it back. with several large european partners already developing their own garments, there is clearly an appetite for closing this circle. with more than 100 billion items made each year, it's never been more important to make all textiles recyclable.
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and i did keep one of these just for my next gig, though. shiona there — and that's it for this look at some of the latest innovations that are hoping to tackle climate change. yeah, it's going to take much more than those to make a dent on rising global temperatures. but whenever we see something that we think is promising, we'll make sure you see it, too. thanks for watching, we'll see you soon. bye— bye. hello there. friday was a calm and settled day, thanks to a ridge of high pressure. fine end to the working week, however. into the weekend, low pressure firmly in control. it's going to be windy with gales, certainly around the coast, and there will be some rain followed by bands of heavy showers.
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that's the early rain that will move through today, and that will be followed for the rest of saturday and sunday with blustery showers, strong winds and some sunny spells in between. most of the showers in the south and west. you can see the rainfall accumulations over the next couple of days, where most of those showers will be falling. a very wet start for saturday across more central and western areas. that rain band gradually pushing eastwards, affecting eastern england during the latter part of the morning. by around lunchtime, it should clear out into the north sea. all areas are brighter with sunny spells, scattered showers, some heavy ones across southern and western areas, and it will be windy with gales around coasts. you can see the wind speeds even further east, but touching gale force around southern and western coasts. some huge waves crashing onshore as well. temperatures starting mild and dropping back into the afternoon, highs of 8—11 degrees. it stays blustery overnight saturday night, windy gales in the north and west, plenty of showers in southern and western areas, drier
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interludes further east, and temperatures falling to lows of 5—8 degrees — that's pretty typical. then for sunday, an area of low pressure to the north of scotland, lots of isobars on the charts, not quite as many as saturday. so it's not going to be windy, not as windy, and weather fronts towards the south will enhance the shower activity. so it could be southern and western parts of england and wales seeing the heaviest of the showers through the day. some heavy, some rumbles of thunder, some hail mixed in as well, but there will be some sunshine around too. it's going to be a chillier day across the board, highs of 7—10 degrees in the south. monday is a little bit quieter, we are in between weather systems. still quite blustery in the north and west. here's where we will see most of the showers — northern ireland and scotland, could be a wintry element to some of these over the high ground, as the air will be cooler on monday. highs of 5—8 degrees here, up to around 10 degrees in the south. this is a little closer to the seasonal norm. so, the weather's up and down as we head
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through the new week. tuesday's mild, wet, windy again. followed by some slightly cooler weather on wednesday.
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welcome to bbc news. i'm anjana gadgil. our top stories: signs that the historic deadlock in the us house of representatives could be coming to an end — frontrunner kevin mccarthy appears to be making headway. i think you saw we made some very good progress. we'll come back tonight. i believe at that time, we'll have the votes to finish this once and for all. a six—year—old boy has shot his school teacher in the us state of virginia, in what police say was not an accidental shooting. the altercation was between a six—year—old — the student
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who did have the firearm — and the teacher, and then a round was fired.

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