captioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for sunday, december 9th: insight into the president's former friends and advisors in light of regscent court fil a diplomatic test at the united nations meeting on climate change. and in our signature segment, scotland navigates a path through brexit for its marine energy industry. next on "pbs newshour wkend." >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. sue and edgar wachenheim iii. seton melvin.yl the chand philip milstein family. dr. p. roy vagelos and diana t. vagelos. the j.p.b. foundation. rosalind p. walter. barbara hope zuckerberg. corporate funding is provided by mutual of america--

designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcastingriand by cotions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. from the tisch wnet studios at lincoln center in new york, hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: good evening and thank you for joining us. after a week in which president trump announced top members of his administration are leaving and court filings revealed allegatis that the president directed hush money payments-- this morning, mr. trump contind his attack on his former f.b.i. director. late yesterday republicans on ary, ande judici government reform and oversight committees released the transcript from form.i. director james comey's closed- door testimony before them on friday in his five-hour testimony the republican-led committees asked pl. comey about the f.b.i.'s decisions in mul investigations when he was

director. questions ranilged fromry clinton's emails to russian interference into the 2016 election. on twitter, president trump cited e number of times that mr. comey responded that "he didn't know" and "didn't recal"" as evidence of lying. comey "must have set a record for who lied the most to congress in one day." comeis expected to be called before the house committee again next week. the "nework times" is reporting that jared kushner, president trump's son-in-law and adviser, was in direct contact with saudi prince moha bmm salman after the death of saudi- dissident-journalist jamal khashoggi, and gave him advice on how to "weather the storm." kushner and the crown prince, known as m.b.s., were known to have a close rele ationship. imes" reports that the two are on a first name basis and used text messages in addition to calls and emails. in a statement to nethpaper, a white house spokesman said" jared has always meticulously followed protocols and guideli relationship with m.b.s. and all of the other foreign officials

with whom he interacts." in london today, marchers took to the streets for and agaibrnst thit deal with starkly different visions for britain's one group led by anti-islam activist tommy robinson waved the union jack, chanted "we want britain out" and called for the complete severing the european union. a few miles away, left-wing marchers hoping to counter the far-right rhetoric carried sians calling fond to racism. parliament is expected to vote tuesday on prime minister theresa may's plan for removing britain from the european unionr paris began pen popular landmarks and clean up the destruction after yesterday'st" yellow " protests. the eiffel tower and louvre museum reopened to touristsg after beosed saturday. many shop owners also reopened, but others were left to repair broken windows and there were reports of looting. clean up crews sprayed down graffiti left on buildiwangs and sis. an official said french president emmael macron will meet with national and local officials tomorrow, and he is planning tonaddress the na early in the week.

a major snowstorm is blanketing much of the southern u.s., knocking out power to hundreds thousands of people. 25-million residents of three on from the carolinas to texas are under winter weather alerts. snowfall totals of 12"-18" are expected in parts of the carolinas and virginia before the storm ends tomorrow. and the city of lubbock, texas got ten inchesf snow yesterday, beating its yearly average in just 24 hours. while storms damage property, they can also spoil water supplies by spreading disease or toxic algae. read more at pbs.org/newshour. >> sreenivasan: the most recent revelations about president trump's personal lawyer michael coern and the president's fo campaign manager paul manafort offered more information about past dealings-- both financial and political-- in the trump organizate n. for an insok at how mr. trump's campaign and businesses are connected and what cohen and manafort may know, we're joined

now by ilya marritz, a host of the podcast "trump inc."-- a joint reporting project from new york public radio station wnyc and propublica. >> first of all, going back just this past week how snificant were these documents? >> they were nowrm enormously signifant. not only wherever mueller's probe may be headed but the specific crimes, misdeeds, accused crimes that michael cohen and paul manafort engagedn on my way up here i was on the subway and the guy was reang the new york post and the headline read, donald trump's no good very bad day. >> sreenivasan: let's startfo with paul mana, what did we learn? >> right. robert mueller released a memo in regards to how much paul

manafort breached his agreement. what we're able to see is mueller is very interested in the case of constantine colu bek. consider u.s. intelligence agencies as a russian asset, and paul manafort acrding to robert mueller lied on many occasions about the contacts with constantineolunmek, he may be a go between between the trump world and we don't know that but it adds different dmedges there. >> sreenivasan: how about michael cohen? >> one is in the southern strict of new york and that concerns hush money payments to womeden who all had affairs with donald trump and some of miss only financial dealings tax

avoidance and stuff like that and then a separate memo om mueller's team, considering his lies to congress. these appear to be different. on thene hand, robert mueller says michae cohen has given us good operation, we recommend a sentence that takes this into account. the southern district says, michael cohen has not acknowledged his crimes, looks at it with rose colored glations and minimizing his role. both of those memos have a lot to say about individual 1.l individu is donald trump. and both of these memos implicate donald t mmp. these huey payments to actresses who said they had affairs with donald trump. michael cohen was the man who arranged those hush money payments but at the direction of donald trump according to some

of these filings this made this happen. >> sreenivasan: and itavs illegal to some sort of a campaign contribution, right? >> that's right. >> sreenivasan: that is kind of what this is perceive to be, if this is hush mone it is helping your campaign by keeping this out of the public's ear. when you look at the psident's twitter feed or his lawyers, they're saying these documents vindicate him, there is no ia.clusion with russ like, the witch hunt he seems the call it. >> that doesn't seem to be the case. individual one, we know who is donald trump, and ul manafort, other documents we have seen recently, some are putting his cards on the table, some face up some face down. rudy giuliani, the president's lawyer, tweeted. a man who went to trial on an illegal campaign contributions charge and he was not convicted an that was a big bck eye for the government. that is one example to watch.

perhaps these cases are not so easy to bring but robert muehalr seems to have a lot of confidence about this particular charge a seems to be focusing on it. >> sreenivasan: all right, ilya marritz, thank you so much for joining . >> thank you for having me. >> sreenivasan: last night we took you to the largest planned tidal energy pject in the world, harnessing the power in the fast moving waters off the northern coast of scotland. but scotland is a part of the united kingdom, and it now faces the ming separation of the u.k. from the european union- i'm talking about brexit. will scotland be able to continue turning tidal energy from an intriguing concept to commercial reality? here's part two of our report. on a brisk nember morning, i headed into the waters around the orkney islands, an archipelago off the coast of northern scotland. i'm with a team from the

european marine energy center or emec, a research and stg facility that's based here. i'm also with a spanish trenewable energy compat's testing its new project here in orkney. this device generates power from the tides. >> we have already produced energy with this platf >> sreenivasan: pablo mansilla is a project manager with magallanes renovables, the company that developed this device. he took me aboard to get a closer look why come her >> we are coming here because this is the most important place to test enis energy. >>ivasan: the floating deck is about 150 feet long and when it is in place it will be tethered to the seafloor with chains. the tides rush through two giant underwater turbines beneath the deck and generate energy. the device was towed more than30 miles from spain and soon will be connected to the grt at emec's tte in orkney for a year. >> we want tteo valihis technology, to optimize our platform and try to reach to thr coal point and start

selling platforms. >> sreenivasan: mansilla took me inside, where electricalnv ters transform the power generated from the tides to a standard voltage before sending it to the power grid on shore. when it's operating there won't be anyone onboard; it can alle monitored d controlled remoly from anywhere. >> this is our control system, we can check everything from sspain. enivasan: so 24/7 this is all sending information in real time? >> yeah, yes.em >> sreenivasan has tested more than 30 ocean energy devices, including this one, which recently generated aough energy fut 830 homes in a year-long test. manufactured b a scottish tidal energy developer, it looks like its moving, but rely it's just the tides rushing by. like the magallanes device, it's tethered to stay in place, while turbines underneath ga energy from the moving water lisa mackenzie is em marketing manager. she says that in addition to having a testing site for devices thatreate power from tides, emec also has a site to

test wave enery gy. >> ork very unique because it has both of these resources very close together. >> sreenivasan: here at billia croo, waves have been meared at nearly 60 feet high. more than a mile offshore, a finnh company is testing a device that captures energy from the movement of these waves. then feeds that energy via underwater cable back into the national grid. >> it's really important to do the computer mo tdeling ado the tank testing and get a lot of the issues ironed osi as much as pe at scale. but you can not understand how a technolo is going to interact in the real sea environm ut at full scail it has been deployed. >> sreenivasan: emec, which is a nonprofit,as established in 2003 and has received about $44 million in public funding, including from the european union and the u.k. and scottish governments. it has been self-sufficient fnce 2011, with companies paying to use iilities. >> sreenivasan: but it still does receive e.u. grant-funde

projects. in fact, the cost of magallanes' year-long test at emec is bei subsidized by e.u. funding. so, whe tides and waves here may be strong and certain, the political winds are anything but. the uned kingdom's brexit is set for march, after which scotland will no longe ebe part of t.u. and the fate of e.u funded projectsn britain is uncertain. i mean, you're a european funded agstcy in the flace. what happens next year? >> so, we're called t eopean marine energy center, but we see ourselves as very much a global company. and whatever happens with brexit, and at the moment we don't know what that will be, that's not gog to stop us working with european and global companies. >> sreenivasan: paul wheelhouse is the scottish minister for energy, connectivity, and the islands and a member of the ruling scottiatshnal party, which did not support brexit. >> we are lerega of some of the brexiteers views on this. we will always be part of the european continent.

geography doesn't change and we have a huge share of europe's ve energy, tidal energy and offshore wind and onshore wind iatent >> sreenivasan: we spoke with wheelhouse at a recent conference on ocean energy in edinburgh. as brexit approacrnhes, he the u.k. should not repeat the mistake that it made in the 1980s with wind energy. >> the industry s ing led by academia in scotland and the rest of u.k. and indeed the first thing some irof the onshore turbines in the world were trialed in orkney and then we droppt the ball because was a dash for gas and it was rmre politically expedient to push for a short it an agenda and neglected the long term development of a technology that had huge potential >> sreenivasan: today, the wind energy industry is dominated by danish, chinese, german, and spanish companies. >> so we're saying to the u.k. government please desperately do not drop the ball again. >> sreenivasan: and emec in orkney is not the only investment the scottish and u.k. governments have made in developing the ecosystem around

marine energy. david ingram is a engineering professor at the university of edinrgh, and the director of the flowave ocean energy research facility. this 634,000allon tank was funded in part by the u.k. government and opened in 2014. it's a place where you can rent a sthemy sea. pickize of the wave or force of the tide and test whatever you like. >> so if i want to have a 200 year storm, i can have 200 year storm conditions every 15 minutes. if i go to the ocean and i want a 200 year storm i might have to wait 300 years for that 200 year storm to come along. >> sreenivasan: on the day we visited, this small scale version of wave power device was being put through the equivalent of massive swells by a swedish company. >> it's much cheaper for you to bring a model here from australia and test support for somethi l to happen

atge scale, and if the government don't want to provide that support then that technology goes to somewhere where it can, where the support can be found. >> sreenivasan: adding to the uncertainty ound brexit, scotland is not the only government racing to develop these new tenologies. representatives from all over europe were at the marine energy conference iedinburgh. and the united states was represented as well. tim ramsey isgehe program mafor the u.s. department of energy's marine and hydrokinetic program. as>> we're learning as muce can from, from our counterparts over here in the u.k. >> sreenivasan: ramsey's office distributes about $70 million dollars a year in grants for marine energy, with u.s. partment of energy support, tidal devices have been tested in maine and new york. s e department of energy iso helping build a 50 million dollar wave testing site on the coast of oregon. modeled on facilities like emec, it will be able to test utility- scale devices. ramsey thinks american companies still have a chance to catch up to the europeans.

>>e're not as far along a them, but they're not that far out in front of us. we can still catch and then wel can st the world leaders in this space when you look across the country and the resourcethat we do have it spans it all. we have a great tidal resource, a great wave resource, we have the supply chain, i think we'd be missing out on a big opportunity if we don'adtake ntage of that. >> sreenivasan: but despite the investment there are still questions as to whether or not developing technologies, like tidal energy, can compete with existing fossil fuels and more established renewable energy technologies like wind and solar. tim cornelius is the c.e.o. of simec atlantis energy, which is developing the meygen project, the largest planned tidal array in the world in northern scotland. >> tidal power is where wind and solar was 15 years ago. the world's best res closest to distribution points are yet to be developed. >> sreenivasan: cornelius hopes that projects like meygen will prove that commercial scale tidal energy is feasible. as the sun sets and the moon pulls

these tides to rush by at 11 miles per hour spinning underwater turbines are helping keep the lights on. en >> sasan: starting tomorrow, diplomats from 200 countries will arrive at aed united nationseeting in hownd to try to figure out to implement the paris climate agreement. yesterday, after week one of the two week meeting, delegates to the international climate conference failed to reach agreement on rules for nations to record and report their greenhouse gas emissions. outside, protestors demanded immediate and stronger action to reduce global warming. scientists warned the diplomats evat the climate is warmin more rapidly than predicted-- but current disputes between thh countries he largest carbon footprints-- the united states and china-- may threaten gh-stakes climate negotiations. joining us now is somini

sengupta, the ew york times'" international climate reporter. >> now, leavin paris accords but these meetings continue. why are they important? >> so, when the paris agreement was signed three years ago, an aspirational global agreemt. now, countries around the world have to figure out how to put it into effect. that's where they're dining had now in the polish city, the united states hasnc ann it intention to pull out, the united states remains in the agreement until end of 2020. it's the way the agreement is written. it takes some time fore you can exit so the united states has negotiors in the room, gotiating on a document that in principle will not apply to the u.s. if it actually continues its pullout. >> sreenivasan: how do this impact the entire kind of global conversation when the united statesays well, we're here but

we really don't want to be part of this anyway, and in the context of the disagreements that are happening right now atween the united state china? >> so for the united states and china, how to address climate change is their most consequently, most important -- consequential and most important test. we know where the u.s. stands on it has announced its intention to pull out. china is still in. l the oth countries in the world are still in. united states ishe only country had a has signaled its intention to pull out china is on track to meet its ownets that it seattle for spivment however -- it set for itself. it comes at a time whents scient are saying we've got to ratchet down these greenhouse gas emissions realllly fast or we face some of the

worst effects oflimate change as early at 2040. >> sreenivasan: where is china in m termsh cleaning up its act? that is one of the criticisms at the united states or at least president trump has had, well look these other big polluters,a chinnd india are going to keep spewing thetuff. te shouldn't have to make concessions unilly. >> every country sets its own targets. aevery country says we going to rax it down emiions by this time by this daylight. even if they do everything they have promised and not anywhere near to doing that, it's still not enough to bring down global esmperatures, right? so where china stand? china and the united states together account for 40% of ions.l greenhouse gas emi so if the world as a whole is to turn you need to see action on theheart of two countries. the united states is nowhere close to meeting its targets

present y. althoughould be said that a lot of cities and states and companies around the united states are making effort. they're saying they're their slogan is we're still in. like we're still in the paris deal. where is china at the moment? as far as we can tell, china's emissions went up, right, this year and last yeat r. e china is on track to meet its own targets. china is having a hard time getting out of coal. it was supposed to shut down a lot of coal fired power plants but that's proving to be difficult. at home much more worrying, china is developing and fundingo fired power plants all over the world. i went to the side of one i kenya this year, i just came om area whe china and japan are building coal fired power plants. it's worth watching what is china is doing at home but also worth watching when china is doing all over the world.

>> sreenivasan somini sengupta, thank you very much. r>> this is "pbs newsh weekend," sunday. >> sreenivasan: premiering tomorrow on pbs, director thomas lennon's documentary "sacred" exples religion, faith and spiritual practice around the globe. the film is an intimate look at and people turn to ritua prayer to navigate milestones-- like birth and marriage-- andth crises, liker a life sentence in louisiana's angola prison. >> i knew that i would not get through this if it wasn't for god. i would never accept the fact that i would be here forever. i have a family. i have a daughter. and yes, i do have a life sentence. and in the state of louisiana life means life. it meanings you don't go to the front gate unless it's in the body bag. and i know that that's got's plan for my life. god has brought me to a place where he has redisorr me. i am looking for him to call me

any way to the war den's office to say, did you hear the good news?yo see i'm different man inside jesus so i'm looking for new reward. >> it's hard, man. it's hard trying to exelify heaven in the midst of hell. learning about god made me mad about all the things i did in my life. the sins i committed. i seen m first person die at ten years ol order. ten years old. we come ready to die at 13, 14 years old. you know that's your life. o so if you go and quill a man it's nothing -- kill a man it's nothing to us. you just be like man there got to be something better. there going to something bettere belie first steps in the sand iw kno i be needing it.

>> sreenivasan: finally tonight, just in time for christmas, a spacex capsule made its delivery he holiday goodies to t international space station this weekend. dinner will include smoked ,rkey, green bean cassero candied yams, cranberry sauce and fruitcake. of course, the spacex delivery also included equipment and materials for scientificd research on boe space station. this edition of "pbs newshour weekend." i'm hari sreenivasan.th ks for watching. have a good night. captioning sponsored by wnet * captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by:

bernard and irene schwartz. sue and edgar wachenheim iii. seton melvin. the cheryl and philip milstein family. dr. p. roy vagelos and diana t. vagelos. the j.p.b. foundation. rosalind p. walter. barbara hope zkerberg. corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement prtsod that's why we're your retirement company. ditional support has bee provided by: f and by the corporati public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewersike you. thank you. be more. pbs. be more.

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