You’re listening to Unite and Heal America and KABC 790. This is Matt Matern, your host and today we have a great guest on the program, Tony Juniper. Welcome to the show, Tony.

Good evening. Nice to see you, Matt.

Thanks for being on the show. Tony, your resume is quite long. So I may not be able to cover it all in a one hour show. But I’ll, I’ll kind of hit some of the highlights currently the You’re the chairman of Natural England, which is a public body and you were appointed by the Secretary for environment, Michael Gove. Back in 2019. It’s pretty impressive body that is 2100 employees $194 million, or 194 million pound budget, and the quite a substantial portfolio of things that you do over there. In addition to that you are a fellow with Cambridge Institute for Sustainability.

And you are former executive director of Friends of the Earth for 18 years, author of a number of books, most recently the science of our changing planet, in which Prince Charles wrote a very nice foreword for your newest book. So that’s a it’s quite a bit of work, and kudos to you for for doing all that. Just diving into what what kind of brought you to the environmental movement, what was your, your path.

So this goes back to very early childhood really, and a fascination with animals and plants and fish and birds and fossils, and trees and rivers. Really, that was something that was of great interest to me as even as a small child. And that interests then took me into being a naturalist and understanding the natural world and studying it, which then in turn, was the basis for a degree course, back in the early 1980s, at Bristol University reading, zoology and psychology, which was really about animal behavior.

And then having done that, really a question for myself as to what kind of path I should pursue. And it was really a choice between being an academic scientist or pursuing a more practical career in conservation. And it was the latter that I did. And some of the things, Matt, you were kind enough to read out of being some of the highlights since. And it’s remarkable to see how the conversation has changed. Actually, I first became involved with conservation as my work back in the middle 1980s.

And 37 years later, the issues are completely transformed, of course, in terms of the understanding of their importance, and the ambition that we now have to do something about them. And that is, I guess, most recently seen in the huge global interest in climate change that accompanied the cop 26 summit that was hosted here, in the British Isles in Scotland in Glasgow, only last month.

So what are your takeaways from the cop 26? Conference? And and what are what are the top things that you think were accomplished? And the top things that weren’t accomplished? And, and kind of what’s the path forward from from this point?

Well, those cops there’s a lot of things going on at once. And I’ve been to quite a few of these over the years going right the way back to the Rio De Niro Earth Summit in 1992, when I worked with Friends of the Earth, and ever since then, you know, the conversation has continued at the global level. And, you know, whenever those meetings occur, there are a number of things simultaneously taking place at once.

And so one thing which a lot of campaigners and advocates focus on is the formal negotiations and the inter governmental agreement that comes from countries working together to try and come up with an accord, based upon consensus that everyone can live with, which sets out the policies and plans for the future. That’s one really important thing. Another thing that’s going on, of course, is you know, a massive trade fair. Lots of different organizations come to the cop, the electric vehicle industry companies in the renewable energy industry, people in green finance, NGOs, from WWF, to Greenpeace, and Oxfam. And there’s a vast networking process taking place with lots of different deals being done.

And then various announcements are made at the COP by those companies, by those NGOs, by individuals and individual governments and groups of governments. At cop 26, we have announcements on methane reduction, forest conservation the phase out of coal. And then of course, there’s a massive public awareness raising going on because the media really focus on the conversation at the time of these global gatherings.

And, of course, protesters and campaigners turn up and ask for more to be done. And all of that occurred in Glasgow this time. And each time we have one of these meetings, the ambition goes up and up and up. And this time, you know, the commitment to get to 1.5 degrees was repeated, having been a first established in Paris in 2015. And more steps were taken towards meeting that goal, but we’re not there yet more does need to be done. And countries will come back together at COP27 In Egypt, next year, and hopefully, you know, further steps will be taken to take us in that direction.

But aside from those formal Statements of Intent coming from individual countries, and collectively from countries, you know, there’s a very much more subtle and tangible shift going on, as a result of these kinds of meetings. And, you know, the finance sector making commitments now to move money and capital out of high carbon industries and into low carbon ones, commitments from food companies to begin the process of eliminating deforestation from their supply chains.

And companies coming together to undertake commitments to decarbonize the the food industry, these are all hugely important things that don’t necessarily register in a legal document, but which actually are gradually moving the dial. And at the same time, you know, the massive media coverage that followed that meeting, or came with that meeting, really is helping to cement public opinion behind the kind of change that we need. So a lot of stuff going on. And like all of these cops, it wasn’t the end, it never is there will always always be more to do and countries will come back next year to do more of it.

Right? Well, there’s a lot of ground to cover there. And certainly you’ve books have been written about the subject or the subjects. One of the things that you mentioned, which is fascinating to me with I had a bit of an economics background before getting into law is the finance finance sector?

And how the changes that are being made on that front to maybe not finance things that are highly carbon intensive industries. How do you see those changes playing out in in the short term and long term future?

While it’s essential to the whole thing, and I’ve been working on these questions long enough to see a gradual shift, first of all, amongst governments going back to the early 90s, and the progressive understanding of the need to take action, we’ve then seen the public opinion shifting as a result of the science and the media focus on that.

We’ve seen some of the big corporates moving in car manufacturers, for example, shifting from petrol and diesel towards electric vehicles. But now, a big piece of the jigsaw, which is going to help us accelerate the action is moving as well, which is that the finance side. And sometimes I think about the economy as kind of literally a vehicle and economic vehicle where you’ve got governments in the driving seat, you’ve got the private sector companies underneath the bonnet, they’re the engine. And then you’ve got the fuel going into the tank, which is really the green finance.

And if you imagine the economy like that, with these different components of government, setting the direction, the private sector, creating value, and the finance coming in to help the private sector go in a good direction. This is the thing that we’ve not seen enough of yet that reorientation of the financial flows, but it’s now beginning to happen or at COP26.

We saw some very strong signals on that. And, you know, effectively at a very simple level, this is about moving investment, out of what previously were highly productive. in a financial sense industries, including oil and gas and coal, are moving that finance simply put into the alternatives, solar wind, electrification of transport, for example, and it’s beginning to occur. And there’s plenty of other industries that can be part of the solution, too.

I think I may have read it in your book, which was essentially we’ve got a situation where our economy has to be reoriented, because the feeding the economy, the way that it was going, just is kind of leads us to the disaster that we’re headed towards that direction. So we have to reorient our economic incentives towards a more environmentally friendly outcomes and then But everything will shift in that direction.

So like classic economics treated natural resources as infinite and something you really didn’t need to value. And that’s really the reason why we’re in the conundrum we’re in is because we didn’t treat our natural environment is really something that we could damage which in the 1750s, when Adam Smith or Rhodes or 1770s, when he wrote, see the books, the first books on economics, he did not value natural resources, because it didn’t seem like you needed to value it at the time, because it seemed limitless. But now we’re to the point where that we have reached the limits of our natural resources.

We will be right back in just one minute with Tony Juniper, who’s the chairman of Natural England and talking about the environment here on KABC 790. This is Matt Matern host of Unite and Heal America. We’ll be back in just one minute. You’re listening to unite and Hill America and ABC 790. This is Matt matter. And we’ve got Tony Juniper who is an environmentalist from England and glad to have you on the show.

Tony, just wanted to kind of turn to your book a little bit the science of changing our planet which Prince Charles had written the foreword. And I kind of wanted to maybe you can give us a little bit about the backstory of your collaboration with Prince Charles, I know that you’ve worked with him as an advisor on charities, international society sustainability unit, and probably other things. What, what brought you into his orbit or vice versa?

Well, one of the things that really inspired me as an environmentalist decades ago, was the fact of having the figure of the Prince of Wales very much speaking on the same issues. And, you know, not so long ago, it’s quite easy to forget, you know, that mainstream though the environmental questions are today, it wasn’t always like that. And it was quite rare to find mainstream figures in positions, like is speaking about such subjects. And so, he was a great inspiration for me from the early part of my career to hear some of the things that he would say about tropical forests, about biodiversity, about sustainable farming all these questions which are now so familiar.

And after I departed from working at Friends of the Earth, I joined his international sustainability unit to work on rain forests, a rainforest project, it was called the prince’s rain forest project. And the idea there was actually to pick up on some of the points we were discussing a moment ago about economics and to change the economic equation in relation to tropical forests, so that they would be seen as worth more alive than dead was the way his Royal Highness put it into conduct an exercise whereby awareness and conversation could be raised to flip the economic equation, because the rainforests are being cut down to supply natural resources to create space to grow crops, including oil, palm, and soya beans.

But what was not visible in what looked like good economic activities that were making money was the cost that would be caused through the release of greenhouse gases as carbon was emitted into the atmosphere. And also the disruption to global water supply. Because the rain forests, aptly named, they’re pumping vast quantities of moisture into the air, which is traveling long distances, and which is coming to the ground in the form of rain, which is watering crops.

And so all of these things we set out to get on to the agenda more firmly and actually at COP26. You know, that discussion continues not least as a result, I would say, of some of the work that was being done on that subject 15 years ago, more or less when His Royal Highness launched that particular initiative.

But the sustainability unit also worked on food security, it also worked on the marine environment, and sought to bring people together to to solve what are exceedingly complicated problems, but at the heart of it, really is that flipping perspective, to see nature and the natural world is actually valuable, rather than simply something that we extract resources from valuable in its impact state.

I mean, and you know, that observation that we should look after nature for reasons of economics charity and social well being is something which has now been firmly underpinned by experts studies undertaken by the British government, including the Stern Review on climate change.

And also, more recently, this year, the publication of the Dasgupta review on the economics of biodiversity. So we are moving into a different space where we’re beginning to see the need to align economic and ecological priorities together, rather than to see these things as, as choices, you know, do we protect the environment? Or do we grow the economy?

Well, we have to do both. Otherwise, we won’t succeed with either actually in the end, because without an economy that’s meeting people’s needs, we won’t be able to achieve environmental goals. And if we don’t achieve environmental goals, and the underpinning of the economy will be eroded. And I think that set of points and that logic is becoming understood, at least in some parts of the world. But of course, we have a very long way to go.

Yeah, I certainly recall reading of Prince Charles his work on the environment decades ago. And unfortunately, in the popular press, it doesn’t get quite as much Anke as some of the other stories coming out of the royal family. But I appreciate his long and dedicated service to getting that message out there. Because, quite frankly, the press didn’t cover this story as well as it should have for decades.

And now when it’s at crisis point, they’re finally kind of waking up a little bit more, though, maybe that’s just the nature of humanity, it’s like we have to be faced with impending disaster, before we really stir from our sleep. I think you set out a number of the challenges in your book very, very effectively and very, in a very straightforward way.

We have growing economies growing populations, growing cities, increased need for food and energy growth and travel with airlines, increased water consumption, people are living longer, increased amount of refugees. This is a an extraordinary set of challenges that we face, and which are driving kind of the environmental problems that we’re facing.

Because as we have growing economies with more people, it’s hard to use less and less energy. Given all of that, kind of what do you see is maybe the top five things that we should be focusing on to solve the climate crisis.

Okay, well, the top five well, so well, the most obvious, and the thing that probably is most spoken about on the climate change challenge is the need to shift from fossil fossil energy to renewable energy, for electricity, for heating and for transport. And, you know, there are technologies already in deployment and which are growing very quickly, which will do that. So that’s that that’s number one. And, you know, a subset of number one would be the efficient use of that energy.

So if we’re going to be generating a lot of power from solar and wind, let’s use it with the most efficient light bulbs, for example. So that’s Thing Number One Thing Number two would be to stop deforestation and actually to reverse it by increasing the area of natural forest cover on the earth. And to do that through the process of where we can achieve it through natural regeneration would bring big biodiversity biodiversity benefits as well.

So there is a component there which would, by stopping deforestation would would halt emissions and that source and by reforestation would begin to reverse it by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The third thing would be to shift to regenerative agriculture. And so by regenerative agriculture, I mean farming which is producing healthy food, but in ways which are not depleting the natural environment, especially soil health.

And soil is another massive carbon store. At the moment through depleting organic matter in soils, by the way in which we farm, were putting a lot of that carbon back into the atmosphere through depleting the organic matter. So by restoring the organic matter in soils through regenerative processes, relying less on manufactured fertilizers and more on natural composites and manures, and rotational farming, these kinds of things, we could shift into a process of rendering, agriculture much less impactful on the climate to fourth thing would be to move to a circular economy.

So at the moment, we take natural resources from the environment, we turn them into consumer goods and most of it, we waste pretty quickly either into landfill into incinerators or into the ocean in the form of plastics, famously Lately, people have been talking about that. And we need to shift to an economic system that sees that waste at the moment, we call it waste, to see it as resources, valuable resources that need to be recaptured and turned into new products. So there’s four headings right there. And the fifth one, actually, to underpin all of the above take us back again to economics, let’s have economic measurement that is measuring the environmental impact as well as the GDP that is being generated, because at the moment, we have one measure, which is really dominating our economic thinking, which is the GDP measure the increase in in wealth and throughput in the economy.

Let’s also measure the carbon intensity of that and indeed the impact on biodiversity to give us more information about the extent to which we’re succeeding with clean green growth. I think you’d put that package of five things together, that would be a good start.

Well, I’ve I’ve often said that our GDP is an antiquated and not helpful measure for all things, for an economy and for, for a for a nation or for the world because it’s driving us in a direction that is really unsustainable with greater and greater growth over the next 100 years is going to lead us to disaster. So if we change our measurements, we’ll change our direction.

And I guess to that extent, I’d like to talk to you further after our break about what measures are being taken by governments and maybe NGOs or the like, that are addressing these concerns. You’re listening to Unite and Heal America and KABC 790. This is Matt Matern, and we’ll be back in just one minute.

As you may know, your host Matt Matern of Unite and Heal America is also the founder of Matern Law Group, their team of experienced employment, consumer and environmental attorneys are dedicated to leveling the playing field by giving everyone access to the highest quality legal representation, contact 844 MLG. For you, that’s 844 MLG for you, or 84465449688446544968.

You’re listening to Unite and Heal America and KABC 790. Again, my guest today is noted environmentalist Tony Juniper, and we’re back with you talking about the issues that Tony thinks are most important. And he gave us a list of a top five. A

nd the last one, Tony, that you were talking about were economic measures of kind of changing the incentives and the way we look at our economy from as opposed to have focusing on GDP, looking at the environmental impact and the carbon intensity that our economies are generating as the new metric, and how do you see that playing out? Where are we at right now in that respect? And where should we be and how we’re going to get there?

Well, I think the first thing is to realize that we do have positive alternatives to what we’ve been doing. And I think part of the hesitation that countries and societies have had in embracing a different kind of approach is really based upon the the the idea that this is about sacrifice about ending the creation of wealth, about losing jobs, about damaging competitiveness, when indeed it need not be any of those things.

And one of my favorite examples actually have a country that took a different path some years ago, is the Central American Republic of Costa Rica. And the story of what happened there in the 1980s is very interesting, because the country at the time, had one of the highest deforestation rates in the world. And people weren’t talking very much about climate change in those days, but they were very aware of soil damage and loss of topsoil, the flooding that would come in the wake of that the loss of wildlife, of course, and the extent to which local climate would change in terms of rainfall patterns, and so on.

And so there was, you know, an understanding of the environmental downsides, but apparently every good reason from an economic perspective to continue with deforestation in order to produce more capital to feed global demand for beef until the environment minister and the finance minister in the country began to think about ways in which they might create economic advantage through conserving and restore During the forest, so the opposite idea to the one which had become embedded, but which they felt would be worth trying for economic, not only for environmental reasons.

And if you look at the reasoning, then they decided that actually conserving the forests would be very good from the point of view of sustaining the country’s water supply. The cities and every other part of the country, of course needed fresh water, the forests were providing that. And they also understood that the rain being generated by the rain forest was topping up the rivers which were filling the dam reservoirs, the hydroelectric dam reservoirs which were generating the country’s power.

And also the water of course, the rainwater was responsible for sustaining the crops, the pineapples and coffee, and other crops and bananas that were so important for Costa Rica’s export economy. And so they decided to stop deforestation and to reverse it. And that kind of long story short, fast forward 30 years into this century, and the country had doubled, its forest cover. And also using the old fashioned economic measure, they had doubled their per capita GDP.

So they’d restored the environment, and they’ve actually created economic advantage at the same time. And of course, on top of the water supply, and the electricity and the agriculture. Since then, they’ve built a massive, and very important eco tourism economy with people traveling from Europe, and North America to Costa Rica, to look at the wonderful wildlife that lives in the forests. And so this wasn’t an example of where environmental improvement led to economic decline, it was the opposite.

And I think that’s a great inspiration for the whole world, looking at how we transition away from fossil fuels and into renewables, and the extent to which we can be creating jobs, to be harnessing technology, to drive export markets, to be driving innovation, and to be creating new industries, all of which could be bolstered through stronger targets being adopted by governments to cut carbon emissions.

Now, obviously, the transition is more complicated than that, because you don’t necessarily create the jobs where you’re losing them. You know, there are various losers as well as winners as we go into that new economy. But it is a transition that the science tells us that we need to navigate and with a matter of some urgency, given how close we are now to triggering global warming, above 1.5 degrees, which during the course of the Paris Summit in 2015, was set out really as the danger threshold that we need to avoid.

So my basic conclusion would be that we need to think about different economic strategies and ones that, of course, are not only going to be solving environmental problems, but also generating social benefit in terms of jobs and everything else.

What caused the mind when President, then President Trump was in office, he was railing against any cuts in production of oil and gas drilling. Because from his perspective, we had trillions of dollars of assets in the ground. And of course, why wouldn’t you pull all of those out, because, though, that’s money to be made. And it’s, it’s a very short term, and myopic view of the world of, let’s get the money out, and, you know, screw the consequences of, of this, of this action.

And, to me, that was the, you know, the antithesis of being environmentalist is it’s, you know, rape the resources as quickly as we can to maximize profit, which is kind of what classic economics tells us. I mean, from a textbook steht standpoint, that that’s classic economic theory, get as much money as you can, as quickly as you can, but that that particular methodology is leading us off a cliff. So we do have to alter that that worldview, or else we’re going to all kill ourselves.

So you know, I I definitely see why we need to change. It is a long term challenge. And I don’t I don’t know exactly how we’re going to change it from from a government by government. You know, you cite the example of Costa Rica, and that was a brilliant move that they made in a small country. I think changing that metric in China, the US and the EU is maybe a little bit more challenging, though. I see the EU furthest along in the spectrum. of making those changes.

But why don’t we turn our attention to China and talk about what changes they’re making? And, you know, I noticed in your book that China is planning to increase their emissions for the next 10 years until 2030. I don’t see how we can possibly really continue on that trendline and, and save ourselves from breaching the 1.5 degree increase in temperature?

Yeah, well, every country is different has its own political circumstances, its own history, its own economic position, its own social situation in terms of there being more or less poor people. And so every country needs to navigate its own path forward and find its own way. And, you know, for China, for India, for Brazil, for Indonesia, you know, it’s going to have to be changes taking place in those countries primarily, which is going to be driving the agenda forward.

And, you know, encouragement from the outside can help and leadership by other countries that have shown what’s possible, which is why, you know, I think it’s so important that countries like the UK, which have stepped up on this subject, and which has set targets and which have put in place laws, which are now being followed by policies to be able to meet some of these goals, you know, that is leading by example, rather than suggesting that people should change without actually having made the changes ourselves.

And, you know, I think that’s a kind of very human dynamic, you know, show me rather than tell me, and I think that holds on climate change at the global level, especially from those countries, which have had a long history of industrial development. And, you know, in England, of course, was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, and I hope will be one of the birthplaces at least of the ecological revolution, which now needs to follow rather quickly.

Well, certainly, that that is true. Lead by example, is certainly a good principle for all of us to consider. I guess on that front, I know that the European Union has instituted a policy that they are going to essentially charge or have a tariff for high intensity carbon products that are imported into the EU, into the European Union. Where do you stand on that? I’d like to get your answer when we return from the break. And if the UK is doing something similar, we’ve talked talked about similar things in the US, I don’t think it’s gotten very far down the path, but it was something that I know, was in a number of the documents in the 2020 campaigns around the US presidency.

So it is something that has been considered and to me, it seems like it would encourage all economies to to move towards less carbon intensive processes going forward. So you’re listening to KABC 790. This is Matt Matern, your host of Unite and Heal America. And we’ve got Tony Juniper, noted environmentalist and we will be back in just one minute.

You’ve been listening to Unite and Heal America KABC 790. This is Matt Matern. And we’ve got Tony Juniper, noted environmentalist on the program. And Tony right before the break, we were talking about some policies to encourage lower resource intensive industries and lower carbon usage around the around the planet. Where do you stand on that? And do you see that being an important policy change that the EU, UK and the US should be taking?

Well, one of the things that I’ve come to understand over the years is the extent to which environmental challenges especially these really, really big ones, like climate change, they can’t be solved in isolation. They do need literally an economy wide approach for them to be resolved.

And, you know, that involves the complexities of international trade relations and the extent to which what we’re trying to do in decarbonizing the economy in one country is not being undermined by somebody doing something which is not that in another country and then importing those goods into the country, which is taking action and, you know, different countries have highlighted this actually, from the point of view of, of industries being undercut by other countries having lower standards.

And the extent to which you know, it may look like we’re going green in one country, but actually we’re importing pollution from another whether that’s through manufacture of consumer goods or deforestation to supply agricultural produce. So it does raise the question of how you then start building some of these environmental priorities into trade policy.

And it’s really difficult because nobody wants to be restricting the flow of goods and services and the wealth creation in ways that they see as unfair and, or indeed unworkable, because it is so complicated to even work out the numbers.

One of the things that has been put across in the climate discussions over the years is the potential importance and viability of doing something about this through putting a price on carbon so that wherever emissions are going into the atmosphere, a price is being paid, that reflects the environmental damage that’s being done. But we haven’t actually got to that point, yet. But you know, there’s this remains a challenge of enormous complexity, but one that governments are going to need to deal with.

Yeah, I certainly I had a guest on the show recently talking about the carbon tax, and that was essentially their main thrust in, in the US Congress to try to get something passed along that along those lines, and they’ve made some degree of progress. But you know, they’re not quite there and, and the carbon adjustment tax that are a policy that the EU is, is instituting seems to be a step in that direction, which if it’s taken, it’s almost as if other countries don’t even need to adopt that.

Measure themselves, because they will fort be forced to kind of deal with it in their trade dealings with the EU, which is I think the beauty of the mechanism is that it kind of enforces a certain degree of discipline. Hey, if you want to trade with the EU, which is one of the largest trading bloc’s, you have to kind of decarbonize your economy, at least to the extent that you’re dealing with the EU.

Yeah, yes, that’s right. And, you know, the another way of doing it alongside that kind of mechanism is to be having common standards across the world, for energy efficiency, and fuel efficiency of vehicles and fridges and TV sets and things like that. And actually, in the past, you know, that has been a condition of imports in some parts of the world, to have certain standards in terms of the pollution caused by vehicles and the energy used by different goods and services.

You know, and that, of course, obviously helps to accelerate technological innovation to once you start to set these kinds of standards and put rules around them, then we find, you know, a great deal of innovation follows. And, you know, there has been over the decades, in some quarters, some sense that, you know, if we’re going to put these regulatory standards into particular industries, it’s going to, you know, slow them down, it’s going to cause them to be less effective in innovating.

But actually, it’s the complete opposite. And we find very rapid innovation very often being driven by regulation. So again, it’s a kind of framing of the economic story, which is quite important, as well as the mechanisms that are there. Right?

I mean, as somebody who’s certainly supports a free market economy, we do have to recognize that all of our systems are pretty well regulated. I mean, we don’t have stock trading without regulation. And the regulations regarding clean air, in particular, in Southern California, where I live, are pretty stringent and those created standards for the automobile industry, which then became followed in the rest of the United States, and then around the world, when the automakers were all saying, oh, you can’t do this. It’s impossible.

And and of course, it became possible and it did come into practice. One of the things I’d like to ask you, as we come to the close the interview is talk a little bit about hydrogen versus electric fuel, electric power, and vehicles. And to describe full disclosure, I’m a hydrogen car owner.

So I am a little bit more of a proponent of that. But I also recognize, hey, the electric vehicles do have a place in this equation, but I question whether or not we should be putting more emphasis to build out the hydrogen economy versus electric one.

Yeah, well, there’s this then raises all sorts of questions about which technology pathways we might like to pursue. Is your hydrogen car mat? Is it a fuel cell vehicle, so the fuel fuel cell by Toyota?

Yeah, so so that technology generates electricity through combining hydrogen with oxygen from the atmosphere across a catalyst, which is the core of the technology, and it produces water vapor as the exhaust fuel fumes, we’re not it’s not a fume is more than water vapor. It’s a, it’s a harmless substance coming out of the exhaust. And so to that extent, it’s very green.

But the question is, where do you get the hydrogen from, and the extent to which, you know, we need electricity to purify the hydrogen or to separate it from water. And if you’re getting it from solar or wind power, then that’s a good thing, it’s clean. But then there is an energy cost because the amount of energy, you need to separate the hydrogen from water, you finish up with about 1/10 of the electrical power you started with. So you get a kind of a step down each time you make that transition from one fuel to another. So from electricity to hydrogen that’s been refined.

So there are some issues there and also questions around the minerals needed to make the catalysts and the fuel cells. And that also then applies to the electric vehicles, which are battery powered. And the extent to which, you know, you have to source a lot of cobalt, and lithium and copper, to manufacture these vehicles that has a big footprint in terms of mining, and refining of those materials to create the electrical power train. And so there are questions there.

And again, also questions linked with the charging of the batteries, and where you’re getting the electricity from, again, with a step down in terms of how much electricity you’ve got to use to drive the vehicle compared to what you’re generating from your wind turbine or solar panel. And so these are some of the questions that are there.

But I think both technologies, you know, they they have, they have enormous potential, I think, you know, hydrogen, probably, we will find is better suited to larger vehicles, you know, cars can work, but big vehicles, like trains, and trucks and ships lend themselves more to hydrogen, not these pictures of the fuel tanks needing to be big and heavy. And also those kinds of vehicles, you know, you can imagine them being filled up with hydrogen in like depots, rather than having to have a gas station, as we have with petrol and diesel, you know, not in every corner, but you know, quite a few of them.

So, there are some kind of practical questions there about the fuel distribution and how you get it into vehicles. But as I say, you know, I think it’s got a lot of potential, particularly for the ships and trains and what have you. And maybe, you know, the, the more suitable technology for road vehicles for cars that most people drive will be electric battery.

And, you know, as you’ll be aware, that enormous amount of energy and effort going into battery technology with with a lot of research going on in different parts of the wild, to see if we can lift up the extent to which, you know, one charge can take you for quite a lot further than presently is the case for many vehicles.

So this is the transition we’re in however, and, you know, the these are the kinds of discussions that 20 years ago were quite abstract. Now, there are very real real policies being put in place, real incentives being created, real factories being built, real money coming in from investors to to put behind these new technology streams. And I think we’re at the beginning of a revolution. And certainly in this country, you know, we’ve set a target now to end the sale of new diesel and petrol vehicles by 2030. That’s just nine years away.

It is a pretty remarkable movement and great progress that I think has been made. Obviously, tremendous amount of progress needs to be made. So we have to keep our attention and efforts moving in that direction. And it’s been great having you on the show, Tony, really appreciate your contribution to the environmental movement over a number of decades.

And and I encourage everybody to go out and get a copy of the science of our changing planet, Tony’s new book, which is an excellent read and I think, encapsulates a lot of the different moving parts related to the environmental problems that we face, very succinctly and, and effectively for a reader of any level on this subject.

So a great contribution to the, to the dialogue. So thank you, and we’d love to have you back on the show at some point in time to talk further about this.

And so, you’ve been listening to Unite and Heal America. This is Matt Matern, your host and welcome you all to come back and listen in next week as we talk to other guests regarding the environment and how we can improve it going forward in this 21st century.