Policy Dispatch: The FORESIGHT podcast on the policies underpinning the energy transition

Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android.Emission reductions are the primary way to address climate change. But if the international community is not able to slash greenhouse gases quickly enough or if leftover emissions persist, then the climate may still need a helping hand. That is where geoengineering may eventually come into play. Potential solutions include mass tree planting, capturing carbon, making clouds and the oceans more reflective, covering deserts in white plastic and other unconventional technologies. The scope for temperature reduction is huge but so is the risk of unleashing unpredictable side-effects. Researchers have to proceed with caution in order not to fail in their well-intentioned missions or even make the climate crisis worse.  Lisa J. Graumlich, president of the American Geophysical Union, joins the show to present a new ethical framework the scientific community has put together and explain why its principles are oh so important moving forward. Enjoy!Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android.

Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android.Removing CO2 from the atmosphere is set to be big business in the coming years. Johan Börje joins the show to explain what is needed to scale carbon removals up and what challenges need to be overcome.  Carbon removals will be crucial in the fight to combat climate change, as excess CO2 will have to be removed from the atmosphere in massive quantities.  Efforts are underway to scale up this still nascent industry and policies are starting to take shape around the sector. Johan Börje from Stockholm Exergi, one company looking to be a frontrunner in carbon removing, joins this episode to shed some light on what the sector needs from policymakers and what kind of clients are looking to take advantage of their services. Enjoy the episode! Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android.

Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android.Transport’s electrification is gathering pace but it’s not quick enough for some. 2024 has been branded a disappointing year for EV sales and some have even suggested that this is the beginning of a dip. But is this true? Or is 2024 just a small bump in the road? And where do we stand on issues like charging infrastructure? Jaap Burger, an electric vehicles expert and senior advisor at the Regulatory Assistance Project, joins this week’s episode to shed some light on those questions. Enjoy the show and leave a comment in the contribution section below with your thoughts about e-mobility!Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android.

Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android. Look out of a plane window when you are flying over the sea or peer at the horizon from a ferry these days and chances are good that you will see giant wind turbine blades looming out of the deep. Offshore wind is generating more and more of our clean electricity, as governments around the world craft ever-increasingly ambitious renewable strategies. In Europe alone, countries want to roll out 111 gigawatts of the technology by 2030. But someone has to build these behemoths. The newest generation of turbines are hundreds of metres tall and hundreds of tonnes in weight. The infrastructure challenge is massive. New technologies like floating wind, larger capacity turbines and hybrid projects that include solar and hydrogen generation all mean that the challenge is only going to get more complicated. Mikkel Gleerup, CEO of wind turbine installer Cadeler, joins the show to share his experience from the frontlines of the energy transition and explain what is needed from governments to get more turbines in the water. Enjoy the discussion!Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android.

Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android. Renewables are going from strength to strength in many European countries. Everyone is making some sort of progress towards their targets but if current trends continue, the EU will fall short of its benchmarks.That is why there are a number of policy options available to national governments to turbocharge their renewables rollout. One of those options are so-called renewable acceleration areas.Flore Belin, renewable energy policy coordinator at CAN Europe, joins this episode of the Policy Dispatch to explain what these areas are and how they should be rolled out.Enjoy the show!Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android.

Farming emissions are not falling at the same rate that they are in sectors like power generation or industry. Complex factors like land-use change and livestock emissions make agriculture’s carbon footprint a difficult beast to tame.Factors like food production, geopolitics and strong cultural ties almost make an already complex decarbonisation challenge even more difficult.Carbon markets have helped bring down the emissions of power grids and manufacturing centres. In Europe, sectors like shipping, road transport and buildings are now set to get the same treatment. Could agriculture soon be rolled into the same system?The Institute for European Environmental Policy’s Krystyna Springer joins this edition of the Policy Dispatch to explain why this might be a good, albeit tricky, idea.Enjoy the show!Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android.

Clean technologies are the indispensable hardware of the energy transition. Whether its wind turbines, grid components or futuristic fusion power, without clean tech, we won’t get anywhere. The United Kingdom has proven itself to be an attractive place to develop and scale up clean technologies but the sector has begun to lose momentum and stagnate. A general election on 4th July could well mark a change in policies.Sarah Mackintosh, director of the Cleantech for UK initiative, joins the Policy Dispatch to explain what the UK is doing right and where it could stand to improve. Also check out Cleantech’s manifesto here for more details.Enjoy the show!Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android.

Parts of the world that have introduced some form of carbon pricing have been able to disconnect their emissions from economic growth, thanks largely to the polluter-pays principle. But there is somewhat of a disconnect between carbon markets and the most important part of the energy transition: consumers. So is it possible to democratise emissions trading? To involve more people in carbon pricing? Is this something that would benefit the energy transition? Valentin Lautier, founder of Homaio, a startup that aims to unlock carbon markets for individual investors, joins this edition of the Policy Dispatch to explain his view on these issues.Enjoy the show!Download our award-winning app and enjoy access to all exclusive features. Click here to access on Apple or Android. Enjoy the episode? Leave a comment and tell us what you thought!