The Land & Climate Podcast

Hosted by Land and Climate Review

Technology Science

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Episodes

131

Latest episode

Aug 2026

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EN-GB

About the show

The editorial team from The Land and Climate Review interview thinkers and policymakers in the world of economics, land-use and climate policy. Find more on our site at www.landclimate.org

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60 recent

September 4, 202644 min

How does corporate agriculture profit from conflict in Colombia?

Colombia is one of the most unequal countries in the world regarding agriculture and land ownership. Violence in the Colombian countryside has often allowed corporate agriculture to displace land once held by small farmers, known as “campesinos”, and transform it into new frontiers for capital. Jaskiran Kaur Chohan tells Alasdair that “armed conflict undermines the productive systems of campesinos, which reinforces the corporate food regime and the modernisation of agriculture”. They discuss how corporate food regimes take root in the aftermath, and how the country's smallholders can survive. Dr Kaur Chohan is a political ecologist at the University of Bristol, whose work focuses on rural communities in Colombia and the intersection of violence, conflict, and agriculture. Further reading: ' Violent conflict, capitalism and insurgent food sovereignty ', The Journal of Peasant Studies , 2026 ' Have monopolies broken agricultural markets? ', The Land and Climate Podcast , 2025 ' The corporate food regime in conflict zones: Armed violence and agriculture in the Zona de Reserva Campesina-Valle del Río Cimitarra, Colombia ', Geoforum , 2024 ' Sugar cane is eroding Colombian biodiversity ', Land and Climate Review, 2024 ' Tough Tradeoffs: Coca crops and agrarian alternatives in Colombia ' , International Journal of Drug Policy , 2021 ' Slow violence and corporate greening in the war on drugs in Colombia ', International Affairs , 2021 ' Zonas de Reserva Campesina: ¿Estrategia de Desarrollo Regional y contra el Desplazamiento? ', Mama Coca, 2020 ' Grassroots masquerades: development, paramilitaries, and land laundering in Colombia ', Geoforum , 2013 Broken Republic: Three Essays , Arundhati Roy, 2011 Send us Fan Mail Find all our latest investigations, features and interviews at www.landclimate.org

August 28, 202632 min

In Review: Plastics

With five and a half years of content, The Land and Climate Podcast has an overwhelmingly large back catalogue. We have always aimed to produce evergreen episodes, however, and many of our older interviews still have insights and relevance in 2026. This is why we are launching a new offering, alongside our usual programming, called 'In Review'. Alasdair and Bertie pick one topic per episode, playing highlights from our favourite interviews and discussing recent developments. First up: plastics. Following reports that the current draft of the much-delayed UN Plastics Treaty is even less ambitious than the one rejected by many nations last year, Bertie and Alasdair listen to interview excerpts about microplastics, false solutions to plastic waste, and industry lobbying around the Treaty negotiations. Featuring clips of science journalist Matt Simon, Punyathorn Jeungsmarn (Arm) from Environmental Justice Foundation, and Dr Rob Ralston from The University of Edinburgh. Listen to the original episodes: ' Has the plastics industry co-opted the circular economy? ' with Rob Ralston, 2026 ' What if climate politics is about power, not carbon? ' with Jessica Green, 2025 ' Can the world regulate plastics? ' with Punyathorn Jeungsmarn, 2025 ' How badly have microplastics harmed ecosystems, climate, and human health? ' with Matt Simon, 2022 Further reading: ' Leaked memo shows how U.S. aims to weaken global limits on plastic pollution ', Washington Post , August 2026 ' UN plastic treaty is going backwards, experts say ', The Guardian, August 2026 ' The Global Plastics Treaty must include production reduction ', Land and Climate Review, 2025 ' There is so much to say about plastic pollution. Why are we not talking about it? ', Land and Climate Review, 2023 A Poison Like No Other: How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies by Matt Simon, 2022 Send us Fan Mail Find all our latest investigations, features and interviews at www.landclimate.org

August 7, 202635 min

Is reducing energy use a political taboo?

Solar and wind power is growing worldwide, but so is electricity consumption: as a result, renewables are often only added to the energy mix, rather than replacing fossil fuels. Reducing energy demand would make net zero more achievable, but it recieves far less attention than decarbonisation efforts. This may be due to a perception that managing energy demand would be politically unpopular, requiring governments to make radical interventions into people's lifestyles and spending. Oliver Broad, Senior Research Fellow at University College London, tells Alasdair that such fears are unfounded. His team's research found that the UK could reduce energy demand by 52% without new tech or overly disruptive societal change, and has worked with policymakers and public focus groups to demonstrate political acceptability. Further reading: ' Policymakers and academics envision energy demand reductions beyond typical policies in the United Kingdom ', Nature Energy, 2025 ' Policymaker-led scenarios and public dialogue facilitate energy demand analysis for net-zero futures ', Nature Energy, 2025 ' Energy demand reduction options for meeting national zero-emission targets in the United Kingdom ', Nature Energy, 2022 ' Real people or "economic processing units"? The limited understanding of people's roles in energy and climate governance ', Energy Research & Social Science, 2022 ' A low energy demand scenario for meeting the 1.5 °C target and sustainable development goals without negative emission technologies ', Nature Energy , 2018 ' Invisible energy policies: A new agenda for energy demand reduction ', Energy Policy, 2018 Send us Fan Mail Find all our latest investigations, features and interviews at www.landclimate.org

July 24, 202644 min

Is geoengineering a security threat?

Geoengineering research is growing, as scientists look for increasingly radical means to protect humanity from the disastrous impacts of global heating. Less publicly, concerns are also building about the use of these techniques for geopolitical disruption or control. Technologies such as solar radiation management (SRM) and stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) are controversial amongst climate scientists: they could buy us time through a temporary cooling effect, but they would not actually stop global heating, and could cause other negative impacts. Danielle Young tells Alasdair that scientific research on these technologies often lacks alignment with political realities. While scientists plan for multilateral governance regimes to protect global populations from heat, government and military officials are more likely to think about SRM or SAI in terms of weaponisation and international power struggles. Dr Danielle Young is an Assistant Professor in Politics and International Studies at The University of Leeds. Her research focuses on the geopolitical and security implications of emerging solar geoengineering technologies. Further reading: ' Why we need to explore conflict and competition around solar geoengineering ', PLOS Climate, 2026 ' Who could deploy stratospheric aerosol injection? The United States, China, and large‐scale, rapid planetary cooling ', Global Policy, 2025 ' How will capitalism react to climate collapse? ', Land and Climate Review , 2025 ' Who Can Govern from a House on Fire? International Order, State Responsibility, and the Problem of Solar Radiation Modification ', Ethics & International Affairs , 2024 ' Scientific models versus power politics: How security expertise reframes solar geoengineering ', Review of International Studies , 2024 ' Considering stratospheric aerosol injections beyond an environmental frame: The intelligible ‘emergency’ techno-fix and preemptive security ', European Journal of International Security, 2023 ' Do-or-Die: Should we be talking about geoengineering? ', Land and Climate Review , 2022 ' The Geopolitical ecology of solar geoengineering: From a ‘logic of multilateralism’ to logics of militarization ', Journal of Political Ecology , 2020 Geoengineering, the Anthropocene and the End of Nature , Jeremy Baskin, 2019 ‘ The entwined Cold War roots of missile defense and climate geoengineering ’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 2019 Send us Fan Mail Find all our latest investigations, features and interviews at www.landclimate.org

July 10, 202643 min

Are financial markets destroying climate ambition?

Click here to watch the video recording of this interview . In her latest book, Ann Pettifor argues that we are not governed by politicians or diplomats, but “by wealthy and powerful players in markets based in Silicon Valley, Wall Street, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the City of London.” These players, she says, largely either ignore the threat of climate breakdown, or see it as a struggle for resource control. The “unregulated actions of private actors and institutions in global markets have led to the increasingly rapid breakdown of the world’s climate and ecosystem.” In a special episode of The Land and Climate Podcast, recorded live in front of an audience as part of London Climate Action Week, Bertie and Ann discuss the influence financial markets exert over climate policy, and strategies to reassert democratic control. Ann Pettifor is a political economist known for predicting the 2008 financial crisis, successfully campaigning to cancel approximately $100 billion in debt owed by poor countries, and for co-authoring and advocating the Green New Deal. In January 2026, Verso published her latest book, The Global Casino: How Wall Street Gambles with People and the Planet . Buy a copy from Verso's website before 31st July and recieve 30% off with the following discount code: CLIMATEREVIEW30 Further reading: Ann's Substack, System Change . The Case for the Green New Deal , 2019 The Production of Money: How to Break the Power of Bankers , 2018 Send us Fan Mail Find all our latest investigations, features and interviews at www.landclimate.org

June 26, 202631 min

Can ocean technologies combat climate change?

Most net zero policies and major scientific models rely on carbon dioxide removal (CDR) to limit global heating to 2℃. The most commonly known methods include afforestation, bioenergy with carbon capture, and direct air capture - but various proposals are emerging for ocean-based CDR technologies. Could marine CDR offset emissions from sectors that cannot easily decarbonise, or are the costs and risks too great? Bertie sat down with oceanographer David Ho to discuss these questions, shortly after he returned from the 4th International Conference on Carbon Dioxide Removal in Milan. David Ho is a professor at University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, and a lead author on the upcoming IPCC methodology report on carbon dioxide removal and carbon capture, utilisation and storage. His 2023 article for Nature criticising overreliance on CDR has been downloaded more than 100,000 times. Further reading: ' Three challenges to marine carbon dioxide removal ', npj Ocean Sustainability, November 2025 Principles for responsible and effective marine carbon dioxide removal development and governance , 2025 ' Marine carbon dioxide removal may be a future climate solution ', Dialogues on Climate Change, November 2024 ' Can coastal and marine carbon dioxide removal help to close the emissions gap? Scientific, legal, economic, and governance considerations ', Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene, August 2024 ' Deployment expectations of multi-gigatonne scale carbon removal could have adverse impacts on Asia’s energy-water-land nexus ', Nature Communications, July 2024 ' Carbon dioxide removal is not a current climate solution — we need to change the narrative ', Nature, April 2023 Send us Fan Mail Find all our latest investigations, features and interviews at www.landclimate.org

June 12, 202626 min

Was Chinese history shaped by climateflation?

The 17th Century Little Ice Age wreaked havoc on weather systems and economies around the world. In China, extreme cold and intense droughts led to soaring grain prices, and as food security collapsed, so did the centuries old political regime of the Ming dynasty. Alasdair speaks to Tim Brook about his groundbreaking book ‘The Price of Collapse: The Little Ice Age and the Fall of Ming China’. They discuss the importance of climate changes in the rise and fall of empires, and the lessons that can be learned from climate-induced famines in dynastic China. Dr Book is a Canadian historian and an Emeritus Professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC). He held the Republic of China Chair at UBC’s Centre for Chinese Research until his retirement in 2022. Further reading: ‘ What is climate-flation? ’, Land and Climate Review, March 2026 The Price of Collapse: The Little Ice Age and the Fall of Ming China by Timothy Brook, 2023 The Frigid Golden Age: Climate Change, the Little Ice Age, and the Dutch Republic, 1560–1720 by Dagomar Degroot, 2018 ‘ Climate change and society in the 15th to 18th centuries ’, WIREs Climate Change, March 2018 ‘ Nine sloughs: profiling the climate history of the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, 1260-1644 ’, Journal of Chinese History, November 2016 The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties by Timothy Brook, 2013 Send us Fan Mail Find all our latest investigations, features and interviews at www.landclimate.org

May 29, 202637 min

What is the history of extinction?

Scientists warn we are in an age of mass-extinction. Entire species are ceasing to exist at unprecedented rates. When did this age begin, and when did humans start to confront their impacts on ecosystems and living populations? Sadiah Qureshi explores extinction as ‘unnatural’ and inherently political, by placing humanity at the centre of her latest book, 'Vanished: an Unnatural History of Extinction'. In conversation with Bertie, she traces the history of the concept of extinction in European thought and its connection with settler-colonial politics. Bertie and Sadiah also discuss present day conservation policy, and echoes of imperialist thought within it. Sadiah Qureshi is a Chair of Modern British History at the University of Manchester, and a historian of science, race and empire. Further reading ‘Vanished: An Unnatural History Of Extinction,’ is available to purchase from Penguin here . This week, Professor Qureshi delivered the annual Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar Prize Lecture for the Royal Society. You can watch that here . ' What can histories of Empire teach us about modern environmental efforts? ', The British Academy, December 2025 ' Reversing extinction ', aeon ' ‘A billionaire will pay a lot of money to shoot a recreated being’: historian Sadiah Qureshi on extinction and empire' , The Guardian, June 2025 Send us Fan Mail Find all our latest investigations, features and interviews at www.landclimate.org

May 15, 202634 min

Has the plastics industry co-opted the circular economy?

Last year, multilateral negotiations for a Global Plastics Treaty broke down after countries failed to agree to limits on plastic production - as opposed to simply regulating plastic waste. This distinction between 'upstream' and 'downstream' measures to tackle plastic pollution is a point of contention between industry and campaigners, with the plastic lobby favouring recycling advocacy over efforts to curb plastic production. Alasdair discusses this issue with Dr Rob Ralston, who researches the different stakeholders within the industry lobby, and the ways in which this bloc has co-opted formerly radical policy frameworks, such as the idea of 'circular economy', to delay major policy interventions. Rob Ralston is a lecturer in Public Policy at the University of Edinburgh, and an expert in global health and environmental politics. Further reading: Click here for our other podcasts and articles on plastic pollution on Land and Climate Review. ' Ultra-processed foods are a key driver of the global plastics pollution crisis ', Nature Food , April 2026 ' The battle for plastic hegemony: the petrochemical historical bloc and the UN Global Plastics Treaty ', Review of International Political Economy , March 2026 Plastics, Profits and Power: How petrochemical companies are derailing the Global Plastics Treaty , Greenpeace, 2024 The Fraud of Plastic Recycling , Center for Climate Integrity, 2024 ' Future-Proofing Capitalism: The Paradox of the Circular Economy for Plastics ', Global Environmental Politics , April 2021 Send us Fan Mail Find all our latest investigations, features and interviews at www.landclimate.org

May 1, 202638 min

Is the idea of 'energy transition' misleading?

What happens after a country's electricity infrastructure is destroyed by war? Following the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, Turkish conglomerate Karadeniz Holding had an innovative idea: if ships could be retrofitted as floating power plants, they could be quickly deployed to countries in crisis, then moved elsewhere again when needed. Gökçe Günel returns to the Land and Climate Podcast to discuss her latest book, which uses the history of ‘powerships’ and their operations in Ghana to analyse the unexpected ways that geopolitics, business and conflict shape energy systems, and to question the concept of a linear energy transition. Gökçe Günel is Associate Professor in Anthropology at Rice University. Her 2019 book “Spaceship in the Desert: Energy, Climate Change and Urban Design in Abu Dhabi” explored Masdar City project - discussed in our previous episode here . Her new book, “Floating Power: Energy, Infrastructure, and South-South Relations,” published by Duke University Press, is available to purchase here . Further reading: ‘ Energy accumulates: Ghana shows that the “energy transition” is more myth than fact ’, Land & Climate Review , 2026 ‘ Cin Fikir: Infrastructure, War and Progress ’, Against Catastrophe, 2025 ‘ Leapfrogging to Solar ’ , South Atlantic Quarterly , 2021 ‘ Energy Accumulation ’, e-flux Architecture , 2020, Spaceship in the Desert: Energy, Climate Change, and Urban Design in Abu Dhabi , 2019 Send us Fan Mail Find all our latest investigations, features and interviews at www.landclimate.org