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Renewable energy now world's biggest power source
Renewable energy has officially surpassed coal as the world's largest source of electricity, marking a significant milestone in the transition to clean power. This episode also explores the ongoi...
Renewable energy now world's biggest power source
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Speaker A
This is the global news podcast from the BBC World Service. Among criticizing in the early hours of Tuesday 7th October. These are our main stories. Renewable energy has overtaken coal as the world's biggest source of electricity exactly two years after the Hamas attack on Israel. Are the two sides any closer to reaching an agreement to end the war in Gaza? We look at the massive contribution of the scientists awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine. Also in this podcast, a rare insight into life in North Korea. A study suggests people are hunting wild animals to the point of extinction due to food shortages. And I think it will be possible.
Speaker B
To bring back insects from the brink of extinction. So the crop preservation approach, it will be another weapon in our armory.
Speaker A
Why scientists are freezing the eggs of an endangered butterfly Foreign Solar and wind power overtook coal as the world's leading source of electricity for the first time in the first half of this year. That's according to new data from the global energy think tank Ember. The growth in solar and wind was so strong it met 100% of the new global electricity demand, even helping drive a slight decline in coal and gas use. With more details, here's our climate editor, Justin Rolatt. Ember described this as a crucial turning point and said there is no stopping the transition to clean power now. But the new data from the think tank shows the world is moving at different speeds. Developing countries are now leading the charge. With China's dominance of the global clean tech industry unchallenged, it added more solar and wind capacity than the rest of the world combined in the first half of this year and reduced the amount of electricity it generates generated from fossil fuels by 2%. India also saw renewables outpace electricity demand. But in some developed countries, notably the US and eu, electricity demand grew faster than clean energy output, leading to a rise in coal and gas generation. The head of the global think tank, the Energy Transition Commission, Adair Turner, isn't surprised at the growth of solar energy.
Speaker C
What has happened over the last 10 years or so is that the cost of solar photovoltaic electricity has collapsed. So too, by the way, has the cost of batteries, which you can put together with solar PV to provide electricity around the clock. And this means that across what we call the global sun belt, the parts of the world which have lots of sunshine, solar is becoming easily the cheapest way to produce a kilowatt hour of electricity. And indeed solar plus batteries together are becoming the cheapest way to produce electricity round the clock. So this is just the start of something which is now inevitable. We are Going to see an extraordinary takeoff and even further acceleration of solar, often coupled with batteries across all the countries that have large solar resource. And I think it's probably in those countries going to replace fossil fuels faster than most forecasts suggest. And in places like Africa, which really have almost no power systems at all, enable rapid development of zero carbon power systems far faster and cheaper than we used to think. We're seeing what I call a democratization of solar pv where people are putting it on the balconies of flats, people are putting it on rooftops. There's a development in India now of what's called AgriPV, where you put it over the top of still growing agricultural activity, food production. It actually in some circumstances can increase the yield because it's protecting the crop against sunshine, which is too strong. So I think the good news is that solar PV is going to be a real revolution to a greater extent. Now the background of course is that the cost of solar photovoltaic modules per watt of power produced over the last 50 years has not come down 90%. It hasn't come down 99%, it's come down 90, 99.9%. The cost is one thousandth of what it was in 1975. And when you get a cost reduction like that, you get a revolution.
Speaker A
Adair Turner from the Energy Transition Commission. As talks look set to continue in Egypt on a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release negotiation, events have been taking place to mark the second anniversary of the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel. An estimated 1,200 people were killed and 251 people taken hostage in Gaza, of whom 48 are still held and 20 are still believed to be alive. The attack started the deadliest war in Palestinian history in which more than 67,000 people have been killed, according to the Hamas run Health Ministry. And with much of Gaza reduced to ruins. In a few moments we'll hear about the progress of this latest round of negotiations. But first, our Middle east correspondent Yulan Nell has been speaking to some of those who've lost everything in both Israel and in Gaza. Her report begins in kibbutz Biri near the Israel Gaza border.
Speaker D
Time stands still. In Biri, homes ransacked and burnt out are reminders of the 102 lives lost in this close knit kibbutz. In this neighborhood of the kibbutz, every house is damaged. Some of them have got no roofs left at all. And there are big posters up now, faded in the sun saying the names of the people who were killed in the different properties in this house. It was Mazi Bechar. Over here, it was a couple, Judith Weiss and Shmuel Weiss. The terrible day in our lives, in the life of the country. Miri Gadmasika is a third generation kibbutz member with the narrowest of escapes. Her extended family survived the horrors of the Hamas attacks, but she's grieving lost friends. The bodies of four people from Biri are still held in Gaza and Miri tells me that for now, she can't rebuild her life. You live in two different universes. One universe is the battle of bringing everybody home and we want to finish the war. And the other one is your own personal battle with yourself, inside yourself to wake up every morning to understand that you need to go on. And it's not simple. It's not simple at all. And you're a mother of three as well. Yes. You know, kids are like kids. Most of the day they look happy, but they are different now. They are not the same kids. It's like they're old kids. So far, Israel's bombing hasn't stopped just across the border in Gaza, despite an order from President Trump. And the strips already devastated, with virtually the entire 2 million population displaced, many in the grips of famine, with tens of thousands killed, every Gazan has lost loved ones. With a breeze block for a headstone, Inam Al Wahidi prays by the grave of her dead son Jihad, who was 17, died from internal bleeding after an Israeli air strike last year. Ten days ago, Inam, an English teacher, left her husband to care for his elderly parents as Israeli forces pushed into Gaza City. She fled with three of their children from their damaged home. The war seems endless. Both sides are now clinging to a fragile hope that this two year anniversary might mark the beginning of the end.
Speaker A
Yilan now reporting. Staying with that small glimmer of hope for a ceasefire and an end to the devastating war, negotiators on Monday began indirect talks between Hamas and Israel on a US Peace plan. Representatives in Egypt, where the meetings are taking place, have told local media that the first round had ended in a positive atmosphere. Donald Trump, whose 20 point plan this diplomatic push is focused on, told reporters at the White House that he had high hopes to get it over the line. Just about every nation working on this.
Speaker C
Deal and trying to get it done. Something that you could say 3,000 years.
Speaker A
If you look at it in certain.
Speaker C
Ways, or you could say centuries. But this is a deal that incredibly.
Speaker A
Everyone just came together. They all came together. No, Israel has been great, but the situation is fragile with very little trust between Hamas and Israel. In particular, after Israel last month carried out a direct strike on Qatar targeting parts of the Hamas leadership. There are many things that need to be agreed on before any deal could be signed off. For instance, Hamas has to agree to disarm and relinquish any governing role in Gaza, and Israel needs to agree to withdraw its forces from the territory. If these and the other parts of the proposed deal can be agreed, all remaining hostages in Gaza, dead or alive, should be released within 72 hours. Dr. Bishara Bhabha is a Palestinian American businessman who has acted as an intermediary between the White House and Hamas. He spoke to the Hamas negotiators over the weekend and told Rebecca Kesb about those conversations.
Speaker E
They don't trust the Israelis, and they shouldn't. But at the same time, they feel that the United States right now has taken a firm position that the President of the United States now is leading the way in terms of brokering the agreement. And as such, they don't feel that they will be targeted anytime soon. Now, interestingly, there has been an offer by the United States to Hamas leaders for an amnesty, if they should accept one for those who are outside of Gaza as well as those inside who are willing to leave Gaza or who are willing to incorporate in the Palestinian security forces.
Speaker D
So, I mean, it really does seem as if it is Mr. Trump's personal involvement, his endorsement of this 20 point plan. What's tricky though, is that Hamas, so far, whilst agreeing to free the remaining hostages, those dead and those alive, and handing over Gaza to a Palestinian governorship of some sort, they haven't agreed to disarm and they also haven't agreed to play no further role in Gaza. And those are two sticking points that the Israelis won't accept.
Speaker E
The first point that you make with regard to the role of the President, you're absolutely right. Right now, the only enforcer of any agreement is going to be President Trump himself. No one else can enforce that agreement. Now, with regard to the issues of the role that Hamas would play in the future of Palestinian politics and Gaza, Hamas has already agreed. They are willing to relinquish all their powers inside the Gaza Strip to a Palestinian technocratic independent committee. And as such, they realize that their role has come to an end. With regard to the issue of disarmament, I mean, there has been a discussion among the Americans about how to define disarmament. And here the thought is disarmament of heavy weaponry is to be taken for granted, meaning Hamas is to release or give the Heavy weaponry weapons that they have to an Arab Palestinian party, but personal weapons, they will insist on having them because they're fearful of Israeli assassination attempts. So I think if one makes the distinction between heavy weapons versus personal weapons, I think the issue of disarmament could be dealt with reasonably.
Speaker D
In terms of the hostages which they have agreed to hand over, it's thought that around 20 are still alive. I wonder if you've got clarification on, on those numbers.
Speaker E
Yes, as far As I know, 20 are alive. That was confirmed to me on Saturday. Those will be released based on whatever agreement that will take place in Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt. Now, as far as the bodies are concerned, Hamas has indicated that they are willing to release all the bodies. However, some of the bodies they do not know where they are because those who buried them have actually been killed. So they don't know they would have to search for them. And as as such, they are willing to hand over the bodies within the 72 hour limit that they've agreed upon. But only those bodies that they can find and the others will be handed over to the Red Cross once they discovered them.
Speaker A
Dr. Bashara Baba just how our immune systems attack hostile infections whilst avoiding our own cells once baffled the scientific community. Now the discoveries of three researchers in this field have been recognized by this year's Nobel Prize for Medicine. The work of Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell from the US and Shimon Sakaguchi from Japan has had implications for the treatment of autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis and diabetes. Fellow scientists like Professor Daniel Davies of Imperial College London said the importance of their work can't be overestimated.
Speaker B
It really is a wonderful discovery. It's wonderful that the prize has been given for this exciting research. This particular type of self of which this Nobel Prize is given actually isn't yet quite reached medical practice, but I'm very confident it will do in the future.
Speaker A
Our health correspondent James Gallagher told Julia McFarlane exactly what these three scientists discovered.
Speaker F
They've discovered the part of the immune system that stops the immune system from destroying the human body, because actually it probably should start attacking ourselves. Because the way our immune system is able to fight thousands of different viruses and bacteria and fungi is that it creates lots of different options. It creates the capacity to attack a wide variety of different things completely at random. And that's how it discovers the capability to attack something new, like Covid when it arises, or a flu virus or tuberculosis, any infection you can think of. That's the immune system essentially gets there with a bit of randomness in order to stumble on the right combination to attack it. Now, if you rely on that randomness, then at some point you're going to generate types of immune cells that are going to attack the human body as well. But yet everybody on the planet doesn't have an autoimmune disease. And what these researchers did, they narrowed down one of the ways in which the body is able to regulate the immune system so it protects itself whilst attacking the baddies. And they discovered something called a regulatory T cell. And this is something that is able to spot when the immune system is going to start attacking the body and just disarm those specific immune cells. And that's why they've won the prize.
Speaker G
That's really extraordinary and fascinating to try.
Speaker D
And wrap your head around.
Speaker G
So what impact will this work have on medical treatment? And what kind of disease does this have implications for?
Speaker F
Well, the most obvious one is in autoimmune diseases, where we think this process is going wrong. So if you think of something like diabetes, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, there are others. That's when the immune system isn't working properly and it started attacking some of the body's own cells. So one avenue of research at the moment is, can you target these regulatory T cells? Can you beef them up inside these patients in order to stop their autoimmune disease? That's one option, but there are others, too. So in something like cancer, the cancer corrupts so many things in the human body, and it harnesses the power of these regulatory T cells as well to switch off the immune system, so the immune system stops attacking the cancer as it's developing. So one idea in cancer treatment is, can you actually start to suppress the power of these regulatory T cells that then allow the immune system to attack the tumor with more vigour? And there are also ideas around organ rejection. So if you have an organ transplant, then your body's quite likely to reject that. But can you, again, target these regulatory white blood cells in order to allow that transplant to have a better chance of success?
Speaker A
James Gallagher. Still to come on the global news.
Speaker G
Podcast, what Instagram strength has always been is their ability to evolve. And part of that is driven by audience behavior. And Instagram really has their finger on the pulse in terms of what consumers are looking for.
Speaker A
As Instagram turns 15, we look at the success of the social media giant. It's not often we get updates on life inside North Korea, but a new study suggests that people there are hunting wild Animals to the point of extinction due to food shortages. The government restricts UN and other international humanitarian workers from entering or operating freely. But a recent independent assessment estimates almost 11 million people of a population of around 25 million are undernourished. Our reporter Stephanie Prentice has been looking at the research.
Speaker H
This is a study from conservationists from the UK and Norway. And it paints a picture of people that are starving, they're impoverished, and they're hunting and eating wild animals, including Siberian tigers, more leopards, to the extent it's threatening their survival, as you mentioned, it is very hard to get an accurate depiction of what's happening. But the team did interview defectors in South Korea and the UK and among them were former soldiers and former hunters. They also interviewed people involved in the trade of selling wild animal products on the black market. So furs, things like bones, paws and dried organs for things like traditional remedies. The way this study described it is that almost every mammal species in North Korea larger than a hedgehog is opportunistically captured for consumptive use or trade. So that includes bears, deer, this indigenous goat like species called the long tailed goral, which itself is also vulnerable to extinction. And actually some defectors also reported eating foxes, badgers and weasels.
Speaker A
Okay, a lot of interesting detail there. And then there's also a suggestion the government is involved in some way.
Speaker H
Well, what we do know is that North Korea is one of the few countries in the world that isn't signed up to any of those major international deals that protect species that could be extinct. This study said that as well as the domestic market in wild meat, animal body parts, there's also an international trade. And it says that smugglers are trying to sell products across the border to China, although we've got no way of verifying that now. An earlier study this year from ucl, the university in London, said defectors told them that the North Korean state receives wild animals and their body parts from state sanctioned hunters, as well as farming wild animals to be killed and to be sold. So its conclusion was that while economic conditions there have improved since the economy crashed in the 90s, there is no evidence that the black market trade in wildlife is slowing down. Now, one place wildlife is reported as thriving is actually the demilitarized zone between north and South Korea. That's become an accidental sort of nature reserve, meaning one of the world's most dangerous borders is actually a safe space for animals.
Speaker A
Stephanie Prentice reporting. Next. Humans have been freezing their eggs as a fertility treatment for decades. But what if insects could do the same. Researchers here in the UK are investigating whether an endangered species of butterfly could be reared from eggs frozen in liquid nitrogen. They hope it will safeguard the future of the black and yellow species and have wider implications for conservation efforts across the world. Helena Burke has the details.
Speaker H
The British swallowtail butterfly is found exclusively in a tiny section of eastern England. In the last 20 years, the species, already small population, has dropped by almost 60%.
Speaker G
Dr. Alvin Helden from Anglia Ruskin University says it's a common story.
Speaker B
The biggest problem for insects and butterflies is habitat destruction and of course on top of that we've got climate change affecting quality of habitats and changing the characteristics of habitats. The British swallowtail population is based around the Norfolk Broads and there's concern with climate change and rising sea levels that we're going to get more salt water seeping into the Broads and causing a salination process which would change the plants that are growing there. We think that that could threaten the food plant or the butterfly and then that could caus a decline.
Speaker G
Dr. Helden is part of a team.
Speaker H
Of researchers who plan to rear butterflies from frozen eggs and compare their development.
Speaker G
And reproductive success with control groups from non frozen eggs.
Speaker H
They'll start with a similar butterfly species, the Old World swallowtail, before doing the experiment with the British swallowtail itself.
Speaker B
What we hope to do with this project is work out a way of freezing and then thawing out the eggs again so that we can use them for two reasons really. I think one, to sort of have a bio blank of swallowtail eggs that can be a sort of back something happens to the wild population, but also potentially gives us a useful way of being able to try to reintroduce the butterfly into different places which might be suitable for releasing the butterflies.
Speaker H
If the project is successful, Dr. Helden says it could be replicated with other species.
Speaker B
I think it will be possible to bring back insects from the brink of extinction. At the moment, of course we can do that. We can use things like captive breeding and we can build up populations in captivity and reintroduce them to the wild. So the cryopreservation approach, it will be another weapon in our armory. It could potentially mean that we could store a viable population frozen for many years. Hopefully also it enables us to then restore populations.
Speaker A
Entomologist Dr. Alvin Heldon Ending that report by Helene Burke. In normal times, we might not cover a change in the top news position at a US TV network, but there are plenty of observers who say the appointment of Barry Weiss as the editor in chief of CBS News throws up some very big questions about the political weather surrounding journalism in the states and the relationship between press freedom and the Trump administration. Tim Franks has been hearing more about Barry Weiss from Will Oremus, a staff writer at the Washington Post.
Speaker I
She became known to the public when she was an undergraduate student at Columbia University for her pro Israel advocacy and also for calling out the names of professors that she felt were unfair to Israel and perhaps even anti Semitic. She went to to the Wall Street Journal and then from there to the New York Times. At a time when Donald Trump was in his first administration, the New York Times was trying to appeal to more conservative readers and Weiss was part of that push. So she had this sort of anti woke viewpoint and that made her very unpopular at the Times. She ended up quite publicly resigning and then starting her own blog which has turned into quite a successful platform called the Free Press.
Speaker A
And she has been brought in by Paramount, which owns cbs, this major TV network. And it's interesting that, I mean, it also comes at a point where Paramount itself has got new leadership.
Speaker I
It's been a very turbulent year at cbs. This is one of the most straight laced, long established legacy media organizations in the United States. Donald Trump sued the network over an episode of its famous News magazine show 60 Minutes that featured his Democratic opponent for president, Kamala Harris. Trump claimed that this episode was deceptively edited to make Harris look better. Legal experts said there was no merit to the case. However, when Trump won election, it was seen as important for Paramount and CBS to get in his good graces as Paramount sought this $8 billion merger with another entertainment company, Skydance. So this merger needed the Trump administration's approval to go through. There was a sense that until CBS News settled the lawsuit with President Trump that that merger could be held up. They went ahead and settled it. The merger did indeed go through. They have made a number of changes. There's been a lot of upheaval, departures of executives. And this move to hire Bari Weiss and to buy her publication was widely seen as part of that push by CBS News to appeal more to the right and to be in the good graces of the Trump administration.
Speaker A
Is it significant that Paramount, the parent company of cbs, has got this new chief executive, young chief executive David Ellison, son of Larry Ellison, the tech multi billionaire.
Speaker I
This is part of a sea change in US Media? I think so. This merger puts them under the control of David Ellison. He is the son of Larry Ellison, the billionaire CEO of the software giant Oracle. When the United States banned TikTok Trump orchestrated a deal with China under which Larry Ellison's Oracle is slated to get control of a chunk of a US spinoff of TikTok that will be a huge expansion of Larry Ellison's influence. His son, David Ellison, has described himself in the past as socially liberal. It is unclear exactly what his politics are, but there is a sense that he is maybe planning to take CBS News and Paramount in a direction that positions it to remain in the good graces of Trump in the second term. Now, it's important to note that both David Ellison and Bari Weiss have said in their statements today that they plan to uphold longstanding journalistic values. At CBS News, Weiss said she will prioritize the fearless pursuit of truth, that she will not be partisan, and that she will hold both American political parties up to equal scrutiny.
Speaker A
Will Aremus of the Washington Post now it's hard to imagine a time without Instagram without filters, square format pictures or amateur food photography filling your feed. But since it launched 15 years ago, the photo sharing app has transformed into a huge media and advertising giant with 3 billion users worldwide. Chantal Hartle looks at the success of Instagram as it turns 15.
Speaker G
It all started in 2010 with a photo of a dog sitting near a taco stand posted by the app's co founder, Kevin Systrom. He later said he wished he'd tried a bit harder with the first photo shared on Instagram. It is now the third most popular social media app behind Facebook and YouTube, with 95 million photos and videos shared every day. And while the craze for filters may have peaked some time ago, it's the disappearing story feature and video reels that most users stick around for. India has the largest Instagram audience worldwide, with approximately 362 million users, followed by the US and Brazil. The app has become a gold mine for business, too. Megan Peterson manages a talent agency and doesn't see Instagram's popularity fading anytime soon. I think what Instagram's strength has always been is their ability to evolve and they're also really quick and reactive. So if there's a platform that's coming up through the ranks and people are really gravitating towards it, they will introduce a version of that into their models. Stories came from Snapchat, and Stories is now the biggest part of what Instagram is. Part of the app's success is also its ability to attract celebrities who bring with them large numbers of followers. The most followed accounts include footballers Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, and singer and actor Selena Gomez. Messi also holds the record for the most liked photo on the platform, which shows him lifting the FIFA World cup trophy with his Argentina teammate. It has 74 million likes and surpassed the previous record holder, a picture of an egg. Maybe Instagram hasn't strayed too far from where it started after all, with pictures of animals and food seemingly still guaranteed to rack up the likes.
Speaker A
Chantal Hartle reporting. And that's all from us for now. But there will be a new edition of the Global News Podcast a little later. If you want to comment on this episode or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcastbc.co.uk. this edition was mixed by Chris Ablaqua and the producers were Chantal Hartle and Nikki Verico. The editor is Karen Martin and I'm Ankur Desai. Until next time. Goodbye.