12/12/2015 Reporters

Welcome to this special edition of Reporters.

I'm at the climate change conference in Paris.

We have reports from around the globe, we'll be looking at some

of the greatest challenges affecting the planet.

How conditions in some of the world's hottest and driest

You couldn't get a clearer example than this.

The reservoir that should be supplying the capital city

If you think storm damage is the only cost of climate

John Sopel looks at the drought in California and the politics

A report from India on the developing nations

that want to burn more fossil fuel.

It's saying to the world that climate change is your problem,

We hear from Switzerland where the melting of the glaciers

Some of the dust used, driest, hottest parts of the world are set

to experience even tougher conditions ahead.

That's one of many projections for climate change being discussed

One of the most vulnerable countries is Namibia in southern Africa,

as I've been finding out, so much dust has been front

of the year it could even affect the climate.

In the baking heat of the land ravaged by drought and is

We catch sight of a struggle under the punishing sun.

Each step kicking more dust into the year.

The ground I'm walking on has been torn apart,

for three years, Namibia has suffered from what we call erratic

rains and the lack of water to your worries everyone.

For a glance at what could be a very parched and a dusty future for this

country, you couldn't get a clearer example than this.

A reservoir which should be supplying the capital city,

Farmland has been turned into desert.

Animals search the dust for something to eat.

but dry spells could become more intense.

This woman turns on her own tap but nothing falls out.

She tells me that four of her goats have died.

There is just nothing to feed them on, she says.

This is one of the dustiest areas on the planet and what happened

here matters far beyond Namibia and that's pictures of a massive

cloud of dust or office land and the question is whether climate

Higher temperatures and a more violent rainfall both

of which are projected, may more easily break up the trust

on the surface, exposing the famed material that lies underneath,

Scientists have come to this barren spot because it generates so much

of the dust that enters the atmosphere.

The instruments measure exactly how much waste the ground.

To help work out what it could mean for the global climate.

On the one hand, it may mean less radiation coming into the system

On the other hand, the dust provided in the atmosphere

could reduce heat out of the atmosphere and make

Whatever happens, children's year are being taught to get ready

-- Whatever happens, children here are being taught

to get ready for tougher conditions to come.

They still as he through drip system, modern technology to cope

We now know, maybe in the next two to three years to come,

we don't know what will be able to get one single drop of rain

and therefore we need to come up with something

We spot an elephant churning up a small cloud of dust with each

Life here has always been harsh, but now looks set to become tougher.

President Obama has described climate change

His plans to cut carbon emissions from power stations have run

into opposition from Republicans in Congress.

John Sopel assesses the state of the climate change

In America, where everything is big, even nature seems outsized.

You simply part, in summary tourist location but year-round

The trouble is for the last few years, the snowfall has been

The waterfalls are a trickle of their cascading best.

The state has been suffering one of its worst ever entrance,

affecting worldwide, business and livelihoods.

Living here and working here, I've noticed more and more

of the trees are affected, the waterfalls are trying it

of the trees are affected, the waterfalls are drying

earlier, the river level is going down and before the storm

to stick couple of weeks ago, the river level was probably

California is leading the way in championing alternative,

This factory makes solar panels, but it is their business

but that makes it interesting.

Given the choice of paying less for clean energy or more for dirty

more customers will spend less for clean energy.

Make it super easy for someone to call somewhere.

There's no investment, the equipment, they don't

Even though the presidential election is a year away,

TV ads have already started appealing to she the political

A billionaire businessman and the biggest donor

Democratic party is finding these ones.

People always say this is the most important election ever.

In this case, we think it is the election for energy

and climate that we have to get right.

We to be part of the leadership to move the world to a better place.

Electricity is made locally and we can transmitted

across a transmission lines across the United States.

In the Appalacian mountatins, coal is still king.

From the mains to the power stations, tens of thousands

They supply millions on the eastern seaboard who rely on it

The Obama plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions from US power stations

by nearly one third in 15 years is being fiercely resisted.

We think it will be a devastating impact.

We have had seven years of devastating impact

The clean power plan, or the costly power plan,

as we think it should be referred to, it's just not good for America.

In the immediate term, lobbyist for call our planning

-- In the immediate term, lobbyists are planning a full-on

And then there the longer term battle.

Irrespective of what happened in Paris, the future of coal-fired

power plants like this one is not yet settled.

Republicans in the Senate have already voted to reject to back

It doesn't matter as long as there is a Democrat

But whether to change next year, then everything would be

Now to China, the world's largest pollutant where the effects

warming are starting to become obvious.

For years, the Chinese refused to discover any kind of target

for cutting their emissions of carbon dioxide but attitudes may

Our reporter has been to Tibet to look at a fight back

This man's parents and grandparents had herds of cattle and 500 sheep.

The cattle are long gone and his flock is down to 80.

He's the last in a proud line of Tibetan herdsmen.

The plant always adds to the heart of Asia.

This is where the continent where is made.

This is where the continent weather is made.

Now, it's the scene of the climate change catastrophe.

The sea is shrinking, the permafrost that protects

the grassland in winter disappearing.

The wind takes the soil and this is what is left.

This man says there is no point being angry.

But the death of his landscape and his way of life makes him sound.

-- But the death of his landscape and his way of life makes him sad.

When I was small, the grassland was covered in rich,

But the sandstorms get worse year by year and the sheep do not get

I can't go on like this for much longer.

It has some of the world's worst air, soil and water on the planet.

Thanks to global warming, floods at one extreme and dessert

So now, a change of heart on an epic scale.

China has become by far the world's biggest investor

It's building the world's largest solar form on the grassland turned

Chinese to put economic growth ahead of its environment.

It sees rescuing the environment as the only sustainable way

So, suddenly, the will is here, to power China

China is betting that an energy revolution will put solar

It wants to show the world the renewable technologies

As technology advances, our solar batteries improve

and the costs come down, so there's bound to come a day

when solar power becomes cheaper than traditional energy.

Personally, I'm very optimistic about it.

On the roof of the world, the Paris climate change conference

It's already too late for this Tibetan herdsman

India is one of many developing countries that says it still growing

and still trying to pull millions out of poverty so has no alternative

but to keep burning even more fossil fuel.

That's one of the major sticking point here at the talks in Paris.

Let's hear from our reporter in India.

Here's why getting an agreement to cutting carbon emissions

India's energy policy is based on burning more of the stuff.

It plans to open a major new coal mine every month until 2020.

Doubling coal output to a billion tonnes a year.

Most countries have put a ceiling on their future carbon emissions.

It has refused to commit to any cap on CO2, let alone a cut.

In effect, it is saying to the world that climate change is your problem,

India has more impoverished people than any other country.

-- This girl helps eke out a living for her family by scavenging coal

There is fire everywhere and lots of smoke.

Every day, her family build fires to make a kind of call.

A quarter of a billion Indians, a fifth of the population,

survive on that sort of money and, understandably, the Indian

government says the country must be allowed to grow.

Other countries have used coal over the centuries and done

what they have done to the environment.

You can't development without energy.

We don't have any other source of energy.

You have to be practical in terms of understanding.

How do we do it without adversely affecting the environment?

India has promised to install a lot more of these.

Even so, it expects to triple its carbon emissions

The coal under this region has been burning for over a century.

Damaging their lungs and shortening the lives of everyone

The challenge is to create the space for India and other developing

countries to burn more coal without the entire planet

Now, here's a surprising twist in the Cold War warming study.

-- Now, here's a surprising twist in the global warming story.

The food that we scrape off our plates may be adding

In the UK alone, some 4 billion tonnes of food is chucked

Most of it ends up in rubbish dumps and then gets

I've been looking at the scale of the problem.

On a frozen morning, steam rises from a mountain of waste.

A scene that most of us never think of it.

But at their site near Manchester and 200 others, rubbish dumped every

When you get this close, the smell does become quite intense.

That's because the waste here including bits

What is happening is that bacteria are working their way through that

waste and giving off a host of different gases,

This is happening on a massive scale right across the country.

Households throw away staggering amounts of food.

For example, the equivalent of 86 million chickens

So we asked researchers to monitor what happens under lights that mimic

Our time-lapse camera followed the grim process of decomposition.

The chicken swells up over the full course of the week.

No surprise, flies were soon attracted.

We've injected the sample from the decomposed chicken

and you can see on the spectrometer there is this large peak here.

Some food is collected by local councils but most still isn't.

More greenhouse gases are added to the year and money is wasted.

Not only is it costing us ?60 a month for the average family

but 4.2 million tonnes of food that could have been eaten,

ends up going to landfill and basically rots and gives off

There are ways that food waste can be used.

Here, rubbish is divided automatically.

Some of it is diverted into equipment that goes

Not only big skill so forth but more and more waste

Any food waste, whether it's worth over food or food that has gone off,

it is important that people present in the rate them.

We can take that material use it in technology at this and squeeze

Recycling their food waste, people are helping keep

Scientists are preparing shown to fly over landfill and measured

No-one knows exactly how big the problem is,

but these flights should provide an answer.

Many landfill sites are due to close in the coming years,

but even when they do, there will be a legacy of gases

seeping out of them for decades to come.

A solar panel of the kind we are familiar with,

but what about one that works in the dark?

There's one in Morocco that uses the power of the sun to draw

A reporter has been to the edge of the Sahara desert to see

In Eastern Morocco, an ancient city at it to be powered by a futuristic

In Eastern Morocco, an ancient city about to be powered by a futuristic

technology that harnesses solar energy after dark.

It takes a drive through bareen lands to find it.

It stretches far towards the horizon.

-- Renewable energy on a truly heroic scale.

Row upon row of curved mirrors, capturing the power

The plant will give energy to 8 million people.

Work will be going on here for years.

Well, in daytime, the mirrors track the sun through the sky.

It's called concentrated solar power.

Each mirror focuses the sun's rays to heat the tube along the middle.

Oil inside the tube is warmed to 400 Celsius.

The oil is transported here to make steam to generate electricity.

The vast empty waste of the Sahara, stretching far

Whoever would have thought a desert would come in so handy?

But how does it make power after sunset? It uses the sun 's energy to

melt salt in this issued cylinder that holds heat through the night

and it generates power. This is a tanker full of salt, the kind of

soldier friend on Europe table. During the day we heat up the salt

in order to keep the seats that will produce electricity after sunset and

this is quite a big innovation. We are able to store up to three hours

of energy. Storing power from renewables is the holy grail of

energy and developing nations want help from rich countries to get

technology like this under the climate talks in Paris. So what

Perthshire will be switched on sin. A future stage of the project is

designed to deliver solar energy all day and eight hours into the

Finally, one obvious outcome of climate change is on the power --

pallbearers up in the Arctic. Other forms of ice are in retreat as well,

especially in the Swiss Alps. Scientists are warning that all

clusters may virtually disappear by the end of the century. A doctor

explains why this happens. Hello. I am a close your expert. For

the next couple of minutes, I'm going to explain to you how this is

being to me is melting at an alarming rate and why the planet 's

must set up and pay attention. So, let's start by looking at how piece

-- Lister has depleted. -- Kweisi. This photograph taken in 1890, work

again. Note, nothing is left but a scar in the rock. So, what happens

to all of the melting ice? Well, take a look at this. This lake

formed only in the last ten years. It currently holds ten litres of

water. Water that will add to the rise in global sea levels.

You can see here, either what of melted water.

Cheer you can see face-to-face the climate change. So, in conclusion,

the Kweisi sheer and many others and Switzerland will have almost

vanished by the end of the century. Although diplomats in Paris won't be

able to be verse rising temperatures, they must negotiate a

new agreement to cope with the consequences of our changing

climate. That's all from this special edition

of reporters. Goodbye.