Science

From floods to tornadoes and extreme droughts, it’s been another tumultuous year for the environment.

We spoke to Professor Francois Balloux, a geneticist at University College London, and started by asking how hopeful we should be about early research suggesting Omicron being a milder variant.

We were joined by Professor John Edmunds, a member of the government’s SAGE group of scientific advisors and models, and Professor Adam Finn, who’s on the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.

The UN has said that early evidence shows the global risk from the Omicron variant is “very high”.

We spoke to Dr Vicky Baillie, a senior researcher at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Analytics research unit at Wits University in South Africa.

On today’s Fourcast, our Health and Social Care Editor Victoria Macdonald explains why Covid cases are rising in Europe and asks whether the compulsory jab mandates seen on the continent are coming to our shores next.

Conflict over diminishing resources is driving jihadi violence in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. Today, our International Editor Lindsey Hilsum reports on her recent trip to Niger.

COP26 was billed as our last chance to save the planet from climate catastrophe. To keep 1.5 alive. So did world governments rise to the challenge?

Glasgow might have thrown open its doors to the rest of the world here at COP26, but in reality the sheer struggle with visas, vaccinations and intercontinental travel have stopped some people getting here at all.

Drought, floods, net zero – all of these are dominating the agenda in Glasgow. But one burning issue that’s receiving less attention at COP26 is how climate change is already fuelling conflict.

We spoke to the government’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance and asked him if climate change is a bigger challenge for us than Covid.

What are the crunch points in these sprawling negotiations, which have been described by one weary delegate as like playing three- dimensional chess with spaghetti?

There’s not much time, and a mountain to climb: that’s the message to leaders at the COP26 summit here in Glasgow, where the president of the talks Alok Sharma has urged countries to set even more ambitious goals, to have any chance of keeping global warming in check.

With the world leaders now gone, discussions are spreading across Glasgow, including this building, which is host to the New York Times Climate Hub, where we are an affiliate broadcaster.

There is a furious debate around the merits of carbon offsetting, which allows businesses to ostensibly cancel out their greenhouse gas emissions by buying carbon credits elsewhere.