The Greatest Threat Humans Just Can’t Stomach with Yuval Noah Harari
18 September 2026
69. The brutal truth about net zero and how to vanquish climate populists, with Dieter Helm
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Leading
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15 April 2024
Is net zero 2030 impossible to achieve - and is it a mistake to pursue it? Should governments be more brutal with climate investment? Are events like COP a waste of time?
Rory and Alastair are joined by Britain’s leading energy economist, Professor Dieter Helm, to answer all these questions and more.
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Producers: Dom Johnson + Nicole Maslen
Exec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport
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Is so frustrating to hear experts and politicians talk about net zero without talking about the true root cause – population growth
4 billion to 8 billion in my 50 year lifetime
Why? Too unsavoury? How can 4 billion extra people not be relevant to the argument?
The 332 million people of America have collectively emitted 100 billion tonnes *more* CO2 into the atmosphere than the 2.8 billion people of China and India combined. The average African is responsible for about the same CO2 as an American fridge. Broadly speaking, ten percent of the population is responsible for 40-50 percent of emissions. The billions that will suffer the most are those people least responsible.
Liked Dieter Helm, but how did you get through 50 minutes without asking him about nuclear ?
[…] of Economic Policy at the University of Oxford points out much of this has been because we have deindustrialised (9). For example, closing the steelworks at Port Talbot won’t mean that we consume less […]