The Land & Climate Podcast

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
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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 
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The labour movement has contributed to climate and environmental policy for decades, and developed the concept of a ‘just transition’. Despite this, the relationship between unions and climate policymakers can be strained, with concerns from both parties about how the other will approach job losses from phasing out fossil fuels.  
How has trade union policy on decarbonisation developed over the decades, and what are union leaders’ perspectives on more radical academic arguments, such as the need to structure economic policy around other metrics than GDP? 
With particular focus on Germany and the UK, Bertie talks to Vera Trappmann about union engagement with green policymaking, what a just transition means for workers, and how this varies between Global North and South. 
Vera Trappmann is Professor of Comparative Employment Relations at Leeds University, where she co-leads the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures. Her work focuses on climate change’s impact on workers, as well as union movement perspectives and policies on climate issues. 
Further reading:  
'Perspectives on Social and Justice Issues in Climate Policy – Comparing the Just Transitions, Sustainable Welfare and Eco-Social Policy Literatures', Milena Büchs, Vera Trappmann, Gina Moran, Max Koch, WIREs Climate Change, 2026
'Trades unions, climate policy and just transition in the UK', Vera Trappmann, Jo Cutter, Ursula Balderson, 2026
'German Trade Unions and Decarbonisation: A Transition to Green Growth, A‐Growth or Degrowth?' Vera Trappmann, Dennis Eversberg, Felix Schulz, Industrial Relations Journal, 2025
What workers want: Conditions for a fair and just transition in the UK, Vera Trappmann, Jo Cutter, and Alice Garvey, 2025
'Conjunctures of eco-social partnership unionism: The German Trade Union Confederation’s climate policies over three decades', Vera Trappmann, Dennis Eversberg, Felix Schulz, Industrielle Beziehungen, 2024
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https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Titans-of-Industrial-Agriculture-by-Jennifer-Clapp/9780262551700?srsltid=AfmBOopELSc1sCbVc8BajGMmXPpPpwRIL4ba6xLH1gF2mlgFx1GcLgH0For the second time in five years, conflict has seriously destablised global markets. The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz due to US and Israeli attacks on Iran has limited trade, causing skyrocketing prices - but not only for oil. 
Most fertiliser production relies on liquefied natural gas (LNG). Gulf nations including Qatar and Saudi Arabia are major fertiliser producers, and one third of the world's seaborne fertiliser trade usually passes through the Strait, which is currently unavailable. Other fertiliser producing nations are reducing production due to limited gas supply. Are food shortages inevitable? 
Alasdair is joined by Noah Gordon to discuss the international and environmental politics of fertilisers. They discuss fertiliser production, its uses and misuses, its role in global inequality and whether gas dependency can be avoided. 
Noah Gordon is the acting Co-Director of the Sustainability, Climate and Geopolitics Programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C.  
Further reading: 
'The Other Global Crisis Stemming From the Strait of Hormuz’s Blockage', Emissary, March 2026
'A Trump Order Protected a Weedkiller. And Also a Weapon of War.' New York Times, March 2026
How to Feed the World by Vaclav Smil, 2025
'How a few giant companies came to dominate global food', Land and Climate Review, May 2025
'Why was organic policy blamed for Sri Lanka’s financial crisis?' Land and Climate Review, June 2024
'Fertiliser emissions could be cut to ‘one-fifth of current levels’ by 2050', Carbon Brief, February 2023
The Alchemy of Air by Thomas Hager, 2009
Titans of Industrial Agriculture by Jennifer Clapp, 2025
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With the recent 'AI Boom', the energy demand of computing has risen dramatically. As generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots such as Chat GPT, Claude, Copilot and Grok become more mainstream, tech companies are racing to build and power new data centres - the physical 'computer factories' that store and process our information and online services. 
This new infrastructure is significantly increasing greenhouse gas emissions - but tech companies argue that the climate innovations and efficiency improvements catalysed by AI tools will offset negative impacts. Could such claims prove true, or are they greenwashed PR? 
Alasdair puts this question to writer and energy analyst Ketan Joshi, who recently authored a report on AI's climate impacts alongside several leading nonprofits. 
Further reading:
Read more from Ketan on climate and AI on his blog, here. 
'Does Generative AI “Work”? That’s a Misleading Question.', Ketan Joshi, The New Republic, March 2026
The AI Climate Hoax: Behind the Curtain of How Big Tech Greenwashes Impacts, Ketan Joshi, February 2026
'Crypto and AI exploit conflict zones and fossil fuels – with destructive consequences', Hito Steyerl, Gago Gagoshidze and Miloš Trakilović, Land and Climate Review, July 2025
Empire of AI, Karen Hao, May 2025
'Big Tech’s green promises are hypocritical gestures', Nick Dyer-Witheford and Alessandra Mularoni, Land and Climate Review, April 2025
SYSTEM OVERLOAD: How new data centres could throw Europe’s energy transition off course, Beyond Fossil Fuels, February 2025
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