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Foreign Correspondent: Nov 30

ABC will air four one-hour specials of Foreign Correspondent, starting with a look at potential solutions to global warming.

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ABC will air four one-hour specials of Foreign Correspondent beginning on Monday, beginning with Eric Campbell looking at potential solutions to global warming – from thermal power in Costa Rican jungles to giant North Sea wind farms and California’s solar start-ups.

It’s easy to believe that the planet is frying and that nobody – not even the scores of world leaders who are about to descend on Paris for crucial climate negotiations – is doing anything about it.

Wrong. While Paris won’t stop global warming, it can slow it – and around the world some extraordinary things are happening that kindle hope and optimism.

“It isn’t too late. Is the door closing? Absolutely. But when I look at a door and see a tiny little crack I’m like, well, we are walking through that crack” – UN climate chief Christine Figueres

In this one-hour Foreign Correspondent special, Eric Campbell criss-crosses the continents to see not only what is at stake but also what is being done to cut carbon pollution.

He heads to Costa Rica which has made a virtue of oil and coal poverty and is re-branding itself as a deep green emerald of eco-tourism. It plans to be carbon neutral by 2021 and recently went 75 days straight using just renewable power – wind, solar, hydro and thermal.

“We are very proud in Costa Rica to have a model that guarantees us our own energy” – Elbert Hidalgo, Costa Rica state power company

In Germany, a Foreign Correspondent drone camera cruises among spectacular forests of wind turbines built on land and far out to sea. Germany has 22,000 turbines – Australia has fewer than 2000 – and consumers pay a renewables levy to ease the transition from coal and nuclear power.

“Within 30, 35 years there’s not a future for (coal) in Germany” – Ingrid Nestle, senior energy official

In Antarctica, the epicentre of climate research, a British scientist uses a homespun explanation for the dramatic effect that melting land ice has on sea levels:

“It’s like putting more ice into your gin and tonic. If you put more ice into your gin and tonic the level goes up!” – Professor Peter Convey

From a land of melting ice to a land of rising water: Miami, USA – where Campbell finds that waterfront property is still hot – despite projections that a lot of it will end up under water. Authorities build costly sea walls to protect real estate and roads from tidal flooding.

“The cost of holding back the sea is enormous and it’s going to increase dramatically over time” – Keren Bolter, geoscientist and Miami resident

On America’s western flank, in California, there’s too little water. In the town of Porterville, drought has accentuated the race and class divide. Hispanics used to rely on wells that have long dried up; now they depend on donated bottles to drink and community showers to bathe. Mainly white residents still enjoy piped water.

But just a few hours away, California’s Bay Area is abuzz with optimism as a new wave of young solar entrepreneurs mine ideas and connect them to cash. One venture installs solar power for Kenyan villagers who pay for what they use by phone, no bank account required. California plans to be 50 per cent renewable by 2030.

“The solar industry has employed 55,000 Californians – more than Twitter, Google, Facebook and Apple combined” – Australian Danny Kennedy, co-founder of Sungevity in California.

8.30pm Monday November 30 on ABC.

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