SCRI executive director Laurie Laybourn joined Asia One News to discuss whether this COP marks a real shift or more of the same. He noted that Turkey’s own environment minister has conceded the world will overshoot 1.5°C - a new level of honesty, he argued, after a decade of pledges. Laurie called electrification the right precondition for renewables but warned it’s only half an answer without a dated commitment to phasing out fossil fuels. He also set out “derailment risk” - the danger that worsening climate disasters consume government budgets and attention, crowding out the response to root causes — and explained how heat and water stress in South Asia ripple into Gulf labour markets and remittances, destabilising both regions.
