Category: English

Source: The Conversation – UK – By James Dyke, Assistant Director of the Global Systems Institute, University of Exeter

Ten years ago the world’s leaders placed a historic bet. The 2015 Paris agreement aimed to put humanity on a path to avert dangerous climate change. A decade on, with the latest climate conference ending in Belém, Brazil, without decisive action, we can definitively say humanity has lost this bet.

Warming is going to exceed 1.5°C. We are heading into “overshoot” within the next few years. The world is going to become more turbulent and more dangerous. So, what comes after failure?

Our attempt to answer that question gathered the Earth League – an international network of scientists we work with – for a meeting in Hamburg earlier this year. After months of intensive deliberation, its findings were published this week, with the conclusion that humanity is “living beyond limits”.

Exceed 1.5°C and not only do extreme climate events, like droughts, floods, fires and heatwaves grow in number and severity, impacting billions of people, we also approach tipping points for large Earth regulating systems like the Amazon rainforest and the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets. Tropical coral reef systems, livelihood for over 200 million people, are unlikely to cope with overshoot.

This translates to existential risks for billions of people. Not far in the future, but within the next few years for extreme events, and within decades for tipping points.

How global warming and social instability increase together:

The missed opportunities between 1997 and 2015 are the failures of the Kyoto protocol to bend the global emissions curve. There then followed a missed decade since the Paris agreement.

The beauty of Paris – getting all countries to commit collectively to cut emissions – has been undermined by the voluntary mechanisms to achieve it. So while staying well below 2°C is legally binding, the actions within national plans are not.

We are now at a critical juncture. We are at or very close to human caused environmental change that will fundamentally unpick the life-sustaining systems on Earth. These risk triggering feedback loops, for example, the accelerating die back of rainforests which would release billions of tons of carbon dioxide which would raise temperatures even further.

Ultimately that could cause the planet to drift away along the pathway to “hothouse Earth”, a scenario where even if emissions were reduced, self amplifying feedback loops would drive global temperature increases up to or even beyond 5°C. The last time the climate warmed by such an amount was tens of millions of year ago.

Well before this nightmare scenario, significant impacts are now unavoidable. Increasingly destructive storms will produce more loss and damages, more loss of life. Efforts to accelerate – or even maintain – decarbonisation could be undermined by social and political destabilisation created by climate change.

If the consequences of climate change begin to interfere with our efforts to deal with its causes, moves towards a more sustainable world risk being delayed or even entirely derailed.

But the scale of suffering is still very much up to us. We still have the ability to minimise overshoot. The best science can offer today, is a future where peak warming reaches 1.7°C before returning to within 1.5°C in 75 years.

This requires immediate action at global scale, on multiple fronts:

First, we’ll have to accelerate the fossil fuel phase out to achieve at least 5% annual global emission reductions from now on. This requires increasing nations’ decarbonisation plans by at least a factor of ten.

Second, we must transform the global food system within the next decade so it is able to absorb 3 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year.

Third, we need new ways to remove an additional 5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year, and store it safely in the ground. Whether by restoring ecosystems such as forests and wetlands or with new approaches that would directly remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, this must be done in safe and socially just ways.

Finally, we must do all we can to ensure continued “health” and resilience in nature on land and in the ocean, in order to safeguard Earth’s capacity to store carbon. All this needs to happen, simultaneously, to have a chance of limiting overshoot and come back to at or below 1.5°C of global warming.

Science is crystal clear here. Our only chance to recover back to a stable and safe climate is to accelerate the phase-out of fossil-fuels, remove carbon and invest in nature (on land and in the ocean), and do that without trading off between them.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The world lost the climate gamble. Now it faces a dangerous new reality – https://theconversation.com/the-world-lost-the-climate-gamble-now-it-faces-a-dangerous-new-reality-270392

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Natalia Zwarts, Research Leader in Wargaming at RAND Europe, RAND Europe

Consider the following scenario. There’s a ransomware attack, enhanced by AI, which paralyses NHS systems – delaying medical care across the country.

Simultaneously, deepfake videos circulate online, spreading false information about the government’s response. At the same time, a foreign power quietly manipulates critical mineral markets to exert pressure on the economy.

The scenario is not just a theory. It is a situation waiting to be rehearsed. And research suggests an old tool called wargaming – an exercise or simulation of a threatening situation – provides the method to do exactly that. Researchers are indeed calling for a new research agenda for experimental design for such games, applied to modern scenarios.

In a world of compounding crises, the UK government has published its first-ever chronic risks analysis, delivering a stark warning. It says the threats of the 21st century are already here and they’re deeply interconnected.

From AI-driven cybercrime to biodiversity loss and demographic shifts, the report maps 26 chronic risks that are slowly eroding national security, economic resilience and social cohesion.

The analysis rightly calls for a broader response, urging collaboration across government, industry, academia and society at large.

If chronic risks are the century’s slow burns, then wargaming is the fire drill we haven’t run. In brief, wargaming is a centuries-old tool to explore “what if” scenarios by simulating real-world crises.

In a wargame, participants take on roles, usually in opposing teams, and make decisions in response to unfolding events. Depending on the scenario, participants are recruited to act in a way that would be characteristic for the military, government, industry or humanitarian organisations.

By revealing gaps, stress points and unexpected outcomes, wargaming helps decision-makers plan smarter and respond faster when the real thing hits. Ignoring these feedback loops risks turning slow moving challenges into sudden, systemic shocks.

Historically limited to traditional warfighting, it increasingly offers a way to stress-test systems against cascading threats, from resource scarcity driving geopolitical tensions to digital exclusion fuelling misinformation.

Beyond war

Wargaming is still popular among organisations across the world. The Pentagon uses red team exercises to anticipate hybrid warfare. Red-teaming includes modelling of the adversary and attempting to predict their reasoning, planning and actions.

Nato’s “locked shields” exercises simulate cyberattacks on critical infrastructure. And the EU runs tabletops, exercises that help help stress-test defence capability development plans.

Developments in AI have recently been translated into gaming techniques. The Rand corporation has run wargames on issues from anti-microbial resistance to climate change.

Singapore has used wargaming to test urban development policies involving climate adaptation, transportation and population growth.

At a recent Rand Europe wargame examining the governance of AI in healthcare, players were asked to act as policymakers deciding whether to impose strict, moderate or minimal regulation on new AI tools such as automated transcription of doctor visits. They had to balance this with concerns about safety, privacy and equitable access.

The game illustrated how competing priorities, such as innovation speed versus regulatory oversight, shape real-world decisions. Despite the complexity of the topic, participants typically reached a consensus within minutes, revealing not only preferred policies but also the trade-offs that were revealed under pressure. The results of the game showed that regulation has to adapt to emerging risks, rather than be rigid.

Exercises like this demonstrate how wargaming can expose underlying assumptions and offer policymakers, practitioners and the public a structured way to debate difficult choices before or as they appear in the real world.

Depending on the scope of the game, you could choose to play one round or scenario, or extend it to more in-depth questions. The game results are the most relevant for those who will have to make such decisions, but it’s also very telling to provide them with pathways chosen by the public.

So what games should we be playing? The rapid evolution of crypto-based scams could be explored through a matrix game that includes financial regulators, banks and tech companies. A matrix game allows for a quick role-play of specific agendas with proposed actions judged by an expert facilitator. Participants would be divided into groups of criminals, law enforcement, industry and financial sector. They would then simulate a scenario where fraud spreads faster than enforcement can respond, revealing regulatory blind spots and communication failures.

In another exercise, policymakers could model how a terrorist group might weaponise AI-generated deepfakes. Participants from law enforcement, public health and social media platforms would need to determine how quickly they could identify and respond to the threat while maintaining public trust.

A third scenario could focus on geopolitical competition over critical minerals. A simulated trigger event involving European, Chinese and African actors would allow players to explore the impacts on trade policy, infrastructure security and diplomatic engagement.

These simulations would not predict the future, but would reveal how different people might behave when systems come under stress. Indeed, research into wargaming shows that while these tools aren’t perfect, they are extremely useful.

Wargaming offers a range of techniques suited to different risks. Matrix games allow multiple actors to make decisions in an evolving scenario. This makes them ideal for exploring uncertainty and conflicting interests. Red teaming helps organisations see their systems from the perspective of an adversary, exposing vulnerabilities that may go unnoticed in internal assessments. And tabletop exercises can help policymakers trace the second- and third-order effects of a crisis.

We conduct fire drills, flood drills and emergency alerts for physical disasters. It is time we have more opportunities to do the same for digital blackouts, deepfake terrorism and financial manipulation. These risks are not theoretical. They are already beginning to reshape our world – governments must take heed.

Reports like the chronic risks analysis are vital for naming and describing the dangers ahead. But they must be matched with tools that prepare us to navigate them. Wargaming gives us a chance to practise the future — to uncover the gaps in our systems, to rehearse our collective response, and to build the resilience we will need in the years to come.

We might not be able to predict the future perfectly given the speed of change. But we can test the options for potential futures. Wargaming is how we start.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Wargaming: the surprisingly effective tool that can help us prepare for modern crises – https://theconversation.com/wargaming-the-surprisingly-effective-tool-that-can-help-us-prepare-for-modern-crises-266907

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Malcolm Claus, Senior Lecturer, Astronautics and Space Technology, Kingston University

An experimental supersonic aircraft called the X-59 took to the skies for the first time in October.

The plane lifted off from Skunk Works, the famed research and development facility in California owned by aerospace giant Lockheed Martin. It cruised for about an hour, before landing at Edwards Air Force Base 85 miles (136km) away.

Nasa’s X-59 is designed to test technology for quiet supersonic flight. In the US, loud sonic booms led to a five-decade ban on non-military supersonic aircraft flying over land.

The ban was lifted this year by the US president Donald Trump, via an executive order. In the UK, supersonic flight over land needs to be specifically approved by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), which functions independently of government.

The X-59 aims to turn sonic booms into a quieter “sonic thump”. So if this proves possible, how likely is it that we will see a return to commercial supersonic air travel – not seen since the Concorde passenger jet was retired in 2003?

Beginning in the 1950s, the race to achieve commercial supersonic travel was a long and technically challenging one. Teams from the UK and France, consisting of the companies British Aircraft Corporation and Aerospatiale, the US (Boeing) and the Soviet Union (Tupolev) worked on three aircraft to meet this challenge.

Out of these three competing designs only two: Concorde (UK and France) and the Tupolev TU-144 (Soviet Union) produced prototype aircraft and follow-on planes that entered commercial operation.

In the US, the Boeing 2707 aircraft would have carried between 250-300 passengers, three times that of Concorde, and would have done so at a higher cruise speed. However, rising costs, uncertainty about the market for flights and concerns about noise led to the cancellation of the American plane in 1971.

The Soviet TU-144 took to the skies first, on December 31, 1968, while Concorde’s first flight took place in March 1969. The service life of the TU-144 was relatively short, however, lasting from 1975 to 1983.

It initially carried mail, in preparation for passenger services which began in November 1977. However, safety incidents and concern about the economic viability of the plane led to these flights were cancelled in June 1978.

Once passenger flights had been discontinued, the then-Soviet airline Aeroflot operated an updated variant, called the TU-144D, on freight-only services. The withdrawal from service of the TU-144 left Concorde as the only operating commercial supersonic passenger aircraft.

As the standard bearer for supersonic travel, Concorde carried passengers from London and Paris to destinations such as New York, Washington, Rio de Janeiro and Mexico City. But its routes were limited by the US ban on non-military supersonic aircraft flying over land.

The plane operated successfully until July 2000, when Air France flight 4590 crashed shortly after take-off, killing 109 passengers and four people on the ground. Flights by both British Airways and Air France were suspended after the crash, returning only in November 2001. But a lack of confidence and other factors led to the retirement from service of Concorde in 2003.

But within 13 years of the withdrawal of Concorde there was fresh impetus for supersonic travel. In 2016, Nasa launched the Quiet Supersonic Technology (Quesst) project. The aim of Quesst is to investigate aircraft designs which would reduce the sonic boom typically associated with supersonic flight. The centrepiece of the Quesst project is the X-59 an experimental aircraft built by Lockheed Martin at its experimental Skunk Works site in California.

Flying experiment

The X-59 has been designed, manufactured and flown to test both the theories and assumptions relating to low boom technology and to demonstrate that such an aircraft can operate over land without causing disruption on the ground.

The aircraft will act as a flying experiment, collecting data from its test flights which will be disseminated within the aerospace community. This will support current efforts by the companies Boom Supersonic and Spike Aerospace, both of which are proposing their own supersonic aircraft.

So how does the X-59 achieve this? The short answer is in its configuration. The aircraft design has been reached after detailed design work both through extensive computer simulations and through the use of a wind tunnel test programme.

The final configuration which has been reached in effect reshapes the shockwaves produced during supersonic flight, changing the associated boom to a quieter sound. As a result, however, the X-59 does not resemble any conventional aircraft flying today.

The unusual design of the X-59 prevents the shock waves generated at supersonic speed from merging (which would produce the loud boom).

The long, thin tapered nose and other features of the aircraft will mitigate against this by producing a “quieter” boom. This nose, resembling a spear, means that the cockpit for the pilot is located almost halfway down the length of the aircraft.

Its location means that a conventional cockpit window, as seen on all aircraft,` is not possible. Consequently, a number of high-resolution cameras and monitors allow the pilot to fly the aircraft and see what is going on outside.

The X-59 will provide useful flight data on supersonic boom mitigation, which could be applied to future aircraft.

But even when boom mitigation has been addressed, there are still a number of challenges which need to be overcome in order for a new generation of supersonic aircraft to enter service.

A clear and well developed business case will be needed, taking into account the potential customer volume and number of aircraft required. The economics will need to be worked out, such as how much the aircraft costs to operate, its fuel costs and the price of maintenance.

There will also be environmental issues to consider, such as the fuel efficiency of new propulsion systems that can operate for long times under supersonic conditions.

If these challenges can’t be overcome, the rebirth of commercial supersonic travel might remain a distant dream.

Malcolm Claus does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Is supersonic air travel about to return, two decades after the last Concorde flight? – https://theconversation.com/is-supersonic-air-travel-about-to-return-two-decades-after-the-last-concorde-flight-269990

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Simon Goodman, Associate professor, De Montfort University

Keir Starmer has called on Nigel Farage to address allegations of racism in Reform UK, and antisemitic and xenophobic comments and bullying allegedly made by Farage while he was at school. Farage has denied the accusations.

A few weeks before the allegations about Farage emerged, Reform MP Sarah Pochin was accused of racism after saying that it “drives me mad when I see adverts full of black people, full of Asian people”. Farage said that while Pochin’s comments were “ugly”, they did not amount to racism, explaining: “If I thought that the intention behind it was racist, I would have taken a lot more action than I have to date. And that is because I don’t.”

This reaction suggests that, to some extent, it is still a taboo to be seen as racist. But is this taboo losing its strength? As scholars of the social psychology of racism, we think so.

In a recent interview, health secretary Wes Streeting noted that rising racism faced by NHS staff was similar to the “ugly” racism of the 1970s and 80s in the UK.

Streeting made the worrying claim it had now become “socially acceptable to be racist”. Hate crime statistics and other reports support this idea and suggest racism is widespread. Quotes in news reports have echoed the idea that the present climate is reminiscent of overt and violent racism of the recent past.

Social psychologists have shown that people generally do not want to come across as prejudiced. Academic Michael Billig describes this as the “norm against prejudice”.

The overtness of racism and its social acceptability are intertwined. Subtle or hidden racism, by its nature, is hard to call out and easy to deny, so in effect becomes socially acceptable in many situations. Overt racism, on the other hand, breaches common understandings – norms – that racism is wrong.

Anti-immigration

Much research has shown how talk about restricting migration is regularly argued to be prejudiced or racist. Historically, calls for restricting migrants, in the UK at least, have been about excluding ethnic and racial outgroups like Jews, black and brown people or eastern Europeans.

However, because of the norm against prejudice, people typically do not offer openly derogatory descriptions of migrants, such as that they are sexual deviants, lazy, or are inferior to the resident population. However, some high-profile figures and their supports are, arguably, increasingly comfortable doing so.

In 2011, scholar Frank Reeves examined political discourse about race in the House of Commons in the context of the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act. His research showed how MPs would frame calls for stricter migration in terms of problematic race relations between black and “resident” or white populations, instead of saying anything about the supposed superiority of white people.

Similar findings are noted across parliaments in the UK, Australia and Europe, where immigration controls are routinely argued for and justified in terms that do not make racism explicit.

But the current situation suggests this is changing. Anti-migrant protests and demonstrations in the UK show that migrants and refugees are being directly demonised, often from a racist, religous or ethno-nationalist viewpoint. This has included calls to deport asylum seekers and migrants, irrespective of their legal status in the UK, and demonising Islam and cultures that are allegedly not “British”.

Weakening norms

In the last few months, overt anti-migrant racism targeting non-white people has become public around the world, as seen in the riots and racist attacks in Ireland, Australia and the Netherlands. In the UK, attacks on mosques and migrant properties are not unheard of.

In September 2025, the UK saw its largest ever far-right march, the “Unite the Kingdom” rally. Several of the speakers openly called for the removal of migrants or foreigners in the UK, and to transform it into a Christian nation. Such claims could readily be seen as racist.

---

Read more:
A contemporary history of Britain’s far right – and how it helps explain why so many people went to the Unite the Kingdom rally in London

---

But for many others on the march, the norm against prejudice appeared to be in operation. When interviewed, people largely gave specific reasons for why they had attended these protests or, to them, why it was okay (and perhaps necessary) to protest.

Racism as a political tool

Accusations of racism are still taboo and treated as unfair labelling. But psychology professor Kevin Durrheim and colleagues have shown how the norm against prejudice is weakening in rightwing populist spaces.

The researchers illustrated this point with a comment from a supporter of Farage during the UKIP years: “I see uncontrolled immigration when I look around. If that makes me racist then so be it. I live in a predominantly racist country (many people share my view) so be it. If you want to call me a racist then go ahead, but please don’t try to tell me up is down and down is up.”

Other research shows that radical right politicians sometimes deal with accusations that they are racist by embracing it and using it to present themselves and their supporters as targets.

It is not a precondition for the rise of the far right that norms against prejudice are weakened, but it does make it harder to challenge. If it is no longer a problem to be viewed as prejudiced, then intimidating marginalised others and calling for deportations becomes easier.

Simon Goodman receives funding from the ESRC and the British Academy

Rahul Sambaraju receives funding from British Academy.

– ref. Is racism becoming more acceptable in the UK? – https://theconversation.com/is-racism-becoming-more-acceptable-in-the-uk-269838

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Rowena Hill, Professor of Psychology, Nottingham Trent University

When climate change is discussed, whether at UN climate summits, in company boardrooms or in the media, the focus is often on mitigation (cutting greenhouse gas emissions to achieve net zero). Adaptation, the practical steps to prepare for the consequences of a changing climate, receives far less attention in the UK and globally.

Tech billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates recently sparked debate by arguing against a mitigation-only approach. His point wasn’t to dismiss climate action, but to stress that adaptation and mitigation should work together alongside health, housing and prosperity needs.

Adaptation centres on how the world should respond to the weather-related effects of a changing climate, resulting from the emissions we have emitted – and continue to emit.

---

Read more:
How five countries are adapting to the climate crisis

---

The UN has warned that the world has missed its target to keep global warming in line with 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Scientists broadly agree that above 1.5°C, the world will start to experience irreversible tipping points in places like the Amazon rainforest, which risks becoming grassland or savanna, and Greenland, which faces permanent snow and ice melts.

Indeed, referring to climate change as average global rises in temperature hides the extremes many people will experience. Instead of a steady line on a graph, changes in temperature may look more like spiky peaks and troughs, signifying ever-more extreme episodes of flooding and drought.

Even in the usually temperate UK, this more extreme weather may affect people in unexpected ways. For example, during heatwaves above 35°C, children’s sports clubs will need to consider the weather before deciding whether they can continue without breaching their insurance.

The chance of spending time under drought conditions is expected to increase by 86% in the UK, so how people garden and use open water spaces, as well as their activities in and on water, will all probably face more restrictions.

Also, some UK housing may become expensive or impossible to insure, due to the response of the insurance industry to instances of repeat or foreseeable flooding or fire risk. As weather conditions make wildfires more likely, there will be more restrictions on what people can do outside in grass, moorland or forest areas.

Like most countries, the UK has a way to go towards adequately adapting, according to the government’s Climate Change Committee, which monitors both mitigation and adaptation. Its adaptation reports conclude there has been a lack of actionable progress in preparing for the UK’s changing climate, and an absence of leadership and strategy at a national level.

Without forward planning and adaptation measures, managing the effects of storms, floods and extreme heat in UK hospitals, prisons, care homes and social housing will grow ever harder – with severe consequences for the health of many people in the most at-risk communities who live in these buildings.

Getting prepared

My research on societal-wide risk and resilience focuses on how we understand risks and what we can do to prepare for them.

While we cannot stop further increases in the magnitude or frequency of adverse weather, there are things people can do to reduce the consequences on their way of life – by following the principles of adaptation.

Being prepared to protect yourself and vulnerable neighbours in advance of local emergencies such as a flood will become more important as the pressure increases on emergency services. These services will also need different equipment and training to cope with the challenges of responding to such emergencies.

Lobbying supermarkets and asking what they are doing to support food resilience can help build more sustainable food systems, especially as agriculture gets threatened globally and supply chains get more precarious due to extreme weather or crop failure.

Encouraging organisations responsible for people’s recreation, heritage and culture to safeguard precious trees, buildings and other places of importance to communities will protect the things we feel represent us and our way of life. In the UK, we have seen the enormous impact of losing symbolic cultural assets such as the Sycamore Gap tree, or National Trust and English Heritage buildings.

Having discussions in workplaces, schools and community spaces can help spark ideas about how to best plan for people’s wellbeing during heatwaves, storms and other extreme weather. Schools are closed on exceptional “snow days”, for example, but extending their inclement weather policies to cover flooding could help protect more people.

Creating a well-adapted nation is not easy. But positioning adaptation as part of a broader effort to meet wider societal needs (such as poverty, poor housing, health and economic growth) reframes the climate conversation from sacrifice and compensation to resilience and quality of life.

---

Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?

Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 47,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.

---

Rowena Hill receives funding from Research Councils and Local Authorities to complete work on the impacts of climate change. She is affiliated with the Climate Security National Foresight Group.

– ref. What does climate adaptation actually mean? An expert explains – https://theconversation.com/what-does-climate-adaptation-actually-mean-an-expert-explains-269122

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Anna-Louise Milne, Director of Graduate Studies and Research, University of London Institute in Paris

All along Paris’s River Seine, private foundation money has been pouring into older Parisian institutions to make their buildings hospitable to large modern conceptual works.

Crowds flock to the Bourse du Commerce, for example: once a grain and later a labour market, it has now been transformed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando into clean, white spaces. The same has happened at the recently opened Cartier Foundation, previously a hotel and commercial spaces. French architect Jean Nouvel has redesigned it as a vast contemporary art museum. Inside, it is all sharp lines and glass.

The Petit Palais, in contrast, has preserved its fin-de-siècle curves and contorted ironwork. It’s calm and free to enter, as all Paris city museums are. But there is more to why the Petit Palais is a particularly Parisian exception to the ever-richer landscape of art along the Seine.

In this grand old building, surprisingly, we encounter the “thrill of the modern”, as poet Charles Baudelaire defined it – when the fleeting occurrence meets the gravitas of the eternal in art.

The fleeting occurrence in this instance is Paname, an exhibition by the emerging painter Bilal Hamdad. It is a brilliant display of Baudelaire’s magical combination: a fresh, vibrant take on city life installed amid the treasures of the museum’s permanent collection. The show features 20 of Hamdad’s works, including two specially created that were inspired by the museum’s collection.

Born in Algeria in 1987 and now based in Paris, Hamdad is a regular visitor to the Petit Palais, where he has absorbed the lessons of great masters like Claude Monet, Paul Gaugin and Edgar Degas. His work draws from them in his compositions of ordinary life in contemporary cities. Solitude is a regular theme – as it was for Baudelaire who, like Hamdad, paid particular attention to the city’s labourers as he trudged along the Seine, toolbox in hand.

In Hamdad’s glorious large-format oil paintings, we see women with bags on both shoulders waiting for the metro, and young men perched on railings waiting for whatever work or encounter might come their way. There are market scenes with older women selling corn on the cob from shopping caddies, and boys shifting contraband cigarettes to middle-class folk with their sunglasses and carefully strapped handbags.

Though Hamdad works from photographs, which he has described as his sketchbook, his works have a depth and intensity that transforms the ordinary into the mythical, casting the details of contemporary fashion and posture in a timeless, mysterious light. Most enigmatic in this show is the subtle reworking of Édouard Manet’s 1882 painting Un bar aux Folies Bergère, which hangs in the Courtauld Gallery in London.

In the original, Manet plays with the effects of a large, tarnished mirror behind the bar. The mirror reflects the hidden back of a barmaid who looks blankly outwards alongside the bottles and other enticing offerings on the bar. In the reflection, Manet depicts her both as the object of our peering gaze and as removed from us, more delicate and perhaps more vulnerable.

Hamdad’s Sérénité d’une ombre (Serenity of a shadow, 2024) develops the intimacy of Manet’s back view, pushing it further into the shadows. The brightly lit foreground shows us the bar, recognisable as Manet’s with an equally beautiful bowl of shiny oranges and a delicate rose composition. In the background, we can just make out a barman – dressed in a white shirt that suggests the crumples of a working day moulded onto a working body.

The moment is wistful and withdrawn, yet it echoes with the clatter and confusion of the contemporary city. It hangs, as does all of Hamdad’s installation, among the eclectic galleries of the Petit Palais – a window onto a different sort of time. In this conversation between old and new, the viewer knows immediately that this work is here to last.

Bilal Hamdad’s Paname is on at the Petit Palais in Paris until February 8 2026

---

Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.

---

Anna-Louise Milne does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Bilal Hamdad’s Paname shows the thrill of new art when embedded within the grandeur of the old – https://theconversation.com/bilal-hamdads-paname-shows-the-thrill-of-new-art-when-embedded-within-the-grandeur-of-the-old-270196

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jack Shelbourn, Senior Lecturer and Director of Photography, University of Lincoln

Millions of us unwind with reality television. It’s comforting, social and, when the format is good, brilliantly engineered drama. But there’s an invisible carbon cost to all that escapism.

Plenty of attention has been paid to the carbon footprint of big Hollywood productions, but less so to unscripted TV. Yet the key emitters are similar: travel, energy and materials.

The British Film Institute’s Screen New Deal, a landmark 2020 report on the environmental impact of UK Film Production, found that an average tent-pole show (a high-budget feature that is expected to be a success) produces around 2,840 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂e) during production. That’s roughly the annual absorption of more than 3,000 acres of forest, and the equivalent of 11 one-way trips to the Moon.

In television, the pattern persists. Bafta’s latest industry data, drawn from thousands of UK and international TV productions, reports about 174,000 tonnes of CO₂e were generated from productions completed in 2024. Travel and transport made up around 65% of that footprint, and energy a further 21%.

These productions burned some 3 million litres of generator fuel last year, while only 2% of recorded car journeys were electric. Flights alone contributed about 30% of total industry emissions in 2024.

And these numbers cover only the “making of” column. They don’t include the downstream emissions from distribution data centres and the devices we watch on. Nor do they capture what economists call “induced demand” – when screen stories inspire consumption.

The Traitors and the carbon of desire

Take The Traitors. The BBC show’s core is psychological: people at a table trying to read each other. Yet the look and feel are scaffolded by a language of luxury adventure – convoys of vehicles, helicopter shots and speedboats.

When a prestige reality show glamorises high-carbon lifestyles, it doesn’t just burn emissions during production – it normalises this behaviour. Research on ITV’s dating show Love Island has shown how a programme’s aesthetic and product associations can directly spike audience consumption patterns, from fast fashion to cosmetic procedures.

Bafta’s climate content analysis also highlights how screen narratives can legitimise environmentally harmful choices through repetition and tone. This fits within a wider media pattern where screen culture reinforces certain identities, aspirations and ways of living. When the “aspirational” look is carbon-heavy, the influence is felt far beyond the set.

In the Traitors, contestants are driven around the Scottish Highlands in vintage Land Rover Defenders, complete with custom number plates. The car-selling website Autotrader saw 90,000 searches for this model in January 2024 when The Traitors was on air – a spike seen again in 2025 during Celebrity Traitors.

Under Bafta’s sustainability framework, most UK broadcasters now require a carbon action plan before filming begins, and must measure their full carbon impact after completing each show. Compliance is encouraged through certifications and is increasingly written into broadcaster contracts.

That’s progress – but the Bafta data shows stubborn problems remain: planes, road fleets, diesel power and material waste.

Practical fixes exist – trains instead of short-haul flights, economy class where flying is unavoidable, electric vehicles instead of diesel, plant-forward catering and circular set design.

Cutting one in four flights and switching a third of road journeys to electric vehicles would, on Bafta’s modelling, significantly reduce the sector’s footprint. Replacing diesel with hydrotreated vegetable oil and prioritising hybrids could drive further reductions.

Changing what ‘exciting’ looks like

The most powerful lever isn’t always new technology, it’s commissioning – choosing formats that don’t need high-carbon logistics to feel exciting. We don’t need to cancel fantasy to cut emissions – we need to change what “exciting” looks like. Three shifts would get us there fast:

1. Rebalance the grammar of spectacle.

Reality TV doesn’t become dull when you strip out the expensive convoy. The Traitors proves the opposite. The most gripping moments in the show happen around the table, not behind the wheel. Drama doesn’t need horsepower to hold our attention.

2. Localise by default.

The biggest savings come when productions avoid flights altogether. Productions that hire local crews and cast and choose accessible locations can slash travel emissions while investing in communities. The BFI Sustainable Screen: Black Samphire report shows how integrating local action, from beach cleans to a “climate positive clause” in production, can turn community engagement into both a sustainability and legacy strategy.

3. Design low-energy craft into the look.

Cameras and lighting can now deliver strong results with smaller, fewer fixtures and more reflective control, cutting power and transport without harming picture quality. In my teaching and research, I’ve demonstrated that replacing all the lights and clutter on a film set with a single light source, which is then bounced around the set to create the illusion of many lights, can replace multi-head rigs for many scenes, slashing energy use while improving speed and safety.

Productions that rely less on diesel and long-haul logistics are cheaper to insure, easier to schedule, quieter on location and more resilient to fuel-price shocks and grid constraints.

Audiences aren’t powerless. I love The Traitors – I’ve watched all the UK seasons and some international ones too. It’s a great way to get through the post-Christmas blues. But it’s time we asked broadcasters to publish their carbon action plans in plain English – and for us to celebrate productions that make their low-carbon choices visible through smart logistics and elegant craft.

We’ve learned to recognise intimacy coordinators and accessibility credits – sustainability leads should be there too.

Reality TV isn’t the villain of the climate story. But it is a powerful amplifier of taste. If commissioners prioritise formats that deliver drama without flights, convoys and diesel, and crews embrace low-energy craft, the sector can cut much of its footprint – while telling even better stories.

---

The climate crisis has a communications problem. How do we tell stories that move people – not just to fear the future, but to imagine and build a better one? This article is part of Climate Storytelling, a series exploring how arts and science can join forces to spark understanding, hope and action.

---

Jack Shelbourn is affiliated with The Green party of England and Wales, as a member.

– ref. The hidden carbon cost of reality TV shows like The Traitors – https://theconversation.com/the-hidden-carbon-cost-of-reality-tv-shows-like-the-traitors-269675