The making of CNN Future Summit: Saving Planet Earth

Watching a television programme in the making is an eye-opening experience.

Actually, it’s a bit like watching a can of soup being made – the ingredients are all pre-determined and the end result is already known.

What you’re there to witness is the stirring and the mixing, but within the guidelines of the recipe.

For example, clap when they tell you to and if discussions become over-heated but time is up, they are cut off mid-stream anyway, sit still during the commercial breaks and if you ask a question that’s out of the agenda, it is cut.

I was at the filming of the CNN Future Summit: Saving Planet Earth programme in Singapore. Hosting it was the irrepressible Richard Quest, who I have to say is quite the consummate television presenter.

You have to be able to multi-task well to do what he does – listen to voices in your head, giving you instructions; speak to an audience that’s “out there”; engage with the “live” audience in the studio; control the discussions so that they fall within the set format and parameters of the programme – ie the “live” discussions must jive with the already-filmed-and-edited bits to make a comprehensible whole.

On the panel were experts and personalities I would love to spend time with and discuss the weather with – Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, President of Iceland; Dr Barrie Pittock, an Australian climatologist; Sunita Narain, advisor to India’s Prime Minister on climate change; Bjorn Lomborg, known as the “Skeptical Environmentalist”, and adventurer Bertrand Piccard who flew the first non-stop balloon flight around the world.

I particularly enjoyed the digs they took at each other. Lomborg, the author of “Cool It”, who believes that there are more important issues than climate change for the world to worry about, got the most jibes.

Piccard said he was surprised “by the people who try to get fame in the world by denying the obvious”. Sunita said it was time “that the skeptics and contrarians get pushed off the fence, we need one voice and we need to do something about it.”

Amid the dissension and discussion though, there was some consensus, well, partly.

1. The world needs safe, renewable and cheaper sources of alternative energy.

2. The technology is presently available for new energy sources. Grimsson says we must learn to harness the fire that’s below us and above us – ie the fire in the earth and the sun.

3. Iceland went from 80% dependent on coal to now 100% dependent on clean energy sources. By doing so, it saved three times “the gross national income of my country”, said Grimsson, who added that 90 countries around the world have the capability to do this.

4. Arguing for the developing world, Sunita said these renewable sources needed to be made cheaper. At the moment, 13% of the world’s energy comes from renewables. “We have to make it cheaper for developing countries to tap into,” she said.

5. Piccard, who is developing the world’s first solar-powered aeroplane, believes there needs to be a paradigm shift in the whole debate about climate change. “We shouldn’t be talking about climate change, which is seen as a threat to our lifestyles, but about the future of energy, which is an economic and business opportunity.”

6. Something as critical as the environment should not be left to politicians. As Piccard said, “The future of mankind is 1000s of years. The future of a politician is the next election. How can we expect vision from politicians?”

I am not sure how much of what we witnessed will be screened. Each time discussions got heated, Quest had to step in and tame the “lions”. Yet that was when it actually got interesting for the audience.

I guess I will just have to watch the finished programme to see for myself.

Note: CNN Future Summit: Saving Planet Earth airs on December 18, 22 and 23 at various times across the region.