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First Move with Julia Chatterley
AI for Good Global Summit Underway in Geneva; World Food Programme Training Connects Young People to the Global Digital Economy; Meta Rolls Out New Service to Take on Twitter; How to "Green Up" Entire City Blocks of Buildings; June was Hottest on Record by a Huge Margin. Aired 9-10a ET
Aired July 06, 2023 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CNN US SIMULCAST
[09:15:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JULIA CHATTERLEY, CNN HOST, FIRST MOVE: Well, welcome to "First Move". This Thursday and a reminder of today's top stories including what you were just
hearing the Minsk mystery the President of Belarus telling CNN, the Wagner Chief Yevgeny Prigozhin is in Russia, not Belarus, raising all sorts of
questions about the Wagner Group's future and the deal that ended Prigozhin's rebellion.
And a Russian -- was Prigozhin ever in Minsk at all, Russia also allegedly raiding Prigozhin's home and allegedly finding wings, weapons and more. And
that's include China's challenge U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen arriving in Beijing for talks, paving the way I think everyone hopes for a
future President Xi President Biden's Summit.
But serious trade issues divide the economic superpowers and expectations once again for the trip a relatively low. And a Thread to mega day for Meta
has Mark Zuckerberg's Twitter like challenger debuts some 10 million users have apparently already signed up Thread's butting heads with Elon Musk,
but is it a social media platform contender or a pretender we'll be discussing.
And from Threads to reds, oh dear U.S. Futures falling and European markets losing more than 1.5 percent across the board there for the majors. As you
can see, after a major U.S. jobs jolt, employers added almost half a million jobs last month. That's according to ADP that should be great news.
It was more than double expectations but of course, the numbers now fueling fears of a further rate hike by the Federal Reserve later this month. And
tied to that we also saw an immediate jump in bond yields benchmark U.S. 10 year yields shooting about 4 percent for the first time since March. The
big question now is will Friday's U.S. jobs report confirm this apparent strength. Though the Federal Reserve has a big challenge, it's still on
their hands.
OK, let's move on now to a world where artificial intelligence can help us tackle some of the most pressing humanitarian challenges. That's the vision
behind the AI for Good Global Summit currently being held in Geneva. It brings together AI experts and 40 agencies from the United Nations
including the World Food Programme, to showcase just how technologies like AI can help and already are?
Already in use is SKAI a tool that assesses damaged needs and resources after a disaster and can coordinate a swift response. And the mission for
the World Food Programme is clear and critical with 345 million people facing high levels of food insecurity this year. Just to give you a sense,
that's more than twice as many as back in 2020.
Now joining us to discuss is Bernhard Kowatsch. He's Head of the Innovation Accelerator at the World Food Programme. Great to have you on the show
Bernard! Let's just start by discussing what the innovation accelerator is and does?
BERNHARD KOWATSCH, HEAD OF INNOVATION ACCELERATOR, WFP: So the innovation accelerator of the World Food Programme, identify supports and scales,
innovations and technologies such as startups that can help us either make emergency response more effective and efficient, or sustainably end hunger.
And as you're saying, like 345 million people marching towards starvation, like the need has never been higher. And we need innovations to make a step
change towards like reaching all of them and also reach a world without hunger.
CHATTERLEY: I mean, you have all sorts of hubs, I notice in Kenya, Latin America, Colombia, Jordan and Tanzania. So you've got operations going on
elsewhere, I think I assume to identify need. How do you pick projects?
Let's talk about that because there's a whole host that we'll get into more detail on but how do you choose? How do you pilot them and then go in for
perhaps scalability and push money towards them to see what you can do to improve things?
KOWATSCH: So as part of the World Food Programme is the world's largest humanitarian organization fighting hunger. It's like, we have operations in
120 countries and territories, whether it's in Ukraine, in South Sudan or in Venezuela, like this is where we like -- we have people on the ground
who are helping those who are most vulnerable, the people in need.
And so like what we do, we're looking for the best innovations in startups globally. And then we match make them with problems that we're seeing on
the ground. We typically then invite them to what we call an innovation boot camp.
And we support teams with up to $100,000 of grant funding, hands on support and connections to partners in our field offices and then again the best
teams they go into scaling.
[09:20:00]
KOWATSCH: But then again, the best teams, they go into scaling. And so some of those innovations and startups, they already reach millions of people
and improve people's lives.
CHATTERLEY: OK, I've got so many questions. Where does the money come from? First and foremost, is it part of the donations that come in to the World
Food Program, you just take a chunk out and say, Look, we're going to put this towards innovation.
KOWATSCH: Now, so all of the World Food Program is voluntarily funded. So like, when you're donating to the World Food Program, or also, like through
a fundraising app, share the meal, which is like, you know, you can actually go to the app, and like, for 80 cents, you can feed a child for a
full day.
Like, you can actually choose where your money goes, you can say, like, I want to support, like, providing emergency aid in Ukraine, or like, support
women's empowerment in some way like, so there's different things you can do. As Innovation Accelerator, we also raise our own funds.
So like, we are relying on governments, with the German government, the U.S. government, but also like large corporates like Google, or the Bill
and Melinda Gates Foundation that support us, including individuals that, you know, they say we believe that innovation is the way to help people in
need, and like using this private sector investment logic to also then move to the next level of impact.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, it's fantastic. I mean, we've talked about the World Food Programs efforts around the world on many occasions on this show, but I'd
never actually heard of the Innovation Accelerator. And I love the fact that you not only try and improve the situation in wherever you are in the
world.
But there are also jobs involved, and we'll get to it. You mentioned Google. So let's talk about the SKAI project and the partnership between
Google research and what you're doing there and how that's utilizing artificial intelligence to create better solutions for people and identify
problems.
KOWATSCH: No, SKAI is really exciting for us where the basic problem that we're tackling with that is that in an emergency response, and we actually
use this in the emergency, like you will remember the earthquake in Syria and Turkey that was devastating earlier in the year.
What SKAI does, it uses satellite images and AI to detect buildings and damage assessments. And we can do this within 48 hours now instead of
previously this would have taken two to three weeks of people manually looking at satellite images. Now, imagine the impact that this could have
that, you know, now we have with much greater precision.
Like two weeks earlier, we have data that informs us, you know, where do we need to bring the food? Where will we find more people who are actually
suffering from hunger in immediate needs? And like, so this is something that I'm really, really excited about? Because it just shows the power of
artificial intelligence, not only because, yes, it's faster.
But you know, it can improve our operation and improve people's lives as well, you know, because we can reach them a lot earlier.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, it just makes you far more efficient. Can you also use this to look at farming areas as well, that are either damaged or the crops
are perhaps not growing the way you'd like them to just to give you some sense of an indication of forward prediction about challenges that you
might have in crop yields as well, which is going to limit the amount of resources that you have, it's clearly been a problem that we've seen in
Ukraine.
KOWATSCH: Absolutely. And it's one of the areas we have another tool that's called "HungerMapLIVE" it's actually online, hungermap.wfp.org. Everybody
can look at that. Where we also use ground data like surveys we are doing as well food Pro, but overlay this with artificial intelligence.
And the team is actually working on now forecasting food security, including other indicators that we're seeing, like in terms of drought and
other things. But you know, even in our portfolio for the Innovation Accelerator, we have a startup called ignition, they are actually offering
the same precision agriculture information that large scale farms in the U.S. might have to smallholder farmers in developing countries.
And they already have 2.6 million customers, smaller farmers in developing countries that now can improve the yield up to 20 percent purely because of
AI satellite images in making the knowledge more accessible and democratize the access to this kind of knowledge.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, the power of technology. One of the other projects that you've worked on is impact and it's about connecting young people in food
insecure regions and providing them with skills, digitization skills, data analytic training. Talk to me about that, because it caught my attention
because we talk a lot about labeling data, and analyzing data to train artificial intelligence models.
And these are the kinds of skills that you're providing with these people. Talk to me about those roles and to what extent they go on to get jobs as a
result?
KOWATSCH: Now, the basic idea behind impact was to empower people that are young that you know, they have a future in front of them, but because they
have to flee from a war or they just happen to be growing up in an area where they don't have economic opportunity, like how could we bring them
into the digital economy?
[09:25:00]
And like historically, organization will train people to become carpenter or something. But now why not actually choose to do digital training and
bring people connected into jobs online. And this is what impact does, it's now active in multiple countries, including like Iraq, in Lebanon, in
Kenya, where we've also been proving that it's not only the very first part that.
You know, when people have never worked with a computer before, the very first thing you can do is like do data labeling claiming that you actually
need to use to train artificial intelligence data. But then, you know, once they have done that, they can go into actually doing other jobs, you know,
becoming a website designer, becoming a social media manager.
These are the types of jobs that you can actually do remotely. And all of a sudden, they can provide for themselves in the family, rather than being
dependent on donations and food assistance from the World Food Program.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, and we were just showing statistics of how many people this is actually achieved. And actually, the majority, and it's a minor
majority, but it caught my attention, female students, so empowering women in particular.
KOWATSCH: You know, this is one of the areas like that we are choosing to do in all of our programs, when we're selecting startups, or innovations,
we always also cross checking, not only for female leadership on those themes, but also like whether those innovations are fostering gender
equality.
And I think as per design, like some of these innovations, like impact, lend themselves to, yes, we also on purpose, wanted to train up young women
to actually become part of the digital workflows and provide for themselves into families.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, it's important for all, but it's great to hear women getting involved in this too, because I do think in certain parts of the
world, certainly, they're getting left behind and it's frightening. Regulation, you're at an event that's doing a great job, I think of
promoting the beneficial uses of technologies like artificial intelligence.
But certainly when we start to talk about generative, artificial intelligence, this fear, big industry players are warning about things like
AI Armageddon, what's your view on that? As someone who's saying, look, OK, we can perhaps talk about the risks, but we also need to understand the
beneficial aspects of this technology, and we're utilizing it today.
KOWATSCH: It's definitely an area where I think you do need to have a solid look into like, the ethics of AI, but also like the equality of access to
that like, including, like not just having access in like, Silicon Valley, and like different parts of, you know, countries that are happened to be
developed.
But also like, how do you actually bring in community groups, governments, like people who are currently not having access, or maybe not even having
access to internet right now, or electricity, or running water? I think this is an element of when you're starting to look into this, how to leave
no one behind in that.
And like, actually having an informed choice of doing things, I think there's an aspect that is really important. But then again, it's one of
those aspects of like, just calling for everybody to actually join forces in the full responsible development of technology where we want to develop
a better future.
A future where technology is improving people's lives in there, it will be important to actually develop and also like standards and coming together
on some of these innovations where you don't want to put people at risk, but you want to improve their lives. So this is going to be the big goal.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, the balance that has to be found. And very quickly, for those that may be thinking about donating and just give us the numbers
again, of the people that the Innovation Accelerator has directly helped, how many lives you've touched?
KOWATSCH: So as Innovation Accelerator, we support innovations in startups in across the globe. And like, this is where last year, those innovations
have impacted the lives of 37 million people already. So since we started every single year, the number of people that they have reached has doubled.
And what's also to show like, you think, maybe it's the pilot, maybe it's a small startup that will first supporting. Those startups once they're
essentially also through the acceleration phase. They've totally raised a total of $200 million of grant funding already. Just going to show like,
you know, you can start small, but you can have big impact.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, incredible. That was slightly longer than I was looking for. But to your point 37 million people helped and $200 million of capital
that they've raised themselves, which says a great deal to me, Bernhard, great to chat to you. Thank you for the work that you and your team are
doing and great to understand, the Head of the Innovation Accelerator there at the World Food Program. Thank you.
OK, still ahead, the Musk versus Zuckerberg cage match taken to a whole new level well, a different platform. The gloves are off as met as new Threads
app debuts, will it pack a powerful punch in the social media walls. We'll discuss after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:30:00]
CHATTERLEY: Welcome back to "First Move", U.S. stocks losing ground in early traded this Thursday. Tech stocks seeing the biggest pullback stocks
lower strong U.S. private sector jobs data fuels fears of more fed tightening we saw that, of course tech stocks very sensitive to interest
rate rises.
And we saw the bond markets moving immediately before today's report. Those futures we're already pointing to an 85 percent chance of another rate hike
later this month anyway. And we're going to get a further read on the strength of the jobs market Friday when that all important U.S. jobs report
for June will be released but right now as you can see off some 1 percent across the board in early trade.
Now, Meta today unspooling, a new social media app that Ed hopes can take on Twitter. Threads, already turning heads with some 10 million people
signing up for the service in just the first few hours. But hey, that's still a far cry from Twitter's audience of around 300 million active users.
Can Threads, thread the needle and one day match Musk? Here to have a go at answering that Sara Fischer joins me now. I'm great and I can't wait to
hear your insight on this. The key difference between them is that we know Instagram already has what 2 billion active users and they've made it very
easy to transfer between one and the other. What do you make of this Sara, is it a contender?
SARA FISCHER, CNN MEDIA ANALYST: It's absolutely a contender, Julia. I cover technology and media. So every time there's a new Twitter competitor
that launches, whether it's Bluesky or Mastodon or Spill, I sign up. And I will tell you the amount of notifications I'm getting on my phone, from new
followers from engagement with my Threads is blowing up in a way that these other competitors never did.
Now, it could be because I have a little bit of a larger Instagram following. But I think it's just because this app is so accessible to so
many people. You're going to get a lot of conversions very, very early on. Now the question is, can you continue to convert those Instagram users you
said you know well over a billion worldwide over to the Threads users and a pace and the clip that can really put some competitive pressure on Twitter.
[09:35:00]
I'm actually pretty hopeful that it probably could. I think that the fact that it's so accessible and there's so many people using Instagram daily
means that they're going to be able to convert people and put some serious pressure on Elon Musk's Twitter. Of course, as you know, this is coming at
a time when Twitter is really struggling to reel advertisers back in.
Its subscription product, Twitter blue is not doing that great. It's almost like the perfect moment that Mark Zuckerberg could have launched the app.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, it's ripe for some real disruption to your point. And there are so many similarities, I think in the use of it probably
purposefully to allow people to switch but I guess one of the questions I would ask is, the audiences are different. Those that use Instagram is
different I think, from those that use Twitter and the kind of information that you get from Twitter.
And Elon Musk have hinted at that on social media, when he tweeted out about the Threads launch and suggested that you know, he'd rather have, I
think I've got it here. He said it's infinitely preferable to be attacked by strangers on Twitter, than indulging false happiness of hide the pain on
Instagram.
He has a point it's sort of a point about moderation, perhaps, and the differences there, but also the kind of use of this platform. Sara, what do
you think?
FISCHER: I don't think you can compare a tech space app to a video and sharing app. And so I actually think Threads is very similar to Twitter.
And I don't think that the user experience deals at all like Instagram, there are two key differences, though. One is that when you converted your
profile over from Instagram over into Threads, if you are already verified, you become verified, again on Threads.
Now the difference is that with Twitter, the people who were commonly verified or people like journalists, public officials, people in
government, municipalities on Instagram, the people who are verified are like artists, creators, and etcetera. And so they might have to tinker a
little bit with that.
But one huge advantage here, I'd say, Julia, is that when I imported my Threads account from Instagram, all of my privacy settings, all of my
safety settings automatically switched over. Right now with Twitter, it's so hard to even be able to tell what are the rules, right, like, what's
good to see what's not?
What are the limits for what I can tweet, what's not because they're changing all day under Elon Musk, at least with this new app Threads? For
the first time in a platform like that, I actually felt like I had some consistency. And that's what users have been craving under the Elon Musk
regime, but they're just not getting it.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, I mean, part of that is the monetization problem at Twitter, cutting a huge chunk of the workforce to try and save money, the
verification system that's now paid for or charged by Twitter. How do you think and what do you think Mark Zuckerberg feels about monetizing this
deep product?
Admittedly, its early days, but the real challenges for Twitter have come in actually trying to balance the books.
FISCHER: Every time Meta launches some sort of new product, whether it was a long time ago, their Cryptocurrency product DM, or it was this latest
bout with the Metaverse. The consistent thing has always been we're going to capture your attention and sell ads around it, that's always been the
business model.
And so that's going to be the business model for Threads, we're going to get a lot of user engagement, we're going to put ads in around it and Meta
is very good at that copy paste strategy. When they imported stories from Snapchat years ago, they were very quick to input vertical video ads that
you saw on Snapchat into Instagram and Facebook.
And by the way, they did it so well that they were the ones that got ad agencies to really adopt the format, not Snapchat, which had invented it.
And so I think that you're going to see a large advertising push out of Meta around this product. The only question, Julia, is can it get enough
mass user adoption for Meta data think it's worth it and not sunset it.
If you go to axios.com, this morning, I have a huge long chart of every single feature that they've ever created, whether it was a clone of the
Cameo app or the neighbor's next door app. and a lot of times after like 20 months, they sunset the app because it doesn't have a user engagement.
I will say when it comes to Threads. Mark Zuckerberg said yesterday that they had over 2 million people that have registered in fact, if you take a
look at the conversions on the app, it looks like it's probably over 3 million right now. A lot of the apps that I highlighted that were sunsetted
(ph), Julia.
They only had a few 100,000. So already, I don't think that you're going to be putting Threads in the bucket of the graveyard apps that have died under
Meta.
CHATTERLEY: Ever he tweeted. I was going to say he tweeted there but he didn't need threaded if that's what we're allowed to say. I think there
should be a public conversation app with 1 billion plus people on it. This is what Zuckerberg posted on Wednesday. Twitter had the opportunity to do
this but hasn't nailed it. Hopefully we will.
So we may be talking about a few million today. He's aiming for a billion plus, we'll reconvene on this conversation. And Sara, great to have you on
as always, thank you for your wisdom. OK, still to come on "First Move", easing the climate crisis one block at a time I'll speak to the CEO of a
startup looking to convert American cities to green energy, that's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:40:00]
CHATTERLEY: Welcome back to "First Move", up on the rooftops of buildings all around the world. A quiet revolution is taking place. Solar panels and
other forms of renewable energy replacing fossil fueled reliant, devices but it's clearly not happening fast enough. Our next guest is dedicated to
bringing smart green technologies to all communities, especially the underserved.
BlocPower uses its own software to analyze finance and upgrade buildings block by block. The company says it can reduce energy costs by up to 50
percent. And greenhouse gas emissions by up to 70 percent. Donnel Baird is the CEO and co-Founder of BlocPower, and he joins us now.
Welcome to the show. It's great to have you on. I saw that you got the time dreamer of the year award in 2022. So congratulations on that. Give me the
BlocPower dream. What's your ambition?
DONNEL BAIRD, CEO AND FOUNDER OF BLOCPOWER: Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here with you and your audience. BlocPower is focused on
electrifying buildings, removing fossil fuel equipment for heating and air conditioning, and hot water heating, taking all of that fossil fuel
equipment out of buildings in the same way that electric vehicle manufacturers.
Take fossil fuel engines out of vehicles, you replace those fossil fuel engines with all electric engines. We replace fossil fuel equipment and
buildings with all electric equipment for heating, cooling and hot water, because we can electrify one building.
That means we can do a whole city block, because we can do a whole city block, it means we can actually electrify a whole city filled with
buildings. And that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions in America by 20 to 30 percent.
CHATTERLEY: OK, I'm already loving, your ambition and your enthusiasm for this. Let's take a step back because I know you've completed more than 5000
energy efficiency projects nationwide. 1200 buildings, I believe just in New York City, and you've sort of given us the grand theme, which I love.
But how do you go in there and say, even to the building owners, hey, these years sort of greenhouse gas emissions. These are the upgrades that we can
do and now someone's got to pay for it. So let me show you that this sort of paperwork and help you understand how you can do this and how can pay
dividends?
[09:45:00]
BAIRD: Well, great question though, one of the first things we do is we have to educate each and every building owner on the possibilities for
electrifying and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from their particular building. But it's not just greenhouse gas emissions we're also removing
the source of air pollution.
A study from Stanford came out last week that says that the gas ovens and gas hot water heating systems and gas heating and air conditioning systems
in American homes produce nitrogen dioxide, they produce methane, they produce benzene, they produce so much benzene that that cooking with this
equipment in your home is actually worse than breathing in secondhand cigarette smoke.
And so we educate customers and building owners about not only the impact for the planet, and the impact for saving money on their high fossil fuel,
oil and gas bill costs that we pay on a monthly basis for energy. But we also educate families on the threat that burning fossil fuels in your home
poses to the health and well-being of your children.
These devices, these fossil fuel equipment, they leak benzene and nitrogen dioxide even when they're not on. And so when our children are sleeping,
the Stanford studies are showing us that we're all breathing in this toxic pollution from burning fossil fuels in our home. So we explain all of that
to our customers who own and operate buildings.
Second, we've worked with Jeff Bezos and his philanthropy to build a digital model of 125 million buildings across America. The U.S. Department
of Energy under President Biden and Jeff Bezos has funded our work to build a digital twin or a digital model of every building in America.
And so we can use machine learning and statistics to analyze and understand the electrification and sustainability possibilities in each and every
building across America. And so we share all of that information with our building owners and with our customers. And hopefully, they'll make the
right decision for them and their family.
CHATTERLEY: Wow, there was a lot of information in there again. I haven't read the study, and I can't challenge the science, nor do I want to because
I don't want to get distracted in the sense. But it has to be a conversation. Talk to me about how it's financed. So even if you have the
owner of a building on board, and they've got loads of tenants, it's a logistical nightmare to make a lot of these changes.
How much time does it take to convert a building and who finances it? Is it just a case of saying, look, this is going to pay dividends in 5 years, in
10 years, you just have to suck up the cost because at this point in time, particularly for building owners in big cities, spending any kind of money
is a tough choice, even if it's for the good of your tenants.
BAIRD: You've asked great questions about construction and financing. What are the logistics of actually implementing this vision? And we don't think
that we can tell building owners, hey, go figure it out on your own. This is too complicated. Anyone who's renovated their home recently, whether
it's a basement renovation or getting new cupboards in the kitchen.
Construction projects are complex, they can be expensive. They certainly can be aggravating and frustrating. So yes, overhauling and replacing the
fossil fuel infrastructure of your building, of your home, of your apartment building, of your church, of your synagogue, of your mosque.
These are complicated construction processes. And what my company does is work with construction firms to plan out a multi-phase step by step
approach to handle all of the project management and logistics of electrifying buildings for each and every building so that's construction.
And we use augmented reality and all the latest construction project management software from Procore. That's one of our partners are the
biggest construction software firm in the world. They donated a bunch of software to us so that we can use our software to further use their
software to further our mission.
On financing, we've partnered with Goldman Sachs and Microsoft, two of the biggest investors in our startup. They provided about $100 million dollars
for us to get started providing a low cost green energy lease to building owners. We don't think that it's fair to ask homeowners and families to
just figure out the cost of $10,000, $20,000, $30,000 upfront to pay for building electrification.
So the financing from Microsoft and Goldman allows us to stretch out the cost of building electrification over time, over 15 years. And so it
functions just like a home mortgage. Most folks don't have enough money laying around to buy a home with cash in their bank account.
They have to go to a bank and get a mortgage and that mortgage stretches out payments over time to make the process of buying a home affordable.
[09:50:00]
Our financing from Goldman and Microsoft allows us to do that. So that regular working American families can access the full benefits of clean
energy and electrification in their home. And hopefully, the cost of making that monthly payment for their clean energy, electrification upgrades is
lower than the cost that they were paying for fossil fuels for the renovation.
CHATTERLEY: Yes. The question is how quickly, I've run out of time. And I have a million other questions for you. But it's fascinating to your work.
BAIRD: I have to come back.
CHATTERLEY: I know. I'm already I'm locking you in, you're coming back to talk about it. Thank you. Because there's, there's good innovation in this
the financing of this is key. And you have some great partners too. And I want to talk about the bigger ambitions because mapping 125 million
buildings across America you have a challenge on your hands, great to have you on.
BAIRD: We have no choice, but I'm so -- here with you.
CHATTERLEY: Yes.
BAIRD: Happy to talk.
CHATTERLEY: We have to act, the CEO and Founder of BlocPower. We should reconvene, sir, thank you. OK, still to come. This week, the planet saw its
hottest day on record. We know it's partly a human made problem, but this year, nature, also playing a part too, details after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHATTERLEY: Welcome back to "First Move", this week saw the hottest global temperature ever recorded. That's according to two climate tracking
agencies. On Tuesday, the average world temperature climbed above 17 degrees Celsius. And experts are warning the record could be broken several
more times this year.
Joining us now is CNN's Chief Climate Correspondent Bill Weir. Bill, it's the same old but this is a triple whammy. We're approaching summer in the
northern hemisphere we have the impact of El Nino and global warming all tied in and we're not even at peak summer yet.
BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Exactly and sadly, this is sort of how it begins. If we're going to move past 1.5 degrees that ceiling set
by the Paris Accords. World Meteorological Organization predicts we have about a 66 percent chance of blowing past that in just the next couple of
years.
And this is how it happens, a record set on Monday, broken on Tuesday. It would tie yesterday, as you say it's just over 17 degrees Celsius, that's
just less than 63 degrees Fahrenheit. And that sounds like a perfectly pleasant temperature. But you have to account that includes the half of the
planet that is in winter right now.
And we're seeing high temperatures in Antarctica, as well as in the northern reaches of -- way on the Arctic Circle where on Monday it was
warmer than Miami. So the strange anomaly of this and so much of that heat is locked up in the ocean. Julia, I can think of a more frightening unit of
measurement than Hiroshima is per second.
But that's how they measure the excess energy that is trapped by heat trapping pollution out there. A few years ago we were our jaws are on the
floor when it was announced that the oceans are absorbing five Hiroshima is per second.
[09:55:00]
The energy of that atomic bomb and World War Two, now it's up to 10 and a big reason for that is because the southern hemisphere has lost an area of
sea ice about the size of India. And instead of all of that white ice reflecting sunlight, it's now Dark Ocean absorbing.
CHATTERLEY: Wow, I've only got about 30 seconds left. Do we have any predictions based on not hitting those Paris climate targets of how many
Hiroshima is we're talking about in the near future? That's a phenomenon --
WEIR Yes, I mean, it just seems like we are we're destined to go past it. Stopping it around too, would be, key to saving as much coral as much life
on Earth as we can or still agency to avoid the absolute worst. But here we are. It's the age of broken record breaking.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, we'll keep banging the drum bell for more action devastating consequences. Thank you as always, though, we are there. OK.
And that's it for the show. If you've missed any of our interviews today that will be on my Twitter and Instagram pages you can search
@jchatterleycnn. "Connect the World" is up next.
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