The Documentary Podcast Folgen

Another chance to hear from some of the BBC's acclaimed series examining the seismic events shaping Afghanistan before and after this year's return to power of the Taliban. After last week's episode featuring Taliban founder Mullah Zaeef and former President Hamid Karzai, the BBC's chief international correspondent, Lyse Doucet, hears from a younger generation. Shaharzad Akbar was raised in a refugee camp in Pakistan in the 1990s, became the first Afghan woman to get a degree at Oxford University, and went on to run the country's Human Rights Commission. Arson Fahim and Meena Karimi are both gifted composers with no memory of life before the advent of a US-backed democracy in the country. All see their lives shaped by it, and all three have had to flee Kabul since the Taliban took over. What now for the dreams they cherished?Hear the whole series at bbcworldservice.com/afghanistan

ustin Rowlatt looks at the monumental challenge of weaning ourselves off fossil fuels. Solar and wind could meet all of humanity’s energy needs, but can we switch over before climate disaster strikes? According to clean-tech enthusiast and investor Ramez Naam, we have the means at our disposal. Our fossil-fuelled global economy has enabled a rapid collapse in the cost of renewable energy and electric vehicles. And now we are seeing a snowballing of government action to decarbonise our economies, according to UN climate negotiator Christiana Figueres. But many problems remain. Energy historian Vaclav Smil points out that we still have no easy way to store renewable energy, or use it to make billions of tonnes of cement and steel. Sheffield-based ITM Power hope that their green hydrogen could solve many of these problems. Plus, electricity historian Julie Cohn says another option might be to build a global electricity grid.

Two years after the first cases of a mysterious new virus were reported from China, host Nuala McGovern brings together experts in Switzerland, India and Israel who have been tracking the spread and impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and providing advice to governments and health officials. What have they learnt about the effects of the pandemic? What happens next and what are the lessons for the future?Nuala talks to Dr Emma Hodcroft, a molecular epidemiologist at the University of Bern in Switzerland, Dr Swapneil Parikh in Mumbai, India, and Professor Manfred Green, an epidemiologist based at the University of Haifa in Israel.