Improve Your English with Positive News: France's Clean POWER! Ep 800
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Hi there and welcome to this podcast from Adept English. Shall we do a news podcast today? I've not done one for a while, partly because what's been in the news has been so difficult. We are not a political podcast.

We're an English language podcast, and so there are topics which I'm not going to speak about. I like to be middle ground on politics, which can result in criticism from both sides. So let's try not to go there. But it has been a while since we did a news podcast, so let's put that right today. Let's do some positive news stories. We know how much you like those. ♪

Hello, I'm Hilary and you're listening to Adept English. We will help you to speak English fluently. All you have to do is listen. So, start listening now and find out how it works. Don't forget, as ever, to repeat your listening to give your English language learning the most useful boost. If you want to download hundreds of our previous podcasts...

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Now, as ever, positive news stories are quite hard to find. But one of the areas where there do tend to be more positive news stories, successes around the environment. So this week, reports that said in 2024, 95% of the power used in France was fossil free. That's fossil, F-O-S-S-I-L. And here we're talking fossil fuels.

So that means oil, gas, coal. Fuels extracted from the ground, in other words. 95% fossil-free energy. That is a remarkable achievement by France. And the rest of the world should be looking to France.

to see how they've done this. France relies heavily on nuclear fuel. That's N-U-C-L-E-A-R. Despite having very strong opinions against nuclear fuel when I was younger, I do now see that we have little choice but

to make greater use of nuclear energy. And safety levels are much more assured now than they were in the 1980s. So nuclear fuel made up 67% of France's total energy use last year.

After that came renewables at 28%. So that means things like hydropower, that's hydro, H-Y-D-R-O, or using water's force to capture energy, in other words. Hydropower accounted for much of that 28% renewable energy. Surprisingly, given how hot it can be in the summer in the south of France...

solar power, that's S-O-L-A-R, accounted for only 4% of the power generated.

The UK, of course, does far worse than this. We really should be learning lessons from the French. What a remarkable achievement and one which I hope will be emulated around the world. Actually, that news story was quite difficult to find. Why don't we celebrate this type of thing more? And why isn't the UK's energy policy to copy what France has done?

Another positive news story concerning the environment, which so easily slips off the agenda, don't you notice? Apparently in Denmark, in the city of Aarhus, that's A-A-R-H-U-S,

A project was started in January 2024 to get cafes in the city to use only recyclable cups for to-go coffee. In a coffee shop, in English, you'll be asked when you order, is that sit-in or to-go? If you sit in, that means you sit at a table in the cafe, you'll get a ceramic cup and saucer. If you say to-go, you'll get a cardboard cup.

to take away, often with a plastic lid. These, of course, aren't necessarily recyclable or people don't recycle them. So the to-go coffee cups are the ones that you take with you. Some people remember to take their own reusable coffee cup with them, but not many people do this. So the Danish project proposes

that all cafes in the city of Aarhus put their to-go coffee into reusable cups, more expensive then, and they asked people to return these reusable cups. You might imagine that people didn't return these cups and the scheme ended up costing the cafes a lot of money. But actually, the good people of Aarhus returned no fewer than 735,000

reusable cups in 2024. Let's practice some English on statistics here. This 735,000 was much bigger than the 500,000 target set for the scheme. An amazing 88% of the cups were returned.

Even more surprising, they calculated that this meant each cup was used 44 times. And this prevented 14 tons of single-use plastic ending up in landfill or having to be burned and the CO2 that would result from that.

The scheme is believed to have been a success so far because the cups are returned to machines in the streets in the city centre. Worldwide, it's estimated that only 2% of to-go coffee cups end up recycled.

So there's a long way to go on this one, but another positive example to follow. Let's go slightly further afield for our third positive news story. Most of us love tigers. That's T-I-G-E-R. I don't think I'd want to be confronted by one in my back garden, but they really are the most beautiful animals.

And there has been concern about the numbers of tigers for decades now. A decade, D-E-C-A-D-E, means 10 years. What countries of the world have tigers roaming free? Most of them are in Asia, countries like India, Thailand...

Bhutan, Vietnam. But the populations of tigers in many of these countries are scarily small. There are tigers also in Russia. The latest Russian survey in 2015 estimated that tiger populations there had increased to between 480 and 540 tigers. It's still not that many, is it? But the positive news...

In the early 2000s, tiger territory in India had reduced to only 10% of what it once was. But in January this year, scientists announced that tiger populations in India had doubled since 2010. There are now over 3,500 tigers in India. That's much more than anywhere else and is

75% of the world's tiger population. How have they achieved this? Well, strict measures, rules against poaching, that's P-O-A-C-H, to poach or killing tigers, in other words. Those measures have been put in place and there are increased tiger reserves.

and tiger corridors, areas of land for tigers put aside. Again, what India has done should be copied by the other countries of the world. What a brilliant example.

Let us know what you think. I'll be interested to hear from you. What about one more good news story just before we finish? This one is from the UK. The UK is known for its wonderful countryside. There are so many places to walk and see beautiful views. If you visit the UK and you want to experience the country...

beyond the big cities of London, Birmingham and Manchester, there are some wonderful places to visit which are just pure countryside. My personal favourite place for walking and for views of the lakes and mountains is the Lake District in the northwest of England. But that

are plenty of other national parks as well, preserved areas of land like the Peak District, the Yorkshire Dales, Dartmoor or the South Downs. And there are also very many Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty or AONBs.

and these are protected too. So walking or hiking, that's from the verb to hike, H-I-K-E, well, it's a national pastime. And one important part of this is public footpaths and rights of way. A public

footpath is protected by law. You're allowed to walk there. Public bridleways are similarly protected, but they can be used not only for walkers, but also for cyclists and people on horseback. There is also something called a right of way over land. Again, this means that a pathway across a piece of land is protected.

so that walkers can use it. The landowner or the person who owns the land must allow people along this path, along the right of way, whether they want to or not. Apparently, a path used by walkers can be registered

as a right of way if it's been in use for 20 years or more. There are thousands and thousands of miles of rights of way already recorded, but there also remain thousands and thousands of pathways which have been used for more than 20 years, but which are yet to be registered as rights of way, even though they're in constant use by cyclists,

walkers and people on horseback. In their great wisdom, the UK government was going to stop any more registrations of rights of way after 2031. I don't know whose bright idea that was. Why would you have a cut-off date for recording rights of way?

Anyway, the good news, sense has prevailed. Sense has won for once. The 2031 deadline has been removed and it will continue to be possible to register new rights of way for walkers, cyclists and people on horseback. Even being able to walk sometimes over private land, if there is right of way, is an important part

of British culture. It protects people's right to walk and it makes sure that ordinary people have the right to see beautiful countryside instead of this being kept only for rich landowners. If it wasn't for these rights and these laws, there would be very few places where you could walk your dog, go for a cycle ride or ride on horseback.

Finally, something good. Great then that the UK government have seen sense on this one and we will continue to be able to register new rights of way, way beyond 2031. Do you have public rights?

footpaths, rights of way or similar schemes in your country. Let us know what you think of this news story or any of the others that I've talked through today. I feel as though we really need positive news stories at the moment. So do get in touch as well if you have any positive news stories to share. We always like to hear from you. Enough for now. Have a lovely day. Speak to you again soon. Goodbye.