BBC 英语学习 News Review 富裕国家为气候破坏买单

Rich nations agree to pay poorer countries for damage caused by climate change.

This is news of you from BBC.

Learning English. I'm Neil and I'm Beth.

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Now, let's

hear the story People in the world's poorest countries suffer the devastating effects of climate change more than anyone else.

Now, rich nations have agreed to pay into a fund to help countries damaged by the industrial activity of the developed world.

The un S Climate chief says this will benefit the most vulnerable around the world.

Some are calling the deal a historic victory, but others worry it is not enough.

You ve been looking at the headlines bath what's the vocabulary?

We have Empty game changer and hot air.

This is news review from BBC, learning English.

Let's have a look at our 1st headline.

This is from The Conversation cop 20.

Sevens Lost and damaged fund for developing countries could be a breakthrough or another empty climate promise.

So the headline is saying, this could be a breakthrough, that means a really big development, or it could be an empty promise.

And we're looking at the word empty.

Now, beth, I always have a mug of tea before we start recording.

I've drunk it now, and it is empty.

There's nothing in it. Is there connection in the meaning?

Well, we do often associate empty with physical objects.

So like your mug is empty, it contains nothing now.

But it's not only for the inside of objects.

So we can also use it with words, things that you say, like promises, yeah?

And when we use it in that way, we are saying those words are meaningless, really, exactly.

So the headline writer says, empty climate promise.

That means they think that the developed countries might not actually give the money to the developing countries.

And we can use empty in this sense with other nouns, e.g.

empty words or empty threats. That's when you say you will do something, but you don't exactly.

In fact, neil, don't you say every week that you'll buy me a coffee, and then you don't?

Yes, that is an etty promise.

I also say to my kids, you're getting nothing for Christmas because your room is so untidy.

But that is an empty threat.

Of course. I'm going to buy them something for Christmas.

Let's have a look at that again.

Let's have a look at our next headline.

This is from Artie E. You proposal the game Changer at COP 27.

And we are looking at the expression game Changer.

Now, I know what a game is.

It's the World Cup. At the moment.

There are games on every day.

But together with changer as a different meaning.

What's the sense? Well, again, changer means something is so significant that it actually changes the way that something is done or the way that it's thought about.

Now, game here doesn't mean a game that you play.

It's actually just the situation. And the situation here is that developed countries are giving money to poorer nations because of climate damage.

Yeah? And that new agreement is seen as a significant development, so we can call it a gain changer.

Are there any other uses? Well, it's usually used for big things, rather than minor developments, so we can use it with ideas like inventions or events.

Yes, and talking of inventions are really obvious and good.

Example is the smartphone. It has been a complete game changer.

It changes the way we do lots of things.

Yeah, we can now connect to the Internet anywhere.

Let's take a look at that one more time.

Let's have a look at our next headline.

This is from the telegraph Cop 27 Was a lot of hot air again.

And the expression we're looking at is hot air.

And the meaning seems obvious air, which is hot like a hair dryer, right?

Well, that's not what it means here.

So hotter is actually something that sounds impressive, but in reality it means nothing.

It's nonsense. Yeah? So according to the writer, all of the discussion, all of the agreements were nonsense.

They were meaningless. They were hot air.

Now, hot air is quite informal, isn't Yes, it is.

And it's also quite rude. If you say that what

someone is saying is hot air, then they're probably going to be quite offended.

Okay, I'll avoid that expression. Then.

Are there any alternatives we could use?

Yeah. well, hotter is informal

and rude, and there are some even

rude expressions. We're not going to mention them here, but you could say that someone is

talking rubbish or talking nonsense, again, a little bit informal and rude.

And as we often see, there is a double meaning in this headline.

Can you explain it? Yeah. So with climate change, the planet is literally heating up.

It's getting hotter. So yet, here we've got hot air, and that is what the planet has.

OK, let's have a look at that one more time.

We've had empty, meaningless game changer, something that causes a significant change and hot air.

It sounds impressive, but it's nonsense.

Don't forget. There is a quiz on our website, bbc learning english dot com.

Thank you for joining us. And goodbye.

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