Share Sounds. presented by Simon Rose

In December 2015, the then US President Barack Obama gave his reaction to the climate change deal brokered in Paris. Among the headline-making initiatives was the promise to keep global temperature increases below 2 degrees Celsius, yet for some green activists that deal was hardly a resounding success. Countries were legally bound to have their emission reduction levels checked but there was flexibility on how they went about hitting their targets - and they haven't. In this episode recorded in February 2016, Juliette Foster is joined by the author Andrew Simms of the New Economics Foundation and by Share Radio's then regular economics commentator, Professor John Weeks. They also discussed the 2016 perspective on the economics of climate change, and ask whether Paris made the link between excess human consumption and the impact on economies dependent on fossil fuels. As the Glasgow COP 26 conference gets underway, it's helpful to re-visit these plans made 5 years ago, and consider how far we still have to travel.

With Cop26 underway, Professor Tim Evans of Middlesex University discusses the way that the culture wars are moving into the realm of science. He also contrasts how the UK public's behaviour has changed in a generation with the polarised politics of the USA. He examines why the NHS has failed to use private hospitals to clear its backlog despite a £10 billion deal. And he pays tribute to Lord Frank Field, looking at his ideas – way ahead of their time – on the provision of unemployment benefit.

James Cameron-Wilson discusses the UK box office, with No Time To Die reclaiming the #1 spot. With £86m banked, it's the 6th most successful film in the UK and the only one ever to have taken over £1m a day for 30 consecutive days. Dune, spectacular but unengaging according to James, has been knocked off top spot and is #2. The Boss Baby 2 is #5 while Edgar Wright's "baffling" Last Night in Soho arrives at #8 with Ron's Gone Wrong, a UK animation much recommended, #9. James also looks at two Netflix movies, Hypnotic and The Harder They Fall.

James Cameron-Wilson welcomes a glut of new films now that Bond is finally fading, though it has amassed £68.6m in the UK and looks set to be the 2nd high-crossing in the series. #2 is Venom: Let There Be Carnage w. Tom Hardy, #3 Halloween Kills (the 12th in the franchise), #5 Ron's Gone Wrong, #6 The Last Duel and #10 is Arracht. There's also the documentary Beatles And India about the sub-continent's influence on the Fab Four and their music.

Laith Khalaf of A J Bell discusses the slight fall in inflation last month to 3.1%, pointing out the distortions caused by the pandemic the year earlier. Markets are betting on the Bank of England increasing interest rates in November, but is it likely to happen? Laith looks forward to next week's Budget, thinking investors may be hit by a hike in CGT. And he also highlights the first Bitcoin ETF launching in the US, giving Bitcoin further legitimacy.

If you missed Chancellor Rishi Sunak delivering his speech on 27 October, here's your chance to hear it. Plus, read our commentary on Monday 1 November for Share Radio's perspective, including our assessment of the contrast with the mid-70s, when public borrowing last hit stratospheric levels.

Russ Mould, Investment Director of A J Bell, looks at the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee's decision to take no action on interest rates. He wonders if their "studious inactivity" is likely to prove wise and that all the evidence of mounting inflationary pressure will indeed be transient. Will we get the Goldilocks economy or has the horse already bolted through the open stable door? There must be a tipping point with interest rates in regard to equities, he says, but where will it be?

In the week of COP 26, we re-visit an episode from May '21 in which Steve Caplin, Share Radio's technology editor, looks at Google's 3D video chat system, the return of airships, Einstein's e-mc squared letter, the installation of the swimming pool 35 metres high, a hydrogen engine with only 20 parts, an electric Popemobile, an anti-hacking system, how a man blind for 40 years has recovered his eyesight, and a 3D-printed electric scooter; and he discovers just how prescient rocket scientist Wernher von Braun was in one of his science-fiction novels.

Steve Caplin, Share Radio's technology expert, discusses Gloucestershire's solar-powered fire engines and Dutch students who've built a solar-powered camper van. Facial recognition payment has come to the Moscow Metro and schools in North Ayrshire. Apple have listened to customers with their new Macbook, Tesco have a checkout-free store as well as a one-hour delivery service that isn't as fast as some competitors. Also news of a foldable e-scooter you can take on a plane, robot Japanese waiters, the Royal Mint extracting gold from discarded devices and 10,000 Damien Hirst spot paintings where the buyers have a difficult choice to make.

Share Radio's technology editor gives us the low-down on high-tech. There's Hertz ordering 100,000 Teslas, just as 12,000 are recalled, how SpaceX's astronauts are coping with a lavatory leak, the 20th anniversary of the music revolution sparked by the iPod, the scientists who have found a way to make wooden knives that are 3 times sharper than steel, a hover bike arriving next year that will set you back a mere half a million pounds and Steinway's innovation that will enable pianos to play remotely.