The Climate Question · BBC World Service

Are dams still worth it?

·27 min·2 clips

A dam engineer reveals it saves one million tons of CO2 yearly, but is this clean energy truly green?

The journey begins upstream. After hearing about Bangkok getting too much water, Jordan Dunbar heads hundreds of kilometres toward the mountains to ask where that water begins. The landscape is lush. Villagers take him down a sandy path through green hills to the place where their homes used to be. Their memories are plain and painful: houses underwater, land gone, parents and grandparents left heartbroken. The dam is part of a development story, but the guest pushes against judging hydropower by carbon emissions alone. A river is not just an energy source. It carries water supply, navigation, protein, income, and local livelihoods. Concrete also changes the maths, since the cement used in dams is described as a serious source of planet-warming gases. The gains do not land evenly. Large hydropower has helped development, yet the episode keeps returning to the costs carried by local communities and nature. Fish matter. Migratory birds matter. So do the people moved away from valleys and fertile rice paddies along the Ping River. The Maynooth community has electricity, but it does not get water from the dam and still relies on groundwater. That is the part that sticks: a project built for development can leave nearby people paying the price without fully sharing the reward.

As heard by us

A careful look at dams that weighs electricity, flooding, and the people living with the costs.

It traces a river in Thailand to ask whether dams still earn their keep when electricity gains come with flooding, displacement, and ecological harm.

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Follow a Thai river upstream to see what dams give, and what they take away.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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