2025 on The Interview

·23 min·2 clips

The US Energy Secretary claims climate change is exaggerated while cutting renewable subsidies, sparking international controversy.

The programme looks back across nine months. Lucy Shepard presents the special as a selection from a BBC interview series launched in March 2025, and the spread is wide on purpose. The opening montage moves through war and peace spending, US wind and solar subsidies, personal testimony, singing, and public life after hospitalization. Chris Wright comes in as a policy voice. His section turns on direct questions about whether long-running support for wind and solar power has gone on long enough. Somalia gives the edition its sharpest setting. Paul Njei meets Hassan Sheikh Mohammed inside the presidential palace in Mogadishu, Villa Somalia, where a stylish new building is described as costing $6 million. The detail lands plainly. The palace backdrop quickly gives way to the president's claims about fighting al-Shabaab and ISIS in different parts of the country. He says there has been progress over three years. He says ISIS in northeastern Somalia has been almost neutralized, and that most towns and cities have been liberated from al-Shabaab. The interview does not leave the claim untouched. He is pressed on recent territorial gains by al-Shabaab and on criticism that his government lacks a clear strategy. Constitutional reform then comes in. Hassan Sheikh Mohammed is described as wanting direct voting for citizens instead of selection through clan elders. Shabana Mahmood closes the selection with migration rules and a warning that journeys outside safe and legal routes will face tougher consequences. The edition works as a sampler. It does not settle every argument, but it shows the programme's habit: courteous access, then factual pressure. The close points listeners toward more interviews, with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Sundar Pichai, and Francis Fukuyama named as further signs of the series' range.

As heard by us

A brisk special edition that keeps three political conversations focused and readable.

The special edition brings Chris Wright, Hassan Sheikh Mohammed and Shabana Mahmood into one compact programme. Wright is cast as the US Energy Secretary who believes the threat from climate change is overstated.

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Why you'd press play

If you want climate, Somalia, and migration in one disciplined hour

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