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Outrage + Optimism

Persephonica and Global Optimism

300 episodes

Outrage + Optimism is for anyone who is not ready to give up on making the world a better place. For unrivalled conversations with decision makers, visionary thinkers and a community of like-minded climate optimists, join former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres, political strategist Tom Rivett-Carnac and sustainable business consultant Paul Dickinson. Each week they make sense of all the top climate news stories, go behind the scenes at crucial talks and ensure you stay informed and inspired ahead of what is set to be the consequential year for climate action.

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Episodes page 1 of 6

  1. Digger's flop, Big Oil and the bots: What actually moves people?

    · 45 min · S12 E72

    In Digger, Tom Cruise plays an oil tycoon whose rig sets off a tsunami. Within days of release, it was written off as a flop. Christiana Figueres has seen it twice, and she has questions about how quickly that verdict…

  2. What World Will They Inherit? Live from Bath Abbey

    · 43 min · S12 E71

    Before she was Christiana Figueres, architect of the Paris agreement, who was she? What did believe in 2015 that she no longer believes? In June, an event about the next generation of climate leaders was postponed…

  3. How Can a Country Survive Losing Its Land?

    · 40 min · S12 E70

    A ship rams a canoe. The canoe starts to sink. The ship's crew lean over the rail and offer a loan to repair it. That is how Surangel Whipps Jr., President of Palau, describes climate finance in the Pacific, a region…

  4. The Easy Wins Are Gone. What's Actually Next for Net Zero?

    · 41 min · S12 E69

    Net Zero was once a radical idea. Now it’s both an accepted global target, and an increasingly toxic political faultline. This week, Tom is back from the UN General Assembly and New York Climate week, where António…

  5. Who Runs the World?: Inside the UN’s Secret Leadership Race

    · 59 min · S12 E68

    The news cameras may be following rising tensions between President Trump and President Pezeshkian of Iran, but deep in the bowels of the United Nations, fifteen countries are about to choose, in private, the person…

  6. Inside the New Security Thinking: The Weaponisation of Disaster?

    · 44 min · S12 E67

    This summer, extreme heat killed tens of thousands of people across Europe. The number killed by terrorism was, as our guest puts it, very very small. So why are the institutions built to keep people safe still…

  7. Blocker or Blueprint? India on the World Stage

    · 41 min · S12 E66

    At COP26 in Glasgow, India famously asked to change one word in the final text. ‘Phase out’ became ‘phase down’. The COP President fought back tears, as country after country branded this a moment of shame. For many,…

  8. What’s India Building?: Tales from the Biggest Transition on Earth

    · 33 min · S12 E65

    "This will never work in India." That's what Indian truck manufacturers said about electric freight. Now they build the trucks. Something is going on here at a speed the rest of the world has not yet noticed. Solar…

  9. India: Life Inside Delhi's 'Airpocalypse'

    · 39 min · S12 E64

    In Delhi, lung cancer is no longer a smoker’s disease. It’s a breather’s disease. But the most polluted capital on earth sits in a country running five years ahead of its Paris clean power target. In the first of…

  10. The Clock is Ticking: Forty Seconds to Explain the Climate Crisis

    · 34 min · S12 E63

    The summer of 2026 burned the largest wildfire in Spain's recorded history and the largest France has seen since the Second World War. June's heat killed more than 10,000 people across Europe. A heat dome held North…

  11. Beyond Politics: Should we take the heat out of the climate crisis?

    · 46 min · S12 E62 · Explicit

    Somewhere along the way, acting on a threat to all of humanity became a political act. Not a simple matter of science and economics, but a signal of whose side you are on. So, what would it take to change the…

  12. Cheapest Energy in History. Still Heading for 3 Degrees?

    · 57 min · S12 E61

    Solar power now costs a thousandth of what it did in 1976. Batteries are down more than ninety percent in a decade. By the logic of economics, the climate problem should be close to solved. It isn't. We are on track…

  13. Europe’s Summer of Fire: The New Normal?

    · 33 min · S12 E60

    Europe is burning. Wildfires are still alight in the hills outside Bordeaux and the countryside west of Madrid. More than 300,000 people across France and Spain have been forced from their homes, and both countries…

  14. China, COP31 and Chagos: What’s happening behind the headlines?

    · 45 min · S12 E59

    In the nine hours after the Los Angeles wildfires, before the climate movement could get its shoes on, the narrative was being written. Through social media, podcasts and talking heads on cable news, the truth was…

  15. Rosebank, Cambo, and the Conversation Christiana Never Got to Have

    · 41 min · S12 E58

    Five years ago, a 21-year-old activist stood on a TED stage next to the CEO of Shell and accused him of making ‘evil decisions’ wreaking ‘devastation on communities around the world’. And then walked off. Christiana…

  16. Whose Side Is the Law On? How the Courts Became a Climate Battleground

    · 50 min · S12 E57

    "Even if you are small in this society, there is something you can do." Those are the words of Trixy Elle, a mother and a fisherwoman from the Philippines, and one of the claimants from the Odette case, named for the…

  17. Is It Over? A Direct Answer to Climate Despair

    · 38 min · S12 E56

    Is it already too late? If you follow the climate crisis closely, despair is a reasonable and rational response to what you're looking at. This week, we’re being led by you. We gathered the messages you've been…

  18. London Cooking: A Climate Action Week, a Resigning PM, and the Future of Climate Diplomacy

    · 58 min · S12 E55

    London Climate Action Week doesn't usually have to compete with extreme weather. But this year, the case for climate action was abundantly clear: a red heat warning, schools shut, trains cancelled, and temperatures…

  19. From SpaceX to City Streets: Who Pays for the AI Data Centre Boom?

    · 49 min · S12 E54

    SpaceX's $1.75 trillion IPO has just created the world's first trillionaire. But for families in Morgan County, Georgia and Boxtown in South Memphis, the AI investment rush seems to look rather different: brown water,…

  20. Extreme Heat Breaks: The hidden climate story behind the World Cup

    · 38 min · S12 E53

    For the first time, all 104 matches at the Men's Football World Cup will be stopped for a mandatory three-minute hydration break, halfway through each half. For the first time, a global audience of billions will watch…

  21. The Agency Crisis: Heatwaves, Tony Blair and the Politics of Powerlessness

    · 35 min · S12 E52

    The UK, Ireland, France, Spain, and Portugal shattered their May heat records last week. Scenes reminiscent of high summer arrived months early, across Western Europe. And like all extreme weather events, there was a…

  22. Can $30k Change the World? The Power of Climate Giving

    · 52 min · S12 E51

    When climate wins happen, we often credit the market. Or the policy. But is philanthropy the most underappreciated force in the climate fight? And can less than 2% of global giving actually change anything? Behind the…

  23. Can the rules keep up?: Lawsuits, LLMs and the looming oil recession

    · 47 min · S12 E50

    An unprecedented government move to outrun the courts. A country racing to write AI into its constitution. And a global energy crisis that's already moved faster than any possible fix. Are our institutions and the…

  24. The Jet Fuel Crisis: What’s next for aviation?

    · 51 min · S12 E49

    Are flights across the world about to be grounded? Is a terrible war about to create an unlikely good news story for the climate? As conflict in the Middle East threatens the Strait of Hormuz, jet fuel shortages are…

  25. David Attenborough at 100

    · 40 min · S12 E48

    Monarch butterflies crossing a continent. Peregrine falcons above Manhattan. A giant lemur most of the world had never heard of, until one man pointed a camera at it. For seventy years, Sir David Attenborough has been…

  26. “This is civilisation changing stuff”: Is AMOC the hardest climate story to tell?

    · 46 min · S12 E47

    Europe plunged into a deep freeze. Life as we know it upended. The 2004 film ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ gave a generation of terrified journalists an impossible task: how do you communicate the counter intuitive threat…

  27. Beyond the Oil Crisis: What’s actually blocking the transition?

    · 43 min · S12 E46

    The Iran crisis continues to prove how dangerously dependent the global economy is on fossil fuels. But what will it actually take to move beyond them? In this episode, Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul…

  28. It’s In Our Blood: Communities vs Forever Chemicals

    · 43 min · S12 E45

    There are chemicals in your blood that weren't there fifty years ago. They are in the products you use, the water you drink, the food you eat - and for years, almost nobody was told the full truth about the risk. This…

  29. The Health Emergency Hiding in Rising Seas

    · 43 min · S12 E44

    Sea-level rise is often spoken about in centimetres, forecasts and future scenarios. But what if we understood it as a health emergency that is already reshaping lives, harming bodies and minds, and displacing entire…

  30. Forecasting Disaster: A ‘super’ El Niño? And the case for early action

    · 37 min · S12 E43

    As headlines warn of a possible ‘super El Niño’ later this year, we ask: how do we respond to a warning before it becomes a catastrophe? The last major El Niño brought record heat, crop failures, flooding and…

  31. Flooded: Is extreme weather shifting the climate front lines?

    · 37 min · S12 E42

    We used to be shocked by this. Hundreds of thousands displaced, millions affected, whole communities washed out. But somewhere along the way, extreme weather events have become background noise. This week, Christiana…

  32. The Iran Crisis and the Price of Oil Dependence

    · 42 min · S12 E41

    War in Iran has triggered another global energy shock. Once again, conflict has exposed the deep instability built into the fossil fuel system. And once again, the world is reminded that these fuels are not only…

  33. Water, Wildlife, and Climate’s Hidden Trade-Offs

    · 39 min · S12 E40

    The climate crisis is not one problem. It is a crisis of water, food, energy, language, justice and power - all colliding at once. So how do we respond when climate solutions create new trade-offs of their own? And are…

  34. Who Pays? The Unfair Economics of Climate Finance

    · 35 min · S12 E39

    This week we acknowledge the US strikes on Iran and the escalation that has followed. The immediate human cost is what matters most right now. But this crisis is unfolding within a global system still shaped by oil…

  35. Catastrophe Apathy: Why understanding the climate crisis isn’t enough

    · 36 min · S12 E38

    Climate concern is not the problem. Most people have it. What's missing is everything that turns concern into action - and understanding that gap turns out to be a lot more complicated than it looks. This week,…

  36. Trump Moves to Dismantle US Climate Law - Now Comes the Legal Test

    · 46 min · S12 E37

    The Trump administration last week announced the repeal of the ‘endangerment finding’ - the 2009 determination that climate change threatens public health and welfare. It may sound arcane, but this piece of legislation…

  37. Who Wields Power Now?: Money, Movements and the Future of Climate

    · 41 min · S12 E36

    Who shapes climate action when old systems begin to strain? And where does power really sit - with governments, financial institutions, communities, or individuals? Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul…

  38. Power, Money and Influence: The Hidden Forces Shaping Climate Action

    · 32 min · S12 E35

    Who really holds power in the climate transition? And how do money, politics, and influence shape the pace of change? In this episode, Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul Dickinson use some of your most…

  39. The China Pivot: What will Beijing’s climate leadership look like?

    · 35 min · S12 E34

    World leaders are flocking to Beijing. In the first weeks of 2026, Canada’s Mark Carney, the UK’s Sir Keir Starmer and South Korea’s Lee Jae-myung have all made high-profile visits - an unmistakable signal of global…

  40. Beyond COP: Can Brazil Chart a Path Off Fossil Fuels?

    · 42 min · S12 E33

    How dependent are we - economically, politically and socially - on fossil fuels? And how do we begin to loosen that grip? As the world reels from geopolitical shocks, multilateral institutions under strain, and the…

  41. What does Trump’s UNFCCC exit mean for climate diplomacy?

    · 38 min · S12 E32

    What happens when the world’s most powerful country walks away from the system it helped to build? This week, we examine the United States’ decision to withdraw not only from the Paris Agreement, but from the UN…

  42. Venezuela, Fossil Fuels, and the Year Ahead

    · 43 min · S12 E31

    The year has barely begun, and already the fault lines of global power are on full display. Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul Dickinson take stock of a moment that feels both shocking and revealing. The…

  43. Beginning the Year With Ancestral Wisdom

    · 41 min · S12 E30

    As billions around the world mark the beginning of a new year, many are pausing to ask the same questions: what do we carry forward, and what do we leave behind, as we cross from the old into the new? And as headlines…

  44. Why Beauty Matters in the Climate Crisis

    · 45 min · S12 E29

    At a moment when the world feels noisier, faster, and more demanding than ever, what role can beauty play in helping us slow down, reconnect, and remember what matters? As the year draws to a close, Christiana…

  45. Follow The Money: Who’s driving climate disinformation?

    · 44 min · S12 E28

    At the very moment we need clarity and trust, information integrity is being polluted. Disinformation is profitable and the impact on truth is dangerous. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the discourse around…

  46. Paris, 10 Years On - Has it Changed the World?

    · 49 min · S12 E27

    Ten years ago, a gavel dropped in a conference hall north of Paris. It was the moment the world agreed on a strategic plan for one of the most consequential transformations in human history. But, a decade later, what…

  47. Jacinda Ardern and… Is It Time to Talk About Geoengineering?

    · 48 min · S12 E26

    This week, hosts Tom Rivett Carnac and Paul Dickinson delve into the rapidly emerging - and faintly surreal - world of solar geoengineering. Politico journalist Karl Mathiesen joins us to unpack his investigation into…

  48. Kim Stanley Robinson on Pre Traumatic Imagination and the stories that change us

    · 37 min · S12 E25

    This week on Outrage + Optimism, we’re taking a breath. After two intense weeks of daily updates from COP30 in Belém, we’re returning to weekly programming with something different - a slower, deeper, more reflective…

  49. Inside COP: The Final Hours of COP30 - and the road ahead

    · 38 min · S12 E24

    This is our final episode of Inside COP. For two weeks we’ve tried to bring you as close as possible to the heart of COP30 - the pace, the pressure, the progress, and the perspectives of those working inside and around…

  50. Inside COP: Friday Night in Belém - uncertainty in the Blue Zone

    · 38 min · S12 E23

    We recorded this episode across Friday afternoon and deep into the evening inside the Blue Zone at COP30. At the time of publishing, there is still no final deal. The negotiations are ongoing, positions are shifting,…

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