Outrage + Optimism

Latest Episodes:

225. COP28: The Snapshot vs The Movie Dec 11, 2023

Show notes

With much of the world’s media focusing on the language of the final text at COP 28 to determine the success or failure of the COP and Dr Sultan’s presidency, Tom, with the help of friend of the show and High Level Climate Champion for COP 26, Nigel Topping; and H.E. Razan Al Mubarak, UN Climate Change High Level Champion for COP 28, take a different lens on what has been unfolding at COP 28 aside from the phase out/down controversy.

NOTES AND RESOURCES

H.E. Razan Al Mubarak, UN Climate Change High-Level Champion from the COP28 Presidency

LinkedIn | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Website

Nigel Topping, Member of the Climate Change Committee (CCC) / Non-executive director of the UK Infrastructure Bank (UKIB)

Twitter | LinkedIn

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224. COP28: Later Is Too Late Dec 08, 2023

Show notes

This week on Outrage + Optimism we bring you news that over 1000+ signatories from across business, finance, philanthropy, politics, academia and civil society have joined forces to call on Sultan Al Jaber and all Parties to deliver a 1.5C aligned outcome in response to the Global Stocktake - because later is too late!

Tom reflects on this huge concerted effort to deliver outcomes at COP 28 and speaks to Halla Tómasdóttir, CEO & Chief Change Catalyst at the B Team about her motivations to galvinise the B-Team behind this effort to call for meaningful action, and we also hear from many of the signatories themselves explaining why transformative action must happen now.

NOTES AND RESOURCES

Link to the website STATEMENT: THE TRANSFORMATION IS UNSTOPPABLE

Click here to see all signatories featured in this episode.

Click here to see the full list of signatories.

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223. COP28: Will The Word ‘Out’ Be In? Dec 04, 2023

Show notes

This week on Outrage + Optimism our hosts give a crucial update from Dubai’s COP28 opening days. With Tom and Paul dialling in direct from Dubai and Christiana offering an outside perspective, the hosts ask: Will the word 'out' be in? What role will governments play in the climate crisis going forward? How brave was it for Dr Sultan to launch with a COP outcome (loss and damage) on day 1? They also discuss the incredible commitment from 134 countries to the food systems declaration, and much, much more in this packed episode.

To close this week's episode, we have Louise Harris with ‘We Tried’, a moving and beautiful song about the climate crisis and what will happen if we don’t act. The song became the first ever climate song to reach UK iTunes No.1 and all proceeds go to climate causes.

NOTES AND RESOURCES

MUSIC

Louise Harris

Watch ‘We Tried’ Here

‘We Tried’ is just the beginning of Louise's music activist journey, with plans to release an entire Climate Album in 2024 if she can raise enough funds for it. You can donate to her GoFundMe if you would like to see more songs and videos like ‘We Tried’ from Louise.

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222. Moments of Truth Nov 29, 2023

Show notes

This week on Outrage + Optimism our hosts discuss the leaked documents revealing how Adnoc, the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and Dr. Sultan were planning to use COP 28 meetings with other countries to promote deals for its national oil and gas companies. With Dr Sultan set to give his speech on Thursday, our hosts ask what needs to happen to restore the faltering trust in his presidency and avoid derailing the COP agenda at such a vital time.

Our guest this week is Nathaniel Stinnett who founded the Environmental Voter Project, which targets inactive environmentalists, transforming them into consistent voters to build the power of the environmental movement, something which may prove critical given the news that Trump would scrap the landmark IRA and BIL legislations if elected.

To close this week's episode, we have Chris Redmond, Co- Artistic Director of Hot Poets with his poem ‘Blink’, with a beautiful musical accompaniment by The Tongue Fu Band (music written by Riaan Vosloo). The poem was commissioned by 3M as part of a series of poems in collaboration with UNFCCC's Resilience Frontiers.

NOTES AND RESOURCES

GUEST

Nathaniel Stinnett, Founder & Executive Director of the Environmental Voter Project Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram

ARTIST

Chris Redmond, Artistic Director - Hot Poets (the film of ‘Blink’ will be released on Thursday 30 November on YouTube and across Hot Poets channels)

The Tongue Fu Band Twitter | Instagram

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221. TIME100 Climate: Stories of Leadership Nov 23, 2023

Show notes

This week on O+O… our hosts discuss the US-China ‘Sunnylands statement’; China’s positive 2024 emissions news, and ask how we hold this positivity, alongside the recently published UN report that warns of lack of global progress on climate change and the inexorable rise of greenhouse gas emissions, without our heads exploding!

Our guests this week are Simon Mulcahy and Shyla Raghav from TIME, both responsible for founding TIME CO2, a division focused on providing businesses with the trusted content, solutions, applications and community that accelerate investment in climate solutions, and progress towards net zero. They recently released their TIME 100 CLIMATE inaugural list which includes our very own incredible Paul Dickinson.

Music this week comes from completely DIY self taught Indie-alt-pop musicians and producers Bad Sounds, with their song ‘Beggin’.

NOTES AND RESOURCES

GUESTS

Shyla Raghav, Chief Climate Officer, TIME Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram

Simon Mulcahy, President Sustainability, TIME

LinkedIn | Twitter

TIME CO2 Twitter | LinkedIn | Website

MUSICAL GUEST

Bad Sounds

EXTRA LINKS

Submit your awkward family climate questions via video or voice note to contact@globaloptimism.com OR comment the question on our Instagram Post

Check out The Climate Question’s Episode on COP - ‘What has COP Achieved?’

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Presenting: ‘On Being with Krista Tippett’ Nov 17, 2023

Show notes

On Being with Krista Tippett is a groundbreaking show, with an iconic host, about the big questions of meaning in 21st Century life - from science to spiritual inquiry, from social creativity to poetry: What does it mean to be human and how do we want to live and who will we be to each other?

Listen and subscribe to On Being with Krista Tippett, wherever you get podcasts - LINK

From this week's episode of 'On Being with Krista Tippett':

'The ecological crisis we are standing before is at once civilizational and personal - intimately close to each of us in the places we love and inhabit, and unfolding at a species level. And as much as anyone alive on the planet now, Christiana Figueres has felt the overwhelm of this and stepped into service. She gives voice so eloquently to the grief that we feel and must allow to bind us to each other - and what she sees as a spiritual evolution the natural world is calling us to.

If you have wondered how to keep hope alive amidst a thousand reasons to despair, if you are ready to take your despair as fuel - intrigued by the idea of stepping into love and immediate realities of abundance and regeneration - this conversation is for you.'

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220. Inequality Is At The Root! Nov 09, 2023

Show notes

Welcome to another episode of Outrage + Optimism, where we examine issues at the forefront of the climate crisis, interview change-makers, and transform our anger into productive dialogue about building a sustainable future.

This week, Christiana joins us from Singapore where she has been attending the inspirational Earthshot Prize Awards, a week of climate and nature-based workshops and events, culminating in a prize awarded to 5 winners who are scaling the most innovative solutions to the world’s toughest environmental challenges. She points to the fact that the prize itself also represents a mindset, by acknowledging that we do have what it takes to tackle these issues if we support and finance incredible initiatives such as these. The three hosts also discuss the recent concerning polls around the US Presidential Elections suggesting that our democratic institutions are not delivering solutions to the systemic global challenges we now face. They also touch on other topics; as insurance companies forecast more climate destruction, what does an uninsurable future look like? How do religion and faith communities deliver in the climate crisis?

Music this week comes from DL Rossi, a Singer-Songwriter from the Metro Detroit area of Michigan. His latest single “With Two Feet” speaks to the random nature of life, and the lessons learned from just being able to show up and work through things as they come.

NOTES AND RESOURCES

The Earthshot Prize Awards

How To Watch | YouTube

MUSICAL GUEST

DL Rossi

Learn more about the Paris Agreement.

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219. Ice Down the Spine and Courage in the Heart Nov 02, 2023

Show notes

This week, the team talk positive tipping points, grapple with the comms coming out of the pre-COP meets and send our tributes to dearly loved colleagues who have recently passed.

With pre COP 28 meetings currently taking place, the host team discuss the mixed messaging that is currently making headlines and anticipate what this might mean for how the future of fossil fuels will appear in the final text at COP 28.

Tim Lenton, the founding Director of the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter and Chair in Climate Change and Earth System Science is our guest this week, and with Tom unable to make the interview, our brilliant colleague from Global Optimism, Freya Newman, joins Christiana and Paul to interview her former professor. With negative tipping points racing along their own ‘S curve’, the team ask Tim Lenton whether there are signs that the positive tipping points can win this race and avert the worst impacts of the climate crisis (pssst, the answer is it looks very, very possible).

Music this week comes from Jemima Coulter with their beautiful song ‘[flowers]’.

NOTES AND RESOURCES

GUEST

Professor Tim Lenton, Founding Director of the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter and Chair in Climate Change and Earth System Science

Website | LinkedIn

Here is the website on Global Tipping points where you can find resources and info on all that Tim and the team discuss. Spread the word!

FREYA NEWMAN

PETE BETTS

We are all very saddened by the news of the death of Pete Betts, a former guest on Outrage + Optimism and an all round incredible human being. Please check out the episode here,

to hear the man himself and his lifetime dedication to working for a better, fairer sustainable future.

DAVID ATTENBOROUGH

As mentioned by Tom here is one of the first O+O episodes recorded and it is one worth revisiting to hear the exchange between Christiana and David as they talk about the Garden of Eden and Garden of Intention. Truly worth a revisit.

MUSICAL GUEST

Jemima Coulter

Go buy/stream ‘Grace After A Party’

PLUM VILLAGE

‘An Invitation to Sit Together For Peace’

Learn more about the Paris Agreement.

It’s official, we’re a TED Audio Collective Podcast - Proof!

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218. October Mailbag Oct 26, 2023

Show notes

This week it is over to you, our listeners as the hosts strive to answer all of your challenging and wonderful questions: Should we be having children? How long have we got? How do international conflicts impact climate? And so many more…

Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to send through a question to our hosts, you made this a very special episode. Apologies if we weren’t able to get to yours, please do go and engage with us on social media and share your thoughts.

We also have an edited interview between our friend and colleague Sue Reid and the incredible Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, a Tanzanian biodiversity leader and lawyer, speaking in her capacity as Co-Chair of The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) on the incredible launch of TNFD’s final framework/recommendations at Climate Week NYC on 18 Sept and the urgent need to shake up current paradigms that still pervasively treat nature as disposable and limitless.

Music this week comes from Passiflora and their wonderful track ‘Bosque’.

NOTES AND RESOURCES

Latin America and Caribbean Climate Week

Links to the report mentioned by the hosts at the top of the episode called: Latin American successes in the energy transition can be found here

Taskforce on Nature-Related Financial Disclosures

Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and Deputy Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme and Co-Chair of The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD)

LinkedIn | Twitter

Here is the link to the published TNFD framework.

MUSIC GUEST

Passiflora

Facebook | Instagram | Bandcamp | Spotify | Soundcloud

Check out Passiflora’s Live Album ‘Noches en vela’ on Bandcamp

Learn more about the Paris Agreement.

It’s official, we’re a TED Audio Collective Podcast - Proof!

Check out more podcasts from The TED Audio Collective

Please follow us on social media!

Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

217. Greening Shipping Oct 19, 2023

Show notes

Ahoy! With Christiana at the helm this week we’re raising our anchor and charting a course into the fascinating and complex world of greening shipping.

The shipping industry can feel removed from our daily lives. With images of huge cargo ships criss-crossing the oceans, distant foreign ports and international regulatory bodies with unfamiliar acronyms like the IMO or the GMF, you might even ask yourself: why should I care?

We’ll hear how 90% of what we consume, wear and use in our homes comes to us via a ship. And how the predominant use of dirty fossil fuels means that the shipping industry currently contributes around 3% of the world’s global CO2 - that’s the same as the whole of Germany or Japan’s emissions.

But not any more! Christiana and her crew of shipping experts take you on a journey to explore how the shipping industry is at the forefront of an exciting transition to Net Zero, and will explain how greening the maritime sector could help us address the climate emergency.

Christiana has been a long and passionate advocate for reform in the shipping industry. With the help of guests such as AP Moller-Maersk’s Senior Vice President, Morten Christiansen; Alejandra Teran from Costa Rica’s Sailcargo; Eric Leveridge, Campaign Lead at Ship it Zero; Ambassador Albon Ishoda, Royal Marshall Islands Presidential Special Envoy for Maritime Decarbonisation, Dr Lucy Gilliam, Seas at Risk, Bo Cerup-Simonsen, CEO, MaerskMcKinney Moller Centre, Cleo Bierneza, Third Officer at Swire Shipping and many more, this deep dive episode will hope to leave no doubt in our listeners’ minds as to why shipping’s path to Net Zero is integral to our current and future life on the planet.

How these ships are fuelled now and in the future, why the recent International Maritime Organisation decision was history in the making, how the people working on these ships are treated to ensure a just transition as well as the role that we, the consumers, can play, are all questions that Christiana and her guests tackle during this special episode.

Do let us know what you think!

NOTES AND RESOURCES

GUESTS

Alejandra Terán, Chief Purpose Marketing Officer at Sailcargo

LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram

Ambassador Albon Ishoda, Royal Marshall Islands Presidential Special Envoy for Maritime Decarbonisation

Twitter | LinkedIn

Bo Cerup-Simonsen, Chief Executive Officer of Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Center for Zero Carbon Shipping

LinkedIn | LinkedIn for Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Center for Zero Carbon Shipping

Christine Loh, Chief Development Strategist, Institute for the Environment at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Cleo Bierneza, Third Officer at Swire Shipping

Eric Leveridge, Campaign Lead at Ship It Zero