Outrage + Optimism: The Climate Podcast

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 headlines, people like Jennifer Kitt of Climate Lead are identifying where finite resources can be spent in order to make a real difference, and helping to grow the pie. Tom Rivett-Carnac, Christiana Figueres, and Paul Dickinson sit down with her to ask: what does well-targeted philanthropic money actually unlock? Who decides where it goes? And why, when it works, do we so rarely notice? From the coalition that quietly accelerated the EV transition by decades, to the $30,000 grant that helped take climate responsibility all the way to the World's Court.

The uncomfortable truth is that climate action is becoming reliant on the generosity of a wealthy few. The good news is that this money is growing; the bad news is that it needs to grow much, much more. So how much would it take to start solving some of tomorrow’s problems today? And are there risks in expecting a small and privileged group to fund a movement that belongs to everyone?

Learn More:
🌱 Learn more about Climate Lead and and their work advising philanthropists new to climate giving
⚖️ Catch up on the ICJ advisory opinion on climate obligations of states
⚡ Explore the Drive Electric Campaign, the global NGO coalition whose story Jennifer tells in the episode
🌍 Learn more about ClientEarth and the legal battles Tom references
📊 Track progress on climate transitions with the Systems Change Lab, referenced by Jennifer in the episode
📺 Read about the Trump AI video throwing Stephen Colbert in a dumpster, posted and reposted by the White House the day after the Late Show ended, via The Hill

🎤 Leave us your voice notes and questions for upcoming episodes on SpeakPipe

Join the conversation:
Instagram @outrageoptimism LinkedIn @outrageoptimism
Or get in touch with us via this form.

Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks
Edited by: Miles Martignoni
Planning: Caitlin Hanrahan
Exec Producer: Ellie Clifford

This is a Persephonica production for Global Optimism and is part of the Acast Creator Network.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 rules they rest on still fit for the world they're supposed to protect?

This week, Tom Rivett-Carnac, Christiana Figueres, and Paul Dickinson look at three stories the headlines may be missing.

In New Zealand, the government has moved to retroactively kill a landmark climate lawsuit - before it even reaches trial. Tom shares a voice note from ClientEarth CEO Laura Clarke who gives us the inside scoop on what is actually at stake. If this works, where does it end?

Then Greece, which wants to write a legally binding obligation for human-centred AI into its constitution. But can a national document meaningfully govern a borderless technology? And as we increasingly rely on AI for our information, where do these large language models actually go for their climate science?

Finally, the Strait of Hormuz. Financial markets think the situation is priced in. Geopolitical analysts disagree. We ask which sectors might unexpectedly accelerate the energy transition, why the climate movement seems frozen at exactly the moment it should be loudest, and whether this decade's decisive window is already starting to close.

Learn More:
⚖️ Learn more about ClientEarth and its work
🌿 Read about New Zealand amending its climate law via Inside Climate News
🌐 Catch up on the ICJ case on climate obligations of states
🏛️ Discover more about Greece's constitutional AI proposal via the Washington Post
🛢️ Dive into the Strait of Hormuz disruptions with analysis from UNCTAD

🎤 Leave us your voice notes and questions for upcoming episodes on SpeakPipe

Join the conversation:
Instagram @outrageoptimism LinkedIn @outrageoptimism
Or get in touch with us via this form.

Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks
Edited by: Miles Martignoni
Planning: Caitlin Hanrahan
Exec Producer: Ellie Clifford

This is a Persephonica production for Global Optimism and is part of the Acast Creator Network.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 forcing aviation to confront a structural vulnerability it has spent decades avoiding.

This week, Tom Rivett-Carnac, Christiana Figueres and Paul Dickinson examine what the shortage reveals: aviation's near-total dependence on fossil fuels, the structural reasons it has proved so hard to break, and whether it’s ever going to be possible to fix.

They speak with Karel Bockstael and Roxanne van Rijn, former aviation insiders who co-founded Call Aviation to Action, a movement designed to reach the industry’s senior leaders and push for much-needed change. They explain why kerosene remains the only viable option for long-haul flight, how thin margins trap airlines into opposing the very regulation they need, and why this fuel shock may be the scarcity event that finally forces the model to shift.

Could this crisis become aviation’s turning point? And in a world where up to 80% of people have never set foot on a plane - and 1% account for half of all aviation emissions - what would a truly fair future for flight actually look like?

Learn More:
✈️ Explore Call Aviation to Action - the movement co-founded by Karel and Roxanne and others, pushing for industry-wide transformation from within
📊 Read the UK Climate Change Committee’s aviation analysis, and understand why aviation is on course to become the UK’s single largest emitting sector by 2040
⛽ Get up to date on IEA data on global oil and jet fuel markets, including what the Strait of Hormuz disruption means for aviation fuel supply
🌿 Learn more about Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) via IATA: what it is, why it currently accounts for less than 1% of aviation fuel use, and what scaling it would require
💸 Pay the true price of your next flight via the Future Friendly Fund’s calculator, or check your CO₂ estimate on Google Flights.
Check out Bumprints for practical tips or Travel Alternative, Roxanne’s recently launched platform highlighting alternatives to flying

🎤 Leave us your voice notes and questions for upcoming episodes on SpeakPipe

Join the conversation:
Instagram @outrageoptimism LinkedIn @outrageoptimism
Or get in touch with us via this form.

Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks
Edited by: Miles Martignoni
Planning: Caitlin Hanrahan
Exec Producer: Ellie Clifford

This is a Persephonica production for Global Optimism and is part of the Acast Creator Network.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 asking us to look - really look - at the world we share with three and a half billion years' worth of other life.

This week, Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac, and Paul Dickinson mark the 100th birthday of the world’s longest-serving television presenter. To celebrate, they're reaching into the archives to share the very first episode of the podcast - a conversation recorded in person with their friend Sir David himself, at the Attenborough Centre in Cambridge in 2019.

They also take stock of seven years of Outrage + Optimism, and on a world that’s changed since that first episode dropped. What's moved faster than anyone expected, what's gone sideways, and what still keeps us at night?

Then Sir David. On why young people's outrage is entirely justified. On what the natural world actually needs from us. On the rare moments in history when nations chose agreement over conflict. And on why understanding might be the thing that saves us.

Learn More:
🎂 Discover moments from Sir David Attenborough's life and career on the BBC
🌿 Watch Secret Gardens, Sir David's recent series exploring the hidden natural world of the British urban garden, mentioned by Tom in this episode (UK login required)
🐋 Explore the history of the International Whaling Commission moratorium, which Sir David cites as a rare model of nations choosing to act before it was too late
🌍 Learn more about the global youth climate movement Fridays For Future, from the early days mentioned in this interview to its activity today

🎤 Leave us your voice notes and questions for upcoming episodes on SpeakPipe

Join the conversation:
Instagram @outrageoptimism LinkedIn @outrageoptimism
Or get in touch with us via this form.

Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks
Edited by: Miles Martignoni
Planning: Caitlin Hanrahan
Exec Producer: Ellie Clifford

This is a Persephonica production for Global Optimism and is part of the Acast Creator Network.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 of dramatically colder winters caused by global warming? David Shukman was one of them.

This week, Tom Rivett-Carnac is joined by the veteran BBC Science Editor and author of the upcoming ‘The Response’, to explore the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC: the vast system of currents that helps regulate weather, rainfall and temperature across the Atlantic and far beyond. Recent research suggests it may be weakening faster than previously understood - with potentially profound consequences for food systems, ecosystems and global stability.

They speak with Dr Willem Huiskamp of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who explains what AMOC does, and what a much weaker system could mean in practice. Then Tom and David reflect on the harder questions. How do we communicate a risk this vast and uncertain without paralysing people or losing them entirely? Are we socially and politically prepared for -50C winters in parts of Europe? And are we even capable of responding to a threat that may unfold over decades rather than across news cycles and political terms?

Learn More:
🌊 Discover more about the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation and why scientists are watching it closely
🔎 Read the latest paper referenced in this episode, which projects an approximate 50% weakening of AMOC by the end of the century
📘 Check out David’s book, The Response, which will be published by Witness Books on 7th May

🎤 Leave us your voice notes and questions for upcoming episodes on SpeakPipe

Join the conversation:
Instagram @outrageoptimism LinkedIn @outrageoptimism
Or get in touch with us via this form.

Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks
Edited by: Miles Martignoni
Planning: Caitlin Hanrahan
Exec Producer: Ellie Clifford

This is a Persephonica production for Global Optimism and is part of the Acast Creator Network.

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