Climate Emergency Forum Podcast

This episode explores what really drives people to move in a rapidly warming world, and why we still have no legal protection for those displaced by climate disruption. Herb Simmens is joined by climate system scientist Paul Beckwith and physician Dr. Peter Carter to unpack the tangled links between heat, drought, food insecurity, conflict, and the politics of borders. They highlight how most climate-related displacement is internal and temporary so far, yet already reshaping societies and fueling nationalist backlashes.

This episode explores how the climate crisis is reshaping the landscape of infectious disease. Drawing on the latest IPCC findings and recent research by Camilo Mora and others, Dr. Peter Carter and climate system scientist Paul Beckwith explain how warming temperatures, marine heat waves, floods, droughts and expanding tropics are altering where and how diseases such as dengue, chikungunya, Lyme disease, malaria and Vibrio infections spread.

This episode explores how philanthropy can fund the risky, under‑the‑radar climate ideas that governments and markets often neglect. Host Herb Simmens speaks with Joshua Elliott, Chief Scientist at Renaissance Philanthropy, about why we now need ambitious, translational R&D instead of small, incremental tweaks.

This episode goes inside the landmark Santa Marta conference, the first diplomatic gathering where 60 governments met not to debate whether fossil fuels must go, but how to phase them out. Host Herb Simmens speaks with environmental campaigner Tzeporah Berman, chair of the Fossil Fuel Non‑Proliferation Treaty Initiative, about why this meeting was historic and why it finally puts fossil fuel production – not just emissions – at the center of climate diplomacy.

This episode of Climate Emergency Forum features a wide‑ranging conversation with Janos Pasztor, former UN Assistant Secretary‑General for Climate Change and founding director of the Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative (C2G). We explore how decades of climate diplomacy led him into the controversial world of solar radiation modification (SRM) and his recent work engaging directly with private actors like Stardust that are developing stratospheric aerosol injection technologies.

In this Climate Emergency Forum episode the alarming new science on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) – the “mother of all tipping points” is discussed. This includes the reason why the AMOC is weakening, how massive freshwater from Greenland melt and the Arctic is destabilizing the system, and why several recent studies now suggest a coin-flip chance of a severe AMOC shutdown this century.

This episode of Climate Emergency Forum asks whether a “super El Niño” may be forming and what that could mean for record‑breaking global heat and extreme weather. Host Herb Simmens talks with climate scientist Paul Beckwith about new ocean data down to 300 metres, the ENSO cycle, prediction uncertainties, and how even a “moderate” El Niño has already pushed global temperatures above 1.5°C.

Extreme heat is already making daily life dangerous for billions of people, and the burden is falling hardest on those with the least power, wealth, and voice. In this episode of Climate Emergency Forum, we ask a stark question: is it becoming too hot to live—and for whom first? They explore new research on “thermal justice,” wet-bulb temperatures, and the deadly inequality baked into our rapidly warming world.

This episode of Climate Emergency Forum dives into the World Meteorological Organization’s latest State of the Global Climate report, with a sharp focus on the emerging core metric of our era: Earth’s energy imbalance. The planet is now trapping heat equivalent to 12 Hiroshima-sized bombs every second, with most of that energy going into the oceans rather than the air we directly feel. The discussion unpacks how greenhouse gas emissions, reduced air pollution, and failing planetary feedbacks are combining to drive this imbalance to unprecedented levels.

This episode of Climate Emergency Forum explores how the Iran war has triggered a hidden global crisis in fertilizer and food security, far beyond the headlines about oil. Herb Simmens speaks with climate scientist Paul Beckwith and physician and climate analyst Peter Carter about how conflict in the Strait of Hormuz is blocking up to one‑third of the world’s nitrogen fertilizer supply, threatening harvests from Iowa and the Punjab to Ukraine and the Nile Delta.