In this episode we talk to Christiana Figueres and Tom-Rivett-Carnac. Christiana Figueres is the former UN climate chief and the architect and public face of the most pivotal climate agreement in history, the Paris Agreement. Tom Rivett-Carnac was Chief Political Strategist for this same agreement. Together they wrote a book – The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis – on what can still be done stave off the worst and manage the long-term effects of climate change. They show us that amidst the doomsday reports there are reasons to be hopeful, that some sectors - like power generation and light transport - are transforming quickly, that global mindsets are shifting, and that cities could be the forerunners in the transformation we need. They provide a cautionary but also an empowering account on the agency that we still have to turn things around. 

In this first episode we talk to Brett Christophers, Professor of Social and Economic Geography at Uppsala University, on his latest book Rentier Capitalism. The book is a sweeping critique of early twenty-first-century capitalism in which ownership of key types of scarce assets - such as land, intellectual property, natural resources, or digital platforms - is dominated by a few unfathomably wealthy companies and individuals: rentiers. We talk about what such an economy entails and how an explosion of rent-seeking businesses has led to growing wealth and income inequality, declining productivity and innovation, and falling rates of investment. And we look for answers on what can be done to overcome it, and the ways in which cities could play a role in this.