From stalled UN plastics treaty talks, to the hottest summer on record across much of the northern hemisphere - it’s been a bleak few weeks for climate news. So this week, against a backdrop of worsening headlines, we ask: are there still reasons to be optimistic? And what will it take to turn urgency into real change?

Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul Dickinson are joined by Ani Dasgupta, President & CEO of the World Resources Institute. His new book, The New Global Possible: Rebuilding Optimism in the Age of Climate Crisis, argues that while we know what needs to be done, the real challenge lies in how to orchestrate transformation at scale.

Ani shares stories of progress from cities, nations, and communities around the world, making the case that optimism isn’t about ignoring reality, but about mobilising the political, economic, and social will to act.

But does a hopeful outlook risk minimising the seriousness of the crisis? And how can we close the gap between lofty pledges and meaningful action?

Learn more:

📖 Check out Ani Dasgupta’s The New Global Possible - currently available internationally in ebook and in print editions from many retailers

🌍 Read about the background and latest developments on the UN Global Plastics Treaty

🌡️ Dive into this roundup of the record-breaking extreme weather that hit the northern hemisphere this summer

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

Follow us on social media for behind the scenes moments and to watch our videos:

Instagram @outrageoptimism

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Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks

Video Producer: Caitlin Hanrahan

Assistant Producer: Eve Jones

Exec Producer: Ellie Clifford

Commissioning Editor: Sarah Thomas 

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.

What does it mean to live on the front lines of climate change - where rising seas, collapsing ecosystems and the legacies of colonialism collide?

This week, Christiana Figueres and Paul Dickinson are joined by guest host Andrew Higham (Founder of the Future of Climate Cooperation, and former UNFCCC Senior Advisor), to hear from three remarkable people from across the Solomon Islands, Alaska and Greenland. Their stories serve as a stark warning of the ways climate change is reshaping lives, identities and politics. How centuries-old knowledge offers resilience and guidance the world cannot afford to ignore.

How do you build an island? Indigenous Knowledge Advocate Lysa Wini describes how her Solomon Islands ancestors literally created their islands from coral and rock. How are their successors responding, now that rising oceans threaten their homes? 

Wáahlaal Gidaag, Haida leader from Alaska and VP of Arctic Conservation at Ocean Conservancy, shares how her son’s questions are drawing her back to ancestral ways of seeing land and sea.

And Parnuna Egede Dahl, Special Advisor with Oceans North Kalaallit Nunaat in Greenland, explains how self-rule intersects with ocean governance, and what Greenland’s decision to join the Paris Agreement means for the future.

Their experiences challenge us to look beyond negotiations and policy texts, and ask: what can we learn from those who have always been on climate’s front lines? And how can we work together to protect the planet on which we all depend?

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

Follow us on social media for behind the scenes moments and to watch our videos:

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Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks

Video Producer: Caitlin Hanrahan

Assistant Producer: Caillin McDaid

Assistant Producer: Eve Jones

Exec Producer: Ellie Clifford

Commissioning Editor: Sarah Thomas 

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.

What if we could not only listen to the rest of nature, but actually understand it?

From decoding whale songs to giving nature a legal voice, the possibilities are tantalising - and they may not be as far-fetched as they sound. That’s why the Earth Species Project (ESP) is racing to use artificial intelligence to translate the communication of other species before they fall silent.

How can this cutting edge technology analyse data that would take human researchers a lifetime? And how might findings feed into emerging ideas about ecocentric governance and earth law? We hear from ESP’s Aza Raskin (Co-founder), Jane Lawton (Managing Director) and Olivier Pietquin (Chief Scientist) about this extraordinary mission, and the tools they’re using to achieve the previously unimaginable.

Plus, Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac, and Paul Dickinson explore the promises and pitfalls of AI: its energy demands, its unpredictable impacts on democracy and capitalism, and its potential to become a ‘Galileo moment’ in how humans relate to the living world.

This episode features recordings of animal species - some of which were used in the training of ESP’s NatureLM-Audio model.

Learn more 

🔊 Discover more about ESP’s large audio model, NatureLM-Audio, and the technology driving their work

📖 Read Aldo Leopold’s A Sound County Almanac, including the essay Thinking Like a Mountain

🐋 Read about about the story of Tokitae the orca calf

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

Follow us on social media for behind the scenes moments and to watch our videos:

Instagram @outrageoptimism

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Or get in touch with us via this form. 

Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks

Video Producer: Caitlin Hanrahan

Assistant Producer: Caillin McDaid

Exec Producer: Ellie Clifford

Commissioning Editor: Sarah Thomas 

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.

Live from Belém… it’s Outrage + Optimism! (Or it will be.)

This year’s COP is one of the most significant in years, and we’ll be there with you every step of the way - charting the buildup, analysing events on the ground, and reflecting on the impacts that will be felt for decades to come.

We’re delighted to announce that we are the official COP30 podcast, and there’s nobody better than Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul Dickinson to tell you everything you need to know - alongside some very special guests.

Inside COP will bring you the voices of negotiators, COP30 leaders and communities from Brazil and beyond. And as the climate story of the year unfolds, we’ll be asking the hard questions, and ensuring you get the inside scoop on what’s really going on. 

Episodes of Inside COP will be released in this feed - so if you’re not already, subscribe now and join us as we gear up for Belém. Plus, send us your questions, insights, hopes and concerns, so that you can help shape this vital conversation.

🎤 Leave us your COP-related voice notes and questions on SpeakPipe

Follow us on social media for behind the scenes moments and to watch our videos:

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Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks

Video Producer: Caitlin Hanrahan

Exec Producer: Ellie Clifford

Commissioning Editor: Sarah Thomas

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.

What’s really in the food on our plates? The journey to our supermarket shelves is one of broken economics, environmental destruction, and social injustice.

But what if agriculture could look completely different?

This week, Christiana Figueres and Paul Dickinson travel to Umbria, Italy, to visit QuintoSapore, a farm founded by twin brothers Nicola and Alessandro. After leaving city careers, they set out to reinvent farming: growing food in a way that respects living things, restores soil, and values the people who work the land.

Instead of short-term, precarious labour, they offer full-time contracts, living wages, and community. Instead of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, they look to biomimicry, biochar, and heirloom seeds - not discovering, but remembering the old ways and learning from nature.

From a revelation in a drought-stricken woodland, to redefining what it means to “grow” rather than “produce” food, this episode is a reminder that the path to climate resilience runs straight through our fields.

Learn more

🌱 Explore QuintoSapore’s story

🍅 Watch our video clips from the farm visit on Instagram and LinkedIn

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

Follow us on social media for behind the scenes moments and to watch our videos:

Instagram @outrageoptimism

LinkedIn @outrageoptimism

Or get in touch with us via this form. 

Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks

Video Producer: Caitlin Hanrahan

Assistant Producer: Caillin McDaid

Assistant Producer: Eve Jones

Exec Producer: Ellie Clifford

Commissioning Editor: Sarah Thomas

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.

As global temperatures continue to skyrocket, the once unthinkable is now within view: overshooting 1.5°C of warming. This limit, set out in the Paris Agreement, has defined a decade of climate action, but is fast approaching. So what happens next?

This week, Tom, Christiana and Paul grapple with the latest science, the looming risks of climate tipping points, and the urgent need to prepare for the worst - even while hoping and working for the best. They’re joined by Ricken Patel, former Founding CEO of global activism nonprofit Avaaz, who is now calling us to take the possibility of overshoot seriously, and to build the political, technological and social capacity to bring temperatures back down.

From nature-based solutions to novel carbon dioxide removal and solar radiation management, this episode considers the broad spectrum of options on the table, and the challenges they present. Why has climate contingency planning been missing from the political debate? And does simply talking about it risk slowing climate action?

These aren’t just questions of what we might do in the future - but of what we’re prepared to act on now.

Learn more 

🌡️ Explore the IPCC’s Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C - outlining some of the projected impacts and available pathways 

🌱 Interested in nature-based solutions? Check out this explainer from the UN Environment Programme

🌬️ Interested in carbon dioxide removal? Browse through the CDR Primer 

☀️ Interested in solar radiation management? Read this NOAA factsheet

🎧 Listen to two of producer Ben’s other podcasts about carbon dioxide removal, The Carbon Removal Show and Grounded: A Climate Startup Journey

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

Follow us on social media for behind the scenes moments and to watch our videos:

Instagram @outrageoptimism

LinkedIn @outrageoptimism

Or get in touch with us via this form. 

Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks

Video Producer: Caitlin Hanrahan

Assistant Producer: Caillin McDaid

Assistant Producer: Eve Jones

Exec Producer: Ellie Clifford

Commissioning Editor: Sarah Thomas 

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.

Isn’t climate change just part of a natural cycle? Weren’t CO2 levels much higher in the past? And, even if we should be worried, can one person really make a difference?

Lies travel faster than facts. We’ve all been confronted by someone who doesn’t ‘believe the science’ and asks questions like these - but how do we change their minds?

A powerful report from the International Panel on the Information Environment (IPIE) warns how coordinated misinformation campaigns are eroding public understanding and slowing climate progress around the world. And as anyone working in or advocating for climate action knows, persistent myths and misunderstandings continue to thrive - even as the science gets clearer, the stakes get higher, and the crisis becomes more urgent. What’s clear is that disinformation is a weapon, and it’s being targeted at climate action. 

So this week, Christiana Figueres and Paul Dickinson tackle some of the most common (and frustrating) climate myths - where do they come from, why are they misleading, and how can we win the battle against them? 

Learn more 

⏳ Listen back to our episodes Momentum vs Perfection, where we explore different theories of change within the climate movement and the tension between urgency, impact, and doing things the ‘right’ way.

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

Follow us on social media for behind the scenes moments and to watch our videos:

Instagram @outrageoptimism

LinkedIn @outrageoptimism

Or get in touch with us via this form. 

Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks

Video Producer: Caitlin Hanrahan

Assistant Producer: Caillin McDaid

Assistant Producer: Eve Jones

Exec Producer: Ellie Clifford

Commissioning Editor: Sarah Thomas 

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.

As record heat scorches the US, Trump’s government is making things dramatically worse. We break down the devastating implications of the One Big Beautiful Bill, the reversal of the Environmental Protection Agency’s endangerment finding, and a potential US withdrawal from all UN agencies. It’s a full-blown climate backslide with global consequences.

Then, we bring you a conversation with the brilliant Maggie Baird - actor, producer, climate activist, and mother of Billie Eilish and Finneas. Maggie joins us backstage at the Co-op Live Arena in Manchester, where Billie’s shows are going plant-based, thanks to Maggie’s food justice initiative Support + Feed. We talk food, parenting, the power of culture to shift climate narratives, and how to stay hopeful - even when it feels like the world is falling apart.

Learn more 

⛽ ‘How the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ positions US energy to be more costly for consumers and the climate’ in The Conversation

🎶 See Billie Eilish talk about cleaning up the music industry’s environmental practices, or watch the full documentary (for CNN subscribers)

⏳ Listen back to our episodes Momentum vs Perfection, where we explore different theories of change within the climate movement and the tension between urgency, impact, and doing things the ‘right’ way.

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

Follow us on social media for behind the scenes moments and to watch our videos:

Instagram @outrageoptimism

LinkedIn @outrageoptimism

Or get in touch with us via this form. 

Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks

Video Producer: Caitlin Hanrahan

Assistant Producer: Caillin McDaid

Assistant Producer: Eve Jones

Exec Producer: Ellie Clifford

Commissioning Editor: Sarah Thomas 

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 Existential Problem of Planetary Proportions”

International Court of Justice President Yuji Iwasawa just delivered a landmark advisory opinion on climate change and human rights - one that could transform global climate action and accountability.

A dancing and crying Christiana Figueres is joined by Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul Dickinson, to react in real-time, and speak with two of the lawyers who helped make it happen. 

Fresh from the courtroom, Julian Aguon, the indigenous human rights lawyer who represented Pacific nations, and Jennifer Robinson, barrister for Vanuatu and the Marshall Islands, bring their raw, unfiltered reactions to this history-making ruling (before heading off to celebrate).

As governments, legal teams, and corporate leaders worldwide scramble to interpret its implications, we have everything you need to know about what just happened in The Hague.

The ICJ’s unanimous opinion states:

• Climate action is now a legal duty: States are obligated under international law to prevent dangerous climate change.
• 1.5°C has legal weight: States must pursue their “highest possible ambition” in their Nationally Determined Contributions and ensure collective measures can limit warming to 1.5°C.
• Failure to act is unlawful: Granting fossil fuel licenses, providing subsidies, or failing to regulate emissions may constitute an internationally wrongful act.
• Reparations are possible: Countries could be required to compensate or remedy the damage caused by their emissions - anywhere in the world.

Could this be the legal tipping point that forces governments to act? Across capitals and boardrooms, the conversations have already started - and what happens next could reshape how nations and companies are held to account. Listen in and join us as this story unfolds.

Learn more 

Listen back to our two previous episodes that explore the background to this case:

🌿 Sovereignty and Survival: A Spotlight on Vanuatu, where Christiana reports on Vanuatu’s long fight for climate justice.

✊🏽 The Climate Case of the Century, where Cynthia Houniuhi shares her story of how the landmark ICJ case came to be.

📖 Dive into the full advisory opinion from the ICJ.

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

Follow us on social media for behind the scenes moments and to watch our videos:

Instagram @outrageoptimism

LinkedIn @outrageoptimism

Or get in touch with us via this form. 

Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks

Video Producer: Caitlin Hanrahan

Exec Producer: Ellie Clifford

Commissioning Editor: Sarah Thomas 

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.

Can a pilot really be the change-maker who helps us to holiday nearer home? Why aren’t governments and institutions doing more to help climate activists? And can climate progress happen without sacrificing prosperity, especially in countries like Brazil?

Christiana Figueres, Paul Dickinson and guest host Fiona McRaith (Director of The Climate Pledge at Global Optimism) are back with more of the knottiest and most urgent questions you’ve ever sent us.

Plus: are the world’s biggest financial institutions abandoning climate action? Sue Reid (Climate Finance Advisor at Global Optimism) explains how banks and insurers are reacting to political pressure, why some net zero alliances appear to be fracturing, and why “green hushing” doesn’t mean giving up entirely.

And: from climate visas to sponge cities, adaptation is finally rising on the global agenda - but is it fast or fair enough? Irene Suárez Pérez (Senior Advisor to Groundswell) walks us through some of the global hotspots of climate resilience, and why adaptation isn’t a consolation prize.

Learn more 

Listen back to episodes referenced in this Q&A, including:

⏳ Momentum vs Perfection, where Fiona joins Tom to explore different theories of change within the climate movement.

💼 When Business is Political: Climate Commitments in an Age of Backlash, where Tom and Paul speak to Helen Clarkson about the moves of large companies in the context of rising anti-ESG forces.

💰 Learn more about greening pensions and investments: ShareAction, Third Act’s Banking on our Future and Make My Money Matter

🎤 Get your chance to be featured on the show! Leave us your voice notes and questions for upcoming episodes on SpeakPipe

And follow us on social media for behind the scenes moments and to watch our videos:

Instagram @outrageoptimism

LinkedIn @outrageoptimism

Or get in touch with us via this form. 

Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks

Video Producer: Caitlin Hanrahan

Additional production: Miriam Hall

Exec Producer: Ellie Clifford

Commissioning Editor: Sarah Thomas 

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.