Outrage + Optimism: The Climate Podcast

World leaders are flocking to Beijing. In the first weeks of 2026, Canada’s Mark Carney, the UK’s Sir Keir Starmer and South Korea’s Lee Jae-myung have all made high-profile visits - an unmistakable signal of global power recalibrating.

China’s dominance in clean energy manufacturing is already well established: from solar panels and batteries to wind turbines. The question now is whether this transition remains merely made in China, or whether it is increasingly being shaped and led from Beijing.

Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul Dickinson consider what this shift may mean for the future of climate leadership - and for the institutions, alliances and norms that have shaped global climate cooperation for decades. They’re joined by scholar of China’s political economy and climate governance Yixian Sun, who has recently advised the UK government on their engagement with China. He unpacks the country’s own vision of leadership, its evolving role in the Global South, and the risks and opportunities of an increasingly multipolar climate order.

As the world recalibrates around China’s growing role, how does Beijing see itself? And what are other governments actually seeking as they turn towards it? We spoke to the man advising the UK government ahead of Keir Starmer’s arrival in Beijing.


🎤 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
Planning: Caitlin Hanrahan
Assistant Producer: Caillin McDaid
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.

How dependent are we - economically, politically and socially - on fossil fuels? And how do we begin to loosen that grip?

As the world reels from geopolitical shocks, multilateral institutions under strain, and the United States’ withdrawal from key climate bodies, Ana Toni - CEO of COP30 - joins the show to discuss what comes next. Both for Brazil’s presidency in this crucial year, and for the wider system of climate cooperation at a moment when the old rules feel increasingly fragile.

Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul Dickinson ask Ana what was achieved in Belém, what fell short, and why the year after the COP may matter more than the summit itself.

Are we entering an era where progress is driven not by universal agreement, but by those willing to move first and bring others with them? And could reframing the transition around ending dependence, rather than negotiating targets, change the politics of climate action?


🎤 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
Planning: Caitlin Hanrahan
Assistant Producer: Caillin McDaid
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.

What happens when the world’s most powerful country walks away from the system it helped to build?

This week, we examine the United States’ decision to withdraw not only from the Paris Agreement, but from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change itself - alongside dozens of other international bodies. Headlines declared the end of multilateral climate cooperation. But is that really what this moment represents?

Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul Dickinson unpack what has actually been announced - and what it does (and doesn’t) change in practice.

They are joined by Sue Biniaz, former US Deputy Special Envoy for Climate Change and one of the quiet architects of decades of climate diplomacy. Sue brings rare insight into whether a US president can legally withdraw from a Senate-ratified treaty, the surprising pathways by which a future administration could rejoin, and what influence the US may still wield as a non-party.

Could the absence of the US voice, paradoxically, unlock progress elsewhere? And in a fractured world, where does collective climate leadership now come from?

Learn more:

🎥 Watch our hosts’ immediate response to the US UNFCCC withdrawal announcement, recorded the day after news broke
📰 Read the New York Times profile of Sue Biniaz by Lisa Friedman: Meet the Closer Who Finds the Right Words When Climate Talks Hit a Wall
📄 Dive into the Just Security article penned by Sue Biniaz and Jean Galbraith on treaty withdrawal and re-entry

🎤 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
Planning: Caitlin Hanrahan
Assistant Producer: Caillin McDaid
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.

The year has barely begun, and already the fault lines of global power are on full display.

Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul Dickinson take stock of a moment that feels both shocking and revealing. The US abduction of Venezuela’s president raises urgent questions about sovereignty, international law, and the enduring grip of fossil fuels on geopolitics - even as the energy transition accelerates. But what’s really driving events in Venezuela? And how can we tease apart the political theatre from the realities of oil markets, military power, and domestic US politics.

Later, we ask: what are the big themes, underlying trends and climate stories already shaping the new year? From the possible rise of left-wing populism, to the intensifying battle over who will become the next UN Secretary-General.

As 2026 begins, the question is not just what kind of year lies ahead for climate action, but what kind of global order will shape it.

Learn more:
🛢️ Deep dive into the stats from the US Energy Information Administration on Venezuelan oil production
🌐 Read more about the appointment process of the UN Secretary-General.
🎧 Listen back to our holiday episodes, Why Beauty Matters in the Climate Crisis and Beginning the Year with Ancestral Wisdom

🎤 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
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.

As billions around the world mark the beginning of a new year, many are pausing to ask the same questions: what do we carry forward, and what do we leave behind, as we cross from the old into the new? And as headlines fill with predictions about the rise of artificial intelligence, could a different kind of AI - ‘ancestral intelligence’ - offer insights equal to the depth of the climate and biodiversity crises we now face?

This year’s COP saw Indigenous and First Nations Peoples better represented than ever before; but it also showed how far there is still to go to include them in meaningful dialogue. In a conversation recorded at COP30, Christiana Figueres sits down with two Indigenous leaders from different continents and traditions: Mindahi Bastida, from the Otomí-Toltec peoples of Mexico, and Atawévi Akôyi Oussou Lio, Prince of the Tolinou people of Benin. Together, they explore a relationship with the living world grounded in belonging rather than dominance, continuity rather than short-termism, and reciprocity rather than extraction.

Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul Dickinson then join Christiana to reflect on what it means to carry this wisdom into the year ahead. And if the challenges before us are not only technical and political, but also cultural and spiritual, how might that reshape the way we act, decide, and lead in 2026 and beyond?

🎤 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
Planning: Caitlin Hanrahan
Assistant Producer: Caillin McDaid
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.