Outrage + Optimism: The Climate Podcast

Sea-level rise is often spoken about in centimetres, forecasts and future scenarios. But what if we understood it as a health emergency that is already reshaping lives, harming bodies and minds, and displacing entire communities?

This week, as a landmark Lancet Commission launches, Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac argue that sea-level rise must be understood not just as a climate threat, but as a health crisis currently unfolding. And, as co-chair of the Lancet Commission on Sea-Level Rise, Health and Justice, Christiana brings us inside the thinking behind this urgent new effort.

Christiana speaks to commissioners ‘Ofa Kaisamy, Professor Anne Poelina and Dr Sandro Demaio, who paint a vivid picture of what happens before and as the water arrives. This is a story of food insecurity, damaged clinics and hospitals, disease, displacement, trauma, and the loss of ancestral knowledge and cultural continuity. But it also points to an opportunity to finally see sea-level rise in fully human terms, with those on the frontlines shaping the response.

What changes when we stop treating rising seas as a distant environmental problem and start recognising them as a present health emergency? And what might become possible if the people most affected are no longer treated as victims, but as leaders?

Learn More:
🌊 Read The Lancet Commission launch paper on sea-level rise, health and justice.
🩺 Read Christiana’s opinion piece on health and sea-level rise in the Guardian
🏝️ Explore WHO Western Pacific’s work on climate change and health in the Pacific
📈 Go deeper with the IPCC on sea-level rise and low-lying coasts and islands.

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

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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 headlines warn of a possible ‘super El Niño’ later this year, we ask: how do we respond to a warning before it becomes a catastrophe?

The last major El Niño brought record heat, crop failures, flooding and deepening food insecurity across large parts of the world. This time, the question is not only what may be coming, but whether we are any better prepared to act on the warning?

Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul Dickinson look at what the forecasts do and do not tell us about the climate ahead in 2026, and what it means to prepare for a crisis that is still uncertain, but increasingly hard to ignore.

And in a world of shrinking aid budgets and rising climate risk, they’re joined by Andrew Kruczkiewicz from the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre and Columbia Climate School - how do you justify spending on a crisis that hasn’t happened yet?

From anticipatory finance and early warning systems to the politics of aid cuts and the difficulty of communicating risk in real time, they explore what climate preparedness looks like when the stakes are already human and immediate.

Learn More:
🔴 Browse the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre’s work on linking climate science and action
🩺 Read the WHO explainer on ENSO and health
🌊 Get up to date on NOAA’s latest ENSO Diagnostic discussion for the clearest official snapshot of what forecasters are currently saying about the chances of El Niño emerging in 2026
🛰️ Explore the World Food Programme’s work on anticipatory action and see their Bangladesh case study to see how it’s used in practice

🎤 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.

We used to be shocked by this. Hundreds of thousands displaced, millions affected, whole communities washed out. But somewhere along the way, extreme weather events have become background noise.

This week, Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul Dickinson explore what it means to live in a world where extreme rainfall, displacement and repeated flood damage are no longer rare shocks but part of a rapidly changing climate reality. Last year alone, Southern Africa, Pakistan, Brazil, South Sudan, and many other countries were devastated by catastrophic flooding. We reflect on the scale of the global crisis, the lives upended, and the huge economic losses that too often go uninsured.

Then Paul speaks with Louis Ramirez, co-founder of Flooded People UK, about what happens when flooding stops being just a weather event and becomes a political force. They discuss the growing toll of flooding in the UK, from mental health impacts to rising insurance costs and falling property values, and ask what collective action looks like when communities are forced to confront climate damage on their own doorsteps.

As the front lines of climate change move ever deeper into the Global North, will governments finally respond with the urgency this crisis demands? And can the devastation that flows from climate impacts help rally a social movement for change?

Learn More:

About flooding in the UK…
🌧️ Explore Flooded People’s resources on the state of flooding in the UK
🏠 Read about the government-backed Flood Re insurance programme mentioned in this episode
📍 Check the long-term flood risk for your area (England only, with links to other UK nations)

About flooding internationally…
🌍 Read more about worldwide flood risk from the World Bank
🔎 Explore how extreme weather events are being attributed to climate change at World Weather Attribution
🚨 Understand how flooding is displacing people across the globe at the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre

🎤 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.

War in Iran has triggered another global energy shock. Once again, conflict has exposed the deep instability built into the fossil fuel system. And once again, the world is reminded that these fuels are not only polluting, but precarious.

In this episode, Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul Dickinson unpack why the threat to oil infrastructure and the Strait of Hormuz matters so much, and why these moments keep repeating. What does it mean to build an economy around fuels concentrated in a handful of volatile places, and transported through fragile choke points? And why are many responding to that insecurity by calling for more drilling?

They’re joined by Bruce Douglas, CEO of the Global Renewables Alliance and Chief Growth Officer at the Global Wind Energy Council. Bruce argues that although this is not the first energy crisis of its kind, it may be the first in which the alternatives are ready at scale. Renewables are available now - and, in many cases, cheaper, faster and more secure than doubling down on fossil fuels.

Together they explore the fork in the road now facing governments. In a moment of insecurity, do countries try to squeeze more out of declining oil and gas reserves? Or do they use this as the push they need to invest in a more resilient system? That decision may determine whether this will be remembered as just another oil crisis - or as the moment political leaders finally started to absorb the lesson.

Learn More:

⚡ Read the Global Renewable Alliance’s Renewables Action Plan to break the energy crises cycle
☀️ Learn more about Pakistan’s people-led solar revolution
🌍 Understand why the Strait of Hormuz matters so much to global energy supply
📈 Explore the IEA’s report on the status of renewables today and their forecasts to 2030

🎤 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.

The climate crisis is not one problem. It is a crisis of water, food, energy, language, justice and power - all colliding at once. So how do we respond when climate solutions create new trade-offs of their own? And are we even using the right words to describe what is happening?

In this episode, Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul Dickinson take on some of the knottiest questions in climate. From water stress and biodiversity loss, to geoengineering, public understanding, and the language of urgency itself. What gets overlooked? What gets simplified? And how do we navigate increasing complexity in the middle of a worsening crisis?

We don’t have all the answers. But as our choices grow harder, these are some of the questions that demand our attention.

Learn More:

💧 Dive into Why Water Matters from the UNFCCC
🦅 Explore how solar and wind energy producers can mitigate impacts on biodiversity
🎧 Listen back to last year’s episode unpacking some of climate’s most common acronyms
☁️ … or return to our most recent episode on geoengineering with Politico’s Karl Mathiesen

🎤 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.