Outrage + Optimism Podcast Episodes
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386: Digger's flop, Big Oil and the bots: What actually moves people?
In Digger, Tom Cruise plays an oil tycoon whose rig sets off a tsunami. Within days of release, it was written off as a flop. Christiana Figueres has seen it twice, and she has questions about how quickly that verdict arrived. As she sees it, the film puts the fossil fuel lobby squarely in the frame. This week, Christiana, Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul Dickinson meet in person, with a stack of your questions and a bigger one underneath them all: what actually moves people to act? Is it fear, or hope? And what are the hidden influences behind the messages that move us?
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Season 12 Culture + Climate
385: What World Will They Inherit? Live from Bath Abbey
15 October 2026
Before she was Christiana Figueres, architect of the Paris agreement, who was she? What did believe in 2015 that she no longer believes? In June, an event about the next generation of climate leaders was postponed because of extreme heat. This week, Outrage + Optimism comes to you live from Bath Abbey, weeks before COP31 and ten years on from Paris. What is one generation of climate leaders really handing to the next? And will it be enough?
Season 12 Justice + Climate
384: Life Below Sea Level: Can a Country Survive Losing Its Land?
08 October 2026
A ship rams a canoe. The canoe starts to sink. The ship's crew lean over the rail and offer a loan to repair it. That is how Surangel Whipps Jr., President of Palau, describes climate finance in the Pacific, a region responsible for around 0.03% of global emissions. He speaks to Christiana Figueres a few weeks into his year as Chair of the Pacific Islands Forum, and as pre-COP talks wrap in in Fiji and Tuvalu ahead of COP31. In Palau, on his islands, high tides are already flooding the taro patches with saltwater, and the main hospital sits at the water's edge.
Season 12 Culture + Climate
383: The Easy Wins Are Gone. What's Actually Next for Net Zero?
01 October 2026
Net Zero was once a radical idea. Now it’s both an accepted global target, and an increasingly toxic political faultline. This week, Tom is back from the UN General Assembly and New York Climate week, where António Guterres used his last speech as UN Secretary-General to call for every country to set a timeline for quitting fossil fuels. But around the world, politicians are turning against the very idea. In Britain, a committee of MPs now wants the government to stop saying "net zero" altogether. Should the climate movement let the phrase go, or will its opponents simply come for whatever replaces it?
Past Episodes
Season 12
382: Madam Secretary-General?: Inside the UN’s Secret Leadership Race
Season 12
381: The Weaponisation of Disaster: Inside the New Security Thinking
Season 12
380: Blocker or Blueprint? India on the World Stage
Season 12
379: What’s India Building?: Tales from the Biggest Transition on Earth
Season 12
378: India: Life Inside Delhi's 'Airpocalypse'
Season 12
377: The Clock is Ticking: Forty Seconds to Explain the Climate Crisis
Season 12
376: Beyond Politics: Should we take the heat out of the climate crisis?
Season 12
375: Cheapest Energy in History. Still Heading for 3 Degrees?
Season 12
374: Europe’s Summer of Fire: The New Normal?
