372: Rosebank, Cambo, and the Conversation Christiana Never Got to Have

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Christiana Figueres: I was actually fearful for your safety, because you didn't walk behind and out. You went to the front of the stage, and what I couldn't see from where I was sitting is that you had many friends waiting for you. And you basically threw yourself off the stage onto the supporting hands of your colleagues, but I couldn't see them.

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Lauren Macdonald: Really? Okay.

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Christiana Figueres: And so I was like, Oh my God.

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Lauren Macdonald: It was a really high stage.

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Christiana Figueres: It was a very high stage.

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Lauren Macdonald: A really high stage.

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Christiana Figueres: And you threw, you were totally confident that they were there, that they were going to support you.

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Lauren Macdonald: Yeah.

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Christiana Figueres: Obviously very well planned. But I had no idea of this and I couldn't see them. And so when I saw you literally throwing yourself off the stage, I just, you know, my heart stopped. And then I saw their hands come up and hold you. And I went, whew, OK. And then you all marched out.

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Lauren Macdonald: Yeah.

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Christiana Figueres: But to me, I was just panicked for your safety first. Then what happens?

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Lauren Macdonald: Then, then it starts to get a bit more blurry because I became very, very overwhelmed. I remember that we walked outside and then there was a demonstration outside and some of the attendees in the auditorium left with us. And when we were leaving, we chanted, don't just watch us, join us, which was a call for others to leave the conversation. Join us outside. Some people did, some people didn't. And then there was a demonstration outside. And from there, that is honestly about as much as I can remember of that day, because it was still, to this day, the most overwhelming and life changing day of my entire life.

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Christiana Figueres: Wow. Wow, Lauren. I want to make space for that.

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Lauren Macdonald: Yeah. Sorry, I just, I would, I want to know how you-

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Christiana Figueres: Yeah, what I remember.

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Lauren Macdonald: What you remember from that day and how it was for you also.

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Christiana Figueres: Yeah. Well, first, I was aware that this was going to be a very important conversation. I was not ready for the dramatic level of it, because I didn't know what you were going to do. I was in full admiration of the force of your declaration on stage. I thought, wow, that is courage to say that as a young activist on this stage, in front of all these people directly to the person who happens to be the CEO of Shell right now. Then I was scared for your life when you threw yourself off the stage. Then as you all walked out and there came an incredible lull over the audience after you left, because you did march out singing, asking people to join you, but then once the doors closed behind yourselves and those who joined, then there was a lull and there was almost a gasp in the audience, like, oh my God, what is going to happen now, right? And what I clearly remember is that I just immediately got in touch with a deep pain inside of myself. And I believe that I stood up off of my chair and walked to the front of the stage and addressed the audience. Okay, can I ask everyone to take a deep breath, to close your eyes for a moment, and go into that spot of pain? Two hours later, then we both walked into the elevator at the same time. And I was really happy to see you. And I think you were just like paralyzed and still with...

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Lauren Macdonald: I was in shock.

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Christiana Figueres: Yeah.

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Lauren Macdonald: Which is why I didn't remember.

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Christiana Figueres: Well, what a conversation. Honestly, I'm actually quite exhausted from the emotional intensity of this conversation. It has been emotionally intense for me for several reasons. Now, this conversation today, when we spoke, was the first time that I ever knew that Lauren played me that whole night until 11 o'clock at night, where I was supposedly coaching her on a constructive conversation the next day with Ben and with Chris, and she was just saying, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and she was just playing me because she was going to do something completely different that she had already agreed to with her friends. So she played me that night. When I found out in that conversation that you've just heard, that she had actually played me, I had two reactions. One was, wow, how disingenuous she played me. That thought was superseded in about one second by what a brilliant woman. She was 21. She was sitting there with me who was, I don't know, I guess, a powerful voice in climate change. And she had the courage to play herself out the way that she had agreed with her colleagues. I recognize in this conversation that that was brilliant strategy. Is it a strategy that I would want to pursue? No. But it is a strategy that required huge guts and courage? Yes. Is it a strategy that she would pursue today? I don't think so. I think her inner development has led her to a different place where she would value honesty and transparency above this type of strategy. So, I admire that in her as well. To know where she came from in her thinking and her strategy, and what she is doing today, and how she is doing her activism today. Lauren, let's fast forward this, okay? When you see that courageous activist that threw herself off the stage, 10 years ago, not 10 years ago, what is this?

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Lauren Macdonald: Five.

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Christiana Figueres: Five years ago. God, it's only five years ago. Five years ago. What has been your journey as an activist, as a thinker, as a campaigner, as a conscience of what we're doing on climate? What has been your journey and where are you now?

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Lauren Macdonald: To be honest, at the time, I was still very overwhelmed. I can't really like overstate how shocking that day was for me on two levels. First of all, looking into Ben's eyes, looking into the eyes of a fossil fuel CEO, what I represented as a climate activist was so much bigger than myself. What he represented was so much bigger than himself. That meeting felt very intense on a spiritual level. It just brought so much into question for me because I think for a lot of us, the CEO of a fossil fuel company is an enigma, like something that you can't really understand or see. So meeting him in person on a stage as a 21-year-old woman in front of an audience, looking into his eyes, it brought him off that pedestal and I could see that he was a human.

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Christiana Figueres: Yeah, it demystified him.

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Lauren Macdonald: Yeah, exactly. And I understood on a much more visceral level that there are people who are making these decisions that I so disagree with. And I'm so committed to fighting against what they're doing. That was really, really overwhelming. And then the other thing that was overwhelming about it was that I had not experienced that virality before and...

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Christiana Figueres: You were thrown not only onto the Ted stage, but onto the world stage.

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Lauren Macdonald: Yes. Yeah, that is not an understatement.

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Christiana Figueres: That is not an understatement.

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Lauren Macdonald: I don't really remember it because it put me in shock. Because it was also a couple of weeks before COP26 happened, which took place in my hometown of Glasgow. So there was like an added weight to that conversation, I think, because this huge, really important event was happening in my home city. So I was thrown into the position of being a climate leader and being someone who is looked to for answers.

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Christiana Figueres: Guidance.

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Lauren Macdonald: Yeah.

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Christiana Figueres: Yeah.

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Lauren Macdonald: And that was really scary. And all of a sudden I had to deal with like the opinions of lots of different people. And yeah, being looked to for answers when really like, I didn't feel like I had them and I felt very climate anxious and I felt like I couldn't really kind of see the way forward at that time. And then yeah, Shell pulled out of Cambo and the project was put on pause and that was a massive victory. So unprecedented and so amazing. But yeah, my memory of it is a little limited because of what I was going through personally at that time.

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Christiana Figueres: Seven weeks after that moment, Shell did pull out of Cambo. Shell's own statement didn't mention Lauren, the Ted event or the Stop Cambo campaign. What it said is that the economic case simply wasn't strong enough and that delays were too likely. Nice line, Shell, very nice line. Well, yes, it's sort of true. It's true that delays were in part driven by six months of sustained opposition, protests, legal threats. A first minister of Scotland on record against Cambo. Cause and effect, there isn't quite a clean line, but quite a few challenges for them to have to face. Equally, on the other side, although Cambo has not been developed, it is not completely dead. As of this recording, Cambo has a new owner. It has been sold to Ithaca Energy. That company resubmitted plans this spring. And they say they're aiming for a final investment decision within the next year. Industry analysts expect its fate to be decided alongside a new oil and gas development, Rosebank. It will not surprise you that Lauren and her friends are leading a campaign against Rosebank. At the time, for Lauren and her colleagues, the fact that Cambo did not go ahead was a huge victory. How did it also influence the next five years?

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Lauren Macdonald: Yeah, that is a good question. Because for me, a lot of things in how I understand my life, feel like before and after that day. I guess when we won the Cambo fight, it just provided so much hope because we then had proof that it was possible to stop new fossil fuel projects. We had proof that we could actually create this change at a time when the International Energy Agency was warning, we need to stop opening new fossil fuel projects. That was the same year that the conversation became, we can't have any more. We could see the victory in the movement. We could also see how much it was actually going to take to stop all new fossil fuel projects because we'd stopped one. That was really hard. We did it. Then we could see how much work was ahead of us. Then shortly after that, Russia's invasion of Ukraine meant that the UK government, the conservative government at the time, were then able to get away with saying, we need new oil and gas for energy security reasons, which has been proved to be untrue over the following years. We can see right now that being at the whims of fossil fuel dictators, it's just creating many, many, many more problems and that's kind of become uncovered as the geopolitical situation has become more complex over the past few years. But at this time, the conservative government said, oh, yes, look at this terrible situation and gas prices have risen so much. And so they said, we need new oil and gas for energy security. A few months after that, they then approved the Jackdaw gas field, which was a really, really difficult moment because we'd seen we were victorious against Cambo and then the government approved Jackdaw. So it felt like we were on a really, really positive trajectory. And then the external circumstances changed and we were kind of slapped in the face by this reality of how difficult it was actually going to be. And then shortly after that, the Rosebank oil field came on the scene. And Rosebank is the UK's biggest undeveloped oil field, three times the size of Cambo. Its emissions would be more than six times the annual emissions of Scotland.

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Christiana Figueres: As we're making this episode, Rosebank still isn't resolved. Scotland's courts overturned its original approval in January 2025, ruling the assessment hadn't properly accounted for the emissions from actually burning the oil, not just pulling it out of the ground. However, construction has carried on anyway. The company now fighting to develop it includes Shell. As of July 2026, a decision from the UK Energy Secretary is still pending. We will be speaking to Lauren specifically about Rosebank on another episode. For the time being, let us close this conversation. With Lauren. So Lauren, I love us both remembering that day in 2021. And I'm also interested in what has occurred since then for you. I would love to know when you look at yourself, reflect on yourself, what remains the same as the Lauren five years ago, and what has perhaps evolved in the Lauren today.

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Lauren Macdonald: Yeah, it's a very big question. I mean, so much has changed because the Lauren five years ago was 21 years old. My brain wasn't even finished developing yet. And I look back on the Lauren five years ago, and I see a very young and very scared person. I think I don't feel quite as scared anymore because I have the tools to deal with being someone who's very sensitive to the suffering of the world. And the fight against new fossil fuel projects in the UK means so, so much to me, more than almost anything, which I think is partly, of course, because of the situation as it is right now and how urgent it is, but also I think for me personally, it's just been such a big part of my journey as a human being, especially having had these really big life changing moments through the campaigns that I've worked on that it's very, very important to me.

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Christiana Figueres: Has your approach to campaigning changed in any way?

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Lauren Macdonald: Yeah.

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Christiana Figueres: Like what?

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Lauren Macdonald: It's maybe less angry. When we had that conversation on the Ted stage, I was very angry and that anger and that fear was the main emotion that I think came across. Since then, I've been on a real journey of trying to understand where my campaigning actually comes from on an emotional level. I think the anger and the fear are important, but I've also cultivated more love. I think the work that I do now also comes more from a place of love for my community, for the planet, for being alive. That has been very, very deep work. I think maybe the campaigning looks quite similar in that the issue that I'm working on is the same. The tactics are similar. We're working as part of a movement. So of course, these things change over time and there's many different people, many different tactics, many different approaches. But for me, I think it's more of a nuance, like deeper thing that's changed, which is just my approach to my life and my work. It would be remiss not to mention how we have come across each other in the past five years, which is through our shared Plum Village community. So being a Buddhist and having a Buddhist practice is one of the main things that has allowed me to feel less scared of the future, feel more accepting of the present moment as it is right now, while still being fully committed to trying to create the change that we want to see and trying to reduce the harm. And I'm coming at it from more of a place of accepting things that they are while still wanting them to.

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Christiana Figueres: Yeah.

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Lauren Macdonald: But I would love to pose the same question to you, like how have you changed over the past five years?

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Christiana Figueres: I have witnessed that transformation in you.

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Lauren Macdonald: Yeah.

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Christiana Figueres: And I've been delighted to see that you chose that path of transformation. And I'm also tickled by, you know, I never graduated from kindergarten. I see everything in like little pictures in my head. And when I think of the two of us over the past five years, I feel like you have walked in my direction and I have walked in your direction. You have walked in my direction because you decided to begin to look at the world through the lens of mindfulness. And I definitely concur with you that it changes the space from which we work. It doesn't change the work that we do, not the what. It just changes the how and changing the how is huge. So I have witnessed that and I have been in total joy of seeing that in you. And I have been walking in your direction because my tolerance for fossil fuel companies has gone down to zero and negative 40. Yeah, right. I mean, it is in those five years that I have really lost any trust that I had in, not in the companies, but in the then leaders of these companies that I had an active conversation with, and that I believe were at the time very sincere in what they were trying to do, a very difficult path that they had to lead their companies down a path of decreasing their dependence from their traditional business model and migrate toward different business models. And I believe that there was a handful of CEOs in fossil fuel companies that were very sincere in trying to do that without losing their shareholders. I mean, it's a very difficult path. But I was watching them and having conversations with them, and I was trusting their sincerity. Since then, that handful of leaders has been changed. And these companies have all moved over to different leadership. And I would say much more traditional leadership in the sense that they are now so much more motivated by the short-term gain that they can extract from geopolitical issues such as Ukraine, such as closing the Gulf now. All of these issues that they have very, very smartly manipulated in order to be able to raise their prices and extract as much as they can, which my sense is basically acts of desperation because they can see that they do not have a long-term path, that they do not have a long-term continuation, that they're really only here in the present and medium term. But they're trying to pull that tail and make it as long as possible. And I just think that is not just disingenuous, but so immoral, so immoral that they're doing that fully well knowing the consequences of that.

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Lauren Macdonald: That's awful.

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Christiana Figueres: It's just, it's unbearable. It is unbearable. So I'm just really tickled that we've walked in each other's direction.

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Lauren Macdonald: Yeah. And when, when you speak with that conviction about your lack of trust in fossil fuel companies, it puts me back in touch with my own anger towards what they're doing. And I think like, you know, over the past five years, there are so many examples that we can look to where fossil fuel companies have just proved, and their leadership have proved that they cannot be trusted. Whether it is the fact that in 2022 during Russia's fuel scale invasion of Ukraine, gas prices shot up and all of a sudden, fossil fuel companies were making record profits. And what that meant as a knock on effect was that millions of UK households were pushed into fuel poverty. So it's not only that these decisions are being made that are destroying the climate and making a livable planet in the future, less and less likely, that it's also the same companies that are doing that, that are escalating the climate crisis, that are pushing millions of families into poverty today, right now. And for me, in my own journey throughout my life as well, like I come from a working class family and my parents struggled financially. And so when I kind of made that connection, that it's not just that they're destroying the climate, they're also making our lives harder and less dignified in the present moment. That also increased my anger.

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Christiana Figueres: For their own profit. That's it. That's the only reason.

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Lauren Macdonald: It is so deeply immoral and I just cannot understand how...

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Christiana Figueres: How anyone can make those decisions.

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Lauren Macdonald: Yeah.

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Christiana Figueres: Lauren, thank you so much. We're going to leave this episode here. But I would love to have another conversation with you about Rosebank.

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Lauren Macdonald: Let's do it.

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Christiana Figueres: Can we do that?

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Lauren Macdonald: Let's do it.

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Christiana Figueres: All right. Thanks.