This week we acknowledge the US strikes on Iran and the escalation that has followed. The immediate human cost is what matters most right now. But this crisis is unfolding within a global system still shaped by oil markets and fossil fuel dependence - a dependence that amplifies regional instability and turns into global vulnerability.

The same structural tensions sit at the heart of this week’s conversation, recorded before these events. Indonesia is the world's fourth most populous country, one of its largest coal exporters, and a nation with every natural resource it needs to transition to clean energy. The problem isn't will, it’s money. Who it's available to, and on what terms.

Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul Dickinson are joined by Sri Mulyani Indrawati - Indonesia's former Finance Minister under three different presidents, former Managing Director of the World Bank, and one of the most credible voices in the world on exactly this set of challenges. She walks through what it actually costs to retire a single coal plant years ahead of schedule, why developing countries find themselves trapped by contracts they signed in good faith, and why the international finance system is making the transition harder, not easier.

Countries like Indonesia borrow at far higher rates than wealthier economies, even as they face greater exposure to climate impacts. When that exposure feeds into credit ratings, the cost of capital rises, making clean energy investment more expensive precisely where it is needed most.

In a system that makes decarbonisation harder for the countries most vulnerable to climate impacts, who pays?

Learn More:

🏭 Explore Global Energy Monitor's coal plant tracker for Indonesia's existing and planned capacity

🎧 Listen to our interview with Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados.

🏦 Learn about the Bridgetown Agenda and its proposals to reform international development finance

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

Join the conversation:

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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.

Climate concern is not the problem. Most people have it. What's missing is everything that turns concern into action - and understanding that gap turns out to be a lot more complicated than it looks.

This week, Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul Dickinson sit down with Lorraine Whitmarsh, Professor of Environmental Psychology and Director of the Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations at the University of Bath.

Together they dig into the psychology behind catastrophe apathy: why understanding an existential threat doesn't always lead to action, and what the research says actually moves people.

Lorraine shares real-world evidence - including renewable energy tariffs that shifted 90% of customers onto green power simply by making it the default - and explains why trusted everyday messengers, from hairdressers to taxi drivers, employers to community figures, often have more influence than expert voices in reshaping what feels normal.

The conversation also revisits an uncomfortable history: how the personal carbon footprint, popularised by BP in the early 2000s, reframed climate responsibility around individual choices rather than systemic change. A framing so powerful that even environmental organisations adopted it. Who benefited most from that shift is a question the movement is still grappling with.

If systemic change requires public consent, and public consent requires political will, and political will requires behaviour change - how do you break the climate Catch-22?

With thanks to the University of Bath.

Learn More:

🧠 Explore Lorraine Whitmarsh's research at the Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations, University of Bath

🔌 Read about the Swiss renewable energy default study — the experiment that moved 90% of customers to green energy by changing a default setting

🗳️ Learn more about citizens' assemblies on climate and deliberative democracy in practice

🌍 Read the IPCC's work on demand-side solutions and behavioural change in its Sixth Assessment Report

🎤 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 Trump administration last week announced the repeal of the ‘endangerment finding’ - the 2009 determination that climate change threatens public health and welfare. It may sound arcane, but this piece of legislation empowered the US federal government to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. This decision weakens the regulatory backbone of American climate policy, and may reshape the country’s emissions trajectory for years to come.

So what happens next?

This week, Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul Dickinson consider the politics, the economics and the climate reality of this move. And Tom calls friend of the show Manish Bapna, President and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council, whose organisation is preparing to challenge the rollback in court. Speaking to us just as the case was filed, Manish explains why the endangerment finding has long been the legal bedrock of federal climate action, and how the case could climb all the way to the Supreme Court.

Until then, uncertainty reins: is this a temporary political detour - or a structural turning point for US climate leadership? And if federal authority falters, will states, businesses and markets keep the transition moving anyway?

Learn More:

🌿 Learn how the EPA’s 2009 Endangerment Finding established the legal basis for regulating greenhouse gases

📊 Understand the ‘Social Cost of Carbon’ - and why putting a price on climate damage matters

⚖️ Read the statement from NRDC and its partners outlining their legal challenge to the rollback

🎤 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.