Hello and welcome to Outrageant Optimism. I'm Tom Riviccarnack.

I'm Cristiana Fiegert.

And I pulled the concern. This week we talk about the impacts of climate change in Australia

and in the Himalayas. And we discuss recent new data on the concentration of greenhouse

gas emissions in the atmosphere. Plus we speak to Elizabeth Colbert, Activist, New Yorker

Journalist and author of the recent book Under a White Sky. And we have music from Sonder

Urians. Thanks for being here.

So we have many important and exciting issues to get to this week but I just wanted to bring

one data point before we delve into them. I've been paying quite close attention to the

Twitter feed of our good friend, Alok Sharma, friend of the podcast and recent guest.

And let's see, about a week ago, he had a lovely picture of you, Cristiana. You and him

having dinner together somewhere in Costa Rica. It looked like a lovely evening. And then

since then, his feed has taken a distinctly Costa Rican turn. There was one just a couple

of days ago where he says, brilliant to hear ideas and innovation on climate action from

carbon neutral Costa Rica. I encourage all friends around the world to follow Costa Rica's

climate leadership. What did you talk about at that dinner? You seem to have really turned

him into one of these Costa Rican advocates.

Well, it's not hard to do that, is it Tom? I mean, as we know on this podcast, Costa Rica

does happen to be a wonderful country. And now he knows that for himself because he was

here for, I think, 24, maybe even 48 hours. So thank you so much to the incoming president

of COP26 for, it was a very long trip for him. He had to fly through the United States

to Costa Rica and then back to London. So our gratitude to him for coming here and seeing

...