From Outrage to Action: Your Questions, Our Answers
Outrage + Optimism: The Climate Podcast
Persephonica
4.7 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 10 July 2025
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We’re handing the mic over to you on this week’s Outrage + Optimism: The Climate Podcast.
In this special Q&A episode, Christiana Figueres, Paul Dickinson and guest host Fiona McRaith (Director of The Climate Pledge at Global Optimism) respond to thought-provoking questions from listeners around the world. They consider the future of the COP model, whether the Pacific concept of vā may offer a better way to think about our local and global relationships, what a multipolar world might mean for climate diplomacy, and much more. Plus, friend of the show Nigel Topping (Founder of Ambition Loop) helps to explain why UK electricity prices are tied to gas - and how we can fix it.
From the philosophical to the practical, this is a wide-ranging conversation about where climate progress is stalling, where it’s surging forward, and how global cooperation might evolve in the years ahead.
Learn more
Listen back to episodes referenced in this Q&A, including:
⏳ Momentum vs Perfection, where Fiona joins Tom to explore different theories of change within the climate movement.
✊🏽 The Climate Case of the Century, where Cynthia Houniuhi shares her story of how the landmark ICJ case came to be.
🌿 Sovereignty and Survival: A Spotlight on Vanuatu, where Christiana reports back on her time in the South Pacific.
🤝 COP30: Can Brazil deliver a global breakthrough?, where Tom brings back the latest from Belém ahead of this year's COP.
🌎 Other episodes exploring the shifting geopolitics of climate, including deep dives on China, Australia and Canada
🎤 Leave us your voice notes and questions on SpeakPipe
Follow us on social media for behind the scenes moments and to watch our videos:
Instagram @outrageoptimism
LinkedIn @outrageoptimism
Or get in touch with us via this form.
Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks
Video Producer: Caitlin Hanrahan
Additional production: Miriam Hall
Exec Producer: Ellie Clifford
Commissioning Editor: Sarah Thomas
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.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to outrage and optimism. |
| 0:04.5 | I'm Paul Dickinson. |
| 0:05.8 | I'm Christiana Figueres and we have a fantastic guest co-host with us today who hopefully listeners will recognize her voice. |
| 0:19.7 | It is a she. |
| 0:25.2 | She has been a co-host on our podcast. In fact, |
| 0:31.7 | she's been the co-host of the most popular series. By a whisker, by the way. |
| 0:38.4 | Yeah, by a whisker. So who has guessed that we have the one and only Fiona McCray. |
| 0:40.4 | Hello, everyone. It's great to be back. |
| 0:43.6 | How you doing, Fee? I'm doing great. How are you both? |
| 0:46.4 | We're doing well. We're a little bit sad not to have Tom. |
| 0:47.8 | Yeah, where's Tom? |
| 0:53.1 | However, it is wonderful that that means that we get you, Fee. It's fantastic. Indeed. And we've got a fantastic show of the most amazing listening to questions. |
| 0:57.6 | I'm really looking forward to getting to what I think was going to be a very exciting and interesting discussion. |
| 1:01.9 | Thanks to you, listeners. |
| 1:03.4 | We've had so many questions and such interesting questions that we actually decided to devote two episodes to answer questions |
| 1:13.6 | and look forward to more questions. |
| 1:15.6 | And I mean, it's like a real deep dive because we go quite into some of these questions |
| 1:19.2 | in some considerable detail. |
| 1:20.7 | And I think it's a fascinating discussion. |
| 1:22.5 | And there were even a few that we couldn't answer ourselves. |
| 1:24.3 | I mean, I would have given it a bit of answer myself. |
| 1:25.9 | But Christiana had the great idea. We're going to phone a friend, so we're going to bring some real |
... |
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