How big oil is holding back progress on the Paris Climate Agreement

Outrage + Optimism

Persephonica

Science, Finance, Energy, Policy, Business, Green, Society, Current Affairs, Climate, News, Planet, Society & Culture, Environment, Climatechange, Nature, Parisclimateagreement, Globalwarming

4.7 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 6 February 2025

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Christiana Figueres, the driving force behind the groundbreaking Paris Climate Agreement, reflects on the high-stakes negotiations that reshaped the global fight against climate change in the year that marks its ten-year anniversary. With the fate of the planet hanging in the balance, she reveals the relentless pushback from the fossil fuel lobby, and the ever-shifting geopolitical tensions that threaten progress. Will the world stay on course, or are we teetering on the edge of climate catastrophe?

Co-hosts Paul Dickinson and Tom Rivett-Carnac recall the final hours of the deal being adopted, the extraordinary feeling of seeing the world come together in unanimous support of climate action and make their predictions for how the business and political worlds will move forward in a new era of leadership. As Donald Trump kicks off his second term with a raft of immigration policies, the hosts discuss how the number of people set to be displaced due to climate is set to exceed a billion by 2050. Plus, whether 2025 is the year the insurance industry reaches an existential crisis as climate-related weather events, like the LA fires, become uninsurable.

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Read about the state of California’s lawsuit against big oil.
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Video Producer: Caitlin Hanrahan

Exec Producer: Ellie Clifford

Commissioning Editor: Sarah Thomas

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to outrage and optimism. I'm Tom Rivikarnik. I'm Christiana Fierrez.
0:06.4	And I'm Paul Dickinson. Today, 10 years after the adoption, we are going to unpack the Paris Agreement,
0:11.2	understand what's in it and why some of the implementation has been so slow. Thanks for being here.
0:19.1	Okay, friends, so we are still pretty near to the beginning of 2025.
0:22.3	We have introduced how the year is going to be.
0:25.0	And one of the things that we covered in that episode back right at the beginning of the year
0:28.3	is that this is an important year for lots of reasons.
0:31.4	It's the middle of the decisive decade.
0:33.3	It is the year of the ratchet through the nationally determined contributions.
0:37.1	But it's also
0:37.8	10 years since Paris.
0:39.4	Many listeners will, of course, be familiar with the Paris Agreement.
0:42.2	This is a big part of our own personal history and a big part of the world's history in
0:46.7	trying to deal with this issue.
0:48.4	And we're going to delve in to what is actually inside the Paris Agreement and some of the
0:52.6	challenges it's faced through implementation.
0:54.5	But just before we do, let's just listen back for a minute.
0:57.0	Take us back, Tom. Take us back. Some of how the world sounded that day.
1:00.5	Final preparations are made. The finishing touches applied. In a bizarre tradition of the world
1:05.5	of diplomacy, this little corner of France becomes UN territory for the duration of the conference. On an increasingly
1:12.0	crowded planet, humanity faces many threats, but none is greater than climate change. Here in Paris,
1:21.3	we can show the world what is possible when we come together, united in common effort and by a common purpose.
	...

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