Kyoto: The Battle that Defined Climate Politics - with Joe Robertson
Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford
Pushkin Industries
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 21 November 2025
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Misinformation, double-dealing, character assassination - lobbyist Don Pearlman will stop at nothing to prevent the world from agreeing to cut carbon emissions. This arch disrupter, who works for fossil fuel companies and oil-producing nations, is determined that the climate talks in Kyoto, COP3, will fail. Will Don's tactics succeed, and what will it mean for the future of the planet?
Tim is joined by playwright Joe Robertson to discuss Kyoto, the political thriller he and co-writer Joe Murphy based on 1997's international climate negotiations.
Kyoto is currently on stage at the Lincoln Center in New York https://www.lct.org/shows/kyoto/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.6 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:04.1 | You should tell the people who we are and what our new show is. |
| 0:06.6 | I'm Robert Smith. |
| 0:07.3 | This is Jacob Goldstein. |
| 0:08.5 | And we used to host a show called Planet Money. |
| 0:10.6 | And now we're back making this new podcast about the best ideas and people and businesses in history. |
| 0:17.5 | And some of the worst people, horrible ideas and destructive companies in the history of business. |
| 0:23.5 | We struggled to come up with a name, decided to call it, business history. |
| 0:27.1 | You know why? |
| 0:28.1 | Why? |
| 0:28.4 | Does this show about the history of business? |
| 0:30.3 | Available everywhere. |
| 0:32.1 | You get your podcasts. |
| 0:41.8 | Push. Pushkin. |
| 0:47.0 | They're exhausted. |
| 0:53.4 | Many haven't slept properly for days, but the fraught talks go round and round. |
| 0:57.6 | Thirty people have been hospitalized from overwork. |
| 1:00.2 | The interpreters are about to leave. |
| 1:03.1 | World leaders are making each other cry. |
| 1:05.2 | Others are threatening to walk out. |
| 1:11.1 | Welcome to the Kyoto International Conference Centre. |
... |
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