The Climate Case of the Century: Inside the story of a youth-led legal movement
Outrage + Optimism: The Climate Podcast
Persephonica
4.7 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 3 July 2025
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In a world-first, the International Court of Justice is preparing to deliver an advisory opinion on climate change and human rights - all thanks to a youth-led campaign that began thousands of miles from The Hague, in the Pacific Islands.
This week, we look inside that extraordinary campaign, and hear the story of Cynthia Houniuhi, who - as a young law student from the Solomon Islands - helped launch the movement that would ultimately unite over 130 countries behind a single goal. Now, six years after this idea began in a law classroom, the world’s highest court is set to weigh in on the responsibility of states to protect current and future generations from climate harm.
Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac, and Paul Dickinson reflect on the power of legal activism, the role of youth leadership, and what this landmark case could mean for the future of international climate law.
Learn more
⚖️ Read more information about the ICJ climate case on the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change website
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Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks
Video Producer: Caitlin Hanrahan
Assistant Producer: Caillin McDaid
Exec Producer: Ellie Clifford
Commissioning Editor: Sarah Thomas
This is a Persephonica production for Global Optimism and is part of the Acast Creator Network.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Outrage and Optimism. I'm Tom Riffick-Karnak. |
| 0:05.2 | I'm Christiana Figueres. And I'm Paul Dickinson. This week, as the world awaits the ruling |
| 0:10.4 | on a landmark International Court of Justice case on the responsibilities of countries in respect |
| 0:15.6 | to climate change, we explore the background to the case what it could mean and we hear |
| 0:20.5 | from one of the former law |
| 0:21.9 | students who first proposed it. Thanks for being here. |
| 0:28.5 | Okay, it's so nice to be back with you. You always do such a knockout job when I'm not around. |
| 0:32.7 | I'm very sorry that I was running around London and then music festivals in the west of England |
| 0:37.1 | doing work for outrage and optimism, I have to say, but I was... Music festivals in the West of England. Well, it was music festival. I went to Glastonbury. We did a live episode at Glastonbury. Yeah, so tell us, tell us a little bit about Glastonbury and maybe some concluding thoughts on London Climate Action Week for both of you. Just a question for Tom. Did you get a free son of excitement when you entered wearing your performer armband? Well, I was actually very much looking forward to that moment, Paul, after you told me that it was such a wonderful moment walking through with this sense of importance. That's not quite how it was for me, although it was very nice going to the festival. First time I've been to Glastonbury Festival since 1993, if you can believe, which makes me feel very old. So had a lovely time, went with my son, |
| 1:16.5 | we spent a couple of nights there, did a great podcast, Gail Galley, co-hosted it with me. We had |
| 1:22.0 | amazing people who were on the panel, people like Jan Tierson, the composer, Adam Met, Oliver |
| 1:27.4 | Jeffers, spent a couple of days there, really lovely group who came to listen to the live episode. Unfortunately, we're not going to put it out on the feed for various audio rights issues, but I think we probably will do it again in a couple of years. So if you're planning to get a Gastonbury in two years' time, another chance to hear us live. And we also did... |
| 1:44.3 | Well, Paul, you were at London Climate Action Week as well, weren't you? |
| 1:46.4 | How did you enjoy it? |
| 1:47.4 | Yeah, I mean, you know, it was impossible for me to participate in practically anything, |
| 1:51.0 | not least because I had to do some work, which stopped me. |
| 1:53.5 | I'm stuck on my sofa during London Climate Action Week. |
| 1:56.3 | But, no, I had the privilege to be at an event with business |
| 1:59.8 | and the incoming president of the cop. |
| 2:02.8 | And, you know, his vision of multilateralism and the sort of image of a kind of like takes all of us to do everything was truly inspiring. |
| 2:12.2 | And business leaders seem to be very much up for it, notwithstanding headwinds in North America. |
| 2:16.6 | It seems to be a time of kind |
... |
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