CHRISTIANA FIGUERES: On “stubborn optimism”

Wild with Sarah Wilson

Christiana Figueres (the woman behind the Paris Agreement) is possibly the best-known official in the global climate change movement. The former Costa Rican diplomat and Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (2010-2016), managed to bring together 195 nations to sign the historical 2015 agreement that set the “1.5C” target/warning. She wrote The Future We Choose, cohosts the Outrage + Optimism podcast, has a moth, a wasp and an orchid named after her, and has won countless international awards for her work.

In this episode, we challenge each other on whether hope and optimism are still useful given we’ve passed the 1.5C threshold in February, whether the Paris Agreement is still viable almost 10 years on and the viability of the green energy transition. We don’t agree on a number of points, but we come together on what keeps us in the “fight” …love. Listen to the end with this one.

SHOW NOTES

The work of rare earth minerals expert Olivia Lazard and energy futurist Nate Hagens supports the energy points I make in this episode.

This international team of researchers and this team working out of France show fossil fuels will become net-energy negative in the future.

We are spending more energy to get less energy than before—our net energy is “plummeting”.

The world’s consumption of fossil fuels climbed to a record high last year according to the University of Exeter's Global Carbon Project and NASA.

A Finnish Geological Survey finds that “global reserves are not large enough to supply enough metals to build the renewable non-fossil fuels industrial system”.

According to a study on societal tipping points, a peak and fall in global oil production would bring down the entire financial and trade system like a house of cards.

This chapter of my book outlines the argument in detail.

And here are the first two chapters of my book, that outline my position on hope v truth.

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