"How can we unf*ck our climate and planet" is what I'm asking leaders, decision-makers, entrepreneurs, activists, policy-makers and doers taking action for our climate and planet.
Bob Ward is Policy and Communications Director at the LSE’s Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment who started out as a science reporter at the Daily Telegraph, and one of the few people willing to take on climate sceptics in public, from debating Nigel Farage on GB News to addressing oil and gas executives at International Petroleum Week. In this conversation, Bob explains why he thinks climate has become a culture war that leaves everyone stuck, why many sceptical arguments about the science are really proxies for fears about government regulation or daily life,…
I had the privilege of hosting 3 incredible guests who each deserve an episode of their own. We tackled the topic of optimism, solutions and how the climate story needs to move on to the part where we’re saving the world, not just saying how f*cked we are. Lucy Siegle is a journalist, broadcaster and author who has reported on climate, nature and the fashion industry's footprint for two decades, including as a reporter on BBC One's The One Show. Angus Hervey is a political economist and the founding editor of Fix The News, the solutions journalism newsletter that goes looking for the…
Manjeet Dhakal is Advisor to the Chair of the UN's Least Developed Countries Group and Director of Climate Analytics' South Asia office. He’s been involved with climate negotiations and diplomacy for almost 20 years and now helps the world's most climate-vulnerable nations negotiate international climate policy. He's currently completing a PhD and recently published research on climate attribution in Nepal. Dr Manal Shehabi, an applied development economist and Senior Research Fellow at Oxford's Institute for New Economic Thinking, who also teaches Economics for Public Policy at the…
Holly Alpine spent a decade at Microsoft, co-founding the company's 10,000-strong employee sustainability group and running programs for data center communities. Then she discovered something that made her leave: the company was signing contracts explicitly designed to help fossil fuel companies extract more oil and gas, faster and cheaper, using AI. Now she's leading one of the only campaigns in the world working to expose what she calls the most underestimated climate threat of the AI era. —— The peer reviewed journal article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s44168-026-00411-0 Enabled…
“A newsletter for people pissed off about the climate crisis” is the tagline of Emily Atkin’s newsletter, HEATED. She’s one of the foremost climate journalists in the US and the founder of Heated, an independent newsletter with 150k subscribers dedicated to accountability journalism on the climate crisis. Originally trained in traditional mainstream media outlets like The New Republic, she left to build her own publication in 2019 after growing frustrated with the reluctance to cover climate change as the power and corruption story it really is. She now writes for people who are pissed off…
Professor Paul Behrens of the Oxford martin School at the University of Oxford works at the intersection of food systems, climate change, and food security. Originally trained in physics and astronomy, he spent years working on energy systems before turning his attention to what he now believes is one of the most fragile and underestimated threats we face: the food system that feeds us. Paul is the author of the popular science book, The Best of Times, The Worst of Times: Futures from the Frontiers of Climate Science (Indigo Press, 2021) which describes humanity’s current trajectory and…
Dr Mark Harber is a consultant nephrologist (kidney doctor) and the Royal College of Physicians' special adviser on healthcare sustainability and climate change. He's spent years working at the intersection of medicine and the environment as a member of the Sustainable Kidney Care committee, a clinical lead for the NHS London sustainability group, and an advisor to the UCL Partners Climate Collaborative. Now, he helps shape how the RCP advocates and lobbies on healthcare's role in the climate crisis. This conversation goes deep into the surprisingly stark relationship between heat and human…
Per Espen Stoknes is a psychologist, economist, and one of the world's leading experts on why climate change feels so hard to act on—and what actually works to break through that paralysis. He's the author of ‘What We Think About When We Try Not to Think About Global Warming’, ‘Tomorrow's Economy: A Guide to Creating Healthy Green Growth’ and ‘Earth for All: A Survival Guide for Humanity’ He’s associate professor and co-director of the BI Center for Sustainability and Energy, and someone who's spent decades unpacking the psychological barriers that keep us stuck: distance, doom, dissonance,…
Stuart Goldsmith is a stand-up comedian with 20 years of experience who's spent the last five years doing something almost no other comic attempts: making audiences laugh about the climate crisis. Professor Lauren Feldman teaches Media and Climate Change at Rutgers University, where her students regularly bring in clips of Stuart's work to dissect in class. She's the co-author of A Comedian and an Activist Walk into a Bar: The Serious Role of Comedy in Social Justice, and her research unpacks why comedy is one of the most powerful tools we have for breaking through climate denial, fear, and…
Check out the UK's most trusted climate action platform, Ecologi at: https://tinyurl.com/kfswnxth Vojtech Vosecky is one of the world's leading voices on the circular economy, with nearly a quarter of a million people following his work on LinkedIn. He's an environmental engineer who's spent over a decade working inside the European Parliament, advising governments, training over 350 circular economy professionals, and building a global community of changemakers across 20 cities from Barcelona to Melbourne. His mission is simple: turn as many people as possible into circular economists,…
Check out the UK's most trusted climate action platform, Ecologi at: https://tinyurl.com/kfswnxth Aurélie Maréchal is the Director of Positive Money Europe, an organisation working to reform the economic system so that it works for people and the planet. She's spent 15 years inside the European policy machine, watching the Green Deal go from a fringe idea to the headline of the European Commission, and then watching it disappear from political discourse entirely in just five years. She now spends her time showing policymakers, central banks, and businesses why the way we handle money,…
Check out the UK's most trusted climate action platform, Ecologi at: https://tinyurl.com/kfswnxth Christophe Hodder is the world's first UN-appointed Climate Peace and Security Advisor, working in Somalia, the 5th most climate-vulnerable country on Earth. He's spent six years on the frontlines of where climate breakdown meets armed conflict, helping communities navigate droughts, floods, displacement, and violence in a country that contributes just 0.08% of global emissions but bears some of the heaviest consequences. This conversation goes deep into what climate insecurity actually looks…
Check out the UK's most trusted climate action platform, Ecologi at: https://tinyurl.com/kfswnxth General Richard Nugee CB CVO CBE spent 35 years in the British military, rising to the executive committee of defence. He's now one of the most important voices connecting climate change to national security, arguing that the biggest threats to Britain aren't just missiles and tanks, but water scarcity, food system collapse, migration flows, and the geopolitical contests opening up in a melting Arctic. This conversation was recorded twice. The first time was on the day the Iran war started.…
Check out the UK's most trusted climate action platform, Ecologi at: https://tinyurl.com/kfswnxth Dr Simon Clark is a climate YouTuber with 720,000+ subscribers who's spent 15 years translating climate science for audiences who didn't know they needed it. He's a physicist by training, a communicator by choice, and someone who's watched misinformation campaigns evolve from fringe conspiracy theories into sophisticated, well-funded operations that now shape how millions of people understand the climate crisis. This conversation goes deep into why lies are winning, why the truth resists…
Check out the UK's most trusted climate action platform, Ecologi at: https://tinyurl.com/kfswnxth This is a slightly different ep. The first ½ is a more traditional podcast chat. But the 2nd ½ is me putting Phil to the test by roleplaying as 4 different people: A secondary school teacher, a middle-class retiree, a young professional and a right-wing politician Phil Korbel is the co-founder of the Carbon Literacy Project, a Manchester-based charity that has trained over 153,000 people across 50 countries in climate action. Starting from a shared desk with no salary and a big idea, Phil and…
Check out the UK’s most trusted climate action platform, Ecologi at: https://tinyurl.com/kfswnxth Kevin Anderson is one of the world's leading climate scientists and Professor of Energy and Climate Change at the University of Manchester's Tyndall Centre. A former oil and gas engineer turned academic, he's advised governments across the UK and Wales, worked closely with Greta Thunberg, and spent three decades arguing that the gap between what climate science demands and what policymakers actually do isn't accidental — it's a choice. In this conversation, we get into the raw numbers behind our…
Check out the UK’s most trusted climate action platform, Ecologi at: https://tinyurl.com/kfswnxth Frank Holleman is the founder of Fork Ranger, an app and movement that's helping 150,000+ people to eat more sustainably. He's spent six years proving that the most effective climate action isn't perfection, it's making sustainable eating so ridiculously easy that it slips under people's resistance radar. His philosophy is simple: we don't need a few perfect environmentalists, we need millions of people taking imperfect action. This conversation unpacks why food is responsible for one third of…
Check out Ecologi at https://tinyurl.com/kfswnxth. Juliet Davenport founded Good Energy and spent 20 years proving that a distributed renewable energy business could actually work driven by the philosophy that ordinary people, not governments or corporations, should drive the energy transition. This conversation goes deep into the parts of the energy debate that almost nobody explains clearly — why your energy bills are high, who's actually responsible for fixing the grid, and whether lower carbon and lower costs can genuinely happen at the same time. We talk about why wind and solar were…
Kate Williams is CEO of 1% for the Planet, the global movement founded by Patagonia's Yvon Chouinard that's certified over $820 million in environmental giving - and they're on track to hit their first billion. She's spent the last 11 years scaling a model that proves capitalism can work differently: 1% of revenue (not profit) goes to vetted environmental nonprofits, no matter what kind of year you've had. It means rent for the planet (and its financial discipline) is baked into the P&L. And it's proof that simple actions, done repeatedly, in community, at scale, can aggregate to billions of…
Dr. Renée Lertzman is a climate psychologist who's worked with the likes of Google, Transport for London, the White House,and WWF - and her TED Talk has been viewed over 2 million times. She trains changemakers, organisations, and businesses around the world to stop using outdated models of human behaviour and start applying what we actually know about psychology to create real, lasting change. Most of us are working from an old, outdated understanding of humans as rational, logical beings - and it's killing our effectiveness. Her work is about ditching the "yell, tell, and sell" approach…
Mark Shayler has spent 35 years working in sustainability before it was cool - and he's saved his clients over $200 million while doing it. He's an environmental consultant, innovation specialist, and straight-talking force of nature who works with everyone from Coca-Cola to Unilever to tiny manufacturing businesses in Bradford. He believes that, whilst business created most of the world's problems, it's also the thing that can fix them. Mark doesn't do sandals-and-placards environmentalism. He meets companies where they are, speaks the language of profit and loss, and isn't afraid to work…
Professor Mike Berners-Lee is the internationally renowned bestselling author of How Bad Are Bananas?, The Burning Question (co-authored with Duncan Clark), There Is No Planet B, and most recently A Climate of Truth. He's a professor at Lancaster University and works on carbon footprinting through his company Small World Consulting, which has worked with companies like BT, Microsoft, and all 15 UK national parks. A couple of weeks ago, Mike chaired the National Emergency Briefing in Westminster Hall to hundreds of political, business, faith, culture and media leaders. In this episode, we…
Sam Zindel is Managing Director at digital marketing agency Propellernet and founder of GEN R. Gen R is an environmental movement that uses music and art to support nature. He's created a jukebox that plants trees for every song played - and it spent the summer with Fatboy Slim. Sam's mission is to drag environmentalism out of the culture wars and root it back into popular culture where it belongs. No sandals required. No technical jargon. Just fun, accessible climate action that meets people where they already are - at gigs, festivals, and in the pub. In this episode, we dive into: Why 80%…
Email your MP to get them to attend! Visit https://www.nebriefing.org/ Send them their personalised video invite (already made): https://docs.google.com/document/d/18BWde8rCy2pBFL_Eid-rEJ6XIQqSUEqq_lnj9TZaapI/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.r7al6r613w88 Nick Oldridge is on a mission to get all 650 UK MPs into Westminster Central Hall for the National Emergency Briefing - a crucial wake-up call about the climate crisis happening in just 23 days from recording. As the co-founder of Climate Science Breakthrough, which created viral videos featuring comedians like Joe Brand and Jonathan Pie translating…
Will Hayler is the co-founder of Blue Earth Summit, the leading gathering for leaders, investors and changemakers driving a regenerative future. Their headline event is over 3 days with over 7,000 total attendees, 1,500 business attending and attendees with over £10bn of assets under management. The mission of Blue Earth is to “transform the way the world works”. So in this episode, I asked This podcast is brought to you by Ecologi, the UK's most trusted climate action platform. They help businesses reduce their emissions, restore our planet and report their progress for every step of their…
Adam Bastock is the founder of People, Planet, Pint. A sustainability meet-up that he’s scaled globally to 15 countries, with only 1.5 full time employees. In this episode, we cover: Why he’s mellowed on personal action How not to get stuck into perfectionism What people focus on that doesn’t matter How gamification works to change behaviour Difference between demand and need in sustainability How thinking of people as light vs. dark green is helpful The game that even sustainability professionals get wrong How climate action can be thought of as a marketing funnel Why presenting logical…
Oliver Dauert is on a mission to make you an impact millionaire. He’s an ecopreneur with a community with over 40,000 people. He’s the founder of Wildya where he helps people do exactly that: ecopreneurs go from idea to impact. Oliver explains why food systems—not energy—are the frontline of biodiversity loss, how shifting to a more “plant-powered” diet creates outsized impact, and why awareness of nature’s decline lags so far behind climate change. We explore the drivers of nature loss (habitat destruction, over-exploitation, pollution, invasive species, and climate change) and what…
Hannah Cox is running 100 marathons in 100 days across India to raise £1m for climate-affected people through 1% for the planet in a mission called Project Salt Run. She’s also the founder of the Better Business Network (BBN) which is a nationwide network for purpose-driven businesses. We get into why materiality, not moral purity, drives real impact (Hannah shares how a materiality assessment can help your business to have actual impact. Hannah shares the BBN playbook for building inclusive, non-judgmental communities, the “easy, accessible, cool” framework that nudges behavior change at…
Elliot Coad is the founder of the nature non-profit 30x30 and the climate action platform Ecologi where they raised £10m to be one of Europe's fastest growing startups. We chat about why Elliot chose the non-profit instead of the venture-backed route, Elliot's advice if he was starting over, climate marketing strategies, the balance between personal and collective responsibility and much more! Subscribe to the Climate Unf*cked Substack at https://climateunfucked.substack.com/ Thank you to Ecologi for supporting the podcast. They're the UK's most trusted climate action platform. They help…
About Climate Unf*cked
"How can we unf*ck our climate and planet" is what I'm asking leaders, decision-makers, entrepreneurs, activists, policy-makers and doers taking action for our climate and planet.
Climate Unf*cked is a English tech & science podcast from Rob Cooper. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.
The Melo app keeps playing with the screen off, works in the car and on your watch, wakes you to your station, and browses the whole catalogue offline. Free, no ads, no account.
