What are you gonna do?

Dear Stubborn Optimist, 

It’s Climate Week NYC and the myriad of meetings and events that come with it are in full swing. The United Nations General Assembly is also discussing how to accelerate action towards the Global Goals for peace, prosperity, progress and sustainability for all. At the weekend thousands of protestors marched to demand an end to fossil fuels, joining others demanding the same in cities all over the world.  

Last week BP’s Bernard Looney resigned after failing to disclose inappropriate relationships. But for the past several decades fossil fuel companies have been failing to disclose far more than that. After decades of financing mis-information and politicians to slow progress on climate, fossil fuel companies continue to act as if the best available science and the devastating impacts of the hottest year in human history are fiction. 

Exxon, for example, is slated to spend $25 billion per year for the next few years mostly on oil and gas, and continues to be rewarded by investors for doing so. It’s a cosy relationship, enabled by a lack of policy rigour. Save for a few breakthrough policies in recent years, there’s been very little to drive transformational change. Even with the Inflation Reduction Act in place, the U.S. is still financing fossil fuel exploration.  

That’s partly why fifty business leaders from around the world just called for the G20 to deliver “courageous leadership”. These businesses say they are “ready to disrupt the status quo” and they want “effective policies, regulations, laws and infrastructure that will unlock the barriers to innovation.”

Disruption to the status quo has already started: climate action is “an electoral and a popular force that cannot be ignored.” Lawsuits against fossil fuel majors are ratcheting up - especially in California. And, inexorable and exponential growth in renewable energy and electric vehicles continues apace. There are nearly 300 million electric motorcycles/scooters on the road worldwide and they are displacing four times as much oil demand as all the electric cars in the world so far. If change can happen this fast in the energy sector, it can happen that fast in the food sector, the materials sector - every sector. 

So, what are the leaders at the United Nations General Assembly gonna do? We hope that, in the face of rising divisions, they’ve been in the locker room with Al Pacino and are finally getting ready to step up and show us what teamwork looks like. 

If you like this ‘dose of Outrage + Optimism’ and haven’t already, do sign up to our full bi-weekly email newsletter to make sure you’re not just informed about the climate crisis, but also inspired to be part of the changes we all need to make. 

In this week's email newsletter you’ll find: 

📌 A sneak peek into upcoming Outrage + Optimism episodes

📌 More on our exponential direction of travel: read about Christiana's "double climate paradox": the lamentable fact that just when we can and should be accelerating climate action, political will is diminishing, partisan polarisation is increasing, and business confidence is wilting.   

📌 What we think about the recent Planetary Boundaries assessment from Johan Rockström and others

With stubborn optimism.

The Outrage + Optimism team

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