Climate Unf*cked

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. Given that Richard's expertise sits at the intersection of conflict, energy security, and climate, we decided to re-record a few weeks later to capture how the war has changed the global energy landscape and what it means for the UK's climate and security strategy going forward.

We talk about why national security is much more than defence spending, why the Straits of Hormuz closing should terrify anyone who cares about food or fuel, and why building renewable energy isn't just good for the planet, it's one of the smartest military strategies we could deploy. Richard also explains why electric tanks are a stupid idea, why biodiversity loss is the crisis nobody's talking about, and why pragmatic optimism is the only mindset that works when facing a problem this big.

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This podcast is sponsored 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 climate journey. Check them out here: https://tinyurl.com/kfswnxth

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Subscribe to the Climate Unf*cked podcast at https://climateunfucked.substack.com/

And connect with me on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-coop/

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00:59 Impact of Iran War

05:34 Will the war speed up renewables?

09:18 Africa's hidden fertilizer crisis

12:08 Defence spending vs the green transition

18:52 What national security actually means

20:49 Food, water and energy are already under threat

23:37 The 5 types of climate security

25:35 The Arctic: a new geopolitical battleground

26:58 Migration is where the rubber hits the road

43:49 Biodiversity: the dog that hasn't barked

50:00 Iraq, heat and a military turning point

56:15 How do you make the military care about climate?

1:02:46 The company that proved sustainability is cheaper

1:11:20 Why electric tanks is the wrong question

1:14:45 $250 a litre: fuel cost soldiers' lives

1:19:49 The UK port responsible for 25% of our energy

1:25:54 Pragmatic optimism: the military mindset

1:31:01 "UK is only 2%" — Richard's answer

1:39:20 Hope and opportunity: what to take away

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 simplicity, and why the platforms we rely on to spread information are fundamentally designed to reward the wrong things. We also talk about what's actually working when it comes to UK climate policy, why Ed Miliband might be the most underrated figure in British politics right now, and why Simon thinks the Iran crisis could be Asia's Ukraine moment for clean energy.

We cover:

Why climate misinformation is so successful: it's simple, it fits social media, and it tells people what they want to hear

The fundamental shift from debunking to pre-bunking, and why signal-boosting bad arguments by responding to them is a trap

Why food misinformation has escaped scrutiny in a way fossil fuels haven't, and how Big Tobacco's playbook was inherited by the food industry

The conditions that created the misinformation crisis: a deficit in media literacy, platforms designed to reward sensationalism, and billionaires buying up media to control the algorithm

Why democratic oversight of discovery algorithms is one of the most important climate conversations we're not having

Trojan Horse videos: how Simon packages climate content to look like skeptic material, then pulls the rug two minutes in to reach people outside the choir

Why the UK has reduced domestic emissions by over 50% since 1990, and why almost nobody knows that

Simon's honest assessment of the UK government's climate policy: energy gets four stars out of five, nature and biodiversity gets two

Why Ed Miliband knows his stuff, why carbon capture isn't as stupid as people think, and why the decision not to introduce zonal pricing was actually defensible

The Iran crisis as a potential turning point: why this could be Asia's Ukraine moment for renewables, and why it's extraordinary good fortune that the world's largest emitter is also the country building all the clean technology

Why Trump might go down in history as the president who accidentally accelerated the energy transition by creating an oil crisis

The balance between hope and despair, why Simon hates being asked that question, and why the only way to guarantee we don't make it is by stopping

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This podcast is sponsored 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 climate journey. Check them out here: https://tinyurl.com/kfswnxth

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Find Simon's work at www.youtube.com/@SimonClark

Subscribe to the Climate Unf*cked podcast at https://climateunfucked.substack.com/

And connect with me on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-coop/

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Chapters

00:00 Why is climate misinformation so successful?

08:30 How do you tackle it?

15:42 Food misinformation and the Big Tobacco playbook

23:15 What conditions created the misinformation?

32:40 Should algorithms have oversight?

38:20 Using a Trojan Horse to break out the echo chamber

47:15 The UK’s climate wins most people don’t realise

54:30 How well is the UK gov. really doing?

1:06:20 Carbon capture, zonal pricing, and Ed Miliband

1:18:45 The Iran crisis as Asia's Ukraine moment

1:27:30 Why Trump might accidentally accelerate the transition

1:35:10 The hypothetical video with £100,000

1:42:50 Hope, despair, and why stopping guarantees failure

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 his co-founder Dave Coleman have built one of the most powerful climate education movements in the world - reaching everyone from security guards to IPCC scientists, wedding planners to funeral directors.

We cover:

Why recycling is near the bottom of the list, and what actually moves the needle

The Carbon Literacy formula: how does acting on climate help you thrive in your specific role?

Why polar bears are banned from Phil's training (and what that says about climate communication)

The emotional structure of a carbon literacy day and why doom without agency is dangerous

How 153,000 people got trained mostly through word of mouth

Why professional advisors - lawyers, accountants, financial advisors - need to understand climate as a core competency

The "Burt the security guard" story that perfectly captures what a culture shift actually looks like

How to handle a denier in the room without letting them suck up all the oxygen

What Phil says to a right-wing politician who thinks clean energy means living in caves

Why anger about climate might be your most useful tool - if you channel it right

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This podcast is sponsored 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 climate journey. Check them out here:

https://tinyurl.com/kfswnxth

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Find out more about the Carbon Literacy Project and get trained at carbonliteracy.com

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Chapters

00:00 Why Phil banned polar bears from carbon literacy training

03:30 What is the Carbon Literacy Project?

09:30 Why does ‘relevance’ matter?

12:40 From a shared desk with no salary to 153,000 people trained

15:42 Why they gave away the IP and became a charity

17:44 What caused the hockey stick growth

20:08 Do you work with high-emitting companies?

22:26 How to handle a denier in the room

25:50 Why doom without agency is dangerous

28:41 Phil’s approach to skeptics

37:02 Role-play 1: The secondary school teacher

46:15 Role-play 2: The middle-class retiree

1:00:26 Role-play 3: The young professional

1:09:32 Role-play 4: The right-wing politician

1:11:05 Energy sovereignty, batteries and the Reform mayor who quietly signed up

1:19:36 The 97 engineers on the bridge

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 climate commitments, why the people who know the most tend to say the least, and why Kevin believes the real agents of change aren't the experts or politicians. They're us.

We cover:

The three numbers everyone needs to understand about climate change

Why 1.5°C is almost certainly already gone

Why net zero 2050 is a moving goalpost that nobody's updating

The academic "delusion" — why experts say one thing on microphones and something very different over a pint

Carbon capture, blue hydrogen and SAF

How climate change is a continuation of colonialism

Why we are absolutely not "all in this together" — and why pretending we are suits exactly the people it should embarrass

What he learned fromGreta Thunberg

Where hope actually lives (hint: it's not renewable energy stats)

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This podcast is sponsored 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 climate journey. Check them out here: https://tinyurl.com/kfswnxth

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Find Kevin's writing and talks at climateuncensored.com

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Chapters

00:00 3 things everyone needs to understand about climate

04:50 Why 1.5 degrees is gone

08:21 Should China’s declining emissions be celebrated?

11:11 Why we should talk about impacts, not temperature

13:41 Where is the communication breaking down?

17:06 Why Kevin believes his field has been deliberately dishonest

19:54 What climate models hide

24:24 How do you find the truth when the whole system is delusional?

29:09 What happens when you challenge academics off the record?

32:28 Why Kevin won't spin the cheery yarn

36:50 How does Kevin know Greta Thunberg?

42:19 How is our approach to climate colonial?

47:03 "We are not all in this together" — emissions inequality within the UK

52:56 Private luxury, public squalor — and who's really paying

57:37 The 4.5x gap between high and low income households

1:05:15 If we could start again, how would we talk about climate differently?

1:10:07 What actually gives Kevin hope?

1:16:36 The questions he wishes people would ask

1:17:42 The question he's tired of being asked

1:19:27 What he wants to leave you with

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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 global emissions, why beef is five times worse than chicken, and why replacing beef with literally anything else is the single easiest climate win most people aren't taking. We also talk about the psychology of behaviour change, why going from "never again" to "90% less" makes all the difference, and how eating seasonally became Fork Ranger's most popular product even though it only reduces 2% of food emissions.

Frank also shares the framework that drives his entire approach: make the invitation to change small enough that it never triggers fight or flight, and why level three of sustainable eating isn't about cutting dairy, it's about inviting two friends to start level one.

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In this episode, we dive into:

Why food causes one third of all global greenhouse gas emissions, and over half of that comes from meat (even though it contributes only 17% of calories but uses 83% of agricultural land)

The carbon footprint gap: beef is five times worse than chicken, which means swapping beef for chicken is a bigger climate win than most people realize (and you don't even have to go vegetarian)

Why there IS a role for animals in a sustainable food system, but only on marginal lands in small amounts, which means meat becomes a luxury, not a weekly staple

The two hardest parts of eating sustainably: the unknown and behavior change itself (finding new recipes, imagining what it tastes like without meat), and then the social pressure of being the only one who cares at the dinner table

Fork Ranger's three levels: Level 1 is replace beef with chicken or pork (not even vegetarian, just different meat). Level 2 is reduce food waste (one third of all food is wasted, mostly at home, and it's usually because we're too picky). Level 3 is invite two friends to start Level 1 and 2, because we don't need perfect environmentalists, we need millions taking action

Why food waste is the second level, not cutting dairy: it's a huge environmental problem, and solving it reinforces the mindset that food is valuable, not a cheap commodity we can afford to throw away

The 25% tipping point: if a quarter of people in a group do something against the norm, the rest become so uncertain about what's normal that they follow along and it suddenly flips (like fist bumps vs handshakes)

Book recommendations: Kaizen: One Small Step to Change Your Life, Project Drawdown, Change: How to Make Big Things Happen, and You Are What You Love

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This podcast is sponsored 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 climate journey. Check them out here: https://tinyurl.com/kfswnxth

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Find Fork Ranger at: https://forkranger.com

Subscribe to the Climate Unf*cked podcast at https://climateunfucked.substack.com/

And connect with me on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-coop/

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00:00 Why is eating sustainably hard?
06:41 Why we need to talk about meat

10:52 Why You Don't Have To Go Vegan
12:57 Food Causes 1/3 Of All Climate Change

14:32 The Important Truth For Meat Lovers

21:13 The Psychology Of Behaviour Change

26:49 The 3-Level System For Eating Sustainably

30:39 Why food waste is a huge problem

35:44 Is your app actually changing behaviour?

40:01 The 25% Tipping Point That Could Change Everything
43:28 Influential Books and Resources

47:51 Shopping Malls, Consumerism & Why Eating Is Political
52:04 Unexpected impact of eating seasonally
57:26 Individual Choices vs. Systemic Change