We’re a week away, and I’m behind. It’s Christmas. Or Hanukkah. Or Diwali. Or Festivus. Whatever. When we said 2024 would be eventful because of elections, we definitely undersold the situation - as a wise man once said it’s historic, which means it’s one damned thing after another. But we’ve got lots of conversations stacked up, ready to be wrapped, laid out for you to snack on between now and the end of the year.
In this episode of Wicked Problems – Climate Tech Conversations, we talk about that frenetic cycle: the climate doom loop - as University of Exeter researchers Laurie Laybourn and James Dyke name it in their excellent article on The Conversation. And we don’t do it alone. I’m joined by two phenomenal guests who wrestle with this from very different but deeply interconnected perspectives—Dr. Maria Antonia Tigre of Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Law and Roz Savage, newly elected MP for the South Cotswolds. Roz, after decades as an ocean rower and environmental activist, is introducing a private member’s bill that demands nothing short of recalibrating Britain’s climate ambition.
More info on the bill from the campaign group Zero Hour, here.
So, let’s start where the doom loop begins—food, floods, and frustration.
The Nibbling Panic
It’s not your imagination. Groceries are getting more expensive. Eggs up 55%, Arabica coffee beans skyrocketing up 80%, cocoa prices up 100% year-on-year. And this is not a one-off blip. From hurricanes disrupting citrus in Florida to floods in Brazil to disrupted monsoons in West Africa, the whiplash of climate shocks is escalating inflation—fast.
This is where it gets bad very quickly. Those rising food prices fuel economic instability, plus saddling governments around the world with the costs of disaster relief and climate adaptation like flood defences. If they can or will pay for them. Economic instability fuels right-wing populist rage. And populist rage tends to undermine the very climate policies trying to break the cycle. In short, as climate worsens, so does our collective ability to act.
Climate-denying Donald Trump’s restoration grabbed a lot of headlines, but failure to protect voters from climate shocks is having the perverse effect of driving voters into the arms of climate deniers like Reform here in the UK, as Tom Wall and Robin McKie report from Wales and the North of England for the Observer.
Is there an offramp from the doom loop? If there is will we take it, or take it in time?
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