Tipping Points. But not all bad. w/Steve Smith

Playback speed

Share post at current time

Share from 0:00

0:00

Transcript

Tipping Points. But not all bad. w/Steve Smith

The UK's tipping into an EV market, accelerated by BYD, is a good example of why it's not pointless to try.

Richard Delevan

and

Steven R Smith

Aug 11, 2025

Transcript

Some Personal News - RIP Pat

We’ve been off air the past week due to the death of my mother-in-law, Patricia. She was 82 and much loved by her family and pretty much everyone else who knew her. Liked a drink. Loved another. But never needed one to offer a welcoming smile and twinkle that made people want to be around her. She’d walk (or later, take a mobility scooter) to the local butcher 100 yards from her house in their Devon seaside village, and take an hour to get back because she’d be stopped for a chat by everyone she met. Because they always felt better after talking with her. Friend of red cardigans and dogs. Foe of shoes on carpets and foul language. She’ll be buried with a nice view of the estuary in a couple of weeks.

We Start at the End

Exit music for this conversation might seem a bit obvious even if the mood isn’t.

Steve Smith in Conversation

Earlier this summer the University of Exeter hosted the Global Tipping Points Conference, where nearly 200 scientists urged immediate action to prevent irreversible climate changes. We weren’t at the conference but we had the next best thing with one of its key organisers and thinkers, Steve Smith.

And while we of course talked about the tipping points of the climate system, and how to slow our race towards the edge - which no amount of wish-casting will make disappear - we also talked about ‘positive’ tipping points, and how important storytelling is in convincing policymakers and the public to go faster. For example, the UK is teetering on the brink of tipping into an EV-dominated market, Smith writes in The Conversation - not hurt by the wise UK decision NOT to follow the EU and US by applying crippling tariffs to BYD, as CarbonBrief’s Simon Evans noted:

We're close to a huge moment in the UK car market:

Chinese EV firm BYD is about to overtake Tesla

It’s easier to slouch into despair. But in the spirit of my late mother-in-law, better to raise your ambition, put on your best face, and combine bloody-mindedness with an infectious grin.