Climate Genn is a leading climate change podcast hosted by Nick Breeze, featuring insightful conversations with scientists, policymakers, activists, and innovators on the frontlines of climate action. Each episode dives deep into the urgent issues shaping our planet’s future — from energy transition and carbon removal to adaptation, biodiversity, and climate justice.
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Caroline Lucas & Rupert Read: How Can Climate Action Become Popular Again?
Former Green Party leader Caroline Lucas and Climate Majority Project co-director Rupert Read join Nick Breeze to discuss their new report, Climate Popularism.
As climate impacts intensify, why is opposition to climate action growing? And can a new approach focused on living costs, community resilience and democratic participation rebuild public support?
We discuss the political backlash against net zero, practical climate solutions already transforming communities, the psychological effects of climate breakdown and how citizens' assemblies could help restore trust and agency.
A wide-ranging conversation about moving beyond climate culture wars towards practical action that improves people's lives.
Download the report:
https://assets.climatemajorityproject.com/Climate%20popularism%20%7C%20Climate%20Majority%20Project.pdf (https://assets.climatemajorityproject.com/Climate%20popularism%20%7C%20Climate%20Majority%20Project.pdf)
GENN Podcast | Hosted by Nick Breeze
25 Sept 2026
Erin Sikorsky: Climate Security, China and the Coming Geoengineering Debate
Climate change is increasingly being treated not simply as an environmental problem, but as an issue of national security, energy independence, industrial strategy and geopolitics.
Fresh from UNGA and Climate Week NYC, climate security analyst Erin Sikorsky joins Nick Breeze to discuss what actually changed during the week.
They examine new moves by the UK, EU and Kenya to put climate and ecosystem risks firmly on the security agenda, and why Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the war in Iran and disruption around the Strait of Hormuz have strengthened the strategic case for renewable energy and electrification.
But electrification creates its own geopolitical dilemma. With China dominant across important parts of the clean-tech and battery supply chain, Sikorsky discusses how Western governments can reduce fossil-fuel dependency without simply creating a new strategic dependency on China.
The conversation also explores climate liability and loss and damage, including Nepal's case and the increasingly difficult question of which countries should pay as the traditional distinction between developed and developing economies becomes harder to sustain.
Then they turn to solar geoengineering.
Sikorsky explains why SRM is beginning to move beyond its specialist scientific community and into climate-security discussions, and why misunderstanding, mistrust and geopolitical escalation may present risks every bit as important as the underlying technology.
Finally, looking towards the developing El Niño, Sikorsky argues that governments have a window in which to prepare for a potentially extraordinary summer — and an opportunity to learn what a warmer future may increasingly look like.
7 Sept 2026
Extreme Heat, Food & Conflict: The Climate Security Risk | David Spratt
A food crisis can become a security crisis.
In the second part of my conversation with climate analyst David Spratt, we look at what happens when climate disruption, extreme heat, food insecurity and geopolitical tensions begin to interact.
The Indo-Pacific is particularly vulnerable. Australia and its neighbours face increasing heat and dryness while the region is already shaped by political and security tensions. David explores how a food and heat crisis could potentially destabilise the wider region — and why governments need to prepare for these risks before they become emergencies.
We discuss the need for stronger climate-security intelligence, food stockpiles, resilience, adaptation and disaster preparedness. David also examines the relationship between climate disruption, displacement and political instability, drawing on examples including Syria and the Arab Spring.
The conversation also turns to Australia's contradictory climate policy, the vulnerability of Indonesia and the question of whether governments are responding adequately as extreme climate events repeatedly exceed expectations.
David's central message is that climate impacts cannot be treated simply as isolated environmental events. They can interact with existing vulnerabilities, creating cascading consequences across food systems, societies and national security.
In this episode:
• How a food and heat crisis could become a security crisis
• Why the Indo-Pacific is particularly vulnerable
• Australia, China and a contested Pacific
• The need for climate-security intelligence
• Why governments need to prepare before crises arrive
• Food insecurity, migration and political instability
• Lessons from Syria and the Arab Spring
• Indonesia's vulnerability to climate disruption
• Australia's contradictory climate and energy policy
• Why extreme climate events are repeatedly exceeding expectations
• Resilience, adaptation and disaster preparedness
• An El Niño with no historical analogue
David Spratt is a climate analyst and researcher with the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group.
This conversation explores a plausible risk scenario, not a prediction.
Part 1: War, Fertiliser & El Niño: A Recipe for Food Crisis?
Inside a recent episode
Professor Paul Behrens–Nature’s Warning: Why We Must Transform Food Systems—Now
Published 29 Oct 2025 · Transcript excerpt
[…] You talk about these transitions from where we've been and where you might call that conventional agriculture in the modern period to where we've got to be, where are we on that sort of scale? Oh, we're really just starting. I think we're really starting. I think we're quite a long way behind the energy transition. I think probably sort of 10 to 20 years. I think there's been some small movements. We've seen a little bit of a change in the ways in which we at least think about agriculture and what agriculture looks like and how we should be producing food. This transition really is made up of these three areas which is dietary change, reductions in food waste and improvements in production. […]
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