Climate Curious

Africa’s young workforce is already turning waste biomass and sunshine into jobs, food security and scalable carbon removal, says James Mwangi, the founder and CEO of Africa Climate Ventures on the latest Climate Curious. In conversation with host Ben Hurst,  James shares how biochar solutions are proving climate action can pay today and supercharge growth tomorrow. Recorded live at TED Count...

“The poorest people in the world contribute exactly nothing to climate change,” says Nobel Prize-winning economist Esther Duflo. For decades, she has worked to tackle the so-called “wicked problem” of poverty. In this conversation with Climate Curious co-host Ben Hurst, Esther connects the dots between poverty and climate change. Esther shares how she’s removing the capital “P” in poverty, instead...

With his life-sized animal puppets stampeding their way across the globe representing nature’s struggle in the face of the climate crisis, Climate Curious’ co-hosts Maryam Pasha and Ben Hurst caught up with playwright, producer, and director, David Lan on how public art and street theatre is a powerful tool to engage mass audiences on climate action. David also shares stories from 18 year tenure a...

Kenya has become a global leader in geothermal energy over the past 13 years, with 42% of all energy used by the country produced in geothermal plants, says geothermal scientist Dr. Anna Mwangi on Climate Curious. In conversation with co-host Ben Hurst, Anna shares why the geology of the Great Rift Valley makes geothermal a great energy solution for Kenyans.   Recorded live at TED Countdown i...

What are the tactics and propaganda playbook of Big Oil, and what role can artists and popular culture take in reclaiming the narrative? From the flaws of the Paris Agreement to why the net zero narrative is a political football, tune in to hear insights from investigative journalists, climate advocates and lawyers as they pinpoint solutions at this Climate Curious Live, recorded at EarthPercent x...

Female small-holder farmers in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh are adapting to climate change using both new and old farming techniques. From intercropping to help balance nitrogen in the soil, to nurturing a composting side hustle for increased agricultural income, women are gaining the knowledge and skills needed to become more resilient to the advances of climate change impacts being felt in th...

“The youth climate movement was effective at raising attention to levels that it had never been at before,” says Mexican-Chilean climate activist and member of the indigenous Mexican Otomi-Toltec nation, Xiye Bastida, on the Climate Curious podcast. Growing up in Mexico and experiencing a climate disaster for the first time at age 13, Xiye was determined to raise awareness of climate change; but w...

Women are key to climate action in Kenya, says Maasai climate advocate, Miss Climate Kenya, and the world's first Miss Climate, Dorcas Naishorua. Sharing how climate change drives poverty and therefore reinforces child marriage and FGM, Dorcas shares lessons from people already deeply affected by climate change, and ultimately, why empowering women empowers entire communites. Recorded live at TED...

Gamers are getting playful in the name of climate action, and it’s working! Featuring a digital wardrobe entrepreneur, a creative coder, an urban greening technologist, and a climate meme shitposter, Climate Curious asks – how are games encouraging people to play their way into being an environmentalist? Recorded live at Sexy Climate Change and Nowaday’s on Earth’s event, ‘Game On: Playing fo...

What drives someone to swap a job at Goldman Sachs for a one-way ticket to the Congo? Journalist and mathematician Anjan Sundaram joins Climate Curious to share his journey from elite institutions to some of the most dangerous places on Earth, reporting on climate conflicts and the lives – and deaths – of the world’s bravest environmental defenders. In conversation with Climate Curious’...

Sci-fi film-making can be sustainable, says film professor and filmmaker Dr. Itandehui Jansen on the Climate Curious podcast. From filming in natural light, walking to set, and not creating set-builds, Itandehui shares the low-carbon filmmaking approaches that helped her to create the experimental sci-fi film ‘ Itu Ninu ’ – a story of two climate migrants in 2084 connecting through letter-wri...

“There may well be measures that we can take on a temporary basis to cool the Arctic and to prolong Arctic sea ice”, says Brad Ack, the CEO of Ocean Visions. He joins Climate Curious to discuss how the ocean can play a central role in re-stabalising the climate. From its role in providing zero carbon food and energy and cleaning up carbon pollution, to the critical research scientists are undertak...

Who gets labelled a criminal in the fight for climate justice – and why? In this episode of Climate Curious , filmmakers Becky Burchell and Sophie Austin discuss the making of their latest documentary, Climate Criminals? , a documentary that retells the stories of frontline climate activists, in their own words. From Just Stop Oil’s Stonehenge protest to the far-reaching consequences of the UK’s 2...

What if the answers you’re searching for are already within you? Icelandic author and filmmaker Hrund Gunnsteinsdóttir joins Climate Curious to explore InnSæi – the Icelandic concept of intuition, self-awareness, and inner connection. Hrund shares her path to rediscovering presence and alignment with intuition through mindfulness and journaling, before leading a short guided meditation to hel...

Imagine a garbage collector, but for your digital junk. Vijay Karia joins Climate Curious to share his solution for tackling the invisible but growing problem of digital waste – a platform designed to help organisations identify and eliminate unnecessary digital storage, cutting carbon emissions in the process. What’s even better? Profits from cleaning up the cloud are reinvested back into Ca...

“Live without fear,” says Hollywood actor and Oglala Lakota citizen Mo Brings Plenty, star of the hit series Yellowstone , on Climate Curious. Saddle up for an epic episode as Mo shares stories of growing up on the reservation, what baby buffalos have taught him about life, and how he’s determined to kick down more doors for American Indian folks to get on screen. Plus a Kevin Costner story you wo...

“Water is more than a resource; it’s a relative,” says water professor and protector Kelsey Leonard on the Climate Curious podcast, recorded live at TED 2025. In conversation with co-host Maryam Pasha, Kelsey shares how she’s working to ensure water gets the same legal rights as humans – legal “personhood”. Because even though water is essential to life, it still remains relatively unprotecte...

"Focusing on the solutions gives you the motivation to wake up every day and be like, okay, we are doing something," says Jacquelyn Francis, founder and executive director of the Global Warming Mitigation Project on Climate Curious. From solar huts in sub-saharan Africa to electric drones delivering medical supplies in the U.S., Jacquelyn shares why she has a solutionist mindset and how to cultiva...

What if rivers, forests, and mountains had legal rights–just like humans? Nature should be able to defend its rights, just like people can, says Earth Law Center’s Executive Director Grant Wilson on the Climate Curious podcast. Current laws only protect nature for the benefit of people, corporations, and profit, but Grant Wilson and his team of super lawyers are changing that. From the innovative...

"When people's lives are better and easier, they will not need to sell charcoal or cut down trees to feed their family," says food security specialist at the University of Maryland and NASA Harvest, Catherine Nakalembe. Catherine joins Climate Curious’s Maryam Pasha to share how satellite technology is used to monitor and predict agricultural conditions, including understanding subsurface water le...

Are ‘The Herds’ roaming through a city near you? At our Climate Curious live event for London Climate Action Week, we sat down with David Lan, the producer of the worldwide street performance highlighting nature’s struggles through the medium of animal puppets, dance, and music. He shares what people can expect from their upcoming events in London and Manchester, as well as the reaction it’s getti...

“When I try to do things, I have to take it out to the streets,” says Palestinian-born creative director of The Herds, Amir Nizar Zuabi. With his life-sized animal puppets that have made their way across the globe representing nature’s struggle, Climate Curious caught up with Nizar on what he has planned for London Climate Action Week, as well as what brought him to the project in the first place....

The future of energy may be closer than we think, says Steffi Diem, an experimental plasma physicist on Climate Curious. She sits down Maryam Pasha live at TED 2025 to explain what fusion energy is, and how it could unlock a new frontier of clean energy in our lifetime, yay! Replacing fossil fuels with readily available hydrogen, Steffi shares why she’s dedicated her life’s work to ensuring this o...

If we can’t track it, we can’t fix it. That’s the idea behind MapBiomas, a project using satellite data to reveal exactly how land use is changing across the tropics. Founder Tasso Azevedo joins us live from TED 2025 to explain how the google maps for deforestation is empowering farmers and policymakers to turn their land into carbon sinks, not sources—proving that maps, satellites, and transparen...

“Use the arts and creativity as a way to speak to people's humanity around climate” says Willow Defebaugh, Editor-in-chief of the nature publication ‘Atmos’. This week Climate Curious is taking notes from Willow’s work blending creativity and climate storytelling into her unique and beautiful biannual magazine. Not to mention, we’ll be picking her brain on the experience hosting season one of her...