Wicked Problems - Climate Tech Conversations

Welcome back to  Wicked Problems . Did we bite off more than we could chew this year? Ask us after the Chouchou and mince pies are gone. Our attempts to try out some Icelandic did not go well - so in this conversation with  ENSO Tyres  founder and  Earthshot Prize  finalist  Gunnlaugur Peter Erlendsson , we respected his wishes and probably avoid prosecution in Icelan...

Welcome to  Wicked Problems . While other climate tech shows are winding down, we’re still pumping out the content about an issue - let’s be honest - you’re going to be thinking about over the break. Because that’s the sort of person you are. For our newsletter and ad-free listening, subscribe at news.wickedproblems.uk. In co-host Richard Delevan 's conversation with  John Hartley  ...

Welcome back to  Wicked Problems . The climate tech show not afraid to ask the big questions. Like, what last-minute gifts should climate nerds ask Santa to bring them? We asked  Ben Cooke , who writes about climate tech and the environment at The Times, to talk through his  recommended books of the year : The Deluge , by Stephen Markley A climate thriller that goes much faster than...

Welcome back to Wicked Problems. The climate tech show and newsletter that was so early walking out of COP before it was cool. Things look bleak at a deadlocked #COP28 in Dubai right now - so we thought this was a good time to share this optimistic conversation  Claire Brady  and  Richard Delevan  had with  Hannah Scott , CEO of Oxfordshire Greentech. We talk about Hannah’...

Welcome back to  Wicked Problems . The climate tech podcast and newsletter that while not at Climate Coachella in person has spent enough time at Expo City in Dubai to wonder if COP28 kept the Irish pub on site. Wicked Problems is a listener-supported show. To receive new shows to your inbox and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber at news.wickedproblems.uk . Serious w...

Welcome back to  Wicked Problems.  The climate tech show and newsletter with dogs that remind us that even the end of the world can’t take priority over a timely walk. Wicked Problems is listener-supported - consider becoming a paid subscriber at news.wickedproblems.uk. Andy Reisinger  is a respected climate scientist who just published a new paper arguing that the gap between “stay...

Welcome back to  Wicked Problems . The climate tech podcast and newsletter that  Al Gore agrees with  -  like we told you yesterday ,  do not mess with Mary Robinson . Elizabeth Thompson and  Chris Hayes  of  Visions2030 , a project that seeks to bring to harness the creative imagination of all of us to envision a future less Blade Runner’s Cyberpunk and mor...

Welcome back to  Wicked Problems . The climate tech show and newsletter that knows  better than to mess with former president of Ireland Mary Robinson . In this episode,  Richard Delevan  is joined by  Dr. Sugandha Srivistav  of the  Oxford Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment . Sugandha rediscovered the story of George Cove, a forgotten inventor who ma...

Welcome back to  Wicked Problems  - the climate tech podcast and newsletter that’s less stressful for King Charles than a fountain pen. As things heat up at COP28 in Dubai, and world leaders discuss how to agree to stop putting carbon dioxide up into the atmosphere, what do we do with the 1000 Gigatons of CO2 we’ve already stuck up there? Cara Maesano  of  RMI  (formerly k...

Welcome back to Wicked Problems . Ulrich Seitz has worked in climate tech for 15 years - as an entrepreneur, a venture investor, and as an advisor. And he thinks a boom in investment in climate adaptation technologies that face the consequences of climate change is right around the corner, even while not giving up on mitigation efforts. Ulrich Seitz Co-hosts Richard Delevan and Claire Brady talk w...

Welcome back to  Wicked Problems . Despite sounding like we’re auditioning to be the new noise of the TARDIS, we hope our conversation with  Startup Coalition  deputy policy director, and friend of the show,  Charlie Mercer  is easier to listen to than running a key over the bass strings of a piano. Charlie helped us decode the implications for the climate tech sector of t...

Welcome back to Wicked Problems. We know when we’re outclassed so we’ll leave the jokes to the professionals.  Claire Brady and Richard Delevan were joined by  Ben Carey  and  Nick Oldridge , the co-founders of  Climate Science Breakthrough . Like most really good comedy it’s deadly serious at its core - like spending your family fortune on a climate science comedy project...

Maritime shipping accounts for 3% of global emissions. Moving away from diesel for powering the 90% of global trade that happens by ship is beginning in earnest as the industry starts to decarbonise, and shipping gets included in emissions trading schemes. BAR Technologies  CTO  Simon Schofield  talked to us about their WindWings technology, applying high-performance racing design t...

Mark Little was a foreign correspondent for RTE, the Irish national broadcaster, before a second career in tech. He founded citizen journalism verification service Storyful, sold that to NewsCorp, was the Ireland MD for Twitter, founded an online safety startup, Kinzen, before it was acquired by Spotify, where he continues to work.  Tonight he’s back on TV, presenting a fictional newscast fro...

Gil Michel-Garcia  is co-founder of  EVelution Energy , which is building a solar-powered cobalt processing facility in Yuma, Arizona that could supply enough material for 1 million EV batteries a year to US auto manufacturers. And how competition for critical mineral supplies between China and the West will shape his sector as well as a lot of the politics of the next decade. Cobalt is...

Welcome back to  Wicked Problems -  the climate tech podcast that has to be as good as other podcasts, but backwards and in heels. Richard and Claire chat through Akshat Rathi’s new book,  Climate Capitalism . They also reflect on their reactions to the new research that says staying under 1.5C of warming might be out of reach, their conversations with Ketan Joshi and Susan Joy Hass...

Get these first if you subscribe to  news.wickedproblems.uk . The 2015 Paris Agreement set a goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees C. In the years since, the language of that goal has crept into thousands of corporate sustainability reports, media discourse, and the language of international climate diplomacy. Then, last week two research papers - in  Nature Climate Change  from a...

Get these episodes first and our newsletter at  news.wickedproblems.uk . That  James Hansen paper ,  Global Warming in the Pipeline , saying 1.5° C is toast - is it just saying the quiet part out loud, or is he recklessly playing into the hands of doom-mongering delayists? We built up expectations and endlessly repeated 1.5° C as a real thing. Will trust suffer if the message change...

Welcome back to Wicked Problems. It’s been quite a week and we’re not even halfway through yet. So on Halloween, for a treat, Richard Delevan did some reporting at Day One of the  BusinessGreen Net Zero Festival .  This episode offers you some excerpts of some of the best conversations from the day, as well as some chats with those intrepid folks working the booths. You’ll hear from&nbsp...

IEA's World Energy Outlook, COP28, Hydrogen hopium, CCUS, predatory delay, HVDC, electrification, LDES, Michael Liebreich, and MPs "with the STEM background of illiterate newts" Subscribe to our newsletter at news.wickedproblems.uk , and get new #climatetech conversations first with co-hosts Richard Delevan and Claire Brady. Michael Barnard is a Forbes and Cleantechnica co...

In this episode,  Richard Delevan  gives you an audio read of today’s  Wicked Problems  newsletter with some bonus content. For links to all the content mentioned, do check out the newsletter - https://wickedpr0blems.substack.com/p/will-new-disclosure-rules-or-cop28-force-more We talk through  IPCC Chair Jim Skea’s  maiden interview on  BBCRadio 4 , and look...

Until the rise of carbon removal, carbon offsets have been the foundation of voluntary carbon markets, but have withered under scrutiny from John Oliver to the Guardian . Can that market be fixed? Or will it always be hot air? Tech policy brains at the UK's Startup Coalition and finance brawn of the City of London launched the Carbon Markets Innovation Forum , bringing together 12 climatetech star...

With 40 days until  COP28 , expect to be hearing a lot more about carbon removal. We spoke with one of the UK’s leading founders in the space -  Jim Mann  of  UNDO , the UK-based pioneer in enhanced rock weathering. Jim tells  Richard Delevan  why we can’t just plant a trillion trees to draw down CO2, whether carbon removals creates a moral hazard that gives oil and g...

Christian Hernandez  tells  Richard Delevan what it takes to be a successful climate tech founder and what’s surprised him in climate tech investing since setting up 2150 ; why interest rates matter; where he sees opportunities going forward; and who from the “Facebook mafia” and old-skool VC he’s seen make the pivot to climate tech. Christian’s Catalysts :  The Uninhabitable E...