We’re facing a climate crisis. What comes next?

Good morning. 

This is Katherine here, filling in for Eamon from London on this edition of The Loop. 

This week we published an interview with Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac, two of the key architects of the Paris Agreement, coinciding with the release this week of their new book, The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis. 

I got a chance to read the book last week before it came out, and I had the unusual feeling that I was reading something that felt revelatory, and new. That’s a rare feeling when you closely follow climate change—especially because the book is more of a rallying cry, and a how-to guide, than a breaking news exposé. (We’re all pretty aware that climate change is happening.) 

The book takes the approach of marrying both the big picture, and the small, and spans thinking on climate change across areas as diverse as gender equality, artificial intelligence, and political polarization. After the initial chapter listing the undeniably grim future we’re facing, the authors take a practical, clear-eyed tone, imbued with what they call “gritty” optimism. That’s a brand of positive thinking that Figueres says isn’t about disregarding the pain caused by climate change, but is about realizing that, “if we put ourselves into a little box, the dark box of pain and grief and helplessness, we’re not going to do anything differently.”

Advocating gritty optimism means providing options for what comes next. The Future We Choose offers step-by-step suggestions on sustainable action for individuals (plant a tree; make a climate budget; vote) as well as for businesses, including prompts about what companies need to do even if they’re at the front of the pack. 

“I’ve walked into many companies where they are exemplary on their climate action, and they say some version of, we’re doing everything we can, and policy needs to go further and faster,” says Rivett-Carnac. “And then I’ve said to them some version of, well, did you know that you are actually a member of several trade associations who are still lobbying against more aggressive policy?” 

In our interview, Figueres and Rivett-Carnac also talk about why sovereign wealth funds are the next step in shifting climate finance; the “before” and “after” of the Australian bushfires; and why it’s okay to commit to net-zero—without knowing exactly how you’re going to do it. You can read the whole interview here.