New podcast explains what happens after inevitable ‘overshoot’ of 1.5°C global warming
A new podcast series will explore what will happen when global warming exceeds 1.5°C.
The four-part documentary – called Overshoot: Navigating a world beyond 1.5°C – is released 10 years after the landmark Paris climate agreement set a goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
That goal is being lost, and the series examines the misconceptions about what will happen next, drawing on rich and surprising stories of the people and places on the frontline.
Overshoot focusses on how to navigate this new climate reality – and not get derailed from realising rapid and just climate action, even as climate impacts spiral.
The series is produced by the Strategic Climate Risks Initiative (SCRI) and Planet B Productions.
“For ten years, we’ve been warned that the world cannot allow global heating to pass 1.5°C. These warnings fell on too many deaf ears – and we’re now going over 1.5°C,” said Overshoot’s writer and narratorLaurie Laybourn, an award-winning climate expert and regular media commentator who is executive director of SCRI and fellow at the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute.
“So, the question now isn’t how to avoid a global-scale crisis – it’s how to navigate through it. In this series, we explain how it came to this.
“And – a month away from the next UN climate conference, COP30 in Brazil – the world needs stories to help understand what to do next.
“Overshoot provides these stories.”
The stories include the underdog climate negotiators who got the world to agree on 1.5°C goal in 2015, the pensioner who found out her pension fund’s due diligence on climate change assumes catastrophic impacts will barely touch returns, and the engineer whose back-up for climate change got coopted by fossil fuel companies to promise “zero-carbon” barrels of oil.
The series also features voices of resilience and determination: Easter Islanders, champion sailors, and world-leading experts – all of whom give listeners ideas and hope for how the world can navigate what comes next, and onto a better climate future.
Overshoot has already won praise from leading environmentalists, including:
- George Monbiot, author and journalist: “This is an essential guide to a critical issue. Please tune in.”
- Brian Eno, musician and producer: “This important series helps us understand what options we actually now have.”
- Caroline Lucas, former Green Party leader: “Challenging, provocative, essential: Overshoot asks the key questions, suggests bold, unexpected answers, and crucially offers a map by which – if we act now – we can chart a course through the storm to a fairer, safer future.”
- Sir Bob Watson, former head of the IPCC: “This podcast series candidly addresses one of the most important issues of our time: why we are failing to meet the Paris target. A must listen.”
The episodes are:
- Uncharted Territory: exploring how 1.5°C became the defining climate goal, why overshooting it is now inevitable, and whether we’re all “doomed”.
- Carbon Suckers: exposing the dangerous bet that governments and companies have made on speculative technologies to suck carbon back from the atmosphere, and what the alternative could be.
- The Minsky Moment: uncovering the flawed economics that blind governments and investors to climate risk – making them think catastrophic levels of climate change will only reduce economic activity by a few percent – and how to improve our awareness of what climate impacts are coming.
- Derailment: highlighting how climate chaos is paradoxically boosting the prospect of climate deniers, which derails climate action even more – and how to make societies (as well as ourselves) more resilient so this doesn’t happen even as climate impacts spiral.
With immersive sound design, fascinating archival audio, and original music, Overshoot makes complex issues accessible to a wide audience while refusing to shy away from hard truths. Yet it ultimately offers energising ideas for navigating a stormy future with determination and justice.
The series launched today with a trailer and its first two episodes, which are available on all major podcast platforms. Further episodes will be launched weekly throughout October, including a final live episode from a launch event bringing together leading climate change thinkers and doers.
