Has the World Surrendered to Climate Breakdown? Andreas Malm, author of How to Blow Up a Pipeline

Ed and David chat with special guest Andreas Malm, author of How the World Surrendered to Climate Breakdown and How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Learning to Fight in a World on Fire. 

They discuss Malm’s critiques of climate inaction—how liberal democracies, fossil capital, and the Global North have collectively abandoned meaningful efforts to stop climate breakdown—and what comes next for movement strategy, the ethics and effectiveness of disruption, and what kind of climate action might actually work in the next crucial decade.

Full show notes & references

About Our Guest:

Andreas Malm is an associate professor of human ecology at Lund University. His latest book, with Wim Carton, is The Long Heat: Climate Politics When It's Too Late, forthcoming from Verso in October.

Produced by Amit Tandon & Bespoke Podcasts

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Ed Whittingham: Hi, I am Ed Whittingham and you're listening to Energy vs Climate, the show where my co-host, David Keith, Sara Hastings-Simon and I debate today's climate and energy challenges On May 23rd, David and I recorded a live webinar with Dr. Andreas Malm of Sweden's Lund University. We spoke with him about his new book, overshoot.

How the world surrendered to climate breakdown that he co-authored with Wim Carton, but you probably know the name Andreas Malm from his 2019 book. How to blow up a pipeline. It inspired a critically acclaimed 2022 action film of the same name. Andreas is known for challenging orthodoxy such as attachment to nonviolence and incrementalism in the face of an escalating planetary problem.

In his view, the world with one exception that we get into has failed to confront fossil capital. And time for polite persuasion has run out. It was a lively conversation that I know you'll enjoy. Now, here's the show. Has the world surrendered to Climate Breakdown? That's the question posed by our guest, Andreas Malm, who's an academic climate activist and author.

Most notably how to blow up a pipeline. More recently, he's the co-author of the book Overshoot: how the World Surrendered to Climate Breakdown with Wim Carton, and that's the first of two books looking at what do we do now that we've exceeded warming targets like the 1.5 Celsius above pre-industrial.

Target. So today we're gonna explore his arguments in overshoot and how to break up a pipe, how to blow up a pipeline and go further. Why and how has the world surrendered to climate breakdown? What strategies and ethics might guide more aggressive forms of climate action, and what might any of this mean here in Canada where climate barely registered in our recent federal election, Dr.

Andreas Malm is an associate professor of human ecology at Lund University, whose research focuses on the intersections of climate change, capitalism and political resistance. He's also the author of several influential books, including the two that I mentioned, and that second book with Wim Carin on what do we do now is called the Long Heat Climate Politics when it's Too Late, and that's due out in October.

And Andreas Joins us from his home country of Sweden today. Welcome, Andreas. 

[00:02:25] Andreas Malm: Thank you so much, Ed. And thank you David. It's a real honor to talk to you. 

[00:02:29] David Keith: So is the long heat, I, I'm not supposed to jump in now, but is that a reference also to my wonderful, beautiful colleague's book here, the Long Thaw David Archer's book?

[00:02:38] Andreas Malm: Yeah, I was actually, well, I just proofread our book and I realized that yeah, it's, and we, we have references to the long thaw, so it's a. Kind of a, I don't, I don't know if it's intentional, but clearly it's very close title. 

[00:02:53] David Keith: Yeah. Well, it's that, that I have not, I've read, I had to blow up a pipeline. I, I haven't read your new book yet, but, um, no, no, no.

That's fine. David is a dear colleague again. That book of this is really terrific. Yeah. Yeah. It's a very good book. Anyway, uh, Ed, sorry to jump in. 

[00:03:04] Ed Whittingham: No worries. And the long thaw has been on order through the Canmore Library for months now, and it's a good reminder. I need to check in to see why they're having so much trouble getting it.

[00:03:13] David Keith: Uh, or, or it's, or because it's a Alberta book banning you could think of a lot of. Conspiracies. I mean, let's just go wild here. Remember what profits we're living in and who's in charge of it. 

[00:03:25] Ed Whittingham: Yeah. That's the more likely hypothesis. David. Um, maybe Holly Buck would've something to say about that.

Andreas remind our listeners of the concept of overshoot and just as context. We've done shows on carbon removal and solar geoengineering recently. We've had Adrian Abikos, uh, French diplomat and Kim Campbell, our former Prime Minister from the Overshoot Commission on in the past, but that was a few years ago.

So remind us of the concept of overshoot. 

[00:03:54] Andreas Malm: So I think overshoot can mean a couple of different things. I mean, the most basic, uh, definition of it would be that you overshoot simply transgress a boundaries such as 1.5 obs of global warming, and that's it. But it has come to mean something more similar to overshoot and return.

So this would be the notion that you can actually cross. This limit, say 1.5 degrees, it could also be two, it could be a higher limit potentially, and then return to it by means of carbon dioxide removal. So, uh, the, the idea would then be that you can essentially, you can, you can miss the goal of 1.5 degrees and go beyond it, but then.

Headed later by taking out the excess of CO2. Of course, then there's also, you know, there's this old history of the idea of overshoot in, in ecological science, which means something different, namely that you over exploit ecological resources in general. So there is overshoot today in these things.

That's, that's not what we talk about in the book, but it's more like strictly and specifically overshoot in, in. In, you know, in debates surrounding climate that we're dealing with. But, uh, clearly we are now in overshoot territory because we're crossing 1.5 degrees. So this is, something, this is our world now.

The, the average temperature last year was one point. 55 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial baseline. Now, that's not sufficient to say officially declare that now we've crossed 1.5 because, you know, the scientists say we have to have an average over a couple of decades to be able to say that. But, you know, things are happening so fast, you know, the warming is accelerating.

Uh, so these old criteria might soon be obsolete and we might very soon be, you know, rushing towards the next. Limit. So clearly overshoot is now, I mean, it's happening in that, in that basic sense. 

[00:05:52] Ed Whittingham: Got you. So we're in a world of overshoot. Um, but you go further and you argue that the world has surrendered to climate breakdown.

So let's start with the why. Like what, what forces or failures in your view have led to this kind of global capitulation to the climate challenge? 

[00:06:10] Andreas Malm: Yeah, so the subtitle to, to this book is. How the world surrendered to climate breakdown. And of course that's a little bit of a, an exaggeration because it's not like there's no one out there who is trying to fight this catastrophe anymore.

But there is, I think generally a sense of, well. Almost resignation to this fate of transgressing 1.5. And you, you referenced the recent election in Canada, and I think this is very widely the, you know, this is the picture. Generally that climate has plummeted on the political agenda for the past five years, since the outbreak of the pandemic, I would say.

The climate movement is a shadow of its former self in the global north. Uh, the far right is in the ascendancy again, and the far right is still as wedded to classical climate denialism as ever. I'm thinking of course of Donald Trump, but also the a FD, which now dominates German politics. It's a similar situation here in Sweden.

You know, there are just so many cases. So there is a general resurgence of anti-climate politics of also, of course, boosting fossil fuel production companies retreating from previous nominal commitments to net zero or to investing in renewables. There is this general backlash against climate that that takes a lot of different manifestations, and this is happening right at this moment when we are moving beyond 1.5 degrees.

So in that sense, there, there is something like a surrender to the fact of climate breakdown rather than an an intensified struggle against it. When it is exacerbated in the way that it is. 

[00:08:04] David Keith: Can I jump in and say, I think politically what you said is my read as well that is agreed that, that there's much less climate activism than there was four or five years ago.

But on the other hand, if you look at the, what's happening on the ground with decarbonization, there's much more happening than five years ago. Really stunning. Um, and it. Seems there's, you know, most mainstream forecasts now suggests that global peak of emissions will be this year, perhaps next. So in, in some sense, it, it, by funny coincidence, we're passing 1.5 roughly at the same time as, uh, one of the grand turning points of the climate fight, which I mean, of course, as we all know, doesn't mean the client fight's over because.

You don't stop it warming up until you get to net zero emissions. But the fact that after centuries of long rise of fossil fuels, it really looks like we're pretty much at the peak. Perhaps this year is actually the peak. And I think it's interesting to think about the juxtaposition of those two facts because the, just the sheer kind of flow of action of, of money, of hardware for decarbonization, it's been much more in the last few years than it was, uh, say five years ago.

[00:09:11] Andreas Malm: I in Sha Allah as, as we Arabs or Arab files, like say, I mean, I, I hope you're right. I hope this peak will happen, but I'm a little bit jaded because I've heard these predictions about an imminent emissions peak many times before, and so far they haven't happened. I mean, emissions still continue to increase.

And I wouldn't, I wouldn't agree with there being a general trend towards decarbonization, but there are important tendencies in that direction. In some parts of the world economy, notably power generation in the European Union where you, where you see an actual emissions drop and you see something like an actual switch, a transition from.

Coal to renewables in the power generation sector. And yes, this shift has a kind of momentum regardless of what parties, uh, are ruling European countries. It seems, however, generally globally, broadly, I still think that we're seeing not only continues, but increasing investment in fossil fuel production.

Virtually across the board. So according to the International Energy Agency, investment in oil and gas increased by 9% in 2023, and then by 7% in 2024. So this means almost. One 10th more capital invested in, uh, upstream production of oil and gas, um, per year. So it's not only that investment is continuing, but it is actually increasing.

And when it comes to coal, of course, what what's central here is, is what's happening in Asia. And there you have, uh. China. Yeah, they're, they're building a fabulous amount of, uh, solar panels and wind turbines in, uh, turbines in China, but they're also opening coal fired power plants and coal mines at a rate that's higher now than what it was, uh, 10 years ago.

[00:11:07] David Keith: Not, not for production. So, so the, the latest analysis shows Chinese emissions actually down year on year for the first time. And I've I've been following this soon, as you know, for 35 years. I've never seen most of the. Forecasts show a peak. Uh, cement went down globally for the first time. Electricity is down not just in Europe, but in the UK and in in, um, north America and China. China has built a lot of coal plants, but they're not dispatching them. 

That, that's why you see electric power emissions going down in China. Yeah. 

[00:11:37] Andreas Malm: Yeah, yeah. Again, I hope you're right. I would see, I would like nothing else than to see emissions drop, but uh, the, the winds are very much blowing in the direction of.

Investment of capital, uh, flowing towards fossil fuels on a global scale in the key producing countries in the us in the Gulf countries. You see, accelerated investment and a, a much more intense flow of capital into fossil fuels than what you did. Uh, just a few years ago, and this is because they've become so irresistibility profitable since 2022.

So you have all sorts of companies and you know, this applies to a kind of like Norway too, the largest oil and gas producer in Europe, where EOR just recently, like all the other majors that we're gonna ditch our commitment to investing in renewables because it doesn't generate the profits that oil and gas does.

And the, this is. This has been the general trend and Donald Trump with his extremely aggressive assault on, on on the legal and, and regulatory environment for renewable energy production and his attempts to, to revive the coal industry and remove all limitations on fossil fuel extraction, he is just a manifestation of an underlying trend that is you know, integrating what the BP is doing, what JP Morgan is doing, what the.

What the, yeah, of course, what the Saudis are doing, but they were never much interested in renewables anyway. But, uh, generally capital keeps flowing into opening new fossil fuel installations, and as we know, this is completely incompatible with any kind of climate mitigation. First of all, trying to cap global warming to 1.5 degrees.

This is what the International Energy Agency said very famously in 2021, we can have no new installations, no new oil fields, or. Open pipelines, built gas terminals, coal mines, and things like this. Now, I, I just came back from two weeks in Colombia, which is an incredibly fascinating case because this is the only fossil fuel producing country in the world that has a government that is doing exactly these things, namely, handing out no new licenses for.

Exploring for oil and gas, or for fracking, or for opening coal mines since the petro government came into power in 2022. Ironically, when the whole world turned in the other direction, this single fossil fuel producing country, which is extremely dependent on fossil fuels for its economi, it's more than half of its revenues come from, from the export of oil and gas and coal.

This country is doing exactly this. No more new installations. Unfortunately, we're likely to see a, a political shift in Colombia too when, when there are elections next year. But what, what really struck me on the ground in colo is how exceptional this is and how isolated this case is and how anomalous it is that you have a fossil fuel producing country.

This actually deciding to say we're going to phase out fossil fuel. I mean, the equivalent in Canada would be a government saying we're not gonna be. A single new pipeline we're not gonna explore for a single new drop of oil or gas in this country. I mean, you imagine how revolutionary that would be.

It's unheard of anywhere else, but it's the only kind of policy that is in line with climate mitigation and there's only one country, uh, of any importance that's doing it. 

[00:15:00] Ed Whittingham: I would argue that in Canada, the federal government, well first the provincial government under a previous government here in Alberta, and then the federal government has tried to cap emissions on Canadian oil and gas emissions and, you know, one of the largest pools of, of carbon and emitted carbon in the world, in, in the oil sands.

Some argue is a defacto cap on production. You won't hear that coming from government officials. They say it's a cap on emissions. I'd argue it actually is a cap on production, uh, and that that seems to be unique outside of cap and trade systems in the world. But I wanna go back, Andreas to this, this Columbia example because let's say it is the, the absolute, uh, exception.

And you've argued that liberal democracies in their economies have. Failed to address the climate crisis, and you alluded to it with the investment in fossil fuel production and also the different profit margins between say, a fossil fuel project that's, you know, producing 40% plus return on invested capital versus some renewables projects.

Many that have single digits or very low single digits. So what is it about the structure or the logic of liberal democracies and economies that make them so. Poorly suited to tackling something like climate breakdown and is to get into the political side, I, is there any version of democracy outside of Columbia that could really rise to meet the challenge?

[00:16:28] Andreas Malm: Yeah. Well, so, so. I would, I would hesitate to frame this as liberal democracy being the problem, or, you know, that, that an electoral democratic system is what, what blocks us from what, what prevents us from doing mitigation? I mean, and Colombia is fascinating for many reasons. One being that it's a kind of an almost ideal type, uh, scenario.

Since 2022. So the background to, of course, there's a low and complicated history in Colombia, but the immediate background is that there was a massive popular uprising in Colombia in the years 20 18, 19 and 21, against various kinds of, you know, social inequalities, neoliberalism, all kinds of problems in the country, which was then translated into an electoral campaign that won the presidential election in 2022, and for the first time, you had a progressive government in Columbia. So, uh, the, what, what's happened in Columbia since 2022, is an exercise in democracy. It's not like, you know. Uh, it's in spite of democracy that you see what has happened in Columbia, but it's, it's, it's an extension of democracy.

You know, it's, you know, winning state power by means on contesting democratic elections. And then using that popular mandate to actually keep the promises made in the presidential campaign, which is, you know, quite rare that you have a, a presidential candidate who says, I'm gonna do these things. And Gus said, I'm gonna stop. All new fossil fuel permits. And then he is actually done this for four years, uh, next year. 

[00:18:05] David Keith: So I wanna kind of challenge the assumption. I wanna, I mean, results are different from rhetoric. There's lots of reasons why, I mean, politicians say any kind. Kind of crap they need to, to get elected.

That's the way, sadly, our systems work, but what people say and what happens in countries are different. So emissions in the US are down a lot since 2 0 6. Ians in Columbia are up a lot. I. It's not just the European Union uh, emissions and electricity sectors, as I said, and China are down. They're down 1.6% the last year.

I think it's really hard to imagine they're coming back up again given the changes. I'm not a champion of the US or under this completely hideous government, but, but I think you, you need to look both at. Rhetoric and it results. Trump is saying all sorts of outrageous bs, but um, I think the likelihood of big expansion of US fossil fuel production is pretty small.

Um, uh, I don't think he, he, he doesn't magically control it and the forces that are driving it down aren't changing that much. 

[00:19:08] Andreas Malm: I mean, here I would read the situation differently because, uh, I don't think the key. Metric in this case is national emissions, but production. So you say that US emissions have decreased since, since 2006.

Well, this might be the case, but the what's really transformed the The global energy economy is the rise of the US to the status of the world's largest producer of oil and gas, courtesy of first Barack Obama. Then, uh, the first Trump, but not the least Biden. And now what, what the second Trump wants to do is to, to just intensify this trend of increasing production of, of oil and gas.

I, I agree with you that I, it's probably gonna be difficult for him to resurrect the coal industry, but oil and gas. In the US seem to be booming. Now, when it comes to Columbia, what's happening, there isn't a matter of national emissions. What, what they have achieved isn't so much a question of, of decreasing their national emissions because I.

The oil and the gas and the coal that's being produced in colomb is exported. So the remarkable achievement of the Colombian government is to, to have overseen a fall in the output of fossil fuels in Colombia, a massive reduction in the production of oil and gas and coal, and also deforestation for that matter.

Another extremely important factor, uh, but this is because, you know, the Columbian economy is, is structured in a completely different way from the American or the Swedish Swedish economy. Colombia is a country that produces raw materials and sells them on the world market. Uh, it's a classical peripheral economy in that sense, and that that.

It's, it's been extremely structurally dependent on exporting fossil fuels, which makes it all the more impressive that it, that it's a country like this that decides to forego the, these, this source of income when a country like the US or Norway or Canada, as a much more diversified economy. And, and it would be far less damaging to the economy to, to face on fossil fuels.

But, you know, you don't see this in rich markets. 

[00:21:18] David Keith: No. That, that argument I buy, I agree with that distinction and, and, um. For lots of reasons, both the global environment and the future of Alberta. Given that I think we are at gonna see Fossil peak pretty quickly as we need to, I would like to see the Alberta County government begin to drive production down.

So I agree with you that it's very different that the situation in Columbia is different in that sense. Yes. 

[00:21:44] Ed Whittingham: But David, I've heard you say a few times now about global emissions peaking next year or perhaps as soon as this year. That strikes many as counterintuitive. What, what source, where, where are you drawing that, that conclusion from?

[00:21:59] David Keith: Most of the big forecasters are more or less saying that. So IEA is bounced, whether it's this year or next year. Rystad says that McKinsey says that these are mainstream forecasters. I think it's not, you can look at a little, I. Twitter back and forth. I had with one of the really great folks from the Global Carbon Project.

I mean, I think, you know, nobody knows what'll happen and, and things may turn around. Emissions may keep going up. So, I mean, we can only celebrate the peak once it's really beyond us. I think there are reasons to believe it's, it's real given how many forecasters are, are, are suggesting, it, it's a balance between the, the.

Fall of coal and the continuing rise of gas exactly when the peak happens. But you know, some of the peaks, the fact that cement peak now appears to be in, uh, a past is a big deal. And I think that's the sort of structural change that China's kind of finished the build out and demographically finished it.

I think the, the scale of investment. A, a, a renewables investment for electricity and decarbonization is just stunning. So something like 80% of the total capital investment electricity last year was, was in clean energy. And the overall, you know, the world spent 2 trillion on clean energy last year, and depending on how you measure upstream, oil and gas, gas, it's something like a quarter of that.

So that's just a different world than we lived in before. 

[00:23:16] Andreas Malm: Lemme just clarify that I don't dispute the, the, these figures about the build out of, of renewables and that this is a real positive trend. Of course, I just find it's too early to say that we are in a, in, in a process of energy transition because the, the general pattern is rather one of energy addition where renewables are added on top of fossil fuels and where investment in, in fossil fuels is continuing.

[00:23:42] David Keith: I would say that for electricity sector, you couldn't argue it's a transition 'cause you really are seeing electricity sector. But, but I agree that that's not true globally. We don't know. I think whether or not the peak is this year or the next few years, who knows? Obviously again, as we all violently agree peak doesn't remove the climate problem.

Peak just stops the rate at which we're making it worse, uh, stops increasing. But I still think the peak is important and I think there is an interesting way maybe to poke you a little bit that. To be clear, I don't think we would've made this progress without climate activism. I don't think it's happened just 'cause like capitalism got green.

I think climate activism has absolutely been central to driving the policy that got us here. So I completely salute climate activism and consider myself to some extent part of it. And I think even, even strong activism and certainly including civil disobedience, I think we needed to get this action to happen.

But I think there's a way in which. Because there's so much for further to go. Sometimes climate activists are unwilling to recognize the actual successes that are happening, and I think we will very likely see an emissions peak within the next year or two. And I think the climate activist community needs to get used to how the world will look different when emissions are declining.

They won't be declining anywhere near as fast as you or I would want. But they will quite likely be declining soon. I mean, you don't get all those ma I've never seen all those mainstream forecasters say it's gonna happen in a year or two. To be clear, I, I don't, man, I don't wanna sound like, I'm just thinking like technological change is gonna solve it.

I, I really agree, agree with much of what you say about corruption and the need for action and so on. But, but I don't think. I, I mean, rhetorically, if I'm trying to incite people to be concerned, I'd say once you build it, you build it for a century. But it it, you know, if I'm guessing, I think no chance at all.

I mean, electric vehicles are happening. They, you know, they could be happening faster. There's a lot of stupid stuff, but I think I. You know, the whale peak is gonna happen. The whale peak's gonna happen later than the, the, the gas peak and the coal peak for sure. But, you know, 2030 or very early 2030s and that's a hard to see it doesn't happen given that the, the change in, in light duty vehicles. And so I think the answer is it'll go down from that. And I don't think everybody's gonna be producing them because there's gonna not gonna be market not for that much production. It can be market that's slower. 

[00:25:55] Andreas Malm: I mean, again, I hope that you're right.

It's just that the trends, the actual trends in the real world in recent years have not been those trends. I mean, we haven't seen a decline in oil production or investment to the contrary, we're seeing the opposite. So yes, I mean. I, you're right. I hope that the world makes, makes another turn, but I find it difficult to trust that these scenarios will play out of their own accord regardless, for instance, of how reactionary politicians come into power.

I mean, to return to the case of Columbia once again, you know, what's, what's happened there? Hasn't come about for any kind of natural, spontaneous process, but because of political decisions and it now seems very likely that the, these decisions will be revoked next year, and that you will have what will be the most damaging, namely a massive fracking boom in Colombia because they have some of the largest, uh, potentials for fracking in Latin America that so far have been left untouched.

But you know, you can have a, a right-wing government that comes into power and say, we're gonna go all in for this. Just as Donald Trump is doing. And of course that's gonna have real effects on output and, uh, further down the road animations. And, you know, with the political trends in the world right now, I, I struggle to be as hopeful as you are.

Again, I hope you're right. An wrong 

[00:27:16] Ed Whittingham: Yeah, we, we, we all share that hope. So, a couple things, and I wanna go back to climate denialism and the climate movement being a shadow of itself. So on it being a shadow of itself. We're seeing take the Canadian example, if anything, a lot more money going into the climate movement to fund those think tanks and NGOs and activists working on it.

Uh, what, what do you mean by it being a shadow of itself? Do you mean actually that there's fewer capacity in the climate movements or you've got a bunch of groups that are demotivated these days and less money is going in? Or is it just a consequence of. Right now. And, and I've been in the climate movement for decades, the ebbs and flow.

And right now we're in a, we're in a tough time with the rise of a bunch of right wing governments and this, this shift away and particularly with industry from doing anything serious on climate change. 

[00:28:11] Andreas Malm: Yeah. So I don't know the Canadian scene I have to admit, but my description here is based on Europe and in the years 20 18, 19. Early 20, there was this major protest cycle that was primarily fueled by Fridays for future the the Greta Toon Barrier of School Strike Movement and Extinction Rebellion. And I. Somewhat differently in the gda, the movement against coal mines in Germany with its climate camps now, all of these three movements are, you know, absolute shadows of their former selves in so far as they exist at all.

I mean, Fridays for future barely exists. Ex XR Extinction Rebellion has fragmented into different, uh, offshoots. I mean, it, it still exists in the UK and in some other countries, but again, extremely weak. Perhaps most disastrously in Europe. The movement in Germany. Has been reduced to a trickle because Germany used to be the powerhouse of the climate movement.

The one exception here is France, where you have a very vibrant environmental movement called the, but it's, it's not as a narrowly defined climate movement. It, it wages a much more variated, uh, kind of battle against infrastructure projects and in defense of, of local land and stuff like that. But I don't, I don't think there's any doubt that the, the climate movement, and I'm not talking about, you know, in terms of money, but in terms of activism, the numbers, the people involved in activities, the, yeah, the, what they're doing, you know, it has basically left the scene.

Compared to five years ago for various reasons that you can analyze and I think, you know, you can make, make sense of this development, but I, I, I think it's pretty clear that that's what, what has happened. 

[00:30:03] David Keith: Yeah, I think I, I'm sure Ed and I agree, and I think the question is what happens next? How to, you know, what's the next wave of the climate movement?

Because to do anything that really, I mean, to stop making the climate worse, we need to bring emissions to zero. And, and that is even forgetting the question of whether we try and then reduce. Concentrations of carbon dioxide do other things. And that requires, you know, the kind of movement that I would like, that I think you would like, would be much stronger and really thinks more seriously about how to decarbonize rapidly while allowing and protecting the rights of the poor and the world to grow and, and how we do that in a developed world, I think is essential question.

And I, that's where I really want to hear your kind of sense of what happens next. I agree that it's much, that, that. The last big wave of the climate movement has clearly done just what you say. The question is, what's next? How to reinvigorate a new form. 

[00:30:53] Andreas Malm: Uh, you know, the, the world is, is such a mess right now. And the, the potential for various kinds of catastrophic events is, in my view, pretty big. And I think. A major reason for the decline of the climate movement since 2020 is a series of disastrous events, not to be the pandemic, the invasion of Ukraine and the genocide in Gaza. These three have really changed the political landscape that the climate movement operated in, in, in the years before that.

Now I think one trend that you can perhaps discern is. Struggles moving to the field of adaptation. So a lot of the struggles in France, particularly against these mega Bain, these big watery of wars that, that do part of the French countryside a lot of this struggle. Is concerned with adaptation projects.

So these huge water reserv waters are built presumably to, to make it easier for agribusiness companies to adapt to a drier and warmer climate. Uh, you had a major event in Spain last year with the, these. Floods in Valencia in, uh, late October that killed more than 200 people and a Fortnite later you had something like a hundred thousand people on the streets of Valencia marching and, and also rioting in anger over the way that the authorities were, seemed to have let them down and abandoned them to these floods.

These being right-wing authorities with kind of an anti-climate politics. You, you can see here in Europe trends of, of political activity, having to take up issues around adaptation, which is one of the things that we theorize in our book, women, I about, you know, what do we do when climate politics, when it's too late?

Well, now we actually are seeing more and more of these impacts, these major disasters. And of course, they're gonna make people upset in various, in, in various ways. The question is, will they prompt people to renew the struggle around mitigation? So in the case of Valencia, for instance, we argue this in the book, what you did not see in in Spain in conjunction with, with these floods, was a questioning of the activities of repsol, which in just, you know, a few months before said that now we're gonna massively expand our fossil fuel assets in Venezuela.

No one made these connections, you know, or, or connected these dots. But instead you had the, you had the Spanish government saying, okay. We're gonna, we're gonna have, uh, this new reform where we'll pay workers for two or three days of leave so that, so that when there's a new extreme weather event, they don't have to travel so that they don't get caught up in these f floods.

I mean, fine, I I, of course, obviously that's a good adaptation reform, but if you continue to just dig up fossil fuel and put them on fire and you will have more and more extreme weather events, you, and you can't just. Pay people to stay at home for a year. 

[00:33:45] David Keith: Of course, a hundred percent. But thinking about the way the movement might evolve, I think what you said was really interesting, the idea of the movement shifting to kind of trying to empower local people and political action on adaptation.

And obviously that isn't a substitute for cutting emissions, but you know, political movements shift their focus now and then, and it may be. I guess what I find it pretty interesting is that parallel to the wacky politics in the US with the rise of, you know, what Holly Buck calls conspiratorial environmentalism.

I, I would say that while they're going under different names and it's politically highly conflicted political debate about local climate impacts and adaptation are, is very much alive even in this, uh, time in the us. So maybe what happens is for some years the climate movement focuses on adaptation, which builds strength for renewed push to drive emissions down. I don't know. I'm just trying to be optimistic. 

[00:34:35] Andreas Malm: Yeah, yeah. No, I, I share this, I mean, this, this, you know, with all these, with all these disasters that are in the pipeline, uh, both literally and figuratively, obviously we have to hope that, that there is reason enough left in the species that. That when, when people live through these disasters, they revive the original struggle against the fossil fuels and the source of the problem of the driver of, of, of global warming.

But I don't think you know, there, there's been this kind of expectation that when people realize how bad things are in climate, then they will open their eyes and then they will wage the big fight. Again, I hope this is. Going to turn out to be true, but I don't think there is any guarantee for it because there, there's, there's so much irrational in politics these days.

In particular, Los Angeles was burning when Donald Trump was installed as as a president, and there was no, you know, immediate. Course a link between that, that extreme disaster and then kind of shift towards concern for climate in the us. 

[00:35:41] Ed Whittingham: Yeah, and we have a premier here in Alberta who, when we have wildfires that may or may not be attributable to, to climate change, of course it's, it's hard to know, but let's, let's assume, yes.

Then she pivots and, and floats, uh, sort of arson conspiracy theories instead of saying, oh, we've got a warming world and, and wildfires are on the rise. I wanna go back, you know, you wrote. How to blow up a pipeline in 2019, and it seems like we're having a conversation of what's changed between 2019 and today.

When you'd mentioned some of the evidence for sort of world capitulation or surrender, you talked about a FD and Donald Trump and the rise of climate nihilism. But I wonder if, from my experiences, I, I think climate denialism is on the way out. Perhaps Donald Trump and the Republican Party is this massive exception in the world, but even you've got the right accepting that climate change is happening, and principally because we're having extreme weather events and people are actually seeing changes in their lifetime that are hard to deny.

For instance, I, I. Just back from Indonesia and Sumatra and had chats with locals there who unprompted, without knowing anything about what I do, unprompted talked about the climate change impacts that they're seeing on the ground, uh, in places like the island of Sumatra. So it's not denialism, but it is fatalism.

It's acceptance that it's happening. And then this pivot to climate adaptation. So going to David's point, well maybe adaptation is the entry point to say. Yeah. You know, okay, there is a problem. But getting back to overshoot, my understanding of overshoot, there're kind of three legs to the stool and adaptation is one, carbon dioxide removal is another.

And then, you know, something like solar geoengineering, which you know, David works on, uh, is, is a third. Can, can you talk Andreas about what do you do with, well, what do you think of those three legs and then is overshoot and these three legs of the stool? Seriously an entry point we can use to have conversations with the right.

[00:37:47] Andreas Malm: Let, lemme just first say that. I think this is definitely a prediction. What I've heard many times in climate denial is on the way out. I mean, people were saying that during Obama, people were saying that during Biden, it still hasn't happened. In Europe, it's certainly not the case that climate denial is on the way out.

I mean, and here again, I have to stress the extreme importance of Germany as the main economy of this continent, and it's difficult to. Exaggerate the political importance of Germany in the European Union. German politics is now drowning, drowning in the surge of the A FD, which you know, not only is the most fascist inclined party that has had political success in Germany since.

Out of Hitler, but it is also a party that has never moved one centimeter from the most crude classical climate in Ireland. According to the most recent pulse, this is the single largest party in Germany. This was absolutely unthinkable in Germany 10 years ago when there was a total consensus. In the political scene in Germany that climate change is real and that we have to do something about it.

Again, I wish you were right. That denial is on the way out. But I don't see that this is what's happening on the ground, uh, in the, the global south is another matter. I mean, obviously if you go to Argentina for instance, you have a crazy climate denialist in charge of that country. But, uh, in much of the global south, I mean, yes.

P people know and see what's happening and, uh, and it's difficult to be a, an explicit climate designers perhaps in Indonesia. Or in Egypt. Uh, but, but what really matters is, is what happens in the, in the old traditional heartlands of the fossil economy in the us, Germany, Australia, the uk, and so on and so forth.

Now adaptation, carbon dioxide removal, geoengineering. Yes. So this second book that women I have coming out in October, which is the Beast of a book, it's more than 600 pages long. Try to de deal with these questions. So there's a short partner adaptation there, and then there's a very long one on removal and a pretty long one on geoengineering as well, and discuss what the potentials are.

And, you know, it's, it's, it's just so broad and there's so much that we could discuss, uh, including with David on, on both removal and geoengineering. We, one of the arguments that we make is that. Because it's so late now and we're crossing 1.5, it's impossible to stick our hands in the sand and say that we shouldn't deal with adaptation.

We shouldn't deal with removal. We shouldn't deal with geoengineering, overshoot. Has become to to an extent a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy where we're now tragically, uh, uh, unable to ignore these emerging front lines and have no choice but to engage with them in different ways. This is not to say that we.

Should have, I think, a, a general acceptance of all these new technologies. So when it comes to negative emissions technologies, for instance, I think we have to be very selective and critical. And note that some of these technologies have potential, but maybe much more limited potential. I mean, what's just happened with Clime Works, which was long seen as the, the most if you forgive me, David, with your background in engineering, the most, you know, the leading DAC company, I mean it. It has a, a kind of a meltdown right now. We have to be very, very concrete and specific in our understanding of these technologies and what potentials they actually have. And as you, you yourself have, have said David Dak might have been, uh, the subject of an excessive hype in these engineers. Uh, as for solar geoengineering, you know, you, you mentioned Holly Jean Buck a couple of times.

She was my student in 2009. And, and, uh, she was the one who first. Told me you need to pay some attention to this geo engineering thing. And I've struggled with this question since now that I hadn't specialized in it as David have. But I have to, I have to admit that in contradistinction to, uh, renewable energy technologies in all, its more and more fancy forms.

My own development has been that the more I read about geo engineering. The more skeptical and critical I become of it, and the less I, I find Holly's position or someone like Kim Stanley Robinson, who believe that that solar engine engineering is something that can be used for, for Alta and the Atory projects.

The less I find that position credible. But obviously these are incredibly big and complicated questions. But another, another, another kind of irony in this tragic situation also is, as we've kind of mentioned, that none of these things adaptation, carbon oxide removal or geoengineering, has a chance to work in the long term unless you have really successful mitigation.

So the paradox here is that the absence of of massive mitigation is what, what forces us perhaps to do these other things. But doing these other things in any kind of way that approaches success presupposes that we actually do mitigation, which is the big contradiction of this, this conjuncture that we're in. 

[00:42:51] Ed Whittingham: Lots to, uh, draw upon there.

But I do want to get to audience questions and we have one lined up. We've got Jory Vermette, uh, Jory, go ahead and ask your question. 

[00:43:03] Jory Vermette: Hey, thanks for giving me the opportunity to, uh, ask this question. It's actually pronounced Jori with like hard J. 

[00:43:09] Ed Whittingham: Sorry, Jory. 

[00:43:10] Jory Vermette: No, it's all good. Yeah, so thanks so much for, for bringing Professor Malm on huge, huge fan of your work if you can call it that being a fan.

But, uh, it's resonated deeply with me, uh, and I try and incorporate it into my own climate organizing. But, i, I think the question I wanna ask is, obviously every circumstance is unique in every part of the world, but particularly where I live in Canada, in Saskatchewan, uh, the situation I would consider to be quite dire in the sense that we are, our province is considering to expand its coal consumption beyond hard targets to eliminate it.

They're pushing it back against federal regulations for capstone emissions and clean electricity. Amongst other things. So my question for you professor Malm is that where do you see the possibility for the cloud climate movement, especially in places where they're quite reactionary, quite right wing, uh, to regain its strength and to actually pull levers to gain some power back in all of this?

Clearly understanding that we're not going to be getting rid of capitalism anytime soon. But maybe one quick thing to add onto that. Often we're told to organize, which I understand, but often that feels like a very vague gesture and differs from the traditional labor or tenant organizing. So what does organizing look like to you in this, uh, overshoot moment?

So lastly, I'll just thank you all for your time and solidarity with you in your struggle in this. 

[00:44:22] Andreas Malm: Yeah. Thank you Julia. I, well, this is, again, this is the big question, um, just to say that I think when you, the way you describe Canada, it sounds a bit like Sweden or probably the, the political situation here is even worse.

You know, Sweden was one of these countries that was long seen as a forerunner of pioneer in climate politics. You know, everyone was. Oh, Sweden, you, you're, you think so much about the environment, but the right wing government that we've had in place now since, since 2022, has been systematically dismantling all kinds of climate and politics in a totally Trumpian fashion.

And you know, the recent difference is they decided to, to ditch 13 large offshore wind farm projects because this will make it more difficult to defend the Sweden because presumably the fighter jets can get entangled in the wind turbines, you know, some. Like this, this is the kind of, of the political, of political climate we're living in and, and, uh, in, in Sweden.

We don't have a fossil fuel industry in Sweden, like in Norway and Canada, but the, it's very difficult to, I think, find a space for organizing and intervening in this political moment. What I've been trying to argue in recent years is that the climate movement needs to prepare to be able to strike in the heat of the moment.

And what I mean is that. We know that there will be new disasters. I mean, in Canada, I'm sure you're gonna have a new season for some very bad wildfires. Who knows if it's gonna happen this summer or the next. I mean, you, you, you're aware of, uh, you've experienced this in Canada and it's gonna come again.

It's gonna happen again. At some point, the climate movement needs to be able to strike and heat at this moment and say, look, folks, if you think this is bad, you have to realize that this shit is just gonna get worse if we keep taking fossil fuels out of the ground. So we there, the movement should try to prepare for timing its actions to these outbreaks of disaster to make the, the, the cognitive breakthrough that is.

So crucial to open people's minds to the idea that there is a causal link between what's going on under the ground, or rather what's what we're taking out of the ground and these disasters that we, you know, that, that are destroying our lives. Thi this is what the climate movement failed to do in Spain, in, in Valencia, because, you know, there were, there were marches, there were even riots, but they didn't target the source of the problem.

And this is what urgently has to be made. And now what does that look like on the ground? Well, that's, that's difficult to say in a kind of general sense. This is up. To activists and their communities to figure out how do we prepare for the next wild fir in Canada? What do we do? What kind of actions against the fossil fuel industry can we time to this event to try to make the, the, you know, connect the dots that really need to be connected.

You see what I mean? Uh, but I, I can't give any, any kind of general advice on how to organize. I think because I, as I said, I don't know the Canadian context that all. 

[00:47:12] Ed Whittingham: In and Andreas, and, and maybe this is a loaded question, but difference between 2019 and 2025 when the climate movement is a shadow of its former self, at least in Europe, that's would you say, is a failure of tactics and an almost religious like commitment to non-violence. I. 

[00:47:28] Andreas Malm: That's definitely not the only factor. Maybe it is one. I mean, I mentioned in France, which is the big exception to this pre dismal scene in Europe, and they stand out for, uh, using sabotage and other forms of militancy on a mass scale. But French political culture is also unique in Europe. You know, you can smash things and you can fight with cops and France, but if you do that in Sweden.

Or in Germany, you're immediately demonized, as you know, beyond the pale, terrorist, crazy extremists. Tactical repertoires look different in different national and local contexts, and, and France is perhaps not a generalizable case, but clearly the one instance we have of a vibrant environmental movement in Europe these days that have scored actual victory.

Locally is one that has employed sabotage and done so consistently. XR that has had a, a very different attitude towards these whole things is, like I said, it, there's almost nothing of it left. But I, I don't think that the, I, I don't think that in itself I. Is the reason for the decline of the climate movement?

I mean, I mean, I think I would point to other factors. I would point to the feeling that many people had particularly towards the end of the pandemic, that okay, we had, we did all these things in 18 and 19. We brought so many people to the streets, but we didn't win. And maybe, I mean, David can, can tell these people that actually you did win.

So cheer up for and get back into action. I think maybe that's a message that people would need to, to hear and be convinced about. But, but there's, there's a lot of sense in the movement that. What we did was in vain, or it didn't, didn't give any real effect. We're pretty exhausted. There's also the problem of repression, of criminalization, of very heavy handed, uh, you know, t tactics and, and sentences from the state apparatus.

And then there's this whole, you know, geopolitical shift with, with the two big wars that have happened in the past few years. Of course, there are more wars, but the two that have really had a major political importance, the one in Ukraine and the one in Gaza. Have, have really taken a toll on the climate movement in, in, in very different ways.

But I think these factors are more important in and of themselves than the kind of what I would, you know, the fetishization of non-violence or whatever you wanna call it. 

[00:49:49] David Keith: Since, since you call me out I'll, I'll say I think this really is this interesting tension in the movement where, um, I think, but I'm not a great movement organizer, that there's something important about recognizing successes because it builds the.

Uh, builds the energy to do more. So that's why I think this idea that we're kinda near the emissions peak is important. But of course, you don't wanna oversell that because you don't want to make that, you don't want complacency. And I think there's some delicate balance between admitting that there really has been progress as a way to, to encourage people to do more, but not wanting to fall into a complacency that things are okay.

[00:50:22] Ed Whittingham: Listen, before we run outta time, I want to get one more, one more audience question in from from Robert Tremblay. Go ahead Robert. 

[00:50:29] Robert Tremblay: Thanks. Um, so the question is, so in a, in a fragmented world where global coordination's weak, I've typically seen demand destruction as a, as a key path for reducing fossil fuel use.

Since I think production cuts their, their hard to sustain politically, and I think to an extent incentivize production expansion. Elsewhere in the world. But on, on the flip side, cleaner technologies like EVs or renewables can spread more, more easily to between different regions, even without strong policies to support.

So, you know, I think with countries like Germany and Japan, they deeply subsidized solar early on, which enabled China to scale up manufacturing to where solar is now. I'd say in my head, like Norway has a similar role with electric vehicles. Maybe even reaching outside technology. You know, cycling culture in Netherlands and Denmark I think is sort of contagious as well.

So I guess the question is, what, what kinds of climate action and policy are the most contagious, capable of spreading across borders and accelerating, uh, decarbonization? And in this sort of contagion frame, what, what should activism be pushing for beyond just climate action generally? 

[00:51:31] Andreas Malm: I, I have to say that, you know, I, I once wrote a book called Fossil On Capital, which was entirely focused on the demand side, but the, the climate movement in Europe, and, and this clearly came from.

Comrades movements in the global south, giving this sort of inspiration shifted towards a strong supply side focus after the COP in Copenhagen in 2009. And since then, I have personally considered this to be the central frontline. So trying to leave fossil fuels in the ground. This is the main task and it has the greatest.

Potential to spread. Now, uh, I'm, I'm sorry if I'm repetitive here in, in going back to the case of Columbia, that's, you know, I, I was just there and it was a very interesting trip. In Latin America. Of course, you have a very rich experience of these struggles to leave fossil fuel in the ground in various ways.

And I think. That struggle may have only reached government policy level in one country, but it has a great potential to spread into other countries as well because you, you, I mean, you, you can always see these kind of struggles in, in Peru, in Ecuador, in Brazil, and uh, in, in Argentina and a lot of different places.

Uh, uh, then you have other producing countries where it's extremely difficult to envision any kind of popular politics for leaving the fossil fuels in the ground. And I'm thinking primarily, of course, in the Middle East, which is still the, the world's heartland. When it comes to, uh. So much fossil fuels, oil and gas and where it's extremely difficult to do any kind of organized political descent in any form, let alone trying to, to target the fossil fuels.

I mean, what would that look like in Saudi Arabia? You know, it's extremely hard to see anything like what hap. What's been happening in Colombia, in, in any of these gulf monarchies, uh, or in a dictatorship like Algeria or Egypt for that matter, it's very hard to extrapolate or generalize and say, this is the kind of climate policy that, that you can export across the world.

But my, again, my impression from Colombia was that this is a really, really, really great thing. Maybe the best case that we have right now. And what's so tragic about it, that is that it is an isolated case so far, and that Columbia is surrounded by other fossil fuel producing countries. In Latin America, there are maybe nominally run by left-wing governments, uh, such as in, in Brazil or in Dion, uh, in Venezuela.

But they're, they're just barreling down doubling down on fossil fuel, uh, just, just as everywhere else. But the potential I think is there for, for possibly spreading that kind of politics. I, I would hope. 

[00:54:12] Ed Whittingham: I think that's a good note to end on. Um, Andreas, thank you very much. We've wanted to have you on the show for quite some time, so we're really grateful for you making the time.

It's late in your day and it's been, uh, a really rich conversation, so thank you. 

[00:54:27] Andreas Malm: Thank you. Thank you very much, David. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. 

[00:54:29] David Keith: Thanks so much. Thank you. 

[00:54:31] Ed Whittingham: Thanks for listening to Energy vs Climate. The show is created by David, Keith, Sara Hasting-Simon and me, Ed Whittingham, and produced by Amit Tandon with help from Crystal Hickey, Vinuki Arachchi and Haris Ahmed, our title and Show Music is The Windup by Brian Lips. This season of Energy versus Climate is produced with support from the University of Calgary's, office of the Vice President Research and the university's global research initiative for the support comes from the Trottier Family Foundation, the North Family Foundation, the Palmer Family Foundation, and our generous listeners, sign up for updates and exclusive webinar access at energyvsclimate.com and review and rate us on your favorite podcast platform. This helps new listeners find the show. We'll be back on June 2nd with special guest Rose Mutiso, research director at the Energy for Growth Hub to discuss energy transition in Sub-Saharan Africa and the global South more generally.

See you then.