GoodGeist
A podcast on sustainability, hosted by Damla Özlüer and Steve Connor, brought to you by the DNS Network. Looking at sustainability issues, communications, and featuring global guests from a wide variety of sectors such as business, NGOs and government.
GoodGeist
Big Little Lies About Climate, with Ümit Şahin
We sit down with Ümit Şahin—physician, public health scholar, and long-time climate advocate—as he traces his journey from medical school to air pollution research and climate policy, showing why health is the most human lens for energy choices. He dismantles the idea that nuclear can deliver on time or at scale, pointing to rising costs, long lead times, and unresolved waste, while renewables and efficiency deliver rapid, affordable cuts now.
We dig into discourse power: how calling fossil fuels “hydrocarbons” sanitises harm, how “unabated” creates loopholes, and how the term “sustainability” drifted from survival ethics to a growth-friendly label.
Then we turn to COP politics. With shifting geopolitics and frayed multilateralism, COP31 in Turkey emerges as a crucial mitigation COP. Ümit outlines a focused playbook: push an explicit fossil fuels transition, accelerate electrification of transport and heat, tighten 2030 targets aligned with 1.5 degrees, and audit false solutions against costs and timelines.
He calls for disciplined framing, health-forward benefits that voters feel, and cross-border collaboration between Turkish NGOs and the global movement. We close on urgency with hope, inspired by youth leadership that turns climate from a future worry into a present demand.
Follow GoodGeist for more episodes on sustainability, communications and how creativity can help make the world a better place.
Goodgeist a podcast series on sustainability hosted by Damla Eusler and Steve Connor. Brought to you by the DNS Network.
SPEAKER_02:Hello, hello everyone. You are listening to Good Guys, the message on sustainability, which is brought to you by the DNS Network, the global network of agencies dedicated to making the world a better place. This is Damba from Mira Agency Istanbul and This is Steve from Creative Concern in Manchester.
SPEAKER_00:This podcast series explores global sustainability issues, how they're communicated, and what creativity can do to make positive change happen.
SPEAKER_02:So in this episode, we're going to talk to Umit Shahin, the head of climate change program of Istanbul Policy Center IPC. Since the early 90s, Umit has been a part of the climate, ecology and environmental movements and an active contributor to anti-nuclear and human rights movements. Shahin was the editor-in-chief of the green political journal Three Ecologies and is one of the founders of the Association of the Doctors for Environment.
SPEAKER_00:Amazing. So, and in 2007, UM coordinated the Turkey Sign Kyoto campaign, which is carried out by Turkey's Green Party, for of which he was one of the founders, which is amazing. So we're definitely going to be challenging some growth narratives, DAML, in this interview. Yes. And he's also participating observer to UNFCC climate conferences like COPS since 2008. Authored several books around global warming, the climate crisis, the green economy, an ecology guide with its theory and practice. So loads of books and loads of book chapters, policy papers, and articles, all focused on climate change, energy transition, environmental health, and green politics. So Umet, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to Damler and myself. Thank you. So what we like before we dive deeply into COPS, one of which is hurtling its way towards Turkey and climate politics. We really want to hear your own story. So we know that you're trained as a physician with a PhD in public health. How did a doctor come to become a central player in climate politics in Turkey?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, first of all, thank you for inviting me. It was it's a very interesting show to talk about climate policy because, especially, communication part is very challenging for us, like for the experts and activists, as you know. My story started in 1986, exactly I know when, because it was the day of Chernobyl disaster, the 26th of April. I was that time I was in medical school in the first year of medical school, and the the year before it was the 40th anniversary of or 40th year of Hiroshima, Hiroshima in Nagasaki. And that time there were many events, probably or news around about this atomic bomb, what happened in Hiroshima, etc. And I've found a book in my uncle's library or bookshelf, which is a very small book of Arata Osada, the children of the A-bomb. Maybe you know this book, it was the story of the people after what happened to children and people after Hiroshima. And just after that, I bought a book of famous Turkish story writer and novelist Oktay Akbal, The No More Hiroshima. So that was probably the second edition of the earlier book of him, printed because of the same reason, 48 Euro of Hiroshima. So I was very much into this nuclear thing that time. I was very worried about that. I was very young, etc. And just a couple of months after that, there was Chernobyl accident. And just after Chernobyl accident, actually, I not an accident, actually, it's a disaster. So I became a green person, of course, gradually. But then in 1990s, Turkey decided to build its first nuclear power plant. So I joined the anti-nuclear movement in early 1990s, and then I joined the green movement. And I was that time in the 1990s, I was uh specializing in medicine in the clinical field, but then because of this environmental activism, I decided to shift to public health because of the environmental health issues, and I completed my PhD in public health, and after quite a long time of activism in anti-nuclear field and climate activism, in 2012, I was invited to Istanbul Policy Center to coordinate the works about climate policy. So I'm in a way, I'm not in this in my specific field academically, but it was kind of a combination of both my mental health, green politics, and all these activism experiences. So that's why I'm not a very, let's say, not coming from a very normal background, like political scientist or climate scientist, etc. But still being a public health person, also very close to because my PhD thesis was about air pollution, et cetera. So it was not very far away.
SPEAKER_00:Um okay, so Damler, I am about to take us completely off scripts. No, because I I didn't know that bit of your backstory in it. And you and I, and Damler knows this. This is why she I think she brought us together. You and I have the same trajectory, the same journey. And I I have to go back before we get into COPS, nuclear power. It I describe it as the zombie energy source. No matter how time many times you kill it, it keeps coming back, usually through extraordinary levels of lobbying, money, public affairs, cash. It's it's dangled by some environmentalists as the answer to the climate crisis. And yeah, it never delivers on time. It's a huge risk. It has a ridiculous legacy for future generations, and it's incredibly expensive. We could probably insulate every house in the UK for the money we're about to spend subsidizing nuclear. What's your view on nuclear as a solution to the climate crisis?
SPEAKER_01:It's the biggest lie that nuclear is the solution, is the biggest lie. And the nuclear lobby, as you said, is probably one of the dirtiest lobbies in the world because they are coming directly from the nuclear weaponry. You know, this nuclear energy was invented for a bomb for Hiroshima. The first test was in Hiroshima. So I think you are right, there is no legitimacy of nuclear power for climate change as a solution to climate change because of all the reasons you already said, it's very costly, it takes a lot of time, it's impossible to replace fossil fuel power plants to nuclear power, and everybody knows that. But for them, for the nuclear industry, even one new building, we one new construction of a new nuclear reactor is a plus. So they just want to continue their business, and this is their only chance currently to persuade people to that the nuclear power is still alive. I think it's energy of the past, and everybody knows that, especially after all these renewable energy became so cheap and so common everywhere, it's so simple to build and everything. Uh everybody knows that it's the energy of the past. But I'll tell you new very something very new that I heard from Fatih Pirol, who is the you know the director of International Energy Agency, and he's very sympathetic to nuclear energy, and for many years he wants to make nuclear energy one of the biggest solutions of climate change. But what he said just a couple of weeks ago to convince us that nuclear energy is coming back, what he said is he he sees a very positive signals from nuclear energy, and they are Japan is planning to reopen the its old nuclear reactors that they shut down after Fukushima, and Sweden is planning a one nuclear reactor and non-existed non-existing SMRs. So even for me, this is sad. So nuclear energy doesn't have any future, everybody knows that, but this is just a propaganda. So I think the most important thing for the climate activists that not to fall to this propaganda.
SPEAKER_02:So we are talking about propaganda and the biggest lies. So I'm gonna change the flow a little bit, and I will just jump to fossil fuels from that because I think it's required at the moment. So decarbonization is your golden thread. And you're just recently you wrote that the dry and unbiased wording of the geopolitics is still calling coal, oil, fossil gas as hydrocarbon and thus decolorize these as a natural source to eliminate the negative perspective linked to them as fossil fuels. So, how much do you think framing and discourse affect the action?
SPEAKER_01:It's very important. It's just the same, actually. What happens in terms of nuclear? Just think about nuclear fusion. Nuclear fusion is always on the news, right? So China, France, and all these countries are always making investments on nuclear fusion, etc. And everybody knows that even it someday is going to be possible, I don't know, I don't really believe, but even it is possible, it's going to be very late. But why everybody wants to talk about nuclear fusion? Because presenting nuclear as a hopeful thing is very important for the existing nuclear industry. And this is the same for CCS, for example. Why fossil fuel companies are polishing CCS, which is very expensive, very, very difficult, challenging solution as the solution of climate change because CCS means surviving or the continuing the use of fossil fuels, right? So if you develop CCS, then it means that you will never really decarbonize the economy or you will never phase out fossil fuel completely. So everything is discourse. I think, and especially if you look at the Paris Agreement, I think it was a very successful in terms of this discourse or context, because if you look at its preamble, although they know all these lawyers and everybody know that the preamble was not really binding, but still they put all the important context on the preamble of Paris Agreement, like Mother Earth, like climate justice, like ecosystem integrity, etc. So, this context, this discourse is shaping the policies. Also, what Trump is trying to do is exactly that. Trump is trying to destroy the discourse because this climate discourse that we created was mainstream, is still mainstream, but Trump is now destroying it. So that's very important. That's I don't want to teach you, of course, about that, that the communication is everything.
SPEAKER_00:Wow. Discourse, well, you could get lost here, Damla, because I feel very tempted to talk about post-structuralist approaches to sustainability. But if we stay on language, Umit, I know you've let's rip well in English, we'd say rip off the uh plaster, the bandage of sustainability itself as a triggering word in sustainable development and the idea of sustainability, and it's a theme that we cover in our show. You heard us describe it as one of the reasons why Damler and I talk every week. And yet it's it it's attract it always attracts so much debate. And you had an article from ages ago describing sustainable development as a Trojan horse for a very negative kind of discourse, and and you actually say that it's illusory and we should actually put it to bed and get rid. Take us through your thoughts, your chain of thinking, sustainability and sustainable development.
SPEAKER_01:Well, that's a very important topic, but it takes hours to discuss.
SPEAKER_00:Still, I let's let's make the longest episode we've ever done. It's okay.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, let me try to briefly explain what I mean by Trojan horse. I I'm coming from the thread of thinking of Ivan Ivich. So Ivan Ivich and his circle, let's say, like Wolfgang Sachs, Gustavo Esteva, etc., they put this anti-development discourse in the 1970s. It was very important, it was a breakthrough. So now currently it turned to the growth. Degrowth discourse is kind of reinvention of the 1970s, the Krasanov, you know, Saj Datouche, etc. All these uh people. So I'm following their line, basically, and I think that sustainability or sustainable future, the word sustainable, was a word which was uh directly created by the green movement in early 1970s. And everybody knows all these books of you know, first Book Chin and then Barry Commoner, etc. All these writers were talking about survival. So survival was a negative word, the politics of survival was a negative word, but sustainable was a positive word. But it was the same thing actually. So what we were talking about in the 1970s, we, I mean the green movement, was talking about uh was the saving the uh uh future of uh let's say human civilizations or humanity or the planet, etc. So this was about survival and this was about sustainability. Then everybody knows what happened in between the 1970s and 1990s, then this that term was turned to sustain development itself, but normally development was the thing we we were criticizing, then we started to save development or started to sustain development. It was a trick kind of or kind of a wizard thing, but everybody bought it. And I was that the article was uh 20 years ago, and I was trying to say that the green politics should avoid this confusion. We can still talk about sustainability, but not sustainable development. Although currently I think I currently I also avoid sustainability because it was completely greenwashed by corporations, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_02:It became a sector, so but still this was our concept originally kind of spinning discourses, and during those spinning times and the wheel of time, we sometimes lose some words to the other camp. I mean, we especially in Turkey know this very much. Some words are banned from the progressive agenda because they are now kind of contaminated or kind of lacking any kind of meaning because it's too much. But I think this is another program's issue, and we can talk about it for hours and hours. I want to come to cops because we do have limited time, and I really wanted to talk about you because I know that you have been observing cops for almost two decades now. Can you tell us how the conversation and action changed over the years and where do we stand at the moment?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, cops unfortunately, if we thought about that a month ago, I would uh probably speak differently. But now, after all these, what happened in Greenland, in Venezuela and uh Iran, etc., the global geopolitics is changing very fast. So in Bellam in the COP30, we were really happy. Everybody in the climate movement was very happy that the USA was not there. So Trump just left it and it was good. Because if they came, it would be also they were they would come for destroying something, so they were not there, so it was good. But today, unfortunately, because of several reasons, not only because of Trump, China really doesn't really care about cops anymore because they want more bilateral relations with other countries, not multilateral. European Union, unfortunately, is very how to say shy about taking its leadership forward when trying to confront Trump politics. Although I think they are wrong, I think they must do more than before, because if you try to align with Trump, you lose. You have to confront it, you have to challenge extreme right policies. I know extreme right is a danger for the central governments in Europe, and that's why they try to save their votes, but I think it was a it was a it's a mistake in a way. So, and other countries, who else? No more America, no more China, and all the other developed countries and European Union are very shy. So, who will save the cops? I don't have a clear answer, but this makes COP31 in Turkey extremely important. When Turkey tried to get the hosting rights of COP31, probably uh in Turkish government didn't expect that this COP would be so important, but probably like just after Copenhagen COP in Cancun, this COP will be a very Important turning point for the multilateral climate negotiations. That time, some important figures like Espinoza, Figueres, etc., they kind of saved climate negotiations and they made Paris Agreement possible. I think this time civil society and activists are much more important. If we, as civil society, as academia, as activists, if we feel hopeless, if we feel intimidated because of all these latest developments, we lose everything. So we s I think we have a mission this year for COP 31 in Antalya. And it is not just go there, organize side events, talk media, etc., but to save cops. I know it's too heavy burden to uh civil society and activists, but I think we need to realize this this year.
SPEAKER_00:And so I the that's so so true, and I the only one of the challenging things, particularly with a world constantly disrupted by the Trump presidency, is we know that we could do so much work, couldn't we, between now and COP 31? And the trajectory of Trump will change again and again and again. It's extraordinary, isn't it? But in practical terms, what do you think we should be doing as climate activists or as NGOs? What would the, if you like, the playbook look like for you building up to COP31? What should we all be doing?
SPEAKER_01:Everybody knows in the COP presidency this year in Ankara, they know that this COP will be a mitigation COP. So because you know the this is a VO group COP, Western Europe and others, so this kind of COPs, like in Glasgow, like in Paris, etc., are always a mitigation cop. So 1.5 degrees and in general, fossil fuels transitioning away for uh from fossil fuels and all these kinds of mitigation agenda is going to be central. If I I sense some prejudice to Turkish COP presidency from the international audience, that they think Turkey is going to be like Azerbaijan or Egypt. It's not going to be like that. This COP is going to be a mitigation COP. So I think all the international activists, international climate activists, should be very decisive to pursue taking climate negotiations and COP outcomes forward in terms of more ambitious outcomes like fossil fuels, like electrification, like deforestation, etc. We have a lot of not defensive, offensive agendas, and I think we should this is not a finance scope, this is not a developing country's scope. Because both also Australia and Pacific Islands, they they are kind of co-president, not real co-president, but uh Australia will be the presidency of negotiations. So they have a very important role, and their job is also progressing mitigation agenda. So my idea is for all the international movement is to see this as a new step for more progressive COP outcome. I think we have very little time to push this. Only nine months we have. So we should start to collaborate both the Turkish NGOs and the international climate movement.
SPEAKER_02:So Umid, I know that Steve wants to go forever about framing and also decarbonization and the big little lies that are being served in the climate action arena.
SPEAKER_00:CCS. We haven't even we need to go back to CCS. I mean, we touched on it. No, sorry, Dabla. We have to wrap up.
SPEAKER_02:We're yeah, we have to wrap up. So I'm gonna go and call our final question. Our network is ironically called do not smile because we need to make sustainability a subject that brings happiness into the world and take that word back. So, what object, place, or person always makes you smile?
SPEAKER_01:Activists. Greta was my big hero. Still, she is still my big hero because when we started climate activism 20-25 years ago, although I started all these things much earlier, but especially in the anti-nuclear movement, but in terms of climate activism, we started like 20-25 years ago, and that time we were talking about future generations. Then in 2018, Greta came, and she was born after we started talking about future generations, so she's and her generation is future generations of us, right? So they came and they took over, and their activism is always making me smile.
SPEAKER_00:Amazing. Oh, we ended up smaller, we ended up smiling at Greta. Why, how perfect. Honestly, on a very cold and slightly gray, we're recording this on a Monday, slow cold gray Monday. Apparently, the day in the year, certainly the the Christian year, I don't want to assume other people's years, when everybody is saddest. So you've made us very happy, Ume. We're smiling at Greta. We have, dare I say it, a little bit of hope. Or at least you've given us a challenge as to what we should be doing between now and COP31. So, Ume, it's been wonderful talking to you. And we will have to carry on talking about the scandal that is nuclear fusion on another occasion. Damla, Emma, is up.
SPEAKER_02:So, thanks to everyone who has listened to our podcast brought to you by the Do Not Smile Network of Agencies.
SPEAKER_00:And make sure you listen to future episodes. We'll be talking to more amazing people about how we can all work together to create a more sustainable future. So, Damla Umet Sisuf.
SPEAKER_03:Goodgeist. A podcast series on sustainability hosted by Damla Ozler and Steve Connor. Brought to you by the DNS Network.
