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.
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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.
Stories
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.
Laurie Laybourn is the writer and narrator of Overshoot. He is 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.
He said: “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.”
“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.”
Navigate
The stories include the underdog climate negotiators who got the world to agree on 1.5°C goal in 2015.
They also include the pensioner who found out her pension fund’s due diligence on climate change assumes catastrophic impacts will barely touch returns.
And the story about 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.
Candidly
Overshoot has already won praise from leading environmentalists. George Monbiot, the author and journalist, said: “This is an essential guide to a critical issue – please tune in.”