How the light gets in

Dear friend,

The profits being raked in by fossil fuel companies in the midst of an accelerating climate crisis are outrageous. Both BP and Shell have yet again posted profits so unfathomably huge they’re difficult to make sense of. Exxon posted a record first-quarter profit after increasing output, taking its shares to an all time high.

It can feel like a sick joke - that as the planet heats up, endangering everything we hold dear, the companies extracting and selling the fuels that are causing the warming keep making more and more money. Record breaking fossil fuel profits amidst record breaking temperatures are as clear a sign as any that the very system itself is broken.??

It can be tempting, therefore, to crawl into a hole of despair. But the words of Leonard Cohen’s famous Anthem: ‘there is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in’ remind us that when things begin to break, they open up the door to change. And the light is getting in.?

This mad fossil profit frenzy must be a last gasp: the final flare before the fizzle at the end of the era. In renewables, exponential is now the new normal, or what Rocky Mountain Institute describes now as the default reality. This decade will be transformational, and this year is set to be the turning point in which GHG emissions from the power sector finally begin their descent - where"clean power can actually go to replacing fossil fuels, instead of just meeting rising demand."?

Never mind the potential forthcoming legal challenges, oil barons are quaking in their boots as electric cars rapidly drive down demand for gasoline. New York and Germany’s bans on fossil-based heating in new homes are also - rightly - giving them the jitters. Meanwhile, thanks to the renewables revolution, India is setting out to change its National Electricity Policy (NEP) to ban all new coal fired power stations, based on the simple argument that it no longer needs them. Decarbonisation is inevitable and unstoppable.

Some will look back at this moment from the future and remember 2023 as the year the UK and Commonwealth crowned a new king, marking the end of the 70-year long Elizabethan era, which was dominated by fossil fuels.?

More will likely look back without remembering the coronation, seeing instead the moment societies became fundamentally intolerant of fossil fuels and the stark inequity they stand for. This is the moment in which renewables begin springing up everywhere, enabling distributed, democratic energy for all.??

In this week’s podcasts, our hosts chat with the COP28 Presidency’s Climate Change High-Level Climate Champion, Razan Al Mubarak, about her priorities for the Global Stocktake and COP28. Expect a strong focus on nature - Razan is also currently President of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Wherever you get your podcasts, Thursday May 11th.?

Next week and the week after: Look out for our second mini-series of the year following the amazing Perfection vs Momentum. This time it’s Paul Dickinson, with co-hosts Dylan Tanner and Fiona Macklin and they will be leading us through a discussion on ‘Lifelines vs Deadlines’: what policy makers can do to help us stay within the limits set by science for a liveable future. Once again we have an incredible line-up of guests and a series of vital conversations for you.?

With stubborn optimism.

The Outrage + Optimism team

p.s. If you like this ‘dose of Outrage + Optimism’ and haven’t already, do sign up to our full bi-weekly email newsletter to make sure you’re not just informed about the climate crisis, but also inspired to be part of the changes we all need to make.?

In this week's full newsletter we also cover a new direction of travel for corporate leadership, ignited by Patagonia making Earth the company’s only shareholder - with others following a similar path, is this the start of something new?

Plus, we look at the World Meteorological Organization's Annual State of the Climate report and share our top recommendations for watching, reading and listening - all handpicked by the O+O team.

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