Episodes

This week on Cleaning Up, Michael Liebreich sits down with carbon removal insider Robert Höglund, CEO of Marginal Carbon, co-founder of CDR.fyi and architect of MilkyWire’s Climate Transformation Fund, for a deep dive into what’s working and what’s not in carbon dioxide removal and corporate climate action. Drawing on five years of hands-on experimentation funding everything from biochar to direct air capture and policy advocacy, Höglund challenges the dominant “speed and scale” narrative. Inste...

What if the future of clean energy isn’t decided in Washington, Brussels, or Beijing, but in Lagos, Nairobi, and Addis Ababa? Are we underestimating how fast the Global South is leapfrogging fossil fuels? And what happens when clean energy becomes the cheapest, fastest path to development, not a climate sacrifice? In this episode of Cleaning Up, Michael Liebreich is joined for a third time by Damilola Ogunbiyi, CEO and UN Special Representative for Sustainable Energy for All and Co-Chair of UN E...

How do we model the climate system? How warm will 2026 be? And can geoengineering be anything more than a bandaid? This week on Cleaning Up, Bryony Worthington sits down with leading climate scientist Dr. Zeke Hausfather on the day the 2025 global temperature data is released. Despite a La Niña year, the planet has just experienced one of its hottest years on record — pushing us ever closer to the 1.5°C threshold. Zeke explains why recent warming has accelerated, how declining air pollution may ...

Why does Africa, home to 18% of the world’s population, receive just 1% of global energy investment? What’s stopping money from flowing to the continent when it has such good wind and solar potential? And what would it take to unlock an energy boom that benefits both Africa and Europe? Spread across 54 countries and with a combined GDP the size of Italy, Africa's population is young and growing rapidly. It is set to grow from 1.5 billion people today to 2.5 billion by 2050. And it could reach 4 ...

How do we build a clean energy system while bringing UK bills down? Can the UK’s landmark Climate Change Act stand up to a fractured climate politics? And does increasing global instability make home-grown energy more important than ever? This week’s episode of Cleaning Up comes to you from inside of the UK’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, where last week Bryony Worthington sat down with Katie White MP, the UK’s recently appointed Climate Minister, to discuss her new role, what she...

Is the link between oil and geopolitics starting to diminish? Has climate consensus fractured just as clean energy hits escape velocity? And are batteries, not barrels, becoming the true source of power and security? In the first episode of Season 17 of Cleaning Up, Michael Liebreich and Bryony Worthington unpack a turbulent start to 2026. From shock geopolitical moves in the Americas and riots in the Middle East to the curious calm of a $60 oil price, they explore whether fossil fuels still mov...

This episode was originally broadcast in June 2023, watch the episode on YouTube here . Cleaning Up will return with new episodes January 7th, 2026. Tzeporah Berman has been leading environmental campaigns in her native Canada and beyond for over thirty years. Today, she is Chair of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, and International Program Director at Stand.earth, the environmental organisation that she co-founded. Tzeporah was formerly co-director of Greenpeace’s Global Climate and En...

This episode was originally broadcast in June 2024. As the world transitions away from fossil fuels, one of the biggest challenges is decarbonizing industrial processes that require consistent, reliable sources of energy to produce high-temperatures. Typically these processes run on fossil gas, but now thermal batteries offer a solution by using electricity to store renewable energy in the form of heat. Anand Gopal, Executive Director of Policy Research at Californian think tank Energy Innovatio...

What will be the long-term impact of the US’s great leap backward on clean energy? How will the emergency of China as an electrotech giant reshape geopolitics? And what will be the defining trends and technologies of 2026? In this end-of-year episode of Cleaning Up, Baroness Bryony Worthington is joined by Lord Adair Turner, Chair of the Energy Transitions Commission, for a wide-ranging, candid, and occasionally fiery conversation about where the energy transition truly stands. Looking back on a...

What happens when clean energy starts to outgrow fossil fuels at scale? Is it right to call China an electrostate? And how long will we be reliant on hydrocarbons? This week on Cleaning Up, host Michael Liebreich sits down with Lord Browne of Madingley — former CEO of BP and one of the earliest voices inside Big Oil to publicly call for emissions reductions from fossil fuels. Recorded in front of a live audience in London, the discussion explores how geopolitics, energy security, AI, and rising ...

What happens when a nation’s energy security rests on volatile global gas markets? Why does the UK pay market prices for some of the world’s cheapest-to-produce gas? And is now the moment to rethink decades of “leave it to the market” dogma? This week on Cleaning Up, Baroness Bryony Worthington sits down with Seb Kennedy, energy journalist and founder of Energy Flux, to unpack the turbulent geopolitics of natural gas, the coming LNG glut, and why the UK–Norway relationship sits at the heart of B...

What does it take to build Europe’s largest and most sustainable data-centre campus, from an empty plot of land to a 1.2-gigawatt giant of AI? How do you future-proof a facility when chip technology is evolving at breakneck speed? And what happens when the site of former coal-fired power plant becomes a global hub for AI? In this special, on-location episode of Cleaning Up, Michael Liebreich visits Sines, Portugal, where Start Campus is transforming the site of a decommissioned coal plant into a...

What happens when the world’s most ambitious climate state runs head-on into a hostile federal government? Can California still lead the clean-energy transition while battling rising costs, wildfires and the Trump government’s sweeping tariffs? And what does a “pragmatic reset” on climate policy look like when the stakes have never been higher? This week on Cleaning Up Bryony Worthington sits down with Liane Randolph, former Chair of the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and longtime public ...

What does it take to future-proof Europe’s electricity grid? How do you finance €65 billion in infrastructure without driving up consumer electricity costs? And can the permitting process be sped up to become fast enough for the energy transition? This week on Cleaning Up, Michael Liebreich sits down with Tim Meyerjürgens, CEO of TenneT Germany, the country’s largest transmission system operator, to explore the physics and finance behind decarbonising Europe’s power networks. From billion-euro t...

Is green hydrogen a ‘miracle fuel’ or an expensive illusion? Can we decarbonize without it? And what happens when hydrogen hype meets hard economics? This week on Cleaning Up, Michael Liebreich debates Erik Rakhou, author of Touching Hydrogen Future, in a no-holds-barred discussion moderated by Andrew Critchlow of S&P Global Commodity Insights. Together, they contest one of the most contentious topics in energy today: hydrogen. Liebreich argues that hydrogen is plagued by physics-driven cost bar...

What if the energy transition isn’t about sacrifice and belt-tightening, but abundance? Are electrified technologies ready to replace the polluting fossil fuel system we’re so reliant on? And what will it mean for western nations if they can’t keep up with China? In this special bonus episode of Cleaning Up , recorded live in Berlin, Michael Liebreich sits down with Kingsmill Bond, strategist at Ember, to unpack The Electrotech Revolution , a powerful new framing of the global shift from a fossi...

This week on Cleaning Up, we welcome back Rachel Kyte, the UK’s Special Representative for Climate Change, for a deep dive into the shifting landscape of global climate diplomacy ahead of COP30 in Belém, Brazil. Rachel brings decades of experience — from leading Sustainable Energy for All under Ban Ki-Moon to senior roles at the World Bank and IFC — to unpack how countries, investors, and institutions are navigating the new era of implementation. Together, Michael and Rachel explore: How the UK ...

Global shipping contributes about 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions, equivalent to the total emissions of Japan or Germany. The sector, including its contribution to climate change, is governed by the International Maritime Organisation or the IMO, which is a UN agency based in London in the United Kingdom. Last week, the International Maritime Organisation gathered to vote on a proposal to reduce emissions from ships that had been agreed to in principle earlier this year. And ahead of the g...

This summer, Michael Liebreich wrote two essays under the title of the Pragmatic Climate Reset. The first challenged the idea that the clean energy transition has failed. And the second challenged the clean energy and climate community to a reset, exploring eight areas which he thinks the transition has gone astray. In this special episode, Bryony Worthington sits down with Michael Liebreich, to unpack Part 2 of “The Pragmatic Climate Reset.” Michael lays out a bold vision for cutting through th...

What does it take to rewire a nation’s energy system? Can we make the grid cleaner, smarter, and more resilient — without driving up bills? And how will the explosion of AI data centres reshape the future of electricity demand? This week on Cleaning Up, host Michael Liebreich sits down with John Pettigrew, outgoing CEO of National Grid, for a candid conversation marking the end of his 35-year career. Together they explore the UK’s £60 billion plan to deliver Clean Power by 2030, the race to buil...

What does it take for India to deliver electricity to hundreds of millions while simultaneously building a fast-growing clean energy system? Can it overcome its fossil dependence to secure its energy futures with renewables? And how will India’s development choices shape the global climate fight in the decades ahead? India, like China, is home to over a billion people, and is highly reliant on imported fossil fuels and domestic coal. But unlike China, it still has a very rural population and has...

Why should we care about coral reefs? What happens when they collapse? And is there still hope for their survival? In this episode of Cleaning Up, Bryony Worthington sits down with coral reef ecologist Dr. Katharina Fabricius, who has witnessed six mass bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef over her three decades of research. From the “seven sins of climate change” threatening reefs — heat waves, acidification, storms, nutrient runoff, and more — to the resilience and surprising adaptabilit...

The election of Donald Trump to a second term as President marked a turning point in the politics of climate action – not just in the US, but around the world. The airwaves are suddenly awash with commentators, claiming that the transition has failed, that it was always a fool’s errand, and that we must resign ourselves to a fossil-based future forever. The narratives of failure all revel in pointing out that we have not seen dramatic cuts in fossil fuel use globally, consistent with keeping the...

Is the future of clean energy and climate solutions brighter than we think? In this episode of Cleaning Up, Michael Liebreich welcomes back Hannah Ritchie — Deputy Editor at Our World in Data, researcher at the Oxford Martin School, and author of her new book, Clearing the Air. In Clearing the Air, Hannah tackles 50 of the most common myths and misconceptions about climate solutions, from “Isn’t climate action too polarised and politically divisive to fix?” to “What happens when the wind doesn’t...