ClimateGenn host, Nick Breeze, speaks with Guest David Spratt reviewing our major stories of 2025.
In this end of year episode I am looking back on the main climate highlights of 2025 with Research Director at the Breakthrough National Centre For Climate Restoration, David Spratt.
Links:
David Spratt’s 2025 Climate Round-up:
https://www.climatecodered.org/2025/12/climate-hot-takes-on-2025.html?m=1
National Emergency Briefing Youtube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@nebriefing/videos
Professor Stefan Rahmstorf at ATLAS25- Our heating system is heading for shutdown, #AMOC –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKBTZ324COA
Dr James Hansen at ATLAS25 –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2abyXGvELI
Rafe Pomerance Discussing Overshoot: https://genn.cc/what-is-overshoot-rafe-pomerance/
Here we discuss some of the key aspects of 2025’s narrative on climate, concentrating on the longer-term themes that will be central to our 2026 climate agenda. We mention several conferences where key talks are presented online – I am putting links to these in the notes and on the genn.cc website.
2026 agenda themes:
Hard physical risk and timelines
Treat AMOC collapse risk as a central national security issue for Europe, not a side scientific story, including explicit planning for food, energy and geopolitical disruption scenarios for the UK and EU.
Reframe “overshoot” as system breakdown, incorporating hysteresis, abrupt shifts in CMIP6*, and the likelihood of 2.5–3°C into advocacy and policy work rather than relying on “temporary overshoot” narratives.
*In CMIP6, “abrupt shifts” are rapid, outsized changes in parts of the climate system that happen much faster than their recent background trend, often linked to tipping‑type behaviour. They flag points where a subsystem (like AMOC, Arctic sea ice, Amazon rainforest, Tibetan Plateau, boreal forests, permafrost, etc.) reorganises suddenly into a new state rather than changing smoothly.
Beyond COP: new governance and forums
Explicitly prioritise fossil fuel production phase‑out (aligned with the Fossil Fuel Non‑Proliferation Treaty framing), building on the group of 80+ countries pushing production language at COP30 and using that as a diplomatic organising hook for 2026.
Develop and amplify “outside the COP” processes and coalitions that treat COP as one venue among many, focusing on faster, lobbyist‑free fora where governments, cities and movements can agree concrete fossil phase‑out and drawdown measures.
National Emergency Briefings as a model
Replicate and internationalise the UK National Emergency Briefing format: large, cross‑sector briefings in parliaments or national assemblies that explicitly confront 3–4°C pathways, systemic collapse risks, and 13%+ annual reduction needs.
Build follow‑through structures so such briefings do not become “another bubble”: constituent‑driven MP engagement, cross‑party groups, and permanent “emergency committees” tasked with implementing recommendations.
Intervention and “direct cooling” agenda
Move climate intervention/geoengineering debates further into mainstream, multi‑stakeholder spaces, following the Operaatio Arktis ATLAS25 model where youth groups, indigenous leaders, scientists such as Hansen and Rahmstorf, and governments share one stage.
Use Arctic Repair 2025 and Cambridge‑style meetings as templates for 2026 work on assessing direct cooling, aerosol interventions, and sea‑ice protection, including explicit ethical governance and front‑line community participation (Sámi, Tuvalu, etc.).
Movement, narrative, and “different conversations”
Make “human security” (food, state viability, NATO/EU stability, Tuvalu as a virtual state, etc.) the central framing for public engagement rather than abstract climate targets or generic “green” branding.
Support and foreground highly organised youth‑led groups as shapers of agenda and tone, not just participants, building on the Operaatio Arktis experience and the sense of “different conversations” as a key positive shift in 2025.
