COPOUT: How governments have failed the people on climate By Nick Breeze
Published by Ad Lib on 14th March 2024 (paperback RRP £9.99) Pre-order On Amazon or via any bookshop.
My book COPOUT will be published in March 2024. COPOUT is a gonzo tour of eight UN COPs from COP21 in Paris (2015) to COP28 UAE (2023). It is packed with expert commentary including on the ground interviews with a wide range of experts that I have recorded over the course of the last fifteen years (see list below).
From the jubilant signing of the Paris Agreement in 2015 to the backward policies of the Trump administration a year later, COPOUT uncovers the widespread global hypocrisy shown by world leaders. Even today the majority of developed nations publicly describe themselves as climate leaders, while rubber stamping policies that make climate breakdown worse.
As we peel back the layers of lies and wasted opportunities, we see that the obfuscation by corrupt interests dates all the way back to the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. That is three decades of climate policy failure that now leave us dangerously exposed in a rapidly degraded world.
I interview the scientists and activists who travel to the COPs in desperation, demanding change and who find their numbers growing in strength and voice. The decline in trust in politicians, who make great promises but never deliver on the changes needed, is what is driving a global movement reimagining the planet we share.
COPOUT presents many of the most respected voices in the world on this issue and spells out the challenges we face and what needs to be done in plain language.
Available for preorder now on Amazon.
Interviews and in the room quotes include:
Caroline Lucas MP (UK Green politician) – Interview COP21
Dr James Hansen (Former head of NASA Goddard) – Interview and quote COP21, COP25
Naomi Klein (author and academic) – quote from session COP21
Professor Kevin Anderson (Dep. Director Tyndall Centre at University of Manchester and University of Uppsala) Interviews COP21, Quote COP23, Interviews COP26, COP28
Dr Saleemul Huq (Independent University, Bangladesh) Interview COP21, COP23, COP26, COP27
Dr Rajendra K. Pachauri (Former head of Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change IPCC) Interview COP21
Professor Hugh Hunt (Dir of Centre for Climate Repair, University Cambridge) Interviews COP21, COP22, COP26
Professor Jason Box (Researcher at Geological Survey of Denmark & Greenland) Interviews COP21, COP26
Shannon Philips (Former Minister Alberta) Interview COP21
Christiana Figueres (Former Secretary General of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) Interview Before COP23
Professor Hans Schellnhuber (Founder of Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research) Interview COP24
Greta Thunberg (Activist and founder of Fridays for Future) Quotes COP24, COP25, COP26.
General Tariq Ghazi (Retired General and Minister of Defence, Pakistan) Interview COP25
Sir David Attenborough (Broadcaster) Quotes COP24, COP26.
Sir David King (Chair of Climate Crisis Advisory Group and Former UK Chief Scientist) Interview COP26, COP27
Baroness Natalie Bennett (Former head of UK Green Party and Green Members of the House of Lords in the UK) Interview COP23
Dr Sunita Narain (Activist, Scientist and Director of the Centre for Science and Environment, India) Quote COP21
Secretary John Kerry (Former US Secretary of State and Climate Change Envoy) Quotes, COP21, COP22, COP26
Professor Dan Bodansky (Professor of Law at Arizona State University) Interview COP27
Professor Katharine Hayhoe (Lead Scientist at the Nature Conservancy) Interview COP27
Rabbi Yonatan Neril (Interfaith climate leader and author) Interview COP27
Professor Julia Steinberger (Professor of Ecological Economics, University of Lausanne) Interview before COP28
Tzeporah Berman (Chair of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, Canada) Interview before COP28
Professor Tony Hughes (Director of the Australian Research Council ARC) Interview before COP28
Professor Rupert Read (Philosopher, author and cofounder of the Climate Majority Project) InterviewCOP26
Blessing Manale (Presidential Commission for the Environment in South Africa) Interview following COP27
Professor Jonathan Bamber (Earth Observation scientist, University of Bristol UK) Interview & quote COP26
Don Miguel A Torres (President and Managing Director of Bodegas Torres) Interview COP25
Polly Higgins (Barrister, founder of Ecocide Campaign) Interview recorded in 2014