Can tech really save us from climate disaster?

Global heating in 2024 exceeded 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, but most governments continue to extend fossil fuel use. Are we now in a political situation where decarbonisation and mitigation efforts are failing? Is climate disaster irreversible?

Alasdair MacEwen discusses these questions with Wim Carton, who returns to the podcast following publication of his new book, The Long Heat: Climate Politics When It’s Too Late, co-authored with Andreas Malm. 

Wim also explains the desperate technological solutions being considered for carbon dioxide removal and geoengineering, which he argues could do more harm than good.

Wim Carton is a senior lecturer at the Lund University Centre for Sustainable Studies. His research centres on carbon capture and negative emissions. The Long Heat is the second book he has co-authored with Andreas Malm for Verso Books, after 2024's Overshoot: How the World Surrendered to Climate Breakdown.

Further reading:

• Click here to buyThe Long Heat from Verso Books.
• Overshoot: has the world surrendered to climate breakdown?, Land and Climate Review, 2024 
• Is climate modelling undermined by economics and ideology?, Land and Climate Review, 2022   
• Overshoot: Navigating a world beyond 1.5°C, Planet B Productions and the Strategic Climate Risks Initiative., Laurie Laybourn, 2025 
• Scientists Clash over whether Polar Geoengineering Is a Dangerous Gamble, Scientific American, Alec Luhn and Andrea Thompson, 2025  
• A ‘doom loop’ of climate change and geopolitical instability is beginning, The Conversation, Laurie Laybourn and James Dyke, 2024 
• The Sunlight Managers, The Break-Down, Sofia Menemenlis, 2025 

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