Cleaning Up: Leadership in an Age of Climate Change

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 move the world the way they once did. The conversation ranges from the collapse of climate multilateralism and Europe’s energy malaise to the unstoppable rise of electrification, batteries, and system-level clean energy solutions across China, India, Africa, and the “rest of the world.”Leadership Circle:Cleaning Up is supported by the Leadership Circle, and its founding members: Actis, Alcazar Energy, Davidson Kempner, EcoPragma Capital, EDP, Eurelectric, the Gilardini Foundation, KKR, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature Climate Foundation, SDCL and Wärtsilä. For more information on the Leadership Circle, please visit https://www.cleaningup.live.Discover more:The Electrification Staircase: https://www.watts-next.eu/ Kingsmill Bond on Cleaning Up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2bsoCOznXkArunabha Ghosh on Cleaning Up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMrn-JewoCoRachel Kyte on Cleaning Up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1m2lm2n_EECatch up on Season 16 of Cleaning Up: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe8ZTD7dMaaDWQkhmAsaQ28p0h3Lw5I6v

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 Energy Program, and her success campaigning against fossil development has seen her dubbed “Canada’s Queen of Green”. Tzeporah and Michael take in everything from helping turn Meta and other tech giants off coal and onto renewables, fighting fossil and pipeline expansion in Alberta, and whether a non-proliferation treaty could be the solution for a managed decline of fossil fuel use.Read more:The fossil fuel non proliferation treaty website: https://fossilfueltreaty.org

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 Innovation, joins Baroness Bryony Worthington to discuss his team's research on using thermal batteries to provide heat for manufacturing. Or as he calls them, hot rocks in a box. By storing intermittent solar or wind energy as the heat of molten salts or crushed rocks, thermal batteries can deliver reliable heat on-demand. While the tech is almost at commercial availability, there's still one big obstacle: cost. In many countries it is still much cheaper to use gas over electricity, and that makes powering up thermal batteries uneconomical. So what needs to be done to employ them at scale? And will they take the wind out of hydrogen's sails? Find out on this week's episode of Cleaning Up. Read more: Energy InnovationIndustrial Thermal Batteries: Decarbonizing U.S. Industry While Supporting a High-Renewables GridEnergy Innovation's report on electric vehicle leasingEnergy Innovation's report on electric vs gas carsEnergy Innovation's report on industrial heat in ChinaEnergy Innovation's report on electrification of industrial heat

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 decade since the Paris Agreement and ahead to the road beyond 2025, Turner delivers a clear-eyed diagnosis: emissions and politics are heading in the wrong direction, but technologies — including solar PV, batteries, and the wider “electrotech stack” — are advancing faster than almost anyone expected.Together, Bryony and Adair unpack why electrification is emerging as the central lever for decarbonising transport, industry, and heat; how China’s clean-tech machine is reshaping global energy economics; and why abundant, ultra-cheap electricity could fundamentally change prosperity, geopolitics, and climate outcomes.They also grapple with the harder questions: affordability versus ambition, the limits of carbon pricing, the challenge of decarbonising steel, cement, aviation and shipping, and the disruptive impact of US politics on global climate cooperation. They debate whether COPs still matter, why “nearly clean” power may be smarter than chasing absolute purity, and what breakthroughs could surprise us next.Leadership Circle:Cleaning Up is supported by the Leadership Circle, and its founding members: Actis, Alcazar Energy, Davidson Kempner, EcoPragma Capital, EDP, Eurelectric, the Gilardini Foundation, KKR, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature Climate Foundation, SDCL and Wärtsilä. For more information on the Leadership Circle, please visit https://www.cleaningup.live.Discover more:Energy Transitions Commission: https://www.energy-transitions.org/Power Up: How Clean Energy Is Putting Fossil Fuel Demand in Doubt: https://www.energy-transitions.org/publications/power-up-fossil-fuel-demand-in-doubt/Lord Turner’s previous appearance on Cleaning Up: https://youtu.be/xxTngGxpeW0 Why Is It So Hard to Clean Up Global Shipping? | Ep229: Tristan Smith: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdUCidkeDto 

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 global anxiety are reshaping the path to decarbonisation. Lord Browne reflects on launching BP’s original “Beyond Petroleum” strategy, his current work investing billions through BeyondNetZero, and why the future of climate action will be driven as much by adaptation, resilience, and people as by technology itself.From the rise of China as an electrification juggernaut and the US as an AI-powered energy giant, to the tipping point where clean energy demand could finally outpace fossil fuels, this episode offers rare insight from someone who has shaped — and challenged — the global energy system from the inside.Leadership Circle:Cleaning Up is supported by the Leadership Circle, and its founding members: Actis, Alcazar Energy, Davidson Kempner, EcoPragma Capital, EDP, Eurelectric, the Gilardini Foundation, KKR, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature Climate Foundation, SDCL and Wärtsilä. For more information on the Leadership Circle, please visit https://www.cleaningup.live.Discover more:BeyondNetZero: https://www.generalatlantic.com/climate/Lord Browne’s previous appearance on Cleaning Up: https://youtu.be/8VXQ2EGAcGMThe Pragmatic Climate Reset, Part 1: https://youtu.be/OHKGor2_BzQ