The Agency Crisis: Heatwaves, Tony Blair and the Politics of Powerlessness

The UK, Ireland, France, Spain, and Portugal shattered their May heat records last week. Scenes reminiscent of high summer arrived months early, across Western Europe. And like all extreme weather events, there was a human toll. Infrastructure under strain, health services stretched, and lives lost. 

But as records fell, the political conversation was moving in the other direction. Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair published a lengthy essay calling on the government to halt its net zero acceleration and prioritise cheap energy. Rory Stewart made a similar case on The Rest is Politics, invoking AI data centres and industrial competitiveness. Both are figures from the centre of British politics. Neither is a climate denier. So what's happening? 

This week, Tom Rivett-Carnac and Christiana Figueres sit with this dissonance. They ask what it means when hopelessness becomes self-sustaining, a cultural condition as much as a feeling. They ask whether grief, properly faced, might be what unlocks action rather than foreclosing it. And they look at the history of transformations that began long before success seemed likely.

Is the real crisis not just the climate, but one of agency? And what does it take to act with conviction when outcomes are genuinely uncertain?

Learn More:

☀️ See Severe Weather Europe's recap of the historic heat dome across Europe 

🌡️ Follow CNN's coverage of the human and scientific dimensions of the event 

📝 Read Blair's original essay at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change 

⚡ Explore BusinessGreen's coverage of the investor and political response to Blair's essay 

🧠 Dig into the Lancet Planetary Health study on climate anxiety in children and young people globally, and how perceived government failure shapes distress 

📊 Check out Yale's research on distress, agency, and climate action and how they interact 

🎤 Leave us your voice notes and questions for upcoming episodes on SpeakPipe

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Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks

Planning: Caitlin Hanrahan 

Exec Producer: Ellie Clifford

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