What Good Climate Politicians Look Like

We're finding hope in climate politics. Yes, that is possible!
Ramona Liberoff, now Executive Director of the World Resource Institute’s Platform for Accelerating the Circular Economy, explores innovations, solutions and political possibility in this episode released during COP 27.

Ramona is an Apolitical Foundation Global Advisor and started her job at the Worlde Resources Institute after recording this interview. We are so grateful to her for her time and her precise observations.

Ramona’s book recommendations:
- Exponential by Azeem Azhar
- Africa is Not a Country: Breaking Stereotypes of Modern Africa by Dipo Faloyin
- California Burning: The Fall of Pacific Gas and Electric—and What It Means for America's Power Grid by Katherine Blunt
- The Unknowers: How Strategic Ignorance Rules the World by Linsey McGoey

Our book recommendation:
- Another World is Possible: How to Reignite Social and Political Imagination

Reach us on Twitter (@apoliticalfound), LinkedIn (Apolitical Foundation), Instagram (@apoliticalfoundation) and Facebook (@apoliticalfoundation) or email via info@apolitical.foundation. Sign up to our weekly briefing for inspiration to help you build better politics: bit.ly/3NlIWSt

Transcript

Lisa Witter: 0:33

Hello dear listeners, welcome to a political hope. The podcast exploring how to get the courageous ethical and trusted politicians we need for the 21st century. I'm Rebecca ISON communications manager at the a political foundation. In this episode, our CEO Lisa Witter talks to Ramona liberal, who has since recording started as the executive director of the platform for accelerating the circular economy. At the World Resources Institute.

Ramona Liberoff: 1:05

I disagree profoundly with the idea that somehow the left is more progressive on these issues, and the right is more stick in the mud about it.

Lisa Witter: 1:12

We're releasing this episode as world leaders meet in Egypt for the UN Climate Change Conference cop 27. A meeting that has attracted a lot of cynicism already. As I've said previously, on the podcast, climate change, and the way it has been handled in politics has at times been a source of paralysing despair for me. And I know that I'm not alone in that experience. So I asked Ramona, who was one of the apolitical Foundation's Global Advisors to record an episode on what a good climate politician looks like, because she's one of the sharpest people I've met, and is always looking towards solutions with precision, and an innovative mind.

Ramona Liberoff: 1:52

They are wicked problems. But once you come up with something that works, it can be transferred elsewhere,

Lisa Witter: 1:57

Lisa Ramona and I as producer, we're all in different countries when recorded this episode. That means we recorded without our usual microphones. Never fear though, because remoaners astute insights, more than make up for any sound difference. I really think you'll enjoy this discussion. If you do help us get the word out by rating following and reviewing wherever you get your podcasts. And with that, here, is Ramona liberal. I'm gonna just jump into it because when it comes to a topic, like climate change, we don't really have a lot of time for niceties. And I know you're a person who likes to get things done. So a warm welcome to a political hope. You know, there are probably fewer topics that our listeners are two Indian on that elicited more hopelessness in parts of the population than Climate Change Politics. Is this a topic do you think we can even have hope about?

Ramona Liberoff: 2:52

I think it is, if we think about it in a big enough way. Because this isn't strictly a natural disaster. It's not like we're looking at an asteroid, like the great comic film don't look up. What we're actually looking at is a choice, a fork in the road, the chance to choose something as an alternative to the extracted fossil fuel economy. This landed us where we are, and no question about it. It's been exceptionally economically productive in many ways. But we have a better option. And I think that is actually where the hope lies, is in choosing very deliberately planning for a regenerative and more just an equitable future. And technology has a part to play policy has approachable and definitely politicians have a part to play. Let's get into that. I mean, I find that helpful, and that there's some agency with us, right? There isn't a big asteroid coming down, we have a choice. In today's age, sort of what does a good climate politician look like? This is a complicated issue with lots of opportunities and challenges. What do they look like to you? I mean, in a way, a good climate politician isn't a new thing. And I think that is a good start. If we think back to Nixon, and the 1970s, the Clean Air Act and some of the first environmental legislation at large scale, if we think back to Margaret Thatcher, herself, a trained scientist, you know, actually acknowledging that climate change was real. The challenge we've had is over the last few decades, particularly in the US, but with greater influence elsewhere, is that the whole question of climate has been obfuscated, by interfering in the political process and truth telling by vested interests. But we have got good examples of good climate politicians, and those are people who don't shy away from the truth, and to find a way to get their scientific experts and others to present the truth in a way that is clear, compelling, and presents positives for people. I mean, who wouldn't want clean air? That is something that all of us share and all of us need, for example, who wouldn't want safer better streets at the local level? Good climate politicians are those who see the truth, understand it are okay to face up to maybe some powerful vested interests and also learn from each other in terms of what works because with common issues also come come and solutions.

Lisa Witter: 5:02

So really interesting that I'm a total geek about asking the question, as you know, what are the skills and attributes we need for 21st century politician? So what I just extrapolated from part of your answer, right, there was this notion of, I think, understanding science, I think you use it as truth. But part of that is understanding science, a little bit of storytelling and communications, I'd like to jump in a little bit more like if you could think of the top three or four attributes, maybe including those or plus those that we need more of that either we don't see enough or they're there, and we don't see them in action. What are those attributes?

Ramona Liberoff: 5:40

I think one of the biggest has to be empathy. Because I've seen it a number of times when green or environmental politicians try and bring in a policy that inadvertently ends up hurting people. And being quite surprised by that. So if I think about macro and the pushback from the yellow vests around fuel, because, for example, he was unaware of I take it as a metropolitan prison, or insufficiently empathetic to the needs of those who actually require a car to get around in the depths of friends where there is an option for a train or public transport. I think about an environment minister in Germany who a couple of years ago, tried to push the agricultural sector in a direction of using fewer chemicals, without accepting that actually German people prefer to pay very low prices for their food. And this would put the farmers in uncontroversially terrible position. So I think I sort of deep empathy for how policy suggestions translate to the lives of what quote unquote, normal people, those not living in a metropolitan bubble, those who do not necessarily come from privilege without demonising those people as somehow being barriers to change. I think that is unbelievably important in securing the popular world for the kinds of policies that we need. So that's one, I think, a second is a real, not just to be climate literate, scientifically literate, but also to be financially literate. To understand that so much of what we deal with today is market failure, and that in order to solve market failure, you must provide short term incentives until the market is able to correct itself. So whether that's something like green building regulations that cover the eight to 10% gap in price for better building that doesn't currently exist today, or whether it's covering the cost of land transformation in a regenerative direction. A good climate politician must understand finance and how to wield finance extremely strategically in this direction. And I think that the third thing I'd say is to understand how to influence at the transnational level, because if I think about city alliances, mayoral alliances, like I said before, a lot of the solutions to these sorts of problems, they are wicked problems, but once you come up with something that works, it can be transferred elsewhere. And so there needs to be an investment of time and energy in getting other people to know what's worked.

Lisa Witter: 7:56

But can I first start off with this point on empathy, because one of the things I think, is really challenging about being a climate politician, which I think we both argue that every politician needs to be a climate politician in some way, right? It's the existential threat we're looking at is that if Macron wouldn't have done anything on climate, he would have been hearing, you know, we're gonna hold you accountable, we're gonna kick you out. So I've just, what role do you think politicians have in bridge building? And I'm gonna ask a second question in this because one of the things that you were talking about, and I feel it very deeply, because we spend time in rural farmer, East Germany, and you see, just people's lives are very different. And, you know, part of I think the challenge that you're talking about is this rural city divide. You talked about metropolitan, Paris, and then the disconnection. But is the disconnection just the fault of the politicians? Or is there something deeper in the polis? And sort of? What do you think politicians can do to bring those worlds together more?

Ramona Liberoff: 8:55

That's a great question. And I think there's two answers to that. One is in this specific case of imposing a fuel tax, because you have to do something on climate, I think if there'd been a little bit more, just a tiny little pause for reflection, and also asking, for example, the Swedes who had imposed a fuel tax many years ago, what is the true effectiveness of that? And what is the downside to that? Because for every policy that's introduced, it's going to affect someone positively and negatively. I think the key here is to choose the policies that are the most just inequitable, rather than the policies that feel like they're the easiest to implement. And I think a big part of that is also a much deeper level consultation with people. What are the things that you see in Britain if you want to talk about a disinfected polis and the results of that I think Brexit is a great case study or rather great and what to avoid. There had been almost no consultation over the previous 10 years about the effects of austerity outside of metropolitan wealthy Britain, London in the southeast, with the result that many local economies have become hollowed out. They've lost their well paying jobs, which tended to be in public sector when something came along and it gave people the opportunity to react against if they did, even if it wasn't the issue in question, I see parallels between overly hasty not thought through actions on climate, and something like the Brexit referendum, which is being done for political reasons, but actually ends up having far more profound consequences.

Lisa Witter: 10:15

Interesting, you were talking about these unintended consequences. And one of the things that we do as a political Academy global is we help, you know, recruit, select and provide training, ways of thinking models of thinking and policy topics and ideas and sort of how to be a politician. And I think one of the things I'm seeing more and more is this notion of systems thinking like how do you think through almost like Strategic Foresight as well? And sort of how do you have this blue? What will happen if this happens, and this domino effect? So this systems thinking approach? I know this is something I go to you for advice on sort of how do you think this through, we've known this for a very long time, right, that we need to be thinking much more systemically, much more on this unintended consequences? Isn't that we don't have empathy, or we just didn't think it through. So I'm wondering, why do you think if all this rages talk about systems thinking, we know we need it? Why aren't we doing it? Do you think there's some insight there that stopping us from doing it?

Ramona Liberoff: 11:12

Yeah, I'd say there's three big reasons for it. The first is our culture of expertise. We value expertise, especially in technocratic political systems. So if you are a deep expert in the way that things are today, the chances are you learned your trade 20 3040 years ago, and this is the point that Hans Rosling always makes about how the world has changed and people are not aware of it. So if you are a deep expert in say agriculture, chances are that you learned your trade by thinking about how to improve agricultural production using fertiliser and other industrial technologies. And that your entire mindset is to expand. Now, that's not 100% True. But if you're thinking about regenerative agriculture, you're very much at the fringe of the established thoughts. So our culture of expertise, especially in politics, mitigates against systems thinking for a start. The second reason is actually the time it takes to analyse a system is rarely the time that people are willing to allow for a whole system analysis, you actually need to take a huge step back, you need a process by which to look at the interconnections various things, and to understand their feedback loops. And this is not something that can be done in an afternoon. And you often see under the pressure of time that you mentioned, people just kind of plucking things from thin air. If I've looked at, for example, the recent leadership Tory leadership party contest in the UK, people were quite literally doing that there were policies flying front left and centre every single day, you can bet that none of them had been considered with the system's lens, they were simply spitballing, for the court of public opinion, to react to in the headlines that extent. So that kind of time pressure is antithetical to systems thinking. And then I'd say, finally, the organisation of our governments is, again, in these very siloed lines when you have energy, business skills, education, and so on a completely different ministries, how are you supposed to think systemically, there may be a working group here, there that brings them together, but I have yet to see a really sustained effort to have a kind of cross governmental climate policy, it tends to come out of one of these ministries or another. And again, if you're approaching climate, from an energy perspective, you're going to come up with very different policies, and if you're approaching it from finance perspective, or approaching it from a health and human systems perspective, so I think for all those three reasons, expertise, time, pressure and organisation that we really aren't serving ourselves well, at the moment.

Lisa Witter: 13:37

So embedded in there, obviously, are some choices. I definitely hear you on plucking things out of thin air I, because I co founded a political, global peer to peer learning, I work for people and government, we often get politician saying what are 10 innovative policies that I should be putting forward in my campaign, right, like kind of random, it's better than just making stuff up. But looking at what else has worked in other places, of course, context matters. But there are innovations that we hope people steal them and think about them or context. There's some choice around that. But there's not choice often around urgency of, you know, crisis or response. And I don't know if you've thought much about this. I'm just putting you on the spot. But one of the things we think a lot about it at a political company in the foundation is a guy named Bill Sharpe has this framework called the three horizons. And the three horizons are like one isn't the status quo. Now. That's horizon one, Horizon two are the innovations that need to happen to move us from status quo, assuming the status quo isn't working with climate. I think that's fairly obvious, blatantly obvious. And then horizon three is sort of an emerging future. And a lot of people say, Oh, you shouldn't get people into politics. Now. This system is so broken. We need to just blow up the system and start again. I'd be curious when you think about climate, you know, we talked about A Time pressure than media that types of people going into politics. If you think about those three systems, I don't see a way to get to an emergent future without working with the status quo. I don't know how to jump over the status quo to get to innovation. So do you have any ideas of innovations are things that people working in politics to shift the system that are? Okay, you can have a few that are dreamy, but let's have some that are really concrete that might sort of move us into that second horizon.

Ramona Liberoff: 15:31

Absolutely. And the horizons thinking is also Carlota, Perez and technological horizons and futures, there's a lot of good models to think about it. I mean, there's two things you can do. First of all, you can diffuse some of the urgency, which I think is often manufactured in the interest of media, you know, kind of hype and the daily news cycle. So what I'd love to see is some form of intelligent conversation between politicians and journalists says, Look, we need a moratorium, we need an agreement between us that on climates, we have more thoughtful, more regular discussions around the government, its climate policy, how we're approaching it, rather than reacting to the news of the day, because that actually doesn't serve anyone. It's not in the public interest. It's not like a corruption scandal or something else that has to be raised that day, you don't have to react from a media position on the day to a given policy, especially if the policy is experimental. So I think having a conversation about what's really urgent in the immediate term is important. And what's in the daily news cycle. I think the second thing that needs to happen are some controlled experiments at the regional or local level. And this is where regional and local politicians are so important. Because if something can be shown to work in a small scale in one place in the country, you can then say, well, why couldn't this work elsewhere. And that should and can be done in partnership with startups or innovative players who don't often get a chance to play with politician. They're often trying to pursue their businesses through corporate or industry roots. But many of their innovations are highly relevant for solving local issues. I mean, I mentioned example, a company that I helped to start a few years ago called Ride tandem in the UK, is providing crucial transport links, between furbaby low income population shift workers and so on the edge of town sites were the equivalent journey on public transport would be almost impossible, or where you would need a car to get there in any reasonable time. That is effectively a public transport solution. But there's been far more traction for that, with employers who have the problem of recruiting sufficient employments in their employer base, then there has been with governments who simply don't know what to do with a solution, that doesn't look like building a train line, or building a road. So there needs to be far more controlled experiments at the local level, often working with innovators. And then I think the third thing genuinely is far far more visible audible consultation with citizens, because there's inevitably going to be a solution that works better for citizens, but you have to hear it from them. And you have to play back their own words to them. And I find the dialogue around climate, in particular, to be very separated from the voice of people, you much more often hear the voice of people around the status quo around not wanting to raise prices, for example, or raise taxes, you don't hear as much the voice of people around the future and the future for their kids. And I find that if you ask people a question about the kind of future they want, you're much more able to build a bridge to your point between the world of stay in the world of tomorrow. But we don't see very much of that. And I have no idea why.

Lisa Witter: 18:34

Those are three really concrete things. And I just was a we hear this a lot that the social proofing like you might get a political area somewhere that has a little bit more risk appetite, maybe because of leadership, maybe because of the history of that area, and that other people need to watch and know what's going on so they can learn from it to then transfer that that innovation somewhere else. At the very beginning. I find this fascinating to better understand, as you said, a lot of the innovations or innovators in the climate space aren't talking to the politicians, if I understood correctly, and I find that absolutely to be the case. And I'm curious, like, I want to just drill down why.

Ramona Liberoff: 19:12

Partly, I think because civic tech has really not been funded. So if you want to find funding to build an innovative business, you're not going to go with public sector, public sector procurement rules make it almost impossible to work with small players. Even if there are things like test beds or innovation centres, the chances are you'll get far more traction far more quickly. If you find a like minded supporter in business, or even just consumers directly without having to go through the mediating function of a government. And I understand why those rules are there, but they do not make it easy to play. I think the second thing is more of a psychological hang up which perhaps your work can do something to dispel which is the idea that politicians aren't interested in change, that actually they tend to be vested in the status quo. That's what Got them elected in the first place, and that many of them will work to maintain it. And I have to say, it would not be unfair. If we look at, for example, around Europe, at many of the current elections, the battle does seem to be between those who wish to maintain the status quo or even move in a regressive direction, versus those who offer a vague and fairly undefined idea that things could be better. So I can understand why as an innovator, you may not want to waste your time trying to figure out who to call. And that's the other thing, by the way, how do you actually get to them? It's very, very difficult to know who to talk to when ministries are constantly being reorganised. Civil Servants are not public, they're not in the directory anywhere. Unless you know someone on the inside, you have no idea of who to talk to. And you could waste a lot of time just going down blind alleys, and turning up to meetings and giving your expertise without ever having a sense that you could actually implement anything. So I think for all of those reasons, it's tricky, as an innovator to try and work with the political system.

Lisa Witter: 20:57

I'm really struck by your, this, this, you were alluding to, and talking about the status quo versus change. And I just was really privileged to listen to a woman who works at Futura, which is a climate advising comms strategy agency, a woman named solidaire Thompson. And I don't know if she was quoting someone else's work. But basically, we were talking about storytelling and the importance of storytelling. And by the way, I think that's something that great politicians do, and not very many of them do it. They tend to be expertise driven, like facts, figures, but she was talking about how there are kind of three bands of people. So you have the bricks. So these are people who don't want change, they're really happy in their local sort of world in their context. And any change from the outside are talking about global, it feels threatening to them. But if you frame it within, like, how's this gonna help my corner? They'll get it. Then she talked about the greens, these are the global people who sort of think big and change, they love innovation. That's important the people so you have bodies of storytelling, and then the 50%, or the goal, or the people like they're just going through their day to day life, they're not anti change, they're not for change. They're just trying to make their lives work. They're not kind of pulled in as well. Does that sound right to you? Because I think about the status quo parties, and a lot of the status quo parties are appealing to the bricks and the bricks need someone to find home with, right?

Ramona Liberoff: 22:24

There's a lot there. So first thing I'd say is I disagree profoundly with the idea that somehow the left is more progressive on these issues. And the right is more stick in the mud about it. When I talk about status quo. What I'm talking about is the deep, deep embedding of a fossil fuel based economy and all the consequences that flow from that. And I think it takes a lot of thinking and unpacking to see it for what it is, once you see it, it can't be unseen. But I would say that politicians of all parties have fallen victim to not really seeing the basis on which our economy has been created. And that also takes into account climate justice and injustice, the legacies of colonisation, so forth and so on. I was walking around the beautiful streets of Antwerp a few days ago. And once you think about the legacy, the tragic legacy that's been left by colonisation, and also the incredible wealth that was exported from those places to make Europe, for example, as wealthy as it is today, you can't unsee it. And a lot of that is around extractive practices that have their heart in how you create an economy based on fossil fuel. And I do not think this is something that is attributable to one party or another. Now, it may be that one party is more prone to being lobbied by representatives of the status quo, because they imagine they'll find more sympathetic ground, but I see just as much strategic ignorance. And this comes back to a book I'll recommend later, among the left, as I do on the right, we have to be able to see and be able to imagine, which leads me on to the next point, which is you have to have an imagination. And I don't think it's so much about how you tell the story. I think it's about the ability to envision different futures. Even for someone who's just trying to get up on their day, if you're able to help people understand how their day could be better and easier. I see this, for example, with American friends who come to Europe and they're amazed at the idea that we do not have to worry about health care emergencies every single day of the week and facing massive potential bank breaking bills. Once they see that, they start to ask questions about their own political system and say, Why is it actually that we all have to face this terrifying potential consequence? What happens if we get ill? Where's that come from? And in the US case comes from a long policy around employers providing insurance which has nothing to do with anything but it's become the status quo. So heading question, the status quo is everybody's but I'd also say there's been some brilliant centre right? Politicians who also link very carefully the hundreds of years of connection between the environmental movement and conservatism. Conservatism at its heart, is actually very, very respectful of natural resources. It's not something that is there to uphold big business. And I think reaching back into the legacy roots of a party. And its way of thinking is a very important way to get everybody on the same page when it comes to climate, it may result in different policies or different priorities. But we cannot say that some part of the world is sort of climate friendly, and the rest is climate resistance. I think that doesn't help us.

Lisa Witter: 25:22

Thank you really, really helpful. And I know in our academies, which are people from all different political spectrums, you know, hearing that there's a place a must be place for being a climate politician of some sort. And the broadest sense of climate, right, as you're talking about that we have a just transition and it's very inclusive, really appreciate it. I see this that particularly younger people coming in, no matter what party they're in are like, we have to do something about this. And this brings me back to this imagination point you made and in his book another world as possible, which I know you read because you recommended it to me. Geoff Mulgan describes a talking with a school strike for climate activists went out sort of listen to them. And he calls their movement absolutely remarkable, but also notes that their view of the future is extremely negative. And when he interviewed them, they struggled to envision a society they wanted beyond just avoiding extinction. And your point about, you know, imagining a future. Clearly we have it seems an imagination deficit, who is maybe an individual because I think part of the challenges we have is that politics has become too individualised. Right, we think about this person is going to solve all of our problems, but who are what groups of people are helping us reimagine a different future and sort of how can we because politicians are going to have to do this right to your point, like, we're gonna have to get to this reimagined future to make change, who's doing it well?

Ramona Liberoff: 26:47

A couple of ideas, I think the technologists, for all of their perhaps techno optimism, they have empirical proof that change can happen extremely quickly. And so I think about a book I'll recommend, you know, is Azhar's Exponential. But they basically show how quickly things can move, if the right enabling factors are in place, so that I think should give all of us hope in tackling something like climate of which technology is obviously a part, going to a completely different angle. I've been incredibly impressed and humbled by the work of indigenous climate activists who are often really facing at the coalface of quite literally, in some cases of trying to protect forests. They have a set of tools, and in a way technologies themselves of storytelling, of ancestral understanding of long, long built expertise, that is radically different from the kind of scientific and technological expertise I talked about as being a barrier. And I think it needs to be listened to far more than it is. Because these were among the first people also to recognise the effects of climate change on the natural habitats, the ocean, the forest on which many of their livelihoods depend, there's close to 4 billion people on this planet, many of whom are indigenous, who depend on nature for their livelihoods. So I think that's a group that really needs to be listened to. So I would have good at both ends of the spectrum, not to look at this medium term nostalgia of the 1950s and 60s when the fossil fuel extractive industry privileged, a few people, but he gets to look into the future, and look where technology is taking us or look deep, deep into our shared past. And look at pathways of wisdom. Those are two places that I would go for hope.

Lisa Witter: 28:33

I want to bridge though, to some good news and climate politics, at least from my perspective. So you know, I tried to be as non partisan and multi partisan as possible. But when it comes to climate, having action is really important. And a lot of people think that, you know, this latest bill passed in the US is new and groundbreaking, and maybe the biggest climate legislation ever taken. I'm just curious, do you have any insights, you don't have to get into the details of the policy, but on the packaging, the timing, the, you know, from what you saw, from the outside to full disclosure to the listeners that both Ramona and I are American, and Ramona, I think is now American, British, and I will soon be American German. So I've spent a lot of our lives living outside the US. So just full disclosure on that, but sort of from the inside, out and outside in any insights and lessons learned on that legislation?

Ramona Liberoff: 29:26

Well, I think it shows the challenge of wrestling, the dragon is the status quo, given the fact that tucked into this bill is a very large permission for fossil fuel drilling. It just tells you the scale of the challenge, but I'm not going to let that derail my pride, actually, in seeing this piece of legislation passed for two reasons. One is finally there's actual money. When I talk about the importance of finance and fixing markets in transitional finance or impact finance, there is finally money to bridge the gaps in infrastructure. We need to move toward a different sort of future. So looking at things like infrastructure for electric vehicles, for example, infrastructure and permitting, there's actually at the moment, the final sort of tail to this thing is something I have my eye on, because a lot of it is about permitting speed, which is one of the crucial barriers along with finance to getting things done, it's no good to have the money if you can't spend it, because every time you try and do something gets blocked in local planning, and I think that's one of those areas for climate, people don't think about as much as they should. So I feel a real sense of pride. But there is actually even if we call it the inflation Reduction Act, really the truth of the matter is, it's a climate bill. It's a climate, infrastructure and financing bill at its heart. But I think the other thing about it is, is that I'm a little bit disappointed, perhaps in some of the feedback from people I really respect generally on climate because it is easy to pick holes in any piece of legislation. These things are ugly, and stuffed with compromise, and you know, baggy and never as much as we want them to be. But it is big. And it also sends a signal to everyone else in the world that it is possible in one of the most contentious, fractious, difficult environments to pass a historically large climate bill. And from that I take a great deal of sucker.

Lisa Witter: 31:14

Well, you touched on this point around contention. And I know one of the issues that is really a challenge in many of our democracies is this polarisation that's something we do a lot on at a political academies of how do you advance the public good in times of polarisation through sort of multi partisan, you know, real, what would you call it sort of alliances on these big issues. And I think it's possible that we're going to see more and more of that, as the weather gets worse than as floods get worse, and as the situation gets much harder. So we're gonna we're nearing the end here. I could talk with you for so long about this. And I'd love to do it again. I'm gonna do some quickfire questions. So the first is people listening, they may be in our academies, you know, thinking about running for office, they may be citizens who are wondering, you know, what they can do to get good climate politicians that they want, and we need sort of an aligner to what can they do? What should they do?

Ramona Liberoff: 32:10

Some of the most impressive things I've seen on climate have been at the local level. So there's an unprecedented number of green counsellors, for example, who now act together as a body in the UK. So I would say pick up a local office, they're constantly opportunities to do that, and also learn from the ground up, what issues are affecting the community and feed that back to the party organisation or the larger organisation, because as I said before, a lot of the experiments and also listening at local levels can actually help to inform and drive nationally global policy. So that's one thing.

Lisa Witter: 32:44

I love that. So look for open seats, maybe run for yourself at for local office and do it from a ground up approach. I'd like to ask what are the three main takeaways and those three things you want to leave the audience that maybe was one of them, but you can have three more if you'd like? The audience about climate and politicians? What would those be?

Ramona Liberoff: 33:03

I'll keep myself to three, the very first one is do not assume that climate is a partisan issue. It shouldn't be it has been distorted into one by vested interest do not allow that to cloud your judgement. We need people to listen to everyone on this issue. The second is the importance of markets and technologies and solving climate. It's not just a question of policy and top down government, we actually need functioning alternative markets in these areas. And the third one is take wisdom and take heart from people who've been living off the land for many, many years and can see and hear it can also often speak to what it means. You're a voracious reader. So I'm gonna ask you what are three things two or three things that you're reading right now that you suggest for the audience? Right? Well, as you know, Lisa, I had seven months of reading nothing that law textbook, so I'm really enjoying reading actual books. Again, I've read a couple of really brilliant things on climate. The first one is a book called California burning the Fall of Pacific Gas and Electric by Katherine Blunt. Speaking of status quo, it's really important to understand how our utilities and energy companies got to where they are and all of the challenges that they have faced, but also the challenges we face and having them doing the role they do. So I really recommend that. There's a wonderful book called Africa is Not a Country, Breaking Stereotypes of Modern Africa by Dipo Faloyin and that really actually, again, shows you how the status quo that we take for granted came to be in Africa, things like maps were drawn from imaginary boundaries by people who've never visited the countries and have led to conflict ever since. So that's a big recommendation. And then finally, I would say, There's a wonderful book about strategic ignorance, which I think is also incredibly important in helping us understand why people don't see things it's called the Unkowers, how strategic ignorance rules the world by Lindsay McGee. And here I could have recommended a few more books but I think I'll stop with those three because they're each a big and very, very good read in and of themselves.

Lisa Witter: 34:56

Yeah, and very geographically spread and sort of conceptual as well, that speaks so much to your brain. My very last question. And this is something we ask every person and it's kind of the most important question for all of us. Because politics is a thing that it's very easy to be cynical about. It's very easy to poopoo and just be in the doldrums, but we're not. I've described myself as an optimist with low expectations. Maybe these days, I need to have higher expectations. But I want to ask you, Ramona, in the final words, what's giving you political hope?

Ramona Liberoff: 35:28

I think the fact that I'm about to go and work for someone who was formerly in government and managed to get an enormous amount done in the areas of circular economy and environmental policy in a country like the Netherlands, so if I see her example, and what she got done in the job, inspires me enormously. And I also think that from this next position, which we'll talk about, at some point, collectively, we'll be able to do the same for other nations. So that gives me a tonne of hope and a tonne of energy, and I can't wait to get going.

Lisa Witter: 35:57

Well, thank you very much Ramona, and always for not just this podcast, but your dog had commitment to this work.

Rebekah Ison: 36:05

And that was our conversation with Ramona Liberoff. Thank you for listening and daring to hope. apolitical home is a podcast from the apolitical foundation. We'll be back with more from the change makers, helping politicians to serve people and the planet in the coming weeks. You can help us shift the discussion on what's possible in politics. By sharing this episode with your friends and tagging us on social media. You'll find us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. I did also be a huge help. If you could rate review and follow wherever you get this podcast. Last but definitely not least, we have a super super awesome, weekly briefing full of resources, tips and jobs for people wanting to build better politics. You can subscribe to that in the show notes. It's a great way to join our network and keep up to date with our work. Much love gratitude and hope from me and the apolitical Foundation team.