Cleaning Up: Leadership in an Age of Climate Change
Cleaning Up: Leadership in an Age of Climate Change
Once a week, Michael Liebreich and Baroness Bryony Worthington sit down with a leader in clean energy, mobility, climate finance or sustainable development. These in-depth interviews are illuminating and inspiring, and with a catalogue of nearly 200 episodes, there are few better guides to the net-zero transition.
Cleaning Up: Leadership in an Age of Climate Change

Cleaning Up

We are a media and events platform dedicated to:

• Helping identify scalable climate solutions and exploring their challenges and trade-offs.
• Facilitating the creation of networks for action, bringing together different players and actors
• Amplifying the influence of those offering real solutions in order to accelerate their uptake.

Watch our latest episode on YouTube (or find it on your favourite podcast platform):

Recent Episodes

Oct. 19, 2026

The Race to Rebuild Ukraine's Energy Infrastructure | Deep Dive 02: Andrii Gerus & Dmytro Boroday

Can you make energy investments work in a country at war? Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, repeated attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure have devastated its power system. By spring 2024, the country’s dispatchable generating capacity had fallen from 38 GW before the war to just 12 GW, leaving electricity in short supply and heating disrupted for many households. For this week’s Deep Dive Ukraine, Michael Liebreich is in Kyiv speaking to Andrii Gerus, Chair of the Ukrainian Pa
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Oct. 14, 2026

How Energy Security Became National Security | Ep278: Alexander De Croo

The world is facing a new era of geopolitical instability, rising energy costs and declining development finance. For many countries, access to reliable, affordable energy is no longer just an economic priority, it is a question of security. Recorded in New York during the United Nations General Assembly and Climate Week, this episode of Cleaning Up sees guest host Ana Rovzar, Chief of Staff at the Global Renewables Alliance, speak with Alexander De Croo, former Prime Minister of Belgium and
Oct. 12, 2026

How Ukraine Can Survive Another Brutal Winter | Ukraine Deep Dive 01

It's been over four and a half years since Russia unleashed its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and still the war shows no sign of stopping. This week on Cleaning Up, we launch a new Deep Dive looking at Ukraine and how its people and energy systems cope through the war. In this first episode, Michael Liebreich travels to Kyiv to find out what is happening on the ground. How are people coping with these desperate and difficult circumstances? How is the energy system coping? What can we in the
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Oct. 7, 2026

Is Nuclear Fusion About To Have A Theranos Moment? Ep 277: Sir Steven Cowley

There's an old joke that energy from nuclear fusion is 30 years away and always will be. For many decades, the industry did little to spoil the fun, running mammoth and unwieldy research projects, hoovering up a few billion dollars every science funding cycle and announcing breakthroughs that were scientifically interesting, but did little to move us towards actual production of electricity. Then three things happened. First, perhaps emboldened by Elon Musk's successful disruption of the space
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Sept. 30, 2026

Is The Earth Warming Faster Than We Thought? | Ep276: Peter Cox

This week on Cleaning Up, Bryony Worthington is joined by Peter Cox, Professor of Climate System Dynamics at the University of Exeter and Director of the Global Systems Institute. A former lead author of the IPCC climate reports, Peter has spent decades studying the complex feedbacks between the climate, carbon cycle and natural world. They delve into some of the biggest questions in climate science today: Is the planet warming faster than we thought? What is the role of forcing versus feedba

Reviews

Best podcast out there

"This is my favourite podcast ! Strikes a great balance between subject knowledge and big picture views, easy to follow for non-energy experts. What I love most is the combination of high profile inte…"

-gruff-a-lo- | May 27, 2022

Informative, accessible and optimistic

"Sensible, intelligent and (usually) entertaining people engaged in finding solutions to the climate crisis we have got ourselves into. A must listen for the climate catastrophists (if that’s a thing?)"

Mattyhoose | June 9, 2022

Mandatory listening for those in cleantech

"Great podcast with superb guests, who get an incisive grilling. More please!"

Finlay McWin | June 20, 2023

The best show for anyone with an interest in climate change

"Michael and his guests (both as hosts and regular guests) offer incredible insight and cover a huge range of topics in this hugely important field. Michael is firm in his beliefs and isn’t afraid to …"

cbfoster123 | Dec. 11, 2023

Very good and important show

"This show is fantastic and should be much more popular and mainstream so that everyone can discuss the energy transition with knowledge rather than emotion"

EddieRosie | July 21, 2024

Essential listening

"Clarifying and comprehensive. Has removed much confusion around environmental and sustains topics for me."

AndrewDSmith00 | Jan. 28, 2025

Insightful and broad ranging podcast

"This podcast is hugely insightful in cutting through some of the noise and demystifying the energy transition. It covers a range of topics from policy to technology and also as far as human behaviour…"

T H M P | Dec. 5, 2024

Always interesting and well presented

"Proper discussions that get to the heart of the biggest issue of our time. Unafraid to debate and no bull."

Them Changes first single | Feb. 20, 2025