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Home > Outrage + Optimism > Forecasting Disaster: A ‘super’ El Niño? And the case for early action
Podcast: Outrage + Optimism
Episode:

Forecasting Disaster: A ‘super’ El Niño? And the case for early action
Category: News & Politics
Duration: 00:36:37
Publish Date: 2026-04-02 05:00:00
Description:

As headlines warn of a possible ‘super El Niño’ later this year, we ask: how do we respond to a warning before it becomes a catastrophe? 


The last major El Niño brought record heat, crop failures, flooding and deepening food insecurity across large parts of the world. This time, the question is not only what may be coming, but whether we are any better prepared to act on the warning?


Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul Dickinson look at what the forecasts do and do not tell us about the climate ahead in 2026, and what it means to prepare for a crisis that is still uncertain, but increasingly hard to ignore. 


And in a world of shrinking aid budgets and rising climate risk, they’re joined by Andrew Kruczkiewicz from the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre and Columbia Climate School - how do you justify spending on a crisis that hasn’t happened yet? 


From anticipatory finance and early warning systems to the politics of aid cuts and the difficulty of communicating risk in real time, they explore what climate preparedness looks like when the stakes are already human and immediate.


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