In just a couple of months European citizens will be heading to vote in both national elections and the 2024 European elections - and the stakes have never been higher! Hence, we are on a mission to try and figure out how to stop the far right from picking up a wave of parliamentary seats across the EU. And in today's episode, which is the first of our "far right" mini-series, we had the privilege to speak to Nika Kovač, the Founding Director of the 8th of March Research Institute. In t...

Hello everyone! And welcome back to a new season of the Burning Case podcast! We're happy to be back in your ears and hope you had a lovely summer. Today's episode is a bit of a different one as the whole Burning Case podcast team aka both Chloé and Mélissa are hosting. We'll be recapping the hot (pun intended) news that happened over the summer and give you a glimpse into what we have planned for the upcoming season! We hope you'll enjoy the episode as well as our many dad jok...

Did you know that about 8 percent of the world’s oil production is used to make plastic and power the manufacturing of it? And what's even more frightening is that figure is projected to rise to 20 percent by 2050.With our guest, Delphine Lévi Alvarès, Global Petrochemicals Campaigner Coordinator for #BreakFreeFromPlastic, Center for International Environmental Law, we deep dive into what’s going on with plastic. We discuss:How about 90% of plastic is made from fossil fuel and that plast...

Did you know that some studies have shown that individuals that are exposed to several hours of news coverage on a specific event have experienced more physical and mental issues than those who directly witnessed said event?In today’s episode our wonderful guest Seden Anlar, Climate Communicator, Climate Action Network Europe joins us to discuss how toxic our relationship with the news has become… As a media professional herself, Seden explains how the media landscape is shifting following th...

To round off our two-episode series on the state of the fashion industry today, we are taking a deep-dive into the current policies being discussed at EU level to tackle the environmental and social impacts of the industry. We welcome three amazing guests, Valérie Boiten, Senior Policy Officer, Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Saskia Bricmont, MEP, Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance and Katya Kruk, Impact & Innovation Director, Armed Angels, to discuss: What major environment...

Ten years ago today, 1,134 workers lost their lives in the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh. It is considered the deadliest garment-factory disaster in history. To commemorate this tragic event, we are publishing a two-episode series on the fashion industry today.In today’s episode, we are joined by Delphine Williot, Policy and Campaigns Manager, Fashion Revolution and Nazma Akter, Founder and Executive Director of Awaj Foundation to discuss:Whether the fashion industry has changed in the la...

Today we take a deep-dive (yes, pun fully intended) into the ocean and more specifically into what lies under it. We are joined in this episode by Anne-Sophie Roux, Deep Sea Mining Campaign lead to discuss the following:What is deep sea mining?What mining corporations are hoping to find?Whether deep sea mining is truly essential to power the energy transition?What impacts could it have?What is the International Sea Authority?What the obscure July 2023 deadline means in the current conte...

$200 billion dollars. This is how much profit the big 5 fossil fuel companies have made in 2022.Shocked? Disgusted? Angry? Join the club… While major corporations are announcing record-breaking profits in 2022, more and more people are falling behind having to make difficult choices such as heating or eating.Clearly, corporations are not reading the room and in today’s episode we discuss how creating a windfall tax on such profits would be a way of better redistributing wealth rather than con...

Did you know that there has been a 13% per cent rise in mental health conditions and substance use disorders in the last decade? And that 20% of the world’s children and adolescents nowadays have a mental health condition? Sadly, when it comes to the topic of mental health, the list of grim facts is long. In light of the European Commission's President, Ursula Von der Leyen announcing a new strategy for mental health, in today’s episode we take a deep dive into understanding how we...

Did you know that 600 million Africans are currently left without access to modern clean renewable energy and that this number is likely to increase if further gas and oil projects are undertook. To ensure that Africa is not locked into further fossil gas production a campaign led by activists across Africa ahead of COP27, is demanding "an end to fossil gas and other dirty dangerous, obsolete and inappropriate energy systems.” This campaign is the topic of today's episode. With our wonderful ...

Have you ever taken part in a protest, signed a petition or shared a campaign on social media? Then you've already been accustomed to the different forms activism can take.In today's episode, we deep dive into what organising, mobilising and campaigning mean with two amazing guests: Ned Howey, CEO at Tectonica Digital Campaigning and Natasha Josette, Co-founder and Director at Breathe. We look into defining these concepts and how they translate into our everyday lives.Our guests give us concr...

Welcome back to a new season of The Burning Case Podcast! We’re kicking off this season with an episode all about the European Commission’s proposal for a Directive on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence and the amazing campaign “Justice is Everybody’s Business”. With our two guests: Anya Verkamp (Campaign Coordinator - Justice is Everybody's Business) and Jill McArdle (Corporate Accountability Campaigner at FOE Europe) we discuss what corporate accountability actually is, why it is ...

Have you heard of the EU Taxonomy for Sustainable Activities? In short, it is a classification system aimed to help companies, investors and policymakers better understand which economic activities can be considered as environmentally sustainable.On paper it all sounds good, unfortunately dark forces (you know who we are talking about…) have been at play to water down the taxonomy and make the unimaginable happen, namely classify gas and nuclear as “green”.In this episode, we discuss the taxo...

Did you know that around 1/3 of fruit and vegetables in the EU are contaminated with toxic pesticide residue?This staggering figure comes from the report “Forbidden Fruit”recently released by Pan Europe, in which they reveal that the amount of fruit contaminated with the most hazardous category of pesticides, linked to a range of chronic diseases including cancers, cardiovascular problems or diabetes, is following a startling increase.The report examines data shared by national authorities be...

The Ukraine war is, sadly, the latest conflict to once again shed light on the links between fossil fuel and global conflicts. While in this aforementioned case, the invasion is not justified by the seize of fossil fuel resources, Putin is able to get away with so much only because Europeans are so incredibly dependent on Russian oil and gas. We seem to be following a historic pattern, where most conflicts in the last century have been in one way or another linked to fossil fuels. ...

Have you ever felt like traditional politics do not best serve your political rights? In this special 3-episode series we take a look at how people-powered politics might be better fitted to express political voices today. The first episode focuses on the complex relationship between young generations and traditional politics today. How contrary to popular belief they are far from being disengaged politically and rather simply choose to express their opinions, views, voices in different...

Chemicals are everywhere today: in the air we breathe, the food we eat and the water we drink.But did you know the production of chemical products has multiplied by 50 since 1950, and that it is expected to triple again by 2050? Meanwhile, the total mass of plastics on the planet is now more than double the mass of all living mammals, and around 80% of all plastics ever produced remain in the environment,These are some of the numbers that prompted the Stokholm Resilience Center to announce th...

Did your energy bill increase dramatically recently? Rest assured, you're not alone. Europe, and most of the rest of the world is experiencing "historically high energy prices" - with disastrous consequences for the millions of people who live in energy poverty. But why now? What caused this spike? And how does it affect our journey towards more renewables? After all, some might say that more renewables will threaten the security of supply and make prices increase even more?At the e...

Have you ever seen an ad for Total, Shell or BP bragging about their climate commitments and thought "what the hell am I looking at and how can they be so shameless"?And those campaigns are not only designed and developed to influence individuals and convince us that the fossil fuel industry is doing a good job, they're also targetting policy makers. The very people that should lead us on a path to decarbonisation and a greener and fairer society are the targets of carefully crafted campaigns...

With #COP26 only days away, we decided to dive into the UK's government claim to "deliver the most inclusive COP ever".For a few months now, there's been a strong backlash from many activists and frontline communities on this promise as between vaccine inequality, difficult visa procedures and skyrocketing cost of travel and lodging, it's been an extremely hard journey to access the COP. To understand those challenges, who will be attending, the role of fossil fuel corporations and the conseq...