Human Innovation with Jens Heitland · 2026-05-28 · 29 min
The New Climate Denial Is About Cost, Not Science I have sat down with Brian Kilkelly twice now, and both conversations pushed me to think differently about long-term leadership. This time we met in London, continuing from where we left off two years ago, when Brian was working on using data to predict droughts and extreme weather. A lot has changed since then. Not in the science, but in the argument around it. As Brian described, climate denialism has faded as the main position. The world has seen fires in California, floods across European cities, and storms arriving with greater regularity and cost. The physics, as Brian put it, does not negotiate. But the opposition to action has not disappeared. It has changed shape. The new argument is not that climate change is fake. It is that net zero is too expensive. That the cost of living is too high. That green policy is being pushed onto ordinary people. It is a faster, more emotional story, and that makes it harder to counter. For leaders, this matters. Our teams, boards, and stakeholders are all hearing this noise. Building sustainable businesses is now more politically charged than it was a few years ago.
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