Leah Stokes on Why the Climate Movement Thinks Too Small, and How to Take the Power Back

November 12, 2026

You know what a carbon footprint is because BP spent $100 million making sure you would.

It worked. Two decades of climate advice came down to shrinking yourself: drive less, fly less, wear a sweater in a cold house. Meanwhile, the fossil fuel industry spent those years buying political power.

Leah Stokes wants the opposite. She helped craft the biggest climate law in American history, watched it nearly die twice, and her new book The Carbon Wave argues the only fix is to stop shrinking: join with others until you’re big enough to change the rules.

Before the interview, Jigar and Jamie share their midterm takeaways from the watch party they hosted in Washington: a wave of down-ballot clean energy wins, a permitting bill through the Senate 73 to 25, and new Democratic majorities in both chambers. The conversation with Leah was recorded at Climate Week in New York, weeks before any of it happened.

In this episode:

  • Why emissions barely budged when the whole world stayed home in 2020
  • Inside the secret talks that revived a climate bill official Washington had already buried
  • What happened when the clean energy industry went after Chip Roy in a Texas primary
  • The $2 utility rebate Governor Newsom chose over air conditioning in schools, the one Leah calls “insulting”
  • How she’d design the next climate bill differently, starting with who holds the money
  • “We need some Jigar energy.”

Leah’s post, Yes, Democrats Should Talk About Climate: https://electricnotes.news/p/yes-democrats-should-talk-about-climate

The 2035 Initiative polling on climate and candidates: https://www.2035initiative.com/climate-hush/

The carbon wave calculator: https://www.thecarbonwave.com/calculator

The Carbon Wave, out now from MIT Press: https://www.thecarbonwave.com

Submit a question to Ask Jigar: https://octopusenergy.com/ask-jigar

S2G Investments: https://www.s2ginvestments.com/insights/report-illusion-of-crowds

Octopus Energy: https://octopusenergy.com/faas

Our merch store: https://energy-empire.bonfire.com/collection/all-products