Matthew Phillips

But then there's the optimists, and they say, hang on a second, we're actually hurtling towards positive climate tipping points.

In energy, we added 50 percent more renewables capacity last year than the year before.

In electric vehicles, one in five car sales was electric last year.

Four years ago, it was one in 25.

In batteries, sales are doubling every two to three years, which is wiping out half of fossil fuel demand.

The realists and the optimists are obviously both correct.

It's when we start embracing and housing both of them simultaneously that we root ourselves in the reality, the realism of where we're at, but leave ourselves defiantly optimistic in our ability to unleash change.

We start being able to take head-on oil and gas's attempt to gaslight us, what I call oil and gaslighting.

We start renewing our agency to act.

So I saw this happen at the UN climate negotiations in Dubai.

By this time, I've left the UN, I'm climate campaigning.

And in Dubai, the world expected governments to signal the end of the fossil fuel era.

But as we got into the second week, the outlook was not looking great.

We decided to convene a group of realist scientists, optimistic businesses and activists in a movement that wasn't ready to give up.

We did media, advertisements, social content.

We sent countless emails, made a lot of phone calls.

We ended up crafting a letter to the president of the negotiations clamoring for a phase-out on fossil fuels, which in under 48 hours got 800, then 1,000, then 2,000 signatures.

And as all of this was happening, I was called into a private office, only to find the cop president himself.

And he said, hello, Matthew, I know what you're doing.

And I thought, shit, he knows what I'm doing.